Current concepts of the podocyte in nephrotic syndrome

( Wen Y. Ding ),( Moin A. Saleem ) 대한신장학회 2012 Kidney Research and Clinical Practice Vol.31 No.2

Nephrotic syndrome is a disorder of the glomerular filtration barrier, and central to the filtration mechanism of the glomerular filtration barrier is the podocyte. We are starting to better understand how this cell, with its unique architectural features, fulfils its exact filtration properties. The multiprotein complex between adjacent podocyte foot processes, the slit diaphragm, is essential to the control of the actin cytoskeleton and cell morphology. Many of the proteins within the slit diaphragm, including nephrin, podocin, transient receptor potential-6 channel, and a-actinin-4, have been identified via genetic studies of inherited nephrotic syndromes. Signaling from slit diaphragm proteins to the actin cytoskeleton is mediated via the Rho GTPases. These are thought to be involved in the control of podocyte motility, which has been postulated as a focus of proteinuric pathways. Nephrotic syndrome is currently treated with immunosuppressive therapy, with significant adverse effects. These therapies may work in nephrotic syndrome due to specific effects on the podocytes. This review aims to describe our currentunderstanding of the cellular pathways and molecules within the podocyte relevant to nephrotic syndrome and its treatment. With our current knowledge of the cellular biology of the podocyte, there is much hope for targeted therapies for nephrotic syndromes.

A Multi-Drone System for Oil Spill Detection: A Simulation and Emulation Platform

A. Al Maashri,J. Ghommam,A. Saleem,N. Nasiri,O. Eldirdiry,H. Bourdoucen,G. Al Rawas,A. Al-Kamzari,A. Ammari 제어로봇시스템학회 2022 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2022 No.11

This paper presents a model for a multi-drone system used for detecting oil spills in seawater. The system is designed to provide an early warning for oil-derivative contamination that may threaten maritime life forms. The system hosts a lightweight machine vision algorithm for detecting oil spills and generating a path for the drones to follow. Also, the system incorporates robust communication; allowing the drones to collaborate as they track the generated path. To achieve autonomous tracking for drones, a robust control scheme is proposed. Specifically, the drone’s dynamics model is decomposed into two subsystems in terms of time scale transformation; leading to inner and outer loop dynamics. A combination of nonlinear integral sliding surface and backstepping procedure is employed to produce appropriate thrust and torque forces, which guarantees robust tracking performances of the drones. The proposed system was verified both in simulation as well as in an indoor multi-drone verification environment. The results attest to the efficacy of the developed model.

Performance optimization of integrated electrochemical capacitive deionization and reverse electrodialysis model through a series pass desorption process

Saleem, Muhammad Wajid,Jande, Y.A.C.,Kim, Woo-Seung Elsevier 2017 Journal of electroanalytical chemistry Vol.795 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>A capacitive deionization (CDI) system is one of the emerging desalination technologies used to purify brackish water. It is an electrochemical technology that uses electrically charged porous electrodes to remove salt ions from water. In this study, we developed a process model by integrating CDI with reverse electrodialysis (RED) for the production of pure water and energy. RED is a power generation technology that uses the mixing entropy of water with high and low salt concentrations. Desalination with low energy consumption and high water recovery (WR) was a design preference for this integrated electrochemical model. CDI system was optimized with a series four pass reverse current desorption (RCD) method to achieve WR of almost 96.7% that was previously 50–80% on average. Moreover, an artificial salinity gradient was also produced for RED to generate energy through this four-pass RCD method of CDI. The concentration gain ratio (CGR), WR of CDI, and power density of RED was numerically assessed with different number of desorption passes and for CDI desorption current. WR and CGR value in CDI increased to 96% and 25, respectively, with the increase of number of desorption passes to four. Two stage RED cell system is used to get energy from salinity gradient produced through CDI. Energy consumption of 1.5kJ/l for pure water production was reduced to 0.58kJ/l with this purposed integrated four-pass CDI-RED system. This integrated electrochemical system reduced desalination energy consumption as well reducing environmental pollution with an eco-friendly, renewable power generation method and a reduction in the CDI disposal concentration.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> Optimized the electrochemical desalination process for water recovery </LI> <LI> Four pass desorption method was employed to integrate the CDI-RED model. </LI> <LI> Concentration gain ratio, water recovery, and energy consumption is used for performance assessment. </LI> </UL> </P>

Synthesis, cytotoxicity and bioimaging of a novel Hg2+ selective fluorogenic chemosensor

Saleem, M.,Abdullah, R.,Ali, A.,Park, B.,Choi, E.,Hong, I.,Lee, K. Royal Society of Chemistry 2014 Analytical methods Vol.6 No.11

A rhodamine B derivative 2 with a terminal mercapto thiadiazole moiety was successfully synthesized and applied for selective recognition of Hg2+ in aqueous-acetonitrile (1:1, v/v, pH 7) solution by employing its photophysical properties. Low toxicity and precise cell-permeability of the ligand were used to probe in vitro intracellular mercury contamination using L-929 cells (mouse fibroblast cells) and BHK-21 (hamster kidney fibroblast) through a confocal fluorescence microscopic experiment and bio-imaging results showed the equal applicability of the ligand toward both tested cell tines. Meanwhile, it exhibited distinct Hg2+ induced increment in the fluorescence and absorption intensities with induction of an apparent colorimetric change from colorless to reddish pink, providing naked eye mercury detection based on the metal-promoted intramolecular electronic rearrangement in the probe molecule. The probe responds selectively to Hg2+ over various competitive cations (Sc3+, Yb3+, In3+, Ce3+, Sm3+, Cr3+, Sn2+, Pb2+, Fe2+, Ni2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Ba2+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Ag+, Cs+, Cu+, and K+) with marked fluorogenic response and selective colorimetric changes with high sensitivity of 30 nM. We expect that the proposed method will serve as a practical tool for environmental sample analysis and biological studies.

Growth performance, nutrients digestibility, and blood metabolites of lambs fed diets supplemented with probiotics during pre- and post-weaning period

A.M. Saleem,A.I. Zanouny,A.M. Singer 아세아·태평양축산학회 2017 Animal Bioscience Vol.30 No.4

Objective: Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects on growth performance, digestibility, and blood metabolites of lambs during pre- and post-weaning period of inclusion of a commercial probiotic (PRO) containing a mixture of two strains of Pediococcus, Pediococcus acidilactici (1×106 colony-forming unit [cfu]/g) and Pediococcus pentosaceus (1.3×106 cfu/g), with dextrose as the carrier compound compared to a diet based on concentrate mixture and wheat straw. Methods: In exp. 1, 24 male lambs of about 15±2.6 d age and initial body weight (BW) of 5.52±0.6 kg were randomly allocated into three groups. One group received control diet without additives, and remainders received control diet supplemented with 0.5 or 1 g PRO/lamb/d. Daily feed intake and biweekly BW were recorded. In exp. 2, five lambs, (initial BW = 29.72±1.15 kg, age = 6.54±0.32 mo) were used as experimental animals in a digestion trial. They were fed the same diets as in Exp. 1. Results: The supplementation of PRO did not result in any significant differences in milk intake, average daily gain (ADG), or total gain between treatments during the pre-weaning period. Total dry matter intake tended to be greater (p = 0.07) with addition of PRO in the post-weaning diets. During post-weaning phase, the final BW, ADG, total gain, and feed conversion ratio of the lambs receiving PRO treatments tended to be greater (p≤0.10) than the control group. Addition of PRO in post-weaning diet decreased (p≤0.01) blood urea and cholesterol concentrations. With the exception of ether extract digestibility, all nutrients digestibility were improved with inclusion PRO in the post-weaning diets. Conclusion: Lambs that received PRO in post-weaning diet appeared to show a better performance than lambs in pre-weaning period. Addition of the probiotic in the post-weaning diet trended towards improved dry matter intake, growth performance, feed conversion ratio, and nutrients digestibility.

Characteristics of Annual and Seasonal Trends of Rainfall and Temperature in Iraq

Saleem A. Salman,Shamsuddin Shahid,Tarmizi Ismail,Kamal Ahmed,Eun-Sung Chung,Xiao-Jun Wang 한국기상학회 2019 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences Vol.55 No.3

Changes in the temperature and precipitation have significantly affected water resources and agricultural productions in many countries across the world. The objective of the present study is to analyze the changing patterns of annual and seasonal precipitation and temperature in Iraq for the period 1961–2010. Monthly gridded precipitation and temperature data of Global precipitation climate center (GPCC) and climate research unit (CRU) respectively having a spatial resolution of 0.5° were used in this study to show the spatial pattern in trends. The rate of change in rainfall and temperature was estimated using Sen’s slope method while the significance of change was confirmed using Mann-Kendal test (MK) and the modified Mann-Kendall test (mMK). The results revealed large differences in the number of grid points showing significant changes in rainfall and temperature using MK and mMK methods. The mMK method revealed that the annual rainfall is decreasing at a rate of −1.0 to −5.0 mm/year in the northwest part of Iraq. The seasonal precipitations were found to decrease in spring (−0.4 to −2.56 mm/ year) and winter (−0.4 to −2.0 mm/year), increase in summer (0.06 to 0.21 mm/year) at a few grid points and no change in autumn. On the other hand, a sharp rise in annual average of daily mean (0.42 to 0.64 °C/decade), maximum (0.39 to 0.65 °C/ decade) and minimum (0.36 to 0.69 °C/decade) temperature was observed.

Seasonal Grouping in Year-Season Animal Model Evaluation of Sahiwal Cattle

Khan, M.S.,Ali, A.,Ali, S.,Saleem, M. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 1997 Animal Bioscience Vol.10 No.1

Season is very important as it defines the contemporaries for sire and cow evaluation. An attempt is made for defining season for animal model evaluation of Sahiwal animals, using 1,227 records from 730 cows. Cows were required to have a lactation length of 305-days. Ten different combinations of months for two, four, five or other seasons were tried. The other fixed effect in the model was age defined within parity. The random effects were permanent environment and animal's breeeding value along with the residual effects. A single trait animal model was used where all known relationships of an animal were incorporated in a relationship matrix. The error variance from the fitted model decreased as the number of year-season combinations increased, indicating a month-year model to be more appropriate. This, on the other hand, decreased the number of contemporaries for certain subclasses to a minimum of one, making the bull comparisons invalid. Use of a two season scenario, with winter (November through February) and summer (March through October) was better than the other combinations in terms of error variance of the fitted model and the number of lactations represented in any year-season subclass.

High areal capacity for battery anode using rapidly growing self-ordered TiO₂ nanotubes with a high aspect ratio

Pervez, S.,Kim, D.,Doh, C.H.,Farooq, U.,Yaqub, A.,Choi, J.H.,Lee, Y.J.,Saleem, M. North-Holland 2014 Materials letters Vol.137 No.-

Highly scalable and fast grown TiO<SUB>2</SUB> nanotube layers (TNTs) were utilized as a binder and conductive agent free anode for Li-ion battery (LIB) to obtain high areal capacity. To synthesize the TNTs, a simple electrochemical anodization was carried out in an electrolyte containing lactic acid as an additive. Lactic acid assisted in obtaining nanotube layers of greater length in a very short time with a strong adherence to the Ti substrate. Results showed that the variation in the aspect ratio of the TNTs has a significant impact on the electrochemical performance of the anode material in terms of areal charge/discharge capacity, i.e., longer the length and wider the diameter of the nanotube, higher the capacity and vice versa. For TNTs with a length of up to 38μm, a high areal capacity of ca. 1000μAhcm<SUP>-2</SUP> was achieved after 100 charge/discharge cycles.

One-pot sonochemical preparation of carbon dots, influence of process parameters and potential applications: a review

Saleem M.,Naz M.Y.,Shukrullah S.,Shujah M. A.,Akhtar M.,Ullah Sami,Ali S. 한국탄소학회 2022 Carbon Letters Vol.32 No.1

The carbon-based nanostructures are in limelight due to their widespread applications in nano-to-micro-scale technologies. The carbon dots are known for their unique physical, electrical, optical, chemical and biological properties. The carbon dots (CDs) are being produced through several well-developed synthesis methods, one of which is the green sonochemical. This method is preferred over others because it is a green source of energy, facile, fast, low-temperature process, non-toxic and less expensive. Despite the fact of using 90% less energy than other methods, this method has been overlooked in the published literature. It is possible to prepare pure and doped CDs of low toxicity and controlled physicochemical properties through sonochemical method. In recent years, sonochemically produced CDs have been tuned and characterized for a variety of applications. This review has explored the merits and demerits of sonochemical method in comparison to the other methods for the synthesis of pure CDs and their nanocomposites. The role of multiple factors in tailoring the specific parameters of CDs for their application in antibacterial, polymerization, tissue engineering, catalysis, bio-imagining, supercapacitors, drug delivery and electric devices is also elaborated in this review. This review also concludes on future directions in the applications of sonochemically produced CDs.

High Frequency Half-Bridge Converter using Multilayered Coreless Printed Circuit Board Step-Down Power Transformer

A. Majid,H.B.Kotte,J.Saleem,R.Ambatipudi,S.Haller,K.Bertilsson 전력전자학회 2011 ICPE(ISPE)논문집 Vol.2011 No.5

This paper introduces high frequency half bridge DC-DC converter, using multilayered coreless Printed Circuit Board (PCB) step down power transformer. The converter is simulated and then implemented on a PCB. Complementary Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) signals are generated to turn on high and low side Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) alternately by a micro-controller. The isolated gate drive signals are provided to the high side MOSFET by using high frequency coreless PCB isolation transformer. We tested the converter for switching frequency range of 2 to 3 ㎒, and for maximum input voltage up-to 170 V. The maximum output power achieved is 40 W and the maximum energy efficiency is approximately 82 %.