Background: Gallstone disease (GSD) is a significant global health burden with variable prevalence influenced by metabolic, genetic, and infectious factors. Increasing evidence suggests that Gram-positive bacteria, particularly Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus species, contribute to gallstone pathogenesis through enzymatic activity and biofilm formation. Objectives: To characterize Gram-positive bacteria within gallstones from Iraqi patients, evaluate their biofilm-forming capacity, and analyze the relationship between bacterial colonization, gallstone type, and cholesterol levels. Methods: A total of 100 gallstones were obtained from patients undergoing elective cholecystectomy between October 2024 and March 2025. Stones were

Abstract. Froth flotation is a solid-liquid separation technique that uses hydrophobicity as a driving force. Bacteria and other drinking water microorganisms tend to be hydrophobic and can be removed from water using this application. The biggest limitation against using froth flotation in the drinking water industry is the difficulty of producing froth without chemical frothers and holding bacteria in this froth without chemical collectors which deteriorate water taste and odor. Recently, researchers at the University of Sheffield described a method for producing froth using only water and compressed air. This has enabled froth flotation to be studied as an alternative to biocides for the removal of bacteria from drinking water. T

Background: Oral SCC is a complex malignancy where environmental factors, viral infections and genetic alterations most likely interact, and thus give rise to the malignant condition. The HSP70 play a direct role in apoptosis inhibition by aligning the improved integrity of a cell’s proteins with the improved chances of that particular cell’s survival.P21 gene produces p21 protein which is a potent cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor that plays a significant role in carcinogenesis. The aims of the study were to evaluate and compare the immun-histochemical expression of the HSP70 and cell cycle protein p21in NOM, OED, and OSCC. Correlate both marker expressions with each other. Materials and methods: Forty six formalin-fixed, par

The biomarker significance of three chemokines (CXCL8, CXCL10 and CXCL16) was evaluated in sera of 45 breast cancer (BC) and 28 benign breast lesion (BBL) patients, as well as 20 control women. Clinical stage and tumor expression of estrogen (ER), progesterone (PgR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) receptors were considered in this evaluation. The results demonstrated that CXCL8, CXCL10 and CXCL16 showed a significant increased median in BC and BBL patients compared to control (CXCL8: 47.3 and 25.7 vs. 15.0; CXCL10: 37.6 and 30.7 vs. 13.1; CXCL16; 27.9 and 25.2 vs. 19.2 pg/ml, respectively). The increased levels of CXCL8 and CXCL16 were more pronounced in triple-negative and HER-2 positive p

<span>One of the main difficulties facing the certified documents documentary archiving system is checking the stamps system, but, that stamps may be contains complex background and surrounded by unwanted data. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to isolate background and to remove noise that may be surrounded stamp. Our proposed method comprises of four phases, firstly, we apply k-means algorithm for clustering stamp image into a number of clusters and merged them using ISODATA algorithm. Secondly, we compute mean and standard deviation for each remaining cluster to isolate background cluster from stamp cluster. Thirdly, a region growing algorithm is applied to segment the image and then choosing the connected regi

No. Due to their apparently extreme optical to X-ray properties, Narrow Line Seyfert 1s (NLSy1s) have been considered a special class of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Here, we summarize observational results from different groups to conclude that none of the characteristics that are typically used to define the NLSy1s as a distinct group – from the, nowadays called, Broad Line Seyfert 1s (BLSy1s) – is unique, nor ubiquitous of these particular sources, but shared by the whole Type 1 AGN. Historically, the NLSy1s have been distinguished from the BLSy1s by the narrow width of the broad Hb emission line. The upper limit on the full width at half maximum of this line is 2000kms−1 for NLSy1s, while in BLSy1s it can be of several thousands

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to evaluate the information label of some local pickle products and estimate sodium benzoate therein. 85 samples of locally made pickles were collected from Baghdad city markets and randomly from five different areas in Baghdad it included (Al-Shula, Al-Bayaa, Al-Nahrawan, Al-Taji, and Abu Ghraib), which were divided into groups P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, respectively, according to those areas,  samples information label was scanned and compared with the Iraqi standard specification for the information card of packaged and canned food IQS 230, the results showed that 25.9% of the samples were devoid of the indication card informa

The precise classification of DNA sequences is pivotal in genomics, holding significant implications for personalized medicine. The stakes are particularly high when classifying key genetic markers such as BRAC, related to breast cancer susceptibility; BRAF, associated with various malignancies; and KRAS, a recognized oncogene. Conventional machine learning techniques often necessitate intricate feature engineering and may not capture the full spectrum of sequence dependencies. To ameliorate these limitations, this study employs an adapted UNet architecture, originally designed for biomedical image segmentation, to classify DNA sequences.The attention mechanism was also tested LONG WITH u-Net architecture to precisely classify DNA sequences

BACKGROUND: Sickle cell nephropathy, a heterogeneous group of renal abnormalities resulting from complex interactions of sickle cell disease (SCD)-related factors and non-SCD phenotype characteristics, is associated with an increased risk for morbidity and mortality. AIMS: The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of microalbuminuria (MA) among pediatric patients with SCD and to determine risk factors for MA among those patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A case–control study was carried out on 120 patients with SCD, 2–18 years old, registered at Basrah Center for Hereditary Blood Diseases, and 132 age-and sex-matched healthy children were included as a control group. Investigations included complete blood panel, blood urea, se