Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a growing health concern that usually appears during the second and third trimester stage of pregnancy and is characterized by carbohydrate intolerance of variable severity. The aim of the present study was to scrutinize the relationship between the G972R polymorphism of the insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) gene with GDM in the Iraqi female population. One hundred and twenty of blood samples taken from healthy women (control) and women with gestational diabetes mellitus in 3rd trimester stage of pregnancy, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and HbA1c% measured to diagnose GDM, lipid profile (cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, LDL, and VLDL), insulin concentration, insulin resistance and beta cell function to

John Updike’s use of setting in his fiction has elicited different and even conflicting reactions from critics, varying from symbolic interpretations of setting to a sense of confusion at his use of time and place in his stories.  The present study is an attempt at examining John Updike’s treatment of binary settings in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) to reveal theme, characters’ motives and conflicts.  Analyzing Updike’s stories from a structuralist’s perspective reveals his employment of two different places and times in the individual stories as a means of reflecting the psychological state of the characters, as in “The Persistence of Desire”, or expressing conflicting views on social and political is

The cathodic deposition of zinc from simulated chloride wastewater was used to characterize the mass transport properties of a flow-by fixed bed electrochemical reactor composed of vertical stack  of stainless steel nets, operated in batch-recycle mode. The electrochemical reactor employed potential value in such a way that the zinc reduction occurred under mass transport control. This potential was determined by hydrodynamic voltammetry using a borate/chloride solution as supporting electrolyte on stainless steel rotating disc electrode. The results indicate that mass transfer coefficient (K_m) increases with increasing of flow rate (Q) where .The electrochemical reactor proved to be efficient in removing zinc and was abl

Nanostructured Al2O3has been applied as a protective coating against corrosion of the carbon steel (C.S) in seawater environment (3.5% NaCl) at temperatures range (298-328)K. Aluminananoparticles were deposited on carbon steel substrates by cathodic electrophoretic deposition (EPD) with ethanol as suspension medium and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) as polymeric charging agent. Meanwhile, thesurface morphology was examined using Atomic-force microscopy (AFM). The cross-section AFM showed that the particles sizes for the Al2O3 NPs is around 60-80 nm. The anticorrosion behaviour of coated C.S was investigated in 3.5% NaCl at temperature range 298-328 K by potentiodynamic polarization measurements. Results show that using PAA in suspension coat incr

Oil pollution of the soil due to a leakage in oil tubes, transportation of products, or during oil excavations can change the soil physical and mechanical, chemical, and biological properties. Consequently, the soil may or may not be eligible for engineering construction projects and it may need a significant treatment. Therefore, it is required to have a better understanding of the general behavior and the corresponding geotechnical properties upon pollution particularly for those areas associated with oil explorations and industry like Thi-Qar Governorate. Fine and coarse soils from two sites at the University of Thi-Qar are artificially contaminated with oil products ranging from 0% to 10% of their dry weight. Testing programs have been

The study examines the religious references of the art of miniatures in the Iranian school "Bahzad model" completed in Iran during the twelfth century AH, according to the controls and characteristics of the authoritative references. The researcher presented the problem of research, its importance, the need for it and its purpose, defined the terms in the research. The theoretical framework came with three investigations. The first topic of the concept of the reference in the field of knowledge, which concluded the most important features of the reference, is that each symbolic existence corresponds to a real existence and symbolic presence is an input to the realization of the reference. The reference then becomes a sign that acts as a

The research involved attempt to inhibit the corrosion of Al-Si-Cu alloy in 2.5x10-3 mol.dm-3 NaOH solution (pH=11.4) by addition of six different inhibitors with three concentrations (1x10-3, 1x10-2, and 0.1 mol.dm-3). These inhibitors include three organic materials (sodium acetate, sodium benzoate, and sodium oxalate) and three inorganic materials (sodium chromate, disodium phosphate, and sodium sulphate). The data that concerning polarization behaviour are calculates which include the corrosion potential (Ecorr) and current density (icorr), cathodic and anodic Tafel slopes (bc & ba), and polarization resistance (Rp). Protection efficiency (P%) and activation energy (Ea) values were calculated for inhibition by the six inhibitors. The

In this work, two different laser dye solutions were used to host highly-pure silicon nitride nanoparticles as scattering centers to fabricate random gain media. The laser dye was dissolved in three different solvents (ethanol, methanol and acetone) and the final results were obtained for methanol only. The silicon nitride nanoparticles were synthesized by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique with average particle size of 35 nm. The random gain medium was made as a solid rod with high spectral efficiency and low production cost. Optical emission with narrow linewidth was detected at 532-534 nm as 9 mg of silicon nitride nanoparticles were added to the 10 -5 M dye solution. The FWHM of 0.3 and 3.52 nm was determined for Rhodamine B and