Strategies to Target Tumor Immunosuppression

The tumor microenvironment is currently in the spotlight of cancer immunology research as a key factor impacting tumor development and progression. While antigen-specific immune responses play a crucial role in tumor rejection, the tumor hampers these immune responses by creating an immunosuppressive microenvironment. Recently, major progress has been achieved in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and several groundbreaking clinical trials demonstrated the potency of such therapeutic interventions in patients. Yet, the responses greatly vary among individuals. This calls for the rational design of more efficacious cancer immunotherapeutic interventions that take into consideration the “immune signature” of the tumor. Multimodality treatment regimens that aim to enhance intratumoral homing and activation of antigen-specific immune effector cells, while simultaneously targeting tumor immunosuppression, are pivotal for potent antitumor immunity

Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

Mapping geographical inequalities in oral rehydration therapy coverage in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended home fluids (RHF) exist as alternative forms of ORT; however, it is unclear whether RHF prevent child mortality. Previous studies have shown considerable variation between countries in ORS and RHF use, but subnational variation is unknown. This study aims to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of relative and absolute coverage of ORS, RHF, and ORT (use of either ORS or RHF) in LMICs. Methods We used a Bayesian geostatistical model including 15 spatial covariates and data from 385 household surveys across 94 LMICs to estimate annual proportions of children younger than 5 years of age with diarrhoea who received ORS or RHF (or both) on continuous continent-wide surfaces in 2000-17, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. Additionally, we analysed geographical inequality in coverage across administrative units and estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths averted by increased coverage over the study period. Uncertainty in the mean coverage estimates was calculated by taking 250 draws from the posterior joint distribution of the model and creating uncertainty intervals (UIs) with the 2 center dot 5th and 97 center dot 5th percentiles of those 250 draws. Findings While ORS use among children with diarrhoea increased in some countries from 2000 to 2017, coverage remained below 50% in the majority (62 center dot 6%; 12 417 of 19 823) of second administrative-level units and an estimated 6 519 000 children (95% UI 5 254 000-7 733 000) with diarrhoea were not treated with any form of ORT in 2017. Increases in ORS use corresponded with declines in RHF in many locations, resulting in relatively constant overall ORT coverage from 2000 to 2017. Although ORS was uniformly distributed subnationally in some countries, within-country geographical inequalities persisted in others; 11 countries had at least a 50% difference in one of their units compared with the country mean. Increases in ORS use over time were correlated with declines in RHF use and in diarrhoeal mortality in many locations, and an estimated 52 230 diarrhoeal deaths (36 910-68 860) were averted by scaling up of ORS coverage between 2000 and 2017. Finally, we identified key subnational areas in Colombia, Nigeria, and Sudan as examples of where diarrhoeal mortality remains higher than average, while ORS coverage remains lower than average. Interpretation To our knowledge, this study is the first to produce and map subnational estimates of ORS, RHF, and ORT coverage and attributable child diarrhoeal deaths across LMICs from 2000 to 2017, allowing for tracking progress over time. Our novel results, combined with detailed subnational estimates of diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality, can support subnational needs assessments aimed at furthering policy makers' understanding of within-country disparities. Over 50 years after the discovery that led to this simple, cheap, and life-saving therapy, large gains in reducing mortality could still be made by reducing geographical inequalities in ORS coverage. Copyright (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.Peer reviewe

Recent developments in immunotherapy of acute myeloid leukemia

The advent of new immunotherapeutic agents in clinical practice has revolutionized cancer treatment in the past decade, both in oncology and hematology. The transfer of the immunotherapeutic concepts to the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is hampered by various characteristics of the disease, including non-leukemia-restricted target antigen expression profile, low endogenous immune responses, and intrinsic resistance mechanisms of the leukemic blasts against immune responses. However, considerable progress has been made in this field in the past few years. Within this manuscript, we review the recent developments and the current status of the five currently most prominent immunotherapeutic concepts: (1) antibody-drug conjugates, (2) T cell-recruiting antibody constructs, (3) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, (4) checkpoint inhibitors, and (5) dendritic cell vaccination. We focus on the clinical data that has been published so far, both for newly diagnosed and refractory/relapsed AML, but omitting immunotherapeutic concepts in conjunction with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Besides, we have included important clinical trials that are currently running or have recently been completed but are still lacking full publication of their results. While each of the concepts has its particular merits and inherent problems, the field of immunotherapy of AML seems to have taken some significant steps forward. Results of currently running trials will reveal the direction of further development including approaches combining two or more of these concepts

The Evaluation of Effects of Producer Support Policies on Income Risk (Case Study: Date)

The effects of producer support policies on income risk of date producers were evaluated during 1989 to 2006. It is important to know, how much producer support policies (i.e. market price support, input subsidy and insurance) would change income risk. Cuddy Coefficient of Variation (CCV) criterion was used for this purpose. Results showed that income risk is reduced through market price support and fuel subsidy policies, while input subsidy support and insurance have increased income risk. The support policies, altogether, decreased income risk by 12.3% which is significantly more than the sum of declines by each of them

IEEE INFOCOM 2020 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops, INFOCOM WKSHPS 2020

Despite the increasing popularity of commercial usage of UAVs or drone-delivered services, their dependence on the limited-capacity on-board batteries hinders their flight-time and mission continuity. As such, developing in-situ power transfer solutions for topping-up UAV batteries have the potential to extend their mission duration. In this paper, we study a scenario where UAVs are deployed as base stations (UAV-BS) providing wireless Hotspot services to the ground nodes, while harvesting wireless energy from flying energy sources. These energy sources are specialized UAVs (Charger or transmitter UAVs, tUAVs), equipped with wireless power transmitting devices such as RF antennae. tUAVs have the flexibility to adjust their flight path to maximize energy transfer. With the increasing number of UAV-BSs and environmental complexity, it is necessary to develop an intelligent trajectory selection procedure for tUAVs so as to optimize the energy transfer gain. In this paper, we model the trajectory optimization of tUAVs as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) problem and solve it using Q-Learning algorithm. Simulation results confirm that the Q-Learning based optimized trajectory of the tUAVs outperforms two benchmark strategies, namely random path planning and static hovering of the tUAVs

Optimization of combustion in micro combined heat and power (mCHP) system with the biomass-Stirling engine using SiO2 and Al2O3 nanofluids

In this paper, a typical mCHP system was integrated by gamma type Stirling engine to meet electric, heating and hot water demands. The combustion test results, which is a key technology for small and micro scale mCHP systems have been presented and the combustion parameters for the Gamma type Stirling engine power system are discussed. Finally, the effect of SiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles, dispersed in Polyalkylene glycol (PAG) of mCHP system on the viscosity and thermal conductivity, were investigated. Also, the effect of sawdust biomass fuel on mCHP system emissions (such as CO, NOx, HC) have investigated. The test results confirm the fact that Stirling engines that are driven by the temperature of biomass gases are able to achieve a valuable output power. Also, Analysis of pollutants showed that by increasing of sawdust mass flow rate from 0 to 0.14 (g/s), CO emissions increased 164 Vol%, also HC and NOx emissions increased 295-24 ppm respectively. Finally, the comparison between Al2O3/PAG and SiO2/PAG nano-lubricant demonstrate that Al2O3/PAG have better performance, therefore, the findings suggest Al2O3/PAG with a volume concentration of 0.010% as an optimum and best performance nano-lubricant for mCHP system. On the basis of the experimental results, we conclude that using the SiO2 and Al2O3 nanofluids in mCHP system can be introduced as new way to improve the performance of mCHP

Energy and service-priority aware trajectory design for UAV-BSs using double Q-learning

Next generation mobile networks have proposed the integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as aerial base stations (UAV-BS) to serve ground nodes. Despite the advantages of UAV-BSs, their dependence on the on-board, limited-capacity battery hinders their service continuity. Shorter trajectories can save flying energy, however UAV-BSs must also serve nodes based on their service priority since nodes' service requirements are not always the same. In this paper, we present an energy-efficient trajectory optimization for a UAV assisted IoT system in which the UAV-BS considers the IoT nodes' service priorities in making its movement decisions. We solve the trajectory optimization problem using Double Q- Learning algorithm. Simulation results reveal that the Q-Learning based optimized trajectory outperforms a benchmark algorithm, namely Greedily served algorithm, in terms of reducing the average energy consumption of the UAV-BS as well as the service delay for high priority nodes

Impact of water – biodiesel – diesel nano-emulsion fuel on performance parameters and diesel engine emission

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd The use of emulsion fuel in the engine has been reported as an effective solution to reduce the harmful emission. This experimental study examined the effects of nano-emulsion biodiesel fuel on engine efficiency, gas emission parameters and combustion parameters of a single-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine. Nano-emulsion fuel made of 5% waste cooking oil biodiesel and 5% distilled water were used to test the performance of the diesel engine. This fuel was produced using ultrasonic waves by stabilizing 5% by volume tween 80 and spans 80 surfactants in HLB8 (Hydrophilic-Lipophilic Balance). Performance parameters and pollutants emission of a diesel engine using nano-emulsion fuel were compared with emulsion fuel. This test was performed on four different engine loads (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) at different speeds of 1700, 2000, 2300, and 2600 rpm. Power, torque, cylinder pressure levels, and emissions including soot opacity, carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (UHC), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOX) were measured. The test results show that diesel engine power and torque using nano-emulsion fuel improved by about 4.84% and 4.65% compared to emulsion fuel, respectively. The use of nano-emulsion fuel significantly decreased CO (~11%), UHCs (~6%), NOx (~9%) and soot opacity (~10%) emission. However, a small rise in CO2 (~7%) emission was observed. The combustion result shows that nano-emulsion fuel creates more cylinder pressure (CP) than emulsion fuel during combustion. The highest CP was recorded at 10° crank angle after the top dead centre with diesel fuel. Finally, nano-emulsion fuel can be a satisfactory alternative to diesel fuel in a diesel engine without having to change the engine