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The study examines the optical and electrical characteristics of n-ZnO:Al (AZO) thin films that were deposited on p-Si using the sol-gel dip-coating process, with thicknesses ranging from three to six cycles. The I-V characteristics of the diode device exhibited a high and low current under forward and reverse bias, respectively. The ideality factors were found to decrease from 2.78 to 2.13 with an increase in the number of layers from 3C to 6C. However, it was revealed that the barrier height increased from 0.72 to 0.79 eV. Similarly, the rectification ratio increased from 3196 at ±4 V to 5253 at ±4 V with an increase in the thickness of the emitter layer. Some diode parameters were calculated according to the thermionic and Chueng models and found to be in a range comparable to the literature. The optical study based on photoluminescence under UV excitation showed typical emission spectra of n-AZO/-Si heterostructure characterized by a high emission band around 389 nm, which is due to the recombination of excitons (e-=h+). The various intrinsic defects present in ZnO-doped Al thin films are attributed to the broad emission band in the visible range. The chromaticity study with color properties indicated that the correlated color temperature value of the sample 3C (1380 K) falls in the warm white light region. However, the correlated color temperature value of sample 6C (4454 K) is located in the cool white light source region, which is more suitable as an LED lighting source. It was found that by increasing the emitter layer thickness, the correlated color temperature value of the 6C sample is getting closer to 6504 K - the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) standard for daylight (D65). However, unlike the Duv value of the 6C sample (0.011), the one of the 3C sample (0.0032) is located within the acceptable shift range (±0:006). Based on this study, these heterostructures might be an appealing option for manufacturing W-LEDs with n-UV/blue LED chips as the excitation source for use in displays and lighting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, the electrical properties different diodes were reported. Pure and Al-doped ZnO thin films of different concentrations (Al: 1, 2 and 3 wt.%) were deposited by sol-gel dip-coating onto p-Si substrate to form heterojunctions. Zinc acetate dehydrate, Hexahydrate aluminum chloride, ethanol and ethanolamine were used as a starting material, doping, solvent and stabilizer, respectively. The dip-coating process with drying was repeated 6 times to obtain multilayer films. The morphological and electrical properties of the thin films as a function of Al concentration have been investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements at room temperature. AFM images revealed that grain sizes and surface roughness increase with increasing Al concentration. I-V characteristics of the diodes exhibited high and low currents under forward and reverse bias, respectively. The ideality factors (n), rectification ratio (RR) and barrier heights (BH) were found to range from 1.97 to 8.34, 0.84 to 5958 and 0.80 to 0.86 eV for different Al doping concentrations, respectively. These findings showed no monotonic behaviour of the calculated parameters with varying Al doping concentrations. The best electrical characteristic was obtained for the sample n-ZnO: 2 % Al/p-Si, with an ideality factor of 1.97 eV, reverse saturation current of 1.69 ± 10– 8 A, rectification ratio of 5958 at ± 2 V, and barrier height of 0.85 eV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En Afrique, la prise en charge des envenimations vipérines demeure un problème majeur de santé publique avec un taux de mortalité qui reste élevé.La survenue d’une envenimation vipérine au cours de la grossesse est un événement rare, et grave du fait des conséquences maternelles et fatales qui en découlent. Les auteurs rapportent un cas de morsure de serpent au niveau de la face chez une femme enceinte, dont l’évolution a été marquée par l’installation d’un œdème cervico-facial nécessitant une trachéotomie en urgence, et une mort fatale in utero avec troubles de l’hémostase responsable du décès maternel dans un tableau de choc hémorragique.

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles using low cost organic dye Coumarin 343 (C343), carbon counter electrode and iodide electrolyte were fabricated and compared. The two types of thin films were deposited on the transparent conducting oxide substrates by doctor Blade technique. The morphological and structural properties of these thin films were studied using SEM and XRD. Current-voltage measurements were carried out to investigate the DSSCs photovoltaic efficiency. The comparative performance study shows that the cell with ZnO/C343 as the photo-anode produces higher short circuit current density (Jsc) and open circuit voltage (Voc), which leads to higher energy conversion efficiency than the cell with TiO2/C343 as the photo-anode. UV-Visible and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy studies revealed the better performance of ZnO cell due to higher light absorption and slower electron recombination compared to TiO2 solar cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of the GdSn3, CmSn3 and GdxCm1-xSn3 compounds (x = 0:25, 0:5 and 0:75) were studied using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method, within the generalized gradient approximation+U. The ground-state properties are determined for the bulk materials GdSn3, CmSn3 and GdxCm1-xSn3 crystallized in AuCu3-type structure. The calculated structural, electronic and magnetic properties of GdSn3 compound are in good agreement with the existing experimental and theoretical data. It is found that the most stable magnetic con1gurations of both compounds CmSn3 and GdSn3 are anti-ferromagnetic type A (AFM-A) and have a metallic behavior. The magnetic moment found decreases with increasing the Cm composition in GdxCm1-xSn3 compounds. The results show that the GdSn3, CmSn3 and GdxCm1-xSn3 compounds share some properties, and may well be useful for spintronic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the effect of Fe incorporation on structural and electro-optical properties of ZnO thin films prepared by spin coating techniques. The Fe/Zn nominal volume ratio was 7 % in the solution. X-ray diffraction patterns of the films showed that doped incorporation leads to substantial changes in the structural characteristics of ZnO films. All the films have polycrystalline structure, with a preferential growth along the ZnO (002) plane. The crystallite size was calculated using a well-known Scherrer’s formula and found to be in the range of 22-17 nm. The highest average optical transmittance value in the visible region was belonging to the Fe doped ZnO film. The results of the Raman scattering confirmed the observations of XRD and UV-Vis analysis techniques by the appearance of these occupancies at Zn+2 sites. These results are explained theoretically and are compared with those reported by other workers. The results of Hall measurement of ZnO and ZnO:Fe thin films reveal a high electron concentration around 1016 cm–3 and low mobility 2.6 cm2/Vs. All as-grown samples show ambiguous carrier conductivity type (p-type and ntype) in the automatic Van der Pauw Hall measurement. A similar result has been observed in Li-doped ZnO and in As-doped ZnO films by other groups before. However, by characterizing our samples whit XPS, we have demonstrated that the ambiguous carrier type n in intended our ZnO films is not intrinsic behavior of the samples. It is due to the persistent photoconductivity effect in ZnO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spray pyrolysis is a simple and low cost technique used for large thin films fabrication. In this paper, we reported the preparation of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films with spray pyrolysis on glass substrates using different aqueous solutions. So, we chose to vary anions (S) and cations (Cu, Zn, Sn) concentrations. The purpose of this choice is the EDX analysis so that the percentage of copper is closer to 25 %; on the other hand, zinc and tin are around 12.5 % and sulfur at 50 %. The structural, chemical composition, morphological and optical properties of CZTS thin films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), and UV-visible spectroscopy analysis, respectively. The X-ray diffraction showed the formation of kesterite structure with dominant peaks along (112), (220) and (312) directions. Raman spectroscopy confirmed the existence of internal compressive stress in the CZTS thin films. The EDX analysis showed a better stoichiometry when optimizing the precursor concentrations. CZTS thin films showed low optical transmission and optical absorbance higher than 5×104 сm–1, which make the CZTS thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis technique suitable for CZTS solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an n-type semiconductor with a large optical gap (3.4 eV) belonging to the transparent conductive oxides family (TCO). Strongly present as optical window in the chalcopyrite based structures CIGS and CIS. The structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin films deposited onto glass substrates by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) technique have been investigated. For comparison and a better understanding of physical properties of undoped and (Al, In) doped ZnO thin films, a number of techniques, including XRD, SEM, optical absorption method (UV) and four-point probe technique were used to characterize the obtained ZnO thin films. Structural analysis shows that all the films were found to be polycrystalline with a wurtzite structure and show a (1 0 1) preferential growth. Besides, we noted that the preferred orientation does not depend on the nature of dopant. The band gaps (Eg) varied from 3.35 to 3.37 eV by Al and In dopants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zinc sulfide (ZnS) is important II-VI semiconductors material for the development of various modern technologies and photovoltaic applications. ZnS thin film was prepared by using chemical spray pyrolysis technique. The starting solution is a mixture of 0.1 M zinc chloride as source of Zn and 0.05 M thiourea as source of S. The glass substrate temperature was varied in the range of 300 °C-400 °C to investigate the influence of substrate temperature on the structure, chemical composition, morphological and optical properties of ZnS films. The DRX analyses indicated that ZnS films have polycrystalline cubic structure with (111) preferential orientation and grain size varied from 25 to 60 nm, increasing with substrate temperature. The optical properties of these films have been studied in the wavelength range 300-2500 nm using UV-VIS spectro-photometer. The ZnS films has a band gap of 3.89 eV-3.96 eV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tin oxide films (SnO2) are prepared by the spray pyrolysis technique at different temperatures. The XRD measurement confirm that the thin films grown by this technique have good crystalline tetragonal rutile structures. The observations by scanning electron microscopy indicate that polycrystalline SnO2 film surfaces were formed by pyramidal grains (200 nm 300 nm), The composition on the films was obtained by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), which is identical to the analysis EDS. Characterization by UV-visible spectrophotometry of thin films showed that the films have an optical transmission above 80 % in the visible and the values of Eg were in the range 3.98-4.02 eV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Fluorine doped SnO2 thin films were spray deposited using three tin precursors, tin tetrachloride, dibutyl-tin-diacetate and butyl-tin-trichloride, adding small amounts of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to the source solutions. The molar ratio range [H2O2]/[Sn]=0 to 0.8 with respect to the tin precursor was investigated. At a given deposition temperature T d, a net optimum was found close to [H2O2]/[Sn]=0.5 for the deposition rate, the electrical properties and the crystalline quality. The effect of H2O2 addition was found to increase the growth rate, even at a temperature as low as 340 °C. The higher was the deposition temperature T d, the larger was the increase. The deposition process of FTO films was optimized at T d =420 °C. At this temperature, the most significant result with respect to solar cell applications was obtained with butyl-tin-trichloride as tin precursor and [H2O2]/[Sn]=0.6; carrier concentration : 4.5×1020 cm−3; mobility : 34 cm2 V−1 s−1; resistivity: 4.1×10−4 Ω cm. It is concluded that the main effect of addition of hydrogen peroxide is to improve the film crystallization at a lower T d than in the absence of H2O2, increasing the carrier mobility significantly and keeping a high deposition rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This review paper delves into the intricate relationship between the genital microbiome and fertility outcomes in livestock, with a specific focus on cattle. Drawing upon insights derived from culture-independent metagenomics studies, the paper meticulously examines the composition and dynamics of the genital microbiome. Through advanced techniques such as high-throughput sequencing, the review illuminates the temporal shifts in microbial communities and their profound implications for reproductive health. The analysis underscores the association between dysbiosis-an imbalance in microbial communities-and the development of reproductive diseases, shedding light on the pivotal role of microbial gatekeepers in livestock fertility. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the need for continued exploration of uncharted dimensions of the female reproductive microbiome to unlock new insights into its impact on fertility. By elucidating the complex interplay between microbial communities and reproductive health, this review underscores the importance of innovative strategies aimed at enhancing fertility and mitigating reproductive diseases in livestock populations.

Foreign body (FB) inhalation in children is a common and potentially life-threatening occurrence encountered in pediatric emergency medicine. A wide range of clinical presentations including often delayed onset of symptoms make it challenging to identify and provide a timely diagnosis. This increases the risk of complications and leads to suboptimal outcomes. For instance, inhalation of sharp objects may lead to perforations and migrations to surrounding structures making it difficult to retrieve the FB as seen in this case. Additionally, the onset of symptoms can vary, making it difficult to diagnose based on a patient's history alone. An unusual case of an inhaled sharp metallic object (dental bur) in a 13-year-old boy that migrated from the left lower thorax to the right perihilar and finally to the gastric lumen is presented a week after the incident. A 13-year-old boy presented to the emergency department with mild symptoms. He was stable with normal chest findings. Previous rigid bronchoscopy failed to localize and remove the FB and the thoracotomy. A post-operative X-ray was done, and the migration of the FB to the right middle lobe was revealed. A flexible bronchoscopy was then performed, again with no positive results. It was finally the abdominopelvic CT scan followed by the gastroduodenal esophagoscopy that allowed us to visualize and remove the FB from the gastric lumen.  In this case, we review the literature to emphasize the diagnostic challenges of FB inhalation in children, focusing on key diagnostic clues that assist clinicians in managing this condition., Competing Interests: Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Id El Haj et al.)

Proteomics, the large-scale study of proteins in biological systems has emerged as a pivotal tool in the field of animal and veterinary sciences, mainly for investigating local and rustic breeds. Proteomics provides valuable insights into biological processes underlying animal growth, reproduction, health, and disease. In this review, we highlight the key proteomics technologies, methodologies, and their applications in domestic animals, particularly in the tropical context. We also discuss advances in proteomics research, including integration of multi-omics data, single-cell proteomics, and proteogenomics, all of which are promising for improving animal health, adaptation, welfare, and productivity. However, proteomics research in domestic animals faces challenges, such as sample preparation variation, data quality control, privacy and ethical considerations relating to animal welfare. We also provide recommendations for overcoming these challenges, emphasizing the importance of following best practices in sample preparation, data quality control, and ethical compliance. We therefore aim for this review to harness the full potential of proteomics in advancing our understanding of animal biology and ultimately improve animal health and productivity in local breeds of diverse animal species in a tropical context., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Uterine disease in cattle impairs reproductive performance and profitability and increases antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance. Thus, probiotics offer a promising alternative therapy. This review presents conceptual findings on the efficacy of probiotics in managing uterine diseases and fertility in cows. Probiotics containing Lactobacillus spp. and Bifidobacterium spp. individually or as composite formulations are known to improve fertility. Strategic intravaginal administration of these formulations would likely enhance uterine immunity, particularly during the postpartum period. While current findings on the benefits to uterine health are encouraging, there is still significant knowledge missing, including a lack of empirical information from large-scale field trials. This review underscores the need for evidence-based guidelines for probiotics, such as genomic selection of formulations, targeted delivery, or potential synergy with other interventions. Future research should address these gaps to maximize the potential of probiotics in managing uterine diseases and enhancing the reproductive health of dairy cattle.

Background and Aim: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a major transboundary animal ailment in Algeria, is a serious economic burden on the livestock sector. This study aimed to investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of FMD in Algeria and identifies the factors contributing to this phenomenon., Materials and Methods: Data on FMD cases occurring in Algeria from 2014 to 2022 were collected from various sources, including archives at the Ministry of Agriculture, peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, reference laboratory reports, and unpublished scientific reports. The data were compiled and analyzed using MS Office Excel® and SPSS® software., Results: A total of 22,690 FMD cases and 1,141 outbreaks were reported in Algeria between 2014 and 2022. The apex of infections occurred in 2014 (34.5%), followed by an increase in the number of infections in 2019 and 2017. The prevalence of FMD extended to 91.6% of the districts of the country, particularly in the north (center) and eastern regions. Cows were the most affected, with 654 outbreaks and more than 3,665 cases. Although FMD affected all four regions, there was a statistically significant long-term decline in the incidence., Conclusion: These spatial and temporal trends underscore the robust disease control methodologies implemented by the Algerian government, such as the strategic immunization of livestock to fortify their viral resistance, stringent constraints on animal mobility, and enlightenment of farmers regarding the hazards associated with unrestricted livestock movement to effectively curb FMD dissemination., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright: © Guessoum, et al.)

TiO 2 -SiO 2 nanocomposite thin films have gained the attention of the scientific community due to their unique physical and chemical properties. In this paper, we report on the fabrication and characterization of a TiO 2 -SiO 2 nanocomposite disk-shaped target. The target was used for the deposition of TiO 2 -SiO 2 nanocomposite thin films on fluorine-doped tin oxide/glass substrates using the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The thicknesses of the thin films were fixed to 100 nm, and the deposition temperature ranged from room temperature to 300 °C. As revealed by the microstructural and morphological characterizations revealed, the TiO 2 -SiO 2 nanocomposite thin films are amorphous and display homogeneous distribution. The determined values of the indirect optical band gap range from 2.92 to 3.07 eV, while those of the direct optical band gap lie between 3.50 and 3.55 eV. Additionally, as the deposition temperature decreases, the light transmission increases in the visible and in the ultraviolet ranges, which is suitable for flexible perovskite solar cells. This research can uncover new insights into the fabrication of amorphous TiO 2 -SiO 2 -based nanostructured thin films using the PLD technique for perovskite solar cell technology.