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.
Classical cryptography systems exhibit major vulnerabilities because of the rapid development of quan tum computing algorithms and devices. These vulnerabilities were mitigated utilizing quantum key distribution (QKD), which is based on a quantum no-cloning algorithm that assures the safe generation and transmission of the encryption keys. A quantum computing platform, named Qiskit, was utilized by many recent researchers to analyze the security of several QKD protocols, such as BB84 and B92. In this paper, we demonstrate the simulation and implementation of a modified multistage QKD protocol by Qiskit. The simulation and implementation studies were based on the “local_qasm” simulator and the “FakeVigo” backend, respectively. T
... Show MoreThe adsorption of Malonic acid, Succinic acid, Adipic acid, and Azelaic acid from their aqueous solutions on zinc oxide surface were investigated. The adsorption efficiency was investigated using various factors such as adsorbent amount, contact time, initial concentration, and temperature. Optimum conditions for acids removal from its aqueous solutions were found to be adsorbent dose (0.2 g), equilibrium contact time (40 minutes), initial acids concentration (0.005 M). Variation of temperature as a function of adsorption efficiency showed that increasing the temperature would result in decreasing the adsorption ability. Kinetic modeling by applying the pseudo-second order model can provide a better fit of the data with a greater correla
... Show MoreBackground: Selenium-73 with half- life of 7.15 hour emits β+ in nature and has six stable isotopes which are ( 74Se,76Se,77Se,78Se,80Se and 82Se ). Selenium-73 has many applications in technology and radioselenium compounds of metallic have found various applications in medicine. Objective: To make a comparison between different reactions that produced cross sections of Se-73 radioisotopes. Subjects and methods: The feasibility of the production of Selenium -73 via various nuclear reactions was investigated. Excitation functions of 73Se production by the reactions of 75As (p,3n), 169Tm( d,x), 74Se, natSe, natBr (p,x) , 75As (d,4n), natGe (3He,x), 70Ge (α, n), and 72Ge (α, 3n) and neutron capture were calculated using the avail
... Show MoreDialogue is one of the most important means of calling to the Creator, as it is one of the scientific and verbal activities carried out by a group of interlocutors to present ideas they believe in, and evidence and proofs that express their views and demonstrate the reason for their belief in them, In order to arrive at the truth or a radical solution to a specific problem, so the interlocutor should pay attention to this science, study it and its etiquette, because the purposeful dialogue requires that the funniest of them be the most knowledgeable and knowledgeable about the axis of the hadith, and the funniest must also be able to be convinced of the rule of difference of opinion that does not spoil the issue of friendly They must also c
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in mandibular trauma caused by two mechanisms for the delivery of missile injuries: firearms and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The data investigated included sex, age, mechanism of injury, and other clinical and radiographic manifestations. Seventy consecutive patients, predominantly male, with a mean age of 28.6 ± 14 years (range 2–60 years) were enrolled: 38 patients (54.3%) sustained mandibular fractures caused by bullet injuries and 32 patients (45.7%) had mandibular fractures caused by IED explosion injuries. The study revealed that the differences in most of the investigated variables were not statistically significant; the only significant differences were the inci
... Show MoreConcerns about the environment, the cost of energy, and safety mean that low-energy cold-mix asphalt materials are very interesting as a potential replacement for present-day hot mix asphalt. The main disadvantage of cold bituminous emulsion mixtures is their poor early life strength, meaning they require a long time to achieve mature strength. This research work aims to study the protentional utilization of waste and by-product materials as a filler in cold emulsion mixtures with mechanical properties comparable to those of traditional hot mix asphalt. Accordingly, cold mix asphalt was prepared to utilize paper sludge ash (PSA) and cement kiln dust (CKD) as a substitution for conventional mineral filler with percentages ranging fro
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a new encryption method. It combines two cipher algorithms, i.e., DES and AES, to generate hybrid keys. This combination strengthens the proposed W-method by generating high randomized keys. Two points can represent the reliability of any encryption technique. Firstly, is the key generation; therefore, our approach merges 64 bits of DES with 64 bits of AES to produce 128 bits as a root key for all remaining keys that are 15. This complexity increases the level of the ciphering process. Moreover, it shifts the operation one bit only to the right. Secondly is the nature of the encryption process. It includes two keys and mixes one round of DES with one round of AES to reduce the performance time. The W-method deals with
... Show MoreGiven the paucity and toxicity of available drugs for leishmaniasis, coupled with the advent of drug resistance, the discovery of new therapies for this neglected tropical disease is recognised as being of the utmost urgency. As such antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising compounds against the causative Leishmania species, insect vector-borne protozoan parasites. Here the AMP temporins A, B and 1Sa have been synthesised and screened for activity against Leishmania mexicana insect stage promastigotes and mammalian stage amastigotes, a significant cause of human cutaneous disease. In contrast to previous studies with other species the activity of these AMPs against L. mexicana amastigotes was low. This suggests that ama
... Show MoreIn this work, the geomagnetic storms that occurred during solar cycles 23 and 24 were classified based on the value of the Disturbance Storm Time index (Dst), which was considered an indicator of the strength of geomagnetic conditions. The special criterion of Dst >-50 nT was adopted in the classification process of the geomagnetic storms based on the minimum daily value of the Dst-index. The number of geomagnetic storms that occurred during the study period was counted according to the adopted criteria, including moderate storms with (Dst >-50 nT), strong storms with (Dst >-100 nT), severe storms with (Dst >-200 nT), and great storms with (Dst >-350 nT). The statistica
The rapid development of telemedicine services and the requirements for exchanging medical information between physicians, consultants, and health institutions have made the protection of patients’ information an important priority for any future e-health system. The protection of medical information, including the cover (i.e. medical image), has a specificity that slightly differs from the requirements for protecting other information. It is necessary to preserve the cover greatly due to its importance on the reception side as medical staff use this information to provide a diagnosis to save a patient's life. If the cover is tampered with, this leads to failure in achieving the goal of telemedicine. Therefore, this work provides an in
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