Background: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are said to be inherited in a multifactorial fashion, i.e. genetic-environmental interaction. Maternal nutritional deficiencies had long been reported to cause NTDs, especially folate deficiency during early pregnancy. More attention had been paid to the exact mechanism by which this deficiency state causes these defects in the developing embryo. The most significant of all researches was that connecting reduced folate and increased homocysteine level in maternal serum on one hand and the risk of developing a NTD baby on the other hand. Objectives : to determine the significance of homocysteine level in Iraqi mothers who gave birth to babies with NTDs as compared to normal controls. Patients, Materials

In this paper, a compact genetic algorithm (CGA) is enhanced by integrating its selection strategy with a steepest descent algorithm (SDA) as a local search method to give I-CGA-SDA. This system is an attempt to avoid the large CPU time and computational complexity of the standard genetic algorithm. Here, CGA dramatically reduces the number of bits required to store the population and has a faster convergence. Consequently, this integrated system is used to optimize the maximum likelihood function lnL(φ1, θ1) of the mixed model. Simulation results based on MSE were compared with those obtained from the SDA and showed that the hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) and I-CGA-SDA can give a good estimator of (φ1, θ1) for the ARMA(1,1) model. Anot

    A faunistic review of the genus Chaitophorus Koch, 1854, including four species in Iraq is given; the distribution data of each species and their hosts have been recorded. In this investigation the poplar leaf aphid Ch. populialbae (Boyer de Fonscolombe, 1841) is recorded here for the first time in Iraq on popular trees Populus euphratica Oliv. during the period from November 2016 to April 2017 in Baghdad province.

    A brief description for apterous viviparous female of this species is given; and a  key to the species of the genus Chaitophorus is constricted.

The pretreatment process can be considered one of the important processes in wastewater treatment, especially coagulation process to decrease the strength of many pollutants. This paper focused on using powdered date seeds as natural coagulant in addition to chemical coagulants (alum and ferric chloride) to find the optimum dosage of each coagulant that makes efficient removal of turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) from domestic wastewater as a pretreatment process, then finding the optimum combined dosages of date seeds with alum, date seeds with ferric chloride that make efficient removal for both pollutants. Concerning turbidity, the optimum dosage for date seeds, alum and ferric chloride were 40 mg/l (79%), 70

This research discusses application Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Geographical InformationSystem (GIS) models on water quality of Diyala River using Water Quality Index (WQI). Fourteen water parameterswere used for estimating WQI: pH, Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen, Orthophosphate, Nitrate, Calcium, Magnesium,Total Hardness, Sodium, Sulphate, Chloride, Total Dissolved Solids, Electrical Conductivity and Total Alkalinity.These parameters were provided from the Water Resources Ministryfrom seven stations along the river for the period2011 to 2016. The results of WQI analysis revealed that Diyala River is good to poor at the north of Diyala provincewhile it is poor to very polluted at the south of Baghdad City. The selected parameters wer

In this work, effects of using different evaporative cooling pads (ECPs) on the energetic and exergetic efficiency of a direct evaporative air cooler (DEAC) have been theoretically and experimentally investigated. Three types of ECPs were used, i.e., honeycomb cellulose cooler pad (HCCP), shading-cloth cooler pad (SCCP), and aspen wood wool cooler pad (AWWCP). For SCCP and AWWCP, a 3-cm pad thickness was used, while for the HCCP, three different values of pad thickness were used, i.e., 3, 5, and 7 cm. Tests were carried out using air velocities of 8, 14, and 19 m/s, measured at the DEAC outlet. Engineering equation solver (EES) used for performing the required calculations of the various parameters affecting the thermal performance of the D

The ground state proton, neutron, and matter density distributions and corresponding root-mean-square radii (rms) of the unstable neutron-rich
22C exotic nucleus are investigated by two-frequency shell model (TFSM) approach. The single-particle wave functions of harmonic-oscillator (HO)
potential are used with two oscillator parameters bcore and bhalo. According to this model, the core nucleons of 20C are assumed to move in the model
space of spsdpf. Shell model calculations are performed with (0+2)hw truncations using Warburton-Brown psd-shell (WBP) interaction. The outer (halo) two neutrons in 22C are assumed to move in HASP (H. Hasper) model space (2s1/2, 1d3/2, 2p3/2, and 1f7/2 orbits) using the HASP interaction. The halo st