Breast cancer constitutes about one fourth of the registered cancer cases among the Iraqi population (1)
and it is the leading cause of death among Iraqi women (2)
. Each year more women are exposed to the vicious
ramifications of this disease which include death if left unmanaged or the negative sequels that they would
experience, cosmetically and psychologically, after exposure to radical mastectomy.
The World Health Organization (WHO) documented that early detection and screening, when coped
with adequate therapy, could offer a reduction in breast cancer mortality; displaying that the low survival rates
in less developed countries, including Iraq, is mainly attributed to the lack of early detection programs coupled
with inadequate diagnostic and treatment facilities (3)
. Although mammography machines, as main screening
tools for breast cancer, are available in the major hospitals in each province in Iraq, yet those are mainly used
for diagnostic purposes in patients who present with palpable breast lumps. Obviously, due to cost effective
measures, lack of resources and the economical challenges that Iraq is facing, it is not expected that the
authorities could provide mammography devices across every health care centre in the country to be used for
screening of all Iraqi women.
Accordingly, promoting other feasible tools could support in solving that dilemma. Clinical Breast
Examination (CBE) for women, by highly trained health care providers in Primary Health Care Centers, along
with diagnostic mammography in the major hospitals for referred cases, could offer cost effective approaches
for early detection of breast cancer in Iraq. The resources required to provide these services are within the
reach of all countries with limited resources
(4)
.
The issue of raising awareness on breast cancer and its early detection measures needs to be addressed.
Observations reported in Iraqi studies obviously reflect the the limited knowledge of the general population
about the disease, its preventive measures and their ignorance regarding the significance of CBE and early
medical consultation (5, 6)
. Public health awareness campaigns should be endorsed by policy makers to encourage every Iraqi women to look for abnormal signs and symptoms in their breasts and to seek medical
advice promptly.
Background: We aimed to investigate the accuracy of salivary matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-8 and -9, and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1 in diagnosing periodontitis and in distinguishing periodontitis stages (S)1 to S3. Methods: This study was a case–control study that included patients with periodontitis S1 to S3 and subjects with healthy periodontia (controls). Saliva was collected, and then, clinical parameters were recorded, including plaque index, bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level. Diagnosis was confirmed by assessing the alveolar bone level using radiography. Salivary biomarkers were assayed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: A total of 45 patients (15
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Shadow removal is crucial for robot and machine vision as the accuracy of object detection is greatly influenced by the uncertainty and ambiguity of the visual scene. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for shadow detection and removal based on different shapes, orientations, and spatial extents of Gaussian equations. Here, the contrast information of the visual scene is utilized for shadow detection and removal through five consecutive processing stages. In the first stage, contrast filtering is performed to obtain the contrast information of the image. The second stage involves a normalization process that suppresses noise and generates a balanced intensity at a specific position compared to the neighboring intensit
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(2)
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The research aims to characterize the strategic plan of the Educational Professional Development Center, to reveal the most important training needs for teachers from this center, to reveal the extent to which this center meets those needs, and to identify the differences between teacher responses about the degree of importance, availability of those needs according to variables of sex, specialization, and years of experience. This descriptive study adopted a questionnaire applied to (256) teachers in the K.S.A. The results of the study showed that all training needs ranged in the degree of importance from large to very large and that the most important were the skills associated with communicating with members of the learning community.
... Show MoreObjectives: To identify quality of life (QOL) in Myocardial Infarction (MI) patients, and to find out the
relationship between QOL in MI patients and demographic characteristics.
Methodology: A descriptive colTelation study which utilized an assessment approach. The study was carried out
from March 2007 through November 2007 in order to assess the quality of life for patients with myocardial
infarction. A purposive "non-probability" sample of (75) patients with myocardial infarction who were attending
to Baquba General Hospita`l through their visits to that hospital. A questionnaire was adapted and developed
from the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale (1998). The questionnaire was designed and
consisted
The experiment aimed to compare different methods of measuring the Feed pellet durability through the effect of pellet die speeds and the particle size (mill sieve holes diameter). Feed pellet durability was studied in four different ways: pellet direct measurement (%), pellet lengths (%), pellet water absorption (%), pellet durability by drop box device (%), pellet durability by air pressure device (%). Three pellet die speeds 280, 300, and 320 rpm, three mill sieve holes diameter 2, 4, and 6 mm, have been used. The results showed that increasing the pellet die speeds from 280 to 300 then to 320 rpm led to a significant decrease in the feed pellet durability by direct measurement, drop box device, and air pressure device, while pel
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Ground state energies and other properties of 2S shell for some atoms as Be(Z=4), B(Z=5), C(Z=6) and N(Z=7) were calculated by using Hartree-Fock wave function. We found the values of potential energies in hartree unit (3.8369, 6.78565, 10.18852 and 14.41089) respectively and the other proprieties like expectation values of the position < r1m > were in agreement with the published results. All the studied atomic properties were normalized.
(3)