V. Kumar

Early detection of severe diseases like cancer is an urgent need for public health and safety. It can determine by using synthesized materials for sensing cancer biomarkers. Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensing of cancer biomarkers is getting much more attention these days. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) show excellent ECL properties and are getting much attention for sensing cancer biomarkers. The functionalities present and tunable structure of MOFs provide a great sensing platform. This review summarizes the mechanistic study of detecting cancer biomarkers using MOF materials. Compelling goals such as efficiency, fabrication of MOFs, immobilization or encapsulation by nanoparticles, organic or inorganic lumiphores, and detection range and limit have been studied and described well. • Signal amplification principle and working of electrochemiluminescence (ECL). • Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) materials as ECL biosensors to detect cancer biomarkers. • Encapsulation of NPs, inorganic and organic luminophores as ECL enhancers. • Challenges and future trends in MOF as ECL biosensors.

Introduction Klebsiella pneumonia is one of the most prevalent bacteria that cause nosocomial infections, particularly in critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Multi-drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (MDRKP) has become an urgent risk to public health as its prevalence has sharply surged around the globe in recent decades. Therefore, this research was conducted to evaluate shifts over a four-year period in drug susceptibility patterns among Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from mechanically ventilated intensive care unit patients. Materials and methods This is a retrospective observational study conducted in a tertiary care multi-specialty hospital and teaching institute in North India and was approved by the institutional ethics committee. The research comprised Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from endotracheal aspirates (ETA) of patients on mechanical ventilation admitted to the general intensive care unit (ICU) of our tertiary care facility. The data from January to June 2018 and January to June 2022 were collected. According to the antimicrobial resistance profile of the strains, they were categorized as susceptible, resistant to one or two antimicrobial categories, multidrug-resistant (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR), or pan-drug-resistant (PDR). The criteria for MDR, XDR, and PDR were proposed by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, Version 24.0, Armonk, NY, IBM Corp., was used for data input and analysis. Results A total of 82 cases of Klebsiella pneumonia were included in the study. Of these 82 isolates, 40 were isolated over a period of six months from January to June 2018, and the remaining 42 were isolated from January to June 2022. Among the 2018 group, five strains (12.5%) were classified as susceptible, three (7.5%) as resistant, seven (17.5%) as MDR, and 25 (62.5%) as XDR. The highest percentages of antimicrobial resistance in the 2018 group were observed with amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (90%), ciprofloxacin (100%), piperacillin/tazobactam (92.5%), and cefoperazone/sulbactam (95%). In comparison, the 2022 group showed no strain as susceptible; nine strains (21.4%) were classified as resistant; three strains (7%) as MDR; and 30 strains (93%) were classified as XDR. There was a significant increase in resistance to amoxicillin, from 10% in 2018 to nil in 2022. Overall, the rate of resistant Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumonia) increased from 7.5% (3/40) in 2018 to 21.4% (9/42) in 2022, while XDR Klebsiella pneumonia among the mechanically ventilated ICU patients significantly increased from 62.5% (25/40) in 2018 to 71% (30/42) in 2022. Conclusion K. pneumoniae antibiotic resistance is a real threat in Asia and requires close monitoring to be controlled. More careful attempts should be made to create a new generation of antimicrobials since the prevalence of resistance to existing medications is rising. Antibiotic resistance should be monitored and reported by healthcare institutions regularly.

Fake News Detection (FND) is an essential field in natural language processing that aims to identify and check the truthfulness of major claims in a news article to decide the news veracity. FND finds its uses in preventing social, political and national damage caused due to misrepresentation of facts which may harm a certain section of society. Further, with the explosive rise in fake news dissemination over social media, including images and text, it has become imperative to identify fake news faster and more accurately. To solve this problem, this work investigates a novel multimodal stacked ensemble-based approach (SEMIFND) to fake news detection. Focus is also kept on ensuring faster performance with fewer parameters. Moreover, to improve multimodal performance, a deep unimodal analysis is done on the image modality to identify NasNet Mobile as the most appropriate model for the task. For text, an ensemble of BERT and ELECTRA is used. The approach was evaluated on two datasets: Twitter MediaEval and Weibo Corpus. The suggested framework offered accuracies of 85.80% and 86.83% on the Twitter and Weibo datasets respectively. These reported metrics are found to be superior when compared to similar recent works. Further, we also report a reduction in the number of parameters used in training when compared to recent relevant works. SEMI-FND offers an overall parameter reduction of at least 20% with unimodal parametric reduction on text being 60%. Therefore, based on the investigations presented, it is concluded that the application of a stacked ensembling significantly improves FND over other approaches while also improving speed.

The characteristics of the L3 hadron calorimeter as realized in the observation of hadronic jets and other events from e+e− collisions at LEP are presented and discussed. The pattern-recognition algorithm utilizing the fine granulatiry of the calorimeter is described, and the observed overall resolution of 10.2% for hadron jets from Z decay is reported. The use of the calorimeter in providing information on muon energy losses is also noted.

Measurements of elastic scattering for the $^{6}\mathrm{Li}+^{90}\mathrm{Zr}$ system has been performed at various energies, namely, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 25, and 30 MeV, to study the energy dependence of the interaction potential. Angular distributions have been measured in a wide angular range to extract the behavior of the potential reliably. The data have been analyzed using the phenomenological Woods-Saxon shaped optical potential and the double folding potential. The potential behavior shows the characteristics of the breakup threshold anomaly, namely, the increase in the imaginary potential near the barrier with a small reduction in the real part. Continuum-discretized-coupled-channel (CDCC) calculations give a good description of the measured elastic scattering data and predict large breakup coupling effects. The polarization potentials extracted from the CDCC calculations have been studied for the present system along with those for the $^{6}\mathrm{Li}+^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$, and $^{6}\mathrm{Li}+^{28}\mathrm{Si}$ systems, and a similar energy dependence has been obtained for all the cases considered.

Drying via solar energy is an environmentally friendly and inexpensive process. For controlled and bulk level drying, a greenhouse solar dryer is the most suitable controlled level solar dryer. The efficiency of a solar greenhouse dryer can be increased by using thermal storage. The agricultural products dried in greenhouses are reported to be of a higher quality than those dried in the sun because they are shielded from dust, rain, insects, birds, and animals. The heat storage-based greenhouse was found to be superior for drying of all types of crops in comparison to a normal greenhouse dryer, as it provides constant heat throughout the drying process. Hence, this can be used in rural areas by farmers and small-scale industrialists, and with minor modifications, it can be used anywhere in the world. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of solar greenhouse dryers for drying various agricultural products, including their design, thermal modelling methods, cost, energy, and environmental implications. Furthermore, the choice and application of solar photovoltaic panels and thermal energy storage units in the solar greenhouse dryers are examined in detail, with a view to achieving continuous and grid-independent drying. The energy requirements of various greenhouse dryer configurations/shapes are compared. Thermodynamic and thermal modelling research that reported on the performance prediction of solar greenhouse dryers, and drying kinetics studies on various agricultural products, has been compiled in this study.

Background: According to the Sample Registration System report, India has reduced the maternal mortality rate from 130 per 100,000 live births in 2014–2016 to 113 per 100,000 live births in 2016–2018. The main purpose of antenatal care is to identify “high-risk” cases as early as possible from a large group of antenatal mothers and provide them skilled and appropriate care. Objective: To determine the prevalence of high-risk pregnancy (HRP) in pregnant females availing services under pradhan mantri surakshit matritva abhiyan (PMSMA) and to assess awareness of pregnant mothers about services provided under PMSMA in district Etawah of Uttar Pradesh. Material and Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 400 female beneficiaries who were registered under the PMSMA scheme and delivered their baby at any government health facility during one year of study period. Results: It was observed that from all the antenatal women visiting the community health center for HRP day under the PMSMA scheme, 162 (40.5%) were categorized as HRPs and 238 (59.6%) of them were nonhigh-risk pregnancies. A statistically significant association was observed (P-value = 0.005 at 95% CI) between the difference in the proportion of HRPs and the educational status of the pregnant mothers. Out of 400 beneficiaries, 167 (41.75%) were aware of the PMSMA scheme. Conclusion: Regular antenatal care (ANC) check-ups, early identification of HRP, health education, and timely screening are needed to reduce maternal mortality.

In this work, we incorporate titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles as fillers into room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber (RTV-SR) and fabricated the RTV-SR/TiO2 composites. Herein, the effect of various surface areas of TiO2 particles on the mechanical properties of RTV-SR/TiO2 composites was investigated. The particle size of different types of TiO2 particles (147 nm, 34 nm, and 29 nm) was measured by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), whereas the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area was measured through adsorption-desorption isotherms as 3, 50, and 145 m2/g, respectively. TiO2 particles reinforced RTV-SR composites were prepared by solution mixing method. TiO2 particles with smaller particle sizes and high BET surface area exhibited higher mechanical properties. The compressive moduli were obtained as 2.2 MPa for a virgin sample and increased to 2.6 MPa, 2.8 MPa and 3.24 MPa for 3, 50, and 145 m2/g samples respectively at 6 phr filler loading. Similarly, the fracture strain of the composite was 117% for a virgin sample and changed to 94%, 130%, and 205% for 3, 50, and 145 m2/g samples, respectively, at 8 phr filler loading. The surface area and particle size of the fillers showed significant effect on mechanical properties of the composites, but no significant effect was observed on the energy harvesting values of RTV-SR/TiO2 composites.

The high performance and stability of wheat genotypes for yield, grain protein content (GPC), and other desirable traits are critical for varietal development and food and nutritional security. Likewise, the genotype by environment (G × E) interaction (GEI) should be thoroughly investigated and favorably utilized whenever genotype selection decisions are made. The present study was planned with the following two major objectives: 1) determination of GEI for some advanced wheat genotypes across four locations (Ludhiana, Ballowal, Patiala, and Bathinda) of Punjab, India; and 2) selection of the best genotypes with high GPC and yield in various environments. Different univariate [Eberhart and Ruessll's models; Perkins and Jinks' models; Wrike's Ecovalence; and Francis and Kannenberg's models], multivariate (AMMI and GGE biplot), and correlation analyses were used to interpret the data from the multi-environmental trial (MET). Consequently, both the univariate and multivariate analyses provided almost similar results regarding the top-performing and stable genotypes. The analysis of variance revealed that variation due to environment, genotype, and GEI was highly significant at the 0.01 and 0.001 levels of significance for all studied traits. The days to flowering, plant height, spikelets per spike, grain per spike, days to maturity, and 1000-grain weight were specifically affected by the environment, whereas yield was mainly affected by the environment and GEI. Genotypes, on the other hand, had a greater impact on the GPC than environmental conditions. As a result, a multi-environmental investigation was necessary to identify the GEI for wheat genotype selection because the GEI was very significant for all of the evaluated traits. Yield, 1000-grain weight, spikelet per spike, and days to maturity were observed to have positive correlations, implying the feasibility of their simultaneous selection for yield enhancement. However, GPC was observed to have a negative correlation with yield. Patiala was found to be the most discriminating environment for both yield and GPC and also the most effective representative environment for GPC, whereas Ludhiana was found to be the most effective representative environment for yield. Eventually, two NILs (BWL7508, and BWL7511) were selected as the top across all environments for both yield and GPC.

EDITORIAL article Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 20 January 2023Sec. Crop Biology and Sustainability Volume 7 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1128411

The fragment mass and total kinetic energy distributions were measured in fission of $^{204}\mathrm{Pb}$, populated in the $^{7}\mathrm{Li}+^{197}\mathrm{Au}$ reaction at excitation energies down to 15.3 MeV above the fission barrier. Fits considering admixture of symmetric and asymmetric fission indicate the presence of substantial asymmetric fission at all measured energies. The measured mass distributions are in good agreement with the model predictions. The observed excitation energy dependence of asymmetric fission fractions for the present system is compared with those for near$\ensuremath{-}$by nuclei and predictions of theoretical models to understand the damping of shell correction at large deformation.

Customers receive a little plastic payment card called a credit card. It allows the holder access to the market to purchase goods and services mostly on the promise of payment from the holder. The card issuer sets up a revolving account and offers the cardholder a credit line from which they can borrow money for either personal use or to pay for goods or services. To control risks and keep a strong credit portfolio, financial institutions must foresee credit card defaults. In this study, we investigate how to categorize clients who have not paid their credit card balances using the random forest algorithm. We examine the effectiveness of random forest in precisely detecting probable defaulters using a dataset comprising credit card payment history. The study highlights the benefits and drawbacks of the random forest technique through data preprocessing, model application, and performance evaluation. For credit card issuers to make wise judgments and reduce potential financial losses, the findings offer insightful information. The experiment in this study uses real-time data collection obtained from a third-party agency and a random forest technique with tenfold cross-validation. The findings demonstrated that random forest is the best method for categorizing credit card delinquent clients. The classifier outperforms itself in predicting the most likely defaulters with an accuracy of 97.73%, while the classifier’s overall accuracy is 84.703%, according to the experimental data.

With the aim to capture CO2 from flue gas, porous carbon was derived from abundantly available, nonfodder crop residue─cotton stalk via thermochemical methodology. The precursor was treated with a new combination of chemical activating agents (NaOH and K2SO4) in stoichiometric proportions and converted to porous carbon via a single-step activation. The transition to using this combination in place of the conventional KOH activation in the production of porous carbon offers an attractive industrial opportunity, due to the substantial drop in the cost of manufacturing. Extensive characterizations were performed on the derived carbon, which included XRD, XPS, Raman spectra, SEM, and TEM. Nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherm analysis at 77 K revealed BET-specific surface areas of 1797 m2/g, along with CO2 uptake capacities of 4.77, 2.49, and 1.71 mmol/g at 273, 298, and 313 K, respectively. Furthermore, the breakthrough curve of CO2 adsorption in a fixed-bed column was studied at different flow rates and temperatures using the flue gas (11 ± 0.2% CO2 and 89 ± 0.2% N2) to analyze the equilibrium CO2 capacity of the porous adsorbent in dynamic conditions. As proof of the concept, the porous carbon was packed in a column cartridge and the adsorption of CO2 from flue gas emanating from a pilot-scale diesel-fired boiler was studied. This demonstrated that carbon cartridges can efficiently and practically remove CO2 from flue gas, especially in small-scale industrial applications.

Abstract Background Oral malignancy that presents at a locally advanced stage needs complex surgical resections in which the maxillary cavity is usually left open. The constant maxillary secretions lead to problems like poor healing, fistula formation, and flap necrosis, causing longer hospital stays, delayed adjuvant therapy, and additional surgeries. Several methods have been tried to ameliorate this, each faced with its own difficulties. This study describes the use of chimeric free anterolateral thigh (ALT) with vastus lateralis (VL) muscle to tackle this problem. Methodology With the aim to assess the advantage of reconstruction of maxillo-alveolar resections using chimeric ALT + VL, we analyzed data from 20 cases reconstructed with chimeric free ALT + VL over a year. We compared them with twenty matched controls reconstructed with standard ALT. Analysis was done with respect to intraoperative ease, adequacy of maxillary sinus fill, postoperative secretions, length of hospital stay, duration to adjuvant therapy, and postoperative complications tabulated using the modified Clavien-Dindo classification. Results It was found that chimeric ALT + VL gave greater freedom of movement to plug the maxillary cavity easily. The chimeric arm patients had fewer complications and a shorter mean hospital stay. Most of them received adjuvant therapy within their optimal time window. Conclusion Chimeric ALT with vastus lateralis muscle is a reliable option for reconstructing complex defects, especially with dead space cavities like the maxillary sinus. Effective plugging of the maxillary sinus during the primary surgery results in better patient outcomes and must be done routinely.

Inclusive ($\mathrm{direct}+\mathrm{compound}$) $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ production for the $^{6}\mathrm{Li}+^{90}\mathrm{Zr}$ system is measured at near barrier energies, namely, $15,17,19,21,25$, and 30 MeV. The data are treated in the statistical model and distorted-wave Born approximation framework to disentangle the degree of competition between direct and compound reaction channels. A substantial contribution from the compound reaction channels is obtained but the direct reaction channels are found to be the dominant mechanism for $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ production at these energies. Estimation of the breakup and transfer reaction around the barrier shows that the latter is the dominant channel. Universal behavior of the $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-production cross section is observed over a large range of target nuclei.

With increasing importance of plant based natural product including extracts, enrich fraction, essential oils, phytomolecules, flavors and fragrances attract the pharmaceutical as well as cosmetic industry.Phytopharmaceuticals are the newer class of drug including enrich fraction containing at least four specific chemical markers with one biomarker.This category provides the way forward for the plant based enrich fraction to be used as a drug, which is not a part of Ayurvedic literature.It has been very important to know the chemical composition and quantity of pharmacologically active ingredients in the formulation.The provisions for synthetic drugs are not appropriate or relevant for botanical based products.Taking this point into consideration AYUSH and CDSCO define and set guidelines on preparation of phytopharmaceutical drugs as the need of science-based drug from botanicals of traditional medicine which has a long history but not properly documented.Generally, the herbal drugs are poorly regulated and controlled by the health authorities, so the efforts are made for analytical control and standardization of the component for therapeutically safe medication.This article is aimed to provide specific and compiled knowledge of herbal medicine regulated under AYUSH in contrast to new category phytopharmaceuticals.This new class of drug may encourage the interest and demand of plant-based therapeutics for unmet medical needs professionally as unlike conventional pharmaceuticals (suspect everything); and AYUSH medicines (trust everything), phytopharmaceutical is a balanced approach which trust everything but underlines the revalidation of the specification of the plant material.

Most state-of-the-art approaches for named-entity recognition (NER) use semi supervised information in the form of word clusters and lexicons. Recently neural network-based language models have been explored, as they as a byproduct generate highly informative vector representations for words, known as word embeddings. In this paper we present two contributions: a new form of learning word embeddings that can leverage information from relevant lexicons to improve the representations, and the first system to use neural word embeddings to achieve state-of-the-art results on named-entity recognition in both CoNLL and Ontonotes NER. Our system achieves an F1 score of 90.90 on the test set for CoNLL 2003---significantly better than any previous system trained on public data, and matching a system employing massive private industrial query-log data.

The visible world is founded on the proton, the only composite building block of matter that is stable in nature. Consequently, understanding the formation of matter relies on explaining the dynamics and the properties of the proton's bound state.A fundamental property of the proton involves the response of the system to an external electromagnetic field. It is characterized by the electromagnetic polarizabilities that describe how easily the charge and magnetization distributions inside the system are distorted by the electromagnetic field. Moreover, the generalized polarizabilities map out the resulting deformation of the densities in a proton subject to an electromagnetic field. They disclose essential information about the underlying system dynamics and provide a key for decoding the proton structure in terms of the theory of the strong interaction that binds its elementary quark and gluon constituents. Of particular interest is a puzzle in the electric generalized polarizability of the proton that remains unresolved for two decades. Here we report measurements of the proton's electromagnetic generalized polarizabilities at low four-momentum transfer squared. We show evidence of an anomaly to the behaviour of the proton's electric generalized polarizability that contradicts the predictions of nuclear theory and derive its signature in the spatial distribution of the induced polarization in the proton. The reported measurements suggest the presence of a new, not-yet-understood dynamical mechanism in the proton and present notable challenges to the nuclear theory.

Abstract Bhagyam is an onshore field in the Barmer basin, located in the state of Rajasthan in Western India. Fatehgarh Formation is the main producing unit, comprising of multi-storied fluvial sandstones. Reservoir quality is excellent with permeability in the range of 1 to 10 Darcy and porosity in the range of 25-30%. The crude is moderately viscous (15 – 500 cP) having a large variation with depth (15 cP – 50 cP from around 270 m TVDSS to 400 m TVDSS and then rising steeply to 500 cp at the OWC of 448m TVDSS). Lab studies on Bhagyam cores show that the reservoir is primarily oil wet in nature. Bhagyam Field was developed initially with edge water injection and with subsequent infill campaigns, prior to polymer flood development plan implementation, the Field was operating with 162 wells. Simple mobility ratio and fractional flow considerations indicate that improving the mobility ratio (water flood end-point mobility ratio is 30-100) in Bhagyam would substantially improve the sweep efficiency. Early EOR screening studies recommended chemical EOR (polymer and ASP flood) as the most suitable method for maximizing oil recovery. The lab studies further demonstrated good recovery potential for Polymer flood. Bhagyam's first Polymer flood field application started with testing in one injector which was later expanded to 8 wells. Extended polymer injection in these wells continued for four years. Observing a very encouraging field response, field scale polymer expansion plan was designed which included drilling of 28 new infill wells (17 P+ 11 I) and 24 producer-to-injector conversions. Modular skid-based polymer preparation units were installed to meet the injection requirements of the expansion plan. Infill producers were brought online in 2018 as per the plan but polymer injection was delayed due to various external factors. The production rate, however, was sustained without significant decline, aided by continuous polymer injection in initial 8 injectors, continuing water flood and good reservoir management practices. First polymer injection in field scale expansion started in Oct’20 and was quickly ramped up to the planned 80000 BPD in 4 months, supported by analyses of surveillance data, indicating very encouraging initial production response. Laboratory quality check program was designed to check quality of polymer during preparation and to ensure viscosity integrity till the well head. The paper discusses modular polymer preparation unit set-up and the additional installations designed to reduce pipeline vibrations during pumping of polymers., Experience gained while bringing online the polymer injection wells and the lab quality checks employed to ensure good polymer quality during preparation and pumping have also been discussed. The paper also discusses reservoir surveillance program adopted at the start of polymer injection like spinner survey, Pressure fall-off surveys and the stimulation activities that worked in improving the injectivity of polymer injectors. The paper further outlines the observations from the production response and the surveillance data collected to ensure good polymer flow in this multi-darcy reservoir.

Tremendous progress has been made over the last several decades in improving the pyrometallurgical processing routes of nonferrous metals, such as aluminum, copper, and lead. Advances in the numerical modeling of pyrometallurgical processes has aided in these improvements by providing a better understanding of the complex transport phenomena occurring in modern furnaces. However, there is a need for a comprehensive discussion of the numerical modeling of a primary and a secondary nonferrous pyrometallurgical furnaces. This review provides such a discussion by surveying recent attempts at capturing the physico-chemical phenomena occurring within these furnaces, including gas-phase combustion, melting/smelting, and multiphase heat- and mass-transfer with the molten phases.This work then identifies a complete set of approaches for simulating these types of furnaces and provides recommendations for applying high-resolution numerical tools towards full-furnace simulation. By identifying gaps in the current state of the art, this review offers suggestions for future developments in commercial codebases, outlining the path to fulfilling the promise of CFD-enabled pyrometallurgy.

We estimate the modification of quarkonia yields due to different processes in the medium produced in PbPb collisions at LHC energy. The quarkonia and heavy flavor cross sections calculated up to next-to-leading order (NLO) are used in the study. Shadowing corrections are obtained with the NLO EPS09 parametrization. A kinetic model is employed which incorporates quarkonia suppression inside a QGP, suppression due to hadronic comovers, and regeneration from charm pairs. The quarkonia dissociation cross section due to gluon collisions has been considered and the regeneration rate has been obtained using the principle of detailed balance. The modification in quarkonia yields due to collisions with hadronic comovers has been estimated assuming that the comovers are pions. The manifestations of these effects on the nuclear modification factors for both $J/\ensuremath{\psi}$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Upsilon}}$ in different kinematic regions has been demonstrated for PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{{}_{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV in comparison with the measurements. Both the suppression and regeneration due to a deconfined medium strongly affect the low and intermediate ${p}_{T}$ range. The large observed suppression of $J/\ensuremath{\psi}$ at ${p}_{T}>10\text{GeV}/c$ exceeds the estimates of suppression by gluon dissociation.

Fission fragment mass and total kinetic energy (TKE) distributions were measured for $^{12}\mathrm{C}+^{175}\mathrm{Lu}$ system at excitation energies down to 16.7 MeV above the saddle point. The overall mass and TKE distributions could be fitted with single Gaussian functions. The observed width of the mass and TKE distributions agree well with the systematics based on liquid drop (LD) behavior. The average TKE also shows parabolic dependence on fragment mass, as expected from LD behavior. Small contributions due to microscopic corrections from $Z\ensuremath{\approx}38$ and 45 shells can be extracted, if the widths of the LD component are fixed from systematics. Contrary to the theoretical predictions of substantial contributions from microscopic corrections, dominance of liquid drop behavior was observed.

In Today's competitive environment, every Industry wants to grow fast to become a leader in their business. There is a need for the regular growth of business in the form of expansion. For Expansion, they required more capital. There are primarily 3 ways to raise Capital. These ways are an Initial Public Offering (IPO), Angel investors, and Business loans. Generally, when a company grows beyond a certain size, it is difficult for individual investors to continue to run the operations within their own capacity of capital. Companies need constant capital. An IPO method for raising capital often raises a company's profile and enhances its credibility with suppliers, Creators, and customers. Raising capital is the primary motivation for an IPO, however, it can also provide an opportunity for a partial sell-down by founders/early-stage investors. After IPO, the shares of a company are available in the form of stocks in an open platform. Including stocks in a public investment portfolio can prove to be beneficial. By investing in stocks of various companies, individuals can generate savings and shield their money against inflation and taxes. However, in order to optimize returns on investment, it is important to have the ability to predict stock prices. All the surveyed techniques are based on the concepts of Machine Learning. These techniques are compared by highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. In the survey of existing works, it is found that combining LSTM with another model can be the most effective technique for stock price prediction. The future scope of improvements in the surveyed research is also suggested in the paper. Researchers in this field can take advantage of these suggested improvements for further research in the field to enhance the performance of techniques used for stock price prediction.

In head and neck cancer malignancies, free fibula flap is the gold standard for reconstruction of segmental bone defects owing to its predictable anatomy, long bone length, and feasibility for multiple osteotomies. However, sometimes because of variations in anatomy of tibio-peroneal trunk, it is a dilemma for the surgeons to use free fibula flap for reconstruction. This case series aimed to evaluate the safety of harvest of fibula in such cases in terms of acute and chronic donor-site complications.A retrospective study was conducted from January 2018 to May 2021. All the patients with tibio-peroneal trunk anomaly, diagnosed during surgery, who underwent successful harvest of the free fibula were included in the study and analyzed for the early major and minor donor wound complications, long-term donor complications, and late functional deficit using the Foot and Ankle Disability Index (FADI).Out of 714 free fibulae operated, 26 patients (3.6%) had such tibio-peroneal trunk variations: 22 (2.9%) cases of type III A and B anomalies and 4 (0.56%) cases of type III C anomalies. The average FADI score was 95.3%. No one had any difficulty in personal care and activity of daily living.The free fibula flap can be safely harvested in patients with type III A and B anomalies if vascularity of foot after clamping of peroneal vessels is good and anterior tibial vessels are normal.

The WEST platform consists in a major upgrade of Tore Supra towards a steady-state tungsten (W) diverted tokamak. In support of this, significant developments are performed on the measurement systems (diagnostics); the control, data access and communication (CODAC); the plasma control system (PCS), the monitoring and protection of the first wall and modelling to prepare the restart of the plasma. Thanks to collaboration agreements already in force, most of the developments and some hardware procurements are performed with the help of several international partners. This paper discusses the present status of developments regarding the measurements and control for the WEST project. In particular, the integration of about 50 diagnostics in ports is completed, and their in-vessel and ex-vessel installation is underway. The refurbishment of the CODAC network architecture has been completed. The development of the new acquisition units based on PXI and of the Plasma Control System (PCS) is ongoing and some units are already available. In parallel, to prepare the plasma restart, the development of plasma magnetic and kinetic controllers has been performed on simplified plant and actuator models and plasma models.

We study the production and evolution of charm and bottom quarks in hot partonic medium produced in heavy ion collisions. The heavy quarks loose energy in the medium which is reflected in the transverse momentum spectra of heavy mesons. The collisional energy loss of heavy quarks has been calculated using QCD calculations. The radiative energy loss is obtained using two models namely reaction operator formalism and generalized dead cone approach. The nuclear modification factors, $R_{AA}$ as a function of transverse momentum by including shadowing and energy loss are calculated for $D^{0}$ and $B^{+}$ mesons in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV and for $D^{0}$ mesons at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV and are compared with the recent measurements. The radiative energy loss from generalized dead cone approach alone is sufficient to produce measured $D^{0}$ meson $R_{AA}$ at both the LHC energies. The radiative energy loss from reaction operator formalism plus collisional energy loss gives good description of $D^{0}$ meson $R_{AA}$. For the case of $B^{+}$ meson, the radiative energy loss from generalized dead cone approach plus collisional energy loss gives good description of the CMS data. The radiative process is dominant for charm quarks while for the bottom, both the radiative process and the elastic collisions are important.

We present a systematic analysis of transverse momentum $(p_{T})$ spectra of the strange hadrons in different multiplicity events produced in pp collision at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV, pPb collision at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV and PbPb collision at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. Both the single and differential freeze-out scenarios of strange hadrons $ K^0_s$ , $\Lambda$ and $\Xi^{-}$ are considered while fitting using a Tsallis distribution which is modified to include transverse flow. The $p_{T}$ distributions of these hadrons in different systems are characterized in terms of the parameters, namely Tsallis temperature (T), power (n) and average transverse flow velocity $(\beta)$ . It is found that for all the systems, transverse flow increases as we move from lower to higher multiplicity events. In the case of the differential freeze-out scenario, the degree of thermalization remains similar for events of different multiplicity classes in all the three systems. The Tsallis temperature increases with the mass of the hadrons and also increases with the event multiplicity in pp and pPb system but shows little variation with the multiplicity in PbPb system. In the case of the single freeze-out scenario, the difference between small systems (pp, pPb) and PbPb system becomes more evident. The high-multiplicity PbPb events show higher degree of thermalization as compared to the events of pp and pPb systems. The trend of variation of the temperature in PbPb system with event multiplicity is opposite to what is found in the pp and pPb systems.

Pollution of soil and water by organic and inorganic pollutants is a global threat that has accelerated dramatically since the beginning of industrial revolution. Over the past few decades there has been avid interest in developing in situ strategies for remediation of environmental pollutants. Phytoremediation has emerged as the method of choice for cleaning up a broad range of environmental pollutants. This solar-driven, eco-friendly, green technology is often favored over more conventional methods of clean-up due to its low cost, low impact, and wider public acceptance. Phytoremediation uses different plant processes and mechanisms involved in the accumulation, complexation, volatilization, and degradation of organic and inorganic pollutants. The present work aims to provide a comprehensive overview of some promising phytoremediation processes and to illustrate such processes influencing organic and inorganic pollutant uptake through various biogeochemical processes including chelation, translocation, transformation, precipitation, solubilization, and complexation of heavy metals ultimately facilitating phytoremediation. Further, the advantages and disadvantages of these technologies are also discussed.

In this article, we study the coherent pion production in the neutrino-nucleus interaction in the resonance region using the formalism based on the partially conserved axial current (PCAC) theorem which relates the neutrino-nucleus cross section to the pion-nucleus elastic cross section. The pion-nucleus elastic cross section is calculated using the Glauber model in terms of pion-nucleon cross sections obtained by parametrizing the experimental data. We calculate the differential and integrated cross sections for charged current coherent pion production in neutrino-carbon scattering. The results of integrated cross-section calculations are compared with the measured data. Predictions for the differential and integrated cross sections for coherent pion productions in neutrino-iron scattering using the above formalism are also made.

This paper proposes a novel scheme to identify the authorship of a document based on handwritten input word images of an individual. Our approach is text-independent and does not place any restrictions on the size of the input word images under consideration. To begin with, we employ the SIFT algorithm to extract multiple key points at various levels of abstraction (comprising allograph, character, or combination of characters). These key points are then passed through a trained CNN network to generate feature maps corresponding to a convolution layer. However, owing to the scale corresponding to the SIFT key points, the size of a generated feature map may differ. As an alleviation to this issue, the histogram of gradients is applied on the feature map to produce a fixed representation. Typically, in a CNN, the number of filters of each convolution block increase depending on the depth of the network. Thus, extracting histogram features for each of the convolution feature map increase the dimension as well as the computational load. To address this aspect, we use an entropy-based method to learn the weights of the feature maps of a particular CNN layer during the training phase of our algorithm. The efficacy of our proposed system has been demonstrated on two publicly available databases namely CVL and IAM. We empirically show that the results obtained are promising when compared with previous works.

The ecosystem is deteriorated by various processes, such as the continuous addition of organic and inorganic waste of industries. Improper waste management practices have led to a discharge of effluents and sludge from industries, the vicinity of agricultural land that consequently resulted in metal contamination of agricultural fields. Therefore, the restoration of metal-contaminated sites is one of the most important environmental issues. Phytoextraction is a promising, economical, green, and eco-friendly means of removing heavy metals from contaminated soil, especially in cases where conventional technologies are not efficient, not possible, or too expensive. During the remediation process, these toxic elements are extracted or stabilized by plants and metabolized in their tissues. The hyperaccumulator plants actively take up exceedingly large amounts of one or more heavy metals from the soil. The heavy metals are not retained in the roots but are translocated to the shoot and accumulated in aboveground organs, especially leaves, at concentrations 100–1000-fold higher than those found in non-hyperaccumulating species. Over 450 plant species, including tree, vegetable crop, grasses, and weeds are identified as hyperaccumulators. Naturally existing “hyperaccumulators” tend to be small and have low biomass production. Increased heavy metal tolerance and accumulation capacity could be conferred in plants by using crop plants or trees with high biomass and a strong ability to adapt to the environment, making it a suitable target species for phytoremediation, but the used parts of these plants should be prohibited for use as food and fodder due to the health hazards of various heavy metals. This chapter provides a view of the recent progress made toward the role of hyperaccumulator and non-hyperaccumulator plants in accelerating phytoremediation capabilities of heavy metals and their potential use in environmental cleanup for sustainable development.

This paper studies the effects of economies of density in transportation markets, focusing on ridesharing. Our theoretical model predicts that (i) economies of density skew the supply of drivers away from less dense regions, (ii) the skew will be more pronounced for smaller platforms, and (iii) rideshare platforms do not find this skew efficient and thus use prices and wages to mitigate (but not eliminate) it. We then develop a general empirical strategy with simple implementation and limited data requirements to test for spatial skew of supply from demand. Applying our method to ride-level, multi-platform data from New York City (NYC), we indeed find evidence for a skew of supply toward busier areas, especially for smaller platforms. We discuss the implications of our analysis for business strategy (e.g., spatial pricing) and public policy (e.g., consequences of breaking up or downsizing a rideshare platform)

Important requirement in the evaluation of herbal drug include the estimation of active constituent. Different factors like climate, altitude, rainfall and other conditions responsible for growth of plants may affect the content of active constituents. Collection of drug from different geographical sources can give useful conditions required for the production of maximum amount of secondary cell constituents. Rauwolfia Samples were collected from four different parts of southern India. HPLC chromatogram was developed for standard reserpine. Different samples were extracted using methanol and extracts were subjected to HPLC analysis to find out the content of Reserpine for preliminary information about the conditions that may influence on production of active constituents. Significant variation in the content of reserpine has been recorded.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) for assessing all environmental impacts associated with any product, process, or activity by identifying and evaluating all the resources consumed and all emission and wastes released into the environment. LCA broadly consists of four stages: (1) Goal, scope, and definition of LCA; (2) life cycle inventory analysis; (3) life cycle impact assessment; and (4) results interpretation. Goal, scope, and definition of LCA mainly constitute the objective and importance of study. This compares the full range of environmental effects assigned to the product and services by identifying all input and output material flows and effects in the environment. It describes the depth of the study and purpose. The inventory analysis is the phase of LCA that involves the compilation and quantification of input and output for any specific production of system, including rare materials. It requires listing of all the steps and processes required for study. This is a type of data checklist for the LCA study. The life cycle impact assessment includes the remediation/phytoremediation as well as the effect of any pollutants or products on the assessment of product impact. The environmental impact may be at the primary, secondary, or tertiary level. The primary impacts are related to local toxic impacts associated with waste contaminated sites. Secondary impacts consider the local, regional, and global impacts arising from the extraction, materials use, and end-of-life stages of all consumables, equipment, and energy used for the remediation. The tertiary impacts deal with environmental impacts associated with the future use of the site. The last step is result and interpretation. This includes a technique to identify, quantify, check, and evaluate information from the result of the life cycle inventory and impact assessment. Interpretation framework is only used to analyze the result, reach a conclusion, explain limitations, and provide recommendations based on the finding of the study.

Fake News Detection (FND) is an essential field in natural language processing that aims to identify and check the truthfulness of major claims in a news article to decide the news veracity. FND finds its uses in preventing social, political and national damage caused due to misrepresentation of facts which may harm a certain section of society. Further, with the explosive rise in fake news dissemination over social media, including images and text, it has become imperative to identify fake news faster and more accurately. To solve this problem, this work investigates a novel multimodal stacked ensemble-based approach (SEMIFND) to fake news detection. Focus is also kept on ensuring faster performance with fewer parameters. Moreover, to improve multimodal performance, a deep unimodal analysis is done on the image modality to identify NasNet Mobile as the most appropriate model for the task. For text, an ensemble of BERT and ELECTRA is used. The approach was evaluated on two datasets: Twitter MediaEval and Weibo Corpus. The suggested framework offered accuracies of 85.80% and 86.83% on the Twitter and Weibo datasets respectively. These reported metrics are found to be superior when compared to similar recent works. Further, we also report a reduction in the number of parameters used in training when compared to recent relevant works. SEMI-FND offers an overall parameter reduction of at least 20% with unimodal parametric reduction on text being 60%. Therefore, based on the investigations presented, it is concluded that the application of a stacked ensembling significantly improves FND over other approaches while also improving speed.

The study objective involves the evaluation of preoperative audiovisual information on the operation theater environment as a tool to relieve anxiety in patients posted for infra umbilical elective surgery under spinal anesthesia. Perioperative anxiety is detrimental to both intraoperative hemodynamic instability and postoperative recovery. The design was a single-center, prospective, randomized control trial. There were 120 patients in this study within the 18-60-year-old age range who were American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) class I-II admitted for infra-umbilical surgery excluding lower segment cesarean section (LSCS) under spinal anesthesia. Patients were randomized into two groups: those who were not exposed to an audiovisual tour (NA) (n = 60) and those who were exposed to an audiovisual tour (A) (n = 60). The measurements are based on the demographic details of the patient; the visual analogue score (VAS); and the Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale (APAIS) for anxiety, hemodynamic parameters i.e., blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and patient satisfaction score (PSS) on a five-point Likert scale were noted perioperatively for both the groups. The main results showed a significant (p-value <0.05) decrease in VAS and APAIS for anxiety, HR, and PSS. This was observed during the intraoperative and postoperative periods in the A group in comparison to the NA group.The preoperative audiovisual virtual tour of the operation theater effectively reduces perioperative anxiety and stabilizes HR; it also improves the satisfaction of patients undergoing elective surgery under spinal anesthesia.

The dilepton invariant mass spectrum measured in heavy-ion collisions includes contributions from important quark-gluon plasma (QGP) probes such as thermal radiation and the quarkonium ($J/\ensuremath{\psi}$, ${\ensuremath{\psi}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, and $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}$) states. Dileptons coming from hard $q\overline{q}$ scattering, the Drell-Yan process, contribute in all mass regions. In heavy-ion colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), semileptonic decays of heavy flavor hadrons provide a substantial contribution to the dilepton continuum. Because the dilepton continuum can provide quantitative information on heavy quark yields and their medium modifications, it is important to identify which dilepton sources populate different parts of the continuum. In the present study, we calculate $c\overline{c}$ and $b\overline{b}$ production and determine their contributions to the dilepton continuum in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{{}_{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV with and without including heavy quark energy loss. We also calculate the rates for Drell-Yan and thermal dilepton production. The contributions to the continuum from these dilepton sources are studied in the kinematic ranges relevant for the LHC detectors. The relatively high ${p}_{T}$ cutoff for single leptons excludes most dileptons produced by the thermal medium. Heavy flavors are the dominant source of dilepton production in all the kinematic regimes except at forward rapidities where Drell-Yan dileptons become dominant for masses greater than 10 GeV/${c}^{2}$.

A novel, highly efficient, convenient, and benign methodology for C-5 halogenation of pyrimidine-based nucleosides has been developed using N-halosuccinimides as halogenating reagents without using any catalyst in ionic liquid medium. The ionic liquids were successfully recovered and reused for all the reactions.

This work presents the differential charmonia production cross sections in high energy p + p collisions calculated using non-relativistic quantum chromodynamics (NRQCD) formalism. The NRQCD formalism, factorizes the quarkonia production cross sections in terms of short distance quantum chromodynamics (QCD) cross sections and long distance matrix elements (LDMEs). The short distance cross sections are calculated in terms of perturbative QCD, and LDMEs are obtained by fitting the experimental data. Measured transverse momentum distributions of , ψ(2S) and J/ψ in p + collisions at TeV and in p + p collisions at and 13 TeV are used to constrain LDMEs. The feed-down contribution to each state from the higher states are taken into account. The formalism provides a very good description of the data in a wide energy range. The values of LDMEs are used to predict the charmonia cross sections in p + p collisions at 13 and 5 TeV in kinematic bins relevant for the LHC detectors.

The field of Machine Learning (ML) brought a massive revolution and change in how normal day operations used to happen in various businesses. The idea of ML was quite simple, merging two separate fields, Mathematics and Computer Science. This simple idea is the very reason that so many predictive and classification-based applications exist today. The development of such applications is a time-consuming process and is very computationally heavy because in the corporate world, a very large amount of historical data is used and processed. The training processes such as pre-processing, data engineering and transformations, deep learning, training and testing are themselves time consuming. A very new field of computer science deals with solving this exact problem of time consumption. Quantum Computing (QC) tries to solve these problems by using the concepts of Quantum Mechanics during computations. The QC technology claims to be not only fast in its computational speed but also more efficient and accurate as well. The following article consists of an experiment conducted where a machine learning model is trained in a classical computing environment using K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) algorithm versus in a quantum computing environment using Quantum K-Nearest Neighbors (QKNN) algorithm.

Background: Intramedullary pinning (IMP) is the most commonly used internal skeletal fixation technique. Threaded pins (also called Schanz Screws) provide a comparatively better holding strength than non-threaded tipped intramedullary pins. The present study was planned to evaluate and compare the efficacy of positive and negative profile end threaded intramedullary pins in the management of long bone fractures in dogs. Methods: Eleven clients owned dog suffering from fracture of long bones were randomly divided in to two groups. Animals of group I (n=5) and group II (n=6) were treated with end threaded positive and negative profile intra medullary pin, respectively. The intramedullary pinning was done using 3 to 5.5 mm diameter pins under general anesthesia, the time taken for surgery, size of end threaded intramedullary pin used in each case was noted down. Radiographs were taken preoperatively, immediately after fixation and then at regular intervals till signs of radiographic healing were evident. Result: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of time taken for fixation/surgery and in healing time, with a gradual improvement in weight bearing postoperatively in both the groups. There was mild periosteal callus formation in all the cases when observed radiographically and the pins were removed after radiographic healing was evident in an anticlockwise manner using Jacob’s chuck and key, under mild sedation. There was no complication like implant failure or pin tract sepsis or pin migration or pin breakage in any of the cases of two groups. However, passing the positive profile end threaded intramedullary pin in distal fragment is comparatively smoother and easier as compared to negative profile end threaded intra medullary pin.

Respiratory diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer, tuberculosis (TB), pneumonia, and, currently, respiratory infection due to novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) have been the major cause of concern these days and pose a serious challenge before the medical practitioners. Various types of dosage forms, surgeries, and radiotherapies are available as the major treatment options; however, these approaches are of limited use in the successful management of the above disorders and some seem very expensive. Conventional dosage form-based therapies have many disadvantages, including poor bioavailability, safety issues, poor site specificity, and drug resistance. In recent years, with the recent advancement in research and development, different novel drug delivery approaches have been aimed for comprehensive management of various types of respiratory diseases. Cyclodextrins (CDs) based formulations played a significant role in improving the treatment of respiratory diseases. It is utilized to improve the drug’s physicochemical properties, however, some of its derivatives offer direct therapeutic efficacy. In this chapter, the derivates of CD, provided with their sources and physicochemical properties, are discussed with their applications in treating major lung diseases like COPD, chronic bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, pneumonia, etc. We have also aimed to showcase, based on the ongoing clinical trials, the recent translational potential of CD-based drug delivery systems used in the respiratory disease therapy.

Introduction: Transurethral Resection of Prostate (TURP) is a common surgical procedure performed for Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH), most commonly under Spinal Anaesthesia (SA). It is generally tolerated well by the elderly but since they suffer from several co-morbidities, therefore, it is desirable to avoid hypotension following SA, in these patients. Levobupivacaine, a pure S enantiomer of racemic bupivacaine has emerged as a safe alternative to bupivacaine with similar efficacy and better pharmacokinetic profile. Aim: To compare the efficacy of intrathecal levobupivacaine with bupivacaine using fentanyl as adjuvant in TURP. Materials and Methods: This randomised controlled trial was conducted at Pandit BD Sharma Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India, between March 2022 to September 2022. Fifty patients, 50-80 years of age, American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) I-III, posted for TURP under SA, were included in the study and divided into two groups: group B (n=25): Inj. bupivacaine (0.5%) hyperbaric 12.5 mg+25 µg fentanyl citrate, group L (n=25): Inj. levobupivacaine (0.5%) isobaric 12.5mg+25µg fentanyl citrate. Onset of sensory and motor block, time to onset of maximum sensory and motor block, Heart Rate (HR), Systolic Bood Pressure (SBP), Diastolic Bood Pressure (DBP) and Mean Arterial Pressures (MAP) were recorded. Data analysis was done with the help computer software using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 24.0. Means, standard deviations, Chi-square, t-values and p-values were calculated, p-value &lt;0.05 was considered significant at 95% confidence level. Results: Demographic data of the patients was comparable. The mean time to onset of sensory block in group B was significantly faster (3.72±0.96 min) than group L (4.47±0.73 min). The mean time to onset of motor block was faster in group B (4.74±0.91 min) than group L (7.57±1.51 min). HR was lower in group B, after SA at 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 45 min after SA. Group B recorded a lower SBP, DBP and MAP following SA, compared to group L (p&lt;0.001). The duration of analgesia was significantly longer in group B (232.80±14.07 min vs 221.80±15.47 min in group L) (p&lt;0.05). No adverse effects were reported from either of the groups. Conclusion: Levobupivacaine provided very stable haemodynamics, good quality analgesia and muscle relaxation intraoperatively. Postoperative analgesia was clinically similar to bupivacaine, no adverse effects were reported. Thus, levobupivacaine is a safe and reliable alternative to bupivacaine for elderly patients undergoing TURP

Introduction: Comforting manoeuvres like hand holding and calming conversation with the parturients may decrease anxiety among them by establishing a rapport and building confidence and trust to alleviate fear. Aim: Evaluation of role and effectiveness of comforting manoeuvres (hand holding and calming conversation) in relieving patient’s anxiety and subjective satisfaction undergoing caesarean section in regional anaesthesia. Materials and Methods: This was a single centre randomised control trial conducted in the Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India, from February 2022 to June 2022. There were 144 parturients, in the age group 18-40 years, American Society of Anaesthesiology (ASA) II, and admitted for Caesarean section under regional anaesthesia. Patients were randomised into four groups- control group (C)- group 1, only calming conversation (CC)- group 2, only Hand Holding (HH)- group 3 and Hand Holding and Calming Conversation (CH)- group 4. Demographic details of the patient, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for anxiety, Blood Pressure (BP), Heart Rate (HR), Respiratory Rate (RR) and patient satisfaction score on a 1-5 Likert scale were noted preoperatively. VAS was noted preoperatively and postoperatively for all groups. Patient Satisfication Score (PSS) was noted postoperatively. The HR, Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP), and RR were noted every 5 minutes for 20 minutes, then every 10 minutes till the end of the surgery, and 30 minutes after surgery. Any anxiolytic medication used intraoperatively was documented for all groups. Results: Total of 144 participants were analysed with 36 patients in each of four groups. Mean age (years) for group 1 was 23.36, group 2 was 23.25, group 3 was 23.17, and group 4 was 23.22. Baseline VAS was similar in all the groups. Postoperative VAS differed significantly - group 1 was 3.33±0.926, group 2 was 1.53±0.845, group 3 was1.47±0.845 and group 4 was 1.11±0.708. PSS also differed significantly - for group 1 was 2.42±0.732, group 2 was 3.50±0.697, group 3 was 3.67±0.717 and group 4 was 3.92±0.692. Stabilisation of hemodynamics in terms of BP, HR and RR was significantly better in all three interventional groups as compared to the control group. Conclusion: All three manoeuvres (hand holding, calming conversation alone and in combination) were equally effective in reducing perioperative anxiety, stabilising the hemodynamics and improving patient satisfaction in parturients undergoing caesarean section under regional anaesthesia. Comforting manoeuvres are simple, easy to practice and without any financial implication.

Cancer is a lethal disorder with high clinical consequence which ultimately leads to death. Cancer of buccal cavity is coming under the 11th most common malignancy all over the world. The chemotherapeutic drugs used for the treatment of buccal cancers have low stability and high side effects. However, the high cost and drug resistance properties of chemotherapeutic drugs are the major drawbacks for cancer treatment. Probiotics and prebiotics (synbiotics) because of their enhanced immunity responses, mucosal restoration and reduction of unnecessary materials present in body like toxins, carcinogens and heavy metals properties, emerged as an alternative tool for the treatment of buccal cancer. The synbiotics including prebiotics, live or dead probiotics and their metabolites are important for prevention and treatment of buccal cancer. To provide a highly efficacious biotherapeutic drugs treatment, synbiotics have been used broadly in buccal cancer treatment. This chapter provides insights into the treatment of buccal cancer by biotherapeutic drugs, i.e. probiotics and prebiotics (synbiotics).

In this work, we review the experimental and theoretical developments of bottomonia production in proton+proton and heavy-ion collisions. The bottomonia production process is proving to be one of the most robust processes to investigate the fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics at both low and high temperatures. The LHC experiments in the last decade have produced large statistics of bottomonia states in wide kinematic ranges in various collision systems. The bottomonia have three $\Upsilon$ S-states which are reconstructed in dilepton invariant mass channel with high mass resolution by LHC detectors and P-states are measured via their decay to S-states. We start with the details of measurements in proton+proton collisions and their understanding in terms of various effective theoretical models. Here we cover both the Tevatron and LHC measurements with $\sqrt{s}$ spanning from 1.8 TeV to 13 TeV. The bottomonia states have particularly been very good probes to understand strongly interacting matter produced in heavy-ion collisions. The Pb+Pb collisions have been performed at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV and 5.02 TeV at LHC. This led to the detailed study of the modification of bottomonia yields as a function of various observables and collision energy. At the same time, the improved results of bottomonia production became available from RHIC experiments which have proven to be useful for a quantitative comparison. A systematic study of bottomonia production in p+p, p+Pb and Pb+Pb has been very useful to understand the medium effects in these collision systems. We review some of the (if not all the) models of bottomonia evolution due to various processes in a large dynamically evolving medium and discuss these in comparison with the measurements.

&lt;div&gt;Abstract&lt;p&gt;Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is characterized by reactivation of androgen receptor (AR) signaling, in part by elevated expression of AR splice variants (ARv) including ARv7, a constitutively active, ligand binding domain (LBD)-deficient variant whose expression has been correlated with therapeutic resistance and poor prognosis. In a screen to identify small-molecule dual inhibitors of both androgen-dependent and androgen-independent AR gene signatures, we identified the chalcone C86. Binding studies using purified proteins and CRPC cell lysates revealed C86 to interact with Hsp40. Pull-down studies using biotinylated-C86 found Hsp40 present in a multiprotein complex with full-length (FL-) AR, ARv7, and Hsp70 in CRPC cells. Treatment of CRPC cells with C86 or the allosteric Hsp70 inhibitor JG98 resulted in rapid protein destabilization of both FL-AR and ARv, including ARv7, concomitant with reduced FL-AR- and ARv7-mediated transcriptional activity. The glucocorticoid receptor, whose elevated expression in a subset of CRPC also leads to androgen-independent AR target gene transcription, was also destabilized by inhibition of Hsp40 or Hsp70. &lt;i&gt;In vivo&lt;/i&gt;, Hsp40 or Hsp70 inhibition demonstrated single-agent and combinatorial activity in a 22Rv1 CRPC xenograft model. These data reveal that, in addition to recognized roles of Hsp40 and Hsp70 in FL-AR LBD remodeling, ARv lacking the LBD remain dependent on molecular chaperones for stability and function. Our findings highlight the feasibility and potential benefit of targeting the Hsp40/Hsp70 chaperone axis to treat prostate cancer that has become resistant to standard antiandrogen therapy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Significance:&lt;/b&gt;These findings highlight the feasibility of targeting the Hsp40/Hsp70 chaperone axis to treat CRPC that has become resistant to standard antiandrogen therapy. &lt;i&gt;Cancer Res; 78(14); 4022–35. ©2018 AACR&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Reagents. Antibodies for Immunoblot, methods for qPCR, Tunnel assay and Determination of equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) of RIOK proteins and Additional references supporting the ERGi-USU manuscript&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S1. PCR primer list for ERG, S2. IC50 values of Inhibition of ERG protein and cell growth of ERGi-USU on established cell panel&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div&gt;Abstract&lt;p&gt;Oncogenic activation of the ETS-related gene (&lt;i&gt;ERG&lt;/i&gt;) by recurrent gene fusions (predominantly TMPRSS2–ERG) is one of the most validated and prevalent genomic alterations present in early stages of prostate cancer. In this study, we screened small-molecule libraries for inhibition of ERG protein in &lt;i&gt;TMPRSS2–ERG&lt;/i&gt; harboring VCaP prostate cancer cells using an In-Cell Western Assay with the highly specific ERG-MAb (9FY). Among a subset of promising candidates, 1-[2-Thiazolylazo]-2-naphthol (NSC139021, hereafter ERGi-USU) was identified and further characterized. ERGi-USU selectively inhibited growth of ERG-positive cancer cell lines with minimal effect on normal prostate or endothelial cells or ERG-negative tumor cell lines. Combination of ERGi-USU with enzalutamide showed additive effects in inhibiting growth of VCaP cells. A screen of kinases revealed that ERGi-USU directly bound the ribosomal biogenesis regulator atypical kinase RIOK2 and induced ribosomal stress signature. &lt;i&gt;In vivo&lt;/i&gt;, ERGi-USU treatment inhibited growth of ERG-positive VCaP tumor xenografts with no apparent toxicity. Structure-activity–based derivatives of ERGi-USU recapitulated the ERG-selective activity of the parental compound. Taken together, ERGi-USU acts as a highly selective inhibitor for the growth of ERG-positive cancer cells and has potential for further development of ERG-targeted therapy of prostate cancer and other malignancies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Significance:&lt;/b&gt; A highly selective small-molecule inhibitor of ERG, a critical driver of early stages of prostate cancer, will be imperative for prostate cancer therapy. &lt;i&gt;Cancer Res; 78(13); 3659–71. ©2018 AACR&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Reagents. Antibodies for Immunoblot, methods for qPCR, Tunnel assay and Determination of equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) of RIOK proteins and Additional references supporting the ERGi-USU manuscript&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S1. Comparison and confirmation of ERGi-USU effect on ERG protein, cell growth and gene expression, S2. Antibody based Screening and identification of small molecule inhibitors of the ERG oncoprotein expression, S3. Evaluation of dose-dependent effect of ERGi-USU on ERG transcript with ERG cell panel, S4. Evaluation of the effect of ERGi-USU on cell growth of ERG negative prostate cancer cell lines, S5. ERGi-USU selectively decreases AR protein levels, only in TMPRSS2-ERG harboring VCaP cells.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S1. Comparison and confirmation of ERGi-USU effect on ERG protein, cell growth and gene expression, S2. Antibody based Screening and identification of small molecule inhibitors of the ERG oncoprotein expression, S3. Evaluation of dose-dependent effect of ERGi-USU on ERG transcript with ERG cell panel, S4. Evaluation of the effect of ERGi-USU on cell growth of ERG negative prostate cancer cell lines, S5. ERGi-USU selectively decreases AR protein levels, only in TMPRSS2-ERG harboring VCaP cells.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S6. Evaluation of combined effect of ERGi-USU and AR inhibitors on CaP cell growth, S7. Selective inhibition of ERG positive cancer cells by ERGi-USU in mouse xenograft model, S8. Assessment of effect of RIOK knock down in ERG positive VCaP cells, S9. Fluorescence quenching data obtained upon titration of A. Human RiOK2 (HsRIOK2) and B. C.thermophilum Riok2, with ERGi-USU, S10. Evaluation of mechanisms of ERGi-USU mediated cell growth inhibition, S11. Validation of the response of ERGi-USU on CaP-associated kinases, S12. ERGi-USU binds to RIOK2 and inhibits levels of ERG and RIOK2 protein in the context of cancer cells&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S6. Evaluation of combined effect of ERGi-USU and AR inhibitors on CaP cell growth, S7. Selective inhibition of ERG positive cancer cells by ERGi-USU in mouse xenograft model, S8. Assessment of effect of RIOK knock down in ERG positive VCaP cells, S9. Fluorescence quenching data obtained upon titration of A. Human RiOK2 (HsRIOK2) and B. C.thermophilum Riok2, with ERGi-USU, S10. Evaluation of mechanisms of ERGi-USU mediated cell growth inhibition, S11. Validation of the response of ERGi-USU on CaP-associated kinases, S12. ERGi-USU binds to RIOK2 and inhibits levels of ERG and RIOK2 protein in the context of cancer cells&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;S1. PCR primer list for ERG, S2. IC50 values of Inhibition of ERG protein and cell growth of ERGi-USU on established cell panel&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A Word file that contains Supplementary Methods &amp; Figure Legends&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Average mouse body weight for Figure 5; PD analyses of C86 +/- JG98 in vivo; in vitro effects of C86 +/- JG98 on other client proteins&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Structure of C86 and its effects on endogenous or exogenous FL-AR/ARv7 protein/target gene expression and VCaP viability&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Effect of JG98 on endogenous or exogenous FL-AR/ARv7 protein/target gene expression; cell lysate input for Figure 4A&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Cell lysate inputs for Figure 3&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Effects of biotinylated-C86 on binding of purified Hsp40/Hsp70/Hsp90 protein; effect of 17-AAG on FL-AR/ARv7 protein; cell lysate inputs for Figure 2&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A Word file that contains Supplementary Methods &amp; Figure Legends&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Average mouse body weight for Figure 5; PD analyses of C86 +/- JG98 in vivo; in vitro effects of C86 +/- JG98 on other client proteins&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Structure of C86 and its effects on endogenous or exogenous FL-AR/ARv7 protein/target gene expression and VCaP viability&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Effect of JG98 on endogenous or exogenous FL-AR/ARv7 protein/target gene expression; cell lysate input for Figure 4A&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Cell lysate inputs for Figure 3&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Effects of biotinylated-C86 on binding of purified Hsp40/Hsp70/Hsp90 protein; effect of 17-AAG on FL-AR/ARv7 protein; cell lysate inputs for Figure 2&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div&gt;Abstract&lt;p&gt;Oncogenic activation of the ETS-related gene (&lt;i&gt;ERG&lt;/i&gt;) by recurrent gene fusions (predominantly TMPRSS2–ERG) is one of the most validated and prevalent genomic alterations present in early stages of prostate cancer. In this study, we screened small-molecule libraries for inhibition of ERG protein in &lt;i&gt;TMPRSS2–ERG&lt;/i&gt; harboring VCaP prostate cancer cells using an In-Cell Western Assay with the highly specific ERG-MAb (9FY). Among a subset of promising candidates, 1-[2-Thiazolylazo]-2-naphthol (NSC139021, hereafter ERGi-USU) was identified and further characterized. ERGi-USU selectively inhibited growth of ERG-positive cancer cell lines with minimal effect on normal prostate or endothelial cells or ERG-negative tumor cell lines. Combination of ERGi-USU with enzalutamide showed additive effects in inhibiting growth of VCaP cells. A screen of kinases revealed that ERGi-USU directly bound the ribosomal biogenesis regulator atypical kinase RIOK2 and induced ribosomal stress signature. &lt;i&gt;In vivo&lt;/i&gt;, ERGi-USU treatment inhibited growth of ERG-positive VCaP tumor xenografts with no apparent toxicity. Structure-activity–based derivatives of ERGi-USU recapitulated the ERG-selective activity of the parental compound. Taken together, ERGi-USU acts as a highly selective inhibitor for the growth of ERG-positive cancer cells and has potential for further development of ERG-targeted therapy of prostate cancer and other malignancies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Significance:&lt;/b&gt; A highly selective small-molecule inhibitor of ERG, a critical driver of early stages of prostate cancer, will be imperative for prostate cancer therapy. &lt;i&gt;Cancer Res; 78(13); 3659–71. ©2018 AACR&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

Introduction: Giant Cell Tumour (GCT) around the knee joint is the most common site for this locally malignant bone tumour and, in advanced stages, requires excision of the tumour mass. Current recommendations promote joint salvage procedures in allograft or mega prosthetic replacement. Patients undergoing this surgery need massive changes in their lifestyle to cope with their activities of daily living. The psychological and social impact following these procedures has not been extensively studied. Aim: To observe the long term functional results as well as the impact on quality of life in patients undergoing endoprosthetic replacements in GCT around the knee with emphasis on any difference in results among the cases operated for distal femoral and proximal tibial GCT. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow from June 2015 to June 2019 with a total sample size of 21 cases. The two groups formed were; one having GCT of distal end femur and the other group with GCT of proximal end tibia. The evaluation was done for outcome measures by Oxford Knee Score (OKS) and Musculo Skeletal Tumour Society score (MSTS) for their functional outcome and Short Form Health Survey (SF12) for their quality of life effect at two years postoperatively. Students unpaired t-test was performed for intergroup analysis and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was done for within the group analysis for subsequent follow-up visits. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Results: The mean age of study population was 33.67±8.674 years. The male-female distribution was insignificant (p=0.673), providing us with a homogenous study group. Recurrent GCT was found significantly more commonly in the proximal tibia group than in the distal femur group (p=0.031). Comparison of OKS and MSTS preoperatively, at six months, at one year, and two years showed statistically significant improvement in successive follow-ups in both the distal femur and proximal tibia groups (p&lt;0.001 in both groups). Intergroup analysis also showed significantly better scores in the distal femur group compared to the proximal tibia group in the preoperative period and all successive follow-ups. On intergroup analysis at 2 years, both the OKS (p=0.020*) and MSTS score (p&lt;0.0001) were found to be statistically significant. SF-12 mental and physical scores preoperatively also showed statistically significant improvement in all cases (p&lt;0.001 for mental and physical components. Conclusion: Early functional outcomes of en-bloc excision and reconstruction with modular endoprosthesis are good in terms of joint function and the patient’s overall mental and physical well-being.

Anxiety and depression are known to occur in over one third of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and may negatively affect quality of life (QoL) and AF symptom severity. Though highly prevalent, the relationship between anxiety and depression with AF care remains poorly defined. The goal of an Atrial Fibrillation Center of Excellence (AFCoE) is to improve outcomes by delivering team-based multidisciplinary care to streamline risk factor modification while incorporating performance -measures and ongoing quality improvement to facilitate data-driven delivery of high-quality, guideline directed care. In the pilot phase of the AFCoE at the Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, an AF care coordinator and specialists from electrophysiology and sleep medicine were included based on patient need. To investigate changes in mental health status following multidisciplinary AF care received in an AFCoE in patients with AF. 138 patients were referred to the Inova AFCoE pilot between 10/2021 and 4/2022. Demographic and clinical comorbidities were ascertained. The frequency and severity of anxiety and depression were measured in a subset of participants (n=41) using the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) tools administered at baseline and again between 3 to 6 months after their initial AFCoE visit. Baseline and follow-up summed GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores were compared using the Wilcoxon test. Additional analyses were performed among patients with clinically significant baseline anxiety (GAD-7 score ≥5 points) or depression (PHQ-9 score ≥5 points). A total of 12/41 (29%) patients had clinically significant depression or anxiety (scores ≥5 points) at baseline. Among patients with clinically significant depression or anxiety at baseline, the median [interquartile range] summed score improved at follow-up from 13[11–15] to 6[1–9] points (p=0.005, score reduction 8[2–14] points). Nearly one third of patients referred to the Inova AFCoE pilot phase had clinically significant anxiety and/or depression at baseline. Multidisciplinary AF treatment without specific behavioral health intervention was associated with clinically significant improvements in anxiety and depression.

A major concern in using deep learning based generative models for document-grounded dialogs is the potential generation of responses that are not \textit{faithful} to the underlying document. Existing automated metrics used for evaluating the faithfulness of response with respect to the grounding document measure the degree of similarity between the generated response and the document's content. However, these automated metrics are far from being well aligned with human judgments. Therefore, to improve the measurement of faithfulness, we propose a new metric that utilizes (Conditional) Point-wise Mutual Information (PMI) between the generated response and the source document, conditioned on the dialogue. PMI quantifies the extent to which the document influences the generated response -- with a higher PMI indicating a more faithful response. We build upon this idea to create a new decoding technique that incorporates PMI into the response generation process to predict more faithful responses. Our experiments on the BEGIN benchmark demonstrate an improved correlation of our metric with human evaluation. We also show that our decoding technique is effective in generating more faithful responses when compared to standard decoding techniques on a set of publicly available document-grounded dialog datasets.

To use a disease-agnostic natural language processing (NLP) question-answering (QA) pipeline to extract disease severity from electronic health record (EHR) clinical notes and to validate the pipeline by comparing healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) across severity groups.

The kinetics-dependent crystallization behavior of amorphous ubiquinone and ubiquinol produced after quenching from the melt has been studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray Diffraction techniques under different experimental conditions. The investigation revealed a kinetically dependent transformation observed by DSC analysis conducted at different heating rates which suggests the formation of quasi-isostructural families of polymorphs in both oxidized and reduced forms of the Coenzime Q10.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic, multidrug-resistant pathogen capable of adapting to numerous environmental conditions and causing fatal infections in immunocompromised patients. The predominant lifestyle of P. aeruginosa is in the form of biofilms, which are structured communities of bacteria encapsulated in a matrix containing exopolysaccharides, extracellular DNA (eDNA) and proteins. The matrix is impervious to antibiotics, rendering the bacteria tolerant to antimicrobials. P. aeruginosa also produces a plethora of virulence factors such as pyocyanin, rhamnolipids and lipopolysaccharides among others. In this study we present the molecular characterization of pslC and pslI genes, of the exopolysaccharide operon, that code for putative glycosyltransferases. PslC is a 303 amino acid containing putative GT2 glycosyltrasferase, whereas PslI is a 367 aa long protein, possibly functioning as a GT4 glycosyltransferase. Mutation in either of these two genes results in a significant reduction in biofilm biomass with concomitant decline in c-di-GMP levels in the bacterial cells. Moreover, mutation in pslC and pslI dramatically increased susceptibility of P. aeruginosa to tobramycin, colistin and ciprofloxacin. Additionally, these mutations also resulted in an increase in rhamnolipids and pyocyanin formation. We demonstrate that elevated rhamnolipids promote a swarming phenotype in the mutant strains. Together these results highlight the importance of PslC and PslI in the biogenesis of biofilms and their potential as targets for increased antibiotic susceptibility and biofilm inhibition.

Abstract The fission fragment mass and total kinetic energy (TKE) distributions were studied for 187 Ir populated using 12 C + 175 Lu reaction at excitation energies 24.8, 23.3, 20.8, and 16.7 MeV above the saddle point. Fission fragments (FF) were detected using position sensitive MWPC’s kept at a folding angle. The mass of the fragment was calculated using Time-of-Flight (TOF) difference method. The multi Gaussian fit to the extracted mass distributions shows the presence of narrower microscopic components corresponding to Z = 38 and 45 in addition to the liquid drop component at lower excitation energies. The GEF model predicts significant asymmetric components at all the measured energies. The TKE distribution investigations suggest the dominance of macroscopic liquid drop components at all energies.

Microbiology Society journals contain high-quality research papers and topical review articles. We are a not-for-profit publisher and we support and invest in the microbiology community, to the benefit of everyone. This supports our principal goal to develop, expand and strengthen the networks available to our members so that they can generate new knowledge about microbes and ensure that it is shared with other communities.

The kinetics-dependent crystallization behavior of amorphous ubiquinone and ubiquinol produced after quenching from the melt has been studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray Diffraction techniques under different experimental conditions. The investigation revealed a kinetically dependent transformation observed by DSC analysis conducted at different heating rates which suggests the formation of quasi-isostructural families of polymorphs in both oxidized and reduced forms of the Coenzime Q10.

Background We describe our experience with use of free thoracodorsal artery perforator (TDAP) flap for head and neck (H&N) cancer reconstruction, with respect to the patient and disease profile, suitable defect characteristics, the reconstructive technique, and complications. Methods Consecutive patients ( N = 26) undergoing free TDAP flap for H&N onco-reconstruction, in a single center, were included from January 2015 to December 2018 and the data were analyzed. Results Perforator(s) were reliably predicted preoperatively, using handheld Doppler. Lateral position was comfortable for the harvest. Twenty flaps were harvested on a single perforator, more commonly musculocutaneous ( n = 16). The thoracodorsal nerve and latissimus dorsi muscle could be preserved, completely in almost all cases. The skin paddle was horizontally ( n = 5) or vertically ( n = 21) oriented, both giving a satisfactory scar. The flap was used as a single island or two islands by de-epithelializing intervening skin. Pedicle length was sufficient in all cases. Four cases were explored for suspected venous insufficiency. Two had thrombosis, of which one was salvaged, while the other necrosed. One flap had minimal partial necrosis, which was managed with secondary suturing. The 5-year follow-up showed good oral competence, mouth opening, and cosmetic satisfaction among patients. Conclusion TDAP flap provides all the advantages of a perforator-based free flap and of back as a donor site with close color match to the face, relatively hairless, and thickness in between the thigh and the forearm. It can be a useful tool to provide an ideal functional and aesthetic outcome, with a hidden donor site and minimal donor site morbidity in selected cases.

Background The deep inferior epigastric artery perforator (DIEP) flap is a workhorse flap for breast reconstruction. Its use for head and neck (HN) reconstruction is rare. Abdomen provides a donor site abundant in skin and subcutaneous tissue, amenable to primary closure; sizeable, robust, and consistent perforators and a long, sizeable pedicle for comfortable microvascular anastomosis. Its offers all the donor variables needed for HN reconstruction in abundance. Methods It is a quasiexperimental design study. DIEP flap use for HN reconstruction in our series was opportunistic, that is, when donor site matched the defect. Cases that had very thick thighs and lesser bulk in abdomen and cases that had very thin thighs but much more bulk in abdomen were considered for reconstruction using DIEP flap. Results The DIEP flap was done in 11 cases for HN reconstruction. There were two re-explorations during postoperative period: one flap loss and another had partial necrosis. Conclusion Abdomen is an excellent donor site option for HN reconstruction in selected cases, especially when harvested as a perforator flap.

A major concern in using deep learning based generative models for document-grounded dialogs is the potential generation of responses that are not faithful to the underlying document. Existing automated metrics used for evaluating the faithfulness of response with respect to the grounding document measure the degree of similarity between the generated response and the document’s content. However, these automated metrics are far from being well aligned with human judgments. Therefore, to improve the measurement of faithfulness, we propose a new metric that utilizes (Conditional) Point-wise Mutual Information (PMI) between the generated response and the source document, conditioned on the dialogue. PMI quantifies the extent to which the document influences the generated response – with a higher PMI indicating a more faithful response. We build upon this idea to create a new decoding technique that incorporates PMI into the response generation process to predict more faithful responses. Our experiments on the BEGIN benchmark demonstrate an improved correlation of our metric with human evaluation. We also show that our decoding technique is effective in generating more faithful responses when compared to standard decoding techniques on a set of publicly available document-grounded dialog datasets.

&lt;div&gt;Abstract&lt;p&gt;Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is characterized by reactivation of androgen receptor (AR) signaling, in part by elevated expression of AR splice variants (ARv) including ARv7, a constitutively active, ligand binding domain (LBD)-deficient variant whose expression has been correlated with therapeutic resistance and poor prognosis. In a screen to identify small-molecule dual inhibitors of both androgen-dependent and androgen-independent AR gene signatures, we identified the chalcone C86. Binding studies using purified proteins and CRPC cell lysates revealed C86 to interact with Hsp40. Pull-down studies using biotinylated-C86 found Hsp40 present in a multiprotein complex with full-length (FL-) AR, ARv7, and Hsp70 in CRPC cells. Treatment of CRPC cells with C86 or the allosteric Hsp70 inhibitor JG98 resulted in rapid protein destabilization of both FL-AR and ARv, including ARv7, concomitant with reduced FL-AR- and ARv7-mediated transcriptional activity. The glucocorticoid receptor, whose elevated expression in a subset of CRPC also leads to androgen-independent AR target gene transcription, was also destabilized by inhibition of Hsp40 or Hsp70. &lt;i&gt;In vivo&lt;/i&gt;, Hsp40 or Hsp70 inhibition demonstrated single-agent and combinatorial activity in a 22Rv1 CRPC xenograft model. These data reveal that, in addition to recognized roles of Hsp40 and Hsp70 in FL-AR LBD remodeling, ARv lacking the LBD remain dependent on molecular chaperones for stability and function. Our findings highlight the feasibility and potential benefit of targeting the Hsp40/Hsp70 chaperone axis to treat prostate cancer that has become resistant to standard antiandrogen therapy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Significance:&lt;/b&gt;These findings highlight the feasibility of targeting the Hsp40/Hsp70 chaperone axis to treat CRPC that has become resistant to standard antiandrogen therapy. &lt;i&gt;Cancer Res; 78(14); 4022–35. ©2018 AACR&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

We present a study on the charge current quasi elastic scattering of $\nu_\mu$ from nucleon and nuclei which gives a charged muon in the final state. To describe nuclei, the Fermi Gas model has been used with proposed Pauli suppression factor. The diffuseness parameter of the Fermi distribution has been obtained using experimental data. We also investigate different parametrizations for electric and magnetic Sach's form factors of nucleons. Calculations have been made for CCQES total and differential cross sections for the cases of $\nu_{\mu}-N$, $\nu_{\mu}-^{12}C$ and $\nu_{\mu}-^{56}Fe$ scatterings and are compared with the data for different values of the axial mass. The present model gives excellent description of measured differential cross section for all the systems.