In interepidemic periods, a sapronoses typically employs a variety of mechanisms for maintaining viability of its causative agent in terrestrial parasitic systems, associated with different adaptive strategies utilized by its populations to survive. Unlike spore-forming bacteria, causative agents of sapronoses use resistant cell forms, which is a viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state, and persistence. Implementation of these strategies is conditioned by effects of various stress factors of the habitat and is characterized by decreased metabolism, alteration of the morphology and physiology of bacterial cell, and cessation of its replication. It is important that the resistant forms of cells retain virulence and, as favorable conditions come, turn back into the active vegetative form again. The discovery of the genetic modules of bacterial toxin–antitoxin systems in recent years has made it possible to identify a number of complicated regulatory molecular mechanisms responsible for maintaining the pathogenic potential of resistant forms of causative agents of natural-focus sapronoses in interepidemic periods.

The highly dangerous trend of escalating bacterial resistance to modern antibiotics has evolved in recent decades, with increasingly more drug-resistant strains of pathogens emerging and spreading each year. This poses a threat to not only public health, but also to entire mankind. Marine bioresources, considered as a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics and a valuable source of biologically active compounds with high pharmacological potential, now attract increasing attention of researchers. Modern biotechnology combines the genetic engineering methods and the unusual biosynthetic pathways utilized by marine microorganisms to produce natural antibiotics. The goal of this review is to summarize the latest trends in searching for new natural antimicrobial agents based on secondary metabolites of marine bacteria. The targeted control of biosynthesis mechanisms using the metabolic engineering methods in order to create hybrid peptide synthetases or to obtain hybrid peptides by disrupting the target gene of nonribosomal synthesis becomes a noteworthy trend in modern biotechnology. This pathway is not only one of the most promising approaches to the development of new antibiotics, but also a potential target for controlling the exocrine activity of pathogenic bacteria and, consequently, their viability.

Wound healing involves a complex cascade of cellular, molecular, and biochemical responses and signaling processes. It consists of successive interrelated phases, the duration of which depends on multifactorial processes. Wound treatment is a major healthcare issue that can be resolved by development of effective and affordable wound dressings based on natural materials and biologically active substances. Proper use of modern wound dressings can significantly accelerate wound healing with minimal cosmetic defects. The innovative biotechnologies for creating modern natural interactive dressings are based on sulfated polysaccharides from seaweeds with their unique structures and biological properties, the availability of their sources in the form of wild bushes, and in the form of aquaculture, as well as with a high potential for participation in process control wound healing. These natural biopolymers are a novel and promising biologically active source for designing wound dressings based on alginates, fucoidans, carrageenans, and ulvans, which serve as active and effective therapeutic tools. The aim of this review is to summarize available information about the modern wound dressing’s technologies based on seaweed-derived polysaccharides, including those successfully implemented in commercial products, with the emphasis on promising and innovative designs. The further prospect of using marine biopolymers is related to the need to analyze the results of numerous in vitro and in vivo experiments, summarize clinical trial data, develop a scientifically based approach and relevant practical recommendations for the treatment of wounds.

HLA-G is an immune checkpoint molecule with immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory activities, and its expression and level of its soluble form (sHLA-G) may play an important role in tumor prognosis. The HLA-G 14 bp ins/del polymorphism and the plasma level of soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) were investigated by a polymerase chain reaction and ELISA, respectively, in 59 glioma patients. A significantly higher proportion of glioma patients had the 14 nt insert in both homozygous and heterozygous states compared to the control group. Glioma patients had also higher plasma levels of sHLA-G. Patients with methylated MGMT promoter had lower levels of sHLA-G than those with unmethylated MGMT promoter. Level of sHLA-G negatively correlated with the overall survival of patients. Glioblastoma patients who survived more than one year after diagnosis had lower levels of sHLA-G than those surviving less than one year. Patients with sHLA-G levels below the cut off value 40 U/mL survived significantly longer than patients with sHLA-G above 40 U/mL. The levels of sHLA-G also negatively correlated with the level of IL-6 (P=0.0004) and positively with IL-10/IL-6 (P=0.046). Conclusion: The presence of 14 nt insert in both homozygous and heterozygous states of the HLA-G 14 bp ins/del polymorphism is more frequent in glioma patients and the elevated plasma levels of sHLA-G are negatively associated with their survival.

Purpose of publication: - Preparation of bibliometric data exported from the Scilit platform on energy efficiency and conservation for further analysis to identify relevant research topics. - To identify potential issues in the processing of data exported from the Scilit platform. - Providing colleagues with the opportunity to use the prepared data and examples of their analysis for independent research on topical issues of energy efficiency and energy conservation using materials provided by the Scilit platform. Research Materials: Files in CSV and RIS formats exported from Scilit for the query "energy conservation OR efficiency" in Common Fields [Title, Abstract, Keyword], using filters: Content Type → Journal Article; Year→2021-2023; Subject → Industrial Engineering (29.8K), Energy and Fuel Technology (9.8K), Manufacturing Engineering (9.2K). A total of 30K records sorted by their relevance (10K for each year) were exported. Data are current as of 14-03-2024. Methods: Preprocessing of title, annotation, and keyword field texts using lemmatization dictionaries collected on GitHub, removal of keywords taken from GATE and spaCy, and "manual" editing. Using VOSviewer to analyze publication topics by clustering keywords based on their co-occurrence. Using Scimago Graphica to build bubble diagrams.Application of the GSDMM algorithm for clustering bibliometric records by title and annotation texts. Creation of a dictionary for this algorithm using the keyword field.Use of the Carrot2 demo version and the NMF algorithm for a more detailed analysis of the topics of the record clusters obtained from GSDMM. Results: are presented in the form of initial and interim tables and graphs obtained in the course of this study. The full tables are provided as references to the attached materials. Supplementary material for this preprint on figshare: Chigarev, Boris (2024). Supplementary material for preprint "Analyzing the Possibilities of Using the Scilit Platform to Identify Current Energy Efficiency and Conservation Issues". figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25574058.v1

Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, is an invasive beetle of East Asian origin that in North America and Russia killed millions of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.). In September 2020, EAB was de-tected in Saint Petersburg, becoming resonant event for the metropolitan city. The aim of the present study was to investigate occurrence and ecology of EAB in Saint Petersburg. The presence of two distinct enclave populations of EAB was revealed, each of which has (very likely) been established by separate events of “hitchhiking” transport vehicles. Following the invasion, further spread of EAB in Saint Petersburg was slow and locally restricted, main explanation for which is climatic factor. Due to spread by “hitchhiking”, the possibility of EAB further long-distance ge-ographic spread of EAB in the Baltic Sea region (EU) is high, and not only by ground transport (120–130 km distance from EU borders), but also by ferries transporting cars (traditional means of transportation across the Baltic Sea). In certain cases, development of EAB on F. excelsior was more successful (stem portion colonized, larval densities, number of galleries, exit holes, viable larvae, emerged beetles) than in (adjacent) F. pennsylvanica trees. Observed relatively high EAB-sensitivity of F. excelsior therefore questions the efficacy and benefits of the currently ongoing selection and breeding projects against ash dieback (ADB), caused by Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. Inventory, mapping, and monitoring of surviving F. excelsior trees in areas infested by both ADB and EAB are necessary to acquire genetic resource for work on strategic long-term restoration of F. excelsior, tackling (inevitable) invasion of EAB to the EU.

This article presents a concise survey of basic discrete and semi-discrete nonlinear models which produce two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) solitons, and a summary of main theoretical and experimental results obtained for such solitons. The models are based on the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (DNLS) equations and their generalizations, such as a system of discrete Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equations with the Lee-Huang-Yang corrections, the 2D Salerno model (SM), DNLS equations with long-range dipole-dipole and quadrupole-quadrupole interactions, a system of coupled discrete equations for the second-harmonic generation with the quadratic (χ⁽²⁾) nonlinearity, a 2D DNLS equation with a superlattice modulation opening mini-gaps, a discretized NLS equation with rotation, a DNLS coupler and its PT-symmetric version, a system of DNLS equations for the spin-orbit-coupled (SOC) binary Bose-Einstein condensate, and others. The article presents a review of basic species of multidimensional discrete modes, including fundamental and vortex solitons, their bound states, gap solitons populating mini-gaps, symmetric and asymmetric solitons in the conservative and PT-symmetric couplers, cuspons in the 2D SM, discrete SOC solitons of the semi-vortex and mixed-mode types, 3D discrete skyrmions, and some others.

It is shown that the 5D geodetic equations and 5D Ricci identities give us a way to create a new viewpoint on some problems of Modern Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology. Specifically, the application of the 5D geodetic equations in (4+1) and (3+1+1) splintered forms obtained with the help of the monad and dyad methods made it possible to introduce a new, effective generalized concept of the rest mass of the elementary particle. The latter leads one to novel connections between the General Relativity and quantum field theories, as well as all of that, including the (4+1) splitting of the 5D Ricci identities, brings about a better understanding of the magnetic monopole problem and the vital difference in the origins of the Maxwell equations and gives rise to surprising connections between them. The obtained results also provide new insight into the mechanism of the 4D Universe’s expansion and its following acceleration.

In recent years, many libraries and archives have started digitizing their collections thus making maps by Indigenous peoples more easily available for scholars to study. While a number of these maps were discussed by G. Malcolm Lewis in the History of Cartography series (volume 2, book 3, Chapter 4: 1984), more have since been found and disseminated. These maps are critical in understanding the historic and current land tenure of Indigenous groups. Further, Indigenous claims to land can be seen in their connections via toponymy. European concepts of territory and political boundaries did not coincide with First Nation/American Indian views resulting in the mistaken view that Natives did not have formal concepts of their territories. Further, Tribes/First Nations with cross-border territory have special jurisdictional problems. This paper will illustrate how many Native residents were very spatially cognizant of their own lands, as well as neighboring nations’ lands, overlaps between groups, hunting territories, populations, and trade networks. Currently, the Sinixt First Nation provides a perfect example of how an Aboriginal people are inputting and using a GIS representation of their territory with proper toponymy and use areas.

Anomaly detection in equipment processes plays an important role in the oil and gas sector. Algorithms for detecting anomalies in measured data are best understood in computer science and mathematics. Therefore, a possible transfer of knowledge from the latter knowledge area to the former can play a significant role. This paper addresses such a task by analyzing bibliometric data of Computer Science and Mathematics papers published in MDPI journals and publications found on the SPE search platform. It is shown that the main algorithms both extensively studied in MDPI publications and found in SPE publications and reflecting the anomaly detection problem are Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, Long-term Memory Method and Recurrent Neural Network. The main advantages and disadvantages of these methods are briefly described. Examples of classical, highly cited publications describing the work of these algorithms are given. Examples of papers describing their application in the oil and gas industry are given. The sections of SPE disciplines with the largest number of publications using the above algorithms that are frequently used for anomaly detection are presented.

This paper considers the reasonability of using GSDMM as a method for clustering short texts - titles and abstracts of publications 2021-2023 of MDPI journals on sustainable energy topics. The paper proposes an approach to identifying relevant research topics based on the use of the Python script Yake!, the Krovetz streamer, the GSDMM algorithm, and short text annotations. It is emphasized that researchers prefer to rely on specific publications rather than keywords when searching for information on a topic of interest. The bibliometric records of sustainable energy publications from 2021 to 2023 in Sustainability (Energy Sustainability section — 1,926 search results) and Energies (Sustainable Energy section — 994 search results) were used as data for analysis. The GSDMM algorithm was used to cluster the texts, and Yake! to extract the keywords for the GSDMM algorithm's vocabulary. This article summarizes topics found in 9 clusters, including general sustainable energy issues, biomass recycling, region-specific issues, building energy use, economic growth and investment, numerical flow modeling, generation cost optimization, heat to energy conversion, weather-related risks, and false data attacks.

The article presents a bibliometric analysis of conference proceedings 2019-2021 indexed in Scopus and related to the topic "Artificial Intelligence and Energy". The relevance of the topic is considered in the context of the energy transition and the application of artificial intelligence for the rational use of energy resources. A comparative analysis of the publication activity of researchers from Russia, China, India, the United States, and Indonesia on the topic in question is given. Methodologically, the emphasis for determining the subject is not on the co-occurrence of keywords, but on the clustering of documents based on the thesis that the titles of publications most briefly and fully reveal the content of the publication and allow the subject specialist to do a relevant selection of publications necessary for their research. Two tools were used in this work: Carrot2 and Clustering App (CSV Explorer). It is shown that Russian researches are characterized by the tendency of prevailing engineering problems and insufficient attention is paid to environmental, economic and social problems of using AI in the energy sector. Studies from China and the United States are of the greatest informative interest, both in terms of the relevance of their topics and the actuality of their content. Studies from India and Indonesia are more general in nature; of interest are the efforts of these countries to engage in global scientific activities.

This article is devoted to a bibliometric analysis of IEEE Energy Internet and Energy Systems Integration Conference proceedings posted in IEEE Xplore in 2017-2021. The main objective of the study was to identify the actual research issues on the Energy Internet topic. Author Keywords, INSPEC Controlled Terms, and terms compiled from n-grams derived from conference papers title and abstract texts were used to describe the actual issues. The terms were clustered using VOSviewer, and the terms included in each cluster were treated as a description of the actual issues. Brief descriptions of several publications relevant to the issue in question were given for task detail. The actual issue, which in my opinion deserves further, more detailed analysis, is proposed.

The complexity of analysis pipelines in biomedical sciences poses a severe challenge for the transparency and reproducibility of results. Researchers are increasingly incorporating software development technologies and methods into their analyses, but this is a quickly evolving landscape and teams may lack the capabilities to set up their own complex IT infrastructure to aid reproducibility. Basing a reproducible research strategy on readily available solutions with zero or low set-up costs whilst maintaining technological flexibility to incorporate domain-specific software tools is therefore of key importance. We outline a practical approach for robust reproducibility of analysis results. In our examples, we rely exclusively on established open-source tools and free services. Special emphasis is put on the integration of these tools with best practices from software development and free online services for the biostatistics domain.

This article identifies promising research areas on the PETROLEUM SCIENCE topic via bibliometric analysis of the 2018-2021 publications in the highly cited Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, which is included in the Journal Citation Reports Section: ENERGY & FUELS — Q2 Quartile, ENGINEERING, PETROLEUM — Q1 Quartile. Bibliometric metadata from Web of Science were used for 866 articles in 2018, 1,142 — in 2019, 1,138 — in 2020, and 1,832 in 2021. The clustering of articles was performed using the texts of the Title, Abstract, Keywords, and Keywords Plus fields. The demo version of the Lingo3G algorithm was used. For the two major clusters, the most promising research topics were determined by comparing the titles of the 350 most cited and 350 least cited articles for each year. The hypothesis that low-cited papers often have the same subject matter as high-cited papers of previous years is discussed.

EV transmissions operate at high speeds, upto 30,000 rpm. High speed operation puts higher demands on bearings, seals, and gears. Bearings in EV transmissions are prone to electrically induced bearing damage and may exhibit signs of pitting and fluting. Surface-initiated rolling contact fatigue is another common problem gaining increased attention lately. Most EV transmissions require a coupling between an oil-lubricated gearbox to an electrical motor that runs with minimal lubrication at very high rpm. High mechanical and thermal stresses the seals are exposed to under starved lubrication conditions have a detrimental impact on their service life. Hence, proper lubrication is critical. In general, EV transmission fluids call for a somewhat different spectrum of properties compared to conventional ATF. Gear tribology simulations open new ways to the design and optimization of lubrication for EV transmissions. Additionally, such simulations can also provide valuable insights into the effects of different oil properties on cooling and lubrication efficiencies, thereby helping in matching the lubricant and hardware characteristics for optimal performance. In the present communication, we demonstrate the effects of different lubricants and surface finishing technologies on the tribology of high-speed gears using tribological tests and advanced thermal elastohydrodynamic (TEHD) simulations. Important roles of lubricity additives and surface finish optimization are highlighted in conjunction with a move towards ultralow viscosity EV transmission fluids.

In a generalized topological space Tg = (Ω, Tg), ordinary interior and ordinary closure operators intg, clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, are defined in terms of ordinary sets. In order to let these operators be as general and unified a manner as possible, and so to prove as many generalized forms of some of the most important theorems in generalized topological spaces as possible, thereby attaining desirable and interesting results, the present au- thors have defined the notions of generalized interior and generalized closure operators g-Intg, g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, in terms of a new class of generalized sets which they studied earlier and studied their essen- tial properties and commutativity. The outstanding result to which the study has led to is: g-Intg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) is finer (or, larger, stronger) than intg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) and g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) is coarser (or, smal ler, weaker) than clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω). The elements supporting this fact are reported therein as a source of inspiration for more generalized operations.

Morphological and phylogenetic (45S nrDNA+RPB1 gene) analyses of three glomoid spore-producing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi revealed the presence of two new species be-longing to the genus Glomus in the family Glomeraceae. In the field, Glomus highlandensis sp. nov. was found in a saltmarsh of the Scottish Highlands and in maritime sand dunes of the Baltic Sea in Poland, both saline environments, while G. mongioie sp. nov. originates from the Italian Alps. Phylogenetic placement analysis using environmental sequences indicated that G. highlandensis could have likely worldwide distribution while G. mongioie seems to be a rare species in the world. The molecular and phylogenetic analysis provided important insights about the presence of ribosomal variants in Glomus, with potential negative implication in phylogeny and species recognition.

A problem of efficacy of crystal growth methods for crystallization from solution or melt has been investigated. Axial vibrational control (AVC) technique was considered as a perspective method to manage both heat-mass transfer and chemical component composition of the melts in the case of crystallization of complex chemical compounds. Numerical modeling and the search for generalized dependencies made it possible to predict the AVC parameters that provide optimal heat and mass transfer modes for creating flat liquid-solid interfaces, as well as the component composition of dissociated melts of various chemical compounds – Ge, NaNO3, CdTe.

In a generalized topological space T_g = (Ω, T_g) (T_g-space), the g-topology T_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) can be characterized in the generalized sense by specifying the generalized open, generalized closed sets (g-T_g-open, g-T_g-closed sets), generalized interior, generalized closure operators g-Intg, g-Cl_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) (g-T_g-interior, g-T_g-closure operators), or generalized derived, generalized coderived operators g-Der_g, g-Cod_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) (g-T_g-derived, g-T_g-coderived operators), respectively. For very many T_g-spaces, the δ^th-iterates g-Der_g^(δ), g-Cod_g^(δ) : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) of g-Der_g, g-Cod_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, defined by transfinite recursion on the class of successor ordinals are also themselves g-T_g-derived, g-T_g-coderived operators for new g-topologies in the generalized sense on Ω. Thus, the use of novel definitions of g-T_g-derived, g-T_g-coderived operators g-Der_g, g-Cod_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, based on a very clever construction, together with their δ^th-iterates g-T_g-operators g-Der_g^(δ), g-Cod_g^(δ) : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), defined by transfinite recursion on the class of successor ordinals, will give rise to novel generalized g-topologies on Ω. The present authors have been actively engaged in the study of g-T_g-operators in T_g-spaces. The study of the essential properties and the commutativity of novel definitions of g-T_g-interior and g-T_g-closure operators g-Int_g, g-Cl_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, in T_g has formed the first part, and the study of the essential properties and sets of consistent, independent axioms of novel definitions of g-T_g-exterior and g-T_g-frontier operators g-Ext_g, g-Fr_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, has formed the second part. In this work, which forms the last part on the theory of g-T_g-operators in T_g-spaces, the present authors propose to present novel definitions and the study of the essential properties of g-T_g-derived and g-T_g-coderived operators g-Der_g, g-Cod_g : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, and their δ^th-iterates, and the notions of g-T_g-open and g-T_g-closed sets of ranks δ in T_g-spaces.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) has a poor prognosis and displays resistance to immunotherapy. A better understanding of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) effects on immune responses might contribute to improved immunotherapy. EVs derived from Capan-2 and BxPC-3 PC cells isolated by ultracentrifugation were characterized by atomic force microscopy, western blot (WB), nanoparticle tracking analysis and label-free proteomics. Fresh PBMCs from healthy donors were treated with PC- or control-derived heterologous EVs followed by flow cytometry analysis of CD8+ and CD4+ lymphocytes. Proteomics of lymphocytes sorted from EV-treated, or -untreated PBMCs was performed and IFN-γ concentration was measured by ELISA. Notably, most of the proteins identified in Capan-2 and BxPC-3 EVs by proteomic analysis were connected in a single functional network (p=1x10-16) and were involved in “Immune System” (FDR: 1.10x10-24 and 3.69x10-19, respectively). Interestingly, treatment of healthy donor-derived PBMCs with Capan-2 EVs, but not with BxPC-3 EVs or heterologous control EVs induced early activation of CD8+ and CD4+ lymphocytes. Proteomics of lymphocytes sorted from EV-treated PBMCs was consistent with their activation by Capan-2 EVs, indicating IFN-γ among major upstream regulators, as confirmed by ELISA. Proteomic and functional analyses indicate that PC-EVs have pleiotropic effects, and some may activate early immune response, which might be relevant for the development of highly needed immunotherapeutic strategies in this immune-cold tumor.

In a generalized topological space Tg = (Ω, Tg), generalized interior and generalized closure operators g-Intg, g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, are merely two of a number of generalized primitive operators which may be employed to topologize the underlying set Ω in the generalized sense. Generalized exterior and generalized frontier operators g-Extg, g-Frg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, are other generalized primitive operators by means of which characterizations of generalized operations under g-Intg, g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) can be given without even realizing generalized interior and generalized closure operations first in order to topologize Ω in the generalized sense. In a recent work, the present authors have defined novel types of generalized interior and generalized closure operators g-Intg, g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, in Tg and studied their essential properties and commutativity. In this work, they propose to present novel definitions of generalized exterior and generalized frontier operators g-Extg, g-Frg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω), respectively, a set of consistent, independent axioms after studying their essential properties, and established further characterizations of generalized operations under g-Intg, g-Clg : P (Ω) −→ P (Ω) in Tg.

The present study comprises the second part of our previous work that dealt mainly with the phytochemical and physicochemical characterization of green coffee, clove, cinnamon/clove and nutmeg ethanolic extracts of grape origin. In the present study, we focused on producing a discriminating model concerning green coffee, clove, cinnamon, cinnamon and clove, and nutmeg fine powders based on multivariate analysis of variance and supervised learning on data of volatile compounds analysis, carried out with solid phase dynamic extraction in combination with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Results showed that 7 volatile compounds namely ethylene, methanol, 3-methylpentane, ethyl acetate, 9-hexadecen-1-ol, toluene, and methyl acetate could differentiate the investigated samples resulting in a 100% classification rate using the cross-validation method of linear discriminant analysis. Results were further confirmed using partial least squares regression analysis. The study contributes to the typification of green coffee, cinnamon, clove, cinnamon and clove and nutmeg, based on selected volatile compounds, and provides further support to the literature by means of possible adulteration given the statistical models developed.

Relevance of the subject. Keyword selection is critical to finding relevant literature and requires justification for querying abstract databases and other sources to ensure accuracy and completeness. The topic of Energy Systems is of great importance due to the introduction of renewable energy sources, modern control methods, and complex energy systems during the energy transition. The aim of this study. The goal of this paper was to identify keywords that would be useful to subject matter experts when collecting literature on a particular topic, based on entries in the IEEE Terms field. Data. Bibliometric data were exported from the IEEE Xplore platform in the following order: for 2019-2023, 2000 records sorted by relevance, for 2024, 1680 records current as of April 11, 2024. Analytical methods applied and software used. VOSviewer, Scimago Graphica implementing the Clauset-Newman-Moore algorithm and agglomerative hierarchical clustering method implemented in Multidendrograms. Results. The main issues of the Energy Systems topic are presented in tabular and graphical formats. The fpgrowth utility offers flexible data preparation options, which makes it worthwhile to conduct a separate study to analyze the score of co-occurrence terms given by its algorithm.

We review the literature on medical discourse and attempt to build a computational model of it. Medical discourse sheds a light on communication structure of patient-doctor and other communication scenarios in healthcare and should be leveraged to facilitate and automate this communication when it is possible and practical. We propose a unified framework to represent communication discourse at the meta-level, where the subject of the communication is expressed in a language object. So far, the broad range of work on medical discourse is detached from computational discourse analysis, and we explore the possibilities of filling this gap and computationally treat the peculiarities of how information is passed between the agents in a hospital setting. We select the domain of question answering (QA) against a corpus of medical documents of diverse nature to evaluate our computational model of medical discourse. It turns out that applying specific structures obtained in medical discourse studies improves the relevance and efficiency of question answering.

The article aims to explore social aspects in the area of energy research by using bibliometrics methods and tools. The study is based on the data of Energy Research & Social Science journal publications exported from ScienceDirect database during 2019-2023. Methodologically, the work included clustering of the bibliometric records under consideration. This allowed to identify the main topics of publications and those in which the research of social problems prevails. This stage of the work was carried out using carrot2, an engine for clustering search results. Next, the analysis of publication topics related to social issues research was carried out using VOSviewer — a software tool for visualizing scientific landscapes. The topics of the four clusters obtained at this stage were described by key terms with the maximum total link strength. For the principal ones, a definition was made on the basis of the texts of publications that most fully disclose the meaning of these terms. The 1537 publications in the journal during the period under review deal with many aspects of energy transition research, renewable energy, energy policy, energy justice and energy systems, but only 78 of them are dominated by social issues. The paper reveals the main social issues in the field of energy research: sociology of energy, socio-technical system, community energy, energy democracy, sociology of the future, energy sovereignty, socio-technical imaginary and shows the insufficient attention to this topic, especially to the investment of such research.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the ability of bibliometric data from the Lens platform to identify relevant bibliometric/scientometric issues based on the construction of a network of key terms co-occurrence and their clustering. The advantages of using the Lens platform for bibliometric analysis are briefly demonstrated. Key terms were selected on the basis of n-grams and noun phrases. VOSviewer, Scimago Graphica, and Sifaka text mining application were used as analytical tools. Analysis of the Lens metadata on bibliometrics/scientometrics showed their predominant use in the political, social, and medical fields of research.

The article is devoted to identifying promising research issues on the topic of Digital Industry based on the analysis of bibliometric data from Scopus platform for 2018–2022. The definition of promising issues derived from the titles, additionally abstracts, of highly cited works by authors with high publication activity. Authors' Scopus profiles were used to determine their affiliations, which are important for in-depth analysis of selected promising Digital Industry tasks. Metadata filtering to identify highly cited papers on particular issues was performed by keywords, Subject Areas, affiliations with countries and sponsoring organizations. Additionally, bibliometric metadata were clustered based on the co-occurrence of terms using VOSviewer. Within these clusters, articles of interest were identified for the formulation of promising research issues on the topic of Digital Industry, which will be subjected to in-depth analysis in separate papers.

We consider finite and unconditionally convergent infinite expansions of elements of a given topological monoid G in some base B c G as words of the alphabet B, identify insignificantly different words and define a multiplication and a topology on the set of classes of these words. Classical numeral systems are particular cases of this construction. Then we study algebraic and topological properties of the obtained monoid and, for some cases, find conditions under which it is canonically topologically isomorphic to the initial one.

The article is devoted to a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications reflecting trends in scientific publications related to the energy transition of leading universities in Saudi Arabia. The universities were selected based on the presence of joint publications with the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, they are: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and King Saud University. The importance of studying the experience of Saudi Arabia for Russia in the context of the energy transition was highlighted. The analysis was based on Scopus platform data related to Subject Areas: Physical Sciences. Scientists from Saudi Arabian universities are increasingly publishing with co-authors from China, India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Malaysia, while maintaining high interaction with co-authors from the United States, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Authors from the Russian Federation publish poorly with co-authors from Saudi Arabia. The trends in the topics of scientific publications were investigated, and their connection with the renewable energy topic was shown. The VOSviewer software was used to determine the main research areas using the cluster analysis method based on the co-occurrence of key terms. The analysis was done for both Author's keywords and Index keywords of the Scopus system. Graphical representation of the final choice of terms to describe research trends was proposed. TRANSLATE with x English ArabicHebrewPolish BulgarianHindiPortuguese CatalanHmong DawRomanian Chinese SimplifiedHungarianRussian Chinese TraditionalIndonesianSlovak CzechItalianSlovenian DanishJapaneseSpanish DutchKlingonSwedish EnglishKoreanThai EstonianLatvianTurkish FinnishLithuanianUkrainian FrenchMalayUrdu GermanMalteseVietnamese GreekNorwegianWelsh Haitian CreolePersian TRANSLATE with COPY THE URL BELOW Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal Back

The article is aimed at a brief comparison and analysis of the results of queries to IEEE Xplore and the leading abstract databases Scopus and Web of Science to identify research trends. Some errors in the Author Keywords in Web of Science have been revealed. Therefore, a more detailed analysis was conducted by comparing different types of key terms for IEEE Xplore and Scopus platforms only. I used IEEE Access journal metadata as indexed on both platforms. The sample match for IEEE Xplore and Scopus was achieved by comparing DOI. The IEEE Xplore metadata contains more types of key terms, which provides an advantage in analyzing research trends. Using NSPEC Controlled Terms from expert-compiled vocabulary provides a more stable data, which gives an advantage when considering the change of terms over time. Apriori, an algorithm for finding association rules, has been used to compare co-occurrence of terms for a more detailed description of sample subjects on both platforms. VOSviewer was used to analyze trends in scientific research based on IEEE Xplore data. The 2011-2021 ten-year period was divided into two sub-intervals for comparing the occurrence of Author Keywords, IEEE Terms, and NSPEC Controlled Terms. Using the IEEE conference proceedings bibliometric data, I illustrated the importance of context in estimating the rate of growth of publishing activity on a topic of interest.

The objective of this article: analysis of research trends on the topic "Materials Science for Energy Engineering" for the period 2012-2021. Materials and methods: bibliometric analysis of data from the Scopus abstract database.Results. It is shown that this topic is developing faster than the general energy topics.The key feature of the research trends is a significant increase in work on the development of materials for renewable energy and a decrease in the number of publications related to nuclear power.The primary goal of many studies is to increase the efficiency of renewable energy production through the use of new materials.The importance of the topic is evidenced by the emergence of new journals that quickly entered the first quartile of the abstract databases Scopus and Web of Science, for example: ACS Applied Energy Materials.There has been a significant increase of interest in perovskite solar cells, layered semiconductors, triboelectric nanogenerators, cobalt compounds, sulfur compounds, and oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction during Electrolysis.Publications on electric batteries are well represented in all time intervals. The focus is on electrode materials and battery efficiency.

Machine learning research has been able to solve problems in multiple aspects. An open area of research is machine learning for solving optimisation problems. An optimisation problem can be solved using a metaheuristic algorithm, which is able to find a solution in a reasonable amount of time. However, there is a problem, the time required to find an appropriate metaheuristic algorithm, that would have the convenient configurations to solve a set of optimisation problems properly. A solution approach is shown here, using a proposal that automatically creates metaheuristic algorithms aided by a reinforced learning approach. Based on the experiments performed, the approach succeeded in creating a metaheuristic algorithm that managed to solve a large number of different continuous domain optimisation problems. This work's implications are immediate because they describe a basis for the generation of metaheuristic algorithms in real-time.

Effects of the convection flow, atmospheric diffusivity and humidity on evolution and travel distances of exhaled aerosol clouds by an infected person are considered. The aim of this work is to evaluate the importance of aerosol transmission routes and the effectiveness of the 2-metre separation distance policy. A potential impact of use of face masks on the infection transmission rate, and an opportunity to reduce infection in hospitals, care homes and other public spaces by appropriate monitoring and filtering of air are also considered. The results obtained demonstrate that aerosol particles generated by coughing and sneezing can travel over 30 m. Modelling of the evolution of aerosol clouds generated by coughing and sneezing enables us to evaluate the deposition dose of aerosol particles in healthy individuals. For example, a person in a public place (e.g. supermarket or car park) can accumulate in the respiratory system up to 200 virus copies in 2 min time by breathing in virus laden aerosols. Wearing face mask considerably reduces the deposited load down to 2 virus copies per 2 min. The modelling also suggests that it should be possible to measure virus causing COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) within aerosol particles in hospitals and public places, e.g. care homes and supermarkets.

The review analyzes a possible role of autoimmune processes in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and evolution of concepts on this issue from its origin to present. Risks of autoimmune processes causing schizophrenia are associated with several factors: an impaired functioning of dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems in the brain, kynurenine pathway disorder with overproduction of quinolinic, anthranilic and kynurenic acids (possibly altering both neurons and T-regulators), increased intestinal permeability, as well as food antigens’ effects, stress and infections with various pathogens at different stages of ontogenesis. An increase in the levels of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines as well as a decrease in the levels of anti-inflammatory ones also may contribute to schizophrenia risks. Schizophrenia often occurs in those patients having various autoimmune diseases and their first-degree relatives. Cases of schizophrenia resulted from autoimmune pathogenesis (including autoimmune encephalitis caused by autoantibodies against various neuronal antigens) are characterized by quite severe cognitive and psychotic symptoms and less favorable prognosis. This severe course may result from the chronic immune damage of the neuronal receptors such as NMDA, GABA, and others and depend on hyperprolactinemia, induced by antipsychotics, but aggravating autoimmune processes [with 2 tables, 4 figures, bibliography: 99 references].

In a bid to resolve lingering problems in cosmology, more focus is being tilted towards cosmological models in which physical constants of nature are not necessarily real constants, but varying with cosmic time. In this paper we have study cosmology in nonlinear electrodynamics with the Newton's gravitational constant $G$ not a constant but vary in form of power-law of the scale factor of the universe. The evolution of the scale factor $a (t)$ is studied in this model which depends on nonlinear electrodynamics fine tuning term of $\alpha$. Then we check the stability of the model using the speed of sound.

G-quadruplexes are noncanonical nucleic acid structures formed from stacked guanine tetrads. They are frequently used as building blocks and functional elements in fields such as synthetic biology and also thought to play widespread biological roles. G-quadruplexes are often studied as monomers but can also form a variety of higher-order structures. This increases the structural and functional diversity of G-quadruplexes, and recent evidence suggests that it could also be biologically important. In this review we describe the types of multimeric topologies adopted by G-quadruplexes and highlight what is known about their sequence requirements. We also summarize the limited information available about potential biological roles of multimeric G-quadruplexes and suggest new approaches that could facilitate future studies of these structures.

We leverage the explainability feature of KAN network and build an explainable language model where certain neurons encode individual words and neuron activation is fully interpretable in terms of the basis of a word. To do that, we propose a continuous word2vec model where a meaning of a word is expressed by a continuous profile of distances of this word from the words in the basis of words which is interpolated. As a result, the whole KAN network can be interpreted as a sequential procedure with word expressions. We then proceed from words to logic programs and develop a clause learning technique based on KAN. A logic program construction process from facts now become fully interpretable. We follow the differentiable inductive logic programming technique, representing a logic program as a matrix learned by KAN. Hence, we obtain an efficient and fully interpretable rule learning approach.

A text obtained by a Large Language Model (LLM) such as GPT4 usually has issues in terms of incorrectness and hallucinations. We build a fact-checking system 'Truth-O-Meter' which identifies wrong facts, comparing the generation results with the web and other sources of information, and suggests corrections. Text mining and web mining techniques are leveraged to identify correct corresponding sentences; also, the syntactic and semantic generalization procedure adopted to the content improvement task. To handle inconsistent sources while fact-checking, we rely on an argumentation analysis in the form of defeasible logic programming. We compare our fact checking engine with competitive approach based on reinforcement learning on top of LLM or token-based hallucination detection. It is observed that LLM content can be substantially improved for factual correctness and meaningfulness.

Sustainable agriculture is at the forefront of modern farming practices, with a growing emphasis on optimizing crop production while minimizing environmental impact. The choice of fertilizer application technology plays a critical role in achieving these objectives. Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), a valuable crop globally, serves both as a source of human nutrition and livestock feed. To address the challenges of enhancing soybean production while minimizing ecological harm, this study evaluates and compares the performance of different fertilizer application technologies. In this study we combined remote and ground surveys to allow a comprehensive understanding of the impact of these technologies on soybean cultivation. The study focuses on deep placement of slow-release nitrogen fertilizers with coated urea at a 20 cm depth, conventional nitrogen fertilizer application, and manure organic fertilizer application. Remote surveys are conducted using advanced smart farming tools such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), ground surveys such as soil plant analysis development SPAD measurements, and soybean parameters to assess the impact of fertilizer application. This study revealed that deep placement fertilizer demonstrated better performance compared to other fertilizer application technologies for soybean cultivation. The findings from this study contribute to the advancement of sustainable agricultural practices and empower farmers with knowledge to make informed decisions for optimizing green soybean production.

Gas electron multipliers (GEMs) with wire (WGEMs) or metal electrodes (MGEMs), which don’t use any plastic insulators between electrodes are created. The chambers containing MGEMs (WGEMs) with pin-anodes are proposed as detectors for searching of spin-dependent interactions between Dark Matter (DM) particles and gases with nonzero-spin nuclei (H2, D2, 3He, 21Ne, CF4, CH4, etc.). In this paper, we present a review of such chambers. For investigation of the gas mixtures Ne+10%H2, H2 (D2) +3ppmTMAE, the chamber containing WGEM with pin-anode detection system was constructed. In this paper we present the results of an experimental study of these gaseous mixtures exited by an α - source. Mixture of Ar + 40 ppm C2H4 and mixture 50% Xe + 50%CF4 have been investigated. The spatial distributions of photoelectron clouds produced by primary scintillations on α- and β-particle tracks, as well as the distributions of photoelectron clouds due to photons from avalanches at the pin-anode, have been measured for the first time. In our experiments as another filling of the chambers for search of low-mas WIMP (<10 GeV/c2), solar neutrino and solar axions with spin-dependent interaction we propose to use the mixtures: D2 + 3ppmTMAE, 3He + 3%CH4, 21Ne + 10%H2, at pressure 10-17 bar. And in our experiment with liquid gases is used the mixtures with 19F (LAr + CF4, LXe + CF4) and mixture LCH4 + 40ppm TMAE. The time projection chamber (TPC) with the mixture D2 + 3ppmTMAE filling allow to search of spin-dependent interactions of solar axions and deuterium. As well as we present the detecting systems for search of narrow pp-resonances (quarks) in accelerators experiments.

We review time expansion wave theory and refine our model showing it to accurately match observed cosmological luminosity data. The theory augments general relativity to create a container within which quantum effects can be explained by treating time as an artefact of a fourth spatial dimension that we observe as the expansion of the universe. This leads us to explain mass creation, the speed of light limit, gravity, black holes without singularities and other macroscopic effects. Our model leads to an expansion velocity of 6.87 0.36 × 106 ms-1, which results in a Hubble expansion rate constant of 71.3 3.7 km/s/Mpc. Because of the finite window of time in which we exist, an extra a degree of freedom is available leading to interesting interpretations at the subatomic level. At this size range, then a spin is allowed within the time dimension explaining why wave particle duality occurs and explains the electromagnetic force and other quantum mechanical properties. It provides a solution to the double slit conundrum and can explain how quantum entangled partners can behave in a quantum way and pass seemingly time-defying information. The potential quantitative origin of the fine structure constant which governs the size of the electromagnetic force is also strongly indicated by this theory.

Heart failure (HF) is a growing issue in developed countries and most patients present with a reduced ejection fraction. This condition significantly impairs quality of life and represents a threat not only for patients, but also for the entire healthcare system due to its high management cost. In the last decade, new medical treatments and devices have been developed to reduce HF hospitalizations and improve prognosis, while reducing the overall mortality rate. Medical therapy does not achieve the same results in all patients and, whenever it fails, technology comes in handy: novel devices for the management of HF have reduced symptoms. They have also improved the treatment of fluid retention and life threatening arrhythmias. The present review article gives to the readers a comprehensive overview of the most recent and important findings that need to be considered in HF with reduced ejection fraction patients. Both novel medical treatments and devices have been presented and discussed.

Purpose: To assess clinical outcomes of corneal cross-linking (CXL) intervention in a population diagnosed with progressive keratoconus. Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort study included consecutive patients who underwent standard CXL or accelerated CXL for progressive keratoconus at a major teaching hospital in south Israel between January 2015 and December 2019. Patient medical files were reviewed to extract demographic, clinical, and tomographic data from outpatient clinic reports before treatment and one year post-operatively. Results: This study included 166 patients (representing 198 eyes), out of which 98 patients (123 eyes) were ethnically Bedouin, and 68 patients (75 eyes) were ethnically Jewish. Overall, 126 patients (144 eyes) had a follow-up of at least 12 months (16.84±5.76). The mean patient age was 20.62 ± 7.1 years old. There were significant baseline differences between the two ethnical groups in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA; p < 0.001), uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA; p < 0.001), mean keratometry (p = 0.028), and corneal thickness (p < 0.001). Significant changes in BCVA, UCVA, and pachymetry parameters within each group were found after 12 months. Negative binomial regression analysis showed a maximal keratometry below 55D (RR=1.247, p < 0.001) and a standard CXL procedure (RR=1.147, p = 0.041) are significantly related to the stability of KC after 12 months. However, the effect size of the origin of patients is negligible (RR=1.047, p = 0.47). Conclusions: In this study, the Bedouin population suffered from more progressive keratoconus when compared to the Jewish population. CXL was significantly effective in improving BCVA and UCVA in both groups after 12 months of follow-up.

Several specific types of generalized compactness of generalized topological spaces have been defined, investigated and related to compactness in ordinary topological spaces from time to time in the literature of topological spaces. Our recent research in the field of a new class of generalized compactness in a generalized topological space is reported herein as a starting point for more generalized classes.

Several specific types of ordinary and generalized connectedness in a generalized topological space have been defined and investigated for various purposes from time to time in the literature of topological spaces. Our recent research in the field of a new type of generalized connectedness in a generalized topological space is reported herein as a starting point for more generalized types.

Several specific types of generalized maps of a generalized topological space have been defined and investigated for various purposes from time to time in the literature of topological spaces. Our recent research in the field of a new class of generalized maps of a generalized topological space is reported herein as a starting point for more generalized classes.

Several specific types of generalized sets of a generalized topological space have been defined and investigated for various purposes from time to time in the literature of topological spaces. Our recent research in the field of a new class of generalized sets of a generalized topological space is reported herein as a starting point for more generalized classes.

A compact Mach-zehnder interferometer with a novel design of directional couplers and a phase shifter has been presented as a thermo-optical sensor. With the aim of reducing device size to micro and nano dimension silicon-on-insulator technology was employed. That allowed miniaturization of device size through the reduction of its cross sectional area to 0.066 µm² and the radius of curvature of both the arms of the directional coupler and S-bends of the phase shifter to 5 µm and C-bends to 3 µm. These nano size device dimensions made it possible to reduce the coupling gap to 0.2 µm, which resulted in a significant reduction in the coupling length. The device geometry and its performance characteristics were analyzed and optimized using coupled mode analysis and finite difference time domain simulation tools, respectively. The wavelength dependent transmission loss of the device was measured at different temperature to verify and validate its performance characteristics. Tested devices showed a remarkable temperature dependent transmission characteristic offering significant changes in transmission loss band – with as low as 0.45 ⁰C change in substrate temperature. The extinction ratio and the free spectral range of the device were 26 dB and 0.26 nm respectively in the wavelength range of 1549.5 nm – 1550.5 nm. These results imply that the devices presented here can be used as compact and highly sensitive thermal sensors and optical switches.

Today, LLMs are not good at personalization providing recommendation. They advise physicians and financial advisors to ask professionals in respective fields for help, even having user information available. Answering questions of software professionals, LLM needs to deliver in-depth answers with codes or algorithms, whereas for professionals in other fields would need definitions and main concepts. The intent of this chapter is to make LLM answer tailored to the needs of users, taking into account available information about them. To do that, we need to generalize available information about a person like her health record, maintaining the privacy of this person. We rely on meta-learning techniques to design a LLM prompt to produce a personalization prompt to obtain a suitable relevant information. Such “meta-prompt” is produced by generalization operation applied to available documents for the user. These documents need to be de-identified so that they are sufficient for personalization on one hand and will maintain user privacy on the other hand. The second neuro-symbolic technique to support personalization is abductive reasoning, acting in parallel to LLM fine-tuning. Traditional recommendation and personalization techniques as well as modern, deep learning – based are presented, and the comparison is drawn to the proposed approach. We also share the evaluation and comparative analyses of these approaches. We consider an example for how to build personalization LLM systems coming from Langchain platform. We will explore how to construct chains to form a personalization profile for a user and apply it to user search and recommendation requests.

: In our previous work we had developed an hxt-null Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain displaying high xylose reductase, xylitol dehydrogenase and xylulokinase activities that proved to be useful as a chassis strain to study new xylose transporters, as SsXUT1 from Scheffersomyces stipitis. Spathaspora passalidarum and Spathaspora arborariae have in their genomes genes with high sequence similarity (78-80%) to SsXUT1. To characterize these putative transporter genes (SpXUT1 and SaXUT1, respectively) they were expressed in the same chassis strain as SsXUT1. Surprisingly, the cloned genes could not restore the ability to grow in several monosaccharides tested, although the strains expressing the SsXUT1 and SpXUT1 permeases, after growth on maltose, showed the presence of 14C-glucose and 14C-xylose transport activity. An important feature of these permeases is that SsXUT1 lacks lysine residues in its N-terminal domain with high-confidence ubiquitinylation potential, and has only one at the C-terminal domain, while the SpXUT1 transporter had several of such residues at its C-terminal domain. When the SpXUT1 gene was cloned in a truncated version lacking such lysine residues, the permease allowed grow on glucose or xylose, and even promoted xylose fermentation by the hxt-null strain. In another approach, we deleted two arrestins known to be involved in sugar transporter ubiquitinylation and endocytosis (ROD1 and ROG3), but only the rog3Δ strain allowed modest growth on these sugars. Taken together, these results suggest that to allow efficient sugar transporter expression in S. cerevisiae the lysines involved in transporter endocytosis should be removed from the sequence of the permease.

This study considers an application of the first-order Grey Markov Model to foresee the values of Italian power generation in relation to the available energy sources. The model is used to fit data from the Italian energy system from 2000 to 2022. The integration of Markovian error introduces a random element to the model, which is able now to capture inherent uncertainties and misalignments between the Grey model predictions and the real data. This application provides valuable insights for strategic planning in the energy sector and future developments. The results show good accuracy of the predictions, which provides powerful information for the effective implementation of energy policies concerning the evolution of energy demand in the country. Despite advancements, Italy’s 2032 energy mix will still significantly rely on fossil fuels, emphasizing the need for sustained efforts beyond 2032 to enhance sustainability.

This study evaluates audiogenic epilepsy in Krushinsky-Molodkina rats using a wireless EEG system to overcome the limitations of traditional methods that restrict animal movement. Nine male KM rats, prone to audiogenic seizures, were implanted with electrodes in areas critical for seizure activity (inferior colliculus, ventrolateral periaqueductal gray, dorsal area of the secondary auditory cortex, and motor cortex). This setup allowed for the observation of seizures without movement restriction. Results showed that targeted neural intervention via electrode implantation reduced the intensity of convulsive seizures in half of the subjects, suggesting a potential therapeutic approach. The severity of seizures was influenced by the pre-phonostimulation EEG background activity in specific brain regions, identifying them as key in the genesis and generalization of seizures. Observations of dual generalized seizure waves and induced hyperkinesis challenge conventional epilepsy models and suggest new directions for research and therapy development.

In this study we have investigated the effect of the addition of Nb2O5 (up to 5 mol%) on the structure and luminescent properties of ZnO-B2O3 glass doped with 0.5 mol % Eu2O3 by using of infrared (IR), Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Physical properties as molar volume, oxygen packing density and glass transition temperature were determined using the results of differential thermal analyisis (DTA) and Archimedes principle for density. IR and Raman spectra revealed that niobium ions incorporate into the base zinc borate glass as NbO4 trtraherda and NbO6 octahedra. A strong red emission from the 5D0 level of Eu3+ ions was registered under near UV (392 nm) excitation using the sharp 7F0 - 5L6 transition of Eu3+. The integrated fluorescence intensity ratio R (5D0 → 7F2/5D0 → 7F1) was calculated to estimate the degree of asymmetry around the active ion, suggesting a location of Eu3+ in non-centrosymmetric sites. The higher Еu3+ luminescence emission observed in zinc borate glasses containing 1÷5 mol% Nb2O5 compared to the Nb2O5-free zinc borate glass evidences that Nb2O5 is suitable component for modification of host glass structure and improving the emission intensity.

Introduction: The trophoblast derived angiogenic factors are considered to play an important role in the pathophysiology of various complications of pregnancy. The aim of this study was to establish relationship between concentrations of soluble Human Leukocyte Antigen-G (sHLA-G) in maternal serum and amniotic fluid at 16-22 weeks of gestation and the sonographic measurements of the fetal and placental growth. Materials and methods: sHLA-G in serum and amniotic fluid, as well as fetal biometric data and placental volume and perfusion indices were determined in 41 uncomplicated singleton pregnancies. Results: The sHLA-G levels were unchanged both in amniotic fluid and in serum during mid-pregnancy. The sHLA-G level in serum correlated positively with amniotic sHLA-G level (β=0.63, p<0.01). Significant correlation was found between serum sHLA-G level and abdominal measurement (β=0.41, p<0.05) and estimated fetal weight (β=0.41, p<0.05). The amniotic sHLA-G level and placental perfusion (VI: β = -0.34, p<0.01 and VFI: β = -0.44, p<0.01, respectively) were negatively interrelated. A low amniotic sHLA-G level was significantly associated with nuchal translucency (r = -0.102, p<0.05). Conclusions: sHLA-G assayed in amniotic fluid might be a potential indicator for placental function, whereas the sHLA-G level in serum can be a prognostic modality for feto-placental insufficiency.

Background Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a major pathogen that cause remarkable rate of morbidity and mortality, especially in immunocompromised patients. It is important to find risk factors associated with CMV viremia. We studied the differences in CMV seropositivity in relation to liver function biomarkers in male and female Saudi population in an attempt to understand the variation in the CMV seroprevalence with sex and find the risk factor to develop liver dysfunction or hepatocellular carcinoma. Material and subjects: The CMV- IgG and IgM were screened in serum samples of 150 non- A-G hepatities patients with elevation of liver profiles (ALT, AST, ALP and GGT) and categorized as males and females. Samples were collected from different general hospitals and polyclinic in KSA from March 2014 to June 2015. A correlation between CMV seropositivity measured with both antibodies and liver enzymes were tested. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis and multiple regressions were done for the obtained data. Results: Our study shows that females had much higher IgG and IgM compared to age-matching males. A significant correlation between both antibodies and liver enzymes (AST, ALT) was recorded. Less significant correlation of both IgG and IgM with GGT was also observed. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis revealed that both IgG and IgM can be used as excellent predictive markers for CMV infection as both recorded 100% specificity and sensitivity together with area under the curve of 1 in males and females. Multiple regression analysis ascertain the correlation between both antibodies as dependent variables and liver enzymes as independent variables with ALT being the most affected enzyme with CMV seropositivity especially in females. Conclusion:he data discussed above This study shows that CMV is capable of initiating and accelerating liver dysfunction in both sexes. The high seroprevalence in females at reproductive age is especially important as they can transmit the virus to their developing fetus. Prevention of CMV infection in young girls 11-14 years old, through counseling on hygiene or possible future vaccination, may lead to a decrease of congenital CMV infections with the concomitant risk of developing liver dysfunction or hepatocellular carcinoma. Keywords: Cytomegalovirus, Alanine transaminase, Aspartate transaminase Alkaline phosphatase, γ-Glutamyltranspeptidase, liver function.

Genetic enhancement of grain production and quality is a priority in wheat breeding projects. In this study, we assessed two key agronomic traits - grain protein content (GPC) and thousand kernel weight (TKW) - across 179 Bulgarian contemporary and historic varieties, and landraces in three growing seasons. Significant phenotypic variation existed for both traits among genotypes and seasons, and no discernible difference was evident between the old and modern accessions. To understand the genetic basis of the traits, we conducted a genome-wide association study with MLM using phenotypic data from the crop seasons, best linear unbiased estimators, genotypic data from the 25K Infinium iSelect array, and a Bonferroni-adjusted p-value. As a result, 776 significant quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) organized into quantitative trait loci were discovered, including 25 loci associated with GPC, and 35 loci linked to TKW. Additionally, 14 environmentally stable QTNs were identified for TKW. Certain loci on chromosomes 2A, 3A, and 6B favorably in-fluenced GPC, while the locus on chromosome 6D impacted TKW positively. These loci may reflect novel associations to the two traits. Annotations for proteins involved in the remobilization of carbon and nitrogen from vegetative tissues to developing grain during senescence, as well as in the following buildup of resources required for seed germination, have been found for selected pu-tative candidate genes. These include genes coding for 11S globulin seed storage protein, glutamine synthetase, metalloendopeptidase, components of the ubiquitin/proteasome system, sucrose transporter, alpha-amylase, NAC and bZIP transcription factors. Our findings highlight promising genomic regions for targeted breeding programs aimed at improving grain yield and protein content.

Several specific types of ordinary and generalized separation axioms of a generalized topological space have been defined and investigated for various purposes from time to time in the literature of topological spaces. Our recent research in the field of a new class of generalized separation axioms of a generalized topological space is reported herein as a starting point for more generalized classes.

In the framework of mean field approximation, we consider a spin system consisting of two interacting sub-ensembles: spins interactions with in each sub-ensemble are ferromagnetic, while the inter-ensemble interactions are antiferromagnetic. We define the effective number of the nearest neighbors, and show that if the two sub-ensembles have the same effective number of the nearest neighbors, the classical form of critical exponents (, , , ) gives way to the non-classical form (, , , ), and the scaling function changes simultaneously. We demonstrate that this system allows for two second-order phase transitions and two first-order phase transitions. We observe that an external magnetic field does not destroy the phase transitions, but only shifts their critical points, allowing for control of the system’s parameters. We discuss the regime when the magnetization as a function of the magnetic field develops a low-magnetization plateau, and show that the height of this plateau abruptly rises to the value of one when the magnetic field reaches a critical value. Our analytical results are supported by a Monte Carlo simulation of a three-dimensional layered model.

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) adopts a modular multidomain structure that mediates antigen recognition and effector functions, such as complement-dependent cytotoxicity. IgG molecules are self-assembled into a hexameric ring on antigen-containing membranes, recruiting the complement component, C1q. To provide deeper insights into the initial step of the complement pathway, we report a high-speed atomic force microscopy study for quantitative visualization of the interaction between IgG and the C1 complex composed of C1q, C1r, and C1s. Results showed that C1q in the C1 complex is restricted regarding internal motion and has a stronger binding affinity for on-membrane IgG assemblages than C1q alone, presumably because of smaller conformational entropy loss upon binding. Furthermore, we visualized a 1:1 stoichiometric interaction between C1/C1q and an IgG variant that lacks the entire CH1 domain in the absence of antigen. In addition to the canonical C1q-binding site on Fc, their interactions are mediated through a secondary site on the CL domain that is cryptic in the presence of the CH1 domain. Our findings offer clues for novel-modality therapeutic antibodies.

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a home-based efficacious modality for replacement of renal function in end-stage kidney failure patients but is still under-prescribed. A major limitation is the durability of the dialytic technique. Continuous exposure of the peritoneum to bioincompatible conventional glucose-based solutions is thought to be the main cause of long-term morpho-functional peritoneal changes eventually resulting in ultrafiltration failure. Poor PD solution biocompatibility is primarily related to the high glucose content, which is not only detrimental to the peritoneal membrane but has many potential metabolic side effects. To improve the clinical outcome and prolong the survival of the treatment, PD-related bioincompatibility urgently needs to be overcome. However, combining dialytic and osmotic efficacy with a satisfactory biocompatible profile proves quite difficult. New approaches targeting the composition of the PD solution include replacement of glucose with other osmotic agents and the addition of cytoprotective or osmo-metabolic compounds. Other strategies include infusion of mesenchymal cells or the administration of orally active agents. In the present article we review the current evidence on efforts to improve the biocompatible and functional performance of PD, focusing on studies performed in vivo (animal models of PD, human subjects on PD).

PIEZO channels PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are the newly identified mechanosensitive, non-selective cation channels permeable to Ca2+. In higher vertebrates, PIEZO1 expresses ubiquitously in most of the tissues and cells while PIEZO2 expresses more specifically in the peripheral sensory neurons. PIEZO channels contribute to a wide range of biological behaviors and developmental processes, therefore driving a significant attention in the effort to understand their molecular properties. One prominent property of PIEZO channels is their rapid inactivation, which manifests itself as a decrease of channel open probability in the presence of a sustained mechanical stimulus. Lack of the PIEZO channel inactivation is linked to various mechanopathologies emphasizing the significance of studying this PIEZO channel property and the factors affecting it. In the present review, we discuss the mechanisms underlying the PIEZO channel inactivation, its modulation by interaction of the channels with lipids and/or proteins, and how the changes of PIEZO inactivation by the channel mutations can cause a variety of diseases in animals and humans.

It is shown by numerical modelling that anisotropic diffusion can compensate and even overcome diffusion broadening - the main limiting factor of devices working at atmospheric pressure. The thickness of ion clouds coming out of the ionisation chamber is reduced ~ 1000 times in the ADMA inlet increasing the resolution. This finding has a great potential that enables construction of a device with resolution close to that of currently available desktop ion separation devices – high pressure mass spectrometers, but with much lower cost of manufacture and with smaller dimensions. Comprehensive numerical modelling along with mathematical analysis of physical concepts enables reduction of the footprint and manufacturing costs. Modelling determined that the resolving power (RP) potential of the ADMA is greater than the RP of currently available on the market devices for the airport security market. The ADMA technology enables very fast detection of threats; at least 100 times faster than currently used in Ion Mobility Spectrometers (IMS). This potentially allows an increase in passenger throughput in airports.

City Marketing has a strong tradition in Berlin, with two organisations, Berlin Partner and Visit Berlin, responsible for designing and implementing relevant strategies. Sustainability has been on and off the city marketing agenda, almost exclusively in its environmental dimension. In this article we examine the current representations of Berlin as a “sustainable city” in the official City Marketing strategies. We look at how sustainability is used and instrumentalized to create a specific city profile, and also to attract particular target groups in tourism. We propose an analysis of sustainable planning in Berlin since reunification, to show how it has moved into different directions over time and how this has (or has not) been followed by City Marketing. In this endeavour we move between the existing, and as we argue deeper and more sophisticated, environmental planning of the city on the one hand, and the reductions and simplifications of City Marketing representations on the other. Finally, we argue that there are inherent contradictions in marketing a sustainable city, where both in terms of tourism and economic development, the concept of growth seems to be reaching environmental limits.

The stage of a super-early scale-invariant Universe is considered on the basis of the Poincaré–Weyl gauge theory of gravity in a Cartan–Weyl space-time. An approximate solution has been found that demonstrates an inflationary behavior of the scale factor and, at the same time, a sharp exponential decrease in the effective cosmological constant from a huge value at the beginning of the Big Bang to an extremely small (but not zero) value in the modern era, which solves the well-known “cosmological constant problem”.

This paper reports 2 × 4 hybrid Mach-zehnder interferometer (MZI) - multi-mode interferometers (MMI) based compact thermo-optical switch consisting of slab waveguides on silicon-on-insulator, SOI, platform. The device consists of two identical MMIs, each of 6 μm wide and 140 μm long connected with two phase shifters MMIs each with 2 μm wide and 8 μm long and linear tappers each 4 μm long, connected at both ends of the MMIs to minimize the power coupling loss. The loss for linear taper is found to be below 0.02dB. The footprint of the whole device is six 6 μm × 324 μm. This structure is based on unique multimode region shape, which leads optical switch to have less coupling loss and reduced cross-talk. The average thermo-optical switching power consumption is 1.4 mW, the excess losses are 0.8 dB, and the imbalances are 0.1 dB. Aluminum is used as a heating pad, and a trench is created around this pad to prevent from spreading of heat and reduce power loss almost by a factor of 2 to the adjacent phase shifter. Our new heating method has advantages of compact size and ease of fabrication with the current CMOS technology.

Mercury has a strong environmental impact since both its organic and inorganic forms are toxic and it represents a pollutant of global concern. Liquid Hg is highly volatile and it can be released during natural and anthropogenic processes in the hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. In this study the distribution of Gaseous Elemental Mercury (GEM) and the total and leached mercury concentrations on paints, plasters, roof tiles, concretes, metals, dust and wood structures were determined in the main buildings and structures of the former Hg-mining area of Abbadia San Salvatore (Siena, Central Italy). The mining complex (divided into 7 units) covers a surface of about 65 ha and contains mining structures and managers and workers buildings. In this work, nine surveys of GEM measurements were carried out from July 2011 to August 2015 for the buildings and structures located in the units 2, 3 and 6. Moreover, detailed measurements were performed in February, April, July, September and December 2016 in the edifices and mining structures of Unit 6. GEM concentrations showed a strong variability in terms of space and time mostly depending on the distance from the building hosting driers, furnaces and condensers and ambient temperature, respectively. In the Unit 2 surveys carried out in the hotter period (from June to September) showed GEM concentrations up to 27,500 ng m⁻³, while in the Unit 6 they were on average much higher and occasionally they saturated the GEM measurement device (>50,000 ng m⁻³). Concentrations of total (in mg kg⁻¹) and leached (in μg L⁻¹) mercury measured in different building materials (up to 46,580 mg kg⁻¹ and 4,470 mg L⁻¹ for total and leached mercury, respectively) showed for the same type of material highly variable values in dependence on the edifice or mining structure from which they were collected. The results obtained in this study are of relevant interest for the operational cleanings to be carried out during the reclamation activities.

In this work model of mirror elements equilibrium of the micromechanical components is developed, the behavior analysis of the mirror element of micromechanical mirrors in case changing of control voltages of electrostatic actuators is carried out, an expression for determining the maximum value of deflection voltage at which the snap-down effect will take the following form is obtained in case of the influence of the coefficient of the electrostatic rigidity of electrostatic actuators. The developed equilibrium model of mirror elements and the obtained results of modeling can be used at design of micromechanical mirrors with internal suspensions.

In the modern world, the problem of antibiotic therapy is acute. Despite the diversity of existing antibiotic drugs, their efficacy decreases as new, resistant forms of pathogenic microorganisms emerge. It is extremely difficult to control such processes and even more difficult to treat severe bacterial infections. In such situations, an individual approach to each patient is required and physicians need parameters to estimate the efficacy of antibiotic therapy. This review discusses the significance of monitoring the content of antibiotics in the blood for this purpose, in combination with the content of inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein and procalcitonin. The basic principles of antibiotic therapy, and factors in the resistance of microorganisms to antibiotics, are examined. Approaches to assess the efficacy of antibiotic therapy, as well as methods to detect antibiotics and inflammatory markers in the blood of patients, and comparative assessment of their capabilities and limitations, are described.

This paper reports design of a 2 × 4 hybrid multimode interferometer-Mach-zehnder interferometer (MMI-MZI) configuration and compact thermo-optical switch consisting of slab waveguides on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI), platform. The device consisted of two identical MMIs as power splitters and couplers that are connected with two identical MMI-based phase shifters, and linear tapers at both ends of the MMIs to minimize the power coupling loss. A thin Al pad is used as a heating element, and a trench is created around this pad to prevent heat from spreading and to minimize loss. The calculated average thermo-optical switching power consumption, excess loss, and power imbalance are 1.4 mW, 0.9 dB, and 0.1 dB, respectively. The overall footprint of the device is 6 × 304 μm². The new heating method has advantages of compact size, ease of fabrication on SOI platform with the current CMOS technology, and offers low excess loss and power consumption as demanded by devices based on SOI technology. The device can act as two independent optical switches in one structure.

We evaluate the complexity of Colombian climate from extreme behavior of gauge temperature and precipitation, using the the novel Tsallis' non-extensive entropy principle based on physical information through the q-index. We find the spatial structure of non additive universal categories (q-index) and compare with some complex systems with the potential to have some degree of dynamical affinity. Our results evidence the great dynamical variability of regional climate expressed in the large range of values of $q$-index, and the high degree of non-extensitivity for both temperature and precipitation.

A series of Eu³⁺ doped CaSiO₃/SiO₂ nano-phosphor powder of controlled grain size, crystalline structure, and chemical composition were synthesized using the microemulsion technique. XRD profiles of samples sintered over 600 of suggested phase shift from amorphous powder grain to more ordered polycrystalline powder of triclinic type wollastonite, CaSiO₃, with preferred crystal phase orientation of (112) and tetragonal type cristobalites of SiO₂. The grain size, crystallinity, and chemical composition of the host matrix, activator and sensitizer strongly affected both the absorption and emission bands of these samples. The amplitude of both the orange and red emission bands significantly increased with sintering temperature. The emission band is red-shifted with decreasing grain sizes. These bands displayed good sensitivity to ionic concentration of the Si⁴⁺, Ca²⁺, and Eu³⁺. With increasing Ca²⁺ ion concentration both the intensity of the red photoluminescence (PL) band increased and a concentration quenching observed. Increase in Si⁴⁺ ion concentration led to quenching in PL intensity of both the orange and red bands whereas the amplitude of the blue-band slightly increased. With increasing Eu³⁺ ion concentration the red-band initially increased whereas it started decreasing at higher sample concentration. In the presence of Ca²⁺ ion as a sensitizer, the sample showed a remarkable PL property—including—about 100% photon conversion efficiency and a two-fold increase in excitation and emission photons.

By combining general relativity and CPT symmetry, the theory of CPT gravity predicts gravitational repulsion between matter and CPT-transformed matter, i.e. antimatter inhabiting an inverted space-time. Such repulsive gravity turned out to be an excellent candidate for explaining the accelerated expansion of the Universe, without the need for dark energy. The recent results of the ALPHA-g experiment, which show gravitational attraction between antihydrogen atoms and the Earth, seem to undermine this success in the cosmological field. Analyzing the above theory, we find two solutions that can be consistent with the experimental results, while preserving the large-scale gravitational repulsion. The first highlights how repulsive gravity can be the result of the interaction with an inverted space-time, but occupied by matter and not antimatter, and therefore the antimatter present in our space-time has no reason to exhibit gravitational repulsion. The second retains the original CPT transformation, resulting in repulsive gravity between matter and antimatter, but with the caveat that antimatter immersed in our space-time cannot exhibit the PT transformation which is the cause of the repulsion. Finally, it is shown that, in a Newtonian approximation of the geodesic equation, time reversal is not a necessary operation for repulsive gravity, therefore opening the possibility of an expanding cosmos with a single time direction.

The spin magnetic moments and spin g factors (g_s = -2) of electron, muon and tau are explained based on the electric charges (EC) and lepton charges (LC) in terms of the three-dimensional quantized space model. The spin g factors of electron, muon and tau are g_s = -2 which is the sum of the EC g factor (g_EC = -1) and the LC g factor (g_LC = -1). The spin g factor (g_s = -2) of the electron is predicted by the Dirac’s equation. The orbit g factors of electron, muon and tau are g_L = g_EC = -1 from the EC g factor (g_EC = -1) without the contribution of the LC g factor (g_LC = -1). The spin g factors of the elementary fermions are calculated from the equation of g_s = g_EC + g_LC + g_CC where g_EC = EC/|EC|, g_LC = LC/|LC| and g_CC = CC/|CC|. For example, the spin g factors of the neutrinos and dark matters are g_s = -1. The spin g factors of the u and d quarks are g_s = 0 and g_s = -2, respectively. The g factor problem of neutrinos with the non-zero LC charges are solved by the LC Coulomb force of F_c(LC) ≈0. It is, for the first time, proposed that the binary motion (fluctuations) of the m_EC and m_LC masses for the electron, muon and tau leptons make the anomalous g factor. This binary motion could be originated from the virtual particle processes including the photons. Also, the weak force (beta) decay is closely related to the binary motion of the m_EC and m_LC for the electron, muon and tau leptons.

The G-protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER; G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 30, also known as GPR30) is a novel estrogen receptor and has emerged as a promising target for ovarian cancer. GPER, a seven-transmembrane receptor, suppresses cellular viability and migration in studied ovarian cancer cells. However, its impact on the fallopian tube, which is the potential origin of high-grade serous (HGSC) ovarian cancer, has not been addressed. This study was conducted to evaluate the relationship of GPER, ovarian cancer subtypes, i.e., high-grade serous cell lines (OV90 and OVCAR420), as well as potential HGSC ovarian cancer origin (i.e., the fallopian tube cell line FT190). The selective ligand assessed here is the agonist G-1, which was utilized in an in vitro study to characterize its effects on cellular viability and migration. As a result, this study has addressed the effect of a specific GPER antagonist in combination with an agonist on cell viability, providing a better understanding of the effects of these compounds on our diverse group of studied cell lines. Strikingly, attenuated cell proliferation and migration behaviors were observed in the presence of G-1. Thus, our in vitro study reveals the impact of the origin of HGSC ovarian cancers and highlights the GPER agonist G-1 as a potential therapy for ovarian cancer.

Mobile robots need an environmental perception ability in order to interact with the surrounding environment. In this paper we present the G-SLAM method, where the map is consisted of a cloud of scattered points in the continuous space and each point is accompanied by an obstacle existence probability. On the other hand the robot's pose (and trajectory) is estimated by an particle filters while the cloud of points is estimated by an adaptive recursive algorithm which is presented. Main feature of the presented method is the adaptive repositioning of the scattered points and their convergence around obstacles. In addition to our previous publications, In this paper a mathematical derivation of the method is presented and real case scenarios are discussed, presented and compared with other methods.

Determination of the presence in the blood of antibodies specific to the causative agent of a particular disease (serodiagnosis) is an effective approach in medical analytical chemistry. Serodiagnostics performed in the lateral flow immunoassay format (immunochromatography) meet the modern requirements for point-of-care testing and are supported by existing technologies of large-scale diagnostic tests production—thus raising increased attention in a tense epidemiological situation. For traditional lateral flow serodiagnostics formats, a large number of nonspecific immunoglobulins in the sample significantly reduces the degree of detectable binding. To overcome these limitations, an assay based on the formation of immobilized antigen— specific antibody—labeled antigen complexes detection was proposed. However, the requirements for its implementation, providing maximum sensitivity, have not been established. This article describes the mathematical model for the above assay. The influence of the ratio of reagent concentrations on the analysis results is considered. It is noted that the formation of specific antibody complexes with several labeled antigens is the main limiting factor in reducing the detection limit, and methods are proposed to minimize this factor. Recommendations for the choice of the assay conditions, following from the analysis of the model, are confirmed experimentally.

In the mean- field approximation, the well-known effect of the critical quantum collapse in a 3D gas of particles pulled to the center by potential U(r) = -U_0/(2r^2) is suppressed by repulsive interparticle interactions, which create the otherwise non-existing s-wave ground state. Here, we address excited bound states carrying the angular momentum, with the orbital and magnetic quantum numbers, l and m. They exist above a threshold value of the potential's strength, U_0 > l(l+1). The sectoral, tesseral, and zonal modes, which correspond to m = l, 0 < m < l, and m = 0, respectively, are found in an approximate analytical form for relatively small values of U_0 - l(l + 1). Explicit results are produced for the p- and d-wave states, with l = 1 and 2, respectively. In the general form, the bound states are obtained numerically, confirming the accuracy of the analytical approximation.

We generalize the dynamical analog of the Berry geometric phase setup to the quaternionic model of Avron et al. In our dynamical quaternionic system, the fast half-integer spin subsystem interacts with a slow two-degrees-of-freedom subsystem. The model is invariant under the 1:1:2 weighted SO(2) symmetry and spin inversion. There is one formal control parameter in addition to four dynamical variables of the slow subsystem. We demonstrate that the most elementary qualitative phenomenon associated with the rearrangement of the energy super-bands of our model consists of the rearrangement of one energy level between two energy superbands which takes place when the formal control parameter takes the special isolated value associated with the conical degeneracy of the semi-quantum eigenvalues. This qualitative phenomenon is of the topological origin, and is characterized by the second Chern class of the associated semi-quantum system. The correspondence between the number of redistributed energy levels and the second Chern number is confirmed through a series of examples.

Raman spectra of [TeX6](Y2) (X, Y - Cl, Br, I) were recorded in the temperature range 5-300 K. The vibration frequency of molecular halogens as function on temperature and the type of halogen X- in the [TeX6]2- complex was obtained. The vibration frequency of the molecular halogen Y2 depends on the type of halogen X- complex [TeX6]2- The temperature dependence of the Y2 frequency is anomalous compared to what was expected for a conventional anharmonic oscillator. It is shown that the interpretation of the experimental results based on the concept of traditional chemical bonding is quite satisfactory in all cases. The study was motivated by the need to consider the mechanism of interaction in the X-Y2 contacts.

(1) Background: In this work, a series of benzimidazole derivatives containing colchicine-like and cathechol-like moieties with methyl group substitution in the benzimidazole ring were evaluated for their in vitro antiproliferative, pro-apoptotic and antioxidative activity against highly invasive breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 and related impairment of tubulin dynamics; (2) Methods: MTT assay was used to evaluate the antiproliferative activity. In vitro tubulin polymerization assay as well as docking analysis was applied to prove the alterations in tubulin polymerization. Immunofluorescent and DAPI staining reveal the pro-apoptotic potential of benzimidazole derivatives and the effect on tubulin’s dynamics in living cells. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by scavenging of H2O2 and hypochlorite ion and ortho-phenanthroline tests; (3) Results: The compounds containing colchicine-like moiety displayed significant growth inhibitory effect against cancer cell line as was highlighted the role of methyl functional group on the tubulin aggregation and blockage of mitosis. All compounds showed an ability to scavenge H2O2, while the compounds with cathecol-like moiety were more effective against hypochlorite ion and chelation of iron; (4) Conclusions: The benzimidazole derivative containing colchicine-like moiety and methyl group substitution in benzimidazole ring is a potential antiproliferative and microtubule destabilizing agent.

The problem of effective immobilization of liquid radioactive waste (LRW) is key to the successful development of nuclear energy. The possibility of using magnesium potassium phosphate (MKP) compound for LRW immobilization on the example of nitric acid solutions containing actinides and rare earth elements (REE), including high level waste (HLW) surrogate solution is considered in the research work. Under the study of phase composition and structure of the MKP compounds obtained by the XRD and SEM methods, it was established that the compounds are composed of crystalline phases - analogues of natural phosphate minerals (struvite, metaankoleite). The hydrolytic stability of the compounds was determined according to the semi-dynamic test GOST R 52126-2003. Low leaching rates of radionuclides from the compound are established, including a differential leaching rate of ²³⁹Pu and ²⁴¹Am - 3.5 × 10^-7 and 5.3 × 10^-7 g/(cm²∙day). As a result of the research work it was concluded that the MKP compound is promising for LRW immobilization and can become an alternative material combining the advantages of easy implementation of the technology like cementation and the high physical and chemical stability corresponding to a glass-like compound.

In this study, 10%PTFE/PEEK blend were modified by potassium titanate whisker (PTW) and chopped glass fiber (GF), respectively. The blends were prepared by three-screw extruder. Through the investigation of thermal stability, tribological properties, mechanical properties and rheological behavior, the effects of reinforcing agents were determined. The results illustrated that the mechanical properties of 10%PTFE/PEEK blend can be dramatically improved by adding reinforcing agent of PTW or GF, and the reinforcing effect of GF was especially obvious. As for tribological properties, 1% addition was the best proportion. The friction coefficient and wear rate of the blend with 1% PTW were 0.283 and 4.97 × 10^-6 mm³/N · m, which decreased by 7.2% and 21% compared with those of the blend without reinforcing agent.

Off-grid electrification planning increasingly recognizes the importance of productive use of electricity (PUE) to promote community value creation and (financial) project sustainability. To ensure a sustainable and efficient integration in the community and energy system, PUE assets must carefully be evaluated to match both the community needs and the residential electricity demand patterns. We propose a novel methodology interlinking qualitative interviews, statistical analysis, and energy system modelling to optimize decision-making for PUE integration in off-grid energy systems in rural Madagascar by aligning relevant PUE effectively with anticipated residential electricity demand patterns based on socio-economic determinants of the community. We find that a possible contribution of the PUE to reducing the electricity costs depends signifi-cantly on three factors: 1. the residential electricity consumption patterns that are influenced by the socio-economic composition of the community, 2. the degree of flexibility of i) PUE assets and ii) operational preferences of the PUE user, and 3. the capacity of community members to finance and operate PUE assets. Our study demonstrates that significant cost reductions for PUE-integrated off-grid energy systems can be achieved by applying our proposed methodology. When matching PUE and residential consumption patterns, the integration of PUE assets in residential community energy system can reduce the financial risk of operators, provided the PUE enterprise operates reliably and sustainably. We highlight that the consideration of local value chains and co-creation approaches are essential to ensure the energy system is addressing the community’s needs, creates value for the community, enhances the project´s financial sustainability, and is achieving the overall objectives of decentralized energy system planning.

In this paper, we investigate some kind of Dynkin game under $g$-expectation induced by backward stochastic differential equation (shortly for BSDE). We define the lower and upper value functions $\underline{V}_t=ess\sup\limits_{\tau\in{\mathcal{T}_t}} ess\inf\limits_{\sigma\in{\mathcal{T}_t}}\mathcal{E}^g_t[R(\tau,\sigma)]$ and $\overline{V}_t=ess\inf\limits_{\sigma\in{\mathcal{T}_t}}ess\sup\limits_{\tau\in{\mathcal{T}_t}}\mathcal{E}^g_t[R(\tau,\sigma)]$, respectively. Under some regular assumptions, a pair of saddle point is obtained and the value function of Dynkin game $V(t)=\underline{V}_t=\overline{V}_t$ follows. Furthermore, the constrained case of Dynkin game is also considered.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) comprise the largest family of membrane receptors that control many cellular processes and consequently often serve as drug targets. These receptors undergo a strict regulation by mechanisms such as internalization and desensitization, which are strongly influenced by posttranslational modifications. Ubiquitination is a posttranslational modification with a broad range of functions that is currently gaining increased appreciation as a regulator of GPCR activity. The role of ubiquitination in directing GPCRs for lysosomal degradation has already been well-established. Furthermore, this modification can also play a role in targeting membrane and endoplasmic reticulum-associated receptors to the proteasome. Most recently, ubiquitination was also shown to be involved in GPCR signaling. In this review, we present current knowledge on the molecular basis of GPCR regulation by ubiquitination, and highlight the importance of E3 ubiquitin ligases, deubiquitinating enzymes and β-arrestins. Finally, we discuss classical and newly-discovered functions of ubiquitination in controlling GPCR activity.

Analyses of the three predominant types of sedimentation – clastic, carbonate and black shale – revealed their discontinuity/continuity in different facies environments of the Middle and Late Devonian of the central part of the Volga-Urals petroleum province, namely (1) in depressions, both condensed and non-condensed, (2) on the slopes of depressions and (3) in shallow water environments represented by tectonic arches or localised biohermal uplifts. The regional zonation of conodonts, correlated with the global chronostratigraphic scheme, substantiates the stratigraphic completeness of the general Devonian sequence in this area. In particular, the sedimentation of organic-rich black shales, traditionally considered as source rocks, lasted more than 29 million years, starting from the Late Eifel and ending at the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary. There was only one hiatus in the deposition of both black shales and carbonate sediments, lasting about 2.5 million years at the end of the Frasnian. That interval is dominated by clastic sediments, which are considered to be the most productive reservoirs of the Volga-Ural province. In the time interval from the beginning of the Eifel to the end of the Frasnian (about 17 Ma), (a) clastic sediments show the highest accumulation rates; (b) the most complete sequences occur in depressions; and (c) arches and uplifts show the most significant gaps in the geological record. During Famennian, (a) clastic sedimentation has completely ceased; (b) differences between the slopes of troughs and shallow-water environments have diminished, resulting in stable accumulation of carbonate sediments in both settings; (c) the decrease in sequence thickness (up to 50 m) in depressions suggests reduced accumulation rates of deep-water organic-rich black shales. The results help to understand the complex spatial relationship between different coexisting sedimentation types and focus attention to the incompleteness of the geological record in different environments.

The reliable online analysis of volatile compounds in exhaled breath remains a challenge as a plethora of molecules occur in different concentration ranges (i.e. ppt to %), and need to be detected against an extremely complex background matrix. While this complexity is commonly addressed by hyphenating a specific analytical technique with appropriate preconcentration and/or preseparation strategies prior to detection, we herein propose the combination of three analytical tools based on truly orthogonal measurement principles as an alternative solution: field-asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy-based sensors utilizing substrate-integrated hollow waveguides (iHWG), and luminescence sensing (LS). These three tools have been integrated into a single compact analytical platform suitable for online exhaled breath analysis. The analytical performance of this prototype system was tested via artificial breath samples containing nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and acetone as a model volatile organic compound (VOC) commonly present and detected in breath. Functionality of the combined system was demonstrated by detecting these analytes in their respectively breath-relevant concentration range and mutually independent of each other generating orthogonal yet correlated analytical signals. Finally, adaptation of the system towards the analysis of real breath samples during future studies is discussed.

Background: The validation of laser usage during laparoscopic procedures, notably by Camran Nezhat in the late 1980s, has been significant. Lasers offer precision and depth control in tissue vaporization without bleeding. Surgical intervention remains central in managing endometrio-sis-associated pain and infertility, especially for patients unresponsive to hormonal therapy. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 200 patients with SPE who underwent laparo-scopic laser vaporization. Surgery was performed using a CO2 laser, and histological confirma-tion of endometriosis was obtained for all cases. Pain scores and SF-36 questionnaire domains were assessed preoperatively and postoperatively. Fertility outcomes were evaluated among pa-tients desiring pregnancy. Results: Significant improvements in pain score and SF-36 questionnaire domains were ob-served postoperatively (p-value

In Brazil, sucrose-rich broths (cane juice and/or molasses) are used to produce billions of liters of both fuel ethanol and cachaça per year using selected Saccharomyces cerevisiae industrial strains. Aiming to improve this disaccharide fermentation, we have first determined the genetic characteristics, by array comparative genomic hybridization, of a group of 8 fuel ethanol and 5 cachaça industrial yeasts that tend to dominate the fermentors during the production season. The widespread presence of SUC genes encoding invertase at multiple telomeres has been shown to be a common feature of both baker’s and distillers’ yeast strains and is postulated to be an adaptation to sucrose-rich broths. Our results show that only two strains (one fuel ethanol and one cachaça yeast) have amplification of the SUC genes, with high invertase activity. The other industrial yeast strains had a single SUC locus (SUC2) in their genome, with different patterns of invertase activity. These results indicate that invertase activity probably does not limit sucrose fermentation during fuel ethanol and cachaça production by these industrial strains. Using this knowledge, we changed the mode of sucrose metabolism of an industrial strain by avoiding extracellular invertase activity, overexpressing the intracellular invertase, and increasing its transport through the AGT1 permease. This approach allowed higher ethanol production from sucrose by the modified industrial yeast when compared to its parental strain.

Generally, stochastic functional differential equations (SFDEs) pose a challenge as they often lack explicit exact solutions. Consequently, it becomes necessary to seek certain favorable conditions under which numerical solutions can converge towards the exact solutions. This article aims to delve into the convergence analysis of solutions for stochastic functional differential equations by employing the framework of G-Brownian motion. To establish the goal, we find a set of useful monotone type conditions and work within the space Cr((−∞,0];Rn). The investigation conducted in this article confirms the mean square boundedness of solutions. Furthermore, this study enables us to compute both LG2 and exponential estimates.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are ubiquitous sensors and regulators of cellular functions. Each GPCR exists in complex aggregates with multiple resting and active conformations. Designed to detect weak stimuli, GPCRs can also activate spontaneously, resulting in basal ligand-free signaling. Agonists trigger a cascade of events leading to an activate agonist-receptor-G protein complex with high agonist affinity. However, the ensuing signaling process can further remodel the receptor complex to reduce agonist affinity, causing rapid ligand dissociation. The acutely activated ligand-free receptor can continue signaling, as proposed for rhodopsin and  opioid receptors, resulting in robust receptor activation at low agonist occupancy with enhanced agonist potency. Continued receptor stimulation can further modify the receptor complex, regulating sustained ligand-free signaling - proposed to play a role in opioid dependence. Basal, acutely agonist-triggered, and sustained elevated ligand-free signaling could each have distinct functions, reflecting multi-state conformations of GPCRs. This review addresses basal and stimulus-activated ligand-free signaling, its regulation, genetic factors, and pharmacological implications, focusing on opioid and serotonin receptors, and the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR). Ligand-free signaling of intracellular 5-HT2A receptors could mediate therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs. Research avenues are suggested to close gaps in our knowledge of ligand-free GPCR signaling.

Along with the familiar Rossby–Haurwitz waves, two-dimensional flows on the surface of a rotating sphere in the regime of zonostrophic turbulence harbour another class of waves known as zonons. Zonons are wave packets produced by energetic large-scale Rossby–Haurwitz wave modes `enslaving’ other wave modes. They propagate westward with the phase speed of the enslaving modes. Zonons can be visualized as enslaving modes’ `ringing’ in the enslaved ones with the frequencies of the former, the property that renders zonons non-dispersive. Zonons reside in high-shear regions confined between the opposing zonal jets yet they are mainly attached to westward jets and sustained by the ensuing barotropic instability. They exchange energy with the mean flow while preserving their identity in a fully turbulent environment, a feature characteristic of solitary waves. The goal of this study is to deepen our understanding of zonons’ physics using direct numerical simulations, a weakly non-linear theory, and asymptotic analysis, and ascertain that zonons are indeed isomorphic to solitary waves in the Korteweg - de Vries framework. Having this isomorphism established, the analysis is extended to eddies detected in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn based upon the observed mean zonal velocity profiles and earlier findings that circulations on both planets obey the regime of zonostrophic macroturbulence. Not only the analysis confirms that many eddies and eddy trains on both giant planets indeed possess properties of zonons, but the theory also correctly predicts latitudinal bands that confine zonal trajectories of the eddies.

Discovery of stable and broad frequency combs in monochromatically pumped high-Q optical Kerr microresonators caused by generation of temporal solitons can be regarded as one of the major breakthroughs in nonlinear optics during the last two decades. Transfer of the soliton-comb concept to χ(2) microresonators promises lowering of the pump power, new operation regimes, and entering new spectral ranges; scientifically, it is of a big challenge. Here we represent an overview of stable and accessible soliton-comb regimes in monochromatically pumped χ(2) microresonators discovered during the last several years. The main stress is made on lithium niobate based resonators. The overview pretends to be rather simple, complete, and comprehensive: It incorporates the main factors affecting the soliton-comb generation, such as the choice of the pumping scheme (pumping to the first or second harmonic), the choice of phase matching scheme (natural or artificial), the effects of temporal walk-off and dispersion coefficients, and also the influence of frequency detunings and Q-factors. Most of discovered nonlinear regimes are self-starting – they can be accessed from noise upon a not very abrupt increase of the pump power. The soliton-comb generation scenarios are not universal – they can be realized only under proper combinations of the above mentioned factors. We indicate what kind of restrictions on the experimental conditions have to be imposed to get the soliton-comb generation.

Stabilization of planar premixed flame front on a lattice (porous) burner is considered. It is rigorously mathematically proved that there exist two different stabilization regimes: one with flame front located nearby the surface of the burner, and another with flame front located inside the lattice. These two regimes result in qualitatively different gas temperature profiles along the flow, that is monotonic and non-monotonic, respectively. Boundary between the two regimes is described in terms of dependence of the lattice solid material temperature on flow Peclet number. Likewise temperature profiles, such dependencies may be both monotonic and non-monotonic. Transition between the two types of dependencies is controlled by Arrhenius number. Conclusions of the study are supported by numerical analysis. They also compare favourably with available experimental data. Novelty of the present approach is fundamentally rigorous analytical analysis of the problem.

Single particle tracking (SPT) is a powerful class of methods for studying the dynamics of biomolecules inside living cells. The techniques reveal the trajectories of individual particles, with a resolution well below the diffraction limit of light, and from them the parameters defining the motion model, such as diffusion coefficients and confinement lengths. Most existing algorithms assume these parameters are constant throughout an experiment. However, it has been demonstrated that they often vary with time as the tracked particles move through different regions in the cell or as conditions inside the cell change in response to stimuli. In this work, we propose an estimation algorithm to determine time-varying parameters of systems that discretely switch between different linear models of motion with Gaussian noise statistics, covering dynamics such as diffusion, directed motion, and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck dynamics. Our algorithm consists of three stages. In the first stage, we use a sliding window approach, combined with Expectation Maximization (EM) to determine maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters as a function of time. These results are only used to roughly estimate the number of model switches that occur in the data to guide the selection of algorithm parameters in the second stage. In the second stage, we use change detection (CD) techniques to identify where the models switch, taking advantage of the off-line nature of the analysis of SPT data to create non-causal algorithms with better precision than a purely causal approach. Finally, we apply EM to each set of data between the change points to determine final parameter estimates. We demonstrate our approach using experimental data generated in the lab under controlled conditions.

The paper deals with the navigation data exchange between two satellites moving in a swarm. It is focused on reduction of the inter-satellite demanded communication channel capacity taking into account dynamics of the satellites relative motion and possible erasing in the channel the navigation data. The feedback control law is designed ensuring regulation of the relative satellites motion. The adaptive binary coding/decoding procedure for the satellites navigation data transmission over the limited capacity communication channel is proposed and studied for the cases of ideal and erasure channels. Dependence of the regulation time on the data transmission rate is numerically evaluated. Results of the numerical study of the closed-loop system performance and accuracy of the data transmission algorithm on the communication channel bitrate and erasure probability are obtained based on the extensive simulations. These results provide dependence of the required load of the communication channel on the desired quality of the regulation process. It is shown that both data transmission error and regulation time depend inversely proportional on the communication rate, and that for the significantly high data transmission rate erasure of data in the channel with probability up to 0.3 does not make an effect on the regulation time.

Chromosomal rearrangements in N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis were studied with the determination of mobile elements and their role in rearrangements. The results of whole-genome sequencing and de novo genome assembly for 50 N. gonorrhoeae isolates collected in Russia were compared with 96 genomes of N. gonorrhoeae and 138 genomes of N. meningitidis from the databases. Rearrangement events with the determination of the coordinates of syntenic blocks were analyzed using the SibeliaZ software, the minimum number of events that allow one genome to pass into another was calculated using the DCJ-indel model using the UniMoG program. Population-level analysis revealed a stronger correlation between changes in the gene order and phylogenetic proximity for N. meningitidis in contrast to N. gonorrhoeae. Mobile elements were identified, including Correa elements, Spencer-Smith elements (in N. gonorrhoeae), Neisserial intergenic mosaic elements, IS elements of IS5, IS30, IS110, IS1595 groups, Nf1-Nf3 prophages, NgoФ1-NgoФ9 prophages, Mu-like prophages Pnm1, Pnm2, MuMenB (in N. meningitidis). More than 44% of the observed rearrangements most likely occurred with the participation of mobile elements, including prophages. No differences were found between the Russian and global N. gonorrhoeae population both in terms of rearrangement events and in the number of transposable elements in genomes.

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is an attractive candidate for sustainable pest management due to its abundance of bioactive compounds with potential pesticidal properties. Solvent choice has a significant impact on the extraction efficiency of bioactive compounds. Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) are gaining popularity in extraction because they are safe and environmentally friendly, making them viable alternatives to organic solvents (OSs). This research first compared the extraction efficiency of OSs on the extraction of phytochemicals from the infloresences of two hemp varieties, Citrus and Cherry Dwarf. Inflorescences were extracted using three OSs, ethanol, ethyl acetate, and hexane. The highest level of cannabidiol (CBD; 0.69%) was extracted from Cherry Dwarf using ethanol while the level of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol THC (0.19%) was essentially the same in both. Therefore, Cherry Dwarf was selected to compare the extraction efficiency of DESs to the OSs. The DESs were choline chloride/ethylene glycol, citric acid/ethylene glycol, menthol/lauric acid, choline chloride/urea and choline chloride/glycerol. In the targeted analysis, choline chloride/ethylene glycol extracted the highest amount of CBD (0.87%) followed by choline chloride/urea (0.78%). As some DESs outperformed ethanol, the popular solvent for extracting cannabinoids, DESs are viable candidates to replace organic solvents.

The wellbeing of the honey bee colonies and the health of humans are connected in numerous ways. Therefore, ensuring the well-being of bees is a crucial component of fostering sustainability and ecological harmony. The colony collapse disorder (CCD) phenomenon was first reported in 2006 when majority of bee colonies in Europe died out, due to increase of diseases infections, contamination of hive with agrochemical pesticides and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Only 6 years after CCD intimation, about 7 million premature deaths were reported, due to the air pollution to which humans are continuously exposed. The use of insect species, such as honey bee Apis mellifera L. and air matrix inside the bee hive can be used as a tool in biomonitoring, instead of traditional monitoring methods. This may have advantages in terms of cost-effective bioindicators of the environmental health status, showing the ability to record spatial and temporal pollutant variations. In this study, we present the in-field use of the portable membrane inlet mass spectrometry (MIMS) instrument for instant and effective determination of the level of environmental pollution by analytical identification of hive atmosphere volatile organic compound (VOCs) contaminants, contained in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (BTEX) compounds and pesticides. The samples will be taken from hives which are located in urbanized and rural regions, where further differences in contamination will be highlighted. The MIMS results will be benchmarked against a conventional laboratory sampling technique such as GC-MS.