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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The synthesis of mesoporous silica nanoparticles using non-surfactant agents is gaining popularity owing to the easier purification and lower toxicity of this method compared to traditional surfactant-based ones. The potential of mesoporous silica nanoparticles as advanced nanocarriers for health-related applications is increasingly recognized. Quercetin, a potent free-radical scavenging antioxidant that relies heavily on the intracellular supply of reduced glutathione, has garnered significant interest in the scientific community. In spite of recent progress, the mechanisms underlying the development of the porous framework have largely gone unexplored. The primary aim of this study is to explore the feasibility of utilizing quercetin as a template for the synthesis of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, circumventing the need for conventionalMETHODS: This research investigates the impact of the chemical structure and properties of polyphenols, specifically quercetin, on their templating potential. The study reveals the arrangement of quercetin, which acts as a model for the development of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, forming a supramolecular structure that facilitates silica binding. The composition of this supramolecular framework leads to unconventional and variable pore structures. The scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction analysis, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis were used to characterize the quercetin-templated mesoporous silica nanoparticles and provide detailed insights into their morphology.FINDINGS: The results from the viability test and antiviral assays demonstrated that quercetin-templated mesoporous silica nanoparticles are non-toxic and possess inhibitory and antiviral properties that are comparable to those of Oseltamivir, which served as a positive control. Quercetin served as a non-surfactant, neutral template in an ammonia and ethanol mixture, resulting in approximately spherical particles with monodisperse diameters of about 180 nanometers. These nanoparticles of mesoporous silica showed a concentration-dependent efficacy in inhibiting pathogenic microorganisms. In x-ray diffraction pattern for Mesoporous silica nanoparticles, a number of Bragg's reflections referring to the (111), (200), and (220) sets of lattice planes were detected, which can be described by the fundamental face center cubic structure of mesoporous silica nanostructures. Because of the smaller particle diameter impact and incomplete internal structure of the nanostructures, the intense peak at 2θ= 24 degrees demonstrated the silica peak, which reflected crystalline nature. According to calculations based on the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method, the specific surface area of Quercetin-templated mesoporous silica nanoparticles was determined to be 55.227 cubic meters. Furthermore, the Barrett-Joyner-Halenda analysis provided measurements of the pore size at 24.312 nm and the pore volume at 0.336 square centimeters per gram, respectively.CONCLUSION: The study results outcomes demonstrated that quercetin forms a macromolecular scaffold that functions as a template for the formation of mesoporous silica nanoparticles. The irregular pore structure observed is attributed to the unique characteristics of quercetin. Using small-angle X-ray scattering, detailed information was obtained regarding the constituents and the porous nature of the resulting mesoporous silica nanoparticles. This study reveals innovative insights into the mechanisms by which the macromolecular structure of the template governs the dimensions of particles and the process of pore formation. The role of quercetin in the morphogenetic development of mesoporous silica nanoparticles has been thoroughly investigated. In addition, quercetin-templated mesoporous silica nanoparticles exhibited significant antioxidant properties, akin to butylated hydroxytoluene, and showed great potential for various clinical applications.

Background The normal ability to distinguish two points from one is known as the two-point discriminative (2PD) sense. This forms an extremely important assessment in patient with injuries to the nerves distributed to the upper extremity.

The calibration of the angularly dependent array error is a challenging task for signal processing. In this paper, we propose a neural network (NN)-based two-dimensional (2D) calibration method for a linear array. Firstly, the array steering vectors are measured on an azimuth grid at different elevations in an anechoic chamber, and the off-grid steering vectors are derived by the proposed local manifold interpolation (LMI) technique to reduce the risk of model overfitting. Then, the phase differences are extracted to form the features of the training data. At last, noise is added to the training data to enable the NN model to generalize well to the noisy data. The proposed method is evaluated by the indoor and outdoor measured data from a 77 GHz automotive radar and is compared with the conventional signal processing-based methods. The evaluation results show that a single NN model trained at the lowest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) outperforms conventional methods by at least 55% on average over the entire SNR range and gives close performance to the perfect array without array error at low to medium SNR.

Abstract Introduction Duplication cyst of the alimentary tract is a rare congenital anomaly. Duodenal duplication cyst accounts for less than 5% overall. These entities rarely present in adults. They are often mistaken as choledochoceles. Management is most often complete excision, but it is individualized to the particular case. Case presentation A 22-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with a history of intermittent colicky right hypochondrial pain not relieved by any medications for the past 3 months. Initially, she was given proton pump inhibitors, but her pain was not relieved. Further evaluation was done, and preoperative imaging showed a cyst in the second part of the duodenum. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed it as a choledochocele, but duodenal duplication cyst was kept in the differential diagnosis. Further ultrasound identified it to be a duplication cyst. After failed endotreatment, the patient was successfully managed with partial excision and marsupialization. Conclusion Duodenal duplication cyst is uncommon and rarely diagnosed in adults. Duplications in the duodenum should always be a part of the differential diagnosis, especially in cystic lesions. Ultrasonogram of the cyst might lead to the proper diagnosis. Surgery is the treatment of choice if endotherapy is not successful.

Цель. Целями настоящей работы, в которую вошли 2 последовательных исследования в группе больных с высоким сердечно-сосудистым риском с критериями включения, аналогичными исследованию HOPE (Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation), были: 1) проверка гипотезы о том, что рамиприл улучшает способность тромбоцитов реагировать на оксид азота (NO) и 2) изучение биохимических и физиологических эффектов лечения рамиприлом в когорте больных c резистентностью тромбоцитов к NO. Введение. Рамиприл предотвращает сердечно-сосудистые события, но механизм(ы) этого эффекта остаются неопределенными. У значительной части пациентов с сахарным диабетом (СД) или ишемической болезнью сердца (ИБС) имеется резистентность к NO как на уровне тромбоцитов, так и на уровне сосудов, что является независимым фактором риска сердечно-сосудистых событий. Методы. Исследование 1: двойное слепое рандомизированное сравнительное исследование рамиприла (10 мг) и плацебо в группе пациентов (n=119) с ИБС или СД и дополнительными факторами коронарного риска, в котором изучалось влияние препарата на способность тромбоцитов реагировать на NO. Исследование 2: последующее краткосрочное исследование влияния рамиприла в группе пациентов (n=19) с нарушенной реакцией тромбоцитов на NO, в котором изучали механизм его действия. Результаты. В исследовании 1 терапия рамиприлом повышала способность тромбоцитов реагировать на NO по результатам оценки агрегации (р

Tree adjoining grammars (TAGs) are mildly context sensitive formalisms used mainly in modelling natural languages. Usage and research on these psycho linguistic formalisms have been erratic in the past decade, due to its demanding construction and difficulty to parse. However, they represent promising future for formalism based NLP in multilingual scenarios. In this paper we demonstrate basic synchronous Tree adjoining grammar for English-Tamil language pair that can be used readily for machine translation. We have also developed a multithreaded chart parser that gives ambiguous deep structures and a par dependency structure known as TAG derivation. Furthermore we then focus on a model for training this TAG for each language using a large corpus of text through a map reduce frequency count model in spark and estimation of various probabilistic parameters for the grammar trees thereafter; these parameters can be used to perform statistical parsing on the trained grammar.

To assess the groundwater quality of the Paravanar river basin, groundwater data were collected by conventional methods. Hydrogeochemical facies of groundwater of study area reveals fresh to brackish and alkaline in nature. Piper plot shows that most of the groundwater samples fall in the mixed field of Ca-Mg-Cl type. Using GIS mapping technique, major element concentration of groundwater has been interpolated and studied. Groundwater thematic maps on electrical conductivity (EC), hydrogen ion concentration, bicarbonates, chlorides and nitrates were prepared from the groundwater quality data. Different classes in thematic maps were categorized as i) good, ii) moderate and iii) poor with respect to groundwater quality. Northeast and southeast parts of the study area represent the doubtful water class regarding the concentration of EC to represent connate nature of water adjacent to the coast. NNE (North-North-East) and southern parts of the study area have pH ranging from 7 to 8 indicating acidic nature as they were from the weathered Cuddalore sandstone. As northern part of the study area is irrigated, fertilizer used for agriculture may be the source for increase in concentration of nitrates. Chloride clusters in the south central part of the study area from coast up to NLC mines and reveals the chloridization of aquifer in 48 years either due to upwelling of connate water from the deeper aquifer as a result of depressurization of Neyveli aquifer for the safe mining of lignite.

The inhibition efficiency of phenolphthalein in controlling corrosion of carbon steel immersed in well water has been evaluatedby mass loss method both in absence and presence of zinc ion. A synergistic effect exists between phenolphthalein (PN)and Zn2+. The inhibition efficiency (IE) of the PN – Zn2+ system decreases with increase in immersion period. Addition ofN-Cetyl-N, N, N-Trimethylammlonium bromide (CTAB) sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), sodium sulphite (Na2SO3) doesnot change the excellent inhibition efficiency of the PN-Zn2+ system. Polarization study suggests that the Pn-Zn2+ systemfunctions as a mixed inhibitor system. AC impedance spectra reveal the presence of a protective film on the metal surface.FTIR spectra indicate that the protective film consists of Fe2+-PN complex and Zn(OH)2.

Polymer electrolyte membranes comprising of poly (ethyl methacrylate)/ poly (vinyl chloride), propylene carbonate (PC) as plasticizer and LiClO4 as salt were prepared by solvent casting technique. XRD, FTIR and SEM studies have been made to investigate the structural, complexation and variation in film morphology of the polymer electrolyte. The maximum ionic conductivity value 3.454x10-3 S/cm has been observed for PVC (5)-PEMA (20)-PC (67) - LiClO4 (8 wt %) system at 303K using ac impedance spectroscopic technique. Also, the TG/DTA studies showed the thermal stability of the film.

New gel polymer electrolytes containing poly(vinylidene chloride-co-acrylonitrile) and poly(methyl methacrylate) are prepared by solution casting method. With the addition of 60 wt.% of EC to PVdC-AN/PMMA blend, ionic conductivity value 0.398×10-6 S cm−1 has been achieved. XRD and FT-IR studies have been conducted to investigate the structure and complexation in the polymer gel electrolytes. The FT-IR spectra show that the functional groups C=O and C≡N play major role in ion conduction. Thermal stability of the prepared membranes is found to be about 180°C.

Aim: To know the the relationship between body weight and linear body measurements such as body length, height at withers and heart girth in Malabari adult female goats under field conditions. Materials and Methods: A total of 152 adult female Malabari goats' body weight and body measurements (body length, height at withers and heart girth) were used to develop the step wise multiple regression equations. Results: The average body weight, body length, height at withers and heart girth were 24.23 0.73 kg, 59.42 0.98 cm, 61.02 1.03 cm and 66.54 1.09 cm, respectively. Prediction of body weight based on heart girth alone or combined with other body measurements had higher coefficient of determination (R2) and lower residual mean square (MSE). Conclusion: It could be concluded that the prediction model for body weight of Malabari female adult goats with independent variable heart girth can be better fit. [Vet. World 2012; 5(7.000): 409-411]

The inhibition efficiency of L-Arginine-Zn2+ system in controlling corrosion of carbon steel in sea water has been evaluated by the weight-loss method. The formulation consisting of 250 ppm of L-Arginine and 25 ppm of Zn2+ has 91% IE. A synergistic effect exists between L-Arginine and Zn2+. Polarization study reveals that the L-Arginine-Zn2+ system functions as an anodic inhibitor and the formulation controls the anodic reaction predominantly. AC impedance spectra reveal that protective film is formed on the metal surface. Cyclic voltammetry study reveals that the protective film is more compact and stable even in a 3.5% NaCl environment. The nature of the protective film on a metal surface has been analyzed by FTIR, SEM, and AFM analysis.

The inhibition efficiency (IE) of an aqueous extract of garlic in controlling corrosion of carbon steel in well water in the absence and presence of Zn2+ has been evaluated by mass-loss method. The formulation consisting of 2 mL of garlic extract and 25 ppm Zn2+ offers 70% inhibition efficiency to carbon steel immersed in well water. Polarization study reveals that this formulation controls the anodic reaction predominantly. FTIR spectra reveal that the protective film consists of Fe2+-allicin complex and Zn(OH)2.

The environmental friendly inhibitor system DL-phenylalanine-Zn2+ has been investigated by weight loss method. A synergistic effect exists between DL-phenylalanine and Zn2+ system. The formulation consisting of 150 ppm of DL-phenylalanine and 5 ppm of Zn2+ offers good inhibition efficiency of 90%. Polarization study reveals that this formulation functions as a anodic inhibitor. AC impedance spectra reveal that a protective film is formed on the metal surface. The surface morphology has been analysed by SEM and EDAX. A suitable mechanism of corrosion inhibition is proposed based on the results obtained from weight loss study and electrochemical studies.

The inhibition efficiency (IE) of caffeine in controlling corrosion of carbon steel in well water in the absence and presence of Zn2+ has been evaluated by mass loss method. The formulation, consisting of 200 ppm of caffeine and 50 ppm Zn2+, offers 82% inhibition efficiency to carbon steel immersed in well water. Addition of malic acid increases inhibition efficiency of the caffeine-Zn2+ system. The inhibition efficiency of caffeine-Zn2+ and caffeine-Zn2+-malic acid system decreases with the increase in immersion period and increases with the increase in pH from 3 to 11. AC impedance spectra, SEM micrographs, and AFM studies reveal the formation of protective film on the metal surface. The film is found to be UV fluorescent.

Parasitic infections are known to affect donkeys causing considerable mortality and morbidity. Fresh faecal samples were directly collected from the rectum of donkeys belonging to four age groups viz. < 0.5 years, 0.5 � 3.0 years, 3.1 �8.0 years and > 8 years. Donkeys of different age groups in the present study had slightly different helminth profiles. Young donkeys (

The retina is a complex and fragile photosensitive part of the central nervous system which is prone to degenerative diseases leading to permanent vision loss. No proven treatment strategies exist to treat or reverse the degenerative conditions. Recent investigations demonstrate that cell transplantation therapies to replace the dysfunctional retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and or the degenerating photoreceptors (PRs) are viable options to restore vision. Pluripotent stem cells, retinal progenitor cells, and somatic stem cells are the main cell sources used for cell transplantation therapies. The success of retinal transplantation based on cell suspension injection is hindered by limited cell survival and lack of cellular integration. Recent advances in material science helped to develop strategies to grow cells as intact monolayers or as sheets on biomaterial scaffolds for transplantation into the eyes. Such implants are found to be more promising than the bolus injection approach. Tissue engineering techniques are specifically designed to construct biodegradable or non-degradable polymer scaffolds to grow cells as a monolayer and construct implantable grafts. The engineered cell construct along with the extracellular matrix formed, can hold the cells in place to enable easy survival, better integration, and improved visual function. This article reviews the advances in the use of scaffolds for transplantation studies in animal models and their application in current clinical trials.

This study aims to explore consumer behavior regarding online shopping, specifically investigating various factors that impede consumers' online shopping behavior. The research seeks to identify the challenges consumers encounter while shopping through online stores. A quantitative research approach was employed, involving a survey administered to users of online shopping platforms. The study revealed six factors that hinder consumers from making purchases on online sites: apprehension about bank transactions and trust, the perceived convenience of traditional shopping over online alternatives, considerations regarding reputation and service quality, past experiences, concerns about security and inadequate product information, and a lack of trust. This research provides insights valuable for e-trailers engaged in e-commerce, whether business-tocustomer or customer-to-customer. It suggests managerial implications for enhancing marketing strategies to foster consumer trust in online shopping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schiff bases have advanced physical, chemical, and medicinal properties, making them strong biological agents. Comparable FTIR, UV-VIS, 1HNMR, 13CNMR spectra confirmed the successful formation of N-N-(1,2-Phenylene)bis(1-(4-bromophenyl)methanimine) (CS3) compound. Geometry was optimized using DFT with B3LYP/cc-pVDZ basis set. Obtained energy gap of the compound was 2.07 eV. Carbon and oxygen atoms were electrophilic, according to molecular electrostatic potential analysis. Mulliken charge analysis found that C atoms have + ve and -ve charges, H atoms have only positive charges, while Br, O, and N atoms have only -ve charges. The ELF analyzed the molecule and found that the atoms of C, N, and Br all had delocalized electron density. The wave function LOL identified localized orbital positions in the hydrogen atoms. RDG maps provided various non-covalent interactions. Synthesized compound was docked using PDB: 2ZM5 protein, with the lowest binding attractions obtained, are −5.44 (7BYE) kcal/mol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional ultrasound (fUS) flow imaging provides a non-invasive method for the in vivo study of cerebral blood flow and neural activity. This study used functional flow imaging to investigate rat brain's response to ultrasound and colored-light stimuli. Male Long-Evan rats were exposed to direct full-field strobe flashes light and ultrasound stimulation to their retinas, while brain activity was measured using high-frequency ultrasound imaging. Our study found that light stimuli, particularly blue light, elicited strong responses in the visual cortex and lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), as evidenced by changes in cerebral blood volume (CBV). In contrast, ultrasound stimulation elicited responses undetectable with fUS flow imaging, although these were observable when directly measuring the brain's electrical signals. These findings suggest that fUS flow imaging can effectively differentiate neural responses to visual stimuli, with potential applications in understanding visual processing and developing new diagnostic tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]