PRESENTATION PATTERN AND FUNGAL AGENTS SPECTRUM CAUSING OTOMYCOSIS

Objective: This study was aimed to identify the pattern of presentation, influencing factors, and sort of the fungal species, distribution of sex of patients with otomycosis.Methods: Eighty-six patients attended to Ad-Diwaniyah teaching hospital, Iraq were screened for identification of fungi causing otomycosis from October 2014 to November 2015. 50 patients were females while 36 patients were males. 12 patients of the total number were with bilateral involvement. Diabetes mellitus, leukemia, chemotherapy, and chemoradiation were the associated systemic diseases which were recorded in patients with otomycosis and diabetes mellitus was detected in 53.84% of patients with systemic diseases.Results: The predominant complaints were pruritus and found in 76 patients (88.73%), discomfort and pain found in 62 patients (72.09%), aural fullness in 48 patients (55.81%), tinnitus in 34 patients (39.53%), hearing impairment in 50 cases (58.31%), ear discharge in 22 patients (25.58%), and most of the symptoms seen in 36 patients (68.14%). The results showed a total of eight fungal species belong to six different genera, namely, Aspergillus, Candida, Penicillium, Rhizopus, Alternaria, and Cephalosporium were isolated during this study. Among identified fungi, Aspergillus niger was found to be the most prevalent fungal species with 35.71% followed by Candida albicans (27.55%), Aspergillus flavus (10.20%), Aspergillus fumigatus (8.16), Penicillium digitatum (6.12%) and Cephalosporium species (4.08%), and Rhizopus species (5.1%), while Alternaria alternata had the lowest percentage (6.54%).Conclusion: Otomycosis/mycotic otitis externa is still a common problem and there is a rise in the occurrence of otomycosis in latest years, especially in tropical and subtropical humid climates

Thermal and Non-thermal Plasmas in the Galaxy Cluster 3C 129

We describe new Chandra spectroscopy data of the cluster which harbors the prototypical "head tail" radio galaxy 3C 129 and the weaker radio galaxy 3C 129.1. We combined the Chandra data with Very Large Array (VLA) radio data taken at 0.33, 5, and 8 GHz (archival data) and 1.4 GHz (new data). We also obtained new HI observations at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) to measure the neutral Hydrogen column density in the direction of the cluster with arcminute angular resolution. The Chandra observation reveals extended X-ray emission from the radio galaxy 3C 129.1 with a total luminosity of 1.5E+41 erg/s. The X-ray excess is resolved into an extended central source of ~2 arcsec (1 kpc) diameter and several point sources with an individual luminosity up to 2.1E+40 erg/s. In the case of the radio galaxy 3C 129, the Chandra observation shows, in addition to core and jet X-ray emission reported in an earlier paper, some evidence for extended, diffuse X-ray emission from a region east of the radio core. The 12 arcsec x 36 arcsec (6 kpc x 17 kpc) region lies "in front" of the radio core, in the same direction into which the radio galaxy is moving. We use the radio and X-ray data to study in detail the pressure balance between the non-thermal radio plasma and the thermal Intra Cluster Medium (ICM) along the tail of 3C 129 which extends over 15 arcmin (427 kpc). Depending on the assumed lower energy cutoff of the electron energy spectrum, the minimum pressure of the radio plasma lies a factor of between 10 and 40 below the ICM pressure for a large part of the tail. We discuss several possibilities to explain the apparent pressure mismatch.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Refereed manuscript. 14 pages, 8 figures, additional panel of Fig. 3 shows asymmetric ICM distributio

Regular Solution Theory Model Used To Predict Supercritical CO2 Extraction Of p-chlorophenol Contaminate From Water Stream.

The objective of this paper is the assessments of the feasibility of the extraction process utilizing a near critical carbon dioxide solvent with p-chlorophenol contaminate solute, which would be speeded up if it were possible to predict mutual solubility data

Synthesis and Optical Characterization of Nd3+ Doped TeO2-PbO-Li2O

Glass based on Nd3+-doped TeO2-PbO-Li2O has successfully been made by melt quenching technique and their thermal parameters have been determined using Differential Thermal Analyzer (DTA). The glass is then nucleated and/or growth by controlled heat treatment at slightly below the crystallization temperature. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique is used to estimate the nano-crystallite size. Meanwhile, the optical characterization has been determined using the Photoluminescence Spectroscopy. It is found out that the crystallite size is about 20 nm and very much depending on the heat-treatment time. Meanwhile, the intensity of the luminescence spectra is very much depending on the concentration of the dopant.

An Ensemble Method for Intrusion Detection with Conformity to Data Variability

The high volume of traffic across modern networks entails use of accurate and reliable automated tools for intrusion detection. The capacity for data mining and machine learning algorithms to learn rules from data are typically constrained by the random nature of training and test data; diversity and disparity of models and related parameters and limitations in data sharing. We propose an ensemble method for intrusion detection which conforms to variability in data. Trained on a high-dimensional 82332x27 data attributes cyber-attack data variables for classification by Decision Trees (DT). Its novelty derives from iterative training and testing several DT models on multiple high-dimensional samples aimed at separating the types of attacks. Unlike Random Forests, the number of variables, p, isn’t altered to enable identification of the importance of predictor variables. It also minimises the influence of multicollinearity and strength of individual trees. Results show that the ensemble model conforms to data variability and yields more insightful predictions on multinomial targets

Discovery of a Non-Thermal Galactic Center Filament (G358.85+0.47) Parallel to the Galactic Plane

We report the discovery of a new non-thermal filament, G358.85+0.47, the ``Pelican'', located ~225 pc in projection from SgrA, and oriented parallel to the Galactic plane. VLA continuum observations at 20 cm reveal that this 7' (17.5 pc) structure bends at its northern extension and is comprised of parallel strands, most apparent at its ends. Observations at 6 and 3.6 cm reveal that the Pelican is a synchrotron-emitting source and is strongly linearly polarized over much of its extent. The spectral index of the filament changes from alpha(20/6)=-0.8 to alpha(6/3.6)=-1.5. The rotation measures exhibit a smooth gradient, with values ranging from -1000 rad/m2 to +500 rad/m2. The intrinsic magnetic field is well-aligned along the length of the filament. Based on these properties, we classify the Pelican as one of the non-thermal filaments unique to the Galactic center. Since these filaments (most of which are oriented perpendicular to the Galactic plane) are believed to trace the overall magnetic field in the inner Galaxy, the Pelican is the first detection of a component of this field parallel to the plane. The Pelican may thus mark a transition region of the magnetic field orientation in the inner kiloparsec of the Galaxy.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in ApJ Letters; Figs. 2 & 3 are color .ps files and best viewed in colo

A Data-Driven Method for Selecting Optimal Models Based on Graphical Visualisation of Differences in Sequentially Fitted ROC Model Parameters

Differences in modelling techniques and model performance assessments typically impinge on the quality of knowledge extraction from data. We propose an algorithm for determining optimal patterns in data by separately training and testing three decision tree models in the Pima Indians Diabetes and the Bupa Liver Disorders datasets. Model performance is assessed using ROC curves and the Youden Index. Moving differences between sequential fitted parameters are then extracted, and their respective probability density estimations are used to track their variability using an iterative graphical data visualisation technique developed for this purpose. Our results show that the proposed strategy separates the groups more robustly than the plain ROC/Youden approach, eliminates obscurity, and minimizes over-fitting. Further, the algorithm can easily be understood by non-specialists and demonstrates multi-disciplinary compliance

A Profile Analysis of Potential Investors in Ireit Waqf Investment Products

The objective of this study is to provide a profile analysis of potential investors in iREIT as an instrument for waqf asset development. By adopting a survey questionnaire approach, a total of 365 respondents participated in the survey, which assessed information pertaining to the understanding of iREIT as an investment instrument, level of acceptance towards the idea of its introduction in the context of waqf, the medium of promotion and collection that they most prefer, the suitable price, and the unique features that they agreed to have in this hybrid iREIT. The results suggest that majority of the respondents are interested to participate as investors rather than donors, indicating that greater amount of funds can be tapped from the issuance of the iREITs waqf if these preferences of the investors are given priority. Findings of this study would assist in the formulation of an innovative investment structure based on iREIT waqf that is both practical and appealing to the widest pool of investors, and further contribute towards the development of the waqf sector.     Keywords: Waqf, iREITs, investment, profiling, Islamic financ