Background: Fifteen percent of small for gestational age are small as a result of fetal growth restriction, which could be due to maternal, placental or fetal factors. It is an important clinical problem associated with increase perinatal mortality and morbidity. Leptin is a protein that produced by many tissues including the placenta (syncytiotropholoast). Dysregulation of leptin metabolism may be implicated in preeclampsia and IUGR pathogenesis.
Aim of the study: To study the trend of leptin level alteration in maternal serum and cord blood in pregnancies complicated by fetal growth restriction and its relation with fetal outcome.
Methods: An Analytic, cross- sectional study conducted in Al-Elwyia Maternity Teaching Hospital and Alkindy College of Medicine, from October 2009 to June 2010. Sixty seven pregnant women were included and they were divided into two groups: The first group (A) included 34 pregnant women with Intrauterine growth restricted fetuses with and without maternal diseases and the second group (B), included 33 pregnant women with normal pregnancies. Samples from maternal blood and umbilical cord blood were obtained at the time of delivery and leptin level was measured by Enzyme linked immunesorbant assey (ELISA) test.
Results:Umbilical cord leptin level was significantly lower in group A (medain1ng/ml) compared with group B (median10.2ng/ml); P<0.001, and maternal serum leptin was also significantly lower in group A (median19.8ng/ml) compared to control group B (median31.8ng/ml), P 0.042.
Newborn weight for age (Z score) and maternal body mass index were the most important and the only statistically significant determinants of cord blood leptin, while only maternal body mass index had a strong and statistically significant positive association with maternal serum leptin.
In group A, there was a linear correlation between cord blood leptin and placental weight, P<0.001, and a linear correlation between Apgar score at 5minutes and cord blood leptin level, P<0.001.
Conclusion: Women who had growth restricted fetuses had significantly lowered umbilical cord leptin level and maternal serum leptin level than women who had normal fetuses and the outcome of such fetuses could be related to leptin level.
Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) samples were nitrided in low pressure (1.3, 3 mbar) dc-glow discharge plasmas of nitrogen. The treating time was 5, 10 and 15 hour and the temperatures range of the samples during the nitriding process was close to 800oC. The obtained microstructures of the nitride layers were studied by x-ray diffraction and optical microscopy. The ε –Ti2N, ζ-Ti3N3-x and η-Ti3N2-x.phases were formed and addition to the solid solution of nitrogen in titanium, α (Ti,N). Micro hardness measurements exhibit an increment for the Ti-alloy specimens which nitrided at 800oC for 10 and 15h.Corrosion measurements were obtained for the Ti-6Al-4V alloy in Ringer solution after plasma nitriding. The clear improving in the corrosion r
... Show MoreAs one type of resistance furnace, the electrical tube furnace (ETF) typically experiences input noise, measurement noise, system uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics and external disturbances, which significantly degrade its temperature control performance. To provide precise, and robust temperature tracking performance for the ETF, a robust composite control (RCC) method is proposed in this paper. The overall RCC method consists of four elements: First, the mathematical model of the ETF system is deduced, then a state feedback control (SFC) is constructed. Third, a novel disturbance observer (DO) is designed to estimate the lumped disturbance with one observer parameter. Moreover, the stability of the closed loop system including controller
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This work deals with a numerical investigation to evaluate the utilization of a water pipe buried inside a roof to reduce the heat gain and minimize the transmission of heat energy inside the conditioning space in summer season. The numerical results of this paper showed that the reduction in heat gain and energy saving could be occurred with specific values of parameters, like the number of pipes per square meter, the ratio of pipe diameter to the roof thickness, and the pipe inlet water temperature. Comparing with a normal roof (without pipes), the results indicated a significant reduction in energy heat gain which is about 37.8% when the number of pipes per m
... Show MoreIn this study, aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs) were prepared using explosive strips method in double-distilled deionized water (DDDW), where the effect of five different currents (25, 50, 75, 100 and 125 A) on particle size and distribution was studied. Also, the explosive strips method was used to decorate zinc oxide particles with Al particles, where Al particles were prepared in suspended from zinc oxide with DDDW. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction are used to characterize the nanoparticles. XRD pattern were examined for three samples of aluminum particles and DDDW prepared with three current values (25, 75 and 125 A) and three samples prepared with the same currents for zin
... Show MoreZinc Oxide (ZnO) is considered as one of the best materials already used as a window layer in solar cells due to its antireflective capability. The ZnO/MgF2 bilayer thin film is more efficient as antireflective coating. In this work, ZnO and ZnO/MgF2 thin films were deposited on glass substrate using pulsed laser deposition and thermal evaporation deposition methods. The optical measurements indicated that ZnO thin layer has an energy gap of (3.02 eV) while ZnO/MgF2 bilayer gives rise to an increase in the energy gap. ZnO/MgF2 bilayer shows a high energy gap (3.77 eV) with low reflectance (1.1-10 %) and refractive index (1.9) leading to high transmittance, this bilayer could be a good candidate optical material to improve the performance
... Show MoreThis work concerned on nanocrystalline NiAl2O4 and ZnAl2O4 having spinel structure prepared by Sol–gel technique. The structural and characterization properties for the obtained samples were examined using different measurements such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), finally, Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM).The Spinel-type for two prepared compound (NiAl2O4) and (ZnAl2O4) at different calcination temperature examined by XRD. Williamson-Hall Methods used to estimate crystallite size, Average distribution crystallite size of two compound were, 34.2 nm for NiAl2O4 and32.6 for ZnAl2O4, the increase in crystallite size affecting by increasing in calcination temperature for both comp
... Show MoreIsocratic high performance liquid chromatography on reversed phase a (150x 4.6 mm I.D), 5 ?m ?-Bondapak RP-8 column (with acidic mobile phase allow the separation of doxcycycline hydrochloride with low detection limit of 0.2 µg/ml detected by UV set at 226 nm. The method was validated for Doxycycline between 0.156- to 5 µg/ml. The concentration of doxycycline was assessed in two single dose randomized crossover studies with intervals of one week between two period. In sera of 20 adults healthy male volunteers with average age of (42 + 10) year, body weight 48-85 kg, body height of (160-185cm) after a single dose of doxycycline hydrochoride 100 mg in form of capsules were orally administrated for both formulations. The blood sa
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