During bone growth, development, and remodeling, angiogenesis as well as osteogenesis are closely associated processes, sharing some essential mediators. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was ...initially recognized as the best-characterized endothelial-specific growth factor, which increased vascular permeability and angiogenesis, and it is now apparent that this cytokine regulates multiple biological functions in the endochondral ossification of mandibular condylar growth, as well as long bone formation. The complexity of VEGF biology is paralleled by the emerging complexity of interactions between VEGF ligands and their receptors. This narrative review summarizes the family of VEGF-related molecules, including 7 mammalian members, namely, VEGF, placenta growth factor (PLGF), and VEGF-B, -C, -D, -E, and -F. The biological functions of VEGF are mediated by at least 3 corresponding receptors: VEGFR-1/Flt-1, VEGFR-2/Flk-1, VEGFR-3/Flt-4 and 2 co-receptors of neuropilin (NRP) and heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). Current findings on endochondral ossification are also discussed, with emphasis on VEGF-A action in osteoblasts, chondroblasts, and chondroclasts/osteoclasts and regulatory mechanisms involving oxygen tension, and some growth factors and hormones. Furthermore, the therapeutic implications of recombinant VEGF-A protein therapy and VEGF-A gene therapy are evaluated. Abbreviations used: VEGF, Vascular endothelial growth factor; PLGF, placenta growth factor; NRP, neuropilin; HSPGs, heparan sulfate proteoglycans; FGF, fibroblast growth factor; TGF, transforming growth factor; HGF, hepatocyte growth factor; TNF, tumor necrosis factor; ECM, extracellular matrix; RTKs, receptor tyrosine kinases; ERK, extracellular signal kinases; HIF, hypoxia-inducible factor
Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is defined as a combination of hardware and software that allows brain activities to control external devices or even computers. The research in this field has ...attracted academia and industry alike. The objective is to help severely disabled people to live their life as regular persons as much as possible. Some of these disabilities are categorized as neurological neuromuscular disorders. A BCI system goes through many phases including preprocessing, feature extraction, signal classifications, and finally control. Large body of research are found at each phase and this might confuse researchers and BCI developers. This article is a review to the state-of-the-art work in the field of BCI. The main focus of this review is on the Brain control signals, their types and classifications. In addition, this survey reviews the current BCI technology in terms of hardware and software where the most used BCI devices are described as well as the most utilized software platforms are explained. Finally, BCI challenges and future directions are stated. Due to the limited space and large body of literature in the field of BCI, another two review articles are planned. One of these articles reviews the up-to-date BCI algorithms and techniques for signal processing, feature extraction, signals classification, and control. Another article will be dedicated to BCI systems and applications. The three articles are written as base and guidelines for researchers and developers pursue the work in the field of BCI.
This is an updated guideline from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) for the role of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for patients with severe cardiopulmonary failure due ...to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The great majority of COVID-19 patients (>90%) requiring ECMO have been supported using venovenous (V-V) ECMO for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). While COVID-19 ECMO run duration may be longer than in non-COVID-19 ECMO patients, published mortality appears to be similar between the two groups. However, data collection is ongoing, and there is a signal that overall mortality may be increasing. Conventional selection criteria for COVID-19-related ECMO should be used; however, when resources become more constrained during a pandemic, more stringent contraindications should be implemented. Formation of regional ECMO referral networks may facilitate communication, resource sharing, expedited patient referral, and mobile ECMO retrieval. There are no data to suggest deviation from conventional ECMO device or patient management when applying ECMO for COVID-19 patients. Rarely, children may require ECMO support for COVID-19-related ARDS, myocarditis, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C); conventional selection criteria and management practices should be the standard. We strongly encourage participation in data submission to investigate the optimal use of ECMO for COVID-19.
In the present work, an empirical approach based on a computational analysis is performed to study the shielding properties of epoxy/carbon fiber composites and epoxy/glass fiber composites ...incorporating lead nanoparticle (PbNPs) additives in the epoxy matrix. For this analysis, an MCNP5 model is developed for calculating the mass attenuation coefficients of the two fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites incorporating lead nanoparticles of different weight fractions. The model is verified and validated for different materials and different particle additives. Empirical correlations of the mass attenuation coefficient as a function of PbNPs weight fraction are developed and statistically analyzed. The results show that the mass attenuation coefficient increases as the weight fraction of lead nanoparticles increases up to a certain threshold (~15 wt%) beyond which the enhancement in the mass attenuation coefficient becomes negligible. Furthermore, statistical parameters of the developed correlations indicate that the correlations can accurately capture the behavior portrayed by the simulation data with acceptable root mean square error (RMSE) values.
Smart cities, as well as smart homes research, are becoming of concern, especially in the field of energy consumption and production. However, there is a lack in the dataset that can be used to ...simulate smart city energy consumption and prediction or even smart homes. Therefore, this paper provides a carefully generated dataset for smart home energy management simulation. Five datasets are generated and analysed to ensure suitability, including 20, 50, 100, and 200 homes across 365 days. For more accurate data, energy consumption and production for 50 homes are generated based on real input taken from a dataset for homes in Saudi Arabia. Due to the unavailability of a comprehensive dataset related to the complex scenario of smart home sensors, energy consumption, and peer-to-peer data exchange, synthetic data was generated to support the simulation of smart home energy generation and consumption. This synthetic data plays a crucial role in situations where simulating uncommon events, ensuring data availability, facilitating extensive experimentation and model validation, and enabling scalability are paramount. It offers a valuable opportunity to incorporate these rare yet significant occurrences into the simulation, particularly in the context of infrequent events, such as abnormal energy consumption patterns observed in smart homes. The generated data is analysed and validated in this article, ready to be used for many smart home and city research.
Thermo-sensitive composite microspheres (TPCP) were developed to achieve the on-demand release of drugs. The TPCP microspheres were synthesized using Oil-in-Water (O/W) emulsion evaporation technique ...and then impregnated with thermo-sensitive polyethylene glycol (PEG). The addition of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) significantly enhance thermal stability, crystallization ability, and surface hydrophilicity of TPCP microspheres due to heterogeneous nucleation effect and hydrogen bonding interaction, resulting in stable microsphere structure. The thermal degradation temperature (Tmax) increased by 13.8 °C, and the crystallinity improved by 20.9 % for 10 % TPCP. The thermo-sensitive composite microspheres showed the regulated cumulative release according to in vitro human physiological temperature changes. Besides, four release kinetics and possible release mechanism of TPCP microspheres were provided. Such thermo-responsive composite microspheres with control microsphere sizes and high encapsulation rate may have the potential to the development of on-demand and advanced controlled-release delivery systems.
Drug-loaded composite microspheres (TPCP) of tetracycline hydrochloride/poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-3-hydroxyvaleric acid)/cellulose nanocrystals/phase change polyethylene glycol synthesized by O/W emulsion solvent evaporation and impregnation method with high crystallinity, hydrophilicity and thermal stability for on-demand drug thermo-sensitive controlled release. Display omitted
The world is experiencing the new development of smart cities. Smart cities’ infrastructure in its core is based on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and the internet of things (IoT). WSNs consist of ...tiny smart devices (Motes) that are restricted in terms of memory, storage, processing capabilities, and sensing and communication ranges. Those limitations pose many security issues where regular cryptography algorithms are not suitable to be used. Besides, such capabilities might be degraded in case cheap sensors are deployed with very large numbers in applications, such as smart cities. One of the major security issues in WSNs that affect the overall operation, up to network interruption, in smart cities is the sinkhole routing attack. The paper has three-fold contributions: (1) it utilizes the concept of clustering for energy saving in WSNs, (2) proposing two light and simple algorithms for intrusion detection and prevention in smart cities—threshold-based intrusion detection system (TBIDS) and multipath-based intrusion detection system (MBIDS), and (3) utilizing the cross-layer technique between the application layer and network layer for the purpose of intrusion detection. The proposed methods are evaluated against recent algorithms—S-LEACH, MS-LEACH, and ABC algorithms.
At present, the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the fastest-growing areas in terms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques ...
► Polyglycidyl methacrylate-co-sodium alginate hydrogel was prepared by emulsion polymerization. ► PGMA-g-SA hydrogel was loaded with riboflavin as pH sensitive drug delivery system. ► The grafting ...process decreased swelling, slowed and controlled the release of RF.
Sodium alginate (SA) grafted with polyglycidyl methacrylate hydrogels (PGMA-g-SA) was prepared as pH sensitive drug delivery matrices for riboflavin (RF). The hydrogel copolymer matrices were compared with calcium alginate (CA) beads for swelling, degradation, entrapment efficiency and in vitro release of RF. The structure, surface morphology of the CA beads and the prepared hydrogels as well as the chemical stability of the encapsulated drug were characterized by FT-IR and SEM, respectively. The results demonstrate that the optimal formulation was achieved with PGMA-g-SA proportion of (0.75mol/1g) and loaded RF 0.03g. It has been observed that the in vitro release study of RF from this formulation was superior to the other ones and was able to maintain the release for ∼3 and 4 days for the simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) and simulated gastric fluid (SGF), respectively. In general, it has been shown that, GMA grafted onto SA enhanced drug entrapment efficiency, decreased swelling and degradation behaviors of the carrier. In addition, it slowed and controlled the release of RF from the PGMA-g-SA hydrogel compared with pure SA beads crosslinked with Ca2+ ions alone, which thereby provides a facile and effective method to improve the drug delivery systems.
PDF
