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
This research sheds light on one of the important and vital topics for the banking sectors (technical requirements for the application of economic intelligence) namely by (Hardware, equipment, communication networks, software, databases). And the dimensions of the strategic success of the banks represented by(Customer satisfaction, customer trust, quality of service, growth) In the three Iraqi private banks, namely(Assyria International Investment, Mansour Investment, International Development Investment and Finance). Its implementation is an urgent necessity in order to improve the quality of its banking services to win the satisfaction of its customers and their confidence and then grow to achieve stra
... Show MoreIn every country in the world, there are a number of amputees who have been exposed to some accidents that led to the loss of their upper limbs. The aim of this study is to suggest a system for real-time classification of five classes of shoulder girdle motions for high-level upper limb amputees using a pattern recognition system. In the suggested system, the wavelet transform was utilized for feature extraction, and the extreme learning machine was used as a classifier. The system was tested on four intact-limbed subjects and one amputee, with eight channels involving five electromyography channels and three-axis accelerometer sensor. The study shows that the suggested pattern recognition system has the ability to classify the sho
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The densities and visconsities of solutions of poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) molccuar weight (14)kg.mol-1in water up to 0.035%mol.kg-1
Human serum albumin (HSA) nanoparticles have been widely used as versatile drug delivery systems for improving the efficiency and pharmaceutical properties of drugs. The present study aimed to design HSA nanoparticle encapsulated with the hydrophobic anticancer pyridine derivative (2-((2-([1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl)imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidin-3-yl)methylene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (BIPHC)). The synthesis of HSA-BIPHC nanoparticles was achieved using a desolvation process. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis showed the average size of HSA-BIPHC nanoparticles was 80.21 nm. The percentages of entrapment efficacy, loading capacity and production yield were 98.11%, 9.77% and 91.29%, respectively. An In vitro release study revealed that HSA-BIPHC nan
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In this paper the experimentally obtained conditions for the fusion splicing with photonic crystal fibers (PCF) having large mode areas were reported. The physical mechanism of the splice loss and the microhole collapse property of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) were studied. By controlling the arc-power and the arc-time of a conventional electric arc fusion splicer (FSM-60S), the minimum loss of splicing for fusion two conventional single mode fibers (SMF-28) was (0.00dB), which has similar mode field diameter. For splicing PCF (LMA-10) with a conventional single mode fiber (SMF-28), the loss was increased due to the mode field mismatch.
Nowadays, cloud computing has attracted the attention of large companies due to its high potential, flexibility, and profitability in providing multi-sources of hardware and software to serve the connected users. Given the scale of modern data centers and the dynamic nature of their resource provisioning, we need effective scheduling techniques to manage these resources while satisfying both the cloud providers and cloud users goals. Task scheduling in cloud computing is considered as NP-hard problem which cannot be easily solved by classical optimization methods. Thus, both heuristic and meta-heuristic techniques have been utilized to provide optimal or near-optimal solutions within an acceptable time frame for such problems. In th
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Mass transfer correlations for iron rotating cylinder electrode in chloride/sulphate solution, under isothermal and
controlled heat transfer conditions, were derived. Limiting current density values for the oxygen reduction reaction from
potentiostatic experiments at different bulk temperatures and various turbulent flow rates, under isothermal and heat
transfer conditions, were used for such derivation. The corelations were analogous to that obtained by Eisenberg et all
and other workers.