The SiBOC precursor ceramics were fabricated by polymer-derived method SiBOC precursors with different B/Si molar ratios were synthesized by controlling monomer content. The effects of different process conditions on SiBOC ceramics and the oxidation resistance of SiBOC ceramics at a high temperature (1400 ℃) were studied. The SiBOC precursor’s bonds of Si-O-C, Si-O-Si, and Si-O-B were detected by FTIR. The precursor is converted to a rigid ceramic material that has an 85.3 wt % ceramic yield of SiBOC ceramics with B/Si=0.4 by TG-DSC. The results of SEM analysis show that the SiBOC ceramics surface bulges and folds increase with the increase of boric acid content. With the increase of pyrolysis temperature and pyrolysis time, the size and number of pores on the surface of SiBOC ceramics also increase. Static oxidation tests show that SiBOC ceramics with B/Si=0.4 have better oxidation resistance under other conditions being the same.

Boulder dynamics may provide essential data for the coastal evolution and hazards assessment and can be focused as a proxy for the onshore effect of intense storm waves. In this work, detailed observations of currently available satellite imagery of the Earth surface allowed to identify several coastal boulders displacements in the Southern Apulia coast (Italy), in a period between July 2018 and June 2020. Field surveys confirmed the displacements of several dozens of boulders up to several meters in size, also allowing the determination of the initial position for many of them. Archive weather analyses identified two possible causative storms during the same period, and calculations based on analytical equations are found in agreement with the displacement by storm waves for most of the observed boulders. The results help to give insights about the onshore effect of high storm waves on the coastal hydrodynamics and the possible future flooding hazard in the studied coast.

Background: The saga of repatriating cultural artefacts continues as western museums face increasing pressure from claimants. Western museums that have been involved in the display of historical artefacts, most of which were acquired during the colonial period, have come under huge criticism. A heated discussion of late has been the legitimacy of retaining artefacts in western museums. This study aimed at investigating the ongoing debate regarding the restitution of artefacts. Objective: To investigate the arguments for and against the repatriation of artefacts in relation to diplomatic exchange, preservation, legitimacy and usefulness. Methods: Records will be searched in electronic databases including the University of Manchester Library for Social Anthropology, Scorpus and Project MUSE. Search terms will include "return of artefacts", “return of historical objects”, “return of cultural objects”, “western museums”, “restitution of artefacts”, “repatriation of artefacts”, “restitution of historical objects”, repatriation of historical objects”, “restitution of cultural objects”, “repatriation of cultural objects”, "material culture", "return of antiquities”, restitution of antiquities” and “repatriation of antiquities”. Coding and analysis will be done in SWIFT-Review. The deductive and inductive approaches will be used in synthesising results. Both tabular and graphical methods will be used to present results. Ethics and Results: This study did not need any ethical approval. Results on study characteristics, quality and risk of bias assessments as well as the synthesis of arguments for and against the restitution of artefacts will be presented. The review results will be reported according to appropriate guidelines and disseminated through publication in a relevant journal and presented to stakeholders where necessary. Conclusions: This review will be based on current protocols for systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis. The study will be the first review that seeks to pull together claims for and against the return of cultural artefacts. The conclusions that will be drawn and recommendations will provide the basis for further research into the debate and the way forward. This study will also help identify the existing gaps regarding the subject matter.

Functional Connectivity analysis using Electroencephalography signals is a common 2 practice. The EEG signals are converted to networks by transforming the signals into a correlation 3 matrix and analyzing the resulting networks. Here, four learning models, namely, Logistic Regres 4 sion, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, and Recurrent Neural Networks, are implemented 5 on the correlation matrix data to classify them either on their psychometric assessment or the 6 effect of therapy. The classifications based on RNN provided higher accuracy( 74-88%) compared 7 to the other three models( 50-78%). The use of a correlation matrix, instead of using individual 8 graph features provides an initial test of the data. When compared with the time-resolved correlation 9 matrix it provided 4-5% higher accuracy.

Coral reefs are critical ecosystems globally for marine fauna, biodiversity and through the services they provide to humanity. However, they are significantly threatened by anthropogenic stressors, such as climate change. By combining 9 environmental variables and ecological and health-based thresholds obtained from the available literature, we develop, using fuzzy logic (discontinuous functions), a Coral Reef Stress Exposure Index (CRSEI) for remotely monitoring coral reef exposure to environmental stressors. Our approach capitalises on the abundance of readily available satellite Earth Observation (EO) data available in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based geospatial processing platform. CRSEI values from 3157 distinct reefs were generated and mapped across 12 important coral reef ecosystem regions. Quantitative analyses indicated that the index detected significant temporal differences in stress and was, therefore, able to capture historic change at a global scale. We also applied the CRSEI to three case-study reef ecosystems, previously well-monitored for stress and disturbance using other methods. PCA analysis indicated that depth, current, sea surface temperature (SST) and SST anomaly accounted for the greatest contribution to the variance in stress in these three regions. The CRSEI corroborated temporal and spatial differences in stress exposure from known disturbances within these reference regions, in addition to identifying the potential drivers of inter- and intra-region differences in stress, namely depth, degree heating weeks and SST anomaly. We discuss how the index can be further improved in future with site-specific thresholds for each stress variable, and the incorporation of additional variables not currently available in GEE. This index provides an open access tool, built around a free and powerful processing platform, that has broad potential to assist in the regular monitoring of our increasingly imperilled coral reef ecosystems, and, in particular, those that are remote or inaccessible.

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes, including stereolithography (SL), can fabricate complex ceramic parts layer by layer using computer-aided design (CAD) models. A ceramic slurry with high solid loading is usually used in SL to fabricate the desired shape, which is further sintered to produce the final part. The traditional SL system utilizes a tank filled with printable material, known as a vat, which for ceramic slurry contributes several limitations and operational difficulties, and further renders it non-recyclable mainly due to its high viscosity and the fragility of the green state. In this study, we utilized a continuous film supply (CFS) printer integrated with a tape casting system using in-house-designed ceramic slurry to print standard prototype specimens. Various printing parameters, including viscosity, layer thickness control, and slurry recycling efficiency, were studied. In addition, post-processing optimizations of the prototype, characterizations, and the microhardness of sintered samples were studied to determine their properties and compare them with traditional methods. The effectiveness of slurry reusability was demonstrated by printing with original and recycled slurry to produce consistent densification of final parts. Post-processing was optimized to achieve a relative sinter density of 99.02% and microhardness of 12.59 GPa. This method provides new opportunities to realize dense complex ceramic features with final properties comparable to those produced by subtractive machining and traditional SL. Furthermore, slurry recycling helps to reduce the overall cost and material consumption.

With the introduction of HTTP/3, whose transport is no longer the traditional TCP protocol but the novel QUIC protocol, research for solutions to the unfairness of Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (HAS) has become more challenging. That is, because of different transport layers, the HTTP/3 may not be available for some networks and the clients have to use HTTP/2 for their HAS applications instead. Therefore, the scenario that HAS over HTTP/3 (HAS/3) compete against HTTP/2 (HAS/2) must be considered seriously. However, there have been a shortage of investigations on the performance and the origin of the unfairness in such a cross-protocol scenario in order to produce proper solutions. Therefore, this paper provides a performance evaluation and root-cause analysis of the cross-protocol unfairness between HAS/3 and HAS/2. It is concluded that, due to differences in the congestion control mechanisms of QUIC and TCP, HAS/3 clients obtain larger congestion windows, thus requesting higher video bitrates than HAS/2. As the problem lies in the transport layer, existing client-side ABR-based solutions for the unfairness from the application layer may perform suboptimally for the cross-protocol case.

Background: We aimed to assess the risk of chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-related cognitive impairment in colorectal cancer patients. Methods: We randomly selected 40% of colorectal cancer patients from Korean National Health Insurance Database (NHID), 2004-2018 (N=148,848). Patients with one or more ICD-10 diagnostic codes for dementia or mild cognitive impairment was defined as cognitive impairment cases. Patients who were aged 18 or younger, diagnosed with cognitive impairment before colorectal cancer (N=8,225) and did not receive primary resection (N=45,320) were excluded. The effects of each chemotherapy agent on cognitive impairment were estimated. We additionally estimated the effect of radiotherapy in rectal cancer patients. Time-dependent competing risk Cox regression was conducted to estimate overall and age-specific hazard ratios (HR) separately for colon and rectal cancer. Results: In colon cancer, capecitabine and irinotecan was associated with higher cognitive im-pairment, while 5-fluorouracil was not. In rectal cancer, no chemotherapy agents increased the risk of cognitive impairment, nor did radiotherapy. Hazardous association of irinotecan was estimated larger in elderly patients compared with younger counterparts. Conclusion: Heterogeneous associations between various chemotherapy agents and cognitive impairment were observed. Elderly patients were more vulnerable to possible adverse cognitive effects. Radiotherapy did not increase the risk of cognitive impairment.

Neural precursors (NPs) present in the hippocampus can be modulated by several neurogenic stimuli including environmental enrichment (EE) and antidepressant treatment acting through BDNF-TrkB signaling. We have recently identified NPs in meninges, however menigneal niche response to pro-neurogenic stimuli has never been investigated. To this aim, we analyzed the effects of 4 weeks fluoxetine administration or 1 week EE treatment on NP distribution in mouse brain meninges. Following neurogenic stimuli, although we did not detect modification of meningeal cell number and proliferation, we observed, in meninges, an increased number of β3-Tubulin⁺ immature neuronal cells. Lineage-tracing experiment confirmed that EE-induced β3-Tubulin⁺ immature neuronal cells present in meninges originated from GLAST⁺ radial glia cells. To investigate the molecular mechanism responsible for this response, we studied the BDNF-TrkB interaction. Treatment with ANA-12, a TrkB non-competitive inhibitor, abolished the EE-induced increase of β3-Tubulin⁺ immature neuronal cells in meninges.Overall these data showed, for the first time, that the meningeal niche responded to neurogenic stimuli by increasing the immature neuronal population through TrkB-mediated signaling. A better understanding of the neurogenic stimuli effects on NPs in meninges may be useful to improve the effectiveness of depression and mood disorders treatments.

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infections among dogs are more common than previously thought. In this study, the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was investigated in two dog population. The first group was comprised of 1069 dogs admitted to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital for any given reason. The second group included dogs that shared households with confirmed COVID-19 cases in humans. This study group numbered 78 dogs. In COVID-19 infected households, 43.9% tested ELISA positive, and neutralisation antibodies were detected in 25.64% of dogs. Those data are comparable with the secondary attack rate in the human population. With 14.69% of dogs in the general population testing ELISA positive, there was a surge of SARS-CoV-2 infections within the dog population amid the second wave of the pandemic. Noticeably seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the dog and the human population did not differ at the end of the study period. Male sex, breed and age were identified as significant risk factors. This study gives strong evidence that while acute dog infections are mostly asymptomatic, they can pose a significant risk to dog health. Seropositive dogs had a 1.97 times greater risk for developing central nervous symptoms.

This research was conducted to understand changes of physicochemical properties of fruits of three apple cultivars as influenced by stage of maturity and packaging types over storage period of three weeks. The research was designed to replicate practices by the producers and along the value chains and to assess the fruit quality under the conditions of the major markets in the region. All the measured physicochemical parameters significantly varied with the cultivars, maturity stage at harvest and packaging types. Higher firmness was recorded for the samples harvested about two weeks before the optimal maturity, usually practiced by significant number of producers to gain market advantage. Lower total soluble solids corresponded to the early harvested samples regardless of cultivars and packaging types. The firmness was observed decreasing over the storage periods whereas the total soluble solids increased, which is associated to improving sensorial quality for the early harvested cultivars as the soluble solids are mainly sugars. The early harvesting resulted in fruits of inferior desirability including extreme hardness, firmness and low total soluble solids that may have high sourness and less sweet taste. Awareness creation for the producers on the quality and advantages of harvesting their produces at optimal maturity and practicing good postharvest management is required.

Prediction of tumor consistency is valuable for planning transsphenoidal surgery for pituitary adenoma. A prospective study was conducted involving 49 participants with pituitary adenoma to determine whether quantitative pharmacokinetic analysis of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is useful for predicting consistency of adenoma. Pharmacokinetic parameters in the adenomas including volume of extravascular extracellular space (EES) per unit volume of tissue (ve), blood plasma volume per unit volume of tissue (vp), volume transfer constant between blood plasma and EES (Ktrans), and rate constant between EES and blood plasma (kep) were obtained. The pharmacokinetic parameters and the histologic percentage of collagen content (PCC) were compared between soft and hard adenomas using Mann–Whitney U test. Pearson’s correla-tion coefficient was used to correlate pharmacokinetic parameters with PCC. Hard adenomas showed significantly higher PCC (44.08 ± 15.14% vs. 6.62 ± 3.47%, p < 0.01), ve (0.332 ± 0.124% vs. 0.221 ± 0.104%, p = 0.02), and Ktrans (0.775 ± 0.401/min vs. 0.601 ± 0.612/min, p = 0.02) than soft adenomas. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was found between ve and PCC (r = 0.601, p < 0.01). The ve derived using DCE-MRI may have predictive value for consistency of pituitary adenoma.

The management of patients with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1) is constantly evolving. In just a few decades the medical approach has switched from an exclusively palliative therapy to a targeted therapy, transforming the natural history of the disease, improving survival time and quality of life, and creating new challenges and goals. Many nutritional problems, gastrointesti-nal disorders and metabolic and endocrine alterations are commonly identified in patients af-fected by SMA1 during childhood and adolescence. For this reason, a proper pediatric multidis-ciplinary approach is then required in the clinical care of these patients, with a specific focus on the prevention of most common complications. The purpose of this narrative review is to provide the clinician with a practical and usable tool about SMA1 patients care, through a comprehensive insight into the nutritional, gastroenterological, metabolic and endocrine management of SMA1. Considering the possible horizons opened thanks to new therapeutic frontiers, a nutritional and endo-metabolic surveillance is a crucial element to be considered for a proper clinical care of these patients.

Results from a behavioral economic laboratory experiment are used to enhance our understanding of public health decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The identification of systematic biases from optimal decision theory found in controlled experiments could help inform public policy design for future public health crises. The laboratory and the shelter-in-place decisions made during COVID-19 included elements of risk, uncertainty and ambiguity. The lab findings found individuals adopt different decision rules depending on both personal attributes and on the context and environment in which the decision task is conducted. Key observations to consider in the context of the COVID-19 decision environment include the importance of past experience, the ability to understand and calculate the odds of each action, the size and differences in economic payoffs given the choice, the value of information received, and how past statistical independent outcomes influence future decisions. The academic space encompassing both public health and behavioral economics is small, yet important, particularly in the current crisis. The objective of continued research in this area would be to develop a more representative model of decision-making processes, particularly during crisis, that would serve to enhance future public health policy design.

Predicting trip purpose from comprehensive and continuous smart card data is beneficial for transport and city planners in investigating travel behaviours and urban mobility. Here we propose a framework, ActivityNET, using machine learning (ML) algorithms to predict passengers’ trip purpose from smart card data and Points-of-Interest (POIs) data. The feasibility of the framework is demonstrated in two phases. Phase I focuses on extracting activities from individuals’ daily travel patterns from smart card data and combining them with POIs using the proposed ‘activity-POIs consolidation algorithm’. Phase II feeds the extracted features into an artificial neural network (ANN) with multiple scenarios and predicts trip purpose under primary activities (home and work) and secondary activities (entertainment, eating, shopping, child drop-offs/pick-ups and part-time work) with high accuracy. As a case study, the proposed ActivityNET framework is applied in Greater London and illustrates a robust competence to predict trip purpose. The promising outcomes demonstrate that the cost-effective framework offers high predictive accuracy and valuable insights into transport planning.

To reveal rare phenotypes in bacterial populations conventional microbiology tools should be advanced to generate rapid, quantitative, accurate and high-throughput data. The main drawbacks of widely used traditional methods for antibiotic studies include low sampling rate and averaging data for population measurements. To overcome these limitations microfluidic-microscopy systems have great promise to produce quantitative single-cell data with high sampling rates. Using Mycobacterium smegmatis cells we applied both conventional assays and a microfluidic-microscopy method to reveal antibiotic-tolerance mechanisms of wild type and the msm2570::Tnmutant cells. Our results revealed that the enhanced antibiotic tolerance mechanism of the msm2570::Tn mutant was due to the low number of lysed cells during the antibiotic exposure compared with wild-type cells. This is the first study that characterized the antibiotic-tolerance phenotype of the msm2570::Tn mutant that has a transposon insertion in the msm2570 gene encoding a putative xanthine/uracil permease, which enrolls in uptake of nitrogen compound during nitrogen limitation. The experimental results indicate that the msm2570::Tn mutant can be further interrogated to reveal antibiotic killing mechanisms, in particularly, antibiotics those targets cell wall integrity.

In Ethiopia, bamboo thickets and woodlands play an important role in soil-water conservation and climate change mitigation in arid and semi-arid regions. However, bamboo mass flower-ing, rapid demographic changes and expansion of agricultural investments to bamboo domi-nated areas have led to deforestation and land degradation. In this study, we determined the effects of deforestation and subsequent cultivation on soil physical and chemical properties along a chronosequence of closely located agricultural lands with different ages (1, 3, 5 and 7 years) since converted from natural lowland bamboo forest. Hence, soil samples (n = 90) have been taken from both natural bamboo forests and adjacent agricultural lands at two soil depths (0-20 cm and 20-40 cm). Our result showed that CEC, K+, Ca+, Mg+ and available P were varied significantly with respect to cultivation periods and soil depth, while soil pH and Na+ varied with soil depth (P < 0.001). Soil C and total N contents (g/kg) in 0-20 cm soil layer declined significantly and exponentially with increasing years under cultivation. Conversion of natural bamboo forest to cropland during the past seven-year period significantly increased soil pH with soil depths, while CEC was declined throughout the cultivation period and soil depth. In general, the result revealed that conversion of natural lowland bamboo and subsequent cultivation of soil had negative effects on measured soil physicochemical properties.

Background: CD169 has been found overexpressed in the blood of COVID-19 patients and identified as a biomarker in the early disease. We have analysed CD169 in blood cells of COVID-19 patients to assess its role as predictive marker of the disease. Methods : The ratio of the CD169 Median median Fluorescence fluorescence Intensity intensity of CD169 between monocytes and lymphocytes (CD169 RMFI ) was analysed by flow cytometry in blood samples of COVID-19 patients (COV) and healthy donors (HD ) and correlated with immunophenotyping, inflammatory markers, cytokines mRNA expression, pulmonary involvement and disease progression. Results: CD169 RMFI increased in COV but not in HD. CD169 RMFI correlated with T-cell differentiation and exhaustion markers as well as with B cells maturation and differentiation. In vitro stimulation of PBMCs of HD with SARS-CoV-2 Spike spike protein induced CD169 RMFI together with IL-6 and IL-10 gene expression. Likewise, CD169 RMFI correlated with blood cytokine mRNA levels, inflammatory markers, and pneumonia severity in patients which that had not received any treatment at sampling. Notably, in untreated patients, CD169 RMFI reflected the respiratory outcome during hospitalization. Conclusion : Considering the immunological role of CD169 and its involvement during the infection and the progression of COVID-19, it could be considered as an early biomarker to evaluate disease progression and clinical outcome.

Plant sterols are compounds with multiple biological functions, mainly cholesterol-reducing. There are no comprehensive databases on plant sterols, which makes it difficult to estimate their intake in the Polish population. In this study we used international food databases, supplemented by scientific data from the literature, to create a database on plant sterols in the food consumed in Poland to assess the size and sources of dietary plant sterols in the adult population of Poland. The literature search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar to identify possible sources of published food composition data for plant sterols. The study group consisted of 5690 participants of the WOBASZ II survey. We identified 361 dietary sources of plant sterols based on the consumption of foods and dishes reported by participants. Cereals and fats provided 61% of the total plant sterols, and together with vegetables and fruits, this totaled 80%. Total plant sterol intake for the Polish population was 282.97 mg/day, and divided by men and women was 320.77 and 252.19 mg/day, respectively. Canola oil provided the most plant sterols at 16.92%, followed by white bread at 16.65% and soft margarine at 8.33%. This study found that the database of plant sterols facilitates the calculation of plant sterols in the typical Polish diet, and the results are comparable to those of other studies, despite different methodologies of nutritional assessment and slightly different databases. The main sources of dietary plant sterols did not differ from the data for other populations. This study confirmed the observations of other research that women's diets may have a higher plant sterol density compared to men.

This article shows that the recently proposed latent D-scoring model of Dimitrov is statistically equivalent to the two-parameter logistic item response model. An analytical derivation and a numerical illustration are employed for demonstrating this finding. Hence, estimation techniques for the two-parameter logistic model can be used for estimating the latent D-scoring model. In an empirical example using PISA data, differences of country ranks are investigated when using different metrics for the latent trait. In the example, the choice of the latent trait metric matters for the ranking of countries. Finally, it is argued that an item response model with bounded latent trait values like the latent D-scoring model might have advantages for reporting results in terms of interpretation.

Objectives: Multicentric Osteolysis, Nodulosis, and Arthropathy (MONA) syndrome is a rare genetic skeletal dysplasia. Its diagnosis can be deceptively similar to childhood-onset genetic skeletal dysplasias and juvenile idiopathic arthritis. We aimed to report the syndrome’s clinical and radiologic features with emphasis on skeletal manifestations. And establish relevant phenotype-genotype correlations. Methods: We evaluated two boys, 4-and-7-years-old with MONA syndrome. Both patients had consanguineous parents. We verified the diagnosis by correlating the outcomes of clinical, radiologic and molecular analysis. We specifically evaluated the craniofacial morphology and clinical and radiographic skeletal abnormalities. We contextualized the resultant phenotype-genotype correlations to publications on MONA and its differential diagnosis. Results: Skeletal manifestations were the presenting symptoms and mostly restricted to hands and feet in terms of fixed extension deformity of the metacarpophalangeal and flexion deformity of the interphalangeal joints with extension deformity of big toes. There were arthritic symptoms in the older patient especially of the wrists and minute pathologic fractures. The skeletal radiographs showed osteopenia/dysplastic changes of hands and feet. Both patients had variants in the matrix metalloproteinase2 gene which conformed to phenotype of previously reported literature in one patient while the other had a novel variant which conformed to MONA phenotype. Craniofacial abnormalities were present. However, minimal extra-skeletal manifestations. Conclusion: Overall, there is an emerging distinctive skeletal pattern of involvement in terms of both clinical and radiographic features. This includes age of onset and location of presenting skeletal manifestations, chronological order of joint affection, longitudinal disease progression, specifics of skeletal radiographic pathology and craniofacial features. Nevertheless, physicians are cautioned against differential diagnosis of similar genetic skeletal dysplasias and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Abstract: The promotion of sustainable packaging is part of the European Green Deal and plays a key role in the EU’s social and political strategy. One option is the use of renewable resources and biomass waste as raw materials for polymer production. Lignocellulose biomass from annual and perennial industrial crops and agricultural residues are a major source of polysaccharides, proteins, and lignin, and can also be used to obtain plant-based extracts and essential oils. Therefore, these biomasses are considered as potential substitute for fossil-based resources. Here, the status quo of bio-based polymers is discussed and evaluated in terms of properties related to packaging applications such as gas and water vapor permeability as well as mechanical properties. So far, their practical use is still restricted due to lower performance in fundamental packaging functions that directly influence food quality and safety, the length of shelf life and thus the amount of food waste. Besides bio-based polymers, this review focuses on plant extracts as active packaging agents. Incorporating extracts of herbs, flowers, trees, and their fruits is inevitable to achieve desired material properties that are capable to prolong the food shelf life. Finally, the adoption potential of packaging based on polymers from renewable resources is discussed from a bioeconomy perspective.

Sport nutrition knowledge has been shown to influence dietary habits of athletes. The purpose of the current study was to examine relationships between sport nutrition knowledge and body composition and examine potential predictors of body weight goal in collegiate athletes. Participants included National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III women (n=42, height: 169.9 ± 6.9 cm; body mass: 67.1 ± 8.6 kg; fat-free mass: 51.3 ± 6.6 kg; body fat %: 24.2 ± 5.3%) and men (n=25, height: 180.8 ± 7.2 cm; body mass: 89.2 ± 20.5 kg; fat-free mass: 75.9 ± 12.2 kg; body fat %: 13.5 ± 8.9%) athletes. Body composition was assessed via air displacement plethysmography. Athletes completed a validated questionnaire designed to assess sport nutrition knowledge and were asked questions about their perceived dietary energy and macronutrient requirements, as well as their body weight goal (i.e. lose, maintain, gain weight). Athletes answered 47.98 ± 11.29 % of questions correctly on the nutrition questionnaire with no differences observed between sexes (men: 49.52 ± 11.76% vs. women: 47.03 ± 11.04%; p=0.40). An inverse relationship between sport nutrition knowledge scores and body fat percentage (r = -0.330; p=0.008), and fat mass (r = -.268; p=0.032) was observed for all athletes. Fat mass (β = 0.224), BF % (β = 0.217), and BMI (β = 0.421) were all significant (p&lt;0.05) predictors of body weight goal in women. All athletes significantly (p&lt;0.001) underestimated daily energy (-1,360 ± 610.2 kcal/d), carbohydrate (-301.6 ± 149.2 g/d), and fat (-41.4 ± 34.5 g/d) requirements. Division III collegiate athletes have a low level of sport nutrition knowledge, which was associated with a higher BF %. Women athletes with a higher body weight, BF % and BMI were more likely to select weight loss as a body weight goal. Athletes also significantly underestimated their energy and carbohydrate requirements based upon the demands of their sport, independent of sex.

Here, we designed the composition of the coating of the paper sheets composed of chitosan, bacterial cellulose (nanofibres), and ZnO with boosted antibacterial and mechanical activity. We investigated the compositions with ZnO exhibiting two different sizes/shapes: (1) rods and (2) irregular sphere-like particles. The proposed processing of bacterial cellulose resulted in the formation of nanofibers. Antimicrobial behavior was tested using E. coli ATCC® 25922™ following ASTM E2149-13a standard. Mechanical properties of the paper sheets were measured by comparison of tearing resistance, tensile strength, and bursting strength according to ISO 5270 standard. The increased antibacterial response is assigned to the combination of chitosan and ZnO (independently of its shape and size), while the boosted mechanical behavior is due to bacterial cellulose nanofibers. Therefore, the proposed composition is an interesting multifunctional mixture for coatings in food packaging applications.

Size effect on plain concrete specimens is well known and can be correctly captured when performing numerical simulations by using a well characterised softening function, but in the case of fibre reinforced concrete this is not directly applicable, since an only diagram cannot capture the material behaviour on elements with different size due to dependence of the orientation factor of the fibres with the size of the specimen. In previous works, the use of a trilinear softening diagram proved to be very convenient for reproducing fracture of polyolefin fibre reinforced concrete elements, but only if it is previously adapted for each specimen size. In this work, a predictive methodology is used to reproduce fracture of polyolefin fibre reinforced concrete specimens of different sizes under three-point bending. Fracture is reproduced by means of a well known embedded cohesive model, with a trilinear softening function that is defined specifically for each specimen size. The fundamental points of these softening functions are defined a priori by using empirical expressions proposed in past works, based on an extensive experimental background. Therefore, the numerical results are obtained in a predictive manner, and then compared with a previous experimental campaign, showing that this approach properly captures the size effect, although some values of the fundamental points in the trilinear diagram could be defined more accurately.

The 32CA reactions of a series of pairs of bent three-atom-components (B-TACs) and linear TACs (L-TACs) towards electrophilic dicyanoethylene (DCE) have been studied within the Molecular Electron Density Theory in order to understand their different reactivity. ELF analysis indicates that while pseudodiradical B-TACs change their electronic structure to pseudoradical or carbenoid L-TACs upon dehydrogenation, zwitterionic B-TACs experience no remarkable change. Analysis of the CDFT indices indicates that five of the nine studied TACs have a strong nucleophilic character, thus participating in polar reactions towards electrophilic ethylenes. The activation energies of the 32CA reactions of the nine TACs towards electrophilic DCE range from 0.6 to 22.0 kcal·mol-1, which are by between 2.0 and 10.1 kcal·mol-1 lower than those involved in the non-polar 32CA reactions with ethylene. In general, B-TACs are more reactive than their L-TAC counterparts. A change of the regioselectivity is found in these polar 32CA reactions; in general, while B-TACs are meta regioselective, L-TACs are ortho regioselective. Analysis of the geometrical parameters indicates that at all TSs, the formation of the single bond involving the most electrophilic C4 carbon of DCE is more advanced than that involving the C5 one. A change of the asynchronicity in the reactions involving B-TACs and L-TACs is also found.

Spatial planning holds a key role in preventing or mitigating the impacts of climate change on both cities and rural areas, taking a forward-thinking and holistic approach to urban and regional development. As such, spatial planning deals with challenges occurring at different scales and across sectors. The international literature points out the need for horizontal and vertical cooperation to tackle climate change impacts. While there is abundant knowledge regarding the challenges related to climate change at different spatial levels, procedural integration into planning frameworks and practice is currently under-researched. This paper presents a novel theoretical framework that integrates various steps towards a holistic, integrative and adaptive climate proofing process. An iterative process was used for conceptual development, based on literature review followed by external feedback meetings and two workshops with the core team of planning experts responsible for exchange across federal states. By specifically addressing the challenges relating to cross-regional and cross-sectoral planning, this novel framework attempts to (i) facilitate a hierarchy of measures, (ii) maximise co-benefits for various adaptation purposes and climate change mitigation and (iii) foster the long-term institutionalisation of integrative processes across sectors, planning areas and policy levels.

The article focuses on derivation of simplified predictive models for identification of overall compressive stiffness and strength of corrugated cardboards. As a representative example an unsymmetrical 5-ply sample (with E and B flute) was used in this study. In order to exclude unreliable displacement measurement in the standard edge crush test, the virtual strain gauges are used. Video extensometry is employed here to collect measurements from the outer surfaces of the sample on both sides. Additional data allows for obtaining real force-displacement curves, which are used in the validation procedure. To emulate the experimental results, beside simple analytical model, also a 3D numerical model fully reflecting the geometry of the corrugated board, based on finite elements method was also built. In both cases a good agreement between the experimental results and the analytical and numerical calculations was observed. This proves that the proposed analytical model can be successfully used to determine the overall stiffness and compressive strength of the corrugated board, provided that the geometry and properties of all the layers of the board are known. The simple model presented in this work enables quick and reliable design and prototyping of new assemblies without the need to manufacture them.

There must exist a reformulation of quantum field theory which does not refer to classical time. We propose a pre-quantum, pre-spacetime theory, which is a matrix-valued Lagrangian dynamics for gravity, Yang-Mills fields, and fermions. The definition of spin in this theory leads us to an eight dimensional octonionic space-time. The algebra of the octonions reveals the standard model; model parameters are determined by roots of the cubic characteristic equation of the exceptional Jordan algebra. We derive the asymptotic low energy value 1/137 of the fine structure constant, and predict the existence of universally interacting spin one Lorentz bosons, which replace the hypothesised graviton. Gravity is not to be quantized, but is an emergent four-dimensional classical phenomenon, precipitated by the spontaneous localisation of highly entangled fermions.

The aim of this study was to synthesize and characterize a novel Methacrylate- functionalized Calcium Phosphate (MCP) used as a bioactive compound for innovative dental composites. The characterization was accomplished by Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-Ray Diffraction Analysis (XRDA), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and EnergyDispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). The incorporation of MCP as a bioactive filler in esthetic dental composite formulations and the ability of MCP containing dental composites to promote precipitation of hydroxyapatite (HAp) on the surfaces of those dental composites was explored. The translucency parameter, depth of cure, degree of conversion, ion release profile, and other physical properties of composites were studied with respect to the amount of MCP added to the composites. Composites containing 3 Wt.%, 6 Wt.%, and 20 Wt.% MCP were evaluated at 7, 14, and 21 days. The progress of surface precipitation of hydroxyapatite on MCP-containing dental composites was studied by systematically increasing the MCP content in the composite and the time of specimen storage in Dulbecco’s phosphate-buffered solution with calcium and magnesium. It was found that there was a direct correlation between the percentage of MCP in a composite formulation, the amount of time the specimen was stored in PBS, and the deposition of hydroxyapatite on the composite’s surface

The concept of a ‘just transition’ encompasses political and policy imperatives to minimise the harmful impacts of industrial and economic transitions on workers, communities and society more generally, and to maximise their potential benefits. This imperative has gained heightened importance as governments commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A wide range of policies strategies and initiatives have been adopted by national and regional governments to facilitate and help manage a just transition. It is a concept that is increasingly being put into practice. This scoping study identifies and compares strategies, policies and practices that are presently being implemented in order to manage a just transition across 25 countries and 74 regions alongside European Union-level policies. This work develops a typology of policy instruments to manage just transitions and identifies implementation gaps and leading practices.

The sand-dust horizontal flux is an important parameter for the study on aeolian sand transport, as well as an important foundation. In this study, a field experiment was developed to measure the data of aeolian transport and microclimate during different dust events with an auto sand sampler, a piezoelectric saltation sensor (H11-Sensit) and a 10 m high meteorological tower in Ta Zhong, the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert from July to August in 2010. Then, the sampling efficiency of auto sand sampler and horizontal dust flux of near surface were analyzed based on observed data. The results were as follows: sand collector skip turnover increased with the increase of the intensity of dust weather frequency increases, the power function relationship y=2.115 x0.9841, R2 = 0.9206, flip frequency per minute increased from 0.2794 times to 1.3041 times, change is obvious; With the strength of the weather, time to flip the average sediment is shrinking. Sandstorm weather, skip to flip a volume of 3.7160 g, grade I flying sand weather flip a volume of 4.0275 g, the amount of class II flying sand weather turns over a 5. 0035g.The horizontal dust flux of different dust events that calculated with the equation Q=256M; the maximum of one dust event was about 190.335 kg, and the minimum was 1.2 kg. Overall, the sand transportation rate increased with wind speed. However, the changes of sand transportation rate did not quite fit in with wind speed during some dust events, and in this case the corresponding surface temperature was significantly higher. The experimental data obtained can provide theoretical basis for regional sand control and enacting effective engineering measures.

This study investigates the vertical structure of the dynamical properties of a warm-core ring in the Gulf of Mexico (Loop Current ring) using glider observations. We introduce a new method to correct the glider’s along-track coordinate which is, in general, biased by the unsteady relative movements of the glider and the eddy, yielding large errors on horizontal derivatives. Here, we take advantage of the synopticity of satellite along-track altimetry to apply corrections on the glider’s position, by matching in situ steric height with satellite-measured sea surface height. This relocation method allows to recover the eddy’s azimuthal symmetry, to precisely estimate the rotation axis position, and to compute reliable horizontal derivatives. It is shown to be particularly appropriate to compute the eddy’s cyclo-geostrophic velocity, relative vorticity, and shear strain, which are otherwise out of reach when using the glider’s raw traveled distance as an horizontal coordinate. The Ertel potential vorticity (PV) structure of the warm core ring is studied in details, and we show that the PV anomaly is entirely controlled by vortex stretching. Sign reversal of the PV gradient across the water column suggests that the ring might be baroclinically unstable. The PV gradient is also largely controlled by gradients of the vortex stretching term. We also show that the ring’s total energy partition is strongly skewed, with available potential energy being 3 times larger than kinetic energy. The possible impact of this energy distribution on the Loop Current rings longevity is also discussed.

Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and a promising resource for novel natural compound producers. Actinomycetes produce about two-thirds of all clinically used antibiotics. Thus, exploiting Indonesia’s microbial diversity for actinomycetes may lead to the discovery of novel antibiotics. A total of 422 actinomycete strains were isolated from three different unique areas in Indonesia and tested for their antimicrobial activity. Nine potent bioactive strains were prioritized for further drug screening approaches. The nine strains were cultivated in different solid and liquid media and a combination of genome mining analysis and mass spectrometry (MS)-based molecular networking was employed to identify potential novel compounds. By correlating secondary metabolite gene cluster data with MS-based molecular networking results, we identified several gene cluster-encoded biosynthetic products from the nine strains, including naphthyridinomycin, amicetin, echinomycin, tirandamycin, antimycin, and desferrioxamine B. Besides, eight putative ion clusters and numerous gene clusters were detected that could not be associated with any known compound, indicating that the strains can produce novel secondary metabolites. Our results demonstrate that sampling of actinomycetes from unique and biodiversity-rich habitats, such as Indonesia, along with a combination of gene cluster networking and molecular networking approaches, accelerates natural product identification.

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is a ubiquitous serine/threonine phosphatase implicated in a wide variety of regulatory cellular functions. PP2A is abundant in the mammalian nervous system and dysregulation of its cellular functions are associated with myriad neurodegenerative disorders. Additionally, PP2A has oncologic implications, recently garnering attention and emerging as a therapeutic target because of the antitumor effects of a potent PP2A inhibitor, LB100. LB100 abrogation of PP2A is believed to exert its inhibitory effects on tumor progression through cellular chemo- and radio-sensitization to adjuvant agents. An updated and unifying review of PP2A biology and inhibition with LB100 as a therapeutic strategy for targeting cancers of the nervous system is needed, as other reviews have mainly covered broader applications of LB100. In this review, we discuss the role of PP2A in normal cells and tumor cells of the nervous system. Further, we summarize current evidence regarding the therapeutic potential of LB100 for treating solid tumors of the nervous system.

ANGPTL3 is an important regulator of lipid metabolism. Its inhibition in people with hypercholesteremia reduces plasma lipid levels dramatically. Genome-wide association studies have associated ANGPTL3 variants with lipid traits. Irisin, an exercise modulated protein, has been associated with lipid metabolism. Intracellular accumulation of lipids impairs insulin action and contributes to metabolic disorders. In this study, we evaluate the impact of ANGPTL3 variants on levels of irisin and markers associated with lipid metabolism and insulin resistance. ANGPTL3 rs1748197 and rs12130333 variants were genotyped in a cohort of 278 Arab individuals from Kuwait. Levels of irisin and other metabolic markers were measured by ELISA. Significance of association signals was assessed using Bonferroni-corrected P-values and empirical P-values. The study variants were significantly associated with low levels of c-peptide and irisin. Levels of c-peptide and irisin were mediated by interaction between carrier genotypes (GA+AA) at rs1748197 and measures of IL13 and TG, respectively. While levels of c-peptide and IL13 were directly correlated in individuals with reference genotype, they were inversely correlated in individuals with carrier genotype. Irisin correlated positively with TG which is strong in individuals with carrier genotypes. These observations illustrate ANGPTL3 as a potential link connecting lipid metabolism, insulin resistance and cardioprotection.

This paper presents an approach to the Timoshenko beam theory (TBT) using the finite difference method (FDM). The Timoshenko beam theory covers cases associated with small deflections based on shear deformation and rotary inertia considerations. The FDM is an approximate method for solving problems described with differential equations. It does not involve solving differential equations; equations are formulated with values at selected points of the structure. In addition, the boundary conditions and not the governing equations are applied at the beam’s ends. The model developed in this paper consisted of formulating differential equations with finite differences and introducing additional points at the beam’s ends and at positions of discontinuity (concentrated loads or moments, supports, hinges, springs, brutal change of stiffness, spring-mass system, etc.). The introduction of additional points allowed us to apply the governing equations at the beam’s ends. Moreover, grid points with variable spacing were considered, the grid being uniform within beam segments. First-order, second-order, and vibration analyses of structures were conducted with this model. Furthermore, tapered beams were analyzed (element stiffness matrix, second-order analysis, vibration analysis). Finally, a direct time integration method (DTIM) was presented; the FDM-based DTIM enabled the analysis of forced vibration of structures, with damping taken into account. The results obtained in this paper showed good agreement with those of other studies, and the accuracy was increased through a grid refinement. Especially in the first-order analysis of uniform beams, the results were exact for uniformly distributed and concentrated loads regardless of the grid.

HLA class-I (HLA-I) polyreactive monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) reacting to all HLA-I alleles were developed by immunizing HLA-E monomeric heavy chain (HC) (Open Conformers, OCs). Two of the mAbs (TFL-006 and TFL-007) bound to the HC’s coated on a solid matrix. The binding was inhibited by a peptide 117AYDGKDY123, present in all alleles of the six HLA-I isoforms but masked by 2-microglobulin -m) in intact HLA-I trimers (Closed Conformers, CCs). Identical HLA-I polyreactivity is observed in IVIg administered to lower anti-HLA antibodies (Abs) in HLA-sensitized patients, but the mechanism is unknown. We hypothesized that the mAbs that mimic IVIg HLA-I polyreactivity might mimic the immunomodulatory functions of IVIg. We tested the relative binding affinity of the mAbs and IVIg for both OCs- and CCs and compared their effects on (a) the phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-activation T-cells, (b) the production of anti-HLA-II antibody (Ab) by B-memory cells, and anti-HLA-I Ab by immortalized B-cells, and (c) the upregulation of CD4+, CD25+, and Fox P3+ T-regs. The mAbs bound only to OCs, whereas IVIg is bound to both CCs and OCs. The mAbs suppressed blastogenesis and proliferation of PHA-activated T-cells, anti-HLA Ab production by B-cells and expanded the T-regs, better than IVIg. We conclude that a humanized version of the TFL-mAbs could be an ideal therapeutic IVIg-mimetic.

In this paper we compare using computational fluid dynamics the aerothermal performance of two candidate casing manifolds for supplying an impingement-actuated active tip clearance control system for an aero-engine high-pressure turbine. The two geometries are (a) single-entry: an annular manifold fed at one circumferential location; (b) multiple-entry: a casing manifold split into four annular sectors, each sector supplied separately from an annular ring main. Both the single-entry and multiple-entry systems analysed in this paper are idealised version of active clearance control systems in current production engines. Aerothermal performance is quantitatively assessed on the basis of the heat transfer coefficient distribution, driving temperature difference for heat transfer between the jet and casing wall, and total pressure loss within the high-pressure turbine active clearance control system. We predict that the mean heat transfer coefficient (defined with respect to the inlet temperature and local wall temperature) of the single-entry active clearance control system is 77% greater than the multiple-entry system; primarily because the coolant in the multiple-entry case picks up approximately 40 K of temperature from the ring main walls, and secondarily because the average jet Reynolds number of impingement holes in the single entry system is 1.2 times greater than in the multiple entry system. The multiple-entry system exhibits many local hot and cold spots, depending on the position of the transfer boxes, while the single-entry case has a more predictable aerothermal field across the system. The multiple-entry feed system uses an average of 20% of the total available pressure drop, while the feed system for the single-entry geometry uses only 2% of the total available pressure drop. From the aerothermal results of this computational study, and in consideration of holistic aero-engine design factors, we conclude that a single-entry system is closer to an optimal solution than a multiple-entry system.

3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde (DOPAL) is the focus of the catecholaldehyde hypothesis for the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease and other Lewy body diseases. The catecholaldehyde is produced via oxidative deamination catalyzed by monoamine oxidase (MAO) acting on cytoplasmic dopamine. DOPAL is autotoxic, in that it can harm the same cells in which it is produced. Normally DOPAL is detoxified by aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)-mediated conversion to 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), which rapidly exits the neurons. Genetic, environmental, or drug-induced manipulations of ALDH that build up DOPAL promote catecholaminergic neurodegeneration. A concept derived from the catecholaldehyde hypothesis imputes deleterious interactions between DOPAL and the protein alpha-synuclein (S), a major component of Lewy bodies. DOPAL potently oligomerizes S, and S oligomers impede vesicular and mitochondrial functions, shifting the fate of cytoplasmic dopamine toward MAO-catalyzed formation of DOPAL—destabilizing vicious cycles. Direct and indirect effects of DOPAL and of DOPAL-induced misfolded proteins could “freeze” intra-neuronal reactions, plasticity of which is required for neuronal homeostasis. The extent to which DOPAL toxicity is mediated by interactions with S, and vice versa, are poorly understood. Because of numerous secondary effects such as augmented spontaneous oxidation of dopamine by MAO inhibition, there has been insufficient testing of the catecholaldehyde hypothesis in animal models. The clinical pathophysiological significance of genetics, emotional stress, environmental agents, and interactions with numerous proteins relevant to the catecholaldehyde hypothesis are matters for future research. The imposing complexity of intra-neuronal catecholamine metabolism seems to require a computational modeling approach to elucidate clinical pathogenetic mechanisms and devise pathophysiology-based, individualized treatments.

Objective: Studies in Sports Psychology and Sociology have validated causality in team-sport athletes by using emotional intelligence as a variable. This study aimed to examine the causal relationship between the types of autonomy support coaching, emotional intelligence, and interruption intention as psychosocial variables among current taekwondo athletes in Korea.Methods: In this study, 217 adult or university athletes registered in the Korea Taekwondo Association in 2020 were evaluated for the type of autonomy support coaching, emotional intelligence, and interruption intention. Results: Autonomy support coaching recognized by taekwondo athletes has a negative and positive effect on interruption intention and emotional intelligence, respectively. Moreover, emotional intelligence has a negative effect on interruption intention. which revealed that autonomy support coaching has a negative effect on interruption intention through emotional intelligence.Conclusions: Such outcomes can serve as a foundation for athletes to have the opportunity to participate in sports in a mature manner and promote positive changes in sports culture. In other words, the sensibility of the athletes can be harmoniously symmetry.

China is gradually and steadily shifting towards more sustainable development and the local governments are increasingly promoting sustainable spatial planning practices. The article debates the potential contradiction between the goal of a growing urban population and the reduced consumption of land planned by the sustainable development strategy of the city of Suzhou in the Yangtse River Delta region. The article explores the opportunities of densification of the residential urban environment as a possible solution for this contradiction. The article presents some Chinese examples of densification for land use efficiency and identifies in the resettlement communities of Suzhou some of the sites that can be efficiently redeveloped for their obsolescent conditions that do not correspond to the increasingly middle-class status of the residents in the region. The article investigates the different options of densification possible in the resettlement communities in the frame of the policies of urban renewal promoted in China in recent years for improving the urban quality of cities.

Methods based on simulation pedagogy are widely used to practice hands on skills in safety environment. The usability of an EEG-simulator on clinical neurophysiology course was evaluated. Second year biomedical laboratory science students (N=35) on this course was included in the study. They were divided into three groups. Two groups used the EEG simulator with different feedback modes and one group without use of the simulator. Results was expected to reveal a correlation between user experience and learning outcomes. This study made used of a mixed method study design. During the study students were asked to keep a learning diary throughout the course on their experience. Diaries were analyzed qualitatively based on content analyses. Quantitative analyses based on an UX questionnaire that measures classical usability aspects (efficiency, perspicuity, dependability) and user experience aspects (novelty, stimulation) and the students’ feelings to use simulator. The quantitative data was analyzed using SPSSTM software. The quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that the use of EEG-simulator which was evaluating teaching-learning process have an extra benefit in clinical neurophysiology education and students felt that simulator is useful in learning. The simulation debriefing session should be followed by a full theoretical and practical session. Students compare their learning from the simulator with that of the actual placement which fosters the reflective practice of learning again deepening the understanding of the EEG electrode placement and different wave patterns.

Slope failures pose a substantial threat to mining activity due to their destructive potential and high probability of occurrence on steep slopes close to limit equilibrium conditions, often found both in open pits and in waste and tailing disposal facilities. The development of slope monitoring and modeling programs usually entails the exploitation of in situ and remote sensing data together with the application of numerical modeling, and it plays an important role in the definition of prevention and mitigation measures aimed at minimizing the impact of slope failures in mining areas. Here we present a new methodology combining satellite radar interferometry and 2D finite element modeling for slope stability analysis at a regional scale, applied within slope unit polygons. We studied a former mining area in southeast Spain, and the method proved useful in detecting and characterizing a considerably large number of unstable slopes. Out of 1,959 slope units used for the spatial analysis of the radar interferometry data, 43 were unstable, with varying values of safety factor and landslide size. Out of the 43 active slope units, 21 exhibited line of sight velocities greater than the maximum error obtained through the validation analysis (2.5 cm/year). Eventually, this work discusses the possibility of using the results of the proposed approach to devise a proxy for landslide hazard. The proposed methodology can help to provide non-expert final users with intelligible, clear and easily comparable information to analyze slope instabilities in different settings, not limited to mining areas.

.Functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) surface with sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) SPEEK chains using hexane diamine (HAD) as the interlinking molecule was investigated. MWNTs were first oxidized by nitric acid to generate carboxyl groups on their surface. Grafting of SPEEK chains on the MWNTs surface was achieved using hexane diamine as a cross-linking molecule. The attachment took place after the reaction of amine groups with carboxyl groups of oxidized MWNTs and sulfonate groups of SPEEK as confirmed by infrared (FTIR) analysis. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that MWNTs were packed into a dense and compact structure. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that the nanotubes were wrapped by polymer chains and arranged in a bundle like structure. These observations reveal that some of MWNTs were interconnected by SPEEK chains.

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

Type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have been strongly associated with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the TCF7L2 gene. This study investigated the association between rs12255372, rs7903146 and T2DM in a Ghanaian population. A case-control study design was used for this study. A total of 106 T2DM patients and 110 control participants were selected. Basic data collected included body mass index, blood pressure and socio-demographics. Fasting blood samples were collected and used for serum lipid analysis, HbA1c, plasma glucose estimation and DNA extraction. Common and allele-specific primers were designed for genotyping using the Modified Tetra-Primer Amplification assay. Associations were evaluated using logistic regression models. The rs7903146 risk variant was significantly associated with 2.16 vs 4.06 increased odds for T2DM in patients <60 years vs ≥60 years. Both rs7903146 and rs12255372 are significantly associated with increased odds of T2DM in women, overweight/obese; T2DM negative family history (T2DM-NFH) and low-HDL-C. In a multivariate model, rs7903146 but not rs12255372 was significantly associated with 2.18, 5.01 and 2.25 increased odds of T2DM, under the codominant, recessive and additive model, respectively (p<0.05). The association between rs7903146 and rs12255372 with T2DM is more highly associated in a subgroup- women and those with T2DM-NFH, yet have cardiometabolic risk.

Objective: Studies in Sports Psychology and Sociology have validated causality in team-sport athletes by using emotional intelligence as a variable. This study aimed to examine the causal relationship between the types of autonomy support coaching, emotional intelligence, and interruption intention as psychosocial variables among current taekwondo athletes in Korea. Methods: In this study, 217 adult or university athletes registered in the Korea Taekwondo Association in 2020 were evaluated for the type of autonomy support coaching, emotional intelligence, and interruption intention. Results: Autonomy support coaching recognized by taekwondo athletes has a negative and positive effect on interruption intention and emotional intelligence, respectively. Moreover, emotional intelligence has a negative effect on interruption intention. which revealed that autonomy support coaching has a negative effect on interruption intention through emotional intelligence. Conclusions: Such outcomes can serve as a foundation for athletes to have the opportunity to participate in sports in a mature manner and promote positive changes in sports culture. In other words, the sensibility of the athletes can be harmoniously symmetry.

This mini-review critically summarizes the knowledge of imprinted polymer-based electrochemical sensors, for the detection of pesticides, metal ions and waterborne pathogenic bacteria, focusing on the period the last 5 years (citation of 78 papers published in 2017-2021, ie 63% of total citations). MIP-based electrochemical sensors exhibit low limit of detection, high selectivity, high sensitivity and low cost. Herein, we focused on the timely topics of water pollution by organics, inorganics and micro-organisms represented by pesticides, metal ions and bacteria, respectively. We put the emphasis on the design of imprinted polymers and their composites and coatings by radical polymerization, oxidative polymerization of conjugated monomers or sol-gel chemistry. Whilst most imprinted polymers are used in conjunction with differential pulse or square wave voltammetry for sensing organics and metal ions, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) appears as the chief technique for detecting bacteria. This successful combination of EIS and imprinting technology should be harnessed in the coming years in the case of bacteria. Interestingly, bacteria are not always probed by bacteria-imprinted polymers; we report here their detection by monitoring specific (macro)molecules that reflect bacterial activity, for example quorum sensing signaling molecules or flagella proteins. If much has been developed in the past decade with glassy carbon or gold electrodes, it is clear that carbon paste electrodes of imprinted polymers are more and more investigated due to their versatility. Shortlisted case studies were critically reviewed and discussed; clearly a plethora of tricky strategies of designing selective electrochemical sensors are offered to “Imprinters”. We anticipate this review will be of interest to experts and new comers in the field who are paying time and effort combining electrochemical sensors with MIP technology.

Carnivore protoparvovirus 1 (CPPV-1) is a DNA virus causing gastrointestinal disease and immunosuppression in various terrestrial carnivores. Domestic dogs and cats are considered the primary CPPV-1 reservoirs. The habitat overlaps of wild carnivores and free-roaming dogs increases the threat of CPPV-1 transmission between them. This study explored the CPPV-1 distribution among wild carnivores through PCR screening and compared the DNA sequences of the partial capsid protein (VP2) between wild and domestic carnivores. In total, 181 samples were screened for the CPPV-1 VP2 gene, including 32 masked palm civets (Paguma larvata), 63 Chinese ferret badgers (Melogale moschata), and 86 crab-eating mongooses (Herpestes urva), from 2015 to 2019 in Taiwan. The average prevalence of CPPV-1 was 17.7% (32/181), with the highest prevalence in masked palm civets (37.5%). In addition, a masked palm civet was coinfected with two CPPV-1 strains. Among the 33 partial VP2 gene sequences, 23 were identical to sequences amplified from domestic dogs and cats in Asia and the remaining 10 were identified for the first time. This study demonstrated that CPPV-1 has circulated between domestic and wild carnivores in rural Taiwan. Therefore, further population control and health management of free-roaming domestic carnivores are recommended.

Background: Of the many side effects suffered by cancer patients, those related to cognitive performance have become increasingly prominent in clinical practice. We know that chemotherapy generates a series of side effects, such as nausea and vomiting, alopecia, and so on, which can be counteracted by complementary medication. However, in the case of post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment, or chemo brain, these cannot be controlled with drug therapies. However, before any intervention can be considered, it is necessary to know exactly what cognitive impairment is being triggered. For this reason, we decided to study the cognitive status of breast cancer patients. Methods: analytical, prospective, three-measure longitudinal, intrasubject unifactorial, non-probabilistic and accidental assignment study. The sample came from the Medical Oncology Department at Hospital de Salamanca, in Spain. Cognitive function (Trail Making Test and Stroop Test) was established as the primary variable; the presence of sleep disorders (Insomnia Severity Index, ISI) and anaemia (haemoglobin levels in blood) were analysed as secondary variables, in addition to intervening variables (age, stage, type of carcinoma, radiotherapy, menopause, social support network, marital status, years of schooling and employment status). Results: We recruited 151 individuals according to the selection criteria. We can confirm that factors including anaemia, menopause, patient support network and marital status, years of schooling, and employment status did affect the cognitive performance of the patients in the study. In contrast, sleep disorders, age, radiotherapy treatment, stage of disease, and type of carcinoma did not affect the cognitive performance of the cancer patients. Conclusions: Chemotherapy does impact the cognitive performance of breast cancer patients.

We confirm that energy dissipation weighting provides the most accurate approach to determining the effective hydraulic conductivity (Keff) of a binary K grid. A deep learning algorithm (UNET) can infer Keff with extremely high accuracy (R2 > 0.99). The UNET architecture could be trained to infer the energy dissipation weighting pattern from an image of the K distribution with high fidelity, although it was less accurate for cases with highly localized structures that controlled flow. Furthermore, the UNET architecture learned to infer the energy dissipation weighting even if it was not trained on this information directly. However, the weights were represented within the UNET in a way that was not immediately interpretable by a human user. This reiterates the idea that even if ML/DL algorithms are trained to make some hydrologic predictions accurately, they must be designed and trained to provide each user-required output if their results are to be used to improve our understanding of hydrologic systems most effectively.

Understanding the processes that govern the transformation of the landscape through time is essential for exploring the evolution of a coastal area. Coastal landscapes are dynamic sites, with their evolution strongly linked with waves and sea-level variations. Geomorphological features in the coastal area, such as beachrock formations and dune fields, can function as indicators of the coastal landscape evolution through time. However, our knowledge of the chronological framework of coastal deposits on the Aegean coasts is limited. Optically stimulated luminescence dating techniques are deemed to be very promising indirect dating of the coastal sediments, especially when they are linked with archaeological evidence. The dating of the sediments from different sediment core depths, as they are determined by the method of luminosity, allows us to calculate the rate of sediment deposition over time. Additionally, the coastal evolution and stability were studied from 1945 until today, with the use of aerial photographs and satellite images. This paper presents the 6000 ka years evolution of a coastal landscape based on geomorphological, archaeological, and radio-chronological data. Based on the results, the early stages of the Ammoudara beach dune field appear to be formed ~9.0 – 9.6 ka BP, while the OSL ages from 6 m depth represented the timing of its stabilization (OSL ages ~5–6 ka). This indicates that the dune field appears to already have been formed long before the Bronze Age (5-10 ka BP) and became stabilized with only localized episodes of dune reactivation occurring, while high coastal erosion rates are found in modern times.

The paper is concerned with a class of stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensional Hilbert space with random coefficients driven by Teugel's martingales which are more general processes. and its optimal control problem. Here Teugels martingales are a family of pairwise strongly orthonormal martingales associated with L\'{e}vy processes (see Nualart and Schoutens). There are three major ingredients. The first is to prove the existence and uniqueness of the solutions by continuous dependence theorem of solutions combining with the parameter extension method. The second is to establish the stochastic maximum principle and verification theorem for our optimal control problem by the classicconvex variation method and dual technique.The third is to represent an example of a Cauchy problem for a controlled stochastic partial differential equation driven by Teugels martingales which our theoretical results can solve.

Inorganic polymeric materials react slowly at room temperature and as a result usually require high-temperature curing. This study used the Arrhenius equation to analyze the correlation between curing temperature and curing duration during high-temperature curing. The test results show that optimal values exist for each alkali equivalent of the activator (weight ratio of Na2O/glass powder), curing temperature, and curing duration. Extending the curing duration and increasing the curing temperature have positive effects when the alkali equivalent is lower than the optimal value. However, over-curing results in invisible cracking in the specimens. Furthermore, despite exhibiting high strength initially, the strength of specimens gradually diminishes after standing in air. To ensure the durability of glass-based geopolymer, the curing temperature should not exceed 70℃, and the curing duration should be less than one day.

Erythropoietin (EPO) protects cells by inhibiting apoptosis, oxidative stress and inflammation in several models of retinal degeneration. In this study, we demonstrate the effects of recombinant Adeno Associated Virus (AAV) vector-mediated delivery of a modified form of erythropoietin (EPO-R76E) in an established mouse model of dry-AMD in which retinal degeneration is induced by RPE oxidative stress. Experimental vector AAV-EPO-R76E and control vector AAV-GFP were packaged into serotype-1 (AAV1) to enable RPE selective expression. RPE oxidative stress-mediated retinal degeneration was induced by exon specific deletion of the protective enzyme MnSOD (encoded by Sod2) by cre/lox mechanism. Experimental mice received subretinal injection of AAV-EPO-R76E in the right eye and AAV-GFP in the left eye. Western blotting of RPE/Choroid protein samples from AAV-EPO-R76E injected eyes showed RPE specific exogenous protein expression. Retinal degeneration was monitored by electroretinography (ERG). EPO-R76E over-expression in RPE delayed the progressive retinal degeneration as measured by light microscopy in RPE specific Sod2 knockout mice. Delivery of EPO-R76E vector can be used as a tool to prevent retinal degeneration induced by RPE oxidative stress as seen in this mouse model.

The continuing development of industrialization and increasing population density has led to the emergence of noise as an increasingly common problem, requiring various types of sound absorption and insulation methods to address it. Meanwhile, the recycling of resources to ensure a sustainable future for the planet and mankind is also required. Therefore, this study investigates the potential of corrugated cardboard as a resource for noise reduction. The sound absorption and insulation performance of non-perforated corrugated cardboard (NPCC) were measured, and modified corrugated boards were fabricated by drilling holes either through the surface of the corrugated board alone or through the corrugated board in its entirety. The sound absorption/insulation performance both of perforated corrugated cardboard (PCC), and perforated corrugated cardboard with multi frequency resonators (PCCM) were measured using the transfer function method and the transmission matrix method. To determine the effectiveness of NPCC, PCC, and PCCM in noise reduction, the sound pressure level was analyzed by applying it to a home blender. The results showed PCCM’s sound absorption and insulation performance to be excellent. On the basis of these findings, we propose the use of PMMC as an eco-friendly noise reduction material.

Background: Recent years have seen chaos in the neonatology use of antibiotics with diverse opinions and recommendations in international guidelines and societies. This has created great uncertainty in which cases to use, for how long, and which tests apply to make these decisions. We conducted a retrospective cohort study about the use of antibiotics in the EpicLatino neonatal units and a Latin American network database, after noting these variations in the 2019 report. Methods: For the year 2019 using the EpicLatino database, we included cases (only first admission) ≤32 weeks gestational age at birth, excluding one unit that did not accept to participate. The number of cases and days receiving antibiotics were recorded as well as the progression for each unit. Inappropriate use of antibiotics was defined as greater than 3 days in patients with negative cultures (blood/CSF cultures) excluding: major malformations, urinary tract infections, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and cases with suspected chorioamnionitis in the mother (the latter two only during the course of diagnosis of NEC or chorioamnionitis). This study was approved by the EpicLatino board of directors and by the participating units. Results: A total of 6,543 days of antibiotics were observed, 49.5% of cases had at least one positive blood/CSF culture. A total of595 days of antibiotics without justification were found in 72 courses in 61 cases; 14/72(19.4%) had no diagnosis of infection in the database, 7/72(9.7%) did not document any culture throughout their stay, and 37/72(51,4%) obtained only one blood/CSF culture during their entire stay. Most diagnosis were clinical sepsis and in 24/58(41%) curses, a diagnosis of pneumonia with a poor positive culture correlation was found. Furthermore, 74% of the units didn´t use pneumonia as a justification to use antibiotics. Other diagnosis found: Conjunctivitis, NEC 1A and rotavirus NEC. Conclusions: Although the method of reviewing the use of antibiotics in a database has a number of limitations, especially the cause that motivated the use of antibiotics and other tools used for diagnosis of infections, the notable differences between units is striking. Although it is difficult to make recommendations to all units, it is important to control infections in some units and in others to reduce the excessive use of antibiotics, especially with diagnosis of pneumonia in neonates and negative blood/CSF cultures.

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is the highest quality of olive oil and is characterized by highly beneficial nutritional properties. The large increase in both consumption and fraud, for example through adulteration, creates new challenges and an increasing demand for developing new quality assessment methodologies that are easier and cheaper to perform. As of today, the determination of olive oil quality is performed by producers through chemical analysis and organoleptic evaluation. The chemical analysis requires the advanced equipment and chemical knowledge of certified laboratories, and has therefore a limited accessibility. In this work a minimalist, portable and low-cost sensor is presented, which can perform olive oil quality assessment using fluorescence spectroscopy. The potential of the proposed technology is explored by analyzing several olive oils of different quality levels, EVOO, virgin olive oil (VOO), and lampante olive oil (LOO). The spectral data were analyzed using a large number of machine learning methods, including artificial neural networks. The analysis performed in this work demonstrates the possibility of performing classification of olive oil in the three mentioned classes with an accuracy of 100%. These results confirm that this minimalist low-cost sensor has the potential of substituting expensive and complex chemical analysis.

This paper provides an open dataset of measured energy use, solar energy production, and building air leakage data from a 328 m² (3,531 ft²) all-electric, zero energy commercial building in Virginia, USA. Over two years of energy use data were collected at 1-hour intervals using circuit-level energy monitors. Over six years of solar energy production data were measured at 1-hour intervals by 56 microinverters. The building air leakage data was measured post-construction per ASTM-E779 Standard Test Method for Determining Air Leakage Rate by Fan Pressurization and the United States Army Corps (USACE) Building Enclosure Testing procedure; both pressurization and depressurization results are provided. The architectural and engineering (AE) documents are provided to aid researchers and practitioners in reliable modelling of building performance. The paper describes the data collection methods, cleaning, and convergence with weather data. This dataset can be employed to predict, benchmark, and calibrate operational outcomes in zero energy commercial buildings.

The role of T cell immunity has been acknowledged in recent vaccine development and evaluation. We tested the humoral and cellular immune responses to Flucelvax®, a quadrivalent inactivated seasonal influenza vaccine containing two influenza A (H1N1 Singapore/GP1908/2015 IVR-180 and H3N2 North Carolina/04/2016) and two influenza B (Iowa/06/2017 and Singapore/INFTT-16-0610/2016) virus strains, using peripheral blood mononuclear cells stimulated by pools of peptides overlapping all the individual influenza viral protein components. Baseline reactivity was detected against all four strains both at the level of CD4 and CD8 responses and targeting different proteins. CD4 T cell reactivity was mostly directed to HA/NA proteins in influenza B strains, and NP/M1/M2/NS1/NEP proteins in the case of the Influenza A strains. CD8 responses to both influenza A and B viruses preferentially targeted the more conserved core viral proteins. Following vaccination, both CD4 and CD8 responses against the various influenza antigens were increased in day 15 to day 91 post vaccination period and maintained a Th1 polarized profile. Importantly, no vaccine interference was detected, with the increased responses balanced across all 4 included viral strains for both CD4 and CD8 T cells, and targeting HA and multiple additional viral antigens.

Fabric material was coated with Viruferrin™ and tested for its inactivating properties against the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and influenza A viruses. A statistically significant (p<0.0001) decrease in the number of infectious virus particles exposed to Viruferrin-treated fabric when compared with the cotton control for both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A viruses was observed. For both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A, Viruferrin-treated fabrics experienced a > 99% virus reduction without saliva after five minutes of contact when compared to the positive control at time point 0. Furthermore, the reusability of the Viruferrin treated fabric was demonstrated by stability for up to 10 washes. The level of anti-viral (SARS-CoV-2) activity remained constant from 5 to 10 washes and demonstrated a significant difference (p<0.0001) from the unwashed untreated material. Applications for this treated fabric are far-reaching, and as a biological face covering offers not only a unique 2-way protection but also is unlikely to cause onward touch transmission.

The available magnetic field strength for high resolution NMR in persistent superconducting magnets has recently improved from 23.5 to 28 Tesla, increasing the proton resonance frequency from 1 to 1.2 GHz. For magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR, this is expected to improve resolution, provided the sample preparation results in homogeneous broadening. We compare two-dimensional (2D) proton detected MAS NMR spectra of four membrane proteins at 950 and 1.2 GHz. We find a consistent improvement in resolution that scales superlinearly with the increase in magnetic field for three of the four examples. In 3D and 4D spectra, which are now routinely acquired, this improvement indicates the ability to resolve at least 2 and 2.5 times as many signals, respectively.

Background: COVID-19 has impacted Indian engineering institutions (EIs) enormously. It has tightened its knot around EIs that forced their previous half-shut shades completely down to prevent the risk of spreading COVID-19. In such a situation, fetching new enrollments on EI campuses is a difficult and challenging task, as students’ behavior and family preferences have changed drastically due to mental stress and emotions attached to them. Historically, during crisis situations, institutions have struggled to return to the normal track. Consequently, it becomes a prerequisite to examine the choice characteristics influencing the selection of EI during the COVID-19 pandemic to make it ‘normal’ for ‘new’ enrollments. The purpose of this study is to critically examine choice characteristics that affect students’ choice for EI and consequently to explore relationships between institutions’ characteristics and the suitability of EI during the COVID-19 pandemic across students’ characteristics. Quantitative research, conducted through a self-reported survey composed of a closed-ended structured questionnaire, was purposefully incorporated into the students who recently were enrolled in EIs (batch years 2020-2021) belonging to the North Maharashtra region of India. Results:The findings of this study revealed dissimilarities across students’ characteristics regarding the suitability of EIs under pandemic conditions. Regression analysis revealed that EI characteristics such as proximity, image and reputation, quality education and curriculum delivery have significantly contributed to suitability under COVID-19. At the micro level, multiple relationships were noted between EI characteristics and the suitability of EI under the pandemic across students’ characteristics. Conclusion:Bringing ‘normality’ to ‘new’ enrollments totally depends on EI’s resilience in meeting the needs of diversity in the COVID-19 pandemic situation, which repositions themselves to govern student-centric strategies instituted for the overall suitability of EI under pandemic conditions. The study has successfully demonstrated how choice characteristics can be executed to regulate the ‘suitability’ of EI under the COVID-19 pandemic for the inclusion of diversity. It is useful for policy makers and academicians to reposition EIs that fetch diversity during the pandemic. This study is the first to provide insights into the performance of choice characteristics and their relationship with the suitability of EIs under a pandemic and can be a yardstick in administering new enrollments.

Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) are promising bioimaging nanoprobes due to their excellent photostability. As one of the most commonly-used lanthanide activators, Tm3+ ions have perfect ladder-type electron configuration and can be directly excited by bio-friendly near-infrared-II (NIR-II) wavelengths. Here, the emission characteristics of Tm3+-doped nanoparticles under laser excitations of different near-infrared-II wavelengths were systematically investigated. The 1064 nm, 1150 nm and 1208 nm lasers are proposed to be three excitation strategies with different response spectra of Tm3+ ions. Particularly we found that 1150 nm laser excitation enables intense three-photon 475 nm emission, which is nearly 100 times stronger than that excited by 1064 nm excitation. We further optimized the luminescence brightness after investigating the luminescence quenching mechanism of bare NaYF4:Tm (1.75%) core. After growing inert shell, ten-fold increase of emission intensity was achieved. Combining the advantages of NIR-II wavelength and the higher-order nonlinear excitation, a promising facile excitation strategy was developed for the application of thulium-doped upconversion nanoparticles in single nanoparticle imaging and cancer cell microscopic imaging.

We propose a geographical time-space model extending time-space relief cartography introduced by Mathis and L’Hostis [,,,]. The novelty of the model resides in the use of cones to describe the terrestrial surface instead of graph faces, and in the use of curves instead of broken segments for edges. The approach lies a the intersection of two domains involving graphic representation: cartography, and three dimensional computer graphics. We implement the model on the Chinese space. The Chinese geographical time-space of the reference year 2006 is produced by the combination and the confrontation of the fast air transport system and of the 7.5 times slower road transport system. Slower, short range flights are represented as curved lines above the earth surface with longer length than the geodesic, in order to account for a slower speed. The very steep slope of cones expresses the relative difficulty of crossing terrestrial time-space, as well as the comparably extreme efficiency of long-range flights for moving between cities. Finally, the whole image proposes a coherent representation of the geographical time-space where fast city to city transport is combined with slow terrestrial systems that allow to reach any location.

Enhanced adoption of new cassava varieties is dependent on the ability to breed for acceptability attributes that define boiled roots and flour-based meals. This study assessed the role of pasting properties in defining farmers’ acceptability. Cassava accessions in a Triadic Comparison of Technologies (TRICOT) approach were assessed for acceptability in addition to moisture content root softness (boiled roots)and pasting properties (flour). Results showed location based differences in moisture content (13-17%) and boiled root softness (0.5-6.0 N/cm). Pasting properties such as peak viscosity (4300-5500 cP), breakdown (2204-3234 cP) and final viscosity (2953-3493) also varied significantly among accessions. Linear relationships were observed between consumer acceptance parameters and pasting properties {(final viscosity and root mealiness (r=0.7), ease of mingling (r=0.6), product stickiness (r=0.5) and overall performance of the flour based meal (r=0.6)}.Therefore pasting property analysis can differentiate cassava accessions and is an important tool in selection of consumer acceptable varieties.

The consequences of manipulations in structure and amino acid composition of native cyclolinopeptide A (CLA) from linen seeds and its linear precursor on their biological activities and mechanisms of action are reviewed. The modifications included truncation of the peptide chain, replacement of amino acid residues with proteinogenic or non-proteinogenic ones, modifications of peptide bond, and others. The studies revealed changes in the immunosuppressive potency of these analogs investigated in a number of in vitro and in vivo experimental models, predominantly in rodents, as well as differences in their postulated mechanism of action. The modified peptides were compared with cyclosporine A and parent CLA. Some of the synthesized and investigated peptides show potential therapeutic usefulness.

The Ituri-Epulu-Aru landscape (IEAL) is experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This deforestation is at the root of many environmental disturbances in a region characterized by endemism in biodiversity. This article focuses on the triangulation of spatialized prospective scenarios in order to identify future trajectories based on the knowledge of historical dynamics through the diachronic analysis of three satellite images (2003-2010-2014-2016). The scenarios were de-signed in a supervised model implemented in the DINAMICA EGO platform. The three scenarios Business-As-Usual (BAU), Rapid Economic Growth (REG) and Sustainable Management of the Environment (SME), extrapolating current trends, show that by 2061 this landscape will always be dominated forests (+ 84%). Old-growth forests occupy 74.2% of the landscape area in the BAU scenario, 81.4% in the SEM scenario and 61.2% in the REG scenario. The SEM scenario gives hope that restoration and preservation of biodiversity priority habitats is still possible if policy makers become aware of it.

This study aims to understand the global environment of COVID-19 management and guide future policy directions after the pandemic crisis. To this end, we analyzed a series of the World Economic Forum’s COVID-19 response reports through text mining and network analysis. These reports, written by experts in diverse fields, discuss multidimensional changes in socioeconomic situations, various problems created by those changes, and strategies to respond to national crises. Based on 3,897 refined words drawn from a morphological analysis of 26 reports (as of the end of 2020), this study analyzes the frequency of words, the relationships among words, the importance of specific documents, and the connection centrality through text mining. In addition, network analysis helps develop strategies for sustainable response to and management of national crises through identifying clusters of words with a similar structural equivalence.

Advances in communication technologies have made the interaction of small devices, such as smartphones, wearables, and sensors, scattered on the Internet, bringing a whole new set of complex applications with ever greater task processing needs. These Internet of Things (IoT) devices run on batteries with strict energy restrictions. They tend to offload task processing to remote servers, usually to Cloud Computing (CC) in datacenters geographically located away from the IoT device. In such a context, this work proposes a dynamic cost model to minimize energy consumption and task processing time for IoT scenarios in Mobile Edge Computing environments. Our approach allows for a detailed cost model, with an algorithm called TEMS that considers energy, time consumed during processing, the cost of data transmission, and energy in idle devices. The task scheduling chooses among Cloud or Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) server or local IoT devices to better execution time with lower cost. The simulated environment evaluation saved up to 51.6% energy consumption and improved task completion time up to 86.6%.

Background: Interleukin (IL)-33 is a member of interleukin (IL)-1 family of cytokines which has been linked to the development of inflammatory conditions and cancer in the gastrointestinal tract. This study is designed to investigate whether IL-33 has direct effect on human gastric epithelial cells (GES-1) and on human gastric adenocarcinoma cell line (AGS) and gastric carcinoma cell line (NCI-N87), assessing its role in regulation of cell proliferation and cell cycle, apoptosis and necrosis. Cell cycle regulation was also determined in ex vivo gastric cancer samples obtained during endoscopy and surgical procedures. Methods: cell lines and tissue samples underwent stimulation with rhIL-33. Proliferation was assessed by XTT and CFSE assay, we also evaluated apoptosis by Caspase 3/8 Activity assay and Annexin V assays. Cell cycle were analyzed by means of Propidium Iodine assay and gene expression regulation was assessed by RT-PCR Profiling. Results: we found that IL-33 has an antiproliferative and proapoptotic effect on cancer cell line, while it can stimulate proliferation and reduce apoptosis in normal epithelial cell line. These effects are also confirmed by the analysis of cell cycle gene expression which showed a reduced expression of proproliferative genes in cancer cells, in particular genes involved in G0/G1 and G2/M checkpoint. These results are confirmed by the gene expression analysis on surgical and bioptic specimens. Conclusions: the aforementioned results indicate that IL-33 may be involved in cell proliferation in an environment- and cell type-dependent fashion.

We developed two human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)/human embryonic stem cell-specific glycan-recognizing mouse antibodies, R-10G and R-17F, using the Tic (JCRB1331) hiPSC line as an antigen. R-10G recognizes a low-sulfate keratan sulfate, and R-17F recognizes lacto-N-fucopentaose-1. To evaluate the general characteristics of stem cell glycans, we used the hiPSC line 201B7 (HPS0063), a prototype iPSC line. Using an R-10G affinity column, an R-10G-binding protein was isolated. The protein yielded a single but very broad band from 480 to 1,236 kDa by blue native gel electrophoresis. After trypsin digestion, the protein was identified as podocalyxin by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. According to Western blotting, the protein reacted with R-10G and R-17F. The R-10G positive band was resistant to digestion with glycan-degrading enzymes, including peptide N-glycanase, but the intensity of the band was decreased significantly by digestion with keratanase, keratanase II, and endo-β-galactosidase, suggesting the R-10G epitope to be a keratan sulfate. These results suggest that keratan sulfate-type epitopes are shared by hiPSCs. However, the keratan sulfate from 201B7 cells contained a polylactosamine disaccharide unit (Galβ1-4GlcNAc) at a significant frequency, whereas that from Tic cells consisted mostly of keratan sulfate disaccharide units (Galβ1-4GlcNAc(6S)). In addition, the abundance of the R-10G epitope was significantly lower in 201B7 cells than in Tic cells.

We describe and analyze the Local Charged Particle Swarm Optimization (LCPSO) algorithm, that we designed to solve the problem of tracking a moving target releasing scalar information in a constrained environment using a swarm of agents. This method is inspired by flocking algorithms and the PSO algorithm for function optimization. Four parameters drive LCPSO: the number of agents; the inertia weight; the attraction/repulsion weight; and the inter-agent distance. Using APF, we provide a mathematical analysis of the LCPSO algorithm under some simplifying assumptions. First, the swarm will aggregate and attain a stable formation, whatever the initial conditions. Second, the swarm moves thanks to an attractor in the swarm, which serves as a guide for the other agents to head for the target. By focusing on a simple application of target tracking with communication constraints, we then remove those assumptions one by one. We show the algorithm is resilient to constraints on the communication range, and the behavior of the target. Results on simulation confirm our theoretical analysis. This provides useful guidelines to understand and control the LCPSO algorithm as a function of swarm characteristics as well as the nature of the target.

This observational study aims to depict the impact of gender and socio-economic issues on the health status of Italian Orthopaedic patients during the COVID-19 lockdown. An Ad Hoc ques-tionnaire was developed and online administered. The following data were extracted from the questionnaire: age, body mass index (BMI), education level, distance from hospital, orthopaedic disease, concomitant medical comorbidities, living status (with/without cohabitants) and physical activity level (according to Tegner Activity Scale). The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown was studied analyzing differences related to the above-mentioned parameters. A significant increase of the call number to general practitioner and to the orthopaedic surgeon was observed during the COVID-lockdown, especially in patients with higher education level. Nonetheless, a reduced compliance in drugs assumption was observed in patients with higher education level during lockdown (p=0.007). Almost all the analyzed items were significantly in-fluenced by the distance between patient’s domicile and the nearest hospital. However, no sig-nificant differences were observed comparing pre-COVID to COVID lockdown. In the present study patients’ gender and education level revealed a significant impact on the social behavior during the COVID lockdown, compared with the pre-COVID period.

Concerns about China’s air quality, and its impact on the important tourism industry have been on the debate in recent years. This article aims to investigate the potential effect of air pollution on direct economic impact of tourism, using the case of Beijing and Shanghai. The results indicate that air pollution negatively affects China's inbound tourism, resulting in huge loss of tourist arrivals and receipts, and Beijing suffers a greater loss in comparison with Shanghai, its loss in tourist number amounts to 1569,700 persons, equal to CNY 10264.268 million in tourism receipts, and the GDP losses ranges from CNY 20528.536 to 41057.072 across major source countries. This study provides a quantification of the impact helpful to generate a social awareness of air pollution detrimental impacts on inbound tourism and hence the economy.

Infections by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are continuously expanding within the community. Chicken meat is usually contaminated by MRSA, and this contaminated chicken meat is an important source of foodborne infections in humans. In this study, a cross-sectional supershop survey was conducted to determine the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance pattern of MRSA in 113 domestic frozen chicken meat samples purchased from nine branded supershops available in five divisional megacities of Bangladesh. The study also focused on the determination of methicillin resistance gene in MRSA isolates. S. aureus was identified by standard culture-based and molecular methods, and subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing. MRSA was screened by cefoxitin disk diffusion test. Methicillin resistance gene was identified by PCR. Of samples, 54.9% were positive for S. aureus, and, of these, 37.1% isolates were identified as MRSA. All the isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR): 52.2% were resistant to 6−8 antimicrobial classes, and 47.8% isolates to 9−12 classes. Three (3.2%) isolates of S. aureus were possible extensively drug resistant. The highest rates of resistance were observed against cefoxitin (100%), followed by nalidixic acid, ampicillin and oxacillin (97.7%), colistin (91.3%), amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and amoxicillin (87%), penicillin-G and cloxacillin (82.6%), oxytetracycline (78.3%) and cefixime (73.9%). Screening of methicillin resistance gene revealed that 43.5% isolates of MRSA were positive for mecA gene. The high prevalence of MDR MRSA in frozen chicken meat samples in this study emphasizes the need for better sanitary education of food handlers in hygienic practices focusing on their potential role as reservoirs and spreaders of MRSA.

L-17 is a thiadiazine derivative with putative anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and antidepressant-like properties. In this study, we applied combined in silico and in vivo electrophysiology techniques to reveal the potential mechanism of action of L-17. PASS 10.4 Professional Extended software suggested that L-17 might have pro-cognitive, antidepressant, and antipsychotic effects. Docking energy assessment with AutoDockVina predicted that the binding affinities of L-17 to the serotonin transporter (SERT) and serotonin receptors 3 and 1A (5-HT3 and 5-HT1A) are compatible to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluoxetine and selective antagonists of 5-HT3 and 5-HT1A receptors, granisetron and WAY100135, respectively. However, while the binding mechanisms of L-17 to the SERT and 5-HT1A receptor were similar to fluoxetine and WAY100135, its interacting with 5-HT3 receptor might be substantially different from this of granisetron. Acute administration of L-17 led to dose-dependent inhibition of firing activity of 5-HT neurons of the dorsal raphe nucleus. This inhibition was partially reversed by subsequent administration of WAY100135. Based on both in silico and in vivo electrophysiology assessments, we suggest that L-17 is a potent 5-HT reuptake inhibitor and a putative partial agonist of 5-HT1A receptors. As such, L-17 in particular and thiadiazine derivatives, in general, might be a representative of a new class of antidepressant drugs. Since L-17 also possesses neuro- and cardioprotective properties, it can be useful in affective illness developing due to the general medical condition, such as post-stroke and post-myocardial infarction (MI) depression.

The conformational state of the activation loop (A-loop) is pivotal for the activation of most protein kinases. Hence, the characterization of the conformational dynamics of the A-loop is important to increase our understanding of the molecular processes related to diseases and to support the discovery of small molecule kinase inhibitors. Here, we carry out a combination of Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Essential Dynamics (ED) analyses to fully map the effects of phosphorylation, ADP, and conformation disrupting (CD) inhibitors (i.e., CD532 and MLN8054) on the dynamics of the A-loop of Aurora-A. MD revealed that the stability of the A-loop in an open conformation is enhanced by single phospho-Thr-288, while paradoxically, the presence of second phosphorylation at Thr-287 decreases such stability and renders the A-loop more fluctuant in time and space. Moreover, we found that such post-translational modification has a significant effect on the direction of A-loop motions. ED analysis suggests that the presence of the phosphate moiety induces the dynamics of Aurora-A to sample two distinct energy minima, instead of a single large minimum, as in unphosphorylated Aurora-A states. This suggests that the conformational distributions of Aurora-A with both single and double phospho-threonine modifications are remarkably different from the unphosphorylated state. In the closed states, binding of CD532 and MLN8054 inhibitors has the effect of increasing the distance of the N- and C-lobes of the kinase domain of Aurora-A, and the angle analysis between those two lobes during MD simulations showed that the N- and C-lobes are kept more open in presence of CD532, compared to MLN8054. As the A-loop is a common feature of Aurora protein kinases, our studies provide a general description of the conformational dynamics of this structure upon phosphorylation and different ligands binding.

Plant diseases reduce crop yield and quality, hampering the development of agriculture. Fungicides, which restrict chemical synthesis, are the strongest controls for plant diseases. However, the harmful effects on the environment due to continued and uncontrolled utilization of fungicides has become a major challenge in recent years. Plant-sourced fungicides are a class of plant antibacterial substances or compounds that induce plant defenses. They can kill or inhibit the growth of target pathogens efficiently with no or low toxicity, degrade readily, do not prompt development of resistance, which has led to their widespread use. In this study, the growth inhibition effect of 24 plant-sourced ethanol extracts on rice sprigs was studied. Ethanol extract of gallnuts and cloves inhibited the growth of rice sprites by up to 100%. Indoor toxicity measurement results showed that the gallnut and glove constituents inhibition reached 39.23 μg/mL and 18.82 μg/mL, respectively. Extract treated rice sprigs were dry and wrinkled. Gallnut caused intracellular swelling and breakage of mitochondria , disintegration of nuclei, aggregation of protoplasts, and complete degradation of organelles in hyphae and aggregation of cellular contents. Protection of Rhizoctonia solani viability reached 46.8% for gallnut and 37.88% for clove in water emulsions of 1,000 μg/mL gallnut and clove in the presence of 0.1% Tween 80. The protection by gallnut was significantly stronger than that of clove. The data could inform the choice of plant-sourced fungicides for the comprehensive treatment of rice sprig disease. The studied extract effectively protected rice sprigs and could be a suitable alternative to commercially available chemical fungicides. Further optimized field trials are needed to effectively sterilize rice paddies.

Karakoram highway (K.K.H.) the only road link between two countries China and Pakistan. This road network is essential for two countries due to its strategic location and socioeconomic. The highway is more vulnerable due to landslide disasters, especially in rain and snow melting seasons, and different kinds of mass movement activities have occurred along K.K.H., such as rockfall, debris flow, and snow avalanche. The slope stability problems are widespread along with Karakorum (K.K.H.) between Besham city and the Dasu area because of the high seismic zone, rainfall, snow melting, and complex geology slope geometry, week, and adverse discontinuities sets. The detailed fieldwork was done along the Karakorum highway to minimize the risk of slope stability and for planning purposes in Besham to Dasu area and selected nine road-cut slopes. However, in these nine selected roadcut slopes, three slopes were already failed, four slopes are partially stable, and two slopes were stable. Both kinematic and empirical approaches are applied on all these nine road cut slopes and their discontinuities. The kinematic result has shown that all kinds of mode failure such as Toppling, Planar, and Wedge failure mode occurred in these slopes. The RMRb result has shown that all discounters lie in between fair to good rock. Both discrete and continuous (S.M.R.) results show that all discontinuity sets lie between the unstable, partially stable, and stable conditions.

TThe XPRIZE Foundation designs and operates multi-million-dollar, global competitions to incentivize the development of technological breakthroughs that accelerate humanity toward a better future. To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation coordinated with several organizations to make available data sets about different facets of the disease and to provide the computational resources needed to analyze those data sets. This is paper is a case study of the requirements, design, and implementation of the XPRIZE Data Collaborative, a cloud-based infrastructure that enables the XPRIZE to meet its COVID-19 mission and host future data-centric competitions. We examine how a Cloud Native Application can use an unexpected variety of Cloud technologies, ranging from containers, serverless computing, to even older ones like Virtual Machines. We also search and document the effects that the pandemic had on application development in the Cloud. We include our experiences of having users successfully exercise the Data Collaborative, detailing the challenges encountered and areas for improvement and future work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a public health emergency of international concern, which may affect lifestyle habits and mental health. Based on national health profile assessments, this study investigates perceived changes of lifestyle habits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and associations between perceived lifestyle changes and mental health in Swedish working adults. Among 5,599 individuals (50% women, 46.3 years), the majority reported no change (sitting 77%, daily physical activity 71%, exercise 69%, diet 87%, alcohol 90%, and smoking 97%) due to the pandemic. Changes were more pronounced during the first wave (April-June) compared to the second (October-December). Women, individuals <60 years, having a university degree, being white-collar workers and having unhealthy lifestyle habits at baseline had higher odds of changing lifestyle habits compared to their counterparts. Negative changes in lifestyle habits as well as more time in mentally passive sitting at home was associated with higher odds of mental ill-health (including health anxiety regarding one’s own and relatives’ health, generalized anxiety and depression symptoms, and concerns regarding employment and economy). The results em-phasize the need to support healthy lifestyle habits to strengthen the resilience in vulnerable groups of individuals to future viral pandemics, and prevent health inequalities in society.

In this study, we test the performance of a compact gas chromatograph with photoionization detector (GC-PID) and optimize the configuration to detect ambient (sub-ppb) levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers (BTEX). The GC-PID system was designed to serve as a relatively inexpensive (~$10k) and field-deployable air toxic screening tool alternative to conventional benchtop GCs. The instrument uses ambient air as a carrier gas, and consists of a Tenax-GR trap preconcentrator, a gas sample valve, two capillary columns, and a photoionization detector (PID) with a small footprint and low power requirement. The performance of the GC-PID has been evaluated in terms of system linearity and sensitivity in field conditions. The BTEX-GC system demonstrated the capacity to detect BTEX at levels as high as 500 ppb with a linear calibration range of 0-100 ppb. A detection limit lower than 1 ppb was found for all BTEX compounds with a sampling volume of 1 L. No significant drift in the instrument was observed. A time-varying calibration technique was established that requires minimal equipment for field operations and optimizes the sampling procedure for field measurements. With an analysis time of less than 15 minutes, the compact GC-PID is ideal for field deployment of background and polluted atmospheres for near-real time measurements of BTEX. The results highlight the application of the compact and portable GC-PID for community monitoring and screening of air toxics.

Student-centered teaching practices such as active learning continue to gain momentum in college science education. Many instructors committed to these innovative practices transform their classroom beyond the standard lecture. Nevertheless, widespread implementation of these practices is limited because the learning benefits for students are often attained through increased instructional complexity to which many instructors cannot commit. When co-instructors are teaching the course, the level of commitment to building a student-centered classroom may be even more profound. For these reasons, new tools are needed to help instructors and co-instructors plan, organize, evaluate, and communicate their classroom innovations. Pathway modeling is a tool with potential to fill this gap. Unlike curriculum mapping -- which identifies academic content gaps, redundancies, and misalignments by examining a series of courses within a plan of study – course pathway modeling creates a visual map of a single course and reveals how teaching practices influence short-, mid-, and long-term student learning outcomes. This essay demonstrates how course pathway modeling can help co-instructors better represent the complexity of student-centered teaching practices. We include guides for creating course pathway models and discuss how this approach offers the potential to improve curricular design, course evaluation, student assessment, and communication between co-instructors.

Corruption is a legal and moral contravention that generates great concern among nations due to its erosive effects on economic growth, democracy, governance, social equity and the integrity of culture. Therefore, it is necessary to know more about the multiple variables that produce and maintain this phenomenon. This article reports the results of an experimental investigation that sought to provide elements of judgment on the influence of the structure of personal values ​​on the willingness to bribe. For this, 12 couples of young university students of both sexes interacted through a game that simulated a relationship between a corrupter and a corruptible agent, with the help of a real-time communication system, mediated by an online platform, which allowed instant and bidirectional interaction. The couples were randomly constituted and played with each other under double blind. However, the interacting members of the dyad could share values ​​or vary in their axiological structure in such a way that, while one of them could manifest anti-corruption principles, the other's commitment was not so obvious. The results confirm the importance of the axiological structure of people in the facilitation or containment of the corrupt behavior. This article also reflects on the theoretical connotations of the relationships shown.

We reduplicate the Book “Dark Energy” by M. Li, X-D. Li, and Y. Wang, zero-point energy calculation with an unexpected “length’ added to the ‘width’ of a graviton wavefunction just prior to the entrance of ‘gravitons’ to a small region of space-time prior to a nonsingular start to the universe. We compare this to a solution worked out using Klauder Enhanced quantization, for the same given problem. The solution of the first Cosmological Constant problem relies upon the geometry of the multiverse generalization of CCC cosmology which is explained in this paper. The second solution, used involves Klauder enhanced quantization. We look at energy given by our methods and compare and contrast it with the negative energy of the Rosen model for a mini sub universe and estimate GW frequencies

This article examines the impact of some system parameters on an industrial system composed of two dissimilar parallel units with one repairman. The active unit may fail due to essential factors like aging or deteriorating, or exterior phenomena such as Poisson shocks that occur at various time periods. Whenever the value of a shock is larger than the specified threshold of the active unit, the active unit will fail. The article assumes that the repairman has the right to take any of two decisions at the beginning of the system operation: either a takes a vacation if the two units work in a normal way, or stay in the system to monitor the system until the first system failure. In case of having a failure in any of the two units during the absence of the repairman, the failing unit will have to wait until the repairman is called back to work. We suppose that the value of every shock is assumed to be i.i.d. with some known distribution. The length of the repairman’s vacation, repair time, and recall time are arbitrary distributions. Various reliability measures have been calculated by the supplementary variable technique and the Markov’s vector process theory. At last, numerical computation and graphical analysis have been given for a particular case to validate the derived indices.

Pancreatic cancer is a fatal disease with mortality rate of 5% and a with a limited survival rate of 5 years. Despite of the extensive efforts that has been made to cure the disease it still has been considered as ‘undruggable’. It is characterized by epithelial to dense stromal tumor formation however due to lack of diagnosis options and treatment test available to detect the disease to the point at which resection of the tumor is possible, it makes it the fourth leading cause of cancer related death. The unavailable information regarding the early detection of biological markers along with the increased invasive tumor, the inherit chemoresistance against medication radiation and chemotherapy stubbornly fail the therapeutic options available. These associated problems made the scientists to reevaluate the approaches that are currently in practice and take a step back to fully understand the basic biological pathways that are involved in the pancreatic cancer, the heterogeneity of the tumor itself along with expression and a number of mutations that are observed at different locations. Clinical trial along with new approaches are nowadays focus of research to treat this tumor. The review paper describes the basic cellular pathways involved in pancreatic cancer, the gene mutations and their expression having effect on the pathology of the diseases along with treatment options that are available to treat the tumor. These efforts will help with the expansion of our knowledge to undergo the clinical trial and the synthesis of novel medicines for the prognosis of the disease.

Essential oils (EO) are a great antimicrobial resource against bacterial resistance in public health. Math models are useful describing the growth, survival, and inactivation of microorganisms against antimicrobials. We evaluated the antimicrobial activity of M. armillaris EO obtained from plants placed in the province of Buenos Aires (Argentina) against Staphylococcus aureus. Minimum Inhibitory and Bactericidal Concentrations were close and decreased slightly acidifying the medium from pH 7.4 to 6.5 and 5.0. This result was also evidenced by applying a sigmoid model, where the time and EO concentration necessaries to achieve 50% of the maximum effect decreased when medium was acidified. Moreover, at pH 7.4, applying the Gompertz model, we found that subinhibitory concentrations of EO decreased the growth rate and the maximum population density, and increased the latency period respect to the control. Additionally, we established physicochemical parameters for quality control and standardization of M. armillaris EO. Mathematical modelling allowed us to estimate key parameters in the behavior of S. aureus and Melaleuca armillaris EO at different pHs. This is interesting in situations where the pH changes are relevant, such as the control of intracellular infections in public health or the development of preservatives for food industry.

This study aims at providing a systematic and critical review on the state-of-the-art of life cycle applications from the circular economy point of view. In particular, the main objective is to un-derstand how researchers adapt life cycle approaches for the measurement of the empirical cir-cular pathways of agri-food systems along the overall lifespan. To perform the literature review, PRISMA protocol was considered to conduct a review by qualitative synthesis. Specifically, an evaluation matrix has been set up to gather and synthesize research evidence, by classifying pa-pers according to several integrated criteria. The literature search was carried out employing scientific databases. Findings evidence that the most common circularity topics are about closed-loop production systems, i.e. nutrient recovery for agricultural purposes, production of renewable energy, valorization of residues and wastes as fertilizers, food waste, and agro-wastes recycling for agriculture. To evaluate the benefits/impacts of CE strategies, Life Cycle Assess-ment (LCA) proved to be the most common methodology applied by authors, as it can help to meet the main CE requirements slowing and closing resource loops.

(1) Background: To investigate the dynamic issues behind international variation in EWM. (2) A rolling EWM calculation is used to reveal seasonal changes in the EWM calculation and is especially relevant nearer to the equator. (3) Results: In addition to latitude country specific factors determine EWM. Females generally show higher EWM mainly due to respiratory conditions. The EWM for respiratory conditions in England and Wales ranges from 44% to 83% which is about double the all-cause mortality equivalent. Age has a profound effect on EWM with a peak in puberty and then increasing EWM at old age. The gap between male and female EWM seems to act as a diagnostic tool reflecting the infectious/metrological mix in each winter. Additional difference due to ethnicity are also observed. An EWM equivalent calculation for sickness absence demonstrates how additional health-related variables can be linked to EWM. (4) Conclusions: EWM does not reach a peak at the same time each year, especially so in the tropics. Countries midway between the equator and the poles show highest EWM. Differences between the genders are highly significant and seem to vary according to the mix of variables active each winter. Pandemic influenza does not elevate EWM, although seasonal influenza plays a part each winter.

There is a disproportionate increase in the incidence of diet-related cardiometabolic disorders in racial and ethnic minority groups. This systematic review examines the extent to which diet-induced changes in health outcomes have been discussed by race or ethnicity in randomized controlled trials recruiting both minority and non-Hispanic White groups. Databases i.e. PubMed, Cochrane library and Web of Science were searched up to November 2019. Studies that discussed effects of defined dietary interventions on health outcomes by racial or ethnic minority group vs. non-Hispanic Whites (n=29) were included in the review. Most studies were conducted in Black vs. White people testing effects of energy restriction, macronutrient modification, sodium reduction, or variations of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet on cardiometabolic outcomes. There was limited focus on other minority groups. Evidence suggests greater blood pressure reduction for Black people compared to Whites particularly on DASH (or similar) diets. Overall, there was limited consideration for group-specific eating patterns and diet acceptability in most studies. Adequately powered studies are needed for accurate interpretation of race by diet effects. With emerging precision nutrition initiatives, it is imperative to ensure adequate representation of racial and ethnic subgroups for addressing nutrition-related health disparities.

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) causes a highly contagious and devastating disease in poultry, Newcastle disease (ND). ND causes heavy economic losses to the global poultry industry by decreasing the growth rate, decrease egg productions, mortality, and morbidity. Although, significant advances have been made in the vaccine development, but outbreaks are reported in vaccinated birds leading to overall decreased growth rate. In this study, we report the damage caused by the NDV infection in the pancreatic tissues of vaccinated as well as specific pathogen free chickens. The histopathological examination of the pancreas showed sever damage in the form of partial depletion of zymogen granules, acinar cell vacuolization, necrosis, and apoptosis, congestion in the large and small vessels, sloughing of epithelial cells of pancreatic duct, and mild perivascular edema. Increased plasma levels of corticosterone, somatostatin, were observed in NDV infected chicks at 3 and 5-day post infection (DPI). Slight decrease in the plasma concentrations of the insulin were noticed at 5 DPI. Significant changes were not observed in the plasma levels of glucagon. Furthermore, NDV infection has decreases the activity and mRNA expression of amylase, lipase, and trypsin from the pancreas. Taken together, our findings highlight that NDV induces extensive tissue damage in pancreas, decrease the activity and expression of pancreatic enzymes and increase plasma corticosterone and somatostatin.

We report an all-optical radio-frequency (RF) spectrum analyzer with a bandwidth greater than 5 terahertz (THz), based on a 50-cm long spiral waveguide in a CMOS-compatible high-index doped silica platform. By carefully mapping out the dispersion profile of the waveguides for different thicknesses, we identify the optimal design to achieve near zero dispersion in the C-band. To demonstrate the capability of the RF spectrum analyzer, we measure the optical output of a femtosecond fiber laser with an ultrafast optical RF spectrum in the terahertz regime.

(1) Background: Bacterial reinfection and root fracture are the main culprits related to root canal treatment failure. This study aimed to assess the utility of quercetin solution as an adjunctive endodontic irrigant that strengthen root canal dentin with commitment anti-biofilm activity and bio-safety. (2) Methods: Based on a noninvasive dentin infection model, dentin tubules infected with Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) were irrigated with sterile water (control group), and 0, 1, 2, 4 wt% quercetin-containing ethanol solutions. The live and dead bacteria proportions within E. fae-calis biofilms were analyzed using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Elastic modulus and hydroxyproline release and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) characterization was tested on irrigant-treated demineralized dentin to evaluate irrigants’ biostability. The cytotoxicity of irrigants was tested by CCK-8 assay. (3) Results: Quercetin increased the proportion of dead bacteria volumes within E. faecalis, and improved the flexural strength of dentin collagen com-pared to control group. The XPS characterization revealed an increase in C-O peak area under both C1s and O1s narrow-scan spectra. The CCK-8 assay confirmed no cytotoxicity of quercetin solutions. (4) Conclusions: Quercetin exhibited anti-biofilm activity, collagen-stabilizing effect as well as cytocompatibility, supporting quercetin as a potential candidate for endodontic irrigant.

Hydrolysate prepared from water hyacinth biomass, containing a considerable amount of solubilised carbohydrate and nutrients, was utilised as a medium for the cultivation of two strains of Chlorella sorokiniana. These strains were isolated from an oxidation pond using two different media, i.e., BG-11 and Knop's media maintained at pH-9. Different light intensities, light-dark cycles, and various concentrations of external carbon sources (monosaccharides and inorganic carbon) were used to optimise the microalgal growth. It was observed that in the presence of organic carbon (glucose), biomass productivity increased significantly (~300 mgL-1day-1) as compared to that in the presence of only inorganic carbon (~100 mgL-1day-1). For the accumulation of stress products (lipids and carbohydrates), the microalgal strains were transferred to nutrient-amended media (N-amended and P-amended). The combined effects of glucose, inorganic carbon, and a 12h:12h light-dark cycle proved to be optimum for biomass productivity. For Chlorella sp. isolated from BG-11, maximum carbohydrate content (22%) was found in the P-amended medium, whereas high lipid content (17.3%) was estimated in the N-amended medium. However, for Chlorella sp. isolated from Knop's medium, both the lipid (17%) and carbohydrate accumulation (12.3%) were found maximum in the N- amended medium. Kinetic modelling of the lipid profile revealed that kinetic coefficients obtained for strain isolated from BG-11 media were statistically significant from each other.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, to be a pandemic. Since the declaration, Nigeria economy has been greatly impacted thus resulting in a recession. This paper considers a couple of misconceptions among Nigerian people in the COVID-19 pandemic era thereby causing the spread of the novel virus and hence making the situation difficult for the government to handle. In particular, we discuss the first and second waves of the pandemic as it affects the Nigerian people. The impact of the pandemic on animals and the role of mathematical epidemiologists in combatting the spread is discussed herein. We give some recommendations that could be adopted by the government and the good people of Nigeria to reduce the further spread of the virus.

Self-assembling peptide P11-4 is amphiphilic and pH-triggered with demonstrated effectivity repairing early carious lesions in enamel. However, P11-4 effects on dentin biomineralization and repair remain unexplored. Thus, cytocompatibility and effectiveness of P11-4 inducing mineralization and migration of odontoblast-like cells (MDPC-23) were investigated. MDPC-23 were seeded in contact with P11-4(0.5µg/ml and 1µg/ml), Dentin Matrix Protein 1 (DMP1 0.5µg/ml and 1 µg/ml) or Calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2 100µg/ml) solutions. Cytotoxicity was verified using MTT (n=6/group). Mineralization was tested using Alizarin Red (n=4/group). Cell migration was assessed by light microscopy (n=2/group). MTT and Alizarin Red data were compared using Krus-kal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney (α=0.05). P11-4 (0.5µg/ml and 1µg/ml) and DMP1 (0.5µg/ml and 1µg/ml) presented the highest cytocompatibility; Ca(OH)2 presented the lowest. DMP1 1µg/ml exhibited the highest mineralization ability, with no difference to P11-4 1µg/ml. Ca(OH)2 presented lower values than DMP1 1µg/ml (p<0.05), but similar to P11-4 1µg/ml. P11-4 and DMP1 at 0.5 µg/ml showed induced less mineralization than P11-4 and DMP1 at 1µg/ml (p<0.05), with no difference to Ca(OH)2. All materials stimulated cell migration, however, lower concentrations of DMP1 and P11-4 provided better results. P11-4 is cytocompatible, induces mineralization and MDPC-23 migration like DMP1. P11-4 could be an alternative for dentin mineralization and tooth repair.

The ubiquity of amino acids in carbonaceous meteorites has suggested that amino acids are widespread in the Universe, serving as a common class of components for the emergence of life. However, parameters for modeling amino acid polymerization at mineral–water interfaces remain limited, although the interfacial conditions inevitably exist on planets with surface liquid water. Here, we present a set of extended triple-layer model parameters for aspartate (Asp) and aspartyl-aspartate (AspAsp) adsorptions on ferrihydrite, anatase, and γ-alumina determined based on the experimental adsorption data. By combining the parameters with the reported thermodynamic constants for amino acid polymerization in water, the impacts of these minerals on Asp dimerization are calculable over a wide range of environmental conditions. It was predicted, for example, that ferrihydrite strongly increases the AspAsp/Asp equilibrium ratio in neutral to acidic pH; the ratio in the adsorbed state reaches 40% even from a low Asp concentration (0.1 mM) at pH 4. This percentage is approximately 5 × 107 times higher than that attainable without mineral (8.5 × 10–6%). Our exemplified approach enables us to screen wide environmental settings for abiotic peptide synthesis from a thermodynamic perspective, thereby narrowing down the geochemical situations to be explored for life’s origin on Earth and Earth-like habitable planets.