Morphological Variation between Life and Death Gastropod Populations in the Nile Delta: A Pollution-Induced Evolution

Wetland ecosystems of the Nile Delta face severe threats due to natural climatic changes and anthropogenic activities. Life and death assemblage comparisons can be implemented as a historical record to detect anthropogenic-induced environmental changes in the past few decades. A geometric morphometric approach was applied to quantify the pollution-induced morphological variation between life and death populations of the gastropod Melanoides tuberculata. The results indicated that life populations differ significantly from the death ones, where the first tend to be much smaller, more globular, and with a depressed aperture and whorl section. In addition, the phenetic diversity of the life populations was also decreased, and the allometric growth was shifted. These morphological changes in the life populations are well-known adaptations for reducing the cost of shell maintenance in polluted water. No distinct morphospace was found between life populations from different habitats, suggesting that habitats have no significant role in the current pollution-induced evolution.This work is funded by the Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R455), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Saudi SCD patients’ symptoms and quality of life relative to the number of ED visits

Background Individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD) have significantly increased emergency department (ED) use compared to the general population. In Saudi Arabia, health care is free for all individuals and therefore has no bearing on increased ED visits. However, little is known about the relationship between quality of life (QoL) and frequency of acute care utilization in this patient population. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on 366 patients with SCD who attended the outpatient department at King Fahad Hospital, Hofuf, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected through self-administered surveys, which included: demographics, SCD-related ED visits, clinical issues, and QoL levels. We assessed the ED use by asking for the number of SCD-related ED visits within a 6-month period. Results The self-report survey of ED visits was completed by 308 SCD patients. The median number of SCD-related ED visits within a 6-month time period (IQR) was four (2-7 visits). According to the unadjusted negative binomial model, the rate of SCD-related ED visits increased by (46, 39.3, 40, and 53.5 %) for patients with fever, skin redness with itching, swelling, and blood transfusion, respectively. Poor QoL tends to increase the rate of SCD-related ED visits. Well education and poor general health positively influenced the rate of SCD-related ED visits. Well education tends to increase the rate of SCD-related ED visits by 50.2 %. The rate of SCD-related ED visits decreased by 1.4 % for every point increase in general health. Conclusion Saudi patients with sickle cell disease reported a wide range of SCD-related ED visits. It was estimated that six of 10 SCD patients had at least three ED visits within a 6-month period. Well education and poor general health resulted in an increase in the rate of SCD-related ED visits

Anisotropic Response of Nanosized Bismuth Films Upon Femtosecond Laser Excitation Monitored by Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

The lattice response of 5 nm thick bismuth film to femtosecond laser excitation is probed by ultrafast electron diffraction. The transient decay time after laser excitation is greater for diffraction from (012) lattice planes compared to (110) planes and is reduced for both planes with the increased laser fluence. These results indicate that different energy coupling mechanisms to the lattice occur depending on the crystal direction. The behavior of the diffraction peak width indicates partial disorder of the film upon photoexcitation that increases together with the laser fluence. © 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3652919

Leucaena forage yield as influenced by soil conditioner and irrigation regime treatments

Water is limiting factor of increasing cultivated lands, so water scarcity and drought stress, considered as one of the factors limiting agricultural forage production in the world. This can have achieved by increasing of cultivated pasture area or improving productivity of rangeland plants. Soil conditioners applied in these holes during cultivation and vigorous seedlings transported to this experimental site. Unvarying daily irrigation using a drip irrigation system. Applying poultry manure as soil conditioners in sandy soil twisted tallest shrubs, maximum values of a number of branches/plant, stem thickness and dry matter forage yield per plant and per hectare and uppermost values of water use efficiency at both summer and autumn cuts. Increasing drip irrigation discharges from 2, 4, 6 to 8 litres/h significantly produced the tallest plants, highest number of branches per plant, thickness of stem and dry forage yield/plant and per hectare as well as water use efficiency in both summer and autumn cuts. As regards to the interaction between soil conditioners and drip irrigation discharges on stem height, number of branches /plant, dry forage matter yield per plant and dry forage yield/ha. Applying poultry manure as soil conditioners in sandy soil and increasing discharges of drip irrigation by 8 litres/h significantly increased dry forage yield/ha

Genetic polymorphism of CYP2D6 gene among Egyptian hypertensive cases

AbstractBackgroundHypertension is a cardiovascular disease that is affected by environmental, demographic and genetic factors.ObjectiveThis study aims to determine the frequency of the CYP2D6∗1, ∗3, ∗4 and ∗5 variants among hypertensive cases and cases with obesity and cases with cardiac complications.Subjects and methodsDNA was isolated from peripheral blood samples that were collected from 123 hypertensive cases and from 429 healthy non-related controls by using the Magna pure system. Genomic DNA was used to determine the frequency of CYP2D6∗1, CYP2D6∗3, CYP2D6∗4 and CYP2D6∗5 allelic variants by the application of the light cycler polymerase chain reaction (Realtime PCR) technique.ResultsComparing cases of hypertension and controls as regard to the genotypic allelic variants of CYP2D6 gene, hypertensive cases showed a significantly higher wild genotype 1/1 compared to controls (85.4% vs. 74.8%, p=0.01) with a lower frequency of mutant genotype 4/4 (1.6% vs. 8.6%, p=0.008) This phenomenon was manifested among cases of subgroups with obesity that had significantly lower mutant homozygous forms than obese controls (2.3% vs. 9.5%, p 0.04) and cases with cardiac complications (88.2% vs. 74.8%, p=0.01).ConclusionCYP2D6 polymorphism is positively associated with hypertensive cardiac complications as well as hypertensive obese cases

TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROTATING NONLOCAL NANOBEAMS SUBJECT TO A VARYING HEAT SOURCE AND A DYNAMIC LOAD

In this article, the influence of thermal conductivity on the dynamics of a rotating nanobeam is established in the context of nonlocal thermoelasticity theory. To this end, the governing equations are derived using generalized heat conduction including phase lags on the basis of the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. The thermal conductivity of the proposed model linearly changes with temperature and the considered nanobeam is excited with a variable harmonic heat source and exposed to a time-dependent load with exponential decay. The analytic solutions for bending moment, deflection and temperature of rotating nonlocal nanobeams are achieved by means of the Laplace transform procedure. A qualitative study is conducted to justify the soundness of the present analysis while the impact of nonlocal parameter and varying heat source are discussed in detail. It also shows the way in which the variations of physical properties due to temperature changes affect the static and dynamic behavior of rotating nanobeams. It is found that the physical fields strongly depend on the nonlocal parameter, the change of the thermal conductivity, rotation speed and the mechanical loads and, therefore, it is not possible to neglect their effects on the manufacturing process of precise/intelligent machines and devices

IPv6 Applicability in SCADA System Network

     The trend today is to build a secure fault tolerant Internet/Intranet connected distributed SCADA system networks using open and standard software/hardware. This paper made use of advances in Ethernet such as Fast/Gigabit Ethernet, micro-segmentation and full-duplex operation using switches, IPv6 enhanced features and TCP/IP to fulfill the real-time requirements for SCADA system network. OPNET Modeler simulator is used for modeling and simulating the network. The various measured delays showed that IPv6 introduction in such network introduces very small (negligible) delay and shows better performance on applying Quality of Service relative to IPv4. Also it is found that delays increase with increased transported packet size

Industrial Ethernet Protocols IPv6 enabling approach

The current Internet Protocol (IPv4) made Ethernet with TCP/IP find application in industrial automation environment via Industrial Ethernet Protocols. The question "Can things go smooth in Internet Protocol next generation (IPv6)?". This paper answers the question by proposing solutions and proofing via simulation using OPNET Modeler simulator that IPv6 introduction in industrial automation environment introduces very small (negligible) delay relative to IPv4. Measured delays include: global Ethernet delay, IP node end-to-end delay and delay variation for 72, 520 and 1500 bytes transported packet size. Results showed that IPv6 introduces very small delay relative to IPv4, the various delays increase with increased packet size and IPv6 can be used in industrial automation environment. &nbsp