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
The evolution of the Internet of things (IoT) led to connect billions of heterogeneous physical devices together to improve the quality of human life by collecting data from their environment. However, there is a need to store huge data in big storage and high computational capabilities. Cloud computing can be used to store big data. The data of IoT devices is transferred using two types of protocols: Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This paper aims to make a high performance and more reliable system through efficient use of resources. Thus, load balancing in cloud computing is used to dynamically distribute the workload across nodes to avoid overloading any individual r
... Show MoreThe Electric Discharge (EDM) method is a novel thermoelectric manufacturing technique in which materials are removed by a controlled spark erosion process between two electrodes immersed in a dielectric medium. Because of the difficulties of EDM, determining the optimum cutting parameters to improve cutting performance is extremely tough. As a result, optimizing operating parameters is a critical processing step, particularly for non-traditional machining process like EDM. Adequate selection of processing parameters for the EDM process does not provide ideal conditions, due to the unpredictable processing time required for a given function. Models of Multiple Regression and Genetic Algorithm are considered as effective methods for determ
... Show MoreThis research presents a new algorithm for classification the
shadow and water bodies for high-resolution satellite images (4-
meter) of Baghdad city, have been modulated the equations of the
color space components C1-C2-C3. Have been using the color space
component C3 (blue) for discriminating the shadow, and has been
used C1 (red) to detect the water bodies (river). The new technique
was successfully tested on many images of the Google earth and
Ikonos. Experimental results show that this algorithm effective to
detect all the types of the shadows with color, and also detects the
water bodies in another color. The benefit of this new technique to
discriminate between the shadows and water in fast Matlab pro
Utilizing the modern technologies in agriculture such as subsurface water retention techniques were developed to improve water storage capacities in the root zone depth. Moreover, this technique was maximizing the reduction in irrigation losses and increasing the water use efficiency. In this paper, a polyethylene membrane was installed within the root zone of okra crop through the spring growing season 2017 inside the greenhouse to improve water use efficiency and water productivity of okra crop. The research work was conducted in the field located in the north of Babylon Governorate in Sadat Al Hindiya Township seventy-eight kilometers from Baghdad city. Three treatments plots were used for the comparison using surface
... Show MorePorosity is important because it reflects the presence of oil reserves. Hence, the number of underground reserves and a direct influence on the essential petrophysical parameters, such as permeability and saturation, are related to connected pores. Also, the selection of perforation interval and recommended drilling additional infill wells. For the estimation two distinct methods are used to obtain the results: the first method is based on conventional equations that utilize porosity logs. In contrast, the second approach relies on statistical methods based on making matrices dependent on rock and fluid composition and solving the equations (matrices) instantaneously. In which records have entered as equations, and the matrix is sol
... Show MoreTwo nanocomposite corrosion inhibitors were synthesized from Aloe vera extract: one incorporating sodium thiosulfate and the other silver nitrate. Both nanocomposites were subjected to structural characterization using atomic force microscopy (AFM), which revealed distinct morphological features. The sodium thiosulfate-based nanocomposite exhibited uniform and well-dispersed nanoparticles with an average size of 47.51 nm, suggesting a stable and homogeneous distribution. In contrast, the silver nitrate-based nanocomposite displayed slightly larger particles with an average diameter of 58.34 nm, indicating a tendency toward moderate aggregation. The corrosion inhibition performance of these nanocomposites for carbon steel (CS1137) was invest
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