Productive Performance of F1- (Damascus Goat × Desert) under Traditional Management in North Kordofan

This study carried out in North Kordofan state, Western Sudan (latitudes 12:15-16:32 N and longitudes 27-32 E), during the period Feb 2018 - Aug 2021 to assessment the productive and reproductive performance of crossed F1 (Desert× Damascus) under the traditional management systems, to evaluate adaptation of crossed to environmental conditions of study area, to study milk production of the crossed goats. 44 females crossed goat F1 (Damascus×Desert goat) were selected at weaning age. Two mature Damascus bucks were used in the experiment all animals were identified using ear tags and treated against external and internal parasites. All animals will set free during the day and kept in closed pen during the night. The behavior of the animals and the adaptation on the environment was observed and recorded in addition to any problems like disease; Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences, software package (SPSS, V23, 2017). In this study, the Damascus Bucks were severely affected under the conditions of nature grazing and suffered from parasites and high temperature, Bucks have died as a result of tick fever according to Anatomical symptoms, The parameters of dams varied according to litter size, Females were born as a single reached puberty at (278.2±7 days) with body weight of 20.01 kg while the twins females was puberty age (291.6±9 days), and weight was 16.91kg , The average lactation period was 120 days with average total milk production of 40.46± 1.74 kg, this study conclude that the crossed Females are late in sexual maturity, So The genetic cross as a way to improve the herd without taking into account environmental conditions does not lead to the desired results.&nbsp

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) essential oil as affected by drying methods

AbstractThe leaves of lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) were dried using three different drying methods (sun-drying for 36h, shade-drying for 48h and oven-drying at 45°C for 7h). The essential oil was obtained by hydro-distillation of the leaves dried by every treatment, and was analyzed by capillary GC and GC/mass instruments. Statistical analysis showed significant differences in the essential oil content of leaves dried by different drying methods. Oven drying gave the highest essential oil percentage (2.45%) compared to shade-drying (2.12%) and sun-drying methods (2.10%). Eighteen components were identified in the essential oil of fresh and dried C. citratus leaves obtained by different drying methods, including geranial (citral-a), neral (citral-b) and myrcene as main components. The drying methods had a marked effect on the proportion of the various components

Effect of different parameters controlling the flexural behavior of RC beams strengthened with NSM using nonlinear finite element analysis

Near surface mounted technique become the most attractive technique for strengthening RC structures. Several researches had been conducted to study experimentally the flexural behavior of RC members strengthened with NSM technique unlike the numerical researches. In this paper a numerical investigation utilizes the non-linear finite element (FE) modeling using ANSYS was performed. The developed FE model considers the behavior of the epoxy-concrete interface using a particular continuum damage approach, called cohesive zone model (CZM) which is capable of predicting the failure mode of the strengthened beams. The modified model study the effect of different parameters such as NSM bar number, NSM bar length, end inclination angle and end inclination leg length on the flexural behavior of strengthened beams. The results showed that, The developed FE model able to predict the expected modes of failure in NSM technique, the NSM bar length was effective till 0.5 of beam span, beams strengthened with end inclined angle 45º NSM bar gives the highest improvement in load carrying capacity, this improvement was very close in case of using end inclined angle of 60º and 90º

Experimental assessment of different strengthening techniques for opening in reinforced concrete beams

The present experimental study includes testing thirteen reinforced concrete beams with openings at different locations to investigate the efficiency of strengthening such openings. Different strengthening techniques around the opening after and before casting include diagonal bars, upper and lower steel, and carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP), were examined. All beams were made from 30 MPa compressive strength and tested under four-point loading.  The cross section of the beams is 400 mm depth x 160 mm width and beam length 2400 mm. The dimensions of the opening are 200 mm x 200 mm. The stiffness, deflection, failure load, and failure mode of the strengthened beams were discussed. Experimental results showed that the beams strengthened with upper and lower steel around opening at mid-span increase the load-carrying capacity by 16.59%. However, beams strengthened by CFRP sheets around the opening in the shear zone increase the load carrying capacity by 47.7% compared to opened beam

Serum OX40 ligand: a potential marker of atopic dermatitis disease severity in children

Background: OX40 ligand (OX40L) and OX40 are members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and TNF receptor (TNFR) super families respectively. Recent studies have indicated the critical involvement of OX40/OX40L interaction in the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis. To our knowledge, no data could be cited in literature concerning OX40L levels in serum or in other biological fluids of atopic dermatitis children. Objective: This study was done to explore the expression of OX40L in the serum of atopic dermatitis children with respect to disease activity and severity. Methods: This follow-up, case-control longitudinal study was conducted on 64 children as a stratified non-random sample; 34 with atopic dermatitis and 30 healthy children. Serum concentrations of OX40L were measured by sandwich enzyme immunoassay. The severity of atopic dermatitis was assessed according to the Leicester Sign Score (LSS), Simple Scoring System (SSS), Scoring Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) index, and Objective SCORAD. Results: Serum OX40L levels (pg/ml) in atopic dermatitis patients were significantly elevated as compared to controls (176.6 ± 45.9) whether during flare (1007 ± 241.5) or quiescence (699 ± 198.5). There were significant positive correlations between serum OX40L levels and each of the LSS, SSS and SCORAD indices of atopic dermatitis disease severity, while it was insignificant regarding the objective SCORAD. However, when atopic dermatitis children were classified according to the objective SCORAD index of severity into mild, moderate and severe, it was found that the mean serum level in the severe group was significantly higher than the corresponding values of the mild or the moderate group. OX40L levels did not correlate with serum total IgE or absolute eosinophils count. Serum total LDH levels correlated positively with each of the serum OX40L levels and the LSS and SCORAD indices of severity. Conclusions: Serum OX40L level is an objective reliable marker of atopic dermatitis severity in children. It may be useful for follow up and may help to improve research and management of this disease. Blockade of interactions between OX40 on Th2 cells and OX40L on activated dendritic cells using an OX40L-specific monoclonal antibody could represent a novel strategy for the treatment of atopic dermatitis.Keywords: Atopic dermatitis, LSS, OX40, OX40L, SCORAD, SSS, TNFEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2009;7(1):15-2

Dominance and G×E interaction effects improvegenomic prediction and genetic gain inintermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrumintermedium)

Genomic selection (GS) based recurrent selection methods were developed to accelerate the domestication of intermediate wheatgrass [IWG, Thinopyrum intermedium (Host) Barkworth & D.R. Dewey]. A subset of the breeding population phenotyped at multiple environments is used to train GS models and then predict trait values of the breeding population. In this study, we implemented several GS models that investigated the use of additive and dominance effects and G×E interaction effects to understand how they affected trait predictions in intermediate wheatgrass. We evaluated 451 genotypes from the University of Minnesota IWG breeding program for nine agronomic and domestication traits at two Minnesota locations during 2017–2018. Genet-mean based heritabilities for these traits ranged from 0.34 to 0.77. Using fourfold cross validation, we observed the highest predictive abilities (correlation of 0.67) in models that considered G×E effects. When G×E effects were fitted in GS models, trait predictions improved by 18%, 15%, 20%, and 23% for yield, spike weight, spike length, and free threshing, respectively. Genomic selection models with dominance effects showed only modest increases of up to 3% and were trait-dependent. Crossenvironment predictions were better for high heritability traits such as spike length, shatter resistance, free threshing, grain weight, and seed length than traits with low heritability and large environmental variance such as spike weight, grain yield, and seed width. Our results confirm that GS can accelerate IWG domestication by increasing genetic gain per breeding cycle and assist in selection of genotypes with promise of better performance in diverse environments

Soil hydrophysical properties as affected by kind of added polymer.

Laboratory experiments were carried out to clarify the impact of different types of natural and synthetic polymers on some hydrophysical properties (soil hydraulic parameters) of a sandy soil. Adding 0.5% (w/w) of each treatment to soil significantly increased water retention at saturation, field capacity, total available water and readily available water. This treatment decreased the value of inflection point on water retention curve as result of enhancing water behavior in the soil. The obtained results revealed that soil water storage significantly increased from 0.271 in control treatment (without adding polymer) up to 0.414 in treatment [T10] (Acrylic acid + Xanthan) while, field capacity increased significantly from 0.078 in control up to 0.242 of the abovementioned treatment (T10). Regarding the effects of polymer application in total available water and readily available water, data revealed significant increases in the above mentioned parameters. Total available water increased from 0.044 in control treatment up to 0.153 in T10 and readily available water increased from 0.057in control treatment up to 0.185 in T10. Concerning values of inflection point on soil water retention curve, the obtained results revealed that, inflection point of control treatment (1000 mbar) decreased to 590 mbar, as a result of adding a mixture of polymer acrylic acid + xanthan (T10 ).Soil depletion rate decreased as due to polymer application by 25% up to 75% depending on type of polymer and wether it was added individually or in combination with another polymer. This effect led to significant differences among control treatment (control) and the other treatments. Generally, there were significant effects of all polymers on the concerned hydrophyical properties of the studied sandy soil, i.e. storage capacity of soil water, depletion rate of soil water, soil field capacity , soil available water, readily available water and inflection point on the soil water retention curve. Acrylic acid recorded the best results concerning soil water behavior if it was added individually to the sandy soil (Treatment 2) or in combination with Xanthan (Treatment 10) or with Lignosulphonate (Treatment 11)

Genome-wide landscape of runs of homozygosity and differentiation across Egyptian goat breeds

: Understanding the genomic features of livestock is essential for successful breeding programs and conservation. This information is scarce for local goat breeds in Egypt. In the current study, genomic regions with selection signatures were identified as well as runs of homozygosity (ROH), genomic inbreeding coefficients (FROH) and fixation index (FST) were detected in Egyptian Nubian, Damascus, Barki and Boer goat breeds. A total of 46,268 SNP markers and 337 animals were available for the genomic analyses. On average, 145.44, 42.02, 87.90 and 126.95 ROHs were detected per individual in the autosomal genome of the respective breeds. The mean accumulative ROH lengths ranged from 46.5 Mb in Damascus to 360 Mb in Egyptian Nubian. The short ROH segments (< 2 Mb) were most frequent in all breeds, while the longest ROH segments (> 16 Mb) were exclusively found in the Egyptian Nubian. The highest average FROH was observed in Egyptian Nubian (~ 0.12) followed by Boer (~ 0.11), while the lowest FROH was found in Damascus (~ 0.05) and Barki breed (~ 0.03). The estimated mean FST was 0.14 (Egyptian Nubian and Boer), 0.077 (Egyptian Nubian and Barki), 0.075 (Egyptian Nubian and Damascus), 0.071 (Barki and Boer), 0.064 (Damascus and Boer), and 0.015 (Damascus and Barki), for each pair of breeds. Interestingly, multiple SNPs that accounted for high FST values were observed on chromosome 6 in regions harboring ALPK1 and KCNIP4. Genomic regions overlapping both FST and ROH harbor genes related to immunity (IL4R, PHF23, GABARAP, GPS2, and CD68), reproduction (SPATA2L, TNFSF12, TMEM95, and RNF17), embryonic development (TCF25 and SOX15) and adaptation (MC1R, KDR, and KIT), suggesting potential genetic adaptations to local environmental conditions. Our results contribute to the understanding of the genetic architecture of different goat breeds and may provide valuable information for effective preservation and breeding programs of local goat breeds in Egypt