Assessment of the distal runoff in patients with long standing diabetes mellitus and lower limb ischemia: MDCTA versus DSA

AbstractObjectiveThe purpose of our study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of multidetector computed tomography angiography (MDCTA) in comparison with digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in patients with long standing diabetes mellitus and chronic lower limb ischemia.Subjects and methodsOne hundred patients with long standing DM and chronic limb ischemia underwent both CT angiography and DSA. The distal runoff of each lower limb was divided into 13 arterial segments. The status of each segment was graded as: 1, (normal or less than 10% stenosis); 2, (10–49% stenosis); 3, (50–99% stenosis); 4, occlusion. The effect of calcification on the diagnostic accuracy of CT angiography was evaluated. CTA findings were compared with DSA findings for each arterial segment. The sensitivity and specificity of CT angiography were determined using DSA as the gold standard.ResultsA total of 100 patients were included (mean age, 58years; 70% men). The sensitivity and specificity of CT angiography were significantly affected by the degree of vessel wall calcification, and increase the need for additional imaging.ConclusionVessel wall calcifications decrease the diagnostic accuracy of CT angiography in patients with long standing DM and peripheral arterial disease

Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum in camels recently imported to Egypt from Sudan and a global systematic review.

INTRODUCTION Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum are closely related intracellular protozoan parasites of medical and veterinary concern by causing abortions and systemic illness. Limited or ambiguous data on the prevalence of T. gondii and N. caninum in camels triggered us to conduct this study. METHODS Camels (n = 460) recently imported from Sudan and destined mainly for human consumption, were tested for specific antibodies against these protozoans using commercially available ELISAs. From the two only quarantine stations for camels from Sudan, 368 camels were sampled between November 2015 and March 2016 in Shalateen, Red Sea governorate, and 92 samples were collected between September 2018 and March 2021 from Abu Simbel, Aswan governorate. RESULTS & DISCUSSION Overall, seropositive rates in camels were 25.7%, 3.9% and 0.8% for T. gondii, N. caninum and mixed infection, respectively. However, marked differences were found between the two study sites and/or the two sampling periods: For T. gondii, a higher rate of infection was recorded in the Red Sea samples (31.5%, 116/368; odds ratio 20.7, 5.0-85.6; P<0.0001) than in those collected in Aswan (2.2%, 2/92). The opposite was found for N. caninum with a lower rate of infection in the Red Sea samples (0.82%, 3/368; odds ratio 23.7, 6.7-83.9; P<0.0001) than in the samples from Aswan (16.3%, 15/92). Additionally, our systematic review revealed that the overall published seroprevalence of T. gondii and N. caninum was 28.6% and 14.3% in camels worldwide, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first record of seroprevalence of both T. gondii and N. caninum in recently imported camels kept under quarantine conditions before delivery to other Egyptian cities and regions. In addition, our review provides inclusive data on the prevalence of T. gondii and N. caninum in camel globally. This knowledge provides basic data for the implementation of strategies and control measures against neosporosis and toxoplasmosis

A new monoterpene glucoside and complete assignments of dihydroflavonols of <i>Pulicaria jaubertii</i>: potential cytotoxic and blood pressure lowering activity

<p>One new monoterpene glucoside and five dihydroflavonols were isolated for the first time from the aerial parts of <i>Pulicaria jaubertii</i> and identified as <i>p</i>-menthane-2-<i>O</i>-<i>β</i>-D-glucopyranoside [<b>1</b>], dihydroquercetin (taxifolin) [<b>2</b>], 7,3′-di-<i>O</i>-methyltaxifolin [<b>3</b>], 3′-<i>O</i>-methyltaxifolin [<b>4</b>], 7-<i>O</i>-methyltaxifolin (padmatin) [<b>5</b>] and 7-<i>O</i>-methyl-dihydrokampferol (7-<i>O</i>-methylaromadenderin) [<b>6</b>]. The structures of these compounds were unambiguously assigned on the basis of NMR spectroscopic data (¹H, ¹³C, DEPT, HSQC, HMBC) and MS analysis. 2D-NMR methods required revision of assignments of H-6 and H-8 for dihydroflavonol compounds. Possible cytotoxic activity as well as blood pressure (BP) lowering activity were tested. The alcoholic extract showed cytotoxic activity against prostate carcinoma (PC-3), breast carcinoma (MCF-7) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG-2) human cell lines with IC₅₀ 19.1, 20.0 and 24.1 μg, respectively. The higher dose levels of the alcoholic extract significantly reduced normal BP of rats in a dose-dependent manner.</p

Sexual dysfunction in Egyptian patients with migraine

Abstract Background Migraine is believed to affect over 20% of people at some point in their lives. The presence of sexual dysfunction in migraine sufferers can cause lack of self-confidence and divorces. The aim of this work is to study sexual dysfunction in migraine headache patients. Methods The study was carried out at Tanta University Hospital. The study included married patients who visited our hospital clinic and have had episodic or chronic migraine headaches and another group of age and sex matched healthy subjects will be recurited as a control group. Our interview includes questions for disease duration, severity and frequency of headache attacks and attack duration. questionnaire. the Arabic Version of the Migraine Disability Assessment Scale and Beck depression inventory. Sexual function will be evaluated by an Arabic version of Arizona sexual experience scale. Results The ASEX score showed high significant changes between migraine patients and healthy subjects. These changes were reconfirmed when comparing male patients to healthy subjects or female patients to healthy subjects.Despite there was no significant difference regarding total ASEX score between bot male and female patients with migraine there was significant differences in the items of derive, erection/lubrication and satisfaction between them. In patients with migraine the total ASEX score was correlated with the MIDAS, Beck depression inventory, Beck anxiety inventory; but not with the age of patients or headache duration. Conclusions Sexual dysfunction is a common finding in migrine patients which is poorly evaluted in the clinical sitting

Nonlinear Dynamic Model for Parameter Estimation of Li-Ion Batteries Using Supply&ndash;Demand Algorithm

The parameter extraction of parameters for Li-ion batteries is regarded as a critical topic for assessing the performance of battery energy storage systems (BESSs). The supply&ndash;demand algorithm (SDA) is used in this work to identify a storage system&rsquo;s unknown parameters. The parameter-extracting procedure is represented as a nonlinear optimization task in which the state of charge (SOC) is approximated using nonlinear features related to the battery current and the initial SOC condition. Furthermore, the open-circuit voltage is approximated using the resulting SOC, which is performed in a nonlinear formula, as well. When used in the dynamic nonlinear BESS model, the SDA was used to verify the fitness values and standard deviation error. Furthermore, the results that were acquired using SDA are compared to recently developed approaches, which are the gradient-based, tuna swarm, jellyfish, heap-based, and forensic-based optimizers. Simulated studies were paired with experiments for the 40 Ah Kokam Li-ion battery and the ARTEMIS driving-cycle pattern. The numerical outcomes showed that the proposed SDA is an approach which is excellent at identifying the parameters. Furthermore, when compared to the other current optimization techniques, for both the Kokam Li-ion batteries and the ARTEMIS drive-cycle pattern, the suggested SDA exhibited substantial precision

Nonlinear Dynamic Model for Parameter Estimation of Li-Ion Batteries Using Supply–Demand Algorithm

The parameter extraction of parameters for Li-ion batteries is regarded as a critical topic for assessing the performance of battery energy storage systems (BESSs). The supply–demand algorithm (SDA) is used in this work to identify a storage system’s unknown parameters. The parameter-extracting procedure is represented as a nonlinear optimization task in which the state of charge (SOC) is approximated using nonlinear features related to the battery current and the initial SOC condition. Furthermore, the open-circuit voltage is approximated using the resulting SOC, which is performed in a nonlinear formula, as well. When used in the dynamic nonlinear BESS model, the SDA was used to verify the fitness values and standard deviation error. Furthermore, the results that were acquired using SDA are compared to recently developed approaches, which are the gradient-based, tuna swarm, jellyfish, heap-based, and forensic-based optimizers. Simulated studies were paired with experiments for the 40 Ah Kokam Li-ion battery and the ARTEMIS driving-cycle pattern. The numerical outcomes showed that the proposed SDA is an approach which is excellent at identifying the parameters. Furthermore, when compared to the other current optimization techniques, for both the Kokam Li-ion batteries and the ARTEMIS drive-cycle pattern, the suggested SDA exhibited substantial precision

Improving Distribution Networks&#x2019; Consistency by Optimal Distribution System Reconfiguration and Distributed Generations

This paper presents an Enhanced Marine Predators Algorithm (EMPA) for simultaneous optimal distribution system reconfigurations (DSRs) and distributed generations (DGs) addition. The proposed EMPA recognizes the changes opportunity in environmental and climatic conditions. The EMPA handles a multi-objective model to minimize the power losses and enhance the voltage stability index (VSI) at different loading levels. The proposed EMPA is performed on IEEE 33-bus and large-scale 137-bus distribution systems (DSs) where three distinct loading conditions are beheld through light, nominal and heavy levels. For the 33-bus DS, the proposed EMPA successfully reduces the cumulative losses by 72.4&#x0025; compared to 70.36&#x0025; for MPA for the three-loading levels simultaneously. As a result, significant voltage improvement is achieved for heavy, nominal and light loadings to be 95.05, 97, 98.3&#x0025;, respectively. For the 137-bus DS, it successfully minimizes the losses of 81.16&#x0025; under small standard deviation 4.76&#x0025;. Also, the 83-bus test system is considered for fair comparative between the proposed and previous techniques. The simulation outputs revealed significant improvements in the standard MPA and demonstrated the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed EMPA compared to other reported results by recent algorithms for DSRs associated with DGs integration

A Novel Heap-Based Optimizer for Scheduling of Large-Scale Combined Heat and Power Economic Dispatch

Cogeneration systems economic dispatch (CSED) provides an optimal scheduling of heat/ power generating units. The CSED aims to minimize the whole fuel cost (WFC) of the cogeneration units taking into consideration their technical and operational limits. Then, the current paper examines the first implementation of dominant bio-inspired metaheuristic called heap-based optimization algorithm (HBOA). The HBOA is powered by an adaptive penalty functions for getting the optimal operating points. The HBOA is inspired from the organization hierarchy, where the mechanism consists of the interaction among the subordinates and their immediate boss, the interaction among the colleagues, and the employee&#x2019;s self-contribution. Based on the infeasible solutions&#x2019; remoteness from the nearest feasible point, HBOA penalizes them with various degrees. Four case studies of the CSED are implemented and analyzed, which comprise of 4, 24, 84 and 96 generating units. The HBOA is proposed to solve CSED problem with consideration of transmission losses and the valve point impacts. An investigation with the recent optimization algorithms, which are supply demand optimization (SDO), jellyfish search optimization algorithm (JFSOA), and marine predators&#x2019; optimization algorithm (MPOA), the improved MPOA (IMPOA) and manta ray foraging (MRF), is developed and elaborated. From the obtained results, it is clearly observed that the optimal solutions gained, in terms of WFC, reveal the feasibility, capability, and efficiency of HBOA compared with other optimizers especially for large-scale systems. cas

Prediction Model of Cutting Parameters for Turning High Strength Steel Grade-H: Comparative Study of Regression Model versus ANFIS

The Grade-H high strength steel is used in the manufacturing of many civilian and military products. The procedures of manufacturing these parts have several turning operations. The key factors for the manufacturing of these parts are the accuracy, surface roughness (Ra), and material removal rate (MRR). The production line of these parts contains many CNC turning machines to get good accuracy and repeatability. The manufacturing engineer should fulfill the required surface roughness value according to the design drawing from first trail (otherwise these parts will be rejected) as well as keeping his eye on maximum metal removal rate. The rejection of these parts at any processing stage will represent huge problems to any factory because the processing and raw material of these parts are very expensive. In this paper the artificial neural network was used for predicting the surface roughness for different cutting parameters in CNC turning operations. These parameters were investigated to get the minimum surface roughness. In addition, a mathematical model for surface roughness was obtained from the experimental data using a regression analysis method. The experimental data are then compared with both the regression analysis results and ANFIS (Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System) estimations

Phytoconstituents of two <i>Gleditsia</i> L. species and cytotoxic activity of the isolated curcumin analogues

Methanolic extracts of Gleditsia triacanthos L. fruits and Gleditsia caspica Desf. leaves yielded two mono-carbonyl curcumin analogues; (1E,4E)-1,5-bis(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)penta-1,4-dien-3-one [1], (1E,4E)-1,5-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)penta-1,4-dien-3-one [2], in addition to β-sitosterol [3], apigenin [4], quercetin-3`-O-methyl ether [5], rutin [6], quercetin [7], naringenin [8], eriodictyol [9], vitexin [10], isovitexin [11], gleditsin A [12]. The isolation of these compounds was reported here for the first time from the named plants. The separation and identification of curcumin analogues from genus Gleditsia in addition to 13C NMR data of compound 2 were reported here for the first time. Compounds 1 and 2 were assayed in two hepatic cancer cells; HepG-2 and Huh-7. Compound 1 showed high cytotoxic activity against HepG-2 with an IC50 value of 14.39 µM, compared with the standard, IC50 = 12.44 μM.</p