Evaluation of medication package inserts in Saudi Arabia

Sinaa A Al-aqeelClinical Pharmacy Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaPurpose: The aim of this study was to examine if package inserts (PIs) supplied with prescribed and over-the-counter medications in Saudi Arabia contain information relevant for the safe and appropriate use of these medications.Methods: Sixty PIs for prescription-only medications (n = 37) and over-the-counter medications (n = 23) were evaluated against a set of safety criteria compiled from the literature.Results: Analyzed PIs were defective in many aspects. Particularly of concern were unclear dosage instructions, lack of measures to be taken when an administrative error was made, inappropriate presentation of side effects, and lack of measures to be taken if serious side effects occurred.Conclusion: This study indicated that information relevant to the safe and appropriate use of medications was not uniformly mentioned in the PIs analyzed. To avoid medication errors due to deficits in the current PIs, we recommend improvement in the existing PIs based on best practice for information content and design.Keywords: drug information, patient education, patient information leaflets, package insert

Impact of Climate Changes on the Hydrochemistry of Razaza Lake and Rahaliya – Shithatha Springs – Central Iraq

The climate parameters, rainfall, temperature data for more than forty years for three Iraqi meteorological stations (Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul) were studied .The results show good evidence of climate change indicated by the remarkable decrease of the average means annual rainfall in the studied stations, with the remarkable increase of the average minimum annual temperature. The impact of the climatic change on the hydrochemistry of Razaza lake and Rahaliya – Shithatha springs was obvious in increasing the water salinity as studied for years 1995 and 2013. The average mean annual rainfall for ten years intervals indicate that there were a remarkable decrease in amount of rainfall from 90 mm for the period 1992-2001 to about 71 mm for the period 2002- 2013.  The Razzaza lake water has indicated that chloride group and one major family (Chloride-sodium family) is the dominant for years 1995 and 2013 with increase of Mg ions during 2013. The Rahaliya – Shithatha springs’ water has showed that the sulphate and chloride groups are dominant for years 1995 and 2013, with increase of sulphate group to 80% during 2013. Keywords: Climatic changes, hydrochemistry, Razaza lake and Rahaliya – Shithatha springs, Iraq

A study on the feeding of shrimp larvae of Macrobrachium nipponense on algae in vitro

Experiments were carried out for the propagation and rearing of Macrobrachium nipponense and its feeding on algae, with the aim of determining the density, survival, and growth of larvae in vitro. Hatched larvae of zoae were reared at a density of 50 zoea/L with algae mixture: Chlorella vulgaris, Scenedesmus sp., Pediastrium sp., Microctinium sp., Navicula sp., Ulothrix sp., Cyclotella sp., Daitoma sp. at three concentrations of 0.5=A, 1.0=B, 1.5=C x 10⁵ cell/ml, and the survival % rates of zoea larvae were 45.00±5.00, 53.33±7.64, 50.00±5.00 respectively. Then, three densities: 25=A, 50=B, 75=C zoea/L were tested by feeding them with the best concentration of 1.0×10⁵ cell/ml for 10 days, with the result being survival % rates were  50.00±5.00, 51.67±7.64, 31.67±7.64, respectively. After that, stage post-larvae were reared at a density of (50=A,100=B, 150=C) Pl/pond and fed with a concentration of 1.0 x 10⁵ cell/ml of the algae mixture for 28 days, which resulted in survival % rates of 48.33±7.64, 40.00±5.00, 33.33±7.64, and this stage, weight was 50.67±2.08, 50.00±2.00, 40.33±2.52mg respectively. The results of the analysis of survival rates for different densities of zoea larvae found significant differences (P < 0.05) between density C and density of both A and B, of which there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) between them. There were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in the survival rates of zoea in different concentrations of the selected algae. Also, there were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in the survival rates and weight rate of post-larvae when fed on algae (B)

Design and implementation 4x4 Network on Chip (NoC) using FPGA

The Network on chip is one of the most crucial in the development of the networks and routers in new days due to the improvement that make through way of sending huge packets of data and technology and protocol that used for sending the packets between IP cores. Also the NoC is removed the old ways of technique and protocols of sending packets through routers. The NoC is the most enhanced and efficient in working in parallel ways. Hence, Field Program Gate Array (FPGA) is used in the designing of router that its architecture depending on the NoC. The research proposed in this paper proposed 4x4 nodes router with mesh network that support two dimensional architecture. A real time test is used for experimental through FPGA and the test verified efficient packets transporting via two array buffers that integrated in the proposed router architecture

ASSOCIATION OF ANTI-CYCLIC CITRULLINATED PEPTIDE ANTIBODY IN A SAMPLE OF ADULT PATIENTS WITH PSORIASIS AND PSORIATIC ARTHROPATHY

Objective: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic inflammatory arthropathy commonly associated with psoriasis, a large number of patients with PsA that has persistent inflammation may develop progressive joint damage and disability and have reduced life expectancy. This study aims to determine the associations of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibodies in adult patients with psoriasis and PsA.Methods: A case–control study was conducted at Baghdad teaching hospital, Units of Rheumatology and Dermatology, during the period from December 2016 to April 2017 including three groups; 40 patients with psoriasis, 40 patients with PsA fulfilling the CASPAR classification criteria, and 40 healthy control persons.Results: Two patients with psoriasis (5%) and 10 patients with PsA (25%) were seropositive for anti-CCP antibodies (ACPA). Healthy controls were negative for anti-CCPA. Regarding ACPA positivity, a significant difference was found between those three studied groups (p<0.001) and there was a significant difference between positive and negative ACPA in PsA patients regarding disease activity score (p=0.044).Conclusion: Positive ACPA were found more significant with PsA than in patients with psoriasis as well as associated with higher disease activity

Oxidative responses and genetic stability of date palm Phoenix dactylifera L. Barhi cv. under salinity stress.

This study was aimed to investigate the oxidative responses and genetic stability of date palm Phoenix dactylifera L. under different irrigation water salinity, date palm off shoots cv. Barhi subjected to different concentrations of NaCl (100, 200, 300 and 400 µM) for 180 days. The obtained results showed that, the date palm responses to salinity stress, this responses was increased of H2O2 level, Peroxidase activity and Malondialdehyde MDA concentration with increase NaCl concentration, while opposite trend with membrane stability index, which H2O2 was increased from(0.73 µM/g) in control to (2.20 µM/g) in 400 µM treatment, MDA was increased from (2.35 nmole/g) in control to (nmole/g) in 400 µM treatment, also peroxidase activity was reached to (39.59 U/min/g) in 400 µM treatment, while was (20.73 U/min/g) in control and Membrane stability index reduction significantly from (81.36%) in control to (64.13%) in 400 µM treatment.  In terms of genetic stability of date palm under salinity stress, the ISSR markers analysis showed that, the high concentrations of NaCl (200, 300 and 400 µM) produced more polymorphic fragments comparison to control treatment, while the DNA profile was identical between control and 100 µMtreatment.Dendogram was generated using similarity indices of ISSR markers showed, the lowest genetic similarity was found between 400 µM NaCl concentration and control and 100 µM treatment, followed with both 200 and 300 µM treatments, which the control and 100 µM treatment was grouped in one cluster, also treatments with 200 and 300 µM grouped in one cluster, while the treatment with 400 µM NaCl separated in cluster. Keywords: ISSR, Genetic stability, Oxidative stress, Peroxidase, MDA, membrane peroxidatio

Main Reasons for Using of PPP Contracts in Health Sector: An Analytical Study

The health sector in Iraq had faced enormous challenges. The health care system suffered a catastrophic deterioration under the former regime. The 1991 Gulf war incurred Iraq’s major infrastructures huge damages; includes health centers, clinics, hospitals, etc. The United Nations economic sanctions aggravated the deterioration process. The level of health care in Iraq has dropped markedly as the government budget allocated to the Ministry of Health (MOH) had decreased from $450 million in 1970 to about$ 250 million in 1985 then the annual total health budget for the ministry, a decade after the sanctions had fallen to $ 22 million which is barely 5% of what it was in the 1970s. On the other hand, the conflict of 2003 destroyed an estimated 12 percent of hospitals. Moreover, the war at 2014 held on ISIS-led to almost total destruction in most hospitals in the Central and Northern provinces. All this requires a quick strategy to advance the health sector and create a sustainable health sector. The researchers in this study will demonstrate, what are the pros and cons of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contracts, how can be used in the Iraqi health sector, the main causes of dependence the MOH to using the PPP contracts in the all existing and the unfinished hospitals

Study of effective calculation operation implementation remaining multi-bit numbers division on FPGA

The rapid enhanced in the fields of the computers that leads to rapid breaking for ciphering algorithms and for these reasons most of ciphering algorithm tried to used multidigit for ciphering texts or images. Using the multidigit will increase the safety of information and protected it from supercomputer from breaking the ciphering algorithms. The current information systems employ operations on finite fields of various structures (for example, cryptographic systems). In this instance, it's common to have to deal with enormous numbers (128 bits or more). The proposed operation of discovering the remainder of the division of multidigit numbers will considerably improve the speed of such systems if implemented

Sprinkler Irrigation Systems and Water Saving, A Case Study from South of Iraq

The irrigation systems modernization is a part of water resources management improvement process which requires a decision support system, the core of such system is an automated procedure for simulating the relevant processes governing the system. Simulation models have been used in two phases in this research for two specified areas within Maysan and Wasit provinces in Iraq with an area of 480×250 meters for each province, which have been taken as a case study to redesign and replace the existing open channel network with the new sprinkler irrigation system. The first phase is to find a crop water requirement and irrigation requirements for maize, wheat and barley using CROPWAT 8.0 simulation model, while the second phase includes the irrigation network design using EPANET 2.0 simulation model to perform extended period simulation of hydraulic behavior within pressurized pipe networks, in addition to, the SPAW model which have been used to evaluate soil characteristics. This study has revealed that the designed sprinkler system capacity is 113m3/hr with 5.04 mm/hr precipitation rate. The designed sprinkler system can be used to irrigate different crop types including maize, barley and wheat. Since, the sprinkler system has been designed to meet the maize irrigation water requirements which is the heights requiring water consumer crop the during the summer season, then it has the ability to meet the different winter cereals irrigation requirements. The designed system can be used in the different regions of Iraq generally and southern regions, especially because it has been designed to suit the soil that characterized by moderate, slow infiltration rates in addition to suit areas of relatively high wind speed which affecting the water distribution uniformity and slow infiltration rates of soils

Equivalent Modulus of Asphalt Concrete Layers

A flexible pavement structure usually comprises more than one asphalt layer, with varying thicknesses and properties, in order to carry the traffic smoothly and safely. It is easy to characterize each asphalt layer with different tests to give a full description of that layer; however, the performance of the whole; asphalt structure needs to be properly understood. Typically, pavement analysis is carried out using multi-layer linear elastic assumptions, via equations and computer programs such as KENPAVE, BISAR, etc. These types of analysis give the response parameters including stress, strain, and deflection at any point under the wheel load. This paper aims to estimate the equivalent Resilient Modulus (MR) of the asphalt concrete layers within a pavement structure by using their individual MR values. To achieve this aim, eight samples were cored from Iraqi Expressway no. 1; they had three layers of asphalt and were tested to obtain the MR of each core by using the uniaxial repeated loading test at 25 and 40 °C. The samples were then cut to separate each layer individually and tested for MR at the same testing temperatures; thus, a total of 60 resilient modulus tests were conducted. A new approach was introduced to estimate the equivalent MR as a function of the MR value for each layer. The results matched the values obtained by KENPAVE analysis