Marine Polysaccharides in Pharmaceutical Applications: An Overview

The enormous variety of polysaccharides that can be extracted from marine plants and animal organisms or produced by marine bacteria means that the field of marine polysaccharides is constantly evolving. Recent advances in biological techniques allow high levels of polysaccharides of interest to be produced in vitro. Biotechnology is a powerful tool to obtain polysaccharides from a variety of micro-organisms, by controlling the growth conditions in a bioreactor while tailoring the production of biologically active compounds. Following an overview of the current knowledge on marine polysaccharides, with special attention to potential pharmaceutical applications and to more recent progress on the discovering of new polysaccharides with biological appealing characteristics, this review will focus on possible strategies for chemical or physical modification aimed to tailor the final properties of interest

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and mortality of HIV, 1980–2017, and forecasts to 2030, for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017

Background Understanding the patterns of HIV/AIDS epidemics is crucial to tracking and monitoring the progress of prevention and control efforts in countries. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the levels and trends of HIV/AIDS incidence, prevalence, mortality, and coverage of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 1980–2017 and forecast these estimates to 2030 for 195 countries and territories. Methods We determined a modelling strategy for each country on the basis of the availability and quality of data. For countries and territories with data from population-based seroprevalence surveys or antenatal care clinics, we estimated prevalence and incidence using an open-source version of the Estimation and Projection Package—a natural history model originally developed by the UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling, and Projections. For countries with cause-specific vital registration data, we corrected data for garbage coding (ie, deaths coded to an intermediate, immediate, or poorly defined cause) and HIV misclassification. We developed a process of cohort incidence bias adjustment to use information on survival and deaths recorded in vital registration to back-calculate HIV incidence. For countries without any representative data on HIV, we produced incidence estimates by pulling information from observed bias in the geographical region. We used a re-coded version of the Spectrum model (a cohort component model that uses rates of disease progression and HIV mortality on and off ART) to produce age-sex-specific incidence, prevalence, and mortality, and treatment coverage results for all countries, and forecast these measures to 2030 using Spectrum with inputs that were extended on the basis of past trends in treatment scale-up and new infections. Findings Global HIV mortality peaked in 2006 with 1·95 million deaths (95% uncertainty interval 1·87–2·04) and has since decreased to 0·95 million deaths (0·91–1·01) in 2017. New cases of HIV globally peaked in 1999 (3·16 million, 2·79–3·67) and since then have gradually decreased to 1·94 million (1·63–2·29) in 2017. These trends, along with ART scale-up, have globally resulted in increased prevalence, with 36·8 million (34·8–39·2) people living with HIV in 2017. Prevalence of HIV was highest in southern sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, and countries in the region had ART coverage ranging from 65·7% in Lesotho to 85·7% in eSwatini. Our forecasts showed that 54 countries will meet the UNAIDS target of 81% ART coverage by 2020 and 12 countries are on track to meet 90% ART coverage by 2030. Forecasted results estimate that few countries will meet the UNAIDS 2020 and 2030 mortality and incidence targets. Interpretation Despite progress in reducing HIV-related mortality over the past decade, slow decreases in incidence, combined with the current context of stagnated funding for related interventions, mean that many countries are not on track to reach the 2020 and 2030 global targets for reduction in incidence and mortality. With a growing population of people living with HIV, it will continue to be a major threat to public health for years to come. The pace of progress needs to be hastened by continuing to expand access to ART and increasing investments in proven HIV prevention initiatives that can be scaled up to have population-level impact

An empirical investigation of the effect of menu icons to customer attention on family style restaurant menu

Menus have been known to be an informative business tool that affects the decision of the customer. It has different components and design element such as food name, labels and food description that provide information. One the menu components used is the menu icon, which is used to characterize food information independent form words. Icons have been used to compliment and provide emphasis to food items. It has also been identified in the focus group discussion that menu icons play a role in catching the attention of customers but has not yet been explored. Previous studies have not considered the size and location of menu icons that affect customers attention in a family style restaurant menu. Thus, this study is aimed to determine the optimal setting of a menu icon in terms of size and location presented in a family style menu. In this research the response variables to measure attention are the following: total glance time, number of glances and mean glance duration. In order to identify the icons to be used in the experiment, a comprehension test was adapted from the ISO 9186:2001. For the comprehension judgement test, a Pareto chart was made to identify the type of menu icons t be used in a designed family style restaurant menu. The screening resulted to 11 menu icons types and three menu icon designs were chosen to represent the menu icons. The second comprehension test was conducted in order to identify the comprehensive and non-comprehensive menu icons from the different menu icon design, following the ISO passing score of 67%. The comprehension test resulted to having five menu icons to represent each setting. With the final menu icons available, a prototype menu for the experiment was created. Menu layout was created based on the most common menu layout design. The experiment proper was conducted at the laboratory with 33 menu prototypes for the basic menu and the different size location settings. The menus were to be placed on a board during the experiment for data gathering. The Dikablis wireless eye tracking device was used to capture the participants eye movement. Participants were asked to imagine a restaurant setting and order food on the menus. A total of 66 participants were used for the study. Lastly, a post-interview was conducted to further gather data that will support the results of the experiment. Design of experiment was used to analyze the results of the experiment. The results of the study showed that size (p-value 0.0074 and 0.230) and the interaction of size and location (p-value of 0.0214 and 0.0283) is significant to affect the total glance time and number of glances respectively which are measures of customer attention. Furthermore, it is recommended to set the size of the menu icons to 0.35 x 0.35 inches and to consider the interaction effect of size and location at 0.35 x 0.35 inches located at the upper left of the food item. Understanding customer behavior is important in addressing problems on improving customer attention. The study has provided the settings to be considered on creating a family-style restaurant menu design using menu icons. This establishes theories regarding a family-style restaurant menu icons. This establishes theories regarding current menu design to catch customer attention that would eventually lead to food purchases

β2 adrenergic agonist suppresses eosinophil-induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of bronchial epithelial cells

Abstract Background Epithelial-mesenchymal transition is currently recognized as an important mechanism for the increased number of myofibroblasts in cancer and fibrotic diseases. We have already reported that epithelial-mesenchymal transition is involved in airway remodeling induced by eosinophils. Procaterol is a selective and full β2 adrenergic agonist that is used as a rescue of asthmatic attack inhaler form and orally as a controller. In this study, we evaluated whether procaterol can suppress epithelial-mesenchymal transition of airway epithelial cells induced by eosinophils. Methods Epithelial-mesenchymal transition was assessed using a co-culture system of human bronchial epithelial cells and primary human eosinophils or an eosinophilic leukemia cell line. Results Procaterol significantly inhibited co-culture associated morphological changes of bronchial epithelial cells, decreased the expression of vimentin, and increased the expression of E-cadherin compared to control. Butoxamine, a specific β2-adrenergic antagonist, significantly blocked changes induced by procaterol. In addition, procaterol inhibited the expression of adhesion molecules induced during the interaction between eosinophils and bronchial epithelial cells, suggesting the involvement of adhesion molecules in the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Forskolin, a cyclic adenosine monophosphate-promoting agent, exhibits similar inhibitory activity of procaterol. Conclusions Overall, these observations support the beneficial effect of procaterol on airway remodeling frequently associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases