Development of pinned electrode for magnetic tunnel junction with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

The magnetic electrodes with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) have gained a great deal of attention in magnetic information storage technology. The use of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (p-MTJs) enhances the storage density due to the reduction in area required for a unit bit. Among two electrodes in a MTJ structure (ferromagnetic/insulator/ferromagnetic), one electrode should be fixed or pinned to a specific direction of magnetization in order to have a unidirectional magnetic anisotropy with higher exchange field. This can be achieved by a phenomenon of exchange bias observed between the ferromagnetic (FM) and the anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) materials as a shift in a hysteresis loop when they are deposited in a presence of an external applied field

Distinguishing Dirac vs Majorana Neutrinos at CEνNS experiments

A transition magnetic moment between active and sterile neutrinos can induce the Primakoff upscattering process at the coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering experiments, leading to very stringent limits on the transition dipole coupling as a function of the sterile neutrino mass. Here we discuss how a novel radiative upscattering mode with an additional photon emitted in the final state can lead to exploration of new parameter space in the transition dipole coupling vs. sterile neutrino mass plane and provide distinguishable differential distributions for a Dirac vs Majorana sterile state mediating such a mode

Transition neutrino magnetic moments in CEνNS

Coherent Elastic Neutrino Nucleus Scattering (CEνNS) is a novel technique to look for new physics beyond the Standard Model. We study the prospects of probing a transition magnetic moment in CEνNS experiments. Showing the NUCLEUS experiment as an example, we demonstrate that properties of a potential sterile neutrino can be deduced

Multi-Scale Convolutional Neural Network for Accurate Corneal Segmentation in Early Detection of Fungal Keratitis.

Microbial keratitis is an infection of the cornea of the eye that is commonly caused by prolonged contact lens wear, corneal trauma, pre-existing systemic disorders and other ocular surface disorders. It can result in severe visual impairment if improperly managed. According to the latest World Vision Report, at least 4.2 million people worldwide suffer from corneal opacities caused by infectious agents such as fungi, bacteria, protozoa and viruses. In patients with fungal keratitis (FK), often overt symptoms are not evident, until an advanced stage. Furthermore, it has been reported that clear discrimination between bacterial keratitis and FK is a challenging process even for trained corneal experts and is often misdiagnosed in more than 30% of the cases. However, if diagnosed early, vision impairment can be prevented through early cost-effective interventions. In this work, we propose a multi-scale convolutional neural network (MS-CNN) for accurate segmentation of the corneal region to enable early FK diagnosis. The proposed approach consists of a deep neural pipeline for corneal region segmentation followed by a ResNeXt model to differentiate between FK and non-FK classes. The model trained on the segmented images in the region of interest, achieved a diagnostic accuracy of 88.96%. The features learnt by the model emphasize that it can correctly identify dominant corneal lesions for detecting FK

An early warning method for agricultural products price spike based on artificial neural networks prediction

In general, the agricultural producing sector is affected by the diversity in supply, mostly from small companies, in addition to the rigidity of the demand, the territorial dispersion, the seasonality or the generation of employment related to the rural environment. These characteristics differentiate the agricultural sector from other economic sectors. On the other hand, the volatility of prices payed by producers, the high cost of raw materials, and the instability of both domestic and international markets are factors which have eroded the competitiveness and profitability of the agricultural sector. Because of the advance in technology, applications have been developed based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) which have helped the development of sales forecast on consumer products, improving the accuracy of traditional forecasting systems. This research uses the RNA to develop an early warning system for facing the increase in agricultural products, considering macro and micro economic variables and factors related to the seasons of the year

Validation of Endogenous Control Genes for Gene Expression Studies on Human Ocular Surface Epithelium

PURPOSE: To evaluate a panel of ten known endogenous control genes (ECG) with quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qPCR), for identification of stably expressed endogenous control genes in the ocular surface (OS) epithelial regions including cornea, limbus, limbal epithelial crypt and conjunctiva to normalise the quantitative reverse transcription PCR data of genes of interest expressed in above-mentioned regions. METHOD: The lasermicrodissected (LMD) OS epithelial regions of cryosectioned corneoscleral buttons from the cadaver eyes were processed for RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis to detect genes of interest with qPCR. Gene expression of 10 known ECG--glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), beta actin (ACTB), peptidylprolyl isomerase (PPIA), TATA-box binding protein (TBP1), hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (HPRT1), beta glucuronidase (GUSB), Eucaryotic 18S ribosomal RNA (18S), phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK1), beta-2-microglobulin (B2M), ribosomal protein, large, P0 (RPLP0)--was measured in the OS epithelial regions by qPCR method and the data collected was further analysed using geNorm software. RESULTS: The expression stability of ecgs in the os epithelial regions in increasing order as determined with genorm software is as follows: ACTB<18S<TBP<B2M<PGK1<HPRT1<GUSB<GAPDH<PPIA-RPLP0. In this study, geNorm analysis has shown the following ECGs pairs to be most stably expressed in individual OS epithelial regions: HPRT1-TBP in cornea, GUSB-PPIA in limbus, B2M-PPIA and RPLP0-TBP in LEC and conjunctiva respectively. However, across the entire ocular surface including all the regions mentioned above, PPIA-RPLP0 pair was shown to be most stable. CONCLUSION: This study has identified stably expressed ECGs on the OS epithelial regions for effective qPCR results in genes of interest. The results from this study are broadly applicable to quantitative reverse transcription PCR studies on human OS epithelium and provide evidence for the use of PPIA-RPLP0 ECGs pair in quantitative reverse transcription PCR across the OS epithelium

Tissue Microenvironments Define and Get Reinforced by Macrophage Phenotypes in Homeostasis or during Inflammation, Repair and Fibrosis

Current macrophage phenotype classifications are based on distinct in vitro culture conditions that do not adequately mirror complex tissue environments. In vivo monocyte progenitors populate all tissues for immune surveillance which supports the maintenance of homeostasis as well as regaining homeostasis after injury. Here we propose to classify macrophage phenotypes according to prototypical tissue environments, e.g. as they occur during homeostasis as well as during the different phases of (dermal) wound healing. In tissue necrosis and/or infection, damage- and/or pathogen-associated molecular patterns induce proinflammatory macrophages by Toll-like receptors or inflammasomes. Such classically activated macrophages contribute to further tissue inflammation and damage. Apoptotic cells and antiinflammatory cytokines dominate in postinflammatory tissues which induce macrophages to produce more antiinflammatory mediators. Similarly, tumor-associated macrophages also confer immunosuppression in tumor stroma. Insufficient parenchymal healing despite abundant growth factors pushes macrophages to gain a profibrotic phenotype and promote fibrocyte recruitment which both enforce tissue scarring. Ischemic scars are largely devoid of cytokines and growth factors so that fibrolytic macrophages that predominantly secrete proteases digest the excess extracellular matrix. Together, macrophages stabilize their surrounding tissue microenvironments by adapting different phenotypes as feed-forward mechanisms to maintain tissue homeostasis or regain it following injury. Furthermore, macrophage heterogeneity in healthy or injured tissues mirrors spatial and temporal differences in microenvironments during the various stages of tissue injury and repair. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

Accreting Black Holes

This chapter provides a general overview of the theory and observations of black holes in the Universe and on their interpretation. We briefly review the black hole classes, accretion disk models, spectral state classification, the AGN classification, and the leading techniques for measuring black hole spins. We also introduce quasi-periodic oscillations, the shadow of black holes, and the observations and the theoretical models of jets.Comment: 41 pages, 18 figures. To appear in "Tutorial Guide to X-ray and Gamma-ray Astronomy: Data Reduction and Analysis" (Ed. C. Bambi, Springer Singapore, 2020). v3: fixed some typos and updated some parts. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1711.1025

A prospective cohort study of postoperative complications in the management of perforated peptic ulcer

BACKGROUND: With dwindling rates of postoperative mortality in perforated peptic ulcer that is attributable to H(2)-receptor blocker usage, there is a need to shift the focus towards the prevention of postoperative morbidity. Further, the simultaneous contribution of several putative clinical predictors to this postoperative morbidity is not fully appreciated. Our objective was to assess the predictors of the risk, rate and number of postoperative complications in surgically treated patients of perforated peptic ulcer. METHODS: In a prospective cohort study of 96 subjects presenting as perforated peptic ulcer and treated using Graham's omentoplatsy patch or gastrojejunostomy (with total truncal vagotomy), we assessed the association of clinical predictors with three domains of postoperative complications: the risk of developing a complication, the rate of developing the first complication and the risk of developing higher number of complications. We used multiple regression methods – logistic regression, Cox proportional hazards regression and Poisson regression, respectively – to examine the association of the predictors with these three domains. RESULTS: We observed that the risk of developing a postoperative complication was significantly influenced by the presence of a concomitant medical illness [odds ratio (OR) = 8.9, p = 0.001], abdominal distension (3.8, 0.048) and a need of blood transfusion (OR = 8.2, p = 0.027). Using Poisson regression, it was observed that the risk for a higher number of complications was influenced by the same three factors [relative risk (RR) = 2.6, p = 0.015; RR = 4.6, p < 0.001; and RR = 2.4, p = 0.002; respectively]. However, the rate of development of complications was influenced by a history suggestive of shock [relative hazards (RH) = 3.4, p = 0.002] and A(- )blood group (RH = 4.7, p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: Abdominal distension, presence of a concomitant medical illness and a history suggestive of shock at the time of admission warrant a closer and alacritous postoperative management in patients of perforated peptic ulcer

Escape from Autologous Neutralizing Antibodies in Acute/Early Subtype C HIV-1 Infection Requires Multiple Pathways

One aim for an HIV vaccine is to elicit neutralizing antibodies (Nab) that can limit replication of genetically diverse viruses and prevent establishment of a new infection. Thus, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of Nab during the early stages of natural infection could prove useful in achieving this goal. Here we demonstrate that viral escape readily occurred despite the development of high titer autologous Nab in two subjects with acute/early subtype C infection. To provide a detailed portrayal of the escape pathways, Nab resistant variants identified at multiple time points were used to create a series of envelope (Env) glycoprotein chimeras and mutants within the background of a corresponding newly transmitted Env. In one subject, Nab escape was driven predominantly by changes in the region of gp120 that extends from the beginning of the V3 domain to the end of the V5 domain (V3V5). However, Nab escape pathways in this subject oscillated and at times required cooperation between V1V2 and the gp41 ectodomain. In the second subject, escape was driven by changes in V1V2. This V1V2-dependent escape pathway was retained over time, and its utility was reflected in the virus's ability to escape from two distinct monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) derived from this same patient via introduction of a single potential N-linked glycosylation site in V2. Spatial representation of the sequence changes in gp120 suggested that selective pressure acted upon the same regions of Env in these two subjects, even though the Env domains that drove escape were different. Together the findings argue that a single mutational pathway is not sufficient to confer escape in early subtype C HIV-1 infection, and support a model in which multiple strategies, including potential glycan shifts, direct alteration of an epitope sequence, and cooperative Env domain conformational masking, are used to evade neutralization