Methotrexate (MTX) is still one of the gold standard treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It shows diverse outcomes in blood level and clinical response, this was demonstrated by its relation to the genetic polymorphism in the pharmacogenetic study. This study aimed to investigate the role of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene polymorphisms in relation to MTX efficacy and toxicity in Iraqi Kurdish RA patients. Sixty-four RA patients were involved in this study with an average age of 47.78 ±14.08 and female to male ratio of (8.1). Diagnosis and disease activity were confirmed. Blood analyses, including those of laboratory markers of disease activity, were done. The 28 joint disease activity score (DAS28-CRP) was calculated. MTHFR gene polymorphisms were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The most frequent genotypes which were identified in RA patients were the CT genotype of the C677T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (51.6%) and the AC genotype of the A1298C SNP (48.4%). Patients with non-response to treatment had high frequencies of genotypes CT and TT (58.0% and 12.0%) of the C677T SNP respectively, as compared to those in the responder group; 28.6% and 0.0%); T-allele was associated with drug non-responding OR=4.17, P value=.0.009, meanwhile; genotypes AC and CC of the A1298C SNP were seen in (54.0% and 16.0%) in non-responder group. Patients with active RA had increased frequencies of CT and TT genotypes of the C677T SNP (60.0% and16.0%) respectively as compared to those who were in remission (26.6% and 0.0%); T-allele was associated with high disease activity; OR = 5.11. No association was found between C677T SNP and A1298C SNP, and MTX level status (P> 0.05). However, the variant alleles (T and C) were associated with the MTX toxic level (OR: 2.05, 95% CI [0.97 – 4.32]) and (OR: 1.99, 95% CI [0.96 – 4.18]) respectively. This study suggests that genetic polymorphisms of MTHFR SNP (C677T and A1298C) are associated with MTX efficacy but not toxicity in RA patients. This may assist the physicians in personalizing RA treatment in Iraqi patients.
This paper describes the problem of online autonomous mobile robot path planning, which is consisted of finding optimal paths or trajectories for an autonomous mobile robot from a starting point to a destination across a flat map of a terrain, represented by a 2-D workspace. An enhanced algorithm for solving the problem of path planning using Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm is presented. This nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm, which imitates the foraging behavior of E-coli bacteria, was used to find the optimal path from a starting point to a target point. The proposed algorithm was demonstrated by simulations in both static and dynamic different environments. A comparative study was evaluated between the developed algori
... Show MoreOne eighth of the bird species in the world is considered globally threatened; the avifauna of Iraq comprises 409 species and is considered as the major indicator of the health of Iraq’s biological resources. The Iraqi geography falls into five main regions among which is the desert and semi-desert areas which cover much of the country area. Al-Najaf desert is still one of the poorly known regions from the biodiversity point of view. Birds of conservation concern are detected in Al-Najaf desert during 31 field trips to 20 sites conducted from August 2018 to April 2020, (citing literature records, and personal interviews with locals).The factors caused the bird numbers to decline in Al-Najaf desert include hunting and trapping, logging,
... Show MoreAbstract
Black paint laser peening (bPLP) technique is currently applied for many engineering materials , especially for aluminum alloys due to high improvement in fatigue life and strength . Constant and variable bending fatigue tests have been performed at RT and stress ratio R= -1 . The results of the present work observed that the significance of the surface work hardening which generated high negative residual stresses in bPLP specimens .The fatigue life improvement factor (FLIF) for bPLP constant fatigue behavior was from 2.543 to 3.3 compared to untreated fatigue and the increase in fatigue strength at 107 cycle was 21% . The bPLP cumulative fatigue life behav
... Show MoreThree complexes of copper(II) and iron(II) with mixed ligands acetylacetonebis(thio-semicarbazone)- ABTSH2 and benzaldazine- BA have been prepared and characterized using different physico-chemical techniques including the determination of metal contents, mole-cular weight, measurement of molar conductivity, magnetic moment, molar refraction, infrared and electronic spectra. Accordingly, octahedral complexes having general formulaes [Cu2(ABTSH2)2(BA)2Cl2]Cl2 and [M2(ABTSH2)2(BA)2(SO4)2] {M= Cu(II) or (Fe(II)} have been proposed. The resulted complexes screened for antifungal activity in vitro against the citrus pathogen Aspergillus niger and Fusarium sp. which caused root rot of sugar and the beans pathogen Alternaria sp. All the complex
... Show MoreThe Mishrif Formation is one of the most important geological formations in Iraq consisting of limestone, marl, and shale layers since it is one of the main oil producing reservoirs in the country, which contain a significant portion of Iraq's oil reserves. The formation has been extensively explored and developed by the Iraqi government and international oil companies, with many oil fields being developed within it. The accurate evaluation of the Mishrif formation is key to the successful exploitation of this field. However, its geological complexity poses significant challenges for oil production, requiring advanced techniques to accurately evaluate its petrophysical properties.
This study used advanced well-logging analysi
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of hydrated lime addition methods as filler replacement on fatigue performance of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). Three types of addition methods of hydrated lime were introduced namely dry HL on dry aggregate and saturated surface aggregate above 3% and slurry HL on dry aggregate, ordinary Lime stone powder was reduced by three HL percentage (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 %). The effect of different methods were investigated on the fatigue properties of HMA using, third-point flexural fatigue bending Test. Pneumatic Repeated Load System (PRLS) was carried out to establish the effect of hydrated lime on the fatigue failure criteria and to select the proper hydrated lime application methods on fatigue behavior o
... Show MoreIn this article, we introduce and study two new families of analytic functions by using strong differential subordinations and superordinations associated with Wanas differential operator/. We also give and establish some important properties of these families.
In this paper, a simple fast lossless image compression method is introduced for compressing medical images, it is based on integrates multiresolution coding along with polynomial approximation of linear based to decompose image signal followed by efficient coding. The test results indicate that the suggested method can lead to promising performance due to flexibility in overcoming the limitations or restrictions of the model order length and extra overhead information required compared to traditional predictive coding techniques.
This paper deals with the thirteenth order differential equations linear and nonlinear in boundary value problems by using the Modified Adomian Decomposition Method (MADM), the analytical results of the equations have been obtained in terms of convergent series with easily computable components. Two numerical examples results show that this method is a promising and powerful tool for solving this problems.