<p>Analyzing X-rays and computed tomography-scan (CT scan) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN) method is a very interesting subject, especially after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, a study is made on 423 patients’ CT scan images from Al-Kadhimiya (Madenat Al Emammain Al Kadhmain) hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, to diagnose if they have COVID or not using CNN. The total data being tested has 15000 CT-scan images chosen in a specific way to give a correct diagnosis. The activation function used in this research is the wavelet function, which differs from CNN activation functions. The convolutional wavelet neural network (CWNN) model proposed in this paper is compared with regular convolutional neural network that uses other activation functions (exponential linear unit (ELU), rectified linear unit (ReLU), Swish, Leaky ReLU, Sigmoid), and the result is that utilizing CWNN gave better results for all performance metrics (accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, and F1-score). The results obtained show that the prediction accuracies of CWNN were 99.97%, 99.9%, 99.97%, and 99.04% when using wavelet filters (rational function with quadratic poles (RASP1), (RASP2), and polynomials windowed (POLYWOG1), superposed logistic function (SLOG1)) as activation function, respectively. Using this algorithm can reduce the time required for the radiologist to detect whether a patient has COVID or not with very high accuracy.</p>
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the new respiratory virus SARS-CoV2. It has a tropism in the lung tissues where excess target receptors exist. Periostin plays a role in subepithelial fibrosis associated with bronchial asthma. Since the Coronavirus's target is the human respiratory system, Periostin has been recently described as a valuable new biomarker in the diagnosis and evaluation of disease in patients with COVID-19 lung involvement. Objectives: To assess the level of Periostin in the serum of COVID-19 patients and to correlate its role in disease severity and prognosis. Subjects and Methods: Periostin serum levels were measured for 63 patients attending three main COVID
... Show MoreElectronic learning was used as a substitute method for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct scientific materials and perform student assessment; this study aimed to investigate academic staff opinions toward electronic education. A cross-sectional study with a web-based questionnaire distributed to academic staff in different medical colleges in Iraq. After de-identification, data were collected and analyzed with statistical software to determine the significance between variables. A total of 256 participants were enrolled in the study: 83% were not satisfied or neutral to online learning, 80% showed a poor benefit from delivery of the practical electronic knowledge and 25% for theoretical sessions with a significant difference
... Show MoreThis paper aims at studying the illocutionary speech acts: direct and indirect to show the most dominant ones in a presidential speech delivered by the USA president. The speech is about the most critical health issue in the world, COVID-19 outbreak. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted by observing the first speech delivered by president Trump concerning coronavirus outbreak and surveying the illocutionary acts: directive, declarative, commissive, expressive, and representative. Searle's (1985) classification of illocutionary speech acts is adopted in the analysis.
What are the main types of the illocutionary speech acts performed by Trump in his speech?; Why does
... Show MoreSufficient high-quality data are unavailable to describe the management approach and guideline of COVID-19 disease in pediatric and adolescent population which may be due to mild presentation in most of cases and less severe complications than older ages.
World Health Organization was concerned with the establishment of an approved guideline to manage the increasing number of COVID-19 patients worldwide aiming to prevent or lessen COVID-19 global burden.
The clinical features have a wide spectrum starting from uncomplicated mild illness, mild-moderate pneumonia, severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis, septic shock, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
Many important definitions
... Show MoreThe rapid spread of novel coronavirus disease
(COVID19) throughout the world without available
specific treatment or vaccine necessitates alternative
options to contain the disease. Historically, children
and pregnant women were considered high-risk
population of infectious diseases but rarely have been
spotlighted nowadays in the regular COVID-19
updates, may be due to low global rates of incidence,
morbidity, and mortality. However, complications did
occur in these subjects affected by COVID-19. We
aimed to explore the latest updates of
immunotherapeutic perspectives of COVID-19
patients in general population and some added details
regarding pediatric and obstetrical practice.
Immune system boo
This study discusses risk management strategies caused by pandemic-related (Covid-19) suspensions in thirty-six engineering projects of different types and sizes selected from countries in the middle east and especially Iraq. The primary data collection method was a survey and questionnaire completed by selected project crew and laborers. Data were processed using Microsoft Excel to construct models to help decision-makers find solutions to the scheduling problems that may be expected to occur during a pandemic. A theoretical and practical concept for project risk management that addresses a range of global and local issues that affect schedule and cost is presented and results indicate that the most significant delays are due to a
... Show MoreThis study discusses risk management strategies caused by pandemic-related (Covid-19) suspensions in thirty-six engineering projects of different types and sizes selected from countries in the middle east and especially Iraq. The primary data collection method was a survey and questionnaire completed by selected project crew and laborers. Data were processed using Microsoft Excel to construct models to help decision-makers find solutions to the scheduling problems that may be expected to occur during a pandemic. A theoretical and practical concept for project risk management that addresses a range of global and local issues that affect schedule and cost is presented and results indicate that the most significant delays are due to a
... Show MoreSome problems want to be solved in image compression to make the process workable and more efficient. Much work had been done in the field of lossy image compression based on wavelet and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). In this paper, an efficient image compression scheme is proposed, based on a common encoding transform scheme; It consists of the following steps: 1) bi-orthogonal (tab 9/7) wavelet transform to split the image data into sub-bands, 2) DCT to de-correlate the data, 3) the combined transform stage's output is subjected to scalar quantization before being mapped to positive, 4) and LZW encoding to produce the compressed data. The peak signal-to-noise (PSNR), compression ratio (CR), and compression gain (CG) measures were used t
... Show MoreThe segmentation of aerial images using different clustering techniques offers valuable insights into interpreting and analyzing such images. By partitioning the images into meaningful regions, clustering techniques help identify and differentiate various objects and areas of interest, facilitating various applications, including urban planning, environmental monitoring, and disaster management. This paper aims to segment color aerial images to provide a means of organizing and understanding the visual information contained within the image for various applications and research purposes. It is also important to look into and compare the basic workings of three popular clustering algorithms: K-Medoids, Fuzzy C-Mean (FCM), and Gaussia
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