Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic and systemic autoimmune disease that is characterized by severe synovial inflammation, cartilage erosion, bone loss, and generalized vasculopathy. Although the immunologic mechanism of RA is still unclear, it is now thought to be a primarily Th17-driven disease. Along with other factors, IL-23 stimulates the expansion of Th17 cells from naive CD4+ T cells.

Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the circulating levels of interleukin (IL)-23 in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and determine the correlation between plasma/serum IL-23 levels and disease activity. So, we performed a systematic review with meta-analysis comparing

Regular sampling for six months from January to July 2012 were taken in small, shallow, perennial, standing ponds near the Greater Zab River, Gwer district, Erbil. A variety of physicochemical parameters were determined. Air and water temperature were falling between 15.2 - 34.7 ? C and 15.5 and 26.5 ?C. The waters are neutral (pH 7.38-8.27), hard, alkaline, salty, high in TDS and EC (892-966?S/cm, and rich in nutrients (NO3: 2.1-4.1mg/l, PO4: 0.33-0.62 mg / l , SO4: 24.7-80.2 mg / l ). The attention fixed on a filamentous blue- green algae Glaucospira Lagerheim, 1982) which is new to Iraqi flora. It is a filament (trichome), solitary, pale or yellowish blue – green, without sheath, Screw like coiled, motile, some of them are activ

Objective: The present study was aimed to develop a pH-triggered in situ gel for local release of lidocaine hydrochloride (lidocaine HCL) in the buccal cavity to improve the anesthetic effect of this amino amide drug which has very high water solubility. The formulations were introduced to the oral cavity as a spray to improve compliance and for easier administration.Methods: In this work, two grades of carbopol (934 and 940)-based in situ gel spray were designed. The formulations containing lidocaine HCl 5% were prepared by mixing different concentrations of carbopol with xanthan gum. Eight formulations were investigated and evaluated for gelation capacity, spray angle, volume of solution delivered per each actuation, rheological p

ST Alawi, NA Mustafa, Al-Mustansiriyah Journal of Science, 2013

Agricultural lands have great importance in people's lives, and their exploitation has a great impact on strengthening the national economy. Therefore, countries have given great importance to this sector, and because of the importance of this sector, the state has given large areas of these lands to the farmers to invest in agriculture, and among these farmers are those who died and left behind children who took up crafts. Agriculture, for fear that these agricultural lands would be abandoned and turned into waste lands, a land system was introduced called (regular distribu- tion), which corresponds to (legitimate inheritance). Under this system, these lands were trans- ferred to the children of farmers who died so that the process of inve

Human cerebral cortex is the outer folded neuronal layer and represents major part of the cerebrum with enormous functions. It is a laminar structure, easily visualized grossly. Previous studies showed that the Superior Temporal gyrus is one of the thickest cerebral cortex regions, reaching (about 4 mm). The Electron microscope study was made on 6 samples taken to measure the neuronal soma dimension of the large pyramidal cells present in the internal pyramidal cortical layer V in different age groups and gender. Aging process was obvious on the large pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex, in which their neuronal soma dimensions showed shrinkage with age progression. But statistically there was no differences in the values between males an

The research amid to measure the extent of the Suggested procedures of the internal control in accordance with the updated COSO framework in improving the procedures for internal control work in Iraqi oil companies. As the research problem was represented in suggesting procedures for internal control according to the updated COSO framework and finding out the relationship of correlation and influence between the suggested procedures and the internal control procedures that are done in the Iraqi oil companies. The research followed the quantitative approach to handling and analysing data by designing a Questionnaire to represent the research tool for collecting data. The study population was represented in the Iraqi oil companies,

Radiotherapy is medical use of ionizing radiation, and commonly applied to the cancerous tumor because of its ability to control cell growth. The amount of radiation used in photon radiation therapy called dose (measured in grey unit), which depend on the type and stage of cancer being treated. In our work, we studied the dose distribution given to the tumor at different depths (zero-20 cm) treated with different field size (4×4- 23×23 cm). Results show that the deeper treated area has less dose rate at the same beam quality and quantity. Also it has been noted increasing in the field increasing in the depth dose at the same depth even if the radiation energy is constant. Increasing in radiation dose attributed to the scattere

Image compression is a suitable technique to reduce the storage space of an image, increase the area of storage in the device, and speed up the transmission process. In this paper, a new idea for image compression is proposed to improve the performance of the Absolute Moment Block Truncation Coding (AMBTC) method depending on Weber's law condition to distinguish uniform blocks (i.e., low and constant details blocks) from non-uniform blocks in original images. Then, all elements in the bitmap of each uniform block are represented by zero. After that, the lossless method, which is Run Length method, is used for compressing the bits more, which represent the bitmap of these uniform blocks. Via this simple idea, the result is improving