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.
From a health standpoint, fluoride (F) is a vital element for humans. It had harmful effects on numerous organs when consumed in high dosages. Fluoride poisoning has been linked to liver damage. The purpose of this study was to see how sodium fluoride (Naf) affected liver function and the glycemic index in adult male albino rats. Fourteen (14) adult male Wistar albino rats were randomly and evenly divided into two groups and given the following treatments for thirty (30) days: G1 Group (Control group), were given distilled water and fed a balanced diet, G2 rats were administered water that contained 100 ppm Naf. The animals were fasted for 8-12 hours before being anesthetized and blood samples were taken by heart puncture technique
... Show MoreFormulations based on nanomaterials have the ability to reduce the consuming of hazardous pesticides and theirimpact on human health and environment. The present study focused on a comparative investigation of histological effects of nanocapule acetamiprid (NACMP) in vivoand commercial parental bulk form of acetamiprid (ACMP) on albino mice. Nanoformulations of pesticides have the potential to improve food productivity without compromising with the ecosystem. In the present study, nanocapsules containing acetamiprid were prepared from two natural macromolecules, alginate and chitosan. The characterization of the nanocapsules were investigated by Dynamic Light Scattering(DLS), T ransmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Atomic force
... Show MoreThe combination of high protein content and a soft seed coat makes the wheat-rye hybrid Triticale (Triticosecale) vulnerable to attack by rice weevils. Drying triticale grain to moisture contents safe for storage can prevent infestation by rice weevils, but if grain is being stored for seed, high drying temperatures can affect seed germination. Grain can be effectively dried at low temperatures, but low-temperature drying is difficult in hot, humid regions such as the Gulf Coast. This study nvestigated the effects of drying temperatures from 35°C to 45°C on triticale seed germination and found no statistical differences between the germination rates of the seed at any of the drying temperatures and the germination rates of controls. Final
... Show MoreCipher security is becoming an important step when transmitting important information through networks. The algorithms of cryptography play major roles in providing security and avoiding hacker attacks. In this work two hybrid cryptosystems have been proposed, that combine a modification of the symmetric cryptosystem Playfair cipher called the modified Playfair cipher and two modifications of the asymmetric cryptosystem RSA called the square of RSA technique and the square RSA with Chinese remainder theorem technique. The proposed hybrid cryptosystems have two layers of encryption and decryption. In the first layer the plaintext is encrypted using modified Playfair to get the cipher text, this cipher text will be encrypted using squared
... Show MoreTo damp the low-frequency oscillations which occurred due to the disturbances in the electrical power system, the generators are equipped with Power System Stabilizer (PSS) that provide supplementary feedback stabilizing signals. The low-frequency oscillations in power system are classified as local mode oscillations, intra-area mode oscillation, and interarea mode oscillations. A suitable PSS model was selected considering the low frequencies oscillation in the inter-area mode based on conventional PSS and Fuzzy Logic Controller. Two types of (FIS) Mamdani and suggeno were considered in this paper. The software of the methods was executed using MATLAB R2015a package.
There have been many advances in the solar chimney power plant since 1930 and the first pilot work was built in Spain (Manzanares) that produced 50 KW. The solar chimney power plant is considered of a clean power generation that needs to be investigated to enhance the performance by studying the effect of changing the area of passage of air to enhance the velocity towards the chimney to maximize design velocity. In this experimental and numerical study, the reduction area of solar collector was investigated. The reduction area that mean changing the height of glass cover from the absorbing plate (h1=3.8cm, h2=2.6cm and h3=1.28cm). The numerical study was performed using ANSYS Fluent software package (version 14.0) to solve go
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