Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) is a major opportunistic nosocomial pathogen, mostly resistant to several groups of antibiotics. Colistin is now used as a last-line treatment for isolates that are highly resistant. The purpose of this study is to identify the importance of LptD; which is involved in the translocation of LPS from the inner membrane to the outer membrane in compartment with LptA and LptC of A. baumannii and its indispensable role as a virulence factor, and the efficiency of colistin as a monotherapy. In the current research, two isolates of A.baumannii were used, the local isolate HHR1 isolated from urine sample and the global strain ATCC 17904, and three antibiotics (colistin, rifampicin and Fosfomycin) were used as a monotherapy and synergic therapy in vivo and ex vivo. The results demonstrated that A. baumannii HHR1 was more resistant to Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) than the standard strains. The effect of AMPs on A. baumannii was increased by increasing the concentration and the time of incubation, and also AMPs were shown to be lethal on A. baumannii growth spatially at high concentration (2 µg ml-1) in monotherapy and (1.5, 2 µg ml-1) in synergic. The susceptibility of isolates towards antibiotics was variable, where colistin exerts significant growth had defect as a monotherapy and in combination with others. The results showed that the expression of lptD, lptA genes of A.baumannii HHR1 were higher than of the same genes in A.baumannii ATCC 17904 in the presence of 2 µg ml-1 colistin, while lptE gene of the A.baumannii ATCC 17904 showed an upregulation pattern than in A.baumannii HHR1. Furthermore, colistin influences the adhesion ability of A. baumannii on epithelial cells (A-549 lung cancer cell) by reducing the number of cells, and thus could colistin be a good candidate for A. baunmannii treatment.
Anaerobic digestion is a technology widely used for treatment of organic waste for biogas production as a source for clean energy. In this study, poultry house wastes (PHW) material was examined as a source for biogas production. The effects of inoculum addition, pretreatment of the substrate, and temperature on the biogas production were taken into full consideration. Results revealed that the effect of inoculum addition was more significant than the alkaline pretreatment of raw waste materials. The biogas recovery from inoculated waste materials exceeds its production from wastes without inoculation by approximately 70% at mesophilic conditions. Whereby, the increase of biogas recovery from pretreated wastes was by 20% higher than its
... Show MoreDecolorization of red azo dye (Cibacron Red FN-R) from synthetic wastewater has been investigated as a function of solar advanced oxidation process. The photocatalytic activity using ZnO as a photocatalysis has been estimated. Different parameters affected the removal efficiency, including pH of the solution, initial dye concentration and H2O2 concentration were evaluated to find out the optimum value of these parameters. The results proved that the optimal pH value was 8 and the most efficient H2O2 concentration was 100mg/L. Toxicity reduction percent for effluent solution was also monitored to assess the degradation process. This treatment method was able to strongly reduce the color and toxicity of reactive red dye-238 to about (99 an
... Show MoreIn this study, the surface of the epoxy/Al composite is treated using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma in the presence of air. The epoxy composite was prepared by mixing 0.1g and 0.3 g aluminum powder with epoxy resin and its hardener in a ratio of 3:1. The surface epoxy/Al composite as a dielectric barrier layer (DB) is studied at an applied frequency of 8 kHz and at three exposure times 0, 2, and 4 min. The UV degradation process has been studied using UV-Visible spectroscopy, for these polymers. The absorbance intensity in the UV region (200–320 nm) was high. The absorbance level decreased after 2 minutes and increased after 4 min exposure time. Before exposure to plasma, the epoxy/Al composite at 0.1 g Al ha
... Show MoreFor more than a decade, externally bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites successfully utilized in retrofitting reinforced concrete structural elements. The function of CFRP reinforcement in increasing the ductility of reinforced concrete (RC) beam is essential in such members. Flexural and shear behaviors, ductility, and confinement were the main studied properties that used the CFRP as a strengthening material. However, limited attention has been paid to investigate the energy absorption of torsion strengthening of concrete members, especially two-span concrete beams. Hence, the target of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of CFRP-strengthening technique with regard to energy absorption of two-span RC
... Show MoreThis paper is focused on orthogonal function approximation technique FAT-based adaptive backstepping control of a geared DC motor coupled with a rotational mechanical component. It is assumed that all parameters of the actuator are unknown including the torque-current constant (i.e., unknown input coefficient) and hence a control system with three motor control modes is proposed: 1) motor torque control mode, 2) motor current control mode, and 3) motor voltage control mode. The proposed control algorithm is a powerful tool to control a dynamic system with an unknown input coefficient. Each uncertain parameter/term is represented by a linear combination of weighting and orthogonal basis function vectors. Chebyshev polynomial is used
... Show MoreThis study was aimed to investigate the response surface methodology (RSM) to evaluate the effects of various experimental conditions on the removal of levofloxacin (LVX) from the aqueous solution by means of electrocoagulation (EC) technique with stainless steel electrodes. The EC process was achieved successfully with the efficiency of LVX removal of 90%. The results obtained from the regression analysis, showed that the data of experiential are better fitted to the polynomial model of second-order with the predicted correlation coefficient (pred. R2) of 0.723, adjusted correlation coefficient (Adj. R2) of 0.907 and correlation coefficient values (R2) of 0.952. This shows that the predicted models and experimental values are in go
... Show MoreThis study aims to evaluate the adsorption isotherm of carbon microparticles prepared from pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) seeds for adsorbing curcumin (as a model of dye). The results were derived and compared using the kinetics approach based on several standard adsorption isotherm models, namely the Langmuir, Temkin, Freundlich, and Dubinin-Radushkevich models. The second aim is to evaluate the effects of carbon particle size (from 100 to 1000 mm) on the adsorption characteristics. The experimental results showed that the adsorption on the surface of carbon microparticles occurred in monolayer with a physical phenomenon. This is because the active areas are located only on the outer surface of carbon and no surface structure in th
... Show More