Systematics of Anti magnetic rotation in even-even Cd isotopes

The lifetimes for the high spin levels of the yrast band of $^{110}$Cd has been measured. The estimated B(E2) values decrease with increase in angular momentum. This is the characteristic of Anti magnetic rotation as reported in $^{106,108}$Cd. However, alignment behavior of $^{110}$Cd is completely different from its even-even neighbors. A model based on classical particle plus rotor has been used to explore the underlying systematics and develop a self consistent picture for the observed behavior of these isotopes.Comment: 18 pages including 6 figures. Accepted to be published in PLB, with some modification in the tex

A Rare HBV Subgenotype D4 with Unique Genomic Signatures Identified in North-Eastern India –An Emerging Clinical Challenge?

BACKGROUND/AIMS: HBV has been classified into ten genotypes (A-J) and multiple subgenotypes, some of which strongly influence disease outcome and their distribution also correlate with human migration. HBV infection is highly prevalent in India and its diverse population provides an excellent opportunity to study the distinctiveness of HBV, its evolution and disease biology in variegated ethnic groups. The North-East India, having international frontiers on three sides, is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse region of the country. Given the paucity of information on molecular epidemiology of HBV in this region, the study aimed to carry out an in-depth genetic characterization of HBV prevailing in North-East state of Tripura. METHODS: From sera of chronically HBV infected patients biochemical/serological tests, HBV DNA quantification, PCR-amplification, sequencing of PreS/S or full-length HBV genomes were done. HBV genotype/subgenotype determination and sequence variability were assessed by MEGA5-software. The evolutionary divergence times of different HBV subgenotypes were estimated by DNAMLK/PHYLIP program while jpHMM method was used to detect any recombination event in HBV genomes. RESULTS: HBV genotypes D (89.5%), C (6.6%) and A (3.9%) were detected among chronic carriers. While all HBV/A and HBV/C isolates belonged to subgenotype-A1 and C1 respectively, five subgenotypes of HBV/D (D1-D5) were identified including the first detection of rare D4. These non-recombinant Indian D4 (IndD4) formed a distinct phylogenetic clade, had 2.7% nucleotide divergence and recent evolutionary radiation than other global D4. Ten unique amino acids and 9 novel nucleotide substitutions were identified as IndD4 signatures. All IndD4 carried T120 and R129 in ORF-S that may cause immune/vaccine/diagnostic escape and N128 in ORF-P, implicated as compensatory Lamivudine resistance mutation. CONCLUSIONS: IndD4 has potential to undermine vaccination programs or anti-viral therapy and its introduction to North-East India is believed to be linked with the settlement of ancient Tibeto-Burman migrants from East-Asia

An objective validation of polyp and instrument segmentation methods in colonoscopy through Medico 2020 polyp segmentation and MedAI 2021 transparency challenges

Automatic analysis of colonoscopy images has been an active field of research motivated by the importance of early detection of precancerous polyps. However, detecting polyps during the live examination can be challenging due to various factors such as variation of skills and experience among the endoscopists, lack of attentiveness, and fatigue leading to a high polyp miss-rate. Deep learning has emerged as a promising solution to this challenge as it can assist endoscopists in detecting and classifying overlooked polyps and abnormalities in real time. In addition to the algorithm's accuracy, transparency and interpretability are crucial to explaining the whys and hows of the algorithm's prediction. Further, most algorithms are developed in private data, closed source, or proprietary software, and methods lack reproducibility. Therefore, to promote the development of efficient and transparent methods, we have organized the "Medico automatic polyp segmentation (Medico 2020)" and "MedAI: Transparency in Medical Image Segmentation (MedAI 2021)" competitions. We present a comprehensive summary and analyze each contribution, highlight the strength of the best-performing methods, and discuss the possibility of clinical translations of such methods into the clinic. For the transparency task, a multi-disciplinary team, including expert gastroenterologists, accessed each submission and evaluated the team based on open-source practices, failure case analysis, ablation studies, usability and understandability of evaluations to gain a deeper understanding of the models' credibility for clinical deployment. Through the comprehensive analysis of the challenge, we not only highlight the advancements in polyp and surgical instrument segmentation but also encourage qualitative evaluation for building more transparent and understandable AI-based colonoscopy systems

Electrochemical oxidation of ethanol on thin coating of platinum based material on nickel support

1144-1152For the development of cost effective direct alcohol fuel cells, the key point for anodic oxidation of ethanol is the search for a cheaper electrocatalyst which can effectively increase the current density and decrease the anodic overvoltage. In this respect, thin deposits of platinum and co-deposits of platinum and ruthenium on Ni- support from different baths, have been studied taking 1M ethanol in 1M NaOH solution. Polarization and chronopotenti ometric studies indicate the intrinsic superiority of Ni/Pt-Ru electrodes over Ni/Pt and Ni electrodes, but the overall electrocatalytic activity of the coated electrodes follows the order: Ni/Pt (PVA) > Ni/Pt > Ni/Pt-Ru(PVA) > Ni/Pt -Ru > Ni, (where PVA is polyvinyl alcohol). An increase in the roughness factor due to smaller size (150nm ) of deposit of Pt than co-deposit of Pt and Ru under the experimemal deposition condition may be the cause of the above mentioned order. Steady state polarization, cyclic voltammetry, chromopotentiometry and SEM images have been used to correlate the catalytic activity of such electrodes with the characteristics of the deposits and surface morphology

A novel circuit topology of modified switched boost hybrid resonant inverter fitted induction heating equipment

A novel circuit topology of modified switched boost high frequency hybrid resonant inverter fitted induction heating equipment is presented in this paper for efficient induction heating. Recently, induction heating technique is becoming very popular for both domestic and industrial purposes because of its high energy efficiency and controllability. Generally in induction heating, a high frequency alternating magnetic field is required to induce the eddy currents in the work piece. High frequency resonant inverters are incorporated in induction heating equipment which produce a high frequency alternating magnetic field surrounding the coil. Previously this high frequency alternating magnetic field was produced by voltage source inverters. But VSIs have several demerits. So, in this paper, a new scheme of modified switched boost high frequency hybrid resonant inverter fitted induction heating equipment has been depicted which enhances the energy efficiency and controllability and the same is validated by PSIM

Comparative evaluation of different forms of calcium hydroxide in apexification

Background: One out of every two children sustains a dental injury most often between 8 and 10 years of age. Majority of these teeth subsequently become non-vital and most often with immature apex. Management of these teeth is an enormous challenge for lack of apical stop. Calcium hydroxide in various formulations has maximum literature support in favor of "successful apexification or induced apical closure." Aim: The aim of the following study is to determine the efficacy of calcium hydroxide in a different formulation to induce apexification. Materials and Methods: The present study was undertaken on 51 children of 8-10 years of age (both sexes) at Dr. R Ahmed Dental College and Hospital from April 2006 to March 2007. All children had one or two maxillary permanent central incisor (s), non-vital and apices open. In all the cases, apexification was attempted with either calcium hydroxide mixed with sterile distilled water, or calcium hydroxide plus iodoform in methyl cellulose base, or calcium hydroxide plus iodoform in polysilicone oil base. The success of apexification was determined on the basis of clinical and radiographic criteria. Results: In the pre-operative asymptomatic cases (72.55%), failure occurred in only 5.45% cases and pre-operative symptomatic cases failure rate was as high as 35.71%. Success rate was 94.6% in cases with narrow open apices, whereas 64.28% in wide open apices. In cases with pre-existing apical radiolucencies, successful apexification occurred in 63.63% and success rate was 92.5% in the cases without pre-existing apical radiolucencies. Average time consumed for apexification was minimum with calcium hydroxide plus iodoform in polysilicone oil base. Conclusion: The overall success rate observed to be 86.27%, which is in close proximity to the findings of most of the previous studies across the globe

Enzymatic hydrolysis od water hyacinth biomass for the production of ethanol: Optimization of driving parameters

An efficient conversion of lignocellulose into fermentable sugars is a key step in producing bioethanol in a cost effective and co-friendly manner. Alternative source like water hyacinth biomass (WHB) (Eichhornia crassipes) may be used as a supplement for the routine feedstocks. The enzyme loading for optimum yield of total reducing sugar was investigated and the enzyme-substrate interaction optimized. The maximal reducing sugar and xylose yield was obtained using cellulase and xylanase loading of 46.12 and 289.98 U/g and 2.26% (w/v) substrate loading. The efficiencies of ethanol production from the WHB hydrolysate are very less and the maximal ethanol yield was 3.4969 g/L when Pichia stiptis was used, followed by 3.4496 and 3.1349 g/L for Candida shehatae and Saccharomyces cerevisiae