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.
A mathematical model has been formulated to predict the influence of high outdoor air temperature on the performance of small scale air - conditioning system using R22 and alternative refrigerants R290, R407C, R410A. All refrigerants were investigated in the cooling mode operation. The mathematical model results have been validated with experimental data extracted from split type air conditioner of 2 TR capacity. This entailed the construction of an experimental test rig which consists of four main parts. They are, the refrigeration system, psychrometric test facility, measuring instrumentation, and auxiliary systems. The conditioned air was maintained at 25 0C dry bulb and 19 0C wet bulb for all tests. The outdoor ambient air temperatur
... Show MoreLeap Motion Controller (LMC) is a gesture sensor consists of three infrared light emitters and two infrared stereo cameras as tracking sensors. LMC translates hand movements into graphical data that are used in a variety of applications such as virtual/augmented reality and object movements control. In this work, we intend to control the movements of a prosthetic hand via (LMC) in which fingers are flexed or extended in response to hand movements. This will be carried out by passing in the data from the Leap Motion to a processing unit that processes the raw data by an open-source package (Processing i3) in order to control five servo motors using a micro-controller board. In addition, haptic setup is proposed using force sensors (F
... Show MoreDue to the potential cost saving and minimal temperature stratification, the energy storage based on phase-change materials (PCMs) can be a reliable approach for decoupling energy demand from immediate supply availability. However, due to their high heat resistance, these materials necessitate the introduction of enhancing additives, such as expanded surfaces and fins, to enable their deployment in more widespread thermal and energy storage applications. This study reports on how circular fins with staggered distribution and variable orientations can be employed for addressing the low thermal response rates in a PCM (Paraffin RT-35) triple-tube heat exchanger consisting of two heat-transfer fluids flow in opposites directions throug
... Show MoreThis study aims to assess the accuracy of digital elevation model (DEM) created with utilization of handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) and comparing with Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM), version 2. It is known that the quality of the DEM is affected by both of accuracy of elevation at each pixel (absolute accuracy) and accuracy of presented morphology (relative accuracy). The University of Baghdad, Al Jadriya campus was selected as a study area to create and analysis the resulting DEM. Additionally, Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to visualize, analyses and interpolate GPS track points (elevation data) of the study area. In this
... Show MoreTo damp the low-frequency oscillations which occurred due to the disturbances in the electrical power system, the generators are equipped with Power System Stabilizer (PSS) that provide supplementary feedback stabilizing signals. The low-frequency oscillations in power system are classified as local mode oscillations, intra-area mode oscillation, and interarea mode oscillations. Double input multiband Power system stabilizers (PSSs) were used to damp out low-frequency oscillations in power system. Among dual-input PSSs, PSS4B offers superior transient performance. Power system simulator for engineering (PSS/E) software was adopted to test and evaluate the dynamic performance of PSS4B model on Iraqi national grid. The res
... Show MoreThe subject of an valuation of quality of construction projects is one of the topics which it becomes necessary of the absence of the quantity standards in measuring the control works and the quality valuation standards in constructional projects. In the time being it depends on the experience of the workers which leads to an apparent differences in the valuation.
The idea of this research came to put the standards to evaluate the quality of the projects in a special system depending on quantity scale nor quality specifying in order to prepare an expert system “ Crystal “ to apply this special system to able the engineers to valuate the quality of their projects easily and in more accurate ways.
This paper presents an improved technique on Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm. The procedure is applied on Single Machine with Infinite Bus (SMIB) system with power system stabilizer (PSS) at three different loading regimes. The simulations are made by using MATLAB software. The results show that by using Improved Ant Colony Optimization (IACO) the system will give better performance with less number of iterations as it compared with a previous modification on ACO. In addition, the probability of selecting the arc depends on the best ant performance and the evaporation rate.
An experiment was conducted to study the effect of the sprayer type according to the source of power and the size of the spray nozzle concerning the quality of the spray produced and fuel consumption.Two types of sprayers were used: a conventional boom sprayer (S1) and a modified (electrified) boom sprayer (S2), along with three sizes of the XR TeeJet 110 spray nozzle (N). The following technical performance indicators were examined: Density of coverage (drops/cm2) using ImageJ software, a 600dpi business card scanner, specifically the ScanShell 800N by CSSN, Inc, and water-sensitive paper (WSP), rate of spray nozzles discharge (ml/min), and fuel consumption (liters/hectare) using a c