Back ground: Several devices with different physical bases have been developed for the clinical measurement of corneal thickness, they classified into 4 categories: Scheimpflug photography based, Slit –Scanning topography, optical coherence tomography (OCT) based and ultrasound (US) based.Objective:To evaluatethe precision of the new Scheimpflug –Placido disc corneal topography in measurement of corneal thickness and to compare the measured values with that obtained by US pachymetry.Methods: Setting of this study is Lasik center in Eye Specialty Private Hospital. Baghdad. Iraq.Eyes of healthy subjects were examined with the Sirius topography.3 consecutive measurements of central (CCT)and thinnest (TCT) corneal thicknesses were obtainedand the measurements repeated within 1 week. The within –subject standard deviation (Sw),test-retest repeatability ,coefficient of variation (CoV),and interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were calculated to evaluate intra session repeatability and intersession reproducibility. For US pachymetry (Tomey-SP 100) only CCT was measured. Comparison ofthe measurements that obtained by the 2 devices done by paired t-test.Results: The topography provides high intrasession repeatability with test-retest and CoV close to 6μm and0.4%, respectively for both CCT and TCT. The inter session reproducibility also high with test-retest and CoV close to 8μm and 0.5%, respectively.ICC was higher than 0.97 for repeatability and reproducibility . Anarrow 95% limit of agreement was found between the pachymetry obtained by topography and US pachymetry measurements.Conclusions :The topography has been used showed high intrasession repeatability and intersession reproducibility of CCT and TCT measurements in healthy eyes .Absence of statistically significant differences suggest that the topography -TCT and the US pachymetry - CCT can be used interchangeably in subject with normal cornea.Financial Disclosure: No financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a potent ligand for AhR and a known carcinogen. While AhR activation by TCDD leads to significant immunosuppression, how this translates into carcinogenic signal is unclear. Recently, we demonstrated that activation of AhR by TCDD in naïve C57BL6 mice leads to massive induction of myeloid derived-suppressor cells (MDSCs). In the current study, we investigated the role of the gut microbiota in TCDD-mediated MDSC induction. TCDD caused significant alterations in the gut microbiome, such as increases in Prevotella and Lactobacillus, while decreasing Sutterella and Bacteroides. Fecal transplants from TCDD-treated
... Show MoreThis study depicts the removal of Manganese ions (Mn2+) from simulated wastewater by combined electrocoagulation/ electroflotation technologies. The effects of initial Mn concentration, current density (C.D.), electrolysis time, and different mesh numbers of stainless steel screen electrodes were investigated in a batch cell by adopting Taguchi experimental design to explore the optimum conditions for maximum removal efficiency of Mn. The results of multiple regression and signal to noise ratio (S/N) showed that the optimum conditions were Mn initial concentration of 100 ppm, C.D. of 4 mA/cm2, time of 120 min, and mesh no. of 30 (wire/inch). Also, the relative significance of each factor was attained by the analysis of variance (ANO
... Show MoreA three-stage learning algorithm for deep multilayer perceptron (DMLP) with effective weight initialisation based on sparse auto-encoder is proposed in this paper, which aims to overcome difficulties in training deep neural networks with limited training data in high-dimensional feature space. At the first stage, unsupervised learning is adopted using sparse auto-encoder to obtain the initial weights of the feature extraction layers of the DMLP. At the second stage, error back-propagation is used to train the DMLP by fixing the weights obtained at the first stage for its feature extraction layers. At the third stage, all the weights of the DMLP obtained at the second stage are refined by error back-propagation. Network structures an
... Show MoreOnline service is used to be as Pay-Per-Use in Cloud computing. Service user need not be in a long time contract with cloud service providers. Service level agreements (SLAs) are understandings marked between a cloud service providers and others, for example, a service user, intermediary operator, or observing operators. Since cloud computing is an ongoing technology giving numerous services to basic business applications and adaptable systems to manage online agreements are significant. SLA maintains the quality-of-service to the cloud user. If service provider fails to maintain the required service SLA is considered to be SLA violated. The main aim is to minimize the SLA violations for maintain the QoS of their cloud users. In this res
... Show MoreThe international reporting auditor witness rapidly developed over the past years, where profession began give attention to the development of auditor reporting and improve its informational report through the issuance and amendment of some relevant international auditing standards. The reality of the situation refers to the failure to inform the auditor in Iraq in many areas, including: Clearly defined management responsibility for the preparation of financial and auditor's responsibility to express an opinion on these statements and Amendment of opinion when the financial statements as a whole is free from material misstatement based on the evidence is sufficient and appropriate audit, or not to build the auditor's ability to obt
... Show MoreThe current research studies the digital techniques in order to identify the treatments with graphic techniques for the theatrical scene, which includes a number of programs and treatment tools with digital technique to identify the visual and aesthetic dimensions and outputs achieved in the design of the theatrical scene in addition to the options, that they provide in the design of a system of hypotheses for the theatrical world, In order to be an experimental mediator in achieving the creative hypothesis, which limited the research with a pivotal objective which is: identifying the digital techniques employed in the graphic digital design for the scene in the theatrical show. The research lies in its objective limits stated in the met
... Show More
In this work, a novel technique to obtain an accurate solutions to nonlinear form by multi-step combination with Laplace-variational approach (MSLVIM) is introduced. Compared with the traditional approach for variational it overcome all difficulties and enable to provide us more an accurate solutions with extended of the convergence region as well as covering to larger intervals which providing us a continuous representation of approximate analytic solution and it give more better information of the solution over the whole time interval. This technique is more easier for obtaining the general Lagrange multiplier with reduces the time and calculations. It converges rapidly to exact formula with simply computable terms wit
... Show MoreThis research dealt with the subject of auditing bank credit risks in accordance with international auditing standards and aims to develop procedures and design a credit risk audit program in accordance with international auditing standards and demonstrate their impact on the truth, truthfulness and fairness of financial statements and on their overall performance and continuity in the banking sector Its importance lies in relying on international auditing standards to assess and measure bank credit risk and its impact on the financial situation as well as the ability to predict financial failure. A set of conclusions have been reached, the most important of which is that the bank faces difficulties in measuring credit risk in accordance
... Show MoreAnkylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common, highly heritable inflammatory arthritis affecting primarily the spine and pelvis. This study was aimed to investigate the relationship between the rs27044 polymorphism in Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase-1 (ERAP-1) with the susceptibility and severity of AS correlated with some biochemical markers such as hematological parameter (Erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR)) and immunological parameters (C-reactive protein (CRP), Human leukocyte antigen-B27 (HLA-B27), Interlukin-6 (IL-6) and Interlukin-23 (IL-23)), and oxidative stress parameters (Glutathione (GSH) and Malondialdehyde (MDA)) in a sample of Iraqi population. A total of 60 blood samples were collected from AS patients requited Rhe
... Show More