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 better chance of achieving clinical remission and decrease the risk of future complications. Subjects, Materials, and Methods: Seventy-five subjects were incorporated in this study; fifty subjects presented with moderate to severe CD that were subdivided into two subgroups treated with different therapeutic modalities( Azathioprine monotherapy and Combination of anti TNF-α biological agent (Infliximab) plus Azathioprine), while other twenty-five were age and gender matched healthy control subjects. Body mass index (BMI) of all participants was determined by weight (kg)\ high (m2). Oral cavity of each patient was examined for the presence of oral manifestations. Blood and saliva samples were gained from each subject enrolled in this study and salivary flow rate (ml\min) was measured for those participants, then these samples were centrifuged and the supernatants frizzed for subsequent oxidative stress and antioxidants biomarkers assessment. Results: The means of BMI and salivary flow rate were significantly higher in combination treated group than Azathioprine treated group. Fungal infection was the main oral findings that observed among Crohn's patients on combination therapy compared with those on Azathioprine monotherapy. Assessment of oxidative stress and antioxidant activity revealed that the means of serum and saliva Malondialdehyde (MDA) were highly significantly higher in Azathioprine treated group than combination treated group, while Vitamin E (VE) level showed significant reduction in Azathioprine Crohn's group as compared to combination treated group. Significant negative linear correlation was found between MDA level in serum and saliva with duration of treatment, while highly significant positive correlation was detected between VE levels and duration of treatment. Conclusions: Oxidative stress was increased with reduced antioxidant level in both groups of Crohn's patients. Treatment with Combination therapy approved to be effective in controlling oxidative tissue damage and enhanced antioxidants system in Crohn's patients better than Azathioprine monotherapy. Fungal infection was the most predominant oral manifestations among Crohn's patients on combination therapy as a result of concomitant immunosuppressive effect that accounted for reduced immune response to opportunistic infections.
In 2010, the tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta (Meyrick, 1917) was reported for the first time in Iraq. The larvae can feed on all parts of tomato plants and can damage all the growth stages. The main host plant is tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum, but it can also attack other plants in Solanaceae family. In this study it was found attacking alfalfa plants, Medicago sativa in Baghdad Province. This finding reveals that alfalfa also serves as a host plant for T. absoluta in Iraq.
Establishing complete and reliable coverage for a long time-span is a crucial issue in densely surveillance wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Many scheduling algorithms have been proposed to model the problem as a maximum disjoint set covers (DSC) problem. The goal of DSC based algorithms is to schedule sensors into several disjoint subsets. One subset is assigned to be active, whereas, all remaining subsets are set to sleep. An extension to the maximum disjoint set covers problem has also been addressed in literature to allow for more advance sensors to adjust their sensing range. The problem, then, is extended to finding maximum number of overlapped set covers. Unlike all related works which concern with the disc sensing model, the cont
... Show MoreTransient mixed convection heat transfer in a confined porous medium heated at periodic sinusoidal heat flux is investigated numerically in the present paper. The Poisson-type pressure equation, resulted from the substituting of the momentum Darcy equation in the continuity equation, was discretized by using finite volume technique. The energy equation was solved by a fully implicit control volume-based finite difference formulation for the diffusion terms with the use of the quadratic upstream interpolation for convective kinetics scheme to discretize the convective terms and the temperature values at the control volume faces. The numerical study covers a range of the hydrostatic pressure sinusoidal amplitude range and
... Show MoreMixed convection heat transfer in a vertical concentric annulus packed with a metallic porous media and heated at a constant heat flux is experimentally investigated with water as the working fluid. A series of experiments have been carried out with a Rayleigh number range from Ra=122418.92 to 372579.31 and Reynolds number that based on the particles diameter of Red=14.62, 19.48 and 24.36. Under steady state condition, the measured data were collected and analyzed. Results show that the wall surface temperatures are affected by the imposed heat flux variation and Reynolds number variation. The variation of the local heat transfer coefficient and the mean Nusselt number are presented and analyzed. An empirical
... Show MoreBiosurfactants have a wide-range of applications due to their unique properties like specificity, not toxicity (from LAB) and relative ease of preparation. These properties hold promise of biosurfactants to increase breast milk benefit were isolated and described into Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus fermentum ,Lactococcuslactis, and Leuconostocmesenteroides.The degree of microbial destruction of disease, which promotes the effective remediation of disease spreading.This paper presents a review of available research, methods and publications regarding Biosurfactant extraction from Lactic Acid bacteria isolated from human breast milk. 3 samples of human breast milk was provid
... Show MoreThe hiding of information has become of great importance in recent times. With dissemination through the internet, and communication through satellites, information needs to be secure. Therefore, a new algorithm is proposed that enables secret messages to be embedded inside satellite images, wherein images of any size or format can be hidden, using a system’s image compression techniques. This operation is executed in three main steps: first phase – the original image is converted into a raster image; second phase– steganography, in which a binary secret message is hidden inside a raster image, using a 4×4 array as the secret key; and third phase– compre
... Show MoreBy reading the book (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo) by Sean B. Carroll, new horizons opened up about the nature of the formation of the living organism. Although he presented the idea that the artist was influenced by the material assets of nature in his holographic art formations, the new science of Evo-Devo (Evolutionary Developmental Science) provided models worth standing on when comparing the similarity of the formation of living organisms on the one hand, and the formation of works of art with holographic organic bodies on the other. But the excitement lies in the fact that the formation of living natural organisms is often driven by subtle intelligent mechanisms that are different from the mechanisms us
... Show MoreEngineering project assessment at Al-Muthana Airport in Baghdad, Iraq, has been studied using a 3D electrical resistivity imaging survey. The site investigation is crucial for assessing the future of the region's infrastructures since it reveals the location of buried facilities or weak zones below the surface and measures localized groundwater levels. Wenner-Schlumberger array was used to conduct four parallel 2D electrical resistivity spreads (MU1 to MU4). Each spread line was 100 m in length with 1 m electrode spacing and an average spacing of 9 meters between any two adjacent lines. The depth of the investigation was around 23.8 m. Survey lines were drawn going from northwest to southeast. These spreads were combined to prov
... Show MoreThis paper introduces a non-conventional approach with multi-dimensional random sampling to solve a cocaine abuse model with statistical probability. The mean Latin hypercube finite difference (MLHFD) method is proposed for the first time via hybrid integration of the classical numerical finite difference (FD) formula with Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique to create a random distribution for the model parameters which are dependent on time [Formula: see text]. The LHS technique gives advantage to MLHFD method to produce fast variation of the parameters’ values via number of multidimensional simulations (100, 1000 and 5000). The generated Latin hypercube sample which is random or non-deterministic in nature is further integ
... Show MoreFlexible job-shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is one of the instances in flexible manufacturing systems. It is considered as a very complex to control. Hence generating a control system for this problem domain is difficult. FJSP inherits the job-shop scheduling problem characteristics. It has an additional decision level to the sequencing one which allows the operations to be processed on any machine among a set of available machines at a facility. In this article, we present Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm with Harmony Search for solving the flexible job shop scheduling problem. It is based on the new harmony improvised from results obtained by artificial fish swarm algorithm. This improvised solution is sent to comparison to an overall best
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