Background: Occult Hepatitis B virus infection (OBI) among blood donors is an important medical concern.
Objectives: This study was done to detect the presence of occult hepatitis B virus infections among blood donors with negative hepatitis B surface antigen and positive total anti-hepatitis B core antibodies in Hawler Major Blood Bank in Hawler city/Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Methods: A total number of 12,185 blood donors in Hawler Major Blood Bank were screened for HBsAg and total anti-HBcAb using ELISA technique, and then positive results were retested by confirmatory technique by Chemiluminescence assay. All HBsAg-/HBcAb+ were selected as the study group; HBV DNA was tested among HBsAg-/HBcAb+ by conventional PCR and Real time-

Background: In dentistry, dentist takes the advantages of soft lining materials due to the viscoelastic properties. The major problem is the adhesion of the soft liner with the denture base material. Materials and Methods: Heat cured of high impact acrylic resin specimens prepared with dimensions 75x13x13mm for shear bond strength test, soft lining material (Refit and Mollosil) with a 3-mm thickness and used to join each two acrylic blocks. Also four specimens with the same previous dimensions utilized for chemical and physical surface analysis. The specimens grouped as control (without plasma) and experiment (with oxygen plasma) treated high impact acrylic specimens. Results: Plasma treatment increased the shear bond strength for both Refi

A new design of manifold flow injection (FI) coupling with a merging zone technique was studied for sulfamethoxazole determination spectrophotometrically. The semiautomated FI method has many advantages such as being fast, simple, highly accurate, economical with high throughput . The suggested method based on the production of the orange- colored compound of SMZ with (NQS)1,2-Naphthoquinone-4-Sulphonic acid Sodium salt in alkaline media NaOH at λ_max 496nm.The linearity range of sulfamethoxazole was  3-100  μg. mL^-1, with (LOD) was 0.593 μg. mL^-1 and the RSD% is about 1.25 and the recovery is 100.73%. All various physical and chemical parameters that have an effect on the stability and development of

This study investigated a novel application of forward osmosis (FO) for oilfield produced water treatment from the East Baghdad oilfield affiliated to the Midland Oil Company (Iraq). FO is a part of a zero liquid discharge system that consists of oil skimming, coagulation/flocculation, forward osmosis, and crystallization. Treatment of oilfield produced water requires systems that use a sustainable driving force to treat high-ionic-strength wastewater and have the ability to separate a wide range of contaminants. The laboratory-scale system was used to evaluate the performance of a cellulose triacetate hollow fiber CTA-HF membrane for the FO process. In this work, sodium chloride solution was used as a feed solution (FS) with a concentratio

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between high blood pressure and
different variables, such as (weight, smoking, amount of salt and water taken daily, and number
of hours of natural sleep per person) for young people.
Methodology: The study was conducted on students at the student community of the Technical
Institute in Baquba and the University of Diyala during the period from September 2015
until June 2016. The patients ranged in age from 18-24 years. All data were collected through
a questionnaire that included the main reasons and periodic follow-up of the disease.
Results: The total number of samples was 450.The results showed that 33% of all samples
have high blood pressure. The rel

Background: Inflammation and more specifically inflammatory cytokines are determinant in the development of microvascular diabetic complications, including neuropathy, retinopathy and nephropathy.
Objective: The aim of present study is to evaluate the relationships between high sensitive C-reactive protein, microalbuminuria and risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Subjects and methods: the study involved (30) patients with type 1 diabetic mellitus compared to (30) healthy control. A fasting blood sample was drawn from all subjects after an overnight fasting to measure the biochemical parameters which including glycated hemoglobin, lipid profile, atherogenic index of plasma and high sensitive C-reactive protein concentration in

Background: Periodontitis (PD) is well-known chronic disease affecting the periodontal ligament and alveolar bone, Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint disease with compound reasons characterized by synovial inflammation, subchondral bone remodeling, also the formation of osteophytes, that cause cartilage degradation. Chronic periodontitis and osteoarthritis are considered widely prevalent diseases and related to tissue destruction due to chronic inflammation in general health and oral health. The aim of this study is todetermine the association of chronic periodontitis and osteoarthritits in patients by analysing tumor necrosis factor alpha TNFα and high sensitive c-reactive protein (hsCRP) in the serum. Materials and Method: A tot

The development of a reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography fluorescence method for the determination of the mycotoxins fumonisin B1 and fumonisin B2 by using silica-based monolithic column is described. The samples were first extracted using acetonitrile:water (50:50, v/v) and purified by using a C18 solid phase extraction-based clean-up column. Then, pre-column derivatization for the analyte using ortho-phthaldialdehyde in the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol was carried out. The developed method involved optimization of mobile phase composition using methanol and phosphate buffer, injection volume, temperature and flow rate. The liquid chromatographic separation was performed using a reversed phase Chromolith® RP-18e column

Reading is one of the essential components of the English language. Countries that use English as a second language (ESL) sometimes have difficulties in reading and comprehension. According to many researches, mother tongue has proved some interferences with learning a second language. This study investigated the results of reading difficulties of young second language learners in terms of accuracy, comprehension, and rate using the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability test. The study was carried out in one of the High Schools for Boys in Hyderabad, India and included Grade five, aged 10-12 years. In order to understand the reading difficulties of English as a second language, a qualitative approach was employed. Interview, reading tes