Obesity and its comorbidities- including diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea- have taken a large and increasing toll on the United States and the rest of the world. The availability of commercial, ...clinical, and operative therapies for weight management have not been effective at a societal level. Endoscopic bariatric therapy is gaining acceptance as more effective than diet and lifestyle measures, and less invasive than bariatric surgery. Various endoscopic therapies are analogues of the restrictive or bypass components of bariatric surgery, utilizing gastric remodeling or intestinal anastomosis to achieve proven weight loss and metabolic benefits. Others, such as aspiration therapy, employnovel mechanisms of action. Intragastric balloons have recently been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, and a number of other technologies have completed large multicenter trials(such as AspireA ssist aspiration therapy and Primary Obesity Surgery Endolumenal). Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty and transoral outlet reduction for endoscopic revision of gastric bypass have proven safe and effective in a number of studies. As devices are approved for use, data will continue to accumulate for safety, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness. Bariatric endoscopists should be prepared to appropriately target and apply various endoscopic bariatric therapies in the context of a comprehensive long-term weight management program.
Amid COVID-19, there have been rampant increase in the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits by frontline health and sanitation communities, to reduce the likelihoods of infections. The ...used PPE kits, potentially being infectious, pose a threat to human health, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems, if not scientifically handled and disposed. However, with stressed resources on treatment facilities and lack of training to the health and sanitation workers, it becomes vital to vet different options for PPE kits disposal, to promote environmentally sound management of waste. Given the various technology options available for treatment and disposal of COVID-19 patients waste, Life Cycle Assessment, i.e., cradle to grave analysis of PPE provides essential guidance in identifying the environmentally sound alternatives. In the present work, Life Cycle Assessment of PPE kits has been performed using GaBi version 8.7 under two disposal scenarios, namely landfill and incineration (both centralized and decentralized) for six environmental impact categories covering overall impacts on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, which includes Global Warming Potential (GWP), Human Toxicity Potential (HTP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Acidification Potential (AP), Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity Potential (FAETP) and Photochemical Ozone Depletion Potential (POCP). Considering the inventories of PPE kits, disposal of PPE bodysuit has the maximum impact, followed by gloves and goggles, in terms of GWP. The use of metal strips in face-mask has shown the most significant HTP impact. The incineration process (centralized−3816 kg CO2 eq. and decentralized−3813 kg CO2 eq.) showed high GWP but significantly reduced impact w.r.t. AP, EP, FAETP, POCP and HTP, when compared to disposal in a landfill, resulting in the high overall impact of landfill disposal compared to incineration. The decentralized incineration has emerged as environmentally sound management option compared to centralized incinerator among all the impact categories, also the environmental impact by transportation is significant (2.76 kg CO2 eq.) and cannot be neglected for long-distance transportation. Present findings can help the regulatory authority to delineate action steps for safe disposal of PPE kits.
•Successfully generated aptamers against E. coli bacterial cells through Cell-SELEX.•Aptamer-nanoprobe based sensitive and selective visual detection assay for E. coli was developed.•Graphene oxide ...enhances the loading capacity of aptamer on nanoprobe making it more sensitive.•Limit of detection using this nanoprobe was 102 cells/mL in Mili Q water and spiked coconut water.•The proposed detection assay was performed in glass capillary to mimic microfluidic channel.
E. coli is the most common foodborne bacteria causing illnesses including diarrhea, fever, and death if left undiagnosed and untreated, which makes its detection most important. Traditional detection methods such as culture methods, PCR, or ELISA are time-consuming and require skilled manpower. To overcome the disadvantages of traditional detection methods, a fast, easy, and cost-effective platform is required. ssDNA aptamer is a stable, sensitive, and selective biomolecule used extensively for detection. To provide naked eye visible detection, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were used, and to increase the aptamer conjugation, AuNPs were covered with Graphene Oxide. Thus, the overall sensitivity of the designed nanoprobe was also augmented. Therefore, exploiting the properties of gold nanoparticles and graphene oxide, a detection platform with aptamer conjugation has been developed in this study. In the manifestation of E. coli cells, the visible color change was observed from red to blue within an hour incubation. The limit of detection observed visually was 102 cells/mL with GO coating and 103 cells/mL without GO. The detection limit in real time coconut water samples was also 102 cells/mL. This platform was found to be applicable in glass capillary which provides opportunities for making a point of care detection device.
Salient Object Detection (SOD) in natural images is an active research area with burgeoning applications across diverse disciplines such as object recognition, image compression, video summarization, ...object discovery, image retargetting etc. Most salient object detection methods model this problem as a binary segmentation problem where firstly a saliency map is found which highlights the salient pixels and suppresses the background pixels in an image. Secondly, some threshold is applied to obtain the binary segmentation from the saliency map. Thus, thresholding is an important ingredient of salient object detection methods and affects the SOD performance. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of various thresholding methods in literature employed for SOD. We have developed a taxonomy of thresholding methods which shall be useful to the researchers and practitioners working in this fascinating research field. Further, we also discuss unexplored thresholding approaches which can be employed in SOD. Various existing and proposed performance measures to analyze SOD methods that depend on thresholding are also presented. Experiments on popular thresholding methods have also been carried out to show the dependence of qualitative and quantitative performance on thresholding.
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Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent ∼31% of all global deaths, and hypertension alone accounts for ∼50% of these cases. Inflammation and subsequent fibrosis in heart, kidney and ...brain are associated with increased morbidity and mortality in CVD patients. N-Acetyl-Seryl-Aspartyl-Proline (Ac-SDKP) is a naturally occurring immunomodulatory and pro-angiogenic peptide mainly released from its precursor thymosin β4 (Tβ4) via enzymatic hydrolysis involving meprin-α and prolyl-oligopeptidase, while Ac-SDKP degradation is primarily carried out by angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE). Keeping its immunomodulatory and angiogenic properties in view, numerous studies have focused on its beneficial effects in cardiovascular diseases. Research in the past 20 years involving heart, kidney and brain injury show that, treatment with Ac-SDKP ameliorates end-organ damage in part, by reducing inflammation, fibrosis and by promoting angiogenesis. Clinical studies involving ACE inhibitor therapy have shown increased plasma and tissue Ac-SDKP concentration, and some of the beneficial effects of ACE inhibitors in hypertension are partly due to increased Ac-SDKP content. Interestingly, these protective effects of Ac-SDKP are independent of blood-pressure regulation. This review discusses the Ac-SDKP biology in health and disease conditions, identifying its possible mechanisms of action, and explore potential use of Ac-SDKP as a novel treatment for CVDs.
Purpose - The objective of paper is to examine status of financial inclusion in India and study its determinants.Design methodology approach - Panel fixed effects and dynamic panel generalized ...methods of moments (GMM) methodologies have been applied to study determinants of financial inclusion. Additionally, Kendall's index of rank concordance has been derived to test for convergence of states in achieving financial inclusion.Findings - Branch network has unambiguous beneficial impact on financial inclusion. Both proportion of factories and employee base turn out to be significant determinants of penetration indicators. The findings reveal the importance of a region's socio-economic and environmental setup in shaping banking habit of masses. Using test for convergence it is found that regions tend to maintain their respective level of banking activity, with no support for closing gap.Originality value - To the best of the author's knowledge, no panel data study has been performed for India based on data for large number of states and a reasonable time span. This study utilizes 29 major states and union territories encompassing 1995 to 2008, which helps to increase degree of freedom and provide reliable results. The study helps us to ascertain direction and strength of various causal factors in process offer policy makers' strategies, for improving financial inclusion.
Bi(OTf)3 promoted direct and highly stereoselective glycosylation of “disarmed” and “armed” glycals to synthesize 2-deoxyglycosides has been reported. The tunable and solvent-controlled ...chemoselective activation of deactivated glycal donors distinguishing the competitive Ferrier and 1,2-addition pathways was discovered to improve substrate scope. The practical versatility of the method has been amply demonstrated with the oligosaccharide syntheses and 2-deoxyglycosylation of high-value natural products and drugs.
The self-organized motion of vast numbers of creatures in a single direction is a spectacular example of emergent order. Here, we recreate this phenomenon using actuated nonliving components. We ...report here that millimetre-sized tapered rods, rendered motile by contact with an underlying vibrated surface and interacting through a medium of spherical beads, undergo a phase transition to a state of spontaneous alignment of velocities and orientations above a threshold bead area fraction. Guided by a detailed simulation model, we construct an analytical theory of this flocking transition, with two ingredients: a moving rod drags beads; neighbouring rods reorient in the resulting flow like a weathercock in the wind. Theory and experiment agree on the structure of our phase diagram in the plane of rod and bead concentrations and power-law spatial correlations near the phase boundary. Our discovery suggests possible new mechanisms for the collective transport of particulate or cellular matter.
Landslides are one of the prominent natural disasters in India that account for an estimated property loss of 66 million USD and the fatality of 200 lives in the Himalayan region and the Western ...Ghats every year. The present systems for monitoring, detecting and early warning of these landslides are based upon radar satellite interferometry, laser scanning or LIDAR, high-resolution imaging via satellites and wireless geophysical sensor networks. All the above systems are either too expensive for large area deployment or less accurate or lack real-time characteristics required for landslide detection. Above all different types of landslides like rainfall induced landslides, earthquake induced landslides, creep landslides, shallow landslides and deep seated landslides pose several challenges in monitoring and detection such as (a) time duration for event detection (swift to long duration) (b) localizing the slip surface depth for event detection (c) recurrence of the precursor triggering events (d) extent of durability of sensor system (e) uncertainty in spatial coverage of the event. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes the design and development of a wireless integrated landslide monitoring system. To enhance the reliability of this system, a low-cost slope instability sensing sensor was also integrated to this Landslide Early Warning System. This sensor's design, development, testing and calibration is the primary focus of this paper. Further,the paper also discusses about the real-world deployment of this system to monitor one of the thickly populated landslide-prone area in Sikkim, North Eastern Himalayas.
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