Free radicals and oxidative damage caused by them have being suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of migraine. These may result from distorted equilibrium of pro-oxidant/anti-oxidant system that continuously generates and detoxifies oxidants during normal aerobic metabolism. Escape of such system from equilibrium leads to damage of cellular elements with the depletion of cellular stores of anti-oxidants material such as glutathione and vitamin E. Therefore, free radical scavengers (vitamin E or melatonin) seems to be of potential benefit as prophylactic anti-migraine therapy by neutralizing free radicals overproduction and possibly preventing formation of highly toxic intermediates (such as nitric oxide). In addition of being powerful antioxidant, melatonin was shown to possess promising effects in modulating severity, frequency and duration of migraine attacks. For this reason the present study was conducted to investigate the involvement of changed anti-oxidant defense (measured as total antioxidant status “TASâ€) during migraine attack and the possible modulation of such status by classical anti-migraine therapy (ergotamine), antioxidants (vitamin E and melatonin) and their combination. 23 normal subjects and 21 migraine patients with age range of (17-45) years were enrolled in the study. Patients were diagnosed according to neurologist decision to have migraine with and without aura. Migraine patients were divided into three treatment groups; first group treated with ergotamine alone, second group with ergotamine /vitamin E and third group with ergotamine /melatonin. All groups were advised to take their treatments during attacks. Blood samples were drawn from migraine patients and normal subjects before initiation of therapy and after pain has been relived (from migraine patients only) for the investigation of TAS . The results of the study showed that TAS was significantly lower in migraine patients in comparison to control healthy subjects (P<0.05) with a percent reduction ranged from 35.46% to 43.97%. However, there is no significant difference in the level of TAS among migraine patients (P>0.05). Treatment with ergotamine raised significantly the level of TAS by 157%. The addition of vitamin E or melatonin greatly raised TAS by 179% and 176% respectively. The addition of vitamin E to ergotamine showed superior effect to that when melatonin was added. The greater reduction in TAS seen in this study among migraine patients in comparison to control healthy subjects suggests the presence of generalized decrease in antioxidant defense elements. Elevation of TAS by all treatments was very clear. In conclusion the decrease in TAS can be implicated in the pathophysiology of migraine and enhancement of antioxidant system can add a beneficial effect for the management of migraine headache with the use of antioxidants (vitamin E or melatonin) with classical anti-migraine drug.
In this paper, the behavior of spliced steel girders under static loading is investigated. A group of seven steel I-girders were tested experimentally. Two concentrated loads were applied to each specimen at third points and the load was increased incrementally up to the yield of the specimen. Two types of splices were considered; the bearing type and the friction-grip type splices. For comparison, an analytical study was made for the tested girders in which the finite element analysis program (Abaqus) was used for analysis. It was found that the maximum test load for spliced girders with bearing type splices was in the range of (34%) to (67%) of the maximum test load for the reference girder. For girders spliced by using friction-grip t
... Show MoreThis study investigates the treatment of used lubricating oils from AL-Mussaib Gas Power Station Company-Iraq, which was treated with different extractive solvents (heptane and 2-propanol). The performance activity of these solvents in the extraction process was examined and evaluated experimentally. Operating parameters were solvent to oil ratios of (1:2, 1:4, 1:6, and 1:8), mixing time (20, 35, 50, and 65 min), temperatures (30, 40, 50, and 60 ºC), and mixing speed (500 rpm). These parameters were studied and analyzed. The quality is determined by the measuring and assessment of important characteristics specially viscosity, viscosity index, specific gravity, pour point, flash point, and ash content. The results confirm that the solve
... Show MoreElectrocardiogram (ECG) is an important physiological signal for cardiac disease diagnosis. With the increasing use of modern electrocardiogram monitoring devices that generate vast amount of data requiring huge storage capacity. In order to decrease storage costs or make ECG signals suitable and ready for transmission through common communication channels, the ECG data
volume must be reduced. So an effective data compression method is required. This paper presents an efficient technique for the compression of ECG signals. In this technique, different transforms have been used to compress the ECG signals. At first, a 1-D ECG data was segmented and aligned to a 2-D data array, then 2-D mixed transform was implemented to compress the
This paper aims to make a historical review of jet grouting techniques and encountered problems at different sites in several countries. This review is a good guide to understanding the performance and limitations of improved soils or lands. The basic concept of jet grouting technology is to use cement as a binder to accelerate the hardening process of an admixture of material grout and soil. The different case history was conducted in both sand soil and clay soil in the horizontal and vertical direction. Other papers on field construction showed that the grout can be gelled within 5-10 minutes. Due to different cases and studies, these will help improve soil by supporting the foundation load with a minimal settlement.
... Show MoreWellbore instability is a significant problem faced during drilling operations and causes loss of circulation, caving, stuck pipe, and well kick or blowout. These problems take extra time to treat and increase the Nonproductive Time (NPT). This paper aims to review the factors that influence the stability of wellbores and know the methods that have been reached to reduce them. Based on a current survey, the factors that affect the stability of the wellbore are far-field stress, rock mechanical properties, natural fractures, pore pressure, wellbore trajectory, drilling fluid chemicals, mobile formations, naturally over-pressured shale collapse, mud weight, temperature, and time. Also, the most suitable ways to reduce well
... Show MoreMost below-knee prostheses are manufactured in Iraq without considering the fast progress in smart prostheses, which can offer movements in the desired directions according to the type of control system designed for this purpose. The proposed design appears to have the advantages of simplicity, affordability, better load distribution, suitability for subjects with transtibial amputation, and viability in countries with people having low socio-economic status. The designed prosthetics consisted of foot, ball, and socket joints, two stepper motors, a linkage system, and an EMG shield. All these materials were available in the local markets in Iraq. The experimental results showed t
... Show MoreDrug resistance is a hot topic issue in cancer research and therapy. Although cancer therapy including radiotherapy and anti‐cancer drugs can kill malignant cells within the tumor, cancer cells can develop a wide range of mechanisms to resist the toxic effects of anti‐cancer agents. Cancer cells may provide some mechanisms to resist oxidative stress and escape from apoptosis and attack by the immune system. Furthermore, cancer cells may resist senescence, pyroptosis, ferroptosis, necroptosis, and autophagic cell death by modulating several critical genes. The development of these mechanisms leads to resistance to anti‐cancer drugs and also radiotherapy. Resistance to therapy can increase mortal
Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is relatively a new technology which enables the production and compaction of asphalt concrete mixtures at temperatures 15-40 °C lower than that of traditional hot mix asphalt HMA. In the present work, six asphalt concrete mixtures were produced in the mix plant (1 ton each) in six different batches. Half of these mixes were WMA and the other half were HMA. Three types of fillers (limestone dust, Portland cement and hydrated lime) were used for each type of mix. Samples were then taken from these patches and transferred to lab for performance testing which includes: Marshall characteristics, moisture susceptibility (indirect tension test), resilient modulus, permanent deformation (axial repe
... Show MoreIn this paper two main stages for image classification has been presented. Training stage consists of collecting images of interest, and apply BOVW on these images (features extraction and description using SIFT, and vocabulary generation), while testing stage classifies a new unlabeled image using nearest neighbor classification method for features descriptor. Supervised bag of visual words gives good result that are present clearly in the experimental part where unlabeled images are classified although small number of images are used in the training process.