The Impact of Assets Structure and the Components of Cash Conversion Cycle on the Egyptian SMEs Financial Failure Predictability

This study investigates determinants of Egyptian SMEs financial failure predictability based on a sample of 32 failure SMEs and 28 non-failure SMEs for the period 2013 and 2019. The determinants of SMEs financial failure are categorized into four groups; Working Capital, Asset Structure, Liquidity, and Leverage. The factor and logistic regression analysis are employed to identify the most significant independent variables that classify between failure and none-failure Egyptian’s SMEs and determine the driver of SMEs financial failure. Our findings significantly show that failing SMEs suffer from long cash conversion cycles resulting from long inventory holding period, average collection period, and short average payment period, in addition to lower liquidity, excessive use of debt to assets, and lower fixed assets percentage, in contrast to non-failure Egyptian’s SMEs

Synthesis, characterization and catalytic activity of Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Mn(II) and Fe(III) complexes of 4-((3-formyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)diazenyl)-N-(4-methyloxazol-2-yl) benzenesulfonamide

The sulfonamide derivative, 4-((3-formyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)diazenyl)-N-(4-methyloxazol-2-yl) benzenesulfonamide (FDMB), was synthesized and characterized. Additionally, its Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Mn(II) and Fe(III) complexes were prepared and their structures were investigated by elemental analysis, thermal analysis and (IR, electronic and EPR) spectroscopy. The mode of binding indicates that the ligand binds to the metal ion through carbonyl oxygen and OH phenolic with displacement of its proton. The Co(II) complex was applied for the hydrolysis of nerve agent-like compound, bis-(p-nitrophenyl) phosphate (BNPP). The results showed a significant rate enhancement of 2.5 million fold with respect to the auto-hydrolysis of BNPP under the same conditions

Cobalt Oxide Nanoparticles/Graphene/Ionic Liquid CrystalModified Carbon Paste Electrochemical Sensor for Ultra-sensitiveDetermination of a Narcotic Drug

Purpose: Drug-abuse, namely morphine (MO) affects the metabolism of neurotransmitterssuch as dopamine (DA). Therefore, it is crucial to devise a sensitive sensing technique tosimultaneously determine both compounds in real samples.Methods: The fabrication of the sensor is based on in situ modification of a carbon paste (CP)electrode with cobalt oxide nanoparticles, graphene, and ionic liquid crystal in presence ofsodium dodecyl sulfate; CoGILCCP-SDS. The modified sensor is characterized using scanningelectron microscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and voltammetry measurements.Results: Electron transfer kinetics and analytical performance of the proposed sensor wereenhanced due to the synergistic role of all the modifiers. The simultaneous determination of MOand DA achieved low detection limits of 0.54 nmol L−1 and 0.25 nmol L−1, respectively. Besides,a carbon-based electrochemical sensor is fabricated for the nano-molar determination of MOin real samples and formulations. The sensor showed fouling resistance and anti-interferenceability in presence of other species in human fluids. The real sample analysis of MO wassuccessfully achieved with good recovery results in urine samples and pharmaceutical tablets.Linear dynamic range, sensitivity, detection limit and quantification limit of MO in urine were5 nmol L−1 to 0.6 μmol L−1, 6.19 μA/μmol L-1, 0.484 nmol L−1 and 1.61 nmol L−1, respectively.Conclusion: This sensor has great ability to be extended for electrochemical applications inassaying of many drugs

Clinical and Biochemical Assessment of Lycopene Gel Combined With Nanohydroxyapatite Graft in Treatment of Grade II Furcation Defects: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Study

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of lycopene gel, as a natural antioxidant, mixed with a nanohydroxyapatite graft (NHG) covered by an occlusive resorbable collagen membrane (CM) in the surgical treatment of grade II furcation defects and on the gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) levels of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), as a marker of oxidative injury. Methods: In this randomized controlled clinical study a total of 24 patients with grade II furcation defects were randomly assigned into three equal groups. Furcation defects in group I were managed with lycopene gel mixed with NHG and CM, group II with NHG and CM, and group III with open flap debridement only. Site-specific changes in clinical parameters including probing depth (PD), vertical clinical attachment level (VCAL), horizontal clinical attachment level (HCAL), radiographic maximum vertical depth (MAX V), and maximum horizontal depth (MAX H) were measured at baseline and six months postoperatively. Gingival crevicular fluid levels of 8-OHdG were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) at baseline, one week, and three months. Results: Surgical management of grade II furcation defects resulted in a significant reduction in PD and 8-OHdG levels and a gain in CAL, MAX V, and MAX H in all groups. The differences between lycopene treated sites compared to NHG and CM alone were not significant at six months but demonstrated significantly superior clinical parameters compared to open flap debridement alone. Conclusion: Lycopene does not confer a benefit when combined with NHG in the surgical treatment of grade II furcation defects

Evaluating Biosedimentation on Strength Improvement for Acidic Soil

Marine clay soils are problematic soils in the construction industry when they are subjected to construction loads. When these soils are loaded, they lose their structure. This leads to the soil being unable to withstand loads of any magnitude without exhibiting significant, permanent deformations. In order to stabilize the marine soil, new methods for soil improvement were built upon biogrouting by incorporating physical, biological and chemical treatments into the soil. However, the biggest challenge of this method is the bacteria migration through the soil medium. To overcome this issue, the electrokinetic phenomenon can be utilized alongside biogrouting to prevent the bacteria migration. In this regard, the present study applied electrobiogrouting stabilization to investigate the improvement of acidic marine clay soil with a pH of 3.69. To accomplish this, two large-scale physical models with dimensions of 500 × 300 × 1200 mm were fabricated to examine the influence of two different treated distances between the inlet and outlet—450 mm (D45) and 600 mm (D60)—on the stability of the treated soil. It was observed that the shear strength of the treated soil improved significantly. The shear strength at the D45 treated distance increased from 3.65 kPa (untreated soil) to 28.14 kPa (treated soil). However, the strength increased by increasing the treated distance. In addition, compressibility and soil electrical conductivity were reduced significantly, and the Atterberg limits were significantly enhanced from OH to OL. The reasons for the enhancement of treated soil were the formation of CaCO3, which filled the soil voids, and that the water content was reduced. To address issues with marine clay soil, this study aims to minimize the high cost of a special foundation system and the use of non-environmentally friendly materials such as calcium-based binders, aside from the reduction of deformations caused by loading. The findings of this study can be used for acidic soils and the improvement of soil’s geotechnical behavior in general

IL-10 Gene polymorphism and graft outcome in live-donor kidney transplantation

Background: The description of polymorphisms in many of the key immunoregulatory molecules involved in the rejection process has offered a possible explanation for the individual variation in susceptibility to rejection and differences in allograft survival independent of the many known contributory factors. The aim of this work is to study the impact of IL-10 cytokine gene polymorphism on renal transplant clinical course and outcome.Methods: This work studied 50 transplant recipients maintained on sirolimus based immunosuppression for IL-10 cytokine gene polymorphisms. After transplantation patients were divided into two groups. Group (A) patients (12 patients) received sirolimus, tacrolimus and steroid, while Group (B) patients (38 patients) received sirolimus, mycophenolate mofetil and steroid. Results were correlated with acute and chronic rejection episodes as well as graft and patient outcome.Results: In our study, we found no impact of IL-10 on incidence and degree of acute rejection episodes, incidence of chronic allograft nephropathy, pathological changes in protocol biopsies, graft function and graft and patient survivals.  Conclusion: From this work, we can conclude that the potential impact of IL-10 cytokine gene polymorphisms on renal transplant clinical course and outcome have shown no influence, and probably other genes rather than IL-10 could be involved as key molecules for graft function

Fighting the COVID-19 Infodemic:Modeling the Perspective of Journalists, Fact-Checkers, Social Media Platforms, Policy Makers, and the Society

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the political and the medical aspects of disinformation merged as the problem got elevated to a whole new level to become the first global infodemic. Fighting this infodemic has been declared one of the most important focus areas of the World Health Organization, with dangers ranging from promoting fake cures, rumors, and conspiracy theories to spreading xenophobia and panic. Addressing the issue requires solving a number of challenging problems such as identifying messages containing claims, determining their check-worthiness and factuality, and their potential to do harm as well as the nature of that harm, to mention just a few. To address this gap, we release a large dataset of 16K manually annotated tweets for fine-grained disinformation analysis that (i) focuses on COVID-19, (ii) combines the perspectives and the interests of journalists, fact-checkers, social media platforms, policy makers, and society, and (iii) covers Arabic, Bulgarian, Dutch, and English. Finally, we show strong evaluation results using pretrained Transformers, thus confirming the practical utility of the dataset in monolingual vs. multilingual, and single task vs. multitask settings