ABSTRACTBackground: cochlear implants are electronic devices that convert sound energy into electrical signals to stimulate ganglion cells and cochlear nerve fibers. These devices are indicated for patients with severe to profound sensorineural hearing losses who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. The implant basically takes over the function of the cochlear hair cells. The implant consists of external components (microphone, speech processor and transmitting coil) and internal components (receiver stimulator and electrode array). The implant is inserted via a trans mastoid facial recess approach to the round window and scala tympani.Objectives: to determine the effectiveness and safety of non fixation method in cochlear implantation.Methods: a prospective study carried out from September 2009 to September 2012 in Gazi Hariri Hospital. Eighty patients with congenital severe –profound sensorineural hearing loss prepared for cochlear implantation involved in the study and divided into 2 groups. Group A includes 40 patients in whom the internal device was fixed to the skull by nylon suture materials through small burr holes on both sides of the well. Group B includes 40 patients in whom the internal device placed in a tight sub pericranial pocket without nylon fixation to the skull. All patients followed postoperatively for 6 months observing wound healing and local complications (hematoma, infection, wound dehiscence, device extrusion and migration).Results: mean age 4.2 years and male-female ratio was 1.3:1.Group A: 1 patient (2.5%) developed minor wound infection treated conservatively. Three patients (7.5%) developedsevere wound infection with wound breakdown and device extrusion despite the use of antibiotics and local rotational flaps, the device was explanted in those 3 patients. Two patients (5%) developed hematoma without history of trauma and treated conservatively. One patient (2.5%) had device migration without affection of its function.Group B: 2 patients developed minor wound infection treated conservatively. One patient (2.5%) had severe wound infection ends up with wound dehiscence and device extrusion despite the use of antibiotics and local rotational flaps. Explantation of the device was done for this patient. Hematoma occurred in one patient (2.5%) without history of trauma and treated conservatively. Another one patient (2.5%) developed device migration without impairment of its function.Conclusion: creation of sub pericranial pocket without internal device fixation by nylon materials is an effective and reliable method in cochlear implantation without compromising the patient safety or device performance.Key words: cochlear implantation, non- fixation, sub pericranial pocket
Recently, Image enhancement techniques can be represented as one of the most significant topics in the field of digital image processing. The basic problem in the enhancement method is how to remove noise or improve digital image details. In the current research a method for digital image de-noising and its detail sharpening/highlighted was proposed. The proposed approach uses fuzzy logic technique to process each pixel inside entire image, and then take the decision if it is noisy or need more processing for highlighting. This issue is performed by examining the degree of association with neighboring elements based on fuzzy algorithm. The proposed de-noising approach was evaluated by some standard images after corrupting them with impulse
... Show MoreThe sensitive and important data are increased in the last decades rapidly, since the tremendous updating of networking infrastructure and communications. to secure this data becomes necessary with increasing volume of it, to satisfy securing for data, using different cipher techniques and methods to ensure goals of security that are integrity, confidentiality, and availability. This paper presented a proposed hybrid text cryptography method to encrypt a sensitive data by using different encryption algorithms such as: Caesar, Vigenère, Affine, and multiplicative. Using this hybrid text cryptography method aims to make the encryption process more secure and effective. The hybrid text cryptography method depends on circular queue. Using circ
... Show MoreMany numerical approaches have been suggested to solve nonlinear problems. In this paper, we suggest a new two-step iterative method for solving nonlinear equations. This iterative method has cubic convergence. Several numerical examples to illustrate the efficiency of this method by Comparison with other similar methods is given.
Hard water does not pose a threat to human health but may cause precipitation of soap or results stone in the boilers. These reactions are caused by the high concentrations of Ca and Mg. In the industry they are undesirable because of higher fuel consumption for industrial use .Electromagnetic polarization water treatment is a method which can be used for increasing the precipitation of Ca 2+ and CO3 2- ions in hard water to form CaCO3 which leads to decrease the water hardness is research has been conducted by changing the number of coil turns and voltage of the system. The spectroscopy electron microscope was used for imaging the produced crystals. Results of the investigation indicated that
... Show MoreIn this paper, a computational method for solving optimal problem is presented, using indirect method (spectral methodtechnique) which is based on Boubaker polynomial. By this method the state and the adjoint variables are approximated by Boubaker polynomial with unknown coefficients, thus an optimal control problem is transformed to algebraic equations which can be solved easily, and then the numerical value of the performance index is obtained. Also the operational matrices of differentiation and integration have been deduced for the same polynomial to help solving the problems easier. A numerical example was given to show the applicability and efficiency of the method. Some characteristics of this polynomial which can be used for solvin
... Show MoreIn this paper, we consider a new approach to solve type of partial differential equation by using coupled Laplace transformation with decomposition method to find the exact solution for non–linear non–homogenous equation with initial conditions. The reliability for suggested approach illustrated by solving model equations such as second order linear and nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation. The application results show the efficiency and ability for suggested approach.
Nanosilica was extracted from rice husk, which was locally collected from the Iraqi mill at Al-Mishikhab district in Najaf Governorate, Iraq. The precipitation method was used to prepared Nanosilica powder from rice husk ash, after treating it thermally at 700°C, followed by dissolving the silica in the alkaline solution and getting a sodium silicate solution. Two samples of the final solution were collected to study the effect of filtration on the purity of the sample by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF). The result shows that the filtered samples have purity above while the non-filtered sample purity was around The structure analysis investigated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), found that the Nanosilica powder has an amorphous
... Show MoreThe Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) that loaded onboard the Landsat-7 satellite was launched on 15 April 1999. After 4 years, the image collected by this sensor was greatly impacted by the failure of the system’s Scan Line Corrector (SLC), a radiometry error.The median filter is one of the basic building blocks in many image processing situations. Digital images are often distorted by impulse noise due to errors generated by the noise sensor, errors that occur during the conversion of signals from analog-to-digital, as well as errors generated in communication channels. This error inevitably leads to a change in the intensity of some pixels, while some pixels remain unchanged. To remove impulse noise and improve the quality of the
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