Objective Thalassemic patients present with multiple immune abnormalities that may predispose them to oral Candida, however this has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to assess oral candidal colonization in a group of patients with β-thalassemia major both qualitatively and quantitatively. Study design The oral mycologic flora of 50 β-thalassemia major patients and 50 age- and sex-matched control subjects was assessed using the concentrated oral rinse technique. Candida species were identified using the germ tube test and the Vitek yeast identification system. Results Oral Candida was isolated from 37 patients (74%) and 28 healthy subjects (56%; P = .04). The mean candidal count was significantly higher in thalassemic patients compared with the healthy group (P < .05) and in patients who had surgical splenectomy compared with nonsplenectomized patients (P = .04). Conclusion Oral Candida colonization and candidal counts are significantly higher in β-thalseemia major patients than in healthy subjects. Surgical splenectomy may increase the quantity of colonizing oral candidal organisms in thalassemic patients.
Background Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent chronic inflammatory skin conditions; its prevalence ranges from 1 to 3%. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), a cytokine that enhances inflammation, is overexpressed in synovium and skin plaques in psoriasis. TNF-α plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. IL-10 is the most crucial cytokine for reducing excessive immune responses and decreasing pro-inflammatory reactions in all autoimmune disorders. Objective To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on ILـ10, TNFـα, and BMI in obese psoriatic patients. Methods Thirty patients included in this investigative study to measure the concentrations of TNFـα, ILـ10 and BMI, before and after receiving Apremilast. TNFـα and
... Show MoreSusceptibility to the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently been associated with ABO blood groups in patients of different ethnicities. This study sought to understand the genetic association of this polymorphic system with risk of disease in Iraqi patients. Two outcomes of COVID-19, recovery and death, were also explored. ABO blood groups were determined in 300 hospitalized COVID-19 Iraqi patients (159 under therapy, 104 recovered, and 37 deceased) and 595 healthy blood donors. The detection kit for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) RNA (PCR-Fluorescence Probing) was used in the diagnosis of disease.
Background: Cholera has been recognized as a killer disease since earliest time. The disease is caused by infection of the small intestine by Vibrio cholerae O1 and O1391 which is characterized by severe dehydrating diarrheal condition and is one disease in modern times that is epidemic, endemic and pandemic in nature. Objective: This study was carried out to detect and isolate V. cholerae from patients suffered from watery diarrhea, which may cause severe complications such as dehydration, shock followed by death. Materials and methods: stool specimens were collected from 308 patients with watery diarrhea. These samples were tested with many criteria such as TCBS agar, gram stain, biochemical tests and VITEK-2 system to improve the isolati
... Show MoreBackground: The association between facial types and dental arches forms has considerable implications in orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning. The aim was to establish the maxillary and mandibular dental arches width and length in skeletal and dental class II division 1 and class III malocclusion groups, find out the most frequent dental arch form and facial type and the association between them and to check the gender differences. Materials and Methods: Frontal and lateral facial photographs and maxillary and mandibular occlussal photographs for 90 iraqi subjects with age 18-25 years old (45 males and 45 females) divided equally into three groups, the 1st group with class II division 1malocclusion (overjet more than 3mm but less t
... Show MoreThe use of Near-Surface Mounted (NSM) Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips is an efficient technology for increasing flexural and shear strength or for repairing damaged Reinforced Concrete (RC) members. This strengthening method is a promising technology. However, the thin layer of concrete covering the NSM-CFRP strips is not adequate to resist heat effect when directly exposed to a fire or at a high temperature. There is clear evidence that the strength and stiffness of CFRPs severely deteriorate at high temperatures. Therefore, in terms of fire resistance, the NSM technique has a significant defect. Thus, it is very important to develop a set of efficient fire protection systems to overcome these disadvantages. This pape
... Show MoreThe present paper addresses cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using airlift photobioreactor that sparged with 5% CO2/air. The experimental data were compared with that obtained from bioreactor aerated with air and unsparged bioreactor. The results showed that the concentration of biomass is 0.36 g l-1 in sparged bioreactor with CO2/air, while, the concentration of biomass reached to 0.069 g l-1 in the unsparged bioreactor. They showed also that aerated bioreactor with CO2/air gives more biomass production even the bioreactor was aerated with air. This study proved that application of sparging system for cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using either CO2/air mixture or air has a significant growth rate, since the biorea
... Show MoreThis work is an experimental investigation for single basin-single slope solar still coupled with an evacuated tube solar collector. The work is carried out under the climatic conditions of Baghdad city (33.2456º North and East latitude, 44.3337º longitude) through certain days of the months of the year 2019 to study the impact of using evacuated tube solar collector on the daily productivity and efficiency under the outdoors climatic conditions. It was found that using the evacuated tube solar collector increase daily productivity from 2.175 kg/ to 2.95 kg/ for 9 hours (35.63 %) for clear days, also an enhancement about 10.97 % in daily efficiency.
Air-conditioning systems (ACs) are essential in hot and humid climates to ensure acceptable ambient air quality as well as thermal comfort for buildings users. It is essential to improve refrigeration system performance without increasing the effects of global warming potential (GWP) and ozone depletion potential (ODP). The main objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of an air conditioning system that operates with a liquid suction heat exchanger (LSHX) through implementing refrigerants with zero OPD and low GWP (i.e., R134a and R1234yf). Liquid suction heat exchanger (LSHX) was added to an automobile air conditioning system (AACS).When Liquid suction heat exchanger was added to the cycle, primary results indicated t
... Show MoreQuantum channels enable the achievement of communication tasks inaccessible to their
classical counterparts. The most famous example is the distribution of secret keys. Unfortunately, the rate
of generation of the secret key by direct transmission is fundamentally limited by the distance. This limit
can be overcome by the implementation of a quantum repeater. In order to boost the performance of the
repeater, a quantum repeater based on cut-off with two different types of quantum memories is suggestd,
which reduces the effect of decoherence during the storage of a quantum state.