It is widely accepted that early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) makes it possible for patients to gain access to appropriate health care services and would facilitate the development of new therapies. AD starts many years before its clinical manifestations and a biomarker that provides a measure of changes in the brain in this period would be useful for early diagnosis of AD. Given the rapid increase in the number of older people suffering from AD, there is a need for an accurate, low-cost and easy to use biomarkers that could be used to detect AD in its early stages. Potentially, the electroencephalogram (EEG) can play a vital role in this but at present, no reliable EEG biomarker exists for early diagnosis of AD. The gradual slowing of brain activity caused by AD starts from the back of the brain and spreads out towards other parts. Consequently, determining the brain regions that are first affected by AD may be useful in its early diagnosis. Higuchi fractal dimension (HFD) has characteristics which make it suited to capturing region-specific neural changes due to AD. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of HFD of the EEG as a biomarker which is associated with the brain region first affected by AD. Mean HFD value was calculated for all channels of EEG signals recorded from 52 subjects (20-AD and 32-normal). Then, p-values were calculated between the two groups (AD and normal) to detect EEG channels that have a significant association with AD. k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm was used to compute the distance between AD patients and normal subjects in the classification. Our results show that AD patients have significantly lower HFD values in the parietal areas. HFD values for channels in these areas were used to discriminate between AD and normal subjects with a sensitivity and specificity values of 100% and 80%, respectively.
The aim of this study is to identify the effect of particle size and to increase the concentration of Iraqi bentonite on rheological properties in order to evaluate its performance and to know if it can be used as drilling fluid without additives or not. In this study, Iraqi bentonite was carried out by mineral composition (XRD), chemical composition (XRF) and Particle size distribution (PSD), and its rheological properties were measured at different particle size and concentration. The results showed that when the particle size of Iraqi bentonite decreased, and the rheological properties were increased with increased concentration of Iraqi bentonite. Also, Iraqi bentonite was unable to use as drilling fluid without certain additives.
... Show MoreHands have consistently been an important vehicle in the transmission of disease (1). Thus, thorough hand-washing remains the single most important factor in preventing infection specially in hospitals and labs.Twenty-nine non-clinical volunteers (do not work or come in contact with a clinical or hospital setting) that lacked visible skin injuries, eczema or apparent skin disease were used, those subjects were all tested by a material of each of the three used in the study weekly and laboratory tests were done pre- and post washing.All three material were effective , Eugenol extract as effective as the bar and lotion soap. And this was confirmed statistically.Eugenol has a great antibacterial action even in small concentration and t
... Show MoreThe utilization of recycled brick tile powder as a replacement for conventional filler in the asphalt concrete mix has been studied in this research. This research evaluates the effectiveness of recycled brick tile powder and determines its optimum replacement level. Using recycled brick tile powder is significant from an environmental standpoint as it is a waste product from construction activities. Sixteen asphalt concrete samples were produced, and eight were soaked for a day. Samples contained 5% Bitumen, 2% to 5% brick tile powder, and conventional stone dust filler. The properties of samples were evaluated using the Marshall test. It was observed that the resistance to stiffness and deformation of asphalt concrete
... Show MoreThe actor has mechanisms that were applied in the performance، as it formed a style in the theatrical form (weird)، and the researcher deliberately studied these mechanisms and divided them into four chapters.
The researcher divided it into two sections، the first is the actor's performance requirements، and the second is the boring performance methods in the directors' theater، and then the researcher concluded the second chapter with the most important indicators.
As for the third chapter، the researcher determined the society of his research and the method of selecting the sample (strange) and analyzing the sample and concluded with the most important results of the sample analysis.
This research aims to examine the role of global green finance as a critical driver of both economic and environmental sustainability within small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises (SMEs) in Iraq. Utilizing a convergent mixed-methods framework, the study integrates qualitative interviews with key stakeholders and a quantitative survey of 300 agricultural SMEs to assess the barriers, enablers, and institutional conditions influencing the adoption of green finance. The findings indicate that, despite growing awareness and substantial latent demand for sustainability-linked investments, adoption is significantly constrained by institutional fragmentation, regulatory ambiguity, and resource limitations at the firm level. Grounded in Ins
... Show MoreObjectives: The present study aims at detecting the depression among nurses who provide care for infected patients with corona virus phenomenon and to find out relationships between the depression and their demographic characteristics of age, gender, marital status, type of family, education, and years of experience of nurses in heath institutions, infection by corona virus, and their participation in training courses.
Methodology: A descriptive study is established for a period from October 10th, 2020 to April 15th, 2021. The study is conducted on a purposive (non-probability) sample of (100) nurse who are providing care for patients with COVID-19 and they are selected from the isolation wards. The instrument of the study is develope
This study focuses on the impact of technology on creating a dystopian world as presented by the English playwright Caryl Churchill in her play A Number (2002). This dramatic work came as a reaction to the most crucial and valuable turning point in the scientific achievements of human engineering, namely, the cloning of the sheep called Dolly. Therefore, A Number is a play that presents an analytical stage for imagining the biotechnological and scientific future. This dramatic vignette captures the playwright’s fears towards the abnormal progress of technology and science and how far such technological progress affects human relationships and identity. It also portrays how technological progress results in the feeling of a lack of
... Show MoreIn the present work, the thermo-fluid characteristics of a heat exchanger formed of helical coiled tubes immersed in cold water are investigated experimentally. Two types of helical coiled tube are tested, a conventional vertical single helical coiled tube and a new triple vertical helical coiled tube in parallel connection called as meshed coils. The effect of hot water flow rates inside the tubes (ranges from 2.67 to 7.08 l/min), and its inlet temperatures (namely 50, 60, 70 and 80 °C) are investigated. The experimental results show that increasing the flow rate inside the meshed coils leads to decrease the temperature difference between inlet and outlet. An enhancement of heat transfer for meshed coils compared to single coil has been n
... Show MoreIntroduction The Hybrid Gamma Camera (HGC) is being developed to enhance the localisation of radiopharmaceutical uptake in targeted tissues during surgical procedures such as sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy. Purpose To assess the capability of the HGC, a lymph-node-contrast (LNC) phantom was constructed for an evaluative study simulating medical scenarios of varying radioactivity concentration and SLN size. Materials and methods The phantom was constructed using two methyl methacrylate PMMA plates (8 mm thick). The SLNs were simulated by drilling circular wells of diameters ranging between 10 mm and 2.5 mm (16 wells in total) in one plate. These simulated SLNs were placed underneath scattering material with thicknesses ranging between 5 mm
... Show More