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Ambipolar organic electrochemical transistors simplify bioelectronics circuitry but are challenging due to complicated material design and synthesis. Here, the authors demonstrate that p- and n-type blends offer a simple and tuneable approach for the fabrication of ambipolar devices and circuits.

Watermarks used to verify the authorship of various works of art is a simple tool available to novice authors. This paper proposes a new technique to enhance the resistance of watermarks in audio files. As parts of a melody or image, leveraged watermarks can be recognized by human beings, even if dramatically corrupted. Nevertheless, increasing the quality of extracted watermarks is always helpful. This is achieved by new methods developed for damaged watermark restoration. In our methods, the source media is converted into a ternary code. The suggested technique is based on the restoration of a part of the source's features via its ternary code. Discrete cosine transform matrix rows are used as the final impulse response filters. Some features of the source are extracted by applying a linear combination of these filters to the ternary watermark. We consider the two most frequently occurring attacks: filtering and converting into mp3 format.

In this paper, we describe a new method for speaker clustering in an audio file. The main idea is to replace the speech signal with a step function having a limited number of levels. The research goal is to determine the signal characteristics obtained from the analysis of the step function produced. The step function is created by setting multiple levels that divide the signal range into non-overlapping strips. All the source signal values, which are inside a stip, are changed for the strips mark. Using the sine function as a template, we get recommendations for choosing the sources best-keeping features. We employ the obtained results to solve the problem of speaker diarization. The developed diarization algorithm requires little computer resources. The experiments show the suitability of the developed results to the conditions of the online diarization process.

A comparative analysis of the effectiveness of two classes of drugs – angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers (ARBS II) in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases is presented. The advantage of ACEI over ARB II in reducing total and cardiovascular mortality, myocardial infarction, brain stroke, chronic heart failure, and chronic kidney disease is shown. The reasons for the different effects of inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system on the course of cardiovascular pathology are explained by the mechanisms of therapeutic effects of ACEI and ARB II. The antihypertensive effect of ARB II is provided by selective blockade of AT1 receptors for angiotensin II (at II). As a result of the blockade, an additional amount of at II accumulates in the blood, which binds to AT2 receptors, contributes to the appearance of a number of negative phenomena. Stimulation of AT2-receptors (possibly also AT3-, AT4-receptors) unutilized at II leads to apoptosis of the structural elements of the arterial wall, its fibrosis, sclerosis and hypertrophy, inhibition of coronary remodeling with impaired neovascularization of the myocardium, as well as increased proatherogenic and inflammatory processes in the endothelium, possibly in the heart tissue. Stimulation of AT2 receptors also promotes leukocyte-dependent release of matrix metalloproteinase I, which leads to the destruction of extracellular matrix proteins, thereby destabilizing the atherosclerotic plaque, leading to its rupture, which is a possible reason for increasing the risk of myocardial infarction during treatment with sartans. The cascade of these negative effects may be the main mechanism of IHD destabilization in the appointment of ARB II. Unlike sartans, the therapeutic potential of ACEI is realized through the blockade of at II synthesis, without affecting the work of the receptor apparatus, so the above adverse effects associated with the accumulation of at II do not occur. An important physiological feature of ACEI is their ability to increase the level of bradykinin, which has a positive effect on the vascular wall, reduces their stiffness by increasing prostaglandin synthesis, demonstrates antioxidant and anti-apoptotic effects, leads to a decrease in afterload and stimulation of angiogenesis. It is these mechanisms that underlie the more pronounced cardioprotective effect of ACEI in contrast to ARB II.

In this paper, we developed a new technique for blind embedding of ternary coded watermarks into audio files. Usage of ternary coding increases payload of the method that can be considered as an advantage against binary-coded watermarks. A well-known melody is presented as a sequence of ternary digits (trits) and is used as a watermark. This sequence is embedded into the time domain of a host audio file through amplitude modulation and B-splines. There is a version of that procedure where the clean copy of the container is necessary for extraction watermark [1]. In our approach, we exclude that container and convert the method into a blind one. The strong correlation between neighbor samples in the container is used to this end. A procedure based on neuron net is suggested for enhancement perception of ternary coded music. In this case, we exploit the correlation between samples in the watermark melody. It is supposed that a person checks the mark's existence, and he/she can recognize the melody even after significant distortions. The resistance of the technique to the most successful attacks is investigated.

The article presents the clinical case of an abscess of the iliopsoas muscle (iliopsoitis), a rare abdominal infectious and inflammatory disease that required a multidisciplinary approach in the diagnosis of this pathology in a multidisciplinary hospital.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes of the crystal lattice of NiTi instruments after repeated autoclave sterilization cycles based on the results to conclude about the influence of multiple sterilization on the characteristics of ProTaper clinical use. Methods. 21 samples of ProTaper Universal rotary files were divided into 3 groups of 7 samples. After 1, 4, and 7 cycles of sterilization, the samples were observed using еnergy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results. EDS analysis confirmed that all samples were composed mainly of nickel and titanium, also Fe (presumably steel), Cr, Co, and Zn were found. The percentage of nickel and titanium was affected by repeated sterilization cycles. The mass fraction of Fe, Co, Zn, and Cr decreased after 1, 4, and 7 sterilization cycles. According to the results of the second study, it was found that, with increasing autoclaving cycles, the percentage of Fe decreased. There were changes in the three obtained diffractograms, which indicated an increase in the number of the martensitic phase and a decrease in austenitic. The cutting efficiency of the ProTaper is also reduced during repeated sterilization cycles, which can be caused by the austenitic and martensitic phase displacement. Conclusion. Manufacturing features and repeated sterilization cycles increase the internal deformation in the structure of NiTi alloy, which increases the risk of fracture.

SUMMARY The RaxHR two-component regulatory system (TCS) of the rice pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae is required for AvrXa21 activity. RaxH is a typical transmembrane histidine protein kinase (HK), whereas RaxR is its concomitant response regulator (RR). Here, we report the isolation of soluble, active amounts of recombinant His-tagged full-length RaxH and RaxR following growth of Escherichia coli over-expressing strains in the presence of sorbitol and glycine betaine. Full-length His-RaxH showed similar autophosphorylation activities to that of a truncated version of the protein (His-t-RaxH), lacking the N-terminal transmembrane region. Transphosphorylation assays revealed that only full-length RaxH was able to induce phosphorylation of His-RaxR, indicating that the N-terminal region of RaxH may be required for transphosphorylation of RaxR. Using site-directed mutagenesis we also demonstrated that residues histidine 222 in RaxH and aspartate 51 in RaxR are essential for phosphorylation activities of these proteins. Utilization of compatible solutes may be widely applied for purification of soluble, active recombinant transmembrane proteins, and in particular for purification of transmembrane HKs.

In this paper, we continue to study of a novel family of generators producing true uniform random numbers. The generator consists of a number of identical ternary logic combinational gates. In our previous work, the main attention was dedicated to the schemes composed of the gates in a ring. Other circuits are taken into consideration in this paper. All the units are characterized by time delays that are random and independent. If this time delay has an exponential distribution, then the theory of generator's behaviour is based on the Erlang equations. Some other models are also considered. The features of the multidimensional random vectors produced by the generator are discussed. They can be used for identification of the generator. This article is an extended version of the report presented by the authors at conference [Latypov R.Kh., Stolov E.L. Ternary jitter-based true random number generator. IOP J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 2017, vol. 783, art. 012064. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/783/1/012064].