Circulating osteogenic precursor cells: Building bone from blood

Circulating osteogenic precursor (COP) cells constitute a recently discovered population of circulating progenitor cells with the capacity to form not only bone but other mesenchymal tissues. There is a small, but growing body of literature exploring these cells, but with a great deal of disagreement and contradiction within it. This review explores the origins and biological characterization of these cells, including the identification strategies used to isolate these cells from the peripheral blood. It also examines the available knowledge on the in vitro and in vivo behaviour of these cells, in the areas of plastic adherence, differentiation capacity, proliferation, and cellular homing. We also review the implications for future use of COP cells in clinical practice, particularly in the area of regenerative medicine and the treatment and assessment of musculoskeletal disease. Keywords: COP cells, Circulating osteogenic precursor cells, Circulating mesenchymal stem cells, Circulating osteoprogenitors, Stem cell

Sulphide pollutants elimination and degradation in petroleum wastewater by ozonation process

An efficient and robust chemical oxidation process using an OZ-3G ozone generator was developed and investigated to degrade and reduce sulphide toxicity in petrochemical wastewater. Different concentrations of sulphide in synthetic wastewater were prepared and evaluated using the Spectrophotometric technique. The values of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and pH were also studied. The obtained results demonstrated that 100 minutes of ozone treatment removed 97.4 % for 40 mg/L concentration. The pH was decreased gradually with the increase along the time of oxidation. Based on the ozone method's significant results, ozonation can be considered a potential candidate method for wastewater treatment in petroleum refineries

Consanguinity and reproductive health among Arabs

Consanguineous marriages have been practiced since the early existence of modern humans. Until now consanguinity is widely practiced in several global communities with variable rates depending on religion, culture, and geography. Arab populations have a long tradition of consanguinity due to socio-cultural factors. Many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and specifically first cousin marriages which may reach 25-30% of all marriages. In some countries like Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation. Research among Arabs and worldwide has indicated that consanguinity could have an effect on some reproductive health parameters such as postnatal mortality and rates of congenital malformations. The association of consanguinity with other reproductive health parameters, such as fertility and fetal wastage, is controversial. The main impact of consanguinity, however, is an increase in the rate of homozygotes for autosomal recessive genetic disorders. Worldwide, known dominant disorders are more numerous than known recessive disorders. However, data on genetic disorders in Arab populations as extracted from the Catalogue of Transmission Genetics in Arabs (CTGA) database indicate a relative abundance of recessive disorders in the region that is clearly associated with the practice of consanguinity

Benign external hydrocephalus: a review, with emphasis on management

Benign external hydrocephalus in infants, characterized by macrocephaly and typical neuroimaging findings, is considered as a self-limiting condition and is therefore rarely treated. This review concerns all aspects of this condition: etiology, neuroimaging, symptoms and clinical findings, treatment, and outcome, with emphasis on management. The review is based on a systematic search in the Pubmed and Web of Science databases. The search covered various forms of hydrocephalus, extracerebral fluid, and macrocephaly. Studies reporting small children with idiopathic external hydrocephalus were included, mostly focusing on the studies reporting a long-term outcome. A total of 147 studies are included, the majority however with a limited methodological quality. Several theories regarding pathophysiology and various symptoms, signs, and clinical findings underscore the heterogeneity of the condition. Neuroimaging is important in the differentiation between external hydrocephalus and similar conditions. A transient delay of psychomotor development is commonly seen during childhood. A long-term outcome is scarcely reported, and the results are varying. Although most children with external hydrocephalus seem to do well both initially and in the long term, a substantial number of patients show temporary or permanent psychomotor delay. To verify that this truly is a benign condition, we suggest that future research on external hydrocephalus should focus on the long-term effects of surgical treatment as opposed to conservative management

Osteosarcopenia: A case of geroscience.

Many older persons lose their mobility and independence due to multiple diseases occurring simultaneously. Geroscience is aimed at developing innovative approaches to better identify relationships among the biological processes of aging. Osteoporosis and sarcopenia are two of the most prevalent chronic diseases in older people, with both conditions sharing overlapping risk factors and pathogenesis. When occurring together, these diseases form a geriatric syndrome termed "osteosarcopenia," which increases the risk of frailty, hospitalizations, and death. Findings from basic and clinical sciences aiming to understand osteosarcopenia have provided evidence of this syndrome as a case of geroscience. Genetic, endocrine, and mechanical stimuli, in addition to fat infiltration, sedentarism, and nutritional deficiencies, affect muscle and bone homeostasis to characterize this syndrome. However, research is in its infancy regarding accurate diagnostic markers and effective treatments with dual effects on muscle and bone. To date, resistance exercise remains the most promising strategy to increase muscle and bone mass, while sufficient quantities of protein, vitamin D, calcium, and creatine may preserve these tissues with aging. More recent findings, from rodent models, suggest treating ectopic fat in muscle and bone marrow as a possible avenue to curb osteosarcopenia, although this needs testing in human clinical trials

Proposed approach of detecting facial emotion using neural network and representational of HOG features

The subject of emotion detection from digital image has gained exceptional importance in recent years due to the expansion of visual applications in variowefields of life. With respect to the emotion of human face, the matter becomes more complex according to its variety. At the same time, this matter becomes easier if the computerized technique is used to learn most known emotions and then detect it in the final imaging system. In this paper, a new approach for detecting emotion of human face has been proposed using artificial neural network (ANN). This network is feed by a set of histogram of gradient (HOG) features, as a representative reference to describe the entire emotion. The determining of HOG features is limited to specific region of the face within the digital image. This region is designed to take T shape which covers main parts of human face (eye, noise, mouth, and eyebrow) that are changed with emotion type. The proposed approach is evaluated by standard emotion dataset (JAFFE) in both phases of ANN (training and testing). The simulation results view significant percentage of accuracy in comparison with the existing technique of emotion detection

Callus Induction and Shoot Formation for Mexican Red Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Pinto Cultivar in Vitro

     The current study aimed to adopt a method for inducing callus cells and regenerating the important common red bean using different types of growth regulators such as N6-benzylaminopurine (BAP), Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA), and Thidiazuron (TDZ). Different types of common bean pinto cultivar explants, such as  internodes, cotyledons and roots,  were inoculated on Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) provided with different combinations of plant growth regulators, including 1- BAP (5 mg/l) 2-BAP (4.5 mg/l) NAA (0.5 mg/l), 3- BAP (4.5 mg/l), and TDZ (0.1mg/l). Callus was initiated on MS culture medium supplied with 5 mg/l BAP for all explants (internodes, cotyledons, and roots) at 50, 20, and 10% respectively, while adding NAA with 0.5mg/l showed a low percentage of callus (30%) only in the internode explants. Optimum results were obtained by growing the internodes on MS medium with 4.5 mg/l BA and either 0.5 mg/l NAA or 0.1 mg/l TDZ, transplanting the derived shoots into internodes and cotyledons with 70 and 10% respectively. This study concludes that the internodes as explants have the best growth results.</jats:p

Current and emerging biomarkers of frailty in the elderly

The term "frailty" is used to describe a subset of older adults who appear weaker and more vulnerable than their age-matched counterparts, despite having similar comorbidities, demography, sex, and age. The diagnosis of frailty is usually clinical and based on specific criteria, which are sometimes inconsistent. Therefore, there is an increasing need to identify and validate robust biomarkers for this condition. In this review, we summarize current evidence on the validity and practicality of the most commonly used biomarkers for frailty, while also comparing them with new upcoming strategies to identify this condition