Novel SARS-CoV-2, a bat based virus originated in Wuhan, China that caused a global pandemic in December, 2019 belongs to the Betacorona virus family and contains single stranded genome of ~29Kbp. The host cell invasion of SARS-CoV-2 is facilitated by interaction of C-Terminal Domain (CTD) of Spike (S) protein of virus and host ACE2 receptor in the presence of TMPRSS seine protease secreted by the host cell. In this study the mutation hotspots of S-protein will be identified and the impact of such mutation in the binding affinity will be studied. Additionally, the lead molecule which can bind to the mutated protein also will be identified. Multiple sequence alignment of the spike protein sequence of SARS-CoV-2 shows the number of single amino acid mutation hotspots such as L5F, R214L, R408I, G476S, V483A, H519Q, A520S, T572I, D614G and H655Y. Among these mutations D614G has 57.5% occurrence and G476S, V483A has 7.5% occurrence. The mutated proteins were modelled based on wild type homolog and docked to ACE2 receptor. When the mutated S protein is docked, the ∆G (binding free energy) value is very minimal in mutated protein showed the stability of variants. By the drug repurposing method, 1000 FDA approved drugs were virtually screened for its binding to RBD of S1 domain. Among these drugs Digitoxin, Gliquidone and Zorubicin Hcl binds to spike proteins with higher docking score (lesser than -8.5 Kcal/mol) to both wild type and mutants.

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendously affected the African continent and the rest of the world. Most businesses have closed and a lot of people have lost their jobs. The aviation industry has been shaken to the core with airlines losing millions of dollars and flights being cancelled. The tourism industry has consequently been affected due to restricted travel of tourists, impacting wildlife conservation and livelihoods. Schools, colleges and universities have been closed. The virus has infected millions of people and hundreds of thousands of people have died globally putting strain on health systems especially those of hard hit countries. Various countries all over the world have put measures to control the spread of the virus through lockdowns and social distancing policies. The reduced economic activities and mobility of people has resulted in improved air quality, cleaner water and beaches in some countries. However there are also negative impacts such as challenges in waste management, increased pharmaceutical and household waste and discovery of the corona virus in wastewater, a potential threat to public health. A considerable amount of research has been done on the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 in Africa but there is still limited research on its impact on the environment. This paper serves to highlight the observed and potential environmental impacts of COVID-19 in Africa.

The Covid-19 coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is inactivated much faster on paper (3h) than on plastic (7d). By classifying materials according to virus stability on their surface, the following list is obtained (from long to short stability): polypropylene (mask), plastic, glass, stainless steel, pig skin, cardboard, banknote, cotton, wood, paper, tissue, copper. These observations and other studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may be inactivated by dryness on water absorbent porous materials but sheltered by long-persisting micro-droplets of water on waterproof surfaces. If such physical phenomenons were confirmed by direct evidence, the persistence of the virus on any surface could be predicted, and new porous objects could be designed to eliminate the virus faster.

In the Standard Model of elementary particles, the rest mass, magnetic moment and electric charge of the electron are considered to be natural constants. In this article it is proposed that these properties can be calculated in a simple way from the corresponding Planck units using the well-known period doubling phenomenon in nonlinear dynamical systems. Periods corresponding to the values of the electron and positron properties belong to a subset of stable periods. The periodic structures of the rest energy and magnetic moment consist of three internal degrees of freedom, whereas the Coulomb energy of the electric charge consists of four. The number of period doublings for the elementary charge determines the value of the fine structure constant alpha.

We compute explicitly traces of one-dimensional diffusion processes. The obtained trace forms can be regarded as Dirichlet forms on graphs. Then we discuss conditions ensuring the trace forms to be conservative. Finally, the obtained results are applied to the one-dimensional diffusion related to the Bessel’s process of order $\nu$.

For crystal periodic structure prediction, a new and concise approach based on the principles of statistical physics was employed to derive a new form of the equation to determine their period vectors (cell edge vectors), under general external stress. Then the new form is applicable to both classical physics and quantum physics. It also turned out to be the equation of state and the mechanical equilibrium condition for crystals under external stress and temperature. It should be helpful in piezoelectric and piezomagnetic studies, as the period vectors were changed by the external stress. For linear elastic crystals, it is actually also the microscopic but temperature-dependent form of the generalized Hooke's law, then can be used to calculate the corresponding elastic constants of the law, for given temperatures.

Hamiltonians describing the relativistic quantum dynamics of a particle with an arbitrary spin are shown to exhibit a supersymmetric structure when the even and odd elements of the Hamiltonian commute. For such supersymmetric Hamiltonians an exact Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation exits which brings it into a block-diagonal form separating the positive and negative energy subspaces. Here the supercharges transform between energy eigenstates of positive and negative energy. The relativistic dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field is considered for the case of a scalar (spin-zero) boson obeying the Klein-Gordan equation, a Dirac (spin one-half) fermion and a vector (spin-one) boson characterised by the Proca equation.

What is a complex system? The definition of a complex system remains somewhat ambiguous. A complex system can be defined as a system consisting of many interacting parts exhibiting emergent behaviors. The emerging field of complexity science entails a change in the language of scientific research and thinking. As such, the general properties, tools and definitions pertaining to complex systems must be made accessible to multi-disciplinary systems scientists and thinkers. With this intention, this literary survey presents the development and glossary of essential concepts steering complex systems.

The safety of people is an important phenomenon nowadays. This importance arises due to the crowded places including subway station, universities, colleges, airport, shopping mall and square, and city squares. Therefore, the development of an effective system based on physical characteristics of crowd layout is of significant demand. In this paper, we proposed a novel automated and intelligent systems for crowd event analysis based on a set of physical elements. For this purpose, we take into account optical flow and spatial-time gradient, contour features, and Gaussian processes. Our method combine these characteristics into a unique model to deal with the challenging problem of crowd event analysis. For evaluating our proposed method, we consider a benchmark dataset and a number of different performance metrics. These analysis demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of our proposed method.

Organizational skills are a set of cognitive abilities responsible for goal-directed behaviors. While they are moderately studied in clinical settings, the assessment of organizational skills in the general population remains under-studied. This paper presents the new Durand Organizational Skills Questionnaire (DOSQ), which was developed to examine the factors associated with organizational abilities in the general population. Exploratory factor analysis, validated by a confirmatory factor analysis, suggests eight factors: Work Organization, Communication Clarity, Punctuality, Goal-Oriented Behavior, Assiduity, Workspace Organization, Strategies, and Attentiveness. Three studies using samples from the general population provided evidence for the reliability and validity of the DOSQ’s scores. Overall, the results suggest that the DOSQ offers a valid approach to measuring organizational skills in the general population.

A label-free four-step procedure to identify amino acids (AAs) is described. In Step 1 molecules of AA, a tRNA, the related tRNA synthetase (AARS), and ATP are confined in a cavity to enable charging of tRNA. In Step 2 the tRNA, charged or uncharged, is separated from the other reactants (ATP, AARS, and possibly AMP and free AAs). In Step 3 the separated tRNA is subjected to non-enzymatic deacylation to dissociate the AA if tRNA is charged. In Step 4 the products are transferred to an electrolytic cell with a nanopore, where a current blockade occurs if and only if there is a dissociated AA. If a blockade is observed AA is immediately known, identification is unambiguous because of tRNA superspecificity. The exact blockade size need not be known (for any AA) in Step 4 so there is no need to distinguish among different AAs. This is unlike other nanopore-based methods, which are crucially dependent on precise blockade level measurements. The procedure is done in parallel with N (20 ≤ N ≤ 61) copies of AA, N reservoir-cavities, and N pairs of e-cells each with a different tRNA, related AARS, and ATP. At least one of the tRNAs gets charged. Assuming no charging errors, if N₁ tRNAs get charged in Step 1 and at least one of N₂ (≤ N₁) charged tRNAs is deacylated in Step 3, then with N₁N₂ tRNA molecules entering Step 1 AA can be identified with probability 1.

This literature review has been compiled to form an evidenced-based review on the standards for Dental Practices in their choice and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) within the COVID-19 Pandemic and beyond: it is prepared on the basis of the current best available evidence. The review encompasses risk management strategies for both Dental Personnel and Patients in the application and use of Face Masks & Respirators.In summation, from the evidence available, it is apparent that in the lab setting N95/FFP2 masks are superior in their efficiency but in the clinical setting such a difference is not seen as clearly. As such the minimum standard of care should be that of a standard surgical mask. Faced with the emergence of the virulent disease that is Covid-19, it is logical to use FFP2/N95 respirator masks in aerosol generating procedures where they offer greater resistance to fluid penetration and a better face seal when adequately fit tested as a gold standard. But if a dry field isolation technique involving high volume evacuation is used, there is no clear benefit of respirator masks (N95/FFP2 or N99/FFP3) when balanced with the extra risk of compliance, cost and comfort in wearing a standard fluid-resistant surgical mask.

The most important issue in integrated next generation wireless systems (NGWS) by fourth generation networks which consists of various wireless architectures extending from cellular networks to satellite networks is to allow everyone around the world to connect seamlessly to applications anywhere at any time through the best network. Heterogeneous networks have created many challenges such as mobility management, handoff, resource management. For always best connectivity the selection of parameters plays an important role in the decision of vertical handoff, some of parameters are depend upon MT and some are depend upon the network conditions . In this paper we designed Intelligent Vertical Handoff based on Fuzzy Logic Decision model ( IVH-FL), IVH-FL model which has five parameters for vertical handoff decision : Received Signal Strength (RSS), Available bandwidth (B), Users Preference (UP), Mobile Speed (SM) and Power Consumption (PC), with the help of Fuzzy Logic tool box and concept of fuzzy linguistic variables. The results confirmed improvement performance , and reduced the number of unnecessary handover .

The novel coronavirus named by WHO and Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) as SARS-COV-2 is the etiological agent of the newly emerged Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). COVID-19 has become a pandemic threat as the WHO declared it a public health emergency of international concern. Early and precise detection of the virus is important for effective diagnosis and treatment. Various testing kits and assays, including real-time reverse Transcriptase PCR, thermal screening guns, ELISA-based immunoassays, and Point-of-Care (POC), have been implemented or are being explored to detect the virus and/or characterise cellular and antibody responses to the infection. However, these approaches have inherent limitations such as non-specificity, high cost, characterize by long turnaround times for test results, and can be labour intensive. Aptamers, which are single-stranded oligonucleotides, generated artificially by SELEX (Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) may offer the capacity to generate high affinity bioprobes for monitoring relevant SARS-COV 2 and COVID-19 biomarkers. This article discusses the prospects of implementing aptasensing technologies for rapid point-of-care detection of SARS-COV-2.

This paper aims to implement histogram pyramids with marching cubes method for 3D medical volumetric rendering. The histogram pyramids are used for feature extraction by segmenting the image into the hierarchical order like the pyramid shape. The histogram pyramids can decrease the number of sparse matrixes that will occur during voxel manipulation. The important feature of the histogram pyramids is the direction of segments in the image. This feature will be then used for connecting pixels (2D) to form up voxel (3D) during marching cubes implementation. The proposed method is fast and easy to implement and it also produces a smooth result (compared to the traditional marching cubes technique). The experimental results show that time consuming for generating 3D model can be reduced by 15.59% in average. The paper also shows the comparison between the surface rendering using the traditional marching cubes and the marching cubes with histogram pyramids. Therefore, for the volumetric rendering such as 3D medical models and terrains where a large number of lookups in 3D grids are performed, this method is a particularly good choice for generating the smooth surface of 3D object.

In this note, the toy-model of Fourth Generation quarks coupling to Standard Model particles through unknown Lagrangian has been figured. Eventually producing a 103 TeV vector gauge boson, which is a special gauge boson that appears in unification models and here as a mediator for WeakSM4 interaction. Another anomaly of different gauge boson has been reported.

SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19, a new seventh human corona virus, has out-broken in Wuhan, China since 31^st December 2019, and quickly escalated to take the form of pandemic which killed many human beings throughout almost all countries across continents. The rapidity of its transmission from human to human is far greater than all previous human corona viruses which came into existence like SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, etc. The nucleotide sequence of SARS-CoV-2 (isolates Wuhan-Hu-1) is 29,875 bp in ss-RNA. Symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infected pneumonia include from asymptomatic to high fever and/or respiratory illnesses. Coronavirus virion (spherical/round /elliptical in shape) consists of three parts- outer membrane or envelope, nucleocapsid and genome (RNA). SARS-CoV-2 was shown to use receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) for attachment to the cells through its surface spike (S) protein (S1), and the virion enters into the host cell through two routes- direct membrane fusion and endocytotic pathway. The RNA of SARS-CoV acts directly as mRNA and here minus(-) 1 programmed ribosomal frameshift (-1PRF) is being operated by slippery sequence and pseudoknot, so it translates 16 nonstructural proteins including RNA dependent RNA replicase. Then genomic RNA replicated continuously on – strand RNA template and subgenomic RNA transcribed discontinuously on –RNA template to sgmRNA. Subgenomic RNAs/sgmRNAs synthesize all structural proteins. This article takes into consideration the details of established theories of viral structure, viral attachment, mode of entry into human cells, different models of replication and transcription of virus genome proposed by eminent scientists over the years, and makes an in depth examination highlighting meaningful points or important target cites of viral propagation or synthesis, which are conserved, for prompt development of potent drugs or vaccine to counter COVID-19 for which human race is anxiously and eagerly waiting.

Finding a solution for Euler's equations is a classic mechanics problem. This study revisits the problem with numerical approaches. For ease of teaching and research, a Maple code comprising 2 lines is written to find a numerical solution for the problem. The study's results are validated by comparing these with previous studies. Our results confirm the correctness of the principle of maximum moment of inertia of the rotating body, which is verified by thermodynamics. As an essential part of this study, the Maple code is provided.

This study estimates the negative impacts of the COVID-19 on poverty and unemployment in Indonesia. In doing so, this study develops and uses the SD model that reproduced similar patterns in terms of GDP, poverty, and unemployment. Estimated unemployment and estimated poverty under the COVID-19 are calculated for three different economic scenarios: the optimistic, the mid, and the pessimistic scenarios. This study concludes that Indonesia will experience rising unemployment and poverty in ranges (9-10) and (25-26) million people respectively by the end of this year – depending on projected economy growths. This study suggests that existing financial aids are sufficient to support rising unemployment and rising poverty level. However, if the Indonesia government cannot carefully slow the COVID-19 flow, higher financial supports are required to curb the negative impacts of the COVID-19.

The changing dynamics in climate is the primary and important determinant of agriculture productivity. The effects of this changing climate on overall productivity in agriculture can be understood when we study the effects of individual components contributing to the changing climate on plants and crops. Elevated CO₂ and drought due to low variability in rainfall is one of the important manifestations of the changing climate. There is considerable amount literature that addresses these aspects in terms of effects on plants systems from molecules to ecosystems. Of particular interest is the effect of increased CO₂ on plants in relation to drought and water stress. As it is known that one of the consistent effects of increased CO₂ in the atmosphere is increased photosynthesis, especially in C3 plants, it will be interesting to know the effect of drought in relation to elevated CO₂. The possible mechanisms by which this occurs will be discussed in this minireview. Interpreting the effects of short term and long term exposure of plants to elevated CO₂ in context of ameliorating the negative impacts of drought will show us the possible ways by which there can be effective adaption to crops in the changing climate scenario.

The goal of this paper is to explore the relationship between the specific non-performing loan ratio (NPL ratio) and the corresponding impact on the bank’s profitability and lending behavior. It also seeks to investigate the macroeconomic impacts of economies with excessively high NPL ratios as well as the efficacy and impact of alleviation measures used by banks and governments around the world to help facilitate a decrease in high NPL ratios. The possible implications and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on NPL ratios is also addressed in this paper. It is found that when excessively high NPL ratios go unaddressed, the economy tends to suffer. On the other hand, this study shows that when measures are taken to reduce or eliminate the high NPL ratios, economic performance improves, and the reduction has a clear positive impact on the economy.

We obtain more straightforwardly the main intrinsic features of dark matter distribution in the halos of galaxies by considering the spherically symmetric space-time, which satisfies the flat rotational curve condition, and the geometric equation of state resulting from the modified gravity theory. In order to measure the equation of state for dark matter in the galactic halo, we provide a general formalism taking into account the modified f(X) gravity theories. Here, f(X) is a general function of X∈{R,G,T}, where R,G and T are the Ricci scalar, the Gauss-Bonnet scalar and the torsion scalar, respectively. These theories yield that the flat rotation curves appear as a consequence of the additional geometric structure accommodated by those of modified gravity theories. Constructing a geometric equation of state wX≡pX/ρX and inspiring by some values of the equation of state for the ordinary matter, we infer the properties of dark matter in galactic halos of galaxies.

The study is carried out on the factors influencing customers’ brand loyalty. The study is aimed at evaluating customers’ brand loyalty status and identifying its determinants. To this end, an explanatory research design is used with the support of descriptive and multiple regression analytical techniques. From the customers of the bank 290 of them are selected using a purposive sampling technique. Questionnaires are administered to collect the primary data. The finding of the study indicates that the loyalty status of the customers is fragmented into hard-core loyalty, split loyalty, shift loyalty, and switching loyalty status with the inclination on the first and second categories of loyalty status. It also reflects that distribution, promotion, reputation, satisfaction and tangible benefits are the predictors of customers’ brand loyalty. A message of sticking on these determinants of loyalty is transmitted to the bank manager with the emphasis on the most predictors, i.e., distribution and promotion.

n our previous paper, we showed that the so-called quantum entanglement also exists in classical mechanics. The inability to measure this classical entanglement was rationalized with the definition of a classical observer which collapses all entanglement into distinguishable states. It was shown that evidence for this primary coherence is Newton’s third law. However, in reformulating a "classical entanglement theory" we assumed the existence of Newton’s second law as an operator form where a force operator was introduced through a Hilbert space of force states. In this paper, we derive all related physical quantities and laws from basic quantum principles. We not only define a force operator but also derive the classical mechanic's laws and prove the necessity of entanglement to obtain Newton’s third law.

We report the results of our study of approved drugs as potential treatments for COVID 19, based on the application of various bioinformatics predictive methods. The drugs studied include chloroquine, ivermectin, remdesivir, sofosbuvir, boceprevir, and α-difluoromethylornithine (DMFO). Our results indicate that these small molecules selectively bind to stable, kinetically active residues and residues adjoining them on the surface of proteins and inside protein pockets, and that some prefer hydrophobic over other active sites. Our approach is not restricted to viruses and can facilitate rational drug design, as well as improve our understanding of molecular interactions, in general.

The models used to estimate disease transmission, susceptibility and severity determine what epidemiology can (and cannot tell) us about COVID-19. These include: ‘model organisms’ chosen for their phylogenetic/aetiological similarities; multivariable statistical models to estimate the strength/direction of (potentially causal) relationships between variables (through ‘causal inference’), and the (past/future) value of unmeasured variables (through ‘classification/prediction’); and a range of modelling techniques to predict beyond the available data (through ‘extrapolation’), compare different hypothetical scenarios (through ‘simulation’), and estimate key features of dynamic processes (through ‘projection’). Each of these models: address different questions using different techniques; involve assumptions that require careful assessment; and are vulnerable to generic and specific biases that can undermine the validity and interpretation of their findings. It is therefore necessary that the models used: can actually address the questions posed; and have been competently applied. In this regard, it is important to stress that extrapolation, simulation and projection cannot offer accurate predictions of future events when the underlying mechanisms (and the contexts involved) are poorly understood and subject to change. Given the importance of understanding such mechanisms/contexts, and the limited opportunity for experimentation during outbreaks of novel diseases, the use of multivariable statistical models to estimate the strength/direction of potentially causal relationships between two variables (and the biases incurred through their misapplication/misinterpretation) warrant particular attention. Such models must be carefully designed to address: ‘selection-collider bias’, ‘unadjusted confounding bias’ and ‘inferential mediator adjustment bias’ – all of which can introduce effects capable of enhancing, masking or reversing the estimated (true) causal relationship between the two variables examined. Selection-collider bias occurs when these two variables independently cause a third (the ‘collider’), and when this collider determines/reflects the basis for selection in the analysis. It is likely to affect all incompletely representative samples, although its effects will be most pronounced wherever selection is constrained (e.g. analyses focusing on infected/hospitalised individuals). Unadjusted confounding bias disrupts the estimated (true) causal relationship between two variables when: these share one (or more) common cause(s); and when the effects of these causes have not been adjusted for in the analyses (e.g. whenever confounders are unknown/unmeasured). Inferentially similar biases can occur when: one (or more) variable(s) (or ‘mediators’) fall on the causal path between the two variables examined (i.e. when such mediators are caused by one of the variables and are causes of the other); and when these mediators are adjusted for in the analysis. Such adjustment is commonplace when: mediators are mistaken for confounders; prediction models are mistakenly repurposed for causal inference; or mediator adjustment is used to estimate direct and indirect causal relationships (in a mistaken attempt at ‘mediation analysis’). These three biases are central to ongoing and unresolved epistemological tensions within epidemiology. All have substantive implications for our understanding of COVID-19, and the future application of artificial intelligence to ‘data-driven’ modelling of similar phenomena. Nonetheless, competently applied and carefully interpreted, multivariable statistical models may yet provide sufficient insight into mechanisms and contexts to permit more accurate projections of future disease outbreaks.

The Body Mass Index (BMI) formula has been developed by Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet and published in 1840 [1] as a law of nature and society, based on statistics about the weight and height of the population of that time, the first part of the 19^th century. He called it “social physics”. From then, for nearly two centuries, the BMI had been the most important formula describing the normal relations and ratio of weight to the square of the height for humans. The problem arises if the BMI formula, developed in the first part of the 19^th century is still good today when the type of work people perform is very different? In modern times, most people are less muscular than at the time when the BMI was developed because they do not work physically as heavy as at that time. In many cases, the Body Mass index can predict mortality, morbidity and illness but not always, for example cases such as (a) the obesity paradox for some cardiovascular problems and (b) the U shape mortality paradox as well as (c) false positive obesity diagnostic in regard to people who are strong and muscular, have low body fat percentage but are classified as obese by the BMI and (d) cases where BMI is normal but people have an “obese metabolism” (e) BMI normal but high fat percentage. The objective is to develop a formula good for all body types, a formula that makes the difference between fat and non-fat body weight such as muscle and body frame and quantifies the effect of strength and fitness, which BMI does not. Another objective is to develop a formula to predict the health risks and fitness status of people, better than BMI. The first generalizations of BMI using anthropometric metrics could be found in [2], where I discuss and analyze many formulae, developed, tested, and simulated by me, using similar new methods, accounting for body shape, physical shape and body function, making the difference between muscle mass and fat, fat and non fat body weight. Nearly all formulae and methods developed and proposed in this new model are new, never published before. Many experiments published before, in highly cited papers show that grip strength and muscle strength is a predictor of health, mortality, morbidity, endocrine and metabolic disease outside the BMI and anthropometric measures. The purpose of my formula is to explain the outcome of those experiments and create a formula which predicts these experiments [21-41].

The world has been highly impacted by the COVID-19 as the virus has spread to all continents – about 200 countries in total. The latest update claims about 4,000,000 confirmed cases and about 300,000 confirmed deaths owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This probably makes the COVID-19 as the most dangerous contagious disease in the era 2000s. Apart from massive publications on this topic, there is no available qualitative analysis that describes the dynamic spreads of the COVID-19 and its impacts on healthcare and the economy. Through the system archetypes analysis, this paper explains that the dynamic spread of the COVID-19 consists of the limits to growth and the success to successful structures. The limits to growth elucidates that more symptomatic and asymptomatic patients owing to infected droplets may be bounded by self-healing and isolated treatments. The success to successful structure explains that once the COVID-19 affects the economy through the lockdown, there will be a limited fund to support the government aids and the aggregate demand. In overall, this paper gives readers simplified holistic insights into understanding the dynamic spread of the COVID-19.

Long-Term Potentiation(LTP) and Long-Term Depression(LTD) are two major forms of synaptic plasticity, which are also two well-know functional and unit activities involved in high advanced central neural system(CNS) activities, like memory. But we still know little about how the advanced CNS activities are organized in the brain and in the level of organism. Based on the current understanding and experimental evidence of neurology, we propose the term “Information Circulation” to summarize the current understandings for advanced CNS activities, and we define it as separately input neural signals finally converge in different levels of CNS and interact with each other, then neural information are circulated and processed in different levels of CNS to give out orders for next body actions. This review provides a detailed description for the functional organizations of advanced CNS activities in the term of Information Circulation. This article outlines the receiving of outside stimulation and transmission of neural information, especially transmission and procession of visual bioelectrical signals, then we described neural circuits of Information Circulation in advanced CNS activities, the corresponding specificity and dynamic properties of neural circuits, different sensation linkages, and neural synchronization for information circulation to produce consciousness in CNS. In conclusion, Information Circulation is defined as an important signature involved in advanced CNS activities.

Objective: The study investigated the benefit of practicing the art of bonsai and the well-being of practitioners. The art promotes relaxation, focus and art therapy that can have personal and emotional value in a self-help setting. When the bonsai tree is used as a healing object, it may improve the ability of the bonsai practitioner to adapt to adverse and stressful life events, such as the present global COVID-19 pandemic. Method: International bonsai artists (n = 255) participated in a study that examined the effect their bonsai had on their mental well-being. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with bonsai artists answering the question: “How has bonsai helped you?”. Results: Most participants acknowledged that being able to take care of their bonsais affected their mood in a positive manner. Discussion: Although the participants did not report overall improved mental health, participants expressed an improvement in their mood when being able to work on a bonsai tree. Conclusion: These findings are significant in that it can be useful in as a preventative and restorative manner in the mental well-being of people who practice the art.

Artificial Intelligence is dominated by Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Currently, the Batch Gradient Descent (BGD) is the only solution to train ANN weights when dealing with large datasets. In this article, a modification to the BGD is proposed which significantly reduces the training time and improves the convergence. The modification, called Instance Eliminating Back Propagation (IEBP), eliminates correctly-predicted-instances from the Back Propagation. The speedup is due to the elimination of unnecessary matrix multiplication operations from the Back Propagation. The proposed modification does not add any training hyperparameter to the existing ones and reduces the memory consumption during the training.

Humanity faces serious social and environmental problems, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Risks are increasing and conditions deteriorating. Increasingly, scientists, global policy experts, and the general public conclude that incremental approaches are insufficient and transformative change is needed across all sectors of society. However, the meaning of transformation is still unsettled in the literature, as is the proper role of science in fostering it. This paper is the first in a three-part series that adds to the discussion by proposing a novel science-driven research-and-development program aimed at societal transformation. More than a proposal, it offers a perspective and conceptual framework from which societal transformation might be approached and understood. While acknowledging the necessity of reform to existing societal systems (e.g., governance, economic, and financial systems), the focus of the series is on transformation understood as systems change or systems migration—the de novo development of and migration to new societal systems. The series provides definitions, aims, reasoning, worldview, and a theory of change, and discusses fitness metrics and design principles for new systems. This first paper proposes a worldview built using ideas from evolutionary biology, complex systems science, cognitive sciences, and information theory that is intended to serve as the foundation for the R&D program.

Background: To examine the association between income levels and mortality rates in patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods: We analyzed data obtained from 3,172 patients with chronic kidney disease obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database (2003–2009). Each patient was monitored until December 2010 or until death, whichever came first. Individual income was estimated from the national health insurance premium. Information on mortality was obtained from the Korean National Statistical Office. Cox proportional hazard models were used to compare mortality rates between different income groups after adjusting for possible confounding risk factors. Results: A low income was significantly associated with a high mortality rate after adjusting for covariates (adjusted HR 1.298 [1.082–1.556]). In addition, dialysis patients who had low incomes were more likely to have higher mortality rates compared to those in dialysis patients who had high incomes (adjusted HR 1.528 [1.122–2.082]). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that chronic kidney disease patients with low incomes have the highest mortality risk. Promotion of targeted policies and priority health services for patients with low incomes may help reduce the mortality rate in this vulnerable group.

Henry Vidal first introduced the concept of using strips, grids, and sheets for reinforcing soil masses. Since then, a large variety of materials such as steel bars, tire shreds, polypropylene, polyester, glass fibers, coir, jute fibers etc. have been widely added to the soil mass randomly or in a regular, oriented manner. In this investigation, a new concept of multi-oriented plastic reinforcement (hexa-pods), is discussed. A systematic and comprehensive laboratory tests were conducted on unreinforced and reinforced soil samples. Laboratory tests such as direct shear teat and California bearing ratio (CBR) test were analyzed on soil samples consisting of only soil samples, soil sample with random inclusion of hexapods and soil samples with layered inclusion of hexapods. From the results obtained through direct shear test it could be observed that cohesion value of both the soil sample has increased and the angle of internal friction has been decreased after reinforcing it with inclusions in both randomly and layered conditions. CBR test indicates that for same amount of compactive effort, both random and layered inclusions of hexapods show improvement in strength and stiffness. Random inclusions of hexapods give better resistance to penetration as compared to layered inclusions. The hexa-pods also changed the brittle behavior of unreinforced sand samples to ductile ones.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela were two of the world's most iconic civil (political) (human) rights advocates and leaders of all time. Both advocated for, and to varying degrees, applied elements of peaceful protests to the achievement of their goals. Both spent time in jail, often concurrently, but eventually forced their respective countries to extend the same rights that white populations had denied Africans and African Americans. For the US, civil rights, voting rights, right to education, housing and housing loans suggested that equality had been achieved, capped in South Africa by the election of Nelson Mandela as the first majority-rule president, and in the US, by Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. Yet the historical over-policing, police mistreatment and more generally, the judicial system’s inordinate ‘targeting’ of African Americans, with egregious cases running from Emmett Till to Rodney King to Walter Scott to Breonna Taylor to George Floyd to Rayshard Brooks and thousands of others shows the danger of such magical thinking. The now-persistent global wave pursuing human rights, civil rights and the right to be treated equally, primarily driven by the loosely-organized Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, has become the leading voice in pursuit of equality. Riots such as those in LA, protests in Ferguson and everywhere in summer 2020 has ushered new civil rights campaign. In the US and elsewhere, it has morphed to include historical issues such as monuments to colonialism, the US civil war, slavery and slave owners and traders, institutions, companies and people whose wealth and existence has links to slavery. Instructively, the protests persisted even as COVID-19, the hundred-year plague, continues to ravage the world. Lost in the moment is the absence of central leadership and leaders such as MLK or Mandela. Their charisma and effectiveness has been lacking for 50 years. This paper evaluates whether this has led to inconsistent civil and human rights pursuit for equality, or whether perchance, Mandela and MLK were extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime transformative leaders uniquely selected by history for their time.

This study's objective was to propose the use of textile braiding manufacturing methods, thus facilitating the application of the high precision and accurate measurability of optical fiber Bragg grating sensors to various structures. The purpose of this study was to Combine 3d braid processing with the optical Bragg grating sensor's accurate metrology. Out of limits of the sensor's epoxy attachment methods, the textile braiding method can make applicable scope diversify. The braiding processing is capable of designing a 3D fabric module processing, multiple objective mechanical fiber arrangement, and material characteristics. Optical stress-strain response conditions were explored through the optimization of design elements between the Bragg grating sensor and braiding. For this study, Bragg grating sensors were located 75% apart from the fiber center. The sensor core structure is helical of 1.54 pitch. A polyurethane synthetic yarn was braided together with the sensor on the Weaving machine core part in a braiding. Prototyping results, a negative Poisson's ratio makes curled the braided Bragg grating sensor. The number of polyurethane string yarns has been conducted the role of wrap angle in braiding. The 12 strands condition showed an increase in double stress-strain response rate at a Poisson ratio of 1.3%, and 16 strands condition was found to affect the sensor with noise at a Poisson ratio of 1.5%. This study can suggest applying braid processing of the Bragg grating sensor, which is expected to create and develop a new monitoring sensor.

This study's objective was to propose the use of textile braiding manufacturing methods, thus facilitating the application of the high precision and accurate measurability of optical fiber Bragg grating sensors to various structures.The purpose of this study was to Combine 3d braid processing with the optical Bragg grating sensor's accurate metrology. Out of limits of the sensor's epoxy attachment methods, the textile braiding method can make applicable scope diversify. The braiding processing is capable of designing a 3D fabric module processing, multiple objective mechanical fiber arrangement, and material characteristics. Optical stress-strain response conditions were explored through the optimization of design elements between the Bragg grating sensor and braiding. For this study, Bragg grating sensors were located 75% apart from the fiber center. The sensor core structure is helical of 1.54 pitch. A polyurethane synthetic yarn was braided together with the sensor on the Weaving machine core part in a braiding.Prototyping results, a negative Poisson's ratio makes curled the braided Bragg grating sensor. The number of polyurethan string yarns has been conducted the role of wrap angle in braiding. The 12 strands condition showed an increase in double stress-strain response rate at a Poisson ratio of 1.3%, and 16 strands condition was found to affect the sensor with noise at a Poisson ratio of 1.5%. This study can suggest applying braid processing of the Bragg grating sensor, which is expected to create and develop a new monitoring sensor.

Computationally modelling a nuclear reactor startup core for a benchmark against the existing models is highly desirable for an independent assessment informing nuclear engineers and energy policymakers. This work presents a startup core model of the UK’s first Evolutionary Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) based on Monte Carlo simulations of particle collisions using Serpent 2, a continuous-energy Monte Carlo reactor physics burnup code. Coupling between neutronics and thermal-hydraulic conditions with the fuel depletion is incorporated into the multi-dimensional branches, obtaining the thermal flux and fission rate (power) distributions radially and axially from the three dimensional (3D) single assembly level to a 3D full core. Shannon entropy is employed to characterise the convergence of the fission source distribution, with 3 billion neutron histories tracked by parallel computing. Source biasing is applied for the variance reduction. Benchmarking the proposed Monte Carlo 3D full-core model against the traditional deterministic transport computation suite used by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), a reasonably good agreement within statistics is demonstrated for the safety-related reactivity coefficients, which creates trust in the EPR safety report.

With the increasing societal expectation that animals are afforded greater protection in emergencies, the legal process from entering a property to rescue a companion animal, through to how to dispose of such animals if they remain unclaimed has not been well examined in New Zealand. It is hypothesised that the legal framework for such response is flawed. In this study, each phase of animal disaster rescue is evaluated against four key statues that may apply in each phase, in that does any statute provide clear end to end provisions with clear legal authority to do so. The study found that all statutes evaluated contained flaws and that the current legal provisions are insufficient to provide clear authority for the sequential process of undertaking rescue of animals during emergencies. A major flaw was discovered in the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 a key statute, that provided for the seizure of property and animals but omitted a procedure for the disposal of such seized things leaving them all in legal limbo. It is recommended that animal disaster laws are updated to be more animal inclusive. The method also may be applicable to assist evaluating animal disaster management legal frameworks in other countries.

A new – syntropic – criterion obtained using the synergetic theory of information has been proposed for determining the start date for the cancellation of restrictive measures in the COVID-19 pandemic. Under this criterion, the restrictions should be lifted when the average number of new cases per day during a week becomes disproportionately smaller than at the peak of the pandemic. The article gives the derivation of this criterion, and its practical use is shown by the example of a number of EU countries. In this case, a comparison is made of the dates set by the syntropic criterion with the actual dates of the beginning of the lifting of restrictions.

Despite great advances in understanding the dynamics of viral epidemics, the emergence of rapidly spreading, highly pathogenic viruses remains a realistic and catastrophic possibility, which current health systems may not be able to fully contain. An intriguing feature in many recent zoonotic viral outbreaks is the presence of superspreaders, which are infected individuals that cause dramatically more new cases than the average. Here I study the effect of superspreaders on the early dynamics of emerging viruses that have not gained the capacity for efficient human-to-human transmission, i.e viruses with R0 < 1. I show that superspreaders have a higher chance of rapid extinction, but under crowded conditions can lead to outbreaks, causing far more cases than regular viruses. I suggest that outbreaks of highly pathogenic superspreaders are more likely when they coincide in time and space with an unrelated outbreak leading to increased hospital admission rates. These superspreader outbreaks may be difficult to detect, especially in the context of a different epidemic in progress, and can significantly affect mortality patterns observed in affected areas.

The short study implicates few basic similarities of COVID-19 such as diseases origination, symptoms, diagnosis with other relatable viral diseases viz SARS-CoV, common Flu, pneumonia etc. In the present situation, other viral diseases are frequently chaotic and misled with COVID-19 disease because of few clinical features similarities in signs and symptoms and also due to lack of specific diagnostic test. To avoid unnecessary suspects, quarantines of false positive results and to prevent the spread of COVID-19 diseases, the scientific technical research field are highly encourage to implement an efficient, rapid and sophisticated superior test for early stages of infection detection. It will be significantly convenient for physician, laboratory technicians and most importantly the common population facing a psychological disturbance.

Late January 2020, COVID-19 unexpectedly imposed world-wide limitations on daily life. Deemed a pandemic mid-March 2020, lockdowns were imposed for an indefinite period, including at academic institutions. Consequently, interest in digital literacy—an on-going and increasing concern of academic institutions in the 21^st century—exponentially heightened. Continuing meetings of academic groups now necessitated online communication. In the almost overnight closure of all non-essential services, academic units at one post-secondary institution expeditiously selected Zoom—a popular video conferencing application—as the preferred platform for meetings until social distancing was lifted. In contrast to this widely accepted use of Zoom for scheduled meetings, one unique health-related group at the institution, tailored to the 4Cs of 21^st century learning of critical thought, communication, cooperation and creativity, found social networking through a private Facebook group a more appropriate and satisfying group experience than likely possible with the Zoom app. Pros and cons of both online platforms are presented along with when each choice is warranted. In promoting digital literacy as the primary goal in online communication for academic meetings, private Facebook groups hold promise for collaborative online academic meetings with similar features to this health-related group.

Background: New controversies have raised on brain death (BD) diagnosis when lesions are localized in the posterior fossa. Objective: To discuss the particularities of diagnosis BD in patients with posterior fossa lesions. Material and Methods. The author made a systematic review of literature on this topic. Results and Conclusions: A supratentorial brain lesion usually produces a rostrocaudal transtentorial brain herniation, resulting in forebrain and brainstem loss of function. In secondary brain lesions [i.e., cerebral hypoxia], the brainstem is also affected like the forebrain. Nevertheless, some cases complaining posterior fossa lesions [i.e., basilar artery thrombotic infarcts, or hemorrhages of the brainstem and/or cerebellum] may retain intracranial blood flow and EEG activity. In this article I discuss that if a posterior fossa lesion does not produce an enormous increment of intracranial pressure, a complete intracranial circulatory arrest does not occur, explaining the preservation of EEG activity, evoked potentials, and autonomic function. I also address Jahi McMath, who was declared braindead, but ancillary tests, performed 9 months after initial brain insult, showed conservation of intracranial structures, EEG activity, and autonomic reactivity to “Mother Talks” stimulus, rejecting the diagnosis of BD. Jahi McMath’s MRI study demonstrated a huge lesion in the pons. Some authors have argued that in patients with primary brainstem lesions it might be possible to find a in some cases partial recover of consciousness, even fulfilling clinical BD criteria. This was the case in Jahi McMath.

House is the haven that keeps people from natural and human conditions, it gives them trust, safety, and steadiness. It is one of the most basic human needs this became a serious function which cities offer, and became one of the most important aspects which caught urban researchers interest, they take into consideration a wide range of architectural, social, and economic indicators. The study aims to provide an overall conception of Rwandz residential functions, using a collection of parameters and some GIS and statistical techniques, to help establish plans and future projects to improve the growth of this city and other towns and cities in that area. The study found that the old parts of Rwandz city which are located in the core, differ from the outer parts which are relatively newer in many properties, generally, the core is more densely populated than the outer, bigger family size, more illiteracy, and unemployment, few incomes, older houses, smaller houses, in the opposite of the outer parts. Besides, the study tested the correlation coefficient between the criteria; it found some strong statistical relationships between them, which reflected some real-life properties of the residential function. Lastly, the study designed a regression model to predict the main residential function criteria.

We present a method to improve the reconstruction and generation performance of variational autoencoder (VAE) by injecting an adversarial learning. On the other hand, instead of comparing the reconstructed with the original data to calculate the reconstruction loss, we use a consistency principle for deep features. The training process of the VAE is then divided into two steps, training the encoder and then training the decoder. By using this two-step learning process, our method can be more widely used in applications other than image processing. While training the encoder, the label information is integrated to better structure the latent space in a supervised way. The adversarial constraints allow the decoder to generate data with better authenticity and more realistic than the conventional VAE. We present experimental results to show that our method gives better performance than the original VAE.

We have shown that our varying physical constant model is consistent with the recently published variational approach wherein Einstein equations are modified to include the variation of the speed of light c, gravitational constant G and cosmological constant Λ using the Einstein-Hilbert action. The general constraint resulting from satisfying the local conservation laws and contracted Bianchi identities provides the freedom to choose the form of the variation of the constants as well as how their variations are related. When we choose dG/Gdt=3dc/cdt, ̇the same as in our quasi-phenomenological model, c=c₀ exp⁡(a^α-1), G=G₀ exp⁡[3(a^α-1)] and Λ=Λ₀ exp⁡[(a^-α-1)], where a is the scale factor and α=1.8, we are able to confirm the success of our the model in explaining three astrometric anomalies and the null results on the variation of G and the fine structure constant. We show that the model: (a) fits the supernovae 1a observational data better than the ΛCDM model; (b) determines the first peak in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies at multipole value of l=217.3; (c) calculates the age of the universe as 14.1 Gyr; and (d) finds the BAO acoustic scale to be 145.2 Mpc. These numbers are within less than 3% percent of the observed values and the values obtained by the ΛCDM model. Surprisingly we find that the dark-energy density is negative in a universe that has significant negative curvature and whose expansion is accelerating at a faster rate than predicted by the ΛCDM model.

In the context of the economic and political uncertainty associated with the 2019-nCoV pandemic, it is necessary to determine the socio-psychological factors involved in the transformation of the behavior of insurance consumers under the influence of a biogenic threat. This study measures financial anxiety and its impact on the insurance behavior of Russian citizens. The correlation, comparative, and regression analyses of the financial anxiety of Russian citizens cover three stages of observation: before the start of the 2019 nCoV pandemic (“FA up to 19 nCoV; N = 766), during the period of quarantine measures announced in Russia in March 2020 (“FA 19-nCoV-1”; N = 856), and after the relaxation of quarantine measures at the end of April 2020 (“FA 19-nCoV-2”; N = 963).Psychological analysis data were obtained from the online survey “Financial anxiety (in the context of insurance)”. The questionnaire is psychometrically reliable and easy to use. It includes five measurement scales: MR1—Physical manifestations of financial incentive anxiety, MR2—With money shortages and financial uncertainty, MR3—The value of insurance coverage, MP4—Financial Confidence, and MR5—Perception of insurance and investment risks. It was found that Russian citizens consider it important to have insurance coverage for a “rainy day”, and they showed confidence in the insurance market during the biogenic crisis. However, unfortunately, during the 19-nCoV-1 and 19-nCoV-2 periods, Russian citizens did not feel financially secure, unlike in the period before 19-nCoV. Women showed high scores for physical manifestations of financial anxiety and low financial confidence in the future, in contrast to men, regardless of the observation period.

Respiratory transmission is the primary route of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Angiotensin I converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the known receptor of SARS-CoV-2 surface spike glycoprotein for entry into human cells. A recent study reported absent to low expression of ACE2 in a variety of human lung epithelial cell samples. Three bioprojects (PRJEB4337, PRJNA270632 and PRJNA280600) invariably found abundant expression of ACE1 (a homolog of ACE2 and also known as ACE) in human lungs compared to very low expression of ACE2. In fact, ACE1 has a wider and more abundant tissue distribution compared to ACE2. Although it is not obvious from the primary sequence alignment of ACE1 and ACE2, comparison of X-ray crystallographic structures show striking similarities in the regions of the peptidase domains (PD) of these proteins, which is known (for ACE2) to interact with the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Critical amino acids in ACE2 that mediate interaction with the viral spike protein are present and organized in the same order in the PD of ACE1. In silico analysis predicts comparable interaction of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with ACE1 and ACE2. In addition, this study predicts from a list of 1263 already approved drugs that may interact with ACE2 and/or ACE1, potentially interfere with the entry of SARS-CoV-2 inside the host cells and alleviate the symptoms of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a disabling condition affecting millions of adults and children worldwide. Despite the development of multiple criteria sets for defining this disorder, agreement on the core symptoms and other implications of ME/CFS point to the importance of understanding their role in oral health care. Overall, care for the homebound and bedbound population with ME/CFS issues has been under-addressed in the literature to date and there has been little consideration of the oral health needs of this population. Evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of dental concerns may be hindered by many of the diverse symptoms of ME/CFS. The present paper utilizes the International Consensus Criteria (ICC) in discussing treatment considerations for the most severely affected patients with ME/CFS, both in oral evaluation and active care. While no specific dental pathology is linked to ME/CFS, proper care for the patient so affected must take into account the disorder’s symptoms and severity.

How a species is represented by marketers of animal-based products both reflects and shapes how consumers think about that animal. By examining the explicit statements, and implicit messages encoded in the imagery on supermarket egg boxes, this paper explores how hens are represented by whole egg retailers. Content analysis reveals two prominent messages purveyed through eggbox graphics, namely those pertaining to hen welfare and human health. The later disenfranchises hens from their products by focusing on the nutritional value of eggs, whereas the former reflects a public concern for the welfare of egg-laying hens. Although claims of improvements in welfare practices are undoubtedly exploited as marketing tools, they serve to raise awareness and drive competitors to adopt similar practices. Welfare claims are a direct response to public concerns about the plight of hens, and may positively influence industry welfare standards. However, idyllic depictions displayed on eggboxes also lull consumers into the belief that those eggs are an ethically sound food choice, regardless of the actual standard of living experienced by the hens.

The thermodynamics of black holes is discussed for the case, when the Newton constant G is not a constant, but is the thermodynamic variable. This gives for the first law of the Schwarzschild black hole thermodynamics: d S BH = − A d K + d M T BH , where the gravitational coupling K = 1 / 4 G , M is the black hole mass, A is the area of horizon, and T BH is Hawking temperature. From this first law it follows that the dimensionless quantity M 2 / K is the adiabatic invariant, which in principle can be quantized if to follow the Bekenstein conjecture. From the Euclidean action for the black hole it follows that K and A serve as dynamically conjugate variables. This allows us to calculate the quantum tunneling from the black hole to the white hole, and determine the temperature and entropy of the white hole.

The asymmetry in the dynamics of an electro-pneumatic actuating device consisting of an electro-pneumatic transducer and a single-action pneumatic actuator was unexpectedly found experimentally. This asymmetry manifests in response to large step excitations. The dynamic asymmetry effect is understood as a change in the shape of the response of an actuator depending on the direction of the actuators stem movement. The questions appears: How to explain this effect? Does this phenomenon reflect thermodynamic air processes? Is it connected with air-to-mechanical energy conversion? Together, six working hypotheses explaining this effect were formulated. The asymmetry was studied in detail using analytical and simulation modeling, as well as experimental research. In this respect, a nonlinear analytical model was developed, tuned, and later solved using simulations. The simulation model was verified based on the experiment data. In addition, the problem of the efficiency in the energy conversion of a single-action actuator was discussed and, in result, the maximum theoretical energy efficiency was determined. Subsequently, all six working hypotheses were verified. Finally, the hypothesis explaining asymmetry as an effect of the different thermodynamic air processes in both actuator’s stem travel directions was confirmed.

Astronauts are at risk of losing 1.0 to 1.5% of their bone mass for every month they spend in space despite their adherence to high impact exercise training programs and dietary regimens designed to preserve their musculoskeletal system. This loss is the result of microgravity-related impairment of osteocyte and osteoblast function and the consequent upregulation of osteoclast-mediated bone resorption. This review describes the ontogeny of osteoclast hematopoietic stem cells, the contributions of macrophage colony stimulating factor, activator of NFkB and the calcineurin pathways make in osteoclast differentiation, and provides details of bone formation, the osteoclast cytoskeleton, the immune regulation of osteoclasts, and osteoclast mechanotransduction on Earth, in the microgravity of space, and in conditions of simulated microgravity. The article discusses the need to better understand how osteoclasts are able to function in zero gravity and reviews current and prospective therapies that may be used to treat osteoclast-mediated bone disease.

Despite good intentions, the increasing number of plastic bag bans aimed at alleviating marine plastic pollution saw a correlated increase in the number of unintended consequences that emerged alongside the bans, suggesting that human behavior towards plastic bag consumption have not changed, but merely shifted, and are feeding into other major international environmental catastrophes. Nudge theory, which helps people make better choices for themselves without inhibiting their free will, is a potential solution that has been shown to play a subtle but important role in providing options under circumstances where complex information needs to be streamlined for the wider community, avoiding any unintended consequences and behavioural shifts that might arise from instruments that diminishes autonomy. It is therefore timely to look into the insights of nudge theory to encourage a positive behavioural change to reduce plastic bag consumption. Here we apply a systematic literature review to show how successful applications of nudges in supermarkets can be leveraged to reduce plastic bag consumption. We find that the current applications of nudges in various industries worldwide, including supermarkets have produced positive and encouraging results, as well as producing lasting behavioural change among the wider community. Supermarkets are identified as a powerful deployment site of these nudges due to their positioning as a dominant provider of plastic bags to the wider community, as well as being the largest and leading provider of daily food needs. Finally, we synthesise our findings to produce a coherent and testable framework of actionable interventions that supermarkets can employ to nudge customers towards reduced plastic bag reliance, accompanied with a visual timeline of a customer shopping in a supermarket experiencing these nudges.

The move from paper to online is not only necessary for remote working, it is also significantly more sustainable. This trend has seen a rising need for high-quality digitization of content from pages and whiteboards to sharable online material. But capturing this information is not always easy, nor are the results always satisfactory. Available scanning apps vary in their usability and do not always produce clean results, retaining surface imperfections from the page or whiteboard in their output images. CleanPage, a novel smartphone-based document and whiteboard scanning system, is presented. CleanPage requires one button-tap to capture, identify, crop and clean an image of a page or whiteboard. Unlike equivalent systems, no user intervention is required during processing and the result is a high-contrast, low-noise image with a clean homogenous background. Results are presented for a selection of scenarios showing the versatility of the design. CleanPage is compared with two market leader scanning apps using two testing approaches: real paper scans and ground-truth comparisons. These comparisons are achieved by a new testing methodology that allows scans to be compared to unscanned counterparts, by using synthesized images. Real paper scans are tested using image quality measures. An evaluation of standard image quality assessments is included in this work and a novel quality measure for scanned images is proposed and validated. The user experience for each scanning app is assessed, showing CleanPage to be fast and easier to use.

This article integrates existing theory from distributed computing and cryptology with anecdotal material from the cryptocurrency industry, to provide a comprehensive description of the minimum requirements of the hypothetical academic blockchain. The paper argues that such a community could significantly reduce the biases and misconduct that now exist in the academic peer review process. Theory suggests such a system could operate effectively as a distributed encrypted telecommunications network where nodes are anonymous, do not trust each other, and there is minimal central authority. To incentivize the academic community to join such a proposed community, the paper proposes a pseudo-cryptocurrency called litcoin (literature coin). This litcoin-based system would create economic scarcity based on proof of knowledge (POK), which is a synthesis of the proof of work (POW) mechanism used in bitcoin, and the proof of stake (POS) mechanism used in various altcoin communities. The paper argues that the proposed POK system would enable the academic community to more effectively develop the research it finds valuable.

The classic Body Mass Index, (BMI), developed in the 19^th century by the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet [1] is an important indicator of the risk of death, of obesity, of negative health consequences, body fat percentage and of the shape of the body. While he BMI is assumed to indicate obesity in sedentary people and in people who do not practice sports, it is undisputed and a consensus among researchers [2][3][4][5][9][25] that Body Mass Index (BMI) is not a good indicator for obesity in people who developed their body through heavy physical work or sport but also in other segments of population such as those who appear to have a normal weight but in fact have a high body fat percentage and obese methabolism. The BMI also does not include all the variables essential for a health predictor. The BMI is not always a good predictor of metabolic disease, people who appear of healthy weight according to BMI have in some cases an obese metabolic syndrome. The BMI was developed as a law of natural sciences and “social physics” [1], as it was called then, before the middle of the 19^th century, and it had been used from the 70s for medical purposes, to detect obesity and the risk of mortality [6][7]. The BMI has a huge importance for modern society, affected by an obesity epidemic [8]. BMI has applications in medicine, sport medicine, sport, fitness, bodybuilding, insurance, nutrition, pharmacology. The main limitation of the BMI is that it does not account for body composition including non fat body mass such as muscles, joints, body frame and makes no difference between fat and non fat components of the body weight. The body composition and the proportion of fat and muscles make a difference in health outcomes [12][13][14][25][26][27][35][36][37] [38][39][40][41][42][43][44]…[100]. Body composition makes a difference also in the level of sport performance for athletes of every level. In nearly two centuries since the Body Mass Index was developed, no formula had been successfully developed to account for body composition and make the difference between muscle and fat in a consistent way. This can be considered a longstanding open problem of major importance for society. The objective of this analysis is to develop new formulae taking into account the health implication of body composition measured through indirect, simple indicators and making the difference between muscles and fat, healthy and non healthy metabolism. The formulae developed in this article are the only formula to successfully generalize BMI and make this difference. I develop a direct generalization of BMI, in the mathematical and physiological sense to account for fat and fat free mass and muscles, small and large body frames. It is the first such generalization because the classic BMI can be determined as a particular case of my formulae in the strict mathematical and practical physiologic sense. No other formula generalized the BMI to make the difference between fat and a large frame and muscles has ever been published in nearly two centuries since the BMI formula had been developed. The formulae I developed explain and generalize the conclusions of a large number of highly cited empirical experiments cited in the reference section. [35][36][37][38][38][39] [40][42][43][44]..[100] Most of the experimental proof I bring in support of my formulae and bodyweight quantification theory comes from many highly cited experimental research publications in medicine, sports medicine, sport science and physiology. My formulae explain also performance in decades of competitive sports and athletics

The COVID-19 is an exponentially growing disease that has intentioned nations to use technologies to detect the coronavirus infection. Several nations are working greatly to fight against COVID-19. Many nations have been using a range of devices to combat the pandemic, seeking information about growth, monitoring as well as the leaking the confidential information of the residents. This research aims to assist infected people online using the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain technologies through smart devices. IoT-based healthcare devices gather useful information, provide additional insight through symptoms and behaviors, allow remote monitoring, and simply give people better self - determination and healthcare. Blockchain allows the secure transfer of patient health information, regulates the medical distribution network. A four-layer architecture is proposed using IoT and Blockchain to detect and prevent individuals to be COVID 19. This research provides a framework for patients with COVID-19 infectious disease and recognizes health issues and diagnoses online. Smart devices such as smartphones can install any mobile apps such as Aarogya Setu, Tawakkalna, and so on. These applications can track COVID-19 patients properly. The installation of mobile apps on smart devices focuses to reduce the time and cost and increase the performance of the infectious patient's condition. A four-layer architecture is proposed using IoT and Blockchain technologies. Many research works focus on investigating, analyzing, and highlighting the affected individuals through guiding the COVID-19 infection. Eventually, various mobile apps are recognized and addressed in this paper.

Currently, the COVID‐19 has directly affected the millions of humans lives. The symptoms of the disease involving fever, malaise, chest infection, and breathing difficulties, were identified, and its existence is continuously becoming restructured. The World Health Organization (WHO) had mentioned the wide diagnostics test besides COVID-19 that would also assist medical facilities to recognize infectious diseases as well as currently focusing efficiently on preventing and afterward defeating this viral disease. The infection is usually transmitted among human beings in direct contact, greatest through the liquid bubbles generated through cough, sneeze, or speaking. This paper reviews the COVID 19 pandemic, its history, current updates, contact tracing applications, and use of emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain for stopping the spreading and provide service online to the patient from a distance.

This article attempts to identify factors impacting on the quantity of municipal waste in Polish 2478 communes (LAU-2), taking into account the variability of particular determinants influence depending on their regional diversification. The analysis covers the years 2005-2018. The dependent variable is the volume of municipal waste in kg per capita, whereas the group of determinants include: economic and human development, uncontrolled dumping sites, population density, population at the working age, migration, tourism, urbanization, dwellings and housing, retail sales, entities, education and investments in waste management; The geographically weighted regression with spatial error term (GWR-SEM) was employed in this study. The model enabled not only the specification of the waste production determinants, but also the analysis of the variability in the strength and direction of dependencies occurring between the examined variables in individual communes. The results proved that the higher the level of education the less waste is generated (in the north-central Poland); the business entities and working-age population are crucial for the waste quantity in communes of eastern Poland; the factors most considerably as to regional range affecting the waste quantity are urban and business development; as to strength–higher education and the share of working age individuals;

This document focuses attention on the fundamental solution of an autonomous linear retarded functional differential equation (RFDE) along with its supporting cast of actors: kernel matrix, characteristic matrix, resolvent matrix, and the Laplace transform. The fundamental solution is presented in a form of the convolutional powers of the kernel matrix in the manner of a convolutional exponential matrix function. The fundamental solution combined with a solution representation gives an exact expression in explicit form for the solution of a RFDE. Algebraic graph theory is applied to the RFDE in the form of a weighted loop-digraph to illuminate the system structure and system dynamics and to identify the strong and weak components. Examples are provided in the document to elucidate the behavior of the fundamental solution. The paper introduces fundamental solutions of other functional differential equations.

In the context of economic and political uncertainty associated with the 2019-nCoV pandemic, it is necessary to determine the socio-psychological factors in the transformation of the behavior of insurance consumers under the influence of the biogenic threat. This study is devoted to measuring financial anxiety and its impact on the insurance behavior of Russian citizens. Correlation, comparative and regression analyzes of financial anxiety of Russian citizens cover three stages of observation: before the start of the 2019 nCoV pandemic (“FA up to 19 nCoV; N = 766), during the period of quarantine measures announced in Russia in March 2020 (“ FA 19- nCoV-1 "; N = 856) and after the relaxation of quarantine measures at the end of April 2020 (" FA 19-nCoV-2 "; N = 963). Psychological analysis data were obtained from the online survey "Financial anxiety (in the context of insurance)". The questionnaire is psychometrically reliable and easy to use, including 5 measurement scales: MR1. Physical manifestations of financial incentive anxiety, MR2. With money shortages and financial uncertainty, MR3. The value of insurance coverage, MP4. Financial Confidence, MR5. Perception of insurance and investment risks. Russian citizens considered it important to have insurance coverage on a “rainy day” and showed confidence in the insurance market during the biogenic crisis. But, unfortunately, Russian citizens during the 19-nCoV-1 and 19-nCoV-2 periods did not feel financially secure in the future, unlike the period before 19-nCoV. ”Women showed high scores for physical manifestations of financial anxiety and low financial confidence in the future, in contrast to men, regardless of the observation period.

During the last twenty years around the world there has been a rapid increase in the number of people visiting long established religious shrines as well as the creation of new sites by those operating outside the boundaries of institutional religion. This increase is intimately associated with the revival of traditional routes, the creation of new ones and the invention of new rituals (religious, spiritual and secular). To examine this process I will focus on the European region and two contrasting destinations in particular – the Catholic shrine of Lourdes, France, and the pre-Christian shrine of Avebury, England – drawing on my personal involvement in travelling to both destinations and being involved in ritual activities along the route and at the two destinations. In the discussion section of the paper I will explore the relevance of these two case studies to the analysis of power, agency and performance and the ways in which they expose (a) the role of institutions and entrepreneurs in creating rituals and sacred places and (b) the relationship between people and the domesticated landscape.

Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide 1 analog used for the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. With 94% sequence similarity to human GLP-1, semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist, which binds directly to GLP-1R, causing various beneficial downstream effects that reduce blood glucose. Practically, it is favourable for semaglutide to bind not just directly, but also tighter, to its receptor GLP-1R. Therefore, incorporating currently available experimental structural data of semaglutide-GLP-1R, this short article reports for the first time that biophysically, semaglutide is able to bind tighter to GLP-1R with just a simple Val27-Arg28 exchange in its peptide backbone.

Insulin lispro was the first fast acting insulin analogue to obtain regulatory approval for therapeutic use. This article puts forward a novel biophysical mechanism where the net impact of the simple B28Pro-B29Lys exchange from regular insulin to insulin lispro is the establishment of a novel set of interfacial electrostatic interactions between Lys28 of insulin lispro and Asp12 of insulin receptor (IR). In addition, a set of structural analysis was presented in this article to further strengthen the binding of insulin lispro to IR, where two polar amino acid residues (Gln51 and Asn74 of insulin lispro) were put forward as two potential targets for site-directed mutagenesis of insulin lispro at its binding interface with IR.

Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are under-represented, and women are also less likely than men to be in leadership positions generally. Little is known about the intersection of these areas: women in leadership in STEM. To determine what sort of barriers and assistance female STEM leaders have encountered, a survey was developed asking women who are in academic leadership positions in STEM about their experiences. The main barriers were similar in the STEM area and in leadership: balancing work/home life, devaluing of achievements, and imposter syndrome. The main two types of assistance in both STEM and leadership were support from spouse/partner, and encouragement from peers. The main barriers women encounter are cultural and will take time to overcome. The main assistance women have had comes from people, not training or institutional structures.

Multicompartment compliance aids (MCAs) are devices with each discrete section denoting a single dosing occasion. The purpose of an MCA is to maximize patient adherence and thereby optimize the treatment benefits. These devices are widely employed throughout western Europe and UK and use appears to be rapidly increasing (2) although the RPS as moved away from these devices as a means to improve adherence. We analysed MCAs from various pharmacies over a wide geographic area in England and North Wales. We concluded that most MCA users are elderly patients. Also, most of the patients suffer of combined cardiovascular disease. However, a significant proportion of patients falls in the mental/ neurological disease category. Additionally, most of the externals added to MCAs are inhalers and painkillers. Moreover, SDIs are more frequent in female patients and these SDI are mainly related with mental health medication, cardiovascular disease medication and neurological medication. In conclusion, a directive for dispensing of MCAs in pharmacies by pharmacists through an enhanced service should be elaborated having in consideration PIMs, SDIs, drug stability and use of externals and MCA design and brand.

COVID-19 thromboembolic disease has brought all of us back to the drawing board. In COVID-19, pre-existing activated endothelium with increased Von Willebrand factor (VWF), low density lipoprotein (LDL) promoting “self-association” and “sticking” of long VWF strings to the vascular endothelial wall, suppressed ADAMTS13 cleavage of VWF, hypoxia induced upregulation and activation of VWF, fibrous network from neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) with free DNA and histone, all appear to be initiating the thrombogenesis. Worsening complement activation, cytokine storm and resulting endothelial destruction, unregulated thrombogenesis leads to vascular occlusions and hypoxia. At this stage, the presence of abundant extracellular DNA, histone and -defensins appears worse than the SARS-CoV-2 itself. Previously observed in vitro mechanisms like histone “auto-activating” prothrombin, histone activated platelets generating thrombin without FXII, thrombin and plasmin cleaving complement C5 appears highly likely in COVID-19. Megakaryocytes are actively producing platelets in the lungs and appear to play a major role in thrombogenesis of COVID-19 raising suspicion of emperipolesis. This focused review is a compilation of my observations in relation to the pathophysiology of the intravascular environment, mainly in COVID-19 lungs. Pathophysiology based clinical trials are paramount in reducing morbidity and mortality in COVID-19.

Pakistan is an important country located in South Asia and ranks the world's sixth most populous country. It has diverse landscapes with their own specific vegetation. The country specific vegetative diversity has a great ecological and economic impact on the conservation of local fauna. It has huge potential for sustainable beekeeping industry if properly exploited. Beekeeping in Pakistan is mainly focused in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and central and north regions of Punjab provinces but nowadays it is growing rapidly across the country. Honey produced in Pakistan enjoys good repute in the Middle East due to its unique taste and quality. Pakistan exports around 4000 tons of the honey with the worth of about $ 23.00 million to Arab countries every year.

The paper examines the impact of INGOs on the democratization of developing countries. Following the ‘end of history,’ the INGOs multiplied globally, and the number of aids to developing countries was given through them in billions of dollars in the past three decades. It is envisaged that with the increase in their population, the developing countries will be better off with a standard form of living that is attributable to standard democratization. However, despite the billions of dollars spent, the citizens of the developing countries are still worse in poverty, poor leadership, and corruption. On the contrary, some countries, including Nigeria, are threatening legislation that will curtail the INGOs, sighting their opacity and lack of tangible results as reasons. The research used Nigeria as a case study to analyze the methods, approaches, and the capacity of these INGOs and how they affect the democratization of their host countries. Through a review of existing records, non-participatory observations, and reviews of conference proceedings. The paper analyzed the parallel gaps that exist by arguing that, taking a broad, multi-disciplinary method from the various works of literature studied will provide essential conceptual and practical insights that can inform current debates.

We investigate a possible reduction mechanism from (bosonic) Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to Quantum Mechanics (QM), in a way that could explain the apparent loss of degrees of freedom of the original theory in terms of quantum information in the reduced one. This reduction mechanism consists mainly in performing an ansatz on the boson field operator, which takes into account quantum foam and non-commutative geometry. Through the reduction mechanism, QFT reveals its hidden internal structure, which is a quantum network of maximally entangled multipartite states. In the end, a new approach to the quantum simulation of QFT is proposed through the use of QFT's internal quantum network

Brucellosis is one of the most common etiologies of laboratory-acquired infections worldwide, and handling of living brucellae should be performed in a Class II biological safety cabinet. The low infecting dose, multiple portals of entry to the body, the great variety of potentially contaminated specimens, and the unspecific clinical manifestations of human infections facilitate the unintentional transmission of brucellae to laboratory personnel. Work accidents such as spillage of culture media cause only a small minority of exposures, whereas >80% of events result from unfamiliarity with the phenotypic features of the genus, misidentification of isolates, and unsafe laboratory practices such as aerosolization of bacteria and working on an open bench without protective goggles or gloves. Although the bacteriological diagnosis of brucellae by traditional methods is simple, the Gram stain and the biochemical profile of the organism, as determined by commercial kits, can be misleading, resulting in inadvertent exposure and contagion. The use of novel identification technologies is not hazard-free. The MALDI-TOF technology requires an initial bacterial inactivation step, while the instruments’ reference database may misidentify Brucella as belonging to other Gram-negative species. The rapid identification by the FISH method mistakes brucellar isolates for members of the closely related Ochrobactrum genus.

In our previous papers [1,3], using only the concepts of the zero-point energy and quantized space–times, all the fields including gravity were explained. However, the previous papers had the following limitations: First, the concept of the quantized space-time must be experimentally confirmed. Second, we should clarify the meaning of the quantized Einstein’s gravity equation, which is derived in [1]. Moreover, in another paper [2], we succeeded in describing the neutrinos’ self-energy and their oscillations. However, this paper assumes the rest energy of 3-leptons in advance, which is why we needed to uncover the reason why leptons have 3-generations. As mentioned, using the concepts of the zero-point energy and quantized space–times, we derived the quantized Einstein’s gravity equation in our previous paper [1]. The paper provides an analytical solution of this equalized Einstein’s equation, which implies the conservation of angular momentum in terms of quantized space–times. Employing this solution and without the standard big bang model, a unique form of acceleration equation for the acceleration-expansion universe is derived. Moreover, the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) emission is also obtained. Further, this solution results in an analytical (not numerical) derivation of the gravity wave. Moreover, based on the configuration of quantized space–times in terms of both electric and magnetic fields, we analytically attempted to calculate every equation in terms of electromagnetic and gravity fields, using the solution of the quantized Einstein’s gravity equation. As a result of this theory, first the calculated acceleration and temperature of CMB emission agree with the measurements. Furthermore, the analytical solution of the quantized Einstein’s gravity equation resulted in all the laws of electromagnetic and gravity fields in addition to the analytically derived gravity wave, which agrees well with the recent measurements. Moreover, the calculations of the energies in the basic configuration of the quantized space–times resulted in all 3-leptons’ rest energies. Considering this basic configuration is uniformly distributed everywhere in the universe, we can conclude that τ-particles or static magnetic field energy derived from the basic configuration of the quantized space–times is the identity of dark energy, which also distributes uniformly in the universe.

Smartphone has become one of the most revolutionary devices in the history of computing. With various kinds of applications, the scope of smartphone has been significantly broadened in the past few years including almost every aspect in our daily life. However, due to the limited on-board resources such as CPU, storage, network bandwidth and battery power, smartphones and the mobile network serving them bring new challenges that have not been encountered in the traditional computing and networking environments. This dissertation focuses on the research areas of improving the network architecture and enhancing the current applications on smartphones. It mainly investigates the areas in the following two directions for three representative categories of mobile services. - In the first direction, the dissertation aims to develop new communication models for smartphone Ad-Hoc networks to achieve efficient communication in the proximity. It is motivated by the fact that smartphone Ad-Hoc networks can help improve the current location-based services and propel new applications. Moreover, the new communication models provide complementary alternatives to the traditional infrastructure-based wireless networks. - In the second direction, the dissertation focuses on improving the other two categories of services, cloud storage services and real-time video streaming services for mobile devices. In the field of cloud storage, we introduce a cloud-assisted approach to provide a set of advanced file operations, such as encryption, decryption and compression, on smartphones. Furthermore, by utilizing the on-board Near Field Communication(NFC) module, we develop an algorithm to securely share the files between mobile devices. For the services of real-time video streaming, we propose approaches that identify a user’s status by analyzing the accelerometer data and then, dynamically adjust the buffer mechanism to save network bandwidth on smartphones.

A small phylogenetically conserved sequence of 11,231 bp termed FAM247 is repeated in human chromosome 22 by segmental duplications. This sequence forms part of diverse genes that span evolutionary time, the protein genes being the earliest as they are present in zebrafish and/or mice genomes, the long non-coding RNA genes and pseudogenes the most recent as they appear to be present only in the human genome. We propose that the conserved sequence provides a nucleation site for new gene development at evolutionary conserved chromosomal loci where the FAM247 sequences reside. The FAM247 sequence also carries information in its open reading frames that provides protein exon amino acid sequences; one exon plays an integral role in immune system regulation, specifically, the function of ubiquitin specific protease (USP18) in the regulation of interferon. An analysis of this multifaceted sequence and the genesis of genes that contain it are presented.

Hydrogen is useful as a fuel and could be produced by a variety of means. One approach uses artificial photosynthesis where energy from sunlight powers the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. But, biological methods for producing hydrogen has emerged strongly over the past decades. In particular, specific microorganisms could use different substrates to produce hydrogen at differing yields. Such fundamental discoveries with industrial applications thus motivated the use of metabolic engineering approaches and methodologies in enhancing biological hydrogen production through a series of enzyme over-expression, pathway debottlenecking, and gene deletion. However, such approaches heavily rely on the selection of an appropriate microbial chassis for biohydrogen production. With the proper strain in hand, use of alternative substrates may engender greater hydrogen productivities. But learning from the bioprocessing field, co-culture of two compatible microorganisms have been sought after for improving biohydrogen production. In addition, thermophilic microbes may also be useful candidates for exploiting hydrogen production from composting. Future outlook in the field looks into filling our gaps in understanding of the metabolic network that feeds into hydrogen production in different organisms. But, more importantly, problems such as reduced growth rate in engineered microbes point to fundamental issues with using genetically engineered microorganisms for improved biohydrogen production, to which clever bioprocess engineering may yield solutions.

There is a growing use of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) globally due to the many advantages of Direct Current (DC) transmission systems over Alternating Current (AC) transmission, including enabling transmission over long distances, higher transmission capacity and efficiency. Moreover, HVDC systems can be a great enabler in the transition to a low carbon electrical power system which is an important objective in today’s society. The objectives of the paper are to give a comprehensive overview of HVDC technology, its development, and present status, and to discuss its salient features, limitations and applications.

This article challenges the notion of the randomness of mutations in eukaryotic cells by unveiling stress-induced human non-random genome editing mechanisms. To account for the existence of such mechanisms, I have developed molecular concepts of the cell environment and cell environmental stressors and, making use of a large quantity of published data, hypothesized the origin of some crucial biological leaps along the evolutionary path of life on Earth under the pressure of natural selection, in particular, 1) virus-cell mating as a primordial form of sexual recombination and symbiosis; 2) Lamarckian CRISPR-Cas systems; 3) eukaryotic gene development; 4) antiviral activity of retrotransposon-guided mutagenic enzymes and finally; 5) the exaptation of antiviral mutagenic mechanisms to stress-induced genome editing mechanisms directed at “hypertranscribed” endogenous genes. Genes transcribed at their maximum rate (hypertranscribed), yet still unable to meet new chronic environmental demands generated by “pollution”, are inadequate and generate more and more intronic retrotransposon transcripts. In this scenario, RNA-guided mutagenic enzymes (e.g. AID/APOBECs), which have been shown to bind to retrotransposon RNA-repetitive sequences, would be surgically targeted by intronic retrotransposons on opened chromatin regions of the same “hypertranscribed” genes. RNA-guided mutagenic enzymes may therefore “Lamarkianly” generate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and copy number variations (CNV), as well as transposon transposition and chromosomal translocations in the restricted areas of hyperfunctional and inadequate genes, leaving intact the rest of the genome. CNV and SNP of hypertranscribed genes may allow cells to surgically explore a new fitness scenario, which increases their adaptability to stressful environmental conditions. Like the mechanisms of immunoglobulin somatic hypermutation, non-random genome editing mechanisms may generate several cell mutants, and those codifying for the most environmentally-adequate proteins would have a survival advantage and would therefore be Darwinianly selected. Non-random genome editing mechanisms represent a link between environmental changes and biological novelty and plasticity, and provide a molecular basis to reconcile gene-centered and “ecological” views of evolution.

General wisdom thinks that the central of blackholes are singular and featured by mass, charge and spin exclusively; the microstate reflected in the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy can be accounted for only in some quantum gravity. We challenge this wisdom with two exact solution families to the sourceful Einstein equation which describe dust ball with oscillatory inner structure and variety of mass profiles. We attribute the matter content's oscillation across the central point of the system to the forward scattering domination in high energy collisions induced by inter-gravitating acceleration and provide their Penrose-Carter diagram representation and quantum description briefly. Our solution family provides a very simple semi-classic picture for the micorstate definition of black holes.

Despite recent scientific advancements, there is a gap in the use of technology to measure signals, behaviors, and processes of adaptation physiology of farm animals. Sensors present exciting opportunities for sustained, real-time, non-intrusive measurement of farm animal behavioral, mental, and physiological parameters with the integration of nanotechnology and instrumentation. This paper critically reviews the sensing technology and sensor data-based models used to explore biological systems such as animal behavior, energy metabolism, epidemiology, immunity, health, and animal reproduction. The use of sensor technology to assess physiological parameters can provide tremendous benefits and tools to overcome and minimize production losses while making positive contributions to animal welfare. Of course, sensor technology is not free from challenges; these devices are at times highly sensitive and prone to damage from dirt, dust, sunlight, colour, fur, feathers, and environmental forces. Rural farmers unfamiliar with the technologies must be convinced and taught to use sensor-based technologies in farming and livestock management. While there is no doubt that demand will grow for non-invasive sensor-based technologies that require minimum contact with animals and can provide remote access to data, their true success lies in the acceptance of these technologies by the livestock industry.

This note is a part of my efforts for getting rid of nonlocality from quantum mechanics (QM). Quantum nonlocality is two faced Janus, one face is apparent quantum mechanical nonlocality (assigned with projection postulate), another face is nonlocality of Bell's model with the hidden variables. This paper is directed against the latter. The main casualty of Bell's model is that it contradicts to the Heinsenberg's uncertainty and Bohr's complementarity principles. The aim of this note is to point to the physical seed of the aforementioned principles. This is the {\it quantum postulate}: the existence of indivisible quantum of action given by the Planck constant. Bell's model by contradicting to the basic principles of QM implies rejection of this postulate. Thus, it contradicts not only to the QM-formalism, but also to the fundamental feature of the quantum world that was initially discovered by Planck.

Growing cells is the typical mode of operation in many aspects of biotechnology and metabolic engineering. This comes about due to cell growth processes creating a driving force that pull metabolic flux along different metabolic pathways, that indirectly help move substrate to product. But, there is an alternative mode of operation that uses resting (non-growing) cells to achieve similar or even higher productivities. In general, resting cells are provided with carbon substrates for biocatalytic reactions but starved of nitrogen or phosphorus. Such resting cells have been usefully employed in many forms of biocatalysis and biotransformation, with or without cofactor regeneration. However, much remains unknown about the transcriptome and metabolome of resting cells in biotransformation settings. This short writeup provides the backdrop of resting cells in biocatalysis, documents their use in biotransformation with application examples, and identifies research gaps that could be filled with contemporary RNA-seq and mass spectrometry proteomics technology. Overall, utility of resting cells in biocatalysis and the extant knowledge gap in their fundamental physiology are highlighted in this resource.

Abstract: The human race has always innovated, and in a relatively short time went from building fires and making stone-tipped arrows to creating smartphone apps and autonomous robots. Today, technological progress will undoubtedly continue to change the way we work, live, and survive in the coming decades. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the world has witnessed the emergence of social media, smartphones, self-driving cars, and autonomous flying vehicles. There have also been huge leaps in energy storage, artificial intelligence, and medical science. We are facing immense challenges in global warming and food security, among many other issues. While human innovation has contributed to many of the problems we are facing, it is also human innovation and ingenuity that can help humanity deal with these issues “New directions in science are launched by new tools much more often than by new concepts. The effect of a concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of a tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained”. (F. Dyson, 1997 In this article, we review the impact of technology as evolving at beginning of 21st Century on future prospect of Energy demand either renewable or non-renewable form, Economy, to Ecommerce, Education and any other E-related of Modern Technology.

Farmer’s right and their sovereignty is an important issue related with intellectual property rights and agrobiodiversity management. To boost farmer’s right, a conceptual hypothesis is proposed where they choose either a new high yielding variety or the existing one and apply conventional breeding approaches to select the seed for next years in their own fields. Although farmers produce seeds traditionally from several years, they have not been guided with scientific discipline to produce sufficient amount of quality seeds. This new concept suggests trained farmers can use breeding approaches to produce quality seed for their own use.

The purpose of this paper is to simulate a two-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor instability problem using the classical method of Finite Element analysis of a multiphase model using ANSYS FLUENT 19.2. The governing equations consist of a system of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations for conservation of mass, momentum and phase transport equations. The study focuses on the transient state simulation of Rayleigh Taylor waves and subsequent turbulent mixing in the two phases incorporated in the model. The Rayleigh Taylor instability is an instability of an interface between two fluids of different densities which occurs when the lighter fluid is pushing the heavier fluid in a gravitational field. The problem was governed by the Navier-Stokes and Cahn-Hilliard equations in a primitive variable formulation. The Cahn- Hilliard equations were used to capture the interface between two fluids systems. The objective of this article is to perform grid dependency test on Rayleigh Taylor Instability for 2 different mesh size and compare the results for the variation in Atwood Number. The results were validated with the observations from previous published literatures.

The key premise of translational studies is that knowledge gained in one animal species can be transposed to other animals. So far translational bridges have mainly relied on genetic and physiological similarities, in experimental setups where behaviours and environment are often oversimplified. These simplifications were recently criticised for decreasing the intrinsic value of the published results. The inclusion of wild behaviour and rich environments in neuroscience experimental designs is difficult to achieve because no animal model has it all. As an example, the genetic toolkit of moths species is virtually non-existent when compared to C. elegans, rats, mice, or zebrafish, however the balance is reversed for wild behaviours. The ethological knowledge gathered about the moth was instrumental for designing natural-like auditory stimuli, that were used in association with electrophysiology in order to understand how moths use these variable sounds produced by their predators in order to trump death. Conversely, we are still stuck with understanding how male moths make sense of their complex and diffuse olfactory landscape in order to locate conspecific females up to several hundred meters away, and precisely identify a conspecific in a sympatric swarm in order to reproduce. This systemic review articulates the ethological knowledge pertaining to this unresolved problem and leverages the paradigm to gain insight into how male moths process sparse and uncertain environmental sensory information.

Background: Over 900,000 cases of COVID-19 and 23,000 deaths have been reported till 13 July in India. Preserving the limited healthcare workforce is part of the strategy against the pandemic. Mortality and morbidity data have a role in customising this strategy. At this time, there is no published study on COVID-related mortality among doctors or other healthcare workers in India. Methods: A multi-pronged search was made for all reported deaths linked with COVID-19 among doctors in India. Details of COVID-linked deaths reported by mainstream media and by multiple professional social media sources were collected, screened, verified and analysed. Violent deaths occurring in the setting of pandemic-related work were separately listed. Deaths from other diseases were excluded. Results: Among 108 COVID-linked deaths among doctors, there were four pandemic-related violent deaths including three road accidents and a suicide. Of the 104 non-violent deaths, 55.5% were below 60 years of age, while 29.6% and 21% were below the age of 50 and 40 respectively. The average age at death was 56.3 (range 22 - 96). Over half of the deaths occurred among general practitioners, while surgical specialties accounted for 27% of the mortality. The geographic distribution of deaths of doctors correlated with the reported number of COVID-19 patients in each state. The total number of COVID-related healthcare worker deaths was 136, out of which eight (5.8%) were violent, and occurred in young individuals with an average age of 27.8 years. Conclusions: The majority of the 104 COVID-related non-violent deaths among doctors (55.5%) occurred below the age of 60. The average at death was 56.6 years. The states with highest number of COVID-19 cases had greater number of doctor deaths. Violent deaths among young healthcare workers in the setting of the pandemic requires special attention.

We present a new mathematical model of disease spread reflecting specialties of covid-19 epidemic by elevating the role social clustering of population. The model can be used to explain slower approaching herd immunity in Sweden, than it was predicted by a variety of other mathematical models; see graphs Fig. \ref{GROWTH2}. The hierarchic structure of social clusters is mathematically modeled with ultrametric spaces having treelike geometry. To simplify mathematics, we consider homogeneous trees with $p$-branches leaving each vertex. Such trees are endowed with algebraic structure, the $p$-adic number fields. We apply theory of the $p$-adic diffusion equation to describe coronavirus' spread in hierarchically clustered population. This equation has applications to statistical physics and microbiology for modeling {\it dynamics on energy landscapes.} To move from one social cluster (valley) to another, the virus (its carrier) should cross a social barrier between them. The magnitude of a barrier depends on the number of social hierarchy's levels composing this barrier. As the most appropriate for the recent situation in Sweden, we consider {\it linearly increasing barriers.} This structure matches with mild regulations in Sweden. The virus spreads rather easily inside a social cluster (say working collective), but jumps to other clusters are constrained by social barriers. This behavior matches with the covid-19 epidemic, with its cluster spreading structure. Our model differs crucially from the standard mathematical models of spread of disease, such as the SIR-model. We present socio-medical specialties of the covid-19 epidemic supporting our purely diffusional model.

The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading and has caused a large-scale infection in China since December 2019. Thefirst infected person was declared on March 18, 2020 in Djibouti. This has led to a signicant impact on the lives and economy in Djibouti and other countries. In this study, we propose a double compartment stochastic model which describes the evolution of the infection rate and the evolution of the number of infected in the period from May 20 to June 23, 2020. We will also propose the evolution of people infected in two states, recovered and deceased.

The geometry of mesoscopic inhomogeneities plays an important role in determining the macroscopic propagation behaviors of elastic waves in a heterogeneous medium. Non-equiaxed inhomogeneities can lead to anisotropic wave velocity and attenuation. Developing an accurate scattering theory to describe the quantitative relation between the microstructure features and wave propagation parameters is of fundamental importance for seismology and ultrasonic nondestructive characterization. This work presents a multiple scattering theory for strongly scattering elastic media with general tri-axial heterogeneities. A closed analytical expression of the shape-dependent singularity of the anisotropic Green’s tensor for the homogeneous reference medium is derived by introducing a proper non-orthogonal ellipsoidal coordinate. Renormalized Dyson’s equation for the coherent wave field is then derived with the help of Feynman’s diagram technique and the first-order-smoothing approximation. The exact dispersion curves and the inverse Q-factors of coherent waves in several representative medium models for the heterogeneous lithosphere are calculated numerically. Numerical results for small-scale heterogeneities with the aspect ratio varying from 1 to 7 show satisfactory agreement with those obtained from real earthquakes. The results for velocity dispersion give rise to a novel explanation to the formation mechanism of different seismic phases. The new model has potential applications in seismology and ultrasonic microstructure characterization.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relations between various notions of sequential completeness and the corresponding notions of completeness by nets or by filters in the setting of quasi-metric spaces. We propose a new definition of right $K$-Cauchy net in a quasi-metric space for which the corresponding completeness is equivalent to the sequential completeness. In this way we complete some results of R.~A. Stoltenberg, Proc. London Math. Soc. \textbf{17} (1967), 226--240, and V.~Gregori and J.~Ferrer, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III Ser., \textbf{49} (1984), 36. A discussion on nets defined over ordered or pre-ordered directed sets is also included.

Motivated by Kim-Kim [19] introduced the new type of degenerate poly- Bernoulli polynomials by means of the degenerate polylogarithm function. In this paper, we define the degenerate poly-Frobenius-Euler polynomials, called the new type of degenerate poly-Frobenius-Euler polynomials, by means of the degenerate polylogarithm function. Then, we derive explicit expressions and some identities of those numbers and polynomials.

(1) Background: In nervous system information is conveyed by a sequence of action potentials, called spikes-trains. As MacKay and McCulloch proposed, spike-trains can be represented as bits sequences coming from Information Sources. Previously, we studied relations between Information Transmission Rates (ITR) carried out by the spikes, their correlations, and frequencies. Here, we concentrate on the problem of how spikes fluctuations affect ITR. (2) Methods: The Information Theory Method developed by Shannon is applied. Information Sources are modeled as stationary stochastic processes. We assume such sources as two states Markov processes. As a spike-trains' fluctuation measure, we consider the Standard Deviation sigma, which, in fact, measures average fluctuation of spikes around the average spike frequency. (3) Results: We found that character of ITR and signal fluctuations relation strongly depends on the parameter s which is a sum of transitions probabilities from no spike state to spike state and vice versa. It turned out that for smaller s (s<1) the quotient ITR\sigma has a maximum and can tend to zero depending on transition probabilities. While for s large enough (1<s) the ITR\sigma is separated from 0 for each s. Similar behavior was observed also when we replaced Shannon entropy terms in Markov entropy formula by their approximation with polynomials. We also show that the ITR quotient by Variance behaves in a completely different way. (4) Conclusions: Our results show that for large transition parameter s the Information Transmission Rate by sigma will never decrease to zero. Specifically, for 1<s<1.7 the ITR will be always, independently on transition probabilities which form this s, above the level of fluctuations, i.e. in this case we have sigma<ITR. Thus, we conclude that in a more noisy environment, to get appropriate reliability and efficiency of transmission, Information Sources with higher tendency of transition from the state no spike to spike state and vice versa should be applied.

The questions on who is entitled to benefit from REDD+ transactions remains one of the most controversially debated issues around cooperative efforts to reduce deforestation in developing countries. REDD+ has been conceived as international framework for voluntary efforts of developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon removals from forest activities. Designed as international framework under the UNFCCC that calculates emission reductions and removals (ERRs) at the national -and as an interim step on the subnational level – REDD+ is primarily a creature of international law. However, in defining forest-carbon ERRs the international framework competes with national emission trading systems and domestic REDD+ legislation as well as private standards that define units traded on the voluntary carbon market. The definition of various carbon units is closely linked to the question on who is entitled to participate in REDD+ and benefit from the sale of ERRs under results-based payment schemes or carbon market transactions. This paper applies a legal lens to the various claims to participate in REDD+ transactions. It tries to disentangle the various rights to ERRs, various carbon credits, and payments that come with REDD+ and that almost always create confusion and not seldom conflict around REDD+ implementation. The definition of carbon rights and the legal nature of carbon credits depends on local law and differs between countries. However, there are a number of legal considerations that apply and certain underlying concepts are relevant for the understanding of REDD+ transactions and the allocation of benefits and burdens of conservation activities.

The ancient theory of Fatio de Duillier and Lesage on pushing gravity has been mainly criticized because of the extreme heating which would be produced in the case of inelastic shocks, supposed to be necessary to produce a gravity field. Here we investigate in an extremely simplified situation the possibility of creating a virtual acceleration with purely elastic repeated shocks and we derive some estimates on the mass and velocity of gravitons based on this model.

COVID-19 is fast spreading around the globe in a highly contagious manner. The results from our study showed that after intervention with successive Lockdowns, there was marked decrease in the rate of COVID-19 cases, though there was sporadic volatility in number of COVID-19 cases due to some extrinsic factors. Concomitant with reduction in rate of COVID-19 there was gradual increase in doubling time of COVID-19, steady increase in number of discharged/recovered patients from COVID-19 reaching to ≥ 58% taking the entire Indian population into consideration. Another important aspect was consistent low mortality rate was accompanied by gradual increase in recovery rate of COVID-19 in the population. The possible implication of these results in the development of protective immunity in the population has been discussed.

In this paper, we construct the degenerate poly-Frobenius-Genocchi polynomials, called the type 2 degenerate poly-Frobenius-Euler polynomials, by means of polyexponential function. We derive explicit expressions and some identities of those polynomials. In the last section, we introduce type 2 degenerate unipoly-Frobenius-Genocchi polynomials by means of unipoly function and derive explicit multifarious properties.

In this paper, various machine learning techniques are discussed. These algorithms are used for many applications which include data classification, prediction, or pattern recognition. The primary goal of machine learning is to automate human assistance by training an algorithm on relevant data. This paper should also serve as a collection of various machine learning terminology for easy reference.

The paper presents the author’ original modification of the residual method in order to construct an efficient tool for assessing the condition of photovoltaic cells, in particular – panels made of amorphous cells which are characterized by significant random operation parameter changes. The solution constructed has been verified through experiments, which show the usefulness of the proposed methodology as it allows to minimize the risk of obtaining false diagnostic information in the process of assessing the condition of photovoltaic panels.