Ferroptosis is a type of regulated cell death characterized by ROS accumulation and devastating lipid peroxidation (LPO). The role of acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), a key enzyme in sphingolipid ...metabolism, in the induction of apoptosis has been studied; however, to date its role in ferroptosis is unclear. In this study, we report that ASM plays a hitherto unanticipated role in promoting ferroptosis. Mechanistically, Erastin (Era) treatment results in the activation of ASM and generation of ceramide, which are required for the Era-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and LPO. Inhibition of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NADPH oxidase) or removal of intracellular ROS, significantly reduced Era-induced ASM activation, suggesting that NADPH oxidase-derived ROS regulated ASM-initiated redox signaling in a positive feedback manner. Moreover, ASM-mediated activation of autophagy plays a critical role in ferroptosis inducers (FINs)-induced glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) degradation and ferroptosis activation. Genetic or pharmacological inhibition of ASM diminishes Era-induced features of autophagy, GPX4 degradation, LPO, and subsequent ferroptosis. Importantly, genetic activation of ASM increases ferroptosis in cancer cells induced by various FINs. Collectively, these findings reveal that ASM plays a novel role in ferroptosis that could be exploited to improve pathological conditions that link to ferroptosis.
Urban informality has the potential threat and opportunity for sustainable urban development. Designing public space facilities in an informal urban area is essential for achieving sustainable urban ...development. This study investigates public space facility design principles to improve the challenges of urban informal areas of Hong Kong for sustainable urban development. It adopted a case study methodology with qualitative methods of data collection and mixed methods of data analysis. The data were analysed using tables, theme description, figures, and pictures. The results show that the current public space design cannot effectively respond to the users' socioeconomic and environmental informal demands. The use and strategic management approach of the public space facilities are not sustainable with respect to the area's social, economic, and environmental activities. This study recommends an integrated and sustainable system approach for efficient public space facility design in urban informal areas of Hong Kong.
Purpose
As one of the buzzwords in the present age with considerable impacts in tertiary institutions, social media use in online teaching, learning and information dissemination have been ...extensively discussed in extant literature. This paper aims to explore the existing campus sustainability appraisal (CSA) tools to identify the length at which social media has been used, especially in environmental sustainability indicators’ selection and empirical verification.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is mainly based on a desktop study involving comprehensive review and content analysis of existing CSA tools’ documents. Webpage content analysis of selected sustainability monitoring and tracking system in higher education institutions was also conducted.
Findings
The tools' content analysis reveals insufficient utilization of social media data and platforms in campus sustainability environmental-dimension indicators selection. To bridge this identified research gap, social media user-generated content for appraising the campus-wide environmental sustainability indicators preference in tertiary institutions was proposed.
Practical implications
The adoption and modification of this study’s proposed approach by tertiary institutions, especially in sub-Saharan African countries, could help address most campus-wide environmental challenges raised, commented on and discussed on social media.
Originality/value
This study contributes to knowledge gaps by revealing the extent of social media utilization in extant tools. With the expanding utilization of different social media platforms by various tertiary institutions worldwide, their administrators' responsibility is to put these social media data into fair use.
University towns face many challenges in the 21st century due to urbanization, increased student population, and higher educational institutions’ inability to house all their students on-campus. For ...university towns to be resilient and sustainable, the challenges facing them must be assessed and addressed. To carry out community resilience assessments, this study adopted a novel methodological framework to harness the power of artificial intelligence and social media big data (user-generated content on Twitter) to carry out remote studies in six university towns on six continents using Text Mining, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing. Cultural, social, physical, economic, and institutional and governance community challenges were identified and analyzed from the historical big data and validated using an online expert survey. This study gives a global overview of the challenges university towns experience due to studentification and shows that artificial intelligence can provide an easy, cheap, and more accurate way of conducting community resilience assessments in urban communities. The study also contributes to knowledge of research in the new normal by proving that longitudinal studies can be completed remotely.
Mitigating climate change via initiatives such as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and renewable energy (RE) generation helps in reducing environmental pollution, increasing efficiency, ...and saving costs in the energy industry. Bangladesh recently formulated some policies and initiatives for reducing GHG emissions that have been increasing at an alarming rate lately, which are driven largely by economic growth, energy security, and local environmental concerns. However, little is known about the impacts of the existing policies and initiatives on curbing GHG emissions and promoting environmental sustainability, especially from the agriculture and energy sectors that contribute 44% and 39% to the country’s net emissions, respectively. This study, therefore, reviews the extent of GHG emissions in the country and analyzes the country’s key policies and initiatives for mitigating climate change and promoting environmental sustainability. The key finding is that despite the existence of a national energy policy and initiatives such as RE development, rational and efficient use of energy, Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, clean development mechanism, international and private sector collaboration, GHG emissions are projected to continue to grow at high rates due to population growth, industrialization, energy consumption growth that outpace government initiatives to reduce emission levels. The paper concludes that good governance, behavioral transformation, and public awareness about climate change are vital steps for reducing GHG emissions and promoting environmental sustainability.
This study evaluated the concentrations of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), and Aerosol Index (AI) as well as different meteorological parameters, including ...atmospheric temperature (AT), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (WS) in nine Nigerian cities: Aba, Benin, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, and Umuahia. The role of socioeconomic activities on air pollution was also investigated using nighttime light radiance as a surrogate measure. Welch's one-way ANOVA test was performed for the variance study to evaluate the concentration dynamics of the selected tropospheric air pollutants and their association with nighttime light radiance. The mean concentration of CO and AI was highest in Kano, while that of O3 was the lowest. A similar pattern was also observed in the spatiotemporal transition of the selected pollutants and the nighttime light during the study period. Further, the correlation analysis revealed that AT is positively correlated with NO2 except in Aba and Benin cities, while it is positively correlated with CO and AI for all cities. The principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that O3 and RH have strong negative factor loadings, whereas CO, AI, and AT have strong positive factor loadings. This study will guide future researchers by associating the level of pollution with socioeconomic activities, especially during the absence of permanent air quality stations.
•Multifaceted analysis assesses air pollutants' dynamics and nighttime lights.•Multiple cities exceed WHO 24-h air pollutant standards.•Study guides linking pollution to socioeconomics, despite station absence.•Results aid policymakers in targeted air quality improvement efforts.
Avocado (Persea americana Mill.) production contributes to the economic growth of East Africa. However, poor fruit quality caused by infestations of tephritid fruit flies (Tephritidae) and the false ...codling moth, Thaumatotibia leucotreta (Meyrick), hampers access to lucrative export markets. Remote sensing and spatial analysis are increasingly applied to crop pest studies to develop sustainable and cost-effective control strategies. In this study, we assessed pest abundance in Muranga, Kenya, across three vegetation productivity classes, viz., low, medium and high, which were estimated using the normalised difference vegetation index at a landscape scale. Population densities of the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) and T. leucotreta in avocado farms were estimated through specific baited traps and fruit rearing. The population density of T. leucotreta varied across the vegetation productivity classes throughout the study period, although not significantly. Meanwhile, B. dorsalis showed a clear trend of decrease over time and was significantly lower in high vegetation productivity class compared to low and medium classes. Ceratitis cosyra (Walker) was the most abundant pest reared from fruit with few associated parasitoids, Pachycrepoideus vindemmiae (Rondani) and Toxeumorpha nigricola (Ferriere).
Pengamatan objek mikroskopis seperti bakteri, parasit, atau virus menggunakan mikroskop cahaya untuk tujuan diagnosis berbagai penyakit memerlukan ketelitian yang tinggi, sangat melelahkan, ...memerlukan waktu yang lama, serta subjektifitas pengamat juga cukup tinggi. Oleh karena itu, mikroskop digital, otomatis, portabel, dan compact dirancang berbasis komputer mini raspberry pi agar mengurangi kelelahan dan subjektivitas dalam pengamatan sampel berukuran mikroskopis dalam jumlah yang banyak. Untuk mendukung alat bantu tersebut, platform graphical user interface (GUI) dirancang menggunakan bahasa pemrograman python untuk memfasilitasi interaksi pengamat dan mikroskop digital, sehingga dapat menyimpan citra pengamatan sampel laboratorium dalam format digital dan dapat dilakukan operasi pengolahan citra maupun pengujian model Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) pada layar LCD berbasis raspbery pi. Pengujian penggunaan platform GUI, pengolahan citra, dan model CNN telah dilakukan pada raspberry pi melalui interaksi lewat layar LCD. Operasi pengolahan citra dan penghitungan jumlah objek dengan nilai akurasi 56,21%, serta pengujian model CNN dengan nilai akurasi 98,76% dapat dieksekusi dengan baik pada platform GUI ini dengan waktu eksekusi selama 2-3 detik. Dengan dirancangnya platform GUI pada mikroskop digital berbasis komputer mini raspberry pi ini diharapkan dapat mempermudah tenaga kesehatan untuk menginterpretasi hasil pemeriksaan laboratorium dibandingkan dengan inspeksi manual sampel melalui penglihatan yang memerlukan ketelitian tinggi serta melelahkan sehingga ia dapat meningkatkan layanan kesehatan di berbagai daerah terpencil di Indonesia dan berkontribusi dalam penurunan dan eliminasi berbagai penyakit.
Protective and toxicogenetic aspects of Piper betle Rahman, Md. Matiur; Yusuf, A. T. M.; Islam, Muhammad Torequl
Oriental pharmacy and experimental medicine,
12/2019, Letnik:
19, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Piper betle
L. (Paan) is used as a chewing material in many Asian and Oceanic countries.
Piper betle
extracts and its derivatives possess a number of important pharmacological activities, however, ...the toxicological reports on this plant is insufficient. This paper aims to discuss the protective and toxicogenetic effects of
P. betle
and its derived compounds on the basis of scientific reports found in the PubMed database. An up-to-date (Feb 2018) search made in the PubMed for scientific evidence suggests that
P. betle
and its derivatives have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, lipid-lowering, immuno-stimulatory, and organo-protective effects in various test systems. Safrole, hydroxy-chavicol, gamma-tocotrienol, hydroquinone, piperoleine A & B, allylpyrocatechol, and chavibetol are the important biologically active isolated components of various parts of
P. betle
. Safrole and hydroxy-chavicol are evident to exert both beneficial and toxic effects on the test systems. However, the toxicogenetic effects of the crude extracts of this herb and its compounds are dependent on the concentration/dose used. Of note, understanding toxicological impacts is crucial for any human consuming material.
Piper betle
is an important medicinal herb, however, more researches are necessary to claim its toxicogenetic effects.
Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory condition largely affecting the terminal ileum and large bowel. A contributing cause is the failure of an adequate acute inflammatory response as a result of ...impaired secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines by macrophages. This defective secretion arises from aberrant vesicle trafficking, misdirecting the cytokines to lysosomal degradation. Aberrant intestinal permeability is also well-established in Crohn's disease. Both the disordered vesicle trafficking and increased bowel permeability could result from abnormal lipid composition. We thus measured the sphingo- and phospholipid composition of macrophages, using mass spectrometry and stable isotope labelling approaches. Stimulation of macrophages with heat-killed Escherichia coli resulted in three main changes; a significant reduction in the amount of individual ceramide species, an altered composition of phosphatidylcholine, and an increased rate of phosphatidylcholine synthesis in macrophages. These changes were observed in macrophages from both healthy control individuals and patients with Crohn's disease. The only difference detected between control and Crohn's disease macrophages was a reduced proportion of newly-synthesised phosphatidylinositol 16:0/18:1 over a defined time period. Shotgun lipidomics analysis of macroscopically non-inflamed ileal biopsies showed a significant decrease in this same lipid species with overall preservation of sphingolipid, phospholipid and cholesterol composition.
PDF
