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The twin image-free phase reconstruction is still a challenge with single-shot inline holographic systems. Existing solutions mostly are based on the inverse problem approaches or alternating projections. However, there exists a trade-off between phase retrieval and twin image elimination. Recent studies have introduced a hybrid method involving both the approaches to mitigate this trade-off. Following these works, we propose a single-shot sparsity-assisted iterative phase retrieval approach that applies a sparsity constraint in the object domain and formulates phase retrieval as a minimization problem. We demonstrate lensless digital inline holographic microscopy for imaging transparent and weakly scattering biological samples over a large field-of-view of ∼ 29 mm 2. The proposed method achieves high fidelity phase reconstruction with faster convergence compared to the existing single-shot phase retrieval methods. We further demonstrate the phase quantification of label-free biological samples, such as cervical cells and RBCs, to highlight the potential of our technique in clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), the most prevalent form of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), remains a leading cause of cancer-related death globally, including in India, with a 5-year survival rate below 10%. Despite these grim statistics, recent advances in the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for identifying genetic alterations and the emergence of targeted therapies have opened new possibilities for personalized treatment based on distinct molecular signatures. To understand the molecular pattern of NSCLC, a retrospective study was conducted with 53 Indian LUAD patient samples, using a targeted NGS panel of 46 cancer-relevant oncogenes to identify clinically relevant variants. Pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants were detected in 94% of the 53 cases. Non-synonymous mutations, rearrangements, copy number alterations, insertions, and deletions of functional relevance were observed in 31 out of 46 genes. The most frequently mutated genes included TP53 (52.8%) and EGFR (50.9%), followed by RET, PIK3CA and ERBB2; some patients had multiple alterations in the same gene. Gender-based enrichment analysis indicated that ALK and IDH2 alterations were more prevalent in females, while TP53 and PTEN were more common in males. No significant correlation was found between mutations and other clinicopathological attributes, such as age, stage, and subtype. A higher prevalence of EGFR, RET, PIK3CA, ERBB2 and ALK mutations were observed compared to previous LUAD genetic studies coupled with a lower frequency of KRAS mutations. Clinically actionable variants were annotated using OncoKB and categorized into the four therapeutic levels based on their clinical evidence. Seventy-nine percent of cases had at least one clinically actionable alteration. Most patients (39.6%) had the highest level of actionability (Level 1) wherein an FDA-approved drug is available specifically for the observed mutation in lung cancer patients. EGFR Exon19 in-frame deletions and EGFR L858R were the most frequent among targetable variants (20.7%). These findings emphasize the importance of a selective NGS panel in enabling personalized medicine approaches by identifying actionable molecular alterations and informing the choice of targeted therapy for more effective treatment options in Indian NSCLC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Light enhancement occurs strongly within the plasmonic clusters by interaction with surface plasmons. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopic (SERS) characteristics of a series of silver@silica trimer core–shell (CS) nanosphere (NS) clusters are investigated in this paper. It is significant to understand the electric field (EF) enhancement mechanism behind the SERS technique. The effect of symmetry breaking is studied for the series starting from the highly symmetric trimer cluster and transformed to linear dimer geometry which progresses through the gradual reduction in the vertex NS. The optical activity such as the evolution of LSPR peak is discussed, the formation of hot spots is demonstrated and the strength of the local EF enhancement is calculated and correlated with the plasmon dipolar modes by using plasmon hybridization theory to understand the underlying physical concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Disorders involving the musculoskeletal system are often identified with short stature and a range of orthopedic problems. The clinical and genetic heterogeneity of these diseases along with several characteristic overlaps makes definitive diagnosis difficult for clinicians. Hence, using molecular testing in addition to conventional tests becomes essential for appropriate diagnosis and management. Methods: Comprehensive clinical examination, detailed pretest and posttest counseling, molecular diagnosis with next-generation sequencing (NGS), genotype–phenotype correlation and Sanger sequencing for targeted variant analysis. Results: This manuscript reports a molecular spectrum of variants in 34 orthopedic cases referred to a single genetic unit attached to a tertiary care hospital. The diagnostic yield of NGS-based tests coupled with genetic counseling and segregation analysis was 79% which included 7 novel variants. In about 53% (i.e. 18/34 cases), molecular testing outcome was actionable since 8 of the 18 underwent prenatal diagnosis, as they were either in their early gestation or had planned a pregnancy subsequent to molecular testing, while ten cases were premaritally/prenatally counseled for the families to take informed decisions as they were in the reproductive age. Conclusions: The report highlights the importance of NGS-based tests even in a low resource setting as it helps patients, families and healthcare providers in reducing the economic, social and emotional burden of these disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many-to-many assignment problem (M- MAP), and the CPU/FPGA scheduling problem are two correlated issues in the field of combinatorial optimization. The framework for Kernighan Lin-driven logarithmic barrier approach (KD-LBA) is made to solve the many-to-many assignment problem. KD-LBA is a deterministic technique, which initiates to achieve the globally optimal solutions for MMAP using logarithmic barrier function-based gradient descent technique. Then, the obtained solution is optimized further using the Kernighan Lin-based local search method. Successive Kernighan Lin-driven logarithmic barrier approach (Successive KD-LBA) is also proposed to sort the issue of scheduling in a CPU/FPGA heterogeneous system. It solves the CPU/ FPGA scheduling problem by transforming it into an MMAP. KD-LBA outperforms the state-of-art methods in terms of convergence speed for MMAPs with a group size greater than 40. Successive KD-LBA presents novel scheduling solutions for the CPU/FPGA scheduling problem as compared to the existing works, regarding average makespan and computation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the finite state machine (FSM)‐based digital controllers are susceptible to fault‐injection and side‐channel attacks, which makes FSM security a more prominent factor. FSM optimality is another crucial element when designed. A state encoding approach is applied for FSM security and optimization. This article proposes the security‐dominated FSM state assignment technique (SD‐SHO), which obtains a satisfactory level of FSM optimization as well. It is a deterministic algorithm and consists of two key techniques, such as state assignment using an improved quadratic sum code, and state assignment using a gradient‐based interior point method. A fuzzy bi‐level programming logic is introduced in the proposed approach for regulating the constituting algorithms optimally. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the FSM security and optimality using the MCNC FSM benchmarks. Results indicate a substantial reduction in the error masking probability using SD‐SHO. It also demonstrates that SD‐SHO achieves a satisfactory level of area and power reduction compared with other existing works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundus images are broadly used by medical ophthalmologists to detect and assess any customary abnormalities. Fundus imaging sensors capture the eye's rigid portion, which characteristically covers the core, tangential retina, optic disc, and macula. Existing state‐of‐the‐art fundus sensors have the drawback of producing low contrast and noisy information, which makes scientific and algorithmic evaluation very complicated. This article proposes an Adaptive Histogram Equalization—Tuned with Nonsimilar Grouping Curvelet (HET‐NOSCU), which works through a joint denoising enhancement approach. The proposed algorithm's main contribution includes (i) use of curvelet features to better preserve edges during denoising. (ii) Adaptive enhancement using the histogram to prevent halo ringing and specular artifacts, which yields superior results than the very recently established state‐of ‐the‐art methods, using similar performing parameters such as peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM), and correlation coefficient (CoC). We observe an improvement of 17.66%, 0.93%, and 0.24%, respectively, for the above parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) which is a prominent nature-inspired computing technique outperforms in the exploration stage, but its performance degrades in the exploitation stage. A fuzzy bi-level programming based gravitational search algorithm (FB-GSA) is proposed in this study. The basic concept to create FB-GSA is the iterative fuzzy decision-making operation. FB-GSA accompanies the algorithms such as Chaotic Gravitational Search Algorithm (CGSA), and the proposed local search using spectral Polak-Ribire-Polyak-3 (spectral PRP-3) method. Initially, the adaptive parameters, for the fuzzy decision-making process, are determined. Then, the controlled operation of constituent algorithms is executed using fuzzy Bi-level logic, which leads to an optimal solution. Experimental evaluation of FB-GSA is performed using several unimodal and multi-modal benchmark functions. Experimental results illustrate that FB-GSA outperforms other state-of-art works for most benchmarks. The simulation results for FB-GSA also presents a significant improvement in the convergence speed. The fuzzy-based adaptive control employed in FB-GSA makes it devoid of premature convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of wavelet transform and its application to image processing are being incorporated in undergraduate and postgraduate syllabuses. This article discuss the basic concepts of image processing and its importance in real time application. The content of this work elaborates the importance of the image denoising and what is the necessity of image denoising in transmitted images in image enhancement topic among the final year project students as well as an emerging research topic among the research scholars worldwide. Hence this article is prepared in order to trigger those students' knowledge in basic steps involved in image processing techniques in detail. This study highly focuses on how wavelet transform is involved in denoising and impact of denoising in an image. In general, the basic transforms like Fourier transform and discrete cosine transforms are used to transform the image from one domain to another domain. Further it does not require a priori knowledge of noisy image over a transmission time. Hence the proposed method can provide a satisfactory improvement in image enhancement, assured reduction in root mean square error and improvement in the peak signal-to-noise ratio. The peak signal-to-noise ratio value of noisy image to denoised images is improved more in different wavelet transform methods. Thus, this paper can help the students who are working with visual perception of images and machine learning algorithm under image processing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular targeted therapy is custom tailored treatment aiming at the molecular variations that drive the cancer growth. BRAF (B-homologue of the Rapidly Accelerated Fibrosarcoma) V600E variant is one such variant seen in several cancers that serves as a promising target for therapy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the percentage of Thyroid Cancer (TC) cases harboring BRAF V600E mutation, from patients of two tertiary care hospitals of south India to plan specific molecular therapy irrespective of the tumor pathology. Samples were recruited into the study after the histopathological confirmation as, Papillary TC (PTC), Follicular TC (FTC), Medullary TC (MTC) and Anaplastic TC (ATC) cases based on the morphology. In the study, 106 different FFPE thyroid cancer samples were recruited of which 13 samples were subjected to Next Generation Sequencing using Comprehensive Onco CEPT panel. BRAF V600E variation was analyzed using Polymerase Chain Reaction followed by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism. 2 samples out of 13 sequenced harbored BRAF V600E variation, which was tested on the rest of the samples. In total 38% of the TC samples were found to harbor BRAF V600E variation located in the exon 15 implying that these could be benefitted from the targeted therapy. It is the most common variation seen in TC and also in several other cancers. It serves as a promising target for therapy and a better prognosis for radio-iodine refractory thyroid carcinomas. Tyrosine Kinase inhibitors like Dabrafenib and Trametinib can be given to these patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-degenerative variant called scans without evidence of dopaminergic deficit (SWEDD) is clinically analyzed and wrongly understood as Parkinson's disease (PD) that results ineffective diagnosis of PD in the early stage. The present work is designed to improve the diagnostic accuracy at the early stage of PD from SWEDD and healthy control (HC). The volume rendering image slices are used as a novel method to achieve better diagnostic accuracy. These image slices are chosen from the single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images based on their striatal uptake region, which contributes appreciated information on the shape of the striatum. Features related to surface and the shape of the striatum are calculated from the segmented region of the chosen image slices to illustrate the good amount of variations among early PD, SWEDD, and HC. Among these feature sets, the most optimized feature is selected using genetic algorithm. The performance of the classifiers like linear, radial basis function-support vector machine (RBF-SVM), extreme learning machine (ELM) activation functions, and RBF-ELM are investigated and compared based on the most optimized feature. It is noted that the RBF-ELM offers better performance with an accuracy of 98.23% than the other classifiers. This also proves that the present work is better than the previous studies. Hence, the proposed approach could act as an aid in the detection of early stage of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the Reconfigurable FSM has drawn the attention of the researchers for multistage signal processing applications. The optimal synthesis of Reconfigurable finite state machine with input multiplexing (Reconfigurable FSMIM) architecture is done by the iterative greedy heuristic based Hungarian algorithm (IGHA). The major problem concerning IGHA is the disintegration of a state encoding technique. This paper proposes the integration of IGHA with the state assignment using logarithmic barrier function based gradient descent approach to reduce the hardware consumption of Reconfigurable FSMIM. Experiments have been performed using MCNC FSM benchmarks which illustrate a significant area and speed improvement over other architectures during field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantum transport through Tour Wires (TWs) functionalized with different side groups was studied using nonequilibrium Green's function formalism combined with extended Huckel theory. Au-TW-Au junctions were constructed with functional groups $$\hbox {NO}_{2}$$ and $$\hbox {NH}_{2}$$ . The transmission spectrum and the isosurface of transmission eigen channel at the HOMO resonance and the LUMO resonance shows that the resonant transmission peaks are related to the delocalized nature of the $$\pi $$ -orbitals of the TWs that was not much affected by the functionalization at room temperature. Furthermore, the influence of the temperature effect on the transport characteristics have been emphasized, and the result shows that for the TW and TW- $$\hbox {NH}_{2}$$ systems conductance increase with increasing temperature indicating the dominating transport mechanism which is due to thermionic emission. The temperature dependence arises from the thermal spreading in the leads but also from a thermal average over the different configurations. In particular, negative differential resistance nature was observed for TW- $$\hbox {NO}_{2}$$ at the temperature of 100 K in the positive and the negative bias region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a pixel-level angle sensitive detector composed of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photodiode (PD) stacked with a gold surface plasmon (SP) antenna to affect the direction of the incoming light. The surface plasmons are excited in the grating-type SP antenna and enhance the diffraction efficiency of the grating. The diffracted light is coupled strongly with the propagation light in the SOI waveguide when the phase matching condition is satisfied. The phase matching takes place at a specific angle of light incidence, and the discrimination of the light based on the incident angle is achieved. As spatial patterns in the polar coordinate of the elevation-azimuth angles (θ, ϕ) of the incident light, we present the phase matching condition theoretically, the absorption efficiency in the SOI by simulation, and also the quantum efficiency of the SOI PD experimentally for different SP antennas of one-dimensional (1D) line-and-space (L/S) and two-dimensional (2D) hole array gratings under various polarization angles. 1D grating offers a polarization sensitive angle detection and 2D grating exhibits angle detection in two orthogonal directions, enabling a polarization independent angle sensitivity. A good agreement among the theory, simulation, and experiment are attained. The proposed device features relatively high quantum efficiency as an angle-sensitive pixel (ASP) and gives wider opportunities in applications such as three-dimensional (3D) imaging, depth-of-field extension, and lensless imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]