Semliki Forest Virus (SFV), a member of the Alphavirus genus in the Togaviridae family, is a small-enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) virus. The virus is spread by mosquitos and can infect humans, resulting in mild febrile disease with symptoms that include fever, myalgia, arthralgia, persistent headaches and asthenia. Virulent strains of SFV in mice cause lethal encephalitis by infecting neurons in the central nervous system. In on-going experiments in the research group using a focused siRNA screen we have investigated the role of deubiquitylases (DUBs) during SFV infection (as a model alphavirus) and monitored the effect of DUB depletion on cell viability after infection. We identified a group of DUBs that have a pro-viral effect. The DUB, USP5, from this screen was validated to determine its effect upon viral replication. Here, we show that depleted USP5 in HeLa cells resulted in SFV RNA and viral yield at 8 h post-infection being significantly reduced. In the multi-step viral growth curve assay, in the absence of USP5, similar yields of SFV were determined at 2 and 4 h post-infection. However, a significant reduction in the infectious viral particles release at 6, 8, 10 and 12 h post-infection was observed and this could be reversed by direct constraining viral replication. These results raise the potential for USP5 to play a distinct role in the replication of SFV, suggesting that USP5 may be a possible anti-viral therapy for alphavirus infection.
Information systems and data exchange between government institutions are growing rapidly around the world, and with it, the threats to information within government departments are growing. In recent years, research into the development and construction of secure information systems in government institutions seems to be very effective. Based on information system principles, this study proposes a model for providing and evaluating security for all of the departments of government institutions. The requirements of any information system begin with the organization's surroundings and objectives. Most prior techniques did not take into account the organizational component on which the information system runs, despite the relevance of
... Show MoreOne of the most opportunistic mycosis globally is the Candida ssp., which is considered as the most agent that cause nosocomial urinary tract infections (UTIs), oral candidiasis and genitourinary candidiasis. This study included 100 samples of Iraqi subjects suffering from urinary tract infections. Identification of Candida have been done by different methods such as; characteristic of colony on culture, gram stain, and microscopically. This study aimed to isolation and identification of Candida spp from urine sample of UTI patients and find the relevance of ages and blood group of patients with the infections rate, also determine the effect of age on ESR and CRP levels in the patients. The results showed the higher frequency of
... Show MoreAutomatic speaker recognition may achieve remarkable performance in matched training and test conditions. Conversely, results drop significantly in incompatible noisy conditions. Furthermore, feature extraction significantly affects performance. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients MFCCs are most commonly used in this field of study. The literature has reported that the conditions for training and testing are highly correlated. Taken together, these facts support strong recommendations for using MFCC features in similar environmental conditions (train/test) for speaker recognition. However, with noise and reverberation present, MFCC performance is not reliable. To address this, we propose a new feature 'entrocy' for accurate and robu
... Show MoreIdentity crisis is a dominant literary theme, especially in most Arab women writers’ works. However, it has not been given enough attention from a linguistic point of view. By so doing, the current study intends to fill this gap by analyzing the identity crisis from a pragma-stylistic perspective by examining the writer's style in three purposely selected extracts from Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel Origin (2007). The study aims to examine the identity crisis by using pragmatic and stylistic tools and to explore the effects of Abu-Jaber’s stylistic choices on the readers of her work. To conduct this study, an eclectic model comprising Searle’s speech acts (1979), Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987), Leech's model of figur
... Show MoreThe establishment of international funds to compensate for human rights violations represents an important step towards achieving justice and equality between individuals and societies and solidarity among people, whether through providing financial assistance or by assuming legal and moral responsibility towards victims. With the development of international policies in recent decades, it has become necessary for states to assume their responsibilities in accordance with international law, not only in preventing and combating crimes, but also in providing means of redress for victims. Legislation in many countries has demonstrated the importance of fair compensation as part of criminal and social responsibility. Although traditiona
... Show MoreWith the advancement of technology ,the study of cross-cultural communication via on line has become an important and researchable topic in linguistic theory and its applications.The aims of this study are two- fold (a) exploring the influence of cultural diversity on on-line interaction between American native speakers (NSs) and Iraqi non-native speakers (NNSs) of English which, together with other factors might potentially lead to what Thomas(1983) calls "pragmatic failure" (PF), a main cause of communication breakdowns and (b) specifying which type of PF occurs more frequently between the two groups along with the reasons behind such failures. To achieve these objectives , a number of online chats conducted between
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