Background: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are said to be inherited in a multifactorial fashion, i.e. genetic-environmental interaction. Maternal nutritional deficiencies had long been reported to cause NTDs, especially folate deficiency during early pregnancy. More attention had been paid to the exact mechanism by which this deficiency state causes these defects in the developing embryo. The most significant of all researches was that connecting reduced folate and increased homocysteine level in maternal serum on one hand and the risk of developing a NTD baby on the other hand. Objectives : to determine the significance of homocysteine level in Iraqi mothers who gave birth to babies with NTDs as compared to normal controls. Patients, Materials and Methods: Fifty Iraqi women having babies born with NTDS, referred to the genetic clinic in Baghdad Teaching Hospital, were included in this study (the study group) as well as 37 healthy women having normal children (the control group). This study was conducted from November, 2002 till October, 2003. Analysis of total serum homocysteine level for all women was done using a computerized HPLC system. Results : the age of women in both groups was comparable (mean+SD in the study group was 26.2+5.14 years vs. 26.3+4.57 years in the controls). Among the study group, 4 (8%) had normal tHcy level; 44 (88%) had mildly elevated level, and only 2 (4%) had moderately elevated tHcy level, while all (100%) women in the control group had their tHcy level within normal level. This difference was statistically highly significant (p<0.001). Conclusions : Women become at an increased risk of delivering a baby with NTD when having an elevated tHcy level in their sera, and that tHcy level is an important marker in maternal serum that is associated significantly with pregnancy outcome.
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
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The study aims to reveal the level of inclusion of citizenship values in the English language textbooks (We Can) series for elementary education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, the "content analysis" methodology was used. A content analysis card was designed to include (6) main areas of citizenship values, it consisted of (28) sub-indicators of citizenship values that were supposed to be included in the English language textbook series (We Can) for elementary education. The study sample consisted of all the English language textbooks (We Can) series for elementary education, which consisted of (6) textbooks, two for each class. The results of the study indicated that there is a
... Show MoreANN modeling is used here to predict missing monthly precipitation data in one station of the eight weather stations network in Sulaimani Governorate. Eight models were developed, one for each station as for prediction. The accuracy of prediction obtain is excellent with correlation coefficients between the predicted and the measured values of monthly precipitation ranged from (90% to 97.2%). The eight ANN models are found after many trials for each station and those with the highest correlation coefficient were selected. All the ANN models are found to have a hyperbolic tangent and identity activation functions for the hidden and output layers respectively, with learning rate of (0.4) and momentum term of (0.9), but with different data
... Show MoreThe objective of this study was tointroduce a recursive least squares (RLS) parameter estimatorenhanced by using a neural network (NN) to facilitate the computing of a bit error rate (BER) (error reduction) during channels estimation of a multiple input-multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system over a Rayleigh multipath fading channel.Recursive least square is an efficient approach to neural network training:first, the neural network estimator learns to adapt to the channel variations then it estimates the channel frequency response. Simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance compared to the conventional methods least square (LS) and the original RLS and it is more robust a
... Show MoreThis paper includes an experimental study of hydrogen mass flow rate and inlet hydrogen pressure effect on the fuel cell performance. Depending on the experimental results, a model of fuel cell based on artificial neural networks is proposed. A back propagation learning rule with the log-sigmoid activation function is adopted to construct neural networks model. Experimental data resulting from 36 fuel cell tests are used as a learning data. The hydrogen mass flow rate, applied load and inlet hydrogen pressure are inputs to fuel cell model, while the current and voltage are outputs. Proposed model could successfully predict the fuel cell performance in good agreement with actual data. This work is extended to developed fuel cell feedback
... Show MoreAbortion is categorized as the termination of conception caused by the failure or removal of the embryo from the uterus before the conclusion of pregnancy. Microorganisms and genetic factors are two of the many factors associated with abortion. Cytomegalovirus is a widespread congenital virus infection pathogen that affects a wide variety of people. The prothrombin gene is one of the essential causes that trigger blood clotting and the function of abortion women, therefore the aim of the study is to detect and associate Cytomegalovirus and prothrombin gene mutation (Gene ID: 14061 in NCBI) with abortion through genetic and immunological methods. Five ml of whole blood was collected from an intravenous puncture and divided into two tubes,
... Show MoreThis study aimed to determine the level of spiritual intelligence among students of educational psychology course at the Jerash University. and whether this level of varies depend on the gender of the student as well as the college type. The study sample consisted of (180) male and female students of bachelor students at the University Jerash, in the second semester of academic year2014-2015. The main results of the study were that the level of spiritual
Intelligence of Jerash University students was high. More over There were no statistically significant differences at the level of significance (0.05) due to the effect of gender, college type or academic achievement
Background: The goal of a root canal treatment is three dimensional obturation with a complete seal of the root canal system. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the effect of two warm obturation techniques, warm vertical compaction (WVC) and, carrier based obturation technique Gutta Core (GC), versus two cold obturation techniques, cold lateral compaction (CLC) and, single cone (SC) on push-out bond strength of bioceramic sealer (Total Fill) at three different root levels. Materials and Methods: Forty extracted maxillary first molars teeth with a straight round palatal root canal and mature apices were selected for this study. After sectioning the palatal roots to 11 mm from the root apex, the canals were
... Show MoreBackground: The goal of a root canal treatment is three dimensional obturation with a complete seal of the root canal system. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the effect of two warm obturation techniques, warm vertical compaction (WVC) and, carrier based obturation technique Gutta Core (GC), versus two cold obturation techniques, cold lateral compaction (CLC) and, single cone (SC) on push-out bond strength of bioceramic sealer (Total Fill) at three different root levels. Materials and Methods: Forty extracted maxillary first molars teeth with a straight round palatal root canal and mature apices were selected for this study. After sectioning the palatal roots to 11 mm from the root apex, the canals were prepared wit
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