Preliminary Structural Data Revealed That the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617 Variant's RBD Binds to ACE2 Receptor Stronger Than the Wild Type to Enhance the Infectivity

The evolution of new SARS-CoV-2 variants around the globe has made the COVID-19 pandemic more worrisome, further pressuring the health care system and immunity. Novel variations that are unique to the receptor-binding motif (RBM) of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) spike glycoprotein, i. e. L452R-E484Q, may play a different role in the B.1.617 (also known as G/452R.V3) variant's pathogenicity and better survival compared to the wild type. Therefore, a thorough analysis is needed to understand the impact of these mutations on binding with host receptor (RBD) and to guide new therapeutics development. In this study, we used structural and biomolecular simulation techniques to explore the impact of specific mutations (L452R-E484Q) in the B.1.617 variant on the binding of RBD to the host receptor ACE2. Our analysis revealed that the B.1.617 variant possesses different dynamic behaviours by altering dynamic-stability, residual flexibility and structural compactness. Moreover, the new variant had altered the bonding network and structural-dynamics properties significantly. MM/GBSA technique was used, which further established the binding differences between the wild type and B.1.617 variant. In conclusion, this study provides a strong impetus to develop novel drugs against the new SARS-CoV-2 variants.     

Hybrid self-inertia weight adaptive particle swarm optimisation with local search using C4.5 decision tree classifier for feature selection problems

ABSTRACT

Feature selection is an important task to improve the classifier’s accuracy and to decrease the problem size. A number of methodologies have been presented for feature selection problems using metaheuristic algorithms. In this paper, an improved self-adaptive inertia weight particle swarm optimisation with local search and combined with C4.5 classifiers for feature selection algorithm is proposed. In this proposed algorithm, the gradient base local search with its capacity of helping to explore the feature space and an improved self-adaptive inertia weight particle swarm optimisation with its ability to converge a best global solution in the search space. Experimental results have verified that the SIW-APSO-LS performed well compared with other state of art feature selection techniques on a suit of 16 standard data sets.     

Prioritized Medium Access Control in Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks: Protocol and Analysis

Cognitive radio (CR) technology enables opportunistic exploration of unused licensed channels. By giving secondary users (SUs) the capability to utilize the licensed channels (LCs) when there are no primary users (PUs) present, the CR increases spectrum utilization and ameliorates the problem of spectrum shortage. However, the absence of a central controller in CR ad hoc network (CRAHN) introduces many challenges in the efficient selection of appropriate data and backup channels. Maintenance of the backup channels as well as managing the sudden appearance of PUs are critical issues for effective operation of CR. In this paper, a prioritized medium access control protocol for CRAHN, PCR-MAC, is developed which opportunistically selects the optimal data and backup channels from a list of available channels. We also design a scheme for reliable switching of a SU from the data channel to the backup channel and vice-versa. Thus, PCR-MAC increases network throughput and decreases SUs’ blocking rate. We also develop a Markov chain-based performance analysis model for the proposed PCR-MAC protocol. Our simulations, carried out in \(NS-3\) , show that the proposed PCR-MAC outperforms other state-of-the-art opportunistic medium access control protocols for CRAHNs.     

GPARS: a general-purpose activity recognition system

The fundamental problem of the existing Activity Recognition (AR) systems is that these are not general-purpose. An AR system trained in an environment would only be applicable to that environment. Such a system would not be able to recognize the new activities of interest. In this paper we propose a General-Purpose Activity Recognition System (GPARS) using simple and ubiquitous sensors. It would be applicable to almost any environment and would have the ability to handle growing amounts of activities and sensors in a graceful manner (Scalable). Given a set of activities to monitor, object names (with embedded sensors) and their corresponding locations, the GPARS first mines activity knowledge from the web, and then uses them as the basis of AR. The novelty of our system, compared to the existing general-purpose systems, lies in: (1) it uses more robust activity models, (2) it significantly reduces the mining time. We have tested our system with three real world datasets. It is observed that the accuracy of activity recognition using our system is more than 80%. Our proposed mechanism yields significant improvement (more than 30%) in comparison with its counterpart.     

Extraction,isolation and characterisation of oil bodies from pumpkin seeds for therapeutic use

Pumpkin, a member of the Cucurbitaceae family has been used frequently as functional medicines for therapeutic use. Several phytochemicals such as polysaccharides, phenolic glycosides, 13-hydroxy-9Z, 11E-octadecatrienoic acid from the leaves of pumpkin, proteins from germinated seeds, have been isolated.     

The hypoglycaemic effect of pumpkins as anti-diabetic and functional medicines

Diabetes mellitus is considered as a common, growing, serious, costly, and potentially preventable public health problem. In 2030, the number of people with diabetes is estimated to increase from 117 million in 2000 to 366 million. The prevalence of diabetes has and will continue to have burden on the health and finances of economic climates, which in turn, will impact on individuals, families and nations. There are many different types of insulins available to treat diabetes, but there are still physiological consequences for such use. Alternatives are, therefore, required and this includes herbal preparations as well as dietary plants in the form of curcubitaceae (pumpkin).Pumpkin is widely considered to have active hypoglycaemic properties. Pumpkin is a plant, which has been used frequently as functional food or medicine and belongs to the family Cucubitaceae, and consists of succulent stem with numerous seeds. Based on previous evidence of its fruit pulp, it is reported to have anti-diabetic effects.This review has focused on the main medicinal properties of pumpkin and how this has been used in animal models, and point out areas for future research to further elucidate mechanisms whereby this compound may reduce disease risk.     

Inland Treatment of the Brine Generated from Reverse Osmosis Advanced Membrane Wastewater Treatment Plant Using Epuvalisation System

The reverse osmosis (RO) brine generated from the Al-Quds University wastewater treatment plant was treated using an epuvalisation system. The advanced integrated wastewater treatment plant included an activated sludge unit, two consecutive ultrafiltration (UF) membrane filters (20 kD and 100 kD cutoffs) followed by an activated carbon filter and a reverse osmosis membrane. The epuvalisation system consisted of salt tolerant plants grown in hydroponic channels under continuous water flowing in a closed loop system, and placed in a greenhouse at Al-Quds University. Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) plants were selected, and underwent two consecutive hydroponic flowing stages using different brine-concentrations: an adaptation stage, in which a 1:1 mixture of brine and fresh water was used; followed by a functioning stage, with 100% brine. A control treatment using fresh water was included as well. The experiment started in April and ended in June (2012). At the end of the experiment, analysis of the effluent brine showed a remarkable decrease of electroconductivity (EC), PO₄³⁻, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and K⁺ with a reduction of 60%, 74%, 70%, and 60%, respectively, as compared to the influent. The effluent of the control treatment showed 50%, 63%, 46%, and 90% reduction for the same parameters as compared to the influent. Plant growth parameters (plant height, fresh and dry weight) showed no significant difference between fresh water and brine treatments. Obtained results suggest that the epuvalisation system is a promising technique for inland brine treatment with added benefits. The increasing of channel number or closed loop time is estimated for enhancing the treatment process and increasing the nutrient uptake. Nevertheless, the epuvalisation technique is considered to be simple, efficient and low cost for inland RO brine treatment.