Search

Transforming recyclable materials into a suitable product is an important area of research nowadays. This report demonstrates that carbon material derived from waste printer cartridges can be exploited to fabricate electrochemical cells—particularly supercapacitors (SCs). SCs are electrochemical energy storage devices currently attracting much attention in the research community due to their salient features, such as cost-effectiveness, extended cycle stability, and durability. Here, we report the results of thoroughly examining the effects of acidic, basic, and neutral aqueous electrolytes on printer waste carbon electrode material in SC efficiency. In our work, the waste carbon collected from used printer cartridges shows a specific capacitance of 178.4 F/g with energy and power density of 24.77 Wh/kg and 999.68 W/kg, respectively, at 0.5 A/g current density in acidic (1 M H2SO4) electrolyte medium. Moreover, it exhibited very promising capacitance of 135.04 F/g and 87.04 F/g in basic (1 M LiOH) and neutral (1 M NaCl) electrolyte medium, respectively, at 0.8 A/g current density with considerably better cycle stability. In an acidic medium, printer waste carbon drives a DC motor for 1 min with a three-cell series arrangement. The properties of that waste carbon (extracted from the cartridges) are similar to high-rate activated carbon available commercially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteoporosis and sarcopenia are major health issues which are going to have a significant impact in an aging global population. Osteoporosis, which reduces bone density and increases fracture risk, and sarcopenia, which causes muscle loss and strength loss, have a complicated risk profile with consequences that go beyond bone and muscle health. This chapter illuminates the complex link between osteoporosis and sarcopenia, including overlapping causes, clinical consequences, and new treatments. This chapter covers bone and muscle biology, age-related changes that cause osteoporosis and sarcopenia, and the importance of physical exercise and diet in their prevention and management. It also discusses clinical evaluation methods, risk assessment and diagnostic criteria for early diagnosis and intervention. Novel therapies and continuing research in the management of osteoporosis and sarcopenia are also discussed. Medications, exercise, and nutrition can promote bone and muscle health. This chapter aims to explore the recent concepts by elucidating the complex relationship between osteoporosis and sarcopenia and advocating for integrated care paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the software industry, 85% of development tasks involve maintenance. A developer's typical job involves more code reading and less code writing. Since code reading is an integral part of comprehension, efficient code reading emphasizes a better understanding of code execution. The more efficiently a code is read, the more it reduces maintenance time. Thus, the developer's reading pattern can help to estimate how efficiently a developer can read and comprehend code that can improve software productivity. Quantifying the comprehension effort spent while reading a code can help to explore the developer's efficiency. The primary goal of this study is to quantify the comprehension effort using code reading patterns. An eye-tracking sensor tracks the developer's eye movements while reading the code. The backward gaze transitions and internal navigation are identified from the reading pattern of the code and used to compute program comprehension effort. An experiment was to collect the data where 41 subjects were asked to read five short C programs. The findings of the study infer a significant correlation between comprehension effort and fixation points. This study explores the involvement of non-experts in higher comprehension efforts than expert ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CompreHensive Digital ArchiVe of Cancer Imaging - Radiation Oncology (CHAVI-RO) is a multi-tier WEB-based medical image databank. It supports archiving de-identified radiological and clinical datasets in a relational database. A semantic relational database model is designed to accommodate imaging and treatment data of cancer patients. It aims to provide key datasets to investigate and model the use of radiological imaging data in response to radiation. This domain of research area addresses the modeling and analysis of complete treatment data of oncology patient. A DICOM viewer is integrated for reviewing the uploaded de-identified DICOM dataset. In a prototype system we carried out a pilot study with cancer data of four diseased sites, namely breast, head and neck, brain, and lung cancers. The representative dataset is used to estimate the data size of the patient. A role-based access control module is integrated with the image databank to restrict the user access limit. We also perform different types of load tests to analyze and quantify the performance of the CHAVI databank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we have fabricated and tested the resistive switching behavior of non-volatile nature in a number of devices with mainly two architectures: (1) W tip/CuxO/Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si and (2) Cu contact pad/CuxO/Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si. The device type (1) showed coexistence of two bipolar resistive switching modes, commonly known as eight-wise (8w) and counter-eight-wise (c8w), in their current–voltage (I-V) characteristics. We report considerably high ON/OFF ratio of 105 and stable retention time 15 × 103 s. The formation and annihilation of metallic Cu nanofilaments were argued as the plausible reason behind the observed resistive switching events. The onset of quantized conductance steps in the typical conductance plots (in units of quanta of conductance 2e2/h, where e and h are electronic charge and Planck's constant, respectively) – a phenomenon usually observed in narrow conductive channel – was exploited to provide an "indirect" proof for formation of metallic Cu-based filaments or channels during switching. On the contrary, in device type (2), we observed only "regular" bipolar switching. The operating voltage was less than 1 V in both the devices – suggesting its potential low-power applications. We assessed the underlying conduction mechanism in depth and also theoretically estimated the lateral size of the tiny conductive nanofilaments formed during the switching events. Copper being a cost-effective and widely available substance, our results indicate that CuxO-based cells can be a feasible and useful route for non-volatile resistive memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the COVID-19 infection continues to ravage the world, the advent of an efficient as well as the economization of the existing RT-PCR based detection assay essentially can become a blessing in these testing times and significantly help in the management of the pandemic. This study demonstrated an innovative and rapid corroboration of COVID-19 test based on innovative multiplex PCR. An assessment of optimal PCR conditions to simultaneously amplify the SARS-CoV-2 genes E, S and RdRp has been made by fast-conventional and HRM coupled multiplex real-time PCR using the same sets of primers. All variables of practical value were studied by amplifying known target-sequences from ten-fold dilutions of archived positive samples of COVID-19 disease. The multiplexing with newly designed E, S and RdRp primers have shown an efficient amplification of the target region of SARS-CoV-2. A distinct amplification was observed in 37 min using thermal cycler while it took 96 min in HRM coupled real time detection using SYBR green over a wide range of template concentrations. Our findings revealed decent concordance with other commercially available detection kits. This fast HRM coupled multiplex real-time PCR with SYBR green approach offers rapid and sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 in a cost-effective manner apart from the added advantage of primer compatibility for use in conventional multiplex PCR. The highly reproducible novel approach can propel extended applicability for developing sustainable commercial product besides providing relief to a resource limited setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehending existing multi-threaded applications effectively is a challenge without proper assistance. Research has been proposed to mine programs to extract aspects of high-level design but not much to reverse-engineer the concurrent design from multi-threaded applications. To address the same, we develop a generic mathematical model to interpret run-time non-deterministic events and encode functional as well as thread-specific behaviour in form of quantifiable features, which can be fitted into a standard solver for automated inference of design aspects from multi-threaded applications. We build a tool Dcube based on the mathematical model and use various classifiers of a machine learning framework to infer design aspects related to concurrency and resource management. We collect a dataset of 480 projects from Github, CodeProject and Stack Overflow and 3 benchmark suites—CDAC Pthreads, Open POSIX Test Suites and PARSEC 3.0 and achieve an accuracy score of around 93.71% for all the design choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful exploration of supercapacitor (SC) material to integrate with high energy and high power density storage device still remains a daunting challenge. Conducting carbon nanostructures have been primarily used for this purpose; however, most of their surface area remains unutilized throughout the storage process. Herein, a new type of hybrid material has been reported by effectively using active sides of carbon nanostructures. Insertion of faradaic-type polyoxometalates (POMs), namely phosphotetradecavanadate (Na7[H2PV14O42, hereafter described as PV14), into the graphene oxide (GO) matrix creates a novel hybrid material for SC applications. Owing to the formation of nanohybrid, it can store charges both electrostatically and electrochemically. PV14/GO composite's electrochemical behavior in different electrolyte (acidic/neutral) solutions shows different types of characteristics. The PV14/GO composite as a working electrode exhibits a high galvanostatic capacitance of 139 F/g while maintaining at a power density of 97.94 W/kg in 0.25 M H2SO4 electrolyte. The specific energy density was also found out to be around 56.58 Wh/kg at a 5 mV/s scan rate for the same electrolyte. Furthermore, in 1 M Na2SO4 solution, PV14/GO composite demonstrates a specific capacitance of 85.4 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s. The equivalent series resistance for the device was found to be approximately 0.51 Ω with a circuit resistance of 3.881 Ω, using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The cell capacitance, employing the Nyquist plot, was calculated to be around 2.78 mF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a de-identification system which runs in a standalone mode. The system takes care of the de-identification of radiation oncology patient's clinical and annotated imaging data including RTSTRUCT, RTPLAN, and RTDOSE. The clinical data consists of diagnosis, stages, outcome, and treatment information of the patient. The imaging data could be the diagnostic, therapy planning, and verification images. Archival of the longitudinal radiation oncology verification images like cone beam CT scans along with the initial imaging and clinical data are preserved in the process. During the de-identification, the system keeps the reference of original data identity in encrypted form. These could be useful for the re-identification if necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advisor–advisee relationships in academic genealogy offer opportunities to understand the contribution of a mentor in shaping the research community. In this paper, we adapt the bibliometric g-index to study the mentorship role of a researcher. We call the new index g m -index. It has some important differences from the mentorship h-index or the h m -index. We compute the values of the h m and g m indices for researchers indexed in the Mathematics Genealogy Project and the Academic Family Tree. We observe for the majority of researchers, these index values are zero, but in non-zero cases, sometimes, the g m -index can be significantly higher than the h m -index. Moreover, the g m -index decays less rapidly to zero than the h m -index. It appears the g m -index can be used to discriminate between researchers with the same h m -index. We study how these mentorship indices are correlated with other indicators of academic success, and how they are correlated across generations of researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Male fertility in farm animals is considered as an important economic trait. The phenomenon of spermatogenesis plays a dynamic functional role in determining the viability of sperm and thereby can impact on fertility-driven complications. The process of spermatogenesis is controlled by numerous molecular factors and requires a precisely regulated pattern of gene expression. The role of small noncoding RNAs in altering gene expression has been extensively studied. However, limited information is available apropos their role in yak spermatogenesis. The present study aimed to evaluate the assessment of some significant microRNAs and their expression pattern in the body tissues and sperm of fertile and subfertile yak from Arunachal Pradesh besides identified a novel class of sperm enriched small RNA ‘mature-sperm-enriched small RNA’ (mse-tsRNA) in Yak spermatozoa. The RNA was extracted from tissue and sperm using 27 gauge needles and subsequently reverse transcribed into small RNA cDNAs. The PCR positive sperm-predominant miRNAs were validated by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) for their expression in fertile and subfertile yak. Of the 22 microRNAs, the miRNA19a, miRNA142 and miRNA143 showed higher expression in the subfertile yak, whereas expression of miRNA7d, miRNA23a and miRNA23b were found elevated in the fertile animal. The presence of these small noncoding RNAs in yak sperm and testis indicated the legitimate involvement of their role in yak bull fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital libraries containing scholarly publications are common today. They are an invaluable source of information to students, researchers, and practitioners. However, many digital libraries expose only the article metadata like title, author names, publication date, and the abstract for free; access to full-text requires access toll. Given that journal subscription charges are sometimes prohibitive, many important publications remain beyond the access of researchers, especially in developing countries. While open access publication solves this issue, the hard reality is that many research papers are not currently available for free reading or download. In this paper, we present a novel approach to alleviate this problem. We present a technique to retrieve open access surrogates of a scholarly article when the latter is unavailable freely in a digital library. Surrogates are articles semantically close to the original articles, written by the same author(s) and give valuable insights into the paper being searched for; they address the same or a very similar problem using the same or very similar techniques. Our focus on approximate matches of scholarly articles distinguishes our application from many academic search engines. We run it on a large corpus of computer science papers and compare the results with human judgment. Experimental results show that our tool can indeed identify relevant OA surrogates of access-restricted papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the 0.5Go (Go = 2e2/h) conductance plateau and the accompanying hysteresis loop in a series of asymmetrically biased InAs based quantum point contacts (QPCs) in the presence of lateral spin-orbit coupling (LSOC) is studied using a number of QPCs with varying lithographic channel width but fixed channel length. It is found that the size of the hysteresis loops is larger for QPCs of smaller aspect ratio (QPC channel width/length) and gradually disappears as their aspect ratio increases. The physical mechanisms responsible for a decrease in size of the hysteresis loops for QPCs with increasing aspect ratio are: (1) multimode transport in QPCs with larger channel width leading to spin-flip scattering events due to both remote impurities in the doping layer of the heterostructure and surface roughness and impurity (dangling bond) scattering on the sidewalls of the narrow portion of the QPC, and (2) an increase in carrier density resulting in a screening of the electron-electron interactions in the QPC channel. Both effects lead to a progressive disappearance of the net spin polarization in the QPC channel and an accompanying reduction in the size of the hysteresis loops as the lithographic width of the QPC channel increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly polymorphic BCR-ABL kinase domains have been reported to harbor more than a hundred mutations, and among these, 40–60% have been identified as influencers of imatinib mesylate (IM) resistance. The emergence of IM resistance poses a significant challenge in the management of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). M351T (rs121913457), E255K (rs387906517), and Y253H (rs121913461) are of particular clinical significance due to their association with high-level imatinib resistance. This study was conducted to investigate the potential role of three significant SNPs in CML progression due to IM resistance. During the study period from 2018 to 2022 (48 months), the blood samples from 219 Reverse transcriptase-PCR-confirmed CML patients following RNA extraction and cDNA preparation were subjected to M351T, E255K, and Y253H mutation analysis by PCR–RFLP. After agarose gel visualization, the samples were subjected to Sanger sequencing to confirm the nucleotide change at the polymorphic loci. The wild-type genotype of all three ABL1 SNPs under investigation exhibits a significant reduction in frequency among IM non-responders compared to the responder group. The CGT haplotype frequency exhibits a significant difference between IM responder (4.2%) and non-responder (11.8%) (p = 0.002 < 0.05). Further, CGC haplotype was observed solely among the imatinib non-responder patients with a frequency percentage of 3.3% (p = 0.004), whereas the said genotype was absent among the responder group. A reduced overall survival rate was observed with deviation from wild-type genotype (M351T loci (T > C) with 1.217 times, E255K (G > A) with 1.485 and Y253H (T > C) with 1.399 times increase in hazard ratio) thereby enhancing mortality risk due to disease progression. The significant increase in the frequency of M351T, E255K, and Y253H loci among the IM non-responder group indicated their probable association with the development of IM resistance among CML patients. A haplotype frequency distribution pattern analysis of ABL1 loci further identified the CGC haplotype as an independent predictor for IM resistance. As such the study highlights the importance of patient characteristics, genotype distribution, and haplotype frequency distribution in predicting the response to IM treatment and clinical outcomes of CML patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are one of the widely studied biological control agents. The present study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of two EPNs species, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Poinar) (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae) and Steinernema aciari (Qui, Yan, Zhou, Nguyen and Pang) (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae), isolated locally from soils of Majuli river island, Assam, India against two important subterrenean pests; Odontotermes obesus (Rambur) (Isoptera: Termitidae) and Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) under laboratory conditions. Results: In case of O. obesus, mortality percent was recorded by H. bacteriophora after 72 h. at 300 IJs/termite and by S. aciari at 250 and 300 IJs/termite after 96 h. The lowest LD50 and LT50 values obtained for H. bacteriophora were 13.054 IJs/termite and 26.639 h., respectively, while those of S. aciari were 42.040 IJs/termite and 31.761 h., respectively. With respect to A. ipsilon, H. bacteriophora registered a highest mortality rate at 300 IJs/larvae after 144 h. S. aciari showed 100 percent mortality at 300 IJs/larva after 168 h. The lowest values of LD50 and LT50 for H. bacteriophora were 35.711 IJs/larva and 83.050 h., respectively. The lowest values of LD50 and LT50 for S. aciari were 71.192 IJs/larvae and 97.921 h., respectively. Overall, H. bacteriophora displayed more virulence toward O. obesus and A. ipsilon than S. aciari. Conclusion: Both native EPNs were found effective against O. obesus and A. ipsilon. However, H. bacteriophora was more virulent toward O. obesus and A. ipsilon than S. aciari under the laboratory conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]