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
Abstract:
One of the important things provided by fuzzy model is to identify the membership functions. In the fuzzy reliability applications with failure functions of the kind who cares that deals with positive variables .There are many types of membership functions studied by many researchers, including triangular membership function, trapezoidal membership function and bell-shaped membership function. In I research we used beta function. Based on this paper study classical method to obtain estimation fuzzy reliability function for both series and parallel systems.
The statistical distributions study aimed to obtain on best descriptions of variable sets phenomena, which each of them got one behavior of that distributions . The estimation operations study for that distributions considered of important things which could n't canceled in variable behavior study, as result this research came as trial for reaching to best method for information distribution estimation which is generalized linear failure rate distribution, throughout studying the theoretical sides by depending on statistical posteriori methods like greatest ability, minimum squares method and Mixing method (suggested method).
The research
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The problem of research is to identify the uses of Iraqi women for Facebook and the motives of these uses and the innovations that have been achieved from them, in view of the increasing role-played by social networking sites in the lives of individuals in general and women in particular.The research seeks to identify the following: Identify the extent to which Iraqi women use Facebook and the usage motives and innovations achieved by the interviewees When they using Facebook. This study belongs to the descriptive studies that are interested in monitoring the characteristics of a particular phenomenon to identify its characteristics and characteristics.This study adopted the survey methodology to test the hypotheses of the study and how
... Show MoreSoil is the cardinal resource for agricultural crops. Healthy soil will produce healthy plants. Since healthy soil is the important goal for the farmers, they need to select the best tillage system to achieve that goal. There are two main types of tillage systems. Conservation tillage (no-tillage farming) uses agricultural machinery that performs a double function; tillage and seed farming simultaneously. In contrast, conventional tillage farming uses multiple agricultural machines to till and seed the soil. The farmers in the northern governorates of Iraq have used the conservation farming system for a long time. However, the farmers who live in the middle and southern governorates in Iraq use conventional tillage farming. Because most of
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This research aims to study the economic, social, and political reality of Iraqi women by identifying the obstacles and diagnosing their empowerment trends in various fields, assessing the extent of their participation in economic activity, and re-achieving balance between women and men by reducing the gender gap between them and reducing the percentage of female unemployment to the lowest possible level. Is achieved by enhancing confidence in Iraqi women by enacting laws and making decisions that allow them to access resources freely. The researcher used the descriptive and analytical method to deal with information and data related to the research topic over a specific period (1990-2018), using local, Arab, and international re
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In this research, that been focused on the most important economic benefits expected when applying the three standards of sustainability in construction projects (economic, environmental and social). Fuzzy AHP, a multi-decision decision-making technique for evaluating construction projects. Which when used we get the speed and accuracy in the results. Using this technique will reduce uncertainties decisions significantly (fuzzy environment), that found in most projects .The results of the data analysis showed that the economic standards take the greatest relative importance (60%) among the three sustainability standards. Therefore, the implementation of any standards need a cost so the economic benefit of any proje
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The buildup factor of cylindrical samples (shields) for Brass, Copper & lead (Brass, Cu, Pb (was studied, where buildup factor were calculated with thickness between (0-12) m.f.p. for Co60 and Cs137sources with activities (30) & (41) MBq respectively , using scintillation detector NaI(T?) with (3"×3")volume .The results shows increases of buildup factor for low atomic number(Z) samples where the energy of radiation source was constant, also shows increases of buildup factor with decreases the energy of radiation source. An empirical equation was obtained using Matlab7 program this equation have agreements with most obtained data for 96%.