Solvation simplified

The effects of solvents on chemical phenomena is complex because there are various solute-solvent interaction mechanisms. Solvatochromism refers to the effects of solvents on the spectra of probes. The study of this phenomenon sheds light on the relative importance of the solvation mechanisms. Solvation in pure solvents is quantitatively analyzed in terms of a multi-parameter equation. In binary solvent mixtures, solvation is analyzed by considering the organic solvent, S, water, W, and a 1:1 hydrogen bonded species (S-W). The applications of solvatochromism to understand distinct chemical phenomena, reactivity and swelling of cellulose, is briefly discussed.(FAPESP) São Paulo Research FoundationCNPq National Council for Scientific and Technological Researc

The City of Alexandria: Its Identity and Environment in the works of Alexandria’s Pioneer Painters

The unique location of Alexandria city in the Mediterranean Basin has attracted several artistic civilizations ever since the time of Ptolemy. This has been the case during the Roman era, and the subsequent eras throughout which Alexandria remained the window of Egypt and most of the Middle East to the European cultures and arts. As a result, Alexandria has witnessed the cultural and artistic renaissance during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, since "Muhammad Ali" –and his family–permitted the foreign delegations to come and form colonies fused with the human component of Alexandria that had a unique character. Consequently, the foreign artists’ rooms were widely spread and the Alexandrian pioneers of painting art, of the first and second generations, studied under their supervision. Despite being trained by foreigners, their sense of belonging to the Egyptian identity or their participation in laying groundwork for a national art project deeply rooted in the heritage of the nation wasn’t affected. However, they were receptive to maturely cope with the modernity of the western schools of arts. Mahmoud Said, a painter, after completing the art foundation phase, employed his art to portray the modern Egyptian man as a national hero. This portrayal was possible through his use of environmental elements and characters. Seif Wanli was one of the most receptive Egyptian painters to the modern and contemporary western schools of art. He was allegedly known to be unconcerned with the issue of national identity; however, Alexandria kept its high rank in his art despite being characterized by global features. Adham Wanli remained loyal to his impressive and symbolic realism as Alexandria, with all its components, was the core of his artistic creativity. Hamid Aweys left his hometown and went to Alexandria and spent most of his age therein. His belonging to the identity and environment of that ancient coastal city was the same as that of the previously mentioned artists. He was inspired by the city’s environmental and cultural elements in a distinctive way

An Analytical Study on the Implementation of a Healthcare App to Assist People with Disabilities Using Cloud Computing and IoT

This study targets a group of people who require care, that is, people with special needs. The significance of this study lies in addressing the main problem that this group suffers from, which is the lack of awareness and information that leads to the acceptance of that group in society. This work aims to create a mobile application that contributes to spreading knowledge among people with special needs and enhancing their skills to help them become accepted by community members. This application supports people with special needs with training resources, education, suitable jobs, and other services helping them in developing their experiences and knowledge to be active in society. In addition, an evaluation questionnaire has been developed to collect data from both the private and public sectors to classify the building blocks necessary for KSA to incorporate the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing into the healthcare sector. As a result, most respondents acknowledge the importance of a streamlined data-gathering process, the IoT, and cloud-based computing to meet their healthcare needs. Lastly, six main blocks for checking suppliers and the public to accept IoT and cloud healthcare applications are then acknowledged in this paper

Assisting individuals with autism and cognitive disorders: An augmented reality based framework

Individuals with autism require systematic assistance while dealing with the surrounding environment and its objects. The project aim is to develop a framework that could be of substantial help to people with autism and cognitive disorders. The framework is based on common mobile devices and freely available Augmented Reality (AR) applications. The Augmented Reality used in our approach is marker-based AR that employs a camera and a visual marker to trigger and present media content on the mobile device's screen. The developed framework allows parents and teachers to easily create educational augmented environments for children with autism and cognitive disorders by populating a real-world space with visual markers of favorite cartoonish helpers that can evoke helpful AR content and embed it in the real-world environment. The paper analyzes and discusses the use of the proposed framework from conceptual and technological points of view. - 2019 Kassel University Press GmbH.Scopu

Domination in Isosceles Triangular Chessboard

In this article, we are interested in the domination problem in isosceles triangular chessboard. In our study we take in account one type of piece of rooks, bishops and kings, and two different types of pieces together, kings with rooks, kings with bishops and rooks with bishops. The chessboard in this work is isosceles triangular with square cells. Also in most cases we determine the possible number of different methods of domination (total solution). Keywords: domination, Isosceles triangle chessboard, Kings, Bishops and Rooks

A Study of the androgen receptor gene polymorphism and the level of expression of the androgen receptor in androgenetic alopecia among Egyptians

Background: Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) occurs in men and women. Thenature of the genetic predisposition to androgenetic alopecia is still unresolved. The aim of the work is to study the genotype of the androgen receptor gene (StuI polymorphism) and its relationship to AGA in a case control study and to determine the level of androgen receptor expression (AR) in the balding scalp relative to the non-balding scalp area.Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on one hundred individuals; 60 cases with AGA (36 males and 24 females) and 40 age and sex matched control patients (20 males and 20 females). StuI restriction fragment length polymorphism(RFLP) of exon 1 was detected by PCR based assay using genomic DNA of subjects with AGA and controls. Immunohistochemical detection of the androgen receptor (AR) using antihuman AR antibody was implemented to compare its level in the balding scalp and in the non-balding area in individuals having AGA.Results: Analysis of StuI restriction fragment length polymorphism in exon 1 of the androgen receptor (AR) gene revealed a relatively commoner incidence of the cut allele in males with AGA relative to age and sex matched controls (the association was of border line signifi cance p=0.07. Interestingly, all persons who had maternal uncles suffering from AGA had the Stu1 cut variant of AR gene (p= 0.03 using Chi square test). Semiquantitative immunohistochemical analysis of AR in the bold scalp biopsies showed higher expression in the level of AR than the non bold bioposies within the same individual.Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge this is the fi rst study of AR gene polymorphism and AR expression in AGA amongst Egyptians. This study contributes in the understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of AGA which could help in fi nding better therapeutic alternatives for such trait in the future.Keywords: Androgenetic alopecia, androgen receptor, StuI polymorphism, immunohistochemical expression

Biotransformation of furanocoumarins by Cunninghamella elegans

AbstractBiotransformation of Furanocoumarins; psoralen (1), bergapten (2), xanthotoxin (3) and imperatorin (4) was explored by Cunninghamella elegans NRRL 1392, revealing the metabolism of psoralen (1) and bergapten (2) into bergaptol (5), while xanthotoxin (3) and imperatorin (4) were converted into xanthotoxol (6). On the other hand unexpected conversion of xanthotoxin (3) into 3,4 dihydroxanthotoxin (7) occurred. The structure of the isolated pure metabolites was established using physical and spectroscopic techniques including, melting points, IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and mass spectroscopy

Robust digital watermarking for compressed 3D models based on polygonal representation

Multimedia has recently played an increasingly important role in various domains, including Web applications, movies, video game and medical visualization. The rapid growth of digital media data over the Internet, on the other hand, makes it easy for anyone to access, copy, edit and distribute digital contents such as electronic documents, images, sounds and videos. Motivated by this, much research work has been dedicated to develop methods for digital data copyright protection, tracing the ownership, and preventing illegal duplication or tampering. This paper introduces a methodology of robust digital watermarking based on a well-known spherical wavelet transformation, applied to 3D compressed model based on polygonal representation using a neural network. It will be demonstrated in this work that applying a watermarking algorithm on a compressed domain of a 3D object is more effective, efficient, and robust than when applied on a normal domain