Background: Rituximab is a chimeric IgG1 kappa immunoglobulin that has been genetically modified to incorporate human constant region sequences together with murine light- and heavy-chain variable region sequences. People use it to treat rheumatoid arthritis and certain malignancies. Objective: The study aimed to assess the potential association between the serum levels of Factor I, CD59, interleukins (IL)-6, and interferon-gamma (IFN)-γ and the response to Rituximab treatment in Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the rheumatology center at Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Ninety adult patients who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and are receiving Rituximab intravenous infusions were included. The enrolled patients were divided into a responder group (45 patients) and a non-responder group (45 patients). The response to Rituximab was assessed according to the 28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28). Results: The serum levels of Factor I and CD59 were significantly higher in the non-responders group in comparison to the responders group. In addition, the serum IL-6 and IFN-γ levels were significantly elevated in the non-responders group in comparison to the responders group. The estimated marker serum levels showed a strong, significant correlation with the 6-month change in DAS28. Conclusions: In Rituximab nonresponder RA patients, serum levels of Factor I, CD59, Factor H, IL-6, and IFN-γ are higher, and they have good potential to be used in the assessment of the response to Rituximab therapy.
Background/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to classify Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients from Normal Control (NC) patients using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Methods/Statistical analysis: The performance evolution is carried out for 346 MR images from Alzheimer's Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset. The classifier Deep Belief Network (DBN) is used for the function of classification. The network is trained using a sample training set, and the weights produced are then used to check the system's recognition capability. Findings: As a result, this paper presented a novel method of automated classification system for AD determination. The suggested method offers good performance of the experiments carried out show that the
... Show MoreEchocardiography is a widely used imaging technique to examine various cardiac functions, especially to detect the left ventricular wall motion abnormality. Unfortunately the quality of echocardiograph images and complexities of underlying motion captured, makes it difficult for an in-experienced physicians/ radiologist to describe the motion abnormalities in a crisp way, leading to possible errors in diagnosis. In this study, we present a method to analyze left ventricular wall motion, by using optical flow to estimate velocities of the left ventricular wall segments and find relation between these segments motion. The proposed method will be able to present real clinical help to verify the left ventricular wall motion diagnosis.
Box-Wilson experimental design method was employed to optimized lead ions removal efficiency by bulk liquid membrane (BLM) method. The optimization procedure was primarily based on four impartial relevant parameters: pH of feed phase (4-6), pH of stripping phase (9-11), carrier concentration TBP (5-10) %, and initial metal concentration (60-120 ppm). maximum recovery efficiency of lead ions is 83.852% was virtually done following thirty one-of-a-kind experimental runs, as exact through 24-Central Composite Design (CCD). The best values for the aforementioned four parameters, corresponding to the most restoration efficiency were: 5, 10, 7.5% (v/v), and 90 mg/l, respectively. The obtained experimental data had been
... Show MoreZinc Oxide (ZnO) is considered as one of the best materials already used as a window layer in solar cells due to its antireflective capability. The ZnO/MgF2 bilayer thin film is more efficient as antireflective coating. In this work, ZnO and ZnO/MgF2 thin films were deposited on glass substrate using pulsed laser deposition and thermal evaporation deposition methods. The optical measurements indicated that ZnO thin layer has an energy gap of (3.02 eV) while ZnO/MgF2 bilayer gives rise to an increase in the energy gap. ZnO/MgF2 bilayer shows a high energy gap (3.77 eV) with low reflectance (1.1-10 %) and refractive index (1.9) leading to high transmittance, this bilayer could be a good candidate optical material to improve the performance
... Show MoreSensitive information of any multimedia must be encrypted before transmission. The dual chaotic algorithm is a good option to encrypt sensitive information by using different parameters and different initial conditions for two chaotic maps. A dual chaotic framework creates a complex chaotic trajectory to prevent the illegal use of information from eavesdroppers. Limited precisions of a single chaotic map cause a degradation in the dynamical behavior of the communication system. To overcome this degradation issue in, a novel form of dual chaos map algorithm is analyzed. To maintain the stability of the dynamical system, the Lyapunov Exponent (LE) is determined for the single and dual maps. In this paper, the LE of the single and dual maps
... Show MoreMutans streptococci (MS) are a group of oral bacteria considered as the main cariogenic organisms. MS consists of several species of genus Streptococcus which are sharing similar phenotypes and genotypes. The aim of this study is to determine the genetic diversity of the core species of clinical strains of Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sobrinus and Streptococcus downei by using repitative extragenic palindromic (REP) primer. The DNA of the clinical strains of S. mutans (n=10), S. sobrinus (n=05) and S. downei (n=04) have been employed in the present study, which have been previously isolated from caries active subjects. The DNA of the clinical and reference strains was
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