Background: Mitral regurgitation (MR) is the most commonly encountered valve lesion in modern clinical practice. Severe mitral regurgitation may cause systolic dysfunction. Left ventricular ejection fraction may not be an accurate measurement of LV function in patients with mitral insufficiency. Myocardial performance index (MPI) is a simple non invasive measure of myocardial function. Methods: The study involved 50 patients with valvular mitral regurgitation and 50 healthy subjects as a control group. Transthoracic echocardiography was carried out for all patients and control group. The echocardiographic measurements included left ventricular end diastolic and end systolic dimensions, left atrial diameter, ejection fraction (EF), and myoca

The constructed building in the urban area is subject to wind characteristics due to the influence of surrounding buildings. The residential complexes currently being built in Iraq represent a case study for the subject of this research. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the interference effect because of adjacent buildings effects on the mid-rise building. The speed and pressure of the wind have been numerically simulated as well as wind load has been simulated by using a virtual wind tunnel which is available in Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis, RSA, software. Two identical adjacent buildings have been simulated and many coefficients were included in this study such as the spacing, directionality,

Through an experimental program of eighteen specimens presented in this paper, the bond strength between reinforcing bar and rubberized concrete was produced by adding waste tire rubber instead of natural aggregate. The fine and coarse aggregate was replaced in 0%, 25%, and 50% with the small pieces of a waste tire. Natural aggregate replacement ratio, rebar size, embedded rebar length, the rebar yield stress of rebar, cover, and concrete compressive strength were studied in this investigation. Ultimate bond stress, bond stress-slip response, and failure modes were presented. The experimental results reported that a reduction of 19% in bond strength was noticed in 50% replaced rubberized concrete compared with convention

This study aims to derive a sustainable human development index for the Arab countries by using the principal components analysis, which can help in reducing the number of data in the case of multiple variables.  This can be relied upon in the interpretation and tracking sustainable human development in the Arab countries in the view of the multiplicity of sustainable human development indicators and its huge data, beside the heterogeneity of countries in a range of characteristics associated with indicators of sustainable human development such as area, population, and economic activity. The study attempted to use the available data to the selected Arab countries for the recent years. This study concluded that a single inde

One of the most important techniques for preparing nanoparticle material is Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquid technique (PLAL). Carbon nanoparticles were prepared using PLAL, and the carbon target was immersed in Ultrapure water (UPW) then irradiated with Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) and six ns pulse duration. In this process, an Nd:YAG laser beam was focused near the carbon surface. Nanoparticles synthesized using laser irradiation were studied by observing the effects of varying incident laser pulse intensities (250, 500, 750, 1000) mJ on the particle size (20.52, 36.97, 48.72, and 61.53) nm, respectively. In addition, nanoparticles were characterized by means of the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) test, pH easurement

Abstract: In this work we demonstrate and investigate the optical pulse propagation in a photonic band gap fiber Bragg grating (FBG). The light propagates in opposite direction in FBG is explained and discussed by a Coupled Mode Theory (CMT). The photonic band gap (stop band gap) is created by fabricated, a Bragg grating in optical fiber. The results show the pulse spectrum falls entirely within the stop band gap, the entire pulse is reflected by the grating, while when the pulse spectrum is outside the stop band gap the pulses will transmitted through the grating. The group velocity (VG) becomes zero at the edges of the stop band and group velocity dispersion β2 is anomalous on the shorter side of stop band gap whereas β2 for uniform fi

Jumping ability is a fundamental variable in many sports, as its execution requires an integration of muscular strength Q1 and certain biomechanical variables. This is particularly evident in gymnastics jumping events and jump shots in ball games, both of which rely on a high level of vertical resistance. Vertical resistance serves as an indicator of an athlete’s ability to overcome their body weight while counteracting gravitational force to achieve optimal performance. As such, it is considered one of the key factors in movements that demand explosive power and speed. The researchers believe that despite the significant relationship between vertical resistance, speed-strength of the arms and legs, and certain biomechanical varia

Rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) are essential materials in structural applications due to their thermal insulation, lightweight properties, and mechanical strength. However, evaluating and comparing their compressive performance is complicated by differences in formulation parameters such as density, aging, and crosslink density. This study proposes a standardized normalization approach to evaluate compressive properties across diverse RPUF formulations by adjusting all data to a common reference density. Samples were subjected to controlled aging conditions and analyzed using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) to investigate the relationship between crosslinking behavior and mechanical performance. The results demonstrate

For a connected topological space M we define the homeomorphism and period noncoincidence indices of M, each of them is topological invariant reflecting the abundance of fixed point free self homeomorphisms and periodic point free self maps defined on M respectively. We give some results for computing each of these indices and we give some examples and some results relating these indices with Hoffman index.