It was aimed to understand the interleukin-4 (IL-4) role in etio-pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Two approaches were adopted. In the first one, a quantitative expression of IL4 gene was assessed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and such findings were correlated with some demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters, which included gender, duration of disease, disease activity score (DAS-28), rheumatoid factors (RFs), C-reactive protein (CRP) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (ACCP) antibodies. In the second approach, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of IL4 gene (rs2243250) was inspected by DNA sequencing using specific primers. Fifty-one Iraqi RA patients (22 males and 29 females) were enrolled in the study. They were under therapy, which was a single weekly subcutaneous dose of 25 mg of etanercept (Enbrel) for a period of 3-5 years. The results of gene expression (2-??Ct) revealed an increased expression of IL4 mRNA (Mean ± SEM: 8.247 ± 2.442), especially female patients compared to male patients (11.545 ± 3.928 vs. 3.537 ± 1.530; p = 0.03). The expression was also subjected to variations that were related to clinical and laboratory findings. With respect to IL4 gene SNP, allele and genotype frequencies showed no significant differences between RA patients and controls. In addition, the SNP genotypes had no effect on IL4 gene expression. In conclusion, an up-regulation of IL4 gene expression was observed in RA patients, and it was more pronounced in female than male patients by approximately four folds, while no association between the IL4 SNP alleles or genotypes and RA was observed.
Modern agriculture is challenged by soil degradation, nutrient depletion, plant diseases, and excessive dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. By examining different strains of Pantoea, the study highlights their role in promoting plant growth, improving their tolerance to stress, reducing reliance on synthetic agricultural inputs, and contributing to more sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural practices. Using a combination of practical qualitative methods and reliable quantitative data, the research gathers extensive information on how these microbes impact various crops and key soil health indicators. The improvements in plant growth statistics and nutrient levels are often quite astonishing. The result
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It is easy to talk about democracy, but it is difficult to practice. We talk about postmodernism, but difficult to be embodied in the ground. Yet, the age of democracy and modernity at the same time prompted the researcher to try to find a media concept for it. It does not mean that this concept has not yet formed. But the rooting of democracy and the approaching of states and groups towards it, made it necessary to by studied again.
The relationship between democracy and the media has made them look like one concept. The existence of one is linked to the existence of the other. The reality is only a linguistic formulation, but the social and cultural aspect is related to democracy origin
... Show MoreThe goal of this paper is to design a robust controller for controlling a pendulum
system. The control of nonlinear systems is a common problem that is facing the researchers in control systems design. The Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) is the best solution for controlling a nonlinear system. The classical SMC consists from two phases. The first phase is the reaching phase and the second is the sliding phase. The SMC suffers from the chattering phenomenon which is considered as a severe problem and undesirable property. It is a zigzag motion along the switching surface. In this paper, the chattering is reduced by using a saturation function instead of sign function. In spite of SMC is a good method for controlling a nonlinear system b
An anal fissure which does not heal with conservative measures as sits baths and laxatives is a chronic anal fissure. Physiologically, it is the high resting tone of the internal anal sphincter that chiefly interferes with the healing process of these fissures. Until now, the gold standard treatment modality is surgery, either digital anal dilatation or lateral sphincterotomy. However, concerns have been raised about the incidence of faecal incontinence after surgery. Therefore, pharmacological means to treat chronic anal fissures have been explored. A Medline and pub med database search from 1986-2012 was conducted to perform a literature search for articles relating to the non-surgical treatment of chronic anal fissure. Pharmacological
... Show MoreIn this paper we proposed a new method for selecting a smoothing parameter in kernel estimator to estimate a nonparametric regression function in the presence of missing values. The proposed method is based on work on the golden ratio and Surah AL-E-Imran in the Qur'an. Simulation experiments were conducted to study a small sample behavior. The results proved the superiority the proposed on the competition method for selecting smoothing parameter.
Abstract
Pneumatic processes sequence (PPS) is used widely in industrial applications. It is common to do a predetermined PPS to achieve a specific larger task within the industrial application like the PPS achieved by the pick and place industrial robot arm. This sequence may require change depending on changing the required task and usually this requires the programmer intervention to change the sequence’ sprogram, which is costly and may take long time. In this research a PLC-based PPS control system is designed and implemented, in which the PPS is programmed by demonstration. The PPS could be changed by demonstrating the new required sequence via the user by following simple series of manual steps without h
... Show MoreThe Hopfield network is one of the easiest types, and its architecture is such that each neuron in the network connects to the other, thus called a fully connected neural network. In addition, this type is considered auto-associative memory, because the network returns the pattern immediately upon recognition, this network has many limitations, including memory capacity, discrepancy, orthogonally between patterns, weight symmetry, and local minimum. This paper proposes a new strategy for designing Hopfield based on XOR operation; A new strategy is proposed to solve these limitations by suggesting a new algorithm in the Hopfield network design, this strategy will increase the performance of Hopfield by modifying the architecture of t
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