Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease restricted to the large intestine, characterized by superficial ulceration. It is a progressive and chronic disease requiring long-term treatment. Although its etiology remains unknown, it is suggested that environmental factors influence genetically susceptible individuals, leading to the onset of the disease. (C-X-C) ligand 9 is a chemokine that belongs to the CXC chemokine family, it plays a role in the differentiation of immune cells such as cytotoxic lymphocytes, natural killer T cells, and macrophages. Its interaction with its corresponding receptor CXCR3 which is expressed by a variety of cells such as effector T cells, CD8+ cytotoxic T cells, and macrophage, leads to stimulation of the production of IFN-γ and TNF-α and in turn, stimulates the production of Th1 chemokines which results in promoting the inflammation. Objectives: To assess the significance of serum chemokine (C-X-C) ligand 9 as a potential marker for identifying ulcerative colitis in adults with inflammatory bowel disease. Patients and Methods: This is a case-control study that included 50 patients diagnosed with UC, aged between 18 and 75 years, compared to 50 healthy controls, aged between 18 and 60 years. The study was conducted between November 2022 and March 2023, at the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Teaching Hospital at the Medical City Complex in Baghdad. The serum samples were analyzed using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique. Results: The mean ± SD in pg/ml of serum CXCL9 in patient group was 26.9 ± 9.05 and in control group was 6.4 ± 2.37 (p< 0.0001) which indicates a highly significant difference. Conclusion: CXCL 9 may be employed as a biomarker for identifying ulcerative colitis and it can be used as a tool for measuring disease activity, in addition to the possibility of being a potential therapeutic target.
The objective of the present paper is to examine the effect of Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) on marshall properties and indirect tensile strength of HMA through experimental investigation. A mixture with 0% RAP was used as a control mix to evaluate the properties of mixes with 5%, 10%, and 15% RAP. One type of RAP was brought from Bab Al-moadam’s road in Baghdad for this purpose. The experimental testing program included Marshall and Indirect Tensile Strength tests. The results indicated that the bulk density, flow and VFA increase with the increasing of the percentage of RAP, while increasing in RAP results decreases in VTM and VMA values. Furthermore, the stability is changed from 10.1 kN for the control mix to12, 13.6 and 11.7 kN
... Show MoreThis study is directed at investigating the liquefaction potential within earth dams using numerical modelling by two-dimensional finite element analyses method for considering the Makhool earth dam on the Tigris River in Iraq. The effect of peak ground acceleration of 0.02g, 0.04g, 0.06g, and 0.08g is viewed for a shell, and the crest is presented for all scaled earthquake duration 25 s, 50 s, 75 s, and 100 s. The current study program comprises selecting a representative history point within the Makhool earth dam as a case study. Many points were allocated at different locations within the shell and crest to observe the fluctuation in the factor of safety against liquefaction. The seepage analysis results viewed graphically for the operat
... Show MoreSomerset Maugham is known mainly as a novelist . This paper presents Maugham the dramatist . Many critics have found him a promising dramatist . He has written 30 plays , then he turns his back upon the theater and writes his autobiographical and most successful novel Of Human Bondage ( 1915) .
Maugham's writing is clear , precise , and simple . He is described as a realist who is keenly aware of human nature , its concentration and frustration . His only tragedy A Man of Honour is a play in 4 acts . This paper concentrates mainly on this play to show Maugham as a dramatist and to show his concept of " honour " .
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... Show MoreSkin drug administration is the method used to provide drugs for local or systemic therapy, which is recognized for clinical usage. It is the third-largest method of medication delivery, after only intravenous administration and oral administration. Using a transdermal delivery method makes the administration easy, and blood concentration and adverse effects can be reduced. A microneedle is a micron-sized needle with a short height of no more than 500 micrometers and a width of no more than 50 micrometers. The needle comes into contact with the epidermal layer of the skin before it gets to the dermal layer, where there is no discomfort. Several materials, such as metals, inorganic, and polymer materials, are used to create microneed
... Show MoreFunctional dyspepsia is one of the most common gastrointestinal symptoms and attributed to various causes including Helicobacter pylori infection. AIM OF THE STUDY: To correlate Helicobacter pylori infection to functional dyspepsia and to identify the possible risk factors for this infection. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Fifty patients who were referred to the endoscopy unit for dyspepsia symptoms, secondary gastric causes of dyspepsia were excluded during endoscopy, gastric biopsies were taken for histopathological study and for bedside urease test for detection of Helicobacter pylori infection. RESULTS: 62% of non-ulcer dyspeptic patients were infected with Helicobacter pylori, 74.2% of the patients were above 30 years old, female gender patient
... Show MoreSurvival analysis is one of the types of data analysis that describes the time period until the occurrence of an event of interest such as death or other events of importance in determining what will happen to the phenomenon studied. There may be more than one endpoint for the event, in which case it is called Competing risks. The purpose of this research is to apply the dynamic approach in the analysis of discrete survival time in order to estimate the effect of covariates over time, as well as modeling the nonlinear relationship between the covariates and the discrete hazard function through the use of the multinomial logistic model and the multivariate Cox model. For the purpose of conducting the estimation process for both the discrete
... Show MoreImage classification is the process of finding common features in images from various classes and applying them to categorize and label them. The main problem of the image classification process is the abundance of images, the high complexity of the data, and the shortage of labeled data, presenting the key obstacles in image classification. The cornerstone of image classification is evaluating the convolutional features retrieved from deep learning models and training them with machine learning classifiers. This study proposes a new approach of “hybrid learning” by combining deep learning with machine learning for image classification based on convolutional feature extraction using the VGG-16 deep learning model and seven class
... Show MoreCancer is in general not a result of an abnormality of a single gene but a consequence of changes in many genes, it is therefore of great importance to understand the roles of different oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways in tumorigenesis. In recent years, there have been many computational models developed to study the genetic alterations of different pathways in the evolutionary process of cancer. However, most of the methods are knowledge-based enrichment analyses and inflexible to analyze user-defined pathways or gene sets. In this paper, we develop a nonparametric and data-driven approach to testing for the dynamic changes of pathways over the cancer progression. Our method is based on an expansion and refinement of the pathway bei
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