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Background: Recently, a wide range variety of manifestations, including a self‑limiting to severe illness, has been increasingly reported in dengue. Few studies attract attention to severe dengue, mainly observed in secondary infection. With this background, this study aims to provide a comprehensive overview to differentiate primary from secondary dengue using serology (IgG) and the possible association of severity of illness in secondary dengue. Methods: Present retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at a North Indian tertiary care center from September 2021 to January 2022. Clinical data of confirmed dengue patients from the medicine department were collected and assigned as primary and secondary dengue. Results: Of the 220 dengue patients, 22 (10 %) had secondary dengue infection. Hemorrhagic manifestations were reported in 58/220 (26.4 %) cases while 7/22 (31.8 %) in secondary dengue. Prevalent hemorrhagic manifestations in secondary dengue include purpura (27.3 %), vaginal bleeding (4.5 %), melaena (9.1 %), and epistaxis (4.5 %). In addition, 42 (19.1 %) patients had pancytopenia, and 8 (36.6 %) cases were of secondary dengue. Hepatic dysfunction was noted in 164 (74.5 %) cases. Notably, all secondary dengue cases (22;100 %) had hepatic dysfunction and severe in 9 (40.9 %) cases. In addition, in secondary dengue patients, evidence of plasma leakages such as hypoproteinemia 7 (31.8 %) and ascites (35 %) were statistically more frequent. Overall, two deaths (0.9 %) were reported, and were one in each group. Conclusions: Many parameters, including hemorrhagic manifestation (melaena), hematological characteristic (pancytopenia), evidence of plasma leakage (hypoproteinemia and ascites), gastrointestinal (GB wall thickening and hepatic dysfunction) and reduction in mean hemoglobin and platelet count were found to be statistically significant in secondary dengue infection. Additionally, early classification of secondary dengue may help to anticipate its severity and allow for early strategic intervention/management to lower morbidity and mortality.

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A variety of coal room and pillar mining methods have been efficiently practiced at depths of up to 500 m with least strata mechanics issues. However, for the first time, this method was trialled at depths of 850–900 m in CSM mine of Czech Republic. The rhomboid-shaped coal pillars with acute corners of 70°, surrounded with 5.2 m wide and 3.5–4.5 m high mine roadways, were used. Pillars were developed in a staggered manner with their size variation in the Panel II from 83 m × 25 m to 24 m × 20 m (corner to corner) and Panel V from 35 m × 30 m to 26 m × 16 m. Coal seam inclined at 12° was affected by the unusual slippery slickenside roof bands and sometimes in the floor levels with high vertical stress below strong and massive sandstone roof. In order to ensure safety, pillars in both the panels were continuously monitored using various geotechnical instruments measuring the induced stresses, side spalling and roof sagging. Both panels suffered high amounts of mining induced stress and pillar failure with side-spalling up to 5 m from all sides. Heavy fracturing of coal pillar sides was controlled by fully encapsulated steel bolts. Mining induced stress kept increasing with the progress of development of pillars and galleries. Instruments installed in the pillar failed to monitor actual induced stress due to fracturing of coal mass around it which created an apprehension of pillar failure up to its core due to high vertical mining induced stress. This risk was reduced by carrying out scientific studies including the three-dimensional numerical models calibrated with data from the instrumented pillar. An attempt has been made to study the behavior of coal pillars and their yielding characteristics at deeper cover based on field and simulation results.

Background: The unprecedented demands on health-care systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic made countries including India to switch toward alternative modes of health-care delivery. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the various COVID-related services delivered through 104 health information helpline (HIHL), located in Jharkhand during the pandemic. Methods: The de-identified secondary data from February 2020 to December 2021 related to COVID services delivered through HIHL were analyzed. Results: There was a significant increase in the COVID call volume during the first as well as the second wave. The HIHL has been able to guide the callers on testing, home isolation and follow-up, home-based teleconsultation, vaccination, timely referral, and support with logistic-related information. Conclusion: The 104 HIHL has played a critical role in sustaining health-care delivery during the pandemic, combating the “infodemic” and guiding the general public by providing authentic information.

Precise spatial information of crop distribution is vital for government and research organizations to monitor agriculture activities like crop health monitoring, crop yield prediction, and food security. Mapping of crop area is challenging in smallholder farming like India, where crop parcels are smaller than two hectares. With an extension of artificial intelligence, an artificial neural network has ability to learn the spectral feature of multispectral satellite images and map them to a land cover class. However, mixed pixel is a challenging problem in pixel wise classification of coarse resolution satellite images. The linear mixture model is successfully utilized to unmix the signals of a mixed classes. The success of linear mixture model is depending on the selection of endmembers of a mixed class. Therefore, this paper presents an adaptive approach for automatic selection of endmembers of a mixed pixel in linear mixture model using spectral and spatial information. The proposed approach is capable of extracting the fraction area cover of each class by using a constrained least-squares error solution. The GPS field surveys, and drone images are employed to create reference data for the accuracy assessment of proposed algorithm. The experimentation results indicate that the solution of the proposed approach outperformed recent baseline methods in terms of efficiency and accuracy of pixelwise estimated area and overall estimated area of various land cover classes.

Fractional calculus is now used to accurately depict a range of real occurrences because it can explain the “long-tail memory” phenomena that have been seen through empirical research. Standard differential equations with integer order derivatives cannot predict this influence since the future state in this case depends on a number of prior states that is equal to the maximum order of derivatives present in the differential equation. This paper is mainly focusing the existence outcomes of Atangana-Baleanu fractional stochastic systems as well as fractional neutral stochastic systems. The essential findings are developed utilizing ideals and principles of stochastic systems, multivalued map theory, fractional derivative, and fixed point approaches. We start by focusing on the existence of mild solutions for the abstract systems and we extend the analysis to the neutral system. Finally, an illustration is presented to define our primary findings.

Tailoring the charge carriers of two-dimensional (2D) materials is essential for high performance optoelectronic devices. The surface transfer doping by adsorption of molecules on 2D crystals is an attractive technique to tune the properties. Here, we study the change in the electronic transport properties of monolayer graphene (MLG) by surface doping with two different types of molecules. An effect of methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) and chlorobenzene molecular doping on the carrier concentration and electrical conductivity of chemical vapor deposition(CVD)-grown MLG was carried out by Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport measurement. The shifting of Raman peaks toward higher wave number and shifting of Dirac points toward positive gate voltage confirmed that the surface doping of graphene with MIBK and chlorobenzene molecules induced holes doping effect. The molecular doping approach significantly improved the carrier concentration of CVD grown MLG, which is a promising result. Our study will be useful for understanding as well as improvement of graphene based electronic device research.

The article uses semigroup theory and Gronwall’s inequality to investigate the approximate controllability of impulsive semilinear control systems. A weaker Lipschitz condition on nonlinearity is enforced to reach the main conclusions. Two sets of assumptions have been used to discuss the key findings. As noted before by various researchers in the accessible literature, application of standard fixed point theorems such as Banach, Schauder, Sadovskii, and others is avoided. Finally, in order to verify the theoretical findings, one case study based on the presented topic is discussed.

Sesbania aculeata (Dhaincha), a lignocellulosic bast fiber, has been explored here as an ultraviolet blocker due to the presence of natural lignin of about 19% on its surface. Various woven fabrics are prepared with various dhaincha/jute-blended yarns as weft to measure ultraviolet (UV) protection ability, drying rate, and thermal conductivity. Effect of linear density of blended yarn, blend ratio, and pick density of the prepared fabrics on UV protection ability, drying rate, and thermal conductivity have been studied and optimized using 33 Box–Behnken response surface design. The optimum level of these parameters to obtain high UV protection, high drying rate, and high thermal conductivity are reported. The UV protection factor (UPF), drying rate, and thermal conductivity of the fabric are achieved as high as 92.68, 0.3589 ml/H, and 0.185754 W/mK, respectively. The presence of lignin in jute and dhaincha fibers is evidenced by FTIR study. This research work establishes the new application of dhaincha fiber in the field of textiles for UV protection and thermal comfort.

Abstract This paper proposes an improved sine–cosine algorithm (ISCA) based 2-DOF-PID controller for load frequency control. A three-area test system is built for study, while some physical constraints (nonlinearities) are considered for the investigation of a realistic power system. The proposed method is used as the parameter optimizer of the LFC controller in different scenarios. The 2-DOF-PID controllers are used because of their capability of fast disturbance rejection without significant increase of overshoot in set-point tracking. The 2-DOF-PID controllers’ efficacy is observed by examining the responses with the outcomes obtained with PID and FOPID controllers. The simulation results with the suggested scheme are correlated with some of the existing algorithms, such as SCA, SSA, ALO, and PSO in three different scenarios, i.e., a disturbance in two areas, in three areas, and in the presence of physical constraints. In addition, the study is extended to a four-area power system. Statistical analysis is performed using the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test (WSRT) on 20 independent runs. This confirms the supremacy of the proposed method.

In order to achieve visionary concepts such as Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0, there is a growing need for people who are able to create innovative robotic technologies. Training students to become such skilled professionals requires transitioning from often toy-like educational platforms with significant hardware limitations to costly research robots with full ROS (Robot Operating System) support. To aid in this transition, we propose Robotont – an open-source omnidirectional mobile robot platform with both physical hardware and a digital twin. Robotont enables robotics education with professional tools as well as provides researchers with a capable mobility platform for validating and demonstrating scientific results. Robotont has successfully been used for university teaching, professional education, and online courses about ROS and robotics.

Introduction Degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) is usually seen at lumbo-sacral region. Lumbarization of S1 is seen in less than 2% of the population and to have spondylolisthesis in this segment is even rarer. The purpose is to report a rare case of DS at S1-S2 level. Case Report A 52-year-old male, a farmer by profession, presented to Neurosurgery outpatient department with complaint of low back ache for 4 years, which was insidious and progressive. The pain radiated to both lower limbs with more on right than left side. Radiological evaluation with anteroposterior and lateral roentgenogram of lumbo-sacral spine revealed anterolisthesis of S1-S2 (Meyerding's grade 2). Magnetic resonance imaging reported S1-S2 disk bulge with bilateral foraminal stenosis. The patient underwent S1 laminectomy along with S1-S2 discectomy with bilateral S1 and S2 pedicle screws and rod fixation with transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion. Result Postoperative recovery was good with improvement in back pain along with power on postoperative day 1. Conclusion The prevalence of lumbarization is less than 2% and getting spondylolisthesis in this segment is even rarer. As this is one of the first of its kind of case, further case series or longitudinal studies of such cases may help understand better the pathomechanics related to spondylolisthesis at this level.

A study was conducted to develop Pashmina blended woven fabrics to enhance their functional properties by chemical processing. The samples were prepared from Pashmina, wool and nylon fibers in five blends: T1 (60:0:40); T2 (45:15:40); T3 (30:30:40); T4 (15:45:40) and T5 (0:60:40). Each blend was subjected to spun yarns of three different linear densities 246, 164, and 123 dtex. These yarns were utilized as a filling thread to form 15 different fabric samples keeping warp linear density 168.6 dtex common among all samples. All fabric samples were gently treated with HCl to dissolve nylon fiber and keep only Pashmina and wool natural protein fibers. Different functional properties were tested, including moisture management potential, water vapor transmittance, ultraviolet protection factor (UPF), porosity, and luster. Among all samples, the linear yarn density significantly affected the UPF of fabric samples. The yarn evenness increases by increasing the wool content with pashmina fiber and increases by decreasing the yarn decitex. The Lusture index of fabric increases by increasing the pashmina fibre content. The porosity of the fabric sample increases by increasing the wool fibre content and yarn fineness (dtext). The fabric made of 246 dtex in weft exhibited a maximum UPF of 40. The highest value of the overall moisture management coefficient (OMMC) was attained by sample T148. The fabric samples made of 246 dtex exhibited better functionalities than 164 and 123 dtex. The water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) increases by increasing the wool content and weft yarn fineness.

The approximate controllability of Sobolev-type Hilfer fractional control differential systems is the main emphasis of this paper. We use fractional calculus, Gronwall's inequality, semigroup theory, and the Cauchy sequence to examine the main results for the proposed system. The application of well-known fixed point theorem methodologies is avoided in this paper. Finally, a fractional heat equation is discussed as an example.

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate cleft patients, both unilateral and bilateral clefts and compare them with Skeletal base Class I patients for symmetry using orthopantomogram. Materials and Methods: Three groups of patients within age range of 15–25 years: Group I – Normal participants (mean age = 18.33 ± 2.84); Group II – Unilateral cleft lip and cleft palate participants (mean age = 18.74 ± 3.36); and Group III – Bilateral cleft lip and cleft palate participants (mean age = 17.64 ± 3.10) were assessed and compared to each other. Orthopantomogram was analyzed for vertical symmetry. Habets asymmetry index and the Kjellgren's asymmetry index were applied to assess the relative intensity of asymmetry. Results: Significant difference was seen in condylar height (P = 0.029), ramal height (P = 0.046), mandibular body length (P = 0.014), gonial angle (P = 0.035) and condylion–gonian distance (P = 0.044). Kjellberg's symmetry index/condylar ratio was maximally affected by the groups when compared with the Habets asymmetry index. Conclusion: Mandibular asymmetry has been expressed in unilateral cleft lip and palate (CLP) group. Normal group and bilateral CLP group indicated a symmetrical posterior vertical height of the mandible.

This paper proposes a Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm for target tracking amongst static and dynamic obstacles. Our main contribution lies in improving the computational tractability and reliability of the underlying non-convex trajectory optimization. The result is an MPC algorithm that runs real-time on laptops and embedded hardware devices such as Jetson TX2. Our approach relies on novel reformulations for the tracking, collision, and occlusion constraints that induce a multi-convex structure in the resulting trajectory optimization. We exploit these mathematical structures using the split Bregman Iteration technique, eventually reducing our MPC to a series of convex Quadratic Programs solvable in a few milliseconds. The fast re-planning of our MPC allows for occlusion and collision-free tracking in complex environments even while considering a simple constant-velocity prediction for the target trajectory and dynamic obstacles. We perform extensive bench-marking in a realistic physics engine and show that our MPC outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms in visibility, smoothness, and computation-time metrics.

Considering the economic significance of S. dorsalis in chilli crop, a study was carried out at the ICAR-Research Complex for Eastern Region, Farming System Research Centre for Hill and Plateau Region, Ranchi, Jharkhand during the spring season of 2019 and 2020 to find out the effective chemical molecules for managing this pest. Effectiveness of 8 modern insecticides against S. dorsalis and their effect on coccinellid predators was evaluated. Efficacy of insecticides was determined by comparing number of thrips, immature stages and adults of natural enemies, marketable yield in insecticide treated versus untreated control plots. Application of spinosad @70 g a.i./ha, Emamectin benzoate 5 sg @11 g a.i./ha, Imidacloprid 200 sl @40 g a.i./ha and Fipronil 5 sc @30 g a.i./ha were found to be effective against S. dorsalis in chilli. Other insecticides were inconsistent in effectiveness against S. dorsalis population. Fenpropathrin followed by Imidacloprid were found to cause maximum reduction and Spinosad and Emamectin benzoate caused lowest reduction of coccinellid population. Thus, based on the present study, Spinosad, Emamectin benzoate, Fipronil and Imidacloprid are recommended to manage S. dorsalis on rotational basis in chilli ecosystem.

In hospitals, trained medical staff are often, in addition to performing complex procedures, spending valuable time on secondary tasks such as transporting samples and medical equipment; or even guiding patients and visitors around the premises. If these non-medical tasks were automated by deploying mobile service robots, more time can be focused on treating patients or allowing well-deserved rest for the potentially overworked healthcare professionals. Automating such tasks requires a human-aware robotic mobility system that can among other things navigate the hallways of the hospital; predictively avoid collisions with humans and other dynamic obstacles; coordinate task distribution and area coverage within a fleet of robots and other IoT devices; and interact with the staff, patients and visitors in an intuitive way. This work presents the results, lessons-learned and the source code of deploying a heterogeneous mobile robot fleet at the Tartu University Hospital, performing object transportation tasks in areas of intense crowd movement and narrow hallways. The primary use-case is defined as transporting time-critical samples from an intensive care unit to the hospital lab. Our work builds upon Robotics Middleware Framework (RMF), an open source, actively growing and highly capable fleet management platform which is yet to reach full maturity. Thus this paper demonstrates and validates the real-world deployment of RMF in an hospital setting and describes the integration efforts.

We present a joint multi-robot trajectory optimizer that can compute trajectories for tens of robots in aerial swarms within a small fraction of a second. The computational efficiency of our approach is built on breaking the per-iteration computation of the joint optimization into smaller, decoupled sub-problems and solving them in parallel through a custom batch optimizer. We show that each of the sub-problems can be reformulated to have a special Quadratic Programming structure, wherein the matrices are shared across all the problems and only the associated vector varies. As result, the batch solution update rule reduces to computing just large matrix vector products which can be trivially accelerated using GPUs. We validate our optimizer’s performance in difficult benchmark scenarios and compare it against existing state-of-the-art approaches. We demonstrate remarkable improvements in computation time its scaling with respect to the number of robots. Moreover, we also perform better in trajectory quality as measured by smoothness and arc-length metrics.

Modern medicine has been working to find a cure for cancer for almost a century, but thus far, they have not been very successful. Although cancer treatment has come a long way, more work has to be carried out to boost specificity and reduce systemic toxicity. The diagnostic industry is on the cusp of a technological revolution, and early diagnosis is essential for improving prognostic outlook and patient quality of life. In recent years, nanotechnology’s use has expanded, demonstrating its efficacy in enhancing fields such as cancer treatment, radiation therapy, diagnostics, and imaging. Applications for nanomaterials are diverse, ranging from enhanced radiation adjuvants to more sensitive early detection instruments. Cancer, particularly when it has spread beyond the original site of cancer, is notoriously tough to combat. Many people die from metastatic cancer, which is why it remains a huge issue. Cancer cells go through a sequence of events known as the “metastatic cascade” throughout metastasis, which may be used to build anti-metastatic therapeutic techniques. Conventional treatments and diagnostics for metastasis have their drawbacks and hurdles that must be overcome. In this contribution, we explore in-depth the potential benefits that nanotechnology-aided methods might offer to the detection and treatment of metastatic illness, either alone or in conjunction with currently available conventional procedures. Anti-metastatic drugs, which can prevent or slow the spread of cancer throughout the body, can be more precisely targeted and developed with the help of nanotechnology. Furthermore, we talk about how nanotechnology is being applied to the treatment of patients with cancer metastases.

Immunology research has focused on developing cancer vaccines to increase the number of tumor-specific effector cells and their ability to fight cancer over the last few decades. There is a lack of professional success in vaccines compared to checkpoint blockade and adoptive T-cell treatment. The vaccine’s inadequate delivery method and antigen selection are most likely to blame for the poor results. Antigen-specific vaccines have recently shown promising results in preclinical and early clinical investigations. To target particular cells and trigger the best immune response possible against malignancies, it is necessary to design a highly efficient and secure delivery method for cancer vaccines; however, enormous challenges must be overcome. Current research is focused on developing stimulus-responsive biomaterials, which are a subset of the range of levels of materials, to enhance therapeutic efficacy and safety and better regulate the transport and distribution of cancer immunotherapy in vivo. A concise analysis of current developments in the area of biomaterials that respond to stimuli has been provided in brief research. Current and anticipated future challenges and opportunities in the sector are also highlighted.

Abstract Increasing trends in the occurrence of diabetes underline the need to develop low glycemic index (GI) rice with preferred grain quality. In the current study, a diverse set of 3 K sub-panel of rice consisting of 150 accessions was evaluated for resistant starch and predicted glycemic index, including nine other quality traits under transplanted situation. Significant variations were noticed among the accessions for the traits evaluated. Trait associations had shown that amylose content possess significant positive and negative association with resistant starch and predicted glycemic index. Genome-wide association studies with 500 K SNPs based on MLM model resulted in a total of 41 marker-trait associations (MTAs), which were further confirmed and validated with mrMLM multi-locus model. We have also determined the allelic effect of identified MTAs for 11 targeted traits and found favorable SNPs for 8 traits. A total of 11 genes were selected for haplo-pheno analysis to identify the superior haplotypes for the target traits where haplotypes ranges from 2 (Os10g0469000-GC) to 15 (Os06g18720-AC). Superior haplotypes for RS and PGI, the candidate gene Os06g11100 (H4-3.28% for high RS) and Os08g12590 (H13-62.52 as intermediate PGI). The identified superior donors possessing superior haplotype combinations may be utilized in Haplotype-based breeding to developing next-generation tailor-made high quality healthier rice varieties suiting consumer preference and market demand.

Using the topside electron density (Ne) measurements recorded over Cyprus and Russia, we investigate the latitudinal variation in the topside electron density during the interval 2014–2020, encompassing a period of high-to-low solar activity. The selected topside electron density dataset employed in this study is based on the in situ Langmuir probe data on board the European Space Agency (ESA) Swarm satellites, in the vicinity of the three Digisonde stations in Nicosia (35.14°N, 33.2°E), Moscow (55.5°N, 37.3°E) and Saint Petersburg (60.0°N, 30.7°E). Our investigation demonstrates that the ratio Ne_Swarm/NmF2 between the coincident Ne_Swarm and the Digisonde NmF2 observations is higher than one on various occasions over Nicosia during the nighttime, which is not the case over Moscow and Saint Petersburg, signifying a discrepancy feature of the electron density at Swarm altitudes which depends not only on the solar activity and time of day but also on the latitude.

Abstract Among the different challenges related to rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation, drought, bacterial leaf blight (BLB), and blast are the key stresses that significantly affect grain yield (GY) in rice. To ameliorate this issue, marker‐assisted forward breeding (MAFB) coupled with a simultaneous crossing approach was used to combine three drought tolerant quantitative trait loci (QTL)—qDTY1.1, qDTY3.1, and qDTY12.1—four BLB genes—Xa4, xa5, xa13, and Xa21—and one blast‐resistance gene, Pi9, in the elite rice cultivar Lalat. The introgression lines (ILs) developed in the current study were phenotypically screened for drought, BLB, and blast resistance at the F7–F8 generation. Under the reproductive stage (RS) drought stress, the yield advantage of ILs, with major‐effect QTL (qDTY) over elite parent Lalat, ranges from 9 to 124% in DS2019 and from 7 to 175% in WS2019. The selected ILs were highly resistant to BLB, with lesion lengths ranging from 1.3 to 3.0 cm and blast scores ranging from 1 to 3. ILs that were tolerant to RS drought, resistant to BLB, and blast disease and had similar or higher yields than Lalat were analyzed for grain quality. Six ILs were found to have similar grain quality characteristics to Lalat including hulling, milling, head rice recovery (HRR), chalkiness, alkali spreading value (ASV), and amylose content (AC). This study showed that MAFB, together with simultaneous crossing, would be an effective strategy to rapidly combine multiple stresses in rice. The ILs developed in this study could help to ensure yield sustainability in rainfed environments or be used as genetic material in future breeding programs.

Drought is one of the most predominant abiotic stresses in this century, leading to a drastic reduction in the yield of rainfed rice ecosystems. Breeding of drought-resilient rice varieties is very much in demand for sustainable rice production in drought-prone rainfed ecology. An experiment was designed under irrigated non-stress and drought-stress situations involving an exotic drought-tolerant landrace (Chao Khaw) and a high-yielding aromatic rice cultivar (Kasturi), and an F2:4 derived population of 156 breeding lines was developed at IRRI South Asia Hub, Hyderabad. The objective of the study was to assess the genetic variability, drought tolerance behavior, and identify promising breeding lines for different rice ecologies and drought breeding programs. Restricted maximum likelihood (REML) analysis using the mixed model approach revealed a considerable genetic variation in the population for yield and yield contributing traits in non-stress and drought-stress conditions. We observed very high heritability for all the selected traits under stress 2015 WS (73.8% to 85.3%) and 2016 WS (72.4% to 93.5%) and non-stress 2015 WS (68.2% To 92.9%) and 2016 WS (61.4% to 92.6%) environments, indicating possible selection for grain yield under drought stress and non-stress with the same precision level. None of the secondary traits except harvest index and biomass included in our study showed a positive association with grain yield, indicating indirect selection’s ineffectiveness in improving yield under drought. A total of 48 promising breeding lines were found to have a better yield than donor Chao Khaw (up to 38% advantage) and popular drought-tolerant cultivars Shabhagidhan (up to 48% advantage) in stress conditions and recommended for rainfed upland ecology, 34 breeding lines under the well-watered condition suited for rainfed lowland ecology. Overall, the study found 21 common breeding lines that showed their superiority in non-stress and under drought stress situations, fitting best in rainfed lowland ecology with occasional drought occurrence. The large genetic variation found in this population can be exploited further to develop a few forward breeding high-yielding lines with better drought tolerance ability and used as drought donors in drought breeding programs.

This study proposes a novel modified grey-wolf optimization algorithm (MGWOA) to enhance power system stability. The power system stabilizer and static synchronous series compensator (SSSC) are used as damping controllers. Additionally, fractional-order PID (FOPID) controller is used to handle the system nonlinearities and thus achieve better performance. The control parameters are tuned using the proposed MGWOA method which has been verified on unimodal and multimodal functions. Single-machine infinite bus (SMIB) and multimachine power system (MMPS) are taken as case studies to analyze the efficacy of the proposed controller. Minimization of rotor speed deviation is considered an objective function. The results obtained from the MGWOA-tuned FOPID-based damping controllers are compared with those obtained using recently developed efficient and competitive heuristic algorithms. It was observed that the MGWOA method is well-suited for damping low-frequency oscillations. Furthermore, statistical analysis is performed on the obtained results to justify the superiority of the MGWOA method. The simulation results suggest that the MGWOA exhibits superior performance characteristics when applied to a real power system.

Abstract Background Unfavorable climatic changes have led to an increased threat of several biotic and abiotic stresses over the past few years. Looking at the massive damage caused by these stresses, we undertook a study to develop high yielding climate-resilient rice, using genes conferring resistance against blast (Pi9), bacterial leaf blight (BLB) (Xa4, xa5, xa13, Xa21), brown planthopper (BPH) (Bph3, Bph17), gall midge (GM) (Gm4, Gm8) and QTLs for drought tolerance (qDTY 1.1 and qDTY 3.1 ) through marker-assisted forward breeding (MAFB) approach. Result Seven introgression lines (ILs) possessing a combination of seven to ten genes/QTLs for different biotic and abiotic stresses have been developed using marker-assisted selection (MAS) breeding method in the background of Swarna with drought QTLs. These ILs were superior to the respective recurrent parent in agronomic performance and also possess preferred grain quality with intermediate to high amylose content (AC) (23–26%). Out of these, three ILs viz., IL1 (Pi9+ Xa4+ xa5+ Xa21+ Bph17+ Gm8+ qDTY 1.1 + qDTY 3.1 ), IL6 (Pi9+ Xa4+ xa5+ Xa21+ Bph3+ Bph17+ Gm4+ Gm8+ qDTY 1.1 + qDTY 3.1 ) and IL7 (Pi9+ Xa4+ xa5+ Bph3+ Gm4+ qDTY 1.1 + qDTY 3.1 ) had shown resistance\tolerance for multiple biotic and abiotic stresses both in the field and glasshouse conditions. Overall, the ILs were high yielding under various stresses and importantly they also performed well in non-stress conditions without any yield penalty. Conclusion The current study clearly illustrated the success of MAS in combining tolerance to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses while maintaining higher yield potential and preferred grain quality. Developed ILs with seven to ten genes in the current study showed superiority to recurrent parent Swarna+drought for multiple-biotic stresses (blast, BLB, BPH and GM) together with yield advantages of 1.0 t ha− 1 under drought condition, without adverse effect on grain quality traits under non-stress.

Track detection and gauge measurement are considered as crucial aspects of railway inspection systems. Traditionally, monitoring by human inspectors was done. Nowadays, computer vision-based systems are used due to their flexibility and ease of use. In recent years, various prototypes of vision based inspection system have been proposed, most have a camera mounted on carts or trains. Employing drones for such monitoring systems provides a cost effective and accurate means for monitoring tracks. This paper explores the possibilities of computer vision based monitoring through drone imagery. The experimental results ensure that the proposed method provides high reliability and accuracy. Keywords: Canny edge, Computer vision, Drone imagery, Gauge measurement

The rapid growth of wireless technology has improved the network’s technology from 4G to 5G, with sub-6 GHz being the centre of attention as the primary communication spectrum band. To effectively benefit this exclusive network, the improvement in the mm-wave detection of this range is crucial. In this work, a silicon self-switching device (SSD) based full-wave bridge rectifier was proposed as a candidate for a usable RF-DC converter in this frequency range. SSD has a similar operation to a conventional pn junction diode, but with advantages in fabrication simplicity where it does not require doping and junctions. The optimized structure of the SSD was cascaded and arranged to create a functional full-wave bridge rectifier with a quadratic relationship between the input voltage and outputs current. AC transient analysis and theoretical calculation performed on the full-wave rectifier shows an estimated cut-off frequency at ~12 GHz, with calculated responsivity and noise equivalent power of 1956.72 V/W and 2.3753 pW/Hz1/2, respectively. These results show the capability of silicon SSD to function as a full-wave bridge rectifier and is a potential candidate for RF-DC conversion in the targeted 5G frequency band and can be exploited for future energy harvesting application.

Impalement injuries are relatively rare. The most common anatomical site of involvement is the extremities. Impalement injuries are defined as penetrating injuries where a traumatic agent remains impaled in the human body. Foreign body penetration of the hand and wrist is presented as emergency cases. Due to the rarity of such finial impalement injuries presenting to the emergency, the management of this clinical condition remains controversial. Here, we report two cases of impalement injuries of the hand and their successful management. The patients even though been injured by such an object had minimum injuries, the chances of which are quite low. Case 1: A 27-year-old female presented with a history of accidental slipping in the staircase and sustained penetrating injury over the right hand by iron fence finial 5 h before presentation. Case 2: A 42-year-old male presented with a history of slipping while trying to cross a fence. He sustained penetrating injury over his left hand by iron fence finial 7 h before presentation.

Context: Use of hyrax expander for palatal arch lengthening (anteroposterior) is not new, but large series with long-term follow-up is lacking. Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion for hypoplastic maxilla, its efficacy, patient's satisfaction, and relapse rates. Settings and Design: A prospective study was done in PGD of Plastic Surgery, KGMU, Lucknow, between October 2014 and December 2015. Subjects and Methods: Fifteen patients with maxillary hypoplasia associated with cleft lip and palate underwent anterior segmental maxillary osteotomy. Distraction of anterior segment was done with a tooth-anchored hyrax expansion screw oriented in anteroposterior direction. Distraction was started on the 7th day. After desired advancement, the device was left intact for a consolidation period of 3 months and follow-up for any complication was done at the end of 6 months. Statistical Analysis Used: IBM SPSS version 20 software was used. Data expressed as number (percentage) and mean ± standard deviation, Student's t-test and ANOVA were used to compare mean between groups. Results: Bony landmarks sella–nasion–A point angle, maxillary length (ANS-PNS), mean space created on one side (mesial border of first molar to distal border of first premolar), and point A-N perpendicular improved significantly (P < 0.001). There was no significant change in vertical height of maxilla. Soft-tissue profile of patient (Sn–G perpendicular) also improved significantly (P < 0.001). No relapse was observed in patient during the 6 months of follow-up. Conclusion: Results of hyrax distractor in maxillary hypoplasia associated with cleft lip and palate patients were highly promising in patients with occlusal discrepancy

Joint space trajectory optimization under end-effector task constraints leads to a challenging non-convex problem. Thus, a real-time adaptation of prior computed trajectories to perturbation in task constraints often becomes intractable. Existing works use the so-called warm-starting of trajectory optimization to improve computational performance. We present a fundamentally different approach that relies on deriving analytical gradients of the optimal solution with respect to the task constraint parameters. This gradient map characterizes the direction in which the prior computed joint trajectories need to be deformed to comply with the new task constraints. Subsequently, we develop an iterative line-search algorithm for computing the scale of deformation. Our algorithm provides near real-time adaptation of joint trajectories for a diverse class of task perturbations, such as (i) changes in initial and final joint configurations of end-effector orientation-constrained trajectories and (ii) changes in end-effector goal or way-points under end-effector orientation constraints. We relate each of these examples to real-world applications ranging from learning from demonstration to obstacle avoidance. We also show that our algorithm produces trajectories with quality similar to what one would obtain by solving the trajectory optimization from scratch with warm-start initialization. Most importantly, however, our algorithm achieves a worst-case speed-up of 160x over the latter approach.

This paper presents the design and performance analysis of Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA) based Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers for Automatic Generation Control (AGC) of an interconnected power system. A two area thermal system with governor dead-band nonlinearity is considered for the design and analysis purpose. A different kind of approach is made to design a multi-objective function which contains weighted performance functions such as ISE, IAE, ISTE, ITAE. These weights are the functions of system response. It is noticed that the dynamic performance of new objective optimized PID controller is better than the others mentioned in the literature. The objective function also includes performance response for various percentage of loads, so that obtained gain parameters are optimal for dynamic load conditions. Keywords: Flower pollination, Weights, Dynamic loading, Automatic generation control, Two area thermal system, Governor dead-band nonlinearity

Background. Third ventricle tumors are uncommon and account for only 0.6 - 0.9% of all the brain tumors7. In 1921, Dandy was the first neurosurgeon who successfully removed a colloid cyst from the third ventricle through a posterior transcallosal approach. Despite their unfavourable locations, these tumours can be removed successfully by proper knowledge of anatomical landmarks and by choosing the appropriate approach. Methods. We performed a retrospective analysis of all patients (17 patients) who underwent surgery for anterior third ventricular masses between March 2018 to March 2020 in the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Science Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Results: The most common symptom in our cases was headache, which was present in all (100%) patients, nausea/vomiting in 7 (41%), history of recurrent episodes of drop attacks in 4 (23%), h/o seizure in 2 (11.7%), visual disturbance in 1 (5.4%), memory disturbance in 1 (5.4%) and urinary incontinence in 1 (5.4%) patient. 6 patients were operated with transcallosal-transforaminal approach, 1 patient was operated with transcallosal interforniceal approach, 3 patients were operated with transcortical-transforaminal approach, 1 patient was operated with subfrontal translamina terminalis approach, 1 patient was operated with transcallosal-transchoroidal approach, 5 patients were operated with endoscopically. Gross total excision was achieved in 15 (88%) patients while in 2 (11.7%) patients subtotal resection was done due to their adherence to choroid plexus and optic chiasm. The most common post-operative complication was endocrine dysfunction in the form of diabetes insipidus. Conclusions. Anterior Third ventricular tumours are mostly benign and best treatment modality is surgical resection. When we analyzed the results of various approaches, we found that despite their unfavourable location, the results were satisfactory for different tumours of different location in the anterior third ventricle, when treated with the carefully planned microsurgical or endoscopic approach with proper knowledge of anatomical landmarks.

In this study, a hybrid statistical analysis (Taguchi method supported by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis) and numerical analysis (utilizing a Silvaco device simulator) was implemented to optimize the structural parameters of silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based self-switching diodes (SSDs) to achieve a high responsivity value as a radio frequency (RF) detector. Statistical calculation was applied to study the relationship between the control factors and the output performance of an RF detector in terms of the peak curvature coefficient value and its corresponding bias voltage. Subsequently, a series of numerical simulations were performed based on Taguchi’s experimental design. The optimization results indicated an optimized curvature coefficient and voltage peak of 26.4260 V−1 and 0.05 V, respectively. The alternating current transient analysis from 3 to 10 GHz showed the highest mean current at 5 GHz and a cut-off frequency of approximately 6.50 GHz, indicating a prominent ability to function as an RF detector at 5G related frequencies.

The research work was undertaken in four villages near Ranchi, Jharkhand under the Farmer FIRST Project to test the effectiveness of the technological options in improving the profitability of peri-urban agriculture system. Based on Principal Component Analysis of data on agri-economic conditions of farmers, the farm households could be classified into five broad typologies, viz. 1: Marginal farmers and landless labourers, 2: Cereal dominated small farmers, 3: IFS based small farmers, 4: Livestock based marginal farmers and 5: Cereal based medium farmers. Results of two years of experimentation indicated promising technological options like rainy season cultivation of solanaceous vegetables, cultivation of crops like wheat, chickpea and other rabi and summer season vegetables in rice fallow, management of ecto- and endo parasite in the animals and supplementation of area specific mineral mixture, cultivation of oyster mushroom for increasing income from agricultural production system. The project has resulted in increase in income of all typologies of farmers with a maximum increase in case of small farmers practising integrated farming and minimum increase in case of marginal farmers and landless labourers. Notably, income from non-farm sources saw a decrease in all five typologies.

This paper presents a channel estimation and tracking method for correlated block-fading channels in massive MIMO wireless cellular systems. In order to conserve resources, the proposed algorithm requires the uplink pilot signal only once, at the start of communication. By utilizing the temporal correlation between consecutive Resource Blocks (RBs) and the error correction capability of turbo codes, the channel matrix in subsequent RBs is estimated at the Base Station (BS) itself using the uplink data of current the RB and the estimated channel matrix of previous the RB. Compared to existing blind estimation methods, the proposed method places fewer limitations on the system settings such as the number of BS antennas, the number of users, and the number of coherent channel usage compared to existing blind estimation methods. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm provides better performance for a moderate RB size, a high-order of QAM scheme, and a smaller ratio of the number of BS antennas and mobile terminals (N/K). For a reasonably small N/K (order of 10), the proposed scheme achieves a lower symbol error probability than the conventional pilot-based estimation approach. Keywords: Massive MIMO, Channel estimation, Resource block, Turbo coding, Mobile terminal

The objective of this article is to present a concept for single-frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning local ionospheric mitigation over a certain area. This concept is based on input parameters driving the NeQuick-G algorithm (the ionospheric single-frequency GNSS correction algorithm adopted by Galileo GNSS system), estimated on a local as opposed to a global scale, from ionospheric characteristics measured by a digital ionosonde and a collocated dual-frequency Total Electron Content (TEC) monitor. This approach facilitates the local adjustment of Committee Consultative for Ionospheric Radiowave propagation (CCIR) files and the Az ionization level, which control the ionospheric electron density profile in NeQuick-G, therefore enabling better estimation of positioning errors under quiet geomagnetic conditions. This novel concept for local ionospheric positioning error mitigation may be adopted at any location where ionospheric characteristics foF2 and M(3000)F2 can be measured, as a means to enhance the accuracy of single-frequency positioning applications based on the NeQuick-G algorithm.

Introduction: Measurement of treatment outcome is vital in estimating the success of cleft management and for quality improvement, especially in the present age. Scoring systems for the measurement of cleft lip treatment outcome can be broadly divided into qualitative and quantitative methods. Millard's rotation-advancement technique is a commonly used technique for cleft lip repair. Aims and Objectives: The aim and objective of this study was to assess the esthetic outcome of unilateral cleft lip repaired by Millard technique through a scoring system. Materials and Methods: The study comprised fifty patients with unilateral cleft lip who presented to our department for lip repair. Specific preoperative assessment of the extent of deformity was done by photographic evaluation and scoring. The preoperative assessment was done using an initial scoring system (ISS). Different scores were allotted to each of the nose and lip components, so as to grade the deformity from nil to severe. On the basis of ISS scoring, the cleft lip patients' preoperative deformity was graded into three grades: Mild, moderate, and severe. All patients were operated by a single surgeon, with extensive experience in cleft care. Postoperative evaluation was performed on the same lines, using postsurgical score as proposed by Asher-McDade et al., and further graded into excellent, good, fair, poor, and very poor. Nasolabial areas were evaluated independently by a panel of five investigators preoperatively and postoperatively at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 1 year, the mean value and standard deviation were calculated in each group. Statistical analysis was done in all patients using appropriate statistical tools, with a confidence interval of 95%. Results: Incomplete cleft lip has better esthetic outcome than complete cleft lip repair using Millard's technique. Conclusions: Esthetic outcome depends on the extent of preoperative deformity, and the Millard method of lip repair shows excellent outcome in incomplete lip repair.

Introduction: There is a wide disparity in the access to treatment facilities between developed and developing countries in cleft lip and palate (CLP) management. Factors ranging from poverty and illiteracy to paucity of healthcare services affect the patient accessing these services. Objective: Information regarding the socioeconomic and educational status of the parents of CLP patients admitted in a tertiary centre in Northern India was collected and analyzed to find any correlation between the above and the age of child at the first presentation to the hospital. Methods: Data were collected from parents of 200 consecutive patients of CLP presenting for surgery. The data set included variables such as age and sex of the child, age and literary status of the parents, household income, distance to the hospital from home, and the source of information that made them visit the hospital. Results and Conclusion: There was significant association between the age of first presentation and the literary status of the mother and father (P = −0.005 and 0.02, respectively), socioeconomic status of the family (P = −0.02), and the distance from the hospital. Other observations, though impressive, were not statistically significant. This proves the impact of socioeconomic and literary status of parents on availing access to healthcare services for their children.

Cataract surgery has undergone many changes with the size of incision progressively decreasing over time with an incision of 12.0 mm for intracapsular cataract extraction to 2.2–2.8 mm in phacoemulsification. However, phacoemulsification due to high cost and equipment maintenance cannot be employed widely in developing countries. Manual small-incision cataract surgery (MSICS) offers similar advantages with the merits of wider applicability, less time consuming, a shorter learning curve, and lower cost. MSICS can be performed in high-volume setups due to fast technique. Here, we review the various techniques, safety and efficacy of MSICS, and its progress and utility in developing and underdeveloped countries.

Diversity is an integral technique in the advancement of wireless communications. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology continues to occupy a pivotal position in the fourth-generation (4G) standards and beyond. With the advent of full-dimension (FD) MIMO and massive MIMO, new paradigms are being targeted in the disruptive technology. Third-generation partnership project (3GPP) has also emphasized the advanced MIMO technology for achieving its vision of International Mobile Telephony (IMT) 2020. However, implementing multiple antennas can be cumbersome due to limiting factors such as size, cost, and hardware limitations. In such a scenario, where implementing many antennas is not feasible, the benefits of diversity can be reaped by employing cooperative communication. Single antenna mobiles can share their mobile stations giving rise to a virtual MIMO system. In this paper, the authors have analyzed the performance of cooperative mobile stations in a frequency selective channel. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), known for its robustness against multipath fading, is the modulation technique employed to circumvent the hazardous effects of intersymbol interference (ISI). MIMO is the key technology for achieving capacity advantage and improving link reliability. The blend of these two cutting edge technologies in a cooperative relay system presents encouraging results and inferences. Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) is employed at the relay and the receiver to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Decode and forward (DF) protocol is used at the relay node owing to its regenerative nature and adaptability. The closed-form expressions for bit error rate (BER) and outage probability (Pout) are derived and compared with the experimental results. The effect of power decay factor is analyzed and simulation is done for 2 × 2, 2 × 3, and 2 × 4 transmit and receive antennas. The number of antennas at the relay is kept as 2. The analytical results agree with the simulation results.

Objective: To compare the oral and dental health in patients with or without cleft lip and palate (CLP) deformities, undergoing orthodontic treatment. Materials and Methods: The study group comprised fifty patients with CLP. These patients were compared with fifty matched patients (control group) who had no CLP and had undergone orthodontic treatment for other indications at the same institute. Oral hygiene was evaluated clinically according to the simplified oral hygiene index (OHI). Dental caries examination was done according to decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) index. The scores were compared between the two groups. Results: The mean OHI score in cleft patients was 4.5 and in noncleft patients was 3.9 (P < 0.001).The mean DMFT score was 0.980 in cleft patients and 0.380 in noncleft patients (P < 0.001). Conclusion: This study clearly found that oral and dental health is compromised in CLP patients undergoing orthodontic treatment compared to patients undergoing routine orthodontic treatment. This article also proves that CLP is more predominant in males than in females.

Cleft lip and palate (CLP) is one of the most prevalent congenital craniofacial deformities. CLP may result in impairments that stigmatize the individual and have an impact on health, emotions, and social interactions. This article describes the comprehensive orthodontic approach in the treatment of unilateral cleft of the lip and the palate. It also emphasizes the importance of orthodontic intervention to improve the facial esthetics in CLP patients. The treatment planning procedures and the results are presented below.

Hybrid multiferroic materials exhibiting morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) with enhanced ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties has shown great potential for future technologies. In this paper, we report structural, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, magnetic and magnetoelectric characteristics of 0.7BiFeO _3 –0.3Pb _0.5 Ba _0.5 TiO _3 (BFPTBT-Pure) and 0.7BiFeO _3 –0.3Pb _0.5 Ba _0.5 TiO _3 + Mn0.5% (BFPTBT-Mn5%) ceramic compositions synthesized via conventional solid state reaction route. The crystallinity of the compositions exhibits polymorphs of rhombohedral ( R3c ) and tetragonal ( P4mm ) symmetries forming morphotropic phase boundary (MPB). Highly dense SEM micrographs were observed with an average grain size 0.57 μ m and 0.62 μ m for BFPTBT-Pure and BFPTBT-Mn5%, respectively. Mn doped ceramic sample. Improved ferroelectric behavior has been observed with Mn doping in the composition as the value of remnant polarization increases from 2.46 μ C cm ^−2 to 7.63 μ C cm ^−2 recorded at an applied frequency of 50 Hz. The piezoelectric coefficients for BFPTBT-Pure and BFPTBT-Mn5% were found to be 36pC/N and 57pC/N respectively. M-H hysteresis loops depicted that remnant magnetization increases with Mn addition in the sample. The Curie transition temperature ( T _c ) was observed to be 447 °C and 467 °C for BFPTBT-Pure and BFPTBT-Mn5% ceramics, respectively. The magnetoelectric coupling was confirmed through the observation of magnetic field induced relative change in dielectric constant (Magnetocapacitance: MC ). MC was found to be 9.49% and 11.81% for BFPTBT-Pure and BFPTBT-Mn5%, respectively.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is being increasingly recognised all over the world as the imaging modality of choice for brachial plexus and peripheral nerve lesions. Recent refinements in MRI protocols have helped in imaging nerve tissue with greater clarity thereby helping in the identification, localisation and classification of nerve lesions with greater confidence than was possible till now. This article on Magnetic Resonance Neurography (MRN) is based on the authors’ experience of imaging the brachial plexus and peripheral nerves using these protocols over the last several years.