COMMON CAUSES OF CHILD MORTALITY IN ATBARA TEACHING HOSPITAL, SUDAN

Background :  Providing data about the common causes of child death is essential to the development of national and local health policies for prevention and control of disease. Objective :  To determine the common causes of child mortality in Atbara Teaching Hospital, Sudan. Methods : In this retrospective study the records of children 0-15 years of age who died at Atbara Teaching Hospital within a 5 year period (Jan 2005 – Dec 2009) were reviewed for demographic data as well as the cause of death. Results : From a total of 14765 admissions to the pediatric ward in the five year period the total death was 344 (2.3%). Males were 215 (62.5%) and females 129 (37.5%). The under five were the majority ( 92.2%). Neonates constituted 25.8% of the total, older infants 42.9% and more than one year to five years 23.5%. The commonest causes of death were respiratory tract infections (18.2%) followed by malnutrition (16.6%), blood infections (15.4%), gastroenteritis and dehydration (15.4%), malaria (5.9%), scorpion sting (5.9%), heart failure (4.3%), meningitis (3.4%) and anemia (2.5%). At the bottom of the list were: tuberculosis (0.6%) and tetanus (0.3%). Conclusion : Causes of child mortality in Atbara are similar to those reported from other developing countries. Children under-five years of age are at the greatest risk of death from preventable and treatable diseases

Sero-prevalence of HIV, HBV, HCV in Blood Specimens Received at a Clinical Laboratory in Atbara, Sudan

Background: Clinical laboratory personnel, like all healthcare workers, have a high risk of occupational exposure to blood-borne infections from clinical specimens, more so in developing countries, where unsafe practices are common. The most common and important ones are HIV ,HBV, and HCV infections. Objectives: To determine the sero-prevalence of HIV, HBV and HCV infections in blood samples at a clinical laboratory, and to address the preventive measures. Methods: Blood samples of 385 subjects attended for investigations of noninfectious illnesses were tested for the  seroprevalence of HIV, HBV, and HCV by screening tests and confirmed by ELISA.  Results: Males constituted 63.9%, HIV was confirmed in 0.5%, HBV in 7.8% and HCV in none of the study population. Conclusion: The risk of blood borne viral disease in blood specimens is remarkable even in non-suspected specimens and protective measures against occupational exposure must be taken in order to prevent infection among laboratory  workers

Improve cloud computing security using RSA encryption with Fermat's little theorem

Cloud computing (CC) is new technology for hosting and delivering services over the Internet. It moves computing and data away from desktop and portable PCs into large data centers.CC is a Internet based computing, the entire data reside over a set of networked resources, this data can be accessed through virtual machines like i phone, PC etc.CC help to reduce hardware, maintenance and installation cost. But security and privacy is the two major issues in this field and it prevent users for trusting CC. Cloud computing share distributed resources in the open environment via the network, so it makes security problems .To keep user data highly confidentially against un-trusted servers and from malicious attacks is very important. Encryption is the one of the most secured way using prevent unauthorized access. Hence we provide a new method for Cloud Computing Security by applying RSA algorithm and Fermat's theorem together. Its help to build a new trusted cloud computing environment. By using Fermat's theorem can be speed up the RSA Encryption

Value of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy of brain to study the cerebral metabolic abnormalities in COPD: Initial experience

AbstractBackgroundChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients were found to have cerebral metabolic abnormalities. Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) is a sensitive technique that detects metabolic changes of the brain.ObjectiveTo study the cerebral metabolic changes in COPD patients using 1H MRS.MethodsThis study was carried-out on twenty symptomatic COPD patients (16 male and 4 female) and age matched group of 20 healthy controls (11 male and 19 female). Pulmonary function tests, respiratory muscle strength, resting arterial blood gases, and 1H MRS of the brain were carried out on all subjects. The parieto-temporal and occipital regions were localized for 1H MRS. The metabolic ratios of N-acetyl aspartate to creatine (NAA/Cr) and choline to creatine (Cho/Cr) were calculated by the single voxel technique.ResultsIn comparison with healthy control subjects, the mean values of Cho/Cr in COPD patients were lower in parieto-temporal and occipital areas (0.99±0.21 vs. 1.10±0.31; P=0.22) (0.81±0.26 vs. 0.88±0.21; P=0.37), respectively while, the mean values of NAA/Cr in COPD patients were higher in both parieto-temporal and occipital areas of the brain (1.82±0.35 vs. 1.68±0.22; P=0.14) (1.59±0.31 vs. 1.39±0.39; P=0.08), respectively. In COPD patients, significant positive correlations were observed between maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) and NAA/Cr in parieto-temporal area of the brain.ConclusionsThe cerebral metabolites, arterial blood gases, respiratory muscle strength, and pulmonary function tests are altered in symptomatic COPD patients. 1H MRS is a non invasive technique that detects cerebral metabolic changes in COPD patients

The Application of Epstein’s Model in the Implementation of Career Transition Programme for Students with Learning Disabilities

The career transition programme is a programme implemented to prepare students with special needs (SSN) to face future working environment. Parents are among the factors contributing to the successful completion of SSN’s career transition programme. This survey was conducted to identify the level of involvement of SSN parents in the implementation of career transition programmes in schools. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire consists of 48 items with five points Likert scale. This questionnaire was developed based on six elements of Epstein’s Parental Involvement Model: i) parenting, ii) communication, iii) decision making, iv) learning at home, v) collaboration with the community and vi) voluntary assistance. This study involved 30 respondents comprising parents of SSN who had undergone a career transition programme at Special Education Integrated Program (PPKI) at four secondary schools in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. The data were analysed descriptively using SPSS software. The findings show that parents’ involvement is high in terms of communication and voluntary assistance while their involvement in parenting, decision-making, home-based learning, and collaboration with the community is at moderate level. Parents’ education level was found to have no significant relationship with the level of parental involvement except for communication and voluntary aspects. The findings of this study can give some insights to policy makers to increase parents’ level of involvement in the context of planning and the implementation of programmes to support SSN’s readiness for the career realm. Parents are encouraged to improve their advocacy skills and awareness on the importance of their roles in the career transition

THE INTERACTIVE ROLES OF LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE AND READING STRATEGIES ON READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE

This paper presents a study on the interactive roles of lexical knowledge and reading strategies on reading comprehension performance of ESL learners. It examines how the lexical knowledge or the reading strategies contribute to second language (L2) reading comprehension. It also investigates whether there is a relationship among the three main variables which are lexical knowledge, reading strategies and reading comprehension performance. The Survey of Reading Strategy (SORS), the Vocabulary Levels Test, a writing test and a reading comprehension test were administered to 70 students from the Public Administration Course through convenience sampling method. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the participants’ performance on the three tests and their reading strategies used as well as to assess the relationship between the three main variables of this study. On the whole, the participants reported using most of the reading strategies with high and moderate frequencies. Apart from that, it is found that, the students’ word mastery level is only 2,000 word families, which is far below the minimum level required for tertiary education. There is no correlation found between the reading strategies used and the reading comprehension achievement of the participants. On the other hand, a statistically significant relationship (r= .739, p<0.01) was found between the participants vocabulary size and reading comprehension performance. The findings of this study help both language teachers and students to acknowledge the roles of lexical knowledge and reading strategies in improving the L2 reading comprehension performance. Keywords: Global strategies, lexical knowledge, problem-solving strategies, reading strategies, support strategies. Cite as: Zuriyani, M. Y. & Mohamed Ismail, A. S. (2019). The interactive roles of lexical knowledge and reading strategies on reading comprehension performance. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 4(1), 273-299. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol4iss1pp273-29

The Outcome of 428 Cases of Scorpion Sting Syndrome in Atbara Locality, North Sudan

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and outcome of scorpion sting in Atbara and to give a brief  pathophysiology, clinical aspects, and management options. Methods : This is a retrospective study conducted at Atbara Teaching Hospital, Sudan, to look into the records of 428 scorpion envenomation  cases  in five years period from (2005-2009).  Results: Males constituted 51.2%, children below 15 were 37.2%, the overall death rate was 4.7% (n=20) and all of them were children. Most cases (88.4%) presented during the hot season. Conclusion: Scorpion sting is a life-threatening condition in children in Atbara, a better understanding of the condition and a proper management protocol may save lives

A study on depression and/or anxiety among adult type 2 diabetes mellitus patients attending diabetic center, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia

To determine the prevalence of depression and/or anxiety and the factors associated with depression and/or anxiety among patient with Diabetes Mellitus in USM. This is a cross sectional study involving 260 adult Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients, attending Diabetic Center, HUSM from November 2007 till March 2008. The patients were interviewed using a set of questionnaires on sociodemographic, family dynamic and medical history. Screening for depression and anxiety was done by using self administered Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score. Those who had score of9 and above for both part are positive for anxiety and depression. They were referred to psychiatrist for further assessment to confirm the diagnosis by means ofDSM-IV criteria. The prevalence of depression was 20.8% and anxiety was I 0.8%. Level of occupation (p<0.05), satisfaction with income (p<O.OS), retired and also working in private sector (p<O.OS), source of income from other family members (p<0.05), has been taken care by their children during an acute illness (p<O.OS), diabetic foot and retinopathy (p<0.05) and compliant to the diabetic follow up (p<0.05) were associated with depression. Factors that associated with anxiety were male (p<0.05), decision making in the family (p<0.05), has been taken care by their children during illness (p<0.05) and presence of diabetic foot (p<0.05).Prevalence of depression among T2DM was similar with most studies but however the prevalence of anxiety was lower in this group of patients. Working in private sector, received source of income from other than family members, taken care by their children during acute illness, presence of diabetic retinopathy and diabetic foot were associated with increased risk for depression among T2DM. Those who received secondary and tertiary level of education, satisfied with their income and retired were associated with reduced risk for depression. Those who had diabetic foot was associated with increased ri sk for anxiety, however male and those who occasionally dominance in making decision in making the decision in the fa mily were associated with reduced risk for anxiety

Comparative Study of Sensorless Control Methods of PMSM Drives

Recently, permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are increasingly used in high performance variable speed drives of many industrial applications. This is because the PMSM has many features, like high efficiency, compactness, high torque to inertia ratio, rapid dynamic response, simple modeling and control, and maintenance-free operation. In most applications, the presence of such a position sensor presents several disadvantages, such as reduced reliability, susceptibility to noise, additional cost and weight and increased complexity of the drive system. For these reasons, the development of alternative indirect methods for speed and position control becomes an important research topic. Many advantages of sensorless control such as reduced hardware complexity, low cost, reduced size, cable elimination, increased noise immunity, increased reliability and decreased maintenance. The key problem in sensorless vector control of ac drives is the accurate dynamic estimation of the stator flux vector over a wide speed range using only terminal variables (currents and voltages). The difficulty comprises state estimation at very low speeds where the fundamental excitation is low and the observer performance tends to be poor. The reasons are the observer sensitivity to model parameter variations, unmodeled nonlinearities and disturbances, limited accuracy of acquisition signals, drifts, and dc offsets. Poor speed estimation at low speed is attributed to data acquisition errors, voltage distortion due the PWM inverter and stator resistance drop which degrading the performance of sensorless drive. Moreover, the noises of system and measurements are considered other main problems. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the different methods of speed and position estimations for sensorless PMSM drives. A deep insight of the advantages and disadvantages of each method is investigated. Furthermore, the difficulties faced sensorless PMSM drives at low speeds as well as the reasons are highly demonstrated. Keywords: permanent magnet, synchronous motor, sensorless control, speed estimation, position estimation, parameter adaptation