Palm oil formulation as 34 % mayonnaise and evaluation of its biological efficacy against citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri under laboratory and field conditions

The use of environmentally friendly pesticides using palm oil derivatives as palm oil methyl ester (PME) carrier solvents has been reported. PME-based glyphosate isopropylamine nanoemulsion in the water against weeds has been the subject of numerous studies as well as palm oil methyl ester molluscicidal against golden apple snails. This study's major goal was to formulate palm oil in an appropriate formulation form and assess its insecticidal effectiveness against citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri. Palm oil was formulated as 34% oil in water emulsion (O/W) (mayonnaise). The new mayonnaise formulation successfully passed all physical and chemical testing requirements set out by pesticide organizations for (O/W) emulsions. Under laboratory conditions, it was biologically evaluated against nymphs and adults of the citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri, with serial concentrations. It had considerable insecticidal activity against all study stages, although the impact on nymphs was significantly greater than that on adults. This was evident from its LC50 values, which were 53.52 and 58.58 mg/ml for nymphs and adults, respectively. The citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri, in its adult, nymphs, and gravid stages, was tested using the new palm oil 34% mayonnaise formulation in the field. The highest mortality percentages were seen in the nymphs, followed by adults and then the gravid stage. After additional research, the newly developed palm oil formula might be employed to combat the citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri

Word matching using single closed contours for indexing handwritten historical documents

Effective indexing is crucial for providing convenient access to scanned versions of large collections of historically valuable handwritten manuscripts. Since traditional handwriting recognizers based on optical character recognition (OCR) do not perform well on historical documents, recently a holistic word recognition approach has gained in popularity as an attractive and more straightforward solution (Lavrenko et al. in proc. document Image Analysis for Libraries (DIAL’04), pp. 278–287, 2004). Such techniques attempt to recognize words based on scalar and profile-based features extracted from whole word images. In this paper, we propose a new approach to holistic word recognition for historical handwritten manuscripts based on matching word contours instead of whole images or word profiles. The new method consists of robust extraction of closed word contours and the application of an elastic contour matching technique proposed originally for general shapes (Adamek and O’Connor in IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 5:2004). We demonstrate that multiscale contour-based descriptors can effectively capture intrinsic word features avoiding any segmentation of words into smaller subunits. Our experiments show a recognition accuracy of 83%, which considerably exceeds the performance of other systems reported in the literature

Stress and Burnout among Preretirement Employee in Hospital at 10th of Ramadan City

Employees are at high risk for stress and burnout. The aim of this study was to assess job stressors and burnout among employees in hospital at Tenth of Ramadan city. Design: cross-sectional descriptive design. Setting: the National Health Insurance Hospital at 10th of Ramadan city. Samples: convenience sample consisted of 100 employees. Tools: a self-administered questionnaire including scales for job stress and strain, burnout, and coping strategies, in addition to socio-demographic data was used in data collection. Results: the majority of the nurses were younger than 30 years (78%), with diploma degree (93%), and insufficient income (69%). More nurses had high exposure to stressors (49%), than strains (19%), and 20% had high burnout. Conclusion: the coping strategy most commonly used was effective behavioral confrontation. Nurses’ stress, strain, and burnout are strongly correlated and are influenced by personal factors such as age, qualification, experience, and residence, as well as job factors such as work hours, income, and the use of ineffective coping. Recommendations: the hospital administration should deal with and periodic assess the job factors underlying nurses’ stress and burnout. Further research is proposed to investigate the effectiveness of changing work environment factors and nursing care system on nurses’ burnout

Rice Bran as an Alternative Feedstuff in Broiler Nutrition and Impact of Liposorb® and Vitamin E-Se on Sustainability of Performance, Carcass Traits, Blood Biochemistry, and Antioxidant Indices

The impact of dietary rice bran with or without feed additives on the performance, carcasses, and blood profiles of chickens was examined. A total of 245 unsexed one-week-old broiler chicks were divided into seven groups, with seven replications of five chicks each. The treatments were: (1) control, (2) 5% rice bran, (3) 5% rice bran + 0.5 g/kg of Liposorb®, (4) 5% rice bran + 1 g/kg of vitamin E-Se, (5) 10% rice bran, (6) 10% rice bran + 0.5 g/kg Liposorb®, and (7) 10% rice bran + 1 g/kg of vitamin E–selenium. Considering the entire experimental period, it did not affect the in vivo performance of the broilers. However, all the experimental diets decreased dressing % compared with the control (p < 0.01) and the worst values were obtained for the 10% RB groups (75.7, 75.9, and 75.8%, respectively, for 10%RB, 10%RB + Liposorb, and 10%RB + Vit. E-Se groups). All the experimental diets decreased (p < 0.01) the albumin/globulin ratio due to an increased level of serum globulins. Differences in lipid profiles, antioxidants, and immunity parameters in plasma were not related to dietary treatments. In conclusion, the use of rice bran up to 10% in diets had no harmful effect on the overall growth performance of the broilers from 1 to 5 weeks of age. Still, carcass characteristics were negatively affected, except for heart percentage. In addition, the supplementation of Liposorb® or vitamin E-Se to rice bran diets did not recover these harmful effects. Thus, rice bran could be utilized at 10% in broiler diets when growth performance was considered; further research is required

Comparative Morpho-Biochemical Responses of Wheat Cultivars Sensitive and Tolerant to Water Stress

Water stress is likely the most important factor that adversely affects plant growth and development. In this study two wheat cultivars Gemmieza-7 (sensitive) and Sahel-1 (tolerant) were subjected to water stress and compared in terms of growth parameters (growth vigor of root and shoot), water relations (relative water content and saturation water deficit ) and protein as well as nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) content in flag leaves of both cultivars. In general, water stress caused noticeable reduction in almost all growth criteria of root, shoot and flag leaf which was consistent with the progressive alteration in water relations, protein and nucleic acids content of both cultivars during grain filling. Furthermore, degree of leaf succulence and degree of leaf sclerophylly were severely affected by water stress in both wheat cultivars. In relation to wheat cultivar, the sensitive was more affected by water stress than the tolerant one. Generally, the application of salicylic acid, trehalose or their interaction induced marked increase in growth vigor of root and shoot, water relations and protein as well as nucleic acids in flag leaves of both wheat cultivars in compare with control and water stressed plants. In conclusion, Sahel-1 has suitable mechanisms to enable it to respond more effectively to water stress than Gemmieza-7

DESIGN, SYNTHESIS AND BIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF SOME NEW SUCCINIMIDE, 2-IMINOTHIAZOLINE AND OXAZINE DERIVATIVES BASED BENZOPYRONE AS ANTICONVULSANT AGENTS

Objective: The objective of the present study was to synthesize novel benzopyrone derivatives with potential and safer anticonvulsant activity.Methods: New benzopyrone derivatives have been synthesized and characterized by spectral and elemental analysis. These compounds tested for anticonvulsant activity using the maximal electroshock (MES) and subcutaneous pentylenetetrazole (scPTZ) screens (phase 1), which are the most widely employed seizure models for early identification of new anticonvulsant agents. Phase 2 including, neurotoxicity screening and quantitative determination of the median effective dose (ED50), median lethal dose (LD50) and protective index (PI) for the active compounds from phase 1.Results: Compound 12b possessed potent anticonvulsant activity with ED50 values of 94.75 and 70.7 mg/kg in the MES and scPTZ screens respectively, and had LD50 value of 2546 mg/kg after intraperitoneal injection to mice, which provide compound 12b with a wide protective index of 26.87 and 36.01 for MES and scPTZ screens respectively compared to the reference drug Phenobarbital with PI of 12.16 and 20.08, respectively. In addition, compound 12b exhibited mild neurotoxicity at the maximum administrated dose (200 mg/kg).Conclusion: Compound 12b possessed broad spectrum activity for the treatment of all types of seizures, with a wide protective index compared to Phenobarbital. Consequently, compound 12b can be selected as a new bio candidate lead for further study.Keywords: Benzopyrone, Succinimide, 2-Iminothiazoline, Oxazine; Anticonvulsant

Modeling Sitagliptin Effect on Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 (DPP4) Activity in Adults with Hematological Malignancies After Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) Hematopoietic Cell Transplant (HCT)

Background and Objectives— Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) inhibition is a potential strategy to increase the engraftment rate of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. A recent clinical trial using sitagliptin, a DPP4 inhibitor approved for type 2 diabetes mellitus, has shown to be a promising approach in adults with hematological malignancies after umbilical cord blood (UCB) hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT). Based on data from this clinical trial, a semi-mechanistic model was developed to simultaneously describe DPP4 activity after multiple doses of sitagliptin in subjects with hematological malignancies after a single-unit UCB HCT. Methods— The clinical study included 24 patients that received myeloablative conditioning followed by 4 oral sitagliptin 600mg with single-unit UCB HCT. Using a nonlinear mixed effects approach, a semi-mechanistic pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model was developed to describe DPP4 activity from this trial data using NONMEM 7.2. The model was used to drive Monte-Carlo simulations to probe various dosage schedules and the attendant DPP4 response. Results— The disposition of sitagliptin in plasma was best described by a 2-compartment model. The relationship between sitagliptin concentration and DPP4 activity was best described by an indirect response model with a negative feedback loop. Simulations showed that twice a day or three times a day dosage schedules were superior to once daily schedule for maximal DPP4 inhibition at the lowest sitagliptin exposure. Conclusion— This study provides the first pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model of sitagliptin in the context of HCT, and provides a valuable tool for exploration of optimal dosing regimens, critical for improving time to engraftment in patients after UCB HCT

Monitoring of pesticide residues in some Egyptian herbs, fruits and vegetables.

Abstract: One hundred thirty two samples of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices collected from Egyptian local markets were analyzed for pesticide residues. Contamination with pesticide residues reached 54.55% while samples free from contamination reached 45.45%. Only one sample from 132 analyzed samples violated the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) of the Codex Committee. From the 132 analyzed samples, 72 samples (54.55%) were contaminated, from which 43.18% contaminated with residues from one pesticide residue, 6.06% with 2 residues and 5.3% with more than 2 residues. In addition, 2 caraway and one fennel samples contained 4 pesticide residues, one sample of marjoram contained 5 pesticide residues and one mint sample contained 6 pesticide residues. Six of the pesticides detected as residues in the analyzed food items were considered to be carcinogens at different levels of assurance