Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed on 48 isolates of Helicobacter pylori recovered from Egyptian children undergoing routine endoscopies. The isolates were universally highly resistant to metronidazole, but resistance to other tested antimicrobial agents was rare (4% for clarithromycin, erythromycin, and azithromycin resistance versus 2% for ciprofloxacin and ampicillin resistance). Use of metronidazole for the treatment of H. pylori in Egypt should be avoided.

The parsing of Arabic sentence is a necessary prerequisite for many natural language processing applications such as machine translation and information retrieval. In this paper we report our attempt to develop an efficient chart parser for Analyzing Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) sentence. From a practical point of view, the parser is able to satisfy syntactic constraints reducing parsing ambiguity. Lexical semantic features are also used to disambiguate the sentence structure. We explain also an Arabic morphological analyzer based on ATN technique. Both the Arabic parser and the Arabic morphological analyzer are implemented in Prolog. The linguistic rules were acquired from a set of sentences from MSA sentence in the Agriculture domain.

Intelingua (meaning) representation has been successfully used in multilingual machine translation. This paper reports our attempt to generate Arabic sentence from interlingua. The proposed system will be compatible with the NESPOLE consortium. In NESPOLE an Interlingua called interchange format or IF, designed for travel planning is used. Our approach describes how to generate grammatically correct Arabic sentence from Interlingua. It involves two main components a mapper for converting intelingua into syntactic structure (feature-structure) and a generator for generating the target Arabic sentence that represents the intended meaning. A translation example is provided to explain the inner working of the system.

This paper presents a set of tools that were developed in order to facilitate and speed up the process of building information extraction and retrieval systems for documents that exhibit a set of predefined characteristics. Specifically, the work presents a simple framework for extracting information found in publications or documents that are issued in large volumes and which cover similar concepts or issues within a given domain. The paper presents a simple model for defining background knowledge and for using that to automatically augment segments of input documents with metadata in order to assist users in easily locating information within these documents through a structured front end. The model presented makes use of both document structure as well as dynamically acquired background knowledge to achieve its goals.

Many researchers have observed that 80% -90% of tutorial utterances were in the form of questions, so-called items. However, the item quality in distance learning environment has not been discussed enough. Poor and problematic items may defeat the purpose of distance learning. Therefore, we should ensure the quality and integrity of items before storing them finally in item banks, and becoming available for distance learning systems. The traditional paper-and- pencil process for evaluating an item is performed by administering a pilot test in schools, so-called tryout. Many manual steps are needed to test the items, by trying them, in schools. This process is costly, very time–consuming endeavor, and sometimes inaccurate. In this paper, we attempt to solve this problem by introducing a new practical model for evaluating an item online. Through this model we get, on the spot, student responses and apply some techniques on these responses to identify item characteristics to ensure the quality and integrity of the item. Accordingly, this will enable us to detect and eliminate both weak and problematic items, and store only good items in the item bank, all in quick and accurate manner.

OBJECTIVE: Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) has been refined by experienced surgeons into a competitive treatment alternative for localized prostate cancer. Less is known, however, about the outcomes of "learning curve" cases from newly trained surgeons. We prospectively studied 100 cases of LRP performed by 2 senior and 2 junior surgeons and addressed the rates of positive margins-an important early endpoint of oncologic efficacy.

METHODS: 100 consecutive cases of LRP were performed by two senior (n=62) and two junior surgeons (n=38) by a 5-port transperitoneal route. Whole-mount step-section prostate specimens were examined by Stanford protocol.

RESULTS: Positive margins occured in 25% of cases: 18% for pT2a (2/11), 18% for pT2b (11/61), 45% for pT3a (10/22), and 50% for pT3b (2/4) (p=0.002 pT2 vs. pT3). By surgeon experience, the rates were 19% (12/62) for senior and 34% (13/38) for junior (p=0.04). However, in a multiple logistic regression analysis, only pathologic stage (p=0.083) and Gleason sum (p=0.0133) reached statistical significance, while surgeon experience did not (p=0.0992).

CONCLUSION: Positive margin rates after laparoscopic radical prostatectomy are significantly influenced by pathologic stage and Gleason score, and are within the range reported from open series. The higher positive margin rate from junior surgeons, although not statistically significant, suggests the need for further study and continued mentoring during surgery and/or video review of cases to improve oncologic results.

Prostate apoptosis response-4 (par-4) is a pro-apoptotic gene identified in prostate cancer cells undergoing apoptosis. Par-4 protein, which contains a leucine zipper domain at the carboxy-terminus, functions as a transcriptional repressor in the nucleus. Par-4 selectively induces apoptosis in androgen-independent prostate cancer cells and Ras-transformed cells but not in androgen-dependent prostate cancer cells or normal cells. Cells that are resistant to apoptosis by Par-4 alone, however, are greatly sensitized by Par-4 to the action of other pro-apoptotic insults such as growth factor withdrawal, tumor necrosis factor, ionizing radiation, intracellular calcium elevation, or those involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, and stroke. Apoptosis induction by Par-4 involves a complex mechanism that requires activation of the Fas death receptor signaling pathway and coparallel inhibition of cell survival NF-kappaB transcription activity. The unique ability of Par-4 to induce apoptosis in cancer cells but not normal cells and the ability of Par-4 antisense or dominant-negative mutant to abrogate apoptosis in neurodegenerative disease paradigms makes it an appealing candidate for molecular therapy of cancer and neuronal diseases.

Recent studies indicated that the leucine zipper domain protein Par-4 induces apoptosis in certain cancer cells by activation of the Fas prodeath pathway and coparallel inhibition of NF-kappaB transcriptional activity. However, the intracellular localization or functional domains of Par-4 involved in apoptosis remained unknown. In the present study, structure-function analysis indicated that inhibition of NF-kappaB activity and apoptosis is dependent on Par-4 translocation to the nucleus via a bipartite nuclear localization sequence, NLS2. Cancer cells that were resistant to Par-4-induced apoptosis retained Par-4 in the cytoplasm. Interestingly, a 59-amino-acid core that included NLS2 but not the C-terminal leucine zipper domain was necessary and sufficient to induce Fas pathway activation, inhibition of NF-kappaB activity, and apoptosis. Most important, this core domain had an expanded target range for induction of apoptosis, extending to previously resistant cancer cells but not to normal cells. These findings have identified a unique death-inducing domain selective for apoptosis induction in cancer cells (SAC domain) which holds promise for identifying key differences between cancer and normal cells and for molecular therapy of cancer.

OBJECTIVES: Although laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) is accomplished within 2 to 3 hours by experienced surgeons, less is known about the operating times (OTs) for recently trained surgeons or the influence of additional factors. As of November 2001 at our institution, two senior surgeons had each performed more than 100 cases of LRP and two junior surgeons had each performed fewer than 30. We prospectively studied the next 100 consecutive LRPs to assess the factors influencing the OT.

METHODS: Transperitoneal LRPs were performed by two senior (n = 62) and two junior surgeons (n = 38) with random case assignment. We assessed body mass index, prostate size, prior abdominal surgery, androgen deprivation, surgeon experience, procedures in addition to LRP, lymph node dissection, nerve sparing, and sural nerve grafting as potential predictors of the OT.

RESULTS: Prostate weight, androgen deprivation, and prior abdominal surgery did not significantly affect the OT, but grade 1 obesity increased the OT by an average of 38 minutes. The mean OT by surgeon experience was 214 minutes for seniors and 347 minutes for juniors (P <0.001). By procedure type, the OT ranged from 180 minutes for LRP only by seniors to 459 minutes for LRP plus lymph node dissection plus sural nerve grafting by juniors. Lymph node dissection and sural nerve grafting significantly increased the OT by 46 and 101 minutes, respectively, and nerve sparing did not. For each combination of procedures, seniors averaged significantly shorter times than did juniors. A multiple regression model with stepwise selection showed that prostate weight, sural nerve grafting, pelvic lymph node dissection, use of a surgical robot, and surgeon experience significantly affected the OT.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this prospective study of 100 cases of LRP showed that the OT for senior surgeons averaged 2 to 3 hours, but less experienced surgeons, and additional procedures, add significantly to the OT.

The dielectric permittivity (έ) of the organic complexes of the general formula (CH2)n(NH3) 2Mn1-xLaxCl4, n = 5, 6, 7 and 0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.9 was studied at different temperatures as a function of the applied frequency. The obtained results contain more than one phase transition depending on the La3+ ion concentration as well as the applied frequency. The appeared transitions were of thermochromic type (change in crystal symmetry) because it gives a reversible color change with temperature. Varying the layer spacing by varying the number of carbon atom (n) will change drastically the permittivity of the sample, due to varying the superexchange interaction through the intervening of the organic group. The AC conductivity for the investigated samples was measured in the same range of temperature and frequency as that of permittivity measurements. The calculated values of the activation energy indicate the semiconducting behavior of these complexes. More than one conduction mechanisms were obtained as indicated from the existence of more than one straight line. Hopping mechanism was the most predominant one that interprets the conductivity in the low temperature region. In the moderate region of temperature the holes play a role. In the high temperature region we expect some ionic conduction which was clear from the high values of activation energy. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

A novel method to fabricate cobalt suicide nanowire contacts to silicon nanowires is described. Nanoporous anodized alumina membranes were used to define the wires' dimensions. Cobalt was deposited electrochemically within the pores of the membranes. On top of the cobalt, gold was deposited electrochemically to catalyze the growth of the silicon nanowires. The well-known vapor-liquid-solid mechanism was used to grow the silicon nanowires. During the growth of silicon, cobalt reacts with the growing silicon nanowire, forming cobalt silicide, and under certain conditions, all of the Au used to catalyze the growth of the silicon nanowire travels along the tip of the growing wire, away from the cobalt silicide/Si interface. We also discuss the influence of the amount of Au catalyst on the structural quality of the wires. © 2003 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.

The samples Mg 1+xTi xFe 2-2xO 4 were prepared in a single phase spinel structure as indicated from X-ray analysis. The preference of Mg 2+ ions to the octahedral site decreases the ratio of the normal spinel in the investigated ferrite where the Mg 2+ increases on the expense of the Fe 3+ ions on the same site. The increase in the conductivity was found to be due to thermally activated mobility of charge carriers. The mobility data enhances the use of Verway model of conductivity which depends on the electron exchange between iron ions of different valences located on the same crystallographic sites. The existence of Ti 4+ ions on the octahedral site screens the polarization and decreases the conductivity of the samples. Peculiar behavior was obtained for Ti content of 0.7 and 0.8 due to the presence of secondary phases. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.