Background: Polymorphisms in the TNF-α gene affect the development and progression of rheumatoid arthritis. Objective: To investigate the associations between (-806 T/C) and (-857 T/C) SNPs with rheumatoid arthritis severity and susceptibility in a sample of Iraqi patients. Methods: A case-control study was conducted in Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty healthy controls and 63 patients confirmed to be newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis were included. Those are divided into two groups (patients and controls), and the patients were further subdivided into severe and mild-moderate groups. Samples from those participants were analyzed for clinical and inflammatory parameter measurements. Genotyping by the Sanger method was performed to study the SNPs. Results: No associations were demonstrated between rheumatoid arthritis and polymorphisms at positions -806 and -857. Additionally, there were no differences in the distribution of those SNP genotypes and alleles among the severe and mild-moderate groups. Also, the (-806 C/T) SNP was found to be correlated with DAS 28 in all patients and with hs-CRP in the mild-moderate group. Finally, the -857 C/T SNP was found to be correlated with TNF-α within the mild-moderate group. Conclusions: Polymorphisms at positions -806 and -857 were not associated with rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility, and the CT genotype of -806 C/T SNP was associated with disease activity.
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were functionalized by hexylamine (HA) in a promising, cost-effective, rapid and microwave-assisted approach. In order to decrease defects and remove acid-treatment stage, functionalization of MWCNTs with HA was carried out in the presence of diazonium reaction. Surface functionality groups and morphology of chemically-functionalized MWCNTS were characterized by FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (DTG), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). To reach a promising dispersibility in oil media, MWCNTs were functionalized with HA. While the cylindrical structures of MWCNTs were remained reasonably intact, characterization results consistently confirmed the sidewall-functionalization o
... Show MoreClinical keratoconus (KCN) detection is a challenging and time-consuming task. In the diagnosis process, ophthalmologists must revise demographic and clinical ophthalmic examinations. The latter include slit-lamb, corneal topographic maps, and Pentacam indices (PI). We propose an Ensemble of Deep Transfer Learning (EDTL) based on corneal topographic maps. We consider four pretrained networks, SqueezeNet (SqN), AlexNet (AN), ShuffleNet (SfN), and MobileNet-v2 (MN), and fine-tune them on a dataset of KCN and normal cases, each including four topographic maps. We also consider a PI classifier. Then, our EDTL method combines the output probabilities of each of the five classifiers to obtain a decision b
Background. “Polyetheretherketone (PEEK)” is a biocompatible, high-strength polymer that is well-suited for use in dental applications due to its unique properties. However, achieving good adhesion between PEEK and hydrophilic materials such as dental adhesives or cement can be challenging. Also, this hydrophobicity may affect the use of PEEK as an implant material. Surface treatment or conditioning is often necessary to improve surface properties. The piranha solution is the treatment of choice to be explored for this purpose. Methods. PEEK disks of 10 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness were used in this study. Those samples were divided into five groups (each group has five samples). The first is the control group, in which no
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to present a method for solving high order ordinary differential equations with two point's boundary condition, we propose semi-analytic technique using two-point oscillatory interpolation to construct polynomial solution. The original problem is concerned using two-point oscillatory interpolation with the fit equal numbers of derivatives at the end points of an interval [0 , 1] . Also, many examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability, accuracy and efficiency of the method by comparing with conventional methods.
This paper presents designing an adaptive state feedback controller (ASFC) for a magnetic levitation system (MLS), which is an unstable system and has high nonlinearity and represents a challenging control problem. First, a nonadaptive state feedback controller (SFC) is designed by linearization about a selected equilibrium point and designing a SFC by pole-placement method to achieve maximum overshoot of 1.5% and settling time of 1s (5% criterion). When the operating point changes, the designed controller can no longer achieve the design specifications, since it is designed based on a linearization about a different operating point. This gives rise to utilizing the adaptive control scheme to parameterize the state feedback controll
... Show MoreIn this paper, the Active Suspension System (ASS) of road vehicles was investigated. In addition to the conventional stiffness and damper, the proposed ASS includes a fuzzy controller, a hydraulic actuator, and an LVDT position sensor. Furthermore, this paper presents a nonlinear model describing the operation of the hydraulic actuator as a part of the suspension system. Additionally, the detailed steps of the fuzzy controller design for such a system are introduced. A MATLAB/Simulink model was constructed to study the proposed ASS at different profiles of road irregularities. The results have shown that the proposed ASS has superior performance compared to the conventional Passive Suspension System (PSS), where the body displacemen
... Show MoreAutomatic license plate recognition (ALPR) used for many applications especially in security applications, including border control. However, more accurate and language-independent techniques are still needed. This work provides a new approach to identifying Arabic license plates in different formats, colors, and even including English characters. Numbers, characters, and layouts with either 1-line or 2-line layouts are presented. For the test, we intend to use Iraqi license plates as there is a wide range of license plate styles written in Arabic, Kurdish, and English/Arabic languages, each different in style and color. This variety makes it difficult for recent traditional license plate recognition systems and algorithms to recogn
... Show MoreAlumina thin films have significant applications in the areas of optoelectronics, optics, electrical insulators, sensors and tribology. The novel aspect of this work is that the homogeneous alumina thin films were prepared in several stages to generate a plasma jet. In this paper, aluminium nanoparticles suspended in vinyl alcohol were prepared using exploding wire plasma. TEM analysis was used to determine the size and shape of particles in aluminium and vinyl alcohol suspensions; the TEM images showed that the particle size is 17.2 nm. Aluminium/poly vinyl alcohol (Al/PVA) thin films were prepared using this suspension on quartz substrate by plasma jet technique at room temperature with an argon gas flow rate of 1 L/min. The Al/PV
... Show MoreTo assess the total hip replacement patients’ knowledge of home – care regarding pain management, medication therapy, wound care, mobility limitation and complications may occur in the post hip replacement surgery, and to assess relationship between some variables such as, age level of education, sex & marital status with home- care knowledge. A descriptive study was used to assess the hip-replacement patient home-knowledge, a purposive sampling of (60) hip-replaced –patients were selected from Gazy Alhariri Hospital (central of surgical profession ) and Alwasity Hospital ( plastic surgery) , the questionnaire obtains two parts , part one, which included socio-demographical characteristics of the samp
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