Hydrogen Production Using TiO2-Based Photocatalysts: A Comprehensive Review

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most widely used photocatalysts due to its physical and chemical properties. In this study, hydrogen energy production using TiO2- and titanate-based photocatalysts is discussed along with the pros and cons. The mechanism of the photocatalysis has been elaborated to pinpoint the photocatalyst for better performance. The chief characteristics and limitations of the TiO2 photocatalysts have been assessed. Further, TiO2-based photocatalysts modified with a transition metal, transition metal oxide, noble metal, graphitic carbon nitride, graphene, etc. have been reviewed. This study will provide a basic understanding to beginners and detailed knowledge to experts in the field to optimize the TiO2-based photocatalysts for hydrogen production

3D-Bioprinting: A stepping stone towards enhanced medical approaches

In the past few decades, tissue engineering has been seen unprecedented escalation driving the field of artificial tissue and organ construct and brought metamorphosis in regenerative medicine. Prime advancement has been attained through the expansion of novel biomanufacturing approaches to devise and convene cells in three dimensions to fabricate tissue contrive. Accompaniment manufacturing differently known as 3D bioprinting is leading prime innovation in a number of applications in life sciences such as tissue and organ construct, personalized drug dosing, cancer model and heart tissue engineering. Overall, this review summarizes most prevalent bioprinting technologies; including laser-based bioprinting, extrusion bioprinting, injection bioprinting, stereolithography as well as biomaterial such as bioink. It also explores 3D industries, approaches such as Biomimicry, autonomous self-assembly, mini tissues and biomedical applications. Existing challenges that impede clinical mileage of bioprinting are also discussed along with future prospective.Keywords: Bioprinting, tissue engineering, tissue and organ construct, medicinal approac

An NF-κB and Slug Regulatory Loop Active in Early Vertebrate Mesoderm

BACKGROUND: In both Drosophila and the mouse, the zinc finger transcription factor Snail is required for mesoderm formation; its vertebrate paralog Slug (Snai2) appears to be required for neural crest formation in the chick and the clawed frog Xenopus laevis. Both Slug and Snail act to induce epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and to suppress apoptosis. METHODOLOGY & PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: Morpholino-based loss of function studies indicate that Slug is required for the normal expression of both mesodermal and neural crest markers in X. laevis. Both phenotypes are rescued by injection of RNA encoding the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-xL; Bcl-xL's effects are dependent upon IκB kinase-mediated activation of the bipartite transcription factor NF-κB. NF-κB, in turn, directly up-regulates levels of Slug and Snail RNAs. Slug indirectly up-regulates levels of RNAs encoding the NF-κB subunit proteins RelA, Rel2, and Rel3, and directly down-regulates levels of the pro-apopotic Caspase-9 RNA. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These studies reveal a Slug/Snail–NF-κB regulatory circuit, analogous to that present in the early Drosophila embryo, active during mesodermal formation in Xenopus. This is a regulatory interaction of significance both in development and in the course of inflammatory and metastatic disease

The identification of gaze behaviour associated with decision-making in surgery: an eye- tracking study

Adverse surgical events remain at an unacceptably high level despite multiple global safety initiatives being introduced to practise over the last 15 years. As yet, however there is no conclusive evidence to identify whether physiological markers can be used to predict whether a surgeon will make an error. The aim of this thesis is to identify whether physiological metrics, specifically gaze related metrics can be used to predict whether a surgeon is going to make an error. Thus, my research hypothesis was gaze metrics can be analysed to provide a greater understanding of perceptual contributions to decision- making in healthcare and aid in the formulation of innovative solutions. The research question was initially approached by the undertaking of a literature review, outlining the current knowledge surrounding the uses of eye- tracking technology in healthcare, the findings of which are outlined in chapter one. Next, I undertook two studies recruiting surgeons to perform a series of laparoscopic cholecystectomy tasks on the LapMentor Simbionix trainer. Fatigue severity score (FSS) was calculated prior to the task. Physiological metrics, including gaze tracking, heart rate and skin conductance were measured while they completed the tasks. LightGBM and CatBoost were used to predict the physiological metric most useful in predicting whether a surgeon was about to make an error. My studies indicated that the most predictive feature was the correlation of the skin conductance measure against itself shifted by two time steps (4ms, or 250hz). Skin conductance was twice as likely to successfully predict impending error compared to heart rate and fatigue severity scale. Gaze metrics were found to be unimportant thus rendering our hypothesis incorrect. However, when I added gaze features, overall model performance improved by 6.4%. This leads us to surmise that gaze metrics are relevant, however future work would need to establish the importance of this improvement in performance. This work advances our understanding of physiological changes that occur during decision making and has important implications in the surgical field, as skin conductance could potentially be used as a warning system to indicate when surgeons are at high risk of making an error. The potential for reduction in surgical error rate and improvement in patient safety are important factors to consider.Open Acces

Current Advancement of Immunomodulatory Drugs as Potential Pharmacotherapies for Autoimmunity Based Neurological Diseases

Dramatic advancement has been made in recent decades to understand the basis of autoimmunity-mediated neurological diseases. These diseases create a strong influence on the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS), leading to various clinical manifestations and numerous symptoms. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most prevalent autoimmune neurological disease while NMO spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is less common. Furthermore, evidence supports the presence of autoimmune mechanisms contributing to the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive death of motor neurons. Additionally, autoimmunity is believed to be involved in the basis of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. In recent years, the prevalence of autoimmune-based neurological disorders has been elevated and current findings strongly suggest the role of pharmacotherapies in controlling the progression of autoimmune diseases. Therefore, this review focused on the current advancement of immunomodulatory drugs as novel approaches in the management of autoimmune neurological diseases and their future outlook

James Stein Estimator for the Beta Regression Model with Application to Heat-Treating Test and Body Fat Datasets

The beta regression model (BRM) is used when the dependent variable may take continuous values and be bounded in the interval (0, 1), such as rates, proportions, percentages and fractions. Generally, the parameters of the BRM are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). However, the MLE does not offer accurate and reliable estimates when the explanatory variables in the BRM are correlated. To solve this problem, the ridge and Liu estimators for the BRM were proposed by different authors. In the current study, the James Stein Estimator (JSE) for the BRM is proposed. The matrix mean squared error (MSE) and the scalar MSE properties are derived and then compared to the available ridge estimator, Liu estimator and MLE. The performance of the proposed estimator is evaluated by conducting a simulation experiment and analyzing two real-life applications. The MSE of the estimators is considered as a performance evaluation criterion. The findings of the simulation experiment and applications indicate the superiority of the suggested estimator over the competitive estimators for estimating the parameters of the BRM

074 Perceptions, challenges, and experiences of healthcare providers in emergency departments regarding workplace violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: An exploratory qualitative study from an LMIC (a qualitative study protocol)

Statement of Purpose To determine the perceptions, challenges and experiences regarding Workplace Violence faced by ED healthcare providers (Doctors, nurses, and frontline staff) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods/Approach We aim to conduct a qualitative exploratory study at two major ED’s of the city namely Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) & Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) involving emergency doctors, nurses, paramedics, admin staff and pharmacists. In-depth interviews will be conducted online using a structured IDI guide. Data will be analyzed using a thematic approach on NVivo computer software.Results This is an abstract for a study protocol. The results will be reported based on the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) guidelines.Significance Workplace violence (WPV) against healthcare workers (HCWs) has emerged out as a global issue. Emergency Department (ED) HCWs as front liners are more vulnerable to it due to their nature of work and their profound exposure to medical and social situations. The pandemic has not only brought up a health ordeal, alongside it serves as a challenge in social perspective to HCW’s; ever since fighting the stigmas related to the current pandemic which brought up a wave of antagonism from the patients and their attendants. Thus, an ED’s outcry not yet spoken of. Behind closed doors, what had been an infuriating factor for the population were outraged, irrational religious and social perspectives being quoted and referred to, repeatedly on all prominent medium. Thus, the vulnerable and already exposed population to pandemic, was hovered by societal stigmas to bring down their outrage on HCW’s and already battling ED. We anticipate that through this study we can establish basis of WPV amidst pandemic situation and evidence for future interventions to combat such issues

Perceptions, challenges and experiences of frontline healthcare providers in emergency departments regarding workplace violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: A protocol for an exploratory qualitative study from an LMIC

Introduction: Workplace violence (WPV) against Healthcare Workers (HCWs) has emerged as a global issue. Emergency Department (ED) HCWs as front liners are more vulnerable to it due to the nature of their work and exposure to unique medical and social situations. COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in the number of cases of WPV against HCWs, especially against ED HCWs. In most cases, the perpetrators of these acts of violence are the patients and their attendants as families. The causes of this rise are multifactorial; these include the inaccurate spread of information and rumours through social media, certain religious perspectives, propaganda and increasing anger and frustration among the general public,ED overcrowding, staff shortages etc. We aim to conduct a qualitative exploratory study among the ED frontline care providers at the two major EDs of Karachi city. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions, challenges and experiences regarding WPV faced by ED healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods and analysis: For this research study, a qualitative exploratory research design will be employed using in-depth interviews and a purposive sampling approach. Data will be collected using in-depth interviews from study participants working at the EDs of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and the Aga Khan University Hospital(AKUH) Karachi, Pakistan. Thestudy data will be analysed thematically using NVivo V.12 Plus software. Ethics and dissemination: The ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Aga Khan University Ethical Review Committee and from Jinnah postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC). The results of the study will be disseminated to the scientific community and to the research subjects participating in the study.The findings of this study will help to explore the perceptions of ED healthcare providers regarding WPV during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide a better understanding of study participant\u27s\u27 challenges concerning WPV during the COVID-19 pandemic

Latent Potential of Multifunctional Selenium Nanoparticles in Neurological Diseases and Altered Gut Microbiota

Neurological diseases remain a major concern due to the high world mortality rate and the absence of appropriate therapies to cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB). Therefore, the major focus is on the development of such strategies that not only enhance the efficacy of drugs but also increase their permeability in the BBB. Currently, nano-scale materials seem to be an appropriate approach to treating neurological diseases based on their drug-loading capacity, reduced toxicity, targeted delivery, and enhanced therapeutic effect. Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient and has been of remarkable interest owing to its essential role in the physiological activity of the nervous system, i.e., signal transmission, memory, coordination, and locomotor activity. A deficiency of Se leads to various neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, owing to the neuroprotective role of Se (selenium) nanoparticles (SeNPs) are of particular interest to treat neurological diseases. To date, many studies investigate the role of altered microbiota with neurological diseases; thus, the current review focused not only on the recent advancement in the field of nanotechnology, considering SeNPs to cure neurological diseases, but also on investigating the potential role of SeNPs in altered microbiota

Systematic Review Comparing the Effectiveness of Robotic verse Laparoscopic Liver Surgery in Colorectal Liver Metastasis (CRLM)

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the world. The liver is the most common site of metastasis with 15 to 25% of patients presenting with synchronous colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM). This study is aimed at evaluating the long- and short-term outcomes of laparoscopic and robotic CRLM surgery, and directly comparing their respective effectiveness. Methodology: A literature search was performed and all studies that reported on operative characteristics, oncological outcomes for CRLM, morbidity or mortality and cost-effectiveness on robotic or laparoscopic surgery were included. The study design was in keeping with the PRISMA guidelines. Results: From the initial 606 manuscripts identified, 19 studies were included in the final qualitative analysis. A total of 1340 patients with 1194 LLR (Laparoscopic Liver Resection) and 146 RLR (Robotic Liver Resection) cases were analysed. Within the LLR group, the average tumour size excised was 32.1 mm compared to the RLR group of 33.8 mm. The average operative time in the LLR was 193 min, CI of 95% (147.4 min to 238.6 min) compared to RLR 257 min, CI of 95% (201.5 min to 313.8 min) with a p-value < 0.0001. Estimated blood loss was lower in the RLR group (210 mL) compared with the LLR group (246 mL). Conclusion: Despite the higher operative cost, RLRs do not result in statistically better treatment outcomes, with the exception of lower estimated blood loss and excision of larger CRLMs. Operative time and total complication rate are significantly more favourable with LLRs. Our study has shown that robotic liver surgery is safe and feasible in well-selected patients