A case of Ewing’s sarcoma presenting with massive pleural effusion

A 16-year-old girl presented with swelling and heaviness on the right side of her chest and progressive dyspnoea since 20 days. Radiological examination revealed a mass lesion in the right lower zone with right-sided massive pleural effusion and rib erosion. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry were suggestive of Ewing’s sarcoma. We reported this case because of the uncommon presentation of this rare tumour and its associated pleural effusion. Early diagnosis of this case led to favourable outcomes

Artificial Intelligence in Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that allows machines to work efficiently, can analyze complex data. The research focused on AI has increased tremendously, and its role in healthcare service and research is emerging at a greater pace. This review elaborates on the opportunities and challenges of AI in healthcare and pharmaceutical research. The literature was collected from domains such as PubMed, Science Direct and Google scholar using specific keywords and phrases such as ‘Artificial intelligence’, ‘Pharmaceutical research’, ‘drug discovery’, ‘clinical trial’, ‘disease diagnosis’, etc. to select the research and review articles published within the last five years. The application of AI in disease diagnosis, digital therapy, personalized treatment, drug discovery and forecasting epidemics or pandemics was extensively reviewed in this article. Deep learning and neural networks are the most used AI technologies; Bayesian nonparametric models are the potential technologies for clinical trial design; natural language processing and wearable devices are used in patient identification and clinical trial monitoring. Deep learning and neural networks were applied in predicting the outbreak of seasonal influenza, Zika, Ebola, Tuberculosis and COVID-19. With the advancement of AI technologies, the scientific community may witness rapid and cost-effective healthcare and pharmaceutical research as well as provide improved service to the general public

Efficient white-light generation from ionically self-assembled triply-fluorescent organic nanoparticles

Low cost, simple, and environmentally friendly strategies for white-light generation which do not require rare-earth phosphors or other toxic or elementally scare species remain an essentially unmet challenge. Progress in the area of all-organic approaches is highly sought, single molecular systems remaining a particular challenge. Taking inspiration from the designer nature of ionic-liquid chemistry, we now introduce a new strategy toward white-light emission based on the facile generation of nanoparticles comprising three different fluorophores assembled in a well-defined stoichiometry purely through electrostatic interactions. The building blocks consist of the fluorophores aminopyrene, fluorescein, and rhodamine 6G which represent blue, green, and red-emitting species, respectively. Spherical nanoparticles 16(±5) nm in size were prepared which display bright white-light emission with high fluorescence quantum efficiency (26 %) and color coordinate at (0.29, 0.38) which lie in close proximity to pure white light (0.33, 0.33). It is noteworthy that this same fluorophore mixture in free solution yields only blue emission. Density functional theory calculations reveal H-bond and ground-state proton transfer mediated absolute non-parallel orientation of the constituent units which result in frustrated energy transfer, giving rise to emission from the individual centers and concomitant white-light emission

Cadmium tolerance and antibiotic resistance in <i>Escherichia coli</i> isolated from waste stabilization ponds

300-307The incidence pattern of cadmium tolerance and antibiotics resistance by Escherichia coli was examined periodically from the samples of water, sludge and intestine of fish raised in waste stabilization ponds in a sewage treatment plant. Samples of water and sludge were collected from all the selected ponds and were monitored for total counts of fecal coliform (FC), total coliform (TC) and the population of Escherichia coli, which was also obtained from the intestine of fishes. Total counts of both FC and TC as well as counts of E. coli were markedly reduced from the facultative pond to the last maturation pond. Tolerance limit to cadmium by E. coli tended to decline as the distance of the sewage effluent from the source increased; the effective lethal concentration of cadmium ranged from 0.1 mM in split chamber to 0.05 mM in first maturation pond. E. coli isolated from water, sludge and fish gut were sensitive to seven out of ten antibiotics tested. It appears that holistic functions mediated through the mutualistic growth of micro algae and heterotrophic bacteria in the waste stabilization ponds were responsible for the promotion of water quality and significant reduction of coliform along the sewage effluent gradient

Strategy toward Designing Semiconducting Polymer Nanoparticle–Multichomophoric Dye Assembly

The design of semiconducting polymer nanoparticle based hybrids is promising for light harvesting systems. Here, we design a donor–acceptor system through tuning the energy level alignment of interacting counterparts for an efficient light harvesting system where poly­(<i>N</i>-vinyl carbazole) (PVK) nanoparticles (NPs) act as donor and the newly designed bicolor fluorophore ([R6G]­[HFL]) acts as acceptor. The photophysical interaction between polymer nanoparticle and bicolor fluorophore has been investigated by spectroscopic study and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Dynamic quenching and the shortening of decay time of PVK polymer nanoparticles are revealed due to the energy and electron transfer process from PVK nanoparticle to the surface attached bicolor fluorophore. Furthermore, an ultrafast spectroscopic study has been undertaken to investigate the decay dynamics of [R6G]­[HFL] in the presence and absence of PVK. Finally, white light generation with CIE coordinates (0.31, 0.39) is achieved at a definite donor–acceptor ratio (weight ratio of PVK:[R6G]­[HFL] = 5.39:1). Interesting findings reveal that polymer nanoparticle–multichoromophoric dye assembly is promising for designing light harvesting systems