High gain coplanar UHF RFID tag antenna using inductively coupled feed for metallic applications

In this design, a coplanar slim antenna had been proposed and designed for UHF RFID (860-960) MHz metallic objects. The slim antenna was presented with proximity coupled feeding, two symmetrical coplanar ground layers, and a transmission line fed by a U-shaped inductively coupled feed. Furthermore, the U-shaped inductive feeder consisted of two opposing symmetrical U-shaped structures to feed the top radiator of the antenna. The size of the antenna was 97.5 × 50 × 1.5 mm3 at 915 MHz. As a result, the peak gain for the antenna reached up to 5 dBi at 915 MHz. Furthermore, the bandwidth of the antenna was 24.875 MHz (900.125-925) MHz (the power reflection coefficient was lower than -3 dB), while the reading range reached up to 11 meters. Besides, the results obtained from the measurement displayed very good impedance matching due to the flexibility generated by the U-shaped inductive feeder. Moreover, the results retrieved exhibited very good agreement with the results obtained from the simulations

Stimulation of Macrophage Cells Against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Using Silver Nanoparticles

داء الليشمانيات الجلدي هو مرض يتسبب فيه طفيلي الليشمانيا المداريL. tropica. الخلايا البلعمية لها دور اساسي ضد مسببات الأمراض. أكسيد النيتريك(NO) ،هو جزيء ينتج بواسطة الخلايا المناعية ، يتحكم في قتل مسببات الأمراض أثناء العدوى. تمتلك جسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغر(Ag NPs) القدرة على تحفيز إنتاج أنواع الأكسجين. تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى تحليل تنشيط البلاعم من خلال إنتاجأكسيد النيتريك وتقدير السمية الخلوية المستندة إلى إطلاق نازعة الهيدروجين (LDH) عند التعرض لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداريو جسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغر. في هذه الدراسة تم استخدام تراكيز مخففة منجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغرخلال وبعد تعرض البلاعم لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداري. تم استخدام اختبار MTT لتحديد السمية الخلوية لـجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغرعلىالطور عديم السوط لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداريأثناء إصابة البلاعم في المختبر. أظهرت النتائج أنه من خلال زيادة تركيزاتجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغر انخفضت نسبة حيوية الطور عديم السوط لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداري إلى 21.7 ± 0.64٪ خلال العدوى مقارنة مع السيطرة. كان التركيز التثبيطي 50 ٪ لـجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغرعلى الطور عديم السوط لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداري2.048 ميكروغرام / مل خلال العدوى. علاوة على ذلك، اشتملت دراسة ما بعد البلعمة على تقييم إفرازأكسيد النيتريكونازعة الهيدروجينبواسطة البلاعم عند التعرض لطفيلي الليشمانيا المداري وقد أظهرت النتائج أن البلاعم التي لم يتم علاجها قد انتجت مستويات منخفضة من أكسيد النيتروجين أثناء وجودجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغر، وقد تم تنشيط البلعمات لإنتاج مستويات أعلى منأكسيد النيتروجين تحت جميع الظروف التجريبية. من ناحية أخرى، كانت البلاعم قادرة على التحكم في السمية الخلوية وتقليل مستوياتنازعة الهيدروجينأثناء عملية البلعمة للطور عديم السوطلطفيلي الليشمانيا المداري. تشير هذه النتائج إلى أنجسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغريمكن أن تنشط الخلايا البلعمية لانتاج أكسيد النيتروجين. ان هذه النتائج يوفر المعلومات حول الالية التي من خلالها تستطيع جسيمات الفضة المتناهية الصغرالسيطرة على الاصابة بالميكروبات وتحفيز الخلايا المضادة للسمية ضد مسببات الليشمانيا المداري.Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a disease caused by Leishmania tropica parasite. Current treatments for this parasite are undesirable because of their toxicity, resistance, and high cost. Macrophages are key players against pathogens. Nitric oxide (NO), a molecule produce by immune cells, controls intracellular killing of pathogens during infection. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) demonstrated broad-spectrum activity against various types of infectious diseases. It has the ability to stimulate oxygen species production.  This study aims to analyze the macrophages activation through NO production and estimate the cytotoxicity based on the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release upon exposure to L. tropica and Ag NPs. Serially concentrations of Ag NPs were used under two conditions during and following macrophages exposure to L. tropica. MTT assay was used to determine the cytotoxicity of Ag NPs on L. tropica amastigotes during infection of macrophages in vitro. The results showed that by increasing the Ag NPs concentrations, the viability percentage of L. tropica amastigotes decreased and reached to 21.7 ± 0.64 % during infection compared with the control. The 50% inhibitory concentration of Ag NPs on amastigotes was 2.048µg/ml during infection. Moreover, post-phagocytosis study involved the assessment of NO and LDH release by macrophages upon exposure to L. tropica. It have shown that untreated macrophages released low levels of NO while in the presence of Ag NPs, macrophages were activated to produce higher levels of NO under all experimental conditions. On the other hand, macrophages were capable of controlling cytotoxicity and decreasing LDH levels during phagocytosis of L. tropica amastiogotes. Taking together, these findings suggest that Ag NPs can enhance macrophages NO production which provides a method for the identification of Ag NPs ligands with microbicidal and anti-cytotoxic properties against L. tropica pathogens

Toward a precision medicine in Alzheimer’s Disease: blood phenomic fingerprint for diagnostic and therapeutic developments

There is an unmet clinical need to identify reliable blood biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) that can be used for diagnostics and therapeutic purposes. The complex nature of AD, single-readout approaches along with the inter-individual variation are among the major challenges for developing biomarkers towards stratification of AD patients. A multi-parametric immune-based assay combined with the rapidly advancing machine learning multivariate analysis presents itself as a powerful approach for blood-based disease detection. In this study, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) have been used as a proxy for the peripheral immune changes in disease and healthy groups. Our PBMC ex vivo assay monitors the activities of the Toll Like Receptor (TLR) and the inflammasome as well as it provides a platform to characterize the gene expression profile using (RNA-seq) as well as the cellular composition. TLR and inflammasome activities were monitored via a high-content phenotypic assay, cell profiling and imaging-based approaches, flanked by a homogeneous readout, i.e. cytokine assay. The utilized multi-readouts workflow enables a detailed phenotypic description for the PBMC samples, aiming to identify a phenotype fingerprint that could be used in early diagnosis of the disease. The cell-based assay was designed to overcome challenges associated with the heterogeneous pathological phenotype resulting from variable immune system responses using an automated platform of DZNE Bonn to scale-up the assay capacity and improving its reproducibility. The assay was validated against day-to-day variations and further enhanced by introducing a time-lapse analysis showing that differential response of monocyte, but not T or B cells, to the inflammasome activation. Moreover, an image-based analysis was established to characterize the cellular composition of investigated samples using a supervised neural U-Net-based pixel classifier. The established PBMC assay was used to analyze a small pilot cohort of 20 patients (AD + depression + psychiatric controls) + three samples of healthy donors. The assay readouts were integrated into a feature vector analyzed with Support Vector Machine classifier in order to help in predicting the disease status for each of the tested samples. The predictive model provides an excellent platform with an estimated 91% accuracy. The classifier precisely predicted and dissected the Samples of AD patients (n=6) from depressed samples (n=5). Furthermore, the classifier assigned the most important features (readouts) for disease prediction, e.g. intracellular TNF production, that could be investigated for further therapeutic development. Nevertheless, the workflow needs to be validated with a larger cohort of AD patients as well as other immune related diseases in order to validate the selectivity and specificity of the platform. our PBMC workflow has a huge potential to be a key tool towards precision medicine in AD by patient stratification via immune phenotyping

Halotolerant streptomycetes isolated from soil at Taif region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) I: Purification, salt tolerance range, biological and molecular identification

This study focuses on isolation and purification of some halotolerant streptomycetes from soil and sea water of western region, KSA as a source of salt tolerance gene(s). A few numbers (32) of streptomycetes-like colonies (SLC) were isolated and purified from two regions. From Jeddah, a number of 22 out of the 32 SLC were obtained, distributed between the sea water 12 (54.55%) and sea sediment soil 6 (27.27%).From Taif-soil, only 10 SLC were isolated. Results show that 31 SLC were grown on 3.5% salt, while, in the presence of 7.0% salt, 2, 3, 18, and 4 showed abundant (+++), moderate (++), weak (+), and in doubt (±) growth, respectively. Only five SLC were not able to grow at 7% salt. At the level of 10.5% salt, the number of SLC was decreased up to 4 (2 (+++), 1 (++) and 1(+)). In either 14% or 21% salt, four isolates were varied in their ability in growth as moderate or weak growth was recorded. These isolates were considered as halotolerant as they were able to grow in either the presence or normal growth medium. The four isolates which tolerate 14% salt (isolates 4 and 6) and 21% salt (isolates 2 and 8) were completely identified. The streptomycete isolate 2 appeared to be related to Streptomyces cirratus. Comparing the cultural, morphological and physiological characteristics of Streptomyces isolate 4 and 6, they were very likely to be strains of S. rishiriensis and S. alboflavus, respectively. Streptomyces isolate 8 was identified as a strain of S. luteogriseus. The nucleotide sequences of 16S rRNA gene was partially determined using the DNA template of the Streptomyces isolate 8. Results show that a final sequence of about 1462 nts was obtained and compared with eight universal Streptomyces and bacterial strains. This isolate could be classified as a new species of gray Streptomyces, and it was suggested to be named a new halotolerant Streptomyces sp. TSA-KSA strain (GenBank AB731746).Keywords: Streptomyces, halotolerant, identification, 16S rRNA, Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(19), pp. 2565-257

Use of construction materials to improve the properties of clay soil

The demolition of old buildings, construction, and rebuilding processes leave a waste called the so-called construction waste. For the save the environment and its aesthetics, as well as for the economic and financial benefit from these wastes, as well as for the removal of all obstacles that may affect the continuity of work,  so there was a joint responsibility of several parties, including the municipalities in addition to the party responsible for the construction process, which may be individuals or Construction companies contribute to the disposal and possible utilization of these wastes at the same time,  and thus this has led to the joint responsibility of several parties and parties in recycling these wastes. This research paper presents a study in the Use of construction waste to improve the properties of clay soil, by taking samples from the location of a building under construction in the city center of Hilla / Iraq. where we mixed it with ceramic powder.&nbsp

Halotolerant streptomycetes isolated from soil at Taif region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia II: RAPD-PCR analysis and salt tolerance-gene isolation

The genus Streptomyces is represented in nature by the largest number of species and varieties among the family Streptomycetaceae. This study aimed at extracting the DNA of four halotolerant Streptomyces strains followed by determination of DNA fingerprinting of them using a molecular tool. A trail to isolate salt tolerance gene(s) from their DNA was also aimed. RAPD-PCR technique was applied using seven RAPD-PCR primers. Results show that a total 71 fragments (65 polymorphic and six monomorphic) were amplified from the DNA of the four identified Streptomyces strains. The fragments were divided into polymorphic and monomorphic fragments. Three primers named OPA11, OPB15 and OPC07 did not show any monomorphic fragments. A number of 43 (7, 7, 8, 2, 9, 6 and 4) representing 60.56% were considered as unique DNA markers, and were amplified using OPA11, OPB15, OPC07, OPC18, OPD04, OPE05 and OPO14, respectively. Data shows similarity matrix between the four identified Streptomycs strains based on RAPD-PCR analysis ranged from 21.8 to 40.0. Results show that the P5CR gene was detected in the DNA extracts of three species, namely, Streptomyces cirratus-02; Streptomyces rishiriensis-04; Streptomyces luteogriseus-08, while, mtlD gene was only found in the DNA extracts of S. cirratus-02.Keywords: Streptomyces, halotolerant, salt tolerance genes, RAPD-PCR, Taif, KSAAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(13), pp. 1452-145

Biodegradation of Gasoil by Fungal Isolates from Petroleum Contaminated Soils

Biodegradation of gasoil can be improved using various fungi isolated (Aspergillus sp . and  Alternari sp)  from chronically diesel-oil-polluted soil . Samples were collected from power generators locations in Ramadi city. In this present investigation, bioremediation was carried out through  growth of individual fungicide strains on gasoil and examined for its ability to degrade gasoil hydrocarbon at 26C0 was accomplished and assessed by using Gas Chromatography (GC). Evaluated of biodegradable  observed the short-chain alkanes  C9H20 greater extent than that for the long-chain C21H44. In addition, from the biodegradation efficiencies obtained, it can be inferred that gasoil was amenable to Bioremediation. Results pointed that bioremediation depends on the kind of used fungus such as Alternaria sp. Strain  which are more effective in the degrade of gasoil than the Aspergillus sp Fungi strain Key Words : Biodegradation , Fungi  , Aspergillus SP  , Alternaria sp , Petroleu