Effect of maleic hydrazide and waxing on ripening and quality of guava (Psidium guajava L.) fruit

The effect of postharvest treatment by maleic hydrazide (MH) and waxing on ripening and quality of white and pink guava fruits was evaluated at 20 + 1OC and 85-90% relative humidity. MH at 250, 500 and 1000 ppm delayed fruit ripening by 2-6 days in both guava types compared to untreated fruits. The higher the concentration of MH, the more was the delay in fruit ripening. Waxing in addition to MH treatment resulted in 3-4 days more delay in fruit ripening, compared to MH treatment alone. The effect of MH treated and waxing in delaying fruit ripening was manifested in retarded climacteric peak of respiration, delayed peel colour development, reduced total soluble solids accumulation and decreased fruit softening

PKCAM: Previous Knowledge Channel Attention Module

Recently, attention mechanisms have been explored with ConvNets, both across the spatial and channel dimensions. However, from our knowledge, all the existing methods devote the attention modules to capture local interactions from a uni-scale. In this paper, we propose a Previous Knowledge Channel Attention Module(PKCAM), that captures channel-wise relations across different layers to model the global context. Our proposed module PKCAM is easily integrated into any feed-forward CNN architectures and trained in an end-to-end fashion with a negligible footprint due to its lightweight property. We validate our novel architecture through extensive experiments on image classification and object detection tasks with different backbones. Our experiments show consistent improvements in performances against their counterparts. Our code is published at https://github.com/eslambakr/EMCA

Energy Efficient Buildings in Smart Cities: Biomimicry Approach

Smart cities are those using technologies to make life easier for their citizens and enhancing the quality of life and urban service in order to reduce consumption, especially of energy. Biomimicry is one of the tools of the 21st century toachieve an emotional smart city that has its own spirit and identity. Biomimicryhas three main levels: organism, behaviour and ecosystem level, in terms of form generation, material selection,construction process, and function establishing.A subcategory of biomimicry is building skin which forms the entire exterior envelope of the building. It is the boundary through which buildings interact with the environment and the whole city. The aim of this paper isto discussbiomimicry as a tool to reduce energy consumption in cities through buildingskins. It also discusses concepts of smart cities. It provides an overviewof biomimicry as a tool of achieving a perfect biomimetic skin of buildings in smart cities. In addition it analysescase studies of energy conservationusing concepts of biomimicry. Finally it would conclude guidelines for biomimicry design of building skinsas a tool for reducing energy consumption in smart citie

Modulation of L-arginine-induced acute pancreatitis by meloxicam and/or L-carnitine in rats

Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory disease, where oxidative stress, subsequently inflammatory mediators activation play a pivotal role. Currently, no definite treatment exists and therapy is mainly supportive that directed to inhibit local pancreatic injury and systemic inflammatory complications. This study is presented to explore whether anti-inflammatory and/or antioxidant drug could ameliorate L-arginine-induced AP.Methods: Rats were sub-grouped randomly into five groups. Control group, AP was provoked by a single intraperitoneal injection of L-arginine (250 mg/100g), rat treated with meloxicam (4 mg/kg, IP), animals treated with L-carnitine (500 mg/kg, IP), and rats were treated with both meloxicam and L-carnitine. All treatments were once daily for 7 consecutive days and started 1 hr later after L-arginine administration. Serum and tissues samples were prepared for biochemical analysis. Histopathological examination for the other pancreatic tissues was done.Results: L-arginine significantly elevated serum activity of amylase and lipase enzymes, while notably reduced serum calcium level. Moreover, L-arginine markedly increased the pancreatic tissues content of tumor necrosis factor-α, malondialdehyde, and nitric oxide. In addition, L-arginine significantly increased pancreatic activity of myeloperoxidase, while markedly depleted glutathione level. Treatment with either meloxicam or L-carnitine significantly attenuated L-arginine-induced biochemical changes. On the other hand, co-administration of both meloxicam and carnitine has an ameliorative effect greater than each drug alone.Conclusion: Treatment with both meloxicam and L-carnitine is a more effective than each of them alone which is attributed to augmentation their antioxidant, anti‑inflammatory effects

Quadcopter Aggressive Maneuvers along Singular Configurations: An Energy-Quaternion Based Approach

Automatic aggressive maneuvers with quadcopters are regarded as a highly challenging control problem. The aim is to tackle the singularities that exist in a vertical looping maneuver. Modeling singularities are resolved by writing the equations-of-motion of the quadcopter in quaternion form. Physical singularities due to underactuation are resolved by using an energy-based control. Energy-based control is utilized to overcome the uncontrollability of the quadcopter at physical singular configurations, for instance, when commanding the quadcopter to gain altitude while pitched at 90∘. Three looping strategies (circular, clothoidal, and newly developed constant thrust) are implemented on a nonlinear model of the quadcopter. The three looping strategies are discussed along with their advantages and limitations

Fecal Lactoferrin As A Diagnostic and Prognostic Marker in Egyptian IBD Patients

Background: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are organic chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract characterized by variable disease activity with repeated periods of remission and exacerbation. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is prevalent in up to fifth of population; diarrhea type has the broadest differential diagnosis. To distinguish inflammatory versus functional disorder fecal biomarkers as fecal lactoferrin (FL), being non-invasive acute phase proteins produced by inflamed mucosa, can help to avoid invasive procedures. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess sensitivity and specificity of fecal lactoferrin as a non-invasive biomarker in Egyptian patients with IBD and to detect its role in assessment of disease severity. Patients and methods: This comparative case control study was held through one year duration. Patients were recruited from Internal Medicine and Hepatology Department at a University Hospital. 50 subjects were classified into 3 groups: Group I included 30 patients with inflammatory bowel disease, Group II included 10 patients with irritable bowel syndrome, Group III included 10 healthy subjects as control group. Results: fecal lactoferrin assay (FLA) levels were highest in patients with IBD in comparison with IBS patients and healthy group. Moreover FLA levels also correlated significantly with disease severity in patients with IBD as higher levels of FLA were found in patients with severe ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn`s disease. Conclusion: Fecal lactoferrin can be used to differentiate IBD from IBS with 96.7% sensitivity and 100% specificity at cutoff value of 37 ug/ml while at cutoff value 7.2 ug/ml FLA has 100% sensitivity and specificity in differentiating IBD patients from healthy subjects in Egyptian population. Yet it can’t differentiate ulcerative colitis versus Crohn’s disease

Evaluation of LL 37 Lipoprotein as Innate Immunity Marker among Sudanese Patients Cutaneous Leishmania

Background: The leishmaniasis is a group of diseases with a broad range of clinical manifestations caused by several species of parasites belonging to the genus Leishmania. LL-37/hCAP18, the only cathelicidin in human, is expressed as an 18-kDa preproprotein. The most prominent function of cathelicidins is their ability to inhibit propagation of a diverse range of microorganisms, which occurs at a micromolar range. Aim: The study was aimed to evaluate the LL37 plasma level in Leishmania Sudanese patients. Materials and Methods: In a case-control study, three hundred subjects were enrolled (200 as case and 100 controls). Five ml. of venous blood was collected in EDTA container, then plasma was obtained and stored frozen at -80ºC. LL 37 was estimated using competitive ELISA. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results: The results revealed that 115 (57%) of Leishimania patients were male and 85 (43%) were female. Plasma LL 37 level was significantly increased in Leishmania patients (1.30±0.71) compared to the control (0.21±0.20) with (p-value 0.000). Conclusion: Leishmania patients had higher levels of plasma LL37, suggesting effective anti-microbial immunity process enhancing healing of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Keywords:  Cathelicidins; LL37, Innate Immunity, Leishmania , Sudan

4-{1-[4-(4-Bromo­phen­yl)-1,3-thia­zol-2-yl]-5-(4-fluoro­phen­yl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-3-yl}-5-methyl-1-(4-methyl­phen­yl)-1H-1,2,3-triazole

In the title compound, C28H22BrFN6S, the central pyrazole ring has an envelope conformation, with the methine C atom being the flap atom. The dihedral angles between the least-squares plane through this ring and the adjacent thia­zole [18.81 (15)°] and triazole [1.83 (16)°] rings indicate a twist in the mol­ecule. A further twist is evident by the dihedral angle of 64.48 (16)° between the triazole ring and the attached benzene ring. In the crystal, C—H⋯N, C—H⋯F, C—H⋯π and π–π inter­actions [occurring between the thia­zole and triazole rings, centroid–centroid distance = 3.571 (2) Å] link mol­ecules into a three-dimensional architecture. The sample studied was a non-merohedral twin; the minor twin component refined to 47.16 (7)%

Applications of Space Mapping Optimization Technology to Filter Design

One of the frontiers that remains in the optimization of large engineering systems is the successful application of optimization procedures in problems where direct optimization is not practical. The recent exploitation of surrogates in conjunction with “true” models, the development of artificial neural network approaches to device modeling and the implementation of space mapping are attempts to address this issue. Our original “Space Mapping” concept, first conceived in 1993, and the subsequent Aggressive Space Mapping approach to engineering design optimization will be discussed, along with new variations. Aggressive space mapping optimization closely follows the traditional experience and intuition of designers. It has been amply demonstrated as a very natural and flexible way of systematically optimizing microwave filters. Space mapping optimization intelligently links companion “coarse” and “fine” models of different complexities, e.g., full-wave electromagnetic simulations and empirical circuit-theory based simulations, to accelerate iterative design optimization of engineering structures. New trust region space mapping optimization algorithms will be mentioned. We briefly review the Expanded Space Mapping Design Framework (ESMDF) concept in which we allow preassigned parameters, not used in optimization, to change in some components of the coarse model. Other recent developments include the introduction of the object oriented SMX system to facilitate implementation of our algorithms in conjunction with certain commercial simulators. Extensive filter design examples complement the presentation.ITESO, A.C

Neural space mapping optimization for EM-based design of RF and microwave circuits

We review Neural Space Mapping (NSM) optimization for electromagnetic-based design of RF and microwave circuits. NSM optimization exploits our Space Mapping-based neuromodeling techniques to efficiently approximate a suitable mapping at each iteration. Coarse model sensitivities are exploited to select suitable fine model base points for the initial mapping.Bandler CorporationConsejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologí