The Growth Differentiation Factor -15 (GDF-15) is a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. İt represents an example of the stress response cytokines. It's mostly found in cardiac myocytes, adipocytes, macrophages, endothelial cells, and vascular endothelial cells, whether they're generated normally or not. GDF-15 levels have increased and are associated with cardiovascular risk. Aim of the study: To investigate the correlation between angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) with the level of plasma GDF-15 in a group of hypertensive patients. Materials and methods: A case-control study involved 90 individuals, 60 hypertensive patients (36 on ACE inhibitors and 24 on ARBs)

Olive leaves extract is famous for its antioxidant and protective effects. In this study, the aqueous extract of Iraqi Olea europaea L. Leaves was investigated for its anti-diabetic effects against low double doses of alloxan induced Diabetes Mellitus in rats. Low double doses (75 mgKg body weight) of alloxan were injected intraperitoneally at day 1&29 of the experimental period in rats, whereas an aqueous extract of Iraqi Olea europaea L. Leaves was added continuously to their drinking water. Serum malondialdehyde concentration, total oxidative stress and oxidative stress index as oxidoreductive stress biomarker, activities of certain anti-oxidoreductive stress enzymes (glutathione peroxidase, super oxide dismutase and catalase) and concen

Background: Sex variations in coronary artery disease (CAD) are well documented. However, sex differences in coronary artery calcium (CAC) and its role in the detection of coronary artery stenosis remain controversial. Objective: To assess the impact of sex variation on coronary artery calcification and its efficacy in predicting coronary artery stenosis. Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study including 230 consecutive patients with suspected CAD (120 men and 110 women) referred for coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). The study analyzed sex-based differences in the sensitivity and specificity of coronary artery calcification (CAC) for detecting moderate to severe stenosis across various coronary arteries

Background: Undergraduate dental students are more susceptible to situations of stress that affected quality of sleep, such profiles of stress may result in sleep bruxism and/or awake bruxism, parafunctions that can affect oral and general health. The aim of the study was to evaluate the association of sleep bruxism, awake bruxism and sleep quality among dental students. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed including 260 Iraqi dental students from university of Baghdad aged from 20to25years old. Students enrolled in the third and fifth class participated in the study. The Pittsburgh Sleep Questionnaire Index (PSQI) was used for data collection. The PSQI was distributed during lecture classes. Sleep bruxism and awake

Viscosity is one of the most important governing parameters of the fluid flow, either in the porous media or in pipelines. So it is important to use an accurate method to calculate the oil viscosity at various operating conditions. In the literature, several empirical correlations have been proposed for predicting crude oil viscosity. However, these correlations are limited to predict the oil viscosity at specified conditions. In the present work, an extensive experimental data of oil viscosities collected from different samples of Iraqi oil reservoirs was applied to develop a new correlation to calculate the oil viscosity at various operating conditions either for dead, satura

This paper presents an approach to license plate localization and recognition. A proposed method is designed to control the opening of door gate based on the recognition of the license plates number in Iraq. In general the system consists of four stages; Image capturing, License plate cropping, character segmentation and character recognition. In the first stage, the vehicle photo is taken from standard camera placed on the door gate with a specific distance from the front of vehicle to be processed by our system. Then, the detection method searches for the matching of the license plate in the image with a standard plate. The segmentation stage is performed by is using edge detection. Then character recognition, done by comparing with templ

The establishment of a high quality service in oral health care achieved by a member of dental professional is an important feature of any system of peer review in dentistry. This protocol attempts to discuss two crucial elements (I) suitability and feasibility of treatment modality and (II) quality of treatment performed to Iraqi patients. The Iraq endodontic society is designing a standardized protocol for endodontic treatment following the quality guidelines of European society of Endodontology (2006) to meet the highest standard of care generally given by competent practitioners. The Iraqi endodontic society has the expertise and professional responsibility clinically relevant to empower the dental profession through creating significan

This research aims to analyze and simulate biochemical real test data for uncovering the relationships among the tests, and how each of them impacts others. The data were acquired from Iraqi private biochemical laboratory. However, these data have many dimensions with a high rate of null values, and big patient numbers. Then, several experiments have been applied on these data beginning with unsupervised techniques such as hierarchical clustering, and k-means, but the results were not clear. Then the preprocessing step performed, to make the dataset analyzable by supervised techniques such as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Classification And Regression Tree (CART), Logistic Regression (LR), K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), Naïve Bays (NB

Background: During Ramadan, Muslims fast throughout daylight hours. There is a direct link between fasting and increasing incidence of infections. Antibiotic usage for treatment of infections should be based on accurate diagnosis, with the correct dose and dosing regimen for the shortest period to avoid bacterial resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the practices of physicians in prescribing suitable antibiotics for fasting patients and the compliance of the patients in using such antibiotics at regular intervals. Materials and methods: An observational study was carried out during the middle 10 days of Ramadan 2014 in two pharmacies at Baghdad. A total of 34 prescriptions (Rx) for adults who suffered from infections were examined. For

The subject of this research involves studying adsorption to remove hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions. Adsorption process on bentonite clay as adsorbent was used in the Cr(VI) concentration range (10-100) ppm at different temperatures (298, 303, 308 and 313)K, for different periods of time. The adsorption isotherms were obtained by obeying Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm with R2 (0.9921-0.9060) and (0.994-0.9998), respectively. The thermodynamic parameters were calculated by using the adsorption process at four different temperatures the values of ?H, ?G and ?S was [(+6.582 ? +6.547) kJ.mol-1, (-284.560 ? -343.070) kJ.mol-1 and (+0.977 ? +1.117) kJ.K-1.mol-1] respectively. This data indicates the spontaneous sorp