Background. Body mass index (BMI) is a person's weight in kilograms (or pounds) divided by the square of height in meters (or feet). Obesity affects a wide spectrum of age groups, from the young to the elderly, and there are several eye diseases related to obesity like diabetic retinopathy, floppy eyelid syndrome, retinal vein occlusion, stroke-related vision loss, age-related macular degeneration, and possibly, refractive errors. Refractive errors (RE) are optical imperfections related to the focusing ability of the eye and are the main cause of visual impairment which may result in missed education and employment opportunities, lower productivity and impaired quality of life. Aim. The study aimed to find an association between body mass index (BMI) and refractive errors. Methodology. A cross-sectional study was designed to involve a representative sample of medical students in Al-Kindy College of medicine, from December 8, 2021 to January 10, 2022. Weight and height were measured. BMI was estimated, and their refractive error was assessed. Results. A total of 400 students participated in the study, of which 191 (47.8%) had refractive errors, whereas 209 (52.2%) were emmetropic. Thirty-seven point eight percent of the participants had BMI > 25. A significant relationship between refractive errors and all BMI groups was found (p < 0.025). Compared to normal weight group, overweight and obese groups, only the underweight group showed a significant relationship with refractive errors, p < 0.006. Conclusion. Myopia is associated with being underweight, hence the link between the two is statistically significant. The severity of this condition, however, is unaffected by body mass index. Myopia was not a concern among students with normal or high body mass index (BMI).
One of the most essential components of asphalt pavements is the filler. It serves two purposes. First, this fine-grained material (diameter less than 0.075 mm) improves the cohesiveness of aggregate with bitumen. Second, produce a dense mixture by filling the voids between the particles. Aluminum dross (AD), which is a by-product of aluminum re-melting, is formed all over the world. This material causes damage to humans and the environment; stockpiling AD in landfills is not the best solution. This research studies the possibility of replacing part of the conventional filler with aluminum dross. Three percent of dross was used, 10, 20, and 30% by filler weight. The MarshallMix design method was adopted to obtain the op
... Show MoreRheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, progressive, inflammatory autoimmune disease of unidentified etiology, associated with articular, extra-articular and systemic manifestation that require long-standing treatment. Taking patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication in consideration had been shown to be an essential factor that affects adherence of the patient in whom having positive beliefs is an essential for better adherence. The purpose of the current study was to measure beliefs about medicines among a sample of Iraqi patients with Rheumatoid arthritis and to determine possible association between this belief and some patient-certain factors. This study is a cross-sectional study carried out on 250 already diagnosed rheumatoid
... Show MoreUnderstanding, promoting, and teaching media literacy is an important societal challenge. STEM educators are increasingly looking to incorporate 21st century skills such as media literacy into core subject education. In this paper we investigate how undergraduate Computer Science (CS) students can learn media literacy as a by-product of collaborative video tutorial production. The paper presents a study of 34 third-year CS undergraduates who, as part of their learning, were each asked to produce three video tutorials on Raspberry Pi programming, using a collaborative video production tool for mobile phones (Bootlegger). We provide results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the production process and resulting video tutorials,
... Show MoreHomomorphic encryption became popular and powerful cryptographic primitive for various cloud computing applications. In the recent decades several developments has been made. Few schemes based on coding theory have been proposed but none of them support unlimited operations with security. We propose a modified Reed-Muller Code based symmetric key fully homomorphic encryption to improve its security by using message expansion technique. Message expansion with prepended random fixed length string provides one-to-many mapping between message and codeword, thus one-to many mapping between plaintext and ciphertext. The proposed scheme supports both (MOD 2) additive and multiplication operations unlimitedly. We make an effort to prove
... Show MoreLightweight concrete-filled tube (CFST) columns offer numerous benefits, such as reduced weight, enhanced resistance to buckling, improved structural performance, and the ability to endure cyclic loading. This study considered key research on the structural behavior of CFST columns, covering various topics, including lightweight concrete, methods of concrete placement within steel tubes, and CFST columns with and without shear connectors. The literature review reveals that while several researchers have explored the use of shear connectors as a load-transfer mechanism in CFST columns, there is no consensus on the design methodology for connector resistance. Shear connectors signifi
Background: Hypertension and osteoporosis are worldwide diseases with high prevalence; the study was done to estimate the correlation between hypertension and bone turnover in a sample of Iraqi postmenopausal women with hypertension and obesity. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on 99 hypertensive obese postmenopausal Iraqi women (65 hypertensive obese and 34 normotensive non obese). The serum calcium (Ca), phosphorus (Pi), and alka line phosphatase (ALP) levels were measured as a represen tative of bone markers. Results: The results demonstrated that serum alkaline phosphatase is significantly elevated in the case group compared to the controls. No significant changes were observed in the levels of Ca and
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