ESTIMATION OF FURAN LEVELS IN SOME CANNED FOODS IN EGYPT AND HOW TO REDUCE IT

Furan is naturally occurring compound found at low levels in many foods. Furan has been formed in a wide range of thermally treated foods especially heated foods sealed in cans and jars. The primary source of furan in food is thermal degradation and rearrangement of organic compounds. Furan is a five-membered ring which can induce tumors and liver toxicity in experimental animals and is classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In this study furan levels in several kinds of canned and jarred foods from Egyptian markets have been estimated. Also, several heat treatments have been applied for some food samples aiming to reduce furan content in these samples. Noticed levels of furan have been shown in tested samples. Coffee samples had higher content of furan in comparison to other products. After thermal treatments the obtained results show that, furan content reduced to about 38-50% of the original content for 50o C at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 55-71% at 20 min. At 60o C, furan content reduced to about 47-56% of the original content at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 62-78% at 20 min. And at 70o C, furan content reduced to about 53-59% at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 70-89% at 20 min

A full privacy-preserving distributed batch-based certificate-less aggregate signature authentication scheme for healthcare wearable wireless medical sensor networks (HWMSNs)

The dynamic connectivity and functionality of sensors has revolutionized remote monitoring applications thanks to the combination of IoT and wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wearable wireless medical sensor nodes allow continuous monitoring by amassing physiological data, which is very useful in healthcare applications. These text data are then sent to doctors via IoT devices so they can make an accurate diagnosis as soon as possible. However, the transmission of medical text data is extremely vulnerable to security and privacy assaults due to the open nature of the underlying communication medium. Therefore, a certificate-less aggregation-based signature system has been proposed as a solution to the issue by using elliptic curve public key cryptography (ECC) which allows for a highly effective technique. The cost of computing has been reduced by 93% due to the incorporation of aggregation technology. The communication cost is 400 bits which is a significant reduction when compared with its counterparts. The results of the security analysis show that the scheme is robust against forging, tampering, and man-in-the-middle attacks. The primary innovation is that the time required for signature verification can be reduced by using point addition and aggregation. In addition, it does away with the reliance on a centralized medical server in order to do verification. By taking a distributed approach, it is able to fully preserve user privacy, proving its superiority

A novel IoT intrusion detection framework using Decisive Red Fox optimization and descriptive back propagated radial basis function models.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is extensively used in modern-day life, such as in smart homes, intelligent transportation, etc. However, the present security measures cannot fully protect the IoT due to its vulnerability to malicious assaults. Intrusion detection can protect IoT devices from the most harmful attacks as a security tool. Nevertheless, the time and detection efficiencies of conventional intrusion detection methods need to be more accurate. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a simple as well as intelligent security framework for protecting IoT from cyber-attacks. For this purpose, a combination of Decisive Red Fox (DRF) Optimization and Descriptive Back Propagated Radial Basis Function (DBRF) classification are developed in the proposed work. The novelty of this work is, a recently developed DRF optimization methodology incorporated with the machine learning algorithm is utilized for maximizing the security level of IoT systems. First, the data preprocessing and normalization operations are performed to generate the balanced IoT dataset for improving the detection accuracy of classification. Then, the DRF optimization algorithm is applied to optimally tune the features required for accurate intrusion detection and classification. It also supports increasing the training speed and reducing the error rate of the classifier. Moreover, the DBRF classification model is deployed to categorize the normal and attacking data flows using optimized features. Here, the proposed DRF-DBRF security model's performance is validated and tested using five different and popular IoT benchmarking datasets. Finally, the results are compared with the previous anomaly detection approaches by using various evaluation parameters

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

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Dexmedetomidine versus propofol for sedation during gastrointestinal endoscopy in pediatric patients

Objective: To compare the sedative, hemodynamic, respiratory and adverse effects of dexmedetomidine versus propofol during gastrointestinal endoscopy (GIE) in pediatrics. Methods: After obtaining approval of the research and ethics committee and informed consent of the parents of the patients, eighty pediatric patients ASA I/II aged 1–14 years, scheduled for gastrointestinal endoscopy were randomized into dexmedetomidine group or propofol group. Sedation was achieved with propofol 2 mg/kg bolus then infused at 100 μg/kg/min or dexmedetomidine 2.5 μg/kg over 10 min then infused at 2 μg/kg/h to achieve a Ramsay sedation scale (RSS) ⩾5. HR, MAP, RR and SPO2 were continuously monitored and analyzed at (T0) baseline, (T1) after induction, (T2) after insertion of endoscope, (T3) during procedure, (T4) recovery period. Times of induction, procedure, and recovery were reported together with any adverse effects. Results: There were no significant differences in demographic data between the two groups. HR values were significantly lower in dexmedetomidine group at T1, T2 and T3 (83.95 ± 13.79 versus 92.95 ± 12.38, 103.35 ± 15.34 versus 112.75 ± 12.79 and 90.80 ± 13.99 versus 104.05 ± 10.73) beats/min respectively, (p-value < 0.05). No significant differences were found in MAP, RR and SPO2 values between groups at all time points. Induction and recovery times were significantly longer in dexmedetomidine group 10.51 ± 1.75 versus 3.17 ± 0.72 min and 28.55 ± 7.95 versus 13.68 ± 3.35 min (p-value < 0.001). Seven patients in dexmedetomidine group (17.5%) versus one patient in propofol group (2.5%) showed unwanted movement (p-value 0.057), and no cases in dexmedetomidine group demonstrated oxygen desaturation versus 6 patients (15%) within propofol group (p-value 0.026). Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine sedation during GIE provides more respiratory safety and HR stability presenting itself as a suitable alternative agent especially for the relatively longer procedures

Entropy-guided end-tidal desflurane concentration during living donor liver transplantation

Background: The three phases of living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) represent different liver conditions. The aim is to study the required end-tidal desflurane concentration (ET-Des) guided with entropy monitoring for the depth of anesthesia. Methods: After the Ethics and Research Committee approval, 40 patients were included in this prospective study. Anesthesia was maintained with Desflurane-O2-air. State entropy (SE) and Response entropy (RE) were kept between 40 and 60. Results: Age and Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score were 45±10 years and 15.43±3.92, respectively. ET-Des were significantly lower in the anhepatic phase (2.8±0.4%) than in the pre-anhepatic and neohepatic phases (3.3±0.3%, 3.47±0.3%, respectively, P<0.001). The SE and RE for pre-anhepatic, anhepatic, and neohepatic phases were (45.6±3.7, 47.4±3.2), (44.7±2.1, 46.4±2.04), and (46.1±3.3, 47.9±3.3), respectively, with no significant changes between the phases, P > 0.05. Total operative time was 651±88 minutes, and for each phase it was 276±11, 195±55, and 191±24 minutes, respectively. Significant changes were found in hemoglobin g/dl and hematocrit % between the three phases (10.28±1.5, 30.48±4.3), (9.45±1.34, 28.36±4.1), and (8.88±1.1, 26.63±3.5), P<0.05. The heart rate and mean blood pressures were stable despite the cardiac index demonstrated a significant reduction during the anhepatic phase (2.99±0.22) when compared to the pre-anhepatic and neohepatic phases (3.60±0.29) and (4.72±0.32), respectively, ( P<0.05). There was a significant correlation between CI and ET-Des% (r=0.604, P<0.05). Conclusion: Inhalational anesthetic requirements differed from one phase to another during LDLT, with requirements being the least during the anhepatic phase. Monitoring of the anesthesia depth was required, to avoid excess administration, which could compromise the hemodynamics before the critical time of reperfusion

Development of Antimicrobial Laser-Induced Photodynamic Therapy Based on Ethylcellulose/Chitosan Nanocomposite with 5,10,15,20-Tetrakis(m-Hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin

The development of new antimicrobial strategies that act more efficiently than traditional antibiotics is becoming a necessity to combat multidrug-resistant pathogens. Here we report the efficacy of laser-light-irradiated 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(m-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin (mTHPP) loaded onto an ethylcellulose (EC)/chitosan (Chs) nanocomposite in eradicating multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. Surface loading of the ethylcelllose/chitosan composite with mTHPP was carried out and the resulting nanocomposite was fully characterized. The results indicate that the prepared nanocomposite incorporates mTHPP inside, and that the composite acquired an overall positive charge. The incorporation of mTHPP into the nanocomposite enhanced the photo- and thermal stability. Different laser wavelengths (458; 476; 488; 515; 635 nm), powers (5–70 mW), and exposure times (15–45 min) were investigated in the antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) experiments, with the best inhibition observed using 635 nm with the mTHPP EC/Chs nanocomposite for C. albicans (59 ± 0.21%), P. aeruginosa (71.7 ± 1.72%), and S. aureus (74.2 ± 1.26%) with illumination of only 15 min. Utilization of higher doses (70 mW) for longer periods achieved more eradication of microbial growth