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Background Esophageal foreign body impaction is one of the common reasons of referral to Ear Nose Throat clinic. It is a medical emergency requiring urgent evaluation and treatment. Esophageal foreign body in a very young child can be a diagnostic challenge. Case presentation In this case, we report an unusual sharp foreign body in the upper aerodigestive tract of a 20-month-old female child. It was neglected and misdiagnosed in the initial phase and was treated as a case of upper respiratory tract infection. Chest X-ray done was suggestive of a radiopaque irregular sharp foreign body at the level of the 6th cervical vertebra. The patient underwent rigid esophagoscopy on an urgent basis, and the foreign body was removed without any complication. Conclusion Esophageal foreign body in a very young child can mimic upper respiratory tract infection due to atypical symptoms. Strong witness history along with X-rays of the neck, chest, and abdomen help in making the immediate diagnosis. Clinicians should always advise parents for supervision of their children during play.

To compare the technical difficulty, safety, radiation exposure and success rates between right-sided and left-sided percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (RPTBD and LPTBD) in patients with malignant biliary obstruction (MBO). Fifty patients (28 males, 22 females; mean age 51.78 years) with MBO were randomized to undergo either RPTBD or LPTBD during the study period between June 2016 and May 2018. The procedure time, fluoroscopy time, radiation doses to the operators and patients, technical success, clinical success, complications and effect on quality of life were evaluated and compared between the two groups. Twenty-five patients were included in each group. The technical success was 100% in both groups. There was no significant difference between RPTBD and LPTBD groups in terms of major complications [4% and 12%, respectively; p = 0.297] and minor complications [40% and 32%, respectively; p = 0.597]. Further, the average procedure time (37.80 ± 13.07 min vs 41.04 ± 14.94 min), fluoroscopy time (5.88 ± 4.2 min vs 5.97 ± 3.8 min), radiation doses to the operator (136.84 ± 106.67 μSv vs 130.40 ± 106.46 μSv) and to the patient (8.23 ± 5.80 Gycm2 vs 11.74 ± 11.28 Gycm2) were not significantly different between the groups. Clinical success was achieved in 21 patients (84%) of RPTBD group and 17 patients (68%) of LPTBD group with no significant difference (p = 0.416) between them. There was no significant difference between RPTBD and LPTBD with reference to the technique, safety, radiation dose, success rates and impact on quality of life suggesting no laterality advantage for biliary drainage in cases of MBO.

Neuromorphic architectures have become essential building blocks for next-generation computational systems, where intelligence is embedded directly onto low power, small area, and computationally efficient hardware devices. In such devices, realization of neural algorithms requires storage of weights in digital memories, which is a bottleneck in terms of power and area. We hereby propose a biologically inspired low power, hybrid architectural framework for wake-up systems. This architecture utilizes our novel high-performance, ultra-low power molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) based two-dimensional synaptic memtransistor as an analogue memory. Furthermore, it exploits random device mismatches to implement the population coding scheme. Power consumption per CMOS neuron block was found to be 3 nw in the 65 nm process technology, while the energy consumption per cycle was 0.3 pJ for potentiation and 20 pJ for depression cycles of the synaptic device. The proposed framework was demonstrated for classification and regression tasks, using both off-chip and simplified on-chip sign-based learning techniques.

A novel approach to fabricate an efficient portable water purification device was tested. The polyacrylonitrile/chitosan (PAN–CTN) and polyacrylonitrile/biochar (PAN–BC) composite membranes were made through electrospinning, and laccase was immobilized on PAN–BC membrane (PAN–BC–LAC). Three layers of composite membrane (PAN–CTN, PAN–BC–LAC, and PAN–BC) were placed in a series for purification of water measured in terms of microorganisms, micropollutants, and turbidity. The system provided around 83% of micropollutant removal, 99% removal of microorganisms, and up to 77% of turbidity reduction within

Ce3+-doped NaLi2PO4 orthophosphate (with different impurity concentrations, i.e., 0.01–0.3 mol%) was prepared by a solid state reaction method. Formation of the material was confirmed using powder X-ray diffraction analysis. TL intensity was found to be the highest for the material having impurity concentration 0.2 mol% after annealing it at around 600 K for 1 h and subsequently quenching to room temperature. A typical glow curve consists of three peaks at around 454, 493 and 570 K (dosimetry peak). Good sensitivity (~8 times more than that of TLD-100), low fading (~15 % in 2 months), low-Z material (Z eff ≈ 10.8), very wide dose response (i.e., 0.1 Gy–1.0 kGy of γ rays) make the material a ‘good’ thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) phosphor suitable for personnel, medical and environmental dosimetry of high-energy radiation using TL. It could also be used during cancer therapy and sterilization of food where high doses are needed to be monitored.