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.
The present study cognitive aims to investigate the negation phenomenon in American political discourse under Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) principles. The research sample includes two speeches given by Clinton and Trump in their election campaigns in 2016. Since the nature of the study follows the social-cognitive approach, the researcher adopted two models of analysis to achieve the study’s objectives: First, the theoretical framework of MST (developed by Fauconnier (1994), Fauconnier and Sweetser (1996) to examine meaning construction resulting from building different levels of negative mental spaces by two different genders the selected speeches. Second, pragmatic model to examine the role of gender from the functional per
... Show MoreThis study aims to examine how the lives of blacks are reduced and eliminated in Brother (2017) by David Chariandy. Black Lives Matter is a hash tag that appears after the killing of Trayvon Martin (17 years old African American) in 2012 by the savage hands of George Zimmerman (white person). This hash-tag has become a social movement that calls for equality in order to stop the violence against black people because their live is as valuable as white’s. The movement comes into being to highlight the “hypocritical democracy in service to the white males whose freedom are openly depended upon the oppression of blacks” (Lebron, 2017, P. 1). Those who have started this movement try to redeem a state and its arbitrary actions again
... Show MoreConventional dosage forms for topical and transdermal drug delivery have several disadvantages related mainly to its poor skin permeation and patient compliance. Many approaches have been developed to improve these dosage forms. Film forming drug delivery systems represents a recent advancement in this field. It provides improved patient compliance with enhanced skin permeation of drugs. In its simplest form, these consist of a polymeric solution, usually in a supersaturated state, in a suitable solvent. A plasticizer is usually added to improve the flexibility and enhance the tensile strength to the film. It is also possible to control and sustain the drug release from the films by controlling the polymeric content, concentration o
... Show MoreSpeech is the essential way to interact between humans or between human and machine. However, it is always contaminated with different types of environment noise. Therefore, speech enhancement algorithms (SEA) have appeared as a significant approach in speech processing filed to suppress background noise and return back the original speech signal. In this paper, a new efficient two-stage SEA with low distortion is proposed based on minimum mean square error sense. The estimation of clean signal is performed by taking the advantages of Laplacian speech and noise modeling based on orthogonal transform (Discrete Krawtchouk-Tchebichef transform) coefficients distribution. The Discrete Kra
Corona virus sickness has become a big public health issue in 2019. Because of its contact-transparent characteristics, it is rapidly spreading. The use of a face mask is among the most efficient methods for preventing the transmission of the Covid-19 virus. Wearing the face mask alone can cut the chance of catching the virus by over 70\%. Consequently, World Health Organization (WHO) advised wearing masks in crowded places as precautionary measures. Because of the incorrect use of facial masks, illnesses have spread rapidly in some locations. To solve this challenge, we needed a reliable mask monitoring system. Numerous government entities are attempting to make wearing a face mask mandatory; this process can be facilitated by using face m
... Show MoreA prepared PMMA/Anthracene film of thickness 70μm was irradiated under reduced pressure ~10-3 to 60Coγ-ray dose of (0.1mrad-10krad) range. The optical properties of the irradiated films were evaluated spectrophotometrically. The absorption spectrum showed induced absorption changes in the 200-400nm range. At 359nm, where there is a decrease in radiation-induced absorption, the optical density as a function of absorbed dose is linear from 10mrad-10Krad.It can therefore, be used as radiation dosimeter for gamma ray in the range 10mrd-10krad
The samples were collected monthly crustaceans Mjmafah foot of two stations in tributary Zab down and two others in the Tigris River for one year with effect from November 2001 until October 2002 recorded during the study period the current 41 units taxonomic and were higher density of Mjmafah foot Guy Tigris River before the mouth of the tributary
This research deals with the most famous existing definitions of public relations, in an attempt to achieve a definition that will be added to the other existing and widespread definitions, especially that big developments have taken place in the concept of public relations and their idiomatic use.
In addition, many definitions of public relations have been restricted to some limited descriptions, therefore many of the descriptions given to the public relations are basically definitions as well as characteristics of the public relations.
This research aims at setting and formulating the definitions of public relations, it also deals with its credibility in achieving its significance in order to reach a new definition that
... Show MoreDBN Rashid, Rimak International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2020