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
Biomass is a popular renewable carbon source because it has a lot of potential as a substitute for scarce fossil fuels and has been used to make essential compounds like 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). One of the main components of biomass, glucose, has been extensively studied as a precursor for the production of HMF. Several efforts have been made to find efficient and repeatable procedures for the synthesis of HMF, a chemical platform used in the manufacturing of fuels and other high-value compounds. Sulfonated graphite (SG) was produced from spent dry batteries and utilized as a catalyst to convert glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Temperature, reaction time, and catalyst loading were the variables studied. When dimethyl sulfo
... Show MoreA low-cost reverse flow plasma system powered by argon gas pumping was built using homemade materials in this paper. The length of the resulting arc change was directly proportional to the flow rate, while using the thermal camera to examine the thermal intensity distribution and demonstrating that it is concentrated in the centre, away from the walls at various flow rates, the resulting arc's spectra were also measured. The results show that as the gas flow rate increased, so did the ambient temperature. The results show that the medium containing the arc has a maximum temperature of 34.1 ˚C at a flow rate of 14 L/min and a minimum temperature of 22.6 ˚C at a flow rate of 6 L/min.
The effect of heat treatment using different annealing temperatures on optical properties of bulk heterojunction blend (BHJ) Alq3: C60 thin films which are fabricated by the spin coating technique were investigated in this study. The films have been coated on a glass substrate with speed of 2000 rpm for one min and treated with different annealing temperature (373, 423 and 473) K under vacuum. The optical properties and the chemical bonds structure of blends as-deposited and heat treated have been studied by UV-Vis spectroscopic and Fourier Transform-Infra Red (FTIR) measurements respectively. The results of UV visible show that the optical energy gap decreasing with increasing the annealing temperature for the ratio (100:1) while decrea
... Show MoreClinical index is needed to predict the outcome of pregnancy after in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection-embryo transfer (IVF/ICSI-ET) for infertile patients. Growth differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8), also known as myostatin, is one of transforming growth factor-â superfamily localized in antral follicles in normal and PCOS ovaries but its function in female reproductive system is still unknown. Aim of the study is to assess the correlation between levels of GDF8 in follicular fluid (FF) with outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF/ICSI) in women with and without PCOS. A prospective case control study was performed enrolling (40) patients with PCOS and (40) non-PCOS women (male infertility) undergoing IVF/ICSI. The collect
... Show MoreThis paper analysed the effect of electronic internal auditing (EIA) based on the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) framework. Organisations must implement an up-to-date accounting information system (AIS) capable of meeting their auditing requirements. Electronic audit risk (compliance assessment, control assurance, and risk assessment) is a development by Weidenmier and Ramamoorti (2006) to improve AIS. In order to fulfil the study’s objectives, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to a sample comprising 120 employees. The employees were financial managers, internal auditors, and workers involved in the company’s information security departments in the General Company for Electricity D
... Show MoreThe issue of increasing the range covered by a wireless sensor network with restricted sensors is addressed utilizing improved CS employing the PSO algorithm and opposition-based learning (ICS-PSO-OBL). At first, the iteration is carried out by updating the old solution dimension by dimension to achieve independent updating across the dimensions in the high-dimensional optimization problem. The PSO operator is then incorporated to lessen the preference random walk stage's imbalance between exploration and exploitation ability. Exceptional individuals are selected from the population using OBL to boost the chance of finding the optimal solution based on the fitness value. The ICS-PSO-OBL is used to maximize coverage in WSN by converting r
... Show MoreFor more than a decade, externally bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites successfully utilized in retrofitting reinforced concrete structural elements. The function of CFRP reinforcement in increasing the ductility of reinforced concrete (RC) beam is essential in such members. Flexural and shear behaviors, ductility, and confinement were the main studied properties that used the CFRP as a strengthening material. However, limited attention has been paid to investigate the energy absorption of torsion strengthening of concrete members, especially two-span concrete beams. Hence, the target of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of CFRP-strengthening technique with regard to energy absorption of two-span RC
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