Certain bacterial and viral infectious agents may play a role in the activation of inflammation in atherosclerosis lesions. Epidemiological studies indicate that infectious agents may predispose patients to atherosclerosis as Infections have been associated with an increased risk of this disease. Moreover, a positive antibody status has been detected against some infectious organisms associated with atherosclerotic rupture. Infectious agents found in human atheroma, which may directly cause or accelerate atherosclerosis , include many pathogens but the present study focused on Helicobacter pylori, hepatitis B virus surface antigen and C. In order to evaluate the possible association between H. pylori, HBV, and HCV infections and the risk of atherosclerosis. Biochemical markers and acute inflammatory factors that may be involved in atherosclerosis disease were investigated in relation to microbial infections and atheroma formation in Iraqi patients. The present study shows a significant increase in H. pylori IgG antibody concentrations in the sera of the patients (2.941±1.350) [U/L] compared to the controls( 1.962±0.873 ) [U/L] and thus provides evidence that H. pylori infection is a risk factor for atherosclerosis. Furthermore patients with positive family history of atherosclerosis were significantly more likely to be positive for H. pylori IgG antibodies 86.3%. While hepatitis B virus infection is not associated with atherosclerosis in our Iraqi patients, there was a significant positive correlation between HBV infection and both the levels of the inflammatory protien ceruloplasmin and family history of atherosclerosis indicating that the HBV association needs further study . No subject was found to be positive for anti-HCV antibodies.
Background: Poly cystic ovary syndrome is a common disorder in women of reproductive age, it is associated with disturbance of reproductive, endocrine and metabolic functions. The pathophysiology of PCOS appears to be multifactorial and polygenic. Leptin seems to play an important role in pathophysiology of PCOS especially in women with BMI ≥25kg/m2. Objectives: To assess leptin level in both PCOS and healthy women and explore the relation to their body weight and body mass index. Patient and Methods: A total of 120 women were enrolled in this study, 60 women (50%) had PCOS (study group) and the reminder 60 women (50%) were healthy women and considered as control group. BMI was calculated first. Both groups were further sub
... Show MoreThe goal of this experimental study is to determine the effects of different parameters (Flow rate, cuttings density, cuttings size, and hole inclination degree) on hole cleaning efficiency. Freshwater was used as a drilling fluid in this experiment. The experiments were conducted by using flow loop consist of approximately 14 m (46 ft) long with transparent glass test section of 3m (9.84 ft.) long with 4 inches (101.6 mm) ID, the inner metal drill pipe with 2 inches (50.8 mm) OD settled with eccentric position positive 0.5. The results obtained from this study show that the hole cleanings efficiency become better with high flow rate (21 m3/hr) and it increase as the hole inclination angles increased from 60 to 90 degree due to dominated
... Show MoreThe large number of failure in electrical power plant leads to the sudden stopping of work. In some cases, the necessary reserve materials are not available for maintenance which leads to interrupt of power generation in the electrical power plant unit. The present study, deals with the determination of availability aspects of generator in unit 5 of Al-Dourra electric power plant. In order to evaluate this generator's availability performance, a wide range of studies have been conducted to gather accurate information at the level of detail considered suitable to achieve the availability analysis aim. The Weibull Distribution is used to perform the reliability analysis via Minitab 17, and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) by approaching o
... Show MoreAcne vulgaris is a very common, chronic disorder, involving inflammation of the pilosebaceous units that can be varied in presentation and difficult to treat. Inflammatory acne may yield both scarring and pigmentary changes so early and adequate therapy will, in all cases, decrease its severity and may entirely suppress this disease. Serratiopeptidase has anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic and fibrinolytic activity and acts rapidly on localized inflammation. Serratiopeptidase was added in aim to hasten acne resolution. During March to July 2010, A comparative study for a 50 healthy patient suffering from acne was divided into 2 groups: 1st group treated by common acne modalities and the 2nd one with same modalities
... Show MoreThe present study examines critically the discursive representation of Arab immigrants in selected American news channels. To achieve the aim of this study, twenty news subtitles have been exacted from ABC and NBC channels. The selected news subtitles have been analyzed within van Dijk’s (2000) critical discourse analysis framework. Ten discourse categories have been examined to uncover the image of Arab immigrants in the American news channels. The image of Arab immigrants has been examined in terms of five ideological assumptions including "us vs. them", "ingroup vs. outgroup", "victims vs. agents", "positive self-presentation vs. negative other-presentation", and "threat vs. non-threat". Analysis of data reveals that Arab immig
... 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
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