Prevalence and Genotypic Distribution of Hepatitis C Virus in Peshawar KPK, Pakistan

This present study was planned to obtain an up-to-date picture of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and its genotypes distribution in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, as well as of the relationship between HCV genotypes and demographic and clinical parameters, and the risk factors in patients with an HCV subtype. Samples (blood) from 1978 individuals were collected and were tested using a strip-based method called the immunochromatographic test (ICT) for the existence of antibodies against HCV. It was observed that 158 of the 1978 individuals (7.9%) harbored antibodies in their blood against HCV, among which the female percentage (53.2%) was higher than that of the male (46.8%). Among the different age groups, the highest number of incidences of HCV antibodies was found in the age group of 31–40 years (26.6%). ICT positive samples were further screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to determine the existence of active HCV-RNA, and it was found that 6.21% (123) of the total population (1978) tested, was positive, among which the female rate (56.91%) was observed to be higher than that of the male (43.09%). The highest incidence recorded was in the age group of 41–50 years (33.3%). HCV RNA positive individuals were genotyped: genotype 3a (45.5%) was dominant among the other detected genotypes, followed by 1a (11.4%), 3b (4.9%), and 2a (4.1%). It was concluded that the highest prevalence of HCV was found in females, and that the dominant genotype of the screened individuals was 3a genotype

Protocol optimization for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction from dried, fresh leaves, and seeds of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Consistent isolation of best quality deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is particularly problematic due to the presence of phenolic compounds and polysaccharides. Inconsistencies in extraction results can be attributed to the age and growth stages of the plant material analyzed. Mature leaves have higher quantities of polyphenols, tannins and polysaccharides that can contaminate DNA during isolation. In this study, we used fresh and dried leaves as well as seeds for optimization of high quality DNA isolation protocols from A. hypogaea. The DNA extracted with three different methods cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and cesium chloride (CsCl) density gradient) were comparatively studied by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis in terms of quantity and quality. High quality genomic DNA was obtained from fresh leaves by modified CTAB methods. The DNA obtained ranged from 1 to 2.5 ng/μl. DNA obtained by this method was strong and reliable showing its compatibility for simple sequence repeat (SSR) analyses. The SDS based methodology give large quantities of DNA contaminated with polysaccharides. Fresh leaves also gave best result in SDS method. The quantity and quality of DNA obtained was very poor in all the tested methods in case of dried leaf tissues. The current protocol will probably be useful for the extraction of high-molecular weight DNA from other plant materials containing large amounts of secondary metabolites and essential oils.Key words: Polysaccharides, polyphenols, tannins, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cesium chloride (CsCl), secondary metabolites, SSR

Towards soft real-time fault diagnosis for edge devices in industrial IoT using deep domain adaptation training strategy

Abstract: Artificial intelligence and industrial internet of things (IIoT) have been rejuvenating the fault diagnosis systems in Industry 4.0 for avoiding major financial losses caused by faults in rotating machines. Meanwhile, the diagnostic systems are provided with a number of sensory inputs that introduce variations in input space which causes difficulty for the algorithms in edge devices. This issue is generally dealt with bi-view cross-domain learning approach. We propose a soft real-time fault diagnosis system for edge devices using domain adaptation training strategy. The investigation is carried out using deep learning models that can learn representations irrespective of input dimensions. A comparative analysis is performed on a publicly available dataset to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed approach which achieved accuracy of 88.08%. The experimental results show that our method using long short-term memory network achieves the best results for the bearing fault detection in an IIoT environmental setting. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve

Climate Data Empathy

In the era of climate services, which provide globally complete data products in a ready-to-use form, the context of climate data is in danger of being neglected or forgotten. However, the historical and present-day context imprinted on this climate data is important in its own right. The data depend on political, economic and technological factors, as we show with a range of data coverage maps. We term awareness of and sensitivity to this context-dependence “climate data empathy,” and argue that context should be seen as a source of information to be communicated along with the data. Such context not only provides additional information about the data products, but may help in designing communication strategies and contribute more generally to raising awareness of the contingency of environmental data. Decision making should thus make use of both climate data and its context

PDBe-KB: collaboratively defining the biological context of structural data

The Protein Data Bank in Europe - Knowledge Base (PDBe-KB, https://pdbe-kb.org) is an open collaboration between world-leading specialist data resources contributing functional and biophysical annotations derived from or relevant to the Protein Data Bank (PDB). The goal of PDBe-KB is to place macromolecular structure data in their biological context by developing standardised data exchange formats and integrating functional annotations from the contributing partner resources into a knowledge graph that can provide valuable biological insights. Since we described PDBe-KB in 2019, there have been significant improvements in the variety of available annotation data sets and user functionality. Here, we provide an overview of the consortium, highlighting the addition of annotations such as predicted covalent binders, phosphorylation sites, effects of mutations on the protein structure and energetic local frustration. In addition, we describe a library of reusable web-based visualisation components and introduce new features such as a bulk download data service and a novel superposition service that generates clusters of superposed protein chains weekly for the whole PDB archive

PDBe-KB: collaboratively defining the biological context of structural data

The Protein Data Bank in Europe – Knowledge Base (PDBe-KB, https://pdbe-kb.org) is an open collaboration between world-leading specialist data resources contributing functional and biophysical annotations derived from or relevant to the Protein Data Bank (PDB). The goal of PDBe-KB is to place macromolecular structure data in their biological context by developing standardised data exchange formats and integrating functional annotations from the contributing partner resources into a knowledge graph that can provide valuable biological insights. Since we described PDBe-KB in 2019, there have been significant improvements in the variety of available annotation data sets and user functionality. Here, we provide an overview of the consortium, highlighting the addition of annotations such as predicted covalent binders, phosphorylation sites, effects of mutations on the protein structure and energetic local frustration. In addition, we describe a library of reusable web-based visualisation components and introduce new features such as a bulk download data service and a novel superposition service that generates clusters of superposed protein chains weekly for the whole PDB archive

A Compact Dual-Band Notched UWB Antenna for Wireless Applications

This article presents the design and analysis of a V-shaped ultrawideband (UWB) antenna and dual-band UWB notch antenna. A rectangular slot is cut into a semicircular partial ground plane of the antenna to achieve ultrawide bandwidth. A U-shape slot is etched on a V-shaped patch that radiates, and an inverted U-shape parasitic resonator is placed beside the feedline to generate dual-band notch characteristics. The overall dimension of the proposed antenna is 28×23 mm2. The proposed UWB antenna has a gain of 9.8 dB, S11 11 < −10 dB impedance bandwidth ranging from 3.2 to 11.7 GHz. This antenna also exhibits a stable radiation pattern, group delay <1 ns, and linear phase response throughout the bandwidth except at the rejection frequencies

Musculoskeletal Symptoms among the Brick Kiln Workers of Kathmandu Valley: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Brick kilns may pose threat to the environment and health of the workers and people residing around them. Health problems related to brick kilns are musculoskeletal, respiratory, digestive system, nutritional and skin disorders. Objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms (problems) among brick kiln workers of Kathmandu valley. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in the brick kilns of Kathmandu valley from February to April 2015. Two hundred (200) workers were selected randomly from the sampled brick kilns of Kathmandu Valley as the exposed group and the equal number of grocery vendors from the surroundings of the brick kilns was included as the control group in term of exposure to ergonomic hazards. The data was collected using Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire. Results: A majority of the respondents were Hindu by religion. The mean age of exposed group was 30.75 years and 33.25 years for control group. Male female ratios were 2.39:1 and 1.94:1 in exposed and control groups respectively. The highest prevalence of musculoskeletal problem was found on Shoulders followed by Lower back, Knee and Neck for exposed group. Conclusion: All musculoskeletal problems were significantly different between exposed and control groups. Compared to the control groups, brick kiln workers had almost 8 times more likely to experience shoulder problem and 7 times more low back pain. All musculoskeletal symptoms at any time during last 12 months were found higher in exposed group compared to the control group, which was statistically significant

An Elliptical-Shaped Dual-Band UWB Notch Antenna for Wireless Applications

This paper discusses an elliptical ultrawideband (UWB) antenna and a dual-band UWB notch antenna. To achieve a UWB bandwidth, two corner cuts are etched into the rectangular slot on the partial ground plane. An inverted-U-shaped and conductor-shaped resonator are utilized to achieve dual-band notch characteristics on a partial ground plane. The suggested antenna has an overall dimension of 24&times;32&nbsp;mm2. The suggested UWB antenna has a gain of 4.9 dB, a bandwidth of 2.5&ndash;11 GHz, a linear phase response, a group delay of less than 1 ns, and a steady radiation pattern. The suggested UWB notch rejects WLAN and ITU bands from 5.2&ndash;5.7 GHz and 7.2&ndash;8.5 GHz, respectively, with an impedance bandwidth of 2.5&ndash;11 GHz. The UWB notch antenna features a linear phase, a group delay of less than 1 ns, and a stable radiation pattern