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Topic Review
RNAi-Based Biocontrol of Pests
Insects and ectoparasites are causes for major concern throughout the world due to their economic and welfare impacts on livestock agriculture. Current control measures involve chemicals such as acaricides which pose challenges like chemical resistance and longer withholding periods. To enable more sustainable agriculture practices, it is important to develop technologies that combine targeted effectiveness with minimal environmental footprint. RNA interference (RNAi) is a eukaryotic process in which transcript expression is reduced in a sequence-specific manner. This makes it a perfect tool for developing efficient and effective biological control against pests and pathogens. Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is the key trigger molecule for inducing RNAi; this concept is widely studied for development of RNA-based biopesticides as an alternative to chemical controls in crop protection for targeting pests and pathogens with accuracy and specificity.
  • 1.4K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
The Medicinal Mushroom Cordyceps militaris
Cordyceps militaris is an entomopathogenic ascomycete with similar pharmacological importance to that of the wild caterpillar fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis C. militaris has attracted significant research and commercial interest due to its content in bioactive compounds beneficial to human health and the relative ease of cultivation under laboratory conditions. 
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review Video
Toxic External Exposure Leading to Ocular Surface Injury
The surface of the eye is directly exposed to the external environment, protected only by a thin tear film, and may therefore be damaged by contact with ambient particulate matter, liquids, aerosols, or vapors. In the workplace or home, the eye is subject to accidental or incidental exposure to cleaning products and pesticides. Organic matter may enter the eye and cause infection. Ocular surface damage can trigger a range of symptoms such as itch, discharge, hyperemia, photophobia, blurred vision, and foreign body sensation. Toxin exposure can be assessed clinically in multiple ways, including via measurement of tear production, slit-lamp examination, corneal staining, and conjunctival staining. At the cellular level, environmental toxins can cause oxidative damage, apoptosis of corneal and conjunctival cells, cell senescence, and impaired motility. Outcomes range from transient and reversible with complete healing to severe and sight-compromising structural changes.
  • 1.4K
  • 13 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Epigenetics in the Uterine Environment
The societal burden of non-communicable disease is closely linked with environmental exposures and lifestyle behaviours, including the adherence to a poor maternal diet from the earliest preimplantation period of the life course onwards. Epigenetic variations caused by a compromised maternal nutritional status can affect embryonic development and offspring health later in life.
  • 1.4K
  • 14 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Teleorthodontics
Teleorthodontics generally refers to any orthodontic care delivered through information technology. A common and relevant example could be that of colleagues being able to discuss the digital records of clinical cases over the Internet and to exchange advice and share experience. However, the primary aim set of dental teleassistance in orthodontics is to reduce patients’ office visits whilst maintaining regular monitoring, without compromising the results. Teleorthodontics can manage most orthodontic emergencies, reassuring and following patients remotely. It can also become a cutting-edge screening system able to reduce patients’ waiting time for specialist advice.Although teleorthodontics is just at its beginnings, it appears to be worthy of further investigations to objectively evaluate the efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and long-term results. It is capable of improving service and working conditions and may even reduce costs. Teleorthodontics will have a role to play in the near future.
  • 1.4K
  • 31 Jul 2020
Topic Review
Water Treatment Residues and Methanogenic Activity in Wastewater-Sludge
The effect of adding alum water treatment residues (WTR) on the methanogenic activity in the digestion of primary domestic wastewater sludge was evaluated through laboratory experiments in sedimentation columns, using total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations from 0.37 to 1.23 g/L. The addition of WTR to primary clarifiers can benefit its effluent water quality in terms of colour, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and TSS. However, the presence of WTR can negatively influence the production of methane gas during organic sludge digestion in primary clarifiers, for concentrations of TSS between 14.43 and 25.23 g/L and of VSS between 10.2 and 11.85 g/L. The activity of the Methanothrix sp., curved bacilli, methanococci, and Methanosarcina sp. decreases considerably after 16 days of anaerobic digestion, and methane production seems to only be associated with fluorescent methanogenic bacilli.
  • 1.4K
  • 17 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Webby Award
A Webby Award is an award for excellence on the Internet presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include websites, advertising and media, online film and video, mobile sites and apps, and social. Two winners are selected in each category, one by members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and one by the public who cast their votes during Webby People’s Voice voting. Each winner presents a five-word acceptance speech, a trademark of the annual awards show. Hailed as the "Internet’s highest honor," the award is one of the oldest Internet-oriented awards, and is associated with the phrase "The Oscars of the Internet."
  • 1.4K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Dendrimer Nanodevices and Gallic Acid
Human neuroblastoma (NB), a pediatric tumor inclined to relapse, after an initial response to therapy, usually develops resistance. Since several chemotherapeutics, including the weel known etoposide (ETO), exert anticancer effect by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS), NB cells overproduce antioxidant compounds becoming drugs-resistant. Moreover, ETO, although widely used, suffers from fast metabolism, poor solubility and systemic toxicity, that limit its administration dosage and its therapeutic efficiency. An appealing strategy to sensitize NB cells to chemotherapy involves the use of less toxic natural compounds able to reduce antioxidant defenses of NB cells and to induce ROS overproduction. In this contest, although affected by several issues as instability and poor absorbability, antioxidant/pro-oxidant polyphenols, such as gallic acid (GA), showed pro-oxidant anti-cancer effects and low toxicity for healthy cells, in several kind of tumors, not including NB. Herein, for the first time, free GA, two GA-dendrimers, and the dendrimer adopted as GA reservoir were tested on both sensitive and chemoresistant NB cells. Furthermore, the dendrimer adopted as carrier for GA was exploited also for entrapping and protecting ETO and for enhancing its solubility and effectiveness.The dendrimer device induced ROS-mediated death both in sensitive NB cells and also in chemoresistant ones. Free GA proved a dose-dependent ROS-mediated cytotoxicity on both cell populations. Intriguingly, when administered in dendrimer formulations at a dose not cytotoxic for NB cells, GA nullified any pro-oxidant activity of dendrimer. Unfortunately, due to GA, nanoformulations were inactive on NB cells, but GA resized in nanoparticles showed considerable ability in counteracting, at low dose, ROS production and oxidative stress, herein induced by the dendrimer. Interestingly, the ETO-dendrimer showed a synergistic action, controlled released over time with a significantly improved drug bioactivity, representing a novel biodegradable and promising device for the delivery of ETO into NB cells.
  • 1.4K
  • 12 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Polyphenol Diet Improves Psychological Well-Being
A growing body of data has emerged suggesting a potential role for diet in psychological well-being. Polyphenols, which have anxiolytic and antidepressant-like properties, have been of particular interest. The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of a high polyphenol diet (HPD) compared to a low polyphenol diet (LPD) on aspects of psychological well-being in the Polyphenol Intervention Trial (PPhIT). The HPD diet consisted of six portions of F&V (including one portion of berries per day) and 50 g of dark chocolate per day. The participants in the HPD group reported a decrease in depressive symptoms, and an improvement in physical component and mental health component scores. In summary, the study findings suggest that the adoption of a polyphenol-rich diet could potentially lead to improvements in psychological well-being.
  • 1.4K
  • 15 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Cells and DNA
Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things. The human body is composed of trillions of cells. They provide structure for the body, take in nutrients from food, convert those nutrients into energy, and carry out specialized functions. Cells also contain the body's hereditary material and can make copies of themselves. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use.
  • 1.4K
  • 24 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Medicinal Mushroom Therapeutic Use
Medicinal mushrooms have important health benefits and exhibit a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities, including antiallergic, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antiviral, cytotoxic, immunomodulating, antidepressive, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, digestive, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, nephroprotective, osteoprotective, and hypotensive activities. 
  • 1.4K
  • 02 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Cardiac Tissue Engineering Systems
Cardiac tissue engineering is very much in a current focus of regenerative medicine research as it represents a promising strategy for cardiac disease modelling, cardiotoxicity testing and cardiovascular repair. Advances in this field over the last two decades have enabled the generation of human engineered cardiac tissue constructs with progressively increased functional capabilities. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the therapeutic benefits exerted by cells are mainly attributable to the release of complementary paracrine factors and the efficacy is limited as only a small percentage of transplanted cells engrafted in the infarcted tissue. Studies on animal models showed that combining cell therapy with tissue engineering techniques for the creation of cell sheets and patches, can increase stem cell survival and boost therapeutic action. Therefore, tissue engineering has been considered as a potential approach for cardiac regeneration after MI. 
  • 1.4K
  • 30 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Information Society, Electronics and AI
This entry presents relations between information society (IS), electronics and artificial intelligence (AI) mainly through twenty-four IS laws. The laws not only make up a novel collection, currently non-existing in the literature, but they also highlight the core boosting mechanism for the progress of what is called the information society and AI. The laws mainly describe the exponential growth in a particular field, be it the processing, storage or transmission capabilities of electronic devices. Other rules describe the relations to production prices and human interaction. Overall, the IS laws illustrate the most recent and most vibrant part of human history based on the unprecedented growth of device capabilities spurred by human innovation and ingenuity. Although there are signs of stalling, at the same time there are still many ways to prolong the fascinating progress of electronics that stimulates the field of artificial intelligence. There are constant leaps in new areas, such as the perception of real-world signals, where AI is already occasionally exceeding human capabilities and will do so even more in the future. In some areas where AI is presumed to be incapable of performing even at a modest level, such as the production of art or programming software, AI is making progress that can sometimes reflect true human skills. Maybe it is time for AI to boost the progress of electronics in return.
  • 1.4K
  • 08 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Dam-Foetus Interaction
Dam-foetus interaction through the placenta guarantees the survival of the foetus.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion
The Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion (KMDD®) as an educational and psycho-didactic tool that is aimed at fostering moral competence development in a course of moral and spiritual education and supporting overall personal and psychological development. The authors consider moral education to be of pedagogical importance, the task of which is to support and stimulate the individual development of the moral autonomy of an individual. Spiritual education is understood similarly, but it relates to the sphere of spiritual autonomy. Within the concept of spiritual education, a more specific area of religious education can be distinguished from the perspective of a specific religion. Given that a contemporary spiritual and moral crisis translates into an increase in ideological, moral, and religious conflicts (Agrimson and Taft 2009), the spiritual and moral education of the next generation, the development of respect for other cultures, religious tolerance, and the development of readiness for cooperation are the most urgent challenges facing today’s education. Moral and religious education in eastern Europe is underestimated in schools and is treated as indoctrination entities in which moral educators tell people what to do and religious educators what to believe. The aim of both should be to help sensitize students to ethical issues and help them to form their own judgments and beliefs within the context of a broader social perspective. Therefore, fostering personal development is one of the most important, as well as one of the most demanding, tasks of education at all levels.
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Sep 2021
Topic Review
LiFi Network
Light Fidelity (LiFi), a new technology that uses light to transmit data as a high-speed wireless connection system from a wide spectrum of domains.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Parent-Implemented Early Start Denver Model
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause difficulties in communication and social interaction. Naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBIs) have been tested by clinical trials of behavioral treatments. NDBIs integrate developmental and relationship-based approaches with applied behavioral analysis (ABA) strategies and are implemented in the child’s day-to-day environment, including in play and routine activities where many learning opportunities can be embedded. Among evidence-based practices, the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is a representative approach to NDBIs. In addition, ESDM follows comprehensive NDBI principles, grounded in developmental and behavioral science and neuroscientific evidence.
  • 1.4K
  • 22 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Method for Management and Reducing Plastic Waste
Plastic waste generation has increased dramatically every day. Indiscriminate disposal of plastic wastes can lead to several negative impacts on the environment, such as a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Products from the pyrolysis process encompassing of liquid, gas, and solid residues (char) can be turned into beneficial products, as the liquid product can be used as a commercial fuel and char can function as an excellent adsorbent. The char produced from plastic wastes could be modified to enhance carbon dioxide (CO2) adsorption performance.
  • 1.4K
  • 26 Mar 2022
Topic Review
MicroRNA-7 (MiR-7) in Cancer Physiopathology
miRNAs are non-coding RNA sequences of approximately 22 nucleotides that interact with genes by inhibiting their translation through binding to their 3′ or 5′ UTR regions. Following their discovery, the role they play in the development of various pathologies, particularly cancer, has been studied. In this context, miR-7 is described as an important factor in the development of cancer because of its role as a tumor suppressor, regulating a large number of genes involved in the development and progression of cancer. Data support the function of miR-7 as a prognostic biomarker in cancer, and miR-7 has been proposed as a strategy in cancer therapy.
  • 1.4K
  • 16 Aug 2022
Topic Review
P21-Class Inshore Patrol Vessel
The P21 class is a class of inshore patrol vessels of the Armed Forces of Malta's Maritime Squadron. They are alternatively known as the Austal class after their builder.
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Oct 2022
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