Extreme cytoreductive surgery (eCRS) may sometimes be required to achieve complete cytoreduction, which is one of the most important prognostic factors. This study investigated the impact of eCRS on survival and peri-postoperative outcomes. Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma (MPM) patients who underwent cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC) were retrospectively examined. Patients who underwent CRS-HIPEC were divided into eCRS and less extensive CRS (leCRS) groups. Resection of ≥5 organs or ≥3 small bowel anastomoses was defined as eCRS. Survival and perioperative outcomes of both groups were compared.In the study including 31 patients, eCRS-HIPEC was used in 15 patients. Complete cytore-duction (CC score 0/1) was achieved in all 31 patients. Compared with LeCRS, mean length of stay, length of stay in the intensive care unit, mean peritoneal cancer index (PCI), and intraoperative blood loss were higher in the eCRS group. Additionally, the risk of developing complications was observed to be more frequent and the duration of surgery was longer. Rates of serious complications and morbidity were similar in patients undergoing eCRS compared with leCRS. In patients with high PCI and multiple organ involvement, complete cytoreduction can be achieved by performing eCRS and equivalent survival results can be achieved with low PCI..

The water quality index (WQI) and irrigational index for groundwater were studied in the northeastern section of the Manipur Valley in northeast India. Water samples were collected in 2022 during the pre-monsoon season. To compute the water quality index for drinking water, the basic chemical parameters of total hardness, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, Ca2+, Na+, Fe, Mg2+, Mn, Cl-, and HCO3, were used. The assessment of bacteriological quality is also done, which is crucial for overall water quality evaluation, alongside physical and chemical analyze. For determining irrigation suitability, irrigational indices such as sodium absorption ratio, sodium percentage, and magnesium hazard were calculated. WQI, %Na+, SAR, magnesium hazard, permeability Index and total hardness indicate that most water samples are harmless for irrigation and drinking purpose. They have affirmative relationships indicating that these characteristics are interdependent. Approximately 25% of the Piedmont zone groundwater is found to be unfit for agricultural and drinking usage. The encrustation of gypsum, halite, and evaporation into the Disang shares accelerate the dissolution of ions in Piedmont water, resulting in quality degradation. According to Gibbs plots, Durov Scatter Plot, and Hill Piper Trilinear Diagram of water dominated the rock-weathering process, while hydro chemical facies progressed from the beginning to the intermediate stage of Chadha's graphical representation illustrates the progression of hydro chemical processes in surface water. Therefore, proper integrated water resource management and development are required for effective water resource utilization, particularly around the Piedmont zone. To prevent a water crisis, groundwater resources must be managed sustainably. The current study also concentrated on a bibliometric examination of groundwater management and access to gauge the state of the field.

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated skin disease in which systemic inflammation plays an important role in the pathogenesis. In recent years, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio (NMR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) have been shown to be important indicators of inflammation. In this study, our aim is to investigate NLR, NMR, PLR, and SII levels in psoriasis patients treated with biologic agents. Method: Clinical and biochemical data of 209 patients who received systemic therapy for psoriasis were obtained by retrospectively reviewing their medical records. NLR, NMR, PLR, and SII values were calculated from the hemogram values of the patients. Results: In the third month of follow-up, the mean CRP, NLR, NMR, PLR, and SII values were significantly decreased compared to the baseline values. SII values showed strong positive correlations with NLR, NMR and PLR. Adalimumab, etanercept, and infliximab, which are TNF-α blockers, were observed to be more effective on PLR and NLR and especially NMR. Conclusion: NLR, NMR, PLR, and SII, which are data obtained from routine blood tests, can be used in the monitoring of treatment of psoriasis, especially with TNF- α blockers.

The leaves and stems of Bauhinia guianensis Aubl. are used in traditional Amazonian phytotherapy for the treatment of pain and inflammation. This study investigates the anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive effects of hydroethanolic extracts from B. guianensis Aubl. leaves and stems (HELBg and HESBg, respectively) in in vivo models of inflammation and hyperalgesia. Danio rerio experimental animals were submitted to the acute inflammation test, induced by intraperitoneal (ip.) administration of carrageenan 20 μg / animal (abdominal edema), the groups were previously treated orally with saline solution 2 μl / animal (SS), Dimethyl sulfoxide 2 μl / animal (DMSO), Indomethacin 10 mg/Kg, HELBg 100 mg/Kg and HESBg 100 mg/Kg, n = 12 per experimental group, to evaluate inhibition of edema and alterations histopathology of the liver, intestine and kidney of these animals. The antinociceptive effect was observed from the body curvature index and the behavioral responses of Danio rerio, after an experimental protocol for the induction of hyperalgesia, by ip administration. of 10 μl / animal of 2.5% acetic acid, the animals were previously orally treated with saline solution 2 μl/animal (SS), dimethyl sulfoxide 2 μl/animal (DMSO), morphine 2.5 mg/Kg, HELBg 100 mg/Kg and HESBg 100 mg/Kg, n = 5 per experimental group. In carrageenan-induced edema, the group treated with HESBg inhibited edema formation over the 3 hours of the experiment. Maximum edema was inhibited by 54% (p < 0.05) when compared to the control group. Both HELBg and HESBg prevented body curvature index changes (t (df = 3 8) =, 6.96 and t (df = 3, 8) = 6.61, respectively, both p < 0.0001). In the behavioral parameters sensitive to antinociceptive pharmacological modulation, due to the abdominal constriction induced by acetic acid, the administration of HELBg and HESBg resulted in an improvement in swimming activity, by increasing the distance covered (F (df = 3, 16) = 6.50 and F (df = 3, 16)  = 7.72, respectively, both p < 0.0001), decrease in freezing time (F (df = 3, 16)  = 2.04 and F (df = 3, 16)  = 1.28, respectively, both p < 0.0059), increase in the number of ascents to the upper area of the tank (F (df = 3, 16)  = 33.02 and F (df = 3, 16)  = 35.62, respectively, both p < 0.0009 ) and decreased time spent in that area (F (df = 3, 16)  = 101.19 and F (df = 3, 16)  = 103.59, respectively, both p < 0.0038). It is reasonable to suppose that both extracts modulated the variations induced by carrageenan and acetic acid through the inhibition of prostaglandin biosynthesis, decreasing the release of inflammatory mediators and the sensitization of peripheral nociceptors and, consequently, the perception of pain. These results suggest that HELBg and HESBg have anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities, probably of peripheral origin and linked to the inhibition of prosta-glandin biosynthesis

When drilling oil and gas wells, hole cleaning efficiency is crucial, particularly in the curved or severely deviated sections. Although many hole-cleaning procedures and models have been developed, most of them have substantial limitations or are difficult to apply in real time. This study aimed to develop a model for the hole cleaning index (HCI) that could be integrated into the drilling operations to provide an automated and real-time evaluation of deviated drilling hole cleaning. The new model herein was developed based on the mechanical drilling parameters, enhanced estimated drilling fluid properties, and cuttings characteristics. This HCI model was validated and tested in the field, as it was applied when drilling 12.25”-intermediate directional sections in two wells with a total length of approximately 2000 ft each. The integration of the HCI helped to attain a much better well drilling performance (50% enhancement) and mitigation of potential problems like pipe sticking and the slower rate of penetration. Since the developed index incorporates the changes in wellbore geometry and other spontaneous field data, the new model could be utilized for real-time optimization and intermediate interventions by drilling teams, unlike commercial software tools which are only useful during the planning phase. For this reason, the HCI can be linked to the driller's control panel to provide timely evaluation and corrective measures related to hole cleaning.

The power of the river does not always work to the benefit of living things; rather, it has the ability to destroy human society and has negative effects on the environment. River Teesta has a prodigious significance on the riverine dweller and its changing precarious behaviour has repercussions on the lives of millions. Utilizing satellite images and 41 years of temporal analysis, the mapping of channel extraction and channel shifting has been demonstrated. Delineating the exact channel boundary is a laborious operation, but MNDWI technique is really valuable in this situation to produce valuable results. Descriptive statistics are used to analyze the Teesta River's active flow line migration trend and channel migration behaviour. A particular river's oscillating character over time has both beneficial and detrimental power, destroying important resources for environmental sustainability and human society while also providing fertile mother earth as a source of wealth. As a result, another goal of the current study was to determine how vulnerable riverine residents were. A livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) based on the riverine inhabitants' exposure, sensitivity, and capacity for adaptation was created. According to the findings, the river's erratic behaviour is putting the people who live beside it in danger. Therefore, it is vitally necessary to implement a capable management strategy to stop bank failure at the Teesta-Dharala confluence in order to save the riverine residents.

In 2019, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimated that prostate cancer (PC) was the 16th cause of death globally in males. In Mexico, PC epidemiology has been reported for a selected number of metrics and years, although without including the most up-to-date estimates. Herein, we describe and compare the burden and trends of PC in Mexico and its 32 states from 2000 to 2019. For this, we extracted online available data from the GBD 2019 to estimate the crude and age-standardized rate (ASR per 100,000 people) of incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). In Mexico, PC caused 27.1 thousand (95% uncertainty intervals, 20.6-36.0 thousand) incident cases, 9.2 thousand (7.7-12.7 thousand) deaths, and 161.5 thousand (122.7-219.5 thousand) DALYs in males of all ages in 2019. Among states, Sinaloa had the greatest ASR of incidence and Guerrero the highest values of deaths and DALYs. The burden of PC showed an increasing trend, although the magnitude of change differed between metrics and locations. We found both an increasing national trend and subnational variation in the burden of PC. Our results confirm the need for updated and timely estimates to design effective diagnostic and treatment campaigns in locations where the burden of PC is the highest.

The water quality of the river is becoming deteriorated due to human interference. It is essential to understand the relationship between human activities and land-use types to assess the water quality of a region. GIS has the latest tool for analyzing the spatial correlation. Land use land cover and change detection is the best illustration to show the human interactions on land features. The study assessed water quality index of upper Ganga River near Haridwar, Uttarakhand and spatially correlated them with changing land use to reach a logical conclusion. At the upper course of Ganga along 78 Km long from Kaudiyala to Bhogpur, water samples were collected from five stations. For water quality index the physicochemical parameters like pH, EC, DO, TDS, CaCO3-, CaCO3, Cl¯, Ca++, Mg++, Na+, K+, F-, Fe2+ were considered. The result of the spatial analysis was evaluated through error estimation and spatial correlation. The root mean square error between spatial land use and water quality index of selected sampling sites was estimated as 0.1443. The spatial correlation between land-use change and site-wise differences in water quality index has also shown a high positive correlation with R² = 0.8455. The degree of positive correlation and root mean square error has strongly indicated that the water quality of the river at the upper course of Ganga is highly impacted through human activities.

We investigate the effect of geopolitical risk on the returns of the Information Technology, Communication Services, and Consumer Staples sector firms within the S&P 500 index. We use the event study methodology and perform more than 17,000 regressions to provide empirical evidence at the sector level that geopolitical risk leads to different responses across these 3 sectors. The response of the Information Technology sector is negative for all event windows under study, except the one spanning 10 days prior to the geopolitical event and 10 days after. The Communication Services sector has positive returns as a result of geopolitical events for all event windows, except the one from the geopolitical event date and 5 days after. The Consumer Staples sector shows a negative impact on geopolitical risk for all event windows except the one from the geopolitical event date and 5 days after, demonstrating a negative correlation to the Communication Services sector.

The gravel road pavement has a lower construction cost but poorer performance than the asphalt surface. It also emits dust and deforms under the impact of vehicle loads and ambient air factors. The resulting ripples and ruts are constantly deepening, increasing vehicle vibrations and fuel consumption, reducing safe driving speed and comfort. In this article, existing pavement quality evaluation indexes are analysed, and a methodology for their adaptation for roads with gravel pavement is proposed. This article reports the measured wave depth and length of the gravel pavement profile by the straightedge method of a 160 m long road section in three road exploitation stages. The measured pavement elevation was processed according to ISO 8608, and vehicle frequency response has been investigated using simulations in MATLAB/Simulink. The applied International Roughness Index (IRI) analysis showed that a speed of 30-45 km/h instead of 80 km/h provides the objective results of IRI calculation on the flexible pavement due to a decreasing velocity of vehicle's unsprung mass on a more deteriorated road pavement state. The influence of the corrugation phenomenon of gravel pavement has been explored, identifying specific driving safety and comfort cases. Finally, an increase in the Dynamic Load Coefficient (DLC) at a low speed of 30 km/h on the most deteriorated pavement and a high speed of 90 km/h on the middle-quality pavement demonstrates the demand for timely gravel pavement maintenance and the complicated prediction of a safe driving speed for drivers.

Temperature-index modeling is used to determine the magnitude of temperature depression on the Blanca Massif, Colorado, required to maintain steady-state mass balances of nine reconstructed glaciers at their extent during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The mean temperature depression thus determined is ~8.6 +0.7/–0.9 °C where the uncertainties account for those inherent in the glacier reconstructions, in model parameters (e.g. melt factors), and possible modest changes in LGM precipitation. Associated equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) exhibit a statistically significant directional dependency being lower toward the north and east. Under the assumption that regional temperature change was uniform, required changes in precipitation vary systematically – also exhibiting a directional dependency coinciding with that in ELAs – and indicate increases (over modern) occurred on the eastern side of the massif while decreases occurred on the western side. This disparity represents a strengthening of a precipitation asymmetry, particularly winter precipitation, that exists today. The modern precipitation asymmetry may be a consequence of snow being blown over to the eastern side of the massif (advective transport) by southwesterly flow. Intensification of this flow during the LGM would have enhanced advection, and augmented snow accumulation on glaciers, thus explaining the lower ELAs and increased precipitation on that side of the massif.

Road networks are monitored to evaluate their decay level and the performances regarding ride comfort, vehicle rolling noise, fuel consumption, etc. In this study, an Inertial Measurement Unit is proposed by using a low-cost three-axis Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems accelerometer and a GPS instrument, which are connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero W board and embedded inside a vehicle to monitor indirectly the road condition. To assess the level of pavement decay, the comfort index awz defined by the ISO 2631 standard was considered. Considering 21 km of roads, with different levels of pavement decay, validation measures made using the proposed IMU, another pre-assembled IMU, and a Road Surface Profiler were performed. Therefore, comparisons between awz determined with accelerations measured on the two different IMU are made; in addition, also correlations between awz, International Roughness Index (IRI), and Ride Number (RN) were performed. The results were shown very good correlations between the awz calculated with the proposed IMU and ones in the other IMU. In addition, the correlations between awz and IRI and RN were showed promising results, considering the use and the costs of the proposed IMU as a reliable method to assess the pavements decay in road networks where the use of traditional systems is difficult and/or not cheap.

This paper proposes a method for monitoring the structural health of concrete bridges in Iran. In this method, the bridge condition index (BCI) of bridges is determined by the analytical hierarchy process. BCI constitutes eight indices that are scored based on the experts' views, including structural, hydrology and climate, safety, load impact, geotechnical and seismicity, strategic importance, facilities, and traffic and pavement. Experts' views were analyzed by Expert Choice software, and the relative importance (weight) of indices were determined using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Then, the gave scores of experts were assigned to indices for various conditions. Bridge inspectors can examine the bridge, determine the scores of indices, and compute BCI. Higher values of BCI ​​indicate better conditions. Therefore, bridges with lower BCI take priority in maintenance activities. Five bridges in Iran, Semnan province, were selected as the case studies, and BCI calculation of these bridges was conducted.

Stroke represents one of the most important causes of morbidity ( eighty million patients with disabling of ongoing effects of stroke at a given time, globally) and mortality (the second leading cause of death) worldwide. Innovative systems biology-based approach is likely to increase the understanding of the underpinning of acute stroke promise to enhance stroke prevention, acute treatment, and neurorehabilitation. Recent growing body of evidence with shared pathobiology with COVID-19 and the critically important role of inflammation in the context of stroke points to far-reaching consequences of acute stroke, just as in the case of COVID-19 ( post-acute event issues as well as long term issues ) . So far, stroke typically defined by late-appearing disease manifestation by the range of stroke subtypes as defined by the WHO or American Stroke Association. This definition neglects the underlying pathobiological mechanisms such as low-grade chronic inflammation and already compromised vascular system. Diseases such as stroke is hardly a simple result of a single problem, but rather a complex cascade of pathobiological processes and interactions in a complex biochemical environment. The evidence of changes in innate immunity and adaptive immunity during the index event of acute stroke and recovery over next 3-12 months can be easily elicited with simple bedside blood tests such as neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) with well over 300 published papers including several systematic reviews and meta-analyses confirming this. Global standard operating procedures (SOP) of stroke care dictated by the national and international stroke guidelines at present. It is imperative to explore the evidence of systems biology approach in current stroke guidelines. This is likely to be a key turning point in managing stroke across the continuum (prevention, management of acute event and rehabilitation).

The current study investigated the use of two-dimensional spatial distribution mapping representing the chlorophyll-a level in a river generated via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned surface vehicle (USV). A domestically developed UAV (Remo-M, Uconsystem Inc., Korea) and a USV developed by our research team were used to collect data from the Nae Seong stream in Korea. An adaptation of the “Data Cleaner” tool was developed and used for USV data processing and analysis. The operation of the autonomous USV was successful. Four previously described indices for quantifying algal blooms in rivers were utilized to create chlorophyll-a images, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized green red difference index, the green normalized difference vegetation index (GNDVI), and the normalized difference red edge index. The suitability of the linear regression analysis of the correlation between the spectral indices obtained using the UAV and the in situ chlorophyll-a data obtained using the USV was evaluated with the coefficient of determination (R2) at a significance level of p &lt; 0.001. In field application and correlational analysis the NDVI was strongly correlated with chlorophyll-a (R2 = 0.88, p < 0.001), and the GNDVI was moderately correlated with chlorophyll-a (R2 = 0.74, p < 0.001). The map of chlorophyll-a was successfully quantified using the UAV and USV hybrid platforms.

Soil quality assessment based on crop yields and identification of key indicators of it can be used for better management of agricultural production. In the current research, the weighted additive soil quality index (SQIw), factor analysis (FA) and multiple linear regression (MLR) method are used to assess the soil quality of rainfed winter wheat fields with two soil orders on 53.20 km2 of agricultural land in western Iran. A total of 18 soil quality indicators were determined for 100 soil samples (0-20 cm depth) from two soil orders (Inceptisols and Entisols). The soil properties measured were: pH, soil texture, organic carbon (OC), cation exchange capacity (CEC), electrical conductivity (EC), soil microbial respiration (SMR), carbonate calcium equivalent (CCE), soil porosity (SP), bulk density (BD), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), mean weight diameter (MWD), available potassium (AK), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), available Fe (AFe), available Zn (AZn), available Mn (AMn), and available Cu (ACu). Mean wheat grain yield for the two years for all of the 100 sampling sites was also gathered. The SQIw was calculated using two weighting methods (FA and MLR) and maps were created using a digital soil mapping framework. The soil indicators taken in the minimum data set (MDS) were AK, clay, CEC, AP, SMR, and sand. The correlation between the MLR weighting technique (SQI-M) and the rainfed wheat yield (r=0.62) was slightly larger than that the correlation of yield with the FA weighted technique (SQI-F) (r=0.58). Results showed that the means of both SQI-M and SQI-F and rainfed wheat yield for Inceptisols were higher than for Entisols although these differences were not statistically significant. Both SQI-M and SQI-F showed that areas with Entisols had lower proportions of good soil quality grades (Grade I and II), and higher proportions of poor soil quality grades (Grade IV and V) compared to Inceptisols. Based on these results, soil type must be considered for soil quality assessment in future studies to maintain and enhance soil quality and sustainable production. The overall soil quality of the study region was of poor and moderate grades. To improve soil quality, it is therefore recommended that effective practices such as the implementation of scientific integrated nutrient management involving the combined use of organic and inorganic fertilizers in rainfed wheat fields be promoted.

Diet influences, and is influenced by, a wide range of socioeconomic, cultural, geographic, and genetic variables. Here we survey a matrix of such interactions as well as their connection to a variety of health outcomes, in a cohort of 689 diverse adults employed at Emory University and enrolled in the Center for Health Discovery and Well-Being (CHDWB) study. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the Block Food Frequency Questionnaire revealed seven PC cumulatively explaining 25.8% and each individually at least 2% of the proportional consumption of 110 food items. PC1 is strongly correlated with the Healthy Eating Index-2015 measure, and accordingly healthier scores associate with multiple measures of physical and mental health. It, as well as PC2 (likely a measure of food expense) and PC3 (carbohydrate versus protein consumption) show significant geographic structure across the Atlanta metropolitan area, correlating with race and ethnicity, income level, age and sex. Notably, a polygenic score for body mass index (BMI) consisting of 281 SNPs explains 2.8% of the variance in PC5, which is as strong as its association with BMI itself. PC5 appears to differentiate participants with respect to conscious eating behavior related to the choice of diet or comfort foods. Our analysis adds to the growing literature on factor analysis of socio-demographic influences on nutrition and health.

This paper deals with the study of the existence and non existence of solutions of a three parameter's family of nonlinear fractional differential equation with mixed-integral boundary value conditions. We consider the $\alpha$-Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative, with $\alpha \in (1,2]$. In order to deduce the existence and non existence results, we first study the linear equation, by deducing the main properties of the related Green's functions. We obtain the optimal set of parameters where the Green's function has constant sign. After that, by means of the index theory, the nonlinear boundary value problem is studied. Some examples, at the end of the paper, are showed to illustrate the applicability of the obtained results.

Chile faces a serious crisis on housing affordability given that most of the population is unable to secure a house. While housing prices between 2008 increased by 70.96%, wages only increased by 20.43%. This article presents the analysis of the housing prices configuration for the main district in the country: Santiago Centro. The assessment focuses on verticalised housing buildings constructed between 2015 and 2019. The article develops an exploratory study on the price of housing in the city of Santiago de Chile, to generate a diagnosis to identify the role played by expectations of profitability when configuring that price. Based on the information generated, we seek to contribute to the discussion on public policies that advance towards the development of affordable housing for households in central communes with high urban value, as is the case of Santiago Centro. We hypothesize that profitability expectations of real estate developers play a key role in the housing prices and an adjustment in the profit ratios may increase the affordability keeping the housing market over profitable rates. The research is relevant due to the lack of data transparency in the Chilean housing market, where access to investment costs, land values, yields and house price formation are not part of the public discussion, even though this implies that many households are facing severe difficulties in paying for access to decent housing.

Ongoing climate change causes abnormal climate events worldwide such as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns. With South Korea facing growing damage from the increased frequency of localized heavy rains, the country is not an exception. In particular, its steep slope lands, including mountainous areas, are vulnerable to damage from landslides and debris flows. In addition, localized short-term heavy rains that occur in urban areas with extremely high intensity tend to lead a sharp increase in damage from soil-related disasters and cause huge losses of life and property. Currently, South Korea predicts landslides and debris flows using the standards for forecasting landslides and heavy rains. However, as the forecasting is conducted separately for rainfall intensity and accumulated rainfall, this lacks a technique that reflects both amount and intensity of rainfall in an episode of localized heavy rainfall. This study, therefore, aims to develop such a technique by collecting past cases of debris flow occurrences and rainfall events that accompanied debris flows to calculate the rainfall triggering index (RTI) reflecting accumulated rainfall and rainfall intensity. In addition, the RTI is converted into the critical accumulated rainfall (Rc) to use precipitation information and provide real-time forecasting. The study classifies the standards for flow debris forecasting into three levels: ALERT (10%–50%), WARNING (50%–70%), and EMERGENCY (70% or higher), to provide a nomogram for 6 hr, 12 hr, and 24 hr. As a result of applying this classification into the actual cases of Seoul, Chuncheon, and Cheongju, it is found that about 2–4 hr of response time is secured from the point of the Emergency level to the occurrence of debris flows.

We introduce a total energy and environmental evaluation method in the manufacturing industry. The method gives us a series of descriptive indexes to assess the overall environmental effect level on materials, energy, wastes and products in the life cycle process. Meanwhile, the method uses partial indexes, environmental effect factors, and correction offsets into the quantitative model to analyze the learning process and rebound effect on the energy and environment at each procedure. In this work, we choose S-shaped learning curves to describe how to decrease energy consumption and improve the technical learning by doing for recent 30 years. Also, we draw the different rebound effect curves of the total energy-environmental evaluation with technical learning method, which use the annual industrial production growth rate to show that it's significant to estimate its effect on technology changes. The ideas about the interaction of energy and production environment from material flows to energy consumption, direct us to build an example to estimate quantitatively the results with different condition factors, and realize the process improvement and develop new products.

In this paper, a multi-mode waveguide-based optical resonator is proposed for an integrated optical refractive index sensor. Conventional optical resonators have been studied for single-mode waveguide-based resonators to enhance the performance, but mass production is limited owing to the high fabrication costs of nano-scale structures. To overcome this problem, we designed an S-bend resonator based on a micro-scale multi-mode waveguide. In general, multi-mode waveguides cannot be utilized as optical resonators, because of a performance degradation resulting from modal dispersion and an output transmission with multi-peaks. Therefore, we exploited the mode discrimination phenomenon using the bending loss, and the resulting S-bend resonator yielded an output transmission without multi-peaks. This phenomenon is utilized to remove higher-order modes efficiently using the difference in the effective refractive index between the higher-order and fundamental modes. As a result, the resonator achieved a Q-factor and sensitivity of 2.3x10³ and 52 nm/RIU, respectively, using the variational finite-difference time-domain method. These results show that the multi-mode waveguide-based S-bend resonator with a wide line width can be utilized as a refractive index sensor.

Polluted rivers are a primary problem in Changhua County, Taiwan, due to rapid and massive developments in agriculture and industry. In this study, samples consisted of water influent from the Yangzi-Cuo River, Ci-Tong Jiao, Changhua County. Ecology technology, a combination of gravel contact oxidation and surface flow constructed wetlands, was employed to enhance the water quality. Ecology technology is a useful and ordinary process that focuses on original treatment of pollution through chemical, physical, and biological procedures based on the mediums of soil, plant, water, and microorganisms from pure environments. Moreover, this study aimed to minimize the river pollution index (RPI) of the Yangzi-Cuo River by using combinations of gravel contact oxidation and surface flow constructed wetlands. The inflow volume of the water samples in situ was found to be 1534–2261 cubic meters per day (CMD). The pollution in the water sample mostly involved suspended solid (SS), ammoniacal nitrogen (NH₃–N), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and the values of the above indexes were found to be 10.0–26.7 mg/L, 0.9–14.0 mg/L, 1.2–14.1 mg/L, 11.1–18.2 mg/L, and 0.5–3.6 mg/L, respectively. Efficiencies of pollution elimination in SS, NH₃–N, TP, TN, and BOD were found to be 24.2–93.1%, 58.3–86.2%, 5.2–85.0%, 59.4–77.2%, and 46.3–76.4%, correspondingly, after purification treatment via ecology technology. Thus, ecology technology is a valid means of purification treatment for polluted rivers.

Most of the research of mental fatigue evaluation mainly concentrated on some indexes that require sophisticate and large instruments which make the detection of mental fatigue cumbersome, time-consuming, and difficult to apply on a large scale. A quick and sensitive mental fatigue detection index is necessary so that mental workers can be alerted in time and take corresponding countermeasures. But to date, no studies have compared the sensitivity of common objective evaluation indexes. To solve these problems this study recruited 56 human subjects. These subjects were evaluated using six fatigue indexes: the Stanford sleepiness scale, digital span, digital decoding, short-term memory, critical flicker fusion frequency (CFF), and speed perception deviation. The results of fatigue tests before and after mental fatigue were compared, and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the speed perception deviation. The result indicated the significance of this index. Considering individual differences, the relative fatigue index (RFI) was proposed to compare the sensitivity of the indexes. The results showed that when the self-rated fatigue grade changed from non-fatigue to mild fatigue, the ranges of RFI values for digital span, digital decoding, short-term memory and CFF were 0.175–0.258, 0.194–0.316, 0.068–0.139, and 0.055–0.075, respectively. Correspondingly, when the self-rated fatigue grade changed from non-fatigue to severe fatigue, the ranges of RFI values for the above indexes were 0.175–0.258, 0.194–0.316, 0.068–0.139, and 0.055–0.075, respectively. These results suggest that the sensitivity of the digital decoding, digital span, short-term memory, and CFF decreased sequentially when the self-evaluated fatigue grade changed from no fatigue to mild or severe fatigue. The RFI individuality of the speed perception deviation is highly variable and is not suitable as an evaluation index. In mental fatigue testing, digital decoding testing can provide faster, more convenient, and more accurate results.

Sensitivity to weather conditions, and specially to clouds, is a severe limiting factor to the use of optical remote sensing for Earth monitoring applications. A possible alternative, is to resort to weather-insensitive synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. However, in many real-world applications, critical decisions are made based on some informative spectral features, such as water, vegetation or soil indices, which cannot be extracted from SAR images. In the absence of optical sources, these data must be estimated. The current practice is to perform linear interpolation between data available at temporally close time instants. In this work, we propose to estimate missing spectral features through data fusion and deep-learning. Several sources of information are taken into account - optical sequences, SAR sequences, DEM - so as to exploit both temporal and cross-sensor dependencies. Based on these data, and a tiny cloud-free fraction of the target image, a compact convolutional neural network (CNN) is trained to perform the desired estimation. To validate the proposed approach, we focus on the estimation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), using coupled Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 time-series acquired over an agricultural region of Burkina Faso from May to November 2016. Several fusion schemes are considered, causal and non-causal, single-sensor or joint-sensor, corresponding to different operating conditions. Experimental results are very promising, showing a significant gain over baselines methods according to all performance indicators.

We aimed at analyzing Chlorophyll-a and CDOM dynamics from field measurements and at assessing the potential of multispectral satellite data for retrieving water-quality parameters in three small surface reservoirs in the Brazilian semiarid region. More specifically, this work comprises i) analysis of Chl-a and trophic dynamics; ii) characterization of CDOM; iii) estimation of Chl-a and CDOM from OLI/Landsat-8 and RapidEye imagery. The monitoring lasted 20 months within a multi-year drought, which contributed to water-quality deterioration. Chl-a and trophic state analysis showed a highly eutrophic status for the perennial reservoir during the entire study period, while the non-perennial reservoirs ranged from oligotrophic to eutrophic, with changes associated with the first events of the rainy season. CDOM characterization suggests that the perennial reservoir is mostly influenced by autochthonous sources, while allochthonous sources dominate the non-perennial ones. Spectral-group classification assigned the perennial as CDOM-moderate and highly eutrophic reservoir, whereas the non-perennial ones were assigned as CDOM-rich and oligotrophic-dystrophic reservoirs. The remote sensing initiative was partially successful: the Chl-a was best modelled using RapidEye for the perennial; whereas CDOM performed best with Landsat-8 for non-perennial reservoirs. This investigation showed high potential for retrieving water quality parameters in dry areas with small reservoirs.

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a complex inflammatory condition affecting the nasal and paranasal sinus mucosa. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has been implicated as a potential exacerbating factor in CRS, but the specific endoscopic features of nasopharyngeal pathology in this context remain poorly understood. Background and Objectives: CRS is a multifactorial disease with various underlying etiologies, including inflammation, anatomical factors, and environmental triggers. While GERD has been suggested as a potential contributor to CRS, the specific endoscopic features indicative of nasopharyngeal pathology in CRS patients with GERD symptoms have not been clearly elucidated. Our aim is to identify specific endoscopic features of nasopharyngeal pathology in patients with CRS associated with GERD symptoms, and to propose a method for assessing the influence of GERD on the mucosal layer of the nose and nasopharynx. Materials and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional observational study involving 521 adult patients presenting with symptoms suggestive of CRS. From this cohort, 95 patients with the highest scores on the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI) and Reflux Symptom Score-12 (RSS-12) questionnaires were selected as the main group. Endoscopic examinations were performed to assess the nasal and nasopharyngeal mucosa. Results: Our study revealed significant alterations in the nasopharyngeal mucosa of patients with CRS associated with GERD symptoms. Increased vascularity of the nasopharyngeal mucosa was observed in 91 patients (95.7%), while hypertrophy was noted in 83 patients (87.4%). Mucus was present in the nasopharynx of 77 patients (81.1%), exhibiting varying characteristics of color and consistency. Asymmetric hypertrophy of the oropharyngeal mucosa was noted in 62 patients (65.3%). Conclusions: We propose a method for assessing the influence of GERD on the mucosal layer of the nose and nasopharynx, which may aid in diagnostic and management decisions. Further research is warranted to explore the potential impact of GERD symptoms on the course and severity of CRS exacerbations.

The aim of the study was to examine the long-term prognostic value of changes in cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) within a year after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Methods. Patients with coronary artery disease (n = 251) in whom cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) was assessed using the VaSera VS-1000 device before and in a year after CABG. Groups with improved CAVI (CAVI decreased from pathological value to normal or the index remained within normal values) or worsened CAVI (persistent pathological index value or an increase in CAVI to pathological values or an increase of 1 unit or more) were identified. The groups were compared for the following events at 10-year follow-up: death from all causes, myocardial infarction, stroke/transient ischemic attack, and the combined endpoint. Results. A year after CABG surgery, 45% of patients showed positive dynamics or stable normal CAVI values. Death from all causes was significantly more common in the group with CAVI progression - 32 (27.6%) than in the group with CAVI improvement - 14 (14.8%; p = 0.029). Patients with CAVI progression were more likely to have MACE (death, MI, stroke/TIA) in 49 (42.2%) cases, compared with patients with CAVI improvement - in 23 (24.5%; p=0.008). Negative dynamics of CAVI (p = 0.024), number of shunts (p = 0.006), and the presence of carotid stenosis more than 30% (p = 0.051) were independent predictors of death from all causes at 10-year follow-up after CABG. The presence of carotid stenosis more than 30% (p = 0.002) and the group with negative dynamics of CAVI after a year (p = 0.008) were independent predictors of the development of the combined endpoint during long-term follow-up. Conclusions. Patients with negative dynamics of CAVI one year after CABG were more likely to experience death from all causes and combined endpoint in the long-term follow-up than patients with normal CAVI. In further studies, it is advisable to evaluate the dynamics of CAVI and, based on this, identify the most effective interventions to improve the prognosis of patients after CABG.

Time evolution of the symmetry of symbols constituting alphabets rooted in the Phoenician script was investigated. A diversity of quantitative measures of symmetry of graphemes appearing in Phoenician, Western Greek, Etruscan from Marsiliana, Archaic Etruscan, Neo-Etruscan, Euclidian Greek, Archaic and Classical Latin, and Proto-Hebrew scripts, constituting the Phoenician script family, were calculated. The same measures were calculated for the Hebrew/Ashurit and English scripts. The Shannon-like measures of symmetry were calculated. The Shannon diversity index was calculated. The Shannon diversity index increased with time in a monotonic way for the scripts emerging from the Phoenician one. The diversity of symmetry groups inherent for alphabets emerging from the Phoenician one grows with time. We also introduced the symmetry factor of the alphabet. The symmetry factor quantifies the averaged level of symmetrization of the alphabet and the possible parsimony of graphical information necessary for the drawing of the entire set of graphemes, constituting the alphabet. The symmetry factor is decreased with time for the alphabets rooted in the Phoenician one. This means that the average level of symmetrization of the studied alphabet is increased with time. The parsimony of graphical information necessary for writing graphemes is increased with time. The values of the symmetry factor calculated for the addressed scripts are close one to another, with the pronounced exception of the Hebrew/Ashurit script. Our study supplies the arguments for the point of view, according to which the modern Hebrew/Ashurit script does not emerge from the Phoenician one.

Recently, there has been growing interest in using smart eHealth systems to manage asthma. However, limitations still exist in providing smart services and accurate predictions tailored to individual patients’ needs. This study aims to develop an adaptive ubiquitous computing framework that leverages different bio-signals and spatial data to provide personalized asthma attack prediction and safe route recommendations. We proposed a smart eHealth framework consisting of multiple layers that employ telemonitoring application, environmental sensors, and advanced machine-learning algorithms to deliver smart services to the user. The proposed smart eHealth system predicts asthma attacks and uses spatial data to provide a safe route that drives the patient away from any asthma trigger. Additionally, the framework incorporates an adaptation layer that continuously updates the system based on real-time environmental data and daily bio-signals reported by the user. The developed telemonitoring application collected a dataset containing 665 records used to train the prediction models. The testing result demonstrates a remarkable 98% accuracy in predicting asthma attacks with a recall of 96%. The eHealth system was tested online by ten asthma patients, and its accuracy achieved 94% of accuracy and a recall of 95.2% in generating safe routes for asthma patients, ensuring a safer and asthma-trigger-free experience. The test shows that 89% of patients were satisfied with the safer recommended route than their usual one. This research contributes to enhancing the capabilities of smart healthcare systems in managing asthma and improving patient outcomes. The adaptive feature of the proposed eHealth system ensures that the predictions and recommendations remain relevant and personalized to the current conditions and needs of the individual.

The short-term intake (ESTI) of Hungarian consumers to pesticide residues was assessed based on 2331 test results obtained during 2017-2021 monitoring program in the frequently analyzed apples, sour cherries, table grapes, peaches, nectarines, peppers and strawberries (23.5% of all samples taken from 119 crops). The age-specific consumption data were obtained from two representative national food consumption surveys (2009 and 2018-2020). The exposure was characterized with Hazard Quotient and Hazard Index considering the acute reference doses of pesticide residues detected in the samples. When ESTI was calculated with all detected “single“ residues and variability factor of 3.6, recommended for evaluation of monitoring results, the HI only exceeded 1 for children &lt;3 years old eating grape (1.50-1.81). HI was &lt;1 when any of the 6 foods were eaten together within one day. Between forty and fifty percent of samples contained 2-23 residues. Though, the individual residue concentrations were below the corresponding MRLs, multiple residues being present in one sample resulted in maximum HI values in apples (1.14); grapes (6.57); peaches and nectarines (2.57); strawberries (2.74); peppers (10.44). Residues with low ARfD values contributed most. Applying HI is simple, but provides only point estimates; therefore, it should only be used in first-tier risk assessment.

The refractive index of solids guages their transparency to incident light, while the energy gap determines the threshold for light absorption. This paper provides a mathematical formulation for the relationship between refractive index and energy gap. It is also established that this formulation aided in the unification of the Moss, Ravindra, and Herve-Vandamme relationships.

In order to realize the performance degradation trend prediction accurately, a prediction method based on multi-domain features and temporal convolutional network (TCN) is proposed. Firstly, construct a high-dimensional feature set in the multi-domain of vibration signals, and use comprehensive evaluation indicators to preliminarily screen performance degradation indexes with good sensitivity and strong trend. Secondly, the kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) method is adopted to eliminate redundant information between multi-domain features, and construct a health index (HI) based on convolutional auto-encoder (CAE) network. Thirdly, a TCN-based performance degradation trend prediction model is constructed, and direct multi-step prediction is used to predict the performance degradation trend of the monitored object. On this basis, the validity of the proposed method is verified using the bearing public data, and it is successfully applied to performance degradation trend prediction of rolling contact fatigue specimen. The results show that the feature set can be reduced from 14 dimensions to 4 dimensions by using KPCA, while 98.33% of the information of the original feature set is retained. Furthermore, the method of constructing HI based on CAE network is effective. The change process of the HI constructed truly reflects the performance degradation process of the rolling contact fatigue specimen. Compared with the two commonly used HI construction methods, auto-encoding (AE) network and gaussian mixture model (GMM), this method has obvious advantages. At the same time, the prediction model based on TCN can accurately predict the performance degradation of the rolling contact fatigue specimen with the root mean square error 0.0146 and the mean absolute error 0.0105, which has better performance and higher prediction accuracy than the prediction model based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) network and the gated recurrent unit (GRU). This method has general significance and may be extended to the performance degradation prediction of other mechanical equipment/parts.

FMD is a highly contagious animal disease that occurs in cloven-hoofed animals including pigs. To prevent FMD, vaccines and adjuvants are used to induce an immune response, but it is not sufficient to show the effect of preventing viral infection. In this study, we conducted to evaluate the increasing effect of FMD vaccine SP antibody by administrating Zn-ASP to 100 pigs from three test pig farms with feed. FMD vaccine antibody titer and immunological index were analyzed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit, and hematological and blood biochemical parameters were analyzed using an automatic blood analyzer. The titer of FMD vaccine SP antibody in the 0.2% Zn-ASP-administered group significantly increased compared to that in the positive control group only injected with FMD vaccine at 4 weeks after the first vaccination and at 4, 8 and 16 weeks after the second vaccination, respectively (p&lt;0.05). The FMD vaccine SP antibody positive rate was 100% until shipment. IFN-γ and IgA were significantly increased by Zn-ASP administration 4 weeks after the first vaccination and 4 weeks after the second vaccination (p&lt;0.05). On the other hand, serum AST, and CPK (p&lt;0.001) were significantly decreased by Zn-ASP. Our results show that the administration of Zn-ASP is effective in enhancing the antibody titer and immunity of the FMD vaccine by FMD vaccination, and it is thought that it can be used as an oral adjuvant (OrAd) to prevent viral diseases such as FMD.

Background: Acute pancreatitis is a common emergency. Morbidity control requires early detection of disease severity. METHODS: A total of 131 AP patients were analyzed retrospectively. Patients were divided into two groups mild AP (MAP: Ranson score <3) and severe AP (SAP: Ranson score ≥3), according to Ranson’s criteria. Demographic data, hospitalization duration, PNI, CRP, and RDW levels were compared. Any p-value below 0.05 (p<0.05) was accepted as statistically significant. RESULTS: Study included 67 (51.15%) males and 64 (48.85%) females. The age average was 59.74 (19-90) years. 95 (72.52%) patients had MAP, and 36 (27.48%) patients had SAP. Mean hospitalization time, PNI, and CRP differed significantly between the two groups (p=0.010, p<0.05, p<0.05, respectively). The RDW (p=0.380) level difference was insignificant. For SAP prediction; the sensitivity, specificity and cut-off value according to Ranson code cut-off point for PNI were determined as 80.0% (95% CI:54.8-85.8), %72.2 (95% CI:70.5-87.5) and ≤45.6 (gr/L) + (mm3), respectively, and 94.7% (95% CI:57.8-87.9), %75.0 (95% CI:88.1-98.3) and >105,1 mg/L, respectively for CRP. CONCLUSION: PNI and CRP values (but not RDW values) were compatible with the disease severity determined by the Ranson criteria.

Glucocorticoid administration is a common clinical practice in attempt to decrease inflammation associated with, and improve resectability of, canine mast cell tumors (MCTs). However, the impact of neoadjuvant glucocorticoids on histological features and proliferation indices of canine MCTs is unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate changes in tumor grade, mitotic count, Ki67, AgNOR, and AgNORxKi67 scores following short-course, anti-inflammatory neoadjuvant prednisone in canine patients with MCTs. This was a prospective, single-arm pilot study. Client-owned dogs with treatment-naïve, cytologically-confirmed MCTs were enrolled. Patients underwent an initial incisional biopsy followed by a 10-14 day course of anti-inflammatory prednisone, and surgical resection. All histological samples were randomized, masked, and evaluated by a single pathologist. Unstained paired pre- and post-treatment samples were submitted to a commercial laboratory for Ki67 and AgNOR immunohistochemical analysis. There were 11 dogs enrolled with 11 tumors. There were no statistical differences between the pre- and post-treatment histological parameters of mitotic index, Ki67, AgNOR, or Ki67xAgNOR. There were no clinically-significant alterations between pre-treatment and post-treatment in the assignment of tumor grades. A short-course of anti-inflammatory prednisone does not appear to alter the histological parameters that affect grade-determination, nor significantly alter the proliferation indices in canine MCTs.

A recent survey that determined heavy metal concentrations in an abandoned Hg mine in Palawan, Philippines, found the occurrence of Hg with As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, Tl, V, and Zn. While the Hg originated from the mine waste calcines as supported by previous studies, the critical knowledge about the origin of the other heavy metals remains to be unknown. Our study investigated the sources of heavy metal pollution surrounding the abandoned Hg mine; and assessed the soil and sediment quality, ecological risks, and health risks associated with these toxic metals. Multivariate analyses, such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), principal component analysis (PCA), and Pearson correlation analysis, were used to identify the heavy metal sources from the results of a previous paper. Our results showed that Fe, Ni, Cr, Co, and Mn are associated with the ultramafic geology of the study, whereas As, Ba, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, Tl, V, and Zn are likely due to historical mining and processing of cinnabar from 1953-1976. The mine waste calcines were used as construction material for the wharf and as land filler for the adjacent communities. The modified contamination factor (mCdeg) showed that the coast of Honda Bay is highly contaminated, while the inland areas, including the rivers, are very- to ultra-highly contaminated. There is a considerable ecological risk associated with the heavy metals, wherein Ni, Hg, Cr, and Mn contribute an average of 46.3 %, 26.3 %, 11.2 %, and 9.3 % to the potential ecological risk index (RI), respectively. The overall mean hazard index (HI) for both adults (1.4) and children (12.1) exceeded 1, implying the probability of non-carcinogenic adverse effects. The mean total cancer risk over a lifetime (LCR) for both adults (1.19×10-3) and children (2.89×10-3) exceeded the tolerable threshold of 10-4, suggesting a potentially high risk for developing cancer mainly by Ni, Co, and Cr exposure.

The presented results of simulations take into account the optical parameters of the selected sea region (from literature data on the southern Baltic Sea) and two optically extreme types of crude oil (from historical data) which exist in the form of a highly diluted oil-in-water emulsion (10 ppm). The spectral index was analyzed based on the results of modelling the radiance reflectance distribution for almost an entire hemisphere of the sky (zenith angle from 0 to 80o). The spectral index was selected and is universal for all optically different types of oil (wavelengths 650 and 412 nm). The possibility of detecting pollution in the conditions of the wavy sea surface (as a result of wind of up to 10 m/s) was studied. It has been also shown that if the viewing direction is close to a direction perpendicular to the sea surface, observations aimed at determining the spectral index are less effective than observation under the zenith angle of incidence of sunlight for all azimuths excluding the direction of sunlight specular reflection.

We assessed how close human perceptions of landscape modification matched a multivariate index based on remotely sensed data of the same locations. Using a Human Footprint (HF) map of the continental U.S. (scaled 0-100), we created three series of aerial images, each with ten images distributed evenly across the 10 deciles of HF score. Using a web-based survey, 290 members of the global public ranked the images in one series based on their perception of the degree of human modification. Respondents also reported age, sex, and country. The degree of correspondence between rankings by respondents and by HF score was high, an average of 1.29 units of difference out of a maximum possible of 5.0. Differences among respondents were not explained by age, sex, or general geographic location. These results suggest that human perception of relative landscape modification conforms closely with the relative ranking made by a multivariate, analytical index.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate and compare sleep quality between patients with chronic temporomandibular disorder and healthy controls, and to analyze the association of sleep quality with disease characteristics, obstructive sleep apnea risk factors, and excessive daytime sleepiness. Methods: Chronic temporomandibular disorder patients (n=503) and 180 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included, who completed well-organized clinical report and answered questions on sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), sleep apnea risk factors (STOP-Bang questionnaire), and excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth sleepiness scale). Results: Mean global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores were significantly higher in the patients (6.25±2.77) than in healthy controls (6.25±2.77) (p&lt;0.001). Poor sleep was significantly more prevalent in the patient group (56.9%) than in healthy controls (22.2%) (p&lt;0.001). Compared with healthy controls, chronic temporomandibular disorder patients had a higher likelihood of obstructive sleep apnea. (STOP-Bang total score ≥3; 7.2% vs. 16.1%; p&lt;0.01) and higher excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth sleepiness scale score ≥10; 12.8% vs. 19.7%; p&lt;0.05). Age (odds ratio=2.551; p&lt;0.001), female sex (odds ratio=1.885; p=0.007), total Epworth sleepiness scale score (odds ratio=1.839; p=0.014), and headache attributed to temporomandibular disorder (odds ratio=1.519; p=0.049) were the most powerful predictors of poor sleep (global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score ≥5) in chronic temporomandibular disorder patients. Conclusion: Chronic temporomandibular disorder patients had sleep quality impairment. Various factors, including peripheral and central factors, affect the patient's sleep quality. Therefore, in addition to sleep quality and sleep-related problems, the underlying central mechanism for poor sleep quality should be assessed when treating chronic temporomandibular disorder patients.

The City of Meycauayan is considered as one of the most polluted cities in the developing world on the account of industrial discharges of toxic materials to the environment. This work investigated the sources of the heavy metal pollution by analyzing soil and sediment samples for heavy metals (Cr, Hg, Ni, and Pb) together with selected environmental indicators (TN, TOM, and TP) located along the Meycauayan River. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), principal components analysis (PCA), and Pearson correlation analysis (CA) were used to identify the sources of the metals. Results showed delineated locations of severe levels of heavy metal pollution downstream because of the concentration of industrial activities. Cr contributed more than any other heavy metals analyzed due to proliferation of tanneries discharging untreated wastewaters to the river. Significant inputs of Pb and Hg from Pb-acid battery recycling and gold smelting industries were also found. Risk assessments indicated severe levels of heavy metal pollution where industrial activities are concentrated. The mean Cr, Pb, Ni, and Hg in the sampling locations have mean incidences of toxicity of 91.7 %, 53.6 %, 27.7 %, and 70.0 %, respectively. Our study showed a serious need to address heavy metal pollution in Meycauayan.

Most people living in Europe's cities are still exposed to levels of air pollution deemed harmful by the World Health Organization. In the modern world, air pollution is the foremost concern because of its impact in human health and economy. This strong connection appears gaining a lot of concern, driven by new installed low-cost electrochemical sensors monitoring systems. Highly accuracy, real-time monitoring, daily and yearly statistics, data access from experts or simple users, low-cost equipment and forecasting needs, enforce the market to develop new air quality monitoring systems using advanced technologies and protocols. In this study, a comparison via low-cost electrochemical sensors and of static, fixed site measurement monitoring station, is taking place in Athens, Greece, along with the data quality and Air Quality Index (AQI) including data accuracy and quality of data concerning adverse health effects due to air pollution. The findings presented in this work, relate to different flexible and affordable alternatives adopted during the evaluation and calibration of low-cost gas sensors for the monitoring. The significance of the positive results is particularly useful, especially considering the founding for interference, environmental conditions affections and air quality information including indexes and health recommendations for a specific location.

Management practices must be developed to improve yam production sustainability. Image-based phenotyping techniques could help developing such practices based on non-destructive analyses of important plant traits. Our objective was to determine the potential of image-based phenotyping methods to assess traits relevant for tuber yield formation in yam grown in glasshouse and field. We took plant and leaf pictures with consumer cameras. We used the numbers of image pixels to derive the shoot biomass and the total leaf surface and calculated the ‘triangular greenness index’ (TGI) which is an indicator of the plant nitrogen (N) nutritional status. Under glasshouse conditions, the number of pixels obtained from nadir view (image taken top down) was positively correlated to the shoot biomass, and the total leaf surface, while the TGI was negatively correlated to the N content of diagnostic leaves. Under field conditions, pictures taken from the nadir view showed an increase in soil surface cover and a decrease in TGI with time. TGI was negatively correlated to SPAD measured on specific leaves but was not correlated to the N content of these leaves. In conclusion, these phenotyping techniques deliver relevant results but need to be further developed and validated for application in yam.

The spatiotemporal variability of vegetation in the Middle East was investigated for the period 2001–2019 using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 16-day/500 m composites of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI; MOD13A1). The results reveal a strong increase in the NDVI coverage in the Middle East during the study period (R = 0.75, p-value = 0.05). In Egypt, the annual coverage exhibits the strongest positive trend (R = 0.99, p-value = 0.05). In Turkey, both the vegetation coverage and density increased from 2001 to 2019, which can be attributed to the construction of some of the biggest dams in the Middle East, such as the Atatürk and Ilisu dams. Significant increases in the annual coverage and maximum and average NDVI in Saudi Arabia are due to farming in the northern part of the country for which groundwater and desalinated seawater are used. The results of this study suggest that the main factors affecting the vegetation coverage in the Middle East are governmental policies. These policies can have a positive effect on the vegetation coverage in some countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, and Turkey.

Land Surface Temperature is a one of the key variable of Global climate changes and model which estimate radiating budget in heat balance as control of climate model. It is a major influenced factor by the ability of the surface emissivity. In this study, were used Landsat 8 satellite image that have Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor to calculate Land Surface Temperature through geospatial technology over Ampara district, Sri Lanka. The Land Surface Temperature was estimated with respect to Land Surface Emissivity and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index values determined from the Red and Near Infrared channels. Land Surface Emissivity was processed directly by the thermal Infrared bands. Pixels based calculation were used to effort at LANDSAT 8 images that thermal Band 10 various dates in this study. The results were achievable to compute Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Land Surface Emissivity, and Land Surface Temperature with applicable manner to compare with land use/ land cover data. It determines and predicts the changes of surface temperature to favorable to decision making process for the society. Study area faces seasonal drought in Sri Lanka, the prediction method that how land can be efficiently used with the present condition. Therefore, the Land Surface Temperature estimation can prove whether new irrigation systems for agricultural activities or can transformed source of energy into useful form that introducing solar hubs for energy production in future.

This paper proposes a method for determining the bridge condition index (BCI) in concrete bridges, which is based on the views of bridge experts. First, eight indices were defined for a concrete bridge including structure, hydrology, safety, load impact, geotechnical and seismicity, strategic importance, facilities, and finally traffic and pavement. Each index consists of several sub-indices. Next, a series of questionnaires about the relative importance of indices and their sub-indices were prepared and distributed among bridge experts. Experts’ views were analyzed by Expert Choice software and the relative importance (weight) of each index and each sub-index was determined using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Then, based on experts’ views, an average score was assigned to each sub-index for any condition. Now the bridge inspectors can examine the bridge and determine the scores of sub-indices. Each index’s score is the sum of the weighted score assigned to its’ sub-indices and BCI is the sum of weighted scores assigned to indices. Higher values of BCI indicate a better condition. Therefore, bridges with lower BCI take priority in maintenance activities. To apply the proposed method, five bridges were selected in Semnan province, Iran, and BCI calculation of these bridges were conducted.

Health of migrant is a widely studied topic. It has been argued that migrant health may deteriorate over time. Though migrants are ‘a hard to reach’ population in survey data, this paper builds on a unique dataset provided by Médecins du Monde from five countries. We study self perceived health (SPH) in connection with socio-economic and demographic factors and length of stay. Results show different results for men and women. Asylum seekers compared to other documented migrants have a worse health. Migrants with better living conditions tend to be in better health. Employment and stable accommodation has a positive effect on SPH. Women from poorer countries have a better physical SPH after 3 months of residing in the host country. This paper contributes widely to knowledge of health of migrants. Contrarily to other evidence, health of migrants tends to improve for some migrants.

Developed countries have shown a time trend towards a younger age at menarche (AAM), which is associated with increased risk of later obesity and non-communicable diseases. We aimed to assess whether a time trend in AAM with associated disease risk is also present in Mexico. For this, we used data of 30,826 women from the Mexican National Health Survey (2000). Linear and log binomial regression was used for nutritional and disease outcomes, whereas Welch-ANOVA was used to test for a time trend. AAM decreased over time (p < 0.001), with a maximal difference of 0.99 years between the 1920s (13.6 years) and 1980s (12.6 years). AAM (in years) was negatively associated with weight (β = -1.01 kg; 95 % CI -1.006, -1,004) and BMI (β = -1.01 kg/m2; -1.007, -1.006), and positively with height (β = 0.18 cm; 0.112, 0.231). AAM was associated with diabetes (RR = 0.95; 0.93, 0.98) and hypercholesterolemia (RR = 0.93; 0.90, 0.95), but not with hypertension, breast cancer or arthritis. In Mexico, AAM decreased significantly during the 20th century. AAM was inversely associated with adult weight and BMI, and positively with height. Women with a later AAM had a lower risk of diabetes and hypercholesterolemia.

Automatic recognition methods for non-stationary EEG data collected from EEG sensors play an essential role in neurological detection. The integrative approaches proposed in this study consists of Symlet wavelet processing, a gradient boosting machine, and a grid search optimizer for a three-level classification scheme for normal subjects, intermittent epilepsy, and continuous epilepsy. Fourth-order Symlet wavelets were adopted to decompose the EEG data into five time-frequency sub-bands, whose statistical features were computed and used as classification features. The grid search optimizer was used to automatically find the optimal parameters for training the classifier. The classification accuracy of the gradient boosting machine was compared with that of a support vector machine and a random forest classifier constructed according to previous descriptions. Multiple-index were used to evaluate the Symlet wavelet transform-gradient boosting machine-grid search optimizer classification scheme, which provided better classification accuracy and detection effectiveness than has recently reported in other work on three-level classification of EEG data.

During recent years UAVs have been increasingly used in agriculture and forestry research and application. Nevertheless, most of this work has been devoted to improving accuracy and explanatory power, often at the cost of usability and affordability. We tested a low-cost UAV and a simple workflow to apply four different greenness indices to the monitoring of pine (Pinus sylvestris and P. nigra) after-fire regeneration in a Mediterranean forest. We selected two sites and masured all pines within a pre-selected plot. Winter flights were carried out at each of the sites, at two flight altitudes (50 and 100 m). Automatically normalizing images entered an SfM based photogrammetric software for restitution and the obtained point cloud and orthomosaic processed to get a canopy height model and four different greenness indices. Sum of pine DBH was regressed on summary statistics of greenness indices and canopy height model. ExGI and GCC indices outperformed VARI and GRVI in estimating pine DBH, while canopy height model slightly improved the models. Flight altitude did not severely affect model performance. Our results show that low cost UAVs may improve forest monitoring after disturbance, even in those habitats and situations were resource limitation is an issue.

Abstract: Changes in forest landscapes have been connected with human activity for centuries, which can be considered as one of the main driving forces of change in the global perspective. The spatial distribution of forests changes along with the geopolitical situation, demographic changes, intensification of agriculture, urbanization or changes in the land use policy. However, due to the limited availability of historical data, the driving forces of changes in forest landscapes are most often considered in relation to recent decades, without taking into account long-term analyzes. The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of natural and socio-economic factors on changes in forest landscapes within the protected area – Ślęża Landscape Park and its buffer zone in the aspect of long-term analyzes covering the period of 140 years (1883-2013). The comparison of historical and current maps, demographic data on 4 different periods as well as natural and location factors by using the ArcGIS software allowed analyzing selected driving forces of forest landscape transformations. We took into account natural factors like altitude, slope, exposure of the hillside and socio-economic drivers like population changes, distances to centers of municipalities, main roads and built-up areas.

Based on 541 Landsat images between 1988 and 2016, the normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) of the wetland vegetation at Xitugou (XTG) and Wowachi (WWC) inside the Dunhuang Yangguan National Nature Reserve (YNNR) in northwest China were calculated for assessing impacts of climate change on wetland vegetation in the YNNR. It was found that the wetland vegetation at the XTG and WWC both had shown a significant increasing trend in the past 30 years, and the increase in both annual mean temperature and peak snow depth over the Altun Mountains led to the increase of wetland vegetation. The influence of local precipitation on the XTG wetland vegetation was greater than on the WWC wetland vegetation, which demonstrates that in extremely arid regions, the major constrain to the wetland vegetation is water availability in soils which is greatly related to the surface water detention and discharge of groundwater. At both XTG and WWC, snowmelt from the Altun Mountains is the main contributor to the groundwater discharge, while local precipitation plays a less role in influencing the wetland vegetation at the WWC than at the XTG, because the wetland vegetation grows on a relatively flat terrain at the WWC, while in a stream channel at the XTG.

The stability assessment of aged tunnel linings were mainly evaluated based on the visual inspection, and the Tunnel-lining Crack Index (TCI) is one of the most widely used tunnel lining health assessment indexes in Japan. However, the intersection and distribution of cracks, which can influence the stability of tunnel lining greatly, were not considered in the TCI. A new method was proposed for the health assessment of tunnel lining, which evaluate the lining states according to the fractal dimension of cracks. Based on the machine vision-based method, the crack image can be extracted efficiently. The fractal dimension of lining cracks in one span can be obtained in a few minutes. A series of comparative tests and field tests were conducted to evaluate the validity of this new method. The comparative tests confirmed that fractal dimension can characterize the density, width, and distribution of cracks. The results also certificated that the influence of crack width is larger than the crack density. The intersection of cracks, which will increase the risk of lining collapse, can also increase the fractal dimension, whereas the TCI keep constant. The fractal dimensions of tunnel lining cracks were obtained according to the digital inspection test of Hidake Tunnel in Japan for all the 65 spans. Moreover, the TCI was obtained through statistical methods. The correlation between fractal dimension and TCI of tunnel lining was studied. The significance of the new evaluation index is that it can identify some unusual spans of tunnel lining and provide a basis for further internal testing. As a complement to the conventional visual inspection method, the fractal dimension of the cracks is a promising health assessment index.

Properties of time domain parameters of the vibration signal have been extensively studied for the fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings (REB). Parameters like kurtosis and Envelope Harmonic-to-Noise Ratio are most widely applied in this field and some important progress has been made. However, since only one-sided information is contained in these parameters respectively, problems still exist in practice when the signals collected are of complicated structure and/or contaminated by strong background noises. A new parameter, named Shock pulse index (SPI), is proposed in this paper. It integrates the mutual advantage of both parameters above and can help effectively identify fault related impulse components under the interference of strong background noises, unrelated harmonic components and random impulses. The SPI optimizes the parameters of Maximum Correlated Kurtosis Deconvolution (MCKD), which is used to filter the signals under consideration. Finally, the interested transient information contained in the filtered signal can be highlighted through demodulation with Teager Energy Operator (TEO). Fault related impulse components can therefore be extracted accurately. Simulations and experiment analyses verify the effectiveness and correctness of the SPI.

The purpose of this study was to establish the association between total and segmental body composition (BC) variables and anaerobic performance and to create optimal models that best predict such performance in CrossFit® (CF) athletes. Fifty athletes, 25 males and 25 females (age: 33.26 ± 6.81 years; body mass: 72.57 ± 12.17 kg; height: 169.55 ± 8.71 cm; BMI: 25.06 ± 2.31 kg·m−2) were recruited to participate and underwent BC analysis using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and an all-out laboratory test on a cycle ergometer (Wingate) to determine their anaerobic performance. The results show a significant correlation between BC values and performance, ranging from moderate (r = -0.34, p = 0.015) to near-perfect (r = 0.96, p &lt; 0.01). Furthermore, the created performance prediction models exhibited predictive capacities ranging from 19% (p = 0.017) to 93% (p &lt; 0.001). All prediction models were created using total or segmental lean mass variables, excluding others. BC and performance variables found significant differences between males and females. The findings demonstrate that BC variables are crucial indicators of anaerobic performance in CF athletes. Professionals responsible for athlete performance should use this information to monitor athletes and design training programs.

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) is an imaging technique that provides information on the microstructural organization of biological tissue. dMRI allows for non-invasive visualization and quantitative assessment of white matter architecture in the brain by characterizing restrictions on the random motion of water molecules. Ultra-high field MRI scanners, such as those operating at 7 Tesla (7T) or higher, can boost signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to improve dMRI compared with what is attainable at conventional field strengths such as 3T or 1.5T. However, at 7T wavelength effects cause lower transmit magnetic field efficiency in the human brain, mainly in the posterior fossa region, manifesting as signal dropouts in this region. Recently, we reported a simple approach of using a wireless radiofrequency (RF) surface array to improve transmit efficiency and signal sensitivity at 7T. Here we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of using this RF enhancer for in-vivo dMRI at 7T. The use of the RF enhancer can effectively recover signal dropouts in the regions with intrinsically lower SNR such as cerebellum, leading to a better depiction of principal fiber orientations and enhanced visualization of extended tracts to the brainstem and pons enabling more comprehensive delineation of the full white matter architecture.

In the realm of high-pressure vessel simulation, conventional finite element method (FEM) approaches, as per ASME standards, may inadequately predict the behavior of flat surfaces under elevated temperatures. This study challenges the efficacy of shell-type mesh modeling for high-temperature flat plates, demonstrating that the thermal conditions within such high-pressure vessels can induce thermal instability and buckling, not accounted for by traditional FEM methods recommended by ASME. Through comprehensive analytical investigations, we reveal that traditional shell-type meshing techniques, while suitable for certain applications, fail to capture the intricate thermal stresses and deformation patterns inherent in high-temperature flat plate configurations. Our analysis delineates distinct stability regimes governed by key design parameters—including plate thickness, operating temperature, and geometric dimensions—profoundly impacting the structural integrity of heating plates under thermal loading. By elucidating these stability boundaries, this research provides engineers with critical insights necessary for optimizing the design and performance of high-temperature equipment. This includes the design of high-pressure vessels with flat surfaces for heating materials, flanges in high-temperature environments, and fins in heat exchangers across various industries such as oil and gas, pyrolysis, and power plants. The findings presented herein serve as a valuable reference for engineers seeking to comprehend and mitigate instability phenomena in solid mechanics, offering practical guidance for developing robust and reliable high-temperature structures in demanding industrial environments.

Overconsumption of an unbalanced diet and overweight, leading to insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hepatic steatosis, cardiovascular diseases and obesity, is nowadays a worldwide health issue, with different patterns of metabolic disturbances in the young and adult popula-tions, in both gender. Preclinical models that closely mimic the gradual weight gain that occurs in humans upon consumption of a “western-type” diet (WD) are of great interest. In particular, the diet-induced obesity (DIO) model in the C57BL/6J mouse sub-strain is often used in biomed-ical research, considering that it is prone to metabolic disorders and obesity, and is widely used to generate genetically modified mice. This study aimed to phenotypically characterize the C57BL/6J mouse strain fed a WD-like diet, using high-frequency ultrasound imaging (HFUS) as a complementary tool to longitudinally monitor morphofunctional changes in the liver, heart and kidney associated with DIO. Long term WD feeding increased mice body weight (BW), liver/BW ratio and body condition score (BCS), serum transaminases, glucose and insulin, as well as Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) indexes, and caused dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. According to the 3Rs, ultrasound imaging has enabled a comprehensive study of metabolic syndrome in mice, in vivo and non-invasive, improving the identification of early stages of diseases.

There are few results about the internal damping ratio of normal and high strength concretes. Hence, this paper presents the expansion of the investigation about internal damping ratio under undamaged and damaged conditions, for usual concretes (NSC) and high strength concretes (HSC). In this way, the study cover a strength range of 42 to 83 MPa. Cyclic load was employed by a servo-controlled hydraulic testing machine and for each cyclic step the dynamic elastic modulus (Ed) and internal damping ratio (ξ) were determinate by acoustic tests. Normal strength concretes (fc = 42MPa) presented undamaged internal damping ratio ξ = 0.5% and achieved the maximum value of ξ = 2.5 for a damage index equal to 0.8. High strength concretes mixtures (fc = 83MPa) presented an undamaged internal damping of ξ=0.29% and maximum internal damping equal to ξ=0.93% (under damage index of 0.32). Porosity and the transition zones were the responsible to the initial internal damping values and how the material behavior under each cyclic load. The progressive damage generates the increase of coulomb damping. There are few studies allowing the quantification and comprehension of internal damping ratio under damage cyclic loading and this approach will lead to improve the understanding of NSC and HSC under dynamical excitation subject to damage evolution, mainly in impact situations.

The major challenge in the current context of a rising world’s energy demand is to limit the global temperature increase for mitigating climate change. This goal requires a large reduction of CO2 emissions, mainly produced by power generation and industrial processes using fossil fuels. In this study, a novel methodology for K2CO3-doped Li4SiO4 sorbents production for CO2 capture at high temperature was adopted based on the Design of Experiments (DoE). Different synthesis (temperature and K2CO3 content) and adsorption conditions (sorption temperature and CO2 concentration) were systematically tested by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to obtain predictive models of CO2 uptake and Li4SiO4 conversion. The results of RSM analysis evidenced a maximum adsorption capacity of 196.4 mg/g for a sorbent produced at 600 °C and with 36.9 wt% of K2CO3, tested at 500 °C and 4 vol% of CO2. Whereas at 50 vol% of CO2, the best uptake of 295.6 mg/g was obtained with a sorbent synthesized at 600 °C, containing less K2CO3 (17.1 wt%) and tested at higher temperature (662 °C). The obtained results highlight that K2CO3-doped Li4SiO4 sorbents can be tailored for maximizing CO2 capture at different operating conditions, making them suitable for use in industrial processes.

Increased activity of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) is a key factor mediating kidney impairment in diabetes. Glomerular podocytes, the crucial component of the renal filter, are a direct target of TGF-β action, resulting in irreversible cell loss and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Urolithin A (UA) is a member of the family of polyphenol metabolites produced by gut microbiota from ellagitannins and ellagic acid-rich foods. The broad spectrum of biological ac-tivities of UA makes it a promising candidate for the treatment of podocyte disorders. In this in vitro study, we investigated whether UA influences the changes exerted in podocytes by TGF-β and high glucose. Following a 7-day incubation in normal (NG, 5.5 mM) or high (HG, 25 mM) glucose the cells were treated with UA and/or TGF-β1 for 24 hours. HG and TGF-β1, each independent and in concert reduced expression of nephrin, increased podocyte motility and up-regulated expression of b3 integrin and fibronectin. These typical for epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) effects were inhibited by UA in both HG and NG conditions. UA also reduced the typically elevated in HG expression of TGF-β receptors and activation of TGF-β signal transducer Smad2. Our results indicate that in podocytes cultured in conditions mimicking diabetic milieu, UA inhibits and reverses changes underlying podocytopenia in diabetic kidneys. Hence, UA should be considered as a po-tential therapeutic agent in podocytopathies.

The higher education sector in Africa has experienced remarkable growth over the past decades, enrolling and graduating millions of students annually. Despite this progress, high unemployment rates among graduates and pervasive underdevelopment have raised questions about the relevance of higher education in Africa. Critics have intensely scrutinized the quality of curricula, highlighting a significant mismatch between the skills offered and the demands of the job market. This disconnect is often due to curricula that are unresponsive to both job requirements and students' needs. Enhanced pedagogical approaches are essential to address this issue. Community engagement and service learning (CE&SL) offer promising solutions by bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. Recognizing the potential benefits, higher education institutions across the continent are gradually integrating CE and SL into their teaching and research frameworks. However, the adoption of these approaches has been slow. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges hindering the effective and widespread implementation of CE and SL in African higher education institutions and proposes practical strategies to overcome these obstacles. By embracing these innovative approaches, African universities can better prepare graduates for the dynamic job market and contribute more effectively to the continent's development.

Coastal environments are complex systems that are influenced by a combination of natural processes and human activities. Scientific interest in the effects of coastal erosion/accretion and climatic change-related processes greatly increased in recent decades due to the growing human development along coastal areas. This paper investigates the state and evolution of beach-dune systems for the 1977-2001 and 2001-2019 periods of the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia (Spain) using two different proxies: the dune toe line, which was used to track foredunes evolution, and the high-water line, which was used to assess shoreline evolution. Results showed a general erosional behavior of the studied beach-dune systems and identified cases where the main trend was altered through human interventions. In the 1977-2001 period, 54% of foredunes showed erosion, 24% accretion and 22% stability while and 34% of shorelines showed erosion, 40% accretion and 34% stability. In the 2001-2019 period, 42% of foredunes showed erosion, 28% accretion and 30% stability, and 40% of shorelines showed erosion, 34% accretion and 26% stability. Combining the evolution classes of each proxy (dune toe/shoreline) allows the behavior of both shoreline proxies to be assed together and provides insights additional to those derive from the use of a single proxy. In this regard, Erosion/Erosion (EE) was the most frequent behavior, with 25% and 27% in the first and second periods respectively, and Accretion/Accretion (AA), with 17% in both periods. Erosion of foredunes combined with stability or accretion of the shoreline (ES and EA) were the most common pairings in the first period, while stability of dunes combined with accretion of the shoreline (SA) and Stability/Stability (SS) dominated in the second period. The results obtained provide additional insights on the nature and drivers of coastal change that aid local coastal managers and administrations in understanding erosion processes. The method can be applied at other areas around the world where a similar data base is available.

Abstract Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the potential of multimodal ultrasound techniques in improving the visibility of liver lesions that are indistinct under conventional ultrasound. Specifically, we will explore the application of fusion imaging, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), and high-frequency ultrasound in enhancing the visibility of liver masses. These techniques will be utilized to assist in visualizing liver lesions and to accurately localize them for the purpose of performing percutaneous tissue biopsy. Lastly, we will compare the biopsy results with the final diagnosis to assess whether multimodal techniques can enhance the success rate of percutaneous biopsy for liver masses that are not clearly visible under conventional ultrasound. Furthermore, the potential impact of these techniques on the development of personalized treatment strategies for patients was also discussed. Materials and Results: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 144 patients with liver masses who underwent conventional ultrasound examinations at our hospital from October 2018 to January 2024. These patients had poor visibility on conventional ultrasound, but the tumor location was visible on abdominal computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. We excluded 71 patients who did not undergo percutaneous liver tumor biopsy and 8 patients who remained non-visualized under multimodal ultrasound. Finally, 95 patients met the inclusion criteria and their clinical and radiological data were selected for analysis. Computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging-ultrasound (CT/MR-US) fusion imaging was performed in 55 patients, CEUS was conducted in 95 patients, and high-frequency ultrasound examination was performed in 21 patients. The visibility of the lesions using these three techniques was evaluated, and the consistency between the biopsy pathology and the final diagnosis was analyzed. Results: In the study, a total of 39 cases were identified as solitary liver lesions, 34 cases as multiple lesions, and an additional 23 cases as diffuse hepatocellular carcinoma. Among them, there were 13 cases (13.7%) of lesions located in the left lobe, 73 cases (76.8%) in the right lobe, and 9 cases (9.4%) at the junction of the left and right lobes. The average maximum diameter of the lesions was 2.7 cm (ranging from 0.7 cm to 10.0 cm). The detection rates of lesions using CT/MR-US fusion imaging, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), and high-frequency ultrasound examination were 49.1%, 96.8%, and 76.2%, respectively. All patients in the entire cohort underwent percutaneous ultrasound-guided biopsy after confirming the target location of the lesions, including 9 patients underwent percutaneous microwave ablation. No severe complications were observed. The accuracy rate of the biopsies was 91.6%, and the positive concordance rate was 91.1%. The biopsy pathology included 39 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 16 cases of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), 22 cases of metastatic adenocarcinoma, 3 cases of hepatic adenoma (HA), 1 case of vascular sarcoma, and 1 case of mixed HCC-ICC. Among the 13 patients with negative pathology findings after biopsy, 8 cases were considered false negatives (based on follow-up laboratory tests and imaging results consistent with malignant tumor characteristics), resulting in a false negative rate of 8.9%. Conclusions: The application of multimodal ultrasound technology can significantly improve the success rate of liver lesion biopsies that are difficult to visualize using conventional ultrasound. Furthermore, it will facilitate the guidance of microwave ablation therapy for lesions using multimodal ultrasound imaging, enabling collaborative precision treatment planning for patients with clinical physicians.

An analysis of the processes of plastic deformation and acoustic relaxation in a high-entropy alloy Al0.5CoCrCuFeNi was carried out. The following have been established: dominant dislocation defects; types of barriers that prevent the movement of dislocations; mechanisms of thermally activated movement of various elements of dislocation lines through barriers at room and low temperatures. Based on modern dislocation theory, quantitative estimates have been obtained for the most important characteristics of dislocations and their interaction with barriers.

The challenge of missing data in scientific research prompts researchers to decide between imputing incomplete data or discarding observations, where discarding can lead to information loss. Various methods exist, from simple deletion to sophisticated approaches like Multiple Imputation (MI). However, these methods often fall short with high-dimensional datasets. Multiple Imputation by Chained Equations (MICE) and Random Forest (RF) proximity imputation offer promising alternatives. Therefore, in this paper, we propose integrating MICE with Bayesian random forest (BRF) to enhance imputation accuracy and predictive power, particularly in high-dimensional analyses. Our approach combines MICE’s efficiency with BRF’s robustness, offering a comprehensive solution to missing data challenges. By way of example, we provide empirical evaluations to validate its effectiveness using synthetic data of various missing data scenarios. The results from the simulations showed that the combination of BRF and MICE offered a promising strategy for high-dimensional analysis in the presence of missing data.

The intelligent elderly care model places new demands on the skills of aging caregivers. The identification and development of forward-thinking, high-potential nursing talent is essential for advancing the intelligent elderly care sector. Multi-benchmarking selection and competitive analysis is used to evaluate and identify nursing personnel in the rehabilitation treatment center of a hospital in Hefei City. Using proxy evaluation and democratic evaluation model, three types of benchmarks such as single item benchmark, individual benchmark and group benchmark were identified and selected, and the professional nursing team was constructed based on the evaluation results. Different from the traditional other-directed evaluation, multi-benchmarking selection and competitive analysis is self-directed evaluation, this method is more conducive to the identification of high-potential and digital nursing talents by intelligent elderly service organizations, and facilitates the formation of professional nursing teams with complementary strengths and cross-fertilization, so as to satisfy the diversified and multi-level needs of the elderly for intelligent elderly services.

CO2 geological sequestration in coal seams can achieve the dual objectives of CO2 emission reduction and enhanced coalbed methane production, making it a highly promising carbon capture and storage technology. However, the injection of CO2 into coal reservoirs in the form of supercritical fluid (ScCO2) leads to complex physicochemical reactions with the coal seam, altering the properties of the coal reservoir and impacting the effectiveness of CO2 sequestration and methane production enhancement.In this paper, theoretical calculations based on ReaxFF-MD were conducted to study the interaction mechanism between ScCO2 and the macromolecular structure of both low-rank and high-rank coal, to address the limitations of experimental methods. The reaction of ScCO2 with low-rank coal and high-rank coal exhibits significant differences. At swelling stage, the low-rank coal experiences a decrease in aromatic structure and aliphatic structure, high-rank coal shows an increase in aromatic structure and a decrease in aliphatic structure, while swelling phenomenon is more pronounced in high-rank coal. At dissolution stage, low-rank coal is initially decomposed into two secondary molecular fragments, and then recombine to form new molecular structure, the aromatic structure increased and the aliphatic structure decreased. In contrast, high-rank coal occurs stretches-breakage-movement-reconnection, a reduction in aromatic structure and an increase in aliphatic structure.The primary reasons for these variations lie in distinct molecular structure compositions and the properties of ScCO2, leading to different reaction pathways of functional group and aromatic structure. The reaction pathways of functional groups and aromatic structures in coal can be summarized as follows: the breakage of the O-H bond in hydroxyl groups, the breakage of the C-OH bond in carboxyl groups, transformation of aliphatic structures into smaller hydrocarbon compounds or formation of long-chain alkenes, and various pathways involving broken, rearrangement, recombination of aromatic structures. In low-rank coal, there is a higher abundance of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures. The breakage of O-H and C-OH chemical bonds results in the formation of free radical ions, while some aliphatic structures detach to produce hydrocarbons. Additionally, some of these aliphatic structures combine with carbonyl groups and free radical ions to generate new aromatic structures. Conversely, in high-rank coal, the lower content of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures, along with stronger intramolecular forces, results in fewer chemical bond breakages and makes it less conducive to the formation of new aromatic structures.These results elucidate the specific deformations of different chemical groups, offering a molecular-level understanding of the interaction between CO2 and coal.

Oral cancer represents a significant global public health challenge, contributing substantially to cancer incidence and mortality. Despite established risk factors such as tobacco use and alcohol consumption, early detection remains crucial for effective treatment. This study introduces a novel approach using a transistor-based biosensor system for detecting the P90 (CIP2A) protein. We have tested the presence of CIP2A in human leukoplakia samples that can rise into oral squamous cell carcinoma. The method employs commercially available glucose test strips functionalized with P90 antibodies, providing high sensitivity and a low limit of detection, which is five orders lower than commercial ELISA kits. A specially designed printed circuit board (PCB) facilitates accurate measurements, and the device's performance is optimized through characteristic tests. Human sample testing validates the biosensor's effectiveness in distinguishing samples after cell lysis. This study contributes to advancing accurate and cost-effective diagnostic approaches for oral pre-cancer and cancer tissues.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between high-performance work systems and a company’s social performance, taking into account the organizational climate as a situational variable. Specifically, this study aimed to analyze the impact of perceptions of a high-performance work system on the perception of a company’s social responsibility (CSR) among employees of Jordanian companies with an organizational size of 300 or more. This study used 175 valid questionnaires, and SPSS and AMOS 24 were used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that there was a positive relationship between the perception of a high-performance work system and the perception of a company’s CSR. Furthermore, this study found that a positive diversity climate could enhance the positive relationship between the two. These findings suggest that high-performance work systems can contribute to the development of sustainable human resource management systems and that a positive diversity climate is essential in shaping these systems. Based on these results, it is recommended that companies implement HPWSs and encourage workforce diversity to maximize the value of CSR activities and ensure their sustainability.

Energy distance is used to eigenvalue distributions in this new Wishart distribution study, providing a new perspective on high-dimensional data. Multivariate statistics relies on Wishart distribution to explain covariance matrices. This analysis shows how degrees of freedom and covariance matrix configurations affect eigenvalue dispersion. We use energy distance based on eigenvalue distributions to assess Wishart distribution differences without the "curse of dimensionality" via extensive simulation simulations. This approach improves measurement accuracy and processing efficiency in distribution comparisons and enables new analytical pathways in scientific fields that need data covariance comprehension. Our results show that degrees of freedom and matrix structure considerably affect energy distances, expanding the theoretical framework and practical applications of statistical models.

The structural, elastic, and electronic properties of orthorhombic Cd2SiO4 and Hg2GeO4 were examined under varying pressure conditions using first-principles calculations based on densi-ty-functional theory employing the projector augmented wave method. The obtained cell pa-rameters at 0 GPa were found to align well with existing experimental data. We delved into the pressure-dependence of normalized lattice parameters and elastic constants. In Cd2SiO4, all lat-tice constants decreased as pressure increased, whereas in Hg2GeO4, parameters a and b de-creased while parameter c increased under pressure. Employing the Hill average method, we calculated the elastic moduli and Poisson’s ratio up to 10 GPa, noting an increase with pressure. Evaluation of ductility/brittleness under pressure indicated both compounds remained ductile throughout. We also estimated elastic anisotropy and Debye temperature under varying pres-sures. Cd2SiO4 and Hg2GeO4 were identified as indirect band gap insulators, with estimated band gaps of 3.34 eV and 2.09 eV, respectively. Interestingly, Cd2SiO4 exhibited a significant increase in band gap with increasing pressure, whereas the band gap of Hg2GeO4 decreased under pres-sure, revealing distinct structural and electronic responses despite their similar structures.

In the digital era, enhancing the heritage resources of a tourist route means describing and networking them to promote their visibility and attractiveness. Prior studies mainly assess mountainous region’s natural resources through multi-indicator descriptive evaluation. This study aims to develop a comprehensive measurement of indicator’s value while assessing the tourism development potential of mountainous rural area. It concerns the main tourist route of the UNESCO M'Goun Geopark, located in the central High Atlas of Morocco. It also involves analyzing the criteria for choosing this destination by segmenting tourists' consumption experiences. Statistical analysis of the collected data reveals five dimensions of destination choice and four visitor groups. This article proposes to discuss findings and their applicability in terms of tourism destination management and decision-making, which can help local governments to rationally allocate tourism resources and land use.

To facilitate the computation of the uniaxial compressive strength value of the cemented paste backfill under the condition of high sand-cement ratio, and to analyze the size effect of the cemented paste backfill with high sand-cement ratio under varied aspect ratios, the cemented paste backfill specimens with sand-cement ratios of 8:1-24:1 and aspect ratios of 0.5, 1, and 2 were prepared. Through response surface experiments and finite element analysis, the influence of three aspect ratios on the cemented paste backfill strength was explored, and the failure characteristics and size effect mechanisms of cemented paste backfill with various aspect ratios were analyzed. The model of strength conversion between cemented paste backfill with different aspect ratios was established. The results show that the compressive strength of the cemented paste backfill decreases with the increase of the aspect ratio under the same mass concentration and sand-cement ratio. When the aspect ratio is 0.5 and 1, the splitting failure is the main factor; when the aspect ratio is 2, the shearing failure is the main factor. The three-dimensional stress caused by the end effect of the cemented paste backfill is the main reason for the high strength when the aspect ratio is 0.5. Due to the one-dimensional stress zone generated in the middle of the cemented paste backfill with an aspect ratio of 2 in the laboratory, its strength value is closer to the actual uniaxial compressive strength value of the cemented paste backfill. The strength values of the cemented paste backfill with aspect ratios of 0.5 and 1 were higher than the actual uniaxial compressive strength values in the laboratory. The rationality of the theoretical analysis was verified by the ABAQUS analysis results. According to the experimental results, a strength conversion model between different aspect ratios is established, which can provide a reference for the design of the uniaxial compressive strength of the cemented paste backfill.

Purposes: Engaging in regular physical activity has been consistently linked to improved physical health and academic performance. Despite its known benefits, there is a concerning trend of decreased physical activity among children globally. The study primarily aims to investigate the level of physical activity among junior high school students in Taiyuan and analyze the main affecting factors from a socio-ecological perspective. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted, involving 650 junior high school students from 7 schools in Taiyuan, and 648 valid questionnaires were collected. Physical activity levels were assessed using the Children’s Leisure Activities Study Survey Questionnaire. Factors influencing physical activity were evaluated through the Student Perceived Factors Affecting Physical Activity Questionnaire. Results: In this study, students from the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades participated in physical activities, averaging 214.5 minutes per week in moderate-intensity and 25 minutes in high-intensity activities, cumulatively averaging 280 minutes weekly. Notably, a significant disparity (p<0.05) was observed in the combined duration of moderate and high-intensity activities, with male students engaging more time compared to their female counterparts (307.500 vs 255.000 minutes). This variance extended across different grades, particularly evident in 8th graders who recorded the highest weekly high-intensity activity duration (31.000 minutes) and overall physical activity time (320.500 minutes), surpassing the 7th graders. Furthermore, an exploratory factor analysis of a 32-item questionnaire, designed to identify determinants of physical activity, revealed six principal components. These components were found to positively correlate with both moderate and high-intensity physical activities. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the necessity for educational institutions and community programmes to provide engaging physical activities, especially during weekends. It highlights the importance of tailoring physical education curricula to address gender and grade differences and investing in quality sports equipment and facilities by schools and local governments.

Experimental investigations were conducted to uncover the impact of cavitation control - through the use of riblets (mesoscale surface structuring) - on cavitating flows around a circular cylinder. First, the dynamics of cavitation in the flow behind a finite cylinder (without riblets) was unveiled by visualizing the cavitation clouds and measuring the lift force fluctuations acting on the cylinder. Second, as a significant step forward, a comprehensive explanation was provided for the mechanism of cavitation control using two bio-inspired riblet morphologies positioned in different orientations and locations on the cylinder. For the first time, the effects of these tiny structures on the flow dynamics and the associated cavitation process were scrutinized. This showed that scalloped riblets, with their curved design, induced secondary vortices near their tips and distorted primary streamwise vortices, and that high velocity gradients near the jagged pattern peaks of sawtooth riblets delayed flow separation, which affected cavitation.

Genetic engineering and directed evolution are effective methods to address the low yield and poor industrialization level of microbial target products. The current research focus is on how to efficiently and rapidly screen beneficial mutants from constructed large-scale mutation libraries. Traditional screening methods such as plate screening and well plate screening are severely limited in their development and application due to their low efficiency and high costs. In the past decade, microfluidic technology has become an important high-throughput screening technology due to its fast speed, low cost, high automation, and high screening throughput, and it has developed rapidly. Droplet-based microfluidic high-throughput screening has been widely used in various fields such as strain/enzyme activity screening, pathogen detection, single-cell analysis, drug discovery, and chemical synthesis, and has been widely applied in industries such as materials, food, chemicals, textiles, and biomedicine. In particular, in the field of enzyme research, droplet-based microfluidic high-throughput screening has shown excellent performance in discovering enzymes with new functions, improved catalytic efficiency or stability, acid-base tolerance, etc. Currently, droplet-based microfluidic high-throughput screening technology has achieved high-throughput screening of enzymes such as glycosidase, lipase, peroxidase, protease, amylase, oxidase, and transaminase, as well as high-throughput detection of products such as riboflavin, coumarin, 3-dehydroquinate, lactic acid, and ethanol. This article reviews the application of droplet-based microfluidics in high-throughput screening, with a focus on high-throughput screening strategies based on UV, visible, and fluorescence spectroscopy, including labeled optical signal detection screening, as well as label-free electrochemical detection, mass spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, etc. Furthermore, the research progress and development trends of droplet-based microfluidic technology in enzyme modification and strain screening are also introduced.

Cavitation resulting from underwater explosions in compressible multiphase or multicomp-onent flows presents significant challenges due to the dynamic nature of shock-cavitation-structure interactions, as well as the complex and discontinuous nature of the involved interfaces. Achieving accurate resolution of interfaces between different phases or components, in the presence of shocks, cavitating regions, and structural interactions, is crucial for modeling such problems. Furthermore, pressure convergence in simulations involving shock-cavitation-structure interactions requires accurate algorithms. In this research paper, we employ the diffuse interface method, also known as the interface capturing scheme, to investigate cavitation in various underwater explosion test cases near different surfaces; free surface and a rigid surface. The simulations are conducted using the Unstructured Compressible Navier-Stokes (UCNS3D) finite volume framework employing central-weighted essentially non-oscillatory (CWENO) reconstruction schemes, utilising the five-equation diffuse interface family of methods. Quantitative comparisons are made between the performance of both models. Additionally, we examine the effects of cavitation as a secondary loading source on structures, and evaluate the ability of the CWENO schemes to accurately capture and resolve material interfaces between fluids with minimal numerical dissipation or smearing. The results are compared with existing high-order methods and experimental data, where possible, to demonstrate the robustness of the CWENO schemes in simulating cavitation bubble dynamics, as well as their limitations within the current implementation of interface capturing.

The superficial quality of the strip is a very important issue in steel production; the profile, flat-ness, and geometry of strip are indicators of supreme quality. Considering the dimensions, the thickness is one of the most important variables in the production of strip. In the present study the elastic curve of Back Up Rolls (BUR) is analyzed, considering them as simply supported beams as well as the effect of rolls on the profile of the strip, specifically in the strip edge pro-ducing edge drop. The analysis is simulated with a model in 3D using a Finite Element Method (FEM) considering +0.039mm crown on Back Up Roll and +0.101mm crown on Work Roll (WR). The results showed that there is an instability zone of 76mm in the strip edge, this geometry is symmetrical in both ends of the strip, it was validated with the results of compact X-ray thick-ness gauge from a 4-high cold mill. This study not only provides a theoretical basis for the edge drop, but also provides the basis for the understanding of deformation on rolls used in rolling mill processes and their effect on the thickness, profile, shape, and dimensional quality of strips.

Abstract: Objectives: To establish the expression profile of N6-methyladenosine(m6A) modifications in the hippocampus of mice with diabetic cognitive impairment (DCI) and elucidate the potential regulatory mechanism. Methods: A DCI model was established by feeding a high-fat diet to C57BL/6J mice. m6A and RNA sequencing was conducted to profile the m6A-tagged transcripts in the hippocampus. Results: Methylated RNA immunoprecipitation with next-generation sequencing and RNA sequencing analyses yielded differentially m6A-modified and expressed genes in the hippocampus of DCI mice, which were enriched in pathways involving synaptic transmission and axonal guidance. Mechanistic analyses revealed a remarkable change in m6A modification levels through alteration of the mRNA expression of m6A methyltransferases (METTL3 and METTL14) and demethylase (FTO) in the hippocampus of DCI mice. Conclusions: We identified a co-mediated specific RNA regulatory strategy that broadens the epigenetic regulatory mechanism of RNA-induced neurodegenerative disorders associated with metabolic and endocrine diseases.

In order to utilize high-alumina coal gangue (HACG) as auxiliary cementitious admixture, it is of fundamental significance to thermally activating Al2O3 effectively in HACG and promoting formation of hydratable products containing Al2O3. In this paper, a new preparation technology is developed to make HACG auxiliary cementitious admixture by thermal activation of HACG-Ca(OH)2 (CH) mixture. HACG powders mixed with 20wt.% CH were calcined within a temperature range of 600-900oC, the thermal transformation and mineral phase formation were analyzed by thermogavimetric analyzer (TGA), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS). The hydration reaction between activated HACG-CH mixture and cement was also investigated. HACG experienced a conventional transformation from kaolinite to metakaolin at 600oC and finally to mullite at 900oC. However, CH underwent an unexpected transformation process from CH to CaO, then to CaCO3, and finally to CaO again with increasing calcining temperature. These substances states were associated with dehydroxylation of CH, chemical reaction between CaO and CO2 generating from combustion of carbon in HACG, and decomposition of CaCO3, respectively. It is the formation of a large amount of CaO above 800oC that favors the formation of hydratable products containing Al2O3 in the calcining process and C-A-H gel in hydration process. The mechanical properties of HACG-cement mortar specimens were measured, from which the optimal calcination temperature for preparing HACG auxiliary cementitious admixture was determined to be 850oC. As compared with pure cement mortar specimens, the maximum 28-d flexural and compressive strength of HACG-cement mortar specimens increased by 5.4% and 38.2%, respectively.

The effects of rare earth Y content on the microstructure and high-temperature oxidation properties of 47Fe-36Ni-15Cr-1.5Mn alloy at 1000°C were investigated. The results show that 47Fe-36Ni-15Cr-1.5Mn alloy oxidizes at 1000°C under laboratory atmospheric pressure to form an oxide film layer dominated by Cr2O3 and (Fe, Ni, Mn) Cr2O4 spinel, and the oxidation curve of the alloy follows the parabolic law. After the addition of rare earth Y, rare earth phases precipitated along the grain boundaries in the alloy, and the more Y content, the more precipitated phases in the grain boundaries. The alloy with added rare earths was oxidized at a high temperature of 1000 °C for 2160 min, the oxidation law still followed the parabolic law, while the rare earth phase at the grain boundary reacted with the oxygen atoms infiltrated from the outside to generate a rare earth Y-rich oxide residing at the boundary between the grain boundary and the precipitated phase of the alloy. Add 0.5 wt.% rare earth Y 47Fe-36Ni-15Cr-1.5Mn-0.5Y alloy 1000 ° C high temperature oxidation of the formation of spinel oxide crystalline particles, dense and complete oxide film layer, the surface of the addition of a small amount of (0.5 wt.%) rare earth Y after the refinement of the oxide particles, and in the alloy grain boundaries in the form of oxides reside in the alloy to inhibit the cations in the matrix and the oxygen negative ions. and oxygen-negative ions in the alloy matrix, improving the antioxidant performance of the alloy. With the further increase of rare earth Y, during the oxidation of the alloy at high temperature, the precipitation phase at the grain boundary promotes the inward diffusion of oxygen, resulting in the deterioration of the antioxidant property of the alloy.

The aeroelastic response of lightweight low-speed aircraft with slender wings under extreme flow turbulence intensity is not well-understood. Experiments on a commmercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a 3-meter wingspan and aspect ratio of 13.6 were performed in a large open-return wind tunnel with extreme flow turbulence intensity of T∞≈10%. The structural dynamics of the wing in the bending mode and the flow beneath the wing to capture the effect of aileron deflection was measured using laser displacement sensors and tomographic particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques. The unsteady lift produced by the wing was also measured using a high-capacity load cell at an angle of attack, α of 2 degrees for three freestream velocities U∞ of 13.4 m/s, 17.9 m/s, and 26.8 m/s representing the UAV’s stall through cruise speed. It was found that high flow turbulence intensity with large integral length scales relative to the wing chord plays a dominant role in the large unsteady lift and wing displacements measured. The power spectral density (PSD) of wing structural vibration shows that flow shedding from the wing and the integral length scales have a significant impact on the overall power inherent in the bending vibration of the wing. Computation of vorticity iso-surfaces in the flow measurement volume surrounding the aileron reveal a striking observation; aileron deflection, δa of 10∘becomes less effective in producing additional spanwise vorticity, which is proportional to circulation and lift, at U∞ of 26.8 m/s because the freestream already has elevated levels of vorticity. A paradigm shift in design is suggested for light aircraft structures with slender wings operating in highly turbulent flow, which is to employ multiple control surfaces in order to respond to this flow and mitigate large bending or torsion displacements and the probability of structural failure.

Bandsaw blades are typical band-shaped cutting tools characterized by a low stiffness and micro-level cutting depth, resulting in distinct wear mechanisms compared to rigid cutting tools. In this study, the evolution of bandsaw tooth wear mechanisms during the bandsawing of Cr12MoV cold-working steel was investigated. The tool life was divided into two stages according to the tooth wear mechanism: a rapid wear stage (Stage I) and a homogeneous wear stage (Stage II). In Stage I, the wear mechanism was dominated by chipping, although multiple wear mechanisms were found because of the relatively poor manufacturing tolerance compared to rigid cutting tools, resulting in remarkable differences between the cutting depths of the individual teeth. In Stage II, abrasive and adhesive wear were the primary wear mechanisms instead of chipping, due to the decreased width and setting magnitude tolerance after Stage I. Furthermore, methods for increasing the bandsaw performance were proposed based on the tooth wear mechanisms.

Obesity and overweight are associated with many metabolic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia, which are closely related to a sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise. Aerobic exercise effectively increases the high-density lipoproteins-cholesterol (HDL-C) levels and decreases the triglyceride (TG) levels. The consumption of Cuban policosanol (Raydel®) is also effective in enhancing the HDL-C quantity and HDL functionality to treat dyslipidemia and hypertension. On the other hand, no study has examined the effects of a combination of high-intensity exercise and policosanol consumption in obese subjects to improve metabolic disorders. In the current study, 17 obese subjects (average BMI 30.0±1.1 kg/m2, eight male and nine female) were recruited to participate in a program combining exercise and policosanol (20 mg) consumption for 12 weeks. After completion, their BMI, waist circumference, total fat mass, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) decreased by approximately 15% (p=0.022), 12.7% (p=0.008), 33% (p=0.006), 11% (p<0.046), and 13% (p=0.007), respectively. In the serum lipid profile, at week 12, they showed a remarkable decrease in the total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) levels, up to 17% (p<0.019) and 54% (p<0.002) from the baseline, respectively. Although the serum HDL-C was increased by approximately +12% from the baseline, the percentage of HDL-C in TC, HDL-C/TC (%), was increased by up to +32% (p=0.007) at week 12. The serum coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) level was increased 1.2-fold in all participants at week 12 from the baseline. In particular, the male participants showed a 1.4-fold increase (p=0.027) from the baseline. The larger increase in serum CoQ10 was correlated with the larger increase in the serum HDL-C during 12 weeks. The hepatic function parameters were improved; the serum -glutamyl transferase decreased at week 12 by up to 55% (p<0.007), while the aspartate aminotransferase and alanine transaminase levels decreased within the normal range. In the lipoprotein level, the extent of oxidation and glycation were reduced significantly in VLDL and LDL, with a remarkable decrease in the TG content in particles. The antioxidant abilities of HDL2 and HDL3, such as paraoxonase (PON) and ferric ion reduction ability (FRA), were enhanced significantly by up to 1.8-fold (p<0.001) and 1.6-fold (p<0.001) at week 12. The particle size and number of HDL2 were increased up to +10% during the 12 weeks with a remarkable decrease in the TG content, glycation extent, oxidation up to 32% (p=0.032), 18% (p=0.043), and 11% (p=0.023), respectively. The particle number and diameter of HDL3 were increased by up to +9% with a remarkable increase in the PON activity, FRA activity, and TC content of +82% (p<0.001), +56% (p<0.001), and +32% (p=0.009), respectively. Expression of apolipoproteinA-I in HDL2 and HDL3 were significantly elevated more in both gender around 30~48% with more distinct band intensity and less glycation at week 12. These improvements in HDL quality and functionality were linked to the higher survivability of adult zebrafish and their embryos. Under the co-presence of carboxymethyllysine (CML), a microinjection of HDL2 to zebrafish embryo from week 0 resulted in approximately 47% survivability with developmental defects and attenuated speed. On the other hand, the HDL2 microinjection from week 12 resulted in remarkably higher survivability (~ 70%). In conclusion, 12 weeks of Cuban policosanol (Raydel®, 20 mg) consumption with high-intensity exercise showed significant improvement in blood pressure, body fat mass, blood lipid profile without liver damage, CoQ10 metabolism, and renal impairment. At week 12, all participants showed a remarkable decrease in oxidation and glycation extent in the VLDL and LDL with a decrease in the TC and TG content. Significant enhancement of the qualities and functionalities in HDL2 and HDL3 by the policosanol consumption were also detected: increase in apoA-I content, TC content, particle size, and particle numbers along with antioxidant abilities, such as PON and FRA.

Carbonization of a biopolymer (lignin) in self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) led to the production of 2D graphene structures. With the help of modern analytical methods (Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction) and electron microscopy, the resulting product was confirmed to have a few-layer 2D graphene structure. The predicted photovoltaic properties of the resulting few-layer graphene were implemented for laser ignition of a model pyrotechnic composition based on porous silicon. A phenomenological model of the formation mechanism of 2D graphene structures under the conditions of the SHS process is proposed.

A twin-screw extruder was used to fabricate poly(butylene succinate) (PBS)/high density polyethylene (HDPE) blends (7:3 weight ratio) and blend-based nanocomposites. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and organoclays (15A and 30B) served as the nanofiller, while maleated HDPE (PEgMA) acted as an efficient compatibilizer for the blend. In the composites, individual nanofillers were mostly localized in HDPE domains, but some fillers were also observed at PBS-HDPE interfaces. The sea-island morphology of compatibilized blend evolved into a pseudo-co-continuous morphology in the composites. Differential scanning calorimetry results confirmed that PEgMA with HDPE evidently accelerated the crystallization of PBS in the blend. The possible nucleation effect of added fillers on PBS crystallization was obscured by the formation of quasi-connected HDPE domains, causing less PBS nucleation sites. The presence of nanofillers improved the thermal stability and burning anti-dripping behavior of the parent blend. The anti-dripping efficiency of added fillers followed the sequence: CNT>15A>30B>GNP. Rigidity of the blend was increased after formation of nanocomposites. In particular, adding GNP resulted in 31% increase in flexural modulus. Development of a pseudo-network structure in the composites was confirmed by measurement of rheological properties. Electrical resistivity of the blend was reduced by more than 6 orders of magnitude at 3 phr CNT loading, demonstrating the achievement of double percolation morphology.

Ornamental kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) is an attractive ornamental plant with a range of leaf colors and shapes. Breeding new varieties of ornamental kale has proven challenging due to its lengthy breeding cycle and the limited availability of genetic markers. Microspore culture is an effective approach to generate new materials and genetic maps are a prerequisite for quantitative trait loci analysis, MAS, fine gene mapping, and genome sequence assembly. In this study, a F1DH ornamental kale population comprising 300 DH lines was constructed using microspore culture. A high-density genetic map was developed by conducting whole-genome sequencing on 150 individuals from the F1DH population. The genetic map contained 1,696 bin-markers with 982,642 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spanning a total distance of 775.81 cM on all nine chromosomes with an average distance between markers of 0.46 cM. The ornamental kale genetic map contained substantially more SNP markers compared with published genetic maps for other B. oleracea crops. The F1DH progenies provide an excellent resource for germplasm innovation and breeding new varieties of ornamental kale. The high-density genetic map provides crucial insights for gene mapping and unraveling the molecular mechanisms behind important agronomic traits in ornamental kale.

A 4×2 factorial experiment was conducted to evaluate the potential of feeding dietary gamma-oryzanol and vitamin E tocotrienols in hens reared in 840 (low cage density; LCD) or 420 cm2/hen (high cage density; HCD). A total of 120 hens were allocated into eight groups with five replicates. Diets were a control (CON) or the control diet supplemented with 200 ppm gamma-oryzanol (GO-200), 200 ppm vitamin E tocotrienols (VE-200) or 200 ppm gamma-oryzanol + 200 ppm vitamin E tocotrienols (GE-400). Results showed that HCD-housed hens decreased (P &lt; 0.01) egg performance and quality. Average egg weight (AEW), egg mass and FCR improved in all supplemented treatments. Results on the AEW, FCR, and eggshell qualities of birds kept at the HCD revealed the best responses in the GE-400 group (P &lt; 0.01). Among hens kept on an HCD, there was a noticeable decrease in HMGCR mRNA abundance in the VE-200 group, while the highest IFN-γ mRNA abundance was found in hens fed the GO-200 diet (P &lt; 0.05). Thus, this study suggested that dietary GO or VE at 200 ppm either individually or in combination could improve performance and egg quality as well as regulate the abundance of immune- and stress-related genes.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common pathogen in human. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection poses a big and perplexing difficulty in terms of therapy. The acquisition of the non-native gene PBP2a, which has a decreased tolerance for β-lactam antibiotics, frequently confers resistance. PBP2a has a less attraction for methicillin and it helps bacteria to continue peptidoglycan biosynthesis, and it is cell wall’s core component in bacteria. So, even in the presence of methicillin or any other antibiotic, bacteria develop resistance. Due to resistance-causing genes, S. aureus becomes MRSA. The main premise of the resistance mechanism is well understood. The current demand for novel antibiotics is legitimate in the face of therapeutic concerns posed by resistant micro-organisms. The emphasis of this review is on PBP2a scaffolds and the different screening approaches used to find PBP2a inhibitors. Penicillin, Cephalosporins, Pyrazole-Benzimidazole based derivatives, Oxadiazole containing derivatives, non-β-lactam allosteric inhibitors, 4-(3H)-Quinazolinones, Pyrrolylated chalcone, Bis-2-Oxoazetidinyl macrocycle (β-lactam antibiotics with 1, 3-Bridges), Macrocycle-embedded β-lactams as novel inhibitors, Pyridine-Coupled Pyrimidinones, novel Naphthalimide corbelled aminothiazoximes, non-covalent inhibitors, Investigational-β-lactam antibiotics Carbapenem, novel Benzoxazole derivatives, Pyrazolylpyridine analogues, and other miscellaneous classes of scaffolds for PBP2a are also represented as well as with their biological activity is discussed. The penicillin-binding protein is also discussed, which is the crucial target for the cell wall of MRSA. Various aspects of PBP2a, the cell wall of bacteria, peptidoglycans, different crystal structures of PBP2a, synthetic routes for PBP2a inhibitors, and future perspectives of MRSA inhibitors are also enumerated.

Abstract: An Al-Co-Y diffusion coating was prepared on a TiAl alloy by pack cementation process at a low temperature range of 650-720 ℃. The influence of different activators and co-deposition temperatures on the coating’s microstructure and formation process, and high temperature oxida-tion performance was studied. The results showed that NaF was a more suitable activator for preparing the Al-Co-Y diffusion coating on TiAl alloy compared to NH4Cl and AlCl3. A more compact coating structure can be obtained when deposition was performed at 680 ℃ using NaF as the activator. The coating was mainly composed of a TiAl3 outer layer, a TiAl2 inner layer, and a thin Al-rich TiAl inter-diffusion layer. The growth of the coating exhibited a positive linear correlation between coating thickness increase and the square root of deposition time. The high-temperature oxidation tests showed that a dense scale mainly composed of Al2O3 and a small amount of TiO2 formed on the coating after oxidation at 950 ℃ for 100 h. The scale possessed excellent high-temperature oxidation resistance, with a parabolic rate constant of the oxidation weight gain approximately 4.9×10-3 mg2/cm4 h, which is lower than that of the TiAl substrate by about three orders of magnitude, and lower than that of the pure Al diffusion coating more than one order of magnitude.

Microemulsions with excellent properties have shown significant potential for enhancing oil recovery from tight formations through spontaneous imbibition. This work present a high-temperature-tolerant lower-phase microemulsion (HTLP-ME) using a microemulsion dilution method. The properties and morphological characteristics of HTLP-ME were evaluated and proposed a enhanced spontaneous imbibition oil recovery mechanism using imbibition tests and CT scanning technology. The results show that the optimum concentration of HTLP-ME is 0.2wt% has a superior thermal stability, small particle size, lower IFT, good wettability alteration ability, and minimum adsorption loss. Imbibition and CT experiments showed that the longer the imbibition distance, the better is the effect on spontaneous imbibition oil recovery. Furthermore, the solubilization coefficient and self-driving force were defined and calculated to quantitatively analyze the imbibition mechanisms. The imbibition mechanisms demonstrate that the reduction of oil/solid adhesion is due to the synergistic effect of IFT reduction and wettability alteration, and the ability to increase the imbibition distance through a larger self-driving force.

In order to study the acoustic emission characteristics of sandstone under the action of the high temperature-water cooling cycle, the RMT-150B electro-hydraulic servo rock test system and the DS-5 acoustic emission detection and analysis system were used to conduct a single analysis of the sandstone after the high temperature-water cooling cycle. Experimental study on acoustic emission characteristics under axial compression, analyzing the deformation, strength and acoustic emission characteristics of sandstone under different temperatures and cycles. The results of the study show that the high temperature-water cooling action causes changes in the physical properties of the sandstone. The expansion rate of the rock sample decreases first and then increases when the temperature rises, and the strength first increases and then decreases. The number of cycles has little effect on the physical properties of the rock sample; sandstone acoustic emission ringing count increases with the increase of temperature and cycle times, acoustic emission activities become more frequent with the loading process; with the increase of cycle times and temperature, acoustic emission ringing counts and accumulative acoustic emission energy appear earlier The rock sample enters the elastic deformation stage ahead of schedule, the yielding period increases, and the rock sample presents a trend of transition from brittle failure to ductile failure; the ringing count and cumulative energy increase with the increase in temperature and cycle times, and the high-energy ringing count and cumulative energy increase. The simultaneous sharp increase of the rock sample is the harbinger of the failure and instability of the rock sample.

The incorporation of polycarboxylate ether superplasticizer (PCE) type polymer and silica fume (SF) in high-performance concretes (HPC) leads to the achievement of remarkable rheological and mechanical improvements. In the fresh state, PCEs are adsorbed on cement particles and dispersants, in turn promoting the workability of the concrete. Silica fume enables a very well compacted concrete to be obtained, which is characterized by high mechanical parameters in its hardened state. Some PCEs are incompatible with silica fume, which can result in the loss of slump and in poor rheological behavior. The main objective of the research is the study of the influence of three types of PCEs, which all have a different molecular architecture, on the rheological and mechanical behavior of high-performance concretes containing 10% of SF as a partial replacement of cement. The results show that the carboxylic density of PCE has an influence on its compatibility with SF.

This paper proposes a novel symmetrical active-switched coupled-inductor high-step-up DC/DC converter. A new active-switched coupled inductor is used to allow much higher voltage gain of the proposed converter. The symmetrical circuit structure of the proposed converter evenly divides large input currents and reduce input current ripple by operating in interleaved mode so power density is increased. The switches also have low voltage stress. The operating principle and design considerations for the converter topology are described. The proposed converter with an input voltage of 40 V, an output voltage of 400 V and an output of 1000 W at a switching frequency of 50 kHz is implemented. The simulations and experimental results are thus depicted to verify the theoretical analysis. The highest efficiency is 95.5% at 200 W measured by using a HIOKI 3390. Consequently, the proposed converter is suitable for renewable energy generation systems that require high power, high voltage gain and high efficiency.

High-grade gliomas present a significant challenge in neuro-oncology because of their aggressive nature and resistance to current therapies. Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a potential treatment method; however, the boron carrier compounds used — such as 4-borono-L-phenylalanine (L-BPA) — have limitations. This study evaluated the use of boron-conjugated 4-iodophenylbutanamide (BC-IP), a novel boron compound in BNCT, for the treatment of glioma. Using in vitro drug exposure experiments and in vivo studies, we compared BC-IP and BPA, with a focus on boron uptake and retention characteristics. The results showed that although BC-IP had a lower boron uptake than BPA, it exhibited superior retention. Furthermore, despite lower boron accumulation in tumors, BC-IP showed significant survival improvement in glioma-bearing rats compared to controls. These results suggest that BC-IP, with its unique properties, may be an alternative boron carrier for BNCT. Further research is required to optimize this potential treatment modality, which could significantly contribute to advancing the treatment of high-grade gliomas.

At present, in the field of aviation industry, titanium alloy is mainly used to manufacture parts such as compressor disc, blade and casing of aircraft engine. When working, titanium alloy parts produce high temperature due to high-speed running friction, which makes the high temperature oxidation resistance and friction resistance of titanium alloy greatly reduced. When their working environment contains salt, titanium alloys are subjected to thermal corrosion, which limits their wider practical applications. This paper introduce the aluminide coating and its preparation methods. The characteristics and functional mechanism of three functional coatings for service environment, such as high temperature resistant alumina-based coating, thermal corrosion resistant alumina-based coating and wear-resistant alumina-based coating are summarized. Finally, the development direction of composite coatings of titanium and titanium alloys for complex service environment is prospected.

Breakage and damage of fiber optic cable fibers seriously affect the normal operation of fiber optic networks and it is important to quickly and accurately determine the type and location of faults when they occur. The advantages of wavelet transform in singular signal detection and signal filtering are used to analyze Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) curve signal and the fault detection method of fiber communication link with no relay and large span in high altitude area is given, which realizes the accurate detection and location of optical fiber communication link fault events under strong noise. The theoretical analysis is basically consistent with the experimental data. The accuracy of optical fiber fault location has been greatly improved in performance. The method has been directly applied to the field detection of ultra-long optical fiber links in high altitude areas, which has certain significance for the future real-time monitoring of optical fiber cables.

At Mae-Moh power plant, Thailand, superheater tubes, which are exposed in fly ash environ-ment, often degrade due to solid particle erosion. To extend the service lifetime of the superheater tubes, the high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) thermal spray technique is used to deposit a protective coating on the material, SA213-T22 steel. In this work, the solid particle erosion of the Co-28Cr and WC-12Co coatings was investigated using erodent particle impingement at the angles of 30o and 90o with an average particle size of 60 μm. The erosion behavior of SA213-T22 with and without Co-28Cr and WC-12Co coatings was explained using ductile and brittle erosion modes. The erosion test resulted in the brittle mode for both Co-28Cr and WC-12Co coatings, while SA213-T22 without coating indicated the ductile mode. On the investigation of surface morphology, the Co-28Cr coating showed mostly microcracks in contrast with the WC-12Co coating, fracture, de-bonding and deep cavities were also observed. Erosion resistance of the Co-28Cr coating was significantly higher than the WC-12Co coating, due to high hardness, low porosity and high density of the coating.

Limited availability of expensive alloying elements elevates low-alloyed steels to a unique position in the field of lightweight construction and mass production. Quenching and partitioning (Q&P) heat treatments of low-alloyed steels with exceptional property combinations are particularly promising. In this study, we characterize for the first time a new low-alloyed steel to be processed by Q&P heat treatments. In combined experimental and numerical studies, we design a novel approach that effectively combines the short cycle times of press hardening with the excellent property profiles of Q&P-treated steels. We identify appropriate transformation parameters for Q&P heat treatments by dilatometric studies and we adjust a number of reference conditions with different isothermal holding times. By means of SEM analysis and XRD measurements, we show that different fractions of retained austenite result in different mechanical properties. Initial numerical designs of the process can identify varying temperature profiles and cooling rates depending on the position in the die. The results show that the geometry of the part plays a minor role, but the die temperature is the dominant factor for successful partitioning directly in the press hardening process.