Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the possible the association between +3061 (G>A, rs1143676) missense mutation in exon 24 of the integrin α-4 subunit (ITGA-4) gene and the response to natalizumab in a sample of Iraqi multiple sclerosis patients. Methods: A sample of 59 patients with multiple sclerosis (16 males and 43 females; mean age of 32 years; age range of 15 to 52 years) receiving natalizumab for at least 12 consecutive months were involved in the study between March and August/ 2022. The sample was categorized into two groups according to their response to natalizumab treatment (responders and non-responders). Polymerase chain reaction and Sanger’s sequencing for the extracted deoxyribonucleic acid was performed to identify the polymorphism at ITGA-4 gene promoter region. Results: The 3061 AA and AG genotypes were present in both groups (responders and non-responders to natalizumab treatment) with the lack of the wild form GG genotype. The AG genotype was significantly present in the non-responders’ group and appeared to have a significant impact on the responsiveness to natalizumab by increasing the propensity of being non-responder with a positive correlation (Phi-coefficient of 0.294) on the contrary of AA genotype. Conclusion: The +3061 (G.A) missense mutation is related to the response to natalizumab in multiple sclerosis patients with the AG genotype, thereby increasing the likelihood of non-response significantly.
The neutrophil/ lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have the potential to be inflammatory markers that reflect the activity of many inflammatory diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the NLR and PLR as potential markers of disease activity in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.
The study involved 132 patients with ankylosing spondylitis and 81 healthy controls matched in terms of age and gender. Their sociodemographic data, disease activity scores using the Bath Ankylosing
Using sodium4-((4,5-diphenyl-imidazol-2-yl)diazenyl)-3-hydroxynaphthalene-1-sulfonate (SDPIHN) as a chromogenic reagent in presence of non-ionic surfactant (Triton x-100) to estimate the chromium(III) ion if the wavelength of this reagent 463 nm to form a dark greenish-brown complex in wavelength 586 nm at pH=10,the complex was stable for longer than 24 hours. Beer's low, molar absorptivity 0.244×104L.mol-1.cm-1, and Sandal's sensitivity 0.021 µg/cm2 are all observed in the concentration range 1-11 µg/mL. The limits of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ), respectively, were 0.117 µg/mL and 0.385µg/mL. (mole ratio technique, job's method) were employed to
... Show MoreThe current study was conducted for studying the impact of cold plasma on the expression level of three genes that participate in the biosynthesis of the phenylpropanoid pathway in Ocimum basilicum. These studied genes were cinnamate 4-hydroxylase (c4h), 4-coumarate CoA ligase (4cl), and eugenol O-methyl transferase (eomt). Also, the cold plasma impact was studied on the essential oil components and their relation with the gene expression level. The results demonstrated that cold plasma seeds germination of the treated groups 2 (initially for 3 minutes and 3 minutes after 7 days) ,and group 3(initially for 5 minutes and 3 minutes after 7 days) were faster than the control group. Also, the height average of the mature plants of
... Show MoreTwo locally isolated microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris Bejerinck and Nitzschia palea (Kützing) W. Smith) were used in the current study to test their ability to production biodiesel through stimulated in different nitrogen concentration treatments (0, 2, 4, 8 gl ), and effect of nitrogen concentration on the quantity of primary product (carbohydrate, protein ), also the quantity and quality of lipid. The results revealed that starvation of nitrogen led to high lipid yielding, in C. vulgaris and N. palea the lipid content increased from 6.6% to 40% and 40% to 60% of dry weight (DW) respectively.Also in C. vulgaris, the highest carbohydrate was 23% of DW from zero nitrate medium and the highest protein was 50% of DW in the treatment 8gl. Whil
... Show MoreThis paper proposes two hybrid feature subset selection approaches based on the combination (union or intersection) of both supervised and unsupervised filter approaches before using a wrapper, aiming to obtain low-dimensional features with high accuracy and interpretability and low time consumption. Experiments with the proposed hybrid approaches have been conducted on seven high-dimensional feature datasets. The classifiers adopted are support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and K-nearest neighbour (KNN). Experimental results have demonstrated the advantages and usefulness of the proposed methods in feature subset selection in high-dimensional space in terms of the number of selected features and time spe
... Show MoreIn this paper, game theory was used and applied to the transport sector in Iraq, as this sector includes two axes, the public transport axis and the second axis the private transport axis, as each of these axes includes several types of transport, namely (sea transport, air transport, land transport, transport by rail, port transport) and the travel and tourism sector, as public transport lacks this sector, as the competitive advantage matrix for the transport sector was formed and after applying the MinMax-MaxMin principle to the matrix in all its stages, it was found that there was an equilibrium point except for the last stage where the equilibrium point was not available Therefore, the use of the linear programming method was
... Show MoreThis paper deals with a central issue in the field of human communication and reveals the roaming monitoring of the incitement and hatred speech and violence in media, its language and its methods. In this paper, the researcher seeks to provide a scientific framework for the nature of the discourse of incitement, hatred speech, violence, and the role that media can play in solving conflicts with their different dimensions and in building community peace and preventing the emergence of conflicts among different parties and in different environments. In this paper, the following themes are discussed:
The root of the discourse of hatred and incitement
The nature and dimensions of the discourse of incitement and hatred speech
The n