Background: Folic acid (vitamin B9) is one of the important vitamins that are necessary for growth and development of the embryo and preventing the occurrence of congenital malformations which are one of the important health problems in the developing countries and the world as it has a direct effect on the affected babies, their families and the community. It affects an estimated 3% of newborns worldwide.Periconceptional supplementation with folic acid (before conception and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy) was found to decrease many important types of these anomalies. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of periconceptional use of folic acid in pregnant women who are attending antenatal

In this study an experimental work was done to study the possibility of using aluminum rubbish material as a coagulant to remove the colloidal particles from oily wastewater by dissolving this rubbish in sodium hydroxide solution. The experiments were carried out on simulated oily wastewater that was prepared at different oil concentrations and hardness levels (50, 250, 500, and 1000) ppm oil for (2000, 2500, 3000, and 3500) ppm CaCo₃ respectively. The initial turbidity values were (203, 290, 770, and 1306) NTU, while the minimum values of turbidity that have been gained from the experiments in NTU units were (1.67, 1.95, 2.10, and 4.01) at best sodium aluminate dosages in milliliters (12, 20, 24, and 28) for

Purpose: The concept of complete street is one of the modern trends concerned with diversifying means of transportation and reducing the disadvantages of mechanical transportation modes. This paper discusses the role of complete streets can play in developing the urban environment in the Alyarmok District of Baghdad.   Method/design/approach: The linear regression method used to analyze the opinions of 100 respondents surveyed in the study area in order to find the relationship between the urban environment and the complete street elements.   Theoretical framework: The Modern trends in urban planning aim to find alternatives to the policies of traditional transportation planning that focus on vehicular mobi

Background: In the past, an association between Tuberculosis (TB) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM) was widely accepted, today the potential public health and clinical importance of this relationship seems to be largely ignored. The national clinical and policy guidance in the UK on the central of TB, for example, does not consider the relationship with DM.Objectives: To determine the risk of association between diabetes mellitus and pulmonary TB.Methods: A retrospective study conducted in Ibn Zuhr hospital for chest diseases from Jan 2008 – sep 2010 , included in the study 402 patients with TB divided into diabetic & non diabetic, 96 (23.8%) were diabetic while other 306 were TB not diabetic.Results: Risk of TB among DM patients were cle

Presentation of urinary calculus ranges from painful urination to acute retention. Diagnosed by x-ray pelvis and non-contrast CT and removal of stone by various methods is the management. Variety in symptoms, sometimes make clinical diagnosis difficult until radiological investigations confirm it. In this case presentation, initial diagnosis was made of Urethrocutaneous fistula may be due to distal stricture, but on investigating, he was diagnosed as urethral calculus in urethral diverticulum , as the reason for his symptoms

The paper proposes a methodology for predicting packet flow at the data plane in smart SDN based on the intelligent controller of spike neural networks(SNN). This methodology is applied to predict the subsequent step of the packet flow, consequently reducing the overcrowding that might happen. The centralized controller acts as a reactive controller for managing the clustering head process in the Software Defined Network data layer in the proposed model. The simulation results show the capability of Spike Neural Network controller in SDN control layer to improve the (QoS) in the whole network in terms of minimizing the packet loss ratio and increased the buffer utilization ratio.

Maintenance of  hospital buildings and its management are regarded as an important subject which needs attention because hospital buildings are service institutions which are very important to a society, requiring the search for the best procedure to develop maintenance in hospitals. The research is aimed to determine an equation to estimate the annual maintenance cost for public hospital. To achieve this aim, Al-Sader City Hospital maintenance system in Al-Najaf province has been studied with its main elements through survey of data, records and reports relating to maintenance during the years of the study 2008-2014 and to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat points in the current system through Swat analysi

Background: Worldwide gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer with poor prognosis. In early stages, it is hard to distinguish gastric cancer from benign gastric diseases, resulting in delayed diagnosis. There is a need to develop a biomarker for differentiating between gastric cancer and benign gastric diseases. Serum cholinesterase is synthesized in liver and released into plasma, and it has an important role in oncogenesis.

Objectives: To determine the correlation between serum cholinesterase activity and gastric cancer, in comparison to benign gastric diseases.

Subjects and Methods: A case control study carried out at Medical City Direct