Silicon Mitigates Drought Stress in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Through Improving Photosynthetic Pigments,Biochemical and Yield Characters

Silicon - Feeling prone to stress differs with plant production stage, water scarcity near commencement of grain filling phase has a significant reduced grain yield through fewer endosperm and sink...     

Energy-efficient and fault-tolerant drone-BS placement in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - This paper introduces a distributed and energy-aware algorithm, called Minimum Drone Placement (MDP) algorithm, to determine the minimum number of base stations mounted on...     

Controlled fabrication of Pr(OH)3 nanowires for enhanced photocatalytic activities

In this report, praseodymium hydroxide Pr(OH)₃ nanowires with different aspect ratios (length to diameter ratios) were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal approach. The variations in alkali concentration during synthesis are found to form different aspect ratios of nanowires. The X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy analysis demonstrate the absence of any impurity phases in as-prepared materials. Subsequently, photocatalytic activities of as-prepared nanowires were evaluated by the degradation of methyl orange (MO). Our findings reveal that the nanowires with larger aspect ratios have higher photocatalytic efficiency than the smaller aspect ratio samples. X-ray photospectroscopy investigations reveal that the samples with higher aspect ratio are found to exhibit more oxygen vacancies as compared to lower aspect ratio samples. The enhanced photocatalytic activities can be attributed to the presence of higher percentage of active crystal facet (100), higher concentration of defects densities and narrower band gap. Thus, Pr(OH)₃ nanowires can be considered as a potential candidate for the application of wastewater treatment and related technologies.     

Magnetron sputtered Dy_2O_3 with chromium and copper contents for antireflective thin films with enhanced absorption

Dy_2O_3 is a rare earth oxide having a number of advanced applications in various fields including protective or antireflective coatings, Main objective of this novel research work is to check the effect of Cr and Cu addition on different properties of Dy_2O_3 and achievement of antireflective thin films with enhanced abso rption. Thin films of these materials we re deposited using DC magnetron with reactive cosputtering. XRD studies reveals the crystalline nature of thin films having Dy_2O_3(222) reflection in all samples with Cr_2O_3(116) and CuO(111) reflections in Cr and Cu containing compositions. Field emission scanning electron microscopy demonstrates the homogeneous deposition of thin films with uniform shape, size and distribution of grains. Refractive index, extinction coefficient and absorption coefficient significantly increase while optical reflectance decreases with Cr and Cu mediation corroborating an improved antireflective mechanism. The imaginary part of dielectric constant is found to increase slightly with low tangent loss for Cr containing composition co nsidered favorable for energy storage applications.     

Predicting catastrophic temperature changes based on past events via a CNN-LSTM regression mechanism

Neural Computing and Applications - The modelling and prediction of extreme temperature changes in enclosed compartments is a domain with applications ranging from residential fire alarms,...     

Micro‐morphological,environmental and phytochemical investigation of herbal medicines by using LM and SEM: A quality control tool

The use of quality control tool for authentication of Jadwar (Delphinium denudatum Wall. ex Hook.f. & Thomson), a folk herbal drug used for the treatment of different ailments, was studied. People face problems of adulteration for this drug at global, regional, national and local levels. Two different plant species are commercially marketed in the Indo‐Pak Subcontinent under the same trade name of Jadwar. One is D. denudatum Wall. ex Hook.f. & Thomson and the other is Aconitum heterophyllum Wall. ex Royle. To focus on this problem, a marketable available drug sample of Jadwar was authenticated by using basic microscopy tools (LM) and advanced chemo‐taxonomic markers. Authentication, quality and standardization of this drug was achieved using morphology, organoleptography, UV and IR analyses, scanning electron microscopy of pollen and anatomical investigations. The techniques used for authentication marked the clear difference between the studied plants. Microscopic studies, chemotaxonomic investigation and other techniques used in this project provided the basis for the authentication of this species.     

Oxygen-Generating Cryogels Restore T Cell Mediated Cytotoxicity in Hypoxic Tumors

Solid tumors are protected from antitumor immune responses due to their hypoxic microenvironments. Weakening hypoxia-driven immunosuppression by hyperoxic breathing of 60% oxygen has shown to be effective in unleashing antitumor immune cells against solid tumors. However, efficacy of systemic oxygenation is limited against solid tumors outside of lungs and has been associated with unwanted side effects. As a result, it is essential to develop targeted oxygenation alternatives to weaken tumor hypoxia as novel approaches to restore immune responses against cancer. Herein, injectable oxygen-generating cryogels (O₂-cryogels) to reverse tumor-induced hypoxia are reported. These macroporous biomaterials are designed to locally deliver oxygen, inhibit the expression of hypoxia-inducible genes in hypoxic melanoma cells, and reduce the accumulation of immunosuppressive extracellular adenosine. The data show that O₂-cryogels enhance T cell-mediated secretion of cytotoxic proteins, restoring the killing ability of tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes, both in vitro and in vivo. In summary, O₂-cryogels provide a unique and safe platform to supply oxygen as a coadjuvant in hypoxic tumors and have the potential to improve cancer immunotherapies.