Background: Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE)-derived mitral annular displacement (MAD) utilizes the speckle tracking technique to measure strain vectors, which provides accurate estimates of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).Objectives: To validate the accuracy of mitral annular displacement (MAD), assessed by Speckle Tracking Echocardiography (STE), as a surrogate for determination of left ventricular systolic function in comparison to 2-Dimensions Simpson method in patients with different heart diseases.Methods : This cross-sectional study included patients who referred to outpatient department of Ibn Albitar Center for Cardiac Surgery, Baghdad, Iraq, between October 2012 and April 2013. STE continuously tracked annular motion throughout the cardiac cycle in the apical 4- and 2-chamber views. LVEF for each patient was measured by both Simpson method and STE-derived MAD.Results: This study included 100 patients, of them (35%) had ischemic heart disease (IHD), (10%) had dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), (10%) had valvular heart disease (VHD), (25%) had normal echocardiography, and (20%) had hypertensive heart disease (HHD).There was significant correlation between EF % (derived by MAD) and EF % (derived by Simpson method) in patients with different heart diseases. This correlation was good in normal subjects (r=0.673), and those with IHD(r=0.896), DCM (r=0.724) and VHD (r=0.935), while in HHD it was moderately correlated (r=0.455). There was slight under-estimation of LVEF derived by MAD (a mean value of difference 0.846 %; p =0.022). In subgroup analysis, this difference was seen only in patients with HHD (a mean value of difference 3.145 %; p <0.001), while it was absent in other subgroups.Conclusion: STE-derived MAD provides easy, fast, and accurate assessments of global longitudinal systolic function. LVEF derived by MAD was correlated well with LVEF derived by Simpson method in patients with different heart diseases
The present paper describes and analyses three proposed cogeneration plants include back pressure steam-turbine system, gas turbine system, diesel-engine system, and the present Dura refinery plant. Selected actual operating data are employed for analysis. The same amount of electrical and thermal product outputs is considered for all systems to facilitate comparisons. The theoretical analysis was done according to 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamic. The results demonstrate that exergy analysis is a useful tool in performance analysis of cogeneration systems and permits meaningful comparisons of different cogeneration systems based on their merits, also the result showed that the back pressure steam-turbine is more efficient than other pro
... Show MoreThis paper is an attempt to foster creative performance of students in essay writing through using tips. Prewriting tips are a series of strategies ( outline in essay writing). These tips enable :::e Iraqi students to be aware of the process of writing as a guideline to what is expected from them as good essay writers. The study aims at: I .Finding out whether college students are aware of using these tips in fostering creativity performance in their essay writing? 2. To what extent can the application of these tips contribute in developing students' essay writing? To achieve these aims. 2 questionnaire and a test have been conducted and distributed on two parallel th
... Show MoreAn ingrowing toenail is a common problem affecting mainly adolescents and young adults, with a male predominance of 3:1. The disorder generally occurs in big toes. It is painful and often chronic and it affects work and social activities. Most patients initially complain of pain and later discharge, infection and difficulty in walking occur. The Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of (10600nm) CO2 laser in the treatment of ingrowing toe nail. Patients, Materials & Methods: This study was done in laser medicine research clinics from July 2013 to the end of December 2013; 10 patients including 7(70%) males and 3 (30%) females with age ranging from 18 years to 70 years with mean age of 44 years o
... Show MoreThe process of risk assessment in the build-operate transfer (BOT) project is very important to identify and analyze the risks in order to make the appropriate decision to respond to them. In this paper, AHP Technique was used to make the appropriate decision regarding response to the most prominent risks that were generated in BOT projects, which includes a comparison between the criteria for each risk as well as the available alternatives and by mathematical methods using matrices to reach an appropriate decision to respond to each risk.Ten common risks in BOT contracts are adopted for analysis in this paper, which is grouped into six main risk headings.The procedures followed in this paper are the questionnaire method
... Show MoreDrag reduction (DR) techniques are used to improve the flow by spare the flow energy. The applications of DR are conduits in oil pipelines, oil well operations and flood water disposal, many techniques for drag reduction are used. One of these techniques is microbubbles. In this work, reduce of drag percent occurs by using a small bubbles of air pumped in the fluid transported. Gasoil is used as liquid transporting in the pipelines and air pumped as microbubbles. This study shows that the maximum value of drag reduction is 25.11%.
The flow measurements have increased importance in the last decades due to the shortage of water resources resulting from climate changes that request high control of the available water needed for different uses. The classical technique of open channel flow measurement by the integrating-float method was needed for measuring flow in different locations when there were no available modern devices for different reasons, such as the cost of devices. So, the use of classical techniques was taken place to solve the problem. The present study examines the integrating float method and defines the parameters affecting the acceleration of floating spheres in flowing water that was analyzed using experimental measurements. The me
... Show MoreKnowledge of permeability, which is the ability of rocks to transmit the fluid, is important for understanding the flow mechanisms in oil and gas reservoirs.
Permeability is best measured in the laboratory on cored rock taken from the reservoir. Coring is expensive and time-consuming in comparison to the electronic survey techniques most commonly used to gain information about permeability.
Yamama formation was chosen, to predict the permeability by using FZI method. Yamama Formation is the main lower cretaceous carbonate reservoir in southern of Iraq. This formation is made up mainly of limestone. Yamama formation was deposited on a gradually rising basin floor. The digenesis of Yamama sediments is very important due to its direct
The purpose of this study is to avoid delays and cost changes that occur in emergency reconstruction projects especially in post disaster circumstances. This study is aimed to identify the factors that affect the real construction period and the real cost of a project against the estimated period of construction and the estimated cost of the project. The case study is related to the construction projects in Iraq. Thirty projects in different areas of construction in Iraq were selected as a sample for this study. Project participants from the projects authorities provided data about the projects through a data collection distributed survey made by the authors. Mathematical data analysis was used to construct a model to predict change
... Show MoreSpecial exercises in individual games are an important pillar in learning their basic skills. The aim of the research is to prepare special exercises using tools and their effect on learning the skill of landing with Salto backward tucked to stand - knowing the effect of special exercises using tools and their effect on learning the skill of landing with Salto backward tucked to stand on the horizontal bar. Either the research assumes the existence of significant differences in the pre- and post-tests in learning the skill of landing with Salto backward tucked to stand on the horizontal bar in favor of the post-test. The researchers used the experimental method with a single sample design to suit the research problem, as the researc
... 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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