2,028 research outputs found

    Documenting Administration System on RT 012 Pinang Ranti Using Visual Basic 6.0.

    Full text link
    Science and computer technology is more sophisticated now and spread so rapidly, so it is very helpful in the process of data processing still using manual systems. Certainly be very useful and more effective and efficient in terms of time and effort, if the data collection activities of citizens in environmental Neighborhood (RT) can be done with a computerized system. In connection with these authors are interested in making an administrative program design of computerized data collection citizen. And discuss also the Data Flow Diagrams (DFD), Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), Normalization and the appearance of the Visual Basic 6.0 program

    Adapted motivational interviewing to improve the uptake of treatment for glaucoma in Nigeria: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

    Get PDF
    BACKGROUND: Glaucoma is a chronic eye disease associated with irreversible visual loss. In Africa, glaucoma patients often present late, with very advanced disease. One-off procedures, such as laser or surgery, are recommended in Africa because of lack of or poor adherence to medical treatment. However, acceptance of surgery is usually extremely low. To prevent blindness, adherence to treatment needs to improve, using acceptable, replicable and cost-effective interventions. After reviewing the literature and interviewing patients in Bauchi (Nigeria) motivational interviewing (MI) was selected as the intervention for this trial, with adaptation for glaucoma (MIG). MI is designed to strengthen personal motivation for, and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring a person's reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion. The aim of this study is to assess whether MIG increases the uptake of laser or surgery amongst glaucoma patients where this is the recommended treatment. The hypothesis is that MIG increases the uptake of treatment. This will be the first trial of MI in Africa. METHODS: This is a hospital based, single centre, randomized controlled trial of MIG plus an information sheet on glaucoma and its treatment (the latter being "standard care") compared with standard care alone for glaucoma patients where the treatment recommended is surgery or laser.Those eligible for the trial are adults aged 17 years and above who live within 200 km of Bauchi with advanced glaucoma where the examining ophthalmologist recommends surgery or laser. After obtaining written informed consent, participants will be randomly allocated to MIG plus standard care, or standard care alone. Motivational interviewing will be delivered in Hausa or English by one of two MIG trained personnel. One hundred and fifty participants will be recruited to each arm. The primary outcome is the proportion of participants undergoing laser or surgery within two months of the date given to re attend for the procedure. MIG quality will be assessed using the validated MI treatment integrity scale. DISCUSSION: Motivational interviewing may be an important tool to increase the acceptance of treatment for glaucoma. The approach is potentially scalable and may be useful for other chronic conditions in Africa. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN79330571 (Controlled-Trials.com)

    Evaluation of Different Concentrations And Frequency of Foliar Application of Moringa Extract on Growth & Yield of Onion, Allium cepa Lam

    Get PDF
    Field trials were conducted between 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) of Federal College of Forestry Mechanization Afaka, Kaduna experimental site, 10o 031N, 07o 211 E and 644m above sea level in the Northern guinea savanna agro-ecological zone during 2011 to 2012 dry season. The objective was to evaluate the effect  of different concentration and frequency of foliar application of Moringa extract on growth and yield of Onion (Allium cepa Lam). Fresh Moringa oleifera shoots were obtained from experimental site of the College when it was 35 days old, air dried for some days and crushed with water (10kg of dry material in water) in a household blender for 10 minute. The solution was filtered through a filter paper (Whattman No 42) and the liquid extracts obtained were diluted with water to produce the treatments. The treatments consisted of four concentration 2% (1 litre of extract/50 litre of water), 4% (1 litre of extract/25 litre of water), 3.2% (litre of extract/31 litre of water), 3.7% (1 litre of extract/27 litre of water) and a control (no extract) and two frequency of foliar application once (3weeks) and twice 3 and 6 weeks after transplanting. The trial was laid in a Randomized Complete Block Design(RCBD) and replicated three times. Data were collected on number of leaves/plant, plant height and crop vigour score at 5, 7 and 9 WAT. The data collected were subjected to analysis of variance. Result obtained showed a significant (P = 0.05) effect of the treatments on the characters measured with moringa extract concentration ratio of 1:2 (50%) and frequency periods of foliar application at 3, and 6 weeks after transplanting manifesting the highest effect. Based on the result, application of Moringa extract concentration ratio of 1:2(50%) and frequency period of foliar application at 3, and 6 weeks after transplanting of onion should be adopted for use in Northern guinea savannah ecological zone on the variety of onion tested, since it is easier to get Moringa all year round and in large quantities for large hectare of farm land.Key words: Moringa, Extract, Onion bulb and Concentratio

    A study of retrograde degeneration of median nerve forearm segment in carpal tunnel syndrome of variable severities

    Get PDF
    Introduction: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a disorder of the hand which results from compression of the median nerve within its fibro-osseous tunnel at the wrist. The slowing in the forearm motor conduction velocity suggests the presence of retrograde degeneration. Existing studies conflict regarding a correlation between the severities of the entrapment neuropathy in CTS and slowing of median motor nerve conduction velocity in the forearm.Aims: The objective of this work was to study retrograde degeneration (RGD) of the median nerve forearm segment in patients with CTS and its relation to variable severity of CTS in Egyptian patients.Patients and methods: Twenty-four patients with CTS were included in this study. The Forearm mixed nerve conduction is presumed to be indicative of the conduction of the median nerve over the forearm and is used widely to assess the causes of slowing forearm conduction velocity in CTS. In addition to conventional nerve conduction studies of the upper limb, forearm median mixed conduction studies were performed. Median motor forearm amplitudes and nerve conduction velocities (NCVs) as well as forearm median mixed amplitudes and NCVs were considered as parameters of RGD. Results: There were statistically significant differences as regards forearm mixed nerve action potential (MNAP) amplitude and median motor amplitude in the forearm segment but there were no statistically significant differences as regards forearm median mixed peak latency and NCV. There was no statistically significant relation between grades of severities of CTS in the studied hands and both forearm median motor NCV and forearm MNAP amplitude using Monte Carlo test (MCp = 0.323 and 0.464).Conclusions: Retrograde degeneration exists in patients with CTS. Forearm median motor NCV and median mixed conduction study are valid electrophysiologic tools for the assessment of RGD in patients with CTS. Retrograde degeneration is not related to grade of severity of CTS.KEYWORDS Carpal tunnel syndrome; Electrodiagnosis; Forearm median mixed study; Retrograde degeneratio

    Effects of Thyroxine Exposure on Osteogenesis in Mouse Calvarial Pre-Osteoblasts

    Get PDF
    The incidence of craniosynostosis is one in every 1,800-2500 births. The gene-environment model proposes that if a genetic predisposition is coupled with environmental exposures, the effects can be multiplicative resulting in severely abnormal phenotypes. At present, very little is known about the role of gene-environment interactions in modulating craniosynostosis phenotypes, but prior evidence suggests a role for endocrine factors. Here we provide a report of the effects of thyroid hormone exposure on murine calvaria cells. Murine derived calvaria cells were exposed to critical doses of pharmaceutical thyroxine and analyzed after 3 and 7 days of treatment. Endpoint assays were designed to determine the effects of the hormone exposure on markers of osteogenesis and included, proliferation assay, quantitative ALP activity assay, targeted qPCR for mRNA expression of Runx2, Alp, Ocn, and Twist1, genechip array for 28,853 targets, and targeted osteogenic microarray with qPCR confirmations. Exposure to thyroxine stimulated the cells to express ALP in a dose dependent manner. There were no patterns of difference observed for proliferation. Targeted RNA expression data confirmed expression increases for Alp and Ocn at 7 days in culture. The genechip array suggests substantive expression differences for 46 gene targets and the targeted osteogenesis microarray indicated 23 targets with substantive differences. 11 gene targets were chosen for qPCR confirmation because of their known association with bone or craniosynostosis (Col2a1, Dmp1, Fgf1, 2, Igf1, Mmp9, Phex, Tnf, Htra1, Por, and Dcn). We confirmed substantive increases in mRNA for Phex, FGF1, 2, Tnf, Dmp1, Htra1, Por, Igf1 and Mmp9, and substantive decreases for Dcn. It appears thyroid hormone may exert its effects through increasing osteogenesis. Targets isolated suggest a possible interaction for those gene products associated with calvarial suture growth and homeostasis as well as craniosynostosis. © 2013 Cray et al

    Intelligent Health Monitoring of Machine Bearings Based on Feature Extraction

    Get PDF
    This document is the Accepted Manuscript of the following article: Mohammed Chalouli, Nasr-eddine Berrached, and Mouloud Denai, ‘Intelligent Health Monitoring of Machine Bearings Based on Feature Extraction’, Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 17 (5): 1053-1066, October 2017. Under embargo. Embargo end date: 31 August 2018. The final publication is available at Springer via DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-017-0343-y.Finding reliable condition monitoring solutions for large-scale complex systems is currently a major challenge in industrial research. Since fault diagnosis is directly related to the features of a system, there have been many research studies aimed to develop methods for the selection of the relevant features. Moreover, there are no universal features for a particular application domain such as machine diagnosis. For example, in machine bearing fault diagnosis, these features are often selected by an expert or based on previous experience. Thus, for each bearing machine type, the relevant features must be selected. This paper attempts to solve the problem of relevant features identification by building an automatic fault diagnosis process based on relevant feature selection using a data-driven approach. The proposed approach starts with the extraction of the time-domain features from the input signals. Then, a feature reduction algorithm based on cross-correlation filter is applied to reduce the time and cost of the processing. Unsupervised learning mechanism using K-means++ selects the relevant fault features based on the squared Euclidian distance between different health states. Finally, the selected features are used as inputs to a self-organizing map producing our health indicator. The proposed method is tested on roller bearing benchmark datasets.Peer reviewe

    Quality control and beam test of GEM detectors for future upgrades of the CMS muon high rate region at the LHC

    Get PDF
    Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) are a proven position sensitive gas detector technology which nowadays is becoming more widely used in High Energy Physics. GEMs offer an excellent spatial resolution and a high particle rate capability, with a close to 100% detection efficiency. In view of the high luminosity phase of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, these aforementioned features make GEMs suitable candidates for the future upgrades of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector. In particular, the CMS GEM Collaboration proposes to cover the high-eta region of the muon system with large-area triple-GEM detectors, which have the ability to provide robust and redundant tracking and triggering functions. In this contribution, after a general introduction and overview of the project, the construction of full-size trapezoidal triple-GEM prototypes will be described in more detail. The procedures for the quality control of the GEM foils, including gain uniformity measurements with an x-ray source will be presented. In the past few years, several CMS triple-GEM prototype detectors were operated with test beams at the CERN SPS. The results of these test beam campaigns will be summarised

    Perceptions, Experiences and Expectations of Physicians Regarding the Role of the Pharmacist in an Iraqi Hospital Setting

    Get PDF
    Purpose: To investigate the perceptions, expectations, and experiences of physicians regarding hospital-based pharmacists in some Iraqi government hospitals.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at four government hospitals in Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq from March to July 2012. A validated, self-administered questionnaire was hand-delivered to a random sample of 200 physicians. The questionnaire comprised four sections that probed the physicians' demographic characteristics as well as their perceptions of, expectations of, and experiences with hospital pharmacists.Results: Most participants (69.4 %) reported rarely interacting with pharmacists and that enquiring about the availability of medications was the main purpose (74.9 %) of any interactions. Physicians reported being comfortable with pharmacists preventing prescription error, treating minor illness, and suggesting prescription medication to physicians of 74, 75 and 67 %, respectively, but only 47 % were comfortable with pharmacists providing patient education. The perspective of physicians in Erbil differed from that of physicians in Baghdad (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Interactions between Iraqi physicians and pharmacists are still not optimal. Physicians are much more comfortable with traditional pharmacist functions than with the extended, patient-oriented pharmacy services currently being promoted. Great efforts are needed to enhance the Iraqi physician's attitude regarding the clinical services provided by pharmacists which in turn would result in more collaboration among healthcare professionals.Keywords: Physician, Pharmacist, Perception, Experience, Expectation, Patient-oriented, Pharmacy servic

    Influence of Planting methods and Pinching on growth and vegetative yield of drumstick (Moringa oleifera Lam).

    Get PDF
    Field trials were conducted during the 2010 and 2011 cropping seasons at Federal College of Forestry Mechanization farm, Afaka located (10o 371N and 74o 71E) in the Northern Guinea savannah ecological zone of Nigeria to study the influence of planting method and pinching on growth and vegetative yield of drumstick (Moringa oleifera Lam). The experiment consisted of six treatments, viz direct sowing+ pinching at 2 weeks after sowing (WAS); direct sowing + pinching at 2 and 4 WAS; direct sowing+ no pinching; transplanting at 2 WAS +pinching at 2 weeks after transplanting (WAT); transplanting at 2 WAS + pinching at 2 and 4 WAT; transplanting at 2 WAS + pinching at 2WAT; transplanting at 4 WAS + pinching at 2 and 4 WAT. The treatments were laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design replicated three times. The plant had significantly vigorous plant with stem diameter at 3 and 9 WAS. However, numbers of leaves, canopy spread and number of branches were not significantly affected by planting methods. Fresh vegetative yield were obtained with direct sowing + pinching at 2 and 4 WAS and transplanting at 2 WAT and pinching at 2 WAT respectively

    Outcomes of synchronous and metachronous bilateral small renal masses (< 4 cm):a population‑based cohort study

    Get PDF
    Objectives: To report longitudinal outcomes of a population based cohort of patients diagnosed with bilateral small renal masses from a period of over 11 years.Patients and Methods: Consecutive patients diagnosed with bilateral small renal masses (synchronous or metachronous) of a defined geographical area were recorded in a large database (TUCAN database) between January 2005 and December 2016. Patients had a unique identifier number and followed during this period using an agreed upon protocol. Clinicopathological characteristics and outcomes of bilateral small renal masses on active surveillance were analysed and compared to propensity score matched sporadic unilateral small renal masses. Data were analysed for renal mass growth rate, rate of intervention and development of metastatic disease and patient survival.Results: A total of 1060 patients were diagnosed with renal cancer, of which bilateral small renal masses accounted for 70 (6.6%) cases. Synchronous SRMs were observed in 63 patients, whereas metachronous lesions were found in seven patients during the study period. Metachronous lesion mean time to appearance was 62 ± 41 months (range, 9 to 149 months). While most cases were sporadic, four were found to be hereditary. Growth rate of bilateral small renal masses did not differ from that of unilateral sporadic small renal masses. Similarly, there were no differences between the groups for rate of interventions and survival.Conclusion: Progression, rate of metastases and survival for patients diagnosed with bilateral small renal masses is similar to those diagnosed with unilateral disease
    corecore