A Qualitative Analysis of Indoor Air Quality Pollutants inside a Private Car Cabin Using Response Surface Methodology

Indoor air quality (IAQ) plays a significant role in our daily life. IAQ is not only important in interior buildings but is also essential to the low volume space of automobile compartments. This study investigates the three critical IAQ pollutants of CO2, PM2.5, and PM10 in an air-conditioned private car cabin. Three qualitative input factors of human load, route, and air conditioning (ON and OFF) were considered to evaluate the effect of in-cabin car pollutants. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to determine the effect of the input parameters that affect IAQ in the car cabin. A mathematical modelling of response factors (pollutants) was determined using response surface methodology (RSM) in connection with the Taguchi orthogonal test design. It was found that indoor car cabin CO2, PM2.5, and PM10 concentrations were 3.32, 1.35, and 1.33 times higher than the on-road concentrations, respectively. The air-conditioning input factor has more effects for in-cabin pollutants compared with the other two input factors of human load and route. The R2 values obtained were greater than 95% for all the response factors. According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard limit, the air supply flow rate of 7.64 l/s per human (maximum 4 human load) was not enough to keep CO2 concentrations below 1000 ppm in the currently tested car cabin

An Optimized Machine Learing Framework For Extracting Suicide Factors Using K-Means++ Clustering

Suicide has emerged as one of the serious problems which should be eradicated from the society. People with suicidal thoughts restrict themselves by not expressing thoughts to the people around them. Studies have shown that people show more interest in expressing their thoughts over social media platforms. So, research has been conducted to identify people with suicidal ideation by analyzing the posts which they posted in social media platforms. Certain studies mined out new factors which influenced people to commit suicide, but those factors had certain drawbacks in it. This paper mainly focuses on overcoming those drawbacks in the factors. A new modified approach for extracting those risk factors is introduced as it can be used for future works related to suicidal ideation detection tasks. Statistical methods were imposed on the data to mine out the underlying characteristics of the features. K-Means++ clustering algorithm was implemented to extract the modified features. The modified features were given as an input for a testing classifier, and it attained an accuracy of 75.13%

Surgery for Recurrent Glioblastoma

Recurrence of glioblastoma (GB) is inevitable. As the optimal management for recurrent glioblastoma continues to evolve, clear treatment guidelines for are lacking. Existing literature does not clarify the role that second surgery plays in the treatment of these patients. Although few studies report that second surgery is beneficial in select patients and leads to longer overall survival (OS), other studies have demonstrated the limited impact that repeat surgery has on the eventual patient outcome. Maximal safe resection (high extent of resection—EOR) has been proven to improve the OS at reoperation, even when undertaken for cases where the first surgery achieved only a limited EOR. Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS) and age at presentation are valuable prognostic factors that predict better OS and aid in better patient selection for surgical management. The true value of reoperation versus systemic treatment, their effects the patient’s QoL and the added increase in overall survival is better judged after detailed investigation by means of a prospective, randomized trial

POTENTIAL OF URAI MATHIRAI (PEDIATRIC SIDDHA FORMULATION) FOR THE PROPHYLAXIS AND MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19 IN CHILDREN

The World Health Organization (WHO) data proposes that 8.5% of reported COVID-19 cases belong to pediatric population who are aged less than 18 years. Supportive care alone is recommended in asymptomatic, mild, or moderate pediatric COVID-19 patients by the panel of pediatric infectious diseases physicians and pharmacists from 20 geographically diverse North American institutions. This review article focuses on the prophylactic and therapeutic potential of Urai mathirai in the management of pediatric COVID-19 patients. The literature was looked, in databases such as Medline/PubMed Central/PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Web of science, Directory of open access journals (DOAJ), and reference lists to distinguish published manuscripts relevant to the use of Urai mathirai to prevent or treat COVID-19 in children. The herbs found in Urai Mathirai and their bioactive phytoconstituents possess antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, bronchodilatory and other pharmacological effects relevant to the management of signs and manifestations of COVID-19. The viability of Urai Mathirai in the prophylaxis and management of pediatric COVID-19 patients could further be established by future clinical studies

Preliminary results of high fibular osteotomy (HFO) and cartilage regeneration procedure for medial compartment osteoarthritis of knee with varus deformity

Purpose: High fibular osteotomy (HFO) is a simple surgical technique to reduce pain and improve function in patients with osteoarthritis via fibular osteotomy. We report short-term results of HFO and mesenchymal cell induced chondrogenesis (MCIC) for the treatment of osteoarthritis of knee with varus deformity. Patients and methods: 45 symptomatic patients with 14 males and 31 females age ranging from 40 to 75 years were treated by HFO and MCIC. Main lesions involved medial compartment of knee and lateral compartment with normal to mild lesions of lateral meniscus and articular cartilage, amenable to treatment via partial meniscectomy or observation. Results: Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome score and Lysholm showed a statistically significant increase and VAS, varus angle in X-ray showed a statistically significant decrease. A statistically significant difference between preoperative and postoperative scores was detected in male and female patients without any sexual differences. Conclusion: High fibular osteotomy and mesenchymal cell induced chondrogenesis can be considered as a good treatment option for medial compartment osteoarthritis of knee with varus deformity

An extensive computational approach to analyze and characterize the functional mutations in the galactose-1-phosphate uridyl transferase (GALT) protein responsible for classical galactosemia

Type I galactosemia is a very rare autosomal recessive genetic metabolic disorder that occurs because of the mutations present in the galactose-1-phosphate uridyl transferase (GALT) gene, resulting in a deficiency of the GALT enzyme. The action of the GALT enzyme is to convert galactose-1-phosphate and uridine diphosphate glucose into glucose-1-phosphate (G1P) and uridine diphosphate-galactose, a crucial second step of the Leloir pathway. A missense mutation in the GALT enzyme leads to variable galactosemia's clinical presentations, ranging from mild to severe. Our study aimed to employ a comprehensive computational pipeline to analyze the most prevalent missense mutations (p.S135L, p.K285 N, p.Q188R, and p.N314D) responsible for galactosemia; these genes could serve as potential targets for chaperone therapy. We analyzed the four mutations through different computational analyses, including amino acid conservation, in silico pathogenicity and stability predictions, and macromolecular simulations (MMS) at 50 ns The stability and pathogenicity predictors showed that the p.Q188R and p.S135L mutants are the most pathogenic and destabilizing. In agreement with these results, MMS analysis demonstrated that the p.Q188R and p.S135L mutants possess higher deviation patterns, reduced compactness, and intramolecular H-bonds of the protein. This could be due to the physicochemical modifications that occurred in the mutants p.S135L and p.Q188R compared to the native. Evolutionary conservation analysis revealed that the most prevalent mutations positions were conserved among different species except N314. The proposed research study is intended to provide a basis for the therapeutic development of drugs and future treatment of classical galactosemia and possibly other genetic diseases using chaperone therapy

Analysis of differentially expressed genes and molecular pathways in familial hypercholesterolemia involved in atherosclerosis: A systematic and bioinformatics approach

Background and Aims: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is one of the major risk factor for the progression of atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. This study focused on identifying the dysregulated molecular pathways and core genes that are differentially regulated in FH and to identify the possible genetic factors and potential underlying mechanisms that increase the risk to atherosclerosis in patients with FH. Methods: The Affymetrix microarray dataset (GSE13985) from the GEO database and the GEO2R statistical tool were used to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from the white blood cells (WBCs) of five heterozygous FH patients and five healthy controls. The interaction between the DEGs was identified by applying the STRING tool and visualized using Cytoscape software. MCODE was used to determine the gene cluster in the interactive networks. The identified DEGs were subjected to the DAVID v6.8 webserver and ClueGo/CluePedia for functional annotation, such as gene ontology (GO) and enriched molecular pathway analysis of DEGs. Results: We investigated the top 250 significant DEGs (p-value < 0.05; fold two change ≥ 1 or ≤ −1). The GO analysis of DEGs with significant differences revealed that they are involved in critical biological processes and molecular pathways, such as myeloid cell differentiation, peptidyl-lysine modification, signaling pathway of MyD88-dependent Toll-like receptor, and cell-cell adhesion. The analysis of enriched KEGG pathways revealed the association of the DEGs in ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and cardiac muscle contraction. The genes involved in the molecular pathways were shown to be differentially regulated by either activating or inhibiting the genes that are essential for the canonical signaling pathways. Our study identified seven core genes (UQCR11, UBE2N, ADD1, TLN1, IRAK3, LY96, and MAP3K1) that are strongly linked to FH and lead to a higher risk of atherosclerosis. Conclusion: We identified seven core genes that represent potential molecular biomarkers for the diagnosis of atherosclerosis and might serve as a platform for developing therapeutics against both FH and atherosclerosis. However, functional studies are further needed to validate their role in the pathogenesis of FH and atherosclerosis

Comparison of four dental pulp-capping agents by cone-beam computed tomography and histological techniques—a split-mouth design ex vivo study

Dental pulp-capping is done to preserve vital teeth when the pulp is exposed due to caries, trauma or instrumentation. Various materials are used as pulp-capping agents. The introduction of newer materials requires scientific studies to assess their clinical efficacy. The study was designed as a split-mouth randomized analysis of four pulp-capping agents (calcium hydroxide, mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA), Biodentine and EndoSequence root repair material (ERRM)). Based on selection criteria, 15 orthodontic patients requiring the extraction of four premolars (60 teeth total) were included in the study. After pulp-capping, the teeth were extracted after 8 weeks. We analyzed the extracted teeth using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) and histological sections to determine the quality of the dentinal bridge and the pulpal response. Ordinal scores were given based on the completeness of the dentinal bridge, the type of bridge and the degree of pulpal inflammation. Results were analyzed using a Kruskal–Wallis test (p &lt; 0.05) with post hoc Conover values being used when applicable. All four pulp-capping materials elicited dentinal bridge formation (60/60). MTA had the highest scores (10/15) in dentinal bridge formation followed by ERRM (8/15). Both materials showed more samples with complete dentinal bridges (9/15 each) and a favorable pulpal response (15/15). Teeth capped with calcium hydroxide showed more cases of incomplete bridge formation (9/15) and pulpal inflammation. These differences in dentinal bridge formation and pulpal inflammation were statistically significant (p 0.001 and p 0.00005, respectively), with post hoc tests revealing no significant differences between MTA and ERRM (p 0.49 and p 0.71, respectively). MTA and ERRM performed better than the other pulp-capping materials but did not differ significantly from each other. The individual preference for a pulp-capping material may be based on clinical efficacy and handling characteristics

Modulation of the dental pulp stem cell secretory profile by hypoxia induction using cobalt chloride

The action of stem cells is mediated by their paracrine secretions which comprise the secretory profile. Various approaches can be used to modify the secretory profile of stem cells. Creating a hypoxic environment is one method. The present study aims to demonstrate the influence of CoCl2 in generating hypoxic conditions in a dental pulp stem cell (DPSCs) culture, and the effect of this environment on their secretory profile. DPSCs that were isolated from human permanent teeth were characterized and treated with different concentrations of CoCl2 to assess their viability by an 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and proliferation by a cell counting kit (CCK)-8 assay. The gene expression level of hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1α) was analyzed by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to demonstrate a hypoxic environment. Comparative evaluation of the growth factors and cytokines were done by cytometric bead array. Gene expression levels of transcription factors OCT4 and SOX2 were analyzed by qRT-PCR to understand the effect of CoCl2 on stemness in DPSCs. DPSCs were positive for MSC-specific markers. Doses of CoCl2, up to 20 µM, did not negatively affect cell viability; in low doses (5 µM), it promoted cell survival. Treatment with 10 µM of CoCl2 significantly augmented the genetic expression of HIF-1α. Cells treated with 10 µM of CoCl2 showed changes in the levels of growth factors and cytokines produced. It was very evident that CoCl2 also increased the expression of OCT4 and SOX2, which is the modulation of stemness of DPSCs. A CoCl2 treatment-induced hypoxic environment modulates the secretory profile of DPSCs

Apolipoprotein E Polymorphism And It’s Lifestyle Impact

The Apolipoprotein E Polymorphism, with its three main allelic variants (APOE2, APOE3, and APOE4), has gained prominence in genetic research due to its critical implications for human health. This review article offers a concise introduction to the APOE protein polymorphism and its influence on individual’s way of life. The APOE gene encodes apolipoprotein E, a critical component of lipid metabolism that is essential for both cholesterol transport and neuron repair in the central nervous system. APOE ℇ4 raises Alzheimer's risk, ℇ2 protects, and ℇ3 is neutral. Lifestyle choices, such as diet, exercise, and cognitive engagement, predict susceptibility to chronic illnesses like Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease (CVD). For APOE ℇ4 carriers, a heart-healthy lifestyle can reduce elevated risk, while ℇ2 carriers, being less vulnerable, may need less intervention