Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
Background: Arterial stiffness is related with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease events. Patients with atherosclerotic disease show to have larger diameters, reduced arterial compliance and lower flow velocities. Aim of study : To compare between patients of two age groups with concomitant diseases diabetes and hypertension in regard to intima media thickness and blood flow characteristics in order to estimate the blood perfusion to the brain via the common and internal carotid arteries. Subject and Methods : 40 patients with (diabetic and hypertension) diseases were enrolled , they were classified according to age. Color Doppler and B mode ultrasound was used to determine lumen Diameter (D), Intima – media thickness (IMT)
... Show MoreThe electron correlation effect for inter-shell have been analysed in terms of Fermi hole and partial Fermi hole for Li-atom in the excited states (1s2 3p) and (1s2 3d) using Hartree-Fock approximation (HF). Fermi hole Δf(r12) and partial Fermi hole Δg(r12 ,r1) were determined in position space. Each plot of the physical properties in this work is normalized to unity. The calculation was performed using Mathcad 14 program.
In many oil fields only the BHC logs (borehole compensated sonic tool) are available to provide interval transit time (Δtp), the reciprocal of compressional wave velocity VP.
To calculate the rock elastic or inelastic properties, to detect gas-bearing formations, the shear wave velocity VS is needed. Also VS is useful in fluid identification and matrix mineral identification.
Because of the lack of wells with shear wave velocity data, so many empirical models have been developed to predict the shear wave velocity from compressional wave velocity. Some are mathematical models others used the multiple regression method and neural network technique.
In this study a number of em
... Show MoreThe CIGS/CdS p-n junction thin films were fabricated and deposited at room temperature with rate of deposition 5, and 6 nm secG1 , on ITO glass substrates with 1mm thickness by thermal evaporation technique at high vacuum pressure 2×10G5 mbar, with area of 1 cm2 and Aluminum electrode as back contact. The thickness of absorber layer (CIGS) was 1 µm while the thickness of the window layer CdS film was 300 nm. The X-ray Diffraction results have shown that all thin films were polycrystalline with orientation of 112 and 211 for CIGS thin films and 111 for CdS films. The direct energy gaps for CIGS and CdS thin films were 1.85 and 2.4 eV, respectively. Atomic Force Microscopy measurement proves that both films CIGS and CdS films have nanostru
... Show MoreThe aim of this study was to identify the depth of the mouth and its shape in some local fish belonging to the Cyprinidae family, and the extent to which the depth of the mouth is related to the way of feeding and the nature of food as well as the feeding habits of those species collected specifically from the Tigris River, the results showed a relationship of depth oral cavity with head length was highly significant at (P < 0.01) for all studied species. Also, there was a highly significant relationship between the height of the pharyngeal tooth-bearing bone and the depth of the oral cavity for fish of this local family.
In our work present, the application of strong-Lensing observations for some gravitational lenses have been adopted to study the geometry of the universe and to explain the physics and the size of the quasars. The first procedure was to study the geometrical of the Lensing system to determine the relation between the redshift of the gravitational observations with its distances. The second procedure was to compare between the angular diameter distances "DA" calculated from the Euclidean case with that from the Freedman models, then evaluating the diameter of the system lens. The results concluded that the phenomena are restricted to the ratio of distance between lens and source with the diameter of the lens noticing.
Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations were carried out to study the thermal cracking for acenaphthylene molecule to estimate the bond energies for breaking C8b-C5a , C5a-C5 , C5-C4 , and C5-H5 bonds as well as the activation energies. It was found that for C8b-C5a , C5-C4 , and C5-H5 reactions it is often possible to identify one pathway for bond breakage through the singlet or triplet states. The atomic charges , dipole moment and nuclear – nuclear repulsion energy supported the breakage bond .Also, it was found that the activation energy value for C5-H5 bond breakage is lower than that required for C8b-C5a , C5a-C5 , C5-C4 bonds which refer to C5-H5 bond in acenaphthylene molecule are weaker than C8b-C5a , C5a-C5 , C5-C
... Show MoreThe data communication has been growing in present day. Therefore, the data encryption became very essential in secured data transmission and storage and protecting data contents from intruder and unauthorized persons. In this paper, a fast technique for text encryption depending on genetic algorithm is presented. The encryption approach is achieved by the genetic operators Crossover and mutation. The encryption proposal technique based on dividing the plain text characters into pairs, and applying the crossover operation between them, followed by the mutation operation to get the encrypted text. The experimental results show that the proposal provides an important improvement in encryption rate with comparatively high-speed Process
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