Background: intravenous regional anaesthesia (IVRA) is an effective method of producing anaesthesia of the extremities. Disadvantages are the rapid loss of anaesthesia after the deflation of the tourniquet and the rapid development of postoperative pain. It is important to search for agents with longer durations of action, better nerve fibre selectivity, lesser degrees of motor blockade and lower incidences of systemic toxicity.Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate and compare the clinical effects of intravenous regional anaesthesia, with lidocaine alone, or in a combination with ketamine and atracurium for better analgesia, and to examine the possible clinical advantages of using muscle relaxants (i.e., atracurium) with intravenous regional anaesthesia.Methods: In prospective, randomized study, sixty patient ASA physical status I, aged 20-50years underwent surgeries on distal regions of upper limbs, patient assigned randomly into 3 groups each of 20 patients, group I received 30ml of 0.5% lidocaine (150mg), group II received 30ml of mixing 0.5% of lidocaine (100mg) plus 30mg ketamine, while group III received 30ml of mixing 0.5% lidocaine (100mg) plus 30mg ketamine plus 2mg atracurium. All the results were tabulated and analyzed statistically with student's unpaired t-test and chi-square test. Results: Addition of 30mg of ketamine to 0.5% lidocaine resulted in rapid onset of sensory block, motor block, and lower visual analogue scale scores for pain compared with the group that received lidocaine only. The addition of atracurium to the combination of lidocaine and ketamine resulted in improved operating conditions and rapid onset of both sensory and motor blocks with less pain during surgery.Conclusions: drug combination of ketamine, atracurium and low dose of lidocaine lead to rapid onset of sensory block, motor block, lower VAS score for pain, and decrease adverse effect of Bier’s block accompany lidocaine alone, decrease drowsiness which accompany ketamine use alone in IVRA
The species of Opilio kakunini Snegovaya, Cokendolpher & Mozaffarian, 2018 was recorded for the first time in Iraq; as well as to four species belonging to this order which were recorded previously. In this paper, we added a new species to the checklist of Iraqi opilionid fauna with a description of the most important characteristics, along with genitalia, for both males and females are presented with digital photographs. Specimens of males and females were collected from Al- Rifai district northern of Dhi-Qar Province, southern of Iraq.
This work aimed to investigate the prevalence of pathogenic fungi and evaluate the antifungal activity of Trichoderma orientale FMR12486 crude extract against pathogenic fungi isolated from patients attending the National Center for Thoracic and Respiratory Diseases (having a history of tuberculosis) and consultant of Dermatology of Baghdad hospital, Iraq. A total of 80 clinical specimens were collected: 20 skin scrapings specimens and 60 sputum specimens. The results of direct examination by KOH 10% and culture showed that 11 (55%) cases from 20 skin specimens were positive for fungal infections, while in the sputum specimens, 28 (47%) cases from 60 were positive. Candida albicans represented the most common fungal infection isolat
... Show MoreSemi-active suspension systems have emerged as an attractive alternative to fully active suspensions because they offer a superior capacity to improve vehicle ride comfort and handling performance with significantly lower energy consumption. Conventional semi-active control strategies, however, such as skyhook damping, often cannot accommodate the nonlinear and time-varying dynamics of vehicles in operation under impulse or severe road disturbances. In this context, an intelligent smart-damper controller is proposed in this paper by incorporating a Modified Fuzzy Adaptive Fuzzy Logic Control framework in a half-car suspension model. In the developed controller, the effective damping force is adaptively tuned using real-time measurements of
... Show MoreToxic substances have been released into water supplies in recent decades because of fast industrialization and population growth. Fenton electrochemical process has been addressed to treat wastewater which is very popular because of its high efficiency and straightforward design. One of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) is electro-Fenton (EF) process, and electrode material significantly affects its performance. Nickel foam was chosen as the source of electro-generated hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) due to its good characteristics. In the present study, the main goals were to explore the effects of operation parameters (FeSO4 concentration, current density, and electrolysis time) on the catalytic perform
... Show MoreFor more than a decade, externally bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites successfully utilized in retrofitting reinforced concrete structural elements. The function of CFRP reinforcement in increasing the ductility of reinforced concrete (RC) beam is essential in such members. Flexural and shear behaviors, ductility, and confinement were the main studied properties that used the CFRP as a strengthening material. However, limited attention has been paid to investigate the energy absorption of torsion strengthening of concrete members, especially two-span concrete beams. Hence, the target of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of CFRP-strengthening technique with regard to energy absorption of two-span RC
... Show MoreThe university course timetable problem (UCTP) is typically a combinatorial optimization problem. Manually achieving a useful timetable requires many days of effort, and the results are still unsatisfactory. unsatisfactory. Various states of art methods (heuristic, meta-heuristic) are used to satisfactorily solve UCTP. However, these approaches typically represent the instance-specific solutions. The hyper-heuristic framework adequately addresses this complex problem. This research proposed Particle Swarm Optimizer-based Hyper Heuristic (HH PSO) to solve UCTP efficiently. PSO is used as a higher-level method that selects low-level heuristics (LLH) sequence which further generates an optimal solution. The proposed a
... Show MorePrecise and interpretable classification of autism-related behaviors is important for initial diagnosis, personalized intervention, and support arrangements. This study proposes an interpretable machine learning (ML) model using Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) and Categorical Boosting (CatBoost) to classify behavioral patterns into four categories (normal, mild, moderate, and severe) associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) based on a custom 377-instance survey dataset from Iraqi parents and teachers of children aged 6-12. The model observes 16 key features across communication and social interaction, repetitive behaviors, language, and adaptive skills, preprocessed via interquartile range (IQR) outlier removal, me
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