Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive airflow limitation that is preventable but not curable. It is associated with persistent symptoms that cause a considerable burden on individual productivity at work, and daily activities, and reduced quality of life, also burdening the healthcare system and society. Objectives: The study aims to measure the burden of COPD on patients in terms of daily activities and work productivity. It also seeks to investigate some inflammatory biomarkers' levels and their correlation with selected outcomes. Patients and Methods: A cross-sectional study on 120 stable COPD patients who were diagnosed and treated according to the GOLD guidelines at Kirkuk General Hospital's chest and Internal Medicine consultation clinics, and in private internist clinics in Kirkuk City, Iraq between January and April 2023. The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire (WPAI-COPD) measured the Burden of COPD. The symptom burden was assessed by the COPD assessment test (CAT). The level of IL-6 monoclonal antibodies was measured via a Roche Cobas 6000 analyzer and TNF-α using the ELISA sandwich technique. All these devices and machines were authorized by the Ministry of Health, Iraq. Results: The mean age was (54.1 ± 8.12) years, 62.5% being males and 37.5% being females; 41.7% were public sector employees, and 39.2% were self-employed. Due to COPD, the overall work loss was (45.9±18.91) days, the mean percentage of absenteeism was (10.9% ± 12.31%), activity impairment was (47.5% ±17.79%) among all patients, presenteeism was (40.8 ± 15.05%,) and COPD-related retirees were 14.2% of the study group. The mean CAT score (19.3±5.63) was high and the most troubling symptom among patients was chest tightness. WPAI-COPD scores were higher in older age and longer disease duration. The levels of biomarkers were above the reference ranges, the mean IL-6 level was (69.4 ± 35.29) pg/ml, and the mean TNF-α was (72.3 ± 22.45) pg/ ml. Conclusions: COPD patients exhibit a disease burden in terms of productivity loss at work and activity impairment that increases with aging and disease duration. COPD patients with low BMI are more prone to a decline in lung functions and to worse symptoms.
Urban land price is the primary indicator of land development in urban areas. Land prices in holly cities have rapidly increased due to tourism and religious activities. Public agencies are usually facing challenges in managing land prices in religious areas. Therefore, they require developed models or tools to understand land prices within religious cities. Predicting land prices can efficiently retain future management and develop urban lands within religious cities. This study proposed a new methodology to predict urban land prices within holy cities. The methodology is based on two models, Linear Regression (LR) and Support Vector Regression (SVR), and nine variables (land price, land area,
... Show MoreThe research examines the mechanism of application of )ISO 21001: 2018( in the Energy Branch- Electromechanical Engineering at the University of Technology to achieve the quality of the educational service to prepare the branch to obtain the certificate of conformity with the requirements of) ISO 21001: 2018(, the necessary data were collected Depending on the (CHEKLIST) of (ISO 21001: 2018), field interviews and records of the concerned department, The researchers reached a number of results, the most prominent of which was the adoption of high quality leadership leaders and their willingness to implement the standard requirements, The university has a basic structure that qualifies it to implement the international standard, as
... Show MoreThis study shows that it is possible to fabricate and characterize green bimetallic nanoparticles using eco-friendly reduction and a capping agent, which is then used for removing the orange G dye (OG) from an aqueous solution. Characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDAX), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were applied on the resultant bimetallic nanoparticles to ensure the size, and surface area of particles nanoparticles. The results found that the removal efficiency of OG depends on the G‑Fe/Cu‑NPs concentration (0.5-2.0 g.L-1), initial pH (2‑9), OG concentration (10-50 mg.L-1), and temperature (30-50 °C). The batch experiments showed
... Show MoreThis work investigates the impacts of eccentric-inclined load on ring footing performance resting on treated and untreated weak sandy soil, and due to the reduction in the footing carrying capacity due to the combinations of eccentrically-inclined load, the geogrid was used as reinforcement material. Ring radius ratio and reinforcement depth ratio parameters were investigated. Test outcomes showed that the carrying capacity of the footing decreases with the increment in the eccentric-inclined load and footing radius ratio. Furthermore, footing tilt and horizontal displacement increase with increasing the eccentricity and inclination angle, respectively. At the same time, the increment in the horizontal displacement due t
... Show MoreActivated carbon derived from Ficus Binjamina agro-waste synthesized by pyro carbonic acid microwave method and treated with silicon oxide (SiO2) was used to enhance the adsorption capability of the malachite green (MG) dye. Three factors of concentration of dye, time of mixing, and the amount of activated carbon with four levels were used to investigate their effect on the MG removal efficiency. The results show that 0.4 g/L dosage, 80 mg/L dye concentration, and 40 min adsorption duration were found as an optimum conditions for 99.13% removal efficiency. The results also reveal that Freundlich isotherm and the pseudo-second-order kinetic models were the best models to describe the equilibrium adsorption data.
Novel derivatives of 1-(´1, ´3, ´4, ´6-tetra benzoyl-β-D-fructofuranosyl)-1H- benzotriazole and 1-(´1, ´3, ´4, ´6-tetra benzoyl-β-D-fructofuranosyl)-1H- benzotriazole carrying Schiff bases moiety were synthesised and fully characterised. The protection of D- fructose using benzoyl chloride was synthesized, followed by nucleophilic addition/elimination between benzotria- zole and chloroacetyl chloride to give 1-(1- chloroacetyl)- 1H-benzotriazole. The next step was condensation reaction of protected fructose and 1-(1-chloroacetyl)-1H- benzotriazole producing a new nucleoside analogue. The novel nucleoside analogues underwent a second conden- sation reaction with different aromatic and aliphatic amines to provide new Schiff b
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreThe aim of this article is to solve the Volterra-Fredholm integro-differential equations of fractional order numerically by using the shifted Jacobi polynomial collocation method. The Jacobi polynomial and collocation method properties are presented. This technique is used to convert the problem into the solution of linear algebraic equations. The fractional derivatives are considered in the Caputo sense. Numerical examples are given to show the accuracy and reliability of the proposed technique.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow (spongy tissue in the center of bone). In ALL, too many bone marrow stem cells develop into a type of white blood cell called lymphocytes. These abnormal lymphocytes are not able to fight infection very well. The aim of this study was to investigate possible links between E3 SUMO-Protein Ligase NSE2 [NSMCE2] and increase DNA damage in the childhood patients with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Laboratory investigations including hemoglobin(Hb) ,white blood cell (WBC) , serum total protein , albumin ,globulin , in addition to serum total antioxidant activity (TAA) , Advanced oxidation protein products(AOPP) and E3 SUMO-Protein Ligase NSE2[NSMCE2]. Blood samples
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