Background: During Ramadan, Muslims fast throughout daylight hours. There is a direct link between fasting and increasing incidence of infections. Antibiotic usage for treatment of infections should be based on accurate diagnosis, with the correct dose and dosing regimen for the shortest period to avoid bacterial resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the practices of physicians in prescribing suitable antibiotics for fasting patients and the compliance of the patients in using such antibiotics at regular intervals. Materials and methods: An observational study was carried out during the middle 10 days of Ramadan 2014 in two pharmacies at Baghdad. A total of 34 prescriptions (Rx) for adults who suffered from infections were examined. For each included Rx, the researchers documented the age and sex of the patient, the diagnosis of the case, and the name of the given antibiotic(s) with dose and frequency of usage. A direct interview with the patient was also done, at which each patient was asked about fasting and if he/she would like to continue fasting during the remaining period of Ramadan. The patient was also asked if the physician asked him/her about fasting before writing the Rx. Results: More than two-thirds of participating patients were fasting during Ramadan. Antibiotics were prescribed at a higher percentage by dentists and surgeons, for which a single antibiotic with a twice-daily regimen was the most commonly prescribed by physicians for patients during the Ramadan month. Conclusion: Physicians fail to take patient fasting status into consideration when prescribing antibiotics for their fasting patients. Antibiotics with a twice-daily regimen are not suitable and best to be avoided for fasting patients in Iraq during Ramadan – especially if it occurs during summer months – to avoid treatment failure and provoking bacterial resistance. Keywords: fasting, Ramadan, antibiotics, dosing regimen
Plantation of humic acid nanoparticles on the inert sand through simple impregnation to obtain the permeable reactive barrier (PRB) for treating of groundwater contaminated with copper and cadmium ions. The humic acid was extracted from sewage sludge which is byproduct of the wastewater treatment plant; so, this considers an application of sustainable development. Batch tests signified that the coated sand by humic acid (CSHA) had removal efficiencies exceeded 98 % at contact time, sorbent dosage, and initial pH of 1 h, 0.25 g/50 mL and 7, respectively for 10 mg/L initial concentration and 200 rpm agitation speed. Results proved that physicosorption was the predominant mechanism for metals-CSHA interaction because the sorption data followed
... Show MoreTetradentate bidentate Schiff base (L1) from 4-amino-1.5-dimethyl-2-phenyl-1.2-dihydropyrazol-3-one and 2-(1H-indol-3-yl)-ethylamine and benzene-1.4-dicarbaldehyde was synthesized and characterized as novel antioxidants. The Schiff base and its metal complexes Mn(II), Co(II),Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) and Re(V) have been characterized by elemental microanalysis, metal content, chloride-containing, molar conductance, FT-IR, 1H-NMR, UVVis spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility, mass spectra (MS), and thermal analysis (TGA). The structures of the prepared compounds were observed by antioxidant activities of the Schiff bases derivatives were investigated due to the imine group (-C=N-) and promising results were obtained. The results confirmed that c
... Show MoreSemiconductor-based photocatalytic processes are widely applied as ecofriendly technology for degrading organic pollutants. Establishing photocatalytic heterojunctions with Z-type photocarriers transfer pathways is projected to be a superb strategy to enhance photocatalytic behavior. In this paper, novel and stable (0D/2D) heterojunctions of CoS-embedded boron-doped g-C3N4 (CoS/BCN) with a high rate of charges transfer/separation were assembled for degradation of malachite green dye (MG). The CoS/BCN photocatalyst achieves a photodegradation efficiency of 96.9 % within 1 h of LED illumination, which is 2.5 and 1.4-fold enhancement compared with bare g-C3N4 and BCN, respectively. Besides, the results of species-trapping trials exhibited that
... Show MoreA new optoelectronic flow injection method is proposed for the determination of ferrous ions (Fe 2+ ) based on thiocyanate complexation to form a deep-red FeSCN 2+ complex.
Today's smart engineering systems are often faced with situations that are structurally uncertain, informationally incomplete, and non-probabilistically ambiguous, especially for electrical systems. ARDL models are limited in applications in complex computational environments where the uncertainty is due to vagueness, not randomness, and assume the exact parametric representation of the models and the structure of the stochastic uncertainty. This study proposes a new soft-computing paradigm using Fuzzy Autoregressive Distributed Lag (FARDL) models and compares the performance of the Linear Programming (LP) and Quadratic Programming (QP) estimation algorithms using large-scale parallel Monte Carlo simulations to overcome these drawba
... Show MoreThe research aims to determine the impact of employees’ retention strategy on organizational memory. This research is historical, descriptive, and analytical. The sample consists of 158 faculty members in five private colleges in Baghdad. The technique used to analyze the data is SEM (Structural Equation Modeling), and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The research concludes that the employees retaining strategy plays a vital role in retaining employees and hence maintains organizational memory. The findings and recommendations of this research assure the administrations of private colleges that employees retention strategy play a vital role in retaining its employee and hence maintains organizational memory. T
... Show MoreThe bodies responsible for the organization of accounting in the world seek to keep abreast of repaid development, by provide the information required by users, which they need to make efficient decision that return them to the desired benefits, and avoid the risks they could face if they made their decision based on misleading information, or insufficient, or not accurate, Hence, the IASB has undertaken to review the standards, and make the necessary adjustment and clarifications to remove the ambiguities that some of the paragraphs may have in IFRS issued.
And the Iraqi Central Bank obliges banks to convert from local accounting standards to apply IFRS only a step towards keeping pace with developments
... Show MoreTin oxide: titanium oxide: bismuth oxide (SnO2 )1–x(TiO 2 :Bi 2O3 ) x composites with different loading ratios (0, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3) have numerous new application in microelectronics, sensors, and capacitors. This work concerned with the synthesis of (SnO 2 )1–x(TiO 2 :Bi 2O3 ) xcomposites as well as, thin films which were deposited on glass substrates as well as, silicon wafers by using pulsed laser deposition. The diffraction pattern confirms the anatase teteragonal phase of undoped tin oxide. It was observed some peaks related with titanium and bismuth oxides appeared at high loading ratios. Upon the transmission-spectra analysis, the undoped samples declared transmittance 60–67% in a visible spectrum, and the energy ga
... Show MoreA polypyrrole‐graphene oxide (PPy/GO) nanocomposite was made chemically using a polymerization method in deep eutectic solvents made up of choline chloride and propionic acid in a 1:2 molar ratio. The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility and efficacy of PPy/GO nanocomposite in the detection of metronidazole in pharmaceutical formulations utilizing spectrofluorometric techniques. Characterization of the synthesized PPy/GO nanocomposite was conducted using several methods such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and X