Background: During Ramadan, Muslims fast throughout daylight hours. There is a direct link between fasting and increasing incidence of infections. Antibiotic usage for treatment of infections should be based on accurate diagnosis, with the correct dose and dosing regimen for the shortest period to avoid bacterial resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the practices of physicians in prescribing suitable antibiotics for fasting patients and the compliance of the patients in using such antibiotics at regular intervals. Materials and methods: An observational study was carried out during the middle 10 days of Ramadan 2014 in two pharmacies at Baghdad. A total of 34 prescriptions (Rx) for adults who suffered from infections were examined. For each included Rx, the researchers documented the age and sex of the patient, the diagnosis of the case, and the name of the given antibiotic(s) with dose and frequency of usage. A direct interview with the patient was also done, at which each patient was asked about fasting and if he/she would like to continue fasting during the remaining period of Ramadan. The patient was also asked if the physician asked him/her about fasting before writing the Rx. Results: More than two-thirds of participating patients were fasting during Ramadan. Antibiotics were prescribed at a higher percentage by dentists and surgeons, for which a single antibiotic with a twice-daily regimen was the most commonly prescribed by physicians for patients during the Ramadan month. Conclusion: Physicians fail to take patient fasting status into consideration when prescribing antibiotics for their fasting patients. Antibiotics with a twice-daily regimen are not suitable and best to be avoided for fasting patients in Iraq during Ramadan – especially if it occurs during summer months – to avoid treatment failure and provoking bacterial resistance. Keywords: fasting, Ramadan, antibiotics, dosing regimen
Mass transfer was examined at a stationary rectangular copper electrode (cathode) by using the reduction of cupric ions as the electrochemical reaction. The influence of electrolyte temperature (25, 45, and 65 oC), and cupric ions concentration (4, 8, and 12 mM) on mass transfer coefficient were investigated by using limiting current technique. The mass transfer coefficient and hence the Sherwood number was correlated as Sh =
In this paper, we derive and prove the stability bounds of the momentum coefficient µ and the learning rate ? of the back propagation updating rule in Artificial Neural Networks .The theoretical upper bound of learning rate ? is derived and its practical approximation is obtained
Due to the easily access to the satellite images, Google Earth (GE) images have become more popular than other online virtual globes. However, the popularity of GE is not an indication of its accuracy. A considerable amount of literature has been published on evaluating the positional accuracy of GE data; however there are few studies which have investigated the subject of improving the GE accuracy. In this paper, a practical method for enhancing the horizontal positional accuracy of GE is suggested by establishing ten reference points, in University of Baghdad main campus, using different Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observation techniques: Rapid Static, Post-Processing Kinematic, and Network. Then, the GE image for the study
... Show MoreImplementation of TSFS (Transposition, Substitution, Folding, and Shifting) algorithm as an encryption algorithm in database security had limitations in character set and the number of keys used. The proposed cryptosystem is based on making some enhancements on the phases of TSFS encryption algorithm by computing the determinant of the keys matrices which affects the implementation of the algorithm phases. These changes showed high security to the database against different types of security attacks by achieving both goals of confusion and diffusion.
There are many studies dealt with handoff management in mobile communication systems and some of these studies presented handoff schemes to manage this important process in cellular network. All previous schemes used relative signal strength (RSS) measurements. In this work, a new proposed handoff scheme had been presented depending not only on the RSS measurements but also used the threshold distance and neighboring BSS power margins in order to improve the handoff management process. We submitted here a threshold RSS as a condition to make a handoff when a mobile station moves from one cell to another this at first, then we submitted also a specified margin between the current received signal and the ongoing BS's received signal must be s
... Show MoreThe process of discovering pharmaceuticals is of great importance in our contemporary life, in a way that without life becomes almost impossible, as this process is the first building block in the field of pharmaceutical industries to search for new methods and means of treatment and treatment. But in fact, the fact that talking about this process is not that simple and easy, because this process is complicated and difficult in a way that makes it take a time range that in some cases reaches what is permissible ten years to reach a chemical formula that can be used later in the manufacturing process Pharmacokinetics, and during this long period of time, this process will have a set of effects, some of which are specific to the researcher di
... Show MorePredicting vertical stress was indeed useful for controlling geomechanical issues since it allowed for the computation of pore pressure for the formation and the classification of fault regimes. This study provides an in-depth observation of vertical stress prediction utilizing numerous approaches using the Techlog 2015 software. Gardner's method results in incorrect vertical stress values with a problem that this method doesn't start from the surface and instead relies only on sound log data. Whereas the Amoco, Wendt non-acoustic, Traugott, average technique simply needed density log as input and used a straight line as the observed density, this was incorrect for vertical computing stress. The results of these methods
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