Background: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are said to be inherited in a multifactorial fashion, i.e. genetic-environmental interaction. Maternal nutritional deficiencies had long been reported to cause NTDs, especially folate deficiency during early pregnancy. More attention had been paid to the exact mechanism by which this deficiency state causes these defects in the developing embryo. The most significant of all researches was that connecting reduced folate and increased homocysteine level in maternal serum on one hand and the risk of developing a NTD baby on the other hand. Objectives : to determine the significance of homocysteine level in Iraqi mothers who gave birth to babies with NTDs as compared to normal controls. Patients, Materials and Methods: Fifty Iraqi women having babies born with NTDS, referred to the genetic clinic in Baghdad Teaching Hospital, were included in this study (the study group) as well as 37 healthy women having normal children (the control group). This study was conducted from November, 2002 till October, 2003. Analysis of total serum homocysteine level for all women was done using a computerized HPLC system. Results : the age of women in both groups was comparable (mean+SD in the study group was 26.2+5.14 years vs. 26.3+4.57 years in the controls). Among the study group, 4 (8%) had normal tHcy level; 44 (88%) had mildly elevated level, and only 2 (4%) had moderately elevated tHcy level, while all (100%) women in the control group had their tHcy level within normal level. This difference was statistically highly significant (p<0.001). Conclusions : Women become at an increased risk of delivering a baby with NTD when having an elevated tHcy level in their sera, and that tHcy level is an important marker in maternal serum that is associated significantly with pregnancy outcome.
Background: Psoriasis is a common inflammatory condition worldwide, with an average prevalence ranging from 2% to 3%. However, the incidence of psoriasis varies among different ethnic groups and regions. Elevated leptin levels have been associated with increased cellular proliferation, including T-cells. Additionally, high leptin levels may stimulate the synthesis of proinflammatory cytokines such as ILـ6 and TNFـα. Objectives: To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on Leptin in obese psoriatic patients. Subjects and Methods: Thirty patients with psoriasis were included in This prospective cohort study to measure the levels of serum Leptin by using the ELISA technique, before and after receiving Apremilast. Result: The present work
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Friction stir welding (FSW) of Tee-joints is obtained by inserting a specially designed rotating pin into the clamped blanks, through top plate (skin) to bottom plate (stringer), and then moving it along the joint, limiting the contact between the tool shoulder and the skin. The present work aims to investigate the defects occur for Tee-joint of an Aluminum alloy (Al 5456) with dimensions (180mm x 70mm) for the skin plate, (180mm x 30mm) for stringer plate and thickness of (4mm).
The effects of welding parameters such as rotational speed, linear speed, plunging depth, tool tilting, and die radii of welding fixture on the welding quality of Aluminum Alloy will be studied. Weld defects had been summarized and studied, and then the best
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Vocational stresses and their relation with the level of ambition among the lecturers of the university In general , vocational stresses affect the attention and the process of focusing making individual busy with solving of his daily problems instead of his job. The vocational stresses , anxiety and tension are factors effecting the physical and psychological ability of the individual. This study aims to measure the vocational stresses among the lecturers of the university , to measure the level of ambition among them, to identify the statistical differences significant among them according to sex variable, to identify the differences significant in level of ambition among them according to sex variable and to identify the correlation r
... Show MoreThe Growth Differentiation Factor -15 (GDF-15) is a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. İt represents an example of the stress response cytokines. It's mostly found in cardiac myocytes, adipocytes, macrophages, endothelial cells, and vascular endothelial cells, whether they're generated normally or not. GDF-15 levels have increased and are associated with cardiovascular risk. Aim of the study: To investigate the correlation between angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) with the level of plasma GDF-15 in a group of hypertensive patients. Materials and methods: A case-control study involved 90 individuals, 60 hypertensive patients (36 on ACE inhibitors and 24 on ARBs)
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In Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) the non-linear data projection provided by a one hidden layer Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), trained to recognize phonemes, and has previous experiments to provide feature enhancement substantially increased ASR performance, especially in noise. Previous attempts to apply an analogous approach to speaker identification have not succeeded in improving performance, except by combining MLP processed features with other features. We present test results for the TIMIT database which show that the advantage of MLP preprocessing for open set speaker identification increases with the number of speakers used to train the MLP and that improved identification is obtained as this number increases beyond sixty.
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Background: Diabetic mellitus type ? is a metabolic disorder of diverse etiological factors, characterized by hyperglycemia resulting from an absolute deficiency of insulin affected childhood and adolescent. Some of these patients seek an orthodontic care .The orthodontist who is treating these medically compromised patients should have a working knowledge of the multitude of medically complex problems. This information will support and enable for delivery of high standards of dental care in general and orthodontic care in particular. The aim of this study was to analyze serum IgG levels and salivary secretory IgA (sIgA) levels in human dentine extract (HDE) before (T0) and 6 months after (T6) orthodontic treatment and to correlate anti-HDE
... Show MoreWireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) are networks of wirelessly interconnected sensor nodes equipped with multimedia devices, such as cameras and microphones. Thus a WMSN will have the capability to transmit multimedia data, such as video and audio streams, still images, and scalar data from the environment. Most applications of WMSNs require the delivery of multimedia information with a certain level of Quality of Service (QoS). This is a challenging task because multimedia applications typically produce huge volumes of data requiring high transmission rates and extensive processing; the high data transmission rate of WMSNs usually leads to congestion, which in turn reduces the Quality of Service (QoS) of multimedia applications. To
... Show MoreWireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) are networks of wirelessly interconnected sensor nodes equipped with multimedia devices, such as cameras and microphones. Thus a WMSN will have the capability to transmit multimedia data, such as video and audio streams, still images, and scalar data from the environment. Most applications of WMSNs require the delivery of multimedia information with a certain level of Quality of Service (QoS). This is a challenging task because multimedia applications typically produce huge volumes of data requiring high transmission rates and extensive processing; the high data transmission rate of WMSNs usually leads to congestion, which in turn reduces the Quality of Service (QoS) of multimedia appli
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forty-six patients with asthma were tested for the scrum levels of total sialic and diffrental the results reveled a significant increased in the scra of asthmatic patients
The current research aims to reveal the level of satisfaction of the mentors with the evaluation of their performance according to gender (male - female) and to formulate the predictive equation for the level of performance (dependent variable) from knowing the level of satisfaction with the evaluation (independent variable). (16 paragraphs) contains alternatives to the answer that measures the level of satisfaction (weak, medium, and high) (1,2,3), that is, with a hypothetical average of (32). It consisted of 100 educational counselors consisting of 45 males and 55 females, the results of the research concluded that the level of satisfaction with performance is below the mean when compared with the hypothetical average of the scale of s
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