Background: Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a common disease, and a major determinant of morbidity and mortality in all races. The pleiotropic effects of the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B ligand (RANKL) such as modulation of cell survival, mineralization and inflammation, make it an interesting candidate mediator in the progression and destabilization of atherosclerotic lesions.Objectives: This study was performed to investigate the role of RANKL in the pathogenesis of ACS.Methods: The levels of RANKL were measured by ELISA method in sera of 60 ACS patients, 31 patients with unstable angina (UA) and 29 patients with myocardial infarction (MI) in comparison with 20 apparently healthy controls.Results: Current data indicate

Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is an immunological disorder associated with chronic inflammatory process of several unspecific regions of gastrointestinal tract but frequently detected in the terminal Ilium and proximal colon or both. This disease frequently presented with various oral manifestations as a consequence of inflammatory process of the disease, nutritional deficiency or medications side effects. Several therapeutic approaches have been developed for CD management that are targeting the inflammatory process and directed at controlling the host immune response. Immunosuppressants such as Azathioprine and anti-TNF α agents as well as the combination of them have been widely used as an effective therapeutic modality with a bett

One of the main environmental problems which affect extensively the areas in the world is soil salinity. Traditional data collection methods are neither enough for considering this important environmental problem nor accurate for soil studies. Remote sensing data could overcome most of these problems. Although satellite images are commonly used for these studies, however there are still needs to find the best calibration between the data and real situations in each specified area. Landsat satellite (TM & ETM+) images have been analyzed to study soil pollution (Exacerbation of salinity in the soil without the use of abandoned agricultural for a long time) at west of Baghdad city of Iraqi country for the years 1990, 2001 & 2007. All of the th

Background: Soft Laser has been advantageous in medical applications and is widely used in clinical practice. It is applied because it doesn’t cause the significant thermal effects or tissue hurt when irradiated. The blood response to low power laser radiation provides information about processes of laser radiation interaction with live creatures. Objective: The aim of the current work was to evaluate the laser-induced changes of in vitro erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in patients with breast cancer by irradiating a human blood sample using a green laser and comparing its effects before and after irradiation with the same power density (100mW/c

This study included the estimation of growth rate, viability and morphological changes in different culture media (NNN, P-Y, RPMI- 1640, and Panmed). Promastigotes cultured in RPMI-1640 showed maximal growth rate after (2, 4, 6) days of cultivation (27.26 ± 0.05), (172.20 ± 0.1) and (343.81 ± 1.48) million parasites / ml for each day respectively, while P-Y media gave the highest mean of growth rat after (8 and 10) days of cultivation (307.16 ± 1.67) and (303.5 ± 4.96) million parasites / ml for each day respectively. P-Y medium showed the maximal percentage of viability after (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) days of cultivation (99.76 ± 0.5) %, (98.30 ± 0.17) %, (96.1 ± 0.1) %, (92.5 ± 0.52) % and (87.26 ± 0.05) % for each day respectively.

After restoration of Iraqi marshes during 2003, three locations were chosen, one in each main marsh (Um Al-Naaj site in Al-Hwaizeh marsh; Al-Nagarah site in Al-Hammar marsh and Al-Baghdadia site in Al-Chebaysh marsh) to determine the concentrations of nutrients (Nitrate, Nitrite, Phosphate and Silicate) in water seasonally for the period winter, spring, summer, and autumn at 2007. Five water replicates were collected from each site, seasonally. In the Lab., the samples were analyzed by colorimetric methods; the results showed that Um-Al-Naaj site has the highest nutrients level, while Al-Nagarah site has the lowest level. The statistical program t-test was applied at the significant levels (P-value < 0.01) and (P-value < 0.05) to know

Background: Human semen contains high concentrations of fructose, zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) in bound and ionic forms for Zn and Cu. The presence of abnormal levels of fructose and those trace elements may affect spermatogenesis with regard to production, maturation, motility and fertilizing capacity of the spermatozoa.Objective: To evaluate the levels of fructose, Zn and Cu in seminal plasma in different groups of male infertility and to correlate their concentrations with various sperm parameters.Methods: The concentrations of fructose, Zn and Cu were measured in 114 semen samples from normozoospermic, oligozoospermic, astheno-zoospermic, and azoospermic men using the electrothermal-atomic absorption spectrometry for Zn and Cu determinatio

In this work, monitoring of monthly variation (from May 2016 to October 2016) in the concentration of the metals (Co, Zn, Cd, Pb, Ni and Fe) from Al-Diwaniya city of Iraq. Investigation about the pollution with these metals was achieved from five selected sites locate in study area by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. The results showed a wide variation in the levels of heavy metals from site to site and from month to month. A total of 180 surface soil samples were analyzed to detecting the pollution with selected samples. The resultsshowed that the highest concentration with Ni was 6.290 mg kg-1 while the lowest concentration detected with Ni was 0.080 mg kg-1. The results of pollution index (enrichment factor, contamination factor, po