Mahmoud Abd El Hafez M. Adam

In this study, the monosaccharides of some plant mucilages (taro mucilage, okra mucilage, Jew’s mellow mucilage and aloe vera mucilage) and gums (gum arabic, gum tragacanth, gum olibanium and gum mastic) were analyzed by HPLC as well as total uronic acids were determined. The obtained data showed that these polysaccharides are quantitatively and qualitatively differed in their contents. All mucilages and gums were contained fructose and uronic acids. The mucilages and gums were interacted with hemoglobin and altered its absorption (in range of 385-410 nm), in which a negative correlation between the absorption of Hb and the concentration of polysaccharide. In contrast, the absorption of BSA-mucilage or gum mixture was increased as the concentration of polysaccharide increase. It was demonstrated that these mucilages and gums prevent the protein precipitation (casein).

In this study, the monosaccharides of some plant mucilages (taro mucilage, okra mucilage, Jew’s mellow mucilage and aloe vera mucilage) and gums (gum arabic, gum tragacanth, gum olibanium and gum mastic) were analyzed by HPLC as well as total uronic acids were determined. The obtained data showed that these polysaccharides are quantitatively and qualitatively differed in their contents. All mucilages and gums were contained fructose and uronic acids. The mucilages and gums were interacted with hemoglobin and altered its absorption (in range of 385-410 nm), in which a negative correlation between the absorption of Hb and the concentration of polysaccharide. In contrast, the absorption of BSA-mucilage or gum mixture was increased as the concentration of polysaccharide increase. It was demonstrated that these mucilages and gums prevent the protein precipitation (casein).

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The term inner beauty and outer beauty of the city was brought forward by one of the world famous Architects (Liu Thai Ker, Singapore) in the 39th forum of the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISoCaRP) Cairo, Egypt 19-21 October, 2003. He argued that Architects and Urban Designers have been striving for the last decades to achieve the outer beauty of their cities. He asserts that the only way to succeed in achieving such beauty is through achieving the inner beauty of their cities first. The paper attempt to discuss to what extent this asserts is true through a comprehensive study of Fatimid Cairo as a traditional case study where primitivism has managed to achieve the inner and the outer beauty of the city. The discussion is to be extended to take ‘inner beauty’ beyond the abstraction of the term to investigate the ability of sustainable development to achieve the required inner beauty of our contemporary cities.

Egypt has witnessed the launch of great development movements as a result of a number of reasons. Their impact generates a rapid restructuring of economic, cultural, social and even political orientations. Changes in values, norms tastes, political structures, production system, and consumption patterns of the Egyptian community are well recognised. On the scale of the urban communities to some extent, they were able to bare such transformation while maintaining their cultural heritage. However, the spatial transformation occurring to the rural areas (Egyptian villages) especially those in direct contact to the central urbanisation regions have results in generating tremendous impacts. Such impacts has leads some of these villages to slack their distinct primitive way of life including there primitive urban form and architecture character to the urbanisation transformation. Such primitive way of life can be asserted to be the most sustainable way for such communities to survive sustain-ably within the context of their surrounding environment. Baring in mind that the rural areas form more than 60% of the inhabited areas in Egypt gives us an indicator to the importance of being able to maintain bio-diversity of these areas and thus preserving its primitive way of life. Accordingly, the paper is first to define the principles and features of the Egyptian rural community primitive way of life then will attempt to record the social, economical and cultural transformation of the rural Egyptian community. The methodology adopted will depend on the literature analysis to define the traditional feature of the primitive way of life than on conducting a field survey to record the contemporary transformation on two case studies one of which is very close to the urbanisation area as the main sources of impacts and the other is far off. An analytical case study based on the results of those two cases is to clarify such impacts. Further more, an analytical correlation study is to be conducted aiming to link such transformation to those of the primitive urban from and architecture character of the rural Egyptian community. Finally the paper is to discus the ability of the sustainability principles to positively contribute in the way of maintaining the bio-diversity of the primitive way of life for such communities.

During the last century most governments especially third world governments, were concerned with development. This concern overrides those about well being of their citizens and that of their environment which was suffering a great deal of impacts as a result of these developments. Accompanying the highlighted awareness of environmental problems was also recognition of the kind of relationship that exists between development and environment, which was best described as inexorably, linked (Holden, 2000). By the end of the 1980s there was a massive need for an environmentally new paradigm to emerge, one that utilises the global environmental movement of that time. In other words the world was ready to accept the concept of sustainability where sustainability was primarily an outcome of ecological concern mainly with how best to utilise and conserve natural resources at the same time (Krippendorf, 1993 and Hall, 2000). After more than 20 years since the emerging of the concept there are no doubt about the positive contribution it should have, if we can really implement and apply sustainable development, one that could satisfy the needs of the local communities while sustaining the environment for the current and future generations. In other words, professionals should stop the work of lips and start to work together trying really to implement sustainability (Bramwell and Lane, 1993).
Consequently, this paper is to focus on the ability of implementing sustainable development in developing countries. The papers argues the important role that the sustainability tools can have in sustaining the environment and thus putting us a step ahead in the way to achieve the required sustainable development. In doing so, a comprehensive study of the sustainability tools within an analytical comparative framework is to be presented aiming to define the most suitable tool or group of tools for achieving sustainable development within the context of developing countries. Also in an attempt to reach conclusions through the most possible objective approach the opinions of the professionals is to be taken in consideration through a selective multi stratified clustered cross-sectional sample to be interviewed.

Loss of the DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) results in increased sensitivity to ionizing radiation due to inefficient repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Overexpression of DNA-PK in tumor cells conversely results in resistance to ionizing radiation. It is therefore possible that inhibition of DNA-PK will enhance the preferential killing of tumor cells by radiotherapy. Available inhibitors of DNA-PK, like wortmannin, are cytotoxic and stop the cell cycle because they inhibit phoshatidylinositol-3-kinases at 100-fold lower concentrations required to inhibit DNA-PK. In an effort to develop a specific DNA-PK inhibitor, we have characterized SU11752, from a three-substituted indolin-2-ones library. SU11752 and wortmannin were equally potent inhibitors of DNA-PK. In contrast, inhibition of the phoshatidylinositol-3-kinase p110gamma required 500-fold higher concentration of SU11752. Thus, SU11752 was a more selective inhibitor of DNA-PK than wortmannin. Inhibition kinetics and a direct assay for ATP binding showed that SU11752 inhibited DNA-PK by competing with ATP. SU11752 inhibited DNA double-strand break repair in cells and gave rise to a five-fold sensitization to ionizing radiation. At concentrations of SU11752 that inhibited DNA repair, cell cycle progression was still normal and ATM kinase activity was not inhibited. We conclude that SU11752 defines a new class of drugs that may serve as a starting point for the development of specific DNA-PK inhibitors