ESTIMATION OF FURAN LEVELS IN SOME CANNED FOODS IN EGYPT AND HOW TO REDUCE IT

Furan is naturally occurring compound found at low levels in many foods. Furan has been formed in a wide range of thermally treated foods especially heated foods sealed in cans and jars. The primary source of furan in food is thermal degradation and rearrangement of organic compounds. Furan is a five-membered ring which can induce tumors and liver toxicity in experimental animals and is classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In this study furan levels in several kinds of canned and jarred foods from Egyptian markets have been estimated. Also, several heat treatments have been applied for some food samples aiming to reduce furan content in these samples. Noticed levels of furan have been shown in tested samples. Coffee samples had higher content of furan in comparison to other products. After thermal treatments the obtained results show that, furan content reduced to about 38-50% of the original content for 50o C at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 55-71% at 20 min. At 60o C, furan content reduced to about 47-56% of the original content at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 62-78% at 20 min. And at 70o C, furan content reduced to about 53-59% at 5 min and the loss percent raised to about 70-89% at 20 min

Search for the production of dark fermion candidates in association with heavy neutral gauge boson decaying to dimuon in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s} = 8 TeV using the CMS open data

This analysis shows a search for dark fermion particles produced in association with a heavy neutral gauge boson (Z$^{\prime}$). The studied events topology are dimuon and a large missing transverse momentum. %We considered the muonic decay of Z$^{\prime}$. The analyzed data were the Open Data collected by the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at the LHC in 2012 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 11.6 fb$^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s} =$ 8 TeV. One benchmark scenario the light vector was used for interpreting the data, based on a simplified model so called the mono-Z$^{\prime}$ model. No evidence of dark fermion candidates was found, 95$\%$ confidence level limits have been set on both Z$^{\prime}$ and dark fermion masses.Comment: 10 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2103.04326, arXiv:2109.1127

The prognostic significance of minimal residual disease in adult Egyptian patients with precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

AbstractBackgroundMinimal residual disease (MRD) studies in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) give highly significant prognostic information superior to other standard criteria as age, gender and total leucocytic count (TLC) in distinguishing patients at high and low risk of relapse.ObjectivesWe aimed to determine the value of MRD monitoring by flowcytometry (FCM) in predicting outcome in adult Precursor ALL patients.Patients and methodsBone marrow (BM) samples were analyzed by 4-color FCM collected at diagnosis and after induction therapy (MRD1) to correlate MRD positivity with disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).ResultsStudy included 57 adult ALL patients (44 males and 13 females) with a median age of 22years (18–49). DFS showed no significant difference with age, gender and initial TLC (p=0.838, 0.888 and 0.743, respectively). Cumulative DFS at 2years was 34% for B-lineage ALL (n: 35) and 57% for T-lineage ALL (n: 18) (p=0.057). Cumulative DFS at 2years was 7% for MRD1 positive (high risk, HR) versus 57% for MRD1 negative patients (Low risk, LR) (p<0.001). Cumulative DFS at 2years was 29% for HR patients (n: 26) versus 55% for LR (n: 27) according to GMALL classification (p=0.064). Cumulative OS did not differ according to age, gender and TLC (p=0.526, 0.594 and 0.513, respectively). Cumulative OS at 2years was 36% for B ALL (n: 39) versus 77% for TALL (n: 18) (p=0.016) and was 49% for Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) negative patients versus 0% for Ph-positive patients (p<0.001). Regarding MRD1, OS at 2years was 18% for MRD1 HR (n: 17) versus 65% for MRD1 LR (n: 38) (p<0.001). OS was 35% for high-risk patients (n: 30) and 62% for low-risk patients (n: 27) classified according to GMALL risk stratification (p=0.017).ConclusionMRD by FCM is a strong independent predictor of outcome in terms of DFS and OS and is a powerful informative parameter in guiding individual treatment in ALL patients

Evaluation of Homocysteine, Folic Acid and Vitamin B12 Levels among Egyptian Children with Idiopathic Epilepsy

Objective: To evaluate relationship between homocysteine (Hcy), folic acid and vitamin B12 with anti-epileptic drugs in epileptic patients and their role in epilepsy control.Patient and Methods: The study included 60 patients with idiopathic epilepsy and thirty non-epileptic children of the same age and sex served as controls. All cases were subjected to physical and neurological examination and electroencephalogram (EEG). Serum level of folic acid, homocysteine (Hcy) and vitamin B12 were done for both epileptic patients and controls. Non parametric test, one way ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation were used for analysis of data.Result: 44 patients (73.3%) had generalized epilepsy and the remaining patients had partial epilepsy (simple or complex). 37 patients (61.6%) were in grade I, 3 patients (5 %) were in grade II and the remaining 20 patients (33.3 %) were in grade III epilepsy. Vitamin B12 was significantly higher in epileptic patients. Duration of anti-epileptic drug treatment was correlated significantly to folic acid and Hcy level.Conclusion: antiepileptic drugs might upset the homeostatic balance of Hcy and its cofactors and cause abnormalities of their serum levels. The duration of anti-epileptic drug treatment was related to decrease of folic acid and increase in homocysteine levels

This is Not a Pixel: building trust in digital art through the blockchain

This paper discusses a range of perspectives on the author’s recent research activities in the field of digital painting. The medium of the pixel is celebrated with reference to the history of accessible computer graphics systems, and the value of data-only digital art is considered. Drawing on the author’s digital art practice and appropriating ideas from quantum theory, this paper argues that human labour still has value in an increasingly algorithm-centric world. The problem of conferring provenance on purely digital artworks is examined through a discussion of newly available blockchain technologies, and an offer is made to gift ownership of some of the author’s virtual paintings to the Computer Arts Society

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Search for anomalous t t-bar production in the highly-boosted all-hadronic final state

A search is presented for a massive particle, generically referred to as a Z', decaying into a t t-bar pair. The search focuses on Z' resonances that are sufficiently massive to produce highly Lorentz-boosted top quarks, which yield collimated decay products that are partially or fully merged into single jets. The analysis uses new methods to analyze jet substructure, providing suppression of the non-top multijet backgrounds. The analysis is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns. Upper limits in the range of 1 pb are set on the product of the production cross section and branching fraction for a topcolor Z' modeled for several widths, as well as for a Randall--Sundrum Kaluza--Klein gluon. In addition, the results constrain any enhancement in t t-bar production beyond expectations of the standard model for t t-bar invariant masses larger than 1 TeV.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics; this version includes a minor typo correction that will be submitted as an erratu

Search for New Physics with Jets and Missing Transverse Momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for new physics is presented based on an event signature of at least three jets accompanied by large missing transverse momentum, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns collected in proton--proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. No excess of events is observed above the expected standard model backgrounds, which are all estimated from the data. Exclusion limits are presented for the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Cross section limits are also presented using simplified models with new particles decaying to an undetected particle and one or two jets

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the t t-bar production cross section in the dilepton channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The t t-bar production cross section (sigma[t t-bar]) is measured in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV in data collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 inverse femtobarns. The measurement is performed in events with two leptons (electrons or muons) in the final state, at least two jets identified as jets originating from b quarks, and the presence of an imbalance in transverse momentum. The measured value of sigma[t t-bar] for a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV is 161.9 +/- 2.5 (stat.) +5.1/-5.0 (syst.) +/- 3.6(lumi.) pb, consistent with the prediction of the standard model.Comment: Replaced with published version. Included journal reference and DO