Initial B Cell Activation Induces Metabolic Reprogramming and Mitochondrial Remodeling.

B lymphocytes provide adaptive immunity by generating antigen-specific antibodies and supporting the activation of T cells. Little is known about how global metabolism supports naive B cell activation to enable an effective immune response. By coupling RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data with glucose isotopomer tracing, we show that stimulated B cells increase programs for oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and nucleotide biosynthesis, but not glycolysis. Isotopomer tracing uncovered increases in TCA cycle intermediates with almost no contribution from glucose. Instead, glucose mainly supported the biosynthesis of ribonucleotides. Glucose restriction did not affect B cell functions, yet the inhibition of OXPHOS or glutamine restriction markedly impaired B cell growth and differentiation. Increased OXPHOS prompted studies of mitochondrial dynamics, which revealed extensive mitochondria remodeling during activation. Our results show how B cell metabolism adapts with stimulation and reveals unexpected details for carbon utilization and mitochondrial dynamics at the start of a humoral immune response

Electronic structure of spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic systems: Ba_2Cu(PO_4)_2 and Sr_2Cu(PO_4)_2

We have employed first principles calculations to study the electronic structure and magnetic properties of the low-dimensional phosphates, Ba2Cu(PO4)2 and Sr2Cu(PO4)2. Using the self-consistent tight-binding lin- earized muffin-tin orbital method and the Nth order muffin-tin orbital method, we have calculated the various intrachain as well as the interchain hopping parameters between the magnetic ions Cu2+ for both the com- pounds. We find that the nearest-neighbor intrachain hopping t is the dominant interaction suggesting the compounds to be indeed one dimensional. Our analysis of the band dispersion, orbital projected band struc- tures, and the hopping parameters confirms that the Cu2+-Cu2+ super-super exchange interaction takes place along the crystallographic b direction mediated by O-P-O. We have also analyzed in detail the origin of short-range exchange interaction for these systems. Our ab initio estimate of the ratio of the exchange inter- action of Sr2Cu(PO4)2 to that of Ba2Cu(PO4)2 compares excellently with available experimental results.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Assessment of Menopausal Symptoms During Perimenopause and Postmenopause in Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Issues related to menopausal symptoms are very complicated in terms of experience, severity, and dynamics of the symptoms. Studies have shown that these symptoms vary among individuals depending on the menopausal stage, ethnicity, geographical location, and other factors. Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) is an effective tool to assess the severity of these symptoms. Aim: This study was done to compare the frequency and severity of menopausal symptoms during peri‑ and postmenopause using the MRS. Subjects and Methods: Ninety‑two perimenopausal women and 95 postmenopausal women who attended Gynecology out patient department ( OPD) for treatment of menopausal complaints were assessed using the MRS questionnaire before starting therapy. Informed consent and ethics committee clearance was obtained prior to the study. Response was recorded and statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 17.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). Result: The mean total MRS score was comparable in both the groups. The mean psychological score was significantly higher in perimenopausal group in comparison to postmenopausal group (P<0.01). The mean urogenital score was higher in postmenopausal women (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Fatigue, depression, anxiety, hot flashes, and sexual disturbances were the common symptoms that appeared first during the perimenopausal phase. As the age advanced and women progressed in the postmenopausal stage, the psychological symptoms of depression, irritability, and sleep disturbances decreased; while the urogenital symptoms, fatigue, and generalized body ache became more prominent.Keywords: Africa, menopause, menopause rating scale, perimenopause, postmenopause, severity of menopausal symptom

Exploring the effects of health shocks on antipoverty interventions : experience of poor beneficiary households in Bangladesh

How and whether health shocks impact poverty reduction interventions remains a largely unexplored topic to which not much attention has been paid. This study explored whether and how health shocks affect anti-poverty interventions targeted to extremely poor households using data from 8 focus group discussions and 12 case studies. Those in extremely poor households mostly experienced episodes of chronic disease that incurred greater health-care costs, largely financed by the out-of-pocket payment system. The majority of those from poor households met health-care costs by selling their means of livelihood, borrowing cash, and marketing physical assets. This study argues that livelihood support alone is likely to be insufficient to reduce poverty. Health needs, subsequently, should be prioritized while designing an anti-poverty program

A Dual Band Slotted Patch Antenna on Dielectric Material Substrate

A low profile, compact dual band slotted patch antenna has been designed using finite element method-based high frequency full-wave electromagnetic simulator. The proposed antenna fabricated using LPKF printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication machine on fiberglass reinforced epoxy polymer resin material substrate and the performance of the prototype has been measured in a standard far-field anechoic measurement chamber. The measured impedance bandwidths of (reflection coefficient <-10 dB) 12.26% (14.3–16.2 GHZ), 8.24% (17.4–18.9 GHz), and 3.08% (19.2–19.8) have been achieved through the proposed antenna prototype. 5.9 dBi, 3.37 dBi, and 3.32 dBi peak gains have been measured and simulated radiation efficiencies of 80.3%, 81.9%, and 82.5% have been achieved at three resonant frequencies of 15.15 GHz, 18.2 GHz, and 19.5 GHz, respectively. Minimum gain variation, symmetric, and almost steady measured radiation pattern shows that the proposed antenna is suitable for Ku and K band satellite applications

Effects Of Addition Of Tilapia And Periphyton Substrates On Water Quality And Abundance Of Plankton In Freshwater Prawn Culture Ponds.

Abstract: The research investigated the effects of addition of tilapia and periphyton substrates on water quality and abundance of plankton in freshwater prawn culture ponds. The absence and presence (0 and 0.5 individual/m 2) of tilapia were investigated in 40m 2 ponds stocked with 3 prawn juveniles (5.023 ±0.04g)/m 2 with or without added substrates for periphyton development. A locally formulated and prepared pellet feed (2mm) containing 30% protein with C/N ratio close to 10 was used. The feed was applied at the rate of the 10 % body weight and gradually decreased to 3 % at the end of the culture period. Water quality parameters and the abundance of plankton and periphyton biomass were measured. The abundance of plankton and periphyton biomass was significantly higher in tilapia-free ponds comparing to tilapia added ponds. The addition of substrates did not influence size at harvest but improved the survival of prawn from 54.4 to 76.9%. Substrates contributed an increase in gross and net yield of prawn by 33 % and 42.5%, respectively. Addition of tilapia and periphyton substrates benefited the freshwater prawn culture through reducing toxic inorganic nitrogenous compounds in water, enhancing the utilization of natural foods and improving survival, production and economic benefit

Intersected EMG heatmaps and deep learning based gesture recognition

Hand gesture recognition in myoelectric based prosthetic devices is a key challenge to offering effective solutions to hand/lower arm amputees. A novel hand gesture recognition methodology that employs the difference of EMG energy heatmaps as the input of a specific designed deep learning neural network is presented. Experimental results using data from real amputees indicate that the proposed design achieves 94.31% as average accuracy with best accuracy rate of 98.96%. A comparison of experimental results between the proposed novel hand gesture recognition methodology and other similar approaches indicates the superior effectiveness of the new design

Ampk regulates IgD expression but not energy stress with B cell activation.

Ampk is an energy gatekeeper that responds to decreases in ATP by inhibiting energy-consuming anabolic processes and promoting energy-generating catabolic processes. Recently, we showed that Lkb1, an understudied kinase in B lymphocytes and a major upstream kinase for Ampk, had critical and unexpected roles in activating naïve B cells and in germinal center formation. Therefore, we examined whether Lkb1 activities during B cell activation depend on Ampk and report surprising Ampk activation with in vitro B cell stimulation in the absence of energy stress, coupled to rapid biomass accumulation. Despite Ampk activation and a controlling role for Lkb1 in B cell activation, Ampk knockout did not significantly affect B cell activation, differentiation, nutrient dynamics, gene expression, or humoral immune responses. Instead, Ampk loss specifically repressed the transcriptional expression of IgD and its regulator, Zfp318. Results also reveal that early activation of Ampk by phenformin treatment impairs germinal center formation but does not significantly alter antibody responses. Combined, the data show an unexpectedly specific role for Ampk in the regulation of IgD expression during B cell activation

Sustainability of Scientific Journals in the Developing World With Special Reference to Bangladesh

The study explores sustainability of scientific journal publication in Bangladesh. Forty-three journal editors were interviewed, and 66 current journals were physically examined for production quality, regularity of publication, and availability at concerned libraries. Findings revealed that 68% of the journals were published late, 30% had inconsistencies in typesetting, and 14% were indexed. Most journals were found either excellent or of good quality in terms of printing (85%), binding (77%), paper (92%), and graphic reproduction (76%). Most journals were not available in major libraries under study. Of the 43 editors, 28 (35%) reported a cost recovery of 1-45% from subscriptions, advertisements, and sales. About 74.4% of the editors did not consider their journals at risk. Although 86% of the editors were confident that their journals would be sustained in the long run, 37.3% could not give any convincing logic in support of their statement. Major problems include lack of skilled staff, finance, quality articles and institutional support, and lengthy peer review process. Only one journal editor was found to be a full-time editor having training in editing and publication. One-half (51%) of the editors reported have training in editing, while four had publication training. Most editors (79%) were interested in acquiring training in editing and publication. Institutional support and backup, enthusiasm and zeal of editors, unmet need for standard local journals, constant flow of funds and articles, and skilled manpower are instrumental for sustainability of science journals in Bangladesh

From ChatGPT-3 to GPT-4: A Significant Advancement in AI-Driven NLP Tools

Recent improvements in Natural Language Processing (NLP) have led to the creation of powerful language models like Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), Google’s BARD, Ernie which has shown to be very good at many different language tasks. But as language tasks get more complicated, having even more advanced NLP tool is essential nowadays. In this study, researchers look at how the latest versions of the GPT language model(GPT-4 &amp; 5) can help with these advancements. The research method for this paper is based on a narrative analysis of the literature, which makes use of secondary data gathered from previously published studies including articles, websites, blogs, and visual and numerical facts etc. Findings of this study revealed that GPT-4 improves the model's training data, the speed with which it can be computed, the flawless answers that it provides with, and its overall performance. This study also shows that GPT-4 does much better than GPT-3.5 at translating languages, answering questions, and figuring out how people feel about things. The study provides a solid basis for building even more advanced NLP tools and programmes like GPT-5. The study will help the AI &amp; LLM researchers, NLP developers and academicians in exploring more into this particular field of study. As this is the first kind of research comparing two NLP tools, therefore researchers suggested going for a quantitative research in the near future to validate the findings of this research