Retama raetam W: a poisonous plant of North Africa

A through-the-scope endoscopic balloon dilatation technique and acid-reducing medication was used in 46 consecutive patients (median age, 55; range, 21-88 years) with benign gastric outlet obstruction. In five patients, dilatation was not technically possible. In 41 patients, 122 dilatations (median, 2; range, 1-9 per patient) were performed without morbidity. Ninety-four procedures were successful (77%) at the initial attempt (able to pass a 12-mm endoscope into the duodenum at the end of the procedure). Median follow-up in the 41 patients was 19 (range, 1-78) months. Thirteen patients (32%) required subsequent surgery; 8 had delayed operation for persistent symptoms (1-28 months after the first dilatation), 1 had surgery during the initial hospital admission, and 4 required emergency surgery for other ulcer complications (3 perforation, 1 bleeding). Of the 28 patients who had only balloon dilatation and medical therapy, 11 are asymptomatic (4 with active ulceration), 9 have mild symptoms (Visick 2), and 3 have persistent symptoms (Visick 3). One patient was lost to follow-up and four patients have died (one from an ulcer-related complication). Balloon dilatation and sustained acid-reducing therapy with regular endoscopic surveillance should be first-line treatment of peptic pyloroduodenal strictures, because the procedure is safe and is likely to be successful in half of the patients in whom dilatation is technically possible.     

Critical factors affecting the photovoltaic characteristic and comparative study between two maximum power point tracking algorithms

This paper presents the characterization and the modeling of the electric characteristics of currentvoltage and power–voltage of the photovoltaic (PV) panels. The philosophy behind digital simulation of solar energy systems is that experiments which normally should be done on real systems under high assembling costs can be done numerically in a short time on a computer, thus saving time and investments. The electric parameters of PV cells and the optimal electric quantities of PV panels have been analyzed (voltage and power) according to the meteorological variations (Temperature, solar irradiation …). The obtained results show that the diode parameters of the PV cells depend on solar irradiation: the current saturation increases with solar irradiation. This induces a decrease of the optimal voltage with solar irradiation; when the solar irradiation varies from 600 W/m² to 1000 W/m². By taking into consideration all the modeling results, the electric behavior of the cells association in parallels or in series, as well as the aging of a PV panel have been analyzed. Moreover, a comparative study between two types of MPPT techniques that are used in photovoltaic systems to extract the maximum power have been introduced which are Perturb and Observe (P &O) and Incremental Conductance (INC).     

Modeling and investigation of the wind resource in the gulf of Tunis,Tunisia

The development of wind energy conversion systems becomes one of the most important aims of many developing countries such as Tunisia. This is due to the reduction in wind turbine costs, and fossil fuel atmospheric pollution. The evaluation of wind power potential is necessary to estimate wind resource and therefore conduct the suitable decisions for the wind power generation projects, technical and economical feasibility. The presented work in this paper was to investigate the potential of wind resource in the Gulf of Tunis in Tunisia. The hourly mean wind speed and wind direction with a 10-min time step provided by the NRG (National Resources Group) weather station were used to analyze the wind speed characteristics and the wind power potential. Weibull parameters are estimated based on the most frequently used methods in which their accuracy was compared based on different goodness of fit tests. Those wind characteristics are required to give the picture of wind potential distribution in the Gulf of Tunis.     

A piezoelectric 3D hexahedral curvilinear finite element based on the space fiber rotation concept

The paper is focused on a piezoelectric 3D hexahedral finite element formulation on the basis of the space fiber rotation concept. The proposed electromechanical finite element has eight nodes and is animated by the virtual rotation of an elementary spatial fiber that creates an additional mechanical displacement enhancing the classical one generally considered to formulate the standard solid elements. The mechanical strain tensor and the electric field vector are expressed in a curvilinear coordinate system to handle the transverse isotropy behavior of piezoelectric materials. Numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed electromechanical element is less sensitive to mesh distortion than the standard piezoelectric solid elements. Besides, it is shown that the developed element response is better than those of the standard first‐order piezoelectric elements. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Usability Management Framework for Securing Healthcare Information System

Transformation from conventional business management systems to smart digital systems is a recurrent trend in the current era. This has led to digital revolution, and in this context, the hardwired technologies in the software industry play a significant role However, from the beginning, software security remains a serious issue for all levels of stakeholders. Software vulnerabilities lead to intrusions that cause data breaches and result in disclosure of sensitive data, compromising the organizations’ reputation that translates into, financial losses and compromising software usability as well. Most of the data breaches are financially motivated, especially in the healthcare sector. The cyber invaders continuously penetrate the E- Health data because of the high cost of the data on the dark web. Therefore, security assessment of healthcare web-based applications demands immediate intervention mechanisms to weed out the threats of cyber-attacks for the sake of software usability. The proposed disclosure is a unique process of three phases that are combined by researchers in order to produce and manage usability management framework for healthcare information system. In this most threatened time of digital era where, Healthcare data industry has borne the brunt of the highest number of data breach episodes in the last few years. The key reason for this is attributed to the sensitivity of healthcare data and the high costs entailed in trading the data over the dark web. Hence, usability management of healthcare information systems is the need of hour as to identify the vulnerabilities and provide preventive measures as a shield against the breaches. The proposed unique developed model of usability management workflow is prepared by associating steps like learn; analyze and manage. All these steps gives an all in one package for the healthcare information management industry because there is no systematic model available which associate identification to implementation steps with different evaluation steps.     

On The Stabilization of Homogeneous Perturbed Systems

In this paper, using some results on manifolds, we establish some conditions for stabilization of single-input homogeneous by dilation systems.      

Confinement Effects on the Structure of Entropy-Induced Supercrystals

Depletion-induced self-assembly is routinely used to separate plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) of different shapes, but less often for its ability to create supercrystals (SCs) in suspension. Therefore, these plasmonic assemblies have not yet reached a high level of maturity and their in-depth characterization by a combination of in situ techniques is still very much needed. In this work, gold triangles (AuNTs) and silver nanorods (AgNRs) are assembled by depletion-induced self-assembly. Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis shows that the AuNTs and AgNRs form 3D and 2D hexagonal lattices in bulk, respectively. The colloidal crystals are also imaged by in situ Liquid-Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy. Under confinement, the affinity of the NPs for the liquid cell windows reduces their ability to stack perpendicularly to the membrane and lead to SCs with a lower dimensionality than their bulk counterparts. Moreover, extended beam irradiation leads to disassembly of the lattices, which is well described by a model accounting for the desorption kinetics highlighting the key role of the NP-membrane interaction in the structural properties of SCs in the liquid-cell. The results shed light on the reconfigurability of NP superlattices obtained by depletion-induced self-assembly, which can rearrange under confinement.     

If online learning works for you,what about deaf students? Emerging challenges of online learning for deaf and hearing-impaired students during COVID-19: a literature review

Universal Access in the Information Society - With the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, educational systems worldwide were abruptly affected and hampered, causing nearly total suspension of all...