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.
<p><span>A Botnet is one of many attacks that can execute malicious tasks and develop continuously. Therefore, current research introduces a comparison framework, called BotDetectorFW, with classification and complexity improvements for the detection of Botnet attack using CICIDS2017 dataset. It is a free online dataset consist of several attacks with high-dimensions features. The process of feature selection is a significant step to obtain the least features by eliminating irrelated features and consequently reduces the detection time. This process implemented inside BotDetectorFW using two steps; data clustering and five distance measure formulas (cosine, dice, driver & kroeber, overlap, and pearson correlation
... Show MoreMethicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one of the principal nosocomial causative agents. This bacterium has the capability to resist wide range of antibiotics and it is responsible for many diseases like skin, nose and wounds infection. In this study, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR was applied with ten random primers to examine the molecular diversity among methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates in the hospitals and to investigate the genetic distance between them. 90 Isolates were collected from clinical specimens from Iraqi hospitals for a total of 90 isolates. Only 10 strains (11.11%) were found to be MRSA. From these 10 primers, only 9 gave clear amplification products. 91 fragment l
... Show MoreNH3 gas sensor was fabricated based on deposited of Functionalized Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs-OH) suspension on filter paper substrates using suspension filtration method. The structural, morphological and optical properties of the MWCNTs film were characterized by XRD, AFM and FTIR techniques. XRD measurement confirmed that the structure of MWCNTs is not affected by the preparation method. The AFM images reflected highly ordered network in the form of a mat. The functional groups and types of bonding have appeared in the FTIR spectra. The fingerprint (C-C stretch) of MWCNTs appears in 1365 cm-1, and the backbone of CNTs observed at 1645 cm-1. A homemade sensi
... Show MoreErratum for Organic acid concentration thresholds for ageing of carbonate minerals: Implications for CO2 trapping/storage.
A new, simple, sensitive and fast developed method was used for the determination of methyldopa in pure and pharmaceutical formulations by using continuous flow injection analysis. This method is based on formation a burgundy color complex between methyldopa andammonium ceric (IV) nitrate in aqueous medium using long distance chasing photometer NAG-ADF-300-2. The linear range for calibration graph was 0.05-8.3 mmol/L for cell A and 0.1-8.5 mmol/L for cell B, and LOD 952.8000 ng /200 µL for cell A and 3.3348 µg /200 µL for cell B respectively with correlation coefficient (r) 0.9994 for cell A and 0.9991 for cell B, RSD % was lower than 1 % for n=8. The results were compared with classical method UV-Spectrophotometric at λ max=280 n
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به نظر میآید که عالم هستی ، بر مسألهی « حرکت» استوار دارد ، و روح ، همیشه دنبال دگرگونی و تکامل و برتری میگردد. حرکت ، همهی چیزها در عالم إمکان را در بر میگیرد. حرکت در بنیادهای فکر مولانا جای مهمی دارد .اشعار مولانا مقدار زیادی از پویایی و حرکت برخوردارست، و از آنجایی که فعل ، عنصر تکانبخش جمله ، و کانون دلالت است ، ترجیح دادیم - علاوه بر دیگر عنا
... Show MoreThe adsorption ability of Iraqi initiated calcined granulated montmorillonite to adsorb Symmetrical Schiff Base Ligand 4,4’-[hydrazine-1, 2-diylidenebis (methan-1-yl-1-ylidene)) bis (2-methoxyphenol)] derived from condensation reaction of hydrazine hydrate and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde, from aqueous solutions has been investigated through columnar method.The ligand (H2L) adsorption found to be dependent on adsorbent dosage, initial concentration and contact time.All columnar experiments were carried out at three different pH values (5.5, 7and 8) using buffer solutions at flow rate of (3 drops/ min.),at room temperature (25±2)°C. The experimental isotherm data were analyzed using Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin equations. The monol
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