The concept of the circular economy has gained well-recognition across the world for the past decades. With the heightening risk of the impact of climate change, resource scarcity to meet the ...increasing world population, the need to transition to a more sustainable development model is urgent. The circular economy is often cited as one of the best solutions to support sustainable development. However, the diffusion of this concept in the industrial arena is still relatively slow, particularly in the developing country, which collectively exerts high potential to be the world's largest economies and workforce. It is crucial to make sure that the development of these nations is sustainable and not bearing on the cost of future generations. Thus, this work aims to provide a comprehensive review of the circular economy concept in developing country context. Furthermore, a novel model is proposed by adopting Fuzzy Analytics Network Process (FANP) to quantify the priority weights of the sustainability indicators to provide guidelines for the industry stakeholders at different stages of industry cycle to transition toward the circular economy. The results revealed that improvement in economic performance and public acceptance are the key triggers to encourage stakeholders for sustainable development. The outcomes serve as a reference to enhance the overall decision-making process of industry stakeholders. Local authorities can adopt the recommendations to design policy and incentive that encourage the adoption of circular economy in real industry operation to spur up economic development, without neglecting environmental well-being and jeopardizing social benefits.
•The guideline for adopting circular economies in developing nation is vague.•Different stages of industry life-cycle display different characteristics.•Applying similar policies for industries of different stages can lead to monopoly.•FANP method is employed to prioritize sustainability indicators at different stages.•Economic benefit is the key driver to spur adoption of sustainable circular economy.
Prediction of HLA binding affinity is widely used to identify candidate T cell epitopes, and an affinity of 500 nM is routinely used as a threshold for peptide selection. However, the fraction ...(percentage) of peptides predicted to bind with affinities of 500 nM varies by allele. For example, of a large collection of ~30,000 dengue virus-derived peptides only 0.3% were predicted to bind HLA A*0101, whereas nearly 5% were predicted for A*0201. This striking difference could not be ascribed to variation in accuracy of the algorithms used, as predicted values closely correlated with affinity measured in vitro with purified HLA molecules. These data raised the question whether different alleles would also vary in terms of epitope repertoire size, defined as the number of associated epitopes or, alternatively, whether alleles vary drastically in terms of the affinity threshold associated with immunogenicity. To address this issue, strains of HLA transgenic mice with wide (A*0201), intermediate (B*0702), or narrow (A*0101) repertoires were immunized with peptides of varying binding affinity and relative percentile ranking. The results show that absolute binding capacity is a better predictor of immunogenicity, and analysis of epitopes from the Immune Epitope Database revealed that predictive efficacy is increased using allele-specific affinity thresholds. Finally, we investigated the genetic and structural basis of the phenomenon. Although no stringent correlate was defined, on average HLA B alleles are associated with significantly narrower repertoires than are HLA A alleles.
The use of benign stimuli to control the binding and release of labile biologics for their isolation from complex feedstocks is a key goal of modern biopharmaceutical technology. This study ...introduces cyclic azobenzene‐peptide (CAP) ligands for the rapid and discrete photo‐responsive capture and release of blood coagulation factor VIII (FVIII). A predictive method—based on amino acid sequence and molecular architecture of CAPs—is developed to correlate the conformation of cis/trans‐CAP photo‐isomers to FVIII binding and release. Combined in silico ‐ in vitro analysis of FVIII:peptide interactions guide the design of a rational approach to optimize isomerization kinetics and biorecognition of CAPs. A photoaffinity adsorbent, prepared by conjugating selected CAP G‐cycloAZOBLys‐YYKHLYN‐Lys‐G on translucent chromatographic beads, features high binding capacity (>6 mg of FVIII per mL of resin) and rapid photo‐isomerization kinetics (τ < 30 s) when exposed to 420–450 nm light at the intensity of 0.1 W cm−2. The adsorbent purifies FVIII from a recombinant harvest using a single mobile phase, affording high product yield (>90%), purity (>95%), and blood clotting activity. The CAPs introduced in this report demonstrate a novel route integrating gentle operational conditions in a rapid and efficient bioprocess for the purification of life‐saving biotherapeutics.
Labile therapeutics are unavailable to patients—despite their therapeutic potential—due to a lack of suitable purification tools. Current chromatographic technology controls product capture, washing, and release using aqueous media with different conductivity/pH, which harms delicate biologics. Photo‐affinity chromatography overcomes these challenges by leveraging light as the only process control, thus conducting the purification process under conditions that safeguard product's bioactivity.
African Dominion Gomez, Michael
2018, 2018., 20180101, 2018-01-01
eBook
A groundbreaking history that puts early and medieval West Africa in a global context Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the ...periphery. This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region's history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including Arabic manuscripts, oral histories, and recent archaeological findings, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history more generally. Scholars have long held that such distinctions arose during the colonial period, but Gomez shows they developed much earlier. Focusing on the Savannah and Sahel region, Gomez traces the exchange of ideas and influences with North Africa and the Central Islamic Lands by way of merchants, scholars, and pilgrims. Islam's growth in West Africa, in tandem with intensifying commerce that included slaves, resulted in a series of political experiments unique to the region, culminating in the rise of empire. A major preoccupation was the question of who could be legally enslaved, which together with other factors led to the construction of new ideas about ethnicity, race, gender, and caste--long before colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. Telling a radically new story about early Africa in global history, African Dominion is set to be the standard work on the subject for many years to come.
We discuss instabilities of fluid films of nanoscale thickness, with a particular focus on films where the destabilising mechanism allows for linear instability, metastability, and absolute ...stability, depending on the mean film thickness. Our study is motivated by nematic liquid crystal films; however, we note that similar instability mechanisms, and forms of the effective disjoining pressure, appear in other contexts, such as the well-studied problem of polymeric films on two-layered substrates. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the long-wave approximation, which leads to a fourth-order nonlinear partial differential equation for the film thickness. Within the considered formulation, the nematic character of the film leads to an additional contribution to the disjoining pressure, changing its functional form. This effective disjoining pressure is characterised by the presence of a local maximum for non-vanishing film thickness. Such a form leads to complicated instability evolution that we study by analytical means, including the application of marginal stability criteria, and by extensive numerical simulations that help us develop a better understanding of instability evolution in the nonlinear regime. This combination of analytical and computational techniques allows us to reach novel understanding of relevant instability mechanisms, and of their influence on transient and fully developed fluid film morphologies. In particular, we discuss in detail the patterns of drops that form as a result of instability, and how the properties of these patterns are related to the instability mechanisms.
Dengue virus (DENV) is the causative agent of dengue fever (DF). This disease can be caused by any of four DENV serotypes (DENV1 to -4) which share 67 to 75% sequence homology with one another. The ...effect of subsequent infections with different serotypes on the T cell repertoire is not fully understood. We utilized mice transgenic for human leukocyte antigens (HLA) lacking the alpha/beta interferon (IFN-α/β) receptor to study responses to heterologous DENV infection. First, we defined the primary T cell response to DENV3 in the context of a wide range of HLA molecules. The primary DENV3 immune response recognized epitopes derived from all 10 DENV proteins, with a significant fraction of the response specific for structural proteins. This is in contrast to primary DENV2 infection, in which structural proteins are a minor component of the response, suggesting differential antigen immunodominance as a function of the infecting serotype. We next investigated the effect of secondary heterologous DENV infection on the T cell repertoire. In the case of both DENV2/3 and DENV3/2 heterologous infections, recognition of conserved/cross-reactive epitopes was either constant or expanded compared to that in homologous infection. Furthermore, in heterologous infection, previous infection with a different serotype impaired the development of responses directed to serotype-specific but not conserved epitopes. Thus, a detrimental effect of previous heterotypic responses might not be due to dysfunctional and weakly cross-reactive epitopes dominating the response. Rather, responses to the original serotype might limit the magnitude of responses directed against epitopes that are either cross-reactive to or specific for the most recently infecting serotype.
DENV transmission occurs in more than 100 countries and is an increasing public health problem in tropical and subtropical regions. At present, no effective antiviral therapy or licensed vaccine exists, and treatment is largely supportive in nature. Disease can be caused by any of the four DENV serotypes (DENV1 to -4), which share a high degree of sequence homology with one another. In this study, we have addressed the question of how the T cell repertoire changes as a function of infections with different serotypes and of subsequent heterologous secondary infections. This is of particular interest in the field of dengue viruses, in which secondary infections with different DENV serotypes increase the risk of severe disease. Our results on the evolution of the immune response after primary and secondary infections provide new insights into HLA-restricted T cell responses against DENV relevant for the design of a vaccine against DENV.
The role of CD8 ⁺ T cells in dengue virus infection and subsequent disease manifestations is not fully understood. According to the original antigenic sin theory, skewing of T-cell responses induced ...by primary infection with one serotype causes less effective response upon secondary infection with a different serotype, predisposing individuals to severe disease. A comprehensive analysis of CD8 ⁺ responses in the general population from the Sri Lankan hyperendemic area, involving the measurement of ex vivo IFNγ responses associated with more than 400 epitopes, challenges the original antigenic sin theory. Although skewing of responses toward primary infecting viruses was detected, this was not associated with impairment of responses either qualitatively or quantitatively. Furthermore, we demonstrate higher magnitude and more polyfunctional responses for HLA alleles associated with decreased susceptibility to severe disease, suggesting that a vigorous response by multifunctional CD8 ⁺ T cells is associated with protection from dengue virus disease.
The use of natural fibers in reinforced composites to produce eco-friendly materials is gaining more attention due to their attractive features such as low cost, low density and good mechanical ...properties, among others. This work thus investigates the potential of waste abaca (Manila hemp) fiber as reinforcing agent in an inorganic aluminosilicate material known as geopolymer. In this study, the waste fibers were subjected to different chemical treatments to modify the surface characteristics and to improve the adhesion with the fly ash-based geopolymer matrix. Definitive screening design of experiment was used to investigate the effect of successive chemical treatment of the fiber on its tensile strength considering the following factors: (1) NaOH pretreatment; (2) soaking time in aluminum salt solution; and (3) final pH of the slurry. The results show that the abaca fiber without alkali pretreatment, soaked for 12 h in Al₂(SO₄)₃ solution and adjusted to pH 6 exhibited the highest tensile strength among the treated fibers. Test results confirmed that the chemical treatment removes the lignin, pectin and hemicellulose, as well as makes the surface rougher with the deposition of aluminum compounds. This improves the interfacial bonding between geopolymer matrix and the abaca fiber, while the geopolymer protects the treated fiber from thermal degradation.
Knowledge of the area and spatial distribution of paddy rice is important for assessment of food security, management of water resources, and estimation of greenhouse gas (methane) emissions. Paddy ...rice agriculture has expanded rapidly in northeastern China in the last decade, but there are no updated maps of paddy rice fields in the region. Existing algorithms for identifying paddy rice fields are based on the unique physical features of paddy rice during the flooding and transplanting phases and use vegetation indices that are sensitive to the dynamics of the canopy and surface water content. However, the flooding phenomena in high latitude area could also be from spring snowmelt flooding. We used land surface temperature (LST) data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor to determine the temporal window of flooding and rice transplantation over a year to improve the existing phenology-based approach. Other land cover types (e.g., evergreen vegetation, permanent water bodies, and sparse vegetation) with potential influences on paddy rice identification were removed (masked out) due to their different temporal profiles. The accuracy assessment using high-resolution images showed that the resultant MODIS-derived paddy rice map of northeastern China in 2010 had a high accuracy (producer and user accuracies of 92% and 96%, respectively). The MODIS-based map also had a comparable accuracy to the 2010 Landsat-based National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) of China in terms of both area and spatial pattern. This study demonstrated that our improved algorithm by using both thermal and optical MODIS data, provides a robust, simple and automated approach to identify and map paddy rice fields in temperate and cold temperate zones, the northern frontier of rice planting.
The role of immunohistochemistry (IHC) in the management of cancer has expanded to provide improved diagnostic classification, as well as guidance on disease prognosis, therapy, and relapse. These ...new tasks require evaluation of an increasing number of protein targets; however, conventional multiplexing, usually achieved using serial tissue sections stained for a single analyte per slide, can exhaust small biopsy specimens, complicate slide-to-slide protein expression correlation, and leave insufficient material for additional molecular assays. A new approach, mass spectrometry immunohistochemistry (MSIHC), compatible with high levels of target multiplexing and suitable for use on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples can circumvent many of these issues. The strategy employs antibodies that are labeled with elemental mass tags, such as isotopically pure lanthanides not typically found in biological specimens, rather than with typical fluorophores or chromogens. The metal-labeled antibodies are then detected in tissue using lasers or ion beams to liberate the tags for subsequent mass spectrometry detection. Within a given multiplexed IHC panel, the metal labels are selected so that their respective masses do not overlap. More than 30 antibodies have been imaged simultaneously, and up to 100 antibodies could potentially be detected at once if the full available mass spectrum is deployed. MSIHC has a number of advantages over conventional IHC techniques. Background due to autofluorescence is absent and the dynamic range is 105, exceeding immunofluorescence and chromogenic IHC by 100-fold and 1000-fold, respectively. Detection of labeled primary antibodies improves assay linearity over both chromogenic and fluorescent IHC. Multiplexed mass-tagged antibodies incubated simultaneously with tissue do not appear to cross-interfere, and because the mass tags do not degrade, samples are stable indefinitely. The imaging resolution of multiplexed ion-beam imaging can be better than light microscopy. With appropriate instrumentation, MSIHC has the potential to transform research and clinical pathology practice.
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