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The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy and safety of intralesional 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and triamcinolone acetonide (TA) in the treatment of localized vitiligo. the A non-randomized control trial conducted at Sheikh Zayed Hospital, RYK, from January to June 2022 included sixty patients, aged 18-60 years, with stable vitiligo. Patients were divided into two groups: Group A received 5-FU and Group B received TA. The outcome was assessed using the Vitiligo Area Scoring Index (VASI). There were 58.3% male and 41.7% female, with an average age of 33.33±11.24 years. Baseline characteristics between the two treatment groups were comparable. At 12 weeks, treatment responses were classified as excellent (16.6%), good (16.6%), moderate (35%) and poor (31.6%), with no significant intergroup differences (p=0.203). The 5-FU group showed a more significant lesion size reduction (1.28±1.09cm²) than the TA group (0.61±1.21 cm²) (p=0.028). Adverse effects mainly included pain and erythema. Common side effects included pain and erythema. The study concludes that both intralesional 5-FU and TA are effective and safe for treating localized vitiligo, with 5-FU potentially being more efficacious in lesion size reduction and promoting repigmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strigolactones (SLs) regulate many developmental processes, including shoot-branching/tillering, and mediate rhizospheric interactions. SLs originate from carlactone (CL) and are structurally diverse, divided into a canonical and a noncanonical subfamily. Rice contains two canonical SLs, 4-deoxyorobanchol (4DO) and orobanchol (Oro), which are common in different plant species. The cytochrome P450 OsMAX1-900 forms 4DO from CL through repeated oxygenation and ring closure, while the homologous enzyme OsMAX1-1400 hydroxylates 4DO into Oro. To better understand the biological function of 4DO and Oro, we generated CRISPR/Cas9 mutants disrupted in OsMAX1-1400 or in both OsMAX1-900 and OsMAX1-1400. The loss of OsMAX1-1400 activity led to a complete lack of Oro and an accumulation of its precursor 4DO. Moreover, Os1400 mutants showed shorter plant height, panicle and panicle base length, but no tillering phenotype. Hormone quantification and transcriptome analysis of Os1400 mutants revealed elevated auxin levels and changes in the expression of auxin-related, as well as of SL biosynthetic genes. Interestingly, the Os900/1400 double mutant lacking both Oro and 4DO did not show the observed Os1400 architectural phenotypes, indicating their being a result of 4DO accumulation. Treatment of wild-type plants with 4DO confirmed this assumption. A comparison of the Striga seed germinating activity and the mycorrhization of Os900, Os900/1400, and Os1400 loss-of-function mutants demonstrated that the germination activity positively correlates with 4DO content while disrupting OsMAX1-1400 has a negative impact on mycorrhizal symbiosis. Taken together, our paper deciphers the biological function of canonical SLs in rice and reveals their particular contributions to establishing architecture and rhizospheric communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technical debt (TD) happenswhen project teams carry out technical decisions in favor of a short-term goal(s) in their projects, whether deliberately or unknowingly. TD must be properly managed to guarantee that its negative implications do not outweigh its advantages. A lot of research has been conducted to show that TD has evolved into a common problem with considerable financial burden. Test technical debt is the technical debt aspect of testing (or test debt). Test debt is a relatively new concept that has piqued the curiosity of the software industry in recent years. In this article, we assume that the organization selects the testing artifacts at the start of every sprint. Implementing the latest features in consideration of expected business value and repaying technical debt are among candidate tasks in terms of the testing process (test cases increments). To gain the maximum benefit for the organization in terms of software testing optimization, there is a need to select the artifacts (i.e., test cases) with maximum feature coverage within the available resources. The management of testing optimization for large projects is complicated and can also be treated as a multi-objective problem that entails a trade-off between the agile software's short-term and long-term value. In this article, we implement a multi-objective indicatorbased evolutionary algorithm (IBEA) for fixing such optimization issues. The capability of the algorithm is evidenced by adding it to a real case study of a university registration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We applied a new approach to obtain natural frequency of the nonlinear oscillator with discontinuity. He's Hamiltonian approach is modified for nonlinear oscillator with discontinuity for which the elastic force term is proportional to sgn(u). We employed this method for higher-order approximate solution of the nonlinear oscillator equation. This property is used to obtain approximate frequency-amplitude relationship of a nonlinear oscillator with high accuracy. Many numerical results are given to prove the efficiency of the suggested technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate the quality of sleep in patients hospitalised with coronavirus disease-2019, and its impact on hospitalisation duration, need for intensive care unit admission and mortality., Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan, from May 2, 2021 to April 30, 2022, and comprised hospitalised coronavirus disease-2019 patients. Data was gathered using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire, including demographics, comorbidities, length of hospital stay, need for intensive care unit admission, C-reactive protein and D-dimer values at admission, and the outcome. The patients were divided into group A having good sleep quality score >5 and group B having poor sleep quality score <5. Data was analysed using SPSS 25., Results: Of the 1,250 patients, 559(44.7%) were males and 691(55.3%) were females. There were 560(44.8%) patients in group A with mean age 53.80±14.85 years, and 690(55.2%) patients in group B with mean age 53.71±14.32 years. There were no significant intergroup differences in terms of age and high-resolution computed tomography scan (p>0.05). The difference was significant with respect to gender, comorbid conditions, education status as well C-reactive protein and D-dimer levels (p<0.001). Group B patients had a longer duration of hospitalisation (p<0.001) and a higher need for intensive care unit admission (p<0.001) compared to group A. The outcome was death in 166(13.28%) patients in group B compared to 40(3.2%) in group A (p<0.001)., Conclusions: Poor sleep quality was found to be associated with longer hospital stay, increased need for mechanical ventilation, and higher mortality rate in coronavirus disease-2019 patients.