464 research outputs found

    Prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria among low risk pregnant women attending antenatal care clinic in tertiary hospital: a cross sectional study

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    Background: The current study aims to identify the prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria among low-risk pregnant women attending the antenatal care clinic of tertiary University Hospital and to detect the most common causative organisms.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study conducted at a tertiary University Hospital in the period between 1st November 2017 and 31st June 2018. All eligible women attending the outpatient clinic for antenatal care were approached to participate in the study. The recruited women were assessed through detailed history and clinical examination. Urine samples were taken for culture and sensitivity within two hours, in order to avoid bacterial multiplication. Urine culture and antibiotic sensitivity test were done.Results: The study included 250 women. The mean age of included women was 25.89±5.49 (18-42 years). The urine analysis results showed that 32% of cases had pus cells >5 per high power field and 10.4% of cases have protein (+). Casts were present in 0.8% of cases. RBCs >5 per high power field were present in 4.8% of cases. ASB is defined as urine culture with more than 100,000 colony forming unit; this was present in 30 cases. This indicates that the prevalence of ASB among studied cases was 12%. Enterococcus was the most prevalent organism as it was present in 36.7% among positive cases. Antibiotic sensitivity test was performed to the growing organisms indicated that teicoplanin, imipenem, cefoxitin, cefotaxime + clavulanic acid, Entrapenem, and trimethoprim + sulfamethoxazole are the most effective antibiotics against the most common organisms causing asymptomatic bacteriuria.Conclusions: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria among low-risk pregnant women is about 12%. Urine culture for asymptomatic bacteriuria should be the standard of care for evaluation of pregnant patient during antenatal care as regard presence or absence of UTI

    Data-centric communication framework for multicast iec 61850 routable GOOSE messages over the WAN in modern power systems

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    In this paper, a data-centric communication framework is proposed for multicast routable generic object-oriented substation event (GOOSE) messages (MRGM) over the wide area network (WAN) for effective substation-to-substation (SS2SS) and substation to control center (SS2CC) communications. In this structure, the IEC 61850 GOOSE message is transmitted over the WAN using the data distribution service (DDS) as a fast, reliable, and secure data-centric communication middleware. The main feature of this framework is its multicast capability, where several authorized subscribers can receive a published message simultaneously. This can significantly improve the system monitoring and control of the protection systems in modern smart grids, where intelligent schemes can be applied. The effectiveness of the proposed platform, in terms of total end-to-end delay between participants, is evaluated through experimental results obtained from the actual hardware-based test setup developed at the Florida International University (FIU) smart grid testbed. The results demonstrate that the latency between sending and receiving a GOOSE message among participants is within its maximum time span defined by the IEC 61850-90-5 working group for communications over the WAN

    Turmeric (Curcuma longa Linn.) as a phytogenic growth promoter alternative for antibiotic and comparable to mannan oligosaccharides for broiler chicks

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    This work aimed at investigating the potential as a growth enhancer of different dietary concentrations of turmeric (Curcuma longa Linn.) as an alternative to oxytetracyline and antibiotics and as comparable to mannan oligosaccharide for broiler chicks. A total of 252 Hubbard broiler chicks at one day of age were distributed randomly in a straight run experimental design among six treatments, each replicated seven times, with six unsexed chicks per replicate. The basal diet was administered without supplements (control group) or supplemented with turmeric at 0.5, 1, and 2 g/kg diet, or with mannan oligosacride (MOS) at 1 g/kg feed or with oxytetracycline (OTC) at 50 mg/kg feed. Growth performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality traits, blood biochemical constituents, antioxidant status and red blood cell (RBCs) were investigated. Turmeric supplementation at 1 g/kg feed significantly improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) and European production index compared to the control group and MOS groups. The results indicated that turmeric can be used at 1 kg/t feed as a phytogenic feed additive as an alternative to OTC or MOS without negative effects on the productive and economic traits of broilers. There were no differences from using OTC and MOS, while there was an increase in the European production efficiency index and the broilers’ health status.This work aimed at investigating the potential as a growth enhancer of different dietary concentrations of turmeric (Curcuma longa Linn.) as an alternative to oxytetracyline and antibiotics and as comparable to mannan oligosaccharide for broiler chicks. A total of 252 Hubbard broiler chicks at one day of age were distributed randomly in a straight run experimental design among six treatments, each replicated seven times, with six unsexed chicks per replicate. The basal diet was administered without supplements (control group) or supplemented with turmeric at 0.5, 1, and 2 g/kg diet, or with mannan oligosacride (MOS) at 1 g/kg feed or with oxytetracycline (OTC) at 50 mg/kg feed. Growth performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality traits, blood biochemical constituents, antioxidant status and red blood cell (RBCs) were investigated. Turmeric supplementation at 1 g/kg feed significantly improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) and European production index compared to the control group and MOS groups. The results indicated that turmeric can be used at 1 kg/t feed as a phytogenic feed additive as an alternative to OTC or MOS without negative effects on the productive and economic traits of broilers. There were no differences from using OTC and MOS, while there was an increase in the European production efficiency index and the broilers’ health status

    Application of PSO to Design UPFC-based Stabilizers

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    Today, power demand grows rapidly and expansion in transmission and generation is restricted with the limited availability of resources and the strict environmental constraints. Consequently, power systems are today much more loaded than before. In addition, interconnection between remotely located power systems turned out to be a common practice. These give rise to low frequency oscillations in the range of 0.1-3.0 Hz. If not well damped, these oscillations may keep growing in magnitude until loss of synchronism results. Power system stabilizers (PSSs) have been used in the last few decades to serve the purpose of enhancing power system damping to low frequency oscillations. PSSs have proved to be efficient in performing their assigned tasks. The objective of this chapter is to investigate the potential of particle swarm optimization as a tool in designing UPFC-based stabilizers to improve power system transient stability. To estimate the controllability of each of the UPFC control signals on the electromechanical modes, singular value decomposition is employed. The problem of designing all the UPFCbased stabilizers individually is formulated as an optimization problem. Particle swarm optimizer is utilized to search for the optimum stabilizer parameter settings that optimize a given objective function. Coordinated design of the different stabilizers is also carried out by finding the best parameter settings for more than one stabilizer at a given operating condition in a coordinated manner

    Seroprevalence of Besnoitia besnoiti in Assiut Governorate, Egypt

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    Background: Bovine besnoitiosis is a widespread disease caused by Besnoitia besnoiti with significant economic losses in cattle production. There is a lack of knowledge about it in Egypt. Aim: This study was conducted to detect the seroprevalence of B. besnoiti in cattle and to find out the presence of the disease and the most important symptoms of besnoitiosis in cattle in Assiut Governorate, Egypt. Methods: A total of 190 cattle from Assiut city and its different rural centers were examined clinically and serologically for the presence of B. besnoiti. The serological examination was carried out by using the indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit in serum (ID.Vet Innovative Diagnostics Louis Pasteur. Grabeis, France). The results were analyzed statistically using the chi-square test to assess the association between seroprevalence and different parameters (age, sex, season, housing, and health status). Result: Thirteen cattle were seropositive for B. besnoiti by ELISA and showed symptoms of besnoitiosis. Acute symptoms included fever, tachycardia, edematous swellings of intermandibular space and limbs with polyarthritis, diarrhea, ruminal atony, and enlarged lymph nodes. The chronic symptoms included cough, mastitis, exophthalmia, cysts on the sclera and conjunctiva, nodules in the skin, and alopecia associated with tick infestation. The overall seroprevalence of B. besnoiti was 22.1%. Regarding sex, the seroprevalence was higher for females 34.6% than for males 6.97%. While, according to age susceptibility, the seroprevalence was highest (50.9%) with age ≥5 years, followed by age >1 to <5 years (14.6%), and only one animal of age ≤1 year was recorded at 2.2%. Concerning seasonal variations, the seroprevalence was highest in spring 42.9%, followed by autumn 29.3%, winter 13.6%, and summer 7.5%. Whereas, according to the housing system, it was 60% and 8.6% in farm and household rearing, respectively. Depending on the health status, the seroprevalence was 21.6% of clinically healthy and 23.2% of clinically diseased cattle. Conclusion: The existence of B. besnoiti antibodies has been demonstrated in clinical and subclinical infected cattle in Assiut Governorate, Egypt. The ELISA test is considered to be a good diagnostic method for detecting infection. Furthermore, additional studies are essential to minimize and prevent the spread of infection

    QoS Categories Activeness-Aware Adaptive EDCA Algorithm for Dense IoT Networks

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    IEEE 802.11 networks have a great role to play in supporting and deploying of the Internet of Things (IoT). The realization of IoT depends on the ability of the network to handle a massive number of stations and transmissions, and to support Quality of Service (QoS). IEEE 802.11 networks enable the QoS by applying the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) with static parameters regardless of existing network capacity or which Access Category (AC) of QoS is already active. Our objective in this paper is to improve the efficiency of the uplink access in 802.11 networks; therefore we proposed an algorithm called QoS Categories Activeness-Aware Adaptive EDCA Algorithm (QCAAAE) which adapts Contention Window (CW) size, and Arbitration Inter-Frame Space Number (AIFSN) values depending on the number of associated Stations (STAs) and considering the presence of each AC. For different traffic scenarios, the simulation results confirm the outperformance of the proposed algorithm in terms of throughput (increased on average 23%) and retransmission attempts rate (decreased on average 47%) considering acceptable delay for sensitive delay services.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure

    Study The Applications of Water Deficiency Levels and Ascorbic Acid Foliar on Growth Parameters and Yield of Summer Squash Plant (Cucurbita pepo L.)

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    Two field experiments study during 2015 and 2016 summer seasons on sandy loam soil under drip irrigation system by Nile river water, at the Agricultural Research and Production Station National Research Centre, El- Nubaria region, EL- Beheira Governorate,  Egypt. This study focused on the applications of different water deficiency levels (100, 80 and 60% of F.C. i.e. field capacity) and ascorbic acid (AsA) spraying foliar application with different concentrations (0, 50 and 100 ppm) as antioxidant on growth parameters and yield as well as photosynthetic pigments content of summer squash plants (Cucurbitapepo L.cv. Eskandrani). Results indicated that, decreasing water levels caused a significant reduction in the all tested growth and yield parameters, i.e., canopy weight, root weight, number of leaves, leaves fresh weight and leaf area as well as photosynthetic pigments content (total chl., and carotenoids), total yield, fruit weight and length. While increasing ascorbic acid spraying foliar application levels as antioxidant significantly increased the aforementioned parameters in the two seasons as compared with control. On the other hand, decreasing water levels caused a significant increasing in leaf proline content, leaf cell sap osmotic pressure, dry matter % and fruit TSS in the two growing seasons as compared with control.Keywords: water stress, water deficiency, ascorbic acid, antioxidant, growth, yield, summer squash plant and Cucurbita pepo.

    Impact of Applying Fraud Detection and Prevention Instruments in Reducing Occupational Fraud: Case study: Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza Strip

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    The study aimed to identify the effect of applying detection and prevention tools for career fraud in combating and preventing fraud and reducing its risks through an applied study on Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip, Palestine. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data, and the descriptive and analytical approach to conducting the study. The study population consisted of (501) supervisory employees working at MOH in Gaza Strip, Palestine. The researchers used the stratified random sample method and the multiple regression method to measure the effect. The study concluded a set of results, the most important of which is a positive evaluation among respondents about the levels of application of tools to detect and prevent job fraud within MOH, and the presence of a high interest in tools to prevent job fraud during the implementation of its various work. The study recommended the necessity for the Palestinian National Authority to develop and approve laws regulating health sector, so that those laws guarantee the prevention of conflicts of interest, especially for the category of doctors, by preventing job duplication of doctors working in the government sector. Also study recommended the need for MOH to adopt principles of health sector governance and begin immediately to implement them. This process to ensure transparency, disclosure and accountability in the business framework in a manner that realizes the effective protection of stakeholders and does not compromise or discriminate in the application of these principles, which ensures that all forms of job fraud are organized in an organized manner and within fixed legal frameworks
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