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Background: Inherited hemoglobinopathies are common in Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia, and some patients may frequently require a blood transfusion. Therefore, the provision of compatible units using extended phenotypes is necessary to preclude the risk of alloimmunization. This study aimed to investigate the frequencies of the Lewis (LE), Lutheran (LU), and P1 antigens, as well as determine the prevalence of LE and LU phenotypes. Methods: This study collected 150 blood samples from Saudi Arabian anonymous volunteering blood donors at Prince Muhammed bin Nasser Hospital in Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia. Serotyping was performed using antigen profile-II based on gel card technology to determine LE, LU, and P1 antigens. Results: The prevalence of antigens was as follows: Lea (n = 37, 24.6%), Leb (n = 87, 58%), Lua (n = 6, 4%), Lub (n = 150, 100%), and P1 (n = 120, 80%). Regarding the LE phenotypes, Le (a+b-) was 24.7%, Le (a-b+) was 58%, and Le (a-b-) was 17.3%. The frequencies of only observed LU phenotypes Lu (a-b+) and Lu (a+b+) were 96% and 4%, respectively. Conclusions: In summary, this study reports LE, LU, and P1 antigen prevalence. Moreover, LE and LU phenotype frequencies were investigated. This study may help establish a national database of blood group antigens in Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia. Additionally, it may provide better transfusion practice to avoid the alloimmunization risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The zero-day attacks exploit the new vulnerabilities in the system or old vulnerabilities in a new way. Zero-day attacks are sustainable in the system exploiting the system until detected or until the patch is released, this creates a dire need to detect zero-day attacks in the system. The model in this proposed paper is an outlier-based model trained using benign and known attack traffic to detect traffic of unknown attacks. The proposed system successfully detected most of the unknown attack traffic, achieving higher results in Web, Infiltration, SSH, FTP, and Botnet attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MYBL1 gene is a strong transcriptional activator involved in events associated with cancer progression. Previous data show MYBL1 overexpressed in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). There are two parts to this study related to further characterizing the MYBL1 gene. We start by characterizing MYBL1 reference sequence variants and isoforms. The results of this study will help in future experiments in the event there is a need to characterize functional variants and isoforms of the gene. In part two, we identify and validate expression and gene-related alterations of MYBL1, VCIP1, MYC and BOP1 genes in TNBC cell lines and patient samples selected from the Breast Invasive Carcinoma TCGA 2015 dataset available at cBioPortal.org. The four genes are located at chromosomal regions 8q13.1 to 8q.24.3 loci, regions previously identified as demonstrating a high percentage of alterations in breast cancer. We identify alterations, including changes in expression, deletions, amplifications and fusions in MYBL1, VCPIP1, BOP1 and MYC genes in many of the same patients, suggesting the panel of genes is involved in coordinated activity in patients. We propose that MYBL1, VCPIP1, MYC and BOP1 collectively be considered as genes associated with the chromosome 8q loci that potentially play a role in TNBC pathogenesis.

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Maria J Abou El-Ola,1 Mariam A Rajab,2 Dania I Abdallah,3 Ismail A Fawaz,4 Lyn S Awad,5 Hani M Tamim,6 Ahmad O Ibrahim,7 Anas M Mugharbil,7 Rima A Moghnieh8 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 2Department of Pediatrics, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 3Department of Pharmacy, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 4Department of Internal Medicine, Iklim Health Foundation Hospital, Mazboud, Mount Lebanon, Chouf, Lebanon; 5Department of Pharmacy, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 6Department of Internal Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon; 7Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 8Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Makassed General Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is an established predisposing factor of cervical cancer. In this study, we assessed the awareness about genital warts, cervical cancer, and HPV vaccine among mothers having girls who are at the age of primary HPV vaccination attending a group of schools in Lebanon. We also assessed the rate of HPV vaccination among these girls and the barriers to vaccination in this community. Subjects and methods: This is a cross-sectional, school-based survey. A 23-item, self-administered, anonymous, pretested, structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions was used to obtain data. The questionnaire was sent to the mothers through their student girls, and they were asked to return it within a week. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21.0. Bivariate analysis was performed using the chi-square test to compare categorical variables, whereas continuous variables were compared using the Student’s t-test. Fisher’s exact test was used when chi-square test could not be employed. Results: The response rate in our survey was 39.4%. Among the responders, the rate of awareness about HPV infection was 34%, where 72% of the mothers had heard about cervical cancer, and 34% knew that a vaccine is available to prevent cervical cancer. HPV vaccination uptake rate was 2.5%. This lack of vaccination was primarily attributed to the low rate of mothers’ awareness about the vaccine (34%). Factors significantly affecting awareness about the vaccine were the mothers’ marital age, nationality, level of education, employment, and family income. Barriers to HPV vaccination, other than awareness, were uncertainty about safety or efficacy of the vaccine, conservative ideas of mothers regarding their girls’ future sexual life, and relatively high price of the vaccine. Conclusion: Vaccine uptake is low among eligible girls attending this group of schools. The barriers to vaccination are multiple; the most important one is the mothers’ lack of knowledge about HPV, cervical cancer, and the modes of prevention. Awareness campaigns along with a multimodal strategy that targets the identified barriers would be recommended to achieve higher rates of HPV vaccination. Keywords: awareness, barriers, cervical cancer, human papillomavirus, knowledge, Lebanon, mothers, schools, vaccine

A combination of axial and lateral was applied on a small scale model piles embedded in layered sand soil. Two types of piles were used (open and closed ended steel box piles), while the relative density (Dr) of the upper and lower sand layers were (55%) and (85%) respectively. The effect of slenderness ratio (L/D) were also considered in this study (L/D= 10, 15, 20, and 25). It is shown that the axial capacity of closed ended pile is greater than the open ended pile by (12 – 33) %. The presence of a vertical load caused an increase in the lateral load capacity at all slenderness ratios but the influence of vertical load decreases with increase in slenderness ratio of piles at all vertical load levels for both types of piles.

Sub-visible particles (SVPs) in pharmaceutical products are a critical quality attribute, and therefore should be monitored during development. Although light obscuration (LO) and microscopic particle count tests are the primary pharmacopeial methods used to quantify SVPs, flow imaging methods like Micro-Flow Imaging (MFI™) appear to overcome shortcomings of LO such as limited sensitivity concerning smaller translucent SVPs in the size range < 10 µm. Nowadays, MFI™ is routinely utilized during development of biologicals. Oftentimes multiple devices are distributed across several laboratories and departments. This poses challenges in data interpretation and consistency as well as in the use of multiple devices for one purpose. In this study, we systematically evaluated seven MFI™ instruments concerning their counting and size precision and accuracy, using an inter-comparable approach to mimic daily working routine. Therefore, we investigated three different types of particles (i) NIST certified counting standards, (ii) protein-coated particles, and (iii) stress-induced particles from a monoclonal antibody. We compared the results to alternative particle detection methods: LO and Backgrounded Membrane Imaging (BMI). Our results showed that the precision and accuracy of particle count and size, as well as the comparability of instruments, depended on the particle source and its material properties. The various MFI™ instruments investigated showed high precision (<15 %) and data generated on different instruments were of the same order of magnitude within pharmacopeial relevant size ranges for NIST certified counting standards. However, we found limitations in the upper and lower detection limits, contrary to the limits claimed by the manufacturer. In addition, proteinaceous and protein-containing particles showed statistically significant differences in particle counts, while the measured particle diameters of all sizes were quite consistent., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Zein is an FDA-approved maize protein featured by its manipulative surface and the possibility of fabrication into nanomaterials. Although extensive research has been carried out in zein-based technology, limited work is available for the application of zein in the field of cancer photodynamic therapy (PDT). In this work, we report zein as a carrier for the natural photosensitizer hypericin in the PDT of hepatocellular carcinoma in vitro. Zein was modified through chemical PEGylation to form PEGylated zein micelles that were compared with two zein nanoparticle formulations physically stabilized by either the lecithin/pluronic mixture or sodium caseinate. FT-IR, 1 HNMR and HP-SEC MALS approaches were employed to confirm the chemical PEGylation of zein. Our developed zein nanoparticles and micelles were further characterized by photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The obtained results showed relatively smaller sizes and higher encapsulation of hypericin in the micellar zein than the nanoparticle-based formulations. Phototoxicity on hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2 cells) manifested a dose-dependent toxicity pattern of all designed zein formulations. However, superior cytotoxicity was prominent for the hypericin-based micelles, which was influenced by the higher cellular uptake profile. Consequently, the treated HepG2 cells manifested a higher level of intracellular generated ROS and disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential, which induced apoptotic cell death. Comparatively, the designed hypericin formulations indicated lower phototoxicity profile in murine fibroblast L929 cells reflecting their safety on normal cells. Our investigations suggested that the surface-modified zein could be employed to enhance the delivery of the hydrophobic hypericin in PDT and pave the way for future in vivo and clinical applications in cancer treatment., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Information regarding the incidence and patterns of childhood malignancies is disproportionately overrepresented by high-income countries, representing mainly the Caucasian population. There is a need to evaluate and disseminate information for other ethnicities, particularly from the Middle East., Methods: Data from the National Cancer Registry, Saudi Arabia (SA-NCR), for pediatric patients (age 0-14 years) diagnosed between 2005 and 2009 and for similar patients at our institution during the same period were analyzed. Population numbers reported in the 2007 national census were used to calculate the annual incidence of childhood cancer., Results: Data from SA-NCR on 3885 patients were included in this analysis. The median age was 5.58 years, and 57.3% were males. The annual age-specific cancer incidence rate (ASR) for children in SA is 99.83 per million population; ASR per million for lymphoid leukemia is 25.75, 12.05 for brain tumors, and 9.82 for Hodgkin lymphoma. Of all childhood cancers in SA, 35% were treated at our institution. The five-year overall survival for these 1350 patients is 74.6% (median follow-up 7.52 years [95% confidence interval: 7.36-7.68]). Significant differences in the distribution of childhood malignancy subtypes were evident compared with other countries., Conclusion: We have reported differences in the cancer ASR and cancer subtype distribution for children in SA as compared with the worldwide incidence and with other populations. This paper provides a comprehensive epidemiological overview of childhood cancer in SA, which could be extrapolated to other regional Arab populations., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)