Food fortification has an important and necessary role in compensating for the shortage of nutritional micronutrients, especially in developing and least developed countries. So, 12 samples of flour available in the local market, whether imported or locally produced flour, were obtained during 2019. The amount of base metal of the necessary iron element in the flour models studied which are available in local markets, measured by spot testing and was compared with the values that should be added according to the specification Iraqi standard. Results revealed the qualitative evaluation of iron in locally produced flour does not conform to the Iraqi standard and is almost free of any reinforcement. While the percentage of imported flour samples with iron-fortification was 75 relative to the studied species available in the local markets, and the ratio decreased to 40 % in relation to the flour imported from foreign countries. The average iron concentration in flour imported from Arab countries was 30-60 ppm, while imported from foreign countries ranged between 10-15 ppm. As for the Turkish flour, the highest fortification rate was 60 ppm, but the iron ratio was 25% relative to other Turkish types available in the local markets.
Tigris River is the lifeline that supplies a great part of Iraq with water from north to south. Throughout its entire length, the river is battered by various types of pollutants such as wastewater effluents from municipal, industrial, agricultural activities, and others. Hence, the water quality assessment of the Tigris River is crucial in ensuring that appropriate and adequate measures are taken to save the river from as much pollution as possible. In this study, six water treatment plants (WTPs) situated on the two-banks of the Tigris within Baghdad City were Al Karkh; Sharq Dijla; Al Wathba; Al Karama; Al Doura, and Al Wahda from northern Baghdad to its south, that selected to determine the removal efficiency of turbidity and
... Show MoreMonitoring the river’s water quality is important to predict the environmental risk. The Tigris River is Baghdad’s main source for living organisms, drinking water, and agro-industrial purposes. Three selected sites were carried out using different water quality parameters from July 2017 to April 2018 in the Tigris River in Baghdad. Fourteen water quality parameters: water temperatures, turbidity, electrical conductivity, pH, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, phosphate, dissolved oxygen (DO), alkalinity, total hardness, total dissolved substances TDS, and biological oxygen demand (BOD5). According to CCME WQI analysis, the water quality of Tigris River water was Fair for aqua
In this research, a study is introduced on the effect of several environmental factors on the performance of an already constructed quality inspection system, which was designed using a transfer learning approach based on convolutional neural networks. The system comprised two sets of layers, transferred layers set from an already trained model (DenseNet121) and a custom classification layers set. It was designed to discriminate between damaged and undamaged helical gears according to the configuration of the gear regardless to its dimensions, and the model showed good performance discriminating between the two products at ideal conditions of high-resolution images. So, this study aimed at testing the system performance at poo
... Show MoreThe consumption of fresh fruits has increased nowadays due to the lifestyle of the consumers. Maintaining the quality and nutritional value of cut fruits during storage is difficult compared to whole fruits. Deterioration of internal and external quality usually occurs in freshly harvested fruits. It is necessary to use different techniques to maintain the quality and increase the shelf life of the freshly cut product. This research studied the effect of treating apple slices with cold plasma once and with filtered water again on quality characteristics (hardness, moisture content, sugar content, carbohydrate content, and color) after being stored for five days. The best treatment was determined using two different pressures of the plasma j
... Show MoreBackground: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic and systemic autoimmune disease that is characterized by severe synovial inflammation, cartilage erosion, bone loss, and generalized vasculopathy. Although the immunologic mechanism of RA is still unclear, it is now thought to be a primarily Th17-driven disease. Along with other factors, IL-23 stimulates the expansion of Th17 cells from naive CD4+ T cells.
Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the circulating levels of interleukin (IL)-23 in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and determine the correlation between plasma/serum IL-23 levels and disease activity. So, we performed a systematic review with meta-analysis comparing
... Show MoreMO Khudhair, 2020
Background: Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that mostly involves the spine and sacroiliac joints. It is associated with a decreased quality of life. Biological medicines such as infliximab and its biosimilar are the mainstay treatments for active ankylosing spondylitis.
Objective: The study objective was to conduct a pharmacoeconomic study comparing the cost-effectiveness of the reference infliximab with its biosimilar in ankylosing spondylitis patients visiting public hospitals.
Subjects and Method: This is a two-center pharmacoeconomic study performed at two large teaching governmental hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq, which s
... Show MoreUse of electrodes that provide a high surface area for reaction, such as Nickel foam and Carbon Fiber Felt, has proven highly efficient in treating wastewater. In this study, a mixture of dyes (Eosin Y, Methylene Blue, and Methylene Violet) was treated using Ni foam as a cathode and carbon fiber felt as an anode in the Electro-Fenton process, relying on iron waste, such as iron filings, as the catalyst source. The analysis characterization of electrodes and iron filings was determined by Energy dispersive X-Ray (EDX) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests. The results showed high efficiency in decomposing the dye mixture. The highest Re % 96.4591 which attained after accomplishing the experiments based on Response Surface Method (RSM)
... Show MoreHypercholesterolemia is a predominant risk factor for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The World Health Organization (WHO), ) recommended reducing the intake of cholesterol and saturated fats. On the other hand, limited evidence is available on the benefits of vegetables in the diet to reduce these risk factors, so this research was conducted to compare the hypolipidemic effect between the extracts of two different types of Iraqi peppers, the fruit of the genus Capsicum traditionally known as red pepper extract (RPE), and Piper nigrum as black pepper extract (BPE), respectively, in different parameters and histology of the liver of the experimental animals. The red pepper was extracted by ethyl acetate, while the black pepp
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