Applied Research and Communications Fund

Combining abilities is prerequisite to developing good maize hybrids. A half diallel cross among seven new yellow maize inbred lines were made in 2022 summer growing season. The resulting, 21 F1 crosses along with two yellow commercial hybrids, SC.168 and SC. 3444 were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replications at three locations in 2023 summer growing season. To study the combining ability to identify the most superior inbred lines and hybrids. Data recorded on days to 50% silking, plant and ear heights and grain yield. Results indicated that Both GCA and SCA mean squares were highly significant indicating the involvement of both additive and non-additive type of gene effects in the inheritance of all traits under study. However, the additive gene effects played the major role in the inheritance of all traits except for days to 50 %silking. The best inbred line for GCA effects were Gm.20 for earliness, Gm.6041 for short plant and ear heights, Gm.45 for grain yield. The best cross for SCA effects was (Gm.6041 × Gm.67) for earliness, (Gm.67 × Gm.34) for short plant height (cm), (Gm.6052 × Gm.20) for short ear height (cm) and (Gm.45× Gm.67) for high grain yield. These crosses will be evaluated to extensive testing in maize breeding program.

A field study was carried out at East Owainat Agric., Res. Station, New Valley, Egypt during two successive seasons (2022/2023 and 2023/2024) to investigate the most suitable NPK fertilization rate and five planting densities (70, 60, 50, 40 and 30 plants/m 2 ) for the best growth performance of seashore paspalum turfgrass under the environmental conditions of New Valley Region. The obtained results showed that all vegetative growth characters were gradually augmented during Dec. and Jan., but again increased till the end of the experiment. Regarding the NPK fertilization rates the four tested growth traits, the three photosynthetic pigments and N, P and K % and uptake were all promoted gradually parallel to the gradual increase in NPK fertilization rate where the highest rate resulted in the highest values. So, it is recommended to supply seashore paspalum turfgrass with the highest two NPK rates (

ABSTRACT The shift towards sustainable and decentralised energy production has encountered a notable gap between the need to establish energy communities and the existing technological and infrastructural basis provisions for their facilitation. A concerted effort is thus required to align capabilities with the requirements for fostering energy transitions. This paper introduces the ACeT method, a novel decision-making approach aimed at involving citizens in the context of sustainable energy transitions. The aim is to support the collaborative development of visions and roadmaps by citizens and regional/local authorities, who co-create strategies to mitigate broader societal impediments to the adoption of renewable energy. By addressing issues such as bureaucratic procedures, inequitable tariffs, and legal constraints, this approach offers valuable insights for stakeholders. Policymakers can further scrutinise and substantiate these insights and recommendations derived from this novel approach.

The predatory mite, Cheyletus malaccensis (Oud.) was recorded to be the communist predacious mites of family Cheyletidae, it was found associated with other different mite species and immature stages of insects, which were collected from palm tree fibers in Damietta Governorate. Biological aspects, fecundity and life table parameters of Cheyletus malaccensis were studied under laboratory conditions at 25 and 35 o C and 65% R.H. Feeding on Immatures of Tyrophagus putrescentiae. Obtained results showed that the developmental stages of both female and male were affected by temperature as a vital environmental factor, were as its decreased as well as temperature increased. Also, deposited an average of 98.9 and 57.75 eggs during 54.18 and 13.1 days, with a daily rate of 1.8 and 4.5 eggs at 25 and 35 o C. Life table parameters showed highest value of the net reproductive rate (Ro) as 62.83 at 25 o C. Sex ratios were 0.46 for both temperatures.

This study was conducted to compare the effect of accelerated storage at 54± 2°C for 3, 7, 14 and 21 days on difenoconazole (Score 25%), azoxystrobin (Amistar 25%) and their mixtures active ingredient content (Amistar top 32.5%), as well as to investigate the effects of sub chronic exposure to the tested male albino rats. Results indicated that difenoconazole 25% active ingredient and in mixture were more stable, where the loss % were 2.23 and 4.47%, respectively, after 21 days from storage at 54± 2°Cwhereas, azoxystrobin active ingredient content was stable at formulation amistar 25% and not stable in mixture, where loss % were 2.54 and 6.54%, respectively. The photodegradation of tested fungicides in different water sources were studied. The half-life of azoxystrobin in the mixture was less than the single azoxystrobin in all water source (Nile, ground and waste water). The difenoconazole half-life in mixture was less than single difenoconazole in waste and ground water, whereas, the half-life of single difenoconazole was less than mixture in nile water. Concerning to sub chronic effects of difenoconazole, azoxystrobin and their mixtures after given daily for 65 days to male albino rats at dosage 1/20 and 1/40 of LD 50 . The sperm counts and motility were decreased at all tested fungicides, as well as, LH and FSH levels decreased, histopathological examination showed testicular changes at higher dosage of mixture. All tested fungicides increased liver enzymes (AST, ALT, cholesterol and triglyceride) at dosage 1/20 and 1/40 of LD 50 and induced liver damage and alteration. The mixture of azoxystrobin and difenoconazole induced the higher effect on liver and fertility.

Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in poultry meat pose a threat to public health. A total of ninety E. coli and S. aureus strains were isolated from 270 raw chilled poultry (chicken, quail and duck) drumstick samples purchased from local butchers in Qalubiya governorate along winter, spring and summer seasons of 2021 (30 isolates of each season). Isolates of each species per each season were examined for their antibiotic sensitivity using eight antibiotics represented by amoxicillin/clavulinic acid, ampicillin, ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, tetracycline, trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazol and chloramphenicol by disc diffusion technique. Results revealed that the examined E. coli and S. aureus isolates had a variable sensitivity profiles; where S. aureus showed higher resistance affinity than E. coli. Although, the tested antibiotics showed variable sensitivity ratios, tetracycline showed the lowest sensitivity ratio either on S. aureus or E. coli. Isolates collected from duck samples showed higher resistance activity than those of chicken and quail. Moreover, the examined isolates detected in summer season were more resistant to the tested antibiotics than for those examined in spring and winter, In conclusion, fast growing drug resistance of foodborne bacteria, especially, S. aureus and E. coli, of poultry meat origin appeared to be a critical health problem, especially during hot and humid weather of summer season; so, close surveillance is required throughout the poultry production chain to prevent the spread of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial strains.

The life history and consumption rate of Neoseiulus cucumeris (Ouds.) feeding on two phytophagous mites Panonychus citri and Brevipalpus phoenicis was conducted in the laboratory at constant temperatures of 25 °C and relative humidity of 70 ± 5 %. At this temperature studied, the development time and prey average consumption of the predatory mite N. cucumeris were affected by prey species. The life cycle of the adult female predatory mite, N. cucumeris was 11.91 ± 0.46 and 13.13 ± 0.26 when fed on P. citri and B. phoenicis, respectively. While, the life cycle of the adult male of the predatory mite, N. cucumeris recorded 11.83 ± 0.78 and 12.87 ± 0.55 days to develop from egg to adult when fed on the same phytophagous mites, respectively. The female of N. cucumeris recorded the highest fecundity when fed on P. citri, which was 27.73 ± 0.18 eggs unlike, B. phoenicis which was 25.75 ± 1.02 days. On the other hand, the average daily consumption of N. cucumeris when feeding on P. citri showed a higher value ranging from 1.6 to 2 moving stages unlike B. phoenicis, which ranged from 1.1 to 1.4 moving stages. The current study indicated that N. cucumeris can play a good role in the control of P. citri and B. phoenicis and can reduce its population densities as a generalist species.

Systems Biology is a fundamental field and paradigm that introduces a new era in Biology. The crux of its functionality and usefulness relies on metabolic networks that model the reactions occurring inside an organism and provide the means to understand the underlying mechanisms that govern biological systems. Even more, metabolic networks have a broader impact that ranges from resolution of ecosystems to personalized medicine.The analysis of metabolic networks is a computational geometry oriented field as one of the main operations they depend on is sampling uniformly points from polytopes; the latter provides a representation of the steady states of the metabolic networks. However, the polytopes that result from biological data are of very high dimension (to the order of thousands) and in most, if not all, the cases are considerably skinny. Therefore, to perform uniform random sampling efficiently in this setting, we need a novel algorithmic and computational framework specially tailored for the properties of metabolic networks.We present a complete software framework to handle sampling in metabolic networks. Its backbone is a Multiphase Monte Carlo Sampling (MMCS) algorithm that unifies rounding and sampling in one pass, obtaining both upon termination. It exploits an improved variant of the Billiard Walk that enjoys faster arithmetic complexity per step. We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach by performing extensive experiments on various metabolic networks. Notably, sampling on the most complicated human metabolic network accessible today, Recon3D, corresponding to a polytope of dimension 5 335 took less than 30 hours. To our knowledge, that is out of reach for existing software.