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Protein malnutrition is a major public health concern in the developing world. The livestock products are a good source of high-quality protein, but the livestock industry is a source of pollution and one of the leading causes of climate change because the slaughtering of animals results in the accumulation of waste, offals, and several inedible body portions. The rapid increase in the human population and inadequate supply of traditional protein sources have driven a search for novel and alternative protein sources such as edible insects. This review extensively explores the nutritional value, allergenicity, and safety considerations associated with consuming common house crickets and other related insect species. A wide range of cricket protein-based products are currently available and provide some attractive options to the consumers such as protein-enriched bakery products and gluten-free bread for celiac patients. The cricket protein hydrolysates are used as preservatives to improve the stability of cheddar cheese and goat meat emulsions during storage. The risks associated with edible crickets and their products are bacteria, mycotoxins, polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, pesticide residues, heavy metals, and the presence of allergenic proteins.

The Sub-Saharan Africa is facing trilemma of energy poverty, climate change hazards, and low economic growth. Lack of access to modern energy is considered as an impediment to the region’s wellbeing and development objectives. This study contributes to the energy literature by examining the role of financial development, institutional quality, foreign direct investment, and direct and indirect effects of human capital on the renewable energy consumption of 31 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2002–2019. Panel corrected standard error (PCSE) and feasible generalized least square (FGLS) estimation methods are applied for empirical investigation. The findings reveal that complementary effect of both human capital and GDP per capita is a key policy choice for the sample countries. The study also validates a U-shaped GDP-energy consumption nexus. Thus the present work provides a novel and insightful empirical evidence on energy transition and the channels through which it is affected by human capital, financial development, and institutional quality. Therefore, it is recommended that improvement in GDP per capita, capacity enhancement of human capital, and reforms in financial and institutional frameworks entail strategic importance for energy transition.

Taking everything into account, the information and attention to diabetes was low, while the pervasiveness of these diseases was high among the number of inhabitants in blood benefactors. This examination discovered that monitoring and having higher diabetes related information can affect the predominance of these contaminations. This is especially the situation among diabetes patients, as the individuals who reacted accurately to in any event four of six information proclamations for every contamination were essentially connected with a negative disease status for the diseases, separately. 66.5% respondents didn't think about strategies to diminish diabetes, yet most showed that schooling on lessening diabetes is required. Hence, a legislature driven quest for proficient strategies to battle and announce sugar decrease is required so as to persistently give proper schooling. There is a need to bring issues to light and disperse proper information to patients and everybody to support uplifting perspectives, advance solid practices, and in this way diminish the spread of these diseases. This investigation has significant ramifications for general wellbeing arrangements and supports the requirement for conduct mediation systems to draw in individuals in solid practices, particularly sexual conduct.

To set up the recognition of diet-D in kids with infection of urinary tract. A bypass-sectional research modified into directed on the department of Pediatrics, Carter university sanatorium, Hyderabad, from July 2019 to March 2020. A sum of 172 young guys and younger girls somewhere in the variety of 2 and 60 months vintage enough have been decided to have urinary lot contamination (UTI) (powerful pee check). C/S record) grow to be remembered for the studies. In view of past well being information or clinically essential medical records, kids who had ate up immunosuppressive medicines and steroids 48 h previous or had taken nutrient D improvements with CKD, and recognized instances of nutrient D inadequacy were likewise prohibited from the research. All exam members surveyed their nutrient D degrees by way of elite fluid chromatography. Collect pee tests for C/S and 1 cc of venous blood for nutrient D recognition (ng/ml). Decide the advise ± desired deviation (SD) and definition antique sufficient, time period of urinary parcel sickness, and nutrient D diploma. The chi-square test after definition is carried out to all absolute factors with 95% truth stretch (CI), and a P esteem ≤ 0.05 is considered huge. The recurrence of urinary lot illnesses is greater everyday in children who're nutrient D insufficient.

Poly (l-lacticacid) (PLLA) is an FDA approved material for bone tissue engineering but its inherent brittleness and low melting ability are major challenges for its large-scale commercial applications. This challenge can be overcome by making its blends. This study reports blends of PLLA with a relatively new class of polymer i.e. cyclic olefinic copolymer and their miscibility, thermal behavior, morphology, crystallinity, degradability, and excellent biocompatibility is evaluated. Blends were prepared by taking 5–30 weight percent COC with PLLA matrix using solvent casting method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that PLLA/COC form miscible blends up to 5–20 wt% of COC. FTIR, XRD, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data showed that addition of COC to PLLA resulted in decrease in crystallinity along with formation of new α′-crystalline phase which coexists with inherent α-phase of PLLA in the blends. The transformation of α′-form is due to the presence of Van der Waals forces of interactions of the polymer chain moieties between PLLA and COC. Interestingly, PLLA/COC blends exhibited superior mechanical properties in relation to the pure PLLA. Compressive modulus values for PLLA/COC 10wt% increased 117% as compared to pure PLLA. PLLA/COC blends at 10 wt% have maximum ultimate tensile strength, modulus, and toughness ~ 123%, 67.8% and, 18.87% respectively. PLLA/COC blends showed increased swelling and degradation results as compared to PLLA. PLLA/COC blends exhibited excellent cytocompatibility over PLLA with preosteoblast (MC3T3-E1) and bone marrow stem cells (BMSc) cell lines suggesting possible candidate for Bone Tissue Engineering.

Gradenigo's syndrome (GS) is a triad (otorrhea, abducens nerve palsy, and pain in the trigeminal nerve distribution) of clinical findings that are caused by contiguous spread of petrous apicitis to the nearby neurovascular structures. Petrous apicitis is usually secondary to otitis media but atypical etiologies and absence of the classical triad pose a diagnostic challenge for physicians. We report a rare case of GS in an afebrile 55-year-old male who presented with unilateral headache, dysphagia and hoarseness (IX and X cranial nerve involvement), and diplopia with lateral gaze palsy (VI nerve involvement) in the absence of trigeminal neuralgia or a history of otitis media. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) revealed hyperintense lesions in the right petrous apex indicating petrous apicitis, the hallmark of GS. Prompt initiation of broad-spectrum antibiotics led to a marked improvement in dysphagia and voice quality on the 4th post-admission day, and complete resolution of symptoms by the end of the fourth week. This shows that GS can present even in the absence of clinically apparent ear infection and cranial nerve palsies may not be limited to the V and VI nerve in all cases. Physicians should be aware of such atypical manifestations as prompt radiological assessment followed by early antibiotics can prevent life-threatening complications from developing.

The structure-properties relationships of novel cyclic olefinic copolymer (COC)/poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) polymer blends are investigated by varying the PLLA content from 5–20 wt % in COC matrix, forming an immiscible blends at all concentrations. Despite immiscibility, COC favors the formation of α- crystal form of PLLA in the blends, contrary to the α’- crystal form in neat PLLA due to non-covalent interactions of the chain moieties as evident from x-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and differential scanning calorimetry. The COC/PLLA blends revealed tunable superior mechanical and barrier properties as compared to the neat counterparts. The tensile modulus, strength and toughness of COC/PLLA blends at 15 wt% are significantly enhanced ∼ 89 %, 103 % and one order of magnitude, respectively. Such reinforcement and super toughening mechanisms are pertaining to the effective dissipation of loads across the interfaces, enabling them to delay the crack growth by avoiding stress concentration sites. Likewise, the water vapor permeation (WVP) of the blends is reduced ∼ 4 times than neat COC.

Ecological consideration is of key importance in finding fungi and other entomopathogens for managing insect pests. The probability of finding entomopathogenic fungi is increased by knowing the soil characteristics supporting fungal survival and diversity. Many opportunistic fungi are closely associated with EPF in soil. Diversity and occurrence of fungi were carried out from soil samples (145) and dead insects (225) collected from natural and cultivated areas of south Punjab. The relative research for the presence and abundance of EPF in samples of soils collected from cultivated to non-cultivated hilly lands show that fruit orchid can be considered as a richer in these fungal species. The EPF was mainly isolated from the collected (225) insect cadavers belonging to six insect orders out of which only 94 were positive for any category of fungus isolated. Insects from Coleoptera were reported with maximum occurrence (44.68%) for harboring any kind of the fungus followed by Lepidoptera (36.17%). Aspergillus niger (27.50%) was the most occurring taxa among all isolates, while Fusarium oxysporium was dominantly occurring specie (17.02%). It can be concluded that orchard soils that are least disturbed (tillage, weeding, etc) and supplied with ample moisture should be preferred for sampling in order to isolate the entomopathogens. Furthermore, insect cadavers from coleoptera and lepidoptera should be preferred for collection for the sake of entomopathogenic fungi.

Polymer blends of poly vinyle chloride (PVC) and polyaniline (PANI) with the inclusion of graphene nano platelets (GNP) are fabricated to enhance the EMI shielding effectiveness. The initial assessment with cyclic voltammetry has shown improved electrical conductivity both for PVC/PANI blends and PVC/PANI/GNP composites. The capacitive effect of the blends and composites is evaluated at lower frequency region (100 Hz−5 MHz). EMI shielding measurements of PVC/PANI/GNP composites is performed in the frequency range 10 MHz–20 GHz. In case of PVC/PANI (15 wt%) blends, a maximum attenuation of ∼27 dB is attained which is enhanced to ∼51 dB (max.) with the inclusion of 5 wt% GNP, mainly due to the absorption phenomena. The enhanced shielding effectiveness is achieved mainly in the frequency range 11–20 GHz. The dispersion state, fillers nature and their interaction may be the main aspects for the enhanced EMI shielding effectiveness of hybrid polymeric nanocomposites. Keywords: Polymeric composites, Electrical properties, EMI shielding, Graphene

In recent years, facial recognition technology has become increasingly integrated into society, making privacy protection crucial. Previous techniques offered minimal secrecy safeguards through simple obscuration methods. This paper addresses the strict privacy requirements of face image data by developing a novel framework that synergistically integrates Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), clustering algorithms, and Blockchain technology. The methodology proposes a cutting-edge Privacy-Preserving Self-Attention GAN (PPSA-GAN) to generate realistic synthetic facial imagery. An integrated mini-batch K-means clustering algorithm anonymizes these images into distinct groupings, maximizing privacy preservation. Blockchain integration complements the system by fortifying trust through decentralized ledgers for transparent yet secure data storage and auditing. Rigorous benchmarking on the CelebA dataset confirms the PPSA-GAN architecture’s state-of-the-art performance, attaining an impressive Inception Score of 13.99 and a Fréchet Inception Distance of 35.50. The mini-batch clustering forms 125 distinct clusters, effectively anonymizing facial attributes within the synthetic images. Blockchain integration further bolsters privacy assurances via tamper-proof historical records, showcasing precision, recall, F1-score, and accuracy values of 0.948, 0.938, 0.943, and 0.947, respectively. This multifunctional framework represents a novel contribution, fostering an ethical technological ecosystem that balances progress and privacy. Prospective deployment horizons encompass identity verification, surveillance infrastructure, and augmentation of medical image repositories, seeding an enlightening future for facial recognition domains.

The bioactivity and mechanical properties of hybrid composites of hydroxyapatite (HA) in cyclic olefinic copolymer (COC) also known commercially as TOPAS are investigated, first time, for regeneration and repair of the bone tissues. HA is synthesized to obtain the spherically shaped nanoparticles in the size range of 60±20nm. Various concentrations of HA ranging from 1 to 30wt% are dispersed in TOPAS using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) coupling agent for better dispersion and interaction of hydrophilic HA with hydrophobic TOPAS. Scanning electron microscope shows the uniform dispersion of HA≤10wt% in TOPAS and at higher concentrations >10wt%, agglomeration occurs in the hybrid composites. Tunable mechanical properties are achieved as the compressive modulus and strength are increased around 140% from 6.4 to 15.3MPa and 185% from 0.26 to 0.74MPa, respectively. Such increase in the mechanical properties of TOPAS is attributed to the anchoring of the polymer chains in the vicinity of HA nanoparticles owing to better dispersion and interfacial interactions. In comparison to neat TOPAS, hybrid composites of TOPAS/HA promoted the cell adhesion and proliferation significantly. The cell density and proliferation of TOPAS/HA hybrid composites is enhanced 9 and 3 folds, respectively, after 1day culturing in preosteoblasts cells. Moreover, the morphology of cells changed from spherical to flattened spread morphology demonstrating clearly the migration of the cells for the formation of interconnected cellular network. Additionally, very few dead cells are found in hybrid composites showing their cytocompatibility. Overall, the hybrid composites of TOPAS/HA exhibited superior strength and stiffness along with enhanced cytocompatibility for bone tissue engineering applications., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)