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
Over the past few years, ear biometrics has attracted a lot of attention. It is a trusted biometric for the identification and recognition of humans due to its consistent shape and rich texture variation. The ear presents an attractive solution since it is visible, ear images are easily captured, and the ear structure remains relatively stable over time. In this paper, a comprehensive review of prior research was conducted to establish the efficacy of utilizing ear features for individual identification through the employment of both manually-crafted features and deep-learning approaches. The objective of this model is to present the accuracy rate of person identification systems based on either manually-crafted features such as D
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Ameloblastic carcinoma is a rare malignant odontogenic tumor that is further classified into being primary or secondary arising from a preexisting benign ameloblastoma. It affects the mandible in two thirds of the patients. there is no standard treatment protocol for this lesion but radical surgical excision with or without radiotherapy is reported in the majority of cases. In this paper we present a case of a 60 year old female diagnosed with ameloblastic carcinoma of the mandible that was treated by radical resection of the mandible with selective neck dissection and postoperative radiotherapy.
The right to property is one of the most prominent and most important of the fundamental rights that the individual enjoys, whether national or foreign, both of them have their own private property that may not be affected except for the requirements of the country's economic development or what is known as the public benefit, and the Iraqi legislator did not specify what is meant by the removal of foreign investment. Of the bilateral international agreements (BITS), as it determined its terms and methods, the properties of foreign investors may be expropriated in a direct and indirect way.
This research includes theoretical and evaluation design of a polarizer filter of high transmission in the near IR region of (900-1200nm) for different incidence angles to obtain a long wave and short wave pass filter using analytical calculations. Results refer to a new configuration design in fewer layers than used in previous studies in the long wave pass at incidence angles (45o,50o,55o). Adopted Hafnium dioxide (HfO2) and Magnesium fluoride (MgF2) as coating material at design wavelength (933nm), the study also included design short wave pass polarizer by using the same coating material.
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Variable-Length Subnet Masks (VLSM), often referred to as "subnetting a subnet", is used to maximize addressing efficiency. The network administrator is able to use a long mask on networks with few hosts, and a short mask on subnets with many hosts. This addressing scheme allows growth and does not involve wasting addresses. VLSM gives a way of subnetting a network with minimal loses of IP addresses for a specific range. Unfortunately, the network administrator has to perform several mathematical steps (or use charts) to get the required results from VLSM. In this paper, a simple graph simulator is proposed (using Visual Basic 6.0 Language) to perform all the required mathematical steps and to display the obtained required information (the
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Background: Significant advancements have been observed in the additive manufacturing (AM) technology industry in recent decades. Due to the inherent variations among each AM manufacturing technique, new areas of investigation continually arise and require consideration. Additionally, the novel applications of additive manufacturing present new difficulties and possibilities for targeted focus. The aim of this manuscript is to conduct a comprehensive literature review that describes the various processing methods, precision levels, types of materials utilized, and potential applications of 3D printing technology in the field of dentistry. Data: An online search was conducted on databases including Research Gate, Google Scholar, and
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Nowadays, it is convenient for us to use a search engine to get our needed information. But sometimes it will misunderstand the information because of the different media reports. The Recommender System (RS) is popular to use for every business since it can provide information for users that will attract more revenues for companies. But also, sometimes the system will recommend unneeded information for users. Because of this, this paper provided an architecture of a recommender system that could base on user-oriented preference. This system is called UOP-RS. To make the UOP-RS significantly, this paper focused on movie theatre information and collect the movie database from the IMDb website that provides informatio
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This paper refers to studying some types of ideals, specifically cubic bipolar ideals and cubic bipolar T-ideals of TM algebra. It also introduces a cubic bipolar sub-TM-algebra and several important properties of these concepts. The relationships between these ideals and characterizations of cubic bipolar T-ideals are investigated.