Barrier inhomogeneities of Al/p-In2Te3 thin film Schottky diodes

The current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of p-In2Te3/Al thin films Schottky diodes papered by Flash Evaporation technique were measured in the temperature range 303-335 K have been interpreted on the basis of the assumption of a Gaussian distribution of barrier heights (φbo) due to barrier height inhomogeneities that prevail at the interface. It has been found that the occurrence of Gaussian distribution of BHs is responsible for the decrease of the apparent BH (φbo) and increase of the ideality factor (η). The inhomogeneities are considered to have a Gaussian distribution with a mean barrier height of (φbm) and standard deviation (σs) at zero-bias. Furthermore, the activation energy value (φb) at T = 0 and Richardson constant (A**) value was obtained as 0.587 eV and 3.09 Acm– 2 K– 1 by means of usual Richardson plots. Hence, it has been concluded that the temperature dependence of the I-V characteristics of p-In2Te3/Al Schottky Diodes can be successfully explained on the basis of TE mechanism with a Gaussian distribution of the BHs. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2790

Factors Associated with Tuberculosis and Rifampicin-Resistant Tuberculosis amongst Symptomatic Patients in India: A Retrospective Analysis

Background Tuberculosis remains a major public health challenge for India. Various studies have documented different levels of TB and multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB among diverse groups of the population. In view of renewed targets set under the End TB strategy by 2035, there is an urgent need for TB diagnosis to be strengthened. Drawing on data from a recent, multisite study, we address key questions for TB diagnosis amongst symptomatics presenting for care: are there subgroups of patients that are more likely than others, to be positive for TB? In turn, amongst these positive cases, are there factors—apart from treatment history—that may be predictive for multi-drug resistance? Methods We used data from a multi-centric prospective demonstration study, conducted from March 2012 to December 2013 in 18 sub-district level TB programme units (TUs) in India and covering a population of 8.8 million. In place of standard diagnostic tests, upfront Xpert MTB/RIF testing was offered to all presumptive TB symptomatics. Here, using data from this study, we used logistic regression to identify association between risk factors and TB and Rifampicin-Resistant TB among symptomatics enrolled in the study. Results We find that male gender; history of TB treatment; and adult age compared with either children or the elderly are risk factors associated with high TB detection amongst symptomatics, across the TUs. While treatment history is found be a significant risk factor for rifampicin-resistant TB, elderly (65+ yrs) people have significantly lower risk than other age groups. However, pediatric TB cases have no less risk of rifampicin resistance as compared with adults (OR 1.23 (95% C.I. 0.85–1.76)). Similarly, risk of rifampicin resistance among both the genders was the same. These patterns applied across the study sites involved. Notably in Mumbai, amongst those patients with microbiological confirmation of TB, female patients showed a higher risk of having MDR-TB than male patients. Conclusion Our results cast fresh light on the characteristics of symptomatics presenting for care who are most likely to be microbiologically positive for TB, and for rifampicin resistance. The challenges posed by TB control are complex and multifactorial: evidence from diverse sources, including retrospective studies such as that addressed here, can be invaluable in informing future strategies to accelerate declines in TB burden

Current transport behaviour of Au/n-GaAs Schottky diodes grown on Ge substrate with different epitaxial layer thickness over a wide temperature range

The work presents temperature dependent forward and reverse current-voltage (I-V) analyses of n-GaAs/Au Schottky Diodes grown on n+ Ge substrate with different epitaxial layer thicknesses. While some of the Schottky diodes follow TED mechanism, others exceed significantly from this theory due to existence of patches of reduced barrier height embedded in the Schottky interface. The zero bias barrier heights (φbo) increase (0.649 to 0.809 eV) while the ideality factors (η) decrease (1.514 to 1.052) with increase in epitaxial layer thickness (1-4 μm), thus, indicating similar behaviour to that observed for the I-V characteristics of the undertaken Schottky diodes with decreasing temperature. It all indicated the existence of barrier inhomogenities over the M-S interface. The breakdown behaviour analysis of these diodes showed some interesting results; the breakdown voltage (VBR) decreases with temperature and shows ‘Defect Assisted Tunneling’ phenomenon through surface or defect states in the 1 μm thick epitaxial layer Schottky diode while VBR increases with temperature in 3 μm and 4 μm thick epitaxial layer Schottky diodes which demonstrate ‘Avalanche Multiplication’ mechanism responsible for junction breakdown. The reverse breakdown voltage is also seen to increase (2.7-5.9 Volts) with the increase in epitaxial layer thickness of the diodes. The undertaken diodes have been observed to follow TFE mechanism at low temperatures (below 200 K) in which the tunneling current component increases with epitaxial layer thickness which has been ascribed as an impact of GaAs/Ge hetero-interface over the Au/n-GaAs Schottky barrier. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2788

Structure, Optical And Electrical Characterization Of Tin Selenide Thin Films Deposited At Room Temperature Using Thermal Evaporation Method

Tin Selenide (SnSe) is an important IV-VI compound semiconducting material used for various devices like memory switching, an efficient solar cell and holographic recording systems. SnSe thin films of the thickness of 100 nm were deposited by thermal evaporation method on a Glass substrate at room temperature. The prepared samples were investigated for structural, compositional, morphological and optical characte-rization respectively by using X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission measurements. Thus deposited films showed a good polycrystalline quality having preferred (111) orientation with uniformly distributed spherical grains having size 16nm.The grown film identified as P- types by hot probe method. The films were found to have direct band transition having an optical bandgap (Eg) of 1.92 eV at room temperature. The temperature depended electrical resistivity (ρ) determined by using the two probe method, found to be 390 Ω·m at room temperature. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/952

Impact of annealing on CuInSe2 thin films and its Schottky interface

The room temperature current–voltage (I-V) characteristics of the Al/p-CuInSe2 Schottky Diodes fabricated on thermally evaporated CIS thin films, before and after annealing, were studied. Prior to their diode formation, the undertaken CIS thin films were compared on the basis of structural, morphological and electrical investigations. Wherein, annealed films showed an increase in the grain size and carrier concentration values while decrease in resistivity. I-V analysis of the Schottky diodes depicted decrease in the barrier heights and increase in ideality factors of those formed on annealed films. The diodes, thus, indicated the existence of barrier inhomogenity at the M-S interface. The annealed Schottky diodes also demonstrated better ideality factor values with increased thickness of CIS layer. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2792

Multimodal cyberbullying detection using capsule network with dynamic routing and deep convolutional neural network

Cyberbullying is the use of information technology networks by individuals’ to humiliate, tease, embarrass, taunt, defame and disparage a target without any face-to-face contact. Social media is the 'virtual playground' used by bullies with the upsurge of social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. It is critical to implement models and systems for automatic detection and resolution of bullying content available online as the ramifications can lead to a societal epidemic. This paper presents a deep neural model for cyberbullying detection in three different modalities of social data, namely textual, visual and info-graphic (text embedded along with an image). The all-in-one architecture, CapsNet–ConvNet, consists of a capsule network (CapsNet) deep neural network with dynamic routing for predicting the textual bullying content and a convolution neural network (ConvNet) for predicting the visual bullying content. The info-graphic content is discretized by separating text from the image using Google Lens of Google Photos app. The perceptron-based decision-level late fusion strategy for multimodal learning is used to dynamically combine the predictions of discrete modalities and output the final category as bullying or non-bullying type. Experimental evaluation is done on a mix-modal dataset which contains 10,000 comments and posts scrapped from YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. The proposed model achieves a superlative performance with the AUC–ROC of 0.98

Use of Xpert MTB/RIF in Decentralized Public Health Settings and Its Effect on Pulmonary TB and DR-TB Case Finding in India

Background Xpert MTB/RIF, the first automated molecular test for tuberculosis, is transforming the diagnostic landscape in high-burden settings. This study assessed the impact of up-front Xpert MTB/RIF testing on detection of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and rifampicin-resistant PTB (DR-TB) cases in India. Methods This demonstration study was implemented in 18 sub-district level TB programme units (TUs) in India in diverse geographic and demographic settings covering a population of 8.8 million. A baseline phase in 14 TUs captured programmatic baseline data, and an intervention phase in 18 TUs had Xpert MTB/RIF offered to all presumptive TB patients. We estimated changes in detection of TB and DR-TB, the former using binomial regression models to adjust for clustering and covariates. Results In the 14 study TUs, which participated in both phases, 10,675 and 70,556 presumptive TB patients were enrolled in the baseline and intervention phase, respectively, and 1,532 (14.4%) and 14,299 (20.3%) bacteriologically confirmed PTB cases were detected. The implementation of Xpert MTB/RIF was associated with increases in both notification rates of bacteriologically confirmed TB cases (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] 1.39; CI 1.18-1.64), and proportion of bacteriological confirmed TB cases among presumptive TB cases (adjusted risk ratio (aRR) 1.33; CI 1.6-1.52). Compared with the baseline strategy of selective drug-susceptibility testing only for PTB cases at high risk of drug-resistant TB, Xpert MTB/RIF implementation increased rifampicin resistant TB case detection by over fivefold. Among, 2765 rifampicin resistance cases detected, 1055 were retested with conventional drug susceptibility testing (DST). Positive predictive value (PPV) of rifampicin resistance detected by Xpert MTB/RIF was 94.7% (CI 91.3-98.1), in comparison to conventional DST. Conclusion Introduction of Xpert MTB/RIF as initial diagnostic test for TB in public health facilities significantly increased case-notification rates of all bacteriologically confirmed TB by 39% and rifampicin-resistant TB case notification by fivefold

Characterization of ASR gene and its role in drought tolerance in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Chickpea has a profound nutritional and economic value in vegetarian society. Continuous decline in chickpea productivity is attributed to insufficient genetic variability and different environmental stresses. Chickpea like several other legumes is highly susceptible to terminal drought stress. Multiple genes control drought tolerance and ASR gene plays a key role in regulating different plant stresses. The present study describes the molecular characterization and functional role of Abscissic acid and stress ripening (ASR) gene from chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and the gene sequence identified was submitted to NCBI Genbank (MK937569). Molecular analysis using MUSCLE software proved that the ASR nucleotide sequences in different legumes show variations at various positions though ASR genes are conserved in chickpea with only few variations. Sequence similarity of ASR gene to chickpea putative ABA/WDS induced protein mRNA clearly indicated its potential involvement in drought tolerance. Physiological screening and qRT-PCR results demonstrated increased ASR gene expression under drought stress possibly enabled genotypes to perform better under stress. Conserved domain search, protein structure analysis, prediction and validation, network analysis using Phyre2, Swiss-PDB viewer, ProSA and STRING analysis established the role of hypothetical ASR protein NP_001351739.1 in mediating drought responses. NP_001351739.1 might have enhanced the ASR gene activity as a transcription factor regulating drought stress tolerance in chickpea. This study could be useful in identification of new ASR genes that play a major role in drought tolerance and also develop functional markers for chickpea improvement

Separate Entrance and Exit Portals for Ligand Traffic in Mycobacterium tuberculosis FabH

SummaryMycobacterium tuberculosis FabH initiates type II fatty acid synthase-catalyzed formation of the long chain (C16–C22) acyl-coenzyme A (CoA) precursors of mycolic acids, which are major constituents of the bacterial cell envelope. Crystal structures of M. tuberculosis FabH (mtFabH) show the substrate binding site to be a buried, extended L-shaped channel with only a single solvent access portal. Entrance of an acyl-CoA substrate through the solvent portal would require energetically unfavorable reptational threading of the substrate to its reactive position. Using a class of FabH inhibitors, we have tested an alternative hypothesis that FabH exists in an “open” form during substrate binding and product release, and a “closed” form in which catalysis and intermediate steps occur. This hypothesis is supported by mass spectrometric analysis of the product profile and crystal structures of complexes of mtFabH with these inhibitors