The present study was set to demonstrate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection and its effects on patients with systemic  lupus erythematosus (SLE) through determining their serum levels of anti-dsDNA and IL-18 antibodies. For this purpose, the sera from 132 SLE and/or toxoplasmosis patients and 30 healthy women, were collected. The study sample was divided into four groups of SLE, toxoplasmosis, SLE coinfected with toxoplasmosis, and healthy control. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies were examined for all the samples using ELISA kit. The results showed a high mean level of anti-Toxoplasma IgG among SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (104.8792±12.31585pg/ml) in comparison to that in toxoplasmosis patients (91.1705±12.577

The aim of this study is to compare the effects of three methods: problem-based learning (PBL), PBL with lecture method, and conventional teaching on the understanding of thermodynamics, group work and self-directed learning skills among physics undergraduates. The actual sample size comprises of 122 students, who were selected randomly from the Physics Department, College of Education in Iraq, for academic year 2011-2012. In this study, the pre and posttest were done and the instruments were administered to the students for data collection. Inferential statistics were employed to analyze data. The independent variables were the PBL, the PBL with lecture method, and the conventional teaching. Dependent variables of statistical analysis were

Progesterone is highly used in pregnant women as therapeutic agent to maintain and support pregnancy. To explore the effects of progesterone usage allover gestation till 7days postnatally on mice offspring ovaries development and anogenital distance. Ten pregnant mice were equally divide into control group that was injected with sesame oil which is used as a solvent for progesterone and treated group that is daily intraperitoneally injected with progesterone (dissolved in sesame oil 1: 10) at dose 10.2 mg/kg (the equivalent human dose) all through gestation till7day postnatal then sacrificed and measuring the anogenital distance (the distance between anus and genital papilla). Histological slides were prepared, and Diameters of the ovary, p

Changes in mechanical properties of material as a result of service in different conditions can be provided by mechanical testing to assist the estimation of current internal situation of these materials, or the degree of deterioration may exist in furnaces serviced at high temperature and exceed their design life. Because of the rarity works on austenitic stainless steel material type AISI 321H, in this work, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, hardness, and absorbed energy by impact are evaluated based on experimental data obtained from mechanical testing. Samples of tubes are extracted from furnace belong to hydrotreaterunit, also samples from un-used tube material are used to make comparisons between these properti

The effect of different cutting fluids on surface roughness of brass alloy workpiece during turning operation was carried out in this research. This was performed with different cutting speed, while other cutting parameters had been regarded as constants(feeding rate , and depth of cut). Surface roughness of machined parts that will be tested by electronic surface roughness tester .The results show that the standard coolant gives the best values of surface roughness for fixed cutting speed ,followed by sun flower oil that has approximately the same effect, while the air stream as a coolant gave unsatisfied results for the evaluation of surface roughness.

In the other hand the best values of surface roughness were recorded for max

In this work, the effects of solvent properties on the characteristics of absorption and fluorescence for two laser dyes was studied. Dyes used in this work include Coumarin 5400 and DCM, while the solvents include ethanol, methanol, acetone, propanol and chloroform. Coumarin 5400 dye shows sharp fluorescence peaks in the green band of visible region while the DCM dye shows relatively wide band within 590-630 nm. Therefore, the selection of any dye for random gain medium applications should be performed after determining the most appropriate solvent as the optimum fluorescence characteristics are obtained.

This article describes how to predict different types of multiple reflections in pre-track seismic data. The characteristics of multiple reflections can be expressed as a combination of the characteristics of primary reflections. Multiple velocities always come in lower magnitude than the primaries, this is the base for separating them during Normal Move Out correction. The muting procedure is applied in Time-Velocity analysis domain. Semblance plot is used to diagnose multiples availability and judgment for muting dimensions. This processing procedure is used to eliminate internal multiples from real 2D seismic data from southern Iraq in two stages. The first is conventional Normal Move Out correction and velocity auto picking and

         Melatonin is a potent scavenger of reactive oxygen species or free radicals like superoxide and hydroxyl radicals. The oxidation of hemoglobin to methemoglobin (meth-Hb) by oxidizing compounds has been widely studied. The present work was designed to evaluate the ability of different concentrations of melatonin to inhibit nitrite–induced oxidation of hemoglobin. Blood samples were obtained from apparently healthy individuals from which erythrocyte hemolysate was prepared. Different concentrations of melatonin (10^-9-1.0 mg/ml) were incubated for 10 min with the hemolysate, then to the resultant mixture 1 ml of sodium nitrite (final concentration 0.6 mM) was added, and the