Effectiveness of Nasal Intermittent Positive Pressure Ventilation versus Nasal Continuous Positive Airway Pressure in Preterm Infants after Less Invasive Surfactant Administration

Background Non-invasive ventilation is increased used in preterm infants. We aimed to compare the effectiveness of nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation (nIPPV) versus nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) in preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) after less invasive surfactant administration (LISA). Materials and Methods In this clinical trial, eighty two preterm infants admitted in neonatal intensive care unit, Sohag University Hospital, Egypt with a gestational age of 28–34 weeks, mean ± standard deviation birth weight (1259.44±377.22 grams), suffering from RDS but not requiring intubation in the delivery room were included in the study. Forty one received nIPPV as an initial respiratory support (RS). If nIPPV failed, surfactant administration was given with the LISA approach and patients continued on nIPPV. This group was compared with a historical cohort group of 41 infants managed with nCPAP as an initial RS, and if nCPAP failed, the surfactant was given by LISA. Results There was no significant difference between the case and control group regarding the mean ± SD gestational age or birth weight. When nIPPV was used as the primary RS in preterm infants with RDS compared to nCPAP, it had a significantly less nIPPV failure (31.71% versus 53.66%, P = 0.04), had significantly fewer infants who needed invasive ventilation within the first seven days of life (12.20% versus 34.14%, P = 0.03), and the total days of supplemental oxygen was less (9 (3–18) days versus 12 (6–34) days, P = 0.02). Conclusion In infants born at 28–34 weeks gestation, nIPPV, when used as the primary RS, reduced the need for invasive ventilation and the surfactant requirement within the LISA technique

Stochastic Programming for Selection Variables in Cluster Analysis

Cluster analysis is one of the most important techniques in the exploratory data analysis; it is goal to discover a natural grouping in a set of observations without knowledge of any class labels.  Variable selection has been very important for a lot of research in several areas of application. The study suggested a stochastic programming approach which selects the most important variables in clustering a set of data. The study evaluates the performance of the stochastic programming suggested approach for selection variables in cluster analysis used numerical example. The suggested stochastic programming approach selects the most important variable in cluster analysis simultaneously and the results are satisfied

Enhancing Exports through Managing Logistics Performance: Evidence From Middle East and African Countries

Logistics activities and its cost affect daily businesses operations and eventually the country’s economy. If countries are able to manage logistics performance efficiently it will be able to compete better internationally. The key objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the logistics performance index and its components and exports focusing on Middle East and African countries using a regression model. Results of this study indicated that the logistics performance index positively enhance countries exports. In addition, logistics performance index components namely; customs, infrastructure, international shipments and timeliness have a significant impact individually, except for logistics quality, competence, tracking and tracing. The paper aims at supporting the economic policy maker to improve the economic decision in the field of logistics

Disjunctive normal unsupervised LDA for P300-based brain-computer interfaces

Can people use text-entry based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems and start a free spelling mode without any calibration session? Brain activities differ largely between people and across sessions for the same user. Thus, how can the text-entry system classify the target character among the other characters in the P300-based BCI speller matrix? In this thesis, we introduce a new unsupervised classifier for a P300-based BCI speller, which uses a disjunctive normal form representation to de ne an energy function involving a logistic sigmoid function for classification. Our proposed classifier updates the initialized random weights performing classification for the P300 signals from the recorded data exploiting the knowledge of the sequence of row/column highlights. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we performed an experimental analysis on data from 7 healthy subjects, collected in our laboratory and used public BCI competition datasets. We compare the proposed unsupervised method to a baseline supervised linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classifier and Bayesian linear discriminant analysis (BLDA) and demonstrate its performance. Our analysis shows that the proposed approach facilitates unsupervised learning from unlabelled test data

Perspective of Total Quality Management and its Effect on the Performance of 2nd Stage of Primary Education Schools: A Field in Lattakia

يهدف هذا البحث إلى التعرف على نظام إدارة الجودة الشاملة وأثره على أداء مدارس التعليم الأساسي (ح2) من خلال تحسين أساليب وطرق العمل, استخدام فرق العمل, تحقيق رضا المستفيدين, إكساب العاملين مهارات الأداء الجيد في العمل, خدمة المجتمع المحلي, ولتحقيق أهداف البحث تمّ بناء استبانة, وتوزيعها على عينة من المديرين والمعلمين, وانتهى البحث إلى النتائج الآتية: 1- وجود درجة عالية من الوعي لدى المديرين, ودرجة مقبولة لدى المعلمين حول مدى تطبيق نظام إدارة الجودة الشاملة وأثره على أداء مدارس التعليم الأساسي (ح2). 2- وجود فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية بين متوسطات استجابات المديرين والمعلمين حول مدى تطبيق نظام إدارة الجودة الشاملة وأثره على أداء مدارس التعليم الأساسي فيما يتعلق باستخدام فرق العمل, وإكساب العاملين مهارات الأداء الجيد في العمل, وهذه الفروق تعود للمديرين. This research aims to identify the total quality management system and its effect on the performance of 2nd Stage of Primary Education School through enhancing the ways and methods of performance, use of teamwork, achieving the satisfaction of the beneficiaries, getting the workers acquire the good performance skills in work, serving the local society, and to achieve the research objectives, a questionnaire was prepared and applied on a sample of Directors and teachers. The research concluded to the following results: 1-   There is a higher degree of the directors' awareness, and acceptable one of the teachers' awareness about system application of total quality management and its effect on the performance of 2nd Stage of Primary Education Schools. 2-   There are statistically significant differences between the means of directors' and teachers' answers about the extent of system application of total quality management and its effect on the performance of 2nd Stage of Primary Education Schools concerning the teamwork and getting the workers acquire the good performance skills in work. These differences were related to the directors

Studying the Effect of Non-Linear Loads Harmonics on Electric Generator Power Rating Selection

Non-linear loads connected to an electric power system produce Harmonic currents, harmonics are introduced into the system in the form of currents whose frequencies are the integral multiples of the fundamental power system frequency (50/60 Hz). The harmonic currents interact with the supply system impedance causing distortions in supply output voltage and current, which has a very bad effect on all other loads connected to the system and the power supply itself, such as overheating, increasing powers losses in the system, and malfunction of protection and control devices connected to the system. This paper presents a study to analyze the effect of voltage and current harmonics resulting from non-linear loads such as variable frequency drive, uninterruptable power supply, and battery chargers on operation and power rating of synchronous generator. The study introduces an optimized method for selecting the suitable generator power rating to withstand harmful harmonics effects for a safe operation of the generator, saving its lifetime, and to improve the power quality of the power system. The method depends on analyzing the effect of increasing the supply generator power rating on the THVD produced from non-linear loads harmonics connected to the system. By calculating the THVD for each case of a generator power rating, a mathematical relationship between generator power rating and TVHD can be found. So, the relationship between generator power rating and total harmonic distortion in the power system will be discussed clearly

Geothermal based hybrid energy systems, toward eco-friendly energy approaches

Geothermal Energy is a very attractive source of naturally-occurring green renewable energy. Exploiting this natural resource is straightforward and causes almost no ill effects to the environment. But, while geothermal does not suffer the intermittence of other renewable sources, its extraction efficiency is fairly modest as compared to other sources. As a result, there has been significant interest recently in hybrid systems that integrate geothermal and other forms of energy to increase the output efficiency. This work will survey the different possible integrations involving geothermal energy. A review of the literature shows that the most common hybrid systems implementation involve the integration of geothermal with solar (45% of systems) followed by the integration of a cooling tower into the geothermal system (30% of systems). This work will also investigate the applications for geothermal hybrids and show that 44% of systems are designed for heating applications. Another 44% are used for cooling while only 12% are designed for electrical power generation. Complexity of control remains as the main obstacle facing hybrid multi-source energy systems including those involving geothermal energy

Preparation and Characterization of a Surface Modified Amberlite IRA 402 Resin by Nano Iron Oxide and its Application for Uranium Separation

A nano-iron oxide modified Amberlite IRA402 resin was prepared by the reaction of iron(II) and iron(III) ions in the presence of ammonium solution