Amino acid consumption and secretion patterns of Staphylococcus aureus following growth in sub-optimal environmental conditions

Background: Staphylococcus aureus is highly associated with nosocomial infections due to its ability to adapt to wide range of environmental parameters. The aim of this study was to evaluate amino acids consumption and secretion by S. aureus at mid-exponential and stationary phases under growth in sub-optimal conditions, including changes in pH, temperature and osmolality.Methods: The consumption and secretion of amino acids were determined by subtracting the original concentrations of the free amino acids in the media from those estimated at both mid-exponential and stationary phases of growth.Results: The analysis revealed that the consumption and secretion profiles were substantially different between cells grown under optimal control conditions, when compared with those exposed to sub-optimal conditions. The analyses of the supernatants harvested at mid-exponential phase revealed that the total consumption of amino acids was increased by 1.2 and 1.7 times by cells grown at either pH 6 or 8 and 35°C with additional of 5 % NaCl, respectively. However, the final levels of amino acids consumed at stationary phase were significantly reduced in the cells grown in sub-optimal conditions compared with bacteria cells grown under optimal conditions.Conclusion: It was evident that various environmental conditions led to differential profiles of amino acid consumption and secretion.Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus; Amino acid metabolism; Stress response

Improving Occurrence Variance Reporting System through Implementing An Educational Program For Staff At King Saud Hospital,Unaizah, Al –Qassim, KSA.

Occurrence variance reporting (OVR) is very essential for ensuring patient and staff safety, quality of care and risk management. Variance is any event or circumstance not consistent with the standard routine operations of the hospital and its staff or the routine care of a patient/visitor. The aim of the study was to improve Occurrence Variance Reporting System at King Saud Hospital, Unaizah, Al Qassim. Design: A quasi experimental research design. Setting: King Saud Hospital, Unaizah, Al –Qassim, KSA. Sample: all occurrence variance reported during 6 months in each of pre test, post test, follow up1 test, and follow up2. Data Collection Tool: OVR trending and analysis. Result: occurrence variance reporting system significantly improved after implementation of an educational program on OVR to hospital staff and administrators than before. Recommendations: Continues monthly and quarterly monitoring and gathering of data to maintain the performance, Continuous education, Rewards and commendations are given for the highest reporting department.   Keywords: incident- report- occurrence variance

Exploring the action of new FimH inhibitors against CTX– 15 enzyme by enzoinformatics approach: A plausible arsenal against drug-resistant uropathogenic bacterial strains

Purpose: To explore the potency of FimH inhibitors against CTX-M β-lactamase enzyme type 15, in view of the increasing prevalence of CTX-M 15 in uropathogenic strains which has reduced the treatment options to minimal.Method: FimH inhibitors were targeted against CTXM-15 by a molecular docking approach. Thereafter, the best ligand-target confirmation was selected and analyzed using LIGPLOT+ Version v.2.1. The hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding among the catalytic site amino acids of CTXM-15 and the FimH inhibitors were analyzed and 3-D structures were converted into 2-D images by LIGPLOT algorithm.Results: Out of all the FimH inhibitors tested, 3′-chloro-4′- (α-D-mannopyranosyloxy) biphenyl-4- carbonitrile, para-biphenyl-2-methyl-3′-methylamidemannoside, para-biphenyl-2-methyl-3′,5′dimethylamide-α-D-mannoside, and thiazolylamino mannoside exhibited better interaction with the CTX-M15 active site than the positive control avibactam. Moreover, in CTX-M 15, the amino acid residues, Ser70, Tyr105, Ser130, Asn132, Thr216, Thr235, Gly236, and Ser237 were commonly interacting with these FimH inhibitors as well as avibactam.Conclusion: The predicted findings suggest that these FimH inhibitors could be explored as potential CTX-M 15 inhibitors to cope-up with resistance issues of uropathogenic bacteria in the form of an alternate strategy

Towards facilitating team collaboration during construction project via the development of cloud-based BIM governance solution

Construction projects involve multi-discipline, multi-actor collaboration, and during their lifecycle, enormous amounts of data are generated. This data is often sensitive, raising major concerns related to access rights, ownership, intellectual property (IP) and secu- rity. Thus, dealing with this information raises several issues, such as data inconsistency, different versions of data, data loss etc. Therefore, the collaborative Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach has recently been considered a useful contributory technique to minimise the complexity of team collaboration during construction projects. Further- more, it has been argued that there is a role for Cloud technology in facilitating team collaboration across a building's lifecycle, by applying the ideologies of BIM governance. Therefore, this study investigates and seeks to develop a BIM governance solution util- ising a Cloud infrastructure. The study employed two research approaches: the first being a wide consultation with key BIM experts taking the form of: (i) a comprehensive questionnaire; followed by (ii) several semi-structured interviews. The second approach was an iterative software engineering approach including: (i) Software Modelling, using Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) and Unifed Modelling Language (UML), and (ii) Software Prototype Development. The fndings reveal several remaining barriers to BIM adoption, including Information Communication Technology (ICT) and collabora- tion issues; therefore highlighting an urgent need to develop a BIM governance solution underpinned by Cloud technology, to tackle these barriers and issues. The key fndings from this research led to: (a) the development of a BIM governance framework (G-BIM); (b) defnition of functional, non-functional, and domain specific requirements for develop- ing a Cloud-based BIM Governance Platfrom (GovernBIM); (c) development of a set of BPMN diagrams to describe the internal and external business procedures of the Govern- BIM platform lifecycle; (d) evaluation of several fundamental use cases for the adoption of the GovernBIM platform; (e) presentation of a core BIM governance model (class di- agram) to present the internal structure of the GovernBIM platform; (f) provision of a well-structured, Cloud-based architecture to develop a GovernBIM platform for practical implementation; and (j) development of a Cloud-based prototype focused on the main identified functionalities of BIM governance. Despite the fact that a number of concerns remain (i.e. privacy and security) the proposed Cloud-based GovernBIM solution opens up an opportunity to provide increased control over the collaborative process, and to resolve associated issues, e.g. ownership, data inconsistencies, and intellectual property. Finally, it presents a road map for further development of Cloud-based BIM governance platforms

The impact of an interactive educational programme on children’s nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of children’s pain, self-efficacy, and perceptions of barriers to optimal post-operative pain management in children

BackgroundAlthough post-operative pain management has been researched extensively, it does not receive the same attention from paediatric nurses in Saudi Arabia. Practices are not based on sound evidence, but there is a willingness to improve. The factors addressed in this study had not been considered together in any study, and each in turn was supported by only minimal evidence of variable quality. No work of significance had been undertaken in the context of Saudi Arabia or other Gulf nations.AimsThe aim was to test the impact of an interactive online post-operative pain management education programme on paediatric nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of children’s pain; self-efficacy; and perceptions of barriers to optimal practice.Study Design A non-equivalent groups pre-test post-test design was used. A sample of 229 paediatric nurses working in surgical wards in Hail region hospitals was recruited (intervention n=135; control n=94) and completed four instruments to test the study variables on three occasions: before the intervention, and at one and three months afterwards. The intervention was an interactive educational programme on DVD with explanations, exercises, video presentations and self-check games. Analysis of categorical variables was undertaken using descriptive statistics, and ANOVA inferential statistics were used to compare the results within and between groups.ResultsIn the intervention group statistically significant, positive changes were seen in all attributes other than nurses’ perceptions of children’s pain. Such changes were not observed in the control group. Participants were explicit in approval of the intervention.ConclusionThe online education programme was effective in equipping Saudi nurses with the skills, knowledge and self-confidence to undertake effective post-operative pain management. Shift patterns, geographical distances and cultural issues in Saudi hospitals make attendance at educational events difficult, so this approach could exert a notable impact on clinical practice throughout Saudi Arabia

Novel mechanism to improve Hadith classifier performance

Abstract— Muslims believe that the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (SAAW) is the second of the two revealed fundamental sources of Islam, after the Holy Qur'an. Hadith provides a Gold Standard "ground truth" for Artificial Intelligent (AI) knowledge extraction and knowledge representation experiments. In the present study, the extracted Islamic knowledge represented the focal point of the research; three famous books in Hadith science framed the corpus of the study. This study attempted to explore new approach to classify Hadith using a combination of the expert system and data mining techniques to classify Hadith according to its validity degree (Sahih, Hasan, Da'eef and Maudo'), the proposed Hadith Classifier model was built through learning process, Decision Tree (DT) classifier modeling had been represented by the tree structure model, and the attributes of the instances originally were obtained from the source books. Whilst some attributes were indicated as null values, or missing values. A novel mechanism called missing data detector (MDD) was employed to handle these missing data. This mechanism simulated the Isnad verification methods in Hadith science. The results of the research were compared with the resource books, concurrently with the point of view of the experts in the Hadith science. The findings of the research showed that the performance of DT Hadith classifier had significant effect with MDD, the CCR was sharply increased from (50.1502 %) to (97.597%) Furthermore, the favorable obtained results indicated that the DT Modeling is a viable approach to classify Hadith due to the ease of rules induction and results interpretation