The proposal in this study was to evaluate the optical properties of different biopolymers films. The materials used were poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC). PVA/HPMC blends were prepared by casting technique. Variations in the group coordination in the infrared region were followed. The effects of HPMC concentrations on the optical properties of the PVA films were studied by near infrared, ultraviolet/visible, transmittance, and reflectance in the spectral region 200–2500 nm. Absorption, transmittance, and reflectance spectra were used for the determination of the optical constants. The study has been also extended to include the changes in the optical parameters including the band tail width and band gap energies and extinction coefficient for the investigated films. The results indicate that the optical band gap was derived from Tauc’s extrapolation and decreases with the HPMC contents. The obtained optical parameters were found to be strongly affected by HPMC contents.

The purpose of the present study is to enhance the antimicrobial activity of chitosan. For this reason, thin films of chitosan incorporated with different concentrations of Jojoba liquid wax (JLW) were prepared by using the casting technique. The agar disc diffusion method was used to investigate the antimicrobial activity of the films against two different microorganisms namely Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillis subtilis. The results indicated that as the concentration of \{JLW\} increases the antimicrobial activity for S. aureus and B. subtilis increases. Moreover, it is found that the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for both systems decrease by increasing the amount of the antimicrobial agent Jojoba with chitosan. In conclusion, the data obtained reveal that chitosan has a great potential to improve its antimicrobial activity by incorporating with antimicrobial agent.

This paper attempts to present an integrated model of teaching news translation to undergraduate students. The model, which tries to integrate two apparently disparate pedagogical approaches to translation teaching, builds on two closely affiliated translation theories that help regulate the work of both teachers and learners: norm theory and skopos theory. Based on recent research work on the pedagogical aspect of translation, and actual experimentation on students' practical work, it attempts to present an integrated framework and its theoretical basis, and to ultimately explain the rationale behind this framework.

The historical experience of revolution in its political sense of overthrowing a political regime comes as a consequence of a complex interaction between psychological factors that pertain to the human agent, as well as economic and sociopolitical factors that prevail in the community. The transformative and creative powers of the human agent can recreate a new political identity, new national consciousness, and more importantly new structures of power relations. In the modern history of the Middle East, movements of resistance and revolution have been tied up with Western imperialism and the oppressive colonial powers, which cannot be divorced from the East/West dichotomous world views and the idea of Orientalism. However, the current Arab revolutions seem to reflect a newborn ideology of a new generation adamant on mapping out new power relations over interior as well as exterior spaces.
This paper argues that there is a certain historical line of development that can be traced in the interaction between the psychological factors that pertain to the human agent, and the economic and sociopolitical factors that prevail in the Arab communities. Hence, the rise of the once-terrorist, aggressive, once-silent, inert Arab who has suddenly come to deserve the applause of the once-denouncing, now-approving, though at times apprehensive, West. Accordingly the paper proceeds to highlight this interaction through the analysis of a number of selected scenes from a variety of literary works. The analysis is carried out on four corresponding axes: the individual versus the collective, and the psychological versus the sociopolitical. The selected literary works include novels written as early as 1954 like Al Ard (The Earth) by Abd el Rahman El Sharqawy to more recent ones that were said to have predicted the January Revolution in Egypt like Mohammad Salmawy's Ajnihat el Farasha (The Wings of the Butterfly).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the translation of literary metaphor as a practical exercise in literary hermeneutics. The paper argues that in the process of interpreting and translating literary metaphor there is no "master" in the sense that the interpretation of meaning is created mutually through an essential dialectic relationship between the reader's and the writer's consciousness. Consciousness implies both the background knowledge and the basic interactive processes which make a writer "intend" and a reader "infer." Discussing theoretical approaches to metaphor, which had been compared by many critics to opening Pandora's Box, is beyond the scope of this paper. Considering relevant theoretical implications and clarifying basic concepts related to "Text World Theory" in cognitive poetics, however, become imperative before embarking on an illustrative analysis using some of the tools provided by this theory.

The human cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) gene has been confirmed to be associated with several autoimmune diseases. In this study, we investigated the CTLA-4 gene polymorphism in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) Egyptian patients. A polymerase chain reaction was conducted to amplify CTLA-4 gene, followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay to detect candidate genetic polymorphism at positions -1722 T/C and -1661 A/G. Sixty SLE patients (55 females and 5 males) with mean age 28.5 ± 7 years and 40 healthy controls (31 females and 9 males) with mean age 27.8 ± 6.2 years were included in this study. The genotypic distribution at position -1661 of CTLA-4 gene was GG (11.7 %), AA (70 %), and AG (18.3 %) in SLE patients versus GG (20 %), AA (65 %), and AG (15 %) in the control (P value 0.508); regarding the position -1772 of CTLA-4 gene, the distribution was TT (83.3 %) and TC (16.7 %) in SLE patients versus TT (77.5 %) and TC (22.5 %) in the controls (P value 0.466). On studying the clinicopathological impact of the studied single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) with the disease severity, there is a statistical significance (P = 0.011) for the presence of AA genotype and severity of disease at -1661 genotype. AA genotype at -1661 was protective against discoid rash (P = 0.005), TC genotype at -1772 site is protective against serositis (P = 0.05), and serositis occurs more commonly with the AG genotype at -1661 site (P = 0.038). In our study, we concluded that the studied SNPs at positions -1772 and -1661 of CTLA-4 gene were not associated with SLE risk in Egyptian population.

Thomas Wolfe's short story "The Far and the Near" is an impressive Modernist portrayal of the interaction of human consciousness with its surroundings and the inevitable change brought about by time as a controlling factor in this interaction. An analysis of the deictic features of the story in accordance with theories of Cognitive Poetics, particularly what is known as Deictic Shift Theory (DST) throws light on Wolfe's attempt to actualize his conception of the human experience at a time that witnessed immense change in the face of everyday life. The analysis provides evidence for arguing that space is temporalized in the story and that the "far" and the "near" indicated in the title point to time as much as to space.

This paper explores how historiographic metafiction opens wide horizons for writers concerned with the relation of the personal to the public and the past to the present and the impact of this relation on the construction of identity and collective memory. It contends that by merging fictional and historical accounts in The Eye of the Mirror, the Palestinian writer Liana Badr reveals how her young heroine Aisha comes to acquire a new sense of identity emanating not only from her present experiences, but also from appropriating certain spatial and temporal points of reference that are essentially constitutive parts of this identity. The paper draws on the theoretical work of the Canadian postmodern critic Linda Hutcheon to examine certain features that show how Liana Badr exploits the potentials of this subgenre. Analyzing the opening two pages of the novel, and relating this to the narrative design of the work as a whole, unravels the complexity of Badr's enterprise. It is not only a simple attempt at commemorating the events of the massacre of Tal Ezza'tar during the Lebanese civil war in the seventies, but also, it is an invitation to the reader to try to fathom the depth of the experiential and cultural significance of this tumultuous interaction between the place, the people who inhabit this place, the traumatic events they witnessed, and the powerful impact of all this on the construction of the identity of an originally displaced person. Exploring this complex interaction entails focusing on Aisha's journey of self-discovery.

The implantation of a pregnancy within the scar of a previous caesarean delivery is the rarest of ectopic pregnancy locations. If it is diagnosed early, treatment options are capable of preserving the uterus and subsequent fertility.
Objective: Pregnancy in previous caesarean scar is the rarest form of ectopic pregnancy. We aimed to present 4 cases of caesarean scar ectopic pregnancy and assess the potential role of three dimensional ultrasonography in the diagnosis.
Design: We report 4 cases of caesarean scar pregnancies; one of them was initially mistaken for a viable intrauterine pregnancy.
Results: 2 cases had transcervical aspiration of the gestational sac and two by open surgery. One underwent hysterectomy and the other laparotomy and excision of the pregnancy located in the CS scar.
Conclusions: We report on four cases of caesarean scar pregnancy with different modes of treatment. The three dimensional ultrasound improved visualisation of the caesarean scar pregnancy. Care should be taken in the diagnosis of caesarean scar twin pregnancy by a transvaginal ultrasonography in order to not mistake a caesarean scar pregnancy for an intrauterine pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE: To identify causes of the autosomal-recessive malformation, diencephalic-mesencephalic junction dysplasia (DMJD) syndrome.

METHODS: Eight families with DMJD were studied by whole-exome or targeted sequencing, with detailed clinical and radiological characterization. Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells were derived into neural precursor and endothelial cells to study gene expression.

RESULTS: All patients showed biallelic mutations in the nonclustered protocadherin-12 (PCDH12) gene. The characteristic clinical presentation included progressive microcephaly, craniofacial dysmorphism, psychomotor disability, epilepsy, and axial hypotonia with variable appendicular spasticity. Brain imaging showed brainstem malformations and with frequent thinned corpus callosum with punctate brain calcifications, reflecting expression of PCDH12 in neural and endothelial cells. These cells showed lack of PCDH12 expression and impaired neurite outgrowth.

INTERPRETATION: DMJD patients have biallelic mutations in PCDH12 and lack of protein expression. These patients present with characteristic microcephaly and abnormalities of white matter tracts. Such pathogenic variants predict a poor outcome as a result of brainstem malformation and evidence of white matter tract defects, and should be added to the phenotypic spectrum associated with PCDH12-related conditions. Ann Neurol 2018;84:646-655.