Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory, immune mediated disease of the central nervous system, mostly affecting young adults with mean age of 30 years, twice as high in women compared to men. The etiology of MS is not fully elucidated. MS symptoms are directly related to demyelination and axonal loss, along with other psychological symptoms, can result in functional limitations, disability and reduced quality of life (QoL). The QoL assessments in patients with a chronic disease may contribute to improving treatment and could even be of prognostic value. The goals of this study were to compare the QoL of Iraqi patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS),using three different diseases modifying therapies(DMTs) administered orally, subcutaneously, and by slow infusion; namely, fingolimod,interferonB-1b, and natalizumab, respectively. And to assess the role of disability status, educational status, occupational status, MS duration, and treatment duration as a predictor for the QoL. Functional Assessment of Multiple Sclerosis (FAMS) questionnaire version 4 was used to assess QoL. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were tested by univariate and multivariate regression analyses to assess the contribution of these predictors to QoL. No significant differences were found in symptoms, thinking/fatigue subscales and FAMS total scores among the three DMTs. In conclusion: Iraqi MS patients using InterferonB-1b, fingolimod or natalizumab have a comparable low level of QoL. The expanded disability status scale (EDSS) is negatively associated with QoL of MS patients in all of the three therapies, while other predictors such as occupational status, educational status, smoking habit and MS duration have different impact in different treatments.
General Directorate of Surveying is considered one of the most important sources of maps in Iraq. It produced digital maps for whole Iraq in the last six years. These maps are produced from different data sources with unknown accuracy; therefore, the quality of these maps needs to be assessed. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the positional accuracy of digital maps that produced from General Directorate of Surveying. Two different study areas were selected: AL-Rusafa and AL-Karkh in Baghdad / Iraq with an area of 172.826 and 135.106 square kilometers, respectively. Different statistical analyses were conducted to calculate the elements of positional accuracy assessment (mean µ, root mean square error RMSE, mini
... Show MoreImage quality plays a vital role in improving and assessing image compression performance. Image compression represents big image data to a new image with a smaller size suitable for storage and transmission. This paper aims to evaluate the implementation of the hybrid techniques-based tensor product mixed transform. Compression and quality metrics such as compression-ratio (CR), rate-distortion (RD), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), and Structural Content (SC) are utilized for evaluating the hybrid techniques. Then, a comparison between techniques is achieved according to these metrics to estimate the best technique. The main contribution is to improve the hybrid techniques. The proposed hybrid techniques are consisting of discrete wavel
... Show MoreABSTRACT Background: Color changes that are detectable to human eye can affect the esthetic appearance of ceramic veneers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the effect of artificial accelerated aging on the color of ceramic veneers cemented with different resin cements. Materials and Methods: Sixty discs were prepared with 0.5 mm thickness, 30 discs made from IPS e.max press (Ivoclar Vivadent) and 30 discs were made from VITA Enamic (VITA Zahnfabrik). The discs were cemented with three resin cements: Variolink Veneer MV 0 shade (Ivoclar Vivadent), Rely X veneer Translucent shade (3M ESPE) and NX3 Nexus Clear shade (Kerr Corporation) with 0.1 mm thickness. The spectrophotometer Easyshade Advance was used to measure the co
... Show MoreBackground: This study was performed to determine the effect of aging of different types of composite material restorations on: Shear bond strength (SBS) to light cure and no mix chemical cure orthodontic adhesives with sapphire bracket and the debonding failure sites. Materials and methods: One hundred forty four composite disks were made from three different composite resin materials which are: 3M Filtek Z250, 3M filtek Z350 and 3M Valux plus, each group with (48) disks each, then according to the duration of storage each group was subdivided into two equal groups one of them stored for one day and the other was stored for one month, then each group was further subdivided into two equal subgroups with (12) disks each one bonded with ligh
... Show MoreLand snails constitute an important group of mollusks distributed worldwide. This study reports on land snails found in Iraq. A survey of terrestrial gastropods was performed during their activity seasons in gardens, agricultural lands and nurseries in Iraq from March 2022 to September 2023. Fifteen terrestrial snails belonging to seven families were documented. The species Euchondrus michonii (Bourguignat, 1853) was identified and recorded based on several distinct conchological characters for the first time in Iraq. The recently collected specimens, along with those previously recorded in Iraq, were included in this checklist. Essential information on each species is also presented. As there is no previous checklist or study that
... Show MoreThe research has been based on two main variables (information and communication technology) and the quality of blended education (physical and electronic), aiming to reveal the relationship between four dimensions (physical devices, software, databases, communication networks) and the elements of education represented by (the teacher, the student, the teaching process, curriculum). The methodology and post-analysis-based research were conducted at the Technical College of Management / Baghdad through polling the opinions of a random sample that included (80) teachers out of (86) and the number of students (276) representing a random sample from all departments of the college (for the morning study) out of (3500) stud
... Show MoreThe present study is concerned with the role of income tax in implementing economic goals in Iraq and treating the problems and pitfalls in the Iraq economy.
The study also aims at investigating the role of income tax in attracting promising favorite effects into economy.
The study was performed on data covering the period (2003 - 2012) with respect to the variables of (income tax, oil profits) as independent variables and (private consuming expenditure, private investmental expenditure, and standard figure of prices) as dependent variables. To analyze these data, a number of statistical descriptive and analytical techniques were used such as (percentage, standard variance, mediums, F test, T test and SPSS). It has been c
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