Hieratic Ostraca of the Rameside period in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo: documentation, classification and commentary

We have dealt in this dissertation with 31 ostraca from the Valley of the Kings with various texts. They all attribute to Th. Davis and Carter/ Carnarvon’s excavations. They can classify into administrative, literary, Funny-signs and few jar labels. Coordinated minor institutions may have probably based therein, being administered by a large headquarter settled somewhere in western Thebes. These small administrative stations were in charge of preparing works to be executed into some group of tombs in the vicinity. That can explain the reason why we find some artefacts of a certain king somewhere else other than the area where his tomb is located. The corpus of this research has revealed that workmen might have probably exploited the Valley of the Kings as a place where they could temporarily settle down. This hypothesis may be corroborated by the recent excavations which have discovered a wide-spread of huts throughout the main valley along with its lateral ones. The increase of workmen’s number which took place sometime during the ruling years of Ramses IV would have probably constricted the authority to build these huts as a sort of temporary inhabiting extension to the neighbouring settlement of Deir el Medina

Sutureless Perceval versus Bioprosthetic Aortic Valve, Single Center Experience

Background: High-risk patients are currently presenting for aortic valve replacement (AVR). Sutureless valves may decrease the operative risk in those patients. The objective of this study was to compare the short-term and one-year follow-up results of the sutureless Perceval valve versus bioprosthetic aortic valve. Methods: The data of patients who underwent elective AVR with bioprosthesis were collected From March 2012 to March 2017. The patients were divided into two groups; group 1 included the patients who had a sutureless aortic valve (Perceval) (n= 25; 3.57% of total AVR patients), and group 2 included patients who had conventional bioprosthesis (n= 50; 7.1% of total AVR patients). Results: The median age of patients in group 1 was 67 years (25th- 75th percentiles; 64-71), and in group 2 was 66 years  (25th- 75th percentiles: 63 to 69). There is no significant difference in the patients’ comorbidities between the two groups. The median duration of the ischemic time was significantly lower in group 1 (33 (25th- 75th percentiles: 32- 35)  vs. 60.5 (58- 66), respectively; p< 0.001). Perceval valve was used more commonly in patients who had minimally invasive AVR (n= 21 (84%) in group 1 vs. 11 (22%) in group 2; p<0.001). Postoperative complications were comparable between both groups. The early paravalvular leak was non-significantly higher in group 1 (12% vs. 2%; p= 0105). The mean postoperative gradient was lower in group 1 (7 (7-9) vs. 10 (8-12) mmHg; p<0.001). The changes in valvular gradient were not significantly different between both groups (p= 0.5). The hospital stay was lower in patients received Perceval valve (Coefficient: -1.3; 95% Cl: -2.3- -0.29; p=0.012)  Conclusion:  Sutureless aortic valve (Perceval) is a new surgical technique for AVR, with potential advantages of reducing cross-clamp time and a subsequent reduction in myocardial ischemia, duration of cardiopulmonary bypass, and maintaining satisfactory hemodynamic outcomes through reducing patient prosthesis mismatch. All these advantages could help in decreasing postoperative hospital stay.&nbsp

Pedigree selection in two Egyptian cotton crosses for some traits

One cycle of direct Pedigree selection was performed with selection intensity 5 % to improve productivity with accepTable fiber quality of the two Egyptian cotton ( G. barbadense L.) cross combinations. Comparing mean performance of F2 with those of F3 generation revealed increased mean values for all traits with advanced generations from F2 to F3, indicating accumulation of increasing alleles. The phenotypic variance for all traits was highly significant through F2 and F3 generations. Heritability estimates in broad sense improved considerably for all traits from F2 to advanced F3 generations. The genotypic correlation between three earliness characters was highly significant negative with most yield traits in F2 pop. I. While genotypic correlation between the previous earliness traits with yield traits in F3 generation was positively non-significant except for lint percentage that was highly significant positive. Genotypic correlation was highly significant positive among most yield and yield component traits in both generations, which helps pedigree selection to achieve high fast genetic advance. The data of the genotypic correlation among studied characters in F2 and F3 generations in population II showed highly significant negative genotypic correlation between earliness traits in F2 generation, changed to highly significant positive in F3 generation after applying pedigree selection. The genotypic correlation between most yield characters and fiber properties showed highly significant positive correlation in population II in both generations. The superior ten families in F3 generation in both populations ranked on high yield, yield components and fiber quality showed higher means than that of F2, F3, better parent and check in most yield character

Agents for Smart Power Grids

The future of electricity systems will compose of small-scale generation and distribution where end-users will be active participants with localized energy management systems that are able to interact on a free energy market. Software agents will most likely control power assets and interact together to decide the best and safest configuration of the power grid system. This paper presents a design of agents that can be deployed in real-time with capabilities that include optimization of resources, intensive computation, and appropriate decision-making. Jordan 51-bus system has been used for simulation with a total generation capacity of 4050 MW of which 230 MW represents renewable energy. The economic analyses demonstrated the use of smart grid technologies with 2016 generation—load profiles for nominal liquified gas (NLG) prices and ±20% sensitivity analysis. The results have shown variations in the range of 1% in the price of MWh with smart grid technologies. These variations are mainly driven by the fact that agents shift power generation to renewable power plants to produce maximum power at peak hours. As a result, there is a positive economic impact in both NLG ± 20% sensitivity analysis, due to the fact that agents coordinate to better displace expensive thermal generation with renewable generation. It is evident that renewable resources compensate for power at peak times and provide economic benefits and savings

Lean partially premixed turbulent flame equivalence ratio measurements using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The creation of a more stable flame along with the extension of flammability limits under lean mixture combustion was the main motivation to develop a new burner design, which has been investigated in this research. The current burner configuration was utilized to create a wide range of higher turbulent intensities and to produce different degrees of mixture inhomogeneity, which acted to promote minimum pollution, highest performance and higher flame stability. The burner stability assessment was investigated using two types of fuel: natural gas (NG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). They were tested under different degrees of partial premixing, and two turbulence generator disks for lean mixture at an equivalence ratio of φ = 0.8 were used. Following this, the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technique was utilized to characterize and quantify the impact of changing the disk slit diameter on the distributions profiles of equivalence ratio or mixture fraction for a NG/air partially premixed flame. A series of homogeneous NG/air mixtures with different equivalence ratios were used to obtain the correlations between the measured emission lines of LIBS spectra and the global flame equivalence ratio. Consequently, the emission spectral lines ratios of H/N, H/O and C/N + O were utilized to predict the equivalence ratio distributions. The results demonstrated that for all of the mixing lengths, NG/air mixture with larger disk generator diameter yielded the maximum burner stability, whilst the LPG/air mixture with a larger disk generator diameter resulted in the minimum burner stability. Furthermore, the flame associated with the larger disk slit diameter had a uniform local equivalence ratio distribution and lower RMS fluctuation profiles of equivalence ratio in comparison to the lower disk slit diameter

The Susceptibility of Japanese Quails to the Infection with Chicken Originated NewCastle Disease Virus

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) caused an outbreak among commercial broiler chickens in the educational farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University-Egypt. Its velogenicty was characterized by Intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI) of 1.65. The outbreak raised concerns regarding the role of quails as a neighboring bird to the broiler chickens in the affected farm in transmission of this virus to chickens. 35 days old quails were infected oculo-nasal with velogenic strain of Newcastle disease virus accompanied with chickens were in contact with these infected quails to determine the role of quails in the epidemiology of ND infection. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibodies were measured for assessment of antibody response as well as oro-pharynx swabs were used for detection of the virus shedding. The susceptibility of quails to NDV infection was more resistant than that were observed in chickens. 6.6-13.3% of challenged non-vaccinated quails were died in contrast to 80-100% mortality in experimentally infected chickens till the end of experiment 3 weeks after challenge. Up to 13.3% of infected quails exhibited general clinical signs in contrast to 100% of non vaccinated chickens shown clinical signs were primarily respiratory. Infected quails could excrete infectious virus from the oro-pharynx for a shorter period than that observed with infected in-contact chickens in special to the vaccinated groups the shedding was reduced significantly either in quails and chickens. The results confirmed that some of the naturally occurring NDV virulent strains can cause the disease in quails but in a mild form, and that quails play an important role in the epidemiology of ND and its transmission to chickens causing heavy economic losses. These results under- score the need to develop new vaccine strategies for use in quails to protect birds from both disease and infection to reduce virus shedding and its spreading

Accuracy improvement of tropospheric delay correction models in space geodetic data. Case study: Egypt

The tropospheric delay still remains a limiting factor to the accuracy of space based positioning techniques. The estimation of station positioning, especially height component, which is particularly important for more applications is susceptible to errors in modeling the tropospheric delay due to correlations between the station positioning and residual troposphere delay parameters. As the demand on positioning accuracy and precision has increased, it has begun a necessary of relaying on large external data sets, rather than relatively simple models for treating the tropospheric delay. This method has been possible by advances made in numerical weather models which provide accurate representations of global atmospheric conditions and by advances in computing speed which allow us to perform a large number of computations over a short period of time. The purpose of this work is to develop a new model for estimating the tropospheric delay and then assess the benefits of applying this model at various geographic atmospheric conditions of Egypt. By comparing new model with some common models such as Saastamoinen model, Hopfield model, Niell-MF, Black & Eisner-MF, UNB3 model and Vienna-MF, the results show that, new model for estimation tropospheric delay has an acceptable level of accuracy in describing the dry tropospheric delay in Egypt as it agrees closely with the numerical integration based model. The mean accuracy of this new model has been assessed to be about 9.64 mm with rms 11 mm at an elevation angle of 30° and for an elevation angle of 5°, the mean accuracy is about 83.23 mm with rms 96.42 mm for atmospheric conditions of Egypt

Exploring the Role of BK Polyomavirus and SV40 T Antigen in Urothelial Cell Carcinoma of the Bladder

Background: Urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the bladder is the 7th most common malignancy. BK Virus (BKV) has been associated with oncogenicity; however, the association between Urothelial Carcinoma and BKV remains inconclusive. Objectives: To investigate whether BK polyomavirus contributes to oncogenesis in immunocompetent hosts and clarify the prognostic significance of SV40 T antigen expression on human bladder cancer by SV40 T-antigen immunostaining. To evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of p53 nuclear reactivity using anti-p53 monoclonal antibodies in urothelial cell carcinoma of the bladder and to correlate the immunohistochemical expression with other clinicopathological parameters such as age, gender and tumor grade. Materials and methods: Sixty-six cystoscopic biopsies of Urothelial Carcinoma (UC) were immunohistochemically stained by antibody against SV40 T-antigen and anti- p53. Results: 45.5% of the tumors were high grade. Muscle invasion was seen in 45.5% of the tumors. SV40 T antigen was not detected in all samples. p53 was expressed in 27.3 % of tumors. p53 expression was significantly correlated with tumor grade and muscle invasion. Tumor recurrence was significantly associated with p53 expression and tumor grade. Conclusion: BKV has no causal relation with UC in immunocompetent patients. p53 expression is a poor prognostic factor for UC. It showed a significant statistical. correlation with higher tumor grade, muscle invasion, and higher recurrence rate