We revisit Brenner's seminal work on the Stokes resistance of a slightly deformed sphere (Chem. Engng Sci., vol. 19, 1964, p. 519), evaluate its range of validity and extend its applicability to higher deformations for axisymmetric particles, using hydrodynamic radius as the measure of Stokes resistance. Brenner's method solves the flow around a slightly deformed sphere through two mapping steps: the first mapping translates the surface velocity on the deformed sphere to that over a reference sphere of arbitrary radius using an asymptotic expansion of the flow field in terms of deformation amplitude and a Taylor expansion of the velocity field around the surface of the reference sphere. Subsequently, the second mapping extrapolates the velocity field from the surface of the reference sphere to any point in the fluid using Lamb's general solution for Stokes flow. While the original work addresses slightly deformed spheres to a linear order in deformation amplitude, we demonstrate that the first mapping, in combination with axisymmetric spectral modes (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 936, 2022, R1), can accommodate significant deformations to arbitrary orders of perturbation, and thus is not limited to slightly deformed spheres. Also, while first-order analysis is suitable for nearly spherical particles, second-order terms can provide a reasonable range for significantly higher deformations.

This review aims to assess the prevalence of malaria in pregnancy during antenatal visits and delivery, species-specific burden together with regional variation in the burden of disease. It also aims to estimate the proportions of adverse pregnancy outcomes in malaria-positive women. Based on the PRISMA guidelines, a thorough and systematic search was conducted in July 2023 across two electronic databases (including PubMed and CENTRAL). Forest plots were constructed for each outcome of interest highlighting the effect measure, confidence interval, sample size, and its associated weightage. All the statistical meta-analysis were conducted using R-Studio version 2022.07. Sensitivity analyses, publication bias assessment, and meta-regression analyses were also performed to ensure robustness of the review. According to the pooled estimates of 253 studies, the overall prevalence of malaria was 18.95% (95% CI: 16.95–21.11), during antenatal visits was 20.09% (95% CI: 17.43–23.06), and at delivery was 17.32% (95% CI: 14.47–20.61). The highest proportion of malarial infection was observed in Africa approximating 21.50% (95% CI: 18.52–24.81) during ANC and 20.41% (95% CI: 17.04–24.24) at the time of delivery. Our analysis also revealed that the odds of having anaemia were 2.40 times (95% CI: 1.87–3.06), having low birthweight were 1.99 times (95% CI: 1.60–2.48), having preterm birth were 1.65 times (95% CI: 1.29–2.10), and having stillbirths were 1.40 times (95% CI: 1.15–1.71) in pregnant women with malaria.

This article examines the impact of the pandemic on ride-hailing drivers and their mitigation strategies during lockdown in Africa. Ride-hailing has emerged as one of the latest paid-work opportunities for the continent's many unemployed. Yet, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt misclassify drivers to avoid regulation and responsibilities towards workers’ welfare. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews with ride-hailing drivers, driver representatives and trade unions in South Africa and Kenya, this article makes two arguments. First, the gig economy in Africa provides work opportunities for the unemployed on the continent and simultaneously vitiates the working conditions through the commodification and informalisation of work. Second, the state-directed emergency measures act as a veneer to capital's efforts to commodify labour and the gig economy platforms have emerged as primary tools for it. Our account points to an urgent need for better regulatory systems to hold platform companies accountable and a collective bargaining mechanism in the gig economy.

Cancer is now one of the major causes of death across the globe. The imbalance of cytokine and chemokine secretion has been reported to be involved in cancer development. Meanwhile, CC chemokines have received considerable interest in cancer research. CCR10, as the latest identified CC chemokine receptor (CCR), has been implicated in the recruitment and infiltration of immune cells, especially lymphocytes, into epithelia such as skin via ligation to two ligands, CCL27 and CCL28. Other than homoeostatic function, several mechanisms have been shown to dysregulate CCR10/CCL27–CCL28 expression in the tumour microenvironment. As such, these receptors and ligands mediate T-cell trafficking in the tumour microenvironment. Depending on the types of lymphocytes recruited, CCR10/CCL27–CCL28 interaction has been shown to play conflicting roles in cancer development. If they were T helper and cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells, the role of this axis would be tumour-suppressive. In contrast, if CCR10/CCL27–CCL28 recruited regulatory T cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts or myeloid-derived suppressor cells, it would lead to tumour progression. In addition to the trafficking of lymphocytes and immune cells, CCR10 also leads to the migration of tumour cells or endothelial cells (called angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis) to promote tumour metastasis. Furthermore, CCR10 signalling triggers tumour-promoting signalling such as PI3K/AKT and mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase, resulting in tumour cell growth. Since CCR10/CCL27–CCL28 is dysregulated in the tumour tissues, it is suggested that analysis and measurement of them might predict tumour development. Finally, it is hoped using therapeutic approaches based on this axis might increase our knowledge to overcome tumour progression.

We present a non-perturbative mesh-free spectral method for the axisymmetric scenario of a radially highly deformed sphere in Stokes flow. Spectra of harmonic and biharmonic Stokes flow modes are used to provide a general algebraic spectral solution to axisymmetric Stokes flow. A solution for the flow field around a sphere with prescribed surface velocity field is presented, and is used to obtain the velocity field around a deformed sphere. The method is demonstrated on two problems: hydrodynamic radii of radially deformed spheres for a range of strength and angular dependence of the deformation, with results in good agreement with the boundary element method; and self-phoretic velocity of spheroids with surface flux of the driving field in a source/sink or source/inert configuration.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has made the largest pandemic of the 21st century, with hundreds of millions of cases and tens of millions of fatalities. Scientists all around the world are racing to develop vaccines and new pharmaceuticals to overcome the pandemic and offer effective treatments for COVID-19 disease. Consequently, there is an essential need to better understand how the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 is affected by viral mutations and to determine the conserved segments in the viral genome that can serve as stable targets for novel therapeutics. Here, we introduce a text-mining method to estimate the mutability of genomic segments directly from a reference (ancestral) whole genome sequence. The method relies on calculating the importance of genomic segments based on their spatial distribution and frequency over the whole genome. To validate our approach, we perform a large-scale analysis of the viral mutations in nearly 80,000 publicly available SARS-CoV-2 predecessor whole genome sequences and show that these results are highly correlated with the segments predicted by the statistical method used for keyword detection. Importantly, these correlations are found to hold at the codon and gene levels, as well as for gene coding regions. Using the text-mining method, we further identify codon sequences that are potential candidates for siRNA-based antiviral drugs. Significantly, one of the candidates identified in this work corresponds to the first seven codons of an epitope of the spike glycoprotein, which is the only SARS-CoV-2 immunogenic peptide without a match to a human protein.

When the emergency committee of the World Health Organization declared that the outbreak of COVID-19 meets the criteria of a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” on January 30th, 2020, no one could ever imagine how soon it will spread globally, and a health crisis would turn to a social crisis that affects everything including higher education. However, during this uncertainty, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) tried to respond quickly. In this study, we explain how a nerve center has helped TUMS respond to this crisis and ensure safety to keep key operations going, and set up a functional decision-making system for the future. We also share perspectives on the critical issues, the challenges ahead, and the opportunities emerging in the “new normal.”

The proliferation, metastasis and therapy response of tumour cells are tightly regulated by interaction among various signalling networks. The microRNAs (miRNAs) can bind to 3′-UTR of mRNA and down-regulate expression of target gene. The miRNAs target various molecular pathways in regulating biological events such as apoptosis, differentiation, angiogenesis and migration. The aberrant expression of miRNAs occurs in cancers and they have both tumour-suppressor and tumour-promoting functions. On the contrary, SOX proteins are capable of binding to DNA and regulating gene expression. SOX2 is a well-known member of SOX family that its overexpression in different cancers to ensure progression and stemness. The present review focuses on modulatory impact of miRNAs on SOX2 in affecting growth, migration and therapy response of cancers. The lncRNAs and circRNAs can function as upstream mediators of miRNA/SOX2 axis in cancers. In addition, NF-κB, TNF-α and SOX17 are among other molecular pathways regulating miRNA/SOX2 axis in cancer. Noteworthy, anti-cancer compounds including bufalin and ovatodiolide are suggested to regulate miRNA/SOX2 axis in cancers. The translation of current findings to clinical course can pave the way to effective treatment of cancer patients and improve their prognosis.

Intake of resveratrol has been associated with improved ovarian morphology under in vitro and in the animal models; however, this finding has not been confirmed in trials. The aim of our study was, therefore, to use a placebo-controlled approach with the detailed assessment of the ovarian morphology by applying transvaginal ultrasound to examine the effectiveness of this therapeutic approach in this group of women. The mean age of all participants was 28·61 (sd 4·99) years, with the mean BMI of 28·26 (sd 5·62) kg/m2. Resveratrol therapy, as compared with placebo, was associated with a significantly higher rate of improvement in the ovarian morphology (P = 0·02). Women who received resveratrol had a more dominant follicle than those getting placebo, with a significant reduction in the ovarian volume (P < 0·05). However, the number of follicle count per ovary (FNPO), stromal area (SA), ovarian echogenicity and distribution of follicles were not significantly altered (P > 0·05). Forty-one women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) were randomly assigned (1:1) to 3 months of daily 1000 mg resveratrol or placebo. Random assignment was done by blocked randomisation. Our primary endpoints were the change in the ovarian volume, SA and antral FNPO from the baseline to 3 months. Secondary endpoints were improvement in the distribution of follicles and ovarian echogenicity. Differences between the resveratrol and control groups were evaluated by Chi-square, Fisher’s exact test and repeated-measures ANOVA. Treatment with resveratrol significantly reduced the ovarian volume and polycystic ovarian morphology, thus suggesting a disease-modifying effect in PCOS.

Chronic inflammation has been considered as the main cause of chronic diseases. Zn has anti-inflammatory effects by decreasing the expression of inflammatory markers. The present systematic review and meta-analysis study aims to evaluate the impact of Zn supplementation on inflammation. PubMed (Medline), Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase databases were searched up to 10 December 2020. Controlled trials which have investigated the effects of Zn supplementation on serum/plasma levels of inflammatory cytokines in subjects aged >15 years were included. A pooled meta-analysis was performed using a random effect model. Sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the robustness of the observed effect sizes. A total of twelve studies was included in meta-analysis. Zn could decrease IL-6 levels (standardised mean difference (SMD) = −0·76 pg/ml; 95 % CI −1·28, −0·24; P = 0·004). There was no significant change in TNF-α (SMD = 0·42 pg/ml; 95 % CI −0·31, 1·16; P = 0·257) and IL-2 levels (SMD = 1·64 pg/ml; 95 % CI −1·31, 4·59; P = 0·277) following Zn supplementation. However, Zn could increase IL-2 significantly after the deletion of one arm in sensitivity analysis (SMD = 2·96 pg/ml; 95 % CI 2·03, 3·88; P < 0·05). Conclusively, Zn supplementation can decrease the IL-6 level. Zn increased IL-2 level after the sensitivity analysis. Zn supplementation has not ameliorative effects on TNF-α.

Data of 2780 Markhoz kids originated from 1216 dams and 211 sires during 1993–2016 in Markhoz Goat Breeding Station, located in Sanandaj, Iran, were used. Traits investigated were body weights at birth, weaning, six-month age [six months weight (6MW)], nine-month age and yearling age [yearling weight (YW)]. Two considered multivariate models including standard multivariate model (SMM) and fully recursive multivariate model (FRM) were compared using deviance information criterion (DIC) and predictive ability measures including mean square of error (MSE) and Pearson's correlation coefficient between the observed and predicted values $(r(y,\hat{y}))$ of records. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between posterior means of direct genetic effects of the studied traits of kids under SMM and FRM were also calculated across all, 50, 10 and 1% top-ranked animals. In general, FRM performed better than SMM in terms of lower DIC and MSE and also higher $r\lpar y\comma \;\hat{y}\rpar$. For all traits, the lowest MSE and the highest $r\lpar y\comma \;\hat{y}\rpar$ were obtained under FRM. All structural coefficients estimated under FRM were statistically significant except for that of 6MW on YW. Comparisons of Spearman's rank correlations between posterior means of direct genetic effects of kids for growth traits under SMM and FRM revealed that taking the causal relationships among the studied growth traits of Markhoz goat into account may cause considerable re-ranking for the animals in terms of estimated breeding values, especially for the top-ranked animals. It may be concluded that FRM had more plausibility over SMM for genetic evaluation of the studied growth traits in Markhoz goat.