Background Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent chronic inflammatory skin conditions; its prevalence ranges from 1 to 3%. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), a cytokine that enhances inflammation, is overexpressed in synovium and skin plaques in psoriasis. TNF-α plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. IL-10 is the most crucial cytokine for reducing excessive immune responses and decreasing pro-inflammatory reactions in all autoimmune disorders. Objective To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on ILـ10, TNFـα, and BMI in obese psoriatic patients. Methods Thirty patients included in this investigative study to measure the concentrations of TNFـα, ILـ10 and BMI, before and after receiving Apremilast. TNFـα and ILـ10 were examined by ELISA technique. Results The present work found that the concentration of TNF-α before receiving Apremilast was 286.80 pg/ml, and after six months from baseline, it was reduced to 131.08 pg/ml (P<0.01). Also, IL-10 before using Apremilast was 69.28 pg/ml, and after six months of treatment it increased to 112.57 ±7.89, which was statistically significant (P<0.01). There were no statistically significant differences in BMI (P>0.05). Conclusion Apremilast significantly reduced the inflammatory cytokine TNF-α and increased the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, leading to improvement in psoriasis lesions. It also reduced Body Mass Index in obese psoriatic patients.
Treated effluent wastewater is considered an alternative water resource which can provide an important contribution for using it in different purposes, so, the wastewater quality is very important for knowing its suitability for different uses before discharging it into fresh water ecosystems. The wastewater quality index (WWQI) may be considered as a useful and effective tool to assess wastewater quality by indicating one value representing the overall characteristic of the wastewater. It could be used to indicate the suitability of wastewater for different uses in water quality management and decision making. The present study was conducted to evaluate the Al-Diwaniyah sewage treatment plant (STP) effluent quality based on wastewa
... Show MoreBackground: Bone regeneration in dehiscence and fenestration defect can be improved with the use of platelet rich fibrin (PRF) that provides a scaffold for new bone regeneration. This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of PRF as a graft material and membrane in dehiscence and fenestration defects. Materials and Methods: This prospective clinical study included patients who received dental implants that demonstrated peri-implant defects which were augmented using Leukocyte- PRF (L-PRF) or Advanced-PRF (A-PRF). Twenty four weeks postoperatively the defect resolution and the density of regenerated bone were assessed by CBCT and re-entry surgery. The assessment also included measurement of primary and secondary implant stability
... Show MoreIn this work, the elemental constituents of smoker and nonsmoker
teeth samples of human were analyzed by Laser induced breakdown
spectroscopy method (LIBS). Many elements have been detected in
the healthy teeth samples, the important once are Ca, P, Mg, Fe, Pb
and Na. Many differences were found between (female and male)
teeth in Ca, P, Mg, Na and Pb contents. The concentrations of most
toxic elements were found significantly in the smoker group. The
maximum concentrations of toxic elements such as Pb, Cd and Co
were found in older male age above 60 year. Also, it was found that
the minimum concentrations of trace elements such as Ca, P and Na
exist in this age group. From these results it is clear that the
Big data analysis has important applications in many areas such as sensor networks and connected healthcare. High volume and velocity of big data bring many challenges to data analysis. One possible solution is to summarize the data and provides a manageable data structure to hold a scalable summarization of data for efficient and effective analysis. This research extends our previous work on developing an effective technique to create, organize, access, and maintain summarization of big data and develops algorithms for Bayes classification and entropy discretization of large data sets using the multi-resolution data summarization structure. Bayes classification and data discretization play essential roles in many learning algorithms such a
... Show MoreThe need for quick airborne transportation is critical, especially in emergencies. Drones with suspended payloads might be used to accomplish quick airborne transportation. Due to the environment or the drone's motion, the slung load may oscillate and lead the drone to fall. The altitude and attitude controls are the backbones of the drone's stability, and they must be adequately designed. Because of their symmetrical and simple structure, quadrotor helicopters are one of the most popular drone classes. In this work, a genetic algorithm with two weighted terms fitness function is used to adjust a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller to compensate for the altitude and attitude controllers in a quadrotor drone
... Show MoreThe present work reports a direct experimental comparison of the catalytic hydrodesulfurization of
thiophene over Co-Mo/Al2O3 in fixed- and fluidized-bed reactors under the same conditions. An
experimental pilot plant scale was constructed in the laboratories of chemical engineering department,
Baghdad University; fixed-bed unit (2.54 cm diameter, and 60cm length) and fluidized-bed unit (diameter of 2.54 cm and 40 cm long with a separation zone of 30 cm long and 12.7 cm diameter). The affecting
variables studied in the two systems were reaction temperature of (308 – 460) oC, Liquid hourly space
velocity of (2 – 5) hr-1, and catalyst particle size of (0.075-0.5) mm. It was found in both operations that the
conversion
The performance grading system (superpave) has provided means to incorporate binder characteristics with
pavement failure types. It’s a comprehensive system that relates climate, traffic conditions and aging with
critical pavement distress. The objective of this paper is to develop an improved asphalt binder grading
system for Iraq based on the principal of superpave. The country was divided into different zones according
to the highest and lowest temperature ranges and traffic loading. The Performance graded binder proposed
for each zone was compared with some States of USA that have same hot weather of Iraq by using Long
Term Pavement Performance (LTPP v3.1) software. Iraqi asphalt samples were tested using the Supe
Warm asphalt mixture (WMA) and reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) are the most memorable sustainable materials in world of asphalt concrete pavements . This research aims to study the warm asphalt mixture for different types of filler materials such as ordinary cement and limestone dust. Beside, this research focused on the test of emulsified asphalt properties by evaluating the performance of warm asphalt mixture by Marshall Stability properties as well as moisture sensitivity. The results of this experiment provided many important points. First, The cationic emulsified asphalt is suitable with RAP aggregate for production warm asphalt mixtures .Second, The effective mixing procedure for warm asphalt mixtures consists hea
... Show MoreA demonstration of the inverse kinematics is a very complex problem for redundant robot manipulator. This paper presents the solution of inverse kinematics for one of redundant robots manipulator (three link robot) by combing of two intelligent algorithms GA (Genetic Algorithm) and NN (Neural Network). The inputs are position and orientation of three link robot. These inputs are entering to Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN). The weights of BPNN are optimized using continuous GA. The (Mean Square Error) MSE is also computed between the estimated and desired outputs of joint angles. In this paper, the fitness function in GA is proposed. The sinwave and circular for three link robot end effecter and desired trajectories are simulated b
... Show MoreSome of the main challenges in developing an effective network-based intrusion detection system (IDS) include analyzing large network traffic volumes and realizing the decision boundaries between normal and abnormal behaviors. Deploying feature selection together with efficient classifiers in the detection system can overcome these problems. Feature selection finds the most relevant features, thus reduces the dimensionality and complexity to analyze the network traffic. Moreover, using the most relevant features to build the predictive model, reduces the complexity of the developed model, thus reducing the building classifier model time and consequently improves the detection performance. In this study, two different sets of select
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