| 1. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(författare)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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Ingår i: eLIFE. - 2050-084X. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.522.7) and 16.5 cm (13.319.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 2. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(författare)
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A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
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Ingår i: eLIFE. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 5
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3– 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8– 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- von Seidlein, Lorenz, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of targeted malaria elimination with mass drug administrations on falciparum malaria in Southeast Asia: A cluster randomised trial
- 2019
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Ingår i: PLoS Medicine. - : PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. - 1549-1277 .- 1549-1676. ; 16:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background The emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) threatens global malaria elimination efforts. Mass drug administration (MDA), the presumptive antimalarial treatment of an entire population to clear the subclinical parasite reservoir, is a strategy to accelerate malaria elimination. We report a cluster randomised trial to assess the effectiveness of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DP) MDA in reducing falciparum malaria incidence and prevalence in 16 remote village populations in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, where artemisinin resistance is prevalent. Methods and findings After establishing vector control and community-based case management and following intensive community engagement, we used restricted randomisation within village pairs to select 8 villages to receive early DP MDA and 8 villages as controls for 12 months, after which the control villages received deferred DP MDA. The MDA comprised 3 monthly rounds of 3 daily doses of DP and, except in Cambodia, a single low dose of primaquine. We conducted exhaustive cross-sectional surveys of the entire population of each village at quarterly intervals using ultrasensitive quantitative PCR to detect Plasmodium infections. The study was conducted between May 2013 and July 2017. The investigators randomised 16 villages that had a total of 8,445 residents at the start of the study. Of these 8,445 residents, 4,135 (49%) residents living in 8 villages, plus an additional 288 newcomers to the villages, were randomised to receive early MDA; 3,790 out of the 4,423 (86%) participated in at least 1 MDA round, and 2,520 out of the 4,423 (57%) participated in all 3 rounds. The primary outcome, P. falciparum prevalence by month 3 (M3), fell by 92% (from 5.1% [171/3,340] to 0.4% [12/2,828]) in early MDA villages and by 29% (from 7.2% [246/3,405] to 5.1% [155/3,057]) in control villages. Over the following 9 months, the P. falciparum prevalence increased to 3.3% (96/2,881) in early MDA villages and to 6.1% (128/2,101) in control villages (adjusted incidence rate ratio 0.41 [95% CI 0.20 to 0.84]; p = 0.015). Individual protection was proportional to the number of completed MDA rounds. Of 221 participants with subclinical P. falciparum infections who participated in MDA and could be followed up, 207 (94%) cleared their infections, including 9 of 10 with artemisinin-and piperaquine- resistant infections. The DP MDAs were well tolerated; 6 severe adverse events were detected during the follow-up period, but none was attributable to the intervention. Conclusions Added to community-based basic malaria control measures, 3 monthly rounds of DP MDA reduced the incidence and prevalence of falciparum malaria over a 1-year period in areas affected by artemisinin resistance. P. falciparum infections returned during the follow-up period as the remaining infections spread and malaria was reintroduced from surrounding areas. Limitations of this study include a relatively small sample of villages, heterogeneity between villages, and mobility of villagers that may have limited the impact of the intervention. These results suggest that, if used as part of a comprehensive, well-organised, and well-resourced elimination programme, DP MDA can be a useful additional tool to accelerate malaria elimination.
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| 5. |
- Ha, Tuyen V., et al.
(författare)
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Spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance and associated risk factors in Hanoi, Vietnam
- 2021
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Ingår i: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1935-2727 .- 1935-2735. ; 15:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the major cause of viral encephalitis (VE) in most AsianPacific countries. In Vietnam, there is no nationwide surveillance system for JE due to lack of medical facilities and diagnoses. Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Culex vishnui, and Culex quin-quefasciatus have been identified as the major JE vectors in Vietnam. The main objective of this study was to forecast a risk map of Culex mosquitoes in Hanoi, which is one of the most densely populated cities in Vietnam. A total of 10,775 female adult Culex mosquitoes were collected from 513 trapping locations. We collected temperature and precipitation information during the study period and its preceding month. In addition, the other predictor variables (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI], land use/land cover and human population density), were collected for our analysis. The final model selected for estimating the Culex mosquito abundance included centered rainfall, quadratic term rainfall, rice cover ratio, forest cover ratio, and human population density variables. The estimated spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance ranged from 0 to more than 200 mosquitoes per 900m2. Our model estimated that 87% of the Hanoi area had an abundance of mosquitoes from 0 to 50, whereas approximately 1.2% of the area showed more than 150 mosquitoes, which was mostly in the rural/peri-urban districts. Our findings provide better insight into understanding the spatial distribution of Culex mosquitoes and its associated environmental risk factors. Such information can assist local clinicians and public health policymakers to identify potential areas of risk for JE virus. Risk maps can be an efficient way of raising public awareness about the virus and further preventive measures need to be considered in order to prevent outbreaks and onwards transmission of JE virus.
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| 6. |
- Lindblad-Toh, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Genome sequence, comparative analysis and haplotype structure of the domestic dog.
- 2005
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 438:7069, s. 803-19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Here we report a high-quality draft genome sequence of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), together with a dense map of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across breeds. The dog is of particular interest because it provides important evolutionary information and because existing breeds show great phenotypic diversity for morphological, physiological and behavioural traits. We use sequence comparison with the primate and rodent lineages to shed light on the structure and evolution of genomes and genes. Notably, the majority of the most highly conserved non-coding sequences in mammalian genomes are clustered near a small subset of genes with important roles in development. Analysis of SNPs reveals long-range haplotypes across the entire dog genome, and defines the nature of genetic diversity within and across breeds. The current SNP map now makes it possible for genome-wide association studies to identify genes responsible for diseases and traits, with important consequences for human and companion animal health.
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| 7. |
- Tran, Xuan-Truc Dinh, et al.
(författare)
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Integration of the Butina algorithm and ensemble learning strategies for the advancement of a pharmacophore ligand-based model : an in silico investigation of apelin agonists
- 2024
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Chemistry. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2296-2646. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: 3D pharmacophore models describe the ligand's chemical interactions in their bioactive conformation. They offer a simple but sophisticated approach to decipher the chemically encoded ligand information, making them a valuable tool in drug design.Methods: Our research summarized the key studies for applying 3D pharmacophore models in virtual screening for 6,944 compounds of APJ receptor agonists. Recent advances in clustering algorithms and ensemble methods have enabled classical pharmacophore modeling to evolve into more flexible and knowledge-driven techniques. Butina clustering categorizes molecules based on their structural similarity (indicated by the Tanimoto coefficient) to create a structurally diverse training dataset. The learning method combines various individual pharmacophore models into a set of pharmacophore models for pharmacophore space optimization in virtual screening.Results: This approach was evaluated on Apelin datasets and afforded good screening performance, as proven by Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUC score of 0.994 ± 0.007), enrichment factor of (EF1% of 50.07 ± 0.211), Güner-Henry score of 0.956 ± 0.015, and F-measure of 0.911 ± 0.031.Discussion: Although one of the high-scoring models achieved statistically superior results in each dataset (AUC of 0.82; an EF1% of 19.466; GH of 0.131 and F1-score of 0.071), the ensemble learning method including voting and stacking method balanced the shortcomings of each model and passed with close performance measures.
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| 8. |
- Nguyen, Quang Linh, et al.
(författare)
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Vascular PDGFR-alpha protects against BBB dysfunction after stroke in mice
- 2021
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Ingår i: Angiogenesis. - : Springer. - 0969-6970 .- 1573-7209. ; 24, s. 35-46
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction underlies the pathogenesis of many neurological diseases. Platelet-derived growth factor receptor-alpha (PDGFR alpha) induces hemorrhagic transformation (HT) downstream of tissue plasminogen activator in thrombolytic therapy of acute stroke. Thus, PDGFs are attractive therapeutic targets for BBB dysfunction. In the present study, we examined the role of PDGF signaling in the process of tissue remodeling after middle cerebral arterial occlusion (MCAO) in mice. Firstly, we found that imatinib increased lesion size after permanent MCAO in wild-type mice. Moreover, imatinib-induced HT only when administrated in the subacute phase of MCAO, but not in the acute phase. Secondly, we generated genetically mutated mice (C-KO mice) that showed decreased expression of perivascular PDGFR alpha. Additionally, transient MCAO experiments were performed in these mice. We found that the ischemic lesion size was not affected; however, the recruitment of PDGFR alpha/type I collagen-expressing perivascular cells was significantly downregulated, and HT and IgG leakage was augmented only in the subacute phase of stroke in C-KO mice. In both experiments, we found that the expression of tight junction proteins and PDGFR beta-expressing pericyte coverage was not significantly affected in imatinib-treated mice and in C-KO mice. The specific implication of PDGFR alpha signaling was suggestive of protective effects against BBB dysfunction during the subacute phase of stroke. Vascular TGF-beta 1 expression was downregulated in both imatinib-treated and C-KO mice, along with sustained levels of MMP9. Therefore, PDGFR alpha effects may be mediated by TGF-beta 1 which exerts potent protective effects in the BBB.
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| 9. |
- Nguyen, Thanh Tam, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of Chlorpyrifos Ethyl on Acetylcholinesterase Activityin Climbing Perch (Anabas testudineus, Bloch, 1972)
- 2015
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Ingår i: Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0090-4341 .- 1432-0703. ; 69:4, s. 515-524
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The high use of pesticides in intensive rice farming in the Mekong Delta constitutes a potential hazard to the environment and to people's health. Chlorpyrifos ethyl (CPF) is a commonly used organophosphate (OP) insecticide, but information about its potential negative impacts on the aquatic environment in the Mekong Delta is scarce. Both acute and subacute toxicity tests were performed in a static nonrenewable system to investigate the effects of CPF on brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity in native climbing perch fingerlings (Anabas testudineus, Bloch, 1972). Environmental parameters, such as dissolved oxygen, water temperature, and pH, were similar to field conditions in the Mekong Delta. In a 96-h lethal concentration (LC50) test, fingerlings of climbing perch were randomly exposed to five levels of CPF ranging from 0.8 to 4.5 ppm. Five sublethal levels of CPF (1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 % of the 96-h LC50 value) were tested to assess the sensitivity and recovery of the brain AChE activity in climbing perch fingerlings exposed to CPF. The results showed that CPF were moderately toxic to climbing perch with a 96-h median LC50 of 1.73 ppm. CPF also caused long-term AChE inhibition with 70 % inhibition remaining after 96 h for the four highest test concentrations. The recovery of brain AChE activity in fish placed in CPF-free water was very slow, and after 7 days the brain AChE activity was still significant lower in fish from the four highest concentrations compared with the control. The results from this study indicate that OP insecticides, such as CPF, can have long-lasting sublethal effects on aquatic species in the Mekong Delta.
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| 10. |
- Pham, Em Canh, et al.
(författare)
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N,2,6-Trisubstituted 1H-benzimidazole derivatives as a new scaffold of antimicrobial and anticancer agents : design, synthesis, in vitro evaluation, and in silico studies
- 2023
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Ingår i: RSC Advances. - : Royal Society of Chemistry. - 2046-2069. ; 13:1, s. 399-420
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Compounds containing benzimidazole moiety occupy privileged chemical space for discovering new bioactive substances. In continuation of our recent work, 69 benzimidazole derivatives were designed and synthesized with good to excellent yields of 46-99% using efficient synthesis protocol i.e. sodium metabisulfite catalyzed condensation of aromatic aldehydes with o-phenylenediamines to form 2-arylbenzimidazole derivatives followed by N-alkylation by conventional heating or microwave irradiation for diversification. Potent antibacterial compounds against MSSA and MRSA were discovered such as benzimidazole compounds 3k (2-(4-nitrophenyl), N-benzyl), 3l (2-(4-chlorophenyl), N-(4-chlorobenzyl)), 4c (2-(4-chlorophenyl), 6-methyl, N-benzyl), 4g (2-(4-nitrophenyl), 6-methyl, N-benzyl), and 4j (2-(4-nitrophenyl), 6-methyl, N-(4-chlorobenzyl)) with MIC of 4-16 mu g mL(-1). In addition, compound 4c showed good antimicrobial activities (MIC = 16 mu g mL(-1)) against the bacteria strains Escherichia coli and Streptococcus faecalis. Moreover, compounds 3k, 3l, 4c, 4g, and 4j have been found to kill HepG2, MDA-MB-231, MCF7, RMS, and C26 cancer cells with low mu M IC50 (2.39-10.95). These compounds showed comparable drug-like properties as ciprofloxacin, fluconazole, and paclitaxel in computational ADMET profiling. Finally, docking studies were used to assess potential protein targets responsible for their biological activities. Especially, we found that DHFR is a promising target both in silico and in vitro with compound 4c having IC50 of 2.35 mu M.
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| 11. |
- Menicatti, Roberto, et al.
(författare)
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Collaborative Development Within a Social Robotic, Multi-Disciplinary Effort : the CARESSES Case Study
- 2018
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Ingår i: 2018 IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts (ARSO). - : IEEE. - 9781538680377 ; , s. 117-124
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many cases, complex multidisciplinary research projects may show a lack of coordinated development and integration, and a big effort is often required in the final phase of the projects in order to merge software developed by heterogeneous research groups. This is particularly true in advanced robotic projects: the objective here is to deliver a system that integrates all the hardware and software components, is capable of autonomous behaviour, and needs to be deployed in real-world scenarios toward providing an impact on future research and, ultimately, on society. On the other hand, in recent years there has been a growing interest for techniques related to software integration, but these have been mostly applied to the IT commercial domain.This paper presents the work performed in the context of the project CARESSES, a multidisciplinary research project focusing on socially assistive robotics that involves 9 partners from the EU and Japan. Given the complexity of the project, a huge importance has been placed on software integration, task planning and architecture definition since the first stages of the work: to this aim, some of the practices commonly used in the commercial domain for software integration, such as merging software from the early stage, have been applied. As a case study, the document describes the steps which have been followed in the first year of the project discussing strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
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| 12. |
- Pham, Binh Thai, et al.
(författare)
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A Comparative Study of Kernel Logistic Regression, Radial Basis Function Classifier, Multinomial Naïve Bayes, and Logistic Model Tree for Flash Flood Susceptibility Mapping
- 2020
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Ingår i: Water. - Switzerland : MDPI. - 2073-4441. ; 12:1, s. 1-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Risk of flash floods is currently an important problem in many parts of Vietnam. In this study, we used four machine-learning methods, namely Kernel Logistic Regression (KLR), Radial Basis Function Classifier (RBFC), Multinomial Naïve Bayes (NBM), and Logistic Model Tree (LMT) to generate flash flood susceptibility maps at the minor part of Nghe An province of the Center region (Vietnam) where recurrent flood problems are being experienced. Performance of these four methods was evaluated to select the best method for flash flood susceptibility mapping. In the model studies, ten flash flood conditioning factors, namely soil, slope, curvature, river density, flow direction, distance from rivers, elevation, aspect, land use, and geology, were chosen based on topography and geo-environmental conditions of the site. For the validation of models, the area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), Area Under Curve (AUC), and various statistical indices were used. The results indicated that performance of all the models is good for generating flash flood susceptibility maps (AUC = 0.983–0.988). However, performance of LMT model is the best among the four methods (LMT: AUC = 0.988; KLR: AUC = 0.985; RBFC: AUC = 0.984; and NBM: AUC = 0.983). The present study would be useful for the construction of accurate flash flood susceptibility maps with the objectives of identifying flood-susceptible areas/zones for proper flash flood risk management.
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| 13. |
- Pham, Binh Thai, et al.
(författare)
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Performance Evaluation of Machine Learning Methods for Forest Fire Modeling and Prediction
- 2020
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Ingår i: Symmetry. - Switzerland : MDPI. - 2073-8994. ; 12:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Predicting and mapping fire susceptibility is a top research priority in fire-prone forests worldwide. This study evaluates the abilities of the Bayes Network (BN), Naïve Bayes (NB), Decision Tree (DT), and Multivariate Logistic Regression (MLP) machine learning methods for the prediction and mapping fire susceptibility across the Pu Mat National Park, Nghe An Province, Vietnam. The modeling methodology was formulated based on processing the information from the 57 historical fires and a set of nine spatially explicit explanatory variables, namely elevation, slope degree, aspect, average annual temperate, drought index, river density, land cover, and distance from roads and residential areas. Using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and seven other performance metrics, the models were validated in terms of their abilities to elucidate the general fire behaviors in the Pu Mat National Park and to predict future fires. Despite a few differences between the AUC values, the BN model with an AUC value of 0.96 was dominant over the other models in predicting future fires. The second best was the DT model (AUC = 0.94), followed by the NB (AUC = 0.939), and MLR (AUC = 0.937) models. Our robust analysis demonstrated that these models are sufficiently robust in response to the training and validation datasets change. Further, the results revealed that moderate to high levels of fire susceptibilities are associated with ~19% of the Pu Mat National Park where human activities are numerous. This study and the resultant susceptibility maps provide a basis for developing more efficient fire-fighting strategies and reorganizing policies in favor of sustainable management of forest resources.
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| 14. |
- Pham, Em Canh, et al.
(författare)
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Synthesis of a Series of Novel 2-Amino-5-substituted 1,3,4-oxadiazole and 1,3,4-thiadiazole Derivatives as Potential Anticancer, Antifungal and Antibacterial Agents
- 2022
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Ingår i: Medicinal chemistry. - : Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.. - 1573-4064. ; 18:5, s. 558-573
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Many compounds containing a five-membered heterocyclic ring display exceptional chemical properties and versatile biological activities. Objective: The objective of the present study was to prepare the 5-substituted 2-amino-1,3,4-oxadiazole and 2-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives and evaluate their potential anticancer, antibacterial and antifungal activities. Methods: Twenty-seven derivatives were synthesized by iodine-mediated cyclization of semicarbazones or thiosemicarbazones obtained from condensation of semicarbazide or thiosemicarbazide and aldehydes. The structures were confirmed by H-1-NMR, C-13-NMR and MS spectra. The antibacterial and antifungal activities were evaluated by diffusion method and the anticancer activities were evaluated by MTT assay. Results: Twenty-seven derivatives have been synthesized in moderate to good yields. A number of derivatives exhibited potential antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities. Conclusion: Compounds (1b, 1e and 1g) showed antibacterial activity against Streptococcus faecalis, MSSA and MRSA with MC value ranging between 4 to 64 mu g/mL. Compound (2g) showed antifungal activity against Candida albicans (8 mu g/mL) and Aspergillus niger (64 mu g/mL). Compound (lo) exhibited high cytotoxic activity against HepG2 cell line (IC50 value 8.6 mu M) which is comparable to the activity of paclitaxel, and is non-toxic on LLC-PK1 normal cell line. The structure activity relationship and molecular docking study of the synthesized compounds have also been reported.
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| 15. |
- Tuyen, Tran Thi, et al.
(författare)
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Prediction of white spot disease susceptibility in shrimps using decision trees based machine learning models
- 2024
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Ingår i: Applied water science. - : Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. - 2190-5487 .- 2190-5495. ; 14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, the spread of white spot disease in shrimps has a major impact on the aquaculture activity worldwide affecting the economy of the countries, especially South-East Asian countries like Vietnam. This deadly disease in shrimps is caused by the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV). Researchers are trying to understand the spread and control of this disease by doing field and laboratory studies considering effect of environmental conditions on shrimps affected by WSSV. Generally, they have not considered spatial factors in their study. Therefore, in the present study, we have used spatial (distances to roads and factories) as well as physio-chemical factors of water: Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Salinity, NO3, P3O4 and pH, for developing WSSV susceptibility maps of the area using Decision Tree (DT)-based Machine Learning (ML) models namely Random Tree (RT), Extra Tree (ET), and J48. Model’s performance was evaluated using standard statistical measures including Area Under the Curve (AUC). The results indicated that ET model has the highest accuracy (AUC: 0.713) in predicting disease susceptibility in comparison to other two models (RT: 0.701 and J48: 0.641). The WSSV susceptibility maps developed by the ML technique, using DT (ET) method, will help decision makers in better planning and control of spatial spread of WSSV disease in shrimps.
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