Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the new respiratory virus SARS-CoV2. It has a tropism in the lung tissues where excess target receptors exist. Periostin plays a role in subepithelial fibrosis associated with bronchial asthma. Since the Coronavirus's target is the human respiratory system, Periostin has been recently described as a valuable new biomarker in the diagnosis and evaluation of disease in patients with COVID-19 lung involvement. Objectives: To assess the level of Periostin in the serum of COVID-19 patients and to correlate its role in disease severity and prognosis. Subjects and Methods: Periostin serum levels were measured for 63 patients attending three main COVID-19 Control Centers in Baghdad, compared to 25 healthy subjects, using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) from January 2021 to April 2022. Results: Serum levels of Periostin among studied groups with (mild - moderate, severe - critical, post-COVID, and controls) were (17.3, 664, 597, and 48) ng/dl respectively. The serum concentration of Periostin was highly significant in (severe- critical and post-COVID) than in other groups. Conclusions: The elevated level of serum Periostin in COVID-19 patients correlated with disease severity and post-COVID lung complications. The high Periostin level is consistent with high inflammatory markers, which might be used as an indicator of COVID-19 severity and predict a bad prognosis.
Forty six Iraqi women with PCOS were involved in this study . They were treated with metformin alone and with antioxidant agents (vitamin E or C).It was found that all patients who treated with metformin or with combination of metformin with antioxidant agents showed significant decrease in hirsutism score. The treatment of metformin with antioxidant agents is of great benefit in treatment of hirsutism in PCOS due to that there was no worsening effect after treatment. This may indicate that antioxidant agents may participate in alleviation of hirsutism so it can be said that oxidative stress may play an important role in developing of hirsutism in PCOS.
Background: 37% phosphoric acid (PA) is the traditional enamel etching technique prior to bracket adhesion, yet it has been implicated in numerous enamel injuries. The purpose of the current study was to create a calcium phosphate (CaP) etching paste in a simplified capsule formula that can underpin clinically adequate bracket bond strength without jeopardizing the integrity of enamel upon the debracketing procedure. Materials and Methods: micro-sized hydroxyapatite (HA) powder was mixed with 40% PA solution to prepare experimental acidic CaP paste. Sixty human premolars were assigned into two groups of 30 each. Enamel conditioning was accomplished using 37% PA-gel for control group and CaP paste for e
... Show MoreUropathogenic specific protein is a genotoxic protein targeting the DNA, leading to mutations and modifications in the normal cell's DNA and subsequently, cancer development. This study aims to determine the prevalence of the usp gene in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from females with urinary tract infections and study its correlation with biofilm formation. One hundred and five urine specimens were collected from female patients (20 to 55 years old) with urinary tract infections attending hospitals. Traditional laboratory methods using selective and differential culture media were used for initial bacterial isolation and identification, and molecular techniques that targeted a segment of the 16SrRNA gene with a specific primer pa
... Show MoreThe Humidification-Dehumidification (HDH) desalination technique offers a viable solution for providing freshwater to populations in water-scarce, remote areas. This study experimentally investigates a novel humidifying method by cross airflow over water-wetted pottery tubes, which function as a humidifier, incorporating a thermoelectric cooler to condense water vapor for freshwater production. To optimize freshwater production and thermal efficiency, meticulous design of these components and appropriate operational parameters are selected. Experiments were performed in three environments with differing temperatures and relative humidity levels, while air velocity varied from 1.02 to 1.89 m/s, and thermoelectric cooler voltage ranged from 6
... Show MoreIt is believed that Organizations around the world should be prepared for the transition to IPv6 and make sure they have the " know how" to be able to succeed in choosing the right migration to start time. This paper focuses on the transition to IPv6 mechanisms. Also, this paper proposes and tests a deployment of IPv6 prototype within the intranet of the University of Baghdad (BUniv) using virtualization software. Also, it deals with security issues, improvements and extensions of IPv6 network using firewalls, Virtual Private Network ( VPN), Access list ( ACLs). Finally, the performance of the obtainable intrusion detection model is assessed and compared with three approaches.
In this study, ultraviolet (UV), ozone techniques with hydrogen peroxide oxidant were used to treat the wastewater which is produced from South Baghdad Power Station using lab-scale system. From UV-H2O2 experiments, it was shown that the optimum exposure time was 80 min. At this time, the highest removal percentages of oil, COD, and TOC were 84.69 %, 56.33 % and 50 % respectively. Effect of pH on the contaminants removing was studied in the range of (2-12). The best oil, COD, and TOC removal percentages (69.38 %, 70 % and 52 %) using H2O2/UV were at pH=12. H2O2/ozone experiments exhibited better performance compared to
... Show MoreThe design of this paper is to find the possible correlation of Epstein Barr virus infection ina group of Iraqi women with cervical carcinoma though detection of Latent Membrane Protein 1 (LMP1) in these cervical tissues. Paraffinized blocks of two groups were included. The first sample of 30 cervical carcinomatous tissues and 15 biopsies from an apparently normal cervical tissues. All the samples were sectioned on a positive charged slides with 4 mm – thickness then submitted for immunohistochemical (IHC) staining to detect viral LMP1 expression. Sixty three percentage (19 out of 30) of the studies group showed positive overexpression as shown in with a significant association of the expression with cervical cancer with a significant ass
... Show MoreHeat transfer applications usually contemplated day‐to‐day are primarily spotlighted on mixed convection, such as solar collector heating arrangements, electronic cooling, and drying processes. Enhancing convection heat transmission in such appliances can be achieved by inserting porous media, inflow loci, and/or line geometry. In the present paper, convection heat transmission inside a vented curved cavity () with an inserted metal foam layer ( PPI and 0.9% porosity) saturated with water was accomplished. The bottom cavity wall was discretely heated at a constant hot temperature, and the curved wall was kept at a constant cold temperature. Governing equations comprising cont