The lunar calendar is often overlooked in time series data modelling, despite its importance in understanding seasonal patterns as well as economic, natural phenomena, and consumer behavior. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the lunar calendar in modelling and forecasting rainfall levels using various machine learning methods. The methods employed included Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) models to test the accuracy of rainfall forecasts based on the lunar calendar compared to those based on the Gregorian calendar. The results indicated that machine learning models incorporating the lunar calendar generally pro-vided greater accuracy in forecasting for periods of 3, 4, 6, and 12 months compared to models using the Gregorian calendar. These findings contributed to the advancement of forecasting techniques, machine learning, and the adaptation to non-Gregorian calendar systems, while also opening new opportunities for further research into lunar calendar applications across various domains.

Breast Cancer diagnosis is one of the most studied problems in the medical domain. In the medical domain, cancer diagnosis has been studied extensively which instantiates the need of early prediction of cancer disease. For obtaining advance prediction, health records are exploited and given as input to an automated system. This paper focuses on constructing an automated system by employing deep learning based recurrent neural network models. A stacked GRU-LSTM-BRNN is proposed in this paper that accepts health records of a patient for determining possibility of being affected by breast cancer. Proposed model is compared against other baseline classifiers such as stacked Simple-RNN model, stacked LSTM-RNN model, stacked GRU-RNN model. Comparative results obtained in this study indicate that stacked GRU-LSTM-BRNN yield better classification performance for predictions related to breast cancer disease.

This study addresses the critical challenge of Speech Enhancement (SE) in noisy environments, where the deployment of Deep Neural Networksolutions on microcontrollers is hindered by their extensive computational demands. Focusing on this gap, our research introduces a novel SE method optimized for MCUs, employing a 2-layer GRU model that capitalizes on perceptual speech properties and innovative training methodologies. By incorporating self-reference signals and a dual strategy of compression and recovery based on the Mel scale, we develop an efficient model tailored for low-latency applications. Our GRU-2L-128 model demonstrates a significant reduction in size and computational requirements, achieving a 14.2× decrease in model size and a 409.1× reduction in operations compared to traditional DNN methods like DCCRN, without compromising performance. This advancement offers a promising solution for enhancing speech intelligibility in resource-constrained devices, marking a pivotal step in SE research and application.

Predicting the prices of cryptocurrency owing to its volatility, instability, and other factors has been challenging; investors and traders especially in Nigeria have been on a constant look for a more reliable way of knowing market trends and prices and while there has been so many research conducted using deep learning, the results for which has fall short of what investors could called a strong predictor. This research reviewed the results of many works that had been done and proposed two types of recurrent neural network (RNNs) namely Long Short-Term Memory and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) for predicting the future prices of two of the most common crypto assets namely Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), these two were selected based on their popularity, the volume traded and their market capitalization. The experiment was conducted in a GPU Jupyter Notebook environment and the performance of our experiment was evaluated on a test set using root mean square error (RMSE) and based on its values, the LSTM presented a better performance with rsme scores of 654.66, and 80.30 respectively for BTC and ETH as compared to GRU. The paper proceeds further to compare the results of this experiment with other related works and we discovered that its performance is a great improvement.

Recent SDN advances address traditional network management challenges through centralized control and plane separation. SDN prevents breaches using a centralized controller but introduces risks. The controller can be a single point of failure. Thus, an OpenFlow Controller's flow-based anomaly detection enhances SDN security. Our research explored two OpenFlow intrusion detection methods. The first employed machine learning, NSL-KDD dataset, and feature selection, yielding 82% accuracy with random forest. The second combined deep neural networks with GRU-LSTM, achieving 88% accuracy using ANOVA F-Test and feature elimination. Experiments highlighted deep learning as superior for OpenFlow intrusion detection.

This work addresses the intricate task of predicting the prices of diverse financial assets, including stocks, indices, and cryptocurrencies, each exhibiting distinct characteristics and behaviors under varied market conditions. To tackle the challenge effectively, a novel hybridized architecture, AE-GRU, integrating the encoder-decoder principle with GRU is designed. The experimentation involves multiple activation functions and hyperparameter tuning. With extensive experimentation and enhancements applied to AE-LSTM, the proposed AE-GRU architecture still demonstrates significant superiority in forecasting the annual prices of volatile financial assets from multiple sectors mentioned above. Thus, the novel AE-GRU architecture emerges as a superior choice for price prediction across diverse sectors and fluctuating market scenarios by extracting important non-linear features of financial data and retaining the long-term context from past observations.

High rates of phosphorus (P) currently being applied to soils for the production of vegetables in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam has led to the concern of its negative effect on the economics and the environment. This research presents a comprehensive study on the determination of P supplying capacity in this region of Vietnam to examine the possibility of reducing P fertilizer input. One hundred twenty (120) soil samples were collected to evaluate total P and Bray 1 available P in the soils. Phosphorus maximum sorption, degree of P saturation, P release, and the effect of P fertilizer on corn (Zea mays L.) yield in greenhouse and fields were also determined. Total P concentrations of 56.7% soil samples evaluated yielded high P concentrations (>560 mg P/kg), while 74.2% of the samples had high Bray 1 available P concentrations (>20 mg P/kg soil). Maximum P sorption ranged from 149 to 555 mg P/kg soil, respectively and has negative correlation to available P (r = - 0.63*), degrees of P saturation ranged from 0.63 to 5.46% correlated to available P (r = 0.98**) and maximum P release ranged from 1.2 to 61.9 mg P/kg soil, respectively correlated to available P (r = 0.96**). Corn grown in soils with available P concentrations >15 mg P/kg did not respond to P fertilizer in greenhouse or field experiments. We conclude that many farmers in this region can reduce P fertilizer input, thus increasing their profits and reducing negative environmental impacts associated with excess soil P for sustainable agriculture.

Orthostatic hypotension (OH) is a condition marked by a significant drop in blood pressure upon standing, resulting from impaired autonomic regulation of vascular tone and blood volume. This study investigates the prevalence, physiological mechanisms, and occupational risk factors for OH among high-risk professions in Nepal, such as traffic police, security guards, and shopkeepers. Using a cross-sectional design, participants were evaluated for blood pressure variability, autonomic function, and fluid balance. The findings reveal a high incidence of OH, linked to reduced baroreceptor sensitivity and impaired sympathetic activation due to prolonged standing and inadequate hydration. This study highlights the need for tailored clinical interventions and workplace modifications to mitigate OH in vulnerable occupational groups.

Sewage sludge is an organic waste generated in waste-water treatment plants with certain content of nutrients, what may potentially be used as a source of slow release fertilizer, especially as phosphorus (P) source, but it demands some pre-treatment and the content of P is much lower compared to soluble mineral fertilizers. For these reasons, composted sewage sludge was used to manufacture pelletized organomineral fertilizers, mixing it with the inorganic sources monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and AshDec® (ASD) (thermochemically incinerated sewage sludge). The fertilizers were physiochemically characterized and evaluated as to the dynamics of soil P solubilization, and the forms of P remaining according to its lability. The sources evaluated were: organic compost of sewage sludge powder (SSC), pelletized SSC (SCP), pelletized organominerals SSC+MAP (S+MAP) and SSC+ASD (S+ASD), ASD alone, all compared to a soluble mineral fertilizer (MAP), and a control without P fertilizer. A test was conducted in leaching columns with 50 g of soil (Oxisol), where the fertilizers were applied at a dose of 100 mg P/column, and 30 mL of water or 2% citric acid were added daily for 30 consecutive days. The collected leachates had pH measured and P content determined. Pelletizing process resulted in denser products and promoted more gradual P release. The organomineral S+MAP was the most water-soluble recycled source, solubilizing about 70% of the total P, while the others presented much lower solubilization (<20%). In contrast, all fertilizers showed high solubility in 2% citric acid (except for S+ASD). After leaching, the greatest amount of P remaining in the soil as labile and moderately labile. Composting and the AshDec process produced materials with slow P solubilization, which would be favoured to solubilize in acidic soils and acidic rhizosphere conditions. In turn, the organomineral mixture of SSC with a highly soluble mineral fertilizer (MAP) resulted in a promising product with intermediate nutrient solubility, better synchronized with crop demand, thus increasing efficiency in P use.

Predicting stock and cryptocurrency prices is challenging. One method involves ana-lyzing opinions from individuals and experts. This article focuses on analyzing social media sen-timents for predicting Bitcoin prices using various criteria. In this article, unlike other articles that only used the points obtained from sentiment analysis of tweets, we combined the points of tweets based on other criteria, such as the highest like counts, the highest volume of tweets, and the weighted scores of tweets. In the first stage, we evaluated the deep learning models SL, LG, LGC, BL, and BG without considering sentiment. Ultimately, the BG model performed well in evaluation metrics such as MAE and Loss. In the second stage, we examined the impact of tweet volume on the models' performance. In the third stage, we utilized the simulation results of the VADER model. For the fourth stage, we considered the maximum likes for tweets as a sentiment analysis tool. Finally, in the last stage, which is the main focus of this article, we employed weighted averaging for sentiment analysis. Model BG provided approximately 11% improvement based on the MAE metric and about 15% improvement based on the Loss metric for better detection the following day.

Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have significantly advanced the field of machine learning by enabling the effective processing of sequential data. This paper provides a comprehensive review of RNNs and their applications, highlighting advancements in architectures such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs), Bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), and stacked LSTM. The study examines the application of RNNs in different domains, including natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition, financial time series forecasting, bioinformatics, autonomous vehicles, and anomaly detection. Additionally, the study discusses recent innovations, such as the integration of attention mechanisms and the development of hybrid models that combine RNNs with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformer architectures. This review aims to provide machine learning researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive overview of the current state and future directions of RNN research.

This study proposes a short- and medium-term electricity consumption prediction algorithm by combining the GRU model suitable for long-term forecasting and the Prophet model suitable for seasonality and event handling. (1) Manufacturing Company B's Electricity consumption data and meteorological data in Naju, Jeollanam-do, South Korea are collected and preprocessed. (2) The preprocessed data proposes the Prophet model in the first step for seasonality and event handling prediction. (3) In the second step, seven multivariate data are experimented with GRU. Specifically, the seven multivariate data consist of six meteorological data and the residuals between the predicted data from the proposed Prophet model in Step 1 and the observed data. These are utilized to predict electricity consumption at 15-minute intervals. (4) Electricity consumption is predicted for short-term (2 days and 7 days) and medium-term (15 days and 30 days) scenarios. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the conventional Prophet model by more than 23 times and the modified GRU model by more than 2 times in terms of MAPE.

Leaf senescence in plants is the last stage of leaf development that is characterized by a decline in photosynthetic activity, an active degeneration of cellular structures and the recycling of accumulated nutrients to areas of active growth such as buds, young leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. This process holds economic significance as it can impact yield, influencing the plant´s ability to maintain an active photosynthetic system during prolonged periods, especially during the grain filling stage, which affects plant weight and oil content. It can be associated with different stresses or environmental conditions, manifesting itself widely in the context of climate change and limiting yield, especially in crops of agronomic relevance. In this work we study the stability of two widely described sunflower genotypes belonging to the INTA Breeding Program against differential N conditions, to verify their yield stability in control conditions and under N supply. Two inbred lines were utilized, namely R453 (early senescence) and B481–6 (late senescence), with contrasting nitrogen availability in the soil but sharing the same ontogeny cycle length. It was observed that, starting from R5.5, the B481-6 genotype not only delayed senescence but also exhibited a positive response to increased nitrogen availability in the soil. This response included an increase in intercepted radiation, resulting in a statistically significant enhancement in grain yield. Conversely, the R453 genotype did not show significant differences under varying nitrogen availability and exhibited a tendency to decrease grain yield when nitrogen availability was increased. The response to nitrogen can vary depending on the specific genotype.

In this paper, we introduce the (ρ,q)-analogue of the p-adic factorial function. By utilizing some properties of (ρ,q)-numbers, we obtain several new and interesting identities and formulas. We then construct the p-adic (ρ,q)-gamma function by means of the mentioned factorial function. We investigate several properties and relationships belonging to the foregoing gamma function, some of which are given for the case p = 2. We also derive more representations of the p-adic (ρ,q)-gamma function in general case. Moreover, we consider the p-adic (ρ,q)-Euler constant derived from the derivation of p-adic (ρ,q)-gamma function at x = 1. Furthermore, we provide a limit representation of aforementioned Euler constant based on (ρ,q)-numbers. Finally, we consider (ρ,q)-extension of the p-adic beta function via the p-adic (ρ,q)-gamma function and we then investigate various formulas and identities.

Stock price prediction is challenging due to global economic instability, high volatility and complexity of financial markets. Hence, this study compared several machine learning algorithms for stock market prediction and further examine the influence of sentiment analysis indicator in predicting stock price. Our results are in two-fold. Firstly, we present a lexicon-based sentiment analysis approach for identifying sentiment features and thus, evidence the correlation between the sentiment indicator and stock price movement. Secondly, we propose the use of GRUVader, an optimal gated recurrent unit networks for stock market prediction. Our findings suggest stand-alone models struggle when compared with AI-enhanced models. Thus, our paper made further recommendations on latter systems.

Accurate solar power forecasting is pivotal for the effective planning, management, and operation of power systems, ensuring a sustainable energy supply for consumers while optimizing the integration of renewable energy sources and the functioning of electricity markets. Recent advancements have focused on developing predictive models that offer precise daily forecasts for solar power generation, which are critical for power usage planning and production efficiency. These models typically leverage a diverse range of data inputs, including solar power metrics and meteorological variables such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, solar radiation, and wind speed—factors that significantly influence solar power generation due to their weather-dependent nature. This study introduces a novel hybrid forecasting model that synergizes the capabilities of the Prophet model and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), leveraging their respective strengths to enhance predictive performance. The proposed model is rigorously evaluated across short-term (2 days, 7 days) and medium-term (15 days, 30 days) forecasting horizons. Experimental results demonstrate that the hybrid model significantly outperforms the existing models, delivering superior accuracy in solar power generation forecasts.

Machine learning (ML) has transformed the financial industry by enabling advanced applications such as credit scoring, fraud detection, and market forecasting. At the core of this transformation is deep learning (DL), a subset of ML that is robust at processing and analyzing complex and large datasets. This paper provides a concise overview of key deep learning models, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTMs), Deep Belief Networks (DBNs), Transformers, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), and Deep Reinforcement Learning (Deep RL). The study examines their learning processes, mathematical foundations, and practical applications in finance. It also explores recent advances and emerging trends in the financial industry alongside critical challenges such as data quality, model interpretability, and computational complexity, offering insights into future research directions that can guide the development of more robust and explainable financial models.

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is a fast-developing battery technology, and the key to its reliability and lifespan improvement lies in the accurate assessment of durability. However, the degradation mechanism of PEMFC is hard to determine and its internal parameters are highly coupled. Thus, the development of the more accurate life prediction model that meets the actual scenarios is urgent to investigate. To solve this problem, a multi-feature fusion life prediction method based on Temporal Convolutional Network-Gated Recurrent Unit (TCN-GRU) is proposed. A TCN algorithm is used as the prediction base model, and two GRU modules are included to the model to strengthen the model expression ability and improve its predictive accuracy. Two widely recognized datasets and two operating conditions are utilized for model training and prediction, respectively. Comparisons are made with single-feature parameter models in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Determination Coefficient (R2). The results show that the prediction accuracy of the TCN-GRU multi-feature fusion model is higher than that of the single-feature models in terms of stability and anti-interference under both operating conditions. Furthermore, with the increase of input feature parameters, the TCN-GRU model is closer to the real value, which proves once again that the proposed model can meet the accuracy requirements of the life prediction of PEMFC.

Introduction: Early childhood caries is a significant public health problem among preschool children. The COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted dental services, altered family dynamics, affected child development, and created new demands on caregivers, may have exacerbated this issue. Objective: Analyze the occurrence and severity of caries and identify associated factors in preschool children attending public municipal daycare centers in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Methodology: A cross-sectional epidemiological study was conducted to investigate caries in children aged 2 to 5 years in 2022 and 2023. Caries was assessed using the decayed, extracted, filled, and missing teeth (DEFT) index, and prevalence was calculated. Sociodemographic, family dynamic, dietary, and healthcare utilization data were obtained through a questionnaire. After descriptive and exploratory analyses, robust Poisson multivariable regression was conducted at a 5% significance level, considering socioeconomic, psychosocial, and behavioral aspects. Results: A total of 440 preschoolers participated, with a mean age of 55 months. The majority were Black or mixed race (88.86%) and female (52.73%). The prevalence of caries was 30.91% and the mean DEFT score was 1.1. In the multivariable analysis, low family income (up to one minimum wage) and not playing outdoors during the pandemic were associated with a higher prevalence of caries. Conclusion: The prevalence and severity of caries remain high, and the pandemic has contributed to the maintenance of this epidemiological scenario. Public health measures and policies promoting social justice should be planned to improve oral health conditions in childhood.

In this study, we propose a conservative and compact finite difference scheme designed to preserve both the mass change rate and energy for solving the sixth-order Boussinesq equation with the surface tension. Theoretical analysis confirms that the proposed scheme achieves second-order accuracy in temporal discretization and fourth-order accuracy in spatial discretization. The solvability, convergence, and stability of the difference scheme are rigorously established through the application of the discrete energy method. Additionally, a series of numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness and reliability of the conservative scheme for long-time simulations.

In this paper, we introduce a new class of $(p,q)$-analogue type of Fubini numbers and polynomials and investigate some properties of these polynomials. We establish summation formulas of these polynomials by summation techniques series. Furthermore, we consider some relationships for $(p,q)$-Fubini polynomials associated with $(p,q)$-Bernoulli polynomials, $(p,q)$-Euler polynomials and $(p,q)$-Genocchi polynomials and $(p,q)$-Stirling numbers of the second kind.

Software Engineering education has grown during the past couple of decades as a specialized branch of computer science education to address employment demands. Software Engineering education is constantly evolving because of its dynamic nature. However, there are still some gaps between the skills being taught in the universities and skills required for employment. In this paper, we present our experience of designing and delivering a new module to enhance skills for employment. We have taken a structured approach to analyze the gap through literature review and our personal experiences of engaging with employers of our students. Based on the analysis, we arrived at a set of gaps between what we teach and what the employers of our students need. We prioritized the gaps and envisaged a new module ‘Contemporary Software Engineering’ to address the gaps and subsequently help our students for an easy transition to job. As part of our experience, we present the background, design and delivery of the module and reflect on our journey of delivering the module for a few years.

Polluting discharges are produced at a rate that is inexorably rising in tandem with human activity development. Eutrophication and other matters, such as offensive aquatic life, require wastewater to be treated before being discharged into the environment. Prior releasing into water bodies, the treated waters must to undertake laboratory analysis. For this purpose, an analysis using standard methods was carried out at the Laboratory Waterworks in Debrecen on various samples taken from various wastewater treatment plants (sewage treatment plants) in Hungary. The overall objective of this study was to assess the quality of the effluents from the fourteen (14) wastewater treatment plants and investigate their efficiency by measuring various physicochemical parameters and microbiological parameters as excellent indicators to evaluate the performance of the studied wastewater treatment plants. The microbiological indicator monitored was the heterotrophic count (HPC) by estimating its total number, which provides useful information for the assessment and monitoring of water samples. The determination of physicochemical parameters included biological oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and nitrite -N (NO2), ammonia-N (NH3-N), nitrate-N (NO3) total phosphorus (TP), Kjeldahl- Nitrogen (organic N+ammonia-N) (TKN), total inorganic N (TI), total suspended solids (TSS) and total nitrogen (TN). The performance of the wastewater treatment plants examined was checked and the results were conclusive. In the future, solutions should be applied to these wastewater treatment plants and some recommendations are suggested.

Formaldehyde is generated via the biochemical and chemical pathways, and it widely exists in foods. Its chronic exposure causes carcinogenic, neurotoxic, reproductive, allergic, immunological, genetic and respiratory toxicities. However, food-sourced formaldehyde is usually neglected due to its rapid metabolism after intake. Compared with its residual level in processed foods, a large proportion of formaldehyde disappears because of its high reactivity. Nevertheless, its elimination reaction mechanism and the potential consequences remain unclear. In this review, the disappearing pathway of formaldehyde from two aspects, the formation of formaldehyde-derived toxins and aromas, was reviewed. This review article may help food scientists take appropriate strategies to use the beneficial reactions of formaldehyde or divert its harmful effects to beneficial ones.

Employee turnover is a significant issue for financial institutions, impacting productivity, increasing recruitment costs, and disrupting critical operations. In this project, this study aimed to predict employee turnover using a dataset containing attributes such as employee satisfaction, performance, and tenure. By framing the task as a binary classification problem, this study employed CatBoost and XGBoost, two advanced regression-based algorithms, to develop predictive models. This paper's analysis demonstrated that CatBoost outperformed XGBoost across all evaluation metrics, including MAE, MSE, RMSE, and R², making it the more effective model for predicting turnover in the financial sector. The study highlights key factors contributing to employee attrition, such as job satisfaction, tenure, and promotion opportunities, offering actionable insights for retention strategies. Additionally, by predicting probabilities rather than binary outcomes, this study aims to make more detailed decisions about employee retention. This research provides valuable tools for financial institutions to mitigate the risk of turnover, retain critical talent, and ensure operational continuity.

Granular material is one of the most common in nature. Recently, there has been a significant amount of interest in the granular materials, such as powders or sand. It is challenging to describe the motion of such kind of macroscopic size matter, because it behaves like solid, fluid or gas. Size division, pattern formation, avalanches, packing and convection - these are just a few examples from a wide range of observed phenomena that occur during the motion process of granular matter. Most of these processes are based by flow and no wonder that much effort has been devoted to obtain a hydrodynamic description in which granular materials are treated as a continuous medium. During the research of vertically shaken granular medium motion in an opened container it was found that experimental and numerical results are explained by hydrodynamic theory. This paper investigates the motion of a granular matter for a shallow, vertically shaken bed. We assume the Leidenfrost state as initial and the matter resembles a fluid heated up from below.A one-dimensional isothermal and a non-isothermal problem of granular material motion,simulatedby a hydrodynamic model are considered, and the material is assumed to be a continuous medium. The local temporal solvability of isothermal and non-isothermal initial boundary-value problem in Sobolev’s spaces is proved. This work presents a numerical study of the one-dimensional model of granular medium flow. The feature of this model is consideration of the Navier-Stokes equations accounting an interpolation form of VanderWaals constitutive equation for pressure. A finite-difference approximation for numerical solution is proposed.

This bibliometric study analysed breast cancer research trends and outputs from 2014 to 1 2023, utilising data from the Scopus database. The primary objectives include analysing publication 2 growth, citation metrics, document type distribution, leading countries, preferred journals and 3 authorship patterns. The study reveals a significant increase in breast cancer research publications, 4 with a total of 12,073 documents and 216,769 citations over the ten-year period. The United States 5 leads in publication output and citation impact, followed by China and Japan. Articles are the 6 predominant document type for total 73.4% of publications, while reviews and book chapters also 7 contribute notably. The most preferred journals for publishing breast cancer research include Breast 8 Cancer Research and Treatment, Clinical Breast Cancer, and Breast Cancer Research. Authorship 9 patterns show a trend towards multi-authored papers, with a substantial number of papers having 10 more than five authors. The study underscores the global collaborative effort in advancing breast 11 cancer research and highlights key areas for future exploration.

One of the most prevalent brain diseases, epilepsy is characterized by recurring seizures that happen quite frequently. During seizures, a patient suffers uncontrollable muscle contractions that cause loss of motion and balance, which could lead to harm or even death. Establishing an automatic method for warning patients about impending seizures requires extensive research. It is possible to anticipate seizures by analyzing the Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal from the scalp region of the human brain. Time domain-based features such as Hurst exponent (Hur), Tsallis Entropy (TsEn), improved permutation entropy (impe), and amplitude-aware permutation entropy (AAPE) were extracted from EEG signals. In order to diagnose epileptic seizure children from normal children automatically, this study conducted two sessions, in the first session, the extracted features from the EEG dataset were classified using three machine learning (ML)-based models including support vector machine (SVM), K nearest neighbor (KNN), or decision tree (DT), while in the second session, the dataset was classified using three deep learning (DL)-based recurrent neural network (RNN) classifiers including a gated recurrent unit (GRU), long short-term memory (LSTM), and bidirectional (BiLSTM). The EEG dataset obtained from the Neurology Clinic at the Ibn-Rushd Training Hospital. In this regard, detailed explanations and research from the time domain and entropy characteristics show that using GRU, LSTM, and BiLSTM RNN deep learning classifiers on the All−time−entropy fusion feature improves the final classification results.

Obesity and overweight is a foremost concern around the globe for each group of age. This can be accelerated by the current imposed lockdown. However, excessive weight gain may result in other chronic diseases. This study has been considering the age group of 25 to 55 years as the sample populations and monitoring them from July, 2020 to November, 2020. The lifestyle of this population, food habit, mental health conditions are explored using deep learning based framework. All these parameters need to be monitored as these have close relation with currently imposed constraints due to COVID-19. A predictive model is constructed using deep learning techniques to predict the risk of gaining weight. The predictive model hybridizes the convolutional layer and gated recurrent neural networks as a unified entity for achieving the objective of early weight gain prediction. The result obtained by this model exhibits an encouraging predictive efficiency of 93.7%.

COVID-19 and new concept, lockdown, change social life of all classes of humans. Children partially feel the changes of daily life and this situation has been children’s free mind. Children are under a new type of restriction imposed on them by their parents. Normally they prefer play with their their friends than study and always waiting for holidays. They heard a new jargon i.e. lockdown where everything stands still. Very often they see peoples in the roads and few vehicles are moving in the roads. However, a peculiar thing happens now that they sit in front of computer to hear the virtual classes that are taken by the teachers. This also happens when there is no lockdown since COVID-19 still affects people. The environment is totally changed and they do not find any proper answers from the parents about the scenario.This study has been made an attempt to carry out the mental affairs of children in West Bengal, India. Several families are surveyed for collecting responses mostly from rural areas as well as urban areas for the time-period from April, 2020 to July, 2020. An effort has been given in this paper to predict the stress, depression and anxiety faced by children during the COVID-19. A Deep Learning Neural Network (DLNN) based method is applied to understand the stress level, depression level and anxiety level amongst the children. A hybrid DLNN has been presented in this research that combines both Convolutional Layer and Gated-Recurrent Unit (GRU) for obtaining the prediction of the mental health of children. The model obtains an accuracy of 89.57% for defeminizing mental anxiety of children.

Objective: To evaluate the affective responses to running with imposed velocity or self-selected time trials in runners, as well as the effects on volume load (VL) and training impulse (TRIMP). Anxiety was also determined. We establish the level of association between the dependent variables. Methods: Three visits were carried out. 1st visit consisted of a maximum running effort test (VO₂Max). 2nd and 3rd visits, participants were divided between the time limit (T_Lim) or time trial 1000m running at self-selected intensity (T₁₀₀₀). Participant responded to felt arousal, feeling and anxiety SUDS scale, before, during and after T_Lim and T₁₀₀₀. Results: T_Lim vs. T₁₀₀₀ (p<0.001), V_Peak x V₁₀₀₀ (p=0.013), showed differences, but did not influence VL_TLim vs. VL₁₀₀₀ (3181.34 ± 872.22 vs. 3570.60 ± 323.3; p=0.062). TRIMP showed no differences (p=0.068). Arousal did not differ between the pre-exercise (p=0.772) and post-exercise (p=0.083) groups, but was different during (p=0.035). There were differences between groups in the pre-exercise (p=0.012), during (p<0.001) and post-exercise (p<0.001) for feeling and anxiety scores. The correlation between TRIMP and affective scores showed association for T_Lim (r=0.46; p=0.043). Conclusion: The self-selected exercise generated positive affective responses, but the same did not occur for the imposed T_Lim. VL and TRIMP presented equality. There was association TRIMP and T_Lim feeling scale. T_Lim significantly increased anxiety scores.

ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art AI model created by OpenAI, is renowned for its ability to produce text responses that closely mimic human communication. Recently, it has broadened its scope to encompass multimodal interactions, rendering it particularly advantageous for medical applications. In this paper, we explore into the potential of ChatGPT in the realm of Ultrasound (US) imaging, Our investigation encompasses a series of case studies and examples, each tailored to demonstrate ChatGPT’s application in various aspects of US imaging. These include emphasizing its capacity for intricate analyses, including grayscale texture examination and perfusion metrics in contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS). Moreover, its involvement in real-time imaging guidance, its role in streamlining workflow efficiencies, and its utility in the simplification of medical report generation to facilitate better patient communication. The case studies, while successful, unveil certain limitations and challenges, prominently featuring concerns regarding privacy and technical constraints. Despite these challenges, the evidence gathered from our examples indicates that ChatGPT's innovative features and its ability to operate across multiple modes significantly enhance the efficiency of quantitative image analysis in US imaging. By improving diagnostic precision and potentially elevating patient care outcomes, ChatGPT marks a significant stride forward in healthcare technology, though it necessitates careful consideration of its associated ethical and technical challenges.

Introduction: Bladder pain syndrome (BPS)/interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory condition characterized by bothersome symptoms as pain, urgency, urinary incontinence and in some cases urinary retention, impacting a patient’s quality of life. However, also recurrent cystitis could cause a chronic bladder inflammation which can explain discomfort of the bladder and similar symptoms, often referred by younger patients during clinical evaluation. The aetiology of IC/BPS is still unknown, and it may be multifactorial. Although a definitive treatment is not available, the challenge is finding new therapeutic strategies. Different intravesical treatments such as heparin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, pentosan polysulfate, dimethylsulfoxide, liposomes, and botulinum onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT‐A) are commonly proposed for BPS/IC. The aim of study was to evaluate the anti‐inflammatory effects of intravesical Vessilen® (a new formulation of 2% adelmidrol (the diethanolamide derivative of azelaic acid) + 0.1% sodium hyaluronate) administration in patients affected by IC/BPS or other bladder disorders. Methods: This was a prospective observational study. At baseline and after the treatment, validated questionnaires were administered to the patients: the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Modules (ICIQ‐FLUTS Long Form). The subjective perception of the severity of symptoms was investigated by the Patient global impression scale (PGIs). Results: Based on 25 patients who completed the cycle of weekly instillation for six weeks, we observed a significant decrease in the severity of bladder symptoms according to both ICIQ‐FLUTS scale (89.3 vs 61.3; p=0.021) and VAS score (4.4 vs 2.6; p<0.001). Moreover, according to PGI‐I, 80% of patients observed an improvement in symptoms (PGI‐I score ≤ 3). Conclusion: Intravesical administration of adelmidrol combined with sodium hyaluronate (Vessilen®) could be an innovative therapeutic approach for patient complaining interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) or other chronic inflammatory bladder disorders, due to its well‐known anti‐inflammatory and antinociceptive properties.Introduction: Bladder pain syndrome (BPS)/interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory condition characterized by bothersome symptoms as pain, urgency, urinary incontinence and in some cases urinary retention, impacting a patient’s quality of life. However, also recurrent cystitis could cause a chronic bladder inflammation which can explain discomfort of the bladder and similar symptoms, often referred by younger patients during clinical evaluation. The aetiology of IC/BPS is still unknown, and it may be multifactorial. Although a definitive treatment is not available, the challenge is finding new therapeutic strategies. Different intravesical treatments such as heparin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, pentosan polysulfate, dimethylsulfoxide, liposomes, and botulinum onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT‐A) are commonly proposed for BPS/IC. The aim of study was to evaluate the anti‐inflammatory effects of intravesical Vessilen® (a new formulation of 2% adelmidrol (the diethanolamide derivative of azelaic acid) + 0.1% sodium hyaluronate) administration in patients affected by IC/BPS or other bladder disorders. Methods: This was a prospective observational study. At baseline and after the treatment, validated questionnaires were administered to the patients: the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Modules (ICIQ‐FLUTS Long Form). The subjective perception of the severity of symptoms was investigated by the Patient global impression scale (PGIs). Results: Based on 25 patients who completed the cycle of weekly instillation for six weeks, we observed a significant decrease in the severity of bladder symptoms according to both ICIQ‐FLUTS scale (89.3 vs 61.3; p=0.021) and VAS score (4.4 vs 2.6; p<0.001). Moreover, according to PGI‐I, 80% of patients observed an improvement in symptoms (PGI‐I score ≤ 3). Conclusion: Intravesical administration of adelmidrol combined with sodium hyaluronate (Vessilen®) could be an innovative therapeutic approach for patient complaining interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) or other chronic inflammatory bladder disorders, due to its well‐known anti‐inflammatory and antinociceptive properties.

Breast cancer is among the most prevalent cancers in Indonesia. One of the methods for early detection of breast cancer is utilizing ultrasound images to classify breast conditions into normal, benign tumors, or cancer. The advent of deep learning technology facilitates the image analysis process, such as the use of Transfer Learning Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Generally, CNN models require large and balanced datasets to perform well in classification tasks. However, medical datasets like breast ultrasound images tend to be limited and imbalanced. The Wasserstein GAN (WGAN) is a generative data augmentation method capable of producing synthetic images by learning the pattern of the distribution of real image data. The implementation of the Wasserstein distance results in the training process of WGAN demonstrating stability from epochs 3000, 2500, and 3000 out of a total of 5000 epochs. The quality of the synthetic images improves with an increasing number of training iterations. By using WGAN, all of the evaluation metrics of each classifier are increasing, with the best accuracy score is achieved by VGG16 model with 83.33% accuracy.

Background: Nanotechnology has emerged as a promising field of study, aiming to revolutionize healthcare through the innovative development of drugs, diagnostic tools, and medical devices. As a result, healthcare professionals in training are constantly faced with the challenge of understanding and applying these emerging technologies. The objective of this study is to determine the factors to consider for including the teaching of nanotechnological tools in medical specialty postgraduate programs. Methods: A study based on the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was conducted to identify the factors that promote and hinder the implementation of nanotechnology in certain postgraduate programs where nanotechnology is employed, such as Internal Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Family Medicine, and Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Medicine of Universidad de La Sabana. A framework analysis was used to analyze the collected data. Results: Based on the two research questions, several aspects were identified for the inclusion of nanotechnology in the medical practice of specialties. Key challenges include lack of knowledge and resource availability, misinformation, and lack of knowledge, as well as paradigmatic analysis as the main obstacles to the use of nanotechnology. Conclusions: The findings provide a first-time study on nanotechnology curricula within medical specialty programs in Colombia, with potential extrapolation to similar situations in other medical schools.

The species and bio-availability of phosphorus (P) in primary, secondary and digested sludge were fractionated and further analyzed in this study. Results showed that inorganic P (IP) was the primary P fraction in the secondary sludge and digested sludge, in which non-apatite IP (NAIP) amounted to 91.6% and 69.3% of IP, respectively. Organic P (OP), accounting for about 71.7% of total P (TP), was the dominant P composition in primary sludge. The content of bio-available P was about 9.7, 43.4, 29.8 mg-P/g-TS in primary sludge, secondary sludge and digested sludge, respectively, suggesting secondary sludge is the optimal choice when land application of sewage sludge is taken into consideration, followed by digested sludge and primary sludge. Polyphosphate and orthophosphate, comprising approximately 54.3% and 89.2% of TP, was the dominant P species in the secondary sludge and digested sludge, respectively. Monoester-P (54.6% of TP in extract) and diester- P (24.1%) were identified as OP species in primary sludge by Phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31PNMR). The present results would be helpful for P recovery and recycle from sewage sludge in wastewater treatment plant.

In the era of information explosion in e-commerce, users face an overload problem. Recommender systems alleviate this by filtering target products based on user preferences. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is a popular method but struggles with high-quality recommendations due to data sparsity. Utilizing review texts to capture user preferences has improved CF recommendations. This paper proposes a deep learning-based recommendation framework leveraging bidirectional gated recurrent units (Bi-GRUs) and an attention-based Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) structure. This framework addresses insufficient user rating data by utilizing user reviews to infer preferences. Experimental results on three datasets show that the proposed Bi-GRUCF model outperforms other state-of-the-art methods, achieving a 55.4% improvement in Mean Absolute Error (MAE) over traditional methods and a 77.8% improvement over other deep learning approaches. This demonstrates the framework's superior recommendation quality, particularly in sparse data scenarios.

This study presents a comparative analysis of two advanced attention-based deep learning models—Attention-LSTM and Attention-GRU—for predicting cryptocurrency price movements. The models utilize historical OHLCV data, combined with four technical indicators: SMA, EMA, TEMA, and MACD, to enhance the accuracy of classification into three categories: uptrend, downtrend, and neutral. Both models aim to capture market dynamics through sequential data while incorporating attention mechanisms to focus on relevant time steps. Experimental results demonstrate that the inclusion of technical indicators significantly improves model performance, with MACD yielding the highest accuracy. The Attention-GRU model shows computational advantages, while the Attention-LSTM model excels in capturing long-term dependencies.

Accurate classification of objects in 3D point clouds is a significant problem in several applications, such as autonomous navigation and augmented/virtual reality scenarios, which has become a research hot spot. In this paper, we presented a deep learning strategy for 3D object classification in augmented reality. The proposed approach is a combination of the GRU and LSTM. LSTM networks learn longer dependencies well, but due to the number of gates, it takes longer to train; on the other hand, GRU networks have a weaker performance than LSTM, but their training speed is much higher than GRU, which is The speed is due to its fewer gates. The proposed approach used the combination of speed and accuracy of these two networks. The proposed approach achieved an accuracy of 0.99 in the 4,499,0641 points dataset, which includes eight classes (unlabeled, man-made terrain, natural terrain, high vegetation, low vegetation, buildings, hardscape, scanning artifacts, cars). Meanwhile, the traditional machine learning approaches could achieve a maximum accuracy of 0.9489 in the best case.

Stock market prediction is a challenging task to perform, as we know the fluctuations that take place in the market makes it versatile and hard to predict the prices. In this research, we have explored the power of usage of hybrid ensemble algorithms to improve the predictive accuracy in the stock market forecasting. Our research comprises construction and evaluation of diverse hybrid models using different algorithms. The methodology presented in the paper involves comprehensive data preparation, feature engineering, and model normalization. Evaluating the different hybrid models, one stands out distinctly: LSTM (long short-term memory networks) + GRU (Gated recurrent units) + Conv1D (one-dimensional convolutional layer) hybrid. It illustrated its potential to revolutionize decision-making tools for investors and financial analysts in stock market analytics. The harmonious integration of algorithms not only underscores the effectiveness of hybrid modeling but also beckons for further exploration within the ever-evolving domain of predictive modeling, driven by the pursuit of precision and accuracy. This model shows a remarkable accuracy metrics including a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.95, a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of 2.1222, a Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of 1.52, and a R-squared (R2) score of 0.9982.

To enhance system reliability and mitigate vulnerabilities of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), it is common to fuse the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and visual sensors with the GNSS receiver in the navigation system design, effectively enabling compensations with absolute position and reducing data gaps. To address shortcomings of traditional Kalman Filter (KF) such as sensor error, imperfect nonlinear system model, and KF estimation error, a GRU-aided ESKF architecture is proposed to enhance positioning performance. This study conducts Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) to priories and identify the potential faults in the urban environment facilitating the design of improved fault-tolerant system architecture. The identified primary fault events are data association error and navigation environment error during fault conditions of feature mismatch, especially in the presence of multiple failure modes. A hybrid federated navigation system architecture is employed using a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) to predict state increments for updating the state vector in the Error Estate Kalman Filter (ESKF) measurement step. The proposed algorithm’s performance is evaluated in a simulation environment in MATLAB under multiple visually degraded conditions. Comparative results provide evidence that the GRU-aided ESKF outperforms standard ESKF and state-of-the-art solutions like VINS-Mono, End-to-End VIO, and Self-Supervised VIO, exhibiting higher efficiency in complex environments.

The unreliable prediction of the low frequency components from inverted acoustic impedance causes uncertainty in quantitative seismic interpretation. To address this issue, we first calculate various seismic and geological attributes that contain low frequency information, such as relative geological age, interval velocity, and integrated instantaneous amplitude. Then, we develop a method to predict the low frequency content of seismic data using these attributes, their high frequency components, and recurrent neural networks. Next, we test how to predict the low frequency components using stacking velocity obtained from velocity analysis. Using all the attributes and seismic data, we propose a supervised deep learning method to predict the low frequency components of the inverted acoustic impedance. The results obtained in both synthetic and real data cases show that the proposed method can improve the prediction accuracy of the low frequency components of the inverted acoustic impedance, with the best improvement in a real data example of 57.7% compared with the impedance predicted using well log interpolation.

Early detection of wildfires has been limited using the sun-synchronous orbit satellites due to their low temporal resolution and wildfires’ fast spread in the early stage. NOAA’s geostationary weather satellites GOES-R can acquire images every 15 minutes at 2km spatial resolution, and have been used for early fire detection. However, advanced processing algorithms are needed to provide timely and reliable detection of wildfires. In this research, a deep learning framework, based on Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), is proposed to detect wildfires at early stage using GOES-R dense time series data. GRU model maintains good performance on temporal modelling while keep a simple architecture, makes it suitable to efficiently process time-series data. 36 different wildfires in North and South America under the coverage of GOES-R satellites are selected to assess the effectiveness of the GRU method. The detection times based on GOES-R are compared with VIIRS active fire products at 375m resolution in NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). The results show that GRU-based GOES-R detections of the wildfires are earlier than that of the VIIRS active fire products in most of the study areas. Also, results from proposed method offer more precise location on the active fire at early stage than GOES-R Active Fire Product in mid-latitude and low-latitude regions.

Optical motion capture is a mature contemporary technique for the acquisition of motion data, alas it is non-error-free. Due to technical limitations and occlusions of markers, gaps might occur in such recordings. The article reviews various neural network architectures applied for gap filling problem in motion capture sequences within FBM framework providing the representation for body kinematic structure. The results are compared with interpolation and matrix completion methods. We found out, that for longer sequences simple linear feedforward neural networks can outperform the other, sophisticated architectures. We were also able to identify, that acceleration and monotonicity of input sequence are the parameters that have a notable impact on the obtained results.

We conducted a comparative study on the development of two synthetic methods. The solvent-free synthesis is a green chemistry method developed in a bid to ameliorate environmental adverse effects of the conventional solvent-based synthesis. The synthesis of novel dichloro and polymethoxy p-nitrophenylhydrazones through solvent free technique gave moderate to high yields which were however lower than those of the solvent-based method. The established solvent-free approach has several benefits, including universality and simplicity of the approach, catalyst-free conditions, non-use of an organic solvent, quick reaction time, fast and efficient workup, and un-solvated pure products in moderate to high yields.

There is growing interest in understanding the connection between concussions on physical and mental health acutely and, in retirement, on neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we utilised a “high-impact trauma” (HIT) device to investigate the effects of multiple concussions on the motor activity, and lifespan of the adult female Drosophila melanogaster as well as reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) levels in the fly brain and body. We found that repetitive hits, while not having acute physical effects, significantly increased long-term mobility deficits, and shortened lifespan, and exacerbated oxidative stress in both the brain and body. Notably, the novel CONKA product (Withania somnifera, Curcuma longa, Melissa officinalis, Rhodiola rosea, Vaccinium myrtillus) demonstrated promising protective effects, including mitigation of motor deficits, extension of lifespan, and reduction of oxidative stress in both the brain and body of the flies. When evaluating the contributions of individual components within the CONKA formulation, Curcuma longa, despite extending lifespan, did not contribute to mobility improvement or oxidative stress amelioration. This suggests that the benefits of CONKA are largely driven by its other four components, which displayed all the positive effects evaluated. The exclusion of Curcuma longa may streamline the formulation without diminishing its brain and body effects following a history of repetitive concussions, although this would require further study to confirm. Oral bioavailability may be an issue with Curcuma longa. Taken together, the findings validate that Drosophila melanogaster is a suitable system to mimic and investigate the effects of repetitive concussions on bodies and brains and assess the effects of health products and drug therapies.

Reaction of the phosphonated hydrazone (2-hydrazineylidenepropyl) diphenylphosphine oxide 1 with p-fluorophenyl-isothiocyanate yields as major product the thiosemicarbazone Ph2P(=O)CH2{C=N-NH(C=S)-N(H)C6H4F}CH3 (2-(1-(diphenylphosphoryl)propan-2-ylidene)-N-(4-fluorophenyl)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide) 2 along with bis(N-p-fluorophenylthiourea) 3 as minor product. This latter product 3 was isolated as main product by direct treatment of p-FC6H4N=C=S with hydrazine in a 2:1 ratio. Both 2 and 3 were characterized by NMR. Furthermore, the molecular structure of 3 was elucidated by an X-ray diffraction study. A conformational DFT study, at the B3LYP/6311 G++ (d, p) level of theo-ry, confirmed a good match between the calculated structure and the experimental one.

The design and control of lower limb rehabilitation robots for patients after a stroke has gained significant attention. This paper presents the dynamic analysis and control of a 3-degree-of-freedom lower limb rehabilitation robot using combined position-force control based on the force feed-forward and compensate gravity proportional derivative method. In the lower limb rehabilitation robot, the interaction force between the patient with the joints and links of the robot is uncertain and nonlinear due to the disturbance effect of Coriolis force, centrifugal force, gravitational force, and friction force. During recovery stages, forces exerted by the patient's lower limb are considered disturbances. Therefore, to meet the quality requirements in using the rehabilitation robot with different recovery stages of patient training, combining position control and force control is essential. In this paper, we proposed a combinations of proportional-derivative gravity compensation motion control and force feed-forward control to form an advanced combined controller (Position-Force Feedforward Control - PFFC) for a 3 DOF lower limb functional rehabilitation robot. The forces can be sensed using a 3-axis force sensor. In addition, the robot's position parameters are also measured by encoders. The control algorithm is implemented on the STM32F4 Discovery board. Verified test of the proposed control method is shown in the experiments and shown good performance of the system.

This paper presents an approach to assess and improve the cybersecurity infras- tructure of developing countries. We have highlighted and addressed the critical gaps through a hybrid approach encompassing SWOT analysis, benchmarking using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and, Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This approach has provided a strong basis for evaluating cybersecurity performance by combining qualitative insights with quantitative metrics. As a case study, we have compared an underdeveloped country’s (Pakistan) cybersecurity pos- ture to five highly developed countries (Lithuania, Estonia, Singapore, Spain,and Norway). Our analysis has identified cybersecurity shortcomings and pro- vided actionable recommendations within a flexible framework, applicable for all developing countries to identify and address vulnerabilities, and align their cybersecurity infrastructure with international standards.

The increasing energy consumption and industrial activities that release carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere have become one of the most serious environmental issues of today. This article discusses the current status in Azerbaijan regarding the development of effective approaches to reduce carbon emissions and ensure sustainable development, and it proposes relevant strategies for managing the carbon footprint. By exploring the interrelationship between the economy and the environment, it aims to contribute to the formation of more effective policies for managing CO2 emissions in Azerbaijan. According to the results of the econometric model established within the research for the period of 1990-2023, as the Azerbaijan economy grows, per capita CO2 emissions tend to increase, which can be linked to rising industrial activity, energy consumption, and other factors driving economic growth. The presence of a positive long-term relationship between population growth and per capita CO2 emissions can be attributed to higher overall energy consumption, increased demand for goods and services, and rising transportation needs. The strong correlation between economic growth and CO2 emissions suggests that it may be too early to assert the validity of the Kuznets curve for Azerbaijan economy as a developing country.

Fluctuations in kynurenic acid (KYNA) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels in the brain reflect its neurological status. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of transiently elevated KYNA concentration in the cerebroventricular circulation on the expression of BDNF and its high-affinity tropomyosin-related kinase receptor B (TrkB) in specific structures of the sheep brain. Intracerebroventricularly cannulated anestrous sheep were subjected to a series of four 30-min infusions of KYNA: 4×5 μg/60 μL/30 min (KYNA20, n=6) and 4×25 μg/60 μL/30 min (KYNA100, n=6) or a control infusion (n=6), at 30-min intervals. Sections of the hippocampal CA3 field, amygdala (AMG), prefrontal cortex (PCx), and the hypothalamic medial-basal (MBH) and preoptic (POA) areas were dissected from the brain immediately after the experiment. The highest concentration of BDNF protein was found in the CA3 field (P&lt;0.01), which was 8-fold higher than in the AMG and 12-fold higher than that in the PCx (MBH and POA were not analyzed). The most pronounced BDNF mRNA expression was observed in the MBH followed by the PCx, POA, AMG and CA3, while the highest abundance of TrkB mRNA was recorded in the AMG followed by the MBH, PCx, CA3 and POA. KYNA increased (P&lt;0.05-P&lt;0.01) BDNF protein levels and the expression of its gene in the brain structures examined, with the effect varying by dose and brain region. KYNA, particularly at the KYNA100 dose, also increased (P&lt;0.01) TrkB gene expression, except for the AMG, where the lower KYNA20 dose was more effective (P&lt;0.01). These findings suggest a positive relationships between KYNA levels in the cerebroventricular circulation and BDNF-TrkB expression in specific brain regions in a sheep model. This indicates that a transient increase in CSF KYNA concentration can potentially restore BDNF production, whose deficiency underlies numerous neurological disorders.

Diospyros kaki, the most widely cultivated species of persimmon, has been long used in traditional medicine since its leaves extracts contain high amounts of flavonoids and terpenoids, endowed with potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antidiabetic and antimicrobial effects. Re-cently, many in vitro and in vivo studies have assessed different potential health benefits of per-simmon leaves; however, its anticancer activity towards colorectal cancer (CRC), the second deadliest cancer in Western countries, has not been investigated in depth. Since CRC current therapies are associated with serious side effects and show no efficacy towards patients carrying RAS/BRAF mutations, the search for new and more effective therapies has turned to plant extracts, which could help reduce conventional drugs dosages and toxicity. The effect of Diospyros kaki al-coholic extract has been investigated on E705 CRC cell line, representative of most CRC patients, and on SW480 cells, carrying a KRAS activating mutation. This extract is effective in reducing tumor cells viability, without affecting the healthy mucosa cell line CCD 841, and it triggers apoptosis in CRC cells, by disrupting mitochondrial functionality and increasing oxidative stress.

Pre-transport management activities can cause stress, injuries, and mortality in poultry. This study aimed to gather information about the current pre-transport practices (selection of unfit chickens, catching preparations, catching, and crating) for spent hens and broilers by questioning Flemish poultry farmers. The results showed that catching preparations such as an extra selection of chickens unfit for transport was performed by a minority of the poultry farmers, and that layer farmers were less in line with the EU-legislation for water and feed withdrawal than broiler farmers. All birds were caught inverted except for one broiler farmer who used mechanical catching (not yet common in Flanders). Additionally, mechanical catching may involve extra costs, increased biosecurity risks, and specific recommendations for the stable (height and width). The broiler farmers preferred mechanical catching for broiler catchers' well-being, while upright catching was considered better for animal welfare than catching more than three chickens by one/two legs, mechanically, or by wings. Awareness of the need to perform an extra selection by the poultry farmers before catching is required. Preparations like closing areas under the aviary system and removing litter (layers) can further streamline the process and reduce animal suffering.

This stability analysis method is simply represented and understood on a Bode plot of two impedances without complex equations. The external impedance of the charging system is properly quantified and designed based on the stability criteria by analyzing.

Arbutus unedo (strawberry tree) is a small Mediterranean tree capable of vigorous regrowth after disturbances like fire. Traditionally used for biomass fuel, its bark and branches hold potential for higher-value products through ecovalorisation into liquid mixtures that could replace petro-leum-based materials. This study aimed to explore the chemical composition of various compo-nents of Arbutus unedo and to produce a liquefied material from its internal (IB) and external bark (EB). Chemical compositions of internal and external bark were determined using TAPPI standards including ash, extractive content, lignin, and cellulose. Metal cations were analyzed by ICP. Liquefaction of bark was optimized in a PARR reactor, evaluating factors such as particle size, temperature, and time and the best polyols were monitored by FTIR-ATR. Polyurethane foams were made with internal and external bark liquefied materials by polymerization with isocyanate, a catalyst and water as blowing agent. Results showed that EB has a higher extractive and lignin content, while IB contains more cellu-lose. Liquefaction yields were higher for IB (74%) than EB (68%), with IB yielding polyols that produced stronger and more resilient foams. Mechanical properties of the foams were influenced by the NCO/OH ratio and catalyst levels. Overall, the internal bark demonstrated superior performance for foam production, highlighting its potential as an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-derived materials.

Introduction: Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones that play a role in weight homeostasis. Leptin, which is produced primarily by adipocytes and is dependent on body fat mass, suppresses appetite and increases energy expenditure. Conversely, ghrelin is the “hunger hormone”, it stimulates appetite and promotes fat storage. Bariatric surgery significantly alters the levels and activity of these hormones, contributing to weight loss and metabolic improvements. Clarifying the interplay between bariatric surgery, weight loss, physical exercise, leptin, and ghrelin is essential for developing comprehensive strategies for optimizing long-term outcomes for candidates for bariatric surgery, especially sarcopenic patients. Methods: This was a randomized controlled study with two groups (n=22). The patients in both groups have obesity and sarcopenia. A Roux-en-Ygastric bypass (RYGB) procedure was performed in all patients. The intervention group participated in a structured exercise program three times per week beginning one month after surgery and lasting 16 weeks. Patient assessment was performed before surgery (baseline) and after completion of the exercise program. The control group received the usual standard of care and was assessed similarly. Results: After surgery, weight, BMI and lean mass decreased significantly in both groups from baseline to the second assessment. Leptin was not significantly different from baseline to the second assessment in the physical exercise group but was significantly lower in the control group (p=0.05). Ghrelin increased over time in both groups, but the differences were not significant. When we associated leptin (the dependent variable) with weight (the independent variable), we found that lower weight was associated with lower leptin levels. A similar relationship was also observed between leptin and sarcopenia parameters (muscle strength and mass), as well as with bone health parameters (bone mineral density and t-score). Higher ghrelin levels were significantly associated with higher t-scores and z-score (p<0.05). Conclusion: Exercise has been shown to have a significant effect on leptin and ghrelin levels after bariatric surgery. By incorporating regular physical activity into their lifestyle, bariatric patients can optimize their weight loss outcomes and improve their overall health. After the physical exercise protocol, patients in the intervention group revealed more established leptin levels, which may indicate a protected pattern concerning decreased leptin levels. An unfavorable profile was evidenced, according to which greater weight loss, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis were associated with lower leptin levels.

Among the theoretical problems with the prevailing theory of cosmology, Lambda Cold Dark Matter (λCDM), the most serious appears to be the twofold problem with the cosmological constant lambda: Dark Energy and Hubble Tension. Despite a two-decade search for systematic errors in astrometry the problems have not been resolved. This paper posits a potential source of error that may have affected astrometry related to the current and past measurements of lambda.

Differential beamforming has attracted much research since it can utilize the array with small aperture size to form frequency-invariant beampatterns and achieve high directional gains. It has recently been applied to the linear loudspeaker array to produce a broadside frequency-invariant radiation pattern. However, designing steerable frequency-invariant beampatterns for the linear loudspeaker array has yet to be explored. This paper proposes a method to design the steerable differential beamformer with the linear loudspeaker array. We first determine the target differential beampatterns according to the desired direction, the main lobe width, and the beampattern order. Then, we transform the target beampattern into the modal domain for representation. The Jacobi-Anger expansion is subsequently used to design the beamformer so that the resulting beam pattern matches the target differential beam pattern. Furthermore, based on the criterion of minimizing the mean square error between the synthesized beam pattern and the ideal one, a multi-constraint optimization problem is formulated to calculate the optimal desired weighting vector. Simulations and experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve steerable frequency-invariant beamforming over 300 Hz – 4 kHz.

N-(diisopropylphosphanyl)benzamide, PhC(O)NHPiPr2, has been synthesized in good yield following two alternative procedures that employ benzamide as the starting material. The first one is a two-step preparation, in which N-(trimetilsilyl)benzamide is reacted with PiPr2Cl, to give the title compound in good yield, whereas the second one is a straightforward synthesis which converts benzamide into N-(diisopropylphosphanyl)benzamide by reaction with PiPr2Cl in the presence of N,N-dimethylpyridin-4-amine (DMAP) and triethylamine. NMR spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses have been performed to characterize the new compound and elucidate its molecular structure in the solid state. N-(diisopropylphosphanyl)benzamide adds to the limited family of amido-substituted phosphines, RC(O)NHPR’2, which can be classified as bidentate hybrid P,O-ligands, both in their neutral and anionic forms, the latter achievable by deprotonation of the NH group.

The positive relationship between species richness and area is a fundamental principle in ecology. However, this pattern deviates on small islands, where species richness either changes independently of area or increases at a slower rate—a phenomenon known as the Small-Island Effect (SIE). While the SIE has been well-documented in natural ecosystem, its presence in highly fragmented and disturbed urban ecosystem remains unexplored, posing challenges for urban vegetation conservation. Urban remnant vegetation, isolated by surrounding infrastructures, preserves intact zonal vegetation characteristics, serves as a benchmark for restoring near-natural habitats and offers ideal conditions to test the existence of SIE in human-altered landscapes. In this study, we surveyed 17 remnant vegetation patches in Qingdao City, China. In total of 331 plants attributed to 255 genus in 81 families been recorded. Firstly, by using six species-area relationship regression models tested SIE for remnant vegetation with different life form (i.e. annual herb, perennial herb, shrub and tree), we found SIE detected in only woody plants, with area threshold ranging from 6.38 ha (tree) to 11.91 ha (shrub). According to stepwise and generalized linear regression mode analysis we found SIE detected in only woody plants, with area threshold 6.38 ha for tree and 11.91 ha for shrub. Further analysis revealed that the SIE in shrub was driven by landscape shape index, perimeter-area ratio, and the proportion of sealed surface within patch. For trees, the SIE was influenced by the distance to the source of species, GDP, night light intensity and perimeter-area ratio. This finding justifies that conservation in urban planning, construction and development should focus not only on protecting large areas, but also on maintaining and promoting diverse habitats within these areas. At the same time, reducing anthropogenic disturbance and enhancing the connectivity of green spaces are important for the persistence of metacommunities and can contribute to the local species pool, thus potentially improving the ecological resilience of urban environments.

Chikungunya is mosquito born disease that is spread across continents. This research provides valuable insights into the potential functional significance of the hydrophobic tail and cysteine-rich regions in E2 proteins. These findings lay the groundwork for future investigations into the specific roles of the C-terminal domain and post-translational modifications, which could ultimately lead to a better understanding of viral mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets.

Fanconi syndrome is a disorder of renal proximal tubule transport characterized by metabolic acidosis, amino aciduria, glucosuria, and phosphaturia. There are acquired and hereditary forms of this disorder. Fanconi syndrome in Basenjis was first described in 1976 and is now recognized as an inherited disease in these dogs. Linkage analysis within a large family of Basenjis that included both affected and unaffected individuals was performed to localize the causative variant within the genome. Significant linkage was identified between chromosome 3 (CFA3) makers and the disease phenotype. Fine mapping restricted the region to a 2.7 Mb section of CFA3. A whole genome sequence of a Basenji affected with Fanconi syndrome was generated, and the sequence data were examined for the presence of potentially deleterious homozygous variants within the mapped region. A homozygous 317 bp deletion was identified in the last exon of FAN1 of the proband. 78 Basenjis of known disease status were genotyped for the deletion variant. Among these dogs, there was almost complete concordance between genotype and phenotype. The only exception was one dog that was homozygous for the deletion variant but did not exhibit signs of Fanconi syndrome. These data indicate that the disorder is very likely the result of FAN1 deficiency. The mechanism by which this deficiency causes the disease signs remains to be elucidated. FAN1 has endonuclease and exonuclease activity that catalyzes incisions in regions of double-stranded DNA containing interstrand crosslinks. FAN1 inactivation may cause Fanconi syndrome in Basenjis by sensitization of kidney proximal tubule cells to toxin-mediated DNA crosslinking resulting in accumulation of genomic and mitochondrial DNA damage in the kidney. Differential exposure to environmental toxins that promote DNA crosslink formation may explain the wide age-at-onset variability for the disorder in Basenjis.

Background: Patients undergoing brain tumor resection experience neurological and cognitive (i.e., neurocognitive) changes reflected in altered performance on neuropsychological tests. These changes can be difficult to explain or predict. Brain connectivity, measured with neuroimaging, offers one potential model for examining these changes. In this study, we evaluated whether longitudinal changes in brain connectivity correlated with changes in neurocognitive abilities in patients before and after brain tumor resection. Methods: Patients underwent functional and diffusion MR scanning and neuropsychological evaluation before tumor resection followed by repeat scanning and evaluation two weeks post-resection. Using this functional and diffusion imaging data, we measured changes in the topology of the functional and structural networks. From the neuropsychological testing scores, we derived a composite score that described a patient’s overall level of neurocognitive functioning. We then used a multiple linear regression model to test whether structural and functional connectivity measures were correlated with changes in composite scores. Results: Multiple linear regression on 21 subjects showed that connectivity changes were highly correlated with changes in neuropsychological evaluation scores (R² adjusted = 0.79, p<0.001). Changes in functional local efficiency (p<0.001) and global efficiency (p<0.05) were inversely correlated with changes in composite score, while changes in modularity (p<0.01) as well as the patient’s age (p<0.05) were directly correlated with changes in composite score. Conclusion: Short interval changes in brain connectivity markers were strongly correlated with changes in the composite neuropsychological test scores in brain tumor resection patients. Our findings support the need for further exploration of brain connectivity as a biomarker relevant to brain tumor patients.

The gut, often referred to as the "second brain," has significant contributions in the maintaining of the good bacteria contribute enormous role such as digestion, produce essential vitamins, support the immune system, and protect against harmful bacteria. The beneficial flora including Akkermansia muciniphila, Adlercreutzia equolifasciens, Barnesiella, Christensenella minuta, and Oxalobacter formigenes, along with their derived bioactive metabolites emerged as a key player in maintaining host metabolic and immune health. Dietary choices such as blending of prebiotic, fermented, symbiotic, anti-inflammatory foods, and secondary metabolites from a wide variety of plants and fruits promotes the diversity, composition, and stability of beneficial intestinal microbes. The colourful plant foods rich in phytochemicals bioactive compounds such as carotenoids, flavonoids, polyphenols, alkaloids, anthocyanins, and capsaicin offer a wide array of unique properties such as analgesics, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobials effect and promoting the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria and their bioactive metabolites confer numerous health-promoting effects. Here, we present knowledge about most beneficial gut bacteria and their derived metabolites in terms of their sources and health benefits. Finally, we discuss best foods that skew towards promoting healthy intestinal microbes.

This article presents a method for detecting P, QRS, T, and U waves in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals through advanced signal processing techniques, including a Butterworth bandpass filter and peak finding algo- rithms. The results are evaluated against the voltage ranges recommended in the literature, underscoring the importance of accurate wave detection for the diagnosis of various cardiac conditions.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) methods are increasingly beign abopted in the industry as an alternative for mass production. In particular, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology is leading the way in this field. However, the adhesion of layers in products produced using FDM technology is an important issue. These products are particularly vulnerable to forces acting parallel to the layers and specially to impact strength. This study aims to optimize the impact strength against loads acting parallel to the layers (ZX orientation) of PA6, one of the most widely used materials in the industry. This orientation is critical in term of mechanical properties, and the mechanical characteristics are significantly lower compared to other orientation. In this study, filaments containing pure PA6 with 15% short carbon fiber and 30% glass fiber were utilized. Additionally, printing temperature, layer thickness and heat treatment duration were used as independent variables. An L9 orthogonal array was employed in this study, and each experiment was repeated three times to conduct impact strength tests. Characterization, Taguchi optimization, a factor analyses were performed, followed by fracture surface characterization by SEM. As a result, the highest impact strength was achieved with pure PA6 at 8.9 kJ/m2, followed by PA6 GF30 at 8.1 kJ/m2 and the lowest impact strength was obtained with PA6 CF15 at 6.258 kJ/m2. When compared to the literature and manufacturer datasheets, it was concluded that the impact strength values have significantly increased, and the chosen experimental factors and their levels, particularly nozzle temperature, were effective.

For Sir Ronald Fisher, it is important to consistently obtain significant p-values to support an experimental hypothesis. So, replicating experiments to obtain independent p-values is a legitimate and desirable research practice. Several simple statistics have been proposed to meta-analyze p-values, all assuming that they are genuine, i.e. observations from independent standard Uniform random variables. But, as publication bias favors the studies that report "significant" p-values, when a p&gt;0.05 is obtained for the outcome of an experiment, some researchers will "fall into temptation" and decide to replicate the experiment in the hope of getting a smaller second p-value, ideally a significant one. Consequently, if the smallest of two p-values is reported, this is a Beta(1,2) distributed "fake" p-value, not a uniformly distributed genuine p-value. This is an unacceptable scientific research practice, and moreover the detection of fake p-values is unpractical. Even when it is possible, the analytic results to accommodate their existence in combined tests are cumbersome. For an informed decision, inclusive when the presence of fake p-values in a sample of p-values to be meta-analyzed is probable, tables with simulated critical values for the usual combined testing are supplied. This will also allow comparisons to be made between several combined tests.

The global malaria community has picked up the theme of malaria elimination in greater than 90 % of the world’s population in the next decade. The recent reports of P. vivax in all sub-Saharan Africa, including Duffy negative individuals, threaten the efforts to achieve elimination. This is not only in view of strategies that are tailored only to P. falciparum elimination, but also due to currently revealed biological characteristics of P. vivax concerning the relapse patterns of hypnozoites and conservation of a large biomass at cryptic sites in the bone marrow and spleen. A typical scenario has been observed in Botswana from the period between 2008 to 2018, which palpably projects how P. vivax could endanger efforts at malaria elimination where the two parasites co-exist. The need for the global malaria community, NMPs, funding agencies and relevant stakeholders to engage in a forum to discuss and recommend clear pathways for sub-Saharan Africa regarding malaria elimination including P. vivax, is warranted.

Academic and corporate research has been focusing on analyzing stock performances, financial markets, and investment strategies for decades. According to Lynch and Rothchild (1989), certain investments can be described as plays. In this work, the authors use the term for investments in value stocks, spin-offs, and turnarounds to analyze the long-term stock performance and risk-adjusted excess returns of up to five years for those stocks. Additionally, stocks with a supe-rior return performance are identified within an investment play based on low P/E and P/B mul-tiples. The study finds that value stocks, spin-offs, and turnarounds outperform the S&P 500 on average on a one-, three- and five-year investment horizon. The analysis of the three investment plays confirms earlier studies that investment plays constitute a profitable investment opportunity. Moreover, the research exemplifies that private investors could achieve an excess return (alpha) through a passive buy-and-hold investment strategy. Overall, the analysis provides a deeper in-sight into the long-term performance of value stocks, spin-offs, and turnarounds.

Educational institutions must identify students who are academically struggling to provide them with necessary support to improve their performance. In this context, recommendation systems powered by deep learning techniques are vital for detecting and categorizing such students. These systems help students plan their future by uncovering patterns in their historical academic data. This study introduces a new deep learning model designed to classify academically underperforming students in educational settings. The model incorporates a Gated Recurrent Neural Network (GRU) and includes specific neural network features like a dense layer, max-pooling layer, and the ADAM optimization algorithm. The model's training and evaluation were conducted using a dataset comprising 15,165 student assessment records from various academic institutions. The performance of the developed GRU model was benchmarked against other educational recommendation systems, including Recurrent Neural Network models, AdaBoost, and the Artificial Immune Recognition System v2. The proposed GRU model demonstrated remarkable accuracy, achieving an overall rate of 99.70%.

Advancements in technology, policies, and cost reductions have led to rapid growth in wind power production. One of the major challenges in wind energy production is the instability of wind power generation due to weather changes. Efficient power grid management requires accurate power output forecasting. New wind energy forecasting methods based on deep learning are better than traditional methods, like numerical weather prediction, statistical models, and machine learning models. This is more true for short-term prediction. Since there is a relationship between methods, climates, and forecasting complexity, forecasting methods do not always perform the same depending on the climate and terrain of the data source. This paper proposes a novel model that combines the variational mode decomposition method with a long short-term memory model, developed for next-hour wind speed prediction in a hot desert climate, such as the climate in Saudi Arabia. We compared the proposed model performance to two other hybrid models, six deep learning models, and four machine learning models using different feature sets. Also, we tested the proposed model on data from different climates, Caracas and Toronto. The proposed model showed a forecast skill between 61% to 74% based on mean absolute error, 64% to 72% based on root mean square error, and 59% to 68% based on mean absolute percentage error for locations in Saudi Arabia.

Banks are normally offered two kinds of deposit accounts. It consists of deposits like current/saving account and term deposits like fixed or recurring deposits. For enhancing the maximized profit from bank as well as customer perspective, term deposit can accelerate uplifting of finance fields. This paper focuses on likelihood of term deposit subscription taken by the customers. Bank campaign efforts and customer detail analysis can influence term deposit subscription chances. An automated system is approached in this paper that works towards prediction of term deposit investment possibilities in advance. This paper proposes deep learning based hybrid model that stacks Convolutional layers and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) layers as predictive model. For RNN, Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) is employed. The proposed predictive model is later compared with other benchmark classifiers such as k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), Decision tree classifier (DT), and Multi-layer perceptron classifier (MLP). Experimental study concludes that proposed model attains an accuracy of 89.59% and MSE of 0.1041 which outperform well other baseline models.

This randomized controlled prospective trial evaluated the impact of neuro‐athletic training (NAT) on flexibility, serve speed, and upper extremity performance in elite volleyball players. Thirty professional players aged 18‐35 were initially recruited and randomly assigned to either the NAT intervention or control group. However, the study was completed with a final sample of 26 participants. Performance assessments, including the Sit and Reach Test, Pocket Radar Ball Coach for serve speed, and Closed Kinetic Chain Upper Extremity Stability Test (CKCUEST), were conducted pre‐ and post‐intervention. The NAT group showed significant improvements in flexibility (p=0.005, d=2.32), serve speed (p<0.001, d=2.54), and upper limb performance (p<0.001, d=2.61), while the control group displayed no significant changes. These findings highlight NATʹs effectiveness in enhancing neuromuscular function and coordination, emphasizing its potential as a training approach in competitive volleyball.This randomized controlled prospective trial evaluated the impact of neuro‐athletic training (NAT) on flexibility, serve speed, and upper extremity performance in elite volleyball players. Thirty professional players aged 18‐35 were initially recruited and randomly assigned to either the NAT intervention or control group. However, the study was completed with a final sample of 26 participants. Performance assessments, including the Sit and Reach Test, Pocket Radar Ball Coach for serve speed, and Closed Kinetic Chain Upper Extremity Stability Test (CKCUEST), were conducted pre‐ and post‐intervention. The NAT group showed significant improvements in flexibility (p=0.005, d=2.32), serve speed (p<0.001, d=2.54), and upper limb performance (p<0.001, d=2.61), while the control group displayed no significant changes. These findings highlight NATʹs effectiveness in enhancing neuromuscular function and coordination, emphasizing its potential as a training approach in competitive volleyball.

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) have emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for a wide variety of diseases, offering the potential to modulate gene expression with a high degree of specificity. These small, synthetic nucleic acid-like molecules provide unique advantages over traditional pharmacological treatments, including the ability to target previously "undruggable" genes. Despite this promise, several biological barriers severely limit their clinical efficacy Upon administration, ASOs primarily enter cells through endocytosis, becoming trapped inside membrane-bound vesicles known as endosomes. Studies estimate that only 1-2% of ASOs successfully escape endosomal compartments to reach the cytosol, and ultimately the nucleus, where they bind target mRNA and exert their therapeutic effect. Endosomal entrapment and inefficient nuclear localization are therefore critical bottlenecks in the therapeutic application of ASOs. This review explores the current understanding of endosomal escape, and nuclear transport of ASOs. Furthermore, we examine strategies aimed at overcoming these challenges, including the use of endosomal escape agents, peptide-ASO conjugates, non-viral delivery vehicles, and nuclear localization signals. By improving both endosomal escape and nuclear localization, significant advances in ASO-based therapeutics can be realized, ultimately enhancing their potency and expanding their clinical utility

Rhynchocypris kumgangensis, endemic to Korea, is limited to the upper Hangang River and Gucheondongcheon Stream. As a key and climate-sensitive biological indicator species in Deogyusan National Park, it has a southern range limit in the Gucheondong Valley. Due to climate change, notable shifts in the activity, vertical distribution, and population of R. kumgangensis in the Gucheondongcheon Stream are expected. Owing to the rapidly changing climate, significant changes in the activity, vertical distribution, and population size of R. kumgangensis in the Gucheondongcheon Stream are anticipated, and continuous surveys of the distribution of R. kumgangensis in this river area have been conducted. This study assessed the habitat of R. kumgangensis at 13 sites, including five in the Gucheondongcheon Stream, from July to October 2020 and compared the results with historical data to evaluate the impacts of climate change. At the five Gucheondongcheon Stream sites, 102 individuals were recorded from April to October 2020, and 378 were recorded between June 2018 and July 2019. Additionally, the subdominant species shifted from R. kumgangensis (2014–2018) to Zacco koreanus (2020). In the two southernmost Gucheondongcheon Stream sites, only 18 R. kumgangensis were observed in 2020 compared to 82 in 2019, indicating a significant population decline.

This study presents the experimental and analytical evaluations on an innovative connection class under cyclic loading. The connection was an H- or I-shaped section as a short stub column (SSC) between the end-plate and the column. The stub section was bolted to the column flange on the one side and bolted to the beam along with the welded end-plate on the other side. Stiffeners were installed on the webs and flanges of the beam and stub to ensure the necessary stiffness of the connection. The variables included thickness of stub flange/web and height of stub web. The cyclic loading was applied on a sample of the proposed connection according to AISC ANSI/AISC 341-16 loading protocol. Experimental observations displayed that the proposed connection, one can either employ hot rolling sections or create the connection as a plate girder, in which case the flange thickness and stub web, as well as the distance between two flanges and their height, was obtained according to the demand and performance of the structure. The optimum cross-section of the stub was then obtained. Also, the analytical model was calibrated using the finite element method (FEM), and its performance was confirmed. The effective parameters of the proposed connection were determined by modeling in the FEM software, and the design method was presented.

Objective: In recent years, the field of Essential Thrombocythemia (ET) research has seen a significant accumulation of scientific findings, but comprehensive bibliometric analyses remain lacking. This study aims to fill that gap by performing a thorough bibliometric analysis of ET research, identifying key contributors and collaboration networks, and mapping the development trends to provide insights for future research directions. Methods: A bibliometric analysis of ET-related publications from 2001 to 2024 was conducted using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and R packages. Data were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, with a focus on publication volume, citation analysis, co-authorship networks, co-citation relationships, and citation bursts. Results: A total of 4,297 studies published in 778 journals were included in the analysis. ET research has seen rapid growth, with researcher clusters in the United States and Europe driving progress through extensive regional and international collaborations. Leading researchers, such as Ayalew Tefferi from the Mayo Clinic and Alessandro M. Vannucchi from the University of Florence, have made significant advances in ET classification, molecular mechanisms, targeted therapies, and disease management. The discovery of driver mutations, such as JAK2, has revolutionized the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to ET. Research focus has shifted from clinical morphological diagnosis to molecular diagnostics, with the field now entering the era of targeted therapies. However, the inherent heterogeneity of ET continues to present challenges for the widespread implementation of personalized precision treatment. Conclusion: Bibliometric analysis demonstrates significant advances in ET research, particularly in molecular pathology and targeted therapies. However, the heterogeneity of ET remains a major obstacle to personalized treatment. Future research should focus on further elucidating the pathogenesis of ET and improving stratified management approaches to achieve individualized precision therapy.

Phosphorus (P) is an essential element in food production, but it is often largely unavailable for plants as it persists in soils in immobilized forms. Farmers have been using P fertilizers extensively to overcome this unavailability, leading to the exhaustion of non-renewable deposits of phosphorite, rising fertilizers prices and causing several environmental impacts such as eutrophication. Its large-scale utilization is also inefficient since most of the added P becomes quickly unavailable for the plants. Therefore, farming solutions that improve P uptake, P use efficiency of plants and P mobilization in soils are highly important. In this narrative review, we summarized and explored the link between the Silicon (Si) and P cycles in soils. Silicon is quasi-essential for plants, and it has been established that its presence in soil and uptake by plants has several benefits, especially in toxic and nutrient-deficient conditions. Here, we established that Si in soils can affect crop production in P-deficient conditions through: 1) the pH effect – Si improves organic matter decomposition and decreases Al3+ availability; the Si uptake effect – the deposited Si in the plant improves its photosynthetic performance, improves the root ability to uptake P, improves organic matter decomposition and increases P/Mn ration in plant, improving P use; and 3) the Si soil effect – Si stimulates phosphorite rocks weathering and competes with P for the binding places at the surface of Ak and Fe hydroxides, releasing P into soil solution. This positive effect of Si on P mobilization in soils and consequent use by crops should be further disseminated to farmers and other relevant stakeholders.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) diagnosis can be a challenge due to the large spectrum of pathogenic variants in the CFTR gene and the effects of complex alleles. Next-generation sequencing has improved our understanding of the contribution of these complex alleles to the wide spectrum of CF clinical symptoms and to the response to medications. Herein, we studied nine CF patients from six unrelated families carrying the complex allele p.[Ile148Thr;Ile1023_Val1024del] with a frequency of 0.18%. All the patients were from Central Mexico. This complex allele was found in trans with Class I and II pathogenic variants (PVs) such as [c.1521_1523del, p.(Phe508del), and c.3231_3232del, p.(Phe1078Profs*77)]. A targeted search of a dataset of 2,217 exomes from healthy individuals revealed that eight individuals (0.18%) carried the p.(Ile148Thr) variant, but only one (0.022%), who was also born in Central Mexico, was a carrier of the complex allele. These findings led us to hypothesize a founder effect for the p.[Ile148Thr;Ile1023_Val1024del] complex allele in Mexican patients with CF, probably through migration from the French-Canadian population in Mexico. Finally, protein modeling revealed that this complex allele disrupts the secondary structure of the CFTR protein and might alter the ion flow.

In this paper, various Ni-P composite coatings containing toner, MoS2, and nano-SiO2 particles were deposited on steel substrates by the electroless method. Then, the electrochemical properties of these coatings after a heat treatment process were compared. The microstructural evaluations were also done by using the optical and electron microscopy methods. Both Tafel polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques were utilized to survey the electrochemical behavior of such coatings. The surface morphology of all coatings contained cauliflower-like nodules. The X-ray diffraction patterns showed the crystalline phases of Ni and Ni3P for all coatings after the heat-treatment step. Obtained results showed that all composite coatings exhibited lower corrosion rates with respect to Ni-P coatings. Such a reduction was about 21.6-92.2%. This behavior was attributed to the presence of reinforcement as barriers for corrosive ion diffusion through the coating plus the changes in detected phases and thickness. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy test results also demonstrated that the increase in the polarization resistance for composites coatings was about 18.4-85.3% after 1 h immersion in a 0.6M NaCl solution; however, when the immersion time increased to 24 h, such increased resistance changed to 18.1 to 73.1%. Totally, despite the lower deposition rate, the presence of MoS2 and nano-SiO2 particles were more effective than toner particles to raise the corrosion rate of the Ni-P coating.

In this paper, we investigate p-adic q-integral (q-Volkenborn integral) on Z_p of p-adic gamma function via their Mahler expansions. We also derived two q-Volkenborn integrals of p-adic gamma function in terms of q-Daehee polynomials and numbers and q-Daehee polynomials and numbers of the second kind. Moreover, we discover q-Volkenborn integral of the derivative of p-adic gamma function. We acquire the relationship between the p-adic gamma function and Stirling numbers of the first kind. We finally develop a novel and interesting representation for the p-adic Euler constant by means of the q-Daehee polynomials and numbers.

It is known that the class of p-normed spaces (0 < p ≤ 1) is an important generalization of usual normed spaces with rich topological and geometrical structure, but the most of tools and general principles in nature with nonlinearity have not been developed yet, thus the main goal of this paper is to develop tools for nonlinear analysis under the framework of p-vector spaces. In particular, we first develop the general fixed point theorems which provide solutions to answer Schauder conjecture since 1930’s in the affirmative for p-vector spaces when p = 1 (which is just general topological vector spaces); then the one best approximation result for upper semi-continuous mappings is given, which is used as a powerful tool to establish fixed points for non-self set-valued mappings with either inward or outward set conditions; and finally we establish comprehensive existence results of solutions for Birkhoff-Kellogg Problems, and the general principle of nonlinear alternative by including Leray-Schauder alternative and related results. The results given in this paper not only include the corresponding results in the existing literature as special cases, but also expected to be useful tools for the study of nonlinear problems arising from theory to practice.

The main aim of this paper is to set some correlations between Boole polynomials and p-adic gamma function in conjunction with p-adic Euler contant. We develop diverse formulas for p-adic gamma function by means of their Mahler expansion and fermionic p-adic integral on ℤ_{p}. Also, we acquire two fermionic p-adic integrals of p-adic gamma function in terms of Boole numbers and polynomials. We then provide fermionic p-adic integral of the derivative of p-adic gamma function and a representation for the p-adic Euler constant by means of the Boole polynomials. Furthermore, we investigate an explicit representation for the aforesaid constant covering Stirling numbers of the first kind.

Background: While the prevalence of obesity and its negative effects on graft steatosis in liver transplantation are well recognized, the impact of obesity in the absence of hepatic steatosis, fibrosis, and inflammation in deceased donor livers remains unclear. This knowledge gap may affect the decision to adopt a transplant strategy and influence the following outcomes. Methods: A donor population-based cohort study was performed on 35,529 donors who received liver biopsy from 1987 to 2024. Donor BMI was categorized and assessed for its association with liver conditions, including macrovesicular steatosis, microvesicular steatosis, liver fibrosis, and portal infiltrates. Multivariable logistic regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression models were employed to explore both linear and nonlinear relationships between BMI and the specified liver conditions. Results: In a cohort of 35,529 donors, donor livers from higher BMI groups exhibited higher percentages of macro-steatosis, micro-steatosis,advanced fibrosis and portal infiltrate.Logistic regression indicated obesity as an independent predictor of liver histology assessment: for higher risk with moderate-servere macro-steatosis (OR 2.29, 95% CI 2.11–2.49, p < 0.001),moderate-servere micro-steatosis (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.57–1.87, p < 0.001), portal infiltrate (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.3–1.45, p < 0.001) and advanced fibrosis (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.94–1.14, p < 0.001). Restricted cubic spline regression depicted J-shaped with moderate-servere macro-steatosis and portal infiltrate,a U-shaped advanced fibrosis, and a upside down U-shaped with moderate-servere micro-steatosis,P for for nonlinearity <0.0001),respectively. Subgroup analyses identified interactions with factors such as gender, hypertension, and hepatitis C, highlighting BMI’s complex influence on liver histology and reinforcing its role in liver donor evaluation. Conclusion: This donor population-based cohort study found a different association pattern between donor BMI and liver biopsy outcomes,integrating BMI into donor liver assessments could enhance decision-making during transplantation, potentially reducing organ discard rates and improving transplant success by identifying high-risk organs earlier.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology has recently experienced increasing development, leading to the creation of a wide variety of autonomous solutions. In this paper a guidance strategy for straight and orbital path following of fixed-wing small UAV is presented. The proposed guidance algorithm is based on a reference Vector Field as desired 16course for the UAV to follow. A Sliding Mode approach is implemented to improve robustness and effectiveness andasymptotic convergence of the aircraft to the desired trajectory in presence of constant wind disturbances is proved according to Lyapunov. The algorithm exploits the banking dynamics and generates reference signals for the inner loop ailerons control. A MATLAB&amp;Simulink® simulation environment is used to verify performance and robustness of the compared guidance algorithms. This high-fidelity model considers the six Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) whole flight dynamics of the UAV and it is based on experimental flight test data to implement the aerodynamic behavior.

A new 2 parameter unit Weibull distribution is defined on the unit interval (0,1). The methodology of deducing its PDF, some of its properties and related functions are discussed. The paper is supplied by many figures illustrating the new distribution and how this can make it illegible to fit a wide range of skewed data. The new distribution holds a name (Attia) as a nickname.

The concept of Palliative Care (PC) is more and more known in medicine and the need for this type of approach is growing in a world with great longevity and exponentially increasing chronic diseases. More and more cases from internal medicine, gastroenterology or cardiology wards could benefit from a better care if their medical team would align with the PC concept and principles. In this sense we try to present the specifical needs for Romanian patients in accordance with the current standards of care and how they must be adapted to the reality of the medical system in which they are cared for. We consider also that for medical staff from chronic disease wards it may be necessary to recapitulate the most important principles that govern medical practice of palliation, emphasizing some important aspects of applicability in daily clinical activity.

This study examines the significant impact of Houthi insurgent activities on maritime traffic within the strategic Red Sea and Suez Canal routes, essential conduits for global trade. It explores the correlation between regional instability, exemplified by Houthi actions from November 19, 2023, to February 5, 2024, and changes in maritime traffic patterns and operational efficiency. This study seeks to answer a critical question in transport geography: How does regional instability, exemplified by Houthi insurgent activities, affect maritime traffic patterns and the operational efficiency of the Red Sea and Suez Canal? Using descriptive statistics, qualitative analysis, and geospatial methods, the research highlights recent trends in maritime traffic and incidents, revealing spatial and geopolitical challenges in this crucial trade route.Findings indicate a notable decline in maritime activity in the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal due to security concerns from Houthi attacks, prompting a significant shift to alternative routes, particularly around the Cape of Good Hope. This shift underscores the broader implications of regional instability on global trade and the importance of maintaining uninterrupted maritime flow. The study also emphasizes the economic ramifications, such as increased operational costs and freight rates due to longer transit times and enhanced security measures.The research concludes with a call for improved maritime security protocols and international cooperation to protect these strategic maritime pathways. It contributes to the discourse on transport geography by quantifying the direct impacts of regional conflicts on maritime logistics and proposing strategies for future resilience, highlighting the interconnected nature of global trade and security and the need for collective action against evolving geopolitical challenges.

The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, a major pest in maize production, was assessed for its temporal and spatial distribution in maize fields during both the off and rainy seasons of 2021 and 2022. In this study, 30 and 50 maize plants were randomly sampled using a "W" pattern during the dry and rainy seasons, respectively. Larval density, infestation rates, and damage severity were monitored over time. Taylor's power law and the mean crowding aggregation index were applied to evaluate the dispersion patterns of the larvae. The results indicate a higher infestation rate and larval density in agroecological zone AZE 8 (fisheries zone of South Benin) compared to AZE 6 (ferralitic soils zone) during the off-season. In the rainy season, while the percentage of damaged plants was higher in AZE 8, no significant differences in larval density between the two zones were observed. The dispersion analysis revealed moderate aggregation (aggregation index = 1.25) with a basic colony of 2.08 larvae, reflecting the aggregation oviposition behavior of FAW. This study provides valuable monitoring data on the FAW's distribution, offering insights for further research on population dynamics and developing predictive models for integrated pest management strategies.

Objective: To explore the acceptability and feasibility of conducting comprehensive, community-based, hy-brid (in-person and virtual) mental health screening and feedback with diverse youth in the community. Methods: The Screening and Support for Youth intervention provides comprehensive assessment and thera-peutic feedback in community settings including symptoms, diagnoses, functional impairment, suicide, and clinical risk. Symptom severity, seven diagnoses and suicidality were assessed with the Kiddie Computer-ized Adaptive Test. Functional impairment was evaluated by youth self-report on the Weiss Functional Im-pairment Rating Scale. Measures were scored according to nationally developed norms and an algorithm was developed to aggregate symptoms and functioning to determine clinical risk. The results were discussed with participants in a motivational interview to promote insight and engagement in an online intervention. Results: Methodological innovations included using a QR code for recruitment, integrated in-person and virtual participation, and expansion from in-person recruitment within the schools to virtual engagement with youth throughout the community. The final sample included disproportionately more Black or African American and Hispanic youth as compared to school and community statistics, suggesting that hybrid re-search may facilitate recruitment of diverse populations. Qualitative interviews indicated that the screening and feedback raised youth awareness of their wellbeing and/or distress, its impact on their functioning, and engagement with options for improving wellbeing. Conclusion: Hybrid research, developed as a necessity during the pandemic, proved advantageous to the feasibility and acceptability of community-based recruit-ment of at risk, minoritized youth.

In order to deal with imprecision, ambiguity, and uncertainty in data analysis, Pawlak introduced rough set theory in 1982. This paper aims to expand the scope of basic set theory developed by presenting the notions of δP-upper and δP-lower approximations, that are based on the notion of δP-open sets, we additionally examine a few of their fundamental characteristics.

This work reports the role of structure and composition on the determination of the performances of p-type SnOx TFTs deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature, followed by a post-annealed step up to 200 °C at different oxygen partial pressures (Opp), between 0% and 20%, but where the p-type conduction was only observed between 2.8–3.8%. The role of structure and composition were evaluated by XRD and Mössbauer spectroscopic studies. The study allows to identify the best phases/compositions and thicknesses (around 12 nm) to be used that lead to the production of TFTs with a bottom gate configuration, on glasses coated with conductive Indium Tin Oxide, followed by Aluminium Titanium Oxide dielectric layer with saturation mobility of 4.6 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹ and on-off ratio above 7 × 10⁴, operating at the enhancement mode with a saturation voltage of −10 V.

In this paper, we investigate several relations for p-adic gamma function by means of their Mahler expansion and fermionic p-adic q-integral on ℤ_{p}. We also derive two fermionic p-adic q-integrals of p-adic gamma function in terms of q-Boole polynomials and numbers. Moreover, we discover fermionic p-adic q-integral of the derivative of p-adic gamma function. We acquire a representation for the p-adic Euler constant by means of the q-Boole polynomials. We finally develop a novel, explicit and interesting representation for the p-adic Euler constant including Stirling numbers of the first kind.

In this paper, we investigate p-adic q-integral (q-Volkenborn integral) on ℤ_{p} of p-adic gamma function via their Mahler expansions. We also derived two q-Volkenborn integrals of p-adic gamma function in terms of q-Daehee polynomials and numbers and q-Daehee polynomials and numbers of the second kind. Moreover, we discover q-Volkenborn integral of the derivative of p-adic gamma function. We acquire the relationship between the p-adic gamma function and Stirling numbers of the first kind. We finally develop a novel and interesting representation for the p-adic Euler constant by means of the q-Daehee polynomials and numbers.

It is increasingly common for experiments in biology and medicine to involve large numbers of hypothesis tests. A natural graphical method for visualizing these tests is to construct a histogram from the p-values of these tests. In this article, we examine the shapes, both normal and abnormal, that these histograms can take on, as well as present simple inferential procedures that help to interpret the shapes in terms of diagnosing potential problems with the experiment. We examine potential causes of these problems in detail, and discuss potential remedies. Throughout, examples of abnormal-looking p-value histograms are provided and based on case studies involving real biological experiments.

Our findings illustrate that CS should be employed as a means of popularizing scientific output, facilitating the promotion of political decision-making processes, and acting as a knowledge broker to reverse consumer behavior towards more environmentally friendly and conducive to SUP usage.

We propose a multi-sensor fusion localization framework for autonomous heavy-duty trucks suitable for mining scenarios, which enables high-precision, real-time trajectory generation and map construction. The motion estimated through pre-integration of the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) can eliminate distortions in the point cloud and provide an initial guess for LiDAR odometry optimization. The point cloud information obtained from LiDAR can assist in recovering depth information from image features extracted by the monocular camera. To ensure real-time performance, we introduce an iKD-Tree to organize the point cloud data. To address issues arising from bumpy road segments and long-distance driving in practical mining scenarios, we can incorporate a large number of relative and absolute measurements from different sources, such as GPS information and AprilTag-assisted localization data, including loop closure as factors in the system. The proposed method has been extensively evaluated on public datasets and self-collected datasets from mining sites.Our implementation is available at https://github.com/wangyicxy/iLM-slam.

This study investigates the impact of water stress on grapevines, specifically examining the role of rootstocks and aquaporins. Two experiments on potted plants were conducted in central Chile during the summer, under conditions of high water demand, involving various rootstock genotypes and combinations of Cabernet Sauvignon (CS) grafted onto rootstocks. Significant differences were observed among plants in terms of stem water potential, stomatal conductance, and growth rate. Notably, the CS/CS combination consistently displayed the slowest growth rate, regardless of the irrigation treatment. The study also analyzed the expression levels of plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIPs) and tonoplast intrinsic proteins (TIPs) aquaporins in the leaves of grafted plants. Specifically, VvPIP2;2 aquaporins showed reduced expression after 14 days without irrigation, whereas VvTIP1;1 and VvTIP2;1 expression levels correlated positively with gs responses in grafted plants, suggesting their role in modulating water content in leaves under water stress. TIP aquaporins likely play a significant role in the differential responses of CS plants towards nearly isohydric or anisohydric behaviour. The CS/CS combination exhibited near isohydric behavior, correlating with lower TIP aquaporin expression, while the combination of CS onto 1103P and 101-14 showed higher expression, indicating anisohydric behavior. The findings suggest that grafted plants are more resilient to water stress, supporting the idea that rootstocks can mitigate the effects of water stress on the scion.

Breast cancer is currently the second leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 15% of all deaths (8.2 million deaths). Approximately 20% of breast cancer diagnoses are triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a type of cancer that lacks receptors for estrogen (ER negative), progesterone (PR negative), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu negative). Consequently, TNBC doesn’t respond to hormonal or targeted therapies, making it challenging to treat due to its rapid growth, metastasis, and high recurrence rate within the first three years of therapy. Alternative chemotherapies are needed to address this problem. Pharmacological dose of vitamin C (high-dose VC) has been identified as a potential treatment for some cancer cells. The present study aimed to evaluate whether VC has a therapeutic effect on TNBC using MDA-MB-231 cells as the model. MTT assay, Hoechst 33342 staining, Nuclear ID Red/Green staining, Rhodamine 123 staining, and Western blot analysis were employed to test the hypothesis that pharmacological dose of VC can kill TNBC cells. Upregulation of Apaf-1, caspases -3, -6, -7, -8, and -9, inhibition of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-2 and MMP-9), reduction in cell cycle protein expression, and enhancement of tumor suppressor proteins such as p53 and p21 indicated that pharmacological dose of VC has promising anti-cancer properties in the treatment of TNBC.

The rapid pace of urbanization, coupled with the growing need for environmental sustainability and technological innovation, has brought smart city initiatives to the forefront of global urban development. This paper provides a comparative analysis of smart city policies from leading cities such as Oslo, Zurich, and Canberra, and derives strategic insights for Qatar. By examining the strategies, priorities, outcomes, and challenges associated with implementing smart city initiatives in these cities, the study identifies areas of alignment and divergence with Qatar's own smart city policy framework. The research highlights potential opportunities for cross-learning and suggests how Qatar can leverage lessons from international best practices to enhance its smart city initiatives. Key areas of focus include fostering strategic partnerships, promoting innovation, and ensuring effective governance and data management systems. The findings provide actionable insights to improve the effectiveness of Qatar's smart city projects, aligning them with the Qatar National Vision 2030.