Background: Practicing self-medication is common and a worrisome issue because of irrational drug use. This study aimed to evaluate self-medication knowledge and views among the final year pharmacy students in Iraq. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from December 2018 to January 2019. A pre-validated and self-administered questionnaire was recruited to survey pharmacy students at the University of Baghdad and Al-Rafedain University College. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20 (SPSS v. 20) software used to save and analyze the data. Results expressed as numbers and percentages. Results: A total of 344 students (response rate: 94.24%) with a mean age of 22.10 years included in this study. Most of them were female (61.60%). Self-medication was high in the past year (84.88%), and most of them (86.04%) got their medications from pharmacies. About (62.79%) of students used antibiotics as self-medication for a few days, although a significant number were aware of bacterial resistance. The main reasons to self-medicate were quick relief desired, convenience, and avoiding waiting at clinics. The reasons against it were a misdiagnosis, adverse effects' risk, and wrong medication use. Doctor visits sought necessary in cases of worsening symptoms, severe pain, and serious problems. Headache, cough, and diarrhea were the most frequent indications. Conclusion: The self-medication prevalence is high; the knowledge is moderate, and the views about the self-medication concept are generally appropriate.
A case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a signifcantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p]=0.009; corrected p [pc]=0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR]=0.49; 95% confdence interval [CI]=0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.08–0.81; p=0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.07–0.91; p=0.036), but the pc value was not signifcant (0.12 and 0.126, respec‑ tively). Serum IL35 levels showed signifcant difere
... Show MoreBackground: The gene encoding a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain 33 (ADAM33) is known to be associated with asthma in different ethnic groups. In Iraq, among the Arab ethnic background, this association has not yet been highlighted. Methods: One hundred and ninety-two asthmatics were examined; 118 males and 74 females (mean age 38.23 ± 9.13 years). The control group was 183; 110 males and the rest were females. The SNP of rs2280091 A/G (T1) was studied here to determine adam33 genotyping status using polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP). The level of total IgE was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: Significant differences (p = 0.004) in the frequencies of
... Show MoreSelf-criticism is that a person confronts himself with his mistakes in order to reform and develop them for the better, motivate them and inspire hope in them to push them forward and continue to give in this life. The Holy Qur’an teaches us, through the models it cited in its verses, that this is through repentance, a feeling of remorse, and a determination to leave mistakes, and quit disobedience and sins, etc., and all this is done through constructive criticism, and at the same time, one must realize his strengths. , in order to succeed in preserving it and employing it in the right path that pleases God, His Messenger, himself and his society. This has been explained through an introduction, two topics and a conclusion, and God is t
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a self organizing fuzzy controller as an enhancement level of the fuzzy controller. The adjustment mechanism provides explicit adaptation to tune and update the position of the output membership functions of the fuzzy controller. Simulation results show that this controller is capable of controlling a non-linear time varying system so that the performance of the system improves so as to reach the desired state in a less number of samples.
As COVID-19 pandemic continued to propagate, millions of lives are currently at risk especially elderly, people with chronic conditions and pregnant women. Iraq is one of the countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, in Iraq, there is a need for a self-assessment tool to be available in hand for people with COVID-19 concerns. Such a tool would guide people, after an automated assessment, to the right decision such as seeking medical advice, self-isolate, or testing for COVID-19. This study proposes an online COVID-19 self-assessment tool supported by the internet of medical things (IoMT) technology as a means to fight this pandemic and mitigate the burden on our nation
Self-driving automobiles are prominent in science and technology, which affect social and economic development. Deep learning (DL) is the most common area of study in artificial intelligence (AI). In recent years, deep learning-based solutions have been presented in the field of self-driving cars and have achieved outstanding results. Different studies investigated a variety of significant technologies for autonomous vehicles, including car navigation systems, path planning, environmental perception, as well as car control. End-to-end learning control directly converts sensory data into control commands in autonomous driving. This research aims to identify the most accurate pre-trained Deep Neural Network (DNN) for predicting the steerin
... Show MoreTransformers are a specific category of neural network design. Transformers often depend on extensive pre-training on a large scale and exhibit a notable degree of computational complexity. The disadvantage of using this method is a significant increase in computational complexity, which necessitates a significant commitment of time and computing resources in order to successfully work with these models. Transformer networks possess the desirable benefit of extracting distant characteristics effectively via their self-attention mechanism. In this paper, the Global Self-Attention Transformer module is applied to tackle these issues. The model is based on a segmentation problem called Brain-GS that works as a mechanism and encompasses
... Show MoreSelf-repairing technology based on micro-capsules is an efficient solution for repairing cracked cementitious composites. Self-repairing based on microcapsules begins with the occurrence of cracks and develops by releasing self-repairing factors in the cracks located in concrete. Based on previous comprehensive studies, this paper provides an overview of various repairing factors and investigative methodologies. There has recently been a lack of consensus on the most efficient criteria for assessing self-repairing based on microcapsules and the smart solutions for improving capsule survival ratios during mixing. The most commonly utilized self-repairing efficiency assessment indicators are mechanical resistance and durab
... Show MoreBackground: diabetes is a metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia that results in deficiency or absence of insulin production. The dental caries and gingivitis/periodontitis are widespread chronic diseases in diabetes. The aim of the present study was determined the salivary matrix metalloproteinase (MMP-8), Secretory Leukocyte Peptidase Inhibitor (SLPI) and oral health status among uncontrolled diabetic group in comparison with healthy control group. Materials and Methods: The total sample composed of 90 adults aged (18-35) years. Divided into 60 uncontrolled diabetic patients (HbA1c >7%) and 30 healthy control group. Unstimulated saliva was collected from each subject with type-I DM, BMI, duration of diabetes, HbA1c%, DMFT, gingi
... Show MoreSelf- curing is the potential of lightweight aggregate to absorption great amount of water thru mixing which prominently can moves to the paste during hydration process. Self- curing empowers a water to be distributes more evenly act out the cross section. Whereas, the external curing water is only able to penetrate several millimetres into concrete with low water cement ratio. Brick dust accumulates in the demolish site creates serious environmental contamination. This study investigates the effect of brick dust recovered from construction site on the Properties of mortar cured in three curing conditions. Mortar in this study produced using BD as cement additive with (2, 4, 6, and 8) % by weight of cement. BD was used a
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