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 improvement in Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation when the received signals impinge on Active-Parasitic Antenna (APA) arrays will be studied in this work. An APA array consists of several active antennas; others are parasitic antennas. The responses to the received signals are measured at the loaded terminals of the active element. The terminals of the parasitic element are shorted. The effect of the received signals on the parasites, i.e., the induced short-circuit current, is mutually coupled to the active elements. Eigen decomposition of the covariance matrix of the measurements of the APA array generates a third subspace in addition to the traditional signal and noise subspaces generated by the all-active ante
... Show MoreLarge quantities of petroleum-contaminated soil are generated with increased global energy consumption and crude oil production. This theoretical study evaluates the treatment of 1 ton of petroleum-contaminated soil using seven methods: incineration, physical washing, chemical washing, thermal pyrolysis, Fenton-oxidation-pyrolysis, the biological treatment, and asphaltenes. Data were based on experimental results from the Nahran Bin Omar oil lake in Basra Governorate, Iraq, (2019–2021). The methods were compared by waste generation, treatment cost, and duration. Results indicate that using petroleum-contaminated soil as a raw material for asphalt manufacturing is most beneficial since it is sold as a raw material. Incineration is faster a
... Show MoreCryptographic applications demand much more of a pseudo-random-sequence
generator than do most other applications. Cryptographic randomness does not mean just
statistical randomness, although that is part of it. For a sequence to be cryptographically
secure pseudo-random, it must be unpredictable.
The random sequences should satisfy the basic randomness postulates; one of them is
the run postulate (sequences of the same bit). These sequences should have about the same
number of ones and zeros, about half the runs should be of length one, one quarter of length
two, one eighth of length three, and so on.The distribution of run lengths for zeros and ones
should be the same. These properties can be measured determinis
Facing the Iraqi economy, a number of economic challenges that threaten the future of Iraq and the security of economic, political and social, such as poverty, unemployment, inflation and the dilapidated infrastructure and rising production costs and administrative and financial corruption, environmental pollution, water problems and the deterioration of agricultural and industrial production, etc., and over the seriousness of these challenges, they are intertwined and overlapping and growing worse, without the corresponding adoption of state strategies that will develop appropriate solutions and appropriate to resolve those challenges because of concern the subject of security and terrorism, which requires the development of an
... Show MoreCare and attention to the structure in the sixties of the last century replaced the mark, and if the structure of Ms. pampered in research and studies, it has become the mark is also a spoiled lady .. But the relationship between the structure and the mark was not a break and break, but the relationship of integration, His themes are structural analysis, and these are intellectual themes that can not be surpassed in contemporary research, especially since semiotics have emerged from the linguistic inflection.
We have tried to distinguish between text and speech, which is a daunting task, as it seems that whenever the difference between them is clear and clear, we come back to wonder whether the text is the same discourse, and is
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify: 1-Designing a test to measure the movement compatibility of the eye and the leg for the students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Samarra University. 2-Codification (setting scores and standard levels) for the results of the motor compatibility test for the eye and the leg for students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Samarra University. The researchers reached the some following conclusions: 1-A test to measure the movement compatibility of the eye and the leg for the students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences. 2-There is a discrepancy in the standard levels of the research sample.
Abstract
Rayleigh distribution is one of the important distributions used for analysis life time data, and has applications in reliability study and physical interpretations. This paper introduces four different methods to estimate the scale parameter, and also estimate reliability function; these methods are Maximum Likelihood, and Bayes and Modified Bayes, and Minimax estimator under squared error loss function, for the scale and reliability function of the generalized Rayleigh distribution are obtained. The comparison is done through simulation procedure, t
... Show MoreAbstract
Multivariate GARCH Models take several forms , the most important DCC dynamic conditional correlation, and CCC constant conditional correlation , The Purpose of this research is the Comparison for both Models.Using three financial time series which is a series of daily Iraqi dinar exchange rate indollar, Global daily Oil price in dollar and Global daily gold price in dollarfor the period from 01/01/2014 till 01/01/2016, Where it has been transferred to the three time series returns to get the Stationarity, some tests were conducted including Ljung-Box , JarqueBera , Multivariate ARCH to Returns Series and Residuals Series for both models In Comparison
... Show MoreThe current paper proposes a new estimator for the linear regression model parameters under Big Data circumstances. From the diversity of Big Data variables comes many challenges that can be interesting to the researchers who try their best to find new and novel methods to estimate the parameters of linear regression model. Data has been collected by Central Statistical Organization IRAQ, and the child labor in Iraq has been chosen as data. Child labor is the most vital phenomena that both society and education are suffering from and it affects the future of our next generation. Two methods have been selected to estimate the parameter
... Show MoreUrban expansion and its environmental and safety effects are one of the critical information needed for future development planning, safety considerations and environmental management. This work used two methods to monitor urban expansion and it's environmental and safety effects, the first is based on Google Maps for the years 2002 and 2010, and the second was the usage of spatial videos for the year 2013. Although the usage of satellite images is critical to know and investigate the general situation and the total effects of the expansion on a large piece of area, but the Spatial videos do a very detailed fine scale investigation, site conditions regarding both environmental and safety cannot be easily distinguished fr
... Show More