Medicinal plants contain bioactive substances that are highly bioavailable in extracts or pure molecules, making them promising for therapeutic applications and precursors for chemo-pharmaceutical semi-synthesis. Harpagophytum procumbens (Devil’s Claw) is widely recognized as one of the most potent therapeutic herbs. This study aimed to extract seeds from H. procumbens using two types of solvents and to assess both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the extracts. The two extracts were evaluated for antibacterial and anti-biofilm activities using agar well diffusion assays against four bacterial isolates and two yeast isolates. Qualitative analysis identified the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, and terpenoids. The active components detected were: alkaloids (12.69%), flavonoids (3.25%), total phenolic compounds (24.58%), total terpenoids (8.55%), and total steroids (1.25% for methanolic and 4.55% for petroleum ether). Both methanolic and petroleum ether extracts exhibited antioxidant activities of approximately 85.33% and 74.19%, respectively, compared to ascorbic acid, which had an antioxidant effect of 67.99% at a concentration of 200 µg/ml. The extracts demonstrated a broad spectrum of activity against all tested bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes) and fungi (Candida albicans, C. tropicalis, C. parapsilosis). At a concentration of 1000 µg/ml, the seed extracts showed the highest bactericidal activity, with inhibition zones ranging from 10 to 22 mm. Moreover, both extracts exhibited greater anti-biofilm activity at 1000 µg/ml compared to lower concentrations. Our study found that seed extracts of H. procumbens possess significant antibacterial and antioxidant activities, particularly at a concentration of 1000 µg/ml.
In this study, the upgrading of Iraqi heavy crude oil was achieved utilizing the solvent deasphalting approach (SDA) and enhanced solvent deasphalting (e-SDA) by adding Nanosilica (NS). The NS was synthesized from local sand. The XRD result, referred to as the amorphous phase, has a wide peak at 2Θ= (22 - 23º) The inclusion of hydrogen-bonded silanol groups (Si–O–H) and siloxane groups (Si–O–Si) in the FTIR spectra. The SDA process was handled using n-pentane solvent at various solvent to oil ratios (SOR) (4-16/1ml/g), room and reflux temperature, and 0.5 h mixing time. In the e-SDA process, various fractions of the NS (1–7 wt.%) have been utilized with 61 nm particle size and 560.86 m²/g surface area in the presence of
... Show Moreboth strongly associated with vascular and metabolic complications. Endothelin-1 is a potent vasoconstrictor that plays a key role in vascular tone regulation and endothelial function. Objective: To evaluate serum Endothelin-1 levels, lipid profile parameters (total cholesterol, LDL-C, VLDL-C, HDL-C, triglycerides), and HbA1c in patients with type 2 diabetes and essential hypertension compared with healthy controls, in order to assess their association with vascular injury and metabolic risk. Methods: A case-control study was conducted in the Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, University of Baghdad. Between November 2024 and February 2025, a sample of patients were recruited from Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Ibn Al-Bi
... Show MoreBackground: Aggressive global pandemics such as COVID-19 can disrupt societies tragically, imposing a suspension to almost every field throughout the world; the orthodontic treatment and follow-up is no exemption. Objectives: To provide practical recommendations about resuming treatment for orthodontic patients during the “Return-to-Practice” phase and emphasize the validity of certain digital interceptive measures post global pandemics to minify the risk of infection spread. Materials and Methods: Sources of information pertaining to orthodontic/therapeutic implications during the COVID-19 pandemic were searched using electronic databases including COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19 2020), Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, M
... Show MoreSustainable development has recently gained significant attention in the field of water Quality (WQ), which is critical for a healthy lifestyle. Our work suggests an intelligent hybrid model for assessing water quality using a water portability dataset, which was used to evaluate the water quality. The dataset contains physical and chemical features such as pH, Organic Carbon, sulfate, etc. Based on the combination of a Decision Tree Algorithm (DTA) and fuzzy logic Approaches, the findings revealed that sulfate was the most important factor in the model, with an accuracy of 1.00, followed by pH with an accuracy of 0.9667, and solids and chloramines with an accuracy of 0.95. The other parameters achieved a similar accuracy of 0.9167, showing
... Show MoreThe present study investigated the use of pretreated fish bone (PTFB) as a new surface, natural waste and low-cost adsorbent for the adsorption of Methyl green (MG, as model toxic basic dye) from aqueous solutions. The functional groups and surface morphology of the untreated fish bone (FB) and pretreated fish bone were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS),respectively. The effect of operating parameters including contact time, pH, adsorbent dose, temperature, and inorganic salt was evaluated. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin adsorption isotherm models were studied and the results showed that the adsorption of basic dye followed Freundlich iso
... Show MoreSpecies of genus Chrotogonus (surface grasshoppers) are phytophagous and damaging to various economical important plants in their seedling stages. In order to know the biodiversity of surface grasshoppers, the detailed study has been conducted from four provinces of Pakistan. During this study, biodiversity, taxonomy, diagnosis, morphometric analysis, habitat, global distribution, and remarks of each species have been described. Total of 826 specimens were collected and sorted out into three species and three subspecies: C. (Chrotogonus) homalodemus homalodemus (Blanchard, 1836), C. (Chrotogonus) homalodemus (Blanchard, 1836), C. (Chrotogonus) trachypter
... Show MoreThis study synthesized zeolite 4A, and hierarchical composite structure consisting of zeolite 4A- carbon were successfully prepared. Hydrothermal method was used to grow a layer of zeolite 4A over porous carbon surfaces to enhance mass transfer and increase surface area of zeolite. The products then were used to remove radioactive cesium137Cs from liquid wastewater. Iraqi dates leaves midribs (DM) were used as locally available agricultural waste to prepare low- cost porous carbon, using carbonization method in tubular furnace at 900C for two hours. Hierarchical porous structures including zeolite are prepared by mechanically activating the carbon surface via Ultrasonicating nanoparticles suspension of ground zeolite type 4A.F
... Show MoreCoupling reaction of ( 4-amino antipyrene) with the (L- tyrosine ) gave the new azo ligand 2- ( 4- Antipyrene azo ) - tyrosine .Treatment of this ligand with metal ions (Mn(II) ,Co(II), Ni(II), and Cu(II) )in ethanolic medium in (1:2) (M:L) ratio yield a series of a neutral complexes of the general formula [M(L)2] . The prepared complexes were characterized using flame atomic absorption , FT.IR , UV-Vis spectroscopic and elemental microanalysis (C.H.N) as well as magnetic susceptibility and conductivity measurement
Beyond the immediate content of speech, the voice can provide rich information about a speaker's demographics, including age and gender. Estimating a speaker's age and gender offers a wide range of applications, spanning from voice forensic analysis to personalized advertising, healthcare monitoring, and human-computer interaction. However, pinpointing precise age remains intricate due to age ambiguity. Specifically, utterances from individuals at adjacent ages are frequently indistinguishable. Addressing this, we propose a novel, end-to-end approach that deploys Mozilla's Common Voice dataset to transform raw audio into high-quality feature representations using Wav2Vec2.0 embeddings. These are then channeled into our self-attentio
... Show More