Background: Tobacco smoking and tuberculosis (TB) are two major public health problems; Associations between smoking and tuberculosis including death from tuberculosis have been reported , A reduction in smoking could be expected to have a significant impact on TB incidence and prevalence .
Objectives: to assess the effect of smoking on tuberculosis.
Methods: This study was conducted from June 2011 to June 2012 in 200 patients, adult ( aged 17 years and more), newly diagnosed patients of pulmonary tuberculosis, at the chest and Respiratory Disease Specialized Center in Baghdad. Demographic data, presenting symptoms, data on smoking, and recurrence of disease were compared. Information on smoking status, tobacco smoking was collected from patients using a specialized questionnaire.
Smoking categories were grouped into ever for current / past smokers) and never.
Results: A total of 200 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, including 116 smokers and 84 non-smokers, were evaluated. The smokers were higher than non-smokers. Smokers were mostly male (p=0.001) there was statistically difference (P value = 0.05) for the duration of smoking, and for the number of cigarettes per day (p < 0.001). Regarding the symptoms of TB, there was statistically difference in occurrence of hemoptysis (P value 0.034) but there was no statistically difference between smokers and non-smokers in relapse rate.
Conclusion: We conclude that smoking may increase the risk of pulmonary TB in men. The risk increase with increasing the duration of smoking and the number of cigarettes smoked. Hemoptysis significantly different with regard to the patients’ smoking status.
The anatomic characteristics of the leaves of 22 taxa of Stachys L. representing seven of the currently recognized sections distributed in northern Iraq, were examined. The study did not found any variations in the characteristics of the stomata system of the leaves.Therewere variations with a good taxonomic value in other anatomic characteristics.Thevariations in characters of the mesophyll tissue in S.kurdica var.brevidens Bom ex Bhattacharjeewas bifacial but in S.kurdica var.kurdica Boiss. & Hohen.was unifacial .The study also found that the taxa S.benthamiana Bioss., S.lanigera (Bornm.) Rech.f. andS.kotscyi Bioss. with 3 vascular bundles in the middle vein while the taxa S.ballotiformis Vatke., S.megalodonta Hausskn. &Bornm.exP.H.Davis
... Show More
Global warming and environmental damage have become major problems. The production of Portland cement releases large quantities of gas, which cause pollution to the atmosphere. This problem can be solved via the use of sustainable materials, such as glass powder. This study investigates the effect of partial replacement of cement with sustainable glass powder at various percentages (0, 15, 20, and 25%) by weight of cement on some mechanical properties (compressive strength, flexural strength, absorption, and dry density) of Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) containing a percentage of Polypropylene fibers (PRPC) of 1% by weight. Furthermore, steam curing was performed for 5 hours at 90oC after hardening the sample directly. The RPC was
... Show More
(16)
In this work, 332 Al alloy was prepared and reinforced with (0.5% and 1%) nano-Al2O3 particles. The prepared unreinforced and reinforced 332 Al alloy with nano-Al2O3 were solution heat treated (T6) at 510 ̊C and aged at 225 ̊C with different times (1, 3, and 5 h). Hardness test was performed on all the prepared alloys. All prepared alloys were dry slided under different applied loads (5, 10, 15, and 20 N) against steel counterface surface using pin on disk apparatus. The results showed that refinement effect was observed after addition of nano-Al2O3 particles and a change in silicon morphology after performing the solution heat treatment. The results also showed that har
... Show More
(3)
Background: Polishing technique for acrylic resin material have great effect on properties of acrylic material and bacterial colonization such as staphylococcus aurous, which are responsible for many acrylic prosthetic infections such as the commonly ocular infections. Ineffective polishing technique could affect roughness and subsequently porosity of acrylic materials.So, a new effective method for polishing acrylic was used depending on the use of optiglaze coating material. So, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of optiglaze polishing on porosity of acrylic resin material and staphylococcus aurous activity in comparison to conventional polishing technique.
Materials and methods: Specimen(n=120) were prepared :20 spe
... Show More
(1)
The present research investigates joints welding of 304L austenitic stainless steel using metal inert gas (MIG) welding method. The research explores the effect of process parameters (arc voltage, wire feed rate, and electrode wire diameter) on the mechanical properties of stainless steel. The above variables are varied respectively with 18.5, 19, 19.5 V, 116, 127, 137 mm/s, and 0.8, 1, 1.2 mm, with E308L as a filler electrode. The design matrix of the experiments was determined using the design of experiment (DOE) program Minitab 17 based on the levels of input elements used. The Taguchi orthogonal matrix methodology (Taguchi) technique was used to develop some empirical analysis for the maximum tensile strength and proper surface
... Show More
(2)
(1)
(1)
loaded reinforced concrete circular short columns. An experimental investigation into the behavior
of 24 short reinforced concrete columns with and without steel fibers was carried out. The columns
had a circular section (200 mm diameter and 900 mm long). Test variables include concrete
strength, spacing of spiral reinforcement, and inclusion of steel fibers. The axial stress and axial
strains were obtained and used to evaluate the effects of the presence of steel fibers. It was found
that the addition of steel fibers slightly improves the load carrying capacity of the tested columns
whereas it significantly enhances the ductility of these specimens. Test results also indicated that for
the same confinement parameter
(1)
In order to study the effect of inoculation with mycorrhiza and fertilization with plant residues on the growth of plants, we used two factors: the first two levels of mycorrhiza inoculation, Glumus mossea (0 and 10 g.pot-1) and the second factor, four levels of plant residues (10 g.pot-1) celery plant residues, 10 g pot-1 mint residues, and 10 g pot-1 black bean seed residues. Mychorrizal treatment (10 g pot-1) increased the number of mycorrhiza spores and the infection percentage of mycorrhizal by 917.44% and 13088.23%, respectively; celery treatment (10 g.pot-1) increased the chlorophyll index in the leaves and height of the chard plant by 31.34% and 94.04%, respectively; and black seed treatment (10 g.pot-1) increased the percen
... Show More
Background: Reduction in bond strength when bonding was done immediately after intracoronal bleaching procedure has been recognized. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of antioxidants (10% sodium ascorbate (SA), 0.1M thiourea and7% sodium bicarbonate (SB)) on reversing bonding strength of composite resin to bleached dentin. Materials and method: Sixty upper 1st premolar teeth, were selected, the crowns of the teeth were embedded in acrylic resin blocks exposing a flat dentin from the buccal surface, then divided into 6 groups (10 samples each). Bleaching for the experimental groups was performed using 35% hydrogen peroxide bleaching gel (pola–office).Group A (Negative
... Show MoreCdSe alloy has been prepared successfully from its high purity elements. Thin films of this alloy with different thicknesses (300,700)nm have been grown on glass substrates at room temperature under very low pressure (10-5)Torr with rate of deposition (1.7)nm/sec by thermal evaporation technique, after that these thin films have been heat treated under low pressure (10-2)Torr at (473,673)K for one hour. X-ray patterns showed that both CdSe alloy and thin films are polycrystalline and have the hexagonal structure with preferential orientation in the [100] and [002] direction respectively. The optical measurements indicated that CdSe thin films have allowed direct optical energy band gap, and it increases from (1.77- 1.84) eV and from
... Show More