Adding nutritional value to lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.)

Non-Peer Reviewe

Relative bioavailability of iron in Bangladeshi traditional meals prepared with iron-fortified lentil dal

Non-Peer Reviewe

Industrial Hemp Forage Potential

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has been a valuable species for humans throughout history due to its adaptability and diverse uses. Farmers are interested in hemp as a forage and feedstuff due to its unique nutritional properties and fast summer production. Moreover, the presence of cannabinoids in leaf and bud tissues may provide pharmacological benefits to animal health, productivity, and product quality under different regulatory frameworks. This study examined two hemp cultivars, Grandi and Joey, solely as forage crops, and samples were taken at different growth stages in Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2021. The highest biomass production of 1.41 tons per acre for Grandi and Joey was recorded two months after establishment. The samples taken at different growth stages of Grandi and Joey contained 20 to 31% CP, 24 to 44% NDF, 22 to 38% ADF, and 4 to 9% lignin. These preliminary results suggest that hemp has the potential to be used as a forage crop. However, more research is needed to address hemp management, including field establishment and production management, harvest timing for optimum tonnage and forage quality, and animal intake and performance studies

Design and analysis of vibration energy harvesters based on peak response statistics

Energy harvesting using cantilever piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters excited by Gaussian broadband random base excitation is considered. The optimal design and analysis of energy harvesters under random excitation is normally performed using the mean and standard deviation of a response quantity of interest, such as the voltage. An alternative approach based on the statistics of the peak voltage is developed in this paper. Three extreme response characteristics, namely (a) level crossing, (b) response peaks above certain level, and (c) fractional time spend above a certain level, have been employed. Two cases, namely the harvesting circuit with and without an inductor, have been considered. Exact closed-form expressions have been derived for number of level crossings, statistics of response peaks and fractional time spend above a certain level for the output voltage. It is shown that these quantities can be related to the standard deviation of the voltage and its derivative with respect to time. Direct numerical simulation has been used to validate the analytical expressions. Based on the analytical results, closed-form expressions for optimal system parameters have been proposed. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the applicability of the analytical results

RISK-INDUCED BACKWARD BIFURCATION IN HSV-2 TRANSMISSION DYNAMICS

Abstract. A risk-structured, two-sex, model for the transmission dynamics of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) in a population is designed and qualitatively analysed. It is shown that adding risk structure (i.e., the risk of transmitting or acquiring HSV-2 infection) to an HSV-2 transmission model causes the phenomenon of backward bifurcation when the associated reproduction threshold is less than unity. This dynamical feature, which has non-trivial consequence on the persistence or elimination of the disease (when the reproduction threshold is less than unity), can be removed if the susceptible male and female sub populations are not stratified according to the risk of acquiring HSV-2 infection

Income redistribution in the European Union

We explore the redistributive effects of taxes and benefits in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) using EUROMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the EU. As well as describing redistributive effects in aggregate, we assess and compare the effectiveness of eight individual types of policy in reducing income disparities. We derive results for the 27 members of the EU using policies in effect in 2010 and present them for each country separately as well as for the EU as a whole

Artificial neural network-augmented dosiomic integration for predicting distant recurrence in NSCLC patients treated with SBRT

ObjectiveStereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a standard curative treatment for inoperable early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. However, the high rate of distant recurrence following radiotherapy remains a significant clinical challenge. This study focuses on developing a machine learning model for distant recurrence prediction using diverse dosiomic and patient-specific clinical features. The proposed model aims to assist clinicians in informed decision-making, individualized treatment decisions to improve post-SBRT outcomes.MethodThis study utilized a multi-institutional dataset comprising 575 NSCLC patients who underwent SBRT. A total of 21 features, comprising 14 dosimetric and 7 clinical variables, were incorporated for developing the predictive framework. The predictive model was developed based on an artificial neural network (ANN) architecture with several dense layers. Model training and internal validation were conducted using data obtained from one institution, while external validation was performed utilizing data from an independent institution. To enhance clinical interpretability, SHAP analysis was employed to evaluate the relative importance of each feature contributing to the model’s output.ResultsThe initial predictive model, developed using individual clinical and dosimetric features, achieved area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) in the range of 0.64 to 0.65 while validated with an external dataset, respectively. To enhance predictive performance, dosimetric features were integrated with clinical variables, resulting in improved ROC-AUC values of 0.75 for internal validation with 10-fold cross validation technique and 0.71 for external validation with 1000 bootstrap iterations. Dosiomic features enhanced performance by 9-11%, highlighting their importance in distant recurrence prediction. Additionally, to enhance the interpretability of the model’s predictions, SHAP-based analysis was conducted, revealing that the number of treatment fractions, dose per fraction, and minimum dose to GTV were among the five most influential dosiomic features.ConclusionThis study introduces an ANN-based model for predicting distant recurrence in NSCLC patients followed by SBRT. This study also demonstrates the impactful dosimetric and clinical features for the designed predictive model, highlighting its potential as an assistive tool for informed and individualized treatment planning in clinical practice

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of Arylpiperazine-based novel Phthalimides: active inducers of testicular germ cell apoptosis

Understanding of apoptosis or programmed cell death has provided the basis for novel therapeutics that has resulted in rationally designed anticancer strategies. Recently, inducers of apoptosis have been used in cancer therapy. In this work, we describe the role of chiral phthalimides functionalized with piperazines as potential apoptotic inducers. The listed twenty phthalimides were assessed for their in vitro apoptotic activity against testicular germ cells. All phthalimides showed a significant apoptotic response (∼39 to ∼68%). TUNEL assay and acridine orange fluorescence staining were carried out to investigate the molecular mechanisms responsible for the cell death. Phthalimides exhibited substantial apoptotic induction following the intrinsic pathway mechanism. Studies advocated that the apoptotic induction was mediated through caspase-9, caspase-3, JNK MAP kinase and tumor suppressor p53, which was accompanied by DNA fragmentation and nuclear condensation. Besides, the best five phthalimides regarding apoptotic action were evaluated for in vitro cytotoxic effects against CAL-72 and MCF-7 cancer cell lines. Compounds showed efficient killing of cancer cells. This discovery of functionalized phthalimides as apoptotic inducers would be highly valuable in understanding the mechanism of apoptosis at the molecular level and opens up new possibilities for therapeutic strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modeling the Population-Level Effects of Male Circumcision as an HIV-Preventive Measure: A Gendered Perspective

BACKGROUND: Evidence from biological, epidemiological, and controlled intervention studies has demonstrated that male circumcision (MC) protects males from HIV infection, and MC is now advocated as a public-health intervention against HIV. MC provides direct protection only to men, but is expected to provide indirect protection to women at risk of acquiring HIV from heterosexual transmission. How such indirect protection interacts with the possibility that MC campaigns will lead to behavior changes, however, is not yet well understood. Our objective here is to investigate the link between individual-level effects of MC campaigns and long-term population-level outcomes resulting from disease dynamics, looking at both genders separately, over a broad range of parameters. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We use simple mathematical models of heterosexual transmission to investigate the potential effects of a circumcision scale-up, combined with possible associated behavioral disinhibition. We examine patterns in expected long-term prevalence using a simple equilibrium model based on transmission factors, and validate our results with ODE-based simulations, focusing on the link between effects on females and those on males.We find that the long-term population-level effects on females and males are not strongly linked: there are many possible ways in which an intervention which reduces prevalence in males might nonetheless increase prevalence in females. CONCLUSIONS: Since an intervention that reduces long-term male prevalence could nonetheless increase long-term female prevalence, MC campaigns should explicitly consider both the short-term and long-term effects of MC interventions on females. Our findings strongly underline the importance of pairing MC programs with education, support programs and HIV testing and counseling, together with other prevention measures