A Convertible Poultry Shelter House

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Modeling routing problems in QUBO with application to ride-hailing

Many emerging commercial services are based on the sharing or pooling of resources for common use with the aim of reducing costs. Businesses such as delivery-, mobility-, or transport-as-a-service have become standard in many parts of the world, fulfilling on-demand requests for customers in live settings. However, it is known that many of these problems are NP-hard, and therefore both modeling and solving them accurately is a challenge. Here we focus on one such routing problem, the Ride Pooling Problem (RPP), where multiple customers can request on-demand pickups and drop-offs from shared vehicles within a fleet. The combinatorial optimization task is to optimally pool customer requests using the limited set of vehicles, akin to a small-scale flexible bus route. In this work, we propose a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) program and introduce efficient formulation methods for the RPP to be solved using metaheuristics, and specifically emerging quantum optimization algorithms

The value of intra-abdominal pressure monitoring through transvesical route in the choice and outcome of management of congenital abdominal wall defects

Introduction Gastroschisis and omphalocele are most common congenital abdominal wall defects (AWDs). Surgical management aims to reduce the evisceration safely, close the defect with a cosmetically acceptable outcome under guidance of intraoperative monitoring of intra-abdominal pressure (IAP). Intravesical pressure monitoring technique recommended by (WSACS) is the most reliable technique for IAP measurement in neonates.Aim The aim of this study is to assess the value of IAP monitoring via vesical pressure measurement in the choice and outcome of management of congenital AWDs.Patients and methods This is a prospective study of 25 cases that suffered congenital anterior AWDs (gastroschisis and omphalocele) admitted to Mansoura University Children Hospital during the period from October 2013 to October 2015. They were all operated upon guided by IVP monitoring during and after repair. Results In our study, 14 (56%) cases presented with gastroschisis and 11 (44%) presented with exomphalos with a median age of 24 h. Males (56%) were slightly more than females (44%). Congenital anomalies were reported in 16 cases (64%). Primary fascial closure was successful in 15 (60%) cases, whereas Silo repair was done in six (24%) cases and skin closure in only four (16%) cases. During the attempts of closure the mean abdominal perfusion pressure was 40.24 ± 5.59, the mean peak inspiratory pressure was 24 ±6.11 and the mean IAP was 22.60± 6.89. Two cases developed intra-abdominal hypertension after abdominal closure (8%) and only one of them needed decompressive laparotomy (4%). Postoperative complications were reported in 15 (60%) cases and mortality occurred in eight (32%) cases.Conclusion Increased IAP secondary to forceful closure of the abdominal defect is associated with the occurrence of complications. IVP monitoring is feasible during closure of AWDs and a threshold of 20cm H2O is  appropriate to decide between primary and staged approach. Keywords: congenital abdominal wall defect, intravesical pressure, intra-abdominal hypertensio

Impacts of Short-term Exposure of Caselio (plant fertilizer) On The Freshwater Snail, Lanistes carinatus (Ampullariidae, Mollusca)

ABSTRACT Ecotoxicological effects of agriculture products especially fertilizers on aquatic invertebrates is a crucial case to study. The effect of Caselio, the fertilizer (Plant Metabolism Regulators, PMR) on aquatic organisms' response is of great importance. The freshwater snail, Lanistes carinatus was collected from Bahr Shebeen canal, Menoufia Province, Egypt. Snails were exposed to 200 and 600 µl/l of the plant fertilizer (PMR) for 0, 1, 3 and 7 days. Endpoints investigated were LC 50 , 90 , condition index (CI), shell, operculum, foot and soft tissue metals concentrations (Zn, Fe, Mn and Ca), metallothioneins (MTs) and antioxidants (Catalase; CAT and Total Glutathione; GSH) of gonad-digestive complex. LC 50 and LC 90 values were 1.3 and 4.2 ml/l, respectively. CI of the exposed snails reduced significantly especially on the 1 st day (17.5 % reduction). The plant fertilizer (PMR) exposure caused metal accumulation mainly in digestive-gonad complex, followed by the shell, foot and lastly the operculum. Exposure to the plant fertilizer (PMR) resulted in lower Ca concentrations in shell, but disturbed/increased its content in the rest tissues of the exposed snails (ANOVA/Kruskal Wallis, P ≤ 0.05). Metallothioneins increased 1.5 fold in the plant fertilizer (PMR) exposed snails` digestive-gonad complex (200 and 600 µl/l) when compared to the control group (3223.2 ± 127.5, 2797.6 ± 119.4 and 2076.4 ± 73.8 pg/mg, respectively). The plant fertilizer (PMR) caused increase in the activity of the antioxidants CAT but decrease in GSH concentration significantly (Kruskal Wallis, P ≤ 0.05) in the digestive-gonad complex of the exposed snails. It can be conclude that the plant fertilizer (PMR) exposure affected the biological responses in L. carinatus with specific tissue response and caused oxidative stress. Digestive-gonad complex, foot and shell could be used as target organs and biomarkers for metals accumulation; however, operculum was not a target organ for metal accumulation

Equivariant quantum circuits for learning on weighted graphs

Variational quantum algorithms are the leading candidate for advantage on near-term quantum hardware. When training a parametrized quantum circuit in this setting to solve a specific problem, the choice of ansatz is one of the most important factors that determines the trainability and performance of the algorithm. In quantum machine learning (QML), however, the literature on ansatzes that are motivated by the training data structure is scarce. In this work, we introduce an ansatz for learning tasks on weighted graphs that respects an important graph symmetry, namely equivariance under node permutations. We evaluate the performance of this ansatz on a complex learning task, namely neural combinatorial optimization, where a machine learning model is used to learn a heuristic for a combinatorial optimization problem. We analytically and numerically study the performance of our model, and our results strengthen the notion that symmetry-preserving ansatzes are a key to success in QML.Comment: 17+3 pages, 10 figures, version accepted at journa

Pneumatic versus hydrostatic reduction in the treatment of intussusception in children

Background: The aim of this study was to compare pneumatic reduction under guidance of fluoroscopy and hydrostatic saline enema reduction under guidance of ultrasound in treatment of intussusception in pediatric patients.Methods: The study included 80 patients with intussusception in the time period from September 2014 to September 2015 who were divided into two groups: group A included 40 patients who underwent US guided hydrostatic reduction and group B included 40 patients who underwent fluoroscopic guided pneumatic reduction.Results: The success rate was significantly higher in the pneumatic group (80%) (P = 0.017) when compared to the hydrostatic group (55%) after 1st trial. However, the outcome was equal in both groups after the 2nd trial with success rate of 82.5%. The time needed for reduction was significantly shorter in the pneumaic group (P =0.001). There was only one case of perforation in hydrostatic group (2.5%).Conclusion: Pneumatic reduction is safe, simple, fast, less messy and as effective as hydrostatic reduction.Keywords: hydrostatic reduction, intussusception, pneumatic reductio

Cut-edge mucoperiosteal flap for anterior fixation of palatal flap in palatoplasty

Introduction: This study was done at Mansoura University Children Hospital, Egypt from the period of June 2013 to June 2015 on 80 patients with incomplete intramaxillary cleft palate.Patients and methods: After oral layer closure of the cleft palate, anterior fixation of the flap is obtained by raising the anterior cut-edge of mucoperiosteal flap for about 0.5 cm then suturing the flap to the elevated cut-edge with two stitches. We divided the patients into two groups and evaluated the time needed for fixation the palatal flap anddifficulty of fixation and evaluated the incidence of anterior palatal fistula between the two groups.Results: The time used for elevation of the flap and taking the two stitches in group A ranged from 2.5 to 6 min. However, the time used for taking the two stitches without elevation of the flap in group B ranged from 2.8 to 9 min.Conclusion: We found that cut-edge mucoperiosteal flap for anterior fixation of two-flap palatoplasty is a simple step at the end of cleft palate repair procedure which allows easy fixation of the palatal flap with short time and good opposition of the tissue edges, allowing better healing.Keywords: anterior fixation palatal flap, cut-edge, palatoplast