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The Arabian killifish (Aphanius dispar) as a novel model for mycophysiological studies.
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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

Publication Date
Sun Mar 01 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Accounting And Financial Studies ( Jafs )
Impact assessment of strategic goods on government grants and as a result of activity: An analytical study at the General Company of grain trading
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  In Iraq,  government contributions to the public companies have become a very important aspect which contributes to the survival and sustainability of these institutions as it consider  one of the main sources of funding, if not it consider the basis of funding.

  According to  the vital roles assigned to these institutions to follow up, which usually  include important activities in the national economy, the research focused on studying the field reality of the method used in evaluating the stock of total production and purchases of goods for the purpose of selling the strategic commodities of the General Company for Grain Trade.  As a result, the aim of this study came to came to highlight&n

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Publication Date
Sat Apr 01 2023
Journal Name
Siriraj Medical Journal
The Potential of Vitamin-D-Binding Protein as a Urinary Biomarker to Distinguish Steroid-Resistant from Steroid-Sensitive Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome in Iraqi Children
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Objective: To determine the ability of uVDBP to discern SRNS from steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome (SSNS) in Iraqi children. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled children with SRNS (n=31) and SSNS (n=32) from the pediatric nephrology clinic of Babylon Hospital for Maternity and Pediatrics over three months. Patients' characteristics in terms of demographics, clinical data, and urinary investigations were collected. Quantitative analysis of uVDBP levels was undertaken via a commercially available ELISA kit. Results: The median uVDBP values were significantly higher (p-value<0.001) in the SRNS group (median=10.26, IQR=5.91 μg/mL) than in the SSNS group (median=0.953, IQR=4.12 μg/mL). A negative correlati

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Publication Date
Mon Jul 01 2013
Journal Name
2013 35th Annual International Conference Of The Ieee Engineering In Medicine And Biology Society (embc)
Protocol for site selection and movement assessment for the myoelectric control of a multi-functional upper-limb prosthesis
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Publication Date
Wed Mar 01 2023
Journal Name
International Journal Of Research In Social Sciences And Humanities
The Role of Value Chain Analysis as well as Programs and Performance Budget in Reducing Waste of Public Money(Applied Study)
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Programs and performance budget represents a sophisticated method of public budget numbers, which includes all allocations to be determined for each job or activity within a government entity, which is analyzed according to their needs and costs, and this method can be applied using one of the cost accounting techniques, which is the technique of analyzing the value chain that reduces costs by avoiding activities that do not add value and enhance activities that add value to the economic entity, the current research aims to develop the budget system in government entity by using the budget of programs and performance as a tool for planning and monitoring events and activities, thereby reducing the waste of public money by reducing unnecessa

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Publication Date
Mon Oct 01 2018
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The relationship between the central government and local administrations in the federal system: Experience the Iraqi model
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   Increasingly, public organizations in the federal state are required to work together, as well as to work with others to achieve their objectives. In Iraq there are two levels of organizations, including federal and local, and these organizations have been forced to work for many years in an environment in which the responsibility for service delivery is shared between policy makers and service providers, and between local governments and the federal government. It is sometimes difficult to manage the relationship between these organizations (federal and local) and do not always provide the best possible outcome of this relationship. This paper reviews how to manage the relationship between local administrations and

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Publication Date
Mon Mar 01 2010
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The study of the effect of the use of programming in the linear programming model (applied study)
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The parametric programming considered as type of sensitivity analysis. In this research concerning to study the effect of the variations on linear programming model (objective function coefficients and right hand side) on the optimal solution. To determine the parameter (θ) value (-5≤ θ ≤5).Whereas the result، the objective function equal  zero and the decision variables are non basic، when the parameter (θ = -5).The objective function value increases when the parameter (θ= 5) and the decision variables are basic، with the except of X24, X34.Whenever the parameter value increase, the objectiv

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Publication Date
Tue Jun 30 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Comparison of weighted estimated method and proposed method (BEMW) for estimation of semi-parametric model under incomplete data
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Generally, statistical methods are used in various fields of science, especially in the research field, in which Statistical analysis is carried out by adopting several techniques, according to the nature of the study and its objectives. One of these techniques is building statistical models, which is done through regression models. This technique is considered one of the most important statistical methods for studying the relationship between a dependent variable, also called (the response variable) and the other variables, called covariate variables. This research describes the estimation of the partial linear regression model, as well as the estimation of the “missing at random” values (MAR). Regarding the

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Publication Date
Sun Jul 25 2021
Journal Name
Natural Resources Research
Effect of Water Flooding on Oil Reservoir Permeability: Saturation Index Prediction Model for Giant Oil Reservoirs, Southern Iraq
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Publication Date
Fri Mar 01 2013
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Robust Two-Step Estimation and Approximation Local Polynomial Kernel For Time-Varying Coefficient Model With Balance Longitudinal Data
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      In this research, the nonparametric technique has been presented to estimate the time-varying coefficients functions for the longitudinal balanced data that characterized by observations obtained through (n) from the independent subjects, each one of them is measured repeatedly by group of  specific time points (m). Although the measurements are independent among the different subjects; they are mostly connected within each subject and the applied techniques is the Local Linear kernel LLPK technique. To avoid the problems of dimensionality, and thick computation, the two-steps method has been used to estimate the coefficients functions by using the two former technique. Since, the two-

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Publication Date
Sat Oct 02 2021
Journal Name
International Journal Of Nonlinear Analysis And Applications
Using the wavelet analysis to estimate the nonparametric regression model in the presence of associated errors
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Abstract The wavelet shrink estimator is an attractive technique when estimating the nonparametric regression functions, but it is very sensitive in the case of a correlation in errors. In this research, a polynomial model of low degree was used for the purpose of addressing the boundary problem in the wavelet reduction in addition to using flexible threshold values in the case of Correlation in errors as it deals with those transactions at each level separately, unlike the comprehensive threshold values that deal with all levels simultaneously, as (Visushrink) methods, (False Discovery Rate) method, (Improvement Thresholding) and (Sureshrink method), as the study was conducted on real monthly data represented in the rates of theft crimes f

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