bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Nutritional status of Zombi pea (Vigna vexillata) as influenced by plant density and deblossoming
Authors: Priyadarsini Srija , Nandi Alok , Nedunchezhiyan Maniyam , Choudhari Pushpajeet , Singh Saurabh , Pattnaik Ajoy 
Published: February 2024

AbstractFeeding billions, a healthy and nutritious diet in the era of climate change is a major challenge before plant breeders, geneticists and agronomist. In this context, the continuous search for adaptive and nutritious crops could be a better alternative to combat the problems of hunger and malnutrition. The zombi pea, a nutritious and underutilized leguminous vegetable, is one of such better alternatives to feed billions a nutritious food besides being a potential gene source for breeding abiotic stress resistant varieties. To evaluate its potential as a wonder crop in the tropical and subtropical regions of India, the nutritional status of tubers, pods and pericarp were investigated under different treatments of plant spacings and deblossoming. The experiment was conducted in split plot design with three replications and eight treatments during 2021–2022 in the coastal regions of India. The nutrient profiling in tubers and pericarp of pods in zombi pea revealed higher accumulation of nutrients viz. potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn) with blossom retention. The zombi pea tubers reflected significantly high protein accumulation with the increase in plant spacing. The results pertaining to nutrient profiling in the pods of zombi pea indicated that the plant spacing has no significant effect on the accumulation of majority of nutrients under study. The above-mentioned findings are conspicuously novel and valuable. The present study would pave the way for understanding nutritional importance and breeding potential of this orphan crop. The blossom retention renders higher nutrient accumulation in tubers, pods and pericarp of zombi pea. Deblossoming has no significant influence on nutritional profile of this wonder crop but, wider spacing is effective in producing tubers with high protein content.
Next generation antibiotic combinations to combat pan-drug resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae
Authors: Kaur Jan Naseer , Singh Navaldeep , Smith Nicholas M. , Klem Jack F. , Cha Raymond , Lang Yinzhi , Chen Liang , Kreiswirth Barry , Holden Patricia N. , Bulitta Jürgen B. , Tsuji Brian T. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractAntimicrobial resistance has emerged as one of the leading public health threats of the twenty-first century. Gram-negative pathogens have been a major contributor to the declining efficacy of antibiotics through both acquired resistance and tolerance. In this study, a pan-drug resistant (PDR), NDM-1 and CTX-M-15 co-producing isolate of K. pneumoniae, CDC Nevada, (Kp Nevada) was exposed to the clinical combination of aztreonam + ceftazidime/avibactam (ATM/CAZ/AVI) to overcome metallo-β-lactamases. Unexpectedly, the β-lactam combination resulted in long filamentous cell formation induced by PBP3 inhibition over 168 h in the hollow fiber infection model experiments with eventual reversion of the total population upon drug removal. However, the addition of imipenem to the two drug β-lactam combination was highly synergistic with suppression of all drug resistant subpopulations over 5 days. Scanning electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy for all imipenem combinations in time kill studies suggested a role for imipenem in suppression of long filamentous persisters, via the formation of metabolically active spheroplasts. To complement the imaging studies, salient transcriptomic changes were quantified using RT-PCR and novel cassette assay evaluated β-lactam permeability. This showed significant upregulation of both spheroplast protein Y (SPY), a periplasmic chaperone protein that has been shown to be related to spheroplast formation, and penicillin binding proteins (PBP1, PBP2, PBP3) for all combinations involving imipenem. However, with aztreonam alone, pbp1, pbp3 and spy remained unchanged while pbp2 levels were downregulated by > 25%. Imipenem displayed 207-fold higher permeability as compared with aztreonam (mean permeability coefficient of 17,200 nm/s). Although the clinical combination of aztreonam/avibactam and ceftazidime has been proposed as an important treatment of MBL Gram-negatives, we report the first occurrence of long filamentous persister formation. To our knowledge, this is the first study that defines novel β-lactam combinations involving imipenem via maximal suppression of filamentous persisters to combat PDR CDC Nevada K. pneumoniae.
Mass spectroscopy reveals compositional differences in copepodamides from limnic and marine copepods
Authors: Arnoldt Sina , Pourdanandeh Milad , Spikkeland Ingvar , Andersson Mats X. , Selander Erik 
Published: February 2024

AbstractMarine copepods, the most abundant animals in the global ocean, imprint their surrounding waters with chemical cues, called copepodamides. Copepodamides induce defensive traits such as toxin production, bioluminescence, and colony size plasticity in a variety of marine phytoplankton. The role of copepodamides in freshwater ecosystems is, however, unknown. Here we report the consistent presence of copepodamides in copepods from six Swedish freshwater lakes. Copepodamide concentrations in freshwater copepods are similar to those of marine copepods, around 0.1 ppt of dry mass in millimetre sized individuals. The composition substantially overlaps with marine copepodamides but is also distinctly different. Marine copepods commonly contain both subgroups of copepodamides, the copepodamides (CA) and the dihydro-copepodamides (dhCA), whereas freshwater copepods are dominated by the dhCAs. Taxonomic groups had consistent copepodamide profiles across sampling sites and timepoints, supporting the presence of species-specific copepodamide signatures. We describe 10 new copepodamide structures, four of which were found exclusively in freshwater copepods. The presence of copepodamides in limnic copepods also warrants studies into their potential function as predator alarm cues in freshwater systems.
Ciprofloxacin- and levofloxacin-loaded nanoparticles efficiently suppressed fluoroquinolone resistance and biofilm formation in Acinetobacter baumannii
Authors: Aboelenin Alaa M. , El‑Mowafy Mohammed , Saleh Noha M. , Shaaban Mona I. , Barwa Rasha 
Published: February 2024

AbstractThe spread of fluoroquinolone (FQ) resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii represents a critical health threat. This study aims to overcome FQ resistance in A. baumannii via the formulation of polymeric nanoFQs. Herein, 80 A. baumannii isolates were obtained from diverse clinical sources. All A. baumannii isolates showed high resistance to most of the investigated antimicrobials, including ciprofloxacin (CIP) and levofloxacin (LEV) (97.5%). FQ resistance-determining regions of the gyrA and parC genes were the most predominant resistant mechanism, harbored by 69 (86.3%) and 75 (93.8%) of the isolates, respectively. Additionally, plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes aac(6′)-Ib and qnrS were detected in 61 (76.3%) and 2 (2.5%) of the 80 isolates, respectively. The CIP- and LEV-loaded poly ε-caprolactone (PCL) nanoparticles, FCIP and FLEV, respectively, showed a 1.5–6- and 6–12-fold decrease in the MIC, respectively, against the tested isolates. Interestingly, the time kill assay demonstrated that MICs of FCIP and FLEV completely killed A. baumannii isolates after 5–6 h of treatment. Furthermore, FCIP and FLEV were found to be efficient in overcoming the FQ resistance mediated by the efflux pumps in A. baumannii isolates as revealed by decreasing the MIC four-fold lower than that of free CIP and LEV, respectively. Moreover, FCIP and FLEV at 1/2 and 1/4 MIC significantly decreased biofilm formation by 47–93% and 69–91%, respectively. These findings suggest that polymeric nanoparticles can restore the effectiveness of FQs and represent a paradigm shift in the fight against A. baumannii isolates.
Elemental sulfur concentration can be used as a rapid, reliable, and cost-effective predictor of sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds
Authors: Kim Wonseok , Kim Sunhyung , Mawhinney Thomas P. , Krishnan Hari B. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn this study, we have examined the feasibility of using elemental sulfur content of soybean seeds as a proxy for the overall sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds. Earlier, we have identified by high throughput ionomic phenotyping several high and low sulfur containing soybean lines from the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection. Here, we measured the cysteine and methionine content of select soybean lines by high-performance liquid chromatography. Our results demonstrate that those soybean lines which had high elemental sulfur content also had a higher cysteine and methionine content when compared to soybean lines with low elemental sulfur. SDS-PAGE and immunoblot analysis revealed that the accumulation of Bowman Birk protease inhibitor and lunasin in soybean seeds may only be marginally correlated with the elemental sulfur levels. However, we found a positive correlation between the levels of trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitor activities and elemental sulfur and sulfur amino acid content of the seeds. Thus, elemental sulfur content and/or protease inhibitor activity measurement can be utilized as a rapid and cost-effective method to predict the overall sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds. Our findings will benefit breeders in their endeavors to develop soybean cultivars with enhanced sulfur amino acid content.
Umbilical cord blood thyroid hormones are inversely related to telomere length and mitochondrial DNA copy number
Authors: Ohadi Homa , Khalili Parvin , Abasnezhad Kasrineh Farzaneh , Esmaeili Ozra Sadat , Esmaeili Ranjbar Faeze , Manshoori Azita , Hajizadeh Mohammad Reza , Jalali Zahra 
Published: February 2024

AbstractHypothyroidism has been linked to reduced mortality rate and increased lifespan and health span. Telomere shortening, enhanced oxidative stress, and reduced cellular mitochondrial content are important hallmarks of aging shown to be related to age-associated diseases. It was proposed that the status of these markers in early life can be predictive of lifespan and the predisposition to certain age-associated disease in adulthood. Animal studies indicated that prenatal injection of thyroid hormones affects postnatal telomere length. Here, we sought to determine whether thyroid hormones TSH and fT4 are related to the telomere length, mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), and oxidative stress resistance marker GPX in the cord blood of newborns. In this study, we analyzed 70 mothers (18–42 years) and neonate dyads born in 2022 at the Nik Nafs maternity Hospital in Rafsanjan. The relative telomere length (RTL) and mtDNAcn were measured in the genomic DNA of cord blood leukocytes using real-time PCR. GPX enzyme activity was measured in the serum using colorimetric assays. In this study the correlation between these markers and the cord blood TSH and fT4 hormones were assessed using regression models. We found a reverse relationship between TSH levels and RTL in the cord blood of neonates. Additionally, our results displayed increased TSH levels associated with enhanced GPX activity. Regarding the mitochondrial DNA copy number, we found an indirect relationship between fT4 level and mtDNAcn only in male newborns. Future analyses of various oxidative stress markers, mitochondrial biogenesis status, telomerase activity, and the level of DNA damage are warranted to demonstrate the underlying mechanism of our observations.
An 8-week injury prevention exercise program combined with change-of-direction technique training limits movement patterns associated with anterior cruciate ligament injury risk
Authors: Mohr M. , Federolf P. , Heinrich D. , Nitschke M. , Raschner C. , Scharbert J. , Koelewijn A. D. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractKnee ligament sprains are common during change-of-direction (COD) maneuvers in multidirectional team sports. This study aimed to compare the effects of an 8-week injury prevention exercise program containing COD-specific exercises and a similar program containing linear sprint exercises on injury- and performance-related variables during a 135° COD task. We hypothesized that the COD-specific training would lead to (H1) stronger reductions in biomechanical variables associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk during COD, i.e. knee abduction moment and angle, hip internal rotation angle and lateral trunk lean, and (H2) more effective improvements in COD performance according to the COD completion time, executed angle, ground contact time, and approach speed. Twenty-two sports science students (40% female) completed biomechanical assessments of COD movement strategies before and after participating in two supervised 25-min training sessions per week over 8 weeks. We observed significant ‘training x group’ interaction effects in support of H1: the COD-specific training but not the linear sprint training led to reduced peak knee abduction moments (interaction, p = 0.027), initial knee abduction (interaction, p < 0.001), and initial lateral trunk lean angles (interaction, p < 0.001) compared to baseline. Although the COD-specific training resulted in sharper executed angles (interaction, p < 0.001), the sprint-specific training group showed reduced COD completion (interaction, p = 0.037) and ground contact times (interaction, p < 0.001). In conclusion, a combination of generic and COD-specific injury prevention training resulted in COD technique adaptations that can help to avoid ACL injury-prone COD movements but may negatively affect COD speed.
Paint booth waste as an alternative aggregate for the production of interlocking concrete blocks
Authors: Câmara Catarina Monteiro , Ferrazzo Suéllen Tonatto , Levandoski William Mateus Kubiaki , da Silva Cristina Vitorino , Korf Eduardo Pavan 
Published: February 2024

AbstractInadequate disposal of hazardous waste results risks to the environment and human health. Although the use of hazardous waste in new processes and/or products has received limited attention in the literature, there is still significant potential to be investigated. Reducing the usage of natural resources and waste management are important for sustainable practices during concrete production. This study investigated the mechanical and leaching behavior of paint booth waste (PBW) as a partial substitute (10, 20, 30 and 40%) of coarse aggregate in concrete mixtures for the manufacture of interlocking blocks. A sample of PBW used in this research differs from those in the literature due to its granulometry characterized by aggregates of different sizes. Concrete consistency, compressive strength, water absorption, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and leaching tests were carried out. The PBW did not influence the consistency in the fresh state of the concrete. The blocks with smaller substitutions (10 and 20%) presented denser structures and with greater strengths, surpassing 35 MPa after 28 days. Higher levels of PBW resulted in more porous concrete blocks with greater water absorption. The concrete-PBW mixtures showed no metal toxicity, i.e., the incorporation of this waste in the construction material avoided metal leaching. Concrete blocks with up to 20% PBW demonstrated satisfactory mechanical and environmental performance.
Ascorbic acid prevents stress-induced hypercoagulability in overweight and obese individuals
Authors: Rocha Helena N. M. , Velasco Larissa L. , Batista Gabriel M. S. , Storch Amanda S. , Garcia Vinicius P. , Teixeira Gabriel F. , Mentzinger Juliana , da Nóbrega Antonio C. L. , Rocha Natália G. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractAscorbic acid (AA) may contribute to restoring hemostatic balance after mental stress (MS) in overweight/obese adults. We aimed to determine the effects of AA administration on hemostatic responses to MS in overweight/obese men. Fourteen overweight/obesity men (27 ± 7 years; BMI: 29.7 ± 2.6 kg m−2) performed the Stroop color-word stress task for 5 min after non-simultaneous infusion of placebo (PL, 0.9% NaCl) and AA (3 g). Blood was collected at baseline, during MS, and 60 min after MS to measure: activated partial thromboplastin time, prothrombin time, and fibrinogen concentration, by coagulometer; platelet-derived microvesicles (PMV, mv/μL), by flow cytometry; nitrite (μM), by chemiluminescence. In PL session, MS led to decreases in PTs (stress, p = 0.03; 60 min, p < 0.001), PT-INR (stress, p < 0.001; 60 min, p < 0.01), aPTTs (60 min, p = 0.03), aPTT ratio (60 min, p = 0.04) and fibrinogen (60 min, p = 0.04), while increased PT activity (60 min, p = 0.01) when compared to baseline. Furthermore, AA increased PTs (60 min, p < 0.001), PT-INR (60 min, p = 0.03) and decreased PT activity (60 min, p < 0.001) and fibrinogen (stress, p = 0.04) when compared to PL. Nitrite was increased in response to stress during AA session (p < 0.001 vs PL). There was no difference in PMV. Ascorbic acid prevented the impaired hemostatic profile and improved nitrite response to stress in the overweight and obese adults.
Epidemiologic changes of a longitudinal surveillance study spanning 51 years of scrub typhus in mainland China
Authors: Peng Pei-Ying , Duan Hui-Ying , Xu Lei , Zhang Lin-Tao , Sun Ji-Qin , Zu Ya , Ma Li-Juan , Sun Yan , Yan Ting-Liang , Guo Xian-Guo 
Published: February 2024

AbstractScrub typhus may be one of the world’s most prevalent, neglected and serious, but easily treatable, febrile diseases. It has become a significant potential threat to public health in China. In this study we used national disease surveillance data to analyze the incidence and spatial–temporal distribution of scrub typhus in mainland China during 1952–1989 and 2006–2018. Descriptive epidemiological methods and spatial–temporal epidemiological methods were used to investigate the epidemiological trends and identify high-risk regions of scrub typhus infection. Over the 51-year period, a total of 182,991 cases and 186 deaths were notified. The average annual incidence was 0.13 cases/100,000 population during 1952–1989. The incidence increased sharply from 0.09/100,000 population in 2006 to 1.93/100,000 population in 2018 and then exponentially increased after 2006. The incidence was significantly higher in females than males (χ2 = 426.32, P < 0.001). Farmers had a higher incidence of scrub typhus than non-farmers (χ2 = 684.58, P < 0.001). The majority of cases each year were reported between July and November with peak incidence occurring during October each year. The trend surface analysis showed that the incidence of scrub typhus increased gradually from north to south, and from east and west to the central area. The spatial autocorrelation analysis showed that a spatial positive correlation existed in the prevalence of scrub typhus on a national scale, which had the characteristic of aggregated distribution (I = 0.533, P < 0.05). LISA analysis showed hotspots (High–High) were primarily located in the southern and southwestern provinces of China with the geographical area expanding annually. These findings provide scientific evidence for the surveillance and control of scrub typhus which may contribute to targeted strategies and measures for the government.
Review on enhancing clinical decision support system using machine learning
Authors: Masood Anum , Naseem Usman , Rashid Junaid , Kim Jungeun , Razzak Imran 
Published: February 2024

AbstractClinical decision‐making is a complex patient‐centred process. For an informed clinical decision, the input data is very thorough ranging from detailed family history, environmental history, social history, health‐risk assessments, and prior relevant medical cases. Identifying the need for structured input data to enable clinical decision‐making and quality reporting, such that it is crucial for the end‐users is still a challenge. The Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) enhanced using Machine Learning (ML) approaches are described. CDSS aids in the detection and classification of various diseases but they cannot fully capture the environmental, clinical, and social constraints that are taken into consideration by the clinician in the diagnosis process. The authors provide an overview of state‐of‐the‐art healthcare CDSS. The authors initially collected 3165 research articles for this review out of which approximately 3148 records were identified from databases while 17 records were from other sources. A total of 1309 unique articles obtained from the searches were included in the study which was further rigorously evaluated for final inclusion. A generic architecture of computer‐based decision support systems using ML is provided. However, the study does not include the comparison of these CDSS in terms of their performance because of heterogeneity in the disease type, modality used for diagnosis, and the ML approach used for detection in CDSS.
Adaptive control of BLDC driven robot manipulators in task space
Authors: Ünver Şükrü , Selim Erman , Tatlıcıoğlu Enver , Zergeroğlu Erkan , Alcı Musa 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn this study, task space tracking control of robot manipulators driven by brushless DC (BLDC) motors is considered. Dynamics of actuators are taken into account and the entire electromechanical system (i.e. kinematic, dynamic, and electrical models) is assumed to include parametric/structured uncertainties. A novel adaptive controller is designed and the stability of the closed loop system is ensured via novel Lyapunov type tools. To demonstrate performance and applicability of the proposed method, a simulation study is conducted using the model of a two degree of freedom, planar robotic manipulator driven by BLDC motors.
PSO‐SMADRC for altitude test facility intake pressure environmental simulation system
Authors: Chuanjian Li , Chao Zhai , Hehong Zhang , Shiqi Zheng 
Published: February 2024

AbstractTo address significant disturbances, including sudden air flow variation, model uncertainty, and unavoidable measurement noises during aeroengine transient tests in the intake environmental pressure simulation system (IEPSS), a sliding mode active disturbance rejection controller (SMADRC) is designed. The sliding mode control in SMADRC can deal with unmatched disturbances that are beyond the capabilities of the extended state observer (ESO) in ADRC. And the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is introduced to tune and optimize the controller parameters to further enhance the performance. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, simulations are conducted on the IEPSS software platform. The simulation results clearly demonstrate PSO‐SMADRC can reduce the mean squared error by 60.9%, the input oscillation by 68.7%, and the maximum deviation by 53.9%, compared with LADRC originally applied in the IEPSS.
Radiation behaviour of mm‐wave on‐wafer probes in H‐band and the influence on antenna measurements
Authors: Hebeler Joachim , Zwick Thomas , Bhutani Akanksha 
Published: February 2024

AbstractThis letter presents a comprehensive analysis of the radiation behaviour exhibited by nine distinct on‐wafer radio‐freqeuncy (RF) probes used for device characterization in the mm‐wave bands of integrated circuits and antennas. The tested probes are sourced from two different manufacturers and feature various probe pitches. All probes are intended for use with the WR‐3.4 waveguide band ranging from 220 to 330 GHz. To the best of the authors' knowledge, such a detailed examination of RF probes operating in this band with respect to their radiation behaviour has not been demonstrated before.