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.
The importance of the current research lies in the importance of teaching competencies and the ability of the teacher to deal and success in his educational career. The research aimed to identify the degree of teaching competencies according to Hermann model of physical education teachers in Baghdad governorate. The descriptive method using the survey method was used on a randomly selected sample of 462 teachers and 314 school principals. After the completion of the survey, the Hermann scale forms were distributed to the teachers. The forms of the teaching competency scale were distributed to their school principals as the direct supervisors of the teachers' evaluation. After completing the survey, the results of each scale were classified
... Show MoreThis work includs synthesis of several Schiff bases by condensation of 6- methoxy – 2- amino benzothiazole with some aldehydes and ketones (2- hydroxyl benzaldehyde, 4- hydroxyl benzaldehyde, 4- N,N –dimethy amino acetophenone, benzophenone) to abtain schiff bases (1-5). These schiff bases were found to react with phthalate anhydride to give oxazepine derivatives (6-10) that were reacted with primary aromatic amines to give Diazepine derivatives (11-15). Besides, we prepared new tetrazole derivatives (16-20) from the reaction of the prepared Schiff bases with sodium azide in the prepared compounds that were characterized by physical properties, FT-IR and some of the 1H-NMR and 13C –NMR spectroscopy.
This work studied the facilitation of the transportation of Sharqi Baghdad heavy crude oil characterized with high viscosity 51.6 cSt at 40 °C, low API 18.8, and high asphaltenes content 7.1 wt.%, by reducing its viscosity from break down asphaltene agglomerates using different types of hydrocarbon and oxygenated polar solvents such as toluene, methanol, mix xylenes, and reformate. The best results are obtained by using methanol because it owns a high efficiency to reduce viscosity of crude oil to 21.1 cSt at 40 °C. Toluene, xylenes and reformate decreased viscosity to 25.3, 27.5 and 28,4 cSt at 40 °C, respectively. Asphaltenes content decreased to 4.2 wt. % by using toluene at 110 °C. And best improvement in API of the heavy crude o
... Show MoreBubbled slabs can be exposed to damage or deterioration during its life. Therefore, the solution for strengthening must be provided. For the simulation of this case, the analysis of finite elements was carried out using ABAQUS 2017 software on six simply supported specimens, during which five are voided with 88 bubbles, and the other is solid. The slab specimens with symmetric boundary conditions were of dimensions 3200/570/150 mm. The solid slab and one bubbled slab are deemed references. Each of the other slabs was exposed to; (1) service charge, then unloaded (2) external prestressing and (3) loading to collapse under two line load. The external strengthening was applied using prestressed wire with four approaches, wh
... Show MoreTrip generation is the first phase in the travel forecasting process. It involves the estimation of the
total number of trips entering or leaving a parcel of land per time period (usually on a daily basis);
as a function of the socioeconomic, locational, and land-use characteristics of the parcel.
The objective of this study is to develop statistical models to predict trips production volumes for a
proper target year. Non-motorized trips are considered in the modeling process. Traditional method
to forecast the trip generation volume according to trip rate, based on family type is proposed in
this study. Families are classified by three characteristics of population social class, income, and
number of vehicle ownersh
The varied thermal conductivity (insulation) of silica aerogel with heating for different pH has been investigated, it has been depended on ambient pressure drying method in the preparing silica aerogel samples, also six different pH of samples (1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9) were treated under five degree of heating with (50,100,150,200 and 250) ᴼC. This technique is important to test the carry-outs hydrophobic silica to temperature without high-quality material changes in the basic characteristics. The hot-wire technique is used in this work to examine the thermal conductivity, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) depended to characterize the bonds and their artificial by heating. Resu
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Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage is a critical issue for mitigating climate change. Porous aromatic Schiff base complexes have emerged as a promising class of materials for CO2 capture due to their high surface area, porosity, and stability. In this study, we investigate the potential of Schiff base complexes as an effective media for CO2 storage. We review the synthesis and characterization of porous aromatic Schiff bases materials complexes and examine their CO2 sorption properties. We find that Schiff base complexes exhibit high CO2 adsorption capacity and selectivity, making them a promising candidate for use in carbon capture applications. Moreover, we investigate the effect of various parameters such as temperature, and pressu
... Show MoreIn this paper, the memorization capability of a multilayer interpolative neural network is exploited to estimate a mobile position based on three angles of arrival. The neural network is trained with ideal angles-position patterns distributed uniformly throughout the region. This approach is compared with two other analytical methods, the average-position method which relies on finding the average position of the vertices of the uncertainty triangular region and the optimal position method which relies on finding the nearest ideal angles-position pattern to the measured angles. Simulation results based on estimations of the mobile position of particles moving along a nonlinear path show that the interpolative neural network approach outperf
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