OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to assess the effect of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) on plasma BDNF levels in patients with resistant schizophrenia.

METHODS: It was a cohort study that included 60 patients with resistant schizophrenia fulfilling the DSM-5 criteria of schizophrenia and APA criteria of resistant schizophrenia. They were divided into two groups, followed over 4 weeks, and compared to their baseline assessment. Group (A) included 45 patients who received 4-10 sessions of ECT while Group (B) included 15 patients who received the usual treatment with antipsychotics without ECT. The assessment included the severity of psychotic symptoms assessed by the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) in addition to plasma BDNF level.

RESULTS: Patients in Group (A) had an increased level of BDNF after treatment with a statistically significant difference in comparison to their baseline BDNF level ( = 0.027). Meanwhile, patients in group (B) showed a non-significant increase in BDNF. Patients in both groups improved significantly in all PANSS subscales after treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that plasma BDNF levels in patients with resistant schizophrenia increase after electroconvulsive therapy in association with clinical improvement.Key pointsBDNF increases after ECT treatment of resistant schizophrenia.BDNF is not correlated with the severity of psychotic symptomsPatients treated with ECT showed a better response.

Motors are the higher energy-conversion devices that consume around 40% of the global electrical generated energy. Induction motors are the most popular motor type due to their reliability, robustness, and low cost. Therefore, both condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of induction motor faults have motivated considerable research efforts. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the recent techniques proposed in the literature for broken bar faults detection and diagnosis is presented. This paper mainly investigates the fault detection methods in line-fed and inverter-fed motors proposed after 2015 and published in most relevant journals and conferences. The introduced review has deeply discussed the main features of the reported methods and compared them in many different aspects. Finally, the study has highlighted the main issues and the gaps that require more attention from researchers in this field.

Host defense mechanisms are categorized into different strategies, namely, avoidance, resistance and tolerance. Resistance encompasses mechanisms that directly kill the pathogen while tolerance is mainly concerned with alleviating the harsh consequences of the infection regardless of the pathogen burden. Resistance is well-known strategy in immunology while tolerance is relatively new. Studies addressed tolerance mainly using mouse models revealing a wide range of interesting tolerance mechanisms. Herein, we aim to emphasize on the interspecies comparative approaches to explore potential new mechanisms of disease tolerance. We will discuss mechanisms of tolerance with focus on those that were revealed using comparative study designs of mammals followed by summarizing the reasons for adopting comparative approaches on disease tolerance studies. Disease tolerance is a relatively new concept in immunology, we believe combining comparative studies with model organism study designs will enhance our understanding to tolerance and unveil new mechanisms of tolerance.

Levan is an industrially important, functional biopolymer with considerable applications in the food and pharmaceutical fields owing to its safety and biocompatibility. Here, levan-type exopolysaccharide produced by Pantoea agglomerans ZMR7 was purified by cold ethanol precipitation and characterized using TLC, FTIR, 1H, and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The maximum production of levan (28.4 g/l) was achieved when sucrose and ammonium chloride were used as carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively, at 35°C and an initial pH of 8.0. Some biomedical applications of levan like antitumor, antiparasitic, and antioxidant activities were investigated in vitro. The results revealed the ability of levan at different concentrations to decrease the viability of rhabdomyosarcoma and breast cancer cells compared with untreated cancer cells. Levan appeared also to have high antiparasitic activity against the promastigote of Leishmania tropica. Furthermore, levan had strong DPPH radical scavenging (antioxidant) activity. These findings suggest that levan produced by P. agglomerans ZMR7 can serve as a natural biopolymer candidate for the pharmaceutical and medical fields.

Levan is an industrially important, functional biopolymer with considerable applications in the food and pharmaceutical fields owing to its safety and biocompatibility. Here, levan-type exopolysaccharide produced by Pantoea agglomerans ZMR7 was purified by cold ethanol precipitation and characterized using TLC, FTIR, 1H, and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The maximum production of levan (28.4 g/l) was achieved when sucrose and ammonium chloride were used as carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively, at 35°C and an initial pH of 8.0. Some biomedical applications of levan like antitumor, antiparasitic, and antioxidant activities were investigated in vitro. The results revealed the ability of levan at different concentrations to decrease the viability of rhabdomyosarcoma and breast cancer cells compared with untreated cancer cells. Levan appeared also to have high antiparasitic activity against the promastigote of Leishmania tropica. Furthermore, levan had strong DPPH radical scavenging (antioxidant) activity. These findings suggest that levan produced by P. agglomerans ZMR7 can serve as a natural biopolymer candidate for the pharmaceutical and medical fields.

Quinones have widespread applications in view of their interesting chemical and photophysical features. On the other hand, benzocyclobutenes (BCBs) are generally masked reactive dienes suitable for the [4+2] cycloaddition reactions. Here, benzocyclobutenes and benzodicyclobutenes (BDCBs) were prepared and further reacted with benzoquinone and naphthoquinone in order to obtain some new polycyclic quinones with highly extended π systems, namely, 6-bromo-5,8-dimethoxyanthracene-1,4-dione, 2,9-dibromo-1,4,8,11-tetramethoxypentacene-6,13-dione, 9-bromo-7,10-dimethoxytetracene-5,12-dione, 3,10-dimethoxycyclobuta[b]anthracene-1,5,8(2H)-trione, 6,10,17,21-tetramethoxynonacene-1,4,8,12,15,19-hexaone, and 3,12-dimethoxycyclobuta[b]tetracene-1,5,10(2H)-trione. In addition to their spectroscopic characterization the new compounds are investigated by UV and fluorescence spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and DFT calculations.

Bauxite residue (BR) is a highly alkaline type of solid waste generated by the aluminum industry that poses a significant environmental risk upon disposal. However, BR is abundant in metals, especially iron, that offer the desired catalytic activity for microwave pyrolysis. Thus, this study aimed to use BR as a low-cost microwave absorber and catalyst for biomass microwave pyrolysis to obtain higher quality bio-oil and biochar. The addition of BR to switchgrass, the representative biomass, did not facilitate microwave absorption because most of the iron in the BR was in the form of goethite and hematite. However, the addition of an efficient microwave-absorbing catalyst (e.g., K3PO4 or clinoptilolite) to the BR triggered synergistic effects, increasing the microwave heating rate by ~ 346% compared to K3PO4 or clinoptilolite alone, which was attributed to the reduction of hematite and goethite to maghemite and/or magnetite. The addition of 10% BR to a mixture of 10% K3PO4 and 10% bentonite further triggered synergistic effects that resulted in the highest microwave heating rate of 439 °C/min, which was a 211% increase compared to using 10% K3PO4 and 10% bentonite without BR, and doubled the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of the biochar, reduced the bio-oil acidity by up to 71% compared to that obtained using a single catalyst, and increased the alkylated phenols contents in the bio-oil by 339% compared to that produced without a catalyst. These results demonstrated that the synergistic effects of BR can only be triggered when mixed with another efficient microwave-absorbing catalyst.

There are current attempts to find a safe substitute or adjuvant for Sorafenib (Sorf), the standard treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as it triggers very harsh side effects and drug-resistance. The therapeutic properties of Bee Venom (BV) and its active component, Melittin (Mel), make them suitable candidates as potential anti-cancer agents per-se or as adjuvants for cancer chemotherapy. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the combining effect of BV and Mel with Sorf on HepG2 cells and to investigate their molecular mechanisms of action. Docking between Mel and different tumor-markers was performed. The cytotoxicity of BV, Mel and Sorf on HepG2 and THLE-2 cells was conducted. Combinations of BV/Sorf and Mel/Sorf were performed in non-constant ratios on HepG2. Expression of major cancer-related genes and oxidative stress status was evaluated and the cell cycle was analyzed. The computational analysis showed that Mel can bind to and inhibit XIAP, Bcl2, MDM2, CDK2 and MMP12. Single treatments of BV, Mel and Sorf on HepG2 showed lower IC50than on THLE-2. All combinations revealed a synergistic effect at a combination index (CI) < 1. Significant upregulation (p < 0.05) of p53, Bax, Cas3, Cas7 and PTEN and significant downregulation (p < 0.05) of Bcl-2, Cyclin-D1, Rac1, Nf-κB, HIF-1a, VEGF and MMP9 were observed. The oxidative stress markers including MDA, SOD, CAT and GPx showed insignificant changes, while the cell cycle was arrested at G2/M phase. In conclusion, BV and Mel have a synergistic anticancer effect with Sorf on HepG2 that may represent a new enhancing strategy for HCC treatment.

The effects of a multistrain potential probiotic (Protexin®), acids, and a bacterin from multidrug-resistant E. coli O26, O78, S. Enteritidis (1,9,12 g.m1,7), and S. Typhimurium (1,4,5,12.i.1,2) on the immune response, haematological parameters, cytokines, and growth parameters of broiler chickens challenged with bacterin live serotypes were investigated. Two experiments were designed using 300 one-day-old chicks (Arbor Acres) randomly assigned to 15 groups. The first experiment comprised 9 groups, including positive and negative control groups and other groups received Protexin®, acids, and the bacterin (0.2 ml/SC), either alone or in combination, on the 1st day. The second experiment contained 6 groups, including positive and negative control groups and other groups received a combination of Protexin®, acids, and the bacterin (0.5 ml/SC) on the 8th day. All the groups except the negative control groups were challenged on the 8th and 16th days in both experiments, respectively, with mixed live bacterin serotypes. The groups that received Protexin®, acids, and the bacterin either alone or in combination revealed significant improvements in the immune response to the bacterin (p ≤ 0.05). The groups in the 1st experiment and most the 2nd experiment groups showed a reduced mortality rate and decreased levels IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-12 cytokines (p ≤ 0.05). Moreover, these groups demonstrated increases in haematological parameters and reduced rates of infection-caused anaemia. These groups showed significant increases in growth performance parameters, such as body weight, weight gain, and the feed conversion ratio (FCR) (p ≤ 0.05). There was a beneficial effect on 1-day-old chickens produced by combining Protexin®, acids, and the bacterin (0.2 ml/SC).

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected adolescents with beta-thalassemia major (BTM) are considered a potential population for HCV micro-elimination model development where BTM may negatively impact the pharmacokinetic exposure parameters of sofosbuvir/ledipasvir (SOF/LED). Objectives: The study aimed at studying the effect of BTM on SOF/LED and SOF metabolite (GS-331007) pharmacokinetics. Methods: A prospective, controlled study recruiting BTM and control HCV infected adolescents (Clinicaltrials.gov identifier-NCT04353986). Pharmacokinetic exposure to GS-331007 and LED was the primary pharmacokinetic outcome. No-effect boundaries were set to 90% confidence interval (CI) of exposure geometric mean ratio (GMR) within 70–143%. Dose suitability was based on the 90% CI of exposure GMR within 50-200% compared to adults. The percentage of patients achieving sustained virologic response 12 weeks post-treatment (SVR12) was the primary efficacy endpoint. Results: Thirteen patients were enrolled per study group. All patients were included in the pharmacokinetic analysis (n=26). BTM patients showed lower GS-331007 and LED exposure that could, respectively, be as low as 45.4% and 36.1% compared to their control group. GS-331007 exposure in BTM patients was nearly half (56.8%, 90% CI 45.3–71.2%) that observed in adults. Despite that low drug exposure in 46.2% of BTM patients may alert dose unsuitability, they achieved SVR12. Moreover, patients with total bilirubin ≥1.93 mg/dL were predicted to have low GS-331007 exposure (0.913 receiver operating characteristic area under the curve with sensitivity and specificity >80%). Conclusion and Relevance: The identified systematically lower drug exposure in BTM patients might partially explain relapses or treatment failures among BTM patients reported in other studies. BTM may be a hurdle towards implementing HCV micro-elimination model that may necessitate dose-adjustment. © 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS

COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a global health crisis. The gut microbiome critically affects the immune system, and some respiratory infections are associated with changes in the gut microbiome; here, we evaluated the role of nutritional and lifestyle habits that modulate gut microbiota on COVID-19 outcomes in a longitudinal cohort study that included 200 patients infected with COVID-19. Of these, 122 cases were mild and seventy-eight were moderate, according to WHO classification. After detailed explanation by a consultant in clinical nutrition, participants responded to a written questionnaire on daily sugar, prebiotic intake in food, sleeping hours, exercise duration and antibiotic prescription, during the past 1 year before infection. Daily consumption of prebiotic-containing foods, less sugar, regular exercise, adequate sleep and fewer antibiotic prescriptions led to a milder disease and rapid virus clearance. Additionally, data on these factors were compiled into a single score, the ESSAP score (Exercise, Sugar consumption, Sleeping hours, Antibiotics taken, and Prebiotics consumption; 0–11 points), median ESSAP score was 5 for both mild and moderate cases; however, the range was 4–8 in mild cases, but 1–6 in moderate (P = 0·001, OR: 4·2, 95 % CI 1·9, 9·1); our results showed a negative correlation between regular consumption of yogurt containing probiotics and disease severity (P = 0·007, OR: 1·6, 95 % CI 1·1, 2·1). Mild COVID-19 disease was associated with 10–20 min of daily exercise (P = 0·016), sleeping at least 8 h daily, prescribed antibiotics less than 5 times per year (P = 0·077) and ate plenty of prebiotic-containing food.

This paper introduces families of bilateral filters for image denoising and sharpness enhancements, JPEG deblocking, and texture filtering. While the Gaussian distribution dictates the application of the bilateral filters, we introduce a wide variety of kernels based on Riemann-Lebesgue’s theorem. The derivation of the bilateral filters are established in both adaptive and non-adaptive approaches. The adaptation of the filters is adjusted via computing the variances (inflection points) using different methods based on applications. For image denoising and sharpness, the variance estimated using Laplacian-of-Gaussian filter followed by affine mapping. The variance is computed as a proportion of intensity differences across the boundary in JPEG deblocking. In texture filtering, the variance is calculated form modified relative variations. We carry out extensive experiments in three different applications and compare the results using different bilateral filters. The proposed filters are giving better results, compared with standard bilateral and adaptive bilateral filters.

Copper iodide is an attractive p-type transparent material suitable for optoelectronic applications. This work reports on the synthesis of copper iodide (CuI) by iodination of sputtered Cu films previously deposited on glass and silicon substrates. The crystalline phase and surface morphology were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The prepared CuI films crystallize in the zinc blende structure (γ-phase) at different amounts of iodine and exhibit preferential orientation along the <111> direction. Moreover, detailed investigation of the microstructure via high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) revealed the presence and details of alternating twin crystallographic domains between adjacent grains. The electrical properties of the CuI films were characterized by Hall effect measurements and revealed a p-type carrier behavior for all films. The electrical behavior was discussed and attributed to the change in intrinsic point defects. In addition, the electronic bandgap and luminescence properties were investigated using optical transmission and photoluminescence (PL). The CuI films showed a wide band gap (about 3.05 eV) with an average transmittance of about (66 %) in the visible region. Moreover, the PL showed a blue emission ranging from 400 to 440 nm originating from the excitonic recombination and radiative point defects.

Reusing by-products such as cow bones in agriculture can be achieved thorough pyrolysis. The potential of bone-derived biochar as a promising material for metals immobilization in contaminated mining soils has not yet been sufficiently explored. Therefore, cow bones were used as biochar feedstock were pyrolyzed at 500 °C (CBL) and 800 °C (CBH) and. The two biochars were applied to a mine contaminated soil at 0 (control), 2.5, 5 and 10%, w/w, dosages; then, the soils were incubated and cultivated by maize in the greenhouse. Cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) bioavailability and their sequentially extracted fractions (acid soluble, reducible, oxidizable, and residual fraction), soil microbial function, and plant health attributes were analyzed after maize harvesting. Bone-derived biochar enhanced the content of dissolved organic carbon (up to 74%), total nitrogen (up to 26%), and total phosphorus (up to 27%) in the soil and improved the plant growth up to 55%, as compared to the control. The addition of CBL altered the acid soluble fraction of both metals to the residual fraction and, thus, reduced the content of Zn (55 and 40%) and Cd (57 and 67%) in the maize roots and shoots, respectively as compared to the control. The CBL enhanced the β-glucosidase (51%) and alkaline phosphatase activities (71%) at the lower doses (2.5–5%) as compared to control, while the activities of these enzymes decreased with the higher application doses. Also, CBL improved the antioxidants activity and maize growth at the 2.5–5% application rate. However, the activity of the dehydrogenase significantly decreased (77%), particularly with CBH. We conclude that CBL, applied at 2.5–5% dose, can be utilized as a potential low cost and environmental friendly amendment for stabilization of toxic metals in contaminated mining soils and producing food/feed/biofuel crops with lower metal content.