Biosynthesis of Quantum Dots and Their Therapeutic Applications in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer and SARS-CoV-2

Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor materials that range from 2 nm to 10 nm. These nanomaterials (NMs) are smaller and have more unique properties compared to conventional nanoparticles (NPs). One of the unique properties of QDs is their special optoelectronic properties, making it possible to apply these NMs in bioimaging. Different size and shape QDs, which are used in various fields such as bioimaging, biosensing, cancer therapy, and drug delivery, have so far been produced by chemical methods. However, chemical synthesis provides expensive routes and causes serious environmental and health issues. Therefore, various biological systems such as bacteria, fungi, yeasts, algae, and plants are considered as potent eco-friendly green nanofactories for the biosynthesis of QDs, which are both economic and environmentally safe. The review aims to provide a descriptive overview of the various microbial agents for the synthesis of QDs and their biomedical applications for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and SARS-CoV-2

Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Cysticercus tenuicollis Isolated from Some Intermediate Host in Kurdistan-Iraq

Cysticercus tenuicollis (C. tenuicollis) is the larval stage infection of Taenia hydatigena, a common tapeworm of dogs and other Canidae, which has a wide range of intermediate hosts including sheep, goat, cattle, deer, camel, horse, human and other wild ruminants, the disease spreads through a contaminated water, soil and food with feces of infected dogs or other carnivores, T. hydatigena lives in the intestinal of the definitive host (carnivores) and excretes a huge number of eggs with feces daily. The present study conducted to determine the prevalence rate and molecular characterization of C. tenuicollis among sheep and goats in Sulaimani province. A total of 14088 slaughtered animals were inspected postmortem from the new Sulaimani abattoir comprise, which involves 13395 sheep and 693 goats. The selected cysts were preserved in 70% Ethanol for DNA extraction and molecular study,  The mt-CO1 gene was amplified with a conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the PCR product purified and DNA sequencing for reverse and forward strands was determined by a genetic analyzer, the obtained sequences aligned with the DNA sequences of T. hydatigena in Iran, Turkey and Palestine, which deposited in GenBank under the following accession number (JQ710588), (JN827307) and ( KM032284) respectively. The prevalence rate of C. tenuicollis was 2.63% in sheep and 2.58% in goats. This result shows no significant differences of C. tenuicollis between sheep and goats (p>0.05). The nucleotide sequence alignment of cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (CO 1) gene revealed that the amplified DNA fragment is belong to Taenia hydatigena and Echinococcus granulosus and the nucleotide sequences of T. hydatigena deposited in GenBank under accession number (MH638348). This finding concludes that the amplification of mt-CO1 gene cannot be depended on discriminate hydatid cyst and C. tenuicollis while the partial DNA sequences of mt-CO1 gene are significantly valuable to differentiate C. tenuicollis from hydatid cyst, which is completely different in the pathology and control

Dynamic magnetic resonance imaging in assessing lung function in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a pilot study of comparison before and after posterior spinal fusion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Restrictive impairment is the commonest reported pulmonary deficit in AIS, which improves following surgical operation. However, exact mechanism of how improvement is brought about is unknown. Dynamic fast breath-hold (BH)-MR imaging is a recent advance which provides direct quantitative visual assessment of pulmonary function. By using above technique, change in lung volume, chest wall and diaphragmatic motion in AIS patients before and six months after posterior spinal fusion surgery were measured.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>16 patients with severe right-sided predominant thoracic scoliosis (standing Cobb's angle 50° -82°, mean 60°) received posterior spinal fusion without thoracoplasty were recruited into this study. BH-MR sequences were used to obtain coronal images of the whole chest during full inspiration and expiration. The following measurements were assessed: (1) inspiratory, expiratory and change in lung volume; (2) change in anteroposterior (AP) and transverse (TS) diameter of the chest wall at two levels: carina and apex (3) change in diaphragmatic heights. The changes in parameters before and after operation were compared using Wilcoxon signed ranks test. Patients were also asked to score their breathing effort before and after operation using a scale of 1–9 with ascending order of effort. The degree of spinal surgical correction at three planes was also assessed by reformatted MR images and correction rate of Cobb's angle was calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The individual or total inspiratory and expiratory volume showed slight but insignificant increase after operation. There was significantly increase in bilateral TS chest wall movement at carina level and increase in bilateral diaphragmatic movements between inspiration and expiration. The AP chest wall movements, however, did not significantly change.</p> <p>The median breathing effort after operation was lower than that before operation (p < 0.05).</p> <p>There was significant reduction in coronal Cobb's angle after operation but the change in sagittal and axial angle at scoliosis apex was not significant.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is improvement of lateral chest wall and diaphragmatic motions in AIS patients six months after posterior spinal fusion, associated with subjective symptomatic improvement. Lung volumes however, do not significantly change after operation. BH-MR is novel non-invasive method for long term post operative assessment of pulmonary function in AIS patients.</p

Facial deformity correction and genioplasty; a case report and literature review

Introduction: dentofacial deformities are mainly congenital problems that distort the face structure. However, they have many adverse effects on adolescents’ quality of life and self-esteem.Case presentation: We report a case of an 18-year-old female with no family history or previous surgical method. She presented to our hospital with a facial deformity, including a midline shift of 1.5 teeth to the left side and a malalignment of dentation. Orthopantomography (OPG) X-ray and cephalometric X-ray assessed the deformity extent and determined the appropriate surgical procedure. As a result, the patient underwent genioplasty and bimaxillary (BiMax) surgery to correct the problem.Discussion: Facial deformities occur during the normal embryonic phase and develop clearly when the patient reaches puberty due to a growth spurt. Some researchers encourage early correction, while others recommend the surgery only after completing the growth. However, the perfect age for this surgery is 19 years old for boys and 17 for girls after the cessation of facial growth. Therefore, our patient underwent surgery at 18 years old, which is the desirable age.Conclusion: Genioplasty and BiMax are reasonable procedures to treat facial deformities and correct malalign-ment of dentation in an 18-year-old patient without major complications

Anger in brain and body: the neural and physiological perturbation of decision-making by emotion

Emotion and cognition are dynamically coupled to bodily arousal: The induction of anger, even unconsciously, can reprioritise neural and physiological resources toward action states that bias cognitive processes. Here we examine behavioural, neural and bodily effects of covert anger processing and its influence on cognition, indexed by lexical decision-making. While recording beat-to-beat blood pressure, the words ANGER or RELAX were presented subliminally just prior to rapid word/non-word reaction-time judgements of letter-strings. Subliminal ANGER primes delayed the time taken to reach rapid lexical decisions, relative to RELAX primes. However, individuals with high trait anger were speeded up by subliminal anger primes. ANGER primes increased systolic blood pressure and the magnitude of this increase predicted reaction time prolongation. Within the brain, ANGER trials evoked an enhancement of activity within dorsal pons and an attenuation of activity within visual occipitotemporal and attentional parietal cortices. Activity within periaqueductal grey matter, occipital and parietal regions increased linearly with evoked blood pressure changes, indicating neural substrates through which covert anger impairs semantic decisions, putatively through its expression as visceral arousal. The behavioural and physiological impact of anger states compromises the efficiency of cognitive processing through action-ready changes in autonomic response that skew regional neural activity

“How does the degree of sustainability improvements affect consumers’ perception of the company’s trustworthiness, and does it depend on the company’s reputation for sustainability?” : a moderated mediation of the degree of perceived sustainability improments, percieved innovativeness and perceived trustworthiness.

In this research, we investigate how the degree of sustainability improvements implemented by companies, affect whether they are perceived as trustworthy by consumers, and if this effect depends on the company’s reputation for sustainability. We believe that when implementing radical sustainability improvements, the company will be perceived as trustworthy because they are perceived as innovative. On the other hand, we believe that implementing an incremental improvement might be perceived as greenwashing, especially when the company has a bad reputation for sustainability. To test this, we developed a research model with the degree of sustainability improvements as the independent variable, perceived trustworthiness as the dependent variable, perceived innovativeness and perceived greenwashing as mediating variables, and perceived reputation for sustainability as the moderating variable. Our population of interest was Norwegian consumers, and we collected a data sample consisting of N=254 respondents through our social media platforms. The results of the research support the effect of the degree of sustainability improvements on perceived trustworthiness, indicating that radical sustainability improvements (vs incremental sustainability improvements) increases perceived trustworthiness. Further we find that perceived innovativeness fully mediates this relationship. We do not find support that reputation for sustainability moderates the effect between the degree of sustainability improvements and perceived trustworthiness, but we do however find that reputation for sustainability individually is an important predictor of perceived trustworthiness. Further we do not find support for our hypotheses related to greenwashing, however we acknowledge that the operationalization of this variable might not have been optimal, and we suggest that this relationship should be further researched in order to clarify the effect of greenwashing in the context of our research. Keywords: reputation for sustainability, sustainability, sustainability improvement, innovativeness, greenwashing, trustworthiness, CSRnhhma