(1) Background: Angiotensin II, a major culprit in cardiovascular disease, activates mediators that are also involved in pathological cardiac remodelling. We aimed at investigating the effects of two of them: aldosterone (Ald) and transforming growth factor-beta-1 (TGF-β1 ), on cardiac remodelling in an in vivo model. (2) Methods: Six-week-old male wild-type (WT) and TGF-β1 -overexpressing transgenic (TGF-β1 -TG) mice were infused with subhypertensive doses of Ald for 2 weeks, and/or treated orally with eplerenone from postnatal day 21. Heart’s ventricles were examined: by morphometry, immunoblotting to assess intracellular signalling pathways, RT qPCR to determine hypertrophy and fibrosis marker genes. (3) Results: TGF-β1 -TG mice spontaneously developed cardiac hypertrophy and interstitial fibrosis, exhibited higher baseline phosphorylation of p44/42 and p38 kinases, fibronectin and ANP mRNA expression. Ald induced a comparable increase in ventricular heart weight-to-body-weight ratio and cardiomyocyte diameter in both strains, but less pronounced increase in interstitial fibrosis in transgenic compared to WT mice (23.6% vs 80.9%, p<0.005). Ald increased phosphorylation of p44/42 and p38 in WT but not TGF-β1 -TG mice. While eplerenone-enriched chow partially prevented Ald-induced cardiac hypertrophy in both genotypes and interstitial fibrosis in WT controls, it completely protected from additional fibrosis in transgenic mice. (4) Conclusions: Ald appears to induce cardiac hypertrophy independently of TGF-β1 , while in case of fibrosis downstream signalling pathways of these two factors probably converge

ExuR and UxuR are paralogous proteins belonging to the GntR family of transcriptional regulators. Both are known to control hexuronic acid metabolism in a variety of Gammaproteobacteria but the relative impact of each of them is still unclear. Here, we apply 2D difference electrophoresis followed by mass-spectrometry to characterise the changes in the Escherichia coli proteome in response to the uxuR or exuR deletion. Our data clearly show that the effects are different: deletion of uxuR resulted in significantly enhanced expression of D-mannonate dehydratase UxuA and flagellar protein FliC, and inhibition of outer membrane porin OmpF, while the absence of ExuR did not significantly alter the spectrum of detected proteins.This suggests that the roles of proteins predicted as homologs are far from identical. Effects of uxuR deletion were largely dependent on the cultivation conditions: during growth with glucose, UxuA and FliC were dramatically altered, while during growth with glucuronate activation of both was not so prominent. During growth on glucose, the maximal activation was detected for FliC. This was further confirmed by expression analysis and physiological tests thus suggesting involvement of UxuR in the regulation of bacterial motility and biofilm formation.

Background: Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) may be due to different causes, ranging from benign secondary forms to severe cardiomyopathies. Transthoracic Echocardiography (TTE) and ECG are the first level examination for LVH diagnosis. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) defines accurately LVH type, extent and severity. Objectives: to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic role of CMR in patients with TTE and/or ECG evidence of LVH. Methods: We performed CMR in 300 consecutive patients with echocardiographic and/or ECG signs of LVH. Results: Overall, 275 patients had TTE evidence of LVH with initial suspicion of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in 132 (44%), cardiac amyloidosis in 41 (14%), hypertensive LVH in 48 (16%), aortic stenosis in 4 (1%), undetermined LVH in 50(16%). The initial echocardiographic diagnostic suspicion of LVH was confirmed in 172 patients (57.3%) and changed in 128 patients (42.7%, p<0.0001): the diagnosis of HCM increased from 44% to 71% of patients; hypertensive and undetermined LVH decreased significantly (respectively to 4% and 5%). CMR allowed a diagnosis in 41 out of 50 (82%) with undetermined LVH at TTE. CMR also identified HCM in 17 out of 25 patients with apparently normal echo but with ECG criteria for LVH. Finally, the reclassification of the diagnosis by CMR was associated with a change of survival risk of patients: after CMR reclassification no events occurred in patients with undetermined or hypertensive LVH. Conclusions: CMR changed echocardiographic suspicion in almost half of patients with LVH. In the subgroup of patient with abnormal ECG, CMR identified LVH (particularly HCM) in 80% of patients. This study highlights the indication of CMR to better characterize the type, extent and severity of LVH detected at echocardiography and suspected with ECG.

Asphalt cement will not last for a long time as the world encounters a diminishment in the crude oil. For sustainable, flexible pavement development, new resources can provide a contribution to replace it partially or entirely. In this study, asphalt was partially and entirely replaced by guayule resin as a bioresource by-product, extracted during the guayule natural rubber production. Crumb rubber modifier (CRM) was used as an asphalt enhancer. The Superpave grading system was followed at high, intermediate, and low temperatures to evaluate such innovative binder for rutting, fatigue, and thermal cracking, respectively, in addition to viscosity. Therefore, the original, short-term aging and long-term aging were simulated using tank, rolling thin film oven, and pressure aging vessel materials. Additionally, component analysis using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was provided to link the rheological properties with the chemical changes. Outcomes showed a relatively much lower viscosity of guayule in the same high-temperature asphalt grade indicating savings in plant energy consumption and reduced environmental emissions. CRM enhanced guayule, but not as much as asphalt, proven by polymeric component migration through liquid binder. This enhancement was reflected in the rheological performance besides other factors. As-received guayule seems to have high oxygen content proven by strong absorption peak intensities of oxidative bonds (e.g., Carbonyl and sulfoxide). Such pre-oxidation was negatively reflected in the intermediate- and low-temperature performance of guayule and guayule-based binders. However, the investigated guayule had potential to compensate for asphalt replacement in the presence of CRM by 23–42% by weight of blend.

This study documents the conditions associated to white spruce and balsam fir regeneration after partial cutting. Measurements were collected 9 to 30 years after partial cutting in 12 natural fir stands and 5 white spruce plantations. We estimated seed input, measured light reaching the undergrowth, recorded seedlings (<150 cm) and their age on 6 different seedling establishment substrates: mineral soil, moss, rotten wood, litterfall, herbaceous and dead wood. Partial cutting generally favours the establishment and growth of seedlings. The number of fir and spruce seedlings is always greater in natural stands than in plantations, a trend likely associated with the reduced abundance of preferential establishment substrate in the latter. White spruce significantly prefers rotten wood while fir settles on all types of substrates that cover at least 10% of the forest floor. There is a strong relationship between light intensity and the median height of spruce seedlings, but this relationship is non-significant for fir. Seedlings of both species can survive at incident light intensities as low as 3%, but an intensity of 15% or more seems to offer the best growth conditions. The conditions for successful forest regeneration proposed in this study should be applied when the goal is to establish a new stand prior to clear cutting or to convert stand structure.

The dynamic landscape of AI adoption and its impact on employment in Malaysia demands a multifaceted approach to navigate the challenges and harness the opportunities presented. While the government's commitment to fostering AI adoption through initiatives like the National AI Framework and the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint is commendable, it is imperative to address concerns regarding job displacement and ensure inclusive growth. This study identifies the pressing research problem of workforce readiness for the AI-driven future, emphasizing the need to explore strategies for reskilling and upskilling affected workers. By employing critical lenses such as Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial perspectives, scholars highlight the power dynamics and societal implications inherent in AI deployment, guiding the development of policies and interventions that prioritize workers' interests and address social inequalities. Moving forward, a comprehensive approach combining policy interventions, educational reforms, and inclusive strategies is essential to maximize the benefits of AI adoption while mitigating its potential risks. Longitudinal studies, interdisciplinary research, and comparative analyses will further advance our understanding and inform evidence-based policymaking in this evolving field. Ultimately, by prioritizing workforce preparedness, social equity, and sustainable development, Malaysia can position itself as a leader in the AI-driven global economy, fostering a resilient, inclusive, and prosperous society for all.

Good Boussinesq equations will be considered in this work. First we apply three combined compact schemes to approximate spatial derivatives of good Boussinesq equations. Then three fully discrete schemes are developed based on symplectic scheme in time direction, which are sympletic-structure preserving.Meanwhile, the convergence and conservation of the fully discrete schemes are analyzed. Finally, we present numerical experiments to confirm our theoretical analysis. Both our analysis and numerical test indicate that the fully discrete schemes are efficient in solving the spatial derivative mixed equation.

We propose a new hierarchy of the vector derivative nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger equations and consider the simplest multiphase solutions of this hierarchy. The study of the simplest solutions of these equations led to the following results. First, the three-leaf spectral curves $\Gamma=\{(\mu,\lambda)\}$ of the simplest multiphase solutions have a quite simple symmetry. They are invariant with respect to holomorphic involution $\tau$. The type of this involution depends on the genus of the spectral curve. Or the involution has the form $\tau:(\mu,\lambda)\to(\mu,-\lambda)$, or $\tau:(\mu,\lambda)\to(-\mu,-\lambda)$. The presence of symmetry leads to the fact that the dynamics of the solution is determined not by the entire spectral curve $\Gamma$, but by its factor $\Gamma/\tau$, which has a smaller genus. Secondly, it turned out that the dynamics of the two-component vector $\bp=(p_1,p_2)^t$ is determined, first of all, by the dynamics of its length $\abs{\bp}$. Independent equations determine the dependence of the direction of the vector $\bp$ from its length. In cases where the direction of the vector $\bp$ is fixed, the corresponding spectral curve splits into separate components. In conclusion, we note that, as in the case of the Manakov system, the equation of the spectral curve is invariant with respect to the orthogonal transformation of the vector solutions. I.e., the solution can be found from the spectral curve up to the orthogonal transformation. This fact indicates that the spectral curve does not depend on the individual components of the solution, but on their symmetric functions. Thus, the spectral data of multiphase solutions have two symmetries. These symmetries make it difficult to reconstruct signals from their spectral data. The work contains examples illustrating these statements.

We carry out in a thin heterogeneous porous layer, the multiscale analysis of Smoluchowski's discrete diffusion-coagulation equations describing the evolution density of diffusing particles that are subject to coagulate in pairs. Assuming that the thin heterogeneous layer is made of microstructures that are uniformly distributed inside, we obtain in the limit an upscaled model in lower space dimension. We also prove a corrector-type result very useful in numerical computations. In view of the thin structure of the domain, we appeal to a concept of two-scale convergence adapted to thin heterogeneous media to achieve our goal.

In the last years, a recent growing line of research has been developed with fruitful results by using fractional and conformable derivatives in the iterative procedures of classical methods for solving nonlinear equations. In that sense, the use of conformable derivatives has shown better behavior than fractional ones, not only in the theory, but also in the practice. In this work, we adapt the approximation of conformable derivatives in order to design the first conformable derivative-free iterative schemes to solve nonlinear equations: a Steffensen’s type method and a Secant type method; the latter with memory. Convergence analysis is made, preserving the order of classical cases, and the numerical performance is studied in order to confirm the results in the theory. It is shown that these methods can present some numerical advantages versus their classical partners, with wide sets of converging initial estimations.

Shown is the derivation of Lorentz-Einstein k-factor in SRT as an amplitude-term of oscillation-differential equations of second order.This case is shown for classical Lorentz-factor as solution of an equation for undamped oscillation as well as the developed theorem as a second solution for advanced SRT of fourth order with an equation for damped oscillation-states.This advanced term allows a calculation for any velocities by real rest mass.Also accelerated coordinate -frames are discussed.

The necessary and sufficient conditions of existence of the nonlinear operator equations' branches of solutions in the neighbourhood of branching points are derived. The approach is based on reduction of the nonlinear operator equations to finite-dimensional problems. Methods of nonlinear functional analysis, integral equations, spectral theory based on index of Kronecker-Poincare, Morse-Conley index, power geometry and other methods are employed. Proposed methodology enables justification of the theorems on existence of bifurcation points and bifurcation sets in the nonstandard models. Formulated theorems are constructive. For a certain smoothness of the nonlinear operator, the asymptotic behaviour of the solutions is analysed in the neighbourhood of the branch points and uniformly converging iterative schemes with a choice of the uniformization parameter enables the comprehensive analysis of the problems details. General theorems are illustrated on the nonlinear integral equations.

In the present work we study the existence of solutions for hybrid nonlinear fractional integrodifferential equations. We developed an algorithm by using the operator theoretical techniques in order to obtain the approximate solutions. The main results depend on the Dhage iteration method that were incorporated with the modern hybrid fixed point theorems. The approximate solutions were obtained by using Lipschitz conditions and weaker form of mixed partial continuity. Further, we provide some examples to explain the hypotheses and the related results.

The exact solutions in the wave form are derived for the time fractional KdV and the time fractional Burgers' equations in conformable fractional derivative sense. The fractional variable change using the fundamental properties of the conformable derivative reduces both equations to some nonlinear ODEs. The predicted solution is assumed to be a finite series form of a function satisfying a particular first-order ODE whose solution contains an exponential function in the denominator. The solutions are represented in the explicit forms and illustrated by some choices of the parameters for various fractional orders of the equations.

The research field of two dimensional (2D) materials strongly relies on optical microscopy characterization tools to identify atomically thin materials and to determine their number of layers. Moreover, optical microscopy-based techniques also opened the door to study the optical properties of these nanomaterials. We present a comprehensive study of the differential reflectance spectra of 2D semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂ and WSe₂, with thickness ranging from one layer up to six layers. We analyze the thickness-dependent energy of the different excitonic features, indicating the change in the band structure of the different TMDC materials with the number of layers. Our work provides a route to employ differential reflectance spectroscopy for determining the number of layers of MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂ and WSe₂.

Ammonia-oxidizing microorganism communities are abundant and functionally efficacious in nitrification. However, ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) groups complicate this process in subtropical streams. This study investigates the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing communities south of the Dabie Mountains, China, using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Clone libraries were utilized to analyze the abundance and microbial structures of AOA and AOB in sediments. Such analysis may provide strong evidence reflecting the links within the environment. The results show that AOB had a lower abundance of copies of the ammonia-oxidizing gene (amoA) than AOA. Interestingly, the AOA and AOB community compositions were correlated with ecological characteristics. The dissolved oxygen (DO) and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) had significant positive correlations, whereas the phosphorus within the structure had a negative correlation with the abundance of both groups. Our study shows that it might adopt some species related to Nitrosotalea clusters that can resist comparably higher pH (toward pH 6.5). Together, these results imply that the physiological adaptation of microbial guilds to environmental pressures in ammonia-oxidizing archaea might allow them to have a more substantial function of ammonia-oxidizing communities in natural habitats.

In this study we investigate the formation of dynamical energy cascades in higher order KdV-type equations. In the beginning we recall what is known about the dynamic cascades for the classical KdV (quadratic) and mKdV (cubic) equations. Then, we investigate further the mKdV case by considering a richer set of initial perturbations in order to check the validity and persistence of various facts previously established for the narrow-banded perturbations. Afterwards we focus on higher order nonlinearities (quartic and quintic) which are found to be quite different in many respects from the mKdV equation. Throughout this study we consider both the direct and double energy cascades. It was found that the dynamic cascade is always formed, but its formation is not necessarily accompanied by the nonlinear stage of the modulational instability. Direct cascade structure remains invariant regardless the size of the spectral domain. In contrast, the double cascade shape can depend on the size of the spectral domain, even if the total number of cascading modes remains invariant. Results obtained in this study can be potentially applied to plasmas, free surface and internal wave hydrodynamics.

In this study, we investigate the formation of dynamical energy cascades in higher-order KdV-type equations. In the beginning, we recall what is known about the dynamic cascades for the classical KdV (quadratic) and mKdV (cubic) equations. Then, we investigate further the mKdV case by considering a richer set of initial perturbations in order to check the validity and persistence of various facts previously established for the narrow-banded perturbations. Afterwards, we focus on higher-order nonlinearities (quartic and quintic) which are found to be quite different in many respects from the mKdV equation. Throughout this study, we consider both the direct and double energy cascades. It was found that the dynamic cascade is always formed, but its formation is not necessarily accompanied by the nonlinear stage of the modulational instability. Direct cascade structure remains invariant regardless of the size of the spectral domain. In contrast, the double cascade shape can depend on the size of the spectral domain, even if the total number of cascading modes remains invariant. Results obtained in this study can be potentially applied to plasmas, free surface and internal wave hydrodynamics.

We investigate the exact travelling wave solutions of the Tzitzéica-Dodd–Bullough–Mikhailov (TDBM) and Tzitzéica-type (TT) equations, appear in nonlinear optics, using simple ansatz approach. We use the Painlevé and traveling wave transformations to convert the mentioned nonlinear equations into nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Then, the simple ansatz approach has been employed to procure wave solutions, in terms of bright, singular soliton and trigonometric functions, for the Tzitzéica-Dodd–Bullough–Mikhailov (TDBM) and Tzitzéica-type (TT) equations. The study shows that the simple ansatz approach is straightforward and easy to implement for solving nonlinear problems.

Batched network coding (BNC) is a practical realization of random linear network coding (RLNC) designed for reliable network transmission in multi-hop networks with packet loss. By grouping coded packets into batches and restricting the use of RLNC within the same batch, BNC resolves the issue of RLNC that has high computational and storage costs at the intermediate nodes. A simple and common way to apply BNC is to fire and forget the recoded packets at the intermediate nodes, as BNC can act as an erasure code for data recovery. Due to the finiteness of batch size, recoding strategy is a critical design that affects the throughput, the storage requirements and the computational cost of BNC. The gain of the recoding strategy can be enhanced with the aid of a feedback mechanism, however the utilization and development of this mechanism is not yet standardized. In this paper, we investigate a multi-phase recoding mechanism for BNC. In each phase, recoding depends on the amount of innovative information remained at the current node after the transmission of the previous phases was completed. Relevant information can be obtained via hop-by-hop feedback, then a more precise recoding scheme that allocates networking resources can be established. Unlike hop-by-hop retransmission schemes, the reception status of individual packets does not need to be known, and packets to be sent in the next phase may not be the lost packets in the previous phase. Further, due to the loss-tolerance feature of BNC, it is unnecessary to pass all innovative information to the next node. This study illustrates that multi-phase recoding can significantly boost the throughput and reduce the decoding time as compared with the traditional single-phase recoding approach. This opens new window in developing better strategies for designing BNC, rather than sending more batches in a blind manner.

: We report the case of a 2-year-old Norwegian Forest cat diagnosed with pulmonary edema and pulmonary hypertension (PH) secondary to cor triatriatum sinister, who showed improved breathing following furosemide treatment. Sildenafil was prescribed post-discharge without diuretic. Thirty-eight days later, no abnormalities were observed in the septum or accessory chamber of the left atrium; however, continuous mosaic blood flow (maximum velocity, 3.14 m/s) was observed in two enlarged pulmonary veins. Pulmonary artery enlargement (main pulmonary artery to thoracic aorta ratio: 1.90), pulmonary vein stenosis (PVS), and diffuse bilateral ground-glass lung opacities were observed using computed tomography. PH with partial PVS and pulmonary parenchymal disease was diagnosed. The cat was further treated with furosemide with no clinical symptoms, but succumbed to acute dyspnea 51 days after the first visit. PH, despite partial PVS, may also be associated with concurrent parenchymal lung disease. Sildenafil can worsen pulmonary edema in the affected lung but did not in this case.

Bohrnstedt’s (1969) attempt to derive a formula to compute the partial correlation coefficient and simultaneously correct for attenuation sought to simplify the process of performing each task separately. He suggested that his formula, developed from algebraic and psychometric manipulations of the partial correlation coefficient, produces a corrected partial correlation value. However, an algebraic error exists within his derivations. Consequently, the formula proposed by Bohrnstedt does not appropriately represent the value he intended it to estimate. By correcting the erroneous step and continuing the derivation based upon his proposed procedure, the steps outlined in this paper ultimately produce the formula that Bohrnstedt desired.

The removable partial denture, despite new technologies and new materials, continues to play a significant role in clinical dental practice. The purpose of the following study was to evaluate the design of new retention devices in Kennedy's second grade classrooms. For the study of "lamellar" retentive devices, 4 prosthetists were chosen and selected, according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 16 patients, 8 women and 8 men, whose upper arch had to be rehabilitated with a removable partial prosthesis. The results showed that the parameters taken into consideration such as satisfaction, stability, aesthetics and retention had an average score higher than 3.30 (range 1-4), with an average standard deviation of 0.6225 in the 4 indicative parameters that the data they are relatively homogeneous and coherent. In conclusion we can state that the skeletonized prosthesis with lamellar retentions, designed in Kennedy's second grade classes, has shown good acceptance in selected patients

In the research we consider a structure-fluid interaction of oscillating piezodevice and acoustic liquid. Such problem requires finding resonance or anti-resonance frequencies of the solid structure to use them in the latter frequency-response analyses step. After finite element discretization of the issue, we need to solve a generalized eigenvalue problem (GEP). The most efficient numerical method for solving the partial GEP is the shift-and-invert Lanczos method. Each step of this algorithm requires solving a large scale system of linear algebraic equations (SLAEs) with special properties. Various ways of ordering grid nodes lead to coefficient matrices with different structure. Several methods are compared in terms of efficiency. The results of the numerical experiments are presented.

In order to obtain the good match between yield strength and low-temperature toughness, the short-time partial austenitization (SPA) process was employed for V-microalloying 0.22C-5.24Mn steel. The initial microstructure after intercritical tempering was dual-phase ferrite and reversed austenite (RA), while the final microstructure was consisted of ferrite, RA and secondary martensite (SM) after subjected to SPA process. (V, Mo)C with disc-like morphology mainly precipitated during intercritial tempering, and the aspect ratio of particle decreased, leading to the appearance of near-spherical morphology. After subjected to SPA process, the resultant multiphase hierarchical microstructure (three layers: out layer of ferrite, interlayer of SM and inner layer RA) enabled high yield strength of 1097 MPa, total elongation of 14%, and impressive impact energy of 33.3 J at -20 °C. The strengthening contribution of (V, Mo)C precipitation was estimated about 108 MPa.

Beginning in December 2019, a novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 has caused an international outbreak of respiratory illness termed COVID-19. This disease may cause mild to moderate respiratory illness. However, older individuals and those with underlying medical conditions like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease are more likely to develop serious illnesses (progressive pneumonia, multi-organ failure, and even death) (1). The main target for antiviral therapy for COVID-19 is the 3CL protease (3CLpro, Main protease, Mpro, Nsp5). The 3CL protease plays an integral role in viral replication and is often known as the “Achilles heel” of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (2). Thus, NLC Pharma utilized a unique and novel technology termed Quantum Core Technology (QCT) to design a mechanism-based potent inhibitor against the SARS-Cov-2 3CL protease. 3CL Pharma has designed an oral anti-viral for COVID-19 called Tollovir. Biochemical assays have revealed that 40uM of Tollovir in PBS can achieve 90% maximum inhibition of 3CL protease. Furthermore, the oral anti-viral has completed clinical trial phase 2b/3. Tollovir has proven to be safe and significantly decreases mortality rates of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 infection.

Abstract Introduction PCa is one of the cancers that exhibits the widest disparity gaps. Geographical place of residence has been shown to be associated with healthcare access/utilization and PCa outcomes. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are widely being utilized for PCa disparities research, however, inconsistencies in their application exist. This systematic review will summarize GIS application within PCa disparities research, highlight gaps in the literature and propose alternative approaches. Methods This paper followed the methods of the Cochrane Collaboration and the criteria set of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Articles published in peer-reviewed journals were searched through the PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases till December 2022. The main inclusion criteria were employing a GIS approach and examining a relationship between geographical components and PCa disparities. The main exclusion criteria were studies conducted outside the US and those that were not published in English. Results A total of 25 articles were included, 23 focused on PCa measures as outcomes: incidence, survival, and mortality while only two examined PCa management. GIS application in PCa disparities research was grouped into three main categories: mapping, processing, and analysis. GIS mapping allowed for the visualization of quantitative, qualitative, and temporal trends of PCa factors. GIS processing was mainly used for geocoding and smoothing of PCa rates. GIS analysis mainly served to evaluate global spatial autocorrelation and distribution of PCa cases, while local cluster identification techniques were mainly employed to identify locations with poorer PCa outcomes, soliciting public health interventions. Discussion Varied GIS applications and methodologies have been used in researching PCa disparities. Multiple geographical scales were adopted leading to variation in associations and outcomes. Geocoding quality varied considerably leading to less robust findings. Limitations in cluster-detection approaches were identified especially when variations were captured using the Spatial Scan Statistic. GIS approaches utilized in other diseases might be applied within PCa disparities research for more accurate inferences. A novel approach for GIS research in PCa disparities could be focusing more on geospatial disparities in procedure utilization especially when it comes to PCa screening techniques. Conclusion This systematic review summarized and described the current state and trend of GIS application in PCa disparities research. Although GIS is of crucial importance when it comes to PCa disparities research, future studies should rely on more robust GIS techniques, carefully select the geographical scale studied, and partner with GIS scientists for more accurate inferences. Such interdisciplinary approaches have the potential to bridge the gaps between GIS and cancer prevention and control to further advance cancer equity.

A rare genetic disorder caused by col18.a1 mutations, inherited mostly in autosomal recessive and rarely in autosomal dominant pattern, giving rise to ocular abnormalities and other associated disorders, the condition is referred to as Knobloch syndrome. This paper overviews the anterior and posterior ocular symptoms in Knobloch patients, thus demonstrating the major findings in Knobloch cases including the mutational analysis which discusses the proteins involved and exon number on which mutations are detected. Animal modeling done by knocking out col18.a1 has also been discussed to determine the functions of this gene which have been identified based on anomalies found in knock-out mice.

The effects of post-treatment temperature-based methods on 1D single PLA filaments after FFF have been studied. This lets to decouple the variables related to the 3D structure (layer height, raster angle, infill density, and others) from the variables solely related to the material (molecular weight, molecular orientation, crystallinity, and others). PLA 1D filaments have been aged at 20, 39, 42, 51, 65, 75 and 80 ºC in a water-bath-inspired process in which the hydrolytic degradation of the PLA has been minimised for the ageing temperatures of interest. The evolution of the thermal and mechanical properties of the PLA filaments at different temperatures was recorded. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to evaluate thermal and physical properties, in which the glass transition, enthalpic relaxation, crystallisation and melting reactions were analysed. Tensile tests were performed to evaluate the tensile strength and elastic modulus. The flow-induced molecular orientation, the degradation, the logistic fitting and the so-called summer effect –stabilisation of properties at higher temperatures– are discussed for assessing the safeness of accelerating ageing.

Fungal infections impact the lives of at least 12 million people every year, killing over 1.5 million. Wide-spread use of fungicides and prophylactic antifungal therapy have driven resistance in many serious fungal pathogens, and there is an urgent need to expand the current antifungal ar-senal. Recent research has focused on improving azoles, our most successful class of antifungals, by looking for synergistic interactions with secondary compounds. Synergists can co-operate with azoles by targeting steps in related pathways, or they may act on mechanisms related to re-sistance like active efflux or on totally disparate pathways or processes. A variety of sources of potential synergists have been explored, including pre-existing antimicrobials, pharmaceuticals approved for other uses, bioactive natural compounds and phytochemicals, and novel synthetic compounds. Synergy can successfully widen the antifungal spectrum, decrease inhibitory dosag-es, reduce toxicity, and prevent the development of resistance. This review highlights the diversity of mechanisms that have been exploited for the purposes of azole synergy and demonstrates that synergy remains a promising approach for meeting the urgent need for novel antifungal strate-gies.

Abstract:Global ship demolition is mostly concentrated in south Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and China, since 1990’s, having competitive advantage for their high natural tide, and low environmental and social costs. Due to high social and environmental externalities, stakeholders increase monitoring of the externalities and continue to prescribe improvement towards sustainability, which put pressures on profitability and competitiveness. As a consequence, also seen in the past, a leakage effect may emerge, leading to shift of this activity to a region, with relatively less monitored and less stricter on social and environmental impacts. Unfortunately, the leakage effect is never predicted in shipbreaking in order to understand the level of push compatible in the given socio-economic contexts. In this study, we have attempted to predict the future ship demolition landscape, applying machine learning technique to 34,531 in-service vessels worldwide, larger than 500 gross tonnage (GT), which is run against a learning model based on 3500 demolished vessels from 2014. This study shows that redistribution may occur among the top recycling nations: India may emerge out to be a dominant player in shipbreaking, surpassing Bangladesh by a margin of two-fold, while Pakistan and China are in decreasing trend. In addition, the leakage effect is observed, in that Vietnam is predicted to be the fourth largest ship demolition country, while China and Pakistan recede from the third and fourth place to 6th and 8th. Turkey is predicted to advance from fifth position to third position by vessel count but stays same in term of total GT dismantled. Although it is not clear if any leakage is to be observed in the near future, this study may be a model for future predictive analytics and help stakeholders take evidence-based business decisions.

In this study, a novel absorbable hemostatic agent was developed using carrageenan (CRG) as a natural polymer and cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs).  CRG-CeO2-0.5 and CRG-CeO2-1 composites were prepared by compositing CRG and CeO2 at a weight ratio of 200:1 and 100:1, respectively. Physio-chemical and structural properties of these compounds were studied and compared with pristine CRG. Upon incorporation of CeO2 nanoparticles into the CRG matrix, significant reductions in hydrogel degradation were observed. In addition, it was noted that CRG-CeO2 exhibited better antibacterial and hemostatic properties than CRG hydrogel without CeO2.The biocompatibility of the materials was tested using the NIH 3T3 cell line and all samples were found to be nontoxic. Particularly, CRG-CeO2-1 demonstrated superior hemostatic effects, biocompatibility, and a lower degradation rate since more CeO2 Nps were present in the CRG matrix. Therefore, CRG-CeO2-1 has the potential to be used as a hemostatic agent and wound dressing.

Abstract: The study focuses on how socio-economic and demographic indicators affect fertilization sustainability (excessive amount of fertilization). Principally we aim to examine the significance magnitude of the effects of three socio-demographic variables such as traditional way of fertilization, rental land farming, and farmers’ younger age on over-fertilization in Bangladesh and other developing countries. In 1960s, Bangladesh state authority launched a campaign ‘Grow more Food’ to feed huge numbers of population and thus the farmers are provided chemical fertilizers and pesticides at a subsidized low price. Farmers began to use huge amount of fertilizers for gaining high yields and continued it to present causing environmental woes a lot. We interview (face-to-face, focus group discussion, and phone interview) 210 Bangladesh farmers in 2016 by semi-structured questionnaire. Data has been analyzed using General Linear Model (GLM) in Univariate Analysis of Variance. The study found the effect of traditional way of fertilization on excessive amount of fertilization is strongly significant at 1% level. Apart from, rental land farming and farmers’ younger age have a significant influence on over- fertilization; though their significance level (5% and 10% respectively) is quasi-strong. Policy makers can be able to formulate fertilizer policy on the basis of these findings.

Abstract Sickle cell anaemia (SCD) is a life-threatening haematological disorder which is predominant in sub-Saharan Africa and is triggered by a genetic mutation of the β-chain haemoglobin gene resulting in the substitution of glutamic acid with valine. This mutation leads to the production of an abnormal haemoglobin molecule called haemoglobin S (HbS). When deoxygenated, haemoglobin S (HbS) polymerizes and results in a sickle-shaped red blood cell which is rigid and has a significantly shortened life span. Various reports have shown a strong link between oxidative stress, inflammation, the immune response, and the pathogenesis of sickle cell disease. The consequence of these processes lead to the development of vasculopathy (disease of the blood vessels) and several other complications. The role of the immune system, particularly the innate immune system, in the pathogenesis of SCD has become increasingly clear in recent years of research, However, little is known about the roles of the adaptive immune system in this disease. This review examines the interaction between the immune system, inflammation, oxidative stress, blood transfusion, and their effects on the pathogenesis of sickle cell anaemia

Optical properties of the cornea are responsible for correct vision, ultrastructure allows optical transparency and biomechanical properties governs the shape, elasticity or stiffness of the cor-nea affecting ocular integrity and intraocular pressure. Therefore, optical aberrations, corneal transparency, structure and biomechanics play a fundamental role in the optical quality of hu-man vision, ocular health and refractive surgery outcomes. However, the convergence of those properties is not yet reported at macroscopic scale within the hierarchical structure of the cornea. This work explores the relationships between biomechanics, structure and optical properties (corneal aberrations and optical density) at macrostructural level of the cornea through dual Placido-Scheimpflug imaging and air-puff tonometry systems in a healthy young adult popula-tion. Results showed convergence between optical transparency, corneal macrostructure and biomechanics.

This paper reports aligned activities to promote energy and resource-efficient construction practice in Vietnam. First, the governance framework is introduced, including government decrees and technical standards. Then, a laboratory with building physics measurement technology is designed and partly set up at the local partner Vietnam Institute for Building Materials (VIBM), which can be used to determine the essential characteristic values required for the implementation of energy standards. The basis for the prioritization of the characteristic values are the requirements of the National technical regulation on energy efficient buildings of Vietnam – QCVN09:2017/BXD. Furthermore, basic characteristic values from international standards are described, which can also be used for calculations to optimize the energy consumption of buildings. In order to be able to carry out transient hygrothermal computer simulations, special characteristic values were also included. These are particularly useful for the research and development of new building materials and the evaluation of entire buildings in terms of thermal and moisture protection In order to communicate the material properties to the market and enable informed decision making by the stakeholders, a labeling system has been developed. Thereby, the practical means for implementing governance instruments are provided, and the related technical applications are supported.

Uncertain fractional differential equation (UFDE) is an excellent tool for describing complicated dynamic systems. This paper analyzes the valuation problems of currency option based on UFDE under optimistic value criterion. Firstly, an uncertain fractional currency model is formulated to describe the dynamics of foreign exchange rate. Then, the pricing formulae of European, American and Asian currency option are obtained under optimistic value criterion, respectively. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the validity of our theoretical results.

In this work we present some driving strategies for a type of omnidirectional mobile robot, the offset-differential robot. This system presents omnidirectionality while using any type of standard wheels, allowing for applications in all terrain. The work is based on the full kinematic and dynamic analysis of the robot, including the passive elements, to explain some unexpected behaviors that appear during its motion. The stable and unstable behaviors are characterized and some driving strategies are stated in order to achieve the desired performance regarding precise positioning and speed.

Background Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common hormonal disorder worldwide among women of reproductive age. It is characterized by endocrine, reproductive, and metabolic abnormalities. Insulin resistance (IR) is one of its most important clinical features, associated with metabolic disorders and increased risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). This study aimed to explore the whole blood gene expression profiling related to IR in PCOS patients compared to controls. Methods Blood RNA was extracted from 5 PCOS and 5 non-PCOS women with matched age and BMI. Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR) was used to estimate the IR. The expression of IR genes was analyzed by Profiler PCR array. Results Both groups have similar levels of HOMA-IR (p>0.05). However, differential expression levels were observed between them. Fourteen genes were upregulated and 26 genes were downregulated in PCOS samples. Among the upregulated genes (>2 fold-change, p-value<0.05) are ADIPOQ, ADIPOR1, OLR, IGF-1, and APOE. Downregulated genes (>-2 fold-change, p-value<0.05) include HK-2, IRS1, and SERPINE1. These genes are involved in insulin and adipokines signaling, commonly dysregulated in T2D. They are also involved in innate immunity and inflammatory processes and are essential for lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. Conclusion Our finding suggests that despite both groups having no difference in IR level, there are differentially expressed genes involved in the IR pathway.

Physicists have employed various approaches to solve the “paradox” and offered a consistent conclusion that the traveller twin is younger than the homebody twin. However, some authors attribute the cause of differential aging to acceleration, while others believe that acceleration should not be regarded as the source of differential aging, but frame switch is. So far there is no agreement on this issue. Actually, acceleration and frame switch should not be regarded as the source of differential aging. The author will introduce a thought experiment in which two very long spacecraft are moving in opposite directions at a speed close to the speed of light to discuss the real cause of differential aging. The author found that the real cause of differential aging in the twin “paradox” is because of the asymmetry of destination choice. People always choose their destinations in the universe rather than in spacecraft. The destinations are always stationary relative to the homebody twin and moving relative to the traveller twin. Once we choose a destination in a reference frame, the distance is the proper length in this reference frame, but the distance will contract in another moving reference frame, thus the recording time will be shorter.

An easier method for the calibration of differential drive robots is presented. Most of the calibration is done on-board and it is not necessary to expend too much time taking note of the robot's position. The calibration method does not need a big free space to perform the tests. The bigger space is just in a straight line, which is easy to find. Results with the proposed method are compared with those from UMB as a reference, and they show very little deviation while the proposed calibration is much simpler.

In this article, we consider the three dimensional $\alpha$-fractional nonlinear delay differential system of the form \begin{align*} D^{\alpha}\left(u(t)\right)&=p(t)g\left(v(\sigma(t))\right),\\D^{\alpha}\left(v(t)\right)&=-q(t)h\left(w(t))\right),\\D^{\alpha}\left(w(t)\right)&=r(t)f\left(u(\tau(t))\right),~ t \geq t_0, \end{align*} where $0 < \alpha \leq 1$, $D^{\alpha}$ denotes the Katugampola fractional derivative of order $\alpha$. We have established some new oscillation criteria of solutions of differential system by using generalized Riccati transformation and inequality technique. The obtained results are illustrated with suitable examples.

Background: To compare the clinical efficacy of Japas osteotomy of the middle foot and first metatarsal sequence osteotomy in treating children with cavovarus foot deformity. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical effect of cavovarus foot surgery from January 2012 to January 2019. Thirty light and medium cavovarus foot cases underwent osteotomy based on soft tissue release. Among them, 16 cases of 22 feet underwent first metatarsal sequence osteotomy, and 14 cases of 21 feet underwent middle foot Japas osteotomy. Ankle-posterior foot (Wicart) scoring system was used to evaluate the good and good rates of the two surgical methods. X-ray films were taken before and after the last follow-up in a standing weight-bearing position, and Meary Angle, Hibb Angle, and Pitch Angle were measured to compare the clinical efficacy of the two surgical methods in correcting the light and medium-cavovarus foot deformity.Results: (1) All patients were followed up for an average of 30 months. There was no significant difference in Meary, Hibb, and Pitch Angle between first metatarsal osteotomy and middle foot Japas osteotomy before surgery, indicating that the severity of malformation was similar between the two groups. (2) The Meary, Hibb, and Pitch Angle of the last follow-up were compared between the two groups (P>0.05), which showed no statistical significance, indicating that the two surgical methods had similar effects on cavovarus deformity correction. (3) At the most recent follow-up, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding the percentage of patients who achieved an excellent or good Wicart score; for the first metatarsal osteotomy group, the rate was 87%, and for the Japas osteotomy group was 90%; the Fisher test p>0.05 indicates that the postoperative excellent and good rates of the two treatments are comparable.II (4) Comparison of operation time and intraoperative blood loss between the two groups, P<0.05, showed statistically significant differences, indicating that the first metatarsal osteotomy had obvious advantages over Japas osteotomy operation time and intraoperative blood loss. Conclusions: There is no significant difference in postoperative efficacy between first metatarsal osteotomy and Japas osteotomy for light and medium-cavovarus with the apex of the deformity located at the medial cuneus or navicular cuneiform joint. However, the intraoperative blood loss and operative time of first metatarsal osteotomy are superior to Japas osteotomy of the middle foot, and the trauma to children is less. Therefore, the first metatarsal osteotomy can be considered a surgical procedure.

The fractional reduced differential transform method is a finite iterative method based on infinite fractional expansions. The result obtained is the approximation of the real value. There are few reports on the approximate error and the applicable condition. In this paper, according to the fractional expansions, we study the factors related to the approximate errors. Our research shows that the approximate errors relate not only to fractional order but also to time $t$ and increase rapidly with time $t$. This method can only be applied within a certain time range and the time range is relevant to fractional order and fractional expansions. Then, many obtained achievements may be incorrect if the applicable conditions are not satisfied. Some examples presented in this paper verify our analysis.

Background: Gut-Brain-Axis provides bidirectional communicational route; imbalance of which can have pathophysiological consequences. It is a frontier in autism research, affects 85% of autistic children (NIH report). Their microbiome has few overall microbes and smaller number of health promising microbes than their neurotypical peers. We hypothesize autism gut might play a role in manifestation of autism behaviours and on treatment, can revert back to normal behaviour considerably. The aim is to better understand to what degree gut microbiota of autism subjects differs from controls and identify bacterial species present exclusively in autism. Materials and Methods: 16s-rRNA-sequence of autism-subjects were retrieved from the American Gut Project Archive. Taxonomic assignment was inferred by similarity based methods using Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME). Species abundance was characterized and co-occurrence network was built to infer species interaction using measures of diversity. Statistical parameters were considered to validate the findings. Result: A total of 206 (1.8%) of American Gut Project datasets onstituted of autistic samples. Various bacteria such as Akkermansia sp., and Prevotella sp., were harboured in higher abundance in autistic children with statistical significance than in controls. Conclusion: These findings indicate connecting-link between gut-microbiome-brain-axis and autistic behaviour which can result in improved management

Flavonoids, compounds present in many dietary supplements, affect growth of different bacterial species when tested as purified or synthetic substances. Here, we asked if soy isoflavone extracts, commonly used in many products sold as anti-menopausal dietary supplements, influence bacterial growth similarly to synthetic isoflavone, genistein. Four commercially available products were tested in amounts corresponding to genistein concentrations causing inhibition of growth of Vibrio harveyi (a model bacterium sensitive to this isoflavone) and Escherichia coli (a model bacterium resistant to genistein). Differential effects of various extracts on V. harveyi and E. coli growth, from stimulation, through no changes, to inhibition, were observed. Moreover, contrary to genistein, tested extracts caused a decrease (to different extends) in viability of human dermal fibroblasts. These results indicate that effects of various soy isoflavone extracts on bacterial growth and viability of human cells are different, despite similar declared composition of the commercially available products.

The energy transition is a challenge that affects all sectors, from transport to civil structures and industry. In the industrial sector, the greatest need is the decarbonisation of energy-intensive in-dustries, such as producers of iron and steel, aluminum, cement, petrochemicals, paper, and more. The steel industry, in particular, is a hard-to-abate high-emissivity industry that, due to chemical processes and high thermal demands (often above 500 °C), contributed to 7.4% of global CO2 emissions in 2021. This paper explores the potential applications of hydrogen in these hard-to-abate sectors, highlighting its versatility and significance in decarbonization efforts, especially as a me-dium to facilitate the transition to green electric energy uses. It provides an overview of hydrogen production methods, emphasizing the importance of sustainable and green hydrogen production. It reviews hydrogen production methods, storage, and potential in blended combustion. In the final part of the article, some considerations are introduced on the possible role of hydrogen in the steel sector (both as a supplementary fuel and as a reducing agent in innovative processes), showing that while there is potential for its inclusion as an element for decarbonization, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the energy balances of the various processes and the methods of hydrogen production, in order to avoid achieving only marginal effects.

Background: Chronic non-specific low back pain (CNSLBP) is defined as back pain that lasts longer than 12 weeks. Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of manual therapy (MT) program combined with Capacitive and Resistive Electric Transfer (TECAR) therapy in individuals with CNSLBP. Method: Sixty adults with CNSLBP were randomly equally divided into three groups. The first group followed an MT protocol in the lumbar region (MT group), the second group followed the same MT protocol combined with TECAR therapy (MT + TECAR group) using a conventional capacitive electrode as well as a special resistive electrode bracelet and the third group (Control group) received no treatment. Both intervention programs included six treatments over two weeks. Pain in the last 24 hours with the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), functional ability with the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ), Pressure Pain Threshold (PPT) in the lumbar region with pressure algometry, and mobility of the lumbo-pelvic region through fingertip-to-floor distance (FFD) test were evaluated before and after the intervention period with a one-month follow-up. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was applied. Results: In the NPRS score, both intervention groups showed statistically significant differences compared to the control group both in the second week as well as in the one-month follow-up (p < .001). Between-groups differences were also noticed between the two intervention groups in the second week (p < .05). Differences in the RMDQ score in the second week and on the one-month follow-up were detected between the intervention groups and the control group (p < .001), while differences between the two intervention groups were only detected in the one-month follow-up (p < .001). Regarding the PPT values, differences were found mainly between the MT + TECAR and the control group and between the MT + TECAR and the MT group (p < .05), with the MT + TECAR group in most cases showing the greatest improvement compared to the other two groups, which remained statistically significant in the one-month follow-up (p < .05). Finally, both intervention groups improved the mobility of the lumbo-pelvic region in both time points compared to the control group without, however, statistically significant differences between them (p> .05). Conclusion: The application of an MT protocol with TECAR therapy appeared more effective than conventional MT as well as compared to the control group in reducing pain and disability and improving PPT in individuals with CNSLBP. No further improvement was noted in mobility of the lumbo-pelvic region by adding TECAR to the MT intervention.

Abstract: The contribution of breakfast to diet quality (DQ) can inform future dietary guidelines. This study examined breakfasts that were associated with highest-quality diets. Dietary data came from the first reported day of the National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2014 (n=14,488). DQ measures were the Nutrient Rich Foods Index (NRF9.3) and the USDA Healthy Eating Index 2015 (HEI 2015). Analyses of breakfast intakes were conducted by NRF9.3 tertiles and by age and socioeconomic groups. Four out of 5 NHANES participants ate breakfast. Breakfast provided 19-22% of dietary energy depending on age. Breakfast intakes of complex carbohydrates and total sugars were higher and intakes of protein and fats were lower relative to energy intakes. Breakfast provided more that 20% of daily intakes of B vitamins, vitamins A and D, folate, calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium. Eating breakfast was associated with higher NRF9.3d scores. Breakfasts associated with top tertile of NRF9.3d had more carbohydrates and less added sugars and fats. Such breakfasts had more fruit and juices, more whole grains, more milk and yogurt and less meat and eggs. Breakfast patterns that favored fruit, whole grains, and dairy were associated with healthiest diets.

Traditional potential transformers have problems of large volume, difficulty in insulation, iron core saturation, ferroresonance overvoltage and poor transient response characteristics. The voltage sensor based on the principle of electric field coupling and differential input structure does not need to contact the measured object or ground, and can avoid the above problems. However, it requires a sufficiently high capacitance between the differential electrodes to obtain sufficient accuracy and a high voltage division ratio. The existing method of using mutual capacitance between the differential electrodes will cause many problems and fail to meet the practical needs. To solve the above problems, this paper innovatively uses multi-layer ceramic capacitor to replace the mutual capacitance and designs a new type of voltage sensor. In addition, by using single bypass small resistance grounding method to increase the input impedance of the differential signal processing circuit, error of the sensor is further reduced. The experimental results show that the sensor has excellent accuracy and great transient response characteristics. The ratio error under power frequency is within ±0.5% and the phase error is within 1. The ratio error in the range of 500 Hz∼30 kHz is within ±5% and the phase error is within 5. Moreover, it has the advantages of low cost, miniaturization, flexible shape and easy to adjust the voltage division ratio. These characteristics indicate that the sensor has good voltage measurement and sensor network potential.

Finding the roots of an equation is a fundamental problem in diverse fields. Optimization problem leads to non-linear equations for calculating the roots of the equation efficiently. Numerical iterative techniques are frequently applied when analytic solution is not available. Hybrid techniques to find roots of an equation is new to this fundamental problem. Recently, some attempts emerged to design hybrid algorithms for efficient solutions. A new heuristic algorithm is designed which is an intuitive approach to hybridization. In this paper, we implement two new algorithms: (1) a new BTsection algorithm blending the Bisection and Trisection algorithm, (2) a hybrid algorithm, that promises to be more efficient than the existing hybrid algorithms. The new hybrid algorithm is a blend of BTsection algorithm and Regula Falsi algorithm. The implementation results validate that the new algorithm, Hybrid4, surpasses the efficiency of existing hybrid algorithms Hybrid1, Hybrid2, and Hybrid3 algorithms. This paper contributes an essential hybrid algorithm to the repertoire of hybrid root finding algorithms.

We extended the usage of the expansion method based on Sine-Gordon equation to the two dimensional Fisher equation. The relation between the trigonometric and hyperbolic functions are derived from the Sine-Gordon equation dened in two space dimension. The complex-valued traveling wave solutions to the two dimensional Fisher and Nagumo equations are set in forms a nite series of multiplications of powers of sech(.) and tanh(.) functions.

Atomic structure of N-electron atoms is often determined using the Hartree-Fock method, which is an integro-differential equation. The exchange term of the Hartree-Fock equations is usually treated as an inhomogeneous term of a differential equation, or with a local density approximation. This work uses matrix methods to solve for the Hartree-Fock equations, rather than the more commonly-used shooting method to integrate an inhomogeneous differential equation. It is well known that a derivative operator can be expressed as a matrix made of finite-difference coefficients; energy eigenvalues and eigenvectors can be obtained by using computer linear-algebra packages. We extend the same technique to integro-differential equations, where a discretized integral can be written as a sum in matrix form. This method is compared against experiment and standard atomic structure calculations. We also can use this method for free-electron wavefunctions. This technique is important for spectral line broadening in two ways: improving the atomic structure calculations, and improving the motion of the plasma electrons that collide with the atom.

Complex and real valued exact solutions to some reaction-diffusion equations are suggested by using homogeneous balance and Sine-Gordon equation expansion method. The predicted solution of finite series of some hyperbolic functions are determined by using some relations between the hyperbolic functions and trigonometric functions based on Sine-Gordon equation and traveling wave transform. The Newel-Whitehead-Segel and Zeldovich equations are solved explicitly. Some real valued solutions are depicted for some particular choice of parameters.

This paper provides an alternative Slope-Deflection equation for performing the static analysis of the indeterminate structures. While the conventional Slope-Deflection method introduced in undergraduate structural analysis course involves the use of fixed end moments in the Slope-Deflection equations, the proposed method employs the slope of a simply supported beam to obtain the unknown moments at the joints. Three numerical examples of continuous beams with different load configurations are chosen and the efficacy of the proposed equations is demonstrated. From the perspective of undergraduate structural analysis course in Civil Engineering education, the approach proposed in this paper offers two advantages: (1) prior knowledge of fixed beams is not required and (2) the concepts gained from determinate structural analysis are directly applicable.

In this work, an improved collocation method based on the Bernoulli polynomials is presented to solve the Volterra integral equation (VIE) of the second kind. The main idea of the proposed method is to improve the results of the classic Bernoulli collocation method (BCM) by dividing the interval into some sub-intervals and considering the collocation points on each of them. Here, the zeros of the shifted Chebyshev polynomials (SCPs) are considered as collocation points. Then, BCM is applied step by step from the first sub-interval to the last one. By this process, a system of algebraic equations is attained for each sub-interval that could be easily solved. Convergence of the scheme is analyzed. For the purpose of demonstrating the validity, applicability, and efficiency of the suggested scheme several numerical examples are provided. Numerical results illustrate that the accuracy of the improved Bernoulli collocation method (IBCM) is more than BCM.

Maxwell equations governing electromagnetic effects are being shown to be equivalent to the compressible inviscid Navier-Stokes equations applicable in fluid dynamics and representing conservation of mass and linear momentum. The latter applies subject to a generalized Beltrami condition to be satisfied by the magnetic field. This equivalence indicates that the compressible inviscid Navier-Stokes equations are Lorentz invariant as they derive directly from the Lorentz invariant Maxwell equations subject to the same Beltrami condition. In addition, the derivation results provide support for the claim that electromagnetic potentials have physical significance as demonstrated by Aharonov-Bohm effect, and are not only a convenient mathematical formulation.

In this paper, we consider the fourth-order parabolic equations with integer and fractional order time derivatives with Neumann boundary conditions. The integer order time derivatives are approximated by backward Euler difference quotients, and the fractional order time derivatives are approximated by L1 interpolation. We propose the block-centered finite difference scheme for fourth-order parabolic equations of integer and fractional order time derivatives. We prove the stability of the block-centered finite difference scheme and the second-order convergence of the discrete L2 norms of the approximate solution and its derivatives of every order. Numerical examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the block-centered finite difference scheme.

The article proposes an amendment to the relativistic continuum mechanics which introduces the relationship between density tensors and the curvature of spacetime. The resulting formulation of a symmetric stress-energy tensor for a system with an electromagnetic field, leads to the solution of Einstein Field Equations indicating a relationship between the electromagnetic field tensor and the metric tensor. In this EFE solution, the cosmological constant is related to the invariant of the electromagnetic field tensor, and additional pulls appear, dependent on the vacuum energy contained in the system. In flat Minkowski spacetime, the vanishing four-divergence of the proposed stress-energy tensor expresses relativistic Cauchy's momentum equation, leading to the emergence of force densities which can be developed and parameterized to obtain known interactions. Transformation equations were also obtained between spacetime with fields and forces, and a curved spacetime reproducing the motion resulting from the fields under consideration, which allows for the extension of the solution with new fields.

We point out an inconsistency in Newton's equations of celestial mechanics. A set of differential equations implied by Newton's equations are shown to be free of this inconsistency. We then investigate the integrals of motion associated with this relative difference system.

We point out that field equations of general relativity are implied by a maximal force given by c⁴/4G, analogous to the way that special relativity is implied by a maximal speed given by c. We present some of the arguments for this equivalence. The maxi-mal force naturally plays the role of an elastic constant for space-time. Implications of the maximal force for gravitational wave measurements, cosmology and black holes are highlighted. Quantum aspects of the maximal force are discussed.

Up to now, Schrödinger equation, Klein-Gordon equation (KGE) and Dirac equation are believed the fundamental equations of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger equation has a defect that there is no NKE solutions. Dirac equation has positive kinetic energy (PKE) and negative kinetic energy (NKE) branches. Both branches should have low momentum, or nonrelativistic, approximations: one is Schrödinger equation and the other is NKE Schrödinger equation. KGE has two problems: it is an equation of second time derivative, and calculated density is not definitely positive. To overcome the problems, it should be revised as PKE and NKE decoupled KGEs. The fundamental equations of quantum mechanics after the modification have at least two merits. They are of unitary in that everyone contains the first time derivative and are symmetric with respect to PKE and NKE. This reflects the symmetry of the PKE and NKE matters, as well as matter and dark matter, of our universe. The problems of one-dimensional step potentials are resolved by means of the modified fundamental equations for a nonrelativistic particle.

The current health crisis derived from COVID 19 has become a serious threat to humanity. The collateral effects related to economic aspects are affecting companies, workers and, of course, families in general. The problems of financial insolvency are frequently present in debtors who have contracted a debt with their creditor. Therefore, the objective of the study is focused on modeling a debt restructuring proposal, through three hypothetical scenarios in which the debt is reconvened when some documents have expired and others are yet to expire. In each of the scenarios, the mathematical model is designed and subsequently corroborated in an Excel spreadsheet. The predominant variables in the restructuring are the adjustment rates used to update the past due promissory notes and the discount rates of those promissory notes that have not yet expired, capitalizations, transaction costs and, if applicable, whether the debt is in foreign currency. In this case, it is converted to the local currency, then the spot exchange rate is used.

In this article, author performs computational analysis for the generalized zeta functions by using computational software Mathematica. To achieve the purpose recently obtained difference equations are used. These difference equations have a computational power to compute these functions accurately while they can not be computed by using their known integral represenations. Several authors investigated such functions and their analytic properties, but no work has been reported to study the graphical representations and zeors of these functions. Author performs numerical computations to evaluate these functions for different values of the involved parameters. Taylor series expansions are also presented in this research.

In this paper, we investigate the equilibrium points, stability of two equilibrium points, convergences of negative equilibrium point, periodic solutions, and existence of bounded or unbounded solutions of a system of nonlinear difference equations x_n+1 =x_n-1y_n - 1, y_n+1 = y_n-1x_n - 1 n = 0,1,..., where the initial values are real numbers. Additionally we present some numerical examples to verify our theoretical results.

This paper deals with the form, the stability character, the periodicity and the global behavior of solutions of the following four rational difference equations x_{n+1} = ((±1)/(x_{n}(x_{n-1}±1)-1)) x_{n+1} = ((±1)/(x_{n}(x_{n-1}∓1)+1)).

Zidovudine (AZT) has significantly reduced the mortality and morbidity rates among AIDS patients, but it has been associated with hepatotoxicity. AZT treatment has been linked to disrupted lipid and glucose metabolism, and the enhancement of pro-inflammatory chemokines and other mediators, which can lead to liver steatosis. In contrast, the administration of adenosine (ADO) has proven to be an effective hepatoprotector against both acute and chronic liver damage. Therefore, present study was aimed to investigate the harmful effects of chronic AZT administration and the beneficial effects of the co-administered ADO. Chronic oral AZT administration did not induce hyperglycemia or dyslipidemia, but serum liver marker enzyme activities were increased, as well as evidence of liver steatosis and inflammation. These findings were associated with low insulin and glucagon levels, elevated serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and disruptions in cell redox states in these animals. ADO co-administration attenuated the deleterious effects induced by AZT: blocking the production of inflammatory molecules, increasing serum insulin and glucagon levels, and restoring liver cellular redox state. Then, blood insulin levels seemed to be greatly influenced by the cellular redox state, which was altered by AZT administration. This alteration is likely to be connected to mitochondrial integrity and metabolism.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has no cure. Earlier, we showed that partial inhibition of mitochondrial complex I (MCI) with small molecule CP2 induces adaptive stress response activating multiple neuroprotective mechanisms. Chronic treatment reduced inflammation, improved synaptic and mitochondrial functions, and blocked neurodegeneration in symptomatic APP/PS1 mice, a translational model of AD. Here, using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBFSEM) and three-dimensional (3D) EM reconstructions combined with Western blot analysis and next-generation RNA sequencing, we demonstrate that CP2 treatment also restores mitochondrial morphology and mitochondria-endoplasmic reticulum (ER) communication in the APP/PS1 mouse brain. Using 3D EM volume reconstructions, we show that mitochondria in AD dendrites exist primarily as mitochondria-on-a-string (MOAS). Compared to other morphological phenotypes, MOAS are extensively enveloped in the ER membranes forming multiple mitochondria-ER contact sites (MERCS) known to contribute to abnormal lipid and calcium homeostasis. CP2 treatment specifically reduced MOAS formation, consistent with improved energy homeostasis in the brain, with concomitant reduction in MERCS, ER stress, and improved lipid homeostasis. These data provide novel information on the role MOAS play in AD and additional support for further development of partial MCI inhibitors as disease modifying strategy for AD.

Objective: About a third of schizophrenia patients are treatment-resistant to antipsychotic therapy. No studies established the fingerprints or pathway-phenotypes of treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The present study aimed to delineate the pathway-phenotypes of non-responders (NRTT) and partial responders (PRTT) to treatment using machine learning. Methods: We recruited 115 schizophrenia patients and 43 healthy controls and measured schizophrenia symptom dimensions, neurocognitive tests, plasma CCL11, interleukin-(IL)-6, IL-10, Dickkopf protein 1 (DKK1), high mobility group box-1 protein (HMGB1), κ- and µ-opioid receptors (KOR and MOR, respectively), endomorphin-2 (EM-2), and β-endorphin. Results: Machine learning showed that the NRTT group is a qualitatively distinct class and is significantly discriminated from PRTT with an accuracy of 100% using a neuro-immune-opioid-cognitive (NIOC) pathway-phenotype with as main determinants list learning, controlled word association, and Tower of London test scores, CCL11, IL-6, and EM2. The top-5 symptom domains separating NRTT from PRTT were in descending order: psychomotor retardation, negative symptoms, psychosis, depression, and mannerism. Moreover, a NIOC pathway also discriminated PRTT from healthy controls with an accuracy of 100% while all PRTT and controls were authenticated as belonging to their respective classes. Conclusion: A non-response to treatment with antipsychotics is determined by increased severity of specific symptom profiles coupled with deficits in executive functions, and episodic and semantic memory, and aberrations in neuro-immune and opioid pathways. No patients showed complete remission after treatment indicating that non-remitting in PRTT is attributable to increased HMGB1 and residual deficits in attention, executive functions, and semantic memory.

As society becomes more reliant on Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, state-of-health (SOH) estimation will need to become more accurate and reliable. Therefore, SOH modelling is in the process of shifting from using simple and continuous charge/discharge profiles, to more dynamic profiles constructed to mimic real operation, when ageing the Li-ion batteries. However, in most cases, when ageing the batteries, the same exact profile is just repeated until the battery reaches its end-of-life. Using data from batteries aged in this fashion to build a model, there is a very real possibility that the model will rely on the built-in repetitiveness of the profile. Therefore, this work will examine the dependence of the performance of a multiple linear regression on the number of charges used to train the model, and their location within the profile used to age the batteries. The investigation shows that it is possible to build models using randomly selected partial charges while still reaching errors as low as 0.5%. Furthermore, it shows that only two randomly sampled partial charges are needed to achieve errors of less than 1%. Lastly, as the number of randomly sampled partial charges used to create the model increases, then the dependence on particular partial charges tends to decrease.

Biodiesel is one of the most popular biofuels as it is a promising substitute of the conventional diesel fuel, but for now it cannot be used as a stand-alone fuel due to its low oxidative stability. For this reason, the last years there have been efforts for its upgrading through the partial hydrogenation of the fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) that biodiesel consists of. This procedure succeeds in resolving the problem of low oxidative stability, but in some cases a new problem arises as the non-selective hydrogenation is deteriorating the fuel’s cold flow properties, which are crucial for its operation without damaging the vehicle’s engine. More specifically, the problem of deteriorated cold flow properties is caused by the formation of trans-monounsaturated FAMEs and fully saturated FAMEs while the hydrogenation reaction is taking place. The hydrogenated biodiesels are preferred to contain more cis-monounsaturated FAMEs, because these are considered to have the best combination between high oxidative stability and good cold flow properties. As a result, various systems and methods have been tested in order to achieve a selective partial hydrogenation of biodiesel’s FAMEs. In this review article, the catalytic systems and methods that stood out in various researches are presented and the factors that lead to the best possible outcome are investigated and discussed.

We report on the use of quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) for multi-gas detection. Photo-acoustic (PA) spectra of mixtures of water (H2O), ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) were measured in the mid-infrared (MIR) wavelength range using a MIR (mid-infrared) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) light source. Highly overlapping absorption spectra is a common challenge for gas spectroscopy. To mitigate this, we use a partial least-squares regression (PLS) method to estimate the mixing ratio and concentrations of the individual gasses. The concentration range explored in the analysis varies from a few parts-per-million (ppm) to thousands of ppm. Spectra obtained from HITRAN and experimental single-molecule reference spectra of each of the molecular species were acquired and used as training data sets. These spectra were used to generate simulated spectra of the gas mixtures (linear combinations of the reference spectra). Here in this proof-of-concept experiment we demonstrate that after an absolute calibration of the QEPAS cell, the PLS analyses could be used to determine concentrations of single molecular species with a relative accuracy within a few % for mixtures of H2O, NH3 and CH4 and with an absolute sensitivity of approximately 300(±50) ppm/V, 50(±5) ppm/V and 5(±2) ppm/V for water, ammonia and methane, respectively. Thus, demonstrating that QEPAS assisted by PLS is a powerful approach to estimate concentrations of individual gas components with considerable spectral overlap, which is a typical scenario for real-life adoptions and applications.

The use of artificial intelligence in natural language processing (NLP) has significantly contributed to the advancement of natural language applications such as sentimental analysis, topic modeling, text classification, chatbots, and spam filtering. With a large amount of text generated each day from different sources such as webpages, blogs, emails, social media, and articles, one of the most common tasks in natural language processing is the classification of a text corpus. This is important in many institutions for planning, decision-making, and archives of their projects. Many algorithms exist to automate text classification operations but the most intriguing of them is that which also learns these operations automatically. In this study, we present a new model to infer and learn from data using probabilistic logic and apply it to text classification. This model, called GenCo, is a multi-input single-output (MISO) learning model that uses a collaboration of partial classifications to generate the desired output. It provides a heterogeneity measure to explain its classification results and enables the reduction of the curse of dimensionality in text classification. The classification results are compared with those of conventional text classification models, and it shows that our proposed model has a higher classification performance than conventional models.

A common challenge in real-world classification scenarios with sequentially appending target domain data is insufficient training datasets during the training phase. Therefore, conventional deep learning and transfer learning classifiers are not applicable especially when individual classes are not represented or are severely underrepresented at the outset. Domain Generalization approaches reach their limits when domain shifts become too large, making them occasionally unsuitable as well. In many (technical) domains, however, it is only the defect/ worn/ reject classes that are insufficiently represented, while the non-defect class is often available from the beginning. The proposed classification approach addresses such conditions and is based on a CNN encoder. Following a contrastive learning approach, it is trained with a modified triplet loss function using two datasets: Besides the non-defective target domain class (= 1st dataset), a state-of-the-art labeled source domain dataset that contains highly related classes (e.g., a related manufacturing error or wear defect) but originates from a (highly) different domain (e.g., different product, material, or appearance) (= 2nd dataset) is utilized. The approach learns the classification features from the source domain dataset while at the same time learning the differences between the source and the target domain in a single training step, aiming to transfer the relevant features to the target domain. The classifier becomes sensitive to the classification features and – by architecture – robust against the highly domain-specific context. The approach is benchmarked in a technical and a non-technical domain and shows convincing classification results. In particular, it is shown that the domain generalization capabilities and classification results are improved by the proposed architecture, allowing for larger domain shifts between source and target domains.

A partial aperture onboard calibration method can solve the onboard calibration problems of some large aperture remote sensors, which is of great significance for the development trend of increasingly large apertures in optical remote sensors. In this paper, the solar diffuser reflectance degradation monitor (SDRDM) in the onboard calibration assembly (CA) of the FengYun-4 (FY-4) advanced geostationary radiance imager (AGRI) is used as the reference radiometer for measuring the partial aperture factor (PAF) for the AGRI onboard calibration. First, the linear response count variation relationship between the two is established under the same radiance source input. Then, according to the known bidirectional reflection distribution function (BRDF) of the solar diffuser (SD) in the CA, the relative reflectance ratio coefficient between the AGRI observation direction and the SDRDM observation direction is calculated. On this basis, the response count value of the AGRI and the SDRDM is used to realize the high-precision measurement of the PAF of the AGRI B1 ~ B3 bands by simulating the AGRI onboard calibration measurement under the illumination of a solar simulator in the laboratory. According to the determination process of the relevant parameters of the PAF, the measurement uncertainty of the PAF is analyzed; this uncertainty is better than 2.04% and provides an important reference for the evaluation of the onboard absolute radiometric calibration uncertainty after launch.

We investigate the behavior of the partial derivative approach to the change of scale formula and prove relationships among the analytic Wiener integral and the analytic Feynman integral of the partial derivative for the function space integral.

Background: A large percentage of deaths in an epidemic or pandemic can be due to overshoot of population (herd) immunity, either from the initial peak or from planned or unplanned exit from lockdown or social distancing conditions. Objectives: We study partial unlock or reopening interaction with seasonal effects in a managed epidemic to quantify overshoot effects on small and large unlock steps and discover robust strategies for reducing overshoot. Methods: We simulate partial unlock of social distancing for epidemics over a range of replication factor, immunity duration and seasonality factor for strategies targeting immunity thresholds using overshoot optimization. Results: Seasonality change must be taken into account as one of the steps in an easing sequence, and a two step unlock, including seasonal effects, minimizes overshoot and deaths. It may cause undershoot, which causes rebounds and assists survival of the pathogen. Conclusions: Partial easing levels, even low levels for economic relief while waiting on a vaccine, have population immunity thresholds based on the reduced replication rates and may experience overshoot as well. We further find a two step strategy remains highly sensitive to variations in case ratio, replication factor, seasonality and timing. We demonstrate a three or more step strategy is more robust, and conclude that the best possible approach minimizes deaths under a range of likely actual conditions which include public response.

In this paper, we proposed a novel saddle type FinFET (S-FinFET) to effectively solve problems occurring under the capacitor node of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) cell and showed how its structure was superior to conventional S-FinFETs in terms of short channel effect (SCE), subthreshold slope (SS), and gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL). The proposed FinFET exhibited 4 times lower Ioff than modified S-FinFET called RFinFET with more improved DIBL characteristics while minimizing Ion reduction compared to RFinFET. Our results also confirmed that the proposed device showed improved DIBL and Ioff characteristics as gate channel length decreased.

In this paper, the notion of θ∗-weak contraction is introduced, which is utilized to prove some fixed point results. These results are helpful to give a positive response to certain open question raised by Kannan [Amer. Math. Monthly 76:1969] and Rhoades [Contemp. Math. 72:1988] on the existence of contractive definition which does not force the mapping to be continuous at the fixed point. Some illustrative examples are also given to support our results. As applications of our result, we investigate the existence and uniqueness of a solution of non-linear matrix equations and integral equations of Volterra type as well.

Differential Evolution (DE) is an evolutionary algorithm that has become increasingly popular due to its effectiveness and efficiency. However, its adaptation for multi-objective optimization requires further investigation. To address this issue, a novel algorithm called ILSDEMO has been proposed, which incorporates indicator-based selection and local search into a self-adaptive DE. ILSDEMO employs an archive population to store non-dominated solutions, generating an initial population uniformly distributed over the feasible solution space using orthogonal design. Additionally, two variants of DE are used to expedite convergence, while q-Gaussian mutation is utilized to exploit better trial individuals. The k-nearest neighbor rule is used to eliminate crowded solutions, and indicator-based selection is employed to generate a new parent population without diversity preservation. The performance of ILSDEMO was investigated on the test instances from the ZDT series and DTLZ series in terms of the selected indicators. The results suggest that ILSDEMO accurately and evenly approximates the true Pareto front compared to NSGAII, IBEA, and DEMO.

A methodology for selecting rational parameters of atmospheric aircrafts at the initial stages of design using an optimization algorithm of differential evolution and numerical mathematical modeling of aerodynamics problems is proposed. The technique involves the implementation of weight and aerodynamic balance in the main flight modes, has the ability to consider atmospheric aircrafts with one or two lifting surfaces, apply parallel calculations and automatically generate a three-dimensional geometric model of aircraft appearance based on the optimization results. A method for accelerating the process of optimizing the parameters of an aircraft in terms of take-off weight by more than three times by introducing a objective function into a set of design variables is proposed and demonstrated. The results of assessing the reliability of the used mathematical models of aerodynamics and the correctness of the calculation the objective function, taking into account various constraints, are presented. A comprehensive test of the performance and efficiency of the methodology is considered by solving demonstration problems to optimize more than ten main design parameters the appearance of two existing heavy-class unmanned aerial vehicles with known characteristics from open sources.

In this paper, we obtain the existence and uniqueness theorem for solutions of Caputo type fractional stochastic delay differential systems (FSDDSs) with Poisson jumps by utilizing delayed perturbation of Mittag-Leffler function. Moreover, by using Burkholder-Davis-Gundy's inequality, Doob's martingale inequality and Holder inequality, we prove that the solution of the averaged FSDDSs converges to that of the standard FSDDSs in the sense of Lp. Some known results in the literature are extended.

We classify all the topologically non-equivalent phase portraits of the quadratic polynomial differential system dx/dt = (1-2x)(y-x), dy/dt =y (2-g y-(5g-4)x/(g-1)), in the Poincaré disc for all the values of the parameter g in R\{1}. The differential system dx/dt = y-x, dy/dt =y (2-g y-(5g-4)x/(g-1))/(1-2x), when the parameter g in (1,2] models the structure equations of a static star in general relativity in the case of the existence of a homologous family of solutions, being x = m(r)/r where m(r)>= 0 is the mass inside the sphere of radius r of the star, y = 4pi r^2 rho where rho is the density of the star, and t = ln (r/R) where R is the radius of the star. We classify the possible values of m(r)/r and 4pi r^2 rho when r-->0.

Ageing is associated with a decline in both Nrf2 activity and DNA repair efficiency, leading to the accumulation of DNA damage and an increased risk of cancer. Understanding the mechanisms behind the increased level of damaged DNA during ageing is crucial for developing interventions to mitigate age-related cancer risk and improve overall health in older individuals. (Poly)phenols are plant-derived bioactive compounds that undergo metabolism into simpler phenolic catabolites following ingestion. While these compounds have been associated with various health benefits, further analysis of their bioavailable catabolites is necessary. To this end, four phenolic catabolites derived from colonic microbiota were investigated for their ability to reduce DNA damage in response to oxidative challenge and modulate the Nrf2-Antixoidant Response Element pathway. Normal and adenocarcinoma colonocyte cell lines (CCD 841 CoN, & HT29 respectively) were exposed to sub cytotoxic concentrations (>10 µM,) of hydroxylated (4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 3-(3’-hydroxyphenyl) propionic acid) and non-hydroxylated (benzoic acid or 3-phenylpropionic acid) phenolic acids. Using the COMET assay, each catabolite demonstrated significant (p<0.001) geno-protective activity, albeit with varying potency. They also significantly modulated expression of key genes in the Nrf2-ARE pathway, including Nrf2, Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), and NAD(P)H dehydrogenase quinone 1 (NQO1). Hydroxylation of the phenolic acids appeared to have a limited effect with respect to bioactivity. Overall, the colon derived phenolic metabolites, when assessed at physiologically relevant concentrations, reduced DNA damage in both normal and adenocarcinoma colonic cells in response to oxidative challenge, mediated – at least in part via upregulation of the Nrf2-ARE pathway.

In this paper, a multi-operator differential evolution algorithm (MODE) is proposed to solve the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem and is called MODE-OPF. The MODE-OPF utilizes the strengths of more than one differential evolution (DE) operator in a single algorithmic framework. Additionally, an adaptive method (AM) is proposed to update the number of solutions evolved by each DE operator based on both the diversity of population and quality of solutions. This adaptive method has the ability to maintain diversity at the early stages of the optimization process and boost convergence at the later ones. The performance of the proposed MODE-OPF is tested by solving OPF problems for both small and large IEEE bus systems (i.e., IEEE-30 and IEEE-118) while considering the intermittent solar and wind power generation. To prove the suitability of this proposed algorithm, its performance has been compared against several state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, where MODE-OPF outperforms other algorithms in all experimental results and thereby improving a network's performance with lower cost. MODE-OPF decreases the total generation cost up to 24.08%, the real power loss up to 6.80% and the total generation cost with emission up to 8.56%.

The Pashmina and Barbari are two famous goat breeds found in the wide areas of the Indo-Pak region. Pashmina is famous for its long hair-fiber (Cashmere) production while Barbari is not-selected for this trait. So, the mRNA expression profiling in the skin samples of both breeds would be an attractive and judicious approach for detecting putative genes involved in this valued trait. Here, we performed differential gene expression analysis on publicly available RNA-Seq data from both breeds. Out of 44,617,994 filtered reads of Pashmina and 55,995,999 of Barbari which are 76.48% and 73.69% mapped to the ARS1 reference transcriptome assembly respectively. A pairwise comparison of both breeds resulted in 47,159 normalized expressed transcripts while 8,414 transcripts are differentially expressed above the significant threshold. Among these, 4,788 are upregulated in Pashmina while 3,626 transcripts are upregulated in Barbari. Fifty-nine transcripts harbor 57 genes including 32 LOC genes and 24 are annotated genes which were selected on the basis of TMM counts > 500. Genes with ectopic expressions other than uncharacterized and LOC symbol genes are Keratins (KRT) and Keratin Associated Proteins (KRTAPs), CystatinA&6, TCHH, SPRR4, PPIA, SLC25A4, S100A11, DMKN, LOR, ANXA2, PRR9 and SFN. All of these genes are likely to be involved in keratinocyte differentiation, sulfur matrix proteins, dermal papilla cells, hair follicles proliferation, hair curvature, wool fiber diameter, hair transition, hair shaft differentiation and its keratinization. These differentially expressed reported genes are critically valuable for enhancing the quality and quantity of the pashmina fiber and overall breed improvement. This study will also provide important information on hair follicle differentiation for further enrichment analyses and introducing this valued trait to other goat breeds as well.

Corporate governance has received increasing attention from practitioners and politicians after the collapse of large companies due to accounting errors and failure to disclose information that reflects the true financial condition of companies. Voluntary risk disclosure includes several aspects, including financial risks, including risks of interest rate, exchange rate, liquidity as well as risks of operations. In Jordan, the most common type of business is family businesses, where boards of directors usually serve the interests of the family that owns the majority stake in the company.This study identifies the moderate effect of family in the link joining the audit committee with the voluntary risk disclosure of financial institutions in Jordan. It's population is the Jordanian commercial banks registered and operating in Jordan during the period extending from 2017 to 2023.Significantly, it concluded with revealing that the characteristics of the audit committee; namely, independence, experience, and committee size, obviously impact disclosure of voluntary risk in the selected banks. However, the results made it obvious that the number of audit committee meetings did not affect the degree of voluntary risk disclosure. In addition, the results view family ownership as moderately affecting the relationship joining some audit committee characteristics with voluntary risk disclosure.

Enterprise risk management (ERM) was introduced in the 1990s and has become an expectation by boards of directors and regulators as a sign of good management and good corporate governance. However, many organizations struggle to implement ERM, and still seek practical ad-vice on ERM implementation. This article explains many of the reasons why organizations are unsuccessful in their efforts at implementation and provides practical solutions by an experienced risk manager and consultant, an ex-Chief Risk Officer, and an academic, all who has writ-ten extensively in the subject. This article should be of interest to practitioners involved in implementing ERM, to consultants in ERM, and to academics teaching courses on ERM, risk management, and related topics. This article also provides a base against which further future re-search can be done as ERM best practices continue to evolve.

Children with central nervous system (CNS) malignancies often suffer from high symptom burden and risk of death. Pediatric palliative care is a medical specialty, provided by an interdisciplinary team, which focuses on enhancing quality of life and minimizing suffering for children with life-threatening or life-limiting disease, and their families. Primary palliative care skills which include basic symptom management, facilitation of goals-of-care discussions, and transition to hospice can and should be developed by all providers of neuro-oncology care. This chapter will review the fundamentals of providing primary palliative care

The Normalized Differential Spectral Attenuation (NDSA) technique was proposed years ago as an active method for measuring Integrated Water Vapor (IWV) along a Ku/K-band radio link immersed (totally or partially) in the troposphere. The approach is of the active kind, as it relies on the transmission of a couple of sinusoidal signals, whose power is measured at the receiver, thus providing the differential attenuation measurements from which IWV estimates can be in turn derived. In 2018, a prototype instrument providing such differential attenuation measurements was completed and set up for a first measurement campaign aimed at demonstrating the NDSA method. By the end of June 2022, the instrument was profoundly modified and upgraded so that a second measurement campaign could be carried out from August 1 to November 30, 2022. The transmitter was placed on the top of Monte Gomito (44.1277°lat, 10.6434°lon, 1892 m a.s.l.) and the receiver on the roof of the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Florence (43.7985°lat, 11.2528°lon, 50 m a.s.l.). The resulting radio link length was 61.15 km. Four ground weather stations of the regional weather service were selected among those available. In this paper, we describe the upgraded instrument and present the outcomes of the new measurement campaign, whose purpose was mainly to compare the IWV estimates provided by the instrument with the ground sensors measurements of air temperature, air humidity, barometric pressure, and rainfall.

Different bacterial species have dramatically different generation times, from 20-30 minutes in Escherichia coli to about two weeks in Mycobacterium leprae. The translation machinery in a cell needs to synthesize all proteins for a new cell in each generation. The three subprocesses of translation, i.e., initiation, elongation, and termination, are expected to be under stronger selection pressure to optimize in short-generation bacteria (SGB) such as Vibrio natriegens than in the long-generation Mycobacterium leprae. The initiation efficiency depends on the start codon decoded by the initiation tRNA, the optimal Shine-Dalgarno (SD) decoded by the anti-SD (aSD) sequence on small subunit rRNA, and the secondary structure that may embed the initiation signals and prevent them from being decoded. The elongation efficiency depends on the tRNA pool and codon usage. The termination efficiency in bacteria depends mainly on the nature of the stop codon and the nucleotide immediately downstream of the stop codon. By contrasting SGB with long-generation bacteria (LGB), we predict that 1) SGB to have more ribosome RNA operons to produce ribosomes, and more tRNA genes for carrying amino acid to ribosomes, 2) SGB to have a higher percentage of genes using AUG as start codon and UAA as stop codon than LGB, 3) SGB to exhibit better codon and anticodon adaptation than LGB, and 4) SGB to have weaker secondary structure near translation initiation signals than LGB. These differences between SGB and LGB should be more pronounced in highly expressed genes than lowly expressed genes. We present empirical evidence in support of these predictions.

The Standard Model is not a complete description of reality; it omits the existence of dark matter, dark energy, and an explanation as to why no CP violation has been observed. However, some of these phenomena could be explained through a new force mediated by a new boson. If such a boson were massless it would result in a power law potential and if massive the interaction would be Yukawa-like. A previous experiment employing a micro-mechanical oscillator and a spherical test mass interactions was successful in placing the best limits on a mass-mass Yukawa-like interaction, but the data was never analyzed in the context of a power law. Here that data is analyzed considering a power law for powers n = 1-5 where n is the number of boson exchanges. The results show that the limits obtained through power law analysis of this data are not better than the currently accepted limits. A discussion of an experiment design capable of producing better limits on power law extensions to the Standard Model is presented, and suggests micro mechanical oscillators based experiment remains capable of improving the limits by at least one order of magnitude.

The triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype is one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer that has poor clinical outcome and still remains as an unmet clinical challenge. Accumulating evidence suggests that intratumoral heterogeneity or the presence of phenotypically heterogeneous cell populations within a tumor plays a crucial role in chemoresistance, tumor progression and metastasis. Increased understanding of the molecular regulators of intratumoral heterogeneity will enable the development of effective therapeutic strategies in TNBC. We have identified a molecular mediator involved in intratumoral heterogeneity in breast cancer using an unbiased approach. We isolated two heterogeneous tumor cell populations from the 4T1 TNBC tumor model and phenotypic characterization revealed that the cells are distinct in terms of their morphology, proliferation and self-renewal ability in vitro; as well as primary tumor formation and metastatic potential in vivo. Further, RNA sequencing on both cell populations was performed to identify the molecular mediators underlying this heterogeneity. Bioinformatic analysis performed on the differentially expressed genes along with the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis in TNBC patients identified Metastasis associated colon cancer 1 (Macc1) as the top candidate gene mediating the aggressive phenotype. The role of Macc1 in regulating the proliferative phenotype was validated using siRNA mediated gene knockdown. The role of Macc1 in the aggressive cancer cell phenotypes and disease progression is being studied further using a small molecule transcriptional inhibitor of Macc1 in cell line and animal models, thus increasing our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of intratumoral heterogeneity in breast cancer that is critical to the improvement in the treatment of women currently living with the highly aggressive TNBC subtype.

In this paper we study the class of mixed-index time fractional differential equations in which different components of the problem have different time fractional derivatives on the left hand side. We prove a theorem on the solution of the linear system of equations, which collapses to the well-known Mittag-Leffler solution in the case the indices are the same, and also generalises the solution of the so-called linear sequential class of time fractional problems. We also investigate the asymptotic stability properties of this class of problems using Laplace transforms and show how Laplace transforms can be used to write solutions as linear combinations of generalisedMittag-Leffler functions in some cases. Finally we illustrate our results with some numerical simulations.

The release profiles of methotrexate, an anticancer drug, from the monoolein liquid crystalline cubic phases were studied. The cubic phases were used either in the form of a lipidic film deposited onto a glassy carbon electrode surface or in the dispersed form of magnetocubosomes, which are considered a prospective hybrid drug delivery system. Commonly, cubosomes or liposomes are employed, but not in the case of toxic methotrexate, known to block receptors responsible for folate transport into the cells. The release profiles of the drug from the lipidic films were monitored electrochemically and described using the Higuchi model. They were also modified via changes in temperature; the release was faster, although deviating from the model when the temperature was increased. Magnetocubosomes - cubic phase nanoparticles containing hydrophobic magnetic nanoparticles placed in an alternating magnetic field of low frequency and amplitude, stimulated drug release from the suspension, which was monitored spectroscopically. These new biocompatible hybrid materials are very promising, allowing to control the release of the drug at the appropriate sites, but do require further investigations into their in vitro cytotoxicity and in vivo biodistribution.

Rising obesity and associated multi-systemic complications amplify the health burden. Euphorbia kansui (EK) extract is clinically recognized for managing obesity. In human study, 240 obese individuals were categorized into two cohorts: those receiving solely herbal medicine (HM group), and those administered EK concomitantly with herbal medicine (EK group). An in vivo examination using C57BL/6-Lepob/Lepob mice elucidated mechanisms involving macrophages and gut microbiota, with associated metabolic advantages. The clinical study revealed a significant 7.22% body weight reduction during 91.55 average treatment days, and examined 16.71% weight loss at 300 days after treatment. In the whole subjects, 60.4%, 21.3% and 6.3% achieved weight reductions exceeding 5%, 10% and 15%, respectively. Impressively, the EK group exhibited superior weight loss compared to the HM group (EK: -7.73% vs. HM: -6.27%, p=0.012). The anti-obesity effect was positively associated with EK therapy frequency and herbal medicine duration. In vivo, EK significantly improved insulin sensitivity and mitigated infiltration of adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs) by modulating the CD11c+ and CD206+ subtypes. EK also correlated with increased Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes populations and reduced Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. Consequently, EK is an effective adjunctive anti-obesity therapy offering metabolic benefits by modulating ATMs and gut microbiota profiles.

A class of semi-linear elliptic equations with critical Hardy-Sobolev exponent has been considered. This model is widely used in hydrodynamics and glaciology, gas combustion in thermodynamics, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics, as well as gravity balance problems in galaxies. The $\left( PS\right) _{c}$ sequence of energy functional has been investigated, and then the mountain pass lemma was used to prove the existence of at least one nontrivial solution. Also a multiplicity result has been obtained. Some known results have been generalized.

In this paper, a class of semi-linear elliptic equations involving Hardy-Sobolev critical exponents has been investigated. This problem comes from the consideration of standing waves in the anisotropic Schr\"{o}dinger equation, also it is very important in the field of hydrodynamics, glaciology, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. By a detailed estimation for the extremum function and using Mountain Pass Lemma with $\left( PS\right) _{c}$ conditions, the existence of positive solutions has been obtained. On the other hand, by establishing Pohozaev-type identity and using the properties of Bessel function, the nonexistence of positive solution also has been obtained. These results are extensions of E. Jannelli's research (\cite[Theorem 1.A-1.C]{EJ}).

At an energy flux imbalance of about 1 W m–2, the ocean is storing 90 % of the heat accumulating by global warming. However, neither the causes nor the responsible geophysical processes are sufficiently well understood. More detailed investigations of the different phenomena contributing to the oceanic energy balance are warranted. Here, the role of low-level marine clouds in the air-sea interaction is analysed. TEOS-10, the International Thermodynamic Equation of State of Seawater – 2010, is exploited for a rigorous thermodynamic description of the climatic trend of the Lifted Condensation Level (LCL) of the marine troposphere. Rising Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) at constant Relative Humidity (RH) is elevating marine clouds, cooling the cloud base and reducing the downward thermal radiation. This LCL feedback effect is negative and counteracting ocean warming. At the current global SST of about 292 K, the net radiative heat flux from the ocean surface to the LCL cloud base is estimated to 24 W m–2. Per degree of SST increase, this net flux is expected to be enhanced by almost 0.5 W m–2. The climatic LCL feedback effect is relevant for the ocean’s energy balance and may thermodynamically rigorously be modelled in terms of TEOS-10 equations. LCL height may serve as a remotely measured, sensitive estimate for sea surface relative fugacity, or conventional relative humidity.

This study derives space travel pricing by Walrasian Equilibrium, which is logical reasoning from the general relativity theory (GRT), the accounting equation, and economic supply and demand functions. The Cobb-Douglas functions embed the endogenous space factor as new capital to form the space travel firm's production function, which is also transformed into the consumer's utility function. Thus, the market equilibrium occurs at the equivalence of supply and demand functions, like the GRT presents the equivalence between the spatial geometric tensor and the energy-momentum tensor, which explains the principles of gravity and the motion of space matter in the spacetime framework. The mathematical axiomatic set theory of the accounting equation explains the equity premium effect that causes a short-term accounting equation inequality, then reaches the equivalence by suppliers' incremental equity through the closing accounts process of the accounting cycle. On the demand side, the consumption of space travel can be assumed as a value at risk (VaR) investment to attain the specific spacetime curvature in an expected orbit. Spacetime market equilibrium is then achieved to construct the space travel pricing model. The methodology of econophysics and analogy method was applied to infer the space travel pricing by the model of profit maximization, single-minded, and envy-free pricing in unit-demand markets. A case study with simulation was conducted for empirical verification of the math models and algorithm. Results show that space travel pricing remains the principle of market equilibrium but needs to be extended to the spacetime tensor of GRT.