Affordable remote monitoring of plant growth in facilities using Raspberry Pi computers.

Premise: Environmentally controlled facilities, such as growth chambers, are essential tools for experimental research. Automated, low-cost, remote-monitoring hardware can greatly improve both reproducibility and maintenance.

Methods And Results: Using a Raspberry Pi computer, open-source software, environmental sensors, and a camera, we developed Growth Monitor pi (GMpi), a cost-effective system for monitoring growth chamber conditions.

Dynamic Nonlinear Image Tuning through Magnetic Dipole Quasi-BIC Ultrathin Resonators.

Dynamical tuning of the nonlinear optical wavefront allows for a specific spectral response of predefined profiles, enabling various applications of nonlinear nanophotonics. This study experimentally demonstrates the dynamical switching of images generated by an ultrathin silicon nonlinear metasurface supporting a high-quality leaky mode, which is formed by partially breaking a bound-state-in-the-continuum (BIC) generated by the collective magnetic dipole (MD) resonance excited in the subdiffractive periodic systems. Such a quasi-BIC MD state can be excited directly under normal plane wave incidence and leads to a strong near-field enhancement to further boost the nonlinear process, resulting in a 500-fold enhancement of the third-harmonic emission experimentally.

Political and Governance Challenges to Achieving Global HIV Goals with Injecting Drug Users: The Case of Pakistan.

Background: The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has recently set the ambitious "90-90-90 target" of having 90% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) know their status, receive antiretroviral therapy (ART), and achieve viral suppression by 2020. This ambitious new goal is occurring in a context of global "scale-down" following nearly a decade of heightened investment in HIV prevention and treatment efforts. Arguably international goals spur action, however, setting unrealistic goals that do not take weak health systems and variations in the nature of the epidemic across countries into consideration may set them up for failure in unproductive ways that lead to a decline in confidence in global governance institutions.

Spiniform phase-encoded metagratings entangling arbitrary rational-order orbital angular momentum.

Quantum entanglements between integer-order and fractional-order orbital angular momentums (OAMs) have been previously discussed. However, the entangled nature of arbitrary rational-order OAM has long been considered a myth due to the absence of an effective strategy for generating arbitrary rational-order OAM beams. Therefore, we report a single metadevice comprising a bilaterally symmetric grating with an aperture, creating optical beams with dynamically controllable OAM values that are continuously varying over a rational range.

Funding for Abstinence-Only Education and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: Does State Ideology Affect Outcomes?

Objectives: To examine the relationship between adolescent pregnancy-prevention and sexuality and abstinence-only education funding and adolescent birthrates over time. Also, to determine whether state ideology plays a moderating role on adolescent reproductive health, that is, whether the funding has its intended effect at reducing the number of adolescent births in conservative but not in liberal states.

Methods: We modeled time-series data on federal abstinence-only and adolescent pregnancy-prevention and sexuality education block grants to US states and rates of adolescent births (1998-2016) and adjusted for state-level confounders using 2-way fixed-effects models.

Relationship between network operators and risky sex behaviors among female versus transgender commercial sex workers in Pakistan.

Unprotected sex among commercial sex workers (CSWs) remains a leading cause of HIV transmission internationally. Previous research on condom use among CSWs has focused on females, with limited research among transgenders or on the role of network operators who mediate paid sexual transactions. We test whether network operators increase the likelihood of condom use among female and transgender CSWs in four Pakistan provinces using the 2011 Integrated Behavioral and Biological Survey.

Polarisation insensitive multifunctional metasurfaces based on all-dielectric nanowaveguides.

Metasurfaces, two dimensional (2D) metamaterials comprised of subwavelength features, can be used to tailor the amplitude, phase and polarisation of an incident electromagnetic wave propagating at an interface. Though many novel metasurfaces have been explored, the hunt for cost-effective, highly efficient, low-loss and polarisation insensitive applications is ongoing. In this work, we utilise an efficient and cost-effective dielectric material, hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), to create a ultra-thin transmissive surface that simultaneously controls phase.

Full-space Cloud of Random Points with a Scrambling Metasurface.

With the rapid progress in computer science, including artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, full-space spot generation can be pivotal to many practical applications, such as facial recognition, motion detection, augmented reality, etc. These opportunities may be achieved by using diffractive optical elements (DOEs) or light detection and ranging (LIDAR). However, DOEs suffer from intrinsic limitations, such as demanding depth-controlled fabrication techniques, large thicknesses (more than the wavelength), Lambertian operation only in half space, etc.

Effect of temperature on the oxidation of Cu nanowires and development of an easy to produce, oxidation-resistant transparent conducting electrode using a PEDOT:PSS coating.

Oxidation can strongly influence the performance of Cu nanowires (CuNWs) by decreasing their conductivity. Here, we identify and investigate a way to prevent the oxidation process of CuNWs to maintain the high conducting performance of CuNWs as transparent electrodes. CuNWs were synthesised using an aqueous method.

Using Temporal Covariance of Motion and Geometric Features via Boosting for Human Fall Detection.

Fall induced damages are serious incidences for aged as well as young persons. A real-time automatic and accurate fall detection system can play a vital role in timely medication care which will ultimately help to decrease the damages and complications. In this paper, we propose a fast and more accurate real-time system which can detect people falling in videos captured by surveillance cameras.

Plasmonic Spherical Heterodimers: Reversal of Optical Binding Force Based on the Forced Breaking of Symmetry.

The stimulating connection between the reversal of near-field plasmonic binding force and the role of symmetry-breaking has not been investigated comprehensively in the literature. In this work, the symmetry of spherical plasmonic heterodimer-setup is broken forcefully by shining the light from a specific side of the set-up instead of impinging it from the top. We demonstrate that for the forced symmetry-broken spherical heterodimer-configurations: reversal of lateral and longitudinal near-field binding force follow completely distinct mechanisms.

Tungsten-based Ultrathin Absorber for Visible Regime.

Utilizing solar energy requires perfect absorption of light by the photovoltaic cells, particularly solar thermophotovoltaics (STPVs), which can be eventually converted into useful electrical energy. Ultrathin nanostructures, named metasurfaces, provide an intriguing platform to develop the miniaturized solar energy absorbers that can find potential applications in integrated photonics, optical sensing, color imaging, thermal imaging and electromagnetic shielding. Therefore, the quest of novel materials and designs to develop highly efficient absorbers at minuscule scale is an open topic.

Trust in Supervisor and Job Engagement: Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Felt Obligation.

In the social context of job engagement, the role of trust in supervisor in predicting engagement of employees has received attention in research. Very limited research, however, has investigated the mechanisms mediating this dynamic relationship. To address this important gap in knowledge, the aim of this study was to examine psychological safety and felt obligation as two psychological mechanisms mediating the effect of trust in supervisor on job engagement.

Dielectric Meta-Holograms Enabled with Dual Magnetic Resonances in Visible Light.

Efficient transmission-type meta-holograms have been demonstrated using high-index dielectric nanostructures based on Huygens' principle. It is crucial that the geometry size of building blocks be judiciously optimized individually for spectral overlap of electric and magnetic dipoles. In contrast, reflection-type meta-holograms using the metal/insulator/metal scheme and geometric phase can be readily achieved with high efficiency and small thickness.

Silicon-on-insulator-based complementary metal oxide semiconductor integrated optoelectronic platform for biomedical applications.

Microscale optical devices enabled by wireless power harvesting and telemetry facilitate manipulation and testing of localized biological environments (e.g., neural recording and stimulation, targeted delivery to cancer cells).

Fine-grained dengue forecasting using telephone triage services.

Thousands of lives are lost every year in developing countries for failing to detect epidemics early because of the lack of real-time disease surveillance data. We present results from a large-scale deployment of a telephone triage service as a basis for dengue forecasting in Pakistan. Our system uses statistical analysis of dengue-related phone calls to accurately forecast suspected dengue cases 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time at a subcity level (correlation of up to 0.

A Review of Techniques for Detection of Movement Intention Using Movement-Related Cortical Potentials.

The movement-related cortical potential (MRCP) is a low-frequency negative shift in the electroencephalography (EEG) recording that takes place about 2 seconds prior to voluntary movement production. MRCP replicates the cortical processes employed in planning and preparation of movement. In this study, we recapitulate the features such as signal's acquisition, processing, and enhancement and different electrode montages used for EEG data recoding from different studies that used MRCPs to predict the upcoming real or imaginary movement.

Surface modifications induced by in-vitro wear and oxidation on γ-irradiated UHMWPE hip liners belonging to different commercial generations.

Single-step and three-step irradiated and annealed ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) hip liners have been studied by means of Raman spectroscopy (RS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), in order to clarify the microstructural modifications induced by in vitro oxidative degradation and wear. These spectroscopic techniques enabled us to measure profiles of oxidation index (OI), crystalline (αc), amorphous (αa), and third phase (αb) fractions along the subsurface of the acetabular cups as a function of in vitro oxidation time or after standard testing in hip simulator. Microtomed sections of the liners after accelerated aging (ASTM F2003-02) showed that oxidation profiles developed differently during the first two weeks, while all samples aged longer than 2 weeks revealed OI increasing with lower rates.

Transcription factors in heart: promising therapeutic targets in cardiac hypertrophy.

Regulation of gene expression is central to cell growth, differentiation and diseases. Context specific and signal dependent regulation of gene expression is achieved to a large part by transcription factors. Cardiac transcription factors regulate heart development and are also involved in stress regulation of the adult heart, which may lead to cardiac hypertrophy.

Isolation and characterization of feather degrading enzymes from Bacillus megaterium SN1 isolated from Ghazipur poultry waste site.

The SN1 strain of Bacillus megaterium, isolated from soil of Ghazipur poultry waste site (India) produced extracellular caseinolytic and keratinolytic enzymes in basal media at 30 degrees C, 160 rpm in the presence of 10% feather. Feathers were completely degraded after 72 h of incubation. The caesinolytic enzyme was separated from the basal media following ammonium sulphate precipitation and ion exchange chromatography.

High AU content: a signature of upregulated miRNA in cardiac diseases.

MicroRNAs have been implicated for the regulation of gene expression. These miRNA are a class of single stranded non coding RNAs, formed from endogenous transcripts and measure typically about 19-25 nucleotides in length. They are important regulators of the various biological and metabolic functions taking place in humans.

In silico characterization of genetic homology in nuclear-encoded apicoplast-targeted genes between Plasmodium falciparum & P. vivax.

Background & Objective: Resistance to anti-malarial drugs by the parasites is one of the major obstacles to malaria control. The primary objective of this work was to find specific nuclear-encoded-apicoplast-targeted genes that are conserved between two different human malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax to find a common drug/vaccine targets for both the species.

RNA interference: emerging diagnostics and therapeutics tool.

RNA interference has been recognized to be an efficient mechanism for the sequence specific inhibition of gene-expression caused by 21-23bp long dsRNA. This is a potent tool to study gene function and is ready to lend a hand in the treatment of disease. Two main classes of dsRNA involved are short-interfering RNA and micro RNA which differ in biogenesis and modes of target regulation.

High GC content: critical parameter for predicting stress regulated miRNAs in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plants like Arabidopsis thaliana are convenient model systems to study fundamental questions related to regulation of the stress transcriptome in response to stress challenges. Microarray results of the Arabidopsis transcriptome indicate that several genes could be upregulated during multiple stresses. High-salinity, drought, and low temperature are three common environmental stress factors that seriously influence plant growth and development worldwide.