Inhibition of Bruton Tyrosine Kinase Reduces Neuroimmune Cascade and Promotes Recovery after Spinal Cord Injury

Microglia/astrocyte and B cell neuroimmune responses are major contributors to the neurological deficits after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) activation mechanistically links these neuroimmune mechanisms. Our objective is to use Ibrutinib, an FDA-approved BTK inhibitor, to inhibit the neuroimmune cascade thereby improving locomotor recovery after SCI. Rat models of contusive SCI, Western blot, immunofluorescence staining imaging, flow cytometry analysis, histological staining, and behavioral assessment were used to evaluate BTK activity, neuroimmune cascades, and functional outcomes. Both BTK expression and phosphorylation were increased at the lesion site at 2, 7, 14, and 28 days after SCI. Ibrutinib treatment (6 mg/kg/day, IP, starting 3 h post-injury for 7 or 14 days) reduced BTK activation and total BTK levels, attenuated the injury-induced elevations in Iba1, GFAP, CD138, and IgG at 7 or 14 days post-injury without reduction in CD45RA B cells, improved locomotor function (BBB scores), and resulted in a significant reduction in lesion volume and significant improvement in tissue-sparing 11 weeks post-injury. These results indicate that Ibrutinib exhibits neuroprotective effects by blocking excessive neuroimmune responses through BTK-mediated microglia/astroglial activation and B cell/antibody response in rat models of SCI. These data identify BTK as a potential therapeutic target for SCI.     

Pollen morphological investigations of family Cactaceae and its taxonomic implication by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy

The family Cactaceae is the diversified group of angiosperm plants whose pollen statistics has been used for taxonomic identification. In this article, we present the pollen morphology of eight species belong to seven taxonomically complex genera of Cactaceae including Astrophytum, Cylindropuntia, Echinocereus, Echinopsis, Mammillaria, Opuntia, and Thelocactus using light and scanning electron microscopy. The pollen grains were acetolyzed, measured, described, and electron photomicrographs were taken. Cactaceae can be characterized by presenting different palynomorphological features including pollen type, sculpturing, polar and equatorial diameter, aperture orientation, exine thickness, P/E ratio, and echini features. Four types of pollen shapes, that is, prolate spheroidal (three species), subprolate (two species), prolate (two species), and oblate spheroidal in Echinocereus reichenbachii were observed. The polar and equatorial diameter observed maximum in O. ficus indica 116.95 and 112.27 μm while minimum in M. compressa 38.42 and 21.05 μm. Pollen of two types, tricolpate in members of subfamily Cactioideae and pantoporate in the Opuntioideae were examined. The fertility percentage has been observed maximum in Opuntia macrocentra (83.84%) and minimum in Opuntia ficus‐indica (57.89%). Exine sculpturing showing great variations such as granulate, reticulate, granulate perforate and micro‐echinate foveolate ornamentation was examined only in Echinopsis eyriesii. A key to species, based on pollen micromorphological attributes, has been constructed for correct identification of complex cactus species.     

Studies on self cured zinc-containing Pongamia glabra oil based polyesteramide

Efforts have been made for the development of high performance protective coating materials from non drying oil such as Pongamia glabra oil and their commercialization. Zn-containing self cured Pongamia glabra oil based polyesteramide [Zn-APGPEA] resin was synthesized in situ by the reaction of Pongamia glabra fatty amide diol [HEPGA], poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) [SMA] and zinc acetate (different ratios) at 100 ± 5 °C in the presence of an acid catalyst. The physico-chemical characterizations of the resin were carried out by standard laboratory methods. The structural elucidation of the prepared resin was carried out by FTIR, ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR spectral techniques. The thermal behavior was studied by TGA technique. Antibacterial activity was measured by agar diffusion method against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. The effect of the loading of zinc on properties of Zn-APGPEA film was also investigated. The properties of Zn-APGPEA compared with reported self cured Pongamia glabra polyesteramide [APGPEA]. Physico-mechanical and chemical/corrosion resistance test of Zn-APGPEA coatings showed that the presence of zinc metal in APGPEA considerably enhances the overall film performance and also improves antibacterial activity. Therefore, Zn-APGPEA can be used as an anti-corrosive and antibacterial coatings material which may substitute polymers obtained from petroleum.     

Technological,Regulatory, and Ethical Aspects of In Vitro Meat: A Future Slaughter‐Free Harvest

Defined as meat cultured in a laboratory within a bioreactor under controlled artificial conditions, in vitro meat is a relatively recent area that has opened a whole universe of possibilities and opportunities for the meat sector. With improved chemical and microbial safety and varied options, in vitro meat has been proposed as a green, healthy, environmentally friendly, and nutritionally better product that is free from animal suffering and death. Cell culture and tissue culture are the most probable technologies for the development of this futuristic muscle product. However, there are many challenges in the production of a suitable product at an industrial scale under a sustainable production system and a great body of research is required to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Many materials used in the product development are novel and untested within the food industry and demand urgent regulatory and safety assessment systems capable of managing any risks associated with the development of cultured meat. The future of this product will depend on the actions of governments and regulatory agencies. This article highlights emerging biotechnological options for the development of cultured meat and suggests ways to integrate these emerging technologies into meat research. It considers the problems and possibilities of developing cultured meat, opportunities, ethical issues as well as emerging safety and regulatory issues in this area.     

Extraction of protein from food waste: An overview of current status and opportunities

The chief intent of this review is to explain the different extraction techniques and efficiencies for the recovery of protein from food waste (FW) sources. Although FW is not a new concept, increasing concerns about chronic hunger, nutritional deficiency, food security, and sustainability have intensified attention on alternative and sustainable sources of protein for food and feed. Initiatives to extract and utilize protein from FW on a commercial scale have been undertaken, mainly in the developed countries, but they remain largely underutilized and generally suited for low-quality products. The current analysis reveals the extraction of protein from FW is a many-sided (complex) issue, and that identifies for a stronger and extensive integration of diverse extraction perspectives, focusing on nutritional quality, yield, and functionality of the isolated protein as a valued recycled ingredient.     

Efficient User Based Authentication Protocol for Location Based Services Discovery Over Road Networks

In road network, the decision accuracy of event message under location privacy-enhanced scheme, fast forwarding falsification message, and collusion attacks are all knotty problems that arise in event trust management. In this paper, we proposed protocol verification to check vehicles activity in privacy manner. We proposed a new method to adjusted vehicles speed which reduces the vehicle delay suffers from network gap problem. We established privacy preserving authentication protocol to verify vehicle activities in the term of privacy preserving manner. Vehicles moving trend, velocity differences, and distance differences are taken into consideration so, to maintain as many common users as possible to reduce the cost. The cost analysis and performance evaluation indicate that our frame-work can reduced cost factor and achieve good performance. The proposed model achieved reliably and efficiently with packet rate information. The evaluation experiments based on NS-3 to our improve user’s authenticated key establishment protocol has comparatively shorter time response, reduce cost, less packet lost information and enhanced privacy preservation compared with existing methods.     

Centralized dynamic frequency allocation for cell-edge demand satisfaction in fractional frequency reuse networks

Fractional frequency reuse (FFR) has emerged as a well-suited remedy for inter-cell interference reduction in the next-generation networks by allocating frequency reuse factor (FRF) of unity for the cell-center (CC) and higher FRF for the cell-edge (CE) users. However, this strict FFR comes at a cost of equal partitioning of frequency resources to the CE which most likely has varying demands in current networks. In order to mitigate this, we propose a centralized dynamic resource allocation scheme which allocates demand-dependent resources to CE users. The proposed scheme therefore outperforms the fixed allocation scheme of strict FFR for both CC and CE users. Complexity analysis provides a fair means of analyzing the suitability of proposed algorithm. We have also compared the proposed methodology with a reference dynamic fractional frequency reuse (DFFR) scheme. Results show maximum performance gain of up to 30% for 3 reference cells employing Rayleigh fading—through normalized area spectral efficiency (ASE) analysis for both fixed allocation and DFFR. Spectral efficiency analysis also indicates per-cell performance gain for both CC and CE users. Further, detailed three-dimensional ASE plots give insights into the affects to other cells. Due to dynamic nature of traffic loads, the proposed scheme is a candidate solution for satisfying the demands of individual cells.     

Influence of compliant walls on peristaltic motion with heat/mass transfer and chemical reaction

In this work the fundamental problem of peristalsis with heat and mass transfer is investigated in the presence of a chemical reaction. An incompressible viscous fluid is considered in a channel with compliant walls. Mathematical modeling is based upon the laws of mass, linear momentum, energy and concentration. Analysis is presented not only for long wavelength and low Reynolds number but also for small Grashof number. The solutions are carried out for the stream function, temperature, concentration field and heat transfer coefficient. The results of various interesting parameters are plotted and discussed.