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The solidification of contaminants within the soil/waste has proved to be a versatile technique to de-contaminate them and make them usable for several applications. In this method, the development of binder provisions leads to the conversion of the environmentally unstable condition of waste materials into a nearly stable material. Further, these materials pose a minimum threat that can be absorbed into the environment. Normally lime/cement and other pozzolanic materials are used as binder materials. In this work, it is proposed to use the efficiency of binding fly ash to improve the unconfined compressive strength (UCC) of soils, particularly during the curing period. This is because improvement in strength is a reflection of the improvement of bonding soil particles. Fly ash as the main source material, in addition to a minor proportion of cement and lime, is used to determine the strength. UCC test results revealed that as the percentage of fly ash increases there is an increase in compressive strength. It is also observed that with an increase in lime content and an increase in cement content, the UCC strength also increases. The strength in cement-stabilized compacted specimens is more compared to lime-stabilized mixtures. To confirm that the improvement in strength is related to the solidification of contaminated metals, particularly for soils containing copper and chromium, the stabilized mixture is tested for the leaching of these metals. Leaching tests were conducted on various stabilized mixtures at different curing periods. The leachate was examined for metal ion concentration using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The leaching behavior of heavy metals from different proportions of soil matrix revealed that with an increase in lime or cement percentage, a decrease in leachability is observed. It is found that the leaching of heavy metals from cement-stabilized soils was lower than in lime mixture combinations. However, minimum strength improves the solidification and retention of heavy metals effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational Data management is a critical task for the researchers due to mammoth data generated by sensors and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Managing this huge volume of data, cleaning this data from impurities is an inherent need. DF (Data Fusion) processes combine data from multiple sources based on their similarity for an easy management. DF processes focus on many factors like nature of data and application that uses that data. Many DFAs (Data Fusion approaches) have been proposed without detailing on the context for integrating data in fusion tasks. This work attempts to cover this gap of context's relevance by proposing a technique CDFT (Context aware Data Fusion technique). In this research work, initially data from IoT devices will be gathered and pre-processed to make it clear for the fusion processing. In this work, boundary based noise reduction algorithm is introduced for data pre-processing which attempts to label the unlabelled attributes in the data's that are gathered, so that data fusion can be done accurately. After pre-processing Context aware data fusion is performed which will combine the data's from multiple IoT devices together with the concern of context. Finally this combined data will be learnt using the convolution neural network for data fusion performance checking. The proposed CDFT is simulated on Matlab whose results prove that the proposed technique obtains optimal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses brief history of children's literature. Topics include evolution of children's literature from fables and folklores by women; book "Panchatantra" as the oldest collection of fables in Sanskrit language; and first published books were "Book of Curtesye" written by William Caxton and translation of "The Book of the Knight of the Tower."

Purpose: To evaluate the structural and functional changes of the meibomian gland and correlate with subjective and other objective dry eye parameters in Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) patients., Design: Prospective cross-sectional study., Methods: This study recruited 60 patients (120 eyes) with SJS and chronic ocular sequelae. All patients underwent evaluation with a Standard Patient Evaluation of Eye Dryness (SPEED) questionnaire, tear osmolarity, Keratograph 5M, LipiView, Schirmer's 1, corneal staining, Meibum Expression score (MES, 0-3), and Meibum Quality score (MQS, 0-3). The meibomian gland dropout area (meiboscore) was calculated for both lids and graded on a 4-point scale from 0 to 3., Results: The mean age of patients (n = 60) was 31.08 ± 12.94 years; 25 were males. The commonest cause for SJS, in 51 patients (85%), was drug reaction. The mean tear osmolarity, lipid layer thickness (LLT), Schirmer's test-1, and tear break-up time was 322.70 ± 17.82 mOsm/L, 53.07 ± 27.0 nm, 6.62 ± 5.74 mm, 3.38 ± 1.90 seconds, respectively. Out of 240 eyelids (both upper and lower), 160 (65%) eyelids revealed severe meibomian gland loss. The mean upper and lower lid gland loss was 77.36 ± 28.82% and 76.65 ± 29.33%, respectively, Seventy-four eyelids (61%) had no expressible glands. Meiboscore showed positive correlation with SPEED (P < .001), corneal staining scores (P < .001), MES (P < .001), and MQS (P < .001). The LLT negatively correlation with SPEED (P < .01), meiboscore (P < .001), MES (P < .01), and MQS (P < .001)., Conclusion: Significant alterations in anatomical and functional aspects of the meibomian gland are seen in SJS. The high meiboscore, MES, MQS, and decreased LLT contributed to the worsening dry eye state, as seen by their correlation with other dry eye parameters. This study highlights the need to evaluate meibomian gland structure and function in patients with chronic ocular sequelae of SJS., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Tuberculosis (TB) is a preventable and curable disease, but increased mortality and morbidity associated with TB is one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs known to regulate the host immune response against TB. We investigated the expression profile of candidate circulating miRNAs, which could be used as a blood biomarker for the effective diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis. A cross-sectional comparative study was conducted, including 30 children with active-TB and 30 healthy controls (HC) in a tertiary care hospital in Puducherry. We used the SYBR green-based miScript qRT-PCR assay to analyze the expression levels of miRNAs in plasma. Further, we used the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) to evaluate the diagnostic value of miRNAs. Active-TB included 25 (83.3%) pulmonary TB and 5 (16.7%) extrapulmonary TB cases. We found a significant upregulation of miR-21, miR-29a, miR-31, miR-155, and downregulation of miR-146a in children with active-TB compared to HC. The ROC analysis showed an excellent diagnostic value of miRNAs as follows: miR‑31> miR‑155> miR‑146a with AUC of (95% CI) miRNAs 0.978, 0.953, and 0.903, respectively. Altered circulating miRNA expression levels could be involved in the dysregulation of the host immune response to TB. The ROC analysis indicated that miRNAs miR-31, miR-155 and miR-146a could be effective diagnostic biomarkers for the detection of active-TB in children.

In vitro cytotoxic effects of ZnO, FeO and Cu metallic nanopowders (NPs) on Vero (African green monkey kidney cell line), PK 15 (Pig kidney cell line) and Madin Darby Bovine Kidney (MDBK) cell lines were investigated at different time intervals (24 and 48 h). MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay was used to determine the cytotoxic effects of green synthesized (plant based) nanopowders. The comparative effects of exposure period and concentration of nanopowders on cell viability were studied. Green synthesized nanopowders showed varying activity on different type of cells and the effect was generally based on the concentration and exposure time. In MDBK cells, only ZnO nanopowder (NP) showed significant effect on cell viability. The ZnO NP showed improved cell viability at lower concentration (10 μg/100 μl) in all type of cells (Vero, PK 15 and MDBK cells). In contrast, FeO NP showed better activity at the concentration of 10 μg/100 μl, 50 μg/100 μl and 40 μg/100 μl after 24 h exposure time in Vero, PK 15 and MDBK cells respectively. However better cell viability was observed in Cu NP treated Vero, PK 15 and MDBK cells at 40 μg/100 μl, 20 μg/100 μl and 10 μg/100 μl correspondingly. These studies suggested that the activity of green synthesized NPs were highly dependent on concentration, exposure time and type of cells.