Finalist - Migrant Worker

Migrant Worker by Omer Aziz was one of the five finalists in the 2016 Yale Law Library short story contest

A pervasive body sensor network for monitoring post-operative recovery

Over the past decade, miniaturisation and cost reduction brought about by the semiconductor industry has led to computers smaller in size than a pin head, powerful enough to carry out the processing required, and affordable enough to be disposable. Similar technological advances in wireless communication, sensor design, and energy storage have resulted in the development of wireless “Body Sensor Network (BSN) platforms comprising of tiny integrated micro sensors with onboard processing and wireless data transfer capability, offering the prospect of pervasive and continuous home health monitoring. In surgery, the reduced trauma of minimally invasive interventions combined with initiatives to reduce length of hospital stay and a socioeconomic drive to reduce hospitalisation costs, have all resulted in a trend towards earlier discharge from hospital. There is now a real need for objective, pervasive, and continuous post-operative home recovery monitoring systems. Surgical recovery is a multi-faceted and dynamic process involving biological, physiological, functional, and psychological components. Functional recovery (physical independence, activities of daily living, and mobility) is recognised as a good global indicator of a patient’s post-operative course, but has traditionally been difficult to objectively quantify. This thesis outlines the development of a pervasive wireless BSN system to objectively monitor the functional recovery of post-operative patients at home. Biomechanical markers were identified as surrogate measures for activities of daily living and mobility impairment, and an ear-worn activity recognition (e-AR) sensor containing a three-axis accelerometer and a pulse oximeter was used to collect this data. A simulated home environment was created to test a Bayesian classifier framework with multivariate Gaussians to model activity classes. A real-time activity index was used to provide information on the intensity of activity being performed. Mobility impairment was simulated with bracing systems and a multiresolution wavelet analysis and margin-based feature selection framework was used to detect impaired mobility. The e-AR sensor was tested in a home environment before its clinical use in monitoring post-operative home recovery of real patients who have undergone surgery. Such a system may eventually form part of an objective pervasive home recovery monitoring system tailored to the needs of today’s post-operative patient.Open acces

AN EXPLORATION OF THE PRACTICE OF PRESCRIBING AND USE OF MEDICINES, WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON SELF-MEDICATION PRACTICES IN THE CONTEXT OF DEVELOPING REFORM WITHIN THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN KURDISTAN-IRAQ

This research has been undertaken to evaluate factors with an association with the practice of self-medication amongst respondents living within three cities within Kurdistan. The research was designed to be a cross-sectional one by arranging for data collection through the direct interviewing of respondents via the use of a questionnaire that had been prepared previously. In total, the investigation involved 627 pharmacist participants, 647 general participants, and 28 interviewees from various age groups. An explanatory design is a mixed methods approach with two phases, with quantitative data collection in the first phase, and qualitative data collection in a second; data collection was conducted using a non-probability convenience sampling technique. The primary reason for self-medication practice was that participants with previous experience of attending to the same disease. The information source regarding self-medicated drugs were previous prescriptions, community pharmacies and friends. The most common indication for self-medication was the common cold or fever/headache/infection, the drugs used to treat these conditions being most commonly antibiotics, then painkillers and preparations for coughs. From the general public, a sample of 647 participants was taken that consisted of 38.4% females and 61.6% males, with participant ages ranging from 18-70 years. Within the study, 12.4% of the cohort had a degree level of education from a university. Moreover, 243 participants had the belief that it was an acceptable practice to purchase antibiotics without a prescription. Self-medication was practiced by 14/28 of the interviewees, and 28/28 (100%) of the interviewees held the belief that the pharmacy always has someone with knowledge of medicines, and who can advise and provide medication. There were 627 pharmacist participants, of which 28.1% were female and 71.9% were male, and 57.2% of them holding a Diploma in Health Institution, and 39.2% of them having a Bachelors Pharmacy degree. 20.7% of participants disagreed with keeping records for the dispensing of drugs, and approximately 20% of participants had little or no ideas regarding the characteristics of pharmacy practice that are considered professional. It was discovered that, if asked by the customer, advice was provided by 82.5% of community pharmacists. The sale of antibiotics was the most common, followed by pain-killers. A 95.5% proportion of pharmacists sold all of the medicines as OTC medicine without prescription. In conclusion, medicines are used by the people of Kurdistan in an inventive way, with suggestions provided by lay people and members of family or friends, which is acted upon without a qualified healthcare professional being consulted

Optimising HYBRIDJOIN to Process Semi-Stream Data in Near-real-time Data Warehousing

Near-real-time data warehousing plays an essential role for decision making in organizations where latest data is to be fed from various data sources on near-real-time basis. The stream of sales data coming from data sources needs to be transformed to the data warehouse format using disk-based master data. This transformation process is a challenging task due to slow disk access rate as compare to the fast stream data. For this purpose, an adaptive semi-stream join algorithm called HYBRIDJOIN (Hybrid Join) is presented in the literature. The algorithm uses a single buffer to load partitions from the master data. Therefore, the algorithm has to wait until the next disk partition overwrites the existing partition in the buffer. As the cost of loading the disk partition into the buffer is a major cost in the total algorithm’s processing cost, this leaves the performance of the algorithm sub-optimal. This paper presents optimisation of existing HYBRIDJOIN by introducing another buffer. This enables the algorithm to load the second buffer while the first one is under join execution. This reduces the time that the algorithm wait for loading of master data partition and consequently, this improves the performance of the algorithm significantly

Molecular characterization (PCR-Based Methods) of Staphylococcus aureus isolated on dogs and cats

A total of 36 isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from hospitalised and out patient dogs and cats were typed by RAPD-PCR, and 36 isolates were selected for further typing by ERIC-PCR and Coagulase gene-PCR and Coagulase gene RFLP, indicating a low degree of polymorphism in the coagulase genes. In this study, it is noticeable that RAPD-PCR displayed desirable typing quality by its ability to group the apparently related isolates from outpatient and hospitalised cats and dogs, whereas ERIC-PCR has the tendency to group the isolates into a single major cluster

Correlation and Path Coefficient Analysis of Seed Yield and Yield Components in Some Faba Bean Genotypes in Sulaimani Region

The present study was conducted at Agricultural Research Center of Bakrajo, Sulaimani, Iraq during three successive seasons 2011-2014. This research was conducted using seven faba bean cultivars namely (Zaina, Seher, Yieldiz, Civilla, Luz di Otono, Tanyari  and local). The following measurements and observations were made: 100 seed weight, first node height, number of seeds/plant, number of seeds/pod, pod length, number of pods/plant and seed yield. The results indicated that highly significant and negative correlations were presented between 100 seed weight and seed yield, whereas, significant and positive correlations were presented between the numbers of seed/plant and seed yield at the second season. In addition, the results of the third season indicate that the number of seeds/plant correlated significantly and positively with seed yield, and the number of seeds/pod correlated significantly and negatively with seed yield, whereas, number of pods/plant correlated high significantly and positively with the seed yield. The character first node height showed maximum direct effect value in seed yield at the first season and the third season, while number of pods/plant showed maximum direct effect value in seed yield at the second season

SDS PAGE OF WHOLE CELL PROTEIN, IMMUNOBLOTTING AND PROTEIN A ASSAY FOR TYPING OF STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS ISOLATED ON DOGS AND CATS

A total of 36 isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from hospitalised and out patient dogs and cats were typed using SDS PAGE of whole cell protein, immunoblotting and protein A assayment by ELISA test. 15/24 and 14/24 profiles were recognised using SDS PAGE and immunoblotting respectively. It is concluded that SDS PAGE of whole cell protein and immunoblotting could be used as a typing methods for the characterisation of S. aureus strains. Protein A assayment could be used for the detection of S. aureus strains in samples but could not be used to differentiate between different strains. &nbsp

Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery for Acute Appendicitis: Feasibility in Pediatric Patients

Background. Laparoscopic appendicectomy is accepted by many as the gold standard approach for the treatment of acute appendicitis. The use of Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS) has the potential of further reducing postoperative port site complications as well as improving cosmesis and patient satisfaction. Method. In this paper we report our experience and assess the feasibility of SILS appendicectomy in the pediatric setting. Results. Five pediatric patients with uncomplicated appendicitis underwent SILS appendicectomy. There were no significant intraoperative or postoperative complications. All patients were discharged within 24 hours. Conclusions. The use of Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery appears to be a feasible and safe technique for the treatment of uncomplicated appendicitis in the pediatric setting. Further studies are warranted to fully investigate the potential advantages of this new technique

Determinants of Capital Flight in Bangladesh: an Econometric Estimation

This study investigates the causes of capital flight from Bangladesh during the study period ranging from 1973 to 2013. Linear regression  model has been used  and  the  method  of  least  squares (OLS)  has  been  applied  to estimate  the  various  determinants  on  capital flight. The results illustrate external debt, foreign direct investment inflows, and foreign reserves to be the main causes of capital flight. Apart from Econometric Analysis, we have also shown that the other reasons of capital from Bangladesh includes economic crimes that generated through huge illegal incomes, whether from the willful default of bank loans, corruption in tax administration, manipulation in stock exchanges, over-invoicing and under-invoicing in trade settlements, leakage in public development expenditure, or illegal financial deals in the running of state-owned enterprises.  Statistically we have proved that External Debt is the major cause of Capital Flight from Bangladesh. In future proper external debt management and utilization will be key strategy for Bangladesh Govt. to combat the capital flight from Bangladesh and also improving the foreign reserve can balance the lost capital or wealth from Bangladesh.         Keyword: Flight Capital, Unit Root Test, Multicollinearity Test, Heteroskedasticity, Correlation Matrix, ARCH Test