Calli Essential Oils Synergize with Lawsone against Multidrug Resistant Pathogens.

The fast development of multi-drug resistant (MDR) organisms increasingly threatens global health and well-being. Plant natural products have been known for centuries as alternative medicines that can possess pharmacological characteristics, including antimicrobial activities. The antimicrobial activities of essential oil (Calli oil) extracted from the Calligonum comosum plant by hydro-steam distillation was tested either alone or when combined with lawsone, a henna plant naphthoquinone, against MDR microbes. Lawsone showed significant antimicrobial activities against MDR pathogens in the range of 200-300 µg/mL. Furthermore, Calli oil showed significant antimicrobial activities against MDR bacteria in the range of 180-200 µg/mL, Candida at 220-240 µg/mL and spore-forming Rhizopus fungus at 250 µg/mL. Calli oil's inhibition effect on Rhizopus, the major cause of the lethal infection mucormycosis, stands for 72 h, followed by an extended irreversible white sporulation effect. The combination of Calli oil with lawsone enhanced the antimicrobial activities of each individual alone by at least three-fold, while incorporation of both natural products in a liposome reduced their toxicity by four- to eight-fold, while maintaining the augmented efficacy of the combination treatment. We map the antimicrobial activity of Calli oil to its major component, a benzaldehyde derivative. The findings from this study demonstrate that formulations containing essential oils have the potential in the future to overcome antimicrobial resistance

Medical image analysis for the early prediction of hypertension

Recently, medical image analysis has become a vital evolving technology that is used in the early diagnosis of various diseases. Medical imaging techniques enable physicians to capture noninvasive images of structures inside the human body (such as bones, tissues, or blood vessels) as well as their functions (such as brain activity). In this study, magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) images have been analyzed to help physicians in the early prediction of hypertension. Hypertension is a progressive disease that may take several years before being fully understood. In the United States, hypertension afflicts one in every three adults and is a leading cause of mortality in more than half a million patients every year. Specific alterations in human brains’ cerebrovasculature have been observed to precede the onset of hypertension. This study presents a computer-aided diagnosis system (CAD) that can predict hypertension prior to the systemic onset of the disease. This MRA-based CAD system is able to detect, track, and quantify the hypertension-related cerebrovascular alterations, then it makes a decision based on the analyzed data about whether each subject is at a high risk of developing hypertension or not. Such kind of prediction can help clinicians in taking proactive and preventative steps to stop the progress of the disease and mitigate adverse events

Anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective potentials of the aerial parts of Silene villosa Caryophyllaceae methanol extract in rats

Purpose: To explore the anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective potentials of Silene villosa Caryophyllaceae methanol extract in rats.Methods: Toxicity of S. villosa extract was evaluated in rats. Inflammation was induced in rats by injection of 0.1 mL carrageenan (1 %) in the left hind paws. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) was used to induce liver damage. Five groups of rat were used. The 1st (normal control) and 2nd (hepatotoxic) groups received the vehicle. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th groups received silymarin, 250 and 500 mg/kg of S. villosa extract, respectively, for 7 days. Liver injury was induced on the 7th day by intraperitoneal administration of 1 mL/kg of CCl4 to rats in groups 2 - 5.Results: The results showed that S. villosa is safe. It significantly reduced carrageenan-induced edema compared to normal (p < 0.01) and standard (p < 0.01) groups. The extract protected (p < 0.01) rats against the deleterious effect of CCl4. It decreased (p < 0.01) the elevated serum activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), γ-glutamyl transferase (γ-GT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) as well as elevated serum levels of bilirubin (BRN), compared to CCl4 control rats. Reduced activities of the antioxidant enzymes were significantly increased (p < 0.01) in rat liver, compared with CCl4 control group. The results were confirmed by histological findings in rat liver as the extract reduced necrosis and hydropic degeneration of hepatic tissue compared to CCl4 control group.Conclusion: The results suggest that S. villosa possesses anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective activities in rats, and therefore, has therapeutic potentials in humans.Keywords: S. villosa, anti-inflammatory, carrageenan, CCl4, antioxidant, hepatotoxicity

Influence of Plant Growth Regulators on Somatic Embryogenesis Induction in Seriphidium herba-album

Seriphidium herba-album (syn. Artemisia herba-alba) is a medicinal, aromatic, greenish-silver herb. It is used widely in folk medicine for treatment of diarrhea, abdominal cramps and in the healing of external wounds. It's also used for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, neurological disorders as epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, depression and jaundice. In this study we assessed the protocol for callus induction, maturation of somatic embryogenesis, frequency of germination and conversion into plantlets for leaf explants of Seriphidium herba-album using different concentrations of PGRs. Highest induction frequencies of embryogenic calli occurred after 35 days on MS medium supplemented with 1.5 mg L-1 2,4-D and 0.5 mg L-1 BAP. Optimum MS medium for higher frequency of matured somatic embryos was recorded using 5.0 mg L-1 BAP and 0.5 mg L-1 NAA and somatic embryos also induced young in vitro grown plantlets when cultured in the medium containing GA3 and kinetin. Hence, attempts to induce direct somatic embryogenesis have been achieved up to embryo regeneration and maturation

BGrowth: an efficient approach for the segmentation of vertebral compression fractures in magnetic resonance imaging

Segmentation of medical images is a critical issue: several process of analysis and classification rely on this segmentation. With the growing number of people presenting back pain and problems related to it, the automatic or semi-automatic segmentation of fractured vertebral bodies became a challenging task. In general, those fractures present several regions with non-homogeneous intensities and the dark regions are quite similar to the structures nearby. Aimed at overriding this challenge, in this paper we present a semi-automatic segmentation method, called Balanced Growth (BGrowth). The experimental results on a dataset with 102 crushed and 89 normal vertebrae show that our approach significantly outperforms well-known methods from the literature. We have achieved an accuracy up to 95% while keeping acceptable processing time performance, that is equivalent to the state-of-the-artmethods. Moreover, BGrowth presents the best results even with a rough (sloppy) manual annotation (seed points).Comment: This is a pre-print of an article published in Symposium on Applied Computing. The final authenticated version is available online at https://doi.org/10.1145/3297280.329972

Computer-Aided Diagnostic System for Early Detection of Acute Renal Transplant Rejection Using Diffusion-Weighted MRI

© 1964-2012 IEEE. Objective: Early diagnosis of acute renal transplant rejection (ARTR) is critical for accurate treatment. Although the current gold standard, diagnostic technique is renal biopsy, it is not preferred due to its invasiveness, long recovery time (1-2 weeks), and potential for complications, e.g., bleeding and/or infection. Methods: This paper presents a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) system for early ARTR detection using (3D + b-value) diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The CAD process starts from kidney tissue segmentation with an evolving geometric (level-set-based) deformable model. The evolution is guided by a voxel-wise stochastic speed function, which follows from a joint kidney-background Markov-Gibbs random field model accounting for an adaptive kidney shape prior and on-going kidney-background visual appearances. A B-spline-based three-dimensional data alignment is employed to handle local deviations due to breathing and heart beating. Then, empirical cumulative distribution functions of apparent diffusion coefficients of the segmented DW-MRI at different b-values are collected as discriminatory transplant status features. Finally, a deep-learning-based classifier with stacked nonnegative constrained autoencoders is employed to distinguish between rejected and nonrejected renal transplants. Results: In our initial \u27leave-one-subject-out\u27 experiment on 100 subjects, 97.0% of the subjects were correctly classified. The subsequent four-fold and ten-fold cross-validations gave the average accuracy of 96.0% and 94.0%, respectively. Conclusion: These results demonstrate the promise of this new CAD system to reliably diagnose renal transplant rejection. Significance: The technology presented here can significantly impact the quality of care of renal transplant patients since it has the potential to replace the gold standard in kidney diagnosis, biopsy

Towards A Robust Cad System For Early Diagnosis Of Autism Using Structural Mri

This chapter discusses a promising computer-aided diagnosis system, devised by our research team, for diagnosing autism at various stages of life, making use of the shape information in brain magnetic resonance imaging. Our system integrates the shape features extracted from both the cerebral white matter and the cerebral cortex

The Dababiya corehole, Upper Nile Valley, Egypt : preliminary results

Author Posting. © Austrian Geological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Austrian Geological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Austrian Journal of Earth Sciences 105, no. 1 (2012): 161-168.The Dababiya corehole was drilled in the Dababiya Quarry (Upper Nile Valley, Egypt), adjacent to the GSSP for the Paleocene/ Eocene boundary, to a total depth of 140 m and bottomed in the lower Maastrichtian Globotruncana aegyptiaca Zone of the Dakhla Shale Formation. Preliminary integrated studies on calcareous plankton (foraminifera, nannoplankton), benthic foraminifera, dinoflagellates, ammonites, geochemistry, clay mineralogy and geophysical logging indicate that: 1) The K/P boundary lies between 80.4 and 80.2 m, the Danian/Selandian boundary between ~ 41 and 43 m, the Selandian/Thanetian boundary at ~ 30 m (within the mid-part of the Tarawan Chalk) and the Paleocene/Eocene boundary at 11.75 m (base [planktonic foraminifera] Zone E1 and [calcareous nannoplankton] Zone NP9b); 2) the Dababiya Quarry Member (=Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum interval) extends from 11.75 to 9.5 m, which is ~1 m less than in the adjacent GSSP outcrop.; 3) the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) depositional environment was nearshore, tropical-sub tropical and nutrient rich; the latest Maastrichtian somewhat more restricted (coastal); and the early Danian cooler, low(er) salinity with increasing warmth and depth of water (i.e., more open water); 4) the Paleocene is further characterized by outer shelf (~ 200 m), warm water environments as supported by foraminifera P/B ratios > 85% (~79-28 m), whereas benthic foraminifera dominate (>70%) from ~27-12 m (Tarawan Chalk and Hanadi Member) due, perhaps, in part to increased dissolution (as observed in nearby outcrop samples over this interval); 5) during the PETM, enhanced hydrodynamic conditions are inferred to have occurred on the sea-floor with increased river discharge (in agreement with sedimentologic evidence), itself a likely cause for very high enhanced biological productivity on the epicontinental shelf of Egypt; 6) correlation of in situ measured geophysical logs of Natural Gamma Ray (GR), Single-Point Resistance (PR), Self-Potential (SP), magnetic susceptibility (MS), and Resistivity, and Short Normal (SN) and Long Normal (LN) showed correspondence to the lithologic units. The Dababiya Quarry Member, in particular, is characterized by very high Gamma Ray and Resistivity Short Normal values.The Dababiya corehole was made possible by the financial support of the National Geographic Society

Computer Aided Autism Diagnosis Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging

© 2013 IEEE. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), commonly known as autism, is a lifelong developmental disorder associated with a broad range of symptoms including difficulties in social interaction, communication skills, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. In autism spectrum disorder, numerous studies suggest abnormal development of neural networks that manifest itself as abnormalities of brain shape, functionality, and/ or connectivity. The aim of this work is to present our automated computer aided diagnostic (CAD) system for accurate identification of autism spectrum disorder based on the connectivity of the white matter (WM) tracts. To achieve this goal, two levels of analysis are provided for local and global scores using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. A local analysis using the Johns Hopkins WM atlas is exploited for DTI atlas-based segmentation. Furthermore, WM integrity is examined by extracting the most notable features representing WM connectivity from DTI. Interactions of WM features between different areas in the brain, demonstrating correlations between WM areas were used, and feature selection among those associations were made. Finally, a leave-one-subject-out classifier is employed to yield a final per-subject decision. The proposed system was tested on a large dataset of 263 subjects from the National Database of Autism Research (NDAR) with their Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores and diagnosis (139 typically developed: 66 males, and 73 females, and 124 autistics: 66 males, and 58 females), with ages ranging from 96 to 215 months, achieving an overall accuracy of 73%. In addition to this achieved global accuracy, diagnostically-important brain areas were identified, allowing for a better understanding of ASD-related brain abnormalities, which is considered as an essential step towards developing early personalized treatment plans for children with autism spectrum disorder

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London