Aim: To estimate the rates of cataract blindness and cataract surgical coverage and to assess the visual outcome of cataract surgery among individuals aged >50 years in Orakzai Agency, Pakistan. Methods: 1600 individuals aged >50 years were selected using probability proportional to size sampling. The main outcome measure was bilateral cataract blindness which was defined as visual acuity of ,3/60 in the better eye with best available correction and with obvious central lens opacities/absence of red reflex in both eyes. Results: A total of 1549 people were examined; the coverage rate was 96.8%. Of individuals who were examined, 958 (61.8%) were men. The overall prevalence of bilateral cataract blindness was 4.8% (95% CI: 3.8% to 5.9%). Women had a 2.1-fold greater prevalence of bilateral cataract blindness than men (7.1% (5.0% to 9.2%) v 3.4% (2.3% to 4.6%); p = ,0.0001). However, cataract surgical coverage rates were lower for women than men. The overall quality of previous cataract surgery was poor: 43.1% eyes with cataract surgery had VA ,6/60. 73.3% people with bilateral cataract blindness reported they could not undergo cataract surgery because they were too poor to afford its cost. Conclusion: The unacceptably high rates of cataract blindness and poor affordability and visual outcome of cataract surgery calls for the establishment, in the agency, of static cataract surgical services that are high quality, affordable, and gender sensitive.
The incidence of retinal redetachment after ROSO in our study was 3.46%. Aggressive removal of the vitreous base, performing retinotomies, ensuring complete silicone oil filling for adequate tamponade, and argon retinopexy can lead to low complication rates and improved outcomes.
Heterogeneous networks are rapidly emerging as one of the key enablers of beyond fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks. It is gradually becoming clear to the network operators that existing cellular networks may not be able to support the traffic demands of the future. Thus, there is an upsurge in the interest of efficiently deploying small-cell networks for accommodating a growing number of user equipment (UEs). This work further extends the state-of-the-art by proposing an optimization framework for reducing the power consumption of small-cell base stations (BSs). Specifically, a novel algorithm has been proposed which dynamically switches off the redundant small-cell BSs based on the traffic demands of the network. Due to the dynamicity of the formulated problem, a new UE admission control policy has been presented when the problem becomes infeasible to solve. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution, the simulation results are compared with conventional techniques. It is shown that the proposed power control solution outperforms the conventional approaches both in terms of accommodating more UEs and reducing power consumption.
PurposeChoroidal osteomas are benign intraocular tumors that classically present in females. Despite their benign nature, significant visual acuity loss can occur due to retinal pigment epithelium degeneration. We report an unusual case of bilateral choroidal osteoma in a young boy.ObservationA 16 year old boy presented to the Aga Khan University Hospital with a history of painless, bilateral deteriorating vision over past few months. Examination showed best corrected visual acuity as 20/200 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left eye. Funduscopy revealed a well-defined lesion in the juxtafoveal region of both eyes. A diagnosis of (bilateral) choroidal osteoma was subsequently made on the basis of optical coherence tomography, fundus fluorescein angiography, Indocyanine green and B-scan ultrasonography. The presence of choroidal neovascularization with sub retinal fluid was also established on OCT. The patient was treated with three intravitreal Ranizumab injections. At the follow up visit, vision had improved to 20/50 in the right eye and 20/200 in the left. Sub retinal fluid had also resolved.Conclusionsand importance: Intravitreal Ranizumab may be an effective alternative in the management of choroidal neovascularization secondary to choroidal osteoma.
Rapid changes in the advancements of information and communication technologies (ICT) have prompted Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to enhance teaching and learning. Over the years, cloud computing (CC) has become an emerging and adoptable paradigm in many industries including healthcare, finance, and law with its promising benefits. This trend is also growing in the field of education around the globe. Due to its inherent qualities of reliability, scalability, flexibility and reasonable cost, cloud is the solution that addressed the accessibility issue for quality education. CC plays an important role and will have major impacts on HEIs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the near future. HEIs are used to utilize the benefits of CC based services provided by the cloud service providers (CSPs). The CSP can be owned by the KSA government, private, or third-party vendors. By using cloudbased services at HEIs, staff, faculty, and students can utilize its services to perform various academic responsibilities on demand. This paper aims to adopt CC for HEIs and explore the prominent features and potential benefits of adopting cloud services in the HEIs of KSA. This paper also reveals numerous challenges, impacts, and major issues involved in adopting cloud services for HEIs.
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