Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with polymorphic expression. B cells have an essential contribution in immune system activation via the production of different cytokines and functioning as potent antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, a drug that particularly targets B cells may represent an ideal therapeutic approach for SLE. Rituximab (RTX), an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody causing transient B-cell depletion, has been used to manage SLE. This study aims to assess Rituximab effects on lupus nephritis (LN) patients when added to conventional immunosuppressants. Twenty four patients, 15-32 years old, with class III/IV/V LN were involved in this study. All were on steroids before lupus nephritis occurrence. They were given rituximab induction therapy and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) maintenance therapy. RTX was indicated for refractory and relapsing SLE. Several investigations done before and after RTX treatment and in the last follow up (done one year after starting Rituximab). Those included protein in urine, serum creatinine, double stranded DNA, C3, C4, and Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). Proteinuria decreased significantly after RTX treatment and in the last measurement (P=0.01 and P=0.001, respectively). Serum creatinine significantly decreased only in the last measurement (P=0.02). Double stranded DNA decreased remarkably after treatment (P=0.01) with a further decrease in the last measurement (P=0.006). C3 and C4 increased after treatment but the increase was significant only for C3 (P=0.002) and this increase continues till the last measurement (P=0.0006). Active urine sediments found in fifteen patients and disappeared after RTX treatment. Rituximab can be promising in treating lupus nephritis when used along with traditional immunosuppressants. It can reduce disease activity and improve renal function in such patients.
Vocational education has great importance to comprehensive national development as it provides intermediate cadres able of operating the factories and laboratories in the farms and fields beside the work in the fields of health, service, administration and commercial. Due to the importance of this type of education in society, it is necessary to do a qualitative reform of vocational education in order to make the educational staffs get the necessary basic expertise to adapt the requirements of the labor market and try to rearrange and organize the workforce through put long-term economic and social policy through certain planning open to the workforce. The workforces structure according to gradual expansion in all the national ec
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Age and growth of a population of Varicorhinus trutta (Heckel) from Tigris river at Salahuldin province have been investigated during the period from September 1999 to August 2000. A total of 156 fishes were collected from two stations at Tigris river using small meshed gill nets. The age data revealed that the species under investigation reached to a maximum age of seven years and approximately 46 cm long. The population of this species in Tigris river at the sites of study was dominated by 3 and 4 years classes. There were no marked differences in growth or longevity between the sexes. Determination of length-weight relationship revealed that the growth of both sexes in the species under investigation was allometric and the values of b
... Show MoreFour genetic populations ( P1 , P2 , F1 , F2) were used in this study .
The parental cross in barley ( P1 barakq and P2 Pakistan ) was done . Many quantitative
pheno types were estimated such as plants length , tillers number , grains yield , capsules
number , the number of grains per capsule and the weight of 1000 grains . The results showed
significant differences in genetic variance values in the seconed filial generation ( F2) for all
the studied phenotypes : High values for the heritability were observed for all the studied
phenotypes .
These results indicated the effect of additive and non-additive genes on the quantitative
phenotypes . Finally , the selection of first generation can utilized for impro
In this study, morphotectonic analyses were prepared for an anticline existing to the north of Maqloub Anticline and extends toward north - south approximately, which is unfamiliar in relation to the major extension of the anticlines in the region. The study involves a structural interpretation of the anticline's origin and its relation with the faulting in the foreland zone in this area, specifically in foothill zone, because of the major fracture that is found adjacent and parallel to the axis of this anticline.
The visual interpretation is the major tool used to determine the features of this anticline. Moreover, some facilitating remote sensing technologies, such as digital processing of satellite images and Digital Elevation
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Abstract
The current research aims to identify mental health and its role in promoting self-confidence and positive behavior of female university students. The researcher adopted the descriptive analytical approach in this research. The researcher depended on the availability of sources and references, literature, and previous field studies to analyze and study all aspects related to mental health and its role in promoting self-confidence and positive behavior of university students and then expand its importance and identify the areas of mental health, self-confidence, positive behavior, and university. The second chapter included the concept of mental health, the importance of the study, the most important factors of health and psyc
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Epilepsy is one of the most common diseases of the nervous system around the world, affecting all age groups and causing seizures leading to loss of control for a period of time. This study presents a seizure detection algorithm that uses Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) type II to transform the signal into frequency-domain and extracts energy features from 16 sub-bands. Also, an automatic channel selection method is proposed to select the best subset among 23 channels based on the maximum variance. Data are segmented into frames of one Second length without overlapping between successive frames. K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) model is used to detect those frames either to ictal (seizure) or interictal (non-
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Twelve cigarette tobacco samples of various brands and origins were gathered from local markets of Iraq. . The CRn was determined utilizing CR-39 track detectors which were exposed to the various brands of cigarettes tobacco for 45 days. The results demonstrated that the highest value of 222Rn concentration was )157 Bq/m3( in Macbeth cigarette sample of Brazilian origin and the lowest value of CRn was (76.3 Bq/m3 (in Sumer cigarette sample of Iraqi origin,with an average value of (106.53±22.3 Bq/m3). The outcomes have demonstrated that cigarettes of a Brazilian origin contain higher CRn tha
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