Antibiotic resistance is the major growing threat facing the pharmacological treatment of bacterial infections. Therefore, bioprospecting the medicinal plants could provide potential sources for antimicrobial agents. Mimusops, the biggest and widely distributed plant genus of family Sapotaceae, is used in traditional medicines due to its promising pharmacological activities. This study was conducted to elucidate the antimicrobial effect of three unexplored Mimusops spp. (M. kummel, M. laurifolia and M. zeyheri). Furthermore, the mechanisms underlying such antibacterial activity were studied. The Mimusops leaf extracts revealed significant antibacterial activities against the five tested bacterial strains with a maximum inhibition zone diameter of 22.0 mm against B. subtilis compared with standard antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The minimal inhibitory and bactericidal concentration values against tested Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains ranged from 3.15-12.5 µg/ml. However, weak antifungal effect was recorded against Candida albicans with MIC value ˃25 µg/ml. The 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay showed that M. caffra was the best antioxidant (IC50=14.75±0.028 µg/ml), while M. laurifolia was the least one (IC50=34.22±0.014 µg/ml). The phenolics in plant leaves extracts were identified and quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) which revealed the presence of seven phenolic acids and four flavonoids. The abundant phenolic compounds were rutin (5.216±0.067 mg/g dried wt.) and gallic acid (0.296±0.068 mg/g) followed by myricetin (0.317±0.091 mg/g) then kaempferol (0.113±0.049 mg/g) as flavonoids. The antibacterial mechanism of M. laurifolia extract, as a representative species, induces ultrastructural changes in the model bacterium Staphylococcus aureus with cell wall and plasma membrane lysis as revealed by transmission electron microscopy. Overall, Mimusops species (M. laurifolia, M. kummel and M. zeyheri) are promising natural alternative sources for antimicrobial agents.
The cities are not yet a temporal status in the process of the human and civilization development. The cities consider as a life pattern, this mean that people cannot live without cities, which surround us. Several phenomena like globalization, revolution of information, technical development, increased of consumption, do not confirmed without the living in cities. The urbanization – in its simple meaning – means transferring from rural community to city community. In other word, it means that socioeconomic changes happened subject to the patterns and conditions of the urban life. Each government depend a certain policy, this policy contains set of plans and programs, that targeting to affect the population factors and the st
... Show MoreRecently, Social Sustainability has gained significant value as it was considered by the late studies as a principal dimension along with the environmental and economic sustainability. And because of, on the other hand, the significant social role of the school for forming the student’s personality, this research is an appeal for rehabilitating and promoting Iraqi Schools according the issue of social sustainability.As there is no evaluation for the Iraqi Schools, the research is dedicated to this problem, aiming to carry out the stated evaluation and define the design treatments needed for the rehabilitation process. To achieve this goal, a theoretical background for the concept of social sustainability, its criteria, the school and i
... Show MoreThe inner wasteland can be observed in Samuel Beckett’s early and later plays. His characters suffer from loss of identity, emotions, and sense of time. They lead a life of failure, repetition, inaction, loneliness, doubt, suffering, and nothingness. The inner wasteland includes many aspects, such as the multi and split identity, the habitual repetitive element of life, the dark sorrowful life the characters lead, lack of communication and relations among them, their unfree, inactive condition, their foggy terrible recollections, loneliness, dryness of love, and uncertainty. The analysis and the illustration of each aspect will show how the inner wasteland is intensified in the selected later plays of Beckett.
The Web Design Quality Index, known as WDQI, was applied to assess the quality of websites for six Iraqi universities, namely Basra University, Mosul, Muthanna, Samarra, Dijla University College, and Al-Isra University College. The results of the index showed that the universities of Basra and Dijla University College had the highest value, at 71.07 and 70.39, respectively. Its final evaluation metric was that the website of these two universities needed a slight improvement. As for the rest of the other universities, the final values of the index ranged from 64.72-69.71. When the final values of the index are displayed on the final evaluation scale, it appears that the websites of the four universities need many improvements. The study
... Show MoreThe Mauddud Formation was one of the important and widespread Lower Cretaceous period formations in Iraq. It has been studied in three wells (EB. 55, EB. 58, and EB. 59) within the East Baghdad Oil Field, Baghdad, central Iraq. 280 thin sections were studied by microscope to determine fauna, the formation composed of limestone and dolomitized limestone in some parts which tends to be marl in some parts, forty species and genus of benthic foraminifera have been identified beside algae and other fossils, three biozones have been identified in the range which is: Orbitolina qatarica range zone (Late Albian), Orbitolina sefini range zone (Late Albian – Early Cenomanian) and Orbitolina concava range zone (Early Cenomanian), The age of
... Show MoreThe present article delves into the examination of groundwater quality, based on WQI, for drinking purposes in Baghdad City. Further, for carrying out the investigation, the data was collected from the Ministry of Water Resources of Baghdad, which represents water samples drawn from 114 wells in Al-Karkh and Al-Rusafa sides of Baghdad city. With the aim of further determining WQI, four water parameters such as (i) pH, (ii) Chloride (Cl), (iii) Sulfate (SO4), and (iv) Total dissolved solids (TDS), were taken into consideration. According to the computed WQI, the distribution of the groundwater samples, with respect to their quality classes such as excellent, good, poor, very poor and unfit for human drinking purpose, was found to be
... Show MoreCopper selenide (Cu2Se) thin films were prepared by thermal evaporation at RT with thickness 500 nm. The heat-treating for (400 &500) K for the absorber layer has been investigated. This research includes, studying the structural properties of X-ray diffraction (XRD) that show the Cu2Se thin film (Cubic) and has a polycrystalline orientation prevalent (220). Moreover, studying the effect of annealing on their surface morphology properties by using Atomic Force Microscopy AFM. Optical properties were considered using the transmittance and absorbance spectra had been recorded when wavelength range (400 - 1000) nm in order to study the absorption coefficient and energy gap. It was found that these films had allowed direct transitio
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