Antenatal dexamethasone effect on Doppler blood flow velocity in women at risk for preterm birth: prospective case series

Background: Maternal administration of corticosteroids is essential to improve fetal lung surfactant production and hasten the fetal lung maturity in women at risk for preterm birth.Objectives: The current study aims to evaluate the effects of dexamethasone on fetal and uteroplacental circulation in pregnancies at risk for preterm birth after 24 hours of its administration.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary University Hospital and included 52 pregnant women with singleton pregnancies. Doppler studies were performed on maternal uterine arteries, umbilical artery, fetal middle cerebral artery (MCA) and fetal descending aorta and just before dexamethasone administration and repeated 24 hours after completion of the course.Results: There was a statistically significant difference between all Doppler indices in the umbilical artery (PI= 1.09±0.4 and 1.05±0.39, RI= 0.66±0.14 and 0.63±0.14; p=0.001), fetal MCA (RI= 0.86±0.12 and 0.83±0.13, PI= 2.19±0.72 and 2.15±0.72; p=0.001) and aorta (RI= 0.9±0.55 and 0.87±0.55; p=0.001, PI= 1.91±0.44 and 1.89±0.44; p=0.040) in comparison before and 24 hours after maternal dexamethasone administration respectively. Also uterine artery PI was significantly different (0.9±0.27 and 0.87±0.26; p=0.001).Conclusion: Antenatal dexamethasone for women at risk of preterm birth improves the fetal and uteroplacental blood flow at 24 hours after its administration.Keywords: Doppler; preterm birth; corticosteroids; dexamethasone

The Effectiveness of Digital Marketing in promoting the digital services of Egyptian government institutions

In our time especially with the fast spreading of technology and social media, many people spend a very long-time browsing web, YouTube, and social media, such times have been increased in the last two years, especially after the Corona epidemic, and the curfew. That’s why 2020 was a central year in enhancing the digital means, after the quick increases in digital means in many of the institutions as a result of the spread of the epidemic, so they resort to using the digital means in marketing planning for investments, many institutions concentrate on the stations of the contact through the internet, as they can't ignore the digital technology and at sometimes the human conduct's changes (as regards the use of the social media) which give good chances to establish digital markets for the institutions, despite the progress achieved by the digital means in the latest years, and the development of many digital means to be a strategy of better marketing for the institutions, a belief that the digital marketing is directed only to the private institutions and has nothing to do with the government institutions is wrong as any institutions can use the digital marketing and achieve a positive reward of investment through their campaign of digital marketing directed to audience, on condition that such a strategy must be adapted to achieve benefits for the comprehensive marketing strategy of the institutions.Digital marketing as a strategy has great importance for the governmental institutions which developed their strategies for digital change.The quick digital change high lightened many disadvantages in the traditional marketing of the governmental institution's services at the sometimes, for the changes of the audience behavior it helps to their expectations and meet their different natures and desires, it also helps to change channels to introduce the correct type of services, to achieve constant development and to guarantee competitive advantage and a good mental image, thus the governmental institutions confront numerous challenges including the increasing competition which spotlights the method of using the digital marketing for supporting the governmental services. Research is summarized in studying the effectiveness of digital marketing of institutions and applying it to Egyptian government institutions and its benefits in marketing digital government services via the Internet and social media. The research ends with the analytical study of a model of digital marketing for government services in the advertising campaign for the Egyptian Tax Authority

Antenatal dexamethasone effect on Doppler blood flow velocity in women at risk for preterm birth: prospective case series

Background: Maternal administration of corticosteroids is essential to improve fetal lung surfactant production and hasten the fetal lung maturity in women at risk for preterm birth. Objectives: The current study aims to evaluate the effects of dexamethasone on fetal and uteroplacental circulation in pregnancies at risk for preterm birth after 24 hours of its administration. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary University Hospital and included 52 pregnant women with singleton pregnancies. Doppler studies were performed on maternal uterine arteries, umbilical artery, fetal middle cerebral artery (MCA) and fetal descending aorta and just before dexamethasone administration and repeated 24 hours after completion of the course. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between all Doppler indices in the umbilical artery (PI= 1.09\ub10.4 and 1.05\ub10.39, RI= 0.66\ub10.14 and 0.63\ub10.14; p=0.001), fetal MCA (RI= 0.86\ub10.12 and 0.83\ub10.13, PI= 2.19\ub10.72 and 2.15\ub10.72; p=0.001) and aorta (RI= 0.9\ub10.55 and 0.87\ub10.55; p=0.001, PI= 1.91\ub10.44 and 1.89\ub10.44; p=0.040) in comparison before and 24 hours after maternal dexamethasone administration respectively. Also uterine artery PI was significantly different (0.9\ub10.27 and 0.87\ub10.26; p=0.001). Conclusion: Antenatal dexamethasone for women at risk of preterm birth improves the fetal and uteroplacental blood flow at 24 hours after its administration

The Microbe Directory: An Annotated, Searchable Inventory of Microbes\u27 Characteristics

The Microbe Directory is a collective research effort to profile and annotate more than 7,500 unique microbial species from the MetaPhlAn2 database that includes bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. By collecting and summarizing data on various microbes\u27 characteristics, the project comprises a database that can be used downstream of large-scale metagenomic taxonomic analyses, allowing one to interpret and explore their taxonomic classifications to have a deeper understanding of the microbial ecosystem they are studying. Such characteristics include, but are not limited to: optimal pH, optimal temperature, Gram stain, biofilm-formation, spore-formation, antimicrobial resistance, and COGEM class risk rating. The database has been manually curated by trained student-researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and CUNY-Hunter College, and its analysis remains an ongoing effort with open-source capabilities so others can contribute. Available in SQL, JSON, and CSV (i.e. Excel) formats, the Microbe Directory can be queried for the aforementioned parameters by a microorganism\u27s taxonomy. In addition to the raw database, The Microbe Directory has an online counterpart ( https://microbe.directory/) that provides a user-friendly interface for storage, retrieval, and analysis into which other microbial database projects could be incorporated. The Microbe Directory was primarily designed to serve as a resource for researchers conducting metagenomic analyses, but its online web interface should also prove useful to any individual who wishes to learn more about any particular microbe

The effectiveness of designing Egyptian smart government applications during the Corona virus pandemic

Abstract: The successive developments in the field of digital technology caused a great revolution in the different field of life, including the field of government services, hence the great and continuous development in technologies, many new applications of information and communication technology have appeared, resulted in great change in our life and helping in changing the way citizens deal with government services, and made The process of communication better, quicker, more accurate, quality, fast, easy and to cheaper, so that the Egyptian citizen becomes a basic partner in the government institution, and with the Corona virus invading the barriers of time and place, as many countries around the world were forced to close completely, which caused to the disruption of citizen services.A Then comes, The role of smart government's applications in order to make the best use of information and communication technology to build a sustainable environment and encouraging the use of technology to help the Egyptian citizens to benefit these services, the smart government is not a new technical challenge as much as it is atrial to benefit from the technical achievements in the field of government institutions to confront the problems of traditional government institutions, The smart government is the last stage in the transformation from the traditional government, passing by the electronic-government to building an integrated smart government, and this stage cannot be achieved suddenly or quickly, but with stable and carefully studied steps with a gradual development and strategic change in the Egyptian government that leads to a radical shift in the methods of communication between the government and the Egyptian citizen during the spread of the global Corona epidemic ... The research is summarized in studying the digital transformation of institutions and applying it to the Egyptian government institutions and benefiting from its advantage in designing a smart Egyptian government, setting points for its construction requirements, its characteristics, and its objectives, it will also help in setting functional and design considerations for smart applications for Egyptian government institutions... The research ends with an analytical study of two models of smart applications confronting Corona virus:- The Health Egypt application (Egypt)- Tawakkalna application (Saudi Arabia

Insulin sensitizing agent improves clinical pregnancy rate and insulin resistant parameters in polycystic ovarian syndrome patients with acanthosis nigricans: a randomized controlled study

Objective: To investigate the effect of adding metformin to clomiphene citrate (CC) in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) patients with acanthosis nigricans (AN) who were previously not responding to CC. Material and Methods: A double blinded randomized controlled trial (NCT02562664) included 66 PCOS women with acanthosis nigricans who were CC resistant (at least 3 months). Day 3 follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) level, fasting insulin, fasting glucose and homeostatic model assessment were used to quantify insulin resistance. Participants were randomly assigned to either group I (CC with placebo tablets) or group II (CC with metformin) for three cycles. Insulin resistance parameters as well as clinical pregnancy rate had been evaluated in both groups. The statistical analysis was done using Chi- square and Fischer exact tests. Results: The demographic data was comparable in both groups, however; there was higher cumulative pregnancy rate after three cycles of stimulation in group II (18/33) (54.5%) in comparison with group I (7/33) (21.1%) (P=0.03). There was a significant improvement in the insulin resistance parameters after three months of combining clomiphene citrate with metformin as compared with CC alone. Conclusion: Adding metformin to CC in clomiphene citrate resistant PCOS patients who have acanthosis nigricans improves the pregnancy rate and insulin resistant parameters

The Microbe Directory: An annotated, searchable inventory of microbes’ characteristics

The Microbe Directory is a collective research effort to profile and annotate more than 7,500 unique microbial species from the MetaPhlAn2 database that includes bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. By collecting and summarizing data on various microbes’ characteristics, the project comprises a database that can be used downstream of large-scale metagenomic taxonomic analyses, allowing one to interpret and explore their taxonomic classifications to have a deeper understanding of the microbial ecosystem they are studying. Such characteristics include, but are not limited to: optimal pH, optimal temperature, Gram stain, biofilm-formation, spore-formation, antimicrobial resistance, and COGEM class risk rating. The database has been manually curated by trained student-researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and CUNY—Hunter College, and its analysis remains an ongoing effort with open-source capabilities so others can contribute. Available in SQL, JSON, and CSV (i.e. Excel) formats, the Microbe Directory can be queried for the aforementioned parameters by a microorganism’s taxonomy. In addition to the raw database, The Microbe Directory has an online counterpart ( https://microbe.directory/) that provides a user-friendly interface for storage, retrieval, and analysis into which other microbial database projects could be incorporated. The Microbe Directory was primarily designed to serve as a resource for researchers conducting metagenomic analyses, but its online web interface should also prove useful to any individual who wishes to learn more about any particular microbe

GC-MS Determination of Undeclared Phthalate Esters in Commercial Fragrances: Occurrence, Profiles and Assessment of Carcinogenic and Non-Carcinogenic Risk Associated with Their Consumption among Adult Consumers

Phthalates are chemicals that are extensively used in the manufacturing of cosmetic products. The occurrence of phthalate esters in personal care products may pose adverse effects on consumers’ health. In this work, a simple, fast and reliable GC-MS method was developed and validated for concurrent determination of phthalate esters in fragrances. Simple procedures were employed for sample preparation and clean up. The recoveries achieved were in the range of 94.9% to 105.6% with RSD ≤ 4.06. The detection limits were in the range of 0.0010 to 0.0021 µg/mL. The GC-MS method was utilized to investigate the occurrence of phthalate esters in different brands of perfumes sold in the Saudi Arabian market. Diethyl phthalate was detected in all analyzed samples, with a maximum concentration of 5766 µg/mL, and di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate was detected in the majority of the analyzed samples (95%), with a mean concentration of 55.9 µg/mL and a highest concentration of 377.7 µg/mL. Additionally, the exposure to phthalate esters due to the consumption of perfumes was investigated among the adult Saudi population for the first time. It was found that the systemic exposure dose, measured at mean concentrations, ranged from 4.59 × 10−4 to 4.29 × 10−2 (mg/kg/day) and from 5.00 × 10−4 to 4.68 × 10−2 (mg/kg/day) for male and female users, respectively. Moreover, the non-carcinogenic risk of the investigated phthalate esters and the carcinogenic risk of DEHP were also evaluated. The non-carcinogenic risk values of the detected phthalate esters were greater than 100, which indicates that exposure to these phthalate esters is unlikely to produce non-carcinogenic health effects to consumers. However, at maximum DEHP concentrations, the carcinogenic risk values were 5.49 × 10−5 for male users and 5.98 × 10−5 for female users, which indicates the possibility of DEHP to pose a carcinogenic health effect if present at high levels. Regular monitoring of undeclared chemicals such as phthalate esters in personal care products marketed in Saudi Arabia is extremely important to ensure consumers’ safety. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to assess the health risk associated with consumption of perfumes in Saudi Arabia

Chemometric Assisted UV-Spectrophotometric Methods Using Multivariate Curve Resolution Alternating Least Squares and Partial Least Squares Regression for Determination of Beta-Antagonists in Formulated Products: Evaluation of the Ecological Impact

In this study, UV-spectrophotometry coupled with chemometrics has been utilized to enhance the sustainability of quality control analysis of beta antagonists. First, we developed and optimized two eco-friendly chemometric-assisted methods without preliminary separation utilizing (1) multivariate curve resolution alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and (2) well-established partial least squares regression (PLSR) multivariate calibration for the resolution and quantification of the most commonly prescribed beta antagonists in active pharmaceutical ingredients or commercial pharmaceutical products. The performance of the two proposed chemometric methods was computed and compared. Second, a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the eco-friendliness of the developed methods was performed utilizing the following greenness assessment tools: Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI), Analytical Eco-scale assessment (AES) tool, Raynie and Driver’s assessment tool and Analytical GREEnness Metric (AGREE). The models showed satisfactory recovery with a range from 99.83% to 101.12% for MCR-ALS and from 99.66% to 101.54% for PLSR. The optimized models were employed for green analysis of the investigated beta-blockers in single or co-formulated formulations without prior separation. The predictivity of the proposed MCR-ALS and the well-established PLSR method were very comparable. Nevertheless, the MCR-ALS method has the ability to recover the pure spectra of the studied analytes and the interferences as well. The proposed chemometric methods are fast, precise and do not need any sample pretreatment. In addition, they can be used as a benign substitute for the traditional methods used for the analysis of the investigated drugs in pharmaceutical products without harmful impacts on human health and the environment. They also provide advantages in terms of low solvent usage, reduced energy consumption and short analysis time, making them a safe and sustainable approach for quality control analysis