Developing an efficient algorithm for automated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) segmentation to characterize tumor abnormalities in an accurate and reproducible manner is ever demanding. This paper presents an overview of the recent development and challenges of the energy minimizing active contour segmentation model called snake for the MRI. This model is successfully used in contour detection for object recognition, computer vision and graphics as well as biomedical image processing including X-ray, MRI and Ultrasound images. Snakes being deformable well-defined curves in the image domain can move under the influence of internal forces and external forces are subsequently derived from the image data. We underscore a critical appraisal

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease. It is one of the major causes of disability in developed and developing countries. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) as part of immune system has a role in the disease process.Objectives: To investigate whether there is an association between HLA class II-DRB and OA.Methods: A case control study with 26 patients with osteoarthritis and 22 apparently healthy obese control persons matching in ethnicity were enrolled in this study during the period between October 2012 till March 2013. Direct interview was done with each patient and HLA typing was done by molecular method using Sequence Specific Primer (PCR-SSP) method using One Lambda Kit-USA. Results: The results showed that fem

Class consciousness represents its highest stage in the contemporary Marxist thought of Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci, not just a reflection of reality, but rather a dialectical form through the reflection of consciousness on reality and its reproduction. The superiority over the infrastructure (historical materialism) promised the revolutionary class consciousness to be achieved spontaneously, and the seeds of a breakthrough are mass strikes, denying the role of the party to organize this awareness, limiting its role to the interconnection between classes, emphasizing the role of socialist democracy as a conscious vanguard for organizing spontaneity, struggle, and developing awareness during the revolutionary process and the leader

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of different inhibitors on the corrosion rate of aluminum in 50% (v/v) ethylene glycol solution at 80°C and pH 8.0 in which the electrochemical technique of linear sweep voltammetry was employed to characterize each inhibitor function and to calculate the corrosion rate from Tafel plots generated by a computer assisted  potentiostat.

It is found that both sodium dichromate and borax reduces the corrosion rate by polarizing the anodic polarization curve while sodium phosphate, potassium phosphate, and sodium benzoate reduces the corrosion rate by polarizing both the anodic and cathodic  polarization curve.

When inhibitor concentration increases from I g/l up

Experimental research was carried out on eight reinforced concrete beams to study the embedded length of the longitudinal reinforcement. Six beams were casted using self compacted concrete, and the two other beams were casted using normal concrete. The test was carried out on beams subjected to two point loads. The strain and the slip of the main reinforcement have been measured by using grooves placed during casting the beams at certain places. The measured strain used to calculate the longitudinal stresses (bond stress) surrounding the bar reinforcement, The study was investigated the using of self compacted concrete SCC on the embedded length of reinforcing bars, and comparing the results with normal concrete. The test results show th

The aim of this paper is to design fast neural networks to approximate periodic functions, that is, design a fully connected networks contains links between all nodes in adjacent layers which can speed up the approximation times, reduce approximation failures, and increase possibility of obtaining the globally optimal approximation. We training suggested network by Levenberg-Marquardt training algorithm then speeding suggested networks by choosing most activation function (transfer function) which having a very fast convergence rate for reasonable size networks.             In all algorithms, the gradient of the performance function (energy function) is used to determine how to

Through the history of art movements, abstraction has been rotating between appearance and disappearance, mounting and stillness while its performances differed between reduction and simplification on the one hand and between the use of chromatographic and linear abstraction on the other. As a result, to what is mentioned, abstraction has appeared in many different artistic forms underlying the systematicity of the plastic art history.However, according to a contemporary point of view that comes up with the scientific revolution, the art of optical deceiving (illusion) appeared to find a hybrid art form that locates between the geometricity of abstraction and the scientific, visual and psychological foundations that are linked with the i

     A reliable differential pulse polarographic (DPP) method has been developed and applied for the determination of ibuprofen IBU in dosage form with dropping mercury electrode (DME) versus Ag/AgCl. The best peak was found at cathodic peak of -1.18 V in phosphate buffer at pH=4 and 0.025M of KNO₃ as supporting electrolyte. In order to obtaine the highest sensitivity, instrumental and experimental parameters were examined including the type and concentration of supporting electrolyte, pH of buffer solution, pulse amplitude and voltage step time. Diffusion current showed a direct linear relationship to ibuprofen concentration in the range of (5 – 30) μg. mL^-1 (2.43× 10^-5

The inner wasteland can be observed in Samuel Beckett’s early and later plays. His characters suffer from loss of identity, emotions, and sense of time. They lead a life of failure, repetition, inaction, loneliness, doubt, suffering, and nothingness. The inner wasteland includes many aspects, such as the multi and split identity, the habitual repetitive element of life, the dark sorrowful life the characters lead, lack of communication and relations among them, their unfree, inactive condition, their foggy terrible recollections, loneliness, dryness of love, and uncertainty. The analysis and the illustration of each aspect will show how the inner wasteland is intensified in the selected later plays of Beckett.

This research deals with deliberative intentionality in its two dimensions, deliberative intent, direct, and indirect deliberative intent, and deliberative intentionality assumed great importance to ancient and contemporary scholars. The text, relying on deliberative intent as a methodology concerned with the study of language in usage, and the research focuses on direct deliberative intent through (the intent of acceptability, the intent of the presumption, the intent of the informational, the intent of interaction), and the indirect deliberative intent through (the intentionality of the case, the intent of the metaphor, The intent of the communicative impulse, the intent of the allusion,), and these deliberative elements activate and c