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X-ray detectors are critical to healthcare diagnostics, cancer therapy and homeland security, with many potential uses limited by system cost and/or detector dimensions. Current X-ray detector sensitivities are limited by the bulk X-ray attenuation of the materials and consequently necessitate thick crystals (~1 mm–1 cm), resulting in rigid structures, high operational voltages and high cost. Here we present a disruptive, flexible, low cost, broadband, and high sensitivity direct X-ray transduction technology produced by embedding high atomic number bismuth oxide nanoparticles in an organic bulk heterojunction. These hybrid detectors demonstrate sensitivities of 1712 µC mGy −1  cm −3 for “soft” X-rays and ~30 and 58 µC mGy −1  cm −3 under 6 and 15 MV “hard” X-rays generated from a medical linear accelerator; strongly competing with the current solid state detectors, all achieved at low bias voltages (−10 V) and low power, enabling detector operation powered by coin cell batteries. X-ray detectors based on low-cost organic semiconductors have inherently low detector sensitivity due to poor X-ray to charge conversion and charge collection. Here, the authors demonstrate a flexible, high-sensitivity X-ray detector based on an organic bulk heterojunction-nanoparticle composite.

Aim To study the discomfort and fear associated with maxillary infiltration injections when using a combination of external cold and a commercially available vibrating device. Methodology A total of 60 children aged 7 years old participated in this split mouth randomised crossover study. The control intervention comprised of the administration of 1.8 ml of 2% lidocaine with 1:100,000 adrenaline using a 24 mm 30 gauge needle, while the test intervention used external cold and a commercially available vibrating device in addition to the control protocol. The heart rate of the child at the time of injection was used as an objective measure and the Wong–Baker pain scale was used as a subjective measure of the child’s discomfort. The face, limbs, arms, cry and consolability (FLACC) scale was used to record the child’s pain as perceived by the dentist. Results Children reported a significantly lower Wong–Baker score and the operators observed a significantly lower heart rate and FLACC scores in the test visit than the control visit. Conclusions Combining external cold with vibrating devices might be effective in reducing discomfort and fear in children undergoing infiltration dental analgesia. Clinical trials Identifier NCT02675387.

Aerodynamic design and optimization of intake of a subsonic cruise missile have been carried out for a specific cruise condition. A hybrid optimization technique by combining both the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method and the Genetic Algorithm (GA) has been used for intake design studies. Subsonic intake geometric parameterization is conducted and a generic intake for a cruise missile is constructed by the CATIA V5 generative shape design module. The developed hybrid optimization algorithm is validated using the experimental method in a subsonic wind tunnel and by using the random initial intake geometry by all design parameters free. Intake geometries are compared to each other which are obtained from optimization iterations. CFD analyses are conducted at an engine-corrected mass flow rate of about 10 kg/s. Optimized geometry reached 0.9 Pressure Recovery (PR) coefficient and 0.0262 distortion coefficient. Experimental verification of the result obtained from the optimized intake produced a satisfactory match with a difference of less than 5%. The circumferential distortion is less than 0.05 and radial distortion is less than 0.4 for both numerical and experimental analysis. Three key milestones such as CFD simulation using Fluent® solver, hybrid optimization using GA-ANN combination and experimental validation using subsonic wind tunnel were achieved in the study.

We analysed aerosol optical and physical properties in an urban environment (Kolkata) during winter monsoon pollution transport from nearby and far-off regions. Prevailing meteorological conditions, viz. low temperature and wind speed, and a strong downdraft of air mass, indicated weak dispersion and inhibition of vertical mixing of aerosols. Spectral features of WinMon aerosol optical depth (AOD) showed larger variability (0.68–1.13) in monthly mean AOD at short-wavelength (SW) channels (0.34–0.5 μm) compared to that (0.28–0.37) at long-wavelength (LW) channels (0.87–1.02 μm), thereby indicating sensitivity of WinMon AOD to fine aerosol constituents and the predominant contribution from fine aerosol constituents to WinMon AOD. WinMon AOD at 0.5 μm (AOD ₀. ₅) and Angstrom parameter ( α) were 0.68–0.82 and 1.14–1.32, respectively, with their highest value in December. Consistent with inference from spectral features of AOD, surface aerosol loading was primarily constituted of fine aerosols (size 0.23–3 μm) which was 60–70 % of aerosol 10- μm (size 0.23–10 μm) concentration. Three distinct modes of aerosol distribution were obtained, with the highest WinMon concentration at a mass median diameter (MMD) of 0.3 μm during December, thereby indicating characteristics of primary contribution related to anthropogenic pollutants that were inferred to be mostly due to contribution from air mass originating in nearby region having predominant emissions from biofuel and fossil fuel combustion. A relatively higher contribution from aerosols in the upper atmospheric layers than at the surface to WinMon AOD was inferred during February compared to other months and was attributed to predominant contribution from open burning emissions arising from nearby and far-off regions. A comparison of ground-based measurements with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data showed an underestimation of MODIS AOD and α values for most of the days. Discrepancy in relative distribution of fine and coarse mode of MODIS AOD was also inferred.

Cruise missiles are fast-moving, low-altitude guided bombs that travel perpendicular to the ground. This kind of missile is propelled by a turbofan engine since it needs to have a low specific fuel consumption (SFC) to help it cover greater distances. The air inlet to the engine must be appropriately let in because the power plant is an air-breathing engine and the path is practically terrain-hugging. The efficiency of a jet engine as a whole depends heavily on the performance of its inlets. Turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent dissipation rate, turbulent intensity, dynamic pressure, static pressure, absolute pressure, strain rate, skin friction, wall shear, local aerodynamic interface plane and tangential velocity were discovered to be the significant characteristics during the design of the inlet. The mass flow in the intake is typically affected by them. Understanding the relationships between the aforementioned parameters is important when designing the air intake. The corrected mass flow rate is approximately 30% higher at pressure ratio (PR)=0.5 than it is at PR=0.9. Wall shear, skin friction, pressure, turbulence intensity and turbulent kinetic energy are the main contributors. These account for 44.4% of the dataset's variation. With no design modifications, the identical intake might be used for higher flow rates (20% higher than the actual specified value).

p53 is the most frequently mutated tumor-suppressor gene in human cancers. Unlike other tumor-suppressor genes, p53 mutations mainly occur as missense mutations within the DNA-binding domain, leading to the expression of full-length mutant p53 protein. Mutant p53 proteins not only lose their tumor-suppressor function, but may also gain new oncogenic functions and promote tumorigenesis. Here, we showed that silencing of endogenous p53-R273H contact mutant, but not p53-R175H conformational mutant, reduced AKT phosphorylation, induced BCL2-modifying factor (BMF) expression, sensitized BIM dissociation from BCL-X L and induced mitochondria-dependent apoptosis in cancer cells. Importantly, cancer cells harboring endogenous p53-R273H mutant were also found to be inherently resistant to anoikis and lack BMF induction following culture in suspension. Underlying these activities is the ability of p53-R273H mutant to suppress BMF expression that is dependent on constitutively active PI3K/AKT signaling. Collectively, these findings suggest that p53-R273H can specifically drive AKT signaling and suppress BMF expression, resulting in enhanced cell survivability and anoikis resistance. These findings open the possibility that blocking of PI3K/AKT will have therapeutic benefit in mutant p53-R273H expressing cancers.

BIOMEDICAL DATA MINING FOR INFORMATION RETRIEVAL This book not only emphasizes traditional computational techniques, but discusses data mining, biomedical image processing, information retrieval with broad coverage of basic scientific applications. Biomedical Data Mining for Information Retrieval comprehensively covers the topic of mining biomedical text, images and visual features towards information retrieval. Biomedical and health informatics is an emerging field of research at the intersection of information science, computer science, and healthcare and brings tremendous opportunities and challenges due to easily available and abundant biomedical data for further analysis. The aim of healthcare informatics is to ensure the high-quality, efficient healthcare, better treatment and quality of life by analyzing biomedical and healthcare data including patient's data, electronic health records (EHRs) and lifestyle. Previously, it was a common requirement to have a domain expert to develop a model for biomedical or healthcare; however, recent advancements in representation learning algorithms allows us to automatically to develop the model. Biomedical image mining, a novel research area, due to the vast amount of available biomedical images, increasingly generates and stores digitally. These images are mainly in the form of computed tomography (CT), X-ray, nuclear medicine imaging (PET, SPECT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. Patients' biomedical images can be digitized using data mining techniques and may help in answering several important and critical questions relating to healthcare. Image mining in medicine can help to uncover new relationships between data and reveal new useful information that can be helpful for doctors in treating their patients. Audience Researchers in various fields including computer science, medical informatics, healthcare IOT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, image processing, clinical big data analytics.

In quarantine facility A, a cohort of 26 individuals who reported back from leave on 8 June were placed in quarantine. [...]in quarantine facility B, two personnel were found positive for COVID-19, one of them a secondary case from an asymptomatic primary case in that cohort (Figure 2). Contributors Study design and planning: RJ, RKR, SA. Data collection: RJ, VC, SP. Estimating the extent of true asymptomatic COVID-19 and its potential for community transmission: systematic review and meta-analysis. medRxiv 2020. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3586675 2 World Health Organisation.

Aim This aim was to evaluate preformed metal crowns (PMC) placed under general anaesthesia using an occlusal template in comparison to crowns placed without the use of a template. Methodology CONSORT protocols were followed in the design of the study. A total of 60 children between 4–7 years requiring pulpotomy and PMC for all primary molars met the inclusion criteria for this study. The control group comprised patients for whom the PMC were placed without the use of an occlusal template, while in the test group crowns were placed using a polyvinyl siloxane occlusal template. Patients were followed up at 24 h, 7 days, 3 and 6 months. The time taken for the placement of crowns, instances of post-operative discomfort, success or failure of the pulp therapy and loss of any crowns were compared between the groups. Results The mean time taken for completion of the procedure in the control group was significantly greater than the template group ( t  = 2.566, p  = 0.013). Significantly fewer patients in the template group reported symptoms of discomfort or high points at the 24-h recall; however, these differences were not significant at the 1-week, 3- or 6-month recall. Conclusion The use of an occlusal template for the placement of multiple PMC under general anaesthesia reduces the time taken for their placement and reduces the incidence of immediate post-operative discomfort.

Aim To compare salivary cortisol levels of caries-free children with those of children with severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) before and 3 months after comprehensive dental treatment. Methods Thirty children with S-ECC were matched with 30 caries-free children from middle income families with college-educated working mothers. Early-morning saliva samples were collected from the children using the passive drool method. Post-treatment saliva samples were collected 3 months after completion of treatment in the S-ECC group. Salivary cortisol levels were analysed using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Results Salivary cortisol levels of caries-free children were significantly lower than both the pre-treatment and post-treatment levels of children with S-ECC ( F  = 26.221, p  < 0.0001). The pre-treatment cortisol levels of children with S-ECC were significantly higher than the post-treatment levels ( t  = 2.588, p  = 0.015). No significant differences in cortisol levels were observed between genders or between children treated over multiple visits under local analgesia and in a single visit under general anaesthesia. Conclusion Dental treatment significantly reduced the salivary cortisol levels of children with S-ECC, however, the post-treatment levels remained significantly higher than those of caries-free children.