Evaluation of cactus cladodes as a partial feed for growing rabbits in the Gaza Strip

To evaluate use of cactus Opuntia cladodes (COC) under unavoidable conditions as a partial feed on the growth performance, organs and carcass weights of growing rabbits under small scale growth conditions. The study design was a case-control. It was carried out on the local weaned rabbits (n= 48), aged 35-40 days and average initial live weights was about 550 g. The period of study was 8 weeks. The rabbits were classified randomly to four different groups. One was a control group and the others were case groups. The control group (C) was fed ad libitum on only high protein pellets, which is commercially called Anber (RPA). Case groups were labeled trial 1 (T1), trail 2 (T2), and trial 3 (T3) and were fed ad-libitum COC and 80%, 60% and 40% RPA, respectively. The actual nutrient contents of the two feeds were examined in Al-Azhar University food analysis labs. SPSS system was used to analyze data

Charge-Transfer Reaction of Cediranib with 2,3-Dichloro- 3,5-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone: Spectrophotometric Investigation and Use in Development of Microwell Assay for Cediranib

Purpose: To investigate the charge-transfer (CT) reaction between cediranib (CRB) and 2, 3 - dichloro-5, 6- dicyano -1, 4 - benzoquinone (DDQ) and employment of the reaction as a basis for the development of a novel 96 - microwell spectrophotometric assay for CRB.Method: The reaction of CRB and DDQ was investigated in different solvents of varying dielectric constant and polarity index The reaction resulted in the formation of a red-colored product. Spectrophotometric investigations confirmed that the reaction proceeded through to the formation of a (CT) complex.Results: The molar absorptivity of the CT complex was linearly correlated with the dielectric constant and polarity index of the solvent; the correlation coefficients were 0.801 and 0.858, respectively. The association constant of the complex was 0.5 × 103 L mol−1 in 2-propanol. The reaction conditions were optimized for the development of the microwell assay for CRB. The assay limits of detection and quantitation were 6.8 and 20.6 μg/well, respectively. The assay was validated as per the guidelines of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) and successfully applied to the analysis of CRB in its bulk and dosage forms with good accuracy and precision.Conclusion: The developed assay has high throughput and consumed minimum volume of organic solvent; thus, it reduces the exposure of the analysts to the toxic effects of organic solvents, and should significantly lower the analysis cost.Keywords: Cediranib, 2,3-dichloro-3,5-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone, Charge-transfer reaction, Spectrophotometry, Microwell assay, High throughput analysis

Protective effects of Vitamin E on CCl₄-induced testicular toxicity in male rats

The increased generation of free radicals plays an important role in testicular damage. The present study aimed to investigate the adverse effects of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) on the reproductive system of male rats as well as to examine whether Vitamin E (VE) is able to ameliorate these effects. The rats were equally divided into three groups: control, CCl4-treated, and CCl4 + VE-treated groups. After 4 weeks of treatment, the decrease in body and testes weights, sperm parameters, and the decrease in serum levels of testosterone, luteinizing hormone, and follicle-stimulating hormone of CCl4-treated rats were ameliorated by VE treatment. The co-administration of VE with CCl4 significantly decreased the level of lipid peroxidation production (malondialdehyde) and increased the activity of anti-oxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and catalase) when compared with the CCl4 group. Moreover, VE prevented CCl4-induced severe testicular histopathological lesions and deformities in spermatogenesis. The results demonstrate that VE augments the anti-oxidants’ defense mechanism against CCl4-induced reproductive toxicity suggesting a therapeutic role in free radical-mediated infertility

Safety and immunogenicity of an autoclaved Leishmania major vaccine

Objective: To test the safety and immunogenicity of two doses of autoclaved L.major (ALM) vaccine mixed with BCG.Setting: Kala-azar endemic area of eastern Sudan.Design: This was a randomised, double blind and BCG controlled phase I/II study.Subjects: Eighty healthy volunteers (forty children and forty adults) with no past history of kala-azar, no reactivity to leishmanin antigen and with a reciprocal direct agglutination test (DAT) titre o

Novel microwell-based spectrophotometric assay for determination of atorvastatin calcium in its pharmaceutical formulations

The formation of a colored charge-transfer (CT) complex between atorvastatin calcium (ATR-Ca) as a n-electron donor and 2, 3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) as a π-electron acceptor was investigated, for the first time. The spectral characteristics of the CT complex have been described, and the reaction mechanism has been proved by computational molecular modeling. The reaction was employed in the development of a novel microwell-based spectrophotometric assay for determination of ATR-Ca in its pharmaceutical formulations. The proposed assay was carried out in 96-microwell plates. The absorbance of the colored-CT complex was measured at 460 nm by microwell-plate absorbance reader. The optimum conditions of the reaction and the analytical procedures of the assay were established. Under the optimum conditions, linear relationship with good correlation coefficient (0.9995) was found between the absorbance and the concentration of ATR-Ca in the range of 10-150 μg/well. The limits of detection and quantitation were 5.3 and 15.8 μg/well, respectively. No interference was observed from the additives that are present in the pharmaceutical formulation or from the drugs that are co-formulated with ATR-Ca in its combined formulations. The assay was successfully applied to the analysis of ATR-Ca in its pharmaceutical dosage forms with good accuracy and precision. The assay described herein has great practical value in the routine analysis of ATR-Ca in quality control laboratories, as it has high throughput property, consumes minimum volume of organic solvent thus it offers the reduction in the exposures of the analysts to the toxic effects of organic solvents, and reduction in the analysis cost by 50-fold. Although the proposed assay was validated for ATR-Ca, however, the same methodology could be used for any electron-donating analyte for which a CT reaction can be performed

Small poly-L-lysines improve cationic lipid-mediated gene transfer in vascular cells in vitro and in vivo

The potential of two small poly-L-lysines ( sPLLs), low molecular weight sPLL ( LMW-L) containing 7 - 30 lysine residues and L18 with 18 lysine repeats, to enhance the efficiency of liposome-mediated gene transfer ( GT) with cationic lipid DOCSPER {[}1,3- dioleoyloxy- 2-( N-5-carbamoyl-spermine)-propane] in vascular smooth muscle cells ( SMCs) was investigated. Dynamic light scattering was used for determination of particle size. Confocal microscopy was applied for colocalization studies of sPLLs and plasmid DNA inside cells. GT was performed in proliferating and quiescent primary porcine SMCs in vitro and in vivo in porcine femoral arteries. At low ionic strength, sPLLs formed small complexes with DNA ( 50 100 nm). At high ionic strength, large complexes ( 11 mu m) were observed without any significant differences in particle size between lipoplexes ( DOCSPER/ DNA) and lipopolyplexes ( DOCSPER/ sPLL/ DNA). Both sPLLs were colocalized with DNA inside cells 24 h after transfection, protecting DNA against degradation. DOCSPER/ sPLL/ DNA formulations enhanced GT in vitro up to 5- fold, in a porcine model using local periadventitial application up to 1.5- fold. Both sPLLs significantly increased liposome- mediated GT. Poly-L-lysine L18 was superior to LMW-L since it enabled maximal GT at a 10-fold lower concentration. Thus, sPLLs may serve as enhancers for GT applications in SMCs in vitro and in vivo using local delivery. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Análisis de la evolución del PIB agrí­cola en paí­ses de América Latina

La investigación tuvo como objetivo clasificar   los distintos paí­ses latinoamericanos a partir del denominado PIB Agrí­cola. Se obtuvo, para 20 paí­ses: Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil,  Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, República Dominicana, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haití­, Jamaica, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Perú, El Salvador, Uruguay y Venezuela la variación del % que representa la Agricultura, de acuerdo con las  divisiones 1-5 de la CIIU, que incluye: silvicultura, caza, pesca, cultivo de cosechas y la crí­a de animales. El procesamiento estadí­stico de estos datos, permitió agrupar a los paí­ses   en 5 clústeres. La mayor parte de los paí­ses 8, se agrupa en un clúster que   mantiene el indicador en un rango de 4.72 a 8.56 y una desviación estándar de 1.43. Este grupo corresponde a paí­ses que aunque en comparación con 1990 reducen el PIB Agrí­cola,   mantienen a partir del 2010 este indicador   relativamente estable. La agrupación obtenida  sugiere investigaciones futuras que puedan determinar la posible relación entre este indicador y por ejemplo,   el porcentaje de empleos en la agricultura.Se obtuvo un importante conjunto de referencias sobre las temáticas: desarrollo rural, tributación agrí­cola y PIB Agrí­cola recopiladas como Base de Datos que se pone a disposición de otros investigadores interesados en estos temas

A Search for Dark Higgs Bosons

Recent astrophysical and terrestrial experiments have motivated the proposal of a dark sector with GeV-scale gauge boson force carriers and new Higgs bosons. We present a search for a dark Higgs boson using 516 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector. We do not observe a significant signal and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of the Standard Model-dark sector mixing angle and the dark sector coupling constant.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figures, published version with improved plots for b/w printin

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente