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Abstract Background A blind ending ureteric remnant in a duplicated urinary system is extremely rare, and most of these anomalies go unrecognized as they are asymptomatic. We describe a unique case of a blind ending ureteric remnant presenting with neurological claudication in the lower limb secondary to sacral nerve root radiculopathy which was managed by robotic excision. Case presentation A 61-year-old male presented with radiating pain in the left gluteal region for the past 2 years, which persisted despite multiple conservative treatments. Extensive evaluation for the pain revealed a blind ending ureteric remnant in a partially duplicated system, which contained multiple calculi and caused the compression of the adjacent sacral nerve roots. The patient was subsequently taken up for excision of the remnant, which was performed robotically, after which the symptoms resolved completely. Conclusion Blind ending ureteric duplications are rare anomalies that mostly go unrecognized as they are asymptomatic. Rarely, these anomalies may produce clinically relevant symptoms and result in diagnostic dilemmas, meriting intervention.

Abstract Background Complex vesico-vaginal fistulae (VVF) pose unique surgical challenges and necessitate the use of interposition tissue to ensure surgical success. Herein, we describe a case of complex VVF with right uretero-vaginal fistula post radical surgery for locally advanced ovarian cancer and chemotherapy in which the rectus abdominis muscle flap was used as the interposition tissue, as the more routine used options such as omentum and peritoneum were removed in the prior radical surgery. Case presentation We describe a case report of a vesico-vaginal and right uretero-vaginal fistula in a 34-year-old female post ovarian cancer radical surgery managed surgically with the traditional transvesical technique of repair and ureteric reimplantation with a unique interposition with rectus abdominis muscle considering the absence of the more routine options. Conclusion Complex VVFs pose unique surgical challenges and necessitate the use of interposition tissue to ensure surgical success. The inferior pedicle based rectus abdominis muscle flap is an excellent interposition tissue for repairs via the transabdominal approach especially in scenarios where the more routine options are unavailable.

Direct or type A CCFs are the direct connection between the cavernous segment of the internal carotid artery and the cavernous sinus. While most direct CCFs are caused by trauma, spontaneous direct CCFs are extremely rare in infants. In this report, we describe a 6-month-old child with bulges in the right eye that had been present since 20 days after birth. On examination, there was a right eye abduction limitation with no deviation associated with proptosis. Bruit was present during auscultation. CEMRI showed an enlarged right cavernous sinus with dilatation of the superior ophthalmic vein, suggesting a carotid-cavernous fistula. The patient was referred to an advanced center where he was advised patch therapy to prevent amblyopia. He was kept under observation by a neurosurgeon until 3 years, after which he was scheduled to undergo transarterial coiling.

Purpose: To evaluate the association between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and thyroid eye disease (TED) and its effect on disease activity. Methods: A prospective case–control study was conducted from January 2020 to March 2022. All TED patients (group A) were clinically evaluated. The activity of thyroid eye disease was calculated based on the clinical activity score (CAS), and grading of severity was done according to the EUGOGO classification. All TED patients (group A) were screened for OSA using the Snoring Tired Observed Pressure (STOP)-Bang survey. Age- and gender-matched control group patients (group B) without TED were screened for OSA. Results: One hundred TED patients and 138 control patients without TED were included in the respective groups. Sixty-two (62%) patients in group A and 48 (34.78%) patients in group B were having high risk of OSA, and this difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Further, in group A patients, on univariate analysis, TED activity was significantly associated with a high risk of OSA (P = 0.009). On multivariate logistic regression analysis, OSA also showed significant association with TED activity (odds ratio [OR]: 4.14, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11-18.85 at 10% level; P = 0.05). Conclusion: Our study showed that OSA is significantly associated with TED disease and its activity. However, no significant association was found between OSA and severity of the disease.

Creating effective, ecologically friendly, and commercially viable synthetic routes is crucial in the design and synthesis of organic substances. Quinazoline, a heterocyclic compound with nitrogen, is one of the most significant heterocyclic motifs with diverse chemical reactivities and many biological applications. Its derivatives comprise a family of fused heterocycles in over 200 naturally occurring alkaloids. Over the past few decades, newer, more complex drugs containing quinazolinone structures have been discovered, with enormous progress in designing various efficient protocols to construct these pharmacologically active scaffolds. This review evaluated the recently investigated protocols for synthesizing quinazolines and their derivatives (from 2017 to 2023 till date). The current review paper provides an up-to-date description of recent advancements in straightforward synthetic procedures that result in the creation of quinazoline molecules. In addition, the significant therapeutical activities of numerous quinazoline-based drugs were briefed and assessed in this review. We envisage that this information would assist researchers in designing and synthesizing novel quinazoline analogues as lead compounds.

A complete accounting of nearby objects—from the highest-mass white dwarf progenitors down to low-mass brown dwarfs—is now possible, thanks to an almost complete set of trigonometric parallax determinations from Gaia, ground-based surveys, and Spitzer follow-up. We create a census of objects within a Sun-centered sphere of 20 pc radius and check published literature to decompose each binary or higher-order system into its separate components. The result is a volume-limited census of ∼3600 individual star formation products useful in measuring the initial mass function across the stellar (

United Nations charter to build a sustainable future has paved the way for the introduction of the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) at a global forum. In particular, SDG 11 is aligned with the idea of developing cities and communities that provide quality human life, by attaining net-zero discharge and self-sustainability. In line with the efforts of the global community, biochar has emerged as a viable solution due to its ability to convert waste into value. Finding applications in a spectrum of domains, biochar is being studied for use as an adsorbent, a co-catalyst to promote industrial-grade reactions and as a feed for fuel cells. Moreover, the inclusion of biochar as a soil enhancement material advocates the implementation of closed-loop nutrient cycles. Hence, it is imperative to have a proper understanding of the biomass characteristics, the hydrothermal treatment and the process parameters to be adopted for the production of char in order to identify biomass feedstock based on the application. The current work provides insight into the key factors and conditions employed for the production of biochar based on the plethora of applications. In order build a basic framework to aid in the production of char, the development of a statistical correlation was undertaken to determine the feed and optimum process parameters for the production of biochar based on its applications.

AbstractWikipedia’s content is based on reliable and published sources. To this date, relatively little is known about what sources Wikipedia relies on, in part because extracting citations and identifying cited sources is challenging. To close this gap, we release Wikipedia Citations, a comprehensive data set of citations extracted from Wikipedia. We extracted29.3 million citations from 6.1 million English Wikipedia articles as of May 2020, and classified as being books, journal articles, or Web content. We were thus able to extract 4.0 million citations to scholarly publications with known identifiers—including DOI, PMC, PMID, and ISBN—and further equip an extra 261 thousand citations with DOIs from Crossref. As a result, we find that 6.7% of Wikipedia articles cite at least one journal article with an associated DOI, and that Wikipedia cites just 2% of all articles with a DOI currently indexed in the Web of Science. We release our code to allow the community to extend upon our work and update the data set in the future.

Abstract The aphids, Myzus persicae (Sulzer) and Aphis gossypii (Glover) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) and the whiteflies, Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) and Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) are the most damaging pests of greenhouse crops, which cause vector-borne viral diseases and its damage includes chlorosis, necrosis, and fruit abortion. This review article addresses the protected cultivation of vegetable crops (cucumber, capsicum, tomato, and gerbera), important insect pests of greenhouse crops in India along with its management by entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) and increase in the virulence by different genetically modified techniques. Due to excessive and indiscriminate use of insecticides over the years, these insect pests became resistant to these insecticides. So, there is a need for the effectual substitutes to manage these pests. Biological control is a foundation of integrated pest management (IPM) that plays a key role in the repression of arthropod pests. Among different IPM program, the uses of different microbial formulations are ecofriendly and safe for life and proven a boon for the farmers and entrepreneurs. EPF are the most effective in reducing aphid and whitefly populations on vegetable crops recommending its organic production under greenhouse conditions and could be a part of IPM. In the future, these insect pests will become more resistant to entomopathogens. Some novel techniques such as genetic engineering of fungal formulations will be required to increase the efficiency of various entomopathogens as these techniques are well adopted by countries like the USA, China, and European countries but its use in India and needs to be improved in the near future.

Abstract The peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Hemiptera: Aphididae) and silver leaf whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) are the major pests of capsicum under protected cultivation. The entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) are environmentally safe than the chemical pesticides. In the present study, different EPF formulations, Beauveria bassiana Balsamo (Vuillemin), Lecanicillium lecanii (Zimmerman) Viegas, Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) Sorokin, were evaluated along with Azadirachtin 1% for the management of the aphid and the whitefly on capsicum under protected conditions. Result showed that talc formulation of L. lecanii MTCC 956 at 10 and 12 g/l caused 60.5 and 61.6% population reduction for aphid and 60.0 and 61.6% population reduction for whitefly, whereas Azadirachtin 1% at 4 and 5 ml/l caused 71.2 and 74.7% population reduction for aphid and 68.5 and 71.0% population reduction for whitefly after 3rd spray, respectively and were effective in reducing aphid and whitefly populations on capsicum recommending its organic production under protected cultivation and could be a part of integrated pest management program.

Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermally induced membrane separation process that utilizes vapor pressure variance to permeate the more volatile constituent, typically water as vapor, across a hydrophobic membrane and rejects the less volatile components of the feed. Permeate flux decline, membrane fouling, and wetting are some serious challenges faced in MD operations. Thus, in recent years, various studies have been carried out on the modification of these MD membranes by incorporating nanomaterials to overcome these challenges and significantly improve the performance of these membranes. This review provides a comprehensive evaluation of the incorporation of new generation nanomaterials such as quantum dots, metalloids and metal oxide-based nanoparticles, metal organic frameworks (MOFs), and carbon-based nanomaterials in the MD membrane. The desired characteristics of the membrane for MD operations, such as a higher liquid entry pressure (LEPw), permeability, porosity, hydrophobicity, chemical stability, thermal conductivity, and mechanical strength, have been thoroughly discussed. Additionally, methodologies adopted for the incorporation of nanomaterials in these membranes, including surface grafting, plasma polymerization, interfacial polymerization, dip coating, and the efficacy of these modified membranes in various MD operations along with their applications are addressed. Further, the current challenges in modifying MD membranes using nanomaterials along with prominent future aspects have been systematically elaborated.

India hosts approximately 10.4 million tribal individuals, accounting for 8.6 percent of its total population. These tribes, living in close harmony with nature, have developed significant indigenous practices and technologies to utilize the extensive resources available in their regions, along with related bio-cultural knowledge. India has nurtured a rich traditional civilization for over 5,000 years. Given the country's substantial tribal population, its long history, and rich culture, there is a wealth of indigenous knowledge throughout the nation. This knowledge comprises the collective experiences of community members, passed down across generations through cultural transmission. It is holistic, verbally conveyed, and has evolved from years of continuous experimentation in daily life. However, as the indigenous population ages, this knowledge is rapidly declining, which is concerning. Since indigenous knowledge is closely linked to sustainable development, it is crucial to document, conserve, and preserve this invaluable asset. This study aims to investigate the indigenous knowledge of farmers from two tribal communities in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, focusing on their farming methods, animal care, and rainfall prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]