ALBERT

Description: This study examined the association between physical activity (PA) levels and life satisfaction for middle school students from Macau, Taipei, and Qianjiang. A total of 1002 middle school students (grades 7 to 9) were recruited in 2015 from three cities (Macau, N = 322; Taipei, N = 325; and Qianjiang, N = 355). Physical Activity Rank Scale-3 was used to evaluate the frequency, intensity, and duration of the PA. Further, students’ PA behaviors and life satisfaction were assessed using the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) devised by Zhang. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA were conducted to process the data. In both Macau and Taipei, the life satisfaction of adolescents was significantly associated with adolescents’ amount of PA (p 〈 0.05). A significant relationship was observed between self-satisfaction and PA in students from both Macau and Taipei (p 〈 0.05). The study results indicate the importance of life experience in PA. The more PA that a student engaged in, the higher the level of life satisfaction they obtained. There was a significant difference in the overall life satisfaction among adolescents in Macau, Taipei, and Qianjiang.

Description: Complications due to malaria are caused mostly by host immunological responses. Plasmodium falciparum subverts host immunity by various strategies, including modulation in the host immune responses by regulating cytokines. The transcriptional alterations of major cytokines and immunoregulators were analyzed in this study through gene expression profiling in clinically defined subgroups of P. falciparum patients. Malaria patients were included from Dhalai district hospital of Tripura with uncomplicated malaria (UC) and severe malaria (SM) and healthy controls from endemic and non-endemic areas of India. qPCR gene expression analysis was performed for all factors and they were grouped into three clusters based on their altered expressions. The first cluster was downregulated with an increased parasitic burden which included T-BET, GATA3, EOMES, TGF-β, STAT4, STAT6 and cytokines IFN-γ, IL-12, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13. RANTES, IL-8, CCR8, and CXCR3 were decreased in the SM group. The second cluster was upregulated with severity and included TNF-α, IL-10, IL-1β and IL-7. PD-1 and BCL6 were increased in the SM group. The third cluster comprised of NF-κB and was not altered. The level of perforin was suppressed while GrB expression was elevated in SM. P. falciparum malaria burden is characterized by the modulation of host immunity via compromization of T cell-mediated responses and suppression of innate immune-regulators.

Description: The present study was carried out in the northeastern part of Bangladesh to investigate organochlorine pesticide (OCP) residues in and microbiological quality of dried barb (Puntius sophore). Samples were collected from both producers and retailers from December 2016 to April 2017. A control sample was also prepared in the laboratory with the same raw fish used by the producers to compare the results. Gas chromatography with electron capture detector (GC-ECD) was used to detect and quantify OCP residues. Six samples out of 27 (about 22%) were found to be contaminated with OCP residues. Among these six adulterated samples, four were from retailers and two from producers. Only aldrin was detected in four samples, and in the other two samples both aldrin + dieldrin and aldrin + endrin were detected. Aldrin was found in quantities between 0.332 and 0.967 ppm, dieldrin 0.762 ppm, and endrin 0.828 ppm. All these values were much higher than the maximum residual limit (MRL) of 0.1 ppm. Total plate count (TPC) of producer samples ranged from 5.3 ± 0.02 log cfu g−1 to 5.4 ± 0.03 log cfu g−1 and 6.2 ± 0.02 log cfu g−1 to 6.4 ± 0.02 log cfu g−1 for retailer samples and 5.0 ± 0.03 log cfu g−1 to 5.2 ± 0.04 log cfu g−1 for control samples. Fungal count ranged from 3.2 ± 0.04 log cfu g−1 to 3.5 ± 0.04 log cfu g−1, 3.4 ± 0.04 log cfu g−1 to 3.6 ± 0.03 log cfu g−1, and 2.2 ± 0.05 log cfu g−1 to 2.5 ± 0.03 log cfu g−1 for producer, retailer, and control samples, respectively. All the producer and retailer samples and one-third of the control samples were found to be contaminated with Escherichia coli, whereas Salmonella spp. were detected in amounts of 13.3% in producer samples and 20% in retailer samples and none in the control. In case of Vibrio spp., maximum count was found in retailer samples (13.3%), whereas producer and control samples showed none. The findings of the present study show that the presence of pesticides and poor microbiological quality of dried barb are alarming for consumers in Bangladesh and might cause prolonged disease and impending longstanding risk to human health.

Description: A careful arrival and departure sequencing of aircraft can reduce the inter-arrival/departure time, thereby opening up opportunities for new landing and/or take-off slots, which may increase the runway throughput. This sequence when serviced with a suitable runway configuration may result in an optimal aircraft sequence with a runway configuration that can process the maximum number of aircraft within a given time interval. In this paper, we propose a Cooperative Co-evolutionary Genetic Algorithm (CCoGA) to find the combined solution of a best-fit sequence with a feasible runway configuration for a given traffic demand at an airport. The aircraft sequence and the runway configuration are modelled as individual species, which can cooperatively interact with each other. Therefore, we computationally evolve the best possible combination of aircraft sequence (arrival and departure) and the feasible runway configuration. The proposed CCoGA algorithm is evaluated for Chicago O’Hare International Airport runway layout and resulting configurations. Arrival and departure traffic demand is modelled through a Poisson distribution. Two different arrival/departure sequencing methods, i.e., constraint position shifting with one, two and N-position shifting and first come first serve, are modelled. Runway configuration and traffic sequence (arrivals and departure) are modelled as two species, which are evolved co-operatively, through the CCoGA algorithm, to achieve the optimal traffic sequencing with a feasible runway configuration. Time-space diagrams are presented for the best-evolved population of arrival-departure sequence and runway configuration to illustrate the possibility of using available departure slots between arrivals to maximize capacity. Arrival-departure capacity envelopes are then presented to illustrate the trade-off between the arrivals and departures, given a runway configuration for each sequencing method. Results demonstrate the high mutual dependence between arrival-departure sequence and the runway configuration, as well as its effect on overall runway capacity. The results also demonstrate the viability of using evolutionary computation-based methods for modelling and evaluating complex problems in the air transport domain.

Description: Siamese network-based trackers are broadly applied to solve visual tracking problems due to its balanced performance in terms of speed and accuracy. Tracking desired objects in challenging scenarios is still one of the fundamental concerns during visual tracking. This research paper proposes a feature refined end-to-end tracking framework with real-time tracking speed and considerable performance. The feature refine network has been incorporated to enhance the target feature representation power, utilizing high-level semantic information. Besides, it allows the network to capture the salient information to locate the target and learns to represent the target feature in a more generalized way advancing the overall tracking performance, particularly in the challenging sequences. But, only the feature refine module is unable to handle such challenges because of its less discriminative ability. To overcome this difficulty, we employ an attention module inside the feature refine network that strengths the tracker discrimination ability between the target and background. Furthermore, we conduct extensive experiments to ensure the proposed tracker’s effectiveness using several popular tracking benchmarks, demonstrating that our proposed model achieves state-of-the-art performance over other trackers.

Description: The recently emerged COVID-19 disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has adversely affected the whole world. As a significant public health threat, it has spread worldwide. Scientists and global health experts are collaborating to find and execute speedy diagnostics, robust and highly effective vaccines, and therapeutic techniques to tackle COVID-19. The ocean is an immense source of biologically active molecules and/or compounds with antiviral-associated biopharmaceutical and immunostimulatory attributes. Some specific algae-derived molecules can be used to produce antibodies and vaccines to treat the COVID-19 disease. Algae have successfully synthesized several metabolites as natural defense compounds that enable them to survive under extreme environments. Several algae-derived bioactive molecules and/or compounds can be used against many diseases, including microbial and viral infections. Moreover, some algae species can also improve immunity and suppress human viral activity. Therefore, they may be recommended for use as a preventive remedy against COVID-19. Considering the above critiques and unique attributes, herein, we aimed to systematically assess algae-derived, biologically active molecules that could be used against this disease by looking at their natural sources, mechanisms of action, and prior pharmacological uses. This review also serves as a starting point for this research area to accelerate the establishment of anti-SARS-CoV-2 bioproducts.

Description: The general population has been excessively using antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the use of antibiotics for any reported illnesses in the preceding four weeks and knowledge of antibiotics among the general population in the community were assessed for possible interventions. A mobile phone survey among a general population across eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh was conducted during January–March 2021. Reported illness episodes irrespective of COVID-19 in the preceding four weeks of the interview, use of antibiotics for the illnesses, and knowledge on antibiotics among the general population were recorded. Descriptive analyses were performed. We randomly interviewed 1854 participants, with a mean age of 28.5 years (range: 18–75 years); 60.6% were male. Among all participants, 86.3% (95% CI: 84.7–87.8) heard names of antibiotics, but only 12.1% reported unspecified harmful effects, and 3.5% reported antimicrobial resistance when antibiotics were taken without a physician’s prescription. Among 257 (13.9%) participants, who consumed medicines for their recent illness episode, 32.7% (95% CI: 27.2–38.6) reported using antibiotics. Of those who could recall the names of antibiotics prescribed (n = 36), the most frequently used was azithromycin (22.2%) followed by cefixime (11.1%) and ciprofloxacin (5.6%). Our findings show an increased antibiotic use for illnesses reported in the preceding four weeks and an elevated knowledge at the community level during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic period.

Description: This study has evaluated the potential ecological risk and human health risk for the contamination of nine elements (Cu, Cr, Mn, Zn, As, Pb, Co, Fe, and Sr) in water and sediment samples in two seasons, i.e., before and after rainy season, by calculating several pollution indices such as pollution load index (PLI), potential ecological risk (PER), and target hazard quotient (THQ). Samples were analyzed for elemental concentration using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry. This study found that waters in the Kutubdia channel are safe and standard for aquatic organisms. In addition, the study area’s elemental concentration in water and sediments is still safe but moderately enriched with Zn and Cu. The elemental concentration in water was observed to be high in the pre-monsoon season and vice versa in the sediment study. The result also reveals no potential ecological risk (PER 〈 4) in the study site. However, the health risk index showed a noncarcinogenic risk (THQ 〉 1) for children and adults regarding the inhalation process where manganese was dominant. Apart from this, the pollution source was also identified by multivariate statistical analysis, including cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA)–and a natural pollution source prevalent was found.