Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune diseasecharacterized by chronic inflammationthat affects joints and cartilage. Bone complications such asRA-relatedosteoporosis are one of the most extra-articular manifestations. Many inflammatory mediators are released during RA disease pathophysiology; these mediators stimulate osteoclast genesis of bone by direct effects on RANKL and OPG. The study aimedto measure RANKL, OPG in RA patients treated with Etanercept only and other groups treated with Methotrexate onlyat baseline and after three months to evaluate bone state. An observational case-control prospective study was done on 30 RA patients who received MTX, 30 RA patients who received ETN, and 30 healthy,age-matched control groups. The level of RANKL and OPG was measured at baseline and after three months of therapy by immunoenzymatically assay (ELISA). The results were tabulated and statistically analyzed usingthe statistical package for social science. The result demonstrated that RANKL level had a positive correlation with age and disease duration in contrast to OPG level showed a negative correlation with age and duration of disease. In the patients group treated with MTX at baseline, the RANKL level was significantly higher (181.336±65.583) than post-therapy (166.097±69.229), while the OPG level at baseline significantly lower (594.398±133.238) than post therapy (614.499±150.879). In ETN treated patients, the level of RANKL in baseline was significantly higher than (231.247±73.134) RANKL level post-therapy (200.363±76.807), while OPG level in baseline waslower (463.263±96.392) than post therapy (503.608±107.692). The study demonstrated in baseline RANKL/OPG ratio significant higher (0.4340±0.234) than post therapy (0.3690±0.222). All RA patients had or were at high risk for osteoporosis.Both Etanarcept and methotrexate produce insignificant differences on OPG and RANKL levels, in the same time this biomarkers are not good indicators for bone state.
Petroleum is one of the most important substances consumed by man at present times, a major energy source in this century, petroleum oils can cause environmental pollution during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use, petroleum hydrocarbons pollutions ranging from soil, ground water to marine environment, become an inevitable problem in the modern life, current study focused on bioremediation process of hydrocarbons contaminants that remaining in the bottom of gas cylinders and discharged to the soil. Twenty-four bacterial isolates were isolated from contaminated soils all of them gram negative bacteria, bacterial isolates screening to investigate the ability of biodegradation of hydrocarbons, these isolates
... Show MoreOil/water emulsions are one of the major threats to environment nowadays, occurs at many stages in the production and treatment of crude oil. The oil recovery process adopted will depend on how the oil is present in the water stream. Oil can be found as free oil, as an unstable oil/water emulsion and also as a highly stable oil/water emulsion. The current study was dedicated to the application of microbubble air flotation process for the removal of such oily emulsions for its characters of cost-effective, simple structure, high efficiency and no secondary pollution. The influence of several key parameters on the process removal efficiency was examined, namely, initial oil concentration, pH value of t
The futuristic age requires progress in handwork or even sub-machine dependency and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) provides the necessary BCI procession. As the article suggests, it is a pathway between the signals created by a human brain thinking and the computer, which can translate the signal transmitted into action. BCI-processed brain activity is typically measured using EEG. Throughout this article, further intend to provide an available and up-to-date review of EEG-based BCI, concentrating on its technical aspects. In specific, we present several essential neuroscience backgrounds that describe well how to build an EEG-based BCI, including evaluating which signal processing, software, and hardware techniques to use. Individu
... Show MoreEleven yoghurt samples were collected from local markets in Baghdad to isolate Lactobacillus buchneri. Only 3 isolates of L. buchneri were found and the isolate No. 3 was the most producer of bacteriocin. Bacteriocin was adsorbed 100% onto silicic acid at pH 6.0-7.0. Below or above these pH values, adsorption was decreased, ranging between 35 and 90%. Therefore, pH 6.0 was used for the purification procedure. The purification procedure including silicic acid adsorption/desorption and cation-exchange chromatography (CEC) resulted in a 11.11 fold increase in the final specific activity of pure bacteriocin (1176.47 Au/mg) compared to the culture supernatant which was 32.64 Au/mg. The molecular weight was determined to be about 3.4 kDa. The bac
... Show MoreThe effects of BaCl2 dopant on the optical properties of poly (vinyl alcohol) have been investigated. Pure and BaCl2 doped PVA films were prepared using solvent casting method. These films were characterized using UV/VIS technique in order to estimate the kind of transition which was found to be indirect transition. The value of the optical energy gap was decrease with increasing dopant concentration.
Refractive index, extinction coefficient and Urbach tail have been also investigated; it was found that all the above parameters affects by doping.
In this paper the oscillation criterion was investigated for all solutions of the third-order half linear neutral differential equations. Some necessary and sufficient conditions are established for every solution of (a(t)[(x(t)±p(t)x(?(t) ) )^'' ]^? )^'+q(t) x^? (?(t) )=0, t?t_0, to be oscillatory. Examples are given to illustrate our main results.
Shiranish formation has been divided into two microfacies units: 1 - Many biowackestone facies and 2 - maly packstone using planktonic foraminifera and other carbonate components in the rock cutting and core slides. Microfacies reflect marin deep shelf margin in the lower part of the formation, the upper part was deeper. The thickness of the formation is determined, depending on addition to the presence of echinoderm framents debris and spines. This is in disagreement with the 195 ft thickness reported by the Oil Exploration Company The age of the formation is estimated depending on the recognized biostratigraphic zone using the index fossils to be Upper - Middle Mastrichtion.
MCA has gained a reputation for being a very useful statistical method for determining the association between two or more categorical variables and their graphical description. For performance this method, we must calculate the singular vectors through (SVD). Which is an important primary tool that allows user to construct a low-dimensional space to describe the association between the variables categories. As an alternative procedure to use (SVD), we can use the (BMD) method, which involves using orthogonal polynomials to reflect the structure of ordered categorical responses. When the features of BMD are combined with SVD, the (HD) is formed. The aim of study is to use alternative method of (MCA) that is appropriate with order
... Show MoreThe research work represent a fast and simple method for the determination of methionine using chemiluminescence for the methionine-sodium hydroxide-luminol for the generation of a chemiluminesecent derivative of luminal. The emission was measured by continuous flow analysis made sample size of 83µL was used.Response versus concentration extended from 0.2-20 mM.L-1 with a percentage linearity of 96.17% or with 99.17% percentage of linearity for the range 0.6-20 mM.L-1. Reaching to a L.O.D. at (S/N=3) for 5 µM.L-1 from the gradual dilution for the minimum concentration in the calibration graph with a repeatability of less than 0.5% (n=10). A comparison was made between the new developed method with the classical method for the spectrophoto
... Show More