Background: Studies discussing the correlation between biochemical markers of bone turnover and the diagnosis of osteoporosis in postmenopausal Iraqi women are rare. This study is devoted to find out the significance of serum osteocalcin (OC) and osteopontin (OPN) levels with the incidence of osteoporosis and its major complication (fracture).Objectives: to investigate the significance of bone turnover biochemical markers; serum osteocalcin and serum osteopontin in evaluating osteoporosis for postmenopausal Iraqi women with and without history of vertebral fracture, as well as to explore the relationship of these markers with bone mineral density (BMD).Methods: Fifty seven postmenopausal women whose ages are fifty years old and over, categorized into two groups: osteoporosis postmenopausal women (n=30), and healthy postmenopausal women (n=27). All sera samples were analyzed for serum alkaline phosphatase, calcium and phosphorous by using spectrophotometric kit. Serum OC and OPN levels were measured by immunoassay (ELISA) kits. BMD were measured by (DEXA). Results: BMD and T-score were significantly lower in osteoporotic postmenopausal group as compared with healthy group (p=0.0001). Serum OC levels and serum OPN levels were elevated significantly in osteoporotic postmenopausal group as compared with healthy group (p=0.0001).Conclusions: The levels of OC and OPN in serum could be used as a biochemical indicator in the early diagnosis of osteoporosis postmenopausal women
Enhancement of the performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was presented in this paper. The refrigerant temperature leaving the condenser was controlled using three-way valve, this valve was installed after the compressor to regulate refrigerant flow rate towards the solar system. A control system using data logger, sensors and computer was proposed to set the opening valve ratio. The function of control program using LabVIEW software is to obtain a minimum refrigerant temperature from the condenser outlet to enhance the overall COP of the unit by increasing the degree of subcooled refrigerant. A variable load electrical heater with coiled pipe was used instead of the solar collector and the storage tank to simulate the sola
... Show MoreThis paper features the modeling and design of a pole placement and output Feedback control technique for the Active Vibration Control (AVC) of a smart flexible cantilever beam for a Single Input Single Output (SISO) case. Measurements and actuation actions done by using patches of piezoelectric layer, it is bonded to the master structure as sensor/actuator at a certain position of the cantilever beam.
The smart structure is modeled based on the concept of piezoelectric theory, Bernoulli -Euler beam theory, using Finite Element Method (FEM) and the state space techniques. The number of modes is reduced using the controllability and observability grammians retaining the first three
dominant vibratory modes, and for the reduced syste
In this work, an anti-reflection coating was prepared in the region (400-1000) nm of wavelength, with a double layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2) as an inner layer and the second layer of the mixture (SiO2) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) with certain ratios, as an outer layer using the chemical spraying method with a number of 6 sprays of layer SiO2 and 12 sprays of layer SiO2 - TiO2. Using the method of chemical spraying deposited on the glass as a substrate with a different number of sprays of SiO2, and a fixed number of TiO2-SiO2. The optical and structural properties were determined using UV-Vis spectroscopy and atomic force mi
... Show MoreThe Ant System Algorithm (ASA) is a member of the ant colony algorithms family in swarm intelligence methods (part of the Artificial Intelligence field), which is based on the behavior of ants seeking a path and a source of food in their colonies. The aim of This algorithm is to search for an optimal solution for Combinational Optimization Problems (COP) for which is extremely difficult to find solution using the classical methods like linear and non-linear programming methods.
The Ant System Algorithm was used in the management of water resources field in Iraq, specifically for Haditha dam which is one of the most important dams in Iraq. The target is to find out an efficient management system for
... Show MoreBackground: Cervical ectopy advanced to erosion is one of the common conditions in gynecological and pathological study. It is considered as a physiologic condition resulting from columnar epithelium migration from the cervical canal into the vaginal portion of the cervix, in which no treatment for asymptomatic cervical ectropion can be given. Treatment can be accomplished via thermal cauterization (Electro cautery), Cryosurgery. CO2 laser therapy is another modality of treatment.
Objective: To study the effectiveness of CO2 laser therapy and evaluate it as a biomedical tool for the treatment of cervical ectropion. The study was done at Laser Medicine Research Clinic at the
... Show MoreThe matter of handwritten text recognition is as yet a major challenge to mainstream researchers. A few ways deal with this challenge have been endeavored in the most recent years, for the most part concentrating on the English pre-printed or handwritten characters space. Consequently, the need to effort a research concerning to Arabic texts handwritten recognition. The Arabic handwriting presents unique technical difficulties because it is cursive, right to left in writing and the letters convert its shapes and structures when it is putted at initial, middle, isolation or at the end of words. In this study, the Arabic text recognition is developed and designed to recognize image of Arabic text/characters. The proposed model gets a single l
... Show MoreSpecimens of the hedgehog Hemiechinus auritus Gmelin. which were trapped in two places on the Eastern shores of the Tigris River, some 50 and 60 Km, south of Baghdad. central Iraq. were searched for ectoparasites. They revealed the following parasites: One species of Anoplura: polyplex spinulosa (Burm.), family Hoplople uridae, two species of fleas: Synostrnus pallidus (Tasch.) and Ctenocephalides felis (Bouche), family pulicidae, One mite species: Ornithonyssus bacoti (Hirst), family Macronyssidae and two tick species: Rhipicephalus leporis and R. turanicum family Ixodidae. All these ectoparasite species are new records on this hedgehog in Iraq.
In recent years, there has been a rapid development in research on high performance ceramics for mechanical, electrical and medical industries. This development will be shown for alumina as a representative for oxide ceramics powders.
Dry–pressing forming technique was used to prepare different ceramic compacts for alumina grafted by polymethacrylate polymers. All Alumina compact were fired firstly at 1200 ◌ْ C, then
at 1600 ◌ْ C.
Mechanical strength was examined in different means, some
depends on compression and other depends on impact. Hardness was
also measured .The results obtained were compared with that of
Alumina compact prepared under the same condition from Alumina
especially made for pressing .
Aggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most significant and complicated problems in production planning and aim to set overall production levels for each product category to meet fluctuating or uncertain demand in future. and to set decision concerning hiring, firing, overtime, subcontract, carrying inventory level. In this paper, we present a simulated annealing (SA) for multi-objective linear programming to solve APP. SA is considered to be a good tool for imprecise optimization problems. The proposed model minimizes total production and workforce costs. In this study, the proposed SA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that the proposed SA is effective in reducing total production costs and req
... Show MoreThe tentative list of the biodiversity (plants and vertebrates) of Bahr Al-Najaf depression is found to comprise 104 vertebrate species including 2 fishes, 14 reptiles, 73 resident and migratory birds and 15 mammals. The flora consists of 31 species, mainly of plants well adapted to desert conditions that dominate the area, besides few examples of water plants. The salinity was found, through chemical analysis of the lake water, to be of high value which reduces the diversity of aquatic animal and plant diversity.