BACKGROUND: Sickle cell nephropathy, a heterogeneous group of renal abnormalities resulting from complex interactions of sickle cell disease (SCD)-related factors and non-SCD phenotype characteristics, is associated with an increased risk for morbidity and mortality. AIMS: The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of microalbuminuria (MA) among pediatric patients with SCD and to determine risk factors for MA among those patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A case–control study was carried out on 120 patients with SCD, 2–18 years old, registered at Basrah Center for Hereditary Blood Diseases, and 132 age-and sex-matched healthy children were included as a control group. Investigations included complete blood panel, blood urea, se

This paper includes an experimental study of hydrogen mass flow rate and inlet hydrogen pressure effect on the fuel cell performance. Depending on the experimental results, a model of fuel cell based on artificial neural networks is proposed. A back propagation learning rule with the log-sigmoid activation function is adopted to construct neural networks model. Experimental data resulting from 36 fuel cell tests are used as a learning data. The hydrogen mass flow rate, applied load and inlet hydrogen pressure are inputs to fuel cell model, while the current and voltage are outputs. Proposed model could successfully predict the fuel cell performance in good agreement with actual data. This work is extended to developed fuel cell feedback

Recent reports provided evidence that epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and some matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) contribute to the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells. This study investigated the expression pattern of some EMT markers (E-cadherin and Vimentin) and some MMPs (MMP-2 and MMP-9) in transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). Fifty five paraffin embedded biopsies were included in this study. Expression pattern of E-cadherin and Vimentin was evaluated by immunohistochemistry while cytoplasmic mRNA expression of both MMP-2 and MMP-9 were determined by in situ hybridization. The expression of all markers were significantly increased with the increase of patient's age (? 50 years), and furthermore an increase in men expression

The aim of this project was to study the in vitro effect of antineoplastic drugs (vincristine and vinblastine) on mice spermatozoa. Eighteen adult (age 8-9 weeks) male mice were divided into three groups equally. The animals in each group were slain by cervical dislocation, the testes were removed and two tails of epididymides isolated. Spermatozoa were obtained from the two tails of epididymides by mincing in 500 µl TCM-199.The first group non-treated (unadded) as a control group, second group added 10 µg/ml of vincristine to TCM-199 and the third group added 10 µg/ml of vinblastine to TCM-199. After 10 minutes from added of vincristine and vinblastin measured the following test: spermatozoa activity, percentage dead spermatozoa and mor

One hundred and eighty five urine samples were collected eight isolates (4.3%) were obtained and diagnosed as Staphylococcus aureus. Among 8 isolates, 5 (62.5%) S. aureus isolates were found to be enterotoxigenic, most of isolates produced at least two types of Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). The production of enterotoxins in the presence or absence of Thymol extracts (aqueous and alcoholic) were estimated using a reversed passive latex agglutination (SET-RPLA) kit. The extracts reduced enterotoxin production compared with the control. Enterotoxin inhibition was observed for enterotoxin C production at minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) at 400 µg/ml, whereas production of enterotoxins A, B, and