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.
Background: Gasoline constituents and its derivatives had many hazardous effects on the general health of humans. Thus, gasoline stations workers may be affected by different types of related diseases.This study was conducted to assess selected salivary elements and their relation with dental caries, oral hygiene status and periodontal diseases among gasoline stations workers in comparison with individuals have no regular exposure to gasoline. Materials and methods: The study group consists of thirty male subjects with an age range (33-39) years who worked in different gasoline stations in different areas of Baghdad city and thirty persons that matching in age and gender and not exposed to gasoline were selected as a control group. Dental c
... Show MoreThe aim of the research was to investigate the use of non-parametric tests in the analysis of the questionnaire and how to choose the appropriate test for testing the hypothesis of the study of crime motives in Khartoum State. The data were collected through the primary sources by designing a questionnaire and distributed to a sample of inmates in Khartoum state; the data were analysis by SPSS program using the analytical statistical method through using some of the suitable non-parametric tests for each case. The most important results of the research were: there was significant relationship between the type of crime and the age group therefore, we found that the age group (20-29) was the most frequent crime particularly, the fi
... Show MoreTransient mixed convection heat transfer in a confined porous medium heated at periodic sinusoidal heat flux is investigated numerically in the present paper. The Poisson-type pressure equation, resulted from the substituting of the momentum Darcy equation in the continuity equation, was discretized by using finite volume technique. The energy equation was solved by a fully implicit control volume-based finite difference formulation for the diffusion terms with the use of the quadratic upstream interpolation for convective kinetics scheme to discretize the convective terms and the temperature values at the control volume faces. The numerical study covers a range of the hydrostatic pressure head , , , , and ), sinusoidal amplitude range of
... Show MoreThe Iraqi culture faced a set of challenges that can be diagnosed with the most prominent features as follows:
- The dominance of authoritarian political systems which entails authoritarian regimes with the absence of contemporary political concepts of human rights.
- The prevalence of non- informed cultural systems which have the shortage of capabilities that enable them to activate cultural elements in positive references, historical, or seclusion on itself and not be able to interact with the current active cultures.
- Stagnant economic conditions have not had a decent life for individuals, or a certain level of well-being, as well as poor services and others.
- Social life controlled by the prevai
This paper aims to explain the effect of workplace respect on employee performance at Abu Ghraib Dairy Factory (AGDF). For achieving the research aim, the analytical and descriptive approach was chosen using a questionnaire tool for collecting data. It covers 22 items; ten of them for the workplace respect variable and twelve items for the employee performance variable. The research population involved human resources who work at AGDF in Baghdad within two administrative levels (top and middle). We conducted a purposive stratified sample approach. It was distributed 70 questionnaire forms, and 65 forms were received. However, six of them had missing data and did not include in the final data analysis. The main results are t
... Show MoreThis study examined the imperative construction: the command, the interrogative, the prohibition, the call, and the wish. In the Diwan of Al-Shamakh bin Dirar; where the poetic verses were monitored in each of the topics of the student's creation, and the rhetorical meanings that he came out with. What is new in this study is that it is the first to study the demanded composition in the poetry of a glorious poet, Al-Shammakh bin Dirar Al-Dhubyani. As his poetry did not receive such a study, it sought to employ what was written by rhetoric scholars, in an attempt to explore the demanded composition in the poetry of Al-Shamakh. The study adopted the descriptive analytical approach, which is based on counting the number of times the poet us
... Show MoreThis research is an attempt to study aspects of syntactic deviation in AbdulWahhab Al-Bayyati with reference to English. It reviews this phenomenon from an extra-linguistic viewpoint. It adopts a functional approach depending on the stipulates of systemic Functional Grammar as developed by M.A.K. Halliday and others adopting this approach. Within related perspective, fairly’s taxonomy (1975) has been chosen to analyze the types of syntactic deviation because it has been found suitable and relevant to describe this phenomenon. The research hypothesizes that syntactic deviation is pervasive in Arabic poetry, in general and in Abdul-Wahhab Al-Bayyati Poetry in specific, and can be analyzed in the light of systemic Functional Grammar
... Show MoreThis paper is devoted to an inverse problem of determining discontinuous space-wise dependent heat source in a linear parabolic equation from the measurements at the final moment. In the existing literature, a considerably accurate solution to the inverse problems with an unknown space-wise dependent heat source is impossible without introducing any type of regularization method but here we have to determine the unknown discontinuous space-wise dependent heat source accurately using the Haar wavelet collocation method (HWCM) without applying the regularization technique. This HWCM is based on finite-difference and Haar wavelets approximation to the inverse problem. In contrast to othe
Wireless sensor applications are susceptible to energy constraints. Most of the energy is consumed in communication between wireless nodes. Clustering and data aggregation are the two widely used strategies for reducing energy usage and increasing the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. In target tracking applications, large amount of redundant data is produced regularly. Hence, deployment of effective data aggregation schemes is vital to eliminate data redundancy. This work aims to conduct a comparative study of various research approaches that employ clustering techniques for efficiently aggregating data in target tracking applications as selection of an appropriate clustering algorithm may reflect positive results in the data aggregati
... Show MoreIn this paper, we introduce the concept of cubic bipolar-fuzzy ideals with thresholds (α,β),(ω,ϑ) of a semigroup in KU-algebra as a generalization of sets and in short (CBF). Firstly, a (CBF) sub-KU-semigroup with a threshold (α,β),(ω,ϑ) and some results in this notion are achieved. Also, (cubic bipolar fuzzy ideals and cubic bipolar fuzzy k-ideals) with thresholds (α,β),(ω ,ϑ) are defined and some properties of these ideals are given. Relations between a (CBF).sub algebra and-a (CBF) ideal are proved. A few characterizations of a (CBF) k-ideal with thresholds (α, β), (ω,ϑ) are discussed. Finally, we proved that a (CBF) k-ideal and a (CBF) ideal with thresholds (α, β), (ω,ϑ) of a KU-semi group are equivalent relations.