Viral Vectors

This paper demonstrates the Direct Torque Control Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (DTC-PMSM) drive fed by asymmetrical multilevel inverter. The cascaded H-bridges topology with ratio-3 dc voltage sourced cells inverter has been employed. The DTC controller receives a reference torque and flux signals, the torque controller output determines the position of the desired flux vector. The amplitude of this vector is determined by the reference flux amplitude. The reference voltage vector is calculated as a continuous value using a technique developed originally for the SVM controlled drive. In this study, however, the reference voltage vector has been approximated to the nearest voltage vector achievable by one switching state of the multilevel inverter. The performance of two- and three-cells per arm inverter drives has been compared to that of the SVM-inverter drive at two values of the switching intervals. The results reflect the low switching frequency and torque ripple advantages of the proposed scheme. © 2008 IEEE.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4692567&reason=concurrency

An overview of how viruses-retroviruses could be utilized as to instigate viral bio-weaponization and bio-warfare (much like other pathogens as bacteria, fungi, etc.), as well as a highlight of the history of how this has occurred in the past, has been presented. In particular, two issues need to be clarified here. First of all, almost all of our history of evolution prior to 5,500 years ago has been purged from the records, as well any memory of such happenings have been blank-slated from our consciousness memories. Secondly, that humanity has been lurking in the low dimensional level of consciousness, without having a clue about some of the advanced technologies with regard to the true nature of its genetics, and the possibility of its manipulation leading to genetic mutations and alien hybridization. However, as of more recently, with the advent of knowledge of radiation technological development, together with more novel approaches as nanotechnology in materials science, as well as the fact that we are beginning to better understand the nature of our bioenergetics and the role it plays in our genetics and physiognomy and holographic reality, we are beginning to get a better grasp of how a formidable nefarious alien artificial intelligence machinery can play a devastating role in our genetic modification, hybridization, as well as the using viral bio-weaponization for our demise or total annihilation. Thus, in the present paper, the author

Gene therapy has ceased to be a futuristic dream and has become a treatment for the present. Somatic cells can be treated with gene replacements or gene fragments to express required proteins and whilst gene therapy was originally aimed at inherited disease it now treats a number of acquired complaints like cancer and HIV. Originally delivered through viruses there are now safer direct or biochemical vectors and in the future nano-particles might deliver the drug of choice straight to the nucleus of the affected cells.

This paper studies the space vector pulse width modulation technique (SVPWM) for the three-phase threelevel nine switches voltage source inverter. The proposed inverter is based on the two level inverter topology where it consists of a main inverter switches Q1, Q2, Q 3, Q4, Q5, and Q6, an auxiliary three bidirectional switches S1, S2, and S3 and two capacitor banks C1, and C2. Ideal switches and diodes will be assumed and the dc bus capacitor bank voltages fluctuations will be absent. The effectiveness of the SVPWM control scheme will be verified by the simulations results in the worst case where two very low switching frequencies values of 1 kHz and 5 kHz will be considered. Open loop controller experimental measurements at 1 kHz switching frequency will be provided.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=4562305

The emphasis of this study was on the sensitivity of the antibiotics to pathogenic bacterial strains of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Total of 280 samples were collected in microbiology laboratory of Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore. Staphyloccus aureus was isolated by using Blood agar, Nutrient agar, Mannitol salt agar, Catalase, Coagulase and Dnase tests. Anti PBP-2a latex agglutination test was used to identify MRSA. Out of 139 Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from various clinical samples, 43.16% were found to be methicillin resistant. The efficacies of these isolates were tested by paper disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar. All MRSA isolates were resistant to penicillin. Among MRSA isolates, 44.82% were from different inpatient departments, whereas, 40.43% of the MRSA isolates were from outpatients. This preliminary report showed a high prevalence of MRSA in the hospital. To reduce the prevalence of MRSA, regular surveillance of hospital acquired infections is the need of the hour. Keywords: Methicillin resistant, Staphylococcus aureus, Anti PBP-2a, latex agglutination test, Paper disc diffusion method

The story of medical bacteriology and its attempt to »eradicate« all of mankind`s »invisible enemies«: the rise and fall of a leading science in the modern age.

When the WHO announced the »eradication of smallpox« in 1980, the vision of a world free of infectious diseases seemed to be within reach. For the first time, it seemed possible to »wipe out« epidemics by means of bacteriology. However, just a short time later, when new pathogens emerged and old ones resurfaced that had long since been considered defeated, it became clear that this was an illusion. Focussing on Germany between 1890 and 1933, Silvia Berger reveals that this was not the first time that the belief in the possibility of controlling infectious diseases had been shattered. After the First World War, bacteriology was already facing a serious crisis. The dream of destroying all »invisible enemies« and creating »pure« bodies and territories, rigorously pursued by military bacteriologists between 1914 and 1918, now faded into the background. In the 1920s, the scientists working in this exclusive field were forced to admit that they were no longer in a position to explain the complex interaction of micro and macro-organisms with their hypotheses. Rather than being considered a »war«, the relationship between bacteria and humans began to be expressed in terms such as »balance« or »symbiosis«, as a kind of peaceful co-existence.

In 2008, the study was awarded the Henry-E.-Sigerist Prize for young academics by the Swiss Society for the History of Medicine and Science. 2009 the book won the Förderpreis of the German Society for the History of Medicine, Natural Science and Technology.

»a highly original work, constituting an outstanding contribution to the history of preventive medicine and to German history«
Paul Weindling, Oxford

"Ohne Übertreibung darf man festhalten, dass mit Silvia Bergers Buch die Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Bakteriologie in der Zwischenkriegszeit im Wesentlichen geschrieben ist und es ganz erheblicher Anstrengungen bedürfte, an dieser Deutung vor- bei zu kommen."
Christoph Gradmann, Oslo

" [...] a highly valuable and original work. It fully deserves an English translation in order to reach a larger readership."
Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Paris

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) are a heterogeneous population of
cells that accumulate in tumor-bearing subjects and which strongly inhibit anticancer
immune responses. To study the biology of MDSC in colorectal cancer (CRC),
we cultured bone marrow cells in conditioned medium from CT26 cells, which are
genetically modified to secrete high levels of granulocyte-macrophage colonystimulating
factor. This resulted in the generation of high numbers of CD11b+ Ly6G+
granulocytic and CD11b+ Ly6C+ monocytic MDSC, which closely resemble those
found within the tumor but not the spleen of CT26 tumor-bearing mice. Such MDSC
potently inhibited T-cell responses in vitro, a process that could be reversed upon
blocking of arginase-1 or inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). We confirmed that
inhibition of arginase-1 or iNOS in vivo resulted in the stimulation of cytotoxic T-cell
responses. A delay in tumor growth was observed upon functional repression of
both enzymes. These data confirm the role of MDSC as inhibitors of T-cell-mediated
immune responses in CRC. Moreover, MDSC differentiated in vitro from bone marrow
cells using conditioned medium of GM-CSF-secreting CT26 cells, represent a valuable
platform to study/identify drugs that counteract MDSC activities.

The study was carried out to assess pastoralists and agro-pastoralists awareness, knowledge and practice in
various livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha Manyara and Morogoro regions in Tanzania.
Closed- and open-ended questionnaires, focus group discussions and in-depth interview techniques were
employed. Diseases, drought, lack of dipping tanks, insufficient of livestock experts and drugs are the main
constraints in the livestock keeping community in the study area. Nineteen diseases have been reported to affect
their animals at one time or the other. East Coast fever (ECF, 79.7%), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia
(CCPP, 60.8%) and Trypanosomosis (50%) have been reported by more than 50% of pastoralists that they affect
their animals. ECF and CCPP seem to be the leading diseases with great impact to the pastoralists by causing
high mortality rates. Rift valley fever (RVF) and anthrax have been reported by majority to be diseases which
appear in form of outbreak in their area. Diseases reported here are said to be controlled primarily by treating
with various drugs and Oxytetracycline being a common drug of choice for most unknown diseases. Other
control methods include vaccination and deworming, dipping and spray of animals using acariceides. Livestock
experts have been reported to play little role in controlling common livestock diseases as majority of livestock
keepers tends to treat their animals. Veterinary experts seem to be important during outbreak of diseases or for
unknown diseases killing many animals. Eating of dead and improperly cooked meat together with un-boiled
milk was found to be common in the pastoral community. This could lead to the spread (if any) of zoonotic
diseases easily. Livestock keeping community is aware of most of common diseases circulating in their area but
the way they practice to control leads to failure of control of those diseases at individual and national level.
Devising a mechanism to educate them so that they know how to handle some common and reporting outbreak
diseases such as use of trained community animal health workers (CAHWs) will help control livestock diseases
in Tanzania.

The discovery in March 2013 of fourteenth century plague pits in London triggered an interesting debate amongst scientists and policy makers: could the plague ever re-emerge on a similar level in the twenty-first century? Due to the potential seriousness of the disease this is a subject worthy of epidemiological consideration and research.

Abstract
Faecal bacteria exist in both free-living and attached forms in estuarine waters. The deposition of sediments can take faecal bacteria out of the water column and to the bed. The sediments can subsequently be re-suspended to the water column, which can then lead to re-suspension of the faecal bacteria of the attached forms back to the water column. Therefore, the fate and transport of faecal bacteria is highly related to the governing sediment transport processes, particularly where these processes are significant, such as the Sev-ern Estuary, UK. However, little attempt has been made to model such processes in terms of predicting the impact of the sediment fluxes on faecal bacteria levels. Details are given of the refinement of a numerical model of faecal bacteria transport, where the sediment transport processes are significant. After testing the sediment-bacteria interaction model favourably against known results in previous study, the model was ap-plied to the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel, UK, to investigate the impact of suspended sediment fluxes on the corresponding faecal bacteria transport processes. The model predictions have proved to be encour-aging, with the results being compared to a traditional faecal bacteria modelling approach, where sediment bacteria interactions were not included. The new model provides improved predictions of faecal bacteria concentrations when sediment transport is included and for the Bristol Channel Severn Estuary it can be seen that the effects of the sediments on the bacterial levels in the water column can be significant.

A new clustering algorithm that uses a weighted Mahalanobis distance as a distance metric to perform partitional clustering is proposed. The covariance matrices of the generated clusters are used to determine cluster similarity and closeness so that clusters which are similar in shape and close in Mahalanobis distance can be merged together serving the ultimate goal of automatically determining the optimal number of classes present in the data. Properties of the new algorithm are presented by examining the clustering quality for codebooks designed with the proposed method and another common method that uses Euclidean distance. The new algorithm provides better results than the competing method on a variety of data sets. Application of this algorithm to the problem of detecting suspicious regions in a mammogram is discussed.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=710194&tag=1

Although several recent studies have focused on the characterization and formulation of adenovirus type 5, similar efforts focusing on adenovirus type 2 (Ad2) have been lacking. To this end, multiple biophysical techniques were employed to investigate the thermal stability of Ad2 as a function of pH. Highly cooperative thermally induced changes in capsid conformation were detected near 45 and 65°C under neutral conditions. The first transition is attributed to the loss of the penton bases and their associated fibers followed by more complete physical degradation at higher temperatures. Data in this work as well as previous studies suggest that a common mechanism of icosahedral virus thermal degradation exists. Conformational changes detected in these studies occurred at increasingly higher temperatures with decreasing pH from 8 to 5 suggesting that the physical stability of Ad2 is enhanced under mildly acidic conditions. To consolidate the data generated in these studies, a multi-dimensional Eigenvector approach was employed to generate an empirical phase diagram (EPD) of Ad2. The EPD identifies conditions, or “phase boundaries,” where structural integrity is altered, in addition to providing a tool that can be used to identify conditions under which forced degradation and excipient-screening studies can be conducted. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 95: 1469–1479, 2006

The adeno-associated viruses (AAV) prove to be an ideal vectors as a result of their abilities as non-pathogenic, non-oncogenic, and ignorance of immune excitation.  The primary attribute that makes adeno-associated viral vectors ideal is their ability to infect post-mitotic cells, instigating repeatable chromosomal changes leading to long-term expression, an attribute which may not be necessary in the hippocampus, but is most definitively necessary for a majority of neurons as a result of their terminal differentiated nature. AAV-vectors are generated by utilizing the capsid protein shell, but replacing the genome of the natural virus with a therapeutic transgene cassette, retaining only the terminal repeats. Molecular modeling of AAV serotypes 2, 5, and 9 capsid structures can provide insight into attachment receptor affinity, and thus can provide insight into cellular tropism for gene transfer in neural and glial cells.

Treating monogenic disorders via gene therapy although still considered experimental by some, has becoming a more accepted method lately especially in these last 10 years with a number of recent clinical successes. Genetic modifications are becoming easier to perform with the progressing technology and discovery of new techniques such as the Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR associated protein 9 (Cas9) methods which can modify DNA with great ease and accuracy. Gene therapy is a powerful technique with huge potential to treat psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Gene therapy is simple in principle, which is corrective genetic material is sent into cells and the disease is cured by ending the problem at its source. Viral and non-viral vectors which are used for the delivery of the desired genes to the targeted cells are briefly listed and explained. Unlike viral vectors non-viral vectors don’t cause an immune response but their pretty low transfer rate makes them rather less interesting for research. Viral vectors of adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, retroviruses with its subclass of lentiviruses and herpes viruses are compared with their advantages and disadvantages related to usage in brain and CNS treatment of our topic. Neurotrophic factors (NTFs) have important roles in brain and nervous tissue. Delivering NTFs via viral vectors for treating neurodegenerative diseases is a promising approach. Providing information about principles, methods, hurdles and clinical applications of gene therapy with its historic background to present it with its all basic details and therapeutic effects it can provide to problems related to brain are aimed in this writing.

This paper introduces a texture descriptor that is invariant to rotation. The new texture descriptor utilizes the property of the magnitudes of Fourier transform coefficients that do not change with spatial shift of input elements. Since rotating an image by an arbitrary angle does not change pixel intensities in an image but shift them in circular motion, the notion of producing textural features invariant to rotation using 1D Fourier transform coefficients can be realized if the relationship between circular motion and spatial shift can be established. By analyzing pixels in a circular neighborhood in an image, a number of FOurier transform coefficients can be generated to describe local properties of the neighborhood. From the magnitudes of these coefficients, several rotation invariant features are obtained to represent each texture class. Based on these features, an unknown image is assigned to one of the known classes using a nearest neighbor classifier. All of the feature samples for the classifier are extracted from unrotated texture images only. The new texture descriptor outperformed the circular simultaneous autoregressive model in classifying rotated texture images taken from 30 texture classes. ©2005 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.

http://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Paper/10.1117/12.257258 
http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1025128