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.
This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
... Show MoreThis study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreLasmiditan (LAS) is a recently developed antimigraine drug and was approved in October, 2019 for the treatment of acute migraines; however, it suffers from low oral bioavailability, which is around 40%.
This study aimed to improve the LAS bioavailability via formulation as nanoemulsionbased in situ gel (NEIG) given intranasally and then compare the traditional aqueous-LASsuspension (AQS) with the two successful intranasal prepared formulations (NEIG 2 and NEIG 5) in order to determine its relative bioavailability (F-relative) via using rabbits.
For the design of a deep foundation, piles are presumed to transfer the axial and lateral loads into the ground. However, the effects of the combined loads are generally ignored in engineering practice since there are uncertainties to the precise definition of soil–pile interactions. Hence, for technical discussions of the soil–pile interactions due to dynamic loads, a three-dimensional finite element model was developed to evaluate the soil pile performance based on the 1 g shaking table test. The static loads consisted of 50% of the allowable vertical pile capacity and 50% of the allowable lateral pile capacity. The dynamic loads were taken from the recorded data of the Kobe e
Charge transfer in styryl dyes STQ-1, STQ-2,and STQ-3 with organic media system has been studied theoretically depending on the Franck- Condon rule and continuum dielectric model . The reorientation energies (eV) were evaluated theoretically depending on dipole momentum, dielectric constant , and refrective index n. The rate constant of charge transfer has been calculated depending on the reorientation energy (eV) ,effective free energy , potential height barrier , and coupling coefficient . A matlap program has been written to calculated the rate constant of charge transfer and other parameter. The results of calculations show that STQ-2 dye is more reaction for charge transfer compare with STQ-1 and STQ-3 dyes
Laboratory studies were conducted at the biological control unit, college of Agriculture, University of Baghdad to evaluate some biological aspects of the predator Chilocorus bipustulatus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), which is considered one of the most important predators on many insect pests, especially the scale insect, Parlatoria blanchardi, (Homoptera: Diaspididae) on date palms. The results showed that biological parameters of the predator were varied according to different degree of temperature. Egg incubation period was significantly different and reached to 7.5 and 5.44 day at 25 and 30°C respectively, Fertility was the same 100% at both temperature degrees. Larval growth periods were 17.41 and 16.12 day as well as the mortality
... Show MoreDue to its various resistance mechanisms, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most prevalent opportunistic infection that kills hospitalized patients. Thus, therapeutic options become limited. Objective: The study aimed to estimate the antibiofilm effectiveness of Conocarpus erectus leaf extracts against MDR P. aeruginosa isolates and examines pelA and algD gene expression. Subjects and Methods: One hundred-fifty clinical samples were collected from five Baghdad hospitals between September 2021 and January 2022. Samples were grown on different mediums. Despite cetrimide agar's ability to detect P. aeruginosa, only 83 isolates developed at 42°C. VITEK 2 compact system identification followed. This study examined 83 of P. aeruginosa isolates for r
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