Objectives: Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) is WNT/b-catenin pathway antagonist which plays a detrimental role in the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR). This research aimed to assess serum DKK-1 levels in diabetic patients who have and have not developed DR and, compare them with the control subjects finding out whether we can use it as an indicator for DR early diagnosis and to find out which one of the widely used two groups of antidiabetic treatments had the greater effect on this biomarker and hence on the progression of DR. Methods: The study participants were divided into two subgroups: First, 70 patients (36 male, 34 female) with type 2 diabetes mellitus, among them 35 patients diagnosed with DR and 35 with no evidence of DR, and secondly, non-diabetic controls (11 male, 9 female) were selected from the patients attending Ibn AL-Haitham hospital for ophthalmology and a specialized center for endocrinology and diabetes. Venous blood samples of all participants were drawn after an overnight fast, and serum samples were stored at -20ºC until DKK-1 assay. Results: Serum DKK-1 showed significantly lower levels in diabetic patients with (6.1 ± 2 ng/mL) or without DR (14 ± 6.2 ng/mL) when compared to those of controls (34 ± 12.25 ng/mL) (p 0.05). Furthermore, serum DKK-1 levels were lower in the late stage of DR compared to the early stage 5.6 ± 1.7 and 7 ± 1.9 ng/mL, respectively. Furthermore, DPP-4 inhibitors cause a better increment in DKK-1 levels when compared to SU in the NDR group. Conclusions: Reduced serum levels of DKK-1 are related to the existence and worsening of DR and have the prospect to serve as an indicator for this condition.
publishing has become a large space in the field of interactive education and modern pages have become dedicated to the service of the educational effort in this area as the research in this context of the urgent scientific necessities, especially as we consider in Iraq from the new countries in the exploitation of these new technologies and investment possibilities of the information network And the contents of different in the framework of so-called distance education Here lies the problem of research in the possibility of finding scientific solutions for the design of interactive inter active website for students of the preparatory stage in Iraq and to find out the scientific ways to find des
... Show MoreThe purpose of this research is defining the main factors influencing on decision of management system on sensitive data in cloud. The framework is proposed to enhance management information systems decision on sensitive information in cloud environment. The structured interview with several security experts working on cloud computing security to investigate the main objective of framework and suitability of instrument, a pilot study conducts to test the instrument. The validity and reliability test results expose that study can be expanded and lead to final framework validation. This framework using multilevel related to Authorization, Authentication, Classification and identity anonymity, and save and verify, to enhance management
... Show MoreFree water surface constructed wetlands (FSCWs) can be used to complement conventional waste water treatment but removal efficiencies are often limited by a high ratio of water volume to biofilm surface area (i.e. high water depth). Floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) consist of floating matrices which can enhance the surface area available for the development of fixed microbial biofilms and provide a platform for plant growth (which can remove pollutants by uptake). In this study the potential of FTWs for ammoniacal nitrogen (AN) removal was evaluated using experimental mesocosms operated under steady-state flow conditions with ten different treatments (two water depths, two levels of FTW mat coverage, two different plant densities and
... Show MoreIn this paper, the concept of normalized duality mapping has introduced in real convex modular spaces. Then, some of its properties have shown which allow dealing with results related to the concept of uniformly smooth convex real modular spaces. For multivalued mappings defined on these spaces, the convergence of a two-step type iterative sequence to a fixed point is proved
As cities across the world grow and the mobility of populations increases, there has also been a corresponding increase in the number of vehicles on roads. The result of this has been a proliferation of challenges for authorities with regard to road traffic management. A consequence of this has been congestion of traffic, more accidents, and pollution. Accidents are a still major cause of death, despite the development of sophisticated systems for traffic management and other technologies linked with vehicles. Hence, it is necessary that a common system for accident management is developed. For instance, traffic congestion in most urban areas can be alleviated by the real-time planning of routes. However, the designing of an efficie
... Show MoreDue to the huge variety of 5G services, Network slicing is promising mechanism for dividing the physical network resources in to multiple logical network slices according to the requirements of each user. Highly accurate and fast traffic classification algorithm is required to ensure better Quality of Service (QoS) and effective network slicing. Fine-grained resource allocation can be realized by Software Defined Networking (SDN) with centralized controlling of network resources. However, the relevant research activities have concentrated on the deep learning systems which consume enormous computation and storage requirements of SDN controller that results in limitations of speed and accuracy of traffic classification mechanism. To fill thi
... Show MoreThe research aims to examine the integration effect among resource consumption accounting (RCA) system and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) on both costs reduction and quality improvement. The study questioner form distributed to two different respondents as the unit of analysis. The research reached various conclusions most important of which is the integration relationship can help solve the special difficulties in managing the economic unit data. Moreover, the integration provides a clear picture of the causal relationships between resources, resource quantities, and associated costs
The study investigates the relationship between the volatility of the Iraqi Stock Exchange Index (ISX), and the volatility of global oil prices benchmarks, Brent and West Intermediate Texas (WTI), in additional to the Iraqi Oil, Basra Crude Light (BSL) which represents the most exported Iraqi oil and the major influential factor on the Iraqi governmental revenues. Using monthly data covering the period: 1/2005-12/1205, econometrical and technical tools represented by Co-incretion, Vector Error Correction Model – VECM, Granger Causality, and Bollinger band were employed in order to explore the relationship between the variables.
The econometric analysis revealed the impact of the oil prices volatility on
... Show MoreBased on the theoretical ideas of E. Cassirer, a methodology is developed and an analysis of the painting work by J. Saleem, a representative of modern Iraqi painting, is carried out. While comparing the artistic programme of J. Saleem and the views of E. Cassirer, the methodological potential of the theory of the symbol for the art criticism analysis of the regional painting is clarified. Comparative analysis with the inclusion of the works of B. Buffet, B. Turetsky, J. Miro helps to see the multiple meanings of the same cultural symbol in thematically similar works of different years, created in different socio-cultural circumstances. The article shows that for regions with a shorter history (France, Russia, Spain, etc.), which have lo
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