Role and Perspectives of Inflammation and C-Reactive Protein (CRP) in Psychosis: An Economic and Widespread Tool for Assessing the Disease

Schizophrenia is a major psychotic disorder affecting nearly 23.6 million people globally and greatly impacting the cognitive and social functioning of individuals. Multiple risk factors, including genetic, environmental, and epigenetic factors have been identified. However, the exact mechanism by which some factors aid in the development of schizophrenia is still uncertain. Acute and/or long-standing inflammation has been implicated as both a cause and effect of schizophrenia. Heightened immune responses have been documented in large cohorts of individuals with schizophrenia. While not completely known, multiple hypotheses, such as disruption of the blood–brain barrier, alterations in the kynurenine/tryptophan pathway, and increased microglial activation, have been presented to correlate inflammation with schizophrenic symptoms. Measurement of C-reactive protein (CRP) is a commonly performed and inexpensive test on patients’ serum to determine levels of systemic inflammation in the body. Multiple studies have reported an elevated CRP level in different stages of schizophrenia, indicating its potential to be used as a viable biomarker in the diagnosis and monitoring of schizophrenia along with assessing treatment response to conventional and non-conventional treatment regimens. This review aims to evaluate the role of inflammation, in general, and CRP, in particular, in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and its potential significance in diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventative approaches towards schizophrenia and psychosis.     

Kinetic Properties and Enantioselectivity of The Lipases Produced by Four Aspergillus Species

Four high lipase-producing Aspergillus species, selected in our laboratory, were compared in terms of their stability and reactivity for enantioselective esterification between (R, S)-2-octanol with octanoic acid in n-hexane. We determined the pH and temperature reactions dependences of lipases activities, and we found that these enzymes exhibited various pH sensitivities. The optimum pH observed for Aspergillus terreus lipase was 5.5, for A. niger and A. oryzae lipases in the range of 6.0 to 6.5 and pH 7.0 for A. flavus lipase. Good stability was observed at pH ranging from 5.0 to 8.5 after 24 hours at 40° C, and the optimum activity was observed at 35–40° C for all lipases tested. The lipases from A. terreus and A. niger were highly thermostable, retaining 60% and 50% activity at 60° C after 1 hour, respectively. The lipases from A. niger and A. terreus lipases provided the best results in terms of enantioselectivity (E) in the esterification of (R, S)-2-octanol with octanoic acid in n-hexane (E = 4.9 and E = 4.5, respectively). These properties make these lipases good candidates for biocatalysis in organic media.     

Inverse analysis with integral transformed temperature fields: Identification of thermophysical properties in heterogeneous media

The objective of this work is to introduce the use of integral transformed temperature measured data for the solution of inverse heat transfer problems, instead of the common local transient temperature measurements. The proposed approach is capable of significantly compressing the measured data through the integral transformation, without losing the information contained in the measurements and required for the solution of the inverse problem. The data compression is of special interest for modern measurement techniques, such as the infrared thermography, that allows for fine spatial resolutions and large frequencies, possibly resulting on a very large amount of measured data. In order to critically address the use of integral transformed measurements, we examine in this paper the simultaneous estimation of spatially variable thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity in one-dimensional heat conduction within heterogeneous media. The direct problem solution is analytically obtained via integral transforms and the related eigenvalue problem is solved by the Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT). The inverse problem is handled with Bayesian inference by employing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. The unknown functions appearing in the formulation are expanded in terms of eigenfunctions as well, so that the unknown parameters become the corresponding series coefficients. Such projection of the functions in an infinite dimensional space onto a parametric space of finite dimension also permits that several quantities appearing in the solution of the direct problem be analytically computed. Simulated measurements are used in the inverse analysis; they are assumed to be additive, uncorrelated, normally distributed, with zero means and known covariances. Both Gaussian and non-informative uniform distributions are used as priors for demonstrating the robustness of the estimation procedure.     

Enhanced hydrogen uptake/release in 2LiH–MgB2 composite with titanium additives

The influence of different titanium additives on hydrogen sorption in LiH–MgB₂ system has been investigated. For all the composites LiH–MgB₂–X (X = TiF₄, TiO₂, TiN, and TiC), prepared by ball-milling in molar ratios 2:1:0.1, five hydrogen uptake/release cycles were performed. In-situ synchrotron radiation powder X-ray diffraction (SR-PXD) and attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) have been used to characterize crystal phases developed during the hydrogen absorption–desorption cycles.     

Text classification using embeddings: a survey

Knowledge and Information Systems - Text classification results can be hindered when just the bag-of-words model is used for representing features, because it ignores word order and senses, which...     

Usability of a telehealth solution based on TV interaction for the elderly: the VITASENIOR-MT case study

Universal Access in the Information Society - Remote monitoring of biometric data in the elderly population is an important asset for improving the quality of life and level of independence of...     

Aligning requirements and testing through metamodeling and patterns: design and evaluation

Requirements Engineering - Poorly executed requirements engineering activities profoundly affect the deliverables’ quality and project’s budget and schedule. High-quality requirements...     

Mannosylerythritol lipids as green pesticides and plant biostimulants

Biosurfactants can be applied in the formulation of personal care products, as food additives, and as biocontrol agents in the agricultural sector. Glycolipids and lipopeptides represent an important group of microbial-based biosurfactants with biostimulating properties. Among them, the mannosylerythritol lipids also presented antimicrobial activity, mostly against Gram-positive bacteria and phytopathogenic fungi. In this sense, mannosylerythritol lipids are a potential safer green alternative for partially replacing synthetic pesticides. This review aimed to critically discuss the current state of the art and future trends of mannosylerythritol lipids as green pesticides and biostimulants for seed germination and plant growth. Due to their chemical structure, mannosylerythritol lipids are likely related to energy pathways such as glycolysis and Krebs cycle, i.e. a direct cellular biostimulant potential. In this case, experimental evidence from other glycolipids indicated that structural and chemical changes as a potential drug vehicle due to morphological changes caused by biosurfactant–membrane interaction. In addition, like other biosurfactants, mannosylerythritol lipids can trigger self-defense mechanisms, leading to a lower frequency of phytopathogen infections. Therefore, mannosylerythritol lipids have the potential for biostimulation and antiphytopathogenic action, despite that to date no data are available on mannosylerythritol lipids as biostimulants and green pesticides simultaneously. Based on the current state of the art, mannosylerythritol lipids have great potential for a biotechnological advance toward more sustainable agriculture. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.     

Structural and Physicochemical Characteristics of Lintnerized Native and Sour Cassava Starches

The comprehension of the structure of starch granules is important for the understanding of its physicochemical properties. Native and sour cassava starches after being analyzed with respect to their pasting properties and baking expansion capacity, were treated with 2.2 N HCl at 38 °C for a maximum of nine days. The starch granules remaining after lintnerization were analyzed for amylose content and intrinsic viscosity, by X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and chromatographic analysis. The results indicated that the acid hydrolysis on all starches occurred in two steps. The first one, with high hydrolysis rate, was characterized by a quick degradation of the amorphous part of the granules whereas the second step, with lower hydrolysis rate, was characterized by a higher resistance of the organized areas of the granules to acid treatment. Most of the amylose chains were found in the amorphous areas of starch granules only a small percentage was involved in the crystalline regions. The microscopic and chromatographic analysis demonstrated that the acid hydrolysis was not able to disrupt the entire granular crystalline structure. Fermented starch showed amylose and/or amylopectin chain fractions resistant to pullulanase, probably due to structural alterations during fermentation.