ABSTRACT
Introduction: Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) catalyses production of nitric oxide during an inflammatory stimuli and is a signature marker of M1-like microglia/macrophages. iNOS mRNA and protein were found in brain lesions of MS patients however its role in demyelination remains unclear. We employed RSA59, a mild hepatoneurotropic strain of Mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) which in 4-weeks-old C57BL/6 mice causes biphasic CNS disease characterised by acute neuroinflammation (day5 p.i.) and chronic demyelination and axonal loss (day30 p.i.). Microglia/ macrophages are central to the disease pathology and require assistance from infiltrating CD4+ T cells to mount protective host immune response. The CNS immune interactions during the acute-adaptive transition stage thus determine disease trajectory. Objective(s): To understand the role of iNOS in microglia/macrophage and peripheral T cell communication and assess its effect on demyelination. Aim(s): To study the role of iNOS in demyelination. Method(s): 4-5-weeks-old MHV-free wildtype C57BL/6 (WT) and iNOS knockout (iNOS-/-) mice were infected intracranially with 20000 or 10000 pfus of RSA59 and assessed daily for weight loss and disease score. Mice were sacrificed at day9/10 and day30 p.i. CNS viral titers were detected by plaque assay. Transcript levels of anti-inflammatory and phagocytic M2-like phenotype markers were analysed by qRT PCR. Differential CNS immune cell infiltration was assessed by flow cytometry. LFB and Iba1 staining was used to study demyelination and microglia/macrophage activation in the CNS. Result(s): iNOS-/- mice infected with RSA59 at 20000 pfus exhibited aggravated disease and high mortality at the acute-adaptive transition stage i.e., day9/10 p.i. as compared to wildtype controls despite being no differences in virus clearance by the CNS. Histopathology at this stage showed early demyelination in the spinal cords accompanied by presence of amoeboid microglia macrophages;high CNS mRNA expression of M2-like phenotype markers, TGFbeta, Arg1, CD206 and TREM2;and more infiltration of T regulatory cells. iNOS-/- mice infected at low pfus of virus i.e., 10000 also showed significantly more chronic demyelination at day30 p.i. Conclusion(s): Our studies reveal a protective role of iNOS against RSA59 induced demyelination by regulating the CNS inflammatory phenotype specifically the phenotypic transition of microglia/macrophages and thereby their interaction with peripheral immune cells.
ABSTRACT
Fresh fruits and vegetables carry a heavy load of microorganisms which may cause the risks of food-borne illness to the consumer. Even after washing with water, there is a need for sanitization and disinfection to drop down a load of harmful microbes under the safe limit. Sanitizers and disinfectants are not only cost-effective but also nonhazardous and eco-friendly. Moreover, they should not hamper the organoleptic and nutritional properties of fresh produce. With rising demand for safe, nutritious, and fresh fruits and vegetables, many new disinfectants and treatments are commercially available. During this COVID-19 outbreak, knowledge of sanitizers and disinfectants for fresh fruits and vegetables is very important. This review focuses on working principles, applications, and related legislation of physical and chemical disinfection technologies (chlorine, chlorine dioxide, ozone, organic acids, electrolyzed water, irradiation, ultrasound etc.) and their effectiveness for shelf-life extension of fresh produce.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the saturation of public health services worldwide. In this scenario, the early diagnosis of SARS-Cov-2 infections can help to stop or slow the spread of the virus and to manage the demand upon health services. This is especially important when resources are also being stretched by heightened demand linked to other seasonal diseases, such as the flu. In this context, the organisers of the DiCOVA 2021 challenge have collected a database with the aim of diagnosing COVID-19 through the use of coughing audio samples. This work presents the details of the automatic system for COVID-19 detection from cough recordings presented by team PANACEA. This team consists of researchers from two European academic institutions and one company: EURECOM (France), University of Granada (Spain), and Biometric Vox S.L. (Spain). We developed several systems based on established signal processing and machine learning methods. Our best system employs a Teager energy operator cepstral coefficients (TECCs) based frontend and Light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) backend. The AUC obtained by this system on the test set is 76.31% which corresponds to a 10% improvement over the official baseline.
ABSTRACT
The current outbreak of a coronavirus, has quickly escalated to become a serious global problem that has now been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization. Infectious diseases know no borders, so when it comes to controlling outbreaks, timing is absolutely essential. It is so important to detect threats as early as possible, before they spread. After a first successful DiCOVA challenge, the organisers released second DiCOVA challenge with the aim of diagnosing COVID-19 through the use of breath, cough and speech audio samples. This work presents the details of the automatic system for COVID-19 detection using breath, cough and speech recordings. We developed different front-end auditory acoustic features along with a bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (bi-LSTM) as classifier. The results are promising and have demonstrated the high complementary behaviour among the auditory acoustic features in the Breathing, Cough and Speech tracks giving an AUC of 86.60% on the test set. © 2022 IEEE
ABSTRACT
Fresh fruits and vegetables carry a heavy load of microorganisms which may cause the risks of food-borne illness to the consumer. Even after washing with water, there is a need for sanitization and disinfection to drop down a load of harmful microbes under the safe limit. Sanitizers and disinfectants are not only cost-effective but also nonhazardous and eco-friendly. Moreover, they should not hamper the organoleptic and nutritional properties of fresh produce. With rising demand for safe, nutritious, and fresh fruits and vegetables, many new disinfectants and treatments are commercially available. During this COVID-19 outbreak, knowledge of sanitizers and disinfectants for fresh fruits and vegetables is very important. This review focuses on working principles, applications, and related legislation of physical and chemical disinfection technologies (chlorine, chlorine dioxide, ozone, organic acids, electrolyzed water, irradiation, ultrasound etc.) and their effectiveness for shelf-life extension of fresh produce. Novelty impact statement: This review article gives comprehensive information about potential sanitizers and disinfectants for fresh produce discussing their mechanisms and relevant legislation in one place. The article will help the readers to opt for the suitable method for disinfecting fresh produce and also will provide a reference to use these methods within permissible limits as per legislation. Such information is very much relevant in the present Covid-19 pandemic scenario. © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.