A case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a signifcantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p]=0.009; corrected p [pc]=0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR]=0.49; 95% confdence interval [CI]=0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.08–0.81; p=0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.07–0.91; p=0.036), but the pc value was not signifcant (0.12 and 0.126, respec‑ tively). Serum IL35 levels showed signifcant difere

Water quality sensors have recently received a lot of attention due to their impact on human health. Due to their distinct features, environmental sensors are based on carbon quantum dots (CQDs). In this study, CQDs were prepared using the electro-chemical method, where the structural and optical properties were studied. These quantum dots were used in the environmental sensor application after mixing them with three different materials: CQDs, Alq3 polymer and CQDs and Alq3 solutions using two different methods: drop casting and spin coating, and depositing them on silicon. The sensitivity of the water pollutants was studied for each case of the prepared samples after measuring the change in resistance of the samples at a temperature of

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides unconditional security in theory. However, practical QKD systems face challenges in maximizing the secure key rate and extending transmission distances. In this paper, we introduce a comparative study of the BB84 protocol using coincidence detection with two different quantum channels: a free space and underwater quantum channels. A simulated seawater was used as an example for underwater quantum channel. Different single photon detection modules were used on Bob’s side to capture the coincidence counts. Results showed that increasing the mean photon number generally leads to a higher rate of coincidence detection and therefore higher possibility of increasing the secure key rate. The secure key rat

The development of information systems in recent years has contributed to various methods of gathering information to evaluate IS performance. The most common approach used to collect information is called the survey system. This method, however, suffers one major drawback. The decision makers consume considerable time to transform data from survey sheets to analytical programs. As such, this paper proposes a method called ‘survey algorithm based on R programming language’ or SABR, for data transformation from the survey sheets inside R environments by treating the arrangement of data as a relational format. R and Relational data format provide excellent opportunity to manage and analyse the accumulated data. Moreover, a survey syste

The evolution of the Internet of things (IoT) led to connect billions of heterogeneous physical devices together to improve the quality of human life by collecting data from their environment. However, there is a need to store huge data in big storage and high computational capabilities.   Cloud computing can be used to store big data.  The data of IoT devices is transferred using two types of protocols: Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This paper aims to make a high performance and more reliable system through efficient use of resources. Thus, load balancing in cloud computing is used to dynamically distribute the workload across nodes to avoid overloading any individual r

This paper presents an enhancement technique for tracking and regulating the blood glucose level for diabetic patients using an intelligent auto-tuning Proportional-Integral-Derivative PID controller. The proposed controller aims to generate the best insulin control action responsible for regulating the blood glucose level precisely, accurately, and quickly. The tuning control algorithm used the Dolphin Echolocation Optimization (DEO) algorithm for obtaining the near-optimal PID controller parameters with a proposed time domain specification performance index. The MATLAB simulation results for three different patients showed that the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed control algorithm in terms of fast gene