Background: In spite of all efforts, Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a fatal solid tumor with a poor prognosis as of its high metastasis and resistance to present treatments. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) such as erlotinib are efficient in treating NSCLC but the emergence of chemoresistance and adverse effects substantially limits their single use. Objective: in this study, the combination treatments of either 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) or cinnamic acid (CINN) with erlotinib (ERL) were tested for their possible synergistic effect on the proliferation and migration capacity of NSCLC cells. Methods: In this study, NSCLC model cell line A549 was used to investigate the effects of single compounds and their combination on cell growth inhibition, clonogenic potential, and migration capacity. Next, the Combination index (CI) and the Dose-Reduction Index (DRI) were determined to determine the nature of the drug’s combination and to measure how many folds the dose could be lowered for each drug in a synergistic combination. Results: the combination treatment demonstrated more significant inhibition of viability of A549 cells compared to individual therapy. Our data show that CINN augments the sensitivity to erlotinib in all doses tested. The combination of 2DG or CINN with erlotinib also reduced the clonogenicity of NSCLC cells up to 67% and 85%, respectively, as compared to the erlotinib single treatment. Furthermore, CINN +ERL decreased the migratory ability of A549 cells by 3-fold and further induced much more apoptotic cell death phenotypes. Conclusion: in summary, co-administration of 2DG or cinnamic acid with erlotinib increases the inhibitory effects of erlotinib on NSCLC cell tumorigenicity and migration.
The drill bit is the most essential tool in drilling operation and optimum bit selection is one of the main challenges in planning and designing new wells. Conventional bit selections are mostly based on the historical performance of similar bits from offset wells. In addition, it is done by different techniques based on offset well logs. However, these methods are time consuming and they are not dependent on actual drilling parameters. The main objective of this study is to optimize bit selection in order to achieve maximum rate of penetration (ROP). In this work, a model that predicts the ROP was developed using artificial neural networks (ANNs) based on 19 input parameters. For the
In this work, two graphene oxide (GO) samples were prepared using the Hummers method with graphite (g) and KMnO4 (g) ratios of 1:3 (GO3) and 1:6 (GO6). The effect of oxidation degree on the structural, electrical, and dielectric properties of the GO samples was investigated. The structures of the GO samples were studied using various techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS). XRD analysis revealed an increase in the interlayer spacing and a decrease in the number of layers of the samples with increasing oxidant content. The two GO samples have giant permittivity values of ~105 in the low-frequency
... Show MoreThis study aims to explore the potential mediation role of person-centeredness between the effects of the work environment and nurse reported quality and patient safety. A quantitative cross-sectional survey collected data from 1055 nurses, working in medical and surgical units, in twelve Malaysian private hospitals. The data collection used structured questionnaires. The Hayes macro explored the mediation effect of person-centeredness between the associations of work environment dimensions and care outcomes, controlling nurses’ demographics and practice characteristics. A total of 652 nurses responded completely to the survey (61.8% response rate). About 47.7% of nurses worked 7-h shifts, and 37.0% were assigned more than 15 pati
... Show MoreUnmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide valuable spatial information products for many projects across a wide range of applications. One of the major challenges in this discipline is the quality of positioning accuracy of the resulting mapping products in professional photogrammetric projects. This is especially true when using low-cost UAV systems equipped with GNSS receivers for navigation. In this study, the influence of UAV flight direction and camera orientation on positioning accuracy in an urban area on the west bank of the Euphrates river in Iraq was investigated. Positioning accuracy was tested in this study with different flight directions and camera orientation settings using a UAV autopilot app (Pix4Dcapture software
... Show MoreBackground: Treatment modalities of acromegaly and disease control impact differently on glucose homeostasis and lipid changes, and consequently on cardiometabolic risk. Aim: To investigate the possible association of lipid profile changes with the glycemic control status in acromegaly patients treated with octreotide LAR. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 52 Iraqi patients with acromegaly treated with octreotide LAR and not using statins. Demographic, anthropometric, and clinical data were collected, as well as the duration of Octreotide LAR administration. The glycemic state was assessed and classified as DM, prediabetes, or normal. Plasma levels of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and non-HDL were evalu
... Show MoreThe numerical investigation has been performed to study the radiation affected steady state laminar mixed convection induced by a hot inner varied positions circular core in a horizontal rectangular channel for a fully developed flow. To examine the effects of thermal radiation on thermo fluid dynamics behavior in the eccentric geometry channel, the generalized body fitted co-ordinate system is introduced while the finite difference method is used for solving the radiative transport equation. The governing equations which used are continuity, momentum and energy equations. These equations are normalized and solved using the Vorticity-Stream function. After validating numerical results for the case without radiation, the detailed rad
... Show MoreThe numerical investigation has been performed to study the radiation affected steady state laminar mixed convection induced by a hot inner varied positions circular core in a horizontal rectangular channel for a fully developed flow. To examine the effects of thermal radiation on thermo fluid dynamics behavior in the eccentric geometry channel, the generalized body fitted co-ordinate system is introduced while the finite difference method is used for solving the radiative transport equation. The governing equations which used are continuity, momentum and energy equations. These equations are normalized and solved using the Vorticity-Stream function. After validating numerical results for the case without radiation, the detailed radiatio
... Show MoreBackground: Pharmacists are essential in treating MS. Pharmacists' involvement and patient consultation may improve patient adherence and satisfaction. Aim: To evaluate the influence of pharmacist-led interventions (PLI) on medication adherence and satisfaction in patients with multiple sclerosis receiving disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). Methods: This study was conducted on patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis who were receiving DMTs and attended a neurological consultant clinic in the medical city of Baghdad. It was a pre-post-intervention study. Each patient underwent two educational sessions: the first session took place at the beginning of the study, after completing the Arabic version of the treatment satisfaction q
... Show MoreCholesteryl ester transfer protein gene contains some single nucleotide polymorphisms, which have been associated with serum high-density lipoprotein concentration and other lipoproteins. This study is done for determining of cholesteryl ester transfer protein polymorphism and evaluate its effect on serum lipid profile concentrations in some hyperlipidemic patients compared with healthy subjects in Salah Al-din governorate-Iraq. Blood samples were taken from (90) patients suffering from hyperlipidemia, and (70) samples that were apparently healthy controls. Serum lipid concentrations were measured by enzymatic assays. The polymorphism was genotyped using polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.&n
... Show MoreThe background subtraction is a leading technique adopted for detecting the moving objects in video surveillance systems. Various background subtraction models have been applied to tackle different challenges in many surveillance environments. In this paper, we propose a model of pixel-based color-histogram and Fuzzy C-means (FCM) to obtain the background model using cosine similarity (CS) to measure the closeness between the current pixel and the background model and eventually determine the background and foreground pixel according to a tuned threshold. The performance of this model is benchmarked on CDnet2014 dynamic scenes dataset using statistical metrics. The results show a better performance against the state-of the art
... Show More