John Updike’s use of setting in his fiction has elicited different and even conflicting reactions from critics, varying from symbolic interpretations of setting to a sense of confusion at his use of time and place in his stories.  The present study is an attempt at examining John Updike’s treatment of binary settings in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) to reveal theme, characters’ motives and conflicts.  Analyzing Updike’s stories from a structuralist’s perspective reveals his employment of two different places and times in the individual stories as a means of reflecting the psychological state of the characters, as in “The Persistence of Desire”, or expressing conflicting views on social and political is

This study aims at creating an analogy between Quran text Contents as meanings that have representations as visional shapes within ornamental figures in Islamic architecture. The theoretical framework of the study deals with the concept of semantics and its parts, artistic contents of Quran texts, and ornamental figures in Islamic architecture. The study procedures included a population of (69) figures, (5) of them were chosen deliberately for analysis in accordance with a form that had been presented to a number of experts to ensure its validity. The study reached a number of conclusions, the most significant among them are: adopting natural denotation of direct reference in order to link the ornamental figure to the source it was taken

The concept of quality of auditing profession comes on top of the concerns of the international business community and international institutions particularly now following the impact of the several failures and financial hardships suffered by the major companies in the recent collapse of money markets in some countries of the world and fear of their recurrence in the future.An observer of the local and international rules and standards (or principles) finds that these include such implications have direct or indirect effects on the performance of the service of the accountant and auditor, which should upgrade their professional performance in these services to a high level of quality so as to be in line with the requirements, principles

Background: There is a clear debate about the role of bad oral habits (thumb-sucking and biting nails) and on oral health and the state of the dental caries, but there is no doubt that continuing these bad habits until advanced ages will lead to deep and difficult problems to solve. Objective: The purpose of study was to evaluate the effect of bad habits, include finger sucking and nail biting on dental caries among children aged from 6 to 10 years old. Subjects and methods: In Al-Hilla city, Iraq, a comparative study was conducted in which (200) primary school students aged between 6 to10 years old were involved. A questionnaire filled out by their parents was used to gather information related to the bad oral habit, and then all the stude

Fifty snails of Paropeas achatinaceum specimens were collected and classified from four areas in Baghdad-Iraq from the period between June and July, 2017. The snails were divided into two groups (each group contain 25 snails). Two environment conditions were used in this study. Natural environment considered as control and experimental environment contains Citrus sinensis (L.) roots as snail’s source food. The comparison result between snail weights in the nature and experimental environment was not significant (0.497, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.01209–0.02309). Also, the comparison between snail weights in the nature environment and the food mean weight was significant (0.014, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.00591-0.04109), while the

Introduction: Selenium is an essential trace element involved in different physiological functions of the human body. An inverse relationship between serum selenium levels and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia has been reported. cervical intraepithelial neoplasia is regarded as a potentially premalignant transformation of squamous cells of the cervix. Objectives: To evaluate the relationship between the serum level of selenium and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. Methods: A case-control study was conducted at Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Iraqi National Cancer Research Center in the University of Baghdad during the period from July 2021 to July 2022. A convenient sample of 100 women was enrolled in the current study and included

Abstract: Background: High percentage of diabetes patients complain from post extraction hemorrhage. Many types of hemostatic materials are used to stop bleeding after teeth extraction: diode lasers are good hemostatic agents owing to their highly absorption by hemoglobin therefore they are used in soft tissue procedures with relatively no effects on dental hard tissues due to their poorly absorption by water and hydroxyapatite. Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of diode laser to assist the clot formation after tooth extraction for type II diabetes patients with minimum temperature elevation to prevent periodontal destruction. Materials and methods: From 12 type II diabetes patients (7 males and 5 females wi

Cardiac toxicity can occur during the therapy with several cytotoxic drugs, including 5- Fluorouracil (5- FU). It is an antimetabolite that acts during the S phase of the cell cycle and is activated by thymidine phosphorylase into fluorodeoxyuridylate (5 fluoro 2'deoxyuridine 5'monophosphate, 5-FdUMP) that inhibits thymidylate synthase, thus preventing DNA synthesis that leads to imbalanced cell growth and ultimately cell death. It is still a widely used anticancer drug, since 1957. The present study aimed to evaluate the possible cardio-protective effects of ethanolic artichoke extract (Cynara scolymus L.) against 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) induced cardio-toxicity in rats by evaluating serum levels of Alanine aminotransferase, aspartate amin

Introduction and Aim: Cancers are a complex group of genetic illnesses that develop through multistep, mutagenic processes which can invade or spread throughout the body. Recent advances in cancer treatment involve oncolytic viruses to infect and destroy cancer cells. The Newcastle disease virus (NDV), an oncolytic virus has shown to have anti-cancer effects either directly by lysing cancer cells or indirectly by activating the immune system. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been widely used in studying the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses. This study aimed to study the anticancer effect of a recombinant rNDV-GFP clone on NCI-H727 lung carcinoma cell line in vitro.   Materials and Methods: The GFP gene was inserted t

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a growing health concern that usually appears during the second and third trimester stage of pregnancy and is characterized by carbohydrate intolerance of variable severity. The aim of the present study was to scrutinize the relationship between the G972R polymorphism of the insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) gene with GDM in the Iraqi female population. One hundred and twenty of blood samples taken from healthy women (control) and women with gestational diabetes mellitus in 3rd trimester stage of pregnancy, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and HbA1c% measured to diagnose GDM, lipid profile (cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, LDL, and VLDL), insulin concentration, insulin resistance and beta cell function to