The rapid increase in the number of older people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia represents one of the major challenges to the health and social care systems. Early detection of AD makes it possible for patients to access appropriate services and to benefit from new treatments and therapies, as and when they become available. The onset of AD starts many years before the clinical symptoms become clear. A biomarker that can measure the brain changes in this period would be useful for early diagnosis of AD. Potentially, the electroencephalogram (EEG) can play a valuable role in early detection of AD. Damage in the brain due to AD leads to changes in the information processing activity of the brain and the EEG which can be quantified as a biomarker. The objective of the study reported in this paper is to develop robust EEG-based biomarkers for detecting AD in its early stages. We present a new approach to quantify the slowing of the EEG, one of the most consistent features at different stages of dementia, based on changes in the EEG amplitudes (ΔEEG A ). The new approach has sensitivity and specificity values of 100% and 88.88%, respectively, and outperformed the Lempel-Ziv Complexity (LZC) approach in discriminating between AD and normal subjects.
Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Clopidogrel, antiplatelet drug, has been widely used for management of CAD. Arylesterase, the activity of Paraoxonase-1 (PON-1), is mainly contributed in the biotransformation of clopidogrel to its active thiol form. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of receiving clopidogrel drug on the arylesterase activities in CAD patients. The effect of receiving clopidogrel drug on the antioxidant activity of arylesterase was also monitored by determination of malondialdehyde (MDA) level. Methods: One hundred CAD patients, who were followed-up for 5 days after reciving clopidogrel, and 50 healthy volunteers were included in our study
... Show MoreObjective: The goal of this research was to evaluate where selenium nanoparticles impact the activity of antibodies in immunized lambs with foot and mouth vaccines by modulating the immune system. Materials and Methods: Two groups of lambs of 3–4 months of age were injected with 1 ml of ARRIAH-VAC vaccine intramuscularly in the neck, five Lambs were given selenium nanoparticles (size 100 nm) oral administration of selenium nano dose of 0.1 mg/kg of body mass once every day for sixty days considered as group one (G1) while the other five used as control Group 2 (G2). Results: This resulted in the establishment of an immune response, as evidenced by a rise in antibody titer in the blood using the ELISA test for three serotypes A,
... Show MoreCoronavirus diseases 2021 (COVID-19) on going situation in Iraq is characterized in this paper. The pandemic handling by the government and the difficulties of public health measures enforcement in Iraq. Estimation of the COVID-19 data set was performed. Iraq is endangered to the pandemic, like the rest of the world besides sharing borders with hotspot neighbouring country Iran. The government of Iraq launched proactive measures in an attempt to prevent the viral spread. Nevertheless, reports of new cases keep escalating leaving the public health officials racing to take more firm constriction to face the pandemic. The paper bring forth the current COVID-19 scenario in Iraq, the government measures towards the public health challenges, and
... Show MoreSynthetic anti-TB drugs are being used to treat tuberculosis (TB) as they are effective, however, they are accompanied by many side effects. The disease has remained largely uncured till date. The use of plant extracts or phytochemicals along with the anti-TB drugs is a very attractive strategy to make the treatment more effective as phytochemicals have no side-effects, are much less toxic than synthetic anti-TB drugs, are safe to use and most importantly, do not produce resistant strains as opposed to synthetic anti-TB drugs. Approximately 420,000 plant species have been identified globally and among them only a few have been explored for their therapeutic potential. Traditional medicine in different parts of the world has employed crud
... Show MoreIntrusion detection systems (IDS) are useful tools that help security administrators in the developing task to secure the network and alert in any possible harmful event. IDS can be classified either as misuse or anomaly, depending on the detection methodology. Where Misuse IDS can recognize the known attack based on their signatures, the main disadvantage of these systems is that they cannot detect new attacks. At the same time, the anomaly IDS depends on normal behaviour, where the main advantage of this system is its ability to discover new attacks. On the other hand, the main drawback of anomaly IDS is high false alarm rate results. Therefore, a hybrid IDS is a combination of misuse and anomaly and acts as a solution to overcome the dis
... Show MoreA method is developed for the determination of iron (III) in pharmaceutical preparations by coupling cloud point extraction (CPE) and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The method is based on the reaction of Fe(III) with excess drug ciprofloxacin (CIPRO) in dilute H2SO4, forming a hydrophobic Fe(III)- CIPRO complex which can be extracted into a non-ionic surfactant Triton X-114, and iron ions are determined spectrophotometrically at absorption maximum of 437 nm. Several variables which impact on the extraction and determination of Fe (III) are optimized in order to maximize the extraction efficiency and improve the sensitivity of the method. The interferences study is also considered to check the accuracy of the procedure. The results hav
... Show MoreUnused and expired pharmaceutical drugs are a novel type of organic corrosion inhibitor. They are less expensive, more effective, and less harmful than conventional organic corrosion inhibitors. This study investigated the effects of concentration, adsorption mechanism and thermodynamic parameters of enalapril malate (ENAP) as a corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in a saline solution (3.5 % NaCl). The polarization method was used to determine the corrosion rate and inhibition efficiency. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force spectroscopy (AFM) were used to investigate the surface morphology and topography of carbon steel after immersion in both uninhibited and inhibited media for 24 h. Fourier transform inf
... Show MoreThis work includes preparation of Az, Qz, and Tz derivatives from the reaction of Schiff base (Sb) derivative with anthranilic acid, chloroacetyl chloride, and sodium azide, as well as, the characterization via FT-IR, 1H-NMR, and 13CNMR. The anticorrosion inhibition of these compounds was studied and the measurements of carbon steel (CS) corrosion in sodium chloride solution 3.5% (blank) and inhibitor in solutions were calculated at a temperature range of 293-323 K by the technique of electrochemical polarization. In addition, some thermodynamic and kinetic activation parameters for inhibitor and blank solutions (Ea⋇, ΔH⋇, ΔS⋇, and ΔG⋇) were determined. The results showed high inhibition efficacy for all the prepared compounds,
... Show MorePseudomonas aeruginosa has variety of virulence factors that contribute to its pathogenicity. Therefore, rapid detection with high accuracy and specificity is very important in the control of this pathogenic bacterium. To evaluate the accuracy and specificity of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assay, ETA and gyrB genes were targeted to detect pathogenic strains of P. aeruginosa. Seventy swab samples were taken from patients with infected wounds and burns in two hospitals in Erbil and Koya cities in Iraq. The isolates were traditionally identified using phenotypic methods, and DNA was extracted from the positive samples, to apply PCR using the species specific primers targeting ETA, the gene encoding for exotoxin A, and gyrB gene. The res
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