Background: osteoporosis is characterized by a reduction in bone mineral density, skeletal microstructure breakdown, increased bone fragility, and fracture susceptibility. Osteopenia is the preceding step to osteoporosis because it causes a decrease in bone mass, osteoporosis reduces a person's quality of life. Periostin (encoded by Postn), its name is derived from the fact that it was first detected in periosteal osteocytes and osteoblasts. Periostin deficiency has been linked to osteoporosis and weak bones. Study objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine periostin levels in serum of Iraqi patients with osteoporosis and osteopenia, and it is also possible to consider periostin as a diagnostic factor to follow the progression o

Background:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a progressive, chronic inflammatory illness with an unclear etiology that explicitly targets the vertebral column, peripheral joints, and extraarticular tissues. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the existence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene at positions -1031T/C (rs199964), -857C/T (rs1799724) and -806C/T (rs4248158) in a sample of Iraqi AS patients could influence the patients' outcomes with etanercept.

Methods:Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to enroll in this study, with a mean age of 40.75±8.6

Urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1(PAI-1) are essential for metastasis, and overexpression of these molecules is strongly correlated with poor prognosis in a variety of malignant tumors. This study revealed direct correlation between immunohistochemical expression of uPA with pathological stage. No significant association of immunohistochemical expressions of uPA, uPAR and PAI-1 with immunohistochemical expressions for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor -2 (HER-2/neu), and direct association between immunohistochemical expressions of (uPA and uPAR) as well as between immunohistochemical expr

Vocational stresses and their relation with the level of ambition among the lecturers of the university In general , vocational stresses affect the attention and the process of focusing making individual busy with solving of his daily problems instead of his job. The vocational stresses , anxiety and tension are factors effecting the physical and psychological ability of the individual. This study aims to measure the vocational stresses among the lecturers of the university , to measure the level of ambition among them, to identify the statistical differences significant among them according to sex variable, to identify the differences significant in level of ambition among them according to sex variable and to identify the correlation r

PvcABCD are cluster of genes found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The research was designed to examine the relationship between the pvc genes expression and cupB gene, which plays a crucial role in the development of biofilm, and rhlR, which regulates the expression of biofilm-related genes, and to investigate whether the pvc genes form one or two operons. The aims were achieved by employing qRT-PCR technique to measure the gene expression of genes of interest. It was found that out of 25 clinical isolates, 21 isolates were qualified as P.aeruginosa. Amongst, 18(85.7%) were evaluated as biofilm producers, 10 (47.6%), 5 (23.8%), and 3 (14.2%) were evaluated as strong, moderate and weak producers respectively, while, 3 (14.2%) were considered

An experimental work has been conducted on wall attachment fluidics amplifiers, one of them to study the effect of output pressure or load on the amplifier performance. The output load has been simulated as a piston connected to the device output and the piston can be loaded accordingly. The results shows that the output volume flow rate increases as the supply pressure increases under different load and the output pressure remains constant as the supply pressure increases under constant load.

Abstract

The aim of this research is to identify the general level of teachers’ curriculum expectations in (geography subject as a model), as well as the significance of the difference in the level of teachers’ curriculum expectations in light of the gender variables (male, female), the years of service (10 years or less - more than 10 years), the level of attitudes of fourth-grade literary students towards geography, the level of congruence between teachers’ curriculum expectations and the attitudes of fourth-grade literary students towards geography in light of the variables, the general level of congruence and the level of congruence between teachers’ curriculum expectations and the attitudes of studen