Classification of Periodontal Diseases – Old is Gold or New is Bold? A Survey Study in Egypt

Background: A consensus was reached for a new classification system for periodontal and peri-implant diseases and conditions and was proposed by a group of world experts in 2017. Since then, there have been ongoing debates among periodontists regarding the application of the new classification. This study aims to shed light on the current understanding of the new classification among Egyptian periodontists. Methods: This cross-sectional survey study was performed using an anonymous manually distributed questionnaire in various universities in Egypt. The validated questionnaire included 15 questions – 13 multiple choice questions with a Likert scale and two open ended questions, in addition to demographic data of the participant. Qualitative data were presented as frequencies and percentages, and binary and ordinal logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: The clarity of the new classification was the only significant predictor for satisfaction. An increase in clarity scores was directly associated with an increase in satisfaction scores (odds ratio = 5.521, 95% CI = 2.198 – 8.844, P-value = 0.001). Only 24.2% of the participants actually applied the new classification. There was a high approval rate on the introduction of “health on reduced periodontium” and the classification of peri-implant conditions. However, there was a huge dissatisfaction with applying the staging and grading system as well as the omission of aggressive periodontitis. Conclusions: This survey has identified important gaps between theory and practice and bridging these gaps by revising the controversial points would help develop a clearer, simpler system for clinicians to improve patients’ oral health

Hadron Production in Neutrino-Nucleon Interactions at High Energies

The multi-particle production at high energy neutrino- nucleon collisions are investigated through the analysis of the data of the experiment CERN-WA-025 at neutrino energy less than 260GeV and the experiments FNAL-616 and FNAL-701 at energy range 120-250 GeV. The general features of these experiments are used as base to build a hypothetical model that views the reaction by a Feynman diagram of two vertices. The first of which concerns the weak interaction between the neutrino and the quark constituents of the nucleon. At the second vertex, a strong color field is assumed to play the role of particle production, which depend on the momentum transferred from the first vertex. The wave function of the nucleon quarks are determined using the variation method and relevant boundary conditions are applied to calculate the deep inelastic cross sections of the virtual diagram.Comment: 6 pages PDF forma

Biostimulation and reproductive performance of artificially inseminated rabbit does (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

[EN] Biostimulation is a non-hormonal and practical technique that has not yet been widely utilised when applied immediately before insemination to improve reproductive efficiency in livestock species. This study was conducted to determine the influence of short-term male biostimulation on behavioural and reproductive performance of inseminated rabbit does. A total of 142 female New Zealand White rabbits were randomly assigned to 3 groups. Females were either exposed to male odour (Odour group) or an adult aproned male (Male group), while the remaining does that were neither exposed to the male odour nor the adult male are considered the control group. All females were inseminated after the 2 h exposure session. Conception rates were determined by abdominal palpation 12 d after insemination. The results showed that conception rate of the male odour group (79.59%) was greater than that of male presence group (76.09%) and that of the control group (68.09%). Moreover, biostimulated does showed significant behavioural activities during the 2 h exposure session compared to the control group. Although no significant differences were recognised, litter size at birth and at weaning was slightly increased in biostimulated compared to control females. Nor were there any significant difference in serum oestradiol concentrations between treated groups. Conclusively, short-term 2 h biostimulation of rabbit does resulted in the appearance of various behavioural responses followed by differences in conception rates between groups after routine artificial insemination.El-Azzazi, FE.; Hegab, IM.; Hanafy, AM. (2017). Biostimulation and reproductive performance of artificially inseminated rabbit does (Oryctolagus cuniculus). World Rabbit Science. 25(4):313-321. doi:10.4995/wrs.2017.7446SWORD31332125

Surgical treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis: single-centre experience from Saudi Arabia

Aim The aim of this study was to investigate our indications of laparotomy, surgical procedures and their results, and to compare our results with those of others. In necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), indications of surgery, surgical strategy and results vary.Materials and methods This study was conducted at the regional tertiary care referral centre. The study design was a retrospective one. Case records of 24  patients with advanced NEC who underwent laparotomy over a 7-year period were analysed. Demographic data, clinical features, laboratory and skiagram findings,  indication for surgery, operative findings, procedures performed, immediate surgery-related complications and postoperative survival were studied.Results The mean age was 20.29 days (range = 3–82 days). The mean birth weight was 1810.5 g (range = 660–3000 g). Seventy-five percent of babies were premature. Indications of surgery were as follows: pneumoperitoneum (16), failure to improve with adequate medical treatment (three), abdominal tenderness and rigidity (two), abdominal wall oedema and erythema (two), and acute intestinal obstruction (one). Peritoneal drainage was carried out in five patients, of whom two (40%) survived after laparotomy. Thirteen (54.17%) patients had focal, nine (37.5%)  multifocal and two (8.33%) had panintestinal NEC. Six patients underwent resection anastomosis (RA) and 16 underwent enterostomy. Surgery-related complications occurred in six patients. The overall mortality was eight (33.33%). Two (33.33%) of the six RA patients, four (25%) of 16 stoma patients and two (100%) with  corporation panintestinal disease died.Conclusion The most common indication for laparotomy in NEC was  pneumoperitoneum. We performed laparotomy in drain-managed patients when  stable; 40% of such patients survived. We preferred gangrene resection and enterostomy to RA. Mortality and morbidity in the RA group were higher than that in the stoma group; dead RA patients had multifocal disease. Survival rate of  laparotomy-NEC patients (66.66%) was comparable to that of other centres.Keywords: enterostomy in necrotizing enterocolitis, laparotomy in necrotizing enterocolitis, resection and anastomosis in necrotizing enterocolitis, survival in surgical-necrotizing enterocolitis, surgical necrotising enterocoliti

On the Assessment of Surface Quality and Productivity Aspects in Precision Hard Turning of AISI 4340 Steel Alloy: Relative Performance of Wiper vs. Conventional Inserts

This article reports an experimental assessment of surface quality generated in the precision turning of AISI 4340 steel alloy using conventional round and wiper nose inserts for different cutting conditions. A three-factor (each at 4 levels) full factorial design of experiment was followed for feed rate, cutting speed, and depth of cut, with resulting machined surface quality characterized by resulting average roughness (Ra). The results show that, for the provided range of cutting conditions, lower surface roughness values were obtained using wiper inserts compared with conventional inserts, indicating a superior performance. When including the type of insert as a qualitative factor, ANOVA revealed that the type of insert was most important in determining surface roughness and material removal rate, with feed rate as the second most significant, followed by the interaction of feed rate and type of insert. It was found that using wiper inserts allowed simultaneous increases in feed rate, cutting speed, and depth of cut, while providing better surface quality of lower Ra, compared to the global minimum value that could be achieved using the conventional insert. These findings show that wiper inserts produce better surface quality and a material removal rate up to ten times higher than that obtained with conventional inserts. This clearly indicates the tremendous advantages of high surface quality and productivity that wiper inserts can offer when compared with the conventional round nose type in precision hard turning of AISI 4340 alloy steel

Isolation and phytotoxicity of an active fraction and its pure compound (gallic acid) from sun spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia L.) against harmful weeds

An active fraction (F5) and its derived pure compound (gallic acid) were extracted from aerial parts of sun spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia). Gallic acid was chromatographically isolated and identified based on spectroscopic analysis 1H and 13C NMR. To investigate the phytotoxicity of F5 (0.1%) and gallic acid (0.001%), their effects were studied against 18 test weeds. In this study, we evaluated the alterations in germination percentage (G%) and speed (GS) as well as seedling length (SL), fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW). Also, the change in total phenolic content (TPC) and lipid peroxidation in response to treatment were measured. Our results showed variation in the phytotoxic effect of F5 and gallic acid depending upon weed species. Significant reduction of germination and seedling growth by F5 and gallic acid treatment was common for most of weeds and F5 was more toxic than gallic acid. All weed species accumulated polyphenols as a defence system, but it was not enough to prevent plant damage (lipid peroxidation). We concluded that using weed derived phytotoxic fractions (e.g., F5) and pure compounds (e.g., gallic acid) could play an effective role for weed control instead of using harmful chemical herbicides

A novel fabrication approach for multifunctional graphene-based thin film nano-composite membranes with enhanced desalination and antibacterial characteristics

A practical fabrication technique is presented to tackle the trade-off between the water flux and salt rejection of thin film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes through controlled creation of a thinner active selective polyamide (PA) layer. The new thin film nano-composite (TFNC) RO membranes were synthesized with multifunctional poly tannic acid-functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets (pTA-f-GO) embedded in its PA thin active layer, which is produced through interfacial polymerization. The incorporation of pTA-f-GOL into the fabricated TFNC membranes resulted in a thinner PA layer with lower roughness and higher hydrophilicity compared to pristine membrane. These properties enhanced both the membrane water flux (improved by 40%) and salt rejection (increased by 8%) of the TFNC membrane. Furthermore, the incorporation of biocidal pTA-f-GO nanosheets into the PA active layer contributed to improving the antibacterial properties by 80%, compared to pristine membrane. The fabrication of the pTA-f-GO nanosheets embedded in the PA layer presented in this study is a very practical, scalable and generic process that can potentially be applied in different types of separation membranes resulting in less energy consumption, increased cost-efficiency and improved performance.Hanaa M. Hegab, Ahmed ElMekawy, Thomas G. Barclay, Andrew Michelmore, Linda Zou, Dusan Losic, Christopher P. Saint and Milena Ginic-Markovi

Towards an Adaptive Design of Quality, Productivity and Economic Aspects When Machining AISI 4340 Steel With Wiper Inserts

The continuous pursue of sustainable manufacturing is motivating the utilization of new advanced technology, especially for hard to cut materials. In this study, an adaptive approach for optimization of machining process of AISI 4340 using wiper inserts is proposed. This approach is based on advance yet intuitive modeling and optimization techniques. The approach is based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA), as well as Linear Programming Techniques for Multidimensional Analysis of Preference (LINMAP), for modeling, optimization and multi-criteria decision making respectively. This integrated approach, to best of the authors’ knowledge, has been deployed for the first time to adaptively serve different designs of manufacturing processes. Such designs have different orientations, namely cost, quality, productivity, and balanced orientation. The capability of the proposed approach to serving such diverse requirements answers one of the most accelerating demands in the manufacturing community due to the dynamics of the uprising smart production lines. Besides, the proposed approach is presented in a straightforward manner that can be extended easily to other design orientations as well as other engineering applications. Based on the proposed design, a balanced general setting of 197.4 m/min, 0.95 mm, and 0.168 mm/rev was recommended along with other settings for more sophisticated requirements. Confirmatory experiments showed a good agreement (i.e., no more than 7% deviation) with the predicted optimum responses. This shows the validity of the proposed approach as a viable tool for designers to promote holistic and sustainable process design

Geological and Geotechnical Assessment of Gabal Ataqa Dolostones, for Pavement Construction in Egypt

Aggregate is a collective term for the mineral materials such as sand, gravel and crushed stone. By weight, aggregate generally occupies about 92-96 percent of the hot mix asphalt (HMA), and about 79-85 percent of the Portland cement concrete (PCC). Aggregate is also used for Base and Sub-base courses for both flexible and rigid pavements. This research aims to investigate the geological and geotechnical properties of Gabal Ataqa dolostone for pavement construction projects in Egypt. A total of six dolomite microfacies were recognized and classified according to the dolomite rock classification. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that Ataqa dolostones consist mainly of dolomite (89.79%) and calcite (7.74%), while quartz (2.3 %) and halite (0.18 %) were found in small amounts in some samples. Generally Ataqa dolostone is around stoichiometric (50.96%), and may belong to dolomite of late diagentic coarse crystalline dolomite. The chemical investigation showed that the major elements of the investigated dolostone rocks are SiO2 (1.72 %); CaO (32.03%), MgO (19.18%), Fe2O3 (0.22 %), Na2O (0.11%), and Al2O3 (0.05%) while the loss on ignition is about (46.19 %.). The trace elements consist of strontium (116 ppm), barium (14.0 ppm); and very low amount of zirconium (3 ppm). Petrographic, chemical, mineralogical, and compressive strength of Ataqa dolostone rocks beside, geotechnical properties of the produced coarse aggregates were investigated. Los Angeles abrasion, apparent specific gravity, water absorption, disintegration, and stripping were evaluated. The results of the conducted testing indicate that Ataqa dolostone rocks are suitable for road construction and concrete industry.

Inclusive production of charged pions in p+C collisions at 158 GeV/c beam momentum

The production of charged pions in minimum bias p+C interactions is studied using a sample of 377000 inelastic events obtained with the NA49 detector at the CERN SPS at 158 GeV/c beam momentum. The data cover a phase space area ranging from 0 to 1.8 GeV/c in transverse momentum and from -0.1 to 0.5 in Feynman x. Inclusive invariant cross sections are given on a grid of 270 bins per charge thus offering for the first time a dense coverage of the projectile hemisphere and of the cross-over region into the target fragmentation zone.Comment: 31 pages, 30 figures, submitted to European Journal of Physic