A New Model for Void Coalescence by Internal Necking

A micromechanical model for predicting the strain increment required to bring a damaged material element from the onset of void coalescence up to final fracture is developed based on simple kinematics arguments. This strain increment controls the unloading slope and the energy dissipated during the final step of material failure. Proper prediction of the final drop of the load carrying capacity is an important ingredient of any ductile fracture model, especially at high stress triaxiality. The model has been motivated and verified by comparison to a large set of finite element void cell calculations.

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

Genome-wide association study for systemic lupus erythematosus in an egyptian population

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) susceptibility has a strong genetic component. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) across trans-ancestral populations show both common and distinct genetic variants of susceptibility across European and Asian ancestries, while many other ethnic populations remain underexplored. We conducted the first SLE GWAS on Egyptians–an admixed North African/Middle Eastern population–using 537 patients and 883 controls. To identify novel susceptibility loci and replicate previously known loci, we performed imputation-based association analysis with 6,382,276 SNPs while accounting for individual admixture. We validated the association analysis using adaptive permutation tests (n = 109). We identified a novel genome-wide significant locus near IRS1/miR-5702 (Pcorrected = 1.98 × 10−8) and eight novel suggestive loci (Pcorrected 0.8) with lead SNPs from four suggestive loci (ARMC9, DIAPH3, IFLDT1, and ENTPD3) were associated with differential gene expression (3.5 × 10−95 < p < 1.0 × 10−2) across diverse tissues. These loci are involved in cellular proliferation and invasion—pathways prominent in lupus and nephritis. Our study highlights the utility of GWAS in an admixed Egyptian population for delineating new genetic associations and for understanding SLE pathogenesis

No Overt Clinical Immunodeficiency Despite Immune Biological Abnormalities in Patients With Constitutional Mismatch Repair Deficiency

Transplantation and immunomodulatio

Constitutional microsatellite instability, genotype, and phenotype correlations in constitutional mismatch repair deficiency

Background & AimsConstitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD) is a rare recessive childhood cancer predisposition syndrome caused by germline mismatch repair variants. Constitutional microsatellite instability (cMSI) is a CMMRD diagnostic hallmark and may associate with cancer risk. We quantified cMSI in a large CMMRD patient cohort to explore genotype–phenotype correlations using novel MSI markers selected for instability in blood.MethodsThree CMMRD, 1 Lynch syndrome, and 2 control blood samples were genome sequenced to >120× depth. A pilot cohort of 8 CMMRD and 38 control blood samples and a blinded cohort of 56 CMMRD, 8 suspected CMMRD, 40 Lynch syndrome, and 43 control blood samples were amplicon sequenced to 5000× depth. Sample cMSI score was calculated using a published method comparing microsatellite reference allele frequencies with 80 controls.ResultsThirty-two mononucleotide repeats were selected from blood genome and pilot amplicon sequencing data. cMSI scoring using these MSI markers achieved 100% sensitivity (95% CI, 93.6%–100.0%) and specificity (95% CI 97.9%–100.0%), was reproducible, and was superior to an established tumor MSI marker panel. Lower cMSI scores were found in patients with CMMRD with MSH6 deficiency and patients with at least 1 mismatch repair missense variant, and patients with biallelic truncating/copy number variants had higher scores. cMSI score did not correlate with age at first tumor.ConclusionsWe present an inexpensive and scalable cMSI assay that enhances CMMRD detection relative to existing methods. cMSI score is associated with mismatch repair genotype but not phenotype, suggesting it is not a useful predictor of cancer risk.Perioperative Medicine: Efficacy, Safety and Outcome (Anesthesiology/Intensive Care

A comprehensive viable framework of auditing standards for the Arab Republic of Egypt

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN039215 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Improving crop production and water productivity using a new field drip irrigation design

Coping with the limited water resources in Egypt is a big challenge and there is a need to find new and innovative techniques for saving irrigation water. Although drip irrigation is the most efficient system for preserving irrigation water, the water distribution uniformity of the standard drippers requires great attention as it varies over drip line length. Two experiments were conducted during the growing seasons of 2015/2016 and 2016/2017, in the north of Egypt to assess the performance of a newly developed design of drip irrigation system compared with two conventional irrigation system designs. The aim is to save water and fertilizers in sandy soil, using potato crop as a sensitive crop to water stress. The tested drip irrigation systems were: Design1: traditional drip irrigation system (control), Design2: drip irrigation system with the same direction for manifolds lines and laterals and Design 3, the new design: drip irrigation system with opposite direction for manifolds lines and laterals. The following parameters were considered to assess the performance of the different irrigation system designs: (1) the average emitter discharge along laterals for the three designs, (2) water emission uniformity, (3) application efficiency of irrigation water (4) tuber yield of potato (5) water productivity of potato “WPpotato” and (6) nitrogen productivity of potato “NPpotato”. The results of the study revealed that the maximum values of yield, WPpotato and FPpotato were obtained under the new design. This was due to the high uniformity in distribution of irrigation water and fertilizers along drip lines

Environmentally friendly road construction

Environmental pollution is a major problem in developing countries like Egypt. Reuse of waste polymers is considered an attractive solution for environmental white pollution and reducing of the costs of road pavement and maintenance. This research aims to prepare environmentally friendly hot mix asphalt (HMA) for paving using some industrial wastes as polypropylene and polyester fibers. The solid materials in the mix include normal and highly porous aggregates. 5% and 10% of waste polymers by weight of the asphalt were used to prepare special binders. The samples were tested for their physical properties, chemical properties, aging, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA). The results revealed that the prepared HMA using 5% of waste polymer had high performance as compared to the ordinary one and the waste polymer could be used in road construction

A validated stability indicating DAD–HPLC method for determination of pentoxifylline in presence of its pharmacopeial related substances

A validated, simple and sensitive stability-indicating HPLC method was introduced for the analysis of Pentoxifylline in the presence of its pharmacopeial related substances, Caffeine anhydrous and Theophylline anhydrous, in the presence of its forced degradation products. This was achieved using a gradient DAD–HPLC method in order to achieve a good separation between the related substance peaks, complying with the pharmacopeial requirement, and an adequate retention time for the Pentoxifylline peak. The method was validated according to the ICH guidelines and different HPLC parameters were optimized for the determination of Pentoxifylline in its dosage form (sustained release tablets). Furthermore, the study of forced degradation of Pentoxifylline was done under various conditions including; hydrolysis (acid, alkaline and neutral), oxidation, dry heat and photo-decomposition. The proposed method could separate Pentoxifylline peak from those of the different forced degradation product peaks and the purity of the Pentoxifylline peak was confirmed using the photo-diode array detector