Electrode disorder, electrochemical processes and governing length scales

Surface of a solid electrode ubiquitously possesses morphological and energetic disorders, and therefore it greatly influences their thermodynamics, kinetics and transport properties. Also, the anomalies in an electrochemical response are governed by the synergistic effect of the morphological and phenomenological lengths. For theoretical understanding of disordered systems, it becomes mandatory to characterize these length scales, and their dependence on electrochemical and morphological characteristics. In this review, we mainly focus on two aspects: (1) statistical characterization of electrode surface using FE-SEM micrographs and electrochemical microscopic area, and (2) the physical significance of various length scales arising in theoretical models and electrode surface topography. Finally, a common scale is generated to show the synergistic effects of morphological and phenomenological length scales in disordered electrochemical system

Central Giant Cell Granuloma Of Maxilla: A Case Report And Literature Review

Central giant cell granuloma (CGCG) is a benign reactive lesion rather than benign neoplastic lesion. In 70% of cases, it is seen in mandible and the remaining 30% occurs in maxilla. Females are affected more than males and commonly seen in children and young adults. The etiology is still completely unknown but thought to be of a reactive process to some unknown stimuli. However, it has radiographic features similar to some neoplastic lesions. The incidence in the general population is very low.  Central giant cell granuloma is characterized by the presence of multinucleated giant cells of varying shapes and sizes, fibrous tissue, vascular channels and macrophages. We report a case of central giant cell granuloma in the right anterior maxillary region of a 12 year old boy, who develop a painless swelling on the right side of the face since three months and gave a history of trauma at the same time. The patient was treated surgically and one year follow up did not show any sign of recurrence

Dynamics of Nonlinear Polariton Wavepackets and Pattern Formation in Microcavity Structures

Nonlinear wavepackets, such as solitons, are seen in many areas of physics. A promising medium where they could be used in both classical and quantum computational devices is the exciton-polariton system. Exciton-polaritons are quasi-particles consisting of strongly coupled excitons and photons. Polariton-polariton interactions result in a system with a high degree of nonlinearity. In this thesis, the dynamics of nonlinear wavepackets and pattern formation in several microcavity structures are studied. Initially, the formation of a polariton condensate in a periodic potential induced by a Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) is investigated, with a particular focus on the role played by phonons absorbed as polaritons scatter between certain states. This process can result in the formation of "gap solitons". It is further suggested that reflections of the SAW from features on the sample can contribute to pattern formation in the emission spot. Later chapters focus on nonlinear wavepackets propagating with high momentum which could be used for the transmission of signals across a polaritonic chip. Patterns of bright dissipative polariton solitons are studied in planar microcavities. Arrays can be generated with solitons arranged either along or perpendicular to the propagation direction, with different localisation mechanisms employed in each case. Finally, the dynamics of soliton-like wavepackets propagating through quasi one dimensional microwire structures are investigated. Measurements of the quantum properties of these nonlinear wavepackets reveal non-classical behaviour. Multi-peak patterns are observed as the excitation power is increased, accompanied by discontinuities in phase between the peaks for higher power cases. At high excitation powers, broadening of the energy spectrum is observed in a similar manner to the supercontinuum generation which has previously been seen in optical fibres

Algorithmic Security is Insufficient: A Comprehensive Survey on Implementation Attacks Haunting Post-Quantum Security

This survey is on forward-looking, emerging security concerns in post-quantum era, i.e., the implementation attacks for 2022 winners of NIST post-quantum cryptography (PQC) competition and thus the visions, insights, and discussions can be used as a step forward towards scrutinizing the new standards for applications ranging from Metaverse, Web 3.0 to deeply-embedded systems. The rapid advances in quantum computing have brought immense opportunities for scientific discovery and technological progress; however, it poses a major risk to today's security since advanced quantum computers are believed to break all traditional public-key cryptographic algorithms. This has led to active research on PQC algorithms that are believed to be secure against classical and powerful quantum computers. However, algorithmic security is unfortunately insufficient, and many cryptographic algorithms are vulnerable to side-channel attacks (SCA), where an attacker passively or actively gets side-channel data to compromise the security properties that are assumed to be safe theoretically. In this survey, we explore such imminent threats and their countermeasures with respect to PQC. We provide the respective, latest advancements in PQC research, as well as assessments and providing visions on the different types of SCAs

Separation of copper(II) from manganese-(II), cobalt(II), nickel(II) and zinc(II) using Acetylacetone

823-824The separation of copper(II) from binary mixtures of divalent metal ions, Cu-Mn, Cu-Co, Cu-Ni and Cu-Zn has been studied using acetylacetone(Hacac) in chloro-form as the extractant. The pH of the aqueous phase has been kept at 4.34 using Britton-Robinson buffer (CH3COOH-NaOH). From the plot of log Kd versus log[Hacac], the nature of the extracted species is found to be Cu(CH3COO) (acac)

A Comprehensive Survey on the Implementations, Attacks, and Countermeasures of the Current NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standard

This survey is the first work on the current standard for lightweight cryptography, standardized in 2023. Lightweight cryptography plays a vital role in securing resource-constrained embedded systems such as deeply-embedded systems (implantable and wearable medical devices, smart fabrics, smart homes, and the like), radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, sensor networks, and privacy-constrained usage models. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a standardization process for lightweight cryptography and after a relatively-long multi-year effort, eventually, in Feb. 2023, the competition ended with ASCON as the winner. This lightweight cryptographic standard will be used in deeply-embedded architectures to provide security through confidentiality and integrity/authentication (the dual of the legacy AES-GCM block cipher which is the NIST standard for symmetric key cryptography). ASCON's lightweight design utilizes a 320-bit permutation which is bit-sliced into five 64-bit register words, providing 128-bit level security. This work summarizes the different implementations of ASCON on field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and ASIC hardware platforms on the basis of area, power, throughput, energy, and efficiency overheads. The presented work also reviews various differential and side-channel analysis attacks (SCAs) performed across variants of ASCON cipher suite in terms of algebraic, cube/cube-like, forgery, fault injection, and power analysis attacks as well as the countermeasures for these attacks. We also provide our insights and visions throughout this survey to provide new future directions in different domains. This survey is the first one in its kind and a step forward towards scrutinizing the advantages and future directions of the NIST lightweight cryptography standard introduced in 2023

Recommendations for ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence in digital agriculture

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications are an integral and emerging component of digital agriculture. AI can help ensure sustainable production in agriculture by enhancing agricultural operations and decision-making. Recommendations about soil condition and pesticides or automatic devices for milking and apple picking are examples of AI applications in digital agriculture. Although AI offers many benefits in farming, AI systems may raise ethical issues and risks that should be assessed and proactively managed. Poor design and configuration of intelligent systems may impose harm and unintended consequences on digital agriculture. Invasion of farmers' privacy, damaging animal welfare due to robotic technologies, and lack of accountability for issues resulting from the use of AI tools are only some examples of ethical challenges in digital agriculture. This paper examines the ethical challenges of the use of AI in agriculture in six categories including fairness, transparency, accountability, sustainability, privacy, and robustness. This study further provides recommendations for agriculture technology providers (ATPs) and policymakers on how to proactively mitigate ethical issues that may arise from the use of AI in farming. These recommendations cover a wide range of ethical considerations, such as addressing farmers' privacy concerns, ensuring reliable AI performance, enhancing sustainability in AI systems, and reducing AI bias

Identification of FBXL4 as a Metastasis Associated Gene in Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among western men, with a significant mortality and morbidity reported for advanced metastatic disease. Current understanding of metastatic disease is limited due to difficulty of sampling as prostate cancer mainly metastasizes to bone. By analysing prostate cancer bone metastases using high density microarrays, we found a common genomic copy number loss at 6q16.1–16.2, containing the FBXL4 gene, which was confirmed in larger series of bone metastases by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH). Loss of FBXL4 was also detected in primary tumours and it was highly associated with prognostic factors including high Gleason score, clinical stage, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and extent of disease, as well as poor patient survival, suggesting that FBXL4 loss contributes to prostate cancer progression. We also demonstrated that FBXL4 deletion is detectable in circulating tumour cells (CTCs), making it a potential prognostic biomarker by ‘liquid biopsy’. In vitro analysis showed that FBXL4 plays a role in regulating the migration and invasion of prostate cancer cells. FBXL4 potentially controls cancer metastasis through regulation of ERLEC1 levels. Therefore, FBXL4 could be a potential novel prostate cancer suppressor gene, which may prevent cancer progression and metastasis through controlling cell invasion

Effect of Hydrocortisone on Mortality and Organ Support in Patients With Severe COVID-19: The REMAP-CAP COVID-19 Corticosteroid Domain Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Evidence regarding corticosteroid use for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is limited. Objective: To determine whether hydrocortisone improves outcome for patients with severe COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: An ongoing adaptive platform trial testing multiple interventions within multiple therapeutic domains, for example, antiviral agents, corticosteroids, or immunoglobulin. Between March 9 and June 17, 2020, 614 adult patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled and randomized within at least 1 domain following admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory or cardiovascular organ support at 121 sites in 8 countries. Of these, 403 were randomized to open-label interventions within the corticosteroid domain. The domain was halted after results from another trial were released. Follow-up ended August 12, 2020. Interventions: The corticosteroid domain randomized participants to a fixed 7-day course of intravenous hydrocortisone (50 mg or 100 mg every 6 hours) (n = 143), a shock-dependent course (50 mg every 6 hours when shock was clinically evident) (n = 152), or no hydrocortisone (n = 108). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was organ support-free days (days alive and free of ICU-based respiratory or cardiovascular support) within 21 days, where patients who died were assigned -1 day. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model that included all patients enrolled with severe COVID-19, adjusting for age, sex, site, region, time, assignment to interventions within other domains, and domain and intervention eligibility. Superiority was defined as the posterior probability of an odds ratio greater than 1 (threshold for trial conclusion of superiority >99%). Results: After excluding 19 participants who withdrew consent, there were 384 patients (mean age, 60 years; 29% female) randomized to the fixed-dose (n = 137), shock-dependent (n = 146), and no (n = 101) hydrocortisone groups; 379 (99%) completed the study and were included in the analysis. The mean age for the 3 groups ranged between 59.5 and 60.4 years; most patients were male (range, 70.6%-71.5%); mean body mass index ranged between 29.7 and 30.9; and patients receiving mechanical ventilation ranged between 50.0% and 63.5%. For the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively, the median organ support-free days were 0 (IQR, -1 to 15), 0 (IQR, -1 to 13), and 0 (-1 to 11) days (composed of 30%, 26%, and 33% mortality rates and 11.5, 9.5, and 6 median organ support-free days among survivors). The median adjusted odds ratio and bayesian probability of superiority were 1.43 (95% credible interval, 0.91-2.27) and 93% for fixed-dose hydrocortisone, respectively, and were 1.22 (95% credible interval, 0.76-1.94) and 80% for shock-dependent hydrocortisone compared with no hydrocortisone. Serious adverse events were reported in 4 (3%), 5 (3%), and 1 (1%) patients in the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with a 7-day fixed-dose course of hydrocortisone or shock-dependent dosing of hydrocortisone, compared with no hydrocortisone, resulted in 93% and 80% probabilities of superiority with regard to the odds of improvement in organ support-free days within 21 days. However, the trial was stopped early and no treatment strategy met prespecified criteria for statistical superiority, precluding definitive conclusions. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02735707