Introduction: Although it is discouraged, community pharmacy customers can obtain oral corticosteroids (OCSs) without prescriptions from some community pharmacies in Iraq. Medication abuse is defined as the use of medication for non-medical reasons. Objectives: The study aimed to determine demographics, beliefs, and perceptions associated with the abuse of oral corticosteroids for non-illness reasons among community pharmacy customers. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in fall 2018 in four provinces in Iraq. Customers of 19 community pharmacies asking for OCSs for themselves without a prescription were administered a paper survey. This study used the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to measure the relationship between the motivational factors and the abuse of OCSs. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationships between the use of OCSs for non-illness and six TRA factors: Normative belief, behavioral belief, evaluation of the behavior, motivation to comply, subjective norms and attitude toward behavior. Results: The study enrolled 141 participants (98 women and 43 men) taking asking for OCSs without prescription. Dexamethasone was the most commonly used OCSs (59.6%). Friends were the primary recommenders for corticosteroids abuse (28.4%). The main reasons for using OCSs were to increase appetite and gain weight (53.9 %). Approximately one-third (36.2 %) of the participants gained weight after using OCSs. The regression analysis of the TRA variables showed two factors were significantly related to the abuse of OCSs. Age had a significant inverse relationship with the abuse of OCSs and the "good appearance" belief had a significant positive association with OCS abuse. Conclusion: Some Iraqi community pharmacy customers use non-prescribed oral corticosteroids to increase appetite and gain weight. Improve body appearance represents the dominant incentive that urges people to use OCSs without prescription. Health officials and healthcare practitioners need to promote people's awareness about the risks of misusing OCSs through education programs and advertisements in public health settings, media, and social media. Article Type: Original Research
The aim of this study is for testing the applicability of Ramamoorthy and Murphy method for identification of predominant pore fluid type, in Middle Eastern carbonate reservoir, by analyzing the dynamic elastic properties derived from the sonic log. and involving the results of Souder, for testing the same method in chalk reservoir in the North Sea region. Mishrif formation in Garraf oilfield in southern Iraq was handled in this study, utilizing a slightly-deviated well data, these data include open-hole full-set logs, where, the sonic log composed of shear and compression modes, and geologic description to check the results. The Geolog software is used to make the conventional interpretation of porosity, lithology, and saturation. Also,
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify banking stress tests, which is one of the modern and important tools in managing banking risks by applying the equations of that tool to the sample. The banking sector considered one of the most vulnerable to sudden and rapid changes in an unstable economic environment, making it more vulnerable. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a special risk management section to reduce the banking risks of the banking business that negatively affect its performance.
The research concluded that there is a direct relationship between stress tests and risk management, as stress tests are an essential tool in risk management. They also considered a unified approach in managing bank risks that helps the bank to
... Show MoreDetecting and subtracting the Motion objects from backgrounds is one of the most important areas. The development of cameras and their widespread use in most areas of security, surveillance, and others made face this problem. The difficulty of this area is unstable in the classification of the pixels (foreground or background). This paper proposed a suggested background subtraction algorithm based on the histogram. The classification threshold is adaptively calculated according to many tests. The performance of the proposed algorithms was compared with state-of-the-art methods in complex dynamic scenes.
Inundation floodingmap aimedto find outearly warningsto avoidenvironmental damageandhumanin terms of theheight ofthe wave ofwater, speed time arrival, effects of inundation sideanddepth of the water/ distanceand reduce the impact of the flood wave after obtaining the process of collapse of the dam in the lower part of the river to the dam area. The study has been using a numerical model one-dimensional depends on the development of equations (Saint-Venant) so that parts of the river, any river channel main banks of the right and left treated as separate parts, that’s the difference in the characteristics of the hydraulic and engineering, along the line of the flow will take into account in each section of the sections and flow in the riv
... Show MoreThis research was designed to investigate the factors affecting the frequency of use of ride-hailing in a fast-growing metropolitan region in Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur. An intercept survey was used to conduct this study in three potential locations that were acknowledged by one of the most famous ride-hailing companies in Kuala Lumpur. This study used non-parametric and machine learning techniques to analyze the data, including the Pearson chi-square test and Bayesian Network. From 38 statements (input variables), the Pearson chi-square test identified 14 variables as the most important. These variables were used as predictors in developing a BN model that predicts the probability of weekly usage frequency of ride-hai
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The logistic regression model of the most important regression models a non-linear which aim getting estimators have a high of efficiency, taking character more advanced in the process of statistical analysis for being a models appropriate form of Binary Data.
Among the problems that appear as a result of the use of some statistical methods I
... Show MoreDue to the rapid advancement of technology and the technology of things, modern industries start to need a highprecision equipment and surface finishing, so many finishing processes began to develop. One of the modern processes is Magnetic Abrasive Finishing (MAF), which is a high-precision process for internal and external finishing under the influence of a magnetic field of abrasive particles. Boron Carbide (B4C) ceramics was tested by mixing it with iron (Fe) and produced abrasive particles to reduce the intensity of scraping on the surface, reduce the economic cost and achieve a high finishing addition to remove the edges at the same time. The material selected for the samples was mild steel (ASTM E415) under (Quantity of Abrasives, Mac
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Electrical magnate was designed and constructed, the optimum Magnetic flux and the effect of time on the physical properties of the alkaline (magnetic water) produced from the bottled drinking water [the total dissolved solids (TDS) or the electrical conductivity, and pH] were studied, to simulate ZamZam water in Mekka Saudi Arabia. Also, the efficiency of magnetic field from this designed electrical magnate in decreasing the TDS of sea water (of 1500 ppm NaCl Content), to convert it to water suitable for irrigation (TDS<1000 ppm) was investigated in this work.The results show that the magnetic flux from our designed electrical magnate in the range of (0.013- 0.08) Tesla and 30 minut
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