Over the past decades, many machine-learning- and artificial-intelligence-based technologies have been created to deduce biometric or bio-relevant parameters of speakers from their voice. These voice ...profiling technologies have targeted a wide range of parameters, from diseases to environmental factors, based largely on the fact that they are known to influence voice. Recently, some have also explored the prediction of parameters whose influence on voice is not easily observable through data-opportunistic biomarker discovery techniques. However, given the enormous range of factors that can possibly influence voice, more informed methods for selecting those that may be potentially deducible from voice are needed. To this end, this paper proposes a simple path-finding algorithm that attempts to find links between vocal characteristics and perturbing factors using cytogenetic and genomic data. The links represent reasonable selection criteria for use by computational by profiling technologies only, and are not intended to establish any unknown biological facts. The proposed algorithm is validated using a simple example from medical literature-that of the clinically observed effects of specific chromosomal microdeletion syndromes on the vocal characteristics of affected people. In this example, the algorithm attempts to link the genes involved in these syndromes to a single example gene (FOXP2) that is known to play a broad role in voice production. We show that in cases where strong links are exposed, vocal characteristics of the patients are indeed reported to be correspondingly affected. Validation experiments and subsequent analyses confirm that the methodology could be potentially useful in predicting the existence of vocal signatures in naïve cases where their existence has not been otherwise observed.
Chitin and chitosan are biopolymers with excellent bioactive properties, such as biodegradability, non‐toxicity, biocompatibility, haemostatic activity and antimicrobial activity. A wide variety of ...biomedical applications for chitin and chitin derivatives have been reported, including wound‐healing applications. They are reported to promote rapid dermal regeneration and accelerate wound healing. A number of dressing materials based on chitin and chitosan have been developed for the treatment of wounds. Chitin and chitosan with beneficial intrinsic properties and high potential for wound healing are attractive biopolymers for wound management. This review presents an overview of properties, biomedical applications and the role of these biopolymers in wound care.
Tissue substitutes are required in a number of clinical conditions for treatment of injured and diseased tissues.Tissues like bone,skin,amniotic membrane and soft tissues obtained from human donor ...can be used for repair or reconstruction of the injured part of the body.Allograft tissues from human donor provide an excellent alternative to autografts.However,major concern with the use of allografts is the risk of infectious disease transmission.Therefore,tissue allografts should be sterilized to make them safe for clinical use.Gamma radiation has several advantages and is the most suitable method for sterilization of biological tissues.This review summarizes the use of gamma irradiation technology as an effective method for sterilization of biological tissues and ensuring safety of tissue allografts.
During phonation, the vocal folds exhibit a self-sustained oscillatory motion, which is influenced by the physical properties of the speaker's vocal folds and driven by the balance of bio-mechanical ...and aerodynamic forces across the glottis. Subtle changes in the speaker's physical state can affect voice production and alter these oscillatory patterns. Measuring these can be valuable in developing computational tools that analyze voice to infer the speaker's state. Traditionally, vocal fold oscillations (VFOs) are measured directly using physical devices in clinical settings. In this paper, we propose a novel analysis-by-synthesis approach that allows us to infer the VFOs directly from recorded speech signals on an individualized, speaker-by-speaker basis. The approach, called the ADLES-VFT algorithm, is proposed in the context of a joint model that combines a phonation model (with a glottal flow waveform as the output) and a vocal tract acoustic wave propagation model such that the output of the joint model is an estimated waveform. The ADLES-VFT algorithm is a forward-backward algorithm which minimizes the error between the recorded waveform and the output of this joint model to estimate its parameters. Once estimated, these parameter values are used in conjunction with a phonation model to obtain its solutions. Since the parameters correlate with the physical properties of the vocal folds of the speaker, model solutions obtained using them represent the individualized VFOs for each speaker. The approach is flexible and can be applied to various phonation models. In addition to presenting the methodology, we show how the VFOs can be quantified from a dynamical systems perspective for classification purposes. Mathematical derivations are provided in an appendix for better readability.
Colonization of skin wounds with high levels of microorganisms impedes the process of healing. The present study reports the synthesis of silver nanoparticles in the network of hydrogel comprising ...polyvinyl pyrrolidone blended with carboxymethyl cellulose and their treatment by gamma radiation for hydrogel formation for use as skin dressing for burn wound management. The blend was supplemented with various amounts of silver nitrate and gamma irradiated at 40 kGy for formation of silver nanoparticles. The fluid absorption capacity of the obtained composite hydrogels ranged from 460 ± 50% at 1 h to 1700 ± 100% in 24 h. The zone of inhibition ranged from 6 to 9 mm for bacterial strain
Staphylococcus aureus
and
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
in the presence of hydrogel containing 0.01% silver nanoparticles. More than 3 log reduction of tested wounds pathogens was observed with hydrogels containing 0.01% silver nanoparticles indicating microbicidal efficacy. Viable counts were not detected for bacterial and fungal strains
Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli
and
Candida albicans
following treatment to 0.01% silver nanoparticle hydrogels for 1 to 5 h. The results of fluid handling capacity and antimicrobial efficacy demonstrate that obtained hydrogels with incorporated silver nanoparticles can be effectively used for controlling microbial infection and enhancing burn wound healing.
Wuhan to World: The COVID-19 Pandemic Kumar, Ashok; Singh, Rita; Kaur, Jaskaran ...
Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology,
03/2021, Letnik:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
COVID-19 is a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), caused by SARS-CoV-2, a novel virus which belongs to the family
. It was first reported in December 2019 in the Wuhan city of China and soon ...after, the virus and hence the disease got spread to the entire world. As of February 26, 2021, SARS-CoV-2 has infected ~112.20 million people and caused ~2.49 million deaths across the globe. Although the case fatality rate among SARS-CoV-2 patient is lower (~2.15%) than its earlier relatives, SARS-CoV (~9.5%) and MERS-CoV (~34.4%), the SARS-CoV-2 has been observed to be more infectious and caused higher morbidity and mortality worldwide. As of now, only the knowledge regarding potential transmission routes and the rapidly developed diagnostics has been guiding the world for managing the disease indicating an immediate need for a detailed understanding of the pathogen and the disease-biology. Over a very short period of time, researchers have generated a lot of information in unprecedented ways in the key areas, including viral entry into the host, dominant mutation, potential transmission routes, diagnostic targets and their detection assays, potential therapeutic targets and drug molecules for inhibiting viral entry and/or its replication in the host including cross-neutralizing antibodies and vaccine candidates that could help us to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the current review, we have summarized the available knowledge about the pathogen and the disease, COVID-19. We believe that this readily available knowledge base would serve as a valuable resource to the scientific and clinical community and may help in faster development of the solution to combat the disease.
The food security status of rural inhabitants of the hilly region of the Uttarakhand State was poorly documented. This study aimed to determine the extent and determinants of household food ...insecurity in rural-hilly areas of Kumaun, Uttarakhand. A cross-sectional, interview-administered survey was conducted among 155 households. Food insecurity, as measured by Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, was found in a large number of households; 2.6% of households were categorized as severely food-insecure, 53.3% as moderately food-insecure, 7.1% as mildly food-insecure, and 36.8% as food-secure. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that food insecurity was significantly associated with the poverty level of the family, number of children or adolescents in the household, educational level of household head, number of employed family members, and social class (p < 0.05). The food security policies in India must modify focus from food entitlement to include education, income, employment, and household composition. Nutrition-sensitive interventions in agriculture to promote the cultivation of fruits and vegetables in hilly areas. Promotion of poultry farming, goat rearing, freshwater fish farming, and related training will increase the availability of animal food sources. It is an urgent need to design and implement location-specific programs and policies to address food insecurity and food access.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has posed an unprecedented challenge to governments worldwide. Effective government communication of COVID-19 information with the public is of crucial importance.
...We investigate how the most-read state-owned newspaper in China, People's Daily, used an online social networking site, Sina Weibo, to communicate about COVID-19 and whether this could engage the public. The objective of this study is to develop an integrated framework to examine the content, message style, and interactive features of COVID-19-related posts and determine their effects on public engagement in the largest social media network in China.
Content analysis was employed to scrutinize 608 COVID-19 posts, and coding was performed on three main dimensions: content, message style, and interactive features. The content dimension was coded into six subdimensions: action, new evidence, reassurance, disease prevention, health care services, and uncertainty, and the style dimension was coded into the subdimensions of narrative and nonnarrative. As for interactive features, they were coded into links to external sources, use of hashtags, use of questions to solicit feedback, and use of multimedia. Public engagement was measured in the form of the number of shares, comments, and likes on the People's Daily's Sina Weibo account from January 20, 2020, to March 11, 2020, to reveal the association between different levels of public engagement and communication strategies. A one-way analysis of variance followed by a post-hoc Tukey test and negative binomial regression analysis were employed to generate the results.
We found that although the content frames of action, new evidence, and reassurance delivered in a nonnarrative style were predominant in COVID-19 communication by the government, posts related to new evidence and a nonnarrative style were strong negative predictors of the number of shares. In terms of generating a high number of shares, it was found that disease prevention posts delivered in a narrative style were able to achieve this purpose. Additionally, an interaction effect was found between content and style. The use of a narrative style in disease prevention posts had a significant positive effect on generating comments and likes by the Chinese public, while links to external sources fostered sharing.
These results have implications for governments, health organizations, medical professionals, the media, and researchers on their epidemic communication to engage the public. Selecting suitable communication strategies may foster active liking and sharing of posts on social media, which in turn, might raise the public's awareness of COVID-19 and motivate them to take preventive measures. The sharing of COVID-19 posts is particularly important because this action can reach out to a large audience, potentially helping to contain the spread of the virus.
This study compares the coverage of coping strategies and emotions portrayed in news regarding COVID-19 by The New York Times in the U.S. and People’s Daily of China via social media. By employing ...corpus assisted discourse analysis to scrutinize the text corpora, our study uncovered prominent keywords and themes. Findings indicate that a comprehensive range of themes relating to coping strategies was more common in People’s Daily while a relatively smaller number of themes was apparent in The New York Times. In terms of emotions exhibited in the news coverage, positive emotions such as cheer, gratitude, and good wishes predominated in People’s Daily whereas in The New York Times, negative emotions in the form of fears and anxiety were salient. The differences are explained with reference to the political context intertwined with the news environment and prior experiences in handling epidemics, with practical implications.
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