Mohammadsantos3924

Glaucoma is a progressive chronic retinal degenerative disease and a leading cause of global irreversible blindness, characterized by optic nerve damage and retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is a main risk factor of glaucoma. Neuroinflammation plays an important role in glaucoma. We have been demonstrating that elevated pressure triggers microglia reactivity that contribute to the loss of RGCs. Adenosine, acting on adenosine receptors, is a crucial modulator of microglia phenotype. Microglia express all adenosine receptors. Previously, we demonstrated that the activation of adenosine A3 receptor (A3R) affords protection to the retina, including RGCs, unveiling the possibility for a new strategy for glaucoma treatment. Since microglial cells express A3R, we now studied the ability of a selective A3R agonist (2-Cl-IB-MECA) in controlling microglia reactivity induced by elevated hydrostatic pressure (EHP), used to mimic elevated IOP. The activation of A3R reduced EHP-induced inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression, microglia migration and phagocytosis in BV-2 cells. In retinal microglia, proliferation and phagocytosis elicited by EHP were also decreased by A3R activation. ARV-771 order demonstrates that 2-Cl-IB-MECA, the selective agonist of A3R, is able to hinder microglia reactivity, suggesting that A3R agonists could afford protection against glaucomatous degeneration through the control of neuroinflammation.Graphene is a new type of carbon material with a flexible, two-dimensional structure. Due to the excellent stability of its lattice structure and its mechanical flexibility, graphene-based materials can be applied in flexible humidity sensors. At present, the application of graphene-based flexible humidity sensors in the fields of medical care and environmental monitoring is attracting widespread attention. In this review, the basic properties of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as moisture-sensitive materials and methods for their preparation were introduced. Moreover, three methods for improving the performance of moisture-sensitive materials were discussed. The working principle of different types of graphene-based humidity sensors were introduced. The progress in the research on graphene-based flexible humidity sensors in four respects Human respiration, skin moisture, human sweat, and environmental humidity were discussed. Finally, the future research, following the development trends and challenges, to develop the potential of integrated, graphene-based flexible humidity sensors were discussed.In this work, a biological retina inspired tone mapping processor for high-speed and energy-efficient image enhancement has been proposed. To achieve high throughput and high energy efficiency, several hardware design techniques have been proposed, including data partition based parallel processing with S-shape sliding, adjacent frame feature sharing, multi-layer convolution pipelining, and convolution filter compression with zero skipping convolution. Implemented on a Xilinx's Virtex7 FPGA, the proposed design achieves a high throughput of 189 frames per second for 1024 × 768 RGB images while consuming 819 mW. Compared with several state-of-the-art tone mapping processors, the proposed design shows higher throughput and energy efficiency. It is suitable for high-speed and energy-constrained image enhancement applications.Development of optical materials has attracted strong attention from scientists across the world to obtain low band gap energy and become active in field of solar energy. This challenge, which cannot be accomplished by the usual techniques, has overcome through the current study using non-conventional techniques. This study has used explosive reactions to convert non-optical alumina to series of new optical nanocomposites with very low band gap energy for the first time. In this trend, alumina nanoparticles were prepared and modified by explosive reactions using ammonium nitrate as a solid fuel. By using methanol or ethanol as a source of carbon species, three nanocomposites were produced indicating a gradual reduction of the band gap energy of alumina from 4.34 eV to 1.60 eV. These nanocomposites were obtained by modifying alumina via two different carbon species; core-shell structure and carbon nanotubes. This modification led to sharp reduction for the band gap energy to become very sensitive in sunlight. Therefore, these nanocomposites caused fast decolorization and mineralization of green dyes after illuminating in sunlight for ten minutes. Finally, it can be concluded that reduction of the band gap energy introduces new optical materials for developing optical nano-devices and solar cells.Establishing robust temporal control of the arrival of domesticated stock and the associated husbandry skills and lifeways in Southern Africa remains frustrated by the osteological similarities between domestic stock and wild endemic fauna. #link# We report the results of a systematic ancient DNA survey of appropriately sized bovid remains from Later Stone Age deposits in four South African archaeological sites. We show that none of the tested remains originated in domesticated cattle. The precise date of arrival of domestic cattle in the region awaits further study, although we also report new radiocarbon determinations which further refine the local chronology.Traumatic brain injury (TBI) presents a serious challenge for modern medicine due to the poor regenerative capabilities of the brain, complex pathophysiology, and lack of effective treatment for TBI to date. Tissue-engineered scaffolds have shown some experimental success in vivo; unfortunately, none have yielded consummate results of clinical efficacy. N-acetylcysteine has shown neuroprotective potential. To this end, we developed a N-acetylcysteine (NAC)-loaded poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) electrospun system for potential neural tissue application for TBI. Scanning electron microscopy showed nanofiber diameters ranging 72-542 nm and 124-592 nm for NAC-free and NAC-loaded PLGA nanofibers, respectively. NAC loading was obtained at 28%, and drug entrapment efficacy was obtained at 84%. A biphasic NAC release pattern that featured an initial burst release (13.9%) stage and a later sustained release stage was noted, thus enabling the prolonged replenishing of NAC and drastically improving cell viability and proliferation.