Background: The excess mortality associated with
rheumatoid arthritis is largely due to
cardiovascular disease. Rheumatoid arthritis is of
primary importance in atherogenesis. The intimamedia thickness of extracranial carotid arteries is a
measurable index of the presence of
atherosclerosis.
Objective: To assess carotid intima-media
thickness in rheumatoid arthritis by Doppler
ultrasound.
Methods: Fifty two Iraqi patients with rheumatoid
arthritis were studied and compared with another
fifty two, healthy individuals matched for age and
sex as a control group. Full history was taken and
complete clinical examination was done for all
individuals in both groups. Rheumatoid arthritis
diagnosis was based on The American
Rheumatism Association 1987 revised criteria for
the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. Carotid
intima-media thickness was measured by Doppler
ultrasound.
Results: There was a significant increase in the
frequency of increased carotid intima-media
thickness among individuals with rheumatoid
arthritis (44.2%) compared to healthy control
group (3.8%) (P=0.000001).
Conclusion: Increased carotid intima-media
thickness occurs in high frequency in rheumatoid
arthritis
The present work was done in an attempt to build systematic procedures for treating warts by 810 nm diode laser regarding dose parameters, application parameters and laser safety. The study was done in Al- Kindy Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq during the period from 1st October 2003 till 1st April 2004. Fifteen patients completed the treatment and they were followed for the period of 3 months. Recalcitrant and extensive warts were selected for the study. Patients were randomly divided into 3 groups to be treated by different laser powers 9, 12 and 15 W, power density of 286 W/cm2, 381W/cm2, 477 W/cm2 pulse duration of 0.2 s, interval of 0.2 s and repeated pulses were used. The mode of application was either circular or radial. Pain oc
... Show MoreIn this work, a novel biocatalytic process for the production of 7-methylxanthines from theobromine, an economic feedstock has been developed. Bench scale production of 7-methlxanthine has been demonstrated. The biocatalytic process used in this work operates at 30 OC and atmospheric pressure, and is environmentally friendly. The biocatalyst was E. coli BL21(DE3) engineered with ndmB/D genes combinations. These modifications enabled specific N7- demethylation of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine. This production process consists of uniform fermentation conditions with a specific metabolically engineered strain, uniform induction of specific enzymes for 7-methylxanthine production, uniform recovery an
... Show MoreIndustrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper can be produced by many industries. The reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technologies are very efficient for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper ions to reduce water consumption and preserving the environment. Synthetic industrial wastewater samples containing Ni(II), Pb(II), and Cu(II) ions at various concentrations (50 to 200 ppm), pressures (1 to 4 bar), temperatures (10 to 40 oC), pH (2 to 5.5), and flow rates (10 to 40 L/hr), were prepared and subjected to treatment by RO system in the laboratory. The results showed that high removal efficiency of the heavy metals could be achieved by RO process (98.5%, 97.5% and 96% for Ni(II),
... Show MoreFace Identification system is an active research area in these years. However, the accuracy and its dependency in real life systems are still questionable. Earlier research in face identification systems demonstrated that LBP based face recognition systems are preferred than others and give adequate accuracy. It is robust against illumination changes and considered as a high-speed algorithm. Performance metrics for such systems are calculated from time delay and accuracy. This paper introduces an improved face recognition system that is build using C++ programming language with the help of OpenCV library. Accuracy can be increased if a filter or combinations of filters are applied to the images. The accuracy increases from 95.5% (without ap
... Show MoreWater Quality Index (WQI) as a tool to assess the water quality status provides advice related to the use of water quality monitoring data and it is a way for combining the complex water quality data into a single value or single statement.The present study was conducted on Al- Hilla river in the middle of Iraq from August 2012 to July 2013 at five selected stations in the river, from Al- Musaib city to Al- Hashimya at the south of Hilla to determine its suitability for aquatic environment (GWQI), drinking water (PWSI) and irrigation (IWQI).This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended use as well as indicating pollution, water quality management, and decision making. According to th
... Show MoreIn this paper, the experiments were carried out in laboratory flotation cell treating solid fines. The effect of variables such as collector oil dosage, pine oil dosage and solid content of the feed slurry have been investigated on the flotation characteristics of low rank coal. Attempts have also been made to develop some empirical Eq. to predict the yield and ash content of concentrate with the operating variables, solids concentration, collector oil dosage, and pine oil dosage, to estimate the recovery at any operating conditions. The calculated results obtained from regression equation by correlating the variables with the yield and ash content of concentrate have been compared to study whether calculated values match closely with th
... Show MoreThe present investigation is concerned for the purification of impure zinc oxide (80-85 wt %) by using petroleum coke
(carbon content is 76 wt %) as reducing agent for the impure zinc oxide to provide pure zinc vapor, which will be
oxidized later by air to the pure zinc oxide.
The operating conditions of the reaction were studied in detail which are, reaction time within the range (10 to 30 min),
reaction temperature (900 to 1100 oC), air flow rate (0.2 to 1 l/min) and weight percentage of the reducing agent
(petroleum coke) in the feed (14 to 30 wt %).
The best operating conditions were (30 min) for the reaction time, (1100 oC) for the reaction temperature, (1 l/min) for
the air flow rate, and (30 wt %) of reducing
A variety of oxides were examined as additives to a V2O5/Al2O3 catalyst in order to enhance the catalytic performance for the vapor phase oxidation of toluene to benzoic acid. It was found that the modification with MoO3 greatly promoted the little reaction leading to improve catalyst performance in terms of toluene conversion and benzoic acid selectivity. The effect of catalyst surface area, catalyst promoters, reaction temperature, O2/toluene, steam/toluene, space velocity, and catalyst composition to catalyst performance were examined in order to increase the benzoic acid selectivity and yield.