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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional... more
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) and to attain high performance using OCT images. In this work, we have developed a new framework for automated detection of retinal disorders using transfer learning. This model consists of three phases: deep fused and multilevel feature extraction, using 18 pre-trained networks and tent maximal pooling, feature selection with ReliefF, and classification using the optimized classifier. The novelty of this proposed framework is the feature generation using widely used CNNs and to select the most suitable features for classification. The extracted features using our proposed intelligent feature extractor are fed to iterative ReliefF (IRF) to automatically select the best feature vector. The quadratic support vector machine (QSVM)...
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Spain is one of the most heavily affected countries by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, we estimated the regional inequalities in excess deaths and premature mortality in Spain. Between January 2020 and June 2021, an estimated 89,200... more
Spain is one of the most heavily affected countries by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, we estimated the regional inequalities in excess deaths and premature mortality in Spain. Between January 2020 and June 2021, an estimated 89,200 (men: 48,000; women: 41,200) excess deaths occurred in the 17 Spanish regions with a substantial variability (highest in Madrid: 22,000, lowest in Canary Islands: -210). Highest reductions in life expectancy at birth (e_0) in 2020 were observed in Madrid (men: -3.48 years, women: -2.15), Castile La Mancha (men: -2.67, women: -2.30), and Castile and Leon (men: -2.00, women: -1.32). In the first six months of 2021, the highest reduction in e_0 was observed in Valencian Community (men: -2.04, women: -1.63), Madrid (men: -2.37), and Andalusia (men: -1.75; women: -1.43). In some Spanish regions, life expectancy at age 65 during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 was comparable to that observed as far back as 20 years ago.
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Commercial sex workers (CSWs) serve as the most important reservoir of sexually transmitted diseases (STD), including gonorrhea. Periodic monitoring of the antimicrobial susceptibility profile ofNeisseria gonorrhoeae in a high-risk... more
Commercial sex workers (CSWs) serve as the most important reservoir of sexually transmitted diseases (STD), including gonorrhea. Periodic monitoring of the antimicrobial susceptibility profile ofNeisseria gonorrhoeae in a high-risk population provides essential clues regarding the rapidly changing pattern of antimicrobial susceptibilities. A study concerning the prevalence of gonococcal infection among CSWs was conducted in Bangladesh. The isolates were examined with regards to their antimicrobial susceptibility to, and the MICs of, penicillin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, and spectinomycin by disk diffusion and agar dilution methods. The total plasmid profile of the isolates was also analyzed. Of the 224 CSWs, 94 (42%) were culture positive for N. gonorrhoeae. There was a good correlation between the results of the disk diffusion and agar dilution methods. Some 66% of the isolates were resistant to penicillin, and 34% were moderately susceptible to penicill...
Research Interests: Bangladesh, Clinical Microbiology, Biological Sciences, Humans, Antimicrobial susceptibility, and 15 moreProstitution, Female, Clinical, Microbial genetic and drug resistance, Commercial Sex Workers, Plasmids, Phenotype, Microbial Sensitivity Tests, Ciprofloxacin, Sexually Transmitted Disease, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Tetracycline resistance, High risk, Medical and Health Sciences, and gonorrhea
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Research Interests: Engineering and Elsevier
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The aim of this study was to determine the serum immunoglobulin concentration in both manic patients and in healthy volunteers. The study was conducted with 30 manic patients (24 males and 6 females, aged 55.4 ± 13.0 years); age and... more
The aim of this study was to determine the serum immunoglobulin concentration in both manic patients and in healthy volunteers. The study was conducted with 30 manic patients (24 males and 6 females, aged 55.4 ± 13.0 years); age and gender-matched, control subjects were enrolled. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was employed to analyze the serum immunoglobulin concentrations. IgG level was found to be 18.22±6.42 g/L in the manic patients, while it was 16.05 ± 3.45 g/l in the cohort controls (p=0.487). IgM and IgA concentrations were 6.025 ± 1.07 g/l and 1.41 ± 0.51 g/l in the manic patients, whereas those were 5.73 ± 1.63 g/l (p=0.688) and 0.837 ± 0.36 g/l (p=0.034) respectively in controls. From the results it was found that only the serum concentration of IgA was increased significantly (p=0.034) in manic patients while the concentrations of IgG and IgM remained unchanged. In many psychiatric disorders, immunoglobulin level has been found to be changed significantly. T...
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The aim of this study was to determine the serum immunoglobulin concentration in both schizophrenic patients and healthy individuals. The study was conducted with 30 (thirty) schizophrenic patients (24 males and 6 females, aged 55.4±13.0... more
The aim of this study was to determine the serum immunoglobulin concentration in both schizophrenic patients and healthy individuals. The study was conducted with 30 (thirty) schizophrenic patients (24 males and 6 females, aged 55.4±13.0 years); age and gender-matched, control subjects were enrolled. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was employed to analyze the serum immunoglobulin concentrations. Results showed that the concentrations of serum IgG, IgM and IgA were not changed significantly than that of the cohort controls. The IgG level was found to be 15.23 ± 3.82 g/l (p = 0.341) in the schizophrenic patients, while it was 14.36 ± 3.37 g/l in the cohort controls. IgM and IgA concentrations were 6.19 ± 2.36 g/l (p = 0.861) and 4.85 ± 1.70 g/l (p = 0.362) in the schizophrenic patients, whereas those were 6.00 ± 2.05 g/l and 4.48 ± 1.39 g/l, respectively, in healthy volunteers. In many psychiatric disorders, immunoglobulin levels changed significantly and have been used a...
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The study was designed to observe the effects of surgical stress on serum level of cortisol in patients undergoing surgical treatment and to find out any differences in hormonal response between elective and emergency surgical procedures.... more
The study was designed to observe the effects of surgical stress on serum level of cortisol in patients undergoing surgical treatment and to find out any differences in hormonal response between elective and emergency surgical procedures. A total number of 60 male subjects aged between 18 and 45 years were included in the study. Of them, 20 were healthy control (Group I), 20 underwent elective surgical treatment (Group II) and emergency surgical interventions were applied in rest 20 subjects (Group III). Study Groups were further divided into subgroups A (preoperative samples were collected 1- hour before operation), B (postoperative samples were collected 1-hour after the end of the operation) and C (postoperative samples were collected 24-hours after operation).Serum cortisol level was estimated by invitro-immunolytic test.Statistical analysis was done by paired, unpaired ‘t' test and regression analysis. The preoperative mean serum cortisol concentration in elective surgical ...
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ABSTRACT Summary • Ammonia (NH3) is the preferred nitrogen source for many eukaryotic algae and the cyanobacteria, Synechococcus R-2 (PCC 7942) and Synechocystis (PCC 6803). • Ammonia in solution is a weak base with a pKa of 9.25; hence,... more
ABSTRACT Summary • Ammonia (NH3) is the preferred nitrogen source for many eukaryotic algae and the cyanobacteria, Synechococcus R-2 (PCC 7942) and Synechocystis (PCC 6803). • Ammonia in solution is a weak base with a pKa of 9.25; hence, under environmental conditions it is present in solution as NH3 and NH4+. The uncharged form is a readily diffusible small molecule but NH4+ has an ionic radius similar to K+ and behaves like an alkali metal cation. Accumulation and retention of NH3 + NH4+ is therefore a complicated function of the permeabilities of two very different chemical species. • NH3 is usually thought to be highly permeable across cell membranes although it is difficult to find actual measurements primarily because there is no convenient radioactive tracer for N. Many studies have therefore used 14C-methylamine (14CH3-NH2) as a convenient analogue tracer. • Permeability of 14CH3-NH2 was measured in Synechocystis over a range of pH values; permeability of uncharged amines was shown to be governed by pH. The permeability of CH3NH2 is c. 50 µm s−1 at pHo 10 but increases very rapidly to c. 300 µm s−1 at pHo 7. This finding has serious implications for attempts to develop stochastic models of amine uptake and retention by cells.
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... Md. Nazrul Islam a , Corresponding Author Contact Information , E-mail The Corresponding Author and Hiroshi Uyeda b. a Department of Physics, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh. ...
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Sixty-seven subjects, including normal volunteers and patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, and borderline personality disorder, received ratings of depersonalization after double-blind, placebo-controlled challenges... more
Sixty-seven subjects, including normal volunteers and patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, and borderline personality disorder, received ratings of depersonalization after double-blind, placebo-controlled challenges with the partial serotonin agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP). Challenge with m-CPP induced depersonalization significantly more than did placebo. Subjects who became depersonalized did not differ in age, sex, or diagnosis from those who did not experience depersonalization. There was a significant correlation between the induction of depersonalization and increase in panic, but not nervousness, anxiety, sadness, depression, or drowsiness. This report suggests that serotonergic dysregulation may in part underlie depersonalization.
Research Interests: Psychiatry, Borderline Personality Disorder, Medicine, Serotonin, Brain, and 15 moreHumans, Female, Animals, Male, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Middle Aged, Arousal, Panic, Rats, Adult, Depersonalization, Reality Testing, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Phobic disorders, and Medical and Health Sciences
We have concurrently studied the surface pressure (pi) versus area (A) isotherms and microscopic surface morphological features of Langmuir monolayers of diethylene glycol mono-n-octadecyl ether (C18E2) by film balance and Brewster angle... more
We have concurrently studied the surface pressure (pi) versus area (A) isotherms and microscopic surface morphological features of Langmuir monolayers of diethylene glycol mono-n-octadecyl ether (C18E2) by film balance and Brewster angle microscopy (BAM) over a wide range of temperature. At temperatures < or =10 degrees C, the monolayers exist in the form of condensed phase even just after the evaporation of the spreading solvent, suggesting that the melting point of the condensed phase is above this temperature. At > or =15 degrees C, the monolayers can exist as gas (G), liquid expanded (LE), and liquid condensed (LC) phases and undergo a pressure-induced first-order phase transition between LE and LC phases showing a sharp cusp point followed by a plateau region in the pi-A isotherms. A variety of 2-D structures, depending on the subphase temperature, are observed by BAM just after the appearance of the cusp point. It is interesting to note here that the domains attain increasingly large and compact shape as the subphase temperature increases and finally give faceted structures with sharp edges and corners at > or =30 degrees C. The BAM observations were coupled with polarization modulation infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (PM-IRRAS) to gain better understanding regarding the conformational order and subcell packing of the molecules. The constancy of the methylene stretching modes over the studied temperature range suggests that the hydrocarbon chains do not undergo any conformational changes upon compression of the monolayer. However, the full width at half-maximum (fwhm) values of the asymmetric methylene stretching mode (nu(as)(CH(2))) are found to respond differently with changes in temperature. It is concluded that even though the trans/gauche ratio of the hydrocarbon chains remains virtually constant, the LE-LC phase transition upon compression of the monolayer is accompanied by a loss of the rotational freedom of the molecules.
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The thermal effects which affect the development of leading edge cavitation in an inducer were investigated experimentally using refrigerant R114. For different operating conditions, the evolution of the cavity length with the cavitation... more
The thermal effects which affect the development of leading edge cavitation in an inducer were investigated experimentally using refrigerant R114. For different operating conditions, the evolution of the cavity length with the cavitation parameter was determined from visualizations. The tests were conducted up to two-phase breeding. The comparison of tests in R114 and in cold water allowed us to estimate the amplitude of the thermodynamic effect. The results show that the B-factor depends primarily upon the degree of development of cavitation but not significantly upon other parameters such as the inducer rotation speed or the fluid temperature, at least in the present domain of investigation. These trends are qualitatively in agreement with the classical entrainment theory. In addition, pressure fluctuations spectra were determined in order to detect the onset of cavitation instabilities and particularly of alternate blade cavitation and rotating cavitation. If the onset of alterna...
Research Interests: Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Water, Fluids, and 4 moreCavitation, Temperature, Rotation, and Vapors
... School of Economics, University of Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines E-mail: ma_joy.abrenica@up.edu.ph Page 2. ... in Meteorology from the Odessa Hydrometeorology University, Ukraine in 1978, and her MEng and DEng from... more
... School of Economics, University of Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines E-mail: ma_joy.abrenica@up.edu.ph Page 2. ... in Meteorology from the Odessa Hydrometeorology University, Ukraine in 1978, and her MEng and DEng from the Asian Institute of Technology ( ...
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Using direct N-terminal analysis, only 31 N-terminally unblocked proteins out of 100 rice embryo proteins could be identified. To obtain protein sequence information for the remaining 69 blocked proteins, we developed a simple, efficient... more
Using direct N-terminal analysis, only 31 N-terminally unblocked proteins out of 100 rice embryo proteins could be identified. To obtain protein sequence information for the remaining 69 blocked proteins, we developed a simple, efficient and rapid method. Using this method, we determined the peptide maps of 20 proteins per day in 10 pmol amounts. Applying this method to rice proteome analysis, we determined the internal sequences of all 69 blocked proteins. A total of 28 proteins out of 100 analyzed showed sequence similarity to the proteins with known functions in the SWISS-PROT and NCBI databases. Alternatively, we also used peptide mass fingerprinting determined by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) to identify the rice proteins separated by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE). Although peptide-mass fingerprinting is a high-throughput method, we could not easily identify all the rice proteins or genes by this method, because the complete database information on rice, is not yet available and many proteins are post-translationally modified. Therefore, at present, the improved peptide mapping method as we report here is considered to be very useful in rice proteome analysis, especially for blocked proteins.
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In this work, palm and coir fiber reinforced polypropylene bio-composites were manufactured using a single extruder and injection molding machine. Raw palm and coir were chemically treated with benzene diazonium salt to increase their... more
In this work, palm and coir fiber reinforced polypropylene bio-composites were manufactured using a single extruder and injection molding machine. Raw palm and coir were chemically treated with benzene diazonium salt to increase their compatibility with the polypropylene matrix. Both raw and treated palm and coir fiber at five level of fiber loading (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 wt.%) was utilized during composite manufacturing. Microstructural analysis and mechanical tests were conducted. Comparison has been made between the properties of the palm and coir fiber composites. Treated fiber reinforced specimens yielded better mechanical properties compared to the raw composites, while coir fiber composites had better mechanical properties than palm fiber ones. Based on fiber loading, 30% fiber reinforced composites had the optimum set of mechanical properties.
Research Interests: Scanning Electron Microscopy, Multidisciplinary, Arecaceae, Absorption, Polypropylene, and 15 moreInjection Molding, Lignin, Hardness, Mechanical Testing, Palm, Microstructures, Tensile Strength, Chemical Treatment, Mechanical Processes, Polypropylenes, Physical Properties, Fiber Reinforcement, Fiber Reinforced Composite, Mechanical Property, and Bioresource technology
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The fungal species belonging to the genus Trichoderma has been globally recognized as a potential candidate of biofertilizer and biocontrol agent to prevent devastating soil-borne fungal pathogens and enhance growth and productivity of... more
The fungal species belonging to the genus Trichoderma has been globally recognized as a potential candidate of biofertilizer and biocontrol agent to prevent devastating soil-borne fungal pathogens and enhance growth and productivity of agricultural crops. The antagonistic activity of Trichoderma to pathogenic fungi is attributed to several mechanisms including antibiosis and enzymatic hydrolysis, which are largely associated with a wide range of metabolites secreted by the Trichoderma species. Besides suppressing target pathogens, several metabolites produced by Trichoderma species may act against non-pathogenic beneficial soil microbial communities and perform unintended alterations within the structures and functions of microbial communities in the crop rhizosphere. Multiple microbial interactions have been shown to enhance biocontrol efficacy in many cases as compared to bioinoculant employed alone. The key advances in understanding the ecological functions of the Trichoderma spe...
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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional... more
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) and to attain high performance using OCT images. In this work, we have developed a new framework for automated detection of retinal disorders using transfer learning. This model consists of three phases: deep fused and multilevel feature extraction, using 18 pre-trained networks and tent maximal pooling, feature selection with ReliefF, and classification using the optimized classifier. The novelty of this proposed framework is the feature generation using widely used CNNs and to select the most suitable features for classification. The extracted features using our proposed intelligent feature extractor are fed to iterative ReliefF (IRF) to automatically select the best feature vector. The quadratic support vector machine (QSVM)...
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ABSTRACT Manganese oxide (Mn3O4) nanoparticles have been successfully innovated to be efficient catalysts not only for the aerobic oxidation of various alcohols to aldehydes or ketones, but also for the selective aerobic oxidation of... more
ABSTRACT Manganese oxide (Mn3O4) nanoparticles have been successfully innovated to be efficient catalysts not only for the aerobic oxidation of various alcohols to aldehydes or ketones, but also for the selective aerobic oxidation of mixed alcohols.
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A new target detection technique is presented in this paper for the identification of small boats in coastal surveillance. The proposed technique employs an adaptive progressive thresholding (APT) scheme to first process the given input... more
A new target detection technique is presented in this paper for the identification of small boats in coastal surveillance. The proposed technique employs an adaptive progressive thresholding (APT) scheme to first process the given input scene to separate any objects present in the scene from the background. The preprocessing step results in an image having only the foreground objects, such as boats, trees and other cluttered regions, and hence reduces the search region for the correlation step significantly. The processed image is then fed to the shifted phase-encoded fringe-adjusted joint transform correlator (SPFJTC) technique which produces single and delta-like correlation peak for a potential target present in the input scene. A post-processing step involves using a peak-to-clutter ratio (PCR) to determine whether the boat in the input scene is authorized or unauthorized. Simulation results are presented to show that the proposed technique can successfully determine the presenc...
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This paper reports on a model that was developed to understand the behavioural determinants surrounding farmers' adoption of forward contracts for agricultural commodities. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Diffusion of... more
This paper reports on a model that was developed to understand the behavioural determinants surrounding farmers' adoption of forward contracts for agricultural commodities. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Diffusion of Innovations, 28 hypotheses within the model were written and then tested via a telephone survey that gathered 305 responses from Western Australian wool producers. The data from the telephone survey were analysed using SPSS 14 and the Partial Least Squares approach to Structural Equation Modelling. Most relationships within the model could be explained after rigorous quantitative analysis, however, further explanation was required to understand two final aspects of adoption behaviour: firstly, the sources of risk wool producers perceive about using forward contracts and, secondly, why 'complexity', which is normally a limiting factor to adoption, was not significant in the context of using forward contracts to sell wool. Qualitative case studie...
Research Interests: Economics, Decision Making, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Risk, Complexity, and 15 moreQuantitative analysis, Mass media, Structural Equation Modelling, Case Study, Partial Least Squares, Profitability, Diffusion of Innovation, Quantitative Analysis, FARMING SYSTEM, Mixed Method, Context of Use, Risk and Uncertainty, Partial Least Square, Forward Contracts, and Telephone Survey
Protecting food crops from viral pathogens is a significant challenge for agriculture. An integral approach to genome-editing, known as CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR associated protein... more
Protecting food crops from viral pathogens is a significant challenge for agriculture. An integral approach to genome-editing, known as CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR associated protein 9), is used to produce virus-resistant cultivars. The CRISPR/Cas9 tool is an essential part of modern plant breeding due to its attractive features. Advances in plant breeding programs due to the incorporation of Cas9 have enabled the development of cultivars with heritable resistance to plant viruses. The resistance to viral DNA and RNA is generally provided using the Cas9 endonuclease and sgRNAs (single-guide RNAs) complex, targeting particular virus and host plant genomes by interrupting the viral cleavage or altering the plant host genome, thus reducing the replication ability of the virus. In this review, the CRISPR/Cas9 system and its application to staple food crops resistance against several destructive plant viruses are briefly described. We...
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Multispectral Polarimetric Imagery (MSPI) contains significant information about an object’s distribution, shape, shading, texture and roughness features which can distinguish between foreground and background in a complex scene. Due to... more
Multispectral Polarimetric Imagery (MSPI) contains significant information about an object’s distribution, shape, shading, texture and roughness features which can distinguish between foreground and background in a complex scene. Due to spectral signatures being limited to material properties, Background Segmentation (BS) is a difficult task when there are shadows, illumination and clutter in a scene. In this work, we propose a two-fold BS approach: multiband image fusion and polarimetric BS. Firstly, considering that the background in a scene is polarized by nature, the spectral reflectance and correlations and the textural features of MSPI are calculated and analyzed to demonstrate the fusion significance. After that, integrating Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), a hybrid fusion technique is proposed to show the multiband fusion effectiveness. Secondly, utilizing the Stokes vector, polarimetric components are calculated to separate a complex sce...
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Recent study by Meat & Livestock Australia revealed that cost competitiveness and market development issues in supply chain are the major factors for a long term decline of the Australian Beef industry. This study, based on the... more
Recent study by Meat & Livestock Australia revealed that cost competitiveness and market development issues in supply chain are the major factors for a long term decline of the Australian Beef industry. This study, based on the explanation of transaction cost theory argues that competitive performance of an industry depends on improving cost efficiency across the whole of supply chain, the underlying value chain, and the relationship among the stakeholders in the industry. With a main objective to investigate the underlying factors of developing competent inter-firm relationship that influence the supply chain performance and competitiveness, this study presents details of a survey carried out and tests the hypothesis that inter-organizational relationships in supply chain and its antecedents have impact on the performance of Australian beef industry and thus have impact on the competitiveness of the industry. Data were collected through a telephone survey of 315 firms in the beef i...
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Objective: To review evidence on routinely prescribed drugs in the UK that could up or downregulate Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) and potentially affect COVID-19 disease Design: Systematic review Data source: MEDLINE, EMBASE,... more
Objective: To review evidence on routinely prescribed drugs in the UK that could up or downregulate Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) and potentially affect COVID-19 disease Design: Systematic review Data source: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science Study selection: Any design with animal or human models examining a currently prescribed UK drug compared to a control, placebo or sham group, and reporting an effect on ACE2 level, activity or gene expression. Data extraction and synthesis: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science and OpenGrey from inception to 1st April 2020. Methodological quality was assessed using the SYRCLE's risk of bias tool for animal studies and Cochrane risk of bias tool for human studies. Results: We screened 3,360 titles and included 112 studies with 21 different drug classes identified as influencing ACE2 activity. Ten studies were in humans and 102 were in animal models None examined ACE2 in human l...
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) and coriander (Coriandrum sativum) were grown in growth chambers to investigate the effect of different day/night temperature differentials (DIF) and drop on growth,... more
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) and coriander (Coriandrum sativum) were grown in growth chambers to investigate the effect of different day/night temperature differentials (DIF) and drop on growth, antioxidant activity and total phenolic content. The day/night temperature combinations with same average temperature were 20/20oC (0 DIF), 32/8oC (+24 DIF), 30/10oC (+20 DIF), 20/20oC with 12 oC (-12oC drop) and 6oC drop (-6oC drop) at the end of night for 2 h. The response to positive DIF on growth (shoot length, fresh and dry weight of shoot) varied among the species and was greatest at +24 DIF than in all other treatments. Effect of +24 DIF on shoot length was opposite in lemon balm to that in basil. In lemon balm, shoot length was shortest at +24 DIF while in basil it was longest. Under positive DIF treatments (+20 and +24 DIF) dry weight of shoot (mg cm -1 shoot length) was higher in lemon balm but lower in basil. In general, there was little effect ...
Objective To estimate the changes in life expectancy and years of life lost in 2020 associated with the covid-19 pandemic. Design Time series analysis. Setting 37 upper-middle and high income countries or regions with reliable and... more
Objective To estimate the changes in life expectancy and years of life lost in 2020 associated with the covid-19 pandemic. Design Time series analysis. Setting 37 upper-middle and high income countries or regions with reliable and complete mortality data. Participants Annual all cause mortality data from the Human Mortality Database for 2005-20, harmonised and disaggregated by age and sex. Main outcome measures Reduction in life expectancy was estimated as the difference between observed and expected life expectancy in 2020 using the Lee-Carter model. Excess years of life lost were estimated as the difference between the observed and expected years of life lost in 2020 using the World Health Organization standard life table. Results Reduction in life expectancy in men and women was observed in all the countries studied except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy in 2020. No evidence was found of a change in life expectancy in Denmark, Iceland, a...
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ObjectiveTo evaluate the association between physical distancing interventions and incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) globally.DesignNatural experiment using interrupted time series analysis, with results synthesised using... more
ObjectiveTo evaluate the association between physical distancing interventions and incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) globally.DesignNatural experiment using interrupted time series analysis, with results synthesised using meta-analysis.Setting149 countries or regions, with data on daily reported cases of covid-19 from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and data on the physical distancing policies from the Oxford covid-19 Government Response Tracker.ParticipantsIndividual countries or regions that implemented one of the five physical distancing interventions (closures of schools, workplaces, and public transport, restrictions on mass gatherings and public events, and restrictions on movement (lockdowns)) between 1 January and 30 May 2020.Main outcome measureIncidence rate ratios (IRRs) of covid-19 before and after implementation of physical distancing interventions, estimated using data to 30 May 2020 or 30 days post-intervention, whichever occurred...
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Objective To estimate the direct and indirect effects of the covid-19 pandemic on mortality in 2020 in 29 high income countries with reliable and complete age and sex disaggregated mortality data. Design Time series study of high income... more
Objective To estimate the direct and indirect effects of the covid-19 pandemic on mortality in 2020 in 29 high income countries with reliable and complete age and sex disaggregated mortality data. Design Time series study of high income countries. Setting Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, England and Wales, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United States. Participants Mortality data from the Short-term Mortality Fluctuations data series of the Human Mortality Database for 2016-20, harmonised and disaggregated by age and sex. Interventions Covid-19 pandemic and associated policy measures. Main outcome measures Weekly excess deaths (observed deaths versus expected deaths predicted by model) in 2020, by sex and age (0-14, 15-64, 65-74, 75-84, and ≥85 years), estimated using an ov...
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The charge-transfer reaction of tetraarylbutatriene 1 with tetracyanoethene (TCNE) in dichloromethane at room temperature was studied and we found a novel addition reaction. A red crystalline material 2 was isolated as an intermediate... more
The charge-transfer reaction of tetraarylbutatriene 1 with tetracyanoethene (TCNE) in dichloromethane at room temperature was studied and we found a novel addition reaction. A red crystalline material 2 was isolated as an intermediate product which is converted slowly into dihydronaphthalene derivative 3 in dichloromethane but rapidly in protic solvent. The structure of the compounds was determined by X-ray crystallography. The detailed structure and the plausible reaction mechanism have also been discussed.
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The machining of aerospace materials, such as metal matrix composites, introduces an additional challenge compared with traditional machining operations because of the presence of a reinforcement phase (e.g. ceramic particles or... more
The machining of aerospace materials, such as metal matrix composites, introduces an additional challenge compared with traditional machining operations because of the presence of a reinforcement phase (e.g. ceramic particles or whiskers). This reinforcement phase decreases the thermal conductivity of the workpiece, thus, increasing the tool interface temperature and, consequently, reducing the tool life. Determining the optimum machining parameters is vital to maximising tool life and producing parts with the desired quality. By measuring the surface finish, the authors investigated the influence that the three major cutting parameters (cutting speed (50–150 m/min), feed rate (0.10–0.30 mm/rev) and depth of cut (1.0–2.0 mm)) have on tool life. End milling of a boron carbide particle-reinforced aluminium alloy was conducted under dry cutting conditions. The main result showed that contrary to the expectations for traditional machined alloys, the surface finish of the metal matrix co...