The Role of miRNAs as New Molecular Biomarkers for Dating the Age of Wound Production: A Systematic Review

Background:The timing of wounds production is a significant issue in forensic pathology. Although various methods have been evaluated, obtaining an accurate dating of lesions is still a challenge. The pathologist uses many parameters to value wound age, such as histological and immunohistochemical. In recent years, there have been many studies regarding the use of miRNAs in wound-age estimation; indeed, miRNAs have multiple potential uses in forensic pathology.Scope:This review aims to verify the efficacy and feasibility of miRNAs as a tool for determining the timing of lesions.Materials and Methods:The authors conducted the systematic review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. PubMed was used as a search engine to find articles published between January, 1st 2016 and October, 1st 2021, to evaluate the current state of the art regarding wound-age estimation.Results:A total of 256 articles were collected; after screening according to PRISMA guidelines, the systematic review included 8 articles. The studies included in this review were all Original articles evaluating the use of biomarkers for wound-age determination.Discussion and Conclusion:The literature review showed that analysis of miRNA is an innovative field of study with significant potentiality in forensic pathology. There are few studies, and almost all of them are at an early stage. The challenge is to understand how to standardize the samples' selection to obtain reliable experimental data. This observation represents a necessary prerequisite to planning further clinical trials.

Hofmeister Effect in RT-QuIC Seeding Activity of Chronic Wasting Disease Prions

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that causes a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cervids. Cases of CWD are rapidly increasing in North America among wild and farmed cervid populations, and potential for zoonotic transmission is not yet determined. Therefore, in order to manage the disease, it is imperative to devise a system that can detect CWD during its early phases to prevent spread to new captive herds through introduction of CWD-affected animals into otherwise CWD-free herds. Real-time quaking–induced conversion (RT-QuIC) assays have been applied to detect the presence of disease-associated prions from various samples in both animals and humans. In this study, we have tested the use of five Hofmeister anions that range from weakly hydrating to strongly hydrating: Na3citrate, Na2SO4, NaCl, NaI, and NaClO4 in RT-QuIC reactions for CWD seeding activity using different recombinant prion proteins as substrates. This work shows how the ionic environment of the RT-QuIC reaction can enhance or diminish the seeding activity. The use of Na2SO4 or NaI as the sodium salt for RT-QuIC using bank vole recombinant prion substrate for the detection of CWD using brain samples reduces the lag time to detect with reasonable specificity. For detection of the CWD in fecal samples, only NaI showed comparable reduction in lag time relative to NaCl but required reduced temperature to alleviate spontaneous fibril formation in negative control samples. Selection of the proper ion environment and recombinant prion protein substrate will make RT-QuIC a powerful diagnostic tool for early detection of CWD prions, further supporting CWD surveillance in wild and captive cervids.

Pyrolytic data verification in potential assessment and catagenetic transformation of the Proterozoic low-carbon formations of Eastern Siberia

The ancient Precambrian formations of Eastern Siberia include oil and gas source rock (SR) interlayers, but in most cases, they can’t be classified as high-carbon ones, because the actual organic carbon content in these strata is low and rarely exceeds 10%. This point effect the approach to the available geochemical data interpretation and the method of quality samples selection. The aim of the work was to determine methods for pyrolytic data verification and the oil and gas Lower Vendian SR quality assess, that based on the results of geochemical researches. It was identified, that before SR catagenetic transformation analyzation by the Tmax parameter and determining the OM type, samples with a low generation potential or with the migrated bitumen presence should be excluded from the consideration. The presence of secondary epigenetic bitumen also indicates the active HC fluids migration within the basin. After data verification, the SR properties were assessed. So lower Vendian SRs have OM with a satisfactory and high generation potential, second type and low maturity in most cases. The oil and gas window zones are located within large depressions and troughs. In addition, the local heating was noted in zones with a large number of faults, where the heating was conducted due to the intrusions introduction and the hydrothermal fluids action.

A Knowledge-Based Auxiliary Channel STAP for Target Detection in Shipborne HFSWR

The broadened first-order sea clutter in shipborne high frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR), which will mask the targets with low radial velocity, is a kind of classical space–time coupled clutter. Space–time adaptive processing (STAP) has been proven to be an effective clutter suppression algorithm for space-time coupled clutter. To further improve the efficiency of clutter suppression, a STAP method based on a generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) structure, named as the auxiliary channel STAP, was introduced into shipborne HFSWR. To obtain precise clutter information for the clutter covariance matrix (CCM) estimation, an approach based on the prior knowledge to auxiliary channel selection is proposed. Auxiliary channels are selected along the clutter ridge of the first-order sea clutter, whose distribution can be determined by the system parameters and regarded as pre-knowledge. To deal with the heterogeneity of the spreading first-order sea clutter, an innovative training samples selection approach according to the Riemannian distance is presented. The range cells that had shorter Riemannian distances to the cell under test (CUT) were chosen as training samples. Experimental results with measured data verified the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and the comparison with the existing clutter suppression algorithms showed the superiority of the algorithm.

ASSESSMENT OF THE DEGREE OF POLLUTION OF BOTTOM SEDIMENTS IN SMALL RIVERS OF ROSTOV REGION

Purpose: to study the degree of pollution of bottom sediments of small rivers of the Rostov region. Materials and Methods: the research was carried out in 2019–2020 according to the decree of the Government of Rostov region of 25.09.2013 no. 595 and in accordance with the orders of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment no. 432 of 08.10.2014 and no. 112 of 24.02.2014. The work on monitoring the pollution of bottom sediments carried out by the authors included: samples selection, description, conservation, delivery and preparation; conducting an integral assessment of toxicity. The studies were carried out on microalgae according to the biotesting method for inhibiting the growth of unicellular algae Chlorella vulgaris Beijer and ciliates Paramecium caudatum. A sample was considered toxic if the value of the toxic effect was 50 % or more. In case of detecting high toxicity, the repeated sampling to determine the prevailing priority and specific pollutants was carried out. Results: according to the approved research program, 70 samples (33 in 2019, 37 in 2020) at 21 water bodies were selected. As a result of an integrated assessment of the toxicity of bottom sediments of water bodies, an excess was revealed only in two samples taken in 2019 at the site of the river Temernik. Conclusions: the results of biotesting did not reveal an excess of the permissible toxicity values in all areas of water bodies, except for the river Temernik, where a slight excess was revealed (55 %). In this case, when forming a program for the environmental protection measures implementation, more attention should be paid to a number of other environmental problems of water bodies in the region, among which a special place is taken by low water associated with both climate change and excessive water consumption for the needs of economic activities, land plowing to the water's edge, washing out dams and other blocking structures, including due to improper functioning of culverts.

Thyroid Extraction Based on Artificial Immune Network with Firefly Algorithm in Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Image

Thyroid extraction from single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) image is an important primary work for medical image analysis and computer aided diagnosis. However, SPECT image of thyroid does not have a clear margin boundary compared with ultrasound or CT images. A thyroid extraction method for SPECT Image based on artificial immune network that is optimized with firefly algorithm is developed. Artificial immune network is employed for discovering the correlation between spatial distance and pixel value by samples selection, and firefly algorithm with adaptive step is used for optimization the samples selection. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is efficient with less extraction error which is superior to other extraction methods. The average error of the proposed method is 21.9% and 14.4% less than that of sampling method and global sampling method, respectively. And the proposed method is also robust for initial regions with varies radius. The experiments reveal that the proposed method is more efficient than other sampling methods with different trimaps.