BACKGROUND: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is considered a highly infectious and life threatening disease. OBJECTIVE: The present paper aims to evaluate various aspects of preventive measures and clinical management of the scheduled visits for orthodontic patients to the dental clinics during the outbreak of COVID-19, and to assess how orthodontists dealt with this challenge. METHODS: Orthodontists in private and public clinics were invited to fill a questionnaire that addressed infection control protocols and concerns about clinical management of patients in the clinics during the pandemic. Frequncies and percentages of the responses were obtained and compared using Chi-square tests. RESULTS: About 77% of those working in private clinics, a

Sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is an economically important vegetable crop. Wilt disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. capsici is a specific pathogen that affects the pepper. Four isolates of F. oxysporum f. sp. capsici Fo3, Fo6, Fo7 and Fo8 were obtained from diseased pepper plants that were collected from different pepper fields in Baghdad. Fo6 isolate that has high pathogenicity to pepper seeds, Trichoderma harzianum (Th) was tested in vitro against F. oxysporum f. sp. capsici showed a high inhibition rate for the isolate Fo6, the concentration of chelated iron Fe-EDDHA 0.5% reduced the radial growth of Fo6 whi

Background: Hypothyroidism is the most abundant thyroid disorder worldwide. For decades, levothyroxine was the main effective pharmacological treatment for hypothyroidism. A variety of factors can influence levothyroxine dose, such as genetic variations. Studying the impact of genetic polymorphisms on the administration of medications was risen remarkably. Different genetic variations were investigated that might affect levothyroxine dose requirements, especially the deiodinase enzymes.  Deiodinase type 2 genetic polymorphisms’ impact on levothyroxine dose was studied in different populations. Objective: To examine the association of the two single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)s of deiodinase type 2 (rs225013 and rs225014) and le

Classical cryptography systems exhibit major vulnerabilities because of the rapid development of quan tum computing algorithms and devices. These vulnerabilities were mitigated utilizing quantum key distribution (QKD), which is based on a quantum no-cloning algorithm that assures the safe generation and transmission of the encryption keys. A quantum computing platform, named Qiskit, was utilized by many recent researchers to analyze the security of several QKD protocols, such as BB84 and B92. In this paper, we demonstrate the simulation and implementation of a modified multistage QKD protocol by Qiskit. The simulation and implementation studies were based on the “local_qasm” simulator and the “FakeVigo” backend, respectively. T

This study was conducted to assess the hydrocarbon degradation abilities of Sphingomonas paucimobilis, Pentoae species, Staphylococcus aureus, and Enterobacter cloacae, which isolated from diesel contaminated soil samples. Single strains and mixed bacterial consortia have been investigated their ability to degrade 1.0 % (v/v) of diesel oil in Bushnell- Haas medium as sole.carbon.and.energy.source. At temperature 30^∘C, the individual.bacterial.isolates exhibited low growth and low degradation.than did the.mixed. bacterial.culture. After 28 days.of incubation the.combination.of four isolates degraded.an upper limit.of diesel  88.4%. This was. continued.by 85.1% by S. paucimobilis, 84 % by Pentoae sp., 79% by S.aureus, and

Membrane distillation (MD) is a hopeful desalination technique for brine (salty) water. In this research, Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) and  Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) will be used. The sample used is from Shat Al –Arab water (TDS=2430 mg/l). A polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) flat sheet membrane was used as a flat sheet form with a plate and frame cell. Several parameters were studied, such as; operation time, feed temperature, permeate temperature, feed flow rate. The results showed that with time, the flux decreases because of the accumulated fouling and scaling on the membrane surface. Feed temperature and feed flow rate had a positive effect on the permeate flux, while permeate temperatu