Allelopathic potential of Anagalis arvensis L.

Anagalis arvensis L. (Primulaceae) is a common cultivating weed, forming dense populations of undergrowth in warm and temperate regions of Pakistan. Allelopathic studies with aqueous extracts from whole plant including leaves, flowers, shoot and roots; litter and mulch in various experiments invariably reduced the germination, plumule growth, radical growth, number of seminal roots, cell size, and fresh and dry weights of two wheat varieties namely, Ghaznavi and Uqab, which were used as the test species. Phytotoxicity of extracts depended on the amount and soaking duration. Generally, the extracts obtained after 48 h soaking and the hot water extracts were more inhibitory. Addition of litter and mulch also proved inhibitory in the experiments. Our work suggested that A. arvensis had strong allelopathic potential but must further be tested for its weedicidal and insecticidal activities. From the practical view point, the identification of weeds with potential pool of allelochemicals, screening and identification of the toxic principle, assessment of their adverse effects on germination of crops during early growth stages and finally on the commercial yield is highly recommended.Keywords: Anagalis arvensis L. (Primulaceae), allelopathic, extracts, wee

Aging into Perceptual Control: A Dynamic Causal Modeling for fMRI Study of Bistable Perception

Aging is accompanied by stereotyped changes in functional brain activations, for example a cortical shift in activity patterns from posterior to anterior regions is one hallmark revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of aging cognition. Whether these neuronal effects of aging could potentially contribute to an amelioration of or resistance to the cognitive symptoms associated with psychopathology remains to be explored. We used a visual illusion paradigm to address whether aging affects the cortical control of perceptual beliefs and biases. Our aim was to understand the effective connectivity associated with volitional control of ambiguous visual stimuli and to test whether greater top-down control of early visual networks emerged with advancing age. Using a bias training paradigm for ambiguous images we found that older participants (n = 16) resisted experimenter-induced visual bias compared to a younger cohort (n = 14) and that this resistance was associated with greater activity in prefrontal and temporal cortices. By applying Dynamic Causal Models for fMRI we uncovered a selective recruitment of top-down connections from the middle temporal to lingual gyrus by the older cohort during the perceptual switch decision following bias training. In contrast, our younger cohort did not exhibit any consistent connectivity effects but instead showed a loss of driving inputs to orbitofrontal sources following training. These findings suggest that perceptual beliefs are more readily controlled by top-down strategies in older adults and introduce age-dependent neural mechanisms that may be important for understanding aberrant belief states associated with psychopathology

Inverse resolution of spatially varying diffusion coefficient using Physics-Informed neural networks

Resolving the diffusion coefficient is a key element in many biological and engineering systems, including pharmacological drug transport and fluid mechanics analyses. Additionally, these systems often have spatial variation in the diffusion coefficient which must be determined, such as for injectable drug-eluting implants into heterogeneous tissues. Unfortunately, obtaining the diffusion coefficient from images in such cases is an inverse problem with only discrete data points. The development of a robust method that can work with such noisy and ill-posed datasets to accurately determine spatially-varying diffusion coefficients is of great value across a large range of disciplines. Here, we developed an inverse solver that uses physics informed neural networks (PINNs) to calculate spatially-varying diffusion coefficients from numerical and experimental image data in varying biological and engineering applications. The residual of the transient diffusion equation for a concentration field is minimized to find the diffusion coefficient. The robustness of the method as an inverse solver was tested using both numerical and experimental datasets. The predictions show good agreement with both the numerical and experimental benchmarks; an error of less than 6.31% was obtained against all numerical benchmarks, while the diffusion coefficient calculated in experimental datasets matches the appropriate ranges of other reported literature values. Our work demonstrates the potential of using PINNs to resolve spatially-varying diffusion coefficients, which may aid a wide-range of applications, such as enabling better-designed drug-eluting implants for regenerative medicine or oncology fields

Normalisation of MRI ventilation heterogeneity in severe asthma by dupilumab

Ventilation heterogeneity in asthma could be due to many reasons. Luminal obstruction due to inflammatory cells or mucus, smooth muscle constriction and airway wall thickness could all contribute individually or collectively to ventilation heterogeneity. Interleukin-4 and interleukin-13, acting through the common interleukin-4 receptor, have the potential to modulate all of these features of asthma.1 Inhaled hyperpolarised gas MRI provides a way to regionally visualise and quantify the functional consequence of these features.2 Dupilumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody directed against the alpha-subunit of the interleukin-4 receptor.3 Here, we report a severe asthmatic who showed significant improvement and normalisation of MRI ventilation heterogeneity and associated clinical and physiological variables with dupilumab treatment, suggesting that dupilumab modulated various aspects of luminal airway obstruction

Does increased Nitric Oxide production and oxidative stress due to high fat diet affect cardiac function after myocardial infarction?

Background &Objectives: High fat (HF) diet by affecting the oxidative stress and nitric oxide (NO) production may lead to different effects on function of the heart after myocardial infarction (MI). In the present study we aimed to address the hypothesis that high release of NO by activated macrophages affects LV function after MI.Methods: The animals were randomly divided into four groups comprising each of 10 rats: 1) Sham; 2) MI; 3) Sham+ HF diet; 4) MI+ HF diet. Animals fed with HF diet 30 days before sham and MI surgery. MI was induced by permanent ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). Nitric oxide (NO) production of peritoneal macrophages, the concentrations of MDA in the heart and the infarct size were measured.Results: Our study indicated that HF has adverse effects on myocardium and it may increase NO production as well as oxidative stress, resulting in augmentation of infarct size.Conclusion: Our results add to our knowledge that HF diet was associated with overproduction of NO by peritoneal macrophages and ROS that lead to development of infarct size and adverse remodeling

Effect of High-Intensity Circuit Training versus Low-Intensity Interval Training on Functional Strength and Weight Efficacy in Overweight and Obese Young Females: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Objective: To compare the effects of high-intensity circuit training (HICT) versus low-intensity interval training (LIIT) on functional strength and weight efficacy in overweight and obese young females. Methods: This randomized clinical trial was conducted at Ladies Club Gujranwala Cant, Pakistan from March 2021 to January 2022. Participants, aged 18-35, were randomly assigned to HICT or LIIT groups. Functional strength th and weight efficacy were taken as outcomes and measured at baseline and the 8 week after the interventions. Leg levers, modified push-ups, squats, cordless skipping, and burpees were used to test functional strength. The Weight Efficacy Lifestyle Questionnaire Short Form (WELQS) was used to measure weight efficacy. Results: Of total 34 of young females (17 in HICT and 17 in LIIT group), the median waist circumference was found significantly higher in the HICT group as compared to the LIIT group i.e., 39.0 (37.0 – 42.5) inches vs. 36.0 (33.0 – 38.5) inches (p-value 0.046) respectively. Similarly, the median hip measurement of the females was found significantly higher in the HICT group 45.0 (40.5 – 48.0) inches as compared to the LIIT group 41.0 (39.0 – 44.5) inches (p-value 0.029). Within-group comparison at baseline and after 8 weeks showed a significant median difference, with pushups, leg levers, burpees, left leg squats, right leg squats, skipping, and weight efficacy (pvalue <0.001) respectively. Conclusion: This study concludes that both HICT and LIIT improved functional strength and weight efficacy in overweight and obese young females. However, HICT led to significantly greater improvements in functional strength as compared to LIIT

Genome-wide association study of breast density among women of African ancestry

Breast density, the amount of fibroglandular versus fatty tissue in the breast, is a strong breast cancer risk factor. Understanding genetic factors associated with breast density may help in clarifying mechanisms by which breast density increases cancer risk. To date, 50 genetic loci have been associated with breast density, however, these studies were performed among predominantly European ancestry populations. We utilized a cohort of women aged 40-85 years who underwent screening mammography and had genetic information available from the Penn Medicine BioBank to conduct a Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of breast density among 1323 women of African ancestry. For each mammogram, the publicly available LIBRA software was used to quantify dense area and area percent density. We identified 34 significant loci associated with dense area and area percent density, with the strongest signals i

External validation of a mammography-derived AI-based risk model in a U.S. breast cancer screening cohort of White and Black women

Despite the demonstrated potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in breast cancer risk assessment for personalizing screening recommendations, further validation is required regarding AI model bias and generalizability. We performed external validation on a U.S. screening cohort of a mammography-derived AI breast cancer risk model originally developed for European screening cohorts. We retrospectively identified 176 breast cancers with exams 3 months to 2 years prior to cancer diagnosis and a random sample of 4963 controls from women with at least one-year negative follow-up. A risk score for each woman was calculated via the AI risk model. Age-adjusted areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) were estimated for the entire cohort and separately for White and Black women. The Gail 5-year risk model was also evaluated for comparison. The overall AUC was 0.68 (95% CIs 0.64-0.72) for all women, 0.67 (0.61-0.72) for White women, and 0.70 (0.65-0.76) for Black women. The AI risk model significantly outperformed the Gail risk model for all wome

A computerized scheme for lung nodule detection in multiprojection chest radiography: Lung nodule detection in multiprojection chest radiography

Purpose: Our previous study indicated that multiprojection chest radiography could significantly improve radiologists’ performance for lung nodule detection in clinical practice. In this study, the authors further verify that multiprojection chest radiography can greatly improve the performance of a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) scheme

Agrobiodiversity Index scores show agrobiodiversity is underutilized in national food systems

The diversity of plants, animals and microorganisms that directly or indirectly support food and agriculture is critical to achiev ing healthy diets and agroecosystems. Here we present the Agrobiodiversity Index (based on 22 indicators), which provides a monitoring framework and informs food systems policy. Agrobiodiversity Index calculations for 80 countries reveal a moderate mean agrobiodiversity status score (56.0 out of 100), a moderate mean agrobiodiversity action score (47.8 out of 100) and a low mean agrobiodiversity commitment score (21.4 out of 100), indicating that much stronger commitments and concrete actions are needed to enhance agrobiodiversity across the food system. Mean agrobiodiversity status scores in consumption and conservation are 14–82% higher in developed countries than in developing countries, while scores in production are consis tently low across least developed, developing and developed countries. We also found an absence of globally consistent data for several important components of agrobiodiversity, including varietal, functional and underutilized species diversity