Review of recent research on hepatitis C therapy for 54th annual meeting of the American association for the study of liver diseases

http://hepcasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/lavanchy_-epidemiology-of-hcv.pdf

Evolving epidemiology of hepatitis C virus

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(99)06527-7.pdf

The role of parenteral antischistosomal therapy in the spread of hepatitis C virus in Egypt

For millions of years, our resident microbes have coevolved and coexisted with us in a mostly harmonious symbiotic relationship. We are not distinct entities from our microbiome, but together we form a 'superorganism' or holobiont, with the microbiome playing a significant role in our physiology and health. The mouth houses the second most diverse microbial community in the body, harbouring over 700 species of bacteria that colonise the hard surfaces of teeth and the soft tissues of the oral mucosa. Through recent advances in technology, we have started to unravel the complexities of the oral microbiome and gained new insights into its role during both health and disease. Perturbations of the oral microbiome through modern-day lifestyles can have detrimental consequences for our general and oral health. In dysbiosis, the finely-tuned equilibrium of the oral ecosystem is disrupted, allowing disease-promoting bacteria to manifest and cause conditions such as caries, gingivitis and periodontitis. For practitioners and patients alike, promoting a balanced microbiome is therefore important to effectively maintain or restore oral health. This article aims to give an update on our current knowledge of the oral microbiome in health and disease and to discuss implications for modern-day oral healthcare.

https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/files/33444697/Kilian_et_al_BDJ_2016.pdf

The oral microbiome – an update for oral healthcare professionals

The ability of phosphate-solubilizing rhizobacteria to enhance the growth and phosphorus uptake of canola (Brassica napus L., cv. Legend) was studied in potted soil experiments in the growth chamber. One hundred and eleven bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere of field-grown plants, and a collection of nine bacteria known to be effective plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), were screened for P-solubilization in vitro. All rhizobacteria were identified using whole-cell fatty acids methyl ester (FAME) profiles. The best P-solubilizing isolates were two Bacillus brevis strains, B. megaterium, B. polymyxa, B. sphaericus, B. thuringiensis, and Xanthomonas maltophilia (PGPR strain R85). The P-solubilizers were tested for their effects on growth and P-uptake of canola plants in a P-deficient soil amended with rock phosphate. Although some of the P-solubilizing rhizobacteria significantly increased plant height or pod yield, none increased P-uptake. The most effective inoculant was a B. thuringiensis isolate which significantly increased the number and weight of pods and seed yield without rock phosphate. Xanthomonas maltophilia increased plant height, whereas the other bacilli increased the number on weight of pods. These results demonstrate the potential use of these P-solubilizing rhizobacteria as inoculants for canola, but indicate that P-solubilization was not the main mechanism responsible for positive growth response.

Phosphate-solubilizing rhizobacteria enhance the growth and yield but not phosphorus uptake of canola (Brassica napus L.)

Ligands effects on the magnetic anisotropy of tetrahedral cobalt complexes

Given the recent advent of mononuclear single-molecule magnets (SMMs), a rational approach based on lanthanides with axially elongated f-electron charge cloud (prolate) has only recently received attention. We report herein a new SMM, [Li(THF)4[Er{N(SiMe3)2}3Cl]⋅2 THF, which exhibits slow relaxation of the magnetization under zero dc field with an effective barrier to the reversal of magnetization (ΔEeff/kB=63.3 K) and magnetic hysteresis up to 3 K at a magnetic field sweep rate of 34.6 Oe s−1. This work questions the theory that oblate or prolate lanthanides must be stabilized with the appropriate ligand framework in order for SMM behavior to be favored.

A Trigonal‐Pyramidal Erbium(III) Single‐Molecule Magnet

The air-stable mononuclear Co(II) compounds [CoII(Tpm)2][ClO4]2 (1, Tpm = tris(pyrazol-1-yl)methane), [CoII(Tpm)2][BPh4]2·2MeCN (2) with trigonal antiprismatic geometry (trigonally elongated octahedral geometry) are reported. Magnetic and theoretical studies reveal that the complexes exhibit single-molecule magnet behavior with uniaxial anisotropy and a huge energy difference between ground and first excited Karmers' doublets (∼200 cm−1). Under applied DC fields, compounds 1 and 2 exhibit frequency and temperature dependence of the imaginary susceptibility. The fit of the data to an Orbach relaxation process yields effective energy barriers of 30.6(1) and 44.7(6) cm−1 for 1 and 2, respectively, but there is no real state at that energy. The inclusion of tunneling, direct and Raman relaxation processes leads to the conclusion that the inclusion of an Orbach process is not required to provide a good fit to the data. More interestingly, a detailed study of the dependence of the relaxation time with field shows that for these Kramers' ions, tunneling is the predominant process at low temperature and that differences in the counteranion allow for a tuning of the Raman process at higher temperatures. These findings underscore the fact that large uniaxial anisotropy can be achieved in hexacoordinate Co(II) trigonal antiprismatic complexes which is an unexplored geometry in mononuclear single molecule magnets.

/pdf/trigonal-antiprismatic-co-ii-single-molecule-magnets-with-415b0fjlwb.pdf

Trigonal antiprismatic Co(II) single molecule magnets with large uniaxial anisotropies: importance of Raman and tunneling mechanisms

Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) simulates the grey wolves’ nature in leadership and hunting manners. GWO showed a good performance in the literature as a meta-heuristic algorithm for feature selection problems, however, it shows low precision and slow convergence. This paper proposes a Modified Binary GWO (MbGWO) based on Stochastic Fractal Search (SFS) to identify the main features by achieving the exploration and exploitation balance. First, the modified GWO is developed by applying an exponential form for the number of iterations of the original GWO to increase the search space accordingly exploitation and the crossover/mutation operations to increase the diversity of the population to enhance exploitation capability. Then, the diffusion procedure of SFS is applied for the best solution of the modified GWO by using the Gaussian distribution method for random walk in a growth process. The continuous values of the proposed algorithm are then converted into binary values so that it can be used for the problem of feature selection. To ensure the stability and robustness of the proposed MbGWO-SFS algorithm, nineteen datasets from the UCI machine learning repository are tested. The K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) is used for classification tasks to measure the quality of the selected subset of features. The results, compared to binary versions of the-state-of-the-art optimization techniques such as the original GWO, SFS, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), hybrid of PSO and GWO, Satin Bowerbird Optimizer (SBO), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Multiverse Optimization (MVO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), and Genetic Algorithm (GA), show the superiority of the proposed algorithm. The statistical analysis by Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test is done at the 0.05 significance level to verify that the proposed algorithm can work significantly better than its competitors in a statistical way.

/pdf/mbgwo-sfs-modified-binary-grey-wolf-optimizer-based-on-53vuiau1r6.pdf

MbGWO-SFS: Modified Binary Grey Wolf Optimizer Based on Stochastic Fractal Search for Feature Selection

Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sealing ability of EndoSequence Bioceramic Root-end Repair (BCRR) material when compared with white mineral trioxide aggregate (WMTA). Study design Forty single-rooted teeth were instrumented, obturated with gutta-percha, root-end resected, and retrofilled with 2 different materials: white ProRoot MTA (WMTA) (n = 15) and BCRR (n = 15). Unfilled specimens (n = 10) received no retrofill and were used as controls. All groups received E. faecalis in a created reservoir coronal to the root filling and the presence of microleakage was evaluated by counting the colony-forming units from each specimen. The results were analyzed with 1-way analysis of variance. Results There was no significant difference in leakage between the 2 experimental groups, but there was a significant difference with the control ( P ≤ .05). Conclusions This study suggests that BCRR is equivalent in sealing ability to WMTA when used as root-end filling material in vitro.

Mohamed Saber

Papers

Ligands effects on the magnetic anisotropy of tetrahedral cobalt complexes

A Trigonal‐Pyramidal Erbium(III) Single‐Molecule Magnet

Trigonal antiprismatic Co(II) single molecule magnets with large uniaxial anisotropies: importance of Raman and tunneling mechanisms

MbGWO-SFS: Modified Binary Grey Wolf Optimizer Based on Stochastic Fractal Search for Feature Selection

A comparative evaluation of the sealing ability of 2 root-end filling materials: an in vitro leakage study using Enterococcus faecalis.