Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) antagonists’ therapy are expensive and has a non-responsive rate between 30% to 40% in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Genetic variation plays a vital role in the responsiveness to this type of therapy.The aim of this study is to investigate if the presence of genetic polymorphism in the TNF-α gene promoter region at locations -376 G/A (rs1800750), -806 C/T (rs4248158), and -1031 T/C (rs1799964) affects rheumatoid arthritis patient's tendency to be a non-responder to etanercept.

Eighty RA patients on etanercept (ETN) for at least six months were recruited from the Rheumatology Unit at Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Based on The European League Against Rheumatism response (EULAR) criteria, patient

Analyzing plantar pressure trajectories is crucial for assessing foot behavior in dynamic gait stability. We propose the identification of foot symmetry and the detection of deformities by analyzing the trajectories of the center of pressure (CoP) and peak pressure (PP). First, using a foot pressure mapping system, plantar pressure data are acquired during a normal gait cycle. After the data have been acquired, post processing extracts both the CoP and PP trajectories over the spatiotemporal domain of foot motion for each foot independently. For this purpose, we used the optical flow technique which accurately estimates the direction of foot motion. The extracted trajectories of each foot are then segmented into, the medial and lateral regi

The success of endodontic therapy is relied on radicular system cleaning, shaping, elimination of micro-organisms, and three dimensional filling of the radicular complex.This study was conducted to develop and assess new root canal sealer incorporating nano-sized bioactive glass into Gutta Flow II. The following concentration was used depend on a pilot study included adding (3%) of 45S5 bioactive glass into the Gutta Flow II. These materials were tested through assessment bioactivity. bioactivity test was undertaken after immersion of the tested samples into PBS for three days, seven days, fourteen days, and twenty eight days using FTIR too. study was found that it’s peaks was appear at level 800-1000 cm-1. The results showed that GFII gr

New, simple and sensitive batch and Flow-injecton spectrophotometric methods for the determination of Thymol in pure form and in mouth wash preparations have been proposed in this study. These methods were based on a diazotization and coupling reaction between Thymol and diazotized procaine HCl in alkaline medium to form an intense orange-red water-soluble dye that is stable and has a maximum absorption at 474 nm. A graphs of absorbance versus concentration show that Beer’s law is obeyed over the concentration range of 0.4-4.8 and 4-80 µg.ml-1 of Thymol, with detection limits of 0.072 and 1.807 µg.ml-1 of Thymol for batch and FIA methods respectively. The FIA procedure sample throughput was 80 h-1. All different chemical and physical e

A pseudo-slug flow is a type of intermittent flow characterized by short, frothy, chaotic slugs that have a structure velocity lower than the mixture velocity and are not fully formed. It is essential to accurately estimate the transition from conventional slug (SL) flow to pseudo-slug (PSL) flow, and from SL to churn (CH), by precisely predicting the pressure losses. Recent research has showed that PSL and CH flows comprise a significant portion of the conventional flow pattern maps. This is particularly true in wellbores and pipelines with highly deviated large-diameter gas-condensate wellbores and pipelines. Several theoretical and experimental works studied the behavior of PSL and CH flows; however, few models have been suggested to pre

The corrosion of carbon steel in single phase (water with 0.1N NaCl ) and two immiscible phases (kerosene-water) using turbulently agitated system is investigated. The experiments are carried out for Reynolds number (Re) range of 38000 to 95000 corresponding  to rotational velocities from 600 to 1400 rpm using circular disk turbine agitator at 40 0C. In two-phase system test runs are carried out in aqueous phase (water) concentrations of 1 % vol., 5 % vol., 8% vol., and 16% vol. mixed with kerosene at various Re. The effect of Reynolds number (Re), percent of dispersed phase, dispersed drops diameter, and number of drops per unit volume on the corrosion rate is investigated and discussed. Test runs are carried out using two types of

In this paper, third order non-polynomial spline function is used to solve 2nd kind Volterra integral equations. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the applications of this method, and to compare the computed results with other known methods.

In this paper, some estimators of the unknown shape parameter and reliability function  of Basic Gompertz distribution (BGD) have been obtained, such as MLE, UMVUE, and MINMSE, in addition to estimating Bayesian estimators under Scale invariant squared error loss function assuming informative prior represented by Gamma distribution and non-informative prior by using Jefferys prior. Using Monte Carlo simulation method, these estimators of the shape parameter and R(t), have been compared based on mean squared errors and integrated mean squared, respectively

In this study, the use of non-thermal plasma theory to remove toxic gases emitted from a vehicle was experimentally investigated. A non-thermal plasma reactor was constructed in the form of a cylindrical tube made of Pyrex glass. Two stainless steel rods were placed inside the tube to generate electric discharge and plasma condition, by connecting with a high voltage power supply (up to 40 kV). The reactor was used to remove the contaminants of a 1.25-liter 4-cylinder engine at ambient conditions. Several tests have been carried out for a ranging speed from 750 to 4,500 rpm of the engine and varying voltages from 0 to 32 kV. The gases entering the reactor were examined by a gas analyzer and the gases concentration ratio