With the World Health Organization reporting over 30,000 deaths and 200,000 to 400,000 new cases annually, visceral leishmaniasis is a serious disease affecting some of the world's poorest people. As drug resistance continues to rise, there is a huge unmet need to improve treatment. Miltefosine remains one of the main treatments for leishmaniasis, yet its mode of action (MoA) is still unknown. Understanding the MoA of this drug and parasite response to treatment could help pave the way for new and more successful treatments for leishmaniasis. A novel method has been devised to study the metabolome and lipidome of
Text Clustering consists of grouping objects of similar categories. The initial centroids influence operation of the system with the potential to become trapped in local optima. The second issue pertains to the impact of a huge number of features on the determination of optimal initial centroids. The problem of dimensionality may be reduced by feature selection. Therefore, Wind Driven Optimization (WDO) was employed as Feature Selection to reduce the unimportant words from the text. In addition, the current study has integrated a novel clustering optimization technique called the WDO (Wasp Swarm Optimization) to effectively determine the most suitable initial centroids. The result showed the new meta-heuristic which is WDO was employed as t
... Show MoreThis research is presented experimental and numerical investigations of composite concrete-steel plate shear walls under axial loads to predicate the effect of both concrete compressive strength and aspect ratio of the wall on the axial capacity, lateral displacement and axial shortening of the walls. The experimental program includes casting and testing two groups of walls with various aspect ratios. The first group with aspect ratio H/L=1.667 and the second group with aspect ratio H/L=2. Each group consists of three composite concrete -steel plate wall with three targets of cube compressive strength of values 39, 54.75 and 63.3 MPa. The tests result obtained that the increase in concrete compressive strength results in increasing
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Strengthening of the existing structures is an important task that civil engineers continuously face. Compression members, especially columns, being the most important members of any structure, are the most important members to strengthen if the need ever arise. The method of strengthening compression members by direct wrapping by Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) was adopted in this research. Since the concrete material is a heterogeneous and complex in behavior, thus, the behavior of the confined compression members subjected to uniaxial stress is investigated by finite element (FE) models created using Abaqus CAE 2017 software.
The aim of this research is to study experime
... Show MoreFumonisin B1 (FB1) is a mycotoxin produced in some grains (mainly corn) by Fusarium species. Due to a structural similarity between FB1 and sphinganine, sphingolipids metabolism is inhibited. Such inhibition plays a critical role in cell to cell singling and structure of lipoprotein; therefore FB1 has been suggested to have a relationship with human and animal cancer. This research is planned to study the effect of FB1 on male mice at two doses (20 and 30 µg/ ml) on the expression of TGF-β1 and p16 in liver cells. Three groups of Swiss albino male mice; each group was orally administrated with FB1 toxin as the following: normal saline (control group); 20 and 30 µg/ ml. All groups were sacrificed after two weeks of oral manage
... Show MoreA series of Schiff bases linked to phthalimidyl phenyl sulfonate moiety have been synthesized via multistep synthesis. The first step involved reaction of phthalic anhydride with aniline producing N-phenyl phthalamic acid which was subsequently dehydrated to the corresponding N-phenyl phthalimide via treatment with acetic anhydride and anhydrous sodium acetate. The synthesized imide was treated with chlorosulfonic acid in the third step producing 4-(N-phthalimidyl) phenyl sulfonyl chloride which was introduced in reaction with 4-hydroxy acetophenone in the fourth step producing 4-[4-(N-phthalimidyl) phenyl sulfonate] acetophenone and this in turn was introduced successfully in condensation reaction with various aromatic primary amines affor
... Show MorePesticide poisoning is a serious global public health issue and is responsible for a sizable number of annual fatalities. This study was designed to examine the potentially harmful effects of adult rats being exposed to imidacloprid (IMD) as a nanoparticle by determining the chronic effect of inhalation of (5,10 and 20) mg/kg/b.w. of nano-imidacloprid for a duration of 60 days. The most important biochemical parameters of the serum liver function parameters were aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and alkaline phosphatase ALP, kidney function [blood urea, creatinine, and urea], and oxidative stress parameters (MDA, GSH, and CAT) in all treated groups when
Background: Hyperlipidemia is an elevated fat (lipids), mostly cholesterol and triglycerides, in the blood. These lipids usually bind to proteins to remain circulated so-called lipoprotein. Aims of the study: To determine taste detection threshold and estimate the trace elements (zinc) in serum and saliva of those patients and compare all of these with healthy control subjects. Methods: Eighty subjects were incorporated in this study, thy were divided into two groups: forty patients on simvastatin treatment age between (35-60) years, and forty healthy control of age range between (35-60) years. Saliva was collected by non-stimulated technique within 10 minutes. Serum was obtained from each subject. Zinc was estimated in serum and saliva
... Show MoreBackground: The development of orthodontic biomaterials that attract less biofilm has been a goal for decades. Adhesion and colonization of cariogenic streptococci are considered to play key roles in the development of enamel demineralization related to orthodontic materials. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the Mutans streptococci adhesion to coated orthodontic archwires (Epoxy and Teflon) and uncoated archwires (stainless steel and nickel-titanium) with respect to incubation time in the presence and absence of saliva. Material and Method: Six types of archwires stainless steel and nickel titanium with two type of coating (Epoxy, Teflon) were used in this study. Twelve specimens of each archwire were incubated in steri
... Show MoreThe duration of sunshine is one of the important indicators and one of the variables for measuring the amount of solar radiation collected in a particular area. Duration of solar brightness has been used to study atmospheric energy balance, sustainable development, ecosystem evolution and climate change. Predicting the average values of sunshine duration (SD) for Duhok city, Iraq on a daily basis using the approach of artificial neural network (ANN) is the focus of this paper. Many different ANN models with different input variables were used in the prediction processes. The daily average of the month, average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, cloud level and atmosp
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