Assessment of thermal and visual micro-climate of a traditional commercial street in a hot arid climate

PhD ThesisIn the hot arid contexts, the impact of urban climate is often associated with negative effects on outdoor thermal comfort and an increase in the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The primary aim of this research is to investigate the outdoor thermal performance of traditional commercial urban streets located in the hot arid context of Cairo in Egypt. A number of methods were used including field measurements and social surveys. Consequently, urban air flows, temperature and daylight simulations to assess existing and possible improvement scenarios to extend pedestrian thermal and visual comfort were tested. The field measurements were conducted in order to first assess the UHI intensity in the urban street, and to investigate the effectiveness of the traditional design solutions in ensuring comfortable outdoor conditions based on human-biometeorological assessment methods. Validation of results was carried out by comparing measured and simulated results of thermal conditions in the commercial spine ENVI-met is a three dimensional microclimatic model based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and is designed to simulate surface-air interactions in urban environments. It was used to calculate the mean radiant temperature and obtaining the microclimatic maps with problematic areas concerning the pedestrian's thermal comfort for the existing urban configurations. Outdoor thermal comfort was assessed based on a thermal sensation survey and the physiological equivalent temperature (PET), with a comfort range of (24oC - 32oC). To improve outdoor thermal conditions at pedestrian level seven different shading scenarios addressing the form and the opening of shading devices were simulated using CFD Fluent, based on two dependant variables including air temperature distribution and wind velocity. The daylight analysis software (DIVA) was used to evaluate the solar access for the tested cases. The findings show that typology and the opening locations are one of the paramount factors in providing a temperature reduction in the urban scale. As the air temperature was reduced by (2.3oC) for the best case compared to the base leading to a lower PET for the best case recording 32.9oC against 35oC for the base case

Effect of Sex Education Program on Knowledge of Secondary School Girls in El- Beheira Governorate

Background: Lack of knowledge about sexual matters among adolescents’ leads to pre- marital unprotected sexual indulgence, results in sexual transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, illegitimate teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, violence and exploitation. Aim of study: Is to evaluate the effect of sex education program on knowledge of secondary school girls in El- Beheira Governorate. Hypothesis secondary school girls who attend sex education program exhibits better knowledge than those who don’t attend it. Material and Methods: Experimental study design was assumed. Settings: The study was executed at five secondary schools for girls in El- Beheira Governorate that were selected by multistage random sample technique. Subjects: 120 girl students were chosen randomly, these were randomized into 60 girl students for study groups and 60 girl students for control groups. Tools: two tools were developed by the researchers for data collection.  The first tool was concerned with Socio-demographic characteristics, and the second tool was to assess the knowledge of girl students before and after the sex education program. Results: Among study groups, the program created a positive effect on general information about sexuality (p= 0.001), anatomy and physiology of male reproductive system (p= 0.001), anatomy and physiology of female reproductive system (p= 0.214), fertilization/ conception (p= 0.042), and contraception (p= 0.417). Conclusion and Recommendations: After implementation of the sex education program, a positive improvement on knowledge of study group was apparent: So, this study recommended Sex education topics should be implemented in the curriculum of school and college, and teachers should actively participate in sex education program. Keywords: sex education, reproductive health, and sexuality

Comparative Evaluation of Marginal Adaptation of Two Sealers with Two Different Obturation Techniques Using SEM (AN IN VITRO STUDY)

Objective To evaluate and compare the marginal adaptation of epoxy resin-based sealer (AH Plus) versus Bioceramic-based sealer (Total fill BC Sealer) to root canals that were filled by single cone technique & Cold Lateral compaction technique and utilizing scanning electron microscope (SEM). Methods Sixty recently extracted single-rooted mandibular premolars were disinfected. Access cavity preparation was performed followed by cleaning and shaping, using 2.6% NaOCl as final irrigation protocol. Samples were then equally divided into 4 different groups as follows; Group A: AH Plus with CLC technique, Group B: AH Plus with SC technique, Group C: Totalfill BC with CLC technique, and Group D: Total fill Bioceramic sealer with single cone technique. After cleaning and shaping, each sample was obturated with Gutta percha and the sealer according to group of allocation. Afterwards, Transverse sectioning of each root was done at three, six, nine millimeters from the root apex corresponding to the three thirds of the root (apical, middle and coronal thirds). The specimens have been examined under scanning electron microscope (SEM). A commercially accessible software programme (SPSS Chicago, IL, USA) was used for the statistical analysis. The mean and standard deviation were used to describe numerical data. According to data normality, the Kruskall Wallis or ANOVA test was used to compare the data. A P 0.05 significance threshold was used. Every test had two tails. Results BC sealer presented better marginal adaptation than AH Plus sealer. However, On marginal adaption, there was no discernible difference between the two examined obturation techniques. Conclusion BC sealer is a reliable and promising material that improves marginal adaptation. Keywords: AH Plus sealer, BC sealer, Cold lateral condensation, Marginal adaptation, Single cone obturation

Sodium Valproate versus Continuous Infusion of Haloperidol in Management of Agitated Critically Ill Patients

AIM: Describe the efficacy and safety of valproate and haloperidol infusion in controlling agitation in the intensive care unit (ICU). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Prospective study on 100 critically ill patients with agitation in Kasralainy Hospital over the period from May 2016 to June 2017.patients were divided into two groups, each group included 50 patients, 1st group patients received Depakene orally, and 2nd group patients received haloperidol by i.v infusion for 72 h. Richmond agitation sedation score and doses of additional sedative drugs were noted and calculated daily in the first three days. RESULTS: Our study showed that valproate was equal in efficacy in controlling agitation; decreasing the RAAS significantly after 48 h from initiation (2.52 ± 0.61 vs 0.28 ± 0.54 with p < 0.001) for Depakene and (2.6 ± 0.67 vs 0.34 ± 0.48 with p < 0.001) for haloperidol. There was also a decrease in the doses of additional sedative drugs used to control agitation (midazolam & propofol) after 48 h from drug initiation. Both drugs therapy was associated with decrease in heart rate (89 ± 20 vs 86.6 ± 13.6 with p = 0.002 for valproate and 99.8 ± 23.3 vs 91 ± 16.7 with p < 0.001 for haloperidol). They did not affect blood pressure. Haloperidol therapy was associated with significant QTc prolongation. CONCLUSION: Valproate was equal in efficacy as haloperidol infusion in controlling agitation in ICU and decreasing the doses of additional sedative drugs used after 48 h from initiation

Campanian–Early Eocene Stratigraphy of the Southern Galala Plateau, Eastern Desert, Egypt

Several species of larger foraminifera have been recorded in the Campanian–Early Eocene succession of the Southern Galala Plateau. These species include Orbitoides media (ARCHIAC), Omphalocyclus macropora (LAMARK) in the Campanian–Maastrichtian rocks (Gebel Thelmet Formation and Sudr Chalk) and Fallotella (Fallotella) kochanskae persica HOTTINGER & DROBNE, Fabularia zitteli HOTTINGER, Alveolina pasticillata (SCHWAGER), Glomalveolina dachelensis (SCHWAGER), Miscellanea rhomboidea KUSS & LEPPIG and Nummulites cf. subramondi DE LA HARPE in the Palaeocene– Early Eocene sediments (Southern Galala Formation). There are few intervals yielding planktonic species that contributed significantly to the determination of the age assignment for the larger foraminifera. These species include Globigerina triloculinoides PLUMMER, Morozovella uncinata (BOLLI), Morozovella trinidadensis (BOLLI), Morozovella cf. conicotruncata (SUBBOTINA), Morozovella angulata (WHITE), Planorotalites pseudomenardii (BOLLI) and Acarinina primitiva (FINLAY). These planktonic species placed the Glomalveolina dachelensis (SCHWAGER) zone as being older than the Morozovella angulata (WHITE) zone (Early–Middle Palaeocene). The occurrence of the algae Ethelia alba (PFENDER) and Neomeris plagnensis DELOFFRE further supports the referred age

Parents’ Acceptance to Alveolar and Nasoalveolar Molding Appliances during Early Cleft Lip and Palate Care: A Call for High-Quality Research

AIM: Acceptance and compliance of the parents are an essential pillar in the success of pre-surgical infant orthopedic (PSIO) treatment. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the burden of care associated with the alveolar molding (AM) and nasoalveolar molding (NAM) appliances as experienced by the parents with unilateral complete cleft lip and palate (UCLP) infants. METHODS: An electronic search was carried on by two reviewers in eight search engines, as well as a manual search till July 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing AM/NAM appliances to controls in infants with UCLP were selected. Risk of bias was evaluated using Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool for RCTs. RESULTS: One RCT was included in the qualitative analysis. Non-significant differences were found in the amount of mothers’ satisfaction between the intervention and control groups. CONCLUSIONS: Insufficient low-quality evidence is available regarding the effects of AM and NAM on parents’ satisfaction and burden of care. No conclusions can be withdrawn from the existing studies. High-quality research is needed to elucidate the degree of parents’ acceptance to the molding appliances. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42016043174

Optimal allocation of a wind turbine and battery energy storage systems in distribution networks based on the modified BES-optimizer

Recently, incorporating renewable energy resources (RERs) like wind turbines (WTs) in a distribution network is rapidly increased to meet the load growth. However, distribution networks have been facing many challenges to withstand the intermittent output power of RERs. Battery energy storage (BES) is used with RERs to smoothly inject the output power to the grid by RERs. Therefore, this paper proposes an effective strategy for optimal allocation of WT and BES in RDS to decrease the total system losses. In addition, a modified bald eagle search (BES-optimizer) is proposed to obtain the preferable allocations of WT and BES simultaneously in the radial distribution system (RDS) considering the probabilistic distribution of the WT and load demand. IEEE 69-bus RDS is utilized as a test system. Based on the obtained results, installing WTs with BES gives better results than installing WTs alone in the RDS. However, the proposed algorithm proved its efficiency to obtain the best global results compared with other well-known techniques

Effect of hemodiafiltration on sclerostin level and bone specific alkaline phosphatase in comparison with high flux dialysis

 Background: Sclerostin (sScl), an osteocyte-derived glycoprotein acts as a soluble inhibitor of the Wnt signaling pathway and bone formation. Its serum levels increase with the progression of CKD. The present study investigated the effect of hemodiafiltration (HDF) on sScl and bone specific alkaline phosphatase (BS-AP) in comparison with high flux hemodialysis (HF-HD). Methods: a prospective study was conducted upon 32 ESRD patients; 16 on regular HF-HD and 16 shifted to 3 months of HDF. Results: There was a significant reduction of predialysis sScl and BS-AP with a significant increase in sScl reduction ratio in the HDF group after 3months. SScl had a significant positive correlation with total but not BS-AP. Conclusion: sScl and BS-AP significantly decrease but are poorly correlated with each other in HDF. So either sScl reduction does not translate into better bone turnover or the BS-AP is not a suitable biomarker to assess bone turnover in HDF.

Perspective Chapter: The Toxic Silver (Hg)

In the late 1950s, residents of a Japanese fishing village known as “Minamata” began falling ill and dying at an alarming rate. The Japanese authorities stated that methyl-mercury-rich seafood and shellfish caused the sickness. Burning fossil fuels represent ≈52.7% of Hg emissions. The majorities of mercury’s compounds are volatile and thus travel hundreds of miles with wind before being deposited on the earth’s surface. High acidity and dissolved organic carbon increase Hg-mobility in soil to enter the food chain. Additionally, Hg is taken up by areal plant parts via gas exchange. Mercury has no identified role in plants while exhibiting high affinity to form complexes with soft ligands such as sulfur and this consequently inactivates amino acids and sulfur-containing antioxidants. Long-term human exposure to Hg leads to neurotoxicity in children and adults, immunological, cardiac, and motor reproductive and genetic disorders. Accordingly, remediating contaminated soils has become an obligation. Mercury, like other potentially toxic elements, is not biodegradable, and therefore, its remediation should encompass either removal of Hg from soils or even its immobilization. This chapter discusses Hg’s chemical behavior, sources, health dangers, and soil remediation methods to lower Hg levels