Browsing by Author "Abdennour, Mohamed Amine"

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Evaluation of the anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic and healing effects of walnut leaves juglans regia l. Aqueous extract
(Moroccan Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, 2021) Bennacer, Amel; Cherif, Hamid Saida; Eswayah, Asma; Abdennour, Mohamed Amine; Oliveira, Ivo Vaz
As a part of the valorisation of medicinal plants of the Algerian flora, we have undertaken a study of plant extract (Juglans regia L.) growing in the Blida region, Algeria. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the in vivo pharmacological effects, namely the anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic and healing effects of common walnuts’s leaves aqueous extracts and ointment. The Carrageenan-induced paw edema test is used for screening of anti-inflammatory activity on 4 batches of mice (control batch, treated batch with Diclofenac®, treated batches with the aqueous extract at 5 and 10%), the analgesic effect was conducted using Acetic acid-induced endogenous spasm test, and the healing effect was conducted on rabbits. The anti-inflammatory test performed on laboratory mice, revealed a remarkable anti-inflammatory effect of the aqueous extract comparing with chosen standard pharmaceutical molecule (Diclofenac®), with a reduction percentage of 25 and 31.72 % for the aqueous extract and Diclofenac® respectively. The results for the analgesic effect was revealed to be significant comparing with those obtained with the reference product Spasfon. Finally, the healing effect was performed on rabbits, revealing high healing power comparing with those obtained with pharmaceutical healing paste ‘MADICASSOL” used as a reference. The ointment prepared using walnut leaves has shown more effectiveness with delay of healing less than a week compared to the ointment of reference which took almost 10 days for total healing effect. The obtained results confirm some information obtained during the ethnobotanical survey in a previous study; and that Juglans regia L. is endowed with an anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic and healing properties
Geochemical characterization of the salinity of irrigated soils in arid regions (Biskra, SE Algeria)
(Springer, 2020) Abdennour, Mohamed Amine; Douaoui, Abdelkader; Barrena, Jesús; Pulido, Manuel; ABradaï, Abdelhamid; Bennacer, Amel; Piccini, Chiara; Alfonso-Torreño, Alberto
The agriculture in Biskra, southeastern Algeria, is based on traditional practices and characterized by small irrigated fields. In the last decades, the increasing demand in water as well as the scarcity of rainfall has forced many farmers to use groundwater of low quality to maintain the profitability of their crops. Unfortunately, this practice seems to be the main harmful factor for soil quality in the region since it is responsible for the salinization of the irrigated areas. Aiming to assess the impact of this phenomenon, the soils of the irrigated perimeter of El Ghrous—a representative rural community located in the west of Biskra—have been analyzed. A set of 82 soil samples was collected from top and subsoil (0–15 and 15–35 cm respectively), on which the following physicochemical analyzes were performed: Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, Na+, Cl−, SO42−, HCO3−, NO3−, pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and sodium adsorption ratio. A Principal Component Analysis was performed to individuate the geochemical processes that influenced significantly the evolution of soil salinity and its pathways. The results showed a calcium sulfate (CaSO4) facies with a high risk of salinity and a low to medium risk of alkalinity. The calcite residual alkalinity and generalized residual alkalinity decreased as the solutions became more concentrated. Most of the samples were oversaturated in carbonate minerals (aragonite, calcite, and dolomite) and undersaturated in evaporitic minerals (anhydrite, gypsum, and halite). Finally, two multiple linear regressions (using cations and anions as independent variables) have been proposed to quantify soil salinity. These equations, with an accuracy of 85 %, can represent a time and money-saving tool for managers and farmers to estimate the EC, in comparison to the traditional estimation methods
Predictive mapping of soil electrical conductivity as a Proxy of soil salinity in south-east of Algeria
(Elsevier, 2020) Abdennour, Mohamed Amine; Douaoui, Abdelkader; Piccini, Chiara; Pulido, Manuel; Bennacer, Amel; Bradaï, Abdelhamid; Barrena, Jesús; Yahiaoui, Ibrahim
In semi-arid and arid areas soil salinity has adverse effects both on the environment and agricultural production. The region of Biskra (South-East of Algeria) underwent a strong agricultural transformation from traditional oasis agriculture to an almost exclusive production of dates involving market gardening throughout the year. The main goal was to predict the spatial variation of EC using geostatistics and a Geographic Information System (GIS), comparing also the performance of two classical geostatistical interpolators - Ordinary Kriging (OK), using only point data, and Cokriging (CK), introducing also auxiliary variables to improve prediction accuracy (SI gypsum and SO42−, obtained from the analysis of the chemical and geochemical processes of soil salinization). For this study, a total of 42 soil samples were randomly collected from topsoil (0–15 cm) in the irrigated perimeter of El Ghrous, a representative rural community located in the west of Biskra. Aiming to better understand the processes that most influence the evolution of soil salinity in this area, some chemical parameters were determined, among which the electrical conductivity (EC). Moreover, some terrain parameters were derived from a digital elevation model as auxiliary information, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was calculated from satellite imagery. The prediction efficiency of the methods was evaluated by calculating the mean error (ME) and the root mean square error (RMSE). The resulting maps showed that soils in the study area are affected by salinization. Cross-validation results showed a better performance in estimating EC of CK, after the introduction of the covariates, than OK, with an RMSE value of 0.92 vs. 1.53. This suggests a greater efficiency of CK in EC prediction in this area, confirming that the introduction of some auxiliary data correlated to the target variable significantly improves the interpolation. A third kriging technique, Indicator Kriging (IK) was applied to generate a map of the probability of exceeding a given threshold