University of Fallujah

About: University of Fallujah is a education organization based out in Baghdad, Iraq. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Compressive strength & Medicine. The organization has 117 authors who have published 113 publications receiving 435 citations.

Adverse childhood experiences and their relationship to gender and depression among young adults in Iraq: a cross-sectional study

Abstract: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are considered as universal public health problem that associate with mental disorders and risky behaviors during adulthood. The aims of the paper are to estimate the prevalence of Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among young adults in Iraq as well as to estimate the association between ACEs and depression. A convenience sample of young adults of 18–20 years was chosen from centre and west of Iraq, mainly from universities. The adverse childhood experiences were measured by Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire. A depression scale was derived from the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS). Statistical tests: chi square was used to measure the association between adverse childhood experiences and other variables like gender and depression. Odds ratios were computed to estimate the risk for depression. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The total number of participants was 401, 38.9% of the subjects were men, while 61.1% were women. The mean age of the participants was 18.88 ± 0.745. The results revealed that the most common forms of ACEs among the subjects were physical neglect (19.8%) and emotional neglect (19.2%) followed by physical abuse (17.21%) while sexual abuse was 7.52%. There was statistically significant association between most forms of adverse childhood experiences especially emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse and physical neglect with depression. ACEs are not uncommon among young adults in Iraq and are associated with depression in adulthood. National programmes to support mental health rehabilitation might be necessary to reduce the effect of ACEs among Iraqi people, especially for adolescents and young adults.

The Possibility of Producing Self-Compacting Lightweight Concrete by Using Expanded Polystyrene Beads as Coarse Aggregate

Abstract: Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is one of the emerging materials and because of its better fresh and hardened properties, its application is increasing day by day in the construction industry. Utilizing lightweight aggregates and fibers could improve further fresh and hardened properties of SCC. But due to considerable differences between the densities of lightweight, aggregates and binders will result in poor fresh and hardened properties. In this research work, expanded polystyrene beads utilized as coarse aggregate and inclusion of different percentage of waste plastic fiber (WPF) has been used to find the effect on fresh and hardened properties of SCLWC through experiments. The results reveal better fresh properties of SCLWC; however, the optimum fresh properties achieved at E1.0 mixture. Also, the compressive and flexural strengths increased with increasing the percentage of WPF in SCLWC. Moreover, ultrasonic pulse velocity decreased with increasing WPF in SCLWC. The wet density, dry density and percent absorption showed a mixed trend of increasing and decreasing with increasing percentage of WPF; however, all these values were within the ENFARC limits for SCC. And SEM images showed the number of voids on the surface of produced SCLWC specimens.

New dinuclear palladium(II) complexes with formamidine and bridged pyrophosphate ligands

Abstract: A series of new dinuclear palladium(II) complexes of the type [(PdL1–3)2(μPPi)]·xH2O (1–3), where L = formamidine ligands and PPi = inorganic pyrophosphate, were synthesized and characterized by elemental analyses, magnetic susceptibility, UV-Vis spectroscopy, infrared (IR) spectroscopy, and mass spectroscopy, thermal analysis, and theoretical calculations. IR spectra confirmed that the formamidine ligands act as bidentate N2 ligands. The complexes are diamagnetic and analysis of the optimized structures indicated that the geometry is a distorted square planar with O–Pd–O and N–Pd–N bond angles ranging from 90.85° to 94.22° and from 87.66° to 91.43°, respectively, which are acceptable for heteroleptic complexes. The electronic energies (a.u.) of the complexes (−1246 to −1916) indicated that the complexes were stable. The energies of the HOMOs (−0.204 to −0.283) and LUMOs (−0.057 to −0.097) orbitals of the complexes were negative, which also indicated that the complexes were stable. The dipole moment of the complexes (4.14–14.08 Debye) indicated that the complexes were polarized. They were also thermally stable, as shown from their relatively higher overall activation energies (537–1002 kJ mol−1). The complexes were screened against PC-3 (prostate carcinoma cell line), HCT-116 (colon carcinoma cell line), and MCF-7 (breast carcinoma cell line). The IC50 values of the complexes were evaluated and the results showed that [(PdL1)2(μPPi)]·H2O (1) had the best IC50 value.