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Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a critical, life-threatening condition marked by severe inflammation and impaired lung function. Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) present a promising therapeutic avenue due to their immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative capabilities. This review comprehensively evaluates MSC-based strategies for ARDS treatment, including direct administration, tissue engineering, extracellular vesicles (EVs), nanoparticles, natural products, artificial intelligence (AI), gene modification, and MSC preconditioning. Direct MSC administration has demonstrated therapeutic potential but necessitates optimization to overcome challenges related to effective cell delivery, homing, and integration into damaged lung tissue. Tissue engineering methods, such as 3D-printed scaffolds and MSC sheets, enhance MSC survival and functionality within lung tissue. EVs and MSC-derived nanoparticles offer scalable and safer alternatives to cell-based therapies. Likewise, natural products and bioactive compounds derived from plants can augment MSC function and resilience, offering complementary strategies to enhance therapeutic outcomes. In addition, AI technologies could aid in optimizing MSC delivery and dosing, and gene editing tools like CRISPR/Cas9 allow precise modification of MSCs to enhance their therapeutic properties and target specific ARDS mechanisms. Preconditioning MSCs with hypoxia, growth factors, or pharmacological agents further enhances their therapeutic potential. While MSC therapies hold significant promise for ARDS, extensive research and clinical trials are essential to determine optimal protocols and ensure long-term safety and effectiveness.

Streptococcus pyogenes is a pathogen capable of causing a wide spectrum of diseases including pharyngitis and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, with a range of complications and outcomes. Even though it is not an uncommon pathogen, reports of scarlet fever are scarce in Sri Lanka. We describe a case of scarlet fever in a seven-year-old boy with typical features. The child presented with high fever, body aches, vomiting, loss of appetite and a rash and developed pharyngitis and a strawberry tongue during the ward stay. A pure growth of group A Streptococcus was isolated from a throat swab taken on admission. He improved with appropriate treatment and recovered without complications. The importance of throat swab culture and clinical correlation is illustrated in this case report.

ABSTRACT: Even though supplementations of essential AA (EAA) are often related to increased lactose yields in dairy cows, underlying mechanisms connecting EAA availability to the mammary glands and lactose synthesis are poorly understood. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of branched-chain AA (BCAA) including Leu, Ile, and Val on (1) glucose transporter (GLUT1) abundance and glucose uptake, (2) the abundance of proteins regulating lactose synthesis pathway, and (3) fractional synthesis rates of lactose (FSR) using bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMEC) and mammary tissues slices (MTS). The BMEC (n = 4) were allocated randomly to regular Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium with Ham's F12 (DMEM/F12) medium (+EAA) or +EAA deficient (by 90%) in all EAA (−EAA), all BCAA (−BCAA), only Leu (−Leu), only Ile (−Ile) or only Val (−Val). Western immunoblotting analyses, depletion of glucose in media, and a proteomic analysis were performed to determine the abundance of GLUT1 in the cell membrane, net glucose uptake, and the abundance of enzymes involved in lactose synthesis pathway in BMEC, respectively. The MTS (n = 6) were allocated randomly to DMEM/F12 medium having all EAA and 13C-glucose at concentrations similar to plasma concentrations of cows (+EAAp), and +EAAp deprived of all BCAA (−BCAAp) or only Leu (−Leup) for 3 h. The 13C enrichments of free glucose pool in MTS (EGlu-free) and the enrichments of glucose incorporated into lactose in MTS and media [ELactose-bound (T&M)] were determined and used in calculating FSR. In BMEC, −BCAA increased the fraction of total GLUT1 translocated to the cell membrane and the fraction that was potentially glycosylated compared with +EAA. Among individual BCAA, only −Leu was associated with a 63% increase in GLUT1 translocated to the cell membrane and a 40% increase in glucose uptake of BMEC. The −BCAA tended to be related to a 75% increase in the abundance of hexokinase in BMEC. Deprivation of Leu tended to increase glucose uptake of MTS but did not affect EGlu-free, ELactose-bound (T&M), or FSR relative to +EAAp. On the other hand, −BCAAp did not affect glucose uptake of MTS but was related to lower ELactose-bound (T&M), or FSR relative to +EAAp. Considering together, decreasing Leu supply to mammary tissues enhances GLUT1 and thus glucose uptake, which, however, does not affect lactose synthesis rates. Moreover, the deficiency of other BCAA, Ile, and Val alone or together with the deficiency of Leu seemed to decrease lactose synthesis rates without affecting glucose uptake. The data also emphasize the importance of addressing the effect of the supply of other nutrients to the mammary glands than the precursor supply in describing the synthesis of a milk component.

In the present research work, a concave-type stepped solar still is experimentally investigated. The statistical analysis shows the influence of different variables identified on the efficiency of the still. The proposed still was fabricated with a basin area of 1 m2, a concave-type stepped aluminum basin with 10 numbers of steps, 100 mm width, and 35 mm height. Based on the experimental results, a regression model developed in Minitab 19 statistical software was proposed. Depending on the value of the R square, the appropriate model was selected. For a set of data comprising efficiency, the temperature at various locations, the intensity of radiation, and the hourly yield from the still as an input variable. The statistical results revealed that the model developed with average values recorded in March is more significant as it possesses R square = 0.9944. Hence the proposed model was suitable for the estimation of the efficiency. The highest daily productivity (3.7 l/m2. day) was achieved during March 2020. This may be attributable to the highest average intensity of the radiation (1005 W/m2) and the most top average temperature difference of 10.5 °C.

Nonlinear structured illumination microscopy is a super-resolution technique that is challenging to extend to 3 dimensions. The authors obtain super-resolution image information in 3D from a 2D scan by exploiting orthogonal speckle illumination patterns and compressed sensing of the sparse fluorescence.

Unreliable conditions and process deterioration of machines are the major issues in several manufacturing systems. These issues not only affect the production schedules but also affect the product quality significantly. A process warm-up production and amalgamation of the preventive and corrective maintenance are important for the smooth functioning of production activities and improving the product quality. The management needs to handle the product shortages carefully and raise the backorders to upgrade the business economy. To accomplish all these objectives, we develop two production inventory models in this paper by considering a process warm-up production run, hybrid maintenance schedule, anticipated shortages during the maintenance period, and rework of imperfect items. Two different rates are used to distinguish the production of imperfect items in the warm-up and standard production periods. We use fixed and variable lengths to represent the warm-up production period in the two models respectively. The maximum customer waiting time for receiving the backorders is calculated under the consideration of finite replenishment policy and simultaneous regular demand satisfaction. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are provided to illustrate the models. The two models are compared based on their annual variable costs. The results suggest that a trade-off between the rework and holding costs of defective items is necessary for better inventory decisions. Determining the optimal value of the length of the warm-up production period is necessary to minimize the annual variable cost.

The increasing concern of global climate changes, the promotion of renewable energy sources, primarily wind generation, is a welcome move to reduce the pollutant emissions from conventional power plants. Integration of wind power generation with the existing power network is an emerging research field. This paper presents a meta-heuristic algorithm based approach to determine the feasible dispatch solution for wind integrated thermal power system. The Unit Commitment (UC) process aims to identify the best feasible generation scheme of the committed units such that the overall generation cost is reduced, when subjected to a variety of constraints at each time interval. As the UC formulation involves many variables and system and operational constraints, identifying the best solution is still a research task. Nowadays, it is inevitable to include power system reliability issues in operation strategy. The generator failure and malfunction are the prime influencing factor for reliability issues hence they have considered in UC formulation of wind integrated thermal power system. The modern evolutionary algorithm known as Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm is applied to solve the intended UC problem. The potential of the GWO algorithm is validated by the standard test systems. Besides, the ramp rate limits are also incorporated in the UC formulation. The simulation results reveal that the GWO algorithm has the capability of obtaining economical resolutions with good solution quality.

This work reports on accurate, high-resolution measurements of the 25Mg(n,γ)26Mg and 25Mg(n,tot) cross sections in the neutron energy range from thermal to about 300 keV, leading to a significantly improved 25Mg(n,γ)26Mg parametrization. The relevant resonances for n+25Mg were characterized from a combined R-matrix analysis of the experimental data. This resulted in an unambiguous spin/parity assignment of the corresponding excited states in 26Mg. With this information experimental upper limits of the reaction rates for 22Ne(α,n)25Mg and 22Ne(α,γ)26Mg were established, potentially leading to a significantly higher (α,n)/(α,γ) ratio than previously evaluated. The impact of these results has been studied for stellar models in the mass range 2 to 25 M⊙.

In the present study, γ-glycine has been crystallized by using zinc acetate dihydrate as an additive for the first time by slow solvent evaporation method. The second harmonic conversion efficiency of γ-glycine crystal was determined using Kurtz and Perry powder technique and was found to be 3.66 times greater than that of standard inorganic material potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP). The analytical grade chemicals of glycine and zinc acetate dihydrate were taken in six different molar ratios: 1:0.2, 1:0.4, 1:0.6, 1:0.7, 1:0.8, and 1:0.9 respectively to find out the γ-polymorph of glycine. The lower molar concentration of zinc acetate yield only α-polymorph where as the higher molar concentration of zinc acetate inhibits the γ-polymorph of glycine which was confirmed by single crystal XRD and powder XRD studies. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was carried out to quantify the concentration of zinc element in the grown glycine single crystals. The concentration of zinc element in the presence of grown γ-glycine single crystal is found to be 0.73 ppm. UV–Visible–NIR transmittance spectra were recorded for the samples to analyse the transparency in visible and near infrared region (NIR). The optical band gap Eg was estimated for γ-glycine single crystal using UV–Visible–NIR study. Functional groups present in the samples were identified by FTIR spectroscopic analysis. Differential scanning calorimetry technique was employed to determine the phase transition, thermal stability and melting point of the grown crystal.

Aim: To compare and contrast the various changes in the connective tissue among patients with the habits of smoking, pan chewing and controls by using fluorescence spectroscopy, histopathology and transmission electron microscopy. Method: Thirty subjects were categorized into three groups: pan chewers, smokers and controls without any oral lesions. Fluorescence spectroscopy was carried out using FLUOROMAX-2. Excitation spectroscopy was performed at 280 and 320nm respectively and Emission spectroscopy was performed at 340 and 390nm excitation. Subsequently, histopathological evaluation and transmission electron microscopy was done for biopsies taken from test groups and controls. Results: The mean, standard deviation and test of significance of mean values between different groups for intensity-380nm, intensity–420nm and intensity – 460nm at 320 nm excitations, showed that the Mean values in group I and group II were significantly higher than the mean value in group III with a p-value of less than 0.001. Considering the histopathological parameters, the pattern of the sub-epithelial connective tissue, the presence of chronic inflammatory cells and lysis of connective tissue was significant. The ultrastructural analysis revealed the presence of epithelioid, spindle or elongated and stellate shaped fibroblasts in the connective tissue. Conclusion: In this pilot study, we could find variations in emission characteristics of various amino acids which correlated with histopathology and electron microscopy. Our study suggests that there are connective tissue changes in oral mucosa among smokers and pan chewers, though it is apparently normal in clinical presentation. These initial connective tissue changes could determine the progression of altered mucosa to a pre-cancer or cancer, which is further related to other complex interactions. Elaborate studies are required to evaluate the significance of our hypothesis.

Premalignant lesions like oral lichen planus (OLP), oral leukoplakia (OL) has a fair probability of transforming into malignancy and they are perverse toward conventional therapies. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been considered as an alternative/complimentary therapeutic modality for the management of premalignant lesions. In this study, methylene blue-mediated photodynamic therapy (MB-PDT) was used as a possible alternative method for the treatment of OLP and OL. A total of 15 OLP lesions and 13 OL lesions were enrolled in the study. The patients were irradiated using metal halide lamp filtered at 630 ± 10 nm, with a light exposure dose of 120 J/cm2 per sitting. For the OLP lesions, MB-PDT was performed once a week for four weeks and for the OL lesions, MB-PDT was performed twice a week for three weeks. Lesions were evaluated pre- and post- and at follow-up sessions by changes in sign and symptom scores, and size of lesions. We have observed a 53.3% of complete reduction in the treated OLP lesions and their decrease in size, sign and symptom score after treatment and at follow-up session was statistically significant. We have also observed complete response for one OL lesion of the 13 treated lesions. The result indicates that MB-PDT is an effective modality in management of OLP and OL. Among the two types of premalignancies treated with MB-PDT, OLP lesions responded much better than that of OL.

In the title compound, C14H17N3OS2, the central piperidinone ring adopts a chair conformation and the thiazole rings are inclined to its mean plane by 80.16 (12) and 67.15 (12)°. The O atom and methyl group C atom deviate significantly from the mean plane of the central piperidinone ring, by 0.8138 (2) and 0.3175 (2) Å, respectively. The dihedral angle between the thiazole rings is 51.88 (13)°. In the crystal, molecules are linked via C—H...O hydrogen bonds, forming zigzag C(10) chains running parallel to [001].

In the title compound, C24H27N5O2S·0.5H2O, the piperidine ring adopts a distorted boat conformation. The phenyl rings subtend dihedral angles of 69.7 (1) and 88.7 (1)° with the best plane through the piperidine moiety. In the crystal, symmetry-related molecules are linked through a network of C—H...O and C—H...N interactions, the former connecting them into zigzag chains along the c-axis direction and the latter forming an R22(4)motif. The dimer formation (C—H...N) and the repetition of symmetry-related molecules (C—H...O) along the b-axis direction stabilize the packing mode. The water molecule is located on a twofold rotation axis.

In the title compound, C24H25N3O2S2, the piperidine ring adopts a distorted boat conformation. The phenyl rings subtend angles of 75.6 (1)° and 86.3 (1)° with the mean plane of the piperidine ring. In the crystal, molecules are linked through a network C—H...N hydrogen bonds, forming zigzag chains along [100]. The thiadiazol ring methyl group is disordered over two positions with an occupancy ratio of 0.69 (4):0.31 (4).

This paper reports a study on photo-cross-linkable polymer containing pendant chalcone moiety exhibiting liquid crystalline as well as fluorescence lifetime properties in detail. The photoresponsive polymers were prepared, and their structure has been characterized by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The photo-cross-linking behavior of polymers has been studied by UV-Visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. UV spectral studies revealed that the polymers follow 2π+2π cyclo addition reactions when they undergo photo-cross-linking under the influence of UV-light. Number and weight average molecular weight of the polymers were determined by Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) and polydispersity index value near to 1.5. The thermal and thermooxidative stability of the polymers were determined by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). Thermal transitions were studied by DSC, and presence of mesophases was identified at 147 and 126∘C by hot stage polarized light optical microscopy (HPOM). Fluorescence lifetime measurements using the time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) method reveal that the average lifetime values decrease from 5.94 ns to 5.32 ns on UV-irradiation were discussed in detail.

Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) is one of the severe plastic deformation methods that is applied to metals, alloys and composite materials in order to convert the normal grain structure into ultra-fine grain structure, so as to increase the strength of the metal and its ductility. The uniqueness of ECAP is that the severe plastic deformation apply large strains on the material without affecting the original dimensions of material. ECAP process was chosen among the other severe plastic deformation methods, because of its cost-effectiveness and simplicity. Die angle, corner angle, ECAP routes, number of passes and heat treatments have great impact on the micro-structure and mechanical properties of various materials. The grain refinement enhances the yield strength, tensile strength, hardness, ductility and corrosion resistance on ECAPed materials, which are commonly used for engineering and bio-medical applications. Many researchers have contributed greatly to this method. This article mainly focuses on the effect of ECAP die orientations and on novel ECAP methods that exclusively combines ECAP with heat treatment or hot working on aluminium, magnesium, titanium and other materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: The contemporary esthetic restorative materials such as composite resin and glass‑ionomer cements and their modifications have all been developed keeping in mind the requirements of permanent teeth. There have been plenty of studies that have focused on the characteristics of these materials in relation to permanent teeth with a relative dearth of such studies as regard to the primary teeth. The present study was undertaken to compare and evaluate the shear bond strength of composite resin, compomer, and resin‑modified glass‑ionomer cements in primary teeth. METHODS: Thirty non‑carious primary molars that were indicated for extraction because of physiological resorption or, for orthodontic reasons, were selected. The selected teeth were randomly allocated to three groups of 10 each for composite, compomer, and resin‑modified glass‑ionomer cements. The enamel from the occlusal surface of all teeth was removed to expose the superficial dentin and was wet polished with 400 grit sand paper. Composite, compomer, and resin‑modified glass‑ionomer stubs were bonded on to the occlusal surfaces using a plastic tube as a template. All samples were, then, subjected to thermocycling and evaluation of shear bond strength using the universal testing machine at a cross‑head speed of 0.5 mm/min, whereas the results obtained were subjected to statistical analysis. Statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA), whereas one‑way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey’s multiple post‑hoc procedures were used for statistical analysis. A P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean shear bond strength values for Groups I, II, and III were found to be 11.7 ± 3.07 MPa, 7.74 ± 4.16 Mpa, and 4.43 ± 2.08 Mpa, respectively, whereas one‑way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple post‑hoc procedures indicated that there were remarkable differences among the three groups with the results being statistically significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Composite resin showed the highest shear bond strength in relation to primary dentin when compared to compomer and resin‑modified glass‑ionomer cements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]