Immunomodulatory effects of seagrass Halophila ovalis polysaccharide mixed feed in adult black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon and its protective efficacy against white spot syndrome virus infection

As white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) can be highly pathogenic in penaeid shrimp, various feed supplements have been tested to help to protect farmed shrimp against WSSV disease. Here a polysaccharide extract from Halophila ovalis (HO) seagrass was added to feeds at concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 g/kg to assess its ability to protect Black Tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) against WSSV challenge. Following feeding on these diets for 25 days, P. monodon were challenged by muscle injection and monitored for 21 days. On Day 0 and on Days 7 and 21 post-injection (pi), total haemocyte counts (THC), total protein concentrations, prophenoloxidase activity and respiratory burst activity were compared using haemolymph collected from 10 shrimp. All shrimp fed the basal diet died by Day 7 pi but survival times were extended among shrimp fed diets containing HO polysaccharide (HOP), and significantly at concentrations of 0.5 or 1 gkg^-1. Concomitantly with improved survival, all haemolymph immune parameters examined were enhanced significantly (p<0.05) among shrimp fed diets containing higher amounts of HOP. WSSV infection loads determined by real-time PCR were also lowered. The data suggest that if shrimp growth performance is not affected, inclusion of 0.5-1 gkg-1 HOP in commercial feeds might increase resilience of pond stocks of P. monodon against WSSV disease and when disease occurs, provide farmers with a longer management window to minimize economic losses

Chitosan/Modified Banana Epidermis Starch Composite Films for Food Packaging Applications

Banana epidermis is a waste material and starchier, it can be used to made biodegradable composite film and their properties were characterized. The aim of this study was to develop biodegradable composite films based on modified banana epidermis starch. The role of modified banana epidermis starch (MBES) particle loadings were analyzed on chitosan semi-crystalline structure, in addition to studying the composite film properties such as barrier, thermal and mechanical properties. Antimicrobial activity of the composite films is developed based on chitosan and MBES particle. The composite films are produced by solution casting method. The composites exhibit a significantly good in the mechanical and thermal stability. The resulting Chitosan/MBES films exhibit better oxygen permeation rate while compared with normal commercial films. The new prepared composite films have a high potential, mechanical, morphological, antimicrobial activity, and to improve their long-lasting antimicrobial efficiency for food packaging applications

TOXICITY ASSESSMENT OF CARBON NANOTUBES ON ERYTHROCYTE MORPHOLOGY AND LYMPHOCYTES IN VITRO

ABSTRACTObjectives: Carbon nanomaterials have been used in many biomedical applications due to its unique physical properties. Functionalization of carbonnanotubes (CNT) could improve the physical properties, but pharmacokinetics and toxic effects of pristine and functionalized CNTs, are not welldefined. In this study, the toxicity of the pristine and hydroxyl group functionalized Multi‑Walled CNT (MWCNT) compared.Methods: MWCNTs was interacted with human blood. The induced morphological changes in the erythrocytes and cytotoxicity were observed atdifferent concentrations. A thin blood smear was prepared, and the erythrocyte images were obtained using a digital microscope. MTT assay used toassess the cytotoxicity.Results: The result indicate that the pristine MWCNT caused more toxic effects than –OH functionalized MWCNT, which was assessed in terms ofchanges in the morphology of the erythrocytes and cytotoxicity caused to the lymphocyte cells.Conclusion: The functionalization of MWCNT could reduce the hemotoxicity and improves the biocompatibility.Keywords: Carbon nanotubes, Cytotoxicity, Echinocytes, Erythrocyte, Multi‑walled carbon nanotubes, Lymphocyte

Putative ligand binding sites of two functionally characterized bark beetle odorant receptors

Background: Bark beetles are major pests of conifer forests, and their behavior is primarily mediated via olfaction. Targeting the odorant receptors (ORs) may thus provide avenues towards improved pest control. Such an approach requires information on the function of ORs and their interactions with ligands, which is also essential for understanding the functional evolution of these receptors. Hence, we aimed to identify a high-quality complement of ORs from the destructive spruce bark beetle Ips typographus (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Scolytinae) and analyze their antennal expression and phylogenetic relationships with ORs from other beetles. Using 68 biologically relevant test compounds, we next aimed to functionally characterize ecologically important ORs, using two systems for heterologous expression. Our final aim was to gain insight into the ligand-OR interaction of the functionally characterized ORs, using a combination of computational and experimental methods. Results: We annotated 73 ORs from an antennal transcriptome of I. typographus and report the functional characterization of two ORs (ItypOR46 and ItypOR49), which are responsive to single enantiomers of the common bark beetle pheromone compounds ipsenol and ipsdienol, respectively. Their responses and antennal expression correlate with the specificities, localizations, and/or abundances of olfactory sensory neurons detecting these enantiomers. We use homology modeling and molecular docking to predict their binding sites. Our models reveal a likely binding cleft lined with residues that previously have been shown to affect the responses of insect ORs. Within this cleft, the active ligands are predicted to specifically interact with residues Tyr84 and Thr205 in ItypOR46. The suggested importance of these residues in the activation by ipsenol is experimentally supported through site-directed mutagenesis and functional testing, and hydrogen bonding appears key in pheromone binding. Conclusions: The emerging insight into ligand binding in the two characterized ItypORs has a general importance for our understanding of the molecular and functional evolution of the insect OR gene family. Due to the ecological importance of the characterized receptors and widespread use of ipsenol and ipsdienol in bark beetle chemical communication, these ORs should be evaluated for their potential use in pest control and biosensors to detect bark beetle infestations

Emotion classification in Parkinson's disease by higher-order spectra and power spectrum features using EEG signals: A comparative study

Deficits in the ability to process emotions characterize several neuropsychiatric disorders and are traits of Parkinson's disease (PD), and there is need for a method of quantifying emotion, which is currently performed by clinical diagnosis. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, being an activity of central nervous system (CNS), can reflect the underlying true emotional state of a person. This study applied machine-learning algorithms to categorize EEG emotional states in PD patients that would classify six basic emotions (happiness and sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust) in comparison with healthy controls (HC). Emotional EEG data were recorded from 20 PD patients and 20 healthy age-, education level- and sex-matched controls using multimodal (audio-visual) stimuli. The use of nonlinear features motivated by the higher-order spectra (HOS) has been reported to be a promising approach to classify the emotional states. In this work, we made the comparative study of the performance of k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers using the features derived from HOS and from the power spectrum. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that power spectrum and HOS based features were statistically significant among the six emotional states (p < 0.0001). Classification results shows that using the selected HOS based features instead of power spectrum based features provided comparatively better accuracy for all the six classes with an overall accuracy of 70.10% ± 2.83% and 77.29% ± 1.73% for PD patients and HC in beta (13-30 Hz) band using SVM classifier. Besides, PD patients achieved less accuracy in the processing of negative emotions (sadness, fear, anger and disgust) than in processing of positive emotions (happiness, surprise) compared with HC. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of applying machine learning techniques to the classification of emotional states in PD patients in a user independent manner using EEG signals. The accuracy of the system can be improved by investigating the other HOS based features. This study might lead to a practical system for noninvasive assessment of the emotional impairments associated with neurological disorders

Ethyl 6-r-(2-chlorophenyl)-2-oxo-4-phenyl­cyclohex-3-ene-1-t-carboxylate

In the title mol­ecule, C21H19ClO3, the cyclo­hexene ring adopts an envelope conformation, with all substituents equatorial. The plane through its five coplanar atoms makes dihedral angles of 12.75 (14) and 74.16 (8)° with the phenyl and benzene rings, respectively. The dihedral angle between the latter two rings is 81.73 (12)°. Inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds and intra­molecular C—H⋯Cl contacts are found in the crystal structure; a weak C—H⋯π inter­action is also present

Improving power and resource management in heterogeneous downlink OFDMA networks

© 2020 by the authors. In the past decade, low power consumption schemes have undergone degraded communication performance, where they fail to maintain the trade-off between the resource and power consumption. In this paper, management of resource and power consumption on small cell orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) networks is enacted using the sleep mode selection method. The sleep mode selection method uses both power and resource management, where the former is responsible for a heterogeneous network, and the latter is managed using a deactivation algorithm. Further, to improve the communication performance during sleep mode selection, a semi-Markov sleep mode selection decision-making process is developed. Spectrum reuse maximization is achieved using a small cell deactivation strategy that potentially identifies and eliminates the sleep mode cells. The performance of this hybrid technique is evaluated and compared against benchmark techniques. The results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid performance model shows effective power and resource management with reduced computational cost compared with benchmark techniques

Ethyl 4-(4-bromo­phen­yl)-6-r-phenyl-2-oxocyclo­hex-3-ene-1-t-carboxyl­ate

In the title compound, C21H19BrO3, the cyclo­hexene ring adopts an envelope conformation, with all substituents equatorial. The plane through its five coplanar atoms makes dihedral angles of 28.88 (10) and 71.94 (10)° with the bromo­benzene and phenyl rings, respectively. The dihedral angle between the latter two rings is 51.49 (15)°. Inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds are found in the crystal structure; a C—H⋯π inter­action is also present