Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) is problematic and still the leading cause of urinary tract infections worldwide. It is developed resistance against most antibiotics. The investigation, surveillance system, and efficient strategy will facilitate selecting an appropriate treatment that could control the bacterial distribution. The present study aims to investigate the epidemiology and associated risk factors of uropathogenic E. coli and to study their antibiotic resistance patterns. 1585 midstream urine specimens were collected from symptomatic urinary tract infections (UTI) patients (225 males and 1360 females) admitted to Zakho emergency hospital, Zakho, Kurdistan Region, Iraq from January 2016 until the end of December 2018. Specimens were inoculated on blood and MacConkey plates and incubated at 37оC for 24 hours. Uropathogenic E. coli was diagnosed based on gram staining, colony characteristics, and standard biochemical tests in accordance with local standards and guidelines. All isolates were screened for their antibiogram pattern using the disk diffusion method based on the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. The results showed that out of 1585 urine specimens, 1026 (64.7%) were UTIs positive with a statistically higher rate in 2016 (83.6%) (P< 0.0001). The UTIs frequency in females was significantly higher than males (P< 0.0001). Generally, the uropathogenic E. coli represented 21.1% with the highest level in 2016 (22.9%). The uropathogenic E. coli rate was higher, statistically not significant, in females (21.4%) than males (18.5%) (P=0.4946). Additionally, through the three years of study, uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) was in high frequency in February and May 2016. The female’s age group from 20 to 39 years was the most vulnerable (46%) form total infected females, while those from 70-74 years (1%) were the least susceptible in males and females. A high percentage (80.56 %) of multidrug resistance E. coli isolates was observed with high resistance against -lactamase and macrolides antibiotics. However, higher sensitivity was towards imipenem and meropenem. In conclusion, the wrong and overuse of antibiotics will increase the resistance rate of E. coli. For this reason, proper use of available antibiotics is necessary. Also, the educational programs and periodic monitoring of antimicrobial susceptibility are essential for reducing the antibiotic resistance rate.
Gypseous soil is considered as a problematic soil for embankment construction, however, implementation of emulsified asphalt as a stabilization agent could be a proper solution for enhancing its properties as a subgrade soil. In this work, the sustainability of asphalt stabilized soil has been assessed in terms of its resistance to cyclic (freezing-thawing) and (heating-cooling) processes. Specimens have been prepared at optimum fluid content (moisture and emulsion) and tested under direct shear stresses while subjected to 30 cycles of (freezing-thawing) and (heating-cooling). Both of dry and soaked testing conditions have been implemented. Data have been observed after each 10 cycles, and compared with that of reference mix. It was conclud
... Show MoreIn this investigation, water-soluble N-Acetyl Cysteine Capped-Cadmium Telluride QDs (NAC/CdTe nanocrystals), utilizing N-acetyl cysteine as a stabilizer, were prepared to assess their potential in differentiating between DNA extracted from pathogenic bacteria (e.g. Escherichia coli isolated from urine specimen) and intact DNA (extracted from blood of healthy individuals) for biomedical sensing prospective. Following the optical characterization of the synthesized QDs, the XRD analysis illustrated the construction of NAC-CdTe-QDs with a grain size of 7.1 nm. The prepared NAC-CdTe-QDs exhibited higher PL emission features at of 550 nm and UV-Vis absorption peak at 300 nm. Additionally, the energy gap quantified via PL and UV–Vis were 2.2 eV
... Show MoreShatt Al-Hilla was considered one of the important branches of Euphrates River that supplies irrigation water to millions of dunams of planted areas. It is important to control the velocity and water level along the river to maintain the required level for easily diverting water to the branches located along the river. So, in this research, a numerical model was developed to simulate the gradually varied unsteady flow in Shatt AL-Hilla. The present study aims to solve the continuity and momentum (Saint-Venant) equations numerically to predict the hydraulic characteristics in the river using Galerkin finite element method. A computer program was designed and built using the programming language FORTRAN-77. Fifty kilometers was consid
... Show MoreReceipt date: 12/28/2020 accepted date: 20/1/2021 Publication date: 12/31/2021
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Russia has emerged as a rising and influential power in the international arena, especially with Vladimir Putin's assumption of power and his desire for the rise of Russia and the end of the "unipolarism" represented by the hegemony of the United States of
... Show MoreThe current study tackles how slavery and racial segregation, which have obviously made an enormous impact in the United States of America for many years, can be defeated through optimism. The study opens with an introduction that clarifies some background about Langston Hughes as a poet who writes against slavery and oppression done to the American Blacks during an era which was known for racial segregation in the United States of America. The poet sheds light , in his poetry, upon the role of African Americans in activating hope and optimism to get freedom which has been reached at the end. The first section of the study analyzes the meaning of slavery and segregation as reflected in some selected poems, showing the oppressive face of
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to measure the characteristics properties of 3 m radio telescope that installed inside Baghdad University campus. The measurements of this study cover some of the fundamental parameters at 1.42 GHz. These parameters concentrated principally on, the system noise temperature, signal to noise ratio and sensitivity, half power beam width, aperture efficiency, and effective area. These parameters are estimated via different radio sources observation like Cas-A, full moon, sky background, and solar drift scan observations. From the results of these observations, these parameters are found to be approximately 64 K, 1.2, 0.9 Jansky, 3.7°, 0.54, and 3.8 m2 respectively. The parameters values have vital affect to quantitativ
... Show MoreSoftware-defined networking (SDN) presents novel security and privacy risks, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In response to these threats, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have emerged as effective approaches for quickly identifying and mitigating anomalies. To this end, this research employs various classification methods, including support vector machines (SVMs), K-nearest neighbors (KNNs), decision trees (DTs), multiple layer perceptron (MLP), and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and compares their performance. CNN exhibits the highest train accuracy at 97.808%, yet the lowest prediction accuracy at 90.08%. In contrast, SVM demonstrates the highest prediction accuracy of 95.5%. As such, an
... Show More