The resistance of Staphylococcus aureus to ciprofloxacin has complicated the problem of treating staphylococcal associated infections in which MRSA is the causative agent since ciprofloxacin was the drug of choice to treat such infections. Our study investigated the incidence of Ciprofloxacin resistant S. aureus isolates that were also methicillin resistant among Iraqi patients. The obtained bacterial isolates were tested for Ciprofloxacin resistance using agar dilution method and the sequence of gyrA and parC. The results revealed that about 8% of the isolated MRSA strains were Ciprofloxacin resistant and the resistance was due to mutation in gyrA rather than parC.
Premature failure in asphalt concrete pavement has been the main concern for pavement construction companies and engineers in recent years because of the large rise in traffic volume and loads and the temperature extremes in the summer and winter. The use of modifiers in asphalt concrete mixtures has attracted much attention to increase the performance and lifespan of pavements. As nanotechnology developed, several researchers concentrated on how these materials can help increase pavement serviceability by minimizing rutting and moisture damage. This study evaluates the Hydrated Lime (HL) effect by two methods (wet and dry hydrated lime) on the durability of the warm mix asphalt. The first method, HL, has been supplemented to the as
... Show MoreIn this research is to study the influence of the aging heat treatment on the pitting corrosion resistance of martensitic stainless steel (MSS), where a number of specimens from martensitic stainless steel were subjected to solution treatment at 1100 oC for one hour followed by water quenching then aging in the temperatures range (500-750) oC for different holding times (1,5,10,15&20) hr. Accelerated chemical corrosion test and immersion chemical corrosion test were performed on samples after heat treatment. The results of the research showed that the pitting corrosion resistance is significantly affected by the aging temperature. Where found that the aging samples at a temperature of 500 °C have the highest ra
... Show MoreBackground: Ultrasound is a valuable tool for evaluating fetal problems throughout pregnancy. Amniotic fluid anomalies have been associated with unfavorable maternal, fetal, and obstetrical outcomes. Objective: To determine the effect of echogenic amniotic fluid during term pregnancy on the presence of meconium stain liquor and pregnancy outcome. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1080 term pregnant women who visited Al-Elwiya Maternity Teaching Hospital from May 1st, 2021, to May 1st, 2023. Ultrasound was used to analyze echogenic amniotic fluid and turbid liquor. The liquor state was tested either after an artificial membrane rupture in the vaginal delivery trial or during a cesarean section. Results: Echogenic amni
... Show MoreA mixture model is used to model data that come from more than one component. In recent years, it became an effective tool in drawing inferences about the complex data that we might come across in real life. Moreover, it can represent a tremendous confirmatory tool in classification observations based on similarities amongst them. In this paper, several mixture regression-based methods were conducted under the assumption that the data come from a finite number of components. A comparison of these methods has been made according to their results in estimating component parameters. Also, observation membership has been inferred and assessed for these methods. The results showed that the flexible mixture model outperformed the
... Show MoreSpatial data observed on a group of areal units is common in scientific applications. The usual hierarchical approach for modeling this kind of dataset is to introduce a spatial random effect with an autoregressive prior. However, the usual Markov chain Monte Carlo scheme for this hierarchical framework requires the spatial effects to be sampled from their full conditional posteriors one-by-one resulting in poor mixing. More importantly, it makes the model computationally inefficient for datasets with large number of units. In this article, we propose a Bayesian approach that uses the spectral structure of the adjacency to construct a low-rank expansion for modeling spatial dependence. We propose a pair of computationally efficient estimati
... Show MoreIn his masterpiece ’The Prophet’, Kahlil Gibran presents his unwavering faith and passionate belief in the healing power of universal love that brings humans to sublime ideas and elevates their souls and behavior. The current study aims to find out the stylistic devices utilized to represent the concept of love based on the hypothesis that Gibran tends to use certain stylistic effects to convey his meaning. The study adopts Leech and Short’s (2007) framework of stylistic analysis to analyze the lexical items and figures of speech in selected extracts from the book. The findings reveal that Gibran prefers concrete nouns, dynamic verbs, and physical adjectives over abstract nouns, stative verbs, and psychological adjectives to s
... Show MoreAbstract:
The problem of poverty is one of the most important development challenges facing developing countries including Sudan for several decades. Although many efforts have been made to reduce poverty, however, its rates are increasing, and public policies adopted by the government in this regard remain elusive in achievinging its main objectives or making any significant progress. The purpose of the present study is to analyse poverty in Sudan by identifying its measurement, causes and the factors that have contributed to the increasing poverty rates over the past two decades. Also this study aims at investigating the interim poverty reduction strategy in Sudan as well as evaluates that strategy throug
... Show MoreObjective:Fluorid-containing dental alginate impression materials can exert a considerable reduction in
enamel solubility. The objective was to evaluate the effect of fluoride addition on the setting time and
compressive strength of alginate impression materials.
Methodology: 60 samples were constructed from alginate impression material (30 samples for setting
time test and 30 samples for compressive strength test).Specimens of each test divided into three
subgroup. Group A: 10 specimens of alginate were mixed with distilled water [control], Group B: 10
specimens of alginate were mixed with100-ppm fluoride and Group C:10 specimens of alginate were
mixed with 2%Naf.
Results: the result of setting time test showed t
Background: Adjustment of any premature occlusal contact of any zirconia restoration requires its polishing or glazing in order to restore the smoothness of the restoration. The objective of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effects of different polishing systems and glazing on the surface roughness of full-contour zirconia. Material and methods: Forty disks (diameter: 8 mm, thickness: 6.4 mm) were prepared from pre-sintered full-contoured zirconia block; they were colored and sintered in a high-temperature furnace at 1500ËšC for 8 hours. The specimens were then leveled and finished using grinding and polishing machine and adjusted using diamond disk. The specimens were then randomly divided into four groups (n=10), group I involves
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is designate quenching and tempering heat treatment by using Taguchi technique to determine optimal factors of heat treatment (austenitizing temperature, percentage of nanoparticles, type of base media, nanoparticles type and soaking time) for increasing hardness, wear rate and impact energy properties of 420 martensitic stainless steel. An (L18) orthogonal array was chosen for the design of experiment. The optimum process parameters were determined by using signal-to-noise ratio (larger is better) criterion for hardness and impact energy while (Smaller is better) criterion was for the wear rate. The importance levels of process parameters that effect on hardness, wear rate and impact energy propertie
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