INFLUENCE OF ANNEALING ON THE STRUCTURAL AND OPTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIUM OXIDE THIN FILMS PREPARED USING THERMAL EVAPORATION IN A VACUUM METHOD

In the work, the structures and the optical parameters were studied for In2O3 thin films Before and after annealing at different temperatures (400 and 500 ) thin films were prepared on glass substrate by by vacuum thermal evaporation. The X-Ray diffraction showed that In2O3, In2O3 Plasticizedthin films which were prepared to have a polycrystalline cubic structure. The most preferential orientation is along the (321) direction for all deposited In2O3 films. Some parameters of the films were calculated as the average grain size and the dislocation density. Optical properties measurement transmittance (T) of the film shows that they have high transmittance (82.7%) is obtained for at annealing 500 . The optical properties such as absorption coefficient (α) using the transmittance measurement from an UV-vis spectrophotometer, with a range of wavelength (300-1100) nm. And also calculated energy gap for thin films. and also calculated energy gap for thin films, the result has been shown that the optical energy gap increasing with increasing annealing

Patterns of cancer cell sphere formation in primary cultures of human oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma and neck nodes

YesRecently a sub-population of cells with stem cell characteristics, reported to be associated with initiation, growth, spread and recurrence, has been identified in several solid tumors including oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (OTSCC). The aim of our pilot study was to isolate CD44+ cancer stem cells from primary cultures of OTSCC and neck node Level I (node-I) biopsies, grow cell spheres and observe their characteristics in primary cultures. Parallel cultures of hyperplastic lesions of tongue (non-cancer) were set up as a control. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect CD44/CD24 expression and magnetic activated cell sorting to isolate CD44+ cell populations followed by primary cell culturing. Both OTSCC and node-I biopsies produced floating spheres in suspension, however those grown in hyperplastic and node-I primary cultures did not exhibit self-renewal properties. Lymph node metastatic OTSCC, express higher CD44/CD24 levels, produce cancer cell spheres in larger number and rapidly (24 hours) compared to node negative OTSCC (1 week) and non-cancer specimens (3 weeks). In addition, metastatic OTSCC have the capacity for proliferation for up to three generations in primary culture. This in vitro system will be used to study cancer stem cell behavior, therapeutic drug screening and optimization of radiation dose for elimination of resistant cancer cells.SKMCH&RC, Yorkshire Cancer Researc

Significant impact of +105 A>C promoter polymorphism in IL-18 cytokine in patients with kidney stone disease

Background: Inflammation may be one cause of nephrolithiasis and the interleukin-18 (IL-18) encoding gene   polymorphisms at +105 A>C has been implicated in several inflammation related diseases. The aim of this study was to test whether IL-18+105 A>C polymorphisms could act as genetic marker for renal stone disease. A case-control study was conducted to observe the genotype distribution of IL-18+105 A>C, to elucidate the possible role of this SNP as risk factor in renal stone development and to examine its correlation with the clinico-pathologic variables.Methods: Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique, we tested the genotype distribution of 160 nephrolithiasis patients in comparison with 200 disease free controls from the same geographical region.  Results: We observed significant differences of IL-18+105 A to C between the controls and patients with odds ratio 5.4 (P = 0.001). The prevalence of the variant genotypes AC + CC in the patients was higher than that in the controls (45% v/s 30%) and showed a significant association (P = 0.003). Moreover, the frequency per copy of the C allele of IL-18+105 A>C was found to be implicated more in patient group 0.27 as against only 0.16 in controls (P = 0.0003). Further, males and subjects with C is implicated in renal stone disease, and that the rare, C related allele is connected with higher susceptibility to nephrolithiasis.

Analysis of Device-to-Device Communication over Double-Generalized Gamma Channels

In this paper, performance of a device-to-device (D2D) communication system is analyzed over double-generalized Gamma (dGG) fading channels. The dGG is a generic distribution for modeling double-scattering fading conditions. Co-channel interference (CCI) caused by various wireless devices in the system is also considered. The CCI fading channel is assumed to be Nakagami distributed. Analytical expressions for important statistical metrics, i.e. probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), are presented. Based on these statistical parameters, expressions for the outage probability, channel capacity and symbol error rate (SER) of the D2D communication system are presented. The performance of D2D system is then discussed and analyzed with the help of numerical results with arbitrary channel fading, path-loss and interference conditions

Analysis of D2D Communication System Over κ-μ Shadowed Fading Channel

Outage performance of a device-to-device (D2D) communication system in the presence of co-channel interference (CCI) is analyzed in this paper. Channels for the D2D and CCI signals are assumed to be κ-μ shadowed faded. Maximal ratio combining (MRC) and selection combining (SC) techniques are considered to combat fading conditions. Characteristic function (CF) expression of the D2D system in the presence of CCI is presented. Outage probability and success probability expressions are presented for the MRC and SC schemes. These outage probability and success probability expressions are functions of various CCI, path-loss and channel fading parameters. With the help of numerical results, effects of CCI on the performance of D2D communication system under different channel fading and path-loss conditions are discussed

Myoglobin-Based Classification of Minced Meat Using Hyperspectral Imaging

Minced meat substitution is one of the most common frauds which not only affects consumer health but impacts their lifestyles and religious customs as well. A number of methods have been proposed to overcome these frauds; however, these mostly rely on laboratory measures and are often subject to human error. Therefore, this study proposes novel hyperspectral imaging (400–1000 nm) based non-destructive isos-bestic myoglobin (Mb) spectral features for minced meat classification. A total of 60 minced meat spectral cubes were pre-processed using true-color image formulation to extract regions of interest, which were further normalized using the Savitzky–Golay filtering technique. The proposed pipeline outperformed several state-of-the-art methods by achieving an average accuracy of 88.88%

Improving community case management of diarrhoea and pneumonia in district Badin, Pakistan through a cluster randomised study--the NIGRAAN trial protocol

BACKGROUND: Diarrhoea and pneumonia contribute 30% of deaths in children under 5 in Pakistan. Pakistan\u27s Lady Health Workers Programme (LHW-P) covers about 60% of the population but has had little impact in reducing morbidity and mortality related to these major childhood killers. An external evaluation of the LHW-P suggests that lack of supportive supervision of LHWs by lady health supervisors (LHSs) is a key determinant of this problem. Project NIGRAAN aims to improve knowledge and skills of LHWs and community caregivers through supervisory strategies employed by LHSs. Ultimately, community casemanagement (CCM) of childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea will improve. METHODS/DESIGN: NIGRAAN is a cluster-randomised trial in District Badin, Pakistan. There are approximately 1100 LHWs supervised by 36 LHSs in Badin. For this study, each LHS serves as a cluster. All LHSs working permanently in Badin who regularly conduct and report field visits are eligible. Thirty-four LHSs have been allocated to either intervention or control arms in a ratio of 1:1 through computer-generated simple randomisation technique. Five LHWs from each LHSs are also randomly picked. All 34 LHSs and 170 LHWs will be actively monitored. The intervention consists of training to build LHS knowledge and skills, clinical mentorship and written feedback to LHWs. Pre- and post-intervention assessments of LHSs, LHWs and community caregivers will be conducted via focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, knowledge assessment questionnaires, skill assessment scorecards and household surveys. Primary outcome is improvement in CCM practices of childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia and will be assessed at the cluster level. DISCUSSION: NIGRAAN takes a novel approach to implementation research and explores whether training of LHSs in supervisory skills results in improving the CCM practices of childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia. No significant harm to participants is anticipated. The enablers and barriers towards improved CCM would provide recommendations to policymakers for scale up of this intervention nationally and regionally

Dielectric properties of (CuO,CaO₂, and BaO)y/CuTl-1223 composites

We synthesized (CuO, CaO₂, and BaO)y/Cu₀,₅Tl₀,₅Ba₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀–δ (y = 0, 5%, 10%, 15%) composites by solid-state reaction and characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, dc-resistivity, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Frequency and temperature dependent dielectric properties such as real and imag-inary part of dielectric constant, dielectric loss, and ac-conductivity of these composites are studied by capacitance and conductance measurement as a function of frequency (10 kHz to 10 MHz) and temperature (78 to 300 K). The x-ray diffraction analysis reveals that the characteristic behavior of Cu₀,₅Tl₀,₅Ba₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀–δ supercon-ductor phase and its structure is nearly undisturbed by doping of nanoparticles. The scanning electron microsco-py images show the improvement in the intergranular links among the superconducting grains with increasing nanoparticles concentration. Microcracks are healed up with the inclusion of these nanoparticles and superconduct-ing volume fraction is also increased. The dielectric properties of these composites strongly depend upon the fre-quency and temperature. The zero resistivity critical temperature and dielectric properties show opposite trend with the addition of nanoparticles in Cu₀,₅Tl₀,₅Ba₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀–δ superconductor matrix