A total of 60 cotton swabs are collected from patients suffering from burn wound and surgical site infections admitted to Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Burn Specialist Hospital in Baghdad city during 9/2013 to 11/2013. All cotton swabs are cultured initially on blood agar and MacConkey agar and subjected for standard bacteriological procedures for bacteriological diagnosis. Twenty samples out of sixty are identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa by conventional methods. The results of antibiotic susceptibility test illustrate that the antibiotics resistance rate of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates is as follows:100% (2020) for ceftriaxone, cefepime and carbencillin, 70% (14/20) for amikacin, 65%(13/20) for tobramycin, ceftazidim and gentamycin, 55% (11/20) for ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, 50% (10/20) for piperacillin and impeneme, 30% (6/20) for aztreonam. All Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates are investigated for detection of some virulence factors (haemolysin, protease, lipase enzymes, and extracellular pigments) and biofilm formation. The results of virulence factors reveal that all the isolates are haemolysin, protease, lipase enzymes and extracellular pigments producer, while 95% of the isolates are biofilm producer. Six isolates are selected to irradiation by using CO2 laser according to the results of antibiotic susceptibility and virulence factors at power densities (2000, 2500, and 3000) W/cm2 with exposure time (60 and 90) second. The results of CO2 laser irradiation illustrate that CO2 laser irradiation lead to a reduction in the mean value of the viable number CFU/ml of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates with the increase of the power density and exposure time. The results of the statistical analysis by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) one way and least significant differences-LSD show that there are statistical significant differences in the mean of the viable number CFU/ml between different power densities and different exposure times. After irradiation, antibiotic susceptibility and virulence factors tests of the irradiated strains are performed. The current study concludes that CO2 laser has bactericidal effect on P. aeruginosa isolates without any effect on its antibiotics susceptibility and virulence factors.
Samples of gasoline engine oil (SAE 5W20) that had been exposed to various oxidation times were inspected with a UV-Visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer to select the best wavelengths and wavelength ranges for distinguishing oxidation times. Engine oil samples were subjected to different thermal oxidation periods of 0, 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, and 144 hours, resulting in a range of total base number (TBN) levels. Each wavelength (190.5 – 849.5 nm) and selected wavelength ranges were evaluated to determine the wavelength or wavelength ranges that could best distinguish among all oxidation times. The best wavelengths and wavelength ranges were analyzed with linear regression to determine the best wavelength or range to predict oxidation t
... Show MoreWater is an essential aspect of life and important in evolution. Recently the potable water quality topic has received much attention. The study aims to determine drinking water quality in Al-Najaf City by collecting samples throughout Al-Najaf city and comparing the results with the Iraqi guidelines (IQS 417) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, as well as to calculate the WQI. Samples were tested in the laboratory between December 2021 and June 2022. The results showed that multiple parameters exceeded the allowable limits during both testing periods; during winter months, the results of TDS and turbidity exceeded the upper limits in multiple locations. Total hardness values also
... Show MoreLagrange series and the Bessel function are two classical methods that were created by series expanding from Taylor series. In this paper, the purpose of those two methods was to find the values of the eccentric anomaly for one period (0–360)°. The Matlab program is used to apply the results, the input parameters were eccentricity (0–1), mean anomaly (0–360)°, and finally the parameter W (1–13). The program does not need a tolerance to obtain a precise value for eccentric anomaly like other iterative and non-iterative methods to stop the program; it will stop after completing the required period from 0° to 360° for a body that is determined by the solver. The output will be the final value of the eccentric anomaly. Furthermore,
... Show MoreEpithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a process comprising cellular and molecular events which result in cells shifting from an epithelial to a mesenchymal phenotype. Periodontitis is a destructive chronic disease of the periodontium initiated in response to a dysbiotic microbiome, and dominated by Gram-negative bacteria in the subgingival niches accompanied by an aberrant immune response in susceptible subjects. Both EMT and periodontitis share common risk factors and drivers, including Gram-negative bacteria, excess inflammatory cytokine production, smoking, oxidative stress and diabetes mellitus. In addition, periodontitis is characterized by down-regulation of key epithelial markers such as E-cadherin together with up-regulation of
... Show MoreCancer is in general not a result of an abnormality of a single gene but a consequence of changes in many genes, it is therefore of great importance to understand the roles of different oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways in tumorigenesis. In recent years, there have been many computational models developed to study the genetic alterations of different pathways in the evolutionary process of cancer. However, most of the methods are knowledge-based enrichment analyses and inflexible to analyze user-defined pathways or gene sets. In this paper, we develop a nonparametric and data-driven approach to testing for the dynamic changes of pathways over the cancer progression. Our method is based on an expansion and refinement of the pathway bei
... Show MoreAn image retrieval system is a computer system for browsing, looking and recovering pictures from a huge database of advanced pictures. The objective of Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) methods is essentially to extract, from large (image) databases, a specified number of images similar in visual and semantic content to a so-called query image. The researchers were developing a new mechanism to retrieval systems which is mainly based on two procedures. The first procedure relies on extract the statistical feature of both original, traditional image by using the histogram and statistical characteristics (mean, standard deviation). The second procedure relies on the T-
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