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.
Aeration system in the cultivation of Chlorella Sp. Microalgae using dairy wastewater as culture media was addressed in the current study. This research aimed to study the effect of aeration in the bubble column bioreactor on the biological synergy between microalgae and bacteria if they are present in the same place. The results show that the sterilization stage is not the dominant step in the success of microalgae cultivation in water-rich organic waste. There is a clear convergence between the growth rate of Chlorella microalgae in the sterilized and non-sterilized culture media, which gives realism if the proposal is applied industrially. Through the information obtained the aerobic bacteria in the non-sterilized me
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Carbon monoxide (CO) plays an important indirect greenhouse gases due to its influences on the budgets of hydroxyl radicals (OH) and Ozone (O3). The atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) observations can only be made on global and continental scales by remote sensing instruments situated in space. One of instrument is the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), which is designed to measure troposphere CO and CH4 by use of a nadir-viewing geometry and was launched aboard the Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra spacecraft on 18 December 1999. Results from the analysis of the retrieved monthly (1ºх1º) spatial grid resolution, from the MOPITT data were utilized to analyze the distribution of CO surface mixing ratio in Iraq for th
... Show MoreL-Phenylalanine amino acid was condensed with 2-hydroxybezaldehyde to give the Schiff base sodium 2-(2-hydroxybenzylideneamino)-3-phenylpropanoate, which was used as a precursor [NaHL]. The precursor was reacted with 1,2-dichloroethane to give the Schiff base sodium 2,2'-(2,2'-(ethane-1,2diylbis(oxy))bis(2,1-phenylene))bis(methan-1-yl-1-ylidene)bis(azan1-yl-1-ylidene)bis(3-phenyl propanoate), which was used as a ligand [Na2L], in complexation with some metal (II) chloride MCl2, where [M= Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II)], to give [M(L)] complexes. The [Na2L] ligand and All complexes were characterized by spectroscopic methods, [FTIR, UV-Vis, atomic absorption], melting point, chloride content, conductivity and magnetic susceptibi
... Show MoreBackground: Fifteen percent of small for gestational age are small as a result of fetal growth restriction, which could be due to maternal, placental or fetal factors. It is an important clinical problem associated with increase perinatal mortality and morbidity. Leptin is a protein that produced by many tissues including the placenta (syncytiotropholoast). Dysregulation of leptin metabolism may be implicated in preeclampsia and IUGR pathogenesis.
Aim of the study: To study the trend of leptin level alteration in maternal serum and cord blood in pregnancies complicated by fetal growth restriction and its relation with fetal outcome.
Methods: An Analytic, cross- sectional study conducted in Al-Elwyia Maternity Teaching Hospital and
Congenital valvular pulmonary stenosis accounts for 5-10% of all congenital heart disease. Balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty is a safe and effective method in reduction of moderate to severe valvular pulmonary stenosis. This retrospective study done in Hawler surgical specialty cardiac center on pediatric patients who had pulmonary valve stenosis (with echocardiographic peak gradient 2:50mmHg) and treated by balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty. A total of 178 cases were involved, 93(52.25%) patient was male and 85 (47.75%) patients was female. 160 patient (89.89%) were treated with single balloon method 18 patient (10.11%) were managed by double balloon method technique. Follow up period of these patients range from 1 year to 10 years (mean of 5.
... Show MoreImitation learning is an effective method for training an autonomous agent to accomplish a task by imitating expert behaviors in their demonstrations. However, traditional imitation learning methods require a large number of expert demonstrations in order to learn a complex behavior. Such a disadvantage has limited the potential of imitation learning in complex tasks where the expert demonstrations are not sufficient. In order to address the problem, we propose a Generative Adversarial Network-based model which is designed to learn optimal policies using only a single demonstration. The proposed model is evaluated on two simulated tasks in comparison with other methods. The results show that our proposed model is capable of completing co
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Abstract
Robotics manipulators with structural flexibility provide an attractive alternative to rigid robotics manipulators for many of the new and evolving applications in robotics. In certain applications their use is unavoidable. The increased complexity in modeling and control of such manipulators is offset by desirable performance enhancements in some respects. In this paperthe single- link flexible robotics manipulator was designed and implemented from Perspex and designed with 0.5 m length , 0.02 m width and with 0.004 m thickness with mass located at the tip. There are four subsystems; motion, control, accelerometer and gyro and a host computer subsystem. The work principle of single-link robotics manipul
... Show MoreRoof in the Iraqi houses normally flattening by a concrete panel. This concrete panel has poor thermal properties. The usage of materials with low thermal conductivity and high specific heat gives a good improvements to the thermal properties of the concrete panel, thus, the indoor room temperature improves. A Mathcad program based on a mathematical model employing complex Fourier series built for a single room building. The model input data are the ambient temperature, solar radiation, and sol-air temperature, which have been treated as a periodic function of time. While, the room construction is constant due to their materials made of it, except the roof properties are taken as a variable generated practically from the
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