Pre-pregnancy obesity and non-adherence to multivitamin use: findings from the National Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (2009–2011)

Background Although adequate folic acid or multivitamins can prevent up to 70 % of neural tube defects, the majority of U.S. non-pregnant women of childbearing age do not use multivitamins every day. Factors influencing consistent multivitamin use are not fully explored. This study aims to investigate the association between pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and multivitamin use before pregnancy using a large, nationally representative sample of women with recent live births. Methods The national 2009–2011 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data were analyzed. The sample included women with recent singleton live births (N = 104,211). The outcome of interest was multivitamin use which was categorized as no multivitamin use, 1–3 times/week, 4–6 times/week, and daily use. Maternal BMI was examined as underweight (\u3c18.50 kg/m2), normal weight (18.50–24.99 kg/m2), overweight (25.00–29.99 kg/m2), and obese (≥30.00 kg/m2). Multinomial logistic regression was conducted, and adjusted odds ratios and 95 % confidence intervals were calculated. Results Compared to women with normal weight, overweight and obese women had significantly increased odds of not taking multivitamins after adjusting for confounding factors. Further, the lack of multivitamin use increased in magnitude with the level of BMI (ORoverweight = 1.2, 95 % CI = 1.1–1.3; ORobese = 1.4, 95 % CI = 1.2–1.5). Conclusions Obese and overweight women were less likely to follow the recommendation for preconception multivitamin use compared to normal weight women. All health care professionals must enhance preconception care with particular attention to overweight and obese women. Preconception counseling may be an opportunity to discuss healthy eating and benefits of daily multivitamin intake before pregnancy

Transatlantic Romanticism: The English Romantics and American Nineteenth−Century Poetic Tradition

This thesis explores the Romantic origins of nineteenth-century American poetic tradition; it looks at the relationship between the English Romantics and major nineteenth-century American poets. My research focuses on the Romantic lines of continuity within nineteenth-century American poetry, identifying them as central to the representation of American cultural and literary identities. American poets shaped their art and national identity out of a Romantic interest in their native nature. My study particularly explores the diverse ways in which major American poets, of this time, reacted to, adapted and reformulated Romantic ideals of nature, literary creation, the mission of the poet and the aesthetic category of the sublime. It traces connections and dialogues between American poets and their Romantic predecessors, including Blake, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley. This thesis is inspired by the strong and abiding academic interest in Romantic studies, and aims to advance new readings of nineteenth-century American poetry in a transatlantic literary and cultural context. It attempts to cover a wide range of nineteenth-century key poetic works in relation to Romantic visions, ideals and forms. Developing a chronological line of enquiry, my thesis highlights the paradox of writers seeking to establish an original, distinctive American literary canon while still heavily deriving ideas and techniques from other, non-American sources. An introductory chapter outlines the historical and cultural framework of the Anglo-American literary relationship, focussing on its sensibilities, tensions and affinities. Chapter two considers how Bryant and Longfellow reformulated the Romantic pastoral tradition in their representations of American landscape, which helped toward shaping a peculiar national poetic canon. Through examining Emerson’s poetic achievement in the light of the Romantic tradition, chapter three challenges Emersonian claims of originality and self-reliance. Chapter four addresses Whitman’s Romantic preoccupations and interests alongside his groundbreaking innovations manifested in his attitudes towards nature, human body and urban landscape as well as his experiments with poetic language and form. Chapter five attempts to interpret the seeming idiosyncrasy of Dickinson’s work in the light of the poet’s dialogues with her Romantic precursors. Above all, this study examines how Romanticism worked upon the minds and art of nineteenth-century American poets, aiming to provide refreshing interpretations of nineteenth-century American poetry in the context of the broader transatlantic Romantic tradition

Food gap and food security of sugar in Egypt

The research aims mainly to study food gap and food security of sugar in Egypt through studying of several sub-goals represented in: estimating models of general trends function for some economic indicators of sugar in Egypt during the period (1995- 2012), studying of the most important indicators of food security of sugar, estimating the size of the food gap of sugar and knowledge of the most important factors responsible for, and studying the policies and means to achieve food security of sugar in Egypt. Descriptive and quantitative analysis were used. The study depends on secondary data, which collected from local and foreign sources during the period (1995-2012).A study models of the general trend function for economic indicators showed that each of the total domestic production of sugar, domestic consumption, and the average per capita consumption, the amount of sugar imports, food gap of sugar, the price of Egyptian imports of sugar and periods of coverage of domestic production and the quantity of imports for consumption daily from sugar, and found that all of these variables has taken a general trend upward morally statistically significant at the level of probability (0.01) with the exception of a variable of coverage period of local production for daily consumption which took a general trend decreasing, and also did not identify the statistical significance of the variables of self-sufficiency rate and the period of coverage of imports for daily consumption , while the annual growth rates differed according to each variable.The conduct study show that the most important variables specific to the food gap of sugar are all from the local production of sugar, the average real price of Egyptian imports of sugar where it was found that the impact of each of these two variables on sugar gap be negative.The study showed that the strategic stock for sugar is estimated at 1.45 million tons and the average local consumption of sugar is estimated at about 2.17 million tons during the study period (1995-2012), thus estimated food security of about 0.84 is therefore required to take various actions which lead to increase the size of the strategic stock of sugar enough for half of it needs for domestic consumption even come close to the value of suitable coefficient of sugar food securityThe study showed that the policies and means to achieve sugar food security include horizontal agricultural development policy, vertical agricultural development policy, the policy of rationalizing the consumption of sugar, policy of consumer subsidy of sugar, and the policy of diversifying sources of imported sugar.In the light of the results of the study illustrated by research it has been possible to reach some ofthe following recommendations:1- It is necessary to intensify efforts to agricultural extension and agricultural research centers incollaboration with factories engineers and agriculture departments and supervisors agricultural awareness ofthe importance of agriculture resistance to pests and diseases that affect the crop, and help them get onpesticides is harmful to the environment to do so.2- Increasing of sugar production through the expansion of sugar crops, particularly sugar beet to the lack ofwater needs compared to sugar cane harvest in the new land.3- Increasing of sugar productivity crops through dissemination of sugar varieties of high productivity and tosuit every center of administrative centers in Egypt.4- Rationalizing the consumption of sugar during dismiss the size of the loss of sugar.5- to achieve food security has to be the need to develop awareness programs for the application of planningpolicy breeds where it is one of the most important determinants of the demand for i Egyptian imports ofsugar.6- it is important to put a national strategy to increase the self-sufficiency ratio of sugar with the need toimport and distribute the amounts of diversification between different sources in order to avoid what mighthappen from political pressure in favor of the Egyptian economy is in the case of international politicalconditions change.7- It is necessary to study the reduction commitments of support granted to the production and export in the sugar-exporting countries in order to reduce the negative effects on the Egyptian Savin

Estimation of the Economic Losses of the Waste from the Most Important Vegetable and Fruit Crops in Egypt

Increasing the waste of agricultural crops in general and vegetable and fruit crops specially, consider one of the main problems which cause economic losses for Egyptian economy. The main objective of the research is estimating of the economic losses for the waste from the most important vegetable and fruit crops in Egypt. The research depends on two kinds of data, time serious data which collected from different sources local and foreign, and cross section data represent during using a random sample collected from AL- Behaira governorate.The problem of waste considers one of the most important problems that face the agricultural crops, which hinder the performance of the agricultural sector, and the crops of vegetables and fruits of the most important agricultural crops are damaged due to their physical nature and impact of natural factors compared to other crops, causing significant losses of agricultural production and Egyptian food security. The agricultural production waste causing significant losses in national agricultural income and agricultural exports. The losses also cause waste in agricultural resources, specially land, irrigation water and capital and its limited resources in Egyptian agriculture. The results showed that the average annual quantity of Egyptian potatoand orange wastes represented about 135.8% and about 55% of the average quantities of potato exported during the study period, which confirms the importance and necessity of reducing the quantity of waste in the important export potato crop, because if the conservation of this quantity of losses and re-evaluation at the prices of Egyptian exports of the potato and orange exported, the average value of this wastes are about $419.4 million and$ 118.75 million, respectively. The study showed that the economic losses represents a loss in the actual cultivated area of potato and orange crops a losses in potato and orange exports, a losses in farmers income, andlosses in irrigation water.In light of the results obtained from the research, it recommends the following: To reduce the production waste in potato and orange crops, attention should be paid to good pruning, pest control and fertilization. Exclude the damaged fruits when sorting so as not to damage others. Use of transport vehicles equipped to maintain goods.The speed of sorting goods by traders as soon as they reach the retail market.To improve the quality of the containers used and to be strong plastic for transporting and displaying the goods

Study on Demand of Animal Protein Resources in Egypt

Agricultural is the principal source of food and some essential raw materials for industrial development. It accounts for almost 18-20% of the Egyptian gross domestic production, for about 17-19% of export earning and employs 32% of the workforce. Increasing Egyptian demand for food yearly, due mainly to the growth of the population considers one of the reasons which caused raising imports. The red meat of staple food commodities that meet Egypt in the proportion of sufficiency was about 73.6% in 2011, having reached the quantities available for consumption of red meat about 1251 tons, while the average individual share of 15.3 kg / year in 2011, increasing an annual rate was about 1.25% during the study period (1992-2011). This shows that the high prices of red meat that makes the consumer to alternatives available in the markets where the average individual share of fish and poultry were about 18.9, and about 13.8 kg / year in 2011 respectively, while the annual growth rate was about 4.87% and 2.04% of fish and poultry, respectively during the period (1992-2011).The shortage of providing food from animal protein is very important because it is one of the components of the major food necessary for human nutrition and the maintenance of health, it is access to sources of animal protein from red meat, poultry and fish, it is associated with the demand by increasing population, increasing expenditure income and the level of awareness of health and nutrition of the population, and increase the average per capita, with an average individual share consumption of red meat, fish and poultry in Egypt with about 13.63, 13.18 and 10.93 kg / year during the study period (1992-2011), while the annual growth rate was about 1.48%, 5.04%, 2.3%, respectively, which demonstrates that the rate of increase in population growth exceeded the rate of increase and improve the demand for red meat due to increase the incomes as a result of continuous rise in the price of red meat and low average per capita, resulting in the transformation of consumer to the alternatives available in the market of animal protein resources such as fish meat and poultry. The study results showed that the demand for red meat using the Almost Ideal Demand System( AIDS) in Egypt during the study period (1992-2011) as follows:• The most important factors affecting the demand for red meat in Egypt during the study period ware the average retail price of red meat, fish, poultry and expenditure on red meat.• High proportion of expenditure for the Egyptian consumer on the red meat for fish and poultry which amounted to about 57.97%, 23.62% and 18.41% respectively, it means that consumer preference for red meat, fish and poultry in bridging the requirements of the animal protein products.• Most of consumer income spent on red meat because the significant value of demand elasticity expenditure coefficient.• The research showed that the value of the signal coefficient of price elasticity of demand cross - compensated that red meat and fish are considered alternative or competing commodities, thus raising the price of fish entail a reduction in the proportion of expenditure on red meat.• The research showed also found that red meat and poultry are considered alternative or competing commodities, which increases the price of poultry, leading to increase in the proportion of expenditure on red meat

Egyptian Food Security of Edible Oils

The research aims mainly to study food security of edible oils in Egypt through studying of several sub-goals represented in: estimating models of general trends function for some economic indicators of edible oils in Egypt during the period (2001-2015), studying of the most important indicators of food security of edible oils, estimating the size of the food gap of edible oils and knowledge of the most important factors responsible for it, and studying the policies and tools to achieve food security of edible oils in Egypt. Descriptive and quantitative analysis were used. The study depends on secondary data, which collected from local and foreign sources during the period (2001 – 2015). A study models of the general trend function for economic indicators showed that each of the total domestic production of edible oils, domestic consumption, the average per capita consumption, the amount of edible oils imports, food gap of edible oils, the price of Egyptian imports of edible oils and periods of coverage of domestic production found that all of these variables has taken a general trend upward statistically significant at the level of probability (0.01) with the exception of a variable of coverage period of local production for daily consumption , capita consumption and food gap of edible oils which took a general trend upward statistically significant at 5% level, and also did not identify the statistical significance of the variables of self-sufficiency rate and the period of coverage of imports for daily consumption , while the annual growth rates differed according to each variable.The conduct study shows that the most important variables specific to the food gap of edible oils is annual average per capita consumption of edible oils which the impact of this variable on edible oils gap be positive.The study showed that the strategic stock for edible oils is estimated at 173 thousand tons and the average local consumption of edible oils is estimated at about 1.5 million tons during the study period (2001-2015), thus estimated food security of about 0.21 is therefore required to take various actions which lead to increase the size of the strategic stock of edible oils enough for half of it needs for domestic consumption even come close to the value of suitable coefficient of edible oils food security.The study showed that the policies and tools to achieve edible oils food security include horizontal agricultural development policy, vertical agricultural development policy, the policy of rationalizing the consumption of edible oils, policy of consumer subsidy of edible oils, and the policy of diversifying sources of imported edible oils. In the light of the results of the study illustrated by research it has been possible to reach some of the following recommendations:1- Increasing of edible oils production through the expansion of oil crops which grow in the new land.2- Increasing of edible oils productivity crops through dissemination of edible oils varieties of high productivity and to suit every center of administrative centers in Egypt.3- Rationalizing the consumption of edible oils during dismiss the size of it.4- To achieve food security has to be the need to develop awareness programs for the application of planning policy breeds where it is one of the most important determinants of the demand for Egyptian imports of edible oils.5- It is important to put a national strategy to increase the self-sufficiency ratio of edible oils with the need to import and distribute the amounts of diversification between different sources in order to avoid what might happen from political pressure in favor of the Egyptian economy is in the case of international political conditions change.6- It is necessary to study the reduction commitments of subsidy granted to the production and export in the edible oils-exporting countries in order to reduce the negative effects on the Egyptian saving

Materials Selection, Synthesis, and Dielectrical Properties of PVC Nanocomposites

Materials selection process for electrical insulation application was carried out using Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES) program. Melt mixing technique was applied to prepare polyvinyl-chloride- (PVC-) nanofumed silica and nanomontmorillonite clay composites. Surface analysis and particles dispersibility were examined using scanning electron microscope. Dielectrical properties were assessed using Hipot tester. An experimental work for dielectric loss of the nanocomposite materials has been investigated in a frequency range of 10 Hz–50 kHz. The initial results using CES program showed that microparticles of silica and clay can improve electrical insulation properties and modulus of elasticity of PVC. Nano-montmorillonite clay composites were synthesized and characterized. Experimental analyses displayed that trapping properties of matrix are highly modified by the presence of nanofillers. The nanofumed silica and nanoclay particles were dispersed homogenously in PVC up to 10% wt/wt. Dielectric loss tangent constant of PVC-nanoclay composites was decreased successfully from 0.57 to 0.5 at 100 Hz using fillers loading from 1% to 10% wt/wt, respectively. Nano-fumed silica showed a significant influence on the electrical resistivity of PVC by enhancing it up to 1 × 1011 Ohm·m

Accurate and energy-efficient classification with spiking random neural network: corrected and expanded version

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based techniques have dominated state-of-the-art results in most problems related to computer vision, audio recognition, and natural language processing in the past few years, resulting in strong industrial adoption from all leading technology companies worldwide. One of the major obstacles that have historically delayed large scale adoption of ANNs is the huge computational and power costs associated with training and testing (deploying) them. In the mean-time, Neuromorphic Computing platforms have recently achieved remarkable performance running more bio-realistic Spiking Neural Networks at high throughput and very low power consumption making them a natural alternative to ANNs. Here, we propose using the Random Neural Network (RNN), a spiking neural network with both theoretical and practical appealing properties, as a general purpose classifier that can match the classification power of ANNs on a number of tasks while enjoying all the features of a spiking neural network. This is demonstrated on a number of real-world classification datasets

Management of rare side effects of peginterferon and ribavirin therapy during hepatitis C treatment: a case report

Cardiac arrhythmias and syncope are rare consequence of therapy with pegylated interferon. We report a 55-year-old Egyptian woman who developed palpitation and syncopal attacks twice within 3 months after starting therapy with pegylated interferon α2b and ribavirin for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis C virus-RNA was undetectable after 12 week. The electrocardiogram holter revealed ventricular extra-systoles on top of sinus tachycardia. pegylated interferon α2b therapy was continued but with a reduced dose. Close follow up revealed neither palpitation nor syncope and hepatitis C virus-RNA was undetectable at 24 and 48 weeks of treatment. In conclusion, our study suggests readjustment of the dose of pegylated interferon α2b therapy to avoid these serious side effects

Polyploidy in chronic lymphocytic leukemia with p53 deletion detected by fish: a case report

We report a case of chronic lymphocytic leukemia with a characteristic cytogenetics finding detected by fluorescent in situ hybridization. This case has deletion in p53 gene in 50% of interphase nuclei studied in the peripheral blood and polyploidy in 30% of cells. To our knowledge polyploidy is not commonly reported with chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients