Emerging challenges of air pollution and particulate matter in China, India, and Pakistan and mitigating solutions.

This study examines point and non-point sources of air pollution and particulate matter and their associated socioeconomic and health impacts in South Asian countries, primarily India, China, and Pakistan. The legislative frameworks, policy gaps, and targeted solutions are also scrutinized. The major cities in these countries have surpassed the permissible limits defined by WHO for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide.

5G-enabled contactless multi-user presence and activity detection for independent assisted living.

Wireless sensing is the state-of-the-art technique for next generation health activity monitoring. Smart homes and healthcare centres have a demand for multi-subject health activity monitoring to cater for future requirements. 5G-sensing coupled with deep learning models has enabled smart health monitoring systems, which have the potential to classify multiple activities based on variations in channel state information (CSI) of wireless signals.

Identification of the Phytoconstituents in Methanolic Extract of Adhatoda Vasica L. Leaves by GC-MS Analysis and Its Antioxidant Activity.

Background: Adhatoda vasica L. is a medicinal plant, known as Malabar nut in English, belonging to the family Acanthaceae. It has been used traditionally to treat respiratory disorders like severe coughs, colds, chronic bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis, and other illnesses.

Molecular Engineering of Curcumin, an Active Constituent of L. (Turmeric) of the Family with Improved Antiproliferative Activity.

Cancer is the world's second leading cause of death, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths and 19.3 million new cases in 2020. Curcumin analogs are gaining popularity as anticancer agents currently.

Electrochemical Reduction of CO: A Review of Cobalt Based Catalysts for Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Fuels.

Electrochemical CO reduction reaction (CORR) provides a promising approach to curbing harmful emissions contributing to global warming. However, several challenges hinder the commercialization of this technology, including high overpotentials, electrode instability, and low Faradic efficiencies of desirable products. Several materials have been developed to overcome these challenges.

H-NMR-Based Metabolomics: An Integrated Approach for the Detection of the Adulteration in Chicken, Chevon, Beef and Donkey Meat.

Meat is a rich source of energy that provides high-value animal protein, fats, vitamins, minerals and trace amounts of carbohydrates. Globally, different types of meats are consumed to fulfill nutritional requirements. However, the increasing burden on the livestock industry has triggered the mixing of high-price meat species with low-quality/-price meat.

Chemical characterization, antidiabetic and anticancer activities of .

is an important medicinal plant growing in the Mediterranean region and has been reported as a potent anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antioxidant, and antifungal agent. The purpose of the current research is to identify the chemical constituents in ethyl acetate extract (EAE) from the leaves of , and to evaluate antidiabetic, and anticancer activity. Chemical constituents of EAE were identified by GC-MS, and the antidiabetic activity was evaluated by α-glucosidase inhibition assay.

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) aerogel: Efficient adsorbent for the elimination of antimony (III) and (V) from wastewater.

3D porous, thin sheet-like rGO aerogel was fabricated to explore its antimony (Sb) removal potential from wastewater. Langmuir isothermal and pseudo-second-order kinetic model best-suited the adsorption process. The maximum adsorption capacities were 168.

Distribution and Seasonal Variation of Microplastics in Tallo River, Makassar, Eastern Indonesia.

Attention towards microplastic (MP) pollution in various environments is increasing, but relatively little attention has been given to the freshwater-riverine environment. As the biggest city in the eastern Indonesia region, Makassar can be a potential source of MP pollution to its riverine area. This study aimed to determine the spatial trends, seasonal variation, and characteristics of MPs in the water and sediment of Tallo River, as the main river in Makassar.

Microencapsulation: a pragmatic approach towards delivery of probiotics in gut.

Probiotics confer numerous health benefits and functional foods prepared with these microbes own largest markets. However, their viability during transit from gastrointestinal tract is a concerning issue. Microencapsulation of probiotics is a novel technique of major interest to increase their survivability in GIT and food matrices by providing a physical barrier to protect them under harsh conditions.

Dose-Dependent Effect of Polystyrene Microplastics on the Testicular Tissues of the Male Sprague Dawley Rats.

Due to the continuous increase in polystyrene microplastics (PS MPs) incorporation in the environment, growing number of adverse effects on living organisms and ecosystem have become a global concern. Therefore, current study was planned to elucidate the impacts of 5 different concentrations control, 2, 20, 200, and 2000 μgL of PS MPs on testicular tissues of rats. PS MPs significantly reduced the activities of antioxidant enzymes (catalase, superoxide dismutase and peroxidase) as well as total protein contents, while elevated the level of lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species.

Retraction: Comparison of Oral versus Intravenous Proton Pump Inhibitors in Preventing Re-bleeding from Peptic Ulcer after Successful Endoscopic Therapy.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.7759/cureus.6741.

Efficacy And Tolerability Of Oral Iron Chelator, Deferasirox.

Background: Thalassemia major is the severe form of β thalassemia characterized by severe anaemia, hepatosplenomegaly and facioskeletal changes due to increased haemolysis of defective red blood cells. In iron overload states, high levels of iron exceed the iron-carrying capacity of transferrin within the plasma, leading to the formation of nontransferrin-bound iron form. These nontransferrin-bound iron forms can be taken up into cells, including liver, heart, and endocrine cells leading to organ damage.

Robust R-Peak Detection in Low-Quality Holter ECGs Using 1D Convolutional Neural Network.

Objective: Noise and low quality of ECG signals acquired from Holter or wearable devices deteriorate the accuracy and robustness of R-peak detection algorithms. This paper presents a generic and robust system for R-peak detection in Holter ECG signals. While many proposed algorithms have successfully addressed the problem of ECG R-peak detection, there is still a notable gap in the performance of these detectors on such low-quality ECG records.

Detection and Severity Classification of COVID-19 in CT Images Using Deep Learning.

Detecting COVID-19 at an early stage is essential to reduce the mortality risk of the patients. In this study, a cascaded system is proposed to segment the lung, detect, localize, and quantify COVID-19 infections from computed tomography images. An extensive set of experiments were performed using Encoder-Decoder Convolutional Neural Networks (ED-CNNs), UNet, and Feature Pyramid Network (FPN), with different backbone (encoder) structures using the variants of DenseNet and ResNet.

Role of Hafnium Doping on Wetting Transition Tuning the Wettability Properties of ZnO and Doped Thin Films: Self-Cleaning Coating for Solar Application.

Herein, we successfully synthesized high-quality Hf-ZnO thin films with various Hf contents (0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 at. %), which showed both superhydrophilic (6% Hf-ZnO) and ultrahydrophobic (15% Hf-ZnO) wetting behavior. Different characterization methods were opted to recognize the structural (XRD, SEM, AFM) and defect properties (XPS) of the pristine and doped materials, to understand the mechanisms underlying the tuning of wetting behavior (contact angle).

Draft Genome Sequence of Lignin-Degrading sp. Strain S2, Isolated from a Decaying Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch.

We report the draft genome sequence of sp. strain S2, isolated from a decaying oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, which yields potential genes encoding lignin degradation enzymes. This genome of 9,722,071 bp exhibited 58.

Understanding Public Perceptions of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Social Media Analysis.

Background: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 and its subsequent spread worldwide continues to be a global health crisis. Many governments consider contact tracing of citizens through apps installed on mobile phones as a key mechanism to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

Objective: In this study, we sought to explore the suitability of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled social media analyses using Facebook and Twitter to understand public perceptions of COVID-19 contact tracing apps in the United Kingdom.

Association of Viruses in the Development of Cardiovascular Diseases.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), primarily inflammatory cardiomyopathy, are characterized by the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the myocardium. It has a relatively high risk of deteriorating heart function and has heterogeneous etiologies. Inflammatory cardiomyopathy is mainly mediated by viral infections but can also be mediated by protozoa, fungal or bacterial infections.

An Overview of the Recent Progress in Polymeric Carbon Nitride Based Photocatalysis.

Recently, polymeric carbon nitride (g-C N ) as a proficient photo-catalyst has been effectively employed in photocatalysis for energy conversion, storage, and pollutants degradation due to its low cost, robustness, and environmentally friendly nature. The critical review summarized the recent development, fundamentals, nanostructures design, advantages, and challenges of g-C N (CN), as potential future photoactive material. The review also discusses the latest information on the improvement of CN-based heterojunctions including Type-II, Z-scheme, metal/CN Schottky junctions, noble metal@CN, graphene@CN, carbon nanotubes (CNTs)@CN, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)/CN, layered double hydroxides (LDH)/CN heterojunctions and CN-based heterostructures for H production from H O, CO conversion and pollutants degradation in detail.

Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin (TSLP) gene variant rs1837253 is significantly associated with Asthma prevalence in Pakistani Pashtun women.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by airway hyperresponsiveness and remodeling. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), a member of the interleukin-2 family of cytokines, is produced by activated lung and intestinal epithelial cells, mast, and other immune cells. Population-based studies identified associations between SNPs in the TSLP promoter region and asthma pathogenesis.

GC-MS Analysis and Antioxidant Activity of Wrightia tinctoria R.Br. Leaf Extract.

Background: Wrightia tinctoria R.Br. (Apocyanaceae) is known as a biologically effective plant for the treatment of jaundice in the Indian traditional system of medicine.

Novel Deep Convolutional Neural Network-Based Contextual Recognition of Arabic Handwritten Scripts.

Offline Arabic Handwriting Recognition (OAHR) has recently become instrumental in the areas of pattern recognition and image processing due to its application in several fields, such as office automation and document processing. However, OAHR continues to face several challenges, including high variability of the Arabic script and its intrinsic characteristics such as cursiveness, ligatures, and diacritics, the unlimited variation in human handwriting, and the lack of large public databases. In this paper, we introduce a novel context-aware model based on deep neural networks to address the challenges of recognizing offline handwritten Arabic text, including isolated digits, characters, and words.