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.
Nuclear emission rates for nucleon-induced reactions are theoretically calculated based on the one-component exciton model that uses state density with non-Equidistance Spacing Model (non-ESM). Fair comparison is made from different state density values that assumed various degrees of approximation formulae, beside the zeroth-order formula corresponding to the ESM. Calculations were made for 96Mo nucleus subjected to (N,N) reaction at Emax=50 MeV. The results showed that the non-ESM treatment for the state density will significantly improve the emission rates calculated for various exciton configurations. Three terms might suffice a proper calculation, but the results kept changing even for ten terms. However, five terms is found to give
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This study is concerned with the estimation of constant and time-varying parameters in non-linear ordinary differential equations, which do not have analytical solutions. The estimation is done in a multi-stage method where constant and time-varying parameters are estimated in a straight sequential way from several stages. In the first stage, the model of the differential equations is converted to a regression model that includes the state variables with their derivatives and then the estimation of the state variables and their derivatives in a penalized splines method and compensating the estimations in the regression model. In the second stage, the pseudo- least squares method was used to es
... Show MoreAgility is considered an important motor ability for assistant referees and it is vital for passing modern tests issued in September 2016. The researcher used the experimental method. The subjects were (10) referees; four of them for pilot study. The experimental group followed the exercises designed by the while the controlling group used the traditional exercises followed by the refereeing committee. All referees were tested the standardized agility test issued by the FIFA. The researchers concluded that agility plays a vital role in developing some refereeing skill. Finally they recommend developing agility for improving refereeing skills.
Electrochemical corrosion of hydroxyapatite (HAP) coated performance depends on various parameters like applied potential, time, thickness and sintering temperature. Thus, the optimum parameters required for the development of stable HAP coatings was found by using electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique. This study discusses the results obtained from open circuit potential-time measurements (OCP-time), potentiodynamic polarisation and immersion tests for all alloy samples done under varying experimental conditions, so that the optimum coating parameters can be established. The ageing studies of the coated samples were carried out by immersing them in Ringer’s solution for a period of 30 days indicates the importance of stable HAP c
... Show MoreVideo streaming is widely available nowadays. Moreover, since the pandemic hit all across the globe, many people stayed home and used streaming services for news, education, and entertainment. However, when streaming in session, user Quality of Experience (QoE) is unsatisfied with the video content selection while streaming on smartphone devices. Users are often irritated by unpredictable video quality format displays on their smartphone devices. In this paper, we proposed a framework video selection scheme that targets to increase QoE user satisfaction. We used a video content selection algorithm to map the video selection that satisfies the user the most regarding streaming quality. Video Content Selection (VCS) are classified in
... Show MoreThis work is devoted to study the properties of the ground states such as the root-mean square ( ) proton, charge, neutron and matter radii, nuclear density distributions and elastic electron scattering charge form factors for Carbon Isotopes (9C, 12C, 13C, 15C, 16C, 17C, 19C and 22C). The calculations are based on two approaches; the first is by applying the transformed harmonic-oscillator (THO) wavefunctions in local scale transformation (LST) to all nuclear subshells for only 9C, 12C, 13C and 22C. In the second approach, the 9C, 15C, 16C, 17C and 19C isotopes are studied by dividing the whole nuclear system into two parts; the first is the compact core part and the second is the halo part. The core and halo parts are studied using the
... Show MoreAn approximate solution of the liner system of ntegral cquations fot both fredholm(SFIEs)and Volterra(SIES)types has been derived using taylor series expansion.The solusion is essentailly
One of the most important virulence factors in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is biofilm formation, as it works as a barrier for entering antibiotics into the bacterial cell. Different environmental and nutritional conditions were used to optimize biofilm formation using microtitre plate assay by P. aeruginosa. The low nutrient level of the medium represented by tryptic soy broth (TSB) was better in biofilm formation than the high nutrient level of the medium with Luria Broth (LB). The optimized condition for biofilm production at room temperature (25 °C) is better than at host temperature (37 °C). Moreover, the staining with 0.1% crystal violet and reading the biofilm with wavelength 360 are considered essential factors in
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