A view of the health services after COVID-19: an Egyptian perspective

Introduction: Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. However, national and international health systems failed to avoid millions of morbidities and hundred thousands of mortalities. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics, and culture. Aim: The overall aim of this report is just to present an outline skeleton of the main elements of a health plan that may be adopted to achieve a high quality medical care services in the near future. Approach: The approach that will be adopted to present the main elements of the health plan will be through a time frame that includes short term (about one year) and long-term measures (five to ten years)

Cooperative Control of Multiple Wheeled Mobile Robots: Normal and Faulty Situations

Recently, cooperative control of multiple unmanned vehicles has attracted a great deal of attention from scientific, industrial, and military aspects. Groups of unmanned ground, aerial, or marine vehicles working cooperatively lead to many advantages in a variety of applications such as: surveillance, search and exploration, cooperative reconnaissance, environmental monitoring, and cooperative manipulation, respectively. During mission execution, unmanned systems should travel autonomously between different locations, maintain a pre-defined formation shape, avoid collisions of obstacles and also other team members, and accommodate occurred faults and mitigate their negative effect on mission execution. The main objectives of this dissertation are to design novel algorithms for single wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) trajectory tracking, cooperative control and obstacle avoidance of WMRs in fault-free situations. In addition, novel algorithms are developed for fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) with integration of fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) scheme. In normal/fault-free cases, an integrated approach combining input-output feedback linearization and distributed model predictive control (MPC) techniques is designed and implemented on a team of WMRs to accomplish the trajectory tracking as well as the cooperative task. An obstacle avoidance algorithm based on mechanical impedance principle is proposed to avoid potential collisions of surrounding obstacles. Moreover, the proposed control algorithm is implemented to a team of WMRs for pairing with a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for forest monitoring and fire detection applications. When actuator faults occur in one of the robots, two cases are explicitly considered: i) if the faulty robot cannot complete its assigned task due to a severe fault, then the faulty robot has to get out from the formation mission, and an FTCC strategy is designed such that the tasks of the WMRs team are re-assigned to the remaining healthy robots to complete the mission with graceful performance degradation. Two methods are used to investigate this case: the Graph Theory, and formulating the FTCC problem as an optimal assignment problem; and ii) if the faulty robot can continue the mission with degraded performance, then the other team members reconfigure the controllers considering the capability of the faulty robot. Thus, the FTCC strategy is designed to re-coordinate the motion of each robot in the team. Within the proposed scheme, an FDD unit using a two-stage Kalman filter (TSKF) to detect and diagnose actuator faults is presented. In case of using any other nonlinear controller in fault-free case rather than MPC, and in case of severe fault occurrence, another FTCC strategy is presented. First, the new reconfiguration is formulated by an optimal assignment problem where each healthy WMR is assigned to a unique place. Second, the new formation can be reconfigured, while the objective is to minimize the time to achieve the new formation within the constraints of the WMRs' dynamics and collision avoidance. A hybrid approach of control parametrization and time discretization (CPTD) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed to address this problem. Since PSO cannot solve the continuous control inputs, CPTD is adopted to provide an approximate piecewise linearization of the control inputs. Therefore, PSO can be adopted to find the global optimum solution. In all cases, formation operation of the robot team is based on a leader-follower approach, whilst the control algorithm is implemented in a distributed manner. The results of the numerical simulations and real experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in various scenarios

Spontaneous ovulation and pregnancy in women with polycystic ovarian disease; a cross sectional study

Background: Polycystic ovary disease (PCOD) is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age, with a prevalence of approximately 5-10%. This study aims to assess the rate of spontaneous ovulation and pregnancy in patients. The present study was a cross sectional study conducted at Woman's Health Hospital, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.Methods: The current study was a cross sectional study carried out in Assiut Women's Health Hospital between the 1st October 2016 and 31st July 2017. The patients were selected as infertile patients with PCOD. The patient ages range between 20 and 35 years. The BMI is between 18 and 30 Kg/m2. The main outcome measure was the rate of spontaneous ovulation and spontaneous pregnancy in the 3 cycles.Results: The mean age of the study participants was 26.64±4.59 years and the mean BMI was 24.46±2.62Kg/m2. The sonographic ovarian volume was 12.47±0.69 mm3 for the right ovary and 12.74±0.73 mm3 for the left ovary. No difference in the serum FSH, LH, FSH/LH ratio and prolactin over the 3 consecutive cycles. The rate of spontaneous ovulation in the 3 cycles was 6 women (8.6%) and 2 cases (2.8%) became pregnant spontaneously during the study period. There is no statistical significant difference between ovulating and non-ovulating women according to the BMI and ovarian volume.Conclusions: The present study concluded that the rate of spontaneous ovulation was 8.6% in women with PCOD within 3 cycles with no adverse effects of drugs or surgical interference

Application of Nanometal Oxides In Situ in Nonwoven Polyester Fabric for the Removal of Bacterial Indicators of Pollution from Wastewater

The objective of this study is to investigate and assess the use of in situ deposit nanosilver (nAg2O) or nanocopper oxides (nCuO) into nonwoven polyester fabric (NWPF) as a safe and effective antibacterial filter of pollution from domestic wastewater. The bactericidal effect of both nAg2O and nCuO was examined against Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi) and Gram-positive bacteria (Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus) using agar diffusion disk method. In addition, the capability of nAg2O and nCuO as disinfectants for secondary treated domestic wastewater was investigated as a case study. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) confirmed the formation of nAg2O and nCuO particles with average particle sizes of 15 and 41 nm, respectively. Disk diffusion results showed that nAg2O had a higher bactericidal effect than nCuO. Moreover, the disinfection of secondary treated wastewater using 1.27 mg/cm3 of nAg2O in the nonwoven fabric was capable of hindering 99.6% and 91.7% of total and fecal coliforms within 10 minutes with a residual value of 18 and 15 MPN-index/100 mL, respectively. The residual total and fecal coliform concentrations were far less than that stated in the national and international limits for wastewater reuse in agriculture purpose

Similar and Additive Effects of Ovariectomy and Diabetes on Insulin Resistance and Lipid Metabolism

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is among the leading causes of death in postmenopausal women. The disruption of ovarian function may contribute to the incidence of T2DM. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ovariectomy and T2DM on glucose and lipid homeostasis, perilipin levels in adipose tissues, as a lipolytic regulator, and levels of certain adipokines. Ovariectomized (OVX) rats were used as a model for postmenopausal women. The study was performed on sham, OVX, sham diabetic, and OVX diabetic female rats. The results indicated that ovariectomy alters adipose tissue metabolism through reducing perilipin content in white adipose tissue (WAT); however it has no effect on perilipin level in brown adipose tissue (BAT). OVX diabetic females suffer from serious metabolic disturbances, suggested by exacerbation of insulin resistance in terms of disrupted lipid profile, higher HOMA-IR, hyperinsulinemia, higher leptin, and lower adiponectin concentrations. These metabolic derangements may underlie the predisposition for cardiovascular disease in women after menopause. Therefore, for efficient treatment, the menopausal status of diabetic female should be addressed, and the order of events is of great importance because ovariectomy following development of diabetes has more serious complications compared to development of diabetes as result of menopause

An Approach to Mining Picture Objects Based on Textual Cues

Abstract. The task of extracting knowledge from text is an important research problem for information processing and document understanding. Approaches to capture the semantics of picture objects in documents constitute subjects of great interest in the domain of document mining recently. In this paper, we present an approach to extracting information about picture objects in a document using cues from the text written about them. The goal of this work is to mine a document and understand the content of picture objects in the document based on meaning inferred from the texts written about such objects. We apply some Natural Language Processing techniques to extract semantic information about picture objects in a document and process texts written about them. The mining algorithms were developed and implemented as a working system and gone through testing and experimentations. Results and future extensions of the work are discussed in this paper

Evaluation of a commercial intravaginal thermometer to predict calving in a Hungarian Holstein‐Friesian dairy farm

In this study, the utility of a commercial intravaginal thermometer was evaluated as an automated method for the prediction of calving in a total of 257 healthy pregnant Holstein–Friesian female cattle. The accuracy and the sensitivity of predicting calving within 48 hr before calving were also evaluated. The intravaginal temperature changes from 72 hr before and up to calving were significantly (p ≤ .001) affected by parity, season (summer vs. autumn), the time of day (8 a.m. or 8 p.m.) and the 6-hr time intervals (38.19°C: first interval 0 to 6 hr before calving vs. 38.78°C: twelfth interval 66 to 72 hr before calving), while the gender (p = .943), and the weight of the calf (p = .610), twinning (p = .300), gestation length (p = .186), foetal presentation (p = .123), dystocia (p = .197) and retention of foetal membranes (p = .253) did not affect it significantly. The sensitivity of the SMS of expecting calving within 48 hr and the positive predictive value were 62.4% and 75%, respectively, while the sensitivity and the positive predictive value for the SMS of expulsion reached 100%. It can be concluded that the investigated thermometer is not able to predict calving within 48 hr accurately; however, imminent calving can be accurately alerted

Assessment of seminal plasma laminin in fertile and infertile men

Abstract Aim: To assess laminin levels in the seminal plasma of infertile and fertile men, and to analyze the correlation of laminin levels with sperm count, age, sperm motility and semen volume. Methods: One hundred and twenty-five recruited men were equally divided into five groups according to their sperm concentration and clinical examination: fertile normozoospermia, oligoasthenozoospermia, non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA), obstructive azoospermia (OA) and congenital bilateral absent vas deferens (CBAVD). The patients' medical history was investigated and patients underwent clinical examination, conventional semen analysis and estimation of seminal plasma laminin by radioimmunoassay. Results: Seminal plasma laminin levels of successive groups were: 2.82 ± 0.62, 2.49 ± 0.44, 1.77 ± 0.56, 1.72 ± 0.76, 1.35 ± 0.63 U/mL, respectively. The fertile normozoospermic group showed the highest concentration compared to all infertile groups with significant differences compared to azoospermic groups (P < 0.05). Testicular contribution was estimated to be approximately one-third of the seminal laminin. Seminal plasma laminin demonstrated significant correlation with sperm concentration (r = 0.460, P < 0.001) and nonsignificant correlation with age (r = 0.021, P = 0.940), sperm motility percentage (r = 0.142, P = 0.615) and semen volume (r = 0.035, P = 0.087). Conclusion: Seminal plasma laminin is derived mostly from prostatic and testicular portions and minimally from the seminal vesicle and vas deferens. Estimating seminal laminin alone is not conclusive in diagnosing different cases of male infertility. (Asian J Androl 2007 Jan; 9: 63-67

The effect of tobacco, XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 genetic variants in bladder cancer development

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In this work, we have conducted a case-control study in order to assess the effect of tobacco and three genetic polymorphisms in <it>XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 </it>genes (rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655) in bladder cancer development in Tunisia. We have also tried to evaluate whether these variants affect the bladder tumor stage and grade.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The patients group was constituted of 193 newly diagnosed cases of bladder tumors. The controls group was constituted of non-related healthy subjects. The rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655 polymorphisms were genotyped using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our data have reported that non smoker and light smoker patients (1-19PY) are protected against bladder cancer development. Moreover, light smokers have less risk for developing advanced tumors stage. When we investigated the effect of genetic polymorphisms in bladder cancer development we have found that ERCC2 and ERCC5 variants were not implicated in the bladder cancer occurrence. However, the mutated homozygous genotype for XPC gene was associated with 2.09-fold increased risk of developing bladder cancer compared to the control carrying the wild genotype (p = 0.03, OR = 2.09, CI 95% 1.09-3.99). Finally, we have found that the XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 variants don't affect the tumors stage and grade.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that the mutated homozygous genotype for XPC gene was associated with increased risk of developing bladder. However we have found no association between rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655 polymorphisms and tumors stage and grade.</p

Molecular identification of adenoviruses associated with respiratory infection in Egypt from 2003 to 2010.

BACKGROUND: Human adenoviruses of species B, C, and E (HAdV-B, -C, -E) are frequent causative agents of acute respiratory infections worldwide. As part of a surveillance program aimed at identifying the etiology of influenza-like illness (ILI) in Egypt, we characterized 105 adenovirus isolates from clinical samples collected between 2003 and 2010. METHODS: Identification of the isolates as HAdV was accomplished by an immunofluorescence assay (IFA) and confirmed by a set of species and type specific polymerase chain reactions (PCR). RESULTS: Of the 105 isolates, 42% were identified as belonging to HAdV-B, 60% as HAdV-C, and 1% as HAdV-E. We identified a total of six co-infections by PCR, of which five were HAdV-B/HAdV-C co-infections, and one was a co-infection of two HAdV-C types: HAdV-5/HAdV-6. Molecular typing by PCR enabled the identification of eight genotypes of human adenoviruses; HAdV-3 (n = 22), HAdV-7 (n = 14), HAdV-11 (n = 8), HAdV-1 (n = 22), HAdV-2 (20), HAdV-5 (n = 15), HAdV-6 (n = 3) and HAdV-4 (n = 1). The most abundant species in the characterized collection of isolates was HAdV-C, which is concordant with existing data for worldwide epidemiology of HAdV respiratory infections. CONCLUSIONS: We identified three species, HAdV-B, -C and -E, among patients with ILI over the course of 7 years in Egypt, with at least eight diverse types circulating