Background: The occurrence of seizures in bacterial meningitis is important, as it has been reported to increase the risk of complications; however, its frequency and predictors are not well studied yet. Objective: To assess the frequency, clinical, and biochemical predictors of seizures in children with acute bacterial meningitis. Method: A cross-sectional study recruited confirmed acute bacterial meningitis cases based on positive CSF culture and sensitivity among children aged 2 months to 15 years admitted to the Central Child Teaching Hospital emergency department in Iraq. Patients were divided into two groups based on seizure at presentation time. Demographic characteristics [age, gender, residence, duration of fever and disease, presenting complaints and antibiotic intake]; hematological [WBC, neutrophils] Lymphocyte, N/L ratio, packed cell volume, platelets, blood sugar, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) indices were compared between groups. Results: Seizures had a frequency of 18% among the 122 children and were significantly higher in younger cases with female predominance. By multivariate analysis and odds ratio (OR), predictors for seizure were as follows: CSF lymphocytes (OR=0.25, 95%CI=0.08–0.26), lethargy (OR=8.15, 95%CI=1.03-68.65), headache (OR=0.09, 95%CI=0.02-0.45), neck stiffness (OR=0.07, 95% CI=0.01-0.61) and poor feeding (OR=4.8, 95%CI=1.21–18.97). Conclusions: CSF lymphocytes reliably predicted seizure with good sensitivity and specificity of 75% and 73%. Lethargy and poor feeding had the highest odds as clinical predictors of seizures. Together, those results can help with risk stratification and allocate resources for high-risk cases to improve patient outcomes
In this paper, we derive and prove the stability bounds of the momentum coefficient µ and the learning rate ? of the back propagation updating rule in Artificial Neural Networks .The theoretical upper bound of learning rate ? is derived and its practical approximation is obtained
The study aims mainly to evaluate the performance of Sharq Dijila water treatment plant in removing turbidity for the period of 1-4-2001 to 31-3-2004. Daily data for turbidity of raw, clarified, filtered, and supplied water were analyzed. The results of the study showed that there is a wide variation in turbidity levels of raw water fluctuating between 10-1000 NTU with mean value of 41.3 NTU. Turbidity values of the clarified water varied between 1.4-77 NTU. Based on the turbidity value of 10 NTU and 20 NTU (the design maximum turbidity) the readings gave an acceptable percentage of 32.4% and 86% respectively. The turbidity of filtered water ranged between 0.2-4.5 NTU which are completely in compliance with Iraqi and WHO standards. In ac
... Show MoreSpider veins are a common aesthetic problem mainly in females , the conventional method of treatment is by microsclerotherapy (injections) but laser therapy has become increasingly efficacious and a convenient method for treatment. The present study was performed to investigate the effectiveness and safety of pulsed diode laser (810nm) by doing thermal photocoagulation. Ten patients with lower limbs spider veins were included in this prospective study. They were treated with a repetitive pulsed diode laser in non contact technique using the following laser parameters (wave length 810nm,power 1 W ,pulse duration 0.1 s., pulse interval 0.5 s, spot diameter 4mm ,power density 7.9 W/cm2). Laser therapy was performed on day zero and day fourt
... Show Moreِabstract:In this research we prepared nanofibers by electrospinning from poly (Vinyl Alcohol) /TiO2. The spectrum of the solution (Emission) was studied and found to be at 772 nm, several process parameters were such as concentration of TiO2 , and the effect of distance from nozzle tip to the grounded collector (gap distance). The result of the lower concentration of, the smaller the diameter of nanofiber is. Increasing the gap distance will affect nanofibers diameter.
In this paper, a fast lossless image compression method is introduced for compressing medical images, it is based on splitting the image blocks according to its nature along with using the polynomial approximation to decompose image signal followed by applying run length coding on the residue part of the image, which represents the error caused by applying polynomial approximation. Then, Huffman coding is applied as a last stage to encode the polynomial coefficients and run length coding. The test results indicate that the suggested method can lead to promising performance.
MR Younus, Al-A'DAB, 2011
The aim of this research is to develop mechanical properties of a new aluminium-lithium-copper alloy. This alloy prepared under control atmosphere by casting in a permanent metal mould. The microstructure was examined and mechanical properties were tested before and after heat treatment to study the influence of heat treatment on its mechanical properties including; modulus of elasticity, tensile strength, impact, and fatigue. The results showed that the modulus of elasticity of the prepared alloy is higher than standard alloy about 2%. While the alloy that heat treated for 6 h and cooled in water, then showed a higher ultimate tensile stress comparing with as-cast alloy. The homogenous heat treatment gives best fatigue
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