Background:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a progressive, chronic inflammatory illness with an unclear etiology that explicitly targets the vertebral column, peripheral joints, and extraarticular tissues. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the existence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene at positions -1031T/C (rs199964), -857C/T (rs1799724) and -806C/T (rs4248158) in a sample of Iraqi AS patients could influence the patients' outcomes with etanercept.

Methods:Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to enroll in this study, with a mean age of 40.75±8.6

The goal of this investigation is to prepare zinc oxide (ZnO) nano-thin films by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique through Q-switching double frequency Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) wavelength, pulse frequency 6 Hz, and 300 mJ energy under vacuum conditions (10-3 torr) at room temperature. (ZnO) nano-thin films were deposited on glass substrates with different thickness of 300, 600 and 900 nm. ZnO films, were then annealed in air at a temperature of 500 °C for one hour. The results were compared with the researchers' previous theoretical study. The XRD analysis of ZnO nano-thin films indicated a hexagonal multi-crystalline wurtzite structure with preferential growth lines (100), (002), (101) for ZnO nano-thin films with different thi

Objectives: Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) is WNT/b-catenin pathway antagonist which plays a detrimental role in the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR). This research aimed to assess serum DKK-1 levels in diabetic patients who have and have not developed DR and, compare them with the control subjects finding out whether we can use it as an indicator for DR early diagnosis and to find out which one of the widely used two groups of antidiabetic treatments had the greater effect on this biomarker and hence on the progression of DR. Methods: The study participants were divided into two subgroups: First, 70 patients (36 male, 34 female) with type 2 diabetes mellitus, among them 35 patients diagnosed with DR and 35 with no evidence of DR, and s

Objective(s): This study aims at determining the effectiveness of an educational program on knowledge of high school students' knowledge about substance abuse and its health consequences, and to find out the association between students’ knowledge about substance abuse and its health consequences and their demographic data of age, socioeconomic status, and educational level of parents.
Methodology: A quasi-experimental study is conducted for the period of October 28th, 2019 to March 30th, 2020. The study sample included a nonprobability “purposive” sample of (124) male students (62) students for the control group and (62) students for the study group, aged (14-19) years who are selected from Al-Hikma High School for Boys in Kirk

Acidizing is one of the most used stimulation techniques in the petroleum industry. Several reports have been issued on the difficulties encountered during the stimulation operation of the Ahdeb oil field, particularly in the development of the Mishrif reservoir, including the following: (1) high injection pressures make it difficult to inject acid into the reservoir formation, and (2) only a few acid jobs have been effective in Ahdeb oil wells, while the bulk of the others has been unsuccessful. The significant failure rate of oil well stimulation in this deposit necessitates more investigations. Thus, we carried out this experimental study to systematically investigate the influence of acid treatment on the geomechanical properties of Mi4

The current research aims to identify the level of effective leadership practices dimensions (clear vision and specific goals, good planning and effective influence, and monitoring well as evaluation) among the senior leaders in the Office of the Iraqi Interior Ministry., The researchers adopted the descriptive analytical approach to collect data through the questionnaire as a main tool, developed by relying on international standards after making adjustments to its items consisting of (25) items that included the research variable, the questionnaire was distributed to all the research community (comprehensive inventory) by 120 forms from emplo

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATING METAPHOR IN AN ARTISTIC TEXT (ON THE MATERIAL OF RUSSIAN AND ARABIC LANGUAGES)

At present, the ability to promote national economy by adjusting to political, economic, and technological variables is one of the largest challenges faced by organization productivity. This challenge prompts changes in structure and line productivity, given that cash has not been invested. Thus, the management searches for investment opportunities that have achieved the optimum value of the annual increases in total output value of the production line workers in the laboratory. Therefore, the application of dynamic programming model is adopted in this study by addressing the division of investment expenditures to cope with market-dumping policy and to strive non-stop production at work.