This study aims to use claystone beds exposed in the Injana Formation (Late Miocene) at Karbala-Najaf plateau, middle of Iraq for the manufacturing of perforated and ordinary bricks. The claystone samples were assessed as an alternative material of the recent sediments, which are preferred to remain as agricultural land. The claystones are sandy mud composing of 29.1 - 39.1% clay, 37.2 - 54.8% silt and 14.1-26.8% sand. They consist of kaolinite, illite, chlorite, palygorskite, and montmorillonite with a lot of quartz, calcite, dolomite, gypsum and feldspar. Claystone samples were characterized by linear shrinkage 0.01 - 0.1%, volume shrinkage 0.1 - 0.9%, bulk density 1.2 - 2.11gm/cm3 (1.68 g / cm3 average), and the efflorescence is

Background: Psoriasis is a common inflammatory condition worldwide, with an average prevalence ranging from 2% to 3%. However, the incidence of psoriasis varies among different ethnic groups and regions. Elevated leptin levels have been associated with increased cellular proliferation, including T-cells. Additionally, high leptin levels may stimulate the synthesis of proinflammatory cytokines such as ILـ6 and TNFـα. Objectives: To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on Leptin in obese psoriatic patients. Subjects and Methods: Thirty patients with psoriasis were included in This prospective cohort study to measure the levels of serum Leptin by using the ELISA technique, before and after receiving Apremilast. Result: The present work

This study is to evaluate plasma levels of several cytokines in preeclamptic pregnancies compared to those of healthy pregnancies. Ninety pregnant women with preeclampsia (37 mild & 53 severe) and thirty healthy pregnant women were enrolled in the study. Blood samples were taken and plasma levels of IL-8, IL-10, and IFN-? were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Preeclamptic women and their severe cases but not mild cases had significantly (P<0.05) increased levels of plasma IL-8, and IFN-? as compared with healthy pregnancies. By contrast, plasma levels of IL-10 was significantly (P<0.05) increased in healthy pregnant women as compared to all groups of preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is associated with an imbalance betwe

This research aims to provide insight into the Spatial Autoregressive Quantile Regression model (SARQR), which is more general than the Spatial Autoregressive model (SAR) and Quantile Regression model (QR) by integrating aspects of both. Since Bayesian approaches may produce reliable estimates of parameter and overcome the problems that standard estimating techniques, hence, in this model (SARQR), they were used to estimate the parameters. Bayesian inference was carried out using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques. Several criteria were used in comparison, such as root mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and coefficient of determination (R^2). The application was devoted on dataset of poverty rates acro

This work aimed to produce PVA and PVA/Ag nanofibers ultra-high sensitivity photodetector by electrospinning. The electrospinning process was used to successfully prepare PVA nanofibers and a PVA-Ag nanofiber composite. FE-SEM, XRD, UV, I-V characterizations are used to study the morphological, structural, optical, and electrical properties of the material. In contrast, the PVA-Ag nanofiber composite film displayed a cubic structure with favored orientation (200) that indicated the presence of Ag NPs in the PVA-Ag nanofibers film. While the optical energy gap for PVA was 3.96 eV, it was only 2.14 eV for PVA-Ag nanofibers composite film, making this composite sensitive to visible light, particularly green light at 550 nm with a 65% photosens