This study aimed to compare the safety and efficacy of laser lithotripsy and pneumatic lithotripsy, the two most commonly used transurethral lithotripsy methods for treating bladder stones in children in Iraq. Between January 2013 and December 2016, 64 children with bladder stones were included in this prospective randomized study, after ethical committee approval and written consent from the children’s parents or caregivers were obtained. Patients were assigned randomly by computer software to two groups treated with either pneumatic cystolithotripsy or laser lithotripsy. A 9 Fr. semirigid ureteroscope was used to pass the lithotripter through and fragment the stone. A catheter of 8–12 Fr. was then introduced and kept in place for 24 h. All children were hospitalized for 24 h, and the catheter was removed the next morning. Outpatient follow-up was maintained for 6–12 months. In terms of operation outcomes and complications, the laser lithotripsy group had a significantly longer duration of operation (74.5 ± 26.6 min vs. 51.5 ± 17.2 min, p = 0.001), whereas the number of patients requiring an extended hospital stay was significantly higher in the pneumatic lithotripsy group (48.5% vs. 16.1%, p = 0.006). Moreover, pneumatic lithotripsy was associated with a significantly greater risk of having at least one adverse effect (64% greater than that in the laser group). Stone clearance rates did not significantly differ between treatment groups. In conclusion, both pneumatic and laser lithotripters can be used to treat children with bladder stones with high efficacy and safety.
Water quality sensors have recently received a lot of attention due to their impact on human health. Due to their distinct features, environmental sensors are based on carbon quantum dots (CQDs). In this study, CQDs were prepared using the electro-chemical method, where the structural and optical properties were studied. These quantum dots were used in the environmental sensor application after mixing them with three different materials: CQDs, Alq3 polymer and CQDs and Alq3 solutions using two different methods: drop casting and spin coating, and depositing them on silicon. The sensitivity of the water pollutants was studied for each case of the prepared samples after measuring the change in resistance of the samples at a temperature of
... Show MoreCommunication of the human brain with the surroundings became reality by using Brain- Computer Interface (BCI) based mechanism. Electroencephalography (EEG) being the non-invasive method has become popular for interaction with the brain. Traditionally, the devices were used for clinical applications to detect various brain diseases but with the advancement in technologies, companies like Emotiv, NeuoSky are coming up with low cost, easily portable EEG based consumer graded devices that can be used in various application domains like gaming, education etc as these devices are comfortable to wear also. This paper reviews the fields where the EEG has shown its impact and the way it has p
Immune-mediated hepatitis is a severe impendence to human health, and no effective treatment is currently available. Therefore, new, safe, low-cost therapies are desperately required. Berbamine (BE), a natural substance obtained primarily from
This c
Data scarcity is a major challenge when training deep learning (DL) models. DL demands a large amount of data to achieve exceptional performance. Unfortunately, many applications have small or inadequate data to train DL frameworks. Usually, manual labeling is needed to provide labeled data, which typically involves human annotators with a vast background of knowledge. This annotation process is costly, time-consuming, and error-prone. Usually, every DL framework is fed by a significant amount of labeled data to automatically learn representations. Ultimately, a larger amount of data would generate a better DL model and its performance is also application dependent. This issue is the main barrier for
This article showcases the development and utilization of a side-polished fiber optic sensor that can identify altered refractive index levels within a glucose solution through the investigation of the surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) effect. The aim was to enhance efficiency by means of the placement of a 50 nm-thick layer of gold at the D-shape fiber sensing area. The detector was fabricated by utilizing a silica optical fiber (SOF), which underwent a cladding stripping process that resulted in three distinct lengths, followed by a polishing method to remove a portion of the fiber diameter and produce a cross-sectional D-shape. During experimentation with glucose solution, the side-polished fiber optic sensor revealed an adept detection
... Show MoreSeawater might serve as a fresh‐water supply for future generations to help meet the growing need for clean drinking water. Desalination and waste management using newer and more energy intensive processes are not viable options in the long term. Thus, an integrated and sustainable strategy is required to accomplish cost‐effective desalination via wastewater treatment. A microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a new technology that can treat wastewater, desalinate saltwater, and produce green energy simultaneously. Bio‐electrochemical oxidation of wastewater organics creates power using this method. Desalination and the creation of value‐added by‐products are expected because of this ionic mov
The ability of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) to uptake three pharmaceuticals (diclofenac, mefenamic acid and metronidazole) from two types of soil (clay and sandy soil) was investigated in this study to explore the human exposure to these pharmaceuticals via the consumption of beans. A pot experiment was conducted with beans plants which were grown in two types of soil for six weeks under controlled conditions. During the experiment period, the soil pore water was collected weekly and the concentrations of the test compounds in soil pore water as well as in plant organs (roots, stems and leaves) were weekly determined.
The results showed that the studied pharmaceuticals were detected in all plant tissues; their concentration
The ï¤- Multiple mixing ratios of ï§-transitions from levels of 56Fe populated in 56 56 ( , ) Fe n n Fe ï§ ï‚¢ reactions are calculated by using const. S.T.M. This method has been used in other works [3,7] but with pure transition or with transitions that can be considered as pure transitionsØŒ in our work we used This method for mixed ï§ - transitions in addition to pure ï§ - transitions. The experimental angular distribution coefficients a2 was used from previous works [1] in order to calculet ï¤- values. It is clear from the results that the ï¤- values are in good agreement or consistent, within associated errors, with those reported previously [1]. The discrepancies that occur
... Show More<p><span>A Botnet is one of many attacks that can execute malicious tasks and develop continuously. Therefore, current research introduces a comparison framework, called BotDetectorFW, with classification and complexity improvements for the detection of Botnet attack using CICIDS2017 dataset. It is a free online dataset consist of several attacks with high-dimensions features. The process of feature selection is a significant step to obtain the least features by eliminating irrelated features and consequently reduces the detection time. This process implemented inside BotDetectorFW using two steps; data clustering and five distance measure formulas (cosine, dice, driver & kroeber, overlap, and pearson correlation
... Show MoreThis paper presents a computer simulation model of a thermally activated roof (TAR) to cool a room using cool water from a wet cooling tower. Modeling was achieved using a simplified 1-D resistance-capacitance thermal network (RC model) for an infinite slab. Heat transfer from the cooling pipe network was treated as 2-D heat flow. Only a limited number of nodes were required to obtain reliable results. The use of 6th order RC-thermal model produced a set of ordinary differential equations that were solved using MATLAB - R2012a. The computer program was written to cover all possible initial conditions, material properties, TAR system geometry and hourly solar radiation. The cool water supply was considered time
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