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The adaptive exponentially weighted moving average (AEWMA) control charts are the advanced form of classical memory control charts used for efficiently monitoring small-to-large shifts in the process parameters (location and/or dispersion). These AEWMA control charts estimate the unknown shifts using exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) or cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts statistics. The hybrid EWMA (HEWMA) control chart is preferred over classical memory control charts to detect early shifts in process parameters. So, this study presents a new auxiliary information-based (AIB) AEWMA (IAEWMAAIB) control chart for process location that estimates the unknown location shift using HEWMA statistic. The objective is to develop an unbiased location shift estimator using HEWMA statistic and then adaptively update the smoothing constant. The shift estimation using HEWMA statistic instead of EWMA or CUSUM statistics boosts the performance of the proposed IAEWMAAIB control chart. The Monte Carlo simulation technique is used to get the numerical results. Famous performance evaluation measures like average run length, extra quadratic loss, relative average run length, and performance comparison index are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed chart with existing counterparts. The comparison reveals the superiority of the proposed control chart. Finally, two real-life applications from the glass manufacturing industry and physicochemical parameters of groundwater are considered to show the proposed control chart's implementation procedure and dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soybean is a legume crop enriched with proteins and oil. It is frequently exposed to anthropogenic and natural flooding that limits its growth and yield. Current study applied gel-free proteomic techniques to unravel soybean response mechanism to flooding stress. Two-days-old soybeans were flooded for 4 days continuously and root samples were collected at days 2 to 6 for proteomic and enzymatic analyses. Age-matched untreated soybeans were collected as control. After protein extraction, purification and tryptic digestion, the peptides were analyzed on nano-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. A total of 539 and 472 proteins with matched peptides 2 or more were identified in control and flooded seedlings, respectively. Among these 364 proteins were commonly identified in both control and flooded soybeans. Fourty-two protein's abundances were changed 4-fold after 2-days of flooding stress as compared to starting point. The cluster analysis showed that highly increased proteins included cupin family proteins, enolase, pectin methylesterase inhibitor, glyoxalase II, alcohol dehydrogenase and aldolase. The enzyme assay of enolase and pectin methylesterase inhibitor confirmed protein abundance changes. These findings suggest that soybean adopts the less energy consuming strategies and brings biochemical and structural changes in the cell wall to effectively respond to flooding stress and for the survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is one of the most common human infectious agents, and the mutations in its genome may cause chronic hepatitis (CH), liver cirrhosis (LC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study was designed to characterize the enhancer-II (Enh-II) region of X gene in HBV positive patients to assess the association of such mutations with CH, LC, and HCC. Methods: HBV positive samples (N = 200) with patients' demographic and clinical data were collected from different regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. The Enh-II region of the HBx gene was sequenced and zanalyzed for polymorphism associated with advanced liver disease. Univariate and logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate potent mutations associated with a risk for LC and HCC. Results: HBV Enh-II region sequences analysis revealed 25 different mutations. The highest frequency of mutations S101F (62.2%), A102V/R/G/I (56.25%), M103L/A (68.75%)were found in HCC, followed in LC and CH patients as 57.1%, 42.8%, 28.52% 16%, 15.2% and 18.4% respectively. H94 deletion in the α-box of the Enh-II region, associated with a high risk of HCC was found in half of the HCC patients. This deletion was present in 28.5% of LC and 6.5% of CH patients. Importantly, the high frequency of some notable mutations such as E109A/Y, A110S/K, Y111D/E, and F112L was first time reported in the entire study population. The frequencies of these mutations were high in HCC (43.75%, 37.5%, 50% and 43.75% respectively) as compared to LC (14.28%, 14.28%, 28.2% and 42.8%) and CH patients (12.8%, 15.2%, 16.8% and 16% respectively). Conclusion: Mutations associated with LC and HCC are prevalent in the Enh-II region in Pakistani HBV isolates. The mutations found are alarming in CH patients as these may progress to LC and HCC in a large number of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Segregation distortion (SD) is a genetic mechanism commonly found in segregating or stable populations. The principle behind this puzzles many researchers. The F2 generation developed from wild Gossypium darwinii and G. hirsutum CCRI12 species was used to investigate the possible transcription factors within the segregation distortion regions (SDRs). The 384 out of 2763 markers were distorted in 29 SDRs on 18 chromosomes. Good collinearity was observed among genetic and physical maps of G. hirsutum and G. barbadense syntenic blocks. Total 568 genes were identified from SDRs of 18 chromosomes. Out of these genes, 128 belonged to three top-ranked salt-tolerant gene families. The DUF597 contained 8 uncharacterized genes linked to Pkinase (PF00069) gene family in the phylogenetic tree, while 15 uncharacterized genes clustered with the zinc finger gene family. Two hundred thirty four miRNAs targeted numerous genes, including ghr-miR156, ghr-miR399 and ghr-miR482, while others targeted top-ranked stress-responsive transcription factors. Moreover, these genes were involved in the regulation of numerous stress-responsive cis-regulatory elements. The RNA sequence data of fifteen upregulated genes were verified through the RT-qPCR. The expression profiles of two highly upregulated genes (Gh_D01G2015 and Gh_A01G1773) in salt-tolerant G. darwinii showed antagonistic expression in G. hirsutum. The results indicated that salt-tolerant genes have been possibly transferred from the wild G. darwinii species. A detailed functional analysis of these genes can be carried out which might be helpful in the future for gene cloning, transformation, gene editing and the development of salt-resistant cotton varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum information processing made a tremendous and remarkable impact on number of classical mechanic’s problems. The impact does not only stop at classical mechanics but also the cyber security paradigm. Quantum information and cryptography are two classes of quantum information processing which use the idea of qubits instead of bits as in classical information security. The idea of fast computations with multiple complexity level is becoming more realistic in the age of quantum information due to quantum parallelism where a single quantum computer does allow to compute hundreds of classical computers with less efforts and more accuracy. The evolution of quantum information processing replaces a number of classical mechanic’s aspects in computational and cyber security sciences. Our aim here is to introduce concepts of applied quantum dynamics in cryptography, which leads to an evolution of quantum cryptography. Quantum cryptography is one of the most astonishing solicitations of quantum information theory. To measure the quantum state of any system is not possible without disturbing that system. The facts of quantum mechanics on traditional cryptosystems lead to a new protocol and achieving maximum remarkable security for systems. The scope of this paper is to design an innovative encryption scheme for digital data based on quantum spinning and rotation operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of glioblastoma is complicated by the tumors' high resistance to chemotherapy, poor penetration of drugs across the blood brain barrier, and damaging effects of chemotherapy and radiation to normal neural tissue. To overcome these limitations, a thermally responsive polypeptide was developed for targeted delivery of therapeutic peptides to brain tumors using focused hyperthermia. The peptide carrier is based on elastin-like polypeptide (ELP), which is a thermally responsive biopolymer that forms aggregates above a characteristic transition temperature. ELP was modified with cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) to enhance delivery to brain tumors and mediate uptake across the tumor cells' plasma membranes and with a peptide inhibitor of c-Myc (H1). In rats with intracerebral gliomas, brain tumor targeting of ELP following systemic administration was enhanced up to 5-fold by the use of CPPs. When the lead CPP-ELP-fused c-Myc inhibitor was combined with focused hyperthermia of the tumors, an additional 3 fold increase in tumor polypeptide levels was observed, and 80% reduction in tumor volume, delayed onset of tumor-associated neurological deficits, and at least doubled median survival time including complete regression in 80% of animals was achieved. This work demonstrates that a c-Myc inhibitory peptide can be effectively delivered to brain tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information security is an important and critical subject of the current digital era. Nowadays, almost all information is digital in nature and security from hackers and eavesdroppers has become vital in civil (big giant corporations) as well as in defense organizations. One type of information in bit streams is in the form of digital images. In this article, an idea to combine Brownian motion with ternary unique orientation has been implemented which is related to random motion over time and spatial coordinates. Moreover, chaotic dynamical map has been used to add one more security level to the proposed encryption scheme. The proposed scheme is evaluated on different statistical tests and these results are compared with already existing benchmarks. The results show that the proposed algorithm has better security performances as compared to existing image enciphering schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Segregation distortion (SD) is a genetic mechanism commonly found in segregating or stable populations. The principle behind this puzzles many researchers. The F2 generation developed from wild Gossypium darwinii and G. hirsutum CCRI12 species was used to investigate the possible transcription factors within the segregation distortion regions (SDRs). The 384 out of 2763 markers were distorted in 29 SDRs on 18 chromosomes. Good collinearity was observed among genetic and physical maps of G. hirsutum and G. barbadense syntenic blocks. Total 568 genes were identified from SDRs of 18 chromosomes. Out of these genes, 128 belonged to three top-ranked salt-tolerant gene families. The DUF597 contained 8 uncharacterized genes linked to Pkinase (PF00069) gene family in the phylogenetic tree, while 15 uncharacterized genes clustered with the zinc finger gene family. Two hundred thirty four miRNAs targeted numerous genes, including ghr-miR156, ghr-miR399 and ghr-miR482, while others targeted top-ranked stress-responsive transcription factors. Moreover, these genes were involved in the regulation of numerous stress-responsive cis-regulatory elements. The RNA sequence data of fifteen upregulated genes were verified through the RT-qPCR. The expression profiles of two highly upregulated genes (Gh_D01G2015 and Gh_A01G1773) in salt-tolerant G. darwinii showed antagonistic expression in G. hirsutum. The results indicated that salt-tolerant genes have been possibly transferred from the wild G. darwinii species. A detailed functional analysis of these genes can be carried out which might be helpful in the future for gene cloning, transformation, gene editing and the development of salt-resistant cotton varieties., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.