Background: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) has become the treatment of choice for elective cholecystectomy.Objectives: To evaluate the safety and feasibility of early LC for AC and to compare the results with delayed LC.Methods: A prospective study done from April 2011 to October 2013, 88 patients with diagnosis of AC were divided randomly into two groups according to the mode of treatment; (early group n=40) treated by early LC within first 72 hours or (delayed group, n=48) initial conservative treatment for 4-6 weeks, followed by delayed LC.Results: There was no difference between the two groups (early & delayed LC), operating time (early 80min, delayed70min), conversion rate (early 7.5%, delayed 6.25%),postoperative complicatio

This article investigates the development of the following material properties of concrete with time: compressive strength, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, and fracture energy. These properties were determined at seven different hydration ages (18 h, 30 h, 48 h, 72 h, 7 days, 14 days, 28 days) for four pure cement concrete mixes totaling 336 specimens tested throughout the study. Experimental data obtained were used to assess the relationship of the above properties with the concrete compressive strength and how these relationships are affected with age. Further, this study investigates prediction models available in literature and recommendations are made for models that are found suitable for application to early age conc

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a common human pathogen that causes severe infections in newborns and immunocompromised patients. Conjunctivitis or corneal epithelial keratitis is caused by HSV type 1 all over the world and at all times of the year. The present study was aimed at detecting HSV in patients suffering from conjunctivitis. One hundred and ten (110) clinical samples (90 patients and 20 controls, both males and females) of eye conjunctiva swabs were collected from patients of different ages. The samples were analyzed using qPCR and ELISA techniques. The qPCR results revealed that HSV was present in 47 (52.2%) of the 90 patients who were infected. Of these patients, 25 (48.0%) were males and 22 (57.8%) were females, indicati

Echocardiography is a widely used imaging technique to examine various cardiac functions, especially to detect the left ventricular wall motion abnormality. Unfortunately the quality of echocardiograph images and complexities of underlying motion captured, makes it difficult for an in-experienced physicians/ radiologist to describe the motion abnormalities in a crisp way, leading to possible errors in diagnosis. In this study, we present a method to analyze left ventricular wall motion, by using optical flow to estimate velocities of the left ventricular wall segments and find relation between these segments motion. The proposed method will be able to present real clinical help to verify the left ventricular wall motion diagnosis.

In the present study, chitosan Schiff base has been prepared from chitosan reaction with p-chloro benzaldehyde. The AuNPs and AgNPs were manufactured by extract of onion peels as a reducing agent. The AuNPs and AgNPs that have been synthesized were characterized through UV-vis spectroscopy, XRD analyses and SEM microscopy. The polymer blends of the chitosan / PEG has been prepared by using the approach of solution casting. Chitosan Schiff base / PEG Au and Ag nanocomposites were synthesized, nanocomposites and polymer blends have been characterized by FTIR which confirm the formation of Schiff base by revealing a new band of absorption at 1693 cm-1 as a result of the (C=N) imine group. FESEM, DSC and TGA confirm the thermal stability

This study evaluated the knowledge and practice of breast self-examination (BSE), among a sample of educated Iraqi women. The study sample comprised 858 women aged 18–62 years affiliated to 6 major Iraqi universities, categorized according to occupation as teaching staff (11.5%), administrative staff (18.0%) and students (70.5%). Data were collected by a self-completed questionnaire. In all, 93.9% of the women had heard about BSE, the main source of information was television (39.9%), doctors (18.4%) and the awareness campaign of the Iraqi National Breast Cancer Research Programme (11.6%). Only 53.9% of the women practised BSE; the most common excuses by those that did not were lack of knowledge of the significance of BSE (42.0%) and lack

Slow cinema is a modern phenomenon conceptually. It is one of the most important contemporary features of the development of film art. Despite its roots extending back to previous cinematic schools, it is unique in its distinctive intellectual and visualaudio structures that tend towards slowness, simplicity, monotony, and calm in shaping the cinematic material it presents to the recipient, prompting them to contemplate and reflect on it, rather than receiving it passively. Thus, slow cinema becomes a revolutionary trend linked to philosophical structures broader than the world of film, attempting to resist the ideology of speed that dominates our contemporary lives. Based on this importance of slow cinema, the researcher definedthe topic o

Correct grading of apple slices can help ensure quality and improve the marketability of the final product, which can impact the overall development of the apple slice industry post-harvest. The study intends to employ the convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures of ResNet-18 and DenseNet-201 and classical machine learning (ML) classifiers such as Wide Neural Networks (WNN), Naïve Bayes (NB), and two kernels of support vector machines (SVM) to classify apple slices into different hardness classes based on their RGB values. Our research data showed that the DenseNet-201 features classified by the SVM-Cubic kernel had the highest accuracy and lowest standard deviation (SD) among all the methods we tested, at 89.51 %  1.66 %. This