This study aims to evaluate the biocompatibility of a novel filler material intended to improve the longevity of polymer systems used in prosthetics in respect of cytotoxicity and skin irritation. RTV50F silicone elastomer incorporated with various percentages of hexagonal boron nitride (H-BN) (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1 wt%) have been tested. Silicone without H-BN was utilized as the control for comparison. The in vitro cytotoxicity test includes specimens (n=18) with 10 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness applied directly to the normal human fibroblast cell line (NHF) and incubated for 72 hours, then 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the cell viability. The skin irritati

Soil invertebrates community an important role as part of essential food chain and responsible for the decomposition in the soil, helps soil aeration , nutrients recycling and increase agricultural production by providing the essential elements necessary for photosynthesis and energy flow in ecosystems.The aim of the present study was to investigate the soil invertebrates community in one of the date palms plantation in Aljaderia district South of Baghdad, , and their relationships with some physical and chemical properties of the soil , as Five randomly distributed replicates of soil samples were collected monthly. Invertebrates samples were sorted from the soil with two methods, direct method to isolate large invertebrates and indirec

The aim of the present study is to study the meiobenthic invertebrate's community associated with the aquatic plant Ceratophyllum demersum in Al-Salamiyat irrigation canal / north Baghdad, with the chemical and physical parameters of the canal water, during the study period from September 2015 to May 2016. Two sites were chosen for sample collection, the first site (S1) at the beginning of the canal near it's connection with Tigris river, and the second site (S2) after 10 km from the first site. The chemico-physical analysis results revealed that the water temperature ranged from 10-30oC, and pH values ranged between 6.9-7.8, and the dissolved oxygen concentration and the BOD values from 7.2-9.2 mg/l, and 1.2-5.4 mg/l, respectively. The sal

Background/Aim: Endometrial abnormalities represent a diagnostic challenge due to overlapping imaging features with normal endometrium. Aim of this study was to assess accuracy of dynamic contrast-enhanced and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in evaluation of endometrial lesions in comparison with T2 and to assess local staging validity and degree of myometrial invasion in malignancy. Methods: Forty patients with abnormal vaginal bleeding or sonographic thickened endometrial were recruited. MRI examination of pelvis was per-formed using 1.5 T scanner with a pelvic array coil. Conventional T1-and T2, dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) sequences and diffusion-weighted image (DWI) were performed. Results: Mean age of pa

High performance self-consolidating concrete HP-SCC is one of the most complex types of concrete which have the capacity to consolidated under its own weight, have excellent homogeneity and high durability. This study aims to focus on the possibility of using industrial by-products like Silica fumes SF in the preparation of HP-SCC enhanced with discrete steel fibers (DSF) and monofilament polypropylene fibers (PPF). From experimental results, it was found that using DSF with volume fraction of 0.50 %; a highly improvements were gained in the mechanical properties of HP-SCC. The compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and elastic modulus improved about 65.7 %, 70.5 %, 41.7 % and 80.3 % at 28 days age, respectively