Background: Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE)-derived mitral annular displacement (MAD) utilizes the speckle tracking technique to measure strain vectors, which provides accurate estimates of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).Objectives: To validate the accuracy of mitral annular displacement (MAD), assessed by Speckle Tracking Echocardiography (STE), as a surrogate for determination of left ventricular systolic function in comparison to 2-Dimensions Simpson method in patients with different heart diseases.Methods : This cross-sectional study included patients who referred to outpatient department of Ibn Albitar Center for Cardiac Surgery, Baghdad, Iraq, between October 2012 and April 2013. STE continuously tracked annular

Background: Complete removal of filling material from the root canal is an essential requirement for endodontic retreatment. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate and compare the dissolving capabilities of various solvents (Xylene, Eugenate Desobturator, Eucalyptol, EDTA and Distilled water (as a control)) on four different types of sealer (Endofill, Apexit Plus, AH Plus and EndoSequence bioceramic sealer). Materials and method: Eighty samples of each sealer were prepared according to the manufacturers' instructions and then divided into ten groups (of 8 samples) for immersion in the respective solvents for 2 and 5 min immersion periods. Each sealer specimen was weighed to obtain its initial mass. The specimens were immersed in

The current research illustrates experimentally the effect of series and parallel connection (Z-I Configurations) of flat plate water solar collectors array on the thermal performance of closed loop solar heating system. The study includes the effect of changing the water flow rate on the thermal efficiency. The results show that, the collector's efficiency in series connection is higher than the parallel connection within flow rate level less than (100) ℓ/hr. Moreover, the collector efficiency in parallel connection of (I-Configurations) is more than the (Z- Configurations) with increasing the water flow rate .The maximum daily efficiency for parallel (I-Configurations) and (Z- Configurations) are (55%) and (51%) at w

This research is qualitative in nature. It aims to investigate descriptively, analytically, and comparatively the modern AK model represented by the Sudan Open University Series, and the European framework, the common reference for Teaching Foreign Languages, to uncover what was achieved in them in terms of communication and language use. Accordingly, an integrated, multi-media approach has been adopted to enable the production and reception activities, and the spread of Arabic in vast areas of the world. Such a spread helps Arabic language to be in a hegemonic position with the other living languages. The study is based on getting benefit from human experiences and joint work in the field of teaching Arabic to non-Arabic speakers to mee

This work describes an experimental setup to evaluate the photodynamictoxicity of 650 nm diode laser and 532 nm Frequency-doubled Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser on the growth of Candida albicans as well as the potential fungicidal effect when combining the laser irradiation with specific photosensitizers namely methylene blue, toluidine blue, acridine orange and safranin O. In this study the findings showed that the number of colony-forming units per millilitre (CFU/ml) of C. albicans decreased with increasing exposure time. In particular in the case of the frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser combined with safranin O, the best lethal effect occurred at 11 minutes exposure time with 2.26 J/cm² energy density (89.18% reduction) in comparison with the

In this study, four different spectrophotometric methods were applied for determination of cimetidine and erythromycin ethylsuccinate drugs in pure form and in their pharmaceutical preparations. The suggested methods are simple, sensitive, accurate, not time consuming and inexpensive. The results showed the following: The first method: Based on the formation of ion pair complex of each drug with bromothymol blue (BTB) as a chromogenic reagent. The formed complexes were extracted with chloroform and their absorbance values were measured at 427.5 nm for cimetidine and 416.5nm for erythromycin ethylsuccinate; against their reagents blanks. Two different methods, univariate method and multivariate method, were used to obtain the optimum condit

Densities ρ and viscosities η for several concentrations of amino acids (Serine, Cysteine and Threonine) at different temperatures (298.15, 303.15 and 308.15K) have been measured. On the basis of these data, the apparent molal volumes v , partial molal volumes at infinite dilution v , slope Sv , Gibbs free energy of activation for viscous flow of solution ∆G1,2 and Jones – Dole Bcoefficients were calculated the nature of solute-solvent and solute-solute interactions have been discussed in terms of the values of v , v , Sv and B-coefficents

This paper numerically and theoretically investigates the optical and thermal performance of a parabolic trough collector PTC system. Many numerical simulations and theoretical analyses are conducted to demonstrate the influence of the receiver geometry and shifting from the focal position on the optical performance. The examined receiver geometries are circular, square, triangular, elliptical, and the new circular–square combined geometry is named as channel receiver. The thermal performance of PTC is examined for different volume flow rates theoretically in the range of (0.36 to 2.4 lpm). The results show that the best optical design is the channel receiver with an intercept factor of 84%, while the worst is the elliptical receiver with