Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients are characterized by increased arterial stiffness, an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. It has been suggested that osteopontin (OPN), a cytokine involved in RA pathogenesis, might have vascular effects. To study a possible relationship between OPN and arterial stiffness, aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) was measured by tonometry in 69 patients (41 ...

OBJECTIVE Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have an increased risk of serious infections. Comparing infection rates across RA populations is complicated by differences in background infection risk, population composition and study methodology. We measured infection rates from five RA registries globally, with the aim to contextualise infection rates from an RA clinical trials population. ...

introduction: the human being is part of its surrounding socio-economic framework. he is affected by the environment and actively affects it. ignoring the socio-economic dimensions of health leads to the failure of health promotion programs and widens the inequity in the health status of different groups in the society. the aim of this study is to identify the socio-economic and demographic sta...

We used Alcian Blue (AB) and dimethylmethylene blue (DMB) methods to measure glycosaminoglycan (GAG) excretion in the first morning urine specimens of patients with osteoarthritis (OA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in different stages of disease. By the AB method, urinary GAG excretion in patients with RA was not different from healthy control subjects. However, th...

Similarity analysis is used to identify the control parameter RA for the subset of avalanching systems that can exhibit SelfOrganized Criticality (SOC). This parameter expresses the ratio of driving to dissipation. The transition to SOC, when the number of excited degrees of freedom is maximal, is found to occur when RA → 0. This is in the opposite sense to (Kolmogorov) turbulence, thus identif...

the significance of research article (ra) abstract as a key academic genre has recently motivated analysts to focus on this neglected area. considering a summary function for abstracts, most genre researchers have adopted the conventionally proposed introduction- method- results- discussion (or conclusion) (imrd) model for analysis. however, the problems reported, especially for results and dis...

Over the last decades, there has been a plethora of interest in possible challenges encountered by researchers while publishing research articles (RAs) in various disciplines for English for academic purposes (EAP).Given this, this study aimed to examine how a sampled number of EAPIranian researchers perceive the competence of academic RA writing, the major reasons for RA rejection, and difficu...