The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge influence on human lives all around the world. The virus spread quickly and impacted millions of individuals, resulting in a large number of hospitalizations and fatalities. The pandemic has also impacted economics, education, and social connections, among other aspects of life. Coronavirus-generated Computed Tomography (CT) scans have Regions of Interest (ROIs). The use of a modified U-Net model structure to categorize the region of interest at the pixel level is a promising strategy that may increase the accuracy of detecting COVID-19-associated anomalies in CT images. The suggested method seeks to detect and isolate ROIs in CT scans that show the existence of ground-glass opacity, which is frequent in COVID-19 patients. This can assist healthcare practitioners in identifying and monitoring illness development, as well as making treatment decisions. Scale U-Net is a strong U-Net design modification that can increase the performance of semantic segmentation tasks. Our model, Normalized-UNet, uses batch normalization after each convolutional layer to decrease the internal covariate shift, which dramatically improves the network's learning efficiency.
Background: Age progression is regarded as a critical risk factor in morbidity and mortality because of a weakened immune system. Although various studies have dealt with electrolyte imbalance in COVID-19 patients, the outcomes of these studies were partially understood. Objective: The current study aims to determine some biochemical parameters in old Iraqi COVID-19 patients and highlight the outcomes according to the aging role in the development of COVID-19 by suggesting new mechanisms. Materials and methods: forty COVID-19 patients were enrolled in the current study and divided into two groups: Gm includes (20) men, and Gf includes (20) women. The parameters (Na+, K+, Cl-, LDH, and Hb ) were determined in sera of patients and c
... Show MoreOne of the most serious health disasters in recent memory is the COVID-19 epidemic. Several restriction rules have been forced to reduce the virus spreading. Masks that are properly fitted can help prevent the virus from spreading from the person wearing the mask to others. Masks alone will not protect against COVID-19; they must be used in conjunction with physical separation and avoidance of direct contact. The fast spread of this disease, as well as the growing usage of prevention methods, underscore the critical need for a shift in biometrics-based authentication schemes. Biometrics systems are affected differently depending on whether are used as one of the preventive techniques based on COVID-19 pandemic rules. This study provides an
... Show MoreCOVID-19 is a unique viral infectious illness that causes a variety of symptoms and health hazards, particularly to the respiratory system and has been declared a worldwide pandemic. The disease is characterized by a cytokine release in severe conditions. Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a proinflammatory cytokine, mediates an important immunomodulatory process. Also, vitamin D was identified to have a role in the innate immunity of individuals. Our study was designed to find the role of IL-6 and vitamin D in COVID-19 patients, as well as, to see whether there is a link between vitamin D deficiency and cytokine syndrome development. The study included 90 COVID-19 patients and 30 control people from Baghdad, Iraq. The age of the participants was non-s
... Show MoreBackground: COVID-19 has caused a considerable number of hospital admissions in China since December 2019. Many COVID-19 patients experience signs of acute respiratory distress syndrome, and some are even in danger of dying. Objective: to measure the serum levels of D-dimer, Neutrophil-Lymphocyte count ratio (NLR), and neopterin in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 in Baghdad, Iraq. And to determine the cut-off values (critical values) of these markers for the distinction between the severe patients diagnosed with COVID‐19 and the controls. Materials and methods: In this case-control study, we collect blood from 89 subjects, 45 were severe patients hospitalized in many Baghdad medical centers who were diagnosed with COVID
... Show MoreThe objective of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare providers (HCPs) at personal and professional levels.
This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. It was conducted using an electronic format survey through Qualtrics Survey Software in English. The target participants were HCPs working in any healthcare setting across Iraq. The survey was distributed via two professional Facebook groups between 7 April and 7 May 2020. The survey items were adopted with modifications from three previous studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Avia
Thrombosis is a common clinical feature associated with morbidity and mortality in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients. Cytokine storm in COVID-19 increases patients' systemic inflammation, which can cause multiple health consequences. In this work, we aimed to indicate the effect of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination on the modulation of monocyte chemoattractant protein-3 (MCP-3), matrix metalloproteinase 1 (MMP-1), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) levels, and other systemic inflammatory biomarkers that associates with COVID-19 severity in patients who suffers from thrombosis consequences. For this purpose, ninety people were collected from Ibn Al-Nafees Hospital and divided into three groups each of which contained 30 people, 15
... Show MoreNowadays, the use of natural bio-products in pharmaceuticals is gaining popularity as safe alternatives to chemicals and synthetic drugs. Algal products are offering a pure, healthy and sustainable choice for pharmaceutical applications. Algae are photosynthetic microorganisms that can survive in different environmental conditions. Algae have many outstanding properties that make them excellent candidate for use in therapeutics. Algae grow in fresh and marine waters and produce in their cells a wide range of biologically active chemical compounds. These bioactive compounds are offering a great source of highly economic bio-products. The prese
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CIGS nanoink has synthesized from molecular precursors of CuCl, InCl3, GaCl3 and Se metal heat up 240 °C for a half hour in N2-atmosphere to form CIGS nanoink, and then deposited onto substrates of soda-lime glass (SLG). This work focused on CIGS nanocrystals, indicates their synthesis and applications in photovoltaic devices (PVs) as an active light absorber layers. in this work, using spin-coating to deposit CIGS layers (75 mg/ml and 500 nm thickness), without selenization at high temperatures, were obtained up to 1.398 % power conversion efficiency (PCE) at AM 1.5 solar illumination. Structural formations of CIGS chalcopyrite structure were studied by using x ray diffraction XRD. The morphology and composition of CIGS were studied using
... Show MoreAbstract Objective: To identify correlation of elevated LDH & CRP levels with the outcomes of COVID-19. Methodology: The cross-sectional retrospective study consisted of 200 COVID-19 patients who presented at a private clinical in Baghdad, Iraq. It was carried out from February 2021 to February 2022. Data included age, gender and clinical presentation. Blood samples were taken for high sensitivity CRP and LDH in the serum. Results: Out of 200 patients, 50 were critical and 150 severe according to clinical features. LDH and CRP showed a significant increase (p=0.000) in critical patients. This group involved admission to the respiratory intensive care unit requiring mechanical ventilation than in patients with severe COVID-19 (760.5±6.3 vs.
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