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Legends for Supplementary Tables S1-S7 and Supplementary Figures S1-S5.

Differential count of bone marrow cells (% of total cell count).

Generation of AEG-1KO mouse (S1); Analysis of spleen cells of adult WT and AEG-1KO mice (S2); F4/80 staining for macrophages in spleen sections of aged (16 m) WT and AEG-1KO mouse. Magnification 400X (S3); Graphical representation of quantification of F4/80 staining for macrophages in liver sections of WT and AEG-1KO mice, either untreated (naïve) or treated with DEN or DEN/PB (S4); Stellate cells are activated in the tumor region of WT liver (S5).

Activation of the oncogene AEG-1 (MTDH, LYRIC) has been implicated recently in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In mice, HCC can be initiated by exposure to the carcinogen DEN, which has been shown to rely upon activation of NF-κB in liver macrophages. Because AEG-1 is an essential component of NF-κB activation, we interrogated the susceptibility of mice lacking the AEG-1 gene to DEN-induced hepatocarcinogenesis. AEG-1–deficient mice displayed resistance to DEN-induced HCC and lung metastasis. No difference was observed in the response to growth factor signaling or activation of AKT, ERK, and β-catenin, compared with wild-type control animals. However, AEG-1–deficient hepatocytes and macrophages exhibited a relative defect in NF-κB activation. Mechanistic investigations showed that IL6 production and STAT3 activation, two key mediators of HCC development, were also deficient along with other biologic and epigenetics findings in the tumor microenvironment, confirming that AEG-1 supports an NF-κB–mediated inflammatory state that drives HCC development. Overall, our findings offer in vivo proofs that AEG-1 is essential for NF-κB activation and hepatocarcinogenesis, and they reveal new roles for AEG-1 in shaping the tumor microenvironment for HCC development. Cancer Res; 74(21); 6184–93. ©2014 AACR.

Description of additional methods and procedures used in the study. Also includes supplementary references.

This research assesses the impacts of climate change and relative sea level (RSL) fluctuations on coastal vegetation during the past 2000 years along the Mahanadi River delta, northeast coast of India. Sediment samples of a 2.6 m trench from Barhatubi area located in the lower flood plain of Mahanadi River delta were studied for sedimentological and pollen analysis. Mangrove succession can be divided into three zones: (1) Freshwater marsh (∼1980–1420 cal yr BP); (2) Tidal flat (∼1420–770 cal yr BP) and (3) Landward mangrove margin (∼770 cal yr BP-Present). A transgressive shift from floodplain freshwater marsh to a tidal flat is recorded between ∼1980–1420 cal yr BP which is evidenced by upland tree taxa, Poaceae, pteridophyte and fungal spores along with low percentage of mangroves such as Avicennia, Sonneratia and Rhizophora representing the landward edge of the tidal region. Dominance of Sonneratia and a decline in terrestrial taxa reflects a rise in the relative sea level around ∼1420 cal yr BP with less freshwater input from land suggesting a weakened monsoon condition. After ∼770 cal yr BP, an overall regressive phase with small cycles of relative sea level rise/fall has been observed due to the dominance of salt tolerant Avicennia along with Rhizophora, Excoecaria agallocha and Aegialitis rotundifolia alternating with Sonneratia and other marine palynomorphs.

Melanin is a major pigment of human skin that protects the skin from harmful ultraviolet radiation, DNA damage and oxidative stress. However, the excess accumulation of melanin may lead to various hyperpigmentation-related diseases. Tyrosinase is a copper containing enzyme that regulates the rate-limiting step of melanin synthesis. So, inhibiting tyrosinase is the crucial target for researchers for the treatment of hyperpigmentation. Unfortunately, almost all the literature is based on mushroom tyrosinase (mTYR) for their application on humans as pure human tyrosinase (hTYR) is difficult to isolate. Since presently used tyrosinase inhibitors are developed using mushroom tyrosinase, they are insufficient to match the affinity, selectivity and efficacy required to target the human tyrosinase. Therefore, there is an urgent need for identifying a selective tyrosinase inhibitor that matches the selectivity and safety standards of human tyrosinase. This mini-review is focused on the tyrosinase inhibitors developed and evaluated using human tyrosinase.

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are one of the most common infections in the community and hospitals. Uropathogens colonize the urinary tract and may ascend to bladder causing cystitis, if left untreated reach kidneys through ureters can be responsible for acute pyelonephritis and cause renal damage. Aims: The aim of the present study is to determine the prevalence of urinary tract infections and antibiotic susceptibility pattern in a tertiary care hospital. Settings & Design: This is an observational study conducted in Microbiology department, Hind Institute of Medical Sciences, Barabanki. Materials and Methods: A total of 623 urine(mid-stream) samples were collected from indoor and outdoor departments of hospital and culture was done on UTI chromogenic agar using semiquantitative method. Antibiotic sensitivity test was performed using Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: Prevalence of urinary tract infections is 29% in the study. (43%) is the most common micro-organism isolated followed by (13%), (11%), (10.4%), (8.8%), (3.3%), (1.6%), CONS & (1.1%) and (6.6%). The females(56.6%) are more commonly affected than males. Conclusion: In the present study, beta-lactamase inhibitors and aminoglycosides were effective drugs against gram negative bacteria. Vancomycin and linezolid were sensitive in gram positive bacteria. Nitrofurantoin is the promising drug in cases of uncomplicated UTI, and safe to use in pregnancy. High recurrence rates and antimicrobial resistance are responsible for increasing the burden of disease. It is advised to use the antibiotics judiciously as per the hospital antibiotic policy which will help prevent multidrug resistance micro-organism further reducing morbidity and mortality. Keywords: Escherichia coli, Urinary tract infections, Uropathogens.

Internet of Medical Thing (IoMT) is the most emerging era of the Internet of Thing (IoT), which is exponentially gaining researchers’ attention with every passing day because of its wide applicability in Smart Healthcare systems (SHS). Because of the current pandemic situation, it is highly risky for an individual to visit the doctor for every small problem. Hence, using IoMT devices, we can easily monitor our day-to-day health records, and thereby initial precautions can be taken on our own. IoMT is playing a crucial role within the healthcare industry to increase the accuracy, reliability, and productivity of electronic devices. This research work provides an overview of IoMT with emphasis on various enabling techniques used in smart healthcare systems (SHS), such as radio frequency identification (RFID), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain. We are providing a comparative analysis of various IoMT architectures proposed by several researchers. Also, we have defined various health domains of IoMT, including the analysis of different sensors with their application environment, merits, and demerits. In addition, we have figured out key protocol design challenges, which are to be considered during the implementation of an IoMT network-based smart healthcare system. Considering these challenges, we prepared a comparative study for different data collection techniques that can be used to maintain the accuracy of collected data. In addition, this research work also provides a comprehensive study for maintaining the energy efficiency of an AI-based IoMT framework based on various parameters, such as the amount of energy consumed, packet delivery ratio, battery lifetime, quality of service, power drain, network throughput, delay, and transmission rate. Finally, we have provided different correlation equations for finding the accuracy and efficiency within the IoMT-based healthcare system using artificial intelligence. We have compared different data collection algorithms graphically based on their accuracy and error rate. Similarly, different energy efficiency algorithms are also graphically compared based on their energy consumption and packet loss percentage. We have analyzed our references used in this study, which are graphically represented based on their distribution of publication year and publication avenue.

Vegetable oils are very effective, economic and appealing option as compared to conventional lubricants due to their environment-friendly nature, sustainable behaviour and biodegradability. Castor oil, one of the promising non-edible vegetable oils with nanoparticle additives has the potential to serve as base lubricating oil. The benefit of using nanoparticles in base oils is their small size, which works as a roller on contacting surfaces and results in reducing the wear and friction more efficiently. The present review paper has been structured as follows. The first part of this technical article is designed to give a brief about vegetable oils as a lubricant with special reference to castor oil. The second part of the review paper describes the effects of nanoparticles especially molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) in different lubricating oils, especially in castor oil. Finally, the applications of nanolubricants and their future prospects are also discussed.

Introduction: Health care workers (HCW) including medical as well as paramedical workers are a potential source of carrier of infection for the patients admitted in different intensive care units (ICU). The anterior nares are the main reservoir of Staphylococcus although other body sites are frequently colonised with it, such as hands, skin, axillae, and intestinal tract. The body parts of health care workers as well as the equipments and accessories used by them are likely to transmit infections. Materials and Methods: A prospective study was conducted to evaluate the infections in different ICUs. A total of 288 parallel nasal and hands swabs were collected. These samples were cultured as per standard protocols and antibiotic sentivity was also carried out. For antibiotic sensitivity Kirby disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar plate was used. Coagulase negative Staphylococcus was the bacteria isolated and subjected to sensitivity towards different antibiotics. Results: Of the 288 samples 90 samples (31.3%) were positive while 198 (68.7%) were negative. The distribution of the positive samples from Medical ICUs – 47 cases, Paediatric ICUs – 21 and, Surgical ICUs – 22 cases. Conclusion: Coagulase negative Staphylococci were predominantly isolated from culture and increasing antibiotic resistance is also observed. The most effective antibiotics were Tobramycin, Teicoplanin and Linezolid while Penicillin, Gentamycin and Erythromycin showed highest resistance. HCW themselves as well as the accessories used by them are an important potential source of infection for the admitted patients. Regular disinfection of these accessories should be strictly followed in each and every ICU. Keywords: Nosocomial, Cons, Healthcare workers, Nasal carrier, ICU.

The causative agent of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The SARS-CoV-2 possesses RNA as a genetic material with 79% of the match with the bat SARS-CoV genome, which became epidemic in 2002. The SARS-CoV-2 peripheral Spike-Fc protein binds specifically to the ACE2 receptors present on bronchial epithelial cells and alveolar pneumocytes to downmodulates its expression which leads to severe acute respiratory failure. The disease is super infectious from human to human and the symptoms are similar to flu. The old aged and immunocompromised population are severely affected, and healthcare providers globally applied various strategies for treatment including the repurposing of drugs including antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine and anti-viral drugs.Herein, we described the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, immune responses, possible drug targets, vaccines under the trials and correlated the possibility of trained immunity induced by BCG vaccination over control of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The countries with constraint BCG vaccination policy are struggling badly compared to countries with BCG vaccination policy. The BCG vaccination policy supports either lowering the total number of COVID-19 cases or the increasing recovery rate.

While tetanus toxoid vaccination has reduced the incidence of tetanus in the developed world, this disease remains a substantial health problem in developing nations. Tetanus immune globulin (TIG) is used along with vaccination for prevention of infection after major or contaminated wounds if vaccination status cannot be verified or for active tetanus infection. These studies describe the characterisation of a TIG produced by a caprylate/chromatography process. The TIG potency and presence of plasma protein impurities were analysed at early/late steps in the manufacturing process by chromatography, immunoassay, coagulation and potency tests. The caprylate/chromatography process has been previously shown to effectively eliminate or inactivate potentially transmissible agents from plasma-derived products. In this study, the caprylate/chromatography process was shown to effectively concentrate TIG activity and efficiently remove pro-coagulation factors, naturally present in plasma. This TIG drug product builds on the long-term evidence of the safety and efficacy of TIG by providing a product with higher purity and low pro-coagulant protein impurities.

Secure and continuous power flow in the transmission line is one of the critical issues that must be rectified. In fact, rescheduling-based congestion management is considered to be one of the promising solutions for this aspect. Still, the model faces issues on the basis of rescheduling costs. More research works have been addressed so far to solve the problems of congestion management. Optimization algorithms also play a vital role in solving this problem. Under this scenario, this paper introduces a new rescheduling-based congestion management model that incorporates a new algorithm, refractor update-based ROA (RU-ROA) that optimizes the generating power of added generators with the bus system. The proposed RU-ROA algorithm is the hybridization of two algorithms, namely rider optimization algorithm (ROA) and water wave optimization (WWO), that aims to manage the congestion with the reduced cost of rescheduling. Further, the proposed model compares its performance over other conventional models like particle swarm optimization, FireFly, grey wolf optimization, traditional ROA and traditional WWO-based rescheduling strategy with respect to cost analysis and convergence analysis, and proves the efficiency of proposed work over others.

Introduction: Nowadays, the need for specialty thermal fluids for critical applications are fulfilled by specifically formulated functional fluids. In daily used vehicles e.g. cars the ~ 80% energy get wasted as system energy loss (1). The rapidly increasing demand for high performance fluids for fast growing automotive sectors propel the newer research for development of functional fluids leading to enhancement in engine efficiency (2-4). The enhancement in engine efficiency can be achieved by increasing engine performance parameters e.g., improving design parameters, using efficient lubricants and coolants. The important area which largely affects the economic performance of engines and efficiency is engine cooling system and this has got little attention as compared to engine design. Therefore, an emerging area of research is to improve heat transfer efficiency of conventional heat transfer fluids. Development of new method with cost-effective route, scalable process to produce stable nanofluid dispersions with improved performance in all type of cooling needs is a big challenge. In recent years, the carbon nanostructure based nanofluids for heat transfer application have attracted huge interest (5). Methods: In the present work, graphene-based hybrid material was synthesized as thermally conducting additive. In order to synthesize graphene-based hybrid material, first reduced graphene oxide was synthesized followed by this it was in-situ reduced with silver nitrate to get silver decorated reduced graphene oxide. The final product formed was having silver nanoparticles decorated over ultra-thin reduced graphene oxide. Finally, nanofluids were developed using this material and thermal conductivity were evaluated under varying measurement conditions and concentrations. Results and discussions: The nanofluid developed was subjected to its thermal conduction property evaluation. The thermal conductivities of nanofluids and base fluid was evaluated with KD2 pro instrument. Significant enhancement was observed in the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid developed and highest enhancement in thermal conductivity observed was 32% with respect to base fluid at room temperature at 0.2% vol. concentration. The measurements were also done with varying vol. concentration ranging from 0.01% to 0.4%. The rise in concentration resulted into rise in thermal conductivities but going beyond 0.2% concentration resulted into nominal to no change in thermal conductivities. The thermal conductivity was also evaluated with varying temperatures, ranging from 30℃ to 60 ℃. The rise in temperature lead to rise in thermal conductivity. The maximum thermal conductivity enhancement (by 39%) was observed at 60℃. The results show remarkable enhancement in thermal conductivity of nanofluid developed. Furthermore, the developed nanofluid was applied in custom made IC engine to evaluate its performance. The use of nanofluid in place of conventional coolant in IC engine lead to significant enhancement in different engine performance parameters. The total fuel consumption was enhanced by 10-12% compared to base fluid. Conclusions: The silver nanoparticles decorated graphene based thermal conductivity enhancement additive was developed and employed for the development of highly efficient engine coolant. The room temperature thermal conductivity enhancement was 32% with significant enhancement in engine performance parameters, which is quite promising result for engine cooling applications. Keywords: Nanofluids, thermal conductivity, graphene References Holmberg, K. and Erdemir A. (2019) The impact of tribology on energy use and CO2 emission globally and in combustion engine and electric cars. Tribology International. 135: p. 389-396. Gupta, K., et al., (2017) Catalytic Aerial Oxidation of Biomass‐Derived Furans to Furan Carboxylic Acids in Water over Bimetallic Nickel–Palladium Alloy Nanoparticles. ChemCatChem. 9(14): p. 2760-2767. Tanvir, S. and Qiao, L. (2012) Surface tension of nanofluid-type fuels containing suspended nanomaterials. Nanoscale research letters. 7(1): p. 1-10. Zhang, G., et al. (2016) Excellent heat dissipation properties of the super-aligned carbon nanotube films. RSC Advances. 6(66): p. 61686-61694. Kibria, M., et al. (2015) A review on thermophysical properties of nanoparticle dispersed phase change materials. Energy conversion and management. 95: p. 69-89.

In this research paper, a unique method to design a wireless power transmission system for car is proposed. Wireless transmission (WPT) is developing rapidly in recent years. Road­ powered vehicles (RPEVs) will be the most needed for future transport as they do not rely on large and heavy batteries but gain power directly and efficiently while on the road. Electric vehicles (EVs) are capable of achieving friendly transport. However, the biggest limitation in achieving this idea is battery technology. It has problems with obstacles such as high cost, unusual equipment, low power, and heavy weight. Wireless power transfer (WPT) is now an acceptable wireless charging system and is similarly used to transmit power through power input and magnetic resonance coupling. At the power level of kilowatts, the transmission distance increases from several millimetres to several hundred millimetres per grid to load efficiency more than 90%. Advances make WPT more attractive to electric vehicle (EV) powerful charging systems in both static and dynamic charging conditions. This paper has updated the technology in the area of WPT that works on wireless EV charging. By introducing wireless power transmission to electrical vehicles, barriers to charging time, scope, and cost can be easily reduced. Battery technology is no longer valid at the entry of a large EV market. It is hoped that researchers can be encouraged by technological advances, moving forward with the continued development of wireless power transmission and electrical vehicle expansion. Keywords: Wireless power transmission, mutual induction, electric car, EVS

For provisioning of various computing resources in recent days cloud computing data centers are becoming popular. Now reducing of energy consumption is the main issues at different data centers. In the field of Cloud Computing Clustering technique is the best technique to reduce the load at data centers and finally energy consumption will be reduced. In this paper, energy efficiency with reducing load is the main issue and to reduce the load at different data centers different energy efficiency and load balancing techniques implemented. Keywords: Load Balancing, Clustering, Energy Consumption, Cloud Computing

Background and Objectives: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is the most common clinical finding during pregnancy, and if it is asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB), it can progress to pyelonephritis, leading to further complications. The present study aims to know the prevalence of ASB in pregnant females and the antimicrobial resistance pattern in our hospital setup. Materials and Methods: A total of 552 urine samples were collected from pregnant females (with no symptoms of UTI) both attending outpatient department and admitted in the wards of obstetrics and gynecology department. Urine culture was performed on blood agar, MacConkey agar, and UTI chromogenic agar. Antibiotic sensitivity test was done using Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method, and the results were interpreted. Results: The prevalence rate of ASB in pregnant females was 17.4%. It was common in the age group of 25–33 years (60.4%). The infection rate was higher in the second trimester (43.7%) compared to the third (29.2%) and first (27.1%) trimester. Multiparity (60.4%) was a common finding in ASB during pregnancy. There was a significant finding of previous history of UTI (22.9%) and anemia (58.3%) associated with ASB in pregnant females. Escherichia coli (39.2%) was the most common microorganism isolated followed by Staphylococcus aureus (34.3%), Enterococcus faecalis (14.7%), Klebsiella (4.9%), coagulase-negative Staphylococcus spp. (2.9%), and Citrobacter and Acinetobacter (1.9%). Most sensitive drugs to be given in ASB during pregnancy were nitrofurantoin and fosfomycin. Conclusion: It was emphasized that urine culture should be done in early antenatal visit as routine screening to identify ASB in pregnant females as it can prevent fetal and maternal complications.

In today's time, social media is one of the main sources of news for many people in the world because it is cheap, easily accessible and also portable. But one of the major concerns in today’s scenario is the circulation of the fake news on social media. Intentionally people spread fake news on social media. Within few minutes news spread all over the world. Machines are unable to detect fake news because of lack of political context or can be called lack of common sense. Natural language processing algorithms still suffer from lack of common sense. A lot of attempts were made to analyse fake news., {"references":["Shu, K., Sliva, A., Wang, S., Tang, J., & Liu, H. (2017). Fake news detection on social media: A data mining perspective. ACM SIGKDD explorations newsletter, 19(1), 22-36.","Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of economic perspectives, 31(2), 211-36.","Yin, W., Kann, K., Yu, M., & Schütze, H. (2017). Comparative study of cnn and rnn for natural language processing. arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.01923.","Lai, S., Xu, L., Liu, K., & Zhao, J. (2015, February). Recurrent convolutional neural networks for text classification. In Twenty-ninth AAAI conference on artificial intelligence.","Granik, M., & Mesyura, V. (2017, May). Fake news detection using naive Bayes classifier. In 2017 IEEE First Ukraine Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (UKRCON) (pp. 900-903). IEEE.","Gilda, S. (2017, December). Evaluating machine learning algorithms for fake news detection. In 2017 IEEE 15th Student Conference on Research and Development (SCOReD) (pp. 110- 115). IEEE.","Bourgonje, P., Schneider, J. M., & Rehm, G. (2017, September). From clickbait to fake news detection: an approach based on detecting the stance of headlines to articles. In Proceedings of the 2017 EMNLP Workshop: Natural Language Processing meets Journalism (84-89).","Wang, W. Y. (2017). \" liar, liar pants on fire\": A new benchmark dataset for fake news detection. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.00648.","Liu, Y., Han, K., Tan, Z., & Lei, Y. (2017, September). Using context information for dialog act classification in dnn framework. In Proceedings of the 2017 conference on empirical methods in natural language processing ( 2170-2178).","Ma, J., Gao, W., Mitra, P., Kwon, S., Jansen, B. J., Wong, K. F., & Cha, M. (2016). Detecting rumors from microblogs with recurrent neural networks."]}

BACKGROUND: Carbapenemase-producing microorganisms are becoming a major concern among hospital-acquired infections. There is also increased multidrug resistance seen among these isolates. AIMS: We have conducted this study to determine the prevalence of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) gene-producing Escherichia coli among hospitalized patients in a tertiary care hospital in Northern India. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: The study was conducted in the Department of Microbiology with the tertiary care hospital settings. It was a prospective cross-sectional observational study conducted during January 2014–August 2014. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 500 nonduplicate E. coli samples were processed. The isolates with reduced susceptibility to ertapenem, i.e., zone diameter between 19 and 21 mm, were considered carbapenemase producers. These isolates were subjected to modified Hodge test for phenotypic confirmation. Polymerase chain reaction was performed on all the screened isolates for molecular detection of NDM-1 gene. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Chi-square test was used to analyze the data and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Out of 500 E. coli isolates, 61 (12.2%) were screened for carbapenemase production. 47 (9.4%) isolates were positive by modified Hodge test and 36 (7.2%) isolates showed the presence of blaNDM-1 gene (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: There is an increased prevalence of NDM-1 gene-producing E. coli isolates. These carbapenemase-producing isolates are more resistant to other group of antibiotics (aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones along with β-lactam group). Early detection of blaNDM-1 gene can help in choosing the effective treatment options for hospitalized patients in time, thereby reducing the risk of mortality.

Background Human rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) is an integral part of post-exposure prophylactic treatment of rabies (along with rabies vaccination). Infiltration of most, if not all, of the RIG dose at the wound site is recommended. RIG produced by a caprylate/chromatography manufacturing process (RIG-C; HyperRAB) increased the potency and purity of this product over the existing licensed RIG from a solvent/detergent process (RIG-S/D; HyperRAB-S/D). Methods A series of studies were conducted to characterize the content and purity of RIG-C. A single-dose pharmacokinetic study in rabbits was performed to compare intramuscular (IM) immunoglobulin products manufactured by two different purification processes, solvent/detergent (IGIM-S/D) and caprylate/chromatography (IGIM-C). Results RIG-C was found to be a highly purified IgG formulation with high monomer content and formulated with twice the anti-rabies potency of RIG-S/D while maintaining the same overall protein concentration. RIG-C facilitates IM administration at the wound site by halving the injection volume. The new caprylate/chromatography process eliminated detectible levels of pro-coagulant impurities and IgA that were carried through in the prior S/D process. These impurities have been associated with thrombotic complications and allergic reactions in susceptible patients. After single dose administration, IGIM-C was pharmacokinetically equivalent to IGIM-S/D in rabbits. Conclusion RIG-C is a more potent RIG formulation with less impurities yielding a safer and more convenient product with similar pharmacokinetic profile.

The article describes an efficient method for the preparation of silver nanoparticles ink for its application in printed electronics. The effective formulation using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and triethylamine leads to highly stable silver nano-ink. The spincoated silver nanoparticulate films fabricated using the as-prepared nano-ink exhibit bulk-like conductivity at moderate annealing temperature of 60C -100C. Additionally; pen-on-paper type of conventional writing is successfully demonstrated with modifying the formulation of such nano-inks. The viscosity of as-prepared Ag nano-ink can be easily altered by varying the concentration of binders and solvents to suit its end applications. Such flexibility coupled with high conductivity and amphiphilic nature makes this silver nano-ink highly useful in various advanced printing techniques. Copyright © 2016 VBRI Press.

There is a large body of research on cognitive interventions for older adults the review which suggests the following: (1) Cognition remediation therapy is indicated for healthy elderly, and in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), early dementia, brain disease and injury, and severe mental illness (SMI). (2) Studies on healthy elderly demonstrate that with cognitive training (CT), cognitive stimulation (CS), and/or cognitive rehabilitation (CR) age-related cognitive decline can be reversed, at least partially if not fully, even in advanced age, with improved social functioning and quality of life. Better results are obtained if cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) is combined with vocational/psychosocial rehabilitation. Generalization of training to activities of daily living (ADL) and to secondary outcome measures such as quality of life and self-esteem are issues that need to be addressed in older adults. (3) Research in MCI has indicated that CRT, especially memory training, has some role. Future studies should place focus on the assessment of dose-response relationship, training generalization, and ecologically relevant approaches. (4) Findings of earlier work in early-stage dementia were frustrating, more recent work, especially randomized controlled trials of high quality, has provided a ray of rope with respect to effectiveness of CT and CR. Further well-designed studies are required to provide more definitive evidence. (5) Significant therapeutic effects of CR have been observed on cognitive function and ADL in the elderly patients with stroke. Routine screening for stroke patients and those with brain injury for cognitive impairment is recommended. (6) Available research provides evidence that cognitive remediation benefits people with SMI, and when combined with psychiatric rehabilitation this benefit generalizes to functioning. Elderly with SMI need special focus. Further needs to be carried out on older people with SMI.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a fatal cancer with no effective therapy. Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) plays a pivotal role in hepatocarcinogenesis and inhibits retinoic acid-induced gene expression and cell death. The combination of a lentivirus expressing AEG-1 shRNA and all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) profoundly and synergistically inhibited subcutaneous human HCC xenografts in nude mice. We have now developed liver-targeted nanoplexes by conjugating poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers with polyethylene glycol (PEG) and lactobionic acid (Gal) (PAMAM-PEG-Gal) which were complexed with AEG-1 siRNA (PAMAM-AEG-1si). The polymer conjugate was characterized by (1)H-NMR, MALDI, and mass spectrometry; and optimal nanoplex formulations were characterized for surface charge, size, and morphology. Orthotopic xenografts of human HCC cell QGY-7703 expressing luciferase (QGY-luc) were established in the livers of athymic nude mice and tumor development was monitored by bioluminescence imaging (BLI). Tumor-bearing mice were treated with PAMAM-siCon, PAMAM-siCon+ATRA, PAMAM-AEG-1si, and PAMAM-AEG-1si+ATRA. In the control group the tumor developed aggressively. ATRA showed little effect due to high AEG-1 levels in QGY-luc cells. PAMAM-AEG-1si showed significant reduction in tumor growth, and the combination of PAMAM-AEG-1si+ATRA showed profound and synergistic inhibition so that the tumors were almost undetectable by BLI. A marked decrease in AEG-1 level was observed in tumor samples treated with PAMAM-AEG-1si. The group treated with PAMAM-AEG-1si+ATRA nanoplexes showed increased necrosis, inhibition of proliferation, and increased apoptosis when compared to other groups. Liver is an ideal organ for RNAi therapy and ATRA is an approved anticancer agent. Our exciting observations suggest that the combinatorial approach might be an effective way to combat HCC.

Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) and c-Myc are overexpressed in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) functioning as oncogenes. AEG-1 is transcriptionally regulated by c-Myc, and AEG-1 itself induces c-Myc by activating the Wnt/β-catenin-signaling pathway. We now document the cooperation of AEG-1 and c-Myc in promoting hepatocarcinogenesis by analyzing hepatocyte-specific transgenic mice expressing either AEG-1 (albumin [Alb]/AEG-1), c-Myc (Alb/c-Myc), or both (Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc). Wild-type and Alb/AEG-1 mice did not develop spontaneous HCC. Alb/c-Myc mice developed spontaneous HCC without distant metastasis, whereas Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc mice developed highly aggressive HCC with frank metastasis to the lungs. Induction of carcinogenesis by N-nitrosodiethylamine significantly accelerated the kinetics of tumor formation in all groups. However, in Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc, the effect was markedly pronounced with lung metastasis. In vitro analysis showed that Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc hepatocytes acquired increased proliferation and transformative potential with sustained activation of prosurvival and epithelial-mesenchymal transition-signaling pathways. RNA-sequencing analysis identified a unique gene signature in livers of Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc mice that was not observed when either AEG-1 or c-Myc was overexpressed. Specifically, Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc mice overexpressed maternally imprinted noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), such as Rian, Meg-3, and Mirg, which are implicated in hepatocarcinogenesis. Knocking down these ncRNAs significantly inhibited proliferation and invasion by Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc hepatocytes.Our studies reveal a novel cooperative oncogenic effect of AEG-1 and c-Myc that might explain the mechanism of aggressive HCC. Alb/AEG-1/c-Myc mice provide a useful model to understand the molecular mechanism of cooperation between these two oncogenes and other molecules involved in hepatocarcinogenesis. This model might also be of use for evaluating novel therapeutic strategies targeting HCC.

The staphylococcal nuclease and tudor domain containing 1 (SND1) is a multifunctional protein overexpressed in breast, prostate, colorectal and hepatocellular carcinomas and malignant glioma. Molecular studies have revealed the multifaceted activities of SND1 involved in regulating gene expression at transcriptional as well as post-transcriptional levels. Early studies identified SND1 as a transcriptional co-activator. SND1 is also a component of RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) thus mediating RNAi function, a regulator of mRNA splicing, editing and stability, and plays a role in maintenance of cell viability. Such diverse actions allow the SND1 to modulate a complex array of molecular networks, thereby promoting carcinogenesis. Here, we describe the crucial role of SND1 in cancer development and progression, and highlight SND1 as a potential target for therapeutic intervention.

Activation of the oncogene AEG-1 (MTDH, LYRIC) has been implicated recently in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In mice, HCC can be initiated by exposure to the carcinogen DEN, which has been shown to rely upon activation of NF-κB in liver macrophages. Because AEG-1 is an essential component of NF-κB activation, we interrogated the susceptibility of mice lacking the AEG-1 gene to DEN-induced hepatocarcinogenesis. AEG-1–deficient mice displayed resistance to DEN-induced HCC and lung metastasis. No difference was observed in the response to growth factor signaling or activation of AKT, ERK, and β-catenin, compared with wild-type control animals. However, AEG-1–deficient hepatocytes and macrophages exhibited a relative defect in NF-κB activation. Mechanistic investigations showed that IL6 production and STAT3 activation, two key mediators of HCC development, were also deficient along with other biologic and epigenetics findings in the tumor microenvironment, confirming that AEG-1 supports an NF-κB–mediated inflammatory state that drives HCC development. Overall, our findings offer in vivo proofs that AEG-1 is essential for NF-κB activation and hepatocarcinogenesis, and they reveal new roles for AEG-1 in shaping the tumor microenvironment for HCC development. Cancer Res; 74(21); 6184–93. ©2014 AACR.

Psychiatric morbidity can be regarded as closely related to health status and quality of life among cancer patients. Communication between oncologists and cancer patients seems to play an important role in psychological difficulties that can arise during the diagnosis and treatment phase of cancer, such as uncertainty, anxiety, depression and problems with coping. Qualitative researches done earlier, confirms that how cancer patients perceive their relationship with physician, generally affects their psychological well being which ultimately influences their short term and long term health outcomes. This paper presented an extensive review on the significance of physicians’ communication behaviour which revealed the complex relationship of doctor-patient communication and reinforces the practice implications of the former reviews. It was concluded that instead of focusing on different types of communication behaviours as separate entities, future researches should adopt an integrated approach toward the understanding of the doctor patient communication to get a clearer picture of psychological and health outcome in cancer patients.

Retinoid X receptor (RXR) regulates key cellular responses such as cell growth and development, and this regulation is frequently perturbed in various malignancies, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the molecule(s) that physically govern this deregulation are mostly unknown. Here, we identified RXR as an interacting partner of astrocyte-elevated gene-1 (AEG-1)/metadherin (MTDH), an oncogene upregulated in all cancers. Upon interaction, AEG-1 profoundly inhibited RXR/retinoic acid receptor (RAR)–mediated transcriptional activation. Consequently, AEG-1 markedly protected HCC and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) cells from retinoid- and rexinoid-induced cell death. In nontumorigenic cells and primary hepatocytes, AEG-1/RXR colocalizes in the nucleus in which AEG-1 interferes with recruitment of transcriptional coactivators to RXR, preventing transcription of target genes. In tumor cells and AEG-1 transgenic hepatocytes, overexpressed AEG-1 entraps RXR in cytoplasm, precluding its nuclear translocation. In addition, ERK, activated by AEG-1, phosphorylates RXR that leads to its functional inactivation and attenuation of ligand-dependent transactivation. In nude mice models, combination of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and AEG-1 knockdown synergistically inhibited growth of human HCC xenografts. The present study establishes AEG-1 as a novel homeostatic regulator of RXR and RXR/RAR that might contribute to hepatocarcinogenesis. Targeting AEG-1 could sensitize patients with HCC and AML to retinoid- and rexinoid-based therapeutics. Cancer Res; 74(16); 4364–77. ©2014 AACR.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a vicious and highly vascular cancer with a dismal prognosis. It is a life-threatening illness worldwide that ranks fifth in terms of cancer prevalence and third in cancer deaths. Most patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage by which time conventional therapies are no longer effective. Targeted molecular therapies, such as the multikinase inhibitor sorafenib, provide a modest increase in survival for advanced HCC patients and display significant toxicity. Thus, there is an immense need to identify novel regulators of HCC that might be targeted effectively. The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axis is commonly abnormal in HCC. Upon activation, the IGF axis controls metabolism, tissue homeostasis, and survival. Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 7 (IGFBP7) is a secreted protein of a family of low-affinity IGF-binding proteins termed "IGFBP-related proteins" that have been identified as a potential tumor suppressor in HCC. IGFBP7 has been implicated in regulating cellular proliferation, senescence, and angiogenesis. In this review, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the role of IGFBP7 in HCC and the potential use of IGFBP7 as a novel biomarker for drug resistance and as an effective therapeutic strategy.