Vol. 32 Issue 2/3

Radwan Al-Farawati, Mohamed El Sayed, Yaser Shaban, Amru El-Maradney and Mohammed Orif
The total phosphorus concentrations and its speciation were studied in the surface sediment of Khawr ash Shaibah al Maftuhah. The distribution pattern of total phosphorus in the sediment showed east-west gradient indicating different depositional environment of the lagoon. The largest pool of the sedimentary phosphorus was apatitic phosphorus (57%) followed by refractory organic phosphorus (42%). The impact of loosely adsorbed and exchangeable phosphorus (0.9 % of total phosphorus) and Metal oxide Phosphorus (0.6 % of total phosphorus) on the budget of total phosphorus in the sediments was minor. The concentration of dissolved phosphorus in the upper water column is most probably buffered by apatitic phosphorus. The low concentration of metal oxide phosphorus is suggested to be influenced by the calcareous nature of the lagoon. Possible transformation between apatitic and refractory organic phosphorus is inferred from the correlation of both parameters. The correlation of refractory organic carbon with total phosphorus in the sediments suggests in situ production due to biological activities.

Mays Maaaz, Mohammad Suliman Abido and Ahmad Haj
Flowering phenology, ecology and stand characteristics of Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. were described in response to rainfall and temperature at a plantation site in Northwestern province of Homs, Syria. Flowering observations were carried out for one year on a bi-monthly basis as time of flowering, duration and intensity were recorded. Analysis of 30-year rainfall and temperature revealed that the area has a typical Mediterranean climate of cool thermal variant. The area experiences a decreasing trend in rainfall with a recurrent 6- months climatic drought. Trees registered 9.6 m in heights and 18.4 cm in diameter at 29 years of age. Trees started to set flower buds in the first week of June where cumulative annual rainfall (CAR) and mean temperature were 391 mm and 24.2ºC, respectively. Flowering occurred in two periods with varying percentages of flowering trees in each. Autumn flowering started in the first week of November and extended for 107 days. On the other hand, Spring flowering commenced in the first week of April and continued for 92 days. A significant negative relationship (r = -0.39) was observed between the percentage of flowering trees and average monthly rainfall. However, a weak but positive correlation (r = 0.33) existed between the percentage of flowering trees and average monthly temperature. The percentage of flowering trees were higher in dry months compared to wet months because of low temperature associated with wet period. Flowering intensity was ranked 0.7 in December and 3.3 in June. Fruit setting started in the onset of January and mid June for Autumn and Spring flowers, respectively. Knowing timing and duration of flowering contribute significantly towards understanding the species biology, managing associated fauna and rearing of honey bees in the area.

Refaat Hassan Abdel-Razek, Reem Sayyar and Saad Suliman
Productivity is an important indicator of organizational performance and a prerequisite for national development. However, there are few published empirical studies that have provided and implemented a methodology to quantify the impact of technology changes on total productivity and partial productivities. This paper evaluates and quantifies the effects of technological changes on the productivity of (BALEXCO), as the largest aluminum extrusion company in Bahrain and one of the largest in the Arab countries. The technological changes in the company’s three extrusion presses 1, 2 and 3 - that were established in 1976, 1994 and 1996 respectively, were analyzed, compared and identified. Data covering a period of ten years were collected and a differentiation technology model capable of evaluating the effect of technology changes on productivity was developed, validated and implemented. The results showed that the total and partial productivities improved dramatically as technologies were upgraded. It is concluded that the technology improvements have had positive effects on the total and partial productivities and that the developed model is capable of evaluating the effect of technological changes on total and partial productivities.

Mona Soliman
Apelin is a novel peptide that has recently been established as the only known ligand for the APJ receptor. Apelin has an important regulatory role in cardiovascular homeostasis. Despite recent advances in the understanding of the cardiovascular effects of the apelin-APJ system, the myocardial protective effects of treating with apelin before resuscitation following hemorrhagic shock has not been investigated. The present study investigated the myocardial protective effects of apelin on preventing myocardial contractile dysfunction after hemorrhagic shock. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats (300-350 gm) were assigned to 3 experimental groups (n= 6 per group): Normotensive rats (N); Hemorrhagic shock rats (HS); Hemorrhagic shock rats treated with apelin-13 (HS-AP). Rats were hemorrhaged over 60 min to reach a mean arterial blood pressure of 40 mmHg. Rats were treated with 1 ml of 10 nm /L apelin-13 intra-arterially after 60 min hemorrhagic shock. Resuscitation was performed in vivo by the reinfusion of the shed blood for 30 min to restore normo-tension. Left ventricular contractile function was measured in the isolated hearts following hemorrhage and in vivo resuscitation using the Langendorff apparatus. Results. Hemorrhagic shock rats treated with AP exhibited a significant increase in left ventricular generated pressure LVGP (111.20 ± 9.19 mmHg) and + dP/dtmax (589.6 ± 110.68 mmHg/sec) compared with the untreated group. Conclusion.Treatment with apelin before resuscitation improved myocardial contractile function in a hemorrhagic shock model in rats.

Ali Mohamed Al-Aidaroos and Muthunayagam Rufus Kitto
The design and operation of a small research scale berried female rearing system for the collection of brachyuran first formed zoea in high quality and quantity are described in the present paper. The envisaged novel zoea collection system discloses a tray shelf system with an aqua terrarium on the upper shelf with provision of an accessible dry zone for the crab facilitating movement of between the body of water and the terrarium gravel pile. As larval aggregation in the bottom of the tanks will certainly cause ‘‘tangling’’, damage larval appendages or even the death of the larvae, this immediate auto separation through a photo exposure regime design holds promise.

Golam Mortuza, Fahad Abdulmohsin Al-Misned and Hamed Abd El-Serehy
Toxic Response behavior of nematode by exposure toxic chemicals is assessed using automatic recognition of line movement through image processing system under the microscope. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans was exposed in different toxic chemicals to determine the toxic response. Toxicity of formaldehyde, benzene and toluene might affect on the movement behavior of nematodes. Toxic response behavior of nematode in three toxic chemicals have found to be similar. This study is identified some sequential line-movements of nematode that could be used as an alternative tool for the real-time monitoring of toxic substances in aquatic ecosystems in the future.

Noori Abdul Nabi Nasir and Khalid William Farnar
The food and feeding adaptations of 0-group fishes in the water of Shatt Al-Arab River were studied during the period between March 2011 to December 2012. A total of 1851 fish samples of were collected. The stomach fullness and contents were observed and analyzed using frequency of occurrence, numerical and point methods. The non-empty stomach recorded during the study could be attributed to food abundance and good feeding habits. Four major food groups Bacillariophyta, Chlorophyta, Cyanophyte, Copepods, Amphipods and Shrimp) were recorded. The result showed that Liza subviridis is herbivores and the remaining of the fish are omnivores feeders. The degree dietary overlap among the species investigated was in the region of 51.1% . Diet Similarity Index between each pair species was also calculated .The results indicate that these fish might be in direct competition for food.

Xiao-Chun Qiu, Jack Jia and Qian Liu
Background: Colon cancer is one of the most difficult diseases; the development of nanotechnology and nanomedicine has provided a new way to overcome colon cancer. Nanotechnology can largely improve the occurrence of tumor screening and diagnosis. Nano-drugs in tumor targeted therapy caused lots of attention. This article aim to do a bibliometric analysis of nanotechnology used in colon cancer screening and therapy, and provides an overview of the full research field. Method: Literature search was performed through the use of PubMed search engines with the following MeSH terms: nanotechnology, nanomedicine, and colon cancer or colon neoplasms. The article search was concentrated on developments from 2002 to 2011. By using Gopubmed website, we analyzed the numbers of publications, countries of origin, author count, Frequency of MeSH subject. Results: United States is the leader in global nano colon cancer research, accounting for more than half of the total number of articles, followed by China, Iran. Based on the study of the frequency of the appearance of those MeSH terms, subjects such as, microscopy, colonoscopy and early detection of cancer are attractive to researcher in this field. Conclusion: This study demonstrating that research in this field is developing fast. More scientists are becoming interested in this research area, as evident in the breakthroughs achieved in recent years. Research on nanoparticle and colon cancer apoptosis /colonoscopy is most discussed recently.

Mohajira Begum, Maruf Hossain Minar and Tanjina Akter
An experiment was conducted to find the appropriate feeding diets and their effects on the growth, survival rate and feed efficiency on climbing perch (Anabas testudineus). The experiment was carried out for duration of 50 days with 3 treatments in 6 still tanks each of size 150×40×40 centimeter using three types of feed (Feed A, Feed B, and Feed C) for 6 replica (TA1, TA2, TB1, Tb2,TC1, and TC2). The initial length and weight were 14.5 ± 0.4 mm and 0.95 ± 0.05 g respectively. The feeds were applied twice a day at the rate of 10 % (initially) to 5% (later on) of the body weight of the fry/day. The results showed that the growth of fry varied significantly (P<0.05) with different diets. Survival rate, SGR, FCR, PER, ADG, Condition factor and Feed efficiency and proximate composition of fish were determined at initial stage, 15, 30, and 50 days of the experiment. Besides several water quality parameter were determined which were found suitable for the experiment as well as for the fishes. From the overall situation, 37% protein containing feed (feed A) was found better for all the estimated parameters.

Revathy Subramanion and Parvathavarthini Balasubramanion
Clustering is the process of organizing dissimilar objects into natural groups in such a way objects in the same group is more similar than objects in the different groups. Since we know clustering is an unsupervised learning problem, typical clustering algorithms not achieving its end to handle uncertainty that exists in the real life experience. Though fuzzy clustering handles incompleteness and vagueness in the data set efficiently, it is highly descriptive than hard clustering algorithm. Rough clustering algorithm is the popular soft clustering technique which uses rough set to handle uncertainty. In Rough Fuzzy clustering, each cluster is represented by centroid, crisp lower approximation and fuzzy boundary. Clustering undergoes sequence of partitions where cluster evaluation is the final step in clustering process. Efficient clustering structure can be obtained through validity measures. Various validity measures have been proposed to evaluate rough fuzzy clustering. Since those measures are Geometric measures, this paper proposes decision theoretic measure for validating rough fuzzy clustering structure.