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Background: Helicobacter pylori is spreading worldwide with a high prevalence rate in the developing countries. Our primary goal was to measure the histology-based prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in children and to quantify its impact on the gastric inflammation and anemia. Our secondary goal was to study possible predictors for the presence of Helicobacter pylori in this cohort. Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed for children who underwent Esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy at Jordan university hospital in Jordan from 2008 to 2016. Data collected included epidemiological data, indication for endoscopy, endoscopic findings, and laboratory data. The gastric biopsies were reexamined by a pathologist to check for the presence of Helicobacter pylori, the presence of gastritis, and to grade gastritis according to the updated Sydney criteria. Results: A total of 98 children (53 girls-54%) underwent Esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy. The average age was 11.7 years ± 4.7 years. Of them, 53 patients (29 boys-55%) had Helicobacter pylori identified in the gastric biopsy. The histology-based prevalence rate of Helicobacter pylori was 54%. The most common indication for endoscopy was abdominal pain (53%) followed by vomiting (18%). Nodular gastric mucosa was present in 43% of the Helicobacter pylori-positive group, and in only 11% of the Helicobacter pylori-negative group (P-value <0.0.5). Moderate to severe chronic gastritis was seen in 59% of the biopsies of Helicobacter pylori-positive group, compared to 31% in the Helicobacter pylori-negative group (p value <0.05). Presence of anemia was not different between the two groups (p value > 0.05). Presence of endoscopic nodularity, active gastritis by histology, and moderate to severe gastritis by histology were positive predicators for the presence of Helicobacter pylori. (p value <0.05). Conclusion: Helicobacter pylori infection in this study cohort of Jordanian children is common, with a histology-based prevalence rate of 54%. Nodularity of the stomach is the most common positive endoscopic feature, and its presence predicts the presence of Helicobacter pylori. Moderate to severe active gastritis is associated with Helicobacter pylori. The presence of Helicobacter pylori does not affect anemia status in this cohort of Jordanian children.

Abstract-Internet data is transmitted in variable-size packets to provide flexibility for different applications. There has been a growing interest in developing the design of Internet routers based variable-lenght packets to improve performance and reduce the amount of re-assembly memory. However, most of variable-length designs follow a time-slotted approach, which make them similar to routers that switch fixed-length packets. The use of slotted timing makes padding necessary when packet sizes are not proportional to the time-slot length. In this paper, we investigate the impact of concatenating packets to reduce the amount of padding in variable-length packet switches. This approach increases the utilization of interconnection bandwidth and overall throughput performance. Performance evaluation in an input-queued packet switch using packet concatenation is presented.Index Terms-Packet scheduling, input-queued switch, variable length packet, cell switching, packet-based scheduling, packet concatenation.