This paper reports a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as a biosensor. The FBGs were etched using a chemical agent,namely,hydrofluoric acid (HF). This implies the removal of some part of the cladding layer. Consequently, the evanescent field propagating out of the core will be closer to the environment and become more sensitive to the change in the surrounding. The proposed FBG sensor was utilized to detect toxic heavy metal ions aqueous medium namely, copper ions (Cu2+). Two FBG sensors were etched with 20 and 40 μm diameters and fabricated. The sensors were studied towards Cu2+ with different concentrations using wavelength shift as a result of the interaction between the evanescent field and copper ions. The FBG sensors showed

Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) were prepared with different diameters by sonoelectrodeposition technique using Electrodeposition process coupled with high-power ultrasound horn (Sonoelectrodeposition). The particle diameter of the CuNPs was adjusted by varying CuSO4 solution acidity (pH) and current density. The morphology and structure of the CuNPs were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It was found that the size of the produced copper nanoparticles ranged between 22 to 77 nm, where the diameter of CuNPs increases with reduction the solution acidity from 0.5 to 1.5 pH and increasing the current density of the deposition from 100 to 400 nm. Finally the produced CuNPs were pressed to fabricate disc

The covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world and has rendered a large proportion of the workforce as they are unable to commute to work. This has resulted in employees and employers seeking alternative work arrangements, including the software industry. Then comes the need for the global market and international presence of many companies to implement the global virtual teams (GVTs). GVTs members are gradually engaged in globalized business environments across space, time and organizational boundaries via information and communication technologies. Despite the advancement of technology, the project managers are still facing many challenges in communication. Hense, to become a successful project manager still a big challenge for them. This study

Background: Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is the
most common rheumatic cause of diffuse pain and
multiple regional musculoskeletal pain and disability.
Objective: is to assess the contribution of serum
lipoprotein (A) in the pathogenesis of FMS patients.
Methods: One hundred twenty two FMS patients
were compared with 60 healthy control individuals
who were age and sex matched. All FMS features and
criteria are applied for patients and controls; patients
with secondary FMS were excluded. Serum
Lipoprotein (A): [Lp(A)], body mass index (BMI), &
s.lipid profile were determined for both groups.
Results: There was a statistical significant difference
between patients &controls in serum lipoprotein

There is a real problem when adding micro elements to the soil as a result of fixation, sedimentation, washing or toxicity, and thus economic loss. The plant needs micro elements in very small quantities that do not burn the leaves or cause poisoning to plants, including iron, zinc and boron, as they are essential elements for growth and completing the plant's life cycle, and increase the plant's resistance to diseases and insects, activate enzymes, and form the chlorophyll molecule, in addition to their role in oxidation and reduction processes and vital processes. The use of fertilizers with their modern technology has made the process of activating seeds or foliar nutrition a matter of interest to researchers as a complementary process t

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to evaluate the capability of Glutamine (Gln) and its derivative chemicals as inhibitors for the anti-corrosive behavior of iron. The current work is devoted to scrutinizing reactivity descriptors (both local and global) of Gln, two states of neutral and protonated. Also, the change of Gln upon the incorporation into dipeptides was investigated. Since the number of reaction centers has increased, an enhancement in dipeptides’ inhibitory effect was observed. Thus, the adsorption of small-scale peptides and glutamine amino acids on Fe surfaces (1 1 1) was performed, and characteristics such as adsorption energies and the configuration with the highest stability and lowest energy were ca

Objective: The evaluation of serum osteocalcin (OSN) for Iraqi infertile patients to see the effect of osteocalcin insufficiency, which may lead to a decreased level of testosterone production in males that may cause infertility. Methods: Forty two newly diagnosed infertile males age range (24–47) years and thirty two apparently healthy males as controls age range (25–58) years. Serum levels of testosterone (TEST), stimulating follicle hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), prolactin (PROL), osteocalcin OSN, and fasting blood sugar (FBS) were performed in both patients and controls. Estimation of serum OSN by Immulite1000 auto-analyzer, TEST, FSH, LH, PROL, and FBS by Immulite2000 auto-analyzer. Results: Infertile patients

Heart sound is an electric signal affected by some factors during the signal's recording process, which adds unwanted information to the signal. Recently, many studies have been interested in noise removal and signal recovery problems. The first step in signal processing is noise removal; many filters are used and proposed for treating this problem. Here, the Hankel matrix is implemented from a given signal and tries to clean the signal by overcoming unwanted information from the Hankel matrix. The first step is detecting unwanted information by defining a binary operator. This operator is defined under some threshold. The unwanted information replaces by zero, and the wanted information keeping in the estimated matrix. The resulting matrix

Back ground: Chronic total occlusion (CTO) of coronary arteries remains one of the most challenging lesion subsets in interventional cardiology even with the development of medical devices and operator expertise. Successful revascularization results in improved in angina status ,increased exercise capacity and reduces the need for lat CABG surgery .
Objectives: This study sought to determine the overall procedural success rate of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for CTOs and to examine the relation between variables such as; patients’ characteristics, risk factors, lesion characteristics and procedural success rate.
Methods: In this study ,clinical and coronary angiography data of (80) patients with CTO who underwent PCI