An Interactive Automation for Human Biliary Tree Diagnosis Using Computer Vision

The biliary tree is a network of tubes that connects the liver to the gallbladder, an organ right beneath it. The bile duct is the major tube in the biliary tree. The dilatation of a bile duct is a key indicator for more major problems in the human body, such as stones and tumors, which are frequently caused by the pancreas or the papilla of vater. The detection of bile duct dilatation can be challenging for beginner or untrained medical personnel in many circumstances. Even professionals are unable to detect bile duct dilatation with the naked eye. This research presents a unique vision-based model for biliary tree initial diagnosis. To segment the biliary tree from the Magnetic Resonance Image, the framework used different image processing approaches (MRI). After the image’s region of interest was segmented, numerous calculations were performed on it to extract 10 features, including major and minor axes, bile duct area, biliary tree area, compactness, and some textural features (contrast, mean, variance and correlation). This study used a database of images from King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, Jordan, which included 200 MRI images, 100 normal cases, and 100 patients with dilated bile ducts. After the characteristics are extracted, various classifiers are used to determine the patients’ condition in terms of their health (normal or dilated). The findings demonstrate that the extracted features perform well with all classifiers in terms of accuracy and area under the curve. This study is unique in that it uses an automated approach to segment the biliary tree from MRI images, as well as scientifically correlating retrieved features with biliary tree status that has never been done before in the literature

STRESS REACTIONS AND COPING STRATEGY AMONG HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS DURING COVID-19 OUTBREAK

Background: Psychological impacts among healthcare professionals have increased significantly due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. This study aimed to identify stress and coping strategies among healthcare professionals in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 outbreak. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study online survey was conducted for health care professionals during a peak of COVID-19 from March to June 2020 at different healthcare institutions at KSA (n=342). Results: Sixty-five percent of responders often and always feel fears about infection and subsequent effects on themselves, the patient, and the family. 57% of them stated that they felt sometimes depressed mode and 47% anxiety during the outbreak. Eightyfour percent of the respondent always focusing on prevention as the first biosecurity measures such as hand-washing habits and using hand sanitizer, and 38.3% of them make sometimes relax and rest. While half of the responses (50%) sometimes had physical exercise. Also, thirty-eight percent joined sometimes community and/or group online chat groups, and 56.1% always keep contact with family and friends through social messaging or phone calls. Conclusion: Understanding this topic is important for healthcare organizations, effective strategies, and programs is needed to provide holistic staff care and wellbeing during outbreaks that focus on the value of mental and emotional support

STRESS REACTIONS AND COPING STRATEGY AMONG HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS DURING COVID-19 OUTBREAK

Background: Psychological impacts among healthcare professionals have increased significantly due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. This study aimed to identify stress and coping strategies among healthcare professionals in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 outbreak. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study online survey was conducted for health care professionals during a peak of COVID-19 from March to June 2020 at different healthcare institutions at KSA (n=342). Results: Sixty-five percent of responders often and always feel fears about infection and subsequent effects on themselves, the patient, and the family. 57% of them stated that they felt sometimes depressed mode and 47% anxiety during the outbreak. Eightyfour percent of the respondent always focusing on prevention as the first biosecurity measures such as hand-washing habits and using hand sanitizer, and 38.3% of them make sometimes relax and rest. While half of the responses (50%) sometimes had physical exercise. Also, thirty-eight percent joined sometimes community and/or group online chat groups, and 56.1% always keep contact with family and friends through social messaging or phone calls. Conclusion: Understanding this topic is important for healthcare organizations, effective strategies, and programs is needed to provide holistic staff care and wellbeing during outbreaks that focus on the value of mental and emotional support

Universities’ Role in Developing Vocational Education in Jordan

This study examined the role of universities in developing vocational education and transforming TVET in developing workforce towards globalization. To achieve the objectives of the study, a scale of the role of universities in developing vocational education was developed. The study population consisted of all faculty members at Al-Balqa Applied University who were (1400) faculty members. The study sample consisted of (50) members of the teaching staff who teach vocational courses who were selected randomly. The results of the study showed that the role of universities in developing vocational education came to a medium degree. Considering these results, the study recommended universities to continuously update the vocational education equipment and workshops

Comparison of Essential Oil Yield, Chemical Composition and Biological Activities of Eucalyptus camaldulensis Leaf: Conventional Distillation versus Emerging Superheated Steam Distillation

Eucalyptus essential oil (EO) has significance economically since it is used in the medicinal and fragrance industries. The main objective of this study was to investigate the differences in yield, composition, antioxidant capacity, and antibacterial effectiveness of the EO extracted from Eucalyptus camaldulensis leaves. To achieve this, three distinct extraction techniques, namely steam distillation (SD), hydro distillation (HD), and superheated steam distillation (SHSD), were utilized to isolate the EO. The study aimed to analyze and compare these parameters among the three extraction methods. Based on the findings from the experiments, it has been found that using SHSD resulted in a higher EO yield than conventional techniques, and this SHSD produced a greater amount of EO in a shorter time. The EOs extracted using all three techniques have 1,8 cineole as the main constituent, according to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis results. All of the EOs demonstrated significant antioxidant capacities when tested in vitro using a variety of antioxidant assays. The EOs extracted through HD showed greater antibacterial activity among the other extraction processes, as evaluated by agar well diffusion and resazurin microtitre-plate assays. In conclusion, SHSD is more efficient for extracting EOs and antioxidant activity than traditional HD and SD

Patient satisfaction after cataract surgery using visual functioning questionnaire

Background: NEI VFQ-25 questionnaire is widely used to determine different health benefits to patient’s daily activities, social and mental health. The objective of this study was to determine satisfaction of patients undergoing cataract surgery.Methods: After ethical approval, a cross-sectional study using non-probability convenient sampling technique was done. Post-operative cataract patients between 18-75 years of both gender were included and patients reluctant to participate, <18 years of age or above 75 were excluded. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis. Scoring of NEI VFQ-25 questionnaire was done. Chi-square test was applied between groups of patients with or without glasses using distant and near visual acuities keeping p-value of ≤0.05 as significant.Results: Mean age of 100 patients was 58.56±9.63 years, 78 patients were female housewives. Significant improvements in visual acuities was reported with distant or near vision with or without glasses after cataract surgery (p-value <0.01). Patient’s difficulties in worrying with eye sight, reading newspapers, reading stuff well up close, reading street signs, having issue in visiting others, going out to movies/plays, feeling of accomplishing less, having limited endurance and need for help from others in order to perform visual tasks were associated independently with reduced visual acuity and visual impairment.Conclusions: Cataract surgery significantly improved patients’ visual acuities, daily activities, mental and social health issues. Most patients were satisfied with cataract surgery and had fulfilling improvements to post-operative quality of life

Biomarkers of macular neovascularisation activity using optical coherence tomography angiography in treated stable neovascular age related macular degeneration

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to describe features of disease activity in patients with treated stable macular neovascularisation (MNV) in neovascular age related macular degeneration (nAMD) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). METHODS: Thirty-two eyes of 32 patients with nAMD were included in this prospective, observational study. These patients were undergoing treatment with aflibercept on a treat-and-extend regimen attending an extension to a 12-week treatment interval. RESULTS: All subjects had no macular haemorrhage and no structural OCT markers of active MNV activity at the index 12-week treatment extension visit. 31/32 OCTA images were gradeable without significant imaging artefact. The mean MNV size was 3.6mm2 ± 4.6mm2 and 27 (87.1%) had detectable MNV blood flow. 29/31 (93.5%) subjects had MNV with mature phenotypes including 10 non-specific, 10 tangle and 3 deadtree phenotypes. MNV halo and MNV central feeder vessel were noted in 18 (58.1%) and 19 (61.3%) of subjects respectively; only 1 (3.2%) subject was noted to have a MNV capillary fringe. CONCLUSIONS: MNV blood flow is still detectable using OCTA in the majority of subjects in this study with treated stable MNV. OCTA features associated included MNV mature phenotype, MNV feeder vessel, MNV halo and absence of capillary fringe

IMPACT OF THE NOZZLE ANGLE, DISTANCE BETWEEN BURNERS, AND N2 ON BURNING VELOCITY OF THE DIFFUSOIN COUNTER FLAMES

The achievement of precise measurements on the laminar diffusion flames plays a big role in the process of realizing a wide flames range. Despite most of fuel is likely burnt in the turbulent combustion, there is still data requirement for the data on the velocities of the laminar burning as input to several models of the turbulent combustion. And, in engines with an internal combustion, the first combustion is laminar, thus once more, there is a requirement for the velocity of the laminar burning. The burning velocity of the laminar diffusion flame was measured at three nozzles at different angles (30º, 45º, and 60º) and different distances between the nozzles burners (H = 20, 30, and 40 mm) with and without the N2, and wide range of equivalence ratios (0.65 ≤ϕ≤ 1.5). Schlieren photographs were captured to qualitatively assess the effect of angle of nozzles, distance, and N2 on the burning velocity of the diffusion flame. Burning velocity depends on the stagnation surface of the flame front, which in turn relies on the vertical distance (H) between the burners. Also, it was noticed that the increase in distance between the burners leads to a decrease in the velocity of the reactants since it is affected by the air surrounding