Several adipokines are produced and secreted from adipose tissue, such as retinol binding protein-4, which triggers metabolic syndromes and insulin resistance. Retinol binding protein-4 transfers vitamin A or retinol in the blood. Higher levels of retinol binding protein-4 are interrelated with progress of metabolic disease, comprising obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study investigates the role of retinol-binding protein-4 levels in type 2 diabetic Iraqi patients with metabolic syndrome. Sixty type 2 diabetic patients aged 40–53 years were examined. Of these 30 patients has metabolic syndrome and 30 without metabolic syndrome. The patients sampled were from the National Diabetes Center/ Mustansiriyah University from February 2022 until the end of August 2022. All diabetic patients have been examined and diagnosed from specialist endocrinology. Also, 30 healthy individuals were selected as control group. Anthropometric and clinical characteristics for all participants were assessed. Serum retinol binding protein-4 concentration was considerably elevated in diabetic patients as paralleled to the control (3.00 ± 0.66 ρg/mL with metabolic syndrome and 2.42 ± 0.88 ρg/ mL without metabolic syndrome). It is observed that female patients with metabolic syndrome had higher concentrations of retinol binding protein-4 (RBP-4) as compared to the male patients. Serum retinol binding protein-4 is strongly correlated with metabolic syndrome. As such concentration of RBP-4 offers enhanced prognostic value over traditional practices, and may be used for early detection of MetS in public health services.
Introduction: Carrier-based gutta-percha is an effective method of root canal obturation creating a 3-dimensional filling; however, retrieval of the plastic carrier is relatively difficult, particularly with smaller sizes. The purpose of this study was to develop composite carriers consisting of polyethylene (PE), hydroxyapatite (HA), and strontium oxide (SrO) for carrier-based root canal obturation. Methods: Composite fibers of HA, PE, and SrO were fabricated in the shape of a carrier for delivering gutta-percha (GP) using a melt-extrusion process. The fibers were characterized using infrared spectroscopy and the thermal properties determined using differential scanning calorimetry. The elastic modulus and tensile strength tests were dete
... Show MoreIn this study, the effect of fire flame on the punching shear strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete flat plates was experimentally investigated using nine half-scale specimens with dimensions of 1500×1500 mm and a total thickness of 100 mm. The main investigated variables comprised the steel fiber volume fraction 0, 1, and 1.5% and the burning steady state temperature 500 and 600 °C. The specimens were divided into three groups, each group consists of three specimens. The specimens in the first group were tested with no fire effect to be the reference specimens, while the others of the second and third groups were tested after being exposed to fire-flame effect. The adopted characteristics of the fire test were; (one hour) b
... Show MoreIn this work, silicon nitride (Si3N4) thin films were deposited on metallic substrates (aluminium and titanium sheets) by the DC reactive sputtering technique using two different silicon targets (n-type and p-type Si wafers) as well as two Ar:N2 gas mixing ratios (50:50 and 70:30). The electrical conductivity of the metallic (aluminium and titanium) substrates was measured before and after the deposition of silicon nitride thin films on both surfaces of the substrates. The results obtained from this work showed that the deposited films, in general, reduced the electrical conductivity of the substrates, and the thin films prepared from n-type silicon targets using a 50:50 mixing ratio and deposited on both
... Show MoreThe duration of sunshine is one of the important indicators and one of the variables for measuring the amount of solar radiation collected in a particular area. Duration of solar brightness has been used to study atmospheric energy balance, sustainable development, ecosystem evolution and climate change. Predicting the average values of sunshine duration (SD) for Duhok city, Iraq on a daily basis using the approach of artificial neural network (ANN) is the focus of this paper. Many different ANN models with different input variables were used in the prediction processes. The daily average of the month, average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, cloud level and atmosp
... Show Morethere is a need to use the teardown Technique in a various fields and different motives and used often by economic units as a technique to help other techniques for example, used by some economic units for the analysis of other economic units of products in order to work on the development of products and look for opportunities to improve product quality and avoid product errors competitor or reduce its costs, in addition to the services provided by quality control is used ISO 17025 integration with unassembled analysis to adjust the quality of the product by comparing the pieces produced with designed models that are also the product as a whole compared with the original design
... Show MoreCu X Zn1-XO films with different x content have been prepared by
pulse laser deposition technique at room temperatures (RT) and
different annealing temperatures (373 and 473) K. The effect of x
content of Cu (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) wt.% on morphology and
electrical properties of CuXZn1-XO thin films have been studied.
AFM measurements showed that the average grain size values for
CuXZn1-xO thin films at RT and different annealing temperatures
(373, 473) K decreases, while the average Roughness values increase
with increasing x content. The D.C conductivity for all films
increases as the x content increase and decreases with increasing the
annealing temperatures. Hall measurements showed that there are
two