The impact of an unlicensed low-cost taxi in Bangladesh is very severe, especially in municipal cities. Day by day the numbers of unlicensed low-cost taxi are increasing by jumping up and creating pressure on traffic and transportation system. The aim of this study is to find out the causes of increasing illegal taxi and the extent of this vehicle in the municipalities of Bangladesh. Pabna municipality is used as a case study due to the more activeness of illegal taxi then the other municipalities. To achieve the objectives, the researcher used a qualitative approach to acquire more depth about the problems. Besides a direct observation of the study area, an open-ended questionnaire survey and HIS survey were conducted. The illegal low-cost taxi is very active it was analyzed through the field survey. A statistical model was developed to understand the actual causes of increasing illegal low-cost taxi, where ten predicted hypotheses (age, education level, marital status and family member support of illegal drivers, and the variable of commuter satisfaction e.g. safety, comfort, continuous service, affordability of service, reliability of service and driver behavior) were tested. The model was run through the multiple regression analyses technique in SPSS and the result proved that education level of illegal low-cost taxi drivers, and the commuter satisfaction variable (safety and comfort) had a positive and significant effect of increasing illegal low-cost taxi in the study area. However other variable had no significant effect in case of increasing illegal low-cost taxi. Besides the safety and comfort, steady job for the operators, provision of continuous, individual and door to door service system are the main reasons for increasing the illegal low-cost taxi in the study area. Finally, the researcher concludes with the requirement of some necessary action from the responsible authority on vehicular regulation for the improvement of the local public transport system in Bangladesh.

As a part of our ongoing research on endophytic fungi, we have isolated a sesterterpene mycotoxin, fusaproliferin (FUS), from Fusarium solani strain associated with the plant Aglaonema hookerianum Schott. FUS showed rapid and sub-micromolar IC₅₀ against pancreatic cancer cell lines. Time dependent survival analysis and microscopy imaging showed rapid morphological changes in cancer cell lines 4 hours after incubation with FUS. This provides a new chemical scaffold that can be further developed to obtain more potent synthetic agents against pancreatic cancer.

Internet of Things (IoT) opens new horizons by enabling automated procedures without human interaction using IP connectivity. IoT deals with devices, called things which are represented as any item from our daily life that is enhanced with computing or communication facilities. Among various mobile communications, Zigbee communication is broadly used in controlling or monitoring applications due to its low data rate and low power consumption. Securing IoT systems have been the main concern for the research community. In this paper, different security-threats of Zigbee networks in IoT platform have been addressed to predict the potential security threats of Zigbee protocol and a Security Improvement Framework (SIF) has been designed for intelligent monitoring in an office environment. Our proposed SIF can predict and protect various potential malicious attacks in the Zigbee network and respond accordingly through a notification to the system administrator. This framework (SIF) is designed to make automated decisions immediately based on real-time data which are defined by the system administrator. Finally, the designed SIF has been implemented in an office security system as a case study for real-time monitoring. This office security system is evaluated based on the capacity of detecting potential security attacks. The evaluation results show that the proposed SIF is capable of detecting and protecting several potential security attacks efficiently enabling more secure way of intelligent monitoring.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer in both men and women alike, but it is more prevalent in women. Natural compounds that can modulate the oncogenic process can be considered a significant anti-cancer agent for treating BC. These natural compounds are more effective than synthetic drugs, which have profound side effects on the normal cell and resistance to cancer cells. Genistein is a type of dietary phytoestrogen included in the flavonoid group with a similar structure of estrogen that might provide a strong alternative and complementary medicine to existing chemotherapeutics drugs. Several research studies demonstrated that it can target the estrogen receptor (ER), Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2), and Breast cancer gene-1 (BRCA-1) in multiple BC cell lines, as well as sensitize cancer cell lines to this compound when used at an optimal inhibitory concentration. Genistein effectively showed anti-cancer activities through apoptosis induction, arresting cell cycle, inhibiting angiogenesis with metastasis, reducing inflammation, mammosphere formation, tumor growth, up-regulating tumor suppressor gene, and downregulating oncogene in suppressing cancer progression in vitro and animal model study. In addition, research studies have also suggested that these phytochemicals synergistically reverse the resistance mechanism of chemotherapeutic drugs, increasing the efficacy of some chemoinformatics drugs. Our review article aims to unbox and validate the molecular pharmacology in breast tissue, cell-specific anti-cancer mechanism with synergistic activity, and possible pharmacokinetic parameters of Genistein as a potential alternative therapeutic option for the treatment of BC.

Epigenetic aging has been found associated with a number of phenotypes and diseases. Few studies investigated its effect on lung function in relatively older people. However, this effect has not been explored in younger population. This study examines whether lung function at adolescent can be predicted with epigenetic age accelerations (AAs) using machine learning techniques. DNA methylation based AAs were estimated in 326 matched samples at two time points (at 10 years and 18 years) from the Isle of Wight Birth Cohort. Five machine learning regression models (linear, lasso, ridge, elastic net, and Bayesian ridge) were used to predict FEV1 (Forced Expiratory Volume in one second) and FVC (Forced Vital Capacity) at 18 years from feature selected predictor variables (based on mutual information) and AA changes between the two time points. The best models were ridge regression (R2 = 75.21% ± 7.42%; RMSE = 0.3768 ± 0.0653) and elastic net regression (R2 = 75.38% ± 6.98%; RMSE = 0.445 ± 0.069) for FEV1 and FVC, respectively. This study suggests that the application of machine learning in conjunction with tracking changes in AA over life span can be beneficial to assess the lung health in adolescence.

Fuel consumption, subsequent emissions and safe operation of class 8 vehicles are of prime importance in recent days. It is imperative that the vehicle operates in its true optimal operating region given a variety of constraints such as road grade, load, gear shifts, Battery State of charge (for hybrid vehicles), etc. In this paper a research study is conducted to evaluate the fuel economy and subsequent emission benefits when applying predictive control to a mild hybrid line haul truck. The problem is solved using a combination of dynamic programming with back tracking and model predictive control. The specific fuel saving features that are studied in this work are dynamic cruise control, gear shifts, vehicle coasting and torque management. These features are evaluated predictively as compared to a reactive behavior. The predictive behavior of these features are a function of road grade. The result and analysis shows significant improvement in fuel savings along with NOx benefits. Out of the control features dynamic cruise (predictive) control and dynamic coasting showed the most benefits while predictive gear shifts and torque management (by power splitting between battery and engine) for this architecture did not show fuel benefits but provided other benefits in terms of powertrain efficiency.

From 2008 to 2024, the Newborn Screening Translational Research Network (NBSTRN), part of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Hunter Kelly Newborn Screening Program, served as a robust infrastructure to facilitate groundbreaking research in newborn screening (NBS), rare disease, and genomics. Over fifteen years, NBSTRN developed into a significant international network, supporting innovative research on novel technologies to screen, diagnose, treat, manage, and understand the natural history of more than 280 rare diseases. A key component of these efforts has been the development of resources and expertise for the newborn screening community in ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI). This paper presents findings from a survey conducted by the NBSTRN team with input from one of theNBSTRN's expert workgroups, the Bioethics and Legal Workgroup. With responses from 88 members of the NBS community including researchers and state NBS programs, the survey found that individuals rely on internal and collegial ELSI resources and highlighted a substantial demand for structured, accessible training and resources. The survey’s insights emphasize the importance of privacy and informed consent in NBS research, and suggested a need for improved collaborative tools and educational programs focused on ELSI for the NBS community. The survey results may inform future efforts in ELSI and NBS research including the development of expanded ELSI tools that leverage digital platforms and consultative services.

Staphylococcus aureus is a major food-borne pathogen. The ability of S. aureus to produce biofilm is a significant virulence factor triggering its persistence in hostile environments. In this study, we screened a total of 420 different food samples and human hand swabs to detect S. aureus and to determine their biofilm formation ability. Samples analyzed were meat, milk, egg, fish, fast foods, and hand swabs. S. aureus were detected by culturing, staining, biochemical, and PCR. Biofilm formation ability was determined by Congo Red Agar (CRA) plate and Crystal Violet Microtiter Plate (CVMP) tests. The icaA, icaB, icaC, icaD, and bap genes involved in the synthesis of bio-film-forming intracellular adhesion compounds were detected by PCR. About 23.81% (100/420; 95% CI: 14.17-29.98%) samples harbored S. aureus as revealed by detection of the nuc gene. CRA plate revealed 20% of S. aureus isolates as strong biofilm producers, while 69% and 11% as in-termediate and non-biofilm producers, respectively. By the CVMP staining method, 20%, 77%, and 3% of the isolates were found strong, intermediate, and non-biofilm producers. Furthermore, 21% of S. aureus isolates carried at least one biofilm-forming gene, where icaA, icaB, icaC, icaD, and bap genes were detected in 15%, 20%, 7%, 20%, and 10% of the S. aureus isolates, respectively. Bivariate analysis showed high significant correlations (p<0.001) between any of the two adhesion genes of S. aureus isolates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Bangladesh describing the detection of biofilm-forming S. aureus from foods and hand swabs with molecular-based evidence. Our findings suggest that food samples should be deemed a potential reservoir of biofilm-forming S. aureus that indicates a potential public health significance.

The diagnosis of a chronic disease, such as multiple sclerosis, has both psychological and physical effects. Living with the disease and its uncertain consequences requires a great deal of psychological resilience in order to employ more comprehensive coping strategies in stressful situations. This study investigated the effect of a four-week online self-directed resilience training on the perception of psychological resilience among multiple sclerosis patients. A total of 64 MS patients were recruited for a randomized controlled trial. The experimental group underwent a 28-day online self-directed training program consisting of daily exercises aimed at strengthening a resilient mindset. Psychological resilience was measured through self-assessment immediately before, immediately after, and three months after the training. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed a statistically significant improvement in the perception of four factors related to stress: perceived worries, tension, joy and demands. Two resilience coping strategies were measured, of which one, a resilient orientation, improved significantly in the short and long term. The study suggests that online self-directed resilience training might provide an easily accessible, low-cost option for patients with MS to improve their psychological resilience. The transferability to other patient groups should be examined.

Background: The practice of self-medication is common worldwide and is an important component of medical self-care. However, the practice can be dangerous and is linked to various risks for the patients and the entire community. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and factors associated with self-medication among Bangladeshi adults. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between April and June 2021 among Bangladeshi adults (aged &gt;19 years) using convenient sampling. A total of 1320 data were collected through face-to-face interviews using a standardized questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with self-medication practice (SMP). Results: Overall, 41% of adults in our survey reported SMP. The most common illnesses that prompted SMP were common cold/flu (66.4%), gastric problems (65%), and headache (64.4%). The most frequent reasons for SMP were to get better services (30.59%), perceive SMP without side effects (23.28%), and save time with effectiveness (14.56%). Potential risk factors included 10 years (AOR = 1.91; 95% CI: 1.04 - 3.50) and &gt;12 years of schooling (AOR = 5.03; 95% CI: 2.27 - 11.15), being a businessman (AOR = 4.64; 95% CI: 1.74 - 12.37), having ≤6 family members (AOR = 2.13; 95% CI: 1.40 - 3.24), being a member of a social group (AOR = 1.53; 95% CI: 1.10 - 2.12), a health status check after every six months (AOR = 1.52; 95% CI: 1.08 - 2.13), and current ill-health (AOR = 1.41; 95% CI: 1.06 - 1.87). Protective factors identified included ≤30 years of age (AOR = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.17 - 0.93), and practice of modern (AOR = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.22- 0.69) and herbal (AOR = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.21- 0.97) healing types. Conclusion: More than one-third of the study participants reported practicing self-medication. Increasing the community’s awareness of the extreme consequences of SMP and not just the average experience might sway individuals away from SMP, and implementing strict jurisdiction could be a way to minimize the SMP.

The wetlands in northeastern Bangladesh are home to some of the most prolific and valuable ecosystems on the planet, offering a wide range of benefits to both the local and wider communities. A limited number of research on this topic have been carried out in various wetlands in coastal hilsa, but none have been located in the northeastern region of Bangladesh. Thus, the goal of this study was to better understand the most commercially relevant species (anadromous hilsa) in northeastern Bangladesh as well as to assess the wetland ecosystem services more thoroughly with the contribution of their fish genetic resources. In addition to laboratory studies, fieldwork was done in the fishing settlements along the Surma River, Hakaluki Haor, and Tanguar Haor. The study classified 77 fish species into 21 subcategories of ecosystem services, of which 56% were not threatened, 17% were vulnerable, and 10% were highly endangered. The species Hilsa was found to be the most economically significant, accounting for 1% of the GDP overall. The study determined if the hilsa stock of the examined wetlands maintains a single or several subpopulations in comparison to other parts of the country when they migrate from saline water to northeastern Bangladesh (freshwater). But when compared to other groups, the FST score was between 0.000 to 0.017, indicating that the populations are identical and that there is genetic material sharing between them. Additionally, these statistics imply that the Sylhet haor and adjacent river systems contain a single stock of Hilsa fish. Nevertheless, a number of stresses and risks, including overexploitation, illicit and destructive fishing, siltation, and natural disasters like flash floods, have been linked to changes in the supply of hilsa and other ecosystem services. This study also emphasizes the necessity of policy attention and research to address the concerns.

One of the major concerns in structural health management (SHM) is the early detection of a growing crack. Using this, future damage due to crack propagation can be mitigated or eliminated by implementing proper repair and maintenance. Acoustic Emission (AE) is a non-destructive testing (NDT) method with potential applications for locating and monitoring fatigue cracks. The research presented in this paper focuses on SHM using AE. A novel AE signal analysis approach was proposed in order to detect crack initiation and assess small crack lengths. Experimental investigation indicated that initiation of a crack could be identified through the statistical analysis of the resulting features of the AE signals. A probabilistic AE-based model for small fatigue crack sizing was developed and the uncertainties of the model were estimated. In addition, a probabilistic model validation approach was implemented to confirm accurate estimation of the results. The outcome of this research can be used to evaluate the integrity of structures under fatigue loading. The proposed approach can also be applied as an approach to manage health and assess prognosis of structures.

Molecular dynamics(MD) simulations are playing an increasingly important role in structure-based drug discovery (SBDD). Here we review the use of MD for proteins in aqueous solvation, organic/aqueous mixed solvents (MDmix) and with small ligands, to the classic SBDD problems: binding mode and binding free energy predictions. The simulation of proteins in their condensed state reveals the solvent structure and preferential interaction sites (hot spots) on the protein surface. This information is largely transferable across all classes of protein ligands (from water to drugs) and can be used very effectively to understand ligand recognition and improve the predictive capability of well-established methods such as molecular docking. MD simulations for protein and drug or drug-like compounds are now being used but are still computationally expensive and can only be applied to specific cases. On the other hand, MDmix simulations can now be used in SBDD and we will describe the latest developments and implementations. We expect to see an increase in the application of these techniques to a plethora of protein targets to identify new drug candidates with the advent of new tools and faster computers.

Microplastics, which are plastic particles smaller than 5 mm in size, are a growing environmental concern since they have been found in oceans, rivers, lakes, and even on land. These tiny particles can escape water filtration systems and end up in water bodies as well as through the degradation of the larger plastic products causing serious environmental and food safety concerns. This research represents the magnitude of this pollution, characterization of microplastic contamination, its type of polymer, and possible sources of this pollution in the rivers around Dhaka, Bangladesh. Quantitative analyses were done following the method suggested by the NOAA and other conventional methods. Among the rivers, Buriganga has the highest microplastic pollution with 3.654 items/L in surface water and 43.125 items/kg in sediment. The concentration in Shitalakshya and Turag rivers are 3.011 items/L and 2.051 items/L in surface water and 34.875 and 17.875 items/kg in sediment respectively. ANOVA test revealed a significant difference between the concentration level of microplastic in the surface water of the Burigana and Turag rivers. A positive correlation between the concentration level of microplastic in the surface water and the sediment was also found. On average 58% of the microplastics were found to be fibrous in surface water. Qualitative analyses were done to find the characteristics and chemical composition of the microplastics. Through the use of FTIR spectroscopy, the study identified different kinds of synthetic polymers in the sample including polyamide (Nylon), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), polyethersulfone (PES), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene were the most abundant polymer in the samples. This study involved the investigation of three distinct rivers located in the vicinity of Dhaka city

Obesity, characterized by the excessive accumulation of body fat, contributes to a multitude of physiological dysfunctions. This paper explores the complex relationship between obesity and various risk factors and complications, shedding light on critical health implications. Obesity triggers alterations in insulin, leptin, adiponectin, cytokines, and insulin-like growth factors, fostering conditions conducive to cancer initiation. Aberrations in nutrient-dependent intracellular signaling pathways, driven by the excess nutrition characteristic of obesity, contribute to the neoplastic transformation of cells. The Body Mass Index (BMI) correlates directly with adiposity, underlining its significance in cancer risk. Furthermore, insulin and insulin-like growth factors, notably IGF-2, play pivotal roles in this relationship. The expression of IR-A receptors is elevated in cancer. Obesity and cardiovascular diseases share a strong association. Obesity elevates the risk of fatal events like myocardial infarction. High cholesterol levels contribute to atherosclerosis in the aorta and coronary arteries. The severity of coronary artery disease is influenced by plaque formation characterized by calcium deposits. Obesity is also linked to hypertension and increased ventricular mass, exacerbating cardiovascular risks. Hypercholesterolemia and hypertension correlate with a high Body Mass Index (BMI). Obesity is intricately connected to insulin resistance, particularly evident in childhood obesity. It entails a gradual decline in insulin sensitivity, leading to elevated insulin levels in the bloodstream. Insulin resistance is a central factor in the development of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Obesity also results in elevated triglyceride levels and reduced high-density lipoproteins, contributing to atherogenic dyslipidemia and a heightened risk of atherosclerosis. Additionally, obesity is associated with various other disorders, including epilepsy, depression, and neuropsychological problems. Beyond its physiological impact, obesity is associated with significant psychosocial challenges. Studies indicate that individuals with obesity face a higher risk of depressive symptoms, often related to overeating and unhealthy dietary patterns. The social withdrawal tendencies of obese individuals exacerbate these symptoms, with higher rates of depression observed in this group. OSA, a sleep disorder characterized by intermittent breathing cessation during sleep, is strongly correlated with obesity. Approximately 58% of obese individuals experience OSA, with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) associated with an increased risk. Weight reduction has been found to mitigate the severity of OSA and related arrhythmias. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy demonstrates effectiveness in reducing visceral fat accumulation and leptin levels. This comprehensive review underscores the intricate web of health implications associated with obesity, emphasizing the critical need for preventive measures and intervention strategies to address the multifaceted challenges posed by this global health concern.

This research introduces a pioneering solution to the challenges posed by gastrointestinal tract (GI) cancer in radiation therapy, focusing on the imperative task of precise organ segmentation for minimizing radiation-induced damage. GI imaging has historically used manual demarcation, which is laborious and uncomfortable for patients. We address this by introducing the ResECA-U-Net deep learning model, a novel combination of the UNet and ResNet34 architectures. Furthermore, we further augment its functionality by incorporating the Efficient Channel Attention (ECA-Net) methodology. By utilizing data from the UW-Madison Carbone Cancer Centre, we carefully investigate several image processing techniques designed to capture critical local characteristics. With its foundation in computer vision concepts, the ResECA-U-Net model is excellent at extracting fine details from GI images. Sophisticated metrics such as intersection over union (IoU) and the dice coefficient are used to evaluate performance. Our study's outcomes demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested method, yielding an impressive 96.27% Dice coefficient and 91.48% IoU. These results highlight the significant contribution that our strategy has made to the advancement of cancer therapy. Beyond its scientific merits, this work has the potential to significantly enhance cancer patients' quality of life and provide better long-term outcomes. Our work is a significant step towards automating and optimizing the segmentation process, which can potentially change how GI cancer is treated completely.

Animals in human care are affected by stressors that can ultimately reduce fitness. When reproduction is affected, endangered species’ conservation programmes can be severely compromised. Thus, understanding factors related to stress and reproduction, and measures of related hormones, are important to ensure captive breeding success. Red pandas are endangered and populations in the wild are threatened with extinction. A global captive breeding programme has been launched to conserve the species with the goal of reintroduction. However there is little informaiton on how stressors impact reproductive aspects of the species. This study measured fecal glucocorticoid (fGCM), fecal progestagen (fPM) and fecal androgen (fAM) metabolite concentrations in 12 female and 8 male red pandas (Ailurus fulgens fulgens) at three zoos in northeastern India to determine predictors of adrenal and gonadal steroid activity and the influence of fGCM on reproduction. Results indicated that fGCM concentrations were higher in males than females, and positively correlated with number of visitors, while negatively related to frequency of feedings and enclosure area. Sex, visitor number, frequency of feeding, and enclosure area explained 67% of the variations in fGCM concentrations in the study population. Concentrations of fPM were positively associated with tree density in the enclosure, explaining 47% of the variation among females. For fAM, positive associations were found with frequency of feeding, but concentrations were negatively related to age and number of visitors; these three covariates explained 45% of the variation in fAM concentration among males. Comparison of fGCM with fPM showed a negative trend, indicating increasing adrenal hormones may decrease reproductive function among female red pandas. The study thus suggests that zoo management should consider increasing feeding frequency, providing larger enclosures with more trees, and regulating visitor numbers to reduce stress and increase reproductive fitness among red pandas.

Detecting the trends of species and populations is fundamental to identify taxa with high conservation priority. Unfortunately, long-term monitoring programs are challenging and often lacking. The Italian agile frog Rana latastei is endemic to Northern Italy and adjacent countries, is considered vulnerable by the IUCN, and is protected at the European level. However, quantitative estimates of its decline are extremely scarce. In this study, we document the trends in abundance and distribution of Rana latastei within the Monza Park, which currently represents the area closer to the type locality of the species. Wetlands within the park were monitored from 2000 to 2023; counts of egg clutches were taken as a measure of reproductive output and of the abundance of breeding females. In 2000, the species occurred over a significant proportion of the park. Total abundance showed strong yearly variation but remained rather constant from 2000 to 2019. However, Rana latastei disappeared from the park around 2021 and was never detected in 2022-23. The decline is probably related to the joint effect of multiple factors, including the conversion of breeding sites for farming, inappropriate water management, invasive alien species, and severe drought. The local extinction of Rana latastei occurred despite legal protection, highlighting the need for more effective and stringent tools for the conservation of European biodiversity.

Abstract: This brief policy is written after experience treating COVID-19 positive radiation therapy patients to reduce risk to therapy staff and patients in radiation oncology department. It is important to prioritize the safety of staff and non-infected patients while ensuring the continuation of radiation oncology services. Radiation therapists have sustained contact with covid-19 patients in an enclosed vault. Protocols for correct disinfecting of equipment and room and therapists following methods for less transmission of virus is crucial. This policy covers prevention methods from COVID-19 transmission from patient to patient, patient to staff, staff to patient and staff to staff as follows A.Risk reduction by screening and preparing staff and rooms B.Radiation Therapist Policy for COVID-19 positive patient with CCC (Critical Cancer Care)

The ever-rising demands for energy dense electrochemical storage systems have been driving interests in beyond Li-ion batteries such as those based on lithium and magnesium metals. These high energy density batteries suffer from several challenges, several of which stem from the flammability/volatility of the electrolytes and/or instability of the electrolyte with either the negative, positive electrode or both. Recently, hydride-based electrolytes have been paving a path towards overcoming these issues. Namely, highly performing solid state electrolytes have been reported and several key challenges in multivalent batteries were overcome. In this review, the classes of hydride-based electrolytes reported for energy dense batteries are discussed. Future perspectives are presented to guide research directions in this field.

Despite the expansion of financial institutions and proliferation of mobile financial services, reaching the unbanked and bringing them under formal financial services has become a policy concern in many developing countries. Due to the lack of financial accounts, unbanked people prefer informal, risky, and inconvenient mechanisms for receiving, sending and transferring money. Previous studies rely much on common intervention like no account maintenance and opening fees, easy documentation processes and money subsidies for opening financial accounts. This study aims to examine the impact of the motivational workshop on opening savings accounts through causality among the unbanked people in a setting where the respondents are unbanked despite having all the requirements and many institutional offers for opening savings accounts. We encouraged the unbanked people through a one-hour-long motivational workshop to open saving account. Based on our cross-sectional data and randomized controlled trial experiment among 505 unbanked Village Defense Party (VDP) members at Dhubil Union under Sirajganj in Bangladesh, we have the evidence that motivational workshop positively impacts opening ac-counts by 32.33 percent. However, the account opening rate differs in terms of respondent’s pref-erence for financial institutions. Our study also finds that unbanked people have the highest pref-erence for mobile financial services for opening accounts resulting in 15.33 percent. The result of the study has some policy implications for adopting effective strategies of financial access in many developing countries.

Fog computing is a potential solution to overcome the shortcomings of the cloud computing processing of IoT tasks. These drawbacks can be high latency, location awareness and security, and it is attributed to the distance between IoT devices and servers, network congestion and other variables. Although fog computing has evolved as a solution to these challenges, it is known for having limited resources that need to be consciously utilised, or any of its ad-vantages would be lost. Computational offloading and resource management are critical concerns to be considered to get maximum benefit of the available resource at fog computing systems and benefit from its advantages. Computational offloading and resource management are important issues to be considered to get maximum benefit of the available resource at fog computing systems and benefit from its advantages. In this article, in vehicular traffic applications, we introduce a dynamic online offloading scheme that involves the execution of delay-sensitive ac-tivities. This paper proposes an architecture of a fog node that enables a fog node to adjust its offloading threshold dynamically (i.e., the criteria by which a fog node decides whether tasks should be offloaded rather than executed locally) using two algorithms: dynamic task scheduling (DTS) and dynamic energy control (DEC). These algorithms seek to solve an optimisation problem aimed at minimising overall delay, improving throughput, and minimising energy consumption at the fog layer, while maximising the use of resource-constrained fog nodes. Compared with other benchmarks, our approach can reduce the delay by up to 95.38% and reduce energy consumption by up to 67.71% in fog nodes. Additionally, this approach enhances throughput by 71.08%.

Homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reactions in partially ionized magneto-nano-liquid are investigated theoretically using finite element method (FEM). The effects of ions and electrons collisions on the transport of heat and mass are analyzed for both the cases of heterogeneous and homogeneous chemical reactions. The simultaneous effects of dispersion of nanosized particles in partially ionized nano-liquid in the presence of magnetic field are also investigated. Through numerical experiments, it is noted that the temperature of partially ionized nano-liquid increases when electrons collision rate and ion collisions are increased. The transport rate of reacting species decreases when heterogeneous and homogeneous chemical reactions strengths are increased. It is also observed that the effect of electron collisions on the flow in y-direction is the same to that of ion collisions on the flow in y-direction. Homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reactions have similar effects on concentration of chemically reacting species in qualitative sense. However, in quantitative sense, homogeneous chemical reaction has more significant effect on the concentration reacting species as compared to heterogeneous chemical reaction.

In archaea, the interaction of HerA helicase and NurA nuclease is required for 3' end resection during DNA double-stranded break repair, and its disruption results in unfaithful DNA repair. Interactions transpire by the four conserved domains, including the N-terminal HAS domain (HerA-ATP synthase), which serves as a binding site for the exonuclease NurA. As a HerA hexamer between its two subunits, the conserved C-terminal brace extension functions as an adjacent brace. DBD serves as a location for DNA binding, which causes the DNA strands to be propelled into the HerA pocket to begin unwinding. The putative pore entrance is made up of four helix coils, which provide a suitable charged surface for guiding DNA into the pore. The crystal structure of the complex HerA-NurA allows for the identification of key residues for protein-protein interaction. This allows us to predict that most archaeal HerA orthologs will be able to interact with one another. Archaeal HerA is a homo-hexameric assembly featuring a DNA-binding domain that is conserved. It also features distinctive ATP and NurA binding domains. Following the structure and sequence conservation criteria, we find one HerA ortholog in Pyrobaculum calidifontis and multiple HerA paralogs, but the role of none is established yet.Interestingly, orthologous HerA is part of an Mre11-Rad50 gene neighborhood while paralogous HerA is not, which could be misleading. As a result, it sought to describe the criteria that may be used as a possible fingerprint for identifying orthologous genes, as well as the cloning procedures and tactics that would aid in the confirmation of the HerA helicase in P. calidifontis. Their confirmation is based on PCR cloning and characterization following HerA construct creation.

The multidrug resistance transporter NorM is an important drug resistance pump and plays a critical role in multidrug resistance in bacteria and mammals. In this study we carried out molecular dynamics simulation to study the mechanism of Na+ binding and dynamical structures of two long loops in the substrate-releasing process in substrate binding NorM. Our simulation study identified several key residues (D41, E261 D377) along the Na+ binding pathway and a multi-state ion-binding mechanism is proposed based on the simulation study. In this proposed model, the transport of Na+ is a multi-stage process with D41 being the first station for binding to Na+, followed by Na+ binding to the second station E262 and finally to the cation-binding site of E262 and D377. During the transport of Na+, the transmembrane components TM1, TM7 and TM2 are rearranged to facilitate the ion transport as well conformational changes of NorM to a closed state. Further, substrate-bound simulation revealed that Loop3-4 and Loop9-10 control the substrate-releasing process.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory profoundly affected the fashion industry and society, serving as a reminder of the importance of social issues in academics and practice. Some scholars have pointed out that academia lacks fashion studies on social issues that are more prevalent in developing countries. Therefore, this study aims to determine a meta-analysis of sustainable fashion research since the Rana Plaza collapse and how it aligns with the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs). The applied method is automated content analysis, and seven academic agendas were extracted by analyzing sustainable fashion literature. The findings showed that academic scholarship has covered various topics, ranging from design to social issues, whereas the results have not clarified the relationship between social issues and developing countries. The findings also show that SDG 12 stood out, which is responsible consumption and production. Aside from the production community, consumers need to be aware of socio-environmental problems to make harmonious lifestyle choices with nature. Furthermore, scholars need to align themselves with an easier-to-understand concept of sustainable fashion to make a public appeal for it as a societal importance.

Dried blood spot (DBS) testing on confetti is one of the most common methods used to collect and extract DNA from field samples for molecular epidemiology of malaria studies. Here, we investigated whether ethanol or other solutions used to clean scissors are a source of sample contamination. DBS were prepared from 3 drops of blood from two Plasmodium falciparum cultures spotted on confetti, and 3 solutions (water, ethanol and DNase) were used to clean scissors between spots during DNA extraction. For each cleaning solution, two blank confetti were used as negative controls. Samples were analyzed by PCR-based genotyping of merozoite surface proteins 1 & 2 (msp-1 and msp-2), and P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (Pfcrt). A total of 15 samples were analyzed. Based on msp-1 and msp-2 amplification, P. falciparum was detected on blank confetti when scissors were washed with ethanol. Based on Pfcrt amplification, DNA of P. falciparum was detected on blank confetti when scissors were cleaned with ethanol or water. No P. falciparum genes were detected on blank confetti when scissors were cleaned with DNase. Scissors cleaned with DNase prevented cross-contamination between samples during processing of dried blood spots, whereas ethanol (which is commonly used) fails to avert cross-contamination.

Dracunculiasis (also known as Guinea worm disease) is caused by Dracunculus medinensis parasite and it spreads by drinking water containing Larvae of Guinea worm. The lack of safe water facilities, preventions and treatments resulted in highly dangerous consequences in its endemic regions. The economy of the affected regions totally falls down due to less production which is the result of agricultural field worker’s bad health. In this study, a multi epitope vaccine was designed against Dracunculus medinensis by using immune-informatics. The vaccine was designed by using T-Cell and B-Cell epitopes derived from Dracunculus medinensis proteins (Lactamase-B domain-containing protein, G-Domain containing protein and Ferrochelatase) in addition to Adjuvants and Linkers. The tertiary structure, physiochemical properties and immunogenic elements of vaccine were achieved. The validation of tertiary structure was accessed, and quality was achieved. In addition, the world coverage of parasite’s CTL and HTL epitopes is 95.61%. The stability of the chimeric vaccine was achieved through disulfide engineering. The molecular docking with Toll Like Receptor 4 (TLR-4) of vaccine showed its binding efficiency followed by Molecular Dynamic Simulation. The immune simulation suggested the mediated cell immunity and repeated antigen clearance. At the end, the optimized codon was used in in silico cloning to ensure vaccine’s higher exposure in bacterium E. coli strain K12. With further assessments, it is believed that the proposed multi epitope vaccine has strong immunogen to control Dracunculus medinensis which may result in better social and economic conditions of endemic regions.

This research was devoted to study the effect of the tacticity of PMMA on the surface physicochemical properties such as the London dispersive component of the surface energy of the polymer, the polar and dispersive free energies, the Lewis’s acid-base surface parameters, and the Lewis acid and base surface energies of atactic, isotactic and syndiotactic PMMAs as a function of the temperature. Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) at infinite dilution was used to determine the surface thermodynamic properties of PMMA at different tacticities. The experimental values of the net retention time and volume of model organic molecules adsorbed on the atactic, isotactic and syndiotactic PMMAs, were obtained by IGC technique at infinite dilution. The London dispersion interaction energy was used for the separation of the polar and dispersive energy of the different n-alkanes and polar solvents adsorbed on the different PMMA surfaces. The London dispersive surface energy γ_s^d (T) of PMMAs was determined by applying the Hamieh thermal model that took into account the effect of the temperature on the surface area of adsorbed molecules. The obtained results showed non-linear variations of γ_s^d (T) of atactic, isotactic, and syndiotactic PMMAs with three maxima characterizing the three transition temperatures of PMMAs, T_g, T_g and T_(liq-liq) with a shift of these temperatures with the isotactic and syndiotactic PMMAs. It was showed that the polar interaction free energy ∆G_a^p (T) also showed the presence of the three above transition temperatures of the polymers. The study showed an important non-linearity variation of the different acid-base parameters in the various polymer surfaces proving the highest effect of the temperature and the tacticity on these parameters. The determination of the enthalpic and entropic Lewis’s acid-base parameters showed an amphoteric character for the different PMMAs. The basicity of the atactic PMMA was about four times larger than its acidity outside the neighborhood of the transition temperatures of the polymer. Whereas, the isotactic PMMA was about 2 to 2.5 times more basic than acid, while the syndiotactic PMMA exhibited the highest basicity by showing a surface 5 to 8 times more basic than acid. However, the Lewis acid-base parameters strongly depended on the temperature and sudden variations of these surface parameters were observed around the transition temperatures largely depending on the PMMA tacticity. The determination of the polar acid and base surface energies of the three PMMAs led to the same previous transition temperatures with an important effect of the tacticity of PMMA on the values of these acid-base surface energies.

The temperature effect plays an important role for an accurate determination of the polar free energy, polar thermodynamic parameters, and enthalpic and entropic Lewis’s acid base properties of oxides, polymers and composites polymers/oxides. The adsorption of polymers on other solid surfaces is crucial in many industrial applications, coatings, paints, catalysis, colloids and adhesion processes. (1) Background: Inverse gas chromatography at infinite was used for the physico-chemical characterization of solid substrates by determining the thermodynamic parameters of adsorption of model organic solvents on solid surfaces such as polymers, metallic oxides, carbon fibers, pharmaceutical or 3D/4D printing substrates. (2) Methods: A new method based on the London dispersion equation was applied with a new parameter associating the deformation po-larizability and the harmonic mean of the ionization energies of solvent. More accurate values of the dispersive and polar interaction energies of the various organic solvents adsorbed on PMMA in bulk phase and PMMA/silica at different recovery fractions were obtained as well as the Lewis acid-base parameters and the transition temperatures of the different composites. (3) Results: This new methodology gave very interesting results on the behavior of PMMA adsorbed on silica. An important effect of the temperature and the recovery fraction on the various physicochemical and thermodynamic properties was highlighted. The variations of all interaction parameters showed the presence of three transition temperatures for the different PMMA adsorbed on silica with the various coverage rates with a shift of these temperatures for a recovery fraction of 31% (4) Con-clusions: An important variation of the polar enthalpy and entropy of adsorption, the Lewis ac-id-base parameters and the intermolecular separation distance as a function of the temperature and the recovery fraction of PMMA on silica.

The poly lactic acid (PLA) is one of the most used bio-derived thermoplastic polymers in 3D and 4D printing applications. The determination of PLA surface properties is of capital importance in 3D/4D printing technology. (1) Background: The surface thermodynamic properties of PLA polymer were determined by using the inverse gas chromatography (IGC) technique at infinite dilution. The determination of the retention volume of polar and non-polar molecules adsorbed on the PLA particles filling the column allowed us to obtain the dispersive, polar, and Lewis’s acid-base surface properties at different temperatures from 40 °C to 100 °C. (2) Methods: the applied surface method was based on our recent model that used the London dispersion equation and the new chromatographic parameter function of the deformation polarizability and the harmonic mean of the ionization energies of the PLA polymer and organic molecules. (3) Results: The application of this new method led to the determination of the dispersive and polar free surface energy of adsorption of molecules on the polymeric material, as well as the glass transition and the Lewis acid-base constants. (4) Conclusions: four interval temperatures were distinguished showing four zones of the variations of the surface properties of PLA as a function of the temperature before and after the glass transition.

Hypertension is a frequent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and the prevalence rate is continuously rising. Multiple pathophysiological mechanisms are responsible for hypertension, necessitating a combination of drugs from different classes for best management. Combination therapy is five times more effective in decreasing blood pressure compared to escalating the dose of a single agent. As per the ACCOMPLISH trial analysis, coupling a renin-angiotensin system inhibitor with a calcium channel blocker is more effective than the combination of a renin-angiotensin system inhibitor with diuretics in reducing major cardiovascular events, cardiovascular-related mortality, and the progression of chronic kidney disease. The renin-angiotensin system can be suppressed by inhibiting the angiotensin-converting enzyme or angiotensin type 1 receptor (AT1R), resulting, in decreased vascular smooth muscle contraction, heart performance, and reduced aldosterone synthesis. Calcium channel blockers work by inhibiting L-type calcium channels, reducing heart performance via negative inotropic, chronotropic, and bathmotropic effects, along with reducing vascular smooth muscle contraction. Diuretics exert their antihypertensive impact by changing body fluid volume and electrolytes. Initially, hypertension treatment commences with a single medication but often, different classes of two or more antihypertensive medications are necessary for achieving the target blood pressure goal. Sometimes, for Resistant hypertension four different classes of antihypertensive medications are necessary to reach the target blood pressure goal.

Iron is an essential nutrient and necessary for biological functions from DNA replication and repair to transcriptional regulation, mitochondrial respiration, electron transfer, oxygen transport, photosynthesis, enzymatic catalysis, and nitrogen fixation. However, due to iron’s propensity to generate toxic radicals which can cause damage to DNA, proteins, and lipids, multiple processes regulate uptake and distribution of iron in living systems. Understanding how intracellular iron metabolism is optimized and how iron is utilized to regulate other intracellular processes is important to our overall understanding of a multitude of biological processes. One of the tools that the cell utilizes to regulate a multitude of functions is ligation of the iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster cofactor. Fe-S clusters comprised of iron and inorganic sulfur are ancient components of living matter on earth that are integral for physiological function in all domains of life. Here we will explore the ways in which the cell utilizes Fe-S clusters to sense the intracellular environment and respond to maintain equilibrium.

Objectives: This meta-analysis was designed to assess the effect of addition of a bead-beating step during DNA extraction to effectively isolate Trichuris trichura DNA for quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR)-based diagnosis. Abstract was reported according to PRISMA-DTA abstract checklist. Methods: Eligibility criteria: qPCR-based molecular studies comparing the inclusion of bead-beating step during the DNA extraction from stool samples with extraction without the step were included in the analysis. Information sources: Studies using real patient samples in community settings were included. PubMed and Google search engine were searched in December 2019. Risk of bias and applicability: Risk of bias and applicability were assessed using QUADAS-2 checklist. Synthesis of results: Odds ratio for individual studies were combined to estimate Random Effects Model odds ratio. Additional literature were searched to discuss biochemical nature of helminth eggs. Results:Included studies: A total of six independent sub-studies were gathered from two published original articles. Division of the two major studies into six sub-studies was indispensable due to natures of the study carried. 128 of total 192 samples (in all studies) were positive for Trichiuris trichiura when bead-beating was used during DNA extraction compared to 108/192 when bead-beating was excluded. Combined odds ratio was 1.66 (95% CI: 1.059 to 2.602). Biochemical nature of helminth eggs was discussed. Discussions: Strengths and limitations: Though only two article were included in the study, six exclusive individual sub-studies were analyzed. Inherent differences in the background prevalence of helminth in study population could impact sensitivity of qPCR. Interpretation: It was found that the inclusion of the bead-beating step during DNA extraction significantly increased the sensitivity of the test.

Ranaviruses have been associated with rising numbers of mass die-offs in amphibian populations globally. With life-stages occupying different environments and presenting distinct physiologies, amphibian of different ages are likely to play an important role in pathogen persistence. To assess the potential role of post-metamorphic amphibians as a Ranavirus reservoir, we performed a bath-exposure study on wood frogs using environmentally relevant doses (~10³ and ~10⁴ PFU/mL) of wild-type (WT) and knockout Frog virus 3 (FV3), deficient for the vIF-2α immune-evasion gene, the effects of which have never been addressed in post-metamorphic anurans. We observed 42% infection prevalence and low mortality (10%) across the virus challenges, with half of the mortalities attributable to ranavirosis. Prevalence and viral loads followed a dose-dependent pattern. Notably, when exposed to the vIF-2α knockout (DvIF-2α) FV3, individuals exhibited significantly decreased growth and increased lethargy in comparison to WT FV3 treatments. Although 85% of individuals in the virus treatments exhibited stereotypic signs of ranavirosis throughout the experiment, at termination (40 days post exposure) most individuals were clear of signs of infection. Overall, this study provides evidence that even a single short time exposure to environmentally relevant doses of Ranavirus may cause sublethal infections in post-metamorphic amphibians, thus indicating their possible role as a reservoir for this pathogen.

This work proposes a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber-based edible oil sensor in the terahertz (THz) range (e.g., 1.0THz ≤ f ≤ 3.0THz) and different sensing characteristics are numerically analyzed. The suggested sensor’s performance was assessed by means of COMSOL Multiphysics, a commercial program that uses the finite element approach. The computational results indicate that the relative sensitivity is 85.591%, 84.648%, 82.625%, 82.683%, and 79.161%, respectively, at f = 2.2 THz, for several types of sunflower oil, mustard oil, coconut oil, olive oil and palm oil; and the corresponding effective areas are 7.22×10-8 um2, 7.09×10-8 um2, 6.83×10-8 um2,7.09×10-8 um2, 6.5231 ×10-8 um2. In addition, the effective material loss for sunflower oil, muster oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and palm oil has been found to be 0.02561 cm-1, 0.027054 cm-1, 0.030322 cm-1, 0.028854 cm-1 ,0.035427cm-1 respectively. Moreover, the proposed sensor also has low confinement loss are 1.55×10-8 dB/m, 1.63×10-8 dB/m, 1.31×10-8 dB/m, 1.99×10-8 dB/m, 4.0345×10-8 dB/m.This proposed sensor can be fabricated using extrusion and 3D-printing technologies, and due to its augmented detecting capabilities, it can be a vital part of oil sensing devices implemented in real life such as industry fields.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most prevailing neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by memory dysfunction and the presence of hyperphosphorylated tau and amyloid β (Aβ) aggregate in multiple brain regions, including the hippocampus and cortex. The exact etiology of AD has not yet been confirmed. However, epidemiological reports suggest that populations who were exposed to environmental hazards are more likely to develop AD than those who were not. Arsenic (As) is a naturally occurring environmental risk factor abundant in the Earth’s crust and human exposure to As predominantly occurs through drinking water. Convincing evidence suggests that As causes neurotoxicity and impairs memory and cognition although the hypothesis and molecular mechanism of As-associated pathobiology in AD are not clear yet. However, exposure to As and its metabolites leads to various pathogenic events such as oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunctions, ER stress, apoptosis, impaired protein homeostasis, and abnormal calcium signaling. Evidence has indicated that As exposure induces alterations that coincide with most of the biochemical, pathological, and clinical developments of AD. Here, we overview existing literature to gain insights into the plausible mechanisms that underlie As-induced neurotoxicity and the subsequent neurological deficits in AD. Prospective strategies for the prevention and management of arsenic exposure and neurotoxicity have also been discussed.

Embryological development of pancreas is a complex phenomenon and therefore, it can have multiple developmental aberrations. Fortunately, majority of these pancreatic ductal anomalies are asymptomatic with no clinical relevance and are incidentally detected during diagnostic cross sectional imaging or endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) or autopsy. Occasionally, pancreatic duct anomalies can result in symptoms like abdominal pain or recurrent pancreatitis. Also, accurate pre-operative diagnosis of ductal anomalies can prevent inadvertent duct injury during surgery. Conventionally, ERCP had been used for accurate diagnosis of pancreatic duct anomalies. However, because of being invasive and associated with risk of pancreatitis, it has been replaced with magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP). MRCP has demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosis of ductal anomalies which can be further improved with use of secretin enhanced MRCP. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is a new diagnostic and interventional tool in the armamentarium of endoscopists and has demonstrated promising results in detection of pancreatic duct variations and anomalies. In this article, we will focus on the role of EUS in diagnosis of various pancreatic duct anomalies.

Interior designers play a pivotal role in shaping the built environment and catalyzing positive change through the adoption of sustainable design practices. This study centers on the analysis of prevailing attitudes held by interior designers in Jordan towards sustainable interior design practices. Through a comprehensive methodology involving a literature review and a three-part questionnaire, the research explores the benefits, challenges, and integration of sustainability principles. The study highlights substantial awareness (85%) of sustainable interior design's environmental impact and resource preservation. Additionally, 81% acknowledge its enduring significance, and 89% recognize its diverse benefits. While 61% exhibit familiarity, 27% claim professional experience. Among sustainability indicators, energy efficiency scores 4.25, resource efficiency 4.27, and "Design aligns with laws and regulations by the Ministry of Labor" ranks highest at 4.37. This study significantly augments our understanding of sustainable interior design by introducing a comprehensive evaluation framework that encompasses the three sustainability dimensions. It equips decision-makers with a robust tool to identify specific practices that bolster sustainability performance, further advancing the field.

Proteins possess complex three-dimensional structures, and these structures are stable only within specific ranges of temperature which mostly correspond to the temperature ranges of the host organisms. However, few exceptional proteins, called heat-stable proteins, are stable at temperatures that are substantially higher than those tolerated by the host organisms themselves. Most of the heat-stable proteins possess heat stability to perform their functions at high temperatures, but some of them are intrinsically heat-stable due to their structure. Heat-stable proteins are usually divided into three or four groups depending upon the intricacies of their structures and thermal behaviors. Their peculiar property, i.e. heat-stability, makes them very valuable in applications such as polymerase chain reaction, industrial processes requiring high temperature, and protein engineering. Heat-stability also makes it feasible to purify such proteins, from the rest of the heat-labile proteins, using a simple heat-treatment method. Moreover, heat treatment can be used as a combined cell-lysis and protein purification step which, as compared to conventional methods, can result in a higher yield of heat-stable proteins. Furthermore, some special heat-stable proteins, i.e. intrinsically disordered proteins (which include the proteins involved in important neurodegenerative diseases), need heat-treatment step, in some cases, as the only way for their successful purification and study. Hence, this paper provides a first-ever comprehensive review of all major aspects of heat-stable proteins, i.e., their structure, evolution, classification, significance, and heat-treatment mediated purification.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) as a semiconductor in its crystalline or amorphous form is still a promised material, especially under isobaric and isothermal ensembles. In this work, Parallel and Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics and DL_POLY_4 software are employed to predict the relationship between the behavior of ZnO chemical bonds and the phase transition literatures, using correlation function g(r) of Zn-Zn, Zn-O, and O-O pairs. Our system is composed of 5832 atoms of ZnO rocksalt structure (2916 atoms of Zn2+ and 2916 atoms of O2-), under the temperature of 300 (K) and the range of pressure 0-400 (GPa). The lengths of ZnO bonds, the standard error, standard deviation, the maximum of g(r), and the percentage of the variation of the bonds are analyzed. The interatomic interactions are modeled by the potential of Buckingham for short-range and Coulomb for long-range interactions. The calculations were run on the RAVEN Supercomputer of Cardiff University (UK). Our data are mostly in the vicinity of available information of bonds lengths; the rest can be deduced from the pressure of phase transition to use it as a new approach of phase transition confirmation. However, the rest of our results are still a prediction because of no results under extended pressure used in this work.

The permeation of dioxin-like pollutants, namely, chlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans, through lipid membranes has been simulated using classic molecular dynamics (CMD) combined with the umbrella sampling approach. The most toxic forms of chlorinated dibenzodioxin and dibenzofuran, 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-p-dibenzodioxin (TCDD) and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran (TCDF), and a dioleyl-phosphatidylcholine (DOPC) lipid membrane of 50 Å wide have been chosen for our study. The free energy profile shows the penetration process is largely favoured thermodynamically (DG≈-12 kcal/mol), with a progressively decrease of the free energy until reaching the energy minima at distances of 8Å and 9.5Å from the centre of the membrane for, respectively, TCDD and TCDF. At the centre of the membrane, both molecules display subtle local maxima with free energy differences of 0.5 and 1 kcal/mol with respect to the energy minima for TCDD and TCDF, respectively. Furthermore, the intermolecular interactions between the molecules and the lipid membrane have been characterized at the minima and the local maxima using hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics energy decomposition analysis (QM/MM-EDA). Total interaction energies of -17.5 and -16.5 kcal/mol have been found at the energy minima for TCDD and TCDF, respectively. In both cases, the dispersion forces govern the molecule-membrane interactions, no significant changes have been found at the local maxima, in agreement with the classical free energy profile. The small differences found in the results obtained for TCDD and TCDF point out the adsorption and diffusion processes through the cell membrane are not related to the different toxicity shown by these pollutants.

(1) Background; limited research exists which considers master plots expressed by individuals with Stroke. The literature so far has focused on identified pre-established illness narrative types; (2). Methods: A narrative method was selected and a purposive sample of individuals with Stroke are identified. A categorical-form analysis was undertaken; (3) Results: A narrative master plot named overcoming the monster is identified and explored for its components and located temporally for each participant; (4) Conclusions: Health care professionals need to understand the importance of understanding the master plot overcoming the monster. This research supports the need for health care professionals to recognise and support narratives by listening in a non-directive way.

Successful implementation of antibiotic stewardship programs (ASP) requires a well-structured approach involving all stakeholders. Despite embracing key responsibilities, nurses’ role remains poorly defined, preventing consistent engagement. We conducted a scoping survey to assess knowledge, attitude and perception of nurses towards nurse-led initial sepsis risk evaluation using the sepsis risk calculator (SRC) of newborns admitted to the mother-baby unit. Single-center, cross-sectional study. Study link was sent to all full-time nurses in mother-baby unit. Survey centered around knowledge of unit’s ASP and attitude and perception towards nurse-led initial sepsis risk evaluation. 89% response rate. 100% agreed that SRC reduced antibiotic use and 66% felt nurse-led sepsis risk evaluation will enhance nurse involvement, but this was offset by extra burden of work (66%) and low confidence in differentiating stable from clinically unstable infants (46%). Other facilitating factors included greater nurse/patient ratio (100%), targeted education (89%) and incorporation of the SRC into EMR (78%). Only 11% were willing to serve as champions for it. There was no significant correlation to age or experience however, greater number of fresh grads were interested in championing this effort. Our study identifies a need for strong foundation of knowledge and greater nurse/patient ratio as two main factors for improving nurse-led use of the SRC. Multi-site studies scoping barriers to nursing involvement for successful implementation of ASPs are necessary.

CO2 geological sequestration in coal seams can achieve the dual objectives of CO2 emission reduction and enhanced coalbed methane production, making it a highly promising carbon capture and storage technology. However, the injection of CO2 into coal reservoirs in the form of supercritical fluid (ScCO2) leads to complex physicochemical reactions with the coal seam, altering the properties of the coal reservoir and impacting the effectiveness of CO2 sequestration and methane production enhancement.In this paper, theoretical calculations based on ReaxFF-MD were conducted to study the interaction mechanism between ScCO2 and the macromolecular structure of both low-rank and high-rank coal, to address the limitations of experimental methods. The reaction of ScCO2 with low-rank coal and high-rank coal exhibits significant differences. At swelling stage, the low-rank coal experiences a decrease in aromatic structure and aliphatic structure, high-rank coal shows an increase in aromatic structure and a decrease in aliphatic structure, while swelling phenomenon is more pronounced in high-rank coal. At dissolution stage, low-rank coal is initially decomposed into two secondary molecular fragments, and then recombine to form new molecular structure, the aromatic structure increased and the aliphatic structure decreased. In contrast, high-rank coal occurs stretches-breakage-movement-reconnection, a reduction in aromatic structure and an increase in aliphatic structure.The primary reasons for these variations lie in distinct molecular structure compositions and the properties of ScCO2, leading to different reaction pathways of functional group and aromatic structure. The reaction pathways of functional groups and aromatic structures in coal can be summarized as follows: the breakage of the O-H bond in hydroxyl groups, the breakage of the C-OH bond in carboxyl groups, transformation of aliphatic structures into smaller hydrocarbon compounds or formation of long-chain alkenes, and various pathways involving broken, rearrangement, recombination of aromatic structures. In low-rank coal, there is a higher abundance of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures. The breakage of O-H and C-OH chemical bonds results in the formation of free radical ions, while some aliphatic structures detach to produce hydrocarbons. Additionally, some of these aliphatic structures combine with carbonyl groups and free radical ions to generate new aromatic structures. Conversely, in high-rank coal, the lower content of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures, along with stronger intramolecular forces, results in fewer chemical bond breakages and makes it less conducive to the formation of new aromatic structures.These results elucidate the specific deformations of different chemical groups, offering a molecular-level understanding of the interaction between CO2 and coal.

While the majority of previous studies assessing pain-related variables in psychopaths used electric shocks, little is known about the effectiveness of alternative pain-inducing methods to increase emotional responses such as fear and anxiety. A small sample of healthy undergraduate men (N = 15) was recruited to assess the effectiveness of a heat stimulus to induce pain in an immediate versus delayed punishment paradigm. Although pain catastrophizing, anxiety, and threat of pain did not increase throughout the experiment, participants experienced a significant increase of fear of pain and pain intensity, indicating that the heat stimulus was effective in inducing pain. Furthermore, subjects were slower in initiating the pain stimulus during the first five trials, but no time difference was found during the 15 remaining trials. No correlation was found between psychopathic traits and pain-related variables, with the exception of inconsistent results within the Fearless Dominance factor. Findings are discussed in terms of improvement for a larger scale study involving psychopathic individuals.

Multivariate statistical approaches (MSA), such as principal components analysis and multidimensional scaling, seek to uncover meaningful patterns within datasets by considering multiple response variables in a concerted fashion. Although these techniques are readily used by ecologists to visualize and explain differences between study sites, they could theoretically be employed to differentiate organisms within an experimental framework while simultaneously identifying response variables that drive documented experimental differences. Therefore, MSA were used herein to attempt to understand the response of the common, Indo-Pacific reef coral Seriatopora hystrix to temperature changes using data from laboratory-based temperature challenge studies performed in Southern Taiwan. Gene expression and physiological data partitioned experimental specimens by time of sampling, treatment temperature, and site of origin upon employing MSA, signifying that S. hystrix and its dinoflagellate endosymbionts display physiological and molecular signatures that are characteristic of sampling time, site of colony origin, and/or temperature regime. These findings promote the utility of MSA for documenting biologically meaningful shifts in the physiological and/or sub-cellular response of marine invertebrates exposed to environmental change.

Refinery planning optimization is a challenging problem as regards handling the nonconvex bilinearity mainly due to pooling operations in processes such as crude oil distillation and product blending. This work investigates the performance of several representative piecewise-linear (or piecewise-affine) relaxation schemes (referred to as McCormick, bm, nf5, nf6t, and de (which is a new approach proposed based on eigenvector decomposition) that mainly give rise to mixed-integer optimization programs to convexify a bilinear term using predetermined univariate partitioning for instances of uniform and non-uniform partition sizes. Computational results show that applying these schemes give improved relaxation tightness than only applying convex and concave envelopes as estimators. Uniform partition sizes typically perform better in terms of relaxation solution quality and convergence behavior. It is also seen that there is a limit on the number of partitions that contributes to relaxation tightness, which does not necessarily correspond to a larger number of partitions, while a direct relation between relaxation size and tightness does not always hold for non-uniform partition sizes.

It has been shown that Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is associated with several forms of cancer. Additionally, although there are more than 100 types of HPV, more than ten types of it, including types 16 and 18, are considered high-risk. The two proteins that make up the viral capsid of HPV 16 are L1, the major capsid protein, and L2, the minor capsid protein. FDA (The Food and Drug Administration) approved HPV vaccines mostly target L1 and L2 capsid proteins, which facilitate intracellular entry during infection. In this study, it was set out to analyze the creation of phylogenetic relations of L1 nucleic acid sequences of viral isolates. This study also analyzed sequences of three key elements within the amino acid sequences of HPV 16 L1: loops critical for structural stability, nuclear localization signal sequences, and residues implicated in viral attachment. As highlighted by the literature, these elements represent pivotal aspects of viral function. Furthermore, the report highlighted the particular inter-sequence variability within the HPV 16 L1 protein sequences. Overall analysis revealed clustering of sequences primarily due to geographical and characterized by more phylogenetic relatedness within location-specific clusters.

(1) Background: Various cutaneous adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are observed with the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. To gain insight into the clinicopathologic features, we analyzed the correlation of histological and clinical data in 48 patients with these ADRs.; (2) Methods: Single-center retrospective study in patients with ADRs post-mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 vaccines).; (3) Results: Distant generalized ADRs prevailed (91%), often appearing clinically as spongiotic dermatitis or maculo-papular exanthema. Histopathological analysis revealed spongiotic changes (46%) and dermal superficial perivascular lympho-histiocytic infiltrates (17%). Eosinophils were found in 66% of biopsies, neutrophils in 29%, and plasma cells only in 8% of biopsies. Most ADRs occurred post-second vaccine dose (44%). Histologically spongiotic changes were associated with clinical features of spongiotic dermatitis in only 50% and maculo-papular exanthema in the remaining patients. ADRs represented an aggravation of preexisting skin disease in 23% of patients. ADRs regressed within 28 days or less in 53% of patients and persisted beyond a month in the remaining patients.; (4) Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a diverse spectrum of generalized ADRs, revealing correlations between histology and clinical features but also instances of divergence. The majority of ADRs are self-limited with a few extending beyond a month.

The details of antigen-antibody interactions and the identification of epitopes are critical for the development of monoclonal antibody drugs. Ab42 is a native human-derived anti-CFH monoclonal antibody. In this study, the interaction between antigen pCFH and antibody (Ab42) was theoretically demonstrated by molecular docking and MD simulation, combined with free energy calculation and computational alanine scanning (CAS), and key amino acids and epitopes were identified. Experimental alanine scanning (EAS) was then carried out to verify the results of the calculation, and our results indicated that Ab42 antibody forms hydrogen bonds and interacts hydrophobically with pCFH through the Tyr315, Ser100, Gly33, and Tyr53 residues on its CDR, while the main pCFH epitopes are located at the six sites of Pro441, Ile442, Asp443, Asn444, Ile447, and Thr448. In conclusion, this study has explored the mechanism of antigen-antibody interaction from both theoretical and experimental aspects, and our results have important theoretical significance for the design and development of relevant antibody drugs.

This study aimed to examine the trends in the prevalence of overweight and obesity and to determine the associated socioeconomic and household environmental factors among women in Nepal. Using nationally representative data from the 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 cross-sectional Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHSs) (n = 33,507), the prevalence of overweight–obesity (body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) among women aged 15–49 years were examined. From the latest NDHS 2016, non-pregnant women with recorded anthropometric measurements (n = 6165) were included in the final analyses. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to determine the socioeconomic and household environmental factors associated with BMI ≥ 25 and BMI ≥ 30. Between 1996 and 2016, the prevalence of overweight–obesity increased from 1.8% to 19.7%, while the prevalence of obesity increased from 0.2% to 4.1%. Age, marital status, wealth index, province of residence, cooking fuel, refrigerator, and bicycle were significantly associated with having both overweight–obesity and obesity. Similarly, educational status, religion, type of toilet facility, television, and mobile phone were significantly associated with having overweight–obesity. Given the alarming increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among Nepalese women, there is an urgent need of interventions addressing these critical socioeconomic and household environmental factors.

Biologists seek to identify a small number of significant features that are important, non-redundant, and relevant from diverse omics data. For example, statistical methods like LIMMA and DEseq distinguish differentially expressed genes between a case and control group from the transcript profile. Researchers also apply various column subset selection algorithms on genomics datasets for a similar purpose. Unfortunately, genes selected by such statistical or machine learning methods are often highly co-regulated, making their performance inconsistent. Here, we introduce a novel feature selection algorithm that selects highly disease-related and non-redundant features from a diverse set of omics datasets. We successfully applied this algorithm to three different biological problems: a) disease to normal sample classification, b) multiclass classification of different disease samples, and c) disease subtypes detection. Considering classification ROC-AUC, False-positive, and False-negative rates, our algorithm outperformed other gene selection and differential expression (DE) methods for all six types of cancer datasets from TCGA considered here for binary and multiclass classification problems. Moreover, genes picked by our algorithm improved the disease subtyping accuracy for four different cancer types over the state-of-the-art methods. Hence, we posit that our proposed feature reduction method can support the community to solve various problems, including the selection of disease-specific biomarkers, precision medicine design, and disease sub-type detection.

Since the first coronavirus patient was identified in Bangladesh on March 8, the most controversial issue is about the exact level of the infection in Bangladesh. Conformity with the population density the number of COVID-19 tests is inadequate. As the number of tests increases, so does the number of infections, making it difficult to predict the spread of COVID-19 in Bangladesh. In this case, the unplanned initiatives are particularly responsible in other for unplanned measures, lack of public awareness, and lack of proper knowledge. In this case, the Ministry of Health has made three major mistakes, three important features of the medical system in Bangladesh have been mentioned. It is more effective to prevent COVID-19 by isolating the infected person by further testing COVID-19 until effective treatment is available and to provide adequate and effective masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). In this case, the COVID-19 testing kit invention has received a good response in many countries of the world. This study focuses on the comprehensive data verification, selection, and evaluation of COVID-19 in Bangladesh and its implications for the future, what to do to address and prevent the COVID-19 challenge, and effective treatment against the coronavirus (COVID-19). It is hopeful that the discussion of the material mentioned in this research paper will help to strike a balance between the government, citizens, and experts which will be feasible in improving the current situation in COVID-19 Bangladesh and reducing its severity.

A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of subclinical mastitis (SCM) among medium to large scale household dairy farms in southwestern district, Jhenaidah, Bangladesh during July to December 2019. A total of 78 (n=100) lactating cows from household dairy farms (N=32) having three or more dairy cows were selected randomly as sampled populations. Milk samples were screened for SCM by using Surf Field Mastitis Test (SFMT). The prevalence of SCM varied among farm level [71.9% (95% CI: 53.3-86.3)], individual animal level [67.9% (95% CI: 56.4-86.3)] and quarter level [29.5% (95% CI: 24.5-34.9)]. Descriptive statistics represented the farmers and farm demography, characteristics of the sampled population, and overall management feature. Random Effect Logistic Regression identified, Body Condition Score (BCS) [OR=3.8 and 2.9, at cows level and quarter level respectively (BCS-2 vs. BCS-≥3)], and breed [OR=5.1 and 2.9, at cows level and quarter level respectively (HF× Sahiwal vs. HF × Local)] as potential risk factors. This study shows that SCM is highly prevalent in the study area, which is a major threat to the dairy industry's production performance. Regular screening by SFMT, proper hygiene, improve the management system, and farmer’s awareness is required to control the disease.

The detection of Fasciola eggs in ruminant fecal samples typically occurs around 15 weeks post-infection during patent infections. The recent introduction of coproantigen ELISA (cELISA) diagnostics, which capture antigenic enzymes in fecal material, holds promise for monitoring Fasciola fecal egg count (FFEC) to implement control programs, particularly targeted treatments. This study compared two study groups, those with positive FFEC (FFEC+ve) and negative FFEC (FFEC-ve), to assess the sensitivity of Flukefinder sedimentation and a cELISA kit. This study reports that the coproantigen ELISA detection limit was 4.5 eggs per gram (epg) for a 100% positivity rate. Additionally, a moderate, statistically significant positive correlation (r²=0.716, p-value < 0.01) and an odds ratio of 1.96 (p-value < 0.01) were observed between FFEC and Fasciola coproantigen from cELISA. This implies that for every single unit increase in FFEC, there is a 96% likelihood of obtaining a higher optical density (OD) reading from the cELISA test. The results suggest that cELISA can complement fecal sedimentation tests, serving as a valuable tool for detecting cattle with high FFEC. This capability facilitates targeted treatment strategies, thereby aiding in the control and prevention of the spread of fasciolosis within the studied area.

The present study was carried out at the north-eastern part of Bangladesh to investigate organochlorine pesticide (OCP) residues and microbiological quality of dried barb (Puntius sophore). Samples were collected from both producers and retailers from December 2016 to April 2017. A control sample was also prepared with the same raw fish used by the producers in the laboratory to compare the result. Gas Chromatography with Electron Capture Detector (GC-ECD) was used to detect and quantify OCP residues. Around 22 % (6) samples out of 27 were found contaminated with OCP residues. Among these six adulterated samples, four were from retailers and two from producers. Only Aldrin was detected in four samples and rest two samples were detected with both Aldrin + Dieldrin and Aldrin + Endrin. Aldrin was found between 0.332 to 0.967 ppm, Dieldrin 0.762 ppm, and Endrin 0.828 ppm. All these values were much higher than the Maximum Residual Limit (MRL) 0.1 ppm. Aerobic Plate Count (APC) of producer samples were ranged between log5.3 ± 0.02 to log5.4 ± 0.03, log6.2 ± 0.02 to log6.4 ± 0.02 for retailer samples and log5.0 ± 0.03 to log5.2 ± 0.04 for control samples. While fungal count was ranged between log3.2 ± 0.04 to log3.5 ± 0.04, log3.4 ± 0.04 to log3.6 ± 0.03 and log2.2 ± 0.05 to log2.5 ± 0.03 for producer, retailer and control samples respectively. All the producer and retailer samples and one-third of the control samples were found contaminated with Escherichia coli. Whereas, Salmonella sp. was detected as 13.3% in producer samples, 20% in retailer samples except for the control. In case of Vibrio sp., maximum count was found for retailer samples (13.3%), whereas, producer and control samples showed no detection. The finding of the present study revealed the presence of pesticides and poor microbiological quality of dried barb are alarming for the consumers of Bangladesh and which may cause chronic disease and potential long-term risk for human health.

Alkaloids are the most diversified nitrogen-containing secondary metabolites having antioxi-dant, and antimicrobial properties and are extensively used in pharmaceuticals to treat different types of cancer. Nicotiana serves as a reservoir of anticancer alkaloids and is also used as a model plant for the de novo synthesis of various anti-cancer molecules through genetic engineering. Up to 4% of the total dry weight of Nicotiana was found to be composed of alkaloids where nicotine, nornicotine, anatabine, and anabasine are reported as the dominant alkaloids. And, among the alkaloids present in Nicotiana, β-carboline (Harmane and Norharmane), Kynurenines are found to show anti-tumor effects, especially in the case of colon and breast cancer. Creating new or shunting of existing biosynthesis pathways in different species of Nicotiana resulted in de novo or increased synthesis of different anti-tumor molecules or their derivatives or precursors includ-ing Taxadiane (~22.5 µg/g), Artemisinin (~120 μg/g), Parthenolide (~2.05 ng/g), Costunolide (~60 ng/g), Etoposide (~1 mg/g), Crocin (~400 µg/g), Catharanthine (~60 ng/g), Tabersonine (~10 ng/g), Strictosidine (~0.23 mg/g), etc. Enrich precursor pool especially Dimethylallyl Diphos-phate (DMAPP) and down-regulating of other bi-product pathways, compartmentalization or metabolic shunting, or organelle-specific reconstitution of the precursor pool might trigger the enhanced accumulation of the targeted anticancer alkaloid in Nicotiana.

Background: Low-income families often depend on fuels such as wood, coal, and animal dung for cooking. Such solid fuels are highly polluting and are a primary source of indoor air pollutants (IAP). We examined the association between solid fuel use (SFU) and acute respiratory infection (ARI) among under-five children in Afghanistan and the extent to which this association varies by socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study based on de-identified data from Afghanistan’s first standard Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2015. The sample consists of ever-married mothers with under-five children in the household (n=27,565). We used mixed-effect Poisson regression models with robust error variance accounting for clustering to examine the associations between SFU and ARI among under-five children after adjusting for potential confounders. We also investigated potential effect modification by SES and sex. Additional analyses were conducted using an augmented measure of the exposure to IAP accounting for both SFU and the location of cooking/kitchen (High Exposure, Moderate, and No Exposure). Results: Around 70% of households reported SFU, whereas the prevalence of ARI was 17.6%. The prevalence of ARI was higher in children living in households with SFU compared to children living in households with no SFU (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR]= 1.10; 95%CI: 0.98, 1.23). We did not observe any effect modification by SES or child sex. When using the augmented measure of exposure incorporating the kitchen’s location, children highly exposed to IAP had a higher prevalence of ARI compared to unexposed children (aPR 1.17; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.32). SES modified this association with the strongest associations observed among children from the middle wealth quintile. Conclusion: The findings have significant policy implications and suggest that ARI risk in children may be reduced by ensuring clean cookstove as well as clean fuels and acting on the socio-environmental pathways.

In this work, three different types of sandwich structures were manufactured using Formica sheet (a paper-based sheet) as skin and perlite/sodium silicate foam as core with/without the paper honeycomb. The sandwich structures were fabricated by attaching Formica sheets on both sides of the honeycomb, perlite/sodium silicate foam, and perlite/sodium silicate foam-filled honeycomb core panels. The flexural characteristics were studied by a three-point bending test and the thermal conductivity was measured using Lee’s thermal conductivity apparatus. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in flexural properties, including core shear stress, facing stress, bending stress, and energy absorption, when incorporating the paper honeycomb reinforcement. The thermal conductivity and flexural properties were found to be well-compatible with the existing building materials for similar applications in the literature. The failure investigation revealed that the sandwiches with paper honeycomb only prematurely failed due to core buckling, whereas the foam-filled honeycomb core-based sandwiches were able to sustain higher loads, exhibiting material failures such as core shear failure, skin rapture, and delamination. It is found that the foam-filled paper honeycomb sandwich structures can withstand higher bending loads compared to foam core-based and paper honeycomb-based sandwich structures. These developed sandwiches offer potential as green materials due to the characteristics of their constituent materials and can find valuable applications in the building thermal insulation.

The pandemic threat SARS-CoV-2 is now beyond control though the country of origin of this virus had already been limited for the new infection. Number of infected people and countries have been increasing day by day. Considering the previous pandemic flues, it is hypothesizing that COVID-19 will be reduced with warming the global environmental temperature. Therefore, the current study was aimed to analyze the effect of temperature and relative humidity (RH) on spreading of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The COVID-19 confirmed cases of 31 different states in China and 70 cities of 11 countries were obtained from several online databases. The real time temperature and humidity of the respective regions were taken from an online weather forecasting data source. Correlation analyses showed that SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and spreading negatively correlated with temperature of most of the states of China or cities of the world or in a country. The effect of humidity on COVID-19 was found to be positively correlated inside the China and difference of humidity was not found among countries and/or various regions of the world. Moreover, a minimum number of COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the temperate regions compared to regions/countries compared to regions/countries with relatively low temperature. In conclusion, the SARS-CoV-2 infection has been found in a wide range of temperatures. It might be hypothesized that comparatively elevated air temperature could play a detrimental effect for SARS-CoV-2 spread.

The Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic situation has posed significant effect on tourism industry. Tourism destinations have embraced emergency health care measures and restrictions imposed on human movement around the world. Beaches and resorts are empty, peoples’ movements are stopped and travelling between territories is strictly controlled. The COVID-19 lockdown around the world has imposed negative impact on the livelihood of people and world economy as well. The present study attempts to find out the scopes for sustainable tourism development in near future from the consequences of social, economic, and environment in COVID-19 pandemic situation.

Beyond their significant contribution to the dietary and industrial supplies, marine algae are considered to be a potential source of some unique metabolites with diverse health benefits. The pharmacological properties, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cholesterol homeostasis, protein clearance and anti-amyloidogenic potentials of algal metabolites endorse their protective efficacy against oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and impaired proteostasis which are known to be implicated in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders and the associated complications after cerebral ischemia and brain injuries. As was evident in various preclinical studies, algal compounds conferred neuroprotection against a wide range of neurotoxic stressors, such as oxygen/glucose deprivation, hydrogen peroxide, glutamate, amyloid β, or 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+) and, therefore, hold therapeutic promise for brain disorders. While a significant number of algal compounds with promising neuroprotective capacity have been identified over the last decades, a few of them have had access to clinical trials. However, the recent approval of an algal oligosaccharide, sodium oligomannate, for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease enlightened the future of marine algae-based drug discovery. In this review, we briefly outline the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries for identifying the targets of pharmacological intervention, and then review the literature on the neuroprotective potentials of algal compounds along with the underlying pharmacological mechanism, and present an appraisal on the recent therapeutic advances. We also propose a rational strategy to facilitate algal metabolites-based drug development.

Medicinal plants possess a surplus of novel and biologically active secondary metabolites that are responsible for counteracting diseases. Traditionally, Gomphandra tetrandra (Wall.) Sleumer is used to treat mental disorders. The present research was designed to explore phytochemicals from the ethanol leaf extract of Gomphandra tetrandra (Wall.) Sleumer to identify the potential pharmacophore(s) in the treatment of neurological disorders. The chemical compounds of the experimental plant were identified through GC-MS analysis. Besides, in-vitro antioxidant activity was assessed using different methods. Furthermore, in-vivo neurological activity was assessed in Swiss-albino mice. Computer aided analysis was appraised to determine the best-fit phytoconstituent of a total of fifteen identified compounds in the experimental plant extract against beta-amyloid precursor protein. The experimental extract revealed fifteen compounds in GC-MS analysis and the highest content was 9, 12, 15-octadecatrienoic acid (Z, Z, Z). Also, the extract showed potent anti-oxidant activity in in-vitro assays. Furthermore, in in-vivo neurological assays, the extract disclosed significant (p<0.05) neurological activity. The most favorable phytochemicals as neurological agents were selected via ADMET profiling and molecular docking was studied with beta-amyloid precursor protein. Moreover, in the computer aided study, 1, 5-Diphenyl-2H-1, 2, 4-triazoline-3-thione (Pub Chem CID: 2802516) was more active than other identified compounds with strong binding affinity to beta-amyloid precursor protein. The present in vivo and in silico studies revealed neuropharmacological features of G. tetrandra leaves extract as a natural agent against neurological disorders, especially Alzheimer’s disease.

Background: We previously reported that human keratinocytes express protease-activated receptor (PAR)-2 and play an important role in activated protein C (APC)-induced cutaneous wound healing. This study investigated the involvement of PAR-2 in the production of gelatinolytic matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-2 and -9 by APC during cutaneous wound healing. Methods: Full-thickness excisional wounds were made on the dorsum of male C57BL/6 mice. Wounds were treated with APC on days 1, 2, and 3 post-wounding. Cultured neonatal foreskin keratinocytes were treated with APC with or without intact PAR-2 signalling to examine the effects on MMP-2 and MMP-9 production. Murine dermal fibroblasts from PAR2 knock-out (KO) mice were also assessed. MMP-2 and -9 were measured by gelatin zymography, fluorometric assay, and immunohistochemistry. Results: APC accelerated wound healing in WT mice, but had negligible effect in PAR-2 KO mice. APC stimulated murine cutaneous wound healing was associated with differential 0temporal production of MMP-2 and MMP-9, with the latter peaking on Day 1 and the former on Day 6. In-hibition of PAR-2 in human keratinocytes reduced APC-induced MMP-2 activity 25~50, but had little effect on MMP-9. Similarly, APC-induced MMP-2 activation was reduced by 40% in cultured dermal fibroblasts derived from PAR-2 KO mice. Conclusion: This study shows for the first time that PAR-2 is essential for APC-induced MMP-2 production. Considering the important role of MMP-2 in wound healing, this work helps explain the underlying mechanisms of action of APC to promote wound healing through PAR2.

Plants are an important feature of urban ecosystems which provide numerous environmental and ecosystem benefits such as defenses against noise and air pollution and conservation of biodiversity. The aim of this study was to investigate the structure and composition of urban vegetation in different urban habitats like roadsides, parks, gardens and playgrounds in Dhaka South City area. Stratified random sampling method was used in this study. A total of 221 plant species belonging to 63 families were identified and recorded. Among all plant species Swietenia macrophylla, Polyalthia longifolia, Cocos nucifera, Samanea saman, and Artocarpus heterophyllus are recorded as the most dominant. Most of the tree and shrub population were found between 6-9 m and 1-3m height classes whereas most of tree and shrub population were found in between 10-15cm dbh classes. Highest IVI was found for Swietenia macrophylla (193.22%) followed by Polyalthia longifolia (184.59%), Samanea saman (138.37%), Cocos nucifera (79.9%) and Delonix regia (68.27%) respectively. Average frequency, density, dbh and basal area were found 46.82%, 138.28 tree ha^-1, 458.59 cm ha^-1 and 12.33 m² ha^-1 respectively. Findings of this study reveals that structural attributes of plant represent quite young and still developing vegetation. This research will help to plan for future green infrastructure which will maintain ecosystem function, therefore, providing longer term benefits for the city dwellers.

Recycled wastewater is considered as a sustainable source of irrigation water. Despite commendable safety records, viral contamination of agricultural products has occurred the past causing disease outbreaks. This review examines the apprehension that the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) may also spread through recycled wastewater irrigation (RWI) industry. The novel SARS-CoV-2 is now perceived as an enteric pathogen, and has been found to remain stable in the wastewater for days. Mounting evidences also suggest that viral particles shed by infected individuals through sewage, and greywater is much higher (up to 10 Log₁₀) than the amount typically removed (6-7 Log₁₀) through the recycled water disinfection processes. Such gap indicated an increased risk of infection through fecal-oral transmission route. This study also identified greywater irrigation schemes posing a higher risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. It was recommended that countries putting greywater in the ‘low risk’ category may rewrite the safety guidelines in post COVID-19 times. This review also suggest that the choice of irrigation method could be critical in protecting the farmers, and the consumers from possible infections during the pandemic. In this regard, irrigation methods (i.e. sprinkler) that generate airborne droplet (leading to aerosols) may be operated with caution when public spaces are in the vicinity. The study also indicated that the developing countries should regulate surface irrigation practice that pump water from polluted rivers during the pandemic.

Like the most of crops, especially sugarcane needs to be kept upright until it is harvested. Because, lodging of sugarcane has a significant negative effect on cane yield and sugar content of sugarcane. To keep sugarcane upright earthing up is an utmost intercultural operation. In Bangladesh, most of the operations for sugarcane cultivation including earthing up are generally done in traditional method using human labor which increases production costs as well as reduces the income of sugarcane growers. So, a cost effective two-wheeled tractor (2WT) mounted earthing up machine was developed in Bangladesh Sugarcrop Research Institute (BSRI), Pabna to reduce drudgery and cost of sugarcane production. Field tests were conducted in experimental sugarcane field at BSRI and technical and economic performances of the developed earthing up machine were also carried out based on the field test. Average effective field capacity and field efficiency were found 0.16 ha/hr and 77.41 %, respectively for the developed earthing up machine. The earthing up machine was not found economically viable when it is used only for earthing up operation. Besides, when the 2WT was being used as the main driver for other activities including earthing up operation, then the earthing up machine becomes economically beneficial with net cash flow, net present value, internal rate of return, benefit-cost ratio and payback period of BDT 148497/ha, BDT 23184, 3%, 3.81:1 and approximately 1 year, respectively. On the contrary, considering cost of only earthing up tool without 2WT, then it was found economically beneficial with net cash flow, internal rate of return, net present value, benefit-cost ratio and payback period of BDT 16428/ha, BDT 3053, 4.7%, 2.71:1 and approximately 2 years, respectively. Since 2WT is commonly used for versatile farming purposes. Therefore, versatile use of 2WT as prime mover for other machines including earthing up machine can make earthing up machine economically viable and beneficial for sugarcane growers.

{\bf Abstract.} \\ {\bf Background:} Bangladesh hosts more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. The low health immunity, lifestyle, access to good healthcare services, social-security cause this population to be at risk of far more direct effects of COVID-19 than the host population. Therefore, evidence-based forecasting of the COVID-19 burden is vital in this regard. In this study, we aimed to forecast the COVID-19 burden among the Rohingya refugees of Bangladesh to keep up with the disease outbreak's pace, health needs, and disaster preparedness. \noindent{\bf Methodology and Findings:} To estimate the possible consequences of COVID-19 in the Rohingya camps of Bangladesh, we used a modified Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious Recovered (SEIR) transmission model. All the values of different parameters used in this model were from the Bangladesh Government’s database and the relevant emerging literature. We addressed two different scenarios, i.e., the best-fitting model and good fitting model with unique consequences of COVID-19. Our best fitting model suggests that there will be good control over the transmission of the COVID-19 disease. At the end of December 2020, there will be only 169 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Rohingya refugee camps. The average basic reproduction number ($ \mathcal{R}_{0} $) has been estimated to be 0.7563. \noindent{\bf Conclusion:} Our analysis suggests that, due to the extensive precautions from the Bangladesh government as well as other humanitarian organizations, the coronavirus disease will be under control if the maintenance continues like this. Although detailed and pragmatic preparedness should be adopted for the worst scenario.

The present study explores the effect of using two porous deflectors on the performance of the Savonius wind turbine compared to only one porous deflector. The numerical simulation is performed to solve the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations using the SST k-

The Payra River is one of the large coastal rivers in Bangladesh which supports incredible fish species and has been affected by extensive human disturbance due to huge fishing pressure. The present study provides information about the temporal diversity of finfish and shellfish concerning climatological variables and ecological pollution along with threat assessment in the Payra River, Patuakhali. During the entire study, a total of 61 fish species including 56 finfish and 5 shellfish species were recorded under 22 families belonging to 11 orders. The order-wise fish species availability showed that the Perciformes (29.49%) was the dominant order based on species richness. Among them, 4 endangered, 6 vulnerable, 4 near threatened, 42 least concern, and 5 data deficient species were found. During the study period, the average Shannon-Weaver diversity index value was (3.33±0.12) indicates a good spread of fish population in the Payra river. Average Margalef richness index value was found (7.60±0.32), Pielou's evenness index (0.48±0.05), and Simpson dominance index (0.93±0.02) in Payra river. Dominance and Richness index value indicates clear water environment to slight pollution in the Payra river. Ten different kinds of fishing gears were identified under 3 major groups including 5 nets, 3 hooks and lines, and 2 traps. The phytoplanktonic genus and species revealed moderate pollution. Canonical correspondence analysis ordination plot showed that rainfall was the most influencing driving force among the meteorological parameters. The cluster analysis based on the Bray-Curtis similarity matrix showed that the winter season formed a separate cluster. In the recapitulation, the Payra River is a highly productive system that provides a favorable environment for a large variety of finfish and shellfish species assemblages. Findings of the conducted study are expected to be helpful for the respective researchers, policymakers, managers, and conservationists for the sustainable management of this water body and the interconnected surrounding neighboring countries.

Background: Identification of cancer biomarkers that are differentially expressed (DE) under two biological conditions is an important task in many microarray studies. There exist several methods in the literature in this regards and most of these methods designed especially for unpaired samples, which does not satisfy the requirements of paired samples where the gene expressions are taken from the same patients before and after treatment. Furthermore, the traditional biomarker identification methods based on either p-values or fold change (FC) values. However, sometimes, p-value based results do not comply with FC based results due to the smaller variance of gene expressions. There are some methods that combine both p-values and FC values to solve this problem. But, these methods also show weak performance for small-sample case in presence of outlying expressions. To overcome this problem, in this paper an attempt is made to develop a hybrid robust SAM-FC approach by combining rank of FC values and rank of p-values based on SAM statistic using minimum β-divergence method, which is designed for paired samples. This method introduces a weight function known as β-weight function. This weight function produces larger weights corresponding to usual/normal expressions and smaller weights for unusual/outlying expressions. The β-weight function plays the significant role on the performance of the proposed method. Results: The proposed method uses β-weight function as a measure of outlier detection by setting β=0.2. We unify both classical and robust estimates using β-weight function such that maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) are used in absence of outliers and minimum β-divergence estimators are used in presence of outliers to obtain reasonable p-values and FC values in the proposed method. We examined the performance of proposed method in a comparison of some popular methods (t-test, SAM, LIMMA, Wilcoxon, WAD, RP and FCROS) using both simulated and real gene expression profiles for both small-and large-sample cases. From the simulation and a real spike in data analysis results we observed that the proposed method outperforms other methods for small-sample case in presence of outliers and it keeps almost equal performance with other robust methods (Wilcoxon, RP and FCROS) otherwise. From a head-and-neck cancer (HNC) dataset the proposed method identified 2 genes (CYP3A4, NOVA1) that are significantly enriched in linoleic acid metabolism, drug metabolism, steroid hormone biosynthesis and metabolic pathways. The survival analysis through Kaplan-Meier curve revealed that combined effect of these 2 genes has prognostic capability and they might be promising biomarker of HNC. Moreover, we retrieved the 12 candidate drugs based on gene interaction from glad4u and drug bank databases. Conclusion The identified drugs showed statistical significance and critical role of the proteins indicate that these proteins might be therapeutic target in cancer. Thus, elucidating the associations between the drugs identified in the present study require further investigations.

Background: Cancer has been one of the most critical health problems during the past decades which require serious consideration, especially in developing countries. Methods: 80 parents of the children with different types of cancers were studied via both questionnaire and person-to-person interview after announcing their informed consent. Results: The highest delay in patients' initial referral was due to the following factors: lack of attention or ignoring the first symptoms, delay in referring to the physician, low economic status and even lack of family support for the patient. In addition, visiting several doctors after the initial diagnosis, uncertainty about the first proposed method, and high cost of treatment can be mentioned as the main causes of delays in the start of treatment. Conclusion: Education plays an important role in identifying the signs of cancer. In addition, proper relationship and cooperation between the health system and physicians as well as provision of adequate information to patients could lead to the long-term cooperation of these patients in continuing their treatment.

The devastating COVID-19 pandemic forced academia to go virtual. Educational institutions around the world have stressed online learning programs in the aftermath of the pandemic. However, because of insufficient access to ICT, a substantial number of students failed to harness the opportunity of online learning. This study explores the latent digital divide exhibited during the COVID-19 pandemic while online learning activities are emphasized among Bangladeshi students. It also investigates the digital divide exposure and the significant underlying drivers of the divide. A cross-sectional survey was employed to collect quantitative data mixed with open-ended questions to collect qualitative information from the student community. The findings revealed that despite the majority of students have physical access to ICT but only 32.5% of students could attend online classes seamlessly, 34.1% of the students reported the data prices as the critical barrier, and 39.8% of students identified the poor network infrastructure is the significant barrier for them to participate in online learning activities. Although most students possess physical access to the device and the Internet, they face the first-level digital divide due to the quality of access and maintaining subscriptions. Consequently, they fail to take advantage of physical access, resulting in the third-level digital divide (Utility Gap) and submerging them into a digital divide cycle. This paper aimed to explore the underlying issues of the digital divide among Bangladeshi students to assist relevant stakeholders (e.g., the Bangladesh government, Educational Institutions, Researchers) in providing the necessary insights and theoretical understanding to arrange adequate support for students to undertake conducive online learning activities.

Background: Congenital Pulmonary Malformations (CPMs) are rare benign lesions potentially causing infective complications and/or malignant transformation requiring surgery even when asymptomatic. CPMs are infrequent in adult but potentially detected at any age. There is not a consensus indicating the correct extent of resection in both adults and paediatrics. This retrospective multicentric study aims to identify the appropriate surgical resection to prevent the recurrence of related respiratory symptoms. Methods: Between 2010 and 2020, a total of 96 patients (adult and pediatric) underwent surgery for CPMs in 4 centers. A 2:1 propensity score matching (considering sex and lesion side) was performed, identifying 2 groups: 50 patients underwent lobectomy (group A) and 25 sub-lobar resections (group B). Clinical and histopathological characteristics, early and late complications and symptom’s recurrence were retrospectively analyzed and compared between the two groups by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Patients who underwent lobectomy had a statistically significant lower rate of recurrence (4% vs 24% of group B, p = 0.014) and a lower rate of intraoperative complications (p = 0.014). Logistic regression identified sub-lobar resection (p=0.040), intra- and post-operative complications (p=0.105 and 0.022) and associated developed neoplasm (p=0.062) as possible risk factors for symptoms recurrence after surgery. Conclusions: Pulmonary lobectomy seems to be the most effective surgical treatment for CPMs, guaranteeing stable remission of symptoms and a lower rate of intra- and postoperative complications. To our knowledge this is one of the largest studies comparing lobectomy and sub-lobar resections in patients affected by CPMs, considering the low incidence worldwide.

Physics-informed machine learning (PIML) refers to the emerging area of extracting physically relevant solutions to complex multiscale modeling problems and has enjoyed significant interest from the research community. This paper discusses the recent critical advancements in the PIML domain. Novel methods and applications of domain decomposition in physics-informed neural networks (PINN) in particular are highlighted. Additionally, we explore recent Works toward utilizing neural operator learning to intuit relationships in physics systems traditionally modeled by sets of complex governing equations and solved with expensive differentiation techniques. Finally, expansive applications of traditional physics-informed machine learning and potential limitations are discussed. In addition to summarizing recent work, we propose a novel taxonomic structure to catalog physics-informed machine learning based on how the physics-information is derived and injected into the machine learning process. The taxonomy assumes the explicit objectives of facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration in methodology, thereby promoting a wider characterization of what types of physics-problems are served by the physics-informed learning machines, and assisting in identifying apt targets for future work. To summarize, the major twofold goal of this work is to summarize recent advancements and introduce a taxonomic catalog for applications of physics-informed machine learning.

End-stage heart failure (ESHF) leads to hypoperfusion and edema formation in the whole body and is accompanied by neurohormonal and immunological alterations. Orthotopic heart transplantation (HTX) has been used as a beneficial option for ESHF. Due to the shortage of donor hearts, the ideal matching and timing of donors and recipients has become more important. Our aim was to explore the relationship between the clinical outcome of HTX and the cytokine and apolipoprotein profiles of the recipient pericardial fluid obtained at transplantation after opening the pericardial sac. The clinical data and the interleukin, adipokine and lipoprotein levels in the pericardial fluid of twenty recipients were investigated. Outcome variables included primer graft dysfunction (PGD), need for posttransplantation mechanical cardiac support (MCS), International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation grade ≥ 2R rejection and mortality. Recipient risk scores were also investigated. Leptin levels were significantly lower in patients with PGD than in those without PGD (median: 6.36 [IQR: 5.55-6.62]; versus 7.54 [IQR=6.71-10.44]; p = 0.029). Higher ApoCII levels (median: 14.91 [IQR: 11.55-21.30] versus 10.31 [IQR=10.02-13.07]; p = 0.042) and ApoCIII levels (median: 60.32 [IQR: 43.00-81.66] versus 22.84 [IQR=15.84-33.39]; p=0.005) were found in patients (n=5) who died in the first 5 years after HTX. In patients who had rejection (n=4) in the first month after transplantation, the levels of adiponectin (median: 74.48 [IQR: 35.51-131.70] versus 29.96 [IQR: 19.86-42.28]; p=0.039), ApoCII (median: 20.11 [IQR: 13.06-23.54] versus 10.32 [IQR: 10.02-12.84]; p=0.007) and ApoCIII (median: 70.97 [IQR: 34.72-82.22] versus 26.33 [IQR: 17.18-40.17; p=0.029) were higher than those in the nonrejection group. Moreover, the pericardial thyroxine (T4) levels (median: 3.96 [IQR: 3.49-4.46] versus 4.69 [IQR: 4.23-5.77]; p=0.022) were lower in patients with rejection than in patients who did not develop rejection. Our results indicate that apolipoproteins can facilitate the monitoring of rejection and could be a useful tool in the forecast of early and late complications.

The COVID-19 pandemic situation, disease intensity, weak healthcare facilities, unawareness, and misinformation led people to fear and anxiety in Bangladesh. This study intended to get peoples’ perception on psychosocial, socio-economic and environmental crisis amidst the pandemi. An online questionnaire was surveyed nationwide (respondents no.1066). Datasets were analyzed through the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), hierarchical Cluster Analysis (CA), Pearson’s correlation matrix (PCM), Linear regression analysis (LRA), and psychometric characteristics were included in the Classical Test Theory (CTT) analysis. There were good associations among the psychosocial, socio-economic and environmental parameters. A significant association between fear of COVID-19 with struggling healthcare system (p<0.05) was found. Also, negative association between fragile health system and government’s ability to deal with the pandemic (p<0.05) revealing poor governance. Again, a positive association of shutdown and social distancing with fear of losing life, and due to lack of health treatment (p<0.05) reveals that shut down hampers normal activities which may lead to mental and economic stress. However, a positive association of socio-economic impact of the shutdown with poor people’s suffering, the price hike of basic need, hamper of formal education (p<0.05) may lead to severe socio-economic and health crisis. There is a possibility of climate-induced disaster during/after the pandemic, which will create severe food insecurity (p<0.01). Daily wage earners and poors will suffer most by food and nutritional deficiency, and the country may face huge economic burden. Proper risk assessment and communications is needed to alleviate fear and anxiety. Thus, financial support and mental boosting is required.

The ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic is affecting every facet of human lives (e.g., public health, education, economy, transportation, and the environment). This novel pandemic and citywide implemented lockdown measures are affecting virus transmission, people’s travel patterns, and air quality. Many studies have been conducted to predict the COVID-19 diffusion, assess the impacts of the pandemic on human mobility and air quality, and assess the impacts of lockdown measures on viral spread with a range of Machine Learning (ML) techniques. This review study aims to analyze results from past research to understand the interactions among the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown measures, human mobility, and air quality. The critical review of prior studies indicates that urban form, people's socioeconomic and physical conditions, social cohesion, and social distancing measures significantly affect human mobility and COVID-19 transmission. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are inclined to use private transportation for necessary travel purposes to mitigate coronavirus-related health problems. This review study also noticed that COVID-19 related lockdown measures significantly improve air quality by reducing the concentration of air pollutants, which in turn improves the COVID-19 situation by reducing respiratory-related sickness and deaths of the people. It is argued that ML is a powerful, effective, and robust analytic paradigm to handle complex and wicked problems such as a global pandemic. This study also discusses policy implications, which will be helpful for policymakers to take prompt actions to moderate the severity of the pandemic and improve urban environments by adopting data-driven analytic methods.

Background: Physiosomatic symptoms are an important part of schizophrenia phenomenology. The aim of this study is to examine the biomarker, neurocognitive and symptomatic correlates of physiosomatic symptoms in schizophrenia. Methods: We recruited 115 schizophrenia patients and 43 healthy controls and measured the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Rating (FF) scale, schizophrenia symptom dimensions, and the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia. We measured neuro-immune markers including plasma CCL11 (eotaxin), interleukin-(IL)-6, IL-10, Dickkopf protein 1 (DKK1), high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) and endogenous opioid system (EOS) markers including κ-opioid receptor (KOR), µ-opioid receptor (MOR), endomorphin-2 (EM2) and β-endorphin. Results: Patients with an increased FF score display increased ratings of psychosis, hostility, excitement, formal though disorders, psychomotor retardation and negative symptoms as compared with patients with lower FF scores. A large part of the variance in the FF score (55.1%) is explained by the regression on digit sequencing task, token motor task, list learning, IL-10, age (all inversely) and IL-6 (positively). Neural network analysis shows that the top-6 predictors of the FF score are (in descending order): IL-6, HMGB1, education, MOR, KOR and IL-10. We found that 45.1% of the variance in a latent vector extracted from cognitive test scores, schizophrenia symptoms and the FF score was explained by HMGB-1, MOR, EM2, DKK1, and CCL11. Conclusions: FF symptoms are an integral part of the phenome of schizophrenia. Neurotoxic immune and neurodegenerative pathways and to a lesser extent the EOS appear to drive FF symptoms in schizophrenia.

The implications of urban revitalization, gentrification, and residential migration have attracted widespread interest and ongoing debate among scholars across a range of disciplines. While a significant body of literature explores race and class interactions within urban gentrifying neighborhoods, few have examined the environments that await those displaced by this process. This study explores the social and political impact of urban gentrification and class stratification within the black community by examining responses of black middle class residents in Prince George’s County, MD to the growing in-migration of low-income and minority residents from Washington, DC. Drawing on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, a multi-neighborhood sample of ninety-five black middle class residents of Prince George’s County, and informal interviews with subject-area experts, this study explores how race and class shape residential decisions and their impact on residential mobility initiatives. Residents responded to a 26-item survey that covered demographic information, political and community engagement, and their attitudes and beliefs about the poor, changes in their community, and racial unity and responsibility. Findings from cross tabulations and binary logistic regression indicate that lower middle class residents are the most likely to resist in-migration by exiting their communities and/or voting against proposals to create affordable housing options. Core and upper middle class residents were the most likely to stay in their neighborhoods despite increases in low-income migration, to vote in support of policies to create affordable housing options and to believe their responsibility to poor blacks could include sharing residential space.

The mechanisms involved in immune responses to cancer have been extensively studied for several decades and, considerable attention has been paid to harnessing the immune system's therapeutic potential. Cancer immunotherapy has established itself as a promising new treatment option for a variety of cancer types. Various strategies including cancer vaccines, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), adoptive T-cell-cancer therapy and immune test therapy have gained prominence through immunotherapy. However, it remains to be accomplished the full potential of cancer immunotherapy. In spite of having startling aspects, the cancer immunotherapies have some difficulties including the inability to effectively targeting the cancer antigens and the abnormalities in patient response. With the advancement of technology, this system has changed the genome-based immunotherapy process in the human body including generation of engineered T cells. Due to its high specificity, CRISPR-Cas9 has become a simple and flexible genome-editing tool to target nearly any genomic locus. Recently, the CD19-mediated CAR-T cell (chimeric antigen receptor T cell) therapy has opened a new avenue for the treatment of human cancer, though low efficiency is a major drawback of this process. Thus, increasing the efficiency of the CAR-T cell (engineered T cells that induce the chimeric antigen receptor) by using CRISPR-Cas9 technology could be a better weapon to fight against the cancer. In this review, we have broadly focused on the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology for the modification of the T-cell, which can specifically recognize cancer cells and be used as immune therapeutics against cancer. We have also demonstrated the other potential strategies for the treatment of cancer.

This study investigates the long-term stability of the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) moderate-resolution Thermal Emissive Bands (M TEBs; M12 – M16) covering a period from February 2012 to August 2020. It also assesses inter-sensor consistency of the VIIRS M TEBs among three satellites-S-NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 over eight months spanning from March 18 to November 30, 2023. The field of interesting is limited to the ocean surface between 60°S and 60°N, specifically under clear-sky conditions. Taking radiative transfer modeling (RTM) as the transfer reference, we employed the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) to simulate VIIRS TEB brightness temperature (BTs), incorporating European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data as inputs. Our results reveal two key findings. Firstly, the reprocessed S-NPP VIIRS TEBs exhibit a robust long-term stability, as demonstrated through analyses of the observation minus background BT differences (O-B ∆BTs) between VIIRS measurements (O) and CRTM simulations (B). The drifts of the O-B BT differences are consistently less than 0.105 K/Decade across all S-NPP VIIRS M TEB bands. Notably, observations from VIIRS M14 and M16 stand out with drifts well within 0.04 K/Decade, reinforcing their exceptional reliability for climate change studies. Secondly, excellent inter-sensor consistency among these three VIIRS instruments is confirmed through the double-difference analysis method (O-O). This method relies on the O-B BT differences obtained from daily data. The mean inter-VIIRS O-O BT differences remain within 0.08 K for all M TEBs, except for M13. Even in the case of M13, the O-O BT differences between NOAA-21 and NOAA-20/S-NPP have values of 0.312 K and 0.234 K, respectively, which are comparable to the 0.2 K difference between some TEBs among VIIRS and MODIS. These disparities are primarily attributed to the significant differences in the Spectral Response Function (SRF) of NOAA-21 compared to NOAA-20 and S-NPP. Our study confirms the RTM-based TEB quality evaluation method’s versatility and effectiveness in assessing long-term sensor stability and inter-sensor consistency. The double-difference approach effectively mitigates uncertainties and biases inherent to CRTM simulations, establishing itself a robust mechanism for assessing inter-sensor consistency. In addition, we’ve observed that, except for M13, M12 always exhibits larger spatial variations of O-O BT differences with greater uncertainties compared to the other M TEBs. The influence of solar contribution through sea surface reflection on the Top of Atmosphere (TOA) radiance measurements during daytime in M12 should not be underestimated.

Background: Schizophrenia and treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) are associated with aberrations in immune-inflammatory pathways. Increased High Mobility Group Protein 1 (HMGB1), an inflammatory mediator, and Dickkopf-Related Protein (DKK1), a Wnt/β-catenin signaling antagonist, affect the blood-brain-barrier and induce neurotoxic effects and neurocognitive deficits.Aim of the study: The present study aims to examine HMGB1 and DDK1 in non-responders to treatments with antipsychotics (NRTT, n=60), partial RTT (PRTT, n=55) and healthy controls (n=43) in relation to established markers of schizophrenia including IL-6, IL-10 and CLL11 (eotaxin); and to delineate whether these proteins are associated with the schizophrenia symptom subdomains and neurocognitive impairments.Results: HMGB1, DKK1, IL-6 and CCL11 were significantly higher in schizophrenia patients than in controls. DKK1 and IL-6 were significantly higher in NRTT than in PRTT and controls while IL-10 was higher in NRTT than in controls. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that schizophrenia was best predicted by increased DDK1 and HMGB1 while NRTT (versus PRTT) was best predicted by increased IL-6 and CCL11 levels. A large part of the variance in psychosis, hostility, excitation, mannerism and negative (PHEMN) symptoms, and formal thought disorders was explained by HMGB1, IL-6, and CCL11 while most neurocognitive functions were predicted by HMGB1, DDK1 and CCL11. Conclusion: The neurotoxic effects of HMGB1, DKK1, IL-6 and CCL11 including effects on the blood-brain-barrier and the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway may cause impairments in executive functions, and working, episodic and semantic memory and explain, in part, PHEMN symptoms and a non-response to treatment with antipsychotic drugs.

A single mode waveguide grating coupler based on multiple Si-SiO₂ pairs onto Si substrate has been designed. Numerical analysis has been carried out to calculate optimum thickness of the layers of Si-SiO₂ that ensures the constructive interference between reflected waves and actual guided wave for high coupling efficiency. Based on the results, an optimal design is developed and modeled by using a 2-D finite difference time domain (2-D FDTD) simulator that dictates a coupling efficiency of as much as 78% (-1.07 dB) at the wavelength of 1550 nm, and a 1-dB bandwidth of 77 nm. The numerical method will be useful to calculate the optimum thicknesses of the layers for any reflector based grating coupler of different materials.

Rapidly spreading disease, COVID-19 is classified as the human-to-human transmission-able disease and currently is a pandemic in the Globe. In this paper, we propose conceptual mathematical models for COVID-19 outbreak and it's control measurement; quarantine, hospitalization and the effect of panic and anxiety. In this situation, mathematical models are a important tool to employ an effective strategy in order to fight against this pandemic. We establish the positivity and boundedness of solutions, local and global stability analysis of equilibria to examine its epidemiological relevance. To validate the model and estimating the important model parameters and prediction about the disease, we consider the real cases of Italy from $15^{th}$ Feb to $13^{th} $ April 2020. In a series of graphical map, we have presented the comparative study to estimate the current scenarios and to predict the control measurement time boundary of the outbreak.

The study aims to provide technical information on the development and application of hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) in one of Dhaka's popular baking (cake) industries. A generic HACCP plan in accordance with legal requirements was created after a detailed analysis of data collected from the company. Every step of the production was examined for biological, chemical, and physical hazards. The prerequisite program was designed to address some hazards prior to production, thereby simplifying the HACCP plan. The critical control points were determined by answering the questions in the decision trees. Finally, the HACCP control chart was created to include critical limits, monitoring, and corrective action as components of several HACCP principles. One critical control point (CCP) and two operational pre-requisite programs (oPRPs) were identified throughout the manufacturing process.

Soil bacteria drive key ecosystem functions, including nutrient mobilization, soil aggregation and crop bioprotection against pathogens. Bacterial diversity is thus considered a key component of soil health. Conventional agriculture reduces bacterial diversity in many ways. Compost tea has been suggested as a bioinoculant that may restore bacterial community diversity and promote crop performance under conventional agriculture. Here, we conducted a field experiment to test this hypothesis in a soybean-maize rotation. Compost tea application had no influence on bacterial diversity or community structure. Plant growth and yield were also unresponsive to compost tea application. Combined, our results suggest that our compost tea bacteria did not thrive in the soil, and that the positive impacts of compost tea applications reported elsewhere may be caused by different microbial groups (e.g., fungi, protists, nematodes) or by abiotic effects on soil (e.g., contribution of nutrients and dissolved organic matter). Further investigations are needed to elucidate the mechanisms through which compost tea influences crop performance.

City zones have become increasingly overcrowded as a result of the extensive population widening ratio and the swift relocation of people from villages. The traffic monitoring process is a major issue in these areas due to the massive traffic flow on the roads. This research proposed a cluster-based improved authentication and communication scheme for an Intelligent Transportation System in Vehicular AdHoc Networks (VANETs). Our primary objective is to optimize resource sharing in vehicular communication. We enhanced the reliability, scalability, and stability of fast-moving VANETs by introducing cluster-based routing schemes for Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications. We used a third-party certification authority for vehicle authentication to address security and privacy concerns. Our proposed schemes support minimizing the end-to-end (E2E) delay and route request, in addition to reducing link failure. Our schemes’ leading yield includes throughput enhancement, TCP Socket Initialization time minimization, TCP handshake response speedup, and DNS lookup improvement. The schemes are centred on short-range peer-to-peer (P2P) wireless communication in a 400-meter radius cluster. This includes innovative P2P wireless communications on VANET using minimized resources. The proposed schemes deliver a secure authentication mechanism with a securely generated vehicle authentication key provided by a certification authority. Furthermore, we have developed RESTful APIs in vehicular communication for implementation purposes, and also offered and implemented algorithms for resource sharing regarding V2V and V2I communication. Ultimately, we evaluated the performance of our experiments.

Fruit production is an important part of the gross domestic product for many countries around the world especially to those who have a strong focus on agriculture. However, long-term maintenance and yield stability of fruit production may be threatened by the ongoing climate change and its consequences like extended drought periods, heavy rain events, and floodings. Genome editing, with its progressive technological developments, offers opportunities to adapt relevant fruit plant species to new climatic conditions. Among modern genome editing techniques, CRISPR/Cas, in particular, has the potential to support breeding for those fruit plant species with extended breeding cycles, e.g., perennial fruits. In this review, we discuss CRISPR/Cas and other genome editing techniques in detail and how these techniques can be applied to support the breeding of fruit plant species for adaptation to changing climates. The chronological history of CRISPR/Cas9 systems, their associated computational tools, genomic data sources, transformation methods along with their delivery vehicles, quality improvement, environmental-stress resiliency, limitations, and future perspectives will also be discussed with respect to securing future global fruit production.

Regeneration of lost tail is of great importance to lizards. Anolis carolinensis, a green lizard, is capable of regenerating its tail efficiently after autotomy. Hence, it is considered as a model organism in regeneration study. A. carolinensis shed its tail in order to distract the predator’s attention and thus makes a way to escape. Restoring of the amputated tail takes several days and the mechanism is currently clearly understood. Although save its life, tail regeneration is associated with the impairment of several vital functions in Anoles. In addition, various differences have been observed between original and regenerated tail in terms of mechanism and structure. To date, very little work has been conducted on tail autotomy and regeneration at molecular and genetic level. The genes responsible for regeneration in anoles are identified recently. These genes are evolutionarily conserved through all tetrapod vertebrates. They are, however, in a state of ‘switched-off’ in other vertebrates including humans. Consequently, a throughout study of these so called ‘switched-off’ genes may provide a way of restoring lost organs in human, and thus could revolutionize the modern medical science.

This analysis examines the wide range of occupational and environmental health risks that affect people in diverse settings. This article emphasizes the importance of conducting exposure and risk assessments to safeguard public health by analyzing various hazards, including arsenic, oil accidents, lead, welding fumes, and mycotoxins. Various methodologies are utilized in these research articles to conduct the study, emphasizing hazard identification, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. The results uncover harmful substances, vulnerable demographics, and occupational duties linked to increased hazards. The report suggests various mitigation strategies, such as targeted interventions, enhanced community efforts, and improved exposure estimates. Notwithstanding the constraints identified in certain studies, the review emphasizes the necessity for continuous investigation to improve assessments of exposure, comprehend the cumulative effects, and examine the wider societal consequences. The significance of sector-specific risk assessments, protective measures, and ongoing monitoring is underscored to ensure mental and physical health protection.

Background: Colorectal cancer is considered the third most fetal among all type of cancer. Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) is a non-receptor type tyrosine-protein that plays crucial role in signaling mediated via immune receptor. We adopted an onco-informatics analysis to evaluate the SYK expression and prognostic value of SYK in colorectal cancer, and identification of potential phytochemicals which may inhibit overexpression of SYK protein as well as minimized colorectal cancer. Materials & Methods: Differential expression of SYK gene was analyzed using the several transcriptomic databases including Oncomine, UALCAN, GENT2 and GEPIA2. The server, cBioPortal was used to analyze mutation and copy number alterations whereas GENT2, GEPIA, OncoLnc and PrognoScan were employed to examine the survival rate. A protein-protein interaction network of SYK and co-expressed genes of SYK was conducted via GeneMANIA. Considering SYK gene encoding protein as drug target, selected phytochemicals were assessed by molecular docking using PyRx 0.8 packages. YASARA molecular dynamics simulators were applied for the post validation of the molecular docking data. Results: We have observed significant overexpression of mRNA expression levels of SYK gene colorectal adenocarcinoma (COAD) samples compared with normal tissues. Significant methylation level and various genetic alterations are assembled in SYK gene which can lead to the development of colorectal cancer. As a result, lower level of SYK expression was related to the more chances of patients’ survival by which all the outcomes from the multiple bioinformatics platforms and web resources have demonstrated the significant evidences that the SYK kinsase can possess as a potential biomarker for the treatment of colorectal cancer. Here, aromatic phytochemicals namely, Kaempferol and Glabridin targeting SYK showed more stability compared to controls and may be useful for the treatment of colorectal cancer. Conclusion: Our study showed dysregulated expression of SYK in colorectal cancer and potentiality to act as a biomarker for the prognosis of CRC. Moreover, we have shown phytochemicals (Kaempferol and Glabridin) target SYK as potential treatment strategies and drug repositioning potentiality in colorectal cancer.

Lumpy skin disease (LSD), caused by a virus within the Poxviridae family and Capripoxvirus genus, induces nodular skin lesions in cattle, spreading through direct contact and insect vectors, significantly affecting global cattle farming. Despite available vaccines, their effectiveness is limited by poor bioavailability and adverse effects. Our study aimed to identify potential inhibitors targeting LSD-associated DNA polymerase protein, selecting LSDV039 for further investigation through comprehensive analysis and computational methods. Virtual screening revealed rhein and taxifolin as potent binders among 380 phytocompounds, with respective affinities of -8.965 and -7.195 kcal/mol. Canagliflozin and tepotinib exhibited strong affinities (-9.858 and -8.856 kcal/mol) among 718 FDA-approved antiviral drugs. Molecular dynamics simulations of canagliflozin, tepotinib, rhein, and taxifolin highlighted taxifolin's superior stability and binding energy. Rhein displayed compactness in RMSD and RMSF but fluctuations in Rg and SASA, while canagliflozin demonstrated stability compared to tepotinib. The study highlights the promising potential of repurposed drugs and phytocompounds as LSD therapeutics. However, extensive validation through in-vitro, in-vivo, and clinical trials is crucial for their practical application.

This research was presented the special designed microfluidic device generated for sperm separation based on assumption of different surface electrical charged of sperms X and Y. However, to avoid ethical problem, the microfluidic chip has been tested with the mimic electrical charged particles, TiO₂-coated Polystyrene beads, (TiO₂-coated Ps-beads), instead of spermatozoa. The work has been separated into three main parts. Firstly, the simply but efficient fabrication of negatively charged TiO₂-coated Ps-beads has been presented. In addition, various characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Tungsten Scanning Electron Microscopy (W-SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) mode, and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), have been reported in this work to elucidate the reasons behind the persistence of negatively charged on the surface of TiO₂-coated Ps-beads. Results show that the fabricated TiO₂-coated Ps-beads was partly coated in the mixed forms of amorphous Ti⁴⁺ and had caused a negatively charge to appear on the surface after fabrication and had sustained its electrical charged for long. Secondly, process of simulation and fabrication of microfluidic device was presented. Finally the negatively charged TiO₂-coated Ps-beads were tested in this microfluidic devices. For design of microfluidic devices integrated with a couple of microelectrodes, the simulated structures were fabricated by photolithographic technique and tested with the Ps-beads. Percentage of validation for Ps-beads separation indicated that the 100 mm-distance-between-electrodes microfluidic device exhibits to be the highest performance prototype at 86.96%. For further confirmation, another model so called the single path prototype has been established. It is confirmed by 92.59% of validation for the utilization of the device. The successfully designed microfluidic devices can be examined with actual spermatozoa later. Furthermore, process to fabricate the negatively charged TiO₂-coated Ps-beads can be established as testified samples for development of other microfluidic devices.

The most striking and dramatic catastrophe, as on April 2020, is - COVID - 19. Understanding of the COVID-19, the causing agent- the virus and the resultant causalities are still evolving. Till now, there is no specific treatment, no vaccine for the COVID-19. At this stage, what is utmost important now to face the disaster is to put emphasis on the preparedness and responses: research to discover vaccine, antivirals as soon as possible. Till then, it is necessary to put emphasis on infection preventive and control measures like to avoid close contact of infected people showing symptoms of respiratory diseases, hand hygiene and coughing etiquette. To make the infection preventive and control measures a success, the followings are to make success: ‘quarantine’ ‘isolation’, ‘travel bans’, ‘cordon sanitaire’ and ‘social distancing’ measures. The tools of modern information technology could help the authority to manage and monitor the preventive measures. Above all, preventive and control measures will not be successful if we fail to make aware the common people about the fatality of the COVID - 19. So, rapid preparedness and responses to COVID-19 are critically essential to face such disaster. Not a single moment is to waste!

This paper explores the role of agroforestry in mitigating climate change by sequestering atmospheric carbon in the tropics and subtropics, specifically in the Madhupur Sal forest of Bangladesh. Agroforestry, combining trees with crops on agricultural lands, is recognized for its potential to act as carbon sinks and enhance productivity. The study assesses various agroforestry practices, including Acacia-Pineapple-Turmeric-Papaya, Acacia-Pineapple-Zinger-Banana, and Sal-Pineapple-Aroid combinations. The research reveals improved farm productivity in these agroforestry systems, with different tree species sequestering varying amounts of carbon. Acacia species, ranging from 12 to 25ft in height, sequestered an average of 23.35 lbs/year, while Sal species (Shorea robusta), with trees 45 to 61ft tall, sequestered 49.80 lbs/year on average. Factors such as tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), number of leaves, and branches influence carbon sequestration. The paper suggests integrating the carbon trading system of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with Carbon Sequestration (CS) potential to leverage agroforestry for greenhouse gas emission reduction in Bangladesh. By emphasizing the profitability of these practices alongside carbon sequestration, the study encourages the adoption of agroforestry as a sustainable and economically viable strategy for climate change mitigation.

Mangrove vegetation plays a vital role in habitat and nursing ground for different organisms and prevents coastal erosion caused by wave and tide action. In recent years the mangrove vegetation in Chattogram coast, Bangladesh, has been interrupted by other infrastructural development, which has a destructing effect on the surrounding environment. Land surface temperature analysis of an area helps learn about different environmental conditions, weather, and climate. It is also essential to monitor the rising temperature and global warming, the biggest threat to humanity. NDBI and NDVI are the efficient process for monitoring vegetation and build up areas of a geographical location. This study focused on those analyses to understand the importance of mangrove vegetation in the Salimpur area and surrounding coastal areas of Chattogram by studying the relationship between NDVI and NDBI, NDVI and LST, NDBI, and LST. The outcome indicates that a higher vegetation index results in lower land surface temperature during different periods, negatively correlated. This study also found a strong positive correlation between buildup index (NDBI) and land surface temperature (LST), which means Land Surface temperature was found higher in Buildup areas. The vegetation areas are greatly affected by the buildup areas. The correlation between buildup areas and vegetation areas was strongly negative, which means an increase of NDBI decreases NDVI, and a decrease of NDBI increases NDVI.

In this work, an analog front-end (AFE) circuit for Electrocardiogram (ECG) detection system has been designed, implemented, and investigated in an industry-standard Cadence simulation framework using advanced technology node of 45 nm. The AFE consists of an instrumentation amplifier, a Butterworth band-pass filter (with fifth-order low-pass and second-order high-pass sections), and a second-order notch filter- all are based on two-stage, Miller-compensated operational transconductance amplifiers (OTA). The OTAs have been designed employing the $g_m/I_D$ methodology. Both the pre-layout and post-layout simulation were carried out. The layout consumes an area of 0.0058 mm$^2$ without the resistors and capacitors. Analysis of various simulation results were carried out for the proposed AFE. The circuit demonstrates a post-layout bandwidth of 239 Hz with a variable gain between 44 to 58 dB, a notch depth of -56.4 dB at 50.1 Hz, a total harmonic distortion (THD) of -59.65 dB (less than 1\%), an input referred noise spectral density of $

Growth monitoring of crops is a crucial aspect of precision agriculture, essential for optimal yield prediction and resource allocation. Traditional crop growth monitoring methods are labor-intensive and prone to errors. This study introduces an automated segmentation pipeline utilizing multi-date aerial images and orthomosaics to monitor the growth of cauliflower crops (Brassica Oleracea var. Botrytis). The methodology employs YOLOv8, Grounding DINO, and the Segment Anything Model (SAM) for automatic annotation and segmentation. The YOLOv8 model was trained using initial datasets, which then facilitated the training of the Grounded SAM framework. This approach generated automatic annotations and segmentation masks, classifying crop rows for temporal monitoring and growth estimation. The study's findings highlight the efficiency of this automated system in providing accurate crop growth analysis, promoting informed decision-making in crop management and sustainable agricultural practices. Results indicate consistent and comparable growth patterns between aerial images and orthomosaics, with significant periods of rapid expansion and minor fluctuations over time. The integration of these advanced techniques demonstrates the potential for enhancing precision agriculture through reduced labor and increased accuracy in crop growth monitoring.