Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with polymorphic expression. B cells have an essential contribution in immune system activation via the production of different cytokines and functioning as potent antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, a drug that particularly targets B cells may represent an ideal therapeutic approach for SLE. Rituximab (RTX), an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody causing transient B-cell depletion, has been used to manage SLE. This study aims to assess Rituximab effects on lupus nephritis (LN) patients when added to conventional immunosuppressants. Twenty four patients, 15-32 years old, with class III/IV/V LN were involved in this study. All were on steroids before lupus nephritis occurrence. They were

Rutting has a significant impact on the pavements' performance. Rutting depth is often used as a parameter to assess the quality of pavements. The Asphalt Institute (AI) design method prescribes a maximum allowable rutting depth of 13mm, whereas the AASHTO design method stipulates a critical serviceability index of 2.5 which is equivalent to an average rutting depth of 15mm. In this research, static and repeated compression tests were performed to evaluate the permanent strain based on (1) the relationship between mix properties (asphalt content and type), and (2) testing temperature. The results indicated that the accumulated plastic strain was higher during the repeated load test than that during the static load tests. Notably, temperatur

Fuzzy logic is used to solve the load flow and contingency analysis problems, so decreasing computing time and its the best selection instead of the traditional methods. The proposed  method is very accurate with outstanding computation time, which made the fuzzy load flow (FLF) suitable for real time application for small- as well as large-scale power systems. In addition that, the FLF efficiently able to solve load flow problem of ill-conditioned power systems and contingency analysis. The FLF method using Gaussian membership function requires less number of iterations and less computing time than that required in the FLF method using triangular membership function. Using sparsity technique for the input Ybus sparse matrix data gi

Background: Opportunistic viral infections make an important threat to renal transplantation recipients (RTRs), and with the use of more intense newly-developed immunosuppressive drugs; the risk of renal allograft loss due to reactivation of these viruses has increased considerably. At the top priority of these viruses lie BK polyomavirus (BKV) and human cytomegalovirus (CMV). Reactivation of these viruses in these chronically immunosuppressed RTRs can lead to renal impairment and subsequently allograft loss, unless early detected and properly treated. Objectives: The study aimed to detect and quantify plasma viral load of BKV and CMV in RTRs using quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR), in order to study the prevalence of these two viruses i

Seven leafhoppers (Cicadeilidae). and one plantboppei (Delpbacidae), Homoptera were identified from a one year operated light trap at the College of Agiculture farm in Abu¬Ghraib. The leafhoppers were: Balclutha hortensis Lind.; B. rufaofasciata Merine.; psammctettix alien us Dahlbem.; P. striatus L.; Extianus capicola.; Neoaliturus haematoceps H. R.; and Orozius albicnctus Dist. The planthopper was Sogatella vibix Haupt. one year records of their populations, indicated that B. rufofasciata occured during the fall from October 10 until December 18; E. capicola from October 24 until November 21 and again in the summer from March to October. The others occured only during the summer, from the end of March and early April until Mid-Septemb

In this paper a new method is proposed to perform the N-Radon orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which are equivalent to 4-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), 16-QAM, 64-QAM, 256-QAM, ... etc. in spectral efficiency. This non conventional method is proposed in order to reduce the constellation energy and increase spectral efficiency. The proposed method gives a significant improvement in Bit Error Rate performance, and keeps bandwidth efficiency and spectrum shape as good as conventional Fast Fourier Transform based OFDM. The new structure was tested and compared with conventional OFDM for Additive White Gaussian Noise, flat, and multi-path selective fading channels. Simulation tests were generated for different channels