Background:-The Modified Alvarado Scoring System (MASS) has been reported to be a cheap and quick diagnostic tool in patients with acute appendicitis. However, differences in diagnostic accuracy have been observed if the scores were applied to various populations and clinical settings.
Objectives:- The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of Modified Alvarado Scoring System in patients with acute appendicitis in our setting.
Methods:-one hundre twenty eight patients ,were included in this study, admitted to Al-Kindy teaching hospital from June 2009 to June 2010. Patients’ age ranged from 8 to 56 years (21±10) they were divided into three groups; paediatrics, child bearing age females & adult males,. MASS was calculated for each patient included as the diagnosis & treatment were done on the bases of surgeon's clinical decision,confirmation was done by histopathological examination. Finally statistics done included negative appendectomy rate, sensitivity,specificity,positive predictive value,negative predictive value & accuracy.
Results:- Our negative appendectomy rate was 19.5% (22.22% for paediatrics 40.9% for females 4.2% for males). MASS showed sensitivity of 61%(92.8% for paediatrics 38% for females & 58% for males), specificity 80% (75% for paediatrics 88% for females & 50% for males), positive predictive value 92%(92.8% for paediatrics 83% for females 50% for males), negative predictive value 33% ( 75%for paediatrics 50% for females 5% for males) & accuracy 65% ( 88.9% for paediatrics 59% for females 58% for males).
Conclusion:- MASS was of limited help to junior doctors in our setting,clinical assessment & experience are still the gold standard for acute appendicitis.
The durability of asphalt pavement is associated with the properties and performance of the binder. This work-study intended to understand the impact of blending Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) to conventional asphalt concrete mixtures and calculating the Optimum Asphalt Content (OAC) for conventional mixture also; compare the performance between SBS modified with the conventional mixture. Two different kinds of asphalt penetration grades, A.C. (40-50) and A.C. (60-70), were improved with 2.5 and 3.5% SBS polymer, respectively. Marshall properties were determined in this work. Optimum Asphalt Content (OAC) was 4.93 and 5.1% by weight of mixture for A.C. (40-50) and (60-70), respectively. Marshall properties results show an increasem
... Show MoreA new class of biologically active nanocomposites and modified polymers based on poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with some organic compounds [II, IV, V and VI] were synthesized using silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs). All compounds were synthesized using nucleophilic substitution interactions and characterized by FTIR, DSC and TGA. The biological activity of the modified polymers was evaluated against: gram (+) (staphylococcus aureus) and gram (-): (Es cherichia coli bacteria). Antimicrobial films are developed based on modified poly (vinyl alcohol) MPVA and Ag-NPs nanoparticles. The nanocomposites and modified polymers showed better antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli (Gram negative) than against Staphyloc
... Show MoreLinde Type-A (LTA) zeolite was modified by adding lead sulfide into cavities of zeolite. The zeolite and zeolite –pbs were characterized by FTIR, XRD, AFM and SEM. The adsorption of congo red (CR) dye from aqueous solution by zeolite and zeolite – pbs were studied. Different parameters like contact time, temperature and concentration of (CR) dye were investigated. The results show that at contact time of 45, 30 min for maximum adsorption of (CR) dye onto zeolite and zeolite -pbs respectively were observed. The kinetic data was analyzed using pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The adsorption kinetics of (CR) dye were fitted well with the pseudo-second-order k
... Show MoreThis paper deals with the mathematical method for extracting the Exponential Rayleighh distribution based on mixed between the cumulative distribution function of Exponential distribution and the cumulative distribution function of Rayleigh distribution using an application (maximum), as well as derived different statistical properties for distribution, and present a structure of a new distribution based on a modified weighted version of Azzalini’s (1985) named Modified Weighted Exponential Rayleigh distribution such that this new distribution is generalization of the distribution and provide some special models of the distribution, as well as derived different statistical properties for distribution
In this research the results of applying Artificial Neural Networks with modified activation function to perform the online and offline identification of four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) manipulator robot will be described. The proposed model of identification strategy consists of a feed-forward neural network with a modified activation function that operates in parallel with the SCARA robot model. Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) which have been trained online and offline have been used, without requiring any previous knowledge about the system to be identified. The activation function that is used in the hidden layer in FFNN is a modified version of the wavelet function. This approach ha
... Show MoreIn this research the results of applying Artificial Neural Networks with modified activation function to
perform the online and offline identification of four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) Selective Compliance
Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) manipulator robot will be described. The proposed model of
identification strategy consists of a feed-forward neural network with a modified activation function that
operates in parallel with the SCARA robot model. Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) which have
been trained online and offline have been used, without requiring any previous knowledge about the
system to be identified. The activation function that is used in the hidden layer in FFNN is a modified
version of the wavelet func
In this research, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is prepared through the Hummers method with a slight change in some of the work steps, thus, a new method has been created for preparing carbon nanotubes which is similar to the original Hummers method that is used to prepare graphene oxide. Then, the suspension carbon nanotubes is transferred to a simple electrode position platform consisting of two electrodes and the cell body for the coating and reduction of the carbon nanotubes on ITO glass which represents the cathode electrode while platinum represents the anode electrode. The deposited layer of carbon nanotubes is examined through the scanning electron microscope technique (SEM), and the images throughout the research show the
... Show MoreThe operation and management of water resources projects have direct and significant effects on the optimum use of water. Artificial intelligence techniques are a new tool used to help in making optimized decisions, based on knowledge bases in the planning, implementation, operation and management of projects as well as controlling flowing water quantities to prevent flooding and storage of excess water and use it during drought.
In this research, an Expert System was designed for operating and managing the system of AthTharthar Lake (ESSTAR). It was applied for all expected conditions of flow, including the cases of drought, normal flow, and during floods. Moreover, the cases of hypothetical op
... Show MoreIn data transmission a change in single bit in the received data may lead to miss understanding or a disaster. Each bit in the sent information has high priority especially with information such as the address of the receiver. The importance of error detection with each single change is a key issue in data transmission field.
The ordinary single parity detection method can detect odd number of errors efficiently, but fails with even number of errors. Other detection methods such as two-dimensional and checksum showed better results and failed to cope with the increasing number of errors.
Two novel methods were suggested to detect the binary bit change errors when transmitting data in a noisy media.Those methods were: 2D-Checksum me
A new modified differential evolution algorithm DE-BEA, is proposed to improve the reliability of the standard DE/current-to-rand/1/bin by implementing a new mutation scheme inspired by the bacterial evolutionary algorithm (BEA). The crossover and the selection schemes of the DE method are also modified to fit the new DE-BEA mechanism. The new scheme diversifies the population by applying to all the individuals a segment based scheme that generates multiple copies (clones) from each individual one-by-one and applies the BEA segment-wise mechanism. These new steps are embedded in the DE/current-to-rand/bin scheme. The performance of the new algorithm has been compared with several DE variants over eighteen benchmark functions including sever
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