Search results for "Computer Science Applications"
showing 10 items of 3993 documents
Deep learning enables robust assessment and selection of human blastocysts after in vitro fertilization
2019
AbstractVisual morphology assessment is routinely used for evaluating of embryo quality and selecting human blastocysts for transfer after in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, the assessment produces different results between embryologists and as a result, the success rate of IVF remains low. To overcome uncertainties in embryo quality, multiple embryos are often implanted resulting in undesired multiple pregnancies and complications. Unlike in other imaging fields, human embryology and IVF have not yet leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) for unbiased, automated embryo assessment. We postulated that an AI approach trained on thousands of embryos can reliably predict embryo quality with…
Developing Antibiofilm Fibrillar Scaffold with Intrinsic Capacity to Produce Silver Nanoparticles
2022
The development of biomedical systems with antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties is a difficult medical task for preventing bacterial adhesion and growth on implanted devices. In this work, a fibrillar scaffold was produced by electrospinning a polymeric organic dispersion of polylactic acid (PLA) and poly(α,β-(N-(3,4-dihydroxyphenethyl)-L-aspartamide-co-α,β-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-L-aspartamide) (PDAEA). The pendant catechol groups of PDAEA were used to reduce silver ions in situ and produce silver nanoparticles onto the surface of the electrospun fibers through a simple and reproducible procedure. The morphological and physicochemical characterization of the obtained s…
New Bioactive Peptides from the Mediterranean Seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile and Their Impact on Antimicrobial Activity and Apoptosis of Hum…
2023
The demand for new molecules to counter bacterial resistance to antibiotics and tumor cell resistance is increasingly pressing. The Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica is considered a promising source of new bioactive molecules. Polypeptide-enriched fractions of rhizomes and green leaves of the seagrass were tested against Gram-positive (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis) and Gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli), as well as towards the yeast Candida albicans. The aforementioned extracts showed indicative MIC values, ranging from 1.61 μg/mL to 7.5 μg/mL, against the selected pathogens. Peptide fractions were further analyzed thr…
BDNF as a Mediator of Antidepressant Response: Recent Advances and Lifestyle Interactions
2022
Conventional antidepressants are widely employed in several psychiatric and neurologic disorders, yet the mechanisms underlying their delayed and partial therapeutic effects are only gradually being understood. This narrative review provides an up-to-date overview of the interplay between antidepressant treatment and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) signaling. In addition, the impact of nutritional, environmental and physiological factors on BDNF and the antidepressant response is outlined. This review underlines the necessity to include information on lifestyle choices in testing and developing antidepressant treatments in the future.
In Vitro Antioxidant Activity and In Vivo Topical Efficacy of Lipid Nanoparticles Co-Loading Idebenone and Tocopheryl Acetate
2019
Idebenone (IDE) is a strong antioxidant that has been proposed for the treatment of skin disorders, including skin ageing. Unfavorable physico-chemical properties make IDE a poor skin permeant where effectiveness could be improved by its loading into suitable delivery systems such as solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC). In this work, we designed novel IDE-loaded NLC containing tocopheryl acetate (VitE) as a liquid component to obtain a synergic effect between IDE and VitE. The resulting NLC showed small particle sizes (24&ndash
Species-Specific Antioxidant Power and Bioactive Properties of the Extracts Obtained from Wild Mediterranean Calendula Spp. (Asteraceae)
2019
In this study we focused on four taxa of the genus Calendula (C. maritima, C. suffruticosa subsp. fulgida, C. arvensis, and the hybrid between the first two ones), collected in Mediterranean area (Sicily). Six extracts for each species were obtained using solvents with increasing polarity (hexane, ethanol 80%, acetone 70%, and water) and through extraction by supercritical fluids (SFE). It has been observed that the solvent with the highest extraction efficiency was ethanol 80% for all species. However, SFE extracts showed high antioxidant activity comparable to the ethanol 80% extract (polyphenol, DPPH, and reducing power method). These findings were confirmed by in vitro analysis (MTT ass…
Dipeptides of S-Substituted Dehydrocysteine as Artzyme Building Blocks: Synthesis, Complexing Abilities and Antiproliferative Properties †
2021
Background: Dehydropeptides are analogs of peptides containing at least one conjugate double bond between α,β-carbon atoms. Its presence provides unique structural properties and reaction centre for chemical modification. In this study, the series of new class of dipeptides containing S-substituted dehydrocysteine with variety of heterocyclic moieties was prepared. The compounds were designed as the building blocks for the construction of artificial metalloenzymes (artzymes). Therefore, the complexing properties of representative compounds were also evaluated. Furthermore, the acknowledged biological activity of natural dehydropeptides was the reason to extend the study for antiproliferativ…
Memory degradation induced by attention in recurrent neural architectures
2022
This paper studies the memory mechanisms in recurrent neural architectures when attention models are included. Pure-attention models like Transformers are more and more popular as they tend to outperform models with recurrent connections in many different tasks. Our conjecture is that attention prevents the recurrent connections from transferring information properly between consecutive next steps. This conjecture is empirically tested using five different models, namely, a model without attention, a standard Loung attention model, a standard Bahdanau attention model, and our proposal to add attention to the inputs in order to fill the gap between recurrent and parallel architectures (for b…
Anomaly Detection and Classification of Household Electricity Data : A Time Window and Multilayer Hierarchical Network Approach
2022
With the increasing popularity of the smart grid, huge volumes of data are gathered from numerous sensors. How to classify, store, and analyze massive datasets to facilitate the development of the smart grid has recently attracted much attention. In particular, with the popularity of household smart meters and electricity monitoring sensors, a large amount of data can be obtained to analyze household electricity usage so as to better diagnose the leakage and theft behaviors, identify man-made tampering and data fraud, and detect powerline loss. In this paper, the time window method is first proposed to obtain the features and potential periodicity of household electricity data. Combining th…
Focus on the Small GTPase Rab1: A Key Player in the Pathogenesis of Parkinson’s Disease
2021
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most frequent neurodegenerative disease. It is characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and the formation of large aggregates in the survival neurons called Lewy bodies, which mainly contain α-synuclein (α-syn). The cause of cell death is not known but could be due to mitochondrial dysfunction, protein homeostasis failure, and alterations in the secretory/endolysosomal/autophagic pathways. Survival nigral neurons overexpress the small GTPase Rab1. This protein is considered a housekeeping Rab that is necessary to support the secretory pathway, the maintenance of the Golgi complex structure, and the regulation of macroau…