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High contact resistance has been a bottleneck in developing high-performance transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) based p-type transistors. We report degenerately doped few-layer WSe2transistors with contact resistance as low as 0.23 ± 0.07 kΩ·μm per contact by using platinum(IV) chloride (PtCl4) as the p-type dopant, which is composed of ions compatible with the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication process. Top-gated devices with a gate length of 200 nm showed good switching behaviors, implying that the dopant diffusion into the gate stack is not significant. The devices showed nearly identical performance after being kept in air for 86 days without any encapsulation while retaining the degenerately doped states at 78 K with pressure lower than 10–5Torr, highlighting the stability of the dopants. The presented method sets forth the availability of highly stable methods for pattern doping the transistors with a thinned Schottky barrier width for low contact resistance devices.

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Pure zirconium oxides have a wide band gap energy with poor electronic conduction, leading to the limitations of potential applications in various fields. Attempts were made to synthesize biphasic zirconium oxides with three different levels of carbon doping to study and improve the electronic conductivity, tune the band gap, and investigating their energy storage capability. Carbon-doped zirconium oxides with a biphasic nature were prepared by the coprecipitation method using poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) as a carbon source mixed with a stoichiometry amount of the zirconium precursor, followed by annealing at three different temperatures, 100, 300, and 500 °C, resulting in three different samples, namely, C-ZO1, C-ZO2, and C-ZO3, respectively. The crystal structure, elemental, micro-structural, optical, room temperature dielectric, and electrochemical properties were studied and reported. Crystallographic information from X-ray diffraction and high resolution electron diffraction showed that all samples are biphasic (monoclinic and tetragonal) nanocrystalline materials, Raman and FT-IR studies also support the claim. The sample crystallinity improved with the increasing annealing temperatures, whereas X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results exposed carbon content and oxygen compositions vary inversely with annealing temperatures. The optical band gap measurement results showed that all samples have an indirect band gap. Room-temperature dielectric studies showed a higher dielectric constant for C-ZO3 samples compared to the other two samples. The electrochemical studies confirmed that all materials showed Faradaic pseudocapacitive behavior and good stability up to 1000 cycles, having retention up to ∼85% and above. Power density is equal for all three samples, whereas higher energy density was obtained for C-ZO3 samples. This concluded that the biphasic zirconium oxide with composition Zr0.91C0.09O1.21showed superior electrochemical and dielectric behavior, which will find potential application as energy storage devices.

Objective: Early detection and treatment of cervical precancers can prevent disease progression. However, in low-resource communities with a high incidence of cervical cancer, high equipment costs and a shortage of specialists hinder preventative strategies. This manuscript presents a low-cost multiscale in vivo optical imaging system coupled with a computer-aided diagnostic system that could enable accurate, real-time diagnosis of high-grade cervical precancers. Methods: The system combines portable colposcopy and high-resolution endomicroscopy (HRME) to acquire spatially registered widefield and microscopy videos. A multiscale imaging fusion network (MSFN) was developed to identify cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or more severe (CIN 2+). The MSFN automatically identifies and segments the ectocervix and lesions from colposcopy images, extracts nuclear morphology features from HRME videos, and integrates the colposcopy and HRME information. Results: With a threshold value set to achieve sensitivity equal to clinical impression (0.98 [p = 1.0]), the MSFN achieved a significantly higher specificity than clinical impression (0.75 vs. 0.43, p = 0.000006). Conclusion: Our findings show that multiscale optical imaging of the cervix allows the highly sensitive and specific detection of high-grade precancers. Significance: The multiscale imaging system and MSFN could facilitate the accurate, real-time diagnosis of cervical precancers in low-resource settings.

Understanding the occurrence of various feedback mechanisms of an under-expanded impinging supersonic jet is a crucial task in research. The presence of several jet modes is examined in this study for the flat and corrugated impinging plate geometries. The behavior of impinging plate configurations during mode switching is investigated by varying the flow state, such as the jet Mach number. The staging behavior at various jet Mach numbers is observed using acoustic spectral plots and schlieren flow visualization. To explore the presence of various types of modes during the jet impingement due to the modification of jet Mach number, ensemble averaging and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition of schlieren images are carried out. In the majority of situations, the corrugated design shows a reduction in tonal noise and overall sound pressure level. In exceptional cases, for the corrugated plates, the enhanced overall sound pressure level is caused by the existence of axisymmetric instability (A1, A2).

This study investigates the development of mixed oil insulation (MOI) using modified neem oil (MNO) and mineral oil (MO). The study reveals that the oil composition significantly influences dielectric breakdown voltage (BDV) within oil mixtures. Increasing MO at the expense of MNO leads to a significant enhancement in BDV, highlighting the superior insulating properties of MO. The optimal blend, Scheme D, consists of 80% MO and 20% MNO and exhibits the highest BDV at 73.44 kV. MNO’s unique characteristics, such as a strong positive electrostatic potential and high electron affinity, contribute to its ability to achieve elevated resistivity. It also exhibits a dissipation factor like MO, orienting dipoles within MOI toward MO. MNO stabilizes reactive OH sites within cellulose, reducing moisture solubility, and improving oxidation stability of MOI. MOI exhibits viscoelastic behavior, while neem oil (NO) presents complex resistance behavior under stress due to unequal storage and loss modules. Aging has a minor impact on the percentage relative crystallinity of solid insulation, with MOI experiencing only a 2.298% difference compared to virgin pressboard. These findings offer insights into the role of oil composition in insulation performance and aging processes, potentially enhancing the maintenance and longevity of electrical equipment.

As pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking for ways to shift toward continuous manufacturing, one of the biggest challenges has been the continuous separation and purification of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). To address these challenges, a continuous rotary filter was developed, and its design space was investigated using a commercially available API. The filtration unit consists of a rotatable plate that receives a continuous flow of feed material that is distributed along the radius of the plate, forming a thin cake. The cake is continuously filtered, washed, and removed from the plate. An additional plate wash continually cleans the filter medium, enabling long-term operations. A slurry containing the selected API and two main impurities was processed by a continuous rotary filter. The performance of the unit was assessed both as a standalone entity and as a component of an integrated continuous manufacturing line. We observed that longer cake residence times (3.25 vs 2.5 min) on the filter plate and higher wash rates (among 12, 9, 6, and 3 mL/min) improved purification performance, though the latter plateaued above certain levels. Elevated crystallization temperatures (up to 70 °C) also increased the purification efficiency while not significantly impacting the yield. Finally, feed material with lower impurity concentrations resulted in a reduction in residual impurity ratio (down to 0.001). Yield studies demonstrated that the final crystallization temperature and cake wash rate impact the overall filtration yield (98.05% yield was obtained). In both settings, the rotary filter isolated and purified the cake to the required quality specifications, proving its effectiveness and robustness during continuous operations.

Microfluidic techniques are widely applied in biomolecular analysis and disease diagnostic assays. While the volume of the sample that is directly used in such assays is often only femto-to microliters, the “dead volume” of solutions supplied in syringes and tubing can be much larger, even up to milliliters, increasing overall reagent use and making analysis significantly more expensive. To reduce the difficulty and cost, we designed a new chip using a low volume solution for analysis and applied it to obtain real-time data for protein–protein interaction measurements. The chip takes advantage of air/aqueous two-phase droplet flow, on-chip rapid mixing within milliseconds, and a droplet capture method, that ultimately requires only 2 μL of reagent solution. The interaction is analyzed by particle diffusometry, a nonintrusive and precise optical detection method to analyze the properties of microparticle diffusion in solution. Herein, we demonstrate on-chip characterization of human immunodeficiency virus p24 antibody–antigen protein binding kinetics imaged via fluorescence microscopy and analyzed by PD. The measured konand koffare 1 × 106M–1s–1and 3.3 × 10–4s–1, respectively, and agree with independent measurement via biolayer interferometry and previously calculated p24-antibody binding kinetics. This new microfluidic chip and the protein–protein interaction analysis method can also be applied in other fields that require low-volume solutions to perform accurate measurement, analysis, and detection.

The rapid collapse of the Afghan state did not come as a surprise to those who are well-versed in the chequered history of the Law and Development Movement. While the Movement’s one-size-fits-all modernization project has been largely rejected, such misguided efforts continue under the aims of “building the Rule of Law” or “improving governance.” The fallout from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is a stark reminder for states and multilateral organizations not to overlook the lessons of the Movement that may have been obscured by the different banners under which state- and market-building efforts have been pursued. From the Movement’s sincere yet naïve efforts of state-building between the 1950s and 70s, to its swing to build and support markets under the Washington Consensus paradigm in the 80s and 90s, and a later emphasis on good governance through state institutions from the 2000s onwards, it is clear that top-down state-building efforts have had limited success. The paper argues that the failure of the Afghanistan mission may have been avoided if the U.S. had turned to the lessons learned from the law-and-institutions-building enterprises of the past 70 years. Instead, the failure to heed these lessons led to the building of a state akin to a house of cards. By overlooking the importance of embedded cultural institutions, the legitimacy of the state as perceived by its people, and the dynamic interaction between formal and informal institutions, the state-building project in Afghanistan was bound to fail. Following the takeover by the Taliban, the small gains made in Afghanistan over the past two decades on the issues of hunger, poverty, health, and education have seen rapid deceleration and require urgent attention. The critiques outlined in this paper, informed by the experience of the Law and Development Movement, are meant to inform, not discourage, global engagement in advancing the human development agenda in Afghanistan and other fragile contexts.

Developing biomaterial scaffolds using tissue engineering with physical and chemical surface modification processes can improve the bioactivity and biocompatibility of the materials. The appropriate substrate and site for cell attachment are crucial in cell behavior and biological activities. Therefore, the study aims to develop a conventional electrospun nanofibrous biomaterial using reproducible surface topography, which offers beneficial effects on the cell activities of bone cells. The bioactive MgO/gC3N4was incorporated on PAN/PEG and fabricated into a nanofibrous membrane using electrospinning. The nanocomposite uniformly distributed on the PAN/PEG nanofiber helps to increase the number of induced pores and reduce the hydrophobicity of PAN. The physiochemical characterization of prepared nanoparticles and nanofibers was carried out using FTIR, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and water contact angle measurements. SEM and TEM analyses examined the nanofibrous morphology and the structure of MgO/gC3N4. In vitro studies such as on ALP activity demonstrated the membrane’s ability to regenerate new bone and healing capacity. Furthermore, alizarin red staining showed the increasing ability of the cell–cell interaction and calcium content for tissue regeneration. The cytotoxicity of the prepared membrane was about 97.09% of live THP-1 cells on the surface of the MgO/gC3N4@PAN/PEG membrane evaluated using MTT dye staining. The soil burial degradation analysis exhibited that the maximum degradation occurs on the 45th day because of microbial activity. In vitro PBS degradation was observed on the 15th day after the bulk hydrolysis mechanism. Hence, on the basis of the study outcomes, we affirm that the MgO/gC3N4@PAN/PEG nanofibrous membrane can act as a potential bone regenerative substrate.

Nowadays huge number of web databases is accessible through front-end search query forms. The data records returned are embedded within HTML templates and returned to the end-user in the form of web pages. These web pages are dynamically generated and are not indexed to search engines. Therefore, they are referred as deep web pages. They are intended for human understanding whereas they make automated processing difficult. In order to enable machine processing, as needed by many data analytics applications such as business intelligence, product intelligence, etc., the data records embedded in those deep web pages has to be extracted and annotated. This paper proposes an automated solution based on inferred semantic rules to perform extraction and annotation of structured data records from deep web pages. Experimental result shows that the use of domain knowledge in the form of inferred semantic rules improves the accuracy of deep web data extraction process.

Objective: Local drug delivery aims to minimize systemic toxicity by preventing off-target effects; however, injection parameters influencing depot formation of injectable gels have yet to be thoroughly studied. We explored the effects of needle characteristics, injection depth, rate, volume, and polymer concentration on gel ethanol distribution in both tissue and phantoms. Methods: The polymer ethyl cellulose (EC) was added to ethanol to form an injectable gel to ablate cervical precancer and cancer. Tissue mimicking phantoms composed of 1% agarose dissolved in deionized water were used to establish overall trends between various injection parameters and the resulting gel distribution. Additional experiments were performed in excised swine cervices with a CT-imageable injectate formulation, which enabled visualization of the distribution without tissue sectioning. Results: Needle type and injection rate had minimal impact on gel distribution, while needle depths ≥13 mm yielded significantly larger distributions. Needle gauge and EC concentration impacted injection pressure with maximum gel distribution achieved when the pressure was 70–250 kPa. Injection volumes ≤3 mL of 6% EC-ethanol minimized fluid leakage away from the injection site. Results guided the development of a speculum-compatible hand-held injector to deliver gel ethanol into the cervix. Conclusion: Needle depth, gauge, and polymer concentration are critical to consider when delivering injectable gels. Significance: This study addressed key questions related to the impact of injection-based parameters on gel distribution at a scale relevant to human applications including: 1) how best to deliver EC-ethanol into the cervix and 2) general insights about injection protocols relevant to the delivery of injectable gels in tissue.

A biologically crucial natural product rapanone 1was isolated from Embelia ribesat the gram scale with excellent purity. Semi-synthetic analogs of 1semi-synthesized through reductive C-alkylation could increase the therapeutic value of the compounds. Herein, a new synthetic methodology was developed as a single-step reductive C-alkylation protocol using a metal-free, room-temperature-based reaction condition that can be scaled up to gram-scale synthesis with an excellent yield of up to 93%. A straightforward purification protocol was employed for the product obtained by this method. The derivatives of 1showed antioxidant activity, which was evaluated using DPPH and ABTS scavenging assays. Compounds 5a–5zeshowed an IC50value of 2.48–3.37 μM and 1.81–3.12 μM. Substitution by electron-donating groups on the quinone moiety seems to play an essential role in the increased antioxidant activity of compounds 5a–5i, 5v, 5w, 5zc, and 5z. Further, the in vivoembryotoxicity of 1and its derivatives was analyzed in a zebrafish-based aquatic toxicology model. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to 1and 5a–5zeat 20 to 160 μM concentrations. They showed reduced toxicity and a survival rate of 90–98% after 96 hpf of treatment; similarly, the compounds 5a–5i, 5v, 5w, 5zc, and 5zddid not significantly affect the hatching rates of 75.66–85.33% or developmental abnormalities of the embryos after 48 hpf of treatment. In silicomolecular docking studies for the parent compound, along with its derivatives 5a–5i, 5v–5w, 5zc–5zd, and standard l-ascorbic acid (l-Aa) indicated favorable interactions with the active site of the crystal structure, coupled with the assay protein PDB:1ZB6, which was responsible for the observed biological understanding and potential.

In this article, we aim to prioritize barriers hindering sustainability inclusion within clean energy supply chains. Supply chain management is a crucial aspect of the clean energy sector, whereby the global supply chains can be enforced with policies to adopt sustainability/green practices. The literature infers that the adoption of sustainability is not direct, and multiple barriers impede the process, driving researchers to rank these barriers. Previous studies on prioritizing barriers cannot effectively model uncertainty; experts’ reliability is directly assigned; interrelationships/hesitation of criteria/experts are usually not considered; and there is a lack of personalized ordering based on individuals’ preferences. Motivated by these gaps, the authors put forward an integrated framework with a Fermatean fuzzy set, variance-based criteria importance through intercriteria correlation for determining experts’ and criteria weights, and ranking procedure with complex proportional assessment–Copeland for personalized ordering of barriers. The usefulness of the developed approach is testified through a case example. Results infer that wastage/pollution reduction and profit from green production are the two top criteria considered for rating sustainability barriers, while limited governmental policies, monitoring/control issues, and expertise mismatch are the top three barriers impeding sustainability adoption. Finally, sensitivity and comparative analyses are performed to understand the framework's efficacy.

Transplanting human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)-derived spinal cord progenitor cells (SCPCs) is a promising approach to treat spinal cord injuries. However, stem cell therapies face challenges in cell survival, cell localization to the targeted site, and the control of cell differentiation. Here, we encapsulated SCPCs in thiol-modified hyaluronan-gelatin hydrogels and optimized scaffold mechanical properties and cell encapsulation density to promote cell viability and neuronal differentiation in vitroand in vivo. Different compositions of hyaluronan-gelatin hydrogels formulated by varying concentrations of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate were mechanically characterized by using atomic force microscopy. In vitroSCPC encapsulation study showed higher cell viability and proliferation with lower substrate Young’s modulus (200 Pa vs 580 Pa) and cell density. Moreover, the soft hydrogels facilitated a higher degree of neuronal differentiation with extended filament structures in contrast to clumped cellular morphologies obtained in stiff hydrogels (p< 0.01). When transplanted in vivo, the optimized SCPC-encapsulated hydrogels resulted in higher cell survival and localization at the transplanted region as compared to cell delivery without hydrogel encapsulation at 2 weeks postimplantation within the rat spinal cord (p< 0.01). Notably, immunostaining demonstrated that the hydrogel-encapsulated SCPCs differentiated along the neuronal and oligodendroglial lineages in vivo.The lack of pluripotency and proliferation also supported the safety of the SCPC transplantation approach. Overall, the injectable hyaluronan-gelatin hydrogel shows promise in supporting the survival and neural differentiation of human SCPCs after transplantation into the spinal cord.

The present study elucidates the impact of gamma irradiation on the thermal properties of silicone rubber (SiR) nanocomposite insulation. Contact angle measurements, water droplet-initiated corona discharge studies, and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) studies are combined to provide a better understanding of the materials’ dielectric and thermal properties subjected to different irradiation dosages. The results show that the contact angle and the water-droplet initiated corona inception voltage decrease with increasing nanofiller content and gamma irradiation dosage. Analysis of the dielectric properties of the material following gamma irradiation shows that the cole–cole double relaxation model fits well with the permittivity measured at different temperatures for both virgin and gamma-irradiated specimens. The coefficient of thermal expansion, deduced from the measured dielectric parameters, decreases with the increase of alumina nanofiller content and with the dosage of gamma irradiation. LIBS studies indicate that the ablation depth of the virgin and gamma-irradiated specimens becomes smaller when the filler content is increased. The coefficient of thermal expansion correlates directly with the plasma temperature measured using LIBS spectra of the nanocomposite material for nonirradiated and irradiated specimens.

The main purpose of this study was to analyse the impact of resolving insolvency on entrepreneurial activity in India. The study is empirical in nature and used the secondary source of data obtained from World Bank Reports for a period of 10 years from 2010 to 2019. Resolving insolvency is an explanatory variable, and entrepreneurial activity is a dependent variable. The resolving insolvency was expressed in terms of time to resolve insolvency, cost of resolving insolvency, recovery of creditors’ claims and strength of insolvency framework. Similarly, entrepreneurial activity was expressed in terms of total business density, new business density and closed business density of limited liability companies in India. It was presumed that the dimensions of resolving insolvency would influence entrepreneurial activity positively in India in a probabilistic manner. Both descriptive statistical measures, such as mean, median and standard deviation, and inferential statistical measures, such as multiple correlation and regression models, were used for data analysis. Adjusted R2was used to test the model fitness, and Durbin–Watson test statistic was used to know whether auto-correlation exists. Eviews Statistical Software was used for this purpose. The study concludes that resolving insolvency has a positive impact on entrepreneurial activity in India but is of insignificant nature in the short run. The study further concludes that there are chances for a significant impact of resolving insolvency on the entrepreneurial activity in India in the long run. The level of significance may be increased if the number of observations and explanatory variables increases.

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) has matured and grown from its infancy in the research stage to the fabrication of new and advanced components for its supreme applications. AM is a lead for the advanced manufacturing processes with an increased and advanced potential to revolutionize the manufacturing domain. It could exhibit a progressive change in the project and design paradigms. In the past decade, the use of metal AM process in the aerospace industry to build, repair various components for military applications and several outer space vehicle fabrications have occupied higher potential among various other manufacturing industries. In addition to it, many studies have made it a more versatile, common, and safer technology for the design and fabrication of components with the introduction of novel processes, materials, technologies, cost efficiency, and process design. In the present review article, the use of advanced aluminum alloys in the AM of fuselage, horizontal stabilizer, and high and low wings has gained increased advantages in the aerospace industry. Various components of wings and fuselage with its merits and demerits in AM processing are discussed. The outstanding issues in AM process and steps to overcome with post-processing techniques are elaborated. Finally, the future scope and research directions of the AM process involved in the fabrication of selected components are discussed.

Smart home automation is protective and preventive measures that are taken to monitor elderly people in a non-intrusive manner using simple and pervasive sensors termed Ambient Assistive Living. The smart home produces a large volume of sensor activations to predict an elder’s health status to improve the quality of life and independent living. Machine learning techniques are very familiar and popular in recognizing single resident activities using such a sensor reading. However, multi-resident activities are more complex, and no correlation exists between sensor readings and activities. Recently deep learning and graphical models have been proposed to solve this problem, but it consumes more time to train the model. Moreover, models are primarily executed in parallel, or multi-resident activity recognition has been converted to single for classifying events. This paper proposes a Multi-label Multi-output Hybrid Sequential Model (MLMO-HSM), a feature engineering approach with a hybrid sequential model to recognize the multi-resident activities concurrently in the shortest time. Experimentation has been performed with various machine learning, graphical and deep learning models at the different sizes of the ARAS dataset to validate the efficiency of the proposed model in terms of activity recognition and computation time.

A diabetic foot ulcer is defined as the ulceration of tissues brought on by trauma and some peripheral neurological abnormalities, primarily as a result of the bacterial infection. The infection of the toe's surrounding tissue is the primary cause of the infectious diabetic toe ulcer. In this case report, a 58-year-old male patient with a deep foot ulcer was admitted to the emergency ward on October 15, 2022, due to pus discharge at the right big toe of the foot. Antibiotics like Vancomycin 30mg per kg twice per day and Ciprofloxacin 400mg twice per day were suggested, along with enzymatic debridement therapy, which helps stop infections faster. A decrease in wound size and an improvement in overall health showed that the patient's response to the combination therapy was encouraging. The use of collagenase-santyl dressings, along with suitable antibiotics, can play a crucial role in the successful treatment of foot ulcers by facilitating wound healing and preventing complications like cellulitis or osteomyelitis.

Tandem solar cells have higher efficiency than single-junction devices owing to their wide photon absorption range. A wide band gap (Eg) absorber absorbs the higher-energy photons in the top cell. In contrast, a comparatively low band gap absorber material is utilized in the bottom cell to absorb the filtered low-energy photons. Consequently, thermalization and transparent energy losses are overshadowed by the top subcell (Topsc) and the bottom subcell (Bottomsc), respectively. However, to achieve the best efficiency from a tandem design, the choice of active material in the Topscand the Bottomscplays an important role. Therefore, in this proposed study, a tandem solar cell comprising a perovskite (Eg1.68 eV)-based top cell and a copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS, Eg1.1 eV)-based Bottomschas been designed and analyzed. A state-of-the-art Me-4PACz ([4-(3,6-dimethyl-9H-carbazol-9-yl)butyl] phosphonic acid) hole transport layer (HTL) in the perovskite solar cell reported in the previous literature has been considered for the top cell, whereas a calibrated CIGS-based Bottomscwith 16.50% efficiency is designed. Both the Topscand the Bottomscare examined for the tandem configuration using filtered spectra and current-matching techniques. In perovskite/CIGS tandem design, an ideal tunnel recombination junction uses Me-4PACz and ITO layers. In a tandem configuration with matched current density at an absorber thickness of 347 nm for Topscand 2.0 μm for Bottomsc, the device delivered an open-circuit voltage (VOC), current density (JSC), and fill factor (FF) of 1.92 V, 20.04 mA/cm2, and 77%, respectively, resulting in an overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 29.7%. The results reported in this work would be beneficial for the development of perovskite-CIGS-based monolithic tandem solar cells in the future.