Background: Quality of life in brain tumor patients is an emerging issue and has prompted neurosurgeons to recon¬sider the need for cognitive assessment in the course of treatment. To date there has been a lack of comprehensive neuropsychological assessment performed preoperatively and in the acute postoperative period in our hospitals.Objectives: to establish the effects of tumors and their surgical treatment, from a neuropsychological perspective, on cognitive functioning in patients with cerebral Gliomas. Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in the Neurosurgical Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, during the period from January 1999 to January 2001. Any patient admitted during the period of the study with clinical history, signs, symptoms, and contrast enhanced MRI suggesting a cerebral glioma and confirmed by postoperative histopathological results of glioma has been included in this study. While multifocal lesions, long-lasting epilepsy, use of antiepileptic therapy, multiple cranial lesions, previous cranial surgery, any chronic illness, and histopathological result of other tumors were exclusion criteria. All patients were at their first operation for brain tumors. Patients were examined by analyzing several functional domains (intelligence, executive functions, memory, language, praxis, gnosis and mood state) in order to establish the effect of tumor and surgery on cognition.Results: 29 patients who fulfilled the selection criteria were included. Mean duration of clinical history was 5 months (range 1–9 months). At baseline, using test- and domain-based criteria, 79% and 38% of patients, respectively, were impaired, the former related to tumor factors such as edema (P < 0.05), larger size (P < 0.05) and higher grade (P = 0.001). Verbal memory, visuospatial memory and word fluency were the most frequently affected functions, partly associated with depression. Postoperatively, 38% and 55% of patients, respectively, were unchanged, 24% and 21% improved, and 38% and 24% worsened; 24% and 62% of patients were intact, respec-tively.Conclusions: The extent of removal did not influence the outcome. Improvement involved previously impaired functions and was correlated with high-grade tumors. Worsening regar¬ded executive functions was related to tumor size and was partly explained by radiological findings on postoperative MRI. This prospective study, focusing on the effects of tumor and surgery, showed that tumor significantly affects cognitive func¬tions, mainly due to the mass effect and higher grading. Surgical treatment improved the functions most frequently affected preoperatively and caused worsening of execu¬tive functions soon after operation, leaving the overall cognitive burden unchanged and capable of improvement prospectively.
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Recent studies have revealed some conflicting results about the health effects of caffeine. These studies are inconsistent in terms of design and population and source of consumed caffeine. In the current study, we aimed to evaluate the possible health effects of dietary caffeine intake among overweight and obese individuals.
In this cross-sectional study, 488 apparently healthy individuals with overweight and obesity were participated. Dietary intake was assessed by a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and
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The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the recording of the electrical potential of the heart versus time. The analysis of ECG signals has been widely used in cardiac pathology to detect heart disease. The ECGs are non-stationary signals which are often contaminated by different types of noises from different sources. In this study, simulated noise models were proposed for the power-line interference (PLI), electromyogram (EMG) noise, base line wander (BW), white Gaussian noise (WGN) and composite noise. For suppressing noises and extracting the efficient morphology of an ECG signal, various processing techniques have been recently proposed. In this paper, wavelet transform (WT) is performed for noisy ECG signals. The graphical user interface (GUI)
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A new benzylidene derivative, namely N-benzylidene-5-phenyl-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-amine (BPTA), has been synthesized and instrumentally confirmed with Elemental Analysis (CHN), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized and characterized by X-ray. The mutualistic complementary dependence of BPTA with TiO2 nanoparticles as anti-corrosive inhibitor on mild steel (MS) in 1.0 M hydrochloric acid has been tested at various concentrations and various temperatures. The methodological work was achieved by gravimetric measurement methods complemented with surface analysis. The synthesized inhibitor concentrations were 0.1 mM to 0.5 mM and the temper
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The natural ventilation in buildings is one of effective strategies for achieving energy efficiency in buildings by employing methods and ways of passive design, as well as its efficiency in providing high ranges of thermal comfort for occupants in buildings and raises their productivity. Because the concept of natural ventilation for many people confined to achieve through the windows and openings only, become necessary to provide this research to demonstrate the various passive design strategies for natural ventilation. Then, research problem: Insufficient knowledge about the importance and mechanism of the application of passive design strategies for natural ventilation in buildings. The research objective is: Analysis of passive desi
... Show MoreBackground: The demand for better esthetic during orthodontic treatment has increased nowadays, so orthodontists starting using esthetic arch wires, brackets and ligatures.Tooth colored brackets were introduced in different types of materials. Sapphire ceramic brackets are one type of esthetic brackets and their color stability remains the main concern for the clinicians and patients at the same time. The present study design to evaluate the effect of three different staining materials (pepsi, black tea and cigarette smoke) on the stainability of sapphire ceramic brackets bonded with three types of light cure orthodontic adhesives which include: Resilience, Enlight and Transbond. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of three hundre
... Show Morethe use of diffrent concectration of Na and Mg ions were shown to causes in increase in the bindings at oncentration
The article emphasizes that 3D stochastic positive linear system with delays is asymptotically stable and depends on the sum of the system matrices and at the same time independent on the values and numbers of the delays. Moreover, the asymptotic stability test of this system with delays can be abridged to the check of its corresponding 2D stochastic positive linear systems without delays. Many theorems were applied to prove that asymptotic stability for 3D stochastic positive linear systems with delays are equivalent to 2D stochastic positive linear systems without delays. The efficiency of the given methods is illustrated on some numerical examples. HIGHLIGHTS Various theorems were applied to prove the asymptoti
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Heat transfer process and fluid flow in a solar chimney used for natural ventilation are investigated numerically in the present work. Solar chimney was tested by selecting different positions of absorber namely: at the back side, front side, and at the middle of the air gap. CFD analysis based on finite volume method is used to predict the thermal performance, and air flow in two dimensional solar chimney under unsteady state condition, to identify the effect of different parameters such as solar radiation. Results show that a solar chimney with absorber at the middle of the air gap gives better ventilation performance. A comparison between the numerical and previous experimental results shows fair agreement.
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