Background: In trichinosis, the presence of muscle larvae inside skeletal striated muscle causes loss of identity and function of myotube through the releasing of myogenin and myosin. Considering the ...dominant role of vaccination, research on gamma radiation-attenuated vaccine has very promising value. The goal of this study was to determine the efficacy of vaccination with radiation-attenuated Trichinella spiralis larvae on the subsequent infectivity. This goal was to be achieved by expression of myogenin, BcL-2 and DNA damages of myocytes in experimental animals. Materials and methods: Mice were randomly assigned to serve as normal control, infected control, vaccinated unchallenged and vaccinated challenged groups. Histopathological and immunohistochemical assessments of skeletal muscle tissues of diaphragm were conducted using different stains. Also, DNA damages of myocytes by comet assay were evaluated. Results: An improvement of histopathological changes and DNA damages of myocytes with significant decreased expression of myogenin and BcL-2 in vaccinated challenged group was detected. Conclusion: Vaccination with gamma radiation- attenuated larvae exerted protective effect against challenged infection. This may pave the way to new protective modality in trichinosis control.
Purpose
Modeling represents the art of translating problems from an application area into tractable mathematical formulations whose theoretical and numerical analysis provides insight, answers and ...guidance useful for the originating application. The purpose of this paper is to determine the causal causes of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt in order to be used as independents variables in mathematical models for predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of such projects in Egypt.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of a randomly selected samples yielded responses from 40 owners, 15 consultants and 56 contractors. The survey includes 38 schedule overrun factors and 26 cost escalation factors. The effectiveness degree of the identified factors has been identified by the triangle fuzzy approach.
Findings
The results of the survey show that “contractor’s technical staff is insufficient and ineligible to accomplish the project” is the most important cause of schedule overrun, while the major cause of cost escalation is inadequate preparation of the project concerning planning and execution.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is predicting the percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation of highway projects in Egypt. Through the application of the linear regression analysis method and statistical fuzzy theory, four predictive models have been developed and it has been noted that the linear regression-based model shows prediction accuracy better than statistical fuzzy-based model in predicting percentages of schedule overrun and cost escalation.
Context
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is the inflammation of the upper genital tract involving the fallopian tubes as well as the ovaries. Symptoms of PID are fever, cervical motion tenderness, ...lower abdominal pain, new or different discharge, painful intercourse, uterine and adnexal tenderness, and irregular menstruation.
Aim
The aim was to determine the therapeutic efficacy of combined shortwave diathermy and medical treatment in the management of chronic PID in comparison to either therapy alone.
Materials and methods
Sixty participants were recruited and diagnosed as chronic PID for more than 6 months by history, clinical examination, cervical swab, and ultrasonography. They were divided into three groups:
Statistical analysis
Descriptive and analytic study by SPSS version 16 on IBM compatible computer.
Results
There was a statistically highly significant clinical improvement regarding itching, discharge and pain relief, laboratory improvement regarding the number of pus cells in cervical swab, and radiological improvement regarding US parameters in the first group of patients with PID compared with the baseline and compared with other groups.
Conclusion
The greatest therapeutic efficacy can be obtained from combined physical and medical treatment compared with each line alone in the treatment of chronic PID.
Background:
Biomarkers can assist in outcome prediction and therapeutic decision making after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of ischemia-modified albumin ...(IMA) in the prediction of mortality in patients with TBI.
Methods:
In this observational study IMA was measured on admission to intensive care unit (D0) and 24 hours later (D1) in a cohort of patients with mixed TBI severity. The primary outcome was the correlation between IMA and 28-day mortality. Secondary outcomes included the incidence of elevated IMA, and the correlation between the severity of TBI and IMA, and between IMA and change in Glasgow coma score (GCS). The area under receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to detect optimal IMA cut-off value for the detection of mortality.
Results:
Fifty-four patients were included in the study; IMA was elevated in 49 (90.7%) on admission to the intensive care unit. Of the 49 patients with elevated IMA, 22 had a decrease in IMA while 27 had an increase by 24 hours. IMA levels were higher at D0 and D1 (
P
<0.001 for both) in patients who died compared with those who survived. Twenty-one patients died (mortality rate 38.9%); all had elevated IMA on D0 and D1 and higher IMA levels at D1 compared with D0. Optimal cut-off values for IMA predicted mortality with 76.2% sensitivity and 81.8% specificity at D0 and with 100% sensitivity and specificity at D1. IMA values at D0 and D1 were correlated with D0 and D1 GCS, respectively (both
P<
0.001).
Conclusion:
IMA levels were elevated in patients following TBI, and can predict mortality with high sensitivity and specificity.
Novel magnetic cellulose acetate (CA) nanofibers were fabricated using an electrospinning process. Co-precipitated magnetite iron oxide nanoparticles were immobilized onto CA nanofibers at different ...weight ratios (0.2–2.5% wt/v) with a CA concentration of 15% (wt %), applied electric voltage of 20 kV, feeding rate of 1.5 ml/h and 7 cm distance between needle tip and collector. The prepared iron oxide nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray diffraction, a transmission electron microscope, a Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FT-IR) and a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The magnetic nanofibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, FT-IR, thermogravimetric analysis and VSM. The fabricated composite nanofibers were evaluated as a sorbent matrix for lead decontamination from aqueous solution using a batch technique. The influence of solution pH, contact time and adsorbent concentration on the removal efficiency was investigated. Adsorption kinetics models and isotherms were applied to the lead decontamination process onto the fabricated composite nanofibers. The kinetics of the sorption process revealed that the pseudo-second-order model fitted relatively better than the pseudo-first-order model. On the other hand, both the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms gave a comparable fit to the adsorption data, with a high coefficient of regression of 0.999.
B-cell-activating factor (BAFF) is a crucial cytokine supporting survival and differentiation of B cells. Dysregulation of BAFF is involved in the pathogenesis of B-cell related autoimmune diseases ...including immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). The aim of this study was to evaluate the significance of BAFF expression in pediatric ITP patients. Eighty pediatric patients with ITP are subdivided in three groups. Group I included (32 patients) diagnosed with acute ITP less than 3 months, group II (48 patients) diagnosed with persistent ITP (from 3 to 12 months) and chronic ITP (more than 12 months) and group III 20 healthy controls. Complete blood picture, autoimmune profile, antiplatelet antibodies, coagulation profile, bone marrow examination, and RT-PCR were performed to detect the expression for BAF for all participants in this study. BAFF expression levels significantly increased in cases rather than in controls. BAFF Expression Value significantly increased in groups I & II (3.10 ± 1.99&3.29 ± 2.58) compared to controls (0.83 ± 0.45) as p < .001 for both. On the other hand, groups I & II were comparable in BAFF Expression Value (p = .470). BAFF expression increased in ITP patients, implying a function in the disease's pathogenesis.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background Despite the high complete necrosis rate of radiofrequency ablation (RFA), tumor recurrence, either local tumor recurrence or new tumor formation, remains a significant problem. Purpose of ...this study is to evaluate the pattern and risk factors for intrahepatic recurrence after percutaneous RFA for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods We studied 40 patients with 48 HCCs (≤ 3.5 cm) who were treated with percutaneous RFA. The mean follow-up period was 24.1 ± 15.7 months. We evaluated the cumulative disease-free survival of overall intrahepatic recurrence, local tumor progression (LTP) and intrahepatic distant recurrence (IDR). Thirty host, tumoral and therapeutic risk factors were reviewed for significant tie-in correlation with recurrence: age; gender; whether RFA was the initial treatment for HCC or not; severity of liver disease; cause of liver cirrhosis; contact of tumor to major hepatic vessels and liver capsule; degree of approximation of tumor to the liver hilum; ablation time; degree of benign pre-ablational enhancement; sufficient safety margin; tumor multinodularity; tumor histological differentiation; tumor segmental location; maximum tumor diameter; degree of tumor pre-ablational enhancement at arterial phase CT, MRI or CT-angiography; and laboratory markers pre- and post-ablation (AFP, PIVKA II, TP, AST, ALT, ALP and TB). Results The incidence of overall recurrence, LTP and IDR was 65, 23 and 52.5%, respectively. The cumulative disease-free survival rates were 54.6, 74.8 and 78.3% at 1 year, 27.3, 71.9 and 46.3% at 2 years and 20, 71.9 and 29.4 at 3 years, respectively. Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that the significant risk factors for LTP were: tumor size ≥ 2.3 cm, insufficient safety margin, multinodular tumor, tumors located at segments 8 and 5, and patient's age > 65 years (P < 0.05). No significant risk factor relationship for IDR could be detected. Conclusion Our results would have clinical implications for advance warning and appropriate management of patients scheduled for RFA. Patients at risk of LTP should be closely monitored in the first year. Furthermore, regular long-term surveillance is essential for early detection and eradication of IDR.
This study explores the best models in predicting delay and cost overrun percentages (PDCOP) for highway projects depending on four ANNs-based paradigms: principal component analysis (PCA), modular ...neural network, REF/GRNN/PNN network and time-lag recurrent network. The best model among 28 developed for predicting % delay based on modular neural network paradigm with: PCA as an input projection algorithm, Online training as weight update, Sigmoid Axon as transfer function, Momentum (0.7) as learning rule for hidden and output layers gives % prediction with Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) equals to 39.8%. Whereas, the best model among 28 developed for % cost overrun, based on PCA paradigm with the same characteristics as best model developed for % delay and learning rate (0.01), has MAPE equals to 25.4%. Furthermore, the best proposed models for PDCOP outperform the previously recently models in literature. MAPE equals to 39.8% for best proposed model for predicting % delay versus 53.68 and 57.68% for linear regression and statistical fuzzy models proposed in literature. Whereas, MAPE equals to 25.4% for best proposed model for predicting % cost overrun versus 30.42 and 40.37% for models in literature, respectively.
Full text
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
OBJECTIVE: To apply an e-nose system for monitoring headspace volatiles in biological samples from Egyptian patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and healthy controls (HCs) and compare ...them with standard sputum analysis.DESIGN: The study population comprised 260 (140
males, 120 females) newly diagnosed TB patients and 240 (120 males, 120 females) HCs matched by age and socio-economic level admitted to hospitals specialising in chest diseases in Alexandria, Behera, Giza and Damietta Governorates, Egypt. Participants provided a history of TB and underwent
clinical examinations, chest X-ray, and microbiological and e-nose analyses. Biological samples (blood, breath, sputum and urine) were collected.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Being a confirmed TB patient was directly proportional to e-nose 10-sensor responses. Principal component analysis clusters
showed a clear distinction between TB and HC groups, with variances of 93%, 85%, 75% and 95% for blood, breath, sputum and urine samples, respectively. Overall accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the artificial neural network (ANN) analysis for classifying samples were >99%. The e-nose
successfully distinguished TB patients from HC participants for all measured biological samples with great precision. With urine samples gaining broader acceptance for clinical diagnosis, an e-nose-based ANN can be a very useful tool for low-cost mass screening and early detection of TB patients in developing countries.
A series of D-glucuronic acid derivatives were chemically synthesized including acetylated and deacetylated glucuronamides, as well as N-glucuronides starting from the D-glucuronic acid itself by ...means of protection/deprotection, activation and condensation protocols. Structure elucidation of all products along with optimization of the synthetic steps is described. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antitumor activity against MCF-7, TK-10 and UACC-62 cell lines. The compounds 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 16 and 18 were the most active against TK-10 cell line. On the other hand, the most active compounds against the MCF-7 cell line were 9, 18 and 20. However, compounds 7-10 13-15 and 17 were the most active against the UACC-62 cell line.
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