Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a ubiquitous environmental organism, is a difficult-to-treat opportunistic pathogen due to its broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance and its ability to form biofilms. In this study, we investigate the link between resistance to a clinically important antibiotic, imipenem, and biofilm formation. First, we observed that the laboratory strain P. aeruginosa PAO1 carrying a mutation in the oprD gene, which confers resistance to imipenem, showed a modest reduction in biofilm formation.We also observed an inverse relationship between imipenem resistance and biofilm formation for imipenem-resistant strains selected in vitro, as well as for clinical isolates.We identified two clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa from the sputum

Understanding, promoting, and teaching media literacy is an important societal challenge. STEM educators are increasingly looking to incorporate 21st century skills such as media literacy into core subject education. In this paper we investigate how undergraduate Computer Science (CS) students can learn media literacy as a by-product of collaborative video tutorial production. The paper presents a study of 34 third-year CS undergraduates who, as part of their learning, were each asked to produce three video tutorials on Raspberry Pi programming, using a collaborative video production tool for mobile phones (Bootlegger). We provide results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the production process and resulting video tutorials,

The research aimed to modeling a structural equation for tourist attraction factors in Asir Region. The research population is the people in the region, and a simple random sample of 332 individuals were selected. The factor analysis as a reliable statistical method in this phenomenon was used to modeling and testing the structural model of tourism, and analyzing the data by using SPSS and AMOS statistical computerized programs. The study reached a number of results, the most important of them are: the tourist attraction factors model consists of five factors which explain 69.3% of the total variance. These are: the provision of tourist services, social and historic factors, mountains, weather and natural parks. And the differenc

The free piston engine linear generator (FPELG) is a simple engine structure with few components, making it a promising power generation system. However, because the engine works without a crankshaft, the handling of the piston motion control (PMC) is the main challenge influencing the stability and performance of FPELGs. In this article, the optimal operating parameters of FPELG for maximising engine performance and reducing exhaust gas emissions were studied. Moreover, the influence of adding hydrogen (H2) to compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel on FPELG performance was investigated. The influence of operating parameters on in-cylinder pressure was also analysed. The single-piston FPELG fuelled by CNG blended with H2 was used to run the expe

The problem of the high peak to average ratio (PAPR) in OFDM signals is investigated with a brief presentation of the various methods used to reduce the PAPR with special attention to the clipping method. An alternative approach of clipping is presented, where the clipping is performed right after the IFFT stage unlike the conventional clipping that is performed in the power amplifier stage, which causes undesirable out of signal band spectral growth. In the proposed method, there is clipping of samples not clipping of wave, therefore, the spectral distortion is avoided. Coding is required to correct the errors introduced by the clipping and the overall system is tested for two types of modulations, the QPSK as a constant amplitude modul

This work deals with the separation of benzene and toluene from a BTX fraction. The separation was carried out using adsorption by molecular sieve zeolite 13X in a fixed bed. The concentration of benzene and toluene in the influent streams was measured using gas chromatography. The effect of flow rate in the range 0.77 – 2.0 cm3/min on the benzene and toluene extraction from BTX fraction was studied. The flow rate increasing decreases the breakthrough and saturation times. The effect of bed height in the range 31.6 – 63.3 cm on benzene and toluene adsorption from BTX fraction was studied. The increase of bed height increasing increases the break point values. The effect of the concentration of benzene in the range 0.0559 – 0.2625g/

This research aims to distinguish the reef environment from the non-reef environment. The Oligocene-Miocene-succussion in western Iraq was selected as a case study, represented by the reefal limestone facies of the Anah Formation (Late Oligocene) deposited in reef-back reef environments, dolomitic limestone of the Euphrates Formation (Early Miocene) deposited in open sea environments, and gypsiferous marly limestone of the Fatha Formation (Middle Miocene) deposited in a lagoonal environment. The content of the rare earth elements (REEs) (La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Er, Ho, Tm, Yb, Lu, and Y) in reef facies appear to be much lower than of those in the non-reef facies. The open sea facies have a low content of REEs due to bein