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Excessive alcohol intake frequently results in gastrointestinal discomfort. It is an empirical fact that the severity of gastrointestinal discomfort induced by alcohol abuse is subject to interindividual variation. The aim of this study was to determine whether genetic polymorphism in alcohol dehydrogenase 3 (ADH3) and cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), important first-pass enzymes in the metabolism of ethanol, predispose to the development of gastrointestinal symptoms in alcoholics, Blood samples were obtained from 92 adult alcoholics admitted for detoxification. The samples were analyzed for genetic polymorphism in ADH3 and CYP2E1 by polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses. During an interview on the first day of hospital admission, patient characteristics and gastrointestinal symptoms in the week before admission were assessed. A total of 75 of 92 alcoholics (83%) reported symptoms: 66 patients had upper gastrointestinal symptoms (72%), 70 patients had lower gastrointestinal symptoms (76%), and 59 patients reported alarming symptoms (64%). Patients with gastrointestinal symptoms less often abused beer in comparison to those without gastrointestinal symptoms (P = 0.05). The numbers of patients with the homozygous y1y1 genotype, the heterozygous y1y2 genotype, and the homozygous y2y2 genotype in ADH3 who reported gastrointestinal symptoms were 20 (83%), 34 (76%), and 15 (88%), respectively. The number of patients with the heterozygous c1c2 CYP2E1 genotype (5%) and the heterozygous DC CYP2E1 genotype (14%) was low and also unrelated to gastrointestinal symptoms. Our data suggest that the ethanol concentrations of the consumed beverages, and not interindividual variations in the activities of first-pass alcohol-metabolizing enzymes, are associated with gastrointestinal symptoms in alcoholics.

¥IÎ. SUMMARY Research ob Formation of some Endogenous Substances CAleohols) in Postmortem Blood with the view of Forensic Science. In this study, Gas chromatographic method which is used for the determination and separation of alcohols, has been designated appropriate for sensitivity, recurrence and productivity. In postmortem blood samples, the effects of NaF (%1 W/V) which is used for endogenous blood formation and protection was observed and it was determined that NaF could be used as preservative but could not yield perfect productivity. In our experimental conditions, methyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol and butyl alcohol formation was not observed. It has been determined that the incresement in ethanol concentration during first 14 days and decresement there by after was not dependent on first alcohol concentration. Also there is an observed convenience between Gas Chromotography and Conway Microdiffusion methods. Keywords^ Chromatographic analysis, Blood, Postmortem alcohols, Endogenous alcohols. 67 VI. ÖZET Bu çalışmada alkollerin tayininde ve ayırımında kullanılan Gaz Kromatografisi yönetiminin hassasiyet tekrarlanabilirlik ve verim açısından uygunluğu belirlenmiştir. Postmortem kan numunelerinde, endojen alkol oluşumu ve kaybını önlemek için kullanılan Sodyum Florürün (%1W/V) etkisi gözlenmiştir, ve NaF'ün prezervativ olarak kullanılabileceği ancak tam verim göstermediği saptanmıştır. Çalışma koşullarımızda PM kanda diğer Metil Alkol, İzopropil Alkol ve Butil Alkolün oluşumu gözlenmemiştir, Endojen Etil Alkol oluşumunda ilk 14 gündeki etanol konsantrasyonunu yükselişinin ve bu günden sonra düşüşünün ilk alkol konsantrasyonuna bağlı olmadığı saptanmıştır. Ayrıca Gaz Kromatograü ve Conway mikrodifîüzyon yöntemi arasında uygunluk gözlenmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Kromatograflk analiz, kan, Postmortem alkoller, endojen alkoller. 66 79

Due to advancements in information technology, the healthcare sector becomes beneficial and provides distinct methods of managing medical data and enhancing the quality of medical services. The advanced e-healthcare applications are mainly based on the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing platforms. In IoT enabled healthcare sector, the IoT devices usually record the patient data and transfer it to the cloud for further processing. Energy efficiency and security are treated as critical problems in designing IoT networks in the healthcare environment. As IoT devices are limited to energy, designing an effective technique to reduce energy utilization is needed. At the same time, secure transmission of medical data also poses a major challenging design issue. This paper presents a novel artificial intelligence with a blockchain scheme for IoT healthcare systems named AIBS-IoTHS. The AIBS-IoTH model aims to achieve secure and energy-efficient data transmission in IoT networks. The IoT devices are primarily used to collect patients’ medical data. The AIBS- IoTH model involves a metaheuristic-based modified sunflower optimization-based clustering (MSFOC) technique to achieve energy efficiency. Then, the blockchain empowered secure medical data transmission process is carried out for both inter-cluster and intra-cluster communication. At last, the Classification Enhancement Generative Adversarial Networks (CEGAN) model performs the diagnostic process on the secured medical data to determine the existence of the diseases. The design of MSFOC and CEGAN techniques shows the novelty of the work. An extensive experimental analysis of the benchmark dataset pointed out the superior performance of the proposed AIBS-IoTH model over the other compared methods.

In western countries, alcohol consumption is widespread in women of reproductive age, and in binge quantities. These countries also continue to have high incidences of unplanned pregnancies, with women often reported to cease drinking after discovering their pregnancy. This suggests the early embryo may be highly exposed to the detrimental effects of alcohol during the periconception period. The periconception and pre-implantation windows, which include maturation of the oocyte, fertilisation, and morphogenesis of the pre-implantation embryo, are particularly sensitive times of development. Within the oviduct and uterus, the embryo is exposed to a unique nutritional environment to facilitate its development and establish de-novo expression of the genome through epigenetic reprogramming. Alcohol has wide-ranging effects on cellular stress, as well as hormonal, and nutrient signalling pathways, which may affect the development and metabolism of the early embryo. In this review, we summarise the adverse developmental outcomes of early exposure to alcohol (prior to implantation in animal models) and discuss the potential mechanisms for these outcomes that may occur within the protected oviductal and uterine environment. One interesting candidate is reduced retinoic acid synthesis, as it is implicated in the control of epigenetic reprogramming and cell lineage commitment, processes that have adverse consequences for the formation of the placenta, and subsequently, fetal programming.

Com a viragem do século, as doenças cardiovasculares (DCV) continuam a ser principal causa de mortalidade no mundo e em Portugal, sendo encaradas atualmente como um dos mais importantes problemas de saúde pública. Como resposta a esta situação e em combinação com os avanços em diversos domínios científicos, surgiu um novo tipo de produtos alimentares, denominados alimentos funcionais. Estes produtos, cujo desenvolvimento aumentou consideravelmente ao longo da última década, além da função nutricional básica que possuem, oferecem também aos consumidores uma gama de compostos bioativos com efeitos benéficos e cardioprotetores para a saúde, reduzindo desta forma o risco de doenças DCV. Este trabalho teve como objetivo principal desenvolver uma bebida funcional substituta de café a partir de duas matrizes vegetais desvalorizadas e altamente disponíveis em Portugal, a bolota e a alfarroba. Para tal, foi necessário processar as amostras de forma a obter no final três bebidas funcionais, B1 (nem muito doce nem muito amarga), B2 (mais amarga) e B3 (mais doce), cada uma com diferentes formulações de bolota e alfarroba torradas, que se enquadrassem no gosto dos consumidores de café ou substitutos de café. De forma a avaliar os benefícios nutricionais e potenciais efeitos cardioprotetores para a saúde, foram efetuadas uma série de análises às bebidas desenvolvidas assim como também às matrizes cruas e às respetivas torras usadas para a preparação das bebidas. Neste sentido, foi realizada uma análise à composição química e nutricional das amostras: humidade/sólidos totais, cinzas, lípidos, proteínas, açúcares, fibras insolúveis, minerais e valor energético; foram avaliados, com recurso à espectrofotometria, os teores de compostos fenólicos totais (TPC), flavonoides totais (TFC), taninos condensados, produtos da reação de Maillard e atividade de sequestro dos radicais livres DPPH• e o ABTS•+, e por último foi feita uma análise à bioatividade através do estudo da capacidade de inibição das enzimas α-glucosidase e α-amilase. As bebidas foram ainda analisadas sensorialmente através de um inquérito efetuado a um grupo de 20 provadores não treinados, de forma a avaliar as características organoléticas dos produtos finais. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que as matrizes possuem um elevado valor nutricional, nomeadamente alto teor em fibras insolúveis, cerca de 19,0 ± 2,5% para a bolota e 31,3 ± 4,0% para a alfarroba, no entanto a alfarroba apresentou teores mais elevados em açúcares totais (31,3 ± 4,0%) quando comparado com outros frutos secos (castanha, amêndoa e avelã). Todas as amostras apresentaram capacidade antioxidante, comprovada essencialmente através dos seus altos teores em compostos fenólicos e de capacidade de sequestro dos radicais livres, nomeadamente o radical ABTS•+ . Deste modo, a bolota foi a matriz que obteve valores mais altos, cerca de 1551 ± 6 mg EAG/100 g de teor em TPC e apresentou um valor de IC50 para a atividade de sequestro do ABTS•+ de 6,04 ± 0,15 µg/mL, enquanto a alfarroba obteve valores de 859 ± 19 mg EAG/100 g e 203 ± 5 µg/mL, respetivamente. Em relação às bebidas, a B2 foi a que apresentou valores superiores de TPC, cerca de 275 ± 1,1 mg EAG/100 g, seguindo-se da B1 e B3 com os respetivos valores de 236 ± 1,1 mg EAG/100 g e 212 ± 1,6 mg EAG/100 g, por outro lado, a B3 (IC50 = 83,0 ± 2,1 µg/mL) obteve valores mais elevados para a atividade de sequestro do ABTS•+, seguido da B2 (IC50 = 65,7 ± 2,7 µg/mL) e B3 (IC50 = 65,3 ± 0,3 µg/mL). Em termos de bioatividades todas as amostras mostraram serem potenciais agentes antidiabéticos, uma vez que os extratos mostraram uma forte inibição da α-glucosidase, apresentando valores de IC50 entre 5,36 – 217 µg/mL. No entanto, não foram registadas quaisquer inibições para a α-amilase. Através da análise sensorial realizada, concluiu-se que os provadores tiveram mais preferência pela bebida B3, de seguida da B2 e por último a B1. Apesar de os provadores terem mostrado que não tinham muita intenção de comprar alguma das bebidas, a B3 foi a que obteve maior pontuação. Deste modo, este trabalho conseguiu mostrar o elevado valor nutricional das matrizes escolhidas, que se refletiu posteriormente na produção de bebidas funcionais, destacando-se a sua capacidade na prevenção e diminuição do risco de DCV, comprovando que estas bebidas poderão ser uma potencial alternativa ao café.

During heterologous protein production with Escherichia coli, the formation of inclusion bodies (IBs) is often a major drawback as these aggregated proteins are usually inactive. However, different strategies for the generation of IBs consisting of catalytically active proteins have recently been described. In this study, the archaeal tetrameric coiled-coil domain of the cell-surface protein tetrabrachion was fused to a target reporter protein to produce fluorescent IBs (FIBs). As the cultivation conditions severely influence IB formation, the entire cultivation process resulting in the production of FIBs were thoroughly studied. First, the cultivation process was scaled down based on the maximum oxygen transfer capacity, combining online monitoring technologies for shake flasks and microtiter plates with offline sampling. The evaluation of culture conditions in complex terrific broth autoinduction medium showed strong oxygen limitation and leaky expression. Furthermore, strong acetate formation and pH changes from 6.5 to 8.8 led to sub-optimal cultivation conditions. However, in minimal Wilms-MOPS autoinduction medium, defined culture conditions and a tightly controlled expression were achieved. The production of FIBs is strongly influenced by the induction strength. Increasing induction strengths result in lower total amounts of functional protein. However, the amount of functional FIBs increases. Furthermore, to prevent the formation of conventional inactive IBs, a temperature shift from 37 °C to 15 °C is crucial to generate FIBs. Finally, the gained insights were transferred to a stirred tank reactor batch fermentation. Hereby, 12 g/L FIBs were produced, making up 43 % (w/w) of the total generated biomass.

BackgroundResearch on alcohol consumption mostly relies on self‐reported data, which are subject to recall bias. Wearable transdermal alcohol concentration (TAC) monitors address this limitation by continuously measuring the ethanol excreted via the skin. This systematic review aims to provide an overview of TAC monitors’ reliability to detect alcohol consumption and methods to estimate breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) and number of standard drinks consumed in a given time frame.MethodsThe databases MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Engineering Village, and CINAHL were systematically searched to identify 1,048 empirical research papers published from 2013 onwards, of which 13 were included after full‐text screening. The selected studies included 3 TAC monitors: SCRAM™, WristTAS™, and Skyn™.ResultsTAC measures of SCRAM, WrisTAS, and Skyn are found to be positively correlated with BrAC (r = 0.56 to 0.79) and/or self‐reports (r = 0.62). Using the AMS criteria for detection results in low sensitivity, adjusted criteria can increase the sensitivity of the SCRAM from 39.9 to 68.5%. The WrisTAS and an early prototype of the Skyn showed high failure rates (17 to 38%). Recent advances toward transforming the TAC data into more clinically relevant measures have led to the development of mathematical models and the BrAC Estimator Software. Using TAC data, both approaches produce estimates explaining 70 to 82% of actual BrAC and self‐reported drinking or to highly correlate with the actual BrAC measures (β = 0.90 to 0.91).ConclusionsTransdermal alcohol monitors offer an opportunity to measure alcohol consumption in a valid and continuous way with mathematical models and software estimating BrAC values improving interpretation of TAC data. However, the SCRAM seems unable to detect low‐to‐moderate drinking levels using the thresholds and criteria set by the manufacturer. Moreover, the WrisTAS and the Skyn prototype show a high failure rate, raising questions about reliability. Future studies will assess the validity of new‐generation wristbands, including the next Skyn generations.

Purpose: India's biofuel programme relies on ethanol production from sugarcane molasses. However, there is limited insight on environmental impacts across the Indian ethanol production chain. This study closes this gap by assessing the environmental impacts of ethanol production from sugarcane molasses in Uttar Pradesh, India. A comparative analysis with south-central Brazilian sugarcane ethanol is also presented to compare the performance of sugarcane molasses-based ethanol with sugarcane juice-based ethanol. Methods: The production process is assessed by a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment. The multifunctionality problem is solved by applying two variants of system expansion and economic allocation. Environmental impacts are assessed with Impact 2002+ and results are presented at the midpoint level for greenhouse gas emissions, non-renewable energy use, freshwater eutrophication and water use. Furthermore, results include impacts on human health and ecosystem quality at the damage level. Sensitivity analysis is also performed on key contributing parameters such as pesticides, stillage treatment and irrigation water use. Results and discussion: It is found that, compared to Brazilian ethanol, Indian ethanol causes lower or comparable greenhouse gas emissions (0.09-0.64 kgCO 2eq/kgethanolIN, 0.46-0.63 kgCO2eq/kg ethanolBR), non-renewable energy use (-0.3-6.3 MJ/kg ethanolIN, 1-4 MJ/kgethanolBR), human health impacts (3.6·10-6 DALY/kgethanolIN, 4·10 -6 DALY/kgethanolBR) and ecosystem impairment (2.5 PDF·m2·year/kgethanolIN, 3.3 PDF·m2·year/kgethanolBR). One reason is that Indian ethanol is exclusively produced from molasses, a co-product of sugar production, resulting in allocation of the environmental burden. Additionally, Indian sugar mills and distilleries produce surplus electricity for which they receive credits for displacing grid electricity of relatively high CO 2 emission intensity. When economic allocation is applied, the greenhouse gas emissions for Indian and Brazilian ethanol are comparable. Non-renewable energy use is higher for Indian ethanol, primarily due to energy requirements for irrigation. For water use and related impacts, Indian ethanol scores worse due groundwater irrigation, despite the dampening effect of allocation. The variation on greenhouse gas emissions and non-renewable energy use of Indian mills is much larger for high and low performance than the respective systems in Brazil. Conclusions: Important measures can be taken across the production chain to improve the environmental performance of Indian ethanol production (e.g. avoiding the use of specific pesticides, avoiding the disposal of untreated stillage, transition to water efficient crops). However, to meet the targets of the Indian ethanol blending programme, displacement effects are likely to occur in countries which export ethanol. To assess such effects, a consequential study needs to be prepared.