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  • Lopez Monroe posted an update 1 week, 6 days ago

    In addition, the V2O5/CNTs film electrode also showed a high energy/power density (e.g., 67 kW kg-1/267 Wh kg-1). The capacitance response and rapid diffusion coefficient of Zn2+ (~10-8 cm-2 s-1) can explain the excellent rate capability of V2O5/CNTs. The vanadium pentoxide nanofibers/carbon nanotubes hybrid film as binder-free cathodes showed a high capability and a stable cyclability, demonstrating that it is highly promising for large-scale energy storage applications.We investigated whether visit-to-visit variability in metabolic parameters is associated with lung cancer risk. We used nationally representative data from the Korean National Health Insurance System, and 8,011,209 lung-cancer-free subjects who underwent over three health examinations from 2005 to 2010 were followed until 2017. Variability of fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, and body weight were measured by the variability independent of the mean, assessed by quartiles. There were 44,982 lung cancer events. The hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for lung cancer risk was 1.07 (1.04, 1.10) for fasting blood glucose in the highest quartile, 1.08 (1.05, 1.10) for systolic blood pressure, 1.04 (1.01, 1.07) for weight, and 1.11 (1.08, 1.14) for total cholesterol. When comparing ≥3 vs. 0 high-variability metabolic parameters, the HR for lung cancer was 1.18 (95% CI, 1.14, 1.22). However, while ≥3 high-variability parameters showed an increased lung cancer risk in men (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.21, 1.31), women did not show increased risk (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.92, 1.06). High variability in each metabolic parameter, and a higher number of high-variability parameters, were associated with increased lung cancer risk.Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) are key players in stroke, a disease in which cell-based therapies have shown great potential. Having shown an infarct-reducing effect of bone marrow (BM) cells, especially cells with high IL-1Ra expression, we here investigated the effect of BM cells on TNF and other stroke-related mediators in mice after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAo) and in vitro using adult microglial cultures. We analyzed stroke-related genes and inflammatory mediators using qPCR stroke Tier panels, electrochemiluminescence, or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. We found a significant correlation and cellular colocalization between microglial-derived TNF and IL-1Ra, though IL-1Ra production was TNF independent. BM treatment significantly increased TNF, interleukin (IL)-10, and IL-4 levels, while C-X-C motif ligand 1 (CXCL1), IL-12p70, and Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) decreased, suggesting that BM treatment favors an anti-inflammatory environment. Hierarchical clustering identified Tnf and IL-1rn within the same gene cluster, and subsequent STRING analysis identified TLR2 as a shared receptor. Although IL-1Ra producing BM cells specifically modulated TNF levels, this was TLR2 independent. These results demonstrate BM cells as modulators of poststroke inflammation with beneficial effects on poststroke outcomes and place TNF and IL-1Ra as key players of the defense response after tMCAo.Rhodotorula diobovata is an oleaginous and carotenogenic yeast, useful for diverse biotechnological applications. To understand the molecular basis of its potential applications, the genome was sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq and Ion Torrent platforms, assembled by AbySS, and annotated using the JGI annotation pipeline. The genome size, 21.1 MB, was similar to that of the biotechnological “workhorse”, R. toruloides. Comparative analyses of the R. diobovata genome sequence with those of other Rhodotorula species, Yarrowia lipolytica, Phaffia rhodozyma, Lipomyces starkeyi, and Sporidiobolus salmonicolor, were conducted, with emphasis on the carotenoid and neutral lipid biosynthesis pathways. Amino acid sequence alignments of key enzymes in the lipid biosynthesis pathway revealed why the activity of malic enzyme and ATP-citrate lyase may be ambiguous in Y. lipolytica and L. starkeyi. Phylogenetic analysis showed a close relationship between R. diobovata and R. graminis WP1. Dot-plot analysis of the coding sequences of the genes crtYB and ME1 corroborated sequence homologies between sequences from R. diobovata and R. graminis. There was, however, nonsequential alignment between crtYB CDS sequences from R. diobovata and those from X. dendrorhous. This research presents the first genome analysis of R. Calcium folinate diobovata with a focus on its biotechnological potential as a lipid and carotenoid producer.Lung sounds remain vital in clinical diagnosis as they reveal associations with pulmonary pathologies. With COVID-19 spreading across the world, it has become more pressing for medical professionals to better leverage artificial intelligence for faster and more accurate lung auscultation. This research aims to propose a feature engineering process that extracts the dedicated features for the depthwise separable convolution neural network (DS-CNN) to classify lung sounds accurately and efficiently. We extracted a total of three features for the shrunk DS-CNN model the short-time Fourier-transformed (STFT) feature, the Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficient (MFCC) feature, and the fused features of these two. We observed that while DS-CNN models trained on either the STFT or the MFCC feature achieved an accuracy of 82.27% and 73.02%, respectively, fusing both features led to a higher accuracy of 85.74%. In addition, our method achieved 16 times higher inference speed on an edge device and only 0.45% less accuracy than RespireNet. This finding indicates that the fusion of the STFT and MFCC features and DS-CNN would be a model design for lightweight edge devices to achieve accurate AI-aided detection of lung diseases.Traditional chemo-mechanical retraction/displacement materials can impact the gingival margin tissues. This study was undertaken to analyze biological responses induced in human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) upon application of injectable astringent-based agents used in the cordless retraction technique. HGFs were exposed to hemostatic agents (five gels, three pastes, and one foam) based on aluminium chloride, aluminium sulphate and ferric sulphate. Changes in cell viability and proliferation were evaluated using an MTT assay and a BrdU assay. The cytoskeleton structure organization (zyxin and F-actin) was visualized by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Oxidative stress was determined using the Griess Reagent System. The RNA expression levels of antioxidant enzymes were quantified by real-time RT-PCR. The statistical significance was evaluated using Student’s t-test and one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey HSD test. The evaluated agents did not downregulate fibroblast viability or proliferation. No significant cytoskeleton reorganization was observed.