Quorum sensing (QS) is a perfectly orchestrated molecular communication system. It is a boon for Klebsiella pneumoniae, and bane for the host. This system is believed to make K. pneumoniae a leading cause of multidrug-resistant (MDR) nosocomial infections. This study aimed to investigate the antibacterial and anti-biofilm potential of medicinal plant extracts through interfering with QS of K. pneumoniae. The effect of different concentrations of ethanolic extracts of cinnamon and clove on K. pneumoniae was determined by analyzing the growth curve, survival assay (MTT), Qualitative and quantitative biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance, along with studying gene expression of the genes encoding the above traits, using quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The low concentrations of the plant extracts did not affect neither on the bacterial growth, nor on the viability of K. pneumoniae, supported with growth curves. Additionally, the biofilm production was inhibited even by lower plant concentrations, and both cinnamon and clove extracts were able to render the MDR bacteria to be more susceptible to antibiotics. At the molecular levels, the bacterium treated with either clove or cinnamon or in combination showed under expression of the biofilm formation regulation gene (bssS), the carbapenem resistance gene (bla), as well as the QS target gene (LuxS). Both clove and cinnamon ethanolic extracts exerted potent impacts on reducing pathogenic traits regulated by QS in K. pneumoniae. Finally, the study recommends further exploration of clove and cinnamon extracts separately or in combination to develop alternative therapies against MDR K. pneumoniae infections.
This valve is intended for use in valves for steering movement, using the qualities of the Magneto-rheological (MR) fluid to regulate the fluid, direct contact without the utilization of moving parts like a spool, a connection between electric flux, and fluid power was made, The simulation was done to employ the" finite element method of magnetism (FEMM)" to arrive at the best design. This software is used for magnetic resonance valve finite element analysis. The valve's best performance was obtained by using a closed directional control valve in the normal state normally closed (NC) MR valve, with simulation results revealing the optimum magnetic flux density in the absence of a current and the shedding condition, as well as the optimum
... Show MoreNanofluids are proven to be efficient agents for wettability alteration in subsurface applications including enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Nanofluids can also be used for CO2-storage applications where the CO2-wet rocks can be rendered strongly water-wet, however no attention has been given to this aspect in the past. Thus in this work we presents contact angle (θ) measurements for CO2/brine/calcite system as function of pressure (0.1 MPa, 5 MPa, 10 MPa, 15 MPa, and 20 MPa), temperature (23 °C, 50 °C and 70 °C), and salinity (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% NaCl) before and after nano-treatment to address the wettability alteration efficiency. Moreover, the effect of treatment pressure and temperature, treatment fluid concentration (SiO2 wt%) and
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The objective of this study was to develop neural network algorithm, (Multilayer Perceptron), based correlations for the prediction overall volumetric mass-transfer coefficient (kLa), in slurry bubble column for gas-liquid-solid systems. The Multilayer Perceptron is a novel technique based on the feature generation approach using back propagation neural network. Measurements of overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient were made with the air - Water, air - Glycerin and air - Alcohol systems as the liquid phase in bubble column of 0.15 m diameter. For operation with gas velocity in the range 0-20 cm/sec, the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient was found to decrease w
... Show MoreThe effluent quality improvement being discharged from wastewater treatment plants is essential to maintain an environment and healthy water resources. This study was carried out to evaluate the possibility of intermittent slow sand filtration as a promising tertiary treatment method for the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) effluent. Laboratory scale slow sand filter (SSF) of 1.5 UC and 0.1 m/h filtration rate, was used to study the process performance. It was found that SSF IS very efficient in oxidizing organic matter with COD removal efficiency up to 95%, also it is capable of removing considerable amounts of phosphate with 76% and turbidity with 87% removal efficiencies. Slow sand filter efficiently reduced the mass of suspended
... Show MoreThis research presents and discuss the results of experimental investigation carried out on geogrids model to study the behavior of geogrid in the loose sandy soil. The effect of location eccentricity, depth of first layer of reinforcement, vertical spacing, number and type of reinforcement layers have been investigated. The results indicated that the percentage of bearing improvement a bout (22 %) at number of reinforced layers N=1 and about (47.5%) at number of reinforced layers N=2 for different Eccentricity values when depth ratio and vertical spacing between layers are (0.5B and 0.75B) respectively
In this search, a new bioluminescent technique was proved for pyrophosphate which was employed to single- nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) diagnosis using one-base extension reaction. Four Mycobacterium tuberculosis genes were chosen (Rpob, InhA, KatG, GyrA) genes. Fifty-four specimens were used in this study fifty-three proved as drug-resistant specimens by The Iraqi Institute of Chest and Respiratory Diseases in Baghdad., also one specimen was used as a negative control. The procedure of this assay was as follows. A specific primer within each aliquot owning a short 3-OH end of the base of the target gene was hybridized to the single-stranded DNA template. Then, (exo-) Klenow DNA polymerase and one of either ?-thio-dATP, dTTP, dGTP, or dCTP
... Show MoreThis work was included external morphological study of horse fly Tabanus indrae Hauser 1939 new record in Iraq, which belongs to family: Tabanidae order: Diptera. The study was involved the most important taxonomic external characters of the: head, thorax, abdomen and their appendages which are: antenna, maxillary palp, wings, legs, spotting in coloring pattern and female genitalia of abdomen
Benthic invertebrates' diversity and some physical a:1d
chemical characteristics in Lower Zab tributary and Tigris River were studied. Month l y samples were col l ected from November 2001 to October 2002.
The rt:sLllts of the present study showed the turbidity iu Tigris river
before the confluence to be higher (34.4 NTU) compared to the other stations. Mean salinity was greater in Lower Zab tributary (0.33 %) compared to that in the river. Lower Zab tJibutary and Tigris River were good in Oxygen content, and a high dissolved oxygen value was recorded (7.9 mg/L) in Lower Zab tributary.
... Show MoreThe university course timetable problem (UCTP) is typically a combinatorial optimization problem. Manually achieving a useful timetable requires many days of effort, and the results are still unsatisfactory. unsatisfactory. Various states of art methods (heuristic, meta-heuristic) are used to satisfactorily solve UCTP. However, these approaches typically represent the instance-specific solutions. The hyper-heuristic framework adequately addresses this complex problem. This research proposed Particle Swarm Optimizer-based Hyper Heuristic (HH PSO) to solve UCTP efficiently. PSO is used as a higher-level method that selects low-level heuristics (LLH) sequence which further generates an optimal solution. The proposed a
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