Accuracy and precision of phytonematode sampling plans

Sampling accuracy and precision are basic to nematode research and rational management decision. Taylor's Power Law is used to determine sample size. The published power law parameters are used here differently to define levels of reliability associated with a fixed, cost-determined, sample size. Such levels may provide the decision-maker with more informative data on sampling methods and their reliabilities. Instead of solving for unknown sample number, the rearranged equation to solve for sampling accuracy permitted the use of exact Student’s t-values. The t-values for confidence limits and standard normal variate were used. Both statistical techniques resulted in identical confidence band, in terms of being below, at, or above the economic threshold level, in the majority of cases. Reckoning with new trends in collecting and processing samples, a 99% confidence interval above action threshold of Tylenchulus semipenetrans population with mean = 2500 at a precision of 80% or more would be attainable

Novel Guidelines for Immunotherapeutic Treatment Options of Genital Warts: Review article

Background: The appearance of genital warts varies. Flat or resembling raspberries or cauliflower, they can be found in a variety of shapes. They begin as little red or pink growths and can reach a diameter of four inches or more before interfering with sexual activity or delivery (in certain circumstances) (in some cases). The warts thrive in the vaginal area's moist tissues. On the external genitals and the walls of the cervix and urethra, in women, as well as on the shaft of the penis in males, they are found. Despite the availability of different therapeutic modalities, treating warts with immunotherapy is a tremendous benefit. HPV vaccination has shown promising efficacy in the treatment of genital warts. Objective: To hallmark the new guidelines of immunotherapeutic options for treatment of genital warts. Conclusion: Immunotherapy with HPV vaccines is an effective and safe treatment modality of anogenital warts

Terrorist groups in Syria and Libya: a study of regional policies

Purpose – This study is not intended to be a prescriptive blueprint for any nation or region to fight terrorism, but rather it aims to analyze the development of policies supporting terrorism and their impact on regional as well as international relations. It is an examination of relevant facts, which might hopefully benefit policy makers and practitioners who diligently work on reducing or eliminating terrorist activities. Design/methodology/approach – In order to achieve the objectives of the paper and in light of the pool of the available literature and data, the study adopts the system-analysis method in analyzing the impact of policies supporting terrorism and the countermeasures to apply based on the inputs, outputs and conversions associated with the phenomenon of terrorism. Findings – Policies supporting terrorism differ from a state to another starting from providing safe haven to terrorist groups to providing direct finance and armaments to directly intervening militarily in a targeting country. Or deter such policies. This raised the concerns of many States in the region regarding the domination tendency of Turkey and called for a firm and pragmatic international, regional and Arab stand beyond verbal condemnation to deter Turkey from pursuing such policies. Originality/value – The importance of the academic study stems from the importance of addressing one of the central issues in the field of regional and international relations, which is the policies some states adopt to support terrorism, not only by financing terrorism but also by incubating terrorism. Most studies on terrorism focus on the concept and situations and not on policies that support terrorism and their impact on regional and international relations and the means of encountering terrorism

Postharvest application with propolis for controlling white rot disease of green bean pods

White rot is the most severe disease attacking green bean pods during pre and postharvest stages. Ethanol extracted propolis (EEP) at four concentrations i.e. 0, 5, 10 and 15% was tested to study its effect on growth inhibition zone of the causative fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Results indicated that all tested concentrations of EEP significantly increased the inhibition zone of S. sclerotiorum growth. The highest increase was obtained with at 15% where complete reduction in sclerotia germination occurred. At EEP 10%, the sclerotia germination was reduced by 91.6%.  When the same concentrations were tested to study their effect on white rot disease of green bean pods during storage, all EEP significantly reduced the percentage of white rot incidence and severity. The highest reduction was obtained with EEP at 15%; reducing the disease incidence and severity by 90 and 91.8% respectively, followed by EEP at 10% which reduced the incidence and severity by 78 and 82% respectively. EEP at 5% showed moderate effect. EEP is suggested as good biosystem within integrated management of pathogens and safe alternative for controlling postharvest diseases of green bean pods

New methodology to detect the effects of emotions on different biometrics in real time

Recently, some problems have appeared among medical workers during the diagnosis of some diseases due to human errors or the lack of sufficient information for the diagnosis. In medical diagnosis, doctors always resort to separating human emotions and their impact on vital parameters. In this paper, a methodology is presented to measure vital parameters more accurately while studying the effect of different human emotions on vital signs. Two designs were implemented based on the microcontroller and National Instruments (NI) myRIO. Measurements of four different vital parameters are measured and recorded in real time. At the same time, the effects of different emotions on those vital parameters are recorded and stored for use in analysis and early diagnosis. The results proved that the proposed methodology can contribute to the prediction and diagnosis of the initial symptoms of some diseases such as the seventh nerve and Parkinson’s disease. The two proposed designs are compared with the reference device (beurer) results. The design using NI myRIO achieved more accurate results and a response time of 1.4 seconds for real-time measurements compared to its counterpart based on microcontrollers, which qualifies it to work in intensive care units

Chemical Profiling of Significant Antioxidant and Phytotoxic Microwave-Extracted Essential Oil from Araucaria heterophylla Resin

Due to the various hazards of using synthetic chemical compounds in pharmaceutics, agriculture, and industry, scientists and researchers do their best to explore and assess new green natural compounds from natural resources with potent activity. The essential oil (EO) from the resin collected from Araucaria heterophylla Salisb. was extracted by the microwave technique and chemically characterized via GC-MS analysis. Furthermore, the extract EO was assessed for its antioxidant and phytotoxic activities. The EO has 33 compounds, mainly terpenes (98.23%), and the major compounds were α-pinene (62.57%), β-pinene (6.60%), germacrene D (5.88%), and β-caryophyllene (3.56%). The extracted EO showed substantial antioxidant activity, where it showed IC50 values of 142.42 and 118.03 mg L−1 for DPPH and ABTS, respectively. On the other hand, the EO revealed considerable phytotoxicity against the weed Chenopodium murale, where the EO showed IC50 values of 304.0, 230.1, and 147.1 mg L−1, for seed germination, seedling shoot growth, and seedling root growth, respectively. Moreover, the EO showed the same pattern of allelopathic inhibition against the weed Sonchus oleraceus, where it showed IC50 values of 295.7, 224.5, and 106.1 mg L−1, for seed germination, seedling shoot growth, and seedling root growth, respectively. The present study showed that the extraction technique affects the constituents of the EO, particularly the quantitative composition. The EO of A. heterophylla resin also revealed considerable antioxidant and phytotoxic activity against weeds. Therefore, it can be considered a promising natural resource that could be integrated into the weed management approach. However, further study is recommended for deep characterization of their authentic compounds and evaluation of their mode of action(s) on a wide spectrum of weeds

Impact of prescribed burning, mowing and abandonment on a Mediterranean grassland: A 5-year multi-kingdom comparison

Mediterranean grasslands are semi-natural, fire-prone, species-rich ecosystems that have been maintained for centuries through a combination of fire, grazing, and mowing. Over the past half century, however, grasslands have faced numerous threats, including the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices. Our hypothesis was that mowing and prescribed burning are management practices potentially effective in counteracting the reduction of plant diversity triggered by land abandonment. However, the long-term effects of such management practices on plant communities and soil microbiota in Mediterranean grassland remain poorly studied. Here, we conducted a 5-year field experiment comparing prescribed fire, vegetation mowing, and abandonment in a fire-prone Mediterranean grassland in southern Italy in order to evaluate the capability of such management strategies to counteract the detrimental impacts of land abandonment on plant diversity and the associated increase of wildfire. We combined vegetation analysis and soil chemical characterization and several microbiota analyses, including microbial biomass and respiration, arthropod community, and high-throughput sequencing of bacterial and eukaryotic rRNA gene markers. Burning and mowing significantly increased plant species richness and diversity compared to abandonment plots, reducing the abundance of perennial tall grasses in favour of short-lived species. Standing litter followed the same trend, being 3.8-fold greater and largely composed of grass remains in the abandoned compared to burnt and mowed plots. In the soil, prescribed burning caused significant increase in pH, a reduction in organic carbon, total N, and cation exchange capacity. Diversity and taxonomic composition of bacterial and fungal microbiota was affected by burning and mowing treatments. Abandonment caused shifts of microbiota towards a fungal-dominated system, composed of late successional fungi of the Basidiomycota. Fast-growing and putative fungal pathogens were more abundant under burnt and mowed treatments. Soil arthropods were influenced by vegetation and microbiota changes, being strongly reduced in mowed plots. Our study demonstrated that grassland abandonment promotes the spread of tall grasses, reducing plant diversity and increasing the risk of wildfire, while prescribed burning and mowing are effective in counteracting such negative effects

New Method to Implement and Analysis of Medical System in Real Time

The use of information technology and technological medical devices has contributed significantly to the transformation of healthcare. Despite that, many problems have arisen in diagnosing or predicting diseases, either as a result of human errors or lack of accuracy of measurements. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an integrated health monitoring system to measure vital parameters and diagnose or predict disease. Through this work, the percentage of various gases in the blood through breathing is determined, vital parameters are measured and their effect on feelings is analyzed. A supervised learning model is configured to predict and diagnose based on biometric measurements. All results were compared with the results of the Omron device as a reference device. The results proved that the proposed design overcame many problems as it contributed to expanding the database of vital parameters and providing analysis on the effect of emotions on vital indicators. The accuracy of the measurements also reached 98.8% and the accuracy of diagnosing COVID-19 was 64%. The work also presents a user interface model for clinicians as well as for smartphones using the Internet of things

Enhancing tomato production by using non-conventional water resources within integrated sprinkler irrigation systems in arid regions

This research evaluated the importance of establishing an integrated sprinkler irrigation design connected to fish farm ponds in order to achieve environmental and financial benefits. To achieve the aim of the study, two field experiments were conducted at a private farm in the Nubaria area of Beheira Governorate during the 2022 and 2023 seasons to quantify all the benefits from using fish water effluent (FWE) in irrigation. The obtained results indicated that the effluent could represent a good source of irrigation and bio-fertilization. The yield of tomato was higher when using FWE for irrigation compared with using groundwater for irrigation (IW). This was due to the additional amounts of dissolved bio-nitrogen along with other nutrients present in the FWE. The proportion of dissolved nitrogen added by using FWE was 22.3 kg nitrogen per hectare in 2022 and 24.6 kg nitrogen per hectare in 2023, in addition to some other major elements such as phosphorus and potassium, which are also among the main nutrients needed by crops. It has also been noticed that the fertility of the sandy soil increased with the use of FWE for irrigation. One of the most important results was the possibility of reducing the addition of nitrogen mineral fertilizers by 25%, thus saving on N fertilizers when growing tomato. In addition to the vitality of the FWE and its macro- and microelements, algae, microorganisms, and other organic materials, the use of this type of water as an alternative source for irrigation, along with the reduction in the amount of added mineral fertilizers, will reduce the degree of groundwater contamination with mineral fertilizers and increase the income of farmers. It was also observed that the air temperature decreased during the growing season when compared with the temperature of uncultivated surrounding areas