Studies from our laboratory have shown that Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an ingredient found in marijuana plant Cannabis sativa, can attenuate acute lung injury induced by Staphylococcus enterotoxin B (SEB). In the current study, we investigated the role of THC on the metabolism of SEB-activated lymphocytes. To this end, we determined metabolic potential of SEB-activated lymphocytes treated with vehicle or THC by performing the Cell Mito Stress Test. The oxygen consumption rate (OCR) in THC-treated cells was decreased when compared to vehicle-treated group whereas the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) was similar in both the groups. Specifically, electron transport chain inhibitors namely, oligomycin, FCCP and rotenone+antimycinA were added to measure ATP-linked respiration, maximal respiration and non-mitochondrial respiration, respectively. THC treatment led to a significant decrease in the basal respiration, ATP production, proton (H+) leak, maximal respiration, spare respiratory capacity and nonmitochondrial respiration. We also performed the Mito Fuel Flex assay to measure the dependency, capacity and flexibility of cells to oxidize glucose, glutamine and fatty acids. Treatment with inhibitors, BPTES and etomoxir showed a decline in the OCR in SEB+vehicle treated cells demonstrating that glutamine and/or fatty acids serve as major source of fuel in these cells when compared to SEB+THC treated group. However, when UK5099 was added, THC- and vehicle-treated cells showed a reduced response thereby indicating that glucose dependency was similar in both the groups. Together, THC modulates metabolic functions of activated lymphocytes which may affect their signaling, differentiation and toxicity.
The inhibitory behavior of L-Cysteine (Cys) and its derivatives towards iron corrosion through density functional theory (DFT) was investigated. The current research study undertakes a rigorous evaluation of global as well as local reactivity descriptors of the Cys in protonated as well as neutral forms and the changes in reactivity after the combination of Cys into di- and tripeptides. The inhibitory effect of di- and tri-peptides increases since, in the molecular structure, the number of reaction centers increase. We computed the adsorption energies (Eads) and low energy complexes with most stability for the adsorption of small peptides and Cys amino acids onto the surfaces of Fe (1 1 1). We found that the adsorption of tri-peptides onto
... Show MoreVision loss happens due to diabetic retinopathy (DR) in severe stages. Thus, an automatic detection method applied to diagnose DR in an earlier phase may help medical doctors to make better decisions. DR is considered one of the main risks, leading to blindness. Computer-Aided Diagnosis systems play an essential role in detecting features in fundus images. Fundus images may include blood vessels, exudates, micro-aneurysm, hemorrhages, and neovascularization. In this paper, our model combines automatic detection for the diabetic retinopathy classification with localization methods depending on weakly-supervised learning. The model has four stages; in stage one, various preprocessing techniques are app
Professional learning societies (PLS) are a systematic method for improving teaching and learning performance through designing and building professional learning societies. This leads to overcoming a culture of isolation and fragmenting the work of educational supervisors. Many studies show that constructing and developing strong professional learning societies - focused on improving education, curriculum and evaluation will lead to increased cooperation and participation of educational supervisors and teachers, as well as increases the application of effective educational practices in the classroom.
The roles of the educational supervisor to ensure the best and optimal implementation and activation of professional learning soci
... Show More This study includes Estimating scale parameter, location parameter and reliability function for Extreme Value (EXV) distribution by two methods, namely: -
- Maximum Likelihood Method (MLE).
- Probability Weighted Moments Method (PWM).
Used simulations to generate the required samples to estimate the parameters and reliability function of different sizes(n=10,25,50,100) , and give real values for the parameters are and , replicate the simulation experiments (RP=1000)
... Show MoreThe current research aims to identify the level of both psychological comfort and job performance among a sample of high school teachers for the academic year (2019-2020). The researcher has built two tools to measure psychological comfort, and one to measure job performance. The researcher applied the two scales to a random stratified sample of (100) male and female teachers. The results showed a low level of feeling with psychological comfort among secondary school teachers and a good level of sense of job performance. There is no statistically significant difference in the level of psychological comfort according to gender. There is a significant difference in psychological comfort according to the variable of the length of service in
... Show MoreThe aim of the study was to identify the nutritional awareness of middle school students and its relation to some variables of the sample of the research according to the gender variable (male and female), the variable type of family and the variable achievement of the parents.
The descriptive approach was adopted and the sample of the study consisted of (795) male and female students who were selected by the random stratified method. The research tool was prepared based on the literature and previous studies. The food awareness measure in its final form was (25) after the data collection was processed using the appropriate statistical met
... Show MoreEffective management of advanced cancer requires systemic treatment including small molecules that target unique features of aggressive tumor cells. At the same time, tumors are heterogeneous and current evidence suggests that a subpopulation of tumor cells, called tumor initiating or cancer stem cells, are responsible for metastatic dissemination, tumor relapse and possibly drug resistance. Classical apoptotic drugs are less effective against this critical subpopulation. In the course of generating a library of open-chain epothilones, we discovered a new class of small molecule anticancer agents that has no effect on tubulin but instead kills selected cancer cell lines by harnessing reactive oxygen
This article proposes a new strategy based on a hybrid method that combines the gravitational search algorithm (GSA) with the bat algorithm (BAT) to solve a single-objective optimization problem. It first runs GSA, followed by BAT as the second step. The proposed approach relies on a parameter between 0 and 1 to address the problem of falling into local research because the lack of a local search mechanism increases intensity search, whereas diversity remains high and easily falls into the local optimum. The improvement is equivalent to the speed of the original BAT. Access speed is increased for the best solution. All solutions in the population are updated before the end of the operation of the proposed algorithm. The diversification f
... Show MoreThe research aims to evaluate the suppliers at Diyala general electric industries company conducted in an environment of uncertainty and fuzzy where there is no particular system followed by the company, and also aims to use the problem of traveling salesman problem in the process of transporting raw materials from suppliers to the company in a fuzzy environment. Therefore, a system based on mathematical methods and quantity was developed to evaluate the suppliers. Fuzzy inference system (FIS) and fuzzy set theory were used to solve this problem through (Matlab) and the problem of the traveling salesman in two stages was also solved by the first stage of eliminating the fuzzing of the environment using the rank function method, w
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