Modular eco-class: an approach towards a sustainable innovative learning environment in Egypt

Today, Egypt suffers from deterioration of education quality as a result of deficient learning spaces, insufficient governmental expenditure and funding, and lack of proper research in education developmental strategies. Additionally, 21st century learning requires innovative spaces that connect school, home, and community. Therefore, new learning spaces should increase flexibility, support hands-on and outside-class learning activities in order to motivate learners. Furthermore, they intend to encourage extra-curricular activities beyond conventional learning times. Undoubtedly, comfortable, safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can depress. Therefore, welldesigned learning spaces are able to support creative, productive and efficient learning processes on one hand. On the other hand, ecological design measures became an increasingly major keystone for modern sustainable learning-spaces. Thus, learning-spaces’ design process, form, components, materials, features, and energy-saving technologies can yield well-educated, environmentally-literate, energy-conscious, and innovative future-generations. This paper represents a preliminary phase of an ongoing research project that aims to create a framework for an Innovative Sustainable Learning Environment (ISLE) in developing countries, the Middle East region, and Egypt in particular. This project aims at encouraging constructive relationships between users, buildings, ecosystems and to improve quality of learning through intelligent and ecologically well designed learning-spaces. The paper proposes the concept of modular Eco-Class as a framework of learning spaces and a stepforward in the direction of ISLE. Moreover, this Eco-Class aims to educate and provide balance between building’s environmental sensitivity, high performance, initial cost, and lifecycle costs without harming the surrounding ecology. The Eco-Class not only intends to promote a positive environmental impact to improve indoor air quality and energy efficiency, it also provides on its own an environment that educates learners and elevates environmentalawareness between future generations. Finally, the study and the ongoing research project of Eco-Class aim to provide validated design-guidelines for sustainable educational buildings, and to achieve the optimum innovative and sustainable learning environment in Egypt for effective and creative future-generation learners, parents, staff, and communities

Mechanistic investigations of photoelectrochemical water and methanol oxidation on different titanium dioxide single crystal surfaces

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Stability-indicating HPLC and PLS chemometric methods for the determination of acemetacin in presence of its degradation products and impurities

Two stability-indicating methods were developed and validated for the quantitative determination of acemetacin (ACM) in presence of its degradation products and impurities. The first method was based on separation of ACM from its degradation products and impurities by RP-HPLC on Inertsil C8 column (150 × 4.6 mm i.d) using a mobile phase composed of 0.02 M phosphate buffer: methanol (35:65, v:v, pH = 6.5). The flow rate was adjusted at 1 mL/min and quantification was achieved with UV detection at 245 nm using meloxicam as internal standard. The second method was based on multivariate spectrophotometric analysis using partial least square regression model. The drug was subjected to acid, base, oxidative and thermal stress conditions and the degradation products were identified. The developed methods have the requisite accuracy, selectivity, sensitivity and precision to assay ACM in presence of its degradation products and impurities either in bulk powder or in pharmaceutical dosage form. The results obtained for the analysis of ACM in its pure form by the proposed methods were statistically compared to those obtained by applying a reported HPLC method. The statistical comparison showed that there is no significant difference between the proposed methods and the reported one with respect to accuracy and precision

The Role of Security Official Pages on Social Media in Enhancing National Security Among Youth: A Survey

 سعت الدراسة للتعرف على أثر الصفحات الأمنية على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي في تعزيز الأمن القومي لدى الشباب، باستخدام منهج المسح الإعلامي، وبالاعتماد على الاستبيان أداة لجمع البيانات بالتطبيق على عينة بلغ مقدارها 319 مبحوثا من متابعي الصفحات الأمنية على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي من الشباب السعودي والمصري والإماراتي والبحريني، بالاستناد إلى نظرية ثراء الوسيلة الإعلامية، وتوصلت الدراسة لعدة نتائج من أبرزها ما يلى: ارتفاع معدل متابعة المبحوثين للصفحات الأمنية على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي، وارتفاع معدل متابعة القضايا المتعلقة بالأمن القومي المثارة على تلك الصفحات، وجاء في مقدمتها قضايا الأمن السيبراني والمواطنة الرقمية، وتوصلت إلى ارتفاع دور تلك الصفحات في تعزيز الأمن القومي بأبعاده ومجالاته المختلفة لديهم.The study sought to identify the role of security pages on social networking sites in enhancing national security among Arab youth, using the media survey method, and relying on the questionnaire as a data collection tool by applying to a sample of 319 respondents from the followers of the security pages on social networking sites of Saudi, Egyptian and Emirati youth And the Bahraini, based on the theory of the richness of the media, and the study reached several results, the most prominent of which are the following: The high rate of respondents’ follow-up to security pages on social media, and the high rate of follow-up to issues related to national security raised on those pages, foremost among which were issues of cyber security and digital citizenship. It also found the high role of those pages in enhancing national security in its various dimensions and fields. &nbsp

Mothers’ Attitudes towards Children’s Use of Electronic Games and their Impact on Them: A ‏Survey

هدفت الدراسة إلى التعرف على تأثير معدل متابعة الألعاب الإلكترونية واستخدامها في الأطفال الذين تتراوح أعمارهم ما بين (6-15) سنة من وجهة نظر الأمهات للوقوف على بعض الجوانب السلبية والإيجابية وتنتمي هذه الدراسة إلى الدراسات الوصفية مستخدمة المنهج المسحي عبر عينة من الأمهات بالإجابة على استبانة تضم 17 سؤالا مستهدفة  وصف أثر استخدام الألعاب الإلكترونية على الأطفال في مدينة الدمام بالمملكة العربية السعودية، واعتمدت منهج المسح الإعلامي عبر عينة لجمهور الأمهات، للتعرف على كيفية استخدام أبنائهن للألعاب الإلكترونية، والنتائج المتحققة لديهن من متابعة تلك الألعاب وتأثيرها على تحصيلهم الدراسي، ومن أهم نتائج الدراسة: اتفاق نتائج الدراسة مع ما توصلت إليه الدراسات السابقة من حيث وجود أضرار نفسية ودراسية واضحة على الأطفال، وجاء الذكور أكثر استخداما للجوال والبلايستيشن بنسب متقاربة، بينما تميل الإناث لاستخدام الجوال أكثر من الذكور ولا تميل إلى استخدام البلاي ستيشن، بينما لا يميل أيا من الجنسين لاستخدام الإكس بوكس، وكذلك الذكور هم الأكثر مداومة في الجلوس على أجهزة إلكترونية مختلفة، ويفضلون استخدام ألعاب المغامرات والأكشن ثم الألعاب التعليمية، ومن ثم فالتأثير السلبي نحو التعامل بعنف وتأخر تحصيهم الدراسي كان أعلى من الإناث، ويُفضل الإناث ألعاب المغامرات والألعاب التعليمية ثم الألغاز، ولا يداومن على الجلوس على الأجهزة المختلفة بكثرة كما الذكور، ومن ثم تبدو نسبة التعامل مع الآخرين أقل عنفًا وتأخر التحصيل الدراسي أقل، ويُفضل الذكور استخدام ألعاب الرعب مقارنة بالإناث، وتُشير النتائج إلى أن ممارسة الألعاب يؤثر سالبا على الأطفال في التعامل مع الآخرين بعنف وتأخر الطفل في التحصيل الدراسي، وكان الذكور أعلى في التأثر من الإناث، وهناك تقارب في نسب التأثيرات الإيجابية بين الذكور والإناث إثر التعلق بالألعاب الإلكترونية على حياتهم اليومية، وجاءت التأثيرات السلبية أعلى تأثيرا من التأثيرات الإيجابية.The study aimed to identify the impact of the rate of follow-up and use of electronic games on children between the ages of (6-15) years from the mothers’ point of view to find out some of its negative and positive aspects. This study is a descriptive study which used the survey method through a sample of mothers by answering a questionnaire containing 17 questions that aims to describe the impact of the use of electronic games on children in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. It relied on the media survey method through a sample of the mothers' audience, to know how their children use electronic games, and the effects achieved by them from following these games and their impact on their academic achievement, and among the most important results of the study: The results of the study are consistent with the findings of previous studies in terms of clear psychological and academic change for children. The males showed frequent usage for mobile devices and PlayStation in close proportions while females tend to use mobile phones more than males and do not tend to use PlayStation. However, neither gender tends to use Xbox. The males are the most persistent in sitting on different electronic games. They prefer to use adventure and action games and then educational games, so the negative impact towards dealing violently and delaying their academic achievement was higher than that of females. Females preferred adventure games, educational games, then puzzles. They do not persist in sitting on different devices as much as males do, so the percentage of dealing with others more violent and the delay in academic achievement is   less. Males prefer to use horror games compared to females. The results generally indicate that playing games negatively affects children in dealing with others violently and a steep decrease in their school achievement, and males were more affected than females. There is a convergence in the proportions of positive effects between males and females towards attaching electronic games to their daily lives, and the negative effects were higher than the positive ones

Screening of crows and waterfowls for Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes infection

Background and Aim: Wild birds can carry a number of potential human and animal pathogens. These birds can intrude into human habitats giving the opportunity to transmission of such infection. Therefore, the current study was designed to investigate the role of crows and waterfowls as vectors of Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes and to compare cultivation methods with direct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of infection. Materials and Methods: A total of 200 fecal dropping samples were collected. Salmonella was cultivated by three step method (Universal Pre-enrichment Broth [UPB], Rappaport-Vassiliadis Broth, and Xylose Lysine Desoxycholate agar). The recovered isolates were characterized by biotyping, serotyping, and PCR detection of enterotoxin (stn) gene. The antibiogram pattern of isolates against a panel of 8 antibiotics was recorded. L. monocytogenes was cultivated on UPB, then on Listeria Oxford Agar and Listeria CHROMagar. The recovered isolates were characterized by biotyping and PCR detection of listeriolysin (hylA) gene. Results: The percentages of Salmonella infection in crows and waterfowls were 10 and 20, respectively. The most frequently recovered serovars were Typhimurium, Potengi, Enteritidis, and Kentucky. Antimicrobial susceptibility analysis of Salmonella isolates showed that the resistance rates for gentamicin were the highest (92%), followed by amoxicillin (88%) and cefixime (60%). Resistance to 8 antibiotics was recorded in 60% (15/25) of Salmonella isolates. The percentages of L. monocytogenes infection in crows and waterfowls were 1.3 and 2, respectively. Direct PCR applied to UPB revealed that 12% and 3% of samples were positive for Salmonella and L. monocytogenes, respectively, and there was no significant difference between direct PCR and cultivation method for the detection of infection. Conclusion: The present findings indicate that wild birds can harbor zoonotic enteric pathogens and this necessitates monitoring the epidemiologic status of these pathogens among wild birds and humans and applying the appropriate intervention measures to prevent the spread of infection

SYNCHRONOUS FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY COUPLED WITH CONTINUOUS WAVELET TRANSFORMS AND SAVITZKY-GOLAY DERIVATIZATION TECHNIQUE FOR THE SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF TADALAFIL AND DAPOXETINE HCl.

Objective: A novel combination of Tadalafil (TAD) and Dapoxetine HCl (DAP) has been recently introduced into the market for the treatment of premature ejaculation. The aim of this work is the development and validation of simple, sensitive and accurate analytical methods for the determination of TAD and DAP in their binary mixture without prior separation.Methods: Synchronous fluorescence spectroscopic (SFS) methods coupled with continuous wavelet transforms (CWT) and Savitzky-Golay (SAVGOL) derivatization technique have been developed.Results: Under optimum conditions, TAD and DAP were determined in the concentration ranges of 0.01–3 µg/ml and 0.01–1.2 µg/ml, respectively.Conclusion: The developed methods have the requisite accuracy, selectivity, sensitivity and precision and were satisfactorily applied for the simultaneous determination of TAD and DAP in bulk powder and pharmaceutical preparations. The results obtained for the analysis of both drugs in their pure forms by the proposed methods were statistically compared to those obtained by applying a reported high performance liquid chromatographic method (HPLC) method. The statistical comparison showed that there is no significant difference between the proposed methods and the reported one with respect to accuracy and precision.Keywords: Synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy, Tadalafil, Dapoxetine HCl, Continuous wavelet transforms, Savitzky-Golay techniqu

Mycosis Fungoides Diagnosis Using TOX Versus Old Panel Immunohistochemical Markers

Background: For primary cutaneous lymphoma, mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most prevalent form with skin-homing T cells plus clonal proliferation of CD4. In many CTCLs, thymocyte selection associated with the HMG-box (TOX) is an uncontrolled gene, together with MF in comparison with controls. Early mycosis fungoides is difficult to diagnose, and, its distinction from inflammatory diseases is sometimes impossible. Objective: In this study, we compared the TOX vs C7 and CD4 expression as an early mycosis fungoides diagnostic markers & to assess their ability to differentiate Mycosis fungoides from benign cutaneous inflammatory diseases (BCID). Materials and methods: 60 patients who had been previously diagnosed as MF (30 cases) and BCID (30 cases). All were evaluated histopathologically using H & E and immunohistochemically staining for TOX, CD7 & CD 4. Results: There was statistically significant difference between MF and BCID with increased TOX, CD7 & CD4 expression among MF than among BCID and ability of TOX to detect all true positive cases (100.0%) compared to 83.3% for CD4 and 13.3% for CD7. TOX had the highest sensitivity (100.0%) and accuracy (88.3%) followed by CD4 with sensitivity of 88.3% and accuracy of 66.7%, (P < 0.001). Conclusion: TOX had the highest sensitivity (100.0%) & accuracy (88.3%) followed by CD4 with sensitivity of 88.3% and accuracy of 66.7%. Our results suggest that TOX is a useful marker in diagnosis of MF & differentiating it from BCID

Optimized Adaptive Frangi-based Coronary Artery Segmentation using Genetic Algorithm

Diseases of coronary artery are deliberated as one of the most common heart diseases leading to death worldwide. For early detection of such disease, the X-ray angiography is a benchmark imaging modality for diagnosing such illness. The acquired X-ray angiography images usually suffer from low quality and the presence of noise. Therefore, for developing a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system, vessel enhancement and segmentation play significant role. In this paper, an optimized adapter filter based on Frangi filter was proposed for superior segmentation of the angiography images using genetic algorithm (GA). The original angiography image is initially preprocessed to enhance its contrast followed by generating the vesselness map using the proposed optimized Frangi filter. Then, a segmentation technique is applied to extract only the artery vessels, where the proposed system for extracting only the main vessel was evaluated. The experimental results on angiography images established the superiority of the vessel regions extraction showing 98.58% accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art