The Regenerative Effect of Intra-Articular Injection of Autologous Fat Micro-Graft in Treatment of Chronic Knee Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most prevalent conditions resulting to disability particularly in elderly population About 13% of women and 10% of men aged 60 years and older have symptomatic knee OA. The proportions of people affected with symptomatic knee OA is likely to increase due to the aging of the population and the rate of obesity or overweight in the general population. There are multiple factors associated with this progressive disease such as obesity, female gender, and repetitive trauma. Pain is the most common symptom in knee OA, a leading cause of chronic disability, clinical diagnosis will be supported by certain radiological findings. There are numerous conservative therapies that help to relive symptoms depend on severity of Osteoarthritis, and knee replacement remains standard of care in advance disease. Fat Micrografting is evolving technique with promising result in selected patients with regenerative and reparative effect of adipocyte-derived stem cell toward damaged cartilage and bone, which supported by clinical evidence

Structural characteristics of camel-bone gelatin by demineralization and extraction

Camel bone was demineralized through HCl acidulation process at different concentrations (0.0%, 1.5%, 3.0%, and 6.0%) over 1–5 days. The level of demineralization was acid concentration and soaking time dependent. Highest demineralization (62.0%) was recorded in bone sample treated with 6.0% dilute acid for 5 days. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) elemental analysis revealed reduction in Ca and increase in N and H, while O remains unaffected. Particulate characteristics by scanning electron microscope showed an increased surface roughness of bone after demineralization. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis of ossein depicted the presence of functional group similar to that of bone protein (collagen). Statistical optimization by central composite design (CCD) revealed a significant quadratic model for optimum values of extraction temperature, pH, and extraction time. The highest gelatin yield from camel bone was 23.66% at optimum extraction condition (71.87°C, pH 5.26, and 2.58 h) and the bloom was 205.74 g. Camel bone is suitable for production of gelatin with good potentials in food and nonfood applications. © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Endozoochory by goats of two invasive weeds with contrasted propagule traits

Invasive plants have very important ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Producing and dispersing many viable seeds are key plant functional traits for invaders. Ungulate grazing plays an important role in the endozoochorous seed dispersal within grasslands and rangelands. Grazing can be applied as a practical and economical control method for plant invasions. We analyzed the effects of seed passage through the goat digestive system on the germination and viability for Sorghum halepense and Malva parviflora, common invasive species with contrasted propagules and seed traits. Both studied species produced seeds able to survive, in a small percentages (c. 0.80-1.70%), after being eaten by goats. Most of the seeds (c. 40-55%) of both species were retrieved between 24-48 h after ingestion. Goat passage provoked a decrease (> 60%) in the germination percentage and seed viability of S. halepense that was higher with longer gut retention times. In M. parviflora, the goat gut passage did not break its primary physical dormancy, since no retrieved seed germinated with similar viability as the uneaten seeds (c. 90%). In view of our results, goat grazing can be applied as a useful method to control S. halepense and M. parviflora invasions. Goats should be kept in corrals for at least 4 days after grazing to prevent transferring viable seeds to uninfected areas.Deanship of Scientific Research King Khalid University R.G.P.1/210/4

Prosopis juliflora leave extracts induce cell death of MCF-7, HepG2, and LS-174T cancer cell lines

Prosopis juliflora (P. juliflora) is a widespread phreatophytic tree, which belongs to the Fabaceae family. The goal of the present study is to investigate the potential anti-cancer effect of P. juliflora leave extracts and to identify its chemical composition. For this purpose, MCF-7 (breast), HepG2 (liver), and LS-174T (colorectal) cancer cell lines were cultivated and incubated with various concentrations of P. juliflora leave extracts, and its impact on cell viability, proliferation, and cell cycle stages was investigated. P. juliflora leave extracts induced concentration-dependent cytotoxicity against all tested cancer cell lines. The calculated IC50 was 18.17, 33.1 and 41.9 μg/ml for MCF-7, HePG2 and LS-174T, respectively. Detailed analysis revealed that the cytotoxic action of P. juliflora extracts was mainly via necrosis but not apoptosis. Moreover, DNA content flow cytometry analysis showed cell-specific anti-proliferative action and cell cycle stages arrest. In order to identify the anti-cancer constituents of P. juliflora, the ethyl extracts were analyzed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The major constituents identified in the ethyl extracts of P. juliflora leaves were hydroxymethyl-pyridine, nicotinamide, adenine, and poly-(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). In conclusion, P. juliflora ethyl acetate extracts have a potential anti-cancer effect against breast adenocarcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and colorectal adenocarcinoma, and is enriched with anti-cancer constituents

Regional development planning in Saudi Arabia : an evaluation of public service provision in Asir region

Since the early 1970s, Saudi Arabia has made considerable progress in developing the physical and socio-economic infrastructure of the Kingdom. The provision of public services has been expanded rapidly. However, with a strongly centralized planning system the regional dimension in planning has been insufficiently considered. Regional and rural-urban imbalances have increased. Rural areas have benefitted far less from economic development or the provision of basic services. This study examines and evaluates public service provision within the context of regional development problems in Asir Province, one of the lagging regions in Saudi Arabia. It focusses mainly on three areas of public provision: education, health and municipal facilities. It looks at the progress and problems of the provision of those services at the regional scale (Asir Province), and the subregional scale (Sarat Abidah Subregion). Asir is a well settled area of predominantly village population, as is the subregion which was selected for more detailed study on the basis of extensive field studies and questionnaire surveys. The study shows that the provision of educational and health facilities, which have undergone vast expansion in recent years, still leaves many communities with inadequate access to those services, particularly in the more nomadic areas. Municipal facilities appear to have been less successful in reaching out to rural areas. On the basis of detailed analysis of services and their use in the subregion the study attempts to provide a development approach based on the elaboration of a hierarchy of central places to guide the future provision of public services and facilities. The same approach might be adopted elsewhere in Saudi Arabia. The study also points out some broader lessons learnt from the study which may help improve public service development in Saudi Arabia.</p

ECSM: ENERGY EFFICIENT CLUSTERING SCHEME FOR MOBILE M2M COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Scheduling the active and idle period of machine type communication devices (MTC) such as RFID tags, sensors and smart meters are significantly important to achieve energy efficiency in the emerging machine to machine (M2M) communication networks, which comprises thousands of resource constrained MTC devices (i.e., low data rate, energy and bandwidth). However, only a few studies exist in the literature on node scheduling schemes of M2M communication networks. Most of these schemes consider only the energy efficiency of MTC devices and do not support mobility. Thus, we introduce an energy efficient, node scheduling scheme for mobile M2M (ECSM) communication networks. The ECSM scheduling scheme selects a minimum number of active MTC devices in each cluster and increases the probability of network coverage. Simulation results show that the ECSM scheduling scheme outperforms the existing cluster-based and well-known mobility centric LEACH-M and LEACH-ME schemes in terms of network energy consumption and lifetime

QoS management framework for reliable mobile ad hoc networks

This thesis is primarily concerned with the design of a Quality-of-Service (QoS) management framework to enhance the stability and support reliability in the cluster-based mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). This framework is based on providing a secondary clusterhead (SCH) for each clusterhead, which we call here primary clusterhead (PCH). This SCH, which is a regular member node, is identified and assigned by its PCH to be the future leader of the cluster. The SCH will be triggered to be the PCH when the former PCH can no longer be a clusterhead. To enhance the cluster stability, this framework introduces a new protocol to reform the cluster; namely the Smooth and Efficient Re-Clustering (SERC) protocol. In SERC, since the future clusterhead is known by the cluster members, the cluster leadership will be transferred smoothly and the cluster will be reformed immediately with no need to invoke the clustering algorithm. Also, since the member nodes are associated to the cluster with its subsequent clusterheads, the cluster looks stable to the other clusters. Hence, the smooth clusterhead transfer from a node to another aims at increasing the cluster residence time, which will sustain the stability of the network, decrease the clustering communication overhead, and minimize the time spent by each node to join or to reform a cluster. To support the route reliability, this framework provides a new multipath routing protocol, which is named a Localized Cluster-based Rerouting and Resource Reservation Protocol (LC3R). In LC3R, the main route can be established through the PCH chains, while the backup route can be established through the SCH chains. This protocol intends to improve the performance of MANETs by increasing the route lifetime to enhance the network stability and by developing a reliable cluster-based routing protocol to support the QoS requirements. In this study, we describe the general strategies and structures of SERC and LC3R and demonstrate their effectiveness via analysis and simulation. This study includes a comprehensive set of performance evaluations of a MANET environment. The results show how these approaches can achieve a high packet delivery rate and a low packet delivery time with no more rerouting and reclustering communication overhead. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that proposes two clusterheads for each cluster, which is the main contribution of this work

A Case Study on User Experience (UX) Evaluation of Mobile Augmented Reality Prototypes

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) blends the real world with digital objects especially in ubiquitous devices such as smartphones. The MAR applications provide an intelligent interface for users. In this, valuable digital information is advertised in physical spaces. However, the success of these applications is tied directly to the degree of user acceptance. This makes understanding the needs and expectations of the MAR's potential users of paramount importance for designing and building the proper application. The objective of the paper is to expose an important gap in the development of novel applications in the virtual world. Previous research has shown that it is essential to study and understand the needs and expectations of the potential users of the upcoming application or system. Studying user needs and expectations before offering the developed application ensures a minimum level of acceptance and, of course, success. This paper presents a detailed study comprising of a user-experience (UX) evaluation of different prototypes through the use of three different UX evaluation methods. This kind of evaluation allows new developments to offer systems, which do not fail. The main contributions of this study are that it: 1) solicits expectations when consumers use MAR applications, 2) assesses the UX over different prototypes using three different metrics, 3) provides methodological insights on UX evaluation experiments and, 4) is useful for anyone who wants to develop handheld applications after understanding user expectations and how his experience should progress. The results of the study show that users value concreteness, realizability, personalization, novelty, intuitiveness and the usefulness of presented information. Paying attention to these factors can help develop more acceptable MAR applications and lead to more novel future designs

The Political and Administrative Role of Planning and Budgeting in Saudi Arabia: Adaptation for Rapid Change

This study examines the political and administrative role of planning and budgeting in Saudi Arabia. It demonstrates how they have contributed to lessening the political crises of distribution, participation, and penetration that confront developing countries. The study also investigates how these two bureaucratic processes have helped adapt rapid changes in a manner acceptable to the cultural milieu. In addition, the study explores the politics of planning and budgeting and identifies the roles various actors play. The evolution and institutionalization of planning and budgeting are examined through printed materials and interviews with planners and budgeters in the Ministries of Planning and Finance. In addition, a number of the Ulama, businessmen, former government bureaucrats, officials of key ministries and agencies, and media were interviewed in an attempt to understand how they interact in the politics of planning and budgeting

SOME BIOCHEMICAL AND MICROBIOLOGICAL CHANGES IN PROSO MILLET FLOUR DURING STORAGE

Proso millet flour was stored at 10(DEGREES)C and 13% rh; 10(DEGREES)C and 43% rh; 10(DEGREES)C and 80% rh; 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 13% rh; 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 43% rh; 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 80% rh; 45(DEGREES)C and 13% rh; 45(DEGREES)C and 43% rh; and 45(DEGREES)C and 80% rh. The sorption isotherms of proso millet grain were established to insure an equilibrium between the flour samples and the surrounding environment inside desiccators containing saturated salt solutions needed to generate the confined environments. Samples of the flour packed in cotton bags were taken for microbiological and analytical tests after 2, 6 and 12 months. Free lipids decreased while bound lipids in the flour increased during storage. However, samples stored at 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 80% rh and 45(DEGREES)C had an increase in free lipids and a decrease in bound lipids during the last 6 months. The percentages of fatty acids but not the fatty acid profile differed. A higher decrease in C(,18:2) but an increase in C(,16:0), C(,18:0), C(,18:1), and C(,20:0) in free lipids were found in samples stored at 45(DEGREES)C than those at 10 and 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C. Fat acidity and peroxide value in samples stored at 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 45(DEGREES)C and their rh combinations increased during the first 6 months but declined afterward. However, the peroxide values of samples stored at 25 (+OR-) 3(DEGREES)C and 43% rh continued to increase throughout storage. The protein content measured by Kjeldahl method decreased with time, reaching a minimum in samples stored at 45(DEGREES)C and 80% rh. The total microbial counts and mold and yeast counts generally decreased during the storage. The decrease was more severe at 45(DEGREES)C at which temperature molds and yeast were mostly affected. The counts indicated that mold growth was not of significance, thus lipid breakdown and increases in fat acidity might have been due to the native flour lipases only