Biofilm-producing rhizobacteria (BPR) enhance productivity and mitigate abiotic stresses in plants. This study showed that 21 out of 65 halotolerant rhizobacteria could build biofilms. The components ...of the biofilm matrices i.e., extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are proteins, curli, nanocelloluse, nucleic acids, lipids, and peptidoglycans. Various functional groups including carbonyl, carboxyl, amino, hydroxyl, and phosphate were identified. Positions of these groups were shifted by application of 5% NaCl, suggesting Na
biosorption. By sequencing, Glutamicibacter arilaitensis (ESK1, ESM4 and ESM7), G. nicotianae (ESK19, ESM8 and ESM16), Enterobacter ludwigii (ESK15, ESK17, ESM2 and ESM17), E. cloacae (ESM5 and ESM12), Exiguobacterium acetylicum (ESM24 and ESM25), Staphylococcus saprophyticus ESK6, Leclercia adecarboxylata ESK12, Pseudomonas poae ESK16, Bacillus subtilis ESM14, and P. putida ESM17 were identified. These rhizobacteria exhibited numerous plant growth-promoting (PGP) activities including producing IAA, ACC deaminase, and siderophores, and solubilizing phosphate. Under non-stress, bacterized plants increased biomass accumulation (8-23.2% roots and 23-49.4% shoots), while under seawater-induced salt stress only ESK12, ESM4, ESM12, and ESM14 enhanced biomass production (5.8-52.9% roots and 8.8-33.4% shoots). Bacterized plants induced antioxidant defense system (19.5-142% catalase and 12.3-24.2% DPPH radical scavenging activity), retained a greater relative water content (17-124%), showed lesser membrane injuries (19.9-26.5%), and a reduced Na
(6-24% in roots) and increased K
/Na
ratio (78.8 and 103% in roots by ESK12 and ESM24, respectively) than the non-bacterized plants in saline conditions. Thus, native halotolerant BPR can be utilized as ameliorators of salt stress.
Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) not only enhance plant growth but also control phytopathogens and mitigate abiotic stresses, including water-deficit stress. In this study, 21 (26.9%) ...rhizobacterial strains isolated from drought-prone ecosystems of Bangladesh were able to form air-liquid (AL) biofilms in the glass test tubes containing salt-optimized broth plus glycerol (SOBG) medium. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing,
(ESR3 and ESR15),
ESR4,
ESR6,
(ESR7 and ESR25),
ESR9,
(ESR12, ESR16, and ESR23),
(ESR13 and ESR21),
ESB18,
ESR20,
(ESD3, ESD21, and ESB22),
ESD16,
ESB6,
ESB9, and
ESD8 were identified. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies showed that the biofilm matrices contain proteins, polysaccharides, nucleic acids, and lipids. Congo red binding results indicated that these bacteria produced curli fimbriae and nanocellulose-rich polysaccharides. Expression of nanocellulose was also confirmed by Calcofluor binding assays and scanning electron microscopy.
studies revealed that all these rhizobacterial strains expressed multiple plant growth-promoting traits including N
fixation, production of indole-3-acetic acid, solubilization of nutrients (P, K, and Zn), and production of ammonia, siderophores, ACC deaminase, catalases, lipases, cellulases, and proteases. Several bacteria were also tolerant to multifarious stresses such as drought, high temperature, extreme pH, and salinity. Among these rhizobacteria,
ESR12,
ESR15, and
ESD3 impeded the growth of
pv.
ATCC 33913, while
ESR15 and
ESD21 prevented the progression of
ATCC
11696
. In a pot experiment, tomato plants inoculated with
ESR4,
ESR6,
ESR9,
ESR12,
ESR15,
ESR20,
ESR21, and
ESB6 exhibited an increased plant growth compared to the non-inoculated plants under water deficit-stressed conditions. Accordingly, the bacterial-treated plants showed a higher antioxidant defense system and a fewer tissue damages than non-inoculated plants under water-limiting conditions. Therefore, biofilm-producing PGPR can be utilized as plant growth promoters, suppressors of plant pathogens, and alleviators of water-deficit stress.
Skin cancer is recognized as the most common kind of cancer in the world. It could be deadly if not identified at the primary stage, which makes early detection very crucial. It is possible to ...identify it with the naked eye, but high inter-class similarity and intra-class variations make it too hard to detect. Due to the prevalence of this disease around the world, so far many automated systems have been developed based on deep learning to assist the physician in the early detection of skin lesions.
In this study, we propose a weighted average ensemble learning-based model to classify seven types of skin lesions. We used five deep neural network models, namely, ResNeXt, SeResNeXt, ResNet, Xception, and DenseNet as the base of the ensemble. For the training and evaluation of our models, we used 18,730 dermoscopy images collected from the official Human Against Machine (HAM10000) and ISIC 2019 dataset together with class balancing, noise removal, and data augmentation technique. We found the best combinations of the base models in the ensemble using the grid search method and optimized the impact of each base model for the average recall score.
The five models performed excellent during evaluation and 88%, 89%, 91%, 88%, and 84% macro-average recall score were achieved by ResNeXt, SeResNeXt, DenseNet, Xception, and ResNet respectively. The simple average ensemble model boosted the result to 93% and the weighted average ensemble obtained a 94% recall score. The grid search method showed that the impact of all models are almost equal in the final model.
The average ensemble can improve the result by a significant amount. Our proposed system performed better than other existing systems and can support dermatologists for diagnosis.
•A deep learning based diagnosis system is proposed.•The proposed system identifies seven kinds of skin lesion.•Fine-tuning is applied to 5 different state-of-the-art convolutional networks.•The proposed system outperforms all the existing systems.
Biofilm-mediated bioremediation of xenobiotic pollutants is an environmental friendly biological technique. In this study, 36 out of 55 bacterial isolates developed biofilms in glass test tubes ...containing salt-optimized broth plus 2% glycerol (SOBG). Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and Congo red- and Calcofluor binding results showed biofilm matrices contain proteins, curli, nanocellulose-rich polysaccharides, nucleic acids, lipids, and peptidoglycans. Several functional groups including –OH, N–H, C–H, CO, COO−, –NH2, PO, C–O, and C–C were also predicted. By sequencing, ten novel biofilm-producing bacteria (BPB) were identified, including Exiguobacterium indicum ES31G, Kurthia gibsonii ES43G, Kluyvera cryocrescens ES45G, Cedecea lapagei ES48G, Enterobacter wuhouensis ES49G, Aeromonas caviae ES50G, Lysinibacillus sphaericus ES51G, Acinetobacter haemolyticus ES52G, Enterobacter soli ES53G, and Comamonas aquatica ES54G. The Direct Red (DR) 28 (a carcinogenic and mutagenic dye used in dyeing and biomedical processes) decolorization process was optimized in selected bacterial isolates. Under optimum conditions (SOBG medium, 75 mg L−1 dye, pH 7, 28 °C, microaerophilic condition and within 72 h of incubation), five of the bacteria tested could decolorize 97.8% ± 0.56–99.7% ± 0.45 of DR 28 dye. Azoreductase and laccase enzymes responsible for biodegradation were produced under the optimum condition. UV–Vis spectral analysis revealed that the azo (−NN−) bond peak at 476 nm had almost disappeared in all of the decolorized samples. FTIR data revealed that the foremost characteristic peaks had either partly or entirely vanished or were malformed or stretched. The chemical oxygen demand decreased by 83.3–91.3% in the decolorized samples, while plant probiotic bacterial growth was indistinguishable in the biodegraded metabolites and the original dye. Furthermore, seed germination (%) was higher in the biodegraded metabolites than the parent dye. Thus, examined BPB could provide potential solutions for the bioremediation of industrial dyes in wastewater.
Display omitted
•Ten novel biofilm-producing bacteria (BPB) identified by sequencing.•Biofilm consisted of proteins, curli, nanocellulose, nucleic acids and lipids.•Examined isolates decolorized 84.5–99.8% of Direct Red 28.•Enzymatic and analytical studies confirmed degradation of dye.•Produced nontoxic metabolites suggest potential of BPB for bioremediation.
This qualitative study aimed to explore the different ways of spouse support for garment workers in Dhaka city. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with male and female workers and their ...spouses and key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders to explore the different ways of support. The results highlight that male and female workers receive different ways of support for their ways in workplace resistance; therefore, male and female workers cannot participate in their workplace resistance in the same way. In terms of large collective resistance activities, husbands and wives support their spouses’ decisions to participate. Such agreement is important for workers to receive financial and other supports during the protest. However, not all female workers can participate inside and outside large groups of collective resistance as can male workers. Some female workers need to convince their husbands in order to participate inside and outside large groups of collective resistance, because husbands are serious about adherence to purdah. Such restrictions from husbands make it difficult for female workers who are in a dilemma between pressure from coworkers and from their husbands. In terms of small groups of collective resistance and individual resistance, women are more engaged than men, since men, being the main breadwinner in the family, cannot risk their jobs through such resistance.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the health professionals who are at the frontline of this crisis have been facing extreme psychological disorders. This research aims to provide an overall scenario of ...the prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, as well as insomnia and to inspect the changes in these prevalence over time by analyzing the existing evidence during this COVID-19 pandemic.
A systematic search was performed on March 30, 2021, in PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar databases, and Web of Science. To assess the heterogeneity, Q-test, I2 statistics, and Meta regression and to search for the publication bias, Eggers's test and funnel plot were used. The random-effect model and subgroup analysis were performed due to the significant heterogeneity.
Among eighty-three eligible studies in the final synthesis, 69 studies (n = 144649) assessed the depression prevalence of 37.12% (95% CI: 31.80–42.43), 75 studies (n = 147435) reported the anxiety prevalence of 41.42% (95% CI: 36.17–46.54), 41 studies (n = 82783) assessed the stress prevalence of 44.86% (95% CI: 36.98–52.74), 21 studies (n = 33370) enunciated the insomnia prevalence of 43.76% (95% CI: 35.83–51.68). The severity of the mental health problems among health professionals increased over the time during January 2020 to September 2020.
A significant level of heterogeneity was found among psychological measurement tools and across studies.
Therefore, it is an emergency to develop psychological interventions that can protect the mental health of vulnerable groups like health professionals.
•The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused unprecedented risks to mental health among health workers globally.•The prevalence of mental health disorder namely depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia were significantly increased over the time from January 2020 to September 2020 among the teams working closer to infected patients.•Comparatively higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia were observed from previous studies on medical health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic.•It is an emergency to develop psychological interventions that can protect the mental health of vulnerable groups like health professionals.
COVID-19; Depression; Anxiety; Stress; Insomnia; Meta-analysis; Health professionals.
Momordica dioica (M. dioica) is a gourd like blooming plant that is readily available in Bangladesh, requiring biological research to discover its therapeutic values. The goal of our research was to ...see if the ethanolic extract of this plant had any anti-hyperglycemic properties. Water, glibenclamide and M. dioica extracts were fed to Streptozocin induced type-2 diabetic rat models at a dose of 1.25 g/kg body weight (bw) for 28 days to see what kind of effects they had on serum glucose, insulin, liver glycogen and lipid contents. Except for the control group, all the groups followed a pattern of maintaining the body weight. The oral glucose tolerance test was observed to be improved in extract after 14 days of the experiment. When assessed with the control group, the M. dioica extract showed a significant (p = 0.0015) decrease in postprandial serum glucose level (M±SD, mmol/l, 13.23 ± 1.03 control Vs 11.47 ± 2.21 extract) at 120 min. The treatment of diabetic model rats with extract resulted in a 7% (p < 0.0001) reduction in serum cholesterol levels. While subsequent 28 days of treatment, insulin levels were found to be lowered in all groups (from 246.76 to 200.44 pg/dL; p < 0.0001 for standard and from 309.01 to 204.61 pg/dL; p < 0.0001 for sample). The results revealed that prolonged administration of M. dioica improved the glycemic and lipidemic state of type-2 diabetic rats, implying that more research is needed to identify the active ingredient (s).
Momordica dioica; Diabetes; Streptozocin; Serum glucose; Cholesterol.
Studies found that the group of men who have sex with men (MSM) is at a very high level of risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Asian regions due to multiple reasons. Although ...the prevalence of HIV among general people in Asia is considered low, the prevalence of HIV and Syphilis among MSM in this region was found very high and usually, it goes unnoticed. This study aimed to inspect the prevalence of and trends in HIV, Syphilis, and their co-infection among MSM in Asia.
A systematic search was performed on January 5, 2021, in PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases. To evaluate the heterogeneity, Q-tests, and I2 were used. To explore the publication bias, Eggers' test and funnel plot were used. The random-effect model and subgroup analysis were performed due to the significant heterogeneity.
A total of 2872 articles were identified, and 66 articles were included in the final analysis. The overall prevalence of HIV and Syphilis among MSM was estimated considering 69 estimates from 66 studies whereas 19 estimates of co-infection were found in 17 studies. The pooled HIV prevalence was 8.48% (CI: 7.01–9.95) and the pooled Syphilis prevalence was 9.86% (CI: 8.30–11.41) with significant heterogeneity and publication bias. The pooled prevalence of HIV and Syphilis co-infection was 2.99% (CI: 1.70–4.27) with significant heterogeneity and no publication bias. The HIV, Syphilis, and HIV-Syphilis co-infection prevalence estimates exhibited an upward trend during 2002–2017.
HIV, Syphilis, and their co-infection are quite prevalent among MSM in the Asia-Pacific region. Integrated and intensified intervention strategies, HIV testing, and improved access to antiretroviral treatment as well as increased awareness are needed to reduce HIV, Syphilis, and their co-infection among the discussed vulnerable group.
Vaccination seems to be the most effective way to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has adversely impacted the lives of over 7 billion people across the globe. Vaccine ...hesitancy represents an important threat to combat infectious diseases worldwide. This study aims to inspect the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate worldwide and the regional variation of the acceptance rates among the general population and healthcare workers across different territories of the world. In addition, it compares the vaccine acceptance rates between the pre- and post-vaccine approval periods.
A comprehensive systematic review was conducted using PRISMA statements. After quality evaluation, the data from eligible studies were analyzed using the random effect model. Q-test and I2 statistics were used to search for heterogeneity. The publication bias was assessed by using Egger’s test and funnel plot.
The combined COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate among the general population and healthcare workers (n = 1,581,562) was estimated at 62.79% (95% CI: 58.98–66.60). The acceptance rate substantially decreased from 66.29% (95% CI: 61.24–71.35) to 56.69% (95% CI: 48.68–64.71) among the general population from the pre-to post-vaccine approval periods but remained almost constant at 58.25% (95% CI: 46.52–69.97) among healthcare workers. The acceptance rates also varied in different regions of the world. The highest acceptance rate was found in the South-East Asia region at 70.18% (95% CI: 58.12–82.25) and the lowest was found in African Region at 39.51% (95% CI: 23.42–55.59).
Low COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate might be a massive barrier to controlling the pandemic. More research is needed to address the responsible factors influencing the low global rate of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Integrated global efforts are required to remove the barriers.
COVID-19; Global vaccination; Vaccine intention; Vaccine acceptance rate; Vaccine hesitancy.
Vaccine hesitancy is a significant global health concern, and mass vaccination is essential in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Undergraduate students need to be prioritized for vaccination as they ...continue their academic curriculum physically. However, limited research explores vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among undergraduate students in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study evaluated vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among this population.
A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted between May and June 2021 using a structured questionnaire to assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among undergraduate students in Bangladesh. The Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Scale was used to measure vaccine hesitancy. The study used convenient sampling.
Across the country, 334 undergraduate students participated in this study on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, with a mean age of 22.4 years. Most participants were male and unmarried, most having spent four years at university. 89.52% of participants would accept a COVID-19 vaccine if it were suggested by educational institutions or available, while 4.49% refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Participants showed low levels of vaccine hesitancy, with a mean score of 10.77 on the Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Scale. Most participants had a positive attitude towards receiving the vaccine, with the majority wanting to get it as soon as it becomes available. No association was found between vaccine acceptance and participants' background characteristics.
Our study found a high level of vaccine acceptance among undergraduate students in Bangladesh, indicating that this group can be vaccinated quickly, significantly accelerating vaccination goals. However, further large-scale studies are recommended among vulnerable groups, including school and college students, to ensure vaccine preparedness.
PDF
