Here, we report a novel comparative assessment of preparation and characterization of thyme oil nanoemulsion and its chitosan encapsulation using high energy approach for the management of three ...major mosquito species viz., Anopheles stephensi (Liston,1901), Aedes aegypti (Linn., 1762) and Culex tritaeniorhynchus (Giles, 1901). The synthesized formulations were analysed for thermodynamic stability, indicating 1:0.5 (oil: surfactant) ratio to be the most stable of thyme oil nanoemulsion while 1:1 (nanoemulsion: chitosan solution) ratio of its chitosan encapsulation. These were further characterized by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy which revealed the size and morphology of the droplets which measured 52.18 ± 4.53 nm for thyme oil nanoemulsion and 50.18 ± 2.32 nm for its chitosan encapsulation. All the droplets were well dispersed with distinct flower-shaped nanoemulsion and somewhat mitochondria like chitosan encapsulation. In-vitro release study of thyme essential oil from its nanoemulsion and chitosan encapsulation showed that 91.68% and 73.41% of the total oil concentration in water was released respectively to the environment after 48 h clearly depicting controlled release in the encapsulation. Assessment of insecticidal potential against selected mosquito species revealed that both the nanoemulsion and its chitosan encapsulation were effective on the major mosquito species. Maximum activity of thyme oil nanoemulsion was noticed against C. tritaeniorhynchus (LC
-22.58 ppm) after 24 h of exposure while it was observed that its chitosan encapsulation was most effective on A. stephensi (LC
-18.88 ppm) after 24 h of exposure. Consistent morphological alterations could be noticed in the larvae of mosquito species. Hence, these nanoemulsions and encapsulations could be further tested for their applications against other insect pests in agriculture.
Human activity recognition (HAR) has multifaceted applications due to its worldly usage of acquisition devices such as smartphones, video cameras, and its ability to capture human activity data. ...While electronic devices and their applications are steadily growing, the advances in Artificial intelligence (AI) have revolutionized the ability to extract deep hidden information for accurate detection and its interpretation. This yields a better understanding of rapidly growing acquisition devices, AI, and applications, the three pillars of HAR under one roof. There are many review articles published on the general characteristics of HAR, a few have compared all the HAR devices at the same time, and few have explored the impact of evolving AI architecture. In our proposed review, a detailed narration on the three pillars of HAR is presented covering the period from 2011 to 2021. Further, the review presents the recommendations for an improved HAR design, its reliability, and stability. Five major findings were: (1) HAR constitutes three major pillars such as devices, AI and applications; (2) HAR has dominated the healthcare industry; (3) Hybrid AI models are in their infancy stage and needs considerable work for providing the stable and reliable design. Further, these trained models need solid prediction, high accuracy, generalization, and finally, meeting the objectives of the applications without bias; (4) little work was observed in abnormality detection during actions; and (5) almost no work has been done in forecasting actions. We conclude that: (a) HAR industry will evolve in terms of the three pillars of electronic devices, applications and the type of AI. (b) AI will provide a powerful impetus to the HAR industry in future.
Recent biological discoveries have shown that clustering large datasets is essential for better understanding biology in many areas. Spectral clustering in particular has proven to be a powerful tool ...amenable for many applications. However, it cannot be directly applied to large datasets due to time and memory limitations. To address this issue, we have modified spectral clustering by adding an information preserving sampling procedure and applying a post-processing stage. We call this entire algorithm SamSPECTRAL.
We tested our algorithm on flow cytometry data as an example of large, multidimensional data containing potentially hundreds of thousands of data points (i.e., "events" in flow cytometry, typically corresponding to cells). Compared to two state of the art model-based flow cytometry clustering methods, SamSPECTRAL demonstrates significant advantages in proper identification of populations with non-elliptical shapes, low density populations close to dense ones, minor subpopulations of a major population and rare populations.
This work is the first successful attempt to apply spectral methodology on flow cytometry data. An implementation of our algorithm as an R package is freely available through BioConductor.
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the site of synthesis and folding of secretory and membrane bound proteins. The capacity of the ER to process proteins is limited and the accumulation of unfolded ...and misfolded proteins can lead to ER stress which has been associated with a wide range of diseases including cancer. In this review we initially provide an overview of our current understanding of how cells respond to ER stress at the molecular level and the key players involved in mediating the unfolded protein response (UPR). We review the evidence suggesting that the ER stress response could be important for the growth and development of tumors under stressful growth conditions such as hypoxia or glucose deprivation, which are commonly encountered by most solid tumors, and we analyse how it may be possible to exploit the unfolded protein response as an anticancer strategy. Two approaches to target the unfolded protein response are proposed—the first involves inhibiting components of the unfolded protein response so cells cannot adapt to stressful conditions and the second involves overloading the unfolded protein response so the cell is unable to cope, leading to cell death. We focused on proteins with an enzymatic activity that can be targeted by small molecule inhibitors as this is one of the most common approaches utilized by drug discovery companies. Finally, we review drugs currently in clinical development that affect the ER stress response and that may have potential as anti-tumor agents alone or in combination with other chemotherapeutics.
Recent years have witnessed a rise in methods for accurate prediction of structure and design of novel functional proteins. Design of functional protein fragments and peptides occupy a small, albeit ...unique, space within the general field of protein design. While the smaller size of these peptides allows for more exhaustive computational methods, flexibility in their structure and sparsity of data compared to proteins, as well as presence of noncanonical building blocks, add additional challenges to their design. This review summarizes the current advances in the design of protein fragments and peptides for binding to targets and discusses the challenges in the field, with an eye toward future directions.
Despite the increasing use of biodegradable disposables, there is a shortage of information in the literature about their biodegradability in biological waste treatment processes like high-solids ...anaerobic digestion (HSAD). This study investigated the biodegradability and transformation of biodegradable disposables in an integrated process of HSAD followed by hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). The paper-based disposables were efficiently degraded in HSAD. Conversely, compostable plastic bags and utensils did not degrade and resulted in a decrease of 29.5% and 8.99%, respectively, in methane yield compared to the control. However, HTL could completely transform undegraded plastic bags and utensils in the HSAD digestate into biocrude, thereby decreasing the potential environmental risk of bioplastic pollution from the land application of digestate. Moreover, increasing HTL temperature from 280 to 350 °C could enhance the yield and quality of biocrude in terms of heavy oil content. These results provide new insights into sustainable management and valorization of biodegradable disposables.
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Background
Catecholamine excess in patients with pheochromocytomas or paragangliomas (PPGLs) can lead to hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia. The aim was to investigate the prevalence of ...hyperlipidemia and the effect of surgical resection.
Methods
One hundred and thirty-two patients with PPGLs underwent an operation at the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2016, of which 54 patients met the inclusion criteria. Clinical demographics, BMI, genetic mutations, tumor size, perioperative catecholamine levels and perioperative lipid panels were retrospectively reviewed. Spearman correlation between catecholamines and lipid levels was evaluated. Paired Wilcoxon and paired
t
test were used to analyze differences in pre- and postoperative lipid levels.
Results
Preoperatively, 51 patients (94.4%) had elevated catecholamines, thirteen (24.1%) had elevated total cholesterol (TC) (>200 mg/dL), nine (16.6%) had elevated LDL (>130 mg/dL) and ten (18.5%) had elevated triglycerides (>150 mg/dL). Serum and urinary metanephrine levels were positively associated with TC (
r
= 0.2792,
p
= 0.0372 and
r
= 0.4146,
p
= 0.0031, respectively) and LDL levels (
r
= 0.2977,
p
= 0.0259 and
r
= 0.4434,
p
= 0.0014, respectively). Mean TC decreased from 176.4 to 166.3 mg/dL (
p
= 0.0064) and mean HDL decreased from 56.7 to 53.2 mg/dL (
p
= 0.0253) after PPGL resection (median 3.1 months (range 1.3–50.2) between lipid panels). Most patients with elevated TC (76.9%) had improvement with mean TC decreasing from 225 to 200.2 mg/dL (
p
= 0.0230). Of patients with elevated LDL, 66.7% had improvement with mean LDL decreasing from 149 to 131.1 mg/dL (
p
= 0.0313).
Conclusions
The prevalence of hyperlipidemia in patients with PPGLs is 46%. Future prospective studies are needed to determine whether surgical resection improves TC and/or LDL levels.
Concerns over need for CT radiation dose optimization and reduction led to improved scanner efficiency and introduction of several reconstruction techniques and image processing-based software. The ...latest technologies use artificial intelligence (AI) for CT dose optimization and image quality improvement. While CT dose optimization has and can benefit from AI, variations in scanner technologies, reconstruction methods, and scan protocols can lead to substantial variations in radiation doses and image quality across and within different scanners. These variations in turn can influence performance of AI algorithms being deployed for tasks such as detection, segmentation, characterization, and quantification. We review the complex relationship between AI and CT radiation dose.
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•A novel functionalized magnetic was prepared and its removal efficiency for selective Zn ions was studied.•Adsorption data for direct removal of Zn ions followed Langmuir–Freundlich ...isotherms.•DOP-TETA-MNP can be rapidly removed from wastewater by a magnetic separation without any turbidity.•The zinc removal from water followed pseudo second order kinetics.
In this study, a novel adsorbent, dioctylphetalate triethylenetetraamine magnetic nanoparticles (DOP-TETA-MNP) via a solvent-free procedure were synthesized for the removal of Zn (II) ions from aqueous solution. The morphological and anatomical characterization was investigated by various analytical techniques such as FTIR and SEM. Experimental data from evaluation of various influential parameters such as initial pH (2–7), initial ion concentration (5–20mg/L), adsorbent dose (0.005–0.040g), contact time (5–120min) and temperature (308–333K) of the solution were carried out using a batch adsorption method. DOP-TETA-MNP can be simply separated from aqueous solution with magnetic separations at low magnetic field. The kinetic data of Zn (II) ions were found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the equilibrium data of ions sorption were well described by Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum monolayer sorption capacity of Zn (II) was estimated to be 24.21mg/g at temperature of 333K. Thermodynamic analyses show that the adsorption process is exothermic and spontaneous.
To determine whether surgical warm-up affects cataract surgery complication rates and surgical case times.
University of Washington Medicine Eye Institute, Harborview, Seattle, Washington, USA.
...Retrospective case-control study.
Patients who had phacoemulsification from June 2010 to December 2011 were consecutively reviewed. Case order for each surgeon was evaluated, comparing intraoperative complication rates and case times for attending and resident surgeons for the first case of the day (considered the warm-up case) versus subsequent cases. Simple (AMA Current Procedural Terminology code 66984) and complex (code 66982) phacoemulsification surgeries were included. Excluded were patients who had cataract surgery combined with another surgery. Pearson chi-square tests and 2-tailed independent-sample t tests were used to analyze data.
The study reviewed 1424 patients. Cataract surgery complication rates were not statistically different between the first cases of the day and subsequent cases (3.3% versus 4.0%) (P = .552). There was, however, a significant difference in mean case time between these groups. The mean case time for simple phacoemulsification by resident physicians was 49.45 minutes ± 19.38 (SD) for first cases and 42.27 ± 15.78 minutes for subsequent cases (P = .021) and by attending physicians, 32.54 ± 12.91 minutes and 26.69 ± 9.17 minutes, respectively (P <. 0001).
Surgical case order might not affect complication rates of cataract surgery; however, the first case of the day was longer than subsequent cases, suggesting that a preoperative warm-up exercise might decrease cataract surgery time.
Neither author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
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