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Background Since July 2019, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been facing an outbreak of serotype-2 circulating vaccine derived poliovirus (cVDPV2) in addition to continued transmission of serotype-1 wild poliovirus (WPV1) and SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. Understanding the risks of cVDPV2 transmission due to pause of global vaccination efforts and the impact of potential vaccination response strategies in the current context of COVID-19 mitigation measures is critical. Methods We developed a stochastic, geographically structured mathematical model of cVDPV2 transmission which captures both mucosal and humoral immunity separately and allows for reversion of serotype-2 oral polio vaccine (OPV2) virus to cVDPV2 following vaccine administration. The model includes geographic heterogeneities in vaccination coverage, population immunity and population movement. The model was fitted to historic cVDPV2 cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan between January 2010-April 2016 and July 2019-March 2020 using iterated particle filtering. The model was used to simulate spread of cVDPV2 infection from July 2019 to explore impact of various proposed vaccination responses on stopping transmission and risk of spread of reverted Sabin-2 under varying assumptions of impacts from COVID-19 lockdown measures on movement patterns as well as declines in vaccination coverage. Results Simulated monthly incidence of cVDPV2 from the best-fit model demonstrated general spatio-temporal alignment with observed cVDPV2 cases. The model predicted substantial spread of cVDPV2 infection, with widespread transmission through 2020 in the absence of any vaccination activities. Vaccination responses were predicted to substantially reduce transmission and case burden, with a greater impact from earlier responses and those with larger geographic scope. While the greatest risk of seeding reverted Sabin-2 was predicted in areas targeted with OPV2, subsequent spread was greatest in areas with no or delayed response. The proposed vaccination strategy demonstrated ability to stop the cVDPV2 outbreak (with low risk of reverted Sabin-2 spread) by February 2021. Conclusion Outbreak response vaccination campaigns against cVDPV2 will be challenging throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but must be implemented urgently when feasible to stop transmission of cVDPV2.

Sabin strains used in oral poliovirus vaccines (OPV) can revert to virulence and, in rare instances, cause disease or generate vaccine-derived strains leading to outbreaks in areas of low immunisation coverage. A novel OPV2 (nOPV2) was designed to stabilise the viral genome against reversion and reduce recombination events that might lead to virulent strains. In this study, we evaluated the genetic and phenotypic stability of shed poliovirus following administration of one dose of monovalent OPV2 (mOPV2) or nOPV2 to infants aged 18-22 weeks.In two similarly designed clinical trials (NCT02521974 and NCT03554798) conducted in Panama, infants aged 18-22-weeks, after immunisation with three doses of bivalent OPV (types 1 and 3) and one dose of inactivated poliovirus vaccine, were administered one or two doses of mOPV2 or nOPV2. In this analysis of two clinical trials, faecally shed polioviruses following one dose of mOPV2 or nOPV2 were isolated from stools meeting predetermined criteria related to sample timing and viral presence and quantity and assessed for nucleotide polymorphisms using next-generation sequencing. A transgenic mouse neurovirulence test was adapted to assess the effect of the possible phenotypic reversion of shed mOPV2 and nOPV2 with a logistic regression model.Of the 91 eligible samples, 86 were able to be sequenced, with 72 evaluated in the transgenic mouse assay. Sabin-2 poliovirus reverts rapidly at nucleotide 481, the primary attenuation site in domain V of the 5' untranslated region of the genome. There was no evidence of neurovirulence-increasing polymorphisms in domain V of shed nOPV2. Reversion of shed Sabin-2 virus corresponded with unadjusted paralysis rates of 47·6% at the 4 logThe data indicate increased genetic stability of domain V of nOPV2 relative to mOPV2, with significantly lower neurovirulence of shed nOPV2 virus compared with shed mOPV2. While this vaccine is currently being deployed under an emergency use listing, the data on the genetic stability of nOPV2 will support further regulatory and policy decision-making regarding use of nOPV2 in outbreak responses.BillMelinda Gates Foundation.

The cement has been the major building material in today’s construction because of its binding and high compressive strength properties. Beside this, it also causes release of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide which causes global warming and other environmental issues. Researches were done to decrease the carbon footprint and use of waste material to be used in construction. The rice husk ash is waste materials which have shown promising results if replaced with cement in production of concrete. Previous researches done by researcher’s shows that it enhances the corrosion resistance capability of produced concrete with RHA and some increase in compressive strength. In this literature review is related to increase in strength of concrete depending on age of concrete & percentage of RHA addition. Keywords: Rice Husk ash, Waste materials, Concrete, Cementation material, RHA, compressive strength

The emergence and international spread of neurovirulent circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) across multiple countries in Africa and Asia in recent years pose a major challenge to the goal of eradicating all forms of polioviruses. Approximately 90% of all cVDPV outbreaks are caused by the type 2 strain of the Sabin vaccine, an oral live, attenuated vaccine; cVDPV outbreaks typically occur in areas of persistently low immunization coverage (1). A novel type 2 oral poliovirus vaccine (nOPV2), produced by genetic modification of the type 2 Sabin vaccine virus genome (2), was developed and evaluated through phase I and phase II clinical trials during 2017-2019. nOPV2 was demonstrated to be safe and well-tolerated, have noninferior immunogenicity, and have superior genetic stability compared with Sabin monovalent type 2 (as measured by preservation of the primary attenuation site [domain V in the 5' noncoding region] and significantly lower neurovirulence of fecally shed vaccine virus in transgenic mice) (3-5). These findings indicate that nOPV2 could be an important tool in reducing the risk for generating vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) and the risk for vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis cases. Based on the favorable preclinical and clinical data, and the public health emergency of international concern generated by ongoing endemic wild poliovirus transmission and cVDPV type 2 outbreaks, the World Health Organization authorized nOPV2 for use under the Emergency Use Listing (EUL) pathway in November 2020, allowing for its first use for outbreak response in March 2021 (6). As required by the EUL process, among other EUL obligations, an extensive plan was developed and deployed for obtaining and monitoring nOPV2 isolates detected during acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance, environmental surveillance, adverse events after immunization surveillance, and targeted surveillance for adverse events of special interest (i.e., prespecified events that have the potential to be causally associated with the vaccine product), during outbreak response, as well as through planned field studies. Under this monitoring framework, data generated from whole-genome sequencing of nOPV2 isolates, alongside other virologic data for isolates from AFP and environmental surveillance systems, are reviewed by the genetic characterization subgroup of an nOPV working group of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Global nOPV2 genomic surveillance during March-October 2021 confirmed genetic stability of the primary attenuating site. Sequence data generated through this unprecedented global effort confirm the genetic stability of nOPV2 relative to Sabin 2 and suggest that nOPV2 will be an important tool in the eradication of poliomyelitis. nOPV2 surveillance should continue for the duration of the EUL.

Background: Polycarboxylic acids are of interest as simple mimics for cellulase enzyme catalyzed depolymerization of cellulose. In this study, DFT calculations were used to investigate the effect of structure on dicarboxylic acid organo-catalyzed hydrolysis of cellulose model compound D-cellobiose to D-glucose. Methods: Binding energy of the complex formed between D-cellobiose and acid (Ebind), as well as glycosidic oxygen to dicarboxylic acid closest acidic H distance were studied as key parameters affecting the turn over frequency of hydrolysis in water. Result: α-D-cellobiose - dicarboxylic acid catalyst down face approach showed high Ebind values for five of the six acids studied; indicating the favorability of down face approach. Maleic, cis-1,2-cyclohexane dicarboxylic, and phthalic acids with the highest catalytic activities showed glycosidic oxygen to dicarboxylic acid acidic H distances 3.5-3.6 Å in the preferred configuration. Conclusion: The high catalytic activities of these acids may be due to the rigid structure, where acid groups are held in a fixed geometry.

The beam–column joint is measured as the most important zone in a reinforced concrete moment resisting frame. It is subjected to large forces during earthquake and its behaviour has a major influence on the response of the entire structure. As a result, a great attention has to be paid for good detailing of such joint. The absence of transverse reinforcement in the joint, insufficient development length for the beam reinforcement and the inadequately spliced reinforcement for the column just above the joint can be considered as the most important causes for the failure of the beam–column joint under any unexpected transverse loading on the building. The recent earthquakes revealed the importance of the design of reinforced concrete (RC) structures with ductile behaviour. Ductility can be described as the ability of reinforced concrete cross sections, elements and structures to absorb the large energy released during earthquakes without losing their strength under large amplitude and reversible deformations.

Hypoxemia is a defining feature of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), an often-fatal complication of pulmonary or systemic inflammation, yet the resulting tissue hypoxia, and its impact on immune responses, is often neglected. In the present study, we have shown that ARDS patients were hypoxemic and monocytopenic within the first 48 h of ventilation. Monocytopenia was also observed in mouse models of hypoxic acute lung injury, in which hypoxemia drove the suppression of type I interferon signaling in the bone marrow. This impaired monopoiesis resulted in reduced accumulation of monocyte-derived macrophages and enhanced neutrophil-mediated inflammation in the lung. Administration of colony-stimulating factor 1 in mice with hypoxic lung injury rescued the monocytopenia, altered the phenotype of circulating monocytes, increased monocyte-derived macrophages in the lung and limited injury. Thus, tissue hypoxia altered the dynamics of the immune response to the detriment of the host and interventions to address the aberrant response offer new therapeutic strategies for ARDS.

The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of liquidity, leverage, firm size, audit committee size, and board of commissioners size on financial performance of manufacturing companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2017-2019. The samples used in this research are 56 manufacturing companies with a total of 168 data selected using purposive sampling technique. The data in this research are tested using Eviews version 11. The results show that firm size has a negative and significant effect on financial performance, liquidity and leverage have a positive and insignificant effect on financial performance, and audit committee size and board of commissioners size have a negative and insignificant effect on financial performance.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of a training session with and without an intervention of postactivation performance enhancement (PAPE) on countermovement jump (CMJ) height, perceived recovery status (PRS), and ratings of perceived exertion (RPEs), followed by a specific volleyball training session. The sample consisted of sixteen professional male volleyball players, with an average age of 26.8±6.1 years and average height of 195.9±6.7 cm, randomly divided into a group with PAPE intervention (GPAPE) (n=8), and a control group (CTRL) without PAPE intervention (n=8). The control group carried out the training session with plyometric exercises, and the GPAPE added conditioning protocols for PAPE to plyometric training, followed by a technical tactical volleyball session. At the end of the training session, there was an increase of 16.3% in the height of the CMJ in the GPAPE, while the CTRL showed a decrease of 5% in the height of the CMJ. PRS and RPE variables did not differ between the groups. It was concluded that PAPE had a positive effect on the height of the vertical jump after plyometric training, which was maintained until the end of the technical and tactical volleyball session.

Purpose: The authors aimed to compare the effects of 4 weeks jump versus complex training methods on lower limb muscle power and maximal isokinetic torque of knee extensors and flexors in elite male volleyball players. Methods: Sixteen male volleyball players were allocated into 2 groups, jump training (n = 8; 27.0 [5.7] y, 94.3 [7.6] kg) and complex training (with induction of postactivation performance enhancement, n = 8; 26.6 [3.6] y, 94.2 [6.3] kg). All individuals performed jump training 2 sessions/wk, and the complex group received induction training with postactivation performance enhancement and jump training. Results: After 4 weeks, an increase in countermovement jump height (jump: 49.0 [1.2] to 52.7 [2.1] cm and complex: 49.2 [1.1] to 53.3 [1.9] cm; P = .009) and power (jump: 29.5 [1.1] to 34.3 [1.4] W and complex: 30.4 [0.9] to 34.4 [1.08] W; P = .001) was observed without significant differences between groups and without significant group × time interaction (P > .05). Also, no significant difference was observed between and within groups for the isokinetic peak torque at low speeds (60 and 180°s), although total muscle work and knee extensor/flexor ratio increased from pretraining to posttraining at 300° seconds similarly in both groups. Conclusion: The findings indicate that jump performance and power, knee extensor/flexor ratio, and total muscle work increased after 4 weeks of jump and complex training. However, the inclusion of heavy resistance stimulus did not elicit any additional improvements in the vertical jump performance and isokinetic strength of elite volleyball players.

Nithya Kalyana-Which means there are two terms Nithya and Kalyana, Nithya which means Daily, Kalyana means Welfare. So totally the meaning of Nithya Kalyana, Daily welfare of Society, especially poor, needy, physically disabled person. Welfare is the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being:Welfare is the state of good health, happiness and comfort or financial assistance from the government.The month of Shravana is coming in August and September, The Indian Society especially in Karnataka traditional citizens worshiping the Cobra or Snake, Cobra is a representative of god that is believe of traditional citizens. And they practiced the Milk infusion. But scientifically the Cobra can’t drink liquid food. Especially the traditional citizens Milk infusion on Stone Cobra, and Worshipping the Stone Cobra. That is meaningless practice, no use to anybody, So many peoples, children, dying daily without food in country. In this situation, we are citizen of India we must create the general awareness among the traditional citizens about meaningless practices. But they can’t listen of our suggestions. The vigilance programme conducted by Three Vidha Dasohigalu, [Education, Food, Occupation] [THREE TYPES DONER] Dr.Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru of Murugha math. Keywords: DR.SHARANARU, MURUGHAMATH, DASOHA, EDUCATION, WORK, NITHYA KALYANA, WELFARE, CHILDEREN.

aims: Processing of cellulose can be used to produce value added renewable feedstock chemicals. background: Catalytic depolymerization and processing of cellulose can be used to produce value added renewable feedstock chemicals. objective: Development of an acidic ionic liquid - metal ion chloride catalyst system based single-reactor method for processing cellulose to value added products. method: The effect of metal chlorides as co-catalysts on 1-(1-propylsulfonic)-3-methylimidazolium chloride acidic ionic liquid catalyzed degradation of cellulose in 40 % (v/v) aq. ethanol was studied by measuring levulinic acid, ethyl levulinate and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural yields. result: In experiments with Mn(II), Zn(II) chloride co-catalysts at 160 and 170 °C for 12 h, the initial yields of ethyl levulinate and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural improved from ~ 7 % to ~ 12-15% due to co-catalytic effects. The highest enhancements in ethyl levulinate yields were observed with CrCl3, where the yield increased from 6 to 27 % with the addition of 10 mol% co-catalyst. conclusion: All three transition metal chlorides studied produced improvements in yields of secondary products, ethyl levulinate and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in acidic ionic liquid catalyzed degradation of cellulose in aqueous ethanol. The most significant enhancements in ethyl levulinate yields were observed with CrCl3 as a co-catalyst. other: none

Summary Background Expanding outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2) across Africa after the global withdrawal of trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in 2016 are delaying global polio eradication. We aimed to assess the effect of outbreak response campaigns with monovalent type 2 OPV (mOPV2) and the addition of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) to routine immunisation. Methods We used vaccination history data from children under 5 years old with non-polio acute flaccid paralysis from a routine surveillance database (the Polio Information System) and setting-specific OPV immunogenicity data from the literature to estimate OPV-induced and IPV-induced population immunity against type 2 poliomyelitis between Jan 1, 2015, and June 30, 2020, for 51 countries in Africa. We investigated risk factors for reported cVDPV2 poliomyelitis including population immunity, outbreak response activities, and correlates of poliovirus transmission using logistic regression. We used the model to estimate cVDPV2 risk for each 6-month period between Jan 1, 2016, and June 30, 2020, with different numbers of mOPV2 campaigns and compared the timing and location of actual mOPV2 campaigns and the number of mOPV2 campaigns required to reduce cVDPV2 risk to low levels. Findings Type 2 OPV immunity among children under 5 years declined from a median of 87% (IQR 81–93) in January–June, 2016 to 14% (9–37) in January–June, 2020. Type 2 immunity from IPV among children under 5 years increased from 3% (

In recent times, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in agriculture has become the most important. The technology adoption in agriculture if creatively approached. Controlling on the diseased leaves during the growing stages of crops is a crucial step. The disease detection, classification, and analysis of diseased leaves at an early stage, as well as possible solutions, are always helpful in agricultural progress. The disease detection and classification of different crops, especially tomatoes and grapes, is a major emphasis of our proposed research. The important objective is to forecast the sort of illness that would affect grapes and tomato leaves at an early stage. The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) methods are used for detecting Multi-Crops Leaf Disease (MCLD). The features extraction of images using a deep learning-based model classified the sick and healthy leaves. The CNN based Visual Geometry Group (VGG) model is used for improved performance measures. The crops leaves images dataset is considered for training and testing the model. The performance measure parameters, i.e., accuracy, sensitivity, specificity precision, recall and F1-score were calculated and monitored. The main objective of research with the proposed model is to make on-going improvements in the performance. The designed model classifies disease-affected leaves with greater accuracy. In the experiment proposed research has achieved an accuracy of 98.40% of grapes and 95.71% of tomatoes. The proposed research directly supports increasing food production in agriculture.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. According to the American Cancer Society, early diagnosis of pulmonary nodules in computed tomography (CT) scans can improve the five-year survival rate up to 70 % with proper treatment planning. In this article, we propose an attribute-driven Generative Adversarial Network (ADGAN) for synthesis and multiclass classification of Pulmonary Nodules. A self-attention U-Net (SaUN) architecture is proposed to improve the generation mechanism of the network. The generator is designed with two modules, namely, self-attention attribute module (SaAM) and a self-attention spatial module (SaSM). SaAM generates a nodule image based on given attributes whereas SaSM specifies the nodule region of the input image to be altered. A reconstruction loss along with an attention localization loss (AL) is used to produce an attention map prioritizing the nodule regions. To avoid resemblance between a generated image and a real image, we further introduce an adversarial loss containing a regularization term based on KL divergence. The discriminator part of the proposed model is designed to achieve the multiclass nodule classification task. Our proposed approach is validated over two challenging publicly available datasets, namely LIDC-IDRI and LUNGX. Exhaustive experimentation on these two datasets clearly indicate that we have achieved promising classification accuracy as compared to other state-of-the-art methods.

The development of alternative energy sources is the utmost priority of developing society. Unlike many prior homogeneous electrocatalysts that rely on a change in the oxidation state of the metal center and/or electrochemically active ligand, here we report the synthesis and structural characterization of a bimetallic zinc selenolate complex consisting of a redox silent zinc metal ion and a tridentate ligand that catalyzes the reduction of protons into hydrogen gas electrochemically and displays one of the highest reported TOF for a homogeneous TM-metal free ligand centered HER catalyst, 509 s

The aim of this research was to evaluate the behavior of vertical jumps performance in professional volleyball athletes during matches and training and their relationships with fatigue and recovery through heart rate variability (HRV), ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and perceived recovery status (PRS). Nine male professional volleyball athletes participated in the study, with mean age: 25.66 ± 5.7 years, mean body mass: 97.81 ± 8.65 Kg and mean height: 200.94 ± 5.19 cm, with experience in national and international competitions. HRV and PRS were evaluated in the morning of matches and in the presentation for the first day of training after matches. RPE was collected immediately after matches and at the end of training days. Jumps performance was monitored during the matches and during the first days of training. The data was grouped by matches and training sessions. Significance level adopted was α ≤ 0.05. There were no alterations in HRV and PRS evaluated after matches and before training sessions, as well as in RPE after training. Jumps height was greater during the matches (p< 0.013) and there were no differences in the number of jumps. There was a positive correlation between the number of jumps during matches and PRS before matches (r= 0.336, p= 0.015) and a negative correlation between the number of jumps during training and pre-training PRS (r= -0.318, p= 0.002). We conclude that the recovery period proposed by the team proved to be sufficient for the athletes to maintain the same condition for returning to training. This information can assist physical trainers to prescribe training loads for the return to training.

Serotype 2 oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV2) can revert to regain wild-type neurovirulence and spread to cause emergences of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV2). After its global withdrawal from routine immunization in 2016, outbreak response use has created a cycle of VDPV2 emergences that threaten eradication. We implemented a hierarchical model based on VP1 region genetic divergence, time, and location to attribute emergences to campaigns and identify risk factors. We found that a 10 percentage point increase in population immunity in children younger than 5 years at the campaign time and location corresponds to a 18.0% decrease (95% credible interval [CrI], 6.3%–28%) in per-campaign relative risk, and that campaign size is associated with emergence risk (relative risk scaling with population size to a power of 0.80; 95% CrI, .50–1.10). Our results imply how Sabin OPV2 can be used alongside the genetically stable but supply-limited novel OPV2 (listed for emergency use in November 2020) to minimize emergence risk.

Development of efficient catalytic methods for the hydrolysis of cellulose is a major research challenge in sustainable biofuel and polymer areas. In this study five hydroxy sulfonic acids were studied as simple model compounds for cellulase enzyme for the hydrolysis of cellulose. The catalytic activities were measured by analysis of total reducing sugar (TRS) yields produced in a series of reactions carried out at 150–190 °C using 0.050 M aqueous hydroxy sulfonic acid solutions. The highest catalytic activity was observed with isethionic acid, producing 62.7% TRS yield at 180 °C after 4 hr. In the second phase of the work, Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations were used to study the interactions between hydroxy sulfonic acids and cellulose model compound D-cellobiose to supplement the experimental results. The D-cellobiose – hydroxy sulfonic binding energies and the distance between glycosidic oxygen and -SO3H acidic H were evaluated and the -SO3H to glycosidic oxygen distance was identified as the more important parameter co-related to the catalytic activity. The isethionic acid with highest cellulose hydrolysis activity showed the shortest -SO3H to glycosidic oxygen distance of 1.744 Å.

Parkinson disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, as reported by the World Health Organization. In this paper, we propose a direct three-Class PD classification using two different modalities, namely, MRI and DTI. The three classes used for classification are PD, Scans Without Evidence of Dopamine Deficit and Healthy Control. We use white matter and gray matter from the MRI and fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity from the DTI to achieve our goal. We train four separate CNNs on the above four types of data. At the decision level, the outputs of the four CNN models are fused with an optimal weighted average fusion technique. We achieve an accuracy of 95.53 percentage for the direct three class classification of PD, HC and SWEDD on the publicly available PPMI database. Extensive comparisons including a series of ablation studies clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed solution., Comment: 10th International Conference on Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (Acepted)

Type 2 circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV2) from Sabin oral poliovirus vaccines (OPVs) are the leading cause of poliomyelitis. A novel type 2 OPV (nOPV2) has been developed to be more genetically stable with similar tolerability and immunogenicity to that of Sabin type 2 vaccines to mitigate the risk of cVDPV2. We aimed to assess these aspects of nOPV2 in poliovirus vaccine-naive newborn infants.In this randomised, double-blind, controlled, phase 2 trial we enrolled newborn infants at the Matlab Health Research Centre, Chandpur, Bangladesh. We included infants who were healthy and were a single birth after at least 37 weeks' gestation. Infants were randomly assigned (2:1) to receive either two doses of nOPV2 or placebo, administered at age 0-3 days and at 4 weeks. Exclusion criteria included receipt of rotavirus or any other poliovirus vaccine, any infection or illness at the time of enrolment (vomiting, diarrhoea, or intolerance to liquids), diagnosis or suspicion of any immunodeficiency disorder in the infant or a close family member, or any contraindication for venipuncture. The primary safety outcome was safety and tolerability after one and two doses of nOPV2, given 4 weeks apart in poliovirus vaccine-naive newborn infants and the primary immunogenicity outcome was the seroconversion rate for neutralising antibodies against type 2 poliovirus, measured 28 days after the first and second vaccinations with nOPV2. Study staff recorded solicited and unsolicited adverse events after each dose during daily home visits for 7 days. Poliovirus neutralising antibody responses were measured in sera drawn at birth and at age 4 weeks and 8 weeks. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04693286.Between Sept 21, 2020, and Aug 16, 2021, we screened 334 newborn infants, of whom three (1%) were found to be ineligible and one (1%) was withdrawn by the parents; the remaining 330 (99%) infants were assigned to receive nOPV2 (n=220 [67%]) or placebo (n=110 [33%]). nOPV2 was well tolerated; 154 (70%) of 220 newborn infants in the nOPV2 group and 78 (71%) of 110 in the placebo group had solicited adverse events, which were all mild or moderate in severity. Severe unsolicited adverse events in 11 (5%) vaccine recipients and five (5%) placebo recipients were considered unrelated to vaccination. 306 (93%) of 330 infants had seroprotective maternal antibodies against type 2 poliovirus at birth, decreasing to 58 (56%) of 104 in the placebo group at 8 weeks. In the nOPV2 group 196 (90%) of 217 infants seroconverted by week 8 after two doses, when 214 (99%) had seroprotective antibodies.nOPV2 was well tolerated and immunogenic in newborn infants, with two doses, at birth and 4 weeks, resulting in almost 99% of infants having protective neutralising antibodies.BillMelinda Gates Foundation.

The pandemic of COVID-19 was caused by a novel coronavirus termed as SARS-CoV2 and is still ongoing with high morbidity and mortality rates in the whole world. The pathogenesis of COVID-19 is highly linked with over-active immune and inflammatory responses, leading to activated cytokine storm, which contribute to ARDS with worsen outcome. Currently, there is no effective therapeutic drug for the treatment of COVID-19. Zinc is known to act as an immune modulator, which plays an important role in immune defense system. Recently, zinc has been widely considered as an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant agent. Accumulating numbers of studies have revealed that zinc plays an important role in antiviral immunity in several viral infections. Several early clinical trials clearly indicate that zinc treatment remarkably decreased the severity of the upper respiratory infection of rhinovirus in humans. Currently, zinc has been used for the therapeutic intervention of COVID-19 in many different clinical trials. Several clinical studies reveal that zinc treatment using a combination of HCQ and zinc pronouncedly reduced symptom score and the rates of hospital admission and mortality in COVID-19 patients. These data support that zinc might act as an anti-viral agent in the addition to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties for the adjuvant therapeutic intervention of COVID-19.

The recent detection of vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) in London (UK) and a case of paralytic polio in New York (USA) have highlighted how the scourge of poliomyelitis has not been totally overcome and remains an international problem, not confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan (where wild-type 1 poliovirus remains endemic) or as outbreaks of circulating VDPV in countries in Africa. To address the risk of circulating VDPVs, a global collaborative effort over the past decade has enabled the development of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) that is as immunogenic as the current Sabin strain and so equally effective, while being less likely to revert to neurovirulence than Sabin oral polio vaccines. The successful development of nOPV2-the first such vaccine against type 2 poliovirus and the first vaccine ever authorised by the WHO Prequalification team through its Emergency Use Listing procedure-has led to the deployment of approximately 450 million doses of nOPV2 for outbreak control in 21 countries. It also paved the way for the subsequent Emergency Use Listing approval of COVID-19 vaccines in the global pandemic. Monitoring the use of nOPV2 has confirmed it is more genetically stable and less likely to result in VDPV than the Sabin strain, suggesting that the target of the global eradication of poliomyelitis might be a little more attainable than previously believed.

Sabin-strain oral polio vaccines (OPV) can, in rare instances, cause disease in recipients and susceptible contacts or evolve to become circulating vaccine-derived strains with the potential to cause outbreaks. Two novel type 2 OPV (nOPV2) candidates were designed to stabilize the genome against the rapid reversion that is observed following vaccination with Sabin OPV type 2 (mOPV2). Next-generation sequencing and a modified transgenic mouse neurovirulence test were applied to shed nOPV2 viruses from phase 1 and 2 studies and shed mOPV2 from a phase 4 study. The shed mOPV2 rapidly reverted in the primary attenuation site (domain V) and increased in virulence. In contrast, the shed nOPV2 viruses showed no evidence of reversion in domain V and limited or no increase in neurovirulence in mice. Based on these results and prior published data on safety, immunogenicity, and shedding, the nOPV2 viruses are promising alternatives to mOPV2 for outbreak responses.

First-person video summarization has emerged as an important research problem for computer vision and multimedia communities. In this paper, we show how different graph representations can be developed for accurately summarizing first-person (egocentric) videos in a computationally efficient manner. Each frame in a video is first represented as a weighted graph. A shot boundary detection method using graph based mutual information is developed. We next construct a weighted graph for each shot. A representative frame from each shot is selected using a graph centrality measure. A new way of characterizing egocentric video frames using a graph based center-surround model is shown next. Here, each representative frame is modeled as a union of a center region (graph) and a surround region (graph). By exploiting spectral measures of dissimilarity between the two (center and surround) graphs, optimal center and surround regions are determined. Optimal regions for all frames within a shot are kept the same as that of the representative frame. Center-surround differences in entropy and optical flow values along with PHOG (Pyramidal HOG) features are extracted from each frame. All frames in a video are finally represented by another weighted graph, termed as a Video Similarity Graph (VSG). The frames are clustered by applying a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) based approach with a new measure for inadmissible edges. Frames closest to the centroid of each cluster are captured to build the summary. Experimental evaluation on two benchmark datasets indicate the advantage of the proposed formulation.

Summary Background Following the global eradication of wild poliovirus, countries using live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccines will transition to exclusive use of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) or fractional doses of IPV (f-IPV; a f-IPV dose is one-fifth of a normal IPV dose), but IPV supply and cost constraints will necessitate dose-sparing strategies. We compared immunisation schedules of f-IPV and IPV to inform the choice of optimal post-eradication schedule. Methods This randomised open-label, multicentre, phase 3, non-inferiority trial was done at two centres in Panama and one in the Dominican Republic. Eligible participants were healthy 6-week-old infants with no signs of febrile illness or known allergy to vaccine components. Infants were randomly assigned (1:1:1:1, 1:1:1:2, 2:1:1:1), using computer-generated blocks of four or five until the groups were full, to one of four groups and received: two doses of intradermal f-IPV (administered at 14 and 36 weeks; two f-IPV group); or three doses of intradermal f-IPV (administered at 10, 14, and 36 weeks; three f-IPV group); or two doses of intramuscular IPV (administered at 14 and 36 weeks; two IPV group); or three doses of intramuscular IPV (administered at 10, 14, and 36 weeks; three IPV group). The primary outcome was seroconversion rates based on neutralising antibodies for poliovirus type 1 and type 2 at baseline and at 40 weeks (4 weeks after the second or third vaccinations) in the per-protocol population to allow non-inferiority and eventually superiority comparisons between vaccines and regimens. Three co-primary outcomes concerning poliovirus types 1 and 2 were to determine if seroconversion rates at 40 weeks of age after a two-dose regimen (administered at weeks 14 and 36) of intradermally administered f-IPV were non-inferior to a corresponding two-dose regimen of intramuscular IPV; if seroconversion rates at 40 weeks of age after a two-dose IPV regimen (weeks 14 and 36) were non-inferior to those after a three-dose IPV regimen (weeks 10, 14, and 36); and if seroconversion rates after a two-dose f-IPV regimen (weeks 14 and 36) were non-inferior to those after a three-dose f-IPV regimen (weeks 10, 14, and 36). The non-inferiority boundary was set at −10% for the lower bound of the two-sided 95% CI for the seroconversion rate difference.. Safety was assessed as serious adverse events and important medical events. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03239496. Findings From Oct 23, 2017, to Nov 13, 2018, we enrolled 773 infants (372 [48%] girls) in Panama and the Dominican Republic (two f-IPV group n=217, three f-IPV group n=178, two IPV group n=178, and three IPV group n=200). 686 infants received all scheduled vaccine doses and were included in the per-protocol analysis. We observed non-inferiority for poliovirus type 1 seroconversion rate at 40 weeks for the two f-IPV dose schedule (95·9% [95% CI 92·0–98·2]) versus the two IPV dose schedule (98·7% [95·4–99·8]), and for the three f-IPV dose schedule (98·8% [95·6–99·8]) versus the three IPV dose schedule (100% [97·9–100]). Similarly, poliovirus type 2 seroconversion rate at 40 weeks for the two f-IPV dose schedule (97·9% [94·8–99·4]) versus the two IPV dose schedule (99·4% [96·4–100]), and for the three f-IPV dose schedule (100% [97·7–100]) versus the three IPV dose schedule (100% [97·9–100]) were non-inferior. Seroconversion rate for the two f-IPV regimen was statistically superior 4 weeks after the last vaccine dose in the 14 and 36 week schedule (95·9% [92·0–98·2]) compared with the 10 and 14 week schedule (83·2% [76·5–88·6]; p=0·0062) for poliovirus type 1. Statistical superiority of the 14 and 36 week schedule was also found for poliovirus type 2 (14 and 36 week schedule 97·9% [94·8–99·4] vs 10 and 14 week schedule 83·9% [77·2–89·2]; p=0·0062), and poliovirus type 3 (14 and 36 week schedule 84·5% [78·7–89·3] vs 10 and 14 week schedule 73·3% [65·8–79·9]; p=0·0062). For IPV, a two dose regimen administered at 14 and 36 weeks (99·4% [96·4–100]) was superior a 10 and 14 week schedule (88·9% [83·4–93·1]; p

Renewable resources based hydrovanilloin [1,2- bis(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-1,2-ethanediol] was synthesized in 86% yield by electrochemical dimerization of vanillin in aqueous NaOH. This symmetrical bis-phenol monomer was then used for the preparation of urethane polymers by two different methods. In the first method a 1:2 mole ratio mixture of hydrovanilloin and diisocyanate was polymerized in DMF using 1,4-diazabicyclo[2,2,2]octane as the catalyst at 60°C, for 1 h to give poly(hydrovanilloin–urethane)s. In the second method diisocyanates were first reacted with polyethylene glycol-400 to give pre-polymers. Then prepolymers were reacted with equivalent amount of hydrovanilloin at 60°C for 4 days to produce poly(hydrovanilloin-ethylene glycol-urethane)s. The first method resulted hard poly(hydrovanilloin–urethane)s showing Tg values in the range of 121–172°C. The second method yielded softer poly(hydrovanilloin-ethylene glycol-urethane)s and these polymers failed to show distinct glass transition temperatures in the DSC analysis. However, poly(hydrovanilloin-ethylene glycol-urethane)s showed better thermal stabilities than polymers without polyethylene glycol units.

Renewable energy policies and adoption of new renewable energy technologies in different states of the United states are not uniform. The factors affecting the trends in adopting electrical energy generation using sustainable resources: wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass as well as registered all electric vehicles in 50 states and district of Columbia in the United States was analyzed using multivariate linear regression analysis. Eight contributing factors: percentages of high school graduates; college graduates; total population; land area; percentage of water covered area; average annual income and registered democrats in the state were selected as predictor variables. Among eight factors considered, percentage of registered democrats was found as the most influencing factor (p = 0.00543) determining the renewable electrical energy adoption. The transition to all electric cars strongly co-related to higher average annual income of the population (p = 0.00141). In conclusion, an aggressive education campaign by environmentalist and pro-sustainability groups may help in de-coupling the energy and environment policies in the United States from political ideologies in order to achieve a more sustainable future.

Metagenomics and single‐cell genomics have enabled the discovery of relevant uncultured microbes. Recently, single‐virus genomics (SVG), although still in an incipient stage, has opened new avenues in viral ecology by allowing the sequencing of one single virus at a time. The investigation of methodological alternatives and optimization of existing procedures for SVG is paramount to deliver high‐quality genomic data. We report a sequencing dataset of viral single‐amplified genomes (vSAGs) from cultured and uncultured viruses obtained by applying different conditions in each SVG step, from viral preservation and novel whole‐genome amplification (WGA) to sequencing platforms and genome assembly. Sequencing data showed that cryopreservation and mild fixation were compatible with WGA, although fresh samples delivered better genome quality data. The novel TruPrime WGA, based on primase‐polymerase features, and WGA‐X employing a thermostable phi29 polymerase, were proven to be with sufficient sensitivity in SVG. The Oxford Nanopore (ON) sequencing platform did not provide a significant improvement of vSAG assembly compared to Illumina alone. Finally, the SPAdes assembler performed the best. Overall, our results represent a valuable genomic dataset that will help to standardized and advance new tools in viral ecology. This work has been supported by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant 5334) and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (refs CGL2013‐40564‐R, RTI2018‐094248‐B‐I00 and SAF2013‐49267‐EXP). Work at CRG, BIST and UPF was in part funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013‐2017’ and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu 2016‐2019’.

Summary Background Continued emergence and spread of circulating vaccine-derived type 2 polioviruses and vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis from Sabin oral poliovirus vaccines (OPVs) has stimulated development of two novel type 2 OPV candidates (OPV2-c1 and OPV2-c2) designed to have similar immunogenicity, improved genetic stability, and less potential to reacquire neurovirulence. We aimed to assess safety and immunogenicity of the two novel OPV candidates compared with a monovalent Sabin OPV in children and infants. Methods We did two single-centre, multi-site, partly-masked, randomised trials in healthy cohorts of children (aged 1–4 years) and infants (aged 18–22 weeks) in Panama: a control phase 4 study with monovalent Sabin OPV2 before global cessation of monovalent OPV2 use, and a phase 2 study with low and high doses of two novel OPV2 candidates. All participants received one OPV2 vaccination and subsets received two doses 28 days apart. Parents reported solicited and unsolicited adverse events. Type 2 poliovirus neutralising antibodies were measured at days 0, 7, 28, and 56, and stool viral shedding was assessed up to 28 days post-vaccination. Primary objectives were to assess safety in all participants and non-inferiority of novel OPV2 day 28 seroprotection versus monovalent OPV2 in infants (non-inferiority margin 10%). These studies were registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02521974 and NCT03554798. Findings The control study took place between Oct 23, 2015, and April 29, 2016, and the subsequent phase 2 study between Sept 19, 2018, and Sept 30, 2019. 150 children (50 in the control study and 100 of 129 assessed for eligibility in the novel OPV2 study) and 684 infants (110 of 114 assessed for eligibility in the control study and 574 of 684 assessed for eligibility in the novel OPV2 study) were enrolled and received at least one study vaccination. Vaccinations were safe and well tolerated with no causally associated serious adverse events or important medical events in any group. Solicited and unsolicited adverse events were overwhelmingly mild or moderate irrespective of vaccine or dose. Nearly all children were seroprotected at baseline, indicating high baseline immunity. In children, the seroprotection rate 28 days after one dose was 100% for monovalent OPV2 and both novel OPV2 candidates. In infants at day 28, 91 (94% [95% CI 87–98]) of 97 were seroprotected after receiving monovalent OPV2, 134 (94% [88–97]) of 143 after high-dose novel OPV2-c1, 122 (93% [87–97]) of 131 after low-dose novel OPV2-c1, 138 (95% [90–98]) of 146 after high-dose novel OPV2-c2, and 115 (91% [84–95]) of 127 after low-dose novel OPV2-c2. Non-inferiority was shown for low-dose and high-dose novel OPV2-c1 and high-dose novel OPV2-c2 despite monovalent OPV2 recipients having higher baseline immunity. Interpretation Both novel OPV2 candidates were safe, well tolerated, and immunogenic in children and infants. Novel OPV2 could be an important addition to our resources against poliovirus given the current epidemiological situation. Funding Fighting Infectious Diseases in Emerging Countries and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

A novel route to graphene oxide (GO) is presented where the cellulosic biofilm formed at the air–water interface as a waste product in the kombucha tea beverage fermentation industry is used as the renewable carbon source. A kombucha pellicle was first purified by treatment with 1.0 mol/L aqueous NaOH at 90 °C and bleaching with 1.5% (w/w) aqueous NaOCl at 23 °C and then pyrolyzed at 600–800 °C in air or under an inert atmosphere. The highest GO yield of 22.5% (w/w) was obtained by pyrolysis at 600 °C under Ar. The product was identified as GO using FT-IR, Raman, XPS, XRD, and scanning electron microscopy. The ability to transform to GO by simple pyrolysis may be due to an extraordinarily highly ordered arrangement of glucan chains in kombucha pellicle fibrils. This discovery provides the first sustainable feedstock-based, simple, green route to GO, without the use of concentrated strong acids and oxidizing agents used in current Hummers’ method.

Anomaly detection in crowd videos has become a popular area of research for the computer vision community. Several existing methods have determined anomaly as a deviation from scene normalcy learned via separate training with/without labeled information. However, owing to rare and sparse nature of anomalous events, any such learning can be misleading as there exist no hardcore segregation between anomalous and non-anomalous events. To address such challenge, we propose an adaptive training-less system capable of detecting anomaly on-the-fly. Our solution pipeline consists of three major components, namely, adaptive 3D-DCT model for multi-object detection-based association, local motion descriptor generation through an improved saliency guided optical flow, and anomaly detection based on Earth mover’s distance (EMD). The proposed model, despite being training-free, is found to achieve comparable performance with several state-of-the-art methods on publicly available UCSD, UMN, CUHK-Avenue and ShanghaiTech datasets.

In this paper, we address the problem of summarizing egocentric videos using deep features and an optimal clustering approach. Based on an augmented pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN), each frame in an egocentric video is represented by deep features. An optimal clustering algorithm, based on a center-surround model (CSM) and an Integer Knapsack type formulation (IK) for K-means, termed as CSMIK K-means, is applied next to obtain the summary. In the center surround model, we compute difference in entropy and the optical flow values between the central region and that of the surrounding region of each frame. In the integer knapsack formulation, each cluster is treated as an item whose cost is assigned from the center surround model. A potential set of clusters in CSMIK K-means is obtained from the chi-square distance between color histograms of successive frames. CSMIK K-Means evaluates different cluster formations and simultaneously determines the optimal number of clusters and the corresponding summary. Experimental evaluation on four well-known benchmark datasets clearly indicate the superiority of the proposed method over several state-of-the-art approaches.

The effects of a series of co-catalysts: iron(III)chloride, zinc chloride, sodium borate, acetic acid, oxalic acid, 10% Pd-C, sodium carbonate, and Raney-Ni as well as H2 at 200 psi reductive conditions were studied on the iron(0)-catalyzed hydrothermal liquefaction of switchgrass at 210 °C. The addition 10% (w/w) iron(III)chloride as a co-catalyst in 60% aq. ethanol, without a hydrogen atmosphere enhanced the liquefaction yield from 55.7 ± 1.5 to 67.6 ± 2.5%. The use of Pd/C (5% w/w) and Raney-Ni (5% w/w) as co-catalysts could also enhance the liquefaction yields to 67.0 ± 3.0 and 72.3 ± 1.8% respectively, in reactions carried out under hydrogen atmosphere at 200 psi, in H2O, 210 °C, 24 h. GC-MS analysis of the liquefaction products revealed that C5-C10 range partially oxygenated products are formed and the composition of the liquefaction product depends on the co-catalyst used. The thermogravimetric and FT-IR analysis of liquefaction residues indicated that polysaccharide fraction is mainly liquefied in these iron(0)-catalyzed liquefactions of switchgrass at 210 °C.

Useful information extraction from egocentric videos has evolved as an important research problem for both computer vision and multimedia communities. In this paper, we have addressed two problems, namely (i) generating multiscale summaries, i.e., multiple summaries of different lengths and (ii) priority-based ranking of various actions present in egocentric videos. A new algorithm, termed as Multiscale Egocentric Video Summarization and Action Ranking (MEVSAR), with agglomerative clustering as its backbone, is proposed to solve the above problems. Importantly, the MEVSAR algorithm follows an “analyze once, generate many” principle to generate multiple summaries in a single run and subsequently rank actions from the generated summaries. Experimental evaluation on two well-known publicly available datasets clearly demonstrate the merits of the proposed approach.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), an often-fatal complication of pulmonary or systemic inflammation, has no cure. Hypoxemia is a defining feature, yet its impact on inflammation is often neglected. Patients with ARDS are monocytopenic early in the onset of the disease. Endotoxin or Streptococcus pneumoniae acute lung injury (ALI) in the context of hypoxia replicates this finding, through hypoxia-driven suppression of type I interferon signalling. This results in failed lung monocyte-derived interstitial macrophages (IM) niche expansion and unchecked neutrophilic inflammation. Administration of colony stimulating factor 1 (CSF1) rescues the monocytopenia, alters the circulating classical monocyte phenotype in hypoxic endotoxin-driven ALI and enables lung IM population expansion, thus limiting lung injury in endotoxin- and virally-induced hypoxic ALI. Hypoxia directly alters immune dynamics to the detriment of the host and manipulation of this aberrant response offers new therapeutic strategies for ARDS.

Novel oral poliovirus vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) is being developed to reduce the rare occurrence of disease and outbreaks associated with the genetic instability of the Sabin vaccine strains. Children aged 1 to 5 years were enrolled in two related clinical studies to assess safety, immunogenicity, shedding rates and properties of the shed virus following vaccination with nOPV2 (two candidates) versus traditional Sabin OPV type 2 (mOPV2). The anticipated pattern of reversion and increased virulence was observed for shed Sabin-2 virus, as assessed using a mouse model of poliovirus neurovirulence. In contrast, there were significantly reduced odds of mouse paralysis for shed virus for both nOPV2 candidates when compared to shed Sabin-2 virus. Next-generation sequencing of shed viral genomes was consistent with and further supportive of the observed neurovirulence associated with shed Sabin-2 virus, as well as the reduced reversion to virulence of shed candidate viruses. While shed Sabin-2 showed anticipated A481G reversion in the primary attenuation site in domain V in the 5’ untranslated region to be associated with increased mouse paralysis, the stabilized domain V in the candidate viruses did not show polymorphisms consistent with reversion to neurovirulence. The available data from a key target age group for outbreak response confirm the superior genetic and phenotypic stability of shed nOPV2 strains compared to shed Sabin-2 and suggest that nOPV2 should be associated with less paralytic disease and potentially a lower risk of seeding new outbreaks.

Interactions between polycarboxylic acids and cellulose was evaluated by using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) profiles of their mixtures. TGA, DSC of cellulose and acids were recorded as baseline data and peak shifts were calculated by subtracting the peak maximum values of cellulose from that of cellulose-polycarboxylic acid mixtures. In TGA, DL-tartaric and citric acid with cellulose mixtures showed the largest positive shifts of +58 and +23 °C in the derivative-TGA second peak. In addition, DL-tartaric and citric acid showed the smallest cellulose DTGA peak 1 area/peak 2 area ratios of 0.50 and 1.58 respectively. In DSC the largest cellulose dehydration peak shifts of +39 and +21 °C were recorded for DL-tartaric and citric acids. In acids studied, polycarboxylic acids with one or more hydroxyl groups are more strongly interacting with cellulose in the solid state. The strong interactions of these acids are probably due to their ability to wrap round the polysaccharide chains forming multiple hydrogen bonding between -COOH and -OH of acid with -OH groups of cellulose.