Distribution of Leishmania major zymodemes in relation to populations of Phlebotomus papatasi sand flies

Phlebotomus papatasi (Scopoli) (Diptera: Psychodidae) is the main vector of Leishmania major Yakimoff & Schokhor (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae), the causative agent of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Old World. Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) was extensively used to type different L. major stocks allover the world. Multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) has been recently used to investigate P. papatasi sand flies at population and subpopulation levels. In this article, the association between geographical distribution of L. major zymodemes and the distribution of populations and subpopulations of L. major vector; P. papatasi are discussed

HIV/ AIDS in Palestine: A growing concern

According to the United Nations AIDS reports in 2018, the Middle East and North Africa region is considered an area of increasing concern for HIV infection due to high mortality associated with AIDS. The incidence of HIV/AIDS in Palestine between 1988 and 2017 as reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health was analyzed. A total of 98 cases were reported (79 AIDS patients and 19 HIV positives). A nationwide surveillance is needed to understand the epidemiology of HIV infection in the country. Identification of the HIV risk factors and health outreach directed to the public are essentially crucial prevention measures that should be implemented by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.Funding source None. Acknowledgement Palestinian Ministry of Health and Zamallah Academic Development program sponsored by Taawon Association

Concept of Body Image as Perceived by Students of Al-Quds University

This study aims to identify the concept of body image as perceived by the students of Al-Quds University in Palestine: in the light of sex, school year, college, and residence variables. To achieve the objective of this study, the validity and reliability tool, was used to measure the concept of body image on a sample of about (287) male and female students. The total degree of results showed that the concepts percentage of body image among college students were high, whereas no statistically significant differences were found for all variables of the study. In the light of the study’s results, the researchers recommended a set of recommendations

Epidemiology of Enterobiasis in Palestine

Enteropiasis is a parasitic disease caused by the pinworm; Enterobius vermicularis. In this report, the prevalence of Enterobius vermicularis infection in the West Bank and Gaza strip was investigated based on Palestinian Ministry of Health reports from 2008 to 2018. A total of 29,390 cases was reported, 29,061 (98.9%) in the West Bank, and 329 cases (1.1%) in Gaza Strip. The results of the present study show that E. vermicularis infection is highly prevalent among people living in the West Bank and to lesser extend in Gaza Strip. There is a need for joint and concentrated efforts from the Palestinian government and public health services to control this infection. Personal hygiene, education and living conditions and overcrowding are risk factors associated with the spread of infection

The performance of the vehicular communication-clustering process

For the new wireless systems and beyond, the intelligent transportation system is considered as one of the main features that could be covered in the new research topics. Furthermore, both high-speed data transmission and data processing play a crucial role for these generations. Our work covers two main propositions in order to attain an improvement in such intelligent systems performance. A clustering algorithm is proposed and presented for grouping mobile nodes based on their speeds with some modified head assignments processes. This will be combined with a parallel-processing technique that enhances the QoS. Mainly, this work concerns enhancing the V2V data transmission and the processing speed. Thus, a wavelet processing stage has been imposed to optimize the transmitted power phenomenon. In order to check the validity of such proposition, five main efficiency factors have been investigated; namely complementary cumulative distributions, bit rates, energy efficiency, the lifetime of cluster head and the ordinary nodes reattaching-head average times.

Urogenital Myiasis Caused by Psychoda albipennis in a Female Child in Libya

Urogenital myiasis is a parasitic infestation caused by larvae of Psychoda spp. and it is very rare in humans. A 10- year old female was presented with urogenital myiasis and 4th stage Larvae of Psychoda albipennis (Diptera: Psychodidae) were found in urine. The patient was complained of painful sensation, discomfort and burning while urination. Urinary tract antiseptics were prescribed for the patient and advised to drink plenty of water for hydration. Local health authorities should take proper measures to maintain hygienic conditions for the people under risk

المعوقات التي تواجه طلبة التدريب الميداني في دائرة التربية الرياضية في جامعة القدس من وجهة نظر الطلبة

This study aimed at identifying the main obstacles that face students of practical training course in the athletic Department in Al- Quds University as viewed by students. To achieve the aims of the study, the study was conducted on a sample of 70 students. The study also aimed at knowing the obstacles that the students face due to the variables of sex, academic level and place of the study. The two researchers used a questionnaire of (41) items distributed into 5 dimensions: athletic facilities, schools students, supervision of students field training, school administration, curriculum and program of field training. It has been shown from the study that the obstacles that face practical training students in athlete department in Alquds university based on students views has come with a median of the overall degree (2.87) and a standard deviation (0.63) .This means that the degree of obstacles has come with a median degree. Results showed no differences of statistical significance in all of the dimensions of the study. The dimension of athletic facilities has got the highest mean (3.44) which has reflected a high degree of difficulty. The field training domain came next with a mean of 93.03) reflecting a high degree of difficulty. The total degree of difficulty was (2.87) which reflected a moderate degree of difficulty? Results of the study also showed that there were no significant differences in the obstacles that face students in field training due to the variables of sex, academic level and place of field training. The researchers recommended that there is a need for the provision of sports gyms and other facilities, practical training and to improve the condition of the staff

Improving anti-trypanosomal activity of alkamides isolated from Achillea fragrantissima

In previous studies the aerial parts of Achillea fragrantissima were found to have substantial antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activity. A bioassay-guided fractionation of a dichloromethane extract yielded the isolation of the essential anti-trypanosomal compounds of the plant. Seven sesquiterpene lactones (including Achillolide-A), two flavonoids, chrysosplenol-D and chrysosplenetine, and four alkamides (including pellitorine) were identified. This is the first report for the isolation of the sesquiterpene lactones 3 and 4, chrysosplenetine and the group of alkamides from this plant. Bioevaluation against Trypanosoma brucei brucei TC221 (T.b brucei) using the Alamar-Blue assay revealed the novel alkamide 13 to have an IC50 value of 40.37 μM. A compound library, derived from the alkamide pellitorine (10), was synthesized and bioevaluated in order to find even more active substances. The most active compounds 26 and 27 showed activities in submicromolar concentrations and selectivity indices of 20.1 and 45.6, respectively, towards macrophage cell line J774.1. Toxicity of 26 and 27 was assessed using the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella larvae as an in vivo model. No significant toxicity was observed for the concentration range of 1.25–20 mM.We thank Dr. Ulrich Hildebrandt and Dr. Gerd Vogg, Botanical garden, University of Würzburg, for identifying the seeds and plants of A. fragrantissima. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. August Stich, Medical Mission Institute, University of Würzburg, for providing the respective lab facilities to perform the anti-trypanosomal assay. Many thanks for Dr. Ludwig Hoellein for proof-reading the manuscript. We wish to thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the doctoral scholarship of Joseph Skaf (grant number: 57169181). Srikkanth Balasubramanian was supported by a grant of the German Excellence Initiative to the Graduate School of Life Sciences, University of Würzburg

Robust Vehicular Communications Using the Fast-Frequency-Hopping-OFDM Technology and the MIMO Spatial Multiplexing

Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication is one of the more emerging technologies in the 21st century from either the comfortable transportation or safer transportation point of view. Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication has one crucial factor, which is the huge information to be shared among vehicles, such as the position, the road data. In such situation, the accurate information sharing process is the most important factor in order to make the vehicles operating in the most feasible way. This work proposes a more robust vehicle communication system to make the existing vehicle transportation system more efficient. In this paper, we propose a fast frequency hopping orthogonal frequency division multiplexing to mitigate the Doppler spread effect on our previously published clustering benchmark.  This benchmark contains both of a clustering weighting factor based stage and a multiparallel processing stage. This is in addition to modify the PHY layer of the existing IEEE 802.11p standard in order to impose Multiple Input Multiple Output for higher throughput purposes.The results show a noticeable stability compared to our previously published work. Furthermore, the results are almost exceeds the achieved results from the Lower-ID Distributed Clustering Algorithm (DCA) from both of the speed and communication range

Paracetamol biodegradation by activated sludge and photo-catalysis and its removal by a micelleclay complex, activated charcoal and reverse osmosis membranes

Kinetic studies on the stability of the pain killer paracetamol in Al-Quds activated sludge demonstrated that paracetamol underwent biodegradation within less than one month to furnish p-aminophenol in high yields. Characterizations of bacteria contained in Al-Quds sludge were accomplished. It was found that Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the bacterium most responsible for the biodegradation of paracetamol to p-aminophenol and hydroquinone. Batch adsorptions of paracetamol and its biodegradation product (p-aminophenol) by activated charcoal and a composite micelle (octadecyltrimethylammonium)-clay (montmorillonite) were determined at 25°C. Adsorption was adequately described by a Langmuir isotherm, and indicated better efficiency of removal by the micelle-clay complex. The ability of bench top reverse osmosis (RO) plant as well as advanced membrane pilot plant to remove paracetamol was also studied at different water matrixes to test the effect of organic matter composition. The results showed that at least 90% rejection was obtained by both plants. In addition, removal of paracetamol from RO brine was investigated by using photocatalytic processes; optimal conditions were found to be acidic or basic pH, in which paracetamol degraded in less than 5 min. Toxicity studies indicated that the effluent and brine were not toxic except for using extra low energy membrane which displayed a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC-50) value of 80%