Background: Several infectious lung diseases often develop in patients with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), especially during immunosuppressive medication, including disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). The present study aimed to determine the role of respiratory tract bacterial infection in RA activity. Methods: Blood and sputum samples were collected from 31 patients with RA and 12 healthy subjects as control. The bacterial isolates were isolated and identified in collected sputum by biochemical tests and Vitec 2 system. Results: In the present study, thirty-one patients with RA were compared with 12 healthy subjects. Eight patients with RA were not infected with pathogenic bacteria (RA-NIPB) (25.8%). Twenty-three RA patients were infected with pathogenic bacteria (RA-IPB) (74.19%). From 23 RA-IPB, 10 RA patients were infected with Staphylococcus aureus, 6 RA patients were infected with Klebsiella pneumonia, 4 RA patients were infected with Streptococcus pneumoniae, and 3 RA patients were infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. No pathogenic bacteria were isolated from the sputum of a healthy subjects. There was no significant difference between RA-NIPB and RA-IPB in terms of the level of disease activity score DAS28. Conclusion: The current study showed that patients with RA have a higher incidence of being infected with pathogenic bacteria than the healthy control group. No significant effect of bacterial species infection on the level of DAS28. The present study is the pioneer study that showed no effect of bacterial respiratory infections and different RA treatments on RA disease activity.
To assess the biochemical, mechanical and structural characteristics of retained dentin after applying three novel bromelain‑contained chemomechanical caries removal (CMCR) formulations in comparison to the conventional excavation methods (hand and rotary) and a commercial papain‑contained gel (Brix 3000). Seventy‑two extracted permanent molars with natural occlusal carious lesions (score > 4 following the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS‑II)) were randomly allocated into six groups (n = 12) according to the excavation methods: hand excavation, rotary excavation, Brix 3000, bromelain‑contained gel (F1), bromelain‑chloramine‑T (F2), and bromelain chlorhexidine gel (F3). The superficial and deepe
... Show MoreUltrasonic Extraction method followed by gradient HPLC was carried out for the simultaneous determination of four insecticides are [imidacloprid (Imi), thiamethoxam (Thi), indoxacarb (Ind) and abamectin (Aba)] used to combat the major insect pests in Iraq, whitefly, Dubas Bug, worms fruits as well as to combat the spiders – dream respectively in eco-soil samples. The extraction recovery was in the range of 99.77 to 109.1 %. The dissipation kinetics and residual levels of these insecticides in soil sample was studied under field ecosystem. The half-life of the mix insecticides was determined. The half-life was in range of 0.38 to 4.06 days with the soil samples were brought from the Agricultural Land called Nahrawan located in th
... Show MoreThis effort is related to describe and assess the performance of the Iraqi cement sample planned for oil well-cementing jobs in Iraq. In this paper, major cementing properties which are thickening time, compressive strength, and free water in addition to the rheological properties and filtration of cement slurry underneath definite circumstances are experimentally tested. The consequences point to that the Iraqi cement after special additives encounter the requests of the API standards and can consequently is used in cementing jobs for oil wells. At this research, there is a comparative investigation established on experimental work on the effectiveness of some additives that considered as waste materials which are silica fume, baux
... Show MoreIraqi calcium bentonite was activated via acidification to study its structural and electrical properties. The elemental analysis of treated bentonite was determined by using X-ray fluorescence while the unit crystal structure was studied through X-ray diffraction showing disappearance of some fundamental reflections due to the treatment processes. The surface morphology, on the other hand, was studied thoroughly by Scanning Electron microscopy SEM and Atomic Force Microscope AFM showing some fragments of montmorillonite sheets. Furthermore, the electrical properties of bentonite were studied including: The dielectric permittivity, conductivity, tangent loss factor, and impedance with range of frequency (0.1-1000 KHz) at different temperatu
... Show MoreMassive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) is considered as the key technology to meet the huge demands of data rates in the future wireless communications networks. However, for massive-MIMO systems to realize their maximum potential gain, sufficiently accurate downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) with low overhead to meet the short coherence time (CT) is required. Therefore, this article aims to overcome the technical challenge of DL CSI estimation in a frequency-division-duplex (FDD) massive-MIMO with short CT considering five different physical correlation models. To this end, the statistical structure of the massive-MIMO channel, which is captured by the physical correlation is exploited to find sufficiently
... Show MoreThis paper concerns is the preparation and characterization of a bidentate ligand [4-(5,5- dimethyl-3-oxocyclohex-1-enylamino)-N-(5-methylisoxazol-3-yl) benzene sulfonamide]. The ligand was prepared from fusing of sulfamethoxazole and dimedone at (140) ºC for half hour. The complex was prepared by refluxing the ligand with a bivalent cobalt ion using ethanol as a solvent. The prepared ligand and complex were identified using Spectroscopic methods. The proposed tetrahedral geometry around the metal ions studied were concluded from these measurements. Both molar ratio and continuous variation method were studied to determine metal to ligand ratio (M:L). The M to L ratio was found to be (1:1). The adsorption of cobalt complex was carried out
... Show MoreThe present study explores the solar-induced photocatalytic degradation of reactive red (RR) and reactive turquoise (RT) dyes in a single system using TiO2 immobilized in xanthan gum (TiO2/XG), synthesized using the sol–gel dip-coating technique for direct precipitation. SEM-EDX, XRD, FTIR, and UV–Vis were used to assess the characteristics of the resulting catalyst. Moreover, the effects of different operating parameters, specifically pH, dye concentration, TiO2/XG concentration, H2O2 concentration, and contact time, were also investigated in a batch photocatalytic reactor. The immobilized TiO2/XG catalyst showed a slight adsorption degradation efficiency and then improved the RR and RT dye degradation activity (92.5 and 90.8%
... Show MoreGas-lift technique plays an important role in sustaining oil production, especially from a mature field when the reservoirs’ natural energy becomes insufficient. However, optimally allocation of the gas injection rate in a large field through its gas-lift network system towards maximization of oil production rate is a challenging task. The conventional gas-lift optimization problems may become inefficient and incapable of modelling the gas-lift optimization in a large network system with problems associated with multi-objective, multi-constrained, and limited gas injection rate. The key objective of this study is to assess the feasibility of utilizing the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique to optimize t
Fifty snails of Paropeas achatinaceum specimens were collected and classified from four areas in Baghdad-Iraq from the period between June and July, 2017. The snails were divided into two groups (each group contain 25 snails). Two environment conditions were used in this study. Natural environment considered as control and experimental environment contains Citrus sinensis (L.) roots as snail’s source food. The comparison result between snail weights in the nature and experimental environment was not significant (0.497, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.01209–0.02309). Also, the comparison between snail weights in the nature environment and the food mean weight was significant (0.014, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.00591-0.04109), while the
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