Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the cause of the major world health issue, tuberculosis (TB). The cytokine, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) has been implicated in protection against TB in the early stages of the disease. TNF-α is an effective cytokine in the killing of intracellular M. tuberculosis. This study inducted to investigate whether there is any relationship between levels of TNF-α in sera of TB patients and their recovery, and is there any difference in the level of this cytokine in sera of female and male TB patients. This study included 29 patients with pulmonary TB (18 female and 11 male), their ages ranging from 37 to 59 years. All of them received first line TB therapy. They were consulted at Pasture Center during Septem

In this paper, a miniaturized 2 × 2 electro-optic plasmonic Mach– Zehnder switch (MZS) based on metal–polymer–silicon hybrid waveguide is presented. Adiabatic tapers are designed to couple the light between the plasmonic phase shifter, implemented in each of the MZS arms, and the 3-dB input/output directional couplers. For 6 µm-long hybrid plasmonic waveguide supported by JRD1 polymer (r33= 390 pm/V), a π-phase shift voltage of 2 V is obtained. The switch is designed for 1550 nm operation wavelength using COMSOL software and characterizes by 2.3 dB insertion loss, 9.9 fJ/bit power consumption, and 640 GHz operation bandwidth

This study was designed to compare the effect of two types of viral hepatitis A and E (HAV
and HEV) on liver functions in Iraqi individuals by the measurement of biochemical changes
associated with hepatitis.
The study performed on 58 HEV and 66 HAV infected patients compared with 28 healthy
subjects. The measured biochemical tests include total serum bilirubin, serum transminases (ALT
and AST) alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT).
The study showed that adolescent and young adults (17-29) years, were mostly affected by
HEV while children (5-12) years were frequently affected by HAV. The severity of liver damage in
HEV patients was higher than HAV patients as a result of high serum transa

The study included selection six species of the fungi related to Pleurotus genus were evaluated for their ability to production of Pleurotin, one of them, Pleurotus ostreatus (P.11) was isolated and identified in the present study. Pleurotin was extracted with screening by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and quantification High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Cytotoxicity of Pleurotin extracted from P. ostreatus (P.11) grown in different sugar sources (galactose, mannitol, sucrose, dextrose and lactose) liquid media was test against three selected cancer cell lines, CaSki, MCF-7 and A549 addition to Human Non Cancer Fibroblast Cell Line (MRC-5). Pleurotin of P. ostreatus (P.11) grown in galactose induced the significant highest

This research is devoted to investigating the thermal buckling analysis behaviour of laminated composite plates subjected to uniform and non-uniform temperature fields by applying an analytical model based on a refined plate theory (RPT) with five unknown independent variables. The theory accounts for the parabolic distribution of the transverse shear strains through the plate thickness and satisfies the zero-traction boundary condition on the surface without using shear correction factors; hence a shear correction factor is not required. The governing differential equations and associated boundary conditions are derived by using the virtual work principle and solved via Navier-type analytical procedure to obtain critica

This study was conducted to determine the fungal cause and bio control of damping off and root rot of wheat plants by using pseudomonas fluorescens under greenhouse and field conditions. Results showed isolation of eight species from the soil and roots to deferent region of Baghdad government. Rhizoctonia solani (Rs) and Fusarium solani (Fs) were the predominant damping off fungus with frequency 60 and 52% respectively. Led the using of bacteria formulations such as crud suspension , pure bacteria filtration and pure living cells in culture medium inhibit all type fungi with rates ranging from 84-96% , 80- 93% and 75-88% respectively. Rs and Fs were more pathogenesis under greenhouse conditions, with incidence of 80 and 68% and disease s

Objective: The antimicrobial efficacy of three disinfection solutions: 5.25% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), 2% chlorhexidine (CHX) and Listerine mouthwash were investigated as routine chair-side gutta-percha (GP) disinfection reagents. Design: four groups of gutta percha points were contaminated with E. faecalis bacteria then disinfected by immersion in different solutions (5.25% sodium hypochlorite, 2% chlorhexidine gluconate, Listerine mouth wash and distilled water as control) after 1 and 7 days culturing periods. The antibacterial efficacy of these disinfection solutions was evaluated by using colonies per units (CPU) Methods: Forty GP cones (F3 Dentsply) were sterilized with ethylene oxide gas before immersed contamination within broth m

Dam operation and management have become more complex recently because of the need for considering hydraulic structure sustainability and environmental protect on. An Earthfill dam that includes a powerhouse system is considered as a significant multipurpose hydraulic structure. Understanding the effects of running hydropower plant turbines on the dam body is one of the major safety concerns for earthfill dams. In this research, dynamic analysis of earthfill dam, integrated with a hydropower plant system containing six vertical Kaplan turbines (i.e., Haditha dam), is investigated. In the first stage of the study, ANSYS-CFX was used to represent one vertical Kaplan turbine unit by designing a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element (F