The efficient utilization of hydropower resources play an important role in the economic sector of power systems, where the hydroelectric plants constitute a significant portion of the installed ...capacity. Determination of daily optimal hydroelectric generation scheduling is a crucial task in water resource management. By utilizing the limited water resource, the purpose of hydroelectric generation scheduling is to specify the amount of water releases from a reservoir in order to produce maximum power, while the various physical and operational constraints are satisfied. Hence, new forms of release policies namely, BSOPHP, CSOPHP, and SHPHP are proposed and tested in this research. These policies could only use in hydropower reservoir systems. Meanwhile, to determine the optimal operation of each policy, real coded genetic algorithm is applied as an optimization technique and maximizing the total power generation over the operational periods is chosen as an objective function. The developed models have been applied to the Cameron Highland hydropower system, Malaysia. The results declared that by using optimal release policies, the output of power generation is increased, while these policies also increase the stability of reservoir system. In order to compare the efficiency of these policies, some reservoir performance indices such as reliability, resilience, vulnerability, and sustainability are used. The results demonstrated that SHPHP policy had the highest performance among the tested release policies.
Coronaviruses emerged three times in the last two decades and became a source of concern globally. Humulus lupulus plant has been used widely in medical science. Our objective in this study was to ...determine the effects of the crude extract of H. lupulus in inhibiting MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses' replication in vitro using Vero E6 cell lines and predict the antiviral activity of its identified compounds against the receptor binding (RBD) protein of both viruses in silico. We determined the concentration of the extract that induced less than 50% cell toxicity (CC
50
), and the antiviral activity based on IC
50
and plaque reduction assay. We used molecular docking simulation to predict the potential of known active compounds in H. lupulus to inhibit the RBD protein. H. lupulus extract showed very low toxicity on Vero E6 cells with CC
50
= 23.25 µg/µL and antiviral activity toward MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 with IC
50
= 0.18 and 0.9 µg/µL, respectively. The crude extract showed inhibition rate of 84.6% with MERS-CoV and 80% with SARS-CoV-2. In silico analysis predicted the compounds 5′-prenylxanthohumo, xanthogalenol, dehydrocycloxanthohumol hydrate, 6-prenylnaringenin, isoxanthohumol, catechin gallate, epicatechin gallate, 8-prenylnaringenin and xanthohumol to inhibit MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 invasion of host cells by interfering with viral spike protein and the host cell receptor recognition process. Drug likeness and toxicity risk prediction analysis confirmed their capability as potential drugs. Based on our findings, isolation, purification and testing of the suggested active compounds could lead to novel anti-coronavirus drugs.
Theoretically, several self-tuning control (STC) algorithms have been developed and many simulation results have proved their feasibility in the past years, but applications of STC are hardly seen. ...This paper proposes direct and indirect STC plans that can be applied to a chemical process system with a time delay auto-regressive and exogenous model of a varied time constant. The plan controller is a combination of a generalized minimum variance control (GMVC) strategy and an identification algorithm (simplified parameter) called recursive least squares to estimate controller parameters for the direct method and plan parameters for the indirect method. The experimental results show that GMVC is able to track the desired input or set point.
Residual soils occur in most countries of the world but the greater areas and depths are normally found in tropical humid areas. In these places, the soil forming processes are still very active and ...the weathering development is much faster than the erosive factor. Most residual soil exhibit high suctions for most of the year. The absence of positive pore water pressure except immediately after rain, makes conventional soil mechanics for saturated soil not so relevant. Ignorance or lack of understanding of the geotechnical behavior of soil in the partially or unsaturated state has caused a lot of damages to infrastructures, buildings and other structures. For instance, the collapsibility and volume change of partially saturated soils in connection with the drying or wetting causes a lot of damage in foundation, roads and other structures. It is also observed that many shallow slope failures involve a slumping (collapse) type of failure. As such, the development of extended soil mechanics, which embraces the soil in the unsaturated state or subjected to soil suction, is essential. This study examines the collapsibility and volume change behavior specifically of an unsaturated residual soil under various levels of applied matric suction (u sub(a)-u sub(w)) and net mean stress ( sigma -U sub(a)) in a predetermined stress path. The volume change of the soil is found to be sensitive to both the applied matric suction and net mean stress. The soil is found to exhibit a collapsibility behavior upon a reduction in applied matric suction at constant net mean stress.
Accurate determination of mortality attributable to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is critical in allaying concerns about their safety. We reviewed every death in Qatar that occurred within 30 days of any ...SARS-CoV-2 vaccine administration between January 1, 2021 and June 12, 2022. Probability of association with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was determined by four independent trained reviewers using a modified WHO algorithm. Among 6,928,359 doses administered, 138 deaths occurred within 30 days of vaccination; eight had a high probability (1.15/1,000,000 doses), 15 had intermediate probability (2.38/1,000,000 doses), and 112 had low probability or no association with vaccination. The death rate among those with high probability of relationship to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was 0.34/100,000 unique vaccine recipients, while death rate among those with either high or intermediate probability of relationship to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was 0.98/100,000 unique vaccine recipients. In conclusion, deaths attributable to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination are extremely rare and lower than the overall crude mortality rate in Qatar.
With >1.85 million cases and 850,000 deaths annually, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer detected globally. CRC is an aggressive malignancy with metastasis and, in spite of ...advances in improved treatment regimen, distant disease failure rates remain disappointingly high. Mucin-like 1 (MUCL1) is a small glycoprotein highly expressed mainly in breast cancer. The involvement of the MUCL1 protein in CRC progression and the underlying mechanism have been largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the MUCL1 expression profile and its functional significance in CRC. The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset revealed that MUCL1 expression was higher in colorectal tumor compared with normal tissues. MUCL1 was also revealed to be expressed in human CRC cell lines. The results demonstrated that MUCL1 promoted cell proliferation and colony formation, confirming its oncogenic potential. Silencing MUCL1 with short interfering RNA inhibited the protein expression of Bcl2 family proteins, such as Bcl2 and BclxL. Targeting MUCL1 resulted in significant inhibition in cell invasive and migratory behavior of HT-29 and SW620 cells. In addition, the expression of E-cadherin increased whereas the expression of vimentin decreased in MUCL1-silenced cells, confirming inhibition of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process. Thus, it was revealed that MUCL1 plays a notable role in cell invasion and migration by inhibiting EMT in CRC. Mechanistically, MUCL1 drives β-catenin activation by Ser-552 phosphorylation, nuclear accumulation and transcriptional activation. Targeting MUCL1 increases the drug sensitivity of CRC cells towards irinotecan. These findings thus demonstrated that MUCL1 acts as a modifier of other pathways that play an important role in CRC progression and MUCL1 was identified as a potential target for CRC therapeutics.
Allium cepa L (A. cepa) extract is frequently used as an adjuvant food in cancer treatment. We hypothesized that it contains a source of anticancer activity. There is a need to synthesize the silver ...nanoparticles (AgNPs) using an environment-friendly green synthesis reduction method using an aqueous extract of A. cepa. The AgNPs-CEPA were prepared by reduction method using the aqueous extract of A. cepa. The formed AgNPs-CEPA were characterized for their sizes and charge distribution. The AgNP-CEPA was investigated for its antioxidant and anticancer properties. Cell viability was evaluated by MTT assay. Gene expression was evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and apoptosis measurement was carried out by flow cytometry in AgNP-CEPA-treated cells. The results showed a uniform size for AgNPs-CEPA of 155±2.1 nm with a zeta potential of −37.3±−2.92 mv. The produced AgNPs-CEPA are biocompatible with anticancer action and a moderate level of antioxidant reactivity. AgNPs-CEPA showed better reducing activity for A. cepa extract compared to the AgNPs-CEPA. AgNP-CEPA treatment of human colorectal cancer cell lines (HT-29 and SW620) inhibited cell proliferation and altered Bcl2 family gene expression. Moreover, exposure of cell lines to AgNPs-CEPA resulted in the significant induction of apoptosis compared to A. cepa and AgNO3. These findings indicate that AgNP-CEPA induces apoptosis by inhibiting Bcl2 family gene expression, suggesting that this formula is a promising anticancer agent for treating colorectal cancer.
Introduction:
There is a steady increase in colorectal cancer (CRC) incidences worldwide; at diagnosis, about 20 percent of cases show metastases. The transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) ...signaling pathway is one of the critical pathways that influence the expression of cadherins allowing the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is involved in the progression of the normal colorectal epithelium to adenoma and metastatic carcinoma. The current study aimed to investigate the impact of a novel coordination complex of platinum (salicylaldiminato) PT(II) complex with dimethyl propylene linkage (PT-complex) on TGF-β and EMT markers involved in the invasion and migration of the human HT-29 and SW620 CRC cell lines.
Methods:
Functional study and wound healing assay showed PT-complex significantly reduced cell motility and the migration and invasion of CRC cell lines compared to the untreated control. Western blot performed in the presence and absence of TGF-β demonstrated that PT-complex significantly regulated the TGF-β-mediated altered expressions of EMT markers.
Results and Discussion:
PT-complex attenuated the migration and invasion by upregulating the protein expression of EMT-suppressing factor E-cadherin and suppressing EMT-inducing factors such as N-Cadherin and Vimentin. Moreover, PT-complex significantly suppressed the activation of SMAD3 in both CRC cell lines. Further, the microarray data analysis revealed differential expression of genes related to invasion and migration. In conclusion, besides displaying antiproliferative activity, the PT complex can decrease the metastasis of CRC cell lines by modulating TGF-β-regulated EMT markers. These findings provide new insight into TGF-β/SMAD signaling as the molecular mechanism involved in the antitumoral properties of novel PT-complex.
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