Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
The operating characteristics of optoelectronic devices depend critically on the properties physical of the constituent materials, interesting compound has been focused on this research formed from group III and V of the periodic table. Thin film n-InSb heterjuntion were successfully fabricated on p-Si substrates by thermal evaporation technique at different annealing temperature (as prepared, 400,500,600) °C. The effect of annealing temperature on the structural, surface morphology, optical and optoelectronic properties of InSb films were investigated and studied. The crystal structure of the film was characterized by X-ray diffraction and techniques. AFM techniques inspect the surface morphology of InSb films, the study presented the val
... Show MoreSCADA is the technology that allows the operator to gather data from one or more various facilities and to send control instructions to those facilities. This paper represents an adaptable and low cost SCADA system for a particular sugar manufacturing process, by using Programmable Logic Controls (Siemens s7-1200, 1214Dc/ Dc/ Rly). The system will control and monitor the laboratory production line chose from sugar industry. The project comprises of two sections the first one is the hardware section that has been designed, and built using components suitable for making it for laboratory purposes, and the second section was the software as the PLC programming, designing the HMI, creating alarms and trending system. The system will ha
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This paper represents a study of the effect of the soil type, the drilling parameters and the drilling tool properties on the dynamic vibrational behavior of the drilling rig and its assessment in the drilling system. So first, an experimental drilling rig was designed and constructed to embrace the numerical work.
The experimental work included implementation of the drill-string in different types of soil with different properties according to the difference in the grains size, at different rotational speeds (RPM), and different weights on bit (WOB) (Thrust force), in a way that allows establishing the charts that correlate the vibration acceleration, the rate of penetration (ROP), and the power
... Show MoreEvaporation from water bodies is important and considered a major problem in dry and semi-dry regions, in this research the evaporation has been analyzed from two approaches: engineeringly and statistically. The engineering approach deals with the calculation of evaporation rates of Mosul Dam Lake. Three methods were used: pan evaporation class A, the combined and the mass-transfer. It was found that the values obtained by pan evaporation class A method was the highest among the other, while the mass transfer method achieved the lowest results. The evaporation rates during the year ranged according to the first method (0.9–5.5) mm/day, second (0.7–11.5) mm/day and the last method (1.0039×106) m3/year, whi
... Show MoreLetrozole (LZL) is a non-steroidal competitive aromatase enzyme system inhibitor. The aim of this study is to improve the permeation of LZL through the skin by preparing as nanoemulsion using various numbers of oils, surfactants and co-surfactant with deionized water. Based on solubility studies, mixtures of oleic acid oil and tween 80/ transcutol p as surfactant/co-surfactant (Smix) in different percentages were used to prepare nanoemulsions (NS). Therefore, 9 formulae of (o/w) LZL NS were formulated, then pseudo-ternary phase diagram was used as a useful tool to evaluate the NS domain at Smix ratios: 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1.
Ondansetron HCl (OND) is a potent antiemetic drug used for control of nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy. It exhibits only 60 – 70 % of oral bioavailability due to first pass metabolism and has a relative short half-life of 3-5 hours. Poor bioavailability not only leads to the frequent dosing but also shows very poor patient adherence. Hence, in the present study an approach has been made to develop OND nanoparticles using eudragit® RS100 and eudragit® RL100 polymer to control release of OND for transdermal delivery and to improve patient compliance.
Six formulas of OND nanoparticles were prepared using nanoprecipitation technique. The particles sizes and zeta potential were measured
... Show MoreIn this paper, we introduce a new class of Weighted Rayleigh Distribution based on two parameters, one is the scale parameter and the other is the shape parameter introduced in Rayleigh distribution. The main properties of this class are derived and investigated . The moment method and least square method are used to obtain estimators of parameters of this distribution. The probability density function, survival function, cumulative distribution and hazard function are derived and found. Real data sets are collected to investigate two methods that depend on in this study. A comparison is made between two methods of estimation and clarifies that MLE method is better than the OLS method by using the mea
... Show MoreThe current study aimed to identify the difficulties faced by the student in mathematics and possible proposals to address these difficulties. The study used a descriptive method also used the questionnaire to collect data and information were applied to a sample of (163) male and female teachers. The results of the study found that the degree of difficulties in learning mathematics for the fifth and sixth grades is high for some paragraphs and intermediate for other paragraphs, included the student's field. The results also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α = 0.05) between the responses of the members of the study sample from male and female teachers to the degree of diffi
... Show MoreBall and Plate (B&P) system is a benchmark system in the control engineering field that has been used to verify many control methods. In this paper the design of a sliding mode . controller has been investigated and verified in real-time via implementation on a real ball and plate system hardware. The mathematical model has been derived and the necessary parameters have been measured. The sliding mode controller has been designed based on the obtained mathematical model. The resulting controller has been implemented using the Arduino Mega 2560 and a ball and plate system built completely from scratch. The Arduino has been programmed by the Arduino support target for Simulink. Three test signals has been used for verification purposes
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