OPTIMAL SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER DESIGN BASED ON WHALE OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM FOR LOWER LIMB REHABILITATION ROBOT

The Sliding Mode Controllers (SMCs) are considered among the most common stabilizer and controllers used with robotic systems due to their robust nonlinear scheme designed to control nonlinear systems. SMCs are insensitive to external disturbance and system parameters variations. Although the SMC is an adaptive and model-based controller, some of its values need to be determined precisely. In this paper, an Optimal Sliding Mode Controller (OSMC) is suggested based on Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) to control a two-link lower limb rehabilitation robot. This controller has two parts, the equivalent part, and the supervisory controller part. The stability assurance of the controlled rehabilitation robot is analyzed based on Lyapunov stability. The WO algorithm is used to determine optimal parameters for the suggested SMC. Simulation results of two tested trajectories (linear step signal and nonlinear sine signal) demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested OSMC with fast response, very small overshoot, and minimum steady-state error

Artificial Intelligence: Current Challenges and Future Perspectives

Artificial intelligence is a discipline of computer science that gives machines intelligence that resembles that of humans and empowers them to acquire knowledge, evaluate, and handle issues when exposed to information in different formats. AI is now useful as a powerful tool to help researchers collect, deal with, and analyze large sets of data in a fast and cost-effective way; additionally, a statistical collection and analysis of a vast amount of dataset of enormous numbers of published research articles will be with a high level of accuracy. However, Artificial intelligence has many struggles, conflicts, and challenges that need to be discussed and clarified

Lifestyle Medicine: A Promising tool to Restoring Health

Lifestyle Medicine is the application of evidence-based lifestyle approaches for the prevention, treatment, and even the reversal of lifestyle-related chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, polycystic ovarian diseases, dementia, arthritis, and cancer

The Cut-off Values of Triglycerides - Glucose Index for Metabolic Syndrome Associated with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

يؤدي حدوث متلازمة الأيض مع داء السكري من النوع 2 الى زيادة شدة المرض والوفيات المرتبطة بكل منهما. يوصى باستخدام مؤشر الجلوكوز الصائم للدهون الثلاثية (مؤشر TyG) كعلامة مفيدة للتنبؤ بمتلازمة التمثيل الغذائي. كان الهدف من هذه الدراسة هو تحديد القيم الحدية لنوع Triglyceride-Glucose لتشخيص متلازمة الأيض في داء السكري من النوع الثاني. تم جمع البيانات من مستشفيات بغداد في الفترة ما بين مايو وديسمبر 2019. وكان عدد المشاركين المؤهلين 424 حيث تم قياس الجلوكوز في الدم في وضع الصيام ، مستوى الدهون ، مستوى HbA1c. فضلا عن قياس ضغط الدم وتم حساب مؤشر Triglyceride-Glucose . تم الحصول على الموافقة الأخلاقية والموافقة المستنيرة .استخدم برنامج SPSS لمعالجة البيانات. أظهر مرضى السكري الذين يعانون من متلازمة الأيض زيادة مستوى مؤشر TyG. ازداد انتشار متلازمة الأيض مع زيادة مؤشر TyG. أظهر مؤشر TyG ارتباطًا كبيرًا مع جميع مكونات متلازمة الأيض. حيث ارتبط طرديا مع مستوى الكاوكوز في الدم ومحيط الخصر ,مستوى الدهون وضغط الدم الانبساطي بينما تناسب عكسيا مع مستوى الكولسترول النافع .مقدار قيمة القطع الأمثل للمؤشر كانت 9.14 ، 9.28 للذكور والإناث على التوالي.نستنج من الدراسة ان مؤشر TyG ملائم للكشف عن متلازمة الأيض في داء السكري من النوع الثاني       The co-occurrence of metabolic syndrome with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) will potentiate the morbidity and mortality that may be associated with each case. Fasting triglycerides-glucose index (TyG index) has been recommended as a useful marker to predict metabolic syndrome. Our study aimed to introduce gender-specific cut-off values of triglycerides- glucose index   for diagnosing metabolic syndrome associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The data were collected from Baghdad hospitals between May - December 2019. The number of eligible participants was 424. National cholesterol education program, Adult Treatment Panel III criteria were used to define metabolic syndrome. Measurement of fasting blood glucose, lipid profile, HbA1c level, blood pressure, and anthropometric were done and the triglyceride-glucose index was calculated. Ethical approval and informed consent were obtained .SPSS was used to analyze the data. Diabetic patients with metabolic syndrome showed an increased level of TyG Index. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome increased with increased TyG index quartiles. The TyG-Index showed significant correlations with all components of metabolic syndrome. The optimal cut-off value revealed 9.14, 9.28 for males and females respectively. In conclusion, TyG index is a good predictor of the presence of MetS in T2DM the TyG index, just measured in one laboratory test, is simple, informative and more suitable for the detection of metabolic syndrome in Iraqi type 2 diabetes mellitus

Assessment of Serum Metalloendopeptidase level in Patients with Double Diabetes

Background: Double diabetes is the term used to describe situations in which a patient exhibits characteristics that are a combination of type 1 and type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Metalloendopeptidase or Neprilysin is membrane-bound metallopeptidase. It has a wide range of physiological function and a variety of substrates. It has a significant impact on the proteolytic functions of the kidney, cardiovascular health, immunological response, cell proliferation, and fetal development. It also has a preventative effect on the onset of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cancer. Objective: The study aims to assess the level of MEP in patients with double diabetes and determine its predictive value in the diagnosis of double diabetes. Subjects and Methods: Eighty participants were divided into two groups for this study. 40 patients with double diabetes made up the first group (G1), whereas 40 age- and gender-matched apparently healthy subjects made up the second group (G2), which served as the control group. ELISA was used to measure the serum's metalloendopeptidase level. For the measurement of HbA1c, whole blood was used. The measurement of insulin, blood glucose, and lipid profile were performed using serum. The HOMA test measured insulin resistance. Results: This study revealed a significant elevation in serum metalloendopeptidase levels in patients with DD (p value < 0.05). The ROC curves analysis for serum metalloendopeptidase level   showed the area under the curve (AUC) of serum metalloendopeptidase (pg/mL) was 0.992. Conclusions: Serum metalloendopeptidase level could be used as a novel biomarker in patients with double diabetes

Identifying some regularities of radio frequency propagation of a radar system by analyzing different environmental effects

Free space path loss is a function of frequency and propagation distance and the RF signal propagates at light speed in all directions in free space. The performance evaluation of wireless and radar communication technologies is related to understanding the propagation environments. This work presents the modeling of several RF propagation properties that include atmospheric attenuation due to rain, free space path loss, gas, and fog, as well as multipath propagations caused by ground bounces. The methodology discusses the developed model according to the series of (ITU) International Telecommunication Union references to radio wave propagation. This work discusses the Free Space Path Losses (FSPL), and Propagation Losses (PL) due to the atmosphere, precipitation, snow, rain, clouds, fog, atmospheric lensing and absorption, and polarization mismatch. The work also discusses the vertical coverage diagram and radar propagation factor. The obtained results demonstrate that the PL increases with frequency and range, at a 90-degree roll angle, the attenuation approaches infinity, and as the altitude rises, the amount of attenuation caused by lensing decreases. The analysis of attenuation at 1 km vs. frequency variations, at roughly 60 GHz, indicated a high absorption owing to air gas. Lensing attenuations are also offered as secondary outputs for convenience, the wideband channels present higher performance crossways and a wide range of target height as expected. When the target height increases, the influence of multi-path fading approximately vanishes entirely due to the variation increasing in the spreading delay between the bounce and direct pathway signals. This will reduce the coherence sum between these two samples on receiving by the targe

International longitudinal registry of patients with atrial fibrillation and treated with rivaroxaban: RIVaroxaban Evaluation in Real life setting (RIVER)

Background Real-world data on non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are essential in determining whether evidence from randomised controlled clinical trials translate into meaningful clinical benefits for patients in everyday practice. RIVER (RIVaroxaban Evaluation in Real life setting) is an ongoing international, prospective registry of patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) and at least one investigator-determined risk factor for stroke who received rivaroxaban as an initial treatment for the prevention of thromboembolic stroke. The aim of this paper is to describe the design of the RIVER registry and baseline characteristics of patients with newly diagnosed NVAF who received rivaroxaban as an initial treatment. Methods and results Between January 2014 and June 2017, RIVER investigators recruited 5072 patients at 309 centres in 17 countries. The aim was to enroll consecutive patients at sites where rivaroxaban was already routinely prescribed for stroke prevention. Each patient is being followed up prospectively for a minimum of 2-years. The registry will capture data on the rate and nature of all thromboembolic events (stroke / systemic embolism), bleeding complications, all-cause mortality and other major cardiovascular events as they occur. Data quality is assured through a combination of remote electronic monitoring and onsite monitoring (including source data verification in 10% of cases). Patients were mostly enrolled by cardiologists (n = 3776, 74.6%), by internal medicine specialists 14.2% (n = 718) and by primary care/general practice physicians 8.2% (n = 417). The mean (SD) age of the population was 69.5 (11.0) years, 44.3% were women. Mean (SD) CHADS2 score was 1.9 (1.2) and CHA2DS2-VASc scores was 3.2 (1.6). Almost all patients (98.5%) were prescribed with once daily dose of rivaroxaban, most commonly 20 mg (76.5%) and 15 mg (20.0%) as their initial treatment; 17.9% of patients received concomitant antiplatelet therapy. Most patients enrolled in RIVER met the recommended threshold for AC therapy (86.6% for 2012 ESC Guidelines, and 79.8% of patients according to 2016 ESC Guidelines). Conclusions The RIVER prospective registry will expand our knowledge of how rivaroxaban is prescribed in everyday practice and whether evidence from clinical trials can be translated to the broader cross-section of patients in the real world

Controlling the mean arterial pressure by modified model reference adaptive controller based on two optimization algorithms

This paper Presents Modified Model Reference Adaptive Controller (MRAC) to regulate the hight blood pressure. It is based on slate model that repre-sent the mathematical equation that clarifies relationship between blood pressure and vasoactive drug injection. In this work Squirrel Search Algo-rithm (SSA) and Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) algorithms are considered to optimize the controller parameters. the results showed that the suggested controller has good performance and stabilize the mean arterial pressure with small settling time (below than 400s) and small overshoot (below than 1 mmHg) with low amount of error

Effect of HLA-B27 status and body mass index on the clinical response to infliximab in ankylosing spondylitis patients

Background: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors (infliximab) have changed the therapeutic approach to ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Body mass index (BMI) and HLA-B27 status may affect the response to infliximab. Methods: One hundred and seventy AS patients with active disease were enrolled in the study. Age, sex, disease duration, HLA-B27 status, and other demographics were obtained. Patients were classified according to their BMI to three groups clinical response was monitored using Bath AS disease activity index, at the time of initiation of treatment and 6 months later. Clinical response was defined as BASDAI50. Results: At baseline, all the groups were comparable. The median BMI of the responders was 25.4 kg/m2 while for the nonresponders it was 27 kg/m2. The normal weight and overweight AS patients have achieved the BASDAI 50 response after 6 months of infliximab treatment (P < 0.001) while the obese AS patients fail to achieve this response by infliximab alone and they need another drug (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). The response was higher in HLA-B27 positive patients (42.5%) compared to the HLA-B27 negative patients (29%), the difference, however, was statistically insignificant. Conclusion: Obese AS patients are less likely to achieve a response to infliximab than normal weight AS patients

A COMPARISON OF KINETIC STUDIES OF KAOLIN CLAY AND RICE HUSKS FOR CIPROFLOXACIN ADSORPTION

Objective: to compare the absorption of this drug on two surfaces of Iraqi kaolin and rice husks, which are considered environmentally friendly natural products and available locally. Methods: Ciprofloxacin adsorption from an aqueous solution was studied with respect to contact time, pH, and concentration. 30 min was determined to be the equilibrium time. Increasing the drug concentration on both adsorbents increased the adsorption rate, and the data fit well into a pseudo-second-order model. The solution concentration was analysed by UV-visible spectroscopy. Then the amount of adsorption was calculated, as well as the study of the reaction kinetics for both surfaces. The rice husk adsorbent showed faster removal with higher uptake than the Kaolin clay in both SGF and SIF solutions. Results: The adsorption isotherms of type (S4, S2) were found on the surface of rice husks and kaolin clay type (L3, L4) in stomach and intestine fluids, respectively. On Iraqi kaolin clay, adsorption is well described by the pseudo-second-order model, and the Tempkin adsorption isotherm provides a good fit for the Stomach. Whereas adsorption on rice husk is well described by the Freundlich isotherm, which is a good fit for the intestine. the adsorption is predominantly physical. The best maximum adsorption capacities were calculated on both surfaces in the following order: stomach-kaolin&gt;intestinal fluids-rice husks&gt;stomach-rice husks&gt;intestinal fluids-kaolin. Conclusion: Both kaolin and rice husk are possible adsorbents that could be used to get antibiotics out of water