A simple approach was developed for the rapid and accurate estimation of 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD
5
) in food processing wastewater. Immobilization of the natural microbial consortium ...that was collected from an aerobic compartment of a food processing wastewater treatment plant was simply performed by adhesion using a low-cost porous carrier.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
,
Bacillus cereus
, and
Streptomyces
, whose salt-tolerance and ability to break down organic compounds have been widely reported, were found to be predominant. These microorganisms may cause an enhancement of the bioreactor response in the presence of sodium chloride. Consequently, a modified glucose-glutamic acid (GGA) calibration standard was proposed in which an appropriate amount of NaCl was added; this solution was found to be more effective in terms of accuracy and practicality than both conventional GGA and the synthetic wastewater recipe from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The calibrated self-built packed-bed bioreactor exhibited good precision of 3% or less in predicting BOD
5
in influent, which is similar to the performance of the most common commercial biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) bioreactors. There was a statistical agreement between the results obtained from this rapid BOD biosensor and the conventional methods, even when testing treated wastewater samples.
Despite their promise, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-based assays for multi-cancer early detection face challenges in test performance, due mostly to the limited abundance of ctDNA and its inherent ...variability. To address these challenges, published assays to date demanded a very high-depth sequencing, resulting in an elevated price of test. Herein, we developed a multimodal assay called SPOT-MAS (screening for the presence of tumor by methylation and size) to simultaneously profile methylomics, fragmentomics, copy number, and end motifs in a single workflow using targeted and shallow genome-wide sequencing (~0.55×) of cell-free DNA. We applied SPOT-MAS to 738 non-metastatic patients with breast, colorectal, gastric, lung, and liver cancer, and 1550 healthy controls. We then employed machine learning to extract multiple cancer and tissue-specific signatures for detecting and locating cancer. SPOT-MAS successfully detected the five cancer types with a sensitivity of 72.4% at 97.0% specificity. The sensitivities for detecting early-stage cancers were 73.9% and 62.3% for stages I and II, respectively, increasing to 88.3% for non-metastatic stage IIIA. For tumor-of-origin, our assay achieved an accuracy of 0.7. Our study demonstrates comparable performance to other ctDNA-based assays while requiring significantly lower sequencing depth, making it economically feasible for population-wide screening.
An environmentally friendly method was used to synthesize selenium microparticles (SeMPs) by applying Psidium guajava leaf extracts as a reducing agent. In addition, in this study, SeMPs were ...combined with graphene oxide (Se/GO) via an ex situ method. The results of the phytochemical analysis of the Psidium guajava leaves revealed the presence of flavonoids, polyphenols, triterpenoids, and ascorbic acid. In addition, the results indicated that the SeMPs were spherical and uniformly distributed on graphene oxide (GO) sheets with an average diameter of about 475 nm. Moreover, the antioxidant activity was investigated with two free radical scavenging methods 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) with yields of 63.34 and 90.9%, respectively. Additionally, the antibacterial performance of the resulting material, which showed a great inhibition performance against the Gram-positive strains of Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus subtilis , and Limosilactobacillus fermentum , Gram-negative ones of Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica , and the fungi strain of Candida albicanas , was investigated. Moreover, the anticancer activity was evaluated towards three cell lines, including liver cancer cells, lung cancer cells, and human embryonic kidney cells. The results revealed that the anticancer performance of the material achieved 90% with a Se/GO concentration of 256 μg mL −1 . The anti-diabetic ability of the material toward the enzyme α-glucosides also showed high results with an inhibiting percentage of 100%, reaffirming the promising potential of the Se/GO materials in medical applications.
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne disease, known for its high mortality and disability rate among symptomatic cases. Many effective vaccines are available for JE, and the use of a ...recently developed and inexpensive vaccine, SA 14-14-2, has been increasing over the recent years particularly with Gavi support. Estimates of the local burden and the past impact of vaccination are therefore increasingly needed, but difficult due to the limitations of JE surveillance. In this study, we implemented a mathematical modelling method (catalytic model) combined with age-stratifed case data from our systematic review which can overcome some of these limitations. We estimate in 2015 JEV infections caused 100,308 JE cases (95% CI: 61,720-157,522) and 25,125 deaths (95% CI: 14,550-46,031) globally, and that between 2000 and 2015 307,774 JE cases (95% CI: 167,442-509,583) were averted due to vaccination globally. Our results highlight areas that could have the greatest benefit from starting vaccination or from scaling up existing programs and will be of use to support local and international policymakers in making vaccine allocation decisions.
Vaginal candidiasis is frequent in women of reproductive age. Accurate identification Candida provides helpful information for successful therapy and epidemiology study; however, there are very ...limited data from the Vietnam have been reported. This study was performed to determine the prevalence, species distribution of yeast causing vaginal discharge and antifungal susceptibility patterns of Candida albicans among symptomatic non-pregnant women of reproductive age. Vaginal discharge samples were collected from 462 women of reproductive age in Hanoi, Vietnam between Sep 2019 and Oct 2020. Vaginal swabs from these patients were examined by direct microscopic examination (10% KOH). CHROMagarTM Candida medium and Sabouraud dextrose agar supplemented with chloramphenicol (0.5 g/l) were used to isolate yeast, and species identification was performed using morphological tests and molecular tools (PCR and sequencing). Antifungal susceptibility testing was determined according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines (M27-A3 and M27-S4). The prevalence of vaginal yeast colonization in non-pregnant women was 51.3% of 462 participants. Nine different yeast species were identified. Among these isolates, C. albicans (51.37%) was the most frequent, followed by C. parapsilosis (25.88%), C. glabrata (11.37%), C. tropicalis (4.31%), C. krusei (3.92%), C. africana (1.57%), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (0.78%), C. nivariensis (1 isolates, 0.39%), and C. lusitaniae (1 isolates, 0.39%), respectively. Among C. albicans, all 46 isolates were 100% susceptible to micafungin, caspofungin, and miconazole. The susceptibility rates to amphotericine B, 5-flucytosine, fluconazole, itraconazole and voriconazole were 95.65, 91.30, 91.30, 82.61 and 86.95%, respectively. The prevalence of VVC among symptomatic non-pregnant women of reproductive age in Vietnam was higher than many parts of the world. The high frequency of non-albicans Candida species, which were often more resistant to antifungal agents, was a notable feature. Resistance rates of vaginal C. albicans isolates to antifungal agents was low. Our findings suggest that continued surveillance of changes in species distribution and susceptibility to antifungals should be routinely screened and treated.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Several inherited metabolic diseases are underreported in Vietnam, namely glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PDd), phenylketonuria (PKU) and galactosemia (GAL). Whilst ...massively parallel sequencing (MPS) allows researchers to screen several loci simultaneously for pathogenic variants, no screening programme uses MPS to uncover the variant spectra of these diseases in the Vietnamese population.
Methods
Pregnant women (mean age of 32) from across Vietnam attending routine prenatal health checks agreed to participate and had their blood drawn. MPS was used to detect variants in their G6PD, PAH and GALT genes.
Results
Of 3259 women screened across Vietnam, 450 (13.8%) carried disease‐associated variants for G6PD, PAH and GALT. The prevalence of carriers was 8.9% (291 of 3259) in G6PD and 4.6% (152 of 3259) in PKU, whilst GAL was low at 0.2% (7 of 3259). Two GALT variants, c.593 T > C and c.1034C > A, have rarely been reported.
Conclusion
This study highlights the need for routine carrier screening, where women give blood whilst receiving routine prenatal care, in Vietnam. The use of MPS is suitable for screening multiple variants, allowing for identifying rare pathogenic variants. The data from our study will inform policymakers in constructing cost‐effective genetic metabolic carrier screening programmes.
This study highlights the need for routine carrier screening, where women give blood while receiving routine prenatal care, in Vietnam. The use of massively parallel sequencing is suitable for screening multiple allele variants, allowing for identifying rare disease‐associated variants.NonBreakingSpace; #10;
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Control of material defects is an effective tool to improve the light-conversion efficiency of thin-film solar cell materials. Here, using first-principles calculations, we report a ...significant enhancement of optical and transport properties upon introducing a single vacancy into blue phosphorene quantum dots. We employ the generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof and the hybrid density functional theory model Becke, 3-parameter, and Lee-Yang-Parr (B3LYP) functionals as exchange–correlation functionals, to compute the equilibrium structure, vibration spectra and optoelectronic properties. We also evaluate the impact of a single vacancy on device performance by placing the blue phosphorene dots between two gold electrodes to mimic molecular junctions using the non-equilibrium Green function formalism with density functional based tight-binding methods. We find that we can effectively tune the electronic band gaps of these quantum dots from 4.03 eV to 3.73 eV (B3LYP values at the 6–311++G(d,p) levels) by cutting the blue phosphorene sheet to various quantum dot shapes. Furthermore, in the presence of a single vacancy, the band gaps shrink significantly to between 1.91 eV and 1.78 eV (B3LYP values at the 6–311++G(d,p) levels), due to the formation of polaronic states induced by the vacancy, resulting in a dramatic down shift of the conduction band towards the valence band. These polaronic states, on the one hand, induce more new absorption frequencies in the visible light range; on the other hand, they reduce or increase the current passing through the quantum dot molecular junctions depending on its morphology. Our results highlight the sensitivity to defects of blue phosphorene quantum dots in applications for solar cell devices.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In recent years, single-channel physiological recordings have gained popularity in portable health devices and research settings due to their convenience. However, the presence of electrooculogram ...(EOG) artifacts can significantly degrade the quality of the recorded data, impacting the accuracy of essential signal features. Consequently, artifact removal from physiological signals is a crucial step in signal processing pipelines. Current techniques often employ Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to efficiently separate signal and artifact sources in multichannel recordings. However, limitations arise when dealing with single or a few channel measurements in minimal instrumentation or portable devices, restricting the utility of ICA. To address this challenge, this paper introduces an innovative artifact removal algorithm utilizing enhanced empirical mode decomposition to extract the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Subsequently, the algorithm targets the removal of segments related to EOG by isolating them within these IMFs. The proposed method is compared with existing single-channel EEG artifact removal algorithms, demonstrating superior performance. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in isolating artifact components, resulting in a reconstructed signal characterized by a strong correlation and a power spectrum closely resembling the ground-truth EEG signal. This outperforms the existing methods in terms of artifact removal. Additionally, the proposed algorithm exhibits significantly reduced execution time, enabling real-time online analysis.
The Internet of Things (IoT) integrates different advanced technologies in which a wireless sensor network (WSN) with many smart micro-sensor nodes is an important portion of building various IoT ...applications such as smart agriculture systems, smart healthcare systems, smart home or monitoring environments, etc. However, the limited energy resources of sensors and the harsh properties of the WSN deployment environment make routing a challenging task. To defeat this routing quandary, an energy-efficient routing protocol based on grid cells (EEGT) is proposed in this study to improve the lifespan of WSN-based IoT applications. In EEGT, the whole network region is separated into virtual grid cells (clusters) at which the number of sensor nodes is balanced among cells. Then, a cluster head node (CHN) is chosen according to the residual energy and the distance between the sink and nodes in each cell. Moreover, to determine the paths for data delivery inside the cell with small energy utilization, the Kruskal algorithm is applied to connect nodes in each cell and their CHN into a minimum spanning tree (MST). Further, the ant colony algorithm is also used to find the paths of transmitting data packets from CHNs to the sink (outside cell) to reduce energy utilization. The simulation results show that the performance of EEGT is better than the three existing protocols, which are LEACH-C (low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy), PEGASIS (power-efficient gathering in sensor information systems), and PEGCP (maximizing WSN life using power-efficient grid-chain routing protocol) in terms of improved energy efficiency and extended the lifespan of the network.
The increase in the number of infectious diseases has exerted many negative consequences on human health. In this study, the antibacterial cotton fabric was fabricated for application in ...antibacterial products, contributing to the prevention of infectious diseases for humans. Particularly, ex‐situ and in‐situ dip‐coating techniques were compared and utilized for the fabrication of the antibacterial cotton fabric. Besides, the effects of the concentrations of precursors, including graphene oxide (GO), silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), silver/graphene oxide nanocomposite (Ag/GO), and dip‐coating times were evaluated to determine the most appropriate preparation conditions. Therewithal, the resulting cotton fabric was modified with stearic acid (SA) to enhance the hydrophobicity, in which the concentration of the SA was also assessed. Additionally, the antibacterial performance of the prepared material was investigated against Gram‐negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Gram‐positive Staphylococcus aureus. Different analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscope, contact angle measurement, and color stability were also utilized for the comparison between different cotton fabrics. According to the obtained results, the dip‐coated in‐situ Ag/GO (in‐situ‐Ag/GO/cotton) fabrics showed better antibacterial performance than that of dip‐coated ex‐situ Ag/GO (ex‐situ‐Ag/GO/cotton) ones, which can be attributed to the even distribution of Ag/GO nanocomposite on the fabric prepared by the in‐situ methods. According to the aforementioned results, the resulting antibacterial cotton fabric can be considered a promising material for the production of antibacterial face masks and protective clothing, which can be utilized in hospitals, textile industries, or the manufacture of sport gears.
The preparation scheme of cotton fabric.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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