Diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta method of order four with minimum phase-lag for solving first order linear ODEs

In this paper we derived a new diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta method of order four with minimum phase-lag for solving first order linear ordinary differential equation. The stability polynomial of the method is obtained and the stability region is presented. A set of problems are tested upon and numerical results proved that the method is more accurate compared to other well known methods in the scientific literature

Prospective study of surgical management of femoral shaft fractures in children using tens nail

Background: Pediatric femoral shaft fractures are uncommon, constituting less than 2% of all fractures in children; yet they are a significant burden on healthcare systems and families as they are the most common fractures requiring hospitalization in children. In the recent studies, technique of flexible stable intra medullary pinning using titanium pins which is now popularly known as TENS has become the choice of operative management for pediatric femoral shaft fractures. We conducted a clinical prospective study on the use of Titanium Elastic Nailing System (TENS) for the treatment of femoral shaft fractures in children. Methods: This prospective study was carried out at Al-Ameen Medical College and Hospital, Vijayapura. Forty patients (32 males and 8 females) aged between 5-15 years with diaphyseal femur fracture were included in our study. Patients were treated with closed reduction and internal fixation with TENS. They were followed up for 6 months both clinically and radiologically. The functional outcome was evaluated using Flynn’s scoring criteria. Results: Forty patients were followed up for 6 months and their results were evaluated. The functional outcome using Flynn’s criteria was excellent in 24 patients, satisfactory in 14 patients and poor in 2 patients. Complications observed were limb length discrepancy, knee stiffness, superficial infection and nail protrusion. Conclusions: TENS has the advantages of early union, early mobilization, and manageable complications, making it an excellent choice for treating paediatric shaft femur fractures in patients aged 5 to 15 years

Cyanobacteria diversity in various waterbodies of Mosul, Iraq

Cyanobacteria are photoautotrophic bacteria that can adapt to various environments due to their extensive physiological adaptability. These bacteria are naturally distributed in diverse ecosystems, including freshwater, marshes, groundwater, lakes, brackish water (estuaries), salt water, moist soils, and dry land. This study was conducted to enlist cyanobacteria isolates in different waterbodies in Mosul, Iraq. For this purpose, 16 sites were selected and sampled. Based on the results, the Gloeocapsa nigrescens was the dominant species (10.34%), followed by Microcystis robusta (6.69%), Oscillatoria nigro-viridis (6.69%), and Oscillatoria sp. (6.69%). Mosul Dam Lake (station 12) was the most diverse one with six cyanobacteria species, including Schizothrix sp., Aphanocapsa koordesii, G. crepidium, O. trichoides, M. flos-aquae, and Plectonema tomasinianum

COLT: Cyclic Overlapping Lottery Tickets for Faster Pruning of Convolutional Neural Networks

Pruning refers to the elimination of trivial weights from neural networks. The sub-networks within an overparameterized model produced after pruning are often called Lottery tickets. This research aims to generate winning lottery tickets from a set of lottery tickets that can achieve similar accuracy to the original unpruned network. We introduce a novel winning ticket called Cyclic Overlapping Lottery Ticket (COLT) by data splitting and cyclic retraining of the pruned network from scratch. We apply a cyclic pruning algorithm that keeps only the overlapping weights of different pruned models trained on different data segments. Our results demonstrate that COLT can achieve similar accuracies (obtained by the unpruned model) while maintaining high sparsities. We show that the accuracy of COLT is on par with the winning tickets of Lottery Ticket Hypothesis (LTH) and, at times, is better. Moreover, COLTs can be generated using fewer iterations than tickets generated by the popular Iterative Magnitude Pruning (IMP) method. In addition, we also notice COLTs generated on large datasets can be transferred to small ones without compromising performance, demonstrating its generalizing capability. We conduct all our experiments on Cifar-10, Cifar-100 & TinyImageNet datasets and report superior performance than the state-of-the-art methods

Pre-filters in-transit malware packets detection in the network

Conventional malware detection systems cannot detect most of the new malware in the network without the availability of their signatures. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a technique to detect both metamorphic (mutated malware) and general (non-mutated) malware in the network using a combination of known malware sub-signature and machine learning classification. This network-based malware detection is achieved through a middle path for efficient processing of non-malware packets. The proposed technique has been tested and verified using multiple data sets (metamorphic malware, non-mutated malware, and UTM real traffic), this technique can detect most of malware packets in the network-based before they reached the host better than the previous works which detect malware in host-based. Experimental results showed that the proposed technique can speed up the transmission of more than 98% normal packets without sending them to the slow path, and more than 97% of malware packets are detected and dropped in the middle path. Furthermore, more than 75% of metamorphic malware packets in the test dataset could be detected. The proposed technique is 37 times faster than existing technique

COVID-19 Diagnosis Using Spectral and Statistical Analysis of Cough Recordings Based on the Combination of SVD and DWT

تستخدم الإشارات الصوتية التي يولدها جسم الإنسان بشكل روتيني من قبل التخصصين في البحوث والتطبيقات الصحية  للمساعدة في تشخيص بعض  الامراض أو تقييم تقدم المرض. وبالنظر إلى التقنيات الجديدة ، من الممكن في الوقت الحاضر جمع الأصوات التي يولدها الإنسان ، مثل السعال. ويمكن بعد ذلك اعتماد تقنيات التعلم الآلي المستندة إلى الصوت من أجل التحليل التلقائي للبيانات التي تم جمعها مما يوفر معلومات قيمة غنية من إشارة السعال واستخراج الميزات الفعالة من فترة زمنية محدودة الطول تتغير كدالة للوقت. في هذا البحث يتم اقتراح وتقديم خوارزمية  للكشف عن COVID-19 وتشخيصه من خلال معالجة السعال الذي يتم جمعه من المرضى الذين يعانون من الأعراض الأكثر شيوعًا لهذا الوباء. تعتمد الطريقة المقترحة على اعتماد مزيج من تحليل القيمة المفردة (SVD) وتحويل المويجات المنفصل (DWT).  وقد أدى الجمع بين هاتين التقنيتين لمعالجة الإشارات إلى اتباع نهج جيد للتعرف على السعال ، حيث يولد ويستخدم الحد الأدنى من الميزات الفعالة. وفي هذه الخوارزمية المقترحة يتم تطبيق الترددات المتوسطة (mean and median)، والمعروفة بأنها أكثر الميزات المفيدة في مجال التردد ، لإنشاء مقياس إحصائي فعال لمقارنة النتائج. بالإضافة إلى الحصول على معدل كشف وتمييز عاليين ، تتميز الخوارزمية المقترحة بكفاءتها حيث يتم تحقيق تخفيض 200 مرة، من حيث عدد العمليات. على الرغم من حقيقة أن أعراض الأشخاص المصابين وغير المصابين في الدراسة بها الكثير من أوجه التشابه ، فإن نتائج التشخيص التي تم الحصول عليها من تطبيق نهجنا تُظهر معدل تشخيص مرتفعًا، والذي تم إثباته من خلال مطابقتها مع اختبارات PCR ذات الصلة. نعتقد أنه يمكن تحقيق أداء أفضل من خلال توسيع مجموعة البيانات ، مع تضمين الأشخاص الأصحاء.Healthcare professionals routinely use audio signals, generated by the human body, to help diagnose disease or assess its progression. With new technologies, it is now possible to collect human-generated sounds, such as coughing. Audio-based machine learning technologies can be adopted for automatic analysis of collected data. Valuable and rich information can be obtained from the cough signal and extracting effective characteristics from a finite duration time interval that changes as a function of time. This article presents a proposed approach to the detection and diagnosis of COVID-19 through the processing of cough collected from patients suffering from the most common symptoms of this pandemic. The proposed method is based on adopting a combination of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The combination of these two signal processing techniques is gaining lots of interest in the field of speaker and speech recognition. As a cough recognition approach, we found it well-performing, as it generates and utilizes an efficient minimum number of features. Mean and median frequencies, which are known to be the most useful features in the frequency domain, are applied to generate an effective statistical measure to compare the results. The hybrid structure of DWT and SVD, adopted in this approach adds to its efficiency, where a 200 times reduction, in terms of the number of operations, is achieved. Despite the fact that symptoms of the infected and non-infected people used in the study are having lots of similarities, diagnosis results obtained from the application of the proposed approach show high diagnosis rate, which is proved through the matching with relevant PCR tests.  The proposed approach is open for more improvements with its performance further assured by enlarging the dataset, while including healthy people

Analysis of Marketing Channel and Market Structure of Dried Fish in Maiduguri Metropolis of Borno State, Nigeria

The study examined channel and market structure of dried fish in Maiduguri Metropolis of Borno State, Nigeria. Data were obtained using structured questionnaire. Three (3) major dried fish markets were purposely selected out of the seven (7) markets in the study area to reflect areas where dried fish sellers are predominantly found. A total of 100 respondents from the three (3) markets were randomly selected for the study. Descriptive statistics, Ginni coefficient, least square simple regression and budgetary techniques were used as analytical tools. The result reveals that marketing channel is divided into wholesalers and retailers of fresh and processed fish (dried fish). The finding also indicates that the values of Ginni coefficient were (0.5478) and (0.5252) for wholesalers and retailers, respectively. And the dried fish market had non competitive behaviour with monopolistic nature. The finding also reveals that (82%) of the marketers engaged in marketing Grade C dried fish products. The result of economies of scale reveals that the coefficient of wholesalers was (-0.005) while that of retailers was (-0.741) and are all negative but, statistically significant at 1% and 5%, respectively. It was recommended that local dried fish marketers should be organized into cooperative groups and government should provide adequate infrastructural facilities such as good road net work and market facilities. Keywords: Marketing channel, Market Structure, Dried fish, Borno State, Nigeria

In Situ Hybridization for Molecular Detection of Human Papilloma Viral 6 / 11 DNA in Adenoctomized Tissues from A group of Iraqi Pediatric Patients

هنالك أكثر من 200 من الأنماط الجينية لفايروس الورمي الحليمي البشري والتي تم التعرف عليها من خلال  الترابط مابين الانماط الجينية ذات الاختطار الواطئ للفايروس الحليمي البشري مع مجموعة متنوعة من الأورام الفموية والبلعوم والبلعوم الأنفي وكذلك الأورام الحليمية غير الخبيثة  وتضخم الغدة. هدفت هذه الدراسة  من نوع الاستقصائية- السيطرة إلى تحديد الحمض النووي للفيروس الورمي الحليمي البشري 6/11 في انسجة الغدد البلعومية الأنفية واللوزتين لمجموعة من المرضى الذين يخضعون لاستئصال اللوزتين. تم الحصول على 60عينة من أنسجة اللوزتين الأنفية البلعومية من الأطفال الذين يعانون من تضخم اللوزتين الغدي, تضمنت 40 من أنسجة اللوزتين الأنفية البلعومية للمرضى الذين يعانون من تضخم غدي ، و 20 عينة نسجية من الأطفال  بعد عمليات التشذيب للانسجة الأنفية السفلية بدون  تغييرات مرضية ملحوظة (كمجموعة  سيطرة). تم اجراء الكشف الجزيئي عن الحامض النووي للفيروس الورمي الحليمي البشري نمط 6\11 باستخدام تقنية التهجين الموضعي ذات الحساسية العالية في عينات الأنسجة الضخمة الغدية ز تم العثور على 8 من أصل 40 تحتوي على نتائج إيجابية للحمض النووي للفيروس الحليمي البشري 6\11 حيث شكلت 20 ٪ من إجمالي الأنسجة الغدية البلعومية الأنفية.بينما لاتوجد أي اشارة موجبة للحامض النووي للفايروس الحليمي البشري نمط 6\11 في مجموعة السيطرة. أظهر التحليل الإحصائي للنتائج في هذا البحث اختلافًا كبيرًا مقارنةً  مابين مجموعتي المرضى والسيطرة عند مستوى احتمالية اقل او يساوي 5%. يمكن أن يلعب فيروس الورم الحليمي البشري ذات الاختطار الواطئ في تلك الأنسجة الغدية المتضخمة دورًا في التسبب في الأمراض و / أو يشكل عامل  لانتشار العدوى الفيروسية للانسجة الاخرىAmong more than 200 different human papilloma viral genotypes, the association of low oncogenic risk-HPV genotypes have been recognized with a variety of oral, oropharyngeal, nasopharyngeal benign tumors as well as non-neoplastic polyposis and papillomas and adenoid hypertrophy. This prospective case- control study aims to determine the rate of DNA detection of HPV genotype 6/11 in nasopharyngeal adeno- tonsillar tissues from a group of patients subjected to adenoctomy for adenoid hypertrophy . A total number of nasopharyngeal adeno-tonsillar tissue specimens from pediatric patients with adenoid hypertrophy were enrolled; 40 nasopharyngeal adeno-tonsillar tissues from patients with adenoid hypertrophy, and 20 normal nasal tissue specimens were obtained from pediatric patients following trimming operations of their inferior nasal turbinates' with unremarkable pathological changes (as an apparently healthy control group). The molecular detection methods for HPV detection were performed by using DNA probes via a recent version of chromogenic in situ hybridization specified for low- risk HPV genotypes.  Among total adenoid hypertrophied tissue specimens group, 8 out of 40 were found to contain positive results for DNA of HPV 6 / 11 genotype, constituting 20% of the total screened nasopharyngeal adenotonsillar tissues. No positive– CISH reactions were detected in the control nasal tissues. The statistical analysis of results in this research showed significant difference when compared to the control apparently healthy tissues.   The significant rate of low- oncogenic HPV genotypes detection in those adenoid hypertrophied tissues could play, in part, a role in their pathogenesis and / or constituting a herald focus for the spread of such important virally transmitted infection