EnzyPha, an Engineered Helper Phage Developed to Overcome Most of the Limitations Regarding Filamentous Phage Titration and ELISA Tests

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mozafar Mohammadi ◽  
Faezeh Fouladvand ◽  
Peyman Bemani ◽  
Razieh Amini ◽  
Farid Azizi Jalilian
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Filamentous Phage ◽  
Titration Method ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Phage Elisa ◽  
Helper Phage ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
New System ◽  
Higher Sensitivity

Background: Phage display method is a technology which enables expression of exogenous polypeptides on the surface of bacteriophage particles. Phage titration and ELISA are applied for measuring helper phage particles or polypeptide bearing phages and also evaluation of the interaction between polypeptide bearing phages and coated antigens, respectively. Although, several procedures have been introduced to perform phage titration and ELISA but they faced to some limitations such as being time consuming and expensive and also low reproducibility. Objective: We developed a new system called EnzyPha by engineering the M13KO7 expressing Secreted Acid Phosphatase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (SapM enzyme) on its pIX protein for applying in colorimetric phage titration and ELISA methods. Methods: For this purpose, to evaluate the idea, colorimetric phage titration and ELISA were performed and compared to the traditional methods. Results: SapM enzyme was expressed on pIX protein of M13KO7 properly. The colorimetric phage titration and phage ELISA showed better and comparable results against the traditional approaches. Conclusion: The results showed that the proposed model would titrate phages more sensitive than plating titration method through a shorter timeframe. Moreover, it could be a better alternative to the routine phage ELISA due to time saving, cost effective and higher sensitivity.

scholarly journals An approach to categorize chest X-ray images using sparse categorical cross entropy

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 1700
Author(s):  
Chaithanya B. N. ◽  
Swasthika Jain T. J. ◽  
A. Usha Ruby ◽  
Ayesha Parveen
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Cross Entropy ◽  
Ct Scans ◽  
Rt Pcr ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Chest X Ray ◽  
Entropy Technique

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is the most recent threat to global health. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing, computed tomography (CT) scans, and chest X-ray (CXR) images are being used to identify Coronavirus, one of the most serious community viruses of the twenty-first century. Because CT scans and RT-PCR analyses are not available in most health divisions, CXR images are typically the most time-saving and cost-effective tool for physicians in making decisions. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become increasingly popular because of recent technical advancements. The goal of this project is to combine machine learning, deep learning, and the health-care sector to create a categorization technique for detecting the Coronavirus and other respiratory disorders. The three conditions evaluated in this study were COVID-19, viral Pneumonia, and normal lungs. Using X-ray pictures, this research developed a sparse categorical cross-entropy technique for recognizing all three categories. The proposed model had a training accuracy of 91% and a training loss of 0.63, as well as a validation accuracy of 81% and a validation loss of 0.7108.

E-Voting Kepala Desa dan Modal Sosial

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 759
Author(s):  
Khaulah Afifah ◽  
Lala M Kolopaking ◽  
Zessy Ardinal Barlan
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Random Sampling ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Simple Random Sampling ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
The Social ◽  
Voting System

Head of a village election with e-voting system is a new thing for community The success level of e-voting system can be reached by fulfil several principles in order to the implementation going effective and the result of the election can be accepted by all. The objectives of this research is to analyze the relation between the success level of e-voting system with social capital of the community. This research is carried out with the quantitative approach and supported by qualitative data. This research takes 60 respondents using simple random sampling technique. The results showed that the success level of e-voting has a correlation with the level of social capital of the community. Based on the field study, the social capital of the community is classified as high. The high social capital makes the implementation of e-voting successful and the success level is also high, because in the election ten years ago occurred a conflict. The community considers e-voting easier and more practical, cost effective and time-saving, and the results of e-voting are also reliable. A practical and fast of e-voting system can be a solution especially for “rural-urban” community who are busy or work outside the village.Keywords: E-voting, the success level of the system, social capital Pemilihan kepala desa dengan sistem e-voting merupakan hal yang baru bagi masyarakat. Keberhasilan penerapan sistem e-voting dilihat dari terpenuhinya beberapa prinsip agar penerapannya berlangsung efektif dan hasilnya dapat diterima oleh seluruh masyarakat. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis hubungan tingkat keberhasilan sistem e-voting dalam pemilihan kepala desa dengan tingkat modal sosial masyarakat. Bentuk penelitian ini adalah penelitian kuantitatif yang didukung oleh analisis data kualitatif. Penelitian ini mengambil enam puluh responden dengan teknik simple random sampling. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tingkat keberhasilan e-voting memiliki hubungan dengan tingkat modal sosial masyarakat. Berdasarkan kajian di lapang, modal sosial masyarakat tergolong tinggi. Tingginya modal sosial tersebut membuat pelaksanaan e-voting berhasil dan tingkat keberhasilannya juga tergolong tinggi karena pada pemilihan sepuluh tahun silam sempat terjadi konflik. Masyarakat menganggap sistem evoting lebih mudah dan praktis, hemat dalam segi biaya dan waktu, serta hasil dari pemilihan juga dapat dipertanggungjawabkan. Sistem e-voting yang praktis dan cepat dapat menjadi solusi khususnya bagi masyarakat daerah “desa-kota” yang memiliki kesibukan atau pekerjaan di luar desa.Kata Kunci: E-voting, keberhasilan sistem, modal sosial. 

Kinetic Behaviour of Amylase According to pH: A New Perspective for Starch Hydrolysis Process

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-144
Author(s):  
Ravneet K. Grewal ◽  
Baldeep Kaur ◽  
Gagandeep Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Metal Ions ◽  
Competitive Inhibition ◽  
Deae Cellulose ◽  
Kinetic Studies ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Starch Hydrolysis ◽  
Divalent Metal Ions ◽  
Activity Data ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Alkaline Conditions

Background: Amylases are the most widely used biocatalysts in starch saccharification and detergent industries. However, commercially available amylases have few limitations viz. limited activity at low or high pH and Ca2+ dependency. Objective: The quest for exploiting amylase for diverse applications to improve the industrial processes in terms of efficiency and feasibility led us to investigate the kinetics of amylase in the presence of metal ions as a function of pH. Methods: The crude extract from soil fungal isolate cultures is subjected to salt precipitation, dialysis and DEAE cellulose chromatography followed by amylase extraction and is incubated with divalent metal ions (i.e., Ca2+, Fe2+, Cu2+, and Hg2+); Michaelis-Menton constant (Km), and maximum reaction velocity (Vmax) are calculated by plotting the activity data obtained in the absence and presence of ions, as a function of substrate concentration in Lineweaver-Burk Plot. Results: Kinetic studies reveal that amylase is inhibited un-competitively at 5mM Cu2+ at pH 4.5 and 7.5, but non-competitively at pH 9.5. Non-competitive inhibition of amylase catalyzed starch hydrolysis is observed with 5mM Hg2+ at pH 9.5, which changes to mixed inhibition at pH 4.5 and 7.5. At pH 4.5, Ca2+ induces K- and V-type activation of amylase catalyzed starch hydrolysis; however, the enzyme has V-type activation at 7mM Ca2+ under alkaline conditions. Also, K- and V-type of activation of amylase is observed in the presence of 7mM Fe2+ at pH 4.5 and 9.5. Conclusion: These findings suggest that divalent ions modulation of amylase is pH dependent. Furthermore, a time-saving and cost-effective solution is proposed to overcome the challenges of the existing methodology of starch hydrolysis in starch and detergent industries.

scholarly journals Graph contextualized attention network for predicting synthetic lethality in human cancers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahui Long ◽  
Min Wu ◽  
Yong Liu ◽  
Jie Zheng ◽  
Chee Keong Kwoh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Lethality ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Design Feature ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Attention Network ◽  
New Genes ◽  
Lab Experiments ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Multiple Feature ◽  
Wet Lab

Abstract Motivation Synthetic Lethality (SL) plays an increasingly critical role in the targeted anticancer therapeutics. In addition, identifying SL interactions can create opportunities to selectively kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. Given the high cost of wet-lab experiments, in silico prediction of SL interactions as an alternative can be a rapid and cost-effective way to guide the experimental screening of candidate SL pairs. Several matrix factorization-based methods have recently been proposed for human SL prediction. However, they are limited in capturing the dependencies of neighbors. In addition, it is also highly challenging to make accurate predictions for new genes without any known SL partners. Results In this work, we propose a novel graph contextualized attention network named GCATSL to learn gene representations for SL prediction. First, we leverage different data sources to construct multiple feature graphs for genes, which serve as the feature inputs for our GCATSL method. Second, for each feature graph, we design node-level attention mechanism to effectively capture the importance of local and global neighbors and learn local and global representations for the nodes, respectively. We further exploit multi-layer perceptron (MLP) to aggregate the original features with the local and global representations and then derive the feature-specific representations. Third, to derive the final representations, we design feature-level attention to integrate feature-specific representations by taking the importance of different feature graphs into account. Extensive experimental results on three datasets under different settings demonstrated that our GCATSL model outperforms 14 state-of-the-art methods consistently. In addition, case studies further validated the effectiveness of our proposed model in identifying novel SL pairs. Availability Python codes and dataset are freely available on GitHub (https://github.com/longyahui/GCATSL) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/4522679) under the MIT license.

A revised FMEA application to the quality control management

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 788-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Paciarotti ◽  
Giovanni Mazzuto ◽  
Davide D’Ettorre
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Weight Functions ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Complete Procedure ◽  
Medium Enterprise ◽  
Control Management ◽  
Critical Situations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a cost-effective, time-saving and easy-to-use failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) system applied on the quality control of supplied products. The traditional FMEA has been modified and adapted to fit the quality control features and requirements. The paper introduces a new and revised FMEA approach, where the “failure concept” has been modified with “defect concept.” Design/methodology/approach – The typical FMEA parameters have been modified, and a non-linear scale has been introduced to better evaluate the FMEA parameters. In addition, two weight functions have been introduced in the risk priority number (RPN) calculus in order to consider different critical situations previously ignored and the RPN is assigned to several similar products in order to reduce the problem of complexity. Findings – A complete procedure is provided in order to assist managers in deciding on the critical suppliers, the creation of homogeneous families overcome the complexity of single product code approach, in RPN definition the relative importance of factors is evaluated. Originality/value – This different approach facilitates the quality control managers acting as a structured and “friendly” decision support system: the quality control manager can easily evaluate the critical situations and simulate different scenarios of corrective actions in order to choose the best one. This FMEA technique is a dynamic tool and the performed process is an iterative one. The method has been applied in a small medium enterprise producing hydro massage bathtub, shower, spas and that commercializes bathroom furniture. The firm application has been carried out involving a cross-functional and multidisciplinary team.

A Novel Nonsurgical Technique for Correcting Congenital Auricular Anomalies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shay I. Duvdevani ◽  
Hadas Knoller ◽  
Noa Rozendorn ◽  
Eran E. Alon ◽  
Ory Madgar
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Initiation ◽  
Neonatal Period ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Normal Appearance ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Effective Time ◽  
Custom Made ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Ear Anomalies ◽  
Surgical Corrections

AbstractCongenital ear anomalies are associated with psychological morbidity. Ear deformities can usually be corrected by nonsurgical techniques such as splinting or molding in the neonatal period, initiated before 6 weeks. Without early corrections, many will require otoplasty during childhood. We introduce a novel silicone-based custom mold technique for congenital ear anomalies. The highly malleable silicone was pushed into every part of the auricle, enabling the auricle to remain in the desired shape, with new molds made weekly. Of 31 newborns (18 males, 13 females), 54 ears were treated. Average age at treatment initiation was 26.8 days. The mean treatment duration was 43.2 days, with a median of 28 days. Normal appearance and parent's satisfaction were achieved in 30 patients with 49 deformed ears and also in four newborns older than 6 weeks. Three concha type microtia in two patients achieved great improvements and parents' satisfaction. No complications were reported. Marked aesthetic improvements and normal appearance were achieved for all deformed auricles treated, and improvements in the concha type microtia will partially alleviate future surgical corrections. The results are not inferior to other techniques. The advantages are as follows: cost-effective, time-saving, simple to master, no need for hair shaving, and easy use for parents. Patients older than 6 weeks of age achieved normal auricle appearance, enabling the correction in older newborns. Custom made silicone auricle molding offers a simple nonsurgical technique for correcting congenital ear anomalies, alleviating the need for future surgical corrections.

An efficient solution for the single-step synthesis of 4CaO·Al2O3·Fe2O3 powders

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Ianoş
Keyword(s):  
Combustion Synthesis ◽  
Solution Combustion Synthesis ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Fuel Mixture ◽  
Single Step ◽  
Combustion Reaction ◽  
Exothermic Effect ◽  
Solution Combustion ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
X Ray

Single-phase nanocrystalline 4CaO·Al2O3·Fe2O3 powders were prepared directly from the combustion reaction using a new cost-effective, time-saving, and environmentally friendly version of solution combustion synthesis. Instead of a single fuel, a fuel mixture of urea and β-alanine was used. It was shown by x-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive x-ray analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, and optical microscopy that this new version of the solution combustion synthesis allows the maximization of the exothermic effect associated with the combustion reaction. On the other hand, it was shown that the traditional version of combustion synthesis involving the use of a single fuel, such as urea or β-alanine, does not ensure the formation of Ca4Al2Fe2O10 unless subsequent thermal treatments are applied. It was suggested that the occurrence of combustion reactions cannot be regarded only in terms of adiabatic temperature, as the kinetic aspects overrule the thermodynamic ones.

scholarly journals METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO CREATING A MODEL OF COST-EFFECTIVE MECHANISM FOR MANAGING INNOVATIVE ACTIVITY OF HOTEL ORGANIZATIONS

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-76
Author(s):  
T. P. Levchenko ◽  
M. B. Moldazhanov ◽  
V. V. Purichi ◽  
I. V. Strishkina
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Management ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Innovative Activity ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
Management Mechanism ◽  
Effective Mechanism ◽  
Scenario Modeling ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Activity Management

The transition of hotel organizations to a qualitatively new level of development can be ensured by the formation and use of a cost-effective innovation management mechanism. The article attempts to create a model of a cost-effective management mechanism that could take into account the multifaceted relationships of indicators and indicators of innovative activity. The operation of this mechanism implies the use of indicative control tools, as well as factor and scenario modeling. The author considers the mechanism from the perspective of implementing five interconnected blocks: subjects, goals and tasks, objects, processes and resulting effects. The content of the resulting effects of the implementation of innovative processes based on the calculation of integral indicators of innovative activity and its elements. Based on the proposed model of a cost-effective mechanism for managing the innovative activity of hotel organizations, an analysis of trends in the level of innovative activity was carried out at using the example of three hotel in Sochi, their graphical interpretation is presented. As part of the presented model, scenario modeling of innovative activity management was carried out as one of its tools, a graph of the ratio of indicators of innovative activity of hotel organizations in Sochi was built.

scholarly journals Comparative evaluation of cost effective extraction free molecular technique for detection of SARS-CoV-2 with reference to standard VTM based RT-qPCR method

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megh Singh Dhakad ◽  
Sanjib Gogoi ◽  
Ansu Kumari ◽  
Aashish Kumar Singh ◽  
Manoj B. Jais ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Detection Method ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Molecular Technique ◽  
Rt Pcr ◽  
Index Method ◽  
Resource Limited ◽  
Qpcr Method ◽  
Kappa Value ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Higher Sensitivity

Background and Objectives: The entire globe is undergoing an unprecedented challenge of COVID-19. Considering the need of rapid and accurate diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2, this study was planned to evaluate the cost effective extraction free RT-PCR technique in comparison to the standard VTM based RT-qPCR method. Materials and Methods: Paired swabs from nasopharynx and oropharynx were collected for SARS-CoV-2 testing, from 211 adult patients (≥18 years) in VTM and plain sterile tubes (dry swabs). These samples were processed and RT-qPCR was carried out as per standard protocols. Results: 54.5% of the patients were females and 45.5% were males with sex ratio 1:1.19 (M: F). 38.86% were symptomatic, of which fever (86.59%), cough (79.23%) and breathlessness (46.34%) were the most common symptoms. The positivity by VTM based method and index method was 31.27% and 13.27% respectively. Of the 27 inconclusive results from index method, 37.04% were positive, 48.15% were negative by VTM based method. However, in 40 inconclusive results by VTM based method, 90% were negative and rest remained inconclusive by index method. The sensitivity and specificity of the index method were 39.39% and 85.71% respectively. The overall agreement between VTM based method and index method was 49.59% with estimated Kappa value of 0.19. Conclusion: VTM based method showed higher sensitivity compared to the index method. The higher positivity by VTM based method, suggests that VTM based method could plausibly be a better detection method of SARS-CoV-2. Still, the index method might add value in a resource limited setups for detection of SARS-CoV-2.  

Use of EcoTILLING to identify natural allelic variants of rice candidate genes involved in salinity tolerance

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Negrão ◽  
C. Almadanim ◽  
I. Pires ◽  
K. L. McNally ◽  
M. M. Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Salt Tolerance ◽  
Salinity Tolerance ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Allelic Variants ◽  
Small Indels ◽  
Stress Signal

Rice is a salt-sensitive species with enormous genetic variation for salt tolerance hidden in its germplasm pool. The EcoTILLING technique allows us to assign haplotypes, thus reducing the number of accessions to be sequenced, becoming a cost-effective, time-saving and high-throughput method, ideal to be used in laboratories with limited financial resources. Aiming to find alleles associated with salinity tolerance, we are currently using the EcoTILLING technique to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small indels across 375 germplasm accessions representing the diversity available in domesticated rice. We are targeting several genes known to be involved in salt stress signal transduction (OsCPK17) or tolerance mechanisms (SalT). So far, we found a total of 15 and 23 representative SNPs or indels in OsCPK17 and SalT, respectively. These natural allelic variants are mostly located in 3′-untranslated region, thus opening a new path for studying their potential contribution to the regulation of gene expression and possible role in salt tolerance.

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