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
The purpose of this interview study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of Response to Intervention (RtI) implementation in their school. Particularly, the study explored teachers’ knowledge of RtI, teachers’ perceptions of RtI their intervention/instruction in school, and teachers’ suggestions of RtI implementation in their school. The study design was a qualitative interview in nature and data were collected from face-to-face interviews with four teachers in one school. The findings revealed that RtI means to identify students’ problems; the positive teachers’ perceptions of their implementation included: (a) students who demonstrate progress through RtI are those who receive private education services, (b) progress monito
... Show MoreThis paper examines the change in planning pattern In Lebanon, which relies on vehicles as a semi-single mode of transport, and directing it towards re-shaping the city and introducing concepts of "smooth or flexible" mobility in its schemes; the concept of a "compact city" with an infrastructure based on a flexible mobility culture. Taking into consideration environmental, economical and health risks of the existing model, the paper focuses on the four foundations of the concepts of "city based on culture flexible mobility, "and provides a SWOT analysis to encourage for a shift in the planning methodology.
Aggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most significant and complicated problems in production planning and aim to set overall production levels for each product category to meet fluctuating or uncertain demand in future. and to set decision concerning hiring, firing, overtime, subcontract, carrying inventory level. In this paper, we present a simulated annealing (SA) for multi-objective linear programming to solve APP. SA is considered to be a good tool for imprecise optimization problems. The proposed model minimizes total production and workforce costs. In this study, the proposed SA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that the proposed SA is effective in reducing total production costs and req
... Show MoreThe concrete industry consumes millions of tons of aggregate comprising of natural sands and gravels, each year. In recent years there has been an increasing trend towards using recycled aggregate to save natural resources and to produce lightweight concrete. This study investigates the possibility of using waste plastic as one of the components of lead-acid batteries to replace the fine aggregate by 50 and 70% by volume of concrete masonry units. Compared to the reference concrete mix, results demonstrated that a reduction of approximately 32.5% to 39.6% in the density for replacement of 50% to 70% respectively. At 28 days curing age, the compressive strength was decreased while the water absorption increased by increas
... Show MoreIn this paper, we build a fuzzy classification system for classifying the nutritional status of children under 5 years old in Iraq using the Mamdani method based on input variables such as weight and height to determine the nutritional status of the child. Also, Classifying the nutritional status faces a difficult challenge in the medical field due to uncertainty and ambiguity in the variables and attributes that determine the categories of nutritional status for children, which are relied upon in medical diagnosis to determine the types of malnutrition problems and identify the categories or groups suffering from malnutrition to determine the risks faced by each group or category of children. Malnutrition in children is one of the most
... Show MoreThe present study aims at representing the importance of Quranic readings in the interpretation of the meaning of the Holly Quran in Imam Al Wahidi’s interpretation “Al Wasiet”, declaring its meaning, and eliminating of the paradox which takes place when trying to understand the intention of the Almighty Allah in His Holly book. The study aims at:
1- Defining the paradox linguistically and in terminology according to the formatives or the fundamentalists, the scientist of interpretation and of the Quranic sciences.
2-Reasoning paradox in the Quranic readings: Believing in matters that disagree with the Holly Quran and Sunnis, variety of the subjects in the verses, disagreement of the place and the place for the vers
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Iraqi conventional gasoline characterized by its low octane number not exceed 82 and high lead and sulfur content. In this paper tri-component or ternary, blends of gasoline, ethanol, and methanol presented as an alternative fuel for Iraqi conventional gasoline. The study conducted by using GEM blend that equals E85 blend in octane rating. The used GEM selected from Turner, 2010 collection. G37 E20 M43 (37% gasoline + 20% ethanol+ 43% methanol) was chosen as GEM in present study. This blend used in multi-cylinder Mercedes engine, and the engine performance, and emitted emissions compared with that produced by a gasoline engine.
The results show that this blend can formulate with available Iraqi pro
... Show MoreThe current research aims to reveal the reality of coping the scientific research in Omani universities in the Sultanate of Oman with the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the light of Oman’s 2040 vision. It also aims derive some suggestions to develop the scientific research in these institutions. The study has adopted a qualitative approach in which interviews were conducted. The sample consisted of (16) leaders of governmental and private higher education institutions, as well as, some experts in the field of Fourth Industrial Revolution. The theoretical significance of the study is represented by its response to Oman’s vison in 2040. It is further in line with the previous international reports and educational s
... Show MoreMixture experiments are response variables based on the proportions of component for this mixture. In our research we will compare the scheffʼe model with the kronecker model for the mixture experiments, especially when the experimental area is restricted.
Because of the experience of the mixture of high correlation problem and the problem of multicollinearity between the explanatory variables, which has an effect on the calculation of the Fisher information matrix of the regression model.
to estimate the parameters of the mixture model, we used the (generalized inverse ) And the Stepwise Regression procedure
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