Antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of extracts prepared from fruit and vegetable wastes and by-products （農産廃棄物及び農産加工副産物由来抽出物の抗酸化性と抗菌性）

信州大学(Shinshu university)博士（農学）この博士論文は、次の学術雑誌論文を一部に使用しています。JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY FOR APPLIED BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 57(3):359-365 (2014); doi:10.1007/s13765-014-4056-6. © The Korean Society for Applied Biological Chemistry 2014.FOOD CHEMISTRY. 167:358-362 (2015); doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.06.099. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.ThesisFAISAL KABIR. Antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of extracts prepared from fruit and vegetable wastes and by-products （農産廃棄物及び農産加工副産物由来抽出物の抗酸化性と抗菌性）. 信州大学, 2014, 博士論文. 博士（農学）, 甲第52号, 平成26年9月30日授与.doctoral thesi

Electrochemical Sensor for Metal Ions and Phosphate Ion Detection for Biomedical and Agriculture Application

The goal of this work was to develop electrochemical sensors for heavy metal ions (e.g., Cd2+, Hg2+, Pb2+) and phosphate detections in fertilizers with high sensitivity, high detection range, repeatability and portability. The heavy metal electrochemical sensors were made using novel graphene oxide/silver nanowire (GO/AgNWs) composite as working electrode. The phosphate electrochemical sensors were fabricated using ammonium molybdate tetrahydrate/silver nanowires (AMT/AgNWs) modified screen printed electrode. Most of the heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic have dangerous effects on human body. These ions can enter human body system via agriculture food chain such as fish. Phosphorous-containing fertilizer is imperative to plant and animal nutrition. Essential biomolecules of the human body and plant growth depend upon the proper availability of phosphate ions in the fertilizer. There is a need for inexpensive, portable, repeatable, highly sensitive and field deployable sensors with high detection range to monitor the health of the field soil. Mercury, lead and cadmium ions have oxidation peaks at three different potentials, which indicates good selectivity of the GO/AgNWs sensing electrode. In this experiment, the sensitivities of the GO/AgNW working electrode sensors are found to be 7.89 μA/μM, 4.21 μA/μM, 2.63 μA/μM for Cd2+, Hg2+, Pb2+ respectively. The detection ranges of these sensors are very broad at 5μM - 10 mM. From cyclic voltammetry measurements, the sensitivities of AMT modified SPE without and with AgNWs are 0.1 μA/μM and 0.71 μA/μM with a detection range of 5 μM - 50 mM. Therefore, the use of AgNWs increased the sensitivity of the AMT modified SPE significantly. I-V curves showed the sensitivities of the SPE without and with AgNWs are 0.2 Ω/μM and 1.6 Ω/μM, respectively. The sensors response shows a negative linear (R∞1/Q) relation between concentration (Q) and resistance (R). The repeatability tests show an error of only 5-6%. The sensing electrodes including GO/AgNWs composite film for heavy metal detection and AMT/AgNWs for phosphate ion detection invented in this work can be a potentially simple, low-cost system owing to easy fabrication processes and use of inexpensive materials; and portable as it is small and needs less equipment to collect data for field deployment

The influence of plant sex on the performance of a detrimental herbivore and two biocontrol agents in the dioecious grey willow, Salix cinerea

Dioecious plants can be used as model systems for studying how variation in host plants affects plant-insect interactions. This thesis describes investigations into the impact of plant sex on plant-herbivore-predator interactions for the host plant Salix cinerea. Both herbivores and predators were found to prefer female plants, all other things being equal. As a result, top-down control had a more significant impact on the herbivore population on female plants than was the case for males. Despite this, Phratora beetles were more abundant on, and preferred, female plants. This may be due to bottom-up control, since female plants have longer leaves. Both herbivores and biocontrol agents were more abundant on female plants in the field. Because of predation by omnivores, survival rates for herbivore eggs on female plants were lower than those for male plants, and omnivore predation was the primary cause of death among herbivore eggs. These findings may provide novel opportunities for pest control in Salix short rotation coppices

Plant-sex-biased tritrophic interactions on dioecious willow

Plant sex effects on herbivores are well studied, but little is known about these effects on predators and predator-herbivore dynamics. Here we take a holistic approach to study, simultaneously, plant sex effects on herbivore and predator preference and performance, as well as population densities and predation pressure in the field. For dioecious Salix cinerea (grey willow) we found that male plants represented higher host plant quality than females for an omnivorous predator (Anthocoris nemorum, common flower bug), while host plant quality for its herbivorous prey (Phratora vulgatissima, blue willow beetle) was not sex-biased. The herbivore strongly preferred the host plant sex (female) that was suboptimal for the predator, which in turn followed its prey to female plants, leading to plant-sex-biased predation. These results provide new insight into the far-reaching effects of plant sex on insect communities, and open up novel opportunities for improving biocontrol of the herbivore in Salix short rotation coppice

Food Dehydration Recent Advances and Approaches

Dehydration of organic material is undoubtedly a controlled attempt to conserve or construct a novel construct that will satisfy functional devotions. Food dehydration is reviewed in light of the latest progress in food materials research. Understanding the mechanics behind the drying process is crucial in food and agricultural product dehydration. Among the most crucial steps in preserving food is dehydration. Food drying innovations include photovoltaic, thermal imaging, microwave-assisted, and comparable hybrid technologies. According to a recent study, unique food dehydration technologies might increase drying efficiency by decreasing energy usage while improving product quality. Unique drying methods reduce food component degradation and create novel items for customers. Each method’s use of specific foods will be reviewed in this chapter

Survival Prediction of Children Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Using Different Machine Learning Classifiers by Performing Chi-squared Test and Hyper-parameter Optimization: A Retrospective Analysis

Bone Marrow Transplant, a gradational rescue for a wide range of disorders emanating from the bone marrow, is an efficacious surgical treatment. Several risk factors, such as post-transplant illnesses, new malignancies, and even organ damage, can impair long-term survival. Therefore, technologies like Machine Learning are deployed for investigating the survival prediction of BMT receivers along with the influences that limit their resilience. In this study, an efficient survival classification model is presented in a comprehensive manner, incorporating the Chi-squared feature selection method to address the dimensionality problem and Hyper Parameter Optimization (HPO) to increase accuracy. A synthetic dataset is generated by imputing the missing values, transforming the data using dummy variable encoding, and compressing the dataset from 59 features to the 11 most correlated features using Chi-squared feature selection. The dataset was split into train and test sets at a ratio of 80:20, and the hyperparameters were optimized using Grid Search Cross-Validation. Several supervised ML methods were trained in this regard, like Decision Tree, Random Forest, Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbors, Gradient Boosting Classifier, Ada Boost, and XG Boost. The simulations have been performed for both the default and optimized hyperparameters by using the original and reduced synthetic dataset. After ranking the features using the Chi-squared test, it was observed that the top 11 features with HPO, resulted in the same accuracy of prediction (94.73%) as the entire dataset with default parameters. Moreover, this approach requires less time and resources for predicting the survivability of children undergoing BMT. Hence, the proposed approach may aid in the development of a computer-aided diagnostic system with satisfactory accuracy and minimal computation time by utilizing medical data records.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 38 table

A bio-sustainable approach for reducing Eucalyptus tree-caused agricultural ecosystem hazards employing Trichoderma bio-sustained spores and mycorrhizal networks

The presence of the exotic Eucalyptus tree in crop-growing soil and the accumulation of its undecomposed leaves is a significant ecological hazard. The waxy coating on the leaves and the phenolic compounds takes a long time to break down under normal conditions. It is necessary to explore various fungi that can degrade these leaves for an eco-friendly solution to this problem. In this study, spores of nine native Trichoderma strains were produced on wheat agar using a lactic acid-induced sporulation strategy (LAISS). Trichoderma biosustained spores and Serendipita indica (SI) spores were applied to a rice field with accumulated Eucalyptus leaves under continuous ponding (CP) and alternate flooding and wetting conditions (AFW). Among the strains, TI04 (Trichoderma viride) and TI15 (Trichoderma citrinoviride) showed faster (5 days) and massive sporulation (1.06–1.38 × 1011 CFU/g) in LAISS. In vitro, TI04 and TI15 biosustained on Eucalyptus leaves and improved rice seedling growth and SI infection under greenhouse conditions. In the rice-field experiment, Trichoderma-treatment had a threefold yield (percentage) increase from control, with TI04 (CP) increasing the yield by 30.79, TI04 (AFW) by 29.45, TI15 (CP) by 32.72, and TI15 (AFW) rising by 31.91. Remarkably, unfilled grain yield significantly decreased in all the Trichoderma treatments. Under AFW conditions, TI04 and TI15 showed a higher pH increase. Furthermore, TI04 and TI15 under AFW had higher water productivity (t ha−1 cm−1) of 0.0763 and 0.0791, respectively, and the highest rates (percentage) of SI colonization of 86.36 and 83.16, respectively. According to the findings, LAISS-produced Trichoderma spores can be applied to break down persistent wastes and restore agricultural ecosystems through increased mycorrhizae networking

Depression and Associated Factors among International Students in a Private University of Bangladesh

Background: Depression is the second major cause of disability and is a principal source of disease burden worldwide which is quite common among international students. Aim: This study explored the depression and its associated factors among international students of a private university in Bangladesh. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 149 international students at a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D 10) Scale. Results: The prevalence of depressive symptoms among international students was 47.7%. Students’ age, marital status, satisfaction with living conditions and problems concerning studies, food, homesickness, finances, accommodation, and health were significantly associated with depression. Conclusion: This study concluded that there is an unmet need for psychological support for international students studying in Bangladesh. Appropriate support services should be directed to them to help and to overcome the challenges they face

Automated measurement of penile curvature using deep learning-based novel quantification method

ObjectiveDevelop a reliable, automated deep learning-based method for accurate measurement of penile curvature (PC) using 2-dimensional images.Materials and methodsA set of nine 3D-printed models was used to generate a batch of 913 images of penile curvature (PC) with varying configurations (curvature range 18° to 86°). The penile region was initially localized and cropped using a YOLOv5 model, after which the shaft area was extracted using a UNet-based segmentation model. The penile shaft was then divided into three distinct predefined regions: the distal zone, curvature zone, and proximal zone. To measure PC, we identified four distinct locations on the shaft that reflected the mid-axes of proximal and distal segments, then trained an HRNet model to predict these landmarks and calculate curvature angle in both the 3D-printed models and masked segmented images derived from these. Finally, the optimized HRNet model was applied to quantify PC in medical images of real human patients and the accuracy of this novel method was determined.ResultsWe obtained a mean absolute error (MAE) of angle measurement <5° for both penile model images and their derivative masks. For real patient images, AI prediction varied between 1.7° (for cases of ∼30° PC) and approximately 6° (for cases of 70° PC) compared with assessment by a clinical expert.DiscussionThis study demonstrates a novel approach to the automated, accurate measurement of PC that could significantly improve patient assessment by surgeons and hypospadiology researchers. This method may overcome current limitations encountered when applying conventional methods of measuring arc-type PC

A Care Process Model to Deliver 177Lu-Dotatate Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy for Patients With Neuroendocrine Tumors

Purpose: To develop a care process model for the delivery of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with lutetium-177 (177Lu)-Dotatate for the treatment of somatostatin receptor-positive gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs).Methods: A multidisciplinary, structured PRRT process model was established. Over the last 9 months, meetings were held bi-weekly to discuss the logistics of clinical trials. Meetings are still held regularly at the Mayo Clinic Florida to discuss plans regarding commercially available PRRT treatments. The process model has evolved as we have treated patients on both clinical trials and commercial treatments.Results: An effective process model was formulated. We had 5 patients on our Expanded Access Program (EAP) clinical trial. Our ability to be a part of the EAP allowed us to understand the mechanics of how to treat these patients, and what was involved before it became commercially available. Since commercial availability of the 177Lu-Dotatate, more than 50 treatments (>20 patients) have already been completed, with several new patients getting started on treatment every week. Our nuclear medicine department receives continual requests to schedule new patients for PRRT. This can be attributed to our streamlined approach in delivering PRRT to our patients.Conclusion: A thorough procedural approach was formulated to provide patients with PRRT. Experiences and challenges led to refinement, which has allowed the process to advance. This development could lead to better patient outcomes, treatment efficiency, and a reference standard for other institutions trying to develop this at their location