Surgical management of congenital chylous ascites

Objective: The objective of this study was to present our experience regarding the diagnosis and therapeutic approach in cases of congenital chylous ascites that were surgically managed in our department in a 10-year period.Background: Congenital chylous ascites is a rare condition that constitutes a challenge for physicians. This condition is often refractory to therapy, and it is responsible for serious malnutrition and immunological deficiency because of losses of proteins and lymphocytes.Patients and methods: From 2007 to 2017, four cases of congenital chylous ascites were managed at our center. All cases were treated surgically after failure of medical treatment.Results: The first patient had no definite lymphatic leaks rather than presence of a moderate amount of milky ascitic fluid with dilated lymphatics at the root of the mesentery and at the intestinal wall and enlarged regional lymph nodes. The second one had leaking chylolymphatic cyst in the greater omentum that was excised. The third patient had no definite lymphatic leaks rather than thickened greater omentum, and thus, subtotal omentectomy was done. The fourth baby had no definite lymphatic leaks and developed reaccumulation of the ascitic fluid 1 month after surgery; insertion of a peritoneovenous shunt was indicated that succeeded to resolve the ascites. All children are growing up normally with no recurrence of the ascites on long-term follow-up.Keywords: chylolymphatic cyst, chylous ascites, lymphatic leak, peritonealvenous shun

BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system for screening of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex among cattle

Bovine tuberculosis remains a disease of economic and public health importance in developing countries. The largest number of new cases of tuberculosis usually occurs in South-East Asia region and Africa. This study was aimed to evaluate the recent technique (BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system) for screening of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex among cattle in Egypt. From the 1180 cattle examined in three different Governorates (El-Sharkia, El-Gharbia and El-Monefeia) by single intradermal tuberculin test, 29 animals (2.46%) were positive reactors. The post mortem examination of the positive reactors showed that 22 animals (75.9%) had visible lesions [respiratory form (31.0%), digestive form (13.8%), mixed form (20.7%) and generalized form (10.3%)], while seven (24.1%) did not show visible lesions. The results of isolation and identification using conventional culture method (Lowenstein- Jensen medium) were 22 mycobacterial isolates (75.9%), 20 (68.97%) Mycobacterium bovis and 2 (6.9%) unidentified slow growth. The BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system was used for recovery of Mycobacteria and compared with conventional culture method (Lowenstein-Jensen medium). The recovery rate of BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system was 82.8%, while that of Lowenstein-Jensen medium was 75.9%. The mean time for detection of Mycobacteria was 17.8 ± 0.9 days and 46.5 ± 0.4 days for BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system and Lowenstein-Jensen medium, respectively while the contamination rate with BACTEC MGIT 960 TM system was 6.9% and 10.3% in Lowenstein-Jensen medium.Key words: Bovine tuberculosis, tuberculin test, Lowenstein-Jensen medium, BACTEC system

Inter-generational conflict and psychiatric symptoms

Secondary school pupils and their parents were investigated using the scaled version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ–28) and by a questionnaire designed to study attitudes involved in inter-generational conflict in psychiatric patients. Parent-pupil and interparental conflict in answers to the attitude questionnaires were taken as measures of inter-generational and intra-generational conflicts respectively. The former significantly exceeded the latter. Parent-student conflict was higher when the students involved were females, Kuwaiti, or had less educated fathers. The tendency of the number of reported GHQ symptoms to be higher in members of families with higher inter-generational conflict did not reach statistical significance. There is an apparent discrepancy between this finding and the prominence of inter-generational conflict in clinical material

IMPROVED REFERENCE KEY FRAME ALGORITHM

The autonomous vehicles, such as wheeled robots and drones, efficiently contribute in the search and rescue operations. Specially for indoor environments, these autonomous vehicles rely on simultaneous localization and mapping approach (SLAM) to construct a map for the unknown environment and simultaneously to estimate the vehicle’s position inside this map. The result of the scan matching process, which is a key step in many of SLAM approaches, has a fundamental role of the accuracy of the map construction. Typically, local and global scan matching approaches, that utilize laser scan rangefinder, suffer from accumulated errors as both approaches are sensitive to previous history. The reference key frame (RKF) algorithm reduces errors accumulation as it decreases the dependency on the accuracy of the previous history. However, the RKF algorithm still suffers; as most of the SLAM approaches, from scale shrinking problem during scanning corridors that exceed the maximum detection range of the laser scan rangefinder. The shrinking in long corridors comes from the unsuccessful estimation of the longitudinal movement from the implemented RKF algorithm and the unavailability of this information from external source as well. This paper proposes an improvement for the RKF algorithm. This is achieved by integrating the outcomes of the optical flow with the RKF algorithm using extended Kalman filter (EKF) to overcome the shrinking problem. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the RKF, iterative closest point (ICP), and Hector SLAM in corridors that exceed the maximum detection range of the laser scan rangefinder

FOXP3 Polymorphism and Susceptibility to Pediatric Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL): A Preliminary Data

FOXP3 (forkhead box P3) polymorphism is associated with many inflammatory diseases and cancers. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of pediatric malignancies.This study was designed to investigate the impact of FOXP3 (-3279C/A and -2383C/T) gene polymorphism on the susceptibility of Egyptian children to ALL. A total of 128 subjects with ALL and 124 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Genotyping of FOXP3 (-3279C/A and -2383C/T) were performed by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). There was a significant increase (P<0.01) in FOXP3 (-3279CC) genotype, while FOXP3 -3279CA genotype was significantly decreased in ALL patients compared to controls. Insignificant change in FOXP3 (-2383C/T) genotypes was demonstrated between both groups. FOXP3 (-2383CC) genotype was significantly decreased (p<0.05) in treatment responders compared to non-responders and a significant increased (p<0.05) in relapsed patients comparing to the non-relapsed group. Taken together, our pilot study pointed to the potential role of FOXP3 (-3279C/A) gene polymorphisms in Egyptian children ALL susceptibility. An additional prospective large scale study should be carried out to support our findings

Human Treated Dentin Matrix Hydrogel as a Drug Delivery Scaffold for Regenerative Endodontics

Introduction: The objective of the current study was to develop a human treated dentin matrix (hTDM) hydrogel for use as a scaffold to allow the controlled release of an antimicrobial agent for regenerative endodontics. Materials and Methods: Human extracted teeth were treated via chemical demineralization using ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid solution to produce hTDM powder. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was conducted to determine the functional groups of hTDM, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to define the morphology/particle size of hTDM, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis was performed to identify the superficial apatite groups. Prepared hTDM powder was added to the amoxicillin-clavulanate mixture with a mass ratio of 1:1. Then, the combination was dripped into a 5% (w/v) calcium chloride solution. Antibiotic release profiles were evaluated for 14 days via high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Hydrogel degradation properties were studied for 14 days using 10 mL of phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Encapsulation efficiency was determined by HPLC, while minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of amoxicillin-clavulanate were determined against Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis). The antibacterial activity of amoxicillin-clavulanate against E. faecalis was investigated for 14 days via agar diffusion test. Statistical analysis was performed with the Shapiro-Wilk test (P=0.05). Results: hTDM showed statistically a significant difference for percentage weight change (P=0.1). The encapsulation efficiencies for hTDM hydrogel with antibiotic and hydrogel with antibiotic was 96.08%±0.02 and 94.62%±0.11, respectively. MIC and MBC values of amoxicillin-clavulanate against E. faecalis were 2.4 µg/mL and 9.6 µg/mL, respectively. The antibacterial activity of antibiotic loaded hTDM hydrogels was significantly greater than loaded hydrogels alone by 31% after 4 and 100% at 14 days, respectively (P≤0.001). Conclusions: This in vitro study showed antibiotic-loaded injectable hTDM hydrogel could be an alternative system to transfer antibiotic-based intracanal medicaments for use in regenerative endodontics

Importance of Micronutrients, Organic Manure and Biofertilizer for Improving Maize Yield and its Components Grown in Desert Sandy Soil

Abstract: A field experiment was carried out on a desert sandy soil at Ismailia Agric. Res. Station during the summer season of 2008 to evaluat

Using biocontrol agents and sodium nitrophenolate to control powdery mildew and improve the growth and productivity of marigold (Calendula officinalis L.)

In vitro and in vivo studies were conducted to investigate the potential of four biocontrol agents (BCAs), namely Bacillus megaterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Trichoderma viride, and T. harzianum, individually and in combination with sodium nitrophenolate (SN) to control marigold powdery mildew. The results showed that all treatments led to a significant inhibition in the conidial germination of Golovinomyces cichoracearum in vitro. Maximum inhibition was recorded by T. harzianum (1×109 CFU mL-1) + SN (1.5%), followed by T. viride + SN, and B. megaterium + SN at the same concentrations as follows: 83.6, 79.1, and 70.6%, respectively. While the lowest inhibition (20.4%) was recorded by P. fluorescens (1×105 CFU mL-1). In the greenhouse, all treatments applied significantly reduced the disease severity and the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC). The combination treatments had a better disease control response than individual treatments. Similar results were achieved in the field, where disease severity reduced to 9.2 and 10.3% in plants treated with T. harzianum + SN in the first and second seasons, respectively, compared to 40.2 and 44.1% in control in both seasons. Likewise, AUDPC reduced to 274 and 315 in plants treated with T. harzianum + SN in the first and second seasons, respectively, compared to 1207 and 1340 in control in both seasons. The treatments improved growth and productivity characteristics, as well as photosynthetic pigments, total phenolic compounds (TPC), and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity, while significantly reducing free proline (FP). In conclusion, BCAs applied individually or in combination with SN can be used effectively to suppress powdery mildew of marigold

LIDAR-INERTIAL LOCALIZATION WITH GROUND CONSTRAINT IN A POINT CLOUD MAP

Real-time localization is a crucial task in various applications, such as automatic vehicles (AV), robotics, and smart city. This study proposes a framework for map-aided LiDAR-inertial localization, with the objective of accurately estimating the trajectory in a point clouds map. The proposed framework addresses the localization problem through a factor graph optimization (FGO), enabling the fusion of homogenous measurements for sensor fusion and designed absolute and relative constraints. Specifically, the framework estimates the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) odometry by leveraging inertial measurement unit (IMU) and registering corresponding featured points. To eliminate the accumulative error, this paper employs a ground plane distance and a map matching error to constraint the positioning error along the trajectory. Finally, local odometry and constraints are integrated using a FGO, including LiDAR odometry, IMU pre-integration, and ground constraints, map matching constraints, and loop closure. Experimental results were evaluated on an open-source dataset, UrbanNav, with an overall localization accuracy of 2.29 m (root mean square error, RMSE)