Structural DNA nanotechnology: Immobile Holliday junctions to artificial robots

Abstreact: DNA nanotechnology marvels the scientific world with its capabilities to design, engineer, and demonstrate nanoscale shapes. This review is a condensed version walking the reader through the structural developments in the field over the past 40 years starting from the basic design rules of the double-stranded building block to the most recent advancements in self-assembled hierarchically achieved structures to date. It builds off from the fundamental motivation of building 3-dimensional (3D) lattice structures of tunable cavities going all the way up to artificial nanorobots fighting cancer. The review starts by covering the most important developments from the fundamental bottom-up approach of building structures, which is the ‘tile’ based approach covering 1D, 2D, and 3D building blocks, after which, the top-down approach using DNA origami and DNA bricks is also covered. Thereafter, DNA nanostructures assembled using not so commonly used (yet promising) techniques like i-motifs, quadruplexes, and kissing loops are covered. Highlights from the field of dynamic DNA nanostructures have been covered as well, walking the reader through the various approaches used within the field to achieve movement. The article finally concludes by giving the authors a view of what the future of the field might look like while suggesting in parallel new directions that fellow/future DNA nanotechnologists could think about.

Accentuating CircRNA-miRNA-Transcription Factors Axis: A Conundrum in Cancer Research

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are the newly uncovered class of non-coding RNAs being cognized as profound regulators of gene expression in developmental and disease biology. These are the covalently closed RNAs synthesized when the pre-mRNA transcripts undergo a back-splicing event. In recent years, circRNAs are gaining special attention in the scientific world and are no longer considered as “splicing noise” but rather structurally stable molecules having multiple biological functions including acting as miRNA sponges, protein decoys/scaffolds, and regulators of transcription and translation. Further, emerging evidence suggests that circRNAs are also differentially expressed in multiple cancers where they play oncogenic roles. In addition, circRNAs in association with miRNAs change the expression patterns of multiple transcription factors (TFs), which play important roles in cancer. Thus, the circRNA-miRNA-TFs axis is implicated in the progression or suppression of various cancer types and plays a role in cell proliferation, invasion, and metastasis. In this review article, we provide an outline of the biogenesis, localization, and functions of circRNAs specifically in cancer. Also, we highlight the regulatory function of the circRNA-miRNA-TFs axis in the progression or suppression of cancer and the targeting of this axis as a potential therapeutic approach for cancer management. We anticipate that our review will contribute to expanding the knowledge of the research community about this recent and rapidly growing field of circRNAs for further thorough investigation which will surely help in the management of deadly disease cancer.

Therapeutic Properties of Syzygium cumini (Jamun) and Tinospora cordifolia (Giloy) Against Various Lethal Diseases

Phytochemicals have recently been studied in vivo for their unmatched interactions in curing lethal diseases that can't be cured by allopathic medical intervention without any adverse effect on the patient health. These methods were being used in ancient India, where Jamun and Giloy have been used to decrease hormonal imbalance and pathological disorders. Signaling pathways of the active components of Tinospora cordifolia thus enable effective disease targeting. With so much to offer to the scientific world of medicine, the plant Tinospora truly acts as an incredible source as it deals with seasonal fever like Dengue, Malaria, Chickengunia, and anticancer and anti-HIV (research undergoing). Whereas the Syzygium cumini (Jamun) fruit and seed hold worth in treating various diet-related malfunctions, especially hyperglycemia. In the current research, Jamun seed and fruit extracts have been proved effective in the regulation of blood glucose and insulin parameters.

Preface

The Material & Energy Engineering for Sustainable Advancement 2021 (MEESA 2021) conference was organized by the Mechanical Engineering Programme, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sabah.The conference was held virtually on the 29thand 30thof September 2021. The 1stMEESA conference was organized to enculturate research and collaborative involvement between researchers in the engineering materials and energy field. Researchers and postgraduate students from multidisciplinary research backgrounds gathered to share new findings and ultimately building a better network for long term collaboration opportunities. The silver lining in organizing this online conference is the participation of international researchers, offering a more diverse network to be built between participants. Twenty-one papers have been presented in MEESA 2021, of which a total of 17 papers was selected for this publication. Four keynote speakers, who are experts in their respective fields were invited.The keynote speakers were Dr. Habibah binti Ghazali (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), Dr. Ong Hwai Chyuan (University of Technology Sydney), Ir. Dr. Mohd Azlan bin Ismail (Universiti Malaysia Sabah) and Ir. Ts. Dr. Melvin Gan Jet Hong (Universiti Malaysia Sabah).Although this year’s conference was held virtually, we strongly believe that this conference does not reduce the purpose or benefit to the scientific world,in particular,and the general public to share current issues and the latest findings in the field of materials and energy for our environment. All manuscripts published in this proceeding have been vetted through a rigorous review to meet the requirement of high-quality papers.Lastly, we would like to thank the MEESA 2021 Advisor:Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Assoc. Prof. Ts. Dr. Ismail bin Saad, session chairpersons, and members of the Scientific and Technical Committees for their support and undivided commitment to make the conference possible. The committee would also wish to acknowledge all the keynote speakers, reviewers and all participants for their time and effort in making this conference a success. Warmest Regards, List of Organizing Committee are available in this pdf.

Current Science and the Black Hole Connection

In this chapter, an attempt is made to provide a condensed overview of the alarming state of the art of current scientific endeavor, as it is revealed in an international spectrum of critical reports but often is not openly discussed in the scientific community. These calamities include the lack of a basic analysis of the current scientific world itself, by which major influences of corrupt science policies and the power of traditional views remain in the dark. In addition, there is a worrying increase in technology-induced information dependence. We are facing an information wave of such magnitude that in order to survive we need to learn to ride it in a proper way by realizing our bio-cosmological connections and interconnectedness. The current problems in science, as observed by the present author and extensively put forward by leading scientists all over the world, are listed, and a set of potential solutions is tentatively offered.

The Definition of Sovereign: Comparative Analysis of J. Austin's and C. Schmitt's Concepts

The purpose of this research article is to compare the concepts of John Austin and Carl Schmitt on the definition of sovereign - finding the similarities and differences between them. The article analyzes the constitutional law of such states as the Russian Federation and the Vatican City State as a practical application of the results of comparing the concepts of determining the sovereign. In the analysis of the constitutional law of the Russian Federation, the results of the study of the concept of John Austin are used, and in the analysis of the constitutional law of the Vatican City State, the results of the study of the concept of Carl Schmitt are used. The subject of research, the definition of sovereign, is one of the most important topics of Theory of State and Law, therefore, everything stated in the article contributes to the development of understanding of statehood and legal systems and opens new opportunities for study and discussion in the scientific world.

The Impact of Performance Enhancement on Value of Care in Hospitals

Hospitals are facing big challenges: decreasing reimbursements are going alongside increasing costs and the necessity of investments. At the same time occurring, excellent quality of care, and high-patient satisfaction have to be assured. The dilemma of providing both with decreasing rather than increasing resources cannot be solved only by striving for economies of scale, but by optimizing supply chain management, or reduction of overhead. Possible effects of these measures most often are already exhausted and seldom have a positive impact on the quality of care or patient satisfaction. Management is tempted to use its best-known instruments to reduce costs, while medical staff's focus is on quality of care and often battle against management as a perceived enemy. The solution to this dilemma lies in focusing on medical core processes that are directly linked to patients' treatments and, thereby improving all the parameters of Michael Porter's value equation: costs, outcome, and patient satisfaction. This approach of performance enhancement presumes understanding, acceptance, and constructive collaboration of two usually separated worlds: The medical-scientific world involved in patient care and the financial world of management. In this article, the authors explain performance enhancement for optimized delivery of care and how the dilemma mentioned above can be solved. The authors explain how performance enhancement can be achieved in daily clinical practice, which kind of obstacles have to be overcome, which changes are necessary within a hospital, how medical staff can be motivated, and how the value of care equation can be influenced.

Pre stimulation by gibberellic acid and the effect of extremely diluted agitated gibberellic acid on wheat stalk growth

Background: In previous multicentre studies[1,2], the influence of a homeopathic ultra high dilution of gibberellic acid on wheat growth was scrutinized. Data showed that this test dilution slowed down stalk growth when experiments were performed in autumn season. Aim: To test the hypothesis that pre treatment of grains with high concentrations of gibberellic acid will enhance the effect of the ultra high dilution of the plant hormone Methods: Grains of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) were observed under the influence of extremely diluted gibberellic acid (10-30) prepared by stepwise dilution and agitation according to a protocol derived from homeopathy (“G30x”). Analogously prepared water was used for control (“W30x”). Grains (500 or 1000 per group) were pre treated with (not agitated) gibberellic acid 10-5, 10-4 and 10-3 (“Ge-5, Ge-4, Ge-3”) or with water (“W”) for control prior to treatment with G30x or W30x. Seedlings were allowed to develop under standardized conditions for 7 days; plants were harvested and stalk lengths were measured. Results: With regard to pre treatment, it can be seen that the groups treated with Ge-3 showed most growth, followed by the Ge-4 groups, the Ge-5 groups and the non pre treated W groups. This decline is modulated by the application of G30x and W30x (figure 1). The lower the pre treatment concentration of G, the more marked is a slowing down effect of G30x versus W30x. Conclusion: The hypothesis that pre treatment of grains with high concentrations of gibberellic acid will enhance the effect of G30x had to be rejected. In contrast, G30x slowed down stalk growth in the W group with p < 0.001 but only moderately in the Ge-5 and Ge-4 group and not at all in the Ge-3 group. Keywords: homeopathy, wheat stalk growth, gibberellic acid, high dilution References: [1] Pfleger A., Hofäcker J., Scherer-Pongratz W., Lothaller H., Reich C., Endler P.C. The effect of extremely diluted agitated gibberellic acid (10e-30) on wheat seedling development – a two researcher study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine 2011; 19: 164-169. [2] Endler PC, Matzer W, Reich C, Reischl T, Hartmann AM, Thieves K, Pfleger A, Hofäcker J, Lothaller H, Scherer-Pongratz W. Seasonal variation of the effect of extremely diluted agitated gibberellic acid (10e-30) on wheat stalk growth – a multi researcher study. The Scientific World Journal 2011; 11: 1667-1678.

Qualitative-Quantitative Assessment of Geodiversity of Western Samoa (SW Pacific) to Identify Places of Interest for Further Geoconservation, Geoeducation, and Geotourism Development

The assessment of geodiversity is a relatively new field of research connecting abiotic aspects of nature to the wider environment. The study of geodiversity is still in development, so a uniform and complete paradigm remains to be defined. Therefore, an assessment of geodiversity may be highly dependent on the nature of the territory subject to study, available databases, and the researchers’ field of specialization. The main quantitative method for the assessment of geodiversity was proposed to the scientific world only few years ago and may only be relevant to some places in the world, rather than all, which would be desirable. However, while similarities in research methods may be apparent, the directions, scales, and data utilized are clearly different. This article demonstrates a quantitative-qualitative method for an assessment of geodiversity, based on a five-point evaluation system and the utilization of widely available standard databases such as geological maps, SRTM models, and satellite images. Western Samoa Islands (Savai’i and Upolu Islands) were selected for assessment, as a typical example of basaltic ocean island volcanism generating relatively homogenous rock formations and subject to gradual geomorphology (e.g., shield volcano). While initially appearing as a region of simple geology and morphology, complexity is added by considering rock ages, the position and type of eruptive centres, and the coastal geoenvironment. By considering these factors, the assessment becomes specifically tailoring for geodiversity assessment of the islands of Samoa. In conclusion, it has been demonstrated a simple methodology of general assessment of geodiversity with additional improvements to take account of variability in other abiotic factors.