Background Type two diabetes (T2DM) is characterized by insufficient insulin production and secretion. Additionally, the body develops insulin resistance which affects 90–95% of diabetics. Complex cytokines, receptors, genetic pathways, and the immune system are involved in T2DM. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is one of the inflammatory cytokines associated with Type 2 diabetes. Environmental and genetic variables, including genetic polymorphisms, can increase T2DM risk and its consequences. Single nucleotide gene polymorphisms (SNPs) are important risk factors for diabetes that can be used to find the disease early and treat it better. Objective This study aimed to determine the levels of IL-18 in the serum of Iraqi patients with Type 2 diabetes

All the stiffened and unstiffened elastic constants for lead germanate (Pb5Ge3O11) single
crystal have been measured from room temperature 298 K up to 513K by using ultrasonic
pulse superposition technique. The correction of piezoelectric stiffening has been used to
obtain the unstiffened elastic constants. Elastic moduli of lead germanate (C11, C33, C12, C13,
C44 and C66) decrease with the increase of temperature. C11, C33, C
12 and C13 suffered a dip at
transition temperature but they increase with the increase of temperature just above Curie
temperature between 453 and 473 K because of their positive temperature coefficients in this
range, and then decrease slightly (except C12 increases) in the

Crystalline silicon (c-Si) has low optical absorption due to its high surface reflection of incident light. Nanotexturing of c-Si which produces black silicon (b-Si) offers a promising solution. In this work, effect of H₂O₂ concentrations towards surface morphological and optical properties of b-Si fabricated by two-step silver-assisted wet chemical etching (Ag-based two-step MACE) for potential photovoltaic (PV) applications is presented. The method involves a 30 s deposition of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) in an aqueous solution of AgNO₃:HF (5:6) and an optimized etching in HF:H₂O₂:DI H₂O solution under 0.62 M, 1.85 M, 2.47 M, and 3.7 M concentrations of H₂O<

This study focuses on evaluating the suitability of three interpolation methods in terms of their accuracy at climate data for some provinces of south of Iraq. Two data sets of maximum and minimum temperature in February 2008 from nine meteorological stations located in the south of Iraq using three interpolation methods. ArcGIS is used to produce the spatially distributed temperature data by using IDW, ordinary kriging, and spline. Four statistical methods are applied to analyze the results obtained from three interpolation methods. These methods are RMSE, RMSE as a percentage of the mean, Model efficiency (E) and Bias, which showed that the ordinary krigingis the best for this data from other methods by the results that have b

Doppler broadening of the 511 keV positron annihilation ??? ? was used to estimate the concentration of defects ?? different deformation levels of pure alnminum samples. These samples were compressed at room temperature to 15, 22, 28, 38,40, and 75 % thickness reduction. The two-state ^sitron-trapping model has been employed. 'I he s and w lineshape parameters were measured using high-resolution gamma spectrometer with high pure germanium detector of 2.1 keV resolution at 1.33 MeV of 60Co. The change of defects concentration (Co) with the deformation level (e) is found to obey an empirical formula of the form Cd - A £ B where A and ? are positive constants that depend mainly on the deformation procedure and the temperature at which the def

  In this study , extraction of  irradiated high concentration hexavallent uranium from fission products ( high gamma radiation ) was carried out using multistages countercurrent continuous technique (mixer setller) , employing this technique requires a designing flow sheet that recover all the amounts of uranium and to minimize its losses in the nuclear waste streams. Due to the several parameters required to reach this design, SEPHIS program which is one of the famous code in this field were used to select the optimum conditions through many theoretical runs  , finally the experimental results give a good assurance in SEPHIS results and its optimum conditions. 

Liposomal amphotericin B (Amph B) has been used effectively to treat leishmaniosis, in spite of its high toxicity appeared in some patients. In our study, Amph B was administered in Leishmania donovani that infected BALB/c male mice using different concentrations to evaluate its efficacy challenge against infection as well as its effect in modulating immunity of the host. We observed that low doses with short duration of Amph B as a therapy regime significantly enhanced the induction of Th1 cytokine (INF-γ), but suppressed Th2 cytokine (IL-10) production. Groups of mice infected with L. donovani and treated with Amph B showed clearly increasing in INF-γ level and reduction in IL-10 level in concentration (3, 4, 5 mg/ml/kg) with best resul

In our article, three iterative methods are performed to solve the nonlinear differential equations that represent the straight and radial fins affected by thermal conductivity. The iterative methods are the Daftardar-Jafari method namely (DJM), Temimi-Ansari method namely (TAM) and Banach contraction method namely (BCM) to get the approximate solutions. For comparison purposes, the numerical solutions were further achieved by using the fourth Runge-Kutta (RK4) method, Euler method and previous analytical methods that available in the literature. Moreover, the convergence of the proposed methods was discussed and proved. In addition, the maximum error remainder values are also evaluated which indicates that the propo

4 Blood Res 2018;53:314-319. Received on August 11, 2018 Revised on August 30, 2018 Accepted on August 30, 2018 Background Iron overload is a risk factor affecting all patients with thalassemia intermedia (TI). We aimed to determine whether there is a relationship of serum ferritin (SF) and alanine ami- notransferase (ALT) with liver iron concentration (LIC) determined by R2 magnetic reso- nance imaging (R2-MRI), to estimate the most relevant degree of iron overload and best time to chelate in patients with TI. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 119 patients with TI (mean age years) were randomly se- lected and compared with 120 patients who had a diagnosis of thalassemia major (TM). Correlations of LIC, as determined by R2-MRI, with SF

Gas sensors based on titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocomposites are considered energy-saving devices that are utilized to find dangerous or harmful gases in an environment. The performance of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) gas sensors have been improved by spin-coating a TiO₂ and TiO₂:ZnO nanocomposite with varying concentrations (₉₀TiO₂:₁₀ZnO, ₇₀TiO₂:₃₀ZnO, and ₅₀TiO₂:₅₀ZnO). To correlate structural properties with gas-sensing behavior, structural and morphological characterization has been done using FESEM, XRD, and EDX.  Without any ZnO-specific crystalline phase, TiO₂