RESUMO
The high rate of drug withdrawal from the market due to cardiovascular toxicity or lack of efficacy, the economic burden, and extremely long time before a compound reaches the market, have increased the relevance of human in vitro models like human (patient-derived) pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived engineered heart tissues (EHTs) for the evaluation of the efficacy and toxicity of compounds at the early phase in the drug development pipeline. Consequently, the EHT contractile properties are highly relevant parameters for the analysis of cardiotoxicity, disease phenotype, and longitudinal measurements of cardiac function over time. In this study, we developed and validated the software HAARTA (Highly Accurate, Automatic and Robust Tracking Algorithm), which automatically analyzes contractile properties of EHTs by segmenting and tracking brightfield videos, using deep learning and template matching with sub-pixel precision. We demonstrate the robustness, accuracy, and computational efficiency of the software by comparing it to the state-of-the-art method (MUSCLEMOTION), and by testing it with a data set of EHTs from three different hPSC lines. HAARTA will facilitate standardized analysis of contractile properties of EHTs, which will be beneficial for in vitro drug screening and longitudinal measurements of cardiac function.
RESUMO
The effects of trinitrotoluene (TNT) dynamic adsorption on granular activated carbon produced by 'Miloje Zakic', Serbia, are presented. The main task was to determine the conditions for TNT dynamic adsorption in order to remove the dissolved TNT from wastewater. The effects of temperature, concentration and flow rate in the chromatographic system were examined. Flow rates between 1 and 4 dm(3)/h were used. The heights of activated carbon in the columns were 70 and 135 mm while the diameter was 12 mm. The experiments were conducted at different temperatures (10-60 degrees C) and TNT influent concentrations ranging from 32.76 to 171 mg/dm(3) were used. The adsorption capacity of the activated carbon increased with increasing temperature, but it decreased with increasing input concentration and flow rate. The results obtained indicate that the influence of temperature is greater than was expected and the bed height and the amount of GAC used could be significantly lowered by increasing the temperature. The possibility of desorbing TNT from saturated activated carbon was also investigated. The amount of TNT adsorbed per mass unit of adsorbent was calculated using a model that optimally agreed with the experimental data.