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Peripheral artery disease is a prevalent illness affecting more than 200 million people worldwide. A commonly used technique to manage the condition has been open endarterectomy. However, in recent times, a shift towards minimally invasive techniques has resulted in endovascular intervention as a popular alternative. This review aims to assess the safety and efficacy of endovascular intervention when compared with endarterectomy. A systematic review of the articles published in PubMed, Ovid, Embase, and Scopus within the last 10 years was conducted. The PRISMA guidelines were adhered to, and the Newcastle-Ottawa and NICE quality assessment scales were used. A meta-analysis of proportions was performed using the RStudio software (RStudio Team (2021). RStudio: Integrated Development Environment for R, PBC, Boston, MA, USA). Twenty-six studies were included, with a total of 7126 patients (endovascular, 2496; endarterectomy, 4630). Technical success was greater for endarterectomy than endovascular intervention with an odds ratio of 0.38; 95% CI [0.27–0.54]. In terms of safety as well endovascular intervention was better than endarterectomy with an odds ratio of 0.22; 95% CI [0.15 to 0.31] for wound infection. Endovascular intervention is a safe and effective procedure; however, it cannot be considered superior to endarterectomy.

This study aims to investigate the effect of metaphorical content on e-participation in healthcare. With this objective, the study assesses the awareness and capability of e-participants to navigate through healthcare metaphors during their participation. Healthcare-related e-participation data were collected from the Twitter platform. Data analysis includes (i) awareness measurements by topic modelling and sentiment analysis and (ii) participation abilities by problem-based learning models. Findings show that a lack of effort to validate metaphors harms e-participation levels and awareness, resulting in a problematic health environment. Exploring metaphors in these intricate forums has the potential to enhance service delivery. Improving web service delivery requires valuable input from stakeholders on the application of metaphors in the health domain.

Two types of alkali-activated material (AAM) concretes were exposed to various sulphate bearing-solutions for over two years. Physical changes to the concrete specimen and chemical changes in the exposure liquid were studied in an attempt to understand how sulphate attack occurs in such binders and the role the mix variables play in offering resistance against such attack. The mix variables of alkali-activated slag concrete (AASC) included water-to-binder ratio, percentage of alkali, and the SiO2/Na2O ratio (silica modulus, Ms); for alkali-activated slag/fly ash (AA-S/F) concrete, the mix variables included slag/fly ash ratio and the SiO2/Na2O ratio. The exposure solutions included water, magnesium sulphate (5%), sodium sulphate (5%), calcium sulphate (0.2%), and two concentrations of sulphuric acid solutions, pH 3 and pH 1. The physical changes studied were length and mass change, visual appearance, and change in compressive strength. The exposure liquids were analysed for change in pH and ionic composition. Findings show that the AA-S/F blend performs better than AASC in sulphate environments, based on strength and change in length. Exposure to water resulted in the most expansion/shrinkage in all mixes studied. An empirical model was proposed for predicting the change in compressive strength for AAS&AA-S/F concretes based on mass gain. Further, a simple performance criterion was put forward for mixes in sulphate environments based on mass gain.

The structural modification of existing supramolecular architecture is an efficient strategy to design and synthesize supramolecular gels with tunable and predictable properties. In this work, we have modified bis(pyridyl urea) compounds with different linkers, namely hexylene and butylene, to their corresponding bis(pyridyl-N-oxide urea). The gelation properties of both the parent and the modified compounds were studied, and the results indicated that modification of the 3-pyridyl moieties to the corresponding 3-pyridyl-N-oxides induced hydrogelation. The stability of the parent and modified compounds were evaluated by sol-gel transition temperature (Tgel) and rheological measurements, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction was used to analyze the solid-state interactions of the gelators. The morphologies of the dried gels were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which revealed that the structural modification did not induce any prominent effect on the gel morphology. The stimuli-responsive behavior of these gels in the presence of salts in DMSO/water was evaluated by rheological experiments, which indicated that the modified compounds displayed enhanced gel strength in most cases. However, the gel network collapsed in the presence of the chloride salts of aluminum(III), zinc(II), copper(II), and cadmium(II). The mechanical strength of the parent gels decreased in the presence of salts, indicating that the structural modification resulted in robust gels in most cases. The modified compounds formed gels below minimum gel concentration in the presence of various salts, indicating salt-induced gelation. These results show the making and breaking ability of the gel network in the presence of external stimuli (salts), which explains the potential of using LMWGs based on N-oxide moieties as stimuli-responsive materials.

This paper reports the design, development, and testing of a novel, yet simple and low-cost portable device for the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2. The device performs loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and provides visually distinguishable images of the fluorescence emitted from the samples. The device utilises an aluminium block embedded with a cartridge heater for isothermal heating of the sample and a single-board computer and camera for fluorescence detection. The device demonstrates promising results within 20 min using clinically relevant starting concentrations of the synthetic template. Time-to-signal data for this device are considerably lower compared to standard quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction(qPCR) machine (~10–20 min vs. >38 min) for 1 × 102 starting template copy number. The device in its fully optimized and characterized state can potentially be used as simple to operate, rapid, sensitive, and inexpensive platform for population screening as well as point-of-need severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) detection and patient management.

The upregulated expression of tyrosine kinase AXL has been reported in several hematologic and solid human tumors, including gastric, breast, colorectal, prostate and ovarian cancers. Thus, AXL can potentially serve as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for various cancers. This paper reports the first ever loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) in a core-shell bead assay for the detection of AXL gene overexpression. We demonstrated simple instrumentation toward a point-of-care device to perform LAMP. This paper also reports the first ever use of core-shell beads as a microreactor to perform LAMP as an attempt to promote environmentally-friendly laboratory practices.

Repurposing clinically available drugs to treat the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an urgent need in the course of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, as very few treatment options are available. The iminosugar Miglustat is a well-characterized drug for the treatment of rare genetic lysosome storage diseases, such as Gaucher and Niemann-Pick type C, and has also been described to be active against a variety of enveloped viruses. The activity of Miglustat is here demonstrated in the micromolar range for SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. The drug acts at the post-entry level and leads to a marked decrease of viral proteins and release of infectious viruses. The mechanism resides in the inhibitory activity toward α-glucosidases that are involved in the early stages of glycoprotein N-linked oligosaccharide processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to a marked decrease of the viral Spike protein. Indeed, the antiviral potential of protein glycosylation inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 is further highlighted by the low-micromolar activity of the investigational drug Celgosivir. These data point to a relevant role of this approach for the treatment of COVID-19.

India bears the highest burden of global dog-mediated human rabies deaths. Despite this, rabies is not notifiable in India and continues to be underprioritised in public health discussions. This review examines the historical treatment of rabies in British India, a disease which has received relatively less attention in the literature on Indian medical history. Human and animal rabies was widespread in British India, and treatment of bite victims imposed a major financial burden on the colonial Government of India. It subsequently became a driver of Pasteurism in India and globally and a key component of British colonial scientific enterprise. Efforts to combat rabies led to the establishment of a wide network of research institutes in India and important breakthroughs in development of rabies vaccines. As a result of these efforts, rabies no longer posed a significant threat to the British, and it declined in administrative and public health priorities in India towards the end of colonial rule—a decline that has yet to be reversed in modern-day India. The review also highlights features of the administrative, scientific and societal approaches to dealing with this disease in British India that persist to this day.

Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an effective tool for simultaneous detection of target genes. Nevertheless, their use has been restricted due to the intrinsic interference between primer pairs. Performing several single PCRs in an array format instead of a multiplex PCR is a simple way to overcome this obstacle. However, there are still major technical challenges in designing a new generation of single PCR microreactors with a small sample volume, rapid thermal cycling, and no evaporation during amplification. We report a simple and robust core-shell bead array for a series of single amplifications. Four core-shell beads with a polymer coating and PCR mixture were synthesized using liquid marble formation and subsequent photo polymerization. Each bead can detect one target gene. We constructed a customised system for thermal cycling of these core-shell beads. Phylogrouping of the E. coli strains was carried out based on the fluorescent signal of the core-shell beads. This platform can be a promising alternative for multiplex nucleic acid analyses due to its simplicity and high throughput. The platform reported here also reduces the cycling time and avoids evaporation as well as contamination of the sample during the amplification process.

A distributed binary hypothesis testing (HT) problem involving two parties, a remote observer and a detector, is studied. The remote observer has access to a discrete memoryless source, and communicates its observations to the detector via a rate-limited noiseless channel. The detector observes another discrete memoryless source, and performs a binary hypothesis test on the joint distribution of its own observations with those of the observer. While the goal of the observer is to maximize the type II error exponent of the test for a given type I error probability constraint, it also wants to keep a private part of its observations as oblivious to the detector as possible. Considering both equivocation and average distortion under a causal disclosure assumption as possible measures of privacy, the trade-off between the communication rate from the observer to the detector, the type II error exponent, and privacy is studied. For the general HT problem, we establish single-letter inner bounds on both the rate-error exponent-equivocation and rate-error exponent-distortion trade-offs. Subsequently, single-letter characterizations for both trade-offs are obtained (i) for testing against conditional independence of the observer’s observations from those of the detector, given some additional side information at the detector; and (ii) when the communication rate constraint over the channel is zero. Finally, we show by providing a counter-example where the strong converse which holds for distributed HT without a privacy constraint does not hold when a privacy constraint is imposed. This implies that in general, the rate-error exponent-equivocation and rate-error exponent-distortion trade-offs are not independent of the type I error probability constraint.

Medium cut-off membrane (MCO) dialysers have been shown to remove a range of middle molecules, which are associated with adverse outcomes in haemodialysis (HD) patients, more effectively than high-flux HD. Vancomycin is widely used in HD patients for treating a variety of infections. To avoid subtherapeutic trough concentrations, it is important to understand vancomycin clearance in patients undergoing HD with the MCO membrane. This open label single centre, cross-over clinical study compared the vancomycin pharmacokinetics in chronic HD patients using MCO membrane (Theranova) and high-flux membrane (Revaclear). Five patients established on chronic HD who were due to receive vancomycin were enrolled. The study used alternating Theranova and Revaclear dialysis membranes over six consecutive sessions. Vancomycin was administered over the last one to two hours of each HD session. The maintenance dose was adjusted based on pre-HD serum concentrations. Over the 210 study samples, vancomycin clearance was higher with MCO-HD compared to high-flux HD but not statistically significant. Median percentage of vancomycin removal at 120 min by MCO membrane was 39% (20.6–51.5%) compared with 34.1% (21.3–48.4%) with high-flux HD. MCO-HD removes a slightly higher percentage of vancomycin at 120 min into dialysis compared to high-flux membrane dialysis in HD patients with infections. Application of vancomycin during the last one to two hours of each dialysis is required to maintain therapeutic concentrations to minimise loss through the dialyser and maintain therapeutic levels.

Over the last three decades, the protocols and procedures of the DNA amplification technique, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), have been optimized and well developed. However, there have been no significant innovations in processes for sample dispersion for PCR that have reduced the amount of single-use or unrecyclable plastic waste produced. To address the issue of plastic waste, this paper reports the synthesis and successful use of a core-shell bead microreactor using photopolymerization of a composite liquid marble as a dispersion process. This platform uses the core-shell bead as a simple and effective sample dispersion medium that significantly reduces plastic waste generated compared to conventional PCR processes. Other improvements over conventional PCR processes of the novel dispersion platform include increasing the throughput capability, enhancing the performance and portability of the thermal cycler, and allowing for the contamination-free storage of samples after thermal cycling.

We modified C3-symmetric benzene-1,3,5-tris-amide (BTA) by introducing flexible linkers in order to generate an N-centered BTA (N-BTA) molecule. The N-BTA compound formed gels in alcohols and aqueous mixtures of high-polar solvents. Rheological studies showed that the DMSO/water (1:1, v/v) gels were mechanically stronger compared to other gels, and a similar trend was observed for thermal stability. Powder X-ray analysis of the xerogel obtained from various aqueous gels revealed that the packing modes of the gelators in these systems were similar. The stimuli-responsive properties of the N-BTA towards sodium/potassium salts indicated that the gel network collapsed in the presence of more nucleophilic anions such as cyanide, fluoride, and chloride salts at the MGC, but the gel network was intact when in contact with nitrate, sulphate, acetate, bromide, and iodide salts, indicating the anion-responsive properties of N-BTA gels. Anion-induced gel formation was observed for less nucleophilic anions below the MGC of N-BTA. The ability of N-BTA gels to act as an adsorbent for hazardous anionic and cationic dyes in water was evaluated. The results indicated that the ethanolic gels of N-BTA successfully absorbed methylene blue and methyl orange dyes from water. This work demonstrates the potential of the N-BTA gelator to act as a stimuli-responsive material and a promising candidate for water purification.

Cancer treatments are advancing to harness the body’s immune system against tumours, aiming for lasting effects. This progress involves combining potent chemotherapy drugs with immunogens to kill cancer cells and trigger lasting immunity. Developing new prodrugs that integrate both chemotherapy and immune-boosting elements could significantly improve anticancer outcomes by activating multiple mechanisms to kill cancer cells. While bacterial polysaccharides are typically not used in therapy due to their immune-stimulating properties, we propose a safe application of an extremophilic bacterial polysaccharide, Mauran (MR), modified with the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) to create a novel prodrug. This obtained prodrug, chloracetyl-MR-5FU, is specifically targeted using gold nanocages to CD133+ glioma cells. Test results have shown a high encapsulation efficiency of the drug during the polysaccharide modification process; its anticancer activity was demonstrated in vitro and the release of the prodrug was demonstrated in ex vivo studies.

Background: IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is one of the most common glomerular diseases worldwide. Approximately 25 percent of IgAN patients reach the kidney failure stage within twenty years of diagnosis. The histopathological examination of kidney biopsy is needed to confirm the diagnosis of IgAN. microRNA (miRNA) is a small RNA that plays an important role at the post-transcriptional level by downregulating mRNAs (messenger RNA). We tried to establish a miRNA-based biomarker for IgAN. Methods: We recruited 30 IgAN patients and 15 healthy controls as study participants after taking their informed written consent. A real-time PCR-based method was used for the absolute quantification of miRNAs. A logistic regression method and receiver operating characteristic analysis were performed to find the diagnostic and prognostic accuracy of miR-148b and let-7b for IgAN in histopathological MEST-C scores. Results: miR-148b and let-7b levels were higher in IgAN patients compared to the healthy controls. miR-148b was positively correlated with glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and negatively correlated with segmental glomerulosclerosis, tubular atrophy/interstitial fibrosis (T), and blood pressure (BP). The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) for miR-148b against T were 0.87, 0.77, and 0.85, respectively. The threshold value of the miR-148b copy number was 8479 to differentiate the severe condition of IgAN. Conclusion: miR-148b can be used as a potential biomarker for IgAN.

An investigation into the non-premixed combustion characteristics of methane in a planar micro-combustor with a splitter was performed. The impact of blending methane with hydrogen on these characteristics was also analyzed. Additionally, the effects of inlet velocity and global equivalence ratio on flame location, flame temperature, combustion efficiency and outer wall temperature were studied for three different fuel compositions: pure methane (MH0), 60% methane with 40% hydrogen (MH40), and 40% methane with 60% hydrogen (MH60)). A heat recirculation analysis of the combustor wall was conducted to determine the amount of heat recirculated into the unburnt gas at various inlet velocities for all three fuel compositions. The results demonstrated that the stability limit of methane in terms of inlet velocity (1–2 m/s) and global equivalence ratio (1.0–1.2) was significantly enhanced to 1–3 m/s and 0.8–1.2, respectively, with the addition of hydrogen. At an inlet velocity of 2 m/s, the flame location of 3.6 mm for MH0 was significantly improved to 2.2 mm for MH60. Additionally, outer wall temperature exhibited a rise of 100 K for MH60 compared to MH0. Furthermore, from heat recirculation analysis, when the ratio of heat recirculated to heat loss exceeded unity, the flame started exhibiting the lift-off phenomenon for all the fuel compositions.

Honey has been used for centuries to reduce bacterial infection; Manuka honey (MH) possesses an additional antibacterial agent, Unique Manuka Factor (UMF). However, MH’s physical properties challenge delivery to the wound site. Tissue-engineered scaffolds (cryogels/hydrogels) provide a potential vehicle for MH delivery, but effects on bacterial clearance and biofilm formation demand further examination. MH (0, 1, 5, or 10%) was incorporated into both chitosan-gelatin (1:4 ratio; 4%) cryogels and hydrogels. To assess physical changes, all scaffolds were imaged with scanning electron microscopy and subjected to swell testing to quantify pore size and rehydration potential, respectively. As MH concentration increased, both pore size and scaffold swelling capacity decreased. Both bacterial clearance and biofilm formation were also assessed, along with cellular infiltration. Bacterial clearance testing with S. aureus demonstrated that MH cryogels are superior to 0% control, indicating the potential to perform well against Gram-positive bacteria. However, higher concentrations of MH resulted in cell death over time. These results support our hypothesis that MH release from 5% cryogels would induce reduced viability for four bacteria species without compromising scaffold properties. These outcomes assist in the development of a standard of practice for incorporating MH into scaffolds and the evaluation of biofilm reduction.

The adoption of emerging technologies in healthcare systems plays a crucial part in anti-obesity initiatives. COVID-19 has intensified the Body Mass Index (BMI) discourses in AI (Artificial Intelligence)-powered social media. However, few studies have reported on the influence of digital content on obesity prevention policies. Understanding the nature and forums of obese metaphors in social media is the first step in policy intervention. The purpose of this paper is to understand the mutual influence between obesity and COVID-19 and determine its policy implications. This paper analyzes the public responses to obesity using Twitter data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The emotional nature of tweets is analyzed using the NRC lexicon. The results show that COVID-19 significantly influences perceptions of obesity; this indicates that existing public health policies must be revisited. The study findings delineate prerequisites for obese disease control programs. This paper provides policy recommendations for improving social media interventions in health service delivery in order to prevent obesity.

This paper presents a strategy to evaluate the performances of converter stations under the optimized operating points of hybrid AC-DC power systems with a reduced number of DC link variables. Compared to previous works reported with five DC-side control variables (CVs), the uniqueness of the presented optimal power flow (OPF) formulation lies within the selection of only two DC-side control variables (CVs), such as the inverter voltage and current in the DC link, apart from the conventional AC-side variables. Previous research has mainly been focused on optimizing hybrid power system performance through OPF-based formulations, but has mostly ignored the associated converter performances. Hence, in this study, converter performance, in terms of ripple and harmonics in DC voltage and AC current and the utilization of the converter infrastructure, is evaluated. The minimization of active power loss is taken as an objective function, and the problem is solved for a modified IEEE 30 bus system using a recently developed and very efficient Archimedes optimization algorithm (AOA). Case studies are performed to assess the efficacy of the presented OPF model in power systems, as well as converter performance. Furthermore, the results are extended to assess the applicability of the proposed model to the allocation of photovoltaic (PV)-type distributed generations (DGs) in hybrid AC-DC systems. The average improvement in power loss is found to be around 7.5% compared to the reported results. Furthermore, an approximate 10% improvement in converter power factor and an approximate 50% reduction in ripple factor are achieved.

As the demand for powerful, light energy sources continues to grow, traditional electrochemical batteries are no longer sufficient and combustion-based power generation devices have become an attractive alternative due to their high energy density, compact size, fast recharging time and long service life. While most research on miniature-scale combustors has focused on gaseous fuels, the use of commonly available liquid fuels has the potential to be highly portable and economical. However, the complexity of droplet atomization, evaporation, mixing and burning in a limited volume and short residence time has presented significant challenges for researchers. This review focuses on various methodologies proposed by researchers (like flow burring injector, fuel film injection, injecting into porous media, electrospray and some self-aspirating designs) to overcome these challenges, the combustion behaviour and different instabilities associated with liquid fuels at small scales. The current review intends to present a clear direction to channel the efforts made by researchers to overcome the difficulties associated with liquid fuel combustion at small scales for power generation applications. Additionally, this review aims to give an overview of power systems at the micro and meso scales that operate using liquid fuels. The methodologies introduced like electrospray requires external power, which again makes the system complex. Towards the development of standalone type power generators, the self-aspirating design which makes use of hydrostatic pressure, fuel film injection or taking advantage of exhaust gas enthalpy to preheat and evaporate the liquid fuel are the promising methodologies.

A two-terminal distributed binary hypothesis testing problem over a noisy channel is studied. The two terminals, called the observer and the decision maker, each has access to n independent and identically distributed samples, denoted by U and V, respectively. The observer communicates to the decision maker over a discrete memoryless channel, and the decision maker performs a binary hypothesis test on the joint probability distribution of (U,V) based on V and the noisy information received from the observer. The trade-off between the exponents of the type I and type II error probabilities is investigated. Two inner bounds are obtained, one using a separation-based scheme that involves type-based compression and unequal error-protection channel coding, and the other using a joint scheme that incorporates type-based hybrid coding. The separation-based scheme is shown to recover the inner bound obtained by Han and Kobayashi for the special case of a rate-limited noiseless channel, and also the one obtained by the authors previously for a corner point of the trade-off. Finally, we show via an example that the joint scheme achieves a strictly tighter bound than the separation-based scheme for some points of the error-exponents trade-off.

The nature of functional groups and their relative position and orientation play an important role in tuning the gelation properties of stimuli-responsive supramolecular gels. In this work, we synthesized and characterized mono-/bis-pyridyl-N-oxide compounds of N-(4-pyridyl)nicotinamide (L1–L3). The gelation properties of these N-oxide compounds were compared with the reported isomeric counterpart mono-/bis-pyridyl-N-oxide compounds of N-(4-pyridyl)isonicotinamide. Hydrogels obtained with L1 and L3 were thermally and mechanically more stable than the corresponding isomeric counterparts. The surface morphology of the xerogels of di-N-oxides (L3 and diNO) obtained from the water was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which revealed that the relative position of N-oxide moieties did not have a prominent effect on the gel morphology. The solid-state structural analysis was performed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction to understand the key mechanism in gel formation. The versatile nature of N-oxide moieties makes these gels highly responsive toward an external stimulus, and the stimuli-responsive behavior of the gels in water and aqueous mixtures was studied in the presence of various salts. We studied the effect of various salts on the gelation behavior of the hydrogels, and the results indicated that the salts could induce gelation in L1 and L3 below the minimum gelator concentration of the gelators. The mechanical properties were evaluated by rheological experiments, indicating that the modified compounds displayed enhanced gel strength in most cases. Interestingly, cadmium chloride formed supergelator at a very low concentration (0.7 wt% of L3), and robust hydrogels were obtained at higher concentrations of L3. These results show that the relative position of N-oxide moieties is crucial for the effective interaction of the gelator with salts/ions resulting in LMWGs with tunable properties.

Classifying low-grade glioma (LGG) patients from high-grade glioma (HGG) is one of the most challenging tasks in planning treatment strategies for brain tumor patients. Previous studies derived several handcrafted features based on the tumor’s texture and volume from magnetic resonance images (MRI) to classify LGG and HGG patients. The accuracy of classification was moderate. We aimed to classify LGG from HGG with high accuracy using the brain white matter (WM) network connectivity matrix constructed using diffusion tensor tractography. We obtained diffusion tensor images (DTI) of 44 LGG and 48 HGG patients using routine clinical imaging. Fiber tractography and brain parcellation were performed for each patient to obtain the fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and mean diffusivity weighted connectivity matrices. We used a deep convolutional neural network (DNN) for classification and the gradient class activation map (GRAD-CAM) technique to identify the neural connectivity features focused on by the DNN. DNN could classify both LGG and HGG with 98% accuracy. The sensitivity and specificity values were above 0.98. GRAD-CAM analysis revealed a distinct WM network pattern between LGG and HGG patients in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. Our results demonstrate that glioma affects the WM network in LGG and HGG patients differently.

Gravity plays an important role in the development of life on earth. The effect of gravity on living organisms can be investigated by controlling the magnitude of gravity. Most reduced gravity experiments are conducted on the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) in the International Space Station (ISS). However, running experiments in ISS face challenges such as high cost, extreme condition, lack of direct accessibility, and long waiting period. Therefore, researchers have developed various ground-based devices and methods to perform reduced gravity experiments. However, the advantage of space conditions for developing new drugs, vaccines, and chemical applications requires more attention and new research. Advancements in conventional methods and the development of new methods are necessary to fulfil these demands. The advantages of Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) devices make them an attractive option for simulating microgravity. This paper briefly reviews the advancement of LOC technologies for simulating microgravity in an earth-based laboratory.

This study investigated the problem of controlling a three-phase three-wire photovoltaic (PV)-type distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM). In order to model, simulate, and control the system, the MATLAB/SIMULINK tool was used. Different controllers were applied to create switching pulses for the IGBT-based voltage source converter (VSC) for the mitigation of various power quality issues in the PV-DSTATCOM. Traditional control algorithms guarantee faultless execution or outcomes only for a restricted range of operating situations due to their present design. Alternative regulators depend on more resilient neural network and fuzzy logic algorithms that may be programmed to operate in a variety of settings. In this study, an adaptive linear neural network (ADALINE) was proposed to solve the control problem more efficiently than the existing methods. The ADALINE method was simulated and the results were compared with the results of the synchronous reference frame theory (SRFT), improved linear sinusoidal tracer (ILST), and backpropagation (BP) algorithms. The simulation results showed that the proposed ADALINE method outperformed the compared algorithms. In addition, the total harmonic distortions (THDs) of the source current were estimated under ideal grid voltage conditions based on IEEE-929 and IEEE-519 guidelines.