In this work, degradation of two dyes, methylene blue and methyl blue, by anodic oxidation in a new arranged electrochemical cell is investigated in the presence of Cl– ions. The cell consists of an ...array of graphite rods working as the anode placed horizontally between two horizontal stainless steel screens cathodes. The cell performance is tested in terms of the color removal efficiency, COD removal, electrical energy consumption, anode efficiency, and current efficiency. Parameters studied are initial dye concentration, NaCl concentration, applied current density, and initial pH of the electrolyte. A maximum color removal of 94% and 98% were achieved for methylene blue and methyl blue respectively after 30 min treatment time. The normalized space velocity in terms of the kinetic parameters is determined and a maximum value of 3.59 m3m–3 h–1 was obtained for methylene blue and 4.09 for methyl blue.
Reinforced concrete (RC) columns often need to be strengthened or rehabilitated to allow them to carry the loads applied to them. In previous studies, RC columns have been strengthened by jacketing, ...without considering the occurrence of cracking. In this study, the behavior of RC columns strengthened externally by jacketing after cracking is analyzed. The accuracy of the existing models was verified by analyzing the performance of fifteen RC columns with different cross-sections to determine the effect of new variables, such as the column size, amount of steel reinforcement, and whether the column was cracked or not, on the effectiveness of strengthening. The analysis demonstrated that this strengthening technique could effectively improve both the ductility and strength of RC column cross-sections. The results indicate that the model suggested by the ACI-318 code can predict the ultimate load capacity of RC columns without strengthening, or strengthened by RC jacketing before or after cracking, with higher accuracy and material efficiency. The RC columns without strengthening met the safety limit of the ACI-318 model. However, for strengthened columns, a reduction coefficient must be used to enable the columns to meet the safety limit, with values of 94% and 76% for columns strengthened before and after cracking, respectively. Furthermore, strengthening after cracking affects the ultimate load capacity of the column, with 15.7%, 14.1%, and 13.5% lower loads for square, rectangular, and circular columns than those strengthened before cracking, respectively.
Background:
Vaccine hesitancy can limit the benefits of available vaccines in halting the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Previously published studies paid little attention to Arab countries, which has ...a population of over 440 million. In this study, we present the results of the first large-scale multinational study that measures vaccine hesitancy among Arab-speaking subjects.
Methods:
An online survey in Arabic was conducted from 14 January 2021 to 29 January 2021. It consisted of 17 questions capturing demographic data, acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine, attitudes toward the need for COVID-19 vaccination and associated health policies, and reasons for vaccination hesitancy. R software v.4.0.2 was used for data analysis and visualization.
Results:
The survey recruited 36,220 eligible participants (61.1% males, 38.9% females, mean age 32.6 ± 10.8 years) from all the 23 Arab countries and territories (83.4%) and 122 other countries (16.6%). Our analysis shows a significant rate of vaccine hesitancy among Arabs in and outside the Arab region (83% and 81%, respectively). The most cited reasons for hesitancy are concerns about side effects and distrust in health care policies, vaccine expedited production, published studies and vaccine producing companies. We also found that female participants, those who are 30–59 years old, those with no chronic diseases, those with lower level of academic education, and those who do not know the type of vaccine authorized in their countries are more hesitant to receive COVID-19 vaccination. On the other hand, participants who regularly receive the influenza vaccine, health care workers, and those from countries with higher rates of COVID-19 infections showed more vaccination willingness. Interactive representation of our results is posted on our project website at
https://mainapp.shinyapps.io/CVHAA
.
Conclusions:
Our results show higher vaccine hesitancy and refusal among Arab subjects, related mainly to distrust and concerns about side effects. Health authorities and Arab scientific community have to transparently address these concerns to improve vaccine acceptance.
Funding:
This study received no funding.
Global mechanization, urbanization, and various natural processes have led to the increased release of toxic compounds into the biosphere. These hazardous toxic pollutants include a variety of ...organic and inorganic compounds, which pose a serious threat to the ecosystem. The contamination of soil and water are the major environmental concerns in the present scenario. This leads to a greater need for remediation of contaminated soils and water with suitable approaches and mechanisms. The conventional remediation of contaminated sites commonly involves the physical removal of contaminants, and their disposition. Physical remediation strategies are expensive, non-specific and often make the soil unsuitable for agriculture and other uses by disturbing the microenvironment. Owing to these concerns, there has been increased interest in eco-friendly and sustainable approaches such as bioremediation, phytoremediation and rhizoremediation for the cleanup of contaminated sites. This review lays particular emphasis on biotechnological approaches and strategies for heavy metal and metalloid containment removal from the environment, highlighting the advances and implications of bioremediation and phytoremediation as well as their utilization in cleaning-up toxic pollutants from contaminated environments.
The majority of human genome are non-coding genes. Recent research have revealed that about half of these genome sequences make up of transposable elements (TEs). A branch of these belong to the ...endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), which are germline viral infection that occurred over millions of years ago. They are generally harmless as evolutionary mutations have made them unable to produce viral agents and are mostly epigenetically silenced. Nevertheless, ERVs are able to express by still unknown mechanisms and recent evidences have shown links between ERVs and major proinflammatory diseases and cancers. The major challenge is to elucidate a detailed mechanistic understanding between them, so that novel therapeutic approaches can be explored. Here, we provide a brief overview of TEs, human ERVs and their links to microbiome, innate immune response, proinflammatory diseases and cancer. Finally, we recommend the employment of systems biology approaches for future HERV research.
This work reports utilization of apple leaves as a source of activated carbon. Activated carbon from apple leaves is prepared by two different methods, thermal activation where AC1 is obtained and ...chemical activation using H3PO4 and ZnCl2 where AC2 and AC3 are obtained, respectively. XRD analysis revealed that all types of prepared ACs have a semi-crystalline nature with a mean crystallite size of 13, 21.02, and 39.47 nm for AC1, AC2, and AC3, respectively. To identify the most suitable desorption temperature, the exothermic behavior was discovered for the three types of ACs by DSC. The exothermic onset temperatures are 340 °C, 200 °C, 400 °C, or AC1, AC2, and AC3, respectively. The point of zero charge for the three types of ACs is 8.6, 7.3, and 2.5 for AC1, AC2, and AC3, respectively. The BET surface area analysis data demonstrated that mesoporous structure was developed in AC1 and AC2, while a microporous structure was developed in AC3. Quantum chemical calculations for ACs is carried out using Density Functional Theory (DFT). Application of the prepared ACs in adsorption of basic dye C.I. base blue 47 is studied. The maximum removal efficiency was 65.1%, 96% and 99% for AC1, AC2, and AC3, respectively under the influence of different operating aspects. Adsorption data are modeled by Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherms. The data revealed that adsorption of basic dye C.I. base blue 47 on AC1 follows Langmuir isotherm and adsorption on AC2 and AC3 follows Freundlich isotherm.
Decoding DNA symbols using next-generation sequencers was a major breakthrough in genomic research. Despite the many advantages of next-generation sequencers, e.g., the high-throughput sequencing ...rate and relatively low cost of sequencing, the assembly of the reads produced by these sequencers still remains a major challenge. In this review, we address the basic framework of next-generation genome sequence assemblers, which comprises four basic stages: preprocessing filtering, a graph construction process, a graph simplification process, and postprocessing filtering. Here we discuss them as a framework of four stages for data analysis and processing and survey variety of techniques, algorithms, and software tools used during each stage. We also discuss the challenges that face current assemblers in the next-generation environment to determine the current state-of-the-art. We recommend a layered architecture approach for constructing a general assembler that can handle the sequences generated by different sequencing platforms.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Metabolic engineering aims to maximize the production of bio-economically important substances (compounds, enzymes, or other proteins) through the optimization of the genetics, cellular processes and ...growth conditions of microorganisms. This requires detailed understanding of underlying metabolic pathways involved in the production of the targeted substances, and how the cellular processes or growth conditions are regulated by the engineering. To achieve this goal, a large system of experimental techniques, compound libraries, computational methods and data resources, including multi-omics data, are used. The recent advent of multi-omics systems biology approaches significantly impacted the field by opening new avenues to perform dynamic and large-scale analyses that deepen our knowledge on the manipulations. However, with the enormous transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics available, it is a daunting task to integrate the data for a more holistic understanding. Novel data mining and analytics approaches, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), can provide breakthroughs where traditional low-throughput experiment-alone methods cannot easily achieve. Here, we review the latest attempts of combining systems biology and AI in metabolic engineering research, and highlight how this alliance can help overcome the current challenges facing industrial biotechnology, especially for food-related substances and compounds using microorganisms.
•The continuous growth of world population increases the demand on food and drugs.•Metabolic engineering plays key role in finding alternative food and drugs sources.•Current metabolic engineering techniques are reaching their limits.•Systems biology and AI can help optimizing the metabolic engineering process.
Food safety has often attracted attention worldwide. Few studies have investigated the heavy metal (HM) pollution and health risk assessment of crops and vegetables. The current work was conducted to ...evaluate the human risk assessment of HM (Cu, Cd, Cr, Pb, and Zn) in radish, lettuce, tomato, onion, turnip, squash, okra, sunflower, Jews mallow, and garden rocket cultivated in treated wastewater (TWW)-irrigated sites as compared with those cultivated in freshwater (FW)-irrigated sites. Irrigation water, soil, and different plants were collected from 6 farmlands irrigated with TWW and two agricultural sites irrigated with FW (Nile river). Heavy metal transfer factor (HMTF), chronic daily intake of metals (CDIM), health hazard risk (HR), and health hazard index (HI) were estimated. The results showed that the tested HM levels in FW and TWW were below the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Egyptian standards recommended for irrigation. In soil samples, HM levels were below the permissible limits for both tested sites. The HM in soil and plants grew in TWW-irrigated sites possessed multiple levels higher than those grown in FW-irrigated sites. Among different plants, HM levels in the edible parts of plants grown in TWW-irrigated sites followed in decreasing order: tomato > sunflower >Jew’s mallow = turnip = squash > lettuce > okra = radish > onion > garden rocket. The mean CDIM and HR values of plants irrigated using TWW were higher than those irrigated using FW. Furthermore, HR values for all plants grown in polluted and unpolluted sites were < 1 except Cd in plants grown in the TWW-irrigated farmlands. The mean HI for radish, lettuce, tomato, onion, turnip, squash, okra, sunflower, Jews mallow, and garden rocket grown in TWW-irrigated sites were 2.08, 2.39, 1.76, 1.53, 2.08, 1.80, 2.03, 1.91, 1.82, and 1.44 (for adult), and 2.39, 2.75, 2.71, 1.75, 2.38, 2.06, 2.33, 2.69, 2.10, and 1.65 (for children). Plants irrigated with TWW showed a higher HMTF than plants irrigated with FW. Jew’s mallow and okra irrigated with TWW had a maximum HMTF. Consequently, different practical measures can be taken to minimize the HM levels in agricultural foodstuffs. These measures include preventing the excessive application of pesticides and fertilizers for crop production and continuous monitoring of different foodstuffs in the market.
A previous study suggested that the airlift condition is superior to the Optisol-GS condition for preserving the limbal tissue of the human cornea. The purpose of this research is to investigate a ...new preservation device that preserves the cornea while separating epithelial and endothelial areas. The differences after preserving the corneal epithelium under different conditions were compared. A total of 24 corneas of New Zealand rabbits were divided into four groups in which the corneal epithelia were submersed in Optisol-GS or under airlift conditions for 1 and 2 weeks at 4 Formula: see textC. Transparency, optical coherence tomography (OCT), hematoxylin and eosin (H &E) staining, and epithelial migration tests were used to assess corneal status. The epithelial migration examination showed significantly greater migration ability after the airlift condition. Corneas in the 1-week Optisol-GS group were the most transparent, followed by the 1-week airlift group. OCT showed a progressive increase in corneal thickness to the end of the study. H &E staining showed that the epithelial cells retained intact cellular structure and morphology of the cells for both 1-week-preserved groups. However, there was disruption of the corneal epithelial cell structure for both 2-week-preserved groups. Corneal epithelium preserved under the hypothermic airlift condition was comparable to that under the Optisol-GS condition.
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