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
A large number of natural or synthetic dyes have been removed from both national and international lists of permitted food colors because of their mutagenic or carcinogenic activity. Therefore, this study aimed to use the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA-Based Polymerase Chain Reaction (RAPD-PCR) assay as a feasible method to evaluate the ability of some food colors as genotoxin-induced DNA damage and mutations. Lactiplantibacillus plantarum was used as a bioindicator to determine the genotoxic effects by RAPD-PCR using M13 primer after treatment with some synthetic dyes currently used as food color additives, including Sunset Yellow, Carmoisine, and Tartrazine. Besides qualitative analysis, the bioinformatic GelJ software was used for clus
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreAssessing water quality provides a scientific foundation for the development and management of water resources. The objective of the research is to evaluate the impact treated effluent from North Rustumiyia wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) on the quality of Diyala river. The model of the artificial neural network (ANN) and factor analysis (FA) based on Nemerow pollution index (NPI). To define important water quality parameters for North Al-Rustumiyia for the line(F2), the Nemerow Pollution Index was introduced. The most important parameters of assessment of water variation quality of wastewater were the parameter used in the model: biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen dem
Compounds of (ZnO)1-x(SnO 2 ) x were prepared with various proportions of tin oxide (SiO 2) (x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0) by mixing zinc oxide (ZnO) with highpurity tin oxide and then sintering the mixture in an oven at a temperature of 1000 °C for a period of 1 h. The resulting powders were ground and pressed into tablets of 1 cm diameter and 0.5 cm thickness. The properties of (ZnO) 1-x(SnO 2 ) x composites flms were prepared and studied as sensitive to the diferent gases NO2 and H2 S. Thin flms were prepared from (ZnO) 1-x(SnO 2 ) x via pulsed laser deposition method using glass and single crystal silicon for investigation the morphology and gas sensing properties with a thickness of 150 nm. The morphology examinat
... Show MoreThe current study aimed the syntheses and characterizations of Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) using a laser ablation Q-switched Nd: YAG laser with a wave-length of 355 nm at a variety of laser pulse energies (E) and deposited on porous silicon (PS). Optical emission spectrometer was used to diagnosed medium air to study gold plasma characteristics and prepared Au nanoparticles. The laser pulse energy influence has been studied on the plasma characteristics in air. The data showed the emergence of the ionic (Au II) spectral emission lines in the gold plasma emission spectrum. XRD has been utilized to examine structural characteristics. Moreover, AFM results 37.2 nm as the mean value of the diameter that is coordinated in a shape similar to the
... Show MoreThe banking sector is currently facing great challenges resulting from intense competition in the financial environment, and this is what makes the supreme audit bodies and the Central Bank audit as the highest supervisory authority on banks in order to achieve profit and not be exposed to loss, and this requires identifying the banking strengths and risks that constitute points Weakness that affects the future performance and the life of the bank, which requires special supervisory care, and from this point of view, the research aims to use the CAMELS model as a control tool in banks, through the use of its six indicators: capital adequacy, asset quality, management quality, profits, liquidity And sensitivity to market risks, th
... Show MoreThe research explored the impact of applying lean thinking With all that carries this term of goals, trends, principles, foundations and concepts, The possibility of applying it in institutions, including Ur public company, an industrial company, And the only one in Iraq specialized in the manufacture of cables, Electrical Wires and the aluminum industry ,Which has been applied to the curriculum of lean thinking , The problem of research is that the institutions, including the company (research sample), adopt and practice traditional administrative, financial and technical methods without relying on modern curricula and ideas, including the subject of our research, In order to achieve the research objectives, the research was divided int
... Show MoreThe widespread use of the Internet of things (IoT) in different aspects of an individual’s life like banking, wireless intelligent devices and smartphones has led to new security and performance challenges under restricted resources. The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is the most suitable choice for the environments due to the smaller size of the encryption key and changeable security related parameters. However, major performance metrics such as area, power, latency and throughput are still customisable and based on the design requirements of the device.
The present paper puts forward an enhancement for the throughput performance metric by p
... Show More