The effect of third gulf war on the efficiency of Arabian and east African seaports.

On March 19, 2003, the American and the British forces began the Third Persian Gulf War, a conflict which may become popularly known as " 3rd Gulf War" or the "Second Iraq War". The Gulf War was disastrous for the region Arab finances and economy in particular the maritime transport sector. In this paper, we used DEA, a new non-parametric linear programming method to estimate the efficiency of seaport production function for a group of 22 seaports situated in Middle East and East Africa. The aim of our study is to analyze the efficiency of 22 seaports for the period of 2000-2005. The result of this study shows that the Gulf War has massively contributed to the deterioration of seaport efficiency in the region.Middle East, East African, Seaports, DEA, Gulf War, Efficiency.

Confirmation of Safety, Performance and Usability of Sternotomy Suture Materials in Patients undergoing Sternotomy with Early Functional Follow-Up Treatment

Background: There are many factors are known to increase the risk of sternal wound infection (SWI), some studies have reported that nickel is a risk factor for SWI. Titanium wires have only been used as an alternative to steel wires in patients with known allergy to nickel. However, there is a paucity of literature regarding the safety of using titanium wires compared to that on the safety of steel wires for sternum closure after cardiac surgery. Therefore, this study aimed to demonstrate the non-inferiority of titanium wires, even in patients without a known allergy. Methods: A total of 322 Patients who underwent elective full median sternotomy were randomly assigned to sternal closure either by titanium wires (n=161) or by stainless steel wires. Results: 14 patients had sternal instability, six (3.7%) patients in the titanium group and eight (5%) patients in the stainless steel group (p = 0.585). There was no statistically significant difference between both groups in terms of postoperative wound infection (p=0.147). Patients in the titanium group experienced statistically significant lower postoperative pain than those in the stainless steel group (p = 0.024). The wire type was not an independent risk factor for SI, as shown by univariate and logistic regression analyses. Conclusion: Titanium wires are a good alternative and have been proven to be safe and effective for sternal closure. The surgeon should be aware of the possibility of developing an allergic reaction to the wires especially in patients with previous multiple allergic histories.:Table of Contents 1. Background 5 1.1. Anatomy of the sternum 5 1.2. Blood Supply of the Sternum 6 1.3. Basis and phases of acute Wound healing 7 1.4. Biomechanics of the sternum 7 1.5. Post-sternotomy complications 8 1.5.1. Dehiscence and sternal instability 8 1.5.2. Mediastinitis and Deep Sternal Wound Infection 10 1.5.3. Risk factors 12 1.5.4. Diagnosis 12 1.5.5. Bacteriology of Sterno-Mediastinal fluid and tissues 14 1.5.6. Osteomyelitis 14 1.6. Sternal fixation and Wiring Techniques 15 1.7. Overview of sternal closure techniques in Germany 16 1.7.1 Sternal closure Technique in Heart Center Dresden. 17 1.8. ASEPSIS SCORE 17 1.9. NICKEL Allergy/Suture materials and biocompatibility 19 1.10 Nickel allergy and cardiac surgery 20 1.11 Titanium Allergy 21 1.12. Pathophysiology of Metal Hypersensitivity Reactions 22 1.13. The hypothesis of the study 24 2. Materials and methods 25 2.1. Study Population 25 2.1.1. Inclusion criteria 25 2.1.2. Exclusion criteria 25 2.2. Intervention 25 2.3. Control 26 2.4. Outcome 26 2.5. Time 26 2.6. Sample Size calculation 26 2.7. Sternal closure technique 27 2.8. Handling of the wire 28 2.9. Blinding and randomization technique 29 2.10. Data collection and documentation 29 2.11. Statistics 29 3. Results 31 3.1. Preoperative parameters 31 3.1.1. Entire group 31 3.1.2. Group comparison 32 3.2. Intraoperative parameters 34 3.2.1. Entire group 34 3.2.2. Group comparison 34 3.3. Postoperative parameters 35 3.3.1. Entire group 35 3.3.2. Group comparison 36 3.4. Incidence of postoperative sternal instabilities 38 3.5. Univariate analysis 38 3.5.1. Pre-operative 39 3.5.2. Intra-operative 40 3.5.3. Post-operative 40 3.5.4. Statistically significant data 41 3.5.5. Descriptive presentation of the subgroup analysis (Sternal Instability, wire Classification) 41 3.5.6. Logistic regression 43 3.6. Summary / key result 44 4. Discussion 45 4.1. Sternal Instability 46 4.2. BMI “Obesity” 47 4.3. Wound Infection /ASEPSIS Score 48 4.4. Postoperative Pain 49 4.5. Type of the Wire 51 4.6. The Rising Potential Impact of Metal Hypersensitivity on other specialities 51 4.7. Limitation of the study 52 4.7. Conclusion 55 5. Summary 56 6. Zusammenfassung 58 7. List of figure 60 8. List of tables 60 Bibliography 6

Inclusion of Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans Within Secondary U.S. History Textbooks

Over the past two decades, textbook publishers have made large improvements by including multicultural education within their texts.  U.S. history textbooks have specifically included diverse perspectives.  The increased inclusion of diverse perspectives creates a more historically accurate depiction of how various cultures have contributed to the growth and success of America and promotes cultural pride and understanding.  Unfortunately, the same is not true of Arabs, Muslims, and Arab and Muslim-Americans.  A contextual analysis of five U.S. history textbooks was conducted to determine if Arab, Muslim, Arab-American and Muslim-American contributions and achievements were included.  The results determined that Arabs and Muslims are included within U.S. history textbooks, but primarily during times of conflict.  Arab and Muslim-Americans are typically not included nor are their contributions and achievements.

An Efficiency Analysis Of Seaports Using Extended Window Analysis, Malmquist Index And Simar-wilson Approach

Sumbangan bandar pelabuhan kepada ekonomi negara di dunia tidak dapat dinafikan The contribution of seaports to the economies of world countries is undeniable

Driver Distraction Identification with an Ensemble of Convolutional Neural Networks

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 1.25 million deaths yearly due to road traffic accidents worldwide and the number has been continuously increasing over the last few years. Nearly fifth of these accidents are caused by distracted drivers. Existing work of distracted driver detection is concerned with a small set of distractions (mostly, cell phone usage). Unreliable ad-hoc methods are often used.In this paper, we present the first publicly available dataset for driver distraction identification with more distraction postures than existing alternatives. In addition, we propose a reliable deep learning-based solution that achieves a 90% accuracy. The system consists of a genetically-weighted ensemble of convolutional neural networks, we show that a weighted ensemble of classifiers using a genetic algorithm yields in a better classification confidence. We also study the effect of different visual elements in distraction detection by means of face and hand localizations, and skin segmentation. Finally, we present a thinned version of our ensemble that could achieve 84.64% classification accuracy and operate in a real-time environment.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1706.0949

An Efficiency Analysis Of Seaports Using Extended Window Analysis,Malmquist Index And Simar-Wilson Approach [QA75].

Sumbangan bandar pelabuhan kepada ekonomi negara di dunia tidak dapat dinafikan. Pelbagai kaedah pengawasan digunakan untuk mengukur daya saing bandar-bandar pelabuhan tersebut dengan keputusan yang berbeza. The contribution of seaports to the economies of world countries is undeniable.Different monitoring mechanisms are used to measure the competitiveness with differing results

Evaluating the Location Efficiency of Arabian and African Seaports Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

In this paper the efficiency and performance is evaluated for 22 seaports in the region of East Africa and the Middle East. The aim of our study is to compare seaports situated on the maritime trade road between the East and the West. These are considered as middledistance ports at which goods from Europe and Far East/Australia can be exchanged and transhipped to all countries in the Middle East and East Africa. All these seaports are regional coasters, and dhow trade was built on these locations, leading this part of the world to become an important trade centre. Data was collected for 6 years (2000-2005) and a non-parametric linear programming method, DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) is applied. The ultimate goal of our study is: 1) to estimate the performance levels of the ports under consideration. This will help in proposing solutions for better performance and developing future plans. 2) to select optimum transhipment locations.Middle East and East African Seaports; Data Envelopment Analysis; Seaports Efficiency; Performance measurement of Containers Ports; transshipment.