Nanoscale precision of 3D polymerisation via polarisation control

A systematic analysis of polarization effects in a direct write femtosecond laser 3D lithography is presented. It is newly shown that coupling between linear polarization of the writing light electric field and temperature gradient can be used to fine-tune feature sizes in structuring of photoresists at a nanoscale. The vectorial Debye focusing is used to simulate polarization effects and a controlled variation up to 20% in the linewidth is shown experimentally for the identical axial extent of the polymerised features. The revealed mechanisms are relevant for a wide range of phenomena of light-matter interaction at tight focusing in laser-tweezers and in plasmonic or dielectric sub-wavelength focusing where strong light intensity and thermal gradients coexist.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

The psychosocial impact of vaginal delivery and cesarean section in primiparous women

The aim of this study was to identify how the method of delivery and birth experience interfere with maternal psychological status early after puerperium. We conducted a prospective study on 148 women after puerperium from November 2017 to January 2018 in Bucur Maternity Hospital. Women that delivered vaginally mobilized in the first 6 hours in 73.7% of the cases, but for cesarean section after 12- 24 hours in 43.6% of the cases. Women described good support from the obstetrician in 58.1% of the cases. 90.5% of the women reported that the method of delivery did not have an impact on infant care and 73% had no lactation problems. The majority described little trauma, in 32.4% of the cases. 70.3% of the patients reported that they wanted to have more children and 59.5% of them desired the same method of delivery. Negative feelings, lactation, and taking care of the baby were not influenced in this study by the method of delivery, but by prematurity of birth and the complications that women experienced at birth

The Effect of Postgraduate Students’ Academic Cheating in Higher Learning Institutions in Tanzania: Implications and Lessons

Maintaining academic integrity in higher learning institutions is very important. This is because academic cheating had many effects on students, teachers, individual schools, and the education system at large. The paper investigated the effect of postgraduate students’ academic cheating in higher learning institutions in Tanzania with a focus on the implications and lessons. The participants involved postgraduate students (master’s degree students) from four universities in two-degree programmes, namely; education and social sciences. Data were collected through focus group discussions. The results show that academic cheating results in incompetent postgraduates, discontinuation from studies, loss of academic credibility and integrity, tarnishing the image of a university, and presence of dishonest employees. If immediate measures are not taken to stop the problem of cheating among postgraduate students, students graduating from postgraduate programmes and their respective higher learning institutions will no longer be trusted by the society. Therefore, this study recommends that a holistic approach should be employed by different parties, including faculty members, students and education stake holders to end this problem so as to maintain the quality of education offered by higher learning institutions. Keywords: Academic cheating, effects, postgraduate students, higher learning institutions, Tanzania DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-24-10 Publication date:August 31st 2020

The role of toll-like receptors in hematopoietic malignancies

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that shape the innate immune system by identifying pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPS) and host-derived damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPS). TLRs are widely expressed on both immune cells and non-immune cells, including hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, effector immune cell populations, and endothelial cells. In addition to their well-known role in the innate immune response to acute infection or injury, accumulating evidence supports a role for TLRs in the development of hematopoietic and other malignancies. Several hematopoietic disorders, including lymphoproliferative disorders and myelodysplastic syndromes, which possess a high risk of transformation to leukemia, have been linked to aberrant TLR signaling. Furthermore, activation of TLRs leads to the induction of a number of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, which can promote tumorigenesis by driving cell proliferation and migration and providing a favorable microenvironment for tumor cells. Beyond hematopoietic malignancies, the upregulation of a number of TLRs has been linked to promoting tumor cell survival, proliferation, and metastasis in a variety of cancers, including those of the colon, breast, and lung. This review focuses on the contribution of TLRs to hematopoietic malignancies, highlighting the known direct and indirect effects of TLR signaling on tumor cells and their microenvironment. In addition, the utility of TLR agonists and antagonists as potential therapeutics in the treatment of hematopoietic malignancies is discussed

Direct grating writing: single-step Bragg grating and waveguide fabrication for telecommunications and sensing applications

Direct Grating Writing (DGW) has been developed over the past decade as a means of rapidly prototyping waveguides with integrated Bragg grating structures in silica-on-silicon substrates [1]. The technique allows complicated waveguide structures and Bragg grating arrays to be fabricated and characterised in house

Gold Market Analyzer using Selection based Algorithm

Gold is the most important and valuable element right from its discovery. It is the most significant element at present and also the most valuable asset to. In the present market scenario the investors use gold as the security for their shares investment. During International trade all the countries use gold as their main mode of transaction. It is seen that all the currencies accepted by the International market are having the gold as the backup for their economy. The prices of gold are rising day by day continuously. As we see in the history of gold market the present prices of gold are much high as compare to the past values and that's why the gold market has attracted the most attention. The paper focus on the continuous changing in the gold rates, investment policies depend on the forecasting of trends in gold which will help the data mining companies to minimize the risk The description of the future situation on the basis of present trends is just not limited to the forecasting the prices. The knowledge discovers by the data mining techniques is gathered from the different gold related websites and also from the jewellers database. It is much more important for the ornaments making companies to know the demand and the requirements for the ornaments during the unstable (uncertain) market conditions. For the classification purpose the maid and sale database was gathered from the nearest jewellery shops of the past 5 years. The prediction is done after complete analysis of the gathered data set. With this the paper concentrate on making the information available about the government and private schemes related to gold market on one place. The paper proposes the system that gives the total access to the registered user and limited access to the unregistered user to get the required information of gold. The latest updates are provided to the registered user by sending mail or text message when the user was offline

National Center for Biomedical Ontology: Advancing biomedicine through structured organization of scientific knowledge

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to create new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease

Regulatory Network Identification, Promoter and Expression Analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana NPR1 in Defense Responses against Stresses

Salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) phytohormones have been known for their roles in plant defense behaviour against biotic and abiotic stresses. They regulate defense pathways by antagonistic interaction. NPR1 as a key regulatory factor in the cross-talk between SA and JA, signaling is essential for the inhibition of JA-responsive gene expression by SA. In silico promoter analysis of 1.5 kb promoter regions of NPR1 gene revealed that NPR1 contains 23 MYB and 20 WRKY transcription factor binding sites. Different cis-elements associated with various stress responses were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana NPR1. The most common element was allocated to the defense responses against biotic stresses. Based on gene network analysis, NPR1, TGA2 and TGA3 were predicted to have functional cooperation with each other. Affymetrix microarray data analysis of A. thaliana under SA treatment demonstrated that most genes involved in NPR1 network are up-regulated under SA treatment. Therefore, interaction and cooperation between these factors might serve to fine-tune regulation of defense and immune responses against biotic and abiotic stresses

Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Harboring Somatic BAP1 Mutations

IntroductionGenomic studies of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) have recently identified frequent mutations in the BRCA-associated protein 1(BAP1) gene. In uveal melanoma and clear cell renal cell carcinoma, BAP1 mutations are associated with poor outcomes but their clinical significance in MPM is unknown. We therefore undertook this study to define the characteristics of patients whose MPM tumors harbor somatic BAP1 mutation and to examine the relationship between BAP1 mutation and survival.MethodsWe reviewed the charts of 121 patients with MPM tumors diagnosed between 1991 and 2009 tested for BAP1 mutation, and extracted the following information: age at diagnosis, sex, histology, stage, smoking status, asbestos exposure, family or personal history of malignancy, and treatment including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation as well as survival status.ResultsTwenty-four of the 121 tumors (20%) harbored somatic BAP1 mutations. The percentage of current or former smokers among cases with BAP1 mutations was significantly higher than in BAP1 wild-type cases, (75% versus 42%; p = 0.006). However, the types of nucleotide substitutions in BAP1 did not suggest that this association was because of a causative role of smoking in BAP1 mutations. No other clinical feature was significantly different among those with and without BAP1 mutations in their MPM. There was also no difference in survival according to somatic BAP1 mutation status.ConclusionThere is no apparent distinct clinical phenotype for MPM with somatic BAP1 mutation. The significance of the more frequent history of smoking among patients with BAP1-mutated MPM warrants further study