Currency recognition using a smartphone: Comparison between color SIFT and gray scale SIFT algorithms

AbstractBanknote recognition means classifying the currency (coin and paper) to the correct class. In this paper, we developed a dataset for Jordanian currency. After that we applied automatic mobile recognition system using a smartphone on the dataset using scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm. This is the first attempt, to the best of the authors knowledge, to recognize both coins and paper banknotes on a smartphone using SIFT algorithm. SIFT has been developed to be the most robust and efficient local invariant feature descriptor. Color provides significant information and important values in the object description process and matching tasks. Many objects cannot be classified correctly without their color features. We compared between two approaches colored local invariant feature descriptor (color SIFT approach) and gray image local invariant feature descriptor (gray SIFT approach). The evaluation results show that the color SIFT approach outperforms the gray SIFT approach in terms of processing time and accuracy

Surgical Resection of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Compensated Cirrhotic Liver: The Benefits and Selection Criteria

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a fifth of common malignancies, with an annual diagnosis of 750,000 new cases. It is the third cause of cancer deaths worldwide. The cirrhotic liver is a leading cause of HCC with the annual conversion rate to HCC in the range of 2–6 %. The underlying liver cirrhosis limits certain treatment modalities that potentially further aggravates liver dysfunction. Over the past decade, there were substantial improvements in the HCC resection techniques that has resulted in the reduction of operative mortality. This allowed doing major hepatectomy in cirrhotic patients who are suitable for liver transplantation but lacking availability of cadaveric or living donors. Also, patients who have multi-focal HCC underlying cirrhosis which render them unsuitable for liver transplantation due to its extension beyond Milan criteria. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the benefits and selection criteria of HCC surgical resection within child–Turcotte–Pugh score (CTP) A and B liver cirrhosis to achieve the best surgical outcomes. Methods: We performed a literature search within English written trials using PubMed and MEDLINE reviews databases from 1986 to 2017. One hundred fifty studies are included in this review evaluating various parameters including HCC and compensated cirrhosis prevalence, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, and diagnostic methods. Furthermore, we have compared oncological hepatic resection with other modalities like transarterial chemoembolization, liver transplantation, embolization of the portal vein, laparoscopic hepatic resection, and ALPPS technique. Principles of surgical hepatectomy and postoperative complications are also presented in this review. Conclusion: This review has demonstrated that hepatic cirrhosis complicated by portal hypertension is not an absolute contraindication for HCC resection. Furthermore, elective surgery must not be directed exclusively to CTP A cirrhosis but it can be applied to highly selected patients who had suffered from advanced hepatic cirrhosis. If multifocal HCC underlying hepatic cirrhosis was unsuitable for liver transplantation, hepatectomy can be carried out to increase the tumor cure chances, prevent it's recurrences, and lead to significant survival rate improvement. The degree of cirrhosis significantly affects the decision of primary hepatic carcinoma treatment and it's prognosis. The interdisciplinary assessment of liver function by surgeons, hepatologists, anesthesiologists, and specialists of critical care are essential for maximum critical stabilization of the patients.   Keywords: Child-Turcotte-Pugh score; hepatocellular carcinoma; hepatectomy; liver cirrhosis; portal hypertensio

The Surgical outcomes of fundus-first technique in lowering the rate of bile duct injuries and bleeding during open cholecystectomy that facing intraoperative difficulties: A single-center prospective study

Background: The problem of difficult gallbladder is not clearly defined and associated with real missing of therapeutic approaches that decreased morbidity. Moreover, the difficult gallbladder was reported as a contributing risk factor for biliary injury due to raised difficulty in surgical dissection within Calot’s triangle. The aim of this study is to determine the surgical outcomes of the open fundus-first cholecystectomy in lowering the rate of lethal intraoperative risks. Subjects and Methods: Our prospective study conducted during the period of January 2019 to December 2022 at Ibn Sina specialized hospital, Khartoum, Sudan, for two hundred and fifty-three patients underwent elective open fundus-first cholecystectomy for intraoperative difficulties. Results: the majority of cases had long-standing cholelithiasis with intraoperative difficulties revealed by pre-operative TUS and MRCP which required open fundus-first cholecystectomy in 173 (68.4%) of patients, (P-value <0.05). The operative surgical time was 120 minutes in 103 patients (40.7%), (P-value <0.05). During open cholecystectomy, variable intraoperative difficulties were found in all patients, (P-value <0.05) and were divided into: (A) Contracted intra-hepatic gallbladder seen in 157 (62.1%) of cases; (B) Distorted anatomy within Calot's triangle seen in 135 (53.4%) of patients; and (C) Intraoperative bleeding from the liver bed was observed as bloody oozing form in 150 (59.3%) of cases. Our patients had minimal postoperative complications like mild wound infection in 8 (3.2%) of cases and mortality rate was zero.  Conclusions: There is a need for appropriate therapeutic and preventive strategies in healthcare systems for safe dealing with difficult cholecystectomy. Unclear anatomy due to severe inflammatory dense adhesions at Calot’s triangle and CBD stones needing difficult surgeries are the most important limiting factors for fundus-first laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Hence, we humbly recommend an open approach of fundus-first cholecystectomy as safe surgical option to reduce the incidence of bile duct injuries and intra-operative bleeding

Molecular screening of oxacillinases beta-lactamase among gentamicin-resistant Escherichia coli isolates

Expansion of β-lactamases in Gram-negative rods has been documented as most severe threat to the management of infectious diseases. The ever-increasing use of antibiotics with the evolution of intrinsic and acquired resistance has led to the development of resistance mechanism in Gram-negative rods contributing to the expansion of several multi-drug resistance epidemics in hospital environment. So this study aimed to investigate genes responsible for Oxacillinases production among gentamicin- resistant Escherichia coli isolates. The results showed that out of 573 specimens, 270 (56.13%) showed bacterial growth versus 264(46.07%) showed no bacterial growth 309(53.92%), among 573 clinical specimens 102(17.80%) were male patients while 471(82.19%) were female patients. According to result of the vitek-2 system recorded 110 isolates as E. coli. However result of gentamicin susceptibility demonstrated that 29 (26.36%) E. coli isolates were resistance to gentamicin compared with 39 (35.45%) and 42 (38.18%) of isolates were intermediate and sensitive to this antibiotic respectively. Results of antibiotic susceptibility showed that the highest bacterial resistance was Tobramycin 27(93.1%) and Ciprofloxacin 29(100 %),while Nitrofurantoin 3(10.3%) had the least resistance. Results of polymerase chain reaction (PCR ) amplification showed that OXA, OXA-1 and OXA-9,OXA-10 were 29(100%),26/(89.65%),29(100%) and 20(68.96%) respectively While OXA-2 did not detect

SP1 and RARα regulate AGAP2 expression in cancer

AGAP2 (Arf GAP with GTP-binding protein-like domain, Ankyrin repeat and PH domain 2) isoform 2 is considered a proto-oncogene, but not much is known about AGAP2 gene expression regulation. To get some insight into this process, AGAP2 proximal promoter was cloned and characterised using reporter assays. We have identified SP1 as a transcription factor bound to AGAP2 promoter and required for AGAP2 expression in two different types of cancer cells (KU812, a chronic myeloid leukaemia cell line; and DU145, a prostate cancer cell line): silencing SP1 decreased AGAP2 protein levels. We have also found that all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) treatment increased AGAP2 protein levels in both cell lines whilst curcumin treatment reduced ATRA-mediated AGAP2 increase. Furthermore, chromatin immunoprecipitation studies revealed the presence of RARα, RXRα and the lysine acetyl transferase PCAF in AGAP2 promoter. Our results provide a novel understanding of AGAP2 expression regulation that could be beneficial to those patients with cancers where AGAP2 is overexpressed

Artificial Bee Colony with Different Mutation Schemes: A comparative study

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) is a swarm-based metaheuristic for continuous optimization. Recent work hybridized this algorithm with other metaheuristics in order to improve performance. The work in this paper, experimentally evaluates the use of different mutation operators with the ABC algorithm. The introduced operator is activated according to a determined probability called mutation rate (MR). The results on standard benchmark function suggest that the use of this operator improves performance in terms of convergence speed and quality of final obtained solution. It shows that Power and Polynomial mutations give best results. The fastest convergence was for the mutation rate value (MR=0.2)

Review of quantitative empirical evaluations of technology for people with visual impairments

Addressing the needs of visually impaired people is of continued interest in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Yet, one of the major challenges facing researchers in this field continues to be how to design adequate quantitative empirical evaluation for these users in HCI. In this paper, we analyse a corpus of 178 papers on technologies designed for people with visual impairments, published since 1988, and including at least one quantitative empirical evaluation (243 evaluations in total). To inform future research in this area, we provide an overview, historic trends and a unified terminology to design and report quantitative empirical evaluations. We identify open issues and propose a set of guidelines to address them. Our analysis aims to facilitate and stimulate future research on this topic

The termination of the labor contract and its results in Syrian and Turkish labor Law, compared study

Antalya Bilim Üniversitesi Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü Özel Hukuk Tezli Yüksek Lisans Programı kapsamında hazırladığım çalışmamın konusu “Suriye ve Türk İş Hukukunda Karşılaştırılmalı Olarak İş Sözleşmesinin Feshi ve Sonuçları” dır. Sözleşmenin bir tarafı olan işçinin, belli bir süre içinde devamlı olarak iş görme yükümlülüğünü yerine getirmesi karşılığında, diğer tarafa (işveren) ücret ödeme borcu yaratan ilişkiye iş sözleşmesi denilmektedir. Sürekli bir borç ilişkisi yaratan iş sözleşmesi, farklı hallerde sona ermekle birlikte uygulamada en çok rastlanan sona erme hali ve en önemlisi fesihtir. Zira karşı tarafın fesih hakkını kötüye kullanarak işçinin iş güvenliğini, işverenin işgücünü ve işyerini koruması açısından pek çok etkiler göstermektedir. İşte, çalışmamızda “İş Sözleşmesinin Feshi ve Sonuçları” konusu, Suriye İş Kanunu ve Türk İş Kanunu açısından ele alınmıştır. Ayrıca, hem Türkiye’de hem de Suriye’de yürürlükte olan iş kanunlarının arasındaki temel farklılıkların netleştirmesine ve açıklamasına yönelik yapılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada; Suriye İş Kanununun genel hükümleri, Suriye ve Türk İş Kanunları bakımından feshin tanımı ve önemi, fesih dışında sona erme nedenleri gibi fesih ile ilgili genel hükümler ve iş sözleşmesinin süreli feshi, derhal fesih ve iş sözleşmesinin sona ermesinin sonuçları başlıklarıyla sınırlı tutularak anlatılmaya çalışılmıştır.The subject of my study which I have prepared as the Master Thesis of the Graduate Education Institute of Antalya Science University is “The Termination of the Labor Contract and its Results in Syrian and Turkish Labor Law, Compared Study.” The intention of this study is clarification and explanation of the most important differences between the labor laws in force in Syria and Turkey. In addition, it has been especially prepared for the purpose of examining and interpreting the provisions regarding the termination of the employment contract with the will of the employer or the worker. At the same time, this study is intended to bring out the most appropriate provisions for measuring the compliance of termination provisions to reality, the practical application of these provisions and the protection of the worker who is in a weak state of the law. Our work is dealing with an extremely important issue, because it is concerned with the worker’s safety and the protection of the employer’s workforce and workplace by abusing the right of dissent of the other party. Our thesis study consists of four parts. In the first part, the general provisions of the Syrian Labor Law, such as the regulation of the labor law and the debts of the parties, will be discussed. In the second part of the study, the definition and importance of termination, the general terms involving the reasons for such occurrences other than termination, and the termination of the employment contract are examined. In the third part, the issue of immediate termination and in the last part, the termination of the employment contract will be discussed. In my study, the opinions of different authors from both countries were discussed as a source, by covering the main points concerning the differences in both countries’ laws.No sponso

The termination of the labor contract and its results in Syrian and Turkish labor Law, compared study

Antalya Bilim Üniversitesi Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü Özel Hukuk Tezli Yüksek Lisans Programı kapsamında hazırladığım çalışmamın konusu “Suriye ve Türk İş Hukukunda Karşılaştırılmalı Olarak İş Sözleşmesinin Feshi ve Sonuçları” dır. Sözleşmenin bir tarafı olan işçinin, belli bir süre içinde devamlı olarak iş görme yükümlülüğünü yerine getirmesi karşılığında, diğer tarafa (işveren) ücret ödeme borcu yaratan ilişkiye iş sözleşmesi denilmektedir. Sürekli bir borç ilişkisi yaratan iş sözleşmesi, farklı hallerde sona ermekle birlikte uygulamada en çok rastlanan sona erme hali ve en önemlisi fesihtir. Zira karşı tarafın fesih hakkını kötüye kullanarak işçinin iş güvenliğini, işverenin işgücünü ve işyerini koruması açısından pek çok etkiler göstermektedir. İşte, çalışmamızda “İş Sözleşmesinin Feshi ve Sonuçları” konusu, Suriye İş Kanunu ve Türk İş Kanunu açısından ele alınmıştır. Ayrıca, hem Türkiye’de hem de Suriye’de yürürlükte olan iş kanunlarının arasındaki temel farklılıkların netleştirmesine ve açıklamasına yönelik yapılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada; Suriye İş Kanununun genel hükümleri, Suriye ve Türk İş Kanunları bakımından feshin tanımı ve önemi, fesih dışında sona erme nedenleri gibi fesih ile ilgili genel hükümler ve iş sözleşmesinin süreli feshi, derhal fesih ve iş sözleşmesinin sona ermesinin sonuçları başlıklarıyla sınırlı tutularak anlatılmaya çalışılmıştır.The subject of my study which I have prepared as the Master Thesis of the Graduate Education Institute of Antalya Science University is “The Termination of the Labor Contract and its Results in Syrian and Turkish Labor Law, Compared Study.” The intention of this study is clarification and explanation of the most important differences between the labor laws in force in Syria and Turkey. In addition, it has been especially prepared for the purpose of examining and interpreting the provisions regarding the termination of the employment contract with the will of the employer or the worker. At the same time, this study is intended to bring out the most appropriate provisions for measuring the compliance of termination provisions to reality, the practical application of these provisions and the protection of the worker who is in a weak state of the law. Our work is dealing with an extremely important issue, because it is concerned with the worker’s safety and the protection of the employer’s workforce and workplace by abusing the right of dissent of the other party. Our thesis study consists of four parts. In the first part, the general provisions of the Syrian Labor Law, such as the regulation of the labor law and the debts of the parties, will be discussed. In the second part of the study, the definition and importance of termination, the general terms involving the reasons for such occurrences other than termination, and the termination of the employment contract are examined. In the third part, the issue of immediate termination and in the last part, the termination of the employment contract will be discussed. In my study, the opinions of different authors from both countries were discussed as a source, by covering the main points concerning the differences in both countries’ laws.No sponso