Neutron radiation effects on the electrical characteristics of InAs/GaAs quantum dot-in-a-well structures

This paper studies the effects of neutron radiation on the electrical behaviour and leakage current mec hanism of quantum dot-in-a-well (DWELL) semiconductor diodes with fluence ranging from 3 to neutron/cm . After neutron irradiation, the forward bias and reverse bias le akage currents showed significant rise approximately of up to two orders of magnitude which is believed to be attributed to the presence of displacement damage induced traps. The ideality factor of the forward bias leakage current corresponding to all neutron fluenceirradiationswerefoundtobecloseto2,suggestingthatthe forward bias current mechanism is large ly due to trap-assisted generation-recombination (TAGR )ofcarriers.Subsequently,it is also observed that the capacit ances reduced after irradiations which were further shown to be due to th e deep carrier trapping effects and the Neutron Transmutation Doping effects (NTD). From the temperature dependence measurements, it is found that the reverse bias leakage curren tmechanismsoftheirradiated samplesareprimarilyattributedtotwoprocess;TAGRofcarriers with emission from the traps assisted by the Frenkel-Poole (F-P).The traps due to both mechanis ms were derived and shown to increase with neutron fluence

Hydrogen from ethanol reforming with aqueous fraction of pine pyrolysis oil with and without chemical looping

Reforming ethanol (‘EtOH’) into hydrogen rich syngas using the aqueous fraction from pine bio-oil (‘AQ’) as a combined source of steam and supplementary organic feed was tested in packed bed with Ni-catalysts ‘A’ (18 wt%/-Al2O3) and ‘B’ (25 wt%/-Al2O3). The catalysts were initially pre-reduced by H2, but this was followed by a few cycles of chemical looping steam reforming, where the catalysts were in turn oxidised in air and auto-reduced by the EtOH/AQ mixture. At 600 °C, EtOH/AQ reformed similarly to ethanol for molar steam to carbon ratios (S/C) between 2 and 5 on the H2-reduced catalysts. At S/C of 3.3, 90% of the carbon feed converted on catalyst A to CO2 (58%), CO (30%) and CH4 (2.7%), with 17 wt% H2 yield based on dry organic feedstock, equivalent to 78% of the equilibrium value. Catalyst A maintained these outputs for four cycles while B underperformed due to partial reduction

Effect of high inlet temperature of spray dryer on viability of microencapsulated Trichoderma asperellum conidia

In recent years, the use of spray drying for microencapsulating beneficial microbes has gained the interest of researchers, mainly due to dried powder formulation could prevent contamination and prolong self-life of the microbes. The major constraint of spray drying is conidia could lose viability during the drying process due to heat. In this present study, the effect of spray drying inlet temperature on viability of microencapsulated Trichoderma asperellum conidia was assessed. A blend biopolymer of gum Arabic and maltodextrin in ratio of 1:1 was used to microencapsulate the conidia at 150, 160 and 170oC inlet temperatures of spray drying process. Assessment of conidia viability was performed based on conidia percent survival of spray dried (PSsd) and survival increase (SI) unit values. Viability of the microencapsulated conidia was also evaluated their shelf life stored at two different temperatures which were at 28 ±2˚C and 4±2˚C for 40 weeks. The finding showed that viability of microencapsulated conidia was optimum obtained at inlet temperature of 170˚C with 68.2% of PSsd and SI and 17.7 units of SI compared to 15.9% and 1.5 unit respectively obtained for 160oC and 0.2% and 0.7 unit for 150oC. The highest inlet temperature has showed the highest viability compared to lower temperatures. Conidia stored at low temperature of 4 ±2˚C has survived longer up to 40 weeks that were confirmed via the viability test. High inlet temperature of 170oC was desirable to enhance survivability and viability of the conidia to be used as biocontrol agent up to 40 weeks at low temperature storage. These microencapsulated conidia could be further tested on their capability to inhibit the pathogen of pineapple diseas

The molecular phylogenetic signature of Bali cattle revealed by maternal and paternal markers

Bali cattle is a domestic cattle breed that can be found in Malaysia. It is a domestic cattle that was purely derived from a domestication event in Banteng (Bos javanicus) around 3,500 BC in Indonesia. This research was conducted to portray the phylogenetic relationships of the Bali cattle with other cattle species in Malaysia based on maternal and paternal lineage. We analyzed the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) mitochondrial gene and SRY of Y chromosome obtained from five species of the Bos genus (B. javanicus, Bos gaurus, Bos indicus, Bos taurus, and Bos grunniens). The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) was used as an outgroup. The phylogenetic relationships were observed by employing several algorithms: Neighbor-Joining (PAUP version 4.0), Maximum parsimony (PAUP version 4.0) and Bayesian inference (MrBayes 3.1). Results from the maternal data showed that the Bali cattle formed a monophyletic clade, and together with the B. gaurus clade formed a wild cattle clade. Results were supported by high bootstrap and posterior probability values together with genetic distance data. For the paternal lineage, the sequence variation is low (with parsimony informative characters: 2/660) resulting an unresolved Neighbor-Joining tree. However, Bali cattle and other domestic cattle appear in two monophyletic clades distinct from yak, gaur and selembu. This study expresses the potential of the COI gene in portraying the phylogenetic relationships between several Bos species which is important for conservation efforts especially in decision making since cattle is highly bred and hybrid breeds are often formed. Genetic conservation for this high quality beef cattle breed is important by maintaining its genetic characters to prevent extinction or even decreased the genetic quality

The tale of TILs in breast cancer : a report from The International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group

The advent of immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in modern oncology has significantly improved survival in several cancer settings. A subgroup of women with breast cancer (BC) has immunogenic infiltration of lymphocytes with expression of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). These patients may potentially benefit from ICI targeting the programmed death 1 (PD-1)/PD-L1 signaling axis. The use of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) as predictive and prognostic biomarkers has been under intense examination. Emerging data suggest that TILs are associated with response to both cytotoxic treatments and immunotherapy, particularly for patients with triple-negative BC. In this review from The International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group, we discuss (a) the biological understanding of TILs, (b) their analytical and clinical validity and efforts toward the clinical utility in BC, and (c) the current status of PD-L1 and TIL testing across different continents, including experiences from low-to-middle-income countries, incorporating also the view of a patient advocate. This information will help set the stage for future approaches to optimize the understanding and clinical utilization of TIL analysis in patients with BC

The tale of TILs in breast cancer: A report from The International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group

The advent of immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in modern oncology has significantly improved survival in several cancer settings. A subgroup of women with breast cancer (BC) has immunogenic infiltration of lymphocytes with expression of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). These patients may potentially benefit from ICI targeting the programmed death 1 (PD-1)/PD-L1 signaling axis. The use of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) as predictive and prognostic biomarkers has been under intense examination. Emerging data suggest that TILs are associated with response to both cytotoxic treatments and immunotherapy, particularly for patients with triple-negative BC. In this review from The International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group, we discuss (a) the biological understanding of TILs, (b) their analytical and clinical validity and efforts toward the clinical utility in BC, and (c) the current status of PD-L1 and TIL testing across different continents, including experiences from low-to-middle-income countries, incorporating also the view of a patient advocate. This information will help set the stage for future approaches to optimize the understanding and clinical utilization of TIL analysis in patients with BC

Synthesis of palm oil-based fatty methylhydrazide

Fatty methylydrazides (FMHs) have been successfully synthesized from palm oil. Glycerol was produced as a by-product. The synthesis was carried out by reflux palm oil with methylhydrazine in hexane. FMHs have been characterized using elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance technique. The results showed that a 6:1 molar ratio of palm oil to methylhydrazine, a round 78 % maximum conversion of palm oil into FMHs and a 10 h reaction time are the optimum reaction conditions

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Pitfalls in machine learning‐based assessment of tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes in breast cancer: a report of the international immuno‐oncology biomarker working group

The clinical significance of the tumor-immune interaction in breast cancer (BC) has been well established, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) have emerged as a predictive and prognostic biomarker for patients with triple-negative (estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 negative) breast cancer (TNBC) and HER2-positive breast cancer. How computational assessment of TILs can complement manual TIL-assessment in trial- and daily practices is currently debated and still unclear. Recent efforts to use machine learning (ML) for the automated evaluation of TILs show promising results. We review state-of-the-art approaches and identify pitfalls and challenges by studying the root cause of ML discordances in comparison to manual TILs quantification. We categorize our findings into four main topics; (i) technical slide issues, (ii) ML and image analysis aspects, (iii) data challenges, and (iv) validation issues. The main reason for discordant assessments is the inclusion of false-positive areas or cells identified by performance on certain tissue patterns, or design choices in the computational implementation. To aid the adoption of ML in TILs assessment, we provide an in-depth discussion of ML and image analysis including validation issues that need to be considered before reliable computational reporting of TILs can be incorporated into the trial- and routine clinical management of patients with TNBC

Thermodynamic analysis of methanation of palm empty fruit bunch (PEFB) pyrolysis oil with and without in situ CO2 sorption

Thermodynamic equilibrium analysis for conversion of palm empty fruit bunch (PEFB) bio-oil to methane using low-temperature steam reforming (LTSR) process was conducted by assuming either isothermal or adiabatic condition, with and without sorption enhancement (SE-LTSR), with CaO(S) or Ca(OH)2(S) as CO2 sorbent. Temperatures of 300-800 K, molar steam to carbon (S/C) ratios of 0.3-7.0, pressures of 1-30 atm and molar calcium to carbon ratios (Ca:C) of 0.3-1.0 were simulated. For reasons of process simplicity, the best conditions for CH4 production were observed for the adiabatic LTSR process without sorption at S/C between 2.5 and 3 (compared to the stoichiometric S/C of 0.375), inlet temperature above 450 K, resulting in reformer temperature of 582 K, where close to the theoretical maximum CH4 yield of 38 wt % of the simulated dry PEFB oil was obtained, resulting in a reformate consisting of 44.5 vol % CH4, 42.7 vol % CO2 and 12.7 vol % H2 and requiring only moderate heating mainly to partially preheat the reactants. Temperatures and S/C below these resulted in high risk of carbon by-product