Background: Chronic cigarette smoking is one of the major risk factors for coronary artery disease. However, it has additional cardiac adverse effects independent of coronary atherosclerosis. Patient and Methods: After informed consent and perm- ission from the review board of the hospital, 80 healthy subjects who were classified as smokers or non-smokers were included in the study. They were examined by standard echocardiography protocol which was followed by two-dimensional speckle tracking to assess the functions of the right ventricle. Results: The tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) was significantly reduced in smokers as compared to non-smokers (P < 0.05). The tricuspid flow peak late diastolic velocity (A wave) was sig

A new Turbidimetric method characterized by simplicity, accuracy and speed for determination of Hydronium ion by continuous flow injection analysis. The method was based on the formation of complex Zn3[Fe(CN)6] for Zinc(II) that was eluted by Hydronium ion from cation exchanger column with Potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) for the formation of a pale yellow precipitate and this precipitate was determined using homemade Linear Array Ayah-5SX1-T-1D continuous flow injection analyser. The optimum parameters were 2.7 mL.min-1 flow rate using H2O as a carrier stream, 1.7 mL.min-1 reagent stream, 110 L sample volume and open valve for the purge of the sample segment. Data treatment shows that linear range 0.01-0.1 mol.L-1 for each acids (HClO

During the 1970s, communicative view of language teaching began to be incorporated into syllabus design. The central question for the proponents of this view was: what does the learner want/need to do with the target language? This lead to the emergence of a teaching method (or approach) called communicative language teaching (CLT) during the late 1970s and early 1980s focusing on the functions that must be incorporated into a classroom. According to Brown (2001:43) CLT is a unified but broadly based, theoretically well informed set of tenets about the nature of language and of language learning and teaching. Harmer (2001:84) states that the communicative approach is the name which was given to a set of beliefs which included not only a

This paper presents a comparative study of two learning algorithms for the nonlinear PID neural trajectory tracking controller for mobile robot in order to follow a pre-defined path. As simple and fast tuning technique, genetic and particle swarm optimization algorithms are used to tune the nonlinear PID neural controller's parameters to find the best velocities control actions of the right wheel and left wheel for the real mobile robot. Polywog wavelet activation function is used in the structure of the nonlinear PID neural controller. Simulation results (Matlab) and experimental work (LabVIEW) show that the proposed nonlinear PID controller with PSO
learning algorithm is more effective and robust than genetic learning algorithm; thi

The largest use of x-ray in medical by dentists, employers or persons that needed by patients with specific conditions, lead to higher exposure of x-ray that may cause many diseases. In the present work radiography films have been used in evaluating the efficiency of using unsaturated polyester polymer reinforced with lead oxide (PbO) as shield material for medical x-ray devices, many parameters studied like concentration and thickness that they are increasing the attenuation of x-ray in them. The results show that the attenuation of X-ray increasing with concentration of reinforced material and with thickness, and the optical density decreases with increasing concentration from 0% to 50%, we chose 30% as suitable concentration to increase

The Khabour reservoir, Ordovician, Lower Paleozoic, Akkas gas field which is considered one of the main sandstone reservoirs in the west of Iraq. Researchers face difficulties in recognizing sandstone reservoirs since they are virtually always tight and heterogeneous. This paper is associated with the geological modeling of a gas-bearing reservoir that containing condensate appears while production when bottom hole pressure declines below the dew point. By defining the lithology and evaluating the petrophysical parameters of this complicated reservoir, a geological model for the reservoir is being built by using CMG BUILDER software (GEM tool) to create a static model. The petrophysical properties of a reservoir were computed using