Background: Opportunistic viral infections make an important threat to renal transplantation recipients (RTRs), and with the use of more intense newly-developed immunosuppressive drugs; the risk of renal allograft loss due to reactivation of these viruses has increased considerably. At the top priority of these viruses lie BK polyomavirus (BKV) and human cytomegalovirus (CMV). Reactivation of these viruses in these chronically immunosuppressed RTRs can lead to renal impairment and subsequently allograft loss, unless early detected and properly treated. Objectives: The study aimed to detect and quantify plasma viral load of BKV and CMV in RTRs using quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR), in order to study the prevalence of these two viruses in the sole renal transplantation center in Baghdad, and correlate viral load with the diseases severity. Furthermore, the prevalence of BKV-CMV coexistence in RTRs, to find out whether infection by one of them is a risk factor for infection by the other was investigated. Patients and Methods:A total of 99 RTR were enrolled in the study, and 15 non-transplanted patients with chronic kidney diseases (CKD) together with 15 health living donors (LD) were taken as controls. Plasma samples were taken from all participants. From which viral DNA was extracted, and then real time PCR technique was used to measure the viral load. Results:Out of 99, 12 (12.12%) of RTR patients were positive for BK viremia with a viral load (VL) ranging from (1x102 to 1x109 copies/ml), while none of the control groups was BK positive, and 5 patients out of these 12 had BKV nephropathy. For CMV, 13.13% of RTR patients had positive CMV viremia with a VL ranging from (1.25x102 to 7.94x107 copies/ml), and only one of the CKD controls was CMV positive. Only 3 patients had BK-CMV coexistence, which was statistically not a significant risk factor for one another. Conclusion: Our study suggests that both BK polyomavirus and CMV should be considered important causes for nephropathy and allograft loss in RTRs in Iraq.
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The multi-focus image fusion method can fuse more than one focused image to generate a single image with more accurate description. The purpose of image fusion is to generate one image by combining information from many source images of the same scene. In this paper, a multi-focus image fusion method is proposed with a hybrid pixel level obtained in the spatial and transform domains. The proposed method is implemented on multi-focus source images in YCbCr color space. As the first step two-level stationary wavelet transform was applied on the Y channel of two source images. The fused Y channel is implemented by using many fusion rule techniques. The Cb and Cr channels of the source images are fused using principal component analysis (PCA).
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A group of amine derivatives [4-aminobenzenesulfonamide derivatives, 2-aminopyridine and 2-aminothiazole] incorporated to α-carbon of diclofenac a well known non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) to increase bulkiness were designed and synthesized for evaluation as a potential anti-inflammatory agents with expected COX-2 selectivity. In vivo acute anti-inflammatory activity of the selected final compounds (9, 12 and 13) was evaluated in rats using egg-white induced edema model of inflammation in a dose equivalent to (3 mg/Kg) of diclofenac sodium. All tested compounds produced a significant reduction in paw edema with respect to the effect of propylene glycol 50
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Background: Several pathologies of the oral cavity have been associated with stress. Dental students need to gain assorted proficiencies as theoretical knowledge, clinical proficiencies, and interpersonal dexterity which is accompanied with high level of stress. Uric acid is the major antioxidant in saliva. The aim of this study is to assess the dental caries experience among dental students with different levels of dental environment stress in relation to physicochemical characteristics of whole unstimulated saliva.
Materials and Methods: the total sample is composed of 300 dental students (73 males, 227 female) aged 22-23 years old, from collage of dentistry / university of Baghdad, from the 4t
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The performance of sewage pumps stations affected by many factors through its work time which produce undesired transportation efficiency. This paper is focus on the use of artificial neural network and multiple linear regression (MLR) models for prediction the major sewage pump station in Baghdad city. The data used in this work were obtained from Al-Habibia sewage pump station during specified records- three years in Al-Karkh district, Baghdad. Pumping capability of the stations was recognized by considering the influent input importance of discharge, total suspended solids (TSS) and biological oxygen demand (BOD). In addition, the chemical oxygen demands (COD), pH and chloride (Cl). The proposed model performanc
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This research presents a particular designing strategy for a free form of surfaces, constructed by the lofting design method. The regarded surfaces were created by sliding a B-spline curves (profile curves), in addition to describing an automatic procedure for selective identification of sampling points in reverse engineering applications using Coordinate Measurement Machine. Two models have been implemented from (Ureol material) to represent the different cases of B-spline types to clarify its scope of application. The interior data of the desired surfaces was designed by MATLAB software, which then were transformed to UG-NX9 software for connecting the sections that were designed in MATLAB program and obtaining G-code programs for the
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Resilient polymeric materials such as silicone elastomers are currently used for maxillofacial prostheses construction but the strength of these materials and their clinical performance need to be optimized with the addition of reinforcing fillers. This study investigates the effect of zirconia nanopowder addition on tear strength, tensile strength, elongation at break, Shore A hardness, surface roughness and cytotoxicity of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. Silicone base was mixed with different amounts (1%, 2% and 3%) of zirconia nanopowder using a vacuum mixer. Silicone without filler was used as control for comparison. Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy were utilized to assess the efficiency of high-shear vacuum mixin
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