Can montelukast correct immune dysregulation in preschool children with mild persistent asthma?

Background: Asthma is the most common inflammatory disorder among preschool and school-age children. Regulation of immune cells and their cytokines is essential to control asthma. Montelukast is a leukotriene receptor antagonist that suppresses inflammatory cell proliferation, and reduces cytokines and mediator secretion. Objective: The research team's goal was to study the immunological parameters among mild  asthmatic patients before and after the treatment with Montelukast. Methods: Forty preschool children with mild persistent asthma and twenty healthy, non-allergic children were included in the study. Blood eosinophil count, total IgE, serum IL-4, IL-10, and IL-13 levels were  assessed. T helper (CD3+CD4+) and T regulatory (CD4+CD25+) cell counts were measured using flow cytometry; for mild asthmatics before and after six weeks of treatment with Montelukast and for the control group. Results: Asthmatic children have shown a significant elevation of serum levels of IgE, IL4 and IL13, and also an increase of eosinophils, total lymphocyte T cells and T helper cell count. However; serum levels of IL10 and Treg cell count was lower in asthmatics compared to control. Following six weeks of Montelukast treatment, all immunological parameters improved. There was a significant elevation of serum levels of IL10 and Treg cell count, with a decrease in serum levels of IgE, IL4 and IL13; eosinophil counts, and helper T cells. Conclusion: Montelukast treatment improves the impaired immunological balance of mild asthmatic children through the increase of serum IL-10, T regulatory cell counts that have anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory effects. It also decreases T helper cells and their proinflammatory cytokines

Efficacy and Safety of Artemether in the Treatment of Chronic Fascioliasis in Egypt: Exploratory Phase-2 Trials

Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica are two liver flukes that parasitize herbivorous large size mammals (e.g., sheep and cattle), as well as humans. A single drug is available to treat infections with Fasciola flukes, namely, triclabendazole. Recently, laboratory studies and clinical trials in sheep and humans suffering from acute fascioliasis have shown that artesunate and artemether (drugs that are widely used against malaria) also show activity against fascioliasis. Hence, we were motivated to assess the efficacy and safety of oral artemether in patients with chronic Fasciola infections. The study was carried out in Egypt and artemether administered according to two different malaria treatment regimens. Cure rates observed with 6×80 mg and 3×200 mg artemether were 35% and 6%, respectively. In addition, high efficacy was observed when triclabendazole, the current drug of choice against human fascioliasis, was administered to patients remaining Fasciola positive following artemether treatment. Concluding, monotherapy with artemether does not represent an alternative to triclabendazole against fascioliasis, but its role in combination chemotherapy regimen remains to be investigated

You Reap What You Plant: Social Networks in the Arab World – The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

The aim of this paper is threefold. First, to describe the general evolution of bonding and bridging social capital in Jordan. Second, to explore the role of state policies in affecting the various forms of social capital. Finally, to analyze how poverty and economic reform influence the extent and nature of social capital. Social networks, a crucial element of social capital, and cleavages are strongly affected by political and economic dislocations. The former include wars and civil wars, while the latter include state policies and economic conditions. Thus wasta, an old but still significant form of social capital in the Arab World, becomes helpful in good times but destructive in bad times. Successful economic reform requires a good understanding of the nature of social relations and of the ways in which social networks themselves are used by members during good times and bad times for both survival and advancement

Forms of address in Jordanian Arabic with some additional references to speech fellowships

The thesis is primarily concerned with the investigation, within a socio-linguistic framework, of linguistic forms of address regularly observed in Jordanian Speech, having regard particularly to the status and role-relations of interlocutors. The linguistic characteristics of such relations are stated in lexical, grammatical and phonological terms and some attention is paid to interrelationships obtaining between these levels. In addition, a specification is given of important linguistic features characterizing Jordanian speech fellowships and a statement made as to variation in forts of address according to the speech fellowships of interlocutors

Server Virtualization: Para- and Full Virtualization: XenServer vs. KVM

The purpose of this thesis was to implement testing environment through building bare metal Citrix XenServer and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisors and create one virtual machine on each hypervisor to examine the performance of full virtualization and paravirtualization technologies. A seven-year-old tower server Fujitsu Primergy TX150 S8 with Xeon E5-2407 2.2 GHz processor, 16 GB RAM, 145 GB hard drive and one 1 Gb NIC was used to host hypervisors. Different virtual machine managers were introduced and discussed. After virtual machines creation, Phoronix test suite program was used to test processors and memory performance, while iPerf software was used for network performance tests. Performance test results were collected and analyzed. Citrix XenServer virtual machine results showed better performance scores than KVM results. In conclusion, the results proved that full virtualization performance is slower than paravirtualization performance. Although the bare metal hypervisors were built successfully and reflected good performance, it is not recommended to seek only free, used and old technology solutions, because much time would be wasted on deploying and maintaining the system. This project is suitable for IT learners and small companies’ internal operations

حسابات ثوابت الاستقرار لمتراكبات اللنثانيدات مع الآزو- بيتا- داي كيتونات

The stability constants of the complexes between the trivalent lanthanide series of cations and series of azo-B-diketone ligands are reported. The measurements were conducted at 30°C and zero ionic strength (free KN03), in 100 % methanol. The relation between the overall stability constant (Log B;) and atomic number of lanthanide elements, shows a gadolinium-break. The relation between (Log Bz) and the basicity of the studied ligands ( 2 pKi + pKz) are, also discussed. The overall stability values obtained reflected a great affinity of the organic ligands for chelation with lanthanide ions.‏‏ قد ورث ثوابت الاستقرار لمتراكبات كاتيونات اللنثانيدات الثلاثية مع بعض ليجاندات الآزو - بيتا - داي كيتون . واجريت القياسات عند ٣٠ ‏م وعند تركيز ايوني مقداره صفر باستخدام ١٠٠٠ ‏% ميثانول . وقد اظهرت العلاقة بين محصلة ثابت الاستقرار ‏ (loj B2) وبين الاعداد الذرية للنثانيدات منطقة منظمة عند الجاد ولينيوم . كما نوقشت العلاقة بين (loj B2) وقاعديه الليجاندات المدروسة وشرحت قيم ثوابت الاتزان . وقد اظهرت الدراسة من خلال حساب قيم ثوابت الاستقرار القابلية الكبيرة لليجاندات المستخدمة لتكوين متراكبات مع ايونات اللنثانيدات