Setting a Minimum Standard of Care in Clinical Trials: Human Rights Law and Bioethics as Complementary Frameworks

For the past few decades, there has been intense debate in bioethics about the standard of care that should be provided in clinical trials conducted in developing countries. Some interpret the Declaration of Helsinki to mean that control groups should receive the best intervention available worldwide, while others interpret this and other international guidelines to mean the best local standard of care. Questions of justice are particularly relevant where limited resources mean that the local standard of care is no care at all. Introducing human rights law into this complex and longstanding debate adds a new and important perspective. Through non-derogable rights, including the core obligations of the right to health, human rights law can help set a minimum standard of care

Electrochemical Performance of Laser Modified Zinc Electrode

In this work CO2 laser has been utilized to produce textured surface in zinc foil to use in electrochemical cells as a cathode, the modified surface was obtained by making two parallel lines in 1mm, using CO2 laser with (?=10600nm) and power of 90 watts and 10mm/s speed. The experimental evidence of the effect of surface texturing on the performance of the electrochemical cell was demonstrated and investigated. The results show considerable increase in cell voltage with the textured cathode comported to the planar one, also the performance of cell with the textured cathode is more stable

Electrochemical Performance of Laser Modified Zinc Electrode

In this work CO2 laser has been utilized to produce textured surface in zinc foil to use in electrochemical cells as a cathode, the modified surface was obtained by making two parallel lines in 1mm, using CO2 laser with (?=10600nm) and power of 90 watts and 10mm/s speed. The experimental evidence of the effect of surface texturing on the performance of the electrochemical cell was demonstrated and investigated. The results show considerable increase in cell voltage with the textured cathode comported to the planar one, also the performance of cell with the textured cathode is more stable

Fine-tuning MobileNetV2 for Sea Animal Classification

Abstract: Classifying sea animals is an important problem in marine biology and ecology as it enables the accurate identification and monitoring of species populations, which is crucial for understanding and protecting marine ecosystems. This paper addresses the problem of classifying 19 different sea animals using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The proposed solution is to use a pretrained MobileNetV2 model, which is a lightweight and efficient CNN architecture, and fine-tune it on a dataset of sea animals. The results of the study show that the fine-tuned MobileNetV2 model is able to achieve an accuracy of 85% on the classification task, which is competitive with the state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, the study also found that data augmentation and regularization techniques such as dropout were important for preventing overfitting and improving the performance of the model. This study demonstrates the potential of using pretrained models and efficient CNN architectures for classifying sea animals, and it provides insights into the challenges and best practices for solving this important problem in marine biology and ecology

An investigation on fumigant effect of the extract of Origanum vulgare (Lamiales: Lamiaceae) for control of two stored-product beetles

Origanum vulgare L. was collected from Ardebil, Guilan and Mazandaran provinces to assess the fumigant toxicity of its extract and determine LC50 and LC95 values for different developmental stages of Callosobruchus maculatus F. and Tribolium confusum J. du Val. It was extracted by solvents including methanol and dichloromethane. Eggs, larvae and adult of both species were exposed to dichloromethane and methanol extracts of O. vulgare for 72 hours. LC50 and LC95 values of dichloromethane extract were calculated 2084.51 and 4991.24 µl/l air for adults of T. cofusum, and 2282.80 and 6684.71µl/l air for adults of C. maculatus, respectively. Also, LC50 and LC95 values of methanol extract were 1726.57 and 5395.60 µl/l air for adults of T. cofusum, and 2040.88 and 5607.77 µl/l air for adults of C. maculatus, respectively

Molecular Typing of Canine Parvovirus from Sulaimani, Iraq and Phylogenetic Analysis Using Partial Vp2 Gene

Canine parvovirus (CPV) remains the most significant viral cause of haemorrhagic enteritis and bloody diarrhoea in puppies over the age of 12 weeks. The objective of the present study was to detect and genotype CPV-2 by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and to perform phylogenetic analysis using partial VP2 gene sequences. We analysed eight faecal samples of unvaccinated dogs with signs of vomiting and bloody diarrhoea during the period from December 2013 to May 2014 in different locations in Sulaimani, Kurdistan, Iraq. After PCR detection, we found that all viral sequences in our study were CPV-2b variants, which differed genetically by 0.8% to 3.6% from five commercially available vaccines. Alignment between eight nucleotides of field virus sequences showed 95% to 99.5% similarity. The phylogenetic analysis for the 8 field sequences formed two distinct clusters with two sequences belonging to strains from China and Thailand and the other six - with a strain from Egypt. Molecular characterisation and CPV typing are crucial in epidemiological studies for future prevention and control of the disease

Performance evaluation of a digital electrical impedance tomography system

Performance evaluation of a portable digital multi-frequency electrical impedance tomography system is presented. The instrumentation hardware and image reconstruction are assessed according to a systematic methodology using a practical phantom. The phantom is equipped with eight electrodes in a ring configuration and a sinusoidal current of constant amplitude is injected using an adjacent current injection protocol. Artificial anomalies are introduced as inhomogeneity targets and the boundary potential data is collected. The images are reconstructed from the boundary data using Comsol Multiphysics and Matlab. Signal to noise ratio (SNR) and accuracy of the measurements are calculated. The limits of detectability and distinguishability of contrasts are measured from the collected potential data set for single and double inhomogeneities. The conductivity of the targets is successfully reconstructed from the potential data measurements. The detectability value is found to be high when a single target is close to the electrodes, while the values are less for the target in the centre. Also, the value of distinguishability increases when the targets move further away from each other

Phylogenic analysis of serotype Asia1 foot-and-mouth disease virus from Sulaimani/Iraq using VP1 protein: heterogeneity with vaccine strain As1/Shamir/89

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) serotypes O, A and Asia1 are responsible for a significant number of disease outbreaks in Iraq. The current study can be considered as the first molecular characterization of serotype Asia1 in Iraq. The present investigation reports the detection of serotype FMDV Asia1 from local farms in Sulaimani districts in 2012 and 2014 outbreaks. Phylogenetic analysis of the complete VP1 gene has shown that FMDV Asia1 field isolates were under genetic novel variant Sindh-08 (group VII) including PAK/iso/11 and TUR/13 strains. The VP1 protein sequence of circulatory FMDV Asia1 genotype showed heterogeneity of nine amino acid substitutions within the G-H loop with the vaccine strain As1/Shamir/89 (JF739177) that is currently used in vaccination program in Iraq. Our result indicated that differences in VP1 protein at G-H loop of the locally circulated FMDV serotype Asia1 strain may be a reason for current vaccination failure

Inactivated pentavalent vaccine against mycoplasmosis and salmonellosis for chickens

Mycoplasma and Salmonella are serious pathogens threaten the poultry industry. This study aimed to prepare and evaluate an inactivated pentavalent vaccine targeting bacteria, including Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (ST), Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (SE), Salmonella enterica serovar Kentucky (SK), Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), and Mycoplasma synoviae (MS), from locally isolated strains. The prepared vaccine was adjuvanted with Montanide ISA70 oil and then tested for safety, sterility, and potency. The vaccine efficacy was evaluated in 110 specific pathogen-free, 1-day-old chicks, which were divided into three groups as follows: 1) vaccinated group (50 birds), which was subdivided into five subgroups of ten birds each; 2) control positive (challenged) group (50 birds), which was subdivided into five subgroups of ten birds each; and 3) control negative (blank) group, which included ten birds. Chicks in group 1 were administered the first dose of vaccine at 7 d of age followed by a booster dose after 3 wk. At 3 wk after booster vaccination, the chicks who were administered the booster dose were challenged and kept under observation until the end of the experiment when the chicks were approximately 10 wk. Details of clinical symptoms, daily mortality, weights, and postmortem lesions; serum samples; cloacal swabs; and nasal swabs were collected during the experiment. The humoral immune response to the prepared pentavalent vaccine was assessed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Our findings revealed that the prepared vaccine showed high protective antibody titers against Salmonella and Mycoplasma with 100% efficacy and no mortalities (100% survival rate) were recorded in vaccinated and challenged birds. The vaccine reduced both clinical signs and bacterial shedding post challenge in vaccinated birds in comparison with control positive group. The prepared vaccine did not affect the body weight gain of the vaccinated birds in comparison with control negative birds. The current study concluded that locally manufactured inactivated pentavalent vaccine offers protection to birds and could be employed as an effective tool along with biosecurity measures to overcome mycoplasmosis and salmonellosis in layer and breeder chicken farms in Egypt

Les Occlusions Intestinales Par Nœud Ileo-Sigmoïdien : Aspects Diagnostiques, Thérapeutiques Et Pronostiques

Introduction: Ileosigmoid knot (ISK), also known as compound volvulus or double volvulus, is a rare disease and affects mostly male subjects in their fourth decade. Delayed diagnosis often leads to complications with a high incidence of digestive necrosis. Materials and methods: This was a 10-year retrospective, descriptive and analytical study from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2016, which covered all patients operated emergently for ISK in the surgical and surgical specialty departments at the Niamey National Hospital (NNH). Results: The series involved 8 cases of ISK, representing 0.82% of intestinal obstructions. There were 7 men and 1 woman. The average age of patients was 44.33 years with extremes ranging from 25 to 60 years. The main clinical signs were: abdominal pain (100%), inability to pass gas and stool (100%), vomiting (87.5%) and abdominal meteorism (87.5%). Four patients (50%) had a clear obstructive syndrome and the other 4 patients (50%) had associated signs of peritoneal irritation. Paraclinical diagnosis was difficult because of atypical clinico-radiological signs, but in all cases an abdominal x-ray was performed and showed a double loop of dilated sigmoid shadow in 87.5% of the cases. Laparotomy was the first approach used in all patients and led to a 50% necrosis rate. Hartmann’s colectomy and ideal colectomy were used in identical proportions, with 50% each. Ideal colectomy was characterized by a morbidity rate of 50% and a mortality rate of 25% compared to 0% for Hartmann’s procedure. The overall morbidity was 25% and the overall mortality was 12.5%. The average hospital stay was 65.87 days (range 17 to 128 days). The average time before reestablishment of digestive continuity was 50.37 days (range 31-128 days). Conclusion: Ileosigmoid knot is a rare condition at Niamey national hospital where the diagnostic approach is similar to that of occlusions in general, but remains difficult due to its uncommonness and atypical clinico-radiological signs. Necrosis rates and postoperative complications remain high