Retinopathy of prematurity in infants with birth weight above 1500 grams

Objective: To identify the rate and prognosis of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) among newborn infants of birthweight of above 1500 grams, and the possible risk factors associated with the disease.Design: A prospective cohort study.Setting: Neonatal unit at Maternity Hospital, Kuwait city, Kuwait.Methods: All low birth weight infants were examined for the presence of ROP in the period between January 1996 to December 1997. Prospective collection of data on babies who were above 1500 grams was done to find an association between the disease in these babies and some of the maternal and neonatal risk factors.Results: A total of 68 babies of birth weight above 1500 grams were screened for ROP out of which 13 (19.1%) had different stages of the disease. None of the patients had threshold disease requiring surgery. Among the risk factors chosen, oxygen therapy, presence ofhypotension at birth and the non-use of surfactant were the only risk factors to be associated with disease. However, with logistic regression analysis, none of these were independently associated with ROP.Conclusion: ROP may occur in newborn infants of larger birthweight but with good prognosis, and oxygen therapy seems to predispose to the disease

Teaching and Learning Arabic Writing to Fourth Grade Students in the Basic Education Schools in Oman

This study, which took the form of a case study approach, investigated the teaching and learning of Arabic writing in fourth grade Basic Education (BE) in the Sultanate of Oman. The aim was to understand how Arabic writing is taught in the BE schools, and how this influences students' performance in writing. In order, to achieve this aim, the teaching and learning of Arabic writing was explored from different angles, which incorporated the perspectives of curriculum professionals, teachers and students, in addition to classroom practices and students' written texts. This qualitative study used participant observation, interviews and document analysis to collect data related to investigative issues. An inductive approach was employed, to analyse observation and interview data, and content analysis was conducted for the document analysis. The findings of this investigation were divided into three chapters according to the emerged themes. The first chapter was about knowledge for writing, which included transcriptional and compositional knowledge, knowledge about writing forms (genres) and knowledge about the writing processes. The second chapter explained the writing pedagogy, teaching processes, teaching recourses and teacher’s roles in the writing classroom. The third chapter discussed the successful and limited aspects in the BE curriculum. Generally speaking, this study illustrated that teaching and learning Arabic writing is restricted by the official curriculum, which not only affects students' ability in writing, rather it also influences teachers' perspectives and practices in the writing classroom. Arabic writing in the fourth grade of the BE schools is taught in a prescribed manner, and few opportunities are granted for student to do creative writing. The emphasis in the Arabic writing curriculum of fourth grade is given for writing accuracy in terms of spelling, handwriting and grammar, rather than for creativity in writing. In the conclusion of this study, several recommendations were proposed for policymakers, curriculum professionals and teachers to assist them in enhancing the teaching and learning of Arabic writing.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Successful Treatment of Angiolymphoid Hyperplasia with Eosinophilia Associated with Scalp Demodicosis Using Cryotherapy and Topical Metronidazole

Angiolymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia (ALHE) is a rare, benign, vasoproliferative tumour. We report a 25-year-old female patient who reported in 2021 to the dermatology clinic, with multiple, grouped, erythematous dome-shaped papules and nodules of 6 months duration on the left temporo-occipital region. Biopsy findings were consistent with a diagnosis of ALHE with evidence of Demodex mite infestation in the sebaceous ducts. The patient demonstrated significant improvement following 7 weeks of treatment with multiple cryotherapy sessions and topical application of metronidazole gel. This case suggests that scalp demodicosis may represent a novel trigger for the development of ALHE. Keywords: Angiolymphoid Hyperplasia with Eosinophilia; Mite; Infestation; Scalp; Kimura disease; Cryosurgery; Metronidazole; Case Report

Optimum directional well path design considering collapse and fracture pressures

Well path optimisation is often done based on the wellbore stability where the production related concerns are ignored. In fact, many of the studies carried out in the past have not included hydraulic fractures into their calculations. In fact, an optimum path for wellbore should not only provide the maximum stability during drilling but also offer a relatively low pressure to fracture the formation in the production stage. In this study, attempts are made to provide a methodology to determine an optimum well path for drilling, hydraulic fracturing and production stage using wellbore stability analysis in different stress regimes. An analytical model was proposed and used to determine the collapse pressure and fracture gradient during drilling and hydraulic fracturing at various azimuths and inclinations. The results obtained revealed that the well path does not change in a normal faulting regime during production. However, the azimuth and inclination of wells may need to be changed in the strike-slip and reverse fault regimes for a better drilling and fracturing. It was also found that deviated wells can be a better option in normal and strike-slip stress regimes, but further studies might be needed to confirm these findings.acceptedVersio

Knowledge and attitude of primary care doctors towards management of postmenopausal symptoms

AbstractBackgroundAccording to the current recommendations, women with post-menopausal symptoms should be managed. Knowledge and perception of primary care physicians towards management of postmenopausal symptoms are deficient.AimThe aim of the present study was to explore knowledge and attitude of primary care doctors towards management of postmenopausal symptoms.MethodsThis study is a cross-sectional survey that was conducted from October to December 2010 in the five health regions in Kuwait. Two centers were selected randomly from each health region. All physicians who were currently working in the selected centers were asked to participate in the study. Out of 209 physicians, 142 agreed to participate and completed a self-administered questionnaire.ResultsThe study revealed that 82.4% of physicians had moderate knowledge about treatment options for postmenopausal symptoms, 88.0% discussed postmenopausal symptoms with their patients, and 45.1% of them either described or referred their patients for hormonal replacement therapy (HRT). The correct answers regarding 10 statements related to the Women Health Initiative finding were ranging from 2.8% to 78.9% which indicated low level of knowledge. Regarding the effectiveness of hormonal replacement therapy in postmenopausal women, the majority of the physicians agreed correctly that HRT is effective in prevention of osteoporosis (87.3%), treatment of vasomotor symptoms (83.7%), and treatment of vulvo-vaginal symptoms (82.4%). There was a variation among physicians opinion about the effectiveness of certain treatment options for managing hot flushes in postmenopausal women.ConclusionThe results suggest that there is a lack of primary care physicians knowledge and confidence in recognizing signs and symptoms of menopause and in identifying and prescribing appropriate management

Faked Speech Detection with Zero Knowledge

Audio is one of the most used ways of human communication, but at the same time it can be easily misused to trick people. With the revolution of AI, the related technologies are now accessible to almost everyone thus making it simple for the criminals to commit crimes and forgeries. In this work, we introduce a neural network method to develop a classifier that will blindly classify an input audio as real or mimicked; the word 'blindly' refers to the ability to detect mimicked audio without references or real sources. The proposed model was trained on a set of important features extracted from a large dataset of audios to get a classifier that was tested on the same set of features from different audios. The data was extracted from two raw datasets, especially composed for this work; an all English dataset and a mixed dataset (Arabic plus English). These datasets have been made available, in raw form, through GitHub for the use of the research community at https://github.com/SaSs7/Dataset. For the purpose of comparison, the audios were also classified through human inspection with the subjects being the native speakers. The ensued results were interesting and exhibited formidable accuracy.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures (6 if you count subfigures), 2 table

Simvastatin Ameliorates Diabetic Cardiomyopathy by Attenuating Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Rats

Simvastatin is a lipid-lowering agent used to treat hypercholesterolemia and to reduce the risk of heart disease. This study scrutinized the beneficial effects of simvastatin on experimental diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM), pointing to the role of hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress and inflammation. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin and both control and diabetic rats received simvastatin for 90 days. Diabetic rats showed significant cardiac hypertrophy, body weight loss, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia. Serum creatine kinase MB (CK-MB) and troponin I showed a significant increase in diabetic rats. Simvastatin significantly improved body weight, attenuated hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia, and ameliorated CK-MB and troponin I. Simvastatin prevented histological alterations and deposition of collagen in the heart of diabetic animals. Lipid peroxidation and nitric oxide were increased in the heart of diabetic rats whereas antioxidant defenses were decreased. These alterations were significantly reversed by simvastatin. In addition, simvastatin decreased serum inflammatory mediators and expression of NF-κB in the diabetic heart. Cardiac caspase-3 was increased in the diabetic heart and decreased following treatment with simvastatin. In conclusion, our results suggest that simvastatin alleviates DCM by attenuating hyperglycemia /hyperlipidemia-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis

Quaterionic Construction of the W(F_4) Polytopes with Their Dual Polytopes and Branching under the Subgroups B(B_4) and W(B_3)*W(A_1)

4-dimensional $F_{4}$ polytopes and their dual polytopes have been constructed as the orbits of the Coxeter-Weyl group $W(F_{4})$ where the group elements and the vertices of the polytopes are represented by quaternions. Branchings of an arbitrary \textbf{$W(F_{4})$} orbit under the Coxeter groups $W(B_{4}$ and $W(B_{3}) \times W(A_{1})$ have been presented. The role of group theoretical technique and the use of quaternions have been emphasizedComment: 26 pages, 10 figure