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
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This paper aims to decide the best parameter estimation methods for the parameters of the Gumbel type-I distribution under the type-II censorship scheme. For this purpose, classical and Bayesian parameter estimation procedures are considered. The maximum likelihood estimators are used for the classical parameter estimation procedure. The asymptotic distributions of these estimators are also derived. It is not possible to obtain explicit solutions of Bayesian estimators. Therefore, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, and Lindley techniques are taken into account to estimate the unknown parameters. In Bayesian analysis, it is very important to determine an appropriate combination of a prior distribution and a loss function. Therefore, two different
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This research aims to develop new spectrophotometric analytical method to determine drug compound Salbutamol by reaction it with ferric chloride in presence potassium ferricyanide in acid median to formation of Prussian blue complex to determine it by uv-vis spectrophotmetric at wavelengths rang(700-750)nm . Study the optimal experimental condition for determination drug and found the follows: 1- Volume of(10M) H2SO4 to determine of drug is 1.5 ml . 2- Volume and concentration of K3Fe(CN)6 is 1.5 ml ,0.2% . 3- Volume and concentration of FeCl3 is 2.5ml , 0.2%. 4- Temperature has been found 80 . 5- Reaction time is 15 minute . 6- Order of addition is (drug + K3Fe(CN)6+ FeCl3 + acid) . Concentration rang (0.025-5 ppm) , limit detecti
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Recurrent respiratory tract infections are responsible for about 85% of all diseases in childhood, and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to evaluate the main causes underlying recurrent respiratory tract infections in 176 pediatric patients aged 2 month to 4 year and weight from 4 to11 kg referred to the child center hospital and Al-sader hospital prospective study.All parents were given information sheet which then analyzed and the percentage of incidence of causes were recorded, we found that higher % related to many causes; mostly related to the parent like poor family education, mother carelessness, incomplete vaccination, other related to empirical diagnosis, and short course of t
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Background: Plantar heel pain is a clinical syndrome characterized by pain and tenderness beneath the heel which is typically worse in the morning and improves after the first few steps in the day. It is a common and frequently disabling clinical complaint that may be caused by a broad spectrum of osseous or soft tissue disorders.
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an operation of multiple drilling of calcaneum for resistant plantar heel pain syndrome.
Methods: During the period from November 2012 to August 2016, 17 patients (17heels) were enrolled in a cohort clinical study at the orthopedic unit in AL-Sheikh Zayed and Al-Wassity Hospitals.
This study takes its importance in the area of systemic and historical
studies because it stands on presenting such aspects from the systematic
respect and now Ibn AL-Jouzy dealt with the text of this subject and how he
was exact in telling them.
Therefore, this study sheds light on the important aspects of this
method in his book through reading and studying such texts whether they had
direct or indirect relationship with this subject.
This study is not an easy task since it is based on contriving the
intellectual aspects in the methods of lbn AL-Jouzy and how he deals with the
text of this subject in its hygienic, natural and geographical aspects in
constructing a historical method in most scripts, the gen
The Fauqi field is located about 50Km North-East Amara town in Missan providence in Iraq. Fauqi field has 1,640 MMbbl STOIIP, which lies partly in Iran. Oil is produced from both Mishrif and Asmari zones. Geologically, the Fauqi anticline straddles the Iraqi/Iranian border and is most probably segmented by several faults. There are several reasons leading to drilling horizontal wells rather than vertical wells. The most important parameter is increasing oil recovery, particularly from thin or tight reservoir permeability. The Fauqi oil field is regarded as a giant field with approximately more than 1 billion barrels of proven reserves, but it has recently experienced low production rate problems in many of its existing wells. This study
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This paper presents a study of a syndrome coding scheme for different binary linear error correcting codes that refer to the code families such as BCH, BKLC, Golay, and Hamming. The study is implemented on Wyner’s wiretap channel model when the main channel is error-free and the eavesdropper channel is a binary symmetric channel with crossover error probability (0 < Pe ≤ 0.5) to show the security performance of error correcting codes while used in the single-staged syndrome coding scheme in terms of equivocation rate. Generally, these codes are not designed for secure information transmission, and they have low equivocation rates when they are used in the syndrome coding scheme. Therefore, to improve the transmiss
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