Browse Articles

2 × 2 MIMO dual-wideband ground radiation antenna with a T-shaped isolator for Wi-Fi 6/6E/7 applications

Investigating the effect of parameters in the thermodynamic analysis of the solid oxide fuel cell cycle using response surface methodology

Genomic signatures of adaptation in native lizards exposed to human-introduced fire ants

Study on dynamic compression characteristics of coal containing gas under different strain rates

Identification of ferroptosis-related signature predicting prognosis and therapeutic responses in pancreatic cancer

Comparative 3D ultrastructure of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes

AbstractDespite the enormous significance of malaria parasites for global health, some basic features of their ultrastructure remain obscure. Here, we apply high-resolution volumetric electron microscopy to examine and compare the ultrastructure of the transmissible male and female sexual blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum as well as the more intensively studied asexual blood stages revisiting previously described phenomena in 3D. In doing so, we challenge the widely accepted notion of a single mitochondrion by demonstrating the presence of multiple mitochondria in gametocytes. We also provide evidence for a gametocyte-specific cytostome, or cell mouth. Furthermore, we generate the first 3D reconstructions of the parasite’s endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi apparatus as well as gametocyte-induced extraparasitic structures in the infected red blood cell. Assessing interconnectivity between organelles, we find frequent structural appositions between the nucleus, mitochondria, and apicoplast. We provide evidence that the ER is a promiscuous interactor with numerous organelles and the trilaminar pellicle of the gametocyte. Public availability of these volumetric electron microscopy resources will facilitate reinterrogation by others with different research questions and expertise. Taken together, we reconstruct the 3D ultrastructure of P. falciparum gametocytes at nanometre scale and shed light on the unique organellar biology of these deadly parasites.

Application of response surface methodology (RSM) for experimental optimization in biogenic silica extraction from rice husk and straw ash

A robust and interpretable ensemble machine learning model for predicting healthcare insurance fraud

A fiducial-assisted strategy compatible with resolving small MFS transporter structures in multiple conformations using cryo-EM

A quality by design HPLC method for cephalosporin analysis in pharmaceuticals and water samples with environmental impact assessment

AbstractThe present study applied a combined analytical quality-by-design and green analytical chemistry approach to develop an HPLC method for the determination of four cephalosporin pharmaceuticals in both their formulations and water samples. These drugs include ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, ceftazidime and cefoperazone. A Box–Behnken experimental design was employed to optimize three chromatographic parameters: mobile phase composition, flow rate and buffer pH. The predicted optimal conditions involved using a mobile phase of acetonitrile and 0.04 M phosphate buffer at pH 6 in a 7:93 (v/v) ratio, pumped at 1.3 mL/min through a Nucleosil C18 (4.6 × 250 mm, 5 μm) column with UV detection at 240 nm. Under these optimum conditions, the developed HPLC method successfully separated the four drugs with good resolution in less than 6 min. Linearity was established across the concentration ranges of 5–300 µg/mL for ceftriaxone and cefotaxime, 5–400 µg/mL for ceftazidime and 5–100 µg/mL for cefoperazone. Furthermore, full validation of the method in terms of accuracy, precision, specificity and robustness was carried out as per ICH guidelines. The greenness profile of the optimized HPLC method was also evaluated using the Analytical GREEnness (AGREE) tool and found to be environmentally friendly with AGREE score of 0.75, making it a greener alternative for quality control and routine analysis of the investigated cephalosporins in their pharmaceutical formulations and tap water samples. Furthermore, the blueness assessment of the proposed HPLC method using the blue applicability grade index (BAGI) tool yielded a value of 77.5, indicating its high analytical practicality and substantial potential for routine analysis applications.

Gut microbiota and blood biomarkers in IBD-Related arthritis: insights from mendelian randomization

PIM2 inhibition promotes MCL1 dependency in plasma cells involving integrated stress response-driven NOXA expression

Theoretical analysis of bearing mechanism and engineering application of pipe roof in a highway tunnel

Sustainable leachate treatment by integrating electrolysis with palm-shell activated carbon contactor for environmental protection

Realizing high power factor and thermoelectric performance in band engineered AgSbTe2

Design and numerical simulation of CuBi2O4 solar cells with graphene quantum dots as hole transport layer under ideal and non-ideal conditions

Abstract The simulation of ideal and non-ideal conditions using the SCAPS-1D simulator for novel structure Ag/FTO/CuBi 2 O 4 /GQD/Au was done for the first time. The recombination of charge carriers in CuBi 2 O 4 is an inherent problem due to very low hole mobility and polaron transport in the valence band. The in-depth analysis of the simulation result revealed that Graphene Quantum Dots (GQDs) can act as an appropriate hole transport layer (HTL) and can enhance hole transportation. The simulation was done under ideal and nonideal conditions. The non-ideal conditions include parasitic resistances, reflection losses, radiative, and Auger recombination whereas the ideal condition was studied without the inclusion of any losses. Under ideal conditions, the cell Ag/FTO/CuBi 2 O 4 /GQD/Au exhibited a photovoltaic (PV) parameter such as open circuit voltage (V oc ), short circuit current (J sc ), fill factor (FF), photo conversion efficiency (PCE) are 1.39 V, 25.898 mA/cm 2 , 90.92%, and 32.79%, respectively. The effect of various cell parameters such as the thickness of the absorber layer, HTL layer, and FTO, acceptor and defect density, the bandgap of the absorber and HTL layer, series and shunt resistance, back and front contact materials, radiation and Auger recombination of the absorber layer, reflection losses on the efficiency of the proposed cell is analysed. The drastic reduction in all PV parameters was observed under non-ideal conditions and the PV parameters are V oc (1.22 V), J sc (2.904 mA/cm 2 ), FF (86.3), and PCE of 3.06%. The charge kinetics such as impedance, conductivity, and capacitance plots, and possible reasons for reductions in PV parameters are discussed in detail.

The development of an efficient artificial intelligence-based classification approach for colorectal cancer response to radiochemotherapy: deep learning vs. machine learning

Viral RNA polymerase as a SUMOylation decoy inhibits RNA quality control to promote potyvirus infection

Brain-model neural similarity reveals abstractive summarization performance

AbstractDeep language models (DLMs) have exhibited remarkable language understanding and generation capabilities, prompting researchers to explore the similarities between their internal mechanisms and human language cognitive processing. This study investigated the representational similarity (RS) between the abstractive summarization (ABS) models and the human brain and its correlation to the performance of ABS tasks. Specifically, representational similarity analysis (RSA) was used to measure the similarity between the representational patterns (RPs) of the BART, PEGASUS, and T5 models’ hidden layers and the human brain’s language RPs under different spatiotemporal conditions. Layer-wise ablation manipulation, including attention ablation and noise addition was employed to examine the hidden layers’ effect on model performance. The results demonstrate that as the depth of hidden layers increases, the models’ text encoding becomes increasingly similar to the human brain’s language RPs. Manipulating deeper layers leads to more substantial decline in summarization performance compared to shallower layers, highlighting the crucial role of deeper layers in integrating essential information. Notably, the study confirms the hypothesis that the hidden layers exhibiting higher similarity to human brain activity play a more critical role in model performance, with their correlations reaching statistical significance even after controlling for perplexity. These findings deepen our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying language representations in DLMs and their neural correlates, potentially providing insights for optimizing and improving language models by aligning them with the human brain’s language-processing mechanisms.

Risk factors, urodynamic characteristics, and distress associated with nocturnal enuresis in overactive bladder -wet women