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Mountainous ecosystems are experiencing rapid shifts in distribution patterns and community structure due to the impacts of climate change and vegetation dynamics. This study offers a comprehensive insight into the adaptive mechanisms of Panicum antidotale to varying elevations within the Pothohar Plateau, shedding light on its survival strategies in climate-affected regions. The findings reveal that populations at lower elevations exhibit maximum height, leaf area, shoot length, and fresh weight, whereas those at higher elevations display significant decrease in these parameters. Moreover, a significant decline in species density, frequency and cover is evident at high elevation. High-elevation populations demonstrate decreased photosynthetic traits, including chlorophyll, carotenoid, and Na and Ca content. Furthermore, there are notable variations in the antioxidant enzyme activity across elevation gradients. Populations at lower elevations exhibit higher activities of superoxide dismutase and peroxidase. Across the gradient, there were significant reductions in root and stem radius, sclerenchyma thickness, bulliform cell size, metaxylem vessels, and phloem area. Populations at moderate elevations displayed thicker lamina and epidermis, larger cortical cells, wider xylem vessels, and increased phloem area; however, these traits declined at higher elevations. High-elevation populations showed thicker lamina and epidermis, extensive sclerenchyma, greater cortical cell area, and higher stomatal density. Photosynthetic traits and enzymatic activity were major contributors at moderate elevations while stem and leaf traits were significantly changed at high elevations. Overall, this research contributes significantly to the broader knowledge of plant adaptation in mountainous ecosystems and stresses the importance of considering elevation as a critical factor in ecological studies.

This research pursued the effect of various calcination temperatures (300–1000 °C) on developing structural phases and the optical, dielectric, and photodegradation characteristics of cobalt-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs). The prepared NPs were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis, ultraviolet–visible light (UV–VIS) spectroscopy, and photodegradation of methylene blue in the presence of visible light. XRD analysis revealed the formation of a tetragonal anatase phase for the samples calcined at 300–600 °C, while the Co-doped samples calcined at 800 °C and 1000 °C displayed a tetragonal rutile phase. The optical band gap analysis indicated that doping in the host matrix produced lower band gap energy for all the prepared samples. Dielectric measurements showed that the rutile phase heated at 800 °C had a larger dielectric constant and dielectric loss than the un-doped TiO2 and the other cobalt-doped samples. Finally, the anatase Co-doped TiO2 exhibited a maximum MB degradation of 93 % in 90 min compared to un-doped TiO2, which only degraded 14 % and rutile-TiO2 NPs (62 % degradation). The underlying mechanism responsible for the diverse photodegradation performance displayed by the anatase and rutile phases of TiO2 NPs is discussed. Overall, these results demonstrate that cobalt doping and the crystalline phase of TiO2 NPs are vital parameters involved in optimizing the photocatalytic activity of TiO2.

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of science that has significant applications in applied sciences. In this study, silver nanoparticles (SNPs) were synthesized utilizing the leaf filtrate of Rubus ellipticus. SNPs were characterized using UV–visible spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction patterns to determine their morphology and chemical composition. The surface plasmon resonance of SNPs revealed a peak at 415 nm. The synthesized SNPs were mainly spherical crystals with an average size of 21.43 nm. When compared to plant extract and positive controls (AgNO3 and penicillin), SNPs demonstrated significant bactericidal activity against all the tested bacteria (gram-positive and gram-negative). The most effective bactericidal activity was found against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, with a minimum inhibitory concentration of 1.25 µg/mL. In addition, a dose-dependent antioxidant activity of SNPs was found against the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical with an average IC50 value of 72.84 µg/mL. The photocatalytic activity of Methylene blue (MB) dye decomposition under sunlight was studied. The results showed that MB degraded by 98 % after 150 min in the sun. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that R. ellipticus biosynthesized SNPs may have bactericidal and photocatalytic effects.

Objective: Protected areas are of immense importance to enhance the functional role of plants due to abundance of woody species, their carbon sequestration ability and the rich organic matter and hence it needs to be documented and quantified scientifically with special focus on its carbon sink potential. Mathods: In this study, the Carbon sequestration, diversity and abundance of woody plants were evaluated in the Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP), Pakistan using quantitative and functional ecological approaches. We randomly sampled 40 (20 m × 20 m) plots from March, 2020 to March, 2021. PC-ORD version-5 and CANOCO software were used to evaluate relationships of different environmental factors with species composition, distribution pattern and other quantitative traits of forests. R program was used for regression and correlation analyses to model Carbon sequestration capacity of MHNP. Results: A total of 4916 individuals belonging to 49 species and 28 families were reported. The higher carbon sequestration was found in Albizia lebbeck 2620.75 lbs per year followed by Pinus roxburghii 2214.48 lbs and Castanea sativa 1731.59 lbs while the lower rate of carbon dioxide sequestration per year were found in Myrsine africana 1.81 (lbs) followed by Nerium oleander 2.84 (lbs) and Jasminum officinale 3.92 (lbs). The Two-way Cluster Analysis shows the distribution of species in the study area. The CCA analysis show that pH, EC, and TDS play a significant role in the distribution of woody plant vegetation. Carbon sequestration mainly depends on plant DBH, followed by plant crown. Conclusion: The results prove that the DBH has a leading role in the carbon sequestration rather than height of the woody species. The present study indicates the MHNP is a rich source of woody plant vegetation because of its conserve nature and plays a significant role in ecosystem stability and air quality, therefore, more studies are required to study other aspects of the woody plant vegetation in the MHNP.

Background: Bethesda category III and IV thyroid nodules fall in the indeterminate risk of malignancy category. These nodules have been a relatively elusive entity to manage as previous studies have shown a wide variation in malignancy rates in different regions and institutions across the world. However, data from the subcontinent with regards to this is scarce. Aim and objective: This study aimed to determine the characteristics and malignancy rates of cytology proven Bethesda Category III and IV thyroid nodules and its association with clinical, histopathological and laboratory variables, in the regional population. Method: A retrospective search was performed on all patients with thyroid nodules who presented to this hospital, from January 2011 to September 2018. Patients who had cytology proven Bethesda category III and IV thyroid nodules that underwent surgery were included in the study. Results: Malignancy in Bethesda Category III and Bethesda Category IV thyroid nodules was 29.6% and 47.1%, respectively. There was no significant association determined between malignancy rate and various clinical, histopathological, and radiological characteristics. Conclusion: The malignancy rates in Bethesda category III and IV thyroid nodules in this study are significantly higher than that initially suggested by the Bethesda consensus publication but is comparable to international data present.

Competing Interests: Funding Support and Author Disclosures The authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose.

Objective: To explore the long-term outcome of patients who underwent Oncotype DX® testing. The relationship between the RS, adjuvant treatments received, and clinical outcomes across the entire range of RS results are reported., Methods: 10-year Kaplan-Meier estimates for distant recurrence/BC-specific survival (BCSS) in this cohort. The analysis included 439 patients. The follow-up time ranged from 14 to 142 months. All analyses were performed using the SPSS v20., Results: More than half of patients had low RS (<18) (55.6%) and 15.3% had RS ≥ 31. Chemotherapy use was consistent with the RS with 4.4%, 7.1%, 28.0%, 71.4% and 91.0% receiving adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with RS < 11, 11-17, 18-25, 26-30, and ≥31, respectively. The overall chemotherapy rate was 27.6%. Distant metastasis free survival (DMFS) differed significantly (P < 0.001) between the RS groups with 10 year DMFS rates of 99% (SE +/- 0.01) in the RS<11, 97% (SE +/- 0.03) in the RS 11-17, 97% (SE +/- 0.02) in the RS 18-25, 85% (SE +/- 0.1) in the RS 26-30 and 74% (SE +/- 0.08) in the RS ≥ 31 group. Ten year breast cancer specific survival also differed significantly (P < 0.001) between the RS groups; this risk was 100% (no deaths from breast cancer reported in the first 10 years) in RS < 11, 95% (SE +/- 0.03) in RS 11-17, 94% (SE +/- 0.04) in RS 18-25, 93% (SE +/- 0.07) in RS 26-30, and 79% (SE +/- 0.07) in the RS ≥ 31 group., Conclusions: Use of Oncotype DX RS does guide the treatment decisions and correlates with the BCSS and disease-free survival for ER positive, Her2 negative, early-stage, node negative breast cancer patients., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Simon Holt reports a relationship with Exact Sciences Corporation that includes: consulting or advisory. Mr Holt is on the advisory board of Exact Sciences and the test for the initial trial, in which some of these patients were involved were provided free of charge by them. Asma Munir, Anita Marie Huws, Sohail Khan, Dr Mark Davies, Saira Khawaja, Yousef Shariaha have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Introduction: Treatment of early breast cancer in older women is usually not guideline concordant owing to lack of routine evaluation of their potential frailty. We assessed the feasibility and impact of a self-administered geriatric assessment on the decision-making process in women aged 65 and above treated in a UK District General Hospital., Methods: One hundred and one patients, aged 65 and above, with early stage, non-metastatic breast cancer were prospectively recruited between Dec-2018 and March-2021. Patients with metastatic breast cancer, a previous history of cancer and dementia were excluded. All patients had a geriatric assessment with a self-administered questionnaire (mycarg.org). All cases were discussed in the multidisciplinary meeting (MDT) and a pre geriatric assessment recommendations was made, based on the tumour grade, size, node status and receptor status. The findings of the assessment were later discussed in a second meeting and a further recommendation was made based on the geriatric assessment. Any change in the proposed treatment was recorded. Potential factors (age, Body Mass Index, co-morbidities, medications, instrumental activities of daily living, and basic activities of daily living, social support and psychological status) associated with a change in the treatment recommendation were compared using Pearson's Chi square tests for categorized data, and Mann Whitney U test for continuous data. A multivariate logistic regression was performed to test the association between geriatric assessment domains and change in treatment decision. The multivariate model was built using variables which were associated in the bivariate analysis with a p-value< 0.20., Results: Patients aged less than 70 years were more likely to be diagnosed through screening programme as compared to older women (64.4% vs. 35.6%, p = 0.001). Self-administered geriatric assessment identified patients who were requiring assistance in their daily routine activities, and hence, were assessed to have higher morbidity status. A third of patients required assistance in their routine activities, with 18/101 patients requiring significant help during self-care. 90% patients were independent for Activity of Daily Living (ADL) at baseline and 34.76% for Instrumental Activity of Daily Living (IADL). Among the 101 patients evaluated, proposed change in the initial cancer treatment plan was made in 21.8% of patients after the second MDT. Omission of chemotherapy was recommended in 4 patients, omission of radiotherapy in 15 patients and omission of both chemo and radiotherapy in 2 patients. One patient was advised to omit Zolidronic acid, as she was noted to have renal impairment. No patient in this cohort had suggestion for omission of surgery or endocrine therapy. In the bivariate analysis, need for assistance for activities of daily living (ADLs), low physical performance (KPS), polypharmacy (3 or more medications), lack of social support as assessed using the Social Support: Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey and high BMI (30 or more) all showed significance but on multivariate analysis only polypharmacy was significantly associated with change in the initial cancer treatment plan., Conclusions: The results of this study of breast cancer patients aged 65 and above suggest that a self-administered geriatric assessment may influence treatment recommendations in a subset of patients. Recommendations that were influenced by the geriatric assessment mainly included those related to the significant morbidity that may have impacted the use of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Electroencephalogram (EEG) based emotion classification reflects the actual and intrinsic emotional state, resulting in more reliable, natural, and meaningful human-computer interaction with applications in entertainment consumption behavior, interactive brain-computer interface, and monitoring of psychological health of patients in the domain of e-healthcare. Challenges of EEG-based emotion recognition in real-world applications are variations among experimental settings and cognitive health conditions. Parkinson's Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, resulting in impaired recognition and expression of emotions. The deficit of emotional expression poses challenges for the healthcare services provided to PD patients. This study proposes 1D-CRNN-ELM architecture, which combines one-dimensional Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network (1D-CRNN) with an Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), robust for the emotion detection of PD patients, also available for cross dataset learning with various emotions and experimental settings. In the proposed framework, after EEG preprocessing, the trained CRNN can use as a feature extractor with ELM as the classifier, and again this trained CRNN can be used for learning of new emotions set with fine-tuning of other datasets. This paper also applied cross dataset learning of emotions by training with PD patients datasets and fine-tuning with publicly available datasets of AMIGOS and SEED-IV, and vice versa. Random splitting of train and test data with 80 - 20 ratio resulted in an accuracy of 97.75% for AMIGOS, 83.20% for PD, and 86.00% for HC with six basic emotion classes. Fine-tuning of trained architecture with four emotions of the SEED-IV dataset results in 92.5% accuracy. To validate the generalization of our results, leave one subject (patient) out cross-validation is also incorporated with mean accuracies of 95.84% for AMIGOS, 75.09% for PD, 77.85% for HC, and 84.97% for SEED-IV is achieved. Only a 1 - sec segment of EEG signal from 14 channels is enough to detect emotions with this performance. The proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art studies to classify EEG-based emotions with publicly available datasets, provide cross dataset learning, and validate the robustness of the deep learning framework for real-world application of psychological healthcare monitoring of Parkinson's disease patients., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Lung infarction after intrathoracic surgery is a life-threatening complication that needs urgent intervention. Although the exact etiology is not known, pulmonary infarction may be suspected for patients presenting with consolidation of the lung after intrathoracic surgery. We report a very rare case of pulmonary infarction after successful surgical treatment of a type B aortic dissection. The pulmonary infarction was treated by intrapericardial pneumonectomy. This article discusses possible etiology and management of such patients. A high index of clinical suspicion and timely investigations may allow early detection of this unusual event and avoid fatal outcomes., (Copyright © 2012 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)