Extraction and Liquid-Membrane Preconcentration of Vincamine from Periwinkle (VincaMinor L.) Leaves. Process Modelling

An integrated process coupling solid-liquid extraction and liquid-membrane preconcentration of vincamine was studied. The effect of the ratios solid phase/extractant volume and extractant volume/liquid membrane volume on the mass transfer rate and efficiency of vincamine removal were estimated. It was found that the transfer rate and removal efficiency of the alkaloid were higher with smaller quantities of solids and membrane volume. A mathematical description of the overall integrated process was proposed, and the values of the model parameters – mass transfer coefficients – were evaluated. An agreement between the model-predicted results and the experimental data obtained was demonstrated. The four-phase integrated process provides simultaneously almost complete extraction and appreciable enrichment of the extracted product

Intralobar Pulmonary Sequestration – Clinical Case In A Three-Year-Old Child

Pulmonary sequestration is a rare congenital lung anomaly, which presents with a solid or cystic primitive tissue that has no function. Commonly, this formation does not communicate with the tracheobronchial tree and has an anomalous blood supply, most often from the systemic circulation. There are two types of pulmonary sequestration – intralobar (intrapulmonary) and extralobar (extrapulmonary).We present a 3-year-old boy from normal pregnancy and delivery through Cesarean section with intralobar pulmonary sequestration. The child is with normal physical and neuropsychological development, has had all the necessary vaccinations, and suffers from frequent respiratory infections with recurrent cough. The anomaly was discovered accidentally during another hospitalization due to cough, but without a fever, and with suspected inflammatory changes in the radiography, with a wider mediastinal shadow. The performed chest CT with contrast revealed a cystic formation in the posterior-basal left lung with an anomalous supply from the thoracic aorta. Despite the controversial behavior in sequestration, without or with mild symptoms, the child was referred for consultation with a pediatric surgeon and for possible surgical treatment.Pulmonary sequestration is a rare congenital anomaly with the intralobar type being more frequent. A distinctive feature for the latter is the absence of clinical symptoms, especially in childhood. However, it has to be suspected in cases of a chronic cough and recurrent pneumonias. Non-invasive imaging techniques, such as CT angiography, MRI, echography, including fetal one, are the preferred diagnostic tool

Selective recovery of tropane alkaloids applying liquid membrane technique

A tropine recovery from its solutions applying a liquid membrane technique was studied. Among several studied organic solvents, chloroform showed best extraction ability towards atropine. Pertraction studies were carried out in a laboratory bulk liquid membrane contactor with agitation of all three phases. Both, aqueous solutions of pure atropine and extract of Atropa Belladonna L. roots were used as feed solutions, as well as chloroform and diluted sulphuric acid as a liquid membrane and a stripping liquor, respectively. The effect of phase agitation on alkaloid pertraction was studied for the cases when pure atropine solutions were used as feed phase. A pertraction process carried out with native liquid extracts from A. Belladonna provided selective alkaloid recovery and its concentration in the acceptor solutio

Extraction and Liquid-Membrane Preconcentration of Vincamine from Periwinkle (VincaMinor L.) Leaves. Process Modelling

An integrated process coupling solid-liquid extraction and liquid-membrane preconcentration of vincamine was studied. The effect of the ratios solid phase/extractant volume and extractant volume/liquid membrane volume on the mass transfer rate and efficiency of vincamine removal were estimated. It was found that the transfer rate and removal efficiency of the alkaloid were higher with smaller quantities of solids and membrane volume. A mathematical description of the overall integrated process was proposed, and the values of the model parameters – mass transfer coefficients – were evaluated. An agreement between the model-predicted results and the experimental data obtained was demonstrated. The four-phase integrated process provides simultaneously almost complete extraction and appreciable enrichment of the extracted product

Cyber Intelligence in the Era of Big Data

Three key moments have to be solved for this complex problem proper ap- proaching: (i) selection of suitable formalism for fast and easy modelling, im- plementing both experts’ data and cyber incidents statistics on past and future cyberattacks trends; (ii) model quantification is necessary to be added, achieving a suitable machine interpretation for discrete optimization; (iii) some probabilistic elements have also to be considered, in order to achieve realistic models, practi- cal implementation decision support, benefitting from the “big data” knowledge context of the task. Practical implementation of these moments will be given further

Using Y-chromosome capture enrichment to resolve haplogroup H2 shows new evidence for a two-Path Neolithic expansion to Western Europe

Uniparentally-inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective.Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conversely, the NRY is less susceptible to back mutations and saturation, and is potentially more informative than mtDNA owing to its longer sequence length. However, due to comparatively poor NRY coverage via shotgun sequencing, and the relatively low and biased representation of Y-chromosome variants on capture arrays such as the 1240K, ancient DNA studies often fail to utilize the unique perspective that the NRY can yield.Here we introduce a new DNA enrichment assay, coined YMCA (Y-mappable capture assay), that targets the “mappable” regions of the NRY. We show that compared to low-coverage shotgun sequencing and 1240K capture, YMCA significantly improves the coverage and number of sites hit on the NRY, increasing the number of Y-haplogroup informative SNPs, and allowing for the identification of previously undiscovered variants.To illustrate the power of YMCA, we show that the analysis of ancient Y-chromosome lineages can help to resolve Y-chromosomal haplogroups. As a case study, we focus on H2, a haplogroup associated with a critical event in European human history: the Neolithic transition. By disentangling the evolutionary history of this haplogroup, we further elucidate the two separate paths by which early farmers expanded from Anatolia and the Near East to western Europe.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Introduction Results and Discussion - Validating the performance of YMCA - Application of YMCA to YHG H2 as a case study - Identifying diagnostic SNPs for improved YHG H2 resolution Discussion Materials and Methods - Data - Contamination quality filtering - Method of Y Haplogroup Assignment - Comparing the Performance of our Y-capture Array Phylogenetic Tree Reconstructio

Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between similar to 10,500 and similar to 400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between similar to 20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for similar to 4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The only remnant of this prehistoric HBV diversity is the rare genotype G, which appears to have reemerged during the HIV pandemic.Molecular Technology and Informatics for Personalised Medicine and Healt

Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for ~4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The only remnant of this prehistoric HBV diversity is the rare genotype G, which appears to have reemerged during the HIV pandemic