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Comparison Between Short And Long Letrozole Therapy For Ovulation Induction In Clomiphene.Resistant Women With Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Mohamed A. El-Naggar

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Objective

The aim of this study is to compare the effect of the short and long letrozole therapy for ovulation induction in clomiphene‑resistant women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Design

This was a prospective study. Patients and methods

Sixty infertile women were selected from the patients attending the outpatient clinic of Benha Teaching Hospital. All patients were diagnosed as having anovulation due to polycystic ovary syndrome. Intervention

Patients were randomly allocated to treatment with either long letrozole therapy (\[n=30;\] three cycles) or short letrozole therapy (\[n=30;\] three cycles). Main outcome measure

Number of growing, mature follicles and the occurrence of pregnancy. …

Radiofrequency Endogenous Ablation And Concomitant Sclerotherapy, Ihab N. A. Hanna, Khaled Elkafas

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background Varicose veins are a widespread disease with various treatment modalities ranging from classic saphenofemoral crossectomy and ligation and stripping to various minimally invasive interventional procedures. The era of endovenous interventions has now stabilized head to head in results with surgical procedures, hence the shift to minimally invasive procedures. All minimal invasive endovenous procedures have excellent results, particularly when correctly selected according to the varicose vein case and the treated vein. Thermal ablation techniques are now established and have reliable and satisfactory outcomes, yet nonthermal techniques have offered further options. This article provides a novel approach combining the usage of …

Right Anterolateral Thoracotomy As An Alternative Approach To Resternotomy For High-Risk Cardiac Surgery Patients, Maged M. A. Kisho

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Introduction Redocardiac valve surgery through median sternotomy is associated with a potential increased risk of morbidity and mortality. The study was done at the National Heart Institute of Egypt from June 2016 to June 2018 to evaluate the right anterolateral thoracotomy for high-risk patients undergoing mitral and tricuspid valve redo procedures. Patients and methods This study includes 26 patients operated through right anterolateral thoracotomy which include high-risk group on the basis of the proximity of sternum to the right ventricle or great vessels, mainly ascending aorta. Moreover, the presence and location of patent grafts were assessed. Results In right submammary …

Successful Surgical Management Of Intracerebral Hydatid Cyst In Children: Timing, Procedure, And Adjuvant Treatment, Sameh M. Saleh

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background Cerebral hydatid cysts are very rare, and surgery, with its inherent risk of rupture and spillage of cyst contents, has been the traditional treatment. The goal of surgery is to remove the cysts without rupture. Aim The aim of this review was to investigate the surgical technique of removing cerebral hydatid cysts in children, to show the possible pitfalls of surgery and to assess the effect of adjuvant preoperative and postoperative medical treatment. Patients and methods This retrospective analysis included four patients who underwent surgery for an intracranial hydatid cyst at the Department of Neurosurgery, Matarya Teaching Hospital. The …

Complications Of Decompressive Lumbar Spine Procedures Without Instrumentations – An Institutional Experience, Ayman Wageh, Ihap Bedier, Mohamed Mousa, Ramadan Shamseldein

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background Till now, there is insufficient documentation of operative complications in spine surgery, and the expected results are far less predictable if the actual indication for surgical intervention is not clear. Complication could be defined as 'a condition that directly or indirectly results from surgical intervention and disrupts the planned outcome of the surgery.' So, spine surgeons should be aware of these events and know how to deal with them. Aim To detect the number and percentage of moderate and/or major operation-related complications associated with the relatively repeated and popularized neurosurgical procedures performed at the Neurosurgical Department, Shebin Elkom Teaching …

Study Of Motor And Sensory Nerve Conduction Of Wrist Palm And Palm-Finger Segments Of Median Nerve And Studying Their Contribution In Diagnosis Of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Abeer H. Ismaiel

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Objectives Our objective is to report a modified and simplified technique of sensory and motor segmental conduction studies to improve diagnostic sensitivity, especially in cases with mild carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Patients and methods Patients with suspected CTS referred to our electrophysiology laboratory and a control group were included. The data were collected prospectively. The following measurements made: median sensory conduction velocity wrist digit 1(W-1), median sensory conduction velocity wrist digit 3 (W-3), median wrist palm sensory conduction velocity (W-Ps), distoproximal ratio of velocity (D/P), median distal motor latency wrist (MDML) -APB (Abductor pollicis brevis), and median wrist -palm segment …

Novel Technique Of Vein Harvesting For Reversed Saphenous Vein Bypass Graft, Ihab N. A. Hanna

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background The technique of harvesting the great saphenous vein for bypass procedures may affect the results of the procedure. We describe a simple modification of the vein harvesting technique, which consists of leaving the saphenofemoral junction intact after completion of the proximal anastomosis. This modification allows blood to flow into the vein as soon as the proximal anastomosis is completed, thereby shortening the vein warm ischemia time and allowing the vein to distend with blood rather than saline, under physiologic pressure. This modification aims at improved vein integrity during harvesting and therefore improved graft patency. Patients and methods In this …

Tracheostomy In Covid-19-Infected Patients, Mohammad M. Gaballah, Wael M. H Eldin Eldrandaly

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Purpose To evaluate the modifications in the indications and technique of tracheostomy for prolonged-intubated COVID-19-infected patients. Methodology Commissioned by the Ministry of Health in Egypt, different guidelines for tracheostomy for COVID-19 patients were revised. A guideline was adopted and modified to meet the equipment provided by facilities assigned to contain the current pandemic. The understanding of staff and the applicability of the new guidelines were evaluated using a mini-summative quiz answered by 117 tracheostomy team members in facilities around Grand Cairo, Egypt. Results The percentages of consistent answers for questions 1–6 were 94, 90.60, 89.70, 95.70, 61.50, and 93.20%, respectively. …

Elderly Musculoskeletal Disease Burden In Karachi, Pakistan: Associations And Implications For Developing Countries, Saniya Sabzwari, Zafar Fatmi, Adeel Ahmed Khan

Department of Family Medicine

Objective: The global rise in the older population has increased the rates of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, conditions that impact mobility and functionality. There is limited data on musculoskeletal disease in older populations residing in developing countries.
Methods: A community-based study using multistage cluster random sampling of older individuals was conducted in Karachi. Predefined criteria were used for osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Gait assessment was performed.
Results: More than half of the participants were females and 53% reported illiteracy. Around 30% had osteoporosis and two-thirds had osteoarthritis. Multivariate analysis showed associations of female sex, Pashtun ethnicity, illiteracy, and hypertension with the combined …

The Er Stress/Upr Axis In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease And Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis., Mahmoud Aghaei, Sanaz Dastghaib, Sajjad Aftabi, Mohamad-Reza Aghanoori, Javad Alizadeh, Pooneh Mokarram, Parvaneh Mehrbod, Milad Ashrafizadeh, Ali Zarrabi, Kielan Darcy Mcalinden, Mathew Suji Eapen, Sukhwinder Singh Sohal, Pawan Sharma, Amir A Zeki, Saeid Ghavami

Center for Translational Medicine Faculty Papers

Cellular protein homeostasis in the lungs is constantly disrupted by recurrent exposure to various external and internal stressors, which may cause considerable protein secretion pressure on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), resulting in the survival and differentiation of these cell types to meet the increased functional demands. Cells are able to induce a highly conserved adaptive mechanism, known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), to manage such stresses. UPR dysregulation and ER stress are involved in numerous human illnesses, such as metabolic syndrome, fibrotic diseases, and neurodegeneration, and cancer. Therefore, effective and specific compounds targeting the UPR pathway are being considered …

Social Isolation, Fear Of Missing Out, And Social Media Use In Deaf And Hearing College Students, Conor Lake

Theses

This study investigated the relationships between social isolation, fear of missing out, self-esteem, and social media usage, and whether these relationships are different in deaf and hearing college students. Data were collected from 191 individuals (46 Deaf/Hard of Hearing, 145 hearing) via an online survey. Variables included number of social media accounts, time spent (in hours) on social media, number of times per day social media is accessed, FOMO, social media use, hearing status/identity, self-esteem, social isolation, and social media disorder. Correlational tests were conducted separately for hearing and for Deaf/HH participants. The groups had an unequal distribution of gender, …

End-To-End Learning Utilizing Temporal Information For Vision- Based Autonomous Driving, Dapeng Guo

Master's Projects

End-to-End learning models trained with conditional imitation learning (CIL) have demonstrated their capabilities in driving autonomously in dynamic environments. The performance of such models however is limited as most of them fail to utilize the temporal information, which resides in a sequence of observations. In this work, we explore the use of temporal information with a recurrent network to improve driving performance. We propose a model that combines a pre-trained, deeper convolutional neural network to better capture image features with a long short-term memory network to better explore temporal information. Experimental results indicate that the proposed model achieves performance gain …

Detecting Deepfakes With Deep Learning, Eric C. Tjon

Master's Projects

Advances in generative models and manipulation techniques have given rise to digitally altered videos known as deepfakes. These videos are difficult to identify for both humans and machines. Typical detection methods exploit various imperfections in deepfake videos, such as inconsistent posing and visual artifacts. In this paper, we propose a pipeline with two distinct pathways for examining individual frames and video clips. The image pathway contains a novel architecture called Eff-YNet capable of both segmenting and detecting frames from deepfake videos. It consists of a U-Net with a classification branch and an EfficientNet B4 encoder. The video pathway implements a …

Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning For Walkers, Inhee Park

Master's Projects

This project was motivated by seeking an AI method towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), that is, more similar to learning behavior of human-beings. As of today, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is the most closer to the AGI compared to other machine learning methods. To better understand the DRL, we compares and contrasts to other related methods: Deep Learning, Dynamic Programming and Game Theory.

We apply one of state-of-art DRL algorithms, called Proximal Policy Op- timization (PPO) to the robot walkers locomotion, as a simple yet challenging environment, inherently continuous and high-dimensional state/action space.

The end goal of this project is …

Effect Of Thyme (Thymus Vulgaris L.) Essential Oil On The Quality Parameters Of Stirred Yoghurt, Emad A. H. Guirguis, Mary G. B. Meleka

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Aim Stirred yoghurt was supplemented with thyme essential oil in an attempt to enhance its quality. Materials and methods Thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.) essential oil concentrations (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 μl/ml) were added to the prepared stirred yoghurt and then examined for microbiological count and mycotoxin quality during storage intervals following the Egyptian standards. Results Samples contained ≥ 6 μl/ml oil showed significant increase (p<0.05) of total viable bacterial count and lactic acid bacteria, whereas mold and yeast count was decreased. Pathogenic bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, and coliform group were not detected in any of the samples, which complied with the standards. Moreover, …

What A Difference A Decade Makes. The Evolving Gender Gap In Students’ Goal Endorsement And Stem Career Choice, Chen Chen, Gerhard Sonnert, Philip M. Sadler

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Two national datasets of first-year college students, collected a decade apart, asking the same questions about career interests and life goal endorsement, allowed us to investigate the extent to which the life goals and career interests had converged among young men and women. We compared the gender differences in four types of goal endorsement (communal, material, intellectual, and free-time goals) by career interest groups (science, engineering, medicine, health, and other professions) between the two cohorts (2007 vs. 2017). Conversely, we compared the gender differences in career interests by goal endorsement between the two cohorts. Our specific focus was on science, …

Evaluating Level Of Specificity And Discrepancy Of Normative Referents In Relation To Personal Condom Use Among College Students, Madison Firkey

Theses - ALL

Few evidence-based interventions have effectively increased college students’ condom use. There is a large literature supporting the efficacy of alcohol normative feedback interventions, components of which may be useful for the development of condom promotion interventions. While normative feedback interventions traditionally provide feedback associated with a typical student referent, more socially proximal referents may exert a greater influence over behavior compared to distal referents. However, developing discrepancy between perceived and actual norms is also essential for such interventions, and the greatest discrepancy is generated when a distal referent is utilized. Therefore, the goal of this study was to determine which …

Towards A Nuanced Understanding Of Emotional Infidelity: An Investigation Of Behavioral Exemplars And The Impact Of Ambiguity, Morgan Proulx

Theses - ALL

Infidelity is an especially severe relational transgression that can act as a predictor of negative outcomes. Though the word “severe” may seem to imply that we can expect a degree of clarity when considering whether a particular behavior qualifies as “infidelity”, thinking of infidelity behaviors in that way might be an oversimplification. Whereas researchers have had some success in predicting the outcomes of and responses to infidelity, our understanding of infidelity may be complicated by a lack of clear behavioral indices for some forms of infidelity, namely emotional infidelity. The present study explored the specific types of behaviors that participants …

Application Of Wavelet Transform To Endurance Time Analysis Method For Performance-Based Seismic Design, Mohammadhossein Mamaghani

Dissertations - ALL

Earthquakes occur quite frequently around the world, but the number of reliable recorded ground motion data for a given site is often limited. In addition, the use of present methodologies to modify existing earthquake records to match site conditions could change the relationship between the recorded earthquake characteristics and their actual physical attributes. The result is that these modified earthquakes could have qualities not quite the same as those of the real earthquakes. Instead of using scaling and spectral matching of real earthquakes, artificial earthquakes capable of mimicking both the physical conditions and qualities of real earthquakes should be generated …

Professional Development In Context: Investigating In-Service Development Programs For Syrian Teachers Of English As A Foreign Language During Times Of Military Conflict, Fadi Al-Issa

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this study is to research how teaching practices and in-service professional development of English language teachers’ in Syria have been affected during times of military conflict: what impact English language teachers in Syria perceive the professional development programs they are required to attend have on their teaching and the learning environments they provide for their students, and how this perceived impact relates to the country’s current military conflict; and to explore the ways that teachers can be assisted to enhance their in-service professional development in a country experiencing a military conflict. Thus, by probing these two issues, …

Arp2/3-Independent Wave/Scar Pathway And Class Xi Myosin Control Sperm Nuclear Migration In Flowering Plants, Mohammad F. Ali, Umma Fatema, Xiongbo Peng, Samuel W. Hacker, Daisuke Maruyama, Meng-Xiang Sun, Tomokazu Kawashima

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

After eukaryotic fertilization, gamete nuclei migrate to fuse parental genomes in order to initiate development of the next generation. In most animals, microtubules control female and male pronuclear migration in the zygote. Flowering plants, on the other hand, have evolved actin filament (F-actin)-based sperm nuclear migration systems for karyogamy. Flowering plants have also evolved a unique double-fertilization process: two female gametophytic cells, the egg and central cells, are each fertilized by a sperm cell. The molecular and cellular mechanisms of how flowering plants utilize and control F-actin for double-fertilization events are largely unknown. Using confocal microscopy live-cell imaging with a …

Fruiting Body Form, Not Nutritional Mode, Is The Major Driver Of Diversification In Mushroom-Forming Fungi, Marisol Sánchez-García, Martin Ryberg, Faheema Kalsoom Khan, Torda Varga, László G. Nagy, David S. Hibbett

Biology

With ∼36,000 described species, Agaricomycetes are among the most successful groups of Fungi. Agaricomycetes display great diversity in fruiting body forms and nutritional modes. Most have pileate-stipitate fruiting bodies (with a cap and stalk), but the group also contains crust-like resupinate fungi, polypores, coral fungi, and gasteroid forms (e.g., puffballs and stinkhorns). Some Agaricomycetes enter into ectomycorrhizal symbioses with plants, while others are decayers (saprotrophs) or pathogens. We constructed a megaphylogeny of 8,400 species and used it to test the following five hypotheses regarding the evolution of morphological and ecological traits in Agaricomycetes and their impact on diversification: 1) resupinate …

Exploring Media Preference And Trust By Millennial Investors., Chedza Mmolawa

Theses - ALL

The purpose of this study is to establish which media millennial investors and potential investors prefer and trust to make investment decisions. The Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) will be used to understand why millennials prefer the media they chose to receive investment and financial information, and how it gives them the satisfaction they seek. The study also evaluates how Investor Relations (IR) practitioners can hone the relationship they have with millennial investors and potential investors by using their preferred media to impact their decision-making process. This study will use both qualitative and quantitative research. An online survey will be …

Does Age Of Second-Language Acquisition Improve Intellectual Processing Abilities?, Sanum Shafi

Theses - ALL

Past research on bilingual education indicates that the onset-age of second language learning is negatively associated with both second language proficiency and the cognitive benefits of being bilingual. However, there is inconsistency in the bilingual education field as to whether bilingual speakers benefit from enhanced intellectual processing abilities compared to monolingual speakers. The critical period hypothesis states that during childhood development a certain window of time exists in which second language acquisition skills are strongest. This hypothesis provides the theoretical foundation for my research study. In the current study, I synthesize evidence on the associations between onset-age of second language …

The Affective Politics Of Democratic Erosion: Explaining Mass Support For Executive Aggrandizement, Aykut Ozturk

Dissertations - ALL

During the last two decades, executive aggrandizement has emerged as one of the chief threats to democratic regimes. In various countries, ranging from Turkey and Hungary to Venezuela, elected incumbents used their democratic mandates to gradually dismantle democratic institutions. Similar patterns of executive aggrandizement have been visible even in an advanced democracy, the United States of America. Executive aggrandizement is facilitated by the consistent electoral support that incumbents with authoritarian agendas enjoy. In order to understand this threat to the future of liberal democracies, we first need to explain why voters support leaders eroding democratic rights and freedoms in their …

Examining Intentions To Seek Counseling Amongst African American Male College Students, Jordan P. Shannon

Dissertations - ALL

The roles of public stigma, self-stigma and mental health literacy have been found to be influential to the help-seeking process of college students. However, their particular influence has yet to be explored with African American male college students (AAMCS). The purpose of this dissertation is to explore whether public stigma, self-stigma and mental health literacy will significantly predict intentions to seek counseling amongst AAMCS. Research identifying factors for help-seeking amongst AAMCS have largely considered variables such as racial identity, self-concealment, cultural mistrust, Afrocentric values, and African Self-Consciousness. Whereas scholars perceive the help-seeking process of AAMCS with some salience to cultural …

Mindful Inquiry - A Deweyan Assessment Of Mindfulness And Education, David John Wolken

Dissertations - ALL

Mindfulness-based interventions are becoming an increasingly popular means for helpingstudents deal with the multidimensional challenges they face in contemporary educational settings. While potentially helpful, an uncritical employment of mindfulness in education can paradoxically function to reify the very neoliberal social conditions leading to the need for mindfulness in the first place. I assess this trend in educational theory and practice through John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy. I show that the potential for both mindfulness and Dewey’s theory of mind and inquiry to support critical, sustainable social change is truncated by an uncritical retaining of the modern paradigm of mind that defines …

Multimodality In The Art & Media Arts Classroom: A Qualitative Study Of Multimodal Literacies As They Appear In Art & Media Educator Classroom Curriculum And Practice, Kathleen M. Maniaci

Dissertations - ALL

As a visual arts educator, I understand the unique opportunities students have to learn by making, inventing, and creating, to communicate their ideas. The work of the New London Group (2000), the more recent National Core Arts Standards and the National Core Media Arts Standards (2014) and the New York Arts & Media Arts Standards (2017) have significantly influenced this study by reinforcing both the necessity and potential to both art and media arts teaching practices in developing greater applications for multimodal literacy theory, defined by the National Council of the Teachers of English as “Integration of multiple modes of …

The Use Of Musical And Perceptual Training In The Classroom For Teaching Tone To L2 Learners With A L1 Stress Language, Elizabeth Ann Hosking Elton

Theses - ALL

In the study of teaching second languages, there has been limited research on the teaching of tonal languages as a second language (L2). Despite this, perceptual training and a background in musical training has been found to be useful for perception, discrimination, and identification of L2 tones. This study examined and compared the effects of two different training techniques, musical training (i.e., using musical concepts and/or instruments) and perceptual training (i.e., listening to targeted contrasts in tones), between musicians and nonmusicians on the learning of L2 tonal perception, discrimination, and identification (TPDI) accuracy.A within-participants intervention research design was used, where …

Lidar Object Detection Utilizing Existing Cnns For Smart Cities, Vinay Ponnaganti

Master's Projects

As governments and private companies alike race to achieve the vision of a smart city — where artificial intelligence (AI) technology is used to enable self-driving cars, cashier-less shopping experiences and connected home devices from thermostats to robot vacuum cleaners — advancements are being made in both software and hardware to enable increasingly real-time, accurate inference at the edge. One hardware solution adopted for this purpose is the LiDAR sensor, which utilizes infrared lasers to accurately detect and map its surroundings in 3D. On the software side, developers have turned to artificial neural networks to make predictions and recommendations with …