Molecular Biomarkers in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: State of the Art and Future Directions

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the most lethal form of interstitial pneumonia of unknown cause, is associated with a specific radiological and histopathological pattern (the so-called “usual interstitial pneumonia” pattern) and has a median survival estimated to be between 3 and 5 years after diagnosis. However, evidence shows that IPF has different clinical phenotypes, which are characterized by a variable disease course over time. At present, the natural history of IPF is unpredictable for individual patients, although some genetic factors and circulating biomarkers have been associated with different prognoses. Since in its early stages, IPF may be asymptomatic, leading to a delayed diagnosis. Two drugs, pirfenidone and nintedanib, have been shown to modify the disease course by slowing down the decline in lung function. It is also known that 5–10% of the IPF patients may be affected by episodes of acute and often fatal decline. The acute worsening of disease is sometimes attributed to identifiable conditions, such as pneumonia or heart failure; but many of these events occur without an identifiable cause. These idiopathic acute worsenings are termed acute exacerbations of IPF. To date, clinical biomarkers, diagnostic, prognostic, and theranostic, are not well characterized. However, they could become useful tools helping facilitate diagnoses, monitoring disease progression and treatment efficacy. The aim of this review is to cover molecular mechanisms underlying IPF and research into new clinical biomarkers, to be utilized in diagnosis and prognosis, even in patients treated with antifibrotic drugs.     

Long-Term Efficacy of Intranasal Esketamine in Treatment-Resistant Major Depression: A Systematic Review

Esketamine (ESK) has been approved as a rapid-acting intranasal treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Although existing studies have investigated the efficacy of ESK in the 4-week induction phase, our knowledge about long-term ESK efficacy remains poor. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize the available data on long-term ESK efficacy for TRD. A systematic search was performed including articles in English, up to 31 March 2021. The search found 7 relevant studies, involving 1024 adult TRD patients. Continuing treatment with ESK after the 4-week induction phase may be associated with stable efficacy in relapse prevention among TRD patients. Conversely, the long-term antidepressant effectiveness upon discontinuation of ESK might be limited, although data from three studies had a moderate to high risk of bias. Overall, the results on the effectiveness of this compound in the long term are mixed. According to our findings, ESK treatment should be continued following the induction phase to reach a stable efficacy in relapse prevention, while the long-term antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects of ESK after discontinuation are inconsistent. Currently, the level of proof of ESK efficacy in long-term TRD treatment remains low and more RCTs with larger sample sizes and active comparators are needed.     

Evaluation of standard and new chromogenic selective plating media for isolation and identification of Bacillus cereus

In this study, the performance of two new chromogenic plating media (CBC and BCM) was compared with two standard selective plating media (PEMBA and MYP) recommended by food authorities for isolation, identification and enumeration of Bacillus cereus. The four media types were challenged with a strain set comprising 100 B. cereus isolates from different origins and with different toxigenic potentials (40 food isolates, 40 isolates from food borne outbreaks and 20 clinical isolates). Additionally, the performance of the plating media for analysis of complex samples was assessed using naturally contaminated foods. Our survey showed that the new chromogenic media represent a good alternative to the conventional standard media. Especially, if laboratory staff are not highly trained in identification of B. cereus, the conventional media could lead to substantial misidentification and underestimation of food borne illness caused by B. cereus. However, there are some B. cereus strains that could not even be detected with this new type of chromogenic media. After the fatal misidentification of a highly toxic strain, other methods for a conclusive identification of B. cereus are needed. Sequence analysis of the plcR gene, a pleiotropic regulator of various virulence factors and B. cereus specific enzymes, revealed a significant correlation between atypical colony appearance and specific variances within the plcR gene sequences of those strains. The current concept of selective plating media, utilising PlcR regulated enzyme activities for differentiation purposes, should therefore be reconsidered and research should be geared towards culture independent methods.     

Non-thermal pasteurization of fruit juices by combining high-intensity pulsed electric fields with natural antimicrobials

The effect of high-intensity pulsed electric fields (HIPEF) on the Salmonella Enteritidis and Escherichia coli O157:H7 populations inoculated in apple, pear, orange and strawberry juices as influenced by treatment time and pulse frequency was investigated. Combinations of HIPEF (35 kV/cm, 4 μs pulse length in bipolar mode without exceeding 40 °C) with citric acid or cinnamon bark oil against these pathogenic microorganisms in fruit juices were also evaluated. Treatment time was the more influential factor on the microbial reduction in all the fruit juices analyzed. S. Enteritidis and E. coli O157:H7 were reduced by more than 5.0 log₁₀ units in orange juice treated by only HIPEF; whereas strawberry, apple and pear juices were pasteurized when HIPEF was combined with citric acid at 0.5, 1.5, 1.5%, respectively, or cinnamon bark oil at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.1%, respectively. Synergistic and additive killing effects against S. Enteritidis and E. coli O157:H7 in fruit juices by combining treatments were observed.

Industrial relevance

The use of high-intensity pulsed electric fields treatment as a non-thermal pasteurization method in combination with organic acids or essential oils is an effective process for eliminating S. Enteritidis and E. coli O157:H7 populations in fruit juices upper 5.0 log₁₀ reductions. Therefore, combinations of those treatments may help to ensure the microbiological safety in juice products, and to reduce the risk of food-borne illness caused by the consumption of these kinds of foods.     

Lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide-PYR14TFSI ionic liquid electrolyte compatible with graphite

Lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) in 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (PYR₁₄TFSI) was successfully tested as an electrolyte for graphite composite anodes at elevated temperature of 55 °C. The graphite anode showed a good cyclability during the galvanostatic testing at C/10 rate and 55 °C with the capacity close to theoretical. The formation of SEI in different electrolytes was the subject of study using impedance spectroscopy on symmetrical cells containing two lithium electrodes. The 0.7 m LiFSI in PYR₁₄TFSI exhibits a good ionic conductivity (5.9 mS cm⁻¹ at 55 °C) along with high electrochemical stability and high thermal stability. These properties allow their potential application in large-scale lithium ion batteries with improved safety.     

Summoning earth and fire: The energy development implications of Grameen Shakti (GS) in Bangladesh

Since its establishment in 1996, the nonprofit company Grameen Shakti (GS) has installed almost half a million solar home systems (SHS), 132,000 cookstoves, and 13,300 biogas plants among 3.1 million beneficiaries. They plan to ramp up their expansion so that by 2015, more than 1.5 million SHS are in place along with 100,000 biogas units and 5 million improved cookstoves. This article describes GS’s current activities, the contours of its programs, and likely reasons for its success. It also explores the remaining challenges facing GS and distils common lessons for other energy development assistance projects and programs around the world. After detailing research methods consisting primarily of research interviews and site visits, the article briefly explores the history of GS and summarizes its three most prominent programs. The article then identifies six distinct benefits to their programs—expansion of energy access, less deforestation and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, price savings, direct employment and income generation, improved public health, and better technology—before discussing challenges related to staff retention and organizational growth, living standards, technical obstacles, affordability, tension with other energy programs, political constraints, and awareness and cultural values.     

Evaluating energy security performance from 1990 to 2010 for eighteen countries

This study provides an index for evaluating national energy security policies and performance among the United States, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the ten countries comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Drawn from research interviews, a survey instrument, and a focused workshop, the article first argues that energy security ought to be comprised of five dimensions related to availability, affordability, technology development, sustainability, and regulation. The article then breaks these dimensions down into 20 components and correlates them with 20 metrics that constitute a comprehensive energy security index. We find that the top three performers of our index for all data points and times are Japan, Brunei, and the United States and the worst performers Vietnam, India, and Myanmar. Malaysia, Australia, and Brunei saw their energy security improve the most from 1990 to 2010 whereas Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar saw it decline the most. The article concludes by calling for more research on various aspects of our index and its results.     

Novel JPEG 2000 Compliant DWT and IWT VLSI Implementations

This paper proposes two JPEG 2000 compliant architectures: one for DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) and one for IWT (Integer Wavelet Transform) implementation. First of all some theoretical issues about DWT and IWT are discussed, then, starting from transforms characteristics, the architectures are presented showing both performance and cost. In the literature many DWT architectures have been proposed; our implementation is a new architecture that computes the DWT using filters of interest for the forthcoming JPEG 2000 standard. Moreover, we propose a Lifting Scheme based architecture for IWT, JPEG 2000 compliant too. The proposed architectures are able to support real-time streams: the DWT one, which is made of 20,000 cells, with an input throughput of 160 Msamples per second and a clock frequency of 160 MHz, the IWT one, consisting of 50,000 cells, with an input throughput of 4.5 Msamples per second and an internal clock frequency of 108 MHz.     

Multimorphing: A tool for shape synthesis and analysis

Morphing is a shape transformation where the shape of one object is deformed to the shape of the other object. It is used as an animation or a modeling technique. Classical morphing operates between two input objects but this concept can be extended to multiple input objects – the so called multimorphing. Shapes generated by the multimorphing form a space of shapes motivated by an affine space. Besides the analogy with an affine space we also introduce an inner product and a concept of an orthogonal projection. We also show how to explore space of shapes and how to systematically generate new shapes. The paper focuses on the boundary representation, although some ideas are more general and can be used for other representations, too.     

Detection of temporary flooded areas with potential floodwater mosquito production using imaging radar

Temporarily flooded areas can produce enormous numbers of floodwater mosquitoes, causing tremendous nuisance to people living in the vicinity. The aim of this study is to develop a remote-sensing method for detecting temporary flooded areas that can produce floodwater mosquitoes. For this objective, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS-2) and the Environmental Satellite (Envisat) are chosen. The images cover both flooded and dry periods around Lake Färnebofjärden, located in the lowlands of the River Dalälven, central Sweden, during the vegetation season between 2000 and 2006. Unsupervised classification and principal component analysis (PCA) are tested as methods for detecting floodwater mosquito production sites. In the unsupervised classification experiment, four types of images are tested. The classification of a synthetic colour image gives the best result with an overall accuracy of 85.7% and a kappa value of 0.7, as well as a 46% detection rate of field-mapped flooded areas. PCA is performed on a data set of 16 time series radar images. The resulting principal component (PC) bands provide information about flooding probability as well as vegetation structures. Regular flooding increases the probability for an area to provide breeding sites for floodwater mosquitoes. Thus, this approach will be very useful in estimating the risk of floodwater mosquito establishment.