Digitizing mass spectrometry data to explore the chemical diversity and distribution of marine cyanobacteria and algae.

Natural product screening programs have uncovered molecules from diverse natural sources with various biological activities and unique structures. However, much is yet underexplored and additional information is hidden in these exceptional collections. We applied untargeted mass spectrometry approaches to capture the chemical space and dispersal patterns of metabolites from an in-house library of marine cyanobacterial and algal collections. Remarkably, 86% of the metabolomics signals detected were not found in other available datasets of similar nature, supporting the hypothesis that marine cyanobacteria and algae possess distinctive metabolomes. The data were plotted onto a world map representing eight major sampling sites, and revealed potential geographic locations with high chemical diversity. We demonstrate the use of these inventories as a tool to explore the diversity and distribution of natural products. Finally, we utilized this tool to guide the isolation of a new cyclic lipopeptide, yuvalamide A, from a marine cyanobacterium

Artificial Intelligence For The Discovery Of Novel Antimicrobial Agents For Emerging Infectious Diseases

The search for effective drugs to treat new and existing diseases is a laborious one requiring a large investment of capital, resources, and time. The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a painful reminder of the lack of development of new antimicrobial agents to treat emerging infectious diseases. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other in silico techniques can drive a more efficient, cost friendly approach to drug discovery by helping move potential candidates with better clinical tolerance forward in the pipeline. Several research teams have developed successful AI platforms for hit identification, lead generation, and lead optimization. In this review, we investigate the technologies at the forefront of spearheading an AI revolution in drug discovery and pharmaceutical sciences

Systems Biology and Mechanistic Explanation

We address the question of whether and to what extent explanatory and modelling strategies in systems biology are mechanistic. After showing how dynamic mathematical models are actually required for mechanistic explanations of complex systems, we caution readers against expecting all systems biology to be about mechanistic explanations. Instead, the aim may be to generate topological explanations that are not standardly mechanistic, or to arrive at design principles that explain system organization and behaviour in general, but not specific mechanisms. These abstraction strategies serve various aims, including prediction and control, that are central to understanding the epistemic diversity of systems biology

Waste Management and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana: Challenges and Strategies of the Ketu North Assembly in Managing Waste

Solid waste management has become a huge burden to most developing countries. The hard and harsh reality is that most developing countries are overwhelmed by the volume of waste they generate. Consequently, waste management is increasingly getting policy attention in most emerging countries. These countries have neither the technical expertise nor the financial resources or facilities for confronting this challenge.  Academics seeking to bemoan the fate of waste management in intellectual discourse draw an emblematic parallel between waste as a resource in the developed countries and waste as a burden in developing countries. This article examines the challenges confronting Ketu District Assembly in managing waste and assesses the strategies used in doing so. The major objective of the study was to analyse the degree of sustainability of waste management practices in Ketu North District. Information was gathered from the field through face-to-face interviews and through the administering of questionnaire among waste management practitioners and producers of waste. The research revealed that the major challenges militating against sustainable waste management in Ketu North District are; inability of the Ketu South Assembly to re-cycle waste, rising cost of haulage and difficulties in acquiring land for final disposal sites, environmental pollution and its attendant health hazards, inadequate communal waste containers in the communities, inadequate litter bins for commuters at vantage points and poor waste management attitudes. In this 21st century where waste is considered a resource, Ketu District should be in the position to make gains from the management of solid waste rather than allowing it to become a burden that would continuously drain the District’s meagre resources. The study recommends the provision of more communal waste containers and litter bins to promote waste separation and harnessing it as a resource for development and periodic education of the people to help address poor attitude to waste management. The article further recommends re-cycling of waste with undiminished intensity until poor attitudes are righted and waste becomes a resource for generating employment, rather than a drain on the meagre resources of the District Assembly. Key words: waste management, environmental sustainability, solid waste pollution, health hazards

Innovation determinants in manufacturing firms

In this paper the findings of an empirical study concerning the innovation determinants in manufacturing firms is presented. The empirical study covers 184 manufacturing firms located in the Northern Marmara region of Turkey. The types of innovation considered here are product, process, marketing and organizational innovations. An extensive literature survey on innovation determinants is provided. A model is proposed to explore the probable effects and the amount of contribution of the innovation determinants to firm’s innovativeness level. Among all possible determinants considered, intellectual capital has the highest impact on innovativeness followed by organization culture