Raw Meat and Antibiotic Resistance: A Comprehensive Study on Prevalence of Pathogens in Food Animals

This review examines the use of antimicrobial agents in food animals and their impact on human health, particularly the emergence and spread of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). While antimicrobial agents are commonly used in food animal production to prevent and treat bacterial infections, overuse has been linked to AMR. Various strategies to reduce antimicrobial use in food animals, including vaccines, improved animal husbandry practices, and alternative therapies, are discussed. However, the review acknowledges the limitations of these strategies, such as cost-effectiveness and potential unintended consequences. Information on the percentage of antimicrobial use and resistance in food animals is provided for different classes of antibiotics. The percentages of use and resistance vary among these classes, with tetracyclines having the highest percentage of use and erythromycin and tylosin having the highest percentage of resistance. The review cites studies on the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in food animals, including Escherichia coli isolates from broiler chickens in the UK and Egypt. The review highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to reducing antimicrobial use in food animals and controlling the spread of AMR, including implementing more effective regulatory policies, promoting responsible use of antimicrobial agents, and developing alternative therapies and management practices. Overall, the review emphasizes the importance of addressing the issue of AMR in food animals to preserve the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents for both animal and human health

Custom Interface for Charge Trap EEPROM Applications

Cryptographic attacks and memory observability among DRAM or PROM have drawn researcher's attention. C. Kothandaraman et al. [1] have proposed a secure memory element using charge-trap based transistor for a potential memory application. The charge trapping layer used in this work is HfO2 which is a high-k dielectric. The properties of HfO2 making it superior to replace traditional SiO2 dielectric are brought together. In general, the trend of scaling non-volatile memory is presented and how dielectric thickness effects the gate length is shown using HfO2 as a solution for scaling beyond 45nm node. This work presents an on-chip interface architecture between CPU and secure EEPROM for control and data communication. This architecture allows the secure EEPROM to be embedded with the processing unit preventing interface eavesdropping so that encryption keys can be accessed locally and securely. It is also designed to overcome the cold-boot attacks [2] and side channel attacks [3] employing on-chip implementation and parallel data communication. Based on the literature, the programming voltages are proposed to meet the optimal requirement of data retention and lifetime. Also, future predictions are made on dielectrics and device architecture for continuous scaling. The interface design is implemented in VHDL and validated with secure EEPROM model. The synthesis and simulation results of the design are presented

Activation Mechanism in Robots

In robotics, implementing strategies based on human body would help a robot to handle situations in a hostile environment where human intervention is not possible. Multiple robots may work in a coordinated manner to achieve certain tasks. One of the big problems is detection and recovery from failures since human intervention may not be possible. To this end we propose an autonomic self-detection and self-recovery robotics architecture based on the human immune system. In this thesis, we look at self-detection and self-recovery of communications failure. In particular, we look at two types of communication failures; failures caused by robot isolation and failures caused by intermittent message loss. This thesis focuses on one component of the autonomic robotic architecture, namely, the activation mechanism in robots which makes the robot respond to the communication failure that it had encountered during its operation by sending some suggested action. This is similar to the work done by the thymus and bone marrow (cell mature stations) in the human immune system. The activation unit helps in storing, learning through experience and using the experience for future problems. It also learns through the feedback sent by another unit and uses the experience for future problems. Simulation results show that the proposed architecture helps in minimizing failures by providing more probable actions to make the robot act dynamically.Computer Science Departmen

Novel swing-assist un-motorized exoskeletons for gait training

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Robotics is emerging as a promising tool for functional training of human movement. Much of the research in this area over the last decade has focused on upper extremity orthotic devices. Some recent commercial designs proposed for the lower extremity are powered and expensive – hence, these could have limited affordability by most clinics. In this paper, we present a novel un-motorized bilateral exoskeleton that can be used to assist in treadmill training of motor-impaired patients, such as with motor-incomplete spinal cord injury. The exoskeleton is designed such that the human leg will have a desirable swing motion, once it is strapped to the exoskeleton. Since this exoskeleton is un-motorized, it can potentially be produced cheaply and could reduce the physical demand on therapists during treadmill training.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A swing-assist bilateral exoskeleton was designed and fabricated at the University of Delaware having the following salient features: (i) The design uses torsional springs at the hip and the knee joints to assist the swing motion. The springs get charged by the treadmill during stance phase of the leg and provide propulsion forces to the leg during swing. (ii) The design of the exoskeleton uses simple dynamic models of sagittal plane walking, which are used to optimize the parameters of the springs so that the foot can clear the ground and have a desirable forward motion during walking. The bilateral exoskeleton was tested on a healthy subject during treadmill walking for a range of walking speeds between 1.0 mph and 4.0 mph. Joint encoders and interface force-torque sensors mounted on the exoskeleton were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the exoskeleton in terms of the hip and knee joint torques applied by the human during treadmill walking.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We compared two different cases. In case 1, we estimated the torque applied by the human joints when walking with the device using the joint kinematic data and interface force-torque sensors. In case 2, we calculated the required torque to perform a similar gait only using the kinematic data collected from joint motion sensors. On analysis, we found that at 2.0 mph, the device was effective in reducing the maximum hip torque requirement and the knee joint torque during the beginning of the swing. These behaviors were retained as the treadmill speed was changed between 1–4 mph. These results were remarkable considering the simplicity of the dynamic model, model uncertainty, non-ideal spring behavior, and friction in the joints. We believe that the results can be further improved in the future. Nevertheless, this promises to provide a useful and effective methodolgy for design of un-motorized exoskeletons to assist and train swing of motor-impaired patients.</p

Managing the demand in a Micro Grid Based on Load shifting with Controllable Devices Using Hybrid WFS2ACSO Technique

The Demand Side Management (DSM) introduced in Smart Grid (SG), which depends on load shifting with huge number of devices is presented in this work. The proposed hybrid strategy is the joint implementation of Wingsuit Flying Search (WFSA) algorithm and Artificial Cell Swarm Optimization (ACSO). The searching behavior of WFSA is enhanced by ACSO. Hence, it is named as WFS2ACSO. This technique aims at minimization of electricity bill, power consumption, and Peak Average Ratio (PAR). The daily load change method presented in this manuscript is utilized for defusing the minimization issues. The present method is performed in SG that constitutes three different types of loads on a residential area, a commercial area, and an industrial area. Simulation results demonstrate that the projected DSM methodology achieves considerable savings, as peak load demand of SG decreases. Further, the variation in PAR levels with and without the DSM methodology is also presented. The proposed model is executed on a MATLAB simulation platform with two case studies based on optimization methods like WFSA, WFS2ACSO). The results obtained present the hybridized algorithm effectiveness as compared with other trendsetting optimization techniques like Ant lion optimization (ALO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO).publishedVersio

EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF ANTIDEPRESSANT AND ANTIANXIETY ACTIVITIES OF AQUEOUS LEAF EXTRACTS OF SENNA ALATA (L.) ROXB. USING IN VITRO ANIMAL MODELS

Objective: In the present investigation antidepressant and antianxiety activities of aqueous leaf extracts of Senna alata (200 mg/Kg) were carried out to establish the species as a potent natural antidepressant and anxiolytic drug.Methods: Antidepressant activity was carried out using forced swim test and tail suspension test. In both these tests, the animals were subjected to external stress that results in alteration of the behavior of animal due to fear.The antianxiety activity of aqueous leaf extracts of S. alata has been studied by the elevated plus-maze test in rats. The mean number of entries and the time spent in the open arm after 45 min of the administration of test drug was noted to determine the antianxiety effect of the test drug.Results: For antidepressant activity administration of test drug (200 mg/Kg) showed a significant decrease in the time spent by the animal in state of depression in both the assays which clearly indicates that the aqueous leaf extracts of S. alata exhibited a strong antidepressant activity similar to that of the control drug (Imipramine).In the antianxiety activity, administration of aqueous leaf extract (200 mg/Kg) of S. alata significantly increased the mean number of entries (2.25±0.98) in the open arm and the time spent in open arm (2.23±0.04) compared to the control group. The activity of the extract was slightly greater than standard drug Diazepam.Conclusion: From the above-presented results, it can be concluded that administration of Senna alata aqueous leaf extracts (200 mg/Kg) showed a considerable decrease in both antidepressant and antianxiety activities in all the test animals and can be used in the replacement of commercially available synthetic drugs in the near future

IN VITRO ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF LEAF, SEED, ROOT, POD AND FLOWER EXTRACTS OF CAJANUS CAJAN (L.) MILLSP

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial activity of leaf, seed, root, pod and flower extracts of C. cajan with various solvents such as aqueous, acetone, chloroform, ethanol and methanol.Methods: C. cajan was evaluated against certain pathogenic species of gram negative and gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) by agar well diffusion method.Results: It was observed that the methanolic and ethanolic extracts had shown potent antibacterial activity against gram +ve and gram -ve bacterial species. Among the five solvents used, methanolic extracts showed higher activity against S. aureus (ZI of leaf, 25.5±0.08 mm;  seed, 22.6±0.01 mm;  root, 22.1±0.09 mm;  pod, 20.8±0.14 mm and flower, 21.9±0.05 mm). Whereas ethanolic extracts showed higher activity against E. coli of all the solvent extracts used in C. cajan (ZI of leaf, 25.1±0.05 mm;  seed, 22.4±0.12 mm;  root, 21.9±0.04 mm;  pod, 20.7±0.12 mm and flower, 21.5±0.10 mm). The minimum inhibitory concentration of methanolic and ethanolic leaf, seed, root, pod and flower extracts respectively was determined to be ranging between 0.38 and 0.512mg/mL for both the bacterial species.Conclusion: The results of this study support that the crop species C. cajan had potential antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli and these extracts may be used for production of drugs commercially to treat diseases caused by the respective pathogens.Â

A novel blue fluorescent chlorophyll catabolite accumulates in senescent leaves of the peace lily and indicates a split path of chlorophyll breakdown

AbstractColorless, non-fluorescent Chl-catabolites (NCCs) are the typical, ubiquitous products of chlorophyll (Chl)-breakdown in senescent leaves. However, a fluorescent Chl-catabolite (FCC) accumulated in de-greened leaves of Spathiphyllum wallisii (Peace Lily), which showed a weak blue luminescence. The FCC, named Sw-FCC-62, was ‘hypermodified’ with an unprecedented 6-(2-[3,4-dihydroxy-phenyl]-ethyl)-β-glucopyranosidyl ester at the propionyl group. Such esters stabilize FCCs against their typical and rapid, spontaneous isomerization to NCCs. Chl-breakdown in Sp. wallisii thus branches off from the ‘common’ path in leaves, and furnishes unique and ‘persistent’ FCCs. Our findings on ‘hypermodified’ FCCs also call for attention as to possible physiological roles of Chl-catabolites in plants

Effect of antibiotic pack on hard palate after fistula closure on nasal airflow and reoccurrence rate

This parallel blocked randomized controlled trial was done in two groups of 30 patients each to determine if placement of an antibiotic oral pack on the hard palate after hard palatal fistula repair reduces nasal air emission and fistula re-occurrence. Group A had an oral pack on the hard palate for 5 days post-operatively while group B did not. In group A, percentage of nasal air emission was tested using nasometry with and without pack. Paired t-tests were performed to compare nasal emissions for patients with and without pack. Recurrence of fistulas after 6 months between group A and B was tested using odds ratio. Effect of nasal air emission on fistula rates was tested using paired t-tests. There was a significant increase (p < 0.0001) in nasal emission after removal of the pack in group A. Fistula re-occurrence tended to be higher in group B (no pack) than group A but this was not significant (p = 0.242). There was no correlation between nasal air emission and fistula rates. In patients with recurrent fistulae, placement of an oral pack after fistula repair diminishes nasal air emission. Whether this has an impact on re-occurrence of fistulae needs to be investigated further

Total syntheses of linear polythiazole/oxazole plantazolicin A and its biosynthetic precursor plantazolicin B.

Plantazolicin A, a linear decacyclic natural product, exhibits desirable selective activity against the causative agent of anthrax toxicity. The total synthesis of plantazolicin A and its biosynthetic precursor plantazolicin B was successfully achieved by an efficient, unified, and highly convergent route featuring dicyclizations to form 2,4-concatenated oxazoles and the mild synthesis of thiazoles from natural amino acids. This report represents the first synthesis of plantazolicin B and includes the first complete characterization data for both natural products.We gratefully acknowledge Prof. D. A. Mitchell (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) for providing an authentic sample of plantazolicin A and advice on purification, Peter Grice and Duncan Howe for assistance with NMR spectroscopy, and generous funding from the Royal Society (Newton International Fellowship—Z.E.W.), the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD (S.F.), and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.This is the final version. It was first published by Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201410063/abstrac