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The Burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease COPD in Stable Patients and its Association with Inflammatory Biomarkers and Body Mass Index
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Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive airflow limitation that is preventable but not curable. It is associated with persistent symptoms that cause a considerable burden on individual productivity at work, and daily activities, and reduced quality of life, also burdening the healthcare system and society. Objectives: The study aims to measure the burden of COPD on patients in terms of daily activities and work productivity. It also seeks to investigate some inflammatory biomarkers' levels and their correlation with selected outcomes. Patients and Methods: A cross-sectional study on 120 stable COPD patients who were diagnosed and treated according to the GOLD guidelines at Kirkuk General Hospital's chest and Internal Medicine consultation clinics, and in private internist clinics in Kirkuk City, Iraq between January and April 2023. The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire (WPAI-COPD) measured the Burden of COPD. The symptom burden was assessed by the COPD assessment test (CAT). The level of IL-6 monoclonal antibodies was measured via a Roche Cobas 6000 analyzer and TNF-α using the ELISA sandwich technique. All these devices and machines were authorized by the Ministry of Health, Iraq. Results: The mean age was (54.1 ± 8.12) years, 62.5% being males and 37.5% being females; 41.7% were public sector employees, and 39.2% were self-employed. Due to COPD, the overall work loss was (45.9±18.91) days, the mean percentage of absenteeism was (10.9% ± 12.31%), activity impairment was (47.5% ±17.79%) among all patients, presenteeism was (40.8 ± 15.05%,) and COPD-related retirees were 14.2% of the study group. The mean CAT score (19.3±5.63) was high and the most troubling symptom among patients was chest tightness.  WPAI-COPD scores were higher in older age and longer disease duration. The levels of biomarkers were above the reference ranges, the mean IL-6 level was (69.4 ± 35.29) pg/ml, and the mean TNF-α was (72.3 ± 22.45) pg/ ml. Conclusions: COPD patients exhibit a disease burden in terms of productivity loss at work and activity impairment that increases with aging and disease duration. COPD patients with low BMI are more prone to a decline in lung functions and to worse symptoms.

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Publication Date
Sat Dec 02 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of Engineering
Performance Assessment of Pile Models Chemically Grouted by Low-Pressure Injection Laboratory Device for Improving Loose Sand
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The complexity and partially defined nature of jet grouting make it hard to predict the performance of grouted piles. So the trials of cement injection at a location with similar soil properties as the erecting site are necessary to assess the performance of the grouted piles. Nevertheless, instead of executing trial-injected piles at the pilot site, which wastes money, time, and effort, the laboratory cement injection devices are essential alternatives for evaluating soil injection ability. This study assesses the performance of a low-pressure laboratory grouting device by improving loose sandy soil injected using binders formed of Silica Fume (SF) as a chemical admixture (10% of Ordinary Portland Cement OPC mass) to di

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Publication Date
Mon Jan 01 2024
Journal Name
Aip Conference Proceedings
Strengthening or rehabilitation of reinforced concrete (RC) beams using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites: A review
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Publication Date
Mon Mar 18 2019
Journal Name
Al-khwarizmi Engineering Journal
Best Level of Parameters for a Critical Buckling Load for Circular Thin- Walled Structure Subjected to Bending
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Circular thin walled structures have wide range of applications. This type of structure is generally exposed to different types of loads, but one of the most important types is a buckling. In this work, the phenomena of buckling was studied by using finite element analysis. The circular thin walled structure in this study is constructed from; cylindrical thin shell strengthen by longitudinal stringers, subjected to pure bending in one plane. In addition, Taguchi method was used to identify the optimum combination set of parameters for enhancement of the critical buckling load value, as well as to investigate the most effective parameter. The parameters that have been analyzed were; cylinder shell thickness, shape of stiffeners section an

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Publication Date
Wed Mar 15 2017
Journal Name
International Journal Of Computer Applications
Improve Roll Dynamic Response of Road Vehicle to Step Steer Input using Semi-active PID Suspension Controller
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Publication Date
Mon Dec 01 2025
Journal Name
Results In Engineering
Performance improvement of air-based photovoltaic thermal solar systems through innovative metallic foam configurations within converging ducts
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Publication Date
Mon Feb 01 2021
Journal Name
Engenharia Agrícola
HYPERSPECTRAL SPECTROSCOPY TO DETECT DIFFERENT RESPONSES OF TWO SOYBEAN (GLYCINE MAX) CULTIVARS TO CHARCOAL ROT (MACROPHOMINA PHASEOLINA) TOXIN
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Publication Date
Thu Sep 01 2022
Journal Name
Iaes International Journal Of Robotics And Automation
Implementation of a complex fractional order proportional-integral-derivative controller for a first order plus dead time system
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This paper presents the implementation of a complex fractional order proportional integral derivative (CPID) and a real fractional order PID (RPID) controllers. The analysis and design of both controllers were carried out in a previous work done by the author, where the design specifications were classified into easy (case 1) and hard (case 2) design specifications. The main contribution of this paper is combining CRONE approximation and linear phase CRONE approximation to implement the CPID controller. The designed controllers-RPID and CPID-are implemented to control flowing water with low pressure circuit, which is a first order plus dead time system. Simulation results demonstrate that while the implemented RPID controller fails to stabi

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Publication Date
Wed Nov 14 2018
Journal Name
Fiber And Integrated Optics
Design Investigation of 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder Optical Switch Based on a Metal–Polymer–Silicon Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguide
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In this paper, a miniaturized 2 × 2 electro-optic plasmonic Mach– Zehnder switch (MZS) based on metal–polymer–silicon hybrid waveguide is presented. Adiabatic tapers are designed to couple the light between the plasmonic phase shifter, implemented in each of the MZS arms, and the 3-dB input/output directional couplers. For 6 µm-long hybrid plasmonic waveguide supported by JRD1 polymer (r33= 390 pm/V), a π-phase shift voltage of 2 V is obtained. The switch is designed for 1550 nm operation wavelength using COMSOL software and characterizes by 2.3 dB insertion loss, 9.9 fJ/bit power consumption, and 640 GHz operation bandwidth

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Publication Date
Thu Jan 29 2026
Journal Name
Journal Of Interdisciplinary Mathematics
Efficient design of neural network based on modified LM training algorithm for solving nonlinear 4th order 3D-PDEs 
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Authors in this work design efficient neural networks, which are based on the modified Levenberg - Marquardt (LM) training algorithms to solve non-linear fourth - order three -dimensional partial differential equations in the two kinds in the periodic and in the non-periodic - Periodic. Software reliability growth models are essential tools for monitoring and evaluating the evolution of software reliability. Software defect detection events that occur during testing and operation are often treated as counting processes in many current models. However, when working with large software systems, the error detection process should be viewed as a random process with a continuous state space, since the number of faults found during testin

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Publication Date
Sun Oct 15 2017
Journal Name
Research Journal Of Applied Sciences, Engineering And Technology
Optimization of IPv6 Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode Multicast Routing Protocol based on Greedy Rendezvous Point Selection Algorithm
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