Nipah virus is a highly virulent zoonotic pathogen. In this report from Bangladesh, which included 40% of the world’s known cases, the risk factors for human-to-human transmission were evaluated. No ...asymptomatic cases were identified. Increased respiratory symptoms in the patient and prolonged close contact from caregivers were associated with secondary transmission.
Accurate state of charge (SOC) estimation of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is crucial in prolonging cell lifespan and ensuring its safe operation for electric vehicle applications. In this article, ...we propose the deep learning-based transformer model trained with self-supervised learning (SSL) for end-to-end SOC estimation without the requirements of feature engineering or adaptive filtering. We demonstrate that with the SSL framework, the proposed deep learning transformer model achieves the lowest root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of 0.90% and a mean-absolute-error (MAE) of 0.44% at constant ambient temperature, and RMSE of 1.19% and a MAE of 0.7% at varying ambient temperature. With SSL, the proposed model can be trained with as few as 5 epochs using only 20% of the total training data and still achieves less than 1.9% RMSE on the test data. Finally, we also demonstrate that the learning weights during the SSL training can be transferred to a new Li-ion cell with different chemistry and still achieve on-par performance compared to the models trained from scratch on the new cell.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel evolutionary divergent RNA virus, is responsible for the present devastating COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the genomic ...signatures, we comprehensively analyzed 2,492 complete and/or near-complete genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 strains reported from across the globe to the GISAID database up to 30 March 2020. Genome-wide annotations revealed 1,516 nucleotide-level variations at different positions throughout the entire genome of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, nucleotide (nt) deletion analysis found twelve deletion sites throughout the genome other than previously reported deletions at coding sequence of the ORF8 (open reading frame), spike, and ORF7a proteins, specifically in polyprotein ORF1ab (n = 9), ORF10 (n = 1), and 3´-UTR (n = 2). Evidence from the systematic gene-level mutational and protein profile analyses revealed a large number of amino acid (aa) substitutions (n = 744), demonstrating the viral proteins heterogeneous. Notably, residues of receptor-binding domain (RBD) showing crucial interactions with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and cross-reacting neutralizing antibody were found to be conserved among the analyzed virus strains, except for replacement of lysine with arginine at 378th position of the cryptic epitope of a Shanghai isolate, hCoV-19/Shanghai/SH0007/2020 (EPI_ISL_416320). Furthermore, our results of the preliminary epidemiological data on SARS-CoV-2 infections revealed that frequency of aa mutations were relatively higher in the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences of Europe (43.07%) followed by Asia (38.09%), and North America (29.64%) while case fatality rates remained higher in the European temperate countries, such as Italy, Spain, Netherlands, France, England and Belgium. Thus, the present method of genome annotation employed at this early pandemic stage could be a promising tool for monitoring and tracking the continuously evolving pandemic situation, the associated genetic variants, and their implications for the development of effective control and prophylaxis strategies.
Correction for 'Development of electrochemical sensors for quick detection of environmental (soil and water) NPK ions' by M. I. Hossain
et al.
,
RSC Adv.
, 2024,
14
, 9137-9158,
...https://doi.org/10.1039/D4RA00034J
.
All over the world, technology is becoming more and more prevalent in agriculture. Different types of instruments are already being used in this sector. For the time being, every farmer is trying to ...produce more crops on a piece of land. Eventually, soil loses its nutrients; however, to grow more crops, farmers use more fertilizers without knowing the proper conditions of the soil in real time. To overcome this issue, many scientists have recently focused on developing electrochemical sensors to detect macronutrients,
i.e.
, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), in soil or water rapidly. In this review, we focus mainly on the recent developments in electrochemical sensors used for the detection of nutrients (NPK) in different types of samples. As it is outlined, the use of smart and portable electrochemical sensors can be helpful for the reduction of excess fertilizer and can play a vital role in maintaining suitable conditions in soils and water. We are optimistic that this review can guide researchers in the development of a portable and suitable NPK detection system for soil nutrients.
When a plant shows deficiency syndromes, sometimes it becomes too late for the farmer to apply fertilizer, as most rely on checking plant leaves to assess their nutrition level. Electrochemical sensors can bring revolution here. Other pollutants (NPK) can also be determined using these sensors.
This study investigates the use of microalgae as a biosorbent to eliminate heavy metals ions from wastewater. The Chlorella kessleri microalgae species was employed to biosorb heavy metals from ...synthetic wastewater specimens. FTIR, and SEM/XRD analyses were utilized to characterize the microalgal biomass (the adsorbent). The experiments were conducted with several process parameters, including initial solution pH, temperature, and microalgae biomass dose. In order to secure the best experimental conditions, the optimum parameters were estimated using an integrated response surface methodology (RSM), desirability function (DF), and crow search algorithm (CSA) modeling approach. A maximum lead(II) removal efficiency of 99.54% was identified by the RSM-DF platform with the following optimal set of parameters: pH of 6.34, temperature of 27.71 °C, and biomass dosage of 1.5 g L
. The hybrid RSM-CSA approach provided a globally optimal solution that was similar to the results obtained by the RSM-DF approach. The consistency of the model-predicted optimum conditions was confirmed by conducting experiments under those conditions. It was found that the experimental removal efficiency (97.1%) under optimum conditions was very close (less than a 5% error) to the model-predicted value. The lead(II) biosorption process was better demonstrated by the pseudo-second order kinetic model. Finally, simultaneous removal of metals from wastewater samples containing a mixture of multiple heavy metals was investigated. The removal efficiency of each heavy metal was found to be in the following order: Pb(II) > Co(II) > Cu(II) > Cd(II) > Cr(II).
A review on biomass as a fuel for boilers Saidur, R.; Abdelaziz, E.A.; Demirbas, A. ...
Renewable & sustainable energy reviews,
06/2011, Letnik:
15, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Currently, fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas represent the prime energy sources in the world. However, it is anticipated that these sources of energy will deplete within the next 40–50
...years. Moreover, the expected environmental damages such as the global warming, acid rain and urban smog due to the production of emissions from these sources have tempted the world to try to reduce carbon emissions by 80% and shift towards utilizing a variety of renewable energy resources (RES) which are less environmentally harmful such as solar, wind, biomass etc. in a sustainable way. Biomass is one of the earliest sources of energy with very specific properties. In this review, several aspects which are associated with burning biomass in boilers have been investigated such as composition of biomass, estimating the higher heating value of biomass, comparison between biomass and other fuels, combustion of biomass, co-firing of biomass and coal, impacts of biomass, economic and social analysis of biomass, transportation of biomass, densification of biomass, problems of biomass and future of biomass. It has been found that utilizing biomass in boilers offers many economical, social and environmental benefits such as financial net saving, conservation of fossil fuel resources, job opportunities creation and CO
2 and NO
x
emissions reduction. However, care should be taken to other environmental impacts of biomass such as land and water resources, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and deforestation. Fouling, marketing, low heating value, storage and collections and handling are all associated problems when burning biomass in boilers. The future of biomass in boilers depends upon the development of the markets for fossil fuels and on policy decisions regarding the biomass market.
The emerged novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has created a global health crisis that warrants an accurate and detailed characterization of the rapidly ...evolving viral genome for understanding its epidemiology, pathogenesis, and containment. Here, we explored 61,485 sequences of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, a potent diagnostic and prophylactic target, for identifying the mutations to review their roles in real‐time polymerase chain reaction based diagnosis and observe consequent impacts. Compared to the Wuhan reference strain, a total of 1034 unique nucleotide mutations were identified in the mutant strains (49.15%, n = 30,221) globally. Of these mutations, 367 occupy primer binding sites including the 3′‐end mismatch to the primer‐pair of 11 well‐characterized primer sets. Noteworthily, CDC (USA) recommended the N2 primer set contained a lower mismatch than the other primer sets. Moreover, 684 amino acid (aa) substitutions were located across 317 (75.66% of total aa) unique positions including 82, 21, and 83 of those in the RNA binding N‐terminal domain (NTD), SR‐rich region, and C‐terminal dimerization domain, respectively. Moreover, 11 in‐frame deletions, mostly (n = 10) within the highly flexible linker region, were revealed, and the rest was within the NTD region. Furthermore, we predicted the possible consequence of high‐frequency mutations (≥20) and deletions on the tertiary structure of the N protein. Remarkably, we observed that a high frequency (67.94% of mutated sequences) co‐occuring mutations (R203K and G204R) destabilized and decreased overall structural flexibility. The N protein of SARS‐CoV‐2 comprises an average of 1.2 mutations per strain compared to 4.4 and 0.4 in Middle East respiratory syndrome‐related coronavirus and SARS‐CoV, respectively. Despite being proposed as the alternative target to spike protein for vaccine and therapeutics, the ongoing evolution of the N protein may challenge these endeavors, thus needing further immunoinformatics analyses. Therefore, continuous monitoring is required for tracing the ongoing evolution of the SARS‐CoV‐2 N protein in prophylactic and diagnostic interventions.
Highlights
Analyzing 61,485 sequences of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, 1034 unique nucleotide mutations were identified in the mutant strains (49.15%, n=30,221) globally.
Of these mutations, 367 occupy primer binding sites including the 3'‐end mismatch to the primer‐pair of 11 well‐characterized primer sets.
In total, 684 amino acid (aa) substitutions in 317 unique positions including 82, 21, and 83 in RNA binding N‐terminal domain (NTD), SR‐rich region, and C‐terminal dimerization domain (CTD), respectively were detected.
Eleven in‐frame deletions found, mostly (n = 10) within the highly flexible linker region of the SARS‐CoV‐2 N protein.
The N protein of SARS‐CoV‐2 comprises an average of 1.2 mutations per strain compared to 4.4 and 0.4 in MERS‐CoV and SARS‐CoV, respectively.
The cement subsector consumes approximately 12–15% of the total industrial energy use. Therefore, this subsector releases CO
2 emissions to the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels to ...produce energy needed for the cement manufacturing process. The cement industry contributes about 7% of the total worldwide CO
2 emissions. This study complied a comprehensive literature in terms of Thesis (MS and PhD), peer reviewed journals papers, conference proceedings, books, reports, websites for emission generation and mitigation technique. Emission released associated with the burning of fuels have been presented in this paper. Different sources of emissions in a cement industry has been identified and presented in this study. Different techniques to reduce CO
2 emissions from the cement manufacturing industries are reviewed and presented in this paper. The major techniques are: capture and storage CO
2 emissions, reducing clinker/cement ratio by replacing clinker with different of additives and using alternative fuels instead of fossil fuels. Apart from these techniques, various energy savings measures in cement industries expected to reduce indirect emissions released to the atmosphere. Based on review results it was found that sizeable amount of emission can be mitigated using different techniques and energy savings measures.
Preventing emergence of new zoonotic viruses depends on understanding determinants for human risk. Nipah virus (NiV) is a lethal zoonotic pathogen that has spilled over from bats into human ...populations, with limited person-to-person transmission. We examined ecologic and human behavioral drivers of geographic variation for risk of NiV infection in Bangladesh. We visited 60 villages during 2011-2013 where cases of infection with NiV were identified and 147 control villages. We compared case villages with control villages for most likely drivers for risk of infection, including number of bats, persons, and date palm sap trees, and human date palm sap consumption behavior. Case villages were similar to control villages in many ways, including number of bats, persons, and date palm sap trees, but had a higher proportion of households in which someone drank sap. Reducing human consumption of sap could reduce virus transmission and risk for emergence of a more highly transmissible NiV strain.
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