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.
Ball and Plate (B&P) system is a benchmark system in the control engineering field that has been used to verify many control methods. In this paper the design of a sliding mode . controller has been investigated and verified in real-time via implementation on a real ball and plate system hardware. The mathematical model has been derived and the necessary parameters have been measured. The sliding mode controller has been designed based on the obtained mathematical model. The resulting controller has been implemented using the Arduino Mega 2560 and a ball and plate system built completely from scratch. The Arduino has been programmed by the Arduino support target for Simulink. Three test signals has been used for verification purposes
... Show MoreThis paper presents an efficient methodology to design modified evaporative air-cooler for winter air-conditioning in Baghdad city as well as using it for summer air-conditioning by adding a heating process after the humidification process. laboratory tests were performed on a direct evaporative cooler (DEC) followed by passing the air on hot water through heat exchanger placed in the coolers air duct exit. The tests were conducted on the 2nd of December /2011 when the ambient temperature was 8.1°C and the relative humidity was (68%). The air flow rate is assumed to vary between 0.069 to 0.209 kg/s with constant water flow rate of 0.03 kg/s in the heat exchanger. The performance is reported in terms of effectiveness of DEC, satura
... Show MoreIn this paper, a least squares group finite element method for solving coupled Burgers' problem in 2-D is presented. A fully discrete formulation of least squares finite element method is analyzed, the backward-Euler scheme for the time variable is considered, the discretization with respect to space variable is applied as biquadratic quadrangular elements with nine nodes for each element. The continuity, ellipticity, stability condition and error estimate of least squares group finite element method are proved. The theoretical results show that the error estimate of this method is . The numerical results are compared with the exact solution and other available literature when the convection-dominated case to illustrate the effic
... Show MoreIn this work, new Schiff bases of quinazolinone derivatives (Q1-Q5) were synthesized from methyl anthranilate. The synthesis involved three steps. In the first step, methyl anthranilate was reacted with isothiocyanatobenzene, producing the thiourea derivative K1. The second step entailed reacting K1 with hydrazine hydrate, synthesizing 3-amino-2-(phenylamino) quinazolin-4(3H)-one (K2). The third step involved reaction of K2 with various aromatic aldehydes, yielding the Schiff bases derivatives Q1-Q5. The chemical structures of these compounds were identified by FT-IR,1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The newly synthesized derivatives (Q1-Q5) were subjected to rigorous evaluation to assess their efficacy as corrosion inhibitors for ca
... Show MoreGingival crevicular fluid (GCF) may reflect the events associated with orthodontic tooth movement. Attempts have been conducted to identify biomarkers reflecting optimum orthodontic force, unwanted sequallea (i.e. root resorption) and accelerated tooth movement. The aim of the present study is to find out a standardized GCF collection, storage and total protein extraction method from apparently healthy gingival sites with orthodontics that is compatible with further high-throughput proteomics. Eighteen patients who required extractions of both maxillary first premolars were recruited in this study. These teeth were randomly assigned to either heavy (225g) or light force (25g), and their site specific GCF was collected at baseline and aft
... Show MoreIn this work, chemical spray pyrolysis deposition (CSP) technique was used to prepare a mixed In2O3-CdO thin films with different CdO content (10, 30 and 50)%volume ratio on glass substrates at 150 ᵒC substrate temperature. The surface morphology and structural properties were measured to find the optimum conditions to improve thin films properties for using as photo detector. Current –Time, the sensitivity and response speed vary for each mixture. Samples with 10% vol. CdO content has square pulse response with average rise time nearly 1s and fall time 1s.
Background: A review of articles of method in treating compound phalangeal fractures by using mini-external fixator, elaborating the anatomy, mechanics, modalities of treatment, and complications of these types of fractures. Also, it compares between different studies regarding the functional results and final outcome. External fixation of phalangeal fractures is a good method for osteo synthesis in certain situations. The simplicity of the surgical procedure and the minimal disruption of the normal bone architecture also make it appealing. Objectives: Evaluating the functional results of the use of mini-external fixator for the treatment of compound fractures of phalangeal bones of the hand. Method: Our study consists of 15 patients, 12 we
... Show MoreBackground: A review of articles of method in treating compound phalangeal fractures by using mini-external fixator, elaborating the anatomy, mechanics, modalities of treatment, and complications of these types of fractures. Also, it compares between different studies regarding the functional results and final outcome. External fixation of phalangeal fractures is a good method for osteo synthesis in certain situations. The simplicity of the surgical procedure and the minimal disruption of the normal bone architecture also make it appealing.Objectives: Evaluating the functional results of the use of mini-external fixator for the treatment of compound fractures of phalangeal bones of the hand.Method: Our study consists of 15 patients, 12 w
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