It was aimed to understand the interleukin-4 (IL-4) role in etio-pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Two approaches were adopted. In the first one, a quantitative expression of IL4 gene was assessed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and such findings were correlated with some demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters, which included gender, duration of disease, disease activity score (DAS-28), rheumatoid factors (RFs), C-reactive protein (CRP) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (ACCP) antibodies. In the second approach, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of IL4 gene (rs2243250) was inspected by DNA sequencing using specific primers. Fifty-one Iraqi RA patients (22 males and 29 females) were enrolled in the study. They were under therapy, which was a single weekly subcutaneous dose of 25 mg of etanercept (Enbrel) for a period of 3-5 years. The results of gene expression (2-??Ct) revealed an increased expression of IL4 mRNA (Mean ± SEM: 8.247 ± 2.442), especially female patients compared to male patients (11.545 ± 3.928 vs. 3.537 ± 1.530; p = 0.03). The expression was also subjected to variations that were related to clinical and laboratory findings. With respect to IL4 gene SNP, allele and genotype frequencies showed no significant differences between RA patients and controls. In addition, the SNP genotypes had no effect on IL4 gene expression. In conclusion, an up-regulation of IL4 gene expression was observed in RA patients, and it was more pronounced in female than male patients by approximately four folds, while no association between the IL4 SNP alleles or genotypes and RA was observed.
One of the challenging issues encountered during drilling operations is the lost circulation. Numerous issues might arise because of losses, such as wasting of time and higher drilling cost. Several types of lost circulation materials have been developed and are being used to limit mud losses and avoid associated issues. Each solution has benefits and drawbacks.
In this study, a core flooding test was performed to study the effectiveness of polyacrylamide (PAM) granular gel on the reduction of the circulation lost. One common type of fracture characteristic is fractures with tips, commonly known as partially open fracture (POF). However, PAM gel therapy in POFs received little attention in prior research. Models of partly open fra
... Show MoreThe Al-Kindy College Medical Journal (KCMJ) is an Iraqi scholarly journal published by the Al-Kindy College of Medicine, University of Baghdad. It was officially founded in 2004. It is a peer-reviewed journal, published in both online and printed forms. It has a mission to offer a publication platform that mirrors recent knowledge and findings in the field of medicine and medical sciences. It publishes various types of articles, including editorial, review article, research article, brief report, case report, and letter to editor. It accepts articles in the English language. It was biannually published till 2021 when it started to launch three issues per year. The journal is registered with numerous partners, including Iraqi Academi
... Show MoreExistence of these soils, sometimes with high gypsum content, caused difficult problems to the buildings and strategic projects due to dissolution and leaching of gypsum by the action of waterflow through soil mass. In this research, a new technique is adopted to investigate the performance of replacement and geosynthetic reinforcement materials to improve the gypseous soil behavior through experimential set up manufactured loaclally specially for this work. A series of tests were carried out using steel container (600*600*500) mm. A square footing (100*100) mm was placed at the center of the top surface of the bed soil. The results showed that the most effective thickness for the dune sand layer with geotextile at the interface, within
... Show MoreThe optimization calculations are made to find the optimum properties of combined quadrupole lens consist of electrostatic and magnetic lenses to produce achromatic lens. The modified bell-shaped model is used and the calculation is made by solving the equation of motion and finding the transfer matrices in convergence and divergence planes, these matrices are used to find the properties of lens as the magnification and aberrations coefficients. To find the optimum values of chromatic and spherical aberrations coefficients, the effect of both the excitation parameter of the lens (n) and the effective length of the lens into account as effective parameters in the optimization processing
In this study, we used Bayesian method to estimate scale parameter for the normal distribution. By considering three different prior distributions such as the square root inverted gamma (SRIG) distribution and the non-informative prior distribution and the natural conjugate family of priors. The Bayesian estimation based on squared error loss function, and compared it with the classical estimation methods to estimate the scale parameter for the normal distribution, such as the maximum likelihood estimation and th
... Show MoreIn this paper the nuclear structure of some of Si-isotopes namely, 28,32,36,40Si have been studied by calculating the static ground state properties of these isotopes such as charge, proton, neutron and mass densities together with their associated rms radii, neutron skin thicknesses, binding energies, and charge form factors. In performing these investigations, the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock method has been used with different parameterizations; SkM*, S1, S3, SkM, and SkX. The effects of these different parameterizations on the above mentioned properties of the selected isotopes have also been studied so as to specify which of these parameterizations achieves the best agreement between calculated and experimental data. It can be ded
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