Background: Thyroid surgery is most common endocrine surgery in general surgical practice. Objectives: the aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility, benefits and outcomes of open mini-incision thyroidectomy and compared the results with that of conventional thyroidectomy. The comparison between the two groups was in term of incision length, amount of blood loss, time of operation, postoperative pain, hospital stay and the cosmetic outcomes.Type of the study: this is a single-blinded randomized controlled studyMethods: This study compared the advantages and outcomes of 22 patients subjected to mini-incision thyroidectomy (Group A) with the equal numbers of patients subjected to conventional thyroidectomy (Group B).Results: the oper

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been viewed as a power affecting economic growth (EG) directly and indirectly during the past few decades. This paper reviewed an amount of researches examining the relationships between FDI and EG, especially the effects of FDI on EG, from 1994 up to 2012. The results show that the main finding of the FDI-EG relation is significantly positive, but in some cases it is negative or even null. And within the relation, there exist several influencing factors such as the adequate levels of human capital, the well-developed financial markets, the complementarity between domestic and foreign investment and the open trade regimes, etc.

This article presents the results of an experimental investigation of using carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets to enhance the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams with large web openings in shear spans. A set of 18 specimens were fabricated and tested up to a failure to evaluate the structural performance in terms of cracking, deformation, and load-carrying capacity. All tested specimens were with 1500-mm length, 500-mm cross-sectional deep, and 150-mm wide. Parameters that studied were opening size, opening location, and the strengthening factor. Two deep beams were implemented as control specimens without opening and without strengthening. Eight deep beams were fabricated with openings but without strengthening, while

This article presents the results of an experimental investigation of using carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets to enhance the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams with large web openings in shear spans. A set of 18 specimens were fabricated and tested up to a failure to evaluate the structural performance in terms of cracking, deformation, and load-carrying capacity. All tested specimens were with 1500-mm length, 500-mm cross-sectional deep, and 150-mm wide. Parameters that studied were opening size, opening location, and the strengthening factor. Two deep beams were implemented as control specimens without opening and without strengthening. Eight deep beams were fabricated with openings but without strengthening, while

In this work, novel copolymers of poly(adipic anhydride-co-mannitol) were synthesized by melting condensation polymerization of poly(adipic anhydride) with five percentages of mannitol sugar, 1 to 5 Wt.%. These copolymers were purified and then, characterized by FT-IR, which was proved that the cross-linking reaction was caused by nucleophilic attack of mannitol hydroxyl group to acidic anhydride groups of poly(adipic anhydride) backbone and new ester groups were formed and appeared. Also, modified organic-soluble chitosan, N-maleoyl-chitosan, were synthesized by grafting reaction of chitosan with maleic anhydride in DMF as solvent, and it was also purified and characterized by FT-IR. Biodegradation in vitro of the IPNs of poly(adipic anhyd