Osteoarticular tuberculosis in Tehran, Iran: a 2-year study.

Osteoarticular tuberculosis (TB) accounts for 1-5% of all TB cases and 10-18% of those with extrapulmonary infection. Diagnosis is difficult, because the lungs are rarely involved and there are no specific signs or symptoms. The purpose of this study was to assess the frequency and clinical and laboratory findings in osteoarticular TB in two referral hospitals in Tehran, Iran. The hospital dataset of patients admitted with osteoarticular TB during 2003-2005 was reviewed. Patients' demographic data, clinical presentation and radiological and pathological findings were analysed. Weight loss (50%), fever (36%) and night sweats (38.5%) were the most common constitutional symptoms. Knee, ankle, hip and shoulder joints were the most frequent sites for TB arthritis. In osteomyelitis, long and short bones were equally affected. In TB spondylitis, the lumbar (22.7%) and thoracic (50%) vertebrae were the most commonly involved sites. The most frequently reported complications were sphincter disorder (39.1%), paraplegia (28.9%) and kyphosis (19.3%). TB osteomyelitis must always be borne in mind in countries where TB has high prevalence.

GPS receivers timing data processing using neural networks: optimal estimation and errors modeling.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a network of satellites, whose original purpose was to provide accurate navigation, guidance, and time transfer to military users. The past decade has also seen rapid concurrent growth in civilian GPS applications, including farming, mining, surveying, marine, and outdoor recreation. One of the most significant of these civilian applications is commercial aviation. A stand-alone civilian user enjoys an accuracy of 100 meters and 300 nanoseconds, 25 meters and 200 nanoseconds, before and after Selective Availability (SA) was turned off. In some applications, high accuracy is required. In this paper, five Neural Networks (NNs) are proposed for acceptable noise reduction of GPS receivers timing data. The paper uses from an actual data collection for evaluating the performance of the methods. An experimental test setup is designed and implemented for this purpose. The obtained experimental results from a Coarse Acquisition (C/A)-code single-frequency GPS receiver strongly support the potential of methods to give high accurate timing. Quality of the obtained results is very good, so that GPS timing RMS error reduce to less than 120 and 40 nanoseconds, with and without SA.

Hyperhomocysteinaemia: risk of retinal vascular occlusion.

To investigate the possible relationship between hyperhomocysteinaemia and retinal vascular occlusion, we measured plasma homocysteine levels in 25 patients with a history of retinal vascular occlusion in the previous 2 years and in a control group of 24. The difference in mean plasma homocysteine levels was not statistically significant. All except 5 of the cases had hypertension, diabetes mellitus or hyperlipidaemia. Most of the patients had branch retinal vein occlusion associated with recent onset of occlusion. Factors such as emotional status and associated systemic disease may play a role in predisposition of retinal vascular occlusion, so more-precise studies are needed to determine the possible risk factors of hyperhomocysteinaemia in retinal vascular occlusion.

Hyperhomocysteinaemia: risk of retinal vascular occlusion

To investigate the possible relationship between hyperhomocysteinaemia and retinal vascular occlusion, we measured plasma homocysteine levels in 25 patients with a history of retinal vascular occlusion in the previous 2 years and in a control group of 24. The difference in mean plasma homocysteine levels was not statistically significant. All except 5 of the cases had hypertension, diabetes mellitus or hyperlipidaemia. Most of the patients had branch retinal vein occlusion associated with recent onset of occlusion. Factors such as emotional status and associated systemic disease may play a role in predisposition of retinal vascular occlusion, so more-precise studies are needed to determine the possible risk factors of hyperhomocysteinaemia in retinal vascular occlusion