Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii ) is considered a critical healthcare problem for patients in intensive care units due to its high ability to be multidrug-resistant to most commercially available antibiotics. The aim of this study is to develop a colorimetric assay to quantitatively detect the target DNA of A. baumannii based on unmodified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) from different clinical samples (burns, surgical wounds, sputum, blood and urine). A total of thirty-six A. baumannii clinical isolates were collected from five Iraqi hospitals in Erbil and Mosul provinces within the period from September 2020 to January 2021. Bacterial isolation and biochemical identification of isolates were carried out followed by DNA extraction from 36 isolates and six negative ATCC strains (Salmonalle typhi, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aures) and only one positive control ATCC A. baumannii using Phenol/Chloroform method. AuNPs were synthesized using the citrate reduction method and examined by XDR, FTIR, UV-VIS, FE-SEM, and TEM. The optimized colorimetric assay was employed based on unmodified spherical AuNPs and PCR amplification of 16S rRNA intergenic spacer sequences (ITS) with species-specific DNA oligo-targeters. Detection and optimization of A. baumannii amplicons using unmodified AuNPs were performed based on species-specific DNA oligonucleotide. The AuNPs assay was able to colorimetrically detect and distinguish A. baumannii from other ATCC bacterial isolates. The turnaround time of this assay was about 3 hours, including sample preparation and amplification, to show (0.025-6 ngµl-1) as a detection limit of DNA concentration. The efficacy of colorimetric detection was proved to effectively diagnose A. baumannii isolates with high sensitivity, simplicity, and robustness to rapidly diagnose A. baumannii isolates from different clinical samples.
Micro metal forming has an application potential in different industrial fields. Flexible tool-assisted sheet metal forming at micro scale is among the forming techniques that have increasingly attracted wide attention of researchers. This forming process is a suitable technique for producing micro components because of its inexpensive process, high quality products and relatively high production rate. This study presents a novel micro deep drawing technique through using floating ring as an assistant die with flexible pad as a main die. The floating ring designed with specified geometry is located between the process workpiece and the rubber pad. The function of the floating ring in this work is to produce SS304 micro cups with profile
... Show MoreThis paper describes the problem of online autonomous mobile robot path planning, which is consisted of finding optimal paths or trajectories for an autonomous mobile robot from a starting point to a destination across a flat map of a terrain, represented by a 2-D workspace. An enhanced algorithm for solving the problem of path planning using Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm is presented. This nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm, which imitates the foraging behavior of E-coli bacteria, was used to find the optimal path from a starting point to a target point. The proposed algorithm was demonstrated by simulations in both static and dynamic different environments. A comparative study was evaluated between the developed algori
... Show MoreA rapid, sensitive and without extraction spectrophotometric method for determination of clonazepam (CLO) in pure and pharmaceutical dosage forms has been described. The proposed method was simply depended on charge transfer reaction between reduced CLO (n-donor) and metol (N-methyl-p-aminophenol sulfate) as a chromogenic reagent (π- acceptor). The reduced drug, with zinc and concentrated hydrochloric acid, produced a purple colored soluble charge-transfer complex with metol in the presence of sodium metaperiodate in neutral medium, which has been measured at λmax 532 nm. All the variables which affected the developed and the stability of the colored product such as concentration of reagent and oxidant, temperature and time of rea
... Show MoreThe hydroconversion of Iraqi light straight run naphtha was studied on zeolite catalyst. 0.3wt.%Pt/HMOR catalyst was prepared locally and used in the present work. The hydroconversion performed on a continuous fixed-bed laboratory reaction unit. Experiments were performed in the temperature range of 200 to 350°C, pressure range of 3 to 15 bars, LHSV range of 0.5-2.5h-1, and the hydrogen to naphtha ratio of 300.
The results show that the hydroconversion of Iraqi light straight naphtha increases with increase in reaction temperature and decreases with increase in LHSV.
High octane number isomers were formed at low temperature of 240°C. The selectivity of hydroisomerization improved by increasing reaction pressu
... Show MoreThe quality of groundwater in the Al-Hawija area was assessed using a water quality index. Data of nine physico-chemical parameters of 28 groundwater wells were used to calculate the water quality index (WQI). A heterogeneous water quality was reported, where in close proximity to the Lesser Zab River (LZR), it has low WQI values and permissible for human consumptions due to the dilution processes by fresh water; whereas, it becomes deteriorated in areas located far away the river. The values of WQI ranges from 22 to 336, indicating a good to very poor groundwater quality.
Uranium concentrations in soil were determined for ten locations in Salahdin governorate using CR-39 track detector, fission fragments track technique was used, the nuclear reaction of nuclear fission fragments obtained by the bombardment of 235U with thermal neutrons from (Am-Be) neutron source with flux (5000n.cm-2.s-1), the concentration values were calculated by a comparison with standard samples. The results of the measurements show that the uranium concentration in soil samples various from 0.42±0.018ppm in Beji province to 0.2±0.014 ppm in Tooz province with an average (0.31±0.08ppm), the values of uranium concentration in all samples are within the permissible limits universally.