AbstractBACKGROUND: Some cases of vitiligo require melanocyte transplantation, but these surgical techniques have varying degrees of success. OBJECTIVES: To perform melanocytes transplantion in patients with vitiligo using a new needling micrografting technique. PATIENTS and METHODS: This interventional case study took place at the Department of Dermatology and Venereology at Baghdad Teaching Hospital from December 2010 to September 2011. Twelve patients with vitiligo were included. A split-thickness skin graft was taken from the normal area and cut into micropieces ranging from 0.1 mm to 0.3 mm in diameter. The recipient area was anesthetized, and the micrografts were then implanted into the dermis using the needling technique. The number

  Foot and ankle movements are essential in various activities like walking, running, and balance, where the mechanics of these movements are affected by the muscles around the ankle joint [1,2]. In this study, the correlations between isometric ankle torque and muscle activity of the tibialis anterior (TA) and gastrocnemius (GAS) in the course of dorsiflexion and plantarflexion was investigated. Eight healthy participants were enrolled for the study, where the ankle torque and surface Electromyography (sEMG) of the main flexors were measured and analyzed. The results showed that ankle torque is higher in plantarflexion than dorsiflexion. In addition, the TA has greater muscle activity during dorsiflexion, while the GAS presents higher ac

After the fall of the Soviet Union, a number of Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet republics have witnessed political transition. However, Turkmenistan, as one of the former Soviet republics, succeeded to preserve the authoritarian nature of the former Soviet regime. This study seeks to answer a number of research questions, the most prominent of which are: How were the political elite in Turkmenistan able to preserve the legacy of the Soviet policy based on centralization of power and individual rule?. The study reaches a set of conclusions, the most important of which are:

1-The roots of the tyranny in Turkmenistan are du to internal and external structural factors. The most important of which are: the former Soviet policies of m

A new scheme of plasma-mediated thermal coupling has been implemented which yields the temporal distributions of the thermal flux which reaches the metal surface, from which the spatial and temporal temperature profiles can be calculated. The model has shown that the temperature of evaporating surface is determined by the balance between the absorbed power and the rate of energy loss due to evaporation. When the laser power intensity range is 107 to108 W/cm2 the temperature of vapor could increase beyond the critical temperature of plasma ignition, i.e. plasma will be ignited above the metal surface. The plasma density has been analyzed at different values of vapor temperature and pressure using Boltzmann’s code for calculation of elec