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Conjugated ladder polymers (cLPs) are polymers consisting of continuous fused aromatic rings with π conjugation along their backbone. This unique structure imparts cLPs with exceptional thermal, mechanical, and electrochemical stability, as well as notable optical and electrical properties due to their rigid, planar structures. Since the seminal work on the synthesis of high-molecular-weight, solution-processable poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthrolinedione) in 1969 by F. E. Arnold and R. L. Van Deusen, many cLPs have been developed for a variety of applications. This review focuses on both the synthesis and applications of cLPs for energy harvesting and storage devices, organic optoelectronics, and organic transistors. The former includes several facile synthetic methods, postsynthetic treatments, various characterization, and postprocessing of cLPs, focusing on film fabrication. The latter focuses on numerous applications, including organic thermoelectrics for energy harvesting, battery electrodes and organic supercapacitors for energy storage, and organic optoelectronics, including organic light-emitting diodes, organic photovoltaics, organic electrochromics, and organic photodetectors. It also covers organic transistors like organic field-effect transistors and organic electrochemical transistors. The review concludes with potential challenges and outlooks on cLPs in many organic electronics areas, offering a comprehensive perspective on their future development and potential.

Abstract The development of Type I photosensitizers (PSs) is of great importance due to the inherent hypoxic intolerance of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the hypoxic microenvironment. Compared to Type II PSs, Type I PSs are less reported due to the absence of a general molecular design strategy. Herein, we report that the combination of typical Type II PS and natural substrate carvacrol (CA) can significantly facilitate the Type I pathway to efficiently generate superoxide radical (O2 –•). Detailed mechanism study suggests that CA is activated into thymoquinone (TQ) by local singlet oxygen generated from the PS upon light irradiation. With TQ as an efficient electron transfer mediator, it promotes the conversion of O2 to O2 –• by PS via electron transfer-based Type I pathway. Notably, three classical Type II PSs are employed to demonstrate the universality of the proposed approach. The Type I PDT against S. aureus has been demonstrated under hypoxic conditions in vitro. Furthermore, this coupled photodynamic agent exhibits significant bactericidal activity with an antibacterial rate of 99.6% for the bacterial-infection female mice in the in vivo experiments. Here, we show a simple, effective, and universal method to endow traditional Type II PSs with hypoxic tolerance.

Xylanase is one of the hydrolytic enzymes with a broad industrial application in several industries. Bioethanol can be synthesised from lignocellulosic biomass by using xylanase and other hydrolytic enzymes. A filamentous fungus, which is Aspergillus niger produces xylanase under submerged fermentation when oil palm empty fruit brunches were used as carbon sources. This study aimed to optimize the operating conditions (medium pH and incubation temperature) of xylanase production process using the OFAT analysis technique. From the data obtained, the highest xylanase production was 0.508 U/mL at pH 5.0 and 0.524 U/mL at an incubation temperature of 32°C, respectively. S. cerevisiae yeast was added into the fermentation supernatant for bioethanol fermentation. The concentration of bioethanol produced by xylanase enzyme from A. niger at optimum operating condition was 15.54±0.47 g/L. This study proved that A. niger is one of the filamentous fungi which show the potential of hydrolysing lignocellulosic material to carbon sources and subsequently to bioethanol production.

Post harvest loss is one of the factors causing the reduction in the amount of food available for the future. This research is to study the change of the weight, visual, sensory and total soluble solid of the butterhead lettuce with IoT storage chamber with different treatments (i.e T1, T2, and T3). At the final day of storage period, there are no significant differences on weight loss between T2 and T3, and between T1 and T2. The visual quality of the butterhead lettuce significantly decreased during the storage period. The overall acceptability and sweetness of T1 are the highest; T3 has the better aroma and texture; the appearance was not significantly different among all the treatments. For the total soluble solid, the content for all treatments were significantly increased when the storage period progressed. T1 is the most recommended treatment as it had extended one week of storage period and able to retain better sweet taste and appearance compared to the other treatments.

Many MgO sorbents exhibit high CO2 uptake in the presence of high concentration CO2 and aided by high space velocity, which unfortunately leads to low CO2 capture efficiency from the gas stream. This study investigates the effect of Li/Na/K ratio on sorption performance in dilute CO2 streams (15% CO2) using alkali metal nitrates-promoted MgO sorbents at a low space velocity of 20 ml/g·min in fixed bed reactor. Study shows that the ratio of Li/Na/K in ternary alkali nitrate salt mixture significantly affects the induction periods for the second phase CO2 sorption, which is a key contributor to high CO2 uptake. High LiNO3 content in ternary mixture leads to long induction period, and therefore lower CO2 capacity during the 4 h period. Conversely, high ratios of NaNO3 and KNO3 leads to shorter induction periods. Among the samples, MgO with 9 mol% (Li0.18Na0.52K0.3) exhibits the highest CO2 sorption capacity of 5.56 mmol/g at 240°C in 4 h (20.6% CO2 capture efficiency) and 3.18 mmol/g after 5 cycles (10.8% CO2 capture efficiency). Comparative studies show that optimal temperatures for CO2 sorption are higher when using pure CO2 (280 to 320°C) than when using 15% CO2 (240°C) due to the thermodynamic equilibrium. CO2-TPD results indicate that CO2 desorption proceeds in two phases similar to CO2 sorption, and the presence of alkali salt in MgO also promotes the decomposition of bulk carbonate to CO2. It is shown that molten salt migration and agglomeration of MgO particles are likely the factors that lead to decline in CO2 uptake over the sorption-desorption cycles.

The development of cost‐effective and stable electrocatalysts that can replace the prevailing Pt‐based and Ir‐based catalysts for water splitting remains a formidable challenge. The electrocatalytic performance of a catalyst depends on its chemical composition and environment during catalysis. Herein, a Ru–Mo composite is used as an example to highlight the significance of tailoring the chemical environments of the active‐sites. This customization enhances the cathodic and anodic reactions involved in water splitting, ultimately leading to an improved full reaction efficiency. Specifically, the chemically reduced state of Ru–Mo demonstrates promising hydrogen evolution activity and exhibits low overpotentials of 48 and 34 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 in acidic and alkaline electrolytes, respectively. The chemically oxidized state of Ru–Mo, derived from the same precursor, demonstrates proficient oxygen evolution activity and exhibits low overpotentials of 260 and 270 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in acidic and alkaline electrolytes, respectively. Additionally, in both cases, the Ru–Mo composites exhibit significantly improved stability under typical water‐splitting conditions. Despite the close chemical compositions of these two catalysts, they show poor performance in the counter electrode reactions, demonstrating the importance of establishing a suitable chemical environment for efficient electrocatalysis.

Based on his academic background in multicultural music education and ethnomusicology, Huib Schippers developed the Seven-Continuum Transmission Model (SCTM) in 2004 to describe the teaching situations of world music. The current study adopted the SCTM as a framework to investigate Chinese music teachers’ perceptions of context issues (tradition, authenticity, and context) and transmission modes (analytic/holistic, notation based/aural, and tangible/intangible) in world music teaching. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted using a qualitative methodology with nine primary and secondary school music teachers from different provinces in China. This study found that Chinese music teachers’ perceptions of context issues and transmission modes in world music teaching were more inclined to the formal, institutional settings rather than the informal, often community-based process. In addition, the music teachers were also influenced more by the “Eurocentrism” values; however, their perceptions were less affected by ethnomusicology that interprets human music from a cultural perspective and by multicultural music education.

Abstract The Cu-BTC (Copper-1,3,5-benzene tricarboxylate) is one of the representative metal organic frameworks (MOFs) that has shown outstanding performance for carbon dioxide (CO2) adsorption. However, its conventional synthesis duration is relatively long, and the process requires the addition of bulk amounts of organic solvents. Herein, an enhanced solvent-free synthesis strategy was demonstrated in this work for the Cu-BTC synthesis. For this enhanced method, Cu-BTC was synthesized in 3 hours by mechanically grinding the mixture of copper (Cu) metal precursor and BTC organic linker without using solvent. The as-synthesized Cu-BTC samples were analyzed using various characterization techniques to examine and confirm their properties. The thermal stability result revealed that the self-synthesized Cu-BTC could sustain high temperature up to 290°C. Among the samples synthesized at different mole ratios, the Cu-BTC sample with the Cu to BTC mole ratio of 1.5:1 showed the highest BET surface area and the most significant pore volume of 1044 m2 g−1 and 0.62 cm3 g−1, respectively. Its CO2 adsorption capacity was comparable with those fabricated using the solvent-based method, i.e., 1.7 mmol g−1 at 30°C and 1 bar. The results also showed that the synthesized Cu-BTC exhibited regenerative ability up to five adsorption-desorption cycles.

Abstract A quantum implementation of the Stochastic Series Expansion (SSE) Monte Carlo method is proposed, and is shown to offer significant advantages over classical implementations of SSE. In particular, for problems where classical SSE encounters the sign problem, the cost of implementing a Monte Carlo iteration scales only linearly with system size in quantum SSE, while it may scale exponentially with system size in classical SSE. In cases where classical SSE can be efficiently implemented, quantum SSE still offers an advantage by allowing for more general observables to be measured.

Objectives: Over the past 2 years, many infection prevention and control (IPC) resources have been diverted to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Its impact on the incidence of antimicrobial-resistant organisms has not been adequately studied. We investigated the impact of the pandemic on the incidence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) in Singapore. Methods: We extracted data on unique CRE isolates (clinical and/or surveillance cultures) and patient days for 6 public hospitals in Singapore from the carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CaPES) study group database, and we calculated the monthly incidence of CRE (per 10,000 patient days). Interrupted time-series (ITS) analysis was conducted with the pre–COVID-19 period defined as before February 2020, and the COVID-19 period defined as after February 2020. Statistical analyses were performed using Stata version 15 software. Results: From January 2017 to March 2021, 6,770 CRE isolates and 9,126,704 patient days were documented. The trend in CRE monthly incidence increased significantly during the pre–COVID-19 period (0.060; 95% CI, 0.033–0.094; P < .001) but decreased during the COVID-19 period (−0.183; 95% CI, −0.390 to 0.023; P = .080) without stepwise change in the incidence (−1.496; 95% CI, −3.477 to 0.485; P = .135). The trend in monthly incidence rate of CRE clinical cultures increased significantly during the pre–COVID-19 period (0.046; 95% CI, 0.028–0.064; P < .001) and decreased significantly during COVID-19 period (−0.148; 95% CI, −0.249 to −0.048; P = .048) with no stepwise change in the incidence (−0.063; 95% CI, −0.803 to 0.677; P = .864). The trend in monthly incidence rate of CRE surveillance cultures decreased during the pre–COVID-19 period (−0.020; 95% CI, −0.062 to 0.022; P = .341) and the COVID-19 period (−0.067; 95% CI, −0.291to 0.158; P = .552) without stepwise change in the incidence (−1.327; 95% CI, −3.535 to 0.881; P = .233). Conclusions: The rate of CRE in clinical cultures decreased during COVID-19 but not the rate in surveillance cultures. Further studies are warranted to study the impact of COVID-19 on CREs.

The literature on methaemoglobinaemia in pregnancy is scarce, imposing clinical challenges to both obstetricians and haematologists. We report a total of nine pregnancies with methaemoglobinaemia treated in our centre. Their methaemoglobin levels, mode of delivery, pregnancy management and outcome were summarized.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of after sales service (ASS), brand equity (BE), environmental awareness (EA), and product pricing (PP) towards consumer purchase intention (CPI) of green home appliance. Data were collected from 150 Penang, Malaysia citizen who were age from 18 to 60 via convenient sampling method analysed using partial least square structure equation modelling (SmartPLS). Results indicated that BE, EA, and PP has significant effect on CPI of green home appliance brand. However, ASS do not have significant effect on CPI on green home appliance brand. This research helps home appliance manufacturer to better design marketing promotions, considering the consumers focus on BE, EA, and pricing. In addition, this study provides consumer insight for the government agency to construct better policy in order to increase the green home appliance penetration rate among citizens.

Background: Ritualistic burns have been reported sporadically in the literature. With the globalization of religion, it is inevitable to encounter unusual ritualistic burns unfamiliar to the local community. We present an unusual case of cubital fossa burn by joss sticks. Case presentation: A 56-year-old Chinese lady was admitted to our burns department for 4 × 2 cm full thickness burns over bilateral cubital fossae, which were insensate and had surrounding cellulitis without pus discharge. Examination showed previously healed similar burn marks which were made in the past 3 years on 3 separate occasions. Further probing revealed voluntary participation in a ritualistic burn with joss sticks 8 days ago in London coinciding with the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. This religious tour has been held annually in various countries. The ritualistic burn was performed on other believers aged from 3 to 80 years old without the influence of drugs, alcohol or coercion. Her previous joss stick burns healed uneventfully within 1 month. Due to the longer duration of exposure and depth of burn this time, she experienced blistering immediately which became necrotic and insensate in 2 days. This was followed by erythema and pain indicative of surrounding cellulitis before she sought treatment. She underwent burn wound excision to underlying fat and fascia the following day, followed by split-thickness-skin-graft 4 days later. Conclusions: Joss sticks have been lighted for centuries in Asia as part of an ancient tradition of offering smoke to deities. In the Buddhist community, ritualistic burning with joss sticks represents a symbolic rite of passage for monks, or as a reminder not to sin by believers. Joss stick burns have the potential to cause deep penetrating burns, leading to infection, scarring and contracture. In this cosmopolitan society, we must recognize unusual burn wounds and initiate treatment early to decrease morbidity. Keywords: Burns, Joss stick, Incense, Ritual

Abstract Essential oil of Homalomena pineodora inhibits diabetic pathogens; however, the activity was not sustainable when applied as wound dressing. This study aims to synthesise the essential oil nanoparticle using chitosan. The nanoparticles were synthesised with ion gelation method, confirmed by spectroscopic analysis. The spherical nanoparticles display a size of 70 nm, with strong surface charge of +24.10 mV. The nanoparticles showed an initial burst release followed by a slow release pattern for 72 h, following the first order of kinetic. The release behaviour was ideal for wound dressing. The antimicrobial activity was broad spectrum. The formation of nanoparticle enhanced the antimicrobial efficacy of the essential oil. The nanoparticle also showed a concentration-dependent killing behaviour on time–kill assay. In the 3D collagen wound models, the nanoparticles reduced the microbial growth by 60–80%. In conclusion, H. pineodora nanoparticles showed pharmaceutical potential in inhibiting microbial growth on diabetic ulcers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge burden on the healthcare industry worldwide. Pressures to increase the isolation healthcare facility to cope with the growing number of patients led to an exploration of the use of wearables for vital signs monitoring among stable COVID-19 patients. Vital signs wearables were chosen for use in our facility with the purpose of reducing patient contact and preserving personal protective equipment. The process of deciding on the wearable solution as well as the implementation of the solution brought much insight to the team. This paper presents an overview of factors to consider in implementing a vital signs wearable solution. This includes considerations before deciding on whether or not to use a wearable device, followed by key criteria of the solution to assess. With the use of wearables rising in popularity, this serves as a guide for others who may want to implement it in their institutions.

The effects of the initial pulse of tert-butyl iodide as a surfactant in atomic layer deposition of HfO2 using cyclopentadienyl tris(dimethylamino) hafnium, CpHf(NMe2)3, and ozone, O3, are investigated at 320, 300, and 250 °C. The formation of 2-methylpropene and hydrogen iodide from tert-butyl iodide via elimination reactions is the key idea of our effective approach for improving film conformality, film quality, and leakage current simultaneously. Our predicted growth mechanisms, supported by experimental results, suggest that different blocking probabilities by 2-methylpropene and hydrogen iodide on the top and bottom sides of the trench feature with an aspect ratio of 22.6:1 lead to 10% improvement in film conformality. In addition, ligand exchanges between the Hf precursor and hydrogen iodide lead to effective removal of large portions of carbon-containing ligands, resulting in a significant reduction in carbon residues, 76% at 320 °C and 40% at 250 °C, as evidenced by secondary ion mass spectrometry results. An increase in film density is also observed partly due to better completion of surface reactions between –I of Hf–I and O3. In terms of electrical properties, a significant improvement of 95% in leakage current is achieved due to the improvement in the film quality when tert-butyl iodide is employed. The deposited HfO2 film has superior leakage properties of 5.18 × 10−8 A/cm2 at 3 MV/cm, which is below the dynamic random access memory leakage current limit.

The COVID-19 pandemic requires mass screening to identify those infected for isolation and quarantine. Individually screening large populations for the novel pathogen, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is costly and requires a lot of resources. Sample pooling methods improve the efficiency of mass screening and consume less reagents by increasing the capacity of testing and reducing the number of experiments performed, and are therefore especially suitable for under-developed countries with limited resources. Here, we propose a simple, reliable pooling strategy for COVID-19 testing using clinical nasopharyngeal (NP) and/or oropharyngeal (OP) swabs. The strategy includes the pooling of 10 NP/OP swabs for extraction and subsequent testing via quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and may also be applied to the screening of other pathogens.

A novel atomic layer deposition (ALD) that utilizes tertiary alkyl (tert-alkyl) halides as both growth activator and inhibitor is introduced and demonstrated for the deposition of a low resistive TiN film using TiCl4 and NH3. Among the alkyl halides, tert-butyl iodide is identified as a suitable material for both growth inhibition and growth activation without any incorporation of C impurity in the film. The electrical resistivity values of TiN thin films in activator-type and inhibitor-type ALD were significantly improved by 55% and 49%, respectively. The mechanism of the reduction in electrical resistivity is elucidated by means of theoretical approach and characterizations of TiN films. For activator-type ALD, tert-butyl iodide induces in situ ligand exchange with an adsorbed Ti precursor to form Ti–I bonds, leading to an increase in the reactivity with a NH3 reactant. For inhibitor-type ALD, the improvement of film conformality in a high aspect ratio (>22:1) substrate is exhibited. This study demonstrates that the effectiveness on the use of tert-alkyl halides in ALD deposition can serve as an important guideline for future studies of the growth activator and growth inhibitor to improve film properties, making the method widely applicable.

Nafion, a perfluorosulfonic acid proton exchange membrane (PEM), has been widely used in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) to serve as a proton carrier, methanol barrier, and separator for the anode and cathode. A significant drawback of Nafion in DMFC applications is the high anode-to-cathode methanol fuel permeability that results in over 40% fuel waste. Therefore, the development of a new membrane with lower permeability while retaining the high proton conductivity and other inherent properties of Nafion is greatly desired. In light of these considerations, this paper discusses the research findings on developing Nafion-based membranes for DMFC. Several aspects of the DMFC membrane are also presented, including functional requirements, transport mechanisms, and preparation strategies. More importantly, the effect of the various modification approaches on the performance of the Nafion membrane is highlighted. These include the incorporation of inorganic fillers, carbon nanomaterials, ionic liquids, polymers, or other techniques. The feasibility of these membranes for DMFC applications is discussed critically in terms of transport phenomena-related characteristics such as proton conductivity and methanol permeability. Moreover, the current challenges and future prospects of Nafion-based membranes for DMFC are presented. This paper will serve as a resource for the DMFC research community, with the goal of improving the cost-effectiveness and performance of DMFC membranes.

Abstract Background Inhalational injury is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in burns patients. This study aims to analyse the clinical outcomes, complications and bacteriology of inhalational burn patients. Methods A prospective study was done on consecutive admissions to Burn Department, Singapore General Hospital over 15 months from January 2015 to March 2016. Presence of inhalational injury, demographics, complications and outcomes was recorded. Diagnosis of inhalational injury was based on history, symptoms and nasoendoscopy. Diagnosis of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), acute kidney injury (AKI) and infective complications were according to the Berlin criteria, acute kidney injury network (AKIN) classification stage 2 and above and the American Burns Association guidelines. Results Thirty-five patients (17.3%) had inhalational burns out of 202 patients (63.4% male, 57.4% Chinese population). The average age was 43 ± 16.7 years (range 16–86), and percentage of total body surface area (%TBSA) was 12.1 ± 18.0 (range 0–88). In patients with inhalational injury, age was 38.9 ± 17.2 years and %TBSA was 30.3 ± 32.3. In patients without inhalational injury, age was 44.1 ± 12.8 years and %TBSA was 8.3 ± 9.59. Compared to patients with cutaneous injury alone, patients with inhalational burns had more surgeries (3 ± 7.07 vs 1 ± 1.54, p = 0.003), increased length of stay (21 days vs 8 days, p = 0.004) and higher in-hospital mortality rate (17.1% vs 0.6%, p

The discovery of Antarctic hole in early 1980, causes a rise of global interest towards the amount of solar ultraviolet radiation (UV) falling onto the surface of the Earth. The danger that UV radiation brings to the Earth ecosystem makes any information related to UV radiation becomes valuable. Almost all the irradiative energy entering the Earth’s atmosphere comes from the sun. The incoming solar radiation covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum from gamma and X-rays, through UV, visible, and infrared radiation to microwaves and radiowaves. For this study, the data are obtained from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) that onboard AURA satellite. Moreover, the study also focused on analyzing and mapping the distribution trend of UV erythemal daily dose rate over Peninsular Malaysia in 2015. The maximum UV erythemal daily dose appeared in April with its value of 7711.43 J/m2 while the minimum daily dose was in December recorded at 5518.13 J/m2. Consequently, April and December also charted to be having the maximum and minimum monthly mean erythemal dose. The study found that there is a strong correlation between spatial and temporal variation of UV erythemal daily dose with monsoon seasons and solar inclination angle in Peninsular Malaysia. Keywords: Ultraviolet, Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), Erythemal, Peninsular Malaysia

Background: The human organic cation transporter-1 (OCT-1) is the primary active protein for imatinib uptake into target BCR-ABL-positive cells. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are frequently used by chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients on imatinib to manage musculoskeletal complaints.Methods: Here we investigated the impact of NSAIDs on functional activity of the OCT-1 (OCT-1 activity; OA) in CML cells.Results: Although ten of twelve NSAIDs tested had no significant impact on OA (P>0.05), we observed increased OA (27% increase in K562; 22% increase in KU812 cells, P<0.05) and reduced IC50(imatinib) when treated with diclofenac. Co-incubation with imatinib and diclofenac resulted in a significantly lower viable cell number compared with imatinib alone. In contrast, ibuprofen led to a significant decrease in OA, an increase in IC50(imatinib) and thus reduced the cytotoxicity of imatinib. In primary CML samples, diclofenac significantly increased OA, particularly in patients with low OA (<4 ng per 200 000 cells), and significantly decreased IC50(imatinib). Ibuprofen induced significant decreases in OA in CML samples and healthy donors.Conclusion: On the basis of the expected impact of these two drugs on OA, ibuprofen should be avoided in combination with imatinib. Further studies are warranted regarding the potential benefit of diclofenac to improve OA in a clinical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Full breastfeeding is the ultimate aim for preterm infants to ensure they receive the full benefits of human milk however, preterm infants face a number of challenges associated with their immaturity and associated morbidities. In order to facilitate oral feeding, it is essential to have a sound knowledge of the sucking dynamics of the breastfed infant. The aim of this study was to measure and describe the sucking dynamics of the preterm breastfeeding infant. Methods A prospective cross sectional observational study was carried out at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Perth. 38 mothers and their preterm infants (birth gestation age: 23.6–33.3 weeks; corrected gestation age 32.7 to 39.9 weeks) were recruited. Intra-oral vacuum levels, tongue movement and milk intake for a single breastfeed was measured. Statistical analysis employed linear regression and linear mixed effects models. Results Synchronised ultrasound and intra-oral vacuum measurements show that the preterm infant generates vacuum by lowering their tongue in a parallel fashion, without distortion of the nipple/nipple shield. Baseline (B), mean (M) and (P) peak suck burst vacuums weakened over the course of a feed (B: p = 0.015; M: p = 0.018; P: p = 0.044) and mean and peak vacuums were weaker if the mother fed with a nipple shield (M: p = 0.012; P: p = 0.021). Infant milk intakes were higher when infants sucked for longer (p = 0.002), sucked for a greater proportion of the feed (p = 0.002), or had a greater sucking efficiency (p

Rehabilitation of degraded forest is being intensified in Borneo, effort by the INIKEA Rehabilitation Project in Luasong (Sabah) has resulted in healthy growth of native timber species to Borneo. Slow growth rate of Dipterocarps has been attributed to presence of biofoulers on its leaves and herbivory. Therefore, an investigation was conducted to document the coverage and distribution of foliicolous lichens on the leaves of five common timber species Dipterocarpus conformis, Dryobalanops lanceolate, Dryobalanops keithii, Shorea ovalis, and Shorea fallax, planted during this project in 2008. Colonization of foliicolous lichen on timber species was seen to exist in two distinct pattern; leaves of genus Shorea showed surface colonization of 28–29%, while genus Dipterocarpus and Drybalanopsis exhibited a lesser coverage of 15–18%. A total of 32 species belonging to nine families were recorded during the course of this study. Lichen diversity was higher on leaves of Dipterocarpus conformis and Shorea ovalis as compared to the other three species. In addition, nine new records of foliicolous lichens were isolated, identified and their descriptions are presented here. Keywords: INIKEA, Borneo, Dipterocarps, Biofoulers, Foliicolous lichens

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) that estimate values of widely used physical quantities such as the rank, the quantum entropies, the Bures fidelity, and the quantum Fisher information of mixed quantum states are developed. In addition, variations of these VQAs are also adapted to perform other useful functions such as quantum state learning and approximate fractional inverses. The common theme shared by the proposed algorithms is that their cost functions are all based on minimizing the quantum purity of a quantum state. Strategies to mitigate or avoid the problem of exponentially vanishing cost function gradients are also discussed.

We present a case of disseminated cryptococcosis (DC) in a 71-year-old gentleman with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on long-term corticosteroids. He initially presented with right arm cellulitis in a tertiary hospital in Singapore and was subsequently diagnosed with DC involving skin, meninges, blood, and possibly pulmonary involvement. He eventually succumbed to the disease despite prolonged antifungal therapy. Through this case, we wish to highlight an atypical clinical presentation of an uncommon infection and hope to share the importance of considering DC in the differential diagnosis of nonresolving cellulitis among immunocompromised individuals. Mortality and morbidity rates for this condition remain high despite appropriate treatment. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial for improved outcomes. More research is needed to improve the therapeutic modalities for treatment of DC and to improve the clinical outcomes for this life-threatening condition.

Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the emerging thermal driven membrane separation processes in wastewater treatment attributed to its lower energy requirement and able to couple with waste heat relative to pressure driven process. In this study, polyimide was used as the polymeric materials in hollow fiber membrane fabrication whereas 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) was use as solvent for synthesize industrial wastewater in nickel removal. The properties of the fabricated membrane were found to possesses the optimum characteristic in terms of LEP, porosity, inner diameter and morphology as reported in literature forthe application of DCMD. The permeate flux performance in the range of 67 to 79 kg/m2h with the rejectionrate of more than 98.80 % suggested that the PI membrane possesses the potential to be applied in the industrial wastewater treatment in nickel removal.

Ethanol production strategy was studied using multiple strain microbes from microwave irradiation (MI) pretreated sago waste. Sago waste (SW) was MI-pretreated for reducing sugars production using 2 heating media (water and sulfuric acid) under pretreatment conditions including MI power, pretreatment duration, and solid loading. When water was used, the pretreatment parameters were optimized using Box-Behnken Design (BBD). However, gelatinized starch and charring of SW led to an insignificant quadratic model. To mitigate the gelatinization problem while determining the best MI pretreatment conditions, water was substituted by sulfuric acid using single factor method. The highest reducing sugar yield of 261.5 mg/g SW was achieved at 7.5% solid loading, 6 min pretreatment duration, and 300 W MI power. The effectiveness of the pretreatment was ascertained by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and chemical-composition analysis. When fermenting MI-pretreated SW using ragi tapai, simultaneous saccharification of starch and ethanol production was evidenced from the sugar/ethanol profile. A resulted yield of 7.24 g ethanol/100 g SW confirmed the fermentability of MI-pretreated SW. The ethanol production was well fitted into the modified Gompertz model.

An extracellular xylanase was purified from the mesophilic fungus Penicillium rolfsii c3-2(1) IBRL. After three consecutive purification steps, the extracellular cellulase-free xylanase was successfully purified to homogeneity with a recovery yield of 24%. A single protein band of 35 kDa was detected by SDS-PAGE, which had an optimum catalytic activity at pH 5.0 and 50 °C. This purified enzyme was stable at pH 5 to 7, thermostable up to 55 °C, and retained up to 83% of its activity after 4 hours of pre-incubation. A kinetic study yielded estimated Km and Vmax values of 5.73 mg/mL and 691.6 µmol/min/mg, respectively. Thin layer chromatography experiments showed that the purified xylanase was capable of hydrolyzing xylotriose, xylotetraose, xylopentaose, and xylohexaose but not xylobiose, suggesting it is an endo-xylanase. Enzymatic hydrolysis of oil palm trunk residues by commercial enzymes supplemented with the purified xylanase showed a considerable increase in total sugar conversion compared with the commercial enzymes alone, suggesting that xylanase is a key enzyme in the hydrolysis of oil palm trunk residues.

We show that contrary to the claim in Feng and Wei (2017), the quantum Fisher information itself is not a valid measure of the coherence based on the resource theory because it can increase via an incoherent operation.

The implementation of usability in mobile augmented reality (MAR) learning applications has been utilized in a myriad of standards, methodologies, and techniques. The usage and combination of techniques within research approaches are important in determining the quality of usability data collection. The purpose of this study is to identify, study, and analyze existing usability metrics, methods, techniques, and areas in MAR learning. This study adapts systematic literature review techniques by utilizing research questions and Boolean search strings to identify prospective studies from six established databases that are related to the research context area. Seventy-two articles, consisting of 45 journals, 25 conference proceedings, and two book chapters, were selected through a systematic process. All articles underwent a rigorous selection protocol to ensure content quality according to formulated research questions. Post-synthesis and analysis, the output of this article discusses significant factors in usability-based MAR learning applications. This paper presents five identified gaps in the domain of study, modes of contributions, issues within usability metrics, technique approaches, and hybrid technique combinations. This paper concludes five recommendations based on identified gaps concealing potential of usability-based MAR learning research domains, varieties of unexplored research types, validation of emerging usability metrics, potential of performance metrics, and untapped correlational areas to be discovered.

A laminarinase (endo-β-1,3-glucanase) was purified to homogeneity from Penicillium rolfsii c3-2(1) IBRL, which was originally produced in liquid culture containing 1% xylan from birchwood, via anion-exchange chromatography, gel filtration on Sephacryl S-100, and hydrophobic interaction chromatography. A single protein band with a molecular weight of 75 kDa was detected by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, which had an optimum catalytic activity at pH 4.0 to 5.0 and 70 °C. This purified enzyme was most stable in the pH range 4 to 7, while it was thermostable up to 55 °C and retained up to 90% of its activity after 4 h pre-incubation. A substrate laminarin kinetic study yielded estimated Km and Vmax values of 0.0817 mg/mL and 372.2 µmol/min/mg, respectively. Laminari-oligosaccharide degradation, which was analyzed by thin layer chromatography, yielded the major hydrolysis products laminaribiose and glucose.

Background: Optimal hand function recovery is the key to the successful management of hand burns. It starts with a timely burns coverage in the acute setting. A new hand burns protocol has been introduced to cover hand burn wounds within 24 hours after admission. Biobrane TM and split skin graft (SSG) are the coverage methods for partial-thickness burns. A three-year prospective study is being carried out to evaluate the short- and long-term clinical and functional outcomes of the two treatment modalities. This paper reports the preliminary short-term results of the first 34 hand burns of the study. Methodology: This report includes consecutive hand burns patients admitted between September 2014 and May 2015. The recruited hand burns patients underwent clinical and functional assessments seven days after the coverage with either SSG or Biobrane TM . Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the outcomes. Results and discussion: Eleven burnt hands were treated with SSG and 23 with Biobrane TM . The clinical and functional outcomes, including range of motion, power and sensitivity, were similar in both treatment groups. Further study to recruit more patients is necessary to ascertain the significance of the above findings. More importantly, long-term functional outcomes have to be assessed to conclude the treatment efficacy of early hand burns coverage with Biobrane TM or SSG.

In this paper we consider the quantum resources required to maximize the mean values of any nontrivial quantum observable. We show that the task of maximizing the mean value of an observable is equivalent to maximizing some form of coherence, up to the application of an incoherent operation. For any nontrivial observable, there always exists a set of preferred basis states where the superposition between such states is always useful for optimizing the mean value of a quantum observable. The usefulness of such states is expressed in terms of an infinitely large family of valid coherence measures which is then shown to be efficiently computable via a semidefinite program. We also show that these coherence measures respect a hierarchy that gives the robustness of coherence and the l _1 norm of coherence additional operational significance in terms of such optimization tasks.

We propose a measure of macroscopic coherence based on the degree of disturbance caused by a coarse-grained measurement. Based on our measure, we point out that recently proposed criteria of macroscopic coherence may lead to inconsistent results when considering certain states such as a product of microscopic superpositions. An inequality relation is proved that relates the Wigner–Yanase–Dyson skew information and the measurement disturbance, providing arguments as to why our approach is able to rule out such inconsistencies. We show that our measure can also quantify the fragility of a quantum state to a certain type of decoherence. Our work provides a general framework of quantifying macroscopic coherence from an operational point of view, based on the relationship between the precision of the measurement and disturbance of the quantum state.

Background: Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) gain-of-function (GOF) disease presents with lymphoproliferation, autoimmunity, and failure to thrive. Although Janus kinase inhibitors have alleviated symptoms, their effects on disease pathogenesis remain unclear., Objective: We prospectively investigated the clinical, immunologic, and transcriptomic responses of 4 patients with STAT3 GOF under long-term ruxolitinib treatment., Methods: We conducted clinical and immunologic evaluations at baseline and after ruxolitinib treatment at 3, 8, 12, and more than 12 months. Our assessments included measurement of levels of circulating T follicular helper cells, regulatory T cells, and cytokines, as well as proliferation assays. Furthermore, we investigated the transcriptomic changes with treatment and conducted T-cell receptor sequencing., Results: Ruxolitinib achieved substantial control over the clinical manifestations. Posttreatment evaluations demonstrated a notable increase in naive CD4 + and CD8 + T-cell populations, alongside a significant reduction in effector memory T-cell levels. Additionally, there was a decrease in levels of circulating T follicular helper cells and double-negative T cells. Regulatory T-cell percentages and their canonical markers, which were already reduced before treatment, declined further with ruxolitinib. The treatment did not alter the production of IL-4, IL-17A, IL-10, and IFN-γ cytokines by the CD4 +  T cells. Importantly, ruxolitinib effectively normalized the previously dysregulated transcriptome profile in PBMCs, bringing it closer to that of healthy controls. This normalization was most striking in the downregulation of STAT3-targeted genes, interferon-related genes, myeloid cell activation, and cytotoxic effector CD8 + T-cell genes, with effects persisting for up to 12 months. Self-reactive T-cell indices based on T-cell receptor repertoire analysis revealed potential autoreactive cell clones in the patient samples., Conclusion: Ruxolitinib reversed cellular and transcriptomic signatures, enhancing our understanding of the disease's pathophysiology and highlighting essential immunologic markers for precise monitoring., Competing Interests: Disclosure statement Supported by the Marmara University Scientific Research Project Coordination Unit (grant ADT-2022-10661 [to S.B.]) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (grant 121S667 [to B.E.]). Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

IKKα is a multifunctional serine/threonine kinase that controls various biological processes, either dependent on or independent of its kinase activity. However, the importance of the kinase function of IKKα in human physiology remains unknown since no biallelic variants disrupting its kinase activity have been reported. In this study, we present a homozygous germline missense variant in the kinase domain of IKKα, which is present in three children from two Turkish families. This variant, referred to as IKKα G167R , is in the activation segment of the kinase domain and affects the conserved (DF/LG) motif responsible for coordinating magnesium atoms for ATP binding. As a result, IKKα G167R abolishes the kinase activity of IKKα, leading to impaired activation of the non-canonical NF-κB pathway. Patients carrying IKKα G167R exhibit a range of immune system abnormalities, including the absence of secondary lymphoid organs, hypogammaglobulinemia and limited diversity of T and B cell receptors with evidence of autoreactivity. Overall, our findings indicate that, unlike a nonsense IKKα variant that results in early embryonic lethality in humans, the deficiency of IKKα's kinase activity is compatible with human life. However, it significantly disrupts the homeostasis of the immune system, underscoring the essential and non-redundant kinase function of IKKα in humans., Competing Interests: Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)