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Background: The impact of pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) on major adverse clinical outcomes in patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) is unknown. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine whether PVR is associated with improved survival and freedom from sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) in rTOF. Methods: A PVR propensity score was created to adjust for baseline differences between PVR and non-PVR patients enrolled in INDICATOR (International Multicenter TOF Registry). The primary outcome was time to the earliest occurrence of death or sustained VT. PVR and non-PVR patients were matched 1:1 on PVR propensity score (matched cohort) and in the full cohort, modeling was performed with propensity score as a covariate adjustment. Results: Among 1,143 patients with rTOF (age 27 ± 14 years, 47% PVR, follow-up 8.3 ± 5.2 years), the primary outcome occurred in 82. The adjusted HR for the primary outcome for PVR vs no-PVR (matched cohort n = 524) was 0.41 (95% CI: 0.21-0.81; multivariable model P = 0.010). Full cohort analysis revealed similar results. Subgroup analysis suggested beneficial effects in patients with advanced right ventricular (RV) dilatation (interaction P = 0.046; full cohort). In patients with RV end-systolic volume index >80 mL/m2, PVR was associated with a lower primary outcome risk (HR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.16-0.62; P < 0.001). There was no association between PVR and the primary outcome in patients with RV end-systolic volume index ≤80 mL/m2 (HR: 0.86; 95% CI: 0.38-1.92; P = 0.70). Conclusions: Compared with rTOF patients who did not receive PVR, propensity score-matched individuals receiving PVR had lower risk of a composite endpoint of death or sustained VT.

The availability of new and improved display, tracking and input devices for Virtual Reality experiences has facilitated the use of partial and full body self-avatars in interaction with virtual objects in the environment. However, scaling the avatar to match the user's body dimensions remains to be a cumbersome process. Moreover, the effect of body-scaled self-avatars on size perception of virtual handheld objects and related action capabilities has been relatively unexplored. To this end, we present an empirical evaluation investigating the effect of the presence or absence of body-scaled self-avatars and visuo-motor calibration on frontal passability affordance judgments when interacting with virtual handheld objects. The self-avatar's dimensions were scaled to match the participant's eyeheight, arms length, shoulder width and body depth along the mid section. The results indicate that the presence of body-scaled self-avatars produce more realistic judgments of passability and aid the calibration process when interacting with virtual objects. Also, participants rely on the visual size of virtual objects to make judgments even though the kinesthetic and proprioceptive feedback of the object is missing or mismatched.

In this contribution, we empirically investigated the effect of small talk on the users' non-verbal behaviors and emotions when users interacted with a crowd of virtual humans (VHs) with positive behavioral dispositions. Users were tasked with collecting items in a virtual marketplace via natural speech-based dialogue with a crowd of virtual pedestrians and vendors. The users were able to engage in natural speech-based conversation in a predefined corpus of small talk content that covered various commonplace small talk topics such as conversations about the weather, general concerns, and entertainment based on similar real-life situations. For instance, the VHs with the small talk ability would ask the users some simple questions to make small talk or remind the users of their belongings. We conducted a between-subjects empirical evaluation to investigate whether the user behaviors and emotions were different between a small talk condition and a non-small talk condition, and examined gender effects of the participants. We collected objective and subjective measures of the users to analyze users' emotions and social interaction behaviors, when in conversation with VHs that either possessed small-talk capability or not, besides task or goal oriented dialogue capabilities. Our result revealed that the VHs with small talk capability could alter the emotions and non-verbal behaviors of the users. Furthermore, the non-verbal behaviors between female and male participants differed greatly in the presence or absence of small talk.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects approximately 5% of the world’s population, and India has been the second highest country in the numbers of predicted SCD births. Despite the high burden in India, there is no state-led public health programme, and very few interventions dealing with the treatment and management of SCD are available. This review highlights the dearth of SCD-related interventions, and demonstrates that these interventions effectively improve patients' conditions and are feasible to implement in India. We systematically searched three databases—PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar and Web of Science—for articles from India on SCD-related interventions. The PRISMA guidelines were followed during this review. We included 22 studies, of which 19 dealt with specific therapeutic interventions, and 3 with comprehensive SCD care. Hydroxyurea therapy was the main therapy in 15 studies and is efficacious. Three studies demonstrated the feasibility of comprehensive care in resource-limited settings. The low number of SCD-related intervention studies does not match the huge burden of SCD in India. Governments of endemic countries should consider the findings of available interventions and include them in their countries’ programmes. Comprehensive care is feasible in India and other low-resource settings, from screening to treatment and psychosocial support.

Climate change mainly alters the plant phyllosphere and rhizosphere resource allocations. Compared with shoot parameters, there is less information about how roots, especially root system architecture (RSA) and their interactions with others, may respond to elevated temperature changes. These responses could greatly influence different species acquisition of resources and their competition with their neighbours. The main aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of ambient temperature (T1) and elevated temperature (+4oC) (T2) in Open-top chamber (OTC) on root traits and microbial interaction changes in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). A pot experiment was conducted at the Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, during 2020-2021 to investigate the root traits and microbial interactions. Cotton varieties, namely KC3, SVPR6, TSH325, TSH357 and TSH375 were screened at the seedling level for cellular thermo tolerance and further, at the root level, these selected varieties were studied against the elevated temperature condition for 10 days in OTC during the stage of flowering to boll development period along with control temperature condition. Root interactions' intensity and direction may fluctuate as a result of variations in RSA responses between species. Negative root interactions could become more intense under high temperature circumstances and species with bigger roots and greater early root growth had stronger competitive advantages. The present findings showed that elevated temperatures promote various microbial growths in the geothermal regions, enhancing the root angle and root length of cotton species. Among the genotypes, KC3 and SVPR6 performed better under elevated temperatures.

Objective To describe the development and implementation of a population-based screening programme for sickle cell disease (SCD) implemented in 12 SCD-endemic and tribal-dominated primary/community health centres (PHCs/CHCs) across six districts of India. Setting India reports a huge burden of SCD, especially among indigenous (tribal) communities. However, there is no state-led SCD programme in many places, and systematic screening is absent. This situation necessitates developing a model of population screening. Methods This programme was meant to screen all people and was carried out in three tiers. The first tier was a symptomatic survey carried out by community health workers. Regular health workers then screened those referred by sickle cell solubility test at sub-health centres as the second tier. The third tier was confirmation by haemoglobin electrophoresis at PHCs/CHCs. Communities were mobilised and prepared to accept the screening. Capacity building of health facilities was ensured through training and supply of equipment and material. Results Initial observation based on six months’ data revealed that out of the 110,754 tribal population of 12 PHCs/CHCs, 8418 (7.6%) were identified in the symptomatic survey. Subsequently, 9416 people, including the above 8418, underwent the solubility test, and 2607 (27.7%) were found to be positive. Of these, 1978 (78.9%) underwent electrophoresis. About 64.2% were found to be positive for sickle haemoglobin (233 (18.4%) SCD and 1036 (81.6%) SCD trait). Conclusions The study demonstrates the feasibility of establishing a population-based screening programme in the primary health care system. It is easy to implement in tribal habitations as part of the proposed national SCD/haemoglobinopathies programme.

“Temperature Induction Response” (TIR) technique was employed to investigate the effect of temperature on popular 20 cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) genotypes in a laboratory experiment conducted at the Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during 2020-2021. Identical sized ten days old cotton seedlings were selected and subjected to inductive temperature (gradual temperature raised from 28 to 40℃) for 4 h and non-inductive temperature (46℃ for 3 h, 47℃ for 3 h, 48℃ for 3 h and 48℃ for 4 h) for specific time duration. KC3 and SVPR6 recorded highest thermotolerance among the genotypes and TSH325 and TSH357 showed moderate thermotolerance while TSH375 and TSH383 were sensitive, in terms of seedling survival, cell viability, total soluble protein and malondialdehyde compared to remaining genotypes under non-inductive temperature.

Field experiment was conducted at wetland farm of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, during summer season, 2022 with an objective of maximizing the productivity and profitability of greengram by adopting varied dose of basal nitrogen and foliar application of nano and normal urea at Flower Initiation (FI) stage and 15 days thereafter. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design and replicated thrice with the following treatments viz., N1 - 100% RDN (25kg N ha-1), N2 - 80% RDN (20kg N ha-1), N3 - 60% RDN (15kg N ha-1) and N4 - Control as factor I, and F1 - Nano urea @ 2ml litre-1 of water, F2 - Nano urea @ 3ml litre-1 of water, F3 - Nano urea @ 4ml litre-1 of water and F4 - 1% urea as factor II. The experiment results revealed that, 100% RDN and nano urea foliar spray @ 4ml litre-1 of water significantly registered higher fertility co-efficient (71.2%), pods plant-1 (38.5 Nos.), seeds pod-1 (12.7 Nos.) and maximum grain yield (1291 kg ha-1). Nevertheless, it was on par with the application of 80% RDN and nano urea foliar spray @ 4ml litre-1 of water, which recorded fertility co-efficient of 70.6%, 38.0 pods plant-1, 12.6 seeds pod-1 and grain yield of 1289 kg ha-1. In economics perspective also, application of 100% RDN and foliar supplement of nano urea @ 4ml litre-1 accounted maximum gross return (₹100114 ha-1), net return (₹53549 ha-1) and benefit-cost ratio (2.15), which was comparable with application of 80% RDN and foliar application of nano urea @ 4ml litre-1 of water at FI stage and 15 days thereafter. Based on the experimental results, it is concluded that reduced application of basal nitrogen i.e., 80% RDN with nano urea foliar spray @ 4ml litre-1 of water at FI stage and 15 days thereafter found to be the optimal nitrogen dose and nano urea foliar nutrition for maximizing the productivity and profitability of summer irrigated greengram.

Aim: Salt stress negatively affects the growth and development of plants. An effective and important strategy to develop salinity tolerant crops is to harness the genetic diversity within the crop germplasm by identification of salinity tolerant genotype. The present study was carried out with an objective to screen blackgram genotypes (A31, DPU 968, KU 7720, LBG 787, PLU 621, TMV 1, Tutiminimum, VBG 18028, VBG 18032, and VBN 2) for salt tolerance at germination and seedlings stage and identification of saline tolerant blackgram genotype based on salt stress tolerance indices. Study Design: Factorial and arranged in a completely randomized design. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore; May-June 2022. Methodology: Using petriplate and roll towel techniques, blackgram seed germination indices and seedling growth indices such as germination percentage, germination index, mean germination time, seedling vigour index, shoot and root length, fresh and dry seedling weight, and stress tolerance indices were recorded. Two-way ANOVA, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Heat-map Analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: PCA indicates that salinity stress accounted for 86.2 percent of the variation, whereas the individual genotype contributes only 5.4 percent of the variation observed in germination and growth parameters that were studied in blackgram under control and 130mM NaCl salt stress conditions. Among the ten blackgram genotypes, stress tolerance index was highest for LBG 787 (0.831) followed by KU7720 (0.722). On the other side, the stress susceptible index was found to be lower for the blackgram genotype KU7720 (0.335) followed by LBG 787 (0.592), as compared to other genotypes screened. Cluster heat-map analysis for all the measured parameters revealed that blackgram genotype LBG 787 was clustered with PLU 621 and VBG 18028 and found to tolerate the salt stress level (130mM NaCl stress) compared to other blackgram genotypes. Conclusion: Observations indicate that the blackgram genotypes KU 7720, LBG 787, PLU 621 and VBG 18028 exhibit greater tolerance towards salinity during the germination and seedling growth stages.

Arsenic (As) pollution is a major environmental and agricultural issue across the world. Due to industrialization and over exploitation of ground water are the two most important factors for the occurrence of arsenic in the water. The irrigation of arsenic contaminated water poses threat not only to the plant system ultimately it affects all the living forms on the global. Early germination of seedlings is affected by the concurrent increase in As exposure in agricultural fields. The arsenic in very low levels also brings damage to the plant system phenotypically and metabolically. This study was carried out to evaluate the germination performance, initial growth characteristics and chlorophyll content of different crops viz., rice, maize, black gram, groundnut and tomato in response to the different level of As concentration (0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1, 10, 20, 40 and 60 mgL-1) in the growing solution. Growth metrics in all crops were reduced as As content was increased. Among these crops rice was most tolerant to the level of 60 mgL-1 of As concentration compared to other crops. The current study's findings revealed that tomato was most susceptible to As concentrations, whereas rice was the most resistant to As stress.

This work investigates the energy efficiency (EE) and the spectral efficiency (SE) performance of multi-hop full duplex cognitive relay networks (MH-FDCRNs) operating in the spectrum sharing mode, under the influence of interference from the primary source. We formulate three distinct optimization problems for finding the optimal power allocation for the secondary nodes in MH-FDCRN: (i) EE optimization with minimum SE requirement, (ii) SE optimization with minimum EE requirement, and (iii) EE-SE trade-off optimization. The impact of residual self-interference (RSI) arising due to full duplex operation at the relay nodes and the inter relay interference (IRI) arising due to frequency re-use are considered. For the EE/SE optimization problems, we transform the original non-convex optimization problems to their convex forms by expressing the numerator of the objective function as the difference of concave functions, and by using parametric transformation. For the EE-SE trade-off optimization problem, we first transform the original multi objective optimization problem into a single objective form; and then into its convex form by introducing an auxiliary variable. Computationally efficient algorithms are proposed to solve the considered problems. With the help of numerical results, the best trade-off among EE and SE can be achieved by proper selection of priority factor

As of November 2021, more than 24.80 crore people are diagnosed with the coronavirus in that around 50.20 lakhs people lost their lives, because of this infectious disease. By understanding the people's sentiment's expressed in their social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) helps their governments in controlling, monitoring, and eradicating the coronavirus. Compared to other social media's, the twitter data are indispensable in the extraction of useful awareness information related to any crisis. In this article, a sentiment analysis model is proposed to analyze the real time tweets, which are related to coronavirus. Initially, around 3100 Indian and European people's tweets are collected between the time period of 23.03.2020 to 01.11.2021. Next, the data pre-processing and exploratory investigation are accomplished for better understanding of the collected data. Further, the feature extraction is performed using Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), GloVe, pre-trained Word2Vec, and fast text embedding's. The obtained feature vectors are fed to the ensemble classifier (Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) and Capsule Neural Network (CapsNet)) for classifying the user's sentiment's as anger, sad, joy, and fear. The obtained experimental outcomes showed that the proposed model achieved 97.28% and 95.20% of prediction accuracy in classifying the both Indian and European people's sentiments.

In this research work concrete cube has been prepared by doing partial replacement for cement using nano materials like Multi-Walled Carbon Nano Tubes (MWCNTs), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and copper oxide (CuO) at different percentages like 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5%. Basic test has been done for materials and fresh concrete, followed by compressive strength test for concrete cubes. MWCNT gives more result compare to TiO2 and CuO. Just to reduce cement usage, fly ash has been used by keeping the compressive strength and the amount of nano materials as constant up to 35% of MWCNTs, TiO2, and CuO, with fly ash replaced for cement to obtain the normal strength. Cost analysis has been done to find out the economic efficiency of nano material concrete cube due to which TiO2 with fly ash cost 14.45Rs to prepare single cube, as MWCNTs and CuO with fly ash cost 726.4 and 17.64Rs to prepare single concrete cube. Almost TiO2 cube preparation took 10% reduction for the preparation of concrete cube compare to normal concrete cube has taken 15.96Rs. So we concluded that TiO2 with fly ash nano material concrete is the economical efficient concrete compared to MWCNTs and CuO with fly ash.

In this study adsorption technique was used for the removal of antibiotic pollutants from wastewater. Cephalexin (CEX) was selected for the current study purpose as it is commonly used drug. Commercial activated carbon (AC) was used as the nano-adsorbent considering its high degree of porosity, availability, economic considerations, and environmental friendliness. Batch adsorption of cephalexin by commercially prepared activated carbon was used for the study. The parameters considered in the experiment include time, pH, concentration of adsorbent, adsorbate, and temperature of 298.15 K was maintained. It was found experimentally that with pH in acidic range (3-7), contact time of 1 hour, and 5mg per 20 ml dosage of adsorbent, the maximum removal efficiency of 87% was achieved. Isotherm and kinetic studies were carried out in this study. Keeping all these parameters constant, the method was tried out on stimulated hospital effluent and removal efficiency of 85% was obtained against cephalexin.

In this review paper a study about material used for radar absorption is done. Various types of materials possess the property to absorb the radar signals. The properties of material vary based on the composition, additives, manufacturing methods, and other various factors. Different materials such as carbon based, ferrites work well under different frequencies which is discussed in this paper. The absorption of the signals depends on the basic parameters such as permittivity, permeability, reflection loss, the other parameters such as transmission, reflectivity and many more factors.

We present a measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa unitarity triangle angle ϕ 3 (also known as γ) using a model-independent Dalitz plot analysis of B + → D ( K S 0 $$ {K}_S^0 $$ h + h − )h +, where D is either a D 0 or D ¯ $$ \overline{D} $$ 0 meson and h is either a π or K. This is the first measurement that simultaneously uses Belle and Belle II data, combining samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of 711 fb −1 and 128 fb −1, respectively. All data were accumulated from energy-asymmetric e + e − collisions at a centre-of-mass energy corresponding to the mass of the Υ(4S) resonance. We measure ϕ 3 = (78.4 ± 11.4 ± 0.5 ± 1.0)°, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic uncertainty and the third is from the uncertainties on external measurements of the D-decay strong-phase parameters.

This study reports the extent of sickle cell disease (SCD)-related knowledge and management practices of peripheral health workers located in tribal areas of India. This formative qualitative study used a grounded theory approach and collected data through in-depth interviews. It was implemented in six districts endemic to SCD. From each district, four primary health centre (PHC) areas, predominantly inhabited by tribal communities, were included. The participants were 120 peripheral health workers, in two categories-regular health workers (RHWs) and community health workers (CHWs), working in 24 PHCs. Most of the RHWs and a little lesser number of CHWs were aware of SCD, and most of them knew it as a blood disorder. About half of the health workers reported that SCD is hereditary; however, some attributed it to malnutrition and considered it anaemia. Many health workers could tell some typical symptoms of SCD, including anaemia and severe pain. None of the PHCs offered management/treatment of SCD. And none of the health workers has any expertise in managing SCD patients. However, some health workers dealt with SCD cases and provided symptomatic treatment. Though several health workers said that SCD is preventable, comprehensive knowledge on prevention was lacking. Some health workers mentioned mass screening, counselling, and creating awareness. Thus, this paper reports the inadequacy of SCD-related knowledge and management practices among health workers. Health workers should know their roles and capabilities in managing SCD. They should be provided in-service, regular, and structured training programmes as part of the comprehensive SCD programme.

Objectives We sought to identify patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) at high risk of death and malignant ventricular arrhythmia (VA). Background To date there is no robust ri...

Aims Previous studies in adult congenital heart disease (CHD) have demonstrated a link between renal dysfunction and mortality. However, the prognostic significance of renal dysfunction in CHD and decompensated heart failure (HF) remains unclear. We sought to assess the association between renal dysfunction and outcomes in adults with CHD presenting to our centre with acute HF between 2010 and 2021. Methods and results This retrospective analysis focused on the association between renal dysfunction, pre-existing and on admission, and outcomes during and after the index hospitalization. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) was defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate Conclusion Adult patients with CHD admitted with acute HF are a high-risk cohort. CKD is common and triples the risk of death/transplantation/VAD. An expert multidisciplinary approach is essential for optimizing outcomes.

Drought is one of the major threats to groundnut productivity, causing a greater loss than any other abiotic factor. Water stress conditions alter plant photosynthetic activity, impacting future growth and assimilating mobilization towards sink tissues. The purpose of this study was to investigate how drought impacts the photosynthesis of plants and its links to drought tolerance. The influence of reproductive stage drought on photosynthetic activity and chlorophyll fluorescence of groundnut is well studied. The experiment was conducted in Kharif 2019 (Jul-Sep), where recent series in groundnut genotypes (60 nos) sown under rainfed conditions and water stress was created by withholding irrigation for 20 days between 35-55 days after sowing in the field to simulate drought conditions. Imposition of water deficit stress reduced PS II efficiency, which significantly altered the photosynthetic rate in the leaf. Observation of gas exchange parameters viz., photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance and transpiration rate after 20 days of stress imposition revealed that of all 60 genotypes, 20 genotypes (VG 17008, VG 17046VG 18005, VG 18102, VG 18077, VG 19572, VG 19709, VG 18111, VG19561, VG19576, VG 19620, VG 19681, VG 19688, etc.,) had better Photosynthetic rate, Stomatal conductance. Similarly, PS II efficiency analyzed through fluorescence meter revealed that among the 60 and all the genotypes given above recorded higher value in Fv/Fm. Results obtained from Cluster analysis and PCA confirmed that photosynthetic rate and Fv/Fm is useful parameter in screening adapted cultivars under drought stress. These findings lay the groundwork for a future study to decipher the molecular pathways underpinning groundnut drought resistance.

Drought affects the rainfed groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) at different phases of development and it is the serious threats on groundnut productivity causing losses than any other abiotic factor under rainfed agriculture. In the world's semiarid regions, groundnut accounts for 90% of worldwide production. Drought mainly affects the pace and pattern of nutrient and water intake from the soil, affecting the architecture of the groundnut root system. Plant selections with desirable root trait have been a major focus in developing drought resistant Groundnut cultivars. In 2019, 60 groundnut genotypes were cultivated in root block design with two different soil water treatments, as well as in the field during the year under same circumstances. The purpose of this study was to see how different groundnut cultivars fared in terms of yield, yield contributing features, root characters, and their relationships with drought tolerance. Drought resistant genotypes had thicker roots, larger roots, and a deeper root system than susceptible genotypes. Recent series in groundnut genotypes of 60 numbers were sown during kharif 2019 (july-september) under rainfed condition (It includes life irrigation and rainfall received during cropping season). Groundnut genotypes were semi spreading with the duration of 110-120 days. Observation on root morphological character viz., roots length, root volume after 20 days of stress imposition of the crop and yield parameters were observed at the harvest. Among the 60 genotypes, 20 genotypes (VG 17008, VG 17046, VG 18005, VG 18102, VG 18077, VG 19572, VG 19709, VG 18111, VG19561, VG19576, VG 19620, VG 19681, VG 19688 etc.,) similarly, yield character were observed for 60 genotypes and all the genotypes given above recorded higher value in Total number of pods per plant, Number of double seeded pods per plant, Pod yield per plant, Harvest index and Total dry matter production. The methods used in this study identified correlation between yield character and root characters. Groundnut genotypes by assessing yield metrics and their relationship with root trait. These findings lay the groundwork for future study aimed at deciphering the molecular pathways underpinning Groundnut drought resistance.

Abiotic stresses strongly affect plant growth, nutrient composition and quality of production; final crop yield can be really compromised if stress occurs in plants’ most sensitive phenological phases. The present field study was conducted to evaluate the effect of biostimulants on improvement of tolerance and yield of tomato plants exposed to salinity. The tomato field soil condition with pH- 8.7 and EC- 4 dS m-1 was recorded. After the first fruit set of tomato, Organic biostimulant (Organic mix with high concentration of carboxylic acids, containing calcium oxide (CaO), ammonium ligninsulfonate and Zinc) were given by soil drenching and Orthosilicic acid as silicon source by foliar spray at every 10 – 15 days interval. The treatments include Organic biostimulant at 0.3ml/plant & 0.6ml/plant, Orthosilicic acid at 0.2% and 0.4%. The observations were taken during greener and red ripening stage. The biostimulants positively affected the plant height and chlorophyll fluorescence. Biostimulants were allowed to maintain the lower level of electrolyte leakage and osmotic potential within the plant. The activities of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzymes increased with the increases in salinity: biostimulants thereby kept the lower the level of reactive oxygen species. Under saline conditions due to the ionic imbalance, potassium and calcium content in both the shoots and roots were recorded lower, whereas the sodium content was found to be higher than the control plants. Similarly, a significant increase in total soluble solids and firmness of the fruit was recorded in tomato fruits. Yield characters like fruit number per plant, single plant yield, single fruit weight and flower to fruit ratio were positively affected by the application of biostimulants. The organic biostimulant and Orthosilicic acid administered at a greater dose appeared to be the most effective in our investigation.

This paper investigates the outage and throughput performance of full-duplex (FD) cooperative relaying (CR) based non-orthogonal multiple access system (NOMA) with energy harvesting (EH) i.e., FD-CR-EH-NOMA system. We consider a network scenario, where the base station (BS) serves two downlink users, with the near user configured as a FD relay to deliver messages to the far user. We derive analytical expressions for the outage probabilities experienced by the users and the system outage probability of FD-CR-EH-NOMA network under time switching relaying (TSR) protocol in the presence/absence of direct link from BS to the far user. Assuming imperfect successive interference cancellation (i-SIC), we derive analytical expressions for (i) optimal power allocation (OPA) factor at the BS and (ii) optimal time switching (OTS) factor at the relay that independently minimizes the system outage probability. Further, we use the alternating optimization technique to determine the jointly optimal power allocation and time switching factors that minimize the system outage probability. Furthermore, we determine the OTS factor that maximizes the asymptotic throughput of the system in the delay-limited transmission mode. With the help of numerical and simulation investigations, we show that the system outage and throughput of the considered network improve significantly under the proposed schemes.

Candida albicansforms biofilm by associating with biotic and abiotic surfaces. Biofilm formation byC. albicansis relevant and significant as the organisms residing within, gain resistance to conventional antimycotics and are therefore difficult to treat. This study targeted the potential of spice-based antimycotics to controlC. albicansbiofilms. Ten clinical isolates ofC. albicansalong with a standard culture MTCC-3017 (ATCC-90028) were screened for their biofilm-forming ability.C. albicansM-207 andC. albicansS-470 were identified as high biofilm formers by point inoculation on TSA medium as they formed a lawn within 16 h and exhibited resistance to fluconazole and caspofungin at 25 mcg and 8 mcg respectively. Aqueous and organic spice extracts were screened for their antimycotic activity againstC. albicansM-207 and S-470 by agar and disc diffusion and Zone of Inhibition was observed. Minimal Inhibitory Concentration was determined based on growth absorbance and cell viability measurements. The whole aqueous extract of garlic inhibited biofilms ofC. albicansM-207, whereas whole aqueous extracts of garlic, clove, and Indian gooseberry were effective in controllingC. albicansS-470 biofilm within 12 h of incubation. The presence of allicin, ellagic acid, and gallic acid as dominant compounds in the aqueous extracts of garlic, clove, and Indian gooseberry respectively was determined by High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. The morphology ofC. albicansbiofilm at different growth periods was also determined through bright field microscopy, phase contrast microscopy, and fluorescence microscopy. The results of this study indicated that the alternate approach in controlling high biofilm-forming, multi-drug resistant clinical isolates ofC. albicansM-207 and S-470 using whole aqueous extracts of garlic, clove, and Indian gooseberry is a safe, potential, and cost-effective one that can benefit the health care needs with additional effective therapeutics to treat biofilm infections.

An absolute measurement of the Λ_{c}^{+} lifetime is reported using Λ_{c}^{+}→pK^{-}π^{+} decays in events reconstructed from data collected by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy electron-positron collider. The total integrated luminosity of the data sample, which was collected at center-of-mass energies at or near the ϒ(4S) resonance, is 207.2 fb^{-1}. The result, τ(Λ_{c}^{+})=203.20±0.89±0.77 fs, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic, is the most precise measurement to date and is consistent with previous determinations.

Heat waves and droughts are projected to become more widespread as a result of climate change. At the same time, CO2 levels are predicted to have doubled by 2100. The stomatal regulation and gas exchange characteristics were assessed in 25 days old plants of green gram (var Co 8) by exposing them to six different treatments namely, T1: a [CO2] + a T+ irrigation (100%), T2: a [CO2] + a T+ irrigation (50%), T3: a [CO2] + e T (40ºC) + irrigation (100%), T4: e [CO2] – 800 ppm + a T+ irrigation (100%), T5: a [CO2] + combined stress [e T (40ºC) + irrigation (50%) T6: e [CO2] – 800 ppm + combined stress [e T (40ºC) + irrigation (50%)]. The experiment was carried out using Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. All gas exchange parameters viz., ((photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate) were determined before imposing stress and two weeks after imposing stress. Stomatal characters was examined two weeks after imposing stress. Elevated CO2 stress caused a reduction in stomatal frequency accompanied by larger stomatal size. The study revealed the positive effect of higher CO2 concentration on gas exchange traits of the C3 crops viz., green gram.