Muhammad Asad

Some PlayStation Plus subscribers are wondering where the PS Plus free games announcement for November 2023 is, but there is a plausible explanation for the

Warner Bros. Games and NetherRealm Studios announced that the “Omni-Man” DLC for Mortal Kombat 1 will be released on November 9th for Kombat Pack owners and

Laser cutting is a widely used manufacturing process, and the quality of the resulting cuts plays a crucial role in its success. This research employed the Design of Experiments (DOE) to investigate the impact of input process parameters on kerf quality during the laser cutting of 5 mm polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) sheets. Response surface methodology (RSM) was utilized to model the relationship between the input parameters and the kerf quality, with regression equations developed for each response using the Design Expert software. A statistical analysis revealed the significant effects of high laser power, cutting speed, and focal plane position on kerf quality. Optimization, guided by the desirability function, identified optimal parameter combinations that offered the most favorable tradeoff among various responses. Optimal conditions were found to involve a high laser power, a cutting speed ranging from 4 to 7 mm/s, and a focal plane position at the center. Experiments indicated the suitability of the models for practical applications. An overlay plot analysis revealed a weak negative correlation between the laser power and the cutting speed, while the focal plane's position could be adjusted independently.

Department of Computer Science, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but

School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, The University of Queensland, Gatton, QLD 4343, Australia

(1) Background: Kinetic chains (KCs) are primarily affected by the load of different activities that recruit muscles from different regions. We explored the effects of strengthening exercises on KCs through muscle activation. (2) Methods: Four databases were searched from 1990 to 2019. The muscles of each KC, their surface electromyography (sEMG), and the exercises conducted were reported. We found 36 studies that presented muscle activation using the percent (%) maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) or average sEMG for nine KCs in different regions. The % MVIC is presented as the following four categories: low (≤20%), moderate (21~40%), high (41~60%), and very high (>60%). (3) Results: Only four studies mentioned muscle activation in more than three KCs, while the remaining studies reported inconsistent sEMG processing, lacked normalization, and muscle activation in one or two KCs. The roles of stabilizers and the base of support in overhead throwing mobility using balance exercises were examined, and the concentric phase of chin-up and lat pull-down activated the entire KC by recruiting multiple muscles. Also, deep-water running was shown to prevent the risk of falls and enhance balance and stability. In addition, low-load trunk rotations improved the muscles of the back and external oblique activation. (4) Conclusions: Based on this study’s findings, closed-chain exercises activate more groups of muscles in a kinetic chain than open-chain exercises. However, no closed or open chain exercise can activate optimal KCs.

The DNA virus responsible for monkeypox, transmitted from animals to humans, exhibits two distinct genetic lineages in central and eastern Africa. Beyond the zoonotic transmission involving direct contact with the infected animals' bodily fluids and blood, the spread of monkeypox can also occur through skin lesions and respiratory secretions among humans. Both monkeypox and chickenpox involve skin lesions and can also be transmitted through respiratory secretions, but they are caused by different viruses. The key difference is that monkeypox is caused by an orthopox-virus, while chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus. In this study, the utilization of a patch-based vision transformer (ViT) model for the identification of monkeypox and chickenpox disease from human skin color images marks a significant advancement in medical diagnostics. Employing a transfer learning approach, the research investigates the ViT model's capability to discern subtle patterns which are indicative of monkeypox and chickenpox. The dataset was enriched through carefully selected image augmentation techniques, enhancing the model's ability to generalize across diverse scenarios. During the evaluation phase, the patch-based ViT model demonstrated substantial proficiency, achieving an accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 rating of 93%. This positive outcome underscores the practicality of employing sophisticated deep learning architectures, specifically vision transformers, in the realm of medical image analysis. Through the integration of transfer learning and image augmentation, not only is the model's responsiveness to monkeypox- and chickenpox-related features enhanced, but concerns regarding data scarcity are also effectively addressed. The model outperformed the state-of-the-art studies and the CNN-based pre-trained models in terms of accuracy.

BACKGROUND Dicer is an endonuclease that belongs to the RNase III family and can specifically recognize and cleave double-stranded

CD19-specific CAR-T immunotherapy has been extensively studied for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma. Recently, cholesterol metabolism has emerged as a modulator of T lymphocyte function and can be exploited in immunotherapy to increase the efficacy of CAR-based systems. Acetyl-CoA acetyltransferase 1 (ACAT1) is the major cholesterol esterification enzyme. ACAT1 inhibitors previously shown to modulate cardiovascular diseases are now being implicated in immunotherapy. In the present study, we achieved knockdown of ACAT1 in T cells via RNA interference technology by inserting ACAT1-shRNA into anti-CD19-CAR-T cells. Knockdown of ACAT1 led to an increased cytotoxic capacity of the anti-CD19-CAR-T cells. In addition, more CD69, IFN-γ, and GzmB were expressed in the anti-CD19-CAR-T cells. Cell proliferation was also enhanced in both antigen-independent and antigen-dependent manners. Degranulation was also improved as evidenced by an increased level of CD107a. Moreover, the knockdown of ACAT1 led to better anti-tumor efficacy of anti-CD19 CAR-T cells in the B-cell lymphoma mice model. Our study demonstrates novel CAR-T cells containing ACAT1 shRNA with improved efficacy compared to conventional anti-CD19-CAR-T cells in vitro and in vivo.