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.
Tillage appearance device is mechanical, electric-electronic design, getting Patent from the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control – Industrial Property Department - Ministry of Planning – The Republic of IRAQ under number Patent 3876 in 20 / 4 / 2014, calculates the number of clods per area by Tillage appearance device, This is done through the generation electrical impulses are sent to the controlled accurate calculates number clods required space and shows the result on the screen in order to see the tillage view per area. Three factor used in these experiment, first factor represents forward speed of tractor three levels (3.5, 4.5, and 5.5 km/h), second factor represent soil moisture content at two levels (14
... Show MoreField trial was conducted during the growing season of 2011-2012 at the Research
Field, Department of Biology, College of Science, Baghdad University to test the
performance of wheat cv Rabyaa, Latifiya, Al-Iraq, Tummose 2, Abu-Graib 3, IPA
99 and Sham 6 grown under different soil water deficit stresses. Several agronomic
and physiological traits and yield and yield components of the test cultivars were
determined. The experiment was conducted in split plot design with five replications
for each treatment. The cultivars were kept in the sub plot while water stress
treatment was assigned as main plot. Water stress was applied by irrigated the plots
to the soil field capacity (FC) then withheld next irrigation until
The goal of this paper is to expose a new numerical method for solving initial value time-lag of delay differential equations by employing a high order improving formula of Euler method known as third order Euler method. Stability condition is discussed in detail for the proposed technique. Finally some examples are illustrated to verify the validity, efficiency and accuracy of the method.
During COVID-19, wearing a mask was globally mandated in various workplaces, departments, and offices. New deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) based classifications were proposed to increase the validation accuracy of face mask detection. This work introduces a face mask model that is able to recognize whether a person is wearing mask or not. The proposed model has two stages to detect and recognize the face mask; at the first stage, the Haar cascade detector is used to detect the face, while at the second stage, the proposed CNN model is used as a classification model that is built from scratch. The experiment was applied on masked faces (MAFA) dataset with images of 160x160 pixels size and RGB color. The model achieve
... Show MoreThe effect of molecules intersystem crossing (Kisc) on characteristics
(energy and duration) of a Passive Q- switched Laser Pulse has been
studied by mathematical description (rate equations model) for
temporal performance of which was used as a saturable absorber
material (passive switch) with laser. The study shows that the energy
and duration pulse are decreasing while the molecules intersystem
crossing into saturable absorber energy levels is increasing.
In this paper, the 5 minutes measured wind speed data for year 2012 at 10 meter height for Tweitha have been statically analyzed to assess the time of wind turbine electrical power generation. After collection Tweitha wind data and calculation of mean wind speed the cumulative Weibull diagram and probability density function was ploted, then each of cumulative Weibull distribution, cut-in and furling turbine wind speed could be used as a mathematical input parameters in order to estimate the hours of electrical power generation for wind turbine during one day or one year. In Tweitha site, found that the average wind speed was (v= 1.76 m/s), so five different wind turbines were be selected to calculate hours of electrical generation for A
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study was to investigate the bacterial etiology of urinary tract infections microbiologic properties of Escherichia coli isolated from urinary tract infection patients against nine amoxicillin antibiotic. E.coli isolates were collected from patients samples suffering from urinary tract infection, based on biochemical tests of Epi 20 system .Nine Amoxicillin antibiotics were selected (some vials and other are capsules) which manufactured in different countries were bought from local pharmacies in Baghdad, for the purpose of knowing the inhibitory activity of these antibiotics on E.coli one of the main microorganisms to cause urinary tract infection, the antibiotics were prepared in a concentration of 100mg/ml and their
... Show MoreAmong a collection of leafhoppers from Erbil Province in Kurdistan/Iraq, a new species of the genus Arboridia Zakhvatkin, 1946 was designated and described here as a new species to the science. The erection of this species was mainly built on the external characters included the male genitalia. Sites and dates of collections so as the host-plants were verified.
This work aim to prepare Ag/R6G/PMMA nanocomposite thin
films by In-situ plasma polymerization and study the changes in the
optical properties of fluorophore due to the presence of Ag
nanoparticles structures in the vicinity of the R6G laser dye. The
concentrations of R6G dye/MMA used are: 10-4M solutions were
prepared by dissolving the required quantity of the R6G dye in
MMAMonomer. Then Silver nanoparticles with 50 average particles
size were mixed with MMAmonomer with concentration of 0.3, 0.5,
0.7wt% to get R6G silver/MMA in liquid phase. The films were
deposited on glass substrates by dielectric barrier discharge plasma
jet. The Ag/R6G/PMMA nanocomposite thin films were
characterization by UV-Visible
A quantitative description of microstructure governs the characteristics of the material. Various heat and excellent treatments reveal micro-structures when the material is prepared. Depending on the microstructure, mechanical properties like hardness, ductility, strength, toughness, corrosion resistance, etc., also vary. Microstructures are characterized by morphological features like volume fraction of different phases, particle size, etc. Relative volume fractions of the phases must be known to correlate with the mechanical properties. In this work, using image processing techniques, an automated scheme was presented to calculate relative volume fractions of the phases, namely Ferrite, Martensite, and Bainite, present in the
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