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Copyright of Egyptian Journal of Experimental Biology (Botany) is the property of Egyptian Society of Experimental Biology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Camel minced meat is widely used in the world especially they were used to produce low cost protein when compared with other animals. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess the effects of chitosan, rosemary essential oils, and sodium lactate on the organoleptic, chemical, and bacteriological quality of camel minced meat during refrigerated storage at 4°C. Twenty kg of camel meat (round meat) were obtained 24 hours after slaughter. The meat was minced and classified into four groups; untreated control and three treated groups (0.2% rosemary oil, 2% sodium lactate and 1% chitosan), which was kept under chilling conditions at 3±1° C and examined at different storage periods (zero-time, 3rd, 5th and 7th days of storage). The organoleptic, chemical, and bacteriological quality of minced meat was assessed. The surface discoloration was noticed on the 3rd day of the control group, but all treated groups retained their normal color especially 1% chitosan group, which maintained the highest value of redness. The sodium lactate group at 7th day of storage had pH, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N mg/ 100 g) and thiobarbituric acid (TBA mg/kg) of 6.13, 14.3 and 1.08, respectively, while they were 6.37, 16.4 and 0.82 of rosemary group and 6.29, 15.64 and 0.72 of chitosan group, respectively. Spermine, spermidine, putrescine and tyramine were detected without significant differences in all examined groups but cadaverine and tryptamine were significantly low in all groups when comparing with the control group. Sodium lactate exhibits a great effect against bacterial growth on the 7th day of chilling by minimizing the bacterial load to be 5.95, 3.44 and 3.21 log10 CFU/g for psychrotrophic, Enterobacteriaceae and pseudomonas, respectively with original counts of 6.98, 4.51, and 4.29 log10 CFU/g, respectively. The current study concluded that the quality of camel minced meat could be enhanced by adding rosemary, sodium lactate, and chitosan, but sodium lactate was the best in controlling bacterial proliferation and biogenic amine formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Chromium salt possesses unique characteristics that render it useful in numerous applications in several industrial processes, especially tanning of animal hides which act as a major source of hexavalent chromium toxicity in environment. This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of loofah immobilized Cladosporium cladosporioides CEL14 in remediate tannery wastewater which contains hexavalent chromium. Methodology and results: A total of 18 fungal species were isolated from three different sites of tannery wastewater in Egypt, of which C. cladosporioides CEL14 was the most capable species of chromate remediation with 81% after 7 days of incubation as free cells. The experiments were conducted in minimum salt medium supplemented with 200 ppm chromate in the form of potassium dichromate. Different process parameters studies demonstrated that chromate was completely removed at 30 °C, pH 6, 0.1% malt extract and 0.2% glucose after 7 days of incubation with 20% inoculum size. After that, C. cladosporioides was immobilized on a natural support material (loofah). The removal ability of chromate was enhanced through permanent viable immobilization on loofah pieces, which showing complete removal of chromate within 3 days. The toxicity assessment of treated tannery effluents revealed that 74% of Brassica napus seeds were germinated upon exposure to the treated effluent. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: This study revealed that C. cladosporioides CEL14 isolate has high potential as bioremediating agent against toxic hexavalent chromium. The removal ability of toxic chromate was enhanced through permanent viable immobilization on loofah pieces. This technology is simple, cost effective, efficient and environmentally friendly. The loofah immobilized with C. cladosporioides CEL14 has potential to be applied in wastewater treatment of small-scale tanneries after onsite trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Identifying the location and the volume of the prostate is important for ultrasound-guided prostate brachytherapy. Prostate volume is also important for prostate cancer diagnosis. Manual outlining of the prostate border is able to determine the prostate volume accurately, however, it is time consuming and tedious. Therefore, a number of investigations have been devoted to designing algorithms that are suitable for segmenting the prostate boundary in ultrasound images. The most popular method is the deformable model (snakes), a method that involves designing an energy function and then optimizing this function. The snakes algorithm usually requires either an initial contour or some points on the prostate boundary to be estimated close enough to the original boundary which is considered a drawback to this powerful method. Methods The proposed spectral clustering segmentation algorithm is built on a totally different foundation that doesn't involve any function design or optimization. It also doesn't need any contour or any points on the boundary to be estimated. The proposed algorithm depends mainly on graph theory techniques. Results Spectral clustering is used in this paper for both prostate gland segmentation from the background and internal gland segmentation. The obtained segmented images were compared to the expert radiologist segmented images. The proposed algorithm obtained excellent gland segmentation results with 93% average overlap areas. It is also able to internally segment the gland where the segmentation showed consistency with the cancerous regions identified by the expert radiologist. Conclusion The proposed spectral clustering segmentation algorithm obtained fast excellent estimates that can give rough prostate volume and location as well as internal gland segmentation without any user interaction.

Background Repeated cesarean section (CS) is the most significant factor contributing to overall increased CS rates. The primary indicator of repeated CS is a prior CS. Vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) is a trial to reduce CS rates. Aim The aim of study was to examine the effect of counseling on the incidence, maternal, and neonatal outcomes of VBAC. Design A quasi-experimental one-group posttest-only design was adopted for this study. Setting The study was conducted at the Outpatient Clinic and Casualty Department at Manial University Hospital affiliated to Cairo University. Sample A purposive sample of pregnant women was recruited through a period of 6 months from July to December 2019 based on certain criteria; the most important one is to have a previous CS. Tool A structured interviewing tool, labor progress record (Partograph), and neonatal Apgar score were used to collect the data. Results A total of 90 participants were enrolled into study. A total of 79 (87.8%) women agreed to have VBAC after counseling compared with only 11 (12.2%), who refused to have VBAC and chose CS. The trial of labor after cesarean (TOLAC) rate was 40.5%. The rate of VBAC was 31.6%. Success rate of TOLAC was 78.1%, whereas failed TOLAC was 21.9% owing to lack of labor progress and fetal distress. Overall, 68.4% had CSs lower segment cesarean section (LSCS). Among them, 37% had elective LSCS and 63% had emergency LSCS. Physician decision without any medical indication for CS was the most common indications of elective repeat CS, with a rate of 85%. Oligohydramnios was the most common cause for emergency CS delivery, with a rate of 44.5%. All women who delivered VBAC had normal progress of labor and their babies had normal Apgar score (8-10). No cases that underwent VBAC had any morbidity or mortality. Conclusion Counseling is needed for the selection of VBAC as a mode of delivery. Successful VBAC is associated with better fetomaternal and neonatal outcomes, so most women with one previous cesarean delivery with a low-transverse incision should be counseled and encouraged to undergo a trial of labor in her recurrent pregnancy. Recommendations A qualitative research study should be conducted to assess the satisfaction of women from VBAC and compare it with CS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phthalazine and phthalazinone derivatives are important owing to their significant biological activities and pharmacological properties. Herein, a benzoic acid derivative (2), a benzoxazin-1-one derivative (3), and an oxophthalazin-2(1 H)-yl)acetohydrazide (13) are utilized as precursors to construct a novel series of phthalazinones bearing various valuable functional groups in excellent yields via several simple and promising approaches. Finally, the antimicrobial activity of the newly synthesized phthalazines is screened against different microbial strains; namely, Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria utilizing Amoxicillin as a standard drug. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In dynamic renal scans, 99mTc-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) is copiously used and it yields information about the renal blood-flow and the excretory capacity. 99mTc-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) is used for static renal imaging and can likewise uncover the renal cortical structure. This work was intended to evaluate whether DMSA can be declared as a radiopharmaceutical in dynamic renal scans or not. It also aimed at comparing the outcomes procured from DMSA and with DTPA examinations. Materials and Methods: A comparison of the information gained from the renograms of 47 subjects (normal subjects and subjects with abnormal renal function having: obstructive nephropathy, bilateral nephropathy, hydronephrosis, reduced or non-function kidney, and/or atrophic kidney) who had 99mTc-DMSA and 99mTc-DTPA dynamic scintigraphies utilizing the same protocol. Results: A strong positive correlation had come in view on the evaluation of the left kidney, right kidney, and total glomerular filtration rate (GFR) from 99mTc-DTPA and 99mTc-DMSA renograms. In addition, the estimation of the time of the peak height from 99mTc-DTPA and 99mTc-DMSA renograms for the right and left kidneys demonstrated as non-significant varieties and a strong positive correlation for both the normal subjects and subjects with kidney abnormalities. Conclusion: In the light of the outcomes gained from the present investigation, it could be prescribed that 99mTc-DMSA can favorably replace 99mTc-DTPA in dynamic renograms in the case of the renal conditions that had been examined in the present work. As scheduled, this will be cost-effective and time saving and will decrease the radiation dose administered to the subjects. Also, the same qualities of results are accomplished with both radiopharmaceuticals in normal subjects and subjects with abnormal renal function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Egyptian Journal of Microbiology is the property of Egyptian National Agricultural Library (ENAL) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Egyptian Journal of Experimental Biology (Botany) is the property of Egyptian Society of Experimental Biology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, based on an adaptive Type-II progressively censored sample from the generalized exponential distribution, the maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimators are derived for the unknown parameters as well as the reliability and hazard functions. Also, the approximate confidence intervals of the unknown parameters, and the reliability and hazard functions are calculated. Markov chain Monte Carlo method is applied to carry out a Bayesian estimation procedure and in turn calculate the credible intervals. Moreover, results from simulation studies assessing the performance of our proposed method are included. Finally, an illustrative example using real data set is presented for illustrating all the inferential procedures developed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several fungal endophytes were isolated and screened for their ability to biosynthesize a variety of nanoparticles (NPs), as a potentially simple and eco-friendly method with low cost. Among these fungi, a promising isolate named ORG-1 was found able to synthesize five different NPs types: Co3O4NPs, CuONPs, Fe3O4NPs, NiONPs, and ZnONPs. The ORG-1 strain was identified as Aspergillus terreus according to the morphological and molecular studies. Synthesis of these NPs was initially monitored by UV–Vis spectroscopy and further characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction patterns revealed their crystalline structure. Dynamic light scattering analysis was applied to study the particle size distribution and stability. Transmission electron microscope studies indicated the morphology of the synthesized NPs. Additionally, the biological activities of the in vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial potentials were evaluated. Co3O4NPs, CuONPs, Fe3O4NPs, NiONPs, and ZnONPs showed promising antioxidant activity with 50% inhibitory concentrations of 85.44, 96.74, 102.41, 87.41, and 108.67 μg mL−1, respectively. The synthesized NPs exhibited potent antimicrobial activities against several plant and human pathogens. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of one microbial strain for the synthesis of a variety of NPs. This study suggests endophytic fungi as new and alternate platforms with an exceptional potentiality for the synthesis of NPs with promising activities. Key points: • Discovery of a promising endophytic fungus for synthesis of five different types of NPs. • Mycosynthesis and characterization of all the synthesized NPs were investigated. • The synthesized NPs showed promising antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water pollution emerges from different sources such as industry, domestic uses, use of pesticides and fertilisers and other daily uses of organic materials. Wastewater treatment has received great interest especially in the last few years and different techniques have been used for that object. The most recents are the advanced oxidation processes; where photocatalytic reactions represent a sounding technique. In the present work Methylene Blue dye (MB) is used as a model pollutant and the dye-polluted water is photocatalytically treated using TiO2 as nanoparticles and nanofiber in different dosages. The catalyst is supported on Agar-Agar before being used. Another set of experiments is run with silver-doped catalyst where the catalyst is doped with different concentrations of silver (Ag). Results showed that TiO2 nanoparticles have better performance as a photocatalyst than TiO2 nanofiber. It is clear that the highest performance is given by the catalyst doped with 2% silver (51.679% degradation). This is followed by doping with 3% silver (37.367% degradation) while doping with 1% silver gave results very close to the results of un-doped TiO2 (24.026% degradation for 1% silver-doped catalyst as compared to 24.393% degradation for the undoped catalyst). The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is used for predicting the optimum values for the operating parameters which lead to the highest percentage dye degradation. The optimum values were found to be as follows: 40 ppm, 10 ppm and 5 for catalyst conc., dye conc. and pH, respectively. The maximum percent degradation achieved at these conditions was 49.45%. Validation of the model with experimental results showed that the model fits well this type of processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspergillus nidulans (accession number MT355567) was selected as a most potent isolated, dried and chemically pretreated biomass was investigated. Various biosorption parameters as pH, initial concentration of U, biosorbent dose, biosorbent particles size, temperature and contact time were studied. Maximum uranium removal efficiency was 97% and 98.5% for dried and chemically pretreated biomass, respectively. The optimum pH for U(VI) removal was 4.0 with U concentration 350 mg/L, biomass concentration 0.4 g, biomass size 0.250 mm within 16 and 14 min for dried and chemically pretreated biomass, respectively, at 25°C. Uranium biosorption was closely related to pseudo-second-order kinetic model and obeys the Langmuir isotherm model. Calculation were suggested that U biosorption was not endothermic. According to the calculation the hydroxyl, carboxyl and amino groups on the fungal surface could back to biosorption of U. Desorption of U from the metal laden (68% for dried biomass and 47.5% for chemical-treated biomass) was completely achieved by applying 2 M HNO3 although the U adsorption capacity of both biosorbents were decreased from 67.5% to 28% for dried biomass and from 47.3% to 26% for chemical-treated biomass after four biosorption–desorption cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]