Given the paucity and toxicity of available drugs for leishmaniasis, coupled with the advent of drug resistance, the discovery of new therapies for this neglected tropical disease is recognised as being of the utmost urgency. As such antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising compounds against the causative Leishmania species, insect vector-borne protozoan parasites. Here the AMP temporins A, B and 1Sa have been synthesised and screened for activity against Leishmania mexicana insect stage promastigotes and mammalian stage amastigotes, a significant cause of human cutaneous disease. In contrast to previous studies with other species the activity of these AMPs against L. mexicana amastigotes was low. This suggests that amastigotes from different Leishmania species display varying susceptibility to peptides from the temporin family, perhaps indicating differences in their surface structure, the proposed target of these AMPs. In contrast, insect stage L. mexicana promastigotes were sensitive to two of the screened temporins which clearly demonstrates the importance of screening AMPs against both forms of the parasite. Copyright © 2011 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In this paper, we study the incorporation of the commensalism interaction and harvesting on the Lotka–Volterra food chain model. The system provides one commensal prey, one harvested prey, and two predators. A set of preliminary results in local bifurcation analysis around each equilibrium point for the proposed model is discussed, such as saddle-node, transcritical and pitchfork. Some numerical analysis to confirm the accruing of local bifurcation is illustrated. To back up the conclusions of the mathematical study, a numerical simulation of the model is carried out with the help of the MATLAB program. It can be concluded that the system's coexistence can be achieved as long as the harvesting rate on the second prey population is
... Show MoreData steganography is a technique used to hide data, secret message, within another data, cover carrier. It is considered as a part of information security. Audio steganography is a type of data steganography, where the secret message is hidden in audio carrier. This paper proposes an efficient audio steganography method that uses LSB technique. The proposed method enhances steganography performance by exploiting all carrier samples and balancing between hiding capacity and distortion ratio. It suggests an adaptive number of hiding bits for each audio sample depending on the secret message size, the cover carrier size, and the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods
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The public procurement crisis in Iraq plays a fundamental role in the delay in the implementation of construction projects at different stages of project bidding (pre, during, and after). The procurement system of any country plays an important role in economic growth and revival. The paper aims to use the fuzzy logic inference model to predict the impact of the public procurement crisis (relative importance index and Likert scale) was carried out at the beginning to determine the most important parameters that affect construction projects, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) to set up, and finally, the fuzzy decision maker's (FDM) verification of the parameter for comparison with reality. Sixty-five
... Show MoreA three-stage learning algorithm for deep multilayer perceptron (DMLP) with effective weight initialisation based on sparse auto-encoder is proposed in this paper, which aims to overcome difficulties in training deep neural networks with limited training data in high-dimensional feature space. At the first stage, unsupervised learning is adopted using sparse auto-encoder to obtain the initial weights of the feature extraction layers of the DMLP. At the second stage, error back-propagation is used to train the DMLP by fixing the weights obtained at the first stage for its feature extraction layers. At the third stage, all the weights of the DMLP obtained at the second stage are refined by error back-propagation. Network structures an
... Show MoreThis paper presents a new design of a nonlinear multi-input multi-output PID neural controller of the active brake steering force and the active front steering angle for a 2-DOF vehicle model based on modified Elman recurrent neural. The goal of this work is to achieve the stability and to improve the vehicle dynamic’s performance through achieving the desired yaw rate and reducing the lateral velocity of the vehicle in a minimum time period for preventing the vehicle from slipping out the road curvature by using two active control actions: the front steering angle and the brake steering force. Bacterial forging optimization algorithm is used to adjust the parameters weights of the proposed controller. Simulation resul
... Show MoreThe educational function of television is one of the basic functions in light of the technical development that included the specialized satellite channels in all its fields, including the educational field, as its role became parallel to the role of educational institutions. These studies are among the descriptive studies in terms of the type of study methodology that describes the phenomenon, interprets its and extract the results and relationships between the variables. The study sample was multistage (random and intentional) included the students of the sixth academic and literary preparatory stage in the city of Baghdad.
The study problem was summarized by the following main question:
( What are the motives for the exposure of
Aim: This study aimed to assessing orthodontic knowledge and attitude among general dentists and non-orthodontic specialists. Background: Early detection of orthodontic disorders is essentialin motivating patients to intervene prior to long term complications when the disorders are not recongised. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed amongst dentistsother than orthodontists. This questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first one aimed to collect demographic, educational level and practice type information. Further two sections consisted of closed-end questions designed to evaluateknowledge and attitude of orthodontics. Results: A total of 313 responses to the survey were submitted. No significant correlation was observed, e
... Show MoreThis study reports the formation, characterisation and biological evaluation of a Schiff base ligand and its corresponding metal complexes. The Schiff base ligand (HL) was prepared through a condensation reaction involving isonicotinohydrazide and N'-((1R,2R,4R,5S, E)-2,4-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-3-azabi cyclo[3.3.1]nonan-9-ylidene) isonicotinohydrazide (M) in EtOH solvent and (3-5) drops of conc. HCl. The interaction of HL with selected metal chlorides including Mn(+2), Co(+2), Ni(+2), Cu(+2) and Zn(+2) in a 2:1 (L:M) mole ratio resulted in the synthesis of complexes with the general formula [M(HL)Cl2] (where: M = Mn(+2),Co(+2) and Ni(+2)) and [M`(HL)Cl2] (where M` = Cu(+2) and Zn(+2)). The characterisation of the prepared compounds w
... Show MoreA preventing shield for neutrons and gamma rays was designed using alternate layers of water and iron with pre-fixed dimensions in order to study the possibility of attenuating both neutrons and gamma-rays. ANISN CODE was prepared and adapted for the shield calculation using radiation doses calculation: Two groups of cross-section were used for each of neutrons and gamma-rays that rely on the one – dimensional transport equation using discrete ordinate's method, and through transforming cross-section values to values that are independent on the number of groups. The memory size required for the applied code was reduced and the results obtained were in agreement with those of standard acceptable document samples of cross –section, this a
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