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
Reinforcing asphalt concrete with polyester fibers considered as an active remedy to alleviate the harmful impact of fatigue deterioration. This study covers the investigation of utilizing two shapes of fibers size, 6.35 mm by 3.00 mm and 12.70 mm by 3.00 mm with mutual concentrations equal to 0.25 %, 0.50 % and 0.75 % by weight of mixture. Composition of asphalt mixture consists of different optimum (40-50) asphalt cement content, 12.50 mm nominal aggregate maximum size with limestone dust as a filler. Following the traditional asphalt cement and aggregate tests, three essential test were carried out on mixtures, namely: Marshall test (105 cylindrical specimens), indirect tensile strength test (21 cylindrical specimens)
... Show MoreIn this work, lead oxide nanoparticles were prepared by laser ablation of lead target immersed in deionized water by using pulsed Nd:YAG laser with laser energy 400 mJ/pulse and different laser pulses. The chemical bonding of lead oxide nps was investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR); surface morphology and optical properties were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and UV-Visible spectroscopy respectively, and the size effect of lead oxide nanoparticles was studied on its antibacterial action against two types of bacteria Gram-negitive (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcusaurus) by diffusion method. The antibacterial property results show that the antibacterial activity of the Lead oxide NPs was
... Show MoreIn this work, nanostructure aluminum oxide thin films were deposited on glass substrates using a direct current (DC) magnetic reactive sputtering (MRS) technique. A gaseous mixture of argon and oxygen at different mixing ratios was used to synthesize Al2O3 nanoparticles. After extracting Al2O3 powder from the glass substrate, X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were used to analyze the structural and morphological properties of the synthesized thin films. The effect of deposition time on the spectral properties, as well as on the size of the nanoparticles, was determined.
In this research, we studied the multiple linear regression models for two variables in the presence of the autocorrelation problem for the error term observations and when the error is distributed with general logistic distribution. The auto regression model is involved in the studying and analyzing of the relationship between the variables, and through this relationship, the forecasting is completed with the variables as values. A simulation technique is used for comparison methods depending on the mean square error criteria in where the estimation methods that were used are (Generalized Least Squares, M Robust, and Laplace), and for different sizes of samples (20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120). The M robust method is demonstrated the best metho
... Show MoreLevofloxacin belongs to the fluoroquinolone family; it is a potent broad-spectrum bactericidal agent. The pharmacophore required for significant antibacterial activity is the C-3 carboxylic acid group and the 4-pyridine ring with the C-4 carbonyl group, into which binding to the DNA bases occur. In this work, we tried to show that by masking the carboxyl group through amide formation using certain amines to form levofloxacin carboxamides, an interesting activity is kept. Levofloxacin carboxamides on the C-3 group were prepared, followed by the formation of their copper complexes. The target compounds were characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis. The antimicrobial activity of the target compounds was evaluated and showed satisfactory resu
... Show MoreIn this research, we studied the multiple linear regression models for two variables in the presence of the autocorrelation problem for the error term observations and when the error is distributed with general logistic distribution. The auto regression model is involved in the studying and analyzing of the relationship between the variables, and through this relationship, the forecasting is completed with the variables as values. A simulation technique is used for comparison methods depending
The Iraqi construction industry suffers from many issues that lead to many design errors, clashes, delays and cost overruns. Therefore, applying constructability will prevent these issues from happening, as it has proven its positive effect in different projects around the world. The goal of this paper is to use building information modelling (BIM) to assess the constructability, provide the opportunities for the project stakeholders to choose the best constructable design alternative and find the affection of applying constructability on project cost. The practical side of this research consists of two parts: in the first part, 37 factors are collected from the literature review as factors that effect on constructability. After tha
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