Modified Fluoroquinolones as Antimicrobial Compounds Targeting Chlamydia trachomatis

Chlamydia trachomatis causes the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection and trachoma, an eye infection. Untreated infections can lead to sequelae, such as infertility and ectopic pregnancy in women and blindness. We previously enhanced the antichlamydial activity of the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin by grafting a metal chelating moiety onto it. In the present study, we pursued this pharmacomodulation and obtained nanomolar active molecules (EC₅₀) against this pathogen. This gain in activity prompted us to evaluate the antibacterial activity of this family of molecules against other pathogenic bacteria, such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae and bacteria from the ESKAPE group. The results show that the novel molecules have selectively improved activity against C. trachomatis and demonstrate how the antichlamydial effect of fluoroquinolones can be enhanced.     

Physical,mechanical and thermal properties of cross laminated timber made with coconut wood

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - The fundamental material properties of coconut wood cross-laminated timber (CLT) were experimentally evaluated with a focus on the effect of the...     

The APOA5-rs662799 Polymorphism Is a Determinant of Dyslipidemia in Vietnamese Primary School Children

Apolipoprotein A-V encoded by apolipoprotein 5 (APOA5) gene plays an important role in lipid metabolism, especially in the regulation of plasma triglycerol levels. The study aimed to evaluate the association of the APOA5-rs662799 polymorphism with dyslipidemia in Vietnamese children and the potential modification of obesity-related traits (body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio) on this association. A case–control study was conducted with a total of 154 dyslipidemia cases and 389 controls at the age of 6 to 10 recruited at 31 primary schools in Hanoi city of Vietnam. Genotype for APOA5-rs662799 polymorphism was determined by the restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The association of APOA5-rs662799 polymorphism with dyslipidemia adjusting for age, sex, residence, and obesity-related traits was analyzed by binary logistic regression analysis. The results showed that in comparison with T/T and T/C carriers, the C/C carriers had a higher concentration of serum TAG in cases (p =0.049). Carriers of the C allele (C/C + T/C) had higher risk for developing dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia than subjects with T/T genotype (odds ratio, OR = 1.7, p =0.0062 and OR = 1.6, p = 0.026, respectively). The association remained significant after adjusting for age, gender, residence, and obesity status (OR = 1.75, p = 0.006 and OR = 1.53, p = 0.049, respectively) or other obesity-related traits. The study suggested that the APOA5-rs662799 polymorphism may be a determinant of dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia in Vietnamese children, independent of obesity-related traits.     

Multiple human tracking in drone image

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Object tracking, especially human tracking is one of the challenging research problems in computer vision. Although the performance has gained some positive...     

Evaluation of multiple features for violent scenes detection

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Violent scenes detection (VSD) is a challenging problem because of the heterogeneous content, large variations in video quality, and complex semantic meanings of...     

Performance analysis of cooperative spatial multiplexing networks with AF/DF relaying and linear receiver over Rayleigh fading channels

Cooperative spatial multiplexing (CSM) system has played an important role in wireless networks by offering a substantial improvement in multiplexing gain compared with its cooperative diversity counterpart. However, there is a limited number of research works that consider the performance of CSM systems. As such, in this paper, we have derived exact performance of CSM with amplify‐and‐forward and decode‐and‐forward relays in terms of outage capacity and ergodic capacity. We have shown that CSM systems yield a unity diversity order regardless of the number of antennas at the destination and the number of relays in the networks, which is the direct result of diversity and multiplexing gain trade‐off. Our analytical expressions are corroborated by Monte‐Carlo simulations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive amplify‐and‐forward relay networks with beamforming under primary user power constraint over Nakagami‐m fading channels

In this paper, we analyze the performance of cognitive amplify‐and‐forward (AF) relay networks with beamforming under the peak interference power constraint of the primary user (PU). We focus on the scenario that beamforming is applied at the multi‐antenna secondary transmitter and receiver. Also, the secondary relay network operates in channel state information‐assisted AF mode, and the signals undergo independent Nakagami‐m fading. In particular, closed‐form expressions for the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER) of the considered network over Nakagami‐m fading are presented. More importantly, asymptotic closed‐form expressions for the outage probability and SER are derived. These tractable closed‐form expressions for the network performance readily enable us to evaluate and examine the impact of network parameters on the system performance. Specifically, the impact of the number of antennas, the fading severity parameters, the channel mean powers, and the peak interference power is addressed. The asymptotic analysis manifests that the peak interference power constraint imposed on the secondary relay network has no effect on the diversity gain. However, the coding gain is affected by the fading parameters of the links from the primary receiver to the secondary relay network. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modified poly(caprolactone trifumarate) with embedded gelatin microparticles as a functional scaffold for bone tissue engineering

Bone tissue engineering offers high hopes in reconstructing bone defects that result from trauma, infection, tumors, and other conditions. However, there remains a need for novel scaffold materials that can effectively stimulate ossification with appropriate functional properties. Therefore, a novel injectable, biodegradable, and biocompatible scaffold made by incorporating modified poly(caprolactone trifumarate) (PCLTF) with embedded gelatin microparticles (GMPs) as porogen is developed. Specifically, in vitro and in vivo tests were carried out. For the latter, to determine the osteogenic ability of PCLTF‐GMPs scaffolds, and to characterize bone‐formation, these scaffolds were implanted into critical‐sized defects of New Zealand white rabbit craniums. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) demonstrated cells of varying shapes attached to the scaffold surface in vitro. The PCLTF‐GMPs demonstrated improved biocompatibility in vivo. Polyfluorochrome tracers detected bone growth occurring in the PCLTF‐GMPs filled defects. By incorporating PCLTF with GMPs, we have fabricated a promising self‐crosslinkable biocompatible and osteoconducive scaffold for bone tissue engineering. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43711.