Search

Objectives : To determine the accuracy of the EOS imaging system compared to the gold standard computed tomography (CT) scan, for the measurement of native and postoperative/prosthetic hip parameters in adolescents and adults. Methods: Medline, Cochrane Systematic Review, and Web of Science databases were searched to obtain relevant articles published between January 1964 and February 2021. All articles published in English. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed according to the Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome (PICO) framework. Three reviewers independently assessed the quality of included studies using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) checklist. A narrative synthesis of the articles and a meta-analysis were conducted. The heterogeneity exhibited by the effect sizes was obtained using a forest plot, the Q statistic and the I2 index. Reliability coefficients were transformed into Fisher's Z to normalise their distribution and stabilise the variances. For each meta-analysis, an effect size (average reliability coefficient) and a 95% confidence interval were calculated and presented in a forest plot. The amount of radiation dose between modalities was compared. Results: The search retrieved 75 articles, six of which met inclusion and exclusion criteria. The meta-analysis included five of these six studies (sample size from 20 to 90). Comparing EOS and CT, the estimated average correlation (effect size) for combined studies was significantly high (r = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.78 to 0.88, p-value < 0.001). With respect to Pearson's correlation between EOS and CT, the estimated average correlation for combined studies was significantly high (r = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.80 to 0.90, p-value < 0.001). Average radiation dose for EOS was 0.18 ± 0.05 mGy for the anteroposterior view (AP) and 0.45 ± 0.08 mGy for the lateral view; and for CT was 8.4 to 15.6 mGy. Conclusion: The EOS imaging system has a high correlation with CT for preoperative and postoperative/prosthetic hip measurements, with considerably lower irradiation of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The World Health Organization (WHO) designated Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE), formerly Enterobacteriaceae, among the global priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The rate of CRE in Arabian countries, including Saudi Arabia has increased. Here, we report the prevalence of carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (CPKP) in the Jazan region, a southern coastal province of Saudi Arabia. Methodology: Eighty-six non-repetitive clinical isolates of K. pneumoniae that showed resistance to at least one of the carbapenem drugs were collected from three tertiary hospitals in the Jazan region from March 2020 to April 2021. The identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of isolates were performed using various automated systems. Molecular detection of carbapenemase genes was conducted using a multiplex PCR. Results: Out of the 86 tested CRKP isolates, 64 (74.4%) were carbapenemase-producing isolates. The blaOXA-48 gene was the most predominant carbapenemase gene, detected in 65.1% (n = 56) of isolates. The blaNDM gene was detected in only 9.3% (n = 8) of isolates; three were found to be co-harbored with blaVIM. Interestingly, one isolate of CRKP was found to have carbapenemase genes (blaNDM, blaVIM and blaKPC), which was associated with COVID-19 patient. Conclusions: The incidence of carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae in Jazan hospitals seemed to be high, confirming the continued prevalence of carbapenem resistance in Saudi Hospitals. We report K. pneumoniae strain with triple carbapenemase genes in southern Saudi Arabia. The emergence of such an isolate could threaten patients and healthcare workers and requires great attention to rapid interventions to avoid further dissemination, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The management of temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) requires a comprehensive approach that considers multiple factors, including the impact of oral health‐related quality of life (OHRQoL). Through this investigation we aim to assess the impact of OHRQoL played in a TMD‐afflicted individual. Methods: Using keywords relevant to our research, such as "Oral health related quality of life," "Oral hygiene," "Temporomandibular joint" and "Temporomandibular disorders," a comprehensive search across multiple online databases was carried out, yielding a total of 632 studies at the preliminary stage of the review. Modified New Castle Ottawa scale was used to assess the quality of studies included. Results: Eight studies were included in the review, out of which six were eligible for further meta‐analysis. The studies included in this review employed various OHRQoL measures, including the Oral Health Impact Profile—14 (OHIP—14), the Short‐Form 36 Health Survey (SF‐36) and the OHIP‐ 49. All the studies demonstrated significant effect of TMDs on the OHRQoL of the target population under study. Conclusion: The impact of OHRQoL on the management of TMD was deemed to be significant. The comprehensive management of TMD should consider the impact of the condition on the individual's daily life and incorporate interventions that address both the physical and psychological aspects of the condition. By improving OqL, individuals with TMD can experience improved overall well‐being and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For machine learning techniques to be used in early keratoconus diagnosis, researchers aimed to find and model representations of corneal biomechanical characteristics from exam images generated by the Corvis ST. Image segments were used to identify and convert anterior data into vectors for representation and representation of apparent posterior surfaces, apparent pachymetry, and the composition of apparent anterior data in images. Chained (batch images) and simplified with wavelet, the vectors were also arranged as 2D histograms for deep learning use in a neural network. An interval of 0.7843 to 1 and a significance level of 0.0157 were used in the scoring, with the classifications getting points for being as sensitive as they could be while also being as precise as they could be. In order to train and validate the used data from examination bases in Europe and Iraq, in grades I to IV, researchers looked at data from 686 healthy eyes and 406 keratoconus-afflicted eyes. With a score of 0.8247, sensitivity of 89.49%, and specificity of 92.09%, the European database found that apparent pachymetry from batch images applied with level 4 wavelet and processed quickly had the highest accuracy. This is a 2D histogram of apparent pachymetry with a score of 0.8361, which indicates that it is 88.58 percent sensitive and 94.389% specific. According to the findings, keratoconus can be diagnosed using biomechanical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of supplemental Tier-2 mathematics interventions for students with mathematics difficulties (MD). We reviewed 39 experimental and quasi-experimental studies that included 40 independent samples, with 61 treatment groups. Utilizing robust variance estimation (RVE), results revealed a treatment effect of 0.41. Mixed-effects meta-regression analyses revealed that Tier-2 interventions were moderated by intervention model type, group size, and type of measure. We present recommendations for future research and implementation of mathematics practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Date fruit (Phoenix dactylifera) is rich source of nutrition and is consumed as the healthiest alternative food content from fruit source in Saudi Arabia. Due to its popularity date palm is grown extensively in Ha'il region and many other parts of the country. The study was aimed to evaluate phenolic and flavonoid contents of selected varieties of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) fruits collected from, Ha'il Saudi Arabia. Total phenolic content of each extract was determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent method and its absorbance was measured at 760 nm. Total flavonoid was extracted in a Soxhlet extractor with ethanol and then absorbance was measured against a blank at 510 nm. Total phenolic content of the investigated varieties ranged from 154 to 39 mg GAE/100g DM. The highest phenolic content was found in Ajwah, Umm-Hamam, Romaithyyah and Berhi respectively, while the lowest content was observed in Shaishi variety. On the other hand, total flavonoid content of the investigated varieties ranged from 28.85 to 95.31mg GAE/100g DM. The highest flavonoid content was found in Umm-Hamam, while the lowest content was observed in Menefi variety. Such variation in phenolic and flavonoid values could be attributed to several parameters, including date variety, stage of fruit picking, storage, postharvest processing, geographical origin of tree and soil condition. However, regardless this variation in phenolic and flavonoid contents, the current study confirms richness of Ha'il date fruits;Ajwah, Umm-Hamam, Romaithyyah and Berhi of these phytoconstituents which are well-documented to possess important medicinal values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual acoustic parameters of reverberation have the potential to affect both the intelligibility of speech and the degree of perceived reverberation. The current experiments used monaural acoustic simulations to investigate the effect of reverberation time (RT) and direct-to-reverberant ratio (DRR) on word and sentence intelligibility at different levels of analysis (phonemes, words, and sentences). Perceived reverberation and recall of sentences were also assessed. Intelligibility and perceived reverberation decreased with increasing RT and decreasing DRR (particularly between 0 and −10 dB). Results indicate consistent effects of both RT and DRR on the intelligibility and perceived reverberation of words and sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Obesity is a public health problem and its prevalence is escalating in the recent years in Saudi Arabia. Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for the morbidly obese. Aim of the Work: The aim of this study was to examine community health beliefs regarding obesity and bariatric surgery, and to evaluate the potential associations between demographic characteristics and agreement to bariatric surgery. Material and Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to adult citizens of Riyadh city. The questionnaire included questions about obesity, its causes, lifestyle, and beliefs about the effectiveness of bariatric surgery and its complications. Results: 27.6% of respondents were overweight and 33.6% were obese. The overweight/obese respondents were significantly inclined to be in the older age groups, married, and have high income and a family history of obesity. Most respondents showed good knowledge about obesity, its risk factors, and healthy life style, and they recognized the efficacy of bariatric surgery in reducing weight. However, more than half of the respondents doubted its safety and only 16.2% believed it to be the best choice. Male subjects - who were in older age groups, had a secondary school education and a body mass index above normal range - were more likely to regard surgery as the best choice for weight loss. Conclusion: Most of respondents overestimated the risks of bariatric surgery and did not consider it as the best choice for weight loss. Health education is recommended to address these misconceptions and convince the public of its relative safety and the expected health benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gallbladder disease is one of the most mutual procedures done worldwide. Earlier, an open technique was the regular procedure for cholecystectomy. This typically encompassed performing an intraoperative cholangiogram, and individuals regularly had a two to six-day post-operative hospital stay. With the introduction of laparoscopic surgery and the laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the early 1990s, the standards for cholecystectomy have changed to a laparoscopic technique. This technique presented a 30% increase in the overall performance of elective cholecystectomies. Nowadays, 92% of all cholecystectomies are performed laparoscopically. There are numerous signs in performing open cholecystectomies, and this procedure residues a significant part of training for the general surgery resident. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is indicated for the treatment of cholecystitis (acute/chronic), gallstone pancreatitis, acalculous cholecystitis, biliary dyskinesia, symptomatic cholelithiasis, and gallbladder masses/polyps. These indications are the same for an open cholecystectomy. Cases of gallbladder cancers are usually best treated with open cholecystectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2009 H1N1 pandemic ( H1N1pdm09 ) was associated with a considerable influenza-related morbidity and mortality. Among the complications, Mycobacterial tuberculosis was recorded as a coinfection with influenza in rare cases. The full-length sequences of the viral haemagglutinin and neuraminidase of H1N1pdm09 influenza A virus were analyzed from a recently infected patient. The patient was chronically infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis . Molecular modelling and in-silico docking of the virus, and other selected strains with the drug oseltamivir were conducted and compared. Sequence analysis of the viral haemagglutinin revealed it to be closely related to the 6B.1 clade, with high identity to the circulating H1N1pdm09 strains, and confirmed that the virus still harbouring high affinity to the α-2,6-sialic acid human receptor. The viral neuraminidase showed high identity to the neuraminidase of the recently circulating strains of the virus with no evidence of the development of oseltamivir-resistant mutants. Regular monitoring of the circulating strains is recommended to screen for a possible emergence of drug-resistant strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electronic grade single crystal diamond detector was tested for its chemical and electronic stability after a five day exposure to a 450 °C KCl-LiCl molten salt eutectic. After exposure to the salt, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry confirmed that lithium diffused into the diamond. However, no degradation of the hole and electron transport properties were observed. Finally, the spectroscopic performance of a diamond detector was investigated as a function of temperature, and it was found that the spectrum started severely degrading at a temperature of 190 °C, consistent with other reports. [Display omitted] • Exposure of diamond to a molten salt does not degrade electronic performance. • Lithium diffusion into diamond from a molten salt slow and not electrically active • Operation of a diamond radiation detector at high temperature degrades performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, the radioactive particle tracking (RPT) measurement technique has been proven to visualize flow fields of most multiphase flow systems of industrial interest. The accuracy of RPT, and hence the data obtained, depend largely on the calibration process, which stands here as a basis for two subsequent processes: tracking and reconstruction. However, limitations in the RPT calibration process can be found in different experimental constrains and in assumptions made in the classical Monte Carlo approach used to simulate number of counts received by the detectors. Therefore, in this work, we applied a GEANT4-based Monte Carlo code to simulate the RPT calibration process for an investigated multiphase flow system (i.e., gas–liquid bubble column). The GEANT4 code was performed to simulate the number of counts received by 28 scintillation detectors for 931 known tracer positions while capturing all the types of photon interaction and overcoming solids' angle limitations in classical approaches. The results of the simulation were validated against experimental data obtained using an automated RPT calibration device. The results showed a good agreement between the simulated and experimental counts, where the maximum absolute average relative deviation detected was about 5%. The GEANT4 model typically predicted the number of counts received by all the detectors; however, it over-estimated the counts when the number of primary events applied in the model was not the optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical solution of the generalized Burger's-Huxley equation is established utilizing two effective meshless methods namely: local differential quadrature method and global method of line. Both the proposed meshless methods used radial basis functions to discretize space derivatives which convert the given model equation system of ODE and then we have utilized the Euler method to get the required numerical solution. Numerical experiments are carried out to check the efficiency and accuracy of the suggested meshless methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are cholesterol-lowering drugs effective in lowering lipid levels in high-risk patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia.This study assessed the cost effectiveness of evolocumab in combination with lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) compared with LLTs alone, from a public healthcare perspective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).A Markov cohort state transition model was used, incorporating efficacy estimates from the FOURIER clinical trial and baseline cardiovascular event rates observed in clinical practice. Other model inputs were extracted from the literature and Saudi sources.In patients with clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol ≥ 70 or ≥ 100 mg/dL, adding evolocumab to a maximally tolerated statin, with or without ezetimibe, was associated with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of Saudi Arabian riyal (SAR) 109,274 ($US60,708) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained and SAR75,163 ($US41,757) per QALY gained, respectively. The ICER was SAR22,391 ($US12,440) per QALY gained in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Sensitivity analysis results were robust to changes in model parameters and fell below the willingness-to-pay threshold of up to three times gross domestic product per capita in 2019 (SAR264,813 [$US147,118]).Evolocumab can be considered a cost-effective treatment option for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the KSA.Objective: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are cholesterol-lowering drugs effective in lowering lipid levels in high-risk patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia.This study assessed the cost effectiveness of evolocumab in combination with lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) compared with LLTs alone, from a public healthcare perspective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).A Markov cohort state transition model was used, incorporating efficacy estimates from the FOURIER clinical trial and baseline cardiovascular event rates observed in clinical practice. Other model inputs were extracted from the literature and Saudi sources.In patients with clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol ≥ 70 or ≥ 100 mg/dL, adding evolocumab to a maximally tolerated statin, with or without ezetimibe, was associated with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of Saudi Arabian riyal (SAR) 109,274 ($US60,708) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained and SAR75,163 ($US41,757) per QALY gained, respectively. The ICER was SAR22,391 ($US12,440) per QALY gained in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Sensitivity analysis results were robust to changes in model parameters and fell below the willingness-to-pay threshold of up to three times gross domestic product per capita in 2019 (SAR264,813 [$US147,118]).Evolocumab can be considered a cost-effective treatment option for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the KSA.Methods: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are cholesterol-lowering drugs effective in lowering lipid levels in high-risk patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia.This study assessed the cost effectiveness of evolocumab in combination with lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) compared with LLTs alone, from a public healthcare perspective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).A Markov cohort state transition model was used, incorporating efficacy estimates from the FOURIER clinical trial and baseline cardiovascular event rates observed in clinical practice. Other model inputs were extracted from the literature and Saudi sources.In patients with clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol ≥ 70 or ≥ 100 mg/dL, adding evolocumab to a maximally tolerated statin, with or without ezetimibe, was associated with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of Saudi Arabian riyal (SAR) 109,274 ($US60,708) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained and SAR75,163 ($US41,757) per QALY gained, respectively. The ICER was SAR22,391 ($US12,440) per QALY gained in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Sensitivity analysis results were robust to changes in model parameters and fell below the willingness-to-pay threshold of up to three times gross domestic product per capita in 2019 (SAR264,813 [$US147,118]).Evolocumab can be considered a cost-effective treatment option for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the KSA.Results: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are cholesterol-lowering drugs effective in lowering lipid levels in high-risk patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia.This study assessed the cost effectiveness of evolocumab in combination with lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) compared with LLTs alone, from a public healthcare perspective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).A Markov cohort state transition model was used, incorporating efficacy estimates from the FOURIER clinical trial and baseline cardiovascular event rates observed in clinical practice. Other model inputs were extracted from the literature and Saudi sources.In patients with clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol ≥ 70 or ≥ 100 mg/dL, adding evolocumab to a maximally tolerated statin, with or without ezetimibe, was associated with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of Saudi Arabian riyal (SAR) 109,274 ($US60,708) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained and SAR75,163 ($US41,757) per QALY gained, respectively. The ICER was SAR22,391 ($US12,440) per QALY gained in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Sensitivity analysis results were robust to changes in model parameters and fell below the willingness-to-pay threshold of up to three times gross domestic product per capita in 2019 (SAR264,813 [$US147,118]).Evolocumab can be considered a cost-effective treatment option for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the KSA.Conclusion: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are cholesterol-lowering drugs effective in lowering lipid levels in high-risk patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia.This study assessed the cost effectiveness of evolocumab in combination with lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs) compared with LLTs alone, from a public healthcare perspective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).A Markov cohort state transition model was used, incorporating efficacy estimates from the FOURIER clinical trial and baseline cardiovascular event rates observed in clinical practice. Other model inputs were extracted from the literature and Saudi sources.In patients with clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol ≥ 70 or ≥ 100 mg/dL, adding evolocumab to a maximally tolerated statin, with or without ezetimibe, was associated with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of Saudi Arabian riyal (SAR) 109,274 ($US60,708) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained and SAR75,163 ($US41,757) per QALY gained, respectively. The ICER was SAR22,391 ($US12,440) per QALY gained in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Sensitivity analysis results were robust to changes in model parameters and fell below the willingness-to-pay threshold of up to three times gross domestic product per capita in 2019 (SAR264,813 [$US147,118]).Evolocumab can be considered a cost-effective treatment option for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the KSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Based on the interfacial adsorptive character of danazol onto the hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE), a simple and sensitive square-wave adsorptive stripping voltammetric (SW-AdSV) procedure for the electrochemical analysis of this drug in pharmaceutical formulations has been developed and validated. Cyclic and SW-AdSV voltammograms showed a single well-defined irreversible cathodic peak. Various chemical and instrumental parameters affecting the monitored electroanalytical response were investigated and optimized for the danazol determination. Under these optimized conditions the SW-AdSV peak current showed a linear dependence on drug concentration over the range 7.5×10−8–3.75×10−7 moll−1 (r =0.999) with estimated detection limit (at a S/N ratio of 3) of 5.7×10−9 moll−1 (1.78ngml−1). A mean recovery of 100.9±1.2% and relative standard deviation of 1.07% were achieved. Possible interferences by substances usually present in the pharmaceutical tablets and formulations were also evaluated. The proposed electrochemical procedure was successfully applied for the determination of danazol in pharmaceutical capsules (Danol™ 100mg) with mean recoveries of 100.48±0.87%. Results of the developed SW-AdSV method were comparable with those obtained by reported analytical procedures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, we prove some new oscillation theorems for fourth-order differential equations. New oscillation results are established that complement related contributions to the subject. We use the Riccati technique and the integral averaging technique to prove our results. As proof of the effectiveness of the new criteria, we offer more than one practical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oscillation and symmetry play an important role in many applications such as engineering, physics, medicine, and vibration in flight. The purpose of this article is to explore the oscillation of fourth-order differential equations with delay arguments. New Kamenev-type oscillatory properties are established, which are based on a suitable Riccati method to reduce the main equation into a first-order inequality. Our new results extend and simplify existing results in the previous studies. Examples are presented in order to clarify the main results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of high-performance computing is increasing, and Exascale systems will be feasible in a few years. These systems can be achieved by enhancing the hardware's ability as well as the parallelism in the application by integrating more than one programming model. One of the dual-programming model combinations is Message Passing Interface (MPI) + OpenACC, which has several features including increased system parallelism, support for different platforms with more performance, better productivity, and less programming effort. Several testing tools target parallel applications built by using programming models, but more effort is needed, especially for high-level Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-related programming models. Owing to the integration of different programming models, errors will be more frequent and unpredictable. Testing techniques are required to detect these errors, especially runtime errors resulting from the integration of MPI and OpenACC; studying their behavior is also important, especially some OpenACC runtime errors that cannot be detected by any compiler. In this paper, we enhance the capabilities of ACC_TEST to test the programs built by using the dual-programming models MPI + OpenACC and detect their related errors. Our tool integrated both static and dynamic testing techniques to create ACC_TEST and allowed us to benefit from the advantages of both techniques reducing overheads, enhancing system execution time, and covering a wide range of errors. Finally, ACC_TEST is a parallel testing tool that creates testing threads based on the number of application threads for detecting runtime errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A CS-30 cyclotron has been in operation at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSHRC) since 1982. The CS-30 cyclotron has been used to produce medical radioisotopes for positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Some of the nuclear reactions of radionuclide production are associated with the intense release of a wide range of fast neutrons. In this work, we investigated the radionuclides produced from neutron interactions with the cyclotron facility walls. Activation isotopes were determined by performing gamma ray spectrometry utilizing a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector. The major radionuclides found were 152Eu, 154Eu, 134Cs, 65Zn and 60Co. Activation isotope accumulation had increased the dose rate inside the facility. The surface dose rates were measured at all of the surrounding walls. The maximum surface dose rate was found to be 1.2 µSv/h, which is much lower than the permissible occupational exposure of 15 µSv/h based daily 5 work hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood pressure measurement and continuous control are essential for heart and blood pressure patients. Therefore, continuous blood pressure measurement from these patients is required. In this paper, a novel hybrid prediction method combining Gaussian process regression (GPR) and feature extraction stage has been proposed and then applied to the estimation of blood pressure from cuff Oscillometric waveforms (or signals). First of all, 27 features including time, chaotic, and frequency domain have been extracted from these waveforms to detect the systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) automatically. As the second stage in the proposed method, three different GPR methods comprising Exponential GPR, Matern 5/2 GPR, and Rational Quadratic GPR, have been used to estimate the SBP and DBP values based the extracted 27 features. As the performance measures, we have used seven different metrics including MAE (mean absolute error), MSE (mean square error), RMSE (root mean square error), R2, IA (index of agreement), and MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) for evaluation of the proposed methods concerning estimation performance of SBP and DBP values from cuff Oscillometric waveforms. The obtained MAPE values for Exponential GPR, Matern 5/2 GPR, and Rational Quadratic GPR in the estimation of SBP values from cuff Oscillometric signals are 0.1136, 0.2286, and 0.1745, respectively. The obtained MAPE values for Exponential GPR, Matern 5/2 GPR and Rational Quadratic GPR in the estimation of DBP values from cuff Oscillometric signals are 0.2878, 0.4220, and 0.4150, respectively. The experimental results have demonstrated that the best-proposed hybrid model is the combination of the Exponential GPR and the feature extraction stage for the estimation of both SBP and DBP values. The proposed method could be safely used in the medical blood pressure measurement systems in the hospital and clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood pressure measurement and prediction is an important condition for heart patients and people with heart problems and should be kept under constant control. In this study, based on the oscillometric waveform obtained from individuals using a cuff, the oscillometric waveforms are divided into three periods. These periods are; the first period from the starting point to the systolic blood pressure (SBP), the second period is between systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and the third period is between diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and end of the waveform. In the dataset used, the attributes obtained from the oscillometric wave envelope were subtracted for each pulse. On the dataset, the attributes of the beat corresponding to the systolic pressure point are labeled 1, and the attributes of the beat corresponding to the diastolic pressure point are labeled with 2. Other beats are labeled with 0. In the study, the dataset was first re-labeled. Systolic beats were labeled with 1, beats before systolic point, 2 with systolic, diastolic point including diastolic point, and 3 with a diastolic point. After re-labeling, 350 measurements, 300 measurements were divided into training and 50 measurements were divided into test data subset. Classifiers were trained with 300 subsets and the classifier model was produced. With the generated model, the classification of the pulse sequences in the test data subsets was performed. In the found label series, the first 1 to 2 label was marked as the systolic pressure point and the last 2 to 3 labels as the diastolic pressure point and the corresponding cuff pressures were estimated as systolic and diastolic pressure values. By classifying these periods, the systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) values have been estimated using three classifier algorithms including k-nearest neighbor (kNN), weighted k-nearest neighbor (WkNN), and Bagged Trees algorithms. To evaluate the performance of the prediction algorithms, four different performance metrics comprising MAE (mean absolute error), MSE (mean square error), RMSE (root mean square error), and R2 have been used. For the estimation of SBP values using the kNN algorithm, weighted kNN, and Bagged Trees, the obtained MAEs are 3.590, 3.520, and 4.499, respectively. As for the estimation of DBP values using kNN algorithm, weighted kNN and, Bagged Trees, the obtained MAEs are 11.077, 11.032, and 13.069, respectively. The obtained results demonstrated that the proposed method could be used in the blood pressure estimation as the new approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal characteristics of polymathic methacrylate combined with unsaturated polyester were determined by numerical and experimental research. Models for numerically investigating the parameters of thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, and thermal diffusivity were developed using COMSOL Multiphysics. The numerical data were then compared to experimental results for the same material using the same measurements to ensure that they were correct. By comparing the thermal conductivity data to two sets of theoretical data, the results were confirmed. The COMSOL models were quite close to the experimental data, with just minor differences between the three models. One set of theoretical data coincided with the mean of the other data, while the second set revealed a significant departure below the other data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal characteristics of polymathic methacrylate combined with unsaturated polyester were determined by numerical and experimental research. Models for numerically investigating the parameters of thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, and thermal diffusivity were developed using COMSOL Multiphysics. The numerical data were then compared to experimental results for the same material using the same measurements to ensure that they were correct. By comparing the thermal conductivity data to two sets of theoretical data, the results were confirmed. The COMSOL models were quite close to the experimental data, with just minor differences between the three models. One set of theoretical data coincided with the mean of the other data, while the second set revealed a significant departure below the other data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We created the equilibrium, which includes sickness outcomes, health and risk behaviors, environmental factors, and health-related assets and delivery systems, and it should be incorporated in system Dyc (dynamic) modelling of chronic disease prevention. System Dyc has the ability to model a variety of interconnected illnesses and dangers, as well as the interaction between delivery systems and afflicted people, as well as state and national policies. This paper proposes a unique idea. Hybrid synchronization utilizes four positive LYP (Lyapunov) exponents based on state feedback management with two identical systems of the Lorenz system 6D HYCH system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a simple hollow core hexagonal structured photonic crystal fiber is offered and analyzed to discern commonly used different type of alcohols in our daily life. The proposed sensor guiding properties are numerically investigated using a full vectorial finite element software-based scheme. To ensure higher accuracy, the properties of alcohols (refractive index and dielectric constant) at different wavelength are used to calculate the behaviour of the sensor. The simulation results ensure that extremely high relative sensitivity around 89% can be achieved from the sensor at optimum structural condition. In addition, other important propagation parameters such as confinement loss (CL), single-mode propagation spot size, numerical aperture, etc., are discussed in detail for various geometric conditions. The structure of that sensor is straightforward, and available commercial fabrication technology can be used to fabricate it without any complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Android is the most popular operating system of the latest mobile smart devices. With this operating system, many Android applications have been developed and become an essential part of our daily lives. Unfortunately, different kinds of Android malware have also been generated with these applications' endless stream and somehow installed during the API calls, permission granted and extra packages installation and badly affected the system security rules to harm the system. Therefore, it is compulsory to detect and classify the android malware to save the user's privacy to avoid maximum damages. Many research has already been developed on the different techniques related to android malware detection and classification. In this work, we present AMDDLmodel a deep learning technique that consists of a convolutional neural network. This model works based on different parameters, filter sizes, number of epochs, learning rates, and layers to detect and classify the android malware. The Drebin dataset consisting of 215 features was used for this model evaluation. The model shows an accuracy value of 99.92%. The other statistical values are precision, recall, and F1-score. AMDDLmodel introduces innovative deep learning for Android malware detection, enhancing accuracy and practical user security through inventive feature engineering and comprehensive performance evaluation. The AMDDLmodel shows the highest accuracy values as compared to the existing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Pediatric endocrine disorders (PED) are a common component of medical health challenges in Saudi Arabia. We aimed to describe the pattern and clinical outcomes of different non-diabetic pediatric endocrine disorders in Al-Baha Region, Saudi Arabia, aiming for early diagnosis and management. Methods: The clinical and laboratory data of 744 children and adolescents who presented with non-diabetic endocrine disorders and received medical care at the pediatric endocrine clinic et al.-Baha during the period from 2018 to 2022 were retrospectively analyzed based on the records. Results: A total of 744 patients were recruited, 377 were females and 361 were males with a female/male ratio of 1.04/1. The patients' ages ranged from 2 months to 17 years, with a mean age of 9.87 ± 4.59 years. The commonest endocrine disorders were thyroid disorders 234 (31.5%), short stature 176 (23.7%), obesity 123 (16.5%), and calcium phosphate metabolism disorders 117 (15.7%). Other disorders seen were pubertal disorders 27 (3.6%), adrenal gland disorders 22 (3%), syndromes with endocrine features 14 (1.9%), sex development and gender disorders 6 (0.8%), pituitary and hypothalamic disorders 4 (0.5%), and mixed endocrine disorders 4 (0.5%). PED is a substantial source of morbidity in 26 cases and mortality in 2 cases. Conclusions: Thyroid, growth, and obesity disorders were the most common PED. Pediatric endocrine disorders have a substantial source of morbidity and mortality among Saudi children and adolescents. This baseline data is useful for planning PED care at institutional and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intermittent fasting (IF) is a popular dietary plan for weight loss. In fact, fasting is a common practice in different religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. During the month of Ramadan, more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide fast from dawn to sunset. Ramadan diurnal intermittent fasting (RDIF) has health benefits, including a reduction in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and an improvement in mood. However, little is known about the effects of RDIF on lifestyle behaviors, such as regular exercise, consuming healthy diet, and avoiding harmful substances, as well as mental stress, and academic performance in high school and university students. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, two self-reported questionnaires were sent one week before and during the last week of Ramadan (April 2022; Ramadan 1443 in Hijri Islamic Calendar) to assess changes in lifestyle, perceived stress, and academic achievement of medical students at Taif University in Taif city, Saudi Arabia. Healthy lifestyle components data were collected to calculate healthy lifestyle scores, including body mass index, physical activity, adherence to a Mediterranean diet, smoking status, and sleep duration. Results: RDIF was associated with a healthier lifestyle in both female and male participants (pre-RDIF mean score: 2.42 vs post-RDIF mean score: 2.74; statistical power = 0.99; P-value < 0.05). They were more active and adherent to the Mediterranean diet during RDIF. Additionally, the post-RDIF smoking rate declined by 53.4%. Male participants showed higher perceived stress scores during RDIF (pre-RDIF mean score: 19.52 vs post-RDIF mean score: 22.05; P-value < 0.01). No changes in academic performance were observed upon RDIF. Conclusion: Medical students show healthier dietary and lifestyle behaviors and their academic performance is not affected during RDIF. However, perceived stress is higher among male students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sleep-related disorder characterized by abnormal sensations in the legs at rest in which the patients feel an urge to move the legs; beginning or worsening during inactivity; relief by movement; preponderance in evening or night. The drugs implicated were mainly psychotropic, especially neuroleptics and many others. Drug induced RLS generally resolves when the dose is reduced or the drug is withdrawn. We report a case of bipolar mood disorder presented to our emergency department with insomnia and we added quetiapine 100mg at bed time for his disturbed sleep, patient reported on third day complaining with "itchy", "Pins and needles", "creepy crawly" feeling in the legs. The sensations are usually worse at rest and night due to which he is unable to sleep. Awareness and proper diagnosis by all primary care practitioners is necessary for effective management of RLS as well as clinicians are encourage to be aware of the potential for quetiapine to cause RLS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human brain, primarily composed of white blood cells, is centered on the neurological system. Incorrectly positioned cells in the immune system, blood vessels, endocrine, glial, axon, and other cancer-causing tissues, can assemble to create a brain tumor. It is currently impossible to find cancer physically and make a diagnosis. The tumor can be found and recognized using the MRI-programmed division method. It takes a powerful segmentation technique to produce accurate output. This study examines a brain MRI scan and uses a technique to obtain a more precise image of the tumor-affected area. The critical aspects of the proposed method are the utilization of noisy MRI brain images, anisotropic noise removal filtering, segmentation with an SVM classifier, and isolation of the adjacent region from the normal morphological processes. Accurate brain MRI imaging is the primary goal of this strategy. The divided section of the cancer is placed on the actual image of a particular culture, but that is by no means the last step. The tumor is located by categorizing the pixel brightness in the filtered image. According to test findings, the SVM could partition data with 98% accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A salinity gradient solar pond (SGSP) is capable of storing a significant quantity of heat for an extended period of time. It is a great option for providing hot water at a reduced energy cost. Additionally, SGSP is used in low-temperature industrial applications such as saltwater desalination, space heating, and power generation. Solar pond thermal performance is dependent on a variety of operational variables, including the soil conditions, the climate of the particular site, the thickness of the solar pond layers, the depth of the water table, and the salt content of the pond. As such, this study examines the thermal performance of a solar pond under a variety of operational conditions. The solar pond model is used to test the thermal performance by simulating two-dimensional heat and mass transport equations. The equations are solved using the finite difference technique utilizing MATLAB® scripts. Salt distributions and temperature profiles are computed for a variety of factors influencing SGSP's thermal performance. The main distinguishing variables influencing the thermal performance of SGSP are soil conditions, such as soil texture, types, the moisture level in soil, and water table depth. The final findings indicated that the fine sand dry soil performed better than the other soil types owing to its poor heat conductivity. The economic results indicated that the period of return (POR) of the intended system is around 2 years. The solar pond construction costs such as excavation, transportation, salt and lining, were considered based on the local prices. This modeled study extracted the greatest possible energy is 110W/m2, with the fine sand dry at 62.48°C lowest temperature. This study suggested that the climatic conditions of Lahore is better than climatic conditions of Islamabad. Additionally, deeper water tables are suggested for improved thermal performance of the pond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to see how cold plasma affects rabbit bone tissue infected with osteoporosis. The search is divided into three categories: control, infected, and treated. The rabbits were subjected to cold plasma for five minutes in a room with a microwave plasma voltage of "175 V" and a gas flow of "2." A histopathological photograph of infected bone cells is obtained to demonstrate the influence of plasma on infected bone cells, as well as the extent of destruction and effect of plasma therapy before and after exposure. The findings of the search show that plasma has a clear impact on Ca and vitamin D levels. In the cold plasma, the levels of osteocalcin and alkali phosphates (ALP) respond as well. Image processing techniques (second-order gray level matrix) with textural elements are employed as an extra proof. The outcome gives good treatment indicators, and the image processing result corresponds to the biological result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the meshless collocation approach is used to determine the numerical solution the generalized time-fractional Gardner equation. The Crank-Nicolson technique is used to approximate space derivatives, whereas the Caputo derivative of fractional order is used to approximate the first order time fractional derivative. The numerical solutions, which show the method's efficacy and accuracy, are provided and discussed. The numerical solution shows that our method is effective in producing extremely accurate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Equine influenza is a highly contagious respiratory viral disease. The current study is the first to provide a description of the full-length genome sequence and surveillance of recent exposure to the equine influenza virus (EIV) during the 2019 epidemic in Saudi Arabia. This epidemic was benign, since it resulted in low case fatality (0.45%, 1/224). The viruses detected in the current study were found to be related to subtype H73N8 clade 1 of the Florida sublineage. Full-length genome sequencing revealed no evidence of major genetic changes or of reassortment among the eight segments of the viral genome. However, the Saudi strains showed a considerable number of amino acid substitutions in the signal peptide (2 amino acid substitutions), HA1 (10 amino acid substitutions) and HA2 (4 amino acid substitutions) in the haemagglutinin glycoprotein in comparison to clade 1 Florida sublineage vaccinal strains. These findings should be considered during selection of the equine influenza vaccine strains approved for use in Saudi Arabia. Equine influenza is a major cause of respiratory infections in horses and can spread rapidly despite the availability of commercial vaccines. This study aimed to screen the incidence of equine influenza virus (EIV) and molecularly characterize the haemagglutinin and neuraminidase from positive EIV field samples collected from Saudi Arabia. Six-hundred twenty-one horses from 57 horse barns were screened for the presence of the clinical signs, suggestive for equine influenza, from different parts of Saudi Arabia. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from each horse showing respiratory distress. Samples from the same horse barn were pooled together and screened for the presence of the influenza A virus using quantitative real time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Selective positive samples were subjected to full-length genome sequencing using MiSeq Illumina. Out of the total 57 pools, 39 were found positive to EIV using qRT-PCR. Full-length gene sequences were compared with representative EIV strains selected from the GenBank database. Phylogenetic analysis of the HA and NA genes revealed that the identified virus strains belong to H3N8 clade 1 of the Florida sublineage and were very similar to viruses identified in USA in 2019, with no current evidence for reassortment. This is one of the first reports providing detailed description and characterization of EIVs in Saudi Arabia. Detailed surveillance and genetic information sharing could allow genetic evolution of equine influenza viruses to be monitored more effectively on a global basis and aid in refinement of vaccine strain selection for EIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cost, adverse events, and long treatment duration can be significant obstacles in treating hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected individuals. Shortening the treatment regimen can minimize these barriers, thereby enhancing adherence and increasing medication availability to more patients. Methods: This is a single-centre, single-arm, open-label, phase 3 clinical trial on treatment naïve, non-cirrhotic, HCV genotype 4 patients. The study aimed to evaluate an 8-week course of Elbasvir (ELB)/Grazoprevir (GZR) in this population. The primary endpoint was sustained virologic response at 12 weeks after the end of treatment (SVR-12). The secondary endpoints were SVR-4, adverse events, and changes in health- and hepatitis-related quality of life (HRQoL). Results: Of the 30 patients who were enrolled, 29 (97%) achieved SVR-12 and SVR-4 (95% CI: 90-100%). No patients experienced serious or life-threatening adverse events (AEs), but mild/moderate AEs were reported by 16 (53%). The most commonly reported AEs were itching/skin rash (20%), headache (16.7%), abdominal/epigastric pain and decreased appetite (13.3% each), and nausea/vomiting (10%). Marked improvements in HRQoL were reported between the first (baseline) and third (SVR-12) timepoints. HRQoL score improvements involved the physical, mental, and hepatitis-specific indices, and ranged between 6 and 42 points (out of 100, P ≤0.003). Conclusion: The trial provides empirical evidence that HCV genotype 4-infected patients can achieve viral eradication with an 8-week-regimen of ELB/GZR. Further, this course of treatment is associated with a minimal adverse event profile and potentially significant improvements in quality of life. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03578640). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to see how cold plasma affects rabbit bone tissue infected with osteoporosis. The search is divided into three categories: control, infected, and treated. The rabbits were subjected to cold plasma for five minutes in a room with a microwave plasma voltage of "175 V" and a gas flow of "2." A histopathological photograph of infected bone cells is obtained to demonstrate the influence of plasma on infected bone cells, as well as the extent of destruction and effect of plasma therapy before and after exposure. The findings of the search show that plasma has a clear impact on Ca and vitamin D levels. In the cold plasma, the levels of osteocalcin and alkali phosphates (ALP) respond as well. Image processing techniques (second-order gray level matrix) with textural elements are employed as an extra proof. The outcome gives good treatment indicators, and the image processing result corresponds to the biological result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to see how cold plasma affects rabbit bone tissue infected with osteoporosis. The search is divided into three categories: control, infected, and treated. The rabbits were subjected to cold plasma for five minutes in a room with a microwave plasma voltage of "175 V" and a gas flow of "2." A histopathological photograph of infected bone cells is obtained to demonstrate the influence of plasma on infected bone cells, as well as the extent of destruction and effect of plasma therapy before and after exposure. The findings of the search show that plasma has a clear impact on Ca and vitamin D levels. In the cold plasma, the levels of osteocalcin and alkali phosphates (ALP) respond as well. Image processing techniques (second-order gray level matrix) with textural elements are employed as an extra proof. The outcome gives good treatment indicators, and the image processing result corresponds to the biological result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global energy needs have risen in recent years, and traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels are no longer viable. To meet the growing electricity demand, attention has moved to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy. Furthermore, the development of clean energy is vital for combating climate change. Various studies have shown the effectiveness of using hybrid systems (combination of solar photovoltaic and wind energy systems) for generating power. However, a significant amount of energy gets wasted. To prevent the wastage of energy, a dual-energy generation system for integrated grids has been suggested in this paper. The load data have been collected from various regions in Rajasthan, India. An optimal grid system configuration is designed using net present cost and cost per unit of energy. Other factors such as the tilt angle of PV array optimization, wind energy, and inverter optimization have also been used for increasing the reliability and stability of the system. Sensitivity analysis has been performed to analyze the effective variations of the capital costs on the developed system economy. The results obtained from the simulations show that the overall costs of generating electricity from diesel systems and nongrid-based systems have been reduced to 20% at 10% annual capacity shortage allowance. Upon cost analysis, we found that the total cost for installing the suggested system is 49,500 USD, whereas for other systems, the costs came out as 66,000 USD, 56,500 USD, and 56,300 USD, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern world, the security of the digital image is vital due to the frequent communication of digital products over the open network. Accelerated advancement of digital data exchange, the importance of information security in the transmission of data, and its storage has emerged. Multiple uses of the images in the security agencies and the industries and the security of the confidential image data from unauthorized access are emergent and vital. In this paper, Bose Chaudhary Hocquenghem (BCH) codes over the Galois field are used for image encryption. The BCH codes over the Galois field construct MDS (maximum distance separable) matrices and secret keys for image encryption techniques. The encrypted image is calculated, by contrast, correlation, energy, homogeneity, and entropy. Histogram analysis of the encrypted image is also assured in this paper. The proposed image encryption scheme's security analysis results are improved compared to the original AES algorithm. Further, security agencies can utilize this work for their confidential image data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Neurological sequelae after COVID-19 vaccination are rare. We investigated the possible pathogenesis behind the development of neurological complications within a short period after Saudi residents received a COVID-19 vaccine. Patients and Methods: We evaluated 18 patients who recently received a COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty and Vaxzevria vaccines) and presented with neurological complications to the Saudi German Hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Neurologists assessed the patients' clinical presentation, radiological investigations, and laboratory findings. Results: Three patients who received the first dose of the Vaxzevria vaccine experienced severe cerebral venous thrombosis, two of them were complicated by intracranial hemorrhage. Their laboratory investigations showed very high d-dimers and severe thrombocytopenia, which have been linked to higher mortality and poor outcome. Ischemic stroke occurred in eight cases (44.4%) with a predominance in older male patients. Three patients presented with seizures, two had optic neuritis. Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) and Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS) occurred in two male patients following vaccination with Comirnaty. Conclusion: Neurological complications after COVID-19 vaccinations are very rare, and only a few cases have been reported worldwide. The shared pathophysiological basis between COVID-19 viral infection and COVID-19 vaccines stands behind the very rare neurological complications resulting from the hypercoagulable state triggered by the general inflammatory condition. We suspect some differences in the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke caused by COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 vaccines, which render COVID-19 vaccine-associated ischemic stroke more responsive to treatment. To date, no definitive association between the vaccine and GBS has been proven by any strong evidence, but it has recently been added as a very rare side effect of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. No possible links of Miller Fisher syndrome to COVID-19 vaccines have been reported before the one reported in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To see if HHV-6 may be a cause of infertility, researchers looked at 18 men and 10 women who had unexplained critical fertility and had at least one prior pregnancy. HHV-6 DNA was discovered in both infertile and fertile peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) (12 and 14%, respectively); endometrial epithelial cells from 4/10 (40%) infertile women were positive for HHV-6 DNA; this viral DNA was not found in the endometrium of fertile women. When endometrial epithelial cells were cultivated, they produced viral early and late proteins, suggesting the existence of an infectious virus. Endometrial HHV-6 infection creates an aberrant NK cell and cytokine profile, resulting in a uterine domain that is not favorable to conception, according to the findings. To corroborate the findings, studies of extra fertile and barren women should be done. Semen samples were taken from 18 guys who visited the Government General Hospital Guntur's infertility department because they were having reproductive issues with their partners. Herpes virus DNA has been discovered in the sperm of symptomatic fertile and infertile male patients on rare instances. Furthermore, researchers must investigate the role of viral diseases in male infertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivations. Breast cancer is the second greatest cause of cancer mortality among women, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and one of the most frequent illnesses among all women today. The influence is not confined to industrialized nations but also includes emerging countries since the authors believe that increased urbanization and adoption of Western lifestyles will lead to a rise in illness prevalence. Problem Statement. The breast cancer has become one of the deadliest diseases that women are presently facing. However, the causes of this disease are numerous and cannot be properly established. However, there is a huge difficulty in not accurately recognizing breast cancer in its early stages or prolonging the detection process. Methodology. In this research, machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that employs a variety of probabilistic, optimization, and statistical approaches to enable computers to learn from past data and find and recognize patterns from large or complicated groups. The advantage is particularly well suited to medical applications, particularly those involving complicated proteins and genetic measurements. Result and Implications. However, when using the PCA method to reduce the features, the detection accuracy dropped to 89.9%. IG-ANFIS gave us detection accuracy (98.24%) by reducing the number of variables using the "information gain" method. While the ANFIS algorithm had a detection accuracy of 59.9% without utilizing features, J48, which is one of the decision tree approaches, had a detection accuracy of 92.86% without using features extraction methods. When applying PCA techniques to minimize features, the detection accuracy was lowered to the same way (91.1%) as the Naive Bayes detection algorithm (96.4%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most anticancer drugs with broad toxicities are systematically administrated to cancer patients and their distribution in tumors is extremely low owing to hypoxia, which compromises the therapeutic efficacies of these cancer drugs. Consequently, a preponderant proportion of cancer drugs is distributed in off-target-healthy tissues, which often causes severe adverse effects. Precision cancer therapy without overdosing patients with drugs remains one of the most challenging issues in cancer therapy. Here, a novel concept of nanopoxia is presented, which is a tumor-hypoxia-based photodynamic nanoplatform for the release of therapeutic agents to achieve precision cancer therapy. Under tumor hypoxia, exposure of tumors to laser irradiation induces the fracture of polymer outer shell and produces anticancer reactive oxygen species, and switches 2D antimonene (Sb) nanomaterials to cytotoxic trivalent antimony to synergistically kill tumors. In preclinical cancer models, delivery of Sb nanomaterials to mice virtually ablates tumor growth without producing any detectable adverse effects. Mechanistically, the tumor hypoxiatriggered generation of trivalent antimony displays direct damaging effects on cancer cells and suppression of tumor angiogenesis. Together, the study provides a proof-of-concept of hypoxia-based precision cancer therapy by developing a novel nanoplatform that offers multifarious mechanisms of cancer eradication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveillance remains an important research area, and it has many applications. Smart surveillance requires a high level of accuracy even when persons are uncooperative. Gait Recognition is the study of recognizing people by the way they walk even when they are unwilling to cooperate. It is another form of a behavioral biometric system in which unique attributes of an individual's gait are analyzed to determine their identity. On the other hand, one of the big limitations of the gait recognition system is uncooperative environments in which both gallery and probe sets are made under different and unknown walking conditions. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a deep learning-based method that is trained on individuals with the normal walking condition, and to deal with an uncooperative environment and recognize the individual with any dynamic walking conditions, a cycle consistent generative adversarial network is used. This method translates a GEI disturbed from different covariate factors to a normal GEI. It works like unsupervised learning, and during its training, a GEI disrupts from different covariate factors of each individual and acts as a source domain while the normal walking conditions of individuals are our target domain to which translation is required. The cycle consistent GANs automatically find an individual pair with the help of the Cycle Loss function and generate the required GEI, which is tested by the CNN model to predict the person ID. The proposed system is evaluated over a publicly available data set named CASIA-B, and it achieved excellent results. Moreover, this system can be implemented in sensitive areas, like banks, seminar halls (events), airports, embassies, shopping malls, police stations, military areas, and other public service areas for security purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thriving adoption of drones for delivering parcels, packages, medicines, etc., is surging with time. The application of drones for delivery services results in faster delivery, fuel-saving, and less energy consumption. Giant companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc., are actively working on developing, testing, and improving drone-based delivery systems. So far, a lot of work has been done for improving the design, speed, operating range, security of the delivery drones, etc. However, very limited work has been done to ensure a complete and reliable last-mile delivery from the merchant's store to the hands of the actual customer. To ensure a complete and reliable last-mile delivery, a drone must authenticate the consumer before dropping the package. Therefore, in this work, we propose a consumer authentication (Consumer-Auth) hybrid computing framework for drone delivery as a service to make sure that the parcel is perfectly delivered to the intended customer. The proposed Consumer-Auth framework enables a drone to reach the exact destination by using the GPS coordinates of the customer autonomously. After reaching the exact location, the drone waits for the customer to come to the specific pinned location then it starts a two-factor consumer authentication process, i.e., one-time password (OTP) verification and face Recognition. The experimental results manifest the effectiveness of the proposed Consumer-Auth framework to ensure a complete and reliable drone-based last-mile delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryptography is commonly used to secure communication and data transmission over insecure networks through the use of cryptosystems. A cryptosystem is a set of cryptographic algorithms offering security facilities for maintaining more cover-ups. A substitution-box (S-box) is the lone component in a cryptosystem that gives rise to a nonlinear mapping between inputs and outputs, thus providing confusion in data. An S-box that possesses high nonlinearity and low linear and differential probability is considered cryptographically secure. In this study, a new technique is presented to construct cryptographically strong 8×8 S-boxes by applying an adjacency matrix on the Galois field GF(28). The adjacency matrix is obtained corresponding to the coset diagram for the action of modular group PSL(2,Z) on a projective line PL(F7) over a finite field F7. The strength of the proposed S-boxes is examined by common S-box tests, which validate their cryptographic strength. Moreover, we use the majority logic criterion to establish an image encryption application for the proposed S-boxes. The encryption results reveal the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed S-box design in image encryption applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneous systems have gained popularity due to the rapid growth in data and the need for processing this big data to extract useful information. In recent years, many healthcare applications have been developed which use machine learning algorithms to perform tasks such as image classification, object detection, image segmentation, and instance segmentation. The increasing amount of big visual data requires images to be processed efficiently. It is common that we use heterogeneous systems for such type of applications, as processing a huge number of images on a single PC may take months of computation. In heterogeneous systems, data are distributed on different nodes in the system. However, heterogeneous systems do not distribute images based on the computing capabilities of different types of processors in the node; therefore, a slow processor may take much longer to process an image compared to a faster processor. This imbalanced workload distribution observed in heterogeneous systems for image processing applications is the main cause of inefficient execution. In this paper, an efficient workload distribution mechanism for image processing applications is introduced. The proposed approach consists of two phases. In the first phase, image data are divided into an ideal split size and distributed amongst nodes, and in the second phase, image data are further distributed between CPU and GPU according to their computation speeds. Java bindings for OpenCL are used to configure both the CPU and GPU to execute the program. The results have demonstrated that the proposed workload distribution policy efficiently distributes the images in a heterogeneous system for image processing applications and achieves 50% improvements compared to the current state-of-the-art programming frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate the potential chemo-sensitizing effect of aged garlic extract (AGE) on doxorubicin (DOX) in breast cancer cells (MCF-7), and the possible underlying mechanisms. Methods: Human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) was treated with AGE and DOX. The cytotoxic effects of AGE and DOX were investigated via cell cycle analysis and apoptosis induction, using flow cytometry. Mechanistic studies involved the determination of cellular uptake of DOX and p-glycoprotein (P-gp) activity. Results: Combined treatment of MCF7 cells with AGE and DOX produced no significant effect at AGE dose of 10 mg/mL. However, co-treatment with AGE at doses of 50 and 93 mg/mL enhanced the cytotoxicity of DOX on MCF-7 cells, with IC50 values of 0.962 and 0.999 µM, respectively, when compared with 1.85 µM DOX alone. Moreover, Annexin V-FITC and PI techniques showed that AGE significantly increased percentage of cells in late apoptosis. Besides, AGE-DOX treatment significantly increased cellular uptake of DOX and inhibited P-gp activity, when compared with DOX alone (p < 0.05). Conclusion: AGE enhances the cytotoxic effect of DOX on MCF-7 cells, most likely due to cell cycle distribution, stimulation of apoptosis, increased uptake of DOX by MCF7, and inhibition of P-gp activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabic script is inherently cursive in nature; therefore, optical character recognition (OCR) techniques developed for other scripts are generally inappropriate for Arabic. We present an OCR system for the recognition of handwritten Arabic words. Several original contributions have been made. First, we have proposed a novel feature vector to represent handwritten Arabic words based on the ellipsoid approximation of maximally stable extremal regions (MSERs). This feature vector is compact, robust, and well suited to handle writer-induced variation in handwritten script. Second, we present a new database, Saudi Arabian city name (SACN) database consisting of handwritten Saudi Arabian city names, which is the first such publicly available database. Finally, we present promising experimental results on two databases. One of the main experiments compares the proposed MSER feature vector with several well-established feature extraction methods using the proposed SACN database. The proposed feature vector performed better than all the standardized methods, with 100% correct identification rate. Another experiment is designed to compare our system to other recent studies on handwritten Arabic text recognition using the extensively employed IFN/ENIT database. Using the standard experimental protocol, our system outperformed all others with 92.64% correct identification rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The figurative language involving sarcasm on social networks is evolving the way how the humans use computers to communicate. Consequently, artificial intelligence techniques are applied in various scenarios to make the social networking more intelligent - for instance, identification of figurative language. Identifying both literal and non-literal meaning is not easy for a machine and it is hard even for people. Therefore, novel and exact frameworks ready to identify figurative languages are important. In sarcasm detection, this is even more challenging because sarcasm changes the polarity of an evidently positive or negative expression into its inverse. To maintain a distance for a sarcastic message being comprehended in its unintended actual meaning, in micro-blogging sites, for example messages on Twitter, sarcasm is frequently set apart with a hashtag for example, '#sarcastic', '#sarcasm', '#not' etc. Moreover, the customer reviews may also contain some element of sarcasm. To contribute to this area, we gathered the data of tweets and reviews from Twitter, thesarcasmdetector.com, and Kaggle and proposed a mechanism for detecting sarcasm automatically using a classifier. A detailed experimental study was also conducted to evaluate the proposed mechanism. The results of this study were quite promising and proved the effectiveness of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]