Effects of housing environment on oral absorption of acetaminophen in healthy Beagles

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of housing environment on oral absorption of acetaminophen in dogs. ANIMALS 6 healthy Beagles. PROCEDURES Acetaminophen (325 mg, PO; mean dose, 31.1 mg/kg) was administered in a crossover study design with dogs housed in their normal environment or in a cage in an unfamiliar environment. There was a 7-day washout period between phases. Blood samples were collected for 24 hours following acetaminophen administration, and plasma acetaminophen concentrations were determined with high-pressure liquid chromatography. RESULTS A 2-compartment model with lag time was the best fit for both phases of the study. None of the primary or secondary pharmacokinetic parameters were significantly different between the 2 housing environments. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Findings suggested that in dogs, housing environment (normal environment vs a cage in an unfamiliar environment) did not significantly affect oral absorption and, by extension, gastric emptying of acetaminophen.

The Impact of the Pandemic on the Maintaining Happiness at Work

During the pandemic, it became especially difficult for companies to maintain employee engagement and motivation. They are cut off from the normal environment and work team, no longer have social relationships with colleagues, which leads to a natural decrease in emotional connection with the company, a sense of belonging and loyalty. In today's environment, the challenge is to manage, attract and retain talent, further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the period of working from home, as a result of the experience gained in the new reality, employees have other requirements that the company must meet. The transition to remote work in early 2020 has forced employees to develop new skills and become more familiar with technologies, manage tasks and solve problems online. It is true that some did more remote work, some less and some did not like it at all, but the fact is that it showed them new opportunities, and companies were challenged - how to maintain and increase the employee happiness index during the pandemic and post-pandemic period. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the impact of the pandemic on maintaining a happiness index at work and to assess employees' attitudes towards remote work in general. How did the changes in work regime and environment during the pandemic affect employees and their job satisfaction? - In order to identify these factors, a study was conducted in Georgia, in which 200 employees participated and the results of which are given in this article.

Excessive mechanical strain accelerates intervertebral disc degeneration by disrupting intrinsic circadian rhythm

Night shift workers with disordered rhythmic mechanical loading are more prone to intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD). Our results showed that circadian rhythm (CR) was dampened in degenerated and aged NP cells. Long-term environmental CR disruption promoted IDD in rats. Excessive mechanical strain disrupted the CR and inhibited the expression of core clock proteins. The inhibitory effect of mechanical loading on the expression of extracellular matrix genes could be reversed by BMAL1 overexpression in NP cells. The Rho/ROCK pathway was demonstrated to mediate the effect of mechanical stimulation on CR. Prolonged mechanical loading for 12 months affected intrinsic CR genes and induced IDD in a model of upright posture in a normal environment. Unexpectedly, mechanical loading further accelerated the IDD in an Light-Dark (LD) cycle-disrupted environment. These results indicated that intrinsic CR disruption might be a mechanism involved in overloading-induced IDD and a potential drug target for night shift workers.

The Impact of the Pandemic on the Maintaining Happiness at Work

During the pandemic, it became especially difficult for companies to maintain employee engagement and motivation. They are cut off from the normal environment and work team, no longer have social relationships with colleagues, which leads to a natural decrease in emotional connection with the company, a sense of belonging and loyalty. In today's environment, the challenge is to manage, attract and retain talent, further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the period of working from home, as a result of the experience gained in the new reality, employees have other requirements that the company must meet. The transition to remote work in early 2020 has forced employees to develop new skills and become more familiar with technologies, manage tasks and solve problems online. It is true that some did more remote work, some less and some did not like it at all, but the fact is that it showed them new opportunities, and companies were challenged - how to maintain and increase the employee happiness index during the pandemic and post-pandemic period. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the impact of the pandemic on maintaining a happiness index at work and to assess employees' attitudes towards remote work in general. How did the changes in work regime and environment during the pandemic affect employees and their job satisfaction? - In order to identify these factors, a study was conducted in Georgia, in which 200 employees participated and the results of which are given in this article.

Durability Investigation of Sulfur and Traditional Concrete within Aggressive Environments

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate durability (compressive strength and mass loss%) in the modified sulfur concrete within aggressive environments. The modified sulfur concrete was prepared by adding recycled polymeric and filler materials that showed a noticeable enhancement for modified sulfur concrete characteristics. A durability comparison between modified sulfur concrete and traditional concrete was investigated at normal and aggressive environments (10% HCl and 3% NaCl). A cuboid shape with size (50 × 50 × 50mm) was used in this research to investigate the durability of both modified sulfur and traditional concrete. The modified sulfur concrete characteristics revealed high stable structure than traditional due to preventing a process of crystallization of sulfur that modified with polymer and fillers. The compressive strength was 10.87 – 22.5% increased for modified sulfur concrete compared to the traditional concrete at the normal environment. In the aggressive environments, the modified sulfur concrete illustrated high resistance strength compared to the traditional concrete. The comparison revealed a significant impact for 10% HCl and 3% NaCl on the traditional concrete. The compressive strength decreased between (88.78 – 96.17) % for traditional concrete compared to modified sulfur concrete in 10% HCl solution and (84.25 – 95.06) % in 3% NaCl solution. Furthermore, mass loss % of the modified sulfur concrete indicated high resistance compared to the traditional concrete in both 10% HCl and 3% NaCl solutions.

Effect of Sodium Silicate and Salicylic Acid on Sodium and Potassium Ratio in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Grown Under Salt Stress

Purpose Salinity pose severe threat to cultivation as it drastically affects the plant sustainability and yield. The intended aim of current consensus is to assess effects of sodium silicate and salicylic acid on wheat genotypes (slat tolerant and salt sensitive) grown under salt. Methods This experiment was designed to check the effect of silicon on wheat varieties, so four different wheat genotypes named as (Umeed, Rasco, Zarghoon and Shahkaar) were grown in hydroponics under saline and normal environment. Sodium silicate and salicylic acid were applied on all varieties to determine the slat tolerance ability. Plants were harvested at maturity and different physical and chemical aspects were recorded. Results To assess the salt stress on growth and yield of wheat genotypes. Wheat grown in saline conditions with sodium silicate supplementation showed improvement in all growth parameters as compared to the plants grown under salt stress without silicon supplementation. Higher contents of potassium were observed in plants grown under salt stress with silicon supplementation however, potassium concentration was found less in salicylic acid treatment and control under salt stress. Sodium concentration was found higher under salt stress but sodium silicate application reduced Na+ uptake under salt stress. Significance increase in K+ : Na+ ratio in roots enhance the translocation which in turn elevates salt tolerance ability. Among wheat varieties potassium uptake was quite high in Umeed and Rasco as compared to Zarghoon and Shahkar. Conclusion Based on current results it can be deduced that application of sodium silicate on different wheat varieties mitigated Na+ toxicity by elevating K+: Na+ ratio and net translocation rate in salt stressed plants.

Effect of early exogenous supplementation of rhIGF-1 on oxygen-induced retinopathy in a mice model of prematurity, and on expressions of IGF-1 and VEGF

Purpose: To investigate the effect of early exogenous supplementation of recombinant human insulinlike growth factor (rhIGF-1) on oxygen-induced mouse model of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: Three groups of healthy SPF grade C57BL/6 mice were used in this study, with 20 mice in each group. Hyperoxia saline (HS) and hyperoxia rhIGF-1 (HrGF) groups were placed in a closed oxygen chamber for one week and returned to the normal environment on the 15th day. The hyperoxia rhIGF-1 (HrGF) group was intraperitoneally injected with rhIGF-1 (1.5 mg/kg), while mice in high-oxygen saline (HS) group received normal saline. The air group (AG) was untreated. Changes in retinal blood vessel distributions, expression levels of serum IGF-1 and VEGF, and retinal IGF-1 and VEGF were determined. Results: On day 20, pronounced neo-vascularization was observed, but the distribution was disordered. Serum IGF-1 levels in AG and HrGF were significantly higher than that in HS group, but VEGF level was lower in HS mice (p < 0.05). VEGF level in hyperoxia rhIGF-1 group on days 11 and 15 decreased, relative to control value, while retinal IGF-1 and VEGF in AG and hyperoxia rhIGF-1 mice were elevated, relative to corresponding values in HS mice (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Early exogenous supplementation of rhIGF-1 exerts a therapeutic effect on ROP. Thus, rhIGF-1 may be a potential drug regimen for ROP in clinics.

The effects of combined environmental factors on the intestinal flora of mice based on ground simulation experiments

The composition and function of intestinal microbial communities are important for human health. However, these intestinal floras are sensitive to changes in the environment. Adverse changes to intestinal flora can affect the health of astronauts, resulting in difficulties in implementing space missions. We randomly divided mice into three groups and placed each group in either a normal environment, simulated microgravity environment or a combined effects environment, which included simulated microgravity, low pressure and noise. Fecal samples of the mice were collected for follow-up analysis based on metagenomics technology. With the influence of different space environmental factors, the species composition at the phylum and genus levels were significantly affected by the combined effects environment, especially the abundance of the Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, screening was conducted to identify biomarkers that could be regarded as environmental markers. And there have also been some noticeable changes in the function of intestinal floras. Moreover, the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) was also found to be changed under different environmental conditions, such as bacitracin and vancomycin. The combined effects environment could significantly affect the species composition, function, and the expression of ARGs of intestinal flora of mice which may provide a theoretical basis for space medical supervision and healthcare.

A New Hydrogen Sensor Fault Diagnosis Method Based on Transfer Learning With LeNet-5

The fault safety monitoring of hydrogen sensors is very important for their practical application. The precondition of traditional machine learning methods for sensor fault diagnosis is that enough fault data with the same distribution and feature space under the same working environment must exist. Widely used fault diagnosis methods are not suitable for real working environments because they are easily complicated by environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, shock, and vibration. Under the influence of such complex conditions, the acquisition of sensor fault data is limited. In order to improve fault diagnosis accuracy under complex environmental conditions, a novel method of transfer learning (TL) with LeNet-5 is proposed in this paper. Firstly, LeNet-5 is applied to learn the features of the data-rich datasets of gas sensor faults in a normal environment and to adjust the parameters accordingly. The parameters of the LeNet-5 are transferred from the task in the normal environment to a task in a complex environment by using the TL method. Then, the migrated LeNet-5 is used for the fault diagnosis of gas sensors with a small amount of fault data in a complex environment. Finally, a prototype hydrogen sensor array is designed and implemented for experimental verification. The gas sensor fault diagnosis accuracy of the traditional LeNet-5 was 88.48 ± 1.04%, while the fault diagnosis accuracy of TL with LeNet-5 was 92.49 ± 1.28%. The experimental results show that the method adopted presents an excellent solution for the fault diagnosis of a hydrogen sensor using a small quantity of fault data obtained under complex environmental conditions.