The Use of Computer-Assisted Learning in Pharmacokinetic Practical Career: A Pioneer Trial in Sudan
- Aimun AE. Ahmed Habab AM. Salih Zuheir Osman
- Reseived: 18 December 2016 Received in Revised Form: 15 March 2017 Accepted: 17 March 2017
- 9-15
Objectives: To evaluate the first use of a modified simulated pharmacokinetic program and its future impact in pharmacy education in Sudan. Methods: A survey, using semi-structured questionnaire was conducted. A total of 410 undergraduate pharmacy students were enrolled, whilst five or six computer-simulated pharmacological experiments were performed during two different academic years (2013/2014-2014/2015). Students’ opinions on the objectives, effectiveness and utility of these simulated experiments were assessed. Results: The majority (60 and 57 %) of the students indicated that they achieved their learning objectives and their understanding level was enhanced. Also, most of them (70 and 76 %) preferred computer simulations over the wet experiments. Conclusion: Computer-assisted learning is useful and effective educational tool to demonstrate the hardest pharmacological practical’s; Pharmacokinetic.
Mitigation of Drought Stress in Squash Plants (Cucurbita Pepo l.) by Foliar-Applied Salicylic Acid
- Saad M. Howladar
- Reseived: 10 December 2016 Received in Revised Form: 5 March 2017 Accepted: 10 March 2017
- 1-4
Foliar application of salicylic acid (SA) could provide protection against drought stress in plants. Two experiments (summer and fall) were consecutively conducted in 2016 to study the effect of SA on growth, yield, photosynthetic efficiency, water-use efficiency (WUE), and the accumulation of secondary metabolites (i.e. phenolics, flavonoids, and anthocyanin contents) in squash plants subjected to three levels of irrigation (FI = 100%, DI20 = 80% and DI40 = 60% of crop evapotranspiration. Plant growth, photosynthetic efficiency, secondary metabolites, yield and WUE significantly affected by deficit irrigation treatments and the combined deficit irrigation (DI) + foliar-applied SA treatment. Foliar application of SA modified the adverse effects of DI and enhanced squash growth and yield parameters. The exogenously-applied 1 mM SA under DI20 or DI40 could be a potential application for squash production savings (20–40%) of irrigation water without any or with low negative effects on plant growth or productivity.
Rate of Multidrug-Resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii among Gram Negative Bacterial Isolates and its Rate of Infection among Hospitalized Patients in Twelve Hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Muhammad A. Halwani
- Reseived: 13 December 2016 Received in Revised Form: 15 March 2017 Accepted: 17 March 2017
- 5-8
Emergence and spread of Acinetobacter baumannii which is resistant to most usable anti-microbial agents is a matter of great concern. Objective: To estimate the rate of multidrug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii among common bacterial isolates and its rate of infection among hospitalized patients in twelve hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Methods: All Gram negative bacteria isolated from hospitalized patients during the period from January to December 2012 were included in this study. Results: Acinetobacter baumannii counted for 17% (754/4404) of the total Gram negative isolates identified of which 18% (244/1375) only were involved in HAI. The resistance rates of A. baumannii was 25% (61/244) to Ceftazidime, 27% (65/244) to Ciprofloxacin, 27% (65/244) to Cefepime, 34% (82/244) to Amikacin, 52% (127/244) to Tazocin, 57% (139/244) to Gentamicin and 66% (161/244) to Imipenem. Only 8% (20/244) of the isolates were tested for colistin and no resistance was detected. Discussion & Conclusion: Although the isolation rate of A. baumannii was not very high compared to the other Gram negative bacteria, its involvement in hospital infections and its resistant patterns that were detected in this study are worrying. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reinforce precise infection control measures especially when it comes to environmental hygiene and the minimization of patient acquisition. Using molecular typing to identify the major circulating clone(s) of A. baumannii in the city hospitals and their ways of transmission is a priority. Finally, local antibiotic guidelines should be prepared and applied.
Performance Comparison of Three Adaptive Noise Cancellation Techniques
- Kadry I. Montassera Kadry I. Montassera 2 Kadry I. Montassera
- Reseived: 25 December 2016 Received in Revised Form: 15 March 2017 Accepted: 23 March 2017
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Three proposals for improving the performance of speech recognition, using the corresponding type of ANC techniques, are presented and evaluated. This improvement lies in increasing the speed of convergence with decreasing the steady state error of its adaptation algorithm, and giving a fast tracking in nonstationary environment. The three types of ANC schemes proposed in this paper have simple structures. The first two types of these ANC use an FIR ANC under the name of two stage ANC (TSANC), while the other is fast tracking two stage ANC (FTTSANC). The third type uses an IIR ANC called IIR ANC with GIVE algorithm to solve the problem of receiving a weak, distorted and unpredictable signal with variance in the noise in the presence of speech signal period and acoustic interference noise signal from the background noise source.
Automatic Classification of Welding Defects Using Neural Network and Image Processing Techniques
- Saeed A. Al-Ghamdi Ashraf S. Emam Ossama B. Abouelatta
- Reseived: 20 December 2016 Received in Revised Form: 1 March 2017 Accepted: 10 March 2017
- 17–25
Technological development accompanied the need to get a high-quality welding. In this research, an automatic technique is introduced to detect, recognize and classify welding defects in radiographic (x-ray) images, using texture features. Image processing techniques, including converting color images to grayscale, filtering and resizing images were applied to help in the image array of weld images and welding defect detection. Therefore, a proposed program was built in-house to automatically classify and recognize the most common types of welding defects met in practice. The introduced technique has been tested on eleven welding defects which are: center line crack, cap undercut, elongated slag lines, lack of interpass fusion, lack of root penetration, lack of side wall fusion, misalignment, root crack, root pass aligned, root undercut, and transverse crack (n = 35 for each). The overall average discrimination rate is about 94.29%. The introduced technique can find promising application of digital image processing technique to the field of welding defect inspection compared with traditional methods.
