Determination of IL-6 and CRP in Patients with Type Two - Diabetes Mellitus in Baghdad/ Iraq

يعد داء السكري ((DM Diabetes mellitus المعروف عالميا كمشكلة صحية الذي يؤدي الى الاعتلال و الموت . تتضمن الاضطرابات المناعية للمرض الاستجابة المناعية الخلوية للخلايا اللمفية T- cells التي تساهم في المسار الفسيولوجيPath physiological l لمرض السكري من النوع الثاني (Two- DM)  Diabetes   mellitus . شملت الدراسة (50) فرد تتراوح اعمارهم بين (15-85) سنة الذين حضروا الى مستشفى الكاظمية التعليمي في بغداد وقسمت الافراد الى مجموعتين الاولى تضمنت  (35) مريض  (20 انثى و 15 رجل) والمجموعة الثانية (15) فرد من الاصحاء  كسيطرة . تم فحص انترلوكين 6 - IL و البروتين الفعال C- ((CRP  لكل من مرضى السكري والاصحاء. فقد اشارت الدراسة بعدم وجود اختلاف معنوي(p≥0.05)  بين كل من CRP (-ve-) و CRP (+ve) في الدم السكري وكذلك بوجود اختلاف معنوي (p≥0.05)   في مستويات  الانترلوكين IL 6 - في المرضى السكري والأصحاء. لقد هدفت الدراسة تقييم ومقارنة انترلوكين 6-  ILو البروتين الفعال C- (CRP) في مرضى السكري في المرضى العراقيين في مدينة بغداد.Diabetes mellitus (DM) type Two is a major worldwide health problem leading to an increase mortality and serious morbidity. Immunological disturbances involving the cell mediated immune system and improper-lymphocyte function contributes to the path physiological of type Two- DM. The study consist of 50 subjects, ages ranging between (15-85) years who attended to Al-kazimaih medical hospital in Baghdad/Iraq which divided in to two groups; the first group consists 35 patient  (20 females and 15 male) and the second 15 (5 female and 10 males) normal healthy as a control. The patients with type Two -DM were detected for IL-6 and CRP markers so as for control by ELISA test and agglutination test respectively. The results revealed that’s no significant differences (p≥0.05) between the level of CRP in patients type Two- DM and level of CRP in control. So as there were significant differences (p≤0.05) between the levels of IL-6 concentrations in type Two- DM and control represented by increase of IL- 6 in control than in patients. This study aimed to assess and compare the level of serum IL-6 and CRP in patient of type Two- DM in Iraqi patients in Baghdad city

Semi-Automated Needle Steering in Biological Tissue Using an Ultrasound-Based Deflection Predictor

The performance of needle-based interventions depends on the accuracy of needle tip positioning. Here, a novel needle steering strategy is proposed that enhances accuracy of needle steering. In our approach the surgeon is in charge of needle insertion to ensure the safety of operation, while the needle tip bevel location is robotically controlled to minimize the targeting error. The system has two main components: (1) a real-time predictor for estimating future needle deflection as it is steered inside soft tissue, and (2) an online motion planner that calculates control decisions and steers the needle toward the target by iterative optimization of the needle deflection predictions. The predictor uses the ultrasound-based curvature information to estimate the needle deflection. Given the specification of anatomical obstacles and a target from preoperative images, the motion planner uses the deflection predictions to estimate control actions, i.e., the depth(s) at which the needle should be rotated to reach the target. Ex-vivo needle insertions are performed with and without obstacle to validate our approach. The results demonstrate the needle steering strategy guides the needle to the targets with a maximum error of 1.22 mm

Stress as a risk factor for noncompliance with treatment regimens in patients with diabetes and hypertension

BACKGROUND: We have assessed the role of stress on compliance of patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HTN) with taking prescribed medications and following dietary and exercise regimens. METHODS: A total of 9544 individuals more than 19 years of age were selected from three counties in central Iran. The presence of DM and HTN were asked from participants. We defined treatment adherence (compliance) based on agreement of individual�s self-report behavior with recommendations from a physician. RESULTS: Awareness about DM and HTN was 82.6 and 49.9, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that odds ratio (OR) of high to low stress level was lower than one for both �usage of medication� and �following exercise regimen� in diabetics even after adjustment for either �age and sex� or �age, sex and education�. In hypertensive patients, OR of high to low stress level was lower than one for �usage of medication� even after adjustment for either �age and sex� or �age, sex and education� and also lower than one for �following exercise regimen� only as crude index. CONCLUSION: Cases with higher stress level had lower compliance for accepting either medication or exercise as a treatment option for their DM or HTN. © 2016, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences(IUMS). All rights reserved

Application of deep learning technique to manage COVID-19 in routine clinical practice using CT images: Results of 10 convolutional neural networks

Fast diagnostic methods can control and prevent the spread of pandemic diseases like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and assist physicians to better manage patients in high workload conditions. Although a laboratory test is the current routine diagnostic tool, it is time-consuming, imposing a high cost and requiring a well-equipped laboratory for analysis. Computed tomography (CT) has thus far become a fast method to diagnose patients with COVID-19. However, the performance of radiologists in diagnosis of COVID-19 was moderate. Accordingly, additional investigations are needed to improve the performance in diagnosing COVID-19. In this study is suggested a rapid and valid method for COVID-19 diagnosis using an artificial intelligence technique based. 1020 CT slices from 108 patients with laboratory proven COVID-19 (the COVID-19 group) and 86 patients with other atypical and viral pneumonia diseases (the non-COVID-19 group) were included. Ten well-known convolutional neural networks were used to distinguish infection of COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 groups: AlexNet, VGG-16, VGG-19, SqueezeNet, GoogleNet, MobileNet-V2, ResNet-18, ResNet-50, ResNet-101, and Xception. Among all networks, the best performance was achieved by ResNet-101 and Xception. ResNet-101 could distinguish COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 cases with an AUC of 0.994 (sensitivity, 100; specificity, 99.02; accuracy, 99.51). Xception achieved an AUC of 0.994 (sensitivity, 98.04; specificity, 100; accuracy, 99.02). However, the performance of the radiologist was moderate with an AUC of 0.873 (sensitivity, 89.21; specificity, 83.33; accuracy, 86.27). ResNet-101 can be considered as a high sensitivity model to characterize and diagnose COVID-19 infections, and can be used as an adjuvant tool in radiology departments. © 2020 Elsevier Lt

Genetic Variation of the Serotonin 2a Receptor Affects Hippocampal Novelty Processing in Humans

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is an important neuromodulator in learning and memory processes. A functional genetic polymorphism of the 5-HT 2a receptor (5-HTR2a His452Tyr), which leads to blunted intracellular signaling, has previously been associated with explicit memory performance in several independent cohorts, but the underlying neural mechanisms are thus far unclear. The human hippocampus plays a critical role in memory, particularly in the detection and encoding of novel information. Here we investigated the relationship of 5-HTR2a His452Tyr and hippocampal novelty processing in 41 young, healthy subjects using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants performed a novelty/familiarity task with complex scene stimuli, which was followed by a delayed recognition memory test 24 hours later. Compared to His homozygotes, Tyr carriers exhibited a diminished hippocampal response to novel stimuli and a higher tendency to judge novel stimuli as familiar during delayed recognition. Across the cohort, the false alarm rate during delayed recognition correlated negatively with the hippocampal novelty response. Our results suggest that previously reported effects of 5-HTR2a on explicit memory performance may, at least in part, be mediated by alterations of hippocampal novelty processing

Separating content-specific retrieval from post-retrieval processing

According to cortical reinstatement accounts, neural processes engaged at the time of encoding are re-engaged at the time of memory retrieval. The temporal precision of event-related potentials (ERPs) has been exploited to assess this possibility, and in this study ERPs were acquired while people made memory judgments to visually presented words encoded in two different ways. There were reliable differences between the scalp distributions of the signatures of successful retrieval of different contents from 300 to 1100 ms after stimulus presentation. Moreover, the scalp distributions of these content-sensitive effects changed during this period. These findings are, to our knowledge, the first demonstration in one study that ERPs reflect content-specific processing in two separable ways: first, via reinstatement, and second, via downstream processes that operate on recovered information in the service of memory judgments

The Derived Allele of ASPM Is Associated with Lexical Tone Perception

The ASPM and MCPH1 genes have been implicated in the adaptive evolution of the human brain [Mekel-Bobrov N. et al., 2005. Ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM, a brain size determinant in homo sapiens. Science 309; Evans P.D. et al., 2005. Microcephalin, a gene regulating brain size, continues to evolve adaptively in humans. Science 309]. Curiously, experimental attempts have failed to connect the implicated SNPs in these genes with higher-level brain functions. These results stand in contrast with a population-level study linking the population frequency of their alleles with the tendency to use lexical tones in a language [Dediu D., Ladd D.R., 2007. Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and microcephalin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104]. In the present study, we found a significant correlation between the load of the derived alleles of ASPM and tone perception in a group of European Americans who did not speak a tone language. Moreover, preliminary results showed a significant correlation between ASPM load and hemodynamic responses to lexical tones in the auditory cortex, and such correlation remained after phonemic awareness, auditory working memory, and non-verbal IQ were controlled. As in previous studies, no significant correlation between ASPM and cognitive measures were found. MCPH1 did not correlate with any measures. These results suggest that the association between the recently derived allele of ASPM is likely to be specific and is tied to higher level brain functions in the temporal cortex related to human communication

Long-term cognitive and behavioral consequences of neonatal encephalopathy following perinatal asphyxia: a review

Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) following perinatal asphyxia (PA) is considered an important cause of later neurodevelopmental impairment in infants born at term. This review discusses long-term consequences for general cognitive functioning, educational achievement, neuropsychological functioning and behavior. In all areas reviewed, the outcome of children with mild NE is consistently positive and the outcome of children with severe NE consistently negative. However, children with moderate NE form a more heterogeneous group with respect to outcome. On average, intelligence scores are below those of children with mild NE and age-matched peers, but within the normal range. With respect to educational achievement, difficulties have been found in the domains reading, spelling and arithmetic/mathematics. So far, studies of neuropsychological functioning have yielded ambiguous results in children with moderate NE. A few studies suggest elevated rates of hyperactivity in children with moderate NE and autism in children with moderate and severe NE. Conclusion: Behavioral monitoring is required for all children with NE. In addition, systematic, detailed neuropsychological examination is needed especially for children with moderate NE