COVID-19 is a unique viral infectious illness that causes a variety of symptoms and health hazards, particularly to the respiratory system and has been declared a worldwide pandemic. The disease is characterized by a cytokine release in severe conditions. Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a proinflammatory cytokine, mediates an important immunomodulatory process. Also, vitamin D was identified to have a role in the innate immunity of individuals. Our study was designed to find the role of IL-6 and vitamin D in COVID-19 patients, as well as, to see whether there is a link between vitamin D deficiency and cytokine syndrome development. The study included 90 COVID-19 patients and 30 control people from Baghdad, Iraq. The age of the participants was non-s

Hydroxide upon the chemical composition and dry matter(DM) and organic matter(OM) digestibility . Rice straw was treated with 4% sodium hydroxide using 30% of DM basis moisture, and incubated at 40 ºC for 40 days., DM digestibility (DMD) was significantly affected (P<0.01) by the treatment , where DMD increased The objective of this experiment was to study the effect of physical form (long ,chopped and ground ) and washing rice straw treated with sodium from 42.32 to 45.41% , OM digestibility (OMD) and total digestible nutrient (TDN) increased(P<0.05) from 47.38 and 49.33 to 49.67 and 52.83% ,respectively. While hemicellulose content increased (P<0.05 ) from 261.71 to 268.17 gm/kg DM ,and metabolizable energy (ME) from 7.11 to 7.48 MJ/

Heat treatment by solid solution method in the ?+? phase region was used at 970°C for Ti-5Al-2.5Fe alloy. The specimens cooled under different cooling media [water quenched (WQ), air cooled (AC) and furnace cooled (FC)], and subsequently aged at 550°C for 4 hours. Five specimens from each treatment were immersed in simulated body fluid SBF for a period of time (3 months). The dependence of corrosion rate on compositional variation in the phases resulted from various type of cooling rates are discussed based on immersion tests. The EDXA results show the precipitation of phosphate and calcium compounds on the alloy after 3 months of immersion in blood plasma solution forming a bone-like apatite, which enhanced the alloy biocompatibility ma

The consumption of fresh fruits has increased nowadays due to the lifestyle of the consumers. Maintaining the quality and nutritional value of cut fruits during storage is difficult compared to whole fruits. Deterioration of internal and external quality usually occurs in freshly harvested fruits. It is necessary to use different techniques to maintain the quality and increase the shelf life of the freshly cut product. This research studied the effect of treating apple slices with cold plasma once and with filtered water again on quality characteristics (hardness, moisture content, sugar content, carbohydrate content, and color) after being stored for five days. The best treatment was determined using two different pressures of the plasma j

In this research, a study is introduced on the effect of several environmental factors on the performance of an already constructed quality inspection system, which was designed using a transfer learning approach based on convolutional neural networks. The system comprised two sets of layers, transferred layers set from an already trained model (DenseNet121) and a custom classification layers set. It was designed to discriminate between damaged and undamaged helical gears according to the configuration of the gear regardless to its dimensions, and the model showed good performance discriminating between the two products at ideal conditions of high-resolution images. So, this study aimed at testing the system performance at poo

In this research, a study is introduced on the effect of several environmental factors on the performance of an already constructed quality inspection system, which was designed using a transfer learning approach based on convolutional neural networks. The system comprised two sets of layers, transferred layers set from an already trained model (DenseNet121) and a custom classification layers set. It was designed to discriminate between damaged and undamaged helical gears according to the configuration of the gear regardless to its dimensions, and the model showed good performance discriminating between the two products at ideal conditions of high-resolution images.

So, this study aimed at testing the system performance at poor s

This paper presents the effect of Cr doping on the optical and structural properties of TiO2 films synthesized by sol-gel and deposited by the dip- coating technique. The characteristics of pure and Cr-doped TiO2 were studied by absorption and X-ray diffraction measurement. The spectrum of UV absorption of TiO2 chromium concentrations indicates a red shift; therefore, the energy gap decreases with increased doping. The minimum value of energy gap (2.5 eV) is found at concentration of 4 %. XRD measurements show that the anatase phase is shown for all thin films. Surface morphology measurement by atomic force microscope (AFM) showed that the roughness of thin films decrease with doping and has a minimum value with 4 wt % doping ratio.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of fungi Gigaspora margarita and Glomus desriticola in stimulating the resistance of the capsicum annuum L. towards the chromium and lead after 60 days, planting and using the pots in the glass house. The highest concentration of chromium and lead in the root was found in the presence of the mycorrhizal mixture (194.93, 150.40) μg / g, respectively, compared to the lowest concentration (90.69, 79.37) μg / g respectively, while the highest concentration of chromium and lead in the shoot was found in the presence of the mycorrhizal mixture (94.63, 79.33) μg / g respectively, compared with the lowest concentration in the control treatment (72.58, 60.70) μg / g respectively. The results

An innovative desalination method called electrosorption or capacitive deionization (CDI) has significant benefits for wastewater treatment. This process is performed by using a carbon fiber electrode as a working electrode to remove hexavalent chromium ions from an aqueous solution. The pH, NaCl concentration, and cell voltage were optimized using the Box-Behnken experimental design (BDD) in response surface methodology (RSM) to study the effects and interactions of selected variables. To attain the relationship between the process variables and chromium removal, the experimental data were subjected to an analysis of variance and fitted with a quadratic model. The optimum conditions to remove Cr(VI) ions were: pH of 2, a cell voltage of 4.