Publications by authors named "Mahfuz M"

Article Synopsis
  • All-solid-state lithium-ion batteries (ASSLBs) are poised to enhance the performance and safety of next-generation electronics, especially electric vehicles, by utilizing solid electrolytes with high ionic conductivity.
  • Researchers have substituted the B-site of LiLaTiO (LLTO) with Ga to create Ga-doped LLTO solid electrolytes, leading to structural improvements, enhanced ionic conductivity, and better electrochemical stability through a solid-state reaction method.
  • The results show that Ga-doped LLTO exhibits a significantly increased ionic conductivity of 4.15 × 10 S cm in LiLaTiGaO (with 3% Ga), making it a promising candidate for future ASSLB applications due to its stable operating voltage range.
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Objective: In COVID-19, cytokine storms (CS) result in higher mortality and morbidity. Our study evaluated the rate of cytokine storms among COVID-positive Bangladeshi adults.

Methods: From October 2020 to March 2022, this cohort study enrolled both COVID-positive and COVID-negative healthy adults.

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  • The study aimed to extract and identify probiotic bacteria from wild stinging catfish in Bangladesh using traditional and molecular techniques.
  • Researchers collected catfish from natural sites, cultured bacteria from their guts, and tested 10 selected isolates for their probiotic potential through various pH and bile tolerance tests.
  • Five specific bacterial isolates showed strong probiotic characteristics, indicating they could enhance aquaculture production for stinging catfish.
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  • Every year, around 20 million neonates are born with low birth weight (LBW), mostly in low- and middle-income countries, but specific factors affecting LBW in rural Bangladesh are poorly understood.
  • This study surveyed 4,651 children under 5 years old to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status and maternal dietary diversity, finding a 13.5% prevalence of LBW which varied significantly across wealth groups.
  • Results indicated that mothers from poorer households are more likely to have LBW babies, and those with inadequate dietary diversity show a higher risk, especially adolescent mothers, who are significantly affected by poor nutrition.
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  • A randomized controlled trial was conducted in Bangladesh on children aged 12-18 months, comparing a microbiome-directed complementary food (MDCF-2) with a calorically dense standard food, revealing better weight-for-length improvement in those treated with MDCF-2.
  • The study also found significant protein and microbiome changes associated with the recovery process, suggesting potential biomarkers for treatment response and the need for further research on MDCF efficacy.
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Background: Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED) is an acquired disorder of asymptomatic altered gut function, the etiology of which is unknown. EED is postulated to be a major contributor to growth faltering in early childhood in regions where early-life enteropathogenic carriage is prevalent. Few studies have examined the critical organ (the upper small bowel) with enteropathogens in the evolution of small bowel disease.

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Background: Validated biomarkers could catalyze environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) research.

Objectives: Leveraging an EED histology scoring system, this multicountry analysis examined biomarker associations with duodenal histology features among children with EED. We also examined differences in 2-h compared with 1-h urine collections in the lactulose rhamnose (LR) dual sugar test.

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Background: Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is a precursor of growth faltering in children living in impoverished conditions who are frequently exposed to environmental toxins and enteropathogens, leading to small bowel inflammatory, malabsorptive, and permeability derangements and low-grade chronic systemic inflammation.

Objectives: We explored the association between anthropometrics and duodenal histologic features of EED among children from 3 lower middle-income country centers.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, Pakistani children (n = 63) with wasting, Bangladesh children (n = 116) with stunting or at risk for stunting (height-for-age Z score [HAZ] <-1 but ≥-2), and Zambian children (n = 108) with wasting or stunting received nutritional intervention.

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Background: Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is an inflammatory condition of the small intestine that is prevalent in children residing in low- and middle-income countries. EED is accompanied by profound histopathologic changes in the small bowel, loss of absorptive capacity, increased intestinal permeability, increased microbial translocation, and nutrient loss.

Objectives: We sought to identify dysregulated genes and pathways that might underlie pediatric EED.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is a condition that leads to inflammation in the small intestine, impacting childhood growth and neurodevelopment, but has been overlooked until recently.
  • - The EEDBI Consortium was formed in 2016 to study EED through biopsy data from children in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Zambia, while also comparing them to children in the U.S. undergoing endoscopy for other reasons.
  • - The initiative aims to coordinate research efforts, allowing researchers to analyze EED-related tissue and associated factors like histology and biomarkers across multiple studies, all with the goal of better understanding this debilitating condition.
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Background: Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is characterized by reduced absorptive capacity and barrier function of the small intestine, leading to poor ponderal and linear childhood growth.

Objectives: To further define gene expression patterns that are associated with EED to uncover new pathophysiology of this disorder.

Methods: Duodenal biopsies from cohorts of children with EED from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Zambia were analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) to interrogate gene products that distinguished differentiation and various biochemical pathways in immune and epithelial cells, some identified by prior bulk RNA sequence analyses.

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Article Synopsis
  • Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is a silent intestinal disorder linked to various health issues in children, notably affecting growth and neurodevelopment.
  • Researchers aimed to create a scoring system based on duodenal biopsies from children with EED in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Zambia, comparing them to healthy children and those with celiac disease.
  • The study revealed five key histopathological features that distinguished EED from normal biopsies, with a high accuracy in identifying EED (AUC: 0.992), highlighting geographical differences in goblet cell depletion among the affected populations.
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Background And Objectives: Wasting among under-five years old (U-5) children is a significant global public-health-nutrition burden. To effectively address this problem in Bangladesh, knowing its prevalence, caus-es and associated-factors are essential. This review aimed to identify evidences available in the existing-accessible literature/documents that describe the individual, socioeconomic, demographic, and contextual risk-factors associated with wasting among U-5 children in Bangladesh.

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Event-based imaging represents a new paradigm in visual information processing that addresses the speed and energy efficiency shortcomings inherently present in the current complementary metal oxide semiconductor-based machine vision. Realizing such imaging systems has previously been sought using very large-scale integration technologies that have complex circuitries consisting of many photodiodes, differential amplifiers, capacitors, and resistors. Here, we demonstrate that event-driven sensing can be achieved using a simple one-resistor, one-capacitor (1R1C) circuit, where the capacitor is modified with colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) to have a photoresponse.

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Introduction: Treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) generates complex data where machine learning (ML) modelling could be beneficial. Using routine hospital data, we evaluated the ability of multiple ML models to predict inpatient mortality in a paediatric population in a low/middle-income country.

Method: We retrospectively analysed hospital record data from 0-59 months old children admitted to the ICU of Dhaka hospital of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A randomized controlled trial inBangladesh tested a microbiota-directed complementary food (MDCF-2) against a ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) in children transitioning from SAM to MAM, finding MDCF-2 led to better weight gain improvements.
  • * The study also identified 215 beneficial plasma proteins associated with improved growth and demonstrated changes in the children's gut microbiome, highlighting specific bacterial strains that may help in recovery, suggesting a need for further research on MDCF's effectiveness and potential treatment markers.
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Background: Globally, stunting affects ∼150 million children under five, while wasting affects nearly 50 million. Current interventions have had limited effectiveness in ameliorating long-term sequelae of undernutrition including stunting, cognitive deficits and immune dysfunction. Disrupted development of the gut microbiota has been linked to the pathogenesis of undernutrition, providing potentially new treatment approaches.

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Background: Diarrhoeal disease poses a significant global health challenge, especially in children under three years old. Despite the effectiveness of oral rehydration therapy (ORT), its adoption remains low. Glucose-based ORS (GORS) is the standard, but novel formulations like glucose-free amino acid-based VS002A have emerged as potential alternatives.

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Realizing topological superconductivity by integrating high-transition-temperature (T) superconductors with topological insulators can open new paths for quantum computing applications. Here, a new approach is reported for increasing the superconducting transition temperature by interfacing the unconventional superconductor Fe(Te,Se) with the topological insulator Bi-Te system in the low-Se doping regime, near where superconductivity vanishes in the bulk. The critical finding is that the of Fe(Te,Se) increases from nominally non-superconducting to as high as 12.

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Background: Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a chronic inflammatory condition of the small intestine, is an important driver of childhood malnutrition globally. Quantifying intestinal morphology in EED allows for exploration of its association with functional and disease outcomes.

Objectives: We sought to define morphometric characteristics of childhood EED and determine whether morphology features were associated with disease pathophysiology.

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Small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) has been associated with enteric inflammation, linear growth stunting, and neurodevelopmental delays in children from low-income countries. Little is known about the histologic changes or epithelial adherent microbiota associated with SIBO. We sought to describe these relationships in a cohort of impoverished Bangladeshi children.

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Microbiota-directed complementary food (MDCF) formulations have been designed to repair the gut communities of malnourished children. A randomized controlled trial demonstrated that one formulation, MDCF-2, improved weight gain in malnourished Bangladeshi children compared to a more calorically dense standard nutritional intervention. Metagenome-assembled genomes from study participants revealed a correlation between ponderal growth and expression of MDCF-2 glycan utilization pathways by Prevotella copri strains.

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Malnourished children are susceptible to an increased risk of mortality owing to impaired immune functions. However, the underlying mechanism of altered immune functions and its interaction with malnutrition is poorly understood. This study investigates the immune function and evaluates the effect of a particular nutritional intervention on the immune cells of undernourished children.

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Introduction: There is a paucity of data on community perception and utilization of services for wasted children in Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN) and their nearest host communities.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative study to explore community perceptions and understand the utilization of services for severely wasted children among the FDMN and their nearest host communities in Teknaf, Cox's Bazar. We carried out 13 focus group discussions and 17 in-depth interviews with the caregivers of the children of 6-59 months, and 8 key informant interviews.

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