Background: Quality of life in brain tumor patients is an emerging issue and has prompted neurosurgeons to recon¬sider the need for cognitive assessment in the course of treatment. To date there has been a lack of comprehensive neuropsychological assessment performed preoperatively and in the acute postoperative period in our hospitals.Objectives: to establish the effects of tumors and their surgical treatment, from a neuropsychological perspective, on cognitive functioning in patients with cerebral Gliomas. Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in the Neurosurgical Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, during the period from January 1999 to January 2001. Any patient admitted during the period of the study with clinical history, signs, symptoms, and contrast enhanced MRI suggesting a cerebral glioma and confirmed by postoperative histopathological results of glioma has been included in this study. While multifocal lesions, long-lasting epilepsy, use of antiepileptic therapy, multiple cranial lesions, previous cranial surgery, any chronic illness, and histopathological result of other tumors were exclusion criteria. All patients were at their first operation for brain tumors. Patients were examined by analyzing several functional domains (intelligence, executive functions, memory, language, praxis, gnosis and mood state) in order to establish the effect of tumor and surgery on cognition.Results: 29 patients who fulfilled the selection criteria were included. Mean duration of clinical history was 5 months (range 1–9 months). At baseline, using test- and domain-based criteria, 79% and 38% of patients, respectively, were impaired, the former related to tumor factors such as edema (P < 0.05), larger size (P < 0.05) and higher grade (P = 0.001). Verbal memory, visuospatial memory and word fluency were the most frequently affected functions, partly associated with depression. Postoperatively, 38% and 55% of patients, respectively, were unchanged, 24% and 21% improved, and 38% and 24% worsened; 24% and 62% of patients were intact, respec-tively.Conclusions: The extent of removal did not influence the outcome. Improvement involved previously impaired functions and was correlated with high-grade tumors. Worsening regar¬ded executive functions was related to tumor size and was partly explained by radiological findings on postoperative MRI. This prospective study, focusing on the effects of tumor and surgery, showed that tumor significantly affects cognitive func¬tions, mainly due to the mass effect and higher grading. Surgical treatment improved the functions most frequently affected preoperatively and caused worsening of execu¬tive functions soon after operation, leaving the overall cognitive burden unchanged and capable of improvement prospectively.
Games engagement has become one of the main concerns in game industry. Early study revealed that Malaysian digital traditional games are suffering with the same issue due to several factors. One of it is the lack of the game itself. Although many Malaysian traditional games have been digitized, none of them has incorporated rewards despite its importance in games engagement. Realizing the importance of rewards in games engagement, one of Malaysian traditional Congkak has been chosen to be enhanced by incorporating rewards. Experiments have been conducted among 50 gamers among the Millennials. Prior interview, game demo and human test are conducted. Experiments focused on the influence of rewards on games flow, games challenge, and its ef
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Cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanocrystalline thin films have been prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique on commercial glass substrates at 70ºC temperature. Cadmium chloride (CdCl2) as a source of cadmium (Cd), thiourea (CS(NH2)2) as a source of sulfur and ammonia solution (NH4OH) were added to maintain the pH value of the solution at 10. The characterization of thin films was carried out through the structural and optical properties by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-VIS spectroscopy. A UV-VIS optical spectroscopy study was carried out to determine the band gap of the nanocrystalline CdS thin film and it showed a blue shift with respect to the bulk value (from 3.9 - 2.4eV). In present w
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Background: Pain due to muscular cramp during hemodialysis is one of the most common problems experienced by patient undergoing hemodialysis, and is associated with poor outcomes of patients. The main aim of this study was to comparing the effects of lavender oil and olive oil massage on Pain due to muscular cramp during hemodialysis.
Methods: In this random clinical trial, 60 hemodialysis patients were enrolled randomly and allocated to two groups with 30 members in Lordegan and Brojen hospitals, Shahrekord, Iran. The intervention included flora massage on the lower leg muscles so that the first group received olive oil massage (10 drops) and the second group received lavender oil massage (10 dr
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Global warming has a serious impact on the survival of organisms. Very few studies have considered the effect of global warming as a mathematical model. The effect of global warming on the carrying capacity of prey and predators has not been studied before. In this article, an ecological model describing the relationship between prey and predator and the effect of global warming on the carrying capacity of prey was studied. Moreover, the wind speed was considered an influencing factor in the predation process after developing the function that describes it. From a biological perspective, the nonnegativity and uniform bounded of all solutions for the model are proven. The existence of equilibria for the model and its local stability is inves
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The importance of Public Relations activity has increased during the last half of the last century as a specialized and modern administrative function in most institutions. It has, moreover, become an integral part of activities of those institutions of various types, due to its pivotal role in building its reputation and drawing a good mental image among its audiences, as well as its influential and basic role in maintaining communication and the communication between its members at its various levels and their job tasks to ensure the greatest amount of understanding and to enhance trust between them. This is why public relations activity has become indispensable in all institutions, and without it, it is difficult to achieve any coordi
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The electrocoagulation process became one of the most important technologies used for water treatment processes in the last few years. It’s the preferred method to remove suspended solids and heavy metals from water for treating drinking water and wastewater from textile, diary, and electroplating factories. This research aims to study the effect of using the electrocoagulation process with aluminum electrodes on the removal efficiency of suspended solids and turbidity presented in raw water and optimizing by the response surface methodology (RSM). The most important variables studied in this research included electrode spacing, the applied voltage, and the operating time of the electrocoagulation process. The samples
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A factorial experiment was applied with four replicates on rosemary plants (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) grown in pots inside the glasshouse of the Department of Biology, College of Science, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq, during April, 2019 to July, 2020, to determine the effects of soil moisture content ( SM1: 100% and SM2: 60% field capacity), nitrogen fertilizer (N1: 100, N2: 200 and N3: 300kg/hectare), and magnesium fertilizer (Mg1: 0.0, Mg2: 30 and Mg3: 60kg/hectare) and their interactions on some growth characteristics and essential oil content of rosemary plants. Two cuttings were taken from rosemary shoots (on March, 2020 and July, 2020) after 12 and 15 months of planting respectively. Results showed that cutting 1:
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The main objectives of this study were investigating the effects of the maximum size of coarse Attapulgite aggregate and micro steel fiber content on fresh and some mechanical properties of steel fibers reinforced lightweight self-compacting concrete (SFLWSCC). Two series of mixes were used depending on maximum aggregate size (12.5 and 19) mm, for each series three different steel fibers content were used (0.5 %, 1%, and 1.5%). To evaluate the fresh properties, tests of slump flow, T500 mm, V funnel time, and J ring were carried out. Tests of compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural tensile strength, and calculated equilibrium density were done to evaluate mechanical properties. For reference mixes, the
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Background: H.pylori colonized gastric mucosal
epithelium will virtually develop gastritis and had the
capacity to persist for decades. Pathogenesis is
dependent upon strain, virulence host genetic
susceptibility, and environmental cofactors. Leptin is
a member of the class 1 cytokine family so altered
leptin production during ifnect and inflammation that
leptin part of the cytokine cascade ,which
orchestrates the defense mechanism.
Objective: Examin the effect of H.pylori infection
on serum leptin level.
Methods: One hundred and thirty(130) Patients
attending the Endoscopic Unit at "Gastroenterology
and Hepatology Teaching Hospital/ Baghdad Medical
City"were included in this study with ages rang