Snake bite on scrotum – a case report

A 22-year old man was bitten by a snake on his scrotum. This interesting and unusual case occurred in the rural area of District Aligarh, India. The uniqueness of the case lies in the fact that scrotum is an extremely rare and unusual site for snake bite. Further, with negligible local signs of envenoming the patient presented with classical signs of neurotoxicity. Due to numerous superstitions associated with snake bite, the patient was treated with traditional home made ointment before coming to hospital. The authors realized that the case may be brought to the notice of the readers because the scrotal bite by the snake with no local signs of envenomation is the first reported case

Concept of Ar-Rahn in Islamic finance : another alternatives

In today's world more people rely on getting money by mortgaging their properties. It is done because of many reasons such as maintaining daily life or funding the expensive tertiary studies. In today's conventional mortgage has prove that by pledging their properties it could be risky and may end up leaves them at worst homeless. It is because the interest in today's conventional mortgage seems to be a burden to some people.Base on this situation, many people especially Muslim are becoming aw'are and change their choice from conventional mortgage to more Islamic way which is Ar-Ralm. It is mention in Al-quran is that as a Muslim he/she should take Ar-Rahn. Plus the cons in conventional mortgage is that it is heavily rely on riba which is vel)' clearly stated it is Haram for a muslim to be involved with the

Stroke following percutaneous coronary intervention : type-specific incidence, outcomes and determinants seen by the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society 2007-12

Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2015. For permissions please email: [email protected] reviewedPostprin

'Midwives are the backbone of our health system': Lessons from afghanistan to guide expansion of midwifery in challenging settings

Background: over the last decade Afghanistan has made large investments in scaling up the number of midwives to address access to skilled care and the high burden of maternal and newborn mortality. Objective: at the request of the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) an evaluation was undertaken to improve the pre-service midwifery education programme through identification of its strengths and weaknesses. The qualitative component of the evaluation specifically examined: (1) programme strengths; (2) programme weaknesses; (3) perceptions of the programme's community impact; (4) barriers to provision of care and challenges to impact; (5) perceptions of the recently graduated midwife's field experience, and (6) recommendations for programme improvement. Design: the evaluation used a mixed methods approach that included qualitative and quantitative components. This paper focuses on the qualitative components which included in-depth interviews with 138 graduated midwives and 20 key informants as well as 24 focus group discussions with women. Setting: eight provinces in Afghanistan with functioning and accredited midwifery schools between June 2008 and November 2010. Participants: midwives graduated from one of the two national midwifery programmes: Institute of Health Sciences and Community Midwifery Education. Key informants comprised of stakeholders and female residents of the midwives catchment areas. Findings: midwives described overall satisfaction with the quality of their education. Midwives and stakeholders perceived that women were more likely to use maternal and child health services in communities where midwives had been deployed. Strengths included evidence-based content, standardised materials, clinical training, and supportive learning environment. Self-reported aspects of the quality education in respect to midwives empowerment included feeling competent and confident as demonstrated by respect shown by co-workers. Weaknesses of the programme included perceived low educational requirement to enter the programme and readiness of programmes to commence education. Insecurity and geographical remoteness are perceived as challenges with clients' access to care and the ability of midwives to make home visits. Key conclusions: the depth of midwives' contribution in Afghanistan - from increased maternal health care service utilisation to changing community's perceptions of women's education and professional independence - is overwhelmingly positive. Lessons learned can serve as a model to other low resource, post-conflict settings that are striving to increase the workforce of skilled providers. © 2013 The Authors

Raman studies of doped polycrystalline silicon from laser-annealed, doped a-Si:H

We have used Raman scattering to follow the progress of multiple-pulse (sub-melt-threshold) laser annealing in doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon films (a-Si:H) on glass. In phosphorous-doped a-Si:H the Raman signal shows that recrystallization begins with the first laser pulse but the multiple pulses are needed to generate the highest hole concentrations of ∼6×1020 cm-3. In boron-doped a-Si:H the electron concentration reaches ∼1×1021 cm-3 after laser anneal which produces a dip rather than a peak near the phonon line as a consequence of a negative Fano-interference parameter, q. The results show that Raman scattering can be used to obtain carrier concentrations in poly-silicon provided that wavelength-dependent Fano interference effects are properly included. © 1994

The CLEO-III Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector

The CLEO-III Detector upgrade for charged particle identification is discussed. The RICH design uses solid LiF crystal radiators coupled with multi-wire chamber photon detectors, using TEA as the photosensor, and low-noise Viking readout electronics. Results from our beam test at Fermilab are presented.Comment: Invited talk by R.J. Mountain at ``The 3rd International Workshop on Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detectors," a research workshop of the Israel Science Foundation, Ein-Gedi, Dead-Sea, Israel, Nov. 15-20, 1998, 14 pages, 9 figure

The role of neighborhood level socioeconomic characteristics in Salmonella infections in Michigan (1997–2007): Assessment using geographic information system

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background:</p> <p>The majority of U.S. disease surveillance systems contain incomplete information regarding socioeconomic status (SES) indicators like household or family income and educational attainment in case reports, which reduces the usefulness of surveillance data for these parameters. We investigated the association between select SES attributes at the neighborhood level and <it>Salmonella </it>infections in the three most populated counties in Michigan using a geographic information system.</p> <p>Methods:</p> <p>We obtained data on income, education, and race from the 2000 U.S. Census, and the aggregate number of laboratory-confirmed cases of salmonellosis (1997–2006) at the block group level from the Michigan Department of Community Health. We used ArcGIS to visualize the distribution, and Poisson regression analysis to study associations between potential predictor variables and <it>Salmonella </it>infections.</p> <p>Results:</p> <p>Based on data from 3,419 block groups, our final multivariate model revealed that block groups with lower educational attainment were less commonly represented among cases than their counterparts with higher education levels (< high school degree vs. ≥ college degree: rate ratio (RR) = 0.79, 95% confidence interval (CI):0.63, 0.99; ≥ and high school degree, but no college degree vs. ≥ college degree: RR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.76, 0.92). Levels of education also showed a dose-response relation with the outcome variable, i.e., decreasing years of education was associated with a decrease in <it>Salmonella </it>infections incidence at the block group level.</p> <p>Conclusion:</p> <p>Education plays a significant role in health-seeking behavior at the population level. It is conceivable that a reporting bias may exist due to a greater detection of <it>Salmonella </it>infections among high education block groups compared to low education block groups resulting from differential access to healthcare. In addition, individuals of higher education block groups who also have greater discretionary income may eat outside the home frequently and be more likely to own pets considered reservoirs of <it>Salmonella</it>, which increase the likelihood of contracting <it>Salmonella </it>infections compared to their counterparts with lower levels of education. Public health authorities should focus on improving the level of disease detection and reporting among communities with lower income and education and further evaluate the role of higher educational attainment in the predisposition for salmonellosis.</p