Fluconazole was used to test the susceptibility of Candida albicans isolated from different clinical samples, and to detect mutations in ERG11 gene, and their relationship to fluconazole resistance. Forty-eight isolates of Candida albicans were tested for susceptibility using the disc diffusion method (M-44). ERG11 genes of six isolates were amplified (four resistant, two susceptible) and sequenced. The sequenced genes were analyzed to detect the mutations. Out of 48 isolates of Candida albicans, 4 (8%) were resistant to fluconazole. Sixteen-point mutations were detected included 13 silent mutations, and three missense mutations. The mutations of A945C (E266D) and G1609A (V488I) were found only in susceptible Candida albicans isolates, whil

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen and a model bacterium for studying virulence and bacterial social traits. While it can be isolated in low numbers from a wide variety of environments including soil and water, it can readily be found in almost any human/animal-impacted environment. It is a major cause of illness and death in humans with immunosuppressive and chronic conditions, and infections in these patients are difficult to treat due to a number of antibiotic resistance mechanisms and the organism’s propensity to form multicellular biofilms. One hundred twenty clinical samples and forty hospital environmental samples (various sources) were collected from hospitals in Baghdad city during the period from Oc

A high settlement may take place in shallow footing when resting on liquefiable soil if subjected to earthquake loading. In this study, a series of shaking table tests were carried out for shallow footing resting on sand soil. The input motion is three earthquake loadings (0.05g, 0.1g, and 0.2g). The study includes a reviewing of theoretical equations (available in literatures), which estimating settlement of footings due to earthquake loading, calibration, and verification of these equations with data from the shaking table test for improved soil by grouting and unimproved soil. It is worthy to note that the grouting materials considered in this study are the Bentonite and CKD slurries. A modification to the seismic set

The selection of proper field survey parameters of electrical resistivity can significantly provide efficient results within a reasonable time and cost. Four electrode arrays of 2D Electric Resistivity Imaging (ERI) surveys were applied to characterize and detect subsurface archaeological bodies and to determine the appropriate array type that should be applied in the field survey. This research is to identify the subsurface features of the Borsippa archaeological site, Babylon Governorate, Middle Iraq. Synthetic modeling studies were conducted to determine the proper array and parameters for imaging the shallow subsurface features or targets. The efficiency of many array types has been tested for the detection the buried archaeolog

Some major pollutants of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) those discharged as water produced (WP) from the AlAhdab oil field (AOF) in the ponds close to it may leak to the water resources around and eventually reaches the marshes which will affect its ecosystem. Thus, this work aims to track the availability of PAH in the water resources and the Main Outfall Drain (MOD) nearby. The determination of PAH was evaluated using “High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)”. The mean concentration of sixteen PAH in the produced water within the field was relatively high (0.01 to 10.89 g/ml) with standard deviations of (0.10.9). While, PAH outside the field were gradually diminishes down to (0.01-0.039) x10-2 g/ml which exceeds th

The measurements of major and trace elements in different brands of milk powder selected from the Iraqis market via the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) Technique have been studied in the present work. The result of the measurements reveals the high concentrations of sodium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Furthermore, low concentrations of aluminum, silicon, iron, bromine, molybdenum, iodine, barium, titanium, manganese, cobalt, chrome, nickel, copper, zinc and lead were detected. Neutron activation analysis (NAA) and Kjeldahl technique were also employed to determine the concentrations of nitrogen. It was found that the nitrogen concentration was in the range of (1.96 - 3.23) % which is within the permissible li

     Estimating multivariate location and scatter with both affine equivariance and positive break down has always been difficult. Awell-known estimator which satisfies both properties is the Minimum volume Ellipsoid Estimator (MVE) Computing the exact (MVE) is often not feasible, so one usually resorts to an approximate Algorithm. In the regression setup, algorithm for positive-break down estimators like Least Median of squares typically recomputed the intercept at each step, to improve the result. This approach is called intercept adjustment. In this paper we show that a similar technique, called location adjustment, Can be applied to the (MVE). For this purpose we use the Minimum Volume Ball (MVB). In order