tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:/all?page=12Journal of Brief Ideas: Ideas from the last week2021-07-04T16:07:53Ztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8572021-07-04T16:07:53Z2021-09-13T06:00:54ZConstruction of a cow model as a proxy for electronic sensor testshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5502173In modern livestock farming, electronics attached to an animal play a significant role. In this field of science, animals are equipped with electronics to measure a wide range of parameters. In the case of cattle, the electronics are attached to collars and mounted around the animal's neck. On the one hand, this is dangerous, as cattle can severely injure or even kill a person with their head, and on the other hand, the collars have to be configured and readjusted. The animal has to be continuously restrained and is therefore exposed to stress.
This procedure has the disadvantage that it requires an animal testing permit under the German Animal Welfare Act. Getting such approval is time-consuming and, depending on the purpose, not ethically justifiable. In addition, a sketch of the planned system, including attachment to the animal, is required for approval of the experiment.
The idea is to build a simple animal model that has the appropriate neck circumference and shape, is sufficient for initial electronic tests, and is also easy to assemble. The attached image shows a construction proposal that consists of a few parts and is financially affordable (100€).
Harbers, Jenstag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8512021-05-20T13:38:52Z2021-09-02T06:00:41ZEffect of PH on Copper hypertolarence: How does the Copper exporters of Staphylococcus aureus are maintaining its functionality within low PH of Phagosome ?https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4898503
We know that, when any bacterium entered into our body as per the innate immunity phagocytic cells majorly macrophages activated and use copper into phagosome to kill the phagocytized bacterium. Unfortunately most of the bacterium is capable to escaping this due to presence of some genes which code for copper exporters on cell membrane, similarly for Staphylococcus aureus where it code for P1B-1-type ATPase and P1B-3-type ATPase which helped to lower the cytoplasmic copper concentration and enhanced survival. But my question is that how do the ion channels (copper exporters) are functioning well inside of phagosome ? The pH of early and late phagosome and phagolysosome are respectively 6.1–6.5; 5.5–6.0; and 5–5.5 and we know that different pH can alter protein shape, so what is the scenario for those exporters and how does its functioning well? The peptidoglycan barrier can be degraded by Lysozyme, so it is possible that the low pH can hamper the bacterium copper efflux efficiency or it is may also possible that they might have any protective mechanism. It is not measured yet so in different pH it can be done.
References:
1. Doi; 10.1128/mBio.00550-18
2. Doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01368
@Eileen Uribe-Querol
@ Carlos Rosales
@Zapotoczna, Marta, et al. Chakraborty, Pallabtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8502021-05-20T11:04:35Z2021-06-26T11:52:01ZDelivery of Grocery items before demand https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4898476To delivery of the items before demand, it is important to know the monthly demands of the various families. so collect the information like size of family, festival celebration, possibilities of guest arrival, daily and monthly demand of various items, mode of payment, etc. and then analyse the same. From this information local shop keeper can have the idea about the monthly usage of different grocery items. That’s why shop keeper can maintain the inventory according to the demand of the customer. Here the concept of Vendor Managed Inventory has to be used. In a vendor managed inventory (VMI) concept, the vendor takes responsibility for managing the inventory of the customer without the need of orders from the customer side to be placed. Therefore, the vendor can optimise capacity planning, while the customer has to improve forecast accuracy. The successful implementation of the VMI completely depends upon proper communication between the customer, vendor and suppliers. By implementation of this system family members can save lot of time for billing and can spend with loving ones and hence can improve the productivity of families.
Ardak, Pankajtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8492021-05-18T05:09:52Z2021-08-08T21:13:04ZBackward stepwise elimination: A model-based method for nonlinear dimension reductionhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775143In multidimensional data modeling, dimension reduction is not intuitive. Forward feature selection is usually deceptive. That is, a strongly related feature may have a small correlation coefficient (near zero) to the objective, especially when the target model is nonlinear. Therefore, we suggest using backward stepwise elimination (BSE) for dimension reduction. BSE is an iterative model-based method. It starts from an all-feature model and iteratively eliminates the feature which does not significantly affect the goodness of the surrogate model until no more features could be eliminated without downgrading the model goodness. The surrogate model could be constructed with the extreme learning machine, Kriging, or some other machine learning techniques. The goodness of a model could be evaluated with the coefficient of determination $R^2$, or Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient E, etc. Luo, Changtongtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8472021-04-20T05:16:01Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZOCD, TRPA1s, AND THE VAGAL FEAR PATHWAY.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775135As mentioned in articles in NPBR.1. and JBI.2., the crucial stage in MAOI and St John' s Wort OCD cures I have repeatedly found to be strong TRPA1 receptor activation by radicals, resulting in gut serotonin and CCK release. Matsuo et al.3. have pointed out that the TRPA1 vagal/trigeminal innate fear pathway, demonstrated in animals, is conserved in humans, including the vagal solitary tract nucleus path to the midbrain parabrachial nucleus. Vagal activation of this fear pathway leads to hypometabolism in brain areas due to suppression of pyruvate dehydrogenase activity by phosphorylation.
OCD cure, as detailed earlier, appears to relate to disruption of vagal afferent feedback, and resulting reversal of brain hypometabolism in crucial areas could provide increased "neural noise", bringing back the ability to "drown" persistent thoughts and to "mind wander" i.e activation of the default mode network. This hypothesis is testable, given current research into new TRPA1 agonists.
.1. Neurology,Psychiatry and Brain Research 5(4):181, 8(4):185, 10(4):149.
.2. Journal of Brief Ideas. "Oxidative stress, MAOIs and OCD". "OCD, St John's Wort and iron"."OCD, radicals and TRPA1 receptors."
.3. Matsuo et al. Nature Communications. 2021 12(1):2074. / (bioRxiv posted May 19, 2020). STEWART, JOHNtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8392021-03-14T12:26:56Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZNeutrophils reduction by inducing autophagy may improve cancer treatment?https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775102Neutrophils are the key players of innate immune system that is well known to us. The information’s, which excite the new age researchers, is that the neutrophils may also be key players in cancer initiation and progression by several aspects. A pool of journal articles indicates that it has the potency to impacting tumor microenvironment to facilitating cancer growth. So here using some potential drugs those are capable of inducing autophagic cell death inside neutrophils will be a meaning full steps for cancer treatment as very recent research point out that neutrophils are died via autophagic cell death not by apoptosis. Thus by doing this we can control neutrophils numbers that may improve the patient’s health. Using this approach as combinational therapy with other anticancer therapy will also help in treatment. Obviously the drugs should be specific to the neutrophils.
To improve cancer treatments by this way we first have to standardize the neutrophils profiles for each cancer types, and we need to know more on how the tumor microenvironment converting the neutrophils. The use of these types of drugs needed where the neutrophils populations are found to acting for cancer.
#https://www.nature.com/articles/s41420-018-0131-9
#https://academic.oup.com/burnstrauma/article/doi/10.1093/burnst/tkz001/5706919
Declaration: It is not a research article.
Chakraborty, Pallabtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8382021-03-13T08:36:44Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZCarnot temperature and microwave cookinghttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775092Industrial chemical reactors are commonly understood as analogous to heat engines; chemical processes frequently require both heat (increase in energy) and work (decrease in entropy) to operate. Just like in a heat engine, work can be supplied along with the required heat, but this is limited by the temperature of operation according to the Carnot equation: W=Q.(T_hot-T_cold)/T_hot.
The Carnot temperature of a reaction is that temperature at which the reaction's work requirements are exactly met by supplying its heat requirements. Below this temperature, heat must be oversupplied in order to meet work demands. Microwave cooking avoids this drawback by supplying energy in a non-thermal form with higher work potential, and/or creating localized hot spots where high Carnot efficiency is achieved without high bulk temperatures.
This may explain some of the efficiency and cooking-time improvements achieved by microwaving. Not widely known, however, are the Carnot temperatures for most cooking reactions, which would indicate the preferred cooking modalities for different foodstuffs, based on the heat and work requirements of those specific chemical reactions. Broadly investigating Carnot temperatures for cooking reactions would yield a guide for selecting efficient cooking modalities. Some foods may also have different nutritional properties depending on cooking modality based on which reactions are favoured.Stacey, Neil Thomastag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8372021-03-09T03:53:43Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZClarifying Heraclitus' criticism of polymathy as a bad crafthttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775062In fragment XXV (Khan, 1979), Heraclitus writes that polymathy is bad craft (kakotechnie). However, in that extract he is referring to the “pilling up” of learnings without the application of rigor and without good guiding principles.
Notwithstanding, cognates of polymath’s termination "-math" were associated with learnings implying inquiry, and rigor, correctness, precision, or akribeia (Bukert, 1972, p. 192). Heraclitus, then, attacks a version of "polymathy" that lacks both the depth of akribeia and integration aspects. Since [Breadth,_D](/ideas/5ff33bee3321766b7bb581634aebfd72) showed that these are constitutional elements of modern polymathy, it voids the application of this criticism.
Moreover, Heraclitus wrote about the necessity to inquire into many things to obtain integrated wisdom (fragment XII). Thus what he really emphasizes throughout his fragments is that good learners should (i) be critical of learnings coming from "authorities" that cannot be trusted, and (ii) strive to integrate many knowledges in their pursuit of a single truth, which comes not from opinion but from nature. In this sense, he was only admonishing "polymathy" when void of depth and integration. Were these conditions true, most modern scholars would also concur that it would be bad practice. Hence, the fact that modern polymathy is now defined in terms of depth, breadth and integration puts an end this issue.Araki, Michaeltag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8362021-03-04T21:29:00Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZBenefits of publishing power analysis reportshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775072I propose that a lack of opportunities for publishing "power analysis reports" may be a gap worth addressing in scientific publishing. Scientific journals offering a "power analysis report" article type could have a number of benefits:
1 - It would provide a suitable outlet for well-conducted power analyses (that often require a large investment of time and expertise) that have led to required sample sizes not feasible for the authors to achieve on their own, that may otherwise never be made public. Research waste could be reduced as power analysis reports could
inform other researchers and research funders on appropriate sample sizes and could stimulate large collaborations.
2 - It may provide incentive to avoid "power analysis hacking" to reach a desirable sample size, both acutely (the well conducted power analysis can be published if the study cannot be conducted) and chronically (increased awareness and the number of published, high quality power analysis reports within the field may reduce the ease of publishing studies with a poorly or nefariously conducted power analysis).
3 - It would draw more attention to the value of well-conducted power analysis within the field of the journal.
4 (overlapping with 1-3) - It would provide researchers on temporary contracts certain reassurance in knowing that time invested in a well-conducted power analysis could result in a publication of scientific merit on its own.
Self-publishing power analysis reports could, and perhaps should, already be done, but this potentially lacks visibility that an article type at a journal would provide within the relevant field.McCrum, Christophertag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8342021-02-22T12:15:42Z2021-05-21T06:01:19ZExhaled Nitric Oxide test for COVID-19 severity screeninghttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775054Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) testing is a widely-used diagnostic tool in the treatment of asthma, where it is used to estimate the extent of inflammation in the airways. Airway inflammation also plays a significant role in the disease progression of severe COVID-19 infections, which suggests that similar testing could play a role in determining the likely course that the disease will take in a patient. At present, the standard means of testing for COVID-19's characteristic inflammatory cascade is a C-reactive protein test, with rapidly rising CRP levels being a strong predictor of subsequent respiratory deterioration. A similar correlation with exhaled Nitric Oxide may exist, potentially offering an additional diagnostic tool that does not require a blood draw for laboratory testing. FeNO testing may also be predictive of otherwise mild COVID-19 cases that result in long-term lung damage.
[A recent preprint](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.04.21251134v1) has shown that Budesonide, a corticosteroid used to treat airway inflammation in asthma patients and the prescription of which is frequently predicated on positive findings in FeNO testing, improves outcomes in COVID-19 patients, further highlighting a possible role for FeNO tests in the screening COVID-19 patients and in determining appropriate treatment options.Stacey, Neil ThomasXu, Lan