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.
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The Security Council has an active role in addressing international crises and dealing with their causes. The Libyan crisis is one of the most important real tests of the Security Council and its role in maintaining international peace and security, as the Council has proven so far an ineffective role in resolving the crisis and dealing withtheir causes, which has prolonged its duration and increased its complexities and dangerous repercussions, perhaps the most prominent of which is the threat of the recently achieved cease-fire and the formation of a new transitional government led by Abdel Hamid al-Dabaiba, the growing significant obstacles facing the political process, foremost of which is the continued presence of foreign forces , m
... Show MoreThis study deals with the intellectual representations whose intellectual systems are incarnated in the Jewish personality, which is considered one of the complex intellectual systems that has caused controversy throughout the ages because of the ambiguity due to the religious and psychological factors that were reflected directly and strongly on the intellectual structure of the Jewish community in general and the Jewish - Zionist personality in particular, in an attempt (to create new dimensions embodied by intellectual representations of a human nature embodied by what that - peaceful - religiously oppressed - psychologically and socially isolated character presents, because of the curse of the peoples of the world that was a cause fo
... Show MoreThe aim of this work is to explore the thermal performance of a tracked tubular solar still (TSS) with a parabolic trough concentrator in Baghdad (33.27° N, 44.37° E) in September 2022. The present tubular still is distinguished by its hexagonal glass cover. The effect of integrating the TSS with a heat pipe, the still tilt angle (10°, 15°), and the depth of saline water inside the still partitions on the productivity of freshwater are investigated. The results showed that using heat pipe enhances the freshwater productivity by 25%–40% and the efficiency by 25%. For the still integrated with heat pipe, as the water depth is increased from 5.5 to 6.5 cm the productivity of freshwater is incre
Various methods are utilized providing complexity for cryptosystem with the aim to increase the security and avoiding hacker attack. Hybrid cryptosystem is one of these cryptosystems which is used two types of cryptosystems and has many applications in data transmitted. This research, proposed a novel method that used power exponent instead of using the prime number directly and also providing complexity of asymmetric cryptosystems. This method has been applied theoretically in two public systems RSA and EL-Gamal. Power RSA and Power EL-Gamal are modified asymmetric cryptosystems, in which the power number is kept by the sender and the receiver. Moreover, we use group theory to prove that these cryptosystems work properly. Our exten
... Show MoreThe research presents the reliability. It is defined as the probability of accomplishing any part of the system within a specified time and under the same circumstances. On the theoretical side, the reliability, the reliability function, and the cumulative function of failure are studied within the one-parameter Raleigh distribution. This research aims to discover many factors that are missed the reliability evaluation which causes constant interruptions of the machines in addition to the problems of data. The problem of the research is that there are many methods for estimating the reliability function but no one has suitable qualifications for most of these methods in the data such
This paper study two stratified quantile regression models of the marginal and the conditional varieties. We estimate the quantile functions of these models by using two nonparametric methods of smoothing spline (B-spline) and kernel regression (Nadaraya-Watson). The estimates can be obtained by solve nonparametric quantile regression problem which means minimizing the quantile regression objective functions and using the approach of varying coefficient models. The main goal is discussing the comparison between the estimators of the two nonparametric methods and adopting the best one between them
The response of the combustor’s liner to the air-flow that passes through it is the key reason for the combustion chambers noise, hence the instabilities of those chambers that decreases the mechanical efficiency of such sections, by increased its mechanical vibrations, which increases the failure rate created during originating of the cracks spreading by the shakes producing by the series of high-level frequencies. Accordingly, any work debating the impact of the context of liners in the combustion chamber can provide grasping for the combustion noise generated by the undesirable vibrations, and benefits the industrial firms to design an ideal production procedure which increases the lifespan of the combustor. The goal of this wo
... Show MoreThe response of the combustor’s liner to the air-flow that passes through it is the key reason for the combustion chambers noise, hence the instabilities of those chambers that decreases the mechanical efficiency of such sections, by increased its mechanical vibrations, which increases the failure rate created during originating of the cracks spreading by the shakes producing by the series of high-level frequencies. Accordingly, any work debating the impact of the context of liners in the combustion chamber can provide grasping for the combustion noise generated by the undesirable vibrations, and benefits the industrial firms to design an ideal production procedure which increases the lifespan of the combustor. The goal of this work is
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The research aimed to test the relationship between the size of investment allocations in the agricultural sector in Iraq and their determinants using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method compared to the Error Correction Model (ECM) approach. The time series data for the period from 1990 to 2021 was utilized. The analysis showed that the estimates obtained using the ECM were more accurate and significant than those obtained using the OLS method. Johansen's test indicated the presence of a long-term equilibrium relationship between the size of investment allocations and their determinants. The results of th
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