Volume 9, Number 2

Malnutrition-Inflammation complex syndrome in Libyan patients with end-Stage renal disease at Hun-Aljufrah

2020-10-07T15:48:35Z

Malnutrition-Inflammation complex syndrome in Libyan patients with end-Stage renal disease at Hun-Aljufrah Mulah, Mohammed Siddig; Zaed, Hana A Malnutrition and inflammation complex syndrome in ESRD Patients on maintenance Hemodialysis therapy remains the most common cause of morbidity and mortality characterized by alteration in the structural and functional ability of plasma proteins. The aim of this study was to assess the serum level of albumin, BMI and hs-CRP as a marker of Malnutrition-Inflammation Complex Syndrome. This is a case-control study conducted at Alafia Hospital Hun-Aljufrah from December 2014 to December 2015. Libyan patients with ESRD who routinely attend to dialysis center at the above-mentioned hospital during the period of the study were randomly recruited for this study. The study included one hundred ESRD and one hundred age and sexmatched healthy controls. The patients’ information such as age, sex, height, weight, and clinical history were recorded. Blood samples (6 ml) were collected from patients in plain and EDTA containers from which EDTA and Serum samples were separated. The results of our study showed that there were significant decrease in the mean serum level of albumin (3.12±0.39) (p. value=0.000) and BMI (20.3±5.5) (p. value=0.000) as well as significant increase in the mean serum level of serum C-reactive protein (20.13±5.704) (p. value=0.000) in case group when compared to the control group. The DOT Blot Correlation test showed that there was a significant negative correlation between hs-CRP with albumin (r= 0.812, p=0.02). In conclusion, the significant decreased in the mean level of serum albumin and BMI, as well as the significant increase in the mean level of serum C-reactive protein among hemodialysis ESRD patients, might place them at risk of developing Malnutrition-Inflammation Complex Syndrome in the future. The significant negative correlation between serum albumin with hsCRP support the facts systemic inflammation is the main cause of malnutrition and cardiovascular disease in ESRD patient.

Sterilization versus disinfection of the dental handpieces (pilot study)

2020-10-07T15:36:39Z

Sterilization versus disinfection of the dental handpieces (pilot study) Mohamed, Khadiga. A. H Improperly following the cross-infection policy can transfer infection from infected patients to others. The Handpieces are the most important workhorse devices properly in all dental procedures. A retro-contamination may occur through their use of a septic environment. Unaware dentists could reuse a contaminated dental handpiece only after wiping with disinfectant. Objectives: To evaluate the infection control status of the wiped handpiece. Moreover, to increase the awareness of dentists toward this issue. Methods: Ten contaminated Handpieces were collected from the dental clinic. They swabbed from their external and internal surfaces and cultured in two types of growth culture media. Next, they were wiped (with InstruPlusForte Sol), swabbed and cultured again. In the last step, the handpieces were sterilized and swabbed for culturing in the same manner. The results: The wiped Handpieces showed that only three (30%) had no bacterial growth from their external surfaces, While 100% revealed the bacterial growth from their internal surfaces. No growth with sterilized Handpieces was demonstrated. Conclusion: Wiping the outside of the handpiece with disinfectant does not eliminate the potential cross-infection risk

Insight into the soil seedbank characteristics of the arid rangelands in Libya: A case study in Marmarica Plateau, Cyrenaica (Northeastern part of Libya)

2020-10-07T15:24:52Z

Insight into the soil seedbank characteristics of the arid rangelands in Libya: A case study in Marmarica Plateau, Cyrenaica (Northeastern part of Libya) Saaed, Manam W. B; El-Barasi, Yacoub M; Elhashan, Nazeeha A The current study was conducted in Daphna area, an arid region in Cyrenaica located at the northeastern part of Libyan Sea Coast at the Libyan-Egyptian Border. The soil was sampled in 40 different sampling sites along five different sectors through scraping the soil from 0-10 cm layer (2525 cm) in the Platea and from 010 cm and 1030 cm layers in the depressions and valleys. Using the floatation in a salt solution method, the seeds were extracted from the soil, counted and identified. The majority of the extracted seed were tinny (< 5 mm) and mainly belonged to annual species. Seeds density in the plateau ranged between 0 and 25400 seed m2 with an overall mean of 4110 seed m2 (949.30 SE), which is adequate density when compared to similar arid ecosystems. The low-lying lands in depressions (Sakifas) and valleys (Wadis) retained higher seed density than the higher-lying lands on the plateau, and the northern areas retained higher density than the southern areas. The higher top soil layer (010 cm) in both Sakifas and behind the Dykes in valleys retained higher mean density than the layer (1030 cm). The homogeneity of seed characteristics across the plateau and the dominance of annual and short-lived species could be a sign of degradation, and the absence of many perennial species in the soil seedbank may hamper any conservation or rehabilitation effort to improve these rangelands

Hydro-geochemical review of groundwater and rain waters from Al Jabal Al Akhdar, Northeast Libya

2020-10-07T15:18:46Z

Hydro-geochemical review of groundwater and rain waters from Al Jabal Al Akhdar, Northeast Libya Al Faitouri, Mohamed S. E; Salloum, Fathi M; Muftah, Ahmed M Groundwater recharge and age dating using stable and carbon isotopes in northern Cyrenaica have been performed during the seventies of the last century. Twenty-eight groundwater samples (springs and wells), as well as sixty rain water samples, were collected from four hydrogeological units in Al Jabal Al Akhdar that have been analyzed in order to determine the composition of the stable isotopes (δ2H, δ18O, 14C, and 13C). Tritium is used herein to determine if there is any direct infiltration of modern water to the existed aquifers in the study area. The range of compositions for each rainwater sample is: δ2H (–28.3‰ to 0.3‰) and δ18O (5.32‰ to 0.33‰) for Benghazi rain samples whereas δ2H (35‰ to 22.6‰) and δ18O (6.5‰ to 4.43‰) for Al Marj rain samples which show apparently oceanic and continental effects on the studied samples to the Global Meteoric Water Line (GMWL). The Miocene water samples have δ2H and δ18O values indicated an increasing in aridity as the deuterium excess is reduced due to evaporation effects. Given this result, the isotopic values indicate that the groundwater pumped from wells in Benghazi – Al Marj region resulted from the mixing of at least two groundwater systems. Seawater intrusion should be considered in the Ayn Zayanah-Al Coeffiah karstic system. Additionally, the δ2H/δl8O ratios show that most of the Ayn Zayanah spring discharges contain evaporated waters due to enrichment in isotopic values.

Nanoparticles technology promoting strategies for cancer therapy: Review

2020-10-07T15:12:58Z

Nanoparticles technology promoting strategies for cancer therapy: Review Abdalsamed, Ihssin; Amar, Ibrahim; Ahwidi, Mohammed; Abrika, Omar; Ali, Masood A G Cancer is the most serious disease in the world and has been considered as the first fatal disease to the humankind as its incidence rates continue to increase rapidly worldwide. Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, Immunotherapy and Hyperthermia are the most common treatments for cancer in developed countries, while surgical operations are used in undeveloped countries, which have been found to cause negative side effect on human health. Recently, Nano treatment is used to cure a number of cancer cases, which have shown significant results than surgical operations. Such success has encouraged scientists and researchers to develop Nanotechnological devices named as nanoparticles (NPs) which have become one of the greatest medical healthcare settings as they provide potential benefits for diagnosing and treating metastatic cancer, such as a tumor. On other hand, nanoparticles improved the ability to delivery drugs to the major sites of metastasis without effecting noncancerous cells. Moreover, beside reported nanoparticles (NPs) have significant to escape antibody and extravasate into the tumor cells. In this review, we focus and outline on Nanodevice types: Quantum dots (QDs), Nanogold shell (AuNPs), Dendrimers, Nanopore, and Nanotubes for their principles, applications, operation processes and their recent highlights in cancer research area are also considered in this paper. Finally, we provide some perspectives on the future challenges and development of drug delivery system

Measurement of Radium Equivalent Activity from Natural Occurring Radionuclides in Soil in the East Coast of Libya

2020-10-07T13:12:32Z

Measurement of Radium Equivalent Activity from Natural Occurring Radionuclides in Soil in the East Coast of Libya Elorfi, Saeid Y; Imsallim, Marai M; Abdalla, Yasin K The technological development, using atomic, and nuclear energy in industry, agriculture, nuclear medicine, nuclear wars and tests may increase environmental pollution with noticeable concentrations of man-made radionuclides in the environment. This experimental work aims at the determination of radium equivalent activity from the soil samples collected from sites extending from Benghazi city to the Libyan-Egyptian borders, along 600 km. Samples collected from fifty chosen sites, kept for four weeks to get a secular equilibrium between 226Ra and 232Th and their corresponding daughters. The result indicated that the value of radium equivalent (Raeq) ranged from 208.919 to73.881 Bq/kg, with an average of 117.587 Bq/kg

Taxonomy of Miocene Bryozoans from As Sahabi area, Ajdabiyah Trough, NE Sirt Basin, Libya

2020-10-07T13:01:30Z

Taxonomy of Miocene Bryozoans from As Sahabi area, Ajdabiyah Trough, NE Sirt Basin, Libya Muftah, Ahmed M; El-Safor, Yasser A The exposed Pre-Sahabi rock unit formation "M" at As Sahabi area in Sirt Basin is analyzed micro paleontologically for bryozoans. Fourteen species belonging to eleven genera of bryozoan have been identified, described for the first time. In addition, the importance of the present study is to determine the paleo environmental occurrences as is performed herein with particular attention to their paleo geographical distribution. A comparison with the coeval sites from Siwa Oasis, the Cairo-Suez Road section in Egypt, as well as the Maradah Formation from Sirt Basin in Libya, has been revealed some similarities between these sites.

Anatomical Studies of the Gastrointestinal Tract of snake Malpolon monspessulanus insignitus (Geoffroy, 1809)

2020-10-07T12:42:38Z

Anatomical Studies of the Gastrointestinal Tract of snake Malpolon monspessulanus insignitus (Geoffroy, 1809) Mohammed, Ezaldin A. M; Abd-Alhafid, Youssef K. A; Jala, Hamed A. N Studies aim to study the morphometrical and anatomical features of a gastrointestinal tract of Malpolon insignitus, and compared with that of other examined reptiles So, It is clear that the tissues in the gastrointestinal tract adapt to feed the meat. The wall of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine is a buildup of four layers from outside inwards are serosa, muscularies, submucosa and mucosa. The esophagus was longer than the stomach and It may measure one-quarter the body length of the snake it is highly stretch to facilitate movement the food to the stomach. The mucosal epithelium was consist of simple and compound stomach glands and consist of three types of glands; they are the cardiac glands, pyloric glands, and fundus glands. The majority of the mucosal folds were primary folds as for secondary folds were rare. The small intestine is long on and that of the animal is purely carnivorous. The small intestine is composed of short transverse loops in snakes. The intestine consists of many longitudinal folds that allow the surface area to increase digestion. The mucosa of the small intestine members in the form of leaflike villi provided with shallow branched Lieberkühn crypts at their bases. It consists of three types of cells; the endocrine cells, the goblet and the absorptive. The large intestine is short and has a larger diameter and consists of colon and rectum. The mucous membrane of the colon consists of cavernous and vertical cells, while that of the rectum is, straight and is rich in lymph spaces and goblet cells.

Preliminary results on feeding habits of the invasive fish Fistularia commersonii(Ruppell, 1862) in the coast of Benghazi, Libya

2020-10-07T12:35:55Z

Preliminary results on feeding habits of the invasive fish Fistularia commersonii(Ruppell, 1862) in the coast of Benghazi, Libya Bashir, Asma Elhadi; Elbaraasi, Houssein The feeding habits of the exotic fish Fistularia commersonii off the coast of Benghazi, Libya were investigated. A total of 189 specimens were collected throughout the year of 2012-2013. The mean total length (TL) and mean weight was 99.086.45cm and 545.33116 g, respectively. The condition factor (K) ranged between 0.7 and 0.8. Fish were found in large quantities (87%) in the stomach of the bluespotted cornetfish. While crustaceans (2%) and mollusks (1%). The results showed also that F. commersonii feeds on prey from diverse habitats as well as depths

Study Influence of adding Surfactant to polymers in Reduce Friction in Pipelines

2020-10-07T12:27:13Z

Study Influence of adding Surfactant to polymers in Reduce Friction in Pipelines Hawege, Emsalem F; Abushina, Almaki A When polymers (DRA) passes through high shear force areas like pumps and elbows that causes from turbulent flow will lose their drag reduction abilities. In this research, the effect of adding a nonionic surfactant (tween 20) to the cationic polymer (Poly (acrylamide-co-diallyl-dimethylammonium chloride)) in reducing friction in the pipeline has been examined by using rotating disk apparatus to verify its ability in decrease the friction in pipelines. The influence of adding polymer, surfactant and Reynold number in enhancing flow in pipelines were examined. The results appeared that 40% drag reduction could be obtained by using this complex.

Characterization and identification of Libyan olive diversity using microsatellite markers

2020-10-07T12:21:01Z

Characterization and identification of Libyan olive diversity using microsatellite markers Abdul Sadeg, Salem; Volk, Gayle; Richards, Christopher; Hughes, Harrison Ten microsatellite markers were used to differentiate and evaluate the relationships among a total of 91 olive genotypes (39 local cultivated, 36 introduced cultivars and 16 wild types) collected in Libya. A total of 109 alleles were identified, with the number of alleles per locus ranging from 4 to 20 alleles. Three loci (UDO43, DCA16 and GAPU101) had the most alleles across all loci with 20, 18 and 16, respectively. The wild types and introduced cultivars had greater numbers of alleles than the local cultivars. Six cases of duplicated genotypes, two cases of synonymy, and thirteen homonyms that were genetically distinct were observed in the Libyan collection. UPGMA clustering classified the accessions into two main distinct groups. The first group consisted of local genotypes and the second group included introduced and wild type accessions. Admixture analysis also clearly distinguished between local ancient landraces and wild genotypes. In general, using molecular data enables to separate the Libyan olive accessions based on their origin but not fruit use.

Performance assessment of the vortex panel method

2020-10-07T12:08:37Z

Performance assessment of the vortex panel method Sultan, Khalid M; Elshabli, Anas M; Kashbour, Mohammed A; Ben.Ateiga, Seraj A The vortex panel method is a very simple and computationally effective method to solve the incompressible and inviscid flow past thin airfoils. This work tries to provide a complete and detailed presentation of the mathematical derivation of this method. It also highlights the points of strength and weakness of this method as compared with more advanced yet expensive computational methods. The results obtained from this work have shown that the method is capable of solving the flow past thin airfoils with good precision for subsonic and laminar flow. For transonic and turbulent flows and as the angle of attack of the flow is increased, the method lacks the precision, especially near the leading and trailing edges.

Hydro-geochemical review of groundwater and rain waters from Al Jabal Al Akhdar, Northeast Libya

2020-10-06T21:24:35Z

Nanoparticles technology promoting strategies for cancer therapy: Review

2020-10-06T21:18:16Z

Measurement of Radium Equivalent Activity from Natural Occurring Radionuclides in Soil in the East Coast of Libya

2020-10-06T21:11:25Z

Taxonomy of Miocene Bryozoans from As Sahabi area, Ajdabiyah Trough, NE Sirt Basin, Libya

2020-10-06T21:03:07Z

Anatomical Studies of the Gastrointestinal Tract of snake Malpolon monspessulanus insignitus (Geoffroy, 1809)

2020-10-06T20:56:19Z

Preliminary results on feeding habits of the invasive fish Fistularia commersonii(Ruppell, 1862) in the coast of Benghazi, Libya

2020-10-06T20:49:40Z

Study Influence of adding Surfactant to polymers in Reduce Friction in Pipelines

2020-10-06T20:27:28Z

Characterization and identification of Libyan olive diversity using microsatellite markers

2020-10-06T18:22:49Z

Characterization and identification of Libyan olive diversity using microsatellite markers Sadeg, Salem Abdul; Volk, Gayle; Richards, Christopher; Hughes, Harrison Ten microsatellite markers were used to differentiate and evaluate the relationships among a total of 91 olive genotypes (39 local cultivated, 36 introduced cultivars and 16 wild types) collected in Libya. A total of 109 alleles were identified, with the number of alleles per locus ranging from 4 to 20 alleles. Three loci (UDO43, DCA16 and GAPU101) had the most alleles across all loci with 20, 18 and 16, respectively. The wild types and introduced cultivars had greater numbers of alleles than the local cultivars. Six cases of duplicated genotypes, two cases of synonymy, and thirteen homonyms that were genetically distinct were observed in the Libyan collection. UPGMA clustering classified the accessions into two main distinct groups. The first group consisted of local genotypes and the second group included introduced and wild type accessions. Admixture analysis also clearly distinguished between local ancient landraces and wild genotypes. In general, using molecular data enables to separate the Libyan olive accessions based on their origin but not fruit use