Background: Polymorphisms in the TNF-α gene affect the development and progression of rheumatoid arthritis. Objective: To investigate the associations between (-806 T/C) and (-857 T/C) SNPs with rheumatoid arthritis severity and susceptibility in a sample of Iraqi patients. Methods: A case-control study was conducted in Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty healthy controls and 63 patients confirmed to be newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis were included. Those are divided into two groups (patients and controls), and the patients were further subdivided into severe and mild-moderate groups. Samples from those participants were analyzed for clinical and inflammatory parameter measurements. Genotyping by the Sanger method was performed to study the SNPs. Results: No associations were demonstrated between rheumatoid arthritis and polymorphisms at positions -806 and -857. Additionally, there were no differences in the distribution of those SNP genotypes and alleles among the severe and mild-moderate groups. Also, the (-806 C/T) SNP was found to be correlated with DAS 28 in all patients and with hs-CRP in the mild-moderate group. Finally, the -857 C/T SNP was found to be correlated with TNF-α within the mild-moderate group. Conclusions: Polymorphisms at positions -806 and -857 were not associated with rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility, and the CT genotype of -806 C/T SNP was associated with disease activity.
In this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these
... Show MoreIn the present study, an attempt has been made to experimentally investigate the flexural performance of ten simply supported reinforced concrete gable roof beams, including solid control specimen (i.e., without openings) and nine beams with web openings of different dimensions and configurations. The nine beams with openings have identical reinforcement details. All beams were monotonically loaded to failure under mid-span loading. The main variables were the number of the created openings, the total area of the created openings, and the inclination angle of the posts between openings. Of interest is the load-carrying capacity, cracking resistance and propagation, deformability, failure mode, and strain development that represent the behav
... Show MoreGas-lift technique plays an important role in sustaining oil production, especially from a mature field when the reservoirs’ natural energy becomes insufficient. However, optimally allocation of the gas injection rate in a large field through its gas-lift network system towards maximization of oil production rate is a challenging task. The conventional gas-lift optimization problems may become inefficient and incapable of modelling the gas-lift optimization in a large network system with problems associated with multi-objective, multi-constrained, and limited gas injection rate. The key objective of this study is to assess the feasibility of utilizing the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique to optimize t
The cathodic deposition of zinc from simulated chloride wastewater was used to characterize the mass transport properties of a flow-by fixed bed electrochemical reactor composed of vertical stack of stainless steel nets, operated in batch-recycle mode. The electrochemical reactor employed potential value in such a way that the zinc reduction occurred under mass transport control. This potential was determined by hydrodynamic voltammetry using a borate/chloride solution as supporting electrolyte on stainless steel rotating disc electrode. The results indicate that mass transfer coefficient (Km) increases with increasing of flow rate (Q) where .The electrochemical reactor proved to be efficient in removing zinc and was abl
... Show MoreThe present study is to investigate the possibility of using wastes in the form of scrap iron (ZVI) and/ or aluminum ZVAI for the detention and immobilization of the chromium ions in simulated wastewater. Different batch equilibrium parameters such as contact time (0-250) min, sorbent dose (2-8 g ZVI/100 mL and 0.2-1 g ZVAI/100 mL), initial pH (3-6), initial pollutant concentration of 50 mg/L, and speed of agitation (0-250) rpm were investigated. Maximum contaminant removal efficiency corresponding to (96 %) at 250 min contact time, 1g ZVAI/ 6g ZVI sorbent mass ratio, pH 5.5, pollutant concentration of 50 mg/L initially, and 250 rpm agitation speed were obtained.
The best isotherm model for the batch single Cr(III) uptake by ZVI
... Show MoreNumerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00
... Show MoreA fixed callus weight of 150 mg was induced from immature embryos of three bread wheat Triticum aestivum L. genotypes (Tamos 2, El-izz and Mutant 1) cultured on nutrient medium {MS) containing Polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000) supplemented with concentrations (0.0, 3.0, 6.0, 9.0 or 12.0%) to evaluate their tolerance to water stress. Cultures were incubated in darkness at temperature of 25?1 ?C. Callus fresh and dry weights were recorded and soluble Carbohydrate and the amino acid Proline concentrations were determined. Results showed that there were significant differences in studied parameters among bread wheat genotypes of which Tamos 2 was higher in callus average fresh and dry weights which gave 353.33 and 38.46 mg/cultured tube respecti
... Show MoreThe manganese doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles were synthesized by simple aqueous chemical reaction of manganese chloride, zinc acetate and thioacitamide in aqueous solution. Thioglycolic acid is used as capping agent for controlling the nanoparticle size. The main advantage of the ZnS:Mn nanoparticles of diameter ~ 2.73 nm is that the sample is prepared by using non-toxic precursors in a cost effective and eco-friendly way. The structural, morphological and chemical composition of the nanoparticles have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The nanosize of the prepared nanoparticles was elucidated by Scan
... Show MoreThe Asymmetrical Castellated concavely – curved soffit Steel Beams with RPC and Lacing Reinforcement improves compactness and local buckling (web and flange local buckling), vertical shear strength at gross section (web crippling and web yielding at the fillet), and net section ( net vertical shear strength proportioned between the top and bottom tees relative to their areas (Yielding)), horizontal shear strength in web post (Yielding), web post-buckling strength, overall beam flexure strength, tee Vierendeel bending moment and lateral-torsional buckling, as a result of steel section encasement. This study presents two concentrated loads test results for seven specimens Asymmetrical Castellated concavely – curved soffit Steel Be
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