Background: Mycoplasma pneumoniae (M. pneumoniae) is an important respiratory bacterial pathogen, especially among children. It causes acute upper and lower respiratory infections.Objective: This study was aimed to measure anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies among hospitalized children who were admitted to hospital diagnosed with acute respiratory tract infections.Method: Automated ELISA technique was performed to detect anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies (IgM and IgG antibodies) in serum from 108 children less than 5 years old. The children were admitted to the Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Suleimani city/Kurdistan Region/Iraq because of acute respiratory tract infections. A questionnaire was designed to collect demographic and clinical data from those children.Results: IgM anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies were positive in 15 (13.9%) out of 108 children. The highest seroprevalence was found in the age group 25-36 months while the lowest is in the age group 1-12 months. M. pneumoniae infections were more common among males than females though results were statistically not significant, and attendance of kindergarten or nursery, residency, history of chronic diseases, history of contact with similar conditions, and family history of chronic diseases, they were all statistically not significant. The IgMseropositive children were suffering from bronchitis, croup, pneumonia, or other respiratory infections, in frequencies of 7 (46.6%), 4 (26.7%), 3 (20%), and 1 (6.7%) respectively. Increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, diagnosis of croup, and diagnosis of bronchitis were more frequent in M. pneumoniae infected group and the results were statistically significant. The IgG anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies were positive in 31 (28.8%) out of the 108 children, and the greatest IgG seroprevalence was highest in age group 49-60 months.Conclusion: M. pneumoniae is an important respiratorypathogen among hospitalized children in Sulaimanigovernorate/Kurdistan/Iraq, and nearly one third of childrenhad experienced M. pneumoniae infection by the age of fiveyears
The study aimed to investigate the employment of electronic supervision applications in developing the teaching performance of teachers in Oman. Based on the qualitative method and the study population consisted of all the teachers of the first cycle in the Governorate of Muscat. The study sample amounted to 24 female teachers. The interview was used as a tool for data collection. The study reached several results, including: There are difficulties in employing electronic supervision applications, which are weak network, density of curricula, lack of experience in applying technology, and the large number of tasks assigned to the teacher. These difficulties can also be overcome by strengthening the network, training teachers, reducing th
... Show MoreSome species, such as the Eurasian Collared-Dove (S. decaocto) are fast expanding around the planet, while others, such as the European Turtle-Dove (S. turtur), are experiencing precipitous population declines. Climate change, habitat loss, greater cultivated areas, and hunting pressure are the major threats to the diversity of Streptopelia. A few species require urgent conservation action. Priority for subsequent research should be to redress outstanding taxonomic uncertainties, ascertain the effect of climate change on distributions, and put in place conservation measures for declining taxa. We provide here a detailed review on how it is possible to understand the diversity of Streptopelia and how such an understanding can con
... Show MoreIn Computer-based applications, there is a need for simple, low-cost devices for user authentication. Biometric authentication methods namely keystroke dynamics are being increasingly used to strengthen the commonly knowledge based method (example a password) effectively and cheaply for many types of applications. Due to the semi-independent nature of the typing behavior it is difficult to masquerade, making it useful as a biometric. In this paper, C4.5 approach is used to classify user as authenticated user or impostor by combining unigraph features (namely Dwell time (DT) and flight time (FT)) and digraph features (namely Up-Up Time (UUT) and Down-Down Time (DDT)). The results show that DT enhances the performance of digraph features by i
... Show MoreTraditionally, style is defined as the expressive, emotive or aesthetic emphasis added linguistically to the discourse with its meaning is the same. In the current study, however, style is defined as the linguistic choice that the language users can make for specific purposes.
This study, thus, aims at analyzing political Arabic and English speeches to find out whether there are differences of style between English and Arabic and whether the choices the language users make can show any traits of their psychological status.
To fulfill the above aims, the study hypothesizes that English and Arabic speeches can be analyzed stylistically and that there are stylistic difference
... Show MoreCriticism, as an evaluative criterion, is a significant speech act for English language learners to improve their speech and actions in their academic life. Yet, it is realized differently across diverse cultures. Few studies have shown that the linguistics forms of one language are different from those available in another language. Hence, this study aims to investigate the cross-cultural similarities and differences between 60 Iraqi and Malay university learners in the use of criticism strategies. The data are collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and a Focus Group Interview (FGI). The data are coded based on Nguyen’s (2005) coding scheme of criticism in terms of the realization strategies. Qualitative
... Show MoreCerium oxide CeO2, or ceria, has gained increasing interest owing to its excellent catalytic applications. Under the framework of density functional theory (DFT), this contribution demonstrates the effect that introducing the element nickel (Ni) into the ceria lattice has on its electronic, structural, and optical characteristics. Electronic density of states (DOSs) analysis shows that Ni integration leads to a shrinkage of Ce 4f states and improvement of Ni 3d states in the bottom of the conduction band. Furthermore, the calculated optical absorption spectra of an Ni-doped CeO2 system shifts towards longer visible light and infrared regions. Results indicate that Ni-doping a CeO2 system would result in a decrease of the band gap. Finally,
... Show MoreThe calibration of a low-speed wind tunnel (LSWT) test section had been made in the present work. The tunnel was designed and constructed at the Aerodynamics Lab. in the Mechanical Engineering Department/University of Baghdad. The test section design speed is 70 m/s. Frictional loses and uniformity of the flow inside the test section had been tested and calibrated based on the British standards for flow inside ducts and conduits. Pitot-static tube, boundary layer Pitot tube were the main instruments which were used in the present work to measure the flow characteristics with emphasize on the velocity uniformity and boundary layer growth along the walls of the test section. It is found that the maximum calibrated velocity for empty test s
... Show MoreSentiment analysis refers to the task of identifying polarity of positive and negative for particular text that yield an opinion. Arabic language has been expanded dramatically in the last decade especially with the emergence of social websites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Several studies addressed sentiment analysis for Arabic language using various techniques. The most efficient techniques according to the literature were the machine learning due to their capabilities to build a training model. Yet, there is still issues facing the Arabic sentiment analysis using machine learning techniques. Such issues are related to employing robust features that have the ability to discrimina
... Show MoreThe fluctuation and expansion ratios have been studied for cylindrical gas-solid fluidized columns by using air as fluidizing medium and Paracetamol as the bed material. The variables were the column diameter (0.0762, 0.15, and 0.18 m), static bed height (0.05, 0.07, and 0.09 m), and air velocity to several times of minimum fluidization velocity. The results showed that both the fluctuation and expansion ratios had a direct relation with air velocity and an inverse one with column diameter and static bed height. A good agreement was between the experimental results and the calculated values by using the correlation equations from the literature.