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

Abstract: The aim of the present work is to measure radon concentration in wood. Solid state nuclear track detectors of type CR – 39 was used as measurement device. Eight different samples of imported and local wood were collected from markets. Samples were grinded, dried in order to measure radon concentrations in it. Cylindrical diffusion tube was used as detection technique. Results show that the higher concentration was in Iraqi sample 1 which recorded (14.02 ± 0.9) Bq / m3, while the less was in Emirates Sample which recorded (5.35 ± 1.2) Bq / m3. From the present work, all wood samples were with lowest concentrations of radon gas than other building materials.

In all applications and specially in real time applications, image processing and compression plays in modern life a very important part in both storage and transmission over internet for example, but finding orthogonal matrices as a filter or transform in different sizes is very complex and importance to using in different applications like image processing and communications systems, at present, new method to find orthogonal matrices as transform filter then used for Mixed Transforms Generated by using a technique so-called Tensor Product based for Data Processing, these techniques are developed and utilized. Our aims at this paper are to evaluate and analyze this new mixed technique in Image Compression using the Discrete Wavelet Transfo

The aim of this work is to provide an efficient selection technique as a part of planning process to guide the decision makers to decide the preferences of one supplier over another for purchasing lab instruments in education domain. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process has used as a multi-criteria decision process, as an industrial engineering tool with certain emphasis on the qualitative aspects required to the decision makers. While the concept of degree of possibility for each criterion is used to reach its relative weights, a specific methodology created to reach the final objective decision of supplier selection. A questionnaire form was developed and distributed to five universities located in Baghdad province with a total

Abstract
The current research aims to identify mental health and its role in promoting self-confidence and positive behavior of female university students. The researcher adopted the descriptive analytical approach in this research. The researcher depended on the availability of sources and references, literature, and previous field studies to analyze and study all aspects related to mental health and its role in promoting self-confidence and positive behavior of university students and then expand its importance and identify the areas of mental health, self-confidence, positive behavior, and university. The second chapter included the concept of mental health, the importance of the study, the most important factors of health and psyc

Asset management involves efficient planning of economic and technical performance characteristics of infrastructure systems. Managing a sewer network requires various types of activities so the network can be able to achieve a certain level of performance. During the lifetime of the network various components will start to deteriorate leading to bad performance and can damage the infrastructure. The main objective of this research is to develop deterioration models to provide an assessment tool for determining the serviceability of the sewer networks in Baghdad city the Zeppelin line was selected as a case study, as well as to give top management authorities the appropriate decision making. Different modeling techniques

The aim of this study is to propose reliable equations to estimate the in-situ concrete compressive strength from the non-destructive test. Three equations were proposed: the first equation considers the number of rebound hummer only, the second equation consider the ultrasonic pulse velocity only, and the third equation combines the number of rebound hummer and the ultrasonic pulse velocity. The proposed equations were derived from non-linear regression analysis and they were calibrated with the test results of 372 concrete specimens compiled from the literature. The performance of the proposed equations was tested by comparing their strength estimations with those of related existing equations from literature. Comparis

Background: lip lengthening procedure is one of the surgical options for the correction of gummy smile in patients with short upper lip. Methods: A comparative clinical study was conducted on 15 patients requiring lip lengthening procedure for the esthetic correction of excessive gingival exposure with gummy smile. Scalpel was used in seven patients and diode laser in the remaining eight patients. Under infiltration anesthesia, about one cm strip of mucosa was excised at the vestibular depth and the mucosa of the lip was sutured to the alveolar mucosa. Results: The diode laser group demonstrated less postoperative pain and swelling. Regarding postoperative ecchymosis, three patients in the scalpel group developed ecchymosis and no cases