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.
Total Quality Assurance Concept have appeared in Higher Education Institutions as a result of the continuous criticism for the lower quality of the outputs of these institutions and their inappropriacy to the needs of the job market. The faculty, i.e. teaching staff member, is one of the most important output for his/her responsibility to achieve the stated goals in higher education. This represents a problem that may influence the construction of society which has to limit his tasks, responsibilities, and competencies that should be found in a faculty, and evaluating his teaching profession in light of the prerequisites of the century to become an input to achieve quality assurance in Higher Education. Therefore, the present study aims
... Show MoreBackground Epilepsy is one of the most widespread neurological illnesses in the world with a prevalence rate of 2.8–19.5 per 1000 of the general population, and it is more prevalent in childhood. The understanding of the teachers about epilepsy has a significant impact on the academic performance and social skills of schoolchildren with epilepsy. Aim of Study This study aimed to assess teachers’ knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding epilepsy in schoolchildren and the association of certain studied variables with the level of schoolteachers’ knowledge, attitude, and practice. Subjects and Methods This was a cross-sectional study that included 402 participants and was conducted in Al-Rusafa/Baghdad during the period from November
... Show MoreThe CO2-Assisted Gravity Drainage process (GAGD) has been introduced to become one of the mostinfluential process to enhance oil recovery (EOR) methods in both secondary and tertiary recovery through immiscibleand miscible mode. Its advantages came from the ability of this process to provide gravity-stable oil displacement forenhancing oil recovery. Vertical injectors for CO2 gas have been placed at the crest of the pay zone to form a gas capwhich drain the oil towards the horizontal producing oil wells located above the oil-water-contact. The advantage ofhorizontal well is to provide big drainage area and small pressure drawdown due to the long penetration. Manysimulation and physical models of CO2-AGD process have been implemented
... Show MoreIn the framework of this study, the phenomenon of transfer is probed pragma-linguistically and socio-linguistically concerning marriage situations among Iraqi EFL learners. The study also strives to look at the refusal strategies most commonly employed by Iraqi female English as a foreign Language (EFL) learners compared to their counterparts, American native speakers of English. The study involved 70 female participants who answered a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which contained ten marriage proposals to be refused. Each situation entailed refusal of a person from a higher, an equal, and lower status. The researchers adapted Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss Weltz’s (1990) taxonomy of refusal for analyzing the data comprehensively.
... Show MoreCurrent study was Based on the variables interact with each other to form a general framework of the pricing of banking services, and the role of profitability in the banking activity, because profit is the most important goal of commercial banks, that included the study United Bank, North Bank and Bank of Baghdad, and the each formation of bank were was collected about the prices (Iraqi dinar and the U.S. dollar) and interest percentages and then revenue (Iraqi Dinars) through banking channels, and each channel service included a group of well-known banking operations.
The study found that the effect of prices, and interest on profitability and clear. There have been a correlation between the rates, and interes
... Show MorePurpose – measure the relationship between operation management strategies as an independent variable on the customer's delight as an approved variable.
Design/methodology/approach – The research sample vocabulary included sales representatives and customers of the researched markets at a rate of (100%). The recovery rate is (95) Customers and (95) delegates for the products for the factory in neighbourhood (Banooks and Karrada ) regions were randomly chosen from an open community in these two residential areas. Statistical methods were used (arithmetic media, standard deviations, t-test, correlation coefficient (Horst), simple regression analysis).
Findings – The people in charge of the factory management nee
... Show MoreObjective: The goal of this research was to evaluate where selenium nanoparticles impact the activity of antibodies in immunized lambs with foot and mouth vaccines by modulating the immune system. Materials and Methods: Two groups of lambs of 3–4 months of age were injected with 1 ml of ARRIAH-VAC vaccine intramuscularly in the neck, five Lambs were given selenium nanoparticles (size 100 nm) oral administration of selenium nano dose of 0.1 mg/kg of body mass once every day for sixty days considered as group one (G1) while the other five used as control Group 2 (G2). Results: This resulted in the establishment of an immune response, as evidenced by a rise in antibody titer in the blood using the ELISA test for three serotypes A,
... Show MoreDr. Qahtan Al-Madfa’i’s architecture has been characterized by a particular characteristic that may be unique and extreme at the same time, that is the use of the distinctive three-dimensional structural coverings and the exploitation of structural construction to give an extra aesthetic touch to the composition of the building, to achieve the application of his universal ideas, which he strongly believed and defended.
In the period of the marked urban decline that the country undergoes now, which urges us toward making a comparison between the beginning of the modern Iraqi architecture and its ascending path up to its peak and the periods of its decline until it reached a very
... Show MoreThe aim of this research was to estimate the production function to measure returns to scale and distribution efficiency of resources used in the production of wheat. Cross sectional data used of a random sample of 130 farmers in Dhi Qar Province. The results of the quantitative analysis of estimating production function showed that the double logarithmic form was the best estimated model based on economic and statistical indicators. However, that form suffered from heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation, so the robust regression technique was chosen. Value of returns to scale was 0.89 and this indicates decreasing returns to scale. This means that production function is in the second stage of the function. The results of the dist
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