Activity and stability of immobilized Candida rugosa lipase on chitosan coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles in aqueous and organic media

Fe3O4 (magnetite) nanoparticles were prepared by coprecipitation method, coated by chitosan and functionalized by glutaraldehyde. Lipase enzyme from Candida rugosa was immobilized on the prepared particles via cross linking reaction. Synthesis steps and characterization were examined by XRD, TEM, and FTIR.  The immobilization conditions were 10 mL of phosphate buffer (0.1 M, pH 6.5) containing 30 mg of  functionalized magnetic chitosan nanoparticles and 2.0 mg·mL-1 of lipase, immobilization temperature of 4 ℃ and immobilization time of 1 h. Under these conditions, lipase was successfully immobilized with loading capacity of 87 mg/g. The immobilized enzyme showed good operational and storage stability, where it remained stable after 30 days of storage at 4â—¦C.and retained about 61% of its initial activity after twenty repeated uses. Finally enzymatic catalyze synthesis of butyl and hexyl oleate at 40 â—¦C with shaking (200 rpm) was realized in n-hexane and confirmed by GC analysis

Hydro-economic modeling with aquifer-river interactions for sustainable basin management

Water demands for irrigation, urban and environmental uses in many arid and semiarid regions continue to grow, while freshwater supplies from surface and groundwater resources are becoming scarce and are expected to decline because of climate change. Policymakers in these regions are faced with hard choices on water management and policies. Hydro-economic modeling is the state-of-the arts tool to assist policymakers in the design and implementation of sustainable water management policies in basins. The strength of hydro-economic modeling lies in its capacity to integrate key biophysical and socio-economic components within a coherent framework. A major gap in developments of hydro-economic models to date has been the difficulty of integrating surface and groundwater flows based on the theoretically correct Darcy equations used by the hydrogeological community. The hydro-economic model presented here specifies a spatially-explicit groundwater flow element. The methodological contribution to previous modeling efforts is the explicit specification of the aquifer-river interactions, which are important when aquifer systems make a sizable contribution to basin resources. This advanced framework is applied to the Jucar basin (Spain) for the assessment of different climate change scenarios and policy choices, specially the hydrologic, land use and economic outcomes. The response to scenarios integrates the multiple dimensions of water resources, allowing results to provide valuable information on the basin scale climate change adaptation paths to guide alternative policy choices using sound science.The research has been supported by projects INIA RTA2010-00109-C04 and RTA2014-00050-00-00 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and BIL13MA072 from the MAPFRE Foundation.Publishe

Mangostins stimulate glucose uptake and inhibit adipocyte differentiation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes

Garcinia mangostana (Guttiferae) has interesting biological activities with potential medicinal application. α-mangostin and β-mangostin are the most abundant xanthones isolated from the species. The paper reported the inhibitory effect of the compounds on triglyceride formation, glucose uptake stimulation and gene expression effects on 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Evaluation of the effect of the compounds on triglyceride accumulation was examined by Oil red O staining. The result showed that all compounds inhibited lipid accumulation on 3T3-L1 adipocytes at concentration of 50 μM (P < 0.05) compared to MDI treated cells in a dose-dependent manner. Effect of the cells on uptake of 2-deoxy-D-[3H]glucose was significantly improved by increasing the concentration of the compounds. Analysis of gene expressions by quantitative real-time PCR demonstrated that the compounds inhibited the expression of early adipogenic transcription factor (PPARγ). In addition, the compounds enhanced the expression and plasma membrane translocation of GLUT4 in mature adipocytes. Analysis by using the adipolysis kit showed that α-mangostin particularly increases the free fatty acid release by stimulating the lipolysis pathway. Therefore, these results suggested that α-mangostin and β-mangostin have been found to have a beneficial action in diabetic complications (antiobesity effect) via stimulation of GLUT4 expression and inhibition of PPARγ expression

Water as a "glue" : Elasticity-enhanced wet attachment of biomimetic microcup structures

Octopus, clingfish, and larva use soft cups to attach to surfaces under water. Recently, various bioinspired cups have been engineered. However, the mechanisms of their attachment and detachment remain elusive. Using a novel microcup, fabricated by two-photon lithography, coupled with in situ pressure sensor and observation cameras, we reveal the detailed nature of its attachment/detachment under water. It involves elasticity-enhanced hydrodynamics generating “self-sealing” and high suction at the cup-substrate interface, converting water into “glue.” Detachment is mediated by seal breaking. Three distinct mechanisms of breaking are identified, including elastic buckling of the cup rim. A mathematical model describes the interplay between the attachment/detachment process, geometry, elasto-hydrodynamics, and cup retraction speed. If the speed is too slow, then the octopus cannot attach; if the tide is too gentle for the larva, then water cannot serve as a glue. The concept of “water glue” can innovate underwater transport and manufacturing strategies

The Role of Some Inflammatory Markers (IL-6 and CRP) in the Pathogenesis of Acute Coronary Syndrome in Iraqi CCU for Heart Diseases

In this work an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique has been used for detection of some inflammatory markers in serum of acute coronary syndrome (ACS)-Patients Admitted to the cardiac care unit (CCU) of Iraqi Centre For Heart Diseases and Ibn AlNafees Teaching Hospital. The present method includes quantitative measurement of interleukine-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP), as their increase during symptoms may be responsible for identifying the mechanism of myocardial damag, in addition to their best performance than other quantitative tests perhaps due to their association with atherosclerotic process that belongs to the endothelial dysfunction. Aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence and correlation of IL-6 with CRP in ACS- patients presented with unstable angina/ non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (UA/NSTEMI) symptoms to be as new diagnostic parameters in Iraqi CCU. Seventy (70) ACS- patients with mean age (58.55 year ±  9.98), from Jun.2009 to Feb. 2010 with diagnosis of UA/NSTEMI were included in this study. Proper history, physical examination, electrocardiograph (ECG), and Echocardiography (ECHO) were performed for all patients in addition to the routine laboratory works including fasting blood glucose, lipid profile, assay of transaminases activity (Aspartate and Alanine transaminase),and biomarkers analysis as cardiac troponin I and T, creatine kinase (CK and CK-MB) and myoglobin. Blood sample was collected from all patients for quantitative assay of IL-6 and CRP. All patients underwent diagnostic coronary angiography, were 66 of them with abnormal coronary outcome and four patients have normal coronary arteries, study include 39- male and 31 female. Seventeen of 67 patients (25.4%) had elevated serum level of IL-6 and fifty four of 62 patients (87.1%) had elevated serum level of CRP. Statistically found strong and significant (SS) correlation between IL-6 and CRP (assessed by Spearman's rho correlation coefficient, P<0.01). The significant proportion of UA/NSTEMI patients that had elevated serum levels of IL-6 and/or CRP, in addition to the strong correlation with coronary angiographic findings make these inflammatory markers to be considered  as risk stratification factors and good predictors for coronary artery disease independent of other traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Key words: ACS. IL-6. CRP

Synergic Deep Learning For Smart Health Diagnosis Of Covid-19 For Connected Living And Smart Cities

COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant loss of global deaths, economical status, and so on. To prevent and control COVID-19, a range of smart, complex, spatially heterogeneous, control solutions, and strategies have been conducted. Earlier classification of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is needed to cure and control the disease. It results in a requirement of secondary diagnosis models, since no precise automated toolkits exist. The latest finding attained using radiological imaging techniques highlighted that the images hold noticeable details regarding the COVID-19 virus. The application of recent artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) approaches integrated to radiological images finds useful to accurately detect the disease. This article introduces a new synergic deep learning (SDL)-based smart health diagnosis of COVID-19 using Chest X-Ray Images. The SDL makes use of dual deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) and involves a mutual learning process from one another. Particularly, the representation of images learned by both DCNNs is provided as the input of a synergic network, which has a fully connected structure and predicts whether the pair of input images come under the identical class. Besides, the proposed SDL model involves a fuzzy bilateral filtering (FBF) model to pre-process the input image. The integration of FBL and SDL resulted in the effective classification of COVID-19. To investigate the classifier outcome of the SDL model, a detailed set of simulations takes place and ensures the effective performance of the FBF-SDL model over the compared methods

Xanthones from Garcinia Malaccencis improve Glut4 aswell as decreased Pparγ activation on adipocytes

In this study, we used α-mangostin, the major xanthone compounds and β-mangostin from Garcinia malaccensis Hk.f (locally known as “manggis burung”) and evaluate its in vitro activities on adipocyte differentiation, glucose uptake and related gene expression (pparγ and glut4) mechanism. Firstly, we elucidated the inhibitory effect of the compounds on lipid accumulation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes by using Oil red O staining. Cell treated with α-mangostin and β-mangostin dose-dependently was found to inhibit the cytoplasmic lipid accumulation as well as adipogenic differentiation of preadipocyte. All compounds showed high lipid inhibition activity at 50 μg/mL concentration (P < 0.05) compared to MDI treated cells. Besides, glucose uptake activity was investigated in differentiated adipocytes using a radioactive-labelled glucose by Liquid Scintillation Counter. The insulin-induced 2-deoxy-D-[3H] glucose uptake activities were significantly improved with increasing the concentration of the test compounds. Further evaluation with the quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) shows that α-mangostin and β-mangostin reduced the expression of pparγ genes during adipocyte differentiation. At the same time, induction of glucose uptake by α-mangostin and β-mangostin was accompanied by the increased mRNA expression of glut4 genes. Since downregulation of pparγ has been reported to be activated during inhibition of adipogenesis and enhance expression of glut4 has been shown to be increased during glucose uptake we demonstrated that both compounds follow the antiobesity pathways. Taken together, these results indicate that xanthones derived from Garcinia malaccencis may be a candidate for preventing metabolic disorders such as obesity

The Role of Medical Image Modalities and AI in the Early Detection, Diagnosis and Grading of Retinal Diseases: A Survey.

Traditional dilated ophthalmoscopy can reveal diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), diabetic macular edema (DME), retinal tear, epiretinal membrane, macular hole, retinal detachment, retinitis pigmentosa, retinal vein occlusion (RVO), and retinal artery occlusion (RAO). Among these diseases, AMD and DR are the major causes of progressive vision loss, while the latter is recognized as a world-wide epidemic. Advances in retinal imaging have improved the diagnosis and management of DR and AMD. In this review article, we focus on the variable imaging modalities for accurate diagnosis, early detection, and staging of both AMD and DR. In addition, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in providing automated detection, diagnosis, and staging of these diseases will be surveyed. Furthermore, current works are summarized and discussed. Finally, projected future trends are outlined. The work done on this survey indicates the effective role of AI in the early detection, diagnosis, and staging of DR and/or AMD. In the future, more AI solutions will be presented that hold promise for clinical applications