Abstract- Asymptomatic or clinically silent kidney stones are possibly serious because, in their expected passage, they may cause infection, obstruction and renal impairment. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of silent kidney stones in a sample of Baghdad population and consider how this value could affect the justification for a screening system. To our best knowledge, this is the first study of its kind conducted in Iraq. We investigated 714 consecutive patients who sustained an abdominal ultrasound at our hospital with further kidney screening. All these patients did not have clinical signs and symptoms of nephrolithiasis. Age, sex, the indication for ultrasound, the size, side, and the number of the disco

Background: Globally, hepatitis B is one of the most common infectious diseases. Estimates indicate that at least 2 billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), with more than 378 million people being chronic carriers. Those individuals at higher risk for acquiring HBV and transmitting disease like pregnant women should be screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) to prevent transmission by vaccination and operation. Aim of study: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HBsAg and its associated parameters in pregnant women who referred to antenatal clinic in Baghdad Province. Methods: The 234 apparently healthy pregnant women and their families, husbands and children were se

Despite extensive investigations, an effective treatment for sepsis remains elusive and a better understanding of the inflammatory response to infection is required to identify potential new targets for therapy. In this study we have used RNAi technology to show, for the first time, that the inducible lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 2 (LPCAT2) plays a key role in macrophage inflammatory gene expression in response to stimulation with bacterial ligands. Using siRNA- or shRNA-mediated knockdown, we demonstrate that, in contrast to the constitutive LPCAT1, LPCAT2 is required for macrophage cytokine gene expression and release in response to TLR4 and TLR2 ligand stimulation but not for TLR-independent stimuli. In addition, cells transfe

Background:Wilson’s disease (WD) is an inherited
disorder of copper metabolism that is characterized
by tremendous variation in the clinical presentation.
Objective: To assess demographic distribution,
clinical presentations, diagnostic evaluation, and any
association between clinical presentations and other
studied variables of a sample of Iraqi patients with
WD.
Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study with
analytic elements was conducted during 2011, from
the 1st of February till the 10th of June. The sampling
method was a convenient non-random one, carried
out through consecutive pooling of registered WD
patients. A questionnaire-form paper had been
developed for the process of data col

Sludge worm samples were collected from the Tigers River sediment during the period from November 2018 to June 2019 in Al Sarafiya District/ Baghdad- Iraq. Biometric morphological measurements focusing on the form of penis sheath and chaetal morphology were used for species identification, in addition to molecular analysis by amplification of conserved 18s rRNA encoding gene using ITS1 and ITS4 universal primers.According to the morphological measurement records, the results revealed the existence of Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri Claparede 1862, L. claparedeianus Ratzel, 1868 and L. cervix Brinkhurst 1963. Other two groups of specimens, with short penis sheath, were identified by molecular technology as L

The genus Latrodectus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae: Theridiidae) is a worldwide distribute genus (Graudins et al., 2001), it includes a group of species commonly referred to as widow spiders. It's considered a taxonomically complex genus as the status of several forms had not been properly evaluated and specific boundaries are not well defined or understood (Levi, 1959; 1967; Garb et al., 2001), therefore, in multiple cases, populations has been uncritically referred to as different taxa. Discriminating between Latrodectus species using morphology has always been problematic (Levi, 1983), it is difficult taxonomically and readily separated from members of other Theridiid genera (Mirshamsi, 2005). The Genus Asagena Sundevall, 1833 was revalidat

In this study , the effect of an organic compound prepared as derivative of oxazepine tested on the activities of aspartate amino trasferase (AST) and alanin amino transferase (ALT). The kinetic study of such enzymes is in the presence of oxazepine derivative.  The results revealed that the organic compound is a non competitive inhibitor for both enzymes.  The Km value for AST is 1.3 × 10-3 M and Vmax for the uninhibited is 200 U/mL and for the inhibited is 111.1 U/mL while Km value for ALT is 2.5 × 10-3 M and Vmax are 89.66 U/mL and 56.77 U/mL for the uninhibited and inhibited enzyme respectively.

Shadow removal is crucial for robot and machine vision as the accuracy of object detection is greatly influenced by the uncertainty and ambiguity of the visual scene. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for shadow detection and removal based on different shapes, orientations, and spatial extents of Gaussian equations. Here, the contrast information of the visual scene is utilized for shadow detection and removal through five consecutive processing stages. In the first stage, contrast filtering is performed to obtain the contrast information of the image. The second stage involves a normalization process that suppresses noise and generates a balanced intensity at a specific position compared to the neighboring intensit