Vitamin D is an important nutrient for bone health, and vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of various diseases. Gilgit Baltistan, the northern-most area of Pakistan, has a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, despite many nutritional and food safety programmes. The present study aimed to find how knowledge, attitudes and practices associated with vitamin D related to the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among people residing in different areas of Gilgit Baltistan. The cross-sectional study was descriptive and used data from a survey carried out between February 2019 and December 2020 on individuals of both sexes aged 10 years or over in Gilgit Baltistan. Of the 575 survey participants, 306 (53.2%) had experienced signs and symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, i.e. tiredness, fatigue and bone weakness. Approximately 64.8% had some general knowledge of vitamin D and its relation to health. Participants aged 19–25 years had the highest scores on knowledge of vitamin D. Only 22.7% of interviewees had ever taken any supplements and only 25.6% often exposed themselves to sunlight. Females’ mean knowledge score (28.7; SD 7.02) was higher than that of males (24; SD 9.01). A lack of consistency was observed between attitude towards daylight exposure and knowledge of vitamin D. There was a large correlation between knowledge and attitude (p = 0.001), while a non-significant association was demonstrated between knowledge and practices (p = 0.1). Better knowledge, attitude and practices by people living in cities or more-developed regions indicates that education can be an effective way to provide awareness regarding micronutrient deficiencies. More emphasis is needed on enhancing knowledge, awareness and practices associated with vitamin D deficiency in rural areas of Pakistan. It is strongly recommended that an awareness campaign on micronutrients is launched in both rural and urban areas of Pakistan, concentrating on poor socioeconomic settings.

Annual sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus L.) is a broadleaf weed that is increasing in prevalence in the northern cropping regions of Australia. Being a member of Asteraceae family, this weed possesses many biological attributes needed to thrive in varying environments and under differing weed management pressures. Interference of this weed in a wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop was examined through field studies in 2016 and 2017. Different densities of S. oleraceus were evaluated for their potential to cause yield loss in wheat: 0.0 (weed-free), low (9 to 15 plants m−2), medium (29 to 38 plants m−2), and high (62 to 63 plants m−2). Based on the exponential decay model, 43 and 52 plants m−2 caused a yield reduction of 50% in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Yield components such as panicles per square meter and grains per panicle were affected by weed density. At the high weed infestation level, S. oleraceus produced a maximum of 182,940 and 192,657 seeds m−2 in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Sonchus oleraceus exhibited poor seed retention at harvest, as more than 95% of seeds were blown away by wind. Adverse effects on crop, high seed production, and wind-blown dispersal may lead to an increased prevalence of this weed in the absence of an integrated weed management strategy utilizing both herbicides and nonchemical options.

Ab initio microkinetic modeling was performed to study ethanol conversion to acetaldehyde on Pt-based bimetallic alloys in a non-oxidative environment. Alloying Pt with Au, Ag, Cu, Co, Ni, Zn, Cd, Al, Ga, In, Tl, Ge, Sn, Pb, As, and Sb showed an increase in product turnover by at least an order of magnitude compared with Pt at 423 K. This was correlated to the increased stabilization of CH3CHO species over these alloys. Among the alloy candidates; Pt3Cu, Pt3Zn, Pt3Ga, Pt3Ge, Pt3Sb, and Pt3Pb were found to be more active than Pt.

Molecular dynamics simulations were utilized to determine the oxygen anion diffusivity in pure ceria (CeO2) and doped ceria MxCe1-xO2-0.5x (M=Gd, Sm and Pr) with varying level of dopant concentration from 5-30% (x = 0.05-0.3). Doping with Gd showed an improvement in oxygen anion diffusivity value by two order of magnitude (D = 4.67x10-8 cm2/s at 1173 K) as compared to the undoped ceria (D = 1.33x10-10 cm2/s at 1173 K). 10% of doping level was estimated as the optimum concentration of all the dopants at which all of the doped ceria materials showed maximum diffusivity of oxygen anion. Among the three dopants studied, Pr was observed to show maximum diffusivity of oxygen anion in the temperature range of 773-1173 K of simulations.

In this study, the cross-section of electron-selective titanium oxide (TiO2) contacts for n-type crystalline silicon solar cells were investigated by transmission electron microscopy. It was revealed that the excellent cell efficiency of 21.6% obtained on n-type cells, featuring SiO2/TiO2/Al rear contacts and after forming gas annealing (FGA) at 350°C, is due to strong surface passivation of SiO2/TiO2 stack as well as low contact resistivity at the Si/SiO2/TiO2 heterojunction. This can be attributed to the transformation of amorphous TiO2 to a conducting TiO2−x phase. Conversely, the low efficiency (9.8%) obtained on cells featuring an a-Si:H/TiO2/Al rear contact is due to severe degradation of passivation of the a-Si:H upon FGA.

Dengue fever is an arthropod-borne viral infection that has become endemic in several parts of India including Delhi. We studied occurrence of co-infection with dengue viruses during an outbreak in New Delhi, India in 2014. For the present study, blood samples collected from symptomatic patients were analysed by RT–PCR. Eighty percent of the samples were positive for dengue virus. The result showed that DENV-1 (77%) was the predominant serotype followed by DENV-2 (60%). Concurrent infection with more than one serotype was identified in 43% of the positive samples. Phylogenetic analysis clustered DENV-1 strains with the American African and DENV-2 strains in Cosmopolitan genotypes. Four common amino-acid mutations were identified in the envelope gene of DENV-1 sequences (F337I, A369T, V380I and L402F) and one common mutation (N390S) in the DENV-2 sequences. Further analysis revealed purifying selection in both the serotypes. A significant number of patients were co-infected with DENV-1 and DENV-2 serotypes. Although we do not have direct evidence to demonstrate co-evolution of these two stereotypes, nonetheless their simultaneous occurrence does indicate that they are favoured by evolutionary forces. An ongoing surveillance and careful analysis of future outbreaks will strengthen the concept of co-evolution or otherwise. Whether the concurrent dengue viral infection is correlated with disease severity in a given population is another aspect to be pursued. This study is envisaged to be useful for future reference in the context of overall epidemiology.

Most image segmentation techniques efficiently segment images with prominent edges, but are less efficient for some images with low frequencies and overlapping regions of homogeneous intensities. A recently proposed selective segmentation model often works well, but not for such challenging images. In this paper, we introduce a new model using the coefficient of variation as a fidelity term, and our test results show it performs much better in these challenging cases.

Tuning the band-gap of photonic crystals has been a challenge because there are few parameters that can be varied to modify the band structure. In this paper we modeled the effect of well controlled complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible processing techniques, viz. oxidation and oxide etching, on the band-gap and mid-gap frequency of a silicon photonic crystal (PC). By adding silicon dioxide as the third dielectric, oxide thickness serves as a new parameter that influences the band structure. In the case of a PC of Si atoms in air, if silicon is etched to reduce the original atom radius from 0.28a (a = lattice constant) to 0.1a, the band-gap and mid-gap normalized frequencies increase from 0.1 to 1.6 and from 0.28 to 0.49 respectively. During oxidation, silicon is consumed to form silicon dioxide. Thus, if the Si atom of 0.4a radius is oxidized until it reaches 0.1a, the band-gap and mid-gap vary in the range of (0.1-1.5) and (0.28-0.41) respectively. When the oxide is etched back, the band-gap can be tuned in the range of (0.1-1.6) for a new mid-gap frequency in the range of (0.41-0.49). Results are also presented for a triangular lattice of air holes in silicon.

We report a case of myasthenia gravis presenting to the department of otolaryngology with acute dysphagia on two separate occasions over a one-year period. Diagnosis of myasthenia gravis was made when the patient developed ventilatory failure after his second general anaesthetic for rigid oesophagoscopy. Our patient required emergency transfer to the intensive therapy unit for ventilation. He improved after treatment with corticosteroids, anticholinesterase and immunosuppressive medications. Our case was unusual in that cricopharyngeal spasm causing dysphagia and significant aspiration was demonstrated by a barium swallow and this was completely resolved after treatment of the myasthenia gravis.