In Vitro Screening for Antimicrobial Activity of Some Medicinal Plant Seed Extracts

Phytochemical screening (saponins, tannins, steroids, alkaloids, flavonoids, phenols and glycosides) of four medicinal plant seeds (Jatropha curcas, Simmondsia chinensis (Jojoba), Moringa oleifera and Datura metel) extracted by aqueous, ethanol and Folch solvents, were examined for their antimicrobial activity against three types of plant pathogenic fungi namely; Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium oxysporum and Rhizoctonia solani, in addition to four types of bacteria, namely; Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, Ralstonia solanacearum and Pesudomonas aeruginosa using disc diffusion paper. Results revealed that different concentrations of aqueous extracts were more effective against bacterial activity compared to fungal activity, except for D. metel aqueous extract which showed no antifungal effect and very weak effect on only two of the tested bacteria. B. cereus was more sensitive to J. curcas aqueous extract, while P. aeruginosa was more sensitive to S. chinensis and M. oleifera aqueous extracts. On the other hand, results showed that J. curcas and M. oleifera ethanol extracts were more effective on Staph. aureus growth, while S. chinensis and D. metel did not have any effect on any of the fungi or bacteria under study. The evaluation of the antifungal and antibacterial effect did not confirm the broad spectrum of S. chinensis Folch extract, while M. oleifera and D. metel were more effective on reducing R. solani growth. Also F. oxysporum was affected by J. curcas Folch extract only at high concentrations. These findings support that the traditional use of the plant extracts in the treatment of different infections caused by pathogenic microbes is valuable and should be taken in consideration

Performance of Close Anode Cathodic Protection System Applied to a Plane Metallic Grid

In CP technique the negative shift in cathode potential determines the degree of protection against corrosion. This shift occurs by two mechanisms: the first is depression of cathode potential relative to electrolyte (Remote Anode Systems). The second is elevation of electrolyte potential in the vicinity of cathode relative to electrolyte (Close Anode Systems). These systems are considerably sensitive to anode position because of sharp changes in electrolyte potential with variation of anode location (proximity effect). Our work is to investigate the performance of CP system under conditions of variable anode position, applied to mild steel grid simulating steel reinforced concrete

Pulsed Electric Field: Fundamentals and Effects on the Structural and Techno-Functional Properties of Dairy and Plant Proteins

Dairy and plant-based proteins are widely utilized in various food applications. Several techniques have been employed to improve the techno-functional properties of these proteins. Among them, pulsed electric field (PEF) technology has recently attracted considerable attention as a green technology to enhance the functional properties of food proteins. In this review, we briefly explain the fundamentals of PEF devices, their components, and pulse generation and discuss the impacts of PEF treatment on the structure of dairy and plant proteins. In addition, we cover the PEF-induced changes in the techno-functional properties of proteins (including solubility, gelling, emulsifying, and foaming properties). In this work, we also discuss the main challenges and the possible future trends of PEF applications in the food proteins industry. PEF treatments at high strengths could change the structure of proteins. The PEF treatment conditions markedly affect the treatment results with respect to proteins’ structure and techno-functional properties. Moreover, increasing the electric field strength could enhance the emulsifying properties of proteins and protein-polysaccharide complexes. However, more research and academia-industry collaboration are recommended to build highly effective PEF devices with controlled processing conditions. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART2

Forecasting the Climate Change through the Distributions of Solar Radiation and Maximum Temperature

The climate change crisis is negatively affecting the world and is the focus of many researchers attention for its life-threatening economic and climate impact on Earth. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the joint distribution function (EFXY) of both daily solar radiation (S) and daily maximum temperature (T) along with the Markov property. In this study, three-parameter distributions have been utilized with S and T, which are generalized extreme value (GEV) and Weibull (W-3P), respectively. Each of these parameters and the joint distribution function ((, )) have been estimated. Four real data of S and T in Queensland, Australia during two consecutive years are applied. The method of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is applied on the proposed distributions of S and T to estimate their parameters, which was validated using Goodness-of-Fit tests. In addition, the logarithmic (LFXY) model and the multi-regression model (MFXY) for (, ) are obtained. The results have been compared and the EFXY and LFXY are found to be non-equivalently, while the EFXY and MFXY are equivalent and homogeneous, confirming the validity of the joint distribution function estimate with the least error. Thus, the climate change probabilities are more accurately predictable by knowing both X and Y or by knowing both () and () with minimal error

A Retrospective Study of Acute Poisoning in Children under 5 Years Old Admitted to Alexandria Poison Center in Egypt

Abstract Childhood poisoning represents a major public health preventable problem worldwide. It has been identified that unintentional poisoning is the most common circumstances of poisoning in young children. Various drugs and chemical compounds have been implicated such as kerosene being the most common household agent. Aim: The current study aimed to retrospectively study acute poisoning in children less than 5 years old admitted to Alexandria Poison Center (APC) at Alexandria Main University hospital as regards; pattern of childhood poisoning (incidence and prevalence), risk factors related to poisoning accidents and the outcome. Subjects and Methods: All patients aged less than 5 years with acute poisoning admitted to Alexandria Poison Center at Alexandria Main University Hospital, Alexandria, Egypt, during the period of 8 months started from 1st January to 31st August 2012 were included in the study. Results: This retrospective study involved 620 intoxicated children which represented 20.7% of total poisoning cases admitted to APC at that period of time. The incidence of poisoning was found to be highest in children aged between 3 to 5 years old and constituted 49.1% and 39.6% of males and females respectively. The mode of poisoning was found to be accidental with no reported cases of neither homicidal nor suicidal poisonings. The most common agent of toxicity in children was found to be kerosene, followed by chlorine and cholinesterase inhibitor insecticide. The outcome of most of cases (84.5%) was recovery and discharge, with 10.5% being admitted to (Intensive Care Unit) ICU and 5% mortality rate. Conclusion: Risk factors for unintentional poisoning in children involve accessibility to hazardous chemicals and medicines caused by unsafe storage, aggressive child's behavior, unsafe storage of kerosene oil and petrol, low socioeconomic status as well as low educational level of the mother

Validation of Recently Discovered mRNA Stable Regions as Biomarkers for Body Fluids after Exposure to Environmental Hazards

The recognition of messenger RNA become common practice for body fluid identification in forensic field. Though, the degraded and rare nature of RNA from forensic samples point out that mRNA transcripts are not reliably spotted or remain undetected in practice. Thus, leading to hardening the process of forensic investigation and body fluids identification. Lately, using massively parallel sequencing technique, data obtained from degraded body fluids were used to design new primers to amplify transcript regions of messenger RNA of high read coverage, hence, exhibiting higher stability, as a substitute of the conventional primer that target span exon–exon boundaries which showed low stability and degradation susceptibility. In the current project, the relative gene expression was calculated for each biomarker to measure the stability of those messenger RNA regions. The criteria of testing involved exposing different messenger RNA biomarkers transcripts of blood, buccal cells and menstrual blood to various environmental hazards including UV irradiation, 40ᵒC induced heat and 50% humidity. Degradation was in continuous exposure for a specific time span of 2 weeks. The results showed that each messenger RNA biomarker behaved differently among the different environmental insults

Seasonal Abundance and the Efficiency of Yeast Liquid Culture (Candida tropicalis) as Bait for Capturing the Oriental Wasps (Vespa orientalis L.) Under Egyptian Environment

Abstract: Seasonal abundance and the efficiency of liquid culture of yeast (Candida tropicalis) as bait to capture the oriental wasps (Vespa orientalis L.), were studied at Dirut location, Assiut governorate during 2003 seasons. The oriental wasps started to appear in the first week of April and gradually decreased to the minimum levels during June (late spring) and July (earlier summer). Then, the activity of wasps increased gradually from the second week of August to the fourth week of September. Total numbers of wasps reached the highest values in October followed by September and November and then the number of oriental wasps decreased until disappeared at the fourth week of December. The modified traps recommended by Ministry of Agriculture were baited with 100% of 1.26×10 5 freshly prepared yeast liquid culture (Candida tropicalis) captured the highest mean numbers of oriental wasps after 24 hr. and 7 days during the active period of wasps (September, October and November). Using liquid yeast culture at 25% concentration recorded the lowest mean numbers of wasps captured in the traps

Oxidative status and the response to pegylated-interferon alpha2A plus ribavirin in chronic genotype 4 HCV hepatitis

Oxidative stress may play a pathogenic role in chronic hepatitis C (CHC). The present study examined the oxidative status in plasma of patients with CHC who received pegylated interferon and ribavirin therapy. The following groups were included: (1) sustained virological response (28 patients), (2) null response (26 patients), (3) breakthrough (24 patients), (4) relapse (24 patients), (5) spontaneous cure (23 patients) and (6) twenty five normal subjects as a control group. Markers of oxidative stress including plasma malondialdehyde, nitric oxide, reduced glutathione, total antioxidant capacity and uric acid as well as serum ALT, AST, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin, albumin, prothrombin time were studied. The study indicated significant decline in reduced glutathione and total antioxidant capacity and markedly elevated levels of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide in all groups compared with the controls. Null response group had the highest levels of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide. Nitric oxide was significantly higher in those with null response compared with all other groups and with control subjects. Uric acid was significantly higher in spontaneous cure group compared with all other groups and with the controls. We concluded that CHC patients had increased oxidative stress. The oxidative status in plasma of these patients was not changed by antiviral therapy. The study also showed an important contribution of nitric oxide in null response patients. High serum uric acid did not interfere with the response and/or did not predict the response to antiviral therapy

Design and synthesis of (2-oxo-1,2-dihydroquinolin-4-yl)-1,2,3-triazole derivatives via click reaction: Potential apoptotic antiproliferative agents

A mild and versatile method based on Cu-catalyzed [2+3] cycloaddition (Huisgen-Meldal-Sharpless reaction) was developed to tether 3,3’-((4-(prop-2-yn-1-yloxy)phenyl)methylene)bis(4-hydroxyquinolin-2(1H)-ones) with 4-azido-2-quinolones in good yields. This methodology allowed attaching three quinolone molecules via a triazole linker with the proposed mechanism. The products are interesting precursors for their anti-proliferative activity. Compound 8g was the most active one, achieving IC$_{50}$ = 1.2 ± 0.2 µM and 1.4 ± 0.2 µM against MCF-7 and Panc-1 cell lines, respectively. Moreover, cell cycle analysis of cells MCF-7 treated with 8g showed cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase (supported by Caspase-3,8,9, Cytochrome C, BAX, and Bcl-2 studies). Additionally, significant pro-apoptotic activity is indicated by annexin V-FITC staining