The raw material soil of Al-Sowera factory quarry (quarry soil and mixture) used for building brick industry was tested mineralogically, geochemically and geotechnically. Mineral components of soil are characterized by Clay minerals (Palygoriskite and chlorite) and nonclay minerals like calcite, quratz, feldspar, gypsum and halite. The raw material is deficient in SiO2, Al2O3, K2O, Fe2O3 and MgO, while enriched in CaO. Loss on ignition and Na2O are in suitable level and appear to be concordant with the standard. Grain size analyses show that the decreasing sand and clay, and increasing silt ratio in both quarry soil and mixture caused decreasing in strength of brick during molding and after firing. The quarry soil is characterized by high p

In this research the results of applying Artificial Neural Networks with modified activation function to perform the online and offline identification of four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) manipulator robot will be described. The proposed model of identification strategy consists of a feed-forward neural network with a modified activation function that operates in parallel with the SCARA robot model. Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) which have been trained online and offline have been used, without requiring any previous knowledge about the system to be identified. The activation function that is used in the hidden layer in FFNN is a modified version of the wavelet function. This approach ha

Background: Preeclampsia (PE) is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, complicating 3-14% of all pregnancies. Although the etiology remains unknown, placental hypoperfusion and diffuse endothelial cell injury are considered to be the central pathological process; many endocrinological changes have been linked to the etiology of preeclampsia including parathyroid hormone and calcium level. Objective: to compare serum parathyroid hormone and total serum calcium levels in mild and severe preeclampsia versus normal pregnancy. Patients and methods: Serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) level and total serum calcium level were measured in thirty normotensive pregnant women and thirty women with mild preeclampsia and thi

Here we determined the structure of a cold active family IV esterase (EstN7) cloned from Bacillus cohnii strain N1. EstN7 is a dimer with a classical α/β hydrolase fold. It has an acidic surface that is thought to play a role in cold-adaption by retaining solvation under changed water solvent entropy at lower temperatures. The conformation of the functionally important cap region is significantly different to EstN7's closest relatives, forming a bridge-like structure with reduced helical content providing greater access to the active site through more than one substrate access tunnel. However, dynamics do not appear to play a major role in cold adaption. Molecular dyn

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess undergraduate student's practices and attitudes toward family violence in the University of Baghdad.

Methods: This was a descriptive study on non-probability (purposive) sample of 100 undergraduate students from different colleges at the University of Baghdad from November 15, 2022 to May 20, 2023. A validated questionnaire was prepared with 43 questions, which consisted of three parts: eight items related to students’ demographic data, 13 items related to students’ attitudes, and 22 items related to students’ practices.

A spectrophotometric method has been proposed for the determination of two drugs containing phenol group [phenylephrine hydrochloride (PHP) and salbutamol sulphate (SLB)] in pharmaceutical dosage forms. The method is based on the diazotization reaction of metoclopramide hydrochloride (MCP) and coupling of the diazotized reagent with drugs in alkaline medium to give intense orange colored product (?max at 470 nm for each of PHP and SLB). Variable parameters such as temperature, reaction time and concentration of the reactants have been analyzed and optimized. Under the proposed optimum condition, Beer’s law was obeyed in the concentration range of 1-32 and 1-14 ?g mL-1 for PHP and SLB, respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) and l

Leishmania parasites reproduce wherever there are cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system, almost in macrophages. These are most copious in the liver and spleen;therefore, infection leads to an expansion of both of them. This study determined the burden of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) infection on liver and spleen. A total of 20 mice were infected peritoneally with 2x107promastigotes of Leishmania donovani / ml and other 12 mice left without infection as a healthy control. The weight of whole body, liver and spleen were measured and the histological development using hematoxylin and eosin stains were determined after 15, 30, 45-and 60-days post infection. The results represent that the mean weights of liver and spleen were increased in inf