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.
Displacement is a problem that worries the human conscience and has received the attention of the international community. Furthermore, it has become one of the most urgent issues nowadays, especially when the number of displaced people in different countries are increased because of the causes of displacement and their political, economic, environmental, social and psychological effects. Iraq is one of the countries where displacement has taken place in several governorates, according to United Nations and International Organization for Migration (IOM), Iraq is considered the second largest country in the world after Syria in terms of the number of displaced people in 2015. Gratitude, a positive emotional response to benevolence, is a m
... Show MoreThe researcher tried to concentrate on the field study included many houses for the sake of documenting it by pictures and schemes with its history using the available data that had got from elderly whereas the rest of heritage will document in other research , in God willing .
The research confined on the studying of examples heritage houses which was some of them had built at the end of 19th century AD but, other of them had built on the beginning of 20th century . In spite of considering these buildings are important and as a sign to architect art of Jubba but, there is never full studying written about them in Western city .
The importance of this study lies on documenting sides of environmental and climatic progress which Iraq
The article aims to study the liquidity that is required to be provided optimally and the profitability that is required to be achieved by the bank, and the impact of both of them on the value of the bank, and their effect of both liquidity and profitability on the value of the bank. Hence, the research problem emerged, which indicates the extent of the effect of liquidity and profitability on the value of the bank. The importance of the research stems from the main role that commercial banks play in the economy of a country. This requires the need to identify liquidity in a broad way and its most important components, and how to
... Show MoreMany approaches of different complexity already exist to edge detection in
color images. Nevertheless, the question remains of how different are the results
when employing computational costly techniques instead of simple ones. This
paper presents a comparative study on two approaches to color edge detection to
reduce noise in image. The approaches are based on the Sobel operator and the
Laplace operator. Furthermore, an efficient algorithm for implementing the two
operators is presented. The operators have been applied to real images. The results
are presented in this paper. It is shown that the quality of the results increases by
using second derivative operator (Laplace operator). And noise reduced in a good
The speaker identification is one of the fundamental problems in speech processing and voice modeling. The speaker identification applications include authentication in critical security systems and the accuracy of the selection. Large-scale voice recognition applications are a major challenge. Quick search in the speaker database requires fast, modern techniques and relies on artificial intelligence to achieve the desired results from the system. Many efforts are made to achieve this through the establishment of variable-based systems and the development of new methodologies for speaker identification. Speaker identification is the process of recognizing who is speaking using the characteristics extracted from the speech's waves like pi
... Show MoreThe aim of the research is to identify the role of public relations in promoting tourism by the Palestinian tourism and travel companies in Gaza from the public relations officer’s point of view in those companies.
The researcher used the descriptive analytical method as the most appropriate for such studies and implemented the questionnaire as a tool to obtain the required data from the respondents.
The Researcher reached several conclusions:
1- There is a low percentage of women working in the field of public relations in Palestinian tourism establishments in the Gaza Strip, where the percentage did not exceed 5%.
2- The interpersonal communication counted as one of the elements of integra
A new simple and sensitive spectrophotometric method is described for quantification of Nifedipine (NIF) and their pharmaceutical formulation. The selective method was performed by the reduction of NIF nitro group to yield primary amino group using zinc powder with hydrochloric acid. The produced aromatic amine was submitted to oxidative coupling reaction with pyrocatechol and ammonium ceric nitrate to form orange color product measured spectrophotometrically with maximum absorption at 467nm. The product was determined through flow injection analysis (FIA) system and all the chemical and physical parameters were optimized. The concentration range from 5.0 to 140.0 μg.mL-1 was obeyed Beer’s law with a limit of detection and quantitatio
... Show MoreAbstract:
Objective: The study was done to evaluate nurses’ knowledge and practices toward physical restraint at critical care unit
Methodology: Fifty nurses, who were selected by a non-probability (convenient) sampling method, participated in this descriptive study. The instrument of the study was knowledge parts of the questionnaire were initially developed in the U.S.A for nursing homes; in 2006 they were adopted for all hospital units by the original developers. The knowledge section of the questionnaire consisted of 20 items, which were used to measure knowledge of nurses towards the definition, indications and contra
... Show MoreNations are developed with education and knowledge that raise the status of society in its various segments, beyond that it leads to underdevelopment and deterioration in various sectors, whether economic, health, social, etc. If we considered the general name of The ministry of Education & Scientific Studies, then the second part seems to be not functioning, since scientific research has no material allocation and remains based on the material potential of the university professor. As for the first half of the topic, the reality of the situation reveals problems related to the Holy Trinity of Education which is (Professor - Student - the scientific method) where universities suffer at the present time from this problem, and
... Show MoreBacteriocins were partially purified by ammonium sulphate 50% concentraction, bacteriocin activity of Pediococcus acidilactici-FMAC278 was 25600 U/ml with 5.8 folds and 7.6% yeild, the activity decrease to 12800 U/ml after dialysis with 6.3 folds and 3% yield, On the other hand the bacteriocin activity of Weissella paramesenteroides-DFR6 was 12800 U/ml with 2.7 folds and 8.8% yeild, after dialysis the activity became 6400 U/ml with 5.1 fold and 3.4% yield, Chicken Sausage were made by adding 0.25, 0.5 and 1% particaly purified bacteriocin to study its effect on microorganisms and increasing shelf life of Sausage. It is found that bacterial numbers were decreased after 3 days of storage at refrigerator at 0.5% conc. While the molds decrea
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