Background: Strangles is a highly contagious equine respiratory disease caused by Streptococcus equi subsp. equi. It is a globally significant pathogen and one of the most common infectious agents in horses. In Iraq, no sequencing data on this pathogen are available, and only two molecular studies have been published to date. This study provides preliminary insights into strain diversity and provides a foundation for future large-scale investigations. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the molecular characteristics, identify SeM gene alleles, and perform a phylogenetic analysis of S. equi isolates from horses in Baghdad, Iraq. Methods: We analyzed 59 Streptococcus spp. isolates previously obtained from equine clinical samples. Conventional PCR targeting the SeM gene was used to identify S. equi. Additionally, nine PCR-positive SeM gene products were sequenced, followed by phylogenetic analysis and allele identification. Results: We confirmed 49 isolates as S. equi from the 59 isolates according to the molecular assay. Additionally, nine PCR products were used for sequencing and allele typing of the SeM gene which provided the initial report of SeM-97 allele identification in Iraq. Phylogenetic analysis along with SeM gene typing revealed a close relationship between the Iraqi strains and one Iranian strain with 100% sequence identity, revealing important epidemiological relationships that may indicate regional ties to the strain detected in Iran. Conclusion: The present study represents the first investigation of SeM allele typing in Iraq, identifying the SeM-97 allele of S. equi along with its unique amino acid variations. The findings highlight genetic similarities between Iraqi isolates and a strain from Iran, suggesting the potential regional dissemination of S. equi.
Soil improvement has developed as a realistic solution for enhancing soil properties so that structures can be constructed to meet project engineering requirements due to the limited availability of construction land in urban centers. The jet grouting method for soil improvement is a novel geotechnical alternative for problematic soils for which conventional foundation designs cannot provide acceptable and lasting solutions. The paper's methodology was based on constructing pile models using a low-pressure injection laboratory setup built and made locally to simulate the operation of field equipment. The setup design was based on previous research that systematically conducted unconfined compression testing (U.C.Ts.). Th
... Show MoreFace Recognition Systems (FRS) are increasingly targeted by morphing attacks, where facial features of multiple individuals are blended into a synthetic image to deceive biometric verification. This paper proposes an enhanced Siamese Neural Network (SNN)-based system for robust morph detection. The methodology involves four stages. First, a dataset of real and morphed images is generated using StyleGAN, producing high-quality facial images. Second, facial regions are extracted using Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNN) to isolate relevant features and eliminate background noise. Third, a Local Binary Pattern-Convolutional Neural Network (LBP-CNN) is used to build a baseline FRS and assess its susceptibility to d
... Show MoreAnalyzing plantar pressure trajectories is crucial for assessing foot behavior in dynamic gait stability. We propose the identification of foot symmetry and the detection of deformities by analyzing the trajectories of the center of pressure (CoP) and peak pressure (PP). First, using a foot pressure mapping system, plantar pressure data are acquired during a normal gait cycle. After the data have been acquired, post processing extracts both the CoP and PP trajectories over the spatiotemporal domain of foot motion for each foot independently. For this purpose, we used the optical flow technique which accurately estimates the direction of foot motion. The extracted trajectories of each foot are then segmented into, the medial and lateral regi
... Show MoreFH Ghanim, Journal of Global Pharma Technology, 2018
Plasma electrolytic oxidation and dip chemical coating as fabrication techniques are performed in ambient temperature and pressure, giving a competitive-edge in the commercial applicability. Thus, we proposed new compositions of flower-like hybrid materials, MgO-TiO2-HQ(8-hydroxyquinoline), MgOTiO2-HQ-APY(2-aminopyridine) and MgO-TiO2-HQ-APH(2-aminophenol), as photocatalysis with high corrosion resistance via a combination of plasma electrolytic oxidation and dip chemical coating in which 8-HQ, 2-APY, and 2-APH were used as the organic components. TiO2-HQ-APY and MgO-TiO2-HQ-APH exhibited improved simultaneous electrochemical and photocatalytic performance on photodecomposition of methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous solution in the presence o
... Show MoreThe aim of this work is to shed light on the importance of medicinal plants, especially those that have extracts that have a direct effect on human health. The study and identification of botany is necessary because human life has become closely linked to the life of plants as food . In addition to using plants as food, primitive man did not stop at this point, but rather developed their use to hunt prey and also used toxic plant materials in wars. With the passage of time, the ancient man was able to link the wild plants that cover the surface of the earth and the diseases that afflict him, so he used these plants or Parts of it are for treatment. A medicinal plant is defined as one or more of its parts that contain one or more che
... Show MoreA nanocrystalline CdS thin film with 100 nm thickness has been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate with substrate temperature of about 423 K. The films annealed under vacuum at different annealing temperature 473, 523 and 573 K. The X-ray diffraction studies show that CdS thin films have a hexagonal polycrystalline structure with preferred orientation at (002) direction. Our investigation showed the grain size of thin films increased from 9.1 to 18.9 nm with increasing the annealing temperature. The optical measurements showed that CdS thin films have direct energy band gap, which decreases with increasing the annealing temperature within the range 3.2- 2.85 eV. The absorbance edge is blue shifted. The absorption
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