The Uptake of Ethinyl-Estradiol and Cortisol From Water by Mussels (Mytilus spp.)

Previous toxicokinetic studies have shown that mussels (Mytilus spp.) can readily absorb the three main mammalian sex steroids, estradiol (E2), testosterone (T) and progesterone (P) from water. They also have a strong ability to store E2 and the 5α-reduced metabolites of T and P in the form of fatty acid esters. These esters were shown to have half-lives that were measured in weeks (i.e. they were not subject to fast depuration). The present study looked at the toxicokinetic profile of two other common steroids that are found in water, the potent synthetic oestrogen, (ethinyl-estradiol) (EE2; one of the two components of ‘the pill’), and cortisol, a natural stress steroid in vertebrates. In the first three hours of uptake, tritiated EE2 was found to be taken up at a similar rate to tritiated E2. However, the levels in the water plateaued sooner than E2. The ability of the animals to both esterify and sulphate EE2 was found to be much lower than E2, but nevertheless did still take place. After 24 h of exposure, the majority of radiolabelled EE2 in the animals was present in the form of free steroid, contrary to E2, which was esterified. This metabolism was reflected in a much lower half-life (of only 15 h for EE2 in the mussels as opposed to 8 days for E2 and >10 days for T and P). Intriguingly, hardly any cortisol (in fact none at all in one of the experiments) was absorbed by the mussels. The implications of this finding in both toxicokinetic profiling and evolutionary significance (why cortisol might have evolved as a stress steroid in bony fishes) are discussed.

Performance Evaluation of Diagnostic Assays for Detection and Classification of Carbapenemase-Producing Organisms

Rapid and accurate detection can help optimize patient treatment and improve infection control against nosocomial carbapenemase-producing organisms (CPO). In this study, a total of 217 routine clinical isolates (Enterobacterales and A. baumannii), including 178 CPOs and 39 non-CPOs, were tested to evaluate the performance of six phenotypic carbapenemase detection and classification assays, i.e., BD Phoenix CPO detect panel, Rapidec Carba-NP, O.K.N detection kit, and three carbapenem inactivation methods (CIMs; mCIM, eCIM, sCIM). The overall detection sensitivity and specificity were 98.78% (95.21–99.79%) and 79.49% (63.06–90.13%), respectively, for the BD phoenix CPO P/N test; 91.93% (86.30–95.45%) and 100% (88.83–100%), respectively, for the Rapidec Carba-NP; 98.06% (94.00–99.50%) and 97.44% (84.92–99.87%), respectively, for mCIM; and 96.89% (92.52–98.85%) and 94.87% (81.37–99.11%), respectively, for sCIM. The classification sensitivity and specificity for the BD phoenix CPO Ambler test, the O.K.N detection kit, and the mCIM and eCIM were 56.71% (48.75–64.34%) and 94.87% (81.37–99.11%), 99.28% (95.43–99.96%) and 100% (88.83–100%), and 92.90% (87.35–96.23%) and 97.44% (84.92–99.87%), respectively. All detection assays were reliable in detecting carbapenemase. However, the Rapidec Carba-NP and mCIM were insufficient in detecting OXA-48-like enzymes. The BD phoenix CPO detect panel had a strong ability to detect carbapenemase but failed to classify 48/59 (81.36%) KPC, 8/52 (15.38%) NDM, 8/22 (36.36%) OXA-23-like, and 6/11 (54.55%) dual enzymes. The O.K.N detection kit accurately detected and differentiated KPC, NDM, and OXA-48-like enzymes existing alone or in combination. The results of this study will support reliable laboratory work tools and promote therapeutic and infection control decisions.

Development and field application of downhole crosslinking plugging agent

There were mainly cement slurry, bridge plugging and polymer gel plugging materials for fracture loss circulation and fractured/caved loss circulation. The downhole crosslinking plugging agent was researched for the plugging agents’ respective limitations leaded to low success rate of plugging and longer construction period. This kind of plug agent is consistent with emulsion, phase inversion agent and crosslinking agent. It could form a high strength elastomer when the plug agent is pumped into the leaking layer and mixed with a certain amount of water. The elastomer with strong ability could offer good resident ability to reduce cement slurry thickening by underground water and plugging mud, and increased the ratio of success. The experimental results showed that crosslinking time wasn’t affected by temperature, salt water, drilling cuttings, bentonite mud and other pollutants. The plug agent has been successfully used in several wells of the sixth block in Sudan.

Relationship between Business Administration Ability and Innovation Ability Formation of University Students Based on Data Mining and Empirical Research

With the continuous development of science and technology, the scale of education is slowly expanding, but at the same time, what is more important is the quality of higher education. This issue has also become a hot topic of concern for the society nowadays. Higher education, which is at the top of the education chain, has the important task of training talents for society. The cultivation of talents includes not only the ability to innovate but also the ability to manage business. The purpose of this paper is to study and empirically analyze the relationship between business administration competency and innovation competency formation among university students based on data mining (DM). This paper mainly uses the K-means algorithm in DM to extract relevant data and then conducts a questionnaire survey to analyze the innovation ability and business administration ability of university students; the results showed that 24 respondents considered their innovation ability is relatively poor, accounting for 20.98%; 137 respondents considered their innovation ability is average, accounting for 47.9% of the total, nearly half; and 65 respondents thought that their innovation ability is relatively strong. In the end, 60 respondents thought that their innovation ability is very strong and half of the respondents thought that their innovation ability is generally poor. Generally speaking, the tests have a strong ability to innovate. The evaluation is generally average.

Potassium Bioavailability in a Tropical Kaolinitic Soil

Some plant species are able to acquire non-exchangeable forms of K, which improve K availability and cycling in cropping systems, and which may explain the lack of response to K. However, this would not be expected in soils dominated by kaolinite. The aim of this study was to assess non-exchangeable K (Kne) use by three selected plant species grown in a tropical Haplic Plinthosol with low exchangeable K (Ke). A greenhouse experiment was conducted with soybean (Glycine max L., Merr.), maize (Zea mays L.), and ruzigrass (Urochloa ruziziensis) with or without K fertilization for three growing cycles. The crop treatments were compared with a control without plants. In the absence of K fertilization, all the tested plants were able to use non-exchangeable K and non-exchangeable K contributed more than 80% of the K demand of the plants in the first growing cycle, even in this kaolinitic soil. In the first growing cycle, soybean and maize took up more non-exchangeable K than ruzigrass, concomitant with higher dry matter yields. Over the three crop cycles, as both biomass yield and K uptake decreased in the unfertilized systems, the dependence of plants on non-exchangeable K decreased. Unfertilized ruzigrass showed a strong ability to acquire non-exchangeable K from the soil. Over the course of three growing cycles, K application decreased the absolute uptake of non-exchangeable K as well as its fractional contribution to total K uptake by the crops.

Differential Effects of Polyphenols on Insulin Proteolysis by the Insulin-Degrading Enzyme

The insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) possesses a strong ability to degrade insulin and Aβ42 that has been linked to the neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Given this, an attractive IDE-centric strategy for the development of therapeutics for AD is to boost IDE’s activity for the clearance of Aβ42 without offsetting insulin proteostasis. Recently, we showed that resveratrol enhances IDE’s activity toward Aβ42. In this work, we used a combination of chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques to investigate the effects of resveratrol on IDE’s activity toward insulin. For comparison, we also studied epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). Our results show that the two polyphenols affect the IDE-dependent degradation of insulin in different ways: EGCG inhibits IDE while resveratrol has no effect. These findings suggest that polyphenols provide a path for developing therapeutic strategies that can selectively target IDE substrate specificity.

Physiological Acclimation of Dicranostigma henanensis to Soil Drought Stress and Rewatering

The adaptability of plants to drought not only includes their ability to resist drought stress, but also their ability to recover after stress is relieved. In this study, a weighting method was used to control the soil water content to produce a soil water stress gradient. The effects of drought and rewatering on the changes in osmotic adjustment substance content, antioxidant enzyme activity, and photosynthetic characteristics of potted Dicranostigma henanensis seedlings were measured on Day 28 after the imposition of watering treatments and Day 7 after rewatering. During the drought stress process, the relative electrical conductivity, thiobarbituric acid, water use efficiency, and proline content displayed a continuously increasing trend. Further, the net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate constantly decreased, while the chlorophyll content first increased and then decreased. After rehydration, superoxide dismutase (EC 1.15.1.1) activity and photosynthetic parameters quickly recovered to the CK level (soil moisture is 75%–80% of the maximum water holding capacity in the field), indicating that D. henanensis plants have a strong ability to repair the damage caused by drought stress. In particular, the photosynthetic machinery may have sophisticated regulation and repair mechanisms, which may be associated with its stable photosystem. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that the D. henanensis plant has a strong ability to adapt to arid environments, and therefore could be an excellent ornamental flower for landscaping in arid and semiarid areas.

Objective Evaluation of Satellite Precipitation Datasets for Heavy Precipitation Events Caused by Typhoons in the Philippines

Extreme weather events, such as typhoons, have occurred more frequently in the last few decades in the Philippines. The heavy precipitation caused by typhoons is difficult to measure with traditional instruments, such as rain gauges and ground-based radar, because these instruments have an uneven distribution in remote areas. Satellite precipitation datasets (SPDs) provide integrated spatial coverage of rainfall measurements, even for remote areas. This study performed subdaily (3-hour) assessments of SPDs (i.e., the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement [IMERG], Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation [GSMaP], and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks datasets) during five typhoon-related heavy precipitation events in the Philippines between 2016 and 2018. The aforementioned assessments were performed through a point-to-grid comparison by using continuous and volumetric statistical validation indices for the 34-knot wind radii of the typhoons, rainfall intensity, the terrain, and wind velocity effects. The results revealed that the IMERG exhibited good agreement with rain gauge measurements and exhibited high performance in detecting rainfall during five typhoon events, whereas the GSMaP exhibited high agreement during peak rainfall. All the SPDs tended to overestimate rainfall during light to moderate rainfall events and underestimate rainfall during heavy to extreme events. The IMERG exhibited a strong ability to detect moderate rainfall events (5–15 mm/3 hours), whereas the GSMaP exhibited superior performance in detecting heavy to extreme rainfall events (15–25, 25–50, and >50 mm/3 hours). The GSMaP exhibited the best performance for detecting heavy rainfall at high elevations, whereas the IMERG exhibited the best performance for rainfall detection at low elevations. The IMERG exhibited a strong ability to detect heavy rainfall under various wind speeds. A strong ability to detect heavy rainfall events for different wind speeds in the western and eastern parts of the mountainous region of Luzon were found for the GSMap and IMERG, respectively. This study demonstrated that the IMERG and GSMaP datasets exhibit promising performance in detecting heavy precipitation caused by typhoon events.

Effect of Fermentation Time On The Content of Bioactive Compounds With Cosmetic and Dermatological Properties in Kombucha Yerba Mate Extracts

Kombucha is a beverage made by fermenting sugared tea using a symbiotic culture of bacteria belonging to the genus Acetobacter, Gluconobacter, and the yeasts of the genus Saccharomyces along with glucuronic acid, contribute to health protection. The paper presents the evaluation of ferments as a potential cosmetic raw material obtained from Yerba Mate after different fermentation times with the addition of kombucha. Fermented and unfermented extracts were compared in terms of chemical composition and biological activity. Studies of antioxidant properties were carried out using DPPH and ABTS radicals. A significant decrease in the intracellular level of free radicals was also observed. Cytotoxicity was determined on keratinocyte and fibroblast cell lines, resulting in significant increase in cell viability for the ferments. In addition, the ferments showed strong ability to inhibit the activity of lipoxygenase and collagenase and elastase enzymes and long‐lasting hydration after their application on the skin. Extract obtained after 21 days of fermentation contained the highest amount of phenolic acids and xanthines. The results showed that both the analyzed Yerba Mate extract and the ferments obtained with kombucha may be valuable ingredients in cosmetic products.

Accuracy and Diagnostic Performance of Doppler Echocardiography to Estimate Mean Pulmonary Artery Pressure in Heart Failure

BACKGROUND. Multiple Doppler Echocardiography (DE) algorithms have been proposed to estimate mean pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and assess pulmonary hypertension (PH) likelihood. We assessed the accuracy of 4 different DE approaches to estimate PAP in patients with heart failure (HF) undergoing near-simultaneous right heart catheterization (RHC), and compared their diagnostic performance to identify PH with recommendation-advised tricuspid regurgitation peak velocity (TRV). METHODS. PAP was retrospectively assessed in 112 HF patients employing 4 previously validated DE algorithms. Association and agreement with invasive PAP were assessed. Diagnostic performance of DE methods vs. TRV=2.8m/sec to identify invasive PAP ≥ 25mmHg were compared. RESULTS. All DE algorithms demonstrated reasonable association (r = 0.41 to 0.65; p<0.001) and good agreement with invasive PAP, with relatively lower mean bias and higher precision observed in algorithms that included TRV or velocity time integral. All methods demonstrated strong ability (AUC=0.70-0.80; p<0.001) to identify PH but did not outperform TRV (AUC=0.84; p<0.001). Echocardiographic estimates of right atrial pressure were considered in 3 of 4 DE algorithms and falsely elevated in as many as 30% of patients. CONCLUSIONS. Echocardiographic estimates of PAP demonstrate reasonable accuracy to represent invasive PAP and strong ability to identify PH in HF. However, even the best performing algorithm did not outperform recommendation-advised TRV. The additional value of echocardiographic estimates of right atrial pressure may need to be re-evaluated.