Association between Donor Age and Osteogenic Potential of Human Adipose Stem Cells in Bone Tissue Engineering.

Adipose stem cells (ASCs) have multilineage differentiation capacity and hold great potential for regenerative medicine. Compared to bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (bmMSCs), ASCs are easier to isolate from abundant sources with significantly higher yields. It is generally accepted that bmMSCs show age-related changes in their proliferation and differentiation potentials, whereas this aspect is still controversial in the case of ASCs. In this review, we evaluated the existing data on the effect of donor age on the osteogenic potential of human ASCs. Overall, a poor agreement has been achieved because of inconsistent findings in the previous studies. Finally, we attempted to delineate the possible reasons behind the lack of agreements reported in the literature. ASCs represent a heterogeneous cell population, and the osteogenic potential of ASCs can be influenced by donor-related factors such as age, but also gender, lifestyle, and the underlying health and metabolic state of donors. Furthermore, future studies should consider experimental factors in in vitro conditions, including passaging, cryopreservation, culture conditions, variations in differentiation protocols, and readout methods.

Insights into the consequence of (Al-Zn) dual-doping on structural, morphological, and optoelectrical properties of CdO thin films.

The present study explores the structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of spray pyrolyzed (Al-Zn) dual-doped CdO thin films. The un-doped and (Al-Zn) dual-doped CdO thin films have been deposited on glass substrate using spray pyrolysis route at 325 °C. The physical properties of the doped samples were analyzed as a function of Zn concentration (2-5 mol%) with constant Al (3 mol%) concentration. XRD analysis confirms the successful incorporation of (Al-Zn) dual-doping into CdO crystal as well as the polycrystalline nature was evident. No phase transitions were apparent from XRD data while revealing the single cubic structure of all the samples. The surface morphology of the samples studied by SEM. It shows the formation of rock-shaped microstructure and the variation of grain size with doping concentrations. Optical analysis was done using UV-vis spectroscopy within the range of 300-1200 nm. Maximum value of transmittance was attained for 3% (Zn-Al)-doped CdO sample. The dual doping exhibits the broadening of band gap values (2.61-3.84 eV) whereas a decrease in extinction coefficient was noticed as a function of Zn doping concentration. Electrical analysis was done using the four-probe method and a high resistivity was seen for higher Zn concentration. Obtained results and precise comparison with some similar films suggested that 2% Zn and 3% Al co-doping can be a suitable candidate for optoelectronic devices.

Lessons from the field: compound-specific management in acute pesticide poisoning.

Pesticide poisoning is a common medical emergency in the rural tropics, with significant associated mortality. Pesticide poisoning is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide variety of substances with differing clinical toxidromes and outcomes. Despite this, confirmation of the specific compound ingested is rarely performed. In this Lessons from the Field, we argue that pesticide-specific management is integral to optimise management. Using data from a quality improvement project in Chittagong, Bangladesh, we demonstrate that identifying the specific compound is possible in most patients through careful history taking and examination of the pesticide bottle. Identification of the specific compound is essential for anticipating and reducing complications, administering appropriate and timely management and reducing the length of hospital stay and cost of unnecessary medical intervention.

Burnout syndrome among frontline doctors of secondary and tertiary care hospitals of Bangladesh during COVID-19 pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers had a high workload and were exposed to multiple psychosocial stressors. However, a knowledge gap exists about the levels of burnout among Bangladeshi frontline doctors during this COVID-19 pandemic. The study investigated burnout syndrome (BOS) among frontline doctors in two public secondary and tertiary care hospitals in Chattogram, Bangladesh. MATERIALS & METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved frontline doctors working at two hospitals treating COVID-19 and non-COVID patients from June to August 2020. A self-administered questionnaire that included Maslach Burnout Inventory for Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) was used to capture demographic and workplace environment information. ANOVA and t-test were used to determine the statistical differences in the mean values of the three dimensions of MBI-HSS. Scores for three domains of burnout: emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA) were calculated. Post-hoc analysis was done to identify the significant pair-wise differences when the ANOVA test result was significant. Multiple logistic regression was performed to determine the influence of factors associated with BOS. RESULTS: A total of 185 frontline doctors were invited to participate by convenience sampling, and 168 responded. The response rate was 90.81%. The overall prevalence of BOS was 55.4% (93/168) (95% CI: 47.5% to 63.0%). Moderate to high levels of EE was found in 95.8% of the participants. High DP and reduced PA were observed in 98.2% and 97% of participants. Younger age (25-29 years), being female, and working as a medical officer were independently associated with high levels of burnout in all three domains. EE was significantly higher in females (P = 0.011). DP was significantly higher in medical officers, those at earlier job periods, and those working more than 8 hours per day. CONCLUSION: During the COVID-19 outbreak, BOS was common among Bangladeshi frontline doctors. Females, medical officers, and younger doctors tended to be more susceptible to BOS. Less BOS was experienced when working in the non-COVID ward than in the mixed ward.

Chemometric appraisal of water quality for domestic and agricultural purposes: a case study from establishing Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) area, Pabna District, Bangladesh.

Water is the main sources for domestic purposes and as well as for both farming and industrial activities. Therefore, this study investigated the quality of groundwater at Ishwardi, Pabna district of Bangladesh. This study showed that the heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, Cr, As, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Fe were remaining in trace amount. The groundwater quality index (GWQI), heavy metal evaluation index (HEI), heavy metal pollution index (HPI), and degree of contamination (Cd) revealed that all of the groundwater samples belonged to good quality condition for drinking purposes. Nevertheless, Cd provided better index than other indices. Subsequently, hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) values for heavy metals indicated that there was no significant noncarcinogenic health risk due to oral ingestion of groundwater except three sites. However, the paired student t-test ([Formula: see text]) revealed that child was found to be more exposed compared to adult for noncarcinogenic health risk due to oral ingestion of the same groundwater samples. This study revealed that pH, EC, TDS, salinity, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Cl-, SO42-, PO43-, and NO3- values in water samples are in tolerable limit according to Bangladesh (DoE) and international standards (WHO, IS, FAO, USEPA, UCCC). Subsequently, combined approaches of numerous irrigation water quality indices, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), soluble sodium percentage (SSP), total hardness (TH), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), and Kelley's ratio (KR), were applied to appraise the appropriateness of water for farming purposes. The irrigation water quality index (IWQI) revealed that majority of the groundwater samples were suitable for agricultural purposes. Classification based on Wilcox and US salinity hazard diagram indicated a consistent conclusion, which indicated that the water quality was in good condition for farming in the study area.

Potential methane emission reduction strategies from rice cultivation systems in Bangladesh: A critical synthesis with global meta-data.

Methane (CH4) is one of the dominant greenhouse gases (GHG) that is largely emitted from rice fields and thus, significantly contributes to global warming. Significant efforts have been made to find out suitable strategies to mitigate CH4 emission from rice culture. However, the effectiveness of these management practices is often diverse with negative, no, or positive impacts making it difficult to adopt under a particular condition. The diversity of rice cultivation in terms of agro-climatic conditions and cultivation practices makes it difficult for providing specific recommendations. Here, we collected data from a total of 198 studies reporting 1052 observations. The management practices are categorized into five different management practices i.e., water, organic and inorganic fertilizer management, crop establishment method, and agronomic practices while major categories were subdivided into different classes. To test statistically significant differences in the effectiveness between major management practices, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied. The Gaussian and bootstrapping model were applied to find out the best estimate of the effectiveness of each practice. In addition, mechanisms controlling the CH4 emission reductions were synthesized. Next, the adoption potentials of these practices were assessed based on the existing rice cultivation systems in Bangladesh. Our results showed that water and organic matter management were the most effective methods irrespective of the growing conditions. When these technologies are customized to Bangladesh, water management and crop establishment methods seem most feasible. Among the rice-growing seasons in Bangladesh, there is a larger scope to adopt these management practices in the Boro season (December to May), while these scopes are minimal in the other two seasons due to their rain-fed nature of cultivation. Altogether, our study provides fundamental insights on CH4 reductions strategies from rice fields in Bangladesh.

Short-term glucose dysregulation following acute poisoning with organophosphorus insecticides but not herbicides, carbamate or pyrethroid insecticides in South Asia.

BACKGROUND: Ingestion of organophosphorus (OP) insecticides is associated with acute hyperglycaemia. We conducted a prospective study to determine whether glucose dysregulation on admission associated with ingestion of OP insecticides or other pesticides is sustained to hospital discharge or to 3-12 months later. METHODS: We recruited participants to two similar studies performed in parallel in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, and Chittagong, Bangladesh, following hospitalisation for OP insecticide, herbicide or other pesticide self-poisoning. Two-hour 75 g oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT) was performed after recovery from the acute poisoning, at around the time of discharge. In Sri Lanka, a four time-point OGTT for area-under-the-curve (AUC), C-peptide and homeostatic modelling of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was undertaken, repeated after 1 year. In Bangladesh, a 2-h OGTT for glucose was undertaken and repeated after 3 months in participants with initial elevated 2-h glucose. We compared glucose homeostasis by poison group and adjusted findings for age, BMI and sex. FINDINGS: Seventy-three Sri Lankan and 151 Bangladeshi participants were recruited. We observed higher mean [SD] fasting (4.91 [0.74] vs. 4.66 [0.46] mmol/L, p = .003) and 2-h glucose (7.94 [2.54] vs. 6.71 [1.90] mmol/L, p < .0001) in OP-poisoned groups than pyrethroid, carbamate, herbicide or 'other poison' groups at discharge from hospital. In Sri Lanka, HOMA-IR, glucose and C-peptide AUC were higher in OP than carbamate or herbicide groups. Adjusted analyses remained significant except for fasting glucose. Follow-up analysis included 92 participants. There was no significant difference in OGTT results between OP-poisoned and other participants at follow-up (mean [SD] 2-h fasting glucose 4.67 [0.92] vs. 4.82 [0.62], p = .352; 2-h glucose 6.96 [2.31] mmol/L vs. 6.27 [1.86] mmol/L, p = .225). CONCLUSION: We found in this small prospective study that acute OP insecticide poisoning caused acute glucose dysregulation that was sustained to hospital discharge but had recovered by 3-12 months. Acute glucose dysregulation was related to defects in insulin action and secretion. This study did not address long-term risk of diabetes following acute OP insecticide poisoning, but could provide the data for a power calculation for such a study.

Acetaminophen as a Renoprotective Adjunctive Treatment in Patients With Severe and Moderately Severe Falciparum Malaria: A Randomized, Controlled, Open-Label Trial.

Background: Acute kidney injury independently predicts mortality in falciparum malaria. It is unknown whether acetaminophen's capacity to inhibit plasma hemoglobin-mediated oxidation is renoprotective in severe malaria. Methods: This phase 2, open-label, randomized controlled trial conducted at two hospitals in Bangladesh assessed effects on renal function, safety, pharmacokinetic (PK) properties and pharmacodynamic (PD) effects of acetaminophen. Febrile patients (>12 years) with severe falciparum malaria were randomly assigned to receive acetaminophen (1 g 6-hourly for 72 hours) or no acetaminophen, in addition to intravenous artesunate. Primary outcome was the proportional change in creatinine after 72 hours stratified by median plasma hemoglobin. Results: Between 2012 and 2014, 62 patients were randomly assigned to receive acetaminophen (n = 31) or no acetaminophen (n = 31). Median (interquartile range) reduction in creatinine after 72 hours was 23% (37% to 18%) in patients assigned to acetaminophen, versus 14% (29% to 0%) in patients assigned to no acetaminophen (P = .043). This difference in reduction was 37% (48% to 22%) versus 14% (30% to -71%) in patients with hemoglobin ≥45000 ng/mL (P = .010). The proportion with progressing kidney injury was higher among controls (subdistribution hazard ratio, 3.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.1 to 8.5; P = .034). PK-PD analyses showed that higher exposure to acetaminophen increased the probability of creatinine improvement. No patient fulfilled Hy's law for hepatotoxicity. Conclusions: In this proof-of-principle study, acetaminophen showed renoprotection without evidence of safety concerns in patients with severe falciparum malaria, particularly in those with prominent intravascular hemolysis. Clinical Trials Registration: NCT01641289.

A new constructive algorithm for architectural and functional adaptation of artificial neural networks.

The generalization ability of artificial neural networks (ANNs) is greatly dependent on their architectures. Constructive algorithms provide an attractive automatic way of determining a near-optimal ANN architecture for a given problem. Several such algorithms have been proposed in the literature and shown their effectiveness. This paper presents a new constructive algorithm (NCA) in automatically determining ANN architectures. Unlike most previous studies on determining ANN architectures, NCA puts emphasis on architectural adaptation and functional adaptation in its architecture determination process. It uses a constructive approach to determine the number of hidden layers in an ANN and of neurons in each hidden layer. To achieve functional adaptation, NCA trains hidden neurons in the ANN by using different training sets that were created by employing a similar concept used in the boosting algorithm. The purpose of using different training sets is to encourage hidden neurons to learn different parts or aspects of the training data so that the ANN can learn the whole training data in a better way. In this paper, the convergence and computational issues of NCA are analytically studied. The computational complexity of NCA is found to be O(W xP(t) xtau), where W is the number of weights in the ANN, P(t) is the number of training examples, and tau is the number of training epochs. This complexity has the same order as what the backpropagation learning algorithm requires for training a fixed ANN architecture. A set of eight classification and two approximation benchmark problems was used to evaluate the performance of NCA. The experimental results show that NCA can produce ANN architectures with fewer hidden neurons and better generalization ability compared to existing constructive and nonconstructive algorithms.

A new adaptive merging and growing algorithm for designing artificial neural networks.

This paper presents a new algorithm, called adaptive merging and growing algorithm (AMGA), in designing artificial neural networks (ANNs). This algorithm merges and adds hidden neurons during the training process of ANNs. The merge operation introduced in AMGA is a kind of a mixed mode operation, which is equivalent to pruning two neurons and adding one neuron. Unlike most previous studies, AMGA puts emphasis on autonomous functioning in the design process of ANNs. This is the main reason why AMGA uses an adaptive not a predefined fixed strategy in designing ANNs. The adaptive strategy merges or adds hidden neurons based on the learning ability of hidden neurons or the training progress of ANNs. In order to reduce the amount of retraining after modifying ANN architectures, AMGA prunes hidden neurons by merging correlated hidden neurons and adds hidden neurons by splitting existing hidden neurons. The proposed AMGA has been tested on a number of benchmark problems in machine learning and ANNs, including breast cancer, Australian credit card assessment, and diabetes, gene, glass, heart, iris, and thyroid problems. The experimental results show that AMGA can design compact ANN architectures with good generalization ability compared to other algorithms.