EFFECT OF VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTATION ON INSULIN SENSITIVITY AND ANDROGEN LEVEL IN VITAMIN D-DEFICIENT POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME PATIENTS

Objectives: There is limited evidence that giving Vitamin D supplementation had a beneficial effect on insulin resistance and dysfunction of the menstrual cycle in females with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Thus, the aim of the present study is to evaluate the effect of Vitamin D supplementation on insulin sensitivity and androgen level in Iraqi females with PCOS.Methods: A randomized, blinded clinical trial design studied 60 Iraqi females with PCOS referring to the women's counseling, outpatients at maternity and pediatrics teaching hospital in AL-Qadisiyah city, Iraq, and private clinic. Non-probabilistic sampling involved women aged from 18 to 45 years established on inclusion criteria. The patients' basic data have been recorded. Then, we measured Vitamin D, testosterone level, and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) test to all females. After the diagnosis of Vitamin D deficiency, Vitamin D was administering at 5000 units daily for 8 weeks. All data were remeasured after 2 months.Result: A total of 60 patients with polycystic syndrome enrolled in the study, age range from 18 to 39 years, mean age 27.48±5.95 years. The metabolic parameter have been checked at the beginning of the study, which include Vitamin D level 16.1±5.6, impaired glucose test reading 8.8±0.7 and testosterone level 4.5±0.64.. After 2 months of supplementation, there were 83.7% of patients reach the normal level of Vitamin D and 16.3% still had a low level of Vitamin D (p≤0.002) between two groups. In regard to IGT test after 2 months of supplementation, there were 51.6% of patients still who had impaired test while 48.4% reach the normal reading (p≤0.001).Conclusions: Women with PCOS have a statically significant low level of Vitamin D in mean, IGT test in the mean, and high level of testosterone, and there were inverse correlations between Vitamin D with IGT and testosterone

Response of Mung Bean (Vigna radita L.) to Fungal Inoculation (Glomus mosseae L. ) and Nano Chelating Zn Fertigation

Field experiment conducted at winter season 2022-2023 on clay sandy soil in Al-Diwanyia. The experiment was design as CRBD with three replications arranged for split-pilot design, in lest significant differences ( LSD0.05 )the main treatment contend two groups inoculation and non inoculation within there four levels of Nano Zn( 0 , 1 , 2 , 3) g.L-1. I took sample of soil before planting to analysis it and to learn physical and chemical traits. Mung bean were sowing at rate20 kg.ha-1(3cm depth) at 1/9 , after 5 months I took a sample to measure . The results showed all factors and interactions were significant effect and increased all growth traits (plant content of protein , carbohydrates total Chlorophyll and fats,) lead to increased grain yield max values (8.2 Ton.ha-1) at interaction of Glomus mosseae e inoculation and 3 g.L-1 Nano Zn level, while min value(5.81 Ton.ha-1) at interaction no inoculation and 0 g.L-1 Nano Zn level

Detection of Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli among Normal Stool Flora of Young, Healthy, Unmarried Males & Females as Predisposing Factor to Extraintestinal Infections:A Comparison Study

In this study we surveyed the dominant normal stool flora of randomly selected healthy, young (18-23 years old), unmarried (doctrinal) Iraqi college students (males and females) for the carriage of extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC). ExPEC virulence was detected phenotypically by mannose resistant hemagglutination of human red blood cells (MRHA) and mannose sensitive (MS) agglutination of Bakers' yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisceae). From 88 college students, 264 E. coli isolates were obtained (3 isolates per person): 123 from 41 females and 141 from 47 males. Of these isolates, 56% (149/264) caused MS agglutination of yeast cells and 4.16% (11/264) showed MRHA. Eighty two percent (9/11) of the isolates with MRHA also caused MS agglutination of yeast cells. Statistically the difference is not significant (P < 0.05) among males and females regarding the MS agglutination of yeast cells: 59% (72/123) of females' isolates vs. 55% (77/141) of males' isolates. Conversely, the difference is clear regarding the carriage of isolates with MRHA. All the isolates with MRHA were distributed among females' dominant stool flora (11/123: 8.94%) whereas none of the males' dominant stool flora showed MRHA (0/141: 0%). Five females out of 41 (12.19%) had isolates with MRHA. All the three isolates in 2 of these 5 females showed MRHA, 2 isolates in another 2 showed MRHA, and only one isolate in 1 female caused MRHA. Therefore we can say that the difference among males and females in fecal carriage of E. coli ,with characteristics of ExPEC, can be a predisposing factor of females to ExPEC infections more than males

Pollution and health risk assessment of co-existing microplastics and heavy metals in urban dust of Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia

Microplastics (MPs) and heavy metals have recently attracted much attention due to their widespread distribution in the environment. Co-occurrence of MPs and heavy metals in dust poses potential health risks for humans. The objectives of this study were to investigate pollution and health risk factors associated with co-occurring MPs and heavy metals in urban dust. Here, 20 dust samples (both indoor and outdoor environments) were collected from different places in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using sweeping method. The MPs were separated from dust samples via density separation using ZnCl2 Microscopic techniques were used to investigate MPs while inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry was used heavy metals analyses in the collected samples. The results of the study showed that all the collected dust samples were contaminated with MPs of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Fragment-shaped MPs were the most dominant, followed by granules, fibers, and lines, while the majority of the MP particles were red and black. Furthermore, the size distribution analyses demonstrated that particles above 1,000 µm were abundant. Also, the number of MPs was in the range of 20 particles g-1 to 1,052 particles g-1. Human exposure estimations showed that toddlers could inhale more MPs (0.86 MPs particles kg-1 day-1 and 312.93 particles kg-1 year-1) than children, teenagers, and adults. In addition, the concentrations of heavy metals varied from one site to another, however, the average concentrations were lower than their corresponding values in the guidelines (except for Zn). The integrated potential ecological risk in dust samples was characterized as a low-risk criterion. The enrichment factor for Zn in dust samples at all sites was more than 2, indicating a major contamination concern and anthropogenic sources responsible for the existence of Zn. The estimated hazard quotient indicates that children and adults are saved from the adverse effects of dust inhalation in the studied area. These findings could serve as a preliminary step for efficient pollution management and environmental quality maintenance in Riyadh

Link Analysis in Employment Data Set to Improve Learning Outcomes for IT Programmes

This paper presents an approach for analyzing data of the Information Technology graduate according to the employability knowledge areas in order to predict feedback recommendations to improve the IT programmes teaching and learning resources and processes towards,the improvement of the programme learning outcomes. The approach is based on features (knowledge areas) extracted from logged data for employment and university graduates. Link analysis is an efficient approach to study the correlation and relationships between different attributes that highly affect jobs in IT market, including different skills areas in both the market and the programme curriculum, and it gives good weighted evaluation for these knowledge areas. The link analysis shows great relationship and associations between these attributes (Student Performance in Bachelor degree, analytical and development skills, Programming skills (Java, C++, C#, etc), practical skills communication skills, and training and certificates) and the market demands. Data set from IT market and university records is used to create and test the model. WEKA was used as a software for mining tasks

A Proposed Framework for Analyzing Crime Data Set Using Decision Tree and Simple K-Means Mining Algorithms

This paper presents a proposed framework for the crime and criminal data analysis and detection using Decision tree Algorithms for data classification and Simple K Means algorithm for data clustering. The paper tends to help specialists in discovering patterns and trends, making forecasts, finding relationships and possible explanations, mapping criminal networks and identifying possible suspects. The classification is based mainly on grouping the crimes according to the type, location, time and other attributes; Clustering is based on finding relationships between different Crime and Criminal attributes having some previously unknown common characteristics. The results of both classifications and Clustering are used for prediction of trends and behavior of the given objects (Crimes and Criminals). Data for both crimes and criminals were collected from free police departments’ dataset available on the Internet to create and test the proposed framework, and then these data were preprocessed to get clean and accurate data using different preprocessing techniques (cleaning, missing values and removing inconsistency). The preprocessed data were used to find out different crime and criminal trends and behaviors, and crimes and criminals were grouped into clusters according to their important attributes. WEKA mining software and Microsoft Excel were used to analyze the given data

Visibility Trends in Baghdad City During the Period 2005-2014

Trends in horizontal visibility for Baghdad city, haziness for the period between 2005 and 2014 were assessed in view of information for daily horizontal visibility. The average (means) of annual visibility were determined for Baghdad as a whole, the results show that the average annual visibility ranged between 8592 m and 6429 m at years 2006 and 2009 respectively. However, the monthly visibility flocculate between 10385 m in November 2006 and 4216 m in May 2012. Analysis in term of linear regression was utilized for describing long-term annual trends in these variables. For the last ten years, there was a significant decreasing in horizontal visibility (-2.1 km/decade from 2005 to 2014). According to rapid increase in energy consumption, the consistent temporal and spatial variations of visibility and haze support the speculation that increased aerosol loadings were responsible for the observed decreases in horizontal visibility over Baghdad city. Keywords: Visibility; Annual mean; percentile annua

Detection of Candida spp. from mastitis cattle milk and study of the antifungal activity of ketoconazole-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carriers against Candida isolates

Objective: To isolate candida species from cattle milk isolates and investigate the advances of ketoconazole-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles and ketoconazole-nanostructured lipid carters, and to analyse their properties and compare their antifungal performance compared to free ketoconazole. Method: The cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2021 to April 2022 in Waist Governorate of Iraq, and comprised milk samples obtained from cows infected with mastitis. The study was initiated after obtaining approval from the IRB of the veterinary hospital in the Governorate of Iraq. The samples were cultured on 4% savoured dextrose agar and incubated independently at 37°C before they were subjected to a range of tests. Mastitis was checked with a commercially available cultural and morphological identity card system and through candida chromogenic agar. The data was analyzed by using the programmed SPSS IBM version 20. The chi-square test was used to check the inhibition zones due to the anti-fungal activity of KTZ-LPN and free KTZ. The significance level was kept at p<0.05. Results:Of the 225 samples, 116(51.5%) were obtained from cows infected with mastitis on the basis of a commercially available cultural and morphological identity card system. Among the 61(52.6%) candida albicans isolated, resistance to amphotericin B was shown by 60(98%) and to nystatin by 58(95%), while those sensitive to ketoconazole were 32(52%) and to fluconazole 31(51%).The ketoconazole nanostructured lipid nanoparticle (KTZ-NLC) preparations showed higher antifungal activity than other tested preparations at 0.25ug/ml with a minimum inhibition zone of 15±2.4 mm followed by ketoconazole solid lipid nanoparticle (KTZ-SLN) preparations with minimum inhibition zone of 15±1.3 mm. Free ketoconazole showed the lowest inhibition zone values at the same concentration (0.25ug/ml), which was 11±1.3 mm. Both these lipid nanoparticles formulations, especially ketoconazole nanostructured lipid carriers (KTZ-NLC), could represent a promising formulation for antifungal application and use. Conclusions: Ketoconazole-nanostructured lipid carter formulations were found to be effective for drug delivery. Keywords: Nanoparticles, Fluconazole, Amphotericin, Ketoconazole, Nystatin, Drug, Milk, Candida, Mastitis

Production of Probiotic (Turshi) Pickled Vegetables

In Iraq, people prepare turshi (fermented Iraqi vegetable pickles) from different vegetables such as cucumber, turnip, eggplants, cabbage, carrot and pepper. This study investigated the effect of adding probiotic bacteria (Lactobacillus acidophilus), synbiotic (Lactobacillus acidophilus + inulin) to Iraqi turshi product, on lactic acid bacteria counts, total count, yeasts and molds, pH values, organoleptic characteristics and the antagonistic activity of turshi against the pathogenic bacteria. Lactic acid bacteria counts were higher in synbiotic turshi log 9.68 cfu/ml comparing with log 9.54 cfu/ml and log 3.97 cfu/ml for probiotic and control turshi samples at the end of study period, respectively. Total count for control sample was higher (log 6.99 cfu/ml) comparing with probiotic and synbiotic samples (log 6.90 cfu/ml and log 6.52 cfu/ml) respectively after 30 days. It was observed that yeasts and molds counts for control sample were higher (log 2.39 cfu/ml) after 30 days, while probiotic and synbiotic samples were log 1.21 cfu/ml and log 0.71 cfu/ml respectively. pH values were close for both synbiotic (3.36) and probiotic (3.73) samples, while it was higher for control sample (4.53) after 30 days. The organoleptic characteristics were more acceptable for synbiotic sample followed by probiotic and control samples, respectively. The antagonistic activities of turshi samples against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were higher for synbiotic sample followed by probiotic and control samples, respectively. It was clear that synbiotic turshi was more desirable in all studied characteristics comparing with probiotic and control turshi and this finding reveals that synbiotic turshi could be used as a potential healthy product