Microbial Quality of Restaurants Foods in Suburban Area and Antibiotic Resistance

Despite the fact that ready-to-eat foods have gained popularity across the globe. Food safety is frequently overlooked as a major problem in this case. Antibiotic resistance is a long-standing concern regarding microbial diseases. This research was intended to explore the quality of the ready-to-eat foods available in the suburban and rural areas of Bangladesh. In addition, their association with the development of multi-drug resistance was explored. For this purpose, 12 food samples were randomly selected from the restaurants in a suburban area near Dhaka city. Then, the existence of bacteria and their antibiotic resistance capacity were examined through systematic biochemical and microbial experiments. Results showed that the presence of Staphylococcus epidermitis in milk was higher and the level of growth was undesirable according to FDA guidelines. The presence of Klebsiella in fried rice was also impermissible. Apparently, both Cephradine and Ampicillin revealed that they were not capable of inhibiting microbial growth because of their resistance. From the sensitivity test report, it is clear that people in rural areas are also under the threat of food-borne diseases and the development of antibiotic resistance because of the consumption of these kinds of contaminated ready-to-eat foods

The Effects of Preexisting Health Conditions and Vaccination on the COVID-19 Complications

In recent years, the coronavirus pandemic disease has been more fatal in the world. The presence of several comorbidities, particularly asthma, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, and kidney disease, has been linked to a worse prognosis of COVID-19 infection. This paper examined the progression of the disease, significant health risks, effects of vaccination and COVID-19 complications rates among people with comorbidities. A cross-sectional study has been conducted with direct interviews of 1002 patients in different parts of Bangladesh following a well-organized questionnaire. This study clearly shows that pre-existing health problems are extremely high-risk factors for long-term major health complications such as shortness of breath, hypertension, loss of taste and appetite, mental depression, dementia, uncontrolled blood pressure, and sugar levels during and after recovery from COVID-19 infection. Among them, almost 70% of asthma and cardiovascular disease patients were suffering from severe health complications, including shortness of breath, hypertension, and mental health problems, after getting the COVID-19 infection. Moreover, it also revealed that vaccination can significantly reduce the severity of COVID complications up to 50% compared to unvaccinated people. The overall finding of this study can be useful for the prediction of possible ways to avoid the life-threatening risk of COVID-19 infection for people who are already suffering from various preexisting health problems

Effect of Combination of Natural Dyes and the Blocking Layer on the Performance of DSSC

Over the years, researchers have been working on replacing sensitized dye for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC), because of its low production cost, biodegradability, and non-toxicity. However, the overall performance of natural dye-based DSSCs is low compared to the DSSCs sensitized with Ruthenium based dyes. The combination of natural dyes with an optimized choice of the extracting solvents and the proper volume ratio of mixture of the dyes, enhances inherent properties, such as absorption and adsorption of the dyes. It also allows the device to utilize photon energy more efficiently over the entire visible wavelength. As a result, DSSC sensitized with the dye mixture shows higher absorbance, and cumulative absorption properties over the whole visible region than the DSSC fabricated with individual dyes and showed higher photocurrent. Another effective way to improve cell efficiency is by using a blocking layer. The blocking layer increases the photocurrent, is mainly due to the improvement of the electron recombination at the transparent conducting oxide/electrolyte interfaces. Also, the blocking layer’s compact structure creates an effective pathway for electron transportation; thus, the device’s photocurrent increases. Additionally, a slight improvement in the open-circuit voltage and fill factor was observed, thus cell efficiency enhances significantly. By both the proper ratio of dye mixture and the blocking layer improves cell performance of DSSC and opens a new pathway for future studies

Low Cost Micro Milling Machine for Prototyping Plastic Microfluidic Devices

Micro-milling is one of the commonly used methods of fabrication of microfluidic devices necessary for cell biological research and application. Commercial micro-milling machines are expensive, and researchers in developing countries can’t afford them. Here, we report the design and the development of a low-cost (<130 USD) micro milling machine and asses the prototyping capabilities of microfeatures in plastic materials. We demonstrate that the developed machine can be used in fabricating the plastic based microfluidic device

Design and Development of a Power Operated Sunflower Thresher

Sunflower production is increasing in Bangladesh, but farmers face problems separating the seeds from the sunflower heads. Sunflowers are traditionally threshed by beating the heads manually with a stick. The goal of this experiment is to design and develop a motor-driven machine that separates the seeds from the sunflower. An orthographic projection was drawn using SolidWorks 2016 software. The sunflower threshing machine was then fabricated according to the drawing in the FMPE Divisional workshop using locally available materials in 2017-18. The developed sunflower threshing machine was modified in 2018-19. The improved model was further modified to reduce the overall dimensions while maintaining the same capacity of the machine. The number of threshing rollers was reduced from 5 to 4. A threshing fan has been added to the improved version to separate the dust from the grains. The capacity of the motorized sunflower thresher was 115 and 304% higher than that of the pedal thresher and manual threshing, respectively. The capacity of the thresher was varied with moisture content. The capacity of the thresher varied from 89 to 125 kg/h at moisture content from 31 to 62% (wb). [J Bangladesh Agril Univ 2022; 20(3.000): 289-294

Increased Performance of an all-Organic Redox Flow Battery model by Nitration of the [4]Helicenium Ion Electrolyte

Redox Flow Batteries (RFBs) through their scalable design and virtually unlimited capacity, are promising candidates for large-scale energy storage. While recent advances in the development of redox-active bipolar organic molecules satisfy the prerequisites for the pioneering Symmetrical all-Organic Redox Flow Batteries (SORFBs) emerging, problems of low durability or low energy density remain a bottleneck for their wide-spread application. The present work reports that nitration of the [4]helicenium ion core (DMQA+) result in a significant enhancement of the electrochemical performance of DMQA as electrolyte for SORFBs. The physical and kinetic properties of NO2C+ were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and UV-visible spectroscopy in acetonitrile and compared to those of its precursor HC+. The electrons storage ability of NO2C+ was investigated in three differents type of static H-cell experiments. In the first experiment, NO2C+ provided an open circuit voltage (OCV) of 2.24 V and demonstrated good stability, as well as high coulombic (>98%) efficiencies, over more than 200 charge/discharge cycles. In the second experiment, a charge-discharge cycling over the entire redox window of NO2C+ (OCV > 3 V) resulted in 80 cycles at a potential energy density above 12 Wh/L. During the last epxeriment, a bipolarization stress-test was performed during which NO2C+ demonstrated a remarkable durability of 90 cycles at 100% load with a perfect retention of capacity and coulombic efficiency. The electrochemical performance results of this enhanced redox material highlights that DMQA+ ions are robust and versatile materials for the emergence of symmetrical all-Organic ORF

Anxiolytic-<i>like</i> Effects by <i>trans</i>-Ferulic Acid Possibly Occur through GABAergic Interaction Pathways

Numerous previous studies reported that ferulic acid exerts anxiolytic activity. However, the mechanisms have yet to be elucidated. The current study aimed to investigate the anxiolytic effect of trans-ferulic acid (TFA), a stereoisomer of ferulic acid, and evaluated its underlying mechanism using in vivo and computational studies. For this, different experimental doses of TFA (25, 50, and 75 mg/kg) were administered orally to Swiss albino mice, and various behavioral methods of open field, hole board, swing box, and light–dark tests were carried out. Diazepam (DZP), a positive allosteric modulator of the GABAA receptor, was employed as a positive control at a dose of 2 mg/kg, and distilled water served as a vehicle. Additionally, molecular docking was performed to estimate the binding affinities of the TFA and DZP toward the GABAA receptor subunits of α2 and α3, which are associated with the anxiolytic effect; visualizations of the ligand-receptor interaction were carried out using various computational tools. Our findings indicate that TFA dose-dependently reduces the locomotor activity of the animals in comparison with the controls, calming their behaviors. In addition, TFA exerted the highest binding affinity (−5.8 kcal/mol) to the α2 subunit of the GABAA receptor by forming several hydrogen and hydrophobic bonds. Taken together, our findings suggest that TFA exerts a similar effect to DZP, and the compound exerts moderate anxiolytic activity through the GABAergic interaction pathway. We suggest further clinical studies to develop TFA as a reliable anxiolytic agent

Persistent, Highly Localized, and Tunable [4]Helicene Radicals

Persistent organic radicals have gained considerable attention in the fields of catalysis and material sciences. In particular, helical molecules are of great interest for the development and application of novel organic radicals in optoelectronic and spintronic materials. Here we report the syntheses of easily tunable and stable neutral quinolinoacridine radicals under anaerobic conditions by chemical reduction of their quinolinoacridinium cation analogs. The structures of these [4]helicene radicals were determined by X-ray crystallography. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations, supported by Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements, indicate that over 40% of spin density is located at the central carbon of the [4]helicene radicals regardless of their structural modifications. The localization of the charge promotes a reversible oxidation to the cation upon exposure to air. This unusual reactivity toward molecular oxygen was monitored via UV-Vis spectroscopy.</p

IoT-Based Medical Image Monitoring System Using HL7 in a Hospital Database

In recent years, the healthcare system, along with the technology that surrounds it, has become a sector in much need of development. It has already improved in a wide range of areas thanks to significant and continuous research into the practical implications of biomedical and telemedicine studies. To ensure the continuing technological improvement of hospitals, physicians now also must properly maintain and manage large volumes of patient data. Transferring large amounts of data such as images to IoT servers based on machine-to-machine communication is difficult and time consuming over MQTT and MLLP protocols, and since IoT brokers only handle a limited number of bytes of data, such protocols can only transfer patient information and other text data. It is more difficult to handle the monitoring of ultrasound, MRI, or CT image data via IoT. To address this problem, this study proposes a model in which the system displays images as well as patient data on an IoT dashboard. A Raspberry Pi processes HL7 messages received from medical devices like an ultrasound machine (ULSM) and extracts only the image data for transfer to an FTP server. The Raspberry Pi 3 (RSPI3) forwards the patient information along with a unique encrypted image data link from the FTP server to the IoT server. We have implemented an authentic and NS3-based simulation environment to monitor real-time ultrasound image data on the IoT server and have analyzed the system performance, which has been impressive. This method will enrich the telemedicine facilities both for patients and physicians by assisting with overall monitoring of data