Killer whale (Orcinus orca) predation on beaked whales (Mesoplodon spp.) in the Bremer Sub-Basin, Western Australia

Observations of killer whales (Orcinus orca) feeding on the remains of beaked whales have been previously documented; however, to date, there has been no published account of killer whales actively preying upon beaked whales. This article describes the first field observations of killer whales interacting with, hunting and preying upon beaked whales (Mesoplodon spp.) on four separate occasions during 2014, 2015 and 2016 in the Bremer Sub-Basin, off the south coast of Western Australia

Complications chirurgicales des avortements clandestins: a propos de 51 cas observés dans deux hôpitaux de Yaoundé.

Le but de cette étude était de décrire les complications des avortements provoqués dans la clandestinité et imposant un traitement chirurgical. Il s’agit d’une étude rétrospective transversale portant sur les malades opérés dans les services de Chirurgie de l’Hôpital central et du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Yaoundé du 1er Janvier 2004 au 31 Décembre 2008. Les variables d’étude étaient l’âge, le statut matrimonial, les antécédents gynécologiques, les antécédents d’avortement antérieur, le mode, l’indication chirurgicale et l’état général des patientes; les lésions découvertes en peropératoire, leur traitement et l’évolution postopératoire. Cinquante une patientes ont été retenues pour cette étude menée pendant une durée de quatre ans, soit une moyenne de 12,7 cas par an. L’âge des patientes variait entre 15 ans et 41 ans avec une moyenne de 30 ans; 33 patientes (64,7%) avaient un âge situé entre 15ans et 25 ans. 6 patientes (11,7%) étaient multipares et 4 patientes étaient primipares (7,8%). Treize patientes (25,42%) avaient déjà subi une interruption volontaire de grossesse sans complication. Quarante-neuf patientes (96%) étaient arrivées avec un tableau de péritonite ; 43 patientes (84,22%) étaient classées ASA III (American Association of Anesthesiologists). Les lésions chirurgicales étaient à type de perforations ou de déchirures utérines dans 20 cas (39,21%), annexielles dans 9cas (17,64%), digestives dans 16 cas (31,37%) et urinaires dans 4 cas. Le traitement a associé au traitement de la péritonite, les sutures utérines, digestives et vésicales ; les gestes d’exérèse comprenaient deux hystérectomies et cinq salpingectomies. Il a été réalisé des gestes de dérivation dont deux cystostomies et deux colostomies. La mortalité était de 15,6%. L’étude recommande une éducation des femmes en matière de contraception et de planning familial, et surtout une politique sociale permettant de réduire le nombre des avortements clandestins.MOTS CLES: Avortement clandestin- Complications - Chirurgie

Pelvimetry among normal, healthy females using three-dimensional computed tomography in Sohag population: A retrospective Morphometric study regarding age

Background: Measurements of the pelvic planes become essential to be described nowadays, so that obstetricians become able to describe and diagnose cases of a narrow pelvis and decide a cesarean section correctly, comparison of these parameters with other populations is very important as well as associate any changes with age. Objectives: is to evaluate the pelvic inlet and outlet parameters among normal, healthy non-pregnant reproductive-aged females and compare between younger and older ones in Sohag Government. Patients and Methods: The study was done on the archived information of Departments of Diagnostic Radiology, Sohag Faculty of Medicine, Sohag University, in Upper Egypt on 110 female patients from 18 to 55 years old who underwent computed tomography (CT) between March 2022 to March 2023 and was grouped into younger and older according to age. Four measurements was taken on sagittal plane Anatomical conjugate diameter (ACD); Obstetric conjugate diameter (OCD); Diagonal conjugate diameter (DCD) and Anatomical anteroposterior diameter of the pelvic outlet (AD) plus the Bituberous diameter (BD) on the coronal plane. Results The mean Anatomical conjugate diameter (ACD) was 11.4 ±1.03 cm, Obstetric conjugate diameter (OCD) was 10.9±1.06 cm, Diagonal conjugate diameter (DCD) was 12.4± .9 cm, Anatomical anteroposterior diameter of the pelvic outlet (AD) was 9.67 ±1.25 cm, Bituberous diameter (BD) was 10.74±.89 cm Non-significant changes appeared between the two age groups as regards the five measured parameters. Conclusion: No-significant differences was found between younger and older females as regarding inlet and outlet pelvic parameter

Guest Editorial: Smart, optimal, and explainable orchestration of network slices in 5G and beyond networks

Network slicing is a much discussed topic in fifth generation (5G) and beyond (B5G) networks. The network slice feature differentiates 5G and B5G networks from the earlier generations since it replaces the conventional concept of quality of service (QoS) with end-to-end multi-service provisioning and multi-tenancy. A diverse set of resources for computing, networking, storage, and power need to be smartly assigned in network slices. Traditional optimization/resource scheduling techniques are typically one-dimensional and may not scale well in large-scale 5G/B5G networks. Therefore, there is a pressing need to smartly address the orchestration and management of network slices. Since beyond 5G networks will heavily use embedded intelligence, how to leverage AI-based techniques, such as machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning, to address and solve the various complex network slicing problems is emerging as a challenging problem. The Guest Editors worked hard to reach out to researchers from academia and industry to address these points in this Special Issue in search of a genuinely intelligent B5G network rollout that could be both smart and practical

High sensitivity multi-axes rotation sensing using large momentum transfer point source atom interferometry

A point source interferometer (PSI) is a device where atoms are split and recombined by applying a temporal sequence of Raman pulses during the expansion of a cloud of cold atoms behaving approximately as a point source. The PSI can work as a sensitive multi-axes gyroscope that can automatically filter out the signal from accelerations. The phase shift arising from rotations is proportional to the momentum transferred to each atom from the Raman pulses. Therefore, by increasing the momentum transfer, it should be possibly to enhance the sensitivity of the PSI. Here, we investigate the degree of enhancement in sensitivity that could be achieved by augmenting the PSI with large momentum transfer (LMT) employing a sequence of many Raman pulses with alternating directions. Contrary to typical approaches used for describing a PSI, we employ a model under which the motion of the center of mass of each atom is described quantum mechanically. We show how increasing Doppler shifts lead to imperfections, thereby limiting the visibility of the signal fringes, and identify ways to suppress this effect by increasing the effective, two-photon Rabi frequencies of the Raman pulses. Taking into account the effect of spontaneous emission, we show that, for a given value of the one-photon Rabi frequency, there is an optimum value for the number of pulses employed, beyond which the net enhancement in sensitivity begins to decrease. For a one-photon Rabi frequency of 200 MHz, for example, the peak value of the factor of enhancement in sensitivity is ~39, for a momentum transfer that is ~69 times as large as that for a conventional PSI. We also find that this peak value scales as the one-photon Rabi frequency to the power of 4/5

Effect of evaporation time on the pervaporation characteristics through homogeneous aromatic polyamide membranes. II. Pervaporation performances for ethanol/water mixture

Pervaporation of ethanol/water mixtures through symmetric dense aromatic polyamide membranes was investigated. The membrane structure was controlled by varying the solvent evaporation time before gelation. The membranes were water-selective and the selectivity increased with an increase in the solvent evaporation time. On the other hand, the water flux as well as the ethanol flux decreased with an increase in the evaporation time. These results were consistent with the morphology change of the membrane which takes place with solvent evaporation: the decrease in the channel size. The effects of the downstream pressure on the pervaporation performances were also studied for membranes with different solvent evaporation times. the ethanol concentration in the permeate side increased with an increase in the downstream pressure to certain point, showed a maximum there, then decreased thereafter. The water flux decreased with an increase in the downstream pressure for all membranes studied; the dependence was expressed by a parabolic curve in the lower pressure range. The ethanol flux also decreased with an increase in the downstream pressure for the membrane with shorter evaporation time, while this flux was slightly affected by the downstream pressure for the membrane with longer evaporation time.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Curcumin Enhances Chemosensitivity and Apoptosis in T24 Bladder Cancer Cells through Inhibition of the Ras/ MAPK Signaling Pathway: submitted: Feb 3, 2018 Accepted: Mar 10, 2018 Published online: Mar 15, 2018

Background. Curcumin (CUR), a natural phenolic compound, has been recently reported to exert antitumor actions in variety of cancers; however, the exact mechanism(s) is not clear. In this study we investigated whether CUR could inhibit Ras/MAPK pathway and enhance mitomycin C (MMC) cytotoxicity in T24 bladder cancer cells. Methods. T24 cells were cultured with different concentrations of CUR (5, 10, 20 μM) alone or combined with 10 μg/ml MMC. At the end of 72 h culture, cell viability was assessed by MTT assay; apoptosis by flow cytometry; total Ras and ERK1/2 by immunohistochemistry and western blotting. Results. In comparison to cells exposed to MMC alone, cells treated with combined MMC and either 10 or 20 μM CUR showed reduced cell proliferation, disrupted morphological appearance, and increased subG0/G1 apoptotic events. This inhibition was associated with marked reduction of Ras and ERK1/2 expression. Likewise, cells treated with 10 or 20 μM CUR alone showed significant inhibition, while the effect of 5 μM was less obvious. Conclusion. Resistance of T24 cells to cytotoxic effect of MMC is dependent, at least partially, on Ras/ERK activation. CUR at concentrations of 10 and 20 μM in combination with low dose MMC induced toxic synergism in T24 cells. Clinical translation of this experimental study may be reasonable in light of wide safety margin and availability of CUR

High Sensitivity Multi-Axes Rotation Sensing Using Large Momentum Transfer Point Source Atom Interferometry

A point source interferometer (PSI) is a device where atoms are split and recombined by applying a temporal sequence of Raman pulses during the expansion of a cloud of cold atoms behaving approximately as a point source. The PSI can work as a sensitive multi-axes gyroscope that can automatically filter out the signal from accelerations. The phase shift arising from the rotations is proportional to the momentum transferred to each atom from the Raman pulses. Therefore, by increasing the momentum transfer, it should be possible to enhance the sensitivity of the PSI. Here, we investigate the degree of enhancement in sensitivity that could be achieved by augmenting the PSI with large momentum transfer (LMT) employing a sequence of many Raman pulses with alternating directions. We analyze how factors such as Doppler detuning, spontaneous emission, and the finite initial size of the atomic cloud compromise the advantage of LMT and how to find the optimal momentum transfer under these limitations, with both the semi-classical model and a model under which the motion of the center of mass of each atom is described quantum mechanically. We identify a set of realistic parameters for which LMT can improve the PSI by a factor of nearly 40

Attention-Based UNet Deep Learning Model for Plaque Segmentation in Carotid Ultrasound for Stroke Risk Stratification: An Artificial Intelligence Paradigm

Stroke and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) significantly affect the world population. The early detection of such events may prevent the burden of death and costly surgery. Conventional methods are neither automated nor clinically accurate. Artificial Intelligence-based methods of automatically detecting and predicting the severity of CVD and stroke in their early stages are of prime importance. This study proposes an attention-channel-based UNet deep learning (DL) model that identifies the carotid plaques in the internal carotid artery (ICA) and common carotid artery (CCA) images. Our experiments consist of 970 ICA images from the UK, 379 CCA images from diabetic Japanese patients, and 300 CCA images from post-menopausal women from Hong Kong. We combined both CCA images to form an integrated database of 679 images. A rotation transformation technique was applied to 679 CCA images, doubling the database for the experiments. The cross-validation K5 (80% training: 20% testing) protocol was applied for accuracy determination. The results of the Attention-UNet model are benchmarked against UNet, UNet++, and UNet3P models. Visual plaque segmentation showed improvement in the Attention-UNet results compared to the other three models. The correlation coefficient (CC) value for Attention-UNet is 0.96, compared to 0.93, 0.96, and 0.92 for UNet, UNet++, and UNet3P models. Similarly, the AUC value for Attention-UNet is 0.97, compared to 0.964, 0.966, and 0.965 for other models. Conclusively, the Attention-UNet model is beneficial in segmenting very bright and fuzzy plaque images that are hard to diagnose using other methods. Further, we present a multi-ethnic, multi-center, racial bias-free study of stroke risk assessment