Electroporation-based methods for in vivo, whole mount and primary culture analysis of zebrafish brain development

BACKGROUND: Electroporation is a technique for the introduction of nucleic acids and other macromolecules into cells. In chick embryos it has been a particularly powerful technique for the spatial and temporal control of gene expression in developmental studies. Electroporation methods have also been reported for Xenopus, zebrafish, and mouse. RESULTS: We present a new protocol for zebrafish brain electroporation. Using a simple set-up with fixed spaced electrodes and microinjection equipment, it is possible to electroporate 50 to 100 embryos in 1 hour with no lethality and consistently high levels of transgene expression in numerous cells. Transfected cells in the zebrafish brain are amenable to in vivo time lapse imaging. Explants containing transfected neurons can be cultured for in vitro analysis. We also present a simple enzymatic method to isolate whole brains from fixed zebrafish for immunocytochemistry. CONCLUSION: Building on previously described methods, we have optimized several parameters to allow for highly efficient unilateral or bilateral transgenesis of a large number of cells in the zebrafish brain. This method is simple and provides consistently high levels of transgenesis for large numbers of embryos

Informative role of Mass Media during Covid-19 period: A study from Northern Province at Sri Lanka

Presently COVID-19 affects the world people’s lifestyle and health. Most of the people are isolated from their family, friends and relatives. And they follow social distance procedure to protect themselves from the diseases. Due to the pandemic entire world move from in person conversation to web-based communication. So, during this period media spread more information regarding COVID-19 issues. Ultimate purpose of this study is to identify the informative role of media during this pandemic period. Data was collected through the questionnaire and quantitative study conducted to finalize the variables. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) used to found solution for the research question and finally we found how people believe and react to media information and according to the finding of the research conclusion and recommendations. Keywords: Media, COVID-19, Information, Northern Provinc

Cerebral small vessel disease and intracranial bleeding risk: prognostic and practical significance

Balancing the risks of recurrent ischaemia and antithrombotic-associated bleeding, particularly intracranial haemorrhage (ICH), is a key challenge in the secondary prevention of ischaemic stroke and transient ischaemic attack. In hyperacute ischaemic stroke, the use of acute reperfusion therapies is determined by the balance of anticipated benefit and the risk of ICH. Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) causes most spontaneous ICH. Here, we review the evidence linking neuroimaging markers of CSVD to antithrombotic and thrombolytic-associated ICH, with emphasis on cerebral microbleeds (CMB). We discuss their role in the prediction of ICH, and practical implications for clinical decision making. Although current observational data suggests CMB presence should not preclude antithrombotic therapy in patients with ischaemic stroke or TIA, they are useful for improving ICH risk prediction with potential relevance for determining the optimal secondary prevention strategy, including the use of left atrial appendage occlusion. Following ICH, recommencing antiplatelets is probably safe in most patients, while the inconclusive results of recent randomised controlled trials of anticoagulant use makes recruitment to ongoing trials (including those testing left atrial appendage occlusion) in this area a high priority. Concern regarding CSVD and ICH risk after hyperacute stroke treatment appears to be unjustified most patients, though some uncertainty remains regarding patients with very high CMB burden and other risk factors for ICH. We encourage careful phenotyping for underlying CSVD in future trials, with potential to enhance precision medicine in stroke

Implementation and performance evaluation of a MIMO-VLC system for data transmissions

The ever-increasing streaming culture of large amounts of data and the need for faster and reliable methods of data transfer has created a space and market for new communication technologies such as Visible Light Communication (VLC). However, the integration of VLC into next generation networks is challenging due to the drawbacks of the technology in terms of atmospheric absorption, shadowing, beam dispersion, etc. One way to overcome some of the challenges is to make use of the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technique which involves the transmission of data in parallel from multiple sources, increasing the data rate. This paper implements and provides a comprehensive evaluation of a MIMO-VLC system for data transmission. A real experimental test-bed is setup to test the performance of the MIMO-VLC system under various conditions such as distance from the source based on luminous flux, ambient lighting, output power, etc. Additionally, subjective tests are carried out to assess the quality of an audio MIMO VLC link as perceived by the user. The results are compared with the results of a Single Input Single Output (SISO)-VLC system

On the impact of visible light communication for audio and video transmissions

With the massive technological advancements being made every year, the need for better and faster data rates, better and improved security measures is being given high importance in the research community. Therefore, open space communication has become a hot topic in the recent years of which Visible Light Communication (VLC), is one of the highly researched areas. The reason for its high popularity is because of its ability to provide high data rates, high bandwidth and a very secure medium of transmission as it cannot penetrate walls. This paper investigates the impact of visible light communication on audio and video transmissions. A real experimental test-bed is setup to test the performance of audio transmission over VLC under various conditions such as distance from the source, interfering lighting, etc. Subjectives tests are carried out to assess the quality of the audio VLC link as perceived by the user. Additionally, a comprehensive study on existing simultaneous video and audio transmission systems over VLC is provided and the challenges and remaining open issues are identified

Assessment of Changes in Physiological Markers in Different Body Fluids at Rest and after Exercise

Physiological and biological markers in different body fluids are used to measure the body's physiological or pathological status. In the field of sports and exercise medicine, the use of these markers has recently become more popular for monitoring an athlete's training response and assessing the immediate or long-term effects of exercise. Although the effect of exercise on different physiological markers using various body fluids is well substantiated, no article has undertaken a review across multiple body fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and sweat. This narrative review aims to assess various physiological markers in blood, urine and saliva, at rest and after exercise and examines physiological marker levels obtained across similar studies, with a focus on the population and study methodology used. Literature searches were conducted using PRISMA guidelines for keywords such as exercise, physical activity, serum, sweat, urine, and biomarkers, resulting in an analysis of 15 studies for this review paper. When comparing the effects of exercise on physiological markers across different body fluids (blood, urine, and saliva), the changes detected were generally in the same direction. However, the extent of the change varied, potentially as a result of the type and duration of exercise, the sample population and subject numbers, fitness levels, and/or dietary intake. In addition, none of the studies used solely female participants; instead, including males only or both male and female subjects together. The results of some physiological markers are sex-dependent. Therefore, to better understand how the levels of these biomarkers change in relation to exercise and performance, the sex of the participants should also be taken into consideration.fals

Incremental Timing-Driven Placement with Displacement Constraint

In the modern deep-submicron Very Large Integrated Circuit(VLSI) design flow intercon- nect delays are becoming major limiting factor for timing closure. Traditional placement algorithms such as routability-driven placement (improves routability) and wirelength- driven placement (reduces total wirelength) are no longer sufficient to close timing. To this end, timing-driven placement plays a crucial role in reducing the interconnect delay through timing critical paths (paths with timing violations/negative slacks) of the design and thereby achieving specific performance/clock frequency. In the placement flow, timing information about the design can be incorporated during global placement and/or incremental/detailed placement. Although, over the years, there has been significant advances in the quality of the global placement, there is a growing need for high performance incremental timing-driven placement due to the lack of accurate interconnect information during global placement. Moreover, incremental timing-driven placement is essential to recover timing while preserving the other optimization objectives such as total wirelength, routing congestion, and so forth which are optimized at the early stages of the design flow. This thesis proposes a simple, yet efficient, incremental timing-driven placement algo- rithm that seeks to find optimized locations for standard cells so that the total negative slack of the design can be maximized. Our algorithm consists two stages: (1) Global Move which positions standard cells inside a critical bounding box to eliminate timing violations on timing critical nets; and (2) Local Move which provides further timing improvement by finely adjusting the current locations of the standard cells within a local region. We evaluate our algorithm using ICCAD-2014 timing-driven placement contest bench- marks. The results show that, on average, our technique eliminates 94% and 30% of the late and early total negative slacks, respectively, and, 82% and 27% of the late and early worst negative slacks, respectively, under short and long displacement constraints. The 1st-place team of the contest improves late and early total negative slacks by 90% and 39%, respectively, and improves late and early worst negative slack by 76% and 32%, re- spectively. Taking into account both timing violation improvement and the placement quality (i.e., other objectives), on average, we outperform the 1st-place team by 3% in terms of the ICCAD-2014 contest quality score and our technique is 4.6× faster in terms of runtime