Virosome: A vector in vaccine delivery

These days vaccines are considered the best economical and effective technique for preventing and handling bacterial infections, like human papillomavirus (HPV) or meningitis, allergies, autoimmune Relevant Disorders, Microbial Infections, and many more viral diseases. Annually millions of lives are saved from death-causing infections and other relevant disorders with the help of proper immunization with the help of vaccines. But still, many diseases are not yet preventable by vaccines and there is a chance of the improvement of current vaccines with help of many approaches. One of these is a compound known as a virosome, which is produced when pure haemagglutinin and neuraminidase projections of the influenza virus surface are removed from viral envelope and deposited on the exterior of unilamellar liposomes.Studies have shown that in order to attain the desired therapeutic effect, a physical attachment between the target antigen and the virosomal carrier is necessary. A virosome can bind to and “infect” host cells and deliver the antigen directly into the processing pathway which is an Alternatively, the virosome may be phagocytosed by an APC. So Our review gives a novel idea of the vector technology for vaccine delivery, its properties, method of preparation, and importance as well as some applications of different virosomal vaccine discoveries

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Knowledge, attitude, and practice among tobacco and alcohol addicts before and after psychological intervention in a de-addiction center at Madhya Pradesh, India

Context: Tobacco and alcohol addiction has emerged as a major public health issue in most of the regions of the world. It has resulted in enormous disability, disease, and death and acquired the dimension of an epidemic. It is estimated that five million preventable deaths occur every year globally, attributable to tobacco use. The number is expected to double by 2020 if death due to tobacco continues to occur at the same rate. Alcohol, on the other hand, contributes to 25% of all deaths in the age group of 20–39 years. The interventions such as supportive pharmacotherapy, nicotine replacement therapy, counseling, behavioral intervention, psychotherapy, and detoxification therapy are being commonly employed in the management of patients with addiction to tobacco and alcohol. Aim: The aim of this study is to compare the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) among tobacco and alcohol addicts before and after psychological intervention in a de-addiction center. Settings and Design: This study was a randomized control trial, focusing on psychological interventions practiced in a de-addiction center, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. Materials and Methods: The information on KAP related to tobacco and alcohol was collected at baseline from 83 participants. This was compared with the information collected in the postintervention follow-ups from each participant. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical tests for parametric analysis were done using one-way ANOVA with Scheffe's post hoc test, RMANOVA with Mauchly's test for sphericity assumption, and Bonferroni test for comparing the main effects. Nonparametric tests included Pearson's Chi-square test, McNemar's Chi-square test, Spearman's rho, and Kruskal–Wallis test. The statistical significance was fixed at 0.05. Results: The mean KAP score for the study population was highest at the first follow-up followed by the second follow-up for both tobacco and alcohol addiction. The least KAP score was observed at the baseline. Conclusions: Although a significant improvement in the mean KAP score was observed at the first follow-up, subsequent follow-up revealed a reduction in the overall KAP score in the present study. This could be attributed to the fact that following their discharge from the de-addiction center, most of the participants reverted back to their deleterious habits

Comprehensive Evaluation of Multispectral Image Registration Strategies in Heterogenous Agriculture Environment

This article is focused on the comprehensive evaluation of alleyways to scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and random sample consensus (RANSAC) based multispectral (MS) image registration. In this paper, the idea is to extensively evaluate three such SIFT- and RANSAC-based registration approaches over a heterogenous mix containing Triticum aestivum crop and Raphanus raphanistrum weed. The first method is based on the application of a homography matrix, derived during the registration of MS images on spatial coordinates of individual annotations to achieve spatial realignment. The second method is based on the registration of binary masks derived from the ground truth of individual spectral channels. The third method is based on the registration of only the masked pixels of interest across the respective spectral channels. It was found that the MS image registration technique based on the registration of binary masks derived from the manually segmented images exhibited the highest accuracy, followed by the technique involving registration of masked pixels, and lastly, registration based on the spatial realignment of annotations. Among automatically segmented images, the technique based on the registration of automatically predicted mask instances exhibited higher accuracy than the technique based on the registration of masked pixels. In the ground truth images, the annotations performed through the near-infrared channel were found to have a higher accuracy, followed by green, blue, and red spectral channels. Among the automatically segmented images, the accuracy of the blue channel was observed to exhibit a higher accuracy, followed by the green, near-infrared, and red channels. At the individual instance level, the registration based on binary masks depicted the highest accuracy in the green channel, followed by the method based on the registration of masked pixels in the red channel, and lastly, the method based on the spatial realignment of annotations in the green channel. The instance detection of wild radish with YOLOv8l-seg was observed at a [email protected] of 92.11% and a segmentation accuracy of 98% towards segmenting its binary mask instances

Non-potable water reuse and the public health risks from protozoa and helminths: a case study from a city with a semi-arid climate

The study estimated the risk due to Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris, associated with non-potable water reuse in the city of Jaipur, India. The study first determined the exposure dose of Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris based on various wastewater treatment technologies for various scenarios of reuse for six wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the city. The exposure scenarios considered were (1) garden irrigation; (2) working and lounging in the garden; and (3) consumption of crops irrigated with recycled water. The estimated annual risk of infection varied between 8.57 × 10−7 and 1.0 for protozoa and helminths, respectively. The order of treatment processes, in decreasing order of annual risk of infection, was found to be: moving-bed bioreactor (MBBR) technology > activated sludge process (ASP) technology > sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technology. The estimated annual risk was found to be in this order: Ascaris > Giardia > Cryptosporidium. The study also estimated the maximum allowable concentration (Cmax) of pathogen in the effluent for a benchmark value of annual infection of risk equal to 1:10,000, the acceptable level of risk used for drinking water. The estimated Cmax values were found to be 6.54 × 10−5, 1.37 × 10−5, and 2.89 × 10−6 (oo) cysts/mL for Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris, respectively. HIGHLIGHTS Use of the Sketcher tool for modelling concentrations of Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris in treated wastewater.; Estimation of annual risk of infection due to Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris during reuse of treated wastewater.; Estimation of concentrations of Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Ascaris corresponding to annual risk of infection value (i.e., 1:10,000).

Critical review on advancements on the fiber-reinforced composites: Role of fiber/matrix modification on the performance of the fibrous composites

Nowadays, Fiber-reinforced Polymer Composites (FRPCs) are extensively utilized due to their remarkable properties such as high stiffness, excellent strength to weight ratio, resistance to wear, corrosion etc. Earlier, the FRPCs are prepared through synthetic fibers in order to attain high strength in conjunction with high elastic modulus. However, with the increasing economic and environmental factors regarding the accumulation of plastic waste, the development of natural and hybrid (combination of any two) fibers were started. The mechanical properties of FRPCs are largely determined by the way loads are transferred between the matrix and fibers, or by the strength of the bond between the fiber-matrix interfaces. Additionally, these factors play a significant role in determining the overall performance of FRPCs. Therefore, this review discusses the recent advancements in enhancing the interaction between fiber and matrix by means of chemical treatment and the inclusion of nanoparticles. The resulting mechanical performance of the end composites and their intended applications are also presented. Few targeted application areas of FRPCs such as aerospace, automobile, mechanical and biomedical implants were discussed in detail

Microsatellite markers for crop improvement: A review: Role of microsatellite markers

Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers are a helpful strategy among the various molecular marker techniques for strengthening molecular breeding programs. These are useful markers for genotyping plant populations with tandem repeats of 2-6 base pair length DNA patterns. The expansion of various molecular markers and advances in sequencing technologies has aided crop improvement. Several articles for research scholars with progressive knowledge of molecular genetics have been published in the last three decades to probe the information regarding molecular markers. This article reviews novel advances regarding molecular markers and their implementations in plant breeding for researchers with no expertise in using molecular markers in plant breeding. A superior comprehension of molecular markers, and a better consciousness of the spectrum of crops that can be grown, has resulted from progress in molecular plant breeding, genetics, genomic selection, and genome rectification. Further-generation sequence technology must enable the production of novel genetic markers for multifaceted and amorphous groups through genotyping-by-sequencing and union mapping. The review also discusses almost all the microsatellite markers and their advantages and disadvantages.