The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant global health issues, with the Omicron variant emerging in South Africa in November 2021. Apoptosis is a natural antiviral defense; however, in SARS-CoV-2 infection, it may paradoxically enhance viral replication, worsening the severity instead of eradicating it. This study aims to investigate viral infection by analyzing serum levels of caspase-7 and gene expression of P⁵³ during the severe and late stages of Omicron infection, as well as their correlation with severity, inflammatory biomarkers, and blood cell counts. A case-control study involved 124 participants aged 25-69, with 74 being SARS-CoV-2 patients and 50 healthy controls. The study found that patients

     Although Ginkgo biloba has been widely investigated for its therapeutic potential, its specific role in glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is poorly understood. This study aims to evaluate the effects Ginkgo biloba treatment on glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis compared to alendronate as a standard therapy. The study included 40 male rats, which were divided into five groups (n=8). Except for the control group, the other four groups were induced with osteoporosis by receiving orally 10 mg/kg body weight of glucocorticoid three times a week for four weeks. Group 3 was treated with alendronate 70mg/kg body weight, while the fourth and fifth groups were given Ginkgo biloba extract orally in two doses (28 and 56

     Medical image fusion is a crucial technique that has been extensively employed in clinical diagnosis and treatment planning, driven by rapid advances in imaging techniques. Though several methods have been introduced in the past for effective fusion of source modalities, there is still room to improve fusion accuracy. In this work, a novel method of image decomposition is introduced using the mean of ordered pixel values filter, and is applied for multi-scale decomposition of input images for fusion. Further, a weight computation mechanism based on singular values of the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) method is introduced to fuse coarse layers of source images, while the detail layers are fused at multiple levels with the he

     Antibiotics misused lead to the emergence of resistant isolates, making most drugs less effective. Therefore, several alternative antimicrobial compounds have been explored, such as essential oils from medicinal plants. Essential oils of two medicinal plants, Cupressus sempervirens and Eucalyptus, were used to evaluate their antibacterial effects with Ciprofloxacin against Staphylococcus aureus, as a Gram-positive bacterium, and Escherichia coli O157:H7, as a Gram-negative bacterium, that were obtained from an M.Sc. student in the biology department who isolated them from urinary tract infections. Identification of isolates was confirmed by some biochemical tests and

SQL injections are still one of the most significant threats to online applications.   It is hard to discover SQL injection attacks since SQL queries are always changing.   As these attacks become more complicated and happen more often, current methods of finding them that rely on keyword denial lists are becoming less successful.  To address this problem, we suggest a new model that turns text-based features into images.  This study introduces a Lightweight Deep Learning system for SQL Injection Attack Detection, designated as LWD-SQLIAS.  The system has three main steps: first, it uses NLP approaches to preprocess the dataset. Then, it uses a hybrid feature extractor that combines TF-IDF with the neural layers of VGG16 filters to

The rapid growth of renewable energy has become a cornerstone of the contemporary global energy landscape. Solar energy, with its vast potential, holds promise for meeting the escalating energy demands and expanding its prominence within the energy sector. This research aims to assess feasible locations for the establishment of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plants in Karbala Governorate, situated in central Iraq. In this research, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools and techniques were used within the framework of a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methodology. Data were collected from several reliable sources, including the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, the Iraqi Meteorological Organization, the Ministry of Planning

     Lipocalin-2 (LCN-2) is a glycoprotein that mediates inflammation and innate immunity, among other biological functions. The study aimed to evaluate LCN-2 levels in obese women, with and without hypothyroidism, to investigate the relationship between LCN-2 levels and BMI and thyroid hormones. Also, to explore the relevance of its level as a diagnostic parameter in these patients. The cross-sectional study involved 140 women aged 18-45 years, divided into four groups of 35: a healthy control (C) group, an obese (H1) group, a newly diagnosed hypothyroid (H2) group, and an obese hypothyroid (H3) group. The BMI, fasting blood glucose (FBG), HbA1c, thyroid hormones, lipid profiles, and LCN-2 levels were assessed for all participants.

     The unique properties of nanomaterials, coupled with significant progress in nanotechnology, have driven a growing need for their manufacture. Additionally, because manufacturing processes generally result in increased pollution and environmental damage, there is a growing trend toward natural sources. In this study, a safe, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive natural surfactant was used as a soft template to synthesize mesoporous γ-alumina nanoparticles (γ-MNP). The template was the extracted solution of leaves of Zyziphus spina Christi, a widely available local plant, and aluminum nitrate as a precursor. The prepared γ-MNP was characterizing by using different analysis methods: FTIR, XRD, SAXRD, SEM, EDX, and AFM. Sur

     The hydrochemical study of groundwater in the Nahrawan region involves interpreting the physical, chemical, and biological properties of 17 samples collected from 17 wells in October 2024. Groundwater samples are characterised as slightly alkaline, excessively mineralised, and brackish, except for W3, W4, W5, W7, and W8, which are salty waters. The results showed that the dominant groundwater is sodium sulfate, except for the sixth sample, which is sodium chloride type. To evaluate groundwater suitability for irrigation, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), soluble sodium percentage (Na%), pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), and electrical conductivity were measured. According to the results, groundwater sodium adsorption percentage val

This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for enhancing land suitability analysis for wind power plants using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. This study evaluates Maysan governorate in Iraq, concentrating on identifying sustainable strategies to enhance and promote renewable energy as a viable alternative to meet energy demands. The integrated methodology involving AHP and GIS encompasses several stages, including the structuring of the AHP hierarchy, the description of appraisal criteria, the execution of pairwise comparisons, and the preparation of criterion maps and land appropriateness maps. This approach was used to identify locations suitable for the installation of win

     Indonesian waters frequently experience pollution from oil spills, such as the incident in Karawang Waters in July 2019, when oil and gas leaked from the YYA-1 well on the Offshore North West Java Block, owned by PT. Pertamina Hulu Energi resulted in marine pollution. Spatial detection of oil spill distribution is necessary to analyze the characteristics, extent, and direction of oil spread. Detection was carried out using remote-sensing radar technology that can penetrate clouds, with the adaptive threshold method for faster, more efficient detection. Sentinel-1A imagery with VV and VH polarization was used on July 18, August 11, September 16, and October 10, 2019. The detection results indicated that the oil spill spread westw

Nanomedicine is been a breakthrough for years due to its high efficiency in bactericidal property, antioxidant and cancer therapeutics. Silver Nanoparticle (AgNPs) being the safest metal was utilized in this biosynthesis method to synthesize AgNPs utilizing Piaractus brachypomus skin mucus, a biomolecule abundant source for the conversion of nanoparticle. The converted nanoparticle was characterized using UV spectrometric analysis exhibit a peak at 410nm, FTIR and XRD found properties corresponds to AgNPs, FESEM-EDAX identified average size of AgNPs as 35.303±23.43nm, EDAX confirmed silver through secondary diffraction. The highest bactericidal zone was 16mm against Salmonella spp., and antifungal activity was evident

     Lakes and other water bodies change over time and are influenced by natural and anthropogenic processes during the hydrological cycle. One method for monitoring those factors is remote sensing, which collects digital information about objects or regions remotely and is useful for a wide range of tasks. It is a powerful reminder that data is focused on changes in the Earth’s surface, rather than being opposed to the traditional methods. Al-Habbaniya Lake, a vital reservoir west of Baghdad, mainly serves three functions: flood control, supplying ecosystem services, and irrigation. Recently, the lake’s surface area has significantly fallen due to drought, slow water flow in the Euphrates River, and delayed maintenance, influenc

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a significant independent risk factor for the development of valvular heart disease (VHD) in the aging population. The most prevalent valve diseases are aortic valve stenosis (AVD) and mitral valve regurgitation (MVD). Oxidative stress and inflammation undoubtedly play a role in both diseases. Arginase and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) have important roles in inflammatory responses and oxidative stress because they share the same substrate. This study included: 90 T2DM patients with and without VHD, subdivided into three equal groups: patients without VHD (T2DM group), AVD group, and MVD group.  Arginase, NOS activities, levels of Arg.1, nitric oxide (^•NO), peroxinterite, and oxidized protei

Translating Arabic dialects into modern standard Arabic is a difficult task due to the significant differences in grammar and vocabulary between them. Using neural machine translation approaches to translate Arabic dialects faces a significant challenge, which is the lack of parallel data. Unavailability of parallel data is a common problem in low-resource languages such as the Libyan dialect. To solve this problem, this paper presents a novel method to address this problem. This method uses both word replacement and fine-tuning techniques to build Libyan dialect-modern standard Arabic parallel data for neural machine translation. To build parallel data from monolingual modern standard Arabic sentences, it uses a word replacement to exch

     Diabetes mellitus is a complex metabolic disorder characterized by hyperglycemia. This study aimed to evaluate the protective effect of beta-aminobutyric acid (BABA) on streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes in male rats, by studying its impact on glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP(, glucagon-like peptide-1 )GLP-1(, signal peptide, CUB and EGF-Like domain-containing protein  1/2 (SCube1/2), and Resistin (RETN) pathways. Thirty adult male rats with diabetes mellitus were randomly assigned to six groups of five rats each, aged 6-8 weeks. Healthy with weights (140 to 160 grams), positive control treated with 2ml normal saline, negative control groups treated only with streptozotocin, groups treated w

     Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is an advanced myeloproliferative neoplasm with a poor prognosis, having an accelerated phase dominated by the uncontrolled expansion of myeloid tissue. In many organs, Specific immature myeloid blasts result from numerous hematopoiesis abnormalities. Using a sample from newly diagnosed chronic myeloid Leukaemia patients, this study aims to evaluate the value of UCA1 as an oncogene. Thirty Iraqi individuals with CML were gathered for blood samples; 28 cohorts were used as controls. Total RNA was extracted from the samples, and one-step RT-PCR (RT-PCR) was performed using the BRYT Green® Dye technique to measure the UCA1 expression level. Tested blood samples from both the control

     Hormones greatly influence women's health. A variety of factors can bring on women's hormonal imbalances. The understanding of the origins and diagnosis of female infertility has been viewed as being highly dependent on hormonal abnormalities. The current study was designed to monitor hormonal changes during ovarian stimulation in an assisted reproductive technology (ART) setting. A total of 84 samples were collected: 43 from infertile women and 41 from healthy controls. Participants were selected after clinical and laboratory evaluations confirmed their respective conditions. Patients and controls ranged in age from 15 to 45 years. The mean age was 27.60 ± 4.90 years for the patient group and 27.85 ± 4.90 years fo

     Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disorder causing cardiovascular illnesses, responsible for rising death rates worldwide. This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic potential of Pentraxin 3 (PTX3), Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2), and Kidney Injury Molecule-1 (KIM-1) biomarkers, alongside MARCO and APOE gene expression. In this study, 90 participants were enrolled, aged 20 to 75, including 60 AS patients divided into two groups: 30 pre-catheterization (Pre-Cath) and 30 post-catheterization (Post-Cath) patients, along with 30 healthy controls. Results indicated markedly increased levels of PTX3, Lp-PLA2, and KIM-1 in AS patients compared to controls.

     The aim of this work is to assess the potential of the cigarette butt waste as KOH-activated carbon (AC-CBW) in removing the tannins from the wastewater of the cigarette industry. The carbonized product was characterized using ATR-FTIR, SEM, SAA, and XRD. After the characterization, the tannin adsorption capacities of AC-CBW were evaluated for different conditions such as adsorbent mass and its contact time with solution, solution pH, and initial tannin concentration. The findings suggest that AC-CBW was amorphous, with a heterogeneous and rough surface topography and a surface area of 143.14 m².g^⁻1. The detection of hydroxyl (–OH) and carbonyl (C=O) functional groups at 3225 and 1690 cm^⁻1, respectiv

Alzheimer's disease is a Declining neurological illness that mainly affects memory, thinking, and behaviour, leading to Significant deterioration in intellectual functioning of independence in daily routine. It impacts about 55 million people around the globe, with the number expected to rise significantly as the global population ages, making it one of the biggest public health challenges in current time. This study used a multi-case design to develop and test a deep learning model for classifying Alzheimer's disease stages from MRI scans. Two different datasets were used, the first one was used for the training and the other one was used for the validation task. Both of them used about 15000 images for the training and testing. A combi

     Plant extracts are a rich source of active chemicals; they have lately been employed in environmentally friendly nanoparticle synthesis. In one step of environmentally friendly synthesis, it is crucial that the biomolecules present in plant extracts can transform metal ions into small particles.    The study aimed to investigated the influence of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) synthesized from an aqueous extract of Cordia myxa and Ceratophyllum demersum on the osmotic fragility of human red blood cells (RBCs). Blood samples were treated with extracts of these two plants (0.125, 0.25 mg/ml, 0.357, and 0.75 mg/ml), and an osmotic fragility assay was done. The results showed a significant (p < 0.05)

     This study aimed to evaluate Tenascin-c (TN-C) and thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) levels in patients with dyslipidemia concerning cardiovascular disease. Numerous studies have identified TN-C and TSP-1 as biomarkers of cardiovascular disease. The study included 45 dyslipidemia patients and 45 healthy controls. The results showed significantly higher levels of Tenascin-C -C and Thrombospondin-1 in patients compared to control group, with P<0.001. Additionally, mean levels of serum Ca, serum ionized Ca, and vitamin D3 were significantly decreased P<0.001 in patients compared to controls. Positive correlation was found between Tenascin-c and Thrombospondin -1 with cholesterol and LDL, r=0.532, r=0.600, respectively, with P<0.001

     The effect of obesity on the onset and spread of inflammatory pathways is tremendous. Gastric bypass surgery has continued to be a very effective measure to reduce morbid obesity. The main aim of this study was to determine the level of circulating tumour necrosis factor C -alpha (TNF-α) and C-reactive protein (CRP), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in the morbidly obese patients before and after surgery. Twenty-two participants were the cohort which was followed over a period of twelve months. The plasma levels of TNF-α, CRP, and IL-10, and body mass index, lipid profiles were measured; all parameters showed a steady decrease during the period of observation. One month after surgery, IL-10 levels significantly increased to 968.8 ±

     This work aims to synthesize ZnO NPs utilizing Rhazya stricta (Harmal Alrazi) aqueous leaf extract in a quick, easy, and environmentally friendly manner. The obtained ZnONPs were characterized using various analytical techniques, which included XRD, FESEM, EDX, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The XRD analysis confirmed the hexagonal crystal nature with an average crystallite size of 43.4nm. FESEM images indicated a semi-spherical shape with particle sizes ranging from 26.71 nm to 38.40 nm. A characteristic absorption peak was observed at 379 nm for UV-Vis spectra. The biosynthesized ZnO NPs were also investigated as antibacterial agents against Klebsiella Pneumoniae (k.pneumoniae) and Staphylococcus aureu

يتناول البحث دور التعليم الذكي في جمهورية الصين الشعبية بوصفه ركيزة استراتيجية لتحقيق التنمية البشرية وتمكين المرأة، وتحليل انعكاساته في تعزيز القوة الناعمة الصينية في البيئة الدولية. ينطلق البحث من فرضية مفادها أن نجاح الصين في توظيف التحول الرقمي داخل منظومتها التعليمية أحدث تحولاً نوعياً في بناء رأس المال البشري النسوي ومشاركتها في الابتكار والاقتصاد المعرفي وتحويل هذه المنجزات إلى مصدر للجذب والتأثي

study aims to examine education and the challenges of globalization in light of Corona pandemic. The examination involves surveying a randomly selected sample from the University of Baghdad’s professors, particularly from the colleges of Education for Women, Arts, and Sciences. The purpose of this examination is to learn about the dimensions of globalization, its effects on the educational process, and the importance of distance education during the spread of Corona virus quarantine. To achieve this, the researcher followed a descriptive and analytical approach by applying a questionnaire to a sample of 70 teachers who were randomly selected electronically. Results have shown that 78.6% emphasized the contribution of globalization

The current study was designed to reveal the impact of ultraviolet (UV) light on polysaccharide intercellular adhesion of the icaD gene expression and its relation to biofilm as virulence markers in Staphylococcus aureus. In total, 37 isolates of S. aureus were gathered from various bacterial infection sources, and 26 S. aureus isolates were definite to icaD gene using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique. Prior to and after exposure to UV light, RNAs from the isolates were extracted which had strong biofilm formation by crystal violet staining assay, and they were then exposed to quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR).  In vitro, the survival of isolates was evaluated after the exposition to several periods of the UV light power via c