Sphingolipids (SLs) are major structural constituents of eukaryotes, including the kinetoplastid parasite Leishmania. SLs are important for cellular trafficking and signaling and participate in different cell functions, such as, differentiation and cell death (apoptosis). In this study we have investigated the viability of Leishmania major wild type (W.T) and L. major knockout LmLCB2, one of two subunits of serine palmitoyl transferase (SPT) after treatment with myriocin (potent inhibitor of SPT) in order to detect the survival and proliferation of the parasites in vitro. This is to focus on the de novo sphingolipids biosynthesis pathway in both Leishmania wild type which can synthesize SPT and knockout Leishmania which genetically ablated

A new modified differential evolution algorithm DE-BEA, is proposed to improve the reliability of the standard DE/current-to-rand/1/bin by implementing a new mutation scheme inspired by the bacterial evolutionary algorithm (BEA). The crossover and the selection schemes of the DE method are also modified to fit the new DE-BEA mechanism. The new scheme diversifies the population by applying to all the individuals a segment based scheme that generates multiple copies (clones) from each individual one-by-one and applies the BEA segment-wise mechanism. These new steps are embedded in the DE/current-to-rand/bin scheme. The performance of the new algorithm has been compared with several DE variants over eighteen benchmark functions including sever

<p>Analyzing X-rays and computed tomography-scan (CT scan) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN) method is a very interesting subject, especially after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, a study is made on 423 patients’ CT scan images from Al-Kadhimiya (Madenat Al Emammain Al Kadhmain) hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, to diagnose if they have COVID or not using CNN. The total data being tested has 15000 CT-scan images chosen in a specific way to give a correct diagnosis. The activation function used in this research is the wavelet function, which differs from CNN activation functions. The convolutional wavelet neural network (CWNN) model proposed in this paper is compared with regular convol

In this work, diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films were prepared from Cyclohexane. Thin films were deposited on quartz substrate by atmospheric pressure Argon plasma jet system. The plasma jet system was applying high voltage sinusoidal waves of frequency 28 kHz and potential difference of 7.5kV peak to peak across the electrodes. The effect of annealing at 400, 500 and 600 °C under vacuum for two hours on optical properties and structural properties of the DLC thin films were investigated. This effect was clarified by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, UV-Visible absorption, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Raman Spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction patterns for the annealing DLC thin films show two broad peaks at 2θ, 26.62° and 51.58

         This study involves the design of 24 mixtures of fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing nano silica. Tap water was used for 12 of these mixtures, while magnetic water was used for the others. The nano silica (NS) with ratios (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3) % by weight of cement, were used for all the mixtures. The results have shown that the mixture containing 2.5% NS gives the highest compressive strength at age 7 days. Many different other tests were carried out, the results have shown that the carbon fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing 2.5% NS (CFRMRPCCNS) had higher compressive strength, modulus of rupture, splitting tension, str

Hydatid disease is a zoonotic infection caused by Echinococcus species. The cystic form of this infection mostly involves liver and lung. Hydatid disease of the parotid gland even in endemic regions is a very rare entity that may be easily overlooked in daily practice. Herein, I present a case report of a 60-year-old Iraqi female patient who presented with a progressively painless mass in her right parotid. It was diagnosed radiologically as a hydatid cyst and was excised successfully. Histopathologic examination of the resected specimen confirmed the hydatid cyst. This case emphasizes the importance of considering hydatidosis in the differential diagnosis of any parotid mass, especially in endemic countries.

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     This paper describes the application of consensus optimization for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) system. Consensus algorithm is usually conducted within a certain number of iterations for a given graph topology. Nevertheless, the best Number of Iterations (NOI) to reach consensus is varied in accordance with any change in number of nodes or other parameters of . graph topology. As a result, a time consuming trial and error procedure will necessary be applied
to obtain best NOI. The implementation of an intellig ent optimization can effectively help to get the optimal NOI. The performance of the consensus algorithm has considerably been improved by the inclusion of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). As a case s

Problem of water scarcity is becoming common in many parts of the world.  Thus to overcome this problem proper management of water and an efficient irrigation systems are needed.  Irrigation with buried vertical ceramic pipe is known as a very effective in management of irrigation water.  The two- dimensional transient flow of water from a buried vertical ceramic pipe through homogenous porous media is simulated numerically using the software HYDRUS/2D to predict empirical formulas that describe the predicted results accurately.   Different values of pipe lengths and hydraulic conductivity were selected.  In addition, different values of initial volumetric soil water content were assumed in this simulation a

Low bearing capacity of weak soil under shallow footings represents one of construction problems.
Kaolin with water content converges to liquid limit used to represent the weak soil under shallow
footing prototype. On the other hand, fly ash, which can be defined as undesirable industrial waste
material, was used to improve the bearing capacity of the soft soil considered in this research. The soft
soil was prepared in steel box (36×36×25) cm and shallow square footing prototype (6×6) cm were
used .Group of physical and chemical tests were conducted on kaolin and fly ash. The soft soil was
improved by a bed of compacted fly ash placed under the footing with dimensions equal to that of
footing but with different de

In this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption.  No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficiency of cadmium b