Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the new respiratory virus SARS-CoV2. It has a tropism in the lung tissues where excess target receptors exist. Periostin plays a role in subepithelial fibrosis associated with bronchial asthma. Since the Coronavirus's target is the human respiratory system, Periostin has been recently described as a valuable new biomarker in the diagnosis and evaluation of disease in patients with COVID-19 lung involvement. Objectives: To assess the level of Periostin in the serum of COVID-19 patients and to correlate its role in disease severity and prognosis. Subjects and Methods: Periostin serum levels were measured for 63 patients attending three main COVID-19 Control Centers in Baghdad, compared to 25 healthy subjects, using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) from January 2021 to April 2022. Results: Serum levels of Periostin among studied groups with (mild - moderate, severe - critical, post-COVID, and controls) were (17.3, 664, 597, and 48) ng/dl respectively. The serum concentration of Periostin was highly significant in (severe- critical and post-COVID) than in other groups. Conclusions: The elevated level of serum Periostin in COVID-19 patients correlated with disease severity and post-COVID lung complications. The high Periostin level is consistent with high inflammatory markers, which might be used as an indicator of COVID-19 severity and predict a bad prognosis.
Five derivatives of thiadiazole were prepared with aldehydes and alkyl halides, compoundA: 2-amino-5-thiol-1,3,4- thiadiazole, compound B :2-(o-hydroxybenzylidine)amino-5-thiol-1,3,4-thiadiazole, compoundC: 2(2-butan-lidine)amino-5-thiol-1,3,4-thiadiazole, compound E: 2- amino-5-(2-Propanylthio)-1,3,4-thiadiazol) and compound F:2(o-chlorobenzylamino)-5-(2-propanyl thio)-1,3,4 thiadiazol. All prepared compounds were diagnosed by (IR) and (UV) Spectroscopy. All of those compounds were screened for their anti-microbial activity in vitro. The results show that most of the compounds A, B, C exhibited moderate to good activity against Gram-positive bacteria and the same compound exhibit low to moderate activity on most gram-negative bacte
... Show MoreThe research has designed for studying the relationship between manufacturing strategy and its flexibility under the flexible manufacturing system with their reflection on the competitive environmental performance of the firm. To interpret and tackle the problem, a hypothesis has formulated stating that “ the competitive performance of a firm is interpreted by the manufacturing strategy and flexibility which are derived from the firm and its business strategies under the flexible manufacturing system”. Related literatures with their theoretical dissertations, which enhanced the thoughtful content, have analyzed. An illustrative case study on the flexible manufacturing system at Toyota Motors Corporation working at the g
... Show MoreQuadrupole Q moments and effective charges are calculated for 9C, 11C, 17C and 19C exotic nuclei using shell model calculations. Excitations out of major shell space are taken into account through a microscopic theory which are called core-polarization effects. The simple harmonic oscillator potential is used to generate the single particle matrix elements of 9,11,17,19C. The present calculations with core-polarization effects reproduced the experimental and theoretical data very well.
This work aim to prepare Ag/R6G/PMMA nanocomposite thin
films by In-situ plasma polymerization and study the changes in the
optical properties of fluorophore due to the presence of Ag
nanoparticles structures in the vicinity of the R6G laser dye. The
concentrations of R6G dye/MMA used are: 10-4M solutions were
prepared by dissolving the required quantity of the R6G dye in
MMAMonomer. Then Silver nanoparticles with 50 average particles
size were mixed with MMAmonomer with concentration of 0.3, 0.5,
0.7wt% to get R6G silver/MMA in liquid phase. The films were
deposited on glass substrates by dielectric barrier discharge plasma
jet. The Ag/R6G/PMMA nanocomposite thin films were
characterization by UV-Visible
The antioxidant and antibacterial activities of ethanolic extract and phenolic compounds extract of Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) and Oregano (Oreganum vulgare) plants were studied; the phenolic content and the relationship between these compounds and the above activities were also investigated. The results showed that the Lemon balm had the highest phenolic content (56.5% mg g) and the phenolic content of Oregano was twice lower than Lemon balm. Lemon balm has the highest antioxidant activity which causes lipid peroxidation inhibition activity of linoleic acid (90.5%), this activity was more than ?-tocopherole antioxidant activity (79.3 %). It was found that the main source of antioxidant activity o
... Show MoreIn the present study, metal complexes of Mn(II), Ni(II), Co(II), Cu(II) and Hg(II) were synthesized using new Tetraazamacrocyclic Schiff Base (5E,8E,14E,17E)-6,8,15,17-tetramethyl-1,2,3,4,4a,7,9a,10,11,12,13,13a,16,18a-tetradecahydrodibenzo [b,i][1,4,8,11]tetraazacyclotetradecine (L) derived from 1,2-diamino cyclo hexane with the acetyl acetone. Compounds have been exanimated and confirmed by fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), ultraviolet-visible (UV-visible), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR), carbon nuclear magnetic resonance (13CNMR), microelemental analyses (CHN), thermal analysis (TG), conductivity and magnetic susceptibility. The propose geometry for all complexes [MLCl2] structures were octahedral. Therm
... Show MoreBackground: tooth debonding was one of the major reasons for denture repair. With the use of recently introduced thermoplastic denture base materials the problem of tooth debonding increased due to the nature of the bond between these materials and the acrylic teeth. This study was aimed to assess the bond of the acrylic teeth to conventional heat cure acrylic resin and to thermoplastic resin denture base material and methods to enhance it. Materials and methods: acrylic resin teeth were bonded to heat cure acrylic resin with and without wetting the ridge laps of the teeth with monomer and acrylic teeth with prefabricated retentive holes, unmodified and modified, in their ridge laps were processed with Valplast thermoplastic resin denture b
... Show MoreThe effect of molecules intersystem crossing (Kisc) on characteristics
(energy and duration) of a Passive Q- switched Laser Pulse has been
studied by mathematical description (rate equations model) for
temporal performance of which was used as a saturable absorber
material (passive switch) with laser. The study shows that the energy
and duration pulse are decreasing while the molecules intersystem
crossing into saturable absorber energy levels is increasing.