Background: The gene responsible for encoding the protein of cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) has been found to be associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in different ethnic populations. But the association of +49A/G CTLA-4 polymorphism with susceptibility of RA among Iraqi Arab populations has not yet been determined. Methods: One hundred and seventy-eight patients were examined, 67 of them were males (mean age 54.71 ± 10.4 years), while 167 were examined for the control group, of whom 64 were males and the rest were females. CTLA-4 DNA genotyping was carried on to determine the +49 A/G (rs231775) polymorphism using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Enzyme-linked immunosor- bent assay (ELISA) was also applied here to measure the antibodies level for cyclic citrullinated peptides (anti- CCP) and Rheumatoid factor (RF). Results: The frequency of AG and GG genotypes in CTLA-4 + 49 were significantly higher among RA patients in comparing with controls (55.61% vs 42.51%, OR=2.18, 95% CI=1.62–3.79, P=0.003) and (20.22% vs 10.77%, OR = 2.61, 95% CI = 1.31–6.46, P = 0.002) respectively. G allele frequency was also significantly higher among RA cases (52.24% vs. 31.73%, OR = 3.02; 95% CI = 1.61–7.39, P = 0.001). The frequencies of the AA genotype and A allele, however, were significantly lower in cases than controls (24.15% vs 46.70%, P = 0.001) and (47.75% vs 68.26%, P = 0.001) respectively. Moreover, the levels of Anti-CCP and RF were raised signifi- cantly among RA patients than controls (P = 0.0001), but none of these parameters were correlated with ge- notypes of CTLA-4. Conclusions: Carries of CTLA-4 + 49 AG and GG alleles were at a high risk of developing functional disability of RA, unlike the AA allele carriers.
Abstract—The upper limb amputation exerts a significant burden on the amputee, limiting their ability to perform everyday activities, and degrading their quality of life. Amputee patients’ quality of life can be improved if they have natural control over their prosthetic hands. Among the biological signals, most commonly used to predict upper limb motor intentions, surface electromyography (sEMG), and axial acceleration sensor signals are essential components of shoulder-level upper limb prosthetic hand control systems. In this work, a pattern recognition system is proposed to create a plan for categorizing high-level upper limb prostheses in seven various types of shoulder girdle motions. Thus, combining seven feature groups, w
... Show MoreIs to obtain competitive advantage legitimate objective pursued by all organizations to achieve, because they live today in environments of rapid change and dynamic in order to meet the demands of the customer changing as well as intense competition between the organizations, which requires them to get the location of competitive markets in order to do this will remain to do the building and strengthening competitive advantage to be able to achieve, but that this feature is not easy and is not only through the identification and use of a successful strategy for a competitive standard and then manage it successfully. Hence the research problem of determining the sources of differentiation strategy and its impact on the dimensions of compe
... Show MoreOwing to their cost-effectiveness and the natural abundance of magnesium, magnesium-ion batteries (MIBs) were introduced as encouraging alternatives to Lithium-ion batteries. Following the successful synthesis of carbon nano-tube, its B and N doped derivatives which were doped with B and N enjoyed the attention of researchers as novel anode materials (AM) for MIBs. Here, we investigated a BC2N nano-tube (BC2NNT) as an encouraging AM for MIBs. To have a deeper understanding of the electrochemical properties, cycling stability, specific capacity (SC) and the adsorption behavior of this nano-tube, first-principles density functional theory computations were performed. By performing NMR calculations, we identified two types of non-aromatic hexa
... Show MoreIn this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these measurement
... Show MoreReduce the required time for measuring the permeability of clayey soils by using new manufactured cell
Time-domain spectral matching commonly used to define seismic inputs to dynamic analysis in terms of acceleration time history compatible with a specific target response spectrum is used in this study to investigate the second-order geometric effect of P-delta on the seismic response of base-isolated high-rise buildings. A synthetic time series is generated by adjusting reference time series that consist of available readings from a past earthquake of the 1940 El Centro earthquake adopted as an initial time series. The superstructure of a 20-story base isolated building is represented by a 3-D finite element model using ETABS software. The results of the base isolated building show that base isolation technique significantly reduces inter-s
... Show MoreThis study investigated the bioethanol production from green algae Chlorella vulgaris depending on its carbohydrate-enriched biomass. Four different phosphorous concentrations were employed to stimulate bioethanol production from Chlorella vulgaris. The impact of various phosphorous values on Chlorella vulgaris growth rate as well as primary product (carbohydrate) were evaluated. High performance liquid chromatography was utilized in this work. The stationary phase was identified as day 14, 12, 10 and 6 in treatments 6, 4, 2 and g/L, respectively. The findings suggest that the treatment without phosphorous addition had the highest record of carbohydrate content (22.64% dry weight) as well as the highest bioethanol yield (20.66% dry weight).
... Show MoreA variety of single-engine driven files and inematics have been introduced to improve the clinical performance of NiTi rotary files. The purpose of this in vitro study was to measure and compare the incidence of dentinal defects after root canal preparation with different single file systems.
A crucial area of research in nanotechnology is the formation of environmentally benign nanoparticles. Both unicellular and multicellular play an important role in synthesis nanoparticles through the production of inorganic materials either intracellularly or extracellularly. The agents (pigments, siderophores, cell extracted metabolites and reducing compounds) were used to prepare silver nanparticles with different sizes and shapes. The color variations (dark yellow, slightly dark yellow and golden yellow) arising from changes in the composition, size, and shape of nanoparticles, surrounding medium can be monitored using UV-visible spectrophotometer. These effects are due to the phenomena called surface plasmon resonance. The silver nanopa
... Show MoreIn this paper, a new third kind Chebyshev wavelets operational matrix of derivative is presented, then the operational matrix of derivative is applied for solving optimal control problems using, third kind Chebyshev wavelets expansions. The proposed method consists of reducing the linear system of optimal control problem into a system of algebraic equations, by expanding the state variables, as a series in terms of third kind Chebyshev wavelets with unknown coefficients. Example to illustrate the effectiveness of the method has been presented.