Background: Acute appendicitis is a common surgical
problem that is associated with an acute-phase reaction.
Previous studies have shown that cytokines and acutephase proteins are activated and may serve as indicators for
appendicitis.
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate of serum
levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in correlation to the severity
to acute appendicitis.
Methods: This is a prospective study from December 2008
to March 2009 of patients who had appendectomy in
Department of Surgery, Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital -
Baghdad/Iraq. Serum for estimating levels of interleukin-6
(IL-6) was taken pre-operatively. Depending on the
macroscopic evidence during the operation and the
histopathological examination of the specimens, the
patients were separated into 3 groups, group one with
negative appendectomy (normal appendix), group two with
non-complicated acute appendicitis (catarrhal,
suppurative), and group three with complicated acute
appendicitis (perforated, gangrenous). The
histopathological results were correlated with IL-6 values
statistically.
Results: A total number of 50 patients were included in
this study, 28 male (56%) and 22 female (44%). The mean
age was 23 year (ranged from 7 to 50). On histological
examination, there were 7 patients (14%) in group one, 29
patients (58%) in group two, and 14 patients (28%) in
group three. Serum IL-6 values gave true negative results
in 6%, true positive results in 82%, false negative results in
4%, and false positive results in 8%. We determined,
therefore, in the present study the sensitivity, specificity,
and accuracy of serum IL-6 were calculated as 95.34%,
42.85%, and 88% respectively.
Conclusion: Laboratory results should be considered to be
integrated within the clinical assessment. If used critically,
IL-6 can provide surgeons with complementary
information in discerning the necessity for urgent
operation
Polyacrylonitrile nanofiber (PANFS), a well-known polymers, has been extensively employed in the manufacturing of carbon nanofibers (CNFS), which have recently gained substantial attention due to their excellent features, such as spinnability, environmental friendliness, and commercial feasibility. Because of their high carbon yield and versatility in tailoring the final CNFS structure, In addition to the simple formation of ladder structures through nitrile polymerization to yield stable products, CNFS and PAN have been the focus of extensive research as potential production precursors. For instance, the development of biomedical and high-performance composites has now become achievable. PAN homopolymer or PAN-based precursor copolymer can
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... Show MoreIn this study, the response of ten composite post-tensioned concrete beams topped by a reinforced concrete deck with adequate reinforcing shear connectors is investigated. Depending on the concrete compressive strength of the deck slab (20, 30, and 40 MPa), beams are grouped into three categories. Seven of these beams are exposed to a fire attack of 700 and 800 °C temperature simultaneously with or without the presence of a uniformly distributed sustained static loading. After cooling back to ambient temperature, these composite beams are loaded up to failure, using a force control module, by monotonic static loading in a four-point-bending setup with two symmetrical concentrated loads applied in
In this work, diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films were prepared from Cyclohexane. Thin films were deposited on quartz substrate by atmospheric pressure Argon plasma jet system. The plasma jet system was applying high voltage sinusoidal waves of frequency 28 kHz and potential difference of 7.5kV peak to peak across the electrodes. The effect of annealing at 400, 500 and 600 °C under vacuum for two hours on optical properties and structural properties of the DLC thin films were investigated. This effect was clarified by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, UV-Visible absorption, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Raman Spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction patterns for the annealing DLC thin films show two broad peaks at 2θ, 26.62° and 51.58
... Show More<p>Analyzing X-rays and computed tomography-scan (CT scan) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN) method is a very interesting subject, especially after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, a study is made on 423 patients’ CT scan images from Al-Kadhimiya (Madenat Al Emammain Al Kadhmain) hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, to diagnose if they have COVID or not using CNN. The total data being tested has 15000 CT-scan images chosen in a specific way to give a correct diagnosis. The activation function used in this research is the wavelet function, which differs from CNN activation functions. The convolutional wavelet neural network (CWNN) model proposed in this paper is compared with regular convol
... Show MoreIn this work, two cone-inverted cylindrical and cross-hybrid dielectric resonator antennas are stacked and excited by the coaxial probe method with an operating standard resonant frequency of 5.438 GHz. A drawback of these standard Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) is their narrow bandwidth. For good antenna performance, a stacked DR geometry and a thick dielectric substrate having a low dielectric constant are desired since this provides large bandwidth, better radiation power, reduces conductor loss and nonappearance of surface waves. Many approaches, such as changing the shape of the dielectric resonator, have been used to enhance bandwidth. Using DRA, having the lowest dielectric constant, increases the bandwidth and the electroma
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