Background: Vegetables and fruits are consumed in considerable amounts worldwide producing huge quantities of organic leftovers comprising primarily of peels. Peels of potatoes (PP) and carrots (CP), for instance, are often considered as waste, albeit they still represent a rich source of interesting phytochemicals. Traditional waste management of such materials, usually vermicomposting, therefore represents a low value approach and also a considerable burden to the environment. Objective: Aiming to turn some of this waste into raw materials for further applications, methods were explored to prepare suspensions of PP and CP. Antioxidant activities of these suspensions were compared to bulk-suspensions and the corresponding ethanolic extracts in anticipation of possible applications in Nutrition and Cosmetics. Methods: The peels of potatoes and carrots were subjected to high speed stirring (HSS) and high pressure homogenization (HPH) to produce the suspensions which were characterized for size distribution by Laser Diffraction (LD), Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (PCS) and light microscopy (LM). The ethanolic extracts of peels were also produced. All of the samples were evaluated for antioxidant activity employing 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. Results: HPH produced suspensions of peels comprised of particles with diameters in the range of 268 - 335 nm for PP and 654 - 1,560 nm for CP. These suspensions exhibited a significantly stronger antioxidant activity compared to the bulk-suspensions. Moreover, the suspension of PP (1% w/w) exhibited comparable antioxidant activity to the ethanolic extract (1% w/w) whilst the CP suspension (1% w/w) exhibited lower activity compared to the ethanolic extract. Conclusion: Production of suspensions of vegetable peels may unlock some biological potential which could be optimised for applications in Nutrition, Agriculture, Medicine and Cosmetics.

Background: Recent guidelines report that the administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) within 4.5 hours enhances the clinical outcome of ischemic stroke. We assessed the knowledge and attitude of Sudanese emergency medicine registrars towards the use of tissue plasminogen activators in the management of acute ischemic stroke (AIS).Methods: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional, hospital-based study. The study was conducted in emergency departments at Khartoum State Hospitals in Sudan during the period from May to July 2021. The study sample was 150 emergency medicine registrars who fulfilled the inclusion criteria of the study. Data was collected by using a self-administered questionnaire as a Google form that was sent to the study participants by email.Results: Knowledge about tPA in the management of AIS at the emergency department was poor, average, and good in 54 (36%), 55 (36.7%), and 41 (27.3%) individuals, respectively. However, there was no significant difference in overall knowledge based on age; nevertheless, good and average knowledge levels were considerably higher among females, level 3 and level 4 of training, and years of experience 5-10 years (p-value = 0.05). The overall attitude of the participants was positive 62 (41.3%), neutral 45 (30%), and negative 43 (28.7%). The positive attitude regarding tPAs for patients with AIS was significantly associated with age 30-40 years, females, levels 3 and 4 of training, and experience 5-10 years (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion:The overall knowledge and attitude of emergency medicine registrars were average to good, with a significant proportion of participants reporting low knowledge. The issues encountered by participants in the use of tPAs were the absence of a stroke team in hospitals, the absence of a protocol for the care pathway of AIS management in hospitals, and the absence of tPAs.

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The study was conducted to analyze value chains integrated traditional and upgraded dairy production in Faiyum and Al-Sharqia governorates of Upper and lower Delta region of Egypt to identify role of Milk Collection Centers (MCCs) in providing buffalo milk at reasonable prices for consumers as well as improves income for producers. Socio-economic characteristics performance showed that most producers in the study sample were male. Education was elementary to deal with upgraded value chains where about 78.18% of producers had high education level. By the same substance, 93.64% of producers of upgraded value chain represented membership of cooperative groups. Dairy supply chain amounted 81.02% and 79.45%, 13.45% and 4.34%, 5.53% and 16.21% for sold raw milk, home consumption and processed milk of traditional and upgraded value chains, respectively. The MCCs saved around 11.10 LE for 1 kg of buffalo raw milk price at farm level delivered to the consumer compared to raw milk prices at dairy shops or even at local markets of traditional value chains, consequently adequate prices of processed product in terms of product quality. Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) conveyed evidence prove utility of MCCs to approach highest return, accounted 4.2 LE for buffalo milk produced under upgraded value chain. Animal feed afforded by MCCs however concerned essential to reduce costs burden, impacted positively producers` income. Extension service has been reported from missions of MCCs raise awareness among producers, link decision maker to participants in developing process regarding quality and marketing of dairy products.

A field experiment was carried out at Kafr El-Hamam, Agricultural Research Station farm, Sharkia Governorate, Egypt, at lat. 30.35, long 31.30 and 13.00 m above the mean sea level during the two winter seasons, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 to study the effect of different rates of inorganic NPK fertilizers i.e. 25, 50 and 75 % from the recommended dose (75, 15 and 24 kg N, P2O5 and K2O /fed., respectively) alone and/or companied with compost at the rate of 2 ton / fed., and/or humic acid at 6 kg /fed, as a soil application on bread wheat productivity, chemical composition and economic evaluation. Results can be summarized as follows: Generally, in most cases, application of compost with 75 % from the recommendation dose of inorganic NPK fertilizers achieved significant increases in yield and its components as well as chemical composition of wheat plant. The addition of inorganic NPK fertilizers at the recommended rate alone led to the highest significant increases in all yield components and yield as well as macronutrient content of grain, straw and biological yield. Protein percentage was higher by using inorganic NPK fertilizers at the recommendation rate and /or application of compost with 75 % from recommendation dose of inorganic NPK fertilizers. Meanwhile, application of humic acid individually or companied with 25 and 50% from recommended dose of NPK fertilizer gave significant decrease in all parameters in this study. By Calculating the net return of wheat per Feddan, the highest net return is achieved by using the treatment 100% recommended dose (RD), which estimated about 6214 LE in the first season, 5549 LE in the second season. Using humic acid alone achieved the lowest net return about 3616 and 3443 LE in the first and second season, respectively.