Several adipokines are produced and secreted from adipose tissue, such as retinol binding protein-4, which triggers metabolic syndromes and insulin resistance. Retinol binding protein-4 transfers vitamin A or retinol in the blood. Higher levels of retinol binding protein-4 are interrelated with progress of metabolic disease, comprising obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study investigates the role of retinol-binding protein-4 levels in type 2 diabetic Iraqi patients with metabolic syndrome. Sixty type 2 diabetic patients aged 40–53 years were examined. Of these 30 patients has metabolic syndrome and 30 without metabolic syndrome. The patients sampled were from the National Diabetes Center/ Mustansiriyah University from February 2022 until the end of August 2022. All diabetic patients have been examined and diagnosed from specialist endocrinology. Also, 30 healthy individuals were selected as control group. Anthropometric and clinical characteristics for all participants were assessed. Serum retinol binding protein-4 concentration was considerably elevated in diabetic patients as paralleled to the control (3.00 ± 0.66 ρg/mL with metabolic syndrome and 2.42 ± 0.88 ρg/ mL without metabolic syndrome). It is observed that female patients with metabolic syndrome had higher concentrations of retinol binding protein-4 (RBP-4) as compared to the male patients. Serum retinol binding protein-4 is strongly correlated with metabolic syndrome. As such concentration of RBP-4 offers enhanced prognostic value over traditional practices, and may be used for early detection of MetS in public health services.
Sorghum cultivation is often accompanied by low field emergence rates and weak seedlings, which may be due to genetic or environmental stress. A factorial experiment was conducted in the spring and fall seasons of 2022 using a randomized complete block design with split-plot arrangement and four replications. Planting dates (spring season: Feb. 15th, Mar. 1st, 15th, and Apr. 1st, 15th; fall season: Jun. 15th, Jul. 1st, 15th, and Aug. 1st, 15th) were allocated to the main plots. Seeds stimulation treatments (35% banana peel extract + 100 mg L-1 citric acid and distilled water soaking treatment only) were allocated to the subplots. The interaction treatment (banana peel extract + citric acid) with the planting date of April 15 showed the high
... Show MoreThis research deals with the design and simulation of a solar power system consisting of a KC200GT solar panel, a closed loop boost converter and a three phase inverter by using Matlab / Simulink. The mathematical equations of the solar panel design are presented. The electrical characteristics of the panel are tested at the values of 1000 for light radiation and 25 °C for temperature environment. The Proportional Integral (PI) controller is connected as feedback with the Boost converter to obtain a stable output voltage by reducing the oscillations in the voltage to charge a battery connected to the output of the converter. Two methods (Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Zeigler- Nichols) are used for tuning
... Show MoreUrban land price is the primary indicator of land development in urban areas. Land prices in holly cities have rapidly increased due to tourism and religious activities. Public agencies are usually facing challenges in managing land prices in religious areas. Therefore, they require developed models or tools to understand land prices within religious cities. Predicting land prices can efficiently retain future management and develop urban lands within religious cities. This study proposed a new methodology to predict urban land prices within holy cities. The methodology is based on two models, Linear Regression (LR) and Support Vector Regression (SVR), and nine variables (land price, land area,
... Show MoreApple slice grading is useful in post-harvest operations for sorting, grading, packaging, labeling, processing, storage, transportation, and meeting market demand and consumer preferences. Proper grading of apple slices can help ensure the quality, safety, and marketability of the final products, contributing to the post-harvest operations of the overall success of the apple industry. The article aims to create a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to classify images of apple slices after immersing them in atmospheric plasma at two different pressures (1 and 5 atm) and two different immersion times (3 and again 6 min) once and in filtered water based on the hardness of the slices usin
The current study used extracts from the aloe vera (AV) plant and the hibiscus sabdariffa flower to make Ag-ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) and Ag-ZnO nanocomposites (NCs). Ag/ZnO NCs were compared to Ag NPs and ZnO NPs. They exhibited unique properties against bacteria and fungi that aren't present in either of the individual parts. The Ag-ZnO NCs from AV showed the best performance against E. coli, with an inhibition zone of up to 27 mm, compared to the other samples. The maximum absorbance peaks were observed at 431 nm and 410 nm for Ag NPs, at 374 nm and 377 nm for ZnO NPs and at 384 nm and 391 nm for Ag-ZnO NCs using AV leaf extract and hibiscus sabdariffa flower extract, respectively. Using field emission-scanning electron microscopes (FE-
... Show MoreAdvanced strategies for production forecasting, operational optimization, and decision-making enhancement have been employed through reservoir management and machine learning (ML) techniques. A hybrid model is established to predict future gas output in a gas reservoir through historical production data, including reservoir pressure, cumulative gas production, and cumulative water production for 67 months. The procedure starts with data preprocessing and applies seasonal exponential smoothing (SES) to capture seasonality and trends in production data, while an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) captures complicated spatiotemporal connections. The history replication in the models is quantified for accuracy through metric keys such as m
... Show MoreThe doping process with materials related to carbon has become a newly emerged approach for achieving an improvement in different physical properties for the obtained doped films. Thin films of CuPc: C60 with doping ratio of (100:1) were spin-coated onto pre-cleaned glass substrates at room temperature. The prepared films were annealed at different temperatures of (373, 423 and 473) K. The structural studies, using a specific diffractometry of annealed and as deposited samples showed a polymorphism structure and dominated by CuPc with preferential orientation of the plane (100) of (2θ = 7) except at temperature of 423K which indicated a small peak around (2θ = 3
Abstract
The research aims to measure the level of critical thinking skills among students of A’Sharqiah University in the Sultanate of Oman, as well as identify the level of their availability based on the variables: gender, academic level, school year, cumulative average, and general diploma / high school ratio. The researchers used the descriptive approach. To achieve the objectives of the study, they used The California Test for Critical Thinking Skills Picture (A) after evaluation (Farraj, 2006). It was applied to a sample of (487) students from A’sharqiah University. The results of the study found that the critical thinking skills of A’sharqiah University students are below the educationally acceptabl
... Show MoreThe Manganese doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles of the cubic zinc blende structure with the average crystallite size of about 3.56 nm were synthesized using a coprecipitation method using Thioglycolic Acid as an external capping agent for surface modification. The ZnS:Mn2+ nanoparticles of diameter 3.56 nm were manufactured through using inexpensive precursors in an efficient and eco-friendly way. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy are used to examine the structure, morphology and chemical composition of the nanoparticles. The antimicrobial activity of (ZnS:Mn2+) nanocrystals was investigated by measuring the diameter of inhibition zone using well diffusion mechanism
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