Rationale: Automated drug dispensers have replaced floor stocks and medication cabinets in all hospital areas. Anaesthesia workstations have been proven to be particularly challenging owing to the critical patients under their care and the nature of the medications they administer. Aims and objectives: To understand how well anaesthesia personnel accept an automated drug dispenser cabinet (ADC) as an anaesthesia workstation and investigate its effect on drug management and costs in the operating room (OR). Methods: We used mixed methods. The first part consisted of a cross-sectional study evaluating anaesthesia staff satisfaction with the ADC using the technology acceptance model (TAM). Second, we analysed the expenditure of five commonly used anaesthetic medications by the OR before and after the introduction of the ADC. Results: We received 63 responses from 96 anaesthesia department employees, giving us a 65.6% response rate. There was a significant positive relationship between perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and technology acceptance (TA) (p<0.001). Regarding PU, 38 (60.3%) respondents felt that the ADC improved their performance as anaesthetists, and 52 (82.5%) felt that it improved patient safety. Regarding ease of use, 45 (71.4%) respondents found the ADC easy to use, and 55 (87.3%) felt that learning how to use the ADC was easy. The satisfaction rate among anaesthesia department employees was 73%. Regarding drug management, the OR expenditure on hyperbaric bupivacaine, propofol, fentanyl, dexamethasone, and ondansetron dropped significantly by 462, 3,516, 1,806, 660, and 258 vials, respectively. The drop in expenditure on these five medications alone resulted in savings of 35,543.94 SAR (9,744.23 USD). Conclusion: ADCs can replace anaesthesia workstations and lead to cost savings and improved drug management in ORs. However, in order to succeed, cooperation will be required between the anaesthesia providers, pharmacy department, and hospital administration.

The ecosystem is an essential biological concept that represents the major structural and functional unit in nature. Here, I propose seven hallmarks that characterize any ecosystem: biodiversity, habitat, hierarchy, interactivity, openness, homecostasis, and evolutionary. In this set of characteristics, there are two main singularities: the inclusion of viruses as fundamental component of biodiversity, and the coining of a new term, homecostasis, to refer to the maintenance of the stability of ecosystems in the face of disturbances. From the ensemble of these hallmarks, I define the ecosystem as a set of evolutionary living and environmental worlds that functions, in a dynamic equilibrium, as an open, interactive, and hierarchical system. Furthermore, I show an alternative way of graphically representing the ecosystem concept as a network of interconnections between the four worlds. Finally, I propose an alternative configuration of the tree of life, taking the ecosystem as the core from which all living worlds emerge.

In the recent years piezoelectric nanogenerators due to their more durability in high dust or humidity are mor attractive than triboelectric ones. So, increasing the outputs of them is the subject of many researches. I focused on electrodes of the acoustic nanofibers nanogenerators for the first time. Compare to other works here I want to introduce a new electrode which is cheaper and do not result in lower outputs. Here for the first time, graphene spin coated ink used for polyacrylonitrile based acoustic nanogenerator. The results of the acoustic tests compared with in-situ synthesis of nickel nanoparticles on the layer and using graphene spin coated screen ink and using conductive tapes. Finally, producing sound by this graphene ink was done too.

Objective To compare maternal and neonatal outcomes of induction of labour at term to those of expectant management in women over 40 years of age. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Data were derived from the Hospital Álvaro Cunqueiro birth cohort (Vigo). Population Women at ≧40 years of age and ≥39 weeks of gestation that delivered from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2017. Methods Women were classified into two groups: expectant management group (women who delivered from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2014) and nonmedically indicated induction of labour group (women who delivered from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2017). These two groups were described and compared. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was the route of delivery. Perinatal results were also studied. Results There was a total of 603 pregnant women in the expectant management group compared to 634 women in the induction group. The rate of cesarean section did not increase in the maternal age-based labour induction group compared to the expectant management group. Subgroup analysis did not demonstrate an increased risk by parity. Women in the expectant management group were more likely to require neonatal intensive care unit admission and need pediatric support. Conclusion Compared to expectant management, induction of labour at 39 weeks of gestation results in significantly better neonatal outcomes without increasing the cesarean section rates in older women. Tweetable abstract Induction of labour in women over 40 years of age associates better perinatal outcomes without increasing the rate of caesarean sections.

Background: Information/communication technologies such as mobile phone applications (apps) would enable chronic urticaria (CU) patients to self-evaluate their disease activity and control. Yet, recently Antó et al (2021) reported a global paucity of such apps for patients with CU. In this analysis, we assessed patient interest in using apps to monitor CU disease activity and control using questions from the CURICT study, Methods: The methodology for CURICT has been reported. Briefly, a 23-item questionnaire was completed by 1,841 CU patients from 17 UCAREs across 17 countries. Here, we analyzed patient responses to the CURICT questions on the use of apps for urticaria-related purposes. Results: As previously published, the majority of respondents had chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU; 63%; 18% chronic inducible urticaria [CIndu]; 19% with both), were female (70%) and in urban areas (75%). Over half of patients were very/extremely interested in an app to monitor disease activity (51%) and control (53%), while only ~1/10 were not. Patients with both urticaria types vs those with CSU only (OR, 1.36 [1.03-1.79]) and females vs males (OR[95%CI], 1.47 [1.17-1.85]) were more likely to be very to extremely interested in an app to assess disease control. Conclusions: Overall, patients with CU were highly interested in using an app to assess their disease activity and control. Development of well-designed apps, specific to disease types (CSU, CIndU, CSU+CIndU, etc), validated by experts across platforms would help improve the management and possibly outcomes of CU treatment while providing important patient information to be used in future research.

Our community is unaware of the basic concepts of biosafety and biomedical waste management. Biosafety is the containment and safe handling of hazardous materials and infectious agents while biomedical waste management includes the proper segregation and disposal of waste materials generated in health care facilities. Laboratories and hospital administrations should ensure biosafety and proper biomedical waste disposal to protect the humans, animals and the environment from the harmful effects infectious agents. Need for such management practices has been significantly increased in the face of new drug resistant bacteria and new strains of viruses. This survey was carried out from July-December 2020 in order to look into the biosafety and biomedical waste management practices followed in major and most populous cities of Pakistan in area bordering Afghanistan i.e. Peshawar, Mardan, Charsaddah and Nowshehra. During the survey laboratories and hospitals (including veterinary hospitals) of both public and private sector were selected and assessed through pre-scheduled and random visits to clearly observe the situation. It was observed during the surveys that majority of the laboratories and hospitals were not following the standard Biosafety and Biomedical Waste Management guidelines, lacking the proper use of personal protection equipment’s (PPE), spill management, disinfection, decontamination, waste segregation and disposal. Inadequate biosafety measure and waste management give rise to a great number health and environmental problems. Therefore, it is recommended that biosafety and biomedical waste management concerns should be communicated with all stakeholders for designing strategies and action plans to cope with this alarming situation.

Background and Purpose: Berberine is a natural antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory product used in traditional Chinese medicine. Osimertinib is the first third-generation EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) approved for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with activating EGFR mutations and those resistant to earlier generation EGFR-TKIs. However, emergence of acquired resistance limits its long-term efficacy. One known mechanism of acquired resistance to EGFR-TKIs is MET (c-MET) gene amplification. This study has demonstrated berberine’s potential in overcoming acquired resistance to osimertinib. Experimental Approach: Drug effects in vitro were evaluated through cell counts, colony formation, apoptosis and protein degradation assays, and gene overexpression/knockouts. In vivo drug effects were measured with mouse xenograft models. Berberine’s interactions with MET were determined via molecular docking analysis and protein kinase assays. Key Results: Berberine combined with osimertinib synergistically and selectively decreased the survival of several MET-amplified osimertinib-resistant EGFR mutant NSCLC cell lines with enhanced induction of apoptosis, likely through Bim elevation and Mcl-1 reduction. Importantly, this combination effectively suppressed the growth of MET-amplified osimertinib-resistant xenografts in nude mice and was well tolerated. Molecular modeling showed that berberine could bind to the kinase domain of non-phosphorylated MET, occupy the front of the binding pocket, and interact with the activation loop, similar to other known MET inhibitors. The MET kinase assay clearly showed berberine’s concentration-dependent inhibition of MET activity. Conclusions and Implications: These findings collectively suggest that berberine can act as a naturally-existing MET inhibitor to synergize with osimertinib in overcoming osimertinib acquired resistance caused by MET amplification.

Acetaminophen (APAP) is a commonly used analgesics and antipyretic agent. The therapeutic or recommended dose of APAP is not associated with adverse effects. However, intentional or unintentional overdose of APAP causes acute liver injury or acute liver failure if treatment is delayed. Currently, APAP-induced liver injury is one of the major causes of acute liver injury in the United States and other western countries. C-Jun N terminal kinase (JNK) implicated in stress-related signaling pathway plays an indispensable role in the mechanism of APAP hepatotoxicity. JNK mediates depletion of mitochondrial glutathione in the metabolic phase and enhances oxidative stress to aggravate liver injury. In addition, JNK plays an important role in APAP-induced apoptosis, necrosis or other forms of cell death. Furthermore, JNK plays a role in regulation of endogenous immune system and aseptic inflammatory responses induced by APAP. However, JNK may promote cell regeneration after APAP-induced cell death. The present review therefore highlights the functions of JNK in APAP-induced liver injury.

Background and Purpose – Bile acids (BA) fulfill a wide range of physiological functions, but are also involved in pathologies, such as cholestasis. Cholestasis is characterized by an intrahepatic accumulation of BAs and subsequent spillage to the systemic circulation. The aim of the present study was to develop a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model, that would provide a tool to predict dose-dependent BA accumulation in humans upon treatment with a Bile Salt Export Pump (BSEP) inhibitor. Experimental Approach – We developed a PBPK model describing the bile acid homeostasis using glycochenodeoxycholic acid as an exemplary BA. We compared interindividual differences by scaling the total amount of bile acids with an empirical scaling factor and alternatively by sampling randomly from a distribution describing the BSEP abundances using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. Next, the effects of the BSEP-inhibitor bosentan on the bile acid levels were simulated. Key Results – The developed model adequately predicted the in vivo BA dynamics. An empirical scaling factor of 0.5 or 1.5 could readily describe the variations within and between data in human volunteers. Bosentan treatment disproportionally increased the maximum BA concentration in individuals with a large total BA pool or low BSEP abundance. Conclusion and Implications - Especially a large total BA pool size and a low BSEP abundance were predicted to be risk factors for rapid saturation of BSEP and subsequent intrahepatic BA accumulation. This model provides a first estimate of safe therapeutic external dose levels of compounds with BSEP-inhibitory properties.

Climate change is proving to be a driving factor reshaping the distribution and altering the movement of marine species, dynamics of which are crucial for sustainable development and marine resources management. However, how Pacific Ocean squids – boasting the salient biological features of a one-year life span and strong adaptive abilities, and which support more than 25% of global squid catches – respond to climate change is overlooked. We address this knowledge gap by constructing spatio-temporal generalized additive mixed models based on hundreds of thousands of digitized Chinese squid-jigging logbooks covering three Pacific stocks of two squid species (Ommastrephes bartramii and Dosidicus gigas) spanning 2005 – 2018. Here we show the relationships between environmental variables and local abundance of squids (reflected by response curves) track changes in climate; the squid biomass peaks and troughs coinciding with La Niña and El Niño events, respectively are moderate in contrast to the effects of directional climate change. We find substantial poleward shifts by squids inhabiting low latitude and middle latitudes. These findings have broad implications both for food security and open ocean ecosystem dynamics.

Background and Purpose: Extracellular matrix (ECM) is mainly derived from activated hepatic stellate cells (HSC), and its excessive deposition is one of the characteristics of liver fibrosis. Monomer derivative of paeoniflorin (MDP) inhibits inflammatory responses. However, the role and fundamental mechanism of MDP in liver fibrosis was still unclear. Experimental Approach: The effect of MDP was evaluated on CCl4-induced C57BL/6J mice and TGF-β1-induced LX-2 cells. The level of SA-β-Gal was detected by SA-β-Gal kits. The cell cycle was evaluated by flow cytometry. The expression of p16, p21, α-SMA and Col. I proteins were analyzed by qRT-PCR, Western blots and immunofluorescence staining and IHC staining. The pathological changes of liver tissue were evaluated by histological analysis. Key Results: We demonstrated that MDP inhibited the progression of liver fibrosis in vivo and in vitro, concomitant with the elevated expression of Ago2, miR-708 and p53 as well as the downregulated expression of ZEB1. MDP could combined with Ago2. Upregulation of miR-708 and p53 and downregulation of ZEB1 increased the number of SA-β-Gal-positive HSCs and the expression levels of p16 and p21 as well as decreased the expression of α-SMA and Col. I in activated HSCs. Meanwhile, miR-708 directly targeted ZEB1, thus inhibiting the mRNA of ZEB1. ZEB1 could bind to the E‐box of p53 promoter and restrain its promoter activity as well as thus block the expression of p53. Conclusion and Implications: MDP could induce senescence of activated HSCs via regulating Ago2/miR-708/ZEB1/p53 aixs and may be applied to treat liver fibr

Aims To compare the effects of LV volume overload due to chronic organic MR or AR on RV shape and function. Methods and results We studied 63 patients with moderate-severe or severe primary MR and 36 patients with moderate or severe AR. 3D echocardiography of LV and RV was performed to measure volumes and EF. RV fractional area change (FAC) was calculated, and RV shape was assessed by calculating the RV eccentricity index.LV EDVi was significantly larger in the patients with AR than in those with MR. RV EF and RV FAC were lower in pts with AR than in those with MR. RV EI was significantly higher in the AR group. In both groups, LV EDVi showed positive correlations with RV EI ( r= 0.693 for AR and r=0.399 for MR) and negative correlations (RV EF :r= -0.545 for AR and r=- 0.383 for MR ; RV FAC: r=-0.816 for AR and r=-0.647 for MR, ). LV sphericity index showed negative correlations (RVFAC: r= -0.512 and r=-0.608 f ;RV EF:r=-0.408 and r=-0.469 respectively ) and positive correlation with the RV EI (r= 0.39 and r=0.511 respectively) .LV EDVi and LV sphericity index were found to be the only independent predictors of RV eccentricity index, EF, and FAC. Conclusions RV remodeling in chronic LV overload due to MR or AR occurs independently on PASP values. LV size and shape are the only independent predictors of RV geometry and function. Accordingly, chronic AR has a greater impact on RV than MR

Background: T cell responses to natural SARS-CoV-2 infection may be more robust and longer lived than antibody responses, thus preventing re-infection. Accurate assessment of vaccine-induced T cell responses is critical for understanding the magnitude and longevity of vaccine-induced immunity across patient cohorts. Aims: To establish a simple, accurate and rapid whole blood test to determine natural and vaccine-induced SARS-CoV-2 immunity via a cytokine release assay. Methods: Cytokine release in whole blood stimulated with peptides specific for SARS-CoV-2 was measured in donors with PCR-confirmed previous infection (n=29), suspected infection (n=30) or with no history of exposure (n=69); and in donors pre- and post-vaccination (n=32). Cytokines were measured by enzyme immunoassay and multiplex array. Results: Cytokines interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) were highly elevated in PCR-confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infected donors at 20->2000pg/ml and 20-1000pg/ml, respectively, compared to history negative controls (<20-90pg/ml). Receiver operating curves showed IL-2 as the superior biomarker with AUC of 0.99 compared to IFN-γ (0.94). Following vaccination, 100% of PCR-confirmed donors and 94% of unexposed individuals demonstrated a positive IL-2 response. Mean IL-2 levels increased ~18-fold from 12pg/ml pre-vaccination to 202pg/ml and 216pg/ml after the 1 st and 2 nd vaccine doses, respectively. No other cytokines were suitable biomarkers for distinguishing SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination responses. Conclusion: This rapid, whole blood-based T cell test can be utilised to make accurate and comparable assessments of vaccine-induced T cell immunity across multiple population cohorts, and aid decision making on public health policies and vaccine efficacy.

Mammillaria bombycina is a cactus distributed in the central region of Mexico. This species is in danger of extinction, and its in vitro cultivation has, therefore, been established for reinsertion into its natural habitat. Due to this species’ relatively easy propagation, its use has been ideal for analysis at the gene level. In this contribution, a de novo transcriptome of M. bombycina was produced under in vitro conditions. The samples were sequenced using an Illumina platform, obtaining an average of 24 million clean readings. From the assembly and annotation, 84,975 transcripts were generated, 55% of which were unigenes. Among these, the presence of 13 isoforms of genes belonging to glyoxalase I, II, and III were identified. An analysis of qRTPCR expression of these genes was performed under in vitro and ex vitro conditions and dehydration at 6 and 24 h. The highest expression was observed under greenhouse conditions and dehydration at 24 h, according to the control. The de novo assembly of the M. bombycina transcriptome remains a study model for future work in cacti.

In this paper, we study the problem for a nonlinear elliptic system involving fractional Laplacion: $$ \begin{cases} \ (-\Delta)^{\frac{\alpha}{2}}u=|x|^{\gamma}u^{p}v^{q+1},\\ \ (-\Delta)^{\frac{\beta}{2}}v=|x|^{\tau}u^{p+1}v^{q}, \end{cases} $$ where $0<\alpha,\beta<2,$ $p,q>0\ and\ \max\{p,q\}\geq1,$ $\alpha+\gamma>0,\beta+\tau>0,$ $n\geq2$. First of all, while in the subcritical case, i.e. $n+\alpha+\gamma-p(n-\alpha)-(q+1)(n-\beta)>0$, $n+\beta+\tau-(p+1)(n-\alpha)-q(n-\beta)>0$, we prove the nonexistence of positive solution for the above system in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$. Moreover, though $Doubling\ Lemma$ to obtain the singularity estimates of the positive solution on bounded domain $\Omega$. In addition, while in the critical case, i.e. $n+\alpha+\gamma-p(n-\alpha)-(q+1)(n-\beta)=0$, $n+\beta+\tau-(p+1)(n-\alpha)-q(n-\beta)=0$, we show that the positive solution of above system are radical symmetric and decreasing about some point by using the method of $Moving\ planes$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$.

A quality-related fault monitoring method of multi-phase batch process based on multiway weighted elastic network is proposed. Firstly, to make the phase division for batch process more accurately, an improved affinity propagation clustering is developed. Secondly, a multiway weighted elastic network is developed in each phase. On the one hand, quality-related subspace and quality-unrelated subspace are construct in each phase to achieve dual monitoring of process fault and quality anomalies. On the other hand, kernel density estimation is used to measure the contribution of each element in each subspace to the fault. According to the difference of the contribution, different weight is assigned to enhance the fault features and eliminate noise. Finally, support vector data description is used to establish monitoring indexes in both quality-related subspace and quality-unrelated subspace. Compared with traditional methods, the superiority of the proposed method have been verified by monitoring the penicillin fermentation process.

A green, simple and efficient method is developed for the synthesis of quinazolin-4(3H)-ones via visible light-induced condensation cyclization of 2-aminobenzamides and aldehydes under visible light irradiation. The reaction proceeds using fluorescein as photocatalyst in the presence of TBHP without the need for metal catalyst. In addition, this reaction tolerates a broad scope of substrates and could afford a variety of desirable products in good to excellent yields. Thus, the present synthetic method provides a straightforward strategy for the synthesis of quinazolin-4(3H)-ones.

Objective To estimate the shape and magnitude of associations between maternal Hb levels in the first and third trimesters of pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes in a high-income setting. Design Prospective cohort studies Setting Two population based pregnancy cohorts from the UK Population The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children(ALSPAC) and Pregnancy Outcome Prediction Study(POPS). Methods We used multivariable logistic regression models to examine the relationship between Hb and pregnancy outcomes, adjusting for maternal age, ethnicity, BMI, smoking status and parity. Main Outcome Measures Preterm labour, low birth weight, small for gestational age(SGA), pre-eclampsia(PET), and gestational diabetes mellitus(GDM). Results There was no strong evidence of associations between a higher Hb (1g/dL) in the first trimester and preterm birth (1.07: 95% CI 0.96,1.21), low birth weight(1.09: 0.96, 1.24) and SGA (1.05; 0.96, 1.14). Higher Hb in the third trimester was associated with preterm birth (1.43:1.28,1.61), low birth weight(1.68: 1.48,1.90) and SGA (1.41:1.30, 1.53). Higher Hb in the first and third trimesters were associated with PET in ALSPAC(1st trimester- 1.38:1.07,1.76, 3rd trimester- 1.57: 1.28,1.94) but not in POPS(1st trimester- 1.10: 0.92, 1.30, 3rd trimester- 1.10: 0.92, 1.31). In ALSPAC(1st trimester- 1.37:0.96,1.95, 3rd trimester- 1.35:0.97,1.78) and POPS(1st trimester- 0.94:0.77, 1.17, 3rd trimester- 0.85: 0.69, 1.01), there were no associations with GDM. Conclusion Higher maternal Hb, in late pregnancy, may indicate a suboptimal increase in blood volume and therefore, women at risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Further research is required to investigate if this association is causal, and to identify underlying mechanisms.

Objective To provide a better pathological method for clinical diagnosis of endometrial lesions. Design Comparing the accuracy of hematoxylin-eosin (H-E) with Papanicolaou stain for endometrial cytology. Setting The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University. Population or Sample 180 patients. Methods Endometrial slides were stained by H-E and Papanicolaou methods, respectively. The cytology between them were compared, with histology as standard control, as well as the cost performance. Main Outcome Measures The dyeing degree of satisfaction, sensitivity, specificity, Cohen’s kappa coefficient, false positive rate, false negative rate, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, Youden index, positive predictive values, and negative predictive values. The price and service time of dye, dyeing efficiency, and dyeing time. Results The sensitivity of H-E stain was higher than that of Papanicolaou stain. The specificity of H-E stain was same to that of Papanicolaou stain. Cohen’s kappa coefficient indicatied a high consistency between them. The morphological characterization of Papanicolaou stain were superior to those of H-E stain. The cost performance of H-E stain was lower. Conclusions In terms of overall evaluations and economic benefits, H-E stain is better than Papanicolaou stain. If a small sample volume of endometrial cells, Papanicolaou stain is recommended. Funding The Clinical Research Award of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, the Major Basic Research Project of Natural Science of Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Department, the Key Research and Development Project of Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Department. Keywords: H-E stain, Papanicolaou stain, Endometrium, Cytology

The paper presents the results of studies about photosynthesis at the leaf level in-situ of seedlings of Rhizophora apiculata of natural and artificial origin. The obtained values of photosynthesis are distributed in three zones, corresponding to its values obtained in the pre-afternoon, afternoon and afternoon. The main inhibitory factor affecting photosynthesis (if we do not take into account PAR) is a disturbance in the water balance of leaves. The dependence of photosynthesis on temperature and CO2 concentration has been determined.

When studying a system of chemical reactions on the cellular level, it is often helpful to use the chemical master equation (CME) that results from modeling the system using a continuous-time Markov chain. Furthermore, the system’s long-term behavior can be explored by computing the stationary solution to the CME. However, the number of states involved grows exponentially with the number of chemical species tracked. In some cases, the state space may even be countably infinite. To cope with this issue, a potent strategy is to restrict to a finite state projection (FSP) and represent the transition matrix and probability vector in quantized tensor train (QTT) format. Here, we employ our adaptive FSP tensor-based solver with sliding windows as well as the method of using Reaction Rate Equations (RREs) to estimate the probability mass function when the system is in statistical equilibrium. Using RREs, we first cheaply get an approximation of the steady state, which is then fed to our adaptive QTT solver to reach the equilibrium quickly. We refer to this solver as FSP-QTT-SS. We include numerical experiments to show the efficiency of our approach.

The aim of the research is to identify the teachers’ views on the reasons for the students’ low level in mathematics according to various variables, including gender, academic qualification, specialization, and experience. It was relied on a questionnaire prepared to measure the reasons for the low level of students in mathematics. It consisted of (28) paragraphs, each paragraph representing the possible reasons for this decline. The study was applied to a sample of (150) male and female teachers representing 65% of the original study population in a number of schools in Babylon Governorate - Iraq.

The culture medium in biogas field have been used in coalbed gas bioengineering (CBGB). However, there is a huge difference between the substrate of biogas fermentation and coal. It is necessary to study and optimize the culture medium in the anaerobic digestion (AD) system with coal as substrate. In this study, the single factor test and response surface curve analysis are used to clarify the essential components in the culture medium and the optimal content of these chemicals. The influence of a single component on microbial community structure and major metabolic pathways in AD system are discussed. Under the optimal conditions, SEM observation show that the coal surface sediment is significantly reduced after AD process. The results of GC-MS show that there is no significant difference in the composition and content of organic compounds in the liquid phase before and after the optimization; the microbial community structure and gene function did not weaken with the decrease of culture medium addition, but formed a more targeted and stable microbial community.

Interleukin-18 has been proposed for cancer immunotherapy for a long time. However, the presence of IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP) and the unstable form of IL-18 caused the low impact of this protein in human clinical trials. To overcome this, we performed the mutagenesis targeting surface cysteines (C38, C68, C76, and C127) on our modified IL-18 to prevent intermolecular disulfide bond formation. The ORF of wild-type, IL-18 DM and IL-18 DM1234 were synthesized and expressed in E. coli. All IL-18 were refolded by step-wise dialysis and tested for protein aggregation by ProteoStat protein aggregation assay. All recombinant IL-18 were also investigated for activity by IFN-γ induction assay. The structure of modified IL-18 was visualized by molecular dynamic (MD) simulation. The results showed that IL-18 DM1234 demonstrated the lowest aggregation signal compared to others. This protein also displayed higher activity than wild-type and IL-18 DM about 10 and 2.8 times, respectively. MD simulation revealed the binding site I of IL-18 DM1234 was the part mostly affected by C-to-S substitution. In conclusion, this is the first report for IL-18 that the modifications by mutagenesis improved both activity and stability and this IL-18 may be used for medical purposes in the future.