Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disease of unknown etiology characterized by joint inflammation and the presence of autoantibodies, mostly Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody (ACCP) which are released when the body loses its ability to distinguish between self and foreign molecules. Serum amyloid A2 (SAA2) is an acute phase protein produced in response to inflammatory conditions including RA.

Objectives: To investigate the prognostic ability of SAA2 in comparison with ACCP and the prediction of disease activity and response to treatment by Methotrexate and Etanercept in Iraqi RA patients.  

Patients and methods: A case control study, on a to

Channel estimation and synchronization are considered the most challenging issues in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. OFDM is highly affected by synchronization errors that cause reduction in subcarriers orthogonality, leading to significant performance degradation. The synchronization errors cause two issues: Symbol Time Offset (STO), which produces inter symbol interference (ISI) and Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO), which results in inter carrier interference (ICI). The aim of the research is to simulate Comb type pilot based channel estimation for OFDM system showing the effect of pilot numbers on the channel estimation performance and propose a modified estimation method for STO with less numb

Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is an immunological disorder associated with chronic inflammatory process of several unspecific regions of gastrointestinal tract but frequently detected in the terminal Ilium and proximal colon or both. This disease frequently presented with various oral manifestations as a consequence of inflammatory process of the disease, nutritional deficiency or medications side effects. Several therapeutic approaches have been developed for CD management that are targeting the inflammatory process and directed at controlling the host immune response. Immunosuppressants such as Azathioprine and anti-TNF α agents as well as the combination of them have been widely used as an effective therapeutic modality with a bett

Survival analysis is one of the types of data analysis that describes the time period until the occurrence of an event of interest such as death or other events of importance in determining what will happen to the phenomenon studied. There may be more than one endpoint for the event, in which case it is called Competing risks. The purpose of this research is to apply the dynamic approach in the analysis of discrete survival time in order to estimate the effect of covariates over time, as well as modeling the nonlinear relationship between the covariates and the discrete hazard function through the use of the multinomial logistic model and the multivariate Cox model. For the purpose of conducting the estimation process for both the discrete

Raw milk is subjected to various physical, chemical and biological pollutants due to produce, a transporting and marketing processes. The current study was designed to examine raw milk samples which were collected from different locations of Iraq. The highest mean value of Pb content [1.801±0.311 ppm] was recorded while the lowest mean value [0.941±0.104 ppm]. The highest mean value [1.532±0.124 ppm] and gave the lowest mean value [0.063±0.044 ppm] of Cd content. This study has the highest mean value of Cu content was [0.931±0.092 ppm] and but the lowest mean value was [0.308±0.029 ppm]. Metals contents of raw milk in this study showed higher than standards of the International Dairy Federation [IDF].

Estimation the unknown parameters of a two-dimensional sinusoidal signal model is an important and a difficult problem , The importance of this model  in modeling Symmetric gray- scale texture image . In this paper, we propose employment Deferential Evaluation algorithm and the use of Sequential approach to estimate the unknown frequencies and amplitudes of the 2-D sinusoidal components when the signal is affected by noise. Numerical simulation are performed for different sample size, and various level of standard deviation to observe the performance of this method in estimate the parameters of 2-D sinusoidal signal model , This model was used for modeling  the Symmetric gray scale texture image and estimating by using

Influence of metal nanoparticles synthesized by microorganisms upon soil-borne microscopic fungus Aspergillus terreus K-8 was studied. It was established that the metal nanoparticles synthesized by microorganisms affect the enzymatic activity of the studied culture. Silver nanoparticles lead to a decrease in cellulase activity and completely suppress the amylase activity of the fungus, while copper nanoparticles completely inhibit the activity of both the cellulase complex and amylase. The obtained results imply that the large-scale use of silver and copper nanoparticles may disrupt biological processes in the soil and cause change in the physiological and biochemical state of soil-borne microorganisms as well.

Background: One of the most important complications of fixed orthodontic treatment is formation of white spots, which are initial carious lesions. Addition of antimicrobial agents into orthodontic adhesive material might be wise solution for prevention of white spots formation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial properties of orthodontic adhesive primer against S. Mutans after adding the three different types of nanoparticles (Ag, ZnO, or TiO2). Materials and methods: Discs were prepared using empty insulin syringe approximately 2 mm×2 mm rounded in shape specimens (40 discs) were divided into four groups (ten discs for each group): The first group was the control (made from primer only), the second group (10 dis