chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common respiratory disease with episodes of exacerbation. Variable factors including infectious pathogen can predispose for this exacerbation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of intestinal protozoa in COPD exacerbation. A total of 56 patients with COPD were included in this study. Patients were categorized into two groups based on the frequency of exacerbation during the last 6 months: those with ≤1 exacerbation (32 patients) and those with ≥2 exacerbations (24 patients). Stool specimens from each patient were collected two times (one week interval) examined for intestinal parasite. In univariate analysis, rural residence and parasitic infection were more common among patients with frequent exacerbation (45.83% and 33.33%, respectively) than patients with non-frequent exacerbation (18.75% and 9.38%, respectively) with significant differences. However, in multivariate analysis, only body mass index >25 kg/m2 (OR=4.59, 95%CI=1.18-17.86, P=0.028) and parasitic infection (OR=5.51, 95%CI=1.01-30.18, P=0.049) were independently associated with COPD exacerbation. These data indicate a significant association between frequent COPD exacerbation and infection with some intestinal protozoa. However, the cause-effect relationship is debatable.
Combining different treatment strategies successively or simultaneously has become recommended to achieve high purification standards for the treated discharged water. The current work focused on combining electrocoagulation, ion-exchange, and ultrasonication treatment approaches for the simultaneous removal of copper, nickel, and zinc ions from water. The removal of the three studied ions was significantly enhanced by increasing the power density (4–10 mA/cm2) and NaCl salt concentration (0.5–1.5 g/L) at a natural solution pH. The simultaneous removal of these metal ions at 4 mA/cm2 and 1 g NaCl/L was highly improved by introducing 1 g/L of mordenite zeolite as an ion-exchanger. A remarkable removal of heavy metals was reported
... Show MoreAssessing water quality provides a scientific foundation for the development and management of water resources. The objective of the research is to evaluate the impact treated effluent from North Rustumiyia wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) on the quality of Diyala river. The model of the artificial neural network (ANN) and factor analysis (FA) based on Nemerow pollution index (NPI). To define important water quality parameters for North Al-Rustumiyia for the line(F2), the Nemerow Pollution Index was introduced. The most important parameters of assessment of water variation quality of wastewater were the parameter used in the model: biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen dem
Herein, we report designing a new Δ (delta‐shaped) proton sponge base of 4,12‐dihydrogen‐4,8,12‐triazatriangulene (compound
This paper adapted the neural network for the estimating of the direction of arrival (DOA). It uses an unsupervised adaptive neural network with GHA algorithm to extract the principal components that in turn, are used by Capon method to estimate the DOA, where by the PCA neural network we take signal subspace only and use it in Capon (i.e. we will ignore the noise subspace, and take the signal subspace only).
Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease characterized by molecular complexity. This research utilized three genetic expression profiles—gene expression, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation, and micro ribonucleic acid (miRNA) expression—to deepen the understanding of breast cancer biology and contribute to the development of a reliable survival rate prediction model. During the preprocessing phase, principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to reduce the dimensionality of each dataset before computing consensus features across the three omics datasets. By integrating these datasets with the consensus features, the model's ability to uncover deep connections within the data was significantly improved. The proposed multimodal deep
... Show MoreEnsuring reliable data transmission in Network on Chip (NoC) is one of the most challenging tasks, especially in noisy environments. As crosstalk, interference, and radiation were increased with manufacturers' increasing tendency to reduce the area, increase the frequencies, and reduce the voltages. So many Error Control Codes (ECC) were proposed with different error detection and correction capacities and various degrees of complexity. Code with Crosstalk Avoidance and Error Correction (CCAEC) for network-on-chip interconnects uses simple parity check bits as the main technique to get high error correction capacity. Per this work, this coding scheme corrects up to 12 random errors, representing a high correction capac
... Show MoreLaboratory studies were conducted at the biological control unit, college of Agriculture, University of Baghdad to evaluate some biological aspects of the predator Chilocorus bipustulatus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), which is considered one of the most important predators on many insect pests, especially the scale insect, Parlatoria blanchardi, (Homoptera: Diaspididae) on date palms. The results showed that biological parameters of the predator were varied according to different degree of temperature. Egg incubation period was significantly different and reached to 7.5 and 5.44 day at 25 and 30°C respectively, Fertility was the same 100% at both temperature degrees. Larval growth periods were 17.41 and 16.12 day as well as the mortality
... Show MoreAbstract: Microfluidic devices present unique advantages for the development of efficient drug assay and screening. The microfluidic platforms might offer a more rapid and cost-effective alternative. Fluids are confined in devices that have a significant dimension on the micrometer scale. Due to this extreme confinement, the volumes used for drug assays are tiny (milliliters to femtoliters).
In this research, a microfluidic chip consists of micro-channels carved on substrate materials built by using Acrylic (Polymethyl Methacrylate, PMMA) chip was designed using a Carbon Dioxide (CO2) laser machine. The CO2 parameters have influence on the width, depth, roughness of the chip. In order to have regular
... Show MoreDensity Functional Theory (DFT) method of the type (B3LYP) and a Gaussian basis set (6-311G) were applied for calculating the vibration frequencies and absorption intensities for normal coordinates (3N-6) at the equilibrium geometry of the Di and Tetra-rings layer (6, 0) zigzag single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by using Gaussian-09 program. Both were found to have the same symmetry of D6d point group with C--C bond alternation in all tube rings (for axial bonds, which are the vertical C--Ca bonds in rings layer and for circumferential bonds C—Cc in the outer and mid rings bonds). Assignments of the modes of vibration IR active and inactive vibration frequ
... Show Morefication of benzaldehyde (C6H5CHO) and O- amino aniline O-C6H4(NH2)2 in ethanol with 8- Hydroxyquinoline (8HQ) . Formed compounds were acquired of 1:1:2 molar proportion reactions for metal ions and ligands (L) and 2(8HQ) during reaction for MCl2 .nH2O salt products complexes conformable into the forms [M(L)(8HQ)2] ,where M = Mn(II),Co(II) and Ni(II). Whole the compounds were identified during the basis of their; FT-IR and U.V spectrum, melting point, molar conduct, identify of the percentage from the metal at the complexes via flame (AAS), C, H and N content of the Schiff base (L) and metal complexes were analysis and magnetic susceptibility menstruations. A hexagonal coordinated metal complexes were proposed to the separated complexes of
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