The roles of tumour necrosis factor and its receptors in the injury, inflammation and resolution of acute lung injury

The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the intensive care. Despite improvements in intensive care and advances in respiratory support, mortality remains high with no active treatments. Tumour necrosis factor (TNF) is a cytokine that has been implicated in ARDS for over 30 years but its precise roles remain elusive. It signals through two main receptors – the p55 TNF receptor and p75 TNF receptor. The first aspect of this thesis investigated the roles of TNF receptors (TNFR) in the early phase of acute acid-induced lung injury. Using genetically modified mice we discovered that alveolar oedema, as a result of acid aspiration, was specifically mediated through the p55-TNFR, whereas, the p75-TNFR promoted a protective effect. Alveolar oedema formation occurred through an effect independent to the downstream inflammatory events, but instead through the activation of TNF/p55-TNFR/caspase-8 death signalling specifically in the alveolar epithelium. Furthermore, this death-signalling axis led to a reduced alveolar epithelial fluid clearance rate. Epithelial dysfunction occurred prior to epithelial cell death and pharmacological blockade of caspase-8 rescued epithelial function with improvements in gas exchange, suggesting that the activation of caspase-8 per se induced this functional deficit in the alveolar epithelium. The second part of the thesis describes the development of a longer-term model of acid aspiration aimed at extending investigation into the later, arguably more clinically relevant, phases of lung injury (0-10 days). Mice showed respiratory physiology that reached clinical ARDS criteria with significant inflammation and epithelial/endothelial injury, which importantly, resolved facilitating investigation into reparative processes. This model was further characterised using novel flow cytometry protocols to examine the compartmental location of leukocytes during the various phases of ARDS. This model provides a translational platform to allow investigation into the injurious, inflammatory, and resolution mechanisms of ARDS.Open Acces

Wireless Networks Simulation with Assessment in PT Software

Teaching and learning more theoretical subjects, such as wireless networks, where higher level of students imagination is necessary to understand advanced topics can be positively supported trough a technique called practical learning. Students can more easily understand and adapt the information from the subject, when they can visually see how it really works. Teachers can present the subject using animations and practical examples, rather than just talking about theory facts. This paper presents the features of a practical learning tool called Packet Tracer - a computer networks simulation also used for wireless network s , which is freely available for all Cisco Networking Academy students . Packet Tracer includes features for assessment task authoring with automated scoring and reporting. We believe that this analysis helpful for wireless network students as well as faculties

Development of Reverse-Phase HPLC Method for Simultaneous Analysis of Metoprolol Succinate and Hydrochlorothiazide in a Tablet Formulation

Purpose: To develop a simple, sensitive and rapid reverse phase HPLC method for the simultaneous analysis of metoprolol succinate and hydrochlorothiazide in a solid dosage form. Methods: The drugs were analysed by a reverse phase C-18 column using 50mM di-sodium hydrogen phosphate:methanol:acetonitrile in a ratio of 525:225:250 as mobile phase. The flow rate was 1 ml/min and the compounds were detected by a UV-detector at 222 nm at a column temperature of 24 ± 2 ºC. The method was statistically validated for linearity and accuracy. Results: The retention time and drug content of metoprolol succinate and  hydrochlorothiazide were 5.38 min, 96.05 % and 3.04 min., 97.64 %, respectively. Conclusion: The study shows that the developed method is simple and accurate and that it would be suitable for the simultaneous determination of metoprolol succinate and hydrochlorothiazide in pharmaceutical formulations.Keywords: Metoprolol succinate; Hydrochlorothiazide; Simultaneous analysis; High performance liquid chromatography; Tablet formulatio

Streptococcus viridans osteomyelitis and endocarditis following dental treatment: a case report

Vertebral osteomyelitis is an uncommon complication of infective endocarditis with the organism Streptococcus viridans being a rare cause of the condition. This case highlights an unusual presentation of Streptococcus viridans associated with infective endocarditis and pyogenic osteomyelitis in a patient following a dental procedure

Rate Forecaster based Energy Aware Band Assignment in Multiband Networks

The high frequency communication bands (mmWave and sub-THz) promise tremendous data rates, however, they also have very high power consumption which is particularly significant for battery-power-limited user-equipment (UE). In this context, we design an energy aware band assignment system which reduces the power consumption while also achieving a target sum rate of M in T time-slots. We do this by using 1) Rate forecaster(s); 2) Channel forecaster(s) which forecasts T direct multistep ahead using a stacked (long short term memory) LSTM architecture. We propose an iterative rate updating algorithm which updates the target rate based on current rate and future predicted rates in a frame. The proposed approach is validated on the publicly available `DeepMIMO' dataset. Research findings shows that the rate forecaster based approach performs better than the channel forecaster. Furthermore, LSTM based predictions outperforms well celebrated Transformer predictions in terms of NRMSE and NMAE. Research findings reveals that the power consumption with this approach is ~ 300 mW lower compared to a greedy band assignment at a 1.5Gb/s target rate

Mechanical Properties of Polypropylene Fiber Reinforced Concrete under Elevated Temperature

Apart from many advantages, High Strength Concrete (HSC) has disadvantages in terms of brittleness and poor resistance to fire. Various studies suggest that when polypropylene (PP) fibers are uniformly distributed within concrete, they play an active role in improving spalling resistance of concrete when exposed to elevated temperature while having no adverse effect on its mechanical properties. Therefore, there is a necessity to quantify the effect of the addition of polypropylene fibers in terms of the fiber dosage, the strength of the concrete, and the residual mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced concrete under exposure to high temperature from fire. The study was carried out on three water/cement (w/c) ratios (0.47, 0.36 & 0.20) using granite aggregate for determining short term mechanical properties of Polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete in comparison to control mix. The experimental program includes 100 × 200 mm & 150 x 300 mm cylinders with fiber volume of 0.5%, that were subjected to temperatures exposures of 400 °C and 600 °C for durations of 1 hour. From the results, it was observed that no significant enhancement in mechanical properties such as modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio, split tensile strength, flexural strength, and compressiv

‘PSORIASIS’ - AN IMMUNE DISEASE IN THE RESEARCH PIPELINE

The current review article focuses on “Psoriasis”, a form of over-active wound healing response, relatively common, chronic, inflammatory and hypersensitive disease of unsolved pathogenesis affecting skin and joints in 2-3% of the general population. Psoriasis is a skin disease driven by immune system which starts below the skin's surface and cause severe pain and adverse mental health effects. Genetic susceptibility as well as environmental factors plays an important role in determining the development and prognosis of psoriasis. Natural Killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes that are best known for killing virally infected and cancer cells. However, evidence is emerging to support a role for NK cells in psoriasis. NK cells are found in the inflammatory infiltrate in psoriatic skin lesions. They can produce a range of inflammatory cytokines, many of which are important in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Elucidation of the Immunopathogenesis of psoriasis has led to the discovery of novel biologic agents for the treatment of moderate to-severe plaque psoriasis. There are countless therapies currently in the research pipeline, with mechanisms ranging from receptor antagonism to signal transduction pathway inhibition

Breast tumor representation & noise removal using Fuzzy c-mean algorithm and DWT

ABSTRACT -Breast cancer is one of the major causes of death among women. Small clusters of micro calcifications appearing as collection of white spots on mammograms show an early warning of breast cancer. Primary prevention seems impossible since the causes of this disease is still remain unknown. An improvement of early diagnostic techniques is critical for women's quality of life. Mammography is the main test used for screening and early diagnosis. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance of the breast is the most attractive alternative to standard mammography. This paper is presents a breast tumor representation and noise removal using fuzzy c mean algorithm and dwt. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used to extract high level details from MRI images. The processed image is added to the original image to get the sharpened image. Then Cmeans algorithm is applied to the sharpened image in which the tumor region can be located using the thresholding method

SIMULTANEOUS RP-HPLC METHOD DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF FENOFIBRATE AND ROSUVASTATIN CALCIUM IN BULK AND TABLET DOSAGE FORM

An isocratic reversed-phase liquid chromatograpic assay method was developed for the quantitative determination of fenofibrate and rosuvastatin calcium in bulk and tablet dosage form. A Lichrosphere Select-B C8 (250x4.6mm & 5.0μm) column with a mobile phase containing Solution A (Milli-Q water has pH3.0 made by orthophosphoric acid): Methanol (20:80). The flow rate was 1.0 mL min−1: 1.5 ml/min and the detection of fenofibrate and rosuvastatin calcium was carried out on absorbance detector at 254nm.The retention times was 12 min (rosuvastatin- 3.40, fenofibrate-7.75). A linear response r2 > 1.0 for fenofibrate in the range of 40- 300μg/ml and r2 > 0.9997 in the range of 2.8-21μg/ml for rosuvastatin calcium was observed. The proposed method was validated with respect to system suitability, specificity and selectivity, stability of analytical solutions linearity, accuracy, precision, and robustness. The method was successfully applied to the estimation of fenofibrate and rosuvastatin calcium in bulk and tablet dosage form. Keywords: RP-HPLC, fenofibrate, rosuvastatin calcium, Validatio