Advances in Technologies and Methods for Behavior, Emotion, and Health Monitoring in Pets

This research offers a detailed descriptions of existing technologies and approaches for monitoring pets in the areas of behavior, emotion, and health. The first section discusses behavior and emotion monitoring. It includes wearable devices like smart collars that are fitted with sensors for monitoring heart rate, activity levels, and temperature. These devices communicate with AI-based anomaly detection systems that send real-time alerts through various channels such as SMS, email, and mobile app notifications. Additionally, smart cameras and sound capturing devices are employed to analyze behavior and emotional states. The second section discusses health monitoring and assistance. Users can input data such as pet breed, age, and observed behaviors into dashboards. Subsequent AI algorithms analyze the data, providing health forecasts and preventive measures. Moreover, imaging technologies employ image acquisition, preprocessing, and feature extraction to detect abnormalities, the results of which are stored in databases and can trigger alerts to medical staff. The review identifies distinct modules for each sector, including data capture, processing, and alerting mechanisms. While each module specializes in specific tasks, common functionalities such as real-time alerting and data storage are pervasive across both sectors. The study asserts that current technological advancements have significantly enhanced the ability to monitor pets in real-time, providing actionable insights for pet owners and veterinary professionals

PhnJ – A novel radical SAM enzyme from the C–P lyase complex

AbstractPhnJ from the C–P lyase complex catalyzes the cleavage of the carbon–phosphorus bond in ribose-1-phosphonate-5-phosphate (PRPn) to produce methane and ribose-1,2-cyclic-phosphate-5-phosphate (PRcP). This protein is a novel radical SAM enzyme that uses glycyl and thiyl radicals as reactive intermediates in the proposed reaction mechanism. The overall reaction is initiated with the reductive cleavage of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) by a reduced [4Fe–4S]1+-cluster to form an Ado-CH2∙ radical intermediate. This intermediate abstracts the proR hydrogen from Gly-32 of PhnJ to form Ado-CH3 and a glycyl radical. In the next step, there is hydrogen atom transfer from Cys-272 to the Gly-32 radical to generate a thiyl radical. The thiyl radical attacks the phosphorus center of the substrate, PRPn, to form a transient thiophosphonate radical intermediate. This intermediate collapses via homolytic C–P bond cleavage and hydrogen atom transfer from the proS hydrogen of Gly-32 to produce a thiophosphate intermediate, methane, and a radical intermediate at Gly-32. The final product, PRcP, is formed by nucleophilic attack of the C2-hydroxyl on the transient thiophosphate intermediate. This reaction regenerates the free thiol group of Cys-272. After hydrogen atom transfer from Cys-272 to the Gly-32 radical, the entire process is repeated with another substrate molecule without the use of another molecule of SAM or involvement from the [4Fe–4S]-cluster again

Functional Annotation and Mechanistic Characterization of Enzymes with Unknown Functions: Studies on Adenine Deaminase, N-6-Methyladenine Deaminase and the C-P Lyase Pathway

Adenine deaminase (ADE) catalyzes the conversion of adenine to hypoxanthine. Mechanistic characterization of ADE from Escherichia coli was performed along with biophysical studies. The structure of ADE was solved from A. tumefaciens. The structure, along with the biochemical and biophysical characterization, enabled the elucidation of the mechanism of the deaminase reaction of ADE. Elucidation of the origin of the oxygenation reactions within ADE led to the discovery of a promiscuous catalase reaction. The diiron ADE from all tested bacterial species exhibited this unusual reaction, along with the generation of superoxide and hydroxyl radicals, the latter being responsible for the oxygenation of the protein. The residues that were identified to be oxygenated were primarily the metal binding residues implying the origin of this reaction was the binuclear iron center. A group of bacterial enzymes that are co-localized in the same genomic operon as ADE but of unknown function were identified. The enzyme Bh0637 from Bacillus halodurans, a representative member of this group of enzymes was characterized. This enzyme was shown to preferentially catalyze the deamination of epigenetic base, N-6-methyadenine. Lastly, gram-negative bacteria have a highly conserved phn operon composed of 14 genes to break the C-P bond of inert alkylphosphonates. The genes phnGHIJKLM are absolutely critical for this activity. We discovered that methylphosphonate reacts first with MgATP to form alpha-D-ribose-1-methylphosphonate-5-triphosphate (RPnTP) and adenine by the action of PhnI, PhnG, PhnH and PhnL. PhnI by itself was shown to perform a novel nucleosidase reaction converting MgATP to ribose-5-triphosphate and adenine. The triphosphate moiety of RPnTP is then hydrolyzed to pyrophosphate and alpha-D-ribose-1-methylphosphonate-5-phosphate (PRPn) by PhnM. The carbon-phosphorus bond of PRPn is subsequently cleaved via a radical-based reaction to alpha-D-ribose-1,2-cyclic-phosphate-5-phosphate (PRcP) and methane in the presence of S-adenosyl-L-methionine by PhnJ

GPU CUDA Accelerated Image Inpainting using Fourth Order PDE Equation

This paper describes the technique to accelerate inpainting process using fourth order PDE equation using GPU CUDA. Inpainting is the process of filling in missing parts of damaged images based on information gleaned from surrounding areas. It uses the GPU computation advantage to process PDE equation into parallel process. Fourth order PDE will be solved using parallel computation in GPU. This method can speed up the computation time up to 36x using NVDIA GEFORCE GTX 67

Association Between a Type 2 Inflammatory Disease Burden Score and Outcomes Among Patients with Asthma

Funding This study was sponsored by Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Acknowledgments At the time of development of this manuscript, Fen Ye was an employee of Sanofi and Yufang Lu was an employee of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.Medical writing support was provided by Abby Armitt, MSc, and Gauri Saal, MA Economics, of Prime, Knutsford, UK, and funded by Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Health-related quality of life impairment among patients with severe chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps in the SINUS-24 trial

Purpose: Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is a predominantly type 2 inflammatory disease with a high symptom burden. Data are lacking on the comparative health status of patients with CRSwNP. This analysis compared baseline physical and mental health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and overall health status of patients with severe CRSwNP enrolled in a Phase 3 clinical trial with general population norms and with other chronic diseases. Methods: In this post hoc cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from the SINUS-24 study (NCT02912468), HRQoL was measured using the 36-item Short Form (SF-36) questionnaire and general health status was measured using the EuroQol-5 Dimension visual analog scale (EQ-VAS). Analyses included the intention-to-treat (ITT) population and subgroups defined by prior sinonasal surgery, systemic corticosteroid use, and coexisting asthma or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-exacerbated respiratory disease (NSAID-ERD). Scores were compared with published values for population norms (50 for SF-36 physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS), 70.4−83.3 for EQ-VAS) and for rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and asthma. Results: In the ITT population (n=276), mean SF-36 physical component summary (PCS), SF-36 mental component summary (MCS), and EQ-VAS scores were below general population norms (46.4, 48.6, and 66.0, respectively). Mean SF-36 PCS and EQ-VAS scores were below population norms across all subgroups; mean SF-36 MCS scores were below the population norm in all subgroups except no prior surgery. SF-36 PCS and MCS scores from SINUS-24 were generally similar to other chronic diseases, except SF-36 PCS which was lower in rheumatoid arthritis. EQ-VAS scores in SINUS-24 were lower than in other chronic diseases. HRQoL scores weakly correlated with objective measures of disease severity. Conclusion: In patients with severe CRSwNP, including those with coexisting asthma/NSAID-ERD, HRQoL was worse than population norms and as burdensome as diseases such as type 2 diabetes, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis

Development and validation of a measure to assess physician readiness to prescribe drug therapies for post-myocardial infarction patients

National guidelines recommend the use of beta-blockers, aspirin, and ACE-inhibitors in the management of post MI patients. These target drug classes continue to be under-prescribed; information on physicians\u27 decision-making process requires attention and behavior change interventions have been proposed. This pilot study uses the Transtheoretical Model of Change; physicians\u27 salience for the pros and cons of prescribing target drug classes constitutes the decisional balance measure, which can be used to predict their stage of readiness. A survey instrument was mailed to a sample of West Virginia physicians and 55 usable responses (34%) were received. Majority of the physicians self-reported in the action and maintenance stages of readiness; exhibiting a high salience for cons of prescribing beta-blocker therapy in patients with relative contraindications. Research can be guided towards increasing physicians\u27 knowledge on use of target drug classes in the presence of relative contraindications. A larger sample size is required to validate the stage measure using the decisional balance construct

Phagocytosis: A (Sphingo)Lipid Story

Phagocytosis is an evolutionary conserved innate immunological response, critical for fighting off pathogens and/or infections in higher organisms, including humans. During this process, any detrimental foreign particles (e.g. bacteria, virus, dead cells) are engulfed by immune cells called phagocytes (e.g. macrophages, monocytes), and packaged in an intracellular entity (or organelle) called the phagosome. The phagosome then undergoes a well-choreographed sequence of changes in protein and lipid composition termed “phagosomal maturation”, eventually fuses with the lysosome to form the phagolysosome, and thus marks the end of phagocytosis. While a lot is known of the proteomic changes during phagosomal maturation, in comparison, till recently, little remained known of the lipidomic changes during this process. Here, we review the current knowledge of the lipid changes on purified phagosomes, namely early and late phagosomes, during phagosomal maturation, with a special focus on sphingolipid metabolism during this important immune response