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Background: Renal stone is a major health problem with adverse medico-economic consequences. It cost the healthcare services a great deal of money without reaching any desired destiny. Objective: To describe the current prevalence, risk factors, manifestations, methods of diagnosis and treatment of renal stones in Arar city, Northern Saudi Arabia Method: Cross-sectional community based on survey applied to the adult of the general population of Arar city during the period from June to October 2017. The statistical significance level is made at less than 0.05. Results: Among 470 participants, 57.7% male and 42.3% females, 23% had renal gravel, 13% had renal stones. Only 15% complained from recurrent renal colic and 28% had family history of renal stones or gravels. Among the found cases of renal stones, 39.7% had family history of renal stones (P<0.05), 30% had other chronic diseases, 67% have renal gravels (P<0.05) and more than half (55.2%) of them had recurrent renal colic (P<0.05) and 39.9% were obese (P<0.05). The most common symptom is renal colic as it appear in 55% of cases and 82% of affected people are diagnosed by complete urine analysis and ultrasound examination. The most common type is oxalate stone 55.2%, uric acid stones 27.6% and mixed stones 17.2%. More than half (55.2%) of renal stones are small in size and 46% found in the kidney. Most (84%) of the cases get herbal treatment, 89% medical treatment and only 8.6% got surgical treatment but 46% had recurrent stones. Conclusion: The prevalence of renal calculi and associated renal colic in Arar city, Northern is considerable. Suggestions for health education about risk factors in addition to future researches are mandatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nickel-titanium (NiTi) alloys are metallic materials mostly used in the implant industry due to their excellent elasticity and shape memory phenomena. They have excellent corrosion resistance, surface stability, and good biocompatibility. However, due to the leakage of nickel ions, allergic reactions and toxicity can occur. In this research report, we used a cathodic cage plasma processing technique to deposit a titanium nitride-based coating on NiTi non-ferrous metallic material for five different time durations (1 h to 5 h). The effect of treatment time on microstructure, chemical composition, surface topography and morphology was investigated by X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy analysis, respectively. The influence of plasma processing time on tribological behavior was analyzed by indentation depth, wettability, wear and corrosion analysis. Further, biocompatibility of plasma treated and untreated specimens were assessed by nickel ion leakage, cytotoxicity and cell proliferation. Results analysis revealed that the TiN coating with four hour (4 h) plasma treatment showed novel biocompatible and tribological nature among the other treated specimens. This investigation will make a significant contribution to the development of biocompatibility for use in biomedical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Integration of PANI and SPANI nanocomposites via NIPS method improves the membrane properties. • The results Reveals improved thermal stability, mechanical properties, hydrophilicity, permeability, and antifouling. • Increased Pure Water Flux: Hybrid membrane achieves 220 Lm-2h−1 for SPES-SPANI 3 %. • Over 98.69%, 99.23%, and 99.49% removal of BSA, HA, and SA, respectively. • Long-Term Stability: SPES-SPANI 3% recovers 98% of initial flux after three cycles. Ultrafiltration is vital for wastewater treatment and industrial processes like food production and pharmaceuticals. This comprehensive study investigates the intricate development and performance evaluation of advanced composite membranes composed of sulfonated polyethersulfone (SPES), polyaniline (PANI), and sulfonated polyaniline (SPANI). Spectroscopic analyses (FTIR and XRD) confirm successful PANI and SPANI integration with the SPES matrix. Thermogravimetric assessment shows improved thermal stability in SPES-SPANI 3 % membranes with a higher decomposition temperature than pristine membranes. Morphological analysis via FESEM reveals structural changes in nanocomposite membranes, highlighting PANI and SPANI's impact on microscale morphology. Mechanical testing indicates significant elongation increase and enhanced flexibility in SPES-SPANI 3 % membranes. Physicochemical characterizations demonstrate heightened porosity, water uptake, and surface hydrophilicity with PANI and SPANI incorporation. Permeability tests show a substantial increase in pure water flux, reaching 220 Lm-2h−1 for SPES-SPANI 3 % membranes. Antifouling effectiveness is evident through lower flux values for foulants (HA, BSA, SA, and NOM) compared to pure water. The hybrid membranes exhibited remarkable resistance to fouling, removing more than 98.69 %, 99.23 %, and 99.49 % of BSA, HA, and SA, respectively, without compromising their rejection rates. Long-term durability assessments confirm stable performance, with SPES-SPANI 3 % membranes recovering 98 % of the initial flux after three cycles. This investigation highlights the robust of SPES-SPANI 3 % membranes for water filtration, emphasizing improved thermal stability, morphological enhancements, flexibility, and superior antifouling and rejection capabilities. These findings offer crucial insights for developing advanced membranes in efficient and durable water purification technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is currently significant interest in assessing the role of oxygen in the radiobiological effects at ultra-high dose rates. Oxygen modulation is postulated to play a role in the enhanced sparing effect observed in FLASH radiotherapy, where particles are delivered at 40-1000 Gy/s. Furthermore, the development of laser-driven accelerators now enables radiobiology experiments in extreme regimes where dose rates can exceed 109 Gy/s, and predicted oxygen depletion effects on cellular response can be tested. Access to appropriate experimental enviroments, allowing measurements under controlled oxygenation conditions, is a key requirement for these studies. We report on the development and application of a bespoke portable hypoxia chamber specifically designed for experiments employing laser-driven sources, but also suitable for comparator studies under FLASH and conventional irradiation conditions.Materials and Methods: We used oxygen concentration measurements to test the induction of hypoxia and the maintenance capacity of the chambers. Cellular hypoxia induction was verified using hypoxia inducible factor-1α immunostaining. Calibrated radiochromic films and GEANT-4 simulations verified the dosimetry variations inside and outside the chambers. We irradiated hypoxic human skin fibroblasts (AG01522B) cells with laser-driven protons, conventional protons and reference 225 kVp X-rays to quantify DNA DSB damage and repair under hypoxia. We further measured the oxygen enhancement ratio for cell survival after X-ray exposure in normal fibroblast and radioresistant patient- derived GBM stem cells.Results: Oxygen measurements showed that our chambers maintained a radiobiological hypoxic environment for at least 45 min and pathological hypoxia for up to 24 h after disconnecting the chambers from the gas supply. We observed a significant reduction in the 53BP1 foci induced by laser-driven protons, conventional protons and X-rays in the hypoxic cells compared to normoxic cells at 30 min post-irradiation. Under hypoxic irradiations, the Laser-driven protons induced significant residual DNA DSB damage in hypoxic AG01522B cells compared to the conventional dose rate protons suggesting an important impact of these extremely high dose-rate exposures. We obtained an oxygen enhancement ratio (OER) of 2.1 ± 0.1 and 2.5 ± 0.1 respectively for the AG01522B and patient-derived GBM stem cells for X-ray irradiation using our hypoxia chambers.Conclusion: We demonstrated the design and application of portable hypoxia chambers for studying cellular radiobiological endpoints after exposure to laser-driven protons at ultra-high dose, conventional protons and X-rays. Suitable levels of reduced oxygen concentration could be maintained in the absence of external gassing to quantify hypoxic effects. The data obtained provided indication of an enhanced residual DNA DSB damage under hypoxic conditions at ultra-high dose rate compared to the conventional protons or X-rays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Defects in methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase 1-like (MTHFD1L) expression have earlier been examined in only a few human cancers. Objectives: Multi-omics profiling of MTHFD1L as a shared biomarker in distinct subtypes of human cancers. Methods: In the current study, for the multi-omics analysis of MTHFD1L in 24 major subtypes of human cancers, a comprehensive in silico approach was adopted to mine different open access online databases including UALCAN, Kaplan-Meier (KM) plotter, LOGpc, GEPIA, Human Protein Atlas (HPA), Gene Expression across Normal and Tumor tissue (GENT2), MEXPRESS, cBioportal, STRING, DAVID, TIMER, and Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD). Results: We noticed that the expression of MTHFD1L was significantly higher in all the analyzed 24 subtypes of human cancers as compared with the normal controls. Moreover, MTHDF1L overexpression was also found to be significantly associated with the reduced overall survival (OS) duration of Bladder urothelial cancer (BLCA), Head and neck cancer (HNSC), Kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma (KIRP), Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), and Uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC). This implies that MTHFD1L plays a significant role in the development and progression of these cancers. We further noticed that MTHFD1L was also overexpressed in BLCA, HNSC, KIRP, LUAD, and UCEC patients of different clinicopathological features. Pathways enrichment analysis revealed the involvement of MTHFD1L-associated genes in five diverse pathways. We also explored few interesting correlations between MTHFD1L expression and its promoter methylation, genetic alterations, CNVs, and between CD8+ T immune cells level. Conclusion: In conclusion, our results elucidated that MTHFD1L can serve as a shared diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in BLCA, HNSC, KIRP, LUAD, and UCEC patients of different clinicopathological features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The electronic and magnetic properties of the (001) and (111) surfaces and the interface are examined. • MgCaB is a half-metal with a magnetic moment of 1 μ B. • The half-metal is retained only in the bulk and on the Ca-terminated (111) surface. • The excellent bulk and Ca (111) surface half-metal properties of this new material indicate its potential applications. For Heusler alloys to be used in spintronic applications, the half-metallic property must be maintained on surfaces. MgCaB is a half-metal with a magnetic moment of 1 μ B. Considerable magnetic moment arises from the B atoms, and the hybridization between the p orbitals of B with the s orbitals of Mg and Ca gives rise to half-metallic characteristic. Herein, the electronic and magnetic properties of the (001) and (111) surfaces and the interface are examined. Results show that the half-metal is retained only in the bulk and on the Ca-terminated (111) surface and the spin polarization is equal to 100%. However, it is destroyed in all surface ends and the interface due to the relaxation effect obtained on the atoms at these ends and at the interface. The excellent bulk and Ca (111) surface half-metal properties of this new material indicate its potential applications in low-power electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small scale sample nuclear waste package, consisting of a 28 mm diameter uranium penny encased in grout, was imaged by absorption contrast radiography using a single pulse exposure from an X-ray source driven by a high-power laser. The Vulcan laser was used to deliver a focused pulse of photons to a tantalum foil, in order to generate a bright burst of highly penetrating X-rays (with energy >500 keV), with a source size of <0.5 mm. BAS-TR and BAS-SR image plates were used for image capture, alongside a newly developed Thalium doped Caesium Iodide scintillator-based detector coupled to CCD chips. The uranium penny was clearly resolved to sub-mm accuracy over a 30 cm 2 scan area from a single shot acquisition. In addition, neutron generation was demonstrated in situ with the X-ray beam, with a single shot, thus demonstrating the potential for multi-modal criticality testing of waste materials. This feasibility study successfully demonstrated non-destructive radiography of encapsulated, high density, nuclear material. With recent developments of high-power laser systems, to 10 Hz operation, a laser-driven multi-modal beamline for waste monitoring applications is envisioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper presents SATDBailiff, a tool for identifying and tracking SATD comments. • SATDBailiff is open-source and available for the community to use. • SATDBailiff was validated using a dataset of manually validated SATD instances. • SATDBailiff successfully tracks SATD comments by an average accuracy of 88%. Self-Admitted Technical Debt (SATD) is a metaphorical concept to describe the self-documented addition of technical debt to a software project in the form of source code comments. SATD can linger in projects and degrade source-code quality, but it can also be more visible than unintentionally added or undocumented technical debt. Understanding the implications of adding SATD to a software project is important because developers can benefit from a better understanding of the quality trade-offs they are making. However, empirical studies, analyzing the survivability and removal of SATD comments, are challenged by potential code changes or SATD comment updates that may interfere with properly tracking their appearance, existence, and removal. In this paper, we propose SATDBailiff, a tool that uses an existing state-of-the-art SATD detection tool, to identify SATD in method comments, then properly track their lifespan. SATDBailiff is given as input links to open source projects, and its output is a list of all identified SATDs, and for each detected SATD, SATDBailiff reports all its associated changes, including any updates to its text, all the way to reporting its removal. The goal of SATDBailiff is to aid researchers and practitioners in better tracking SATDs instances, and providing them with a reliable tool that can be easily extended. SATDBailiff was validated using a dataset of previously detected and manually validated SATD instances. SATDBailiff is publicly available as an open source, along with the manual analysis of SATD instances associated with its validation, on the project website. 1 1 https://smilevo.github.io/self-affirmed-refactoring/SCP20_index.html [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the development and optimization of Ce-MOF-808 nanocrystals supported by metallic and bimetallic nanoparticles (Au, Ag, and Pd) for the efficient reduction of nitrophenol. Using a sol-immobilization method, we synthesized a series of catalysts, including Au/Ce-MOF-808, Au-Ag/Ce-MOF-808, and Au-Pd/Ce-MOF-808, and evaluated their catalytic efficacy of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction using NaBH₄ under mild conditions. Initially, effects of time (1-18 min), and catalyst dose (1-6 mg) on the reduction of nitrophenol were investigated through the one-factor-at-a-time experiment. Furthermore, the optimized experimental conditions (reduction time of 18 min, and catalyst dose 4.5 mg) were obtained using response surface methodology (RSM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and thermogravimetric assessment (TGA) further confirmed the robust interaction between metal nanoparticles and the Ce-MOF-808 framework, contributing to enhanced thermal stability and electron transfer capabilities. Among these, the Au-Ag/Ce-MOF-808 composite exhibited the highest catalytic activity, achieving a 98.3% conversion of 4-NP to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) within 18 min. Kinetic studies confirmed the superior catalytic performance of Au-Ag/Ce-MOF-808, with a rate constant (k app ) of 0.100 min⁻ 1 and a reduced half-life of 9.6 min, highlighting the synergistic effects of Au and Ag nanoparticles in enhancing electron transfer and increasing active sites. The reusability tests demonstrated that Au-Ag/Ce-MOF-808 maintained high catalytic activity over five consecutive cycles, indicating its stability and suitability for continuous use. These findings underscore the potential of metal-modified Ce-MOF-808 catalysts for sustainable environmental applications, offering high efficiency, durability, and the ability to operate under mild conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is a rare connective tissue disorder characterized by autoimmunity, fibrosis, and vasculopathy that affects the skin and internal organs, including the gastrointestinal tract, particularly the esophagus. This article highlights the characteristics and clinical symptoms of esophageal involvement in patients with SSc., Patients and Methods: This study was conducted between November 2022 to August 2023, including 26 already diagnosed cases of SSc in the Department of Rheumatology and Rehabilitation and Kurdistan Center for Gastroenterology and Hepatology-Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Esophageal involvement was investigated using esophageal manometry, esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), and 24-hour impedance-pH monitoring., Results: Females were significantly predominant ( P = 0.019) regarding the symptoms; 76.9% of the patients had heart burn, 76.9% dysphagia, 73.1% water brush, and 69.2% regurgitation. In total, 69.2% of the patients showed erosive gastrointestinal reflux disease (GERD) on EGD, 76.9% had decreased lower esophageal sphincter pressure (DLESP) and decreased distal esophageal peristaltic contractions (DDEPC) on esophageal manometry, and 84.6% had reflux on pH monitoring. Raynaud's phenomenon is the most common and typically the earliest clinical manifestation of SSc. The presence of erosive GERD was found to significantly increase the risk of developing dysphagia (B = 4.725, P = 0.014, OR = 3.482) and regurgitation (B = 3.521, P = 0.006, OR = 4.030)., Conclusion: It is crucial to take gender-specific considerations into account when diagnosing and managing esophageal complications in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). Additionally, employing various diagnostic assessments to detect esophageal involvement during SSc is essential. Erosive GERD has been identified as a risk factor that contributes to the development of dysphagia and regurgitation in individuals with SSc., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there is no specific funding received for conducting this research and that there is no conflict of interest in influencing or bias the work., (© 2024 Amin et al.)

Background: Surgical management of Hirschsprung disease (HD) in low- and middle-income countries is typically a staged procedure, necessitating multiple hospitalizations and clinic visits increasing family financial burden. Currently, there is limited information on the costs borne by caretakers of children with Hirschsprung disease seeking surgical intervention. This study seeks to measure the costs and economic burden of surgical treatment for Hirschsprung disease in western Uganda., Methods: A cross-sectional study using cost analysis was conducted among caretakers of patients who completed surgical treatment of HD between January 2017 and December 2021 at two hospitals in western Uganda. The average direct and indirect costs incurred by caretakers presenting at a public and private hospital were computed., Results: A total of 69 patients (M: F = 7:1) were enrolled in the study. The median age at diagnosis was 60.5 (IQR 3-151.25) days for children and two-staged pull-through procedure was the common surgery performed. The mean overall cost for treatment was US $960 (SD = $720), with the majority of costs coming from direct medical costs. Nearly half (48%) of participants resorted to distress financing to finance their child's surgical care. The overwhelming majority of patients (n = 64, 93%) incurred catastrophic expenditure from the total costs of surgery for HD, and 97% of participants fell below the international poverty line at the time treatment was completed., Conclusion: Despite the availability of 'free care' from government hospital and non-profit services, this study found that surgical management of Hirschsprung disease imposed substantial cost burden on families with Hirschsprung disease patients., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

One of the most tragic events in recent history was the COVID-19 outbreak, which has caused thousands of deaths. A variety of drugs were prescribed to improve the condition of patients, including antiparasitic, antiviral, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatory medicines. It must be understood, however, that COVID-19 is like a tip of an iceberg on the ocean, and the consequences of overuse of antibiotics are like the body of a mountain under water whose greatness has not yet been determined for humanity, and additional study is needed to understand them. History of the war between microbes and antimicrobial agents has shown that microbes are intelligent organisms that win over antimicrobial agents over time through many acquired or inherent mechanisms. The key terms containing "COVID-19," "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2," "SARS-CoV2," "Antibiotic Resistance," "Coronavirus," "Pandemic," "Antibiotics," and "Antimicrobial Resistance" were used for searching in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increased prescription of antibiotics. Infections caused by secondary or co-bacterial infections or beneficial bacteria in the body can be increased as a result of this amount of antibiotic prescription and exposure to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance will likely pose a major problem in the future, especially for last resort antibiotics. In order to address the antibiotic resistance crisis, it is imperative that researchers, farmers, veterinarians, physicians, public and policymakers, pharmacists, other health and environmental professionals, and others collaborate during and beyond this pandemic., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Type 2 severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by coronavirus infection has become the most well-known pandemic infectious viral disease in the present century. This study aims to find out the post-COVID-19 infection complications via a well-designed observational study. A total of 986 recovered cases (only the period ranged between 2 to 3 months after recovery) were obtained from public and private hospitals in Kirkuk and Erbil governorates\Iraq. The admitted patients were asked to answer a questionnaire through interviews; the laboratory findings were obtained from the patients. The results suggested that approximately half of post-COVID-19 patients (%45.606) were suffering from chest pain, while (%32.357) of the cases suffered headache and chest pain. Liver enzymes (ALT, AST, and ALP) showed abnormal percent values of 38.6,24.07, and 26.09, respectively. Renal function enzymes, mainly urea, were found to be abnormal in 45.37% of recovered individuals. Furthermore, abnormal LDH levels were found in (77.9%) of post-COVID-19 patients. This finding revealed that chest pain was an inflammatory condition and liver and renal enzyme disturbances, while elevation in LDH was the predominant long-term complication in post-COVID-19 patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Objective. Carbon is an ion species of significant radiobiological interest, particularly in view of its use in cancer radiotherapy, where its large Relative Biological Efficiency is often exploited to overcome radio resistance. A growing interest in highly pulsed carbon delivery has arisen in the context of the development of the FLASH radiotherapy approach, with recent studies carried out at dose rates of 40 Gy s -1 . Laser acceleration methods, producing ultrashort ion bursts, can now enable the delivery of Gy-level doses of carbon ions at ultra-high dose rates (UHDRs), exceeding 10 9 Gy s -1 . While studies at such extreme dose rate have been carried out so far using low LET particles such as electrons and protons, the radiobiology of high-LET, UHDR ions has not yet been explored. Here, we report the first application of laser-accelerated carbon ions generated by focussing 10 20 W cm -2 intense lasers on 10-25 nm carbon targets, to irradiate radioresistant patient-derived Glioblastoma stem like cells (GSCs). Approach. We exposed GSCs to 1 Gy of 9.5 ± 0.5 MeV/n carbon ions delivered in a single ultra-short (∼400-picosecond) pulse, at a dose rate of 2 × 10 9 Gy s -1 , generated using the ASTRA GEMINI laser of the Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, Oxfordshire, UK. We quantified carbon ion-induced DNA double strand break (DSB) damage using the 53BP1 foci formation assay and used 225 kVp x-rays as a reference radiation. Main Results. Laser-accelerated carbon ions induced complex DNA DSB damage, as seen through persistent 53BP1 foci (11.5 ± 0.4 foci/cell/Gy) at 24 h and significantly larger foci (1.69 ± 0.07 μ m 2 ) than x-rays induced ones (0.63 ± 0.02 μ m 2 ). The relative foci induction value for laser-driven carbon ions relative to conventional x-rays was 3.2 ± 0.3 at 24 h post-irradiation also confirming the complex nature of the induced damage. Significance. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of radiobiology investigations at unprecedented dose rates using laser-accelerated high-LET carbon ions in clinically relevant models., (Creative Commons Attribution license.)

Neuroimaging experiments in general, and EEG experiments in particular, must take care to avoid confounds. A recent TPAMI paper uses data that suffers from a serious previously reported confound. We demonstrate that their new model and analysis methods do not remedy this confound, and therefore that their claims of high accuracy and neuroscience relevance are invalid.

Background: The association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and human breast cancer (BC) has already been thoroughly studied worldwide with contradictory findings. Although the researchers have tried to minimize the conflict using statistical meta-analysis because of its shortcomings, there is still a need to evaluate the correlation between HPV and BC using any additional method., Objectives: This study was launched to investigate the correlation between HPV and BC through the application of Bradford Hill criteria postulates., Methods: Population-wide studies associating HPV with BC were searched using the PubMed database. Then, the information of HPV burden in BC, normal/benign samples was analyzed, and ultimately Bradford Hill criteria postulates were applied on the collected evidence to explore the relationship between HPV and BC. In addition, to make the outcomes more authentic, we also reviewed the methodologies of previous studies to address the propensity of false results., Results: After a careful evaluation of the obtained data against major Bradford Hill criteria postulates, it was noted that all these postulates, including strength, consistency, biological gradient, temporality, plausibility, experiment, specificity, and analogy were not fulfilled., Conclusion: The results of the present study have failed to establish a causal association between HPV and BC, but they did suggest HPV as a cause-effective agent or at least a co-participant in the pathogenesis of BC. Because of the weakness of association, particularly the lack of consistency between studies and the lack of effect specificity, more research into Bradford Hill criteria postulates is required., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Introduction: Cancer is one of the most common malignancies and the leading cause of death worldwide. As a member of the transmembrane emp24 domain (Tmed)/p24 family of proteins, TMED2 expression variations have been documented earlier in only a few subtypes of human cancers, and the multi-omics profiling of TMED2 as a shared biomarker in different other subtypes of human cancers remains to be uncovered., Methods: In the current study, TMED2 multi-omics analysis in 24 major subtypes of human cancer was performed using different authentic online databases and bioinformatics analysis including UALCAN, Kaplan-Meier (KM) plotter, Human Protein Atlas (HPA), GENT2, MEXPRESS, cBioportal, STRING, DAVID, TIMER, and CTD., Results: In general, the TMED2 expression in 24 major subtypes of human cancers was higher relative to normal controls and was also strongly associated with the lower overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) duration of CESC, ESCA, HNSC, KIRC, LIHC, and LUAD patients. This implies that TMED2 plays a significant role in the development and progression of these cancers. Furthermore, the TMED2 overexpression was also correlated with different clinicopathological features of CESC, ESCA, HNSC, KIRC, LIHC, and LUAD patients. TMED2-associated genes network was involved in 3 diverse pathways, and finally, few stronger correlations were also explored between TMED2 expression and its promoter methylation level, genetic alterations, and CD8+ T immune cells level., Conclusion: In conclusion, via this in silico study, we have elucidated that TMED2 can serve as a shared diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in CESC, ESCA, HNSC, KIRC, LIHC, and LUAD patients of different clinicopathological features but, further in vitro and in vivo research should be carried out to confirm these findings., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest for this work., (© 2021 Sial et al.)

Developing compact ion accelerators using intense lasers is a very active area of research, motivated by a strong applicative potential in science, industry and healthcare. However, proposed applications in medical therapy, as well as in nuclear and particle physics demand a strict control of ion energy, as well as of the angular and spectral distribution of ion beam, beyond the intrinsic limitations of the several acceleration mechanisms explored so far. Here we report on the production of highly collimated ([Formula: see text] half angle divergence), high-charge (10s of pC) and quasi-monoenergetic proton beams up to [Formula: see text] 50 MeV, using a recently developed method based on helical coil targetry. In this concept, ions accelerated from a laser-irradiated foil are post-accelerated and conditioned in a helical structure positioned at the rear of the foil. The pencil beam of protons was produced by guided post-acceleration at a rate of [Formula: see text] 2 GeV/m, without sacrificing the excellent beam emittance of the laser-driven proton beams. 3D particle tracing simulations indicate the possibility of sustaining high acceleration gradients over extended helical coil lengths, thus maximising the gain from such miniature accelerating modules.