Cytokines are signaling molecules between inflammatory cells that play a significant role in the pathogenesis of a disease. Among these cytokines are interleukins (ILs) 17A and 33, and accordingly, the current case-control study sought to investigate the role of each of the two cytokines in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Sixty-eight relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) Iraqi patients and twenty healthy individuals (control group) were enrolled. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits were used to determine serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33. Results revealed that IL-17A and IL-33 levels were significantly higher in MS patients than in controls (14.1 ± 4.5 vs. 7.5 ± 3.8 pg/mL; p < 0.001 and 65.3 ± 16.3 vs. 49.3 ± 20.0 pg/mL; p < 0.001, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that IL-17A was a very good predictor of MS (area under curve [AUC] = 0.869; 95% CI = 0.779 - 0.960; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 10.2 pg/mL; sensitivity = 80.8%; specificity = 75.0%). A similar prediction was presented by IL-33, but the AUC value was lower (AUC = 0.762; 95% CI = 0.63 - 0.89; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 56.4 pg/mL; sensitivity = 70.6%; specificity = 70.0%). Multinomial logistic regression analysis confirmed the significance of IL-17A and IL-33 in MS risk, and under three models of analysis, the estimated odds ratios for IL-17A (1.50, 1.49 and 1.50, respectively) and IL-33 (1.05, 1.05 and 1.06) were above 1.0. Patients stratified by gender (male and female), expanded disability status scale (EDSS: < 3 and ≥ 3) or medication (pre- and post-medication) showed no significant differences in serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33 for each stratum. However, with regard to response to medication, it was found that responding patients showed significantly higher levels of IL-33 than non-responders (70.9 ± 12.2 vs. 57.2 ± 18.2 pg/mL; p = 0.018). This difference was not observed when considering IL-17A. Pearson correlation analysis between IL-17A and IL-33 revealed that both cytokines were not significantly correlated. In conclusion, the study indicated that IL-17A and IL-33 were up-regulated in serum of MS patients, and this up-regulation was not influenced by age, gender, EDSS or medication status, but the elevated level of IL-33 was more pronounced in patients who responded to medication.
Educational Planning, it's Importance in the Social, Economical and Educational Development
Background: Axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) is an inflammatory, systemic rheumatic condition that mostly affects the axial skeleton. Tenascin-C (TN-C) is a hexameric glycoprotein of considerable size, upregulated in many inflammatory conditions, while Interleukin-17 (IL-17) a cytokine that plays an important role in SpA symptoms. Objective: to investigate the upregulation between the serum levels of TN-C and IL-17 in Iraqi axSpA patients and the disease characteristics. Patients and Methods: Seventy-four axSpA patients and 28 matched controls were studied. Fifty-four patients received a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) and 20 did not. Serum TN-C and IL-17 concentrations were determined using the ELISA technique. The Bath Ankyl
... Show MoreThis paper presents a proposed method for (CBIR) from using Discrete Cosine Transform with Kekre Wavelet Transform (DCT/KWT), and Daubechies Wavelet Transform with Kekre Wavelet Transform (D4/KWT) to extract features for Distributed Database system where clients/server as a Star topology, client send the query image and server (which has the database) make all the work and then send the retrieval images to the client. A comparison between these two approaches: first DCT compare with DCT/KWT and second D4 compare with D4/KWT are made. The work experimented over the image database of 200 images of 4 categories and the performance of image retrieval with respect to two similarity measures namely Euclidian distance (ED) and sum of absolute diff
... Show MoreOne of the prominent goals of Metrical Phonology Theory is providing stress of poetry on the syllable-, the foot-, and the phonological word- levels. Analysing poetry is one of the most prominent and controversial issues for the involved number and types of syllables, feet, and meters are stable in poetry compared to other literary texts. The prosodic seeds of the theory have been planted by Firth (1948) in English, while in Arabic يديهارفلا in the second half of the eighth century (A.D.) has done so. Investigating the metrical structure of poetry has been conducted in various languages, whereas scrutinising the metrical structure of English and Arabic poetry has received little attention. This study aims at capturing the
... Show MoreThe present study was carried out on forty eight epididymis of sexually mature dogs to elucidate light microscope features and the presence of testosterone receptors inside epididymis in different seasons. Twenty four dogs aged 3 years were used during the periods from 1/2/2015-1/2/2016. The epididymis were carefully dissected from the testis after orchidectomy operations and fixed, dehydrated, clarified and embedded in paraffin. Sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and periodic acid schiff. As well as, paraffin embedded cytoimmunochemistry technique was used for detection of testosterone receptors. Muscular coats showed no significant differences during different seasons or among segments. Epithelial heigh
... Show MoreResource estimation is an essential part of reservoir evaluation and development planning which highly affects the decision-making process. The available conventional logs for 30 wells in Nasiriyah oilfield were used in this study to model the petrophysical properties of the reservoir and produce a 3D static geological reservoir model that mimics petrophysical properties distribution to estimate the stock tank oil originally in place (STOOIP) for Mishrif reservoir by volumetric method. Computer processed porosity and water saturation and a structural 2D map were utilized to construct the model which was discretized by 537840 grid blocks. These properties were distributed in 3D Space using sequential Gaussian simulation and the variation in
... Show MoreIn recent days, the escalating need to seamlessly transfer data traffic without discontinuities across the Internet network has exerted immense pressure on the capacity of these networks. Consequently, this surge in demand has resulted in the disruption of traffic flow continuity. Despite the emergence of intelligent networking technologies such as software-defined networking, network cloudification, and network function virtualization, they still need to improve their performance. Our proposal provides a novel solution to tackle traffic flow continuity by controlling the selected packet header bits (Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP)) that govern the traffic flow priority. By setting the DSCP bits, we can determine the appropriate p
... Show MoreBackground: Lymphomas are group of diseases caused by malignant lymphocytes that accumulate in lymph nodes and caused the characteristics lymphadenopathy. Occasionally, they may spill over into blood or infiltrate organs outside the lymphoid tissue. The major subdivision of lymphomas is into Hodgkin lymphoma and non–Hodgkin lymphoma and this is based on the histologic presence of Reed-Sternberg cells in Hodgkin lymphoma. Salivary immunoglobulin A is the prominent immunoglobulin and is considered to be the main specific defense mechanism in oral cavity. The aim of this study was to determine the level of salivary immunoglobulin A in lymphoma patients before and after chemotherapy treatment. Subjects, materials and methods: The study i
... Show MoreBackground: Diabetes mellitus has been suggested
to be the most common metabolic disorder
associated with magnesium deficiency, and because
available data suggest that adverse outcomes are
associated with hypomagnesemia, it is prudent that
routine surveillance for hypomagnesemia be done
and the condition be treated whenever possible.
Aim of the study:To explore the serum Mg
concentrations of diabetic patients and healthy
controls in our locality.
Mehtods: One hundred and forty four diabetic
patients (22 with type I and 122 with type II diabetes
mellitus) recruited from the outpatient diabetes clinic
at the Specialized Center For Endocrine DiseasesBaghdad (62 patients), National Diabetes Center-Al
Vanadium dioxide nanofilms are one of the most essential materials in electronic applications like smart windows. Therefore, studying and understanding the optical properties of such films is crucial to modify the parameters that control these properties. To this end, this work focuses on investigating the opacity as a function of the energy directed at the nanofilms with different thicknesses (1–100) nm. Effective mediator theories (EMTs), which are considered as the application of Bruggeman’s formalism and the Looyenga mixing rule, have been used to estimate the dielectric constant of VO2 nanofilms. The results show different opacity behaviors at different w