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

Citric acid is an essential ingredient for the manufacture of (12) key industrial chemicals. Citric acid use is increasing steadily with a high annual growth rate as a result of the development of ever more sophisticated applications. Citric acid is widely utilized in the food and pharmaceutical industries due to its low toxicity when compared to other acidulous. Other uses for citric acid can be found in cleaning supplies and detergents. Based on information from a review of the literature, Citric acid production substrates and methods for surface fermentation, submerged fermentation, solid-state fermentation, and international market expansion are all covered in the current review study. Finally, there is still much to learn about the

This work presents a canned-food defect-detection method using the EfficientDet model with four backbones (MobileNet, EfficientNet, Swin-T, and ConvNeXt). The dataset included 8046 images with a resolution of 512 × 512 pixels. The performance criteria in this study accuracy “mAP”, computational cost “FLOPs”, and Frames Per Second “FPS”. The lightweight backbone with EfficientDet achieves a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 90% with MobileNet, while EfficientNet achieves mAP accuracy of 92% and 94%. The heavy backbone for EfficientDet (Swin-T, and ConvNeXt) achieves mAP accuracy of 96% and 98%. The main contribution of this study is to optimize the speed of conveyor belts in industrial production lines to considers the

Background Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative disorder with rising prevalence. Early detection of structural damage is difficult. Consequently, there is a pressing demand for reliable biomarkers that enable an earlier diagnosis of osteoarthritis. The aim is to investigate the level of serum fibulin-3 in patients with primary knee osteoarthritis and its correlation with disease severity. Subjects and methods A case–control study was conducted at the Baqubah Teaching Hospital from November 2023 to January 2024. One hundred twenty persons participated in this study (eighty females with the diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis in its early and late stages, and forty age-matched, apparently healthy control. Serum fibulin-3, ESR, CRP, and cal

As the demands of sixth-generation (6G) networks escalate towards achieving high speeds and improved energy efficiency, there is an increasing need for intelligent and real-time adaptive solutions within the physical processing layer. This study proposes an innovative engineering framework based on an encapsulated architecture utilising FBGA (micro-distributed spherical array) technology, integrated with an internal artificial intelligence module, to achieve adaptive beamforming with high efficiency in dense wireless environments. The primary objective of this research is to develop an intelligent communication architecture that determines the optimal transmission angles and regulates power consumption in real-time by integrating ar

Rutting has a significant impact on the pavements' performance. Rutting depth is often used as a parameter to assess the quality of pavements. The Asphalt Institute (AI) design method prescribes a maximum allowable rutting depth of 13mm, whereas the AASHTO design method stipulates a critical serviceability index of 2.5 which is equivalent to an average rutting depth of 15mm. In this research, static and repeated compression tests were performed to evaluate the permanent strain based on (1) the relationship between mix properties (asphalt content and type), and (2) testing temperature. The results indicated that the accumulated plastic strain was higher during the repeated load test than that during the static load tests. Notably, temperatur

The Combined Economic Emission Dispatch (CEED) problem is crucial for optimizing power system operation by minimizing costs and emissions while ensuring grid stability and meeting demand. This paper addresses the complex, nonlinear, and nonconvex nature of CEED, arising from factors like valve-point effects and transmission losses, which necessitates efficient metaheuristic algorithms. We introduce an Improved Zebra Optimization Algorithm (IMZOA), an enhanced bio-inspired technique integrating advanced adaptive foraging and dynamic defense mechanisms, along with a cubic function for CEED modeling, to improve search efficiency and convergence. IMZOA demonstrates significant numerical improvements, achieving up to a 0.80 % cost reduction for