Background: The altered status of some essential trace elements observed in diabetes could have deleterious influences on the health of the diabetics. Objectives: To estimate and study the potential role of serum Selenium in type 1, type 2 diabetics and healthy subjects; and its relation with lipid profile and glycemic index. Methods: A case control designed study was carried out at the National Diabetes Center (NDC) / Al-Mustansiria University; on a total of 94 participants formed of 32 type 1 diabetics, 32 type 2 diabetics and 30 healthy control participants. Data collected about age, sex and BMI; also, blood samples examined for FPG, HbA1C, serum total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol, serum triglyceride and sera were

Leishmania is the causative agent of leishmaniasis, a widely distributed disease. Amastigote forms of Leishmania are intracellular and reside within the macrophage of the vertebrate host. Previous studies showed that certain Leishmania species may scavenge host factors for survival, specially sphingolipids, the key element of the eukaryotic membranes. In this study we have investigated the survival of new world L. mexicana amastigotes in murine macrophage cell-line in the presence and absence of foetal bovine serum (FBS). Results showed that there was no significance in the infectivity of amastigotes and also the number of parasite per cell; such findings suggest that L. mexicana amastigotes have its own pathway of sphingolipid intake and c

The scarcity of irrigation water requires procedures of specific. One of these procedures is the implementation of the rationing system (a period of the irrigation followed by a period of the dry). This system can have an impact on the properties of irrigation channels. Therefore, the study of rationing system for irrigation channels is important in both water resources and civil engineering, especially if they are constructed with gypseous soil. In order to assess the rationing system on gypseous canals stabilized with a specific ratio of cement, practical experiments were conducted to detect the effect of wetting and drying cycles on the physical and hydraulic behavior of this soil and calculation of some properties of soil such a

Soil stabilization with liquid asphalt is considered as a sustainable step towards roadway construction on problematic subgrade soil, there are no requirements to import good quality materials or to implement energy consumption, but to mix the readily available soil with liquid asphalt through the cold mix technique. In this work, collapsible soil obtained from Nasiriya was mixed with asphalt emulsion, lime, and combinations of lime and asphalt emulsion (combined stabilization) and tested in the laboratory for California bearing ratio in dry and soaked conditions. Field trial sections have been prepared with the same combinations and subjected to plate bearing test. The influence of combined stabilization on the structural properties in ter

Nanomaterials have an excellent potential for improving the rheological and tribological properties of lubricating oil. In this study, oleic acid was used to surface-modify nanoparticles to enhance the dispersion and stability of Nanofluid. The surface modification was conducted for inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) TiO₂ and CuO with oleic acid (OA) surfactant, where oleic acid could render the surface of TiO₂-CuO hydrophobic. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to characterize the surface modification of NPs. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of adding modified TiO₂-CuO NPs with weight ratio 1:1 on thermal-physical propertie

Blends of Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) doped with 2% weight percentage of Sn were prepared with different blend ratios using casting technique. The measurements of A.C conductivity σa.c within the frequency range (25kHz – 5MHz) of undoped and Sn doped PMMA/PVA blends obeyed the relationship σ= Aw^s were the value of s within the range 0 > s > 1. The results showed that σa.c increases with the increase of frequency. The exponent s showed preceding increase with the increase of PVA content for PMMA/PVA blends doped with Sn. The dielectric constant, dielectric loss, A.C electrical conductivity are varied with the concentration of PVA in the blend and frequency of applied electrical field.

Background: Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory condition characterized by relapsing and remitting episodes of inflammation limited to the mucosal layer of the colon.Loop ileostomy might be helpful in the management of the disease.

Objective: To evaluate the role of loop ileostomy in the management of ulcerative colitis.

 Methods: Between Januarys 2008 and January 2018, patients with fulminant ulcerative colitis resistant to medical therapy had been referred to our surgical unit and were included in our study. Assessment of the patients’ medical status (serum electrolytes, total serum protein, complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, general stool exam,and abdominal ultrasound

priorities of materials research due to their promising properties, especially in the field of thermoelectricity. The efficiency or performance of thermoelectric devices is expressed in terms of the thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) – a standard indicator of a material’s thermoelectric properties for use in cooling systems. The evaluation of ZT is principally determined by the thermoelectric characteristics of the nanomaterials. In this paper, a set of investigative computations was performed to study the thermoelectric properties of monolayer TMDCs according to the semiclassical treatment of the Boltzmann transport equation. It was confirmed that the thermoelectric properties of 2D materials can be greatly improved compared with thei