Developing a service for patients with very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) within resources

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common life-limiting illness with significant burden for patient and carer. Despite this, access to supportive and specialist palliative care is inconsistent and implementation of published good practice recommendations may be challenging within current resources. The aim of this service development was to improve local service provision in Barnsley, within the currently available resources, for patients with very severe COPD, to improve patient identification and symptom management, increase advance care planning and the numbers of patients dying in their preferred place, and increase patient and carer support and satisfaction. To do this a working group was formed, the service problems identified and baseline data collected to identify the needs of people with very severe COPD. A multidisciplinary team meeting was piloted and assessed by community matron feedback, patient case studies and an after death analysis. These indicated a high level of satisfaction, with improvements in advance care planning, co-ordination of management and support for patients' preferred place of care at the end of life. In conclusion this is the first reported very severe COPD service development established in this way and within current resources. Preliminary data indicates the development of the multidisciplinary team meeting has been positive. The appointment of a coordinator will aid this development. Further evaluations particularly seeking patient views and estimations of cost savings will be performed

Comparative study of Arduino Types and Raspberry Pi with Programming Languages

The world is developing at an amazing speed through modern technologies to control things and microcontrollers have become a preoccupation of most developers of remote and proximity control devices in various industrial, household, and educational sectors, so it is necessary to study them in-depth and know the differences between Arduino and Raspberry in terms of hardware and software so that the developer is aware of what they can use it to build his project. Both Arduino and Raspberry are microcontrollers, but the first works without the need to connect to a computer, and works through an open source program as it is a single board and deals with a simple program every time and can connect to the Internet, while Raspberry connects to a computer via USB It deals with the language of Linux and Ruby and can perform mathematical and arithmetic operations and encrypt Bitcoin currencies, for these reasons, all these concepts will be explained in this paper, and that any technician or programmer can choose the best electronic parts Arduino or Raspberry in order to get the project done better

Role of Human Leukocyte Antigens DRB1-DQB1 Haplotype in the Susceptibility to Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

Gastro oesophageal reflux disease is due to involuntary gastric contents reflux into the esophagus from stomach, causing heartburn and acid regurgitation symptoms. Genetic and environmental factors are important factors in the causation of disease. Human Leukocyte antigens considered as an excellent marker for population genetics analysis and disease association. This study aimed to investigate the association between HLA-DRB1-DQB1 haplotype that inherited in linkage and its association with gastro oesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Patients and healthy controls were prospectively recruited from gastrocolonoscope unit at Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital (Baghdad-Iraq) between January and July 2016. Forty Iraqi Arab Muslims patients with a history of heartburn and dyspepsia compared with 100 Iraqi Arab Muslims control. All study patients and control group underwent upper gastroesophageal endoscope examination and HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DQB1 genotype were done using sequence spesific oligonucleotide primer to both groups. The frequencies of two haplotype HLA-DRB1⁄03-DQB1⁄03 and HLADRB1⁄ 13-DQB1⁄06 were significantly higher in patients with GERD while haplotype HLA-DRB1⁄03-DQB1⁄02 was significantly higher in control group. Sex had an effect in disease developing that haplotype HLADRB1⁄ 03-DQB1⁄03 was significantly more common in female patients that increased susceptibility to disease. This study identified that two haplotypes HLA-DRB1⁄03- DQB1⁄03 and HLA-DRB1⁄13- DQB1⁄06 leads to increased susceptibility to GERD and haplotype HLA-DRB1⁄03-DQB1⁄02 was protective against GERD development

Human leukocyte antigen HLADRB1 determinants susceptibility to gastroesophageal reflux disease

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is characterized by diverse symptoms. There is an evidence for a genetic component to GERD as supported by familial aggregation of this disease. OBJECTIVE To investigate whether certain human leucocyte antigen genes HLA-DRB1 are associated with GERD. METHODS Patients and controls were prospectively recruited from GIT center at Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital (Baghdad-Iraq) between January 2014 and July 2016. Sixty Iraqi Arab Muslims patients with a history of heartburn and dyspepsia compared with 100 Iraqi Arab Muslims controls. All study patients and control groups underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopic examinations and their serums were analyzed for CagA antibodies Immunoglobulin G (IgG) for H. pylori. HLA-DRB1 genotyping were done to both groups. RESULTS A total of 60 patients with erosive gastritis; GERD (Grade II and III) were evaluated, together with 100 controls. There is a significant increase of H. pylori infection (P=0.0001) in GERD patients than control group. HLA-DRB1* 15:01 was significantly increased in GERD patients in comparison with control group and an increased frequency of HLADRB1*11:01 in control group compared with patients group. CONCLUSION There is an association between HLA-DRB1 *15:01 in GERD patients with H. pylori positive patients

Особливості вилучення відбитків на основі гібридної оптимізації рою частинок та алгоритмів кажанів

Most security system's essential errand is to check that the people are in fact who they claim to be. In Contrast to traditional techniques such as passwords and smart cards that are used in some organizations, fingerprint identification may be preferred as it makes the information virtually impossible to steal. The most extensive used biometric features are Fingerprints, in order to identify a person because of their uniqueness and invariance. The fingerprint consists of valleys and ridges on the surface of a fingertip. In this paper, a new hybrid strategy Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with Bat Algorithm (BA) is proposed to extract features from fingerprint images. Both PSO and BA algorithms are swarm-based algorithms that mimics the swarm behaviour of particles and bats in nature. In the field of image processing, features are extremely significant. Before obtaining features, the noisy area should be removed from the foreground first, and then several important techniques are applied on each sample image in the database such as Fingerprint Enhancement by using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Binarization, and Thinning. The hybrid (PSO-BA) algorithm is proposed as a pre-enhancing step to select the clear minutiae (or feature) structures across several iterations, which will be more suited for the matching phase. By comparing the proposed method with several methods in calculating FAR and FRR, the results showed that the FAR (0.001) and FRR (0.01) were less than the other proposed methods. That means the hybrid (PSO-BA) algorithm has the better results, which means it can be used as one of the best search approaches to extract features from fingerprintsОсновним завданням більшості систем безпеки є перевірка того, що насправді люди є тими, за кого себе видають. На відміну від традиційних методів, таких як паролі та смарт-картки, які використовуються в деяких організаціях, ідентифікація по відбитку пальця може бути кращою, оскільки робить крадіжку інформації практично неможливою. Найбільш широко використовуваними біометричними ознаками є відбитки пальців, що дозволяють ідентифікувати людину через їхню унікальність і незмінність. Відбиток пальця складається з западин та гребенів на поверхні кінчика пальця. У цій статті пропонується нова гібридна стратегія оптимізації рою частинок (ОРЧ) з алгоритмом кажанів (АК) для отримання ознак із зображень відбитків пальців. Алгоритми ОРЧ і АК є алгоритмами на основі рою, які імітують поведінку рою частинок і кажанів у природі. У сфері обробки зображень особливості надзвичайно значущі. Перед отриманням ознак слід спочатку видалити зашумлену область з переднього плану, а потім до кожного зразка зображення в базі даних застосувати кілька важливих методів, таких як покращення відбитків пальців з використанням швидкого перетворення Фур'є (ШПФ), бінаризації та проріджування. Гібридний (ОРЧ-АК) алгоритм пропонується як попередній крок для вибору чітких структур дрібниць (або ознак) в декількох ітераціях, які більше підходять для етапу зіставлення. При порівнянні запропонованого методу з кількома методами розрахунку коефіцієнта помилкового відхилення (КПВ) та коефіцієнта помилкового прийняття (КПП) результати показали, що КПВ (0,001) та КПП (0,01) були меншими, ніж у інших запропонованих методів. Це означає, що гібридний алгоритм (ОРЧ-АК) дає кращі результати, що означає, що його можна використовувати як один з кращих підходів до пошуку для отримання ознак з відбитків пальці

Infectious Mononucleosis Presenting with Loss of Taste and Smell During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

53-year-old woman presented during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with an 18-day history of pyrexia, myalgia, progressive dyspnoea and loss of taste and smell after a close contact had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. In this period two swabs had been negative for SARS-CoV-2. Clinical examination was normal. During this admission a third SARS-CoV-2 swab was negative, and investigations showed mildly elevated inflammatory markers, mildly deranged liver function, atypical lymphocytes on a blood film and a normal chest x-ray. Her Epstein–Barr virus serology was positive and thus the diagnosis was infectious mononucleosis

Isolation and Identification of Shigella dysenteriae from patients in Najaf Province / Iraq

   A total of 120 stool samples were collected from children suffering from watery diarrhea with blood , less than 10 years old of both genders whom admitted to the Alzahraa Obstetrics Hospital in Najaf Province , at the period of January 2017 to December 2017, in order to evaluate the routine laboratory diagnostic procedures in the diagnosis of Shigella dysenteriae . For phenotypic characterization, Shigella dysenteriae has been isolated and identified by using culturing method in addition to biochemical tests. Depending on the rate of Shigella dysenteriae isolation in different age groups, the results revealed that some infections were recorded in children samples below 1 year of age in this study and the highest percent (49%) were at 1-4 years of age and there was no significant difference (p> 0.01) between the rate of isolation and age of children. On the other hand, the highest rate of isolation was in rural area (55%) while in urban area was (45%) and there was a significant difference (p< 0.01) between the rate of isolation and residence of children. This study also showed that the higher rate of Shigella dysenteriae isolation from stool samples were in November (84.6%) followed by (15.4%) in October then the infection disappear in the followed months (April-September) while other isolates distributed in identical percent (15%) for December, January (7%) and February (3%)