Introduction. Early diagnosis and treatment of neonatal sepsis may help decrease neonatal mortality. Aim of the Study. To evaluate the role of pancreatic stone protein as a marker for early onset neonatal sepsis. Methods. A hospital-based prospective study was conducted on 104 (52 uninfected and 52 infected neonates) admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Zagazig University hospitals during the period from April 2014 to April 2015. All newborns were subjected to full history taking, careful neonatal assessment, blood, C-reactive protein (CRP), and serum pancreatic stone protein. Results. Serum PSP levels were significantly higher in the infected group than in the uninfected group. At a cutoff level of PSP 12.96 ng/mL, the sensitivity was 96.2%, the specificity was 88.5%, positive predictive value was 95.8%, negative predictive value was 89.3%, and area under the curve was 0.87. A significant positive correlation between CRP and PSP was found in infected group. Conclusion. The high negative predictive value of PSP (89.3%) indicates that the serum PSP level is a good marker for diagnosis of early onset neonatal sepsis and can be used to limit hospital stay and antibiotic use in neonates treated for suspected sepsis.

Evaluation of the adequacy of field compaction of granular soils, has always been a challenge for geotechnical engineers. The Lightweight Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (LDCP) has been established as one of the most versatile techniques, as it significantly reduces the required effort and cost. This research has been conducted to correlate the readings of LDCP laboratory tests, to compaction parameters of cohesionless soils. An experimental program has been performed on four different types of granular soils, at various compaction levels and moisture content values. The investigated soils included two sandy soils with different gradation and two different admixtures of sand with crushed dolomitic limestone. A series of LDCP and sand-cone tests have been conducted on soil samples which were compacted in a cubic steel mold, 60cm side length. The laboratory results have been integrated into a number of predictive correlations, which are capable of assessing the soil compaction parameters including; relative compaction, relative density, dry density and uniformity coefficient. Moreover, the compacted granular soils were found to be more sensitive to changes of moisture content from the optimum value, at lower ratios of relative compaction.

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Design and construction of earth embankments on soft formations encounters the problem of excessive total and differential settlements, large lateral displacement and inadequate bearing capacity of such formations. Preloading fills coupled with prefabricated vertical drains (PVD) is one of the soil improvement techniques exhibiting successful use in stabilizing soft clay formations. This study investigates, numerically, the performance of a monitored earth embankment that was constructed on a very soft to soft clay formation improved by PVD. Numerical analysis was carried out using the two-dimensional finite element program PLAXIS, considering the smear effect. A good comparison was revealed between the monitored and the predicted responses. In addition, a sensitivity study was carried out to highlight the influence of some modeling parameters and design considerations that may be of a major concern on designing such embankments. The considered parameters were the PVD length, the PVD spacing, the smear zone permeability and the soft clay characteristics.