Sphingolipids are key components of eukaryotic membranes, particularly the plasma membrane. The biosynthetic pathway for the formation of these lipid species is largely conserved. However, in contrast to mammals, which produce sphingomyelin, organisms such as the pathogenic fungi and protozoa synthesize inositol phosphorylceramide (IPC) as the primary phosphosphingolipid. The key step involves the reaction of ceramide and phosphatidylinositol catalysed by IPC synthase, an essential enzyme with no mammalian equivalent encoded by the AUR1 gene in yeast and recently identified functional orthologues in the pathogenic kinetoplastid protozoa. As such this enzyme represents a promising target for novel anti-fungal and anti-protozoal drugs. Given

The thermal performance of three solar collectors with 3, 6 mm and without perforation absorber plate was assessed experimentally. The experimental tests were implemented in Baghdad during the January and February 2017. Five values of airflow rates range between 0.01 – 0.1 m³/s were used through the test with a constant airflow rate during the test day. The variation of the following parameters air temperature difference, useful energy, absorber plate temperature, and collector efficiency was recorded every 15 minutes. The experimental data reports that the increases  the number of absorber plate perforations with a small diameter is more efficient rather than increasing the hole diameter of the absorber plate with decr

An experimental and numerical investigation of the effect of using two types of nanofluids with suspending of (Al₂O₃ and CuO) nanoparticles in deionized water with a volume fraction of (0.1% vol.), in addition to use three types of fin plate configurations of (smooth, perforated, and dimple plate) to study the heat transfer enhancement characteristics of commercial fin plate heat sink for cooling computer processing unit. All experimental tests under simulated conditions by using heat flux heater element with input power range of (5, 16, 35, 70, and 100 W). The experimental parameters calculated are such as water and nanofluid as coolant with Reynolds number of (7000, 8000, 9400 and 11300); the air

Numerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00

Highly plastic soils exhibit unfavorited properties upon saturation, which produce different defects in engineering structures. Attempts were made by researchers to proffer solutions to these defects by experimenting in practical ways. This included various materials that could possibly improve the soil engineering properties and reduce environmental hazards. This paper investigates the strength behavior of highly plastic clay stabilized with brick dust. The brick dust contents were 10%, 20%, and 30% by dry weight of soil. A series of linear shrinkage and unconfined compression tests were carried out to study the effect of brick dust on the quantitative amount of shrinkage experienced by highly plastic clay and the undra

The long-term monitoring of land movements represents the most successful application of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), particularly the Global Positioning System. However, the application of long term monitoring of land movements depends on the availability of homogenous and consistent daily position time series of stations over a period of time. Such time series can be produced very efficiently by using Precise Point Positioning and Double Difference techniques based on particular sophisticated GNSS processing softwares. Nonetheless, these rely on the availability of GNSS products which are precise satellite orbit and clock, and Earth orientation parameters. Unfortunately, several changes and modifications have been mad