Background A case-control study was performed to explore eight pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines, namely interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-1Ra (IL-1 receptor antagonist), IL-12, IL-17A, IL-31, IL-33, CXCL10 (C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10), and CXCL16, with the aim to understand their role in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) pathogenesis and evaluate their utility as markers to differentiate between diseased and healthy individuals. Among these cytokines, IL-31 and CXCL16 have not been well studied in AS. Patients and methods The study included 94 male patients with AS and 91 age-matched control males. Interleukin and chemokine levels were measured using ELISA kits. Results Serum levels of IL-17A, CXCL10, and CXCL16 were significantly ele

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of Nd:YAG laser shock processing (LSP) on micro-hardness and surface roughness of 86400Cu-Zn alloy. X-ray fluorescence technique was used to analyze the chemical composition of this alloy. LSP treatment was performed with a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm. The results show that laser shock processing can significantly increase. The micro-hardness and surface roughness of the LSP-treated sample. Vickers diamond indenter was used to measure the micro-hardness of all samples with different laser pulse energy and the different number of laser pulses. It is found that the metal hardness can be significantly increased to more than 80% by increasing the laser energy and t

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

Abstract

The removal of water turbidity by using crumb rubber filter was investigated .The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of variation of influent water turbidity (10, 25 and 50 NTU), media size (0.6and 1.14mm), filtration rate (25, 45 and 65 l/hr) and bed depth (30 and 60 cm) on the performance of mono crumb rubber filter in response to the effluent filtered water turbidity and head loss development, and compare it with that of conventional sand filter.Results revealed that 25 l/hr flow rate and 25 NTU influent turbidity were the best operating conditions.  smaller media size and higher bed depth gave the best removal efficiency while higher media size and small bed depth gave lower head

Plastic soil exhibits unfavorited geotechnical properties (when saturation), which causes negative defects to engineering structures. Different attempts (included various materials) were conducted to proffer solutions to such defects by experimenting in practical ways. On one hand, these attempts aimed to improve the engineering characteristics of plastic soil, and on the other hand, to use problematic waste materials as a stabilizer, like cement kiln dust, and to reduce environmental hazards. This paper explored the shrinkage, plasticity, and strength behavior of plastic soil enhanced with cement dust. The cement dust contents were 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by dry weight of soil. An experimental series of shrinkage and p

This paper aims to study the biosorption for removal of lead, cadmium, copper and arsenic ions using algae as a biosorbent. A series of experiments were carried out to obtain the breakthrough data in a fluidized bed reactor. The minimum fluidization velocities of beds were found to be 2.27 and 3.64 mm/s for mish sizes of 0.4-0.6 and 0.6-1 mm diameters, respectively. An ideal plug flow model has been adopted to characterize the fluidized bed reactor. This model has been solved numerically using MATLAB version 6.5. The results showed a well fitting with the experimental data. Different operating conditions were varied: static bed height, superficial velocity and particle diameter. The breakthrough curves were plotted for each metal. Pb2+ s

Well integrity is a vital feature that should be upheld into the lifespan of the well, and one constituent of which casing, necessity to be capable to endure all the interior and outside loads. The casing, through its two basic essentials: casing design and casing depth adjustment, are fundamental to a unique wellbore that plays an important role in well integrity. Casing set depths are determined based on fracturing pressure and pore pressure in the well and can usually be obtained from well-specific information. Based on the analyzes using the improved techniques in this study, the following special proposition can be projected: The selection of the first class and materials must be done correctly and accurately in accordance with the

Background: Radiotherapy, is therapy using ionizing radiation in order to deliver an optimal dose of either particulate or electromagnetic radiation to a particular area of the body with minimal damage to normal tissues. The source of radiation may be outside the body of the patient (external beam irradiation) or it may be an isotope that has been implanted or instilled into abnormal tissue or a body cavity. Called also radiotherapy. The aim of work studies the relationship between the depth dose and the high photon xray energies (6MeV and 10MeV). Patients and methods: in our work, we studied the dose distribution in water phantom given at different depths (zero-18) cm deep at1cm intervals treated with different field size (5×5-,10×1