The Effects of Lactobacillus plantarum NCIMB 41607 on Salmonella infection and the microbial population in the gastrointestinal tract of the chicken

Salmonellosis is a foodborne disease, poultry and poultry products are the main source of the disease. Many countries including Iraq still use antibiotics to control Salmonella. The increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria putatively caused by the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture has provided the incentive to look for alterna-tives to antibiotic to control diseases in livestock. Lactic acid bacteria with probiotic characteristics have the potential to beneficially affect the gut microflora of chick-ens and help reduce the incidence of Salmonella infection. In this study, Lactobacillus plantarum NCIMB 41607 was examined in vitro for in-hibitory effects against Salmonella and in vivo for its effects on the gut microflora and on the incidence of Salmonella infection. In separate studies Lb. plantarum was administered to chicks as fermented moist feed (containing 175 mmol/L lactic acid and 1x109 CFU/g of Lb. plantarum), in drinking water or applied to dry feed. Rifampicin resistance was used as a biomarker for the Lb. plantarum NCIMB 41607. Traditional and molecular microbiology including DGGE, RISA, and FISH were used with electron microscopy to assess the effect of Lb. plantarum on bac-terial population in the digestive system of chicks. Lactobacillus plantarum (NCIMB 41607) was found to reduce the growth of Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Enteritidis by 4 Log CFU/g in a chicken simulated digestive system in vitro. The presence of rifampicine resistant Lactobacillus plantarum in the gut was con-firmed by replica plating and fluorescent in situ hybridisation with a strain specific probe. In general, the bacterial population in the guts of chicks fed Lactobacillus plantarum was more diverse in the guts of chicks fed control feed. There was no significant effect on Salmonella infection in Ross chicks compared with control. However, with specific pathogen free chicks the Salmonella infection was reduced. The intestinal villi lengths in FMF group were increased. These studies demonstrate that probiotics can affect the microflora in the chicken gut. Lactobacillus plantarum NCIMB 41607 may have the potential to control of Salmonella Typhimurium infection in chicken and continued research is advised.Iraqi ministry of higher education, Baghdad and I

Value of Matrix metalloproteinase-7and ‎Vimentin as Prognostic Biomarkers in Adenoid ‎Cystic Carcinoma (Immunohistochemical Study)‎

خلفية:MMP7 دورها الأساسي هو كسر المصفوفة خارج الخلية بما في ذلك الكازين، النوع الأول، الجيلاتين الثاني والرابع، والخامس. ويرتبط زيادة التعبير النسيجي ل MMP7 مع العديد من الأورام الخبيثة. Vim لها دور مهم في الأورام فيما يتعلق بالتصاق الخلية والهجرة. في الدراسة الحالية، نحاول تقييم تعبير  MMP7 و Vim كعلامات للسلوك العدواني البيولوجي ل AdCC. المواد والطرق: تسعة عشر نسيج مثبت بالفورمالين ومطمورة بشمع البارافيين مشخصة نسيجبا كسرطان كيسي شبيه بالغدة. استخدم تقنية المناعة الكيميائية النسيجية لتقيم تعبير MMP7 و Vim كمضادات احادية النسل. النتائج: أظهرت MMP7 علاقة ذات دلالة مع الاورام الكبيرة (P = 0.003) ، والمتباينة للغاية نسيجيا (P = 0.006). ارتبط Vim بشكل ملحوظ مع الغدة اللعابية الصغيرة  (P = 0.041) ، الاورام الكبيرة (P = 0.021)، والمتباينة للغاية نسيجيا (P = 0.040). كشفت كل من MMP7 و Vimعلامات ارتباط كبير للغاية مع المراحل المتقدمة نسيجيا (P <0.001) ، والعقدة الليمفاوية (P <0.001). وعلاوة على ذلك، كان هناك علاقة طردية ذات دلالة إحصائية بين MMP7و Vim ((P = 0.001.  الخلاصة: كل MMP 7 وVim مرتبطة بشكل إيجابي مع أورام ذات مستقبل مرضي سيء.Background: matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP7), its primary role is to break down extracellular matrix including casein, type I, II, IV, and V gelatins, fibronectin, and proteoglycan. The upregulation of MMP7 is associated with many malignant tumors. Vimentin (Vim) plays an important role in malignant tumors with regard to cellular adhesion, migration and signaling. In our current study, we have attempted to evaluate the expression of MMP7 and Vim as markers for aggressive biological behavior of AdCC.  Materials and Methods: Nineteen formalin fixed paraffin embedded blocks of AdCC were collected retrospectively were included in this study. An immunohistochemical (IHC) staining was performed using anti MMP7 and anti Vim monoclonal antibodies. Results: MMP7 showed significant relation with larger size tumor (P=0.003), higher grade (P=0.006). The Vim was significantly correlated with minor salivary gland (P=0.041), larger size tumor (P=0.021), high grade (P=0.040).   Both markers revealed highly significant correlation with advanced stage (P<0.001), and positive lymph node (LN) (P<0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between Vim and MMP7 (P=0.001).Conclusion: Both MMP7 and Vim are positively correlated with tumors of poor prognosis.&nbsp

Extent of risk management implementation in some of rock laboratory tests for tunnel projects by means of AHP method

In any project, especially infrastructure ones such as tunnels, tests play a major role in predicting and showing the properties of the ground built on. For such construction through a rock mountain terrain, it is quite not easy to predict the engineering property of such materials. Since working with rock is a quite challenge because of the nature of rock materials, it needs a lot of care and persuasion when dealing with such. For such rock materials, it needs both of field and laboratory tests to ensure the process of obtaining the final engineering property of the materials. This paper concentrate on some of the laboratory tests required for tunnel project held in rock profile sites. Emphasizing on safety, accuracy that enquired during such tests and try to run those under risk management process by means of AHP to get the responded weights for those factors such as test procedure with average of weight (49.43%) indicates the caution to be taken during test beside major parameters such as sample size and mass in accurate manner to avoid risk in test and results obtained

Evaluation of Construction Delay of Public Projects in Erbil Governorate

Delay is one of the greatest challenges facing the implementation of construction projects. The completion project time is considered one of the measure indicators for assessing the success of any project. Delays usually have negative impacts of financial and social to all parties involved in the projects. The aim of the study is to find the most important causes of delay by evaluating the common causes of delays in terms of frequency, severity, and important indices in implementation of public construction projects in Erbil Governorate related to owners, contractors, consultants, and external factors. The data gathered through conducting a questionnaire for perception various parties involved in implementation of public construction projects. For these purpose, 104 forms of questionnaire were distributed to various parts to identify the delay causes in accordance with their opinions. It was concluded that the most significant factors causing the delay in construction of public project in Erbil Governorate related to the owner were “variation orders by owner during the construction” which came in the first rank, while the cause of delay related to the consultant that came in the first rank was “unclear and inadequate details in drawings,” whereas the factor related to the contractor which came in the first rank was “selecting incompetent contractor.

Contribution of AHP method in prioritizing risk factors regarding tunnel project phases

Tunnel projects are consistently regarded to be mostly a complex and risky engineering projects, owing to the features of the projects, since they increasingly achieve high risk and complexity during the execution of the project. this led to the fact that the necessity of risk management understanding and implementing is a crucial quest with the intention to obtain tunnel project objectives considering (time, cost, quality & safety) to avoid time and cost overruns and any other obstacles. it was observed the most affecting objective was Safety (47.3%) by AHP method in which it is actually reasonable as such project of tunnel need a great concern regarding that matter for many reasons for instance the closed construction area, ventilation considerations, blasting, and so on. the second major objective is quality (31.1%) in which as experts always say it has to be maintained as a high quality as possible

An Investigation of Parallel Road Map Inference from Big GPS Traces Data

AbstractWith the increased use of GPS sensors in several everyday devices, persons trip data are be- coming very abundant. Many opportunities for exploration of the wealth GPS data and in this paper, we inferred, the geometry of road maps in Tunisia and the connectivity between them. This phenomenon is known as map generation and also map inference procedure. For that, we gathered big GPS data from about ten thousands of vehicles equipped with GPS receivers and circulating in Tunisia, which does not have a road map like other developing countries. We collected a big database with approximately 100 gigabytes. After preprocessing it, we were obliged to partition data in order to facilitate handling an unstructured database with a such size. In fact, we used for that K-means with its sequential mode and the parallel mode based on Mapreduce, which is one of the most famous proposed solution to analyse the rapidly growing data. The proposed parallel k-means algorithm was tested with our GPS data and the results are efficient in processing large datasets. It is a parallel data processing tool which is gathering significant importance from industry and academia especially with appearance of a new term to describe massive datasets having large-volume, high-complexity and growing data from different sources, “big data”

Good HR Practices and Their Impact on Perceived Organization’s Financial Performance: A Case Study of the BoK

Today organizations are competing not on the basis of their sizes but by the quality of their inputs and the processes that they employ to convert inputs into the outputs. Keeping in view that min this study looks into the impact of some HR Practices on perceived financial performance in the Bank of Khyber. The study uses a sample of 142 managers collected from 116 bank branches from all over Pakistan. The hypothesized relationships are tested using Amos 18 through path analysis. Out of the three hypotheses the empirical data supported two while one has not been supported. Overall, the study validates the theory of good HR practices have positive relationship with perceived financial performance of the banks. The Future research should examine the impact of this perception on the actual performance. The current study is purely quantitative. Therefore there is a need of carrying out a qualitative study with the same variables to get more subtle findings. This research could also be replicated in other banks and comparison could be drawn for more holistic results and increasing the generalizablility of the results

The Effect of Training and Development Practices on Employees’ Organizational Commitment among the Employees in Private Health Care Sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study examined the relationship between training and development practices, and organizational commitment for a sample of employees working in private healthcare sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The results showed that training and development practices were positively related to organizational commitment. To examine this relationship, a survey was conducted on 134 employees working in private healthcare sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, selected randomly. Correlation and regression analysis techniques were used to analyze the relationship of training and development practices and organizational commitment. The results of the study showed that organizational commitment of private healthcare sector employees were dependent on the training and development practices