This paper extends the application of the ROTASE model for the formation of spiral arms of disc galaxies, questions and confusions from readers about this model are addressed. The optical trail effect behind the spiral arm rotation is the natural consequence of the model. The morphologies of ring-galaxies are classified into four categories: type I: single ring; type II: 8-shaped double ring; type III: 8-shaped double ring wrapped by a larger outer ring; type IV: single ring without spiral and bar. All four types of ring galaxies can be described by the ROTASE model. The ROTASE model predicts that the false impression of spiral arm rotating ahead of the galactic bar in the galaxy MCG+00-04-051 will change with time, it will look like a normal galaxy with about 30° to 40° bar rotation in the future and the galactic bar ends will look like rotating ahead of the spiral arms with further 10 ° to 15 °bar rotation. The formation of one arm galaxies is due to X-matter at one side of supermassive black hole is much stronger than other side. More evidence is found to support the explanation of the formation and the evolution of the Hoag’s object. The possible evolution of spiral pattern of galaxies is illustrated by UGC 6093. The winding of the Milky Way could be tighter in the future based on the ROTASE model.

Defect detection and identification from fruits and vegetables are particularly challenging for Indian agriculture. Defect Detection is a process to identify the defects or damages in vegetables and fruits, based on the shapes, colors and textures. The local market finds it difficult to cope with the defects and other infections in fruits and vegetables as quality evaluations and classification of vegetables and fruits have become tedious process. Recently, several approaches based on Image processing, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence methods have been proposed for the purpose of defect detection. On the basis of classifying the types of defects, related pathogens, and physical and morphological characteristics descriptors, we review the different approaches based on a corpus of 57 articles between 2016 and 2021. In the process of describing the defect analysis, steps from the target articles, algorithms, and methods including qualitative and quantitative evaluation are mainly summarized. The aim of this current review work is to present-day novel images and collects recent defective area calculation methods to detect surface defects of fruits and vegetables using RGB images and to classify whether the fruit is defected or fresh. A rigorous evaluation of many new algorithms provided for quality assurance by researcher’s probes of vegetables and fruits have been conducted in this work. This review work conveys that using the recent identification features will help to decrease the disadvantages in fruit storeroom owing to storage of the affected vegetables and fruits, ie. Preventing the spread of defects and other infections from the infected fruits and vegetables to the fresh ones.

Reservoir computing is a machine learning method that uses the response of a dynamical system to a certain input in order to solve a task. As the training scheme only involves optimising the weights of the responses of the dynamical system, this method is particularly suited for hardware implementation. Furthermore, the inherent memory of dynamical systems which are suitable for use as reservoirs mean that this method has the potential to perform well on time series prediction tasks, as well as other tasks with time dependence. However, reservoir computing still requires extensive task dependent parameter optimisation in order to achieve good performance. We demonstrate that by including a time-delayed version of the input for various time series prediction tasks, good performance can be achieved with an unoptimised reservoir. Furthermore, we show that by including the appropriate time-delayed input, one unaltered reservoir can perform well on six different time series prediction tasks at a very low computational expense. Our approach is of particular relevance to hardware implemented reservoirs, as one does not necessarily have access to pertinent optimisation parameters in physical systems but the inclusion of an additional input is generally possible.

The data-oriented paradigm has proven to be fundamental for the technological transformation process that characterizes Industry 4.0 (I4.0) so that Big Data & Analytics is considered a technological pillar of this process. The literature reports a series of system architecture proposals that seek to implement the so-called Smart Factory, which is primarily data-driven. Many of these proposals treat data storage solutions as mere entities that support the architecture's functionalities. However, choosing which logical data model to use can significantly affect the performance of the architecture. This work identifies the advantages and disadvantages of relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) data models for I4.0, taking into account the nature of the data in this process. The characterization of data in the context of I4.0 is based on the five dimensions of Big Data and a standardized format for representing information of assets in the virtual world, the Asset Administration Shell. This work allows identifying appropriate transactional properties and logical data models according to the volume, variety, velocity, veracity, and value of the data. In this way, it is possible to describe the suitability of SQL and NoSQL databases for different scenarios within I4.0.

The large-scale processing of Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz.) generates significant quantities of solid wastes annually. Cassava peels (CP) account for 5 wt.% - 30 wt.% of wastes from the processing of cassava tubers. The poor disposal and management of CP pose risks to human health, safety and the environment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify and examine low cost, socially acceptable and environmentally friendly strategies to mitigate the immediate and long terms disposal and management challenges. Lack of such measures results in the accumulation of CP wastes, which are currently buried, combusted, or dumped in open fields. Therefore, this paper reviewed the potential routes for the biochemical, thermochemical, and plasma valorisation of CP. The literature reviewed revealed that biochemical technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD) and fermentation are the most widely utilised approaches currently adopted for CP valorisation. AD produces biogas (methane 50-72 vol. % and carbon dioxide 25-45 vol. %), whereas fermentation yields bioethanol. However, the numerous challenges such as substrate-induced inhibition, associated with the biochemical processes hamper microbial degradation, methane formation, and process efficiency. Furthermore, the processes generate secondary wastes or digestate/sludge, which requires additional processing before disposal. Therefore, innovative thermal, thermochemical, and plasma technologies were proposed to valorise CP into syngas, biofuels, bioenergy, biochemicals, and fertilizers, among others. However, the waste products of fermentation cannot be effectively utilised as bio-fertilizers, whereas bioethanol causes corrosion in engines. Overall, the biochemical, thermal, thermochemical and plasma technologies can effectively valorise CP for effective net energy generation.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating compound extracted from Cannabis sativa, showing antidepressant-like effects in different rodent models. However, inconsistent results have been described depending on the species and the strain used to assess depressive-like behaviour. Moreover, only a few studies have investigated the effect of CBD in female rodents. Therefore, we aimed to i) investigate the effects of CBD in two different strains of mice (Swiss and C57BL/6) and in a rat model of depression based on selective breeding (Flinders Sensitive and Resistant Lines, FSL and FRL) subjected to tests predictive of antidepressant-like effects; and ii) investigate the influence of sex in the effects of CBD in both mice and rats. CBD induced an antidepressant-like effect in male Swiss but not in female Swiss or C57BL/6 mice in the tail suspension test (TST). In male FSL rats, CBD produced an antidepressant-like effect one-hour post-injection. However, in female FSL, CBD induced a bimodal effect, increasing the immobility time at one hour and decreasing it at two hours. Ketamine produced an antidepressant-like effect in male and female FSL rats at different doses. In conclusion, strain, sex, and administration time affect CBD's behavioural response to rodents exposed to tests predictive of antidepressant effects.

The global trend towards increased demand for organic food, greener environments, and the integration of biological control agents into pest management strategies has greatly enhanced the need for biological pesticides (biopesticides). Biopesticides are generally environmentally friendly and are made from micro-organisms or other natural substances. Despite their great potential, relatively few have been registered and commercialised in Nigeria compared to other African countries such as South Africa and Kenya. Biological active agents are so diverse such that ap-plying the same safety standards or environmental conditions to all of them is almost impossible. A review of risk assessment processes and comparative assessments of Nigeria's biopesticide regulations with other developing African countries and developed regions was conducted. Prolonged field testing, lack of bridged risk assessments and technical checklists have been identified as key factors hampering the timely development and commercialisation of biopesti-cides in Nigeria. Recommendations on necessary changes to the existing Nigeria biopesticide regulations have been made. Risk assessment matrices for microbial and biochemical biopesti-cides and a scientific/technical checklist have also been developed. Harmonisation and data ex-change among other countries in the region will also enhance the advancement of scientific and technical knowledge for sustainable regulation and cross-border trade.

In this article, we calculate the deflection angle of tidal charged black hole (TCBH) in weak field limits. First we obtain the Gaussian optical curvature and then apply the Gauss-Bonnet theorem on it. With the help of Gibbons-Werner method, we are able to calculate the light's deflection angle by TCBH in weak field limits. After calculating the deflection angle of light, we check the graphical behavior of TCBH. Moreover, we further find the light's deflection angle in the presence of plasma medium and also check the graphical behavior in the presence of plasma medium. Moreover, we investigate the shadow of TCBH.For calculating the shadow, we first find the null geodesics around the TCBH and then find its shadow radius. We also obtain TCBH's shadow in the plasma medium. Hence, we discuss the shadow of the TCBH using the $M87^{*}$ parameters announced by the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the last four years, the evolution and adoption of blockchain and, more generally, distributed ledger systems have shown the affirmation of many concepts and models with significant differences in system governance and suitable applications. This work aims to update the critical analysis of blockchain technologies carried out by our previous contribution to this journal, extending the focus to distributed ledger components and systems. Starting from the topical concept of decentralization, we introduce concepts and building blocks currently adopted in the available systems centering on their functional aspects and impact on possible applications. We present some conceptual framing tools helpful in the application context, and we will propose the concept of process authenticity, which we will discuss through two use cases: blockchain document dematerialization and e-voting.

We investigate the power of time series analysis based on a variety of information-theoretic approaches from statistics (AIC, BIC) and machine learning (Minimum Message Length) - and we then compare their efficacy with traditional time series model and with hybrids involving deep learning. More specifically, we develop AIC, BIC and Minimum Message Length (MML) ARMA (autoregressive moving average) time series models - with this Bayesian information-theoretic MML ARMA modelling already being new work. We then study deep learning based algorithms in time series forecasting, using Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), and we then combine this with the ARMA modelling to produce a hybrid ARMA-LSTM prediction. Part of the purpose of the use of LSTM is to seek capture any hidden information in the residuals left from the traditional ARMA model. We show that MML not only outperforms earlier statistical approaches to ARMA modelling, but we further show that the hybrid MML ARMA-LSTM models outperform both ARMA models and LSTM models.

A growing body of evidences is showing that dysbiotic gut microbiota may correlate with a wide range of disorders; hence, the clinical use of microbiota maps and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) can be exploited in the clinic of some infectious diseases. Through direct or indirect ecological and functional competition, FMT may stimulate decolonization of pathogens or opportunistic pathogens, modulating immune response and colonic inflammation, and restoring intestinal homeostasis, with reduction of host damage. Herein, we discuss how diagnostic parasitology may contribute to design clinical metagenomics pipelines and FMT programs, especially in pediatric subjects. The consequences of a more specialized diagnostics in the context of gut microbiota communities may improve the clinical parasitology and extend its applications to the prevention and treatment of several communicable and even noncommunicable disorders.

An entropic origin of gravity is re-visited. Isothermal self-gravitating cloud seen as an ideal gas is analyzed. Gravitational attraction within the isothermal cloud in equilibrium is balanced by the pressure, which is of a pure entropic nature. The notion of the Jeans entropy of the cloud corresponding to the entropy of the self-gravitating cloud in mechanical and thermal equilibrium is introduced. Balance of the gravitational compression and the entropic repulsion yields the scaling relation hinting to the entropic origin of the gravitational force. The analysis of the Jeans instability enables elimination of the “holographic screen” or “holographic principle” necessary for grounding of the entropic origin of gravity.

A non-negligible fraction of quasars are red at optical wavelengths, indicating (in the vast majority of cases) that the accretion disc is obscured by a column of dust which extinguishes the shorter-wavelength blue emission. In this paper we summarise recent work by our group, where we find fundamental differences in the radio properties of SDSS optically selected red quasars. We also present new analyses, using a consistent colour-selected quasar parent sample matched to four radio surveys (FIRST, VLA Stripe 82, VLA COSMOS 3 GHz and LoTSS DR1) across a frequency range 150 MHz-3 GHz and four orders of magnitude in radio flux. We show this enhancement is driven by systems with small-scale radio emission (∼kpc) and peaks around the radio-quiet threshold (defined as the ratio of 1.4 GHz luminosity to 6μm luminosity) across the four radio samples. Exploring the potential mechanisms behind this enhancement, we rule out star-formation and propose either small-scale jets or dusty winds interacting with the interstellar medium; this will be tested in detail using new multi-band uGMRT data. Overall our results cannot be explained with a simple viewing angle hypothesis, and so may point towards red quasars representing a key phase in the evolution of galaxies.

According to global data, there is a male reproductive potential decrease. Pathogenesis of male infertility often is associated with autoimmunity towards sperm antigens essential for fertilization. Antisperm autoantibodies (ASAs) have immobilizing and cytotoxic properties, impairing spermatogenesis, causing sperm agglutination, altering spermatozoa motility and acrosomal reaction, thus preventing ovum fertilization. Infertility diagnosis requires mandatory check for the ASAs. The concept of blood-testis barrier currently is re-formulated with emphasis of informational paracrine and juxtacrine effects, rather than simple anatomical separation. Aetiology of male infertility includes both autoimmune and non-autoimmune diseases, but equally develops through autoimmune links of pathogenesis. Varicocele commonly leads to infertility due to testicular ischemic damage, venous stasis, local hyperthermia, and hypoandrogenism. However, varicocelectomy can alter blood-testis barrier facilitating ASAs production as well. There are contradictory data on the role of ASAs in pathogenesis of varicocele-related infertility. Infection and inflammation both promote ASAs production due to “danger concept” mechanisms and because of antigen mimicry. Systemic pro-autoimmune influences like hyperprolactinemia, hypoandrogenism and hypothyroidism also facilitate ASAs production. Diagnostic value of various ASAs was not yet clearly attributed, and their cut-levels not agreed neither in sera nor in ejaculate. The assessment of the autoimmunity role in pathogenesis of male infertility is ambiguous.

This study aims to identify benefits and barriers to distance education, particularly from the perspective of teachers in Saudi Arabia. As the applied data collection tool, a questionnaire was distributed to the general education teachers in three districts. The sample size of the study was 1076 teachers. The results revealed that despite several benefits gained from distance learning, there are also some barriers. Teachers found that the most important advantage in distance learning is the acquisition of technical skills during the online teaching processes, they learn more and use digital education platforms, they have sufficient time to prepare the scientific content, they were able to provide adequate technical solutions for their courses, and they have the opportunity to use multiple media to deliver their courses. With the introduction of distance learning, teachers have explored new ways to deliver course contents to students. It has fostered better ways to provide more interactive real-time and on-demand teaching and learning using modern technology, thus, helping teachers become familiar with the use of electronic resources. It seems that teachers invest in technical methods to enhance students’ performance. Also, teachers reported some obstacles that they face during remote teaching. Most of these problems are connection problems applied with devices and the internet, lack of students’ motivation to learn in distance, problems associated with urban learners.

This research contributes to the detailed discussion about the approach to secure, hygienic water and cleanliness in Uganda and its pastoral regions. The relationship between the sanitation and clean water access with destitution is also discussed. Although this document is not leading towards the policy recommendation but it is an overall idea of how Uganda progressed because of the provisions adopted by the government, local and international organizations, and NGOs, and how the country lacked before these steps taken. Most of the data mentioned is taken from the house surveys of a decade 2002-2013 alongside the qualitative data. Literature review is also considered and is divided in two sections: first included researches related to water accessibility and usage, while the second section included researches related to work done and progress for diarrheal diseases and sanitation. Afterwards, methodologies were discussed where, firstly, trends and then the limitations in access to the basic necessities of life that is clean water and hygiene are mentioned. At last, the implementations and how they affected the rural Ugandans was discussed.

Based on an ethnozoological study carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, this paper attempts to document the usage of squirrel species for various purposes by the Adi, Idu Mishmi, Miju Mishmi, Tangsa, Chakma and Monpa tribe living near the villages adjoining the protected areas located in the districts of East Siang, Lower Dibang Valley, Dibang Valley, Lohit, Changlang and West Kameng of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The paper also describes the use of certain squirrel species as a part of their traditional culture and lists their names in English, Vernacular and Latin names. The study has led to an understanding that eight squirrel species are used by the tribes for cultural, food and medicinal purposes. This work contributes to ethnozoological research by describing a knowledge system of squirrel species use and the association of squirrel species with the cultural believes of the tribes.

Brazil chicken production is around 13 million tons and about a third is exported to over 150 countries, placing Brazil as the world largest chicken meat producer, and therefore it is crucial to follow the legislation of all importer markets. This study conducted a survey by chance in 45 meat industries able to export. Therefore, 2580 chicken meat samples were collected and submitted to 11 analyte extraction and chromatographic verification of compliance in an accredited laboratory. Ten chemical residues (amoxicillin, bacitracin, colistin, dinitolmide + zoalene, spectinomycin, roxarsone, tiamulin, tylosin, trenbolone acetate and virginiamycin) were investigated in chicken meat and one (halofuginone hydrobromide) in chicken liver. The results showed that no compound exceeded the maximum residue limits established by seven legislations. All residue concentrations found were below the method quantification limit, thereby confirming the capability of Brazilian chicken meat industries in complying to foreign markets.

This study has investigated the effect of nutrition labeling on consumer guilt, in situations where consumers ingest products that have an unhealthy image. The first investigation has examined the effects of types of nutrition labeling (adding healthy ingredients/reducing unhealthy ingredients). The second investigation has examined the influence of two goal-activation types(utilitarian and hedonic) and nutrition labeling on consumer guilt. The findings reveal that the utilitarian-goal-activation group felt less guilty about consuming a product with a reduced unhealthy ingredient than they did about consuming a product with an added healthy ingredient. In addition, there were interactions between the two variables, since consumer goal activation had more effect on consumer guilt about products with reduced unhealthy ingredients than on products with added healthy ingredients. Based on these results, the academic and practical implications of the present study are discussed. and proposes several directions for future research.

Prominent among religions that claim direct or indirect lineage to Abraham are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The three religions are known as monotheistic. Although, their interpretations of monotheism are closely similar, they have salient differences. Such differences have spurred unhealthy arguments, rivalry and hatred between some Christians and Muslims. Thus, this paper highlights some of the basic differences between Islam and Christianity traceable to scriptural differences and interpretations and the causes of disagreement between Christianity and Islam with a view to offering recommendations that would foster goodwill and engender better relationship between Christians and Muslims. The paper adopted a comparative and analytical system of research with library information and experiences as the major data gathering tools. The study finds that misinformation, ignorance, deliberate distortions, media irresponsibility among others is the major causes of disharmony among Christians and Muslims. The paper recommends mutual love and respect, constant dialogue, education and other factors that would improve the attitude of Christians and Muslims towards one another.

The relevance of bacteria to subjective experiences or qualia is under-appreciated. Here, I make four proposals. Firstly, living systems traverse sequences of active states that determine their behaviour; these states result from competitive coherence, which depends on a connectivity-based competition between a Next process and a Now process whereby elements in the active state at time n+1 are chosen between the elements in the active state at time n and those elements in the developing n+1 state. Secondly, bacteria should help us link the mental to the physical world given that bacteria were here first, are highly complex, influence animal behaviour and dominate the Earth. Thirdly, the operation of competitive coherence to generate active states in bacteria, brains and other living systems is inseparable from qualia. Fourthly, these qualia become particularly important to the generation of active states in the highest levels of living systems, namely, the ecosystem and planetary levels.

The production and consumption of nuts are increasing in the world due to strong economic returns and the nutritional value of their products. With the increasing role and importance given to nuts (i.e., walnuts, hazelnut, pistachio, pecan, almond) in a balanced and healthy diet and in the prevention of various diseases, breeding of the nuts species has also been stepped up. Most recent fruit breeding programs have focused on scion genetic improvement. However, the use of locally adapted grafted rootstocks also enhanced the productivity and quality of tree fruit crops. Grafting is an ancient horticultural practice use in nut crops to manipulate scion phenotype and productivity and overcome biotic and abiotic stresses. There are complex rootstock breeding objectives and physiological and molecular aspects of rootstock–scion interactions in nut crops. In this review, we provide an overview of these, considering the mechanisms involved in nutrient and water uptake, regulation of phytohormones, and rootstock influences on the scion molecular processes, including long-distance gene silencing and trans-grafting. Understanding the mechanisms resulting from rootstock × scion × environmental interactions will contribute to developing new rootstocks with resilience in the face of climate change, but also of the multitude of diseases and pests and of the possible increase of their aggressiveness. They will also have to offer the premises of economic production, respectively yield and the quality, according to multiple destinations of nuts in the current consumption and food industry, but also the increasing exigencies of the consumer market and the profile industry.

Appling the controlling relative permittivity and permeability in the equations for the gravitational-magnetic-electric field interaction, a very large variation of the gravitational acceleration of the Earth by electric/magnetic field could be arrived at. This conclusion may be supported by some of the experiments for the gravitational effect of superconductivity.

Based on the 2014-2015 China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) and using the propensity score matching method, we studied the causal relationship between physical exercise and prosocial behavior of junior middle school students in China. Ordinary least squares regression and propensity score matching estimation results showed that participation in physical exercise significantly increases students’ prosocial behavior by more than 0.2 standard points. The results of this study were tested and found to be robust.

MzSTools is a plugin for QGIS developed by the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering of the National Research Council (CNR-IGAG). The plugin has been designed as a set of practical and easy-to-use tools to carry out seismic microzonation (SM) studies, by producing standard compliant geographic database and maps, thus making them accurate, homogeneous and uniform for all municipalities in Italy. A geodatabase based on SQLite/SpatiaLite Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) has been designed to collect and store data related to elements such as: geognostic surveys; bedrocks and cover terrains; superficial and buried geomorphological elements; tectonic-structural elements; elements of geological instability such as landslide zones, liquefaction zones and zones affected by active and capable faults; homogeneous microzones in seismic perspective, microzones characterized by a seismic amplification factor. MzSTools assembles in a single software environment a set of useful tools in a configurable QGIS project template, comprising layers, symbol libraries, cartographic styles and print layouts for the SM maps. The plugin is open source and hosted on the GitHub platform, and available via the official QGIS plugins repository (https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/MzSTools/).

It was observed that a cluster of ordered genes (Hox1, Hox2, Hox3,…) in the genome are activated in the ontogenetic units (1, 2, 3,…) of an embryo along the Anterior/Posterior axis following the same order of the Hox genes. This Spatial Collinearity (SC) is very strange since it correlates events of very different spatial dimensions. It was later observed in vertebrates, that, in the above ordering, first is Hox1expressed in ontogenetic unit 1, followed later by Hox2 in unit 2, and even later Hox3 in unit 3….This temporal collinearity (TC) is an enigma and even to-day is explored in depth. In 1999 T. Kondo and D. Duboule, after posterior upstream extended DNA excisions , concluded that the Hox cluster behaves ‘as if’ TC disappears. Here the consideration of TC really disappearing is taken face value and its repercussions are analyzed. Furthermore, an experiment is proposed to test TC disappearance. An outcome of this experiment could be the reappearance (partial or total) of TC.

In this paper, we present the idea of Self Supervised learning on the Shape Completion and Classification of point clouds. Most 3D shape completion pipelines utilize autoencoders to extract features from point clouds used in downstream tasks such as Classification, Segmentation, Detection, and other related applications. Our idea is to add Contrastive Learning into Auto-Encoders to learn both global and local feature representations of point clouds. We use a combination of Triplet Loss and Chamfer distance to learn global and local feature representations. To evaluate the performance of embeddings for Classification, we utilize the PointNet classifier. We also extend the number of classes to evaluate our model from 4 to 10 to show the generalization ability of learned features. Based on our results, embedding generated from the Contrastive autoencoder enhances Shape Completion and Classification performance from 84.2% to 84.9% of point clouds achieving the state-of-the-art results with 10 classes.

As the Universe is dominated by of baryons, there must have been a process in early Universe creating such a asymmetry via baryon number violation. However, until recently all the confirmed experimental data indicate that lepton and baryon number are conserved in agreement with Standard Model of quarks and leptons. This paper proposes an alternative path of baryogenesis. Once the over abundant magnetic monopoles predicted by grand unification emerged at universe temperature of $10^{16}$ GeV, then their annihilation should first give rise to photons driving the expansion of the early universe. As the universe temperature dropped to the desert scale of around 10 EeV, departure from thermal equilibrium occurred. Thus the annihilation produced photons give rise to electron-positron pairs, which collide with remnant magnetic monopoles and antimonopoles. The resultant unstable intermediate X and antiX particle become asymmetric, and thereby leading to baryon asymmetry. The excess of antimonopoles corresponding to ten times of mass comparing with that of baryons provides a natural candidate for dark matter. The physics of such a desert regime baryogenesis can be simply characterized by three parameters. The collision predicts a ratio of particle and anti-particle equivalent to that of ultra-high-energy neutrino to their anti-particle, which can be tested by future observations, e.g., the constructing IceCube-Gen2.

The Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) cation channels function as broadly-tuned sensors of noxious chemicals in many species. Recent studies identified four functional TRPA1 isoforms in Drosophila melanogaster (dTRPA1(A) to (D)), but their responses to non-electrophilic chemicals are yet to be fully characterized. Methods: We determined the behavioral responses of adult flies to the mammalian TRPA1 non-electrophilic activators citronellal and menthol, and characterized the effects of these compounds on all four dTRPA1 channel isoforms using intracellular Ca2+ imaging and whole-cell patch-clamp recordings. Results: Wild type flies avoided citronellal and menthol in an olfactory test and this behavior was reduced in dTrpA1 mutant flies. Both compounds activate all dTRPA1 isoforms in the heterologous expression system HEK293T, with the following sensitivity series: dTRPA1(C) = dTRPA1(D) > dTRPA1(A) ≫ dTRPA1(B) for citronellal and dTRPA1(A) > dTRPA1(D) > dTRPA1(C) > dTRPA1(B) for menthol. Conclusions: dTrpA1 was required for the normal avoidance of Drosophila melanogaster towards citronellal and menthol. All dTRPA1 isoforms are activated by both compounds, but the dTRPA1(B) is consistently the least sensitive. We discuss how these findings may guide further studies on the physiological roles and the structural bases of chemical sensitivity of TRPA1 channels.

Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a herbicide used to kill broadleaf weeds and grass, developed in the early 1970s. The widely occurring degradation product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) is a result of glyphosate and amino-polyphosphonate degradation. The massive use of the parent compounds leads to the ubiquity of AMPA in the environment, and particularly in water. Considering this, it can be assumed that glyphosate and its major metabolites could pose a potential risk to aquatic organisms. This review summarises current knowledge about residual glyphosate and their major metabolite AMPA in the aquatic environment, including status and toxic effects in aquatic organisms, mainly fish, are reviewed. Based on the above, we identify major gaps in the current knowledge and some directions for future research knowledge about the effects of worldwide use of herbicide glyphosate and its major metabolite AMPA. The toxic effect of glyphosate and their major metabolite AMPA has mainly influenced growth, early development, oxidative stress biomarkers, antioxidant enzymes, haematological, biochemical plasma indices, caused histopathological changes in the aquatic organism.

The importance of diet and the gut-brain axis for brain health and cognitive function is increasingly acknowledged. Dietary interventions are tested for their potential to prevent and/or treat brain disorders. Intermittent fasting (IF), the abstinence or strong limitation of calories for 12 to 48 hours, alternated with periods of regular food intake, has shown promising results on neurobiological health in animal models. In this review article, we discuss the potential benefits of IF on cognitive function and the possible effects on the prevention and progress of brain-related disorders in animals and humans. We do so by summarizing the effects of IF which - through metabolic, cellular and circadian mechanisms - lead to anatomical and functional changes in the brain. Our review shows that there is no clear evidence of a positive short-term effect of IF on cognition in healthy subjects. Clinical studies show benefits of IF for epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis on disease symptoms and progress. Findings from animal studies show mechanisms by which Parkinson’s disease, ischaemic stroke, autism spectrum disorder and mood- and anxiety disorders could benefit from IF. Future research should disentangle whether positive effects of IF hold true regardless of age or the presence of obesity. Also, variations in fasting patterns, total caloric intake and intake of specific nutrients may be relevant components of IF success. Longitudinal studies and Randomized Clinical Trials (RCTs) will provide a window into the long-term effects of IF on the development and progress of brain-related diseases.

An astonishing increase in temperature is posing several harmful impacts on crop plants. Heat stress is an abiotic environmental phenomenon that causes limits, inhibits plant growth, metabolism, and productivity worldwide, resulting in losses in production yields. Heat stress is caused by human activities and global warming,s such as greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour. There are many pieces of evidence to support that heat stress reduces the crop plants yield worldwide, and the effects of heat stress are challenging to meet nutritional security and global food security for human beings. Heat stress has negative impacts on each developmental stage, including from germination to harvesting. Prevalent approaches for heat adaption is inadequate management that is unable either to increase the crop productivity or sustain ld. Several responses to dissect the relevant knowledge about heat stress mechanism involving morphological phenomena, physiological phenomena, reproductive replies, and molecular responses such as heat shock proteins act as mRNA synthesis, mRNA control (effects of genes during heat stress), the translation process, heat response element. There are such phenomena involving disseminating the knowledge concerning heat stress. In this review, we summarise the effect of heat stress on plant mechanisms, including morphological, biochemical and molecular responses.

Smartphone use has changed patterns of online and offline interaction. Phubbing (i.e., looking at one’s phone instead of paying attention to others) is an increasingly recognized phenomenon in offline interaction. We examined whether people who phub are more likely to have lower social intelligence, whether phubbing is considered more annoying than being ignored due to reading a magazine, and if people describe smartphones and magazines differently as sources of social distraction. We collected two survey samples (N = 112, N = 108) for a cartoon-based role-playing experiment (the Bystander Inaccessibility Experiment) in which a smartphone user and a person reading a magazine ignored the respondents’ conversational initiatives. Annoyance in each scenario was measured, and written accounts were collected on why the respondents rated the scenarios the way they did. Other measures used included the Generic Scale of Phubbing, Generic Scale of Being Phubbed, and Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale. The results showed that participants in both samples were more annoyed by phubbing than by being ignored due to reading a magazine. Linear regression analyses showed that phubbing was associated with lower social intelligence, even after adjusting for confounding factors. The annoyingness of phubbing was explained with negative attitudes toward smartphones, which were assumed to be used for useless endeavors, while magazines were more appreciated and seen as more cultivating. The role of bystanders’ epistemic access to the smartphone user’s activities is discussed.

This Paper intends to introduce the notion of prime ideals of Intuitionistic fuzzy normed Rings and to establish basic properties related to it. It investigates these notions and shown anew Result using intuinistic fuzzy points and non membership function incorparating with t-norm and s-norm to show aome results of fuzzy prime ideal.

The prevalence and incidence of cardiac pro-arrhythmic disorders are often influenced by sex due to specific effects on the QT interval. Androgens shorten QT, which may be protective against acquired long QT syndromes and their related arrhythmias in men such as torsade de pointes (TdP). On the other hand, androgens can potentiate Brugada and early repolarization syndromes, which are most prevalent in men. In this case series, we highlight four male patients with aborted SCD in the setting of abnormal testosterone status; two patients with TdP in a setting of testosterone deprivation (of which one drug-induced) and 2 patients with ventricular fibrillation associated with exogenous androgenic booster (Tribulus terrestris) intake. From this case series, we review the current available literature of the effects of androgen as a double-edged sword on the QTc interval and emphasize the importance of QTc monitoring in this subset of patients.

FinTech has been in the focus of the discussion for quite some time. However, the market share of FinTech companies is still relatively small in compared to more traditional financial services. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the status quo, current developments and challenges ahead for the Latvian FinTech sector. We combine three analyses: the political and legal, the economic, the social and the technological environment (PEST) analysis, an analysis of the size and performance of FinTech companies during the last 10 years, and a survey among FinTech companies. We find that the current status of regulation is one of the main obstacles to FinTech development, because it does not sufficiently consider FinTech-specific aspects. Problems in attracting skilled workforce, and an environment that is not very supportive of new developments in finance are further challenges and might explain at least part of the growth and performance difficulties. A revision, modernization and harmonization of regulation is essential to create a level playing field for all market participants: FinTech companies, traditional financial service providers and those originally traditional players that are integrating FinTech solutions in their business model. Further efforts are also required to foster the Latvia’s attractiveness for skilled workforce. We hope that this study helps increase the visibility of Latvian FinTech and contributes to the development of the new Latvian FinTech strategy.

The power function distribution is a flexible waiting time model that may provide better fit for some failure data. This paper presents the comparison of the maximum likelihood estimates and the Bayes estimates of two-parameter power function distribution. The Bayes estimates are obtained, using conjugate priors, under five loss functions consist of square error, precautionary, weighted, LINEX and DeGroot loss function. The Gibbs sampling algorithm is proposed to generate samples from posterior distributions and in result the Bayes estimates are computed. The comparison of the maximum likelihood estimates and the Bayes estimates are done through the root mean squared errors. One real-life data set is analyzed to illustrate the evaluation of proposed methods of estimation. Finally, results from the simulation are discussed to assess the performance behavior of the maximum likelihood estimates and the Bayes estimates.

Chemical modification of cellulose offers routes for structurally and functionally diverse biopolymer derivatives for numerous industrial applications. Among cellulose derivatives, cellulose ethers have found extensive use, such as emulsifiers, in food industries and biotechnology. Methylcellulose, one of the simplest cellulose derivatives, has been utilized for biomedical, construction materials and cell culture applications. Its improved water solubility, thermoresponsive gelation, and the ability to act as a matrix for various dopants also offer routes for cellulose-based functional materials. There has been a renewed interest in understanding the structural, mechanical, and optical properties of methylcellulose and its composites. This review focuses on the recent development in optically and mechanically tunable hydrogels derived from methylcellulose and methylcellulose-cellulose nanocrystal composites. We further discuss the application of the gels for preparing highly ductile and strong fibers. Finally, the emerging application of methylcellulose-based fibers as optical fibers and their application potentials are discussed.

Serendipity favors the prepared mind, but how does the brain make that lucky find? Analyzing the cerebral mechanisms behind an exceptional (albeit trivial) discovery, the author suggests that a combination of ‘concept cells’ and the Global Neuronal Workspace Hypothesis could explain how we make great discoveries.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is one of the two disorders known as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) along with Crohn’s disease (CD), with complex pathogenesis, requiring costly invasive investigations. Objective: to examine the most recent biomarkers proposed for UC diagnosis; to establish the strategy used to make the differential diagnosis between UC and CD relying on these biomarkers, also adding the benefit of finding new non-invasive tools in managing this condition. The search was performed in a single database (Web of Science) using the specific keywords „ulcerative colitis”, „biomarkers” and „diagnosis” for the last five years. Study eligibility criteria: clinical trials on adults and pediatric patients with ulcerative colitis compared with Crohn’s disease. Results: We selected 57 studies, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and clinical case series (CCS), summarizing the latest most specific biomarkers in diagnosis of UC. Limitations: we considered RCTs and CCS from one database, limited to the search topics. Our findings indicate a important number of potential biomarkers with diagnostic value, which bring the advantage of a non-invasive method to approach this challenging disorder.

Takotsubo syndrome (TTS), recognized as stress’s cardiomyopathy, or better as left ventricular apical balloon syndrome in the recent years, is a rare pathology, described for the first time by Japanese researchers in 1990. TTS is characterized by an interindividual heterogeneity in onset and progression, and by the strong predominance in postmenopausal women. The clear causes of these TTS features are uncertain, given the reduced understanding of this intriguing syndrome until now. However, the increasing frequency of TTS cases in the last years, and particularly correlated to SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, leads us to imperative necessity both of a complete knowledge of TTS pathophysiology for identifying biomarkers facilitating its management, and targets for specific and effective treatments. The suspect of a genetic basis in TTS pathogenesis has been evidenced. Accordingly, familial form of TTS has been described. But a systematic and comprehensive characterization of the genetic or epigenetic factors significantly associated with TTS is lacking. Thus, we, here, conducted a systematic review of literature before June 2021, to contribute to identify potential genetic and epigenetic factors associated with TTS. Interesting data were evidenced, but of reduced number and with diverse limitations. Consequently, we concluded further work is needed to address the gaps discussed, and probably a clear evidence may arrive using multi-omics investigations.

Antibiotics are commonly used to treat infectious diseases. However, massive and inappropriate antibiotics usage cause many problems including the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. To avoid this issue, in modern countries the interest of using probiotics in feed supplementation to promote health and prevent or treat intestinal infectious diseases in companion animals like dogs has been increasing. We evaluate the probiotic potential of Lactobacilli isolated from healthy dogs faeces. The isolated Lactobacilli were first confirmed by 16SrRNA sequencing, then in vitro tests were conducted to assess survival potential of Lactobacilli under simulated gastrointestinal conditions and adhesion ability to gut epithelia, effects on epithelial barrier function, anti-inflammatory activities, effects on defensin peptides (beta-defensin 3) and inhibitory effects on common pathogens. Lactobacilli showed considerable potential to survive in simulated gastrointestinal environmental conditions, low pH, high bile salt concentrations along with good adhesion properties with MODE-K cells. Pathogenic bacterial growth and their adhesion to MODE-K cells was significantly inhibited by Lactobacilli. Real-time PCR analyses further demonstrated that L. acidophilus strain AR1 and AR3 inhibit Salmonella-induced proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, 1ꞵ) production and reinforce expression of tight junction protein (occludin). None of the strain induce mRNA expression of beta-defensin 3 in MODE-K cells. Based on in vitro results the L. acidophilus strain AR1 has potential to be supplemented in canine feed. However, further in vivo studies investigating health-promoting effects are awaited.

Conventional pervious pavement materials (PPM) consist of cement and aggregate materials and are known for poor durability due to their brittle behavior. Herein, we fabricated polymeric PPMs from durable and abundant polyurethane (PU) to enhance the durability of the material and undertook mechanical and microscopic characterizations. PU-based PPM samples with varying aggregate sizes were produced and the compressive strength and water permeability of each were examined. The pore and tortuosity characteristics of the specimens were analyzed using X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). Through the micro-CT analysis, the morphological characteristics of the internal structures of PPM were identified and the correlations between the pore size distribution, connectivity, and tortuosity within the specimen were quantitatively analyzed. The microstructures derived from micro-CT were generated as a finite element model and the stress distribution generated inside was numerically determined.

Image segmentation and classification still represent an active area of research since no universal solution can be identified. Established segmentation algorithms like thresholding are problem specific, treat well the easy cases and mostly relied on single parameter i.e intensity. Machine learning approaches offer alternatives where predefined features are combined into different classifiers. On the other hand, the outcome of machine learning is only as good as the underlying feature space. Differential geometry can substantially improve the outcome of machine learning since it can enrich the underlying feature space with new geometrical objects, called invariants. In this way, the geometrical features form a high-dimensional feature space for each pixel, where original objects can be resolved. Alternatives based on the geometry of the image scale-invariant interest points have been exploited successfully in the field of computer vision. Here, we integrate geometrical feature extraction based on signal processing, machine learning, and input relying on domain knowledge. The approach is exemplified on the ISBI 2012 image segmentation challenge data set. As a second application, we demonstrate powerful image classification functionality based on the same principles, which was applied to the HeLa and HEp-2 data sets. Obtained results demonstrate that feature space enrichment properly balanced with feature selection functionality can achieve performance comparable to deep learning approaches.

We performed a comprehensive analysis of angiosarcoma (AS) genomic biomarkers and their associations with the site of origin. We aimed to describe the genomic landscape of AS in a cohort of 143 cases of AS profiled by Caris Life Sciences. Data of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) with a 592 gene panel was available for the entire cohort. Fifty-three cases had data of Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) which we used to study the microenvironment phenotype. Immuno-therapy (IO) response biomarkers: Tumor Mutation Burden (TMB), Microsatellite Instability (MSI) and PD-L1 status were included. IO-response markers were present in 36.4% of the cohort and in 65% of head and neck AS (H/N-AS) (p<0.0001). H/N-AS cases had predominantly muta-tions in TP53 (50.0%, p=0.0004), POT1 (40.5%, p<0.0001) and ARID1A (33.3%, p=0.5875). In breast AS, leading alterations were MYC amplification (63.3%, p<0.0001), HRAS (16.1%, p=0.0377), and PI3KCA (16.1%, p=0.2352). A microenvironment with a high immune signature, associated with better response to IO, was present in 13% of the cases. This signature was evenly distributed among different primary sites. We found that the molecular biology for AS varies significantly according to the primary site. Our findings can facilitate the design and optimiza-tion of therapeutic strategies for AS to overcome resistance to IO and targeted therapies.

Infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has reached pandemic proportions. A number of effective vaccines have been produced, including mRNA vaccines and viral vector vaccines, which are now being implemented on a large scale in order to control the pandemic. The mRNA vaccines are composed of the Spike S1 protein encoding mRNA, incorporated in a lipid nanoparticle, stabilized by polyethylene glycol (PEG). mRNA vaccines are novel in many respects, including cellular uptake, the intracellular routing, processing, and secretion of the viral protein. Viral vector vaccines have incorporated DNA sequences encoding the SARS-CoV-2 Spike S1 protein into (attenuated) adenoviruses. The antigen presentation routes in MHC class I and class II, in relation to induction of virus neutralizing antibodies and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes will be reviewed. In rare cases, mRNA vaccines induce unwanted immune mediated side effects. mRNA based vaccines may lead to an anaphylactic reaction. This reaction may be triggered by PEG. The intracellular routing of PEG, and potential presentation in the context of CD1 will be discussed. Adenovirus vector based vaccines have been associated with thrombocytopenic thrombosis events. The anti-platelet factor 4 antibodies found in these patients could be generated due to conformational changes of relevant epitopes presented to the immune system.

Silicatein-α (Silα), a hydrolytic enzyme derived from siliceous marine sponges, is one of the few enzymes in nature capable of catalysing the metathesis of silicon-oxygen bonds. It is therefore of interest as a possible biocatalyst for the synthesis of organosiloxanes. To further investigate the substrate scope of this enzyme, a series of condensation reactions with a variety of phenols and aliphatic alcohols were carried out. In general, it was observed that Silα demonstrated a preference for phenols, though the conversions were relatively modest in most cases. In the two pairs of chiral alcohols that were investigated, it was found that the enzyme displayed a preference for the silylation of the S-enantiomers. Additionally, the enzyme’s tolerance to a range of solvents was tested. Silα had the highest level of substrate conversion in the non-polar solvents n-octane and toluene, although the inclusion of up to 20% of 1,4-dioxane was tolerated. These results suggest that Silα is a potential candidate for directed evolution towards future application as a robust and selective bi-ocatalyst for organosiloxane chemistry.

The visualization of hyperspectral images in display devices, having RGB colour composition channels is quite difficult due to the high dimensionality of these images. Thus, principal component analysis has been used as a dimensionality reduction algorithm to reduce information loss, by creating uncorrelated features. To classify regions in the hyperspectral images, K-means clustering has been used to form clusters/regions. These two algorithms have been implemented on the three datasets imaged by AVIRIS and ROSIS sensors.

The 8Nb isopleth section of a Ti-Al-Nb system is experimentally determined based on thermal analysis and thermodynamic calculation methods to obtain the phase transformation and equilibrium relations required for material design and fabrication. The phase transus and relations for the 8Nb-TiAl system show some deviations from the calculated thermodynamic results. The ordered βo phase transforms from the disordered β/α phases at 1200–1400 °C over a large Al concentration range, and this transformation is considered to be an intermediate type between the first- and second-order phase transitions. Moreover, the βo phases are retained at the ambient temperature in the 8Nb-TiAl microstructures. The ωo phase transforms from the highly ordered βo phase, rather than from α2 or βo with low degree of atom ordering B2 (LOB2) structure, with Al concentration of 32–43 at.% at approximately 850 °C. From the experimental detection, the transition of the ωo phase from the βo phase is considered to be a further ordering process.

Recent progress in deep learning has led to accurate and efficient generic object detection networks. Training of highly reliable models depends on large datasets with highly textured and rich images. However, in real-world scenarios, the performance of the generic object detection system decreases when (i) occlusions hide the objects, (ii) objects are present in low-light images, or (iii) they are merged with background information. In this paper, we refer to all these situations as challenging environments. With the recent rapid development in generic object detection algorithms, notable progress has been observed in the field of object detection in challenging environments. However, there is no consolidated reference to cover state-of-the-art in this domain. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first comprehensive overview, covering recent approaches that have tackled the problem of object detection in challenging environments. Furthermore, we present the quantitative and qualitative performance analysis of these approaches and discuss the currently available challenging datasets. Moreover, this paper investigates the performance of current state-of-the-art generic object detection algorithms by benchmarking results on the three well-known challenging datasets. Finally, we highlight several current shortcomings and outline future directions.

Reconstructing ancestral species is a challenging endeavour: fossils are often scarce or enigmatic, and inferring ancestral characters based on novel molecular approaches (e.g. comparative genomics or developmental genetics) has long been controversial. A key philosophical challenge pertinent at present is the lack of a theoretical framework capable of evaluating inferences of homology made through integration of multiple kinds of evidence (e.g. molecular, developmental, or morphological). Here, I present just such a framework. I start with a brief history and critical assessment of attempts at inferring morphological homology through developmental genetics. I then bring attention to a recent model of homology, namely Character Identity Mechanisms (DiFrisco, Love, & Wagner, 2020), intended partly to elucidate the relationships between morphological characters, developmental genetics, and homology. I utilise and build on this model to construct the evaluative framework mentioned above, which judges the epistemic value of evidence of each kind in each particular case based on three proposed criteria: effectiveness, admissibility, and informativity, as well as providing a generalised guideline on how it can be scientifically operationalised. I then point out the evolution of the eumetazoan body plan as a case in point where the application of this framework can yield satisfactory results, both empirically and conceptually. I will conclude with a discussion on some potential implications for more general philosophy of biology and philosophy of science, especially surrounding evidential integration, models and explanation, and reductionism.

For over a century, viruses have left a long trail of evidence implicating them as frequent suspects in the development of type 1 diabetes. Through vigorous interrogation of viral infections in individuals with islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes using serological and molecular virus detection methods, and mechanistic studies of virus infected human pancreatic β-cells, the prime suspects have been narrowed down to predominantly human enteroviruses. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of evidence supporting the hypothesised role of enteroviruses in the development of islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes. We also discuss concerns over the historical focus and investigation bias toward enteroviruses, and summarise current unbiased efforts aimed at characterising the complete population of viruses (the “virome”) contributing early in life to the development of islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes. Finally, we review the range of vaccine and antiviral drug candidates currently being evaluated in clinical trials for the prevention and potential treatment of type 1 diabetes.

The article reviews Iranian sports in three periods: prehistoric, ancient, and modern. In prehistoric times, remaining cases have shown the existence of movement activities based on recreational and religious ceremonies. In the period of ancient history, documents such as Hasanlu Golden Cup and Arjan Cup, and in the continuation of architectures leftover from different eras, refer to the prosperity of sports activities with different approaches. Among all kinds of activities, Iranian zoorkhaneh sport has a significant cultural background and effect. Modern sports entered Iran through embassies, oil contractors, Western-educated students, and military representatives in other countries (in the modern era). Iran became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1947 and won its first Olympic medal in 1948. Entering the 21st century, the sports industry in Iran began to grow and the number of clubs, sports careers, and sports science students in universities increased significantly. The growing dimension of attention and interest in sports among Iranians shows that sports will be one of the main areas in Iran's development in the future.

History is part of the social sciences or humanities. In history, it studies events in the past which also determine what happens in the present and the future. With history, we can find out events and incidents in the past by reading books or by watching movies. Historical science provides many benefits for all circles. However, in this 21st century, which is a modern era, history is less desirable among millennials for various reasons. The purpose of writing this paper, the first is to find out what are the benefits of historical science in this millennial era, the second is to find out whether history is in demand or not among millennials, then what is the benefit of history in this millennial era. The third is to find a solution related to historical science learning so as not to be boring while maintaining its benefits. This research is to solve a common problem among millennials, namely whether millennials are interested in studying history and what can increase millennial interest in studying history. Researchers collect data to compile this paper with a qualitative method, which is to collect the latest journals for reference between 2019 and 2021 which are related to the urgency of 21st-century history for millennials. In addition, the researchers also looks for the latest data related to interest in studying historical science which is used to find out whether history is in demand or not among millennials. Thus, this research can find out what causes millennials to be less interested in history and find a solution, namely by using film media to increase millennial interest. This article is very useful in providing information about the urgency of learning history in the 21st century so that readers can use this article as material to conduct further research on this matter. As for this research, it has limitations, namely this research is only limited to millennials in relation to the urgency of historical science.

The molecular evolution of medulloblastoma is more complex than was previously imagined as emerging evidence suggests that multiples interactions between the tumor cells and components of the tumor microenvironment (TME) are important for tumor promotion and progression. The identification of several molecular networks within the TME, which interact with tumoral cells, has provided new clues to understand the tumorigenic roles of many TME components as well as potential therapeutic targets. In this review, we discuss the most recent studies regarding the roles of astrocytes in supporting the sonic hedgehog (SHH)–activated medulloblastoma molecular subgroup, and provide an overview of medulloblastoma progression through SHH expression and signal transduction mechanisms into the complex tumor microenvironment. In addition, we highlight the associations between tumor and stromal cells as possible prognostic markers and new therapeutic strategies.

Two of the most common activation functions (AF) in deep neural networks (DNN) training are Sigmoid and ReLU. Sigmoid was tend to be more popular the previous decades, but it was suffering with the common vanishing gradient problems. ReLU has resolved these problems by using zero gradient and not tiny values for negative weights and the value “1” for all positives. Although it significant resolves the vanishing of the gradients, it poses new issues with dying neurons of the zero values. Recent approaches for improvements are in a similar direction by just proposing variations of the AF, such as Leaky ReLU (LReLU), while maintaining the solution within the same unresolved gradient problems. In this paper, the combining of the Sigmoid and ReLU in one single function is proposed, as a way to take the advantages of the two. The experimental results demonstrate that by using the ReLU’s gradient solution on positive weights, and Sigmoid’s gradient solution on negatives, has a significant improvement on performance of training Neural Networks on image classification of diseases such as COVID-19, text and tabular data classification tasks on five different datasets.

Domestication had a dramatic influence on the cultural evolution of human histories, and on the biological evolution of domesticated species. Domestic dogs occurred earlier in the Americas than other domesticated animals. Older records in the continent come from North America, dated 11,000-8,400 ybp, and in the Andes from 5,600-5,000 ybp. In order to present an overview of human-dog interaction in the Americas, and to identify gaps in knowledge of this subject, we reviewed 178 publications on zooarchaeological record of burials, genetics, morphology, and ethnological information of American dogs, revisiting the history and interactions across the continent. There is no evidence of an in-situ dog initial domestication. Pre-Columbian diversity in North America includes at least three varieties, whereas in South America six varieties were documented. Historical descriptions of phenotypes (e.g. humped dog) may represent an expression associated with mutations. We find that archaeological, historical, and ethnographic records reveal non-traditional uses and hybridizations with other canids. For example, the Coast Salish people exploited woolly dogs for manufacturing blankets. Dog acquisition by some Amazonian cultures began towards the end of the nineteenth century. Overall more than 41 dog breeds originated in the Americas and are currently recognized by kennel clubs. The main gap in knowledge points to the relationships between American breeds, local hybridizations, migratory routes of dogs following Indigenous peoples’ social networks, historical-cultural contexts, and quantification of morphological diversity. North and Central American dogs have been more intensively studied than those from the Amazon regions or Patagonia. We find that the history of domestication in the Americas is far from simple and integrative studies are needed.

In this study, 12 organic waste materials were subjected to TG/DTG thermogravimetric analysis and DSC calorimetric analysis. These analyses provided basic information about thermochemical transformations and degradation rates during organic waste pyrolysis. Waste materials were chosen to cover the most abundant waste that can be found in the municipal solid waste stream. Based on TG results, kinetic parameters according to Coats–Redfern method were determined. The pyrolysis activation energy was the highest for cotton 134.5 kJ∙(mol∙K)-1 and the lowest for leather 25.2 kJ∙(mol∙K)-1. The DSC analysis showed number of transformations occurred during pyrolysis for each material. For each transformation, normalized energy required for transformation, or released during transformation were determined and then summarized to present energy balance. The study found that only for three waste materials: PET (-220.1 J⸱g-1), leather (-66.9 J⸱g-1), and chicken meat (-130.3 J⸱g-1) energy balance was negative, while the highest positive balance value was found for potato peelings (367.8 J⸱g-1). The obtained results may be applied for the modelling of energy and mass balance of municipal solid waste pyrolysis.

The link between ICTs, freight transport, and CO₂ emissions has not received much explicit examination by researchers, despite freight transportation being an egregious contributor to environmental degradation. This paper investigates how ICTs can affect environmental quality when interacting with freight transport activities in 43 countries over the period 2002-2014, using carbon emissions as a proxy for environmental damages. ICTs are measured in terms of internet, telephone, and mobile phone technologies. Using GMM methodology, the results show that ICTs contribute to dampening environmental degradation when interacting with freight transport activities. Specifically, a 10% increase in the interaction between ICTs and freight transportation will decrease carbon emissions by between 1.27% and 3.02%. The results further suggest that fixed and smartphone technologies are the main contributors to reducing emissions when adopted in some specific transport sectors (i.e. road, rail, and inland), while the internet is the most efficient technology when interacting with air transport activity. In addition, the interaction between ICTs and multimodality accelerates environmental quality. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Athletes living with and beyond cancer can continue to train and, in some cases, compete during treatment. Following cancer treatment, athletes can return to competitive sport but need to learn to adapt their physical strength and training to lingering effects of cancer. It is critical for oncology healthcare providers to use the principles of assess, refer and advise to exercise oncology programs that are appropriate for the individual. Managing side effects of treatment is key to being able to train during and immediately following cancer treatment. Keen attention to fatigue is important at any point in the cancer spectrum to avoid overtraining and optimize the effects of training.

Molecular methods have revolutionised virtually every area of biology, and metazoan phylogenetics is no exception: molecular phylogenies, molecular clocks, comparative phylogenomics, and developmental genetics have collectively transformed our understanding of the evolutionary history of animals. Moreover, the diversity of methods and models within molecular phylogenetics has resulted in significant disagreement among molecular phylogenies as well as between these and traditional phylogenies. Here, I argue that tackling this multifaceted problem lies in integrating evidence to infer the best evolutionary scenario. I begin with an overview of recent developments in early metazoan phylogenetics, followed by a discussion of key conceptual issues in phylogenetics revolving around phylogenetic evidence and theory. I then argue that integration of different kinds of evidence is necessary for arriving at the best evolutionary scenario rather than the best-fitting cladogram. Finally, I discuss the prospects of this view in stimulating interdisciplinary cross-talk in early metazoan research and beyond.

The objective of this work was the use of goat and sheep liquid whey concentrates (LWCs) produced by ultrafiltration (UF) for the manufacture of frozen yoghurts with or without different concentrations of inulin. In a first step, natural yoghurts using only goat and sheep LWCs as raw material were obtained. One day after production, these yoghurts were used to produce frozen yoghurts with different concentrations of added inulin. The physicochemical charateristics of ewe´s and goat´s yoghurts were significantly different regarding dry matter, protein, fat and minerals. Ewe´s yoghurts were solids while goat´s yoghurts behaved as a viscous liquid. Frozen yoghurts with different levels of inulin addition also presented significant differences concerning physicochemical and microbiological characteristics. Overrun was similar for all formulations except for the one produced with ewe’s LWC containing 5.0% inulin, which presented a significantly higher value. Higher meltdown rates in goat’s whey frozen yoghurts were observed. The survival rates of lactic acid bacteria were lower than data reported for similar products. Concerning sensory acceptance, both products showed encouraging results. It can be considered that the production of frozen yoghurts by using LWCs as main ingredient can be an interesting option to broaden the product’s portfolio of small/medium scale dairy producers.

This paper investigates the mental health stressors experienced by Central American youth immigrants and asylum seekers, including unaccompanied minors, surveyed in the U.S. in 2017. This population is hard to reach, vulnerable, and disproportionately exposed to trauma from a young age. They face numerous challenges to mental health, and increased psychopathological risk, exacerbated by high levels of violence and low state-capacity in sending countries, restrictive immigration policies, the fear of deportation for themselves and their family members, and the pressure to integrate once in the U.S. Using survey data and the validated PHQ-9 questionnaire and Child PTSD Symptom Scale (CPSS), we find that Central American youth have seen improvements in their self-reported mental health after migrating to the U.S. but remain at risk of further trauma exposure, depression, and PTSD. They exhibit a disproportionate likelihood of having lived through traumatizing experiences that put Central American immigrants at higher risk for psychological distress and disorders and may also create obstacles to integration that in turn create new stressors that compound with PTSD and depression. PTSD, depression, or anxiety can be minimized through programs that aid their integration and mental health.

The mechanisms of natural oscillations and resonance are described, considering the peculiarities of the transformation of elastic and kinetic energy in the implementation of the law of conservation of energy in local and integral volumes of the body, using the concept of mechanics based on the concepts of space, time and energy. When describing the motion in the Lagrange form, the elastic deformation energy of the particles is determined by the quadratic invariant of the tensor, whose components are the partial derivatives of Euler variables with respect to Lagrange variables. The increment of the invariant due to elastic deformation is represented as the sum of two scalars, one of which depends on the average value of the relative lengths of the edges of the particles in the form of an infinitesimal parallelepiped, the second is equal to the standard deviation of these lengths from the average value. It is shown that each of the scalars can be represented in the form of two dimensionless kinematic parameters of elastic energy, which participate in different ways in the implementation of the law of conservation of energy. One part of the elastic energy passes into kinetic energy and participates in the implementation of the law of conservation of energy for the body as a whole, considering external forces. The second part is not converted into kinetic energy but changes the deformed state of the particles in accordance with the equations of motion while maintaining the same level of the part of the elastic energy of the particles used for this. The kinematic parameters differ from the volume density of the corresponding types of energy by a factor equal to the elastic modulus, which is directly proportional to the density and heat capacity of the material and inversely proportional to the volume compression coefficient. Transverse, torsional, and longitudinal vibrations are considered free and under resonance conditions. The mechanisms of transformation of forced vibrations into their own after the termination of external influences and resonance at the superposition of free and forced vibrations with the same or similar frequency are considered. The formation of a new free wave at each cycle with an increase in the amplitude, which occurs mainly due to internal energy sources, and not external forces, is justified.

Background: Convectional methods for drug delivery often faces setbacks due to systemic distribution, short half-life and degradation of therapeutics and therefore reduce concentrations of drug available to target tissue. Nanotheranostic provide a novel method for treating and diagnosing diseases Methodology: collection and review of relevant literatureResult: while nanotheranostic offer advantage of personalized medicine and often combines diagnosis and therapy using single molecular approach, nuclear medicine relies on radioactive isotopes to diagnosed and destroys cancer cells. In both cases, nanocarriers such as lipid-based, polymer-based, drug-conjugate, inorganic nanoparticles are used to deliver drugs/probes/isotopes to target site, generating images and thereafter chemotherapy/radiotherapy begins.Conclusion: Nanotheranostic plays important role in diseases diagnostic, therapy, imaging, monitoring of disease progression / response through the use of nanocarriers. This is made possible through nanoparticles/nanocarriers that delivers drug to the target tissues/cells.

The application of electrode-based microfluidic devices in biological entity often imposes a problem due to joule heating. The strong applied potentials or micro channels having narrow cross sections generate undesirable temperature inside the microfluidic channels leading to strong thermal distribution inside the micro channel. When intrinsic distribution of temperature, if not fix with threshold value, causes device damage or cell loss. In this work, we investigate the effects of temperature generated due to joules heating effects and we attempt to address the design constraints for minimizing the joule heating effects in the microfluidic device for developing effective microfluidic device. The device reliability was analyzed under different parametric constraints for various types of substrate materials (PDMS, PMMA, Polyimide and glass). We also attempt to investigate the effects of cell reliability due to strong temperature gradients generated through different applied potentials on different cell types. Furthermore, the response of the device performance due to different electrode configuration and different conductivity of the medium was also studied. Our investigation will eventually provide guidelines for microfluidic researchers to fabricate efficient electrode based microfluidic device which will ultimately help to choose a critical channel dimensions, threshold potentials, and conductivity of solutions in order to avoid device damage and cell loss.

Ethylene is a plant hormone controlling physiological and developmental processes such fruit maturation, hairy root formation and leaf abscission. Its effect on regeneration systems, such as organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis (SE), has been studied and progresses in molecular biology techniques have contributed to unveil mechanisms behind its effects. This compound affects regeneration differently, depending on the species, genotype and explant. In some species, ethylene seems to revert recalcitrance in genotypes with low regeneration capacity. However, its effect is not addictive, since in genotypes with high regeneration capacity this ability decreases in the presence of ethylene precursors, suggesting that regeneration is modulated by ethylene. Several lines of evidence have shown that the role of ethylene on regeneration is markedly connected to biotic and abiotic stresses as well as to hormonal-crosstalk, in particular with key regeneration hormones and growth regulators of the auxin and cytokinin families. Transcriptional factors of the ethylene response factor (ERF) family are regulated by ethylene and strongly connected to SE induction. Thus, an evident connection between ethylene, stress responses and regeneration capacity is markedly established. In this review the effect of ethylene and the way it interacts with other players during organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis is discussed.

This study presents a preliminary analysis of the chemical and thermal fuel properties of Afuze (AFZ) coal extracted from coalfields in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria. The chemical properties of AFZ were examined by combined scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), whereas the thermal properties were deduced by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under flash (50 °C/min heating rate) oxidative (combustion) and non-oxidative (pyrolysis) conditions. The microstructure and morphology analysis of AFZ revealed has a compact structure comprising small-to-large, irregular shaped and exfoliated grains with a vitreous appearance typically ascribed to metal elements (Ti and Fe) kaolinite, quartz, and other clay minerals. Chemical analysis revealed carbon, oxygen, aluminium, silicon, sulphur, calcium, titanium, and iron in major and minor (trace) quantities. Thermal analysis under oxidative and non-oxidative conditions revealed degradation occurs in three stages, namely; drying or demineralisation, devolatilization or maceral degradation and the formation of char/coke or ash. Lastly, the findings showed that the temperature range for the oxidative thermal degradation process (338.58 - 756.76 °C) was higher than the non-oxidative process (378.43 - 615.34 °C). This observation can be explained by the exothermic nature of the oxidative (combustion) process, which ensures greater heat supply required to thermally soften or degrade the maceral coal components. Overall, the oxidative process yielded the residual mass (RM = 21.97%) and mass loss (ML = 78.03%). The lower ML (49.03%) but higher RM (50.97%) observed during non-oxidative degradation of AFZ could be ascribed to the largely endothermic nature of the process.

Abstract: Seismic performance and loss assessments can have widely varying degrees of uncertainty. An essential issue is whether a particular assessed seismic loss or performance result has sufficient reliability to serve as the basis for risk management decisions and actions, including whether or not a code prescribed performance level is met, or if an assessed loss level is acceptable. A method is developed measuring the reliability of performance and loss assessments for individual buildings and for portfolios. Consideration is given to how well the building investigation and corresponding evaluation process have been performed, the qualifications of the person(s) doing the assessment, the thoroughness of the evaluation, and the technical validity of the assessment procedure or model. The approach characterizes the uncertainty of each component of the assessment procedure for each building in qualitative terms. The resulting reliability measure is likely to be most useful for the cases where an entity is determining whether/or not a building has acceptable life safety performance, or if a portfolio has an acceptably low risk of seismic damage loss over a given period of time. In both cases, the reliability must either be sufficient to warrant action, or serve to indicate need for improved assessment.

The fault diagnosis of safety critical systems such as wind turbine installations includes extremely challenging aspects that motivate the research issues considered in this paper. In fact, the prompt detection and the reliable diagnosis of faults in their earlier occurrence represent the key point especially for offshore installations. For these plants, operation and maintenance procedures in harsh environments would inevitably increase the cost of the energy production. Therefore, this work investigates fault diagnosis solutions that are considered in a viable way and used as advanced techniques for condition monitoring of dynamic processes. To this end, the work proposes the design of fault diagnosis strategies that exploit the estimation of the fault by means of data--driven approaches. This solution leads to the development of effective methods allowing the management of partially unknown information of the system dynamics, while coping with measurement errors, the model--reality mismatch and other disturbance effects. In mode detail, the proposed data--driven methodologies exploit fuzzy systems and neural networks in order to estimate the nonlinear dynamic relations between the input and output measurements of the considered process and the faults. To this end, the fuzzy and neural network structures are integrated with auto--regressive with exogenous input descriptions, thus making them able to approximate unknown nonlinear dynamic functions with arbitrary degree of accuracy. Once these models are estimated from the input and output data measurement acquired from the considered dynamic process, the capabilities of their fault diagnosis capabilities are validated by using a high--fidelity benchmark that simulates the healthy and the faulty behaviour of a wind turbine system. Moreover, at this stage the benchmark is also useful to analyse the robustness and the reliability characteristics of the developed tools in the presence of model--reality mismatch and modelling error effects featured by the wind turbine simulator. On the other hand, a hardware--in--the--loop tool is finally implemented for testing and comparing the performance of the developed fault diagnosis strategies in a more realistic environment and with respect to different fault diagnosis approaches.

When we attempt to define life, we tend to refer to individuals, those that are alive. But these individuals might be cells, organisms, colonies... ecosystems? We can describe living systems at different scales. Which ones might be the best ones to describe different selves? I explore this question using concepts from information theory, ALife, and Buddhist philosophy. After brief introductions, I review the implications of changing the scale of observation, and how this affects our understanding of selves at different structural, temporal, and informational scales. The conclusion is that there is no single ``best'' scale for a self, as this will depend on the scale at which decisions must be made. Different decisions, different scales.

Background: In the last years, many new treatment options have widened the therapeutic scenario of genitourinary malignancies. Immunotherapy has shown efficacy, especially in the urothelial and renal cell carcinomas, with no particular relevance in prostate cancer. However, despite the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, there is still high morbidity and mortality among these neo-plasms. Cancer vaccines represent another way to activate the immune system. We sought to summarize the most recent advances in vaccine therapy for genitourinary malignancies with this review. Methods: We searched Pubmed, Embase and Cochrane Database for clinical trials conducted in the last ten years, focusing on cancer vaccines in the prostate, urothelial and renal cancer. Results: Various therapeutic vaccines, including DNA-based, RNA-based, peptide-based, dendritic cells, viral vectors, and modified tumor cells, have been demonstrated to induce specific immune responses in a variable percentage of patients. However, these responses rarely corresponded to significant survival improvements. Conclusions: Further pre-clinical and clinical studies will improve the knowledge about cancer vaccines in genitourinary malignancies to optimize dosage, select targets with a driver role for tumor development and growth, and finally overcome resistance mechanisms. Combination strategies represent possibly more effective and long-lasting treatments.

Surface temperature influences human health directly and alters the biodiversity and productivity of the environment. While previous research has identified that the composition of urban landscapes influences the physical properties of the environment such as surface temperature, a generalizable and flexible framework is needed that can be used to compare cities across time and space. This study employs the Structure of Urban Landscapes (STURLA) classification combined with remote sensing of New York City’s (NYC) surface temperature. These are then linked using machine learning and statistical modeling to identify how greenspace and the built environment influence urban surface temperature. It was observed that areas with urban units composed of largely the built environment hosted the hottest temperatures while those with vegetation and water were coolest. Likewise, this is reinforced by borough-level spatial differences in both urban structure and heat. Comparison of these relationships over the period between2008 and 2017 identified changes in surface temperature that are likely due to the changes in prevalence in water, lowrise buildings, and pavement across the city. This research reinforces how human alteration of the environment changes ecosystem function and offers units of analysis that can be used for research and urban planning.

Objective: This paper aims to test and evaluate the Effect of Discipline And Work Environment on Employee Productivity of state-owned public bodies.Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a quantitative approach using a survey approach. The survey is a study conducted on the employee population of state-owned public agency companies, samples taken from the employee population of state-owned public agency companies to find events related to discipline variables and work environments that can affect employee productivity variables, to analise the influence between discipline variables and the work environment on employee productivity variables using a statistic regression approach. This method is used to explain the influence of discipline variables and work environment on employee productivity variables. This approach is simply to provide a description and test the influence between discipline variables and the work environment on employee productivity variables that can be known how much the influence of discipline variables and work environment on employee productivity variables.Findings: The findings of this study explain that discipline has an influence on the productivity of employees of publicly owned companies, the work environment has an influence on the productivity of employees of publicly owned companies, while together discipline and work environment have an influence on the productivity of employees of publicly owned companies.Practical Implications: The results of the study are recommended for employees to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the performance of state-owned public bodies.Originality: Previous research conducted to test the influence of discipline and work environment on the productivity of employees of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, the findings concluded that discipline and work environment have an influence on the work productivity of employees of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. This research object of research on publicly owned companies owned by the state.

The onset of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged the worldwide healthcare sector, including dentistry. The highly infectious nature of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and risk of transmission through aerosol generating procedures has profoundly impacted the delivery of dental care services globally for months causing prioritization of critical dental needs and suspension of routine dental procedures. As dental practices with strengthened infection control strategies and preventive measures are re-opening in the “new normal” period, it is the responsibility of healthcare professionals to constantly analyze new data and limit the spread of COVID-19 in dental care settings. With the new variants of SARS-CoV-2 rapidly emerging in different geographic locations, a definite need to comply more than ever with the rigorous public health measures to mitigate COVID -19 transmission exists. The aim of this article is to provide dental clinicians with essential information regarding both the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus and protective measures against COVID-19 transmission in dental facilities. By compiling guidance and standard protocols recommended by credible national and international organizations, this article serves as an aid to navigating through this unprecedented time with ease. Much to learn about COVID-19 exists and because of constant ongoing research, we are not aware of all of the newly found information. However, in this paper, we reviewed the available literature recommended for the best current practices that must be taken for a dental office to function safely and successfully.

The recent Planck Legacy release confirmed the existence of an enhanced lensing amplitude in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra, which endorses the positive curvature of the early Universe with a confidence level exceeding 99%. In this study, the pre-existing curvature is incorporated to extend the field equations where the derived wave function of the Universe is utilized to model Universe evolution with reference to the scale factor of the early Universe and its radius of curvature upon the emission of the CMB. The wave function reveals both positive and negative solutions, implying that matter and antimatter of early Universe plasma evolve in opposite directions as distinct Universe sides. The wave function indicates that a nascent hyperbolic expansion is followed by a first phase of decelerating expansion away from early plasma during the first 10 Gyr, and then, a second phase of accelerating expansion in reverse directions, whereby both Universe sides free-fall towards each other under gravitational acceleration. Simulations of the predicted conformal curvature evolution demonstrate the fast orbital speed of outer stars owing to the external fields exerted on galaxies as they travel through conformally curved space-time. Finally, the wave function predicts an eventual time-reversal phase comprising rapid spatial contraction that culminates in a Big Crunch, signalling a cyclic Universe. These findings reveal that early plasma could have separated and evolved into distinct sides that collectively and geometrically influencing the Universe evolution, physically explanting the effects attributed to dark matter and energy.

This paper presents a two-way factor design incorporating both spatial and temporal variation in the prediction of COVID 19 in Africa. In line with this, the impact of COVID-19on the GDP in Africa is well scrutinized. In contrast to the existing works [1–3], this work also extends the two-factor design into the one-way factor design through incorporating covariates into spatial effects. The data rely on the spatial and temporal obtained from WHO datasets [4, 5]. The one-factor design with more covariates is taken into consideration to identify the major potential predictor variables responsible for the deaths and confirmed cases due to COVID 19 in Africa. The MANCOVA considered population density, temperature, humidity; perception, and wind are all considered as co-variates. Simulations show that the two-way analysis of variance has shown that there is a statistically significant difference between the spatial (Fcal= 8.2704, Pvalue= 3.099∗10−6)and temporal (Fcal= 48.7964, Pvalue= 9.147∗10−16) effects. South Africa and Nigeria are highly influencing due to the pandemic where their GDP also relatively mostly declined. A significant economic change is observed before the pandemic and after the outbreak of the pandemic(tcal= 2.9548, Pvalue= 0.01805). COVID 19 negatively influenced the economy of1 most of the African countries. The population density, temperature, and wind are found to be statistically significantly associated with COVID 19 cases and deaths.

Research Highlights: (1) Reed canary grass (RCG) is analysed in Sweden compared to willow and poplar for 2001-2020 (2) Each crop presents a different land-use and climatic profile (3) Average yield records of reed canary grass are similar to willow and poplar (4) There are divergences between trial-based and commercial yields (5) Existing LUC patterns suggest meadow>RCG and RCG>cereal (6) RCG land area is very sensitive to policy incentives. Background and objectives: RCG is an alternative crop for biomass-to-energy due to high yield and frost tolerance. We assess the cultivation in Sweden by using an extensive compilation of data, with emphasis on the extension of the cultivation, areas planted, climatic profile, land use patterns and yield levels. Material and methods: All RCG plantations are analysed for 2001-2020. A geostatistical analysis is performed to characterize where is cultivated and the land uses associated. Climatic, productivity and yield profiles are compared to willow and poplar plantations, from experiments and from commercial plantations. Results: The results show that the cultivation of reed canary grass expanded after 2005, with a maximum of 800 ha in 2009 to then decrease to the current levels of about 550 ha. It is mainly grown in colder climatic areas, with lower agricultural productivity than willow and poplar. Mean yields from trials are 6 odt ha-1 yr-1; commercial yields are 3.5 odt ha-1 yr-1. RCG replace meadow land and is replaced by cereals, when abandoned. Conclusions: Reed canary grass is an interesting alternative, growing on colder areas but on similar yield levels than other energy crops. The cultivation is more sensitive to policy incentives

Climate change is expected to influence cooling and heating energy demand of residential buildings and affect overall thermal comfort. Towards this end, the heating degree-day (HDD), the cooling degree-day (CDD) and the HDD+CDD were computed from an ensemble of 7 high-resolution bias-corrected simulations attained from EURO-CORDEX under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. These three indicators were analyzed for 1971-2000 (from E-OBS) and 2011-2040 and 2041-2070, under both RCPs. Results show that the overall spatial distribution of HDD trends for the 3 time-periods points out an increase of energy demand to heat internal environments in Portugal's northern-eastern regions, most significant under RCP8.5. It is projected an increase of CDD values for both scenarios; however, statistically significant linear trends were only found for 2041-2070 under RCP4.5. The need for cooling is almost negligible for the remaining periods, though linear trend values are still considerably higher for 2041-2070 under RCP8.5. By the end of 2070, higher amplitudes for all indicators are depicted for southern Algarve and Alentejo regions, mainly under RCP8.5. For 2041-2070 the Centre and Alentejo (North and Centre) regions present major positive differences for HDD(CDD) under RCP4.5(RCP8.5), within the 5 NUTS II regions predicting higher heating(cooling) requirements for some locations.

Water mist fire suppression technology has attracted an increasing interest from the field of fire protection services such as fire safety for buildings, ships, spacecraft, libraries and museums due to its non-toxic and high efficiency in the suppression of a wide variety of fires. To support the technological development of water mist fire suppression system and its application areas, this review introduces the concept of water mist system and discusses its suppression mechanisms in comparison with other fire protection systems. The recent application areas of water mist system are surveyed for class A fires involving combustible solid materials such as wood, paper and textiles; class B fires involving flammable liquids such as petrol, oils, lubricants, paints and waxes; class C fires involving flammable gasses such as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas; fires involving electrical (class E) equipment such as computers and information technology facilities; and the class F fires involving flammable cooking oils and fats. Finally, the paper concludes the review by identifying the current research trends, and providing the future direction for water mist technology and applications.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by a broad array of clinical signs. In this study, we aimed to use intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG), called intacglobin, as a monotherapy to manage SLE in three patients. Laboratory investigations for SLE diagnosis were performed, including the detection of anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) and SLE confirmation by detecting high titers of anti-dsDNA antibodies. C3 and C4 serum levels were assessed, as well as the determination of immunoglobulins. The SLEDAI score was measured to determine whether a significant degree of disease activity existed and as a prognostic value. The evaluation of any chest infection was performed by chest-X-ray. The patients were treated with five–ten g/day of IVIG for six consecutive days, followed by five–ten g/month. Immunological evaluation demonstrated that patients presented with a flare of SLE with high titers of ANA and anti-dsDNA antibodies, low C3 and C4, and elevated immunoglobulin levels. The SLEDAI score falls from 10 to below 3, and chest infections in some patients are cleared up. The postulated mechanisms of action of IVIG demonstrated that it could be used as an immunosuppressor, immunomodulator, and antimicrobial agent in patients with SLE.

Although the presence of dark energy is well established from various observations, its true nature is still not well understood. The cosmological constant term seems to be the preferred candidate. In earlier work we had a constant cosmological constant term to limit the sizes of large-scale structures at lower redshifts. In this work, we extend this to large scale structures at higher redshifts. Here we invoke a time varying cosmological constant to set constraints on sizes of galaxies at high redshifts and see that they are consistent with their observed sizes. The time-varying cosmological constant also provides a possible solution to the puzzle of structure formation of large disk galaxies (like the Wolfe disk) observed at very early stages of the Universe. Future observations of galaxies at even higher redshifts could support our approach.

Mosquitoes carrying endosymbiotic bacteria called Wolbachia are being released in mosquito and arbovirus control programs around the world. Open field releases of Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes have achieved over 95% population suppression, while the replacement of populations with Wolbachia-infected females is self-sustaining and can greatly reduce local dengue transmission. Despite many successful interventions, significant questions and challenges lie ahead. Wolbachia, viruses and their mosquito hosts can evolve, leading to uncertainty around the long-term effectiveness of a given Wolbachia strain, while few ecological impacts of Wolbachia releases have been explored. Wolbachia strains are diverse and the choice of strain to release should be made carefully, taking environmental conditions and the release objective into account. Mosquito quality control, thoughtful community awareness programs and long-term monitoring of populations are essential for all types of Wolbachia intervention. Releases of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes show great promise, but existing control measures remain an important way to reduce the burden of mosquito-borne disease.

Establishing macrometastases at distant organs is a highly challenging process for cancer cells, with extremely high attrition rates. A very small percentage of disseminated cells have the ability to dynamically adapt to their changing micro-environments through reversibly switching to another phenotype, aiding metastasis. Such plasticity can be exhibited along one or more axes – epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) and cancer stem cells (CSCs) being the two most studied, and often tacitly assumed to be synonymous. Here, we review the emerging concepts related to EMP and CSCs across multiple cancers. Both processes are multi-dimensional in nature; for instance, EMP can be defined on morphological, molecular and functional changes, which may or may not be synchronized. Similarly, self-renewal, multi-lineage potential, and anoikis and/or therapy resistance may not all occur simultaneously in CSCs. Thus, arriving at rigorous functional definitions for both EMP and CSCs is crucial. These processes are dynamic, reversible, and semi-independent in nature; cells traverse the inter-connected high-dimensional EMP and CSC landscapes in diverse paths, each of which may exhibit a distinct EMP-CSC coupling. Our proposed model offers a potential unifying framework for elucidating the coupled decision-making along these dimensions and highlights a key set of open questions to be answered.

Abstract Background: Premature babies have a greater risk for having health issues after being discharged from the hospital whilst the mother ability to provide premature baby care still has many issues as well. Interventions are needed to be given to mothers at home to improve the ability of mothers to care their premature babies. Methods: Search for articles used the bolean operator of “or” and “and” with the keywords used were “preterm or premature”, “intervention or program”, and “mother and home”. Data based used were Sciencedirect, Ebscohost, PubMed, SAGE, Proquest and Scopus with inclusion criteria using full text in English from 2018 to 2021. There were 428 articles obtained, the articles were then screened by reading the main focus of articles with paying attention to the topic and the suitability of article content and we obtained 13 suitable articles. Results: The interventions at home carried out for mothers and premature babies were divided into two namely the follow-up interventions from the hospital and the interventions carried out at the patient's home. Seven articles about research of interventions that were as a combination from hospital intervention with follow-up hospital intervention plus five full interventions at the patient's home. Interventions were provided through home visits (12 articles) and by telephone (1 article). The results of the article analysis resulted in 4 main themes of intervention for mothers and premature babies, they were health education, counceling, support, and care for premature babies. Conclusion: Quality care is essential for the best health, growth and development of premature babies. Interventions need to be carried out by health workers to ensure the readiness and ability of mothers to care for their babies. Maternal readiness and abilities can be improved by providing health education, counseling, support and care for premature babies.

Apathy is a fundamental neuropsychiatric symptom of Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS) and has also been reported in patients with alcohol use disorder with no (AUD) or less severe cognitive disorders (ALC). However, research on the nature of apathy is limited in these groups. Aim of this study was to examine the multidimensional nature of apathy in patients with KS, ALC and AUD. Moreover, we examined differences between apathy ratings by patients and their professional caregivers, and related apathy to everyday functioning and overall cognition. Twenty-four patients with KS, 24 patients with ALC and 21 patients with AUD participated in this study. Apathy was measured using the Apathy Motivation Index (AMI), which distinguishes behavioral, emotional and social apathy. Both patients and professional caregivers reported social apathy as most prominent symptom, compared to behavioral and emotional apathy. Apathy ratings did not differ across the three patient groups. Discrepancies between patient and caregiver ratings were observed in patients with KS and ALC, with more severe apathy reported by caregivers. Caregiver-reported behavioral and social, but not emotional, apathy was related to everyday functioning. These results show that apathy is present in a substantial proportion of patients with alcohol addiction with or without cognitive impairments.

In cancer, the lymphatic system is hijacked by tumor cells to escape from primary tumor and to metastasize to the sentinel lymph nodes. Tumor lymphangiogenesis is stimulated by the vascular endothelial growth factors-C (VEGFC) after binding to its receptor VEGFR-3. However, how VEGFC cooperates with other molecules to promote lymphatic neovessels growth is not fully determined. Here, we found that tumor lymphangiogenesis developed in tumoral lesions and in their surrounding adipose tissue (AT). Interestingly, lymphatic vessel density correlated with an increase of circulating free fatty acids (FFA) in the lymph from tumor-bearing mice. We found that adipocyte-released FFA are uploaded by lymphatic endothelial cells (LEC) to stimulate their sprouting. Lipidomic analysis identified the monounsaturated oleic acid (OA) as the major circulating FFA in the lymph in tumoral context. OA transporters FATP-3, -6 and CD36 were only upregulated on LEC in the presence of VEGFC showing a collaborative effect of these molecules. OA released from adipocytes is taken up by LECs to stimulate the fatty acid β-oxidation, leading to increase adipose tissue lymphangiogenesis. Our results provide new insights on the dialogue between tumors and adipocytes via the lymphatic system and identify a key role for adipocyte-derived FFA in the promotion of lymphangiogenesis, revealing novel therapeutic opportunities for inhibitors of lymphangiogenesis in cancer.

Grounded on urban morphology studies, the research tries to overcome the analysis of the permanents elements of the city seeking for a transitional paradigm in urban morphology, aiming at grasping the dynamics in urban evolution and providing operative tools for urban regeneration design in an adaptive approach. A combination of four actions of urban analysis is here suggested to highlight urban dynamics: a. Sorting the transitional steps of urban morphologies (within rapid market processes), b. Underlining rules and Processes characterizing urban coding in transition, c. Mapping urban assemblages in the adaptive city and d. Reading and representing urban permutation phenomenon. The results of this multifaced and multidimensional set of analytical tools allow to outline a new design thinking paradigm moving towards a parametric approach to urban design of cities in transition broadening the extent of urban regeneration process and supporting urban policies in the framework community based approach.

Pneumonia remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. With the significant global health burden that pneumonia poses, it is es-sential to improve therapeutic and management strategies. The increasing emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains limits options for effective antibiotic use. New antibiotics for treatment of pneumonia may address deficits in current antimicrobial drugs, with an ability to cover both typical, atypical, and resistance pathogen. Several of these newer drugs also have structural characteristics that allow for a decreased propensity in development of bacterial resistance. Po-tential use of stem cell therapies in place of corticosteroid treatments may also offer an im-provement in patient outcomes. Human mesenchymal stem cell treatments have shown efficacy and safety in treating COVID-19 induced pneumonia. Combined treatment with both stem cells and antibiotics in pneumonia in a rabbit model has also shown significantly increased efficacy in comparison to antibiotic treatment alone, presenting yet another possible route for a novel strategy in treating pneumonia, though additional future studies are necessary before clinical implementation. While pneumonia remains a major disease of concern, having newer approved antibiotics as well as novel therapies such as stem cell treatments in the pipeline offers clinicians more options in effectively treating pneumonia.

Confinement can induce substantial changes in the physical properties of macromolecules in suspension. Soft confinement is a particular class of restriction where the boundaries that constraint the particles in a region of the space are not well-defined. This scenario leads to a broader structural and dynamical behavior than the observed in systems enclosed between rigid walls. In this contribution, we study the ordering and diffusive properties of a two-dimensional colloidal model system subjected to a one-dimensional parabolic trap. Increasing the trap strength makes it possible to go through weak to strong confinement, allowing a dimensional transition from two- to one-dimension. The non-monotonic response of the static and dynamical properties to the gradual dimensionality change affects the system phase behavior. We find that the particle dynamics is connected with the structural transitions induced by the parabolic trap. In particular, at low and intermediate confinement regimes, complex structural and dynamical scenarios arise, where the softness of the external potential induces melting and freezing, resulting in faster and slower particle diffusion, respectively. Besides, at strong confinements, colloids move basically along one direction, and the whole system behaves structurally and dynamically similar to a one-dimensional colloidal system.

Purpose: The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has created the need for social distancing between medical staff and patients, therefore, healthcare robotics is increasingly important as regards infectious control. The purpose of this study was to design and fabricate a remote controlled transport robot that could provide an optimum technology base for developing countries, having dual functions of telepresence and delivery operations inside or outside buildings, is easy to assemble and also easily able to be cleaned using standard chemical agents.Methods: This machine was designed and fabricated to incorporate two main functions; delivery and telepresence. The robot consists of a base frame, DC motors for driving and steering systems, actuator motor for driving wheel elevation, Wi-Fi AP/Repeater, network camera, and a necessary a back-up power system.Results: This robot can be used both indoors and outdoors. It can carry loads of more than 80 kg. The machine can cross obstacles greater than 3 cm. It can be cleaned by disinfectant agents. An actuator motor can lift the driving wheels above the surface to prevent gear damage. Conclusion: This article demonstrates the concept of a healthcare telepresence and delivery robot that can provide distancing during the present COVID-19 crisis, using optimum technology for low and middle-income countries. In the future, the researcher should consider development of the delivery controls, combined with the telepresence system using the internet of things, to improve the navigation system, the manipulator system for supporting multi-floor transportation, and also other multi-functional purposes.

Given a quasi-definite linear functional u in the linear space of polynomials with complex coefficients let us consider the corresponding sequence of monic orthogonal polynomials (SMOP in short) (Pn)n≥0. For the Christoffel transformation u˜=(x−c)u with SMOP (P˜n)n≥0, we are interested to study the relation between u˜ and u(1)˜, where u(1) is the linear functional for the associated orthogonal polynomials of the first kind (Pn(1))n≥0 and u(1)˜=(x−c)u(1) is its Christoffel transformation. This problem is also studied for the Geronimus transformations.

This note addresses a fundamental problem in matrix theory on establishing and characterizing range equalities for matrix expressions that involve generalized inverses. We first establish a group of necessary and sufficient conditions for the matrix range equality ${\rm range}(D_1 - C_1A_1^{\dag}B_1) = {\rm range}(D_2 - C_2A_2^{\dag}B_2)$ to hold, where $(\cdot)^{\dag}$ denotes the Moore--Penrose inverse of matrix. We then give several groups of range equalities with extrusion properties for multiple matrix products associated with two matrices and their conjugate transposes and Moore--Penrose inverses.

Smartwatches provide technology-based assessments in Parkinson’s disease (PD). We present results for sensor validation and disease classification via Machine Learning (ML). A comparison setup was designed with two different series of Apple smartwatches, one Nanometrics seismometer and a high-precision shaker to measure tremor-like amplitudes and frequencies. Clinical smartwatch measurements were acquired from a prospective study including 450 participants with PD, differential diagnoses (DD) and healthy participants. All participants wore two smartwatches and within a 15-min examination. Symptoms and medical history were captured on the paired smartphone. A broad range of different ML classifiers were cross-validated. Amplitude and frequency differences between smartwatches and the seismometer were under the level of clinical significance. The most advanced task of distinguishing PD vs DD was evaluated with 74,1% balanced accuracy, 86,5% precision and 90,5% recall by Multilayer Perceptrons. Deep Learning architectures significantly underperformed in all classification tasks. Smartwatches are capable of capturing subtle-tremor signs with low noise. This study provided the largest PD sample size of two-hand smartwatch measurements and our preliminary ML-evaluation shows that such a system provides powerful means for diagnosis classification and new digital biomarkers but it remains challenging for distinguishing similar disorders.

Recently Palle has investigated the chiral vorticity and Cartan torsion in neutrino asymmetries. In his case he addressed this problem in Goedel s like anisotropic Einstein-Catan cosmology. In this paper we discusse how these ideas applied to sheared Bianchi types I Einstein-Cartan (EC) neutrino amisotropic cosmology, affect the handness of neutrinos in the universe. Actually here a novel concept of the chiral metric is introduced where metric functions also possess two distinct signs as in neutrino flipping or helicity. The axial anomaly equation for neutrinos in the presence of torsion and metric chirality is shown to produce left-handed neutrinos from right-handed torsion. Metric chirality is shown to be able to define how the metric would behave far away of neutrino density. Chiral flipping of the chiral neutrinos in the presence of torsion is also investigated. It is shown that when the chiral torsion is left-handed the chemical chiral potential vanishes as the universe expands.

This paper discusses the concept of fractional derivative with complex order from the application point of view. It is shown that a fractional derivative is hermitian, if and only if the order is real. The hermitian part of complex order derivatives behave like allpass filters with almost logarithmic phase.

With the advent of real-time MRI, the motion and passage of cerebrospinal fluid can be visualized without gating and exclusion of low-frequency waves. This imaging modality gives insights into low-volume, rapidly oscillating cardiac-driven movement as well as sustained, high-volume, slowly oscillating inspiration-driven movement.Inspiration means a spontaneous or artificial increase in the intrathoracic dimensions independent of body position. Alterations in thoracic diameter enable the thoracic and spinal epidural venous compartments to be emptied and filled, producing an upward surge of cerebrospinal fluid inside the spine during inspiration; this surge counterbalances the downward pooling of venous blood toward the heart.Real-time MRI, as a macroscale in vivo observation method, could expand our knowledge of neurofluid dynamics, including how astrocytic fluid preloading is adjusted and how brain buoyancy and turgor are maintained in different postures and zero gravity.Along with these macroscale findings, new microscale insights into aquaporin-mediated fluid transfer, its sensing by cilia and its tuning by nitric oxide will be reviewed. By incorporating clinical knowledge spanning several disciplines, certain disorders—congenital hydrocephalus with Chiari malformation, idiopathic intracranial hypertension and adult idiopathic hydrocephalus—are interpreted and reviewed according to current concepts, from the basics of the interrelated systems to their pathology.

The basis of the discrete-impulse energy supply (DIES) concept is the efficient use of supplied energy. The references describe in detail the general principles of DIES, examine the energy and thermodynamic aspects and the main mechanisms of intensification that can be initiated on the basis of this principle. DIES mechanisms conveniently can be divided into hard and soft ones. The former should be used to stimulate hydromechanical processes, and the latter to accelerate the processes of phase heat and mass transfer, or for the purpose of intensive mixing of multicomponent media. The authors have studied the possibility of using DIES to intensify the hydromechanical processes, in particular emulsification of milk fat (homogenization of milk, preparation of spreads), processing of cream cheese masses. Objects of research were whole non-homogenized milk, fat emulsions, cream cheese mass. In order to evaluate the efficiency of milk homogenization the homogenization coefficient change was studied, which was determined by centrifugation method as the most affordable and accurate one. Emulsions were evaluated according to the degree of destabilization, resistance and dispersion of the fat phase. The rheological characteristics of cheese masses were evaluated by the effective viscosity change.

Complex models have received significant interest in recent years and are being increasingly used to explain the stochastic phenomenon with upward and downward fluctuation such as the stock market. Different from existing semi-variance methods in traditional integer dimension construction for two variables, this paper proposes a simplified multi-factorized fractional dimension derivation with the exact Excel tool algorithm involving the fractional center moment extension to covariance, which is a complex parameter average that is a multi-factorized extension to Pearson covariance. By examining the peaks and troughs of gold price averages, the proposed algorithm provides more insight into revealing underlying stock market trends to see who is the financial market leader during good economic times. The calculation results demonstrate that the complex covariance is able to distinguish subtle differences among stock market performances and gold prices for the same field that the two variable covariance may overlook. We take the London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Toronto and Nasdaq as the representative examples.

A remarkable, unquestioned assumption in studies measuring the association between national average Intellectual Quotients (IQ) and Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per capita is that a supposedly immutable genetic factor (IQ) may be correlated with a markedly fluctuant one (the wealth of nations). Using historical GDP per capita data produced by the Maddison project, we find that, over history, the (Pearson productmoment) correlation coefficient (r) between average IQ and GDP per capita is highly variable and ranges from strong negative values to strong positive values. The correlation between national IQ and GDP per capita is thus a snapshot of the world order at some point in time, and historical data allow us to identify several other eras. Moreover, global GDP at any point in time is never difficult to predict in the first place. We show that arbitrary ad-hoc scores based on a country’s continental location present a more significant correlation with contemporary GDP per capita. We conclude this paper by a call to clarify the purpose of IQ studies in Macroeconomics and for the consideration of GDP as a time-series in this line of research.