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.
IFRS 17 aims to provide a unified basis for accounting for all types of insurance contracts, including reinsurance contracts, in a manner that benefits both investors and insurance companies and enhances the ability of the financial statements of insurance companies for comparison between companies listed in financial markets around the world. According to this standard, insurance contracts are accounted for on the basis of the Asset-Liability Approach and the use of fair values that the standard requires updating regularly in order to provide more useful information to the users of financial statements, as a result of the failure of reporting requirements for insurance contr
... Show MoreThe study aims to identify the degree of appreciation for the level of digital citizenship of a sample of Palestinian university students in the governorates of Gaza, and its relationship to the level of health awareness about the emerging coronavirus (covid-19). To achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher followed a descriptive approach by applying two questionnaires; the first, which consists of 30 items, was used to measure the level of digital citizenship. The second, which consists of 19 items, was used to measure the level of health awareness. Both questionnaires were applied on a sample of 367 students who were electronically selected using the manner simple randomness. Results have shown that the degr
... Show MoreGlobally, the COVID-19 pandemic’s development has presented significant societal and economic challenges. The carriers of COVID-19 transmission have also been identified as asymptomatic infected people. Yet, most epidemic models do not consider their impact when accounting for the disease’s indirect transmission. This study suggested and investigated a mathematical model replicating the spread of coronavirus disease among asymptomatic infected people. A study was conducted on every aspect of the system’s solution. The equilibrium points and the basic reproduction number were computed. The endemic equilibrium point and the disease-free equilibrium point had both undergone local stability analyses. A geometric technique was used
... Show MoreIn this research the specifications of Iraqi drinking bottled water brands are investigated throughout the comparison between local brands, Saudi Arabia and the World Health Organization (WHO) for bottled water standard specifications. These specifications were also compared to that of Iraqi Tap Water standards. To reveal variations in the specifications for Iraqi bottled water, and above mentioned standards some quality control tools are conducted for more than 33% of different bottled water brands (of different origins such as spring, purified,..etc) in Iraq by investigating the selected quality parameters registered on their marketing labels. Results employing Minitab software (ver. 16) to generate X bar,
... Show MoreA Pap test can identify the pre-cancerous and cancerous problem in the vagina and uterine cervix. Cervical tumour is the easiest gynecologic disease to be diagnosed, treated and prevented using regular screening tests and follow-up. This review aimed to explore the opinion of specialists about cytological changes and the precancerous lesions with Pap smear test and visual inspection of the cervices, also to determine the relationship of this malignancy with demographic characteristics of patients. Results showed that few cervical cancer and pre-cancer were with women in postmenopausal period, but more were with women in the premenopausal period. Visual inspection of the cervix can show erosion lesions by gross inspection. Upon cytology exam
... Show MoreThe current paper was designed to find the possible synergic effect of EBV infection with the HPV-16 in Iraqi women suffering from cervical carcinoma. This retrospective study involved paraffinized blocks of two groups. The research included 30 carcinomatous cervical tissues and 15 samples from normal cervical biopsies. After sectioning using positively charged slides, immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to detect anti-Epstein Barr Virus LMP1 and Human papillomavirus type 16 primary antibodies. Sixty-three percentage (19 out of 30) of the studies group showed positive overexpression as shown in with a significant association of the expression with cervical cancer with a significant association (p = 0). The co-infection of the EBV and H
... Show MoreStatistical methods of forecasting have applied with the intention of constructing a model to predict the number of the old aged people in retirement homes in Iraq. They were based on the monthly data of old aged people in Baghdad and the governorates except for the Kurdistan region from 2016 to 2019. Using Box-Jenkins methodology, the stationarity of the series was examined. The appropriate model order was determined, the parameters were estimated, the significance was tested, adequacy of the model was checked, and then the best model of prediction was used. The best model for forecasting according to criteria of (Normalized BIC, MAPE, RMSE) is ARIMA (0, 1, 2).
Statistical methods of forecasting have applied with the intention of constructing a model to predict the number of the old aged people in retirement homes in Iraq. They were based on the monthly data of old aged people in Baghdad and the governorates except for the Kurdistan region from 2016 to 2019. Using BoxJenkins methodology, the stationarity of the series was examined. The appropriate model order was determined, the parameters were estimated, the significance was tested, adequacy of the model was checked, and then the best model of prediction was used. The best model for forecasting according to criteria of (Normalized BIC, MAPE, RMSE) is ARIMA (0, 1, 2)