Currently, the inappropriate disposal of plastic materials, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) wastes, is a major environmental problem since it can cause serious damage to the environment and contribute to the proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms. To reduce this accumulation, PET-type bottles have been recycled, and also explored in other applications such as the development of membranes. Thus, this research aims to develop electrospun microfiber membranes from PET wastes and evaluate their use as an air filter media. The solution concentrations varied from 20 to 12% wt% of PET wastes, which caused a reduction of the average fiber diameter by 60% (from 3.25 µm to 1.27 µm). The electrospun filter membranes showed high mechanical resistance (4 MPa), adequate permeability (4.4 × 10-8 m2), high porosity (96%), and provided a high collection efficiency (about 100%) and low-pressure drop (212 Pa, whose face velocity was 4.8 cm/s) for the removal of viable aerosol nanoparticles. It can include bacteria, fungi, and also viruses, mainly SARS-CoV-2 (about 100 nm). Therefore, the developed electrospun membranes can be applied as indoor air filters, where extremely clean air is needed (e.g., hospitals, clean zones of pharmaceutical and food industry, aircraft, among others).Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a common inner ear disease but has complex pathological mechanisms, one of which is increased oxidative stress in the cochlea. The high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) protein acts as an inflammatory mediator and shows different activities with redox modifications linked to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We aimed to investigate whether manipulation of cochlear HMGB1 during noise exposure could prevent noise-induced oxidative stress and hearing loss. Sixty CBA/CaJ mice were divided into two groups. An intraperitoneal injection of anti-HMGB1 antibodies was administered to the experimental group; the control group was injected with saline. Thirty minutes later, all mice were subjected to white noise exposure. Subsequent cochlear damage, including auditory threshold shifts, hair cell loss, expression of cochlear HMGB1, and free radical activity, was then evaluated.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/gsk1070916.html  The levels of HMGB1 and 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), as respective markers of reactive nitrogen species (RNS) and ROS formation, showed slight increases on post-exposure day 1 and achieved their highest levels on post-exposure day 4. After noise exposure, the antibody-treated mice showed markedly less ROS formation and lower expression of NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4), nitrotyrosine, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) than the saline-treated control mice. A significant amelioration was also observed in the threshold shifts of the auditory brainstem response and the loss of outer hair cells in the antibody-treated versus the saline-treated mice. Our results suggest that inhibition of HMGB1 by neutralization with anti-HMGB1 antibodies prior to noise exposure effectively attenuated oxidative stress and subsequent inflammation. This procedure could therefore have potential as a therapy for NIHL.It is well known that evaluation of rebar corrosion is important for the maintenance of reinforced concrete structures, but, it is difficult to simply, quickly and quantitatively evaluate the amount of corrosion of rebars embedded in concrete by conventional non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods such as electrical, electromagnetic and mechanical method. This paper proposes a vibro-Doppler radar (VDR) measurement method to quantitatively evaluate rebar corrosion by measuring the vibration ability of the rebar forcibly vibrated in concrete by an excitation coil. It is experimentally demonstrated in RC test pieces that the rebar vibration displacement obtained by developed VDR method is valid and is less affected by the moisture in the concrete. In addition, simultaneous monitoring of the rebar vibration displacement of the test pieces is performed through an electrolytic corrosion test and the measured vibration displacement is compared to the rebar corrosion loss evaluated. As the results, it is cleared that the rebar vibration displacement starts to increase from slightly before the occurrences of corrosion crack on the concrete surface as the corrosion loss increases. It is also shown that the rebar vibration displacement becomes 4 times higher than that in initial condition at the rebar corrosion loss of 250 mg/cm2. This implies that the VDR has potential to nondestructively and quantitatively evaluate rebar corrosion in concrete.Most organisms suffer neuronal damage throughout their lives, which can impair performance of core behaviors. Their neural circuits need to maintain function despite injury, which in particular requires preserving key system outputs. In this work, we explore whether and how certain structural and functional neuronal network motifs act as injury mitigation mechanisms. Specifically, we examine how (i) Hebbian learning, (ii) high levels of noise, and (iii) parallel inhibitory and excitatory connections contribute to the robustness of the olfactory system in the Manduca sexta moth. We simulate injuries on a detailed computational model of the moth olfactory network calibrated to data. The injuries are modeled on focal axonal swellings, a ubiquitous form of axonal pathology observed in traumatic brain injuries and other brain disorders. Axonal swellings effectively compromise spike train propagation along the axon, reducing the effective neural firing rate delivered to downstream neurons. All three of the network motifs examined significantly mitigate the effects of injury on readout neurons, either by reducing injury's impact on readout neuron responses or by restoring these responses to pre-injury levels. These motifs may thus be partially explained by their value as adaptive mechanisms to minimize the functional effects of neural injury. More generally, robustness to injury is a vital design principle to consider when analyzing neural systems.The issue of malnutrition is perhaps the most important public health determinant of global wellbeing. It is one of the main causes of improper mental and physical development as well as death of many children. The Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) rapid text setup is able to diagnose malnutrition due to the fact that the human arm contains subcutaneous fat and muscle mass. When proportional food intake increases or reduces, the corresponding increase or reduction in the subcutaneous fat and muscle mass leads to an increase or decrease in the MUAC. In this study, the researchers attempt to develop a model for determining the performance of MUAC in predicting Child malnutrition in Ghana. It focuses on the Joint Generalized Linear Model (Joint-GLM) instead of the traditional Generalized Linear Model (GLM). The analysis is based on primary data measured on children under six years, who were undergoing nutritional treatment at the Princess Marie Louise (PML) Children's Hospital in the Ashiedu Keteke sub-metro area of Accra Metropolis.