Assessment of Iron Biosorption Potential by Live and Dead Biomass of Bacillus subtilis (MN093305) from Aqueous Solution.

Heavy metals polluted aquatic ecosystems and become a global environmental issue due to their toxic effect on all forms of ecosystems and further on all forms of life. Heavy metals are non- degradable and accumulated in different life forms by accumulating in the food chain; this increases the need for the development of a sustainable method for the removal of these metals. Biosorption is an eco-friendly and cost-effective convenient technique of heavy metal bioremediation from the contaminated aquatic ecosystem. The current investigation involves biosorption of iron using Bacillus subtilis strain (MN093305) isolated from Ganga river at different physical parameters with the highest rate of biosorption was 96.64%, 98.91%, 97.88%, and 99.44% at pH 5, 60 min incubation period, 35 °C temperature and 2.5 mg/ml of biomass respectively for dead biomass. Living biomass biosorption rate was 87.32%, 96.74%, 96.94% and 95.02% at pH 7, 72 h, 35 °C and 2.5 mg/ml respectively. Functional groups involved in the biosorption of iron by Bacillus subtilis were fitted to a second-order kinetic model. Langmuir and Freundlich's isotherm are used to evaluate data; both isotherms indicate iron absorption as a favorable process.

The human milk component myo-inositol promotes neuronal connectivity.

Effects of micronutrients on brain connectivity are incompletely understood. Analyzing human milk samples across global populations, we identified the carbocyclic sugar myo-inositol as a component that promotes brain development. We determined that it is most abundant in human milk during early lactation when neuronal connections rapidly form in the infant brain. Myo-inositol promoted synapse abundance in human excitatory neurons as well as cultured rat neurons and acted in a dose-dependent manner. Mechanistically, myo-inositol enhanced the ability of neurons to respond to transsynaptic interactions that induce synapses. Effects of myo-inositol in the developing brain were tested in mice, and its dietary supplementation enlarged excitatory postsynaptic sites in the maturing cortex. Utilizing an organotypic slice culture system, we additionally determined that myo-inositol is bioactive in mature brain tissue, and treatment of organotypic slices with this carbocyclic sugar increased the number and size of postsynaptic specializations and excitatory synapse density. This study advances our understanding of the impact of human milk on the infant brain and identifies myo-inositol as a breast milk component that promotes the formation of neuronal connections.

Security issues and challenges in cloud of things-based applications for industrial automation.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, industries have gained a thrust on contactless processing for computing technologies and industrial automation. Cloud of Things (CoT) is one of the emerging computing technologies for such applications. CoT combines the most emerging cloud computing and the Internet of Things. The development in industrial automation made them highly interdependent because the cloud computing works like a backbone in IoT technology. This supports the data storage, analytics, processing, commercial application development, deployment, and security compliances. Now amalgamation of cloud technologies with IoT is making utilities more useful, smart, service-oriented, and secure application for sustainable development of industrial processes. As the pandemic has increased access to computing utilities remotely, cyber-attacks have been increased exponentially. This paper reviews the CoT's contribution to industrial automation and the various security features provided by different tools and applications used for the circular economy. The in-depth analysis of security threats, availability of different features corresponding the security issues in traditional and non-traditional CoT platforms used in industrial automation have been analysed. The security issues and challenges faced by IIoT and AIoT in industrial automation have also been addressed.

Exploring the Darkverse: A Multi-Perspective Analysis of the Negative Societal Impacts of the Metaverse.

The Metaverse has the potential to form the next pervasive computing archetype that can transform many aspects of work and life at a societal level. Despite the many forecasted benefits from the metaverse, its negative outcomes have remained relatively unexplored with the majority of views grounded on logical thoughts derived from prior data points linked with similar technologies, somewhat lacking academic and expert perspective. This study responds to the dark side perspectives through informed and multifaceted narratives provided by invited leading academics and experts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. The metaverse dark side perspectives covered include: technological and consumer vulnerability, privacy, and diminished reality, human-computer interface, identity theft, invasive advertising, misinformation, propaganda, phishing, financial crimes, terrorist activities, abuse, pornography, social inclusion, mental health, sexual harassment and metaverse-triggered unintended consequences. The paper concludes with a synthesis of common themes, formulating propositions, and presenting implications for practice and policy.

A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Parallel Study Investigating the Efficacy of a Whole Coffee Cherry Extract and Phosphatidylserine Formulation on Cognitive Performance of Healthy Adults with Self-Perceived Memory Problems.

INTRODUCTION: Cognition refers to brain functions including memory, learning, and thought processing and is increasingly important to individuals. However, impairment of cognitive function is a concern among North American adults. Therefore, effective and reliable treatments are needed. METHODS: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study examined the effects of 42 days of Neuriva® supplementation, a whole coffee cherry extract and phosphatidylserine supplement, on memory, accuracy, focus and concentration and learning among 138 healthy adults (40-65 years) with self-reported memory problems. Plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels, Computerized Mental Performance Assessment System (COMPASS) tasks, the Everyday Memory Questionnaire (EMQ), and Go/No-Go tests were assessed at baseline and day 42. RESULTS: As compared to placebo, Neuriva® supplementation elicited greater improvements at day 42 in numeric working memory COMPASS task accuracy outcomes (p ≤ 0.024) which assessed memory, accuracy, and focus and concentration, and reaction time outcomes (p ≤ 0.031) which assessed memory as well as focus and concentration. Neuriva® supplementation improved overall accuracy (p = 0.035) in the picture recognition task that assessed memory, accuracy, and learning compared to placebo. No significant differences between groups were observed for BDNF, the EMQ, or Go/No-Go tests. CONCLUSION: Results suggest 42 days of Neuriva® supplementation was safe, well tolerated, and beneficial in improving memory, accuracy, focus and concentration, and learning in a healthy adult population with self-reported memory problems.

Support for increasing low-wage workers' compensation: The role of fixed-growth mindsets about intelligence.

Approximately 44% of U.S. workers are low-wage workers. Recent years have witnessed a raging debate about whether to raise their minimum wages. Why do some decision-makers support raising wages and others do not? Ten studies (four preregistered) examined people's beliefs about the malleability of intelligence as a key antecedent. The more U.S. human resource managers (Study 1) and Indian business owners (Study 2) believed that people's intelligence can grow (i.e., had a growth mindset), the more they supported increasing low-wage workers' compensation. In key U.S. swing states (Study 3a), and a nationally representative sample (Study 3b), residents with a more growth mindset were more willing to support ballot propositions increasing the minimum wage and other compensation. Study 4 provided causal evidence. The next two studies confirmed the specificity of the predictor. People's beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, but not personality (Study 5a) or effort (Study 5b), predicted their support for increasing low-wage workers' compensation. Study 6 examined multiple potential mechanisms, including empathy, attributions for poverty, and environmental affordances. The relationship between growth mindset and support for raising low-wage workers' wages was explained by more situational rather than dispositional attributions for poverty. Finally, Studies 7a and 7b replicated the effect of growth mindset on support for increasing low-wage workers' compensation and provided confirmatory evidence for the mediator-situational, rather than dispositional, attributions of poverty. These findings suggest that growth mindsets about intelligence promote support for increasing low-wage workers' wages; we discuss the theoretical and practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Low-dose COVID-19 CT Image Denoising Using CNN and its Method Noise Thresholding.

Noise in computed tomography (CT) images may occur due to low radiation doses. Hence, the main aim of this paper is to reduce the noise from low-dose CT images so that the risk of high radiation dose can be reduced. BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus outbreak has ushered in different new areas of research in medical instrumentation and technology. Medical diagnostics and imaging are one of the ways in which the area and level of infection can be detected. OBJECTIVE: COVID-19 attacks people with less immunity, so infants, kids, and pregnant women are more vulnerable to the infection. So, they need to undergo CT scanning to find the infection level. But the high radiation diagnostic is also fatal for them, so the intensity of radiation needs to be reduced significantly, which may generate the noise in the CT images. METHOD: This paper introduces a new denoising technique for low-dose Covid-19 CT images using a convolution neural network (CNN) and noise-based thresholding method. The major concern of the methodology for reducing the risk associated with radiation while diagnosing. RESULTS: The results are evaluated visually and using standard performance metrics. From comparative analysis, it was observed that proposed works give better outcomes. CONCLUSION: The proposed low-dose COVID-19 CT image denoising model is therefore concluded to have a better potential to be effective in various pragmatic medical image processing applications in noise suppression and clinical edge preservation.

Identification of Cardiac Patients Based on the Medical Conditions Using Machine Learning Models.

Chronic diseases are the most severe health concern today, and heart disease is one of them. Coronary artery disease (CAD) affects blood flow to the heart, and it is the most common type of heart disease which causes a heart attack. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking significantly increase the risk of heart disease. To estimate the risk of heart disease is a complex process because it depends on various input parameters. The linear and analytical models failed due to their assumptions and limited dataset. The existing studies have used medical data for classification purposes, which help to identify the exact condition of the patient, but no one has developed any correlation equation which can be directly used to identify the patients. In this paper, mathematical models have been developed using the medical database of patients suffering from heart disease. Curve fitting and artificial neural network (ANN) have been applied to model the condition of patients to find out whether the patient is suffering from heart disease or not. The developed curve fitting model can identify the cardiac patient with accuracy, having a coefficient of determination (R 2-value) of 0.6337 and mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.293 at a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.3688, and the ANN-based model can identify the cardiac patient with accuracy having a coefficient of determination (R 2-value) of 0.8491 and MAE of 0.20 at RMSE of 0.267, it has been found that ANN provides superior mathematical modeling than curve fitting method in identifying the heart disease patients. Medical professionals can utilize this model to identify heart patients without any angiography or computed tomography angiography test.

Differential response of copper nanoparticles and ionic copper on growth, chlorophyll fluorescence, oxidative stress, and antioxidant machinery of two paddy field cyanobacteria.

The current study explored the role of ionic copper (CuCl2; 0.2 µM and 1 µM) and synthesized copper nanoparticles (CuNPs; 0.2 mM and 1 mM) in the two paddy field cyanobacteria (Nostoc muscorum ATCC 27893 and Anabaena sp. PCC 7120) with respect to growth, photosynthetic pigments, photosynthetic efficiency (O2 evolution and photochemistry of photosystem II; PS II), oxidative stress biomarkers, and antioxidant system. The low doses of ionic Cu (0.2 µM) and CuNPs (0.2 mM) showed stimulating effects on growth, pigment content (chlorophyll a, phycobiliproteins, and carotenoids), oxygen evolution, and PS II photochemistry. High doses of Cu/CuNPs (1 µM Cu and 1 mM CuNPs) caused a decline in the above-mentioned parameters. The values of fluorescence kinetics parameters: ϕP0, FV/F0, ϕE0, Ψ0, and PIABS, except for F0/FV, associated with PS II photochemistry in tested cyanobacteria and subjected to the high doses of ionic Cu and CuNPs, were decreased, while energy fluxes, ABS/RC, TR0/RC, ET0/RC, and DI0/RC, were increased. Conversely, treatment with low doses of Cu and CuNPs caused a reverse trend, indicating normalization of PS II performance. Although the activity of enzymatic antioxidants (superoxide dismutase SOD; peroxidase POD; catalase CAT and glutathione-S-transferase GST) in both cyanobacteria exposed to high doses of ionic Cu and CuNPs was accelerated considerably, the oxidative stress remained high. Conversely, at low doses of ionic Cu and CuNPs, a significant enhancement in the activities of enzymatic antioxidants decreased the levels of oxidative stress biomarkers. Nevertheless, in Anabaena sp., the levels of biomarkers were greater than those of the control. The current study concluded that compared to synthesized CuNPs, ionic Cu at elevated concentration had a damaging effect on growth, photosynthetic pigments, and PS II photochemistry via increased oxidative stress, and this effect was enhanced in Anabaena sp. than N. muscorum.

Covid-19 pandemic and consumer-employee-organization wellbeing: A dynamic capability theory approach.

The consumers, employees, and organizations have been deeply impacted by Covid-19 pandemic. The present study offers a detailed coping mechanism for organizations based on the extant literature and content analysis of responses of senior management executives. The study is based on semi-structured long interviews with senior executives from various industries. Various measures have been identified for firms as a coping strategy for crisis management and customer well-being. Covid-19 has changed the way individuals live. This study suggests that firms should come forward for well-being of their employees in this new normal. One of the major shifts due to pandemic is in consumer behavior and their consumption habits. Pandemic made consumers go for digitization, think for hygiene, sustainability, and local products. And firms should keep the changed consumer behavior in mind while manufacturing the products. Furthermore, present study suggests that firms can create a positive image of their company by doing CSR activities for society's well-being.

Why stents are expensive: Drivers of high prices in emerging markets.

Pricing of stents is being questioned by healthcare stakeholders due to large differences in price of its product types and its variation across different markets. The stent pricing literature published during 1997-2017 were reviewed besides inputs from industry experts to identify initial key pricing drivers. Interpretive structural modeling was used to build priority for checking the price rise in emerging markets like India. Lack of regulation besides other drivers like R&D cost and price of substitute was found to be important drivers of high prices. The findings would help policy makers to take steps to make stent pricing affordable.

Retraction notice to "Choroidal osteoma with CNVM - Successful treatment with intravitreal Bevacizumab" [Saudi J Ophthalmol 25 (2011) 199-202].

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1016/j.sjopt.2010.11.005.].

Two-dimensional phase unwrapping using the transport of intensity equation.

We report a method for two-dimensional phase unwrapping based on the transport of intensity equation (TIE). Given a wrapped phase profile, we generate an auxiliary complex field and propagate it to small distances to simulate two intensity images on closely spaced planes. Using the longitudinal intensity derivative of the auxiliary field as an input, the TIE is solved by employing the regularized Fourier-transform-based approach. The resultant phase profile is automatically in the unwrapped form, as it has been obtained as a solution of a partial differential equation rather than as an argument of a complex-valued function. Our simulations and experimental results suggest that this approach is fast and accurate and provides a simple and practical solution for routine phase unwrapping tasks in interferometry and digital holography.

Efficacy and safety of itolizumab, a novel anti-CD6 monoclonal antibody, in patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis: results of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase-III study.

BACKGROUND: Itolizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody to CD6, is a novel therapeutic agent evaluated in chronic plaque psoriasis. OBJECTIVE: We sought to assess the safety and efficacy of itolizumab in moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis. METHODS: A total of 225 patients were randomized (2:2:1) to 2 different itolizumab arms (A or B; A = 4-week loading dose of 0.4 mg/kg/wk followed by 1.6 mg/kg every 2 weeks; B = 1.6/mg every 2 weeks) or placebo. At week 12, the placebo arm was switched to 1.6 mg/kg itolizumab every 2 weeks. The primary end point was the proportion of patients with at least 75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score at week 12. RESULTS: At week 12, 27.0% in arm A (P = .0172 vs placebo), 36.4% in B (P = .0043 vs placebo), and 2.3% in the placebo arm had at least 75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score. At week 28, the proportion with at least 75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score was comparable: 46.1%, 45.5%, and 41.9% for A, B, and placebo, respectively. In weeks 1 to 12, the incidence of all adverse events was comparable across arms (A, 43%; B, 38%; placebo, 47%) and the incidence of infections was not greater than placebo (11.1%, 8.9%, and 18.6% for A, B, and placebo). LIMITATIONS: No active comparator is a limitation. CONCLUSIONS: Itolizumab is an effective and well-tolerated novel biological therapy in moderate to severe psoriasis.

Screening and identification of genetic loci involved in producing more/denser inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli.

BACKGROUND: Many proteins and peptides have been used in therapeutic or industrial applications. They are often produced in microbial production hosts by fermentation. Robust protein production in the hosts and efficient downstream purification are two critical factors that could significantly reduce cost for microbial protein production by fermentation. Producing proteins/peptides as inclusion bodies in the hosts has the potential to achieve both high titers in fermentation and cost-effective downstream purification. Manipulation of the host cells such as overexpression/deletion of certain genes could lead to producing more and/or denser inclusion bodies. However, there are limited screening methods to help to identify beneficial genetic changes rendering more protein production and/or denser inclusion bodies. RESULTS: We report development and optimization of a simple density gradient method that can be used for distinguishing and sorting E. coli cells with different buoyant densities. We demonstrate utilization of the method to screen genetic libraries to identify a) expression of glyQS loci on plasmid that increased expression of a peptide of interest as well as the buoyant density of inclusion body producing E. coli cells; and b) deletion of a host gltA gene that increased the buoyant density of the inclusion body produced in the E. coli cells. CONCLUSION: A novel density gradient sorting method was developed to screen genetic libraries. Beneficial host genetic changes could be exploited to improve recombinant protein expression as well as downstream protein purification.

Sequences located within the N-terminus of the PD-linked LRRK2 lead to increased aggregation and attenuation of 6-hydroxydopamine-induced cell death.

Clinical symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) arise from the loss of substantia nigra neurons resulting in bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor. Intracellular protein aggregates are a pathological hallmark of PD, but whether aggregates contribute to disease progression or represent a protective mechanism remains unknown. Mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) gene have been linked to PD in both familial cases and idiopathic cases and aggregates of the LRRK2 protein are present in postmortem PD brain samples. To determine whether LRRK2 contains a region of protein responsible for self-aggregation, two independent, bioinformatic algorithms were used to identify an N-terminal amino acid sequence as being aggregation-prone. Cells subsequently transfected with a construct containing this domain were found to have significantly increased protein aggregation compared to wild type protein or a construct containing only the last half of the molecule. Finally, in support of the hypothesis that aggregates represent a self-protection strategy, aggregated N-terminal LRRK2 constructs significantly attenuated cell death induced by the PD-mimetic, 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA).