Search results for: ZnO-pigmented white pain

Authors: M. Ramezani, S. Ghaderifard, HR. Monsef-Esfahani, S. Nasri

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The aim of this study is evaluating the antinociceptive and anti-inflamatory activity of Geum kokanicum. After determination total extract LD50, different doses of extract were chosen for intrapritoneal injections. In inflammation test, male NMRI mice were divided into 6 groups: control (normal saline), positive control (Dexamethasone 15mg/kg), and total extract (0.025, 0.05, 0.1, and 0.2 gr/kg). The inflammation was produced by xyleneinduced edema. In order to evaluate the antinociceptive effect of total extract, formalin test was used. Mice were divided into 6 groups: control, positive control (morphine 10mg/kg), and 4 groups which received total extract. Then they received Formalin. The animals were observed for the reaction to pain. Data were analyzed using One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-Kramer multiple comparison test. LD50 was 1 gr/kg. Data indicated that 0.5,0.1 and 0.2 gr/kg doses of total extract have particular antinociceptive and antiinflammatory effects in a comparison with control (P<0.001). The most effective dose was 0.2 gr/kg which did not show any significant difference in a comparison with positive control. Results indicated that total extract can inhibit nociception in the first and second phase. The antinociceptive effects in high doses are the same as morphine as a strong analgesic substance. TLC chromatography indicated presence of steroids and triterpenoids in this plant. The effects of extract may be related to presence of these compounds.

Keywords: Anti-inflammatory, Antinociceptive, Geum kokanicum, Mice.

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Authors: Duane Barker, John Holliday

Abstract:

In a 10-week (May – August, 2008) Phase I trial, 840, 1+ rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, received a commercial oral immunomodulator, Fin Immune™, at four different dosages (0, 10, 20 and 30 mg g-1) to evaluate immune response and growth. The overall objective of was to determine an optimal dosage of this product for rainbow trout that provides enhanced immunity with maximal growth and health. Biweekly blood samples were taken from 10 randomly selected fish in each tank (30 samples per treatment) to evaluate the duration of enhanced immunity conferred by Fin-Immune™. The immunological assessment included serum white blood cell (lymphocyte, neutrophil) densities and blood hematocrit (packed cell volume %). Of these three variables, only lymphocyte density increased significantly among trout fed Fin- Immune™ at 20 and 30 mg g-1 which peaked at week 6. At week 7, all trout were switched to regular feed (lacking Fin-Immune™) and by week 10, lymphocyte levels decreased among all levels but were still greater than at week 0. There was growth impairment at the highest dose of Fin-Immune™ tested (30 mg g-1) which can be associated with a physiological compensatory mechanism due to a dose-specific threshold level. Thus, our main objective of this Phase I study was achieved, the 20 mg g-1 dose of Fin-Immune™ should be the most efficacious (of those we tested) to use for a Phase II disease challenge trial.

Keywords: Blood Lymphocyte, Neutrophil Response of Cultured Rainbow Trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, Oral Immunomodulator – 'Fin-ImmuneTM'.

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Authors: Chin-Pin, Chen, Shi-Chi, Shiao, Ting-Hao, Lin

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Current industry is facing the rapid development of new technology in the world and fierce changes of economic environment in the society so that the industry development trend gradually does not focus on labor, but leads the industry and the academic circle with innovation and creativity. The development trend in machinery industry presents the same situation. Based on the aim of Creativity White Paper, Ministry of Education in Taiwan promotes and develops various creativity contests to cope with the industry trend. Domestic students and enterprises have good performance on domestic and international creativity contests in recent years. There must be important creative elements in such creative works to win the award among so many works. Literature review and in-depth interview with five creativity contest awarded instructors are first proceeded to conclude 15 machinery creative elements, which are further compared with the creative elements of machinery awarded creative works in past five years to understand the relationship between awarded works and creative elements. The statistical analysis results show that IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award) contains the most creative elements among four major international creativity contests. That is, most creativity review focuses on creative elements that are comparatively stricter. Concerning the groups participating in creativity contests, enterprises consider more creative elements of the creative works than other two elements for contests. From such contest works, creative elements of “replacement or improvement”, “convenience”, and “modeling” present higher significance. It is expected that the above findings could provide domestic colleges and universities with reference for participating in creativity related contests in the future.

Keywords: Machinery, creativity contest, creative elements, creativity works.

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Authors: N. H. Harun, A. S. Abdul Nasir, M. Y. Mashor, R. Hassan

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Leukaemia is a blood cancer disease that contributes to the increment of mortality rate in Malaysia each year. There are two main categories for leukaemia, which are acute and chronic leukaemia. The production and development of acute leukaemia cells occurs rapidly and uncontrollable. Therefore, if the identification of acute leukaemia cells could be done fast and effectively, proper treatment and medicine could be delivered. Due to the requirement of prompt and accurate diagnosis of leukaemia, the current study has proposed unsupervised pixel segmentation based on clustering algorithm in order to obtain a fully segmented abnormal white blood cell (blast) in acute leukaemia image. In order to obtain the segmented blast, the current study proposed three clustering algorithms which are k-means, fuzzy c-means and moving k-means algorithms have been applied on the saturation component image. Then, median filter and seeded region growing area extraction algorithms have been applied, to smooth the region of segmented blast and to remove the large unwanted regions from the image, respectively. Comparisons among the three clustering algorithms are made in order to measure the performance of each clustering algorithm on segmenting the blast area. Based on the good sensitivity value that has been obtained, the results indicate that moving kmeans clustering algorithm has successfully produced the fully segmented blast region in acute leukaemia image. Hence, indicating that the resultant images could be helpful to haematologists for further analysis of acute leukaemia.

Keywords: Acute Leukaemia Images, Clustering Algorithms, Image Segmentation, Moving k-Means.

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Authors: Timothy E. Frank, Josh R. Aldred, Sophie B. Boulware, Michelle K. Cabonce, Justin H. White

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Materials degrade at different rates in different environments depending on factors such as temperature, aridity, salinity, and solar radiation. Therefore, predicting asset longevity depends, in part, on the environmental conditions to which the asset is exposed. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are critical to building operations yet are responsible for a significant proportion of their energy consumption. HVAC energy use increases substantially with slight operational inefficiencies. Understanding the environmental influences on HVAC degradation in detail will inform maintenance schedules and capital investment, reduce energy use, and increase lifecycle management efficiency. HVAC inspection records spanning 14 years from 21 locations across the United States were compiled and associated with the climate conditions to which they were exposed. Three environmental features were explored in this study: average high temperature, average low temperature, and annual precipitation, as well as four non-environmental features. Initial insights showed no correlations between individual features and the rate of HVAC component degradation. Using neighborhood component analysis, however, the most critical features related to degradation were identified. Two models were considered, and results varied between them. However, longitude and latitude emerged as potentially the best predictors of average HVAC component degradation. Further research is needed to evaluate additional environmental features, increase the resolution of the environmental data, and develop more robust models to achieve more conclusive results.

Keywords: Climate, infrastructure degradation, HVAC, neighborhood component analysis.

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Authors: M. Mohebbi, K. Shakeri

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The effect of different combinations of response feedback on the performance of active control system on nonlinear frames has been studied in this paper. To this end different feedback combinations including displacement, velocity, acceleration and full response feedback have been utilized in controlling the response of an eight story bilinear hysteretic frame which has been subjected to a white noise excitation and controlled by eight actuators which could fully control the frame. For active control of nonlinear frame Newmark nonlinear instantaneous optimal control algorithm has been used which a diagonal matrix has been selected for weighting matrices in performance index. For optimal design of active control system while the objective has been to reduce the maximum drift to below the yielding level, Distributed Genetic Algorithm (DGA) has been used to determine the proper set of weighting matrices. The criteria to assess the effect of each combination of response feedback have been the minimum required control force to reduce the maximum drift to below the yielding drift. The results of numerical simulation show that the performance of active control system is dependent on the type of response feedback where the velocity feedback is more effective in designing optimal control system in comparison with displacement and acceleration feedback. Also using full feedback of response in controller design leads to minimum control force amongst other combinations. Also the distributed genetic algorithm shows acceptable convergence speed in solving the optimization problem of designing active control systems.

Keywords: Active control, Distributed genetic algorithms, Response feedback, Weighting matrices.

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Authors: Amir Moslemi, Amir Movafeghi, Shahab Moradi

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One of the most important challenging factors in medical images is nominated as noise. Image denoising refers to the improvement of a digital medical image that has been infected by Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). The digital medical image or video can be affected by different types of noises. They are impulse noise, Poisson noise and AWGN. Computed tomography (CT) images are subjects to low quality due to the noise. Quality of CT images is dependent on absorbed dose to patients directly in such a way that increase in absorbed radiation, consequently absorbed dose to patients (ADP), enhances the CT images quality. In this manner, noise reduction techniques on purpose of images quality enhancement exposing no excess radiation to patients is one the challenging problems for CT images processing. In this work, noise reduction in CT images was performed using two different directional 2 dimensional (2D) transformations; i.e., Curvelet and Contourlet and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) thresholding methods of BayesShrink and AdaptShrink, compared to each other and we proposed a new threshold in wavelet domain for not only noise reduction but also edge retaining, consequently the proposed method retains the modified coefficients significantly that result good visual quality. Data evaluations were accomplished by using two criterions; namely, peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and Structure similarity (Ssim).

Keywords: Computed Tomography (CT), noise reduction, curve-let, contour-let, Signal to Noise Peak-Peak Ratio (PSNR), Structure Similarity (Ssim), Absorbed Dose to Patient (ADP).

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Authors: M. Mohebbi, K. Shakeri

Abstract:

In the real application of active control systems to mitigate the response of structures subjected to sever external excitations such as earthquake and wind induced vibrations, since the capacity of actuators is limited then the actuators saturate. Hence, in designing controllers for linear and nonlinear structures under sever earthquakes, the actuator saturation should be considered as a constraint. In this paper optimal design of active controllers for nonlinear structures by considering the actuator saturation has been studied. To this end a method has been proposed based on defining an optimization problem which considers the minimizing of the maximum displacement of the structure as objective when a limited capacity for actuator has been used as a constraint in optimization problem. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a single degree of freedom (SDF) structure with a bilinear hysteretic behavior has been simulated under a white noise ground acceleration of different amplitudes. Active tendon control mechanism, comprised of pre-stressed tendons and an actuator, and extended nonlinear Newmark method based instantaneous optimal control algorithm have been used as active control mechanism and algorithm. To enhance the efficiency of the controllers, the weights corresponding to displacement, velocity, acceleration and control force in the performance index have been found by using the Distributed Genetic Algorithm (DGA). According to the results it has been concluded that the proposed method has been effective in considering the actuator saturation in designing optimal controllers for nonlinear frames. Also it has been shown that the actuator capacity and the average value of required control force are two important factors in designing nonlinear controllers for considering the actuator saturation.

Keywords: Active control, Actuator Saturation, Nonlinear, Optimization.

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Authors: Mina Dabirinezhad, Mohsen Bayat Pour, Amin Dabirinejad

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This paper is intended to introduce the technology to solve some of the deficiencies of the direct digital radiology. Nowadays, digital radiology is the latest progression in dental imaging, which has become an essential part of dentistry. There are two main parts of the direct digital radiology comprised of an intraoral X-ray machine and a sensor (digital image receptor). The dentists and the dental nurses experience afflictions during the taking image process by the direct digital X-ray machine. For instance, sometimes they need to readjust the sensor in the mouth of the patient to take the X-ray image again due to the low quality of that. Another problem is, the position of the sensor may move in the mouth of the patient and it triggers off an inappropriate image for the dentists. It means that it is a time-consuming process for dentists or dental nurses. On the other hand, taking several the X-ray images brings some problems for the patient such as being harmful to their health and feeling pain in their mouth due to the pressure of the sensor to the jaw. The author provides a technology to solve the above-mentioned issues that is called “Self-Recognition Direct Digital Radiology” (SDDR). This technology is based on the principle that the intraoral X-ray machine is capable to diagnose the location of the sensor in the mouth of the patient automatically. In addition, to solve the aforementioned problems, SDDR technology brings out fewer environmental impacts in comparison to the previous version.

Keywords: Dental direct digital imaging, digital image receptor, digital x-ray machine, and environmental impacts.

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Authors: Perumal Siddhuraju, Arumugam Abirami, Gunasekaran Nagarani, Marimuthu Sangeethapriya

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Aqueous ethanol and aqueous acetone extracts of Moringa oleifera (outer pericarp of immature fruit and flower) and Sesbania grandiflora white variety (flower and leaf) were examined for radical scavenging capacities and antioxidant activities. Ethanol extract of S. grandiflora (flower and leaf) and acetone extract of M. oleifera (outer pericarp of immature fruit and flower) contained relatively higher levels of total dietary phenolics than the other extracts. The antioxidant potential of the extracts were assessed by employing different in vitro assays such as reducing power assay, DPPH˙, ABTS˙+ and ˙OH radical scavenging capacities, antihemolytic assay by hydrogen peroxide induced method and metal chelating ability. Though all the extracts exhibited dose dependent reducing power activity, acetone extract of all the samples were found to have more hydrogen donating ability in DPPH˙ (2.3% - 65.03%) and hydroxyl radical scavenging systems (21.6% - 77.4%) than the ethanol extracts. The potential of multiple antioxidant activity was evident as it possessed antihemolytic activity (43.2 % to 68.0 %) and metal ion chelating potency (45.16 - 104.26 mg EDTA/g sample). The result indicate that acetone extract of M. oleifera (OPIF and flower) and S. grandiflora (flower and leaf) endowed with polyphenols, could be utilized as natural antioxidants/nutraceuticals.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, Moringa oleifera, Polyphenolics, Sesbania grandiflora, Underutilized vegetables.

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Authors: Lāsma Cielava, Daina Jonkus, Līga Paura

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The age of first calving (AFC) is one of the most important factors that have a significant impact on cow productivity in different lactations and its whole life. A belated AFC leads to reduced reproductive performance and it is one of the main reasons for reduced longevity. Cows that calved in time period from 2001-2007 and in this time finished at least four lactations were included in the database. Data were obtained from 68841 crossbred Holstein Black and White (HM), crossbred Latvian Brown (LB), and Latvian Brown genetic resources (LBGR) cows. Cows were distributed in four groups depending on age at first calving. The longest lifespan was conducted for LBGR cows, but they were also characterized with lowest lifetime milk yield and life day milk yield. HM breed cows had the shortest lifespan, but in the lifespan of 2862.2 days was obtained in average 37916.4 kg milk accordingly 13.2 kg milk in one life day. HM breed cows were also characterized with longer calving intervals (CI) in first four lactations, but LBGR cows had the shortest CI in the study group. Age at first calving significantly affected the length of CI in different lactations (p<0.05). HM cows that first time calved >30 months old in the fourth lactation had the longest CI in all study groups (421.4 days). The LBGR cows were characterized with the shortest CI, but there was slight increase in second and third lactation. Age at first calving had a significant impact on cows’ age in each calving time. In the analysis, cow group was conducted that cows with age at first calving <24 months or in average 580.5 days at the time of fifth calving were 2156.7 days (5.9 years) old, but cows with age at first calving >30 months (932.6 days) at the time of fifth calving were 2560.9 days (7.3 years) old.

Keywords: Age at first calving, calving interval, longevity, milk yield.

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Authors: Mahmood Ahmad, Asadullah Madni, Muhammad Usman, Abubakar Munir, Naveed Akhtar, Haji M. Shoaib Khan

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This article demonstrated development of controlled release system of an NSAID drug, Diclofenac sodium employing different ratios of Ethyl cellulose. Diclofenac sodium and ethyl cellulose in different proportions were processed by microencapsulation based on phase separation technique to formulate microcapsules. The prepared microcapsules were then compressed into tablets to obtain controlled release oral formulations. In-vitro evaluation was performed by dissolution test of each preparation was conducted in 900 ml of phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.2 maintained at 37 ± 0.5 °C and stirred at 50 rpm. At predetermined time intervals (0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 and 24 hrs). The drug concentration in the collected samples was determined by UV spectrophotometer at 276 nm. The physical characteristics of diclofenac sodium microcapsules were according to accepted range. These were off-white, free flowing and spherical in shape. The release profile of diclofenac sodium from microcapsules was found to be directly proportional to the proportion of ethylcellulose and coat thickness. The in-vitro release pattern showed that with ratio of 1:1 and 1:2 (drug: polymer), the percentage release of drug at first hour was 16.91 and 11.52 %, respectively as compared to 1:3 which is only 6.87 % with in this time. The release mechanism followed higuchi model for its release pattern. Tablet Formulation (F2) of present study was found comparable in release profile the marketed brand Phlogin-SR, microcapsules showed an extended release beyond 24 h. Further, a good correlation was found between drug release and proportion of ethylcellulose in the microcapsules. Microencapsulation based on coacervation found as good technique to control release of diclofenac sodium for making the controlled release formulations.

Keywords: Diclofenac sodium, Microencapsulationtechnology, Ethylcellulose, In-Vitro Release Profile

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Authors: Wan Azuati Wan Omar, Selva Rani John Jasudass, Siti Rohaiza Md Saad

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Background: The objectives of this study were to assess patient’s knowledge of appropriate sublingual glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) use as well as to investigate how patients commonly store and carry their sublingual GTN tablets. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional survey, using a validated researcher-administered questionnaire. The study involved cardiac patients receiving sublingual GTN attending the outpatient and inpatient departments of Taiping Hospital, a non-academic public care hospital. The minimum calculated sample size was 92, but 100 patients were conveniently sampled. Respondents were interviewed on 3 areas, including demographic data, knowledge and use of sublingual GTN. Eight items were used to calculate each subject’s knowledge score and six items were used to calculate use score. Results: Of the 96 patients who consented to participate, majority (96.9%) were well aware of the indication of sublingual GTN. With regards to the mechanism of action of sublingual GTN, 73 (76%) patients did not know how the medication works. Majority of the patients (66.7%) knew about the proper storage of the tablet. In relation to the maximum number of sublingual GTN tablets that can be taken during each angina episode, 36.5% did not know that up to 3 tablets of sublingual GTN can be taken during each episode of angina. Fifty four (56.2%) patients were not aware that they need to replace sublingual GTN every 8 weeks after receiving the tablets. Majority (69.8%) of the patients demonstrated lack of knowledge with regards to the use of sublingual GTN as prevention of chest pain. Conclusion: Overall, patients’ knowledge regarding the self-administration of sublingual GTN is still inadequate. The findings support the need for more frequent reinforcement of patient education, especially in the areas of preventive use, storage and drug stability.

Keywords: Glyceryl trinitrate, knowledge, adherence.

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Authors: Shahana T. K., Babita R. Jose, K. Poulose Jacob, Sreela Sasi

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The modern telecommunication industry demands higher capacity networks with high data rate. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for high data rate wireless communications at reasonable complexity in wireless channels. OFDM has been adopted for many types of wireless systems like wireless local area networks such as IEEE 802.11a, and digital audio/video broadcasting (DAB/DVB). The proposed research focuses on a concatenated coding scheme that improve the performance of OFDM based wireless communications. It uses a Redundant Residue Number System (RRNS) code as the outer code and a convolutional code as the inner code. Here, a direct conversion of analog signal to residue domain is done to reduce the conversion complexity using sigma-delta based parallel analog-to-residue converter. The bit error rate (BER) performances of the proposed system under different channel conditions are investigated. These include the effect of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), multipath delay spread, peak power clipping and frame start synchronization error. The simulation results show that the proposed RRNS-Convolutional concatenated coding (RCCC) scheme provides significant improvement in the system performance by exploiting the inherent properties of RRNS.

Keywords: Analog-to-residue converter, Concatenated codes, OFDM, Redundant Residue Number System, Sigma-delta modulator, Wireless communication

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Authors: A. Vassila, D. Kalogeropoulos, R. Rawashdeh, N. Hall, N. Rahman, M. Fabian, S. Thulasidharan, H. Parwez

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Necrotising scleritis is a severe form of scleritis and poses a significant threat to vision. It can manifest in various systemic autoimmune disorders, systemic vasculitis, or as a consequence of microbial infections. The objective of this study is to present a case of necrotizing scleritis associated with scleroderma, which was further complicated by a secondary Staphylococcus epidermidis infection. This is a retrospective analysis, which examines the medical records of a patient who was hospitalised in the Eye Unit at University Hospital Southampton. A 78-year-old woman presented at the eye casualty department of our unit with a two-week history of progressively worsening pain in her left eye. She received a diagnosis of necrotising scleritis and was admitted to the hospital for further treatment. It was decided to commence a three-day course of intravenous methylprednisolone followed by a tapering regimen of oral steroids. Additionally, a conjunctival swab was taken, and two days later, it revealed the presence of S. epidermidis, indicating a potential secondary infection. Given this finding, she was also prescribed topical (Ofloxacin 0.3% - four times daily) and oral (Ciprofloxacin 750 mg – twice daily) antibiotics. The inflammation and symptoms gradually improved, leading to the patient being scheduled for a scleral graft and applying an amniotic membrane to cover the area of scleral thinning. Rheumatoid arthritis and granulomatosis with polyangiitis are the most commonly identifiable systemic diseases associated with necrotising scleritis. Although association with scleroderma is extremely rare, early identification and treatment are necessary to prevent scleritis-related complications.

Keywords: Scleritis, necrotizing scleritis, scleroderma, autoimmune disease.

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Authors: S. Behnam Asl, H. Sadeghi Naeini, L. Sadat Ensaniat, R. Khorshidian, S. Alipour, S. Behnam Asl

Abstract:

Nowadays the construction industry is growing specially among developing counties. Iran also has a critical role in these industries in terms of workers disorders. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) assign 7% of the whole diseases in the society, which make some limitations. One of the main factors, which are ended to WMSDs, is awkward posture. Steel bar bending is considered as one of the prominent performance among construction workers. In this case study we conducted to find the major tasks of bar benders and the most important related risk factors. This study was carried out among twenty workers (18-45 years) as our volunteer samples in some construction sites with less than 6 floors in two regions of Tehran municipality. The data was gathered through in depth observation, interview and questionnaire. Also postural analysis was done by OWAS. In another part of study we used NMQ for gathering some data about psychosocial effects of work related disorders. Our findings show that 64% of workers were not aware of work risks, also about 59% of workers had troubles in their wrists, hands, and especially among workers who worked in steel bar bending. In 46% cases low back pain were prevalence. Considering with gathered data and results, awkward postures and long term tasks and its duration are known as the main risk factors in WMSDs among construction workers, so work-rest schedule and also tools design should be considered to make an ergonomic condition for the mentioned workers.

Keywords: Bar benders, construction workers, musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), OWAS method.

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Authors: Chiung-Yun Chang, Po-Chou Chen, Jiun-Shiang Tzeng, Ka-Wai Mac, Chia-Chi Hsiao, Jo-Chi Jao

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This study was aimed to measure effective transverse relaxation rates (R2*) in the liver and muscle of normal New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. R2* relaxation rate has been widely used in various hepatic diseases for iron overload by quantifying iron contents in liver. R2* relaxation rate is defined as the reciprocal of T2* relaxation time and mainly depends on the constituents of tissue. Different tissues would have different R2* relaxation rates. The signal intensity decay in Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be characterized by R2* relaxation rates. In this study, a 1.5T GE Signa HDxt whole body MR scanner equipped with an 8-channel high resolution knee coil was used to observe R2* values in NZW rabbit’s liver and muscle. Eight healthy NZW rabbits weighted 2 ~ 2.5 kg were recruited. After anesthesia using Zoletil 50 and Rompun 2% mixture, the abdomen of rabbit was landmarked at the center of knee coil to perform 3-plane localizer scan using fast spoiled gradient echo (FSPGR) pulse sequence. Afterwards, multi-planar fast gradient echo (MFGR) scans were performed with 8 various echo times (TEs) to acquire images for R2* measurements. Regions of interest (ROIs) at liver and muscle were measured using Advantage workstation. Finally, the R2* was obtained by a linear regression of ln(sı) on TE. The results showed that the longer the echo time, the smaller the signal intensity. The R2* values of liver and muscle were 44.8 ± 10.9 s-1 and 37.4 ± 9.5 s-1, respectively. It implies that the iron concentration of liver is higher than that of muscle. In conclusion, the more the iron contents in tissue, the higher the R2*. The correlations between R2* and iron content in NZW rabbits might be valuable for further exploration.

Keywords: Liver, MRI, multi-planar fast gradient echo, muscle, R2* relaxation rate.

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Authors: Mohammad Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, Tania Taharima Chowdhary, Hasan Sarwar

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The challenge for software development house in Bangladesh is to find a path of using minimum process rather than CMMI or ISO type gigantic practice and process area. The small and medium size organization in Bangladesh wants to ensure minimum basic Software Process Improvement (SPI) in day to day operational activities. Perhaps, the basic practices will ensure to realize their company's improvement goals. This paper focuses on the key issues in basic software practices for small and medium size software organizations, who are unable to effort the CMMI, ISO, ITIL etc. compliance certifications. This research also suggests a basic software process practices model for Bangladesh and it will show the mapping of our suggestions with international best practice. In this IT competitive world for software process improvement, Small and medium size software companies that require collaboration and strengthening to transform their current perspective into inseparable global IT scenario. This research performed some investigations and analysis on some projects- life cycle, current good practice, effective approach, reality and pain area of practitioners, etc. We did some reasoning, root cause analysis, comparative analysis of various approach, method, practice and justifications of CMMI and real life. We did avoid reinventing the wheel, where our focus is for minimal practice, which will ensure a dignified satisfaction between organizations and software customer.

Keywords: Compare with CMMI practices, Key success factors, Small and medium software house, Software process improvement; Software process optimization.

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Authors: Abdullah N. Olimat, Ahmad S. Awad, Faisal M. AL-Ghathian

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Natural wood is used in many applications in Jordan such as furniture, partitions constructions, and cupboards. Experimental work for smoke produced by the combustion of certain wood samples was studied. Smoke generated from burning of natural wood, is considered as a major cause of death in furniture fires. The critical parameter for life safety in fires is the available time for escape, so the visual obscuration due to smoke release during fire is taken into consideration. The effect of smoke, produced by burning of wood, depends on the amount of smoke released in case of fire. The amount of smoke production, apparently, affects the time available for the occupants to escape. To achieve the protection of life of building occupants during fire growth, fire retardant painting products are tested. The tested samples of natural wood include Beech, Ash, Beech Pine, and white Beech Pine. A smoke density chamber manufactured by fire testing technology has been used to perform measurement of smoke properties. The procedure of test was carried out according to the ISO-5659. A nonflammable vertical radiant heat flux of 25 kW/m² is exposed to the wood samples in a horizontal orientation. The main objective of the current study is to carry out the experimental tests for samples of natural woods to evaluate the capability to escape in case of fire and the fire safety requirements. Specific optical density, transmittance, thermal conductivity, and mass loss are main measured parameters. Also, comparisons between samples with paint and with no paint are carried out between the selected samples of woods.

Keywords: Optical density, specific optical density, transmittance, visibility.

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Authors: Obinna K. Ihesiulor, Krishna Shankar, Paul Smith, Alan Fien

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Excessive fretting wear at the taper-trunnion junction (trunnionosis) apparently contributes to the high failure rates of hip implants. Implant wear and corrosion lead to the release of metal particulate debris and subsequent release of metal ions at the tapertrunnion surface. This results in a type of metal poisoning referred to as metallosis. The consequences of metal poisoning include; osteolysis (bone loss), osteoarthritis (pain), aseptic loosening of the prosthesis and revision surgery. Follow up after revision surgery, metal debris particles are commonly found in numerous locations. Background: A stable connection between the femoral ball head (taper) and stem (trunnion) is necessary to prevent relative motions and corrosion at the taper junction. Hence, the importance of component assembly cannot be over-emphasized. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the influence of head-stem junction assembly by press fitting and the subsequent disengagement/disassembly on the connection strength between the taper ball head and stem. Methods: CoCr femoral heads were assembled with High stainless hydrogen steel stem (trunnion) by Push-in i.e. press fit; and disengaged by pull-out test. The strength and stability of the two connections were evaluated by measuring the head pull-out forces according to ISO 7206-10 standards. Findings: The head-stem junction strength linearly increases with assembly forces.

Keywords: Wear, modular hip prosthesis, taper head-stem, force assembly, force disassembly.

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Authors: N. S. Pradeep, M. Balasingh Moses, V. Aarthi

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Any signal transmitted over a channel is corrupted by noise and interference. A host of channel coding techniques has been proposed to alleviate the effect of such noise and interference. Among these Turbo codes are recommended, because of increased capacity at higher transmission rates and superior performance over convolutional codes. The multimedia elements which are associated with ample amount of data are best protected by Turbo codes. Turbo decoder employs Maximum A-posteriori Probability (MAP) and Soft Output Viterbi Decoding (SOVA) algorithms. Conventional Turbo coded systems employ Equal Error Protection (EEP) in which the protection of all the data in an information message is uniform. Some applications involve Unequal Error Protection (UEP) in which the level of protection is higher for important information bits than that of other bits. In this work, enhancement to the traditional Log MAP decoding algorithm is being done by using optimized scaling factors for both the decoders. The error correcting performance in presence of UEP in Additive White Gaussian Noise channel (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading are analyzed for the transmission of image with Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) as source coding technique. This paper compares the performance of log MAP, Modified log MAP (MlogMAP) and Enhanced log MAP (ElogMAP) algorithms used for image transmission. The MlogMAP algorithm is found to be best for lower Eb/N0 values but for higher Eb/N0 ElogMAP performs better with optimized scaling factors. The performance comparison of AWGN with fading channel indicates the robustness of the proposed algorithm. According to the performance of three different message classes, class3 would be more protected than other two classes. From the performance analysis, it is observed that ElogMAP algorithm with UEP is best for transmission of an image compared to Log MAP and MlogMAP decoding algorithms.

Keywords: AWGN, BER, DCT, Fading, MAP, UEP.

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Authors: Rania Mustafa

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This audit was conducted at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Wythenshawe Hospital Radiology and Accident and Emergency [A&E] Department to assess the appropriateness of clinical information in X-ray requests, specifically in cases of acute ankle injuries. As per the Ottawa Ankle Rules and the recommendations of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE] and the Royal College of Radiology, we aimed to evaluate the appropriateness of referrals and the thoroughness of clinical information provided by Emergency Department [ED] clinicians for ankle radiography. Our goal was to achieve 100% compliance with these guidelines. The audit involved a comprehensive analysis spanning the period from August 2022 to January 2023, encompassing patient records, radiographic orders, and clinical assessments. Data collection included patient demographics, presenting complaints, clinical assessments, adherence to Ottawa Ankle Rules criteria, and subsequent radiography orders. Here we conducted two audit cycles, involving 38 patients in the first cycle and 86 patients in the second cycle. The data were furtherly filtered to include all patients who were referred from the ED for an ankle Xray with a history of acute trauma and age of more than 18 years. The key finding was that in August 2022, 60% of cases met the Ottawa Ankle Rules criteria accurately, indicating a need for improvement in adherence. However, by January 2023, there was a notable improvement, with 95% of cases accurately meeting the criteria. This significant change reflects an increased alignment with best practices for ankle radiography referrals.

Keywords: Ankle, injuries, Ottawa Ankle Rule, X-rays.

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Authors: Mannan Mridha, Mohammad S. Islam

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Innovative medical technologies offer more effective medical care, with less risk to patient and healthcare personnel. Medical technology and devices when properly used provide better data, precise monitoring and less invasive treatments and can be more targeted and often less costly. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipped with patient monitoring, respiratory and cardiac support, pain management, emergency resuscitation and life support devices is particularly prone to medical errors for various reasons. Many people in the developing countries now wonder whether their visit to hospital might harm rather than help them. This is because; clinicians in the developing countries are required to maintain an increasing workload with limited resources and absence of well-functioning safety system. A team of experts from the medical, biomedical and clinical engineering in Sweden and Bangladesh have worked together to study the incidents, adverse events at the ICU in Bangladesh. The study included both public and private hospitals to provide a better understanding for physical structure, organization and practice in operating processes of care, and the occurrence of adverse outcomes the errors, risks and accidents related to medical devices at the ICU, and to develop a ICT based support system in order to reduce hazards and errors and thus improve the quality of performance, care and cost effectiveness at the ICU. Concrete recommendations and guidelines have been made for preparing appropriate ICT related tools and methods for improving the routine for use of medical devices, reporting and analyzing of the incidents at the ICU in order to reduce the number of undetected and unsolved incidents and thus improve the patient safety.

Keywords: Accidents reporting system, patient car and safety, safe medical devices.

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Authors: Domenica Tambasco, Riina Bray

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Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and reduced function. Management of symptoms include medications, physical treatments and mindfulness therapies. Myofascial Release is a modality that has been successfully applied in various musculoskeletal conditions. However, to the author’s best knowledge, it is not yet recognized as a self-management therapy option in Fibromyalgia. In this study, we investigated whether Self-applied Myofascial Release (SMR) is associated with overall improved function and symptoms in Fibromyalgia. Eligible adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Fibromyalgia at Women’s College Hospital were recruited to SMR. Sessions ran for 1 hour once a week for 7 weeks, led by the same two physiotherapists knowledgeable in this physical treatment modality. The main outcome measure was an overall impact score for function and symptoms based on the validated assessment tool for fibromyalgia, the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR), measured pre- and post-intervention. Both descriptive and analytical methods were applied and reported. We analyzed results using a paired t-test to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in mean FIQR scores between initial (pre-intervention) and final (post-intervention) scores. A clinically significant difference in FIQR was defined as a reduction in score by 10 or more points. Our pilot study showed that SMR appeared to be a safe and effective intervention for our fibromyalgia participants and the overall impact on function and symptoms occurred in only 7 weeks. Further studies with larger sample sizes comparing SMR to other physical treatment modalities (such as stretching) in an randomized control trial (RCT) are recommended.

Keywords: Fibromyalgia, myofascial release, fibromyalgia impact questionnaire, fibromyalgia assessment status.

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Authors: Saimir Heta, Kastriot Haxhirexha, Virtut Velmishi, Nevila Alliu, Ilma Robo

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Background: Testicular rotation can occur at any age. The possibility to save the testicle is the fastest possible surgical intervention which is indicated by the presence of acute pain even at rest. The time element is more important to diagnose and proceed further with surgical intervention. Testicular damage is a consequence which mainly depends on the moment of onset of symptoms, at the time when the symptoms are diagnosed, the earliest action to be performed is surgical intervention. Sometimes medical tests are needed to confirm a diagnosis, or to help identify another cause for symptoms; for example, the urine test, that is used to check for infection, associated with the scrotal ultrasound test. Control of blood flow to the longitudinal supply vessels of the testicles is indicated. The sign that indicates testicular rotation is a reduction in blood flow. This is the element which is distinguished from ultrasound examination. Surgery may be needed to determine if the patient’s symptoms are caused by the rotation of the testis or any other condition. Discussion: As a surgical intervention of the emergency, the torsion of the test depends very much on the duration of the torsion, as the success in the life of the testicle depends on the fastest surgical intervention. From the previous clinic, it is noted that in any case presented to the pediatric patient diagnosed with testicular rotation, there is always a link with personal history that the patient refers to the presence of a previous episode of testicular trauma. Literature supports this fact very logically. Conclusions: Salvation without testicular atrophy depends closely on establishing the diagnosis of testicular rotation as soon as possible. Following the logic above, it can be said that the diagnosis for rotation should be performed as soon as possible, to avoid consequences that will not be favorable for the patient.

Keywords: Acute scrotum, testicular torsion, newborns, infants, clinical presentation.

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Authors: M. A. Wijewardane, S. A. N. C. Sudasinghe, H. K. G. Punchihewa, W. K. D. L. Wickramasinghe, S. A. Philip, M. R. S. U. Kumara

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Visual comfort is one of the major parameters that can be taken to measure the human comfort in any environment. If the provided illuminance level in a working environment does not meet the workers visual comfort, it will lead to eye-strain, fatigue, headache, stress, accidents and finally, poor productivity. However, improvements in lighting do not necessarily mean that the workplace requires more light. Unnecessarily higher illuminance levels will also cause poor visual comfort and health risks. In addition, more power consumption on lighting will also result in higher energy costs. So, during this study, visual comfort and the illuminance requirement for the workers in textile/apparel industry were studied to perform different tasks (i.e. cutting, sewing and knitting) at their workplace. Experimental studies were designed to identify the optimum illuminance requirement depending upon the varied fabric colour and type and finally, energy saving potentials due to controlled illuminance level depending on the workforce requirement were analysed. Visual performance of workers during the sewing operation was studied using the ‘landolt ring experiment’. It was revealed that around 36.3% of the workers would like to work if the illuminance level varies from 601 lux to 850 lux illuminance level and 45.9% of the workers are not happy to work if the illuminance level reduces less than 600 lux and greater than 850 lux. Moreover, more than 65% of the workers who do not satisfy with the existing illuminance levels of the production floors suggested that they have headache, eye diseases, or both diseases due to poor visual comfort. In addition, findings of the energy analysis revealed that the energy-saving potential of 5%, 10%, 24%, 8% and 16% can be anticipated for fabric colours, red, blue, yellow, black and white respectively, when the 800 lux is the prevailing illuminance level for sewing operation.

Keywords: Landolt ring experiment, lighting energy consumption, illuminance, textile and apparel industry, visual comfort.

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Authors: Makkia, Ahmad, Al-Falahi, Abdullah Abdelaziz Muharram

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Healthcare workers (HCWs) in Yemen are exposed to a myriad of occupational health hazards, including biological, physical, ergonomic, chemical and psychosocial hazards. HCWs operate in an environment that is considered to be one of the most hazardous occupational settings. The current study aimed to assess sng the prevalence of ‎occupational health hazards among Health care workers and associated ‎risk factors in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. Descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized; out of 5443 totals of HCWs 396 were selected by multistage sampling technique was carried out in the public hospitals in Sana'a city, Yemen. More the half (60.6%) of HCWs were aged between 20-30 years, 50.8% were males, 56.3% were married, and 45.5% had a diploma qualification, while 65.2% of HCWs had less than 6 years of experience. The results show a high prevalence of occupational hazards (99%); ergonomic hazards (93.4%), biological hazards (87.6%), psychosocial (86.65%), physical hazards (83.3%), and chemical hazards (73.5%). There were no statistically significant differences between demographic characteristics and the prevalence of occupational hazards (p > 0.05). The study revealed that occupational hazards were highly prevalent among the participants. The most common biological hazard was exposure to sharp-related injuries, while the predominant physical hazard was slip, trip, and fall incidents. Ergonomic hazards manifested as back or neck pain during work. Chemical hazards were represented by allergic reactions to medical gloves powder. Psychosocial hazards included experiencing verbal and physical harassment. In conclusion, the study emphasized the importance of raising awareness among HCWs and conducting training courses to prevent occupational hazards.

Keywords: Health workers, occupational hazard, prevalence, risk factors.

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Authors: Hamada A. Ahmed, Kadry M. Sadek, Ayman E. Taha

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The effects of basil and/or chamomile seed supplementation on the growth of Hubbard broiler chicks were evaluated. The antioxidant effects of these supplements were also assessed. 120 1-day-old broiler chicks were randomly divided into four equal groups. The control group (group 1) was fed a basal diet (BD) without supplementation. Groups 2, 3, and 4 were fed the BD supplemented with 10g basil, 10g chamomile, and 5g basil plus 5g chamomile per kg of food, respectively. Basil supplementation alone or in combination with chamomile non-significantly (P≥0.05) increased final body weight (3.2% and 0.3%, respectively) and weight gain (3.5% and 3.6%, respectively) over the experimental period. Chamomile supplementation alone non-significantly (P≥0.05) reduced final body weight and weight gain over the experimental period by 1.7% and 1.7%, respectively. In comparison to the control group, herbal seed supplementation reduced feed intake and improved the feed conversion and protein efficiency ratios. In general, basil seed supplementation stimulated chicken growth and improved the feed efficiency more effectively than chamomile seed supplementation. The antioxidant activities of basil and/or chamomile supplementation were examined in the thymus, bursa, and spleen. In chickens that received supplements, the level of malondialdehyde was significantly decreased, whereas the activities of glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and catalase were significantly increased (P<0.05). Supplementation of basil and/or chamomile did not affect blood protein levels, but had lipid-lowering effects as evidenced by reduced serum levels of total lipids, triglycerides, and cholesterol. In conclusion, supplementation of basil and/or chamomile improved growth parameters in broiler chicks and had antioxidant and blood lipid-lowering effects. These beneficial effects of basil and/or chamomile supplementation resulted in economically viable production of high-quality white meat containing no harmful residues.

Keywords: Herbal additives, basil, chamomile, broiler, growth performance, antioxidant.

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Authors: Maysam Mard-Soltani, Mohamad Javad Rasaee, Saeed Khalili, Abdol Karim Sheikhi, Mehdi Hedayati

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Production of specific antibody responses against hTSH is a cumbersome process due to the high identity between the hTSH and the other members of the glycoprotein hormone family (FSH, LH and HCG) and the high identity between the human hTSH and host animals for antibody production. Therefore, two polyclonal antibodies were purified against two recombinant proteins. Four possible ELISA tests were designed based on these antibodies. These ELISA tests were checked against hTSH and other glycoprotein hormones, and their sensitivity and specificity were assessed. Bioinformatics tools were used to analyze the immunological properties. After the immunogen region selection from hTSH protein, c terminal of B hTSH was selected and applied. Two recombinant genes, with these cut pieces (first: two repeats of C terminal of B hTSH, second: tetanous toxin+B hTSH C terminal), were designed and sub-cloned into the pET32a expression vector. Standard methods were used for protein expression, purification, and verification. Thereafter, immunizations of the white New Zealand rabbits were performed and the serums of them were used for antibody titration, purification and characterization. Then, four ELISA tests based on two antibodies were employed to assess the hTSH and other glycoprotein hormones. The results of these assessments were compared with standard amounts. The obtained results indicated that the desired antigens were successfully designed, sub-cloned, expressed, confirmed and used for in vivo immunization. The raised antibodies were capable of specific and sensitive hTSH detection, while the cross reactivity with the other members of the glycoprotein hormone family was minimum. Among the four designed tests, the test in which the antibody against first protein was used as capture antibody, and the antibody against second protein was used as detector antibody did not show any hook effect up to 50 miu/l. Both proteins have the ability to induce highly sensitive and specific antibody responses against the hTSH. One of the antibody combinations of these antibodies has the highest sensitivity and specificity in hTSH detection.

Keywords: hTSH, bioinformatics, protein expression, cross reactivity.

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Authors: K. Jyothi, T. S. Mohamed Saleem, L. Vineela, C. Gopinath, K. B. Yadavender Reddy

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Objective: Acute coronary syndrome is a clinical condition encompassing ST segments elevation myocardial infraction, Non ST segment is elevation myocardial infraction and un stable angina is characterized by ruptured coronary plaque, stress and myocardial injury. Angina pectoris is a pressure like pain in the chest that is induced by exertion or stress and relived with in the minute after cessation of effort or using sublingual nitroglycerin. The present research was undertaken to study the drug utilization pattern of antiplatelet drugs for the ischemic heart disease in a tertiary care hospital. Method: The present study is retrospective drug utilization study and study period is 6months. The data is collected from the discharge case sheet of general medicine department from medical department Rajiv Gandhi institute of medical sciences, Kadapa. The tentative sample size fixed was 250 patients. Out of 250 cases 19 cases was excluded because of unrelated data. Results: A total of 250 prescriptions were collected for the study according to the inclusion criteria 233 prescriptions were diagnosed with ischemic heart disease 17 prescriptions were excluded due to unrelated information. out of 233 prescriptions 128 are male (54.9%) and 105 patients are were female (45%). According to the gender distribution, the prevalence of ischemic heart disease in males are 90 (70.31%) and females are 39 (37.1%). In the same way the prevalence of ischemic heart disease along with cerebrovascular disease in males are 39 (29.6%) and females are 66 (62.6%). Conclusion: We found that 94.8% of drug utilization of antiplatelet drugs was achieved in the Rajiv Gandhi institute of medical sciences, Kadapa from 2011-2012.

Keywords: Angina pectoris, aspirin, clopidogrel, myocardial infarction.

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