The first known use of the term conspiracy theory dated back to the nineteenth century. It is defined as a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators. It is commonly used, but by no means limited to, extreme political groups. Since the emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic in December 2019, the conspiracy theory was present at all stages of the pandemic.

The first known use of the term conspiracy theory dated back to the nineteenth century. It is defined as a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators. It is commonly used, but by no means limited to, extreme political groups. Since the emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic in December 2019, the conspiracy theory was present at all stages of the pandemic.

General Background: Deep image matting is a fundamental task in computer vision, enabling precise foreground extraction from complex backgrounds, with applications in augmented reality, computer graphics, and video processing. Specific Background: Despite advancements in deep learning-based methods, preserving fine details such as hair and transparency remains a challenge. Knowledge Gap: Existing approaches struggle with accuracy and efficiency, necessitating novel techniques to enhance matting precision. Aims: This study integrates deep learning with fusion techniques to improve alpha matte estimation, proposing a lightweight U-Net model incorporating color-space fusion and preprocessing. Results: Experiments using the AdobeComposition-1k

Recurrent strokes can be devastating, often resulting in severe disability or death. However, nearly 90% of the causes of recurrent stroke are modifiable, which means recurrent strokes can be averted by controlling risk factors, which are mainly behavioral and metabolic in nature. Thus, it shows that from the previous works that recurrent stroke prediction model could help in minimizing the possibility of getting recurrent stroke. Previous works have shown promising results in predicting first-time stroke cases with machine learning approaches. However, there are limited works on recurrent stroke prediction using machine learning methods. Hence, this work is proposed to perform an empirical analysis and to investigate machine learning al

Software-defined networks (SDN) have a centralized control architecture that makes them a tempting target for cyber attackers. One of the major threats is distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. It aims to exhaust network resources to make its services unavailable to legitimate users. DDoS attack detection based on machine learning algorithms is considered one of the most used techniques in SDN security. In this paper, four machine learning techniques (Random Forest, K-nearest neighbors, Naive Bayes, and Logistic Regression) have been tested to detect DDoS attacks. Also, a mitigation technique has been used to eliminate the attack effect on SDN. RF and KNN were selected because of their high accuracy results. Three types of ne

In this paper we proposed the method of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) determination of some essential trace elements in medicinal herbs and vitamin-mineral complexes at the level of 10⁰-10¹ mg/ml. To increase sensitivity and selectivity of the determination we simple and effective approach based on the extraction of metal ions from aqueous solutions with chemically modified polyurethane foam sorbents followed by direct XRF analysis. The conditions of sorption preconcentration of Co(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) ions with modified sorbents were optimized. The proposed approach is used for the determination of trace elements in several kinds of medicinal herbs (coltsfoot leaves, nettle leaves and yarrow herb) and vitamin-mineral

    The emergence of COVID-19 has resulted in an unprecedented escalation in different aspects of human activities, including medical education. Students and educators across academic institutions have confronted various challenges in following the guidelines of protection against the disease on one hand and accomplishing learning curricula on the other hand. In this short view, we presented our experience in implementing e-learning to the undergraduate nursing students during the present COVID-19 pandemic emphasizing the learning content, barriers, and feedback of students and educators. We hope that this view will trigger the preparedness of nursing faculties in Iraq to deal with this new modality of learning and improve it should t

BACKGROUND: Vaccine hesitancy and reluctant had an important obstacle in achieving protection and population immunity against coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). It is essential to achieve high COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rates among medical students and health care workers to provide recommendations and counseling vaccine hesitant population. AIM: This study aims to identify level of COVID-19 hesitancy, attitude, knowledge, and factors that affect vaccination decision. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done among medical students in Al-Kindy College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq. Data collection was done through an online Google Forms questionnaire during 2021 from 810 medical students.