Morphological and molecular identification of Explanatum explanatum in domestic water buffalo in Pakistan

More than 70 species of the family Paramphistomatidae, have been identified in ruminants in different parts of the world. Most are pathogenic, causing amphistomosis. Adult flukes of this Family have a predilection for the rumen, liver or bile duct of ruminants where they may cause damage to the epithelium. Identification of adult paramphistomes to the species level based on morphology alone requires specialized knowledge, whereas, molecular genetic marker analysis is more precise and transferable. In the present study, we performed both morphological and molecular characterization of fifteen adult flukes collected from the liver of domesticated buffalo in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The morphology of five of these flukes was examined in detail and on this basis these were identified as either Explanatum explanatum or Explanatum bathycotyle. PCR and sequencing of the ITS-2 rDNA region from these 5 flukes, plus 10 others, revealed a single haplotype in all cases. This differed by just a single nucleotide polymorphism from a previously described E. explanatum ITS-2 rDNA sequence. Phylogenetic comparison of these E. explanatum ITS2-rDNA sequences with those from other Paramphistomatidae, Fasciola and Dicrocoelium species was performed to assess within and between species variation and validate the use of ITS-2 rDNA as a robust species-specific marker for E. explanatum. This work provides a validated species-specific marker of E. explanatum and the first report of this parasite species from Pakistan

Electrical resistivity reduction and spatial homogenization of Ga-doped ZnO film by Zn layer insertion

Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) films inserted with a Zn layer were deposited at room temperature by a sputtering method to decrease carrier-compensating defects. The Zn-inserted GZO films showed a resistivity decrease resulting from an increase in carrier density. The carrier density further increased by thermal annealing and showed a maximum at around 400 degrees C. The formation of a SiO2 capping layer on the film surfaces enhanced the carrier density at temperatures higher than 400 degrees C, resulting in a lowered resistivity to 3.3 x 10(-4) Omega cm for a 200-nm-thick film. In addition, resistivity degradation that was induced at the erosion position in the sputtering deposition process disappeared. The increase in carrier density, decrease in resistivity, and homogenization of the electrical property indicate that carrier-compensating crystalline defects such as the zinc vacancy induced in Ga-doped ZnO films during the deposition process are decreased by the Zn enrichment

Observation of anomalous Hall resonance of massive Dirac fermions in topological kagome-lattice magnet

Abstract The kagome-lattice materials promise emergence of Dirac fermions thanks to the special lattice geometry, which potentially realizes intriguing quantum topological states through various many-body interactions. The low-energy electromagnetic phenomena arising from such the Dirac fermions are expected to show the remarkable enhancement and, in certain conditions, to approach the universal responses, which, however, have remained elusive experimentally. Here, we show the resonantly enhanced magneto-optical response of massive Dirac fermions in kagome-lattice magnet TbMn6Sn6. The infrared magneto-optical spectroscopy reveals that the interband transition on massive Dirac bands significantly contributes to the observed resonance in the optical Hall conductivity. The analytical model expressed by a few band parameters reproduces the spectral characteristics of the resonance, which robustly produces almost 20 % of the quantized Hall conductance per one kagome layer even at room temperature. Our findings establish the general optical response of massive Dirac fermions, which is closely related to the universal electrodynamics in quantum anomalous Hall state