Basic Science Sector

One hundred thirty two samples of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices collected from Egyptianlocal markets were analyzed for pesticide residues. Contamination with pesticide residues reached 54.55% while samples free from contamination reached 45.45%.

This paper is the second part in a study concerning with various botanical characters of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris L.). This piece of work aimed to study the anatomical structure of various plant organs and composition of the volatile oil. Data obtained could be summarized as follows:

This is a detailed botanical study of two parts about lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus L.). In this paper, the morphological characters of plant are investigated. Lavender cotton is an evergreen dwarf subshrub 40 cm high, silvery gray and much branched, often propagates from cuttings of tender new growth at branches terminal. The root system is adventitious. The main stem and plant height increased slowly in length during the whole growing season with a total increase of some 10 cm. The main stem increased in the mean time in both of its length and the number of internodes. The plant developed a great number of lateral branches of different degrees with a maximum of 13.8 primary branches and 77.0 secondary branches. Growth of plant is depending mainly on the lateral branches. Leaves are 1.5-2 cm long, simple, spatulate, pinnately lobed, alternately arranged and petiolate. Leaves are aromatic when crushed. Flowering stage started April- May. Toward mid-August the main stem terminated into an inflorescence of flower buds followed by the lateral branches. Flowering continued throughout a period of four months Plant developed a maximum of 126.3 inflorescences. The inflorescence is a simple racemose head developing solitary at shoot apices of main stem and lateral branches.

In this study, morphological information is produced as evidence for proper delimitation of Senna occidentalis (L.) link taxonomy. The field work was carried out during the growing season of 2008 in order to follow up the morphology of vegetative and reproductive growth of studied species throughout the successive stages of its entire life span. Germination of seeds and yield components at harvest time were also taken in consideration. Such knowledge may fulfill information acquisition in this concern.

Encapsulation is a current, important and broadly used process to retain and protect volatile and flavoring compounds in commercial food products. Unfortunately, production of these materials is largely an empirical science. In the present investigation, gum Arabic was used as carrier and orange peel oil was chosen as a core ingredient because, besides having a great economic importance in food industry, its volatile components are highly sensitive to oxidation by effect of temperature, light and oxygen presence. Although several encapsulation methods have been reported, the spray drying technology has become one of the most important processes used to produce dry flavors from liquids throughout the food and beverage. Orange peel oil was encapsulated with gum Arabic via spray drying using inlet and exit air temperatures of 200 C and 100 C, resp. The resultant powders were analyzed for moisture content, surface content and total oil. The high retention % of orange peel oil powder (89%) could be successfully prepared in the gum Arabic materials with low surface content comparing with 20% w/w of the conventional methods. As regard to the safety of encapsulated orange oil, it was noticed that glucose serum, cholesterol and aminotransferases enzymes exhibited no significant changes as compared to control. Meanwhile, creatinine content (mg/dl)was significantly increased from 0.8 (in control) to 1.06 mg/dl, after encapsulated orange oil treatment.

The effects of three factors operating during pre-emergence development period on some of the characteristics of droneswere studied. Weight of newly emerged drones, length of forewing, length of tibia, length of femur, length and width of basitarsusand number of spermatozoa in drones from colonies in which the workers had access to drone brood (A), the size of brood cells differed(B) or the colony had a queen or was queenless (C), were determined.

The present study aimed to identify the mosquito vectors distributed throughout AL-Ahsaadistrict situated in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia. Mosquito larvae were collected seasonallyfor one year (October 2009 to September 2010) from different breeding sites in seven rural areasutilizing long aquatic nets. Salinity and pH of these breeding sites were also measured seasonally.

Objectives: To determine the combination of conformation characteristics of the pelvic limbs of Labrador Retrievers that best discriminates between limb at risk to develop cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) disease and limbs at low risk using radiographs, computerized tomography (CT) images, and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA).

Both fresh and marine edible crustaceans Procambarus clarkii and Erugosquilla manavensis, respectively, are now important components of our local aquatic fauna in Egypt that have a small yet growing economic importance in our markets. So, the purpose of the present work was, therefore, to assess the protein, amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins, protein electrophoresis and dendrogram analysis of their extracts for the first time in Egypt which may be in the future play an important role in some pharmaceutical industries and may be uses as a specific health foods (functional supplement).

Background: Calcium phosphate is deposited in many diseases, but formation mechanisms remain tentative. Nanobacteria are newly found alone replicating particles that have been detected in mineral stones forming diseases. Nanobacteria were the first (may still be the only ones) calcium-phosphate mineral containing particles isolated from human blood.

Nanomaterials are the leading requirement of the rapidly developing fi eld of nanomedicine and bionanotechnology. Nanomicrobiology research is gaining in importance. In the treatment of infections, nanoparticles are being used either as therapeutic or as diagnostic tools. Understanding the properties of nanoparticles and their effect on the microbes is essential to their clinical application.

The ophiolitic metabasalts (pillowed and sheeted dikes) of Wadi Ghadir area, Eastern Desert, Egypt, were analyzed for their major, trace and rare earth elements, Nd and Sr isotopes and the chemistry of their plagioclase, amphibole and chlorite was also reported. Geochemically these rocks range from tholeiitic basalt to basaltic andesite. The generally low MgO, Cr and Ni and high Zr contents are consistent with derivation of these rocks from an evolved magma. The high TiO2 contents (mostly between 1.76% and 2.23%) classify Wadi Ghadir ophiolitic metabasalts as MORB ophiolite. The chondrite-normalized REE patterns of most samples display small LREE-enrichment with (La/Yb)n ranging from 1.44 to 2.56.

The present work was aimed to study the anterior cranial nerves which innervate the olfactory apparatusof Uromastyx aegyptius. The olfactory apparatus of Uromastyx aegyptius includes the main olfactory organ and the vomeronasal organ or organ of Jacobson. The main olfactory organ is innervated by the olfactory nerve which arises from the sensory olfactory epithelium and leaves the capsular cavity through a separate foramen, i.e., there is no foramen olfactorium advehens. The vomeronasal organ is innervated by two nerves: the terminal and the vomeronasal nerves. They arise from the sensory epithelium in combination. The terminal nerve carries a terminal ganglion. The nervi terminalis and vomeronasalis combined together as one separate nerve which leaves the cavity of the nasal capsule together with few bundles of the olfactory nerves through a special foramen. The nervi terminalis, vomeronasalis and olfactorius enter the cranial cavity through a large foramen olfactorium evehens and they connect separately the anterior part of the brain. The vomeronasal nerve enters the accessory olfactory bulb (vomeronasal formation) of the fore brain. The nervus olfactorius enters the main olfactory bulb whereas the terminal nerve connects the anterior end of the olfactory lobe. The olfactory bulb has a long olfactory peduncle. The three nerves carry pure special somatic sensory fibres.

Concentrations of amino acid neurotransmitters were assessed in the hippocampus and cortex using HPLC. Control data showed slight differences from normal animals in the delta, theta and alpha waves while an increase in the beta wave was obtained. After 24 h of PSD, delta relative power increased and the rest of EEG wave’s power decreased with respect to control. After 48 h and 72 h the spectral power analysis showed non-significant changes to control. The amino acid neurotransmitter analysis revealed a significant increase in cortical glutamate, glycine and taurine levels while in the hippocampus, glutamate, aspartate, glutamine and glycine levels increased significantly. Both the waking EEG and neurotransmitter analyses suggest that PSD induced neurochemical and electrophysiological changes that may affect brain proper functionality. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The present work aimed at evaluating the oxidative damage and histopathological alteration in postnatal rats whose mothers were exposed to chlorpyrifos (CPF) during gestation (Ges) and up todelivery. Sprague-Dawely rats used for this experiment were divided into two sets, one was not exposed to CPF while the other exposed to CPF until deliver. The offspring from (set I) was divided into: one served as control and group 2 was exposed to CPF postnatal (PN) for 30 days. The offspring from (set II) were divided into : one allow to grow up to 60 days without any more treatment (Ges) (group 3), and group 4 was re-exposed to CPF for 30 days, (Ges+PN).

Oxidative stress has been implicated to play a role in epileptogenesis and pilocarpine-induced seizures. The present study aims to evaluate the antioxidant effects of curcumin, Nigella sativa oil (NSO) and valproate on the levels of malondialdehyde, nitric oxide, reduced glutathione and the activities of catalase, Na+, K+-ATPase and acetylcholinesterase in the hippocampus of pilocarpine-treated rats. The animal model of epilepsy was induced by pilocarpine and left for 22 days to establish the chronic phase of epilepsy. These animals were then treated with curcumin, NSO or valproate for 21 days. The data revealed evidence of oxidative stress in the hippocampus of pilocarpinized rats as indicated by the increased nitric oxide levels and the decreased glutathione levels and catalase activity. Moreover, a decrease in Na+, K+-ATPase activity and an increase in acetylcholinesterase activity occurred in the hippocampus after pilocarpine.

An inversion algorithm is developed to estimate the depth and the associated model parameters of the anomalous body from the gravity or self-potential (SP) whole measured data. The problem of the depth (z) estimation from the observed data has been transformed into a nonlinear equation of the form F(z) = 0. This equation is then solved for z by minimizing an objective functional in the least-squares sense. Using the estimated depth, the polarization angle and the dipole moment or the depth and the amplitude coefficient are computed from the measured SP or gravity data, respectively. The method is based on determining the root mean square (RMS) of the depths estimated from using all s-values for each shape factor. The minimum RMS is used as a criterion for estimating the correct shape and depth of the buried structure. When the correct shape factor is used, the RMS of the depths is always less than the RMS computed using wrong shape factors. The proposed approach is applicable to a class of geometrically simple anomalous bodies, such as the semi-infinite vertical cylinder, the dike, the horizontal cylinder and the sphere, and it is tested and verified on synthetic examples with and without noise. This technique is also successfully applied to four real datasets for mineral exploration, and it is found that the estimated depths and the associated model parameters are in good agreement with the actual values.

A new algorithm for solving the general nonlinear third-order differential equation is developedby means of a shifted Jacobi-Gauss collocation spectral method. The shifted Jacobi-Gauss pointsare used as collocation nodes. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the validity andapplicability of the proposed algorithm, and some comparisons are made with the existing results.

The dopamine derivatives participate in the regulation of wide variety of physiological functions in the human body and in medication life. Increase and/or decrease in the concentration of dopamine in human body re?ect an indication for diseases such as Schizophrenia and/or Parkinson diseases.

Aim: The epithelial membrane antigen(EMA)could detect small deposits of liver malignant cells.However,no information exists regarding the use of EMA in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC).Therefore,we attempted to evaluate the diagnostic performance of EMA to distinguish patients with different liver fibrosis stages.