181 research outputs found
Reno-protective effect of Roflumilast against kidney injury induced by ischemia/reperfusion in rats: Evidence from biochemical and histological investigations
No full textOxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis are major contributors to renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. This study aimed to investigate the effects of pretreatment with the PDE4 inhibitor roflumilast (Rof) on renal I/R and its underlying mechanisms. Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to 30 minutes of unilateral renal ischemia followed by 45 minutes of reperfusion. Rof (1.5 and 3 mg/kg) was administered for seven days prior to I/R induction. The findings showed that Rof significantly and dose-dependently attenuated kidney damage by reducing blood urea nitrogen and creatinine levels. Rof also exhibited antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, as evidenced by improved glutathione and malondialdehyde levels and decreased proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-α). Furthermore, Rof prevented the downregulation of HO-1 and Nrf2 expression. These results suggest that Rof therapy could protect the kidneys from I/R-induced injury through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, providing a potential therapeutic approach for the management of renal I/R damage
Radio-clinical assessment of crista fenestra during pediatric cochlear implantation
No full textObjectives: This study aimed to assess the ability of preoperative computed tomography (CT) to predict the crista fenestra (CF) type during cochlear implantation and correlate these types with intraoperative findings. This may allow for precise preoperative planning with better surgical outcomes. Study design: A prospective observational study. Settings: The study was done in multiple tertiary centers between September 2021 and March 2024. Method: ology: We correlated the preoperative radiological type of the CF with the intraoperative CF type to evaluate the accuracy and sensitivity of the HRCT to predict the CF type. We also assessed the need for CF drilling in each case. Results: Our study included 154 patients who underwent CI. They were 90 (58.4 %) males and 64 (41.5 %) females with ages ranging from 2.1 to 7.6 years, with a mean of 4.69 ± 1.19. The intra-class correlation coefficient between both radiological evaluators was 0.985, which indicated a high agreement between them. The intraoperative surgical types of CF were significantly related to the radiological types as the Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.976, and the P-value was <0.001. Conclusions: Our study revealed that preoperative CT is a precise tool for predicting the intraoperative type of CF during cochlear implantation type with a sensitivity of 96.67 % and an accuracy of 94.17 %. Moreover, drilling of the CF is recommended in type A3 and type B
Nrf2/HO-1, NF-κB and PI3K/Akt signalling pathways decipher the therapeutic mechanism of pitavastatin in early phase liver fibrosis in rats
No full textLiver fibrosis is a common chronic hepatic disease. This study aimed to investigate the effect of pitavastatin (Pit) against thioacetamide (TAA)-induced liver fibrosis. Rats were divided into four groups: (1) control group; (2) TAA group (100 mg/kg, i.p.) three times weekly for 2 weeks; (3 and 4) TAA/Pit-treated group, in which Pit was administered orally (0.4 and 0.8 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks following TAA injections. TAA caused liver damage manifested by elevated serum transaminases, reduced albumin and histological alterations. Hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) was increased, and glutathione (GSH) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were decreased in TAA-administered rats. TAA upregulated the inflammatory markers NF-κB, NF-κB p65, TNF-α and IL-6. Treatment with Pit ameliorated serum transaminases, elevated serum albumin and prevented histopathological changes in TAA-intoxicated rats. Pit suppressed MDA, NF-κB, NF-κB p65, the inflammatory cytokines and PI3K mRNA in TAA-intoxicated rats. In addition, Pit enhanced hepatic antioxidants and boosted the nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) mRNA. Moreover, immunohistological studies supported the ability of Pit to reduce liver fibrosis via suppressing p-AKT expression. In conclusion, Pit effectively prevents TAA-induced liver fibrosis by attenuating oxidative stress and the inflammatory response. The hepatoprotective efficacy of Pit was associated with the upregulation of Nrf2/HO-1 and downregulation of NF-κB and PI3K/Akt signalling pathways
Acquired demyelinating disorders of the central nervous system in a sample of Egyptian children
No full textAcquired demyelinating syndrome (ADS) is a group of inflammatory immune-mediated attacks on the central nervous system's (CNS) myelin sheath, presenting as optic neuritis or transverse myelitis. The study aimed to studying ADS in children is growing, with implications for better management and outcome. This is a cross-sectional study analyzing patients with neuro-immune diseases at Al-Azhar University hospitals under 18 years old with CNS inflammatory demyelination. They undergo comprehensive medical and neurological examinations, with follow-up data collected at six-months post-onset. Diagnosis requires AQP4 antibody, clinical criteria, and additional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) requirements. The study included 59 patients with ADS; 46 % were diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), 14 % had clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), 14 % had myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody disease (MOGAD), 20 % had multiple sclerosis (MS), and 6.8 % had neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). Most participants were urban residents. Clinical presentation showed encephalopathy in 55.9 % of participants, with ADEM having the highest prevalence (93 %). Motor symptoms were prevalent in 84.7 %, with sensory symptoms highest in the NMOSD group. Cerebellar symptoms were reported by 52 %, with ADEM having the highest rate (74 %). 20.3 % of cases had brain abnormalities on MRI scans, with no significant difference between groups. In conclusion this study provides detailed information on pediatric ADS (PADS) patients in Egypt, a developing country lacking research coverage. It investigates clinical profiles, laboratory findings, treatment, and prognosis. However, limitations include a single center experience, potential information bias, and short follow-up duration, highlighting the need for more longitudinal multicenter studies
Effect of prostaglandin F2α and methylxanthines on enzymic release of bull epididymal spermatozoa in vitro
No full textEvaluation of the lamina cribrosa morphology in correlation to retinal nerve fiber layer thickness
No full textAn Intelligent System For Arabic Text Categorization
No full textText Categorization (classification) is the process of classifying documents into a predefined set of categories based on their content. In this paper, an intelligent Arabic text categorization system is presented. Machine learning algorithms are used in this system. Many algorithms for stemming and feature selection are tried. Moreover, the document is represented using several term weighting schemes and finally the k-nearest neighbor and Rocchio classifiers are used for classification process. Experiments are performed over self collected data corpus and the results show that the suggested hybrid method of statistical and light stemmers is the most suitable stemming algorithm for Arabic language. The results also show that a hybrid approach of document frequency and information gain is the preferable feature selection criterion and normalized-tfidf is the best weighting scheme. Finally, Rocchio classifier has the advantage over k-nearest neighbor classifier in the classification process. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed model is an efficient method and gives generalization accuracy of about 98%
Determination of some apricot seed and kernel physical and mechanical properties
No full textAt the duration of this study, a sample of 100 intact apricot fruits, canino variety were selected randomly. The seeds were shelled using a nutcracker and the intact kernels were separated manually. Then, some apricot seed and kernel physical and mechanical properties were determined as relative parameters for designing the apricot seed kernels separator. The obtained results may be summarized as follows:At 7.13% (w.b.) apricot seeds moisture content, the length, width and thickness values were 18.90, 16.48 and 11.31 mm, respectively. The surface area, projected area, volume, arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter, sphericity and aspect ratio values were 727.09 mm2, 244.60 mm2, 1847.69 mm3, 15.56 mm, 15.20 mm, 80.61 % and 87.53 %, respectively. The true and bulk density values were 0.708 and 0.354 g/cm3, respectively. The porosity was 49.99 %. The angle of repose was 27.29°. The static coefficient of friction values of 0.54, 0.50, 0.37, and 0.52 were recorded using viz wood, steel, glass and canino variety apricot seeds surfaces, respectively. The mean shearing force and hardness of apricot seed were 366.3 and 396.4 N, respectively.At 9.21% (w.b.) apricot kernels moisture content, the length, width and thickness values were 14.19, 9.66 and 4.33 mm, respectively. The surface area, projected area, grain volume, arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean diameter, sphericity and aspect ratio values were 222.00 mm2, 107.76 mm2, 311.92 mm3, 9.39 mm, 8.40 mm, 59.26 % and 68.20 %, respectively. The true and bulk density values were 0.896 and 0.425 g/cm3, respectively. The porosity was 52.61 %. The angle of repose was 22.56°. The static coefficient of friction values of 0.45, 0.44, 0.29, and 0.42 were recorded using viz wood, steel, glass and canino variety apricot seeds surfaces, respectively. The mean shearing force and hardness of apricot kernel were 62.8 and 67.9 N, respectively.Finally, the obtained results provide a helpful database designing the apricot seed kernels separator.
The smart safety Shoe: A new type of safety shoe that helps prevent lower back problems and opens the door to a new era of preventive safety footwear
No full textThe smart safety shoe is a concept safety shoe that has been in development as a collaboration between Allshoes safety footwear and TU Delft since 2020. Previous work on the shoe consisted of 2 graduation projects and a student course which resulted in the current concept of an injury preventing safety shoe focused on preventing lower back pain in the logistics sector. The shoe works by using pressure sensors and machine learning to detect unhealthy postures while its wearer has to lift various objects as part of their job (manual handling). This project focused on further developing the concept of the smart safety shoe and evaluating the prototypes from the last two projects. Previous projects provided two different pressure sensor layouts which are evaluated using a high-end pressure sensing insole. A manual handling experiment was set up and performed on 16 different participants from a lab and a warehouse. During testing participants were instructed to perform manual handling while holding 5 different postures. It was possible to train a machine learning model using the various pressure profiles gathered from the experiment. Using this model, the two sensor layouts from the previous projects were evaluated for their ability to detect the 5 predetermined postures. It was found that the latest layout outperformed the previous one and was therefore selected for further development of the smart safety shoe.The integration of various other sensors and actuators was evaluated, and the core functions of the shoe were defined with an indication towards future improvements of the smart safety shoe.The shoe has now been publicly presented by Allshoes and the goal is to have the product on the market by the end of 2025. In order for this to happen further prototyping is needed to create an improved machine learning model based on the selected sensor layout. The shoe shows promising responses from current safety shoe clients. When finally launched it will be part of a new type of protective equipment focused on prevention.Design for Interactio
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