Background: Stroke defined by diminished cerebral blood flow, results in brain damage and neurological impairments. It often leads to considerable difficulties, such as limited mobility and compromised hand function, usually manifesting as a weakening in the ability to open and shut the hand. Objective: The study evaluates the differences between opening and closing hands when utilizing a soft robot. Methods: The study was conducted in the Mosul Specialist Rehabilitation Center which involved 68 participants, all over 20 years old, with visual impairments. The Iranian Clinical Trials Registry and Ministry of Planning approved the study, The Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Upper Extremity Action Research Arm Test, and Arm Motor Ability Test were used to assess finger extension and flexion. Results: A study revealed that stroke patients who utilized a soft robotic glove experienced notable improvements in hand functionality. Average hand closure scores increased significantly, from 8.14 to 20.36 out of 21 points. Women demonstrated greater progress in hand opening rates compared to men, with an average improvement of 1.91 times between pre- and post-assessments. In contrast, the control group exhibited similar hand-opening advancements across genders. Patients with both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes showed enhanced abilities in opening and closing their hands. Additionally, the study identified a statistically significant improvement in hand function improvements based on stroke type. Conclusion: The study found that stroke patients using a soft robotic glove showed significant improvements in hand-closing abilities, while exercise had minimal impact. Women showed an average increase in hand opening rate. Both male and female patients showed improvement, with hemorrhagic strokes showing remarkable advancements.
Nanoparticles are a special group of materials with unique features and extensive applications in diverse fields. The use of nanoparticles of some metals is a viable solution to stop infectious diseases due to the antimicrobial properties of these nanoparticles. The present work demonstrates the effect of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on the antibacterial activity of four different antibiotics (amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, chloramphenicol, and penicillin) against eleven Gram-positive and Gram-negative isolates. Disk diffusion method was used to determine the antibacterial activity of various classes of antibiotics in the absence and presence of sub-inhibitory silver nanoparticles of concentration (80 microgram/ml). A synergistic effect was o
... Show MoreThe interests toward developing accurate automatic face emotion recognition methodologies are growing vastly, and it is still one of an ever growing research field in the region of computer vision, artificial intelligent and automation. However, there is a challenge to build an automated system which equals human ability to recognize facial emotion because of the lack of an effective facial feature descriptor and the difficulty of choosing proper classification method. In this paper, a geometric based feature vector has been proposed. For the classification purpose, three different types of classification methods are tested: statistical, artificial neural network (NN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). A modified K-Means clustering algorithm
... Show MoreThe study attempts to identify 1) the habits of playing video games among students, 2) the effect of playing video games on students’ academic achievement, 3) the statistically significant differences among students in regard of (gender, time of playing video games, number of hours). To this end, a five-likert scale questionnaire included four questions was applied to (250) male and female students chosen randomly from the second-intermediate stage at Al-Karakh side secondary schools. The findings revealed that students play games only on holidays and less than an hour daily, which means playing games does not affect their academic achievement. Additionally, the findings found there is a significant difference between male and female i
... Show MoreIn this research, the effect of changing the flood level of Al-Shuwaija marsh was studied using the geographic information systems, specifically the QGIS program, and the STRM digital elevation model with a spatial analysis accuracy of 28 meters, was used to study the marsh. The hydraulic factors that characterize the marsh and affecting on the flooding such as the ranks of the water channels feeding the marsh and the degree of slope and flat areas in it are studied. The area of immersion water, the mean depth, and the accumulated water volume are calculated for each immersion level, thereby, this study finds the safe immersion level for this marsh was determined.
Leishmaniasis a vector- borne disease caused by obligate intra -macrophage protozoa, is characterized by diversity and complexity. Leishmania are one of different genera within the family Trypanosomatidae. Visceral leishmaniasis occurs universally, but >90% of the cases are in five countries: north-eastern India, Bangladesh, and Nepal in the Indian subcontinent, Sudan in Africa and north-eastern Brazil in South America. Sodium stibogluconate (Sb) has become ineffective in the 1990’s in most of the high -burden areas and must be replaced. However, none of the traditional alternatives was satisfactory. Oral drugs are very suitable as the need for hospitalization and related costs are eliminate
... Show MoreThe clinical spectrum of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), an intracellular parasitic pathogen, ranges from a single sore healing to chronic crusty lesions with a manifestation of treatment resistance. The complicated interaction between Leishmania bodies and the early immune response, including innate and adaptive mechanisms, determines the evolution of nodules. This study examined the levels of the chemoattractant interleukin 8 (IL-8), pro-inflammatory nitric oxide (NO), and immunoregulatory macrophage inhibitory factor (MIF) in the serum of subjects recently diagnosed with cutaneous leishmaniasis, in parallel with patients being monitored during consecutive sodium stibogluconate (Pentostam) treatment. A total of 161 serum samples of newly di
... Show MoreIn the present research a new test rig has been proposed to be suitable for different cyclic loads such as cyclic bending, cyclic torsion, proportional and non proportional loads. In this work the efforts were concentrated on the cyclic bending loads concerning cracked pipes with or without internal pulsing pressure to study crack propagation in small bore pipes (up to 1'') for transverse or inclined cracks. The rig simulates the real service conditions under different stresses by means the least dangerous case will be suggested, so the experiments were considered for copper pipe, and the results have been tabulated and drawn to demonstrate the crack growth behavior as well as to justify the outcomes practically, consequently the durabil
... Show MoreDouble hydrothermal method was used to prepare nano gamma alumina using aluminum nitrate nano hydrate and sodium aluminate as an aluminum source, CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) as surfactant, and variable acids: weak acids like; citric, and acitic acids, and strong acids like; hydrochloric and nitric acids as a bridge between aluminum salts and surfactant. Different crystallization times 12, 24, 48, and 72 hrs were applied. All the batches were prepared at pH equals to 9. XRD diffraction technique was used to investigate the crystalline nano gamma alumina pure from surfactant. N2 adsorption-desorption (BET) was used to measure the surface area and pore volume of the prepared nano alumina, the average p
... Show MoreCopper oxide thin films were deposited on glass substrate using Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction (SILAR) method at room temperature. The thickness of the thin films was around 0.43?m.Copper oxide thin films were annealed in air at (200, 300 and 400°C for 45min.The film structure properties were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD patterns indicated the presence of polycrystalline CuO. The average grain size is calculated from the X-rays pattern, it is found that the grain size increased with increasing annealing temperature. Optical transmitter microscope (OTM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) was also used. Direct band gap values of 2.2 eV for an annealed sample and (2, 1.5, 1.4) eV at 200, 300,400oC respect
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