Enzyme activity of waste activated sludge extracts.

Wastewater treatment and generated biological sludge provide an alternative source of enzymes to conventional industrial production methods. Here, we present a protocol for extracting enzymes from activated sludge using ultrasonication and surfactant treatment. Under optimum conditions, ultrasound disruption of activated sludge gave recovery rates of protease and cellulase enzymes equivalent to 63.1% and ∼100%, respectively. The extracting of enzymes from activated sludge represents a potentially significant, high-value, resource recovery option for biological sludge generated by municipal wastewater treatment

Effects of ceftiofur sodium liposomes on free radical formation in mice

To examine the effects of ceftiofur sodium liposomes on the free radical formation in liver of mice, 24 mice were assigned randomly into three groups, i.e., 1) ceftiofur sodium; 2) ceftiofur sodium liposomes and 3) physiological saline. Treatments were applied via intraperitoneal injections for 7 days. At the end of the treatment period, animals were euthanized and liver collected for analysis of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents and the ability of liver tissue to suppress hydroxyl radical formation. Ceftiofur sodium liposomes-treated mice had higher activity of SOD than ceftiofur sodium- and saline-treated mice; however, MDA content and the ability of liver tissue to suppress hydroxyl radical formation did not reach statistical significance among groups. It was concluded that ceftiofur sodium liposomes can improve the SOD activity compared to ceftiofur alone in mice

Geometrical parametric study on steel beams exposed to solar radiation

A finite element thermal analysis was conducted in this study with the aim of evaluating the influence of the geometrical parameters of steel sections on their thermal response under solar radiation. Four W12 and W24 standard steel beams were investigated under the solar irradiation conditions of a sunny summer day. The finite element analysis was carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics considering the Sun’s movement from sunrise to sunset, reflected radiation from the ground, surface convection of air and long wave radiation as the main boundary thermal loads. The temperature-time variation at different locations in the sections, vertical temperature distributions, temperature gradient distributions and thermal stress distributions were investigated. The results showed that the daily maximum temperatures, temperature variation, temperature and temperature gradient distributions and thermal stresses are influenced by the geometry of the steel section. The flange width and flange thickness were found to be the controlling parameters during the noon hours, while these parameters in addition to web depth control the shading effect during the after-noon. On the other hand, web thickness affects the temperature of webs at sunrise and sunset times. Geometrical ratios like Wf/H, Wf/tf2 and 2Wf/Htf were the most influential parameters on tempera-tures, temperature gradients and thermal stresses of steel beams subjected to solar radiation. The investigated section with the maximum Wf/tf2 value of 0.96 (W12 × 58) recorded the highest top-surface noon temperature, while section W24 × 84 with the lowest Wf/tf2 value of 0.60 exhibited the lowest temperature

Melatonin reduced volume of cerebral infarct induced by photothrombosis in wild-type mice, not in Cyclooxygenase-1 gene knockout mice

Cyclooxygenase (COX) is crucial in inflammation and plays important role in cerebral ischemia. Anti-inflammatory effects of melatonin have been verified in previous studies. In this study, cerebral blood flow (CBF) was monitored during operation, infarct volume (IFV) was determined with 5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining and MR image, and neurological functions were evaluated with turn in an alley and fall pole test in both COX-1-gene knockout and wide-type mice with or without melatonin administration 3 days after photothrombosis. CBF reduction, IFV and neurological deficits were not significantly different in COX-1 wild-type and COX-1 knockout mice. Melatonin (15 mg/kg) intraperitoneal injection decreased the CBF reduction, IFV and the latency to turn in an alley in COX-1 wide-type mice, whereas the neuroprotective effect of melatonin was attenuated in COX-1 knockout mice. We concluded that melatonin reduced susceptibility to photothrombotic stroke. COX-1 gene knockout does not alter the susceptibility to cerebral ischemia caused by photothrombosis. COX-1 plays an important role in the pathway of the protection of melatonin.published_or_final_versio

Effects of exogenous spermidine on photosynthesis, xanthophyll cycle and endogenous polyamines in cucumber seedlings exposed to salinity

The effects of exogenous spermidine (Spd, 1 mmol·L-1) on photosynthetic characteristics, xanthophylls cycle components and endogenous polyamines levels were investigated in cucumber seedlings subjected to salt stress (75 mmol·L-1 NaCl). Chlorophyll contents and net photosynthetic rate (PN) of cucumber seedlings showed a significant decrease under salinity but an increase with exogenous Spd application. Salt stress caused a remarkable decline in the maximum quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm) and the actual efficiency of photosystem II (ФPSⅡ), where an increase was observed in the constitutive loss processes (ΦNO). Application of exogenous Spd significantly decreased ФNO and enhanced regulated non-photochemical energy loss (ФNPQ) in the salt-stressed plants. Spd treatment caused an increase in the size of xanthophyll cycle pool (VAZ) and further enhanced de-epoxidation of the xanthophyll cycle (DEPS) under salt stress. These results suggest that exogenous Spd alleviated salt-mediated decline in photosynthetic efficiency through the enhanced involvement of the energy dissipation that is dependent on the xanthophyll cycle. In addition, foliar spray Spd significantly increased the free, bound and conjugated polyamines in the leaves of the salt stressed plants. Spd also increased the free putrescine (Put)/(Spd+Spm) ratio and decreased bound and conjugated Put/(Spd+Spm) under salinity. Thus, we conclude that Spd can alleviate salt-induced damage on cucumber seedlings by regulating the levels of endogenous polyamines, which was associated with an improvement in the photochemical efficiency of PSII of the salt stressed plants.Key words: Cucumber, endogenous polyamines, photosynthetic characteristics, salt stress, spermidine

Sex differences in sepsis hospitalisations and outcomes in older women and men: A prospective cohort study

Purpose: To examine the association of sex with hospitalisation due to sepsis and related outcomes. Methods: Prospective cohort study of 264,678 adults, average age 62.7 years at recruitment (2006–2009) in Australia. Participants were followed for sepsis hospitalisation identified using the International Classification of Diseases coding. Outcomes included sex differences in the risk of an incident sepsis hospitalisation, mortality, length of ICU and hospital stay and readmissions during the following year. Results: Over 2,070,343 years of follow-up there were 12,912 sepsis hospitalisations, 59.6% in men. Age-standardised risk of hospitalisation was higher in men versus women (10.37 vs 6.77 per 1,000 person years; age-adjusted HR 1.58; 95% CI 1.53–1.59) and did not attenuate after adjusting for sociodemographics, health behaviours and co-morbidities. Relative risks were similar for sepsis-related ICU admissions (adjusted HR 1.72; 95% CI 1.57–1.88). Death at one year was more common in men than women (39.3% vs 33.7% p<0.001). After adjusting for age, men had a longer hospital (12.0 vs 11.2 days; p<0.001) and ICU (6.5 vs 5.8 days; p<0.001) stays and were more likely to be readmitted to hospital for sepsis (22.3 vs 19.4%; p<0.001) or any reason (73.0% vs 70.7%; p<0.001) at one year. Conclusion: In older adults, compared to women, men are at an increased risk of sepsis hospitalisation, sepsis-related ICU admission, death and readmission to hospital within one year after a sepsis hospitalisation. Understanding these sex differences and their mechanisms may offer opportunities for better prevention and management and improved patient outcomes

Implicit 3D Orientation Learning for 6D Object Detection from RGB Images

We propose a real-time RGB-based pipeline for object detection and 6D pose estimation. Our novel 3D orientation estimation is based on a variant of the Denoising Autoencoder that is trained on simulated views of a 3D model using Domain Randomization. This so-called Augmented Autoencoder has several advantages over existing methods: It does not require real, pose-annotated training data, generalizes to various test sensors and inherently handles object and view symmetries. Instead of learning an explicit mapping from input images to object poses, it provides an implicit representation of object orientations defined by samples in a latent space. Our pipeline achieves state-of-the-art performance on the T-LESS dataset both in the RGB and RGB-D domain. We also evaluate on the LineMOD dataset where we can compete with other synthetically trained approaches. We further increase performance by correcting 3D orientation estimates to account for perspective errors when the object deviates from the image center and show extended results.Comment: Code available at: https://github.com/DLR-RM/AugmentedAutoencode

Evaluation of Phage Display Discovered Peptides as Ligands for Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA)

The aim of this study was to identify potential ligands of PSMA suitable for further development as novel PSMA-targeted peptides using phage display technology. The human PSMA protein was immobilized as a target followed by incubation with a 15-mer phage display random peptide library. After one round of prescreening and two rounds of screening, high-stringency screening at the third round of panning was performed to identify the highest affinity binders. Phages which had a specific binding activity to PSMA in human prostate cancer cells were isolated and the DNA corresponding to the 15-mers were sequenced to provide three consensus sequences: GDHSPFT, SHFSVGS and EVPRLSLLAVFL as well as other sequences that did not display consensus. Two of the peptide sequences deduced from DNA sequencing of binding phages, SHSFSVGSGDHSPFT and GRFLTGGTGRLLRIS were labeled with 5-carboxyfluorescein and shown to bind and co-internalize with PSMA on human prostate cancer cells by fluorescence microscopy. The high stringency requirements yielded peptides with affinities KD∼1 μM or greater which are suitable starting points for affinity maturation. While these values were less than anticipated, the high stringency did yield peptide sequences that apparently bound to different surfaces on PSMA. These peptide sequences could be the basis for further development of peptides for prostate cancer tumor imaging and therapy. © 2013 Shen et al

Semantic Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data

Internet and the proliferation of smart mobile devices have changed the way information is created, shared, and spreads, e.g., microblogs such as Twitter, weblogs such as LiveJournal, social networks such as Facebook, and instant messengers such as Skype and WhatsApp are now commonly used to share thoughts and opinions about anything in the surrounding world. This has resulted in the proliferation of social media content, thus creating new opportunities to study public opinion at a scale that was never possible before. Naturally, this abundance of data has quickly attracted business and research interest from various fields including marketing, political science, and social studies, among many others, which are interested in questions like these: Do people like the new Apple Watch? Do Americans support ObamaCare? How do Scottish feel about the Brexit? Answering these questions requires studying the sentiment of opinions people express in social media, which has given rise to the fast growth of the field of sentiment analysis in social media, with Twitter being especially popular for research due to its scale, representativeness, variety of topics discussed, as well as ease of public access to its messages. Here we present an overview of work on sentiment analysis on Twitter.Comment: Microblog sentiment analysis; Twitter opinion mining; In the Encyclopedia on Social Network Analysis and Mining (ESNAM), Second edition. 201