Parameter estimation of electric power transformers using Coyote Optimization Algorithm with experimental verification

In this work, the Coyote Optimization Algorithm (COA) is implemented for estimating the parameters of single and three-phase power transformers. The estimation process is employed on the basis of the manufacturer's operation reports. The COA is assessed with the aid of the deviation between the actual and the estimated parameters as the main objective function. Further, the COA is compared with well-known optimization algorithms i.e. particle swarm and Jaya optimization algorithms. Moreover, experimental verifications are carried out on 4 kVA, 380/380 V, three-phase transformer and 1 kVA, 230/230 V, single-phase transformer. The obtained results prove the effectiveness and capability of the proposed COA. According to the obtained results, COA has the ability and stability to identify the accurate optimal parameters in case of both single phase and three phase transformers; thus accurate performance of the transformers is achieved. The estimated parameters using COA lead to the highest closeness to the experimental measured parameters that realizes the best agreements between the estimated parameters and the actual parameters compared with other optimization algorithms

NIOSOMES VERSUS PRONIOSOMES AS PROMISING DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS IN TREATMENT OF DIABETES MELLITUS

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) has emerged as an epidemic that has affected millions of people globally in the last few decades. Conventional antidiabetic dosage forms have a lot of problems that necessitate searching for novel drug delivery systems to overcome these drawbacks. Niosomes and proniosomes have been used to carry a wide variety of antidiabetic drugs achieving controlled and sustained release, which improves patient compliance. This review article describes the fundamental aspects of niosomes and proniosomes, including their structural components, methods of preparation, advantages and drawbacks, characterization, factors affecting niosomes formation along with their application in the treatment of diabetes. It also highlights the participation of other drug delivery systems in the treatment of diabetes done, mainly in the last decade

EFFECT OF RENNIN INHIBITORS AND ANGIOTENSIN II RECEPTOR ANTAGONISTS ON LEFT VENTRICULAR HYPERTROPHY IN RENOVASCULAR HYPERTENSIVE RATS

Objective: Left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy involves numerous structural adaptations that may lead to ventricular dysfunction and eventually, heart failure. Particular emphasis is placed on the molecular mechanisms that govern the development of hypertrophy and may lead to maladaptive structural changes resulting in adverse cardiac events. This study investigates the effectiveness of Valsartan (Val) which is an angiotensinII receptor antagonist and Aliskiren (Ali) which is a direct rennin inhibitor in the treatment of cardiac remodeling resulted from renovascular hypertension, particularly left ventricular hypertrophy, and to address the molecular mechanisms underlying them.Methods: 24 male albino rats were randomly divided into 4 main groups (n=6 each), normal control rats (N), hypertensive control rats (HC), Val treated hypertensive rats (Val, 8 mg/kg/day orally) and Ali treated hypertensive rats (Ali, 25 mg/kg/day orally).Results: At the end of 4 weeks HC rats showed enhanced hypertrophic response (higher heart weight/body weight ratio) and dyslipidemia (lower high density lipoprotein "HDL-c" and higher triacyl glycerol "TAG") and a significant deletion of antioxidant enzymes in comparison with N group. The β myosin heavy chain "βMHC", regulator of calcineurin-1 "RCAN1", nuclear factor kappa B "NFκB" and inducible nitric oxide synthase "iNOS" was markedly elevated. While, α myosin heavy chain "αMHC" was markedly decreased as compared with N group. On the other hand Val treated hypertensive rats and Ali treated hypertensive rats showed a significant decrease in heart weight/body weight ratio, improved lipogram pattern and higher levels of antioxidant enzymes. While, cardiac β-MHC, RCAN-1, NFκB and iNOS were significantly decreased as compared with HC group. Both Val treated hypertensive rats and Ali treated hypertensive rats showed a significant increase in α-MHC, compared with HC groupConclusion: The results reported in this study suggested that chronic untreated hypertension induced a pathological hypertrophy. Administration of the Val or Ali individually exerted beneficial effects regarding the improved lipogram pattern and anti-oxidant enzymes levels, as well as cardiac hypertrophy and highlights the role of Val and Ali as a promising therapeutic strategy for hypertension and LV hypertrophy.Â

STUDY THE EFFECT OF MYCOPLASMA CONTAMINATION OF EGGS USED IN VIRUS TITRATION AND EFFICACY OF SOME LIVE ATTENUATED POULTRY VIRAL VACCINES

Objective: The study of Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) infection is needed, not only to understand the disease process but also to understand theinterference with the evaluation of some live viral poultry vaccines. This study aims to investigate the titration and potency of some live attenuatedpoultry viral vaccines; Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis, infectious bursal disease, and Reo in both specific pathogen-free (SPF) embryonatedchicken eggs (ECEs) and chickens.Methods: Titration of live attenuated viral poultry vaccines in ECEs was carried out by dividing the inoculated eggs into four groups; the pre-,simultaneously-, post-, and non-MG contaminated. MG effect on the potency test was carried out using seventeen groups of SPF chickens (25 chicken/group) placed into separate isolators. Each live attenuated viral poultry vaccine was inoculated into 4 groups.Results: The highest titer of these vaccines that appeared in MG pre- contaminated ECEs were 1011, 107.5, 107.9, and 10, respectively. The lowest vaccinetiters that appeared in non-MG contaminated ECEs were 108, 106, 106.8, and 1067.5, respectively. Although the potency of these previous vaccines indicated thatthe highest antibodies titer that appeared in MG pre-infected vaccinated chickens were 7.5 log, 36 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay unit (EU), and42 EU, respectively; the lowest antibodies titer that appeared in non-MG infected vaccinated chickens were 6.5 log22, 12 EU, 17 EU, and 10 EU, respectively.Conclusion: The present study findings underline the importance of using Mycoplasma -free eggs or chicken for the production of virus vaccines.Keywords: Mycoplasma gallisepticum, Newcastle disease virus, Infectious bronchitis virus, Infectious bursal disease virus, Reo virus, Chicken, Specificpathogen-free eggs. Keywords: Mycoplasmagallisepticum,Newcastlediseasevirus,Infectiousbronchitisvirus,Infectiousbursaldiseasevirus,Reovirus,Chicken,Specific pathogen-free eggs.Â

SubmergeStyleGAN:Synthetic Underwater Data Generation with Style Transfer for Domain Adaptation

Underwater computer vision applications are challenged by limited access to annotated underwater datasets. Additionally, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained on in-air datasets do not perform well underwater due to the high domain variance caused by the degradation impact of the water column. This paper proposes an air-to-water dataset generator to create visually plausible underwater scenes out of existing in-air datasets. SubmergeStyleGAN, a generative adversarial network (GAN) designed to model attenuation, backscattering, and absorption, utilizes depth maps to apply range-dependent attenuation style transfer. In this work, the generated attenuated images and their corresponding original pairs are used to train an underwater image enhancement CNN. Real underwater datasets were used to validate the proposed approach by assessing various image quality metrics, including UCIQE, UIQM and CCF, as well as disparity estimation accuracy before and after enhancement. SubmergeStyleGAN exhibits a faster and more robust training procedure compared to existing methods in the literature

Niosomas encapsulados en praziquantel contra Schistosoma mansoni con sensibilidad reducida al praziquantel

Introduction: Praziquantel (PZQ) is the only commercially available drug for schistosomiasis. The current shortage of alternative effective drugs and the lack of successful preventive measures enhance its value. The increase in the prevalence of PZQ resistance under sustained drug pressure is, therefore, an upcoming issue. Objectives: To overcome the tolerance to PZQ using nanotechnology after laboratory induction of a Schistosoma mansoni (S. mansoni) isolate with reduced sensitivity to the drug during the intramolluscan phase. Materials and methods: Shedding snails were treated with PZQ doses of 200 mg/kg twice/week, followed by an interval of one week, and then repeated twice in the same manner. The success of inducing reduced sensitivity was confirmed in vitro via the reduction of cercarial response to PZQ regarding their swimming activity and death percentage at different examination times. Results: Oral treatment with a single PZQ dose of 500 mg/kg in mice infected with cercariae with reduced sensitivity to PZQ revealed a non-significant reduction (35.1%) of total worm burden compared to non-treated control mice. Orally inoculated PZQ-encapsulated niosomes against S. mansoni with reduced sensitivity to PZQ successfully regained the pathogen’s sensitivity to PZQ, as evidenced by measuring different parameters in comparison to the non-treated infected animals with parasites with reduced sensitivity to PZQ. The mean total worm load was 1.33 ± 0.52 with a statistically significant reduction of 94.09% and complete eradication of male worms. A remarkable increase in the percentage reduction of tissue egg counts in the liver and intestine (97.68% and 98.56% respectively) was obtained associated with a massive increase in dead eggs and complete absence of immature stages. Conclusion: PZQ-encapsulated niosomes restored the drug sensitivity against laboratory-induced S. mansoni adult worms with reduced sensitivity to PZQ.Introducción. El praziquantel (PZQ) es el único fármaco disponible comercialmente para la esquistosomiasis. La escasez actual de medicamentos alternativos eficaces y la falta de medidas preventivas eficaces aumentan su valor. El aumento de la prevalencia de la resistencia al PZQ bajo una presión prolongada del fármaco es, por tanto, un tema emergente. Objetivos. Superar la tolerancia a PZQ mediante nanotecnología después de la inducción en laboratorio de un aislamiento de Schistosoma mansoni (S. mansoni) con sensibilidad reducida al fármaco durante la fase intramolusca. Material y métodos. Los caracoles que liberaban cercarias se trataron con dosis de PZQ de 200 mg / kg dos veces por semana, seguido de un intervalo de una semana, y luego se repitieron dos veces de la misma manera. El éxito de inducir una sensibilidad reducida se confirmó in vitro mediante la reducción de la respuesta de las cercarias al PZQ con respecto a su actividad de natación y el porcentaje de muerte en diferentes momentos de examen. Resultados. El tratamiento oral con una dosis única de PZQ de 500 mg / kg en ratones infectados con cercarias con sensibilidad reducida a PZQ reveló una reducción no significativa (35,1%) de la carga total de gusanos en comparación con los ratones de control no tratados. Los niosomas encapsulados en PZQ inoculados por vía oral contra S. mansoni con sensibilidad reducida a PZQ permitieron reestablecer con éxito la sensibilidad del patógeno a PZQ, como lo demuestra la medición de diferentes parámetros en comparación con los animales infectados no tratados con parásitos con sensibilidad reducida a PZQ. La carga media total de gusanos fue de 1,33 ± 0,52 con una reducción estadísticamente significativa del 94,09% y la erradicación completa de los gusanos machos adultos. Se obtuvo un aumento notable en el porcentaje de reducción del recuento de huevos en tejido en el hígado y el intestino (97,68% y 98,56% respectivamente) asociado con un aumento masivo de huevos muertos y ausencia total de estadios inmaduros. Conclusión. Los niosomas encapsulados en PZQ restauraron la sensibilidad al fármaco contra gusanos adultos de S. mansoni inducidos en laboratorio con sensibilidad reducida a PZQ

Reservoir Management by Reducing Evaporation Using Floating Photovoltaic System: A Case Study of Lake Nasser, Egypt

Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. The shortage of water is a major obstruction to the social and economic development of many countries, including Egypt. Therefore, there is an urgent need to properly manage water resources to achieve optimum water use. One way of saving available water resources is to reduce evaporation that leads to the loss of a large amount of water from reservoirs and open lakes. This paper aims to use a floating photovoltaic system (FPVS) to cover a lake’s water surface to reduce evaporation and also for energy production. This methodology was applied to Lake Nasser as one of the largest lakes in the world where much evaporation happens due to its large area, arid environments, and the shallow depths of some parts of the lake. The estimated evaporation from the lake was 12.0 × 109 m3/year. The results show that covering 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the lake can save about 2.1, 4.2, 6.3, 7.0, and 8.4 × 109 m3/year and produce energy of 2.85 × 109, 5.67 × 109, 8.54 × 109, and 11.38 × 109 MWh/year, respectively. Covering areas of shallow water depth was more efficient and economical. The results show that covering 15% of the lake’s area (depths from 0.0 to 3.0 m) can save 2.66 × 109 m3/year and produce 1.7 MWh/year. Covering 25% of the lake’s area (depths from 0.0 to 7.0) can save 3.5 × 109 m3/year and produce 2.854 MWh/year. Using an FPVS to cover parts of Lake Nasser could help manage water resources and energy production for Egypt to overcome the likely shortage of water resources due to population growth. This system could be applied in different locations of the world which could help in increasing water resources and energy production, especially in arid and semi-arid regionsThis work was supported by the projects of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic, VEGA 1/0217/19: Research of Hybrid Blue and Green Infrastructure as Active Elements of a Sponge City, VEGA 1/0308/20: Mitigation of hydrological hazards—floods and droughts—by exploring extreme hydroclimatic phenomena in river basins, and the project of the Slovak Research and Development Agency APVV‐18‐0360: Active hybrid infrastructure towards a sponge city

Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Syn and Anti-like Double Warhead Quinolinones Bearing Dihydroxy Naphthalene Moiety as Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Inhibitors with Potential Apoptotic Antiproliferative Action

Our investigation includes the synthesis of new naphthalene-bis-triazole-bis-quinolin-2(1H)-ones 4a–e and 7a–e via Cu-catalyzed [3 + 2] cycloadditions of 4-azidoquinolin-2(1H)-ones 3a–e with 1,5-/or 1,8-bis(prop-2-yn-1-yloxy)naphthalene (2) or (6). All structures of the obtained products have been confirmed with different spectroscopic analyses. Additionally, a mild and versatile method based on copper-catalyzed [3 + 2] cycloaddition (Meldal–Sharpless reaction) was developed to tether quinolinones to O-atoms of 1,5- or 1,8-dinaphthols. The triazolo linkers could be considered as anti and syn products, which are interesting precursors for functionalized epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors with potential apoptotic antiproliferative action. The antiproliferative activities of the 4a–e and 7a–e were evaluated. Compounds 4a–e and 7a–e demonstrated strong antiproliferative activity against the four tested cancer cell lines, with mean GI50 ranging from 34 nM to 134 nM compared to the reference erlotinib, which had a GI50 of 33 nM. The most potent derivatives as antiproliferative agents, compounds 4a, 4b, and 7d, were investigated for their efficacy as EGFR inhibitors, with IC50 values ranging from 64 nM to 97 nM. Compounds 4a, 4b, and 7d demonstrated potent apoptotic effects via their effects on caspases 3, 8, 9, Cytochrome C, Bax, and Bcl2. Finally, docking studies show the relevance of the free amino group of the quinoline moiety for antiproliferative action via hydrogen bond formation with essential amino acids

Glycated albumin and glycated albumin/ glycated haemoglobin ratio decrease with increasing BMI compared to Glycated haemoglobin in Type 2 diabetes patients

Abstract: Background: Obese T2DM patients are more prone to develop accelerated complications which burdens the global health systems with undue expenditure. Glycated haemoglobin (A1c) had been settled as a gold standard glycemic indicator though it's levels must be prudently interpreted in some patients. Glycatedalbumin (GA) as an alternative, intermediate glycemic indicator is gaining much attention. Aim: assessing the correlation of each of glycated albumin and glycated haemoglobin to body mass index (BMI) in T2DM patients Hypothesis: negative correlation existsbetween BMI & glycated albumin. Subjects and methods: Cross sectional study into which 62 participants-aged 25-60 years -who are T2DM on insulin were recruited at Suez Canal University hospital.None of them was smoker or known to be CLD or DKD patient, none was on regular statins, aspirin or metformin. All had normal CBC and albumin indices, they underwent thorough history taking & examination. anthropometric measurements namely body mass index (BMI) were taken.They were grouped into a non-obese group with BMI <25 Kg/m 2 & obese group whose BMI ≥25 Kg/m 2 , each with a sample size of 31 participants. FPG,PPPG, HbA1c, CBC, serum albumin, serum insulin and GA were analyzed.insulin resistance was measured by HOMA-IR. Results: GA was insignificantly lower in obese T2DM compared to non-obese (579.3 µmol/L vs 600.0 µmol/L,p-value = 0.631), while GA/HbA1c ratio was significantly low among obese compared to non-obese. (61.1 vs 66.8, p-value= 0.040). Also GA was insignificantly lower in obese with insulin resistance (615.0 ±177.5 µmol/L) than obese with no insulin resistance (550.0±148.2 µmol/L) and also lower than non-obese with insulin resistance (637.4±153.0 µmol/L).Similarly GA/HbA1c ratio was lower in obese with &without insulin resistance (mean 57.6 ±SD 12.8 & mean 64.1 ±SD 9.0 respectively) compared to GA/HbA1c ratio in non-obese with & without insulin resistance (mean 66.9 ±SD 11.0 & mean 66.7 ±SD 9.1 respectively). Conclusion: This study showed that care to be paid while interpreting GA levels in obese T2DM as GA and GA/HbA1c ratio are lower in this population. [Iman El -Sherif, Mohamed I. Shoeir, Mohamed M. Mohey El Din Awad, Amal Fathy and Seham Ahmed. Glycated albumin and glycated albumin/ glycated haemoglobin ratio decrease with increasing BMI compared to Glycated haemoglobin in Type 2 diabetes patients

First aid for obstetric haemorrhage: the pilot study of the non-pneumatic antishock garment in

Objective To compare the effect of non-pneumatic anti-shock garment (NASG) on blood loss from obstetric haemorrhage with standard management of obstetric haemorrhage. Design Observational study of consecutive obstetric haemorrhage cases before and after introduction of the NASG. Setting Four tertiary care maternity facilities in Egypt. Sample The sample consisted of women with obstetric haemorrhage and signs of shock and the entry criteria were: >750 mL of blood loss and either pulse of >100 beats per minute or systolic blood pressure of <100 mmHg. A total of 158 women were in the preintervention group and 206 in the postintervention group. Methods All the women with haemorrhage meeting the eligibility criteria were treated according to the standard protocol for 4 months (May-August 2004); blood loss was measured and recorded. The NASG was then introduced, and all the women meeting the eligibility criteria were treated according to the standard haemorrhage protocol plus the NASG for 4 months (September-December 2004). Main outcome measures Measured blood loss collected in a closed-end, graduated, plastic, under buttocks collection drape. Results Median measured blood loss in the drape following study entry was 50% lower in those treated with the NASG (250 versus 500 mL, P < 0.001). There was also a non-statistically significant decrease in morbidity and mortality. Conclusions This is the first comparative study of the NASG with a standard obstetric haemorrhage treatment protocol. The NASG shows promise for management of obstetric haemorrhage, particularly in lower resource settings. Larger studies will be needed to determine if the NASG contributes to statistically significant decreases in morbidity and mortality