Leaking roofs in Tunisia

Summary The leaking of water through roofs is a major problem in many parts of Tunisia. As a part of a collaboration between "École N: ionale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis" (E.N.I.T.) and Lund University, Institute of Science and Technology (L.N.T.H.), Sweden, a measuring method has been developed to compare the watertightness of different roofing membranes. With the method, three roof structues with different types of bituminous membranes were tested. The measuring equipment consists of a plastic tube containing a concrete slab covered with a roofing membrane. The diameter of the tube is 30 cm and the height is 8 cm. The joint between the specimen and the tube is tightened and water is poured on top of the specimen in order to estimate the flow of water that penetrates the membrane and the slab. The tube with its specimen rests on a plastic bowl containing a bed of a wet salt with a low and well defined relative humidity. Thus, all specimens are exposed to the same type of climate and the penetration will be greatþ promoted by the big difference between the humidity above the membrane (liquid water) and below the concrete slab. The results obtained after 1000 hours of measuring were plotted in diagrams showing how much water that had run through the specimens at a certain time. The measuring method has been analysed and it has been proposed how to use the method to make it possible to calculate a quantitative value of the watertightness. Finally, an economic analysis was made in order to compare the costs of making the three roof structures

Effect of Occupational Vibration on Visual Pathway Measured by Visual Evoked Potentials

Purpose: To study the possible effects of vibration on visual pathway using visual evoked potentials.Patients and Methods: Fifty workers from a textile factory segment with machinery creating high levels of vibration were selected. The laborers had at least 6 years of experience in the factory segment where high vibrating machines were operating. The amplitude and latency of visual evoked potential, P100 peak was recorded for these selected workers and 50 age and sex matched controls from other sections of the factory. Results The mean age was 27.5 ± 1.741 and 27.28 ± 1.641 in the case and control groups respectively. There was a statistically significant higher latency of the visual evoked potential, P100 peak in the case group compared to the control group (P < 0.001). No significant difference regarding the amplitude of visual evoked potential, P100 peak was observed between the two groups (P = 0.89).Conclusion: Occupational vibration might have adverse effects on visual system, mainly visual pathway, causing increased latency of VEP; P100 peak measured using visual evoked potentials.keywords: Vibration; Visual Pathways; Evoked Potentials, Visual

A Multi-Element Approach to Location Inference of Twitter: A Case for Emergency Response

Since its inception, Twitter has played a major role in real-world events—especially in the aftermath of disasters and catastrophic incidents, and has been increasingly becoming the first point of contact for users wishing to provide or seek information about such situations. The use of Twitter in emergency response and disaster management opens up avenues of research concerning different aspects of Twitter data quality, usefulness and credibility. A real challenge that has attracted substantial attention in the Twitter research community exists in the location inference of twitter data. Considering that less than 2% of tweets are geotagged, finding location inference methods that can go beyond the geotagging capability is undoubtedly the priority research area. This is especially true in terms of emergency response, where spatial aspects of information play an important role. This paper introduces a multi-elemental location inference method that puts the geotagging aside and tries to predict the location of tweets by exploiting the other inherently attached data elements. In this regard, textual content, users’ profile location and place labelling, as the main location-related elements, are taken into account. Location-name classes in three granularity levels are defined and employed to look up the location references from the location-associated elements. The inferred location of the finest granular level is assigned to a tweet, based on a novel location assignment rule. The location assigned by the location inference process is considered to be the inferred location of a tweet, and is compared with the geotagged coordinates as the ground truth of the study. The results show that this method is able to successfully infer the location of 87% of the tweets at the average distance error of 12.2 km and the median distance error of 4.5 km, which is a significant improvement compared with that of the current methods that can predict the location with much larger distance errors or at a city-level resolution at best

Association between sonographic diagnosis of fatty liver with histopathologic abnormalities and liver biopsy findings in middle age patient with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Background: Liver biopsy is required to diagnose non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in patients with suspected non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This study aimed to examine the relationship between sonographic diagnosis of fatty liver with histopathologic abnormalities and liver biopsy findings in patient with NAFLD. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 180 patients, with an age range of 18-60 year old, with NAFLD based on ultrasonograghic findings were evaluated. Age, sex, body mass index, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, family history of liver disease and laboratory parameters recorded for all patients. Hence, grade of steatosis and stage of fibrosis were evaluated by liver biopsy. Results: A total of 220 patients were enrolled. Liver biopsy was performed in 180 patients. Mean age was 43 ± 10.6 years old and 66% were male. Ultrasonograghic findings showed mild, moderate and severe NAFLD was define in 100 (55.5%), 72 (40%) and 8 (4.5%) of patients, respectively. Liver biopsies showed that steatosis scores of <5%, 5-33% and 33-66% was define in 56 (31%), 116 (64%) and 9 (5%) of patients, respectively. Furthermore, fibrosis was defined as follow; none 92 (51%), mild 68 (38%), moderate 11 (6%), bridging 5 (3%) and cirrhosis 3 (2%) patients. There was no statistically significant relationship between ultrasonograghic findings and steatosis scores (P = 0.44), but statistically significant relationship was found between ultrasonograghic findings and fibrosis stage (P = 0.017). Conclusion: Findings revealed that, in patients with NAFLD, ultrasonographic finding were not in associate to steatosis, but were in relation with fibrosis stage

A Validation Study for POSSUM and EuroSCORE as a Predictor of Mortality After Selective Cardiac Surgery

Aim: to assess physiological and operative severity score for the enumeration of mortality (POSSUM) scoring system and compare it with European system for cardiac operative risk evaluation (EuroSCORE) scores in patients who underwent cardiac surgery from two hospitals in the southwestern region of Iran. Methods: in this retrospective study, total of all 1420 patients who were admitted for elective cardiac surgery at our centers, from 2007 to 2012, were scored using the POSSUM and EuroSCORE systems. Results: the overall mortality rate was 0.87%. Among the risk factors, history of diabetes, smoking, respiratory disease, and myocardial infarction, were significantly affect the mortality rate. Therefore, of these risk factors, only the hemoglobin was significantly correlated with the morbidity rate. The predictive accuracy of mortality equations was 74.5%. The lower predictive accuracy of mortality equations was 67.8% was observed using EuroSCORE. Conclusion: although results are statistically significant, but the analysis have never intended to affect the decision to operate, and this decision must be based on clinical expertise, because of the need to standardize data collection and stratify the risks involved in operations, scoring systems such as POSSUM should be used prospectively. However, if analyzed correctly, POSSUM is a good predictor of mortality in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Key words: cardiac surgery, physiological and operative severity score for the enumeration of mortality (POSSUM), European system for cardiac operative risk evaluation (EuroSCORE)

Determination of Iron and Chromium Levels in Canned Fish Produced in Factories of Khuzestan Province, Southwest of Iran

Background: The heavy metal pollutions were accumulated in aquatic animals such as fish. Whereas consumption of canned fish is increased in many countries, contaminated fish meat would make a hazard to food security and public health. In this study, the levels ofiron and chromium were measured in canned fish products in in Khuzestan, Iran, in 2015. Methods: Forty-six of canned fish composite samples were analyzed for levels of iron and chromium after dry digestion and then determined by atomic absorption spectrometry. Results: The mean concentrations of A and B canned brandsfor iron were 4.6504348 and 0.1908696 and for chromium were 1.36030435 and 0.67629565, respectively. There were significant differences in the iron and chromium levels between two brands of canned fishes (P<0.05).Varieties of canned fishes were within FAO/WHO, U.S. FDA, U.S. EPA and U.K for iron and chromium. Conclusion: According to US EPA health criteria for carcinogens, there was no health risk to chromium in canned fish

In Vitro Comparative Evaluation of the Efficacy of Antimicrobial Photodynamic Therapy, Chlorhexidine, Sodium Fluoride, and Hydrogen Peroxide for Acrylic Resin Disinfection: Acrylic resin disinfection via photodynamic therapy

Introduction: Plaque accumulation on the surface of removable orthodontic appliances could lead to dental caries, periodontitis, and fungal infections. This study evaluated the effectiveness of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT), chlorhexidine (CHX), sodium fluoride (NaF), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for the disinfection of acrylic resin.Methods: In this in vitro experimental study, 100 acrylic resin specimens were randomly divided into five groups (n=20 each): Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus salivarius, Streptococcus sanguinis, and Lactobacillus acidophilus. Each group was immersed separately in 5 mL of microbial suspension. They were then incubated until biofilm formation on their surface. Of each microorganism, one biofilm sample in phosphate-buffered saline was considered as negative control, and other biofilm samples (n=80) were subjected to aPDT with curcumin, 0.12% CHX (positive control), 1% H2O2, and 0.2% NaF. Finally, the number of colonies was counted. Data were analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests, two-way ANOVA, and Bonferroni adjustment at a significance level of 0.05.Results: The interaction effect of the treatment modality and type of microorganism was significant on the microbial count (effect size: 0.91, P&lt;0.05). Maximum bacterial proliferation was noted in the following combinations: NaF/E. faecalis, H2O2/E. faecalis, and H2O2/S. salivarius. Microorganisms had no or insignificant growth and proliferation in the aPDT and CHX groups.Conclusion: The results supported the optimal antimicrobial efficacy of PDT which was comparable to that of CHX. aPDT showed superior antimicrobial efficacy to NaF and H2O2 for the disinfection of acrylic resin

Co-expression of TLR-9 and MMP-13 is associated with the degree of tumour differentiation in prostate cancer

In vitro experiments demonstrated that stimulation of Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR-9) by synthetic TLR-9 ligands induces the invasion of TLR-9-expressing prostate cancer cells through matrix metalloproteinase 13 (MMP-13). However, the clinical value of TLR-9 and MMP-13 co-expression in the pathophysiology of the prostate is unknown. In the study, we evaluated the expression levels and clinical significance of the TLR-9 and MMP-13 in a series of prostate tissues. One hundred and eighty prostate tissues including prostate cancer (PCa) (n = 137), high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HPIN) (n = 18) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) (n = 25) were immunostained for the TLR-9 and MMP-13 markers. Subsequently, the correlation between the TLR-9 and MMP-13 staining scores and clinicopathological parameters was obtained. Higher expressions of TLR-9 and MMP-13 were found in PCa and high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia compared to benign prostatic hyperplasia tissues. Among PCa samples, a positive relationship was revealed between the MMP-13 expression and Gleason score (P &lt; 0.001). There was a significant correlation between TLR-9 expression and regional lymph node involvement (P = 0.04). The expression patterns of TLR-9 and MMP-13 markers demonstrated a reciprocal significant correlation between the two markers in the same series of prostate samples (P &lt; 0.001). Furthermore, the Gleason score of TLR-9high/MMP-13high and TLR-9low/MMP-13low phenotypes showed a significant difference (P = 0.002). Higher expressions of TLR-9 and MMP-13 can confer aggressive behaviour to PCa. Therefore, these markers may be used as a valuable target for tailored therapy of PCa. © 2019 The Authors. International Journal of Experimental Pathology © 2019 International Journal of Experimental Patholog

The Epidemiology of Trauma in Golestan Province, Northeast of Iran

Introduction: Trauma is one of the most common health problems worldwide, which results in many cases of physical disability every year. Considering the importance of the occurrence of trauma, this study was conducted to determine its epidemiology in trauma patients of the Trauma Center of Gorgan County, Golestan Province. Methods: This cross-sectional population-based study was conducted on 17941 Iranian trauma patients attending the Trauma Center of 5 Azar Educational Hospital, Gorgan County, from the beginning of 2013 through 2014 using the census method. The patients&rsquo; data were collected using a checklist designed by the Treatment Deputy of Golestan University of Medical Sciences on morning, evening, and night shifts by trained personnel. The data were analyzed with the STATA software version 12. Results: Most of the trauma patients were male and belonged to the age group 21-35 years. Alley, street, and house were the most common trauma locations. Injury, motorcycle accident, and falls from height were the most common types of trauma. As for the outcome, most trauma patients were &ldquo;treated&rdquo;. Conclusion: With advances in technology, due to the increase in the number and speed of vehicles and changes in the lifestyle, trauma is one of the major causes of mortality and disability in the world. Knowledge of the epidemiology of trauma in the world can help to lower its prevalence and incidence.&nbsp