Abstract- Asymptomatic or clinically silent kidney stones are possibly serious because, in their expected passage, they may cause infection, obstruction and renal impairment. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of silent kidney stones in a sample of Baghdad population and consider how this value could affect the justification for a screening system. To our best knowledge, this is the first study of its kind conducted in Iraq. We investigated 714 consecutive patients who sustained an abdominal ultrasound at our hospital with further kidney screening. All these patients did not have clinical signs and symptoms of nephrolithiasis. Age, sex, the indication for ultrasound, the size, side, and the number of the discovered stones were recorded. We observed silent kidney stones in 3.4% of patients. Males were stone carriers mostly. Stones were detected more in the left kidney than the right. Distinctly, multiple stones and stones of a large size were minimally seen. We conclude that the prevalence of clinically silent nephrolithiasis of 3.4% does not support a global screening. Yet, this screening may be justified in a limited pattern for those male subjects higher than 50 years, having a positive family history of renal stones, and their socioeconomic status is granted.
Polypyrrole/silver (PPy/Ag) nanocomposites was synthesized via a chemical oxidative method. The AFM analysis is performed to study the surface roughness, morphology and size distribution of the PPy particles and PPy-ag nanocomposites. The results indicated that as the concentration of Ag in the nanocomposite increases, the roughness also increases. The size of nanoparticles was also evaluated and found in the range of 15 nm to 125 nm. The PPy/Ag nanocomposites exhibited an effectiveness against Gram-negative Escherichia coli showing an inhibition zone of 4mm and displayed poor efficacy against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. Based on given adequate antibacterial characteristics of PPy/Ag nanocomposites, it can be identified as a pro
... Show MoreIn this study, a double frequency Q-switching Nd:YAG laser beam (1064 nm and λ= 532 nm, repetition rate 6 Hz and the pulse duration 10ns) have been used, to deposit TiO2 pure and nanocomposites thin films with noble metal (Ag) at various concentration ratios of (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt.%) on glass and p-Si wafer (111) substrates using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. Many growth parameters have been considered to specify the optimum condition, namely substrate temperature (300˚C), oxygen pressure (2.8×10-4 mbar), laser energy (700) mJ and the number of laser shots was 400 pulses with thickness of about 170 nm. The surface morphology of the thin films has been studied by using atomic force microscopes (AFM). The Root Mean Sq
... Show MoreIn this paper some chalcones (C1-C8) are prepared based on the reaction of one mole of substituted acetophenone with one mole of substituted benzaldehydes in the presence of (40%) sodium hydroxide as a base. Pyrazolines (P1–P8) are prepared from the reaction of chalcones (C1-C8) with hydrazine hydrate. Isoxazoline (I1-I8) is prepared from the reaction of chalcones (C1-C8) with hydroxyl amine hydrochloride in the presence of (10%) sodium hydroxide as a base. These compounds are characterized by using various physical and spectral methods. The compounds are screened for their in vitro antibacterial activity using gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. Several derivatives of pyrazolines and isoxazolines are produced well to moder
... Show MoreMorus alba, member of the Moraceae family, is a perennial tree utilized in folk medicine, preparing the modern drug, and considered the main food for silkworms. However, data on chemical content in the leaves is still limited; the main objective of this study is to detect the presence and determine the concentration of different polyphenolic constituents in the leaves of the Morus alba plant by reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and evaluate the cytotoxic effect of ethyl acetate extract of this plant on human breast cancer (AMJ-13) cell line. Phytochemical analysis of the Morus alba leaves ethyl acetate extract led to identifying and quantification of six polyphenolic constituents designated as phenolic a
... Show MoreThis work revealed the spherical aromaticity of some inorganic E4 cages and their protonated E4H+ ions (E=N, P, As, Sb, and Bi). For this purpose, we employed several evaluations like (0D-1D) nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS), multidimensional (2D-3D) off-nucleus isotropic shielding σiso(r), and natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis. The magnetic calculations involved gauge-including atomic orbitals (GIAO) with two density functionals B3LYP and WB97XD, and basis sets of Jorge-ATZP, 6-311+G(d,p), and Lanl2DZp. The Jorge-ATZP basis set showed the best consistency. Our findings disclosed non-classical aromatic characters in the above molecules, which decreased from N to Bi cages. Also, the results showed more aromaticity in E4 than E4H+
... Show MoreA Wearable Robotic Knee (WRK) is a mobile device designed to assist disabled individuals in moving freely in undefined environments without external support. An advanced controller is required to track the output trajectory of a WRK device in order to resolve uncertainties that are caused by modeling errors and external disturbances. During the performance of a task, disturbances are caused by changes in the external load and dynamic work conditions, such as by holding weights while performing the task. The aim of this study is to address these issues and enhance the performance of the output trajectory tracking goal using an adaptive robust controller based on the Radial Basis Function (RBF) Neural Network (NN) system and Hamilton
... Show MoreThe following dilution 5×10-1, 10-1, 10?2 , 10-3 gm/L for the indigenous isolate of Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria and the commercially isalate were used for experiments against the different stages of fig moth of E.cautella which exposed by filter paper method. The results showed that mortality of larval stages was increased with the increasing concentration of the biocide, in addition to increase in the mortality of the larval stages reached to the highest percentage in the third days of treatment of the larval stage in comparison with the first and second days of exposure. The results also showed that the sensitivity of larval stages was increased in first and second instars while reduced in the last instars .The high percentage
... Show MoreThe issue of penalized regression model has received considerable critical attention to variable selection. It plays an essential role in dealing with high dimensional data. Arctangent denoted by the Atan penalty has been used in both estimation and variable selection as an efficient method recently. However, the Atan penalty is very sensitive to outliers in response to variables or heavy-tailed error distribution. While the least absolute deviation is a good method to get robustness in regression estimation. The specific objective of this research is to propose a robust Atan estimator from combining these two ideas at once. Simulation experiments and real data applications show that the p
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