Two groups of chronic hepatitis B and C virus patients were divided into Pre-treated patients (25 CHB patients with positive HBs Ag for more than 6 months and 40 CHC patients), and post-treated patients [12 CHB patients (4, 6, and 2 were treated with lamivudine, IFN-? and combination of LMV + IFN-? respectively), and 27 patients for CHC (3, 13 and 11 patients were treated with Ribavirin, IFN-? and combination therapy (RBV+ IFN-?) respectively].These patients were followed up for 6 months. By using ELISA technique, levels of IL-6, IL-10, IFN-? and TNF-? were measured in vivo and in vitro (supernatant of PBMCs stimulated with PHA) and compared with healthy control. The mean level of IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-? in CHB patients showed significant differences (P<0.05) between pre- and post-treated patients in vivo and in vitro, while there was no significant difference in IFN- ? between pre- and post-treated patients in vivo and in vitro. The difference between control and CHB patients was highly significant (P<0.0001) in IL-6 , IL-10 and TNF- ? levels in vivo and in vitro. In CHC patients the mean levels of IL-6, IL-10, IFN- ? and TNF- ? showed significant difference between pre- and post-treated patients in vivo and in vitro. There was highly significant difference (P<0.0001) between patients and control in IL-10 levels. Hence, these observations indicate the predominance of Th2 cytokine, which promote the persistency of the CHB and CHC virus.
Suicidal ideation is one of the most severe mental health issues faced by people all over the world. There are various risk factors involved that can lead to suicide. The most common & critical risk factors among them are depression, anxiety, social isolation and hopelessness. Early detection of these risk factors can help in preventing or reducing the number of suicides. Online social networking platforms like Twitter, Redditt and Facebook are becoming a new way for the people to express themselves freely without worrying about social stigma. This paper presents a methodology and experimentation using social media as a tool to analyse the suicidal ideation in a better way, thus helping in preventing the chances of being the victim o
... Show MoreZerumbone (ZER), a natural compound has been extracted from Zingiber zerumbet with known pharmacological activities. The aim was to determine the anti-human Burkitt’s lymphoma (Raji) cell effect of ZER. The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5,-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine cytotoxic effect while the Annexin-V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/propidium iodide-PI flow cytometric assays was used to determine apoptotic effect of ZER on the human Burkitt’s lymphoma (Raji) cell (ATCC CCL-86) cell line. The expressions of Bax, Bcl-2, and c-Myc genes were determined via real-time PCR. ZER suppressed the proliferation of Raji cells with a 48 h IC50 value of 5.1 μg/mL. Treated Raji cells also underwen
... Show MoreThis study uses an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to examine the constitutive relationships of the Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) residual tensile strength at elevated temperatures. The objective is to develop an effective model and establish fire performance criteria for concrete structures in fire scenarios. Multilayer networks that employ reactive error distribution approaches can determine the residual tensile strength of GFRP using six input parameters, in contrast to previous mathematical models that utilized one or two inputs while disregarding the others. Multilayered networks employing reactive error distribution technology assign weights to each variable influencing the residual tensile strength of GFRP. Temperatur
... Show MoreModifying of HY/Zeolite is by loading nickel for applying catalyst in thermal catalytic cracking of furfural extract-40 from the lubricating base oil unit. The study involved the characterizing of HY-zeolite and promoted catalyst with nickel by X-ray diffraction analysis, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET (Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller), and infrared ray analyses FTIR. The catalytic thermal cracking tubular reactor with a fixed bed with two type catalysts; HY/zeolite and Ni HY/zeolite, individually at a temperature of 580oC with LHSV 5h-1 was investigated. The results indicated that increase the conversion of catalytic cracking of furfural extract-40 also increases the yield of useful petroleum
... Show MoreA load-shedding controller suitable for small to medium size loads is designed and implemented based on preprogrammed priorities and power consumption for individual loads. The main controller decides if a particular load can be switched ON or not according to the amount of available power generation, load consumption and loads priorities. When themaximum allowed power consumption is reached and the user want to deliver power to additional load, the controller will decide if this particular load should be denied receiving power if its priority is low. Otherwise, it can be granted to receive power if its priority is high and in this case lower priority loads are automatically switched OFF in order not to overload the power generation. The
... Show MoreThis research is devoted to investigate the behavior and performance of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with externally bonded Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) laminates under the effect of torsion. In this study a theoretical analysis has been conducted using finite element code ANSYS. Six previously tested beams are used to investigate reinforced concrete beams behavior
under torsion, two of them are solid and the rest are box-section beams. Also, two beams are without CFRP reinforcement, which are used as control beams for the strengthened one, and the other four beams are strengthened with CFRP laminates with different number of layers and spacing. Numerical investigation is conducted on these beams, and comparisons b
The performance of a batch undivided electrochemical reactor with a rotating cylinder electrode of woven-wire (60 mesh size), stainless steel 316, is examined for the removal of copper from synthetic solution of o.5 M sodium chloride containing 125 ppm at pH ≈ 3.5. The effect of total applied current, rotation speed on the figures of merit of the reactor is analyzed. For an applied current of 300 mA at 100 rpm, the copper concentration decreased from 125 to mg l-1 after 60 min of electrolysis with a specific energy consumption of 1.75 kWh kg-1 and a normalized space velocity of 1.62 h-1. The change in concentration was higher when the total applied currents were increased because of the turbulence
... Show MoreThe presence of construction wastes such as clay bricks, glass, wood, plastic, and others in large quantities causes serious environmental problems in the world. Where these wastes can be used to preserve the natural resources used in construction and reduce the impact of this problem on the environment, it also works to reduce the problem of high loads of concrete blocks. Clay bricks aggregate (AB) can be recycled as coarse aggregate and replaced with volumetric proportions of coarse aggregate by ( 5% and 10%), as well as the use of clay brick powder (PB) by replacing its weight of cement (5% and 10%) and reduced in the manufacture of concrete blocks (blocks). Four mixtures will be prepared and tested to learn how to re
... Show More