Recently, it has been revealed that Toxoplasmosis may be associated with some factors related to type 2 diabetes, such as glucose, insulin, the Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistant (HOMA-IR), and Fatty acid binding protein (FABP). Therefore, the current study aimed to specify how Toxoplasma gondii (T.gondii) infection affects glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, and FABP among adolescents. From October to December 2022, this study was carried out at Al Madain Hospital in Baghdad. For a group of adolescents visiting the hospital, an ELISA test was performed to check their anti-T.gondii antibodies. Ninety adolescents were selected to participate in the study on the basis of this examination. They were divided into two groups: those who tested positive for the parasite (n = 45) and those who tested negative (n = 45), the control group. Measurements were performed on each participant's adolescence: weight for age percentile, weight for age z score, glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, and FABP. Results showed that the T. gondii positive group had a significantly (P˂0.05) higher weight for age percentile (86.84±2.66) and z score (1.29 ±0.11) versus the control group. Results also showed that those overweight adolescents with seropositive antibodies had significantly (P˂0.05) greater levels of each glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR , and FABP than did a seronegative group of adolescents
Alterations of trace element concentrations adversely affect biological processes and could promote carcinogenesis. Trace element deficiency or excess is implicated in the development or progression of some cancers like colorectal cancer. The aim of the present study was to compare the serum copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) concentrations in patients with colorectal cancer from Iraqi male patient with those of healthy subjects. During the period of March 2015 until august 2015, a total of 25 patients with metastatic colon cancer and 20 healthy volunteers were enrolled from the Al-Kadhimia Teaching Hospital after the diagnosis using a histopathological examination for the malignant tumor; their age was between (38-60) years. Higher levels o
... Show MoreA mixture model is used to model data that come from more than one component. In recent years, it became an effective tool in drawing inferences about the complex data that we might come across in real life. Moreover, it can represent a tremendous confirmatory tool in classification observations based on similarities amongst them. In this paper, several mixture regression-based methods were conducted under the assumption that the data come from a finite number of components. A comparison of these methods has been made according to their results in estimating component parameters. Also, observation membership has been inferred and assessed for these methods. The results showed that the flexible mixture model outperformed the others
... Show MoreThe objective of this study is to determine levels of some pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-12 and SIL-2R) in pregnant women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and also to determine incidence of spontaneous abortion during first trimester in pregnant women with PCOS compared with non-PCOS pregnant women. This Study was performed on (93) women, consisted of: 1- (63) pregnant women during the first trimester, which included:A- (33)PCOS pregnant women and subdivided into the following groups: (20) successful pregnant PCOS, (7) blighted Ovum PCOS and (6) missed abortion PCOS. B- (30) non-PCOS pregnant women, which included: (27) successful pregnant control and (3) non-PCOS pregnant women were withdrawn from this study because of their abortion
... Show MoreBackground: Listeria monocytogenes, a member of the genus Listeria, is widely distributed in agricultural environments, such as soil, manure and water. The genus of Listeria bacteria is about 15-17 species. It is a pathogenic bacterium that can cause a rare but dangerous infection called listeriosis.
Objectives: Studying the rate of salads contaminated with Listeria bacteria. and Listeria monocytogenes according to International, Arabic and Iraqi specifications and finding the correlation between commitments of restaurants to standard health conditions with contamination with these bacteria
Methods: The study included
... Show MoreThe finite element method has been used in this paper to investigate the behavior of precast reinforced concrete dapped-ends beams (DEBs) numerically. A parametric investigation was performed on an experimental specimen tested by a previous researcher to show the effect of numerous parameters on the strength and behavior of RC dapped-end beams. Reinforcement details and steel arrangement, the influence of concrete compressive strength, the effect of inclined load, and the effect of support settlement on the strength of dapped-ends beams are examples of such parameters. The results revealed that the dapped-end reinforcement arrangement greatly affects the behavior of dapped end beam. The failure load decreases by 25% when
... Show MoreGroupwise non-rigid image alignment is a difficult non-linear optimization problem involving many parameters and often large datasets. Previous methods have explored various metrics and optimization strategies. Good results have been previously achieved with simple metrics, requiring complex optimization, often with many unintuitive parameters that require careful tuning for each dataset. In this chapter, the problem is restructured to use a simpler, iterative optimization algorithm, with very few free parameters. The warps are refined using an iterative Levenberg-Marquardt minimization to the mean, based on updating the locations of a small number of points and incorporating a stiffness constraint. This optimization approach is eff
... Show MorePurpose: To compare the central corneal thickness (CCT),minimum corneal thickness (MCT) and corneal power measured using theScheimpflug-Placido device and optical coherence tomography (OCT) in healthy eyes. Study Design: Descriptive observational. Place and Duration of Study: Al-Kindy college of medicine/university of Baghdad, from June 2021 to April 2022. Methods: A total of 200 eyes of 200 individuals were enrolled in this study. CCT and MCT measurements were carried out using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Optovue) and a Scheimpflug-Placido topographer (Sirius).The agreement between the two approaches was assessed using Bland-Altman analysis in this study. Results: Mean age was 28.54 ± 6.6 years, me
... Show MoreThe immune infertility caused by anti-sperm antibodies (ASAs) represented about 10–20% of infertility among the couples. The ASAs interfere with sperm parameters such as sperm motility and sperm ability to penetrate cervical mucus, sperm-oocyte binding, and fertilization and embryo development. Objectives: The present study designed to assess semen analysis, presence of ASAs and DNA fragmentation index as well as correlation within these parameters in normzoospermic Iraqi subjects Patients, Materials, and Methods: A total number of Iraqi subjects (116) with range of age (20-51) years and their mean duration of infertility (4.70 ± 2.77). Seminal fluid for macroscopic and microscopic assessments done according to WHO 2010 criteria. The
... Show MoreThe high cost of chemical analysis of water has necessitated various researches into finding alternative method of determining portable water quality. This paper is aimed at modelling the turbidity value as a water quality parameter. Mathematical models for turbidity removal were developed based on the relationships between water turbidity and other water criteria. Results showed that the turbidity of water is the cumulative effect of the individual parameters/factors affecting the system. A model equation for the evaluation and prediction of a clarifier’s performance was developed:
Model: T = T0(-1.36729 + 0.037101∙10λpH + 0.048928t + 0.00741387∙alk)
The developed model will aid the predictiv
... Show More