Visceral leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease on the rise in different regions of Iraq, especially in areas with poor hygiene and among refugee populations. The effectiveness of existing chemotherapy for leishmaniasis is constrained by its high toxicity, cost, and the development of drug resistance. The current research examined various concentrations (ranging from 125 to 1000 μM) of lupeol to evaluate its ability to boost the generation of nitric oxide, which has anti-leishmanial properties, in an ex-vivo macrophage model. Griess assay was used to detect the nitric oxide (NO) production in Leishmania donovani infected U937 cell-line macrophages along 24 and 48 hours post treated. The nitric oxide concentration was signifi

Introduction: Different surgical techniques used for closure of various oral defects. While each one of these techniques has its limitation; the buccal pad of fat used in last quarter of last century as pedicle or free graft in reconstruction of small to medium, congenital and acquired defects showed good potentials for success. The present study used the BPF as pedicled flap to reconstruct intra oral defects. The study aimed to evaluate of the success of buccal pad of fat pedicled flap in the reconstruction of intra oral defects. Outlining its indications, limitations and complications. Materials and Methods: The study included 19 patients (17 males and 2 females) with age range between (1- 70 years), all patients were treated with pedic

Various theories have been proposed since in last century to predict the first sighting of a new crescent moon. None of them uses the concept of machine and deep learning to process, interpret and simulate patterns hidden in databases. Many of these theories use interpolation and extrapolation techniques to identify sighting regions through such data. In this study, a pattern recognizer artificial neural network was trained to distinguish between visibility regions. Essential parameters of crescent moon sighting were collected from moon sight datasets and used to build an intelligent system of pattern recognition to predict the crescent sight conditions. The proposed ANN learned the datasets with an accuracy of more than 72% in comp

Humor is an interesting phenomenon that has been studied widely, yet it is considered a universal trait that cannot be an old subject for a study. This study is conducted to investigate humor from a universal pragmatic lens in a stand-up comedy show, namely, You Wanna Hear Something Crazy?. It aims to study humor as a coin with two sides, the production side and the understanding side. To achieve the aim of the study, the researchers use an eclectic contains Grice’s CP model (1975) and Habermas’s UP model (1979, 1984, 1987, 1998). The study has noted that while using the observance and the non-observance of the cooperative maxims to produce humor, the universal validity claims of truth, sincerity, and normative rightness for rea

A mathematical eco-epidemiological model consisting of harvested prey–predator system involving fear and disease in the prey population is formulated and studied. The prey population is supposed to be separated into two groups: susceptible and infected. The susceptible prey grows logistically, whereas the infected prey cannot reproduce and instead competes for the environment’s carrying capacity. Furthermore, the disease is transferred through contact from infected to susceptible individuals, and there is no inherited transmission. The existence, positivity, and boundedness of the model’s solution are discussed. The local stability analysis is carried out. The persistence requirements are established. The global behavior of th

This study aimed to assess the possible association of oxytocin (OXT) gene with reproductive traits in two groups of Awassi ewes that differ in their reproductive potentials. Sheep were genotyped using PCR—single-stranded conformation polymorphism approach. Three genotypes were detected in exon 2, CC, CA, and AA, and a novel SNP was identified with a missense effect on oxytocin (c.188C > A → p.Arg55Leu). A significant (p < 0.01) association of p.Arg55Leu with the twinning rate was found as ewes with AA and CA genotypes exhibited, respectively a lower twinning ratio than those with the wild-type CC genotype. The deleterious impact of p.Arg55Leu was demonstrated by all in silico tools that were utilized to assess the effect of this varian