Background Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent chronic inflammatory skin conditions; its prevalence ranges from 1 to 3%. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), a cytokine that enhances inflammation, is overexpressed in synovium and skin plaques in psoriasis. TNF-α plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. IL-10 is the most crucial cytokine for reducing excessive immune responses and decreasing pro-inflammatory reactions in all autoimmune disorders. Objective To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on ILـ10, TNFـα, and BMI in obese psoriatic patients. Methods Thirty patients included in this investigative study to measure the concentrations of TNFـα, ILـ10 and BMI, before and after receiving Apremilast. TNFـα and ILـ10 were examined by ELISA technique. Results The present work found that the concentration of TNF-α before receiving Apremilast was 286.80 pg/ml, and after six months from baseline, it was reduced to 131.08 pg/ml (P<0.01). Also, IL-10 before using Apremilast was 69.28 pg/ml, and after six months of treatment it increased to 112.57 ±7.89, which was statistically significant (P<0.01). There were no statistically significant differences in BMI (P>0.05). Conclusion Apremilast significantly reduced the inflammatory cytokine TNF-α and increased the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, leading to improvement in psoriasis lesions. It also reduced Body Mass Index in obese psoriatic patients.
The seed propagation is the predominant method of Echinacea propagation, which has been criticized for its time-consuming control over the separation factor and the uncertainty of pathogen-free plants produced by this method. The technology of tissue culture has provided multiple opportunities for the production of secondary metabolites continuously without being restricted to a specific season, due to the possibility of controlling the environmental conditions and the components of the nutrient medium needed by the plant. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of salicylic acid as elicitor and tyrosine as precursor on propagation and some secondary compounds production in coneflower in vitro. The result showed the superiori
... Show MoreKE Sharquie, JR Al-Rawi, AA Noaimi, HM Al-Hassany, Journal of drugs in dermatology: JDD, 2012 - Cited by 47
The current study was designed to investigate the presence of aflatoxin M1 in 25 samples of pasteurized canned milk which collected randomly from some Iraqi local markets using ELISA technique. Aflatoxin M1 was present in 21 samples, the concentration of aflatoxin M1 ranged from (0.25-50 ppb). UV radiation (365nm wave length) was used for detoxification of aflatoxin M1 (sample with highest concentration /50 ppb of aflatoxin M1 in two different volumes ((25 & 50 ml)) for two different time (15 & 30 min) and 30, 60, 90 cm distance between lamp and milk layer were used for this purpose). Results showed that distance between lamp and milk layer was the most effective parameter in reduction of aflatoxin M1, and whenever the distance increase the
... Show MoreA band rationing method is applied to calculate the salinity index (SI) and Normalized Multi-Band Drought Index (NMDI) as pre-processing to take Agriculture decision in these areas is presented. To separate the land from other features that exist in the scene, the classical classification method (Maximum likelihood classification) is used by classified the study area to multi classes (Healthy vegetation (HV), Grasslands (GL), Water (W), Urban (U), Bare Soil (BS)). A Landsat 8 satellite image of an area in the south of Iraq are used, where the land cover is classified according to indicator ranges for each (SI) and (NMDI).
Objective: To assess the fear of laboring women regarding the delivery on themselves and their
newborns.
Methodology : A descriptive study was conducted on (100) pregnant women who where admitted to
labor room in Al- Yarmock Teaching Hospital/Maternity Units, Fatima Al- Zahra and Ibn-Al Baladi
Maternity and Pediatric Hospital. The questionnaire was consisted of pregnant women
socio-demographic data, reproductive data and fear items of labor. Data were collected by using a
questionnaire format, through interview technique and reviewing pregnant records, descriptive and
inferential statistical procedure were used to analyze the data.
Results: The main results of the study revealed a high mean of scores with moderate
Objective(s): The aim of this study was to assess the severity of anemia among children under 5 years and to find
out relationship between severity of anemia in children with socio-demographic variables such as: child gender,
age, supplement diet, hookworm, pica, parent's education level, father's and mother's occupation, and family
monthly income with severity of anemia
Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted at the primary health care centers in Alsadr city
for the period of 1
st July 2011 to the 1st November 2011.Non probability (purposive) sample of (630) children who
aged under 5 years and who attended to primary health care centers of Alsadr city. The data were collected
through using
Aim: To evaluate the wettability and microhardness of Zirconium (ZrO2) dental material when coated with different concentrations of Faujasite. Materials and methods: 30 circular disks produced from ZrO2, then each group is classified into 10 control groups, 10 coated groups with 3% Faujasite, and 10 coated groups with 7% faujasite by electro-spun tool to study variable properties in hardness and water contact angle of implant materials. Results: This study stated the high hardness in 7% of faujasite concentration for ZrO2, in addition, the contact angle decreased gradually until reach 0 ᵒ in 7% concentration of faujasite with ZrO2 Conclusion: Water contact angle (WCA) declined till disappeared in (7% wt.) of faujasite coated with the Z
... Show MoreRecently new concepts such as free data or Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) emerged on Web 2.0 technologies. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is one of the most representative projects of this trend. Geospatial data from different source often has variable accuracy levels due to different data collection methods; therefore the most concerning problem with (OSM) is its unknown quality. This study aims to develop a specific tool which can analyze and assess the possibility matching of OSM road features with reference dataset using Matlab programming language. This tool applied on two different study areas in Iraq (Baghdad and Karbala), in order to verify if the OSM data has the same quality in both study areas. This program, in general, consists
... Show MoreThe study focuses on assessment of the quality of some image enhancement methods which were implemented on renal X-ray images. The enhancement methods included Imadjust, Histogram Equalization (HE) and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). The images qualities were calculated to compare input images with output images from these three enhancement techniques. An eight renal x-ray images are collected to perform these methods. Generally, the x-ray images are lack of contrast and low in radiation dosage. This lack of image quality can be amended by enhancement process. Three quality image factors were done to assess the resulted images involved (Naturalness Image Quality Evaluator (NIQE), Perception based Image Qual
... Show More