The present study was set to demonstrate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection and its effects on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) through determining their serum levels of anti-dsDNA and IL-18 antibodies. For this purpose, the sera from 132 SLE and/or toxoplasmosis patients and 30 healthy women, were collected. The study sample was divided into four groups of SLE, toxoplasmosis, SLE coinfected with toxoplasmosis, and healthy control. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies were examined for all the samples using ELISA kit. The results showed a high mean level of anti-Toxoplasma IgG among SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (104.8792±12.31585pg/ml) in comparison to that in toxoplasmosis patients (91.1705±12.57746pg/ml). However, the mean value of anti-dsDNA antibodies showed significant (P≤0.01) elevation in SLE patients and SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (71.2134±9.22131pg/ml and 72.3699±9.67917 pg/ml, respectively), compared to those infected with toxoplasmosis only and healthy control. Furthermore, the IL-18 mean value in the sera of the studied patients showed significant (P≤0.01) elevation (418.4000±43.18072pg/ml) in SLE patients with toxoplasmosis in comparison to SLE patients (354.4400±35.29257pg/ml). The present investigation suggests that the levels of anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies seem to increase in patients with SLE.
Steel–concrete–steel (SCS) structural systems have economic and structural advantages over traditional reinforced concrete; thus, they have been widely used. The performance of concrete made from recycled rubber aggregate from scrap tires has been evaluated since the early 1990s. The use of rubberized concrete in structural construction remains necessary because of its high impact resistance, increases ductility, and produces a lightweight concrete; therefore, it adds such important properties to SCS members. In this research, the use of different concrete core materials in SCS was examined. Twelve SCS specimens were subjected to push-out monotonic loading for inspecting their mechanical performance. One specimen was constructed from co
... Show MoreEco-friendly concrete is produced using the waste of many industries. It reduces the fears concerning energy utilization, raw materials, and mass-produced cost of common concrete. Several stress-strain models documented in the literature can be utilized to estimate the ultimate strength of concrete components reinforced with fibers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of data on how non-metallic fibers, such as polypropylene (PP), affect the properties of concrete, especially eco-friendly concrete. This study presents a novel approach to modeling the stress-strain behavior of eco-friendly polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete (PFRC) using meta-heuristic particle swarm optimization (PSO) employing 26 PFRC various mixtures. The cement was partia
... Show MoreDeep learning has recently received a lot of attention as a feasible solution to a variety of artificial intelligence difficulties. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) outperform other deep learning architectures in the application of object identification and recognition when compared to other machine learning methods. Speech recognition, pattern analysis, and image identification, all benefit from deep neural networks. When performing image operations on noisy images, such as fog removal or low light enhancement, image processing methods such as filtering or image enhancement are required. The study shows the effect of using Multi-scale deep learning Context Aggregation Network CAN on Bilateral Filtering Approximation (BFA) for d
... Show MoreIn this paper, third order non-polynomial spline function is used to solve 2nd kind Volterra integral equations. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the applications of this method, and to compare the computed results with other known methods.
Water pollution as a result of contamination with dye-contaminating effluents is a severe issue for water reservoirs, which instigated the study of biodegradation of Reactive Red 195 and Reactive Blue dyes by E. coli and Bacillus sp. The effects of occupation time, solution pH, initial dyes concentrations, biomass loading, and temperature were investigated via batch-system experiments by using the Design of Experiment (DOE) for 2 levels and 5 factors response surface methodology (RSM). The operational conditions used for these factors were optimized using quadratic techniques by reducing the number of experiments. The results revealed that the two types of bacteria had a powerful effect on biodegradable dyes. The regression analysis reveale
... Show MoreIn this study, the potential of adsorption of amoxicillin antibiotic (AMOX) from aqueous solutions using prepared activated carbon (AC) was studied. The used AC was prepared from an inexpensive and available precursor (sunflower seed hulls (SSH)) and activated by potassium hydroxide (KOH). The prepared AC was examined for its ability to remove AMOX from aqueous contaminated solutions and characterized with the aid of N2 -adsorption/desorption isotherm Brunauer–Emmett– Teller, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared. Zeta potential of the prepared activated carbon from sunflower seed hulls (SSHAC) were studied in relation to AMOX adsorption. The physical and chemical propert
... Show MoreIn this work, pure and Ag-doped nickel oxide (NiO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates with different dopant concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 wt.%) by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) technique at room temperature. These films were annealed at temperature of 450 °C. The structural and optical properties of the prepared thin films were studied. It was found that annealing process has lead to increase the transmittance of the deposited films. Also, the transmittance was found to increase with doping concentration of silver in the deposited NiO films. The optical energy gap was decreased from 3.5 to 3.2 eV as the doping concentration was increased to 0.4 %.