Allergen extracts and recombinant allergens are used in allergy diagnostics and immunotherapy. Since allergen extracts from different manufacturers lack proper standardization regarding their composition, monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against specific allergen components can be used for their identification and quantification in allergen extracts. This study aimed to generate MAbs against allergen Der p 21 of Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus for the analysis of allergen extracts. Recombinant Der p 21 was expressed in E. coli and purified using affinity chromatography. MAbs against Der p 21 were generated using hybridoma technology. House dust mite (HDM) allergen extracts were analyzed using the newly developed sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Western blotting and microarray immunoassay. MAbs were proven to be reactive with natural Der p 21. Highly specific sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the quantification of Der p 21 was developed. The allergen was detected and its concentration was determined in only 3 of 6 analyzed HDM allergen extracts from different manufacturers. HDM analysis by MAb-based immunoassays shows their differences in allergen composition. The results demonstrate the importance of allergen-specific MAbs as a tool for the characterization of allergen extracts and the need for their appropriate standardization before their use for allergy diagnostics or immunotherapy.

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is known world-wide for its edible oil. Peanut oil imparts instinct nutty flavour and nutritional value to the foods. The great challenge in the storage of peanut oil arise due to higher susceptibility to the oxidative deterioration. Encapsulation, a technique to enhance the stability of peanut oil was attempted to assess the shelf life and oxidative resistance. Peanut oil was encapsulated using corn starch and whey protein isolate with the help of microwave technique. The encapsulated peanut oil was stored in glass bottles at an ambient conditions for the 180 days. The peanut oil without encapsulation was also stored at similar conditions to assess the effect of encapsulation. The bio-chemical characteristics; peroxide value, free fatty acids, antioxidant activity, and total phenol content, were examined at an interval of 15 days. The results showed that the peroxide value, an indicator of oxidative deterioration, increased during storage. However, the peroxide value was higher for the peanut oil (16.823 meq/kg) without encapsulation as compared to the encapsulated peanut oil (8.040 meq/kg). Also, the rate of free fatty acids (FFA) increase was higher in the peanut oil without encapsulation. The encapsulated peanut oil exhibited a lower change in antioxidant activity (14.04%) compared to the peanut oil (43.33%). The peanut oil showed a higher rate of decrease in total phenol content. Overall, the encapsulation technique proved effective in protecting the peanut oil against oxidative deterioration and thereby increasing the shelf life.

Background: Attachment theory predicts that the quality of early care shapes the development and consolidation of later mental representations of attachment, which in turn influence mental health. Attachment representations are increasingly operationalized as secure base script knowledge—one’s level of awareness of the temporal-causal schema that summarizes the basic features of seeking and receiving effective support from caregivers when in distress. Though a recent method was developed to assess secure base script knowledge during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI sbs), its predictive validity on mental health outcomes is largely unknown. Method: In a series of pre-registered analyses, we leveraged two relatively large, longitudinal cohorts - the normative-risk NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development ( N = 857) and the higher-risk Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation ( N = 178) - to assess the associations between AAI sbs in late adolescence and depression in adulthood, and compare these associations to traditional attachment representation measures. Results: Higher AAI sbs in normative-, but not higher-risk adolescents, predicted fewer depressive symptoms in adulthood, above and beyond concurrent depressive symptoms, sociodemographic and cognitive functioning covariates, and other traditional attachment representation measures. Across both normative- and high-risk samples, AAI sbs did not significantly differ from other attachment representation measures in the strength of their respective associations with adulthood depression. Conclusions: Findings point to the predictive significance of AAI sbs for mental health in normative-risk adolescents, supporting the importance of considering expectations regarding seeking and receiving effective support from caregivers at times of need in developing interventions to improve adolescent well-being.

A document by Kanishk Bansal. Click on the document to view its contents.

Objective: to correlate the clinical history with imaging findings of women with MRKH Design: Retrospective cohort study Setting: A UK IOTA and ESGO-certified tertiary referral centre for disorders of reproductive development Population: All patients with a diagnosis of MRKH and had undergone an MRI pelvis between 1st January 2011 – 31st April 2021 were included Method: MRI images were analysed by specialist gynaecological radiologists. Clinical data was extracted from an electronic patient record system. Statistical analysis was computed in R (version 4.1.2), R base stats package and ggstatsplot (v0.5.0). Outcome measures: clinical history and predefined imaging features Results: 134 patients were included. Median age at MRI was 18 years (10 – 64 years). Half (48.2%) of women presenting had a history of pain, most often abdominal (84.6%) or vaginal (9.2%). Anlage were identified in 91.8% of women (n = 123). 4.5% of women had imaging features of endometriosis (n = 6). Women with a functional anlage were significantly more likely to experience pain (p <0.001). Pain history was not strongly associated with ectopic ovarian position. Common gynaecological pathology such as endometriosis, ovarian cysts and fibroids were also identified. Conclusions: We identify that majority of women with MRKH will have uterine anlage with a connecting fibrous band, and an ectopic ovarian position 44.0% of cases. Abdominal pain was significantly associated with functional anlage on MRI. Further work is required to identify how other gynaecological pathology impacts women with MRKH.

Remote sensing techniques using satellite imagery are widely applied in various fields of agricultural sciences due to the ease of obtaining real-time information, enabling data acquisition from a region without the need for physical displacement, thus avoiding costs. It also allows for the exploration of more efficient methods for crop monitoring tasks. This article presents a software platform that collects images from publicly available sources on the internet, groups these images by category and geographic region, and allows for the application of different artificial intelligence algorithms for image classification. The experiments conducted achieved an accuracy of 89.54% for the Random Forest (RF) classifier. A neural network with three hidden layers and one output layer achieved an accuracy of 86.66%. It is believed that the lower performance is related to the small number of samples used for training the network. The results demonstrate the potential benefits involved in applying this platform in precision agriculture, considering the ability to acquire, organize, and apply artificial intelligence to image classification.

Beyond the Fast-Slow Continuum of Life Histories

Mass Shootings are, for the most part, an American phenomenon, more Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This analysis seeks to know the extent of racial involvement among victims and the perpetrators of the shooting. The data was Extracted Transformed and Loaded for analysis from data.gov and using Microsoft Power Business Intelligence. Black has the highest perpetrator and victims and White has the least perpetrator and victim. The age group of perpetrators with the highest occurrence is 25-44. Socio-cultural, self-awareness, political, commercial, technological and economic influence are suggested as some of the influencing factors.

“A Case of Takayasu Arteritis in a Young Female: Clinical Features, Diagnostic Challenges, and Treatment Approach”Anubhav Poudel1, Eliz Achhami2, Seshkanta lamichhane3, Mira Khatun4, Bidur Khatiwda51Sukraraj Tropical & Infectious Disease Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal(email:- poudelanubhav93@gmail.com )2 Sukraraj Tropical & Infectious Disease Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal(email:- eliz0917@gmail.com )3 Bir Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal(email:- lamichhaneak1312@gmail.com )4 Bangeshal Health Post, Pyuthan, Nepal(email:- mirak5107@gmail.com )5Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal(email:- drbidurkhatiwada@gmail.com )*Corresponding author.Eliz Achhami, MBBSSukraraj Tropical & Infectious Disease Hospital, Kathmandu, NepalMobile no. : - 977-9846710319E-mail: eliz0917@gmail.com

IntroductionSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a protean disease. The classification criteria have been evolving to increase the sensitivity and specificity of SLE diagnosis. The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria (1982 version 1and 1997 revised version2 have high specificity, but limited sensitivity. The Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) 2012 criteria have increased sensitivity, but decreased specificity3. The 2019 EULAR/ACR SLE classification criteria have both high sensitivity and specificity, and advocated positive ANA (ever) as an entry criterion4, 5. Therefore, for patients with persistent ANA negative, it is difficult to diagnosis for SLE. Our report describes a young woman who presented an ANA negative and lack of typical clinical symptoms of SLE patient, but with severe lupus-like manifestations. At present, this is unique case report about severe lupus with ANA continued negative.

The origin of new genes has long been a central interest of evolutionary biologists. However, their novelty evades reconstruction by the classical tools of evolutionary modeling. This evasion of insight from deep ancestral investigation necessitates intensive study of model species within well-sampled, recently diversified, clades. One such clade is the model genus Neurospora, members of which lack recent gene duplications, yet harbor clusters of lineage-specific genes (LSGs) adjacent to the telomeres. Several Neurospora species are comprehensively characterized organisms apt for studying the evolution of LSGs. Using gene synteny, we documented that 78% of Neurospora LSGs clusters are located in chromosomal regions featuring extensive tracts of non-coding DNA and duplicated genes. Here we report several instances of LSGs that are likely from regional rearrangements and potentially from gene rebirth. To broadly investigate functions of LSGs, we assembled transcriptomics data from 68 experimental data points and identified co-regulatory modules using Weighted Gene Correlation Network Analysis, revealing that LSGs are widely but peripherally involved in known regulatory machinery for diverse functions. The ancestral status of mas-1 and its neighbors was investigated in detail, suggesting that it arose from an ancient lysophospholipase precursor that is ubiquitous in lineages of the Sordariomycetes; mas-1 plays a role in cell-wall integrity and cellular sensitivity to antifungal toxins. Our discoveries illuminate a “rummage region” in the N. crassa genome that enables formation of new genes and functions to arise via gene duplication and relocation, followed by fast mutation and recombination facilitated by tandem repeats and deconstrained non-coding sequences.

High-throughput proteomics is an effective methodology for identifying a variety of virulence factors of pathogens. Proteomic data are commonly evaluated against annotated sequences present in publicly available database repositories. A proteogenomic approach can be used if annotated sequences are not available or to identify novel proteins/peptides. However, a single genome is commonly utilized in proteomic and proteogenomic analyses. We pose the question of whether utilizing a number of different genome assemblies of a bacterial pathogen would be beneficial. Here, we used previously obtained shot-gun label-free nano-LC‒MS/MS data of the exoprotein fraction of four reference ERIC I–IV genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae and evaluated them against publicly available annotated sequences (from NCBI-protein, RefSeq, UniProt) together with an array of protein sequences generated using a six-frame direct translation of 15 genomic assemblies available in GenBank. The wide search through 18 database components reliably identified 453 protein hits. UpSet analysis categorized the hits into 50 groups based on the success protein identification by databases. The relatively high variability in successful identification among the genome assemblies facilitated the mining of markers based on uniqueness and contrasting results prior to considering proteome differences. Data evaluation provided novel and interesting markers that can be studied further.

Trans-anal Extraction of a Retained Rectal Foreign Body in the Emergency Setup: A Case Report

Navicular syndrome is a common cause of forelimb lameness in the horse. Beyond changes to the navicular bone itself, horses with a clinical diagnosis of navicular syndrome often have pathology associated with other components of the navicular apparatus, including the navicular bursa, deep digital flexor tendon, collateral sesamoidean ligaments, and impar ligament. Palmar digital neurectomy (PDN) is often used as a salvage procedure for horses diagnosed with navicular syndrome that become unresponsive to medical management. There are many potential complications associated with PDN, some of which are debilitating. This report describes two cases of navicular bone fracture with severe deep digital flexor tendinopathy and distal interphalangeal joint subluxation/hyperextension that occurred 12 and 19 weeks after bilateral forelimb PDN. These two cases highlight the importance of proper patient selection prior to PDN due to the high incidence of undiagnosed soft tissue pathology in conjunction with radiographic evidence of navicular syndrome. Advanced imaging of the digit is recommended to identify and characterize any soft tissue pathology associated with the navicular apparatus prior to pursuing PDN to avoid disease progression and catastrophic injury.

Invasive plants are the second greatest threat to plant diversity, after habitat loss due to human activities. Plant diversity hotspots and islands, as well as farmlands, woodlands, forests, grasslands, and populated areas, are all threatened by invasive species. Over the centuries, and especially in the last few decades, trade and travel have increased dramatically, hastening the introduction of alien species. Although comprehensive sampling is necessary for DNA barcoding, it is rarely done due to a lack of materials. In practice, only a few species from each genus must be identified, rather than all of them. In many of Saudi Arabia’s most problematic habitats in the southwestern region, where the presence of invasive species was significant. As a result, in the current application of DNA barcodes, identifying a given species using a limited sample is important. In the case of incomplete sampling, DNA barcodes can provide reliable specific-species discrimination. For that purpose, the current study was designed to identify the four invasive species in the southern part of Saudi Arabia using morphological and 4 molecular barcoding (ITS, PsbA, rbcla, matk,) markers were used for the identification and characterization of invasive species. The results suggested identifying the 4 invasive plants species in the southwestern region. A phylogenetic tree was also constructed from the identified four species along with reference sequences of the blast results from the NCBI confirmed the four Solanaceae species i.e., Datura innoxia, Datura stramonium, Nicotiana glauca, and Withania somnifera, recorded invasive in the southern part of Saudi Arabia. Except for the matK tree, all the trees clustered individuals of the same species together and separately from the other species.

Type of Article: Letter to the Editor

A document by Kahan Mehta. Click on the document to view its contents.

A document by Devashish Joshi. Click on the document to view its contents.

Subungual abscesses are rare, and information about them through imaging findings is lacking. Carbon dioxide laser drainage and antibiotics are effective treatment strategies for subungual abscesses. We report a case of a 47-year-old male healthcare worker with a subungual abscess that improved after manual drainage alone. Ultrasound and magnetic resonance images

Title PageType of Article: Letter to the EditorTitle: Unravelling the Recent Monkeypox Virus Outbreaks: Comparative Insights into Pathophysiology and Neurological Manifestation vis-à-vis SARS-CoV-2

Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC) and Chinese Pangenome Consortium (CPC) have pronounced the finish of the pilot work of the Human Pangenome Project, which aimed to build worldwide population-representative high-quality haplotype-resolved reference graph genomes. Graph-based gapless pangenome reference genomes with enriched genomic diversity and higher completeness and contiguity possessed the potential for a new beginning for third-generation sequencing (TGS)-based genomic research and high-performance mapping rate and variant genotyping for traditional short-read sequencing platforms. With the new pangenome reference coordinates and corresponding computation algorithms and methods, forensic integrative genomics fields will benefit in new-marker identification, highly-accurate marker genotyping, high-resolution panel development and corresponding statistical algorithm updates. Here, we discussed the past advances and new challenges of pangenome-based genomic research and their integrative genomics applications for variant identification and new forensic genomic, epigenetic, transcriptomic, and microbiome practices. We highlighted the necessity and importance of including the forensic TGS-based platforms, pangenome-based entire landscape of genomic diversity, pangenome-based study design and graph-based pangenome reference in short-read NGS mapping and TGS-based innovations to achieve forensic precision medicine.

This paper proposes a resilient dual-mode model predictive control (MPC) framework that simultaneously considers system constraints and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks for linear time-invariant networked control systems (NCS). The DoS attacks is random and occurs at the both sensor-to-controller ( S - C ) communication channel and controller-to-actuator ( C - A ) communication channel. The MPC can well compensate the effect of the DoS attacks on the constrained system. At the same time, to address the problem of repeated oscillations caused by the inaccurate model near the equilibrium point of the MPC, and to reduce the computational effort, the resilient two-mode MPC is used. To guarantee the stability of NCS, a resilient terminal invariant set based on LMI is designed to ensure that the constrained system remains stable under M consecutive attacks. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to validate the proposed MPC framework, showing its effectiveness in practical applications.

A new proposal for taxonomic species description is presented to replace the traditional descriptive texts. This is an attempt to enhance the species description rate and to make the description output available to other scientific disciplines, machine learning, lucid identification keys, big data analysis and its applications. The method consists in presenting the description of the overall morphology in a coded matrix, following a character list with detailed observed conditions for each character. The method is supposed to be dynamic and open to amendments and new data addition as they become available. We test the new method describing five new species of Collembola Symphypleona of the genus Pararrhopalites as a generalized model and made the coded output available. We conclude that a coded taxonomic description is an advance to the traditional taxonomic text, with potential to enhance the global descriptions rate. The generated data is a dynamic matrix that can be expanded with any data that becomes available, also it can be easily used in other fields of science, allowing non-experts to access the data for phylogenetic, biogeographic, ecological studies and big data analysis. Furthermore, it is a step forward to a general template to semi-automated taxon recognition and auxiliary tools for species description using machine learning.

Chinese medicine is renowned worldwide. Researchers have devoted their efforts to isolating the functional ingredients of Traditional Chinese Medicine preparations to develop new medications for tumor treatment. Traditional cinobufotalin (CBF) preparations are effective herbal ingredients isolated from toad venom and are widely used for the treatment of inflammation, to induce anesthesia, and treat cardiac arrhythmias. Natural bufaledienolides, such as cinobufagin (CB) and CBF, are cardiotonic steroids with a chemical structure and physiological activity analogous to those of digoxin. Previous studies have mainly focused on their cardiac properties; however, in the last decade, the broad-spectrum antitumor activity of these natural bufaledienolides has received increasing attention. In particular, they have been shown to exert significant antitumor effects by inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, metastasis, tumor stemness, lipogenesis, and by promoting apoptosis. Moreover, chemically synthesized CB and CBF have shown promising anticancer activity and application prospects. In this review, we summarized the involvement of CB and CBF in clinical applications, their associated adverse effects, and their regulatory activity on signaling networks in tumors. In addition, we also summarized the feasibility of a nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery system for improving the effectiveness of CB and CBF as antitumor therapy.