Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the new respiratory virus SARS-CoV2. It has a tropism in the lung tissues where excess target receptors exist. Periostin plays a role in subepithelial fibrosis associated with bronchial asthma. Since the Coronavirus's target is the human respiratory system, Periostin has been recently described as a valuable new biomarker in the diagnosis and evaluation of disease in patients with COVID-19 lung involvement. Objectives: To assess the level of Periostin in the serum of COVID-19 patients and to correlate its role in disease severity and prognosis. Subjects and Methods: Periostin serum levels were measured for 63 patients attending three main COVID

In this paper we use the Markov Switching model to investigate the link between the level of Iraqi inflation and its uncertainty; forth period 1980-2010 we measure inflation uncertainty as the variance of unanticipated  inflation. The results ensure there are a negative effect of inflation level on inflation uncertainty and  all so there are a positive effect of inflation uncertainty on inflation level.                                                   &nbsp

Drilling solutions can be considered as an intricate mixture comprising of number of chemical additives which aid specific needs such as controlling the rheological properties and reducing corrosion. Inhibitors are substances that are added in small concentrations to corrosive environment to decrease the corrosion. Their applications can be found in drilling equipments. The effect of adding Zinc Sulphate and Carboxymethyl Cellulose to study their influence on the corrosion of carbon steel in Bentonite mud has been evaluated using Weight Loss Technique. This study focuses on determining rheological properties and corrosion characteristics. Results show CMC and ZnSO₄ work as inhibitors when added to the Bentonite with inhibition

Dust storms are a common ecological occurrence in many world‘s countries, mainly in dry and semi-dry parts. Dust storms tremendously influence human health, the environment, the climate, and numerous social aspects. In this paper, spatial and temporal analysis, metrological triggers, and trajectory, dust exporting areas of a severe dust storm that occurred in Iraq on May 16, 2022, were investigated. The dust storm's backward trajectory was determined using HYSPLIT model, which is then compared with MODIS and Meteosat satellite images. The weather is then analyzed using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis model, and the approximate area of these sources was determined using Landsat 8 satellite image classification method. The results revealed

This study was conducted to estimate some heavy metals cadmium, lead, nickel and iron in 15 samples of Iraqi honey with 3 replicates for each sample which were collected from apiaries near potential contamination areas in five Iraqi governorates, including Baghdad, Karbala, Babylon, Diyala and Salah al-Din. The atomic absorption technique was used to estimate the concentrations of heavy metals, the results showed that there were significant differences at (P≤0.05) between the concentrations of these elements in the honey samples, the highest concentrations of cadmium 0.123 mg/kg were recorded in Baghdad, near the petrochemical production complex, lead 4.657 mg/kg and nickel 0.023 mg/kg in Babylon near the power plant, iron was

The present study explores numerically the energy storage and energy regeneration during Melting and Solidification processes in Phase Change Materials (PCM) used in Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) systems. Transient two-dimensional (2-D) conduction heat transfer equations with phase change have been solved utilizing the Explicit Finite Difference Method (FDM) and Grid Generation technique. A Fortran computer program was built to solve the problem. The study included four different Paraffin's. The effects of container geometrical shape, which included cylindrical and square sections of the same volume and heat transfer area, the container volume or mass of PCM, variation of mass flow rate of heat transfer fluid (HTF), and temp

The main problem of this research is the delay of implementation of the investment plan projects for the period (2013-2016) and the weakness of the staff ability in the ministries and they don’t have the sufficient experience to carry out the implementation process.

Therefore, the research aims to evaluate the implementation of programs and projects of the investment plan in a manner consistent with the objectives set for them without any wasteful of efforts, time and money. And then identify the problems and obstacles to determine the deviations of the implementation of the specific for each sector according to the criteria of evaluation and the form of cost, quality, time and implementation.<

This research aims to study the radiation concentration distribution of the old District of Najaf (Iraq), where 15 samples were taken from featured sites in the District, which represents archaeological, religious, and heritage sites. Track detector CR-39 was used to calculate the concentration of three different soil weights for each sample site after being exposed for a month. Geographical information systems (GIS) were used to distribute the radioactive concentration on the sites of the samples, where two interpolation methods, namely the inverse distance weight method (IDW) and the triangle irregular network method (NIT), to study the distribution of the radioactivity concentration. The study showed that the western part of the district