Chitinase-3-like 1 protein (YKL-40) is a glycoprotein primarily produced in the arthritic joint and plays a crucial role in inflammatory processes. The aim of the study is to establish the role of YKL-40 as a biomarker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared to proinflammatory biomarkers and disease activity. The study included 58 patients and 18 control. Diseases activity score (DAS-28) and clinical disease activity index (CDAI) were measured. Serum level of YKL-40, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1B (IL-1β), erythrocyte sedimentation (ESR), rheumatoid factor (RF), C-reactive protein (CRP), and anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) were assessed. The results showed that the median serum YKL-40 level which was 5.42 ng/ml, the TNF-a level which was 123.6 ng/ml, and the IL-1B level which was 204.365 pg/dl were significantly higher in patients compared to control 3.28 (1.58–4.99) ng/ml, 56.47 (9.38–77.01) ng/ml and 67.887 (15.493–122.689)pg/dl respectively. There was no correlation between serum YKL-40 and disease activity, while there were significant associations observed with TNF-α (r=0.5,p =0.0001) and IL-1β (r=0.41, p=0.001). YKL-40 indicating good levels of RA prediction at 2.47 ng/ml, sensitivity 87.9%, specificity 58.6%, accuracy 78.1%, PPV 80.9%, and NPV 70.8%. In conclusion, a higher level of serum YKL-40 is found in RA patients. The findings from our study suggest a strong association between YKL-40 and the proinflammatory biomarkers. As a result, these biomarkers together might play a role in RA pathogenesis, and YKL-40 may be used as a potential diagnostic biomarker for RA.
A study of some biological aspects of the crustacean Isopod procellio scaber was carried out for the period April 2003 to march 2004 . The study consisted reproductive and morphological characteristies such as size , weight and length of the body . The result showed that the highest population density of P. scaber was 1120 individual/m2 in September 2003 and less density 403 ind/m2 in February 2004. The density was generally high in Spring and Autumn, low in Summer and Winter months.An increase of the sexual ratio appear in the females number compared to males number (p < 0.05) during most of year. Present study showed non significant increase in the length and dry weight for females compared to males in most of year months. There wer
... Show MoreAbstract: Background: Drug toxicity and chemotherapeutic side effects negatively impact the quality of life of breast cancer patients. Objectives: to evaluate the efficacy of pharmaceutical Interventions (PI) on quality of life (QOL)Among chemotherapy intake breast cancer women. Method: A pre-post interventional study was carried out at the chemotherapy ward of Alhabobi Hospital in Alnasiriyah City. Eligible patients received comprehensive pharmaceutical care and a self-compiled Breast Cancer Patients Medication Knowledge Guide pamphlet. Each patient received two sessions, the first at baseline and the second after 7, 14, or 21 days depending on the next taking dose of chemotherapy. Each session lasted for approximately 15-30 minutes. Par
... Show MoreIntroduction The Hybrid Gamma Camera (HGC) is being developed to enhance the localisation of radiopharmaceutical uptake in targeted tissues during surgical procedures such as sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy. Purpose To assess the capability of the HGC, a lymph-node-contrast (LNC) phantom was constructed for an evaluative study simulating medical scenarios of varying radioactivity concentration and SLN size. Materials and methods The phantom was constructed using two methyl methacrylate PMMA plates (8 mm thick). The SLNs were simulated by drilling circular wells of diameters ranging between 10 mm and 2.5 mm (16 wells in total) in one plate. These simulated SLNs were placed underneath scattering material with thicknesses ranging between 5 mm
... Show MoreThis study aims to characterize traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) neurophysiologically using an intramuscular fine-wire electromyography (EMG) electrode pair. EMG data were collected from an agonist-antagonist pair of tail muscles of Macaca fasicularis, pre- and post-lesion, and for a treatment and control group. The EMG signals were decomposed into multi-resolution subsets using wavelet transforms (WT), then the relative power (RP) was calculated for each individual reconstructed EMG sub-band. Linear mixed models were developed to test three hypotheses: (i) asymmetrical volitional activity of left and right side tail muscles (ii) the effect of the experimental TSCI on the frequency content of the EMG signal, (iii) and the effect
... Show MoreIn this study, a proposed process for the utilization of hydrogen sulphide separated with other gases from omani natural gas for the production of sulphuric acid by wet sulphuric acid process (WSA) was studied. The processwas simulated at an acid gas feed flow of 5000 m3/hr using Aspen ONE- V7.1-HYSYS software. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the optimum conditions for the operation of plant. This included primarily the threepacked bed reactors connected in series for the production of sulphur trioxidewhich represented the bottleneck of the process. The optimum feed temperature and catalyst bed volume for each reactor were estimated and then used in the simulation of the whole process for tw
... Show MoreSubsurface soil water retention (SWRT) is a recent technology for increasing the crop yield, water use efficiency and then the water productivity with less amount of applied water. The goal of this research was to evaluate the existing of SWRT with the influence of surface and subsurface trickle irrigation on economic water productivity of cucumber crop. Field study was carried out at the Hawr Rajab district of Baghdad governorate from October 1st, to December 31st, 2017. Three experimental treatments were used, treatment plot T1 using SWRT with subsurface trickle irrigation, plot T2 using SWRT with surface trickle irrigation, while plot T3 without using SWRT and using surface tickle irrigation system. The obtained results showed th
... Show MoreThe adsorption of copper ions onto produced activated carbon from banana peels (with particle size 250 µm) in a single component system with applying magnetic field has been studied using fixed bed adsorber. The fixed bed breakthrough curves for the copper ions were investigated. The adsorption capacity for Cu (II) was investigated. It was found that 1) the exposure distance (E.D) and strength of magnetic field (B), affected the degree of adsorption; and 2) experiments showed that removal of Cu ions and accumulative adsorption capacity of adsorbent increase as the exposure distance and strength of magnetic field increase.
A systematic approach is presented to achieve the stable grasping of objects through a two-finger robotic hand, in which each finger cavity was filled with granular media. The compaction of the latter, controlled by vacuum pressure, was used to adjust the structural and contact stiffness of the finger. The grasping stability was studied under the concurrent effect of an external torque and applied vacuum pressure. Stable grasping was defined as the no slippage condition between the grasped object and the two fingers. Three control schemes were adopted and applied experimentally to ensure the effectiveness of the grasping process. The results showed that stable and unstable grasping regions exist for each combination of applied torqu
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