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
Botnet detection develops a challenging problem in numerous fields such as order, cybersecurity, law, finance, healthcare, and so on. The botnet signifies the group of co-operated Internet connected devices controlled by cyber criminals for starting co-ordinated attacks and applying various malicious events. While the botnet is seamlessly dynamic with developing counter-measures projected by both network and host-based detection techniques, the convention techniques are failed to attain sufficient safety to botnet threats. Thus, machine learning approaches are established for detecting and classifying botnets for cybersecurity. This article presents a novel dragonfly algorithm with multi-class support vector machines enabled botnet
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Because the Coronavirus epidemic spread in Iraq, the COVID-19 epidemic of people quarantined due to infection is our application in this work. The numerical simulation methods used in this research are more suitable than other analytical and numerical methods because they solve random systems. Since the Covid-19 epidemic system has random variables coefficients, these methods are used. Suitable numerical simulation methods have been applied to solve the COVID-19 epidemic model in Iraq. The analytical results of the Variation iteration method (VIM) are executed to compare the results. One numerical method which is the Finite difference method (FD) has been used to solve the Coronavirus model and for comparison purposes. The numerical simulat
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In this paper an attempt to provide a single degree of freedom lumped model for fluid structure interaction (FSI) dynamical analysis will be presented. The model can be used to clarify some important concept in the FSI dynamics such as the added mass, added stiffness, added damping, wave coupling ,influence mass coefficient and critical fluid depth . The numerical results of the model show that the natural frequency decrease with the increasing of many parameters related to the structure and the fluid .It is found that the interaction phenomena can become weak or strong depending on the depth of the containing fluid .The damped and un damped free response are plotted in time domain and phase plane for different model parameters It is fou
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People’s ability to quickly convey their thoughts, or opinions, on various services or items has improved as Web 2.0 has evolved. This is to look at the public perceptions expressed in the reviews. Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) deemed to receive a set of texts (e.g., product reviews or online reviews) and identify the opinion-target (aspect) within each review. Contemporary aspect-based sentiment analysis systems, like the aspect categorization, rely predominantly on lexicon-based, or manually labelled seeds that is being incorporated into the topic models. And using either handcrafted rules or pre-labelled clues for performing implicit aspect detection. These constraints are restricted to a particular domain or language which is
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The reactions of ozone with 2,3-Dimethyl-2-Butene (CH3)2C=C(CH3)2 and 1,3-Butadiene CH2=CHCH=CH2 have been investigated under atmospheric conditions at 298±3K in air using both relative and absolute rate techniques, and the measured rate coefficients are found to be in good agreement in both techniques used. The obtained results show the addition of ozone to the double bond in these compounds and how it acts as function of the methyl group substituent situated on the double bond. The yields of all the main products have been determined using FTIR and GC-FID and the product studies of these reactions establish a very good idea for the decomposition pathways for the primary formed compounds (ozonides) and give a good information for the effe
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In this study, we set up and analyze a cancer growth model that integrates a chemotherapy drug with the impact of vitamins in boosting and strengthening the immune system. The aim of this study is to determine the minimal amount of treatment required to eliminate cancer, which will help to reduce harm to patients. It is assumed that vitamins come from organic foods and beverages. The chemotherapy drug is added to delay and eliminate tumor cell growth and division. To that end, we suggest the tumor-immune model, composed of the interaction of tumor and immune cells, which is composed of two ordinary differential equations. The model’s fundamental mathematical properties, such as positivity, boundedness, and equilibrium existence, are exami
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The objective of the present study is to determine the effect of Kaolin as a fuel oil additive to minimize the fireside corrosion of superheater boiler tubes of ASTM designation (A213-T22) by increasing the melting point of the formed slag on the outside tubes surface, through the formation of new compounds with protective properties to the metal surface. The study included measuring corrosion rates at different temperatures with and without additive use with various periods of time, through crucible test method and weight loss technique.
A mathematical model represents the relation between corrosion rate and the studied variables, is obtained using statistical regression analysis. Using this model,
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