Background: Rituximab is a chimeric IgG1 kappa immunoglobulin that has been genetically modified to incorporate human constant region sequences together with murine light- and heavy-chain variable region sequences. People use it to treat rheumatoid arthritis and certain malignancies. Objective: The study aimed to assess the potential association between the serum levels of Factor I, CD59, interleukins (IL)-6, and interferon-gamma (IFN)-γ and the response to Rituximab treatment in Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the rheumatology center at Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Ninety adult patients who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and are receiving  Rituximab intravenous i

     In this work, the switching nonlinear dynamics of a Fabry-Perot etalon are studied. The method used to complete the solution of the differential equations for the nonlinear medium. The Debye relaxation equations solved numerically to predict the behavior of the cavity for modulated input power. The response of the cavity filled with materials of different response time is depicted. For a material with a response time equal to = 50 ns, the cavity switches after about (100 ns). Notice that there is always a finite time delay before the cavity switches. The switch up time is much longer than the cavity build-up time of the corresponding linear cavity which was found to be of the order of a few round-trip ti

    Soft clays are generally sediments deposited by rivers, seas, or lakes. These soils are fine-grained plastic soils with appreciable clay content and are characterized by high compressibility and low shear strength. To deal with soft soil problems there is more than one method that can be used such as soil replacement, preloading, stone column, sand drains, lime stabilization and Prefabricated Vertical Drains, PVDs. A numerical modeling of PVD with vacuum pressure was analyzed to investigate the effect of this technique on the consolidation behavior of fully and different depths of partially saturated soft soils.  Laboratory experiments were also conducted by using a specially-designed large consol

In this paper, the dynamic behaviour of the stage-structure prey-predator fractional-order derivative system is considered and discussed. In this model, the Crowley–Martin functional response describes the interaction between mature preys with a predator.  e existence, uniqueness, non-negativity, and the boundedness of solutions are proved. All possible equilibrium points of this system are investigated.  e su‰cient conditions of local stability of equilibrium points for the considered system are determined. Finally, numerical simulation results are carried out to con‹rm the theoretical results.

Braces in straight bridge systems improve the lateral-torsional buckling resistance of the girders by reducing the unbraced length, while in horizontally curved and skew bridges, the braces are primary structural elements for controlling deformations by engaging adjacent girders to act as a system to resist the potentially large forces and torques caused by the curved or skewed geometry of the bridge. The cross-frames are usually designed as torsional braces, which increase the overall strength and stiffness of the individual girders by creating a girder system that translates and rotates as a unit along the bracing lines. However, when they transmit the truck’s live load forces, they can produce fatigue cracks at their connection

This experimental research was conducted to quantify the combined effect of the external bonded Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) plate width and prestressing on the flexural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams in terms of strength improvement. Seven beams (one control and six strengthened) were subjected to two-point loading tests. The experimental methodology consisted of the testing of three different widths of the CFRP plates (25, 40, and 60 mm) in non-prestressed and prestressed conditions. Prestressing was accomplished by tensioning the plates to 23% of the CFRP tensile strength using a novel, locally developed mechanical anchorage system, which is one of the key experimental contributions that distinguishes thi