Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has revolutionized the prognosis of several advanced-stage solid tumors. However, its success has been far more limited in hematological malignancies and is mostly restricted to classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) and primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma (PMBCL). In patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), response to PD-1/PD-L1 ICB monotherapy has been relatively limited, although some subtypes are more sensitive than others. Numerous predictive biomarkers have been investigated in solid malignancies, such as PD-L1 expression, tumor mutational burden (TMB) and microsatellite instability (MSI), among others. This case-illustrated review aims to appraise the current knowledge on PD-1/PD-L1 ICB efficacy in lymphoid malignancies, when used either as monotherapy or combined with other agents, and describes potential biomarkers of response in this specific setting.

The purpose of this work was to evaluate a novel methodology developed by Digital Blood Corporation (DBC) to calculate critical blood values using four non-invasive measured values as input. The values obtained using a point-of-care testing (POCT) device were utilized for comparison and reference. Radial arterial blood was collected for the POCT comparator analysis using the Abbott i-STAT^® device. The non-invasive methodology from DBC requires four parameters to be directly measured: temperature, hemoglobin, pO2, and pCO2. Subsequently, sodium, potassium, chloride, ionized calcium, total carbon dioxide, pH, bicarbonate, and oxygen saturation are calculated using an algorithm. The agreement between the POCT and DBC’s methodology was analyzed using Bland-Altman difference plots. For a second data set, pO2 and pCO2 values collected with the POCT were used as input for DBC’s algorithm to test its robustness. Data from 37 healthy ambulatory individuals, mean age: 42.4 + 13 years; range: 18-64 years, were included in the primary analysis. In the case of the non-invasive gained four input values the greatest variation between POCT and DBC’s approach was observed for pO2 and consequently for algorithm values that depend upon pO2 precision. Replacing transcutaneous pO2 and pCO2 with POCT values demonstrates the principal ability of DBC’s algorithm to predict the additional 8 blood values in sufficient agreement with a standard POCT device in healthy patients. The algorithm developed by DBC appears to be robust in the case of healthy patients but does need the four measured input values with preciseness comparable to a POCT device to give reliable and clinically relevant results. The present study thus serves as a proof of concept to facilitate future study and further development of this methodology into a non-invasive device.

This research is aimed to develop the method for damage degree evaluation in metals and alloys during their deformation and destruction based on acoustic emission (AE) technique. Experimental studies were carried out on tensile specimens of high-strength steel with simultaneous registration of AE signals in tested material. It was shown that the time-dependent AE primary parameters, such as the AE signal maximum amplitudes and AE activity, do not have a clear relationship with the material damage degree. This fact makes it difficult to use standard methods for assessing the damage degree of acoustic signal sources, including defects. It was proposed to use the Kolmogorov-Smirnov criterion to differ the processes of metal plastic deformation and crack propagation during the rupture. The possibility of estimating the material damage degree by high-energy AE hits share was shown. Besides, a particular expression was obtained for evaluating the damage degree for the material under study.

In response to the growing inspection demand exerted by process automation in component manufacturing, Non-destructive testing (NDT) continues to explore automated approaches that utilize deep learning algorithms for defect identification, including within digital X-ray radiography images. This necessitates a thorough understanding of the implication of image quality parameters on the performance of these deep learning models. This study investigates the influence of two image quality parameters, namely Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Contrast-to-Noise Ratio (CNR), on the performance of U-net deep learning segmentation model. Input images were acquired with varying combinations of exposure factors such as kilovoltage, milli-ampere, and exposure time, which altered the resultant quality. The data was sorted into 5 different datasets according to their measured SNR and CNR values. The deep learning model was trained 5 distinct times, utilizing a unique dataset for each training session. Training the model with high CNR values yielded an intersection over Union (IoU) metric of 0.9594 on test data of the same category but drops to 0.5875 when tested on lower CNR test data. The result in this study emphasizes the importance of achieving a balance in training dataset according to the investigated quality parameters, to enhance the performance of deep learning segmentation models in NDT radiography applications.

Background Community health workers (CHWs) drawn from the general population are an important human resource in health care systems, preventing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and contributing to an increase in healthy life expectancy in Japan. Thus, we have developed the COmmunity health workers perceptual and behavioral Competency Scale for preventing Non-communicable diseases (COCS-N) to measure CHWs’ competence in preventing NCDs. The purpose of this study is to examine individual and community factors affecting CHWs’ COCS-N scores. Methods Municipal public health nurses and other public health professionals are responsible for training and supporting CHWs in Japan. Therefore, the existence of CHWs and their willingness to participate in the study were confirmed with the municipalities, who were asked to distribute the self-administered questionnaire to CHWs where consent was obtained (N = 6,480). Variables used included demographic characteristics, COCS-N scores, and individual- and community-related factors. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess associations between variables. Results A total of 3,120 people completed the questionnaire, a valid response rate of 48.1%. The respondents’ mean age was 67.0 years (standard deviation = 9.0), and 88.0% were female. Comparison of the high- and low- competence groups in terms of NCD prevention based on COCS-N scores identified 13 factors associated with significant differences, including years spent working as a CHW (p < 0.001), subjective sense of health (p = 0.005), European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47) scores (p < 0.001), and community commitment scale (CCS) scores (p < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis revealed that HLS-EU-Q47 scores (odds ratio [OR]: 1.02, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02–1.03) were a significant individual factor, while CCS scores (OR: 1.14, 95% CI: 1.11–1.16) were a significant community factor. Conclusions We found that the COCS-N score was associated with the individual factors overall health literacy (HL), perceptions of HL, and subjective sense of health, and with the community factor CCS scores. These results suggest that strengthening individual factors such as HL and subjective sense of health, and community factors such as sense of community is an effective strategy for increasing CHWs’ competence in preventing NCDs.

This article develops duality principles and related convex dual formulations suitable for the local optimization of non-convex primal formulations for a large class of models in physics and engineering. The results are based on standard tools of functional analysis, calculus of variations and duality theory. In particular, we develop applications to a Ginzburg-Landau type equation.

Abstract: Background: To determine the impact of a patient's ethnicity on the seeking preventive dental services at the Community Health Centers (CHCs) in South-Central Texas. Methods: Pri-mary electronic health records (HER) data were collected regarding each patient's medical and dental history, and comprehensive treatment planning. The researchers retrieved EHR from Jan-uary 2016 to 2022. Bivariate analysis was completed to test outcome with predicator and covariates using appropriate statistical tests. A multiple linear regression model was used to understand the association between the predictor and outcome variable while controlling for confounders. Results: The study findings revealed significantly higher dental visits (2.26 ± 2.88) for Hispanic patients. The results from the multiple regression model indicated that non-Hispanic patients had a 8% fewer chance of visiting the CHCs for preventive dental services compared to the Hispanic population (p-value<0.001) when all other variables are held constant. However, the study results were not significant as the effect size was small to conclude the effect of ethnicity on the patients visiting the dental clinic at the CHCs for preventive services. Conclusion: The study concluded that there is no difference in the preventive dental services completed by Hispanics and Non-Hispanics when all other variables are controlled.

We introduce the notion of p-adic magic contraction on p-adic Hilbert space. We derive p-adic Halmos dilation, p-adic Egervary N-dilation, p-adic von Neumann inequality and p-adic Sz.-Nagy dilation for p-adic magic contraction.

In this work, we analysed human isolates of nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica (NTS), which were collected from salmonellosis cases in Armenia from 1996 to 2019. This disease became a leading food-borne bacterial infection in the region, with the younger age groups especially affected. The isolates were characterised by serotyping, Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus (ERIC-PCR) typing, and whole genome sequencing (WGS). The main serotypes were S. Typhimurium, S. Enteritidis, and S. Arizonae. ERIC-PCR indicated a high degree of clonality among S. Typhimurium strains, which were also multidrug-resistant and produced extended spectrum beta-lactamases. During the study period, the frequency of S. Typhimurium and S. Arizonae isolations were decreasing, but with the increase of S. Enteritidis and other NTS. A total of 42 NTS isolates were subjected to WGS and explored for virulence-related traits and the corresponding genetic elements. Some virulence and genetic factors were shared by all NTS serotypes, while the main differences were attributed to the serotype-specific diversity of virulence genes, SPIs, virulence plasmids, and phages. The results indicated the variability and dynamics in the epidemiology of salmonellosis and a high virulence potential of human NTS isolates circulating in the region.

This study aimed to apply different complexity-based methods to surface electromyography (EMG) in order to detect neuromuscular changes after realistic warm-up and stretching procedures. Sixteen volunteers conducted two experimental sessions. They were tested before, after a standardized warm-up, and after a stretching exercise (static or neuromuscular nerve gliding technique). Tests included measurements of the knee flexion torque and EMG of biceps femoris (BF) and semitendinosus (ST) muscles. EMG was analyzed using the root mean square (RMS), sample entropy (SampEn), percentage of recurrence and determinism following a recurrence quantification analysis (%Rec and %Det) and a scaling parameter from a detrended fluctuation analysis. Torque was significantly greater after warm-up as compared to baseline and after stretching. RMS was not affected by the experimental procedure. In contrast, SampEn was significantly greater after warm-up and stretching as compared to baseline values. %Rec was not modified but %Det for BF muscle was significantly greater after stretching as compared to baseline. The a scaling parameter was significantly lower after warm-up as compared to baseline for ST muscle. From the present results, complexity-based methods applied to the EMG give additional information than linear-based methods. They appeared sensitive to detect EMG complexity increases following warm-up.

In this work, we have developed a non-ordinary state-based peridynamic model for multiple crack initiation and propagation due to compression-compression fatigue load. In each loading cycle, the fatigue loading is redistributed among the peridynamic solid body, leading to the progressive fatigue damage initiation and propagation in an autonomous fashion. The proposed fatigue model parameters are firstly validated by 3D numerical benchmark tests, and then it is applied to simulate widespread fatigue damage evolution of the aircraft wing corner box. The modified constitutive damage model has been implemented into the peridynamics framework at finite strain. Furthermore, the criterion algorithm from multiple initiation to propagation is discussed. It is shown that the numerical results obtained from peridynamics simulations are in general agreement with those from the experiment data. The comparison of experimental and numerical results indicates that the proposed non-ordinary state-based peridynamics fatigue model has the ability to capture the multiple crack initiation and propagation and other features of the aluminium alloy material.

In remote sensing applications, one of the key points is the acquisition, real-time pre-processing and storage of information. Due to the large amount of information present in the form of images or videos, compression of this data is necessary. Compressed sensing (CS) is an efficient technique to meet this challenge. It consists in acquiring a signal, assuming that it can have a sparse representation, using a minimal number of non-adaptive linear measurements. After this CS process, a reconstruction of the original signal must be performed at the receiver. Reconstruction techniques are often unable to preserve the texture of the image and tend to smooth out its details. To overcome this problem, we propose in this work, a CS reconstruction method that combines the total variation regularization and the non-local self-similarity constraint. The optimization of this method is performed by the augmented Lagrangian which avoids the difficult problem of non-linearity and non-differentiability of the regularization terms. The proposed algorithm, called denoising compressed sensing by regularizations terms (DCSR), will not only perform image reconstruction but also denoising. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we compare its performance with state-of-the-art methods, such as Nesterov's algorithm, group-based sparse representation and wavelet-based methods, in terms of denoising, and preservation of edges, texture and image details, as well as from the point of view of computational complexity. Our approach allows to gain up to 25% in terms of denoising efficiency, and visual quality using two metrics: PSNR and SSIM.

Early diagnosis and treatment have always been highly desired in the fight against cancer, and detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has recently been touted as highly promising for early cancer screening. Consequently, the detection of ctDNA in liquid biopsy gains much attention in the field of tumor diagnosis and treatment, which has also attracted research interest from the industry. However, traditional gene detection technology is difficult to achieve low cost, real-time and portable measurement of ctDNA. Electroanalytical biosensors have many unique advantages such as high sensitivity, high specificity, low cost and good portability. Therefore, this review aims to discuss the latest development of biosensors for minimal-invasive, rapid, and real-time ctDNA detection. Various ctDNA sensors are reviewed with respect to their choices of receptor probes, detection strategies and figures of merit. Aiming at the portable, real-time and non-destructive characteristics of biosensors, we analyze their development in the Internet of Things, point-of-care testing, big data and big health.

In a wide range of lymphoid neoplasms, the process of malignant transformation is associated to somatic mutations in B cells that affect the epigenetic machinery. Consequential alterations in histone modifications contribute to disease-specific changes in the transcriptional program. Affected genes commonly play important roles in cell cycle regulation, apoptosis-inducing signal transduction and DNA damage response, thus facilitating the emergence of malignant traits that impair immune surveillance and favor the emergence of different B-cell lymphoma subtypes. In the last two decades, the field has made a major effort to develop therapies that target these epigenetic alterations. In this review, we discuss which epigenetic alterations occur in non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma. Furthermore, we aim to present in close to comprehensive manner the current state-of-the-art in the preclinical and clinical development of epigenetic drugs. We focus on therapeutic strategies interfering with histone methylation and acetylation as these are most advanced in being deployed from the bench-to-bedside and have greatest potential to improve the prognosis of lymphoma patients.

SETMAR is a protein lysine methyltransferase that is involved in several DNA processes, including DNA repair via the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathway, regulation of gene expression, illegitimate DNA integration, and DNA decatenation. However, SETMAR is an atypical protein lysine methyltransferase since in anthropoid primates, the SET domain is fused to an inactive DNA transposase. The presence of the DNA transposase domain confers to SETMAR a DNA binding activity towards the remnants of its transposable element, which has resulted in the emergence of a gene regulatory function. Both the SET and the DNA transposase domains are involved in the different cellular roles of SETMAR, indicating the presence of novel and specific functions in anthropoid primates. In addition, SETMAR is dysregulated in different types of cancer, indicating a potential pathological role. While some light has been shed on SETMAR functions, more research and new tools are needed to better understand the cellular activities of SETMAR and to investigate the therapeutic potential of SETMAR.

This research will examine the computational methods to calculate the nonlinear optical process of second harmonic generation (SHG) that will be hypothesized to be present during lithium ion insertion into silicon nanowires. First it will be determined whether the medium in which SHG is conveyed is non-centrosymmetric or whether the medium is inversion symmetric where SHG as a part of the second-order nonlinear optical phenomenon does not exist. It will be demonstrated that the main interaction that determines SHG is multiphoton absorption on lithium ions. The quantum harmonic oscillator (QHO) is used as the background that generates coherent states for electrons and photons that transverse the length of the silicon nanowire. The matrix elements of the Hamiltonian which represents the energy of the system will be used to calculate the probability density of second-order nonlinear optical interactions which includes collectively SHG, sum-frequency generation (SFG) and difference-frequency generation (DFG). As a result it will be seen that at varies concentrations of lithium ions (Li+) within the crystallized silicon (c-Si) matrix the second-order nonlinear optical process has probabilities substantial enough to create second harmonic generation that could possibly be used for such applications as second harmonic imaging microscopy.

Despite identical genetic constitution, a cancer cell population can exhibit phenotypic variations termed as non-genetic/non-mutational heterogeneity. Such heterogeneity – a ubiquitous nature of biological systems – has been implicated in metastasis, therapy resistance and tumour relapse. Here, we review the evidence for existence, sources and implications of non-genetic heterogeneity in multiple cancer types. Stochasticity/ noise in transcription, protein conformation and/or external microenvironment can underlie such heterogeneity. Moreover, the existence of multiple possible cell states (phenotypes) as a consequence of the emergent dynamics of gene regulatory networks may enable reversible cell-state transitions (phenotypic plasticity) that can facilitate adaptive drug resistance and higher metastatic fitness. Finally, we highlight how computational and mathematical models can drive a better understanding of non-genetic heterogeneity and how a systems-level approach integrating mathematical modelling and in vitro/in vivo experiments can map the diverse phenotypic repertoire, and identify therapeutic vulnerabilities of an otherwise clonal cell population.

Electromagnetic eddy current sensors are commonly used to identify and quantify the surface notches of metals. However, the unintentional tilt of eddy current sensors affects results of size profiling, particularly for the depth profiling. In this paper, based on the eddy current thin-skin regime, a revised algorithm has been proposed for the analytical voltage or impedance of a tilted driver–pickup eddy current sensor scanning across a long ideal notch. Considering the resolution of the measurement, the bespoke driver–pickup, also termed as transmitter-receiver (T-R) sensor is designed with a small mean radius of 1 mm. Besides, the T-R sensor is connected to the electromagnetic instrument and controlled by a scanning stage with high spatial travel resolution , with a limit of 0.2 μm and selected as 0.25 mm. Experiments have been out on the voltage imaging of an aluminium sheet with 7 machined long notches of different depths using T-R sensor under different tilt angles. By fitting the measured voltage (both real and imaginary part) with proposed analytical algorithms, the depth profiling of notches is less affected by the tilt angle of sensors. From the results, the depth of notches can be retrieved within a deviation of 10 % for tilt angles up to 60 degrees.

The growth of regularly generated data from many financial activities has significant implications for every corner of financial modeling. This study has investigated the utilization of these continuous growing data by a means of an automated process. The automated process can be developed by using Machine learning based techniques that analyze the data and gain experience from the underlying data. Different important domains of financial fields such as Credit card fraud detection, bankruptcy detection, loan default prediction, investment prediction, marketing and many other financial models can be modeled by implementing machine learning models. Among several machine learning based techniques, the use of parametric and non-parametric based methods are approached by this research. Two parametric models namely Logistic Regression, Gaussian Naive Bayes models and two non-parametric methods such as Random Forest, Decision Tree are implemented in this paper. All the mentioned models are developed and implemented in the field of Credit card fraud detection, bankruptcy detection, loan default prediction. In each of the aforementioned cases, the comparative study among the classification techniques is drawn and the best model is identified. The performance of each classifier on each considered domain is evaluated by various performance metrics such as accuracy, recall, precision, F1-score and mean squared error. In the credit card fraud detection model the decision tree classifier performs the best with an accuracy of 99.1% and, in the loan default prediction and bankruptcy detection model, the random forest classifier gives the best accuracy of 97% and 96.84% respectively.

In this work, quantum dynamics of a spin-0 particle under the effects of Lorentz symmetry violation in the presence of Coulombtype non-electromagnetic potential $(S(r) ∝ \frac{1}{r})$ is investigated. The non-electromagnetic (or scalar) potential is introduced by modifying the mass term via transformation $M → M + \frac{η_c}{r}$ in the relativistic wave equation. The linear central potential induced by the Lorentz symmetry violation is a linear radial electric and constant magnetic field and, analyze the effects on the spectrum of energy and the wave function

Non-viral gene carriers because of their limited side effects, biocompatibility, simplicity and taking the advantages of electrostatic interactions have shown noticeable potential in gene delivery. The low transfection rate of non-viral vectors under physiological conditions is a significant issue. Here, the aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups on gene carriers such as two synthesized amphiphilic polymer of dextran-stearic acid-spermine (DSASP) with verified lipid and amine conjugations that associated with Fe3O4 superparamagnetic nanoparticles to promote the target delivery and decrease the transfection time using static magnetic field. Our findings illustrate that magnetic nanoparticles are spherical with positive surface charges and superparamagnetic behaviors. The DSASP–pDNA/MNPs offered a strong pDNA condensation, protection against DNase degradation, significant cell viability in HEK 293T cells and. Although conjugations of spermine play a critical role in transfection efficiency, amphiphilic polymer with more derivatives of stearic acid showed better transfection yields. Therefore, DSASP amphiphilic magnetic carriers offer new insights for gene delivery due to the amine contents and ameliorate the uptake of complexes via cell membrane based on its hydrophilic surface.

Set theory faces two difficulties: formal definitions of sets/subsets are incapable of assessing biophysical issues; formal axiomatic systems are complete/inconsistent or incomplete/consistent. To overtake these problems reminiscent of the old-fashioned principle of individuation, we provide formal treatment/validation/operationalization of a methodological weapon termed “outer approach” (OA). The observer’s attention shifts from the system under evaluation to its surroundings, so that objects are investigated from outside. Subsets become just “holes” devoid of information inside larger sets. Sets are no longer passive containers, rather active structures enabling their content’s examination. Consequences/applications of OA include: a) operationalization of paraconsistent logics, anticipated by unexpected forerunners, in terms of advanced truth theories of natural language, anthropic principle and quantum dynamics; b) assessment of embryonic craniocaudal migration in terms of Turing’s spots; c) evaluation of hominids’ social behaviors in terms of evolutionary modifications of facial expression’s musculature; d) treatment of cortical action potentials in terms of collective movements of extracellular currents, leaving apart what happens inside the neurons; e) a critique of Shannon’s information in terms of the Arabic thinkers’ active/potential intellects. Also, OA provides an outer view of a) humanistic issues such as the enigmatic Celestino of Verona’s letter, Dante Alighieri’s “Hell” and the puzzling Voynich manuscript; b) historical issues such as Aldo Moro’s death and the Liston/Clay boxing fight. Summarizing, the safest methodology to quantify phenomena is to remove them from our observation and tackle an outer view, since mathematical/logical issues such as selective information deletion and set complement rescue incompleteness/inconsistency of biophysical systems.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was first reported in the U.S. on December 29, 2019 and has spread rapidly throughout the country, affecting individuals with varying severity due to their risk status. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is estimated that 45.4% of US adults are at higher risk for complications from coronavirus disease because of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disease, hypertension, or cancer. In this study, we developed a mathematical model to assess the impact of a COVID-19 vaccine among low and high risk groups. Numerical simulations shows vaccinating both low and high risk groups simultaneously, rather than prioritizing the vaccine on high risk group only, further reduces the daily mortality. The result supports the need for an aggressive vaccination program, regardless of whether individuals are within the low or high risk population.

This paper reviews non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) approaches that employ deep neural networks to disaggregate appliances from low frequency data, i.e. data with sampling rates lower than the AC base frequency. We first review the many degrees of freedom of these approaches, what has already been done in literature, and compile the main characteristics of the reviewed publications in an extensive overview table. The second part of the paper discusses selected aspects of the literature and corresponding research gaps. In particular, we do a performance comparison with respect to reported MAE and F$_1$-scores and observe different recurring elements in the best performing approaches, namely data sampling intervals below 10\,s, a large field of view, the usage of GAN losses, multi-task learning, and post-processing. Subsequently, multiple input features, multi-task learning and related research gaps are discussed, the need for comparative studies is highlighted, and finally, missing elements for a successful deployment of NILM approaches based on deep neural networks are pointed out. We conclude the review with an outlook on possible future scenarios.

Defect detection in ferromagnetic substrates is often hampered by non-magnetic coating thickness variation when using conventional eddy current testing technique. The lift-off distance between the sample and the sensor is one of the main obstacles for the thickness measurement of non-magnetic coatings on ferromagnetic substrates when using the eddy current testing technique. Based on the eddy current thin-skin effect and the lift-off insensitive inductance (LII), a simplified iterative algorithm is proposed for reducing the lift-off variation effect using a multi-frequency sensor. Compared to the previous techniques on compensating the lift-off error (e.g., the lift-off point of intersection) while retrieving the thickness, the simplified inductance algorithms avoid the computation burden of integration, which are used as embedded algorithms for the online retrieval of lift-offs via each frequency channel. The LII is determined by the dimension and geometry of the sensor, thus eliminating the need for empirical calibration. The method is validated by means of experimental measurements of the inductance of coatings with different materials and thicknesses on ferrous substrates (dual-phase alloy). The error of the calculated coating thickness has been controlled to within 3 % for an extended lift-off range of up to 10 mm.

In this paper we analyze and propose new method and algorithm of selecting the optimal labor time as a function of skills following our main references Mirrlees (1971), Saez (2001) and Stancheva (2014). The optimal labor time is a situation when the utility function of individual reaches a maximum. One of the main differences with Saez (2001) is our algorithm for creation the skill distribution

Hearing impairment is an immensely diagnosed genetic cause, 5% of the total world population effects with different kind of congenital hearing loss (HL). In third-world countries or countries where consanguineous marriages are more common the frequency rate of genetic disorders are at its zenith. Approximately, the incidence of hearing afflictions is ostensibly 7-8:1000 individuals whereas it is estimated that about 466 million peoples suffer with significant HL, and of theses deaf cases 34 million are children’s up to March, 2020. Several genes and colossal numbers of pathogenic variants cause hearing impairment, which aided in next-generation with recessive, dominant or X-linked inheritance traits. This review highlights on syndromic and non-syndromic HL (SHL and NSHL), and categorized as conductive, sensorineural and mixed HL, which having autosomal dominant and recessive, and X-linked or mitochondrial mode of inheritance. Many hundred genes involved in HL are reported, and their mutation spectrum becomes very wide. Mapping of pathogenic genes in consanguinity family is facilitated to understand the disease history. Review presents the bases of HL and also focused on various genetic factors that cause deafness like the basics of genetic inheritance, and classic and well-characterized inherited factors of it. It also overviews the application of linkage analysis, SNPs genotyping and whole exome sequencing methods, in mapping and identification of new locus, causative genes and their variants in families inherited with HL. Conclusively, this review supports researchers in understanding the location of chromosome, the causative genes and specific locus which causing deafness in humans.

Eddy current based approaches have been investigated for a wide range of inspection applications. Dodd-Deeds model and the truncated region eigenfunction expansion (TREE) method are widely applied in various occasions, mostly for the cases that the sample is relatively larger than the radius of the sensor coil. The TREE method converts the integral expressions to the summation of many terms in the truncated region. In a recent work, the impedance of the co-axial air-cored sensor due to a plate of finite radius was calculated by the modified Dodd-Deeds analytical approach proposed by authors. In this paper, combining the modified analytical solution and the TREE method, a new finite region eigenfunction expansion (FREE) method is proposed. This method involves modifying its initial summation point from the first zero of the Bessel function to a value related to the radius of the plate, therefore makes it suitable for plate with finite dimensions. Experiments and simulations have been carried out and compared for the verification of the proposed method. Further, the planar size measurements of the metallic circular plate can be achieved by utilising the measured peak frequency feature.

A vast majority of the countries is under the economic and health crises due to the current epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The present study analyzes the COVID-19 using time series, which is an essential gizmo for knowing the enlargement of infection and its changing behavior, especially the trending model. We have considered an autoregressive model with a non-linear time trend component that approximately converted into the linear trend using the spline function. The spline function split the COVID-19 series into different piecewise segments between respective knots and fitted the linear time trend. First, we obtain the number of knots with its locations in the COVID-19 series and then the estimation of the best-fitted model parameters are determined under Bayesian setup. The results advocate that the proposed model/methodology is a useful procedure to convert the non-linear time trend into a linear pattern of newly coronavirus case for various countries in the pandemic situation of COVID-19.

Hyper spectral imaging (HSI) is a technique that is used to obtain the spectrum for each pixel in the image. It helps in finding objects and identifying materials etc. Such an identification is very difficult using other imaging techniques. It allows the researchers to investigate the documents without any physical contact. Nowadays detection of unequal Ink mismatch based on HSI has shown vast improvement in distinguishing the inks. Detection of unequal Ink mismatch is an unbalanced clustering problem. This paper used K-means Clustering for ink mismatch detection. K-means Clustering find same subgroups in the data based on Euclidean distance. This paper demonstrates performance in unequal Ink mismatch based on HSI.

In a recent reformulation of the Marrucci-Ianniruberto constitutive equation for the rheology of entangled polymer melts in the context of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, rather large values of the convective constraint release parameter \beta_{ccr} had to be used in order not to violate the second law of thermodynamics. In this work, we present an appropriate modification of the model which avoids the splitting of the evolution equation for the conformation tensor into an orientation and a stretching part. Then, thermodynamic admissibility dictates simply that \beta_{ccr}≥ 0, thus allowing for more realistic values of \beta_{ccr} to be chosen. Moreover, and in view of recent experimental evidence for a transient stress undershoot (following the overshoot) at high shear rates whose origin may be traced back to molecular tumbling, we have incorporated in the model additional terms accounting, at least in an approximate way, for non-affine deformation through a slip parameter \xi. Use of the new model to describe available experimental data for the transient and steady-state shear and elongational rheology of entangled polystyrene melts and solutions shows close agreement. Overall, the modified model proposed here combines simplicity with accuracy, which renders it an excellent choice for managing complex viscoelastic fluid flows in large-scale numerical calculations.

In this work, we investigate the weak deflection angle of light from exact black hole within the non-linear electrodynamics. First we calculate the Gaussian optical curvature using the optical spacetime geometry. With the help of modern geometrical way popularized by Gibbons and Werner, we examine the deflection angle of light from exact black hole. For this desire, we determine the optical Gaussian curvature and execute the Gauss-Bonnet theorem on optical metric and calculate the leading terms of deflection angle in the weak limit approximation. Furthermore, we likewise study the plasma medium's effect on weak gravitational lensing by exact black hole. Hence we expose the effect of the non-linear electrodynamics on the deflection angle in the weak gravitational field.

In the present study, a mathematical model of non-steady partial differential equation from the process of oxygen mass transport in the human pulmonary circulation is proposed. Mathematical modelling of this kind of problems lead to a non-steady partial differential equation and for its numerical simulation, we have used finite differences. The aim of the process is the exact numerical analysis of the study, wherein consistency, stability and convergence is proposed. The necessity of doing the process is that, we would like to increase the order of numerical solution to a higher order scheme. An increment in the order of numerical solution makes the numerical simulation more accurate, also makes the numerical simulation being more complicated. In addition, the process of numerical analysis of the study in this order of solution needs more research work.

In this article, we analyze the weak gravitational lensing in the context of Einstein-non-linear Maxwell-Yukawa black hole. To this desire, we derive the deflection angle of light by Einstein-non-linear Maxwell-Yukawa black hole using the Gibbons and Werner method. For this purpose, we obtain the Gaussian optical curvature and implement the Gauss-Bonnet theorem to investigate the deflection angle of Einstein-non-linear Maxwell-Yukawa black hole. Moreover, we derive the deflection angle of light in the presence of plasma medium. We also analyze the graphical behavior of deflection angle by Einstein-non-linear Maxwell-Yukawa black hole in the presence of plasma as well as non-plasma medium.

Daily rainfall data was collected for the arid district of Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh state, India from 1981 to 2016 at the sub-district level and aggregated to monthly, annual and seasonal rainfall totals and the number of rainy days. The objective of this study is to evaluate the homogeneity, trend, and trend change points in the rainfall data. After quality checks and homogeneity analysis, a total of 27 rain gauge locations were considered for trend analysis. A serial correlation test was applied to all the time series to identify serially independent series. Non-Parametric Mann-Kendall test and Spearman’s rank correlation tests were applied to serially independent series. The magnitude of the trend was calculated using Sen’s slope method. For the data influenced by serial correlation, various modified versions of Mann-Kendall tests (Pre-Whitening, Trend Free Pre-Whitening, Bias Corrected Pre-Whitening and two variants of Variance Correction Approaches) were applied. A significant increasing summer rainfall trend is observed in 6 out of 27 stations. Significant decreasing trends are observed at two stations in the south-west monsoon season and at two stations in the north-east monsoon season. To identify the trend change-points in the time series, distribution-free Cumulative SUM test and sequential Mann-Kendall tests were applied. Two open-source library packages were developed in R language namely, ‘modifiedmk’ and ‘trendchange’ to implement the statistical tests mentioned in this paper. The study will benefit water resource management, drought mitigation, socio-economic development and sustainable agricultural planning in the region.

The structures of recently discovered primarolides A and B suggest their non-enzymatic formation from a common 2-formylbenzophenone precursor. This hypothesis is based on the experimentally proven facile conversion of pestalone (also a 2-formyl-benzophenone) either into the isomeric lactone pestalalactone or the structurally related isoindolinone pestalachloride A. In a related fashion, the racemic isoindolinone natural product mariline A is supposed to biosynthetically originate from the corresponding keto-aldehyde and an aniline, as experimentally supported by model studies. Due to the close structural relationship with known systems, it appears highly probable that primarolides A and B were generated under the fermentation conditions from a massarinin-related 2-formylbenzophenone (proprimarolide) by reaction either with aniline or a nucleophilic catalyst, respectively. Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), used as an additive during the fermentation, is supposed to act both as a source of aniline and as a nucleophilic catalyst.

Management of multiple primary cancers, a not so infrequent event in oncology practice, is a critical issue due to the lack of literature . In this study, we reported the case of a patient with metachronous double metastatic non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) who received gefitinib in combination with gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel and with mFOLFOX6 in first and second line, respectively. She achieved a progression free survival and an overall survival (OS) of 28 months for NSCLC and PFS-1 and OS of 20 and 13 months, respectively for PDAC. Moreover, the combination of gefitinib and chemotherapies treatments displayed a good safety profile. Given the insignificant frequency of this case, we performed a molecular characterization of both neoplasms with the aim to investigate the existence of particular activated pathways and/or similar immunological mutations. it is interesting to note that two neoplasms shared a commune mutation of B7-H3 gene, with the consecutive impairment of its expressed protein. In both PDAC and NSCLC, the expression of this protein was associated with a worse survival. Since B7-H3 is an anti-apoptotic protein, the reduction of its expression or function should justify a pro-apoptotic activity with a putative justification of the long survival of the patient considered in this report.

Gastroenteritis cases associated with non-toxigenic strains of Vibrio parahaemolyticus have been reported in many countries, suggesting the contribution of novel virulence factors. One candidate is zonula occludens toxin (Zot), which increases the intestinal permeability by other bacteria. Recently we identified prophages belonging to the Inoviridae family encoding putative Zot-like toxins in Chilean strains. Based on this information we performed sequence-based analyses of these toxins, followed by phylogenetic and structural analyses using computational tools. Our results showed that Zots found in Chilean V. parahaemolyticus strains are grouped into three different phylogenetic clusters, sharing two conserved motifs (Walker A and B) in their N-terminal region. These motifs are also conserved in Zots from the human pathogens Vibrio cholerae, Neisseria meningitidis and Campylobacter concisus. Although Zots of V. parahaemolyticus do not possess the FCIGRL sequence responsible for the effects produced by V. cholerae, they do possess a conserved secondary structure within their C-terminal region with Zots proteins able to disrupt the intestinal barrier, which is interesting since it has been suggested that the structure and not the Zot sequence would be responsible for the biological effects. This preliminary study provides the basis to study the function of Zots found in V. parahaemolyticus on the intestinal barrier and their possible role as a virulence factor.

Non-destructive testing of metallic objects that may contain embedded defects of different sizes is an important application in many industrial branches for quality control. Most of these techniques allow defect detection and its approximate localization, but very few give enough information for its 3D reconstruction. Here we present a hybrid laser – transducer system that combines remote laser-generated ultrasound excitation and non-contact ultrasonic transducer detection. This fully non-contact method gives access to separating scan areas on different object’s faces and defect details from different angles/perspectives can be analysed. This hybrid system can analyse the whole object’s volume data and allow a 3D reconstruction image of the embedded defects. As a novelty for the signal processing improvement, we use a 2D apodization window filtering technique, applied along with the synthetic aperture focusing algorithm in order to remove the undesired effects of side lobes and wide-angle reflections of propagating ultrasound waves, thus, enhancing the resulting 3D image of the defect. We provide both qualitative and quantitative volumetric results with high accuracy and resolution compared with conventional techniques.

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.

Among the most important variables in the design of falling film microreactors (FFMRs) is the liquid film thickness as well as the gas/liquid interfacial area, which dictate the mass and heat transfer rates. In a previous work conducted in our lab the characteristics of a free-falling Newtonian liquid film have been studied and appropriate correlations have been proposed. In this work the geometrical characteristics of a non-Newtonian shear thinning liquid, flowing in an inclined open microchannel, have been experimentally investigated and design correlations that can predict with reasonable accuracy the features of a FFMR have been proposed. The test section used was an open μ-channel with square cross section (Wo=1200 μm) made of brass which can be set to various inclination angles. The liquid film characteristics were measured by a non-intrusive technique that is based on the features of a μ-PIV system. Relevant CFD simulations revealed that the volume average dynamic viscosity over the flow domain is practically the same as the corresponding asymptotic viscosity value, which can thus be used in proposed the design equations. Finally, a generalized algorithm for the design of FFMRs, containing non-Newtonian shear thinning liquids, is suggested.

Fault line detection timely and accurately when single-phase-to-earth fault occurs in resonant grounding system is still a focus of research. This paper presents a new approach for fault detection based on data fusion and it has non-artificial setting. Firstly, the fault criterion for interphase difference energy ratio and time-frequency correlation coefficient of each line is proposed. Subsequently, the paper establish a coordinate system with the interphase difference energy ratio as X axis and the time-frequency correlation coefficient as Y axis, and it uses the Euclidean distance algorithm to get the characteristic distance of each line by fusing two-dimensional information. Finally, comparing the sound distance and the fault distance of each line to discriminate the fault line. Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP) simulation results and adaptability analysis have confirmed the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed scheme.

Water soluble polymers have gained an increasing interest in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, especially as polymer flooding. Despite the fact that the flow of polymer in porous medium has been a research subject for many decades with numerous publications, there are still some research areas that need progress. The prediction of polymer injectivity remains elusive. Polymers with similar shear viscosity might have different in-situ rheological behaviors and may be exposed to different extent of mechanical degradation. Hence, determining polymer in-situ rheological behavior is of great significance for defining its utility. In this study, an investigation of rheological properties and mechanical degradation of different HPAM (partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide) polymers was performed using Bentheimer sandstone outcrop cores. Results show that, HPAM in-situ rheology is different from bulk rheology measured in rheometer. Specifically, shear thickening behavior occurs at high rates, and near-Newtonian behavior is measured at low rates in porous media. This deviates strongly from measurements in the rheometer. Polymer molecular weight and concentration influence its viscoelasticity and subsequently its flow characteristics in porous media. Exposure to mechanical degradation by flow at high rate through porous media leads to significant reduction in shear thickening and thereby improved injectivity. More importantly, the degraded polymer maintained in-situ viscosity at low flow rates indicating that improved injectivity can be achieved without compromising viscosity at reservoir flow rates. This is explained by reduction in viscoelasticity. Mechanical degradation also leads to reduced residual resistance factor (RRF), especially for high polymer concentrations. For some of the polymer injections, successive degradation (increased degradation with transport length in porous media) was observed. The results presented here may be used to optimize polymer injectivity.

The commitment of the EU to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is projected in the EU law about annual reporting by businesses. Since EU member states further develop this framework by their own domestic laws, annual reporting with CSR information is not unified and just partially mandatory in the EU. Do all European businesses report CSR information and what public declaration to society do they provide with it? The main dual purpose of this paper is identifying the parameters of this annual reporting duty and studying the CSR information provided by the ten largest Czech companies in their annual statements for 2013-2017. Based on legislative research and the teleological interpretation, the current EU legislative framework with Czech particularities is presented and, via a case study exploring 50 annual reports, the data about the type, extent and depth of the CSR is dynamically and comparatively assessed. It appears that, at a minimum, large Czech businesses satisfy their legal duty and e-report on CSR in a similar extent, but in dramatically different quality. Employee matters and adherence to international standards are used as a public declaration to society more than the data on environmental protection, while social matters and R&D are played down.

Vegetation has a significant influence on velocity distribution and turbulent energy in a confluence channel. A laboratory measurement with ADV was used to investigate the flow through a Y-shaped confluence channel partially covered with rigid vegetation on its inner bank. In this study, the flow velocities in cases with and without vegetation were measured by the ADV in a Y-shaped confluence channel. The results clearly show that the existence of non-submerged rigid plants has changed the internal flow structure, that the velocity in the non-vegetated area is greater than in the vegetated area, and that there is a large exchange of mass and momentum between the vegetated and non-vegetated areas. The velocity on both sides is significantly reduced when vegetation is present. In the vicinity of tributaries, due to the presence of vegetation, the high-velocity area moved rapidly to the middle of the non-vegetated area, and the secondary flow phenomenon disappeared. In the mainstream, when vegetation was present, circulation disappeared, and the degree of lateral mixing decreased. The presence of vegetation caused a great change in the internal flow structure and made the flow in non-vegetated areas more intense.

Vibration measurement serves as the basis for various engineering practices such as natural frequency or resonant frequency estimation. As image acquisition devices become cheaper and faster, vibration measurement and frequency estimation through image sequence analysis continue to receive increasing attention. In the conventional photogrammetry and optical methods of frequency measurement, vibration signals are first extracted before implementing the vibration frequency analysis algorithm. In this work, we demonstrated that frequency prediction can be achieved using a single feed-forward convolutional neural network. The proposed method is verified using a vibration signal generator and excitation system, and the result obtained was compared with that of an industrial contact vibrometer in a real application. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve acceptable prediction accuracy even in unfavorable field conditions.

Sumudu transform of the Dixon elliptic function with non zero modulus a ≠ 0 for arbitrary powers sm^N(x,a) ; N ≥ 1 ; sm^N(x,a)cm(x,a) ; N ≥ 0 and sm^N(x,a)cm²(x,a) ; N ≥ 0 is given by product of Quasi C fractions. Next by assuming denominators of Quasi C fraction to 1 and hence applying Heliermann correspondance relating formal power series (Maclaurin series of Dixon elliptic functions) and regular C fraction, Hankel determinants are calculated and showed by taking a = 0 gives the Hankel determinants of regular C fraction. The derived results were back tracked to the Laplace transform of sm(x,a) ; cm(x,a) and sm(x,a)cm(x,a).

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is one of the more serious consequences of urbanization resulting in impacts on thermal comfort levels, heat stress, and even mortality. For Municipal Beirut, implementation of “cool” surface materials and green spaces have been recommended to counterbalance the UHI. This paper builds on previous findings on the topic of non-constructible parcels within the district of Bachoura in Municipal Beirut and examines the possibility of implementing “cool” surface or paving materials and urban vegetation which can improve thermal conditions especially during the summer period and with the viewto project the positive findings of this case study to the entire Municipal Beirut area. A numerical analysis using ENVI-met 4.0 investigates the thermal performance of these non-constructibles further to implementation of high reflective surfaces and urban vegetation within a broad neighborhood scale in Bachoura. Results show reductions in ambient temperatures up to 1K on a summer day.. Within the framework of an integrated approach to planning, this form of urban acupuncture aims for substantial UHI reduction. Energy performance of buildings further to implementation of these mitigation measures is also recommended for future studies and to validate the findings in this paper.

We estimated the daily intakes of chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin via ingestion of indoor dust and outdoor soils using the Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation Model on a probabilistic approach for Taiwan’s homes. Variable information for the daily intake estimation, such as concentration, ingestion rate, body weight, was adopted from previous studies. Monte Carlo simulation was performed with 1,000,000 iterations to simulate a single daily intake, which was shown in terms of percentage of the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of either insecticide. The daily intakes were minimal with a 99% probability; at 99.9th percentile, however, the total intakes leaped to 13.1% and 20.0% of the respective ADIs of chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin. The sensitivity analysis indicated that concentration was the most determinant variable. Compared to the data of daily intakes via dietary ingestion of vegetables derived from a previous study, the estimated intakes by this study were considerable at the highest percentile, which referred to insecticide residues few days after insecticide application. Consequently, the non-dietary ingestion exposure to either insecticide was negligible in most cases; nevertheless, for those with indoor insecticide applications, the daily intakes for young children could be of concern. Frequently home cleaning is recommended to reduce the exposure.

Atherosclerosis (ATH) and Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) are chronic inflammatory diseases with an important genetic background which derive from the cumulative effect of multiple common risk alleles, most of them located in genomic non-coding regions. These complex diseases behave as non-linear dynamical systems that show a high dependence on their initial conditions, so that long-term predictions of disease progression are unreliable. One likely possibility is that the non-linear nature of ATH could be dependent on non-linear correlations in the structure of the human genome. In this review we show how Chaos theory analysis highlighted genomic regions that shared specific structural constraints that could have a role in ATH progression. These regions were shown to be enriched in repetitive sequences of the Alu family, genomic parasites which colonized the human genome, which show a particular secondary structure and have been involved in the regulation of gene expression. We also review the impact of Alu elements on the mechanisms that regulate gene expression, especially highlighting the molecular mechanisms by which the Alu elements could alter the inflammatory homeostasis. We devise especial attention to their relationship with the lncRNA ANRIL, the strongest risk factor for ATH, their role as miRNA sponges, and their ability to interfere with the regulatory circuitry of the NF-kB response. We aim to characterize ATH as a non-linear dynamic system in which small initial alterations in the expression of a number of repetitive elements are somehow amplified to reach phenotypic significance.

This paper builds upon a theory of emerging-state actors using ISIS as a case study. This paper seeks to apply the theory in analyzing intervention & containment policies to use against emerging-state actors, using ISIS as the case study. Two baseline scenarios are used for evaluation – one replicating the historical foreign intervention against ISIS and a counter-factual where no foreign intervention occurred. Eleven contemporary military policies were tested against these baseline in isolation, combination, at different timing windows and under hypothetical “best case” conditions as well as operationally constrained. Insights of these tests include the influence of ethnographic envelopes, timing windows. Finally, a policy based on emerging-state actor theory is tested performing substantially better across primary measures than other policies or the historical baseline. This is compared against a falsified-policy designed to disprove that emerging-state actor theory contributed to the benefits. This paper’s contributions are a practical application of system dynamics simulations and systems-thinking to current problems, generate insights into the dynamics of emerging-state actors and intervention strategies, and demonstrate utility for future application of the underlying simulation in other scenarios involving non-state actor irregular conflict including terrorism, insurgents, or emerging-state actors.

Predicting the growth response of seedlings from the environmental responses of photosynthesis and metabolism may be improved by considering the dynamics of non-structural carbohydrate, NSC, over a diurnal cycle. Attenuation of growth metabolism when NSC content is low could explain why some NSC is conserved through the night. A dynamic model, incorporating diurnal variation in NSC, was developed to simulate growth of seedlings hour-by-hour. I compared predictions of this model to published growth and NSC data for seedlings that varied according to temperature, light, day length, or CO₂. Prolonged-darkness experiments showed a temperature dependent upper limit on the respiration capacity. Respiration was attenuated as NSC was depleted. Furthermore, when NSC was high at dawn, inhibition of photosynthesis could attenuate the accumulation of NSC under low temperature, or high light, or high CO₂. These concepts were used to simulate plant metabolism and growth rates and diurnal variation of NSC in tomato seedlings under two light levels and various temperatures. Comparison of other results using the same model parameters showed the dynamic model could predict results for starch and starch-less plants, and when growth was affected by CO₂ enrichment and day length.

The mitigation of NLOS (non-line-of-sight) propagation conditions is one of main challenges in wireless signals based indoor localization. When RFID localization technology is applied in applications, RSS fluctuates frequently due to the shade and multipath effect of RF signal, which could result in localization inaccuracy. In particularly, when tags carriers are walking in LOS (line-of-sight) and NLOS hybrid environment, great attenuation of RSS will happen, which would result in great location deviation. The paper proposes an IMU-assisted (Inertial Measurement Unit) RFID based indoor localization in LOS/NLOS hybrid environment. The proposed method includes three improvements over previous RSS based positioning methods: IMU aided RSS filtering, IMU aided LOS/NLOS distinguishing and IMU aided LOS/NLOS environment switching. Also, CRLB (Cramér-Rao Low Bound) is calculated to prove theoretically that indoor positioning accuracy for proposed method in LOS/NLOS mixed environment is higher than position precision of only use RSS information. Simulation and experiments are conducted to show that proposed method can reduce the mean positioning error to around 3 meters without site survey.

The Directive 2014/95, in force in 2017, is the first European step that requires mandatory non-financial information to undertakings (all “public interest entities” with more than 500 employees). The regulation is concerning sustainability information as environmental, social and employee, human rights and anti-corruption and bribery matters and disclosure of diversity policy for board members. The study, in the strand of the regulation of accounting, part of the broader field of research into accounting regulation, contributes to the debate on the quality of regulation, in this specific case referred to sustainability disclosure. The regulation of sustainability matters is studied in literature broadly in a post-implementation phase and at national level. This research, instead, aims to analyse, through the causal chain of regulatory policy, in the ex-ante stage, the quality of the regulation and, at least, the usefulness of the normative pressure. The Oil & Gas sector is chosen as sample of the study, because it is one of the most advanced sectors in sustainability disclosure. The examination of the law, in terms of content requirements (what) and location of information (where), is the basis to apply the disclosure-scoring system, a partial form of content analysis, to the reports of the sample. The findings reveal a good level of completeness of non-financial information, however, there are some areas that have to be improved to reach the requests of the Directive. Results show also the presence of overlap between financial reports and sustainability ones. In conclusion, the regulation is useful to prompt undertakings to reflect on their reporting and so doing improve their sustainability approach.

Forest community connections are crucial to ensure forest stewardship and sustainability. We explored the potential of mushrooming to enable such connections in contexts where these connections have been historically broken, alienating local people from forests. Taking the case of the recent devolution of a community forest (baldios) in central Portugal to the local population, we present a five-year pilot project to rework mycology from a mushroom-centered approach to a mushroom-in-baldios approach. Mushrooms were used as an entry-point to connect the forest ecology with the challenges of governance and community building. The devised activities provided an opportunity for people inside and outside the local community to adventure into the woods and find out more about their socio-ecological history, develop communal and convivial relationships and engage in the responsible gathering of wild mushrooms. However, the hosting of mushroomers to know, value and engage with the community forest recovery has constantly working against the enclosure of mushrooms to provide marketable forms of leisure. The outcome of these activities depends on the relationships established between mushrooms, mycologists, local administrators, commoners and poachers, all operating within a framework that favors the eradication of resources instead of long-term relationships that sustain places.

This review paper aims to understand the current processing plant maintenance systems and further identify on-stream phased array corrosion mapping (PACM) to reduce turnaround maintenance (TAM) activity during plant operations. Reducing the TAM duration and extending the TAM interval are common goals of most researchers. Thus, a detailed review was performed to understand the maintenance systems and the problems faced. Furthermore, a review of the current PACM application and the possibility of applying it during on-stream inspection was also per-formed. PACM has better detectability for localized corrosion, and the results can be obtained for a range of thicknesses, which is the main advantage of this method. The challenge is to apply it to a surface with high temperatures, owing to the greater probe contact and the limitation of ultrasonic properties. This literature review provides a more precise direction for future research to evaluate PACM on piping that can be utilized in inspection during plant operation at elevated temperatures. Detecting and monitoring corrosion growth without shutdown.

Exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) from cancer cells play a key role in mediating the oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) microenvironment. The objective aimed to investigate how long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) MEG3 affects OSCC angiogenesis through exosomal miR-421. Global miRNA microarray analysis and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) were performed to determine the level of miRNAs in OSCC cells-derived exosomes. Cell migration, invasion, tube formation, immunohistochemistry and hemoglobin concentration were used to study the effects of exosomal miR-421 in angiogenesis. Western blotting was used to determine the expression level of HS2ST1 and VEGFR2-related downstream proteins. MiRNA array and qRT-PCR identified upregulation of miR-421 in OSCC cell-derived exosomes. Furthermore, exosome-miR-421 can be taken up by human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and then targets HS2ST1 through VEGF-mediated ERK and AKT phosphorylation, thereby promoting HUVEC migration, invasion, and tube formation. Additionally, enforced expression of lncRNA MEG3 in OSCC cells reduced exosomal miR-421 levels and then increased HS2ST1 expression, thereby reducing the VEGF/VEGFR2 pathway in HUVEC. Our results demonstrate a novel mechanism by which lncRNA MEG3 can act as a tumor suppressor and regulate endothelial angiogenesis through the exosomal miR-421/HS2ST1 axis, which provides a potential therapeutic strategy for OSCC angiogenesis.

Aims: This study aimed at examining coach-athlete violence based on the retrospective reports of adults who had been athletes as children and adolescents; predict variables that contribute to the existence of such violence; describe difficulties that the participants encountered as young athletes following such violence; and reveal the outcomes of such violence on their emotions and behaviors, in the past and present. Methodology: The applied mixed-methods comprised quantitative self-reporting questionnaires and qualitative interviews. The former included 440 participants (mean age 27.6) who had trained for at least one year in a sports union youth department; the latter included 14 participants (aged 23-37). These competitive athletes came from eight branches of sports. The interviews were analyzed based on the Narrative Approach. Results: According to the quantitative study, all participants had experienced coach violence at least once during their career, mainly psychological violence and neglect, followed by physical violence. Sexual violence was least reported. The age of their retirement from sports and the number of coaches that they had had were significant predictors of violence. Thematic analysis of the qualitative interviews resulted in six types of coach-athlete violence: (1) psychological violence; (2) verbal violence; (3) starvation and food fattening; (4) non-proportional punishing; (5) physical violence; and (6) sexual violence. Conclusions: It is vital that coach-athlete violence is addressed in public discourse, that the topic of of young athletes’ safety is introduced into coaching education, and that a position holder is nominated to be in charge of such safety in all sports organizations.

Food-borne transmission is a recognized route for many viruses associated with gastrointestinal, hepatic or neurological diseases. Therefore, it is essential to identify new bioactive compounds with broad-spectrum antiviral activity is needed to exploit innovative solutions against these hazards. Lately, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been recognized as promising antiviral agents. Indeed, while the antibacterial and antifungal effects of these molecules have been widely reported, their use as potential antiviral agents has not yet been fully investigated. Herein, the antiviral activity of previously identified or newly designed AMPs, was evaluated against the non-enveloped RNA viruses, Hepatitis A virus (HAV), and Murine Norovirus (MNV), a surrogate for human Norovirus. Moreover, specific assays were performed to recognize at which stage of the viral infection cycle the peptides could function. Results showed that almost all peptides displayed virucidal effects with about 90% of infectivity reduction on HAV or MNV. However, the decapeptide RiLK1 demonstrated, together with its antibacterial and antifungal properties, a notable reduction in viral infection for both HAV and MNV, possibly through direct interaction with viral particles or inhibition of the viral bonding to the cell receptors. Hence, RiLK1 could represent a versatile ‘antimicrobial agent effective against various foodborne pathogens including viruses, bacteria, and fungi.

Non-exhaust road transport emissions in cities contribute to poor air quality and create health impacts. This paper presents a new study of the emitted particles due to the tyres-road wear ‘TRWP’ in real driving and gives their emission factors EF. The most frequently observed particles were &lt;1 µm; followed by particles size between [1µm, 4µm] for urban, suburban and highway areas. These particle sizes are well-known to have a higher degree of toxicity. An overall analysis of all the measured pollutants gave EF equal to 30 10+12 #/km and 35 10+12 #/km, respectively for urban and sub-urban areas; and 5 10+12 #/km on highway. The analysis of the 19 most emitted pollutants, taken individually, showed that their EFs ranged from 0.003 to 18.142 10+12#/km. The obtained EF are above the value of the Euro standard for vehicles, but are below the values for vehicles unequipped with a particle filter. Significant test analysis confirmed that inertia of chemical pollutants is homogeneous. EF assessment of the PM10 and PM2.5 emitted is equal to 1.45 mg/km and 0.35 mg/km respectively. These results should contribute to the emergence of future regulations of non-exhaust emissions and should help to analyse the exposure-impact relationship to TRWP.

Single-phase-to-ground fault in non-effectively grounded systems poses serious public safety concern. Along with increasing deployment of low-voltage (LV) sensors, new opportunities and ways are created for solving this traditional problem in distribution systems. A new approach, identifying primary single-phase-to-ground line fault and locating it through measurement data from smart sensors deployed in the secondary side of distribution transformers, is proposed in this paper. When a fault occurs in primary distribution feeder, the transient aerial mode voltage (AMV) of each LV smart sensor is calculated. The fault line can be identified by an abrupt change value of AMV at LV side. Next, by finding the position of the maximum value of this AMV from LV sensors on the fault line, the fault location can be pinpointed to two neighboring distribution transformers. The proposed method has been proven to be efficient and reliable by simulation studies.

By this contribution we would like to briefly highlight the problems in conceiving the “Hydrogen Bond” (HB) as a real short-range, directional, electrostatic, attractive interaction and to reframe its nature through the non-approximated view of condensed matter offered by a Quantum Electro-Dynamic (QED) perspective. We focus our attention on water, as the paramount case to show the effectiveness of this 40-years’ old theoretical background, which depicts water as a two-fluid system (where one of the two phases is coherent). The HB emerge to be the result of the electromagnetic field gradient in the coherent phase of water, whose vacuum level is lower than the non-coherent (gas-like) fraction. Thus, the HB can be properly looked at, i.e. no more as a “dipolar force” among molecules, but as the phenomenological effect of their collective thermodynamic tendency to occupy a lower ground-state, compatibly with temperature and pressure. This perspective allows to account for many “anomalous” behaviours of water and to understand why the calculated energy associated to HB should change when considering two molecules (water-dimer), or the liquid state, or the several kinds of ice. The emergence of a condensed, liquid, phase at room temperature is indeed the consequence of the boson condensation as described in the framework of spontaneous symmetry breakings (SSB). The switch from a still semi-classical Quantum Mechanical (QM) in the 1st quantization to a Quantum Field Theory (QFT) view embedded in the 2nd quantization is advocated for a more realistic and authentic description of water, condensed matter and living systems.

The design of thin-walled structures is commonly based on the solutions of linear boundary-valued problems, formulated within well-developed theories for elastic plates and shells. However, in modern appliances, especially in MEMS design, it is necessary to take into account non-linear mechanical effects that become decisive for flexible elements. Among substantial non-linear effects, that significantly change the deformation properties of thin plates, are the effects of residual stresses caused by incompatibility of deformations, which inevitably arise during the manufacture of ultra-thin elements. The development of new methods of mathematical modeling of residual stresses and incompatible finite deformations in plates is the subject of the paper. To this end the local unloading hypothesis is used. It makes possible to define smooth fields of local deformations (inverse implant field) for the mathematical formalization of incompatibility. The main outcomes are field equations, natural boundary conditions and conservation laws, derived from least action principle and variational symmetries with account of implant field. The derivations were carried out in the framework of elasticity theory for simple materials and, over and above, within the Cosserat’s theory of a two-dimensional continuum. As illustrative examples the distributions of incompatible deformations in a circular plate are considered.

Autophagy was initially recognized as a bulk degradation process that randomly sequesters and degrades cytoplasmic material in lysosomes (vacuoles in yeast). In recent years, various selective autophagy pathways have been discovered. Glycophagy, the selective autophagy of glycogen granules, is one of them. It is an important contributor to Pompe disease, a type of lysosomal storage disorder with lysosomal accumulation of glycogen. Here, we developed the Komagataella phaffii yeast as a simple model of glycogen autophagy under nitrogen starvation conditions. For this, we turned the self-glucosylating initiator of glycogen synthesis, Glg1, which is covalently bound to glycogen, into the Glg1-GFP autophagic reporter. Our results revealed that vacuolar delivery of Glg1-GFP and its processing to free GFP were strictly dependent on autophagic machinery and vacuolar proteolysis. Notably, this process was independent of Atg11, the scaffold protein common for many selective autophagy pathways. Importantly, the non-mutated Glg1-GFP (which synthesizes and marks glycogen) and mutated Glg1Y212F-GFP (which does not synthesize glycogen and is degraded by non-selective autophagy as cytosolic Pgk1-GFP) were equally well delivered to the vacuole and had similar levels of released GFP. Therefore, we concluded that glycogen autophagy is a non-selective process in K. phaffii yeast under nitrogen starvation conditions.

The MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov) Florian Goebel telescopes are a system of two Cherenkov telescopes located on the Canary island of La Palma (Spain), at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, and operating in stereo mode since 2009. Their low energy threshold (reaching 15 GeV) allows the study of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) in the very-high-energy gamma ray range with an impressive sensitivity up to the redshift limit of the existing IACT systems. MAGIC has collected many discoveries and comprehensive studies of different kinds of galaxies and their AGNs, also in a multi-wavelength context, expanding the knowledge of our Universe. Here we report the highlights which have been achieved by the MAGIC collaboration since the beginning of the operations.

The ultimate analysis parameters including carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), and oxygen (O) content in biomass was rarely found to be predicted by nondestructive tests until to date. In this research, we developed partial least squares regression (PLSR) models to predict the ultimate analysis parameters of chip biomass using near infrared (NIR) raw spectra of non-wood and wood samples from fast growing tree and agricultural residue and nine different traditional spectral preprocessing techniques. These techniques include first derivative (sd1), second derivative (sd2), constant offset, standard normal variate (SNV), multiplicative scatter correction (MSC), vector normalization, min-max normalization, mean centering, sd1 + vector normalization, and sd1 + MSC. Additionally, we employed a genetic algorithm (GA), successive projection algorithm (SPA), multi-preprocessing (MP) 5−range, and MP 3−range to develop a PLSR model for rapid prediction. A dataset consisting of 120 chip biomass samples was utilized for model development in which the samples was non-wood samples of 65-67% and wood samples was 33-35%, and the model performance were evaluated and compared. The selection of the optimum performing model was mainly based on criteria such as the coefficient of determination in the prediction set (R2P), root mean square error of the prediction set (RMSEP), and the ratio of prediction to deviation values (RPD). The optimal model for weight percentage (wt.%) of C was obtained using GA−PLSR, yielding R2P, RMSEP, and RPD values of 0.6954, 1.1252 wt.%, and 1.8, respectively. Similarly, for wt.% of O, the most effective model was obtained using the multi-preprocessing PLSR−5 range method with R2P of 0.7150, RMSEP of 1.3088 wt.%, and RPD of 1.9. For wt.% of N, the optimal model was obtained using the MP PLSR−3 range method, resulting in R2P, RMSEP, and RPD values of 0.6073, 0.1008 wt.%, and 1.6, respectively. However, wt.% of H model provided R2P, RMSEP, and RPD values of 0.5162, 0.2322 wt.%, and 1.5, respectively. Notably, the limit of quantification (LOQ) values for C, H, and O were lower than the minimum reference values used during model development, indicating a high level of sensitivity. However, the LOQ for N, exceeded the minimum reference value, implying the samples to be predicted by the model must be in the range of reference range in calibration set. By scatter plot analysis, the effect of combined non-wood and wood spectra of biomass chips on rapid prediction of ultimate analysis parameters using NIR spectroscopy was investigated. To include different species in a model, the species have to be not only in the different values of the constituents to make a wider range for robust model but also they must provide their trend line characteristics in the scatter plot i.e. correlation coefficient (R), slope and intercept (same slope and slope approached to 1 and intercept is same (no gap) and approached zero, high R approached to 1). The effect of the R, slope and intercept to obtain the better optimized model were studied. The results show that the different species affected model performance of each parameter prediction in a different manner and by scatter plot analysis which of these species were affecting the model negatively and how the model could be improved was indicated. This is the first time of the effect is studied by the principle of scatter plot.

Musculoskeletal infections (MIs) are among the most difficult-to-treat staphylococcal diseases. The limited availability of effective antibiotics has encouraged the development of innovative strategies such as combinatory therapy to combat MI. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro antistaphylococcal activity of anti-inflammatory and the antimicrobial combinatory effect of celecoxib with oxacillin. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 17 anti-inflammatory drugs were determined for standard strains and clinical isolates of S. aureus strains, counting methicillin-resistant strains (MRSA), by the broth microdilution method. The fractional inhibitory concentration indices (FICIs) were evaluated by the checkerboard assays. Celecoxib produced the most potent antistaphylococcal effect against all the tested strains (MIC ranging from 32 to 64 mg/mL), followed by diacerein against MRSA3 and MRSA ATCC 33592 (MIC 64 mg/mL). Several synergistic effects were observed for tested S. aureus strains, including MRSA (FICI ranging from 0.087 to 0.471). The strongest synergistic interaction (FICI 0.087) was obtained against MRSA ATCC 33592 at a celecoxib concentration of 2 mg/mL with a 19-fold oxacillin MIC reduction (from 512 to 26.888 mg/mL). This is the first report on the antistaphylococcal combinatory effect of celecoxib with oxacillin. Our findings suggest celecoxib and its combination with oxacillin as perspective agents for research focused on the development of novel therapies for MI caused by S. aureus. Thus, this study presents novel findings that celecoxib could, in some cases, resensitise MRSA strains to become susceptible to certain β-lactams (e.g., oxacillin) not previously tested.

In this paper, existence and stability results of non-local integro-differential equation with Hilfer derivative of order ω∈(1,2) have been investigated. In this derivative is applied in RLC circuit equation of various fractional order. To proposed problem the existence solutions are derived using Schaefer’s fixed point theorem and the Banach contraction principle is using for uniqueness results. To demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of our theoretical conclusions and two-step Lagrange polynomial interpolation were used to solve four numerical results.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine measures on children and adolescents’ hospitalization psychiatric has been poorly studied, especially in Italy, the first European country to adopt social restrictions. To fill this gap, this retrospective study examined changes in admissions to our child and adolescent psychiatry ward from the emergency department during the two COVID-19 quarantine periods in Italy (March to June 2020; October 2020 to January 2021) compared with two reference periods (defined as 12 months prior to the respective quarantine periods). Specifically, we examined data on the number of inpatients and the distribution of psychopathological disorders (i.e., psychosis, mood disorder) and self-injurious behaviors. The results revealed significantly fewer admissions during the first quarantine period relative to the first reference period and, conversely, significantly more admissions during the second quarantine period relative to the second reference period. Of note, the results showed an increased frequency of mood disorders, non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors and suicidal ideation during the quarantine periods, compared to the reference periods. The findings underline the need to focus on the psychopathological profile of children and adolescents with patient-tailored therapeutic interventions and suggest the importance of developing psychological healthcare services for future emergency periods..

This paper proposes a non-extensive entropy econometric technique to predict energy efficiency at province (NUT-2) level based on imperfect knowledge of the national overall efficiency in the sectors of industry, transport, households and services. The model is applied to the polish case. As acknowledged in recent literature, non-extensive entropy model should remain a valuable device for econometric modelling even in the case of low frequency series since outputs provided by the Gibbs-Shannon entropy approach correspond to the Tsallis entropy limiting case of the Gaussian law when the Tsallis q-parameter converges to unity. Therefore, we set up a q-Tsallis-Kullback-Leibler entropy criterion function with a priori consistency moment and model data constraints, including province energy intensity (known with uncertainty), regional climate differentiation and regular conditions. The model outputs continue to conform to empirical expectations. In spite of the close to unity q-Tsallis parameter, this Tsallis related approach reflects higher stability for parameter computation in comparison with the Shannon-Gibbs entropy econometrics technique. The proposed technique can be applied in different EU countries and elsewhere for example in the context of experimental official statistics.

Efficient thermal management of modern electronics requires the use of thin films with highly anisotropic thermal conductivity. Such films enable the effective dissipation of excess heat along one direction while simultaneously providing thermal insulation along the perpendicular direction. In this study, we investigate the thermal conductivity of bilayer graphene (BLG) sheets using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics, examining both in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities. The in-plane thermal conductivity of 10 nm × 10 nm BLG with zigzag and armchair edges at room temperature is found to be around 204 W/m.K and 124 W/m.K, respectively. The in-plane thermal conductivity of BLG increases with sheet length. For all sizes, BLG with a zigzag edge exhibits higher thermal conductivity than that of the armchair edge, with this difference becoming more pronounced as the lengths of the sheets increase. In addition, increasing temperature from 300 K to 600 K decreases the in-plane thermal conductivity of a 10 nm× 10 nm zigzag BLG by about 34%. Similarly, the application of a 12.5% tensile strain induces a 51% reduction in its thermal conductivity compared to the strain-free values. Armchair configurations exhibit similar responses to variations in temperature and strain, but with less sensitivity. Furthermore, the cross-plane thermal conductivity of BLG at 300 K is estimated to be 0.05 W/m·K, significantly lower than the in-plane results by approximately four orders of magnitude. The cross-plane thermal conductance of BLG decreases with increasing temperatures, specifically, at 600 K, its value is almost 16% of that observed at 300 K.

Device-mediated, non-invasive drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) represents a significant advancement in treating neurological diseases. The BBB is a tightly packed layer of endothelial cells that shields the brain from harmful substances in the blood, allowing necessary nutrients to pass through. It is a highly selective barrier, which poses a challenge to delivering therapeutic agents into the brain. Several non-invasive techniques and devices have been proposed or investigated to enhance drug delivery across the BBB. This paper presents the current state of the art and case studies that address the pharmacology, technology, delivery systems, regulatory approval, ethical concerns, and future possibilities.

In this work, we incorporate a thixotropic-viscoelastic model into the widely used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software OpenFOAM, along with the rheoTool library. The model we implement is known as the Modified-Bautista-Manero (MBM), and effectively describes the rheological behavior of worm-like micellar solutions in extensional flows. We provide a detailed explanation of the numerical implementation of the model, specifically using the log-conformation tensor approach. Unlike previous works focused on this kind of fluids, we simulate inertial flows while considering convective terms in the governing equations, thus obtaining a more realistic behavior on the calculated results. The MBM model implementation is validated through numerical simulations on two different industrial-relevant geometries: the planar 4:1 contraction and the 4:1:4 contraction-expansion configurations. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of inertial, viscoelastic, and thixotropic effects on various flow field variables. These variables include velocity, viscosity, normal stresses, and corner vortex size. Our analysis encompasses both transient and steady solutions of corner vortexes across a range of Deborah and Reynolds numbers. Our results are also directly compared with simulations obtained using the non-thixotropic rubber network-based exponential Phan-Thien-Tanner (EPTT) model. From our planar 4:1 contraction results, we found that vortex-enhancement is seen when high elasticity is coupled with quick structural reformation and very low inertial effects. From our planar 4:1:4 contraction-expansion simulations, we show that an increase in inertia leads both to vortex-inhibition in the upstream channel and slight vortex-enhancement in the downstream channel. Lastly, we show the strong effect of the convection of fluidity into the fluidity profiles and into the upstream/downstream corner vortex sizes.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of body weight gain during the cashmere non-growing period on cashmere production performance and secondary hair follicle activity, to provide a theoretical basis for appropriate supplementary feeding of cashmere goats. Fifty Inner Mongolian cashmere goats aged 2-4 years old were randomly selected and weighed in May and September 2019, respectively. Based on body weight gain between the two weights, the experi-mental ewe goats were divided into two groups: 0-5.0 kg group (n = 30) and 5.0-10.0 kg group (n = 20). Skin samples and cashmere samples were collected. Results of Pearson correlation analysis showed that body weight gain during the cashmere non-growing period had a moderate and strong positive correlation with cashmere yield (P = 0.021) and cashmere staple length (P = 0.002) respectively, but did not correlate with cashmere diameter (P = 0.254). Compared with cashmere goats with a body weight gain of 0-5.0 kg, cashmere goats with a body weight gain of 5.0-10.0 kg had a 17.10% increment in cashmere yield (P = 0.037), 8.09% increase in cashmere staple length (P=0.045) and had no significant difference in cashmere diameter (P = 0.324). Results of Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a strong positive correlation between body weight gain and the population of active secondary hair follicles in the skin of cashmere goats (P < 0.01). Compared with cashmere goats with a body weight gain of 0-5.0 kg, cashmere goats with a body weight gain of 5.0-10.0 kg had an increase in the population of active secondary hair follicles (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the body weight gain during the cashmere non-growing period had a sig-nificant effect on secondary hair follicle activity and cashmere production performance in cash-mere goats. Since body weight gain reflects nutritional level to a certain extent, this study suggests that nutritional manipulations such as supplementary feeding during cashmere non-growing periods can increase cashmere production performance. However, specific nutritional manipula-tions during the cashmere non-growing period need further research to increase cashmere pro-duction performance.

Myelodysplastic syndromes or neoplasms (MDS) are a heterogeneous group of myeloid clonal disorders characterized by peripheral blood cytopenias, blood and marrow cell dysplasia and an increased risk for evolution to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Non-coding RNAs, especially microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs serve as regulators of normal and malignant hematopoiesis and have been implicated in carcinogenesis. This review will present a comprehensive summary of the biology and role of non-coding RNAs, including the less studied circRNA, siRNA, piRNA, and snoRNA as potential prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers or therapeutic targets in MDS.

The vacuum preloading method effectively strengthens the soft soil foundations with vertical drainage, which will produce a smear effect when laying sand drains. Meanwhile, the seepage of pore water and soil deformation during consolidation exhibits nonlinear characteristics. Therefore, based on Gibson's 1D large strain consolidation theory, this paper developed a more generalized large strain radical consolidation model of sand-drained soft foundations under free strain assumption. In this system, the double logarithmic compression permeability relationships for soft soils with large strain properties, the variation of the radical permeability coefficient in the smear zone, and the effect of the non-Darcy flow were all included. Then, the partial differential control equations were numerically solved by the finite difference method and validated with existing radical consolidation test results and derived analytical solutions. Finally, the influences of relevant model parameters on consolidation are discussed. The analysis shows that the greater the maximum dimensionless vacuum negative pressure P0, the faster the consolidation rate of sand-drained foundations. Meanwhile, the decrease in the negative pressure transfer coefficient k1 will result in a decreasing final settlement amount. Moreover, the consolidation rate of sand-drained foundations is slower considering the non-Darcy flow, but the final settlement is unaffected.

Increasingly small, non-palpable testicular incidentalomas <1cm are discovered in the clinical practice. The ESUR Scrotal and Penile Imaging Working Group suggests active surveillance with US, and surgery only for nodules that grow. This approach, however, requires validation. A consecutive series of 127 incidentalomas were initially followed-up and operated if they were growing (n=28), or because of preference of the patient and of the referring urologist (n=11). For the lesions that were growing specific growth rate (SGR) and doubling time (DT) were calculated assuming an exponential grow. Also, the velocity of increase of the average diameter (∆Dav) and of the maximum diameter (∆Dmax) were calculated. Of the 127 nodules which were initially followed-up, 6 disappeared, 8 reduced in size, 85 were stable, and 28 increased in size. All 18 malignant tumours, 8/9 benign tumours, and 2/12 surgically proved non-neoplastic lesions were growing. The best cut-off values of the growth indicators to differentiate between malignant and non-malignant histology were 3.47x10-3 %volume/day, ≤179 days, >10x10-3 mm/day, and >5x10-3 mm/day for SGR, DT, ∆Dmax, ∆Dav, respectively. A conservative approach of non-growing small incidentalomas is safe. Malignant and non-malignant small incidentalomas can be effectively differentiated based on growing parameters, even though superimposition exists.

The advent of immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), improving the prognosis of this disease and becoming a key part of the treatment, especially in the population without an oncogenic driver mutation. Two different groups of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are used in lung cancer: Anti- Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (Anti-CTLA 4) and Anti- T-cell receptor programmed cell death-1 or its ligand (Anti-PD-1 and Anti PD-L1). Here in, we review an uptodate on the use of immunotherapy for advanced NSCLC.

The purpose of this study is to apply the convergence-confinement method (CCM) based on the assumption of hydrostatic stress to the surrounding rock excavated in a circular tunnel whose rock mass characteristics meet the requirements of the non-linear Hoek-Brown failure criterion. Based on a consistent and rigorous method of theoretical analysis, a closed-form analytical solution for the stress/displacement of the ground reaction induced by the advancing excavation of the tunnel, especially in the elastic and plastic regions, is derived and investigated under the condition of an isotropic stress state. By taking the value of a confinement loss as an explicit analysis process in an incremental manner, not only is the computationally executable analytical solution achieved, but it can also be performed using a simple spreadsheet. The validity of the analytical solution implemented by the incremental procedure was examined with published data to study the effect of nonlinear failure criteria on the ground reaction curve; in particular the mechanical behavior at the intrados of the tunnel, and the distribution of stress/displacement on the cross-section of the tunnel. A comparison between the published results and the solution proposed in this study, which interprets the closed-form by the incremental procedure, shows consistent and favorable trends.

Non-normal mode stability analysis has long been employed to study linear transient characteristics of wall bounded shear flows. However, the application of this approach to investigate shear flows with stratified thermal conditions (STCF) has received limited attention. This paper examines thermal effects on Taylor-Couette flow. The results in this study indicate the possibility of a subcritical bifurcation in stratified Taylor-Couette flow.

In this study, we propose a radiomics-clinical probability weighted model for the prediction of prognosis for NSCLC. The model combines radiomics features extracted from RT planning images with clinical factors such as age, gender, histology, and tumor stage. CT images with radiotherapy structures of 422 NSCLC patients were retrieved from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). Radiomic features were extracted from gross tumor volume (GTV). Five machine learning algorithms, namely decision trees (DT), random forests (RF), extreme boost (EB), support vector machine (SVM) and generalized linear model (GLM), were optimized by a voted ensemble machine learning (VEML) model. A probabilistic weighted approach is used to incorporate the uncertainty associated with both radiomic and clinical features and to generate a probabilistic risk score for each patient. The performance of the model is evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Radiomic model, clinical factors model and combined radiomic-clinical probability weighted model demonstrated good performance in predicting NSCLC survival with AUC of 0.941, 0.856 and 0.949 respectively. The combined radiomics-clinical probability weighted enhanced model achieved significantly better performance than radiomic model in 1-year survival prediction (chi-square test, p<0.05). The proposed model has the potential to improve NSCLC prognosis and facilitate personalized treatment decisions.

The classical Einstein’s Field Equation has been derived previously by demanding that the Clausius relation dS = δQ/T holds. In this letter, we show that the semiclassical Einstein’s Field Equation can be recovered using the generalized entropy Sgen by using the non-equilibrium thermodynamics where the Clausius relation is replaced by the entropy balance relation dS = δQ/T +diS, where diS is some internal entropy. Moreover, since the quantum fields violate the classical focusing, we, therefore, have to use quantum focusing in this case. Using then Jacobson’s idea of thermodynamics of spacetime we recover the semiclassical equation of motion. We, therefore, in a sense also show the validity of the semiclassical approximation, a crucial approach for establishing a number of important ideas such as the Hawking effect.

Older adults in low-and middle-income countries experience a disproportionate burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Unintentional injuries are among the major NCDs, and falls are the second leading cause of these injuries and deaths worldwide, including in Thailand. We aimed to culturally adapt the CDC’s Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI) for Thai older adults and explore the feasibility, appropriateness, and acceptability of using STEADI in primary care via trained community health workers (CHWs) and care managers (CMs). STEADI takes a coordinated care approach that consists of three steps: screening, assessing, and intervening. In Step a, CHWs screened fall risk in 20 community-dwelling older adults using three key questions and found that all of them had fall risk, then CHWs screened with a Stay Independent questionnaire (range 0-14) and found that 100% have high fall risk (total scores 9.7± 2.4). In Step b, CMs assessed balance, vision, footwear, postural hypotension, medications, and CHWs assessed home hazards. They found that 50% had poor balance, 70% took 4+ medications,75% fell on the walkway, and 70% had no bathroom modifications. In Step c, individual participants received fall prevention interventions to mitigate their specific fall risk factors. CHWs and CMs indicated high acceptability (19.20±.1.31 of 20 total), appropriateness (18.80± 1.79 of 20 total), and feasibility (18.60±1.67 of 20 total) of the Thai-STEADI intervention. Our study showed that the community-based multifactorial Thai-STEADI delivered by CHWs and CMs is feasible and acceptable to prevent falls in older adults with limited access to health care.

Currently, some non-conventional therapies (NCT), such as acupuncture, homeopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy, herbology, and Traditional Chinese Medicine are structured and well-regulated for a market of teaching and clinical practice in Portugal, among which acupuncture has become one of the most appealing and functional branches. Through investigation of acupuncture laws, field surveys, teaching work and interviews with people from NCT field in Portugal, we showed the current acupuncture education in Portugal and found that according to the academic norms and rules of education in Portugal, there is a gradual difficulty in the progression and maintenance of the degree training dynamics, due to the lack of more tolerant transitional measures and also, a timid commitment on the part of the institutions that embark on these complementary programs. Therefore, it will be necessary to promote additional programs and measures that avoid a total emptiness of the teaching of acupuncture and at the same time losses of clinicians, competencies and quality of information that are difficult to recover. It could be very meaningful and thought-provoking to the future development and improvement of acupuncture in Portugal and in other countries that welcome acupuncture and intend to have a better legislation and application.

Background. Oral anticoagulants (OACs) reduce stroke and systemic embolism (SE) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) but increase the risk of major bleeding (MB). No study has addressed the incidence and outcomes of bleeding in AF patients in the Middle East (ME). The Jordan AF study evaluated clinical profiles and one-year outcomes of AF patients who sustained bleeding events. Methods. Patients in 29 hospitals and clinics (May 2019 - December 2020) were enrolled and followed up for one year. Demographics and one-year events were compared in patients with or without bleeding. Results. Of 2018 patients enrolled; 166 patients sustained MB or clinically relevant non-major (CRNM) bleeding (8.2 events per 100 patient-years), including 47 patients who had MB (2.3 events per 100 patient-years). Compared with 1852 (91.8%) patients who did not have bleeding, patients with MB were older and had a higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus (DM), heart failure, and malignancy, More patients with MB than those with no bleeding were using OACs (93.6% vs. 78.9%, p=0.02). Patients with MB had significantly higher one-year rates of stroke/SE (23.4% vs. 3.6%, p<0.0001) and all-cause mortality (31.9% vs 11.6%, p=0.001). Independent predictors of MB were stroke/SE (OR 10.8, 95% CI 5.3-21.9, p<0.0001), malignancy (3.4, 1.3-8.5, p=0.01), use of OACs (4.4, 1.3-14.7, p=0.02) and DM (1.9, 1.0-3.5, p=0.04). Conclusions. MB and CRNM bleeding occurred in (≈8%) of patients with AF at one year. Patients with MB (≈2%) had worse baseline clinical profiles and one-year prognosis compared with those who did not have bleeding. Keywords: Atrial fibrillation; Major bleeding events; Clinically-relevant non-major bleeding; Oral anticoagulants; Middle Eastern population; Prognosis. Clinical studies registration: the study is registered on clinicaltrials.gov (unique identifier number NCT03917992).

Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a celebrated paradigm from the 90’s for understanding dynamical systems naturally driven to its critical point, where the power-law dynamics taking place make predictions practically impossible, such as in stock prices, earthquakes, pandemics and many other problems in science related to phase transitions. Shortly thereafter, it was realized that traffic flow might be in the SOC category, implying that conventional traffic management strategies seeking to maximize the local flows can become detrimental. This paper shows that the Kinematic Wave model with triangular fundamental diagram, and many other related traffic models, indeed exhibit SOC, thanks in part to the fractal nature of traffic exposed here on the one hand, and our need to get to our destinations as soon as possible, on the other hand. Important implications for congestion management of traffic near the critical region are discussed, such as: (i) Jam sizes obey a power-law distribution with exponent 1/2, implying that both its mean and variance become ill-defined and therefore impossible to estimate. (ii) Traffic in the critical region is chaotic in the sense that predictions becomes extremely sensitive to initial conditions. (iii) However, aggregate measures of performance such as delays and average speeds are not heavy tailed, and can be characterized exactly by different scalings of the Airy distribution, (iv) Traffic state time-space “heat maps” are self-affine fractals where the basic unit is a triangle, in the shape of the fundamental diagram, containing 3 traffic states: voids, capacity and jams. This fractal nature of traffic flow calls for analysis methods currently not used in our field.

Globally, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) continue to contribute vastly to addressing the food, poverty reduction, income, and livelihood requirements of people in rural areas. However, as at now, there is no specific existing data highlighting periodic contributions of NTFPs to the economy of the Eastern region and the country. The study analyses the contribution of NTFPs towards economic development in the Eastern region and the achievement of SDGs in Ghana. Through Focus Group Discussions and qualitative analysis, it was concluded that NTFPs contribute immensely towards the economic development of the Eastern region and the country through employment and direct taxes. Ultimately, it is evident from the study that the destruction of the Atiwa forest reserve for the purpose of bauxite mining will widely hinder the country’s achievement of the SDGs. Also, the study found out that residents will continue to exploit forest resources if the core concerns of institutional deficiencies and rural poverty are not addressed. To curb this situation, there should be sustainable, regulated, and authorized harvesting of NTFPs/NWFPs, community/user empowerment, sectoral education and training programmes, etc. Even though these are common solutions, the study found them extremely rare in the study area.

Soil texture is key information in agriculture for improving soil knowledge and crop performance, so the accurate mapping of this crucial feature is imperative for rationally planning cultivations and for targeting interventions. We studied the relationship between radioelements and soil texture in the Mezzano Lowland (Italy), a 189 km² agricultural plain investigated through a dedicated airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy survey. The K and Th abundances were used to retrieve the clay and sand content by means of a multi-approach method. Linear (simple and multiple) and non-linear (machine learning algorithms with deep neural networks) predictive models were trained and tested adopting a 1:50,000 scale soil texture map. The comparison of these approaches highlighted that the non-linear model introduces significant improvements in the prediction of soil texture fractions. The predicted maps of the clay and of the sand content were compared with the regional soil maps. Although the macro-structures were equally present, the airborne gamma-ray data permits us shedding light on finer features. Map areas with higher clay content were coincident with paleo-channels crossing the Mezzano Lowland in Etruscan and Roman periods, confirmed by the hydrographic setting of historical maps and by the geo-morphological features of the study area.

The development of synthetic biology has enabled us to make massive progress on biotechnology and to approach research questions from a brand new perspective. In particular, the design and study of gene regulatory networks in vitro, in vivo and in silico, have played an increasingly indispensable role in understanding and controlling biological phenomena. Among them, it is of great interest to understand how associative learning is formed at the molecular circuit level. Noticeably, mathematical models have been increasingly used to predict the behaviors of molecular circuits. The Fernando’s model, which is thought to be one of the first works in this line of research using the Hill equation, attempted to design a synthetic circuit that mimics Hebbian learning in the neural network architecture. In this article, we carry out in-depth computational analysis of the model and demonstrate that the reinforcement effect can be achieved by choosing the proper parameter values. We also construct a novel circuit that can demonstrate forced dissociation, which was not observed in the Fernando’s model. Our work can be readily used as reference for synthetic biologists who consider implementing the circuits of this kind in biological systems.

We have suggested that the abiogenisis of life around the beginning of the Archean may have been an example of microscopic dissipative structuring of UVC pigments (the fundamental molecules of life) under the prevailing surface UV solar spectrum. In a previous article in this series, we have describe the non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the photochemical mechanisms which may have been involved in the dissipative structuring of the purines adenine and hypoxanthine from the common precursor molecules of HCN and water under UVC light. In this article we extend our analysis to include the production of the other two important purines, guanine and xanthine, from these same precursors. The photochemical reactions are presumed to occur within a fatty acid vesicle floating on a hot ocean surface exposed to the prevailing UV light. Reaction-diffusion equations are resolved under different environmental conditions. Significant amounts of adenine (∼10−5 M) and guanine (∼10−6 M) are obtained within only a few months at 80 °C under plausible initial concentrations of HCN and cyanogen (a photochemical product of HCN).

Like 18F-FDG, 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose (99mTc-TG) also binds to GLUT receptors. The aim of this Phase I study was to evaluate the safety, biodistribution and dosimetry of 99mTc-TG. Twelve lym-phoma patients were injected with 729±102 MBq 99mTc-TG. Whole-body planar imaging was per-formed in 10 patients at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h after injection. In all 12 patients SPECT/CT (at 2 h) and SPECT (at 4 and 6 h) imaging was performed. Vital signs and possible side effects were monitored during imaging and up to 7 days after injection. 99mTc-TG injections were well tolerated and no side effects or alterations in blood and urine analyses data were observed. The highest absorbed dose was in the kidneys and urinary bladder wall, followed by the adrenals, prostate, bone mar-row, lungs, myocardium, ovaries, uterus, liver and gall bladder wall. 99mTc-TG SPECT/CT re-vealed foci of high activity uptake in the lymph nodes of all nine patients with known nodal le-sions. Extranodal lesions were detected in all nine cases. In one patient, a lesion in the humerus head, which was not detected by CT, was visualized using 99mTc-TG. Potentially, 99mTc-TG SPECT can be considered as an additional diagnostic method for imaging GLUT receptors in lymphoma patients.

During the last 150 years, the trout-culture industry focused on enhancing trout populations by stocking, in response to the growing anglers’ demand and the habitat degradation associated to the rapid urbanization and hydropower development. The industrialized north of Italy, home to the Italian Alpine and subalpine trout populations, is the source of most of the revenues of the national trout-culture industry. Its rapid growth and the massive introduction of non-native interfertile trouts eroded the genetic diversity of native lineages, leading to harsh confrontations between scientists, institutions, and sportfishing associations. We review here the state of art of the taxonomy and distribution of the northern Italian native trouts, presenting both scientific results and historical documentation. We think the only native trouts in this region are Salmo marmoratus, widespread in this region, plus small and fragmented populations of S. ghigii, present only in the Southwestern Alps. We strongly recommend the interruption of stocking of domesticated interfertile non-native trouts in this area, and recommend the adoption of Evolutionary Significant Units for salmonid fishery management. We further propose future research directions for a sustainable approach to the conservation and ecosystem management of the fishery resources and inland waters of northern Italy.

To explore the impact of parenting styles on the perception of campus non-physical bullying, 492 students in upper elementary school grades were surveyed by using the Delaware Bullying Victimization Scale, the Negative Coping Style Scale, the Negative Affect Scale, and the Egna Minnen Beträffende Uppfostran Questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted in the fifth and sixth grades of eight primary schools in Zhejiang province. The results showed that cyberbullying was not significantly related to an anxious parenting style, but negative affect experiences, negative coping styles, negative family parenting styles, and the perception of campus non-physical bullying were all positively correlated with each other (p < 0.05). The refusal parenting style was shown to be an important factor that affected students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying; it was observed to directly affect students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying and indirectly affect students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying by influencing negative affect experiences and negative coping styles. In conclusion, negative affect experiences and negative coping styles had a chain-like mediating effect between the refusal parenting style and students’ perception of campus verbal bullying. Moreover, negative affect experiences had a partial mediating effect between the refusal parenting style and students’ perceptions of campus cyberbullying, relationship bullying, and non-physical bullying total scores. Implications and suggestions based on these results are also discussed.

Overweight/obesity is a growing pandemic nowadays that affects many organs and tissues. We have investigated whether a high-lipid diet provokes an imbalance between type 1 and type 2 angiotensin II (Ang II) receptors signaling, leading to liver alterations associated with previously described cardiovascular and kidney disturbances. Chronic administration of a high-lipid diet can provoke an hepatocardiorenal syndrome as the result of activation of the Ang II→type 1 receptor axis, which is completely counteracted by Ang-(3–4) the allosteric enhancer of the Ang II→type 2 receptor pathway.

Intradermal injection of botulinum neurotoxin is a frequently performed procedure in aesthetic dermatology to improve facial skin tone, texture, fine wrinkles, and enlarged pores. In practice, botulinum neurotoxin type A is also used to reduce skin oiliness of the face. There is increasing evidence that acetylcholine plays specific roles in sebum production, suggesting that botulinum neurotoxin type A may reduce sebum production by interfering with cholinergic transmission between sebaceous glands and autonomic nerve terminals. Botulinum neurotoxins can also inhibit several pathogenetic components of acne development, suggesting that botulinum neurotoxins can be used as a safe and effective treatment modality for acne and other skin disorders related to the overactivity of sebaceous glands. This review aims to explore the current evidence behind the treatment of oily skin and acne with botulinum neurotoxin type A.

Interactions between receptors and ligands of the tumor necrosis factor superfamily (TNFSF) provide costimulatory signals that control the survival, proliferation, differentiation, and effector function of immune cells. All components of the TNF superfamily are associated with NF-kB functions that are not limited to cell death and may promote survival in the face of adipose tissue inflammation in obesity. Inflammation and pro-inflammatory dysfunction of mitochondria are key factors associated with insulin resistance in obesity. The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship of soluble forms of receptors and ligands of the TNF superfam-ily in blood plasma with mitochondrial dynamics in adipose tissue (greater omentum (GO) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (Sat)) of obese patients with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Increased plasma sTNF-R1, sTNF-R2, sTNFRSF8 receptors and ligands TNFSF12, TNFSF13, TNFSF13B are characteristic of obese patients without T2DM. Increases in TNFSF12, TNFSF13B, and sTNF-R1 levels are associated with decreased glucose concentration and decreased BMI in obese patients. The gene expression levels responsible for regulating mitochondrial dynamics were increased in obese patients without T2DM and were unbalanced in patients with obesity and T2DM.

The genus Pseudomonas hosts an extensive genetic diversity and is one of the largest genera among Gram-negative bacteria. Type strains of Pseudomonas are well-known to represent only a small fraction of this diversity and the number of available Pseudomonas genome sequences is increasing rapidly. Consequently, new Pseudomonas species are regularly reported and the number of species within the genus is in constant evolution. In this study, whole genome se-quencing enabled us to define 43 new Pseudomonas species and to provide an update of the Pseu-domonas evolutionary and taxonomic relationships. Phylogenies based on the rpoD gene and whole genome sequences, including 316 and 313 type strains of Pseudomonas, respectively, re-vealed sixteen groups of Pseudomonas and justified the partitioning of the P. putida group into fifteen subgroups. Pairwise average nucleotide identities were calculated between type strains and a selection of 60 genomes of non-type strains of Pseudomonas. Forty-one strains were incor-rectly assigned at the species level and among those, 19 strains were shown to represent an addi-tional 13 new Pseudomonas species that remain to be formally classified. This work pinpoints the importance of correct taxonomic assignment and phylogenetic classification in order to perform integrative studies linking genetic diversity, lifestyle and metabolic potential of Pseudomonas spp.

^{We consider the collective pricing orders in a minimum supply chain that is composed of a monopolistic manufacturer and many retailers that belong to the same chain store firm. The retailers have the freedom to raise or lower the local price. The chain store firm sets up the commercial rules for local retail stores to maximize its total payoff. The monopolistic manufacturer firm controls the total quantity supplied for the market to achieve maximum benefits. We applied the two dimensional Ising model in statistical physics to map the collective distribution of microscopic strategy of local retailers into the macroscopic total payoff of the chain store firm. The local stores choose to raise the price or lower the price based their own mind when the supply in market surpasses the demand. When the supply in market is far less than the demand, the stores synchronously raise prices, even though a local store only have the incomplete information of their nearest neighboring supermarket. We find the critical equation for the balance point between the action of supplier and the action of chain store management based on game theory and statistical physics. The critical equation can identify the Nash equilibrium point of the non-cooperative game between the manufacturer and the chain-store seller, and reveal different levels of collective operations. This statistical physics method also holds for more complicate supply chains and economic systems.}

The variation of the cationic composition in I2-II-IV-VI4 semiconductor compounds is an effective tool for altering their properties in a controlled manner. In particular, a partial substitution of Cu for Ag in kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 was proposed to suppress Cu-Zn antisite defects and the improve photovoltaic performance. However, the efficiency of this approach may substantially depend on the fabrication route. Here, we report on the synthesis of (Cu,Ag)-Zn-Sn-S (CAZTS) and Ag-Zn-Sn-S (AZTS) nanocrystals (NCs) by means of "green" chemistry in aqueous solution and their detailed characterization by Raman spectroscopy and by several complementary techniques. Through a systematic variation of the nominal composition and quantification of the constituent elements in CAZTS and AZTS NCs by XPS, we identified the vibrational Raman and IR fingerprints of both the main AZTS phase and secondary phases of Ag-Zn-S and Ag-Sn-S compounds (for the first time). The formation of the secondary phases of Ag-S and Ag-Zn-S cannot be avoided entirely for this type of synthesis. The Ag-Zn-S phase, having its bandgap in near infrared range, is the reason of the non-monotonous dependence of the absorption edge of CAZTS NCs on the Ag content, with a trend to redshift even below the bandgaps of bulk AZTS and CZTS.

Social media has become the most influential battleground for political and societal debate. The reach, the speed, and the fact that everybody can participate make this medium very popular but also highly manipulative, subject to biases and extremely precious to control. Misinformation spreads in an unforeseeable way. Sometimes it just follows usual non-malicious social interaction patterns, but often a targeted and designed-for-purpose manner. In this paper, we propose a novel method to identify the most effective opportunities to moderate the social media debate at a large scale using the properties of social signed graphs, such as structural balance. After building the topic universe for a particular political debate in a given time frame, we extract the most active and influential users and mine their position regarding the topic based on their interactions with other users. The result is a signed graph where each edge represents either support or challenge between a pair of users in the context of the topic. This graph can be modelled as an Ising model, with the goal of minimizing its energy state by using the advantages of Adiabatic Quantum Computing. Applying this principle, we use a Quantum Annealing implementation to solve the problem of finding the edges violating the structural balance of this graph, which in classic computing is known to be an NP-hard problem. We then provide a non-intrusive moderation technique for those violations to mitigate or increase the structural imbalance, depending on the desired strategy. The methodology is shown in the context of the COVID-19 skeptics’ debate in Twitter and implemented using a D-Wave 2000Q-6 quantum annealer.