The woodchuck as an animal model for the study of the immune response in hepaDNA viral infection

The American woodchuck (Marmota monax) is naturally infected in the wild with a virus called WHV which is similar to HBV. WHV infection causes acute and chronic hepatitis eventually leading to HCC in the majority of cases; the hepatitis is thought to be mediated by the same immune mechanisms involved in HBV infection of humans although this is not yet proven. These similarities make the woodchuck an appropriate model for the study of HBV immunopathogenesis. Lack of information on the woodchuck immune response led to the development of T cell proliferative assays which were initially attempted using conditions suitable for culturing human PBLs. The conditions and kinetics of the T cell response to mitogens was found to differ from humans and other sciurid rodents. This technique was used to investigate the T cell responses to WHV nucleocapsid peptides; an immunodominant epitope was identified in 5 out of 12 chronically infected animals. In addition to devising an assay to assess T cell responses the crossreactivity that exists between WHeAg and HBeAg enabled employment of a commercial assay to quantify WHeAg levels. Four parameters could now be used to monitor the effects of treatments- WHV DNA, WHeAg, T cell responses and GGT levels. The treatments attempted in this study targeted mainly the cellular arm of the immune response ranging from the use of chemical immunomodulators, such as tucaresol and MPC-866, to the infusion of T cells. T cell adoptive transfer and IL-12 were new treatments tried for the first time in this model. IL-12 was found to increase the proliferative response of woodchuck PBLs with and without PHA in vitro. The woodchuck can be used to further investigate the usefulness of these and other putative therapies of HBV infection

Pixel clustering in spatial data mining; an example study with Kumeu wine region in New Zealand

This paper describes an approach to pixel clustering using self-organising map (SOM) techniques in order to identify environmental factors that influence grape quality. The study area is the Kumeu grape wine region of northern New Zealand (NZ). SOM methods first introduced by Kohonen in the late 1980s, are based on two layered feed forward artificial neural networks (ANNs) with an unsupervised training algorithm. They are useful in projecting multidimensional input data onto low dimensional displays while preserving the intrinsic properties in the raw data by which the detection of previously unknown knowledge in the form of patterns, structures and relationships is enhanced. In modern day viticultural zoning approaches, factors that contribute to grape quality are typically categorised into three classes; terrior (climate, soil type, topography of a location), cultiva (the variety of the vine) and dependent factors such as berry quality indicators (e.g.: Brix and pH) and wine quality/market price. Many modern viticulturists rely on expert knowledge and intuition to establish viticultural zones in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to further subdivide a wine region and vineyards into zones. The most common scale for such zoning has been the “meso” scale and the factors used for the characterisation of vineyards, varies extensively. The most adopted factors used for zoning are grapevine growth phenology (growing degree days (GDD), frost days/timing, berry ripening temperature range) for which comprehensive knowledge on local viticulture and wine quality is essential. Hence, for characterising vineyards from the new world or wine regions with insufficient knowledge for zoning is considered as a challenging task. For such instances, the SOM approach discussed in this paper provides a means to resolving a lack of extensive historical knowledge especially, when establishing zoning systems. The case study presented demonstrates the advantages of the SOM approach to identifying the ideal discerning attributes for zoning between and within vineyard/s using available geocoded digital data. The results of the SOM based clustering and data mining approach show that water deficit, elevation (along with hill shade and aspect) and annual average/minimum temperatures, are the main contributory factors for zoning vineyards in the Kumeu wine region at the meso scale. Interestingly, the elevation, annual average- and minimum- temperatures, induration, drainage and monthly water ratio balance are found to be the discerning factors at the macro conforming some of the currently used factors in NZ.  Cluster  pixel count  Elevation  Ave Temp  A  min Temp  A sol Radiation Induratin  Exch Cation Acid sol P  Che limitaton Age Slope Drainage Wat  BR  Water deficit  1a&c  177191  128.59 12.04  1.57  14.92 3.11 1.97 3.79 1.00 1.87 0.06  4.34  1.62 219.95 1b  93607  62.37 11.62  1.09  14.07 3.31 2.01 3.86 1.00 1.16 0.03  4.88  1.70 208.26 2a  127694  36.85 13.35  3.20  14.72 1.23 2.21 2.46 1.07 1.37 0.04  3.28  1.76 179.55 2b  39396  93.84 13.74  4.59  14.89 2.28 1.42 1.62 0.94 1.71 0.06  3.74  2.67 54.10 Total  437888  Figure 1b: SOM cluster profiles, WatBR: monthly water balance ratio

Statistical methods in analysing health inequalities among the world citizens

While many international and national institutions world over, such as, World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and national/ state health institutions, strive to promote health, prevent and control disease, formulate policies, programmes and evaluate interventions, and mobilise resources, all of these with an ultimate aim to prolong life of the world citizens as well as increase access to health care, health inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged populations continue to increase at unprecedented rates and with greater complexity. In this digital age there is no dearth for data on public health, health disparities and related factors, such as socioeconomic, income and GDP. However, lately, transforming this digital data into useful knowledge to learn more about human wellbeing and public health issues linked with appropriate factors is becoming a huge challenge even though it is seen as an inevitable requisite for the international and national health institutions to overcome the health disparities that are reaching alarming proportions. Public as well as private health care research institutions, such as, WHO and Pan-American Health Organisation, academic studies use different sets of core data and approaches for generating composite indices that best present the situation, progress and areas of urgent need in spending. A literature review on the subject shows that our ability to understand the processes as becoming increasingly complicated. Empirical studies into theorising health inequalities, linking relevant factors with inequities and understanding the underlying cause, reveal that we are now investigating into gaining more insights in the mechanisms that link poorer health to poorer circumstance. This is being carried out after having established that all health inequities are inherently inequitable thereby needing political intervention which is understandably seen as a troubling presumption. In view of these factors, the paper presents an approach to group countries based on public health and related factors selected from an initial study by WHO using the World Bank and UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) goals as well as tables with advanced (but simpler) statistical data analysis methodologies. The results portray the public health issues that dominate the national agenda, political intervention, evaluation measures and budget of these different country groups, especially the difference within countries are seen obvious and cannot be ignored even though they cannot be validated with standard statistical methods such as significance tests. For example, in developed countries the issues are focused on how to manage the escalating obesity and diabetes (type 2) by introducing more tax on fast food whereas, in African countries the focus is on reducing poverty to meet the basic needs of malnourished children, the younger generation, who are growing without their parents; victims of AIDS epidemic, starvation and natural disasters

Applications of Image Processing in Viticulture: A Review

The production of high quality grapes for wine making is challenging. Significant progress has been made in the automated prediction of harvest yields from images but the analysis of images to predict the quality of the harvest has yet to be fully addressed. The quality of wine produced depends in part on the quality of the grapes harvested and therefore on the presence of disease in the vineyard. There is potential for automated early detection of disease in grape crops through the development of accurate techniques for image processing. This paper presents a review of current research and highlights some of the key challenges for geo-computation (image processing, computer vision and data mining techniques) to inform the management of vineyards and highlights the key challenges for in-field image capture and analysis. An exploration of potential applications for the knowledge generated by imaging techniques is then presented. This discussion is driven by the current interest in the effect of rapid and dramatic climate change on the production of wine and focuses on how this information might be utilized to inform the design and validation of accurate predictive models

A cellular automaton framework for within-field vineyard variance and grape production simulation

Winegrowers for generations know it all too well that grapes harvested from different areas within a vineyard will produce wines of different flavours, mainly due to within-field variance in vine vigour caused by environmental variability from various factors, such as soil properties, microclimate conditions, and rootstock. Recent research attempts on the use of state-of-the-art technologies to model/ simulate within-field variance at a vineyard scale are outlined. Consequently, the paper illustrates a cellular automaton (CA) framework being developed for simulating the within-field variance in grapevine plant vigour, phenological events and vineyard production using random or real thematic mappings of likely key factors that contribute to the observed variance. The CA approach provides an alternative software tool to conventional crop estimation methods that are dependent upon expensive yield sampling methods

A Comparative Analysis of Opinion Mining and Sentiment Classification in Non-english Languages

In the past decade many opinion mining and sentiment classification studies have been carried out for opinions in English. However, the amount of work done for non-English text opinions is very limited.In this review, we investigate opinion mining and sentiment classification studies in three non-English languages to find the classification methods and the efficiency of each algorithm used in these methods. It is found that most of the research conducted for non-English has followed the methods used in the English language with onlylimited usage of language specific properties, such as morphological variations. The application domains seem to be restricted to particular fields and significantly less research has been conducted in cross domains. Keywords—Natural Language processing, Text mining, Machine Learning

The role of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore in human myocardial protection

Background: Coronary artery disease is set to be the world’s leading cause of mortality by 2020. Hence novel treatment strategies are urgently required to protect the human myocardium against ischemia-reperfusion injury. This thesis examines the role of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (MPTP) as a novel target for myocardial protection by interventions applied solely at the time of reperfusion, which can protect the human heart against lethal reperfusion injury. Methods and Results: Using human atrial tissue (harvested at the time of routine cardiac bypass surgery), subjected to simulated ischemia and reperfusion injury model, we have demonstrated that the opening of the MPTP at the time of reperfusion is a critical determinant of cardiomyocyte death. We also show that inhibiting MPTP opening, by administering known pharmacological inhibitors of MPTP at the onset of reperfusion, is cardio-protective. Using experimental models in adult human atrial trabeculae, we demonstrate that inhibiting MPTP opening at the time of reperfusion improves myocardial contractile function. Also using human atrial cardiomyocytes we demonstrate that inhibiting MPTP opening at the time of reperfusion improves cellular viability. Finally using the human atrial cardiomyocyte model for inducing and detecting the MPTP opening, we demonstrate the opening of MPTP and also the inhibitory effect of known MPTP inhibitors on MPTP opening. Conclusion: We find that MPTP opening does occur in the human atrial cardiomyocyte following ischemia-reperfusion injury, and that inhibiting the opening of the MPTP at the time of reperfusion, provides a potential target for human myocardial protection, when the intervention is applied at the time of reperfusion. Therefore, interventions, which target and inhibit MPTP opening, at the time of reperfusion, can protect the myocardium from lethal reperfusion injury and may improve morbidity and mortality from coronary artery disease. This is useful in the clinical settings of ischemia-reperfusion injury such as thrombolysis following an acute myocardial infarction, heart surgery and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty

Evaluation of caveolin-1 expression in different grades of oral epithelial dysplasia

AIM OF THE STUDY: To evaluate the expression of Caveolin-1in various grades of oral epithelial dysplasia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was conducted using 45 archival tissue samples of histopathologically confirmed cases of different grades of oral epithelial dysplasia (mild, moderate and severe). 15 cases were selected from each lesion. Sections of 4 micron thickness were made from each block and slides were stained by immunohistochemical method using Caveolin-1 monoclonal antibody raised in rabbit. The observations were done using binocular light microscope with 40x magnification. The counting was done in five randomly selected high power fields. The positivity of cells was graded as 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 based on the percentage of cells per high power field that had taken up the stain. The intensity of expression was evaluated as negative, mild, moderate and intense. Immunoreactivity scores were then obtained for each case by multiplying the average score for positivity percentage with the average score for staining intensity for each case. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Results obtained were compared using one way ANOVA test. RESULTS: In our study all 45 cases showed positivity for caveolin-1 expression, although the degree, extent and intensity of staining were different among different groups. The number of cells taking up Cav-1 (PP) decreased as the severity of dysplasia increased. All the three groups showed mild to moderate intensity of Cav-1 expression. There was a gradual decline in IRS as the severity of dysplasia increased. In mild dysplasia group all samples showed positive staining in basal and parabasal layers. However, 11 cases (73%) also showed positivity up to the granulosum layer, with only one sample showing positivity throughout the epithelium including corneal layer. In moderate dysplasia group, most of the samples showed positivity in the basal layer. However eight cases (53%) showed positivity up to stratum granulosum also. In severe dysplasia group, most of the samples showed positivity in the basal and parabasal layers. However, only two cases (13%) showed positivity up to stratum granulosum. Immunoreactivity for Cav-1 was highest in mild dysplastic group and it gradually decreased as the severity of dysplasia increased. CONCLUSION: Cav-1 expression is altered in oral epithelial dysplasia. Expression is probably directly related to the grade of dysplasia. Decreased expression was noticed when the severity of dysplasia increased, which suggests the potential role for Cav-1 in the tendency towards malignant transformation

Formulation and Evaluation of Matrix tablets of Ambroxol hydrochloride using Natural hydrophilic polymer

Se prepararon comprimidos matriciales de liberación prolongada de clorhidrato de ambroxol con diversas proporciones de fármaco: polímero tales como F-1(1:1), F-2(1:1,5) y F-3 (1:2). Se utilizó goma xántica para la formación de la matriz y celulosa microcristalina como diluyente. Se prepararon y evaluaron gránulos para determinar la densidad aparente sin compactar, la densidad compactada, el índice de compresibilidad, el índice de Hausner y el ángulo de reposo. Todos los gránulos se lubricaron y comprimieron con punzones planos de 9 mm. Los comprimidos se evaluaron para determinar la uniformidad de peso, el contenido de principios activos, la friabilidad, la dureza y la disolución in vitro. Todas las formulaciones se ajustaron a los estándares farmacopeicos. F-3 mostró una liberación prolongada de fármaco durante 12 horas con una liberación del 97,3% y el perfi l de liberación fue similar al de la muestra de clorhidrato de ambroxol comercial (A-MS). Además, se realizaron estudios de estabilidad según la guía ICH. La liberación de fármaco sigue cinéticas de orden cero (0,9661) y se determinó que el mecanismo era difusión combinada con erosión.Sustained release matrix tablets of ambroxol hydrochloride of different drug: polymer ratios, such as F-1(1:1), F- 2(1:1.5) and F-3 (1:2). Xanthan gum was used as matrix former and microcrystalline cellulose was used as diluent. Granules were prepared and evaluated for loose bulk density, tapped density, compressibility index, hausners ratio and angle of repose. All the granules were lubricated and compressed using 9mm fl at-faced punches. Compressed tablets were evaluated for uniformity of weight, content of active ingredient, friability, hardness and In-vitro dissolution. All the formulations showed compliance with Pharmacopoeial standards. F-3 showed the sustained release of drug for 12 hours with 97.3% release and the release profi le was close to the marketed sample of ambroxol hydrochloride (A-MS) and Stability studies were performed as per ICH guide. The drug release follows zero order kinetics (0.9661) and the mechanism was found to be diffusion coupled with erosion