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.
In the 1980s, the French Administration Roads LCPC developed high modulus mixtures (EME) by using hard binder. This type of mixture presented good resistance to moisture damage and improved mechanical properties for asphalt mixtures including high modulus, good fatigue behaviour and excellent resistance to rutting. In Iraq, this type of mixture has not been used yet. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of high modulus mixtures and comparing them with the conventional mixture, to achieve this objective, asphalt concrete mixes were prepared and then tested to evaluate their engineering properties which include moisture damage, resilient modulus, permanent deformation and fatigue characteristics. These pro
... Show MoreShumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observ
... Show MoreAn integrated GIS-VBA (Geographical Information System – Visual Basic for Application), model is developed for selecting an optimum water harvesting dam location among an available locations in a watershed. The proposed model allows quick and precise estimation of an adopted weighted objective function for each selected location. In addition to that for each location, a different dam height is used as a nominee for optimum selection. The VBA model includes an optimization model with a weighted objective function that includes beneficiary items (positive) , such as the available storage , the dam height allowed by the site as an indicator for the potential of hydroelectric power generation , the rainfall rate as a source of water . In a
... Show MoreThis work evaluates the economic feasibility of various production scenarios for the Zubair reservoir in the Kifl oil field using cash flow and net present value (NPV) calculations. The Kifl field is an exploratory field that has not yet been developed or assessed economically. The first well was drilled in 1960, and three other wells were later drilled to assess the oil accumulation, so in this research, Different production scenarios were evaluated economically. These scenarios were proposed based on the reservoir model of the Zubair formation in the field. The research methodology used QUE$TOR software to estimate capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenditures (OpEx) based on field-level data, production prof
... Show MoreThe current research aims to adopt production quality decisions as the most important decisions , because they are accompanied by customer satisfaction through monitoring the quality of drinking water in iraq which reach through the pipeline network associated with water treatment projects of Tigris and Euphrates rivers. One of the indicators of quality control was the drawing of the C-chart by specifying the central line and the upper and lower limit of the control and the diagnosis of whether the production system as a whole within the scope of quality control or not and determine the strength and significance of the correlation between the quantities of water And actual needs for customers , the research has reached a number o
... Show MoreThis paper discussed the solution of an equivalent circuit of solar cell, where a single diode model is presented. The nonlinear equation of this model has suggested and analyzed an iterative algorithm, which work well for this equation with a suitable initial value for the iterative. The convergence of the proposed method is discussed. It is established that the algorithm has convergence of order six. The proposed algorithm is achieved with a various values of load resistance. Equation by means of equivalent circuit of a solar cell so all the determinations is achieved using Matlab in ambient temperature. The obtained results of this new method are given and the absolute errors is demonstrated.
In this research, some robust non-parametric methods were used to estimate the semi-parametric regression model, and then these methods were compared using the MSE comparison criterion, different sample sizes, levels of variance, pollution rates, and three different models were used. These methods are S-LLS S-Estimation -local smoothing, (M-LLS)M- Estimation -local smoothing, (S-NW) S-Estimation-NadaryaWatson Smoothing, and (M-NW) M-Estimation-Nadarya-Watson Smoothing.
The results in the first model proved that the (S-LLS) method was the best in the case of large sample sizes, and small sample sizes showed that the
... Show MoreThe region-based association analysis has been proposed to capture the collective behavior of sets of variants by testing the association of each set instead of individual variants with the disease. Such an analysis typically involves a list of unphased multiple-locus genotypes with potentially sparse frequencies in cases and controls. To tackle the problem of the sparse distribution, a two-stage approach was proposed in literature: In the first stage, haplotypes are computationally inferred from genotypes, followed by a haplotype coclassification. In the second stage, the association analysis is performed on the inferred haplotype groups. If a haplotype is unevenly distributed between the case and control samples, this haplotype is labeled
... Show More