Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) causes up to 40% mortality in humans and is difficult to treat. ARDS is also one of the major triggers of mortality associated with coronavirus-induced disease (COVID-19). We used a mouse model of ARDS induced by Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), which triggers 100% mortality, to investigate the mechanisms through which Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) attenuates ARDS. SEB was used to trigger ARDS in C3H mice. These mice were treated with THC and analyzed for survival, ARDS, cytokine storm, and metabolome. Additionally, cells isolated from the lungs were used to perform single-cell RNA sequencing and transcriptome analysis. A database analysis of human COVID-19 patients was also performed to compare the signaling pathways with SEB-mediated ARDS. The treatment of SEB-mediated ARDS mice with THC led to a 100% survival, decreased lung inflammation, and the suppression of cytokine storm. This was associated with immune cell apoptosis involving the mitochondrial pathway, as suggested by single-cell RNA sequencing. A transcriptomic analysis of immune cells from the lungs revealed an increase in mitochondrial respiratory chain enzymes following THC treatment. In addition, metabolomic analysis revealed elevated serum concentrations of amino acids, lysine, n-acetyl methionine, carnitine, and propionyl L-carnitine in THC-treated mice. THC caused the downregulation of miR-185, which correlated with an increase in the pro-apoptotic gene targets. Interestingly, the gene expression datasets from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of human COVID-19 patients showed some similarities between cytokine and apoptotic genes with SEB-induced ARDS. Collectively, this study suggests that the activation of cannabinoid receptors may serve as a therapeutic modality to treat ARDS associated with COVID-19.
Spent catalysts for sulfuric acid production have large amount of vanadium and due to environmental authority it is required to reduce the vanadium contain of the spent catalyst. Experimental investigation was conducted to study the vanadium recovery from spent catalyst via leaching process using sodium hydroxide to study the effect of process variables (temperatures, sodium hydroxide molarities, leaching time and particle size) on vanadium recovery. The effect of process variables (temperature, particle size,molarities of sodium hydroxide and leaching time) on the percentages of vanadium recovery were investigated and discussed .It was found that the percentage of vanadium recovery increased with increasing temperature up to 100 , incre
... Show MoreThe purpose of this paper is to introduce and study the concepts of fuzzy generalized open sets, fuzzy generalized closed sets, generalized continuous fuzzy proper functions and prove results about these concepts.
Zubair Formation is one of the richest petroleum systems in Southern Iraq. This formation is composed mainly of sandstones interbedded with shale sequences, with minor streaks of limestone and siltstone. Borehole collapse is one of the most critical challenges that continuously appear in drilling and production operations. Problems associated with borehole collapse, such as tight hole while tripping, stuck pipe and logging tools, hole enlargement, poor log quality, and poor primary cement jobs, are the cause of the majority of the nonproductive time (NPT) in the Zubair reservoir developments. Several studies released models predicting the onset of borehole collapse and the amount of enlargement of the wellbore cross-section. However, assump
... Show MoreThis article proposes a new technique for determining the rate of contamination. First, a generative adversarial neural network (ANN) parallel processing technique is constructed and trained using real and secret images. Then, after the model is stabilized, the real image is passed to the generator. Finally, the generator creates an image that is visually similar to the secret image, thus achieving the same effect as the secret image transmission. Experimental results show that this technique has a good effect on the security of secret information transmission and increases the capacity of information hiding. The metric signal of noise, a structural similarity index measure, was used to determine the success of colour image-hiding t
... Show MoreThis paper studies the effect of contact areas on the transient response of mechanical structures. Precisely, it investigates replacing the ordinary beam of a structure by two beams of half the thickness, which are joined by bolts. The response of these beams is controlled by adjusting the tightening of the connecting bolts and hence changing the magnitude of the induced frictional force between the two beams which affect the beams damping capacity. A cantilever of two beams joined together by bolts has been investigated numerically and experimentally. The numerical analysis was performed using ANSYS-Workbench version 17.2. A good agreement between the numerical and experimental results has been obtained. In general, results s
... Show MoreThe population studies are one of the difficult tasks facing the world in all periods. most of the researchers and who have relationship to population policies and development plans, may have succumbed to the idea that the population problem is based and confined mainly in the rate of increase in population, or the so – called population explosion, and not the content because of its pressure on resources and there is no problem of population if the resources are available and therefore no need for the development and implementation of population policies in any way . While the population policies here should take a range of general and comprehensive in every respect to population and demographic phenomena distribution, not only
... Show MoreThe political situation experienced by Iraq before the events of 2003 that led to the collapse of infrastructure. rebuilding costs were estimated after 2003 by187(million USD) according to the estimates of the basic needs as stated in Five-Year Plan 2010-2014. The difficult in financing projects and the continuous demands for maintenance and operating cost, and working by contemporary styles in different countries, the strategic option is to adopt the government entering the private sector as a partner in the development process. Since public _private partnership (PPP's) is at a germinating stage of development in Iraq, it has been studied the critical success factors(CSF's) in the experiences of countries that have implemented the style
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