Optimization of NaCl based spray corrosion test process parameters of heat treated hybrid metal matrix composites

ABSTRACT. Aluminium hybrid metal matrix composites (AHMMCs) have widely employed in aerospace, transportation, and automotive applications since for their excellent mechanical qualities and high corrosion resistance. In this research, Al8079 is selected as a matrix material. The titanium diboride (TiB2) is selected as hard reinforcement and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is used as soft reinforcement. The Al8079/15 wt.% TiB2/x wt.% MoS2 (x = 0, 2.5, 5 and 7.5) HMMCs are fabricated by using stir casting. The composites are heat treated under T6 condition. The density and micro hardness tests are conducted. The optimization on NaCl based spray corrosion test process parameters is done using grey relational analysis (GRA). The selected input process parameters are Al8079/15 wt.% TiB2/wt.% MoS2 (x = 0, 2.5 and 5), pH value of NaCl solution (x = 6, 9 and 12), hang time (x = 24, 48, and 72 h) and pressure (x = 0.7, 0.9 and 1.1 kg/cm2). The selected response parameters are micro hardness, mass loss and wear loss. The L9 Taguchi design is used for optimization. The wear test is conducted at the constant speed of 0.5 m/s, loading rate of 20 N and the sliding distance of 1000 m. The percentage of improvement of GRG from initial setting to experimental is 10.4%.   KEY WORDS: Reinforcement, Stir casting, Optimization, GRA, NaCl Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2022, 36(4), 903-914.                                                         DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v36i4.1

The Occurrence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Its Complications in Obese Individuals

SUMMARY: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is known to occur in about 30% of obese individuals and is also known to be associated with a number of complications. This study was undertaken as there are only limited data regarding the prevalence of this condition and the complications associated with it. A total of 60 obese individuals with excessive daytime somnolence as ascertained by an Epworth score greater than 11 were studied and a eight hour overnight polysomnographic recording was done and among the individuals who turned positive for OSAHS, various complications were assessed for their presence. The occurrence of OSAHS was found to be about 33.33%. The prevalence of various complications were, systemic hypertension: 40%, Pulmonary hypertension: 15%, CAD: 30%, Ventricular dysfunction: 25%, Diabetes mellitus: 25%, elevated PCV: 25%. CONCLUSION: 1. The occurrence of OSAHS in obese individuals with excessive daytime somnolence is 33.33%. 2. The prevalence increases with age. 3. Both the sexes are equally susceptible. 4. Snoring is a common symptom and is present in 75% of individuals with OSAHS. 5. Systemic hypertension, pulmonary hypertension, coronary artery disease, Left ventricular dysfunction, Diabetes and high PCV are all associated with OSAHS. 6. The prevalence of the above mentioned complications is comparable with other studies done so far

Ralstonia mannitolilytica bacteremia in a maintenance hemodialysis patient

Ralstonia mannitolilytica is a nonfermentative, Gram-negative bacterium isolated infrequently from clinical samples. It is widelydistributed in nature, being a frequent contaminant in water supplies. It is increasingly identified as an opportunistic pathogen innosocomial infections, especially among immunosuppressed patients. It has also been implicated in common source nosocomialinfection outbreaks due to the addition of contaminated water to parenteral fluids and to medical equipment presumed to besterile. True bacteremia with the organism, however, cannot be ruled out, especially if it is isolated repeatedly from the samepatient within 3 successive days from blood cultures. A 22-year-old Ethiopian male presented to us in December 2015 with feverwith chills and rigor, vomiting, and headache. He was a known end-stage renal disease patient on thrice per week hemodialysisthrough a tunneled hemodialysis catheter for the past 1 year. He had an episode of catheter-related blood stream infection inOctober-November 2015 and was treated at a multispeciality hospital with parenteral antibiotics (piperacillin-tazobactam) for2 weeks (for growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in blood cultures) during the same admission phase. The tunneled catheter wasnot removed then and lock therapy was used and the patient improved gradually with antibiotics. During the current admission,three blood culture sets (aerobic and anaerobic), one set from the dialysis line and two from the peripheral lines were submittedto microbiology laboratory. Blood cultures (one bottle from each of the three sets) flagged positive. The blood culture sentfrom the hemodialysis line was the first to flag positive 12 h after it was loaded onto the BACTEC 9050 system. This wasfollowed by the aerobic and anaerobic bottles from the peripheral lines. The preliminary Gram-stain showed Gram-negativebacilli and the cultures grew Gram-negative organisms. The organism was identified as R. mannitolilytica by the Vitek 2C.Disc diffusion (CLSI, 2015) was done for the various antibiotics, and there was a 6 mm resistant zone for the following paneltested: Gentamicin, cotrimoxazole, aztreonam, amikacin, ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, cefepime, ceftazidime, and carbapenems; theorganism was intermediate to piperacillin-tazobactam (17 mm) and was sensitive to and cefoperazone-sulbactum (23 mm). In ourset up, this was the first case of R. mannitolilytica isolated as a significant pathogen in a case of true bacteremia. R. mannitolilyticacan thus cause true bacteremia as well in addition to just being an environmental contaminant. Early recognition of the infectionhelps in instituting appropriate antibiotic with complete resolution of the infection. In our case report, the prompt report ofmicrobiology department enabled us to treat the patient on time with appropriate antibiotic and also prevented the prematureremoval of the tunneled catheter. The problems caused by this bacterium occur rapidly and disease progression is fast; therefore,R. mannitolilytica infections should draw sufficient attention from clinical physicians and bacteriology workers to respond to theresulting severe consequences

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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Not AvailableIntegrated farming systems (IFS) entail a holistic approach to farming aimed at meeting the multiple demands (impart farm resilience, farmer livelihoods, food security, ecosystem services, and making farms adaptive and resilient, etc.). IFS are characterized by temporal and spatial mixing of crops, livestock, fishery, and allied activities in a single farm. It is hypothesized that these complex farms are more productive at a system level, are less vulnerable to volatility, and produce less negative externalities than simplified farms. Thereby, they cater the needs of small and marginal farmers, who are the backbone of agriculture in India. Our review of literature shows that IFS have the potential to improve farm profitability (265%) and employment (143%) compared to single enterprise farms. The literature showed that IFS enhance nutrient recycling through composting, mulching, and residue incorporation and, as a consequence, have the capacity to reduce the external purchase of inputs. The nutrient recycling in turn helps to increase the soil quality indicators such as soil nutrient availability and also improves soil microbial activity. The IFS play a major role in biodiversity conservation through adoption of diversified cropping system and through integration of indigenous livestock breeds. IFS also played important role in improving soil organic carbon from 0.75 to 0.82%. Due to increased carbon sequestration, biomass production by trees, reduced consumption of fertilizers, and pesticides the greenhouse gas emission could be reduced significantly. This results in a linked system making it sustainable and climate- resilient. The main challenge associated with adoption of IFS is it requires skill, knowledge, resources, labor, and capital which are not always available with small and marginal farmers. There is a need for integrating productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability variables in a single evaluation framework to effectively generate information toward enhancing adaptability of IFS.Not Availabl

Novel pedigree analysis implicates DNA repair and chromatin remodeling in multiple myeloma risk

<div><p>The high-risk pedigree (HRP) design is an established strategy to discover rare, highly-penetrant, Mendelian-like causal variants. Its success, however, in complex traits has been modest, largely due to challenges of genetic heterogeneity and complex inheritance models. We describe a HRP strategy that addresses intra-familial heterogeneity, and identifies inherited segments important for mapping regulatory risk. We apply this new Shared Genomic Segment (SGS) method in 11 extended, Utah, multiple myeloma (MM) HRPs, and subsequent exome sequencing in SGS regions of interest in 1063 MM / MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance–a precursor to MM) cases and 964 controls from a jointly-called collaborative resource, including cases from the initial 11 HRPs. One genome-wide significant 1.8 Mb shared segment was found at 6q16. Exome sequencing in this region revealed predicted deleterious variants in <i>USP45</i> (p.Gln691* and p.Gln621Glu), a gene known to influence DNA repair through endonuclease regulation. Additionally, a 1.2 Mb segment at 1p36.11 is inherited in two Utah HRPs, with coding variants identified in <i>ARID1A</i> (p.Ser90Gly and p.Met890Val), a key gene in the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex. Our results provide compelling statistical and genetic evidence for segregating risk variants for MM. In addition, we demonstrate a novel strategy to use large HRPs for risk-variant discovery more generally in complex traits.</p></div