BACKGROUND: Many genetic factors are known to be related to osteoporosis, and currently the role of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) gene in bone health has been studied intensively. Some variation of this gene, such as rs1042044 and rs6458093, are known to be linked to metabolic diseases and lower bone mineral density, however their specific contribution to osteoporosis remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the combined genotypic effect of rs1042044 and rs6458093 as a genetic risk factor for osteoporosis in postmenopausal Iraqi women.METHODS: Blood samples from 75 osteoporosis patients and 75 healthy controls, aged 45-85, were collected. DNA was extracted, and a region of GLP-1R gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequenced using the Sanger method to identify polymorphisms. Serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels were also measured with chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA) methods.RESULTS: Significant differences were observed for age, menopausal age, and PTH levels (p<0.001), but not for Body Mass Index (BMI). While individual SNPs (rs1042044 and rs6458093) showed no significant association with osteoporosis, a specific genotype combination of rs1042044 A and rs6458093 G was found to be a highly significant risk factor for the disease (OR=21.85, p=0.026). Linkage Disequilibrium analysis showed a D' value=0.85 and R²=0.45 between the two SNPs.CONCLUSION: Co-occurrence of the 'A' allele at rs1042044 and the 'G' allele at rs6458093 creates a highly susceptible genetic risk factor for osteoporosis, highlighting a potential novel biomarker for disease risk and providing a benchmark for future studies.KEYWORDS: osteoporosis, postmenopausal, GLP1R, PTH, SNPS
Recently, a new secure steganography algorithm has been proposed, namely, the secure Block Permutation Image Steganography (BPIS) algorithm. The new algorithm consists of five main steps, these are: convert the secret message to a binary sequence, divide the binary sequence into blocks, permute each block using a key-based randomly generated permutation, concatenate the permuted blocks forming a permuted binary sequence, and then utilize a plane-based Least-Significant-Bit (LSB) approach to embed the permuted binary sequence into BMP image file format. The performance of algorithm was given a preliminary evaluation through estimating the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of the stego image for limited number of experiments comprised hiding
... Show MoreThe main objective of this study is to introduce a systematic design procedure for short-span segmental beams following a sophisticated ACI 440.2R-17 design procedure. The general aspects of innovative short-span segmental beams are easy to fabricate, economical and rapidly placed in pre-specified positions. Short-span segmental beams fabricated from individual precast plain-concrete blocks and CFRP plates. Recently, experimental tests performed on short-span segmental beams, by the authors, investigated CFRP plate-bonding, CFRP plate cross-sectional area, the thickness of plate-bonding epoxy resin, surface-to-surface condition of concrete blocks, as well as, interface condition of the bonding surface. The experimental program comprises tes
... Show MoreThis paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study on the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns with longitudinal steel embedded tubes positioned at the center of the column cross-section. A total of 12 pin-ended square sectional columns of 150 × 150 mm having a total height of 1400 mm were investigated. The considered variables were the steel tube diameters of 29, 58, and 76 mm and the load eccentricity (0, 50, and 150) mm. Accordingly, these columns were divided into three groups (four columns in each group) depending on the load eccentricity (e) to column depth (h) ratio (e/h = 0, 1/3, and 1). For each group, one column was solid (reference), and the other three columns contained steel tubes with hollow rat
... Show MoreAn assembled pulsed Nd:YAG laser-robot system for spot welding similar and dissimilar metals is presented in this paper. The study evaluates the performance of this system through investigating the possibility and accuracy of executing laser spot welding of 0.2 mm in thickness stainless steel grade AISI302 to 0.5 mm in thickness low carbon steel grade AISI1008. The influence of laser beam parameters (peak power, pulse energy, pulse duration, repetition rate, and focal plane position on the final gained best results are evaluated. Enhancement of the experimental results was carried by a computational simulation using ANSYS FLUENT 6.3 package code.
With the development of computer architecture and its technologies in recent years, applications like e-commerce, e-government, e-governance and e-finance are widely used, and they act as active research areas. In addition, in order to increase the quality and quantity of the ordinary everyday transactions, it is desired to migrate from the paper-based environment to a digital-based computerized environment. Such migration increases efficiency, saves time, eliminates paperwork, increases safety and reduces the cost in an organization. Digital signatures are playing an essential role in many electronic and automatic based systems and facilitate this migration. The digital signatures are used to provide many services and s
... Show MoreThrough his female characters, Walt Disney was able to reflect the
development of the general outlook upon women in the Western world over a period
of sixty years.
This paper sheds light in how the cartoon characters changed in their reaction
to problems and means of solving them from the 30s through to the 90s of the
previous century. The main characters will be seen according to the films’ dates of
production and release.
Background: During the pandemic, Corona virus forced many people, especially students, to spend more time than before on the computer and smartphone to study and communicate. The poor posture of the body may have worse effect on its body parts , most of which is the cervical spine (forward head posture). Objective: To assess the incidence of neck pain and the associated factors among undergraduate medical students related to position during E learning Subjects and Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students in three Iraqi universities during 2021. The sample size was 152. Online questionnaire by Google forms sampling method were used to collect the data which was analysed using SPSS 25. Results: The perce
... Show MoreThis paper presents theoretical parametric study of the curvature ductility capacity for reinforced concrete column sections. The study considers the behavior of concrete and reinforcing steel under different strain rates. A computer program has been written to compute the curvature ductility taking into account the spalling in concrete cover. Strain rate sensitive constitutive models of steel and concrete were used for predicting the moment-curvature relationship of reinforced concrete columns at different rate of straining. The study parameters are the yield strength of main reinforcement, yield strength of transverse reinforcement, compressive strength of concrete, spacing of ties and the axial load. The results indicated that hi
... Show MoreIn this research, the effect of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the alumina/chromia (Al2O3/Cr2O3) nanocomposites has been investigated. Al2O3/Cr2O3-MWCNTs nanocomposites with variable contents of Cr2O3 and MWCNTs were fabricated using coprecipitation process and followed by spark plasma sintering. XRD analysis revealed a good crystallinity of sintered nanocomposites samples and there was only one phase presence of Al2O3-Cr2O3 solid solution. Density, Vickers microhardness, fracture toughness and fracture strength have been measured in the sintered samples. The results show tha
... Show MoreThe removal of Anit-Inflammatory drugs, namely; Acetaminophen (ACTP), from wastewater by bulk liquid membrane (BLM) process using Aliquat 336 (QCl) as a carrier was investigated. The effects of several parameters on the extraction efficiency were studied in this research, such as the initial feed phase concentration (10-50) ppm of ACTP, stripping phase (NaCl) concentration (0.3,0.5,0.7 M), temperature (30-50oC), the volume ratio of feed phase to membrane phase (200-400ml/80ml), agitation speed of the feed phase (75-125 rpm), membrane stirring speed (0, 100, 150 rpm), carrier concentration (1, 5, 9 wt%), the pH of feed (2, 4, 6, 8, 10), and solvent type (CCl4 and n-Heptane). The study shows that high ext
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