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Background and Aim: Dietary supplements play pivotal roles in promoting productive and reproductive performance in ruminant animals. The aims of the present study were to evaluate the effects of extruded flaxseed and Salmate® (Ballard Group, Inc, OH, USA) inclusion in diets on milk yield and composition, ruminal degradation and fermentation, and flow of fluids and digesta in lactating cattle. Materials and Methods: Six rumen-fistulated Holstein lactating cows were distributed to a 6 × 6 design of Latin square (L.S.). The groups were assorted into a control group fed a basal control diet and two treated groups fed diets containing extruded flaxseed (7.0%) or Salmate® (25 g/head/day). The basal control, extruded flaxseed, and Salmate® diets were formulated as isonitrogenous and isoenergetic. Each L.S. period of the group comprised 21 days, including 10 days for adaptation to the diet and 11 days for data sampling and recording. Results: Feed intake did not differ among the control, extruded flaxseed, and Salmate® groups. Milk yield (kg) and protein and fat composition (%) were improved on feeding the extruded flaxseed diet compared with the Salmate® and control diets. Extruded flaxseed or Salmate® diet had no effect on the values of ruminal pH, ammonia, and volatile fatty acids except isobutyrate, which decreased in the Salmate® group. Degradable efficiency and ruminal digestibility were significantly decreased with the inclusion of extruded flaxseed and/or Salmate® in the diets. The extruded flaxseed and Salmate® groups had a greater digesta passage rate than the control group. The extruded flaxseed and control groups had a greater liquid passage rate than the Salmate® group. Conclusion: The inclusion of extruded flaxseed in the diet improved (p < 0.05) milk yield, milk composition, and milk Omega-6: Omega-3 ratio with no changes in ruminal fermentation, notable negative effects on degradable efficiency and ruminal digestibility.

Teff (Eragrostis tef) is a staple crop and holds the biggest share of grains cultivated area in Ethiopia, consequently, a large quantity of Teff straw is produced. The Teff straw was pretreated for the first time with Chromium-based Metal-Organic Framework, MIL-101(Cr), assisted hydrothermal method at temperatures ranging from 160 to 240 °C for 1/2, 1, or 2 h time independently. With an increase of pretreatment severity, the yield of total reducing sugar (TRS) was increased until reaching maximum (185 mg g−1). The identified optimum hydrothermal pretreatment condition, (180 °C and 1 h), had a feature of higher TRS yield and lower furfural concentration. The morphological analysis showed that treated Teff straw had degraded structure, higher surface area, and distorted bundles than native Teff straws. This study insight into MOFs’ application in lignocellulose biomass processing, and optimizing the pretreatment condition of Teff straw biomass.

(1) Background: The basophil activation test (BAT) is a functional whole blood-based ex vivo assay to quantify basophil activation after allergen exposure by flow cytometry. One of the most important prerequisites for the use of the BAT in the routine clinical diagnosis of allergies is a reliable, standardized and reproducible data analysis workflow. (2) Methods: We re-analyzed a public mass cytometry dataset from peanut (PN) allergic patients (n = 6) and healthy controls (n = 3) with our binning approach “pattern recognition of immune cells” (PRI). Our approach enabled a comprehensive analysis of the dataset, evaluating 30 markers to achieve optimal basophil identification and activation through multi-parametric analysis and visualization. (3) Results: We found FcεRIα/CD32 (FcγRII) as a new marker couple to identify basophils and kept CD63 as an activation marker to establish a modified BAT in combination with our PRI analysis approach. Based on this, we developed an algorithm for automated raw data processing, which enables direct data analysis and the intuitive visualization of the test results including controls and allergen stimulations. Furthermore, we discovered that the expression pattern of CD32 correlated with FcεRIα, anticorrelated with CD63 and was detectable in both the re-analyzed public dataset and our own flow cytometric results. (4) Conclusions: Our improved BAT, combined with our PRI procedure (bin-BAT), provides a reliable test with a fully reproducible analysis. The advanced bin-BAT enabled the development of an automated workflow with an intuitive visualization to discriminate allergic patients from non-allergic individuals.

Senna didymobotrya is one of the emerging invasive weeds in East and South Africa. One of the solutions for weed management involves isolating cellulose and converting it into valuable materials. In this research, the isolation of cellulose was optimized by the Plackett-Burman design (PBD) and response surface methodology using Box-Behnken design (BBD), both of which are statistical empirical models. The maximum isolated cellulose yield was 37.5% (w/w) using sulfuric acid 1.75% (w/v), sodium chlorite 3% (w/v) at pH of 3.5, and potassium hydroxide 6% (w/v) treatment. Each chemical treatment was done by heating the mixture at 90°C for 2 hrs. The cellulose yield obtained (37.5% (w/w)) was higher than the preoptimized value of 35.5% (w/w). The dewaxed powder of the weed, isolated cellulose, and commercial cellulose was characterized side by side for comparison using FTIR, XRD, SEM, and TGA/DTA. All the characterizing methods indicated that the isolated material was cellulose. Even though the intensity of FTIR and XRD graphs of the isolated cellulose was higher than the commercial cellulose, the crystallinity index calculated from XRD analysis showed that the commercial cellulose (83%) was higher than the isolated cellulose (78%). The TGA/DTA indicates that the isolated cellulose and commercial cellulose had comparable thermal stability, both stable at up to 360°C. Therefore, using this optimized method, cellulose isolation from S. didymobotrya opens avenues for converting cellulose into valuable materials like carboxymethyl cellulose, cellulose hydrogel, and cellulose nanocrystals.

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) incorporated chitosan scaffolds on osteoblasts proliferation and differentiation. The chitosan polymer was initially modified by the predetermined concentration of the photoreactive azido group for UV-crosslinking and with RGD peptides (N-acetyl-GRGDSPGYG-amide). The PEG was mixed at different ratios (0, 10, and 20 wt%) with modified chitosan in 96-well tissue culture polystyrene plates to prepare CHI-100, CHI-90, and CHI-80 scaffolds. PEG-containing scaffolds exhibited bigger pore size and higher water content compared to unmodified chitosan scaffolds. After 10 days of incubation, the cell number of CHI-90 (1.1 × 106 cells/scaffold) surpasses that of CHI-100 (9.2 × 105 cells/scaffold) and the cell number of CHI-80 (7.6 × 105 cells/scaffold) were significantly lower. The ALP activity of CHI-90 was the highest on the fifth day indicating the favored osteoblasts' early-stage differentiation. Moreover, after 14 days of osteogenic culture, calcium deposition in the CHI-90 scaffolds (2.7 μmol Ca/scaffold) was significantly higher than the control (2.2 μmol Ca/scaffold) whereas on CHI-80 was 1.9 μmol/scaffold. The results demonstrate that PEG-incorporated chitosan scaffolds favored osteoblasts proliferation and differentiation; however, mixing relatively excess PEG (≥20% wt.) had a negative impact on osteoblasts proliferation and differentiation.

IMPROVEMENT OF PIPELINE SETTLEMENT USING MICROPILESABSTRACTLoose sand soil is one of the problematic soils and according to that, buried pipelines interact with the loose sand soil. Also, pipelines are subjected to additional stresses transmitted by the settlement of the loose sand soil which increase stresses and displacements in the pipes and eventually leading to breakage. therefore, using micro - piles to improve soil below pipeline is important. Plaxis 3D numerical analysis software was used to investigate numerically the improvement of soil behavior below pipeline Micro-piles were installed as a cross piles configuration below pipeline and as a confining setup. Parameters studied are piles spacing, piles diameter, length and effect of water. Pipeline was subjected to surface loads from fully loaded truck. It was found that using micro-piles decreases considerably the settlement of pipelines resting on loose sands.Keywords: Loose Sand, Pipelines, Settlement, Improvement, Numerical Analysis, Plaxis 3D, Cross Piles, Confined Piles

Over recent years, the demand for mobile automated navigation has grown significantly. Path planning has emerged as an important and exciting field of research in many disciplines, intending to create shorter and smoother paths through the use of several types of algorithms. This work presents a comparative analysis between the artificial potential field (APF) method and the hybrid approach that combines Q-learning with APF (QL-APF). Subsequently, these methodologies are juxtaposed with a proposed approach, modified Q-learning with APF (MQL-APF), which introduces modifications to QL-APF by incorporating a dynamic reward function with a static reward function. The proposed approach has been empirically proven effective, and it is capable of generating safe and efficient paths even in complex environments. The MQL-APF approach achieved improvements in terms of path length of approximately 67.25% when compared with the APF method. Furthermore, the average enhancement percentage is approximately 14.68% compared to the QL-APF method. Additionally, the MQL-APF method achieved an improvement of 50.15%, 7.21%, and 24.63% for QL, MQL, and QL-APF, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuromuscular ultrasound is a painless, radiation‐free, high‐resolution imaging technique for assessing the peripheral nervous system. It can accurately depict changes in the nerves and muscles of individuals with neuromuscular conditions, and it is therefore a robust diagnostic tool for the assessment of individuals with polyneuropathies. This review will outline the typical ultrasonographic changes found in a wide variety of polyneuropathies. In general, demyelinating conditions result in greater nerve enlargement than axonal conditions, and acquired conditions result in more patchy nerve enlargement compared to diffuse nerve enlargement in hereditary conditions. This review is data‐driven, but more nuanced anecdotal findings are also described. The overall goal of this paper is to provide clinicians with an accessible review of the ultrasonographic approaches and findings in a wide variety of polyneuropathies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never Human primitive at that time have a negative impact on the environment, and he did not reach coal mines, oil wells and other polluting energy sources that cause the presence of photochemical smog, and he did not invent machines that run with petroleum products, electrical or even coal, and the subsequent industries harmful to land and marine organisms, such as the manufacture of plastic bags and wooden furniture, which results in deforestation. He wasn’t able to bury radioactive materials in the ground, or to release atomic bombs and leaks of nuclear reactors, nor to spray chemicals for agricultural crops for increasing crops, which led to the distortion of embryos and the emergence of cancer of all kinds, and at that time did not reach global warming due to the increase in the amount Carbon dioxide, methane and other ozone compounds, which caused a decline in the quality of water due to the change in the temperature of the environment surrounding the Nile, It’s result of the industrial revolution and the frequent use of perfumes and pesticides.In the light of creating the necessary awareness to maintain the child's health and upbringing properly and teaching him good behavior towards the environment in which he lives, and in an attempt reduce environmental pollution through the role assigned to the ninth art products (paper and digital), the researcher accomplished Designing a set of comics against the environmentally destructive phenomenon of pollution, published in children's books and magazines, it’s for Egyptian children.

ABSTRACTThe earth surface changes continuously due to the natural causes and ‎human activities. New generations of satellite sensors, such as WorldView and ‎GeoEye, provide new data to better delineate, track and visualise changes in land ‎cover. A number of classes are used in the satellite images. All artefacts with ‎elevations greater than the ground surface (buildings in particular) may appear in ‎a wrong location. The correction of buildings position is an important task for ‎mapping applications. The main aim of this study is to introduce a change ‎detection approach using very high resolution satellite images (VHR) for map ‎updating. In this approach, an approximated method for building relief ‎displacement correction was developed.‎In this paper, image preprocessing was carried out and information content ‎of the satellite image was evaluated. Then change detection between GeoEye-1 ‎image and Sohag map was carried out using post-classification comparison ‎technique. After that the change map result was divided into two classes: building ‎and non-building. All objects were transformed from raster to vector format. For ‎building objects, the height was estimated. A python code was written to calculate ‎relief displacement using buildings height and shadow length. The vector layer ‎was added to update the reference map. The results showed the ability of very ‎high-resolution satellites images for updating large scale maps in Egypt. Also, the ‎approximated method for building relief displacement correction is a promising ‎method. It has RMSE accuracy of 0.95m.‎

Undescended testes are more likely to undergo malignant transformation than normally descended testes. We present the case of a 33-year-old male smoker who had been suffering from primary infertility for 4 years. This patient had bilateral undescended testes and a frozen section specimen revealed seminoma. In this report, we discussed how important it is to use a combination of different diagnosis modalities to reach a diagnosis.

Epidural analgesia (EA) is a central nerve blockade technique. It is linked to a significant reduction of labor pain and side effects. This study was designed to investigate the knowledge and attitudes towards EA among women of childbearing age (18–45 years) in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, and identify predictors through multivariate modeling. A random sampling technique (n = 680) was used for this cross-sectional, self-administered survey. A previously validated online questionnaire was distributed. After establishing a P value of less than 0.05 to denote statistical significance, SPSS was used to examine the data using descriptive analysis, the chi-square test of homogeneity, and multivariate logistic regression. Six hundred and eighty women were studied. Over 75% of the participants were university educated; less than half (46.3%) were 21–30 years old, students (42.2%), and had never been pregnant (49%). The previous mothers who had never had EA labor accounted for 64.6% (n = 347, 51.0%). “Family/friends” (39%), followed by “internet” (32%), were the most common sources of EA information. Those who correctly defined the EA accounted for 61.8%. Those who reported weak or no contractions after EA accounted for 32.2%. Those who said EA insertion hurt more than labor did accounted for 56.3%. Those women who said one should give consent to EA accounted for 83.1%. Those who believe EA is safe for the baby accounted for 50.1%. Those who knew about EA complications accounted for 24.34%. According to multivariate modeling, attitude score plays a significant role in determining the participant’s knowledge level. This study found that childbearing women know a little about EA. Attitudes affected this knowledge level, and demographics did not. Cognitive intervention is needed to change these attitudes and spread EA-related knowledge.

Background: Chronic Liver disease (CLD) is a global public health problem and one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide with many complications like portal hypertension (PH) and esophageal varices (EV). Researchers have investigated the role of shear-wave elastography (SWE) as a noninvasive method to assess patients with cirrhosis and PH. However, studies evaluating the role of splenic stiffness (SS) have shown variable results. Aim of the study: This study aims to assess the SS in a patient with CLD compared to controlled cases and to evaluate its role in the prediction of EV grade. Patients and methods: The study included 60 participants; 30 patients diagnosed with CLD by the clinical, laboratory, and radiological investigation, who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy; and 30 control health individuals. The mean splenic size, SS, and platelet counts were measured for all participants. Mean SS was compared between two groups, and then its validity in differentiated between low and high-risk groups of EV was assessed. Results: Patients with CLD and controls were significantly different in SS values with cut-off value of 12.49 Kpa. Among CLD patients, the low and high-risk EV subgroups were significant different in SS values with cut-off value of 15.125 KPa. Compared with splenic size and platelet count, SS had the highest accuracy (93.3%) in predicting high-grade EV. Conclusions: Patients with CLD showed higher SS values than control with stepwise increase in SS with increasing grade of EV. SS can accurately predict high-risk groups of EV hence may help decrease patients' burden by avoiding unnecessary endoscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the role of serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels in individuals with diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) compared with controls, as well as to highlight the different sonographic changes in DPN and determine if NfL correlates with sonographic, clinical, and functional parameters. Methods: Diabetic individuals with signs or symptoms consistent with peripheral nerve involvement were recruited. They were evaluated by examination, functional neuropathy severity scores, laboratory assessments (including NfL), nerve conduction studies (NCS), and ultrasound. Ultrasound was performed of the bilateral median, ulnar, tibial, fibular, sural, and vagus nerves, and cervical roots 5 and 6. Results were compared with age, sex, and body mass index matched healthy controls. Results: A total of 320 nerves from 20 patients and 480 nerves from 30 controls were evaluated. NfL was significantly elevated in those with diabetes with a mean and standard deviation of 6.95 ± 2.95 pg/mL in the diabetic group and 2.83 ± 0.77 pg/mL in controls (P <.001). Nerve cross‐sectional area and serum NfL levels correlated significantly with clinical and functional parameters and with each other (P <.05). Conclusion: Individuals with DPN have significantly higher NfL levels than healthy controls, and NfL levels correlate with ultrasonographic parameters. These findings may be useful for the diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring of those with DPN, though further exploration is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]