Weak mutually unbiased bases with applications to quantum cryptography and tomography. Weak mutually unbiased bases.

Mutually unbiased bases is an important topic in the recent quantum system researches. Although there is much work in this area, many problems related to mutually unbiased bases are still open. For example, constructing a complete set of mutually unbiased bases in the Hilbert spaces with composite dimensions has not been achieved yet. This thesis defines a weaker concept than mutually unbiased bases in the Hilbert spaces with composite dimensions. We call this concept, weak mutually unbiased bases. There is a duality between such bases and the geometry of the phase space Zd × Zd, where d is the phase space dimension. To show this duality we study the properties of lines through the origin in Zd × Zd, then we explain the correspondence between the properties of these lines and the properties of the weak mutually unbiased bases. We give an explicit construction of a complete set of weak mutually unbiased bases in the Hilbert space Hd, where d is odd and d = p1p2; p1, p2 are prime numbers. We apply the concept of weak mutually unbiased bases in the context of quantum tomography and quantum cryptography.Egyptian government

Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidant Effects of Grapefruit Juice on Ulcerative Colitis induced by Acetic Acid in Rats

Grapefruit is commonly consumed around the world due to its nutritional and medicinal properties. Ulcerative colitis (UC) accounts for an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) accompanied by irritation, recurrent inflammation, and ulceration of the colon's mucosa. Our objective was to assess the antiinflammatory and antioxidant impacts of grapefruit juice (GFJ) in rat with UC induced by acetic acid (AA). There were five groups made up of 35 mature male rats. Group 2 served as a positive control with UC, whereas group 1 was preserved as a negative control. For 8 weeks, groups 3, 4, and 5 received UC while also given 2.5, 5 or 10% of GFJ orally. Feed efficiency ratio (FER), body weight growth (BWG), and feed intake (FI) were computed. From rat eye orbital plexuses blood samples were taken to separate the serum after centrifugation.  The aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity were assessed utilizing serum samples. The antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in serum were quantified. Serum inflammatory cytokines as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), interleukin 1 β (IL1 β), IL6 and IL8, as well as triglycerides (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) were measured. In liver homogenate, glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were determined. Additionally, histopathology of the colon was accomplished. Our findings specified that GFJ at 10% significantly decreased FI, BWG and FER, cytokines TNFα, IL1 β, IL6 and IL8 and TC and TG. Relative to the positive controls, the rats treated with GFJ exhibited elevated serum concentrations of SOD, GPx, and CAT enzymes. Liver GSH was elevated and MDA was reduced. Histopathological examination of the colon showed that GFJ at 10% reduced ulcerative colitis. Because grapefruit juice has strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant characteristics and reduces oxidative stress and inflammation in rats, grapefruit juice, at a concentration of 10%, likely protects against ulcerative colitis. Patients with ulcerative colitis may find it helpful to consume grapefruit juice as a beverage.&nbsp

Single versus bilateral chordo-papillary apparatus preservation in mitral valve replacement: a hemodynamic study

Background: It has been postulated that disruption of the mitral valve apparatus at the time of mitral valve replacement (MVR) is a risk factor for postoperative ventricular dysfunction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of single versus bilateral chordo-papillary preservation on the left ventricular function in comparison to no preservation. Methods: This study was conducted from 2015 to 2018 on sixty patients who had MVR. The patients were classified into group I included 20 patients who underwent MVR with complete excision of the subvalvular chordae and tips of papillary muscles, group II: included 20 patients who underwent MVR with preservation of posterior chordo-papillary apparatus, and group III: included 20 patients who underwent MVR with preservation of both posterior and anterior chordo-papillary apparatus. Results: There were 20 males (33.3%), and the mean age was 48.76± 8.91 years. Patients in group III were significantly older (37.15 ±4.92, 39.8 ± 5.49, and 57.25 ± 6.93 years in groups I, II, and III, respectively; p< 0.001). The left ventricular end-diastolic (5.40 ±0.34, 4.96 ± 0.43, and 4.44 ± 0.55 mm in group I, II and III, respectively, p<0.001) and end-systolic diameter (4.33 ±0.48, 3.58 ±0.43 and 3.20 ±0.43 mm in group I, II and III; respectively, p<0.001) were significantly reduced in partial and complete preservation groups after 6 months. Left ventricular ejection fraction improved in the bilateral preservation and partial preservation groups after 6 months (45.32 ±9.78, 56.79 ±10.14, and 56.60 ±11.68 % in groups I, II and III respectively, p<0.001). Mechanical ventilation was significantly longer in group I (24.10 ± 6.6, 16.80 ± 5.97, and 15.80 ± 5.24 hours in groups I, II and III, respectively, p<0.001) and the duration of ICU stay was significantly longer in group I (78.65 ± 15.32, 65.40 ± 14.21, and 60.20 ± 12.58 hours in groups I, II and III, respectively, p<0.001). Conclusion: Preservation of the annulo-papillary continuity may preserve left ventricular geometry and performance. Total preservation of chordae could be superior to partial preservation with better left ventricular remodeling and improvement in the left ventricular functions

Central Venous Oxygen Saturation as a Predictor of the Outcome of Weaning From Mechanical Ventilation

Weaning from mechanical ventilation represents a corner stone of management of critically ill patients. Successful weaning represents a great achievement in patient's critical course in the ICU. This makes the process of weaning one of the most difficult steps in ICU care, for those reason, such a study was done to create a new thinking about the predictors that facilitate patient weaning from mechanical ventilator. The aim of this study is to evaluate the central venous saturation as a predictor of the outcome of weaning from mechanical ventilation. Cohort, unicentric, clinical study research design was utilized in the current study. Sample consists of one hundred and twenty patients over a one year period, all patients passed the first SBT (spontaneous breathing trial) and weaned successfully from mechanical ventilation were extubated after undergoing a two-step weaning protocol (measurements of predictors followed by a T-tube trial). Extubation failure was defined as the need of re-intubation within 48 hrs. The weaning protocol evaluated hemodynamic, ventilation parameters, arterial and venous gases during mechanical ventilation (Immediately before T-tube trial), and at the 30th min of spontaneous breathing trial. Findings of this study show that re-intubation rate was 30%. Analysis by logistic regression revealed that central venous saturation was the only variable able to discriminate outcome of extubation. Reduction of central venous saturation by >5% was an independent predictor of re-intubation, with odds ratio of 52.6 (95% confidence interval =16.34–169.42), a sensitivity of 87%, and a specificity of 90%. Reduction of central venous saturation during spontaneous breathing trial was associated with extubation failure and could reflect the increase of respiratory muscles oxygen consumption. Results of the present study indicated that central venous saturation was an early and independent predictor of extubation failure and may be a valuable accurate parameter to be included in weaning protocols. Keywords: Central Venous Saturation - Mechanical Ventilation - Extubation

Unidirectional barbed sutures vs. interrupted intracorporeal knots in thoracoscopic repair of congenital diaphragmatic hernia in pediatrics

BackgroundIntracorporeal suturing knots continue to be one of the most challenging and time-consuming steps in the thoracoscopic repair of congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). Barbed unidirectional knotless sutures are designed to shorten surgical procedures by eliminating the need to tie knots. This work aimed to compare unidirectional barbed sutures and interrupted intracorporeal knots in the thoracoscopic repair of CDH in pediatrics regarding the time required to suture, operative time and complications.MethodsThis retrospective study included 139 patients presented with Bochdalek CDH. Patients were classified into early (neonatal) and late presentations. The hernia defect was repaired by unidirectional Barbed sutures (V-LocTM and StratafixTM sutures) in group B or by Conventional interrupted intracorporeal knots in group C.ResultsIn both early and delayed presentations, the time required to suture (15 and 13 min in group B, 33 and 28 min in group C for neonatal and delayed presentation respectively) was significantly shorter in group B. Complications (visceral perforation, wound infection, and recurrence) insignificantly differed between group B and group C of early presentation. No patients suffered from major complications in both groups.ConclusionsBoth unidirectional barbed sutures and intracorporeal knots were safe and effective. However, unidirectional barbed sutures are a time-saving choices for CDH thoracoscopic repair in early and late presentations

Non-Invasive Panel for Prediction of Large Esophageal Varices in Patients with HCV-Related Cirrhosis after DAAS Therapy

To study sonographic and laboratory parameters as diagnostic non-invasive Indices for prediction and screening of large varices in liver cirrhotic patients post hepatitis C virus after direct Actin antiviral drugs (DAAS). Introduction: All cirrhotic patients should be screened for esophageal varices (EV) via endoscopy, as recommended by the guidelines. However, repeated endoscopy is not well accepted by patients and is a costly procedure that places a heavy burden on the endoscopic unit. Therefore, noninvasive predictors of EVs and size discrimination for EVs are of particular importance.After dividing DAAS into three arms: arm 1 with Non-EV, arm 2grad1&2 EV (Small Vriceal arm), and arm 3 grade 3&4 EV (Large Variceal arm). medical history, physical examination, standard laboratory tests, abdominal ultrasound, and sonographic parameters such as portal vein velocity (PVV). Splenic Index (SI) Splenoportal Index (SPI), platelet count/spleen diameter ratio (PCSDR) and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were performed for all participants.Results: The Noninvasive sonographic and laboratory parameters for prediction of the presence of EVs have demonstrated that low platelet count/spleen diameter ratio (PC/SD) at cut-off (CO) ≤ 1121.43 cu/mm, then high SPI at CO >3.98 cm /sec then high FIB4 at CO > 2.68 then high APRI at CO > 0.6 then PVV at CO ≤ 22.2 cm/sec then high SI at CO > 89.7 and lastly Child’s – Pugh’s score at CO > 6 respectively.. The Non Invasive sonographic and laboratory parameters for discrimination of the size of EVs showed that high SPI was found to be the most accurate parameter at CO less than >7.75 cm/sec Then low PC/SD at CO ≤ 514.08 cu/mm then high APRI at CO > 1.4 then high FIB4 at CO > 7,6 then high SI with AUC 0.821 at CO > 122.4 then low PVV at CO < 15 and lastly Child’s –Pugh’s score at CO> 6 respectively.Conclusions: The sonographic and laboratory indices are non- invasive parameters for the prediction of EV & discrimination of its size. And to determine when Upper Endoscopy is done for liver cirrhotic patients post-C after DAA

The role of liver in leptin metabolism in experimental nephrotic syndrome

Leptin is a hormone influencing food intake, energy expenditure and body weight. It is pro-duced by adipocytes, exerts its effects on brain, endocrine pancreas and other organs by acti-vating trans-membrane receptors and is cleared from plasma mainly by the kidneys. Several studies have suggested that leptin's effects on metabolism are mediated by the liver. Our aim was to evaluate the role of the liver in the metabolism of leptin by comparing the serum leptin level in the portal vein with that in inferior vena cava and to study the relationship between leptin and lipoprotein levels in healthy and nephrotic rats. Experimental nephrotic syndrome was conducted in rats by intraperitoneal injection of the supernatant from the kidney suspen-sion obtained by previous unilateral nephrectomy of the same rat and complete Freund's adju-vant. There was a highly significant rise in leptin and lipid profile levels in the nephrotic rats compared with the normal rats. A highly significant increase in leptin in the inferior vena cava was detected compared with the level in the portal veins of nephrotic rats, while insignificant difference was observed in normal rats. This work has stressed the role of liver in leptin and lipid metabolism in nephrotic rats

Computer Aided Autism Diagnosis Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging

© 2013 IEEE. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), commonly known as autism, is a lifelong developmental disorder associated with a broad range of symptoms including difficulties in social interaction, communication skills, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. In autism spectrum disorder, numerous studies suggest abnormal development of neural networks that manifest itself as abnormalities of brain shape, functionality, and/ or connectivity. The aim of this work is to present our automated computer aided diagnostic (CAD) system for accurate identification of autism spectrum disorder based on the connectivity of the white matter (WM) tracts. To achieve this goal, two levels of analysis are provided for local and global scores using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. A local analysis using the Johns Hopkins WM atlas is exploited for DTI atlas-based segmentation. Furthermore, WM integrity is examined by extracting the most notable features representing WM connectivity from DTI. Interactions of WM features between different areas in the brain, demonstrating correlations between WM areas were used, and feature selection among those associations were made. Finally, a leave-one-subject-out classifier is employed to yield a final per-subject decision. The proposed system was tested on a large dataset of 263 subjects from the National Database of Autism Research (NDAR) with their Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores and diagnosis (139 typically developed: 66 males, and 73 females, and 124 autistics: 66 males, and 58 females), with ages ranging from 96 to 215 months, achieving an overall accuracy of 73%. In addition to this achieved global accuracy, diagnostically-important brain areas were identified, allowing for a better understanding of ASD-related brain abnormalities, which is considered as an essential step towards developing early personalized treatment plans for children with autism spectrum disorder

Early assessment of lung function in coronavirus patients using invariant markers from chest X-rays images

The primary goal of this manuscript is to develop a computer assisted diagnostic (CAD) system to assess pulmonary function and risk of mortality in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The CAD system processes chest X-ray data and provides accurate, objective imaging markers to assist in the determination of patients with a higher risk of death and thus are more likely to require mechanical ventilation and/or more intensive clinical care.To obtain an accurate stochastic model that has the ability to detect the severity of lung infection, we develop a second-order Markov-Gibbs random field (MGRF) invariant under rigid transformation (translation or rotation of the image) as well as scale (i.e., pixel size). The parameters of the MGRF model are learned automatically, given a training set of X-ray images with affected lung regions labeled. An X-ray input to the system undergoes pre-processing to correct for non-uniformity of illumination and to delimit the boundary of the lung, using either a fully-automated segmentation routine or manual delineation provided by the radiologist, prior to the diagnosis. The steps of the proposed methodology are: (i) estimate the Gibbs energy at several different radii to describe the inhomogeneity in lung infection; (ii) compute the cumulative distribution function (CDF) as a new representation to describe the local inhomogeneity in the infected region of lung; and (iii) input the CDFs to a new neural network-based fusion system to determine whether the severity of lung infection is low or high. This approach is tested on 200 clinical X-rays from 200 COVID-19 positive patients, 100 of whom died and 100 who recovered using multiple training/testing processes including leave-one-subject-out (LOSO), tenfold, fourfold, and twofold cross-validation tests. The Gibbs energy for lung pathology was estimated at three concentric rings of increasing radii. The accuracy and Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of the system steadily improved as the radius increased. The overall CAD system combined the estimated Gibbs energy information from all radii and achieved a sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and DSC of 100%, 97% ± 3%, 98% ± 2%, and 98% ± 2%, respectively, by twofold cross validation. Alternative classification algorithms, including support vector machine, random forest, naive Bayes classifier, K-nearest neighbors, and decision trees all produced inferior results compared to the proposed neural network used in this CAD system. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system as a novel tool to objectively assess disease severity and predict mortality in COVID-19 patients. The proposed tool can assist physicians to determine which patients might require more intensive clinical care, such a mechanical respiratory support

In vitro and in vivo anthelmintic efficacy of condensed tannins extracted from the seeds of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) against Haemonchus contortus infection

This study was designed to examine in vitro and in vivo anthelmintic efficacy of condensed tannins (CT) extracted from seeds of Medicago sativa on Haemonchus contortus in sheep. CT's in vitro anthelmintic effect was assessed at a 300 μg/ml concentration compared with albendazole (reference drug) at 10 μg/ml. The results showed that CT had a nematocidal effect on H. contortus, and the cuticle of the adult worm appeared to be its initial target. For the in vivo experiment, nine 3-month-old helminths-free lambs were distributed into three groups. Group 1 (n=3) was challenged only as infected untreated controls; Group 2 (n=3) was treated with condensed tannin, and Group 3 (n=3) was treated with albendazole. Fecal and blood samples were collected every 3 days until the end of the experiment; for fecal egg count (FEC) and anti- H. contortus IgG titers determination, respectively. The lambs treated with the CT in G2 exhibited a pronounced decrease of mean FEC with great FECR% detected from the first-week post-treatment (PT) until the end of the experiment compared with G1 animals. The antibody levels gradually increased in G2 following the 2nd dose of CT treatment compared to other groups. A brilliant consistent relation between the elevation of IgG response and reduction of FEC was observed following the second booster dosing of the CT in G2. In conclusion, the CT evoked strongly in vitro and in vivo anthelmintic activity against H. contortus and could be used as a natural alternative treatment of high potency against haemonchosis in sheep