Abstract Introduction: MMP3 plays a crucial role in the process of bone erosion in the pathomechanism of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It acts by removing the outer osteoid layer, which allows the osteoclasts to tightly connect and carry out the subsequent damage to the underlying bone. MMP3 can trigger the production of other MMPs like MMP-1, MMP-7, and MMP-9, it plays a pivotal role in the remodeling of connective tissues. Aim of the study: to assess the influence of MMP-3 serum levels and single-nucleotide polymorphisms of rs679620 in the rheumatoid arthritis patients' group in comparison to the control group. Subjects: eighty eight samples, 45 rheumatoid arthritis patients after being referred by their treating physician for regular RA test. The remaining 43 samples all represent apparently healthy people. The present study investigated the serum concentration of MMP-3 and rs679620 SNPs in the group of patients with RA, in comparison to the control group. Results: The results indicated a significant elevation in MMP-3 levels in RA patients in comparison to healthy individuals (12.75 ± 0.38 vs. 9.69 ± 0.37) and the findings of rs679620 SNPs appeared that the patient group has a non-significant increase in both allele frequency A and genotype frequency AA when compared to the control group (66.2 vs. 52.2 %; p = 0.172; OR = 1.79 and 35.3 vs. 17.4 %; p = 0.229; OR = 2.59) , but a non-significant decrease in both allele frequency C and genotype frequency CC when compared to the control group (2.94 vs. 4.4 %; p = 1.0; OR = 0.67 and 2.9 vs. 4.3 %; p = 1.0; OR = 0.67), as well as a non-significant decrease in allele frequency G and both genotypes frequency GG and AG when compared to the control group (30.9 vs. 43.5 %; p = 0.233; OR = 0.58, 0.0 vs. 8.7 %; p = 0.159; OR = 0.12 and 61.8 vs. 69.6 %; p = 0.585; OR = 0.71 ). Patients carrying the AA and AG genotype, had significantly higher serum levels of MMP-3 compared to control (P= 0.005 and 0.004) respectively. Conclusion: Rs679620 may influence joint destruction via increase MMP-3 production.
Piezoelectric structures are nowadays used in many different applications. A better understanding of the influence of material properties and geometrical design on the performance of these structures helps to develop piezoelectric structures specifically designed for their application. Different equivalent circuits have been introduced in the literature to investigate the behaviour of piezoelectric transducers. The model parameters are usually determined from measurements covering the characteristic frequencies of the piezoelectric transducer. This article introduces an analytical technique for calculating the mechanical and electrical equivalent system parameters and characteristic frequencies based on material properties and geom
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This research aims to reform the Iraqi public budget through going into the challenges the budget faces in applying item-line budget in its preparation, implementation and control; which encourage extravagance and waste instead of rationalizing expenditures. This is shown in the data analysis of Federal public budget laws in Iraq for the years from 2005 till 2013; there was a continuous increase in the aggregate public expenditures in the public budget for the years previously mentioned, as the public expenditures growth has reached into the percent 284.71% in 2013. In addition the public budget for these years (2005-2013) is being prepared with planned deficit without confirming that
... Show MoreMechanical rock properties are essential to minimize many well problems during drilling and production operations. While these properties are crucial in designing optimum mud weights during drilling operations, they are also necessary to reduce the sanding risk during production operations. This study has been conducted on the Zubair sandstone reservoir, located in the south of Iraq. The primary purpose of this study is to develop a set of empirical correlations that can be used to estimate the mechanical rock properties of sandstone reservoirs. The correlations are established using laboratory (static) measurements and well logging (dynamic) data. The results support the evidence that porosity and sonic travel time are consistent i
... Show Moreبعد ثورة تموز عام 1958في العراق, لم يكن يسمح للقطاع الخاص بأن تكون له استثمارات كبيرة في القطاعات الاقتصادية. وذلك بسبب الإيديولوجيات التي كانت تؤطر الفكر السياسي. حيث كان النهج الاشتراكي هو الغالب في إدارة الأنشطة الاقتصادية. إذ قامت الدولة بتأميم معظم الاستثمارات الخاصة الكبيرة ،لاس
... Show MoreThe automatic estimation of speaker characteristics, such as height, age, and gender, has various applications in forensics, surveillance, customer service, and many human-robot interaction applications. These applications are often required to produce a response promptly. This work proposes a novel approach to speaker profiling by combining filter bank initializations, such as continuous wavelets and gammatone filter banks, with one-dimensional (1D) convolutional neural networks (CNN) and residual blocks. The proposed end-to-end model goes from the raw waveform to an estimated height, age, and gender of the speaker by learning speaker representation directly from the audio signal without relying on handcrafted and pre-computed acou
... Show MoreFree-electron lasers (FELs) are disruptive light sources that offer ultrashort pulses, wide spectral tunability, and superior coherence, making them promising candidates for next-generation photonic technologies. However, conventional FEL facilities are large-scale and complex, limiting their integration into communication systems. This study investigates the potential of compact FELs as scalable and versatile light sources for beyond-6G and quantum communication infrastructures. A theoretical framework was established to model resonance conditions, gain dynamics, coherence properties, pulse-duration-limited bit rates, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). These models were implemented in MATLAB simulations using parameters representativ
... Show MoreToday, the role of cloud computing in our day-to-day lives is very prominent. The cloud computing paradigm makes it possible to provide demand-based resources. Cloud computing has changed the way that organizations manage resources due to their robustness, low cost, and pervasive nature. Data security is usually realized using different methods such as encryption. However, the privacy of data is another important challenge that should be considered when transporting, storing, and analyzing data in the public cloud. In this paper, a new method is proposed to track malicious users who use their private key to decrypt data in a system, share it with others and cause system information leakage. Security policies are also considered to be int
... Show MoreLeft ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) caused by high blood pressure is linked to increased mortality and arrhythmia risk. This study aimed to evaluate arrhythmia in hypertensive patients due to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). A cross-sectional study was performed, assessing participants' blood pressure, echocardiography and electrocardiography, and Holter monitoring in certain cases. There were 300 hypertensive patients >18 years attending the cardiology unit of Baghdad medical city. The study was conducted between January–June 2022. The electrocardiograms at rest for 300 adults with hypertension were investigated. 130 (43.5%) were females, and 170 (56.5%) were males. The mean age of participants was 58 years. Forty-nine (16.3
... Show MoreFor a huge and important productive reservoir such as Mishrif formation, the key factors for understanding its production performance and to introduce different production scenarios for future planes are its petrophysical properties. These properties may obtain from different sources such as experimental measurements which are a highly costed methods and well logs data. However, well log data cannot be used to find accurate estimation of such properties without an integrated sedimentological analysis. This research focus on petrophysical evaluation of Mishrif formation employing well log data, core analysis, and depositional modeling to elucidate reservoir characteristics and depos