Despite extensive investigations, an effective treatment for sepsis remains elusive and a better understanding of the inflammatory response to infection is required to identify potential new targets for therapy. In this study we have used RNAi technology to show, for the first time, that the inducible lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 2 (LPCAT2) plays a key role in macrophage inflammatory gene expression in response to stimulation with bacterial ligands. Using siRNA- or shRNA-mediated knockdown, we demonstrate that, in contrast to the constitutive LPCAT1, LPCAT2 is required for macrophage cytokine gene expression and release in response to TLR4 and TLR2 ligand stimulation but not for TLR-independent stimuli. In addition, cells transfected to overexpress LPCAT2 exhibited increased expression of inflammatory genes in response to LPS and other bacterial ligands. Furthermore, we have used immunoprecipitation and Western blotting to show that in response to LPS, LPCAT2, but not LPCAT1, rapidly associates with TLR4 and translocates to membrane lipid raft domains. Our data thus suggest a novel mechanism for the regulation of inflammatory gene expression in response to bacterial stimuli and highlight LPCAT2 as a potential therapeutic target for development of anti-inflammatory and anti-sepsis therapies.
The construction industry plays a crucial role in the countries' economy, especially in the developed country. This point encourages the concerned institution to use new techniques and integrate many techniques and methods to maximize the benefits. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the use of risk management, value management, and building information modeling in the Iraqi construction industry. The evaluation process aims at two objectives. The direct objective was to evaluate the knowledge in risk management (RM), value management (VM), and building information modeling (BIM). The indirect objective was to support the participants with information related to the main items mentioned. The questionnaire
... Show MoreInternal curing is a method that has been advised to decrease the primary age cracking, mainly of concrete mixes using low (water to cementitious materials - w/cm) ratios corresponding to the self-compacting concrete-(SCC). This research aims to study the effect of the internal curing using saturated lightweight aggregate- (LWA) on the steel reinforcing corrosion in SCC. In this research, crushed bricks or thermostone were partially replaced by (20%) by the weight of sand and volumetrically measured. The results showed that the steel reinforcement of internally cured concrete showed a slight increase in corrosion up to 300 days of exposure to the saline solution (containing 3.5% NaCl). The ability of using the crushed bricks or thermostone
... Show MoreA band rationing method is applied to calculate the salinity index (SI) and Normalized Multi-Band Drought Index (NMDI) as pre-processing to take Agriculture decision in these areas is presented. To separate the land from other features that exist in the scene, the classical classification method (Maximum likelihood classification) is used by classified the study area to multi classes (Healthy vegetation (HV), Grasslands (GL), Water (W), Urban (U), Bare Soil (BS)). A Landsat 8 satellite image of an area in the south of Iraq are used, where the land cover is classified according to indicator ranges for each (SI) and (NMDI).
Eye loss may be caused as a result of eye trauma, accidents, or malignant tumors, which leads the patient to undergo surgery to remove the damaged parts. This research examines the potential of computer vision represented by Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry in fabricating the orbital prosthesis as a noninvasive and low-cost technique. A low-cost camera was used to collect the data towards extracting the dense 3D data of the patient facial features following Structure from Motion-Multi View Stereo (SfM-MVS) algorithms. To restore the defective orbital, a Reverse Engineering (RE) based approach has been applied using the similarity RE algorithms based on the opposite healthy eye to rehabilitate the defected orbital precisely
... Show MorePopulation growth and economic and industrial development coupled have significantly accelerated the rate of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes, particularly in developing countries, so finding optimum ways to observe these change has become a pressing issue. Quantification evaluation of these changes is crucial to comprehend and oversee land management conversion, therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the accuracy of various algorithms for LULC classification to determine the most effective classifier for Earth observation applications. The performance of Maximum Likelihood (ML), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) was examined in this study, based on Sentinel 2A satellite images. T
... Show MoreOne of the goals of adding adjuvants to agricultural spray solutions is to enhance the droplet size characteristics of this spray. Droplet size, in turn, has an influence in the deposited spray quality, in addition to the drift and losses of spray to off-target places. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of adding adjuvants to two types of water from different sources on the droplet size characteristics. Two types of adjuvants were employed in the tests: the active substance content of the first adjuvant was a 50% aqueous solution of sodium salt of alkylbenzenesulfonic acid—10% (HY), whereas the second was from rapeseed oil (natural origin)—85% (OL). Both adjuvants were tested in two concentrations: the first was
... Show MoreIn this paper, a mathematical model for the oxidative desulfurization of kerosene had been developed. The mathematical model and simulation process is a very important process due to it provides a better understanding of a real process. The mathematical model in this study was based on experimental results which were taken from literature to calculate the optimal kinetic parameters where simulation and optimization were conducted using gPROMS software. The optimal kinetic parameters were Activation energy 18.63958 kJ/mol, Pre-exponential factor 2201.34 (wt)-0.76636. min-1 and the reaction order 1.76636. These optimal kinetic parameters were used to find the optimal reaction conditions which
... Show MoreObjective: The current investigation focused on Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumanni), due to its growing significance as a hospital infection-causing pathogen and its resistance to several medications.Material and Method: Sixty-five isolates of A. baumannii were isolated from wound samples of patients admitted to different hospitals in Baghdad between January and April of 2023. Two types of methods were used in the detection of biofilm formation: the first one was Congo red agar method and the second one was microtiter plate method. Genotypic detection of various virulence factors associated with A. baumannii was performed using monoplex, multiplex, and ERIC-PCR.Result and Discussion: To use the PCR method to examine
... Show MoreThe use of medicinal plant preparations to clean and disinfect root canal infection is gaining popularity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the bioactive composition of leaf extracts of Moringa oleifera plants cultivated in Iraq (specifically Baghdad) and their antimicrobial activity against selected root canal pathogens for potential application in endodontic treatment. Materials and Methods. Moringa leaf extracts were prepared either through cold maceration or warm digestion techniques to perform an ethanolic or aqueous extraction, respectively. Phytochemical detection was performed before thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to measure flavonoids and phenolic compounds within both
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