ABSTRACTBackground: cochlear implants are electronic devices that convert sound energy into electrical signals to stimulate ganglion cells and cochlear nerve fibers. These devices are indicated for patients with severe to profound sensorineural hearing losses who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. The implant basically takes over the function of the cochlear hair cells. The implant consists of external components (microphone, speech processor and transmitting coil) and internal components (receiver stimulator and electrode array). The implant is inserted via a trans mastoid facial recess approach to the round window and scala tympani.Objectives: to determine the effectiveness and safety of non fixation method in cochlear implantation.Methods: a prospective study carried out from September 2009 to September 2012 in Gazi Hariri Hospital. Eighty patients with congenital severe –profound sensorineural hearing loss prepared for cochlear implantation involved in the study and divided into 2 groups. Group A includes 40 patients in whom the internal device was fixed to the skull by nylon suture materials through small burr holes on both sides of the well. Group B includes 40 patients in whom the internal device placed in a tight sub pericranial pocket without nylon fixation to the skull. All patients followed postoperatively for 6 months observing wound healing and local complications (hematoma, infection, wound dehiscence, device extrusion and migration).Results: mean age 4.2 years and male-female ratio was 1.3:1.Group A: 1 patient (2.5%) developed minor wound infection treated conservatively. Three patients (7.5%) developedsevere wound infection with wound breakdown and device extrusion despite the use of antibiotics and local rotational flaps, the device was explanted in those 3 patients. Two patients (5%) developed hematoma without history of trauma and treated conservatively. One patient (2.5%) had device migration without affection of its function.Group B: 2 patients developed minor wound infection treated conservatively. One patient (2.5%) had severe wound infection ends up with wound dehiscence and device extrusion despite the use of antibiotics and local rotational flaps. Explantation of the device was done for this patient. Hematoma occurred in one patient (2.5%) without history of trauma and treated conservatively. Another one patient (2.5%) developed device migration without impairment of its function.Conclusion: creation of sub pericranial pocket without internal device fixation by nylon materials is an effective and reliable method in cochlear implantation without compromising the patient safety or device performance.Key words: cochlear implantation, non- fixation, sub pericranial pocket
Iron oxide(Fe3O4) nanoparticles of different sizes and shapes were synthesized by solve-hydrothermal reaction assisted by microwave irradiation using ferrous ammonium sulfate as a metal precursor, oleic acid as dispersing agent, ethanol as reducing agent and NaOH as precipitating agent at pH=12. The synthesized Fe3O4 nano particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR and thermal analysis TG-DTG. Sizes and shapes of Fe3O4 nanoparticles were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).
The extracting of personal sprite from the whole image faced many problems in separating the sprite edge from the unneeded parts, some image software try to automate this process, but usually they couldn't find the edge or have false result. In this paper, the authors have made an enhancement on the use of Canny edge detection to locate the sprite from the whole image by adding some enhancement steps by using MATLAB. Moreover, remove all the non-relevant information from the image by selecting only the sprite and place it in a transparent background. The results of comparing the Canny edge detection with the proposed method shows improvement in the edge detection.
In this paper, a subspace identification method for bilinear systems is used . Wherein a " three-block " and " four-block " subspace algorithms are used. In this algorithms the input signal to the system does not have to be white . Simulation of these algorithms shows that the " four-block " gives fast convergence and the dimensions of the matrices involved are significantly smaller so that the computational complexity is lower as a comparison with " three-block " algorithm .
A coin has two sides. Steganography although conceals the existence of a message but is not completely secure. It is not meant to supersede cryptography but to supplement it. The main goal of this method is to minimize the number of LSBs that are changed when substituting them with the bits of characters in the secret message. This will lead to decrease the distortion (noise) that is occurred in the pixels of the stego-image and as a result increase the immunity of the stego-image against the visual attack. The experiment shows that the proposed method gives good enhancement to the steganoraphy technique and there is no difference between the cover-image and the stego-image that can be seen by the human vision system (HVS), so this method c
... Show MoreInterval methods for verified integration of initial value problems (IVPs) for ODEs have been used for more than 40 years. For many classes of IVPs, these methods have the ability to compute guaranteed error bounds for the flow of an ODE, where traditional methods provide only approximations to a solution. Overestimation, however, is a potential drawback of verified methods. For some problems, the computed error bounds become overly pessimistic, or integration even breaks down. The dependency problem and the wrapping effect are particular sources of overestimations in interval computations. Berz (see [1]) and his co-workers have developed Taylor model methods, which extend interval arithmetic with symbolic computations. The latter is an ef
... Show MoreObjective(s): to assess the effectiveness of educational program on improving diabetic foot self-efficacy concerning managing their feet. Methodology: A descriptive analytic (quasi – experimental) design study was carried out at Diabetic and Endocrinology Center in Baghdad- Rusafa Sector from 2nd of May 2017, to27th June 2018. Non-probability sample of (80) male and female diabetic patients were selected. The study instruments consisted of two major parts: first
Antibiotics present the greatest threat to soil and aquatic ecosystems among the different therapeutic groups of medicines (which include prescription drugs and treatments for cancer). The strongest drugs, antibiotics, have been utilized to stop the growth of microorganisms or eradicate them. Using high-performance liquid chromatography technology with fluorescence detection, the amounts of levofloxacin and tetracycline in the wastewater from three hospitals (Medical City, Al-Kindi, and Al-Yarmouk) were determined. Levofloxacin and tetracycline were chosen in this study because they are the most important water pollutants. These antibiotic residues were separated and measured using a gradient elution technique on a reverse-phase C18
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