Abstract Asthma is a complex disease defined by chronic airway inflammation and airflow limitation causing variable respiratory symptoms which include shortness of breath (SOB), wheezing, chest tightness and cough. Asthma guidelines advocate adding a second long acting bronchodilator to medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) rather using high doses of ICS alone to control moderate to severe persistent asthma. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of three medication regimens indicated for Iraqi patients suffering from persistent asthma. This study was interventional randomized clinical study conducted on a sample of adult Iraqi asthmatic patients in Baghdad City. The study composed of three visits distributed over eight weeks; baseline visit followed by first follow up and second follow up visits after four and eight weeks respectively. The study enrolled 78 adult patients with moderate to severe persistent asthma as diagnosed by specialist physician according to patient history and baseline pulmonary function test (PFT) and allocated them randomly to three groups (each group included 26 patients) to receive equivalent medium doses of budesonide inhaler in addition to either formoterol inhaler, oral modified release aminophylline tablets or tiotropium inhaler (first, second and third group respectively). Sixty four patients completed this study. The mean ages of patients were above 35 years with slightly more male predominance. The study groups developed significant increase of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) and forced vital capacity (FVC) values at the first follow up visit compared to baseline values (p<0.001). Thereafter, the first and third groups achieved significant higher values at the second follow up visit compared to first follow up visit (p<0.001), while second group produced no change. All the groups developed significant improvement of Mini asthma quality of life questionnaire (MiniAQLQ) scores and percentage of symptom free days (SFD) at first follow up visit and continued further significant improvement at the second follow up visit (p<0.001). Generally, between groups comparison according to extent of change of study parameters revealed that third group produced the greatest improvement over the entire study period followed by the first group, whereas the second group was associated with the least extent of improvement. This study concluded that all groups caused significant improvement in study parameters compared to baseline values and also concluded that the third group of inhaled [tiotropium/budesonide] was associated with the highest extent of improvement followed by first group, while the second group was the least.
Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) is a well known device for effectively regulating the active power flow in a power system. In this paper, the SSSC linearized power flow equations are incorporated into Newton-Raphson algorithm in a MATLAB written program to investigate the control of active poweer flow and the transient stability of a five bus and a thirty bus IEEE test systems, during abnormal conduction (three phase fault near buses). A comparison of the results obtained for the base case without SSSC and with it to investigate the effectiveness of the device on both of the active power flow and the transient stability.
Background: Patient evaluation of the healthcare provided by his/her family doctor is a multidimensional concept, its main component being the doctor-patient interaction.
Materials and Methods: a total of 200 client chosen by systematic random sampling were successfully interviewed immediately after having the contact with the family physician in the family medicine center.
Results: The present study showed that the majority of the clients were young age, most of them were female, completed secondary education and the majorities were unemployed. This study determined the client general satisfaction the services provided by the physician the overall satisfaction was high (98%), the most significant stat
In this study, the thermal buckling behavior of composite laminate plates cross-ply and angle-ply all edged simply supported subjected to a uniform temperature field is investigated, using a simple trigonometric shear deformation theory. Four unknown variables are involved in the theory, and satisfied the zero traction boundary condition on the surface without using shear correction factors, Hamilton's principle is used to derive equations of motion depending on a Simple Four Variable Plate Theory for cross-ply and angle-ply, and then solved through Navier's double trigonometric sequence, to obtain critical buckling temperature for laminated composite plates. Effect of changing some design parameters such as, ortho
... Show MoreThe systems cooling hybrid solar uses solar collector to convert solar energy into the source of heat for roasting Refrigerant outside of the compressor and this process helps in the transformation of Refrigerant from the gas to a liquid state in two-thirds the top of the condenser instead of two-thirds the bottom of the condenser as in Conventional cooling systems and this in turn reduces the energy necessary to lead the process of cooling. The system cooling hybrid use with a capacity of 1 ton and Refrigerant type R22 and the value of current drawn by the system limits (3.9-4.2A), the same value of electric current calculated by the system are Conventional within this atmosphere of Iraq, and after taking different readings
... Show MoreBackground: Differentiating cytotrophoblasts transform their adhesion receptor phonotype so as to resemble the endothelial cells they replace a process that is required for normal placentation, and any defect in this adhesion phenotype switch might lead to pregnancy failure.
Patients and Methods: Curate samples of the materno-fetal interface were taken from 20 women with spontaneous first trimester abortion and 6 control women undergone elective termination of pregnancy in the first trimester. Immunohistochemistry analysis of paraffin embedded sections of these curate samples was performed using monoclonal antibodies for cytokeratin, PECAM-1 and VCAM-1.
Results: Cytokeratin showed positive immunostaing
In this paper, a new analytical method is introduced to find the general solution of linear partial differential equations. In this method, each Laplace transform (LT) and Sumudu transform (ST) is used independently along with canonical coordinates. The strength of this method is that it is easy to implement and does not require initial conditions.
This research mainly focuses on the preparation of chitosan-alginate Nanoparticle by ionotropic gelation method using calcium chloride and sodium alginate to form nanocomposites of CH-ALg, examine their antibacterial activity against multidrug resistance (MDR) bacteria, and evaluate the stability of chitosan-alginate formula in different biological fluids, including simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and intestinal fluid (SIF). The average diameter of particles size prepared was measured by an Atomic force microscope (AFM) and it was 61.91 nm. Otherwise, the nature of functional groups present in CH-ALg nanoparticle was investigated by Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) analysis. The stability of synthesized CH-ALg nanoparticle was
... Show MoreAn electrolytic process for the removal of Zn(II) from aqueous solution using a parallel amalgamated copper screens cathode operated in the flow through mode is proposed. The current-potential curves recorded at a rotating amalgamated copper disc electrode were used to determine diffusion coefficient of Zn(II). The performance of electrolytic reactor was investigated by using different flow rates at initial zinc ion concentration(48 mg/L). Taking into account the residential Zn(II) concentration, the best results were obtained for cathode potential of (-1.35 V vs. SCE) at flow rate (320 L/h). Zinc ion concentration was found to decrease from 48 mg/L to 1 mg/L during 120 min. of electrolysis. The experimental data are well correlate
... Show MoreIn this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption. No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficiency of cadmium b
... Show MoreSoftware Defined Network (SDN) is a new technology that separate the control plane from the data plane. SDN provides a choice in automation and programmability faster than traditional network. It supports the Quality of Service (QoS) for video surveillance application. One of most significant issues in video surveillance is how to find the best path for routing the packets between the source (IP cameras) and destination (monitoring center). The video surveillance system requires fast transmission and reliable delivery and high QoS. To improve the QoS and to achieve the optimal path, the SDN architecture is used in this paper. In addition, different routing algorithms are used with different steps. First, we eva
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