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
Programs directed to children through the media in general and in television in particular are among the main factors that help in forming the cultural and educational values of this important segment of society, and in light of this the study problem was identified in answering a major question: What are the cultural and educational values that Ajyal channel seeks Space planted in children through my program, Iftah Ya Simsim (in its new season) and Friends of Ajyal? , While the objectives of the study were evident in identifying the most prominent cultural and educational values that the Ajyal satellite channel worked to instill in children, and identifying the nature of the techniques used by Ajyal channel in providing the value conten
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Research was: 1- known as self-efficacy when students perceived the university. 2- know the significance of statistical differences in perceived self-efficacy according to gender and specialty. Formed the research sample of (300) students were chosen from the original research community by way of random (150) male specialization and scientific and humanitarian (150) females specialized scientific and humanitarian. The search tool to prepare the yard tool to measure perceived self-efficacy based on measurements and previous literature on the subject of perceived self-efficacy. The researcher using a number of means, statistical, including test Altaúa and analysis of variance of bilateral and results showed the enjoyment of the research s
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This paper aims to develop a technique for helping disabled people elderly with physical disability, such as those who are unable to move hands and cannot speak howover, by using a computer vision; real time video and interaction between human and computer where these combinations provide a promising solution to assist the disabled people. The main objective of the work is to design a project as a wheelchair which contains two wheel drives. This project is based on real time video for detecting and tracking human face. The proposed design is multi speed based on pulse width modulation(PWM), technique. This project is a fast response to detect and track face direction with four operations movement (left, right, forward and stop). These opera
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Construction of photographed bullying scale of kindergarteners was the aim of this study. The study conducted to answer the raised question, could the bullying among kindergarteners be measured?. A total of (200) boy and girl were selected from city of Baghdad to be the sample of the study. The scale composed of (27) item with colored pictures. It takes about (15) minuets to answer the whole scale items. SPSS tools were used to process the collected data. The result showed that the bullying among kindergarteners could be measured.
Different ANN architectures of MLP have been trained by BP and used to analyze Landsat TM images. Two different approaches have been applied for training: an ordinary approach (for one hidden layer M-H1-L & two hidden layers M-H1-H2-L) and one-against-all strategy (for one hidden layer (M-H1-1)xL, & two hidden layers (M-H1-H2-1)xL). Classification accuracy up to 90% has been achieved using one-against-all strategy with two hidden layers architecture. The performance of one-against-all approach is slightly better than the ordinary approach
The aim of this work is to develop an axi-symmetric two dimensional model based on a coupled simplified computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Lagrangian method to predict the air flow patterns and drying of particles. Then using this predictive tool to design more efficient spray dryers. The approach to this is to model what particles experience in the drying chamber with respect to air temperature and humidity. These histories can be obtained by combining the particles trajectories with the air temperature/humidity pattern in the spray dryer. Results are presented and discussed in terms of the air velocity, temperature, and humidity profiles within the chambers and compared for drying of a 42.5% solids solution in a spray chamber
... Show MoreAutonomous motion planning is important area of robotics research. This type of planning relieves human operator from tedious job of motion planning. This reduces the possibility of human error and increase efficiency of whole process.
This research presents a new algorithm to plan path for autonomous mobile robot based on image processing techniques by using wireless camera that provides the desired image for the unknown environment . The proposed algorithm is applied on this image to obtain a optimal path for the robot. It is based on the observation and analysis of the obstacles that lying in the straight path between the start and the goal point by detecting these obstacles, analyzing and studying their shapes, positions and
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In this research we study the wavelet characteristics for the important time series known as Sunspot, on the aim of verifying the periodogram that other researchers had reached by the spectral transform, and noticing the variation in the period length on one side and the shifting on another.
A continuous wavelet analysis is done for this series and the periodogram in it is marked primarily. for more accuracy, the series is partitioned to its the approximate and the details components to five levels, filtering these components by using fixed threshold on one time and independent threshold on another, finding the noise series which represents the difference between
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Gumbel distribution was dealt with great care by researchers and statisticians. There are traditional methods to estimate two parameters of Gumbel distribution known as Maximum Likelihood, the Method of Moments and recently the method of re-sampling called (Jackknife). However, these methods suffer from some mathematical difficulties in solving them analytically. Accordingly, there are other non-traditional methods, like the principle of the nearest neighbors, used in computer science especially, artificial intelligence algorithms, including the genetic algorithm, the artificial neural network algorithm, and others that may to be classified as meta-heuristic methods. Moreover, this principle of nearest neighbors has useful statistical featu
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