Advanced sanitation products infused with silver nanoparticles for viral protection and their ecological and environmental consequences.

The outbreak of coronavirus ailments (COVID-19) in 2019 resulted in public health crisis leading to global pandemonium. In response to the high prevalence of disease transmission, governments all around the globe implemented emergency measures in various routes (e.g.

The Prevalence and Pathophysiology of Chemical Sense Disorder Caused by the Novel Coronavirus.

Emerging viral infections are a ceaseless challenge and remain a global public health concern. The world has not yet come back to normal from the devastating effects of the highly contagious and pathogenic novel coronavirus, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Olfactory and taste dysfunction is common in patients infected by the novel coronavirus.

Retinal fundus image classification for diabetic retinopathy using SVM predictions.

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is one of the leading causes of blindness in all age groups. Inadequate blood supply to the retina, retinal vascular exudation, and intraocular hemorrhage cause DR. Despite recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of DR, this complication remains a challenging task for physicians and patients.

Enumeration of binary trees compatible with a perfect phylogeny.

Evolutionary models used for describing molecular sequence variation suppose that at a non-recombining genomic segment, sequences share ancestry that can be represented as a genealogy-a rooted, binary, timed tree, with tips corresponding to individual sequences. Under the infinitely-many-sites mutation model, mutations are randomly superimposed along the branches of the genealogy, so that every mutation occurs at a chromosomal site that has not previously mutated; if a mutation occurs at an interior branch, then all individuals descending from that branch carry the mutation. The implication is that observed patterns of molecular variation from this model impose combinatorial constraints on the hidden state space of genealogies.

Removal of gaseous benzene by a fixed-bed system packed with a highly porous metal-organic framework (MOF-199) coated glass beads.

The utility of nanomaterial adsorbents is often limited by their physical features, especially fine particle size. For example, a large bed-pressure drop is accompnied inevitably, if fine-particle sorbents are used in a packed bed system. To learn more about the effect of adsorbent morphology on uptake performance, we examined the adsorption efficiency of metal-organic framework 199 (MOF-199) in the pristine (fine powder) form and after its binding on to glass beads as an inert support.

Rat skeletal muscle-nerve preparation to teach skeletal muscle physiology.

This sourcebook update describes a variation of a previous sourcebook experiment that used isolated extensor digitorum longus muscle from mouse to teach skeletal muscle properties (Head SI, Arber MS. 37: 405-414, 2013). Gastrocnemius-sciatic nerve preparation in an anaesthetized rat was developed and muscle contractions were recorded in a computerized data acquisition system using an isometric force transducer.

Teaching bioelectricity and neurophysiology to medical students using LabAXON simulations.

Patch-clamp electrophysiological recordings of neuronal activity require a large amount of space and equipment. The technique is difficult to master and not conducive to demonstration to more than a few medical students. Therefore, neurophysiological education is mostly limited to classroom-based pedagogies such as lectures.

Computer-based virtual laboratory simulations: LabHEART cardiac physiology practical.

Practical demonstration of cardiomyocyte function requires substantial preparation, a source of freshly isolated animal hearts, and specialized equipment. Even where such resources are available, it is not conducive for demonstration to any more than a few students at a time. These approaches are also not consistent with the 3R principle (replacement, reduction, and refinement) of ethical use of animals.

Proof of concept for CUK family metal-organic frameworks as environmentally-friendly adsorbents for benzene vapor.

The utility of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) such as the CUK family (CUK - Cambridge University-KRICT) has been explored intensively for adsorption/separation of airborne volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In this article, three M-CUK analogs (M = Mg, Co, or Ni) were synthesized hydrothermally under similar conditions to assess the effects of their isostructural properties and metal centers on adsorption of benzene vapor (0.05-1 Pa).

Zooming past the coronavirus lockdown: online spirometry practical demonstration with student involvement in analysis by remote control.

This paper describes the process involved in conducting an online spirometry practical through Zoom. The teacher demonstrated the practical from the medical school, and the students observed the procedure from the comfort of their own homes. Students were able to analyze the graphs captured in the teacher's laptop by remotely controlling the teacher's laptop.

The effects of continuous- and stop-flow gas streams on adsorptive removal of benzene vapor using type - II covalent organic polymers.

Various materials have been investigated for the adsorptive removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs, such as benzene). However, most materials proposed for the adsorptive removal of gaseous benzene (and other VOCs) perform relatively poorly (e.g.

Regeneration, degradation, and toxicity effect of MOFs: Opportunities and challenges.

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have been investigated extensively for separation, storage, catalysis, and sensing applications. Nonetheless, problems associated with their toxicity, recycling/reuse/regeneration, and degradation have yet to be addressed as one criterion to satisfy their commercialization. Here, the challenges associated with MOF-based technology have been explored to further expand their practical utility in various applications.

Geometry of the Sample Frequency Spectrum and the Perils of Demographic Inference.

The sample frequency spectrum (SFS), which describes the distribution of mutant alleles in a sample of DNA sequences, is a widely used summary statistic in population genetics. The expected SFS has a strong dependence on the historical population demography and this property is exploited by popular statistical methods to infer complex demographic histories from DNA sequence data. Most, if not all, of these inference methods exhibit pathological behavior, however.

Inferring Relevant Cell Types for Complex Traits by Using Single-Cell Gene Expression.

Previous studies have prioritized trait-relevant cell types by looking for an enrichment of genome-wide association study (GWAS) signal within functional regions. However, these studies are limited in cell resolution by the lack of functional annotations from difficult-to-characterize or rare cell populations. Measurement of single-cell gene expression has become a popular method for characterizing novel cell types, and yet limited work has linked single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to phenotypes of interest.

Novel probabilistic models of spatial genetic ancestry with applications to stratification correction in genome-wide association studies.

Motivation: Genetic variation in human populations is influenced by geographic ancestry due to spatial locality in historical mating and migration patterns. Spatial population structure in genetic datasets has been traditionally analyzed using either model-free algorithms, such as principal components analysis (PCA) and multidimensional scaling, or using explicit spatial probabilistic models of allele frequency evolution. We develop a general probabilistic model and an associated inference algorithm that unify the model-based and data-driven approaches to visualizing and inferring population structure.

Mutation Rate Variation is a Primary Determinant of the Distribution of Allele Frequencies in Humans.

The site frequency spectrum (SFS) has long been used to study demographic history and natural selection. Here, we extend this summary by examining the SFS conditional on the alleles found at the same site in other species. We refer to this extension as the "phylogenetically-conditioned SFS" or cSFS.

Selective interfacial synthesis of metal-organic frameworks on a polybenzimidazole hollow fiber membrane for gas separation.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have gained immense attention as new age materials due to their tuneable properties and diverse applicability. However, efforts on developing promising materials for membrane based gas separation, and control over the crystal growth positions on polymeric hollow fiber membranes still remain key challenges. In this investigation, a new, convenient and scalable room temperature interfacial method for growing MOFs (ZIF-8 and CuBTC) on either the outer or inner side of a polybenzimidazole based hollow fiber (PBI-BuI-HF) membrane surface has been achieved in a controlled manner.

A NOVEL SPECTRAL METHOD FOR INFERRING GENERAL DIPLOID SELECTION FROM TIME SERIES GENETIC DATA.

The increased availability of time series genetic variation data from experimental evolution studies and ancient DNA samples has created new opportunities to identify genomic regions under selective pressure and to estimate their associated fitness parameters. However, it is a challenging problem to compute the likelihood of non-neutral models for the population allele frequency dynamics, given the observed temporal DNA data. Here, we develop a novel spectral algorithm to analytically and efficiently integrate over all possible frequency trajectories between consecutive time points.

Efficient inference of population size histories and locus-specific mutation rates from large-sample genomic variation data.

With the recent increase in study sample sizes in human genetics, there has been growing interest in inferring historical population demography from genomic variation data. Here, we present an efficient inference method that can scale up to very large samples, with tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals. Specifically, by utilizing analytic results on the expected frequency spectrum under the coalescent and by leveraging the technique of automatic differentiation, which allows us to compute gradients exactly, we develop a very efficient algorithm to infer piecewise-exponential models of the historical effective population size from the distribution of sample allele frequencies.