Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the possible the association between +3061 (G>A, rs1143676) missense mutation in exon 24 of the integrin α-4 subunit (ITGA-4) gene and the response to natalizumab in a sample of Iraqi multiple sclerosis patients. Methods: A sample of 59 patients with multiple sclerosis (16 males and 43 females; mean age of 32 years; age range of 15 to 52 years) receiving natalizumab for at least 12 consecutive months were involved in the study between March and August/ 2022. The sample was categorized into two groups according to their response to natalizumab treatment (responders and non-responders). Polymerase chain reaction and Sanger’s sequencing for the extracted deoxyribonucleic acid was pe

The concept of the active contour model has been extensively utilized in the segmentation and analysis of images. This technology has been effectively employed in identifying the contours in object recognition, computer graphics and vision, biomedical processing of images that is normal images or medical images such as Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI), X-rays, plus Ultrasound imaging. Three colleagues, Kass, Witkin and Terzopoulos developed this energy, lessening “Active Contour Models” (equally identified as Snake) back in 1987. Being curved in nature, snakes are characterized in an image field and are capable of being set in motion by external and internal forces within image data and the curve itself in that order. The present s

The mean age of AS patients was (35.0 ± 9.8) years.When the patients and control subjects were divided into different age groups (>40, 30-40, <30 years), the differences were not significantin terms of disease prevalence. The results also showed that the percentage of male patients is higher than that of females. There was no significant difference (P?0.05) between patients and controls in the distribution of males and females.Most of the patients had the disease for a period of 5 years or higher, with a disease severity of ? 2.1 and functional disability degree of I, II. The resultsshoweddifferent patterns of distribution for the three tested cytokines. A significant increase in the level of TNF-?, anon-significantincrease i

The usage of remote sensing techniques in managing and monitoring the environmental areas is increasing due to the improvement of the sensors used in the observation satellites around the earth. Resolution merge process is used to combine high resolution one band image with another one that have low resolution multi bands image to produce one image that is high in both spatial and spectral resolution. In this work different merging methods were tested to evaluate their enhancement capabilities to extract different environmental areas; Principle component analysis (PCA), Brovey, modified (Intensity, Hue ,Saturation) method and High Pass Filter methods were tested and subjected to visual and statistical comparison for evaluation. Both visu

In many video and image processing applications, the frames are partitioned into blocks, which are extracted and processed sequentially. In this paper, we propose a fast algorithm for calculation of features of overlapping image blocks. We assume the features are projections of the block on separable 2D basis functions (usually orthogonal polynomials) where we benefit from the symmetry with respect to spatial variables. The main idea is based on a construction of auxiliary matrices that virtually extends the original image and makes it possible to avoid a time-consuming computation in loops. These matrices can be pre-calculated, stored and used repeatedly since they are independent of the image itself. We validated experimentally th

This study investigates the treatment of used lubricating oils from AL-Mussaib Gas Power Station Company-Iraq, which was treated with different extractive solvents (heptane and 2-propanol). The performance activity of these solvents in the extraction process was examined and evaluated experimentally. Operating parameters were solvent to oil ratios of (1:2, 1:4, 1:6, and 1:8), mixing time (20, 35, 50, and 65 min), temperatures (30, 40, 50, and 60 ºC), and mixing speed (500 rpm). These parameters were studied and analyzed. The quality is determined by the measuring and assessment of important characteristics specially viscosity, viscosity index, specific gravity, pour point, flash point, and ash content. The results confirm that the solve

The availability of low- cost adsorbent namely Al-Khriet ( a substance found in the legs of Typha  Domingensis) as an agricultural waste material, for the removal of lead and cadmium from aqueous solution was investigated. In the batch tests experimental parameters were studied, including adsorbent dosage between (0.2-1) g, initial metal ions concentration between (50-200) ppm (single and binary) and contact time (1/2-6) h. The removal percentage of each ion onto Al-Khriet reached equilibrium in about 4 hours. The highest adsorption capacity was for lead (96%) while for cadmium it was (90%) with 50 ppm ions concentration, 1 g dosage of adsorbent and pH 5.5. Adsorption capacity in the binary mixture were reduce at about 8% for lead a

Background: Candida tropicalis is one of the most causes of vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) in women. Systemic candidiasis and candidemia may also occur in pregnancies. Objective: This study was carried out to detect and isolate of this yeast from aborted placenta, which may cause severe complications such as spontaneous abortion. Materials and methods: Fresh aborted placenta were collected and washed by normal saline to remove the blood. Then, cut it into portions and place it in test tube containing 5 ml of normal saline. Finally, shake for 10 minutes, after that, cultured for microbial isolation. Isolation and detection were done by some conventional methods with Api candida and CHROMagar. Results: The results showed that four iso

Soils at Al-Koot-Btera were choosen to determine their sedimentary
environments. It is found that there are , five soil series and as mentioned :
MF11-MW9-DM97-DM57-DF95 . The five found soil series are of internal
well drained ,moderate and imperfect. Their textures vary in moderately,fine
and moderately fine.
indicating that sediments rang from poorly to very poorly sorting. Values of median
diameter Md Ø range between 4.11-7.80 Ø .The relation between the sorting
and median diameter shows that 95.24% of samples is a sedimentary
environment of aquite river , while 4.76% is aeolian sediments.
The values of meso to platy kurtic of most horizon materials rang
between 0.67-1.26 Ø .That is to say the samples