Browsing by Author "Abdu Mohammed"

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    Arginase Activity in the Blood of Patients with HIV, TB and HIV/TB Co-infections
    (Addis Ababa University, 2015-09) Abdu Mohammed; Abebe Tamrat; Mihret Adane
    Background: HIV/AIDS and TB remain a major global public health problem and their global distribution is heavily skewed toward low income and emerging economics. Africa, and more specifically Sub-Saharan Africa, faces the worst epidemic of the two diseases since the advent of the antibiotic era. Both TB and HIV have profound effects on the immune system, as they are capable of disarming the host’s immune responses through mechanisms that are not fully understood. The catabolism L-arginine by arginase has emerged as a potent mechanism for the regulation of immune responses. Objectives: To measure arginase activity in the blood of patient with HIV, TB and HIV/TB coinfected patients at Zewditu Memorial and St. peter's Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2014 to October 2014.Venous blood was collected from patients before initiation of treatment and controls in BD Vacutainer EDTA tubes. Isolation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) is performed by density gradient centrifugation on Histopaque-1077(Sigma) where as Plasma was obtained after centrifugation of a blood at 1800 rpm for 10 minutes. Arginase enzyme activity was determined using colorimetric assay based on color formed when urea produced is heated in acid with isonitrosopropiophenone. Data were evaluated by using GraphPad Prism version 6.05 and the differences were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05. Result: Increased arginase activity was observed in PBMC of HIV, TB and HIV/TB co-infected patients than in PBMC of healthy controls and similarly higher arginase level also measured in plasma of TB and HIV/TB co-infected patients than in plasma of healthy control. Moreover, a CD+4 T cell counts of HIV and HIV/TB co-infected patients and BMI of HIV, TB and HIV/TB patients were negatively associated with PBMC arginase activity. Conclusion: Our results suggest that arginase activity is become higher during HIV, TB and HIV/TB co-infections. Keywords: PBMC, plasma, HIV, TB, HIV/TB patients, Arginase
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    Reading preferences of grade 11 students in addis ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 1993-06) Abdu Mohammed ; R.B Hicks
    The main purpose of this study was to investigate and identify 11th grade students' reading preferences in Addis Ababa. The subject of the study were 300 randomly selected students from four government secondary schools. To achieve the objective of the study, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the students. The questionnaire had two major parts: part one aimed at getting background information and part two was concerned with a reading preference inventory; i.e. students were asked to choose and rank their 10 best reading topics, titles and texts. These topics, titles and texts were del iberately designed in order to cross-check the validity of the respondents' responses. The results of the study indicated that students' attitudes towards the given reading topics, titles and texts were similar irrespective of sex. Both males and females chose the same top ten reading topics, but there was a difference in ranking wi thin the top ten choices. Thus, males preferred in descending order of popularity: detective stories, adventure stories, research and technology, love stories, humour, health, sports, biography, culture and sex education. Females preferred love stories, humour, health, biography, research and technology, sports, culture, sex education, detective stories, and adventure stories, in a descending order. On the basis of the findings, recommendations concerning the kinds of reading texts to be included in the textbooks , the development of students' attitudes towards English written materials, and the need for further investigation on students' reading preferences are stated.