Total concentrations of heavy metals in the soils of mine drainage and surrounding agricultural fields in the northern part of Bangladesh were determined to evaluate the level of contamination. The ...average concentrations of Ti, Mn, Zn, Pb, As, Fe, Rb, Sr, Nb and Zr exceeded the world normal averages and, in some cases, Mn, Zn, As and Pb exceeded the toxic limit of the respective metals. Soil pollution assessment was carried out using enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (
I
geo) and pollution load index (PLI). The soils show significant enrichment with Ti, Mn, Zn, Pb, As, Fe, Sr and Nb, indicating inputs from mining activities. The
I
geo values have revealed that Mn (1.24
±
0.38), Zn (1.49
±
0.58) and Pb (1.63
±
0.38) are significantly accumulated in the study area. The PLIs derived from contamination factors indicate that the distal part of the coal mine-affected area is the most polluted (PLI of 4.02). Multivariate statistical analyses, principal component and cluster analyses, suggest that Mn, Zn, Pb and Ti are derived from anthropogenic sources, particularly coal mining activities, and the extreme proximal and distal parts are heavily contaminated with maximum heavy metals.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
An integrated approach of pollution evaluation indices, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) was employed to evaluate the intensity and sources of pollution in irrigation and ...drinking water systems of northwestern Bangladesh. Temperature, BOD, chemical oxygen demand (COD), Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Pb levels in most of the water samples exceed the Bangladesh and international standards. The heavy metal pollution index (HPI) and degree of contamination (
C
d) yield different results despite significant correlations between them. The heavy metal evaluation index (HEI) shows strong correlations with HPI and
C
d, and gives a better assessment of pollution levels. Modifications to the existing HPI and
C
d schemes show comparable results with HEI, and indicate that about 55% of the mine drainage/irrigation waters and 50% of the groundwaters are moderately to highly contaminated. The CA, PCA and pollution indices suggest that the mine drainage water (DW) is contaminated by anthropogenic (mining operation and agrogenic) sources, and the proximal parts are more contaminated than the distal part. The groundwater system in the vicinity of the coal mine site is also heavily polluted by anthropogenic sources. The pollution status of irrigation and drinking water systems in the study area are of great environmental and health concerns.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Recent single-center reports have suggested that community-acquired bacteremic co-infection in the context of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be an important driver of mortality; however, ...these reports have not been validated with a multicenter, demographically diverse, cohort study with data spanning the pandemic.
In this multicenter, retrospective cohort study, inpatient encounters were assessed for COVID-19 with community-acquired bacteremic co-infection using 48-h post-admission blood cultures and grouped by: (1) confirmed co-infection recovery of bacterial pathogen, (2) suspected co-infection negative culture with ≥ 2 antimicrobials administered, and (3) no evidence of co-infection no culture. The primary outcomes were in-hospital mortality, ICU admission, and mechanical ventilation. COVID-19 bacterial co-infection risk factors and impact on primary outcomes were determined using multivariate logistic regressions and expressed as adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (Cohort, OR 95% CI, Wald test p value).
The studied cohorts included 13,781 COVID-19 inpatient encounters from 2020 to 2022 in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB, n = 4075) and Ochsner Louisiana State University Health-Shreveport (OLHS, n = 9706) cohorts with confirmed (2.5%), suspected (46%), or no community-acquired bacterial co-infection (51.5%) and a comparison cohort consisting of 99,170 inpatient encounters from 2010 to 2019 (UAB pre-COVID-19 pandemic cohort). Significantly increased likelihood of COVID-19 bacterial co-infection was observed in patients with elevated ≥ 15 neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (UAB: 1.95 1.21-3.07; OLHS: 3.65 2.66-5.05, p < 0.001 for both) within 48-h of hospital admission. Bacterial co-infection was found to confer the greatest increased risk for in-hospital mortality (UAB: 3.07 2.42-5.46; OLHS: 4.05 2.29-6.97, p < 0.001 for both), ICU admission (UAB: 4.47 2.87-7.09, OLHS: 2.65 2.00-3.48, p < 0.001 for both), and mechanical ventilation (UAB: 3.84 2.21-6.12; OLHS: 2.75 1.87-3.92, p < 0.001 for both) across both cohorts, as compared to other risk factors for severe disease. Observed mortality in COVID-19 bacterial co-infection (24%) dramatically exceeds the mortality rate associated with community-acquired bacteremia in pre-COVID-19 pandemic inpatients (5.9%) and was consistent across alpha, delta, and omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Elevated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is a prognostic indicator of COVID-19 bacterial co-infection within 48-h of admission. Community-acquired bacterial co-infection, as defined by blood culture-positive results, confers greater increased risk of in-hospital mortality, ICU admission, and mechanical ventilation than previously described risk factors (advanced age, select comorbidities, male sex) for COVID-19 mortality, and is independent of SARS-CoV-2 variant.
Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disease that mostly affects the elderly, slowly impairs memory, cognition, and daily tasks. AD has long been one of the most debilitating chronic ...neurological disorders, affecting mostly people over 65. In this study, we investigated the use of Vision Transformer (ViT) for Magnetic Resonance Image processing in the context of AD diagnosis. ViT was utilized to extract features from MRIs, map them to a feature sequence, perform sequence modeling to maintain interdependencies, and classify features using a time series transformer. The proposed model was evaluated using ADNI T1-weighted MRIs for binary and multiclass classification. Two data collections, Complete 1Yr 1.5T and Complete 3Yr 3T, from the ADNI database were used for training and testing. A random split approach was used, allocating 60% for training and 20% for testing and validation, resulting in sample sizes of (211, 70, 70) and (1378, 458, 458), respectively. The performance of our proposed model was compared to various deep learning models, including CNN with BiL-STM and ViT with Bi-LSTM. The suggested technique diagnoses AD with high accuracy (99.048% for binary and 99.014% for multiclass classification), precision, recall, and F-score. Our proposed method offers researchers an approach to more efficient early clinical diagnosis and interventions.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Rapid urbanization and industrial growth have triggered heavy metal contamination in agricultural soil in Dhaka, which is a serious concern for ecological risk and public health issues. In this ...study, fifty-four soil samples from agricultural lands of Dhaka had been analyzed for assessing accumulation, spatial enrichment, ecological risk and sources apportionment of heavy metals using a combined approach of self-organizing map (SOM), positive matrix factorization (PMF), geographical information system (GIS), and enrichment factor (EF). The results of the enrichment factor, geoaccumulation index and contamination factor index showed that more than 90% of the soil samples were polluted by higher levels of Cr and Cd. The mean pollution load index (PLI) results demonstrated that about 73% of soil samples were moderately polluted by heavy metals. Based on SOM and PMF analysis, four potential sources of heavy metals were found in this study area: (i) agrochemical and sewage irrigation (Cd–As); (ii) combined effect of agriculture, industrial and natural sources (Mn, Co, Ni and Zn); (iii) atmospheric deposition and industrial emission (As–Pb); (iv) chemical and leather tanning industries (Cr). The ecological risk index demonstrated that in terms of Cd content, about 75% of soil samples were moderate to high risk, and 20% were moderate to considerable ecological risk, which was the serious environmental, ecological, and public health concern. The spatial projection of ecological risk values showed that the southern part of Dhaka (Keraniganj Upazila) is a high ecological risk in terms of heavy metal pollution. These risk maps in agricultural soils may play a vital role in reducing pollution sources; so that zonal pollution control, as well as ecological protection, may be achieved in this resource-based agricultural land.
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•Metal content in the agriculture soils in Dhaka are many-folds higher than standard limit.•GIS, SOM, PMF, EF provided reliable results for clustering and source apportionment.•Ecological risk of Cd posed moderate to high risk in soils of Dhaka.•80% of Cd came from industrial and urban wastewater, and 48% of As from pesticides.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Household drinking water security is one of the major issues among coastal communities in Bangladesh. To examine the groundwater quality and social consequences, groundwater samples and household ...questionnaires were administered across the study area. Instrumental and statistical tools were used to analyze the water quality and social survey data. The average concentrations of electrical conductivity (EC) (7135.67 μS/cm), total dissolved solids (TDS) (3691 mg/L), Na+ (1569.51 mg/L), Ca2+ (289.5 mg/L), Mg2+ (340.51 mg/L), Cl− (2940.78 mg/L), F− (11.85 mg/L), NO3− (54.44 mg/L), NO2− (162.95 mg/L), PO43− (105.19 mg/L), Fe (4.9 mg/L), Mn (1.22 mg/L), As (16.55 μg/L), B (833.28 μg/L), and Pb (34.22 μg/L) were observed in groundwater, and exceeded the drinking water standards from 30% to 100% depending on the sampling location. Thus, the remarkably high contents of EC, TDS, Cl−, and Na+ represented possible saltwater intrusion along the coastal aquifer. The positive correlations between EC and trace and toxic elements indicated the potential influence of groundwater salinization on the dissolution of more chemical contaminants in the aquifer. These results showed that 100% of samples were unsuitable for drinking purposes. Severe drinking water scarcity is a serious issue, and local people have been affected by water-related diseases owing to the long-term consumption of contaminated water. Salinity problems in drinking water and related health diseases have increased significantly in the past several years. In addition, climate change and its associated hazards, including sea-level rise, cyclonic storm surges, flooding, and resulting inundation problems, have intensified the drinking water scarcity and health problems at the community level. To ensure household water security, environmental exposure, hydrogeology, and anthropogenic interventions must be considered to determine future sustainable water policies.
•Groundwater was severely contaminated owing to salinity intrusion.•High concentrations of EC, TDS, and Cl− and low pH increased the co-contamination risk, such as from trace metals.•High concentrations of co-contaminants in groundwater are a great concern for future drinking water security among coastal communities.•Groundwater was completely unsuitable for drinking, which poses a significant public health risk.•Statistical analysis showed a significant correlation between salinity and trace elements contamination, which was found to be consistent with local perceptions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Iron supplements (drops or syrup) or multiple micronutrient powders in young children in low-to-middle-income countries where anemia is prevalent are recommended by the World Health Organization. In ...this trial involving infants in Bangladesh, 3 months of such interventions did not appear to affect child development or other functional outcomes as compared with placebo.
Doxorubicin (Dox) is a highly effective anticancer drug but cause acute ventricular dysfunction, and also induce late-onset cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Despite extensive studies, the pathogenic ...sequelae leading to the progression of Dox-associated cardiomyopathy remains unknown. We assessed temporal changes in autophagy, mitochondrial dynamics, and bioenergetics in mouse models of acute and chronic Dox-cardiomyopathy. Time course study of acute Dox-treatment showed accumulation of LC3B II in heart lysates. Autophagy flux assays confirmed that the Dox-induced accumulation of autophagosomes occurs due to blockage of the lysosomal degradation process. Dox-induced autophagosomes and autolysosome accumulation were confirmed in vivo by using GFP-LC3 and mRFP-GFP-LC3 transgenic (Tg) mice. Mitochondria isolated from acute Dox-treated hearts showed significant suppression of oxygen consumption rate (OCR). Chronic Dox-cardiotoxicity also exhibited time-dependent accumulation of LC3B II levels and increased accumulation of green puncta in GFP-LC3 Tg hearts. Mitochondria isolated from chronic Dox-treated hearts also showed significant suppression of mitochondrial OCR. The in vivo impairment of autophagic degradation process and mitochondrial dysfunction data were confirmed in vitro using cultured neonatal cardiomyocytes. Both acute and chronic Dox-associated cardiomyopathy involves a multifocal disease process resulting from autophagosomes and autolysosomes accumulation, altered expression of mitochondrial dynamics and oxidative phosphorylation regulatory proteins, and mitochondrial respiratory dysfunction.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Today, a substantial portion of global trade is carried by sea. Consequently, the reliance on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based navigation in the oceans and inland waterways has been ...rapidly growing. GNSS is vulnerable to various radio frequency interference. The objective of this research is to propose a resilient Multi-Frequency, Multi-Constellation (MFMC) receiver in the context of maritime navigation to identify any GNSS signal jamming incident and switch to a jamming-free signal immediately. With that goal in mind, the authors implemented a jamming event detector that can identify the start, end, and total duration of the detected jamming event on any of the impacted GNSS signal(s). By utilizing a jamming event detector, the proposed resilient MFMC receiver indeed provides a seamless positioning solution in the event of single-frequency jamming on either the lower or upper L-band. In addition, this manuscript also contains positioning performance analysis of GPS-L5-only, Galileo-E5a-only, and Galileo-E5b-only signals and their multi-GNSS combinations in a maritime operational environment in the Gulf of Finland. The positioning performance of lower L-band GNSS signals in a maritime environment has not been thoroughly investigated as per the authors' knowledge.
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