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Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Manjula. Sharma, Kim. Vaiphei, Manpreet. Kaur, Pankaj. Gupta We report two patients with periocular Kimura's disease (KD). The clinical features and management of two histopathologically proven KD [...]

The demand for self-powered wearables is surging, as consumers seek convenience and portability. Energy-harvesting technologies, especially piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs), which convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, hold promise for harvesting human motion energy. Hence, ongoing research aims to enhance the output power efficiency and integrate nanogenerators with flexible materials. This involves material innovation to boost PENG performance, optimizing structure for flexibility, and improving manufacturing for scalable and cost-effective production. In this study, heterostructure nanofiller based on interfacial interaction was formed by mixing nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus tridoped graphene (NSPG) and Ti3CNTxMXene in an appropriate ratio, which produces a synergistic enhancement effect in the PENG’s electrical output performance. According to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) chemical characterization analysis, it is proposed that the excellent conductivity and rich surface functional groups of these two-dimensional materials can effectively provide heterointerfaces to form a quasi-three-dimensional heterostructure and improve the interaction between the fillers and polymer matrix, promoting the electroactive β-phase, and consequently enhancing the output power density of PENG. NSPG and Ti3CNTx, with their remarkable electronic and chemical properties, were prepared using an environmentally friendly electrochemical exfoliation method. The short-circuit current of PENG can be improved to 1.48 μA, and the open-circuit voltage can be increased to 14.6 V, 5-fold compared to pure PVDF, and the output power density, PA, reaches 2.2 μW/cm2. When attached to different parts of the human body, the PENG can practically produce electrical signals, which can be rectified using a full-wave bridge rectifier and used to charge a capacitor and light up LEDs. This study establishes a robust connection between multifaceted heterostructures and flexible wearable energy harvesters, offering promising prospects for advancing flexible, sensitive, and self-powered electronics.

Byline: Jeewan. Titiyal, Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair A modified phaco chop technique for nuclear emulsification in posterior polar cataracts with nuclear sclerosis that avoids hydrodissection or nuclear rotation has been [...]

Byline: K. Priyadarshini, Namrata. Sharma, Manpreet. Kaur, Jeewan. Titiyal Cataract surgery, which is the most widely performed ophthalmic procedure, is usually done in the elderly population, who are also prone [...]

Byline: Sridevi. Nair, Manpreet. Kaur, Namrata. Sharma, Jeewan. Titiyal Dry eye disease is the most common complication and a frequent cause of patient dissatisfaction after corneal laser refractive surgery, which [...]

Byline: Priyanka. Kashyap, Manpreet. Kaur, Ganesh. Mahadevan Introduction: The earliest sign of a new carious lesion is the appearance of chalky white spots on the surface of the tooth, indicating [...]

Byline: Sohini. Mandal, Prafulla. Maharana, Ritu. Nagpal, Shivani. Joshi, Manpreet. Kaur, Rajesh. Sinha, Tushar. Agarwal, Namrata. Sharma, Jeewan. Titiyal Purpose: The aim of the study was to evaluate the outcomes [...]

In this paper, two different numerical techniques are employed to solve the Volterra partial integro-differential equation (PIDE) with a weakly singular kernel: Uniform Algebraic Trigonometric tension (UAT) B-spline and Exponential B-spline. These techniques are further modified under certain conditions. The presented techniques transform the discretized Volterra PIDE into a linear algebraic system of equations. In this process, the forward difference formula is utilized to address the time derivative, while the differential quadrature method (DQM) is used for the spatial order derivative. The fusion of modified cubic exponential and modified cubic UAT tension B-spline with DQM is considered. The effectiveness of the methods is assessed via various types of errors considered through three distinct examples. Additionally, the validity of these results is shown by comparison with previous findings in the same environment. The comparison demonstrates that the modified cubic UAT tension B-spline produces less inaccuracy than the other. This work provides robust results that advance research toward developing more advanced and computationally efficient numerical techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Khushdeep. Abhaypal, Manpreet. Kaur, Pankaj. Gupta Poonam et al. , in their retrospective study, highlighted male gender, hyperthyroidism, and smoking as risk factors of developing dysthyroid optic [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Manpreet. Kaur, Khushdeep. Abhaypal, Pankaj. Gupta The age of presentation often overlaps for a person with acquired cataracts and acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction (NLDO). Hence, there is [...]

Byline: Aafreen. Bari, Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Jeewan. Titiyal A 60-year-old hypertensive male presented with chief complaints of diminution of vision, redness, and photophobia in his left eye since a [...]

Byline: Amber. Bhayana, Priyanka. Prasad, Manpreet. Kaur An 18-year-old healthy male, with a recent history on unstable refractive error in the left eye, was found to have hypermetropic reflex in [...]

Purpose: The study seeks to conduct an empirical investigation on the impact of entrepreneurship education (EE) through its components, i.e. entrepreneurial knowledge (EK) and business planning (BP) on entrepreneurial intentions (EI) in India. Design/methodology/approach: An electronic questionnaire was used to collect data from 340 engineering students and partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the collected data. Findings: The findings revealed that EK and BP have no direct impact on EI, however, they have an indirect influence through attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE) and perceived behavioral control (PBC), whereas subjective norms (SN) have no mediation impact on the relationships. Research limitations/implications: This research has been conducted on students of engineering background only, future studies can be carried out by incorporating more attitudinal and environmental determinants with larger data sizes from diverse educational streams. Practical implications: This study is of immense significance to policymakers and educational establishments in designing the purposefully designed EE courses that can drive the entrepreneurial intentionality of students. Originality/value: The study adds to the paucity of research on the systematic elaboration of EE construct underlining the specific impact of EK and BP as EE dimensions on students' EI. To the best of authors' awareness, this kind of investigation has not been conducted in indian higher educational institution (HEI) context.

A key method for understanding the evolution of languages is to look for words which share etymological roots across languages. These words, called lexical cognates, allow historical linguists to group languages into families and study their structural history. Existing research on cognate clustering is chiefly based on analyses performed on lexical databases which limits the scope for exploring new cognates. Additionally, while the Indo-European family is a transcontinental one, its cognate analyses are largely limited to a number of European languages. In this research work we build a new dataset using word embeddings to search for cognates using phonetic matching between translations of words in different languages across the Indo-European family. The context-dependent positioning of words in word embeddings allows for comparisons with contextually similar words and hence clustering using unsupervised learning algorithms. We successfully find significant distinctions between these “contextually close clusters of cognates” among languages across the Indo-Iranian, Romance, and Germanic families. We release this novel method to demonstrate which words a language is more likely to lend to another.

Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Manjula. Sharma, Akshay. Nair, Aditi. Mehta, Manpreet. Kaur, Richa. Gupta, Tulika. Gupta, Daisy. Sahni The purpose of this article is to form a basic guide for beginning [...]

Byline: Nishat. Ahmed, Deepanshi. Mishra, Prachala. Rathod, Gita. Satpathy, Jeewan. Titiyal, Radhika. Tandon, Sushma. Nandyala, Tushar. Agarwal, Murugesan. Vanathi, Rajesh. Sinha, Noopur. Gupta, Prafulla. Maharana, Manpreet. Kaur, Namrata. Sharma Purpose: [...]

Byline: Sridevi. Nair, Manpreet. Kaur, Jeewan. Titiyal Neurotrophic keratopathy is a degenerative disease characterized by corneal denervation leading to hypoesthesia and depletion of nerve-derived growth factors. It results from the [...]

Byline: Amber. Bhayana, Manpreet. Kaur, Sudarshan. Khokhar A 45-year-old female with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and tractional retinal detachment in her right eye was operated for vitrectomy surgery with silicone oil [...]

Byline: Amber. Bhayana, Priyanka. Prasad, Shorya. Azad, Sudarshan. Khokhar, Manpreet. Kaur We report a peculiar case of a 60-year-old patient presenting with high myopia due to 'an extra IOL' (reason [...]

Dengue is a global epidemic causing over 100 million cases annually. The clinical symptoms range from mild fever to severe hemorrhage and shock, including some fatalities. The current paradigm is that these severe dengue cases occur mostly during secondary infections due to antibody-dependent enhancement after infection with a different dengue virus serotype. India has the highest dengue burden worldwide, but little is known about disease severity and its association with primary and secondary dengue infections. To address this issue, we examined 619 children with febrile dengue-confirmed infection from three hospitals in different regions of India. We classified primary and secondary infections based on IgM:IgG ratios using a dengue-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay according to the World Health Organization guidelines. We found that primary dengue infections accounted for more than half of total clinical cases (344 of 619), severe dengue cases (112 of 202) and fatalities (5 of 7). Consistent with the classification based on binding antibody data, dengue neutralizing antibody titers were also significantly lower in primary infections compared to secondary infections (P≤ 0.0001). Our findings question the currently widely held belief that severe dengue is associated predominantly with secondary infections and emphasizes the importance of developing vaccines or treatments to protect dengue-naive populations.

Small producers’ participation in milk collectives such as dairy cooperatives and producer companies is seen as one of the several ways to institutionalize the dairy value chains and leverage their production and marketing strengths. In this context, the study has explored procurement practices of a dairy cooperative vis-à-vis producer company that have recently ventured into direct procurement, processing and retailing of the milk in Indian Punjab and understood their economic impact on the milk producers in Indian Punjab. The findings of the study suggest that both the milk collectives offer higher prices to the producers, resulting in higher profitability than their counterpart non-member milk producers. The findings of the study suggest that the milk collectives need to take additional responsibilities in terms of advancing credit, introducing new production technologies to increase milk productivity and encouraging participation of women milk producers to make such linkages inclusive, effective and sustainable.

Abstract

Herein, we demonstrate a simple approach for the fabrication of MWCNT film on PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) membrane using vacuum filtration set-up. PVDF is a fluoropolymer with large number of applications as binder/separator in batteries and supercapacitors. In this work, a stable CNT/PVDF paper was formed. The film was then characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometry, and Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopic techniques. The conductive paper was tested for super capacitor application. This study may pave a new way to make polymer-carbon nanomaterial and nanotube composite, which can have various applications in the field of strain sensors, flexible conductors, supercapacitors, and flexible batteries.

Graphical Abstract:

Essential oils are highly complex volatile chemical compounds utilized for food preservation. The present study compares the antibacterial, and antibiofilm activities of essential oils (EOs) and their blends. Three EOs—basil, clove, and lemongrass—and their blends were evaluated against five food-borne bacterial pathogens. A concentration-dependent effect with maximum inhibition at minimum inhibitory concentration values was recorded while no synergistic activity was observed on blending of EOs. The mechanism of antibacterial action was identified as ROS burst, leakage of cytoplasmic content, and DNA degradation through fluorescence microscopy, electrical conductivity, and DNA cleavage studies. The role of EOs on biofilm growth was deciphered with lemongrass EO being most effective as it curbed biofilm formation on the surface of corn-starch packaging films. This work highlights the antibacterial action mechanism of EOs and their potential role in curtailing biofilm growth on food-grade packaging material.

The marketers use promotions of various kinds to enhance the sales of their products. The peer groups can be targeted by the marketers to formulate the behaviour and preferences of consumers. This paper examines the effect of group cohesiveness and group conformity on the choice of hedonic and utilitarian promotions of an individual by conducting a survey on 415 working professionals in large organisations of service sector in Punjab. The two-stage analytical PLS-SEM revealed that the group cohesiveness positively influences hedonic and utilitarian promotions both. Significant positive influence of group conformity was found on hedonic and utilitarian promotions. This paper contributes to the existing literature on peer groups, group cohesiveness, group conformity and choice of promotions. The findings suggest that marketing managers can focus on the peer groups of their prospective customers by having deep knowledge of the social influences revolving around working professionals.

Byline: Aditi. Mehta, Manpreet. Kaur, Manpreet. Singh, Pankaj. Gupta Sebaceous glands are exocrine epithelial glands secreting protective surface lipids via a holocrine mechanism in which the sebocytes undergo a programmed [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Saima. Mazumdar, Jeewan. Titiyal We describe a modified technique of intraoperative optical coherence tomography (iOCT)-guided removal of post-laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) epithelial ingrowth with [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Manpreet. Kaur, Urmila. Kumari, Juhi. Daga We have read an interesting article by Balchev et al . published in the current issue of IJO. They included 15 [...]

Byline: Mohamed. Asif, Suman. Meena, Jeewan. Titiyal, Manpreet. Kaur A 20-year-old male with no previous history of systemic or mental illness underwent femtosecond laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) in both [...]

ABSTRACTGeopolymer mortar is a novel binder material that exhibits the same properties as of cement. However, being a waste material geopolymer binder has an edge over cement binder because of [...]

Byline: Jeewan. Titiyal, Manpreet. Kaur, Sohini. Mandal, Farin. Shaikh Endothelial keratoplasty (EK) with pseudophakia often presents with late-onset proliferative after-cataract with posterior capsule distension. We performed a modified technique of [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Singh, Manjula. Sharma, Shweta. Chaurasia, Aditi. Grewal, Savleen. Kaur, Manpreet. Kaur, Deepti. Yadav, Pankaj. Gupta Purpose: To study the clinical presentation, radiological features, diagnosis, and treatment response in [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Jeewan. Titiyal In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire health care system has undergone restructuring to cope with the widespread morbidity and mortality [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Jeewan. Titiyal Three-dimensional heads-up display (3D HUD) microscopes mark a quantum leap in the technological advancements in ophthalmic microsurgery. The 3D HUD systems are based [...]

Byline: Sridevi. Nair, Manpreet. Kaur, Jeewan. Titiyal Coronavirus-2019 pandemic has created numerous hurdles in the delivery of ophthalmic care and resulted in the postponement of thousands of elective cataract surgeries. [...]

Carbonated drinks are popular due to their thirst-quenching and refreshing properties; however, they are deficient in nutritional components. An attempt has been made to develop a fruit-juice-based carbonated beverage by utilizing kinnow juice concentrate at different levels (2.5, 5.0, and 7.5%) along with sugar syrup and chilled carbonated water. Kinnow juice extracted with screw-type extractor had best quality with minimum bitterness (limonin 28 ppm) and maximum (56.50%) yield, which was concentrated from 11 to 70 ºB using rotary vacuum evaporator. Based on preliminary organoleptic trials, 5.0% juice concentrate was standardized for the formulation of carbonated beverage and shelf-life studies. Storage studies (at 30 ± 1ºC) revealed that physicochemical parameters remained unaltered, while a slight but significant (p < 0.05) decrease was observed in phytochemical parameters. Approximately 97% ascorbic acid and 95% of other bioactive compounds were found retained with high overall acceptability at the end of 4 months of storage. Also, significant decrease in CO2content and CO2:volume was observed during storage. It can be concluded that the utilization of kinnow mandarins in carbonated beverage can provide dual benefits of providing convenient and natural flavoured carbonated drinks to the consumers and can boom the growth of the fruit-based carbonated beverage industry.

AbstractThe signalling mechanisms involving the kidney and heart are a niche of networks causing pathological conditions inducing inflammation, reactive oxidative species, cell apoptosis, and organ dysfunction during the onset of clinical complications. The clinical manifestation of the kidney and heart depends on various biochemical processes that influence organ dysfunction coexistence through circulatory networks, which hold utmost importance. The cells of both organs also influence remote communication, and evidence states that it may be explicitly by circulatory small noncoding RNAs, i.e. microRNAs (miRNAs). Recent developments target miRNAs as marker panels for disease diagnosis and prognosis. Circulatory miRNAs expressed in renal and cardiac disease can reveal relevant information about the niche of networks and gene transcription and regulated networks. In this review, we discuss the pertinent roles of identified circulatory miRNAs regulating signal transduction pathways critical in the onset of renal and cardiac disease, which can hold promising future targets for clinical diagnostic and prognostic purposes.

Stacked generalization-based heterogeneous ensemble methods combine the prediction of multiple classifiers to improve overall classification performance. Several stacking methods are available in the literature, but the criteria to select the number and type of classifiers are missing. This work analyzes the performance of stacked generalization-based ensemble machine learning methods for high-dimensional datasets. Also, the impact of the classifier selection for the first level ( $ {L_0} $ L0) of the stacked generalization method has been studied. Based on that, the criteria for selecting classifiers at the first level of the stacked generalization method are proposed. So, six stacked generalization approaches are presented and have been analyzed for the thirty high-dimensional datasets. The experiments and results indicate that the performance of stacking strategies based on proposed selection criteria performs better. Also, a comparative study about the choice of homogeneous ensemble classifiers in stacked generalization concerning the use of basic classifiers and fusion of basic with homogeneous ensemble methods has been made. It has been observed that the use of only homogeneous ensemble classifiers is not beneficial in the stacked generalization methods. Also, the performance of stacked generalization based on basic classifiers or a combination of homogeneous ensemble methods with basic classifiers is better than homogeneous ensemble methods. The proposed stacking approach based on a combination of the basic and ensemble classifiers has improved the accuracy 0.72% to 8.46%. The impact of removing redundant and non-relevant features on the proposed stacking approaches has been evaluated.

Background Psoriasis is an autoimmune, chronic, inflammatory skin condition of multifactorial etiology. Recent studies in human skin microbiome research have revealed the dysbiosis in lesional skin of psoriatic patients, as well as have established the association of dysbiosis in the elicitation of inflammatory response of psoriatic skin.Objective The present review aimed to recapitulate the insights of psoriasis lesional skin microbiome studies published in the last 2 decades, and to determine the most important bacterial genera that can be deployed as psoriatic skin microbial signature for therapeutic intervention.Methods To achieve the stated objectives, full-text analysis of literature selected through systematic search of digital literature databases has been carried out following PRISMA guidelines.Results Literature analysis suggests differential abundance of specific bacterial genera in the lesional psoriatic skin (LPS) compared to normal skin (NS) of psoriasis patients and skin from healthy subjects. These bacterial genera collectively can be utilized as potential biomarker for constructing lesional psoriatic skin specific microbial signature, and to explore the role of bacterial species in maintaining the skin homeostasis. The analysis further revealed that multiple bacterial species instead of a single bacterial species is important for understanding the psoriasis etiogenesis. Furthermore, decreased microbiome stability and increased diversity might have role in the exacerbation of lesions on skin of psoriatic patients.Conclusion Considering the importance of human skin microbiome dysbiosis in psoriasis, research efforts should be carried out to develop new therapeutic measures in addition to current therapies by exploiting the human and host-skin-associated microbial genomic and metabolomic knowledge.

ABSTRACT In this paper, the effect of alkali activator to binder (AAB) ratio and molarity of alkaline activator on the rice husk ash based geopolymer were investigated. Compressive strength has [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Jeewan. Titiyal The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had far-reaching impacts on various [...]

Byline: Sridevi. Nair, Manpreet. Kaur, Jeewan. Titiyal Anterior lamellar corneal surgery was first described in the mid-19th century. The technique, however, failed to popularize, and full-thickness corneal grafting remained the [...]

Byline: Sridevi. Nair, Manpreet. Kaur, Jeewan. Titiyal Ocular bee sting injuries are a relatively rare environmental hazard more commonly observed in people engaged in outdoor activities, professional beekeepers, and rural [...]

Byline: Manpreet. Kaur, Sridevi. Nair, Jeewan. Titiyal Congenital corneal anesthesia (CCA) is a rare clinical entity characterized by the absence of corneal sensations. The underlying pathology in CCA is the [...]