Given the paucity and toxicity of available drugs for leishmaniasis, coupled with the advent of drug resistance, the discovery of new therapies for this neglected tropical disease is recognised as being of the utmost urgency. As such antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising compounds against the causative Leishmania species, insect vector-borne protozoan parasites. Here the AMP temporins A, B and 1Sa have been synthesised and screened for activity against Leishmania mexicana insect stage promastigotes and mammalian stage amastigotes, a significant cause of human cutaneous disease. In contrast to previous studies with other species the activity of these AMPs against L. mexicana amastigotes was low. This suggests that ama

This paper studies the behavior of axially loaded RC columns which are confined with carbon fiber reinforced polymers’ sheet (CFRP) and steel jackets (SJ). The study is based on twelve axially loaded RC columns tested up to failure. It is divided into three schemes based on its strengthening type; each scheme has four columns. The main parameters in this study were the compressive strength of the concrete and steel reinforcement ratio. Furthermore, the results of the experimental test showed a substantial enhancement in the column's load-carrying capacity. When compared to the original columns, the CFRP sheet had a significant effect on improving the ductility of the column by increasing the axial deformation by about 59.2 to 95.7

  In this paper, we investigate the connection between the hierarchical models and the power prior distribution in quantile regression (QReg). Under specific quantile, we develop an expression for the power parameter ( ) to calibrate the power prior distribution for quantile regression to a corresponding hierarchical model. In addition, we estimate the relation between the  and the quantile level via hierarchical model. Our proposed methodology is illustrated with real data example.

This work consists of a numerical simulation to predict the velocity and temperature distributions, and an experimental work to visualize the air flow in a room model. The numerical work is based on non-isothermal, incompressible, three dimensional, k turbulence model, and solved using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach, involving finite volume technique to solve continuity, momentum and energy equations, that governs the room’s turbulent flow domain. The experimental study was performed using (1/5) scaled room model of the actual dimensions of the room to simulate room air flow and visualize the flow pattern using smoke generated  from burnt herbs and collected in a smoke generator to delivered through

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats we

The adsorption of Malonic acid, Succinic acid, Adipic acid, and Azelaic acid from their aqueous solutions on zinc oxide surface were investigated. The adsorption efficiency was investigated using various factors such as adsorbent amount, contact time, initial concentration, and temperature. Optimum conditions for acids removal from its aqueous solutions were found to be adsorbent dose (0.2 g), equilibrium contact time (40 minutes), initial acids concentration (0.005 M). Variation of temperature as a function of adsorption efficiency showed that increasing the temperature would result in decreasing the adsorption ability. Kinetic modeling by applying the pseudo-second order model can provide a better fit of the data with a greater correla

In the recent years the research on the activated carbon preparation from agro-waste and byproducts have been increased due to their potency for agro-waste elimination. This paper presents a literature review on the synthesis of activated carbon from agro-waste using microwave irradiation method for heating. The applicable approach is highlighted, as well as the effects of activation conditions including carbonization temperature, retention period, and impregnation ratio. The review reveals that the agricultural wastes heated using a chemical process and microwave energy can produce activated carbon with a surface area that is significantly higher than that using the conventional heating method.

Fuzzy logic is used to solve the load flow and contingency analysis problems, so decreasing computing time and its the best selection instead of the traditional methods. The proposed  method is very accurate with outstanding computation time, which made the fuzzy load flow (FLF) suitable for real time application for small- as well as large-scale power systems. In addition that, the FLF efficiently able to solve load flow problem of ill-conditioned power systems and contingency analysis. The FLF method using Gaussian membership function requires less number of iterations and less computing time than that required in the FLF method using triangular membership function. Using sparsity technique for the input Ybus sparse matrix data gi