CD4/CD8 ratio and cytokine levels of the BAL fluid in patients with bronchiectasis caused by sulfur mustard gas inhalation

OBJECTIVE: To analyze cytokine levels in BAL fluid of patients with bronchiectasis due to mustard gas inhalation. PATIENTS: 29 victims with mustard gas-induced bronchiectasis and 25 normal veterans as control group. INTERVENTION: PFTs,, high-resolution CT scans of the chest, analyses of BAL fluids for five cytokines (IL-8, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, IL-12) and analyses of BAL fluids for cellular and flow-cytometric analysis of the phenotype of bronchoalveolar cells were performed in all cases. RESULTS: CD4 lymphocytes expressed as percentage or absolute number were significantly higher in patients with bronchiectasis than in controls (32.17 ± 16.00 vs 23.40 ± 6.97%, respectively; p = 0.01; and 3.31 ± 2.03 vs 1.88 ± 0.83 × 10(3 )cells/ml, respectively; p = 0.001). The CD4/CD8 ratio was significantly higher in patients with bronchiectasis than in controls (3.08 ± 2.05 vs 1.68 ± 0.78; p = 0.002). There were significant differences in cytokine (IL-8, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, IL-12) levels of BAL fluid between patients with bronchiectasis and healthy controls. A significant correlation was observed between the HRCT scores and both the percentage and the absolute number of CD4 lymphocytes in BAL fluid in patients with bronchiectasis (r = -0.49, p = 0.009; r = -0.50, p = 0.008; respectively). HRCT scores showed a significant correlation with CD4/CD8 ratios (r = 0.54, p = 0.004) too. Of measured BAL cytokines, only IL-8 (r = -0.52, p = 0.005) and TNF-aα (r = 0.44, p = 0.01) showed significant correlations with the HRCT scores. CONCLUSION: The increased levels of cytokines CD4 lymphocytes in the BAL fluid suggest the possible causative mechanism in the lung in sulfur mustard gas-induced bronchiectasis by the recruitment of neutrophils into the lung

A Study of Apelin-36 and GST Levels with Their Relationship to Lipid and Other Biochemical Parameters in the Prediction of Heart Diseases in PCOS Women Patients

 هذا العمل يتضمن دراسة دورالأبلين-36 وفعالية انزيم الكلوتاثيون وعلاقتها بالهرمونات والعوامل ذات الصلة بالتمثيل الغذائي, وارتباطها بخطرالاصابة بأمراض القلب الوعائيه في النساء الأصحاء والنساء المصابات بمتلازمة تكيس المبايض. اشتملت الدراسة على 54 مصابة بمتلازمة تكيس المبايض و31 امراة بصحة جيدة (المجموعة الضابطة). مرضى PCOS تم تقسيمهم حسب مؤشر كتلة الجسم BMI الى مجموعتين (المجموعة الاولى يعانون من السمنة المفرطة BMI≥30والمجموعة الثانية لايعانون من السمنة .(BMI≤30 AP-36, GST-activity, Fasting-insulin, HOMA-IR, Testosterone, LH, FSH, Lipid-profile تم قياس المتغيرات التالية لجميع المجاميع. أظهرت السيدات المصابات بمرض تكيس المبايض ارتفاع في تركيز مصل Apelin-36 أعلى من السيدات الأصحاء (160.43±20.81 (pg/ml) مقابل 85.49±17.85 (pg/ml) ، P=0.008) ، بينما كان فعالية انزيم GST منخفضا في المرضى ومرتفعا في الأصحاء (7.99± 1.19 (IU/L) مقابل 12.96±1.90 (IU/L), P=0.022). ترتبط مستويات APLEN-36 ارتباطًا مباشرًا بمؤشر كتلة الجسم و VLDL في المرضى ، لكن مستويات فعالية انزيم GST مرتبطة عكسيا مع (BMI) في المرضى. علاوة على ذلك ، وجد ان هنالك زيادة في مستويات AP-36 في مرضى PCOS البدناء أكثر من مرضى PCOS غير البدناء (185.76± 92.0  (pg/ml) مقابل 123.59± 27.65 (pg/ml) ، P=0.127) ، في حين وجد أن نشاط أنزيم GST كان منخفضا في مرضى PCOS البدناء اكثر من مرضى PCO  غير البدناء (6.99 ± 1.4 (IU/L) مقابل 9.44 ± 2.0 (IU/L) ، P=0.102). يتضح من المعلومات التالية بأن مستوى AP-36  يرتبط عكسيا بفعالية أنزيم GST في مرضى تكيس المبايض. AP-36 لايرتبط مباشرةً في التسبب في اضطراب PCO ، ومع ذلك فقد يتم إدراجه باعتباره مادة دهنية تتأثر بمؤشر كتلة الجسم. أن زيادة المواد المؤكسدة بسبب زيادة مستوى VLDL وانخفاض فعالية إنزيمات مضادات الأكسدة قد تكون استجابة للمستويات العالية للأجهاد التأكسدي. ان انخفاض قدرة مضادة الأكسدة و زيادة تركيز AP-36 قد يؤدي الى توسع خطر الإصابة بأمراض القلب الوعائيه لدى السيدات المصابات بمتلازمة تكيس المبايض ، بالأضافة إلى عوامل الخطر ، مثلا:- مقاومة الأنسولين، ارتفاع ضغط الدم، السمنة المفرطة، ارتفاع مستوى الدهون.This work studies the role of serum apelin-36 and Glutathione S-transferases (GST) activity in association with the hormonal, metabolic profiles and their link to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy and patients' ladies with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A total of fifty-four (PCOS) patients and thirty-one healthy woman as a control have been studied. The PCOS patients were subdivided on the basis of body-mass-index (BMI), into 2-subgroups (the first group was obese-PCOS with BMI ≥ 30 and the second group was non-obese PCOS MBI<30). Fasting-insulin-levels and Lipid-profile, Homeostatic-model assessment-of-insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), follicle-stimulating-hormone (FSH), luteinizing-hormone (LH), testosterone and serum Apelin-36 (AP-36) levels, GST-Activity were done for all groups. PCO patients showed higher concentricity of apelin-36 than healthy (160.43 ±20.81 (pg/ml) versus 85.49 ± 17.85 (pg/ml), P=0.008),while GST-activity decreased in PCOS patients and was higher in the control (7.99 ± 1.19(IU/L)versus 12.96 ±1.90(IU/L)respectively,with a P-value=0.022). Apelin-36 levels are directly interrelated with BMI and Very-low-density-lipoprotein (VLDL) in PCOS patients, but GST-activity levels correlated significantly negatively with (BMI) in PCOS patients. Moreover, obese-PCOS patients show increased AP-36 levels more than non-obese PCOS (185.76± 92.0(pg/ml) versus 123.59±27.65 (pg/ml), P=0.127) respectively, whilst the GST-activity was exhibited to be lower in obese-PCO patients more than in non-obese PCOS (6.99 ± 1.4(IU/L) versus 9.44 ± 2.0(IU/L), P=0.102). The data showed that AP-36 level is negatively associated with GST-activity in PCOS patients. AP-36 isn't legitimately ensured in the pathogenesis of PCO disorder, yet it may be included as an adipokine that is influenced by BMI. The oxidants increased because of the highly levels of VLDL and the lower in the activities of antioxidant, that may be a response to higher levels of oxidative stress. A decrease in the antioxidant capacity and an increase in AP-36 levels leads to an increased the risk of cardiovascular disease in PCOS patients

Intelligent Advancements in Location Management and C-RAN Power-Aware Resource Allocation

The evolving of cellular networks within the last decade continues to focus on delivering a robust and reliable means to cope with the increasing number of users and demanded capacity. Recent advancements of cellular networks such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced offer a remarkable high bandwidth connectivity delivered to the users. Signalling overhead is one of the vital issues that impact the cellular behavior. Causing a significant load in the core network hence effecting the cellular network reliability. Moreover, the signaling overhead decreases the Quality of Experience (QoE) of users. The first topic of the thesis attempts to reduce the signaling overhead by developing intelligent location management techniques that minimize paging and Tracking Area Update (TAU) signals. Consequently, the corresponding optimization problems are formulated. Furthermore, several techniques and heuristic algorithms are implemented to solve the formulated problems. Additionally, network scalability has become a challenging aspect that has been hindered by the current network architecture. As a result, Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RANs) have been introduced as a new trend in wireless technologies to address this challenge. C-RAN architecture consists of: Remote Radio Head (RRH), Baseband Unit (BBU), and the optical network connecting them. However, RRH-to-BBU resource allocation can cause a significant downgrade in efficiency, particularly the allocation of the computational resources in the BBU pool to densely deployed small cells. This causes a vast increase in the power consumption and wasteful resources. Therefore, the second topic of the thesis discusses C-RAN infrastructure, particularly where a pool of BBUs are gathered to process the computational resources. We argue that there is a need of optimizing the processing capacity in order to minimize the power consumption and increase the overall system efficiency. Consequently, the optimal allocation of computational resources between the RRHs and BBUs is modeled. Furthermore, in order to get an optimal RRH-to-BBU allocation, it is essential to have an optimal physical resource allocation for users to determine the required computational resources. For this purpose, an optimization problem that models the assignment of resources at these two levels (from physical resources to users and from RRHs to BBUs) is formulated

Motivations and attitudes of undergraduate students toward ESP classes in an Egyptian university

In the last few decades, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has become one of the most needed sub-fields of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). In Egypt, ESP courses are widely taught in both public and private universities. Also, motivation and attitude play an essential role in how well a learner understands the suggested material in an educational environment. They are considered important factors which may have an effect on the ESP educational process in Egypt. Many studies have addressed the area of motivation and attitudes in the EFL context. However, after a thorough review of the literature available on this subject, there appears to be a scarcity in the research on ESP students\u27 motivations and attitudes in the Egyptian context. Based on the researcher\u27s 10 years of experience teaching ESP classes in addition to conducting a pilot study, there is a need for a study concerning ESP learners\u27 motivation and attitudes in Egypt. This study focuses on the motivations and attitudes of students in ESP classes in various academic years at a public university, Mansoura University. The study was guided by three research questions. The first investigated the types of motivation the students have when taking ESP classes and how much they are motivated toward them. The second explored the attitudes of undergraduate students toward ESP courses at Mansoura University. The third investigated whether students\u27 academic disciplines affect their motivation and attitudes toward ESP courses. The study adopted a mixed-methods exploratory applied design. The research involved 517 participants of non-English majors who were registered in undergraduate ESP courses in the 2014 spring semester at Mansoura University. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through their responses to a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire, multiple-choice format scales, open-ended questions, and a semi-structured interview. The results of the study showed that students are motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically in addition to having high motivational intensity and a deep interest toward ESP classes. The study also revealed that the students have a relatively positive attitude toward their ESP courses. However, there are several factors that affect the students\u27 attitudes such as unrelated course materials, inconvenient course schedules, lack of incorporation of educational technology into classroom instructions, poor teaching methods of the professors and instructors, or the learning environment that affect the students\u27 attitudes negatively. In addition, the results showed that the academic discipline is not considered an important factor that affects students\u27 motivation toward their ESP classes. However, a slight positive trend in the attitude of ESP students was shown in the present study which may arise from different conditions regarding the students\u27 goals and the conditions of different classes at different academic disciplines. The implications of this study may help the universities develop ESP courses in order to increase ESP students\u27 motivation and attitudes toward their ESP classes

Airspace analysis for greener operations: towards more adoptability and predictability of continuous descent approach (cda)

Continuous Descent Approach (CDA), also known as Optimized Profile Descent (OPD), is the advanced flight technique for commercial aircraft to descend continuously from cruise altitude to Final Approach Fix (FAF) or touchdown without level-offs and with- or near-idle thrust setting. Descending using CDA, aircraft stays as high as possible for longer time thereby expanding the vertical distance between aircraft\u27s sources of noise and ground, and thus significantly reducing the noise levels for populated areas around airports. Also, descending with idle engines, fuel burn is reduced resulting in reduction of harmful emissions to the environment and fuel consumption to air carriers. Due to safety considerations, CDA procedures may require more separation between aircraft, which could reduce the full utilization of runway capacity. Thus, CDA has been limited to low to moderate traffic levels at airports. Several studies in literature have used various approaches to present solutions to the problem of increasing the CDA implementation during periods of high traffic at airports. However, insufficient attention was given to define thresholds that would help Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) to manage and accommodate more CDA operations, strategically and tactically. Bridging this gap is the main intent of this work. This research focus is on increasing CDA operations at airports during high traffic levels by considering factors that impact its CDA adoption as they relate to airports\u27 demographics, and airspace around them {known as terminal maneuvering area (TMA)}. To capture the effect of these factors on CDA Adoptability (CDA-A), in general, and CDA Predictability (CDA-P), at the operational level, two (2) approaches are introduced. The CDA-A model defines and captures the maximum level of traffic threshold for CDA adoption. The model captures the factors affecting CDA in a single measure, which are designated collectively as the Probability of Blocking. It is defined as the fraction of time an aircraft\u27s request to embark on CDA is denied. The denial could emanate from safety concerns as well as other operational conditions, such as the congestion of the stacking space within the TMA. This metric should enhance ATC on the strategic level to increasing CDA operations during possibly higher traffic than normally the case. The other approach is for a CDA-P. This model is developed based on data-driven system approach. It extracts traffic features, such as aircraft type and speed, altitude, and rate of descent; from actual flights data to aid in further operational utilization of CDA in real time. By accurately predicting CDA instances during high traffic at airports, the CDA-P model should assist ATC manage adopting more CDA operations during periods of high demand. Through its framework, the CDA-P model utilizes Feature Engineering and Hierarchal Clustering Analysis, to facilitate descent profile visualization and labeling, for building, training, testing, and validation of CDA predictive models using Decision Trees with AdaBoost and Support Vector Machines (SVM). The CDA-P model is validated using actual flight data operated at Nashville Int\u27l Airport (BNA)

Eye tracking analysis of browser security indicators

Understanding the natural human behavior when people interact with Web browsers is essential for building more user-centric interface design that is customized based on user\u27s perception and experience. This paper presents the first empirical study of users\u27 interaction with security indicators in Web browsers in a controlled real life security risk. The work focuses on the natural and spontaneous behavior of the victim\u27s eyes on several predetermined area of interest, and empirically presents users\u27 evaluation of several online logon pages. The experiment and its results provide a quantitative evidence of the usability of visual security indicators in Internet Explorer (IE8). We first categorized a set of Websites and created phishing Web Pages using most known phishing techniques, and then a group of users from different backgrounds and age groups took the controlled experiment on an eye tracking machine. We found that the simplicity approach in Web design causes more damage rather than helping in online security, and that the current sleek design of Web pages helps users find the logon area and overlook the security indicators instead. We also found that the security certificate cue was not used by the participants to determine the legitimacy of the presented Websites. © 2012 IEEE

Fallujah's Position on the May 1941 Movement (Documentary Study)

The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 had a negative impact not only on the European continent, but also most of the countries of Asia and Africa. Iraq was affected because of its political and economic association with the British government, which was one of the parties involved in that war. The Iraqi and British governments had signed a treaty concerning their political, economic and military relationship on 30 June 1930. It came into force after the end of the mandate and the entry of Iraq League of Nations in 1932, but that the treaty was only a new framework for the continuation of the British occupation. The situation was exacerbated when the military became the helm of the government after the 1936 coup led by Bakr Sidqi, which caused much anxiety within the British government and the strained relations between it and the Iraqi government despite the British recognition of the coup government. These tensions became more evident when World War II broke out. At this point, the British government demanded that Iraq abide by the provisions of the 1930 Treaty by declaring war on Germany. However, the Iraqi government. In addition to the severing of diplomatic relations, the tension between the British and Iraqi governments were intensified by Italy’s entry into the war with Germany. Iraq refused to sever its diplomatic relations with Germany, but allowed the Italian government to open an embassy in Baghdad, which Britain considered an act of hostility. Military operations between the Iraqi and British armies continued throughout May 1941, known to the historical sources as ‘the movement of Mayes’ or ‘the revolt of Rashid Ali Kilani’ or ‘the Iraq war the British second’. The Dulaim brigade and nearby villages were involved in the greatest share of those clashes, which left material and human destruction on the people of the judiciary in particular, and the Dulaim brigade and Iraq in general. This ended with the occupation of Fallujah by British forces on the 19th of May 1941. It is useful to consider the position of Falluja in the context of the military battles that took place between the Iraqi and British armies during this period. The study is divided into four subjects .the first subject was titled as ”the British- Iraqi treaties until 1930”. It deals with most important provisions of the treaty, which became controversial. The second subject was ”Falluja and preliminaries of May’s Movement” clarifies the British government’s request, under the terms of the 1930 treaty, that Iraq declare war on the Axis countries headed by Germany. This request was rejected by the Iraqi government. In particular, this segment considers events after Rashid Ali al-Kilani became prime minister and the anti-British military leaders took control of Iraq, as well as the military and political preparations taken by the Iraqi and British governments throughout April 1941. This study also explores their impact on the situation in the Fallujah district, which forms the third segment, titled “Fallujah and the Second Iraqi- British War”. This section explores the most important battles occuring in the lands of Fallujah district, and the role of the people of the judiciary in supporting The Iraqi army against the British forces, which prompted the latter to take revenge on them after occupying the center of killing and sabotage on the nineteenth of May 1941, Atanih than the recent push to revenge them after the occupation of the district center of death and destruction on the 19th of May 1941, and the steps that were taken after a full occupation of the land district of Fallujah until the entry of British troops to Baghdad on the fifth of June of the same year. Keywords: Fallujah, Documentary, Movement, May, Positio