Phenotypic and Genotypic Trends for Some Economic Traits in Egyptian Buffaloes

A total of 2763 lactation records of Egyptian buffaloes, sired by 147 bulls, were collected from Mahalla Mousa Farm, Kafer El sheihk Government. Traits studied are milk production (MP), lactation length (LL) and age of heifers at calving (AHC). Effects of period and month of calving, lactation order and heifers at calving were studied as main effects , beside bull, buffaloes within bulls and errors were studied as random effects.. Also, Animal mode was used to estimate genotypic parameter, transmitting ability, phenotypic and genotypic trends for above traits studied. Least squares analysis of variance (Table 2) show a significant effects of year of calving and month of calving and lactation order on MP, LL and AHC. Linear and quadratic regression coefficients of MP and LL on AHC had also a significant effect. Sires and buffaloes within sires had a significant effect on MP, LL and AHC. Estimates of (h2) were 0.28, 0.20 and 0.10, for MP, LL and AHC respectively. Genotypic correlations between MP and each of LL and AHC were 0.76 and -0.36, respectively. Genotypic correlation between MP and AHC was -0.30. Phenotypic correlation between MP and both of LL and AHC were 0.80 and -0.90, respectively and phenotypic correlation between LL and AHC was -0.40. Predicted transmitting ability from buffaloes ranged from -774 to 933 kg for MP from – 60 to 101 d for LL and from – 4 to 8 mo., for AHC. Predicted sire transmitting ability for MP ranged from – 408 to 535 kg, for LL ranged from -27 to 29 d and for AHC ranged from -2 to 5 mo., Expected dam transmitting ability ranged from -388 to 365 kg for MP, from – 30 to 23 d for LL from - 2 to 2 mo., for AHC. Annual phenotypic and genetic trend for milk production calving was positive and significant. While, annual genotypic change for lactation length and age of heifers at calving were negative and significant

The protective role of melatonin on L-arginine-induced acute pancreatitis in adult male albino rats

Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory disease that has an increasing incidence worldwide. AP is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates ranging 15–40% in its severe form. Oxidative stress plays an important role in pancreatic acinar cell injury in case of AP. Melatonin (Mel) is proven to have both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The aim of the work was to investigate the protective role of Mel against L-arginine (L-arg)-induced AP in adult male albino rats. Materials and methods: Thirty-six adult male albino rats were used in this study. Animals were divided into four groups; Control group (Group A; n = 6), Mel group (Group B; n = 6), L-arg group (Group C; n = 12) receiving two doses of L-arg injection with 1 h interval in-between, and L-arg+Mel group (Group D; n = 12) receiving Mel 1 h after each L-arg injection. 24 h after the second L-arg injection, the serum levels of amylase (AM), lipase (LP), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumour necrotic factor-alpha (TNF-α) were determined. Then, pancreatic specimens were processed for histological and immunohistochemical staining with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the area percentage of VEGF and collagen content were measured by digital image analysis. Results: Microscopic examination revealed that animals received L-arg only (Group C) showed loss of the pancreatic lobular architecture with marked fibrosis, acinar degeneration, inflammatory reaction and marked oedema with vascular congestion. Also, L-arg-induced AP caused a significant elevation of the serum levels of AM, LP, IL-6. All these histo-pathological and serological parameters were markedly improved by Mel administration. Conclusions: Melatonin exhibits strong therapeutic effects in the course of AP. Hence, the use of Mel as adjuvant treatment in AP is recommended.

A feasibility test of an online intervention to prevention dating violence in emerging adults

Dating violence in emerging adults is a significant problem and few prevention programs based on the developmental needs of this age group have been developed. Our research team developed an online dating violence prevention program called WISER (Writing to Improve Self-in-Relationships) for emerging adults. The program is based on narrative therapy principles and uses structured writing techniques. A single group pre-post feasibility test of WISER was conducted with 14 college women. WISER was demonstrated to be feasible and acceptable and to show promise as an effective program to decrease dating violence in this population

The impact of information technology on customer service in the Jordanian banking sector

During the last two decades the bank marketing literature has been characterised by a concern for service quality and information technology (IT) within the industry. IT and customer service are relatively new `strategic weapons' for banks, both being concerned with the deployment of information. The two concepts relate to the building and maintenance of long-term profitable relationships between the customer and the bank. With increasing competition it has become necessary for banks to keep ahead of rivals by differentiating themselves and IT is seen as an opportunity to achieve a sustainable `competitive advantage', especially in terms of improving service quality. In the light of this, the aim of this study is to investigate the influence of IT on the quality of service in the Jordanian banking sector. To accomplish the study objectives a questionnaire survey was conducted with two independent samples (bank customers and branch managers). The empirical work involved the development of questionnaires which were used for data collection and the study sample consisted of 550 bank customers and 67 branch managers. Initially, the data in the questionnaires were analysed to provide a general description of the respondents' characteristics and their perceptions of individual variables of service quality, IT-based service, customer satisfaction / loyalty and bank selection criteria. The research hypotheses were tested using Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, Spearman Correlation Coefficient and t-tests. The main results of the study show a significant and positive relationship between IT and customer service. The more IT is used, the better the perception of service quality be. The results also give another strong indication that IT is playing a crucial role, with regard to bank selection criteria. Additionally, the findings revealed that the least important factor in influencing customers' choice of their banks is higher interest on savings and deposits, which is strongly related to religion and cultural background. On the other hand, it has been found that the most important factors in motivating the adoption of electronic channels by customers are time-saving, followed by the convenience of these channels. The study suggests several recommendations in order to increase the effectiveness of IT in Jordanian banks and improve their strategic and `competitive positions'. Finally the thesis ends by setting out an agenda for further work.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The Effect of Using Concept Maps and Brainstorming Strategies to Develop Creative Thinking Skills Among Students of Islamic Culture at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University

This study aims at determining the effect of using concept maps and brainstorming strategies to develop creative thinking skills among students of Islamic culture at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University. To achieve this, the research adopted the quasi-experimental method to reach the final results. The study population consisted of (477) male and female students who studied the Islamic Culture at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University for the academic year 2021/2022. An intentional sample of (130) male and female students who study the subject in the second semester was selected. The researchers prepared two scientific tools for the educational topic, the first was an educational unit from the Islamic Culture study plan, which is the unit of (Fasting), prepared according to the strategies of concept maps and brainstorming; and the second is a creative thinking test tool to measure the impact of the two teaching strategies. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in the creative thinking test attributed to the teaching strategies, in favor of brainstorming compared to the traditional method and the concept maps. The results also showed that there were differences attributed to the concept maps strategy compared to the traditional method. Moreover, the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the performance arithmetic averages of the three study groups (the concept maps, the brainstorming, and the traditional method) attributed to the interaction between the strategy and gender variables on the creative thinking test

Poverty Effects of House Holds in the Southern Region of Jordan

This study investigated the poverty effects of households in the southern region of Jordan, Madaba, Aqaba, Tafila governorates.The poverty ratio in this region exceeds 28.7%,  . Data was collected by the use of questionnaire which addressed questions related to the study. A total of 900 questionnaires were given out to all the population. Of these, 180 questionnaires were re-called from each local government. The variables of research – per capita expenditure, per capital income, age of respondent, sex (male or female head count), the age structure of the population shows a significant difference in the household saving rate. Idiosyncratic and covariate factors affect the expected per capita consumption of the overall expected poverty for this area. Not less than 80% expected poverty is synonymous with southern region according to these variables. The highest variance occurred in education head count levels which can be divided into five categories. Male-headed households have lower mean consumption than female-headed households. As the determinants of households of the southern region and structures of variables to link the results and actions, therefore the paper, extends the usual of set of explanatory variables which explained the household behavior and to capture their influential impact on household and life cycle dependency ratio admitted as explanatory due to a young, under-educated populace, which is compounded by a heavy responsibility on male-headed count per female. The paper found that the growth of the agricultural sector is slow which means that most of the southern region depends on returns of this sector beyond the dependence on civilian employement to support their household. These results provides a big support for life cycle hypothesis as well as the permanent income hypothesis.We noticed that poverty is a predominant as phenomenon as it is pervasive, with over 30% of the population falling below the poverty line in Jordan. This paper assesses the impact of poverty in the level of determinants of households. Jel elassification: 053, D21, J20, E1

Phosphorus Loss into Ground Water in Paddy Soils as Influenced by Irrigation System and Rate of Added-P

A field experiment was carried out in delta Nile region of Egypt, to elucidate the impact of irrigation system and graded phosphorus fertilizer rates on P loss into ground water in paddy soils (heavy clay soil). Three irrigation system were used: submergence with continuous head of water (about 8 cm), irrigation with saturation percent and discontinous irrigation where soil was irrigated every 7 days. The rate of applied P were 45 and 90 Kg P2O5/acre as super phosphate. Values of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in ground water increased under saturation and discontinuous irrigation compared to it under submergence condition (e.g.,0.25,0.18 and 0.14 mg P/L, respectively) under 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. and after 15 days of added-P. Accumulation values of DRP in ground water after 105 days at 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. of added-P were 1.18,0.76 and 0.67 mg P/L under saturation, discontinuous and submergence irrigation methods, respectively. The rate of loss for DRP in ground water was the highest under saturation method at 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. ( 0.01 mg P/L/day). Results also showed that, accumulated total phosphorus (TP) at the end of ground water collection (105 days after transplanting) when 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. was added were 2.78,2.18 and 1.69 mg P/L under discontinuous, saturation and submergence irrigation system, respectively. Also, the rate of loss for TP was the highest under discontinuous irrigation condition (0.025 mg P/L). These results indicated that, increasing added phosphorus fertilizer let to increasing P loss into ground water by leaching through the soil profile.In addition, phosphorus loss into ground water was increased with decreasing added water for irrigation in paddy soils (increasing drought regime) and that was not expected

Development of novel formulations to enhance in vivo transdermal permeation of tocopherol

Tocopherol represents a big challenge for transdermal permeation owing to its extreme hydrophobicity and large molecular mass. The aim of the present study was to develop alpha-tocopherol (T) topical formulations and evaluate the ex vivo and in vivo permeation. Franz diffusion cells were used for the ex vivo permeation, and neonatal rats were used for in vivo permeation. Seven gel formulations and 21 liquid formulations were investigated for physical stability, viscosity and permeation of T. Analysis of T was performed by a validated HPLC method using a UV detector.The ex vivo permeation from gel and emulsion formulations was very poor (0.001–0.015 %). The highest permeation was observed from monophasic liquid formulations containing dimethyl sulfuxide (DMSO), tocopheryl polyethylene glycols (TPGs), propylene glycol, ethanol, and 9.5 % T. The in vivo results demonstrated higher retention in the epidermis compared to subcutaneous tissues; 1377 and 1.13 µg g–1, respectively. Increasing T concentration from 4.8 to 9.5 % did not increase the amount permeated or % of T retained. It was concluded that simple solutions of T in presence of DMSO and TPGs are more promising systems for effective transdermal permeation; compared to gel, emulsion or oleaginous systems

Solar Disinfection of Drinking Water with Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottles Coated with Nano-Titanium Dioxide

Water disinfection processes in the presence of titanium dioxide as a photo-catalyst material provide an interesting route to destroy contaminants, being operational in the UV-A domain with a potential use of solar radiation. In recent years, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) have been developed to meet the increasing need of an effective wastewater treatment. AOP generates powerful oxidizing agent hydroxyl radicals which completely destroy the pollutants in waste water. Solar disinfection of drinking water with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles coated with photo-catalyst TiO2 has been shown to be very effective. The study is based on comparison between three systems for treating contaminated water samples using PET bottles. First system was a PET untreated bottle, the second system was a PET bottle coated with black paint on its outer surface. Finally the third system was a PET bottle coated also with a black coat on its outer surface and its inner part was treated with citric acid solution to enable np-TiO2 to cover the surface later on, then 0.2 g of np-TiO2 powder (of particle size <25 nm, Sigma-Aldrich) was added. The total bacterial accounts were determined to monitor the effect in the three systems. The experimental results have shown that disinfecting water with merely UV was less effective than combining the bottle with heat effect, and adding TiO2 film was further more benefited. This work can be applied in rural areas, with no technical support or need for expensive/dangerous chemicals for drinking safe water even if is stored for two days

Assisting in Writing Wikipedia-like Articles From Scratch with Large Language Models

We study how to apply large language models to write grounded and organized long-form articles from scratch, with comparable breadth and depth to Wikipedia pages. This underexplored problem poses new challenges at the pre-writing stage, including how to research the topic and prepare an outline prior to writing. We propose STORM, a writing system for the Synthesis of Topic Outlines through Retrieval and Multi-perspective Question Asking. STORM models the pre-writing stage by (1) discovering diverse perspectives in researching the given topic, (2) simulating conversations where writers carrying different perspectives pose questions to a topic expert grounded on trusted Internet sources, (3) curating the collected information to create an outline. For evaluation, we curate FreshWiki, a dataset of recent high-quality Wikipedia articles, and formulate outline assessments to evaluate the pre-writing stage. We further gather feedback from experienced Wikipedia editors. Compared to articles generated by an outline-driven retrieval-augmented baseline, more of STORM's articles are deemed to be organized (by a 25% absolute increase) and broad in coverage (by 10%). The expert feedback also helps identify new challenges for generating grounded long articles, such as source bias transfer and over-association of unrelated facts.Comment: 27 pages, NAACL 2024 Main Conferenc