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In the present study, an ultra-sensitive surface plasmon resonance biosensor is developed. The device is composed of a CaF2-prism, silver, silicon nitride, nickel, and black phosphorus have been deposited. The setup is grounded in the Kretschmann configuration and theoretically analyzed by means of transfer matrix method and Fresnel equations. For selective diagnosis of liver tissue and its mutation in terms of variation in RI, the biosensor provides an ultrahigh angular sensitivity of 383.62°/RIU for MET tissue and 403.92°/RIU for HCC tissue. The optimization of angular sensitivity and other sensor parameters in terms of thickness and number of layers has also been utilized. To validate the reflectance curve, electric field intensity enhancement factor and phase interrogation have also been conducted. The acquired results state that the proposed biosensor yields an enhanced sensitivity when compared to other reported results. Due to its advantage of fast, accurate and early-stage detection of liver mutations with a very small number of samples, this report may expedite a sensing device for commercial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is limited understanding of how universal health coverage (UHC) schemes such as publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) benefit women as compared to men. Many of these schemes are gender-neutral in design but given the existing gender inequalities in many societies, their benefits may not be similar for women and men. We contribute to the evidence by conducting a gender analysis of the enrolment of individuals and households in India's national PFHI scheme, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional household survey on RSBY eligible families across eight Indian states and studied different outcome variables at both the individual and household levels to compare enrolment among women and men. We applied multivariate logistic regressions and controlled for several demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Results: At the individual level, the analysis revealed no substantial differences in enrolment between men and women. Only in one state were women more likely to be enrolled in RSBY than men (AOR: 2.66, 95% CI: 1.32-5.38), and this pattern was linked to their status in the household. At the household level, analyses revealed that female-headed households had a higher likelihood to be enrolled (AOR: 1.36, 95% CI: 1.14-1.62), but not necessarily to have all household members enrolled. Conclusion: Findings are surprising in light of India's well-documented gender bias, permeating different aspects of society, and are most likely an indication of success in designing a policy that did not favour participation by men above women, by mandating spouse enrolment and securing enrolment of up to five family members. Higher enrolment rates among female-headed households are also an indication of women's preferences for investments in health, in the context of a conducive policy environment. Further analyses are needed to examine if once enrolled, women also make use of the scheme benefits to the same extent as men do. India is called upon to capitalise on the achievements of RSBY and apply them to newer schemes such as PM-JAY. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of trifluoromethyl groups on organic compounds by graphene-based photocatalysts is an emerging research area in the 21st century. However, the pricey and poisonous nature of metal-based photocatalysts poses a significant barrier to the insertion of trifluoromethyl groups. Therefore, the trifluoromethylation of organic compounds and conversion into sustainable, greener chemicals via solar light irradiation is a hot and challenging topic. So, herein we developed a solar light-harvesting nitrogen enrich Eosin-Y functionalized graphene-based (NDGFE-Y) photocatalytic system with appropriate band gap and supported by UV-Visible, FTIR, XRD, and FE-SEM, Raman spectra and TGA curve. This prepared photocatalyst is a yardstick example for the photoinduced oxide CF3SO2Na to produce the CF3 as an electrophilic radical, effectively making the trifluoromethylation of benzaldehyde and their derivatives. The graphical abstract represents the highly selective NDGFE-Y photocatalyst for trifluoromethylation of Benzaldehyde under solar light irradiation. The NDGFE-Y photocatalyst has effective photocatalytic properties due to the functionalization of Eosin -Y dye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel surface plasmon resonance-based biosensor for SARS-CoV-2 virus is proposed in this article. The biosensor is a Kretschmann configuration-based structure that consists of CaF2 prism as base, at which silver (Ag), TiO2, and MXene nanolayers are used to enhance the performance. Theoretically, the performance parameters have been investigated by means of Fresnel equations and transfer matrix method (TMM). The TiO2 nanolayer not only prevents oxidation of Ag layer but also enhances the evanescent field in its vicinity. The sensor provides an ultrahigh angular sensitivity of 346°/RIU for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some other performance parameters, including FWHM (full width at half maxima), detection accuracy (DA), limit of detection (LOD), and quality factor (QF) have also been calculated for proposed SPR biosensor with their optimized values 2.907°, 0.3439 deg−1, 1.445 × 10−5, and 118.99 RIU−1, respectively. The obtained results designate that the proposed surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based biosensor has notably enhanced angular sensitivity as compared to previous results reported in the literatures till date. This work may facilitate a significant biological sample sensing device for fast and accurate diagnosis at early stage of SARS-CoV-2 virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), a publicly funded health insurance scheme, was launched in India in September 2018 to provide financial access to health services for poor Indians. PM-JAY design enables state-level program adaptations to facilitate implementation in a decentralized health implementation space. This study examines the competency, organizational, and leadership approaches affecting PM-JAY implementation in three contextually different Indian states. Methods: We used a framework on implementation drivers (competency, organizational, and leadership) to understand factors facilitating or hampering implementation experiences in three PM-JAY models: third-party administrator in Uttar Pradesh, insurance in Chhattisgarh, and hybrid in Tamil Nadu. We adopted a qualitative exploratory approach and conducted 92 interviews with national, state, district, and hospital stakeholders involved in program design and implementation in Delhi, three state capitals, and two anonymized districts in each state, between February and April 2019. We used a deductive approach to content analysis and interpreted coded material to identify linkages between organizational features, drivers, and contextual elements affecting implementation. Results and conclusion: PM-JAY guideline flexibilities enabled implementation in very different states through state-adapted implementation models. These models utilized contextually relevant adaptations for staff and facility competencies and organizational and facilitative administration, which had considerable scope for improvement in terms of recruitment, competency development, programmatic implementation support, and rationalizing the joint needs of the program and implementers. Adaptations also created structural barriers in staff interactions and challenged implicit power asymmetries and organizational culture, indicating a need for aligning staff hierarchies and incentive structures. At the same time, specific adaptations such as decentralizing staff selection and task shifting (all models); sharing of claims processing between the insurer and state agency (insurance and hybrid model); and using stringent empanelment, accreditation, monitoring, and benchmarking criteria for performance assessment, and reserving secondary care benefit packages for public hospitals (both in the hybrid model) contributed to successful implementation. Contextual elements such as institutional memory of previous schemes and underlying state capacities influenced all aspects of implementation, including leadership styles and autonomy. These variations make comparisons across models difficult, yet highlight constraints and opportunities for cross-learning and optimizing implementation to achieve universal health coverage in decentralized contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accumulation of body fat due to an imbalance between calorie intake and energy expenditure is called obesity. Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Jatropha tanjorensis (J.T.) and Fraxinus micrantha (F.M.) leaf extracts on high-fat diet-induced obesity in rats. Normal control, high-fat diet (HFD) control, orlistat standard, and test groups were created using male Albino Wistar rats (n = 6 per group) weighing 190 ± 15 g. Except for the control group, all regimens were administered orally and continued for 6 weeks while on HFD. Evaluation criteria included body weight, food intake, blood glucose, lipid profile, oxidative stress, and liver histology. High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) analysis was performed using a solvent system (7:3 hexane: ethyl acetate for sitosterol solution and Jatropha tanjorensis extracts and 6:4 hexane: ethyl acetate: 1 drop of acetic acid for esculetin and Fraxinus micrantha extracts). There were no deaths during the 14 days before the acute toxicity test, indicating that aqueous and ethanolic extracts of both J.T. and F.M. did not produce acute toxicity at any dose (5, 50, 300, and 2000 mg/kg). The ethanolic and aqueous extracts of J.T. and F.M. leaves at 200 and 400 mg/kg/orally showed a reduction in weight gain, feed intake, and significant decreases in serum glucose and lipid profile. As compared to inducer HFD animals, co-treatment of aqueous and ethanolic extract of both J.T. and F.M. and orlistat increased the levels of antioxidant enzymes and decreased lipid peroxidation. The liver's histological findings showed that the sample had some degree of protection. These results indicate that ethanolic samples of J.T. have antidiabetic potential in diabetic rats fed an HFD. The strong antioxidant potential and restoration of serum lipid levels may be related to this. Co-treatment of samples JTE, JTAQ, FME, FMAQ and orlistat resulted in an increase in antioxidant enzymes and reduction in lipid peroxidation as compared to inducer HFD animals. We report, for the first time, on using these leaves to combat obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acetylation is one of the key post-translational protein modifications catalysed by the protein lysine acetyltransferases (KATs). KATs catalyse the transfer of acetyl groups to the epsilon-amino groups of lysine residues in histones and non-histone proteins. Because of its wide range of target proteins, KATs regulate many biological processes, and their aberrant activities may underlie several human diseases, including cancer, asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and neurological disorders. Unlike most of the histone modifying enzymes, such as lysine methyltransferases, KATs do not possess any conserved domain like SET domain of lysine methyltransferases. However, almost all the major families of KATs are found to be transcriptional coactivators or adaptor proteins, with defined catalytic domains, called canonical KATs. Over the past two decades, a few proteins have been discovered to possess intrinsic KAT activity but are not classical coactivators. We would like to categorize them as non-canonical KATs (NC-KATs). These NC-KATs include general transcription factors TAFII250, mammalian TFIIIC complex, and mitochondrial protein GCN5L1, etc. This review focuses on our understanding, as well as controversies regarding non-canonical KATs, where we compare the structural and functional similarities and dissimilarities of non-canonical KATs with the canonical KATs. This review also highlights the potential role of NC-KATs in health and diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous captioning methods only rely on semantic-level information considering the similarity of features between image regions in visual space and ignoring the linguistic context incorporated in the decoder for caption generation. In this paper, a transformer-based co-attention network is proposed which uses linguistic information to capture the pairwise visual relationships among objects and significant visual features. We infer the entity words from the visual content of objects, during the caption generation process. Also, we infer the interactive words by focusing on the relationship between entity words, based on the relational context between words generated in the course of caption decoding. We use linguistic contextual information as a guiding force to discover the relationships between objects efficiently. Further, we capture both intra-modal and inter-modal interactions using the multilevel co-attention network. Our model attains 44.1/33.6 BLEU@4, 30.8/25.1 METEOR, 61.9/55.1 ROUGE, 132.1/69.8 CIDEr, and 24.1/17.8 SPICE scores on MSCOCO and Flickr30k datasets, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dexamethasone-mediated pharmacological activation of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is widely used in the treatment regimen of hematological malignancies and solid cancers. However, DEX sensitivity towards patients primarily depends on the endogenous protein levels of GR. We observed that DEX treatment leads to an increase in GR protein levels despite inhibition of neo-protein synthesis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. Mechanistically, DEX-stimulation concomitantly increased the JNK phosphorylation and GR protein levels, however the JNK stimulation preceds GR upregulation. Moreover, we also observed that DEX-mediated phosphorylation is partially mediated by upregulation in MEKK1 phosphorylation. Further, GR protein levels were significantly decreased in JNK inhibitor (JNKi, SP600125) treated cells whereas MG132 treatment restored GR levels indicating that DEX induced JNK activity regulated the GR protein levels through proteasomal-degradation pathway. Next, we showed that DEX led to JNK activation which physically interacts with GR and protects it from ubiquitination-mediated degradation. Furthermore, at basal level GR interacts with JNK in cytoplasm whereas upon DEX stimulation GR and pJNK both localized to nucleus and interact with each other. Next, we show that JNK-mediated GR stabilization affects its nuclear transcriptional functional activity in NSCLC cells. In line with these in vitro data, patient dataset analysis also shows that increased levels of both JNK and GR contributes towards better prognosis of NSCLC patients. Taken together, our data shows that DEX treatment may lead to positive feedback regulation of GR by activating JNK and thus highlights importance of GR-JNK crosstalk in NSCLC. • Dexamethasone stabilizes the levels of GR in NSCLC cells. • Dexamethasone concomitantly increases GR levels and phosphorylation of JNK. • Inhibition of JNK-phosphorylation mitigates GR levels. • Phosphorylated -JNK interacts with GR upon dexamethasone stimulation. • Phosphorylated JNK limits the ubiquitination of GR upon dexamethasone stimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various endodontic interventions often lead to iatrogenic damage to the inferior alveolar nerve present in the inferior alveolar canal (IAC). The purpose of the present study was to analyze the relationships of IAC with the root apices of mandibular teeth and with the mandibular cortical plates. Materials: 116 cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans were examined and the shortest distance of IAC with the root apices of mandibular canines, premolars and molars, and with cortical plates was analyzed. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS. Results: The shortest mean distance between IAC and lingual cortical plate (LCP) was found in the third molar area, and between IAC and buccal cortical plate (BCP) in the second premolar area. A high incidence of 60% direct communication (DC) was present in mandibular second molars; 38% in mandibular third molars; 13% in mandibular second premolars; 12% in mandibular first molars; and 1% in mandibular first premolars. Conclusion: Anteriorly, IAC was found to be significantly present in close approximation to the roots of mandibular canines. Posteriorly, IAC was found to be in significant proximity to the distal roots of mandibular second molars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of open apex on working length (WL) determination with aid of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) and electronic apex locators (EALs). Methods. Thirty-two extracted human mandibular premolars were selected, and apical 5 mm was removed. Root canals were prepared from the apical to the coronal direction of the canal using peeso reamers up to size 5 (retrograde) to simulate open apex. The samples were analyzed by CBCT, and WL was established (CWL) by a radiologist. An endodontist prepared the access cavities, and visual working length (VWL) was recorded. The samples were embedded in a freshly mixed alginate mould up to cementoenamel junction. Each root canal length was measured with two different EALs—Root ZX mini and i Root. The measurements were repeated 3 times by using a digital caliper, and the mean was recorded by the endodontist who was blinded to the results of the CWL. The recorded data was statistically analyzed using the SPSS software. Results. The results of this study showed statistically significant difference between VWL and i Root, CWL and i Root, and Root ZX mini and i Root (p < 0.05). Amongst EALs, a superior accuracy was noted for Root ZX mini than as compared to i Root. However, no statistically significant difference was seen between Root ZX mini and CWL (p > 0.05). Conclusion. The present study showed that CWL is as accurate and reliable as VWL which is the gold standard. Amongst EALs, Root ZX mini performed more accurately than i Root. Preexisting CBCT scans should be used as an advantage in determining WL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of additional canals and the occurrence of oval canals in apical third area of mandibular permanent incisors of Saudi sub-population. Methods: This study was conducted from November 2020 to May 2021 at College of Dentistry, Qassim University. For the investigation purpose of this study, 314 scans were analyzed within the age limits of 13 to 70 years. The root canal morphology, presence of oval canals, number of roots, and prevalence of various canal configurations based on age, gender and bilateral symmetry were recorded. The obtained data was statistically analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The mandibular central incisors (CI) exhibited, significant difference between Type-I, II, III and IV canal configurations and Type-I, II, III and V canal configurations (p < 0.05). For the mandibular lateral incisor (LI), significant difference was found between Type-I, II, III, IV and VII canal configurations (p < 0.05). The cumulative prevalence of oval canals in mandibular incisors was found to be 46.6%. For both mandibular CI and LI, the prevalence of Type-I canals was significantly higher in males as compared to females (p < 0.05). Conversely, significantly higher prevalence of Type-III canals was noted for females as compared to males (p < 0.05). No significant difference was found in the prevalence of different canal configurations on the left and the right side of the mouth. Conclusion: In this study, multiple canals were prominently recognized with Type-III mandibular incisors dominating this feature. Oval canals were predominantly found in single canal especially Type-III. This research suggests variability in canal morphology among different populations. Knowledge of these aberrant canal anatomies is useful for the clinician to achieve a favorable endodontic outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note unveils new archival evidence from Amnesty International's first twenty-five years (1961–1986) to shed light on the realization of international human rights as Amnesty balanced "nonpolitical politics" through multifaceted government relations. The research draws from minutes and reports of eighty meetings of Amnesty's executive leadership and interviews from the 1983 to 1985 Amnesty Oral History project, all collected from the International Institute of Social History. The records show that during this time Amnesty relied on government and foundation funding to exit a severe financial crisis. Amnesty also cultivated a private diplomatic network with governments for access and advocacy and conducted side bargains with closed countries for access and reforms. In one sense, the new evidence complicates the conventional wisdom that Amnesty was only financed from small, individual donors and stayed away from private government dealings. In another sense, the new data extend existing insights about INGO strategic action by revealing Amnesty's pragmatic trade-offs when maintaining arms–length relations with governments to better appreciate the organization's early challenges and accomplishments. The note ultimately contributes to scholarship on the strategic choices of INGOs and provides new data for future research on the agency of nonstate actors in global governance navigating complex government relations. Esta nota de investigación presenta nueva evidencia documental de los primeros 25 años de Amnistía Internacional (Amnesty International), de 1961 a 1986, para arrojar luz sobre el cumplimiento de las normas internacionales de derechos humanos mientras Amnistía balanceaba la "política no política" mediante relaciones gubernamentales polifacéticas. La investigación incorpora actas e informes de 80 reuniones del liderazgo ejecutivo de Amnistía y entrevistas de 1983 a 1985 del proyecto Historia Oral de Amnistía (Amnesty Oral History), recopiladas del Instituto Internacional de Historia Social. Los documentos muestran que, en ese momento, Amnistía necesitó financiación gubernamental y de fundaciones para salir de una crisis financiera grave. Amnistía también cultivó una red diplomática privada con gobiernos a cambio de acceso y defensa, y tuvo negocios paralelos con países cerrados a cambio de acceso y reformas. En un sentido, la nueva evidencia complica la sabiduría convencional de que Amnistía solo tuvo financiamiento de donantes pequeños e individuos y se mantuvo lejos de los negocios privados con gobiernos. En contraste, los nuevos datos amplían las percepciones existentes sobre la acción estratégica de organizaciones no gubernamentales internacionales (ONGI), revelando las concesiones pragmáticas de Amnistía al mantener relaciones independientes con gobiernos, y permiten apreciar mejor los desafíos y logros iniciales de la organización. La nota, fundamentalmente, contribuye a la investigación sobre las decisiones estratégicas de las ONGI y brinda nuevos datos para futuras investigaciones sobre la autonomía de los actores no estatales que navegan relaciones gubernamentales complejas en la gobernanza global. Cet exposé de recherche dévoile de nouvelles preuves issues des 25 premières années d'archives d'Amnesty International (1961–1986) pour apporter un éclairage sur l'application des droits de l'Homme tandis qu'Amnesty équilibrait la « politique apolitique » par le biais de relations gouvernementales à plusieurs facettes. Cette recherche s'appuie sur des minutes et rapports de 80 réunions de la haute direction d'Amnesty, ainsi que sur des entretiens qui ont eu lieu entre 1983 et 1985 dans le cadre du projet Oral History (Histoire orale) d'Amnesty. Ces données ont toutes été recueillies auprès de l'Institut International d'Histoire Sociale. Les archives montrent que durant cette période, Amnesty a dû compter sur le financement de gouvernements et de fondations pour sortir d'une grave crise financière. Amnesty a également cultivé un réseau diplomatique privé avec des gouvernements pour faciliter son accès et son plaidoyer dans le pays concerné tout en menant des négociations parallèles avec les pays fermés pour y favoriser son accès et les réformes. En un sens, les nouvelles preuves compliquent les idées reçues selon lesquelles Amnesty ne serait financée que par de petits donateurs individuels et resterait à l'écart des affaires gouvernementales privées. Mais en un autre sens, ces nouvelles données enrichissent les renseignements existants sur l'action stratégique des organisations non gouvernementales internationales en révélant qu'Amnesty s'était livrée à des compromis pragmatiques en entretenant des relations avec les gouvernements tout en restant à distance. Ces renseignements nous permettent donc de mieux apprécier les premiers défis et accomplissements de l'organisation. En définitive, cet exposé contribue aux études sur les choix stratégiques des organisations non gouvernementales internationales et fournit de nouvelles données pour les recherches futures sur l'intervention des acteurs non étatiques dans la gouvernance mondiale tandis qu'ils naviguent dans des relations gouvernementales complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used a series of individual-level datasets from National Family Health Surveys conducted in 1998–99, 2005–06 and 2015–16 to assess the factors behind the reduction in childhood stunting and underweight in India between the years 1998–99 and 2015–16. A multivariable decomposition regression analysis was performed. Results showed that the prevalence of childhood stunting declined from 49.4% in 1998–99 to 34.9% in 2015–16. Over the same period, the prevalence of childhood underweight declined from 41.9% in 1998–99 to 33.1% in 2015–16. The reduction in the prevalence of stunting was found to be contributed largely by a reduction in the combined prevalence of stunting and underweight (60%), followed by stunted only (21%) and the combined prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting (19%). Likewise, the reduction in the prevalence of underweight was contributed by a reduction in the combined prevalence of stunting and underweight and the combined prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting. Results of the decomposition analysis showed that over the period 1998–99 to 2015–16, improvement in wealth status and maternal education led to 13% and 12% declines, respectively, in childhood stunting and to 31% and 19% declines, respectively, in childhood underweight. Furthermore, reductions in childhood stunting and underweight were due to an increased average number of antenatal care visits, lower average birth order, decreased share of children with below-average birth size, increased use of clean fuel for cooking and a reduction in the practice of open defecation. These findings suggest that further reduction in the prevalence of childhood stunting and underweight could be attained through more equitable household economic growth, investment in girl's education, greater access to improved toilet facilities, more widespread use of clean fuel for cooking, reduction in average birth order, increased antenatal care visits and greater consumption of IFA tablets by pregnant women. Policymakers need to prioritize these measures to further reduce malnutrition among Indian children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the employment opportunities trend in the library and information science profession based on job advertisements published in Employment News. Data for the analysis pertained to the years 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2019. The study reflects the impact of ICT on various aspects of vacancies advertised in libraries such as designation, required qualifications, experience, skills and competencies. It is found that there have been significant changes over the years in the required ICT related qualifications and skills. In most of the job vacancies, the recruiters are looking for candidates who have sound knowledge of information technology. It is also found that with the ICT implementation, more vacancies are published in Employment News in the field of library and information science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent public discourse and political theory center on "structural" approaches of assigning responsibility for injustice in contrast to an "interactional" perspective. The interactional approach corrects discrete harms between agents to return to a just baseline, whereas the structural approach casts a wider net implicating agents in harmful structures for systemic transformation. This theory note advances the understanding of structural responsibility in international relations by defending it against common critiques of underspecification and lack of targeted accountability. We argue that structural arguments are better understood as constituting a framework on the nature of injustice rather than a theory or descriptor of particular harms. We present a "framework, theory, action" heuristic, drawing from constructivism's evolution from a theory (like realism and liberalism) when it first appeared to a framework (like rationalism) more recently. Our framework heuristic makes available a fuller range of conceptual tools to hold unjust structures responsible, including through targeted blame and liability, and discards the need to invent new actions to discharge structural responsibility. Rather than settle on one definition of structural responsibility—what it means, where it is located, and how it is discharged—we direct scholars to the numerous ways structural responsibility may be theorized and enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is pioneering, nondestructive, and reproducible equipment that produces very thin sections and an accurate three dimensional reconstruction of the object with cubic voxels and isotropic resolution. To the best of our understanding, no research has so far tested the removal efficacy of XP-F and XP-FR in obturated oval canals using micro-computed tomography. Aim: This study aimed to assess and relate the efficacy of XP-F and XP-FR as a supplementary step during re-treatment in apical third area of oval canals through micro-CT analysis. Materials and methods: Root canals of forty human extracted maxillary premolars were prepared with ProTaper Universal (PTU) and obturated using F3 ProTaper single cone and AH Plus Sealer. The surface area and volume was analyzed using micro CT imaging. The canals were re-treated with ProTaper Universal retreatment files (PTUR). Post re-treatment surface area and volume were evaluated with micro CT imaging. Supplementary re-treatment was done with XP-endo Finisher (XPF) and XP-endo Finisher R (XP-FR). The roots were scanned again in the micro CT device and the remaining volumes of the filling material were quantified. Data was analyzed by means of Mann-Whitney test with a significance threshold of 5%. Results: The remaining filling material after re-treatment with PTR files in both the groups was not statistically significant for both volume and surface area (p > 0.05). For XP-F group, the elimination of filling material was 83.2% in volume and 89.4% in surface area in apical 5 mm. For XP-FR group, the elimination of filling material was 72.3% in volume and 78.7% in surface area in apical 5 mm. The percentage of filling material removed by XP-F was statistically significant as compared to the XP-FR group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: In the apical 5 mm of oval shaped canals XP-F showed better re-treatment efficiency than XP-FR. However, neither of both instruments could eliminate all remaining filling material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scene Text Visual Question Answering (VQA) needs to understand both the visual contents and the texts in an image to predict an answer for the image-related question. Existing Scene Text VQA models predict an answer by choosing a word from a fixed vocabulary or the extracted text tokens. In this paper, we have strengthened the representation power of the text tokens by using FastText embedding, appearance, bounding box and PHOC features for text tokens. Our model employs two-way co-attention by using self-attention and guided attention mechanisms to obtain the discriminative image features. We compute the text token position and combine this information with the predicted answer embedding for final answer generation. We have achieved an accuracy of 51.27% and 52.09% on the TextVQA validation set and test set. For the ST-VQA dataset, our model predicted an ANLS score of 0.698 on validation set and 0.686 on test set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mTOR complexes play a fundamental role in mitochondrial biogenesis and cellular homeostasis. Wat1, an ortholog of mammalian Lst8 is an important component of TOR complex and is essential for the regulation of downstream signaling. Earlier we reported the role of Wat1 in oxidative stress response. Here, we have shown that the abrogation of wat1 causes respiratory defects and mitochondrial depolarization that leads to a decrease in ATP production. The confocal and electron microscopy in wat1 Δ cells revealed the fragmented mitochondrial morphology implying its role in mitochondrial fission. Furthermore, we also showed its role in autophagy and the maintenance of calcium ion homeostasis. Additionally, tor2–287 mutant cells also exhibit defects in mitochondrial integrity indicating the TORC1-dependent involvement of Wat1 in the maintenance of mitochondrial homeostasis. The interaction studies of Wat1 and Tor2 with Por1 and Mmm1 proteins revealed a plausible cross-talk between mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum through the Mitochondria-associated membranes (MAM) and endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria encounter structure (ERMES) complex, involving TORC1. Taken together, this study demonstrates the involvement of Wat1/mLst8 in harmonizing various mitochondrial functions, redox status, and Ca2+ homeostasis. • Absence of wat1 causes respiratory defects and mitochondrial depolarization that leads to decrease in ATP production • The fragmented mitochondrial morphology in wat1 Δ cells suggests its role in mitochondrial fission. • Wat1 plays a role in autophagy and in the maintenance of calcium ion homeostasis • The role of Wat1 in the maintenance of mitochondrial homeostasis is TORC1-dependent. • The interaction studies suggest TORC1 dependent cross-talk between mitochondria and ER through the MAM and ERMES complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using longitudinal data from the first and second waves of the Young Lives Study (YLS) in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam, conducted in 2002 and 2006-07, and a repeated measures mixed model, this study examined the effect of the use of solid fuels for cooking on childhood stunting among children aged 5-76 months. The analysis showed that in all four populations, the average height-for-age z-score (HAZ score) was much lower among children living in households using solid fuels than among children in households using cleaner fuels for cooking. The average HAZ score was lower among children living in households that used solid fuels in both waves of the YLS compared with those whose households used solid fuels in only one of the two waves. A significant reduction was noted in the average HAZ score between the two waves in all countries except Ethiopia. The results of the repeated measures mixed model suggest that household use of solid fuels was significantly associated with lower HAZ scores in all populations, except Ethiopia. The findings also indicate that the reduction in the HAZ scores between waves 1 and 2 was not statistically significant by the type of cooking fuel after controlling for potential confounding factors. The study provides further evidence of a strong association between household use of solid fuels and childhood stunting in low- and middle-income countries using longitudinal data. The findings highlight the need to reduce exposure to smoke from the combustion of solid fuels, by shifting households to cleaner cooking fuels, where feasible, by providing cooking stoves with improved combustion of solid fuels and improved venting, and by designing and implementing public information campaigns to inform people about the health risks of exposure to cooking smoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents social construction as a research framework, rather than an explanatory theory in constructivism, to outline different research strategies. Varieties of constructivism thus far conceived in international relations prefer cleavages where scholars are regarded as thin/thick, conventional/critical, or mainstream/radical. In contrast, I introduce a new landscape of social construction to show unique mechanisms for socially constructing international politics. The new landscape varies on two dimensions. The first, source of socialization, asks whether scholars treat social context as fixed in discrete, observable forms or as fluid in indiscrete, shifting arrangements. The second dimension, focus of analysis, asks whether scholars primarily study social structures, social subjects, or some interaction of the two. The dimensions make visible a multitude of research strategies with implications for the stability of social processes and the potential for causal analysis. Moreover, within this landscape, the article focuses on four processes of social construction—aggregating, assembling, internalizing, and performing—as seen inductively through examining prominent constructivist projects. Disaggregating the many processes avoids the misuse of social construction as a catchall mechanism. Finally, the article applies the select processes to the social construction of international norms to better grasp the relative payoffs of constructivist IR scholarship for research and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The high incidence of septic transfusion reactions (STRs) led to testing being mandated by AABB from 2004. This was implemented by primary culture of single-donor apheresis platelets (APs) from 2004 and prestorage pooled platelets (PSPPs) from 2007.Study Design/methods: Platelet (PLT) aliquots were cultured at issue and transfusion reactions evaluated at our hospital. Bacterial contamination and STR rates (shown as rates per million transfusions in Results) were evaluated before and after introduction of primary culture by blood centers that used a microbial detection system (BacT/ALERT, bioMerieux) or enhanced bacterial detection system (eBDS, Haemonetics).Results: A total of 28,457 PLTs were cultured during pre-primary culture periods (44.7% APs; 55.3% at-issue pooled PLTs [AIPPs]) and 97,595 during post-primary culture periods (79.3% APs; 20.7% PSPPs). Forty-three contaminated units were identified in preculture and 34 in postculture periods (rates, 1511 vs. 348; p < 0.0001). Contamination rates of APs were significantly lower than AIPPs in the preculture (393 vs. 2415; p < 0.0001) but not postculture period compared to PSPPs (387 vs. 198; p = 0.9). STR rates (79 vs. 90; p = 0.98) were unchanged with APs but decreased considerably with pooled PLTs (826 vs. 50; p = 0.0006). Contamination (299 vs. 324; p = 0.84) and STR rates (25 vs. 116; p = 0.22) were similar for PLTs tested by BacT/ALERT and eBDS primary culture methods. A change in donor skin preparation method in 2012 was associated with decreased contamination and STR rates.Conclusion: Primary culture significantly reduced bacterial contamination and STR associated with pooled but not AP PLTs. Measures such as secondary testing near time of use or pathogen reduction are needed to further reduce STRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Present study comprehends significant role of MicroRNAs in VTE pathogenesis. • Review highlights the strengths and weaknesses of MiRNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic targets. • This review could make the way for future research and exploration in this area. Venous Thrombo-embolism (VTE) is the major preventable cause of death and disability worldwide. It has the third highest incidence rate of hospital death after coronary artery disease (CAD) and stroke. With the establishment of Virchow's triad stating the major factors responsible for VTE including stasis, hypercoagulability and endothelial dysfunction, the last decade reported number of studies regarding its diagnosis and prophylaxis. Till date the most commonly used clinical marker for its diagnosis is the D-dimer test, detecting endogenous fibrinolysis. This test often gives false positive results and has low specificity. Other markers of coagulation are being used in combination with D-dimer; however, a reliable and sensitive biomarker is still needed for early and accurate diagnosis of VTE. Non-coding regulatory RNAs such as MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small molecules that play a significant role in RNA silencing and post-transcriptional gene expression regulation. They can specifically bind to their target genes forming silencing complex, thereby inducing degradation and altered gene expression. A wide range of miRNAs have extensively been studied in a variety of cardiovascular diseases such as CAD, stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), atherosclerosis, obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and other complex diseases such as cancer. It has been demonstrated that circulating miRNAs have enormous potential to function as clinical diagnostic biomarkers for many diseases. This review comprehends recent studies establishing the inevitable role of miRNAs in pathogenesis of complex diseases with special emphasis on venous thrombosis. The differential expression pattern of these miRNAs shows a strong positive correlation with the manifestation of the pathological symptoms of diseases. Systematic consolidation of different miRNAs linked to VTE in various studies could be helpful in finding accurate diagnostic markers for thrombosis and may also find its place in VTE therapeutics. However, more extensive research and confirmatory experiments are needed to establish the role of these miRNAs as biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dexmedetomidine has been used as an effective adjuvant to local anesthetics in peripheral nerve blocks and at the incision site. Aims: We compared the postoperative analgesic effect of bupivacaine alone and in addition of dexmedetomidine to bupivacaine in wound instillation during lumbar laminectomy. Setting and Design: This was a prospective, double-blind, randomized control trial. Subjects and Methods: Sixty adults of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Grade I–II scheduled for elective lumbar laminectomy under general anesthesia were randomly allocated into two groups. Group B (control group) patients received wound instillation with 20 mL of 0.25% bupivacaine at the end of surgery and Group D patients received 2 μg.kg−1 dexmedetomidine diluted in 20 mL 0.25% bupivacaine as instillation over the incision site. If the NRS exceeded "4" at any point of time, rescue analgesia with injection diclofenac 75 mg deep intramuscular was administered. Postoperative pain score, duration of analgesia, total rescue analgesic required in the first 24 h, and side effects were compared between the groups. Results: Demographic data were comparable in both the groups. Duration of analgesia (19.93 ± 3.2 in Group D vs. 12.13 ± 1.8 in Group B) was significantly more in Group D, number of analgesic demands were less in group D as compared to Group B, and total rescue analgesic required (62.51 ± 39.13 vs. 95.68 ± 33.5) was significantly less in Group D as compared to Group B. Conclusions: We conclude that dexmedetomidine 2 μg.kg−1 is an effective adjuvant to bupivacaine for wound instillation in terms of quality and duration of postoperative analgesia following lumbar laminectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite a fast-growing economy and the largest anti-malnutrition programme, India has the world's worst level of child malnutrition. Despite India's 50% increase in GDP since 1991, more than one third of the world's malnourished children live in India. Among these, half of the children under age 3 years are underweight and a third of wealthiest children are over-nutrient. One of the major causes for malnutrition in India is economic inequality. Therefore, using the data from the fourth round of National Family Health Survey (2015–16), present study aims to examine the socio-economic inequality in childhood malnutrition across 640 districts of India. Method: Concentration curve and generalized concentration index were used to examine the socioeconomic inequalities in malnutrition. However, regression-based decomposition methodology was used to decomposes the causes of inequality in childhood malnutrition. Result: Result shows that about 38% children in India were stunted and 35% were underweight during 2015–16. Prevalence of stunting and underweight children varies considerably across Indian districts (13 to 65% and 7 to 67% respectively). Districts having the higher share of undernourished children is coming from the particular regions like central, east and west part of the country. On an average about 35% of household in a district having the access of safe drinking water and 42% of household in a district exposed to open defecation. The study found the inverse relationship between district's economic development with childhood stunting and underweight. The concentration of stunted as well as underweight children were found in least developed districts of India. Decomposition approach found that practice of open defecation is positively influenced the inequality in stunting and underweight. Further, inequality in undernutrition is accelerated by the height and education of the mother, and availability of safe drinking water in a district. Conclusions: The districts that lied out in a spectrum of developmental diversity are required some specific set of information's that covering socio-economic, demographic and health-related quality of life of people in those backward districts. More generally, policies to avail improved water and sanitation facility to public and female literacy should be continued. It is also important to see that the benefits of both infrastructure and more general economic development are spread more evenly across districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gpr126 (Adgrg6), a member of the adhesion G protein-coupled receptor family, has been associated with a variety of human diseases. Yet, despite its clinical importance, the mechanisms regulating Gpr126 expression are poorly understood. Here, we aimed at identifying upstream regulatory mechanisms of Gpr126 expression utilizing the heart as model organ in whichGpr126 regulates trabeculation. Here, we focused on possible regulation of Gpr126 regulation by microRNAs, which have emerged as key players in regulating development, have a critical role in disease progression, and might serve as putative therapeutic targets. In silico analyses identified one conserved binding site in the 3' UTR of Gpr126 formicroRNA27a and 27b (miR-27a/b). In addition, miR-27a/b and Gpr126 expression were differentially expressed during rat heart development. A regulatory role of miR-27a/b in controlling Gpr126 expression was substantiated by reduced Gpr126 mRNA levels upon ectopic expression of miR-27a/b in HEK293T cells and miR-27b in zebrafish embryos. Regulation of Gpr126 expression by direct binding of miR-27a/b to the 3' UTR of Gpr126 was verified by luciferase reporter assays in HEK293T cells. Finally, the modulation of gpr126 expression in zebrafish by injection of either miR-27b or miR-27b inhibitor in single cell-stage embryos resulted in hypo- or hypertrabeculation, respectively. Collectively, the data indicate that Gpr126 expression is regulated by miR-27a/b. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The present study was aimed to explore new irrigating solutions, which would probably be as effective as sodium hypochlorite. Aims: The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the antibacterial effectiveness of 0.1% octenidine, SmearOFF, 1% alexidine and 5.25% sodium hypochlorite against E. faecalis biofilm formed on tooth substrate. Materials and methods: Eighty extracted human teeth were decoronated, biomechanically prepared, vertically sectioned, placed in the tissue culture wells exposing the root canal surface to E. faecalis strain (ATCC 29212) to establish 3-week-old biofilm. At the end of the 3rd week all groups were treated for 10 minutes with 3 ml of test solutions. Samples exposed to 5.25% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) were used as control. All the samples were evaluated for E. faecalis growth and number of colony forming units. Statistical analysis was performed by using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to measure the mean values. The intergroup comparison was done by Tukey HSD post hoc test (p<0.05). Results: Maximum inhibition was observed with 0.1% OCT (group 1) followed by NaOCl (group 4) and ALX (group 3). SmearOFF (group 2) showed the least inhibitory effect. NaOCl (group 4) and ALX (group 3) showed no statistically significant difference (p>0.05), whereas all the other intergroup differences were statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusions: 0.1% OCT showed significantly higher antibiofilm effects. No significant differences were observed between 1% ALX and 5.25% NaOCl. SmearOFF showed significantly lower antibiofilm effects (p<0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During endodontic intervention, major efforts are made to eliminate bacteria from the infected root canal system. Along these lines, keeping up the chain of asepsis is critical to anticipate sterile root canal system. Currently, gutta-percha (GP) is the most commonly used root canal core filling material. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of 1% Alexidine, 2% Chlorhexidine, 5.25% Sodium Hypochlorite and saline against E.faecalis in disinfecting gutta-percha cones and to analyze the surface topography of gutta-percha cones after the rapid chemical disinfection procedure. Materials and methods: Gutta-percha cones were contaminated with E.faecalis and immersed in 1% ALX, 2% CHX, 5.25% NaOCl and 0.9% saline for 30 and 60 sec. The disinfected cones were immersed in test tubes and incubated at 37°C for 72 hours. Bacterial growth was evaluated by the presence of turbidity in the broth. Results were confirmed by sub culturing the bacterial colony. For topographical examination, the gutta-percha cones were analyzed under Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Data was statistically analyzed using one way ANOVA. Results: ALX and NaOCl did not show growth of the tested microorganism for any observed period. CHX completely eliminated E. faecalis after 60 sec. Saline showed no antimicrobial activity. The results of SEM showed some deposits after disinfection procedure by NaOCl and CHX test solutions used. Conclusion: ALX and NaOCl were found to be the most efficient disinfecting agent in eliminating E.faecalis at different time intervals tested. The topographical examination revealed that ALX and CHX left little residue than as compared to NaOCl after 1 minute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The brain‐computer interface (BCI) enables individuals with impairments to interact with the real world without relying on the neuromuscular pathway. BCI leverages artificial intelligence (AI) models for control. It can capture brain activity patterns associated with mental processes and convert them into commands for actuators. One promising application of BCI is in rehabilitation centres. When compared to traditional methods integrated with machine learning (ML) approaches that were initially explored in the past decade, there is a relatively limited number of studies utilizing deep learning (DL) approaches in BCI applications. A novel approach has been developed for the automatic recognition of motor imagery (MI) tasks. This article introduces the improved sparrow search algorithm with deep transfer learning‐based EEG motor imagery classification (ISSADTL‐EEGMIC) algorithm for BCIs. The presented ISSADTL‐EEGMIC algorithm primarily focuses on the automated classification of motor imagery tasks. To achieve this, the ISSADTL‐EEGMIC method first preprocesses EEG signals using the wavelet packet decomposition (WPD) technique. Additionally, it employs the neural architecture search network (NASNet) technique for feature extraction. Moreover, the ISSADTL‐EEGMIC model performs the classification process using the stacked sparse autoencoder (SSAE) model. Furthermore, hyperparameter optimization of the SSAE model is performed using the ISSA technique, which helps achieve maximum classification performance. The results from the simulation of the ISSADTL‐EEGMIC algorithm have been examined using two benchmark datasets. The experimental findings suggest that it outperforms recent approaches in terms of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• DEX treatment inhibits oncogenic phenotypes of NSCLC cell line. • DEX treatment leads to permanent senescence in NSCLC cell line. • GR level is directly associated with better prognosis of NSCLC patients. • GR is lowly expressed in tumor tissues as compared to normal. • DEX co-treatment modulates the sensitivity of cancer cells towards chemotherapy. Activation of the glucocorticoid receptors by its cognate ligand, dexamethasone (DEX) is commonly used as an adjuvant treatment in solid tumors. However, its direct effect on cancerous phenotype is not fully understood. We explored the effect and molecular mechanisms of DEX action in lung cancer. In in vitro experiments, DEX treatment causes decrease in migration, invasion and colony formation ability of A549 cells even at lower doses. DEX also decreased adhesion of A549 cells by reducing the formation of cortical actin. Treatment with RU486, a GR antagonist, indicated that these effects are partially mediated through GR. Further; DEX induces G0/G1 arrest of A549 cells. Mechanistically, DEX induces expression of both CDK inhibitors (p21Cip1, p27Kip1) and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK4, CDK6). Due to this compensatory activation of CDKs and CDKIs, DEX induces the hyper phosphorylation state of Rb protein (pRb) leading to irreversible senescence as confirmed by β-gal staining. Next, in clinical dataset of NSCLC (Non-small cell lung cancer), GR was lowly expressed in cancer patients as compared to the normal group, where higher expression of GR led to higher overall survival of NSCLC indicating for a protective role of GR. Interestingly, when combined with chemotherapeutic agents, DEX can modulate the drug-sensitivity of cells. Taken together, these data indicate that DEX through GR activation may suppress tumor growth by decreasing proliferation and inducing irreversible senescence and combination of standard chemotherapy and DEX can be a potential treatment for NSCLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text present in an image contains rich semantic information which is crucial for the understanding of an image. For example, a signboard having the text "deep water" conveys the danger involved in the image. The current image captioning models do not effectively utilize this useful semantic information due to their limited representation capabilities of scene-text tokens. Our work presents a novel image captioning model called RelNet-MAM, which utilizes a multilevel attention mechanism and relation network. To improve the appearance feature representation, RelNet-MAM uses multilevel attention which consists of spatial attention, channel-wise attention, and semantic attention. For representing the scene-text token effectively, RelNet-MAM uses appearance, FastText, location, and PHOC features for each token. Further, the proposed RelNet-MAM uses the relation network to establish the relationships between the objects and scene-text tokens. Finally, the transformer model together with dynamic pointer networks is used as a decoder in the caption generation process. The proposed RelNet-MAM model outperforms the state-of-the-art models on TextCaps, Flickr30k, and MS COCO datasets. TextCaps requires models to read and reason about the texts in an image for caption generation. MSCOCO and Flickr30k contain diverse images; persons, animals, automobiles, indoor and outdoor scenes. Remarkably, the proposed RelNet-MAM model outperforms the current best model by 2.3% on B-4, 1.8% on METEOR, 2.2% on ROUGE-L, 2.0% on CIDEr-D and 3.0% on SPICE metric scores on TextCaps dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Coagulation parameters such should be checked at the time of admission of COVID-19 patient. • Measurement of these parameters should continue at regular intervals during entire treatment. • Prophylactic anticoagulation therapy, with LMWH or unfractionated heparin is recommended. • Anticoagulation therapy is strongly recommended patients at high-risk for coagulopathy. • Dose and duration of anti-coagulation therapy should be decided on case to case basis. Recent reports on outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19) have shown its association with abnormal blood clots. The viral infection initiates inflammatory responses leading to endothelial damage and coagulation cascade dysfnction. Spread of COVID-19 has been associated with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and subsequent coagulopathy. Initially coagulopathy in COVID-19 patients result in significant elevation of D-dimer, fibrin/fibrinogen degradation products (FDP), and abnormalities in coagulatory parameters, which resulting in formation of thrombus and eventually death. Present report intends to summarize the information of the research reports available so far on the complications of formation of unusal blood clots (thrombosis) during COVID-19 infection and its therapeutic strategies. Extensive web search was done for various reports associating COVID-19 infection with increased coagulopathy and abnormal coagulatory parameters such as PT, PTT, and platelet counts; along with increased D-dimer and fibrinogen levels. Findings of these research reports were summarized to recommend cautions for clinicians while treating COVID-19 patient. Screening of coagulatory parameters upon admission and during entire course of treatment is recommended, especially those who are at increased risk of thrombosis. Also, anticoagulant treatment can be used as thromboprophylaxis measure. Dose and duration of anticoagulation treatment requirement may vary and thus regular monitoring is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many existing image captioning methods only focus on image objects and their relationships for generating image captions, ignoring the text present in an image. Scene text (ST) contains crucial information to understand an image and facilitating reasoning. The existing methods fail to establish strong correlations between optical character recognition (OCR) tokens, as they have limited OCR representation power. Further, these methods have not efficiently used the positional information of the text. In this work, we have proposed an ST-based image captioning model (Trans-MAtt) based on a multilevel attention mechanism and relation network. We have used relation networks to enhance the connections between ST tokens. We have employed a multi-level attention method, which comprises of spatial, semantic, and appearance attention modules that precisely define the image. To represent context-enriched ST tokens, we use a combination of appearance, location, FastText, and PHOC features. We predict the ST location in the image, which is further integrated with the generated word embeddings for final caption generation. Experiments on the TextCaps dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed Trans-MAtt model, where it outperforms the current best model by 3.4% on B-4, 2.9% on METEOR, 3.3% on ROUGE-L, 3.1% on CIDEr-D, and 4.1% on SPICE metric scores. Our experiments on the Flickr30k and MSCOCO datasets demonstrated the superiority of our proposed model over existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exact estimation of root canal length is imperative for the achievement of root canal treatment. Working length (WL) has been defined as "the distance from a coronal reference point to the point at which canal preparation and obturation should terminate". Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the accuracy of two generations of apex locators in teeth with simulated apical root resorption using stainless steel and nickel titanium hand files. Materials and methods: Eighty single-rooted, maxillary anterior teeth were selected. The extracted teeth were soaked in 5% sodium hypochlorite for 6 hours and then in sterile 0.9% saline until use. An oblique cut of 45 degree was made from facial to palatal wall. Access cavities were prepared and the Visual Working Length (VWL) was measured. The samples were then embedded in alginate and the electronic measurements were recorded using stainless steel and nickel titanium hand files. Statistical analysis was done by Analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey HSD test were used for statistical analysis. Results: There was no statistically significant difference seen with DentaPort ZX and i-Root along with the use of stainless steel and NiTi hand files. Conclusion: In the present study, DentaPort ZX and i-Root apex locators showed similar efficacy in determining working length with the use of both stainless steel and NiTi hand files under present study conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study was conducted to evaluate the correlation of renal functions with thyroid hormone levels in patients with undialyzed chronic kidney disease (CKD). Literature shows significant alteration in thyroid hormone function tests in CKD patients who are receiving long-standing dialysis treatment. However, not much is described in those receiving conservative management without dialysis. Although CKD is associated with an increased prevalence of primary hypothyroidism, various studies on thyroid hormone status in uremic patients have reported conflicting results. Methodology: Thyroid hormone levels and biochemical markers of renal function were estimated in 30 undialyzed CKD patients and similar number of age- and sex-matched healthy controls, followed by statistical analysis and correlation. Results: Free triiodothyronine (FT3) and free thyroxine (FT4) were found to be significantly reduced (P < 0.001 for each) in undialyzed CKD patients whereas thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels showed statistically insignificant alteration in both groups. We also observed that urea and creatinine were negatively correlated whereas creatinine clearance was positively correlated with both FT3 and FT4 having high statistical (two tailed) significance with P < 0.001. Nonsignificant correlation was seen between blood urea and TSH (r = 0.236, P = 0.069), creatinine clearance, and TSH (r = 0.206, P = 0.114 Pearson's correlation coefficient). There is just significant positive correlation between the serum creatinine values and TSH (r = 0.248, P = 0.049). Conclusions: Thyroid hormones were significantly decreased in undialyzed CKD patients as compared to healthy controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to understand toxicity of mixture of nanoparticles (NPs) (ZnO and TiO 2 ) and their ions to Escherichia coli . Results indicated the decrease in percentage growth of E. coli with the increase in concentration of NPs both in single and mixture setups. Even a small concentration of 1 mg/L was observed to be significantly toxic to E. coli in binary mixture setup (exposure concentration: 1 mg/L ZnO and 1 mg/L TiO 2 ; 21.15% decrease in plate count concentration with respect to control). Exposure of E. coli to mixture of NPs at 1000 mg/L ( i.e. , 1000 mg/L ZnO and 1000 mg/L TiO 2 ) resulted in 99.63% decrease in plate count concentration with respect to control. Toxic effects of ions to E. coli were found to be lesser than their corresponding NPs. The percentage growth reduction was found to be 36% for binary mixture of zinc and titanium ions at the highest concentration ( i.e. , 803.0 mg/L Zn and 593.3 mg/L Ti where ion concentrations are equal to the Zn ions present in 1000 mg/L ZnO NP solution and Ti + 4 ions present in 1000 mg/L TiO 2 NP solution). Nature of mixture toxicity of the two NPs to E. coli was found to be antagonistic. The alkaline phosphatase (Alp) assay indicated that the maximum damage was observed when E. coli was exposed to 1000 mg/L of mixture of NPs. This study tries to fill the knowledge gap on information of toxicity of mixture of NPs to bacteria which has not been reported earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A relatively well-understood multistep process enables mutation-bearing cells to form primary tumours, which later use the circulation system to colonize new locations and form metastases. However, in which way the emerging abundance of different non-coding RNAs supports tumour progression is poorly understood. Here, we review new lines of evidence linking long and short types of non-coding RNAs to signalling pathways activated in the course of cancer progression by growth factors and by the tumour micro-environment. Resolving the new dimension of non-coding RNAs in oncogenesis will probably translate to earlier detection of cancer and improved therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common leukemia in the Western world. The biology of this disease remains elusive. In the present times, targeted molecular therapy defines the treatment. This has made understanding the elusive biology and molecular mechanisms of the disease more relevant. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-encoding RNAs that play important gene-regulatory roles in neoplastic processes. As in silico studies list nearly hundreds and more target genes for each miRNA, it is of interest to see if there are genes that have already been implicated in this disease. Objective The purpose of this study was to identify genes regulated by miRNAs that are independently implicated in the pathogenesis of CLL in previously published literature. Material and methods Eight miRNAs were selected. Genes implicated in the biology of CLL in association studies and massively parallel sequence studies were selected. TargetScanHuman 6.2, a computational program that predicts target genes of miRNAs on the basis of sequence analysis, was used to link the miRNAs to genes of interest. Results The genes targeted by miR-15a, miR-223, miR-29a, and miR181a included IL10RA, BCL2, BCL6, DDX3X, and FBXW7. The most significant link observed was that several gene members of the TNF/TNFR superfamily were targets of miR-15a, miR-29a, and miR-181a. Conclusion MiRNAs implicated in the pathogenesis of CLL regulate genes that have independently been shown to play a role in CLL. The link between miRNAs and the TNF/TNFR superfamily is especially exciting. Understanding the molecular basis of these links in future studies may pave the way for using these miRNAs as therapeutic targets in CLL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The endogenous, small and non-coding functional microRNAs govern the regulatory system of gene expression and control the growth and development of the plants. Mentha spp. are well known herbs for its flavor, fragrance and medicinal properties. In the present study, we used a computational approach to identify miRNAs and their targets involved in different secondary metabolic pathways of Mentha spp. Additionally, phylogenetic and conservation analysis were also done for the predicted miRNAs. Eleven miRNAs families were identified from Mentha spp., out of which five miRNA families were reported for the first time from Lamiaceae. Overall, 130 distinct target transcripts were predicted for eight miRNAs families. All the predicted targets regulated by predicted miRNAs control the reproduction, signaling, stimulus response, developmental and different metabolic process. miRNA mediated gene regulatory network was also constructed on the basis of hybridized minimum free energy of identified miRNAs and their targets. The study revealed that the gene regulatory system of essential oil biosynthesis may be governed by miR156, miR414 and miR5021 in mint family. Furthermore, three miRNA candidates (miR156, miR5021, and miR5015b) were observed to be involved in trichome development also. This is the first in-silico study describing miRNAs and their role in the regulation of secondary metabolic pathways in Mentha spp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the remarkable success of the image captioning tasks, visual attention methods have become a vital part of captioning models. However, most attention-based image captioning methods do not consider any relationship among regions, which play a significant role in better image understanding. We proposed an image captioning method based on local relation network using a multilevel attention approach with graph neural network. It not only fully explores the relationship between the object and the image regions but also generates significant and context-based features corresponding to every region in the image. The attention employed in our work enhances the image representation capability of our method by focusing on a given image region and its related image regions. Thus addressing the relevant contextual information, spatial locations, and deep visual features leads to improve caption generation. We verified the effectiveness of the proposed model by conducting extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets: Flickr30k, MSCOCO, and nocaps. The results show the superiority of the proposed method over the existing methods both in quantitative and qualitative manners. Detailed ablation studies are conducted to communicate how each part would contribute to the final performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: According to United Nation Children's Fund, it has been estimated that worldwide about 165 million children were stunted in 2012 and India alone accounts for 38 % of global burden of stunting. This study aims to examine the effect of pregnancy intention and maternal postnatal depressive symptoms on early childhood stunting in India. We hypothesized that effect of pregnancy intention and postnatal depressive symptoms were mediated by social support.Methods: We used data from the first wave of Young Lives Study India. Multivariate logistic regression models (using generalized estimation equation) were used to examine the effect of pregnancy intention and postnatal depressive symptoms on early childhood stunting among children aged 5-21 months. The analysis included 1833 children (out of 2011 sample children) that had complete information on pregnancy intention, maternal depression and other variables.Results: Bivariate results indicate that a higher percent of children born after unintended pregnancy (40 %) were stunted than children of intended pregnancy (26 %). Likewise, the proportion of stunted children was also higher among women with high postnatal depressive symptoms (35 %) than the low level of depression (24 %). Results of multivariate logistic regression model indicate that children born after unintended pregnancy were significantly more likely to be stunted than children born after intended pregnancy (AOR: 1.76, CI: 1.25, 2.48). Similarly, early childhood stunting was also associated with maternal postnatal depressive symptoms (AOR: 1.53, CI: 1.21, 1.92). Moreover, the effect of pregnancy intention and postnatal depressive symptoms on early childhood stunting were not mediated by social support.Conclusions: The findings of this study provide conclusive evidence regarding consequences of pregnancy intention and postnatal depressive symptoms on early childhood stunting in India. Therefore, there is a need to identify the women with unintended pregnancy and incorporate the promotion of mental health into their national reproductive and child health programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims The number of Sertoli cells during proliferative phase determines the fate of the germ cells in male reproductive system. A well-characterized cell line may help in better understanding of Sertoli cell biology. Hence, the present study assessed estradiol signaling in a mouse immature Sertoli cell line (MSC-1) as an alternative model in place of primary culture of Sertoli cells. Main methods In this study, we used MSC-1 cell line, derived from 10-day old mice. The cell cycle parameters were assessed, and the expression and regulation of Sertoli cell-specific secretory genes ( ABP ; androgen-binding protein ) and tight junction genes ( claudin-5 , occludin , and vimentin ) in response to estradiol was studied. Key findings The results obtained suggested the presence of both estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ) in MSC-1 cells. In vitro scratch assay and cell-cycle analysis suggested the proliferative effects of estradiol in both time- and dose-dependent manner. The gene expression profiles of ABP , claudin-5 , and occludin showed biphasic regulation at low and high doses of estradiol. Analysis of signaling pathways suggested the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway with significantly increased pERK/ERK ratio ( p < 0.05). The results also suggested down regulation in the expression of mir-17 family members (mir-17, mir-20b, and mir-106a) ( p < 0.05). Significance Considering the limited number of Sertoli cell lines and long-term survival inability of primary culture of Sertoli cells, MSC-1 cells could be a potential cell line for understanding the mechanisms of various cellular events in Sertoli cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curcumin (CUR) and β-caryophellene (BCP) are well known bioactive phytomolecules which are known to reduce oxidative stress in living organisms. Therefore, the present study was envisaged to explore the possible effects of CUR and BCP in suppression of cadmium quantum dots (CdTe QDs) induced toxicity in Caenorhabditis elegans. CdTe QD are luminescent nanoparticles extensively exploited for in vivo imaging, but long term bioaccumulation confer deleterious effects on living organisms. The 24-h LC 50 and LC 100 of CdTe QD were found to be 18.40 μg/ml and 100 μg/ml respectively. The CdTe QD exposure elevated HSP-16.2 expression mediating induction of the stress response. The CdTe QD lethality was due to increment in ROS and decline in SOD and GST expression. The present study demonstrates improved survival in BCP (50 μM) and CUR (20 μM) treated worms by over 60% ( P < 0.01) and 50% ( P < 0.029) in CdTe QD (100 μg/ml) exposed worms. Furthermore, BCP and CUR attenuate oxidative stress triggered by QD. The present study for the first time demonstrates CdTe QD toxicity remediation via BCP and CUR. The future investigations can unravel underlying protective effects of phytomolceules for remediating cyotoxicolgical effects of QDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a large family of endogenous small RNAs derived from the non-protein coding genes. miRNA regulates the gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and plays an important role in plant development. Zingiber officinale is an important medicinal plant having numerous therapeutic properties. Its bioactive compound gingerol and essential oil posses important pharmacological and physiological activities. In this study, we used a homology search based computational approach for identifying miRNAs in Z. officinale . A total of 16 potential miRNA families (miR167, miR407, miR414, miR5015, miR5021, miR5644, miR5645, miR5656, miR5658, miR5664, miR827, miR838, miR847, miR854, miR862 and miR864) were predicted in ginger. Phylogenetic and conserved analyses were performed for predicted miRNAs. Thirteen miRNA families were found to regulate 300 target transcripts and play an important role in cell signaling, reproduction, metabolic process and stress. To understand the miRNA mediated gene regulatory control and to validate miRNA target predictions, a biological network was also constructed. Gene ontology and pathway analyses were also done. miR5015 was observed to regulate the biosynthesis of gingerol by inhibiting phenyl ammonia lyase (PAL), a precursor enzyme in the biosynthesis of gingerol. Our results revealed that most of the predicted miRNAs were involved in the regulation of rhizome development. miR5021, miR854 and miR838 were identified to regulate the rhizome development and the essential oil biosynthesis in ginger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: India is the second largest consumer of tobacco in the world, and varieties of both smoked and smokeless tobacco products are widely available. The national program for tobacco control is run like a vertical stand-alone program. There is a lack of understanding of existing opportunities and barriers within the health programs that influence the integration of tobacco control messages into them. The present formative research identifies such opportunities and barriers. Methods: We conducted a multi-step, mixed methodological study of primary care personnel and policy-makers in two Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The primary purpose of our study was to investigate health worker and policy-maker perceptions on the integration of tobacco control intervention. We systematically collected data in three steps: In Step I, we conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions with primary care health personnel, Step II consists of a quantitative survey among health care providers (n = 1457) to test knowledge, attitudes and practices in tobacco control and Step III we conducted 75 IDIs with program heads and policy-makers to evaluate the relative congruence of their views on integration of the tobacco control program. Results: Majority of the health care providers recognized tobacco use as a major health problem. There was a general consensus for the need of training for effective dissemination of information from health care providers to patients. Almost 92% of the respondents opined that integration of tobacco control with other health programs will be highly effective to downscale the tobacco epidemic. Conclusions: Our findings suggest the need for integration of tobacco control program into existing health programs. Integration of tobacco control strategies into the health care system within primary and secondary care will be more effective and counseling for tobacco cessation should be available for population at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photoperiod is the most consistent environmental cue, and therefore, any change in anticipated light environment may affect subsequent response under long days. To test this hypothesis, photosensitive migratory redheaded buntings (Emberiza bruniceps) were exposed to altered photoperiods for 4 weeks [short days (SP, 8L:16D, group 1; control), short days alternated with constant dim light (SP/LLdim; group 2), constant dim light (LLdim; group 3) and constant bright light (LLbright; group 4)] before being transferred to long days (LP; 16L:8D) for 15 weeks. Group differences in long-day-induced responses were observed. The onset of migratory restlessness (Zugunruhe) was earliest in LLbrightbut persisted for maximum period in LLdimgroup. The LLdimgroup attained peak testis size significantly delayed and had more food consumption under long days. The results suggest that the altered photoperiodic exposure during photosensitive stage affects the seasonal phenotypes such as migration and reproduction in migratory buntings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: The 5As approach is a clinic-based approach and has been developed for primary health care providers who are uniquely positioned to interact with tobacco users. The 5As stands for: Ask about tobacco use at every visit, advise tobacco users to quit, assess readiness to quit, assist quit attempts through counseling and pharmacotherapy and arrange follow-up to prevent relapse. The present study explores whether auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) adhere to the 3As from the recommended 5As model for tobacco cessation. Materials and Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study conducted among 501 ANMs in the state of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Descriptive analysis and chi-square test were employed to test the differences in knowledge levels and practices of ANMs. Bivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between each predictor variable separately and the outcome variables after adjusting for age and location. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 17 software. Results: Majority of ANMs reported that they were aware of respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis, lung and oral cancer as conditions caused due to tobacco consumption. Awareness of adverse reproductive and child health effects associated with tobacco use was very low. Only about one third of respondents informed all patients about harmful effects. Only 16% of ANMs reported having ever received any on-job training related to tobacco control. ANMs who reported receiving training in tobacco control were about two times more likely to provide information on health effects of tobacco as compared to those who reported not being trained in tobacco control in the state of Gujarat. Conclusions: A majority of ANMs ask patients about tobacco use but provide advice only to patients suffering from specific diseases. A context-specific capacity building package needs to be designed to equip ANMs in recommended 5As approach in tobacco cessation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phthalates are commonly used as plasticizers in a variety of products. Since they have been identified as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), effect of phthalates on human health is a major concern. In this study, we evaluated individual as well as combined mixture effects of three low molecular weight phthalates on the reproductive system of male mice, specifically on the Sertoli cell structure and function. In order to analyze the blood testes barrier (BTB) dynamics, primary culture of Sertoli cells from 3-weeks old male mice was used for mimicking typical tight junction structures. Male mice were exposed to long-term (45 days) and combined mixture of three phthalates, diethyl phthalate (DEP), diphenyl phthalate (DPP), and dimethyl isophthalate (DMIP) between pre-pubertal to adult stage. Our data showed significant decrease ( p < 0.05) in the rates of transcription of certain prominent Sertoli cell specific genes like transferrin, testin and occludin. Moreover, we also observed significant decreases in the expression of proteins like 3β-HSD, connexin-43 and occludin in testicular lysates of treated animals ( p < 0.05). The transmission electron microscopic analysis revealed that the test compounds significantly altered the structural integrity of Sertoli cells. The significant changes of Sertoli cell tight junction structure by test compounds were associated with phosphorylation of ERK. Taken together, our study suggests that low molecular weight phthalates may affect male fertility by altering both structural and functional integrity of Sertoli cells in testes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]