Vol. 28 Issue 3

Mohamed A. H., Hassan, M. A. and Mahmoud M. A.
Over a two-year period, November 2006 to October 2008, the distribution of philometra sp. among host tissues was investigated in 10 host species collected from some coastal waters areas of the Arabian Gulf, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The examined fish species were: Epinephelus chlorostigma, Epinephelus tauvina, Johnius maculates, Lethrinus nebulosus, Lutjanus ehrenbergi, Psettodes erumei, Scomberomorus commerson, Siganus canaliculatus, Trichiurus lepturus and Tylosurus crocodiles. The overall percent of philometra sp. infestation among the examined fish species reached 9.5%. However, the infestation percentages in E. tauvina, L. nebulosus and E. chlorostigma, reached 24.13, 21.87 and 20 respectively, whereas in the rest of the examined fish species it was 0%. Generally, philometra sp. infestation rates showed seasonal variations, peaked in summer (25.92%), followed by the spring season (24.48%), winter season (21.21%) and autumn season (13.88%). The distribution of philometra sp. in tissues of infested fish species revealed its significant existence in the abdominal cavity and gonads. However, infestation rates in muscles and fin tissue were markedly and significantly low. Regarding histo-pathological alterations, infected ovaries appeared black, shrunken and changed to fibrous tissue. Degenerative changes and inflammatory cell proliferation wereobserved, however, in cases of chronic infestation, the dead parasite in the ovarian tissue initiated strong tissue response and proliferated connective tissue reaction as well as hyaline degeneration. Consequently, reduced in the volume of the affected ovaries and finally damage to the reproductive system were frequently seen.

Qaher Mandeel, Awatif Hasan, Hassan Al-Nafea and Hanan Abbas
In this study, the bioactivity of some algal extracts were evaluated in vitro against different bacterial strains. Five commonly occurring benthic algae, namely Cystoseira myrica, Digenea simplex, Hormophysa triquetra, Sargassum cervicorne and Sarconema filiforme, were collected from Bahrain’s coastline in July 2007. A total of six chemical extracts were derived from those algal species, four of which were prepared by Soxhlet (petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, methanol), aqueous and crude methanol. Their bioactivity was assessed against four testing bacterial strains using the agar well diffusion assay and expressed as the diameter of inhibition zone (mm). Results revealed that the petroleum ether extract of D. simplex exhibited the highest inhibition zone (24.3 mm) against Pseudomonas aeruginosa while the aqueous extract of C. myrica exhibited the lowest inhibition zone (13.3 mm) against Staphylococcus aureus. The Soxhlet extracts of all the algal species were biologically active only against P. aeruginosa. The aqueous extracts showed an inhibitory activity against S. aureus only. The crude methanolic extract was biologically broadly active on a wide range of tested bacteria, P. aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. The bacterium P. aeruginosa was the most susceptible microbe whereas S. aureus was the most resistant. On the average, The gram-negative bacteria tested were more sensitive than the gram-positive bacteria towards the extracts of the algal species used. The algal species that belong to the red algae class Rhodophyceae were more biologically active than algal species that belong to the brown algae class Phaeophyceae.

Tamer Nabil
This paper proposes an adaptive threshold estimation method for de-noising in wavelet domains merged with translation invariant de-noising. The sub-band shrink is computationally more efficient and adaptive because the parameters required for estimating the threshold depend on subband data. A new probability density function is proposed to model the statistics of wavelet coefficients. The subband threshold is derived using Bayesian estimation theory and the new pdf. Different shifts are used and applied to the noisy image in order to attain different estimates to the unknown image and then linearly average the estimates. In speckle images, the noise content is multiplicative. The proposed method is applied for speckle ultrasound images by using logarithmic transformation. Experimental results on several test images are compared with various de-noising techniques.

Adil A. Mujwah
Flavonoids are one of the most studied classes of polyphenolic phytochemicals, because of the important qualities associated with their potency, antioxidant qualities and other biological activities. Juniperus procera has been used in folk medicine for the treatment of a variety of conditions for many years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Examination of the butanol extract of the leaves of Juniperus procera growing in Saudi Arabia, Enemas region led to the isolation of a new flavonoid using different chromatographic methods (paper, thin layer and column chromatography). The structure of the isolated flavonoid was elucidated using several analytical tools such as NMR, 1H, 13C, IR, UV, as well as m. p. (melting point). The new flavonoid was identified as: 4H-1- Benzopyran-4–one-7-[[6-O-(6-deoxy-alpha-L-mannopyranosyl)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl]-deoxy]- 2,3-dihydr-5-hydroxy-2-(3-hydroxy-4–methoxy-phenyl).

Souad M Alsaqabi and Sara A Aljubran
Farm animals are highly important in the economic world. Their products are of high nutritional value; therefore, animals affected by disease pathogens result in heavy losses, most importantly Mallophaga and Anoplura . The study included the most important types of lice ( Mallophaga, Anoplura ) that infect camels, goats and sheep of different age and genus., in the local Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The study recorded the average monthly and seasonal lice numbers on sheep and goats. The study showed that the highest percentage of sheep infection during July was 3.99 % for young sheep and 4.01 % for old sheep, both of the male sex, while the female sheep's rate was 3.08 % (young) and 4.03 % (old). The study also showed that the highest percentage of young male goat infection during August was17.93 % and 9.93 % for the old ones, while young infected female goat rate was 14.81 % and 10.08 % for the older ones. The study recorded the presence of two genus of lice (Mallophaga, Anoplura ) only: Bovicola (Damalinia) ovis (Schrank, 1781) and Linognathus africanus (Kellogg and Paine, 1911). The study showed that the local camel is not infected by lice (Mallophaga, Anoplura).

Souad M Alsaqab, Ali A. Eshky and Asma S. Albelali
The Blue swimmer crab, Portunus pelagicus, (Linnaeus, 1758), has world-wide economic and nutritional importance. It is considered one of the main economic groups of marine organisms in the coastal regions of the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf near the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study was carried out during 2007 in the coastal area of AL-Khobar City in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia. The study described external and internal parasites of the blue swimmer crab drawn and photographed by light and microscopes. The study reported the following parasites in the blue crab: Octolasmis sp. (Gray, 1825), pepper spots parasites, Balanus sp. (Da Costa, 1778), as an external parasite in crustaceans of Cypris sp (O. F. Müller, 1776) and Calanus sp. (Leach, 1819). In addition, free-living nematodes were observed on external parts of the crab while some commensal Amoeba sp. (Ehrenberg, 1930 ) were observed during examination of the hindgut of the crab. This is the first study of its kind in the Eastern Province of the Kigdom of Saudi Arabia.