BACKGROUND: Burkholderia cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation onto abiotic surfaces is an important feature of clinically relevant isolates. The in vitro biofilm formation of B. cepacia onto coated indwelling urinary catheters (IDCs) with moxifloxacin has not been previously investigated. OBJECTIVES: To examine the ability of B. cepacia to form biofilms on IDCs and the effect of coating IDCs with moxifloxacin on biofilm formation by B. cepacia in vitro. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The adhesion of B. cepacia to coated and uncoated IDCs with moxifloxacin was evaluated. Pieces of IDCs were coated with moxifloxacin (adsorption method). The spectrophotometric method was used to check moxifloxacin leaching into tubes. Coated and uncoated tubes were incubated with 107 colony forming units (cfu)/mL of B. cepacia. The viable bacterial count was used to count the number of bacteria adhered to coated and uncoated IDC pieces. RESULTS: A significant adhesion of B. cepacia to uncoated IDC pieces started 15 min after the incubation in a bacterial suspension (107 cfu/mL). A maximum adhesion was observed at 48 h. The pretreatment of IDCs with 100 μg/mL of moxifloxacin produced the best adsorption of antibiotic onto the IDCs. Coating IDC pieces with moxifloxacin significantly reduced the adhesion and biofilm formation of B. cepacia (p < 0.05) at various time intervals (1 h, 4 h and 24 h). CONCLUSIONS: The present study has demonstrated for the first time that coated IDCs with moxifloxacin reduce B. cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation. This finding has opened the door to the production of the new generation IDCs that prevent bacteria from attaching and forming biofilms.
In this study, three strengthening techniques, near-surface mounted NSM-CRFP, NSM-CFRP with externally bonding EB-CFRP, and hybrid CFRP with circularization were studied to increase the seismic performance of existing RC slender columns under lateral loads. Experimentally, 1:3 scale RC models were studied and subjected to both lateral static load and seismic excitation. In the dynamic test, a model was subjected to El Centro 1940 NS earthquake excitation by using a shaking table. According to the test results, the strengthening techniques showed a significant increase in load carrying capacity, of about 86.6%, and 46.6%, for circularization and NSM-CFRP respectively, of the reference unstrengthened columns. On the other hand, column
... Show MoreOsteoporosis (OP) is a systemic skeletal disease characterized by low bone mineral density and deterioration of bone architecture, resulting in bone strength reduction and increased fracture susceptibility. Estrogen deficiency in post-menopausal women is possibly responsible for the instability between bone formation and resorption, which is managed by specific osteoclastogenic cytokines that may be leading to resorption. This study aims to estimation of the concentrations of interleukins −8, −17, −22, beside to certain parameters in blood serum and explained their roles in the development of osteoporosis pathogenicity in postmenopausal women. Materials and Methods A case-control study included 108 Iraqi postmenopausal women participa
... Show MoreThe issue of image captioning, which comprises automatic text generation to understand an image’s visual information, has become feasible with the developments in object recognition and image classification. Deep learning has received much interest from the scientific community and can be very useful in real-world applications. The proposed image captioning approach involves the use of Convolution Neural Network (CNN) pre-trained models combined with Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) to generate image captions. The process includes two stages. The first stage entails training the CNN-LSTM models using baseline hyper-parameters and the second stage encompasses training CNN-LSTM models by optimizing and adjusting the hyper-parameters of
... Show MoreThe objective of this article is to delve into the intricate dynamics of marriage relationships, exploring the impact of emotions such as fear, love, financial considerations and likability. In our investigation, we adopt a perspective that acknowledges the nonlinear nature of interactions among individuals. Diverging from certain prior studies, we propose that the fear element within the context of marriage is not a singular, isolated factor but rather a manifestation resulting from the amalgamation of numerous social issues. This, in turn, contributes to the emergence of strained and unsuccessful relationships. Unlike conventional approaches, we extensively examine the conditions essential for the existence of all socially signifi
... Show MoreBackground: Cigarette smoking (CS) is a periodontal disease risk factor, affecting clinical parameters such as bleeding on probing (BOP), plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI) and proinflammatory cytokines level. This study examines the impact electronic cigarette use on proinflammatory cytokines and periodontal parameters. Methods: In this non-randomized study, ninety participants diagnosed with gingivitis were assigned into three groups. examined the effect of oral hygiene instructions on periodontal parameters and inflammatory biomarkers. Thirty CS (n=30) vaping electronic-cigarettes (e-cig) (n=29), and non-smoker (NS) (n=31) was included. Clinical parameters including PI, BOP, and GI were recorded at baseline and after 3 weeks
... Show MoreBackground: With the increasing demands for adult orthodontics, a growing need arises to bond attachments to porcelain surfaces. Optimal adhesion to porcelain surface should allow orthodontic treatment without bond failure but not jeopardize porcelain integrity after debonding.The present study was carried out to compare the shear bond strength of metal bracket bonded to porcelain surface prepared by two mechanical treatments and by using different etching systems (Hydrofluoric acid 9% and acidulated phosphate fluoride 1.23%). Materials and Methods: The samples were comprised of 60 models (28mm *15mm*28mm) of metal fused to porcelain (feldspathic porcelain). They were divided as the following: group I (control): the porcelain surface left u
... Show MoreThe worsening of environmental problems has led to them being addressed by many entities, the most important of which are the top regulators. Federal Board of supreme audit Office is one of the most important regulators in Iraq. The problem of the research was the fundamental question of the extent to which the Federal Financial Supervisory Office was committed to implementing and exercising environmental control over the audited ones. The refore, the research was based on the main objective of questioning the role of the Federal Financial Supervisory Office in the exercise of environmental control and the compliance of those under its control, by identifying the antosai standards for environmental control, particularly the stand
... Show MoreA field experiment was conducted during winter season of 2021 at a research station of college of agricultural engineering sciences, university of Baghdad to determine the response of active fertility percentage and seed yield and its components of faba bean (Vicia faba L. cv. Aguadulce) to distance between plants and spraying of nano and traditional boron. A Randomized Complete Block Design according to split-plots arrangement was used at three replicates. The main plots were three distances between plants (25, 35 and 45 cm), while the sub plots including spraying of distilled water only (control treatment), spraying of boron at a 100 mg L-1 and spraying of nano boron at two concentrations (1
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