Background : Knee flexors tightness has been documented in apparently healthy adults and in those with musculoskeletal problems, but the influence of age on the tightness has not been studied in Iraq. This study was therefore designed to determine the influence of age on knee flexors tightness in apparently healthy subjects.Methods: Knee flexors tightness was measured using the active knee extension test (AKET) in 200 apparently healthy male and female subjects, aged 13 to 59 years. The subjects were recruited into 5 age groups using the purposive sampling technique.Knee flexors tightness was compared across the age groups using one-way analysis ofvariance (ANOVA). The independent t-test was used to compare knee flexors tightness on both lower limbs in male and female subjects.Results: Subjects' mean age was 29.63 ± 16.72 years. All subjects had knee flexors tightness (absolute extension lag) and this increased with age up to age group 40-49 years. The male subjects had significantly higher knee flexors tightness than the females in all the age groups.Conclusion: This study suggests that knee flexors tightness increases in apparently healthy persons from adolescent up to age 40-49 years and it is higher in males than females.Key words: knee flexors tightness, age, active knee extension test
Nanoparticles are a special group of materials with unique features and extensive applications in diverse fields. The use of nanoparticles of some metals is a viable solution to stop infectious diseases due to the antimicrobial properties of these nanoparticles. The present work demonstrates the effect of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on the antibacterial activity of four different antibiotics (amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, chloramphenicol, and penicillin) against eleven Gram-positive and Gram-negative isolates. Disk diffusion method was used to determine the antibacterial activity of various classes of antibiotics in the absence and presence of sub-inhibitory silver nanoparticles of concentration (80 microgram/ml). A synergistic effect was o
... Show MoreSoils that cause effective damages to engineer structures (such as pavement and foundation) are called problematic or difficult soils (include collapsible soil, expansive soil, etc.). These damages occur due to poor or unfavorited engineering properties, such as low shear strength, high compressibility, high volume changes, etc. In the case of expansive soil, the problem of the shrink-swell phenomenon, when the soil reacts with water, is more pronounced. To overcome such problems, soils can be treated or stabilized with many stabilization ways (mechanical, chemical, etc.). Such ways can amend the unfavorited soil properties. In this review, the pozzolanic materials have been selected to be presented and discussed as chem
... Show More<span lang="EN-US">The use of bio-signals analysis in human-robot interaction is rapidly increasing. There is an urgent demand for it in various applications, including health care, rehabilitation, research, technology, and manufacturing. Despite several state-of-the-art bio-signals analyses in human-robot interaction (HRI) research, it is unclear which one is the best. In this paper, the following topics will be discussed: robotic systems should be given priority in the rehabilitation and aid of amputees and disabled people; second, domains of feature extraction approaches now in use, which are divided into three main sections (time, frequency, and time-frequency). The various domains will be discussed, then a discussion of e
... Show MoreChaotic systems have been proved to be useful and effective for cryptography. Through this work, a new Feistel cipher depend upon chaos systems and Feistel network structure with dynamic secret key size according to the message size have been proposed. Compared with the classical traditional ciphers like Feistel-based structure ciphers, Data Encryption Standards (DES), is the common example of Feistel-based ciphers, the process of confusion and diffusion, will contains the dynamical permutation choice boxes, dynamical substitution choice boxes, which will be generated once and hence, considered static,
While using chaotic maps, in the suggested system, called
Irisin is a myokine that controls energy metabolism by making adipose tissue brown. The present goal in doing this research was to determine how irisin concentration relates to other biochemical markers of disease. Hemodialysis (HD) for chronic kidney failure. The study included 30 individuals with end-stage renal disease on HD and 30 healthy subjects as the control group. The ages of all patients and the control group ranged from (25 to 60) years. The excluded criteria included patients with viral hepatitis and diabetes. Serum irisin concentration and the level of fasting serum glucose (FSG), urea, creatinine (Cr), total protein (TP), albumin (Alb), albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR), total cholesterol (TC), alanine aminotransferase (ALT),
... Show MoreExperimental and numerical investigations of the centrifugal pump performance at non-cavitating and cavitating flow conditions were carried out in the present study. Experiments were performed by applying a vacuum to a closed-loop system to investigate the effects of the net positive suction head available (NPSHa), flow rate, water temperature and pump speed on the centrifugal pump performance. Accordingly, many of the important parameters concerning cavitation phenomenon were calculated. Also, the noise which is accompanied by cavitation was measured. Numerical analysis was implemented for two phase flow (the water and its vapor) using a 2-D simulation by ANSYS FLUENT software to investigate the internal flow of centrifugal pump under c
... Show MoreLeishmaniasis is one of the important parasitic diseases, affecting mainly low social class people indeveloping countries, and is more prevalent and endemic in the tropical and subtropical regions of old worldand new world. Despite ofbroad distribution in Iraq,little known about the geneticcharacteristics of thecausative agents. So this study was aimed to evaluate the genetic varietyoftwo IraqiLeishmaniatropicaisolatesbased on heat shock protein gene sequence 70 (HSP70) in comparison with universal isolates recordedsequences data. After amplification and sequencing of HSP70 gene,the obtainedresults were alignment alongwith homologous Leishmania sequences retrieved from NCBI by using BLAST. The analysis results showedpresence of particular g
... Show MoreThe current report dealt with the effect of pesticides on the ecosystem through their impact on soil, water, and microorganisms and their impact on human health. As well as this study dealt with the biodegradation process of pesticides and the organisms involved in this process, even some previous studies proved that Bacillus spp. And Pseudomonas sp. Bacteria is the most efficient in the biodegradation of pesticides, at the same time, other previous studies dealt with the environmental factors that affect the biodegradation process of pesticides. It proved that each of the incubation periods, pH, and temperature have different effects on biodegradation. Most of the studies indicated that the best incubation period for biodegradation is 7-8
... Show MoreEnd Stage Renal Disease is a well-known global public health problem. Maintenance hemodialysis is considered a life-saving treatment for patients with such disease. This treatment method that requires patients to be adherent to hemodialysis attendance, dietary and fluid recommendations as well as adherence to prescribed medications to ensure success. The aim of the current study was to assess adherence, perception, and counseling among hemodialysis patients to different modalities of treatment (fluid restriction, dietary recommendations, medications, and hemodialysis schedules). A cross-sectional study carried out on hemodialysis patients who attended to the dialysis centers at al- Karama teachi
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