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This paper delves into the intricate realm of Shakespearean characters in love, employing a psychoanalytical lens to unravel the depths of their emotions, desires, and conflicts. Drawing on psychoanalytic theories, particularly those of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, this paper aims to dissect the subconscious motivations and psychological intricacies of characters such as Romeo and Juliet, Orsino and Viola, and other iconic figures. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to offer a nuanced understanding of how Shakespeare masterfully crafted characters whose emotional journeys resonate with universal human experiences. In addition to exploring the psychoanalytical aspects of Shakespearean characters' love, this paper also investigates the socio-cultural influences shaping their romantic dynamics. By examining the historical context in which these plays were written and performed, it aims to illuminate the ways in which societal norms and expectations intersect with individual psychology to influence characters' behaviors and choices. Furthermore, it analyzes how Shakespeare's portrayal of love reflects broader themes of power, gender, and identity, shedding light on the complex interplay between personal desire and societal constraints in Renaissance England. Through this multidimensional approach, it endeavors to provide a comprehensive examination of Shakespearean love that resonates with contemporary audiences while honoring the timeless brilliance of the Bard's storytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometrics deals with authenticating a person's identity based on the physiological or behavioral characteristics. Visual cryptography (VC) is a promising information security technique that allows the secret sharing of images without any cryptographic computations. Various existing schemes were introduced for securing the raw biometric data and template in the database using the VC technique. The complexity of encryption plays a vital role in security improvement. In order to overwhelm the above limitations, a secure authentication management for polar iris templates is presented using VC technique. The collaborative splitting of pixels in all directions presented in this paper was done in order to improve security. At first, the input image was segmented using the Canny edge detection and Hough transform. Subsequently, the normalization module transformed the iris texture from the Cartesian to polar-coordinates. The polar iris image was further separated into two shares, namely, share 1 and share 2, using VC technique. To accomplish more security than the existing methods, both 2-discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and advanced encryption standard (AES) shifting techniques were introduced in VC, termed as transform based AES (TAES). After receiving the encrypted image, the feature extraction is carried out by multi-scale local binary pattern (MLBP). The share 1 images are stored in the user database, whereas the share 2 images are stored in the server database. K-NN classifier is employed to recognize and retrieve the share 2 from the user database on the basis of features. Finally, reconstruction was performed from recognized share 1 and share 2 images by using the inverse process of TAES. The experimental results exhibit better peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), mean square error (MSE) and normalized correlation (NC), false acceptance rate (FAR), false rejection rate (FRR), and equal error rate (EER) than the other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proteolysis, including post-translational proteolytic processing as well as protein degradation and amino acid recycling, is an essential component of the growth and development of living organisms. In this article, experts in plant proteolysis pose and discuss compelling open questions in their areas of research. Topics covered include the role of proteolysis in the cell cycle, DNA damage response, mitochondrial function, the generation of N-terminal signals (degrons) that mark many proteins for degradation (N-terminal acetylation, the Arg/N-degron pathway, and the chloroplast N-degron pathway), developmental and metabolic signaling (photomorphogenesis, abscisic acid and strigolactone signaling, sugar metabolism, and postharvest regulation), plant responses to environmental signals (endoplasmic-reticulum-associated degradation, chloroplast-associated degradation, drought tolerance, and the growth-defense trade-off), and the functional diversification of peptidases. We hope these thought-provoking discussions help to stimulate further research., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement. None declared., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Society of Plant Biologists.)

Phytohormone levels are regulated through specialized enzymes, participating not only in their biosynthesis but also in post-signaling processes for signal inactivation and cue depletion. Arabidopsis thaliana (At) carboxylesterase 15 (CXE15) and carboxylesterase 20 (CXE20) have been shown to deplete strigolactones (SLs) that coordinate various growth and developmental processes and function as signaling molecules in the rhizosphere. Here, we elucidate the X-ray crystal structures of AtCXE15 (both apo and SL intermediate bound) and AtCXE20, revealing insights into the mechanisms of SL binding and catabolism. The N-terminal regions of CXE15 and CXE20 exhibit distinct secondary structures, with CXE15 characterized by an alpha helix and CXE20 by an alpha/beta fold. These structural differences play pivotal roles in regulating variable SL hydrolysis rates. Our findings, both in vitro and in planta, indicate that a transition of the N-terminal helix domain of CXE15 between open and closed forms facilitates robust SL hydrolysis. The results not only illuminate the distinctive process of phytohormone breakdown but also uncover a molecular architecture and mode of plasticity within a specific class of carboxylesterases., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The bone marrow overproduces immature cells in the malignancy known as Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). In the United States, about 6500 occurrences of ALL are diagnosed each year in both children and adults, comprising nearly 25% of pediatric cancer cases. Recently, many computer-assisted diagnosis (CAD) systems have been proposed to aid hematologists in reducing workload, providing correct results, and managing enormous volumes of data. Traditional CAD systems rely on hematologists' expertise, specialized features, and subject knowledge. Utilizing early detection of ALL can aid radiologists and doctors in making medical decisions. In this study, Deep Dilated Residual Convolutional Neural Network (DDRNet) is presented for the classification of blood cell images, focusing on eosinophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, and neutrophils. To tackle challenges like vanishing gradients and enhance feature extraction, the model incorporates Deep Residual Dilated Blocks (DRDB) for faster convergence. Conventional residual blocks are strategically placed between layers to preserve original information and extract general feature maps. Global and Local Feature Enhancement Blocks (GLFEB) balance weak contributions from shallow layers for improved feature normalization. The global feature from the initial convolution layer, when combined with GLFEB-processed features, reinforces classification representations. The Tanh function introduces non-linearity. A Channel and Spatial Attention Block (CSAB) is integrated into the neural network to emphasize or minimize specific feature channels, while fully connected layers transform the data. The use of a sigmoid activation function concentrates on relevant features for multiclass lymphoblastic leukemia classification The model was analyzed with Kaggle dataset (16,249 images) categorized into four classes, with a training and testing ratio of 80:20. Experimental results showed that DRDB, GLFEB and CSAB blocks' feature discrimination ability boosted the DDRNet model F1 score to 0.96 with minimal computational complexity and optimum classification accuracy of 99.86% and 91.98% for training and testing data. The DDRNet model stands out from existing methods due to its high testing accuracy of 91.98%, F1 score of 0.96, minimal computational complexity, and enhanced feature discrimination ability. The strategic combination of these blocks (DRDB, GLFEB, and CSAB) are designed to address specific challenges in the classification process, leading to improved discrimination of features crucial for accurate multi-class blood cell image identification. Their effective integration within the model contributes to the superior performance of DDRNet., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The rapid advancement of nanotechnology has led to unprecedented innovations; however, it is crucial to analyze its environmental impacts carefully. This review thoroughly examines the complex relationship between plants and nanomaterials, highlighting their significant impact on ecological sustainability and ecosystem well-being. This study investigated the response of plants to nano-pollution stress, revealing the complex regulation of defense-related genes and proteins, and highlighting the sophisticated defense mechanisms in nature. Phytohormones play a crucial role in the complex molecular communication network that regulates plant responses to exposure to nanomaterials. The interaction between plants and nano-pollution influences plants' complex defense strategies. This reveals the interconnectedness of systems of nature. Nevertheless, these findings have implications beyond the plant domain. The incorporation of hyperaccumulator plants into pollution mitigation strategies has the potential to create more environmentally sustainable urban landscapes and improve overall environmental resilience. By utilizing these exceptional plants, we can create a future in which cities serve as centers of both innovation and ecological balance. Further investigation is necessary to explore the long-term presence of nanoparticles in the environment, their ability to induce genetic changes in plants over multiple generations, and their overall impact on ecosystems. In conclusion, this review summarizes significant scientific discoveries with broad implications beyond the confines of laboratories. This highlights the importance of understanding the interactions between plants and nanomaterials within the wider scope of environmental health. By considering these insights, we initiated a path towards the responsible utilization of nanomaterials, environmentally friendly management of pollution, and interdisciplinary exploration. We have the responsibility to balance scientific advancement and environmental preservation to create a sustainable future that combines nature's wisdom with human innovation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: The International Ki67 Working Group (IKWG) has developed training for immunohistochemistry (IHC) scoring reproducibility and recommends cut points of ≤ 5% and ≥ 30% for prognosis in ER+, HER2-, stage I/II breast cancer. We examined scoring reproducibility following IKWG training and evaluated these cut points for selecting patients for further testing with the 21-gene Recurrence Score (RS) assay., Methods: We included 307 women aged 50+ years with node-negative, ER+PR+HER2- breast cancer and with available RS results. Slides from the diagnostic biopsy were stained for Ki67 and scored using digital image analysis (IA). Two IHC pathologists underwent IKWG training and visually scored slides, blinded to each other and IA readings. Interobserver reproducibility was examined using intraclass correlation (ICC) and Kappa statistics., Results: Depending on reader, 8.8-16.0% of our cohort had Ki67 ≤ 5% and 11.4-22.5% had scores ≥ 30%. The ICC for Ki67 scores by the two pathologists was 0.82 (95% CI 0.78-0.85); it was 0.79 (95% CI 0.74-0.83) for pathologist 1 and IA and 0.76 (95% CI 0.71-0.80) for pathologist 2 and IA. For Ki67 scores ≤ 5%, the percentages with RS < 26 were 92.6%, 91.8%, and 90.9% for pathologist 1, pathologist 2, and IA, respectively. For Ki67 scores ≥ 30%, the percentages with RS ≥ 26 were 41.5%, 51.4%, and 27.5%, respectively., Conclusion: The IKWG's Ki67 training resulted in moderate to strong reproducibility across readers but cut points had only moderate overlap with RS cut points, especially for Ki67 ≥ 30% and RS ≥ 26; thus, their clinical utility for a 21-gene assay testing pathway remains unclear., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Objective  To study the etiological and anatomical factors in pathophysiology of invasive fungal rhinosinusitis affecting the skull base. Design  Retrospective clinical study over 5 years. Setting  Single-center tertiary referral hospital. Materials and Methods  All cases of invasive fungal rhinosinusitis with clinicoradiological and/or operative evidence of anterior and central skull base, orbit, and orbital apex involvement with or without intracranial disease were included in the study. Patients with a sinonasal-palatal disease without the involvement of the skull base or orbit were excluded from the study. In addition, we assessed the risk factors such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, diabetes mellitus (DM), and other immunocompromised conditions. Results  There were 79 patients, of which 65.8% had skull base rhino-oribitocerebral mucormycosis (ROCM), and 34.2% had Aspergillus infection. The mean duration from onset of the symptom to presentation of ROCM was 36.75 ± 20.97 days, while for the Aspergillus group was 21 weeks. The majority of patients (66%) with ROCM presented after 30 days of symptom onset. Among ROCM patients, 88.7% had a history of COVID-19 infection, and 96% had DM. In 40.8% of patients with Aspergillus infection, the tissue diagnosis was unavailable, and galactomannan assay and clinicoradiological assessment were used for diagnosis. The most common area of the skull base involved was the pterygopalatine fossa (88.5%), followed by the infratemporal fossa (73.1%). The most common neurovascular structure (75%) involved was the pterygopalatine ganglion and the infraorbital nerve. Conclusion  With the increasing incidence of invasive fungal infections worldwide, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to understand the evolving nature of this disease. ROCM, documented in the literature to cause fulminant disease, became a chronic illness, possibly due to the improvement of the patient's immunity during the disease course., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest None declared., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

In this work, we present the generation of two distinct types of soliton pulses using a Bismuth Selenide (Bi 2 Se 3 ) saturable absorber (SA) synthesized in our laboratory. The soliton pulses were generated in two different laser cavity configurations, resulting in two types of solitons: a soliton pulse with Kelly sidebands and a bunched soliton pulse with peak-dip sidebands. Both solitons operated at the fundamental repetition rate-23.3 MHz (for the soliton with Kelly sidebands) and 13 MHz (for the bunched soliton with peak-dip sidebands). We observed that the accumulation of nonlinear phase shift from the added single mode fiber (SMF) split the single soliton pulse into 44 pulses in a bunched oscillation envelope. At the same time, peak-dip sidebands were imposed on the bunched soliton spectrum due to constructive and destructive interferences between soliton pulse and dispersive waves. The measured pulse width for both solitons were 0.63 ps (for the soliton with Kelly sidebands) and 1.52 ps (for the bunched soliton with peak-dip sidebands), respectively. Our results demonstrate the potential of Bi 2 Se 3 SAs in generating different types of soliton pulses, which could have potential applications in various areas of optical communication and spectroscopy.

Endocrine therapy (ET) is the standard of care for hormone receptor-positive early-stage breast cancer in the adjuvant setting. However, response to ET can vary across patient subgroups. Historically, hormone receptor expression and clinical stage are the main predictors of the benefit of ET. A "window of opportunity" trials has raised significant interest in recent years as a means of assessing the sensitivity of a patient's cancer to short-term neoadjuvant ET, which provides important prognostic information, and helps in decision-making regarding treatment options in a time-efficient and cost-efficient manner. In the era of genomics, molecular profiling has led to the discovery and evaluation of the prognostic and predictive abilities of new molecular profiles. To realize the goal of personalized medicine, we are in urgent need to explore reliable biomarkers or genomic signatures to accurately predict the clinical response and long-term outcomes associated with ET. Validation of these biomarkers as reliable surrogate endpoints can also lead to a revolution in the clinical trial designs, and potentially avoid the need for repeated tissue biopsies in the surveillance of disease response. The clinical potential of tumor genomic profiling marks the beginning of a new era of precision medicine in breast cancer treatment., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Strigolactones (SLs) are a unique and novel class of phytohormones that regulate numerous processes of growth and development in plants. Besides their endogenous functions as hormones, SLs are exuded by plant roots to stimulate critical interactions with symbiotic fungi but can also be exploited by parasitic plants to trigger their seed germination. In the past decade, since their discovery as phytohormones, rapid progress has been made in understanding the SL biosynthesis and signaling pathway. Of particular interest are the diversification of natural SLs and their exact mode of perception, selectivity, and hydrolysis by their dedicated receptors in plants. Here we provide an overview of the emerging field of SL perception with a focus on the diversity of canonical, non-canonical, and synthetic SL probes. Moreover, this review offers useful structural insights into SL perception, the precise molecular adaptations that define receptor-ligand specificities, and the mechanisms of SL hydrolysis and its attenuation by downstream signaling components., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest N.S. has an equity interest in OerthBio LLC and serves on the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. The work and data submitted here have no competing interests, or other interests that might be perceived to influence this review article.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease with a very poor prognosis as it has a 2.5 to 5 years mean survival after proper diagnosis. Even nintedanib and pirfenidone cannot halt the progression, though they slow the progression of IPF. Hence, there is a need to understand the novel pathophysiology. Phospholipase A2 (PLA2) could be the ideal candidate to study in IPF, as they have a role in both inflammation and fibrosis. In the present study, we have shown the expression profile of various secretory Phospholipase A2 (PLA2) isoforms by analyzing publicly available transcriptome data of single cells from the lungs of healthy individuals and IPF patients. Among 11 members of sPLA2, PLA2G2A is found to be increased in the fibroblasts and mesothelial cells while PLA2G5 is found to be increased in the fibroblasts of IPF patients. We identified a subset of fibroblasts expressing high PLA2G2A with moderate expression of PLA2G5 and which are specific to IPF only; we named it as PLA2G2A+ IPF fibroblast. Pathway analysis revealed that these PLA2G2A+ IPF fibroblast have upregulation of both inflammatory and fibrosis-related pathways like the TGF-β signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling, the arachidonic acid metabolism pathway and ECM-receptor interaction. In addition to this, we found elevated levels of sPLA2-IIA in plasma samples of IPF patients in our cohort. PLA2G3, PLA2G10 and PLA2G12B are found in to be increased in certain epithelial cells of IPF patients. Thus, these findings indicate that these five isoforms have a disease-dominant role along with innate immune roles as these isoforms are found predominantly in structural cells of IPF patients. Further, we have targeted sPLA2 in mice model of bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis by pBPB, a known sPLA2 inhibitor. pBPB treatment attenuated lung fibrosis induced by bleomycin along with a reduction in TGF-β and deposition of extracellular matrix in lung. Thus, these findings indicate that these sPLA2 isoforms especially PLA2G2A may serve as a therapeutic target in lung fibrosis.

Microbottle resonators (MBR) are bottle-like structures fabricated by varying the radius of an optical fiber. MBRs can support whispering gallery modes (WGM) by the total internal reflection of the light coupled into the MBRs. MBRs have a significant advantage in sensing and other advanced optical applications due to their light confinement abilities in a relatively small mode volume and having high Q factors. This review starts with an introduction to MBRs' optical properties, coupling methods, and sensing mechanisms. The sensing principle and sensing parameters of MBRs are discussed here as well. Then, practical MBRs fabrication methods and sensing applications are presented.

We report the fabrication of an erbium-doped fiber-based saturable absorber (SA) of niobium aluminium carbide (Nb 2 AlC) nanomaterial that can generate a dissipative soliton mode-locked pulse. Stable mode-locked pulses operating at 1530 nm with repetition rates of 1 MHz and pulse widths of 6.375 ps were produced using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and the Nb2AlC nanomaterial. A peak pulse energy of 7.43 nJ was measured at 175.87 mW pump power. In addition to providing some useful design suggestions for manufacturing SAs based on MAX phase materials, this work shows the MAX phase materials' immense potential for making ultra-short laser pulses.

Metallodithiolene complexes of the type [(R 2 C 2 S 2 )M(η 2 -tpbz)] [R = CN, Ph, or p -anisyl; M = Ni 2+ , Pd 2+ , or Pt 2+ ; tpbz = 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(diphenylphosphino)benzene] chelate transition metals ions to form trimetallic arrays [[(R 2 C 2 S 2 )M(tpbz)] 2 M'] n + , where M' is square planar Pt 2+ , tetrahedral Cu + , Ag + , or Au + , or octahedral {ReBr(CO)}/{Re(CO) 2 } + . Forcing conditions (190 °C reflux in decalin, 72 h) are demanded for the Re + compounds. With third-row metals at the nexus, the compounds are stable to air. Twelve members of the set have been characterized by X-ray diffraction and reveal dithiolene centroid-centroid distances ranging from 22.4 to 24.0 Å. Folding around each tpbz intrachelate P···P axis such that the MP 2 /M'P 2 planes meet the tpbz P 2 C 6 P 2 mean plane at non-zero values gives rise to core topologies that appear "S-like" or herringbone-like for M' = Pt 2+ or {ReBr(CO)}/{Re(CO) 2 } + . Calculations reveal that departure from idealized D 2 h / D 2 d P nuclear magnetic resonance signal from approximately -14.5 ppm to approximately +41, approximately +20.5, and approximately +28.5 ppm for M' = Pt C 2 v symmetries is induced by steric crowding between Ph groups and that dynamic, fluxional behavior is pertinent to the solution phase because multiple, lower-symmetry minima of comparable energy exist. Spectroscopically, the formation of the trimetallic arrays is marked by a shift of the open end 31 P nuclear magnetic resonance signal from approximately -14.5 ppm to approximately +41, approximately +20.5, and approximately +28.5 ppm for M' = Pt 2+ , respectively. Electrochemically, dithiolene-based oxidations are observed for the R = Ph and M' = Pt + , and {ReBr(CO)}/{Re(CO) 2 } + , respectively. Electrochemically, dithiolene-based oxidations are observed for the R = Ph and M' = Pt 2+ or Au + )M] 2 C 2 S 2 )M] 2 )M and M' parts.2 C 2 S 2 )M and M' parts.

Nationwide perspectives on cannabis have changed dramatically over recent decades. Although cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, medical cannabis (MC) is now legal in most states, and research has continued to show its effectiveness in a variety of medical conditions. However, both perception and acceptance of MC by the general public are evolving and remain poorly understood. Treating patients effectively with these novel therapeutics requires an understanding of the complex interplay of social and legal factors that could affect patient use. This cross-sectional survey study of more than 2500 patients sought to assess current patient perspectives on MC and to investigate factors related to its use that may represent barriers to broader patient use. Most respondents would consider using MC for chronic pain or other medical conditions. Most respondents were aware of the legal status of MC in their state, and 9 of 10 respondents believed that MC should be legal throughout the United States. General public knowledge of the utility of MC is an area needing improvement because older patients were significantly less likely to believe that MC is safe to use or that MC is safer than prescription opioids. As has been reported in previous literature, social stigma and cost appear to remain barriers for patient use of MC. Our findings provide further insight into current patient perspectives on MC, aiding both medical providers and researchers as we continue to provide access to and research MC. [ Orthopedics . 2022;45(6):e309-e314.].

Engineered microbes can be used for producing value-added chemicals from renewable feedstocks, relieving the dependency on nonrenewable resources such as petroleum. These microbes often are composed of synthetic metabolic pathways; however, one major problem in establishing a synthetic pathway is the challenge of precisely controlling competing metabolic routes, some of which could be crucial for fitness and survival. While traditional gene deletion and/or coarse overexpression approaches do not provide precise regulation, cis -repressors (CRs) are RNA-based regulatory elements that can control the production levels of a particular protein in a tunable manner. Here, we describe a protocol for a generally applicable fluorescence-activated cell sorting technique used to isolate eight subpopulations of CRs from a semidegenerate library in Escherichia coli , followed by deep sequencing that permitted the identification of 15 individual CRs with a broad range of protein production profiles. Using these new CRs, we demonstrated a change in production levels of a fluorescent reporter by over two orders of magnitude and further showed that these CRs are easily ported from E. coli to Pseudomonas putida . We next used four CRs to tune the production of the enzyme PpsA, involved in pyruvate to phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) conversion, to alter the pool of PEP that feeds into the shikimate pathway. In an engineered P. putida strain, where carbon flux in the shikimate pathway is diverted to the synthesis of the commodity chemical cis , cis -muconate, we found that tuning PpsA translation levels increased the overall titer of muconate. Therefore, CRs provide an approach to precisely tune protein levels in metabolic pathways and will be an important tool for other metabolic engineering efforts.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is cancer in which bone marrow overproduces undeveloped lymphocytes. Over 6500 cases of ALL are diagnosed every year in the United States in both adults and children, accounting for around 25% of pediatric cancers, and the trend continues to rise. With the advancements of AI and big data analytics, early diagnosis of ALL can be used to aid the clinical decisions of physicians and radiologists. This research proposes a deep neural network-based (ALNett) model that employs depth-wise convolution with different dilation rates to classify microscopic white blood cell images. Specifically, the cluster layers encompass convolution and max-pooling followed by a normalization process that provides enriched structural and contextual details to extract robust local and global features from the microscopic images for the accurate prediction of ALL. The performance of the model was compared with various pre-trained models, including VGG16, ResNet-50, GoogleNet, and AlexNet, based on precision, recall, accuracy, F1 score, loss accuracy, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Experimental results showed that the proposed ALNett model yielded the highest classification accuracy of 91.13% and an F1 score of 0.96 with less computational complexity. ALNett demonstrated promising ALL categorization and outperformed the other pre-trained models., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Plant β-amylase (BAM) proteins play an essential role in growth, development, stress response, and hormone regulation. Despite their typical (β/α) 8 barrel structure as active catalysts in starch breakdown, catalytically inactive BAMs are implicated in diverse yet elusive functions in plants. The noncatalytic BAM7/8 contain N-terminal BZR1 domains and were shown to be involved in the regulation of brassinosteroid signaling and possibly serve as sensors of yet an uncharacterized metabolic signal. While the structures of several catalytically active BAMs have been reported, structural characterization of the catalytically inactive BZR1-type BAMs remain unknown. Here, we determine the crystal structure of β-amylase domain of Zea mays BAM8/BES1/BZR1-5 and provide comprehensive insights into its noncatalytic adaptation. Using structural-guided comparison combined with biochemical analysis and molecular dynamics simulations, we revealed conformational changes in multiple distinct highly conserved regions resulting in rearrangement of the binding pocket. Altogether, this study adds a new layer of understanding to starch breakdown mechanism and elucidates the acquired adjustments of noncatalytic BZR1-type BAMs as putative regulatory domains and/or metabolic sensors in plants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest N.S. has an equity interest in Oerth Bio and serves on the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. The work and data submitted here have no competing interests, nor other interests that might be perceived to influence the results and/or discussion reported in this paper. The remaining authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Geopolymer mortar is the best solution as an alternative to cement mortar in civil engineering. This paper deals with the effect of geopolymer mortar on the strength and microstructural properties under ambient curing conditions. In this research, geopolymer mortars were prepared with fly ash and steel slag (in the ratio 1:2.0, 1:2.5 and 1:3.0) as precursors with NaOH and Na 2 SiO 3 as activator solution solutions (in the ratios of 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0) with concentrations of NaOH as 8 M, 10 M, 12 M and 14 M to study the compressive strength behaviour. From the experimental results, it was observed that the geopolymer mortar mix with the ratio of fly ash and steel slag 1:2.5, 12 M NaOH solution and the ratio of NaOH and Na 2 SiO 3 0.5 exhibits the maximum compressive strength results in the range of 55 MPa to 60 MPa. From the optimized results, ferrocement panels of size 1000 mm × 1000 mm × 50 mm were developed to study the flexural behaviour. The experimental results of the flexural strength were compared with the analytical results developed through ABAQUS software. It was observed that the Trough-shaped geopolymer ferrocement panel exhibits 56% higher value in its ultimate strength than the analytical work. In addition to the strength properties, microstructural analysis was carried out in the form of SEM, EDAX and XRD from the tested samples.

High-strength concrete is designed for a self-weight reduction structure and exhibits higher resistance to compressive loads. This paper proposes a novel technique to enhance concrete's properties using Magnetic Field Treated Water (MFTW), describing the results of experimental studies to apprehend the fresh, hardened and microstructural behavior of concrete prepared with Magnetic Water (MW) using a permanent magnet with a field intensity of 0.9 Tesla. The novel scheme focuses on utilizing MW as a water-reducing agent instead of SP to improve the workability of fresh concrete with a 0.38 w/c ratio for achieving M40 grade concrete. Results show a 12% improvement in compressive strength and an 8.9% improvement in split tensile strength compared to normal water (NW) with 1% SP. At 30% cement volume reduction, Magnetic Water Concrete (MWC) performs better than Normal Water Concrete (NWC). Microstructure examination shows that a smaller Calcium Hydrate (CH) crystal is formed with MW and its mineral composition is observed through Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX).

The characteristics of a concrete mix are purely dependent on the hydration of cement that is carried forward by using the water quality used in the mix. Several researchers have focused on incorporating pozzolanic or nanomaterials to improve the hydration mechanisms and impart high strength to concrete. A new technology has been introduced to improve the properties of concrete by magnetic-field-treated water (MFTW). Due to magnetization, water particles become charged and the molecules inside the water cluster decrease from 13 to 5 or 6, which eventually decreases the hardness of water, thus improving the strength of concrete when compared to the use of normal water (NW). In advanced construction techniques and practices, the application of Magnetic Water (MW) plays an important role in boosting physicochemical properties. This research work focused on evaluating the standards of water quality through physiochemical analysis, such as Electrical Conductivity (EC), Viscosity, pH, and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) with the MW at different exposure periods (60 min (MW60), 45 min (MW45), 30 min (MW30), 15 min (MW15), and instant exposure (MWI)). Experiments were carried out to evaluate the fresh, hardened, and microstructural behavior of concrete made with magnetic water (MW) using a permanent magnet of PERMAG (N407) under a field intensity of 0.9 Tesla. In addition, optical properties such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Ultraviolet (UV) absorption were considered for the MW60 mix to ensure water magnetization. Characterization methods such as Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were employed for NWC and MWC to quantify the hydrated products. From the results, it was observed that the magnetic effect on water characteristics showed significant improvement in the concrete properties with the increase in exposure duration. There were increments of 25.6% and 24.1% in workability and compressive strength, respectively, for the MW60 mix compared to normal water concrete (NWC).

Strigolactones (SLs) are a class of plant hormones that regulate numerous processes of growth and development. SL perception and signal activation involves interaction between F-box E3 ubiquitin ligase D3/MAX2 and DWARF14 (D14) α/β-hydrolase in a SL-dependent manner and targeting of D53/SMXL6/7/8 transcriptional repressors (SMXLs) for proteasome-mediated degradation. D3/MAX2 has been shown to exist in multiple conformational states in which the C-terminal helix (CTH) undergoes a closed-to-open dynamics and regulates D14 binding and SL perception. Despite the multiple modes of D3-D14 interactions found in vitro, the residues that regulate the conformational switch of D3/MAX2 CTH in targeting D53/SMXLs and the subsequent effect on SL signalling remain unclear. Here we elucidate the functional dynamics of ASK1-D3/MAX2 in SL signalling by leveraging conformational switch mutants in vitro and in plants. We report the crystal structure of a dislodged CTH of the ASK1-D3 mutant and demonstrate that disruptions in CTH plasticity via either CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing or expression of point mutation mutants result in impairment of SL signalling. We show that the conformational switch in ASK1-D3/MAX2 CTH directly regulates ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. A dislodged conformation involved in D53/SMXLs SL-dependent recruitment and ubiquitination and an engaged conformation are required for the release of polyubiquitinated D53/SMXLs and subsequently D14 for proteasomal degradation. Finally, we uncovered an organic acid metabolite that can directly trigger the D3/MAX2 CTH conformational switch. Our findings unravel a new regulatory function of a SKP1-CUL1-F-box ubiquitin ligase in plant signalling., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Myofascial pain and myofascial pain syndromes are among some of the most common acute and chronic pain conditions. Many interventional procedures can be performed in both an acute and chronic pain setting to address myofascial pain syndromes. Trigger point injections can be performed with or without imaging guidance such as fluoroscopy and ultrasound; however, the use of imaging in years past has been recommended to improve patient outcome and safety. Injections can be performed using no injectate (dry needling), or can involve the administration of local anesthetics, botulinum toxin, or corticosteroids., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This research tests energy optimised furnace (EOF) steel slag as substitution for natural coarse aggregate in concrete. Steel slag's usefulness as a substitute for natural coarse aggregate in concrete is the primary goal of this research. According to IS:2386-1963, the characterization of EOF steel slag, as coarse, is done by examining the shape and size of a particle, mechanical properties, physical properties, soundness, and alkali-aggregate reactivity. Tests for detection of staining material in steel slag and hardness of inter-facial transition zone in hardened cement paste were also carried out. The chemical analysis of the steel slag reveals the stability of oxides present in the steel slag. Microstructural characterization by SEM (scanning electron microscope) analysis of steel slag aggregate was also employed to support the characterization and XRD analysis, and it was found that the EOF steel slag is crystalline. The digital image processing technique (DIP) is adopted to study the shape indices, circularity, sphericity, shape factor, and roundness of natural and EOF steel slag aggregate. According to the characterization and strength investigation, steel slag aggregate outperforms natural coarse aggregate.

Background: Telemedicine facilitates patient care in various fields including antenatal care. Its application and usefulness need objectification and can be a guide to using this service in the care of pregnant women., Material and Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted from May 2020 to December 2020. Following the telemedicine practice guideline of the country, 3,360 teleconsultations were sought by 862 antenatal patients. The duration of each call, an indication of referral and pregnancy risk stratification were noted. Further management was classified into three categories depending upon the need for an immediate hospital visit, no hospital visit or scheduled visit after at least 48 h after the first contact., Results: The antenatal cases were referred for either maternal, foetal or both indications in 24.7, 54.8 and 20.5% of the cases, respectively. Women were classified as low risk (61.6%), high risk (35.7%) and severe risk (2.7%). In 1.4% of the patients, history and review of the records could not be done through telemedicine. The average time spent was 16.6 min for the first contact and 3.1 min for subsequent contacts. Further management was done with immediate visits in 385 (45.3%), scheduled hospital visits in 292 (34.3%) women and no tertiary care hospital visit in 173 (20.4%)., Discussion: Women (20.4%) not called to the maternal-foetal medicine department of the institute were managed along with the treating obstetrician and no difference in pregnancy outcome was noted., Conclusion: Antenatal care can be provided following triage over teleconsultation and 1.4% of the women may not be able to use telehealth., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2022 Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.)

Introduction: Idiopathic Membranous nephropathy (IMN) is one of the most common causes of adult onset nephrotic syndrome worldwide. About 50% will slowly progress to renal failure if untreated., Methods: We did a retrospective study in patients with Idiopathic membranous nephropathy who were on follow-up between 2016-2018 at Madras medical college, Chennai. Clinical records, investigations, treatment and treatment response were analyzed. Risk stratification was done according to urine protein estimation, Modified Ponticelli regimen was administered in patients with high risk of renal failure and those with complications. They were followed up 6-12 months., Results: Among 61 patients with IMN, 37 were treated with Modified Ponticelli regimen after 6months of supportive treatment. Spontaneous remission was 14%, after mean follow up of 3.14 yrs total remission was 64.86 %( CR 43.24%; PR-21.62%) and 35.14% had no remission. Three patients progressed to CKD. Tacrolimus was initiated in non responders to IST. Analysis between IST responders and non responders shows those who presented with lesser proteinuria had statistically better outcome., Conclusion: This retrospective study of IMN showed a reasonably better outcome. Seventeen per cent of patients had spontaneous remission and 64.86% achieved remission with Modified Ponticelli regimen., (© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.)

A 24 kDa leucine-rich protein from ion exchange fractions of Solanum trilobatum , which has anti-bacterial activity against both the Gram-negative Vibrio cholerae and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus bacteria has been purified. In this study, mass spectrometry analysis identified the leucine richness and found a luminal binding protein (LBP). Circular dichroism suggests that the protein was predominantly composed of α- helical contents of its secondary structure. Scanning electron microscopy visualized the characteristics and morphological and structural changes in LBP-treated bacterium. Further in vitro studies confirmed that mannose-, trehalose- and raffinose-treated LBP completely inhibited the hemagglutination ability towards rat red blood cells. Altogether, these studies suggest that LBP could bind to sugar moieties which are abundantly distributed on bacterial surface which are essential for maintaining the structural integrity of bacteria. Considering that Solanum triolbatum is a well-known medicinal and edible plant, in order to shed light on its ancient usage in this work, an efficient anti-microbial protein was isolated, characterized and its in vitro functional study against human pathogenic bacteria was evaluated.

The decision-making process is very crucial in healthcare, which includes quick diagnostic methods to monitor and prevent the COVID-19 pandemic disease from spreading. Computed tomography (CT) is a diagnostic tool used by radiologists to treat COVID patients. COVID x-ray images have inherent texture variations and similarity to other diseases like pneumonia. Manually diagnosing COVID X-ray images is a tedious and challenging process. Extracting the discriminant features and fine-tuning the classifiers using low-resolution images with a limited COVID x-ray dataset is a major challenge in computer aided diagnosis. The present work addresses this issue by proposing and implementing Histogram Oriented Gradient (HOG) features trained with an optimized Random Forest (RF) classifier. The proposed HOG feature extraction method is evaluated with Gray-Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and Hu moments. Results confirm that HOG is found to reflect the local description of edges effectively and provide excellent structural features to discriminate COVID and non-COVID when compared to the other feature extraction techniques. The performance of the RF is compared with other classifiers such as Linear Regression (LR), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), K-nearest neighbor (kNN), Classification and Regression Trees (CART), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLP). Experimental results show that the highest classification accuracy (99. 73%) is achieved using HOG trained by using the Random Forest (RF) classifier. The proposed work has provided promising results to assist radiologists/physicians in automatic COVID diagnosis using X-ray images., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022.)

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 virus caused COVID-19 pandemic has led to various kinds of anxiety and stress in different strata and sections of the society. The aim of this study is to analyse the sleeping and anxiety disorder for a wide distribution of people of different ages and from different strata of life. The study also seeks to investigate the different symptoms and grievances that people suffer from in connection with their sleep patterns and predict the possible relationships and factors in association with outcomes related to COVID-19 pandemic induced stress and issues. A total of 740 participants (51.3% male and 48.7% female) structured with 2 sections, first with general demographic information and second with more targeted questions for each demographic were surveyed. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and General Anxiety Disorder assessment (GAD-7) standard scales were utilized to measure the stress, sleep disorders and anxiety. Experimental results showed positive correlation between PSQI and GAD-7 scores for the participants. After adjusting for age and gender, occupation does not have an effect on sleep quality (PSQI), but it does have an effect on anxiety (GAD-7). Student community in spite of less susceptible to COVID-19 infection found to be highly prone to psychopathy mental health disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also highlights the connectivity between lower social status and mental health issues. Random Forest model for college students indicates clearly the stress induced factors as anxiety score, worry about inability to understand concepts taught online, involvement of parents, college hours, worrying about other work load and deadlines for the young students studying in Universities., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest/Competing interestsThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM) 2022.)

Diagnosing COVID-19, current pandemic disease using Chest X-ray images is widely used to evaluate the lung disorders. As the spread of the disease is enormous many medical camps are being conducted to screen the patients and Chest X-ray is a simple imaging modality to detect presence of lung disorders. Manual lung disorder detection using Chest X-ray by radiologist is a tedious process and may lead to inter and intra-rate errors. Various deep convolution neural network techniques were tested for detecting COVID-19 abnormalities in lungs using Chest X-ray images. This paper proposes deep learning model to classify COVID-19 and normal chest X-ray images. Experiments are carried out for deep feature extraction, fine-tuning of convolutional neural networks (CNN) hyper parameters, and end-to-end training of four variants of the CNN model. The proposed CovMnet provide better classification accuracy of 97.4% for COVID-19 /normal than those reported in the previous studies. The proposed CovMnet model has potential to aid radiologist to monitor COVID-19 disease and proves to be an efficient non-invasive COVID-19 diagnostic tool for lung disorders., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interestThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM) 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

The ERK1/2 (also known as MAPK3 and MAPK1, respectively) signaling pathway is critical in organismal development and tissue morphogenesis. Deregulation of this pathway leads to congenital abnormalities with severe developmental dysmorphisms. The core ERK1/2 cascade relies on scaffold proteins, such as Shoc2 to guide and fine-tune its signals. Mutations in SHOC2 lead to the development of the pathology termed Noonan-like Syndrome with Loose Anagen Hair (NSLAH). However, the mechanisms underlying the functions of Shoc2 and its contributions to disease progression remain unclear. Here, we show that ERK1/2 pathway activation triggers the interaction of Shoc2 with the ubiquitin-specific protease USP7. We reveal that, in the Shoc2 module, USP7 functions as a molecular 'switch' that controls the E3 ligase HUWE1 and the HUWE1-induced regulatory feedback loop. We also demonstrate that disruption of Shoc2-USP7 binding leads to aberrant activation of the Shoc2-ERK1/2 axis. Importantly, our studies reveal a possible role for USP7 in the pathogenic mechanisms underlying NSLAH, thereby extending our understanding of how ubiquitin-specific proteases regulate intracellular signaling., Competing Interests: Competing interests The authors declare no competing or financial interests., (© 2021. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.)

Background: Identification of implant model from primary knee arthroplasty in pre-op planning of revision surgery is a challenging task with added delay. The direct impact of this inability to identify the implants in time leads to the increase in complexity in surgery. Deep learning in the medical field for diagnosis has shown promising results in getting better with every iteration. This study aims to find an optimal solution for the problem of identification of make and model of knee arthroplasty prosthesis using automated deep learning models., Methods: Deep learning algorithms were used to classify knee arthroplasty implant models. The training, validation and test comprised of 1078 radiographs with a total of 6 knee arthroplasty implant models with anterior-posterior (AP) and lateral views. The performance of the model was calculated using accuracy, sensitivity, and area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC), which were compared against multiple models trained for comparative in-depth analysis with saliency maps for visualization., Results: After training for a total of 30 epochs on all 6 models, the model performing the best obtained an accuracy of 96.38%, the sensitivity of 97.2% and AUC of 0.985 on an external testing dataset consisting of 162 radiographs. The best performing model correctly and uniquely identified the implants which could be visualized using saliency maps., Conclusion: Deep learning models can be used to differentiate between 6 knee arthroplasty implant models. Saliency maps give us a better understanding of which regions the model is focusing on while predicting the results., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© Indian Orthopaedics Association 2021.)

Open-ended, singly metalated dithiolene complexes with 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(diphenylphosphino)benzene (tpbz) are prepared either by ligand transfer to [Cl 2 M(tpbz)] from (R 2 C 2 S 2 )SnR' 2 (R = CN, R' = Me; R = Me, R' = n Bu) or by a direct reaction between tpbz and [M(S 2 C 2 R 2 ) 2 ] (M = Ni, Pd, Pt; R = Ph, p -anisyl) in a 1:1 ratio. The formation of dimetallic [(R 2 C 2 S 2 )M(tpbz)M(S 2 C 2 R 2 )] attends these syntheses in modest amounts, but the open-ended compounds are readily separated by silica chromatography. As affirmed by X-ray crystallographic characterization of numerous members of the set, the [(R 2 C 2 S 2 )M(tpbz)] compounds show dithiolene ligands in their fully reduced ene-1,2-dithiolate form conjoined with divalent Group 10 ions. Minor amounts of octahedral [(Ph 2 C 2 S 2 ) 2 Pt IV (tpbz)], a presumed intermediate, are isolated from the preparation of [(Ph 2 C 2 S 2 )Pt II (tpbz)]. Heterodimetallic [(Ph 2 C 2 S 2 )Pt(tpbz)Ni(S 2 C 2 Me 2 )] is prepared from [(Ph 2 C 2 S 2 )Pt II (tpbz)]; its cyclic voltammogram, upon anodic scanning, shows two pairs of closely spaced, but resolved, 1e - oxidations corresponding first to [R 2 C 2 S 2 2 - ] - 1e - → [R 2 C 2 S • S - ] and then to [R 2 C 2 S • S - ] - 1e - → [R 2 (C═S) 2 ]. The open diphosphine of [(R 2 )M(tpbz)] can be oxidized to afford open-ended [(R 2 S 2 )M(tpbz)] can be oxidized to afford open-ended [(R 2 )M(tpbzE 2 S 2 )M(tpbzE 2 )] (E = O, S). Synthesis of the octahedral [(dppbO 2 ) 3 Ni][I 3 ] 2 [dppbO 2 = 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphoryl)benzene] suggests that the steric profile of [(R 2 )M(tpbzE 2 S 2 )M(tpbzE 2 )] is moderated enough that three could be accommodated as ligands around a metal ion.

Double stranded RNA is generated during viral replication. The synthetic analogue poly I:C is frequently used to mimic anti-viral innate immune responses in models of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders including schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Many studies perform limited analysis of innate immunity despite these responses potentially differing as a function of dsRNA molecular weight and age. Therefore fundamental questions relevant to impacts of systemic viral infection on brain function and integrity remain. Here, we studied innate immune-inducing properties of poly I:C preparations of different lengths and responses in adult and aged mice. High molecular weight (HMW) poly I:C (1-6 kb, 12 mg/kg) produced more robust sickness behavior and more robust IL-6, IFN-I and TNF-α responses than poly I:C of < 500 bases (low MW) preparations. This was partly overcome with higher doses of LMW (up to 80 mg/kg), but neither circulating IFNβ nor brain transcription of Irf7 were significantly induced by LMW poly I:C, despite brain Ifnb transcription, suggesting that brain IFN-dependent gene expression is predominantly triggered by circulating IFNβ binding of IFNAR1. In aged animals, poly I:C induced exaggerated IL-6, IL-1β and IFN-I in the plasma and similar exaggerated brain cytokine responses. This was associated with acute working memory deficits selectively in aged mice. Thus, we demonstrate dsRNA length-, IFNAR1- and age-dependent effects on anti-viral inflammation and cognitive function. The data have implications for CNS symptoms of acute systemic viral infection such as those with SARS-CoV-2 and for models of maternal immune activation., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

The stringent response, regulated by the bifunctional (p)ppGpp synthetase/hydrolase Rel in mycobacteria, is critical for long-term survival of the drug-tolerant dormant state of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. During amino acid starvation, MtRel senses a drop in amino acid concentration and synthesizes the messengers pppGpp and ppGpp, collectively called (p)ppGpp. Here, we investigate the role of the regulatory 'Aspartokinase, Chorismate mutase and TyrA' (ACT) domain in MtRel. Using NMR spectroscopy approaches, we report the high-resolution structure of dimeric MtRel ACT which selectively binds to valine out of all other branched-chain amino acids tested. A set of MtRel ACT mutants were generated to identify the residues required for maintaining the head-to-tail dimer. Through NMR titrations, we determined the crucial residues for binding of valine and show structural rearrangement of the MtRel ACT dimer in the presence of valine. This study suggests the direct involvement of amino acids in (p)ppGpp accumulation mediated by MtRel independent to interactions with stalled ribosomes. Database Structural data are available in the PDB database under the accession number 6LXG., (© 2020 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.)