Vital pulp therapy (VPT) has been recently proposed as an alternative treatment of symptomatic mature permanent teeth with deep caries lesions, with the aim to maintain the pulp vitality over time and/or to postpone root canal therapy (RCT).

However, the outcomes and success of VPT are strictly related to the pulp inflammation severity and the histopathological involvement of pulp tissue. To date, the diagnosis of reversible or irreversible pulpitis is only based on clinical pain quantity and quality, without precisely reflecting the pulp inflammation status. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to review the current scientific literature to provide precise diagnostic tools to categorize the pulp involvement and to guide the treatment choice to improve the prognosis. In addition, endodontic biomaterials applied in VPT were overviewed to assess their potential in tissue inflammation healing and pain relief.

VPT was successfully applied not only in mature permanent teeth diagnosed with reversible pulpitis, but also in permanent dental elements with signs and symptoms of irreversible pulpitis. However, high heterogeneity among studies was observed and further randomized controlled trials should be conducted. Moreover, calcium silicate-based cements showed, among others, favorable outcomes in terms of decrease of pro- inflammatory mediators and of post-operative pain.

In conclusions, pain plays a central role in the chance to perform VPT in mature permanent teeth, since it’s considered as a pre-operative diagnostic criterion as well as a parameter of treatment success. In addition, proper assessment of pulp inflammation and choice of appropriate materials are key factors in enhancing VPT success.

The indigestible residues remaining after amylase hydrolysis of native, acetylated (AC) and octenylsuccinylated (OSA) canna starches were in vitro fermented with pig faeces. Fermentation of AC starch produced the highest amounts of total short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) (77.1 mM), followed by native (73.9 mM) and OSA (64.2 mM) starches, respectively. Fermentation of native starch generated butyric acid as a main SCFA, while acetic acid was a major component of SCFAs derived from AC and OSA starches. Significant variability in SCFA production and proportion of of individaul SCFA were observed between the individual donor samples.

Sleep apnea is a serious disorder where breathing stops frequently during sleep. Changes in brain activities that occur during apnea can be detected with an electroencephalogram (EEG). Although accurate detection of apnea events is very important, there is currently no algorithm that can efficiently measure the onset and end of apnea events based only on electroencephalogram signals. The number and duration of apnea events are used to calculate apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and mean apnea-hypopnea duration (MAD), that are indicators of obstructive sleep apnea severity. Previous apnea detection algorithms usually focus on the classification of apnea patients and not specific apnea events, or perform a frame-by-frame analysis and classify each frame based on the global characteristics of the frame, instead of locating the onsets and ends of apnea events. Thus, the clinical significance of EEG signals for apnea detection is limited to sleep staging. The purpose of this study is to propose a method for sleep apnea event detection and event duration evaluation using Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks, based only on EEG signals. Reference and estimated AHI are strongly correlated (r=0.88, p<0.001), whereas the sensitivity and positive predicted value for the individual events detection is 0.73 and 0.78, respectively. Reference and estimated MAD values are very highly correlated (r=0.91, p<0.001), and the absolute error between them is 2.05 ± 1.66 s. The proposed method has high accuracy in detecting individual apnea events from EEG signals, especially in severe apnea cases.

Increasing rates of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) cases of tuberculosis (TB) strains are alarming, which eventually hampered an effective control of the pathogenic disease. Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is a major polyphenolic constituent of green tea, earlier demonstrated in-vitro potency against TB strains. However, efforts to elucidate the exact mechanism of interactions are still ongoing. Aiming to elucidate the probable mechanism of its anti-TB action as Decaprenylphosphoryl-beta-D-ribose 2'-epimerase (DPRE) inhibition, we investigated molecular modeling analysis. Our Molecular docking analysis for a set of 40 Tea bioactive compounds was realized that EGCG has the highest binding affinity (docking score: -156 Kcal/mol) against DPRE from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Further, molecular dynamics analysis for 100 ns resulted in extreme stability of the ligand-protein complex. We further accessed in-silico pharmacokinetics and toxicities for several green tea polyphenols. Our results provide critical insights into the mechanism of action of EGCG and other green tea polyphenols as a potential therapeutic agent (DPRE) against TB.

The tablet form of the detergent powder is one of the new delivery systems of the detergent. It is the compact form of detergent powder with highly active ingredients. The tabulated form of detergent reduces volume of the powder. Due to compact format it affects the transportation and packing cost. Thus, we aimed to formulate the unique detergent powder with the chemical combinations of various surface active agents. The detergent formulation thus, contains linear alkyl Benzene Sulphonate (LABSA), alfa sulfo methyl esters, Sodium Tripolyphophate (STPP), Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), Sodium Silicate, and Sodium Sulphate, etc. In our study, the detergent powder is mixed with various disintegrating agents like Corn Starch, Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (Sodium CMC), Silicic Acid, Sodium Carbonate and Citric Acid. Our compact detergent powder showed better detergency properties. This helps to instantly disintegrate and disperse, when contacted with water. Detergent powder composition in our currently formulated tablets caused effervescences and disintegrates within 30 seconds at room temperature in water. The tablet detergent has shown better performance than market detergents.

Due to the decline in agricultural labor force and rapid aging of farmers, agricultural machinery is becoming larger, higher-performance, and diversified. Tractors use diesel combustion in various operations and emit a number of pollutants, which are the primary and secondary sources for particulate matter (PM) and other air pollutants. In this study, an air pollutant emission inventory for tractor was analyzed and compared with the inventory developed by a national agency. Riding tractors were divided into 3 sub-categories based on engine size. In addition, tractor emissions were classified according to the usage time of each operation. Eight air pollutants such as CO, NOx, SOx, TSP, VOC, PM₁₀, PM_2.5 and NH₃ were included in the inventory. Geographic information system (GIS) was used to spatially assign air pollutants variables into 17 provinces and metropolitan cities in the Republic of Korea. The results showed that the total yearly emissions in 2017 were 3,298 Mg/yr, 9,110 Mg/yr, 4 Mg/yr, 567 Mg/yr, 759 Mg/yr, 567 Mg/yr, 522 Mg/yr and 33 Mg/yr for CO, NOx, SOx, TSP, VOC, PM₁₀, PM_2.5 and NH₃ respectively. The results also showed that total pollutant emissions of tractors were increased 8% compared to the emission inventory developed by a national agency.

Diabetes is a metabolic disease that affects millions of people around the world. Non-invasive electromagnetic techniques for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) can greatly improve the lives of patients with diabetes and, for this reason, considerable progress has been made in recent years in the development of microwave sensors. In this framework, we face the problem of fitting the dielectric spectrum of glucose/water solutions in order to estimate the parameters of Debye or Cole-Cole models. Such models provide an efficient and accurate representation of biological tissues in the whole considered frequency band and reduce the complexity of the experimental data to a few parameters. Extracting a "synthetic view" of the dielectric properties of the tissues is essential to analyze the models and possibly to extract more information, in addition to the resonance peak or phase shift, on the glucose concentration. To this end, two different algorithms are used, namely the Levenberg-Marquardt and the variable projection algorithms, which are compared to address the underlying nonlinear problem by fitting the Cole-Cole model. Synthetic data of single-pole models, present in the literature, are used to evaluate the performances obtainable by these methods. In particular, the Monte Carlo analysis is used to evaluate how sensitive the two methods are with respect to the starting points of the parameters and how accurately the parameters can be estimated.

The world is rapidly advancing towards electrification of mobility owing to the substantial emission reduction benefits. Ensuing International trend and environmental obligations, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) also intended to adopt 30@30 plug-in-Electric vehicles (PEVs) penetration across the country, which implies 30 percent of the new sale is of the PEVs till 2030. Despite the GOP introduced policy guidelines as well as incentives for vehicle fleet electrification and indigenization, the foremost challenge is the lack of PEVs charging infrastructure placement plan for a country. In this regard, an optimal locality map for Level-3 or direct current fast charging (DCFC) stations installation is proposed considering the traffic volume, service area, and local grid facility while ensuring the availability of charging stations across the major networks of the country. The focused area for this is National Highway 5, known as N5 and Motorway 2 (M-2) network. The paper also provides insights on the techno-economic analysis of the proposed charging stations installation spots. The results are extremely encouraging which reveals proposed PEVs charging stations under observation on the highways from Lahore to Islamabad consumed electricity share of 3MW-0.13 MW based on minimum to maximum traffic volume scenario respectively. The study is impactful which is ultimately a way forward for aggravation of the EV market share by considering the initial investment and a payback period of 7 months. By the help of this study a better planning in terms of EV penetration size and its requirement for public DCFC stations is implemented and the exact recipe for the growth of supportive industry with the pace of PEVs perforation can be executed.

Agriculture is the largest economic and employment sector in Bangladesh, accounting for 23 percent of its gross domestic product and 65 percent of its labor force. It has a total land area of 14,570 km2, with cultivated land accounting for 60% of the total land area. The population is still growing at a 1.37 percent annual rate, but cultivated land is shrinking at the same time. The agricultural land is being converted as a result of uncontrolled urbanization, industrialization, and an increase in human activity (Momotaz et al., 2019). Modern sustainable agricultural methods approach to agricultural innovations and farming practices that increase farmer’s efficiency and reduce the use of natural resources. This study uses the secondary information to provide a general view on modern practices used in Bangladesh for sustainable agriculture (i.e. crop diversification, change in cropping pattern and rotations, integrated farming system etc.) and suggest a sustainable method (polyculture and crop rotation) based on SWOT and PESTEL analysis. This paper recommends that Bangladesh should adopt polyculture and crop rotation more to improve soil health and for higher crop resistance to plant pests that will hedge against a loss in agricultural sustainability.

Polythiophene is a prominent example of conductive polymers, a class of materials that combines the advantages of both organic polymers and inorganic conductors. Polythiophene and its derivatives convince with their light weight, flexibility, structural versatility, as well as chemical, electrochemical and environmental stability, making them key material component for polymer-based transistors, actuators, light-emitting diodes, electrochromic devices, electrochemical capacitors, and electrochemical sensors [1]. In a simple and fast approach, they can be electropolymerized in various solvents. Boron trifluoride diethyl etherate (BFEE) is preferably used, since it has a catalysing effect and therefore grants milder electropolymerization conditions [2]. As a result, lower polymerization potentials are necessary and films with improved mechanical and electrical properties can be obtained. However, electropolymerization in BFEE is not reproducible due to its decomposition under ambient conditions.

In this communication, we will unravel the mechanism behind the observed catalysing effect of BFEE. We identified Lewis acids on fluorine basis, e.g. zinc fluoride, as suitable catalysts, as they combine electrochemical stability with strong acidity. The described catalysis allows for the synthesis of polythiophene films with improved properties from stable solvents in a reproducible manner. Films were deposited by cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and chronopotentiometry and characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Surface morphology and elemental composition were analysed with scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, as well as white light interferometry.

References

[1.] T.H. Le et al., Polymers (Basel), 2017. 9(4).

[2.] G. Shi et al., Science, 1995. 267(5200): p. 994-6.