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.
Removal of Congo red, Rhodamine B, and Dispers Blue dyes from water solution have been achieved using Flint Clay as an adsorbent. The adsorption was studied as a function of contact time, adsorbent dose, pH, and temperature under batch adsorption technique. The equilibrium data fit with Langmuir, Freundlich and Toth models of adsorption and the linear regression coefficient R2 was used to elucidate the best fitting isotherm model. Different thermodynamic parameters, namely Gibb’s free energy, enthalpy and entropy of the on-going adsorption process have also been evaluated. Batch technique has been employed for the kinetic measurements and the adsorption of the three dyes follows a second order rate kinetics. The kinetic investigations al
... Show MoreIn this study, a new adsorbent derived from sunflower husk powder and coated in CuO nanoparticles (CSFH) was investigated to evaluate the simultaneous adsorption of Levofloxacin (LEV), Meropenem (MER), and Tetracycline (TEC) from an aqueous solution. Significant improvements in the adsorption capacity of the sunflower husk were identified after the powder particles had been coated in CuO nanoparticles. Kinetic data were correlated using a pseudo-second-order model, and was successful for the three antibiotics. Moreover, high compatibility was identified between the LEV, MER, and TEC, isotherm data, and the Langmuir model, which produced a better fit to suit the isotherm curves. In addition, the spontaneous and exothermic nature of the adso
... Show MoreUltrasonic Extraction method followed by gradient HPLC was carried out for the simultaneous determination of four insecticides are [imidacloprid (Imi), thiamethoxam (Thi), indoxacarb (Ind) and abamectin (Aba)] used to combat the major insect pests in Iraq, whitefly, Dubas Bug, worms fruits as well as to combat the spiders – dream respectively in eco-soil samples. The extraction recovery was in the range of 99.77 to 109.1 %. The dissipation kinetics and residual levels of these insecticides in soil sample was studied under field ecosystem. The half-life of the mix insecticides was determined. The half-life was in range of 0.38 to 4.06 days with the soil samples were brought from the Agricultural Land called Nahrawan located in th
... Show MoreTwo field experimسents were conducted in one of the fields of the Agriculture Division of Ain Al-Tamr /Holy Karbala Governorate at two sites of different textures during the agricultural season 2020/2021. The first site has sandy loam texture (gypsum soils). The second site has loamy sand texture (calcareous soils). The factors of the study included: The first factor included two types of soil, gypsum and calcareous soil. The second factor is the tillage systems (no-tillage, spring spike harrows, disc harrows, and mold board plow). The experiment was designed in the two study sites according to the RCBD with three replications. The Valley type center pivot irrigation system was evaluated before planting, three speeds, 30, 50 and 100% of th
... Show MoreThe -mixing of - transition in Er 168 populated in Er)n,n(Er 168168 reaction is calculated in the present work by using a2- ratio method. This method has used in previou studies [4, 5, 6, 7] in case that the second transition is pure or for that transition which can be considered as pure only, but in one work we applied this method for two cases, in the first one for pure transition and in the 2nd one for non pure transitions. We take into accunt the experimental a2- coefficient for p revious works and -values for one transition only [1]. The results obtained are, in general, in agood agreement within associated errors, with those reported previously [1], the discrepancies that occur are due to inaccuracies existing
... Show MoreThe synthesis and properties of two new series of compounds having 1,3-Oxazepineand 1,3-thiazole rings connected through azo linkage are reported. These compounds weresynthesized by the reaction of phthalic anhydride with Schiff bases. The molecular structuresof these compounds were verified by elemental analysis, FTIR and 1HNMR spectroscopy.The mesomorphic behaviors of these compounds were studied by optical polarizedmicroscopy (OPM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). All compounds of the twoseries show liquid crystalline properties. The influence of the central oxazepine and thiazolerings and the terminal substituents on the type and temperature range of the mesomorphousproperties of these compounds has been elucidated
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from uninfested and infested broccoli plant samples with green peach aphid
Phenol is one of the worst-damaging organic pollutants, and it produces a variety of very poisonous organic intermediates, thus it is important to find efficient ways to eliminate it. One of the promising techniques is sonoelectrochemical processing. However, the type of electrodes, removal efficiency, and process cost are the biggest challenges. The main goal of the present study is to investigate the removal of phenol by a sonoelectrochemical process with different anodes, such as graphite, stainless steel, and titanium. The best anode performance was optimized by using the Taguchi approach with an L16 orthogonal array. the degradation of phenol sonoelectrochemically was investigated with three process parameters: current de
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