Microsemi (Canada)

The paradigm of resilience is multifaceted, encapsulating the diverse mechanisms through which individuals navigate stress, adversity, and complex life circumstances. In the digital era, effectively managing online risks requires the deliberate development of digital resilience. This study sought to examine the socio-demographic characteristics of adolescents experiencing cyberbullying and to assess their coping strategies, with a particular focus on fostering digital resilience within the context of Lahore, Pakistan. Employing a cross-sectional research design, the study collected quantitative data through structured interviews (n = 384) with adolescents enrolled in 9th and 10th grades across public and private schools in Lahore, selected using a simple random sampling method. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and both bivariate and multivariate regression analyses were conducted for data analysis. The results revealed that over 55% of respondents reported experiencing cyberbullying victimization. Cyberbullying victimization was found to be significantly associated with school sector, religion, hurtful content and threatened online. Coping strategies are significant associated with the father government employee. Perceived digital resilience are significant associated with gender, religion, wealth index quintile, and the use of the “report abuse” button. More than 40% of adolescents reported employing coping mechanisms, while approximately 48% demonstrated a strong sense of digital resilience. These findings underscore the necessity of cultivating digital resilience in response to the dynamic nature of the digital landscape, thereby fostering a society equipped to navigate and adapt to rapid technological advancement.

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based single-cell proteomics (SCP) enables proteome-wide analysis at single-cell resolution, offering insights into cellular heterogeneity, biological processes, and disease mechanisms. However, conventional nanoLC-MS workflows are constrained by long gradients and low throughput, limiting their application to large cohorts. Here, we present a multicolumn nanoLC–MS platform that achieves 5-minute separation windows with 100% duty cycles at ~100 nL/min, enabling the analysis of up to 288 single cells per day with minimal additional hardware. The system provides stable peptide separation, negligible carryover, and robust retention-time reproducibility across 2,000 consecutive injections. Over the course of this study, we successfully analyzed more than 4,000 samples at nearly 288 samples per day (SPD) throughput. The platform identified ~4,400 proteins per 250 pg digest injection and an average of ~3,200 proteins per single HeLa cell with maxima exceeding 4,300, which is comparable to state-of-the-art longer-gradient workflows. Quantitative benchmarking with mixed-species standards confirmed accurate measurements across ~6,000 proteins. The workflow distinguished proteome profiles across hundreds of single cells, and profiling of RAW264.7 macrophages revealed LPS-induced markers and macrophage activation pathways. Together, these results establish a robust and scalable platform for high-throughput SCP, demonstrating the feasibility of thousands of single-cell analyses within a single study while maintaining deep proteome coverage and biological interpretability.

Inductive magnetic sensors are needed for the operation of fusion devices to monitor high frequency (HF) fluctuations and as a back-up to the low-frequency (LF, still inductive) magnetic sensors used for the measurements leading to the reconstruction of the equilibrium. The technical specifications for these two types of inductive magnetic sensors are rather different: this is a major conceptual difficulty in the design of inductive magnetic sensors, and then most often different sets of inductive magnetic sensors are used, which significantly complicates R&D activities, prototyping and manufacturing. Most (∼500) of the inductive magnetic sensors currently being deployed in ITER have been produced with the Low-Temperature CoFired Ceramic (LTCC) technology. The LTCC technology is now at least 20 years old and new processes have been developed for industrial applications, essentially based on different photolithography (PL) processes. The main advantage of the PL processes is that a much smaller track width can be achieved: a smaller dd1 allows to “pack” more planar winding loops (=m) enclosing a larger area over a smaller geometrical surface, thus keeping the same overall effective are NA EFF ∝m while significantly reducing the sensors’ self-inductance L SELF ∝m 2 . Then, with PL techniques the same design could in principle be used for both high-frequency and low-frequency applications, the difference simply being the number of stacked-up layers (= n ) used to make-up the entire sensor. Continuing from our earlier work, in this paper we will present recent advances in our processes for producing inductive magnetic sensors using PL methods, most notably on the use of synthetic Sapphire wafers, on increasing the track thickness, on developing multi-layers sensors, on producing miniaturized saddle loops, and finally on developing packaging solutions for installing these inductive magnetic sensors in-vessel and ex-vessel.

Hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) constitute one of the few cancer indications for which mortality rates continue to rise. While Notch signaling dictates a key progenitor lineage choice during development, its role in HCC has remained controversial. Using therapeutic antibodies targeting Notch ligands and receptors to screen over 40 patient-derived xenograft models, we here identify progenitor-like HCCs that crucially depend on a tumor-intrinsic JAG1-NOTCH2 signal. Inhibiting this signal induces tumor regressions by triggering progenitor-to-hepatocyte differentiation, the same cell fate-switch that Notch controls during development. Transcriptomic analysis places the responsive tumors within the well-characterized progenitor subclass, a poor prognostic group of highly proliferative tumors, providing a diagnostic method to enrich for Notch-dependent HCCs. Furthermore, single-cell RNA sequencing uncovers a heterogeneous population of tumor cells and reveals how Notch inhibition shifts cells from a mixed cholangiocyte-hepatocyte lineage to one resembling mature hepatocytes. Analyzing the underlying transcriptional programs brings molecular detail to this process by showing that Notch inhibition de-represses expression of CEBPA, which enables the activity of HNF4α, a hepatocyte lineage factor that is otherwise quiescent. We thus describe a compelling and targetable dependency in a poor-prognosis class of HCCs.

Power semiconductor devices are the fundamental components of power conversion products ubiquitous in energy conversion applications. Advances in power electronics devices would impact all these applications and open avenues for more applications that were previously not possible. This chapter presented an overview of conventional silicon devices and their real-world applications. Due to the ever-increasing demand for higher efficiency and power density, wide bandgap materials like SiC and GaN-based devices have gained significant adoption in recent years. Various SiC and GaN devices and their basic properties have been provided. The chapter included several examples of real semiconductor characterization waveforms to illustrate the practical behavior of the semiconductors for power converter designers. Also, several considerations on measuring switching losses and paralleling semiconductor devices have been provided. There are ongoing efforts to develop even more efficient power devices using ultra-wide bandgap materials like gallium oxide, aluminum nitride, and diamond that can enable even higher efficiencies and power densities in future power conversion systems.

Chronically critically ill patients are a rapidly growing population requiring long-term intensive care. Lower respiratory tract infections are the main infectious complications in these patients. Adaptive phage prophylaxis may be one of the perspective and insufficiently studied approaches for prevention of respiratory infectious complications in intensive care units. Objective. To study the effectiveness of complex cocktail complex drag of bacteriophages in prevention of infectious respiratory complications in chronically critically ill patients. Material and methods. The study included ICU patients at the Federal Research Clinical Center of Intensive Care and Rehabilitology. Overall sample consisted of 79 patients with severe brain damage. Group 1 (n=41) received complex drag of bacteriophages for prevention of pneumonia, group No. 2 (n=38) — standard therapy. All patients were followed-up for 28 days. Results. Both groups were comparable in gender, age and clinical severity. Microbiological examination revealed multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) in majority of patients. In the 1st group, resistance genes were less common compared to the control group. Incidence of recurrent pneumonia was lower in the same group. Conclusion. Prophylactic phage therapy can reduce the number of antimicrobial drugs. Incidence of nosocomial pneumonia recurrences after 14 and 21 days was lower in the main group.

Actinotignum schaalii is a Gram-positive coccobacillus, and a member of the normal human microbiota. A. schaalii is considered as an emerging pathogen causing urinary tract infections among the elderly. Because of an anaerobic growth requirement and lack of knowledge on pathogenic potential following conventional microbiology laboratory techniques, A. schaalii is difficult to identify. A previously well 24-year-old male presented to a tertiary care unit with fever, left flank pain, and dysuria for two days. He was initially treated with empiric oral ciprofloxacin by the general practitioner. Following admission, blood cultures and urine cultures were done, and empirical intra-venous piperacillin-tazobactam was started. X-ray of the pelvis revealed left-sided pyelonephritis and left ureteric calculi. A nephrostomy tube was inserted to relieve the obstruction which drained pus and was sent to microbiology laboratory in aerobic and anaerobic blood culture bottles. Two days later blood culture flagged positive for Gram-positive bacilli from the anaerobic bottle, and the pus from enriched anaerobic culture grew A. schaalii. The urine culture remained negative. By VITEK 2 anaerobic card and MALDI-TOF analysis, it was identified as A. schaalii. Following clinical improvement, he was discharged with oral doxycycline. Ureteric calculus was removed and remained sterile following 16s DNA analysis. The urine Gram staining may have a role in detecting and considering anaerobic media to isolate A. schaalii. The novel diagnostic platforms are important to speciate the pathogen. Also, the lack of pathogen-specific breakpoints for antimicrobial susceptibilities made it a problem to decide on appropriate therapy.

ABSTRACT The poultry industry has been facing the impact of necrotic enteritis (NE), a disease caused by the bacterium Clostridium perfringens producing the haemolytic toxin NetB. NE severity may vary from mild clinical to prominent enteric signs causing reduced growth rates and affecting feed conversion ratio. NetB production is controlled by the Agr-like quorum-sensing (QS) system, which coordinates virulence gene expression in response to bacterial cell density. In this study, the peptide-containing cell-free spent media (CFSM) from Enterococcus faecium was tested in NE challenged broilers in two battery cage and one floor pen studies. Results showed a significant reduction of NE mortality. Metagenomic sequencing of the jejunum microbiome revealed no impact of the CFSM on the microbial community, and growth of C. perfringens was unaffected by CFSM in vitro. The expression of QS-controlled virulence genes netB, plc and pfoA was found to be significantly repressed by CFSM during the mid-logarithmic stage of C. perfringens growth and this corresponded with a significant decrease in haemolytic activity. Purified fractions of CFSM containing bioactive peptides were found to cause reduced haemolysis. These results showed that bioactive peptides reduce NE mortality in broilers by interfering with the QS system of C. perfringens and reducing bacterial virulence. Furthermore, the microbiome of C. perfringens-challenged broilers is not affected by quorum sensing inhibitor containing CFSM.

A tomada de decisões estratégicas desempenha um papel fundamental no sucesso das organizações em um cenário altamente competitivo e em constante evolução. Para tomar decisões informadas e eficazes, os gestores precisam de acesso a informações relevantes e atualizadas sobre o desempenho organizacional. É aqui que entram os indicadores-chave de desempenho (KPIs). Os KPIs são métricas essenciais que quantificam o progresso e o sucesso em relação aos objetivos estratégicos de uma organização.
 
 A análise adequada dos KPIs permite aos gestores identificar áreas de destaque, detectar tendências emergentes e identificar problemas potenciais, orientando as decisões estratégicas em direção a melhores resultados. No entanto, a complexidade e o volume de dados envolvidos na análise de KPIs exigem o uso de ferramentas e tecnologias adequadas para extrair insights significativos.
 
 O objetivo deste artigo é explorar o uso do Power BI como uma ferramenta essencial para a tomada de decisões estratégicas, por meio da análise de indicadores-chave de desempenho (KPIs). Discutiremos a importância dos KPIs na gestão estratégica, apresentaremos uma visão geral do Power BI e exploraremos como essa ferramenta pode ser utilizada para monitorar e analisar KPIs. Além disso, forneceremos exemplos práticos de aplicação do Power BI na análise de KPIs em diferentes setores.