The Serological Findings of Parvo virus B19 and Neopterin Detection among Sickle cell Disease Patients and Blood Doners in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Introduction. Parvovirus B19 (PV B19) is a small, non-enveloped, ss DNA virus with an icosahedral capsid having a size of 18–26 nm. PV B19 transmits through respiratory droplets, blood transfusion and nosocomial infections that have also been documented recently. The virus targets the actively dividing Erythroid Progenitor Cells (EPCs) that are found in the human bone marrow, fetal liver and human umbilical cord. Methods. The study was particularly conducted on Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) patients and focuses on the determination of parvovirus B19 among Bahraini population by relying on their clinical status. The serological study of PV B19 was performed using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique and includes 150 SCD patientsand 100 healthy blood donors in which both males and females were employed. The samples were taken from the emergency unit of Salmania Medical Complex (SMC) and Ibrahim Khalil Kano Center (IKKC). Results. Of the 150 SCD patients, 100 were with vaso-occlusive crisis(VOC) and 50 non-vaso-occlusive crisis (NVOC). The three groups showed significantly higher percentages of PV B19 IgG but the percentage in SCD was relatively high compared to the control group of age-matched healthy donors – 70% of the VOC patients, 76% of the NVOC cases and 57% of blood donors were found to be IgG sero-positive. Discussion and Conclusion. PV B19 is a pathogenic virus and sometimes considered as life-threatening specifically for those individuals who have SCD due to which a risk of transient aplastic crisis increases. This virus is only associated with those patients whohave some hematological disorders such as hemolytic anemia and erythro-cytopenia. An effective screening test must be performed in the future to reduce the risk of PV B19 infection. Keywords: Aplastic Crisis, Seroprevalence, Bahraini Population, Genotypes, Vasoocclusive crisis, Neopteri

Intraoperative Organ Motion Models with an Ensemble of Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks

In this paper, we describe how a patient-specific, ultrasound-probe-induced prostate motion model can be directly generated from a single preoperative MR image. Our motion model allows for sampling from the conditional distribution of dense displacement fields, is encoded by a generative neural network conditioned on a medical image, and accepts random noise as additional input. The generative network is trained by a minimax optimisation with a second discriminative neural network, tasked to distinguish generated samples from training motion data. In this work, we propose that 1) jointly optimising a third conditioning neural network that pre-processes the input image, can effectively extract patient-specific features for conditioning; and 2) combining multiple generative models trained separately with heuristically pre-disjointed training data sets can adequately mitigate the problem of mode collapse. Trained with diagnostic T2-weighted MR images from 143 real patients and 73,216 3D dense displacement fields from finite element simulations of intraoperative prostate motion due to transrectal ultrasound probe pressure, the proposed models produced physically-plausible patient-specific motion of prostate glands. The ability to capture biomechanically simulated motion was evaluated using two errors representing generalisability and specificity of the model. The median values, calculated from a 10-fold cross-validation, were 2.8+/-0.3 mm and 1.7+/-0.1 mm, respectively. We conclude that the introduced approach demonstrates the feasibility of applying state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to generate organ motion models from patient images, and shows significant promise for future research.Comment: Accepted to MICCAI 201

Utilizing geographic information systems in pavement maintenance applications: Baghdad university as case study

management of the paved network system is a critical issue that always has been the main focus not just in this university, but also to other educational institutions and organizations At the University of Baghdad. These extensive networks are crucial systems at the university as it does not just include the roads, parking spaces, pedestrians' lanes, and sidewalks around the university campus, but also is also extended to a large-scale area, including the bus stations and terminals. This research is conducted in order to set up a smooth and reliable Pavement Maintenance Management System (PMMS) for the university's road lanes and parking spaces. A thorough analysis of related past studies has been done on the PMMS projects in Iraq and other countries to gain a comprehensive understanding on this topic. A PAVER system software is adopted in the study in order to develop a complete and integrated database and the GIS-based map layers for the road pavement and other extended engineering features. While there are past studies discussing the Maintenance and Rehabilitation (M&R) system for road pavement networks, though the systemic approach and forecast method is still missing. Hence, this project is conducted to help in providing a structural M&R system for the pavement networks

Error correction and uncertainty measurement of short-open-load calibration standards on a new concept of software defined instrumentation for microwave network analysis

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) has appeared as a sufficient framework for the development and testing of the measurement systems such as a signal generator, signal analyzer, and network analysis used in the network analyzer. However, most of researchers or scientists still rely on commercial analyzers were larger benchtop instruments, highly cost investment and minimum software intervention. In this paper, a new concepts measurement revolution called as Software Defined Instrumentation (SDI) on network analysis is presented, which is based on reconfigurable SDR, a low-cost implementation, ability to access RF chain and utilizing open source signal processing framework. As a result, a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) has been successful implemented by deploying an SDR platform, test sets, and data acquisition from the GNU Radio software in host PC. The known calibration process on SHORT-OPEN-LOAD (SOL) technique is validated to ensure measurement data from this SDI free from systematic error. Two types of SOL calibration standards used for a comparison study to validate the SDI measurement system which is capable of generating the response on the differential of standard quality and accuracy of standards kits. Finally, calibration uncertainty analysis is also presented in this work by utilizing RF open source package without any cost addition

The effects of thickness on biomechanical behavior of articular cartilage: a finite element analysis

It is important to study joint contact mechanics in order to understand the human joint function and degeneration. In previous studies, the cartilage behavior was investigated using computational method assuming the cartilage to be flat and an ideal thickness. But, this assumption may not appropriate because the joint is naturally curved and the cartilage thickness varies across the articular cartilage. In this study, finite element (FE) analysis was performed to investigate the effect of cartilage thickness on contact pressure and pore pressure of cartilage in indentation test. An axisymmetric FE model of cartilage was developed according to the thickness and radius measured in the experiment. The cartilage was modeled as biphasic material to describe the properties of cartilage. Based on the result, the lowest cartilage thickness of 0.3 mm thickness generated 48% higher in contact pressure and 59% higher in pore pressure, compared to the highest thickness cartilage. This could indicate that the cartilage thickness does affect the contact pressure and pore pressure

An approach of vicarious calibration of sentinel-2 satellite multispectral image based on spectral library for mapping oil spills

Sentinel-2 satellite Multispectral Image (MSI) is one of the recent advancement of satellite optical imaging for detecting and tracking oil spills. MSI equipped with enhanced radiometric and spatial resolutions, apart from relatively high temporal resolution of every 5 days revisit capability. Both systematic errors of the geometric and radiometric of level 1 and 2 data were successfully treated before any data download for users' levels applications. As such, leaving the random errors, crucially to be minimized to enable oil spill detection and tracking due to non-discernible absolute signatures of spills against the scene background and the look-alikes. The magnitude of these random errors' minimization and the efficacy of the MSI absolute signatures within visible bands for oil spills is very crucial. However, it is rarely reported; in fact, it is a new issue to be addressed accordingly. The calibrating tool was created with oil spill spots revealed by the official authorities. Whereas, the spill pixels are identified in the corresponding pre-processed Sentinel MSI image using region growing segmentation algorithm. These spill pixels grown were analyzed against the RGB bands, logistically regressed against the oil spill via a spectral library of the crude oil type. Originated from Arabian Gulf region with an average film thickness of 0.5 to 4 mm; reporting a calibrating function in a form gain and bias corrections for RGB bands, respectively. The results indicated that calibrated MSI spill pixels have higher correlation (r2 > 0.85, p < 0.001). As the signature variations were used to formulate calibration matrices for spills identified from satellite images which can be used for processing of spill monitoring system

PREVENTIVE EFFECTS OF PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA POLYPHENOLS AGAINST 7,12-DIMETHYLBENZ(A)ANTHRACENE-INDUCED MAMMARY CANCER

Objectives: Polyphenols are vital micronutrients, in our diet, which have a role in the prevention of progressive cancer and cardiovascular diseases developing. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the hemopreventive effects of some polyphenols of Phoenix dactylifera pits on 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA)-induced mammary cancer of female albino rats.Methods: The phenolics of P. dactylifera pits (Zahidi cultivar) were prepared by successive steps; extraction by ethanol:methanol:HCl:H2O, adsorption chromatography using a silica gel column and preparative high performers chromatography. The cytotoxic activity of the phenolics was detected against human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The acetone phenolic fraction, 50 female albino rats, and DMBA carcinogen were used to study the preventive effects.Results: The acetone phenolic fraction contained considerable amounts of the total phenolics and having antioxidant activity, which inhibit cancer cell line MCF-7 growth, and the inhibitory concentration 50% of cells (IC50) at 24 hrs was 202 μg/ml for MCF-7 and 480 μg/ml for WRL-68. The purified phenolic compounds may be related to genistein and quercetin derivatives that inhibited MCF-7 cell line growth and IC50 were 1030 and 203.9 μg/ml, respectively, compared with negligible effects on normal cell line. The acetone phenolic fraction prevented mammary cancer formation in the DMBA-induced rat model.Conclusions: The phenolics of date palm had chemopreventive effects against DMBA-induced mammary cancer, and they required further research to clarify the possible mechanisms that might have contributed to the preventive effects against mammary cancer

Synthesis and Spectroscopic Characterization of a New Series of Benzo[E][1,3]Oxazepine Compounds from Schiff Bases

The present work includes synthesis, characterization and investigation the biological activity of a new series of benzo [e][1, 3]oxazepine compounds which were prepared from Schiff bases. The synthetic routes have been divided into two steps as follows: The first step includes the synthesis of Schiff bases, by treatment of 4-amino diphenyl amine and different substituted benzaldehydes in absolute ethanol using glacial acetic acid as catalyst. The second step of this work is the synthesis of a series benzo [e][1, 3] oxazepine, by the reaction of the synthesized Schiff bases with phthalic anhydride in dry benzene. The structures of the synthesized products were confirmed on the basis of (UV-Visible, FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR spectroscopy. Some of the synthesized compounds were evaluated for antibacterial activity, against two types of bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus (Gram positive) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Gram negative).The results showed the high sensitivity of the synthesized compounds to both types of bacteria