Bionanotechnology is a branch of science that has revolutionized modern science and technology. Nanomaterials, especially noble metals, have attracted researchers due to their size and application in ...different branches of sciences that benefit humanity. Metal nanoparticles can be synthesized using green methods, which are good for the environment, economically viable, and facilitate synthesis. Due to their size and form, gold nanoparticles have become significant. Plant materials are of particular interest in the synthesis and manufacture of theranostic gold nanoparticles (NPs), which have been generated using various materials. On the other hand, chemically produced nanoparticles have several drawbacks in terms of cost, toxicity, and effectiveness. A plant-mediated integration of metallic nanoparticles has been developed in the field of nanotechnology to overcome the drawbacks of traditional synthesis, such as physical and synthetic strategies. Nanomaterials' tunable features make them sophisticated tools in the biomedical platform, especially for developing new diagnostics and therapeutics for malignancy, neurodegenerative, and other chronic disorders. Therefore, this review outlines the theranostic approach, the different plant materials utilized in theranostic applications, and future directions based on current breakthroughs in these fields.
Background and Objectives
Social media has revolutionised how plastic surgeons advertise their work and promote their services, but concerns have been raised regarding the ethics of these practices. ...This review aims to identify said concerns and develop measures to address them.
Methods
PubMed, Cochrane and Medline were searched for studies assessing the ethics of social media use by plastic surgeons. Five search terms were used and 23 studies identified. Results were catalogued according to which principle of medical ethics was infringed.
Results
Autonomy: Patients must not be coerced into allowing their operative media to be shared and content anonymised by removing identifiable features and scrubbing metadata. Beneficence: It is difficult to balance the benefit to patients of posting photographs for educational purposes with the risk of identifiable features being present, particularly within craniofacial surgery. Non-maleficence: Taking operative media could be a distraction from the patient and lengthen the procedure which could lead to harm. Any content posted on social media should be adapted to avoid trivialisation or sexualisation. Justice: Surgeons should not entertain their audience to increase their following at the expense of patients.
Conclusions
Greater oversight of social media use by plastic surgeons is required to avoid patient harm and tarnishing of the specialty’s professional standing. Professional bodies should be tasked with devising a course dedicated to the responsible use of these platforms. This should ensure the public’s trust in the specialty does not become eroded and patients are not harmed by unethical social media use.
This review highlights the relevant shortfalls of SoMe use by plastic surgery
Several proposals are made to reduce the incidence of these shortfalls and to ensure SoMe is used in a professional and responsible manner
It also lists areas of the specialty where SoMe is underused and could be of help, such as academia
Level of Evidence IV
This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors
http://www.springer.com/00266
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Reflection on current practices is key to the transformation of teachers into reflexive practitioners. This study describes how design thinking was integrated in Schön's 'reflection in and on' ...model, to transform traditional teaching of Biology into constructivist learning. As a first step, the reflection model was used to identify limitations in the current practices of a teacher educator by analysing (i) a critical incidence which took place during a practical biology lesson at undergraduate level, (ii) students' voices through a focus group discussion, and (iii) feedback of an assigned external observer. Analysis revealed that the teaching strategies, resources, and assessment strategies were mostly teacher-centred and do not provide enough opportunities for students' engagement and development of key scientific inquiry skills. To address the identified pedagogical limitations, this research work employed a case study methodology to showcase the efficiency of using the 'design thinking approach' as an underlying and alternative process to transform constructivist learning into action.The findings showed that the use of design thinking as a meta-disciplinary methodology allows the transformation of the constructivism theory into action and thus offers teacher educators the needed support through a formalised process to engage students in the learning of biology.
The applications of bioactive compounds from medicinal plants as therapeutic drugs are largely increasing. The present study selected the bioactive compounds from
(
) and
(
) to assess their ...phytochemicals, proteins, and biological activity. The plant material was collected, and extraction performed as per the standard procedure. Qualitative analysis was undertaken, and identification of functional organic groups was performed by FTIR and HPLC. Antibacterial, anticancer, antioxidant, antihyperglycemic, antihyperlipidemic, and inhibition kinetics studies for enzymes were performed to assess the different biological activities. Flavonoids and phenols were present in a significant amount in both the selected plants.
showed significant antimicrobial activity against
,
, and
, with minimum inhibition zones (MIZ) of 24, 22, and 20 mm, respectively.
strongly inhibited all the tested pathogenic bacteria with maximum and minimum MIZ of 32 and 17 mm.
silver nanoparticles also exhibited potent antimicrobial activity. Both extracts showed substantial antioxidant, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, anticancer (MCF-7), and anti-urease (antiulcer) properties. To conclude, these plants can be used to treat hyperlipidemia, diabetes, cancer, and gastrointestinal ulcers. They can also serve as antimicrobial and antioxidant agents. Thus, the studied plants must be exploited cost-effectively to generate therapeutic drugs for various diseases.
Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. ...Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private schools in raising student outcomes. We use new data from the World Bank on harmonised learning outcomes for mathematics, reading, and science to produce an unbalanced sample of 120 countries from 2000 to 2017. We find that, all else equal, on average, a one percentage point increase in private enrollment is associated with null to at most weakly positive effects on country-level learning outcomes. Countries that increased private school enrollment experience as much or slightly more learning than countries with no change in private school enrollment.
Current drug discovery involves finding leading drug candidates for further development. New scientific approaches include molecular docking, ADMET studies, and molecular dynamic simulation to ...determine targets and lead compounds. Hepatitis B is a disease of concern that is a life-threatening liver infection. The protein considered for the study was HBx. The hepatitis B X-interacting protein crystal structure was obtained from the PDB database (PDB ID-3MSH). Twenty ligands were chosen from the PubChem database for further in silico studies. The present study focused on in silico molecular docking studies using iGEMDOCK. The triethylene glycol monoethyl ether derivative showed an optimum binding affinity with the molecular target HBx, with a high negative affinity binding energy of -59.02 kcal/mol. Lipinski's rule of five, Veber, and Ghose were followed in subsequent ADMET studies. Molecular dynamic simulation was performed to confirm the docking studies and to analyze the stability of the structure. In these respects, the triethylene glycol monoethyl ether derivative may be a promising molecule to prepare future hepatitis B drug candidates. Substantial research effort to find a promising drug for hepatitis B is warranted in the future.
Manganese neurotoxicity has been reported to cause a neurodegenerative disease known as parkinsonism. Previous reports have shown that the expression of the KH-type splicing regulatory protein ...(KHSRP), a nucleic acid-binding protein, and NLRP3 is increased upon Mn exposure. However, the relation between these two during Mn toxicity has not been fully deduced. The mouse neuroblastoma (N2a) and SD rats are treated with LPS and MnCl2 to evaluate the expression of KHSRP and NLRP3. Further, the effect of the NLRP3 inhibitor MCC950 is checked on the expression of NLRP3, KHSRP and pro-inflammatory markers (TNFα, IL-18 and IL-1β) as well as the caspase-1 enzyme. Our results demonstrated an increment in NLRP3 and KHSRP expression post-MnCl2 exposure in N2a cells and rat brain, while on the other hand with LPS exposure only NLRP3 expression levels were elevated and KHSRP was found to be unaffected. An increased expression of KHSRP, NLRP3, pro-inflammatory markers and the caspase-1 enzyme was observed to be inhibited with MCC950 treatment in MnCl2-exposed cells and rats. Manganese exposure induces NLRP3 and KHSRP expression to induce neuroinflammation, suggesting a correlation between both which functions in toxicity-related pathways. Furthermore, MCC950 treatment reversed the role of KHSRP from anti-inflammatory to pro-inflammatory.
•Mental fatigue in operators was monitored using geometric measurement of facial features.•Facial features' ecological validity was tested by demonstrating their association with EEG.•Head motion, ...EAR, and eye distance showed noteworthy correlations with EEG metrics.•The proposed approach contributes to non-invasive monitoring of operators' mental fatigue.
Operating construction equipment for extended periods of time may lead to mental fatigue and, as a result, an increased risk of human error-related accidents and jeopardized health problems for the operators. Therefore, to limit the risk of accidents and protect operators' wellbeing, their mental fatigue must be monitored reliably and in real time. Recently, many invasive technologies have been employed to alleviate this problem, but they entail the wearing of physical sensors, which may instigate irritation and discomfort. This study proposes a non-invasive mental fatigue monitoring method using geometric measurements of their facial features that does not require the operators to wear sensors on their body. The study further validates the proposed method by comparing it with wearable electroencephalography (EEG) technology to establish its ecological validity for construction equipment operators. To serve the purpose, a one-hour excavator operation by sixteen construction equipment operators was conducted on a construction site. Ground truth, brain activity using wearable EEG, and geometric measurements of facial features were extracted and analyzed at the baseline and every 20 min for one hour. A considerable temporal variation was found in the reported metrics (eye aspect ratio, eye distance, mouth aspect ratio, face area, and head motion) and were significantly correlated with ground truth and EEG metric. Furthermore, the brain visualization pattern obtained from EEG was also associated with the variations in the facial features. The findings of the study reveal that construction equipment operators’ mental fatigue can be monitored non-invasively using geometrical measurements of facial features.
Haploinsufficiency for the Notch ligand JAG1 in humans results in an autosomal‐dominant, multisystem disorder known as Alagille syndrome, which is characterized by a congenital cholangiopathy of ...variable severity. Here, we show that on a C57BL/6 background, jagged1 heterozygous mice (Jag1+/−) exhibit impaired intrahepatic bile duct (IHBD) development, decreased SOX9 expression, and thinning of the periportal vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) layer, which are apparent at embryonic day 18 and the first postnatal week. In contrast, mice double heterozygous for Jag1 and the glycosyltransferase, Poglut1 (Rumi), start showing a significant improvement in IHBD development and VSMC differentiation during the first week. At P30, Jag1+/− mice show widespread ductular reactions and ductopenia in liver and a mild, but statistically, significant bilirubinemia. In contrast, P30 Jag1/Rumi double‐heterozygous mice show well‐developed portal triads around most portal veins, with no elevation of serum bilirubin. Conditional deletion of Rumi in VSMCs results in progressive arborization of the IHBD tree, whereas deletion of Rumi in hepatoblasts frequently results in an increase in the number of hepatic arteries without affecting bile duct formation. Nevertheless, removing one copy of Rumi from either VSMCs or hepatoblasts is sufficient to partially suppress the Jag1+/− bile duct defects. Finally, all Rumi target sites of the human JAG1 are efficiently glucosylated, and loss of Rumi in VSMCs results in increased levels of full‐length JAG1 and a shorter fragment of JAG1 without affecting Jag1 messenger RNA levels. Conclusions: On a C57BL/6 background, Jag1 haploinsufficiency results in bile duct paucity in mice. Removing one copy of Rumi suppresses the Jag1+/− bile duct phenotype, indicating that Rumi opposes JAG1 function in the liver. (Hepatology 2016;63:550–565)
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