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Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disorder with various extraintestinal manifestations. Vulva is rarely involved in Crohn's disease and occasionally may constitute the only sign of the disease. It is often unrecognized and can be confused with various disorders involving the vulva. Vulval Crohn's disease is often refractory to treatment. We describe a case of 30-year-old female presented with labial swelling, discharging sinuses and knife cut fissures and diagnosed as a case of vulval Crohn's without intestinal involvement, that was managed with oral steroids, sulfasalazine, and metronidazole.

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune blistering disorder affecting elderly people. It presents as tense blisters on urticarial base and is associated with intense pruritus. It commonly involves lower abdomen, inner or anterior thighs, and flexor forearms. Localized BP limited to certain parts of the body has also been described in literature. Both classical and localized BP is diagnosed based on histopathology and immunofluorescence. Corticosteroids remain the main stay of treatment. Here, we describe a case of BP presenting as malar blistering closely mimicking bullous systemic lupus erythematosus.

Onychomycosis refers to the nondermatophytic and dermatophytic involvement of nails. Literature suggests its increasing prevalence from the younger to the older age group. In addition to the important clinical consequences that the infection holds, it also acts as a reservoir of infection. We, hereby, report a case of a 3-year-old immunocompetent child with single nail onychomycosis due to Aspergillus niger. To the best of our knowledge, this is the youngest reported case of onychomycosis due to A. niger.

In this paper, we study algebraic structures called modified near algebras, normed modified algebras obtained from new near structures called modified near modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhizophora is one of the incredibly potent medicinal mangrove plants with abundant store of secondary metabolites. This study is directed towards the effect of Rhizophora mucronata leaf extract against Penaeus stylirostris penstyldensovirus I (PstDVI)/ Infectious hypodermal hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV), a common potential aquaculture pathogen in shrimp, listed by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). The antiviral property of R. mucronata extract was confirmed through in vitro studies in PmLyO-Sf9 cell line and in vivo studies in P. monodon post larva conducted in batches of 20 post larvae (Juveniles) of 15-mm size for a period of 40 days in a rearing system having the gross parameters such as pH, alkalinity, hardness, ammonia, and nitrite measured and regulated. IHHNV-free status of experimental animals was confirmed by selecting random animals from the pool and testing them for IHHNV genes by diagnostic PCR. The extract showed virucidal property and inhibited virus attachment and replication both in PmLyO-Sf9 cells and P. monodon post larva. A significant reduction in IHHNV capsid gene expression was observed through qPCR analysis. All the three concentrations studied (1 mg mL−1, 0.5 mg mL−1, 0.25 mg mL−1) showed virus replication inhibition. Virus attachment inhibition was prominent at 1 mg mL−1 and 0.5 mg mL−1, but ineffective at 0.25 mg mL−1 plant extract. Meanwhile, virucidal property of the extract was significant at 1 mg mL−1 of the plant crude extract. Transmission electron microscopy images (TEM) of P. monodon larval tissue treated with the extract followed by the IHHNV infection did not show any cytological changes as the cells remained apparently normal. GC–MS profiling of the crude extract showed the presence of 28 phytochemicals which have contributed to the activity. From the study, it is evident that R. mucronata methanolic extract contains discrete compounds/molecules having anti-IHHNV property and can potentially serve as a source of natural therapeutics against the pathogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cybersecurity is a challenge in every field, but it poses a bigger challenge to finance institutions because the cost of recovering from a cybersecurity attack is enormous and time-consuming. Security becomes a bigger concern when finance institutions move into Cloud Computing (CC) technology because clouds are outsourced to third party vendors. That is why, the banking sectors still have concerns about CC adoption. The concerns are mainly related to the security of financial data and these concerns become more valid if the data have to be deployed on machines that do not exist in the physical proximity of the country where the rules and regulations apply. This study is an overall evaluation of the banking sector's privacy, security, and trust issues in cloud computing. The data collection and analysis consist of mainly three parts, quantitative, qualitative, and experimental evaluation. The quantitative part consists of a systematic literature review (SLR) of research articles from 2016 to 2020. A total of 623 publications were searched from six different databases, and 61 studies were filtered after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. The second part consists of a qualitative study in which expert opinion is also collected in the form of interviews. Different issues are highlighted in SLR and by experts related to data privacy on cloud platforms. However, the ease of deployment, the optimal use of resources, and the reduction in maintenance costs are considered major advantages of cloud computing platforms. The third part of this study is identifying vulnerabilities and attack vectors in cloud computing platforms using a threat modelling framework. The STRIDE framework is used for threat modelling, and it reveals different vulnerabilities that exist in the cloud platform. For future work, an initial design of private cloud computing platforms is proposed for addressing data privacy, security, and regulatory compliance-related challenges for the banking sector. ACM CCS (2012) Classification: Security and Privacy → Security Services [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spring runoff is critical to agricultural, industrial, and municipal water supply as well as environmental uses in the western United States. Although spring runoff in this region has long been predicted based on late winter and early spring montane snow water storage, the role of soil moisture carryover from the previous winter is less understood and utilized in forecasts. We quantify the relationship between antecedent winter soil moisture and spring runoff for 85 unmanaged catchments in the western United States. Using a regression-based approach, we estimate the proportional reduction in error in seasonal runoff forecasts associated with soil moisture. We classify the catchments into two regimes: interior (cold and relatively dry) and maritime (warmer and wetter), based on seasonal variations in soil moisture. Soil moisture generally is relatively unchanged through the winter period in interior catchments, whereas it increases (mostly gradually, but occasionally rapidly) in maritime catchments. We find that winter temperature dominates soil moisture variability in both types of catchments. We find two patterns in the predictability of spring runoff. First, including antecedent winter soil moisture as a predictor enhances forecast accuracy and variance explanation in spring runoff for both interior and maritime catchments, particularly and with greater significance in interior catchments. Second, spring runoff prediction skill from antecedent winter soil moisture increases with elevation. Overall, we find strong evidence that the use of antecedent soil moisture can improve spring runoff forecast skill for catchments in the western United States. Significance Statement: Spring runoff forecasts are crucial for water supply in the western United States, but typically exclude information about soil moisture despite its key role in the water balance. Our study explores how and why incorporating information about winter's soil moisture levels affects spring runoff forecasts across 85 catchments in the western United States. We find that doing so can produce modest improvements in the prediction skill of spring runoff for both interior and maritime catchments but is particularly noticeable in interior catchments and at higher elevations where temperatures are lower. Overall, our research strongly supports the idea that using information about soil moisture from the previous winter can improve accuracy in spring runoff forecasts for the western United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we construct new near rings Nf from near rings N through 'semilinear-like' mappings and study how nice properties by one of them are enjoyed by the other. It is gratifying to note that almost all nice properties usually imposed upon one of them are inherited by the other with the imposition of subjectivity on f when needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of self-replication initiated by John von Neumann has been investigated by many researchers from different perspectives. As a part of our earlier investigation into self-replication through graph reproduction, we introduced a comprehensive graph reproduction system and identified a few graph reproduction models that are self-replicable. This paper addresses the question of whether a combination of more than one non-self-replicable graph reproduction model is selfreplicable or not. A few existing graph reproduction models were combined in two different ways and tested for self-replicability. Our study confirms that non-self-replicable graph reproduction models become self-replicable by combining themselves with other reproduction models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study to look at how heat and mass transfer affect unsteady MHD flow across an accelerated plate with changing temperature and mass diffusion in the appearance of a heat source (or sink) through porous medium is presented. Initially the temperature and concentration of the fluid and plate are considered to be same at t' ≤ 0. At t' > 0, an impulsive uniform acceleration A is applied to the plate in a vertical upward direction. The non-dimensionalised governing equations defining the flow problem are solved using Laplace transform approach. Effect of various physical quantities involved in the velocity, concentration, temperature, the rate of heat transfer and also the rate of mass transfer are investigated through graphs and tables and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Mining & Metallurgy. Section B: Metallurgy is the property of Journal of Mining & Metallurgy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The triaxiality of odd-mass nuclei is investigated by coupling a quasiparticle to an even-even core through the core-quasiparticle coupling model. Both soft and rigid triaxial cores are considered. The “soft core” is described by the collective model with rotation-vibrational motion, while the “rigid core” is described by the triaxial rotor model, which is a limiting case of the collective model with only rotational motion. We show that the presence of the odd quasiparticle modifies the collective quadrupole dynamics of the core to appear more “rigid”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show ways to define near ring products on Rn, where (R,+, ·) is a locally compact topological ring and Rn is equipped with coordinatewise addition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we made elaborate investigation of the Hall current and radiation effects on MHD heat absorbing unsteady natural convection flow of a viscous incompressible electrically conducting fluid past an impulsively moving infinite vertical plate with ramped temperature and concentration in the presence of first order chemical reaction. The constructing coupled PDEs of the model along with initial and boundary conditions are solved numerically by utilizing the robust FEM. The effects of significant parameters on the primary and secondary velocities, temperature and concentration within the boundary layer are examined. The computational assessment of the primary and secondary shear stresses, rate of heat and mass transfer at the plate surface are put in tabular form. The thermal and mass buoyancy effects elevate both primary and secondary velocity components whilst reverse trend takes place when radiation and chemical reaction parameters are increased. Both primary and secondary velocity components decrease with increasing magnetic parameter whilst opposite trend are noticed with increasing Hall parameter. An increase in Prandtl number and radiation parameter results to reduce temperature distribution. The concentration distribution decreases with increase in Schmidt number and chemical reaction parameter. The significant difference between the fluid velocities is noticed due to the ramped and isothermal boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanofluids flow and heat transfer in micro-channels have a wide range of attributes in industrial process as well as engineering and biomedical applications. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the hydrodynamic and thermal behaviors of unsteady mixed convection flow of nanofluid in a micro-channel filed with a saturated porous medium. The highly nonlinear governing partial differential equations corresponding to the momentum, energy and concentration profiles were formulated and solved numerically by utilizing the semi-discretization finite difference method. The effects of each governing thermophysical parameters on the micro-channel hydrodynamic and thermal behaviors are discussed with the usage of graphs. The numerical results indicate that the velocity and temperature profiles show an increasing behavior with pressure gradient parameter, variable viscosity parameter, Eckert number, thermal Grashof number, solutal Grashof number and thermophoresis parameter, whereas the concentration profile increases with increasing values of suction/injection Reynolds number, porous medium shape parameter, Forchheimer number, Prandtl number, Schmidt number and thermophoresis parameter. Moreover, the result reveals that the skin friction coefficient, the Nusselt number and the Sherwood number are higher for large values of pressure gradient parameter, thermal Grashof number, Prandtl number and Schmidt number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional-scale precise soil moisture measurements are required for remote sensing-based soil moisture product validation besides, complimenting in several hydrological and agricultural applications. Though the gravimetric method provides the most accurate soil moisture measurements, it cannot be extended to the regional-scale due to the large number of sampling requirements. An impedance probe is a suitable substitute for the time-intensive gravimetric method; however, it needs soil/field-specific calibrations for precise measurements. The present study aims to develop a generalized calibration of an impedance probe (i.e., ThetaProbe) for precise measurements of soil moisture at the regional-scale within the root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of 0.04 m3 m−3 to fulfil the accuracy requirement of current satellite missions. A few methods for calibrating impedance probe were investigated using 496 gravimetric samples and coincident impedance probe measurements collected over 83 locations through field campaigns in a paddy dominated tropical Indian watershed that covers an area of 500 km2. The manufacturer generalized calibration was found to have high RMSE (0.0523 m3 m−3) and considerable bias (0.0241 m3 m−3) in soil moisture measurements. Developed generalized and soil-specific calibration based on a linear regression technique that resulted in RMSE values of 0.0468 and 0.0422 m3 m−3 , respectively. Further, a Bayesian neural network (BNN) based method, a nonlinear technique, was used for developing a generalized calibration of the impedance probe. The results illustrated that BNN-based generalized calibration (RMSE<0.04 m3 m−3) performs better than the linear regression–based calibrations (RMSE>0.04 m3 m−3). Moreover, the performance of BNN-based generalized calibration was further improved by the inclusion of soil physical properties as input and yielded an RMSE value up to 0.0352 and 0.0366 m3 m−3 during training and cross-validation process, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining and predicting both the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture content is a critical factor in crop production in semi-arid agricultural systems. The objective of this research was to predict the spatial distribution of soil moisture content using ordinary kriging (OK), regression kriging (RK) and cokriging (CK) models. For that purpose, the soil moisture was monitored in the wet period (March, April and May) and dry period (August, September and October) in Kadınhanı district of Konya Province, Turkey. In each monthly sampling period of the study, a total of 278 samples were collected from locations within an area of 29,608.6 ha. The coefficients of variation (CV) of the soil moisture in dry and wet soil conditions were 0.39 and 0.20, respectively. Soil texture, bulk density (BD) and land use were the most important factors influencing soil moisture. In addition, dry soil generally had a smaller nugget effect than wet soil. Overall, CK was able to better estimate the soil moisture content than OK and RK, as evidenced by the smaller mean absolute error (MAE) and mean square error (MSE). RK estimation is more vulnerable to error than CK and OK estimations because the low coefficients of determination in the regression equation lead to increased error and lower confidence in the estimates. The insights generated by the modeling utilized in this study can assist land use planners, land managers and farmers to more efficiently predict, manage and utilize soil moisture content and hence produce larger crops more sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of ultrastable carbon materials for potassium storage poses key limitations caused by the huge volume variation and sluggish kinetics. Nitrogen‐enriched porous carbons have recently emerged as promising candidates for this application; however, rational control over nitrogen doping is needed to further suppress the long‐term capacity fading. Here we propose a strategy based on pyrolysis–etching of a pyridine‐coordinated polymer for deliberate manipulation of edge‐nitrogen doping and specific spatial distribution in amorphous high‐surface‐area carbons; the obtained material shows an edge‐nitrogen content of up to 9.34 at %, richer N distribution inside the material, and high surface area of 616 m2 g−1 under a cost‐effective low‐temperature carbonization. The optimized carbon delivers unprecedented K‐storage stability over 6000 cycles with negligible capacity decay (252 mA h g−1 after 4 months at 1 A g−1), rarely reported for potassium storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pot soil experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of varying soil copper (Cu) concentration on growth, and on its accumulation pattern in different parts of rice plant (Oryza sativa L.) in 2018, Thailand. The treatments imposed were 0, 50, 100, 200, 400 Cu mg/kg (T1 to T5, respectively). Exposure to 100 mg Cu/kg and above at tillering stage; or to 200 Cu mg/kg and above at panicle initiation stage, significantly decreased the plant height. Exposure to 200 Cu mg/kg (T4) produced significantly lower number tillers per pot than T1 or T2. Negative significant correlation between grain yield of rice and soil Cu concentrations was observed. Increasing accumulation of Cu in grain in a dose-dependent manner occurred, with the peak concentration for T3 (11.39 mg/kg). Copper accumulation by tissue had the rank order grain < shoot < root. About 54 to 91% of total absorbed Cu was retained in the root and 2 to 12% of total Cu uptake was translocated to grain. This is beneficial from the point of view of food safety. In other words, the accumulation of Cu in brown rice in current experiment was below the permissible contaminant limit in food, in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of benzazolyl azolyl sulfamoyl acetamides was prepared from azolyl sulfamoyl acetates and benzazolyl amines in the presence of KOtBu in tetrahydrofuran. Compounds with benzothiazole‐thiazole, benzimidazole‐thiazole, benzothiazole‐imidazole, and benzimidazole‐imidazole moieties exhibited excellent antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive efforts to maximize ground coverage and improve upscaling functions within core validation sites (CVS) of the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, spatial averages of point-scale soil moisture observations often fail to accurately capture the true average of the reference pixels. Therefore, some level of pixel-scale sampling error from in situ observations must be considered during the validation of SMAP soil moisture retrievals. Here, uncertainties in the SMAP core site average soil moisture (CSASM) due to spatial sampling errors are examined and their impact on CSASM-based SMAP calibration and validation metrics is discussed. The estimated uncertainty (due to spatial sampling limitations) of mean CSASM over time is found to be large, translating into relatively large sampling uncertainty levels for SMAP retrieval bias when calculated against CSASM. As a result, CSASM-based SMAP bias estimates are statistically insignificant at nearly all SMAP CVS. In addition, observations from temporary networks suggest that these (already large) bias uncertainties may be underestimated due to undersampled spatial variability. The unbiased root-mean-square error (ubRMSE) of CSASM is estimated via two approaches: classical sampling theory and triple collocation, both of which suggest that CSASM ubRMSE is generally within the range of 0.01–0.02 m3 m−3. Although limitations in both methods likely lead to underestimation of ubRMSE, the results suggest that CSASM captures the temporal dynamics of the footprint-scale soil moisture relatively well and is thus a reliable reference for SMAP ubRMSE calculations. Therefore, spatial sampling errors are revealed to have very different impacts on efforts to estimate SMAP bias and ubRMSE metrics using CVS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel active-clamp forward converter (ACFC) with a lossless-snubber on the secondary-side, which combines a resonant capacitor and a clamping diode with an output inductor in parallel. The conventional ACFC achieves zero-voltage-switching on switches of the primary-side during dead time for reducing the switching loss and voltage spike. Unfortunately, on the secondary-side of transformer, the voltage spike damages the free-wheeling diode and rectifier diode due to the reverse recovery current and junction-capacitor of the diode and leakage inductance of the transformer. This paper proposes a lossless-snubber on the secondary-side operation for reducing the voltage spike on the free-wheeling diode and forward-rectifier diode. Therefore, the converter proposed in this paper is suitable for high-output-current applications. Experimental results are shown to verify the analysis and design procedure of the proposed forward converter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of diamidomethane‐linked benzoxazolyl pyrazoles, benzothiazolyl pyrazoles, and benzimidazolyl pyrazoles were synthesized from the synthetic intermediates N‐benzazolylcarbamoylmethylcinnamides adopting environmentally benign methods. In fact, nitrile imine was generated from araldehyde phenylhydrazone in the presence of iodosobenzene and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide followed by oxidation with iodine in dimethylsulfoxide. The structures of compounds were characterized by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectra. The title compounds were also evaluated for their antifungal activity. Amongst all the tested compounds benzimidazolyl pyrazolyl carboxamides (13a and 13b) were found to be potential antifungal agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein the synthesis and properties of the first β-octaferrocenyltetraphenylporphyrin, {TPPFc8(H2O)2}, in its extraordinary stable and non-aromatic 16π form are reported, showing seven separate reversible redox events. As oxidation progresses, the neighbouring ferrocenyls of the pyrrole subunits display moderate electronic coupling, while electron transfer along the 16π porphyrin cycle was, due to its non-aromatic nature, not observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land surface models (LSMs) have been widely used to provide objective monitoring of soil moisture during drought, but large uncertainties exist because of the different parameterizations in LSMs. This study aims to evaluate the ability to monitor soil moisture drought over three key regions in China by using the Noah LSM from the Global Land Data Assimilation System, version 2 (GLDASv2), and the Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE) model that is currently used at the China Meteorological Administration. The modeled soil moisture drought indices were verified against the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), which served as a reference drought indicator over northern China (NC), northwestern China (NWC), and southwestern China (SWC) from 1961 to 2010. The results show that the precipitation forcing data that drive both LSMs have high accuracy when compared with local observational data. GLDASv2/Noah outperforms CABLE in capturing soil moisture anomalies and variability, especially in SWC, but both show good correlations with the 3-month SPEI (SPEI3) in NC, NWC, and SWC. The autumn drought of 2002 and spring drought of 2010 were selected for the comparison of the modeled drought categories with the SPEI3 drought category, where GLDASv2/Noah performed slightly better than CABLE. This work demonstrates that the choice of LSM is crucial for monitoring soil moisture drought and that the GLDASv2/Noah LSM can be a good candidate for the development of a new operational drought-monitoring system in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of 2,6‐pyridine linked bis (oxadiazoles), bis (thiadiazoles), and bis (triazoles) were prepared from the synthetic intermediates pyridine‐2,6‐dicarbohydrazide, E‐aroylethenesulfonylacetic acid and E‐arylsulfonylethenesulfonylacetic acid adopting ultrasonication methodology and tested for their antioxidant activity. Among all the tested compounds 2,6‐(bis (2‐(4‐methylbenzoylethenesulfonylmethyl)‐1,3,4‐oxadiazol‐5‐yl))‐pyridine (7b) was found to be potential antioxidant agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distorted Born approximation (DBA) of volume scattering was previously combined with the numerical solution of Maxwell equations (NMM3D) for rough surfaces to calculate radar backscattering coefficients for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The model results were validated with the Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2012 (SMAPVEX12) data. In this paper we extend the existing model to calculate the bistatic scattering coefficients for each of the three scattering mechanisms: volume, double bounce and surface scattering. Emissivities are calculated by integrating the bistatic scattering coefficients over the hemispherical solid angle. The backscattering coefficients and emissivities calculated using this approach form a consistent model for combined active and passive microwave remote sensing. This has the advantage that the active and passive microwave remote sensing models are founded on the same theoretical basis and hence allow the use of the same physical parameters such as crop density, plant height, stalk orientation, leaf radius, and surface roughness, amongst others. In this paper, this combined active and passive model, DBA/NMM3D, is applied to four vegetation types to calculate both backscattering coefficients and brightness temperature: wheat, winter wheat pasture and canola. This model uses a single-scattering and incoherent vegetation model which is applicable for the vegetation fields studied in this paper but not suitable for vegetation types where collective scattering or multiple scattering effects are important. We demonstrate the use of the DBA/NMM3D for both active and passive using the same input parameters for matching active and passive coincident data. The model results are validated using coincident airborne Passive Active L-band System (PALS) low-altitude radiometer data and Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) data taken during the SMAPVEX12 field campaign. Results show an average root mean squared error (RMSE) of 1.04 dB and 1.21 dB for backscatter at V V and HH, respectively, and 4.65K and 6.44K for brightness temperature at V-pol and H-pol, respectively. The results are comparable to those from the tau-omega model which is commonly used to compute the brightness temperature, though the physical parameters used in this model are different from the empirically adjusted parameters used in the tau-omega model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]