Exploring therapeutic options is crucial in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Nirmatrelvir, a potent inhibitor targeting the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, shows promise as an antiviral treatment. Additionally, Ivermectin, a broad-spectrum antiparasitic drug, has demonstrated effectiveness against the virus in laboratory settings. However, its clinical implications are still debated. Using computational methods such as molecular docking and 100 ns molecular dynamics simulations, we investigated how Nirmatrelvir and Ivermectin interact with SARS-CoV-2 Mpro(A). Calculations using density functional theory have been instrumental in elucidating the behavior of isolated molecules, primarily by analyzing the frontier molecular orbitals. Our analysis revealed distinct binding patterns: Nirmatrelvir formed strong interactions with amino acids like MET49, MET165, HIS41, HIS163, HIS164, PHE140, CYS145, GLU166, and ASN142, showing stable binding with a root mean square deviation (RMSD) of around 2.0 Å. On the other hand, Ivermectin interacted with THR237, THR239, LEU271, LEU272, and LEU287, displaying an RMSD of 1.87 Å, indicating enduring interactions. Both ligands stabilized Mpro(A), with Ivermectin showing stability and persistent interactions despite forming fewer hydrogen bonds. These findings offer detailed insights into how Nirmatrelvir and Ivermectin bind to the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, providing valuable information for potential therapeutic strategies against COVID-19.

In this paper, we explore the use of superluminal ionization fronts to accelerate and amplify electromagnetic radiation. These fronts are defined as optical boundaries between two regions of a gas, the neutral region and the plasma region, characterized by two different values of the refractive index. For that reason, the front velocity is not necessarily related with the motion of material particles, such as neutral atoms, ions and electrons, which can stay at rest. The fronts can therefore become superluminal without violating causality. In recent years, different experimental configurations, such as the flying-focus, showed that it is possible to create superluminal fronts in the laboratory. These fronts can easily be described theoretically in a special reference frame, called the time-frame, which is used here. In this frame, superluminal fronts reduce to time-refraction, a process that is symmetrical to the well-known optical refraction. We show that propagation through such fronts can lead to considerable frequency shift and energy amplification of probe laser beams. This could eventually be used to develop new sources of turnable radiation.

Scattering of a probe laser pulse by an intense light spring in QED vacuum is considered. This new scattering configuration can be seen as the vacuum equivalent to the process originally associated with scattering of light by a rotating black hole, usually called Penrose superradiance. Here the rotating object is an intense laser beam containing two different components of orbital angular momentum. Due to these two components with slightly different frequencies, the energy profile of the intense laser beam rotates with a frequency that depends on the frequency difference. The nonlinear properties of quantum vacuum are described by first order Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian. It is shown that, in such a configuration, nonlinear photon-photon coupling leads to scattered radiation, with frequency shift and angular dispersion. These two distinct properties, of frequency and propagation direction, could eventually be favourable for possible experimental observations. In principle, this new scattering configuration can also be reproduced in a nonlinear optical medium.

Current acceleration in digital innovations, unexpected challenges in our social interactions, acceleration to virtualization, limitation in our physical spaces, and unpredictable changes in our Old lifestyles - as originated from the COVID-19 global pandemic 2020 - continue to provide us with a framework, rapidly updating under our eyes, of the modifications our world is undergoing by pursuing into a New “digital age”. Or, as many scholars say nowadays, into the New Normal! These are shared and deep changes that concretely stress their effects on how ideally a city should function. Forcing us to reflect on the capability to achieve shared choices and visions for the future by taking vantage from both the New digital platforms and New suddenly opened paths. In the pages of this article authors, through different but shared viewpoints, propose an answer to the topic of "Governance 3.0", addressing the attempt of a radical change of those paradigms, now consolidated, within which the spatial dimensions, in which we live and act, are shaped. Also analyzing the relationship between Technocracy and Democracy as defined by Khanna, it is argued that it is possible to realize new forecasts and acquire a more democratic and participatory (inclusive) dimension of Governance, also thanks to new digital technologies, by exploring the general unconscious "feeling" of people, through anonymous data collection and without any direct or indirect interference with it. The analysis of the "Sentiment", already developed in other fields but easily exportable within the urban discipline, can be considered as the beginning of hybrid practices where digital and analogic find a compromise to make the "Urbs" more attractive and inclusive, while the "Civitas", connected to the Internet, can contribute to the optimization of services, of the "Polis" and a new social/spatial reorganization.

Current acceleration in digital innovations, the unexpected challenges in our social interactions, open access to virtualization, huge limitation in our physical spaces, and unpredictable changes in our old lifestyles - as originated from the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020 - continue to provide us with a framework, rapidly updating under our eyes, of the modifications our world is undergoing by pursuing into the “new digital age”. Or, as many scholars say nowadays, into the new normal! These are shared and deep changes that, regardless of their permanence or temporariness in the time, concretely stress, ever more greatly, their “own” effects on how ideally a city should function. Forcing us to reflect on the real ability to achieve choices and visions for the future by taking vantage from the new digital platforms. In the pages of this article authors, through different eyes but sharing an early response to the matter of new Governance, explore the theme of a radical change of those already consolidated paradigms and, therefore, of the innovations that are transforming the way we understand our society and its technologic advancements, economics, and culture, as defined through dimensions of time and space. This article identifies a methodologic vision for acquiring a more democratic and participatory (inclusive) dimension in the newest configuration of contemporary cities, the new smart city, and in the possible innovations in reading the common sentiments and wishes through the new digitalized world. The analysis investigates how ICT is altering the meanings/ideas of “urban planning”, driving us toward a more effective “governance” through a citizen-centred digital approach. Indeed, city governance's success must be measured based on the “listening capacity” of the inhabitants and the facilities that we are capable to provide to citizens. “Sentiment Analysis” tool is tested as a useful tool to achieve these aims.

This article develops duality principles and related convex dual formulations suitable for the local optimization of non-convex primal formulations for a large class of models in physics and engineering. The results are based on standard tools of functional analysis, calculus of variations and duality theory. In particular, we develop applications to a Ginzburg-Landau type equation.

The microorganisms able of accumulating lipids in high percentages, known as oleaginous microorganisms, have been widely studied as an alternative for producing oleochemicals and biofuels. Microbial lipid, so called Single Cell Oil (SCO), production depends on several growth parameters, including the nature of the carbon substrate, which must be efficiently taken up and converted into storage lipid. Οn the other hand, substrates considered for large scale applications must be abundant and of low acquisition cost. Among others, lignocellulosic biomass is a promising renewable substrate containing high percentages of assimilable sugars (hexoses and pentoses). However, it is also highly recalcitrant and therefore it requires specific pretreatments in order to release its assimilable components. The main drawback of lignocellulose pretreatment is the generation of several by-products that can inhibit the microbial metabolism. In this review, we discuss the main aspects related to the cultivation of oleaginous microorganisms using lignocellulosic biomass as substrate, hoping to contribute to the development of a sustainable process for SCO production in the near future.

The Stochastic Optimisation Software (SOS) is a Java platform facilitating the algorithmic design process and the evaluation of metaheuristic optimisation algorithms. It reduces the burden of coding miscellaneous methods for dealing with several bothersome and time-demanding tasks such as parameter tuning, implementation of comparison algorithms and testbed problems, collecting and processing data to display results, measuring algorithmic overhead, etc. SOS provides numerous off-the-shelf methods including 1) customised implementations of statistical tests, such as the Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test and the Holm-Bonferroni procedure, for comparing performances of optimisation algorithms and automatically generate result tables in PDF and LaTeX formats; 2) the implementation of an original advanced statistical routine for accurately comparing couples of stochastic optimisation algorithms; 3) the implementation of a novel testbed suite for continuous optimisation, derived from the IEEE CEC 2014 benchmark, allowing for controlled activation of the rotation operator. each testbed function. Moreover, this article comments on the current state of the literature in stochastic optimisation and highlights similarities shared by modern metaheuristics inspired by nature. It is argued that the vast majority of these algorithms are simply a reformulation of the same methods and that metaheuristics for optimisation should be simply treated as stochastic processes with less emphasis on the inspiring metaphor behind them.

ShK domain-containing proteins are peptides found in different parasitic and venomous organisms. From a previous transcriptomic dataset from Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, a plant-endoparasitic nematode that infects forest tree species, we identified 96 transcripts potentially as ShK domain-containing proteins with unknown function in the nematode genome. This study aimed to characterize and explore the functional role of genes encoding ShK domain-containing proteins in B. xylophilus biology. We selected and functionally analyzed nine candidate genes specific from B. xylophilus. In situ hybridization revealed expression of one B. xylophilus ShK in the pharyngeal gland cells, suggesting their delivery into host cells. Most of the transcripts are highly expressed during infection and showed a significant upregulation in response to peroxide products compared to the nematode catalase enzymes. We reported for the first time, the potential involvement of ShK domain genes in oxidative stress, suggesting that these proteins may have an important role protecting or modulating the reactive oxygen species (ROS) activity of the host plant during parasitism.

This article develops a duality principle and a related convex dual formulation suitable for a large class of models in physics and engineering. The results are based on standard tools of functional analysis, calculus of variations and duality theory. In particular, we develop applications to a model in non-linear elasticity.

This article develops duality principles and numerical results for a large class of non-convex variational models. The main results are based on fundamental tools of convex analysis, duality theory and calculus of variations. More specifically the approach is established for a class of non-convex functionals similar as those found in some models in phase transition. Finally, in the last section we present a concerning numerical example and the respective software.

This paper aims to propose improvements for plastic waste management in Salvador – the Brazilian third most populated metropolis – via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). All indicators, constructs, and hypotheses regarding collection, sorting, recycling, and disposal in the proposed PLS model were derived from the literature review, and the dependence of the performance construct on efficiency, effectiveness, municipality's socioeconomic aspects and municipality infrastructure is evaluated. Academic and practitioner publics were surveyed, and after analysis in both SmartPLS and RStudio software, suggestions for improvement regarding plastics recycling rate, market maturity, and infrastructural aspects for optimized reverse logistics were made. Since almost double the minimum number of respondents answered the survey questionnaire and the PLS-SEM statistics showed that the modeling presents consistency, the discussion is relevant. The model can and will evolve, but examples of suggested improvement are the installation of Deposit-Return Systems (DRS) in parks, streets, and avenues for increasing selective collection and the direct purchasing of waste from residents by municipal administration, compensating them with vouchers for food. The model can be a basis for other cities worldwide sharing analogous characteristics. By considering it, organizations can contribute to both reduced Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and reduced terrestrial pollution.

This study aims to evaluate the land surface temperature (LST) and the thermal characteristics of the Urban Canopy Layer (UCL) of the urban canyon in Avenida Rio Branco in the Central Business District (CBD) of Rio de Janeiro during summer. In order to conduct this evaluation, two methods were employed: 1) TIRS Landsat-8 sensor for data selection and processing (latest generation, 2011-2020); ; 2) field survey using nine sampling points — seven along two mobile transects, one fixed point, and one vertical measurement point, which required the use of a RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft). Three categories of analysis were established for the field survey based on the prevailing synoptic situations: stability, instability, and post-instability. The CBD is characterized by extensive areas with surface heat islands, in which temperatures were higher than 38.9°C; the areas with milder LSTs were Campo do Santana, Avenida Rio Branco, and one of the Mixed-Use Zones (Praça Mauá). With respect to Rio Branco Avenue, the LST niches of lowest elevation were derived through building shadowing; however, the orbital data diverged from the observation data of the ten field-study days. In situ data revealed that the characteristics urban morphology of Avenida Rio Branco is susceptible to the formation of heat islands, presenting heat islands of very strong magnitude (over 6.1°C) in atmospheric stability, strong magnitude (4.1-6.0°C) in atmospheric instability, and moderate magnitude (2.1°C-4.0°C) in post-atmospheric instability. Despite the synoptic situation, thermal cores were concentrated at 1 pm. The intersection between Avenida Rio Branco, Rua do Ouvidor, and Praça Mauá stored most of the solar energy received during the day due to the greater sky obstruction caused by the verticalization. Finally, vertical analysis demonstrated the formation of a thermal inversion on the night of the highest mean air temperature (29.5°C), probably, due to the roughness and number of buildings in the urban canyon.

We studied the link between carbon and water fluxes to understand the response of net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) to water availability conditions of three different potato water regimes cropping systems [full irrigation (FI), deficit irrigation (DI) and rainfed (RF)]. Through the eddy covariance technique, we measured CO₂ and water vapor exchanges and determined surface resistances, omega factor, and inherent water use efficiency (IWUE). Additionally, continuous plant growth determinations of leaf area index (LAI) and specific leaf area (SLA) were made over the three cropping systems. The RF potato was a net carbon source (NEE = 187.21 ± 3.84 g C m⁻²), while both, FI (NEE= −311.96 ± 12.82 g C m⁻²) and DI (−17.3 ± 4.6 g C m⁻²) were a net carbon sink. Greater sink activity is due to high fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP) [where the GPP > ecosystem respiration (R_eco)] and evapotranspiration (ET), and the high efficiency in the exchange of carbon and water. Without water limitations, the larger canopy, with greater photosynthetic activity (GPP/R_eco > 2) as well as with low internal resistance offers a greater area for water and carbon exchange, and the highly coupled and synchronized ET – GPP fluxes are primarily controlled by the radiative environment. The lower sink capacity of the DI potato crop and the carbon source activity from the RF, are consequences of a smaller area for water and carbon exchange due to the smaller canopy, and a low IWUE from decoupled and desynchronized carbon and water exchange caused by unbalanced restrictions on ET and GPP fluxes. Specifically, at DI potato, ET remained at a high rate, while GPP was reduced by means of non-stomatal limitations. In the rainfed potato, vapor pressure deficit (VPD) played a significant role increasing midday canopy resistance (Rc) up to 13 times compared to irrigated sites, when VPD was around 0.8 kPa. In consequence, ET and GPP fluxes decreased together, but GPP decreased more than ET because of stomatal and non-stomatal limitations.

Abstract: Objective: analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of the Lean Healthcare sys-tem at the emergency room of the Clinical Hospital of the Federal University of Uberlândia (HC-UFU), based on a comparison of hospital indicators obtained over the three phases corre-sponding to the period of one year before the implementation (T1), the year during the imple-mentation (T2) and one year after implementation (T3). Material and Methods: this is applied research, classified as a case study, exploratory, descriptive that is developed in stages. Based herein on the search for hospital indicators, as occurred in the implementation process of Lean in Emergencies at the HC-UFU and a description of the implemented Lean system. Results and Discussions: during the period where it was possible to collect data relevant to the NEDOCS and LOS indicators, the motivation of the teams grew, but with a notable tension between municipal management and hospital management. It was found that, despite the fluctuations, the patient length of stay in the Emergency Room remained high. Noteworthy here is that with the excep-tion of the variable of female deaths before 24 hours of hospitalization, all other variables showed percentage increases before and after the intervention. Conclusion: the methodology followed for the implementation of Lean in Emergencies in the emergency sector of the hospital did not produce an improvement in hospital indicators.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic eczematous inflammatory disease that may arise from environmental, genetic and immunological factors. Despite the efficacy of current treatment options like corticosteroids, such approaches are mainly focused on symptoms relief, and may present certain undesirable side effects. In recent years, investigation regarding isolated natural compounds, oils, mixtures and/or extracts, have gained scientific attention because of their high efficiency and moderate to low toxicity. Despite their promising therapeutic effects, the applicability of such natural health care solutions is somehow limited by their instability, poor solubility, and low bioavailability. Therefore, novel nanoformulation-based systems have been designed to overpass these limitations, thus enhancing the therapeutic potential, by promoting the capacity of these natural drugs to properly exert their action in AD-like skin lesions. For the best of our knowledge, this is the first literature review that focused on summarizing the last nanoformulation-based solutions loaded with natural ingredients, and specifically for the management of AD. We suggest that future studies should focus on robust clinical trials that may confirm the security and effectiveness of such natural-based nanosystems, thus paving the way for more reliable AD treatments.

In the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the use of surgical masks has become the new normal. The use of these devices in exercise and medical situations has been advocated with the purpose of reducing contagions, but some concerns exist regarding its safety. We performed maximal treadmill stress tests in 12 healthy young subjects, with and without surgical mask use, and measured exercise capacity, oxygen saturation (rest, peak exercise and post-exercise) and electrocardiographic changes. Exercise capacity and Oxygen saturation levels decreased in peak exercise vs rest in a statistically significant manner when mask was used. ECG changes, although not significant, were present in 3 subjects when mask was used and disappeared when the test was made unmasked. We conclude that masked exercise has the potential to cause decreased exercise load and oxygen saturation and potentially cause diagnostic errors in medical exams.

The carbohydrate antigen Sda is expressed on cells and secretions of the vast majority of Caucasians. The epitope is formed by a terminal GalNAc residue β4-linked to a α3-sialylated galactose. Different carbohydrate chains N- or O-linked to glycoproteins can be terminated by this epitope. The final step of Sda biosynthesis is catalyzed by the GalNAc transferase B4GALNT2. In this review, we will discuss the multifaceted aspects of B4GALNT2/Sda biology. In particular, we will see its implications in fertility and pregnancy, in susceptibility to infectious diseases, in chronic kidney diseases and in Duchene muscular dystrophy. In particular, we will show its regulation and prognostic implications in cancer.

COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, has spread on a pandemic scale. The virus infection can evolve asymptomatically or generate severe symptoms, influenced by the presence of comorbidities. Lymphopenia in patients affected with COVID-19 according to the severity of symptoms is frequent. However, the profile of CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells regarding cytotoxicity and antiviral factor expression has not yet been completely elucidated in acute SARS-CoV-2 infections. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the phenotypic and functional profile of T-lymphocytes in patients with moderate and severe/critical COVID-19. During this pandemic period, we analyzed a cohort of 62 confirmed patients with SARS-CoV-2 (22 moderate cases and 40 severe/critical cases). Albeit lymphopenia, we observed an increase in the expression of CD28, co-stimulator molecule, and activation markers (CD38 and HLA-DR) in T-lymphocytes as well as an increase in the frequency of CD4+ T-cells, CD8+ T-cells, and NK cells that express the immunological checkpoint protein, PD-1, in patients with severe/critical condition compared to healthy controls. Regarding the cytotoxic profile of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, an increase in the response of CD4+ T-cells already at baseline level was observed, scarcely changed upon PMA and Ionomycin stimulation. Meanwhile, CD8+ T-lymphocytes decreased cytotoxic response, evidencing a profile of exhaustion in patients with severe COVID-19. As observed in the t-SNE technique CD4+ T-cytotoxic and CD8+ T with low granzyme production evidencing their dysfunctionality in severe/critical conditions. In addition, purified CD8+ T-lymphocytes from patients with severe COVID-19 showed an increased constitutive expression of differentially expressed genes associated with the caspase pathway, inflammasome, and antiviral factors, and curiously, reduced expression of TNF-α. The cytotoxic profile, by CD4+ T-cells, may compensate for the dysfunction/exhaustion of TCD8+ in acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. These findings may provide an understanding of the interplay of cytotoxicity between CD4+ T-cells and CD8+ T-cells in the severity of acute COVID-19 infection.

This article develops applications of the generalized method of lines to numerical solutions of the time-independent, incompressible Navier-Stokes system in fluid mechanics. We recall that for such a method, the domain of the partial differential equation in question is discretized in lines (or more generally in curves), and the concerning solutions are written on these lines as functions of the boundary conditions and the domain boundary shape.

This article develops dual variational formulations for a large class of models in variational optimization. The results are established through basic tools of functional analysis, convex analysis and duality theory. The main duality principle is developed as an application to a Ginzburg-Landau type system in superconductivity in the absence of a magnetic field. In the first sections, we develop new general dual convex variational formulations, more specifically, dual formulations with a large region of convexity around the critical points which are suitable for the non-convex optimization for a large class of models in physics and engineering. Finally, in the last section we present some numerical results concerning the generalized method of lines applied to a Ginzburg-Landau type equation.

We continue in this paper to illustrate the implications of the Dual Model of Liquids (DML) by deriving the expression for the isochoric specific heat as function of the collective degrees of freedom available at a given temperature and analyzing its dependence on temperature. Two main tasks will be accomplished. First, we show that the expression obtained for the isochoric specific heat in the DML is in line with the experimental results. Second, the expression will be compared with the analogous one obtained in another theoretical dual model of the liquid state, the Phonon Theory of Liquid Thermodynamics. This comparison will allow to get interesting insights about the number of collective degrees of freedom available in a liquid and on the value of the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient, two quantities that are related to each other in this framework.

We consider a Mean Field Games model where the dynamics of the agents is given by a controlled Langevin equation and the cost is quadratic. A change of variables, introduced in [13], transforms the Mean Field Games system into a system of two coupled kinetic Fokker-Planck equations. We prove an existence result for the latter system, obtaining consequently existence of a solution for the Mean Field Games system.

Whereas a vast literature exists on satellite-based mapping of rice paddy fields in Asia, where most of the global production takes place, little has been produced so far that focuses on the European context. Detection and mapping methods that work well in the Asian context will not offer the same performances in Europe, where different seasonal cycles, environmental contexts, and rice varieties make distinctive features dissimilar to the Asian case. In this context, water management is a key clue; watering practices are distinctive for rice with respect to other crops, and within rice there exist diverse cultivation practices including organic and non-organic approaches. In this paper, we focus on satellite-observed water management to identify rice paddy fields cultivated with a traditional agricultural approach. Building on established research results, and guided by the output of experiments on real-world cases, a new method for analysing time series of Sentinel-1 data has been developed, which can identify traditional rice fields with a high degree of reliability. This work is a part of a broader initiative to build space-based tools for collecting additional pieces of evidence to support food chain traceability; the whole system will consider various parameters, whose analysis procedures are still at their early stages of development.

Peripheral nerve injuries (PNI) can have several etiologies, such as trauma and iatrogenic interventions that can lead to the loss of structure and/or function impairment. These changes can cause a partial or complete loss of motor and sensory functions, physical disability, and neuropathic pain, what in turn can affect the quality of life. For those reasons, PNI is a major public health concern. This review aims to revisit the concepts associated with the PNI. First, the anatomy of the peripheral nerve is detailed to explain the different types of injury. Then, some of the available therapeutic strategies are explained, including surgical methods, pharmacological therapies, and the use of cell-based therapies alone or in combination with biomaterials in the form of tube guides. Nevertheless, even with the various available treatments, it is difficult to achieve a perfect outcome with complete functional recovery. This review aims to explain the urge for new approaches and to understand the methods to evaluate nerve regeneration in a One Health perspective. In vitro models followed by in vivo models are very important to be able to translate the achievements to human medicine.

The global consumption of vegan foods is experiencing an expressive upward trend, underscoring the critical need for quality control measures based on nutritional and functional considerations. This study aimed to evaluate the functional quality of caviar and salmon analogs food inks, based on pulses combined with nano ingredients. The primary objective of this work was to determine the total antioxidant compounds contained in these samples using a voltammetric technique with a glassy carbon electrode. Approximately 100 mg of samples underwent ethanolic extraction (70%) with 1 hour of stirring. The voltammograms were acquired under specific conditions: 10 mL of phosphate buffer electrolyte with a pH of 3.0; an initial potential (Ei) of 0.0 V; a final potential (Ef) of 1.0 V; a pulse amplitude of 50 mV; and a scan rate of 50 mV s-1. The reference electrode used was Ag/AgCl (KCl 3 mol L-1), and the auxiliary electrode was a platinum wire. The voltammograms revealed prominent anodic current peaks at 0.76-0.78 V, which are attributed to isoflavones. Isoflavones, known secondary metabolites with substantial antioxidant potential commonly found in pulses, were identified. The total isoflavone concentrations obtained ranged from 31.5 to 64.3 mg Eq genistein 100 g-1. The results not only validated the efficacy of the electrochemical sensor for quantifying total antioxidant compounds in the samples but also demonstrated that the concentration of total isoflavones in caviar and salmon analogs fell within the expected limits.

In the past decades, one of the most widely reported phenomena on Caribbean reefs is the general fall in coral cover and rise in macroalgae. Reefs with low coral cover and high macroalgal abun-dances are often presumed to provide poorer ecosystem functions and services. In this study, we assessed the condition of coral reefs on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica and determined how eight key ecosystem metrics varied in response to differential coral and fleshy macroalgae covers. Most reefs surveyed had high fleshy macroalgae and low live coral covers, with an average (± SD) of 31 ± 28% and 14 ± 13% per site. We found that the rugosity, urchin density, fish richness, total fish biomass, large fish density, and the potential fishery value of the reef were higher in sites with low fleshy macroalgae covers (>10%). The value of many of the ecosystem metrics estimated for coral reefs of the region appears to be lower than what’s been reported for other areas in the Caribbean, which may be related to the high macroalgae covers found on the reefs. Our results concur with the prevailing paradigm that an increase in macroalgae abundance could reduce the ecosystem services provided by coral reefs.

This paper investigates a range of popular differential evolution (DE) configurations to identify components responsible for emergence of structural bias – a recently identified tendency of algorithms to prefer some regions of search space over others, for reasons unrelated to objective function values. Previous work has explored this tendency for genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO), finding a relationship between population size and extent of structural bias, hence highlighting potential weaknesses of those algorithms. In current article, we focus on DE, extend the investigation to include consideration of an algorithmic component that is often overlooked – constraint handling mechanism. Towards this end, a wide range of DE configurations was tested here. Results suggest that DE is generally robust to structural bias. Unlike the case with GA and PSO, population size seems to have no influence on DE structural bias. Only one of variants studied – DE/current-to-best/1/bin – shows clear signs of bias, however, we show that this effect is mitigated by a judicious choice of constraint handling technique. These findings contribute towards explaining widespread success of DE variants in algorithm comparison studies; its robustness to structural bias represents the absence of a factor that may confound other algorithms.

The assessment of existing bridges constitutes a serious challenge for the researchers since their safety evaluation is a complex task due to several sources of uncertainty affecting the parameters identified in the knowledge process. In particular, a high level of uncertainties may arise in the case of prestressing systems requiring special investigation strategies and experimental technologies. The paper aims to investigate how the knowledge uncertainties influence the safety assessment of existing post-tensioned bridges. The semi-probabilistic approach is used, and uncertainties related to the knowledge process are described considering the number of tests, the confidence level assumed for the estimation of the problem parameters, and the measurement errors of in-situ tests. Results concerning a typical post-tensioned bridge are reported and the variability of the outcomes is discussed and compared with a reference case of “perfect knowledge”. The main results of the study confirm the general robustness of the semi-probabilistic Eurocodes safety format and provide an overview of dispersion due to different choices about the number of tests and confidence level. The measurement errors may lead to significant under-estimation of the computed structural capacity with respect to the reference one.

The use of haptic devices in rehabilitation of impaired limbs has become rather popular, given the proven effectiveness in promoting recovery. In a standard framework, such devices are used in rehabilitation centers, where patients interact with virtual tasks, presented on a screen. To track their sessions, kinematic/dynamic parameters or performance scores are recorded. However, as Internet access is now available at almost every home, and in order to reduce the hospitalization time of the patient, the idea of doing rehabilitation at home is gaining wide consent. Medical care programs can be synchronized with the home rehabilitation device; patient data can be sent to the central server that could redirect to the therapist laptop (tele-healthcare). The controversial issue is that the recorded data do not actually represent the clinical conditions of the patients according to the medical assessment scales, forcing them to frequently undergo clinical tests at the hospital. To respond to this demand, we propose the use of a bilateral master/slave haptic system that could allow the clinician, who interacts with the master, to assess remotely and in real time the clinical conditions of the patient that uses the home rehabilitation device as the slave. In this paper, we describe a proof of concept to highlight the main issues of such an application, limited to one degree of freedom, and to the measure of the stiffness and range of motion of the hand.

In this work, we synthesized chitosan grafted-poly acrylic acid (CS-g-PA) through surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). We also studied the adsorption process of copper and lead ions onto CS-g-PA surface. Adsorption equilibrium studies indicated pH 4.0 as the best pH for the adsorption process, while the maximum adsorption capacity for Pb2+ ions was 98 mg*g-1 and for Cu2+ was 164 mg*g-1, higher adsorption capacities than chitosan alone (CS), where Pb2+ was only 14.8 mg*g-1and Cu2+ was 140 mg*g-1, respectively. Furthermore, the adsorption studies indicated that Langmuir model describes all the experimental data. All these results suggest that the new CS-g-PA polymers had potential as adsorbent for hazardous and toxic metal ions produced by different industries.

Keywords: SAR; interferometry; bistatic

This paper proposes a novel formulation of the fuzzy newsvendor problem for inventory management applications. This new formulation allows the use of any profit function. A new credibility estimation is proposed to explore the neighborhood around the most impactful demand scenarios. Further, a simulation procedure was designed for the different demand scenarios, which allows the comparison of the proposed approach with probabilistic demand curves. The fuzzy newsvendor problem is solved using a modified genetic algorithm (GA), where an initialization mechanism with null values is proposed. The new formulation of the fuzzy newsvendor problem together with the modified GA have shown to improve the average profit up to 55% in problems with low-budget scenarios.

Motivated by the importance of entanglement and correlation indicators in the analysis of quantum systems, we study the equilibrium and the residual entropy in a two-species Bose Hubbard dimer when the spatial phase separation of the two species takes place. We consider both the zero and non-zero-temperature regime. We present different kinds of residual entropies (each one associated to a different way of partitioning the system), and we show that they strictly depend on the specific quantum phase characterizing the two species (supermixed, mixed or demixed) even at finite temperature. To provide a deeper physical insight into the zero-temperature scenario, we apply the fully-analytical variational approach based on su(2) coherent states and provide a considerbly good approximation of the entanglement entropy. Finally, we show that the effectiveness of residual entropy as a critical indicator at non-zero temperature is unchanged when considering a restricted combination of energy eigenstates.

In the Mediterranean Sea, there are two critical issues affecting marine benthic biocenosis: the sedimentation process and the increasing trend in marine biodiversity loss. These processes are very marked along the western side of Calabria coastline where siltation is one of the main reasons for the regression of Posidonia beds in the regional coastal waters. This research aims to investigate the relationships between the geomorphological features of the debris source areas, represented by fluvial basins, and the distribution of Posidonia meadows. So, a geomorphological study of the Tyrrhenian fluvial basins with area greater than 200 km2 and its correlation with the mapping of the meadows in the Calabria Tyrrhenian waters was carried out. Furthermore, in order to assess the increased level of burial in a Posidonia oceanica meadow and its health state over time, a program of Posidonia monitoring was undertaken between 2000 and 2010, in a test area located in the Marine Regional Park of Isca (Calabria, Southern Italy). The results of this survey highlighted that, at the beginning of the study period, for a silting rate of 4 - 5 cm/year, the meadow suffered a reduction of its photosynthetic ratio with a rate of mortality of 50%. In the following years, the siltation rate reach 12 cm/year in 2010 and the meadow began to disappear. Therefore, the marine pollution by sedimentation represents a serious factor for the regression of Posidonia oceanica meadows, enhancing the risk of a gradual loss in marine biodiversity.

Top-down models are defined by hardware architects to provide information on the utilization of the different hardware components. The target is to isolate the users from the complexity of the hardware architecture while giving them insight into how efficiently the code is using the resources. In this paper, we explore the applicability of 4 top-down models defined for different hardware architectures powering state-of-the-art HPC clusters (Intel Skylake, Fujitsu A64FX, IBM Power9, and Huawei Kunpeng 920) and propose a model for AMD Zen 2. We study a parallel CFD code used for scientific production to compare these 5 Top-Down models. We evaluate the level of insight achieved, the clarity of the information, the ease of use, and the conclusions that each one allows us to reach.

The study of angular correlations of heavy-flavor particles in hadronic collisions can provide crucial insight into the heavy-quark production, showering and hadronization processes. The comparison with model predictions allows us to discriminate among different approaches for heavy-quark production and hadronization, as well as different treatments of the underlying event employed by the models to reproduce correlation observables. In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, where a deconfined state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), is created, heavy-flavor correlations can shed light on the modification of the heavy-quark fragmentation due to interaction of charm and beauty quarks with the QGP constituents, as well as characterize their energy loss processes while traversing the medium. Insight into possible emergence of collective-like mechanisms in smaller systems, resembling those observed in heavy-ion collisions, can also be obtained by performing correlation studies in high-multiplicity proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions. In this review, the most recent and relevant measurements of heavy-flavor correlations performed in all collision systems at the LHC and RHIC will be presented, and the new understandings that they provide will be discussed.

In recent years, the term quantum-like has been increasingly used in different disciplines, including neurosciences, psychological and socio-economical disciplines, claiming that some investigated phenomena show “something” in common with quantum processes and, therefore, they can be modeled using a sort of quantum formalism. Therefore, the increasing use of the term quantum-like calls for defining and sharing its meaning in order to properly adopt it and avoid possible misuse. In our opinion, the concept of quantum-like may be successfully applied to macroscopic phenomena and empirical sciences other than physics when at least two conditions are satisfied: a) the behavior of the investigated phenomena show logical analogies with quantum ones; b) it is possible to find a criterion of truth based on an experiential/scientific approach applied to a probabilistic model of description of the phenomena. This is only a first, small step in the approach to the concept of quantum-like, hopefully helpful to promote further discussion and achieve a better definition.

The implementation of sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy is changing the scenario in the surgical treatment of early-stage cervical cancer and the oncologic safety of replacing bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy with SLN biopsy is currently under investigation. One of the undisputed values of SLN biopsy is its diagnostic accuracy in detecting low-volume metastases (LVM) via pathologic ultrastaging. In early-stage cervical cancer, the reported incidence of LVM ranges from 4 to 20%. The prognostic impact and the role of adjuvant treatment in patients with LVM is still unclear. Some non-prespecified analyses in prospective studies showed no impact on the oncologic outcomes compared to node-negative disease. However, the heterogeneity of the studies, the differences in the disease stage and the use of adjuvant treatment, and the concomitant pelvic lymphadenectomy (PLND) make any conclusion on this topic hard. Current guidelines suggest considering micrometastasis (MIC) as a node-positive disease, while isolated tumor cells (ITC) as a node-negative disease, with a low level of evidence. This review aims to highlight the unanswered questions about the definition, identification, prognostic and therapeutic role of LVM and underline the present and future challenges we are facing. We hope this review will guide further research, giving robust evidence on LVM and their impact on clinical practice.

Findings on diet-health relationships have led many people to include healthier food items (including snacks) in their diets, e.g. those containing probiotic microorganisms. The purpose of this study was to compare two methods to produce probiotic freeze-dried banana slices - one of them consisting of impregnating slices with a suspension of probiotic Bacillus coagulans, the other based on coating the slices with a starch dispersion containing the bacteria. Both processes have resulted in viable cell counts above 7 log ufc.g-1, although the presence of the starch coating has avoided a significant loss of viability on freeze-drying. The coated slices were less crispy than the impregnated ones, according to the shear force test results. However, the sensory panel (with more than 100 panelists) have not perceived significantly texture differences. Both methods have presented good results, in terms of probiotic cell viability and sensory acceptability (the coated slices having been significantly more accepted than the non-probiotic control slices).

Agricultural Production today has to deal with different challenges. It has to increment production for a continuously increasing population, reducing the environmental burdens on the natural systems. In conventional agriculture, this is possible through the increase of inputs, especially nutrients, which, however, are responsible for the biggest part of emissions. It becomes more complicated though, adopting sustainable agricultural practices, to improve the quality and the quantity of agricultural production reducing the inputs use. Plant growth regulators are described in the literature for the significant role in securing crop management of modern agriculture. Therefore, this joint field experiment has been carried out on a pear orchard (Pyrus communis L. cv. Abate Fètel) in Emilia Romagna (Italy) by Fondazione Navarra and TIMAC AGRO Italia S.p.A., to test the “less for more” theory which consists in getting more and better agricultural produce using fewer inputs. Preliminary results of two consecutive years have confirmed our assumption as it was possible to substantially reduce the total fertilisation units applied, improving significantly quantitative and qualitative production indicators (i.e. flower and fruit density, fruit set (%), the average weight of fruits (g) and the total yield (t/ha)). Results have also shown a positive correlation between plant growth regulators and agronomic efficiency of pears.

Microwave Power Modules (MPM) are high power devices largely used for radar applications. An MPM is a hybrid combination of a Solid-State Power Amplifier (SSPA) as a driver and a Traveling wave tube amplifier (TWT) as the final high power stage. Power equalizer is often used to flat the TWT output power gain owing to its big gain fluctuations in the operating frequency range. This paper deals with an optimal design and development of a fully-coaxial easy-tunable power equalizer for an X-band MPM. The structure utilizes a coaxial waveguide as the main transmission line and a coaxial cavity loaded with absorbing material as the resonant unit. A sensitivity analysis of the coaxial cavity length, the thickness of the absorbing disc and inserted depth of the probe on the attenuation amplitude and resonant frequency is carried out. The transmission characteristic curves and the voltage standing wave ratio curves show a good compromise in terms of transferred power and adaptive matching impedance at the input and output ports. The measured results show that the equalization curve meets the requirements well and prove that this structure is practical and effective.

Medical and translational scientific research requires the use of animal models as an initial approach to the study of new therapies and treatments, but when the objective is an exploration of translational potentialities, classical models fail to adequately mimic problems in humans. Among the larger animal models that have been explored more intensely in recent decades, small ruminants, namely sheep and goats, have emerged as excellent options. The main advantages associated to the use of these animals in research works are related to their anatomy and dimensions very similar to those of humans in most physiological systems, in addition to their low maintenance and feeding costs, tendency to be docile, long life expectancies and few ethical complications raised in society. The most obvious disadvantages are the significant differences in some systems such as the gastrointestinal, and the reduced amount of data that limits the comparison between works and the validation of the characterization essays. Despite everything, recently these species have been increasingly used as animal models for diseases in different systems, and the results obtained open doors for their more frequent and advantageous use in the future. The purpose of this review is to summarize the general principles related to the use of small ruminants as animal models, with focus on regenerative medicine, to group the most relevant works and results published recently and to highlight the potentials for the near future in medical research.

This study presents head losses (hL) and loss coefficients (K) obtained experimentally for schedule 40 PVC pipe elbows, with 90o and 45o in small commercial diameters of ½ to 1½ inches that are commonly used in small networks. The investigation was conducted on a system constructed with short pipes and fittings necessary to measure, direct, and control flow, as well as to evaluate pressure head losses at elbows. Simple water flow was used with rates of 0.342 to 0.980 lps (Q), which generated moderate Reynolds numbers (Re) of 13337 to 80221. It was found that hL showed dependence on the velocity head in all elbows, as well as that hL are greater as the diameter increases for same velocity head. The K values in the elbows tended to be constant when Q > 0.75 lps, but for Q < 0.75 lps the K coefficient increased inversely proportional to Q, becoming larger as the diameter increased. Likewise, the K coefficient tended to increase as Re decreased, while K tended to be constant as Re increased. The results of the experimental coefficient were compared against K values reported in the literature, where significant similarities and discrepancies were found.

Energy consumption of processors and memories is quickly becoming a limiting factor in the deployment of large computing systems. For this reason it is important to understand the energy performance of these processors and to study strategies allowing to use them in the most efficient way. In this work we focus on computing and energy performance of the Knights Landing Xeon Phi, the latest Intel many-core architecture processor for HPC applications. We consider the 64-core Xeon Phi 7230, and profile its performance and energy efficiency using both its on-chip MCDRAM and the off-chip DDR4 memory as the main storage for application data. As a benchmark application we use a Lattice Boltzmann code heavily optimized for this architecture, and implemented using several different arrangements of the application data in memory (data-layouts, in short). We also assess the dependence of energy consumption on data-layouts, memory configurations (DDR4 or MCDRAM), and number of threads per core. We finally consider possible trade-offs between computing performance and energy efficiency, tuning the clock frequency of the processor using the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) technique.

In forensic acoustics, a possible area of analysis is represented by unwanted sound that 1 is perceived as a source of intrusion or disturbance within a certain auditory context. This context 2 is defined as the "auditory scene" and refers to the set of sounds present in a specific environment. 3 The presence of unwanted sounds in the auditory scene can cause a wide range of negative effects, 4 including disturbance, discomfort, moral or immoral harm, and other types of negative impact on the 5 health and well-being of individuals exposed to noise. In 2022, the technical specification UNI/TS 6 11844:2022 dedicated to the measurement and analysis of intrusive noise was published. The standard 7 introduces the concept of intrusive noise and defines its calculation methods based on environmental 8 measurements. The purposes of this technical specification is to provide an objective support to 9 methods already in used in acoustic disputes, where the assessment of the annoyance of a noise is 10 often a subjective evaluation of the technician. This work delves into the application to some real 11 cases, identifying the potentiality and the limits of the standardized method.

Chicory, a horticultural crop cultivated worldwide, presents many botanical varieties and local biotypes. Among these, Italian radicchio group cultivars of pure Cichorium intybus L. and interspecific hybrids with Cichorium endivia L., as the “Red of Chioggia” biotype which in turn includes several phenotypes. This study deals with a pipeline for the marker-assisted breeding of F1 hybrids: it presents the genotyping-by-sequencing results of four elite inbred lines using a RADseq approach and an original molecular assay based on CAPS markers for screening mutants with nuclear male-sterility in radicchio of Chioggia. Two thousand nine hundred fifty-three SNP-carrying RADtags were identified and used to compute the actual estimates of homozygosity, and overall genetic similarity and uniformity of the populations, as well as to determine their genetic distinctiveness and differentiation. Molecular data were further used to investigate the genomic distribution of the RADtags among the two Cichorium species, allowing their mapping in 1,131 and 1,071 coding sequences in chicory and endive, respectively. In parallel, an assay to screen the genotype at the male-sterility locus Cims-1 was developed to discriminate wild-type and mutant alleles of the causative gene myb80-like. Moreover, a RADtag mapped close to this genomic region proved the potential application of this method for future marker-assisted selection tools. Finally, combining the genotype information of the core collection, the best ten individuals from each inbred line were selected to compute the observed genetic similarity as a measure of uniformity as well as the expected homozygosity and heterozygosity estimates scorable by the putative progenies derived from selfing (pollen parent) and full-sibling (seed parent) or pair-wise crossing (F1 hybrids). This predictive approach was conducted as a pilot study for understanding the potential application of RADseq in improving molecular breeding strategies aimed at the development of inbred lines and F1 hybrids in leaf chicory.

Documenting cultural heritage by using artificial intelligence (AI) is crucial for preserving the memory of the past and a key point for future knowledge. However, modern AI technologies make use of statistical learners that lead to self-empiricist logic, which, unlike human minds, use learned non-symbolic representations. Nevertheless, it seems that it is not the right way to progress in AI. If we want to rely on AI for these tasks, it is essential to understand what lies behind these models. Among the ways to discover AI there are the senses and the intellect. We could consider AI as an intelligence. Intelligence has an essence, but we do not know whether it can be considered “something” or “someone”. Important issues in the analysis of AI concern the structure of symbols -operations with which the intellectual solution is carried out- and the search for strategic reference points, aspiring to create models with human-like intelligence. For many years, humans, seeing language as innate, have carried out symbolic theories. Everything seems to have skipped with the advent of Machine Learning. In this paper, after a long analysis of history, the rule-based and the learning-based vision, we propose KERMIT as a unit of investigation for a possible meeting point between the different learning theories. Finally, we propose a new vision of knowledge in AI models based on a combination of rules, learning and human knowledge.

The current communication presents the application of a consolidated model combination strategy to analyze the medium-term carbon fluxes in two Mediterranean pine wood ecosystems. The modelling strategy is based on the use of a NDVI-driven parametric model, Modified C-Fix, and of a bio-geochemical model, BIOME-BGC, the outputs of which are combined taking into account the actual development phase of each ecosystem. The two pine ecosystems examined correspond to an old-growth forest and to a secondary succession after clearcuts, which differently respond to the same climatic condition during a ten-year period (2013-2022). Increasing dryness, in fact, exerts a fundamental role in controlling the gross primary and net ecosystem production of the mature stand, while the effect of forest regeneration is prevalent for the uprising of the same variables in the other stand. In particular, the simulated net carbon exchange fluctuates around 200 g C m-2 year-1 in the first stand and rises to over 600 g C m-2 year-1 in the second stand; correspondingly, the accumulation of new biomass is nearly undetectable in the former case while becomes notable in the latter. The study therefore supports the potential of the applied strategy for predicting the forest carbon balances consequent on diversified natural and human-induced factors.

Dissimilar welds between ferritic and austenitic steels represent a good solution for exploiting the best performance of stainless steels at high and low temperatures and in aggressive environments, while minimizing costs. Therefore, they are widely used in nuclear and petrochemical plants, however, due to the different properties of the steels involved, the welding process can be challenging. Fusion welding can be specifically addressed to connect low-carbon, or low-alloy steels, with high-alloy steels, which have similar melting point. Welding of thick plates can be performed with electric arc in multiple passes or in a single pass by means of a laser beam equipment. Since microstructure and consequently mechanical properties of the weld are closely related to composition, the choice of the filler metal and processing parameters, which in turn affects the dilution rate, plays a fundamental role. Numerous technical solutions were proposed for welding dissimilar steels and much research was developed on the weldment metallurgy; therefore, this article is aimed at a review of the most recent scientific literature on the issues relating to the fusion welding of ferritic / austenitic steels. Two specific sections are dedicated respectively to electric arc and laser beam welding; finally, metallurgical issues, related to dilution and thermal field are debated in the discussion section.

This article introduces an analytical framework that interprets individual measures of entropy-based mobility derived from mobile phone data. We explore and analyze two widely recognized entropy metrics: random entropy and uncorrelated Shannon entropy. These metrics are estimated through collective variables of human mobility, including movement trends and population density. By employing a collisional model, we establish statistical relationships between entropy measures and mobility variables. Furthermore, our research addresses three primary objectives: firstly, validating the model; secondly, exploring correlations between aggregated mobility and entropy measures in comparison to five economic indicators; and finally, demonstrating the utility of entropy measures. Specifically, we provide an effective population density estimate that offers a more realistic understanding of social interactions. This estimation takes into account both movement regularities and intensity, utilizing real-time data analysis conducted during the peak period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the past decades, regenerative medicine applied on skin lesions has been a field of constant improvement for both human and veterinary medicine. The process of healing cutaneous wound injuries implicates a well-organized cascade of molecular and biological processes. However, sometimes the normal process fails and can result in a chronic lesion. In addition, wounds are considered an increasing clinical impairment, due to the progressive ageing of the population, as well as the prevalence of concomitant diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, that represent risk aggravating factors for the development of chronic skin lesions. Stem cells regenerative potential has been recognized worldwide, including towards skin lesion repair, Tissue engineering techniques have long been successfully associated with stem cell therapies, namely the application of 3D bioprinted scaffolds. With this review we intend to explore several stem cell sources with promising aptitude towards skin regeneration, as well as different techniques used to deliver those cells and provide a supporting extracellular matrix environment, with effective outcomes. Furthermore, different studies are discussed, both in vitro and in vivo, towards their relevance in the skin regeneration field.

Mineral extraction is one of the most important for the economies of different countries, and Brazil is one of the world's primary iron ore producers. Unfortunately, the dams are still the main problem, mainly in Minas Gerais, especially after the Fundão Dam rupture happened in 2015. Additionally, there is still a massive presence of buildings produced on earth throughout the Minas Gerais mining region, built from the 18th century to today. Investigating the potential of IOT to be incorporated into traditional earthen construction techniques in regions affected by dam ruptures presents a relevant and innovative research approach. In addition, the local reuse of these sediments should be the priority. Thus, the main objective of this work was to collect, characterize, and analyze the possibilities of application of these tailings to produce RE. XRD, XRF, granulometry, porosity, specific density, toxicity, and MEV/EDS were performed on the samples collected at three points. To analyze the soil-IOT compatibility, representative mixtures of RE were produced, and the specific mass, compaction, and compressive strength were performed. It was observed that the IoT samples have a high silica content and that the mixtures of IOT-soil, even without cement, reached compressive strength values above the current international standards.

Granular cell tumors (GCTs), known also as Abrikossoff tumors, are rare tumors that originates from Schwann cells that primarily localize in the tongue, skin, and submucosal tissues and involve the gastrointestinal tract in 11% of cases. We present a case of a young woman who first presented to our centre in 2018, for an EGDS to assess a thickening of the esophageal wall, seen on a CT. In that occasion, a diagnosis of Abrikossoff tumor was made. She underwent endoscopic resection with subsequent yearly follow-up without evidence of recurrence. 5 Years later, on a routine colonoscopy, we found numerous white submucosal formations in all of the explored tracts, with a histological examination compatible with GCT. Her daughter presented with a white nodule on her tongue, also diagnosed as GCT. Her daughter was also diagnosed with GCT of the tongue a few months later.

The exponential growth in the consumption of electronics, in combination with the reduction in their useful life, leads to a significant increase in the volume of electronic material discarded. Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are modules composed of ceramic, polymer and metallic materials of high economic value and with a great potential for damage to biotic and anthropic environments when inadequately discarded. The aims of this work was to study the main environmental impacts and the efficiency of mechanical operations in the electronic waste recycling process in optimizing the concentration of metallic copper. For this, the samples obtained were characterized according to their morphology and chemical composition, and subjected to physical and mechanical treatments: dismantling, grinding, separation by granulometry, density and magnetic property. The environment impacts were estimated by the Life Cycle Assessment of the pre-treatment processes, associated with copper extraction operations in WPCBs. According to the results obtained, it is possible to infer that the NM +1mm Concentrated product presents in its metallic composition around 78% of copper, which contributes to the efficiency of the hydrometallurgical extraction processes. It is noteworthy that the Concentrated class represents about 14% of copper (wt) taking into account the amount of 3.789 kg of PCB waste input material. The potential for reinsertion of the dust in the material recovery process is highlighted, given that the chemical composition of this particulate has a significant presence of metals. In general, it was found that due to the higher concentration (wt %) of the sample being allocated in the range of - 0.15mm + 0.05mm, the elements Fe (18.30%), Si (10.73%), Ca (9.21%) and Cu (8.89%) stand out regarding the participation of the elemental composition of this fraction and also regarding the general composition of the sample. Furthermore, the generation of dust during the fragmentation process, can be associated with occupational respiratory diseases when not managed. About the Life Cycle Assessment, in seven of the nine categories evaluated, crushing and screening activities accounted for more than 90% of the recorded impact values. In general, it is estimated that in the pre-treatment phase be generated 15.4 kg CO2 eq.

Amplitude growth rates of monochromatic gravity waves were estimated and compared from multiple instrument measurements carried out in Brazil. Wave dynamic parameters were obtained from sodium density profiles from lidar observations carried out in Sao Jose dos Campos (23°S, 46°W), while all-sky images of multiple airglow layers provided amplitudes and parameters of waves over Cachoeira Paulista (23°S, 45°W). Growth rates of gravity wave amplitudes from lidar and airglow imager data were consistent with dissipative wave behavior. Only a small amount of the observed wave events presented freely propagating behavior. Part of the observed waves presented saturated amplitude. The general saturated/damped behavior is consistent with diffusive filtering processes imposing limits to amplitude growth rates of the observed gravity waves.

Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of links between satellite-measured vegetation vigor and climate variables in Armenian mountain grassland ecosystems in years 1984–2018. NDVI is derived from MODIS and Landsat data, temperature and precipitation data are from meteorological stations. Two study sites were selected, representing arid and semi-arid grassland vegetation types, respectively. Various trend estimators including Mann-Kendall (MK) and derivatives were combined for vegetation change analysis at different time scales. Results suggest that temperature and precipitation had negative and positive impacts on vegetation growth, respectively, in both areas. NDVI-to-precipitation correlation was significant but with an apparent time-lag effect that was further investigated. No significant general changes were observed in vegetation along the observed period. Further comparisons between results from corrected and uncorrected data led us to conclude that MODIS and Landsat data with BRDF, topographic and atmospheric corrections applied are best suited for analyzing relationships between NDVI and climatic factors for the 2000-2018 period in grassland at a very local scale, but in the absence of correction tools and information, uncorrected data can still provide meaningful results. Future refinements will include removal of anthropogenic impact, and deeper investigation of time-lag effects of climatic factors on vegetation dynamics.

(1) Background: Although manual therapy for pain relief has been used as an adjunct in treatments for chronic low back pain (CLBP), there is still the belief that a single session of myofascial release would be effective. This study aimed to investigate whether a single session of a specific technique reduces pain and disability. (2) Methods: This was a crossover clinical trial in which 41 participants over 18 years old with CLBP were randomly enrolled into 3 situations - experimental, placebo, control, in a balanced and cross-over manner. The subjects underwent a single session of myofascial release on thoracolumbar fascia and compare it with the control and placebo. Outcome were pain and functionality, evaluated using the numerical pain rating scale (NPRS), pressure pain threshold (PPT) and Oswestry (ODI). (3) Results: There was no effects between-, within-tests, and interaction for all the outcomes, i.e., NPRS (η 2 = 0.32, F = 0.48, p = 0.61), PPT (η2 = 0.73, F = 2.80, p = 0.06), ODI (η 2 = 0.02, F = 0.02, p = 0.97). (4) Conclusion: A single trial of thoracolumbar myofascial release technique was not enough to reduce pain and disability in subjects with CLBP.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in adopting novel sensing technologies for the continuous monitoring of structural systems. In this respect, Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) sensors are widely used in several applications, including Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). Thanks to their significantly lower cost, ease of installation on the structure, and lower power consumption, they enable extensive, pervasive, and battery-less monitoring systems. This paper presents an innovative high-performance device for SHM applications, based on a low-noise triaxial MEMS accelerometer, providing a guideline and insightful results about the opportunities and capabilities of these devices. Sensor nodes have been designed, developed, and calibrated to meet structural vibration monitoring and modal identification requirements. These components include a protocol for reliable command dissemination through the network and data collection, and improvements to software components for data pipelining, jitter control, and high-frequency sampling. Devices were tested in the lab using shaker excitation. Results demonstrate that MEMS-based accelerometers are a feasible solution to replace expensive piezo-based accelerometers. Deploying MEMS is promising to minimize sensor node energy consumption. Time and frequency domain analysis show that MEMS can correctly detect modal frequencies, useful parameters for damage detection. The acquired data from the test bed were used to examine the functioning of the network, data transmission, and data quality. The proposed architecture has been successfully deployed in a real case study to monitor the structural health of the Marcus Aurelius Exedra Hall within the Capitoline Museum of Rome. The performance robustness was demonstrated and the results showed that the wired sensor network provides dense and accurate vibration data for structural continuous monitoring.

We investigate the impact of aging on exchangeable inter-arrival times in mixed renewal processes, exploring its implications for reliability and survival analysis. In this study, first, we revisit the definition of renewal point processes, where inter-event time intervals are considered as exchangeable non-negative random variables. Then, we define the concept of statistical aging as latency in the observational process of event counting. Latency affects event detection but preserves exchangeability. However, it may alter the statistical properties of inter-event time intervals. Our analytical and numerical assessments highlight the significance of aging in exchangeable lifetimes, offering insights into key metrics such as the failure survival function, renewal function, and hazard rate function. Through archetypal examples and empirical findings, we illustrate the implications of aging on renewal processes. In particular, employing a Bayesian perspective, we analyze high-frequency currency exchange rate data to assess the impact of aging on volatility risk evaluation. This study contributes novel insights to the literature of renewal theory and survival analysis, emphasizing the role of latency aging in stochastic point processes under exchangeability assumption.

The study of precipitation amount at different time scales constitutes an important issue in climate research and risk assessment. When dealing with daily totals, a frequent but sometimes underestimated problem is at what time the observation day begins. The choice of different starting times may lead to incompatibility between stations and incorrect identification of extreme events. In this work, the problem of temporal misalignment between precipitation datasets characterized by different starting time of the observation day is analyzed. The most widely used adjustment methods (1day and uniform shift) and two methods based on reanalysis (NOAA and ERA5) are evaluated in terms of temporal alignment, precipitation statistics and percentile distributions. As test series, the precipitation amount collected from 9 a.m. local time (09 LT) on the previous day to 09 LT on the target day (9-9 datasets) of the Padua and nearby stations in the period 1993-2022 have been selected. Results show that the reanalysis-based methods, in particular ERA5, outperform the others in temporal alignment, regardless the station. But, for the periods in which reanalysis data are not available, “1day” method, which shifts the daily amount back one calendar day, and “unif” method, which distributes uniformly the daily total from a 2-day moving window surrounding the target date, can be considered valid alternatives. On the other side, concerning the precipitation statistics, the reanalysis-based methods are not the best option, as they increase the precipitation frequency and reduce the mean value over wet days, NOAA much more than ERA5. Nevertheless, the uniform method provides a larger deviation from the original daily series. The use of the series of a station nearby the target one, which is mandatory in case of missing data, gives similar or better results than applying any adjustment method to the 9-9 series. General conclusions can hardly be drawn as they depend on the method and station. For the Padua dataset, the analysis was repeated at monthly and seasonal resolution. In general, the adjustment series show the most relevant changes in the precipitation statistics in summer and less temporal alignment with the original series in summer and autumn, the two seasons mainly affected by heavy rains in Padua. Finally, the percentiles distribution, analyzed for all the methods and stations, indicates that any adjustment method underestimates the percentile values, except ERA5. Only Legnaro, the station most correlated with Padua, gives results like ERA5.

The history of Artificial Intelligence (AI) development dates to the 40s. The researchers showed strong expectations until the 70s, when they began to encounter serious difficulties and investments were greatly, reduced. With the introduction of the Industry 4.0, one of the techniques adopted for AI implementation is Machine Learning (ML) that focuses on the machines ability to receive data series and learn on their own. Given the considerable importance of the subject, researchers have completed many studies on ML to ensure that machines are able to replace or relieve human tasks. This research aims to analyze, systematically, the literature on several aspects, including publication year, authors, scientific sector, country, institution, keywords. Analyzing existing literature on AI is a necessary stage to recommend policy on the matter. The analysis has been done using Web of Science and SCOPUS database. Furthermore, UCINET and NVivo 12 software have been used to complete them. Literature review on ML and AI empirical studies published in the last century was carried out to highlight the evolution of the topic before and after Industry 4.0 introduction, from 1999 to now. Eighty-two articles were reviewed and classified. A first interesting result is the greater number of works published by USA and the increasing interest after the birth of Industry 4.0.

This retrospective begins with Galvani's experiments on frogs at the end of the 18th century and his discovery of ‘animal electricity’. It goes on to illustrate the numerous contributions in the fields of physical chemistry in the second half of the 19th century (Nernst’s equilibrium potential, based on the work of Wilhelm Ostwald, Max Planck's ion electrodiffusion, Einstein's studies of Brownian motion), which led Bernstein to propose his membrane theory in the early 1900s as an explanation of Galvani’s findings and cell excitability. These processes were fully elucidated by Hodgkin and Huxley in 1952, by detailing the ionic basis of resting and action potentials, but without addressing the question of where these ions passed. The emerging question of the existence of ion channels, widely debated over the next two decades, was finally accepted and, a decade later, many of them began to be cloned. This led to the possibility of modelling the activity of individual neurons in the brain and then of simple circuits. Taking advantage of the remarkable advances in computer science in the new millennium, together with a much deeper understanding of brain architecture, more ambitious scientific goals were dreamed of to understand the brain and how it works. The retrospective concludes by reviewing the main efforts in this direction, namely the construction of a digital brain, an in silico copy of the brain that would run on supercomputers and behave just like a real brain.

In Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, air pollution is a significant problem, and efforts are needed to define organisms that may be used as bioindicators of air pollution. Epiphytic subaerial algae, which grow on the surface of trees, may have a potential as bioindicators of urban air quality. Algae were collected from randomly selected tree trunks in five parks in Bangkok, and the air pollutants CO, NO2, O3, SO2, PM2.5, and PM10 were measured. Analysis of the subaerial algal communities was performed by metagenomics. Diversity indexes were determined for the algal taxa detected, which were separated into groups corresponding to different collection sites by cluster analysis. Relationships between taxa and air pollutants were analyzed by PCA and the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). The results showed a high diversity of epiphytic subaerial al-gae. We recorded 101 taxa belonging to the Cyanophyta (70 taxa), Chlorophyta (21 taxa), Char-ophyta (5 taxa), Bacillariophyta (3 taxa), and Eustigmatophyta (2 taxa). The most abundant taxon was Chroococcidiopsis sp. 1, for which up to 13,254 individuals/cm2 were recorded. The Shan-non–Weaver index ranged between 1.37 and 2.51, the Margalef index between 3.84 and 4.75, and the Pielou index between 0.30 and 0.54. The similarity index was between 8.00% and 64.82% ac-cording to the cluster analysis results for three groups. The PCA indicated that all air pollutants affected the diversity and abundance of the epiphytic subaerial algae. Cyanothece sp. 2 is consid-ered a potential bioindicator of air pollution. It was negatively related to O3 and positively related to NO2 and CO

Tumor microenvironment (TME) represents a complex network between tumor cells and a variety of components including immune, stromal and vascular endothelial cells as well as extracellular matrix. A wide panel of signals and interactions here take place, resulting in a bi-directional modulation of cellular functions. Many stimuli, on one hand, induce tumor growth and spread of metastatic cells and, on the other hand, contribute to the establishment of an immunosuppressive environment. The latter feature is achieved by soothing immune effector cells, mainly cytotoxic T lymphocytes, B and NK cells, and/or through expansion of regulatory cell populations, including regulatory T and B cells, tumor-associated macrophages and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. In this context, immune checkpoints (IC) are key players in the control of T cell activation and anti-cancer activities, leading to the inhibition of tumor cell lysis and of pro-inflammatory cytokine production. Thus, these pathways represent promising targets for the development of effective and innovative therapies both in adults and childhood. Here we address the role of different cell populations homing the TME and of well-known and recently characterized IC in the context of pediatric solid tumors. We also discuss preclinical and clinical data available using IC inhibitors alone, in combination each other or administered with standard therapies.

Trichomonas vaginalis is an extracellular parasite protozoan that causes human trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that affects approximately 200 million people worldwide. The presence of T. vaginalis adhesion to inert substrates has been described in several reports. Still, very few studies on cluster formation and more detailed analyses of the contact regions between the membranes of the parasites in these aggregate formations have not been carried out. We analyzed the formation of parasite monolayers and clusters using high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, cytochemistry, TEM tomography, and dye injection. Here, we show the formation of a monolayer of tightly adherent cells, epithelium-like, when the parasites are in contact with an inert material. Based on this observation, we analyzed whether this monolayer behaves as an epithelium, analyzing cell junctions, cell communication, and ultrastructural aspects. We also analyzed the cluster formation and the morphological characteristics of parasite aggregation observed in the culture supernatant. We report that monolayer formation differs from cluster formation in many aspects. The monolayers form strong adhesion, whereas the clusters have fragile attachments. There is no fusion or passage of molecules between neighbor-attached cells; there is no need for different strains to form filopodia, cytonemes, and extracellular vesicles during cluster formation.

There is only a very short reaction time for people to find the best way out of a building in a fire outbreak. Software applications can be used to assist the rapid evacuation of victims; however, this is an arduous task, which requires an understanding of advanced technologies. Since well-known pathway algorithms (such as, Dijkstra, Bellman-Ford and A*) can lead to serious problems over performance, we decided to make use of deep reinforcement learning techniques. A wide range of strategies including a random initialization of replay buffer and transfer learning were assessed in three projects involving schools of different sizes. The results showed the proposal was viable and that in most cases the performance of transfer learning was superior. In addition, the study raised challenges that had to be faced in the future.

The aim of the present trial was to evaluate the growth performance of buffalo calves fed diets characterized by different forage/concentrate ratio with or without the Saccharomyces Cerevisiae supplementation (CBS 493.94, Yea-Sacc®). Twenty-four male buffalo calves (mean age 145.1 ± 16.1 days; mean weight 108.0 ± 18.7) were assigned randomly to 4 groups, homogeneous for age, fed four different diets: diet 1 F:C ratio 50:50; diet 2 F:C ratio 30:70; diet 3 F:C ratio 50:50 + Yea-Sacc® and diet 4 F:C ratio 30:70 + Yea-Sacc®. Buffalo calves were individually weighted before the start of the experiment and the data were used as a covariate, monthly until the end of the trial. Dry matter intake (DMI), daily weight gain (DWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were calculated. The differences in diets’ composition significantly (p

In this study, the external magnetic field emitted by a wireless power transfer (WPT) system and the internal electric field induced into human body models during recharging operations of a compact electric vehicle (EV) are evaluated. To this aim an ad-hoc formulation for the source modeling is coupled with a commercial software that performs numerical dosimetry. Specifically, two realistic anatomical models both in a driving position and in a standing posture are considered, and the chassis of the EV is modeled either as a currently employed aluminum alloys and as a futuristic carbon fiber composite panel. Aligned and misaligned coil configurations of the WPT system are considered as well. The analysis of the obtained results shows that the ICNIRP reference levels are exceeded in the driving position, especially for the carbon fiber chassis, whereas no exceedance is observed in terms of basic restrictions, at least for the considered scenarios.

The aim of this study was to provide information on the levels of toxic (Cd and Pb) and essential (Cu, Fe and Zn) elements in cow’s milk produced in the State of Pernambuco (Brazil). A total of 142 samples of raw milk were collected, and the concentrations of essential and toxic elements were determined by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. In almost 30 % of the samples analyzed, the Pb content exceeded the maximum level established in the Brazilian legislation (0.05 mg/l). By contrast, in all samples the Cd content was below the maximum allowable level (0.02 mg/L). The essential trace elements Cu, Fe and Zn were generally present at lower concentrations than reported in other studies and can be considered within the deficient range for cow’s milk. Statistical and chemometric procedures were used to evaluate the main factors influencing the metal concentrations (proximity to major roads, presence of effluents, and milking method). The study findings demonstrate that the proximity of the farms to major roads influences the concentrations of Cd, Pb and Cu and that this is the main factor explaining the Pb content of milk. In addition, the presence of effluents influenced the concentrations of Cu, while no relationship between the metal content and the milking method was observed. Thus, in accordance with the study findings, consumption of cow’s milk produced in the region can be considered a risk to public health due to the high concentrations of Pb and the low concentrations of other essential minerals such as Cu, Zn and Fe in some of the milk samples.

Conventional monitoring relies on "in vivo" (non-destructive) measurements of aboveground organ traits (such as stems, branches, and leaves) to analyze plantation growth trends and assess the effectiveness of management practices like watering and fertilization. This study reveals the necessity of “ex vivo” (destructive) approaches, post-excavation, to ensure fully reliable monitoring of plantation performance, including belowground organ growth and development trends. We showcase the effectiveness of dendrometric analysis, which measures the annual ring width in the secondary xylem (wood) of the taproot and stem. Monitoring above- and belowground organ growth trends allow for the exploration of similarities and differences in how different tree organs respond to internal and external factors. Such monitoring is especially crucial for assessing plantation performance in challenging climates, such as those found in arid and semi-arid lands.

Menaquinone-7 is a member of the vitamin K family whose interest has considerably increased over the last decade due to its beneficial role in human health mainly in respect to bone and cardiovascular health leading to a growing use in different nutritional supplement. Menaquinone-7 can be produced by synthesis or fermentation and its purity profile can differ depending on methodologies and extraction procedures. Finished formulation show a large heterogeneity of purity profiles as well as frequent discrepancies in the nominal content compared to the actual title. In the present study we compared purity profiles of different raw material and we related them to stability assay in normal (12months/25°C/60%RH) and accelerated conditions (6 months/40°C/75% RH) in order to test their performance in presence of different common excipients. Results show that higher purity profile correlates with enhanced stability and this could explain title discrepancies found in finished products found on the market worldwide.

Background: Tibial shaft fractures are the most common of long bone fractures. The gold standard for management is locked intramedullary nailing. The freehand method under fluoroscopic monitoring is the most often utilized method for distal screw locking. Electromagnetic guidance-based distal screw locking methods have gained popularity recently. The study's objective is to evaluate the system using electromagnetic tracking data against the free-hand technique. Methods: Sixty-three patients who received intramedullary nailing for tibial shaft fractures at our institute between January 2018 and May 2022, were included in this study. Two groups of patients were distinguished: Group FH underwent freehand distal locking and intramedullary nailing, while Group SS underwent electromagnetically guided locking. Radiation exposure period, as well as dose area product, were noted and statistically compared. Results: In terms of dose area product, a mean value of 43.57±31.57 cGy/cm2 in group FH and a mean value of 27.62±11.20 cGy/cm2 in group SS (p < 0.05) was assessed. Concerning the duration of surgery a mean value of 128.83±26.51 minutes was reported in group FH and a mean value of 126.42±48.31 minutes in group SS (p > 0.05). Conclusions: This study confirms the use of electromagnetic-guided locking distal screws reduces the total time of exposure to ionizing radiation, with no difference in operating time.

Beach sand may act as a reservoir for numerous micro-organisms, including enteric pathogens. Several of these pathogens originate in human or animal feces, which may pose a public health risk. In August 2019, high levels of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) were detected in the sand of the Azorean beach Prainha, Terceira Island, Portugal. Remediation measures were promptly implemented, including sand removal and the spraying of chlorine to restore the beach sand quality. To determine the biological source of the contamination, during the first campaign, supratidal sand samples were collected from several sites along the beach, followed by microbial source tracking (MST) analyses of Bacteroides markers for five animal species, including humans. Some of the sampling sites revealed the presence of marker genes from dogs, seagulls, and ruminants. Making use of the information on biological sources originating partially from dogs, the municipality enforced restrictive measures for dog-walking at the beach. Subsequent sampling campaigns detected low FIB contamination due to the mitigation and remediation measures that were undertaken, thereby no longer requiring MST marker-gene analysis. This is the first case study where the MST approach was used to determine the contamination sources in the supratidal sand of a coastal beach. Our results show that MST can be an essential approach to determine sources of fecal contamination in the sand. This study shows the importance of holistic management of beaches that should go beyond water quality monitoring for FIB, putting forth evidence for the need for sands also to be monitored.

Knowledge of water availability in terms of spatial (i.e., depth) and temporal variability of soil water is essential to describe soil water infiltration and storage processes accurately. Therefore, performing simulations of soil water dynamics can be a valuable tool to evaluate different land uses and their impact on water availability. Consequently, this study aimed to model the volumetric soil water content (θ, cm3 cm-3) under agroforestry systems (AFS) with cocoa. For this purpose, the θ was monitored at different depths (0-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 cm) in the soil profile of four plots (20 × 50 m) of cocoa under agroforestry systems. Environmental conditions significantly influenced the water balance of the cocoa crop. There were seven moments when evapotranspiration (ET0) was higher than 5 mm d-1. During those moments, the environment exhibited higher PAR values of 1041 µmol m-2 s-1, very low atmospheric relative humidity (RHa) levels (around 45%), higher ambient temperatures of 32.2 ºC and a vapor pressure deficit of 1.6 kPa whose θ levels reached 0.32 cm3 cm-3 and a water balance of -5.7 mm, which presented negative values during most of the study period. The θ obtained from the HYDRUS-1D model presented a slight bias as a high level of coherence between the observed values, based on the model's goodness-of-fit estimators. The above provides accurate simulations of soil water content at various depths, much-needed information for management schemes for cocoa cultivation under agroforestry systems.

Sustainability in material purchasing is a growing area of research. Goods purchasing decisions strongly affect transportation path flows, vehicle consolidation, inventory levels and related obsolescence costs. Within a global sourcing context, companies experience the need of new decision making approaches capable to consider a large variety of factors, also linked with society and environment. Environmental impact assessment has become a key requirement for materials purchasing and transportation decisions since global warming is a rising concern both in academic and industrial researches. In fact, it is well known that the freight transport industry is responsible for large amounts of carbon emissions contributing to global warming. In this paper, we initially analyse and compare the environmental economic policies established by the International Governments in relation to the carbon trading systems adopted. Then, we develop a multi-objective lot sizing approach useful in practice to define the sustainable quantity to purchase when a Cap and Trade mitigation policy is present. We further analyse the model behaviour according to different carbon price values by demonstrating that carbon prices are still far too low to motivate managers towards sustainable purchasing choices.

Parathyroid-hormone-related protein (PTHrP) is encoded by PTHLH gene which, by alternative promoter usage and splicing mechanisms, can give rise to at least three isoforms of 139, 141 and 173 amino acids with distinct C-terminals. PTHrP is subjected to different post-translational processing that generates smaller bioactive forms, comprising amino terminus, midregion (containing a nuclear/nucleolar targeting signal) and carboxy terminus peptides. Both the full-length protein and the discrete peptides are key controllers of viability, proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis in diverse normal and pathological biological systems via the reprogramming of gene expression and remodulation of PKA or PKC-mediated signalization mechanisms. The aim of this review is to pick up selected studies on PTHrP-associated signatures as revealed by molecular profiling assays, focusing on the available data about exemplary differentiating, differentiated or non-tumoral cell and tissue models. In particular, the data presented relate to adipose, bone, dental, cartilaginous and skin tissues, and also intestinal, renal, hepatic, pulmonary and pancreatic epithelia, with a focus on hepatic fibrosis-, pancreatitis- and diabetes-related changes as diseased states. Whether reported, the biochemical and/or physiological aspects associated with the specific molecular modulation of gene expression and signal transduction pathways in the target model systems under examination will be also briefly commented.

The study is based on wide international research, the International Self-report Delinquency Study 3 (ISRD-3) and it analyses the relationship between parental presence, juvenile delinquency, and the consumption of psychotropic substances in adolescents. The data have been collected by a questionnaire ISRD-3 administered to 6021 students from 7th to 9th grade from 24 countries. The results confirmed the protective effect of dual-parent families on alcohol and drug use and committing illicit behaviours. Monoparental families and families without parents are associated with higher levels of alcohol, drug use, and deviant behaviors by young people.

Cash crops are agricultural crops intended to be sold for profit as opposed to subsistence crops, meant to support the producer, or to support livestock. Since cash crops are intended for future sale, they translate into large financial value when considered on a wide geographical scale, so their production directly involves financial risk. At a national level, extreme weather events including destructive rain or hail, as well as drought, can have a significant impact on the overall economic balance. It is thus important to map such crops in order to set up insurance and mitigation strategies. Using locally generated data -such as municipality-level records of crop seeding- for mapping purposes implies facing a series of issues like data availability, quality, homogeneity etc. We thus opted for a different approach relying on global datasets. Global datasets ensure homogeneity and availability of data, although sometimes at the expense of precision and accuracy. A typical global approach makes use of spaceborne remote sensing, for which different land cover classification strategies are available in literature at different levels of cost and accuracy. We selected the optimal strategy in the perspective of a global processing chain. Thanks to a specifically developed strategy for fusing unsupervised classification results with environmental constraints and other geospatial inputs including ground-based data, we managed to obtain good classification results despite the constraints placed. The overall production process was composed using ``good-enough" algorithms at each step, ensuring that the precision, accuracy, and data-hunger of each algorithm was commensurate to the precision, accuracy, and amount of data available. This paper describes the tailored strategy developed on the occasion as a cooperation among different groups with diverse backgrounds, a strategy which is believed to be profitably reusable in other, similar contexts. The paper presents the problem, the constraints and the adopted solutions; it then summarizes the main findings including that efforts and costs can be saved on the side of Earth Observation data processing when additional ground-based data are available to support the mapping task.

The cancelation factor (CF) is a model for the ratio between gravity wave perturbations in the airglow intensity to that in the ambient temperature. The CF model allows to estimate the momentum and energy flux of gravity waves seen in nightglow images as well as the divergence of these fluxes due to waves propagating through the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region, where the nightglow and the Na layers are located. This study uses a set of T/W Na Lidar data and zenith nightglow image observations of the OH and O(1S) emissions to test and validate the CF model from the experimental perspective. The dataset analyzed was obtained during campaigns carried out at the Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO), Chile in 2015, 2016, and 2017. The CF modeled function was compared with observed points from an empirical method for vertically propagating waves that calculates directly the ratio of the gravity wave amplitude seen in nightglow images to the wave amplitude seen in lidar temperatures. We show that the CF analytical relationship underestimates the observed results generally. However, the O(1S) emission line has better agreement respect to the theoretical value due to simpler nightglow photochemistry. In contrast, the observed CF ratio from the OH emission deviates by a factor of two from the modeled asymptotic value.

Clean production of renewable fuels is a great challenge of our scientific community. Iridium complexes have demonstrated a superior catalytic activity in the water oxidation (WO) reaction, which is a crucial step in water splitting process. Herein we have used a defective zirconium MOF with UiO-66 structure as support of a highly active Ir complex based on EDTA with formula [Ir(HEDTA)Cl]Na. The defects are induced by the partial substitution of tereftalic acid with smaller formiate groups. Anchoring of the complex occurs through a post-synthetic exchange of formiate anions, coordinated at the zirconium clusters of the MOF, with the free carboxylate group of the [Ir(HEDTA)Cl]-complex. The modified material was tested as heterogenous catalyst for the WO reaction by using Cerium Ammonium Nitrate as sacrificial agent. Although TOF and TON values are comparable to those of other iridium heterogenized catalysts, the MOF exhibits iridium leaching not limited at the first catalytic run, as usually observed, suggesting a lack of stability of the hybrid system under strong oxidative conditions.

A study on flywheel geometries is presented here with the use of finite element modelling (FEM) simulations. The study analyses the stress behaviour of flywheel rotors subject to the rotational speed that creates the maximum stress that the flywheel can support, and then calculates the rotational energy mass ratio (energy density) for each geometry. The obtained geometry was Gaussian section for the Flywheel rotor. The used material for the simulations is carbon fibre Hexcel UHM 12000. The best results were a rotational speed of ≈279.000 rpm and rotational energy density of ≈ 440 Wh/kg for a single disk, but this keeps the total energy low. To increase the total energy, Flywheels with 2 and 3 rotors were analysed. Then the stability under rotation of these Flywheels were analysed, some instability was found and a solution was presented.

Microalgae biomass is considered a promising alternative feedstock for biodiesel production due to its high productivity of neutral lipids, specially under abiotic stress conditions. Among the unicellular microalgae that show this characteristic, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii appears as one of the most important model species that have increased lipids production under abiotic stress conditions. In this study, we show that cells cultivated under mixotrophic condition supplemented with 0.1 M of NaCl rapidly raises their amount of neutral lipids in C. reinhardtii without reduction of their cellular growth rate, being therefore a promising condition for biomass towards bioenergy production. The nuclear proteome of these cells was investigated where we identified 323 proteins with an enrichment of almost 60% of nuclear proteins in the total dataset. We found 61 proteins differentially regulated upon salt treatment, including proteins annotated in functional categories related to translation and nucleosome assembly functions, among others. Additionally, we identified Transcription factor proteins (TFs) and analyzed their likely Transcription factors-binding regulatory elements identifying target genes related to lipids metabolism and kinase functions, indicating possible regulatory pathways of lipids biosynthesis. Together these data can help understand regulatory nuclear mechanisms leading to an increase of lipids in the first 24h of salt stress 0.1M NaCl.

Pheidole oxyops Forel, 1908 is a generalist ant, which forages actively for plant debris to dead arthropods. In addition, its nest has an entrance that allows the ants gather resources passively by capturing falling preys into the nest. Our objective was to verify if different day periods, temperature and residual soil accumulation (ground pile in the side of nest entrance) could influence the patterns of foraging activity. Foraging activities were registered in the morning, afternoon and twilight. We measured direction and vector of trails, air temperature and humidity during foraging events. Our results showed that foraging routes are independent of residual soil accumulation and other nearby nests. However, air temperature and the time daily period are significant factors to foragers’ exits. Higher air temperatures influenced negatively the exits. In the period of the afternoon, the ants do not show any preference for routes, different from the morning and twilight. In addition, foraging activities were significantly more frequent during twilight period. Leaving the nest at twilight could allow ants foraging in an environment with less exposition to potential predators and competitors. Moreover, it may be also related to opportunism to hunt other nocturnal insects.

RNA epigenetics is perhaps the most recent aspect of interest for translational epigeneticists. RNA modifications create such an extensive network of epigenetically driven combination whose role in physiology and pathophysiology is still far from being elucidated. Not surprisingly, some of the players determining changes into RNA structure are in common with those involved in DNA and chromatin structure regulation, while other molecules seem very specific to RNA. It is envisaged, then, that new small molecules, acting selectively on RNA epigenetic changes, will be reported soon, opening new therapeutic interventions based on the correction of the RNA epigenetic landscape. In this review, we shall summarize some aspects of RNA epigenetics limited to those in which the potential clinical translatability to cardiovascular disease is emerging.

Nerve agents have recently been used in battlefield operations, espionage wars and terrorist attacks. These compounds, like some pesticides, cause organophosphate poisoning. The rapid, non-contact detection of a sarin simulant has been demonstrated at the Diagnostics and Metrology Laboratory of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development using laser photoacoustic spectroscopy, an infrared absorption technology. The first measurements, carried out with an experimental system based on a quantum cascade laser and developed for the assessment of food authenticity in the “fingerprint region”, show that a detection limit of 1 nanolitre is within the reach of the instrument when chemometric analysis is applied.

We present in this work a method for estimation of plasma bubble mean zonal drift velocities using keograms generated from images of the OI 6300.0 nm nightglow emission collected from an equatorial station -- Cariri (7.4$^\circ$S, 36.5$^\circ$W), and a mid-latitude station -- Cachoeira Paulista (22.7$^\circ$S, 45$^\circ$W), both in the Brazilian sector. The mean zonal drift velocities were estimated for 239 events recorded from 2000 to 2003 in Cariri, and for 56 events recorded over Cachoeira Paulista from 1998 to 2000. It was found that plasma bubble zonal drift velocities are smaller ($\sim$60 ms$^{-1}$) for events occurring later in the night compared to those occurring earlier ($\sim$150 ms$^{-1}$). The decreasing rate of the zonal drift velocity is of $\sim$10 ms$^{-1}$/h. We have also found that, in general, bubble events appearing first in the west-most region of the keogram are faster than those appearing first in the east-most region of the keograms. Larger zonal drift velocities occur from 19 LT to 23 LT in a longitude range from 37$^\circ$ to 33$^\circ$. The method of velocity estimation using keograms compares favorably against the mosaic method developed by \cite{Arruda:2005}, but the standard deviation of the residuals for the zonal drift velocities from the two methods is $\sim$15 ms$^{-1}$

The Volturno Plain is one of the largest alluvial plain of peninsular Italy. This area is characterized by both natural and human induced subsidence, and is and most susceptible to coastal hazards. The present study is based on post-processing, analysis and mapping of the available Persistent Scatterer interferometry datasets, derived from combination of both ascending and descending orbits of three different SAR satellite systems, during an observation period of almost two decades (June 1992 - September 2010). The main output of the research work is a map of the vertical deformation that provides new insights into the areal variability of ground deformation processes (subsidence/uplift) of Volturno plain over the last decades. Vertical displacement values derived by interferometric data post-processing show that the Volturno river plain is characterized by significant subsidence in the central axial sectors and in the river mouth area, whereas moderate uplift is detected in the eastern part of the plain. Other sectors of the study area are characterized by moderate subsidence and/or stability. We infer that the subsidence recorded in the Volturno plain is mainly a consequence of a natural process related to the compaction of the fluvial deposits that fill up the alluvial plain. Anthropic influence (e.g. water exploitation, urbanization) can be substantially regarded as an additional factor that only locally may enhance subsidence. The uplift imaged in the eastern sector of the plain can be related to tectonic activity. The study of subsidence in the Volturno plain is a valuable tool relevant for river flood analyses and coastal inundation hazard assessment addressed to risk mitigation.

Background: The aim of this experimental work was to confirm the individual uniqueness of lip prints, to verify the presence of recurrent patterns according to the Suzuki and Tsuchihashi classification and to search for characteristics that can be used in establishing the sex of a subject. Methods: Lip prints were taken from a sample of 172 volunteers using liquid lipstick and transparent adhesive tape and were digitally analyzed. Results: 59 prints (35.3%) were not considered for Suzuki and Tsuchihashi classification due to quality errors and the impossibility of visualizing lip wrinkles in one or more sextants, all the digitized prints revealed themselves to be unique after having been analyzed using superimposition. Qualitatively valid prints indicated a prevalence of Type II in both male and female and the presence of sex-linked features. A major problem was that the analysis of the same print by different operators often resulted in a different attribution of a Type. Conclusions: The potential of cheiloscopy lies mainly in the matching of prints, given their uniqueness, and can be a valid tool in gender determination but the absence of a database greatly limits its use. It is necessary to establish an acquisition protocol for taking and analyzing prints that could reduce the errors committed by the operator.

Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MASLD) is not only associated with traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as T2DM and obesity, but it is also an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. MASLD has been shown to be independently related to endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. MASLD is characterized by a chronic proinflammatory response that, in turn, may induce a prothrombotic state. Several mechanisms such as endothelial and platelet dysfunction, changes in the coagulation cascade, decreased fibrinolytic activity can contribute to induce the prothrombotic state. Platelets are players and addresses of metabolic dysregulation; obesity and insulin resistance are related to platelet hyperactivation. Furthermore, platelets can exert a direct effect on liver cells, particularly through the release of mediators from granules. Growing data in literature support the use of antiplatelet agent as a treatment for MASLD. The use of antiplatelets drugs seems to have potential clinical implication for the prevention of HCC patients with MASLD, since platelets contribute to fibrosis progression and cancer development. This review aims to summarize the main data on the role of platelets in the pathogenesis of MAFLD and its main complications such as cardiovascular events and the development of liver fibrosis. Furthermore, we will examine the role of antiplatelet therapy not only in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular events but also as a possible anti-fibrotic and anti-tumor agent.

Type two diabetes mellitus (T2DM) represents a chronic condition with increasing prevalence worldwide among the older population. T2DM condition increases the risk of micro and macro-vascular complications as well as the risk of geriatric syndromes as falls, fractures and cognitive impairment. The management of T2DM in the older population represents a challenge for the cli-nician, and a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment should always be prioritized, in order to tailor the glycate haemoglobin target according to functional and cognitive status comorbidities, life ex-pectancy and type of therapy. According to the most recent guidelines, older adults with T2DM should be cathegorized in three groups: healthy patients with good functional status, patients with complications and reduced functionality and patients at the end of life; for each group the target for the glycemic control is different, also according to the type of treatment drug. The therapeutic ap-proach should always begin with lifestyle changes; after that, several lines of therapies are available, with different mechanism of action and potential effect other than glucose level reduction. Partic-ular interest is growing around sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, due to their effect on the cardiovascular system. In this review we evaluate the therapeutic options available for the treat-ment of older diabetic patients, to ensure a correct treatment approach

The construction of carbon-carbon bonds by direct involvement of two unactivated carbon-hydrogen bonds, without any directing group, ensures an high atom economy of the entire process. Here it is described a simple protocol for the Pd(II)/Cu(II)-promoted intermolecular cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) of 5-arylimidazoles, benzimidazoles, benzoxazole and 4,5-diphenylimidazole at their C-2 position with functionalized styrenes. This specific CDC, known as Fujiwara-Moritani reaction or oxidative Heck coupling, allowed also the C-4 alkenylation of the imidazole nucleus when both 2 and 5 positions are occupied.

Explosive boiling is a fast phase transition from an ultra-thin liquid film to vapor under an extremely high heat flux, which typically has been studied using molecular dynamics simulation (MDS) method. The present MDS study investigated the explosive boiling of a liquid argon nanofilm over different solid copper surfaces with different nanowall patterns including parallel and cross nanowalls. For each surface, atomic motion trajectories, number of liquid and vapor argon atoms, heat flux, and, mainly, onset time of explosive boiling were investigated. The simulation results indicated that explosive boiling occurs earlier on parallel and cross nanowall surfaces than on an ideally smooth surface, regardless of the topology and configuration of nanowalls. Moreover, the results revealed that by using the cross nanowall surfaces, the onset time of explosive boiling decreased by 0.7–4% compared to the parallel nanowall surfaces. In addition, it was found that the onset time of explosive boiling strongly depends on the potential energy barrier and the movement space between nanowalls for both parallel and cross nanowall surfaces. Furthermore, simulation findings showed that even though increasing the height of cross nanowalls increases heat flux and temperature of the fluid argon domain, it does not necessarily result in a shorter onset time of explosive boiling. These findings demonstrate the capability of cross nanowall surfaces for explosive boiling, thereby could be utilized in future surface design for thermal management applications.

Valorization of excess sludge through the recovery of high-value products, such as biopolymers, could be a crucial step to implement circular economy principles in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). In this frame, the present study was aimed at evaluating the simultaneous production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), obtainable from the treatment of an agro-industrial wastewater. Two biological systems, one implementing aerobic granular sludge (AGS) and the other a conventional activated sludge operating as a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) were operated for 204 and 186 days, respectively. Both the systems involved a three-stage process for mixed microbial culture enrichment and biopolymers accumulation. The maximum biopolymers accumulation capacity was close to 0.60 mg gVSS^-1 in the AGS when the enrichment reactor was operated at 3 kgCODm^-3d^-1, whereas in the SBR it was slightly more than half (0.35 mg gVSS^-1). Biopolymers extracted from the AGS were mainly constituted by EPS (>70%), which percentage increased with the organic loading rate applied in the enrichment reactor up to 95%. In contrast, SBR enabled to obtain a higher PHA production (50% of the biopolymers). Results suggested that organic carbon was mainly channeled toward metabolic pathways for extracellular storing in AGS, likely as a consequence of metabolic stressors (e.g., hydraulic selection pressure, shear forces) applied for promoting aerobic granulation.

Majorana bound states in topological superconductors have attracted intense research activity in view of applications in topological quantum computation. However, they are not the only example of topological bound states that can occur in such systems. We here study a model in which both Majorana and Tamm bound states compete. We show both numerically and analytically that, surprisingly, the Tamm state remains partially localized even when the spectrum becomes gapless. Despite this fact, we demonstrate that the Majorana polarization shows a clear transition between the two regimes.

Starting from early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a morbidity and mortality excess worldwide. Containment strategies rely firstly on rapid and sensitive laboratory diagnosis with molecular detection of the viral genome in respiratory samples being the gold standard. Reliability of diagnostic protocols could be affected by SARS-CoV-2 genetic variability. In fact, mutations occurring during SARS-CoV-2 genomic evolution can involve the regions targeted by the diagnostic probes. Following a review of the literature and an in silico analysis of the most recently described virus variants (including the UK B 1.1.7 and the South Africa 501Y.V2 variants), we conclude that the described genetic variability should have minimal or no effect on the sensitivity of existing diagnostic protocols for SARS-CoV-2 genome detection. However, given the continuous emergence of new variants, the situation should be monitored in the future, and protocols including multiple targets should be preferred.

Technological innovation has led to the development of increasingly efficient and complex industrial plants. To manage this complexity, it is necessary to define an integrated vision of the socio-technological system that includes: technological, human and organizational component. Petrochemicals can be considered one of the most complex socio-technical systems that deserve special attention to high risk management, especially during the emergency conditions. Traditional safety management models only consider static systems, while new resilience engineering models evaluate the performance variability developed between different actions. One of the recent development methods is the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) that identifies the pairs between the functions. FRAM unfortunately is a qualitative model, this research integrates this model with the Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs) and with the Bayesian approach to identify the performance variability of the system. The analysis aims to develop a system that improves safety analysis. The proposed model is applied in a case study of an emergency in a petrochemical company.

This study presents a platform for ex-vivo detection of cancer nodules, addressing automation of medical diagnoses in surgery and associated histological analyses. The proposed approach takes advantage of the property of cancer to alter the mechanical and acoustical properties of tissues, because of changes in stiffness and density. A force sensor and an ultrasound probe were combined to detect such alterations during force-regulated indentations. To explore the specimens, regardless of their orientation and shape, a scanned area of the test sample was defined using shape recognition applying optical background subtraction to the images captured by a camera. The motorized platform was validated using seven phantom tissues, simulating the mechanical and acoustical properties of ex-vivo diseased tissues, including stiffer nodules that can be encountered in pathological conditions during histological analyses. Results demonstrated the platform’s ability to automatically explore and identify the inclusions in the phantom. Overall, the system was able to correctly identify up to 90.3% of the inclusions by means of stiffness in combination with ultrasound measurements, paving pathway towards robotic palpation during intraoperative examinations.

Meteorological observations over the last four decades are of paramount importance to investigate the ongoing climate change. The assessment of the reliability of any climatic time series is thus mandatory to draw correct conclusions. This evaluation involves homogeneity tests to detect artificial discontinuities whose identification is facilitated by metadata availability. In this work, daily minimum and maximum temperature measurements collected in Padua, Italy, between 1980 and 2022, are examined. Hourly observations began in 1993 and since the aim is to study long term behavior of the temperature, the focus is on daily averages and extremes. Over this period, the weather station of Padua center underwent many changes, in location or instrument; therefore, some tests have been used to identify and remove the effects of these variations and obtain a homogeneous time series. The homogeneity tests applied must be able to identify change-points both in the middle and at the extremes of the series. Some well-known absolute tests have been applied to investigate shift in the mean value: Standard Normal Homogeneity test (SNH), Buishand U and range tests, Pettitt test, F-test, STARS. Some relative tests have been applied too, which are generally more reliable than absolute tests, because they consider the information from neighboring stations. As relative tests rely on the homogeneity and quality of the reference series, several nearby stations and two reanalysis datasets (ERA5 and MERIDA) have been considered, to enhance the picture of the local situation and provide more robust conclusions. The applied tests identify change-points in the years in which a change in instrument or location of the station have occurred, confirming that these changes have compromised the homogeneity of the series. The sub-series obtained splitting the observations in correspondence of these change-points have been homogenized with respect a selected period; corrections must be applied also to future measurements to extend the time series properly.

Automated extraction of buildings from earth observation (EO) data is important for various applications, including updating of maps, risk assessment, urban planning, policy making. Combining data from different sensors such as high-resolution multispectral (HRI) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has shown great potential in building extraction. Deep learning (DL) is increasingly used in multimodal data fusion and urban object extraction. However, DL-based multimodal fusion networks may underperform due to insufficient learning of “joint features” from multiple sources and oversimplified approaches to fusing multimodal features. Recently, an hybrid attention-aware fusion network (HAFNet) has been proposed for building extraction from a dataset including co-located Very-High-Resolution (VHR) optical images and Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) joint data. The system reported good performances thanks to the adaptivity of the attention mechanism to the features of the information content of the three streams but suffered from model overparametrization, which inevitably leads to long training times and heavy computational load. In this paper the authors propose a restructuring of the scheme, which involved replacing VGG-16-like encoders with the recently proposed EfficientNet, whose advantages counteract exactly the issues found with the HAFNet scheme. The novel configuration was tested on multiple benchmark datasets, reporting great improvements in terms of processing times, and also in terms of accuracy. The new scheme, called HAFNetE (HAFNet with EfficientNet integration), appears indeed capable of achieving good results with less parameters, translating into better computational efficiency. Based on these findings, we can conclude that, given the current advancements in single-thread schemes, the classical multi-thread HAFNet scheme could be effectively transformed by the HAFNetE scheme by replacing VGG-16 with EfficientNet blocks on each single thread. The remarkable reduction achieved in computational requirements moves the system one step closer to on-board implementation in a possible, future “urban mapping” satellite constellation.