Oscillations of Third Order Half Linear Neutral Differential Equations

In this paper the oscillation criterion was investigated for all solutions of the third-order half linear neutral differential equations. Some necessary and sufficient conditions are established for every solution of (a(t)[(x(t)±p(t)x(?(t) ) )^'' ]^? )^'+q(t) x^? (?(t) )=0, t?t_0, to be oscillatory. Examples are given to illustrate our main results

Influences of socio-cultural values to community housing design in the Gaza Strip Palestine

Rapid socio-cultural change in contemporary life is affecting housing design in the Gaza Strip Palestine. Alongside design issues of housing, the absence of sociocultural values is also one of the serious problems facing the community of the Gaza Strip . Academic literature shows that socio -cultural values are deeply rooted in housing design and can play an integral role in developing sustainable communities. Thus, scholars believe that socio-cultural values should be incorporated in housing design and have suggested further inquiry . However , integrating socio -cultural values in housing design is a challenge . Against this background , the current study aims to investigate the relationships between socio -cultural values and housing design by bridging research gaps identified in the literature. This study employed the triangulation study design using both quantitative and qualitative data to address the research objectives. The quantitative data of 252 respondents were obtained through questionnaires , followed by seven semi -structured interviews conducted with residents from the Gaza Strip to complement quantitative results and provide better understanding of socio-cultural values in the context of housing design. Quantitative data was analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM) using AMOS 22 and qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis using NVIVO 11. The quantitative findings revealed that social values namely family structure (FS), family values (FV ), family life style (FLS ) and cultural factors namely privacy (PV ), religion and attitude beliefs (RAB), safety and security (SS) related positively with housing design (HD ). Several major themes of social and cultural values also emerged in explaining housing design. This study makes a novel contribution based on socio-cultural values and housing design in the field of built environment

Effect of Deposition Time on the Optical Characteristics of Chemically Deposited Nanostructure PbS Thin Films

AbstractPbS thin films are good materials for antireflection coatings and for solar thermal applications in flat-plat collectors, house heating for solar chick brooding, etc. Nanocrystalline PbS thin films were deposited on glass substrates with various deposition times using chemical bath deposition technique. The study was carried out for thicknesses in the range (500-660nm). The crystalline size of these films was studied by atomic force microscope AFM. A dense surface composed of multilayered grains of films was obtained with the crystal size around 37.67nm. The optical properties of these films have been studied and show that PbS thin films have allowed direct transition and the values of energy gap varied between (1.88-1.55eV) with increasing film thickness, The large optical band gap in the films is attributed to the quantum coefficient effect. Influences of thermal treatments under various annealing temperatures on the optical properties for some deposition films were studied

Knowledge, attitude and practice of Tanta University medical students towards hepatitis B and C

Background: Egypt lies among the world’s highest prevalence rates of HCV and intermediate levels of HBV infection. The objectives of the study were detection of the knowledge, attitude and practice of Medical Students of Tanta University towards hepatitis B and C.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, conducted in The Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Egypt; from 15th October 2013 to 15th of January 2014.Results: The study included 185 Students; their ages ranged between 17 to 28 years with a mean 20±1.731years. Sixty percent of students were males and 65% were urban residents. 50.8% of the participants were in the basic level of the academic study. More than half (57.85%) of the participants had sufficient knowledge, 77.3% of them had a positive attitude towards hepatitis C and B and more than two-thirds (68.1%) showed good practice. A significant association occurred between a positive attitude and good practice. Sufficient knowledge was significantly recorded among older students, females, urban residents and the clinical stage students. The most frequent sources of student information were family or friends, internet followed by TV or radio, healthcare workers, and newspapers.Conclusions: The students had reasonable knowledge, positive attitude and good practices towards B and C viral hepatitis. Areas of insufficient knowledge needed to be reinforced included some modes of transmission, complications, and treatment for B and C viral hepatitis

STABILITY-INDICATING LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF PENTOXYVERINE CITRATE AND ITS DEGRADANT

Objectives: The objectives of this research were to develop and validate a HPLC method for determination of Pentoxyverine citrate (PNX) and its degradant (DG). Methods: Forced degradation studies were performed on bulk sample using alkaline (0.1M sodium hydroxide) and acid (1M hydrochloric acid. The proposed method was based on using a 150 x 4.6 mm (i. d.) (Luna, Phenomenex, Torrance, CA, USA) (5 µm particle size) reversed phase C18 column with mobile phase consisting of a mixture of methanol-10 mM sodium dihydrogen phosphate pH 4 in ratio of (60:40, v/v) and UV detection at 230 nm with flow rate of 1 mL min-1. Results: The linear calibration range was between 10-40 mg ml-1and 10-40 mg ml-1for PNX and DG respectively. The method was found to be accurate with 100.23% and 100.07% recovery for PNX and DG respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) was found to be 3.79 x10-2μg ml-1 and 4.24 x10-2μg ml-1 for PNX and DG respectively, while the limit of quantification (LOQ) was found to be 12.62 x10-2μg ml-1 and 14.12 x10-2μg ml-1 for PNX and DG respectively. PNX was found to be most stable at a pH of 5.7. Conclusion: The validation study of the proposed method was successfully carried out and the method was found to be suitable and economic for routine determination of PNX in pharmaceutical syrup, without any interference from the excipients, and in the presence of its acidic and alkaline degradation products

Heterochromatin Polymorphisms and Chromosomes Damage in Heavy Smoking Men

Objective: The goal of the study is to appraise the heterochromatin polymorphism and chromosomal abnormalities associated with chromosome in smoking men. Methods: During a 9-months period (January 2014 to September 2014) a total of 60 heavy smoking men (more than 20 cigarettes daily) together with 60 normal controls were subjected to the present investigation. A study of the variants heterochromatin of chromosomes1, 9 and 16 was performed on lymphocyte culture followed by C-banding from a total of 60 heavy smokers and 60 nonsmoker persons. Constitutive evaluation was based on qualitative method, blood culture, chromosomes harvesting and C-band technique were carry out according to the standard methods. Results: Study indicates smoking men had significantly increased frequency of larger C- band variants on chromosome 1 and 9 as compared with nonsmoking men (p˂0.05).  The frequency of inversions revealed significant differences for variants heterochromatin of chromosome 1, 9 and to less extent 16 between smokers and nonsmokers control group and significant association (p<0.05). Conclusion: These results confirm the positive correlation between the amount of heterochromatin on chromosomes 1 and 9 and susceptibility of the smoking men to early development of cancer. Keywords: Polymorphisms, Chromosomes, Heterochromatin, Smoking

Hen’s egg white hypersensitivity among a group of Egyptian atopic children

Background: Egg allergy is potentially life-threatening. The prevalenceof egg allergy in Egypt is still unclear. This study is to evaluate thefrequency of egg hypersensitivity in a group of Egyptian atopic children.Methods: Eighty allergic children were enrolled, each is subjected toclinical evaluation, skin prick testing (SPT) using a commercial eggwhite extract, and serum egg white specific IgE (SpIgE) estimation. Sixpatients with suspected egg allergy consent to perform open oral eggchallenge. Results: Twenty-eight patients had history of exacerbation oftheir allergic diseases upon exposure to egg white, of these patients, 8had negative SPT and serum egg white SpIgE. SPT was positive in 25(31.2%) patients, of these patients, 3 (4%) were +3, 22 (28%) were +2,of whom 5 patients tolerate eggs without adverse effects. Serum eggwhite SpIgE was positive in 19 (24%) patients with a mean of 0.81 IU/ml(range: 0.35-4.52 IU/ML). Egg white allergy based on positive history,positive SPT and/or egg white SpIgE was detected in 23 (28.8%)patients. Open oral egg challenge was positive in one patient withpositive history but negative tests giving an overall frequency of eggallergy of 30 % (n=24).While egg white SpIgE did not correlate with theages, positive SPT was significantly more frequent among youngerpatients (t= 1.7, p=0.02). Egg sensitization and allergy did not affect theseverity of asthma (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Although positive SPT/ serumspecific IgE to eggs are good tools for diagnosis, oral food challengeremains the gold standard in suspected cases. Further wide-scale studiesare needed to outline the real prevalence of egg allergy in Egypt.Keywords: Egg allergy; children; skin prick test

Secure and Robust Fragile Watermarking Scheme for Medical Images

Over the past decade advances in computer-based communication and health services, the need for image security becomes urgent to address the requirements of both safety and non-safety in medical applications. This paper proposes a new fragile watermarking based scheme for image authentication and self-recovery for medical applications. The proposed scheme locates image tampering as well as recovers the original image. A host image is broken into 4×4 blocks and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is applied by inserting the traces of block wise SVD into the Least Significant Bit (LSB) of the image pixels to figure out the transformation in the original image. Two authentication bits namely block authentication and self-recovery bits were used to survive the vector quantization attack. The insertion of self-recovery bits is determined with Arnold transformation, which recovers the original image even after a high tampering rate. SVD-based watermarking information improves the image authentication and provides a way to detect different attacked area. The proposed scheme is tested against different types of attacks such are text removal attack, text insertion attack, and copy and paste attack

Archaeological and geophysical survey in deserted early islamic village Al-Qusur (Failaka, Kuwait)

Failaka Island, the second largest and the only inhabited off-shore island of Kuwait, is situated 17 km east of Kuwait mainland, in the entrance to Kuwait Bay. They can be found along the shores and approximately in the middle of the island and correspond with occurrence of known archaeological sites. Failaka’s history goes back to the Bronze Age Dilmun civilization. After the decline of the occupation during the Middle Bronze Age, Failaka was again inhabited during Seleucid and post-Seleucid..