A document by Sanghamitra Machhua. Click on the document to view its contents.

Cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) has superior mobility and thermal conduction than that of widely applied hexagonal 4H-SiC. Moreover, much lower concentration of interfacial traps between insulating oxide gate and 3C-SiC helps fabricate reliable and long-life devices like metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs). However, the growth of high quality and wafer-scale 3C-SiC crystals has remained a big challenge up to now despite of decades-long efforts by researchers because of its easy transformation into other polytypes during growth, limiting the development of 3C-SiC based devices. Herein, we report that 3C-SiC can be made thermodynamically favored from nucleation to growth on a 4H-SiC substrate by top-seeded solution growth technique (TSSG), beyond what’s expected by classic nucleation theory. This enables the steady growth of high-quality and large-size 3C-SiC crystals (2~4-inch in diameter and 4.0~10.0 mm in thickness) sustainable. The as-grown 3C-SiC crystals are free of other polytypes and have high crystalline quality. Our findings broaden the mechanism of hetero-seed crystal growth and provide a feasible route to mass production of 3C-SiC crystals, offering new opportunities to develop power electronic devices potentially with better performances than those based on 4H-SiC.

Lophophora diffusa (Cactaceae) –an endangered species– known as peyote or peyote queretano– is of great ecological relevance because of its medicinal and ornamental use by native peoples and collectors. Little is known about the population of this species and no strategies exist for their use since its cultivation and usage is prohibited in Mexico. Thus, the objective of the present research is to describe population dynamics in a locality of the state of Querétaro, México. For this purpose, 380 individuals were followed through four annual and one quinquennial censuses. From these data, the population structure was determined, including the finite population growth rate (λ), stable size structure, reproductive value, relative importance of size categories and demographic processes (permanence, growth, and fecundity) for each period by using transition matrixes. Moreover, future population estimations were performed, showing scarcity of seedlings and adult plants of greater size, where λ indicates a population decline that oscillates between 2 and 20%. The most important demographic process was survival, where the adult 2 category resulted essential. The projections indicate that the population may disappear in a period of less than 50 years. Therefore, the proposal is to revise the Mexican legislation to allow a regulated cultivation with the purpose of protecting the wild populations of the species and its habitat.

Semiliquidambar cathayensis roots were the original Ban-feng-he medicinal plant, with a long history of clinical use as traditional ethnic medicine. Global warming has increased the vulnerability of plants, and S. cathayensis is now endemic to southern China and treated as a grade-2 protected plant in China. Furthermore, the roots of Dendropanax dentiger and Pterospermum heterophyllum, also mainly distributed in southern China, have been often used as a substitute for Ban-feng-he. Predicting the impact of climate change on the distribution of S. cathayensis, D. dentiger, and P. heterophyllum is crucial for their protection and the sustainable use of resources. In this study, we explored how the distribution of the three commonly used original Ban-feng-he medicinal plants endemic to southern China may respond to climate change. We used MaxEnt to model the potential geographic distribution of S. cathayensis, D. dentiger, and P. heterophyllum in the past (Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene), current (1950–1990), and future (2050 and 2070), using environmental variables. Our modeling predicts that the distribution of stable, suitable regions will contract under the RCR4. 5 and RCP8. 5 scenarios. Eastern and southern China appear to be stable areas with suitable habitats, which should be considered future in situ conservation areas for these plants in response to climate change. Our study provides a theoretical basis for establishing genetic resource protection measures, constructing core germplasm resources of Ban-feng-he plants, and a realistic reference for cultivating plants to be used in this ethnodrug for the local industry.

A document by Azeddine El hassouny . Click on the document to view its contents.

This work presents the corrected values of five currents found in a resistance circuit previously reported in the literature. We have found these solutions using the Gauss Jordan reduction method, describing the operations performed between rows to reduce a matrix of five equations by five unknown variables. We have developed a computer program in MatLab using the same method system. We calculate the percentage errors between our results and those reported in the literature. We also report the program's execution time and discuss the implications of the physical concepts that imply the proposed correction to the previously published article. For the first time, we have calculated the electrical currents involved in a series of circuits.

Recently, Large-scale Language Models (LLMs) such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) and Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) have demonstrated remarkable performance in the general domain. However, Inadaptability in a particular domain have led to hallucination for these LLMs when responding in specific domain contexts. The issue has attracted widespread attention, existing domain-centered fine-tuning efforts have predominantly focused on sectors like medical, financial, and legal, leaving critical areas such as power energy relatively unexplored. To bridge this gap, this paper introduces a novel power energy chat model called PowerPulse. Built upon the open and efficient foundation language models (LLaMA) architecture, PowerPulse is fine-tuned specifically on Chinese Power Sector Domain Knowledge. This work marks the inaugural application of the LLaMA model in the field of power energy. By leveraging pertinent pre-training data and instruction fine-tuning datasets tailored for the power energy domain, the PowerPulse model showcases exceptional performance in tasks such as text generation, summary extraction, and topic classification. Experimental results validate the efficacy of the PowerPulse model, making significant contributions to the advancement of specialized language models in specific domains.

Botrytis cinerea (Bc), a plant pathogenic fungus, causes gray mold disease and rapidly develops resistance to fungicides in cultivation areas. In this study, a gram-negative, soil-borne bacterial colony was isolated and exposed to phenol vaporization for 2 days. The colonies treated with phenol displayed restricted growth of Bc’s spores. The highest antibiosis effect was further confirmed using agar bioassays based on their ability to stably suppress pathogen growth. In vitro assays with the colonies showed an 84% inhibition of pathogen growth at 7 dpi using a one-layer agar diffusion test, and a 70% inhibition using a double-layer agar diffusion test, compared to the control plates. In vivo tests involving fruit inoculation, bacterial suspension, and filtrate showed a significant suppression of the pathogen’s mycelium growth at 11 and 14 dpi, compared to the control group. The bacterial strain was identified as Serratia fonticola (EBS19) through whole genome sequence analysis. Comparative genomic analysis using the KEGG pathway database revealed genes encoding enzymes that play a role in inhibiting pathogen growth by S. fonticola. Additionally, BIOLOG analyses identified specific carbon sources utilized by the bacterial strain. This information could be advantageous for formulating an effective biopreparate composition, ensuring the stability of the bacterial strain’s population. Computational studies were conducted to model the interaction between the stress regulator protein (BAG1) of the pathogen and the bacterial glycoside hydrolase enzyme. The predictive modeling results could complement the unclear property of bacterial glycoside hydrolase enzyme activity and its inhibitory effect on the pathogen’s stress regulator protein.

Global change impacts the structure of communities within trophic food webs well before a decline in biodiversity can be measured for instance by species numbers. While land use change is the most important direct driver of terrestrial biodiversity loss, its impact in combination with climate change is less well understood. We investigate the combined effects of climate change (temperature, precipitation) and land-use intensification on terrestrial trophic networks, with a process-based general mechanistic ecosystem model (‘MadingleyR’) that simulates ecosystem dynamics for trait-based functional groups of species (i.e., ectothermic, and endothermic herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores) for different regions such as India and Europe. Resulting patterns are widely consistent across selected regions. The greatest effect of climate change and land use is observed for carnivores. Both, land use intensification and climate change, cause a substantial decrease in the biomass of different functional groups, while some functional groups (generalists, omnivores), partially benefit. Large endotherms are negatively affected by land use intensification, while ectotherms are under pressure from rising temperatures in a changing climate. Arid and tropical regions show a higher response to climate change, with losses of up to -3.4% and -1.9% in total biomass, while areas with low net primary productivity show the most negative response to land use intensification (up to -6.7% in total biomass). Our results suggest that land use intensification (a) has a significant impact on larger organisms and predators, leading to a major restructuring of global food webs, (b) Ectotherms are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures, and (c) regions in tropical or arid climates experience significant changes in their community composition and will be threatened in their biodiversity.

Our goal was to interrogate Janzen’s idea that “mountain passes are higher in the tropics” by investigating putative ecological and biogeographic drivers of patterns of elevational range-sizes among equatorial plant families. We used herbarium records for sixty species-rich plant families, representing a total of 18535 species, to estimate distributions over a 4500 m elevational gradient. For each family, we estimated the change in average range-sizes with increasing elevation (i.e. Rapoport’s rule, abbreviated as ERR) and quantified 15 metrics of familial richness distribution, evolutionary age, and biogeographic affiliation. We visualized covariation across families using used phylogenetic principal components analysis (pPCA), with color illustrating endemism. We then evaluated how family-level ERR slopes correlated with each metric individually, and the first two pPCA components, using phylogenetic independent contrasts. Families with greater Sundaland endemism, or richness that was restricted to tropical lowland forests, had positive ERR slopes. Families with stronger Sahul affiliation, or montane centered richness, had shallower, neutral, or negative ERR slopes. Families with Wallacea affiliation, broader latitudinal or elevational distributions, cosmopolitanism, or older evolutionary age had mixed results. Our findings support Janzen’s hypothesis that “mountain passes are higher in the tropics.” If long term climate stability over millions of years promotes habitat specialization, then among taxa with long-term tropical affiliations, we would expect smaller range-sizes within lowland forests, with range-size expansion towards higher elevations, expressed as a positive ERR slope. Conversely, variation in growing conditions should promote larger, relatively consistent, range-sizes expressed as a neutral ERR slope. Our results support this corollary because of the dichotomy of ERR slopes observed in relation to elevational and historical biogeographic positioning, which may be an indicator of vulnerability of these plant groups to contemporary climate change.

The complex and dynamic interplay between internalization, anterograde transport, recycling and degradation determines the density of functional G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) at the cell surface and, consequently, the magnitude of their associated physiological responses. As opposed to most members of the GPCR superfamily, the delta opioid receptor (DOP) is only weakly expressed at the neuronal plasma membrane, thus representing a critical limitation for its use as a therapeutic target. Although DOP appears as a promising candidate for the development of better-tolerated analgesics, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the regulation of its cell surface expression remain poorly characterized. This work investigates the constitutive ( i.e. ligand-independent) trafficking of DOP, an understudied cellular process potentially involved in the control of plasma membrane-localized receptors. In HEK293 cells stably expressing Flag-tagged DOP, we first confirmed that this GPCR is constitutively internalized through a clathrin-dependent and b-arrestin-independent mechanism. Immunofluorescence experiments with selected Rab protein isoforms indicated that internalized DOP was mainly colocalized with the early endosome marker Rab5, as well as the rapid recycling endosome marker Rab4. Co-transfection with Rab5 dominant-negative mutant inhibited the intracellular distribution of the receptor, indicating that its constitutive endocytosis is Rab5-dependent. DOP cell surface expression and ligand-induced signaling were also significantly reduced following Rab4-specific DsiRNA treatments, suggesting a role for this small GTPase in the regulation of DOP constitutive recycling. Mapping of the major region of interaction between DOP and both Rabs revealed that Rab4 binds the third intracellular loop of DOP, whereas Rab5 seems to preferentially interact with the distal region of the C-terminal end of DOP. Altogether, these results show for the first time that DOP constitutive internalization and recycling are critical to maintain its cell surface bioavailability and responsiveness to agonists.

For the ex-situ conservation of giant pandas, both collecting and preserving semen are important methods. The seminal plasma is rich in nutrients and bioactive substances, such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, and hormones, which play an important role in the reproduction and reproductive health of the species. This is the first study to analyze the seminal plasma proteins of giant pandas through proteomics and identified 1125 proteins. These proteins are related to protein turnover, translation, and metabolism. The seminal plasma proteins of giant pandas were then compared to those of humans, pigs and sheep, with many unique proteins found in giant panda samples. Among these proteins, the WD40 repeat-containing proteins have been identified and implicated in sperm function and fertility. Understanding the composition and function of proteins in the giant panda seminal plasma proteome can provide valuable insights into their reproductive biology and help develop strategies to improve their reproductive success in captivity, which is essential for giant panda conservation.

Background: Invasive fungal Disease (IFDs) are one of the leading causes of death in acute leukaemia patients (AL). Because of the possibility of fungal relapse, patients who survive invasive fungal illnesses may have difficulty completing the whole chemotherapy plan. Objectives: To present two cases of Pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia complicated with Invasive fungal infection with Aspergillosis. Methods: Two 9 years old female patients diagnosed with Pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia that was on the pre-B ALL Protocol: CALL08, Arm-C (High Risk Arm) and the supportive therapy. They were both on Arm C of the CALL08 Protocol (high Risk based on COG232). Then, the patients experienced severe febrile neutropenia. Patient A was during consolidation and patient B during Interim Maintenance I. Both experienced prolonged febrile neutropenia. As Febrile neutropenia continues > 5 days, fungal work was done including CT Sinuses, Chest, and abdomen as well as serum galactomannan, and ( 1- 3)- β- d- glucan (BG). caspofungin was started. Fungal work up results showed lung and liver nodules in one patient and lungs, liver and spleen in the other. There were about 4 weeks of severe fevers and neutropenia despite broad spectrum antibiotics used. A decision was taken to interrupt chemotherapy for both patients. voriconazole was added to caspofungin and continued on meropenem. Biopsies confirmed the diagnosis to be severe fungal infection with Invasive Aspergillosis. After that, high fevers and neutropenia slowly recovered and repeated CT Abdomen showed good improvement in the lesions number and size. After 6-8 weeks of interruption, chemotherapy was resumed. Results: With combination therapy with voriconazole & caspofungin for 6 weeks then single therapy (voriconazole orally) for another 6 weeks, the patients become stable and afebrile. Chemotherapy was on hold till they become better. Conclusion: antifungal primary and secondary prophylaxis are recommended for ALL patients. Chemotherapy discontinuation is decided on an individual basis according to the severity of the fungal infection and disease status.

The development of winter-tolerant safflower genotypes is crucial for the improvement of global safflower agriculture. The aim of the present study was to determine the cold tolerance abilities and some agricultural characteristics of advanced safflower genotypes. For this purpose, ten advanced safflower genotypes were used in four different locations. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replications. Winter survival and agricultural characters were significantly affected by growing season, location and genotype. Winter survival varies between 86.43% and 93.91% among the genotypes, and it was promising for winter sowing. As the average of two years, the highest oil content (36.25%) was observed in genotype EC21 and it was followed by genotypes EC11 (35.51%) and EC20 (35.49%). As with the seed yield, the high winter survival of genotypes with high oil content is highly promising in terms of winter sowing. Safflower should be grown in winter with mild temperature regions for high seed yield and sustainable safflower production. Therefore, this study focused on winter-tolerant genotypes that are superior one in terms of seed yield and oil content.

This article investigates the effects of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) and dental pulp-derived mesenchymal stem cells (DP-MSCs) on motor functional recovery and morphological parameters of the sciatic nerve in rats with crushing injuries. The results showed that the BM-MSCs, DP-MSCs, and BM +DP-MSCs groups exhibited increased SFI values compared to the sham group, indicating improved motor function. Histomorphological analysis revealed preserved perineurium structure and fascicular organization in all groups, with minimal irregularities in the sham and BM-MSCs groups. Vascular density was normal in all groups, and edema and inflammatory cell density were reduced in the BM +DP-MSCs group. Immunohistochemical staining showed S100 expression in all treated groups. The study concludes that BM-MSCs, DP-MSCs, and their combination can effectively promote motor functional recovery and morphological improvements.

Biotreatment of swine wastewater via microalgae is an environmentally sustainable strategy capable to transform nitrogen, phosphorous, and organic/inorganic carbons into value added products, while microalgal species with efficient COD and ammonium removal efficiency is lacking, limiting its practical application. Thermophilic and acidophilic Galdieria sulphuraria ( G. sulphuraria) are reported to have high ammonium removal efficiency, while its application in swine wastewater treatment is rarely reported. Accordingly, mixotrophic G. sulphuraria has been tested for biotreatment of swine wastewater. The results indicate that G. sulphuraria can grow well in swine wastewater with maximum growth rate of 0.72 g/(L.d) when 15 g/L of glucose is added. Maximum COD removal efficiency of 94.8% and ammonium removal rate of 550.5 mg/(L.d) are observed with 15 g/L of glucose added. Addition of glucose leads to decreases of lipid, protein and ash contents, and simultaneous increase of carbohydrates owing to the varied C/N ratios. The biomass has relatively lower carbon content of 48.5% with 20 g/L glucose than 49.3% of control, consequently leads to a relatively lower HHV value of 20.64 MJ.kg -1. Above all, mixotrophic G. sulphuraria are promising strategy for swine wastewater treatment with high energy recovery, potentially providing an economical strategy for swine wastewater treatment.

The study evaluated the accuracy of the shared information related to family planning and contraception, and other characteristics on four major social media sites based on WHO guidelines. A web-based content analysis was conducted with a systematic search on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram to include posts related to family planning and contraceptives. Out of 486 posts, 77.4% were evaluated as accurate. Information characteristics, including being shared on Facebook (OR=27.7, 95% CI 7.41-104.14) and YouTube (OR=15.9, CI 95%: 2.7-93.2), being shared by public accounts (OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.1-2.7), and being shared for educational purposes (OR=4.2, 95% CI 2.6-6.5) were significantly associated with the content accuracy. A significant proportion of inaccurate information was shared by health professionals. There are notable proportions of misinformation, and some were shared by healthcare providers. These social media platforms should be monitored and evaluated consistently based on the latest evidence. Healthcare providers should leverage the advantages of social media to disseminate up-to-date, evidence-based contraceptive information. Highlights

One-hidden-layer feedforward neural networks are described as functions having many real-valued parameters. The larger the number of parameters is, neural networks can approximate various functions (universal approximation property). The essential optimal order of approximation bounds is already derived in 1996. We focused on the numerical experiment that indicates the neural networks whose parameters have stochastic perturbations gain better performance than ordinary neural networks, and explored the approimation property of neural networks with stochastic perturbations. In this paper, we derived the quantitative order of variance of stochastic perturbations to achieve the essential approximation order.

The aim of this paper is to decompose the displacements of thin-walled beams with rectangular cross-section. The decomposition is accompanied by estimates of all its terms with respect to the norm of the strain tensor. Korn's inequality is also given.

Title : Dextrocardia with pulmonary atresia, VSD and ASD, cyanosis reappeared after 12 months of age, Case report.Authors : Alaa Mohammed1, Salam Mohamed11Faculty of medicine and health sciences, International University of Africa, Khartoum, SudanCorresponding author : Dr. Salam Mohamed, MBBS, International University of Africa. Phone: +966535192054, Email: salammr74@gmail.com , WhatsApp: +249929843164Key Words :Pulmonary atresia, dextrocardiaPulmonary atresia with VSD (ventricular septal defect)Cyanotic heart diseaseDextrocardia with pulmonary atresia, VSD, and ASD (atrial septal defect)Words count : 962 wordsFunding : the authors received no financial support for research, authorship or publishing the article.Conflict of interest : the authors declare there are no conflict of interests

A document by Reema Mukherjee. Click on the document to view its contents.

IntroductionEwing’s sarcoma (ES) is a highly malignant tumour of bone and/or soft tissue, which is commonly observed during adolescence and young adulthood, and exhibits a distinct propensity for aggressive behaviour.1 It accounts for approximately 15% of all bone malignancies and primarily affects the metaphyseal region of long bones, representing around 80% of reported cases.2,3Furthermore, at the time of diagnosis, around 20% of patients have metastatic spread to distant sites.4Ewing’s sarcoma is typically found in the axial and appendicular skeleton, but rarely occurs in the foot, particularly in the talus.5 It has been reported that the occurrence of ES has not been linked to hereditary or congenital syndromes, environmental factors, or established risk factors. In approximately 90% of cases, the neoplastic cells of Ewing’s sarcoma family tumours (ESFT) show a characteristic translocation t(11;22)(q24;q12), while the remaining 10% display a variant translocation, specifically t(21;12)(22;12).6 Prognostic indicators that result in poor outcomes include tumour size of 8 cm or larger, primary tumour located in the pelvic region, presence of metastases, and age exceeding 15 years at the time of diagnosis.7

Non-healing cutaneous ulcers: A manifestation of miliary tuberculosis.

The study of dietary niche partitioning is of great importance for understanding community structure and species coexistence, particularly if these are threatened. Here we used DNA metabarcoding from faeces to assess the diet of four threatened steppe birds (two bustards and two sandgrouse), with the aim of better understanding their dietary requirements, trophic interactions and potential threats. We found seasonal and interspecific differences in their plant diet, with greater importance of cultivated plants during autumn and winter (around 50% of their diet) than spring. Despite differences, plants of the genus Convolvulus and of the family Brassicaceae were frequently consumed by all species. In spring, poppies were a considerable part of their diet, and could be used as a source of carotenoids or for their anti-parasitic properties. Furthermore, the results also showed a dietary niche partitioning between species, with a marked segregation between bustards and, to a lesser extent, between sandgrouse. Diet similarity was generally higher between species from different orders that occur in mixed-species flocks (bustard - sandgrouse) than between species from the same order. This partitioning was probably related to a stratification in habitat use rather than to specialization and might prevent competition to some extent. However, the homogenization of trophic resources resulting from agricultural intensification could pose an important threat, particularly during autumn, when weeds are scarcer and the most abundant trophic resource are sown seeds, which are often treated with pesticides.