Cytokines are signaling molecules between inflammatory cells that play a significant role in the pathogenesis of a disease. Among these cytokines are interleukins (ILs) 17A and 33, and accordingly, the current case-control study sought to investigate the role of each of the two cytokines in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Sixty-eight relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) Iraqi patients and twenty healthy individuals (control group) were enrolled. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits were used to determine serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33. Results revealed that IL-17A and IL-33 levels were significantly higher in MS patients than in controls (14.1 ± 4.5 vs. 7.5 ± 3.8 pg/mL; p < 0.001 and 65.3 ± 16.3 vs. 49.3 ± 20.0 pg/mL; p < 0.001, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that IL-17A was a very good predictor of MS (area under curve [AUC] = 0.869; 95% CI = 0.779 - 0.960; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 10.2 pg/mL; sensitivity = 80.8%; specificity = 75.0%). A similar prediction was presented by IL-33, but the AUC value was lower (AUC = 0.762; 95% CI = 0.63 - 0.89; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 56.4 pg/mL; sensitivity = 70.6%; specificity = 70.0%). Multinomial logistic regression analysis confirmed the significance of IL-17A and IL-33 in MS risk, and under three models of analysis, the estimated odds ratios for IL-17A (1.50, 1.49 and 1.50, respectively) and IL-33 (1.05, 1.05 and 1.06) were above 1.0. Patients stratified by gender (male and female), expanded disability status scale (EDSS: < 3 and ≥ 3) or medication (pre- and post-medication) showed no significant differences in serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33 for each stratum. However, with regard to response to medication, it was found that responding patients showed significantly higher levels of IL-33 than non-responders (70.9 ± 12.2 vs. 57.2 ± 18.2 pg/mL; p = 0.018). This difference was not observed when considering IL-17A. Pearson correlation analysis between IL-17A and IL-33 revealed that both cytokines were not significantly correlated. In conclusion, the study indicated that IL-17A and IL-33 were up-regulated in serum of MS patients, and this up-regulation was not influenced by age, gender, EDSS or medication status, but the elevated level of IL-33 was more pronounced in patients who responded to medication.
Abstract:
The objective of this study, is to attempt to explain the reality of the Structural Imbalances in the Iraqi Economy during the period of research, by providing a quantitative analysis of the most important types of Imbalances, Which are represented by the disruption in the Productive Structure, the imbalance of the structure of Public Budget, and the imbalance of the Structure of Trade. The problem of the research, is the fact that the economy structure in Iraq has long suffered from an Imbalances in its economic structure, which are represented in the unequal relations between its constituent elements, according to the proportions levels defined by the economic theory.
... Show MoreThis study aims to identify the teaching problems that teachers of students with intellectual disabilities face, in addition to exploring the solutions suggested by them in order to overcome such problems or challenges. The researchers used a qualitative approach in order to understand the teachers' perceptions about these problems in a more in-depth way. The interview tools (in-depth and semi-structured interviews) were used to collect data from (3) female teachers from special education programs in the Asir region. The results revealed a number of themes including problems related to students, teachers and the teaching methods they use, curricula, school environment, and school administration. Moreover, the results indicated that famil
... Show MoreFootball has progressed from being a ritual and a celebration to become an amateur sport, a professional sport, and now, increasingly, a commercial sport. In the analysis of football business model, the systemic approach should be adopted. If sport is regarded as one of the business sectors, then the application of business system methodology can be fully justified. The interest to create strong football business system calls for the search of the ways of popularizing football business model and boosting the economic potential of its participants. In the research literature tend to ignore the business processes within the sports business. Besides, the systemic approach in football business is usually limited to p
... Show MoreIn this paper, the concept of normalized duality mapping has introduced in real convex modular spaces. Then, some of its properties have shown which allow dealing with results related to the concept of uniformly smooth convex real modular spaces. For multivalued mappings defined on these spaces, the convergence of a two-step type iterative sequence to a fixed point is proved
Abstract
The methods of the Principal Components and Partial Least Squares can be regard very important methods in the regression analysis, whe
... Show MoreClassifying an overlapping object is one of the main challenges faced by researchers who work in object detection and recognition. Most of the available algorithms that have been developed are only able to classify or recognize objects which are either individually separated from each other or a single object in a scene(s), but not overlapping kitchen utensil objects. In this project, Faster R-CNN and YOLOv5 algorithms were proposed to detect and classify an overlapping object in a kitchen area. The YOLOv5 and Faster R-CNN were applied to overlapping objects where the filter or kernel that are expected to be able to separate the overlapping object in the dedicated layer of applying models. A kitchen utensil benchmark image database and
... Show MoreIt is not long time since globalization has started along with knowledge economy and, communication media and technical information control on the world. As a result serious events appeared like failure in businesses, financial corruption and shortage of administration and control.
In spite of the great efforts held by international organizations and foundations to find organizational frames that adopt independence, que
... Show MoreThis article briefly analyzing contemporary works appeared in theater writer from Latin America, which comes within the theme of "power." Latin American Literature, such as two-way extremely clear: the vanguard of social and attention, have arrived at certain moments to some extent be regarded as a two-way rival. That desire to participate in the revolution of expression and artistic significance, has appeared evident in the literature of Latin America in the late nineteenth century and ended in the third decade of the twentieth century. The writers that stage would prefer not to serve the objectives of the revolution of Arts own but the objectives of social and political revolution that stimulate the world. These acts were issued
... Show MoreThe present research focuses on the study of the effect of mass transfer resistance on the rate of heat transfer in pool boiling. The nucleate pool boiling heat transfer coefficients for binary mixtures (ethanol-n-butanol, acetone-n-butanol, acetone-ethanol, hexane-benzene, hexane-heptane, and methanol-water) were measured at different concentrations of the more volatile components. The systems chosen covered a wide range of mixture behaviors.
The experimental set up for the present investigation includes electric heating element submerged in the test liquid mounted vertically. Thermocouple and a digital indictor measured the temperature of the heater surface. The actual heat transfer rate being obtained by multiplying the voltme
... Show More