Ammi species belong to the family Umbellifereae that provide a host of bioactive compounds (mainly coumarins and flavonoids) of important biological activities, like prevention and treatment of heart and vascular disease and some types of cancer. Literature survey revealed that there was no study concerning Ammi flavonoids in Iraq. Ammi majus and Ammi visnaga, which are wildly grown in Iraq, were chosen for this study. This study concerned with extraction, identification, isolation, and purification of some biologically important flavonols quercetin and kaempferol from the fruits of Ammi majus and Ammi visnaga. Extraction of these flavonols was carried out using 85% methanol and 90% e

In recent years, infectious diseases are increasingly being encountered in clinical settings. Due to the development of antibiotic resistance and the outbreak of these diseases caused by resistant pathogenic bacteria, the pharmaceutical companies and the researchers are now searching for new unconventional antibacterial agents. Recently, in this field, the application of nanoparticles is an emerging area of nanoscience and nanotechnology. For this reason, nanotechnology has a great deal of attention from the scientific community and may provide solutions to technological and environmental challenges. A common feature that these nanoparticles exhibit their antimicrobial behavior against pathogenic bacteria. In this report, we evaluate

The present study was conducted to investigate the antimicrobial activity of the hot water and the hot ethanolic extracts of Thuja orientalis against some pathogenic microorganisms (Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Eschericha coli, Proteus mirrablis, Salmonilla typhi, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilus, Acinobacter, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Candida albicans). Results showed that both the water and alcoholic extracts of this plant exert marked inhibitory effect against all the bacterial isolates and yeast and at different ratio, and it was shown that ethanolic extract was more effective in microbial inhibition than the water extract. Maximum inhibition (16 mm) was recorded against Staphylococcus aur

Background: Many structural or functional abnormalities can impair the production of thyroid hormones and cause hypothyroidism.Objectives: to identify the main etiological causes of hypothyroidism among patients visiting Specialized Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology.Methods: This study was conducted in the Specialized Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology on 217 patients with proved hypothyroidism, from 2006 to 2008. Every patient was tested with thyroid function tests, Ultrasound examination, thyroid autoantibodies, fine needle aspiration, radiology of skull, isotopes scan, also checking adrenal and gonadal function. Results: Out of these 217 patients 120 patients have thyroiditis 33 patients had been undergone thyroidectomy. 39 pat

In this study, a fast block matching search algorithm based on blocks' descriptors and multilevel blocks filtering is introduced. The used descriptors are the mean and a set of centralized low order moments. Hierarchal filtering and MAE similarity measure were adopted to nominate the best similar blocks lay within the pool of neighbor blocks. As next step to blocks nomination the similarity of the mean and moments is used to classify the nominated blocks and put them in one of three sub-pools, each one represents certain nomination priority level (i.e., most, less & least level). The main reason of the introducing nomination and classification steps is a significant reduction in the number of matching instances of the pixels belong to the c

A high sensitivity, low power and low cost sensor has been developed for photoplethysmography (PPG) measurement. The PPG principle was applied to follow the dilatation and contraction of skin blood vessels during the cardiac cycle. A standard light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been used as a light emitter and detector, and in order to reduce the space, cost and power, the classical analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) replaced by the pulse-based signal conversion techniques. A general purpose microcontroller has been used for the implementation of measurement protocol. The proposed approach leads to better spectral sensitivity, increased resolution, reduction in cost, dimensions and power consumption. The basic sensing configuration prese

This study explains the effect of non-thermal (cold) plasma on wound of diabetic rats by (FE-DBD) system, 3cm probe diameter is used. The output power was ranged from (12-20) W. The effect of non-thermal plasma on wounds of a diabetic was observed with different exposure durations (20,30) sec., the plasma exposure duration decreases the sugar level in blood and the diameter of the wound. These results indicate the cold plasma can be used to enhance the insulin level (i.e., blood sugar) and wounds treatment.