Periodontitis is one of the most prevalent bacterial diseases affecting man with up to 90% of the global population affected. Its severe form can lead to the tooth loss in 10-15% of the population worldwide. The disease is caused by a dysbiosis of the local microbiota and one organism that contributes to this alteration in the bacterial population is Prophyromonas gingivalis. This organism possesses a range of virulence factors that appear to contribute to its growth and survival at a periodontal site amongst which is its ability to invade oral epithelial cells. Such an invasion strategy provides a means of evasion of host defence mechanisms, persistence at a site and the opportunity for dissemination to other sites in the mouth. However, previous studies have demonstrated that invasion of the mammalian cells in a population by P. gingivalis is heterogenous, with some cells becoming heavily invaded while others harbour no or only a few bacteria. An understanding of this heterogeneity may throw light on the mechanisms involved and we hypothesised that the phase of the host cell cycle may explain this phenomenon. In an attempt to study the factors influencing P. gingivalis invasion and the cell response to that invasion, a standard antibiotic protection assay was employed and an oral keratinocyte cell line, H357. The results showed that P. gingivalis NCTC 11834 invasion was significantly increased with increasing time of exposure to the cells and the cell density. This may reflect an increased host cell surface area available for bacterial attachment. No effect on invasion of P. gingivalis invasion was observed by the bacterial growth phase, H357 cell passage number or whether cells were pre-incubated with P. gingivalis lipopolysaccharide. Epithelial cells did, however, respond to the presence of P. gingivalis in a number of ways. For example, the mRNA expression of endothelin-1 and urokinase receptor were upregulated with increasing P. gingivalis infection time, suggesting that these proteins could act as inflammatory mediators and possibly as useful markers of the severity of periodontal disease or in the diagnosis and treatment of periodontitis. iii Secondly, in an attempt to investigate the reason for the observed heterogeneous P. gingivalis invasion of H357 cell populations, the effect of cell cycle phase on P. gingivalis invasion was investigated. H357 cells were synchronized by serum starvation. On re-introduction of serum, characterisation of cell cycle phase distribution was performed by flow cytometry following staining with propidium idodide (PI) or by immunofluorescence using bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU), which specifically identifies cells in S-phase. The effect of cell cycle phases on P. gingivalis invasion was measured using the antibiotic protection assay, immunofluorescence and flow cytometry and these were correlated with gene and surface expression of the urokinase receptor and the α5-integrin subunit, which is thought to mediate P. gingivalis invasion. Results showed that the percentage invasion was enhanced with increasing serum re-introduction time, and positively correlated with the number of cells in S-phase. In addition, flow cytometry data showed that the highest association of fluorescent P. gingivalis was with PI positive S-phase cells. Moreover, BrdU positive S-phase cells were 3 times more likely to be invaded and contained 10 times more P. gingivalis than cells in other phases. Also, α5-integrin was more highly expressed in cells in S-phase than other phases, which could explain the mechanism underlying this enhanced invasion. Data presented here have suggested that P. gingivalis targeting of cells in S- phase could, in vivo, allow preferential invasion of the junctional epithelial cells which turns over rapidly. The data presented in this thesis suggest that P. gingivalis invasion is greatly dependent on several factors attributed to the host, the bacteria itself, and to the environment which the bacteria reside in. The invasion occurs within a population of host cells in a heterogeneous fashion, and is dependent on the cell cycle phase, specifically S-phase. This novel finding, in addition to the previously reported mechanisms of P. gingivalis invasion, increases our understanding of this virulence trait and suggests that such a strategy is a highly organised process which the bacteria can follow to ensure its survival within the host. Furthermore, knowledge of these mechanisms could provide novel approaches to treatment of periodontal diseases.
The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790) is a devastating invasive pest of palm trees, invading the Iraqi date palm tree in 2015 for the first time in Safwan county, Basrah province. The Red Palm weevil has been categorized as a quarantine pest of date palm trees worldwide. In this study, a five years monitoring program has been achieved by scouting the invasive pest RPW population in Safwan county by using visual sampling and Pheromone baited traps.
The results indicated that the number of infested palms, increased from 12 trees in 2015 to 111 in 16 orchards in 2016. The number of the infested palms was minimized to 3 trees in the county in 2019 due to the management protocol of the Ministry of Agriculture
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Spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of copper(II) ion. Synthesized (2,2[O-Tolidine-4,4-bis azo]bis[4,5-diphenyl imidazole]) (MBBAI) was used as chromogenic reagent at pH=5. Various factors affecting complex formation, such as, pH effect, reagent concentration, time effect and temperature effect, have been considered and studied. Under optimum conditions concentration ranged from (5.00-80.00) µg/mL of copper(II) obeyed Beer`s Low. Maximum absorption of the complex was 409nm with molar absorpitivity 0.127x104 L mol-1 cm-1. Limit of detection(LOD) and Limit of quantification were 1.924 and 6.42 μg/mL, respectively.
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Surface water samples from different locations within Tigris River's boundaries in Baghdad city have been analyzed for drinking purposes. Correlation coefficients among different parameters were determined. An attempt has been made to develop linear regression equations to predict the concentration of water quality constituents having significant correlation coefficients with electrical conductivity (EC). This study aims to find five regression models produced and validated using electrical conductivity as a predictor to predict total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), and total dissolved solids (TDS). The five models showed good/excellent prediction ability of the parameters mentioned
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A simple, low cost and rapid flow injection turbidimetric method was developed and validated for mebeverine hydrochloride (MBH) determination in pharmaceutical preparations. The developed method is based on forming of a white, turbid ion-pair product as a result of a reaction between the MBH and sodium persulfate in a closed flow injection system where the sodium persulfate is used as precipitation reagent. The turbidity of the formed complex was measured at the detection angle of 180° (attenuated detection) using NAG dual&Solo (0-180°) detector which contained dual detections zones (i.e., measuring cells 1 & 2). The increase in the turbidity of the complex was directly proportional to the increase of the MBH concentration
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The Jeribe reservoir in the Jambour Oil Field is a complex and heterogeneous carbonate reservoir characterized by a wide range of permeability variations. Due to limited availability of core plugs in most wells, it becomes crucial to establish correlations between cored wells and apply them to uncored wells for predicting permeability. In recent years, the Flow Zone Indicator (FZI) approach has gained significant applicability for predicting hydraulic flow units (HFUs) and identifying rock types within the reservoir units.
This paper aims to develop a permeability model based on the principles of the Flow Zone Indicator. Analysis of core permeability versus core porosity plot and Reservoir Quality Index (RQI) - Normalized por
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Al-Aziz's book was chosen as a subject for research as it is one of the important books in the Islamic world in general and the Shafi'i school in particular and its author Imam Abdul Karim bin Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Rafi's, who in the doctrine of the jurisprudence has made prominent lines and left behind invaluable scientific treasures in the service of religion. Its importance is summarized as follows:
1. Being an explanation of the book (brief) of the argument of Islam Imam Ghazali (God's mercy), one of the five books adopted in Shafi'i jurisprudence.
2. His work is Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Rafii known for the brilliance of the investigation and the power of weighting in the doctrine.
3. It is considered an encyclopedia in Sh
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This study aims at creating an analogy between Quran text Contents as meanings that have representations as visional shapes within ornamental figures in Islamic architecture. The theoretical framework of the study deals with the concept of semantics and its parts, artistic contents of Quran texts, and ornamental figures in Islamic architecture. The study procedures included a population of (69) figures, (5) of them were chosen deliberately for analysis in accordance with a form that had been presented to a number of experts to ensure its validity. The study reached a number of conclusions, the most significant among them are: adopting natural denotation of direct reference in order to link the ornamental figure to the source it was taken
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Signature verification involves vague situations in which a signature could resemble many reference samples or might differ because of handwriting variances. By presenting the features and similarity score of signatures from the matching algorithm as fuzzy sets and capturing the degrees of membership, non-membership, and indeterminacy, a neutrosophic engine can significantly contribute to signature verification by addressing the inherent uncertainties and ambiguities present in signatures. But type-1 neutrosophic logic gives these membership functions fixed values, which could not adequately capture the various degrees of uncertainty in the characteristics of signatures. Type-1 neutrosophic representation is also unable to adjust to various
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In subterranean coal seam gas (CSG) reservoirs, massive amounts of small-sized coal fines are released during the production and development stages, especially during hydraulic fracturing stimulation. These coal fines inevitably cause mechanical pump failure and permeability damage due to aggregation and subsequent pore-throat blockage. This aggregation behavior is thus of key importance in CSG production and needs to be minimized. Consequently, such coal fines dispersions need to be stabilized, which can be achieved by the formulation of improved fracturing fluids. Here, we thus systematically investigated the effectiveness of two additives (ethanol, 0.5 wt % and SDBS, 0.001 and 0.01 wt %) on dispersion stability for a wide range of condit
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