Background Fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) and trinucleotide repeat-containing 9 (TNRC9) gene polymorphisms have been associated with some cancers. We aimed to assess the association of FGFR2 rs2981582 and TNRC9 rs12443621 polymorphisms with hepatocellular cancer risk. Methods One hundred patients with HCV-induced HCC, 100 patients with chronic HCV infection, and 100 controls were genotyped for FGFR2 rs2981582 and TNRC9 rs12443621 using allele-specific Real-Time PCR analysis. Results FGFR2 rs2981582 genotype TT was associated with increased risk of HCC when compared to controls (OR = 3.09, 95% CI = 1.24–7.68). However, it was significantly associated with a lower risk of HCC when using HCV patients as controls (OR = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.09–0.5), and T-allele of FGFR2 appears to be a protective allele against HCC in HCV patients (OR = 0.42, 95% CI = 0.21−0.85). While AG and GG genotypes of TNRC9 rs12443621 were linked with significantly increased risk of HCC (OR = 3.91, 95% CI = 2.02–7.6 and OR = 9.26, 95% CI = 3.21–26.7 respectively) and HCV patients carrying G allele were at increased risk of HCC by 2.7-fold. A significant high frequency of small tumor size and early-stage of HCC were observed in patients carrying FGFR2 rs2981582 genotype CT and TT (P = 0.029 and <0.001 respectively), while, TNRC9 rs12443621 genotype AG and GG were associated large tumor size and late-stage of HCC (P < 0.001 and 0.015 respectively). Conclusions SNPs in rs2981582 for FGFR2 and rs12443621 for TNRC9 gene were associated with HCC susceptibility, suggesting their implication in hepatocarcinogenesis in chronically HCV-infected patients.
This study investigates the effectiveness of mental games in enhancing shooting accuracy among young basketball players. Initially, baseline shooting accuracy was assessed through tests conducted prior to a three-week intervention involving mental games. A follow-up test revealed a significant improvement in participants' shooting accuracy following the intervention. Given the noticeable differences in the new shooting scores compared to the initial assessments, a second set of pre-intervention tests was conducted. These tests reaffirmed the significant enhancement in shooting accuracy, substantiating the hypothesis that mental games positively affect performance. The findings highlight the importance of these intervention programs
... Show MoreEco-friendly concrete is produced using the waste of many industries. It reduces the fears concerning energy utilization, raw materials, and mass-produced cost of common concrete. Several stress-strain models documented in the literature can be utilized to estimate the ultimate strength of concrete components reinforced with fibers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of data on how non-metallic fibers, such as polypropylene (PP), affect the properties of concrete, especially eco-friendly concrete. This study presents a novel approach to modeling the stress-strain behavior of eco-friendly polypropylene fiber-reinforced concrete (PFRC) using meta-heuristic particle swarm optimization (PSO) employing 26 PFRC various mixtures. The cement was partia
... Show MoreThis study was undertaken to diagnose routine settling problems within a third-party oil and gas companies’ Mono-Ethylene Glycol (MEG) regeneration system. Two primary issues were identified including; a) low particle size (<40 μm) resulting in poor settlement within high viscosity MEG solution and b) exposure to hydrocarbon condensate causing modification of particle surface properties through oil-wetting of the particle surface. Analysis of oil-wetted quartz and iron carbonate (FeCO₃) settlement behavior found a greater tendency to remain suspended in the solution and be removed in the rich MEG effluent stream or to strongly float and accumulate at the liquid-vapor interface in comparison to naturally water-wetted particles. As su
... Show MoreDuring COVID-19, wearing a mask was globally mandated in various workplaces, departments, and offices. New deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) based classifications were proposed to increase the validation accuracy of face mask detection. This work introduces a face mask model that is able to recognize whether a person is wearing mask or not. The proposed model has two stages to detect and recognize the face mask; at the first stage, the Haar cascade detector is used to detect the face, while at the second stage, the proposed CNN model is used as a classification model that is built from scratch. The experiment was applied on masked faces (MAFA) dataset with images of 160x160 pixels size and RGB color. The model achieve
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