Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes among Youths in Jordan: Incidence and Trends for the period (2011-2016)

This study aimed at analyzing the incidence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes among youths in Jordan for the period (2011-2016), the researchers adopted the survey methodology for the period of five years from the records of the medical centers (public and private) in Jordan. Also investigated the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in diagnosis and treatments. Results showed significant upward trend in the incidence of type 1 diabetes was observed overall with considerable variation across demographic subgroups of age, sex. And also showed among youths who were 10 to 19 years of age, unadjusted models revealed significant increases in the incidence of type 2 diabetes with increases observed across all age and sex

Prevalence Refractive Errors among Medical Students of Qassim University, Saudi Arabia: Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence of various errors of refraction among the medical students studying at the college of medicine, Qassim University, Saudi Arabia.METHODS: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted at Qassim University clinics over a period of two months. The study population comprised 162 male and female students from different academic years. The students were selected randomly so that around 35-40 students were taken from each academic class. The selected study population was explained the objectives of the study and a written consent form that stated the purpose, methods, risks, benefits, and the assurance of the confidentiality of the data was obtained from each student. After giving the consent, each subject was examined by auto refractometer. The examination was carried out by an optometrist without using cycloplegia. Both right and left eyes were thoroughly examined by auto refractometer and on the average three readings of the refraction measurements were taken. The readings were recorded on a data sheet of every individual, and the Statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).RESULTS: One hundred and sixty-two (162) students with a mean age of 22.44 years, Std 1.661 and a range of 8 (19-27) were included in the study. Of the total number, 111 (68.51%) were males and remaining 51 (31.48%) were females. Of the total sample, only 1 (0.617%) student had diabetes mellitus, and 6 (3.70%) students gave a history of previous ocular surgery. Myopia was found to be the commonest error of refraction 53.7% with hyperopia next to it.CONCLUSION: Myopia is found to be a common error of refraction in young adults. A regular checkup is essential to timely correct the error and to prevent deterioration of the vision

Effect of antibodies on pathogen dynamics with delays and two routes of infection

We study the global stability of pathogen dynamics models with saturated pathogen-susceptible and infected-susceptible incidence. The models incorporate antibody immune response and three types of discrete or distributed time delays. We first show that the solutions of the model are nonnegative and ultimately bounded. We determine two threshold parameters, the basic reproduction number and antibody response activation number. We establish the existence and stability of the steady states. We study the global stability analysis of models using Lyapunov method. The numerical simulations have shown that antibodies can reduce the pathogen progression

Stability of latent pathogen infection model with CTL immune response and saturated cellular infection

We propose a pathogen dynamics model with CTL immune response and both pathogenic and cellular infections. Both actively infected cells and latently infected cells are incorporated into the model. The infected-susceptible and pathogen-susceptible infection rates are given by saturated incidence. Three distributed time delays are considered. The existence and global stability of the equilibria are determined by two threshold parameters, the basic reproduction number and the CTL response activation number. The global stability of the three equilibria are proven using Lyapunov method. We solve the system of delay differential equations numerically to support the theoretical results

Fault Detection and Classification of CIGS Thin-Film PV Modules Using an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Scheme

The use of artificial intelligence to automate PV module fault detection, diagnosis, and classification processes has gained interest for PV solar plants maintenance planning and reduction in expensive inspection and shutdown periods. The present article reports on the development of an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for PV fault classification based on statistical and mathematical features extracted from outdoor infrared thermography (IRT) and I-V measurements of thin-film PV modules. The selection of the membership function is shown to be essential to obtain a high classifier performance. Principal components analysis (PCA) is used to reduce the dimensions to speed up the classification process. For each type of fault, effective features that are highly correlated to the PV module’s operating power ratio are identified. Evaluation of the proposed methodology, based on datasets gathered from a typical PV plant, reveals that features extraction methods based on mathematical parameters and I-V measurements provide a 100% classification accuracy. On the other hand, features extraction based on statistical factors provides 83.33% accuracy. A novel technique is proposed for developing a correlation matrix between the PV operating power ratio and the effective features extracted online from infrared thermal images. This eliminates the need for offline I-V measurements to estimate the operating power ratio of PV modules

The prevalence of comorbidity in the lung cancer screening population: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective Comorbidity is associated with adverse outcomes for all lung cancer patients, but its burden is less understood in the context of screening. This review synthesises the prevalence of comorbidities among lung cancer screening (LCS) candidates and summarises the clinical recommendations for screening comorbid individuals. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBM Reviews, and CINAHL databases from January 1990 to February 2021. We included LCS studies that reported a prevalence of comorbidity, as a prevalence of a particular condition, or as a summary score. We also summarised LCS clinical guidelines that addressed comorbidity or frailty for LCS as a secondary objective for this review. Meta-analysis was used with inverse-variance weights obtained from a random-effects model to estimate the prevalence of selected comorbidities. Results We included 69 studies in the review; seven reported comorbidity summary scores, two reported performance status, 48 reported individual comorbidities, and 12 were clinical guideline papers. The meta-analysis of individual comorbidities resulted in an estimated prevalence of 35.2% for hypertension, 23.5% for history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (10.7% for severe COPD), 16.6% for ischaemic heart disease (IHD), 13.1% for peripheral vascular disease (PVD), 12.9% for asthma, 12.5% for diabetes, 4.5% for bronchiectasis, 2.2% for stroke, and 0.5% for pulmonary fibrosis. Conclusions Comorbidities were highly prevalent in LCS populations and likely to be more prevalent than in other cancer screening programmes. Further research on the burden of comorbid disease and its impact on screening uptake and outcomes is needed. Identifying individuals with frailty and comorbidities who might not benefit from screening should become a priority in LCS research

Analytic Solutions and Stability of Sixth Order Difference Equations

In the present paper, the global attractor, local stability, and boundedness of the solution of sixth order difference equations are investigated analytically and numerically. The exact solutions of three equations are presented by utilizing Fibonacci sequence. We also analyse the periodicity of a sixth order difference equation. The considered difference equations are given by yn+1=Ayn−1±Byn−1yn−3/Cyn−3±Dyn−5, n=0,1,…, where the initial conditions y−5,y−4,y−3,y−2,y−1, and y0 are arbitrary real numbers and the values A,B,C, and D are defined as positive real numbers