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 given rituximab induction therapy and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) maintenance therapy. RTX was indicated for refractory and relapsing SLE. Several investigations done before and after RTX treatment and in the last follow up (done one year after starting Rituximab). Those included protein in urine, serum creatinine, double stranded DNA, C3, C4, and Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). Proteinuria decreased significantly after RTX treatment and in the last measurement (P=0.01 and P=0.001, respectively). Serum creatinine significantly decreased only in the last measurement (P=0.02). Double stranded DNA decreased remarkably after treatment (P=0.01) with a further decrease in the last measurement (P=0.006). C3 and C4 increased after treatment but the increase was significant only for C3 (P=0.002) and this increase continues till the last measurement (P=0.0006). Active urine sediments found in fifteen patients and disappeared after RTX treatment. Rituximab can be promising in treating lupus nephritis when used along with traditional immunosuppressants. It can reduce disease activity and improve renal function in such patients.
Topic management is the awareness of how speakers deal with initiating, developing, changing, and ending a topic and how they fix the relationship when a misunderstanding occurs. It is such an important unit of conversation as it includes the transition from one strategy to the other to be accomplished in a systematic and orderly manner. These strategies are impaired in dementia patients thus lead to communication breakdown. This study aims at detecting the dementia patients' topic management strategies in selected speeches and answering the questions of which of these strategies are fully or partially detected in these speeches. The researchers use a qualitative method to examine the speeches of those patients and they adopt an eclectic
... Show MoreBackground: Suffering from recurrent boils (furunclosis) is a common problem in our locality as it is noticed by many dermatologists especially in association with increasingly hot weather. The most common causative organisms are staphylococci. Objective: The aim of the study was to shed the light upon this problem and compare two systemic therapeutic agents for the prevention of recurrence, doxycycline and rifampicin. Patient and method: One hundred thirty-five (135) Patients with recurrent boils from Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital dermatology outpatient department were included in this study; age ranged from 10 to 64 years old and out of total patients 32 were males and 103 were females. Patients were assessed by full history and cl
... Show MoreThe problem of the paper focused on the role of the learning organization in the crisis management strategy, and the extent of the actual interest in both the learning organization and the crisis management and aimed at diagnosing and analyzing that and surrounding questions. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to calculate the results and the correlation coefficient between the two main variables. The methodology was descriptive and analytical. The case study was followed by a questionnaire that was distributed to a sample of 31 teachers. The paper adopted a seven-dimensional model of systemic thinking that encourages questioning, empowerment, provision of advanced technologies, and strategic lea
... Show MoreBuffering of Local anaesthesia (LA) has been suggested as a mechanism to improve injection comfort and hasten the onset of anaesthesia. Aim This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of buffered LA in the extraction of maxillary premolars and molars. Materials and Methods This randomized controlled study included 100 patients who were indicated for extraction of maxillary posterior teeth, they were randomly divided into two groups; a study group that received infiltration of buffered 2% lidocaine hydrochloride with 1:80,000 epinephrine LA, and a control group that received non-buffered 2% lidocaine hydrochloride with 1:80,000 epinephrine LA. The buffering was performed using the Onset® LA buffering system (Onpharma®). The outcome va
... Show MoreThe present study aims to investigate the various request constructions used in Classical Arabic and Modern Arabic language by identifying the differences in their usage in these two different genres. Also, the study attempts to trace the cases of felicitous and infelicitous requests in the Arabic language. Methodologically, the current study employs a web-based corpus tool (Sketch Engine) to analyze different corpora: the first one is Classical Arabic, represented by King Saud University Corpus of Classical Arabic, while the second is The Arabic Web Corpus “arTenTen” representing Modern Arabic. To do so, the study relies on felicity conditions to qualitatively interpret the quantitative data, i.e., following a mixed mode method
... Show MoreIn our research, we seek to shed a light on one of the most important and sensitive issues, namely, the Sufi influence in the Iraqi novel through the lame maqam of the novelist Jumaa Al-Lami, the Sufi discourse contains many semantic paradoxes between the text's apparent pronunciation and its interpretation of the format and the context that produced these patterns, and incited them, which concludes different results from the prevailing provisions and fixed ideas from the narrative text.The Arabic and Iraqi novel in particular became inspired by the power of Sufi discourse by talking about several Sufi figures by referring to it openly, or implicitly inspired by unauthorized concealment, in employing some of the ideas, or summoning
... Show MoreBackground: The best material for dental implants is polyetherketoneketone (PEKK). However, this substance is neither osteoinductive nor osteoconductive, preventing direct bone apposition. Modifying the PEKK with bioactive elements like strontium hydroxyapatite is one method to overcome this (Sr-HA). Due to the technique's capacity to provide better control over the coating's properties, RF magnetron sputtering has been found to be a particularly useful technique for deposition. Materials and methods : With specific sputtering conditions, the RF magnetron technique was employed to provide a homogeneous and thin coating on Polyetherketoneketone substrates.. the coatings were characterized by Contact angle, adhesion test, X-ray
... Show MoreThe environmental contamination by the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Ni, Cr, and Cd) concentrations in the leaves of plant Eucalyptus camaldulensis were determined at the city of Kirkuk in 15 selected locations using GPS. The pickings up of samples were carried out in two periods October 2010 and March 2011. Compared with results of other studies, the concentration levels of determined heavy metals show values within these studies results. The average total concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the leaves of Plant Eucalyptus camaldulensis indicated 37.1 ppb in October, while in March 165.2 ppb.
The mode
... Show MoreThis research aims to create lightweight concrete mixtures containing waste from local sources, such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads and waste plastic fibers (WPFs), all are cheap or free in the Republic of Iraq and without charge. The modern, rigid, and mechanical properties of LWC were investigated, and the results were evaluated. Three mixtures were made, each with different proportions of plastic fibers (0.4%, 0.8%, 1.2%), in addition to a lightweight concrete mixture containing steak fibers (0.4%, 0.8%, 1.2%), in addition to a lightweight concrete mixture. It contains 20% EPS. The study found that the LWC caused by the addition of WPFs reduced the density (lightweight) of the concrete mixtures because EPS tends
... Show MoreThis study was conducted in the botanical garden, Department of biology, College of Science / Mustansiriyah University in spring season, where the starts from (15 February to 15 March, 2019). Under the natural environmental conditions in the greenhouse in order to evaluate the effectiveness of some plant extracts as a promoter for rooting the apical stem cutting of rosemary plants at different concentrations compared with the IBA growth regulator. Plant extracts are Parsley (Petroselinum crispum), Dill (Anethum graveolens) and date palm fruits (Phoenix dactylifera) were used with concentrations (0, 1.25, 2.5 g / l). The IBA concentration was (100 mg / L) with dipping time 24 hour for all treatments. The following measurements were taken aft
... Show More