The research discusses one of the contemporary issues of urban planning practice in Egypt regarding utilizing covered and transformed waterways within urban settlements in providing their needs for services and housing. Currently waterways are being covered or transformed into paths and vacant land within urban settlements without consideration to surrounding land uses or to settlement problems and their priorities.

The research details the effect of using covered and transformed waterways on the existing land uses in urban settlements, aiming at assessing and determining the potential land uses for covered and transformed waterways as a tool for settlement growth and management.

The research is subdivided into two basic parts:

First, the research focuses on basic issues of waterways, including studies, policies and government efforts and legislation to deal with them in urban settings. None of the previous studies have studied the effect of using covered and transformed waterways within existing urban settlements.

The second part of the research includes a field survey for a number of settlements including covered and transformed waterways. Collected data was analyzed in order to determine the effect of using covered and transformed waterways on the surrounding urban context.

Main results of the research are twofold as follows. First, covered and transformed ways have contributed to the dynamics of land use change in the surrounding areas, leading in some cases to solving some problems and to initiating others in other cases. Second, the research has outlined some guidelines for planners for utilizing covered and transformed waterways as a tool of growth control and settlement management.

AIM: This study aimed to evaluate (olive) leaves and (black mulberry) leaves as potential natural alternatives to sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) endodontic irrigant. Their antimicrobial activity against () and their effects on both root dentin microhardness and push-out bond strength of resin sealer/root dentin were assessed.

METHODOLOGY: Fifty-four extracted teeth were selected. Samples were grouped according to the irrigant used: group I (control): 2.5% NaOCl, group II: 8% ethanolic extract of , and group III: 2% ethanolic extract of . Antibacterial activity ( = 6) was evaluated after each canal was autoclaved, inoculated with , and incubated. Canals were sampled before and after chemicomechanical canal preparation with 2 mL of irrigant. The colony-forming units (CFUs) were counted at 1/10 and 1/100 broth concentrations. Vickers hardness number (VHN) of root dentin ( = 6) was measured before and after root canal preparation and irrigation. Push-out bond strength testing ( = 9) was carried out following preparation, irrigation, obturation, and thermocycling. Results were considered statistically significant at ≤0.05.

RESULTS: Following irrigation, the CFUs of were significantly reduced with no significant difference in the CFU count between all groups at both broth concentrations. A significant reduction in root dentin microhardness resulted in all groups following irrigation, with resulting in the lowest percentage reduction (26.42 ± 1.12). The lowest significant mean push-out bond strength was revealed in the group (3.372 ± 1.513 MPa).

CONCLUSION: The use of 2% mulberry () leaf extract and 8% olive () leaf extract as alternatives to NaOCl provides promising antimicrobial action against .

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: 2% extract may represent a promising natural endodontic irrigant.

BACKGROUND: Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) represents a deadly aggressive phenotype of breast cancer (BC) with a unique clinicopathological presentation and low survival rate. In fact, obesity represents an important risk factor for BC. Although several studies have identified different cellular-derived and molecular factors involved in IBC progression, the role of adipocytes remains unclear. Cancer-associated adipose tissue (CAAT) expresses a variety of adipokines, which contribute to tumorigenesis and the regulation of cancer stem cell (CSC). This research investigated the potential effect of the secretome of CAAT explants from patients with BC on the progression and metastasis of the disease.

METHODS: This study established an ex-vivo culture of CAAT excised from IBC (n = 13) vs. non-IBC (n = 31) patients with obesity and profiled their secretome using a cytokine antibody array. Furthermore, the quantitative PCR (qPCR) methodology was used to validate the levels of predominant cytokines at the transcript level after culture in a medium conditioned by CAAT. Moreover, the impact of the CAAT secretome on the expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cells with stem cell (CSC) markers was studied in the non-IBC MDA-MB-231 and the IBC SUM-149 cell lines. The statistical differences between variables were evaluated using the chi-squared test and unpaired a Student's t-test.

RESULTS: The results of cytokine array profiling revealed an overall significantly higher level of a panel of 28 cytokines secreted by the CAAT ex-vivo culture from IBC patients with obesity compared to those with non-IBC. Of note, interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and monocyte chemo-attractant protein 1 (MCP-1) were the major adipokines secreted by the CAAT IBC patients with obesity. Moreover, the qPCR results indicated a significant upregulation of the IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1 mRNAs in CAAT ex-vivo culture of patients with IBC vs. those with non-IBC. Intriguingly, a qPCR data analysis showed that the CAAT secretome secretions from patients with non-IBC downregulated the mRNA levels of the CD24 CSC marker and of the epithelial marker E-cadherin in the non-IBC cell line. By contrast, E-cadherin was upregulated in the SUM-149 cell.

CONCLUSIONS: This study identified the overexpression of IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1 as prognostic markers of CAAT from patients with IBC but not from those with non-IBC ; moreover, their upregulation might be associated with IBC aggressiveness via the regulation of CSC and EMT markers. This study proposed that targeting IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1 may represent a therapeutic option that should be considered in the treatment of patients with IBC.

The evident conflict in upgrading policies between several entities necessitates the crucial need to develop a reliable urban appraisal method to ensure successful interventions. The Egyptian initiative, aims at categorizing them into ‘unsafe’ versus ‘unplanned’ areas. Yet, it has ignored some basic socio-spatial and psychological quality of life indicators. Accordingly, the study aims at strengthening the local-level data collection through testing the reliability of the ‘ISDF’ index versus the two other sets of indicators statistically, by conducting an urban socio-economic survey on 30 different Ashwa’iyyat areas in Egypt.

BACKGROUND: Locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) is common in developing countries and it frequently affects younger women. Patients do very poorly when treated by locoregional therapy alone; therefore, pre-operative systemic therapy (PST) is commonly used.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records of 64 Saudi patients with LABC treated with PST in a single institution were retrospectively reviewed.

RESULTS: At diagnosis, most patients were young (median age 41 years), and had poor clinicopathological characteristics. Following surgery, complete pathologic response (pCR) in the breast was achieved in 13 patients (20%). Of 62 patients with known nodal status, 22 (34%) had negative axillary nodes. Presence of oestrogen receptor (ER) negative tumour was the only dependent variable that predicted pCR in the breast (p = 0.03). At a median follow-up of 42 months, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 48 months (95% CI, 20-76 months) and the projected five-year overall survival (OS) was 68%. The recently published scoring system (Jeruss et al (2008) J Clin Oncol26 2 246-52), was the only variable that independently influenced PFS, while ER negative tumours and presence of lymphovascular space invasion were the only factors that adversely affected OS.

CONCLUSIONS: despite the use of standard multi-modality approach in the management of patients with LABC, prognosis remains guarded.