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Objective: In healthy adults, the short-term effects of sleep disruption include disorders of mood, impaired coping ability, deficits in cognition, and reduced quality of life. Increased physical activity may improve sleep duration and quality. The aim was to investigate the physical activity level and sleep quality and their relationship among a cohort of healthy females in Egypt., Patients and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, self-reported survey. 688 healthy young adult females aged 18-45 years without a prior history of chronic disease were recruited for this study. Demographic data as well as physical activity (International Physical Activity Questionnaire) and sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) were collected., Results: 73.5% reported poor sleep quality, which was worse for housewives. 50.4% of participants were either obese or overweight. Approximately 29.7% of the participants were physically inactive. High physical activity levels were associated with higher sleep efficiency compared to moderate physical activity (p=0.01). However, high physical activity resulted in poorer sleep quality overall (p=0.001)., Conclusions: The majority of participants reported poor sleep quality and high levels of physical activity, but the relationship between physical activity and sleep quality was not clear. Poor sleep quality in our study is one of, if not the highest, reported in the literature for a similar age range in females.

About 20 strains of rhizobia from wild legumes were characterized based on numerical analysis of phenotypic characteristics, nodulating ability, fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) and SDS-PAGE profiles of whole cell proteins. FAME analysis revealed that palmitic (16:0), stearic (18:0) and arachidonic (20:0) were detected in most of wild-legume rhizobia, the latter being uncommon in fatty acid profiles of Rhizobium and Sinorhizobium. Numerical analysis of FAME classified strains of wild-legume rhizobia into 9 clusters and one heterogeneous group. There was both agreement and disagreement with the clustering data based on phenotypic analysis and FAME analysis. Four strains were grouped together in the same cluster based on both methods. However, 4 another strains, which were placed in one cluster of phenotypic analysis, were distributed in several clusters after FAME analysis. SDS-PAGE of whole-cell proteins revealed that the rhizobial strains exhibited protein profiles with peptide bands ranging from 5-19 band per profile and showed molar mass of 110-183 kDa. As in the case of FAME analysis, numerical analysis of protein bands was compared with clustering of phenotypic analysis. Agreement of the two methods was obvious when clustering some strains but conflicted in the classification of some other strains. However, integration of the three methods could be the basis of a polyphasic taxonomy. The twenty strains of wild-legume rhizobia were finally classified as follows: 12 strains related to Rhizobium leguminosarum, 5 strains related to Sinorhizobium meliloti and 3 strains to Rhizobium spp. Rhizobia nodulating wild herb legumes are among indigenous strains nodulating crop legumes in cultivated as well as noncultivated lands.

Members of Bacillaceae, Rhizobiaceae, actinomycetes and others were isolated from cultivated and non-cultivated saline soils. The high population of bacteria and actinomycetes were almost coincided with the relatively high levels of organic matter whatever the degree of soil salinity. Bacillus stearothermophilus and B. subtilis were more frequently isolated than other Bacillus species. Most of Rhizobium isolates were salt tolerant being able to grow in media containing 3% and 6% NaCl. The abilities of different bacterial isolates to attack citrus pectin, soluble and insoluble forms of cellulose were also tested.