Search Results (32)

This research explored the role of aflatoxin oxidase CotA in mitigating aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁)-induced hepatotoxicity in Japanese quails. A total of 225 female Japanese quails, aged two weeks, were randomly assigned to three dietary groups: a control diet, an AFB₁-contaminated diet, and an AFB₁-contaminated diet supplemented with aflatoxin oxidase CotA for three weeks. The results indicate that quails receiving the AFB₁-contaminated diet exhibited reduced body weight gain, pronounced vacuolar degeneration within hepatocytes, and inflammatory cell infiltration. Additionally, the AFB₁ group demonstrated an increased liver index and elevated serum liver enzyme activities (ALT, AST, and ALP). Supplementation with CotA improved body weight gain and conferred protection against AFB₁-induced liver injury. Furthermore, the addition of CotA significantly enhanced liver antioxidant enzyme activities (T-AOC, GST, GSH-Px, POD, and CAT), reduced hepatic H₂O₂ and MDA levels, and upregulated the mRNA expression levels of genes in the Nrf2 pathway in quails exposed to AFB₁. AFB₁ exposure led to lipid droplet accumulation in liver tissues and elevated serum TG and LDL-C levels. However, the introduction of CotA mitigated AFB₁-induced alterations in lipid metabolism. Furthermore, dietary supplementation with CotA inhibited AFB₁-induced hepatocyte apoptosis and decreased the mRNA expression of apoptosis-related genes, including Bax, caspase-9, and caspase-3. Notably, the AFB₁+CotA group exhibited a significant reduction in AFB₁ residues and AFB₁-DNA adducts in quail liver tissues compared to the AFB₁ group. These findings indicate that aflatoxin oxidase CotA holds promise as a feed additive to alleviate AFB₁-induced hepatotoxicity. Full article

Interference signals can disrupt global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers and degrade or deny a position-velocity-time (PVT) solution. After detecting an interference signal, classifying its type can provide insight into its cause and help determine the necessary next steps to counteract it. In this paper, we present a method for interference detection and a resource-efficient model-aided on-the-edge machine learning (ML) model for interference signal classification running on low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, enabling a highly cost-effective spectral monitoring solution. The choice of detection metrics is justified based on real-world spectral monitoring data from a German highway and the capability of the ML model to generalize across different environments is demonstrated in an outdoor field test. Overall, we present an operationally ready GNSS interference detection and classification system. Full article

Background: The optimal timing of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) application in acute respiratory failure patients remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the impact of HFNC on the outcomes of patients with acute respiratory failure, focusing on its use after extubation. Methods: This multicenter retrospective study enrolled adult acute respiratory failure patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation during the first major outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan from April to July 2021. Endpoints included prognosis after extubation as 28-day post-extubation mortality. Results: Among the patients, 107 received HFNC before intubation and 461 received conventional oxygen therapy (COT). Pre-intubation HFNC failure did not significantly affect hospital mortality but was associated with prolonged durations of mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit stay. Among 375 patients who underwent planned extubation, 158 received post-extubation HFNC and 217 received COT. HFNC application after extubation was associated with significantly reduced post-extubation 28-day mortality compared with COT. Conclusions: HFNC application after extubation is associated with reduced post-extubation 28-day mortality risks in acute respiratory failure patients who received planned extubation. Full article

The global prevalence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and zearalenone (ZEN) contamination in food and feed poses a serious health risk to humans and animals. Recently, enzymatic detoxification has received increasing attention, yet most enzymes are limited to degrading only one type of mycotoxin, and free enzymes often exhibit reduced stability and activity, limiting their practicality in real-world applications. In this study, the laccase CotA gene from ZEN/AFB1-degrading Bacillus subtilis ZJ-2019-1 was cloned and successfully expressed in Escherichia coli BL21, achieving a protein yield of 7.0 mg/g. The recombinant CotA (rCotA) completely degraded AFB1 and ZEN, with optimal activity at 70 °C and pH 7.0. After rCotA treatment, neither AFB1 nor ZEN showed significantly cytotoxicity to mouse macrophage cell lines. Additionally, the AFB1/ZEN degradation efficiency of rCotA was significantly enhanced by five natural redox mediators: acetosyringone, syringaldehyde, vanillin, matrine, and sophoridin. Among them, the acetosyringone-rCotA was the most effective mediator system, which could completely degrade 10 μg of AFB1 and ZEN within 1 h. Furthermore, the chitosan-immobilized rCotA system exhibited higher degradation activity than free rCotA. The immobilized rCotA degraded 27.95% of ZEN and 41.37% of AFB1 in contaminated maize meal within 12 h, and it still maintained more than 40% activity after 12 reuse cycles. These results suggest that media-assisted or immobilized enzyme systems not only boost degradation efficiency but also demonstrate remarkable reusability, offering promising strategies to enhance the degradation efficiency of rCotA for mycotoxin detoxification. Full article

The increasing reliance of Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) on the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) for precise positioning and timing information has raised significant concerns regarding their vulnerability to spoofing attacks. This research proposes a novel approach to mitigate BeiDou spoofing attacks in VANETs by leveraging a hybrid machine learning model that combines XGBoost and Random Forest with a Kalman Filter for real-time anomaly detection in BeiDou signals. It also introduces a geospatial message authentication mechanism to enhance vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication security. The research investigates low-cost and accessible countermeasures against spoofing attacks using COTS receivers and open-source SDRs. Spoofing attack scenarios are implemented in both software and hardware domains using an open-source BeiDou signal simulator to examine the effects of different spoofing attacks on victim receivers and identify detection methods for each type, focusing on pre-correlation techniques with power-related metrics and signal quality monitoring using correlator values. The emulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in detecting and mitigating BeiDou spoofing attacks in VANETs, ensuring the integrity and reliability of safety-critical information. This research contributes to the development of robust security mechanisms for VANETs and has practical implications for enhancing the resilience of transportation systems against spoofing threats. Future research will focus on extending the proposed approach to other GNSS constellations and exploring the integration of additional security measures to further strengthen VANET security. Full article

Monitoring human activities, such as walking, falling, and jumping, provides valuable information for personalized health assistants. Existing solutions require the user to carry/wear certain smart devices to capture motion/audio data, use a high-definition camera to record video data, or deploy dedicated devices to collect wireless data. However, none of these solutions are widely adopted for reasons such as discomfort, privacy, and overheads. Therefore, an effective solution to provide non-intrusive, secure, and low-cost human activity monitoring is needed. In this study, we developed a contactless human activity monitoring system that utilizes channel state information (CSI) of the existing ubiquitous WiFi signals. Specifically, we deployed a low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) router as a transmitter and reused a desktop equipped with an Intel WiFi Link 5300 NIC as a receiver, allowing us to obtain CSI data that recorded human activities. To remove the outliers and ambient noise existing in raw CSI signals, an integrated filter consisting of Hampel, wavelet, and moving average filters was designed. Then, a new metric based on kurtosis and standard deviation was designed to obtain an optimal set of subcarriers that is sensitive to all target activities from the candidate 30 subcarriers. Finally, we selected a group of features, including time- and frequency-domain features, and trained a classification model to recognize different indoor human activities. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system can achieve a mean accuracy of above 93%, even in the face of a long sensing distance. Full article

This article introduces the Lake Environmental Data Harvester (LED) System, a robotic platform designed for the development of an innovative solution for monitoring remote alpine lakes. LED is intended as the first step in creating portable robotic tools that are lightweight, cost-effective, and highly reliable for monitoring remote water bodies. The LED system is based on the Shallow-Water Autonomous Multipurpose Platform (SWAMP), a groundbreaking Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) originally designed for monitoring wetlands. The objective of LED is to achieve the comprehensive monitoring of remote lakes by outfitting the SWAMP with a suite of sensors, integrating an IoT infrastructure, and adhering to FAIR principles for structured data management. SWAMP’s modular design and open architecture facilitate the easy integration of payloads, while its compact size and construction with a reduced weight ensure portability. Equipped with four azimuth thrusters and a flexible hull structure, SWAMP offers a high degree of maneuverability and position-keeping ability for precise surveys in the shallow waters that are typical of remote lakes. In this project, SWAMP was equipped with a suite of sensors, including a single-beam dual-frequency echosounder, water-quality sensors, a winch for sensor deployment, and AirQino, a low-cost air quality analysis system, along with an RTK-GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receiver for precise positioning. Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, a Multipurpose Data-Acquisition System forms the basis for an Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, enabling data acquisition, storage, and long-range communication. This data-centric system design ensures that acquired variables from both sensors and the robotic platform are structured and managed according to the FAIR principles. Full article

Subtle changes in body temperature affect the outcomes of ill newborns. However, the temperature profile of neonatal brains remains largely unknown. In open-cot care, increased cerebral perfusion is correlated with higher superficial brain temperatures. This study investigated the dependence of brain temperature (relative to rectal temperature) on ambient temperature, body size, cerebral perfusion, and metabolism in infants receiving incubator care. Rectal, scalp, and brain temperatures, superior vena cava flow, and brain oxygenation were assessed using echocardiography, thermo-compensatory temperature monitoring, and near-infrared spectroscopy in 60 newborns. These infants had a mean postconceptional age of 36.9 (2.2) weeks and weighed 2348 (609) g at the time of evaluation. The ambient temperature was maintained at 30.0 (1.0) °C. A higher rectal temperature was associated with greater postconceptional age (p = 0.002), body weight (p < 0.001), and head circumference (p < 0.001). Relative scalp, superficial brain, and deep brain temperatures were associated with smaller head circumference (p < 0.001, p = 0.030, and p = 0.015, respectively) and superior vena cava flow (p = 0.002, p = 0.003, and p = 0.003, respectively). In infants receiving incubator care, larger head sizes and increased brain perfusion were associated with lower relative scalp and brain temperatures. When considered alongside previous reports, cerebral perfusion may contribute to maintaining stable cerebral tissue temperature against ambient temperature changes. Full article

The effect of vitamins and minerals supplementation (VTM) and/or two rates of body weight gain (GAIN) on bovine placental vascular development and angiogenic factors gene expression were evaluated in two experiments: In Exp. 1, crossbred Angus heifers (n = 34) were assigned to VTM/NoVTM treatments at least 71 days before breeding to allow changes in the mineral status. At breeding, through artificial insemination (AI), heifers were assigned to low-gain (LG) 0.28 kg/d or moderate-gain (MG) 0.79 kg/d treatments, resulting in NoVTM-LG (Control; n = 8), NoVTM-MG (n = 8), VTM-LG (n = 9), and VTM-MG (n = 9) until day 83 of gestation; In Exp. 2, crossbred angus heifers (n = 28), were assigned to control (CON; n = 12), receiving a basal total mixed ration (TMR) or TMR + VTM (VTM; n = 16) from breeding until parturition. Placentomes from Exp. 1 and cotyledons (COT) from Exp. 2 were evaluated by immunohistochemistry for COT vascular density area. COTs from Exp. 1 were evaluated for angiogenic factor (ANGPT-1, ANGPT-2, eNOS2, eNOS3, FLT1, KDR, TEK, VEGFA) gene expression. In Exp. 1, COT vascularity was not affected by the interaction of VTM and GAIN (p = 0.67) or the main effects of VTM (p = 0.50) and GAIN (p = 0.55). Likewise, angiogenic factors were not differentially expressed between treatments (p < 0.05). In Exp. 2, COT vascularity was greater in VTM vs. CON (p = 0.07). In conclusion, there is a suggested later-stage influence of vitamin and mineral supplementation on placental vascularity, emphasizing the importance of supplementation beyond early pregnancy. Full article

(1) Background: Because of a complicated intraoperative course and/or poor recovery of graft function, approximately 15% of lung transplant (LT) recipients require prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) and receive a tracheostomy. This prospective study aimed to assess the effect of High-Flow Tracheal Oxygen (HFTO) on tracheostomy tube removal in LT recipients receiving PMV postoperatively. (2) Methods: The clinical course of 14 LT recipients receiving HFTO was prospectively evaluated and compared to that of 13 comparable controls receiving conventional oxygen therapy (COT) via tracheostomy. The study’s primary endpoint was the number of patients whose tracheostomy tube was removed at discharge from an Intermediate Respiratory Care Unit (IRCU). (3) Results: Setting up HFTO proved easy, and it was well tolerated by all the patients. The number of patients whose tracheostomy tube was removed was significantly higher in the HFOT group compared to the COT group [13/14 vs. 6/13 (p = 0.0128)]. (4) Conclusions: HFTO is an effective, safe therapy that facilitates tracheostomy tube removal in LT recipients after weaning from PMV. Full article

The past decade has shown a growing awareness of the dangers of intentional interference (especially jamming and spoofing) with GNSS signals. The Antiference project uses reconfigurable digital signal processing methods in the detection, classification, and mitigation of interference by employing machine learning techniques. The ML-based jamming classifier uses distinctive features of spectrograms for the differentiation of various jamming attacks. A residual neural net is used to map the spectrograms to the different jamming types. It relies on a fingerprinting architecture. Fingerprints summarize the characteristics of all the incoming signals, which are stored in and matched to a database of previously encountered interference types. To validate the implemented functionalities, a developed test-bed runs test scenarios and benchmarks the results against two state-of-the-art COTS receivers with interference mitigation capabilities. Full article

Radiofrequency Interference (RFI) is a growing concern for many navigation-reliant applications. The dual benefits of RFI localization are considered: first, it can help with situational awareness by estimating the location of the interference source, and secondly, the results can be used to verify the detection of significant interference. The paper exploits the latter by proposing detection techniques making use of the localization results. The performance of the algorithms is evaluated using an experiment in a controlled lab environment where a wideband interference source is emulated in a UAV-based scenario. The detection results are validated using a reference detector operating in a non-position domain. Full article

Many critical applications highly depend on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for precise and continuously available positioning and timing information. To warn a GNSS user that the signals are compromised, real-time interference detection is required. Additionally, real-time classification of the interference signal allows the user to select the most effective mitigation methods for the encountered disturbance. A compact proof of concept has been built using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components to analyse the jamming detection and classification techniques. It continuously monitors GNSS frequency bands and generates warnings to the user when interference is detected and classified. Various signal spectrum analyses, consisting of kurtosis and power spectral density (PSD) calculations, as well as a machine learning model, are used to detect and classify anomalies in the incoming signals. The system has been tested by making use of a COTS GNSS signal simulator. The simulator is used to generate the upper L-band GNSS signals and different types of interferences. Successful detection and classification is demonstrated, even for interference power levels that do not degrade the performance of a commercial reference receiver. Full article

Spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers have become ubiquitous sensors for spacecraft navigation, especially in Low Earth Orbits (LEOs), often also supporting science endeavors or as acting dedicated science payloads. Due to the large number of space-capable GNSS receiver models available, spacecraft designers, as well as scientists, may find it difficult to have or gain an overview of suitable state-of-the-art models for their purposes and constraints. Based on a literature review that included more than 90 different receiver models, this paper aims to provide an overview of space-capable GNSS receivers that have a heritage in space missions. It analyses trends from the collected data and provides an outlook on miniaturized GNSS receiver models, which have a high potential of being used in future space missions. Full article

High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) has several benefits in patients affected by different forms of acute respiratory failure, based on its own mechanisms. We postulated that HFNC may have some advantages over conventional oxygen therapy (COT) on the heart function in patients with acute-on-chronic respiratory failure with concomitant pulmonary hypertension (PH). We therefore designed this retrospective observational study to assess if HFNC improves the right and left ventricle functions and morphologies, arterial blood gases (ABGs), and patients’ dyspnea, compared to COT. We enrolled 17 hospitalized patients receiving HFNC, matched with 17 patients receiving COT. Echocardiographic evaluation was performed at the time of admission (baseline) and 10 days after (T₁₀). HFNC showed significant improvements in right ventricular morphology and function, and a reduction in sPAP. However, there were no significant changes in the left heart measurements with HFNC application. Conversely, COT did not lead to any modifications in echocardiographic measurements. In both groups, oxygenation significantly improved from baseline to T₁₀ (in the HFNC group, from 155 ± 47 to 204 ± 61 mmHg while in the COT group, from 157 ± 27 to 207 ± 27 mmHg; p < 0.0001 for both comparisons). In conclusion, these data suggest an improvement of oxygenation with both treatments; however, only HFNC was able to improve the right ventricular morphology and function after 10 days from the beginning of treatment in a small cohort of patients with acute-on-chronic respiratory failure with PH. Full article