Objectives: Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) is WNT/b-catenin pathway antagonist which plays a detrimental role in the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR). This research aimed to assess serum DKK-1 levels in diabetic patients who have and have not developed DR and, compare them with the control subjects finding out whether we can use it as an indicator for DR early diagnosis and to find out which one of the widely used two groups of antidiabetic treatments had the greater effect on this biomarker and hence on the progression of DR. Methods: The study participants were divided into two subgroups: First, 70 patients (36 male, 34 female) with type 2 diabetes mellitus, among them 35 patients diagnosed with DR and 35 with no evidence of DR, and secondly, non-diabetic controls (11 male, 9 female) were selected from the patients attending Ibn AL-Haitham hospital for ophthalmology and a specialized center for endocrinology and diabetes. Venous blood samples of all participants were drawn after an overnight fast, and serum samples were stored at -20ºC until DKK-1 assay. Results: Serum DKK-1 showed significantly lower levels in diabetic patients with (6.1 ± 2 ng/mL) or without DR (14 ± 6.2 ng/mL) when compared to those of controls (34 ± 12.25 ng/mL) (p 0.05). Furthermore, serum DKK-1 levels were lower in the late stage of DR compared to the early stage 5.6 ± 1.7 and 7 ± 1.9 ng/mL, respectively. Furthermore, DPP-4 inhibitors cause a better increment in DKK-1 levels when compared to SU in the NDR group. Conclusions: Reduced serum levels of DKK-1 are related to the existence and worsening of DR and have the prospect to serve as an indicator for this condition.
To finalize any construction investment project, it would be necessary to identify the most significant problems and obstacles that lead to project reluctance and stalling. Unexpected events and conflicts may have disrupted these strategies and impacted project development. Due to the high initial investment costs of construction projects, crises can have an immediate impact, resulting in significant financial losses. The 2014 financial crisis was one of the most prominent crises that Iraq faced, which prompted the researcher to identify and evaluate those obstacles through this research and questionnaires using Pareto scientific theory to exclude factors that do not contribute to project lag. It was discovered that 28 o
... Show MoreIn this paper, we propose a new and efficient ferroelectric nanostructure metal oxide lithium niobate [(Li1.075Nb0.625Ti0.45O3), (LNTO)] solid film as a saturable absorber (SA) for modulating passive Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The SA is fabricated as a nanocomposite solid film by the drop-casting process in which the LNTO is planted within polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene [P(VDF-TrFE)] as host copolymer. The optical and physical characteristics of the solid film are experimentally established. The SA is incorporated within the cavity of EDFL to examine its capability for producing multi-wavelength laser. The experimental results proved that a multi-wavelength laser is produced, where stable four lines with central
... Show MoreHeart sound is an electric signal affected by some factors during the signal's recording process, which adds unwanted information to the signal. Recently, many studies have been interested in noise removal and signal recovery problems. The first step in signal processing is noise removal; many filters are used and proposed for treating this problem. Here, the Hankel matrix is implemented from a given signal and tries to clean the signal by overcoming unwanted information from the Hankel matrix. The first step is detecting unwanted information by defining a binary operator. This operator is defined under some threshold. The unwanted information replaces by zero, and the wanted information keeping in the estimated matrix. The resulting matrix
... Show MoreBackground: Gastroesophageal reflux disease, is a quite prevalent gastrointestinal disease, among which gastric content (excluding the air) returns into the oral cavity. Many 0ral manifestations related t0 this disease include tooth wear, dental caries also changes in salivary flow rate and pH. This study was conducted among gastroesophageal reflux disease patients in order to assess tooth wear in relation to salivary flow rate and pH among these patients and the effect of gastroesophageal reflux disease duration on this relation. Materials and methods: One hundred patients participate in this cross-sectional study for both genders and having an age range of 20-40 years old, patients had been endoscopically identified as having gastroeso
... Show MoreAn analysis of three selected wells in the Ain Zala oil field (AZ-16, AZ-17, and AZ-24) in the northwestern part of Mosul Governorate. In terms of biostratigraphy, it consists of planktonic and suspended foraminifera, which comprise 37 species belonging to 17 genera. Based on the recorded planktonic foraminifera, three main biozones were identified: Globotruncana aegyptiaca Partial Zone, which refers to the age of the Late Campanian, Gansserina gansseri Partial Range Zone, which indicates the age of the Early Maastrichtian, and Abathomphalus mayaroensis Interval Zone, which indicates the age of the Late Maastrichtian. The Abathomphalus mayaroensis Interval Zone is divided into four subzones: Racemiguembelina fructicosa Partial Range
... Show MoreThe geological modeling of an oil-bearing reservoir, which specifies the lithology and analyzes the petrophysical parameters of complex reservoir, its being created using Petrel software to construct reservoir models that describe and estimate porosity and water saturation distributions. 3D modeling of carbonate reservoirs has proven to be a highly effective technique for evaluate the economic benefit of the reservoir by estimating the formation petrophysical properties and calculating the oil reserves. The study aims constructed on evaluated Yamama formation in Four drilling wells (Nasiriyah-1, Nasiriyah-3, Nasiriyah-4, and Nasiriyah-5) entering the Yamama Formation of the Al-Nasiriyah field. In Al-Nasiriyah Oil field, and within t
... Show MoreUnter Exilliteratur versteht man „die literarische Produktion von Autoren, die wegen politischer, religiöser oder rassistischer Verfolgung gezwungen sind, sich an einem anderen als dem von ihnen gewünschten Lebens- und Arbeitsort aufzuhalten.“[1] Deswegen unterscheidet sich „Migration“ von „Exil“ dadurch, dass sie freiwillige Auswanderung ist. Bereits in der Antike und auch im Mittelalter gab es Schriftsteller, die vor Zensur oder politischer Verfolgung ins Exil geflohen sind, wie zum Beispiel der griechische Satiriker des
... Show MoreBackground Due to the intermittent, nonlinear, and uncertain behavior of renewable energy sources (res) such as solar and wind, grid stability and reliability require very high forecasting and optimization skills as widely reported in the literature. Traditional optimization methods work very well in small or static systems but are suffer difficulty on large-scale, dynamic and stochastic renewable environment due to their NP-hard nature. Methods The framework introduces the concept of a Machine Learning-Assisted Hybrid Cuckoo Search (ML-HCS) that combines CS with a hybrid metaheuristic and integrates Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks for forecasting based on both regression models of LSTMs and hybrid optimization algorithm
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