INVESTIGATION OF HEAVY METAL ADSORPTION ON MICROPLASTICS

Microplastics and heavy metals represent two pollutant classes which have adverse impacts on aquatic ecosystems. This study has investigated the adsorption of two heavy metals [Lead (Pb)II and Aluminum (Al)III] on three different types of microplastics [polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamide (PA), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)]. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis has shown that microplastics have different surface characteristics. The effects of parameters such as the pH of solution, duration of contact, initial concentration and temperature on adsorption capacity have been examined Experimental results have been applied to the adsorption isotherm models of Langmuir and Freundlich and it has been seen that the Freundlich model has been seen as more suitable than the Langmuir model. Moreover, the pseudo-second kinetic has been found to be more appropriate than the pseudo-first kinetic model. Adsorption percentages have changed according to the type of microplastic and working conditions. Finally, the study has investigated the potential of microplastics to act as an instrument of transport for heavy metals to the food chain and for their bioaccumulation

Dehazing Ultrasound using Diffusion Models

Echocardiography has been a prominent tool for the diagnosis of cardiac disease. However, these diagnoses can be heavily impeded by poor image quality. Acoustic clutter emerges due to multipath reflections imposed by layers of skin, subcutaneous fat, and intercostal muscle between the transducer and heart. As a result, haze and other noise artifacts pose a real challenge to cardiac ultrasound imaging. In many cases, especially with difficult-to-image patients such as patients with obesity, a diagnosis from B-Mode ultrasound imaging is effectively rendered unusable, forcing sonographers to resort to contrast-enhanced ultrasound examinations or refer patients to other imaging modalities. Tissue harmonic imaging has been a popular approach to combat haze, but in severe cases is still heavily impacted by haze. Alternatively, denoising algorithms are typically unable to remove highly structured and correlated noise, such as haze. It remains a challenge to accurately describe the statistical properties of structured haze, and develop an inference method to subsequently remove it. Diffusion models have emerged as powerful generative models and have shown their effectiveness in a variety of inverse problems. In this work, we present a joint posterior sampling framework that combines two separate diffusion models to model the distribution of both clean ultrasound and haze in an unsupervised manner. Furthermore, we demonstrate techniques for effectively training diffusion models on radio-frequency ultrasound data and highlight the advantages over image data. Experiments on both \emph{in-vitro} and \emph{in-vivo} cardiac datasets show that the proposed dehazing method effectively removes haze while preserving signals from weakly reflected tissue.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, preprint IEEE submissio

Natural infection of Plasmodium brasilianum in humans: Man and monkey share quartan malaria parasites in the Venezuelan Amazon

AbstractBackgroundThe quartan malaria parasite Plasmodium malariae is the widest spread and best adapted human malaria parasite. The simian Plasmodium brasilianum causes quartan fever in New World monkeys and resembles P. malariae morphologically. Since the genetics of the two parasites are nearly identical, differing only in a range of mutations expected within a species, it has long been speculated that the two are the same. However, no naturally acquired infection with parasites termed as P. brasilianum has been found in humans until now.MethodsWe investigated malaria cases from remote Yanomami indigenous communities of the Venezuelan Amazon and analyzed the genes coding for the circumsporozoite protein (CSP) and the small subunit of ribosomes (18S) by species-specific PCR and capillary based-DNA sequencing.FindingsBased on 18S rRNA gene sequencing, we identified 12 patients harboring malaria parasites which were 100% identical with P. brasilianum isolated from the monkey, Alouatta seniculus. Translated amino acid sequences of the CS protein gene showed identical immunodominant repeat units between quartan malaria parasites isolated from both humans and monkeys.InterpretationThis study reports, for the first time, naturally acquired infections in humans with parasites termed as P. brasilianum. We conclude that quartan malaria parasites are easily exchanged between humans and monkeys in Latin America. We hypothesize a lack of host specificity in mammalian hosts and consider quartan malaria to be a true anthropozoonosis. Since the name P. brasilianum suggests a malaria species distinct from P. malariae, we propose that P. brasilianum should have a nomenclatorial revision in case further research confirms our findings. The expansive reservoir of mammalian hosts discriminates quartan malaria from other Plasmodium spp. and requires particular research efforts

Does low-molecular-weight heparin influence the antimyeloma effects of thalidomide? A retrospective analysis of data from the GIMEMA, nordic and turkish myeloma study groups

Background/Aim: Low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) has been shown to prolong survival among patients with solid tumors, but its role among myeloma patients is unknown. Patients: Data from the GIMEMA (Gruppo Italiano Malattie Ematologiche dell'Adulto), Nordic and Turkish myeloma study groups comparing melphalan and prednisolone with (MPT, n: 404) or without thalidomide (MP, n: 393) are analyzed for effects of LMWH. Forty percent (159/394) of the patients on MPT and 7.4% (29/390) in the MP arm received LMWH. Results: Thalidomide improved response and progression-free survival (PFS). Regardless of thalidomide treatment, response rate was higher among those receiving LMWH vs. none vs. other anticoagulants (58.1 vs. 44.9 vs. 50.4%, p = 0.01). PFS was significantly longer (median 32 vs. 21 and 17 vs. 17 months, p = 0.004) only among international scoring system (ISS) I patients receiving MPT +/- LMWH vs. MP +/- LMWH. The group of MPT patients who also received LMWH had a better OS compared to those who did not [45 months, 95% confidence interval (CI) 27.7-62.3, vs. 32 months, 95% CI 26.1-37.9; p = 0.034]. When multivariate analysis was repeated in subgroups, thalidomide was no longer a significant factor (response, PFS) among those receiving LMWH. Conclusion: Addition of LMWH to MPT, in particular in patients with low ISS, suggests additive effects, but the results are limited by the retrospective design of our study. (C) 2015 S. Karger AG, Base

Antibody interference and response kinetics of isatuximab plus pomalidomide and dexamethasone in multiple myeloma

The ICARIA-MM study was sponsored by Sanofi. The authors thank, Helgi van de Velde, Valérie Boutet, Shujia Dai, Deborah DiNoto, Graziella Engelvin, Olivier Fedeli, Sébastien Hugla, Dominique Mouret, Béatrice Pradeilles, and Alain Roccon, all employees of Sanofi, for their contribution to the study, technology, and comments on the manuscript. The authors thank the participating patients and their families, and the study centers and investigators, for their contributions to the study. The medical writing support was provided by John Clarke, PhD and Stephanie Brillhart, PhD of Elevate Medical Affairs, contracted by Sanofi Genzyme for publication support services

Reciprocal Encoding of Signal Intensity and Duration in a Glucose-Sensing Circuit

Cells continuously adjust their behavior in response to changing environmental conditions. Both intensity and duration of external signals are critical factors in determining what response is initiated. To understand how intracellular signaling networks process such multidimensional information, we studied the AtRGS1-mediated glucose response system of Arabidopsis. By combining experiments with mathematical modeling, we discovered a reciprocal dose and duration response relying on the orchestrated action of three kinases (AtWNK1, AtWNK8, AtWNK10) acting on distinct time scales and activation thresholds. Specifically, we find that high concentrations of D-glucose rapidly signal through AtWNK8 and AtWNK10, whereas low, sustained sugar concentration slowly activate the pathway through AtWNK1, allowing the cells to respond similarly to transient, high-intensity signals, and sustained low-intensity signals. This “dose-duration reciprocity” allows encoding of both the intensity and persistence of glucose as an important energy resource and signaling molecule