The present study aimed to assess the potential impact of serum concentration of undercarboxylated osteocalcin (the active form of osteocalcin) and fibroblast growth factor-23 on the incidence of cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetics with carotid artery calcification and the possible association with metabolic changes in relation to glucose and minerals homeostasis.

This study included 52 men with carotid artery calcification type 2 diabetes mellitus. These patients were categorized; as follows: group A includes 30 patients who had cardiovascular disease and group B includes 22 patients who had no cardiovascular disease. These groups were compared with 25 apparently healthy control (Group C). 

It has been shown

The study objective was to conduct Pharmacoeconomics study (cost-effective analysis) between infliximab reference (Remicade) and its biosimilar (Remsima) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Iraqi hospitals.

This is a retrospective multicenter pharmacoeconomic analysis conducted at two large teaching governmental hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq which provided infliximab to patients with RA. Data were collected from patient’s medical records and face-to-face interviews with the patients from December 2021 to April 2022.

The study included 57 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  The patients were categorized into two groups according to the type of infliximab they received over 30 weeks: 27 patients received

The possibility of using activated carbon developed from date palm seeds wastes as a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to remove copper from polluted shallow groundwater was investigated. The activated carbon has been developed from date palm seeds by dehydrating methods using concentrated sulfuric acid. Batch tests were performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of new activated carbon in copper-containing aqueous solutions, while the sandy soil (aquifer) was assumed to be inert. Under the studied conditions, the Langmuir isotherm model gives a better fit for the sorption data of copper by activated carbon than other models. At a pilot scale, One-dimensional column experiments were performed, and an integrated model ba

Water has a great self-generating capacity that can neutralize the polluting interventions carried out by humans. However, if human activities continue this uncontrolled and unsustainable exploitation of this resource, this regenerating capacity shall fail and it will be jeopardized definitively. Shatt Al-Arab River in South of Iraq. It has an active role in providing water for irrigation, industry, domestic use and a commercial gateway to Iraq. in the last five years Shatt Al-Arab suffered from a rise in pollutants due to the severe decline in sewage networks, irregular networks and pesticide products, as well as the outputs of factories and companies that find their way to water sources and lead to a widespread collapse of water quality.

The increasing use of antiseptic compounds creates selective pressure cause emergence of antiseptic resistance among Staphylococcus aureus .Resistance mechanism of antiseptic is driven mainly by multi drug resistant (MDR) efflux protein.Sixty five isolates of S.aureuswere collected from different clinical sources and subjected to 11 antibiotics most of them are recognized by efflux systems as extruded substrates. Range of efflux activity was estimated using cartwheel method. Simultaneous discrimination of antiseptic coding genes (qacA/B, smr and norA)as well as nuc and mecA genes among multidrug resistantS.aureus(MRSA) isolates was preformed using multiplex PCR assay

In wide range of chemical, petrochemical and energy processes, it is not possible to manage without slurry bubble column reactors. In this investigation, time average local gas holdup was recorded for three different height to diameter (H/D) ratios 3, 4 and 5 in 18" diameter slurry bubble column. Air-water-glass beads system was used with superficial velocity up to 0.24 m/s. the gas holdup was measured using 4-tips optical fiber probe technique. The results show that the axial gas holdup increases almost linearly with the superficial gas velocity in 0.08 m/s and levels off with a further increase of velocity. A comparison of the present data with those reported for other slurry bubble column having diameters larger than

Most companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak

The effects of nutrients and physical conditions on phytase production were investigated with a recently isolated strain of Aspergillus tubingensis SKA under solid state fermentation on wheat bran. The nutrient factors investigated included carbon source, nitrogen source, phosphate source and concentration, metal ions (salts) and the physical parameters investigated included inoculum size, pH, temperature and fermentation duration. Our investigations revealed that optimal productivity of phytase was achieved using wheat bran supplemented with: 1.5% glucose. 0.5% (NH4)2SO4, 0.1% sodium phytate. Additionally, optimal physical conditions were 1 × 105 spore/g substrate, initial pH of 5.0, temperature of fermentation 30˚C and fermentation dura

The present study aimed to determine the serum sex hormone levels among Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) patients before and after 3 months of oral administration of 5-α reductase inhibitor(finasteride). Forty BPH patients and 40 healthy men from Amara city were involved in this study, their ages were between 40-59 year. They were all subjected  to direct estimation of hormones by MinVidas method including Testosterone (T), Estradiol (E2), Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), Luteinizing Hormone (LH), Prolactin (PRL), and Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) before and after 3 months of treatment with 5α-reductase inhibitor (finasteride) (the healthy individuals didn’t take finasteride).The results showed that T level was significantly lo