Alternative Strategies Research Articles

The Clinical Spectrum of Aspergillus Associated Infection in Humans: A Diagnostic and Management Approach

Aspergillus is an opportunistic fungus and most common mould, both cosmopolitan and ubiquitous in nature, that causes life-threatening invasive aspergillosis and other grave infections, which pose a precise risk to patients with compromised immune systems. Despite improved therapeutic and diagnostic approaches, invasive aspergillosis remains a cata-strophic fungal infection, such as COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis and influ-enza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis had a high prevalence in critically ill patients. It in-fects approximately ten million people each year, with a significantly high mortality rate. It is frequently convoluted COVID-19 and severe influenza disease by continuously challeng-ing diagnostic and therapeutic strategies and concomitant with significant morbidity and mor-tality rates. However, Azole-resistant Aspergillus strains are rapidly emerging and creating a significant challenge in managing Aspergillus-associated infections. Promising new antifun-gal agents, including Olorofim, Fosmanogepix, Ibrexafungerp, Opelconazole, and Rezafun-gin, are currently in clinical and preclinical trials. Treating conditions such as invasive asper-gillosis, infections caused by resistant species, and those complicated by drug-drug interac-tions remains particularly difficult in clinical practice, highlighting the urgent need for alter-native therapeutic strategies. In this review article, we highlight the characteristics and habi-tats of Aspergillus species, their pathogenicity, and the clinical challenges they pose, includ-ing diagnostic complexities. It also highlights existing and emerging therapeutic approaches for managing Aspergillus-associated infections. By integrating insights into the biology, di-agnosis, and treatment of these infections, the review emphasizes the importance of innova-tive strategies to overcome current obstacles in clinical management.

The role of perceived parent drinking motives on alcohol use among adolescents with and without childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Parent history of alcohol-related problems and antisocial behaviors contribute to adolescent alcohol use and are associated with offspring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Youth with ADHD may be susceptible to intergenerational transmission of alcohol-related cognitions, which may model drinking motives that enhance risk for adolescent alcohol use. We examined whether childhood ADHD and parent history of alcohol use disorder, with or without antisociality, were associated with adolescents' perceptions of their parents' drinking motives and whether these perceptions predicted their alcohol use behaviors. Adolescents (N = 199; 56% with ADHD; Mage = 15.73) completed the Drinking Motives Questionnaire regarding perceptions of their parents' drinking motives. Participants subsequently reported their past-year alcohol use behaviors (Mage = 16.95). Parents reported their history of alcohol-related problems and antisocial symptoms. Covariates included adolescent gender (7% girls), race (9% self-identified Black), and parental education and marital status. Perceived parent drinking motives were highest for social and lowest for conformity motives, consistent with adult self-reports in the literature. Parent alcohol use and antisociality history predicted perceptions of parent drinking motives, and child ADHD only predicted perceptions of parent social drinking motives. Perceived parent drinking motives predicted adolescent alcohol use, but only among youth without ADHD. Findings reflect the potential importance of assessing adolescent perceptions of parent drinking motives for adolescents without ADHD and a possible need for supporting parents in communicating about their own alcohol use. Future research should consider alternative strategies (e.g., assessing implicit cognitions) for studying the link between alcohol-related cognitions and behaviors for adolescents with ADHD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

A flexible lightweight graphene-based all-dielectric metamaterial for broadband microwave absorption

Abstract To meet the demanding requirements of practical microwave absorbers, such as broadband absorption, considerations must encompass thickness, flexibility, surface density, and manufacturing feasibility. However, absorbers that effectively address all of these aspects are currently scarce. This study introduces a novel graphene-based all-dielectric metamaterial absorber (ADMMA) featuring a trap-like structure, inspired by impedance alternation strategy. Leveraging the dielectric dispersion properties of graphene composites, this ADMMA strategically manipulates the effects of Spoof Surface Plasmon Polaritons, standing wave resonance and half-wave dipole resonance, allocating them to distinct frequency bands, thus achieving a thin-layer broadband absorber. Simulation results demonstrate that, under vertical incidence, the ADMMA achieves a -10 dB bandwidth from 8.1 to 23.1 GHz. A 3-mm-thick sample, with a surface density of merely 2.85 Kg/m², is fabricated using a straightforward process, and reflectance test results closely align with simulation outcomes. Furthermore, it exhibits robust stability under oblique incidences for both TE and TM modes. This innovative approach effectively reduces surface density without compromising absorption performances, emphasizing the potential of the ADMMA for practical applications.

Natural Products as Inhibitors of Coronavirus: An Update

Abstract: In the past couple of decades, several corona virus infections have alarmed the world claiming deaths of huge population over the globe. Effective anti-viral agents have been researched for treatment of COVID-19 infection. Vaccination has come up as an ultimate prevention against SARS-CoV-2virus as many vaccines have been recommended by WHO to be used for prevention from COVID-19. Alternative treatment strategies to combat infection include drug repurposing as well as supportive therapies. Traditional medicines being used from ancient times for different disease conditions provide a wealth of chemical diversity. Different classes of natural products are being utilized to study their antiviral properties and contributed in past for different viral diseases. The aim of current review is to enumerate different secondary metabolites and their pharmacophoric features against corona viruses that can be further optimized to develop more potent inhibitors specific to SARS-CoV-2. This review systematically evaluates natural products and their synthetic/ semisynthetic analogs belonging to terpenoids, polyphenols, saponins, and alkaloids having antiviral activity against coronaviruses. The information obtained from scope of Indian medicinal plants is also discussed which may be evaluated in future against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, it is proposed that the natural products may be used to develop potential inhibitors using the knowledge gained from similar studies to prevent morbidity and mortalities due to SARS-CoV-2.

In Situ Photo Responsive Biodegradable Nanoparticle Forming Intrauterine Implant for Drug Delivery to Treat Ovarian Diseases: A Rationale-based Review.

Ovarian disease constitutes various types of endocrine disorders, such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), ovarian cancer, premature ovarian failure, ovarian endometriosis, and ovarian cysts. The prevalence of ovarian-related diseases is highly vulnerable in the world. The utility of various drug delivery systems for ovarian diseases has resulted in varied success. Moreover, most of them lead to severe adverse effects and are incapable of ameliorating the signs and symptoms of the condition. Intrauterine devices (IUDs) have positioned themselves as a mechanism to deliver the drug for various ovarian-related diseases. Thereby avoiding various stability-related issues arising due to various physiological barriers of the female reproductive tract. However, the use of intrauterine devices for drug delivery to the ovaries has not been fully explored. This is attributed to the fact that they cause cysts in the ovaries and skepticism among patients and physicians. Photo-sensitive devices are an appealing approach for managing disorders affecting the ovaries. Photo-sensitive in situ forming intrauterine implants (IUIs) have several advantages, including simplicity in application, reduced invasiveness, as well as improved site-specific drug release control. Polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) loaded with a drug may be a suitable choice to provide sustained release, alter the pharmacokinetics, and reduce the dose and dosing frequency. The current manuscript hypothesizes the utility of a PNP-loaded biodegradable photo-responsive intrauterine implantable device as an alternate novel strategy for ameliorating ovarian-related diseases.

Current Overview of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 7 in Mexican Population: Challenges in Specialized Care for a Rare Disease.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is a rare genetic disease characterized by progressive cerebellar syndrome and macular degeneration. In a previous study, we clinically and genetically characterized a group of Mexican patients, which represented one of the largest cohorts of SCA7 patients worldwide and demonstrated that all patients had a unique genetic origin. Our laboratory developed a program for the diagnosis, medical care, and long-term follow-up of these patients living in Veracruz State, and in this report, we present an update to this research, covering 2013 to 2024. So far, we identified 172 SCA7 carriers, with a few cases outside Veracruz, and our data support that the length of the CAG repeat tract mainly determines disease severity and life expectancy, and accordingly, we define three different phenotypes, early-onset (EO), classical-onset (CO), and late-onset (LO), with EO patients showing the lowest life expectancy. Furthermore, we found that parental transmission of mutant alleles leads to increased CAG repeat instability, compared to maternal ones. Interestingly, a haplotype analysis revealed that patients outside Veracruz may have different genetic origins. In conclusion, longitudinal observations of SCA7 patients provide insight into the natural history of SCA7 and help to design strategies for diagnosis, genetic counseling, physical rehabilitation, and therapeutic alternatives.

Review of The Financial Health of Bank During Increasing Foreclosed Assets and The Application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Selecting Strategies to Reduce Them

PT Bank Laju International Tbk (the Bank) has struggled with its increased foreclosed assets, particularly those originating from mortgage loans, which could affect its financial health. The research assessed Bank’s financial health using Risk Based Bank Rating (RBBR) framework by analysing key financial ratios and investigating the root causes of rising foreclosed assets through Fishbone and Pareto analysis. Key factors include customer income instability, slow progress in selling foreclosed assets, and lack of insurance protection during economic downturns. To select effective strategies for managing foreclosed assets, the research utilized Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making method, to evaluate multiple alternatives based on various criteria, which were derived from Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with Bank’s officers, who directly involved in mortgage loans and foreclosed assets activities, also reference with Bank’s SWOT analysis. The research evaluated three alternatives strategy: Protection Insurance for Customer’s Mortgage Loans. Actively Partnering with property agents to accelerate sale of foreclosed assets as-is. Collaborating with property agents to renovate foreclosed assets. The result showed that despite the increase in foreclosed assets, the Bank remains financially sound, with key financial ratios within acceptable regulatory limits. AHP analysis revealed that alternative 1 stands in first place to be prioritized, followed by alternative 2, however between both alternatives indicates a very small difference in prioritization weight, which means that both strategies are important to be executed and prioritized. Proposal to implement both alternatives in parallel would be a very effective strategy, where alternative 1 conduct as Preventive Strategy in preventing customer’s mortgage loans defaults, while alternative 2 as Corrective Strategy in lowering foreclosed assets volume. Alternative 3 acts as a complement strategy, where renovating foreclosed assets could facilitate quicker sales, however it’ll take longer time for renovation itself.

Synergistic Effect of Silver Nanoparticles with Antibiotics for Eradication of Pathogenic Biofilms.

The increase in nosocomial multidrug resistance and biofilm-forming bacterial infections led to the search for new alternative antimicrobial strategies other than traditional antibiotics. Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) could be a viable treatment due to their wide range of functions, rapid lethality, and minimal resistance potential. The primary aim of this study is to prepare silver nanoparticles and explore their antibacterial activity against biofilms. AgNPs with specific physicochemical properties such as size, shape, and surface chemistry were prepared using a chemical reduction technique, and then characterized by DLS, SEM, and FTIR. The activity of AgNPs was tested alone and in combination with some antibiotics against MDR Gram-negative and Gram-positive planktonic bacterial cells and their biofilms. Finally, mammalian cell cytotoxicity and hemolytic activity were tested using VERO and human erythrocytes. The findings of this study illustrate the success of the chemical reduction method in preparing AgNPs. Results showed that AgNPs have MIC values against planktonic organisms ranging from 0.0625 to 0.125 mg/mL, with the greatest potency against gram-negative bacteria. It also effectively destroyed biofilm-forming cells, with minimal biofilm eradication concentrations (MBEC) ranging from 0.125 to 0.25 mg/ml. AgNPs also had lower toxicity profiles for the MTT test when compared to hemolysis to erythrocytes. Synergistic effect was found between AgNPs and certain antibiotics, where the MIC was dramatically reduced, down to less than 0.00195 mg/ml in some cases. The present findings encourage the development of alternative therapies with high efficacy and low toxicity.

Translanguaging as an official support measure for newly arrived students in Sweden

ABSTRACT This paper analyses interviews to explore translanguaging practices and views in Study Tutoring in the Mother Tongue (ST). ST is an internationally rare and under-researched support measure typically offered to newly arrived students in Swedish education. It is often referred to as ‘a space for translanguaging’ because in ST students meet a tutor proficient in their L1 to discuss subject matter using the L1 in alternation with L2 Swedish. ‘Translanguaging’ originally referred to a specific pedagogical strategy of language alternation but can now refer to either the framework of spontaneous translanguaging or that of pedagogical translanguaging. Spontaneous translanguaging is about encouraging in the classroom multilingual speech used in everyday communication. Pedagogical translanguaging, on the other hand, refers to various types of planned instructional strategies that alternate or compare languages to teach content and language more efficiently. This study indicates that, in ST, spontaneous and pedagogical translanguaging take place next to each other and cannot be seen as complete dichotomies. The tutors, however, view spontaneous translanguaging as a scaffolding means that should decrease over time. The tutors also use some crosslinguistic instructional strategies, but would benefit from receiving training so as to implement pedagogical translanguaging in a more planned and varied manner.

In silico Identification of MHC Displayed Tumor Associated Peptides in Ovarian Cancer for Multi-Epitope Vaccine Construct.

Recognizing the potential of the immune system, immunotherapies have brought about a revolution in the treatment of cancer. Low tumour mutational burden and strong immunosuppression in the peritoneal tumor microenvironment (TME) lead to poor outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) and CART cell therapy in ovarian cancer. Alternative immunotherapeutic strategies are of utmost importance to achieve sound clinical success. The development of peptide vaccines based on tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) for ovarian cancer cells can be a potential target to provoke an anti-tumor immune response and subsequent clearance of tumour cells. The purpose of this in silico study was to find potential epitopes for a multi-epitope vaccine construct using the immunopeptidomics landscape of ovarian carcinoma. The four TAAs (MUC16, IDO1, FOLR1, and DDX5) were selected for potential epitopes prediction. The epitopes for B-cells, helper T-lymphocytes (HTL), and Cytotoxic Tlymphocytes (CTL) were predicted on the basis of antigenic, allergenic, and toxic properties. These epitopes were combined with suitable linkers and an adjuvant to form a multi-epitope construct. Four HTLs, 13 CTLs, and 6 potential B-cell epitopes were selected from the predicted epitope. The designed multi-epitope construct was potentially immunogenic, non-toxic, and non-allergenic. Physicochemical properties and higher-order structural analyses of the final construct revealed a potential vaccine candidate. The designed vaccine construct has the potential to trigger both humoral and cellular immune responses and may be employed as a therapeutic immunization candidate for ovarian malignancies. However, further in vitro and animal experimentation is required to establish the efficacy of the vaccine candidate.

Ameliorating Gonorrhea: Recent Therapeutic Adaptations and Scope to Improve its Prevailing Condition.

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae. According to recent research, the prevalence of gonorrhea has been increasing in many parts of the world, with some areas reporting high rates of antibiotic resistance. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the number of reported gonorrhea cases increased by 56% between 2015 and 2019. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there were 87 million new cases of gonorrhea in 2016, with the highest burden of infection in low- and middle-income countries. Research has also shown that gonorrhea is becoming increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotics, increasing the prevalence of gonorrhea. This raises concerns and challenges in disease management. The present review gives updated insight on the current state of the disease, challenges, and shortcomings of existing approaches along with the modern and alternative direction like vaccine development, its challenges, and scope to confront the existing state of drug resistance and increased rate of incidence. Alternative strategies like immunotherapy and phage therapy along with recent antibiotics researched for the treatment of gonorrhea. The review provides a thorough insight into the current state of the disease and various available methods used currently and recommended by WHO. To overcome disease prevalence, various alternate therapies are coming into the limelight. However, scientists and researchers show a lack of interest in the drug development and research of gonorrhea, due to less commercial scope, lack of funding, and limited scope in the scientific scenario. These hurdles need to be overcome to meet the WHO vision of reducing gonorrhea by 90% by 2030. So, there is a need to optimize the drug therapy (optimizing dosing schedule, and precision monitoring) to reduce the chance of drug resistance. Also, there is a wide scope for drug and therapeutic system development.

Late Fusion Multiview Clustering via Min-Max Optimization.

Multiview clustering (MVC) sufficiently exploits the diverse and complementary information among different views to improve the clustering performance. As a representative algorithm of MVC, the newly proposed simple multiple kernel k -means (SimpleMKKM) algorithm takes a min-max formulation and applies a gradient descent algorithm to decrease the resultant objective function. It is empirically observed that its superiority is attributed to the novel min-max formulation and the new optimization. In this article, we propose to integrate the min-max learning paradigm adopted by SimpleMKKM into late fusion MVC (LF-MVC). This leads to a tri-level max-min-max optimization problem with respect to the perturbation matrices, weight coefficient, and clustering partition matrix. To solve this intractable max-min-max optimization problem, we design an efficient two-step alternative optimization strategy. Furthermore, we analyze the generalization clustering performance of the proposed algorithm from the theoretical perspective. Comprehensive experiments have been conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm in terms of clustering accuracy (ACC), computation time, convergence, as well as the evolution of the learned consensus clustering matrix, clustering with different numbers of samples, and analysis of the learned kernel weight. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to significantly reduce the computation time and improve the clustering ACC when compared to several state-of-the-art LF-MVC algorithms. The code of this work is publicly released at: https://xinwangliu.github.io/Under-Review.

Unsupervised Test-Time Adaptation Learning for Effective Hyperspectral Image Super-Resolution With Unknown Degeneration.

Fusing a low-resolution hyperspectral image (HSI) with a high-resolution (HR) multi-spectral image has provided an effective way for HSI super-resolution (SR). The key lies on inferring the posteriori of the latent (i.e., HR) HSI using an appropriate image prior and the likelihood determined by the degeneration between the latent HSI and the observed images. However, in scenarios with complex imaging environments and various imaging scenes, the prior of HSIs can be prohibitively complicated and the degeneration is often unknown, which causes it difficult to accurately infer the posteriori of each latent HSI. To tackle this problem, we present an unsupervised test-time adaptation learning (UTAL) framework for HSI SR under unknown degeneration. Instead of directly modeling the complicated image prior, it first implicitly learns a content-agnostic prior shared across different images through supervisedly pre-training a mutual-guiding fusion module on extensive synthetic data. Then, it adapts the shared prior to those private characteristics in the latent HSI for posteriori inference through unsupervisedly learning a self-guiding adaptation module and a degeneration estimation network on two observed images in the test phase. Such a two-stage learning scheme models the complicated image prior in a divide-and-conquer manner, which eases the modeling difficulty and improves the prior accuracy. Moreover, the unknown degeneration can be estimated properly. Both of these two advantages empower us to accurately infer the posteriori of the latent HSI, thereby increasing the generalization performance in real applications. Additionally, in order to further mitigate the over-fitting in coping with more challenging cases (e.g., degenerations in both spectral and spatial domains are unknown) and speed up, we propose to meta-train UTAL on extensive synthetic SR tasks and solve it using an alternative optimization strategy such that UTAL learns to produce good generalization performance in real challenging cases with a small number of gradient descent steps. To verify the efficacy of UTAL, we evaluate it on HSI SR tasks with different unknown degenerations as well as some other HSI restoration tasks (e.g., compressive sensing), and report strong results superior to that of existing competitors.

Anxiolytic impact of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia in patients with co-morbid insomnia and generalized anxiety disorder.

Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is an effective treatment for chronic insomnia that also improves non-sleep symptoms, such as mood and anxiety. Identifying sleep-specific variables that predict anxiety change after CBT-I treatment may support alternative strategies when people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) do not improve from standard GAD treatment. To investigate CBT-I on changes in anxiety and evaluate whether changes in sleep-specific variables predict anxiety outcomes. Seventy-two participants presenting with insomnia and GAD (GAD-I) completed four sessions of CBT-I. Participants completed daily diaries and self-report measures at baseline and post-treatment. CBT-I in a co-morbid GAD-I sample was associated with medium reductions in anxiety, and large reductions in insomnia severity. Subjective insomnia severity and tendencies to ruminate in response to fatigue predicted post-treatment anxiety change, in addition to younger age and lower baseline anxiety. The findings suggest that younger GAD-I participants with moderate anxiety symptoms may benefit most from the anxiety-relieving impact of CBT-I. Reducing perceived insomnia severity and the tendency to ruminate in response to fatigue may support reductions in anxiety in those with GAD-I.

Sarcopenia screening of community-dwelling individuals aged 65 and over within the primary care setting

BACKGROUND: The term sarcopenia, referring to declining function with age, has no universally agreed definition. Sarcopenia develops from multifactorial interactions, resulting in health problems such as frailty and increased falls risk; and for which screening may enable timely intervention. As sarcopenia screening equipment recommended by The European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP2) is not always available in primary care, alternate screening strategies are needed. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy of the SARC-CalF questionnaire for sarcopenia screening in primary care and agreement between SARC-CalF and SARC-F questionnaires, with EWGSOP2 cut-off values. METHODS: Fifty community-dwelling adults aged 65yrs and over completed the SARC-CalF and EWGSOP2 strength and physical performance outcome measures. Calculations for probability of sarcopenia and skeletal muscle mass were completed. Agreement between operational definitions and outcome measures were assessed to establish screening accuracy. RESULTS: Prevalence of probable sarcopenia ranged from 10–48% depending on outcome measure; SARC-CalF increased prevalence by 55% compared to SARC-F. Questionnaires agreed more strongly with probable sarcopenia as measured by leg than grip strength. Gait speed agreed significantly with strength and physical performance measures. CONCLUSIONS: In community-dwelling adults aged 65yrs and over, outcome measure used influenced rates of probable sarcopenia. Within primary care, equations may enable assessment of muscle mass, while formulae may enable assessment of the probability of sarcopenia. Gait speed is recommended for quantification of sarcopenia severity.

Perspective of Secondary Metabolites in Respect of Multidrug Resistance (MDR): A Review.

Aberrant and haphazard use of antibiotics has created the development of antimicrobial resistance which is a bizarre challenge for human civilization. This emerging crisis of antibiotic resistance for microbial pathogens is alarming all the nations posing a global threat to human health. It is difficult to treat bacterial infections as they develop resistance to all antimicrobial resistance. Currently used antibacterial agents inhibit a variety of essential metabolic pathways in bacteria, including macro-molecular synthesis (MMS) pathways (e.g. protein, DNA, RNA, cell wall) most often by targeting a specific enzyme or subcellular component e.g. DNA gyrase, RNA polymerase, ribosomes, transpeptidase. Despite the availability of diverse synthetic molecules, there are still many complications in managing progressive and severe antimicrobial resistance. Currently not even a single antimicrobial agent is available for which the microbes do not show resistance. Thus, the lack of efficient drug molecules for combating microbial resistance requires continuous research efforts to overcome the problem of multidrug-resistant bacteria. The phytochemicals from various plants have the potential to combat the microbial resistance produced by bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses without producing any side effects. This review is a concerted effort to identify some of the major active phytoconstituents from various medicinal plants which might have the potential to be used as an alternative and effective strategy to fight against microbial resistance and can promote research for the treatment of MDR.

Phytotherapeutics in Cancer: From Potential Drug Candidates to Clinical Translation.

Annually, a significant number of individuals succumb to cancer, an anomalous cellular condition characterized by uncontrolled cellular proliferation and the emergence of highly perilous tumors. Identifying underlying molecular mechanism(s) driving disease progression has led to various inventive therapeutic approaches, many of which are presently under pre-clinical and/or clinical trials. Over the recent years, numerous alternative strategies for addressing cancer have also been proposed and put into practice. This article delineates the modern therapeutic drugs employed in cancer treatment and their associated toxicity. Due to inherent drug toxicity associated with most modern treatments, demand rises for alternative therapies and phytochemicals with minimal side effects and proven efficacy against cancer. Analogs of taxol, Vinca alkaloids like vincristine and vinblastine, and podophyllotoxin represent a few illustrative examples in this context. The phytochemicals often work by modifying the activity of molecular pathways that are thought to be involved in the onset and progression of cancer. The principal objective of this study is to provide an overview of our current understanding regarding the pharmacologic effects and molecular targets of the active compounds found in natural products for cancer treatment and collate information about the recent advancements in this realm. The authors' interest in advancing the field of phytochemical research stems from both the potential of these compounds for use as drugs as well as their scientific validity. Accordingly, the significance of herbal formulations is underscored, shedding light on anticancer phytochemicals that are sought after at both pre-clinical and clinical levels, with discussion on the opportunities and challenges in pre-clinical and clinical cancer studies.

Magnetic Nanoparticles with Aspects of their Use in Cancer Therapy

Abstract: Cancers remain the leading cause of death worldwide, despite significant advances in their diagnosis and treatment. The inadequacy and ineffectiveness of standard treatments (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery), their severe side effects, and the resistance of tumor cells to chemotherapeutics have forced researchers to investigate alternative therapeutic strategies. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been evaluated as one of the promising strategies in treating cancers, a major public health problem. Due to their intrinsic magnetic properties, MNPs are tools that can be designed to be multifunctional in medicine, including cancer therapy. Multifunctionality can be achieved with various drug/agent loadings, such as chemotherapeutic drugs, radionuclides, nucleic acids, and antibodies. This provides a multimodal theranostics platform for cancer diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy. These substances can then be delivered to the tumor tissue using an external magnetic field (EMF). Magnetic or photothermal applications kill cancer cells at the tumor site by inducing local hyperthermia, whereas photodynamic therapy kills them by producing reactive oxygen species. MNP applications also prevent drug resistance. In addition, alone or with different combination options, MNP applications provide synergistic effects and reduce side effects. Functionalized MNPs can be used to remove unwanted cells from blood, including circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are key factors in the metastatic process and leukemia cells. Despite numerous successful studies, there are some unpredictable obstacles to be discovered in routine usage. This review focuses mainly on the application of MNPs in cancer treatment, covering future perspectives and challenges.

Strategi Pengembangan Usaha Mikro Kecil Menengah (UMKM) di Sentra Batik Bangkalan dalam Perspektif Ekonomi Islam

This research aims to develop a strategy for developing micro, small and medium enterprises at batik centers in Bangkalan from an Islamic economic perspective. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. Data collection techniques using observation, interviews and documentation. Data analysis used in this research uses the SWOT analysis technique (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). The results of the research show that alternative strategies that can be used in developing Micro, Small and Medium Batik Enterprises in Tanjung Bumi District, Bangkalan Regency after the pandemic include using the market as a distribution place, promoting batik directly, utilizing social media and marketplaces to market batik, participating craftsmen in exhibitions to promote batik with the aim of increasing sales and expanding market share, government support in the form of developing human resource training for batik makers, establishing cooperation between batik entrepreneurs and suppliers of raw materials for making batik to obtain quality raw materials and anticipate increases in raw materials. This clearly has a big impact on the welfare of the general public and business actors and based on the perspective of Islamic Economics, working and trying to get better prosperity and happiness in this world and the hereafter is one of the commands recommended in Islam as long as it does not violate the rules of Islamic law, this is in accordance with the alternative strategy used by Micro, Small and Medium Batik Business actors in Tanjung Bumi District, Bangkalan Regency because they create business strategies that are in accordance with Islamic law so that it becomes a good thing for the existence and sustainability of Micro, Small and Medium Businesses to survive. and even increase sales and can create jobs that can help many people who are having difficulty finding work when the Covid-19 pandemic hits.

The Perspective of Unani Medicine in Understanding Melasma – A Review

Abstract: Melasma, a prevalent hyperpigmentation skin disorder, poses significant challenges in dermatology clinics. Despite its global impact, conventional treatment options often entail potential side effects and limitations, necessitating the search for alternative therapeutic strategies. : This narrative review aims to advance the understanding of melasma from the perspective of Unani medicine, an ancient healing system recognized by the World Health Organization. It seeks to explore potential therapeutic avenues within the Unani medical paradigm by synergizing ancient wisdom with contemporary perspectives. : The review delves into the Unani scholars' understanding of melasma, known as Kalaf, drawing from the wisdom of renowned scholars. Their insights into the multifactorial etiology of melasma, including pathogenesis, treatment approach, and recommended prescriptions, are discussed. : The descriptions of melasma by Unani scholars have documented the etiopathogenesis, risk factors, and management in detail and emphasize personalized interventions based on the pathological concepts of Unani medicine. Moreover, some of these interventions were also investigated in recent clinical trials and found to have comparable efficacy with standard treatment options. : This review fosters the understanding of the pathogenesis of melasma according to Unani concepts and a holistic approach to the management of melasma, drawing from the timeless legacy of the Unani system of medicine. This review may serve as a reference point for future research, enabling the planning of subsequent studies on this disease with a comprehensive understanding of the previous investigations conducted in this field.