BackgroundEarly vascular alteration, atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease have emerged as important cardiovascular complications among beta-thalassemia major (B-TM) patients. The aims of the current study were to assess the prevalence of premature atherosclerosis among our B-TM patients, and to investigate the diagnostic value of serum Osteoprotegerin assay as an early biomarker for atherosclerosis.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted at Hematology unit - Pediatric Department, Zagazig University Children Hospital- Egypt in the period from March 2014 to March 2015. A total of 115 children were enrolled in the current study; as sixty-five (65) children with beta thalassemia major aged 5–18 years, on regular blood transfusion regimen represented the patient group. While fifty (50) healthy children, with comparable age and gender, were assigned as control group. All participants were subjected to history taking, thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigations including; complete blood count, liver and kidney function tests, C- reactive protein, lipid profile, serum ferritin and serum Osteoprotegerin (OPG) assay. Also, carotid artery intima media thickness (CAIMT) was performed by duplex ultrasound for patients and controls.ResultsOur B-TM patients were transfusion-dependent for as long as 8.5 ± 3.8 years with significantly higher serum ferritin levels (2490 ± 1579 ng/dl vs 83 ± 32 ng/dl, p = 0.001), C-reactive protein (5.7 ± 5.7 vs 0.9 ± 0.9), liver enzymes and bilirubin when compared to controls. Significantly higher serum triglyceride (128 ± 20 vs 101 ± 7 mg/dL, p = 0.009) and atherogenic index of plasma (0.45 ± 0.12 vs 0.22 ± 0.04, p = 0.001) were recorded in patients than comparisons. On the contrary, total serum cholesterol (116 ± 16 vs 143 ± 5, p < 0.001), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) (44 ± 9 vs 73 ± 6, p < 0.001) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (39 ± 2 vs 61 ± 5, p < 0.001), were significantly lowered in patients versus normal peers. Carotid arteries intima media thickness (CAIMT) of both side were significantly increased for patients (Rt 0.62 ± 0.2 vs. 0.29 ± 0.07 mm, p = 0.001 & Lt 0.66 ± 0.17 vs 0.29 ± 0.05 mm, p = 0.001) when compared with healthy controls, and showed positive correlation with, serum triglyceride, atherogenic index of plasma, and serum Osteoprotegerin levels. ELISA assay of serum Osteoprotegerin (OPG) revealed significantly higher levels for thalassemia patients than matched healthy controls (427 ± 102 vs. 324 ± 126 pg/ml, p = 0.02). Of particular interest is the obvious positive correlation between OPG levels and CAIMT of both sides (Rt r 0.54, p = 0.001 &Lt r 0.479, p = 0.001) and also with serum triglycerides (r 0.374, p = 0.03).ConclusionsSubclinical atherosclerosis started prematurely in children with beta- thalassemia. Carotid artery intima media thickness represented a simple, accurate and non-invasivemodality for early detection ofatherosclerosis. It was correlated well with serum Osteoprotegerin; this finding highlighte...

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Jigs and fixtures is a branch of science including many of mechanical design and production engineering rules. The traditional concepts of jigs and fixtures have famous applications until now in the Egyptian industries. There are many CAD applications found in the worldwide literature, but all of them related to modular fixtures and other applications of flexible fixtures. Most of the modular fixture CAD systems ignore the relation between clamp force and the machining cutting force. In this paper, a new system framework discusses a CAD in traditional jigs and fixture. The proposed system package includes visual basic and AutoCAD. It extracts and recognizes the machined part features (cylindrical or prismatic shapes) and starts the jigs design automatically. The system classifies the machined parts into groups and for each group suggests the optimum jigs design.

The addition of transition element oxides to tungsten heavy alloys (WHAs) fabricated by powder metallurgy technique provides new materials with higher density and electrical conductivity, which may be adequate in some applications such as kinetic energy penetrators. Additionally, materials with higher electrical conductivity are required for electrical contact applications such as electrical discharge machining (EDM) electrode materials. WHAs were fabricated by compacting its mixed constituents followed by sintering. Ni, Co and Fe are used as binding phases of the tungsten particles and oxides of Zr, Ti and Y are used as oxide dispersing strengthening (ODS) agents of the sintered materials. The results show that all of the chosen factors (i.e., pressure of compaction process, temperature of sintering, type of binding material and type of oxide) have clear effects on all properties of ODS tungsten heavy alloy specimens. The density and electrical conductivity increase with the increase in sintering temperature. Hardness and compression strength were also measured to evaluate the mechanical properties of sintered samples.

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