Abstract Candida albicans is a commensal fungal pathogen that grows in yeast and hyphal forms in the human gut. C. albicans causes mucosal and cutaneous diseases that can result in significant mortality following systematic infections and it also exhibits drug resistance. Zebrafish have been an excellent model to investigate C. albicans infections because of their transparency and the availability of many transgenic lines. However, there is a limitation in using zebrafish as a model because the fish embryos cannot survive at 37°C therefore it is not suitable for studying Candida infections at physiological relevant human body temperature. In this thesis, the normal embryonic development of Arabian killifish (A. dispar) is investigated, revealing that embryogenesis was divided into 32 stages based on diagnostic patterns of development. A. dispar can also found to tolerate a wide range of temperatures and salinities. This suggests that A. dispar could be developed as a novel model to investigate host-pathogen interactions. The tolerance of A. dispar to high temperatures may in part be attributable to brown pigment cells with a highly fluorescent character that may have developed to allow the fish to adapt to live within extreme environmental conditions with strong sunlight and a wide range of temperatures (Chapter 3). In terms of Candida infections, this study examined A. dispar as a model to test C. albicans pathogenicity. The survival of A. dispar embryos following Candida infection showed a dose dependent relationship. We also found that A. dispar can survive longer than zebrafish after infection. Furthermore, C. albicans cells were observed to undergo a transition from yeast to hyphae at 37°C. An investigation of the ability of mutant strains of C. albicans with defects in cell wall mannosylation revealed a significant impact on virulence, host mortality, and the fishes’ immune response. The present study found that although the deletion of O- and N-mannan from the cell wall of C. albicans, affected fungal burden (attenuation), and the survival of the infected embryos per se was significantly decreased in the infections of the mutant strains compared to the WT. This data confirms the importance of the mannosylation state of the cell wall in triggering an immune recognition event (Chapter 4). A. dispar is also shown to be suitable for studying the effectiveness of 3 | P a g e antifungals. Fluconazole treatment of infected embryos and eggs promoted greater rates of survival at high doses, alongside a significant reduction of C. albicans CFUs (Chapter 4). When looking at the Candida-host interaction, we directly observed phagocytosed yeast cells within macrophages. Various detection methods were used to follow macrophages and neutrophils including Western blotting, immunostaining and histological staining (Sudan black and FITC-tyramide) allowing the monitoring of the time course of the immune cells. A biphasic response of macrophages was detected by L-plastin Western blotting, suggesting activation of two different type of macrophage: activated macrophage (M1) and alternative macrophage (M2). We also assayed reactive oxygen species (ROS) within infected embryos using a fluorescent probe (H2DCFDA), revealing the accumulation of the fluorescent probe at the sites of infection. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the oxidative and immune response using the H2DCFDA and qPCR were also accomplished within A. dispar embryos after infection with both the WT and mutant strains of Candida albicans (WT, pmr1∆, mnt1-mnt2∆, and och1∆). The results confirmed that the mutant strains did not activate a host oxidative stress response nor immune cell accumulation when compared to WT, suggesting that the immune response is less activated against these mutants. Finally, a new transgenic line of A. dispar fish was developed using Betaactin-DsR-LoxP-GFP. The new transgenic A. dispar is suggested to be an ideal model for real time observation of host-pathogen interactions and for investigation of molecular functions of the immune response. Overall these results improve our understanding of the use of a new transparent fish model to study fungal pathogenesis and demonstrates the potential advantages of using this species in future studies of bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens at a physiologically relevant temperature for human infection. Such a model could lead us to investigate in more depth the key interactions between pathogens and their host and permit the screening and development of new antifungal therapies (that might target the pathogens directly or target the host immune system). View full metadata
Asset management involves efficient planning of economic and technical performance characteristics of infrastructure systems. Managing a sewer network requires various types of activities so the network can be able to achieve a certain level of performance. During the lifetime of the network various components will start to deteriorate leading to bad performance and can damage the infrastructure. The main objective of this research is to develop deterioration models to provide an assessment tool for determining the serviceability of the sewer networks in Baghdad city the Zeppelin line was selected as a case study, as well as to give top management authorities the appropriate decision making. Different modeling techniques
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Measuring the efficiency of postgraduate and undergraduate programs is one of the essential elements in educational process. In this study, colleges of Baghdad University and data for the academic year (2011-2012) have been chosen to measure the relative efficiencies of postgraduate and undergraduate programs in terms of their inputs and outputs. A relevant method to conduct the analysis of this data is Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The effect of academic staff to the number of enrolled and alumni students to the postgraduate and undergraduate programs are the main focus of the study.
Optimum perforation location selection is an important study to improve well production and hence in the reservoir development process, especially for unconventional high-pressure formations such as the formations under study. Reservoir geomechanics is one of the key factors to find optimal perforation location. This study aims to detect optimum perforation location by investigating the changes in geomechanical properties and wellbore stress for high-pressure formations and studying the difference in different stress type behaviors between normal and abnormal formations. The calculations are achieved by building one-dimensional mechanical earth model using the data of four deep abnormal wells located in Southern Iraqi oil fields. The magni
... Show MoreThis research consists of two parts, the first part concern with analyzing the collected data of BOD and COD values in discharge waste water from Al-Dora refinery during 2010 to find the relationship between these two variables The results indicates that there is a high correlation between BOD and COD when using a natural logarithm model (0.86 ln(COD)) with correlation coefficient of 0.98. This relationship is useful in predicting the BOD value using the COD value. The second part includes analyzing collected data from the same site in order to find a relationsip between BOD and other parameters COD, Phenol(phe), Temperature(T), Oil, Sulphat(SO4),pH and Total dissolved solids( TDS) discharged from the refinery. The results indicated that th
... Show MoreThis research consists of two parts, the first part concern with analyzing the collected data of BOD and COD values in discharge waste water from Al-Dora refinery during 2010 to find the relationship between these two variables The results indicates that there
is a high correlation between BOD and COD when using a natural logarithm model (0.86 ln(COD)) with correlation coefficient of 0.98. This relationship is useful in predicting the BOD value using the COD value. The second part includes analyzing collected data from the same site in order to find a relationsip between BOD and other parameters COD, Phenol(phe), Temperature(T), Oil, Sulphat(SO4),pH and Total dissolved solids( TDS) discharged from the refinery. The results indicated
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Shell model and Hartree-Fock calculations have been adopted to study the elastic and inelastic electron scattering form factors for 25Mg nucleus. The wave functions for this nucleus have been utilized from the shell model using USDA two-body effective interaction for this nucleus with the sd shell model space. On the other hand, the SkXcsb Skyrme parameterization has been used within the Hartree-Fock method to get the single-particle potential which is used to calculate the single-particle matrix elements. The calculated form factors have been compared with available experimental data.
<span lang="EN-GB">This paper highlights the barriers that have led to a delay in the implementation of E-Health services in Iraq. A new framework is proposed to improve the E-Health sector using a SECI model which describes how explicit and tacit knowledge is generated, transferred, and recreated in organizations through main stages (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization). Class association rules (CARs) is integrated to mine the SECI model by extracting related rules which correspond to the medical advice. The proposed framework (SECICAR) can be done through a web portal to assemble healthcare professionals, patients in one environment. SECICAR will be applied to the hypertension community to show th
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Abstract
This paper discusses the essence of the developmental process in auditing firms and offices at the world today. This process is focused on how to adopt the audit concepts which is based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), including the Continuous Auditing (CA) in particular. The purpose of this paper is to design a practical model for the adoption of CA and its requirements according to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This model will serve as a road map for manage the change and development in the Iraqi auditing firms and offices. The paper uses the analytical approach in reaching to the target results. We design the logical and systematic relations between the nine variable
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This paper deals with an analytical study of the flow of an incompressible generalized Burgers’ fluid (GBF) in an annular pipe. We discussed in this problem the flow induced by an impulsive pressure gradient and compare the results with flow due to a constant pressure gradient. Analytic solutions for velocity is earned by using discrete Laplace transform (DLT) of the sequential fractional derivatives (FD) and finite Hankel transform (FHT). The influences of different parameters are analyzed on a velocity distribution characteristics and a comparison between two cases is also presented, and discussed in details. Eventually, the figures are plotted to exhibit these effects.