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Background: Hirsutism is an important array of clinical syndrome that ranges from various dermatological to gynecological concerns. This is characterized by growth terminal hairs in women in male-pattern. Aim: To compare the efficacy of Nd-YAG laser with adjuvant eflornithine cream versus Nd-YAG laser treatment alone for facial hirsutism in women. Methods: It was a Randomized Controlled Trial conducted in the Department of Dermatology, Shalamar Hospital, Lahore from 25th February, 2020 to 25th October, 2020. Sampling technique used was probability consecutive sampling. In this study female cases with age 18-40 years with Fitzpatrick type III-IV were enrolled having facial hirsutism for > 6 months and were randomly allocated in two groups A and B. In group A, cases were provided with eflornithine cream to apply on face after cleaning and drying in the form of a thin film only on the treatment area every night. Results: A total 162 cases (81 in each group) were enrolled in this study. Mean age of the subjects in group B and A was 30.23±5.43 vs 30.94±4.88 years. Efficacy was observed in 64(79.01%) cases in group B managed with ND-Yag laser alone and 78(96.30%) cases in group A managed with ND-Yag laser along with Eflornithine with p=0.001. For age group 30-40 years efficacy in group B was 41(80.39%) cases and in all the 49(100%) cases in group A with p= 0.001.In cases with BMI up to 25 kg/m2 efficacy in group B and A was observed in 44(88%) vs 49(100%) cases (p=0.03) and those with BMI more than this, this efficacy was found in 20(64.52%) and 29(90.63%) cases respectively with p=0.02. Conclusion: Efficacy in facial hirsutism is significantly better in ND-Yag laser combined with Eflornithine as compared to ND-Yag laser alone and this difference is also significantly better for combination group in terms of age group 30-40 years, BMI up to 25mg/m2 and in those with duration of complaint upto 2 years. Keywords: Hirsutism, Efficacy, Eflornithine, Nd-YAG laser

Email services use spam filtering algorithms (SFAs) to filter emails that are unwanted by the user. However, at times, the emails perceived by an SFA as unwanted may be important to the user. Such incorrect decisions can have significant implications if SFAs treat emails of user interest as spam on a large scale. This is particularly important during national elections. To study whether the SFAs of popular email services have any biases in treating the campaign emails, we conducted a large-scale study of the campaign emails of the US elections 2020 by subscribing to a large number of Presidential, Senate, and House candidates using over a hundred email accounts on Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. We analyzed the biases in the SFAs towards the left and the right candidates and further studied the impact of the interactions (such as reading or marking emails as spam) of email recipients on these biases. We observed that the SFAs of different email services indeed exhibit biases towards different political affiliations. We present this and several other important observations in this paper., 10 pages, Published in WWW'22

Nurse care activity recognition is a recent but demanding study topic in human activity recognition (HAR) since it has high class imbalance and intra-class variability problem depending on both the patient and the receiver. Although traditional imbalance learning approaches are offered to address this issue, they have several limitations: 1) important information is lost while using undersampling approaches, and 2) oversampling methods shifts the class distribution, exposing the model to overfitting and over-optimism. To tackle this problem, we present a framework for a cost-sensitive hybrid optimum ensemble classifier. Our technique modified the class weights to impose higher misclassification costs on minority classes. Then we combined different weighted base classifier outputs with a stacked generalization method. This technique allowed us to leverage the skills of a varied collection of high-performing base learners while balancing each other’s limitations and strengths. By utilizing our hybrid technique, we achieved 70.8% average cross-validation balanced accuracy in classifying 28 activities conducted by nurses in real-life settings. We developed this algorithmic pipeline for “The 3rd Nurse Care Activity Recognition Challenge” at ACM UbiComp 2021.

Annotation problem in Human Activity Recognition (HAR) has always been a major concern. The main problem of human-based annotation is that it often leads to misclassification due to uneagerness, hectic working and living conditions, misleading emotional fluctuation, etc. A solution for that can be the use of a fully automated annotation system. Here, we proposed a unique method for developing a pre-trained model which will be used as the auto annotation tool, using two completely different benchmark Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in the wild data sets. Our proposed auto labeling system has been trained in varied conditions which reduce the bias from location, people, and device, and makes our system very robust. Here, we used a unique mixture of augmentation, scaling, and boosting to increase accuracy, reduce overfitting, and handle imbalanced class problems. The accuracy achieved for auto annotation in case of data set 1, data set 2, and combined data set are 92%, 87%, and 73% respectively. Also, performance evaluation has been done using precision, recall, f1 score, and ROC curve, and the results achieved are promising.

All cultivated soils are prone to rapid reconsolidation when wet, particularly structurally unstable soils. This predisposes them to waterlogging, slow and limited infiltration, rapid drying, and poor establishment, growth and production of crops. Field-scale research was undertaken to develop soil management and/or engineering practices that will maintain a stable, loose tilth with aeration, drainage and infiltration properties that prevent waterlogging, enhance infiltration and increase crop production. The effects of deep ripping plus gypsum, permanent raised beds (PRB), deep blade loosening at 250 mm depth (DBL) and no-tillage crop establishment (NT) were studied in controlled traffic regimes on rainfed and irrigated crops. The DBL treatment severs roots at about 250 mm depth and loosens without inverting the overburden. Experiments were undertaken from 1997 to 2011 on winter waterlog-prone unstable sandy loam over clay soils in Western Australia, on an unstable fine sandy clay loam in Pakistan and on a self-mulching clay in Queensland. All sites were operated on a field scale as part of the commercial operations of collaborating farmers. Root zone soil conditions were monitored with measurements (0–400 mm) of bulk density, tilth porosity, hydraulic conductivity, perched water table depth, root mass, organic carbon, total nitrogen and moisture profiles. Irrigation applications and crop yield were also recorded. Bulk density data on all experimental sites showed reconsolidation of the tilth created by deep ripping with or without gypsum in the NT treatment occurred substantially within one growing season. The reconsolidated NT treatment in Western Australia also had low hydraulic conductivity, air-filled porosity values of only two to 4% at a soil moisture potential of −250 mm (PRB height) and suffered long duration waterlogging events. The DBL-PRB treatment on these soils remained largely unconsolidated, had larger hydraulic conductivity, an air-filled porosity at −250 mm moisture potential of ≥10%, and did not suffer waterlogging. Modelling using drainage theory showed that DBL-PRB could be as wide as three metres and easily drain saturated beds within two days, thus precluding waterlogging. Root mass in the 0–400 mm in DBL-PRB treatment was, on average, seasonally 31% greater than the NT treatment. This increase in root mass is shown to have produced increases of 48% in soil organic carbon and 34% in total soil nitrogen content, and, over 19 cropping seasons with six different types of crop, the DBL-PRB treatment produced an annual average increase in grain yield of 23% over that of the NT treatment. The DBL-PRB treatment also substantially increased the amount and rate of lateral infiltration. Irrigation wetting fronts were both measured and predicted by infiltration theory to reach the centre of 2 m wide DBL-PRB in one third to one half of the time taken in NT-PRB. DBL practice has the potential to stabilise a deepened tilth in all soil types through the conservation of the structure and mass of enhanced root growth, which increases soil organic carbon, total soil nitrogen and crop productivity, as well as preventing waterlogging and improving irrigation efficiency.

A hybrid Highly elliptical orbit (HEO)-based regional navigation system is optimized by examining the impact of variation of orbital parameters on navigation performance of the system. The principle of optimization is based on the following requirements: L and S band carrier frequency (user/receiver segment) link budget, satellite accessibility and dwell time over the area of interest, geometric configuration of the system, navigation accuracy, and constellation stability. The optimization algorithm is partnered with a dynamic simulation process. The optimal parameters (semi-major axis, inclination, eccentricity, right ascension of ascending node, etc.) of the HEO-based regional navigation system have been selected based on the results of the optimization process. The proposed hybrid system with four HEO and one geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite is a cost-efficient and high-accuracy navigation solution as compared with other regional systems.

Chitosan, derived from chitin, a major constituent (in quantity) of crustaceans, is a unique aminopolysaccharide with emerging commercial potential in agriculture, food, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals due to its nontoxic, biodegradable and biocompatable properties. Chitosan coating on fruits and vegetables has been found to be effective for the reduction of a variety of harmful micro-organims and extend the shelf-life of these products. In this review, our focus is on the antimicrobial properties of chitosan and its application as a natural preservative for fresh products. We detailed the key properties that are related to food preservation, the molecular mechanism of the antimicrobial activity of chitosan on fungi, gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, coating methods for using chitosan and its formulation for preserving fruits and vegetables, as well as the radiation method of producing chitosan from chitin. Understanding the economic and scientific factors of chitosan's production and efficiency as a preservative will open its practical application for fruits and vegetable preservation.

Nurse care activity recognition is a new challenging research field in human activity recognition (HAR) because unlike other activity recognition, it has severe class imbalance problem and intra-class variability depending on both the subject and the receiver. In this paper, we applied the Random Forest-based resampling method to solve the class imbalance problem in the Heiseikai data, nurse care activity dataset. This method consists of resampling, feature selection based on Gini impurity, and model training and validation with Stratified KFold cross-validation. By implementing the Random Forest classifier, we achieved 65.9% average cross-validation accuracy in classifying 12 activities conducted by nurses in both lab and real-life settings. Our team, "Britter Baire" developed this algorithmic pipeline for "The 2nd Nurse Care Activity Recognition Challenge Using Lab and Field Data".

Objectives Recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) is a chronic disease of the respiratory tract that occurs in both children and adults. It is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), in particular low‐risk HPV6 and HPV11, and aggressiveness varies among patients. RRP remains a chronic disease that is difficult to manage. This review provides perspectives on current and future management of RRP. Results The current standard of care is surgical excision, with adjuvant therapies as needed. Surgical management of RRP has evolved with the introduction of microdebriders and photoangiolytic lasers; the latter can now be used in the office setting. Numerous adjuvant pharmacologic therapies have been utilized with some success. Also, exciting preliminary data show that HPV vaccines may prolong the time to recurrence in the RRP population. There is also optimism that wide‐spread HPV vaccination could reduce RRP incidence indirectly by preventing vertical HPV transmission to newborns. Conclusion To date, the biology of RRP is not well understood, although it has been noted to become more aggressive in the setting of immune suppression. Additional research is needed to better understand immune system dysfunction in RRP such that immunomodulatory approaches may be developed for RRP management. Level of Evidence 4

Spillage of furnace oil is a more frequent event in recent times. In this study, environmental samples from furnace oil spillage sites of the Shela River, the Sundarbans, Bangladesh, were collected after three weeks of spillage. Serial dilution was applied and total seven bacterial isolates were separated as pure cultures. The oil-degrading potentiality of all seven isolates was further assessed, confirmed and compared with the growth pattern in furnace oil supplemented media, 2, 6-dichlorophenolindophenol test, and gravimetric analysis. After 7 days of incubation, isolates SS3, RW2, and SB degraded 56%, 43%, and 52% of supplemented furnace oil, respectively. The top three hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial isolates were selected as potential and identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa (SS3), Bacillus sp. (RW2), and Serratia sp. (SB). All three isolates showed significant oil-degrading capacity compared to negative control, when incubated in sterile pond water supplemented with 2% furnace oil, suggesting them as potential bioremediation agents.

Pipelines are one of the most critical components of oil and gas (O&G) industry for the product transportation from upstream and downstream operations. Pipeline integrity is vital to maintaining production operations, protection of natural environments and human life. Integrity management programs (IMPs) are developed and implemented in the pipeline industry to ensure safe and reliable operations. IMP is comprised of management systems and technical operational procedures. Regulators monitor the effective implementation of the IMPs through a periodic auditing system. Most of the discussion on integrity management is driven by technical aspects of integrity management. However, recent global accident investigations have instigated regulators and operators to focus on the management aspect of IMP. IMP is the formal process of planning, training, documenting, record management, management review, risk assessment, and learning from incident investigations. In Canada, the pipeline operators develop and implement IMPs based on industry standard guidelines (CSA Z662, API 1160, ASME B31.8) and regulatory protocols. These industry standard guidelines are goal-based, therefore the companies and the regulators have different interpretations of IMP requirements. The difference in the interpretation makes the IMP assessment a challenging task for the regulatory bodies. Compliance is not sufficient to measure the effectiveness of an IMP. Moreover, the industry is also striving to establish a culture of safety within the organizations. The culture maturity assessment is also a challenge. In this research, a novel approach is adopted to develop a framework to address the challenges of diverse interpretations and assessment methods by; categorizing IMPs requirements, linking with safety culture attributes; using risk assessment in the auditing process, and benchmarking. The noncompliance of IMP requirements and degree of effectiveness are taken as the risk of integrity failure. This research used modified failure mode effects analysis as risk assessment to incorporate in the auditing process. The framework is implemented for regulatory audits, and results are analyzed through benchmarking. The benchmarking analyses identified the low performing IMP components and set the targets for continuous improvement cycle. This research is a paradigm shift from conventional compliance assessment to the risk assessment of IMP performance and a safety culture maturity assessment.

The development of innovative drug delivery systems, versatile to different drug characteristics with better effectiveness and safety, has always been in high demand. Chitosan, an aminopolysaccharide, derived from natural chitin biomass, has received much attention as one of the emerging pharmaceutical excipients and drug delivery entities. Chitosan and its derivatives can be used for direct compression tablets, as disintegrant for controlled release or for improving dissolution. Chitosan has been reported for use in drug delivery system to produce drugs with enhanced muco-adhesiveness, permeation, absorption and bioavailability. Due to filmogenic and ionic properties of chitosan and its derivative(s), drug release mechanism using microsphere technology in hydrogel formulation is particularly relevant to pharmaceutical product development. This review highlights the suitability and future of chitosan in drug delivery with special attention to drug loading and release from chitosan based hydrogels. Extensive studies on the favorable non-toxicity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, solubility and molecular weight variation have made this polymer an attractive candidate for developing novel drug delivery systems including various advanced therapeutic applications such as gene delivery, DNA based drugs, organ specific drug carrier, cancer drug carrier, etc.

The growing demand for rayon and cellulosic products has resulted in the conversion of a number of kraft pulp mills into dissolving pulp mills in recent years. In fact, kraft-based dissolving pulp production fits well into the concept of an integrated forest biorefinery, in particular, the utilization of dissolved organics in the pre-hydrolysis liquor (PHL) for bio-materials and bio-energy purposes. In this study, the recovery of acetic acid, the second major component in the PHL of the kraft-based hardwood dissolving pulp production process, was investigated using amine-based resin adsorption. Activated carbon (AC) adsorption was adopted as the first step to remove the lignin, and six AC samples were evaluated for this purpose. Among them, CR325 W-Ultra Powder AC showed the best result and removed about 90% of lignin with a minimal loss of hemicellulosic sugars and acetic acid from PHL at a ratio of 1:20 (AC:PHL). Subsequently, the adsorption of acetic acid from AC-treated PHL (TPHL) was studied on tertiary and quaternary amine-based resins. The tertiary amine resin demonstrated better adsorption efficiency. Desorption of the adsorbed acetic acid from the amine resin using sodium hydroxide solution was also studied, and the results showed that 66 to 84% acetic acid desorption occurred using a 4% NaOH solution.

Enteric fever is a systemic infection caused by typhoidal strains of Salmonella enterica and is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity in many parts of the world, especially in resource-limited areas. Unfortunately, currently available diagnostic tests for enteric fever lack sensitivity and/or specificity. No true clinically practical gold standard for diagnosing patients with enteric fever exists. Unfortunately, microbiologic culturing of blood is only 30 to 70% sensitive although 100% specific. Here, we report the development of a lateral-flow immunochromatographic dipstick assay based on the detection of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi ( S . Typhi) lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-specific IgG in lymphocyte culture secretion. We tested the assay using samples from 142 clinically suspected enteric fever patients, 28 healthy individuals residing in a zone where enteric fever is endemic, and 35 patients with other febrile illnesses. In our analysis, the dipstick detected all blood culture-confirmed S . Typhi cases (48/48) and 5 of 6 Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi A blood cultured-confirmed cases. The test was negative in all 35 individuals febrile with other illnesses and all 28 healthy controls from the zone of endemicity. The test was positive in 19 of 88 individuals with suspected enteric fever but with negative blood cultures. Thus, the dipstick had a sensitivity of 98% compared to blood culture results and a specificity that ranged from 78 to 100% (95% confidence interval [CI], 70 to 100%), depending on the definition of a true negative. These results suggest that this dipstick assay can be very useful for the detection of enteric fever patients especially in regions of endemicity.

The Lys80, Gly82 and Met101 residues of glutamate dehydrogenase from Bacillus subtilis were mutated into a series of single mutants. The wild-type enzyme was highly specific for 2-oxoglutarate, whereas G82K and M101S dramatically switched to increased specificity for oxaloacetate with k cat values 3.45 and 5.68 s−1, which were 265-fold and 473-fold higher respectively than those for 2-oxoglutarate.

The rocG gene encoding glutamate dehydrogenase from Bacillus subtilis (Bs-GluDH) was cloned, and expressed at considerable magnitude in Escherichia coli. The recombinant Bs-GluDH was purified to homogeneity and has been determined to have a hexameric structure (M(r) 270 kDa) with strict specificity for 2-oxoglutarate and L-glutamate, requiring NADH and NAD+ as cofactors respectively. The enzyme showed low thermostability with T(m) = 41 degrees C due to dissociation of the hexamer. To improve the thermostability of this enzyme, we performed error-prone PCR, introducing random mutagenesis on cloned GluDH. Two single mutant enzymes, Q144R and E27F, were isolated from the final mutant library. Their T(m) values were 61 degrees C and 49 degrees C respectively. Furthermore, Q144R had a remarkably high k(cat) value (435 s(-1)) for amination reaction at 37 degrees C, 1.3 times higher than that of the wild-type. Thus, Q144R can be used as a template gene to modify the substrate specificity of Bs-GluDH for industrial use.