Effect of fenpropimorph, prochloraz and tebuconazole on growth and production of T-2 and HT-2 toxins by Fusarium langsethiae in oat-based medium

Fusarium langsethiae has been isolated from infected cereals in central and northern Europe where it has been identified in the last decade as the main species involved in the occurrence of high levels of T-2 and HT-2 toxins, mainly in oats. The efficacy of three fungicides (prochloraz, tebuconazole, fenpropimorph) for controlling growth of two strains of F. langsethiae isolated from oats was examined at 0.96 and 0.98 a_w at 15, 20 and 25 °C on oat-based media. The concentrations necessary for 50 and 90% growth inhibition (ED₅₀ and ED₉₀ values) were determined. The effect on the trichothecene type A mycotoxins T-2 and HT-2 was also determined. Without fungicides both strains grew faster at 0.98 than at 0.96 a_w and the influence of temperature on growth rates was 25 > 20 > 15 °C. Prochloraz and tebuconazole were more effective than fenpropimorph against F. langsethiae. Strain, temperature and type of fungicide significantly influenced the ED₅₀ and ED₉₀ values for growth. The concentration ranges under different environmental conditions were: prochloraz (0.03-0.1 and 0.3-1.5), tebuconazole (0.06-0.9 and 1.3-8.2), and fenpropimorph (22-59 and 125-215 mg l⁻¹). Production of T-2 and HT-2 toxins was influenced by temperature, a_w, type of fungicide and dose. Levels of T-2 were usually higher than those of HT-2 under the same conditions. The biosynthesis of T-2 toxin increased after 10 day incubation, but was reduced with decreasing temperature and increasing fungicide dose. At 0.98 a_w T-2 levels increased in cultures containing fenpropimorph while at 0.96 a_w the toxin concentrations increased in response to the other two fungicides. Low doses of prochloraz or tebuconazole enhanced toxin production when compared with untreated cultures for strain 2004-59 at 0.96 a_w and 20-25 °C. HT-2 was hardly detectable in the treatments with prochloraz or tebuconazole at 0.98 a_w. This is the first study on the effect of these anti-fungal compounds on control of growth of F. langsethiae and on production of T-2 and HT-2 toxins in oat-based media.     

Cholic Acid-Based Antimicrobial Peptide Mimics as Antibacterial Agents

There is a significant and urgent need for the development of novel antibacterial agents to tackle the increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance. Cholic acid-based small molecular antimicrobial peptide mimics are reported as potential new leads to treat bacterial infection. Here, we describe the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of cholic acid-based small molecular antimicrobial peptide mimics. The synthesis of cholic acid analogues involves the attachment of a hydrophobic moiety at the carboxyl terminal of the cholic acid scaffold, followed by the installation of one to three amino acid residues on the hydroxyl groups present on the cholic acid scaffold. Structure–activity relationship studies suggest that the tryptophan moiety is important for high antibacterial activity. Moreover, a minimum of +2 charge is also important for antimicrobial activity. In particular, analogues containing lysine-like residues showed the highest antibacterial potency against Gram-positive S. aureus. All di-substituted analogues possess high antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive S. aureus as well as Gram-negative E. coli and P. aeruginosa. Analogues 17c and 17d with a combination of these features were found to be the most potent in this study. These compounds were able to depolarise the bacterial membrane, suggesting that they are potential antimicrobial pore forming agents.     

A Porphyrin‐Based Conjugated Polymer for Highly Efficient In Vitro and In Vivo Photothermal Therapy

Conjugated polymers have been increasingly studied for photothermal therapy (PTT) because of their merits including large absorption coefficient, facile tuning of exciton energy dissipation through nonradiative decay, and good therapeutic efficacy. The high photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) is the key to realize efficient PTT. Herein, a donor–acceptor (D–A) structured porphyrin‐containing conjugated polymer (PorCP) is reported for efficient PTT in vitro and in vivo. The D–A structure introduces intramolecular charge transfer along the backbone, resulting in redshifted Q band, broadened absorption, and increased extinction coefficient as compared to the state‐of‐art porphyrin‐based photothermal reagent. Through nanoencapsulation, the dense packing of a large number of PorCP molecules in a single nanoparticle (NP) leads to favorable nonradiative decay, good photostability, and high extinction coefficient of 4.23 × 10⁴m ^?1 cm^?1 at 800 nm based on porphyrin molar concentration and the highest PCE of 63.8% among conjugated polymer NPs. With the aid of coloaded fluorescent conjugated polymer, the cellular uptake and distribution of the PorCP in vitro can be clearly visualized, which also shows effective photothermal tumor ablation in vitro and in vivo. This research indicates a new design route of conjugated polymer‐based photothermal therapeutic materials for potential personalized theranostic nanomedicine.     

Online Learning Control for Harmonics Reduction Based on Current Controlled Voltage Source Power Inverters

Nonlinear loads in the power distribution system cause non-sinusoidal currents and voltages with harmonic components. Shunt active filters (SAF) with current controlled voltage source inverters (CCVSI) are usually used to obtain balanced and sinusoidal source currents by injecting compensation currents. However, CCVSI with traditional controllers have a limited transient and steady state performance. In this paper, we propose an adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) controller with online learning capability to improve transient response and harmonics. The proposed controller works alongside existing proportional integral (PI) controllers to efficiently track the reference currents in the d -q domain. It can generate adaptive control actions to compensate the PI controller. The proposed system was simulated under different nonlinear (three-phase full wave rectifier) load conditions. The performance of the proposed approach was compared with the traditional approach. We have also included the simulation results without connecting the traditional PI control based power inverter for reference comparison. The online learning based ADP controller not only reduced average total harmonic distortion by 18.41 %, but also outperformed traditional PI controllers during transients.      

Evaluation of compressive behaviour of porous structures under large deformation using micro-CT,DVC and micro-FE

Compressive behaviour of open and closed cell polyurethane foam samples under large deformation is studied using micro-Computed Tomography (micro-CT), Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) technique and micro-Finite Element (micro-FE) modelling. The micro-CT images of the foam samples at different compression strains are used to determine anisotropy in the foams, to obtain qualitative information on deformation mechanisms, to quantify the deformation and strains using a local DVC approach and to generate images for micro-FE modelling of the foam samples. Micro-FE modelling predicts the deformation using an elastoplastic material model coupled with continuum damage mechanics. Two different types of boundary conditions, experimentally derived (ExBC) and interpolated from DVC (IPBC), were implemented to evaluate the displacements in the micro-FE models. A reduced integration scheme in micro-FE analysis resulted in high artificial energy and was discarded in favour of full integration. The displacement predicted by IPBC matched with DVC displacement contours for closed cell foam. The ExBC-predicted axial displacement (W) showed a better agreement with DVC than transverse displacements (U, V) contours. However, a significant statistical comparison (R² > 0.70) of all displacements was obtained for both IPBC and ExBC. For open cell foam, both boundary conditions predicted a significant difference in the displacement contours with respect to DVC measurements. Still, the axial displacements of ExBC and IPBC showed a better statistical significance (R² > 0.70).     

1-Bit FinFET Carry Cells for Low Voltage High-Speed Digital Signal Processing Applications

Silicon - In this paper, new high speed and low voltage 1-bit FinFET full adder carry cells are proposed for multi-bit arithmetic applications used in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) architectures....     

Influence of Titanium Content on Thermal,Mechanical and Corrosion Behaviour Anomalies of Nickel-Molybdenum-Silicate Bulk Metallic Glasses

Silicon - This work discussed the correlation between structural, mechanical, and corrosion studies variation on the milling time of (Ni75Mo15Si10)100-xTix (x = 0, 3, 6, and...     

Parachute shape ultra-wideband wearable antenna for remote health care monitoring

Wireless body area networks (WBAN) is used to measure patients' health conditions continuously. Different kinds of sensors are required to measure health conditions. When such types of antennas are used on the human body, they are flexible with the movements. The usage of wearable devices is currently increasing in the biomedical field. The presented wearable antenna is suitable for biomedical applications. The presented ultra-wideband (UWB) flexible parachute shape wearable antenna is fabricated on a jeans textile substrate. The prototype antenna has a −10 dB measured impedance bandwidth of 5800 MHz (7 to 12.8 GHz) with average radiation efficiency of 75.28%. The prototype antenna's size is 40 × 40 mm² (1.32 × 1.32 ${\lambda }_0^2$ at centre frequency 9.9 GHz) and a peak gain of 4.5 dB at 12.33 GHz. The fabricated antenna is suitable for biomedical applications in X-band frequencies and can be implemented with a low-cost manufacturing process. The radiating element is made by conductive copper tape. Muscle-equivalent phantoms are used to analyze the body effect on antenna performance. The radiation effect emitted by the presented antenna on the human body is calculated by the specific absorption rate (SAR) value. The maximum SAR value of the proposed antenna is 1.84 W/kg at 12.33 GHz. This leads to promising results for wearable applications related to remote health care monitoring, such as biotelemetry and mobile health with a sensor-driven approach.     

Early Skin Disease Identification Using eep Neural Network

Skin lesions detection and classification is a prominent issue and difficult even for extremely skilled dermatologists and pathologists. Skin disease is the most common disorder triggered by fungus, viruses, bacteria, allergies, etc. Skin diseases are most dangerous and may be the cause of serious damage. Therefore, it requires to diagnose it at an earlier stage, but the diagnosis therapy itself is complex and needs advanced laser and photonic therapy. This advance therapy involves financial burden and some other ill effects. Therefore, it must use artificial intelligence techniques to detect and diagnose it accurately at an earlier stage. Several techniques have been proposed to detect skin disease at an earlier stage but fail to get accuracy. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to classify, detect and provide accurate information about skin diseases. This paper deals with the same issue by proposing a high-performance Convolution neural network (CNN) to classify and detect skin disease at an earlier stage. The complete methodology is explained in different folds: firstly, the skin diseases images are pre-processed with processing techniques, and secondly, the important feature of the skin images are extracted. Thirdly, the pre-processed images are analyzed at different stages using a Deep Convolution Neural Network (DCNN). The approach proposed in this paper is simple, fast, and shows accurate results up to 98% and used to detect six different disease types.