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Background: Chronic hepatitis C virus (CHC) infection represents a crucial health problem, especially among children and adolescents. The ledipasvir (LDV)/sofosbuvir (SOF) regimen has been approved to treat adolescents (aged 12 to 17 years old) infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes 1, 4, 5, and 6 and then extended to include children above or equal to 3 years old. The current study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of SOF/LDV combination in treating CHC-infected 12- to 17-year-old adolescents. Patients and methods: This retrospective cohort study was performed on 147 Egyptian adolescents with CHC. The patients were treated with SOF 400 mg/LDV 90 mg combination once daily for 12 weeks. Possible side effects and laboratory data including HCV ribonucleic acid polymerase chain reaction (RNA PCR), complete blood count (CBC), and liver tests were recorded at baseline and week 12 after the end of treatment (EOT). Results: Sustained virological response 12 weeks (SVR12) after end of treatment (EOT) was observed in 146 out of 147 patients (99.3%). The treatment regimen was efficiently tolerated with no reported cases of discontinuation caused by intolerability. Moreover, the side effects were minimal; 71.4% of the patients did not report any side effects related to the treatment. However, the rest mentioned fatigue, headache, or both of them. Fatigue was the main side effect reported in 16.3% of the patients. Furthermore, ALT and AST levels were normalized after treatment. FIB-4 and APRI scores were statistically significantly decreased 2 years post-SVR, in comparison to their levels before treatment, from 0.34 and 0.36 to 0.25 and 0.17, respectively. Conclusion: The LDV/SOF regimen is one of the safe regimens used to treat adolescent patients with CHC infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dietary prebiotic fibers play an important role in modulating gut microbiota by enhancing the abundance of beneficial microorganisms and their bioactive metabolites. However, dietary fibers are a structurally heterogeneous class of polysaccharides, varying in molar mass, branching patterns, and monosaccharide composition, which could influence their utilization by various gut microorganisms. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of molar mass and chemical structure of wheat arabinoxylan fiber (AX) on the growth and metabolism of two key gut resident bacteria (Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus LGG), which are linked to human health. For this purpose, low, medium, and high molar masses of AX (LAX, MAX, and HAX, respectively) were modified with specific α-arabinofuranosidases to leave only singly substituted, only doubly substituted, or unsubstituted xylose units. Almost all the modified AX samples showed a better prebiotic score than unmodified AX for different molar masses. The modified LAX exhibited a better prebiotic effect than HAX and MAX. In addition, LAX, with doubly substituted xylose units, exhibited the highest prebiotic potential and SCFA production by both microorganisms. Furthermore, AX, either singly or doubly substituted, had a consistent impact on L. rhamnosus growth, whereas AX, with all arabinose residues removed, had a greater impact on F. prausnitzii. These findings support the potential of bioengineered AX as next-generation prebiotics targeting health-related gut microbes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shell folded footings have drawn the interest of researchers for decades as an alternative to typical flat isolated footings because folded footings can reduce the needed amount of reinforced concrete in addition to enhancing the overall geotechnical performance of the supporting soil medium. The main setback of utilizing such folded footings is the relatively complex geometry of the bottom cavity, which requires proper compaction of the soil used to fill that cavity. Current geosynthetic materials such as geofoam or expanded polystyrene (EPS) proved efficiency in many geotechnical applications, where EPS was adopted herein as a cavity-filling material for folded footings. EPS and footing concrete properties were determined using the ultrasonic test device, such as modulus of elasticity and damping coefficient. The main aim of this study was to experimentally assess the behavior of folded footings with and without EPS filling using seven fully instrumented footing models with folding angles ranging from 0° to 45°. Reinforcement was placed in the footing models and limited along the perimeter to act as a hidden ring beam. The models were load tested inside a sandbox to measure internal stresses induced in the soil and the overall settlement. Results showed a significant enhancement in the soil behavior after using EPS. Modification factors were developed for the standard bearing capacity and settlement equations to account for the folding angle and EPS filling effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a quadruple band stacked oval patch antenna with sunlight-shaped slots supporting L1/L2/L5 GNSS bands and the 2.3 Ghz WiMAX band. The antenna produces right-hand circular polarization waves with wide axial-ratio beamwidth of 223/216 ∘ and 231/203 ∘ at two orthogonal cutplanes at L5 and L2 GNSS bands, respectively. Firstly, the resonant modes T M 110 and T M 210 are excited inside a single layer oval patch antenna, where resonance frequencies are calculated using Mathieu functions. Meanwhile, it is shown that another version of the mode T M 110 with similar distribution but orthogonal direction is excitable inside the same oval patch. Then, a second stacked oval patch layer is added, which splits the resonance frequency of each of the modes T M 110 and T M 210 into two different values. Depending on the probe feed position and the separation between the two layers, the phase shifts between modes versions in the upper and the lower layers change. Thus, by fine-tuning the probe feed position and the separation between layers, spatially-orthogonal with quadrature-phase-shift versions of the mode T M 110 are obtained, producing a circularly polarized waves at L2 and L5 bands. Furthermore, sunlight shaped slots are etched into the upper and lower layer patches to fine tune the phase shifts between different modes versions, which enhances the overall axial-ratio beamwidth. Despite the simplicity of the overall structure and the feeding mechanism utilized in the proposed design, wide axial-ratio beamwidths are obtained, as compared to previous works. The proposed antenna shows low reflection coefficient values at 1.14–1.29 GHz (L2/L5), 1.45–1.6 GHz (L1), and 2.26–2.4 GHz (WiMAX). The antenna gains are 5.9, 5.6, 6, and 6.5 dBi/dBic at L5, L2, L1, and WiMAX bands, respectively. The half-power beamwidths are 99/96 ∘ , 102/96 ∘ , 112/85 ∘ , and 65/48 ∘ at two orthogonal cutplanes at L5, L2, L1, and WiMAX bands, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic detection and counting of vehicles in a video is a challenging task and has become a key application area of traffic monitoring and management. In this paper, an efficient real-time approach for the detection and counting of moving vehicles is presented based on YOLOv2 and features point motion analysis. The work is based on synchronous vehicle features detection and tracking to achieve accurate counting results. The proposed strategy works in two phases; the first one is vehicle detection and the second is the counting of moving vehicles. Different convolutional neural networks including pixel by pixel classification networks and regression networks are investigated to improve the detection and counting decisions. For initial object detection, we have utilized state-of-the-art faster deep learning object detection algorithm YOLOv2 before refining them using K-means clustering and KLT tracker. Then an efficient approach is introduced using temporal information of the detection and tracking feature points between the framesets to assign each vehicle label with their corresponding trajectories and truly counted it. Experimental results on twelve challenging videos have shown that the proposed scheme generally outperforms state-of-the-art strategies. Moreover, the proposed approach using YOLOv2 increases the average time performance for the twelve tested sequences by 93.4% and 98.9% from 1.24 frames per second achieved using Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (F R-CNN) and 0.19 frames per second achieved using the background subtraction based CNN approach (BS-CNN), respectively to 18.7 frames per second. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Coronavirus disease has spread widely all over the world since the beginning of 2020, and this required rapid adequate management. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) has become an initial valuable tool for screening, diagnosis, and assessment of disease severity. This study aimed to assess the clinical, radiographic, and laboratory findings of COVID-19 with HRCT follow-up in discharged patients to predict lung fibrosis after COVID-19 infection in survived patients. Results: This study included two-hundred and ten patients who were tested positive for the novel coronavirus by nasopharyngeal swap, admitted to the hospital, and discharged after recovery. Patients with at least a one-time chest CT scan after discharge were enrolled. According to the presence of fibrosis on follow-up CT after discharge, patients were classified into two groups and assigned as the "non-fibrotic group" (without evident fibrosis) and "fibrotic group" (with evident fibrosis). We compared between these two groups based on the recorded clinical data, patient demographic information (i.e., sex and age), length of stay (LOS) in the hospital, admission to the ICU, laboratory results (peak C-reactive protein [CRP] level, lowest lymphocyte level, serum ferritin, high-sensitivity troponin, d-dimer, administration of steroid), and CT features (CT severity score and CT consolidation/crazy-paving score). CT score includes the CT during the hospital stay with peak opacification and follow-up CT after discharge. The average CT follow-up time after discharge is 41.5 days (range, 20 to 65 days). There was a statistically significant difference between both groups (p ˂0.001). Further, a multivariate analysis was performed and found that the age of the patients, initial CT severity score, consolidation/crazy-paving score, and ICU admission were independent risk factors associated with the presence of post-COVID-19 fibrosis (p<0.05). Chest CT severity score shows a sensitivity of 86.1%, a specificity of 78%, and an accuracy of 81.9% at a cutoff point of 10.5. Conclusion: The residual pulmonary fibrosis in COVID-19 survivors after discharge depends on many factors with the patient's age, CT severity, consolidation/crazy-paving scores, and ICU admission as independent risk factors associated with the presence of post-COVID-19 fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Standard prone position (PP) during percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) has multiple drawbacks. We aimed to compare PNLs performed in split-leg (SL) modified lateral position (MLP) and those performed in standard PP. Methods: A prospective, randomized, unblind, double arm trial was conducted at a tertiary care academic medical center in Egypt, between November 2017 and October 2019. Adult patients with renal stones undergoing PNL were included. According to renal anatomy and stone complexity, stratified randomization was performed and study participants were allocated into either SL-MLP group or PP group. The stone free rate (SFR), total operative time, track formation time, fluoroscopy time, auxiliary procedures, and complications were compared. Results: There were 61 patients in SL-MLP group and 63 patients in PP group. Both groups had similar baseline characteristics. The SFR was comparable between groups: 75.4% in SL-MLP group and 77.8% in PP group (p = 0.755). The mean total operative time was shorter and mean track formation time was longer in SL-MLP group (55.33 ± 20.73 vs. 98.49 ± 9.23, p < 0.001 and 7.89 ± 3.68 vs. 6.52 ± 1.77, p = 0.002). There was no significant difference in fluoroscopy time, total complication rates, hemoglobin reduction and need for blood transfusion between the groups. In SL-MLP group, all PNL procedures as well all the associated procedures were performed with the patients in the same position. Conclusion: SL-MLP PNL has a short operative time and similar SFR and complication rate compared to PP PNL. SL-MLP allowed antegrade and retrograde access to the urinary tract without patient repositioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enhanced swift indirect method for the determination of both free and bound 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol has been established. The advantages include reduced sample preparation time (1 h instead of several hours), rapid triple quadrupole gas chromatography−mass spectrometry detection (12 min rather than 30 min in average) combined with amplified selectivity and sensitivity. The enhanced method has been entirely validated. The limits of quatification and detection were estimated and were found to be less than 2 and 0.5 µg/kg, respectively. The recoveries at different spiked levels ranged from 98 to 106%. The reproducibility (expressed as relative standard deviation) was less than 8% while measurement uncertainty was in the range of ±18%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time automatic detection and tracking of moving vehicles in videos acquired by airborne cameras is a challenging problem due to vehicle occlusion, camera movement, and high computational cost. This paper presents an efficient and robust real-time approach for automatic vehicle detection and tracking in aerial videos that employ both detections and tracking features to enhance the final decision. The use of Top-hat and Bottom-hat transformation aided by the morphological operation in the detection phase has been adopted. After detection, background regions are eliminated by motion feature points' analysis of the obtained object regions using a combined technique between KLT tracker and K-means clustering. Obtained object features are clustered into separate objects based on their motion characteristic. Finally, an efficient connecting algorithm is introduced to assign the vehicle labels with their corresponding cluster trajectories. The proposed method was tested on videos taken in different scenarios. The experimental results showed that the recall, precision, and tracking accuracy of the proposed method were about 95.1 %, 97.5%, and 95.2%, respectively. The method also achieves a fast processing speed. Thus, the proposed approach has superior overall performance compared to newly published approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to isolate and investigate the bacteriocinogenic and probiotic potential of new Gram-negative isolates. Of 22 bacterial isolates from pig intestine and chicken crops, ten isolates had demonstrated a good activity, and the most potent five strains were identified as four E. coli and one as Proteus sp. No virulence factors were detected for E. coli strains isolated from pig intestine. The semi-purified microcins proved to be resistant to temperature and pH variation, but sensitive to proteolytic enzymes. Of particular interest, strain E. coli P2C was the most potent, free of virulence genes and sensitive to tested antibiotics. Purification procedure revealed the presence of a single pure peak having a molecular mass of 8733.94 Da and matching microcin V (MccV). The sequence obtained by LC-MS/MS confirmed the presence of MccV. Purified MccV showed a good activity against pathogenic coliforms, especially E. coli O1K1H7 involved in avian colibacillosis. The present study provides evidence that E. coli strains isolated from pig intestine produce microcin-like substances. E. coli P2C is a safe MccV producer that could be a good candidate for its application as novel probiotic strain to protect livestock and enhance growth performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), using antibiotics as growth promoters for livestock—particularly swine—is the principal cause of antibiotic resistance. It is therefore clear that finding an alternative to antibiotics becomes an emergency. Hundreds of recent studies have appointed probiotics as potential candidates to replace or to be used in combination with antibiotics. However, bringing probiotics alive to the colon—their site of action—remains a big challenge because of different physiological barriers encountered in proximal gastrointestinal tract (GIT) such as acidic pH and bile salts that may affect the viability of probiotic cultures. To overcome this problem, in previous studies, we developed and characterize a synbiotic formula consisting of beads of a mixture of alginate and inulin. Three potential probiotics strains namely Pediococcus acidilactici UL5 (UL5), Lactobacillus reuteri (LR), and Lactobacillus salivarius (LS) were encapsulated to study their release and the behavior of this synbiotic formula throughout the GIT using in vitro models. The survival and the release of bacteria from beads were studied by specific PMA-qPCR counting. The microscopic aspects of the beads were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the microbial dynamics inside beads were studied by fluorescence microscopy using the live/dead test. Our results have shown that the beads containing 5% inulin were the most stable in the stomach and throughout the small intestine. However, beads were completely degraded in approximately 3 h of incubation in the fermented medium that mimic the colon. These results were confirmed by SEM and fluorescence microscopy images. Therefore, it can be stated that the AI5 formulation well protected the bacteria in the upper part of the digestive tract and allowed their controlled release in the colon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vector-free allele exchange (VFAE) is a newly developed protocol for genome editing in Pseudomonas species. Although several parameters have been determined to optimize the procedures for obtaining a stable and high-frequency mutation, numerous false-positive clones still appear on the plate, which increases the difficulty of finding the desired mutants. It has also not been established whether this protocol can be used for genome editing in other bacterial species. In the current study, the protocol was modified to dramatically decrease the occurrence of false-positive colonies using Pseudomonas stutzeri A1501 as a model strain. This improvement was reached by increasing the occurrence of circular-DNA cassettes of the correct size. Furthermore, the enhanced protocol was used to construct mutants in both the gram-negative Escherichia coli BL21 and gram-positive Bacillus subtilis 168 strains. The protocol works well in both strains, yielding ideal results with a low percentage of false-positive colonies. In summary, the enhanced VFAE mutagenesis protocol is a potential tool for use in bacterial genome editing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcin J25 (MccJ25) is an antibacterial peptide with a peculiar molecular structure consisting of 21 amino acids and a unique lasso topology that makes it highly stable. We synthesized various MccJ25-derived peptides that retained some of the inhibitory activity of the native molecule against Salmonella enterica and Escherichia coli. Of the tested peptides, C1, 7-21C and WK_7-21 were the most inhibitory peptides (MIC = 1-250 µM), but all three were less potent than MccJ25. While MccJ25 was not active against Gram-positive bacteria, the three derived peptides were slightly inhibitory to Gram-positive bacteria (MIC ≥ 250 µM). At 5 µM, C1, 7-21C and WK_7-21 reduced E. coli RNA polymerase activity by respectively, 23.4, 37.4 and 65.0 %. The MccJ25 and its derived peptides all appeared to affect the respiratory apparatus of S. enterica. Based on circular dichroism and FTIR spectroscopy, the peptides also interact with bacterial membrane phospholipids. These results suggest the possibility of producing potent MccJ25-derived peptides lacking the lasso structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aurora kinase A (AURKA) is frequently overexpressed in several cancers. miRNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis indicated significant downregulation of miR-4715-3p. We found that miR-4715-3p has putative binding sites on the 3UTR region of AURKA. Upper gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma (UGC) tissue samples and cell models demonstrated significant overexpression of AURKA with downregulation of miR-4715-3p. Luciferase reporter assays confirmed binding of miR-4715-3p on the 3UTR region of AURKA. miR-4715-3p mediated a reduction in AURKA levels leading to G2/M delay, chromosomal polyploidy, and cell death. We also detected a remarkable decrease in GPX4, an inhibitor of ferroptosis, with an increase in cleaved PARP and caspase-3. Inhibition of AURKA using siRNA produced similar results, suggesting a possible link between AURKA and GPX4. Analysis of UGC samples and cell models demonstrated increased methylation levels of several CpG nucleotides upstream of miR-4715-3p. 5-Aza-2′-deoxycytidine induced demethylation of several CpG nucleotides, restoring miR-4715-3p expression, leading to downregulation of AURKA. In conclusion, our data identified a novel epigenetic mechanism mediating silencing of miR-4715-3p and induction of AURKA in UGCs. Inhibition of AURKA or reconstitution of miR-4715-3p inhibited GPX4 and induced cell death, suggesting a link between AURKA and ferroptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TFF1, a secreted protein, plays an essential role in keeping the integrity of gastric mucosa and its barrier function. Loss of TFF1 expression in the TFF1-knockout (KO) mouse leads to a pro-inflammatory phenotype with a cascade of gastric lesions that include low-grade dysplasia, high-grade dysplasia, and adenocarcinomas. In this study, we demonstrate nuclear localization of p-STATY705, with significant overexpression of several STAT3 target genes in gastric glands from the TFF1-KO mice. We also show frequent loss of TFF1 with nuclear localization of STAT3 in human gastric cancers. The reconstitution of TFF1 protein in human gastric cancer cells and 3D gastric glands organoids from TFF1-KO mice abrogates IL6-induced nuclear p-STAT3Y705 expression. Reconstitution of TFF1 inhibits IL6-induced STAT3 transcription activity, suppressing expression of its target genes. TFF1 blocks IL6Rα-GP130 complex formation through interfering with binding of IL6 to its receptor IL6Rα. These findings demonstrate a functional role of TFF1 in suppressing gastric tumorigenesis by impeding the IL6-STAT3 pro-inflammatory signaling axis. Trefoil factor 1 (TFF1) is a protein secreted by the gastric mucosa that protects against gastric tumourigenesis. Here, the authors show that TFF1 inhibits the oncogenic inflammatory response and IL-6-mediated STAT3 activation by interfering with the binding of IL6 to its receptor IL6Rα. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]