All major organs may be impacted by the connective disease systemic lupus erythematosus, a separate risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). Adhesion molecules like intercellular adhesion molecules (ICAM) and vascular cell adhesion molecules (VCAM) can detect endothelial damage and dysfunction, which appear to play a crucial role. This study investigated whether people with SLE had elevated subclinical and clinical atherosclerosis risk factors. Traditional CAD risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia cannot entirely explain this elevation. It is thought that immunological dysfunction also increases CAD risk in SLE patients. The study aimed to assess early endothelial changes in SLE Iraqi female patients without previous coronary artery lesions by exploring a potential relationship between circulating VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 as risk factors for atherosclerosis and the relationship of CAD with SLE disease and its severity; further, the study explained the effect of the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on the lipid profile levels of the patients. 92 female SLE patients were divided into mild, moderate, and severe, according to the SLE disease activity index 2000 (SLEDAI-2k), compared with 30 apparently healthy control individuals. All of them need a history of CAD. Serum VCAM-1, ICAM-1 level, VCAM-1/ICAM1 ratio, TC, HDL, LDL levels TC/HDL and LDL/HDL ratios were measured. sVCAM-1, sICAM-1 levels and VCAM-1/ICAM-1 ratio were significantly and gradually increased in patient groups compared with control. Serum TC, HDL and LDL levels were significantly reduced in the SLE patients compared to the control. At the same time, the TC/HDL and LDL/HDL ratios were significantly elevated with the severity of the SLE disease. sVCAM-1, sICAM-1 level and VCAM1/ICAM-1 ratio together with serum TC/HDL and LDL/HDL may improve coronary artery disease risk categorization in SLE patients without acute coronary syndromes. Furthermore, they were more sensitive in severe SLE instances than in moderate and mild ones, suggesting that they may be related to the extent of coronary lesions in SLE patients. VCAM-1 had a higher sensitivity than ICAM-1 in detecting and severity screening for CAD in SLE patients. Keywords: VCAM-1, ICAM-1, SLE, Atherosclerosis
Hemogloin (Hb) and serum ferritin levels are used to assess anemia in pregnancy. Some studies referred to the influence of maternal age, body mass index (BMI) and parity on Hb and serum ferritin levels. The study aimed to examine the possible association of maternal Hb and serum ferritin with maternal age, parity, and BMI in a sample of pregnant women in Baghdad.
Ninety healthy pregnant women, grouped in three equal groups according to the pregnancy trimester, and thirty apparently healthy non-pregnant women from Baghdad were enrolled in this observational study. Blood and serum samples were obtained for the estimation of Hb and serum ferritin levels.
The pooled data of participants showed a n
... Show MoreAbstract
Agricultural investment is one of the main requirements in most economies of the world for its importance in the development of the agricultural sector through the agricultural and technological infrastructure and agricultural research, as well as its impact on most economic, social and service activities, especially if managed and employed scientifically, which generates income and productive capacities and services and new commodities, Unemployed as agricultural investments in Iraq fell significantly after 2003 due to economic, political, social
This study included isolation and characterization of extremely halophilic bacteria from Al-Massab Al-Aam region in South of Iraq Fifty isolates were identified by using numerical taxonomy 40 strains belonged to the genus Halobacterium which inclucted Hb. halobium Hb. cutirubrum Hb. salinarium Hb. saccharovorum Hb. valismortis and Hb. volcanii. Ten strains belonged to the genus Halococcus which included Hc. morrhuae Hc. saccharolyticus. Growth curves were sensitive mutants determined for wild type and salt Generation time in logarthmic phase was measured and found to be (10.37 2hr 7 0.59) for Hb. salinarium / 18 (6.490 hr 0.24) for Hb. cutirubrum / 32, (6.700 hr + 0.488) for Hb. valismortis / 20, (11.243 hr + 0.96) for Hb. volcanii / 7. (7
... Show MoreBackground: Cerebral palsy is non-progressive disorder of posture or movement due to a lesion of the developing brain. It is the commonest physical disability in childhood. Objective: To study the clinical, neurological abnormalities, prevalence of convulsion (epilepsy) & to asses the value of CT scans of brain in patients with cerebral palsy.
Background Non specific colitis is defined as inflammatory condition of the colon that when examined microscopically lacks any characteristic features of any specific form of colitis and is commonly seen in reports of colonoscopy biopsies. There are many factors that cause it like obesity and H pylori.
Aim of the study To determine the association of obesity and H pylori as contributory factors to this disease.
Patients and methods This is a case-controlled study was carried out in Al-Kindy College of Medicine from January 2017 to June 2018. Sixty individuals were included; forty of them had non specific colitis. The rest were hea
Obesity is a common disease that resulted from over-nutrition in adults and children. It rarely causes damage to the centers of food in the brain. Obesity is defined as an increased body weight from its natural limit which is resulted from the accumulation of excessive amounts of fatty tissue incredibly up to 20% in males, 30 % in females unless this increase is not due to an increase in muscles as in athletes or accumulation of water in the body which is resulted from Mesothelioma or the magnitude of the skeleton.Obesity is the increase of the total average of fat in the body compared to other tissues, which causes an increasing body weight, thereby increasing body mass. The fatty child has an increase in the stored fatty layer under th
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to detect the level of psychological stress among unemployed individuals and the level of their wellbeing by finding the correlation between these two variables.
The research sample consisted of (99) people who are currently unemployed and registered at the Ministry of Labor Affairs.
Schafer (1996) scale for psychological stress was used and alongside Ziout's (2012) scale for wellbeing.
The results of the research showed an inverse relation between being unemployed and having wellbeing.
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... Show MoreThe rehabilitation of deteriorated pavements using Asphalt Concrete (AC) overlays consistently confronts the reflection cracking challenge, where inherent cracks and joints from an existing pavement layer are mirrored in the new overlay. To address this issue, the current study evaluates the effectiveness of Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) and geotextile fabric as mitigation strategies. ECC, characterized by its tensile ductility, fracture resistance, and high deformation capacity, was examined in interlayer thicknesses of 7, 12, and 17 mm. Additionally, the impact of geotextile fabric positioning at the base and at 1/3 depth of the AC specimen was explored. Utilizing the Overlay Testing Machine (OTM) for evaluations, the research d
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the level of psychological pollution in Iraqi society and the significant differences in psychological pollution in the Iraqi society according to variables. A sample of (600) individuals randomly selected from all governorates of Iraq, with (285) males and (315) females was used in the current study. The researcher adopted the scale of (Muhammad, 2004) psychological pollution consisting of (118) items, which limited (46) items after modification distributed into four areas: denial and abuse of the civilized identity, attachment to foreign formal aspects, effeminacy, and anarchism. The results of the research showed that there is no statistical significance among the individuals of the research sample. They
... Show MoreBP algorithm is the most widely used supervised training algorithms for multi-layered feedforward neural net works. However, BP takes long time to converge and quite sensitive to the initial weights of a network. In this paper, a modified cuckoo search algorithm is used to get the optimal set of initial weights that will be used by BP algorithm. And changing the value of BP learning rate to improve the error convergence. The performance of the proposed hybrid algorithm is compared with the stan dard BP using simple data sets. The simulation result show that the proposed algorithm has improved the BP training in terms of quick convergence of the solution depending on the slope of the error graph.