BACKGROUND: Sickle cell nephropathy, a heterogeneous group of renal abnormalities resulting from complex interactions of sickle cell disease (SCD)-related factors and non-SCD phenotype characteristics, is associated with an increased risk for morbidity and mortality. AIMS: The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of microalbuminuria (MA) among pediatric patients with SCD and to determine risk factors for MA among those patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A case–control study was carried out on 120 patients with SCD, 2–18 years old, registered at Basrah Center for Hereditary Blood Diseases, and 132 age-and sex-matched healthy children were included as a control group. Investigations included complete blood panel, blood urea, se

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ACVD) is an inflammatory disease of the coronary arteries associated with atheroma formation, which can cause disability and often death. Periodontitis is ranked as the sixth most prevalent disease affecting humans affecting 740 million people worldwide. In the last few decades, researchers have focused on the effect of periodontal disease (PD) on cardiovascular disease. The aim of this review was to investigate the association between these two diseases. PD is a potential risk factor that may initiate the development, maturation, and instability of atheroma in the arteries. Two mechanisms were proposed to explain such association, either periodontal pathogens directly invade bloodstream or in

The study aimed to monitor the concept of reputation in the previous literature, its relationship to mental image and identity, and to reveal recent trends in its measurement Techniques.

    The study relied on a descriptive approach using library survey and comparative analysis, and the study reached following conclusions:

     Despite the beginning of the first signs of reputation In the fifties of the last century, however, Defining and standardizing the concept with clear and specific dimensions began in the 1990s and the beginning of the third millennium. The concept of reputation refers to the stakeholders’ overall evaluation of organizations, which reflects their perceptions of

The general crisis of research methods in the social sciences
Research methodology: philosophy and techniques, founded by philosophers and applied by scientists, and no accurate application of techniques except with a deep understanding of philosophy, as a prerequisite. This fact is almost completely absent from the Iraqi and Arab academic mentality. This constituted one of the dimensions of the double crisis - theoretical and applied - of research methods in the social sciences. As first, there is no philosophy of science, neither as an independent material nor as an introductory subject, but not even an oral confirmation. Secondly, the advancement of quantitative research methods are presented without a background philosophy, as sol

The applications of Multilevel Converter (MLC) are increased because of the huge demand for clean power; especially these types of converters are compatible with the renewable energy sources. In addition, these new types of converters have the capability of high voltage and high power operation. A Nine-level converter in three modes of implementation; Diode Clamped-MLC (DC-MLC), Capacitor Clamped-MLC (CC-MLC), and the Modular Structured-MLC (MS-MLC) are analyzed and simulated in this paper. Various types of Multicarrier Modulation Techniques (MMTs) (Level shifted (LS), and Phase shifted (PS)) are used for operating the proposed Nine level - MLCs. Matlab/Simulink environment is used for the simulation, extracting, and ana

The Electrocardiogram records the heart's electrical signals. It is a practice; a painless diagnostic procedure used to rapidly diagnose and monitor heart problems. The ECG is an easy, noninvasive method for diagnosing various common heart conditions. Due to its unique advantages that other humans do not share, in addition to the fact that the heart's electrical activity may be easily detected from the body's surface, security is another area of concern. On this basis, it has become apparent that there are essential steps of pre-processing to deal with data of an electrical nature, signals, and prepare them for use in Biometric systems. Since it depends on the structure and function of the heart, it can be utilized as a biometric attribute

Face Identification system is an active research area in these years. However, the accuracy and its dependency in real life systems are still questionable. Earlier research in face identification systems demonstrated that LBP based face recognition systems are preferred than others and give adequate accuracy. It is robust against illumination changes and considered as a high-speed algorithm. Performance metrics for such systems are calculated from time delay and accuracy. This paper introduces an improved face recognition system that is build using C++ programming language with the help of OpenCV library. Accuracy can be increased if a filter or combinations of filters are applied to the images. The accuracy increases from 95.5% (without ap