The developments of confirmed daily Sars-CoV-2 infections can be modeled a posteriori in a comparatively simple and satisfactory way by means of a special exponential function: its exponential coefficient varies exponentially with time itself. This property enables the function to directly simulate the „daily case“ curve fragments observed for the first waves of the current epidemics in a number of counties and countries. Linear combinations of two or more of the functions allow for the modeling of the complete curves observed in the vast majority of all regions for which case number developments have been tabulated.

This paper is devoted to change-point detection using only the ordinal structure of a time series. A statistic based on the conditional entropy of ordinal patterns characterizing the local up and down in a time series is introduced and investigated. The statistic requires only minimal a priori information on given data and shows good performance in numerical experiments.

During the last years some new variants of Permutation entropy have been introduced and applied to EEG analysis, among them a conditional variant and variants using some additional metric information or being based on entropies different from the Shannon entropy. In some situations it is not completely clear what kind of information the new measures and their algorithmic implementations provide. We discuss the new developments and illustrate them for EEG data.

This article works on the three questions: “How can libraries make an effective contribution to resolving the sustainability challenges we are collectively facing?”; “When are libraries truly sustainable?”; and “How can library management support this shift?”. Looking across libraries and their history of the last decades, the author discerns different stages of development leading to sustainability. In line with the work of Dyllick and Muff (2016) the author describes Sustainability Levels 0.0 to 3.0. The highest level requires a quantum leap and shifts from thinking inside-out to outside-in. This article addresses the need that there is virtually no academic management literature on the topic of sustainability in libraries. It shows that whilst there are many examples of individual projects or activities, there is a serious lack of methodology senior management level.

While L-PBF offers advantages in terms of geometrical freedom or lightweight construction, its use is often limited by economic constraints or currently achievable part costs. With an anticipated increase of L-PBF machine productivity during the next years, an increase of the share of material costs and the share of non-productive time for powder layer application process is to be expected. This results in a demand for less expensive powder materials and advanced processing strategies for the short-and medium-term advancement of L-PBF. As one possible approach, the processing of gas- and water atomized stainless steel (316L) powders with different morphology and particle size distribution as well as their impact on L-PBF productivity is investigated. The actual powder applicability in L-PBF systems and the L-PBF processability determines the minimum necessary powder quality. The main focus of the presented work is put on the interaction between powder quality, powder layer properties, part quality and cost-effectiveness of the L-PBF process. To this end, the influence of the gas and water-atomized powder properties (particle size and morphology) during the powder layer application process at highest possible powder recoater speeds and the resulting powder bed properties (powder layer density, powder bed density, powder demixing) and part properties (part density and tensile strength) is investigated.

In this paper, we introduce a non-invasive approach for monitoring bridge infrastructure with ground-based interferometric radar. This approach is called the mirror mode, since it utilises the flat surface of the bridge underside as a mirror to reflect the signal to a corner reflector on the ground placed opposite of the radar sensor. For proving the feasibility of this approach, a measurement campaign has been carried out at an exemplary bridge in Karlsruhe (Germany) including a radar sensor in mirror mode, a second radar sensor in the default mode and a laser profile scanner. We investigate the potential of this approach to monitor the bridge displacement in vertical direction and compare the results with the two other sensors. The derived results reveal the potential for monitoring bridge infrastructure. Finally, we propose further research aspects of this approach to analyse its capabilities and limitation in the context of non-invasive infrastructure monitoring.

Dysmenorrhea symptoms are frequent and often self-treated using non-prescription medicines. To further characterize women with dysmenorrhea using a combination of hyoscine butylbromide and paracetamol (PLUS) for self-management of their complaints, we performed a secondary analysis of a published pharmacy-based patient survey. 314 women (mean age 32.3 years) with dysmenorrhea reported a pain and cramps intensity of 7.45 ± 2.13 on a 0-10 Likert scale, which was reduced to 2.86 ± 1.81 upon treatment. Associated impairments of work/daily chores, leisure activities, and sleep were improved by 64.6%, 62.2% and 70.4%, respectively. The onset of symptom relief was within 60 min in 84.7%. Tolerability was rated as very good or good by 97.2%. These findings confirm the efficacy and tolerability data on PLUS from randomized controlled trials in a larger group of women conducting self-management of their dysmenorrhea.

Ongoing investigations have highlighted that MIM of Mg shows high potential for mass production of small lightweight components as well as of degradable implants with complex geometry. However, prior research activities have shown that Mg reacts sensitively to atmosphere impurities like oxygen and specific thermal decomposition products of the used backbone polymers. Polyethylene based polymers reveal a negative influence on sintering of Mg while polypropylene based polymers behave uncritically. This work is highlighting that when hydrogen instead of argon atmosphere is used during sintering, the negative influence caused by carbon residuals at the particle boundaries can be prevented. Mg-0.9Ca elongation increased with a slight decrease in UTS revealing a strengthening effect of the carbon residuals at the particle boundaries. For pure Mg UTS could be increased from 7 MPa up to 80 MPa with elongation of 6% showing the positive effect of hydrogen on the sintering of Mg.

The development of small scale hydroelectric power plants in Norway is determined by natural conditions, policies, attitudes and property rights. The owner of the river is the central decision maker. It is he who decides whether he will develop the power plant himself, Whether he wants to enter into a contract with an external investor and let him develop the power plant, whether he will sell his property rights or postpone the decisions. All available choices will involve risk. In order for him to make the best choice he must find the certainty equivalent to each of the choices and choose the one with the highest certainty equivalent. This is the first time the utility theory of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern has been applied to decision makers in the hydro power industry in Norway.

Background.Nurse gives professional nursing service to patients according to competence owned. Based on these services in the end of every year, nurses are given incentives for medical services as financial incentive. Purpose. To analyze the impact of competence training and incentives medical services’ distribution upon the achievement of nurse’s performances in General Hospital of W. Z. Johannes Kupang. Matterial and method. Observational survey research with cross sectional design. Population. Nurses in General Hospital of W. Z. Johannes Kupang. Technique. Total sampling technique with number of samples 183 respondents. Inclusive criteria of samples are willing to be interviewed, nurse’s status, permanent offices without limitation from particular working unit or poly in hospital. Independent variable: (1) competence training; (2) Incentives for medical services. Dependent variable; Nurse’s performance achievement. Variables are measured by using Lickert scale. Information are recorded through questionnaire. Analyzes using linier regression. Result. There are impacts of competence training (α=.000;ß=.489)and distribution of incentives for medical services(α=.012; ß=.152)upon nurse’s performances achievement in General Hospital of Prof.W. Z. Johannes Kupang. Conclusion.The training of nursing service status that could increase competences among nurses with affair incentives for medical services’ distribution simultaneously end up in the increasing of nurse’s performances achievement in a hospital

This paper will argue that memory from early childhood underlies many practices and beliefs that we commonly refer to as “religious”. The consciousness of young children does not yet have certain features that characterizes adult consciousness. This paper will concentrate on four of these: (I) a reality that is recognizable; (II) a sense of temporal duration; (III) a sense of self; (IV) an experience of the world that is deeply affected by our acquaintance with (a) language. Absence of these features presumably characterizes the consciousness of infants. It also often characterizes mystical experiences. The paper will argue that the human tendency to engage in so-called religious practices and beliefs makes most sense on the assumption that adults somehow preserve the memory of their state of being in childhood.

This paper proposes to study mystical experience by contrasting it with “ordinary” experience, i.e., with standard consciousness. It emphasises the construed nature of standard consciousness and the role that the mutual connectedness of mental contents plays in its construction. It then shows that removal of the factors that are responsible for the “making” of standard consciousness accounts for the principal features of mystical experience; these features are therefore mainly negative. The understanding of mystical experience as the suppression of factors that contribute to the construction of standard consciousness, along with a discussion of the mechanism that makes this possible, permits answers to some frequently asked questions, such as: why is mystical experience ineffable? what is its epistemic status? does it have implications for our understanding of mind, consciousness, and self?

Current stock market forecasting methods encompass fundamental, technical, emotional, and bargaining factors. Predominantly, price prediction hinges on order volume and price, although correlating these two within existing models proves challenging. This study employs Cycle Generative Adversarial Network (Cycle GAN) to unravel the intricate price-volume relationship, combining it with Bollinger Bands for trading signal analysis, overcoming hurdles in short-term forecasting prevalent in numerical analysis and AI. Focusing on TSMC (2330.TW) stock price, the research leverages Cycle GAN in deep learning to master the price-volume nexus, juxtaposed with LSTM and RNN. Historical TSMC closing prices and transaction counts are model inputs, scrutinizing their interconnectedness for predictions. This innovative approach aligns stock price, volume, market value, taxes, and prior changes via system engineering. By intertwining Bollinger Bands with stock price forecasts, trading signals are distilled, factoring in extended index %b for a comprehensive market picture.

In response to new developments of work and employment in high-income countries (HICs), psychosocial aspects of work and health received increased attention. In contrast, middle-income countries (MICs) are mainly concerned with severe challenges of noxious and dangerous material work environments, poor employment conditions, and deficient social policies, leaving psychosocial aspects in a marginal role at best. More recently, differences between these two worlds were even aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, with economic globalisation and growing worldwide interconnectivity, the world of work in MICs is being rapidly transformed, sharing several concerns with modern Western societies. In this process, psychosocial occupational health will become an increasingly pressing issue. This contribution explores to what extent psychosocial aspects of work and health are already addressed in research originating from MICs. A selective focus on recent findings from two regions, Asia Pacific and Latin America, reveals a high degree of awareness of, and inquiry into, work-stress related problems within these countries. Importantly, in addition to incorporating research progress from HICs, these analyses identify new aspects within specific cultural and socio-economic environments, thus enriching the international state of art.

Effective sports training should be attuned to the athlete's specific conditionings and characteristics. In motor learning research, two often neglected factors that influence this resonance are the learner's athletic background and the structural diversity of exercises (e.g., relative similarity). This study examines the effects of three learning approaches (i.e., contextual interference (CI), differential learning (DL), and free-play control condition (CO)) on the parallel learning of Handball (HB), Volleyball (VB), and Basketball (BB) skills, considering participants' prior sport backgrounds. Forty-five males (15 HB, 15 VB, and 15 BB players) with a mean age of 22±1.4 years and at least 6 years of experience in the mastered discipline voluntarily participated in this study. A pre-post-retention test design including a 6-week-intervention program was employed. In terms of short-term (pre-post) gain, only the DL- group significantly improved their performance in both non-mastered disciplines (p=0.03 for the BB free-throw and p=0.05 for the HB shooting tests), with a trend (ES=0.53) towards an improvement in the performance of the mastered VB underarm-pass skill. In terms of relatively permanent gains, the CI group significantly improved their performances from pre- to retention-test only in the non-mastered BB free-throw skill (p=0.018). In contrast, the DL group significantly improved their performance at retention compared to the pre-test in both non-mastered BB (p=0.004) and HB (p=0.003) skills, with a trend (ES=0.4) towards improvement in the mastered VB test. In both short, and relatively permanent terms, higher composite score gains were observed in DL compared to CI (p=0.001 and 0.002) and CO (p=0.001 and <0.0001). In conclusion, the present findings provide additional support for the potential advantages of the DL model over those of CI. These findings can serve as the basis for tailored training and intervention strategies and provide a new perspective for addressing various issues related to individual and situational learning.

The basic pattern of MHC variation in fish, with MHC class I versus class II, and polymorphic classical versus nonpolymorphic nonclassical, is similar in fish and mammals. Nevertheless, in many or all teleost fishes, important differences with mammalian or human MHC were observed: (1) The allelic/haplotype diversification levels of classical MHC class I genes tend to be much higher than in mammals; (2) Teleost fish classical MHC class I and class II loci are not linked. The present article summarizes previous studies that performed quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis for mapping differences in teleost fish disease resistance, and discusses them from MHC point of view. Overall, those studies suggest the possible importance of genomic regions including classical MHC class II and nonclassical MHC class I genes, whereas similar observations were not made for the genomic regions with the highly diversified classical MHC class I alleles. The present study is a review and discussion of the fish MHC situation.

COVID-19-associated coagulopathy (CAC) and ICU admissions were recognized as critical health issues that contributed to the morbidity and mortality in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. Here, we analyzed publicly available data from the Yale IMPACT cohort to address immunological misfiring and sex differences in early COVID-19 ICU patients by taking various biological variables into account that were not considered. In 2020, SARS-CoV-2 was considered far more pathogenic and lethal than other circulating respiratory viruses, and it is thus surprising that published studies failed to confirm whether all patients were indeed SARS-CoV-2+ at least by one method, thereby confounding many findings/conclusions. Several key findings were further missed or misinterpreted due to lack of consideration of several important biological variables such as days from symptoms onset (DFSO), risk factors, including obesity, and treatments that influence the immunological measures evaluated. The immune profile in the early phase of infection will differ vastly from mid-to-late phases of infection, which likely coincides with recovery or is the tipping point for progression to severe illness, and thus grouping patients from different phases/DFSO into one single group is not the right approach. Taken together, our analysis shows that interferon responses were dampened and none of the early treatments were effective in reducing levels of IL6, and that obese patients exhibited highest mortality and worst clinical scores. The opportunity to understand the contribution of biological sex, risk factors, and early treatments with respect to COVID-19-related ICU admission and progression to morbidity and mortality was missed.

Recent advances in microscopy imaging and image analysis motivate more and more institutes world-wide to establish dedicated core-facilities for bio-image analysis. To maximize the benefits research groups at these institutes gain from their core-facilities, they should be established to fit well into their respective environment. In this article, we introduce common collaborator requests and corresponding potential services core-facilities can offer. We also discuss potential conflicts of interests between the targeted missions and implementations of services to guide decision makers and core-facility founders to circumvent common pitfalls.

This study examined carbon footprint as an indicator of soil health at spatiotemporal scales with different land use types and varying soil depths in Morogoro, representing the eastern agroecological zone of Tanzania. Soils are highly weathered and acidic. The specific objectives were twofold: (1) To quantify soil organic carbon (SOC) at varying soil depths (0–15 cm, 15–30 cm) in contrasting land use types, including tractor cultivated, hand-hoe cultivated, ranch land, and reserved/bare land type; (2) To predict carbon management indices (CMI) of the studied land use types through regresses SOC, carbon pool index (CPI), and lability index (LI) at varying soil depths. Composite soil samples were based on transects of three main plots each (replicates) of 20 m by 50 m. Results showed that land use types and soil depths significantly (P <0.001) affected SOC (3.4%) and CMI (126.3). Hand hoe cultivated land at 0–15 cm recorded CMI of 259.8. Regression analysis showed an increase in CMI ranging from 97% to 99%, with standard error ranging from 2.177 to 46.096. Similar trends, but with disparity magnitudes in regressed parameters provide useful insight into transformations of organic carbon in contrasting land use types.

In this work, the solar light-induced redox photoactivity of the ZnO semiconductor material was used to prepare at room temperature CuxO-ZnO composite catalysts with a control of the chemical state of the copper oxide phase. The preparation of Cu2(I)O-ZnO and Cu(II)O-ZnO composite catalysts was achieved by using Cu(acac)2 in THF-water and Cu(NO3)2 in water as metallic precursor, respectively. Prior to the implementation of the photo-assisted synthesis method, the most efficient photoactive ZnO material was selected among different ZnO materials prepared by the low temperature polyol method and through the precipitation method with carbonates and carbamates as precipitation agent, by taking the photocatalytic degradation of the 4-chlorophenol compound in water under simulated solar light as model reaction. The ZnO support materials were characterized by XRD, BET, TGA, SEM and TEM, and the synthesis method was strongly influencing their photoactivity in terms of 4-chlorophenol degradation and of total organic carbon removal. The most photoactive ZnO material was prepared by precipitation with carbonates and calcined at 300°C, and was taking advantage of a high specific surface area and a small mean crystallite size for achieving a complete 4-chlorophenol mineralization within 70 min of reaction, with a minimum Zn2+ released to the solution due to surface photocorrosion. Beside thermal catalysis applications, this work opened a new route for the facile synthesis of Cu2O-ZnO heterojunction photocatalysts, that could take advantage under solar light of the heterojunction built between the p-type semi-conductor Cu2O with direct visible light band gap and the ZnO semiconductor phase.

Background: Patients’ effective hand hygiene helps to reduce healthcare-associated infections, prevents the spread of nosocomial infections and communicable diseases, such as COVID-19. This study aimed to describe effective hand hygiene decisions based on the Health Action Process Ap-proach (HAPA) and whether this pattern is invariant for mental health. Methods: Data were collected cross-sectionally from patients who had previously been admitted to a hospital (N=279; study 1) and longitudinally from psychosomatic rehabilitation patients (N=1,073; study 2). The fit of the HAPA framework and changes in hand hygiene decisions regarding com-pliance, as well as social-cognitive variables of the HAPA, and mental health status were examined. Results: The trimmed HAPA framework fitted the data well (χ2=27.1, df=12, p<.01, CMIN/df=2.26, CFI=.97, RMSEA=.08). According to multi-group structural equation modeling, the HAPA model with hand hygiene behavior were found to be invariant with regard to mental health. Conclusion: The trimmed HAPA framework revealed to be a generic framework in explaining so-cial-cognitive processes relating to hand hygiene decisions. Helping individuals to perform hand hygiene recommendation requires intention formation and bridging the intention-behavior gap. This can be done by promoting planning and self-efficacy. All processes appear generic to partic-ipants with and without mental health challenges.

Here we report the preparation and characterization of a novel biomimetic toothpaste containing morphogenetically active amorphous polyphosphate (polyP) microparticles enriched with retinyl acetate (“a-polyP/RA-MP”). The spherical microparticles (average size, 550±120 nm), prepared by co-precipitating sodium-polyP with calcium chloride and supplemented with retinyl acetate, were incorporated into a basis toothpaste at a final concentration of 1% or 10%. The paste containing “a-polyP/RA-MP” significantly increased the growth of human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), compared to a commercial toothpaste which acts rather inhibitory and the paste without polyP and retinyl acetate. qRT-PCR experiments revealed that the retinoid causes an induction of the expression of the MSC marker genes for osteoblast differentiation encoding collagen type I and alkaline phosphatase. On the other hand, the polyP ingredient, supplied as Zn-polyP microparticles (“Zn-a-polyP-MP”) strongly inhibited the growth of the cariogenic bacterium Streptococcus mutans. We demonstrate that the amorphous polyP-containing toothpaste, enriched with retinyl acetate, efficiently repairs both cracks/fissures and carious lesions in the tooth enamel, and reseals dentinal tubules, already after a 5 d treatment (brushing) of teeth twice daily for 5 min as examined by SEM and quantitative EDX analysis. The stability of the occlusion of dentin cracks even turned out to resist against short high power sonication treatment. Our results demonstrate that the novel toothpaste prepared here, containing amorphous polyP and retinyl acetate, is particularly suitable for prevention/repair of (cariogenic) damages of tooth enamel/dentin and for treatment of dental hypersensitivity.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, hygiene behaviors such as keeping distance, avoid-ing masses, wearing face masks and adhering to hand hygiene recommendations became impera-tive. The current study aims to determine factors interrelating with hygiene behaviors. Methods: 4,049 individuals (1,305 male, 2,709 female, aged 18-80 years) were recruited from rehabilitation clinics or freely on the internet and surveyed via online questionnaire between May 2020 and August 2021. Socio-demographics, hygiene behaviors, emotions (fear), life-satisfaction, risk factors and disability as well as communication were assessed. Results: Prevalence for hygiene behaviors was: keeping the distance 84.9%, avoiding mass gatherings 84.6%, wearing face masks 96.5% and hand hygiene 80.7%. Hygiene behaviors were significantly related to fear with linear and quad-ratic associations. Conclusion: Individuals with disabilities, risk factors and psychological symp-toms are more compliant. Especially hand hygiene should be targeted to achieve higher compli-ance rates. A medium level of fear is more functional than too elevated fear. Behavioral interven-tions and targeted communication aiming at improving different behaviors in orchestration can help individuals to remain healthy and maintain a high life-satisfaction. Thereby, communication in the healthcare setting is imperative and all involved individuals should become more aware of this to ensure high hygiene standards and patient safety.

Diabetes mellitus is the global epidemic of the 21st century affecting millions worldwide. Usually, patients with long-standing type one diabetes (T1D) or type two diabetes (T2D) tend to develop complications. A common complication is the degenerative of the nerves in the peripheral nervous system (PNS). This complication is known as distal symmetric polyneuropathy or just diabetic neuropathy. A variety of symptoms can be experienced with this complication, including pain and numbness. One characterization of this complication is the sensory loss that begins in the lower extremities and spreads substantially to the fingers and hand. There is no clear mechanism for how this happens in diabetic patients. Studies have shown that nerve damage from this complication can be due to oxidative stress, sorbitol accumulation, and advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Some of the most common medications being provided for diabetic neuropathic pain (DNP) include amitriptyline and desipramine. Other medications also include gabapentin and duloxetine. There are noninvasive options, such as acupuncture, that could provide beneficial data if rigorous studies are conducted. A number of new studies are being completed to identify more effective treatments for this condition.

This article addresses a challenge modeling novices face in model conceptualization: the recognition of behavior modes. Despite behavior modes being at the heart of system dynamics modeling, there is no unifying taxonomy for them, making them harder to learn for beginners. The article proposes criteria a taxonomy should satisfy, critically reviews previous taxonomies in the literature, and then introduces a new consistent taxonomy based on slope and curvature with mode names that refer only to visual cues and free of references to prior mathematical or domain-specific knowledge. Evidence from an exploratory experiment suggests that novices actually have difficulties classifying curves when using previous taxonomies. Links from these elementary modes to analogous terms in other taxonomies in diverse disciplines allow this taxonomy to be related to other ones. The article concludes by mentioning relevant limitations and future steps.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new way of producing renewable energy based on fjords as a water heater. We will call this system the Water-thermal Energy Production System (WEPS), because the basic idea is to extract heating and cooling energy from water. Although a prototype of WEPS has existed in Norway for more than ten years, a WEPS currently in operation has not been financially analyzed in the literature. Coastal parts of Norway have a potential of 5 TWh of profitable WEPS-facilities [9], due to convenient access to fjords containing water with stable all-season temperatures of about 4–12C when the depth of the water is about 50 meters. This stability of the water temperature makes it possible to extract energy from the fjord in a very efficient way. The potential for economically-profitable WEPS in other parts of the world has not been estimated. In order to answer such a question, more research is required. We have conducted a case study of a WEPS located in the Norwegian municipality of Eid. This is the first full-scale Norwegian WEPS, and it has been operating since 2006. The nascent years have passed, and the technology has been in operation for some years. In this paper, we have made an estimate of the business profitability and the external effects based on past empirical evidence and some assumptions about future development in some key figures. The results suggests that WEPS-Eid has been a profitable investment carrying a positive internal rate of revenue, even if the present underutilization in production capacity will continue in the future. Stability in energy prices for heating purposes has also gained customers compared to the more volatile prices of alternative renewable energy, like hydropower or wind turbines. The negative, external effects in the operating phase from WEPS-Eid are insignificant. Despite the significant profitability of the WEPS facility in Eid, there are two main obstacles for new entrants. There is a lack of relevant operational information for potential investors due to few facilities. This leads to uncertainty, and investments in WEPS appear as a risky business. Secondly, construction of a WEPS requires both big financial investments in digging and facilitating long trenches for a pipeline system and time and effort spent on acquiring the licenses needed for doing this work. A coordinating unit is probably required in order to get the necessary public and private licenses and to reduce fixed costs by coordinating other tasks in the same trenches, like pipes for water and sewer, fiber cables and tele-cables. In Eid, the local municipal administration was the coordinating unit.

Lung transplantation offers patients with end stage lung disease an opportunity for a better quality of life, but with limited organ availability it is paramount that selected patients have the best opportunity for successful outcomes. Nutrition plays a central role in post-surgical outcomes and historically, body mass index (BMI) has been used as the de facto method of assessing a lung transplant candidate’s nutritional status. Here we review the historical origins of BMI in lung transplantation, summarize the current BMI literature, and review studies of alternative/complementary body composition assessment tools, including lean psoas area, creatinine-height index, leptin, and dual x-ray absorptometry. These body composition measures quantify lean body mass versus fat mass and may provide a more comprehensive analysis of a patient’s nutritional state than BMI alone.

Amorphous solid dispersions are considered a promising formulation strategy for the oral delivery of poorly soluble drugs. The limiting factor for the applicability of this approach is the physical (in)stability of the amorphous phase in solid samples. Minimizing the risk of reduced shelf life for a new drug by establishing a suitable excipient/polymer-type from first principles would be desirable to accelerate formulation development. Here we perform Molecular Dynamics simulations to determine properties of blends of eight different polymer-small molecule drug combinations for which stability data is available from a consistent set of literature data. We calculate thermodynamic factors (mixing energies) as well as mobilities (diffusion rates and roto-vibrational fluctuations). We find that either of the two factors, mobility and energetics, can determine the relative stability of the amorphous form for a given drug. Which factor is rate limiting depends on physico-chemical properties of the drug and the excipients/polymers. The methods outlined here can be readily employed for an in-silico pre-screening of different excipients for a given drug to establish a qualitative ranking of the expected relative stabilities, thereby accelerating and streamlining formulation development.

Over recent years globalisation has occasioned a dramatic rise in cross-cultural interactions – until this was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic (OECD 2018, Nelson &amp; Luetz 2021). The ability to competently engage in a multicultural world is often considered the “literacy of the future” (UNESCO 2013, OECD 2018). Global interconnectedness has brought studies into intercultural competence to centre stage (UNDP 2004, Bissessar 2018, Nelson et al. 2019). This has increased the demand for cross-cultural education experiences that facilitate such learning. However, there is a dearth of empirical research into the issues and effects surrounding short-term cross-cultural educational experiences for adolescents. This mixed methods study extends previous research by looking specifically into what impact short-term cross-cultural experiences may have on the formation of intercultural competence and emotional intelligence of Australian high school students. This study used two instruments for measuring intercultural competence and emotional intelligence in a pre- and posttest quasi-experimental design (n=14), the GENE Scale and TEQ. Moreover, it conducted in-depth post experience qualitative interviews (n=7) that broadly followed a phenomenological paradigm of inquiry. The findings suggest that fully embodied cross-cultural immersive experiences offer benefits in areas of intercultural competence and emotional intelligence and can offer meaningful application in areas of current affairs. A greater understanding of the linkages between immersive cross-cultural experiences and intercultural competence offers prospects for policy makers, educators, pastoral carers, and other relevant stakeholders who might employ such experiential learning to foster more interculturally and interracially harmonious human relations.

The need for new technologies into healthcare services has been stressed. However, little is known about the effectiveness of digital interventions integrated in psychosomatic rehabilitation processes. Data from 724 patients from psychosomatic rehabilitation clinics were analyzed for effectiveness of digital trainings examined by a change in symptoms related to depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness from pre- to post-rehabilitation. Rehabilitation satisfaction was examined in association with reaching rehabilitation goals and satisfaction with communication. Mixed repeated measures analysis of covariances, analysis of covariances, and hierarchical stepwise regression analyses were performed. Results indicated a superior effectiveness for the intervention group receiving all offered digital treatments in addition to the regular face-to-face rehabilitation program with regard to symptoms of depression, F(2,674)=3.93, p<.05, ηp2=.01), and anxiety, F(2,678)=3.68, p<.05, ηp2=.01), post-rehabilitation with large effect sizes for both depression (d=1.28) and anxiety (d=1.08). In addition, rehabilitation satisfaction was positively associated with reaching rehabilitation goals and perceived communication with healthcare workers. Digital interventions appeared effective in supporting mental health of psychosomatic rehabilitation patients post-rehabilitation. This finding supports the inclusion of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary digital and face-to-face treatment programs and call for more implementations of new technologies in a context of complexity to improve health and healthcare service.

Aflatoxin biosynthesis is correlated with oxidative stress and is proposed to function as a secondary defense mechanism to redundant intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). We find that the antioxidant gallic acid inhibits aflatoxin formation and growth in A. flavus in a dose-dependent manner. Global expression analysis (RNA-Seq) of gallic acid treated A. flavus showed that 0.8% (w/v) gallic acid revealed two possible routes of aflatoxin inhibition. Gallic acid significantly inhibited the expression of farB, encoding a transcription factor that participates in peroxisomal fatty acid β oxidation, a fundamental contributor to aflatoxin production. Secondly, the carbon repression regulator encoding gene creA was significantly down regulated by gallic acid treatment. CreA is necessary for aflatoxin synthesis and aflatoxin biosynthesis genes were significantly downregulated in DcreA mutants. In addition, the results of antioxidant enzyme activities and the lipid oxidation levels coupled with RNA-Seq data of antioxidant genes indicated that gallic acid may reduce oxidative stress through the glutathione- and thioredoxin-dependent systems in A. flavus.

Spectrally weighed irradiance on the corneal plane is often used to determine the visual and non-visual potency of light. Spectral irradiance or illuminance is measured with a diffuser in the so-called 2π geometry (i.e., a hemispheric measurement). Due to anatomical conditions, the human binocular field of view (FOV) does not correspond to a hemisphere but is occluded upwards and downwards. FOV-restricted measurements are scarce, however, and thus the error when using hemispheric measurements is yet to be determined. For our study, we designed and 3D printed FOV occlusions as attachments to spectral measurement devices. Measurements with and without the occlusion were taken in different lighting situations in the laboratory (light from different directions) and in real-world conditions (light typically from above). Our measurements show a reduction of visual and melanopic values due to the FOV occlusion ranging from negligible to over 60% for realistic scenarios. Further, the reduction was comparable for visual and melanopic parameters, as the distribution of light in the FOV was generally spectrally homogeneous. In the case of an exemplary and artificial laboratory situation, however, the melanopic daylight (D65) efficacy ratio changed by more than a factor of 2 only due to the FOV occlusion. Finally, head orientation showed a marked impact on all quantities. Our results reveal the potential for considerable error when just evaluating and comparing vertical, hemispheric measurements in experiments and non-visual lighting design projects. We thus encourage the (additional) use of a FOV occlusion for eye-level measurements in typical viewing directions and provide open-source 3D-print files.

The last 50 years witnessed the emergence of various so called “hyperpolarization technologies” that allow generating large magnetizations of spin ensembles. This Editorial Essay provides a brief overview of the use of these technologies in various fields, including medicine, chemistry, and quantum sensing. It is concluded that critical questions still need to be addressed to harness benefits of nuclear hyperpolarization in clinical medical imaging while interdisciplinary innovation can unlock potential of novel (yet unexplored) methods. My hope is that this Editorial Essay provides valuable insights into the current state and future directions of spin technologies.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, clinicians and scientists are working assiduously to unravel its pathophysiology and find effective treatments. An impressive number of papers has been published on SARS-CoV-2, exposing the complexity of the disease, the tendency of scientists to form hypotheses within their area of expertise, and the lack of orchestration of research. Hypotheses and research findings mainly complement each other, though sometimes controversies can be discerned among various theories and study results. Our overview aims to portray the ‘big picture’ of COVID-19, visualising the interwovenness of different pathophysiological pathways, with a focus on cytokine-induced pathology, the sequelae of ACE2 downregulation, and thrombosis associated with microvascular injury. It aids in overseeing the effects of repurposed drugs on intended targets, but also alerts to the (adverse) effects on interacting pathways. The overview shows how comorbidities probably increase susceptibility to (severe) COVID-19 and provides the possible pathophysiological origin of signs, symptoms, and biochemical abnormalities.

Background: The commonly known assumption that combinations of several herbs in one formulation can have better efficacy due to additive or synergistic effects has not been systematically studied despite some evidence supporting the synergy concept. Study aim: The study aimed to reveal the molecular interactions in situ of host cells in response to the intervention of BHP and justify the benefits of implementing BHP in clinical practice. Results: This overview provides the results of recent clinical and network pharmacology studies of botanical herbal preparations (BHP) of Rhodiola with other plants, including Ashwagandha, Green Tea, Eleutherococcus, Schisandra, Eleutherococcus, Leuzea, Caffeine, Cordyceps, Gingko, Black Cohosh, saffron, and L-carnosine. Conclusions: The most important finding from network pharmacology studies of BHP was the evidence supporting the synergistic interaction of BHP ingredients, revealing unexpected new pharmacological activities unique and specific to the new BHP. Some studies show the superior efficacy of BHP compared with mono-drugs. At the same time, some a priori-designed combinations can fail, presumably due to antagonistic interactions and crosstalk between molecular targets within molecular networks involved in the cellular and overall response of organisms on the intervention. Network pharmacology studies help predict the results of studies to discover new indications and unpredicted adverse events.

Modern agriculture demands for comprehensive information about the plant itself. Conventional chemistry-based analytical methods - due to their low throughput and high associated cost - are no longer capable of providing these data. In recent years, remote reflectance-based characterization has developed as one of the most promising solutions for rapid assessments for plant attributes. However, in many cases, expensive equipment is required because accurate quantifications need assessment of the full reflectance spectrum. We examined the versatility of visible colour sensors as reflectance measuring devices for biological / biochemical quantifications on sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum). Our results indicate for the wide potential of spectral colour sensors for quantitative determination of leaf phenolic compounds, flavonoids in particular, and non-invasive plant phenotyping in agricultural applications by low-cost sensors.

The core pathological event in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the specific dying of dopamine (DA) neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). Why SNc DA neurons are especially vulnerable and why idiopathic PD has only been found in humans is still puzzling. The two main underlying factors of SNc DA neuron vulnerability appear related to high DA production, namely (i) the toxic effects of cytoplasmic DA metabolism and (ii) continuous cytosolic Ca2+ oscillations in the absence of the Ca2+-buffer protein calbindin. Both factors cause oxidative stress by producing highly reactive quinones and increasing intra-mitochondrial Ca2+ concentrations, respectively. High DA expression in human SNc DA neuron cell bodies is suggested by the abundant presence of the DA-derived pigment neuromelanin, which is not found in such abundance in other species and has been associated with toxicity at higher levels. The oxidative stress created by their DA production system, despite that the SN does not use unusually high amounts of energy, explains why SNc DA neurons are sensitive to various genetic and environmental factors that create mitochondrial damage and thereby promote PD. Aging increases multiple of the risk factors for PD, and, to a large extent, PD is accelerated aging. To prevent PD neurodegeneration, possible approaches that are discussed here are (1) reducing cytoplasmic DA accumulation, (2) blocking cytoplasmic Ca2+ oscillations, and (3) providing bioenergetic support.

Objective: To examine variations in end-of-life care for breast cancer, heart failure, and dementia patients. Data and methods: Data from four Norwegian health registries were linked using a personal identification number. Longitudinal trends over 365 days and the type of care on the final day of life were analyzed using descriptive techniques and logistic regression analysis. Results: Patients with dementia were most commonly placed in nursing homes, while patients with heart failure and breast cancer were more frequently hospitalized. Breast cancer and heart failure patients had a higher likelihood of dying at home. The presence of general practitioners increased the probability of home-based end-of-life care for cancer patients, while non-physician healthcare workers increased the likelihood of home-based care for the other patient groups. Conclusion: Diagnoses, individual characteristics, and service availability are all associated with the place of death in end-of-life care.

We review some recent developments about strongly interacting relativistic Fermi theories in three spacetime dimensions. These models realize the asymptotic safety scenario and are used to describe the low-energy properties of Dirac materials in condensed matter physics. We begin with a general discussion of the symmetries of multi-flavor Fermi systems in arbitrary dimensions. Then we review known results about the critical flavor number $N_\mathrm{crit}$ of Thirring models in three dimensions. Only models with flavor number below $N_\mathrm{crit}$ show a phase transition from a symmetry-broken strong-coupling phase to a symmetric weak-coupling phase. Recent simulations with chiral fermions show that $N_\mathrm{crit}$ is smaller than previously extracted with various non-perturbative methods. Our simulations with chiral SLAC fermions reveal that for four-component flavors $N_\mathrm{crit}=0.80(4)$. This means that all reducible Thirring models with $\Nr=1,2,3,\dots$ show no phase transition with order parameter. Instead we discover footprints of phase transitions without order parameter. These new transitions are probably smooth and could be used to relate the lattice Thirring models to Thirring models in the continuum. For a single irreducible flavor, we provide previously unpublished values for the critical couplings and critical exponents.

Harbor porpoise are typically seen in small groups of 1-3 individuals, with aggregations of 20+ individuals treated as rare events. Since the 1990s, the harbor porpoise population in the Salish Sea has seen a significant recovery, which has led to an increased number of observed aggregations that exceed the more usual small group sizes. By combining the observational data of United States and Canadian research organizations, community scientists, and whale watch captains or naturalists, we demonstrate that harbor porpoise aggregations appear to be more common than previously known, with 160 aggregations documented in 2022 alone. Behavioral data also indicated that foraging behaviors were common and social behaviors, like mating, were seen more often during these encounters compared to small groups. Other behaviors that are considered to be rare or unknown, were also observed during these encounters, including cooperative foraging and vessel approach. These aggregations are likely important foraging and social gatherings for harbor porpoises. This holistic approach integrating data from two countries and multiple sources provides an ecosystem level assessment that more effectively reflects the habitat use of harbor porpoise in this region that do not recognize the socio-political boundaries imposed upon the natural world.

Reduced nutrient mineralization rates under minimum tillage are usually compensated by mineral fertilizer application. These cannot be applied in organic farming systems, however. We hypothesized that organic minimum tillage based on frequent cover cropping and application of dead mulch will improve soil fertility and can compensate for the potential negative effects of minimum tillage. Two long-term field experiments were set up in 2010 and 2011 comparing plough versus minimum tillage including application of transferred mulch. As second factor, the application of compost versus mineral potassium and phosphorus was compared. In 2019, soils were analyzed for soil pH, organic carbon, macro-, micronutrients, microbial biomass, microbial activity and total nematode abundance. In addition, performance of pea in the same soils was determined under greenhouse conditions. Across both experiments, macronutrients (+52%), micronutrients (+11%), microbial biomass (+51%), microbial activity (+86%), and bacterivorous nematodes (+112%) increased in minimum tillage compared with the plough-based system. In the greenhouse, pea biomass was 45% higher in the soil that had been subjected to minimum tillage compared to the plough. In conclusion, soil fertility can be improved in organic minimum tillage systems by intensive cover cropping and application of dead mulch to levels higher than in a plough-based system.

Standards are not only crucial for obtaining a certification for practical use, but also an essential guidance for inferring how and what to simulate as well test experimentally. This paper examines the potential applicability of existing standards from various domains, including aerospace and automotive, to Wing-Structure- Integrated high-pressure Hydrogen Tanks (SWITHs). It highlights the associated challenges and uncertainties, acknowledging the absence of a single, all-encompassing standard for SWITHs. We embark on an exploration aimed at identifying alternative standards that are best suited for SWITHs. The analysis scrutinizes existing standards that could potentially facilitate SWITH certification, with a particular focus on the inclusivity of externally loaded hydrogen tanks. Assessment criteria are established to filter standards that best meet the needs of SWITHs. Through this process, we identify two key standards that present themselves as the most promising alternatives. Moreover, we delineate the technical constraints involved in selecting the maximum nominal working pressure for high-pressure tanks intended for burst tests. Our findings reveal a current upper limit of 525 bar, imposed by the limitations of existing test facilities. The study underscores that these standards should serve as flexible guiding frameworks rather than rigid protocols, encouraging progressive development in the SWITH field.

Neuromuscular disorders cause progressive muscular weakness, which limits upper extremity mobility and performance during activities of daily life. A dynamic arm support can improve mobility and quality of life. However, their use is often discontinued over time for unclear reasons. This study aimed to evaluate whether users of dynamic arm supports demonstrate and perceive quantifiable mobility benefits over a period of two months. Nine users of dynamic arm supports were included in this observational study. They had different neuromuscular disorders and collectively used four different arm supports. They were observed for three consecutive weeks during which they were equipped with a multi-sensor network of accelerometers to assess the actual use of the arm support and they were asked to provide self-reports on the perceived benefits of the devices. Benefits were experienced mainly during anti-gravity activities and the measured use did not change over time. The self-reports provided contextual information in domains such as participation to social life, in addition to the sensor system. However self-reports overestimated the actual use by up to three-fold compared to the accelerometer measures. A combination of objective and subjective methods is recommended for meaningful and quantifiable mobility benefits during activities of daily life.

Aneuploidy describes the gain or loss of entire chromosomes or chromosome arms. Already more than 100 years ago, aneuploidy was described to be featured in cancer and it is known today to be present in 68-90 % of cancers, depending on tumour entity. Aneuploidy is implicated to affect cancer growth, therapy response and frequently affects prognosis. Chromosomal instability (CIN) is recognized as the main cause of aneuploidy and is characterised as the fluent process of gaining or losing chromosomes. Chromosomally instable cells need to be kept in check, or cleared, to prohibit the sampling of aneuploid karyotypes able to drive tumorigenesis. Of note, even aneuploid cancer cells often show CIN, a feature that promotes therapy related drug-resistance. Here, we review how CIN can be prevented or limited to spread by the induction of cell death and the relevance of different p53 responses triggered in response to mitotic perturbations to prohibit the formation of cancer driving aneuploidies.

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is an additive manufacturing process employed in many industries, for example for aerospace, automotive and medical applications. In these sectors, mainly nickel-, aluminum- and titanium-based alloys are used. In contrast, the mechanical engineering industry is interested in more wear-resistant steel alloys with higher hardness, both of which can be achieved with a higher carbon content, like in high-speed steels. Since these steels are susceptible to cracking, preheating needs to be applied during processing by LPBF. In a previous study, we applied a base plate preheating temperature of 500 °C for HS6-5-3-8 with 1.3 % carbon content. We were able to manufacture dense (p > 99.9 %) and crack-free parts from HS6-5-3-8 with a hardness > 62 HRC (as built) by LPBF. In this study, we investigate the influence of preheating temperatures up to 600 °C on hardness and microstructure dependent on part height for HS6-5-3-8. The microstructure was studied by light optical microscopy (LOM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The analysis of hardness and microstructure at different part heights is necessary because state-of-the-art preheating systems induce heat only into the base plate. Consequently, parts are subjected to temperature gradients and different heat treatment effects depending on part height during the LPBF process.

International migration is closely tied to demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors and their interaction with migration policies. Using a combination of a gravity econometric model and an overlapping generations model, we estimate the probability of bilateral migration among 160 countries in the period of 1960 to 2000 and use these findings to project international migration flows and their implication for income inequality within and between countries in the 21st century under five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Our results show that international migration not only increases the welfare in developing countries, but also closes the inequality gap within and between low-skilled and high-skilled labor in these countries. In most developed countries on the contrary, international migration increases the inequality gap and slightly reduces output. These changes are not uniform and vary significantly across countries depending on their population growth and human capital development trajectories. Overall, while migration is strongly affected by inequality between developed and developing countries, it has an ambiguous impact on inequality within and between countries.

Despite their enormous potential the use of Indoor Localization Systems (ILS) remains seldom. One reason is the lack of market transparency and stakeholders’ trust in the systems’ performance as a consequence of insufficient use of Test and Evaluation (T&E) methodologies. The heterogeneous nature of ILS, their influences, and their applications pose various challenges for the design of a methodology that provides meaningful results. Methodologies for building-wide testing exist, but their use is mostly limited to associated indoor localization competitions. In this work, the T&E 4iLoc Framework is proposed - a methodology for T&E of indoor localization systems in semi-controlled environments based on a system-level and black-box approach. In contrast to building-wide testing, T&E in semi-controlled environments, such as test halls is characterized by lower costs, higher reproducibility, and better comparability of the results. The limitation of low transferability to real world applications is addressed by an application-driven design approach. The empirical validation of the T&E 4iLoc Framework, based on the examination of a contour-based Light Detection and Ranging ILS, an Ultra Wideband ILS, and a camera-based ILS for the application of Automated Guided Vehicles in warehouse operation, demonstrates the benefits of T&E with the T&E 4iLoc Framework.

Interactive Planning Support Systems (PSS) implemented on a maptable are deemed suitable to support participatory planning processes. Through their interactive nature and user-friendly interface they are supposed to facilitate exchange of knowledge between stakeholders, consensus building among them, group learning processes, and thereby strengthen participation. We analyze in this systematic review, based on 16 case studies using interactive PSS, how such PSS have contributed to the goal of strengthening stakeholder participation. Results show that tools and applications have become more sophisticated in recent years and the goals of the studies changed from collaboratively designing interventions to observing and understanding how the application of such tools contributes to improved plan outcomes and group based learning. However, many case studies lack a proper framework and operationalization for investigating the impacts of the tools and applications on participation. Consequently, impacts on participation are assessed rather incidentally based on implicit assumptions and often no distinction is made between the different aspects of participation. In conclusion, further theoretical studies conceptualizing impacts of interactive PSS on participation are needed as well as empirical studies testing these impacts in real world case contexts with various groups of stakeholders.

There is a great need to develop research-based models for supporting collaboration between educational institutions. Collaboration models are needed, for example, to assist the transition from lower educational level to higher education or from higher education to work life. In this research, collaboration was conducted through a joint upper-secondary school and university course that addressed global challenges by using a project-based learning approach. There is a shortage of research exploring students’ perceptions of collaboration. Therefore, the main purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the relevance of the joint course for students and university students. The research was guided by the following research question: What kind of relevance did the students experience in the joint project-based learning course? The data was gathered using questionnaires, interviews, and reflective study reports. The data was analyzed via theory-based content analysis where research-oriented relevance model was used as the analysis framework. The analysis framework enabled categorizing experienced relevance on individual, vocational and societal dimensions. Altogether, the analysis produced 7 relevance categories for upper-secondary students and 9 for university students. According to the analysis, upper-secondary school students felt that the course offered the most on an individual relevance dimension whereas university students experienced the vocational relevance dimension most diverse. As the main conclusion, this research produced new insights on the experienced relevance of upper-secondary level and higher education cooperation from the students’ point of view. The acquired knowledge can be useful for everyone developing new cross-institutional cooperation models.

Public participation is significant for the success of any urban planning project. However, most members of the general public are not planning professionals and may not understand the technical details of a 2D paper-based plan, which might hamper their participation. One way to expand the participation of citizens is to present plans in well-designed, user-friendly and interactive platforms that allow participation regardless of the technical skills of the participants. This paper investigates the impacts of the combined use of 3D visualization and E-participation on public participation in Kisumu, Kenya. A 3D City model, created with CityEngine2016, was exported into a web-based geo-portal and used as a Planning Support System in two stakeholder workshops in order to evaluate its usability. For e-participation, 300 questionnaires given out to planning practitioners. Five indicators were developed for evaluating the usability of the 3D model while the usability of e-participation was evaluated using communication, collaboration and learning as indicators. Results showed that effectiveness and efficiency varies within different professional groups while the questionnaires showed strong preference for e-participation methods, especially SMSs/USSDs and emails. The study concludes that the use of 3D visualization and E-participation has the potential for improving the quality and quantity of public participation and recommends further research on the subject.

To address the question whether there is evidence that drinking water in general or mineral water in particular is effective in preventing diabetes; we performed a literature search of randomized controlled trials (PubMed). The search resulted in very few trials (N = 9) investigating this topic: one trial investigates the effect of increasing water consumption on glycemic control in diabetic patients; two trials investigate the effect of drinking water with a meal in diabetic patients; while six trials compare the effect of mineral rich water with that of low mineralized water on glucose metabolism in healthy subjects. There is evidence that increasing water consumption can improve glucose metabolism and randomized controlled trials with mineral water suggest that waters containing relevant amounts of magnesium can exert an additional effect. The role of bicarbonate; which is present in all the mineral waters used in the trials; will be discussed. Future research needs to investigate the effect of mineral water in prediabetic individuals or individuals with impaired glycemic control.

Accurately estimating the current state of local traffic scenes is one of the key problems in the development of software components for automated vehicles. In addition to details on free space and drivability, static and dynamic traffic participants, information on the semantics may also be included in the desired representation. Multi-layer grid maps allow to include all this information in a common representation. However, most existing grid mapping approaches only process range sensor measurements such as LIDAR and Radar and solely model occupancy without semantic states. In order to add sensor redundancy and diversity it is desired to add vision based sensor setups in a common grid map representation. In this work, we present a semantic evidential grid mapping pipeline including estimates for eight semantic classes that is designed for straightforward fusion with range sensor data. Unlike in other publication our representation explicitly models uncertainties in the evdiential model. We present results of our grid mapping pipeline based on a monocular vision setup and a stereo vision setup. Our mapping resulsts are accurate and dense mapping due to the incorporation of a disparity- or depth-based ground surface estimation in the inverse perspective mapping. We conclude this paper by providing a detailed quantitative evaluation based on real traffic scenarios in the Kitti odometry benchmark and demonstrating the advantages compared to other semantic grid mapping approaches.

Superficial discolored spots on Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) fillets are a serious quality problem for commercial seafood farming. Previous reports proposed that the black spots (called melanized focal changes (MFC)) may be melanin, but no convincing evidence has been reported. In this study, we performed chemical characterization of MFC, and also of red pigment (called red focal changes (RFC)), of salmon fillets using alkaline hydrogen peroxide oxidation and hydroiodic acid hydrolysis. This revealed that the MFC contain 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA)-derived eumelanin whereas the RFC only contain trace amounts of eumelanin. Therefore, probably, the black color of MFC can be explained by the presence of eumelanin from accumulated melanomacrophages. For the red pigment, we could not find a significant signature of either eumelanin or pheomelanin, and the red color is probably predominantly hemorrhagic in nature. However, we found that in RFC the level of pigmentation did increase together with some melanogenic metabolites. Comparison with a “mimicking experiment,” in which a mixture of a salmon homogenate + DOPA was oxidized with tyrosinase, suggested that the RFC include conjugations of DOPAquinone and/or DOPAchrome with salmon muscle tissue proteins. In short, the results suggest that melanogenic metabolites in MFC and RFC derive from different chemical pathways, which would agree with the two different colorations deriving from distinct cellular origins, namely melanomacrophages and red blood cells, respectively.

Process induced defects during thermoforming are widespread problems in laminate manufacturing. The aim of this study is to describe the effects of holding time and pressure on several properties of the manufactured laminate. A design of experiments is performed, followed by an analysis of variance to examine significant effects. Subsequently, a regression model is created to predict the laminate’s properties, which is also validated. The highest values of tensile strength and elongation at break are found for low settings of holding time and pressure. The fibre volume fraction is not affected by the process parameters. As holding time and pressure increase, significant fibre misalignment takes place, leading to a decrease of the mechanical properties. The regression model corresponds well with the validation and should be extended with further variables in subsequent studies.

The development of hydrogen plasma smelting reduction as a CO₂ emission-free steel-making process is a promising approach. This study presents a concept of the reduction of hematite using hydrogen thermal plasma. A laboratory scale and pilot scale hydrogen plasma smelting reduction (HPSR) process are introduced. To assess the reduction behavior of hematite, a series of experiments has been conducted and the main parameters of the reduction behavior, namely the degree of hydrogen utilization, degree of reduction and the reduction rate are discussed. The thermodynamic aspect of the hematite reduction is considered and the pertinent calculations have been carried out using FactSage^TM 7.2. The degree of hydrogen utilization and the degree of reduction were calculated using the off-gas chemical composition. The contribution of carbon, introduced from the graphite electrode, ignition pin and steel crucible, to the reduction reactions was studied. The degree of reduction of hematite, regarding H₂O, CO and CO₂ as the gaseous reduction products, is determined. It is shown that the degree of hydrogen utilization and the reduction rate were high at the beginning of the experiments, then decreased during the reduction process owing to the diminishing of iron oxide. Conducting experiments with the high basicity of slag B₂=2 led to a decrease of the phosphorus concentration in the produced iron.

Phytoplasma diseases pose a substantial threat to diverse crops of agricultural importance. Management measures are usually implemented only after the disease has already occurred. Early detection of such phytopathogens, prior to disease outbreak, has rarely been attempted but would be highly beneficial for phytosanitary risk assessment, disease prevention and mitigation. In this study we present the implementation of a recently proposed proactive disease management protocol (DAMA: Document, Assess, Monitor, Act) for a group of vector-borne phytopathogens. We used insect samples collected during a recent biomonitoring program in southern Germany to screen for the presence of phytoplasmas. Insects were collected with Malaise traps in different agricultural settings. DNA was extracted from these mass trap samples and subjected to PCR-based phytoplasma detection and COI sequence metabarcoding. In about 1% of the analyzed samples, phytoplasma DNA was detected. Phytoplasma group identification was performed by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and the detected phytoplasmas could be assigned to the 16SrI subgroups B and L. Insect species in the sample were identified by DNA metabarcoding. By using established databases, checklists, and archives, we documented historical associations and records of phytoplasmas and its hosts in the study region. For the assessment in the DAMA protocol, phylogenetic triage was performed in order to determine the risk for tri-trophic interactions (plant-insect-phytoplasma) and associated disease outbreaks in the study region. A phylogenetic heat map constitutes the basis for risk assessment and was used here to identify a minimum number of seven leafhopper species suggested to be monitored by stakeholders in this region. A proactive stance in monitoring changing patterns of association between hosts and pathogens can be a cornerstone in capabilities to prevent future phytoplasma disease outbreaks. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the DAMA protocol has been applied in the field of phytopathology and vector-borne plant diseases.

Residual stresses in fiber metal laminates (FML) inevitably develop during the manufacturing process. The main contributor to these stresses is the difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) between fibers and metal in combination with high process temperatures. To quantify these stresses, the use of specimens with an asymmetric layup is an easily adaptable method. The curvature that develops after the manufacturing of flat laminates with an asymmetrical layer stack is a measure of the level of residual stresses evolving during cure. However, the accuracy of the curvature evaluation is highly dependent on specimen design and other influencing parameters. In this work a large set of FML specimens is investigated to identify relevant influencing parameters and derive conclusions about specimen design and evaluation techniques. For certain layups and process parameters, there is a good correlation between the curvature and the stress-free temperature, which is further covered by analytical solutions for bimetals. This correlation is the basis to transfer curvature into a stress-free temperature that can consequently be used for the quantification of residual stress levels in more complex FMLs. The transfer is validated by in-situ strain measurements during cure using a strain gage technique. Based on the results, the application of asymmetric specimens for residual stress characterization in more complex laminates is presented in the form of a workflow.

Pancreatic β-cell-specific clock knock-out mice develop β cell oxidative-stress and failure, as well as glucose-intolerance. How inflammatory stress affects the cellular clock is under-investigated. Real-time recording of Per2:luciferase reporter activity in murine and human pancreatic islets demonstrated that the proinflammatory cytokine Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) lengthened the circadian period. qPCR-profiling of core clock gene expression in insulin-producing cells suggested that the combination of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) caused pronounced but uncoordinated increases in mRNA levels of multiple core clock genes, in particular of Reverse-erythroblastosis virus α (Rev-erbα), in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The REV-ERBα/β agonist SR9009, used to mimic cytokine-mediated Rev-erbα induction, reduced constitutive and cytokine-induced Brain and muscle arnt-like 1 (Bmal1) mRNA levels in INS-1 cells as expected. SR9009 induced reactive oxygen species (ROS), reduced insulin-1/2 (Ins-1/2) mRNA and accumulated- and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, reduced cell-viability, and increased apoptosis levels, reminiscent of cytokine toxicity. In contrast low (<5,0 μM) concentrations of SR9009 increased Ins-1 mRNA and accumulated insulin-secretion without affecting INS-1 cell viability, mirroring low-concentration IL-1β mediated β-cell stimulation. Inhibiting nitric oxide (NO) synthesis, the lysine deacetylase HDAC3 and the immunoproteasome reduced cytokine-mediated increases in clock gene expression. In conclusion, the cytokine-combination perturbed the intrinsic clocks operative in mouse and human pancreatic islets and induced uncoordinated clock gene expression in INS-1 cells, the latter effect associated with NO, HDAC3 and immunoproteasome activity.

Education and awareness raising are the primary tools of global health policy to change public behaviour. Considering the limitations of awareness agenda and the lack of social research to inform alternative approaches, our objective was to generate new empirical evidence on the consequences of antibiotic-related awareness raising in a low-income country context. We implemented an educational activity in two Lao villages to share general antibiotic-related messages, but also to learn about people’s conceptions and health behaviours. Two rounds of census survey data enabled us to assess the activity’s outputs, its knowledge outcomes, and its immediate behavioural impacts in a difference-in-difference design. Our panel data covered 1,130 adults over two rounds, including 58 activity participants and 208 villagers exposed indirectly via conversations in the village. We found that activity-related communication circulated among more privileged groups, which limited its indirect effects. Among participants, the activity influenced the awareness and understanding of “drug resistance,” while effects on attitudes were minor. Evidence on behavioural impacts was sparse and mixed, but the range of possible consequences included a disproportionate uptake of antibiotics from formal healthcare providers. Our study casts doubt on the continued dominance of awareness raising as a behavioural tool to address antibiotic resistance.

(1) Background: Obstetric work requires good communication, which can be trained in interventions targeting health care providers and pregnant women/ patients. This systematic review aims to aggregate the current state of research on communication interventions in obstetrics. (2) Methods: Using the PICOS scheme, studies published in peer-reviewed journals in English or German between 2000 and 2020 were searched. Out of 7,018 results, 71 studies were included in this synthesis and evaluated using the Oxford Level of Evidence Scale. (3) Results: 63 studies, including a communication component, revealed a positive effect on different proximal outcomes (i.e., communication skills). Three studies evaluating the effect of communication training on distal performance indicators (i.e., patient safety) proved to be beneficial to some extent. Most studies included different groups at the same time; those addressing health care providers were more common than those with students (61 vs. 12). Expectant mothers were targeted only in 9 studies. Overall, the evidence level of studies was low (only 11 RCTs), with 24 studies evidence level of I-II, 35 of III, and 10 of IV. (4) Conclusions: Communication training should be applied more often to improve communication of staff, students, and pregnant women, and thereby improve patient safety.

Background and Objectives: Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) reject the transfusion of blood components based on their religious beliefs even if they are in danger of harm or death. In cardiac surgery, this significantly reduces the margin of safety and leads to ethical conflicts. Informed consent should be carefully documented and the patient's family should be involved. This study aims to compare the postoperative course of JW who underwent major cardiac surgery with a similar population of non-Witnesses (NW). Patients and Methods: Demographic, procedural, and postoperative data of all consecutive JW who underwent cardiac surgery at our institution were obtained from the records. They were compared with a propensity score matched group of NW. Anemic JW were treated with erythropoietin and/or iron as needed. Cardiac surgery was performed by experienced surgeons using median sternotomy and cardiopulmonary bypass. Common blood-sparing techniques were routinely used. Periprocedural morbidity and mortality were statistically evaluated for both groups. Results: 32 JW and 64 NW were part of the matched dataset showing no demographic or procedural differences. EPO was used preoperatively in 34.4% and postoperatively in 15.6% of JW but not in NW. Preoperative hemoglobin levels were similar (JW, 8.09±0.99 mmol/l; NW, 8.18±1.06; p=0.683). JW did not receive any transfusions except for one who revoked, while NW transfusion rates were 2.5±3.1 units for red cells (p&lt;0.001) and 0.3±0.8 for platelets (p=0.018). Postoperative levels differed significantly for hemoglobin (JW, 6.05±1.00 mmol/l; NW, 6.88±0.87; p&lt;0.001), and hematocrit (JW, 0.29±0.04; NW, 0.33±0.04; p&lt;0.001) but not for creatinine. Early mortality was similar (JW, 6.3%; NW, 4.7%; p=0.745). There were more pacemakers and pneumonias in JW, while all other postoperative conditions were not different. Conclusions: Real-world data indicate that Jehovah's Witnesses can safely undergo cardiac surgery provided that patients are preconditioned and treated by experienced surgeons who use blood-saving strategies. Postoperative anemia is observed but does not translate into a worse clinical outcome. This is consistent with other studies.

On February 28, 2023, the Facebook page of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) South Africa, announced the beginning of the HPV vaccination campaign for 2023. The aim of this study was to examine the attitudes of Facebook users, who commented on the UNICEF South Africa post, towards HPV vaccination to inform the development and implementation of interventions that can increase HPV vaccine acceptance and uptake. Several comments were questions regarding the eligible criteria for vaccination, side effects, consent form, and vaccination strategies. Many Facebook users were hesitant towards HPV vaccination due to various reasons including concerns around side effects, religious beliefs, vaccine stock outs, and their distrust in the institutions or systems involved in vaccination programmes. Few users accepted HPV vaccination because they believed that it was very important thing to do, beneficial for the children’s health, and they have vaccinated they children before. Our findings of the current study contribute to the promotion of acceptance and uptake of HPV vaccination by developing and implementing interventions tailored to address identified barriers that are associated with hesitant to HPV vaccination.

Synthesis of styrene butadiene hybrid latex was performed via emulsion polymerization technique using various amount of laponite clay as filler. Laponite clay was modified with cationic surfactant methyl triphenylphosphonium bromide (MTPB) with ion exchange technique prior to polymerization process. The main objective of the modification is to render the surface of the clay layers to more organophilic. Emulsion polymerization was performed under semi batch process using 2 L laboratory stainless steel reactor with temperature 85°C to 90°C for 8 hours. Polymer hybrid styrene butadiene latex was characterized for its physical and chemical properties with standard ASTM Methods. Characterization of its binding and printing properties were carried out with standard testing method (TAPPI Methods) using single coating formulation on 80 gsm woodfree paper. Polymer hybrid latex based on styrene and butadiene monomers with laponite clay enhanced binding and printing properties of coated paper, addition of laponite clay to 6.0 wt % increased the binding resistance of the coated paper two times higher than pure latex. Reducing binder level become possible for cost saving.

For our research on droplet deformation and breakup in scaled high-pressure homogenizing units we developed a pressure stable inline droplet generator. It consists of an optically accessible flow channel with a combination of stainless steel and glass capillaries and a 3D printed orifice. The droplet size is determined online by live image analysis. The influence of the orifice diameter, the mass flow of the continuous phase and the mass flow of the disperse phase on the droplet diameter was investigated. Furthermore, the droplet detachment mechanisms were identified. Droplet diameters with small diameter fluctuation between 175 µm and 500 µm could be realized, which allows a precise adjustment of the Ca and We Number in the subsequent scaled high pressure homogenizer disruption unit. The determined influence of geometry and process parameters on the resulting droplet size and droplet detachment mechanism agreed well with literature on microfluidics. Furthermore, droplet trajectories in an exemplary scaled high-pressure homogenizer disruption unit are presented which show that the droplets can be reinjected on a trajectory close to the center axis or close to the wall, which should result in different stresses on the droplets.

This paper presents a comparison of the predictive capability of three hydrological models in a heavily influenced catchment in Peninsula India. In catchments where there is a high dependence on both streamflow and groundwater to meet demands, it is of importance to capture the catchment processes correctly. This study highlights the performance evaluation of a multi-model ensemble consisting of GWAVA (Global Water AVailability Assessment) model, SWAT (Soil Water Assessment Tool) and VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) model for comparative purposes and the key catchment hydrological processes. The three models were compared in several sub-catchments in the upstream reaches of the Cauvery river catchment. Model performances for monthly streamflow simulations from 1983 – 2005 were analysed for five catchments in the Upper Cauvery. The analysis was undertaken using Nash- Sutcliffe Efficiency, Kling- Gupta Efficiency and percent bias. Additionally, a mean ensemble is presented. The application of a multi-model ensemble approach can be useful in overcoming the uncertainties associated with individual models. The ensemble mean has a better predictive ability in catchments with reservoirs than the individual models. Utilising multiple models could be a suitable methodology to offset uncertainty in input data and poor reservoir operation functionality within individual models. This study has highlighted the importance of an accurate spatial representation of precipitation for input into hydrological models and comprehensive reservoir functionality is paramount to obtaining good results in this region.

Exoskeletons designed to assist patients with activities of daily living are becoming increasingly popular, but still are subject to research. In order to gather requirements for the design of such systems, long-term gait observation of the patients over the course of multiple days in an environment of daily living are required. In this paper a wearable all-in-one data acquisition system for collecting and storing biomechanical data in everyday life is proposed. The system is designed to be cost efficient and easy to use, using off-the-shelf components and a cloud server system for centralized data storage. The measurement accuracy of the system was verified, by measuring the angle of the human knee joint at walking speeds between 3 and 12 km/h in reference to an optical motion analysis system. The acquired data was uploaded to a cloud database via a smartphone application. Verification results showed that the proposed toolchain works as desired. The system reached an RMSE from 2.9° to 8°, which is below most of the comparable system. The system provides a powerful, scalable platform for collecting and processing biomechanical data, which can help to automize the generation of an extensive database for human kinematics.

With metal oxide semiconductors being a promising candidate for accurate indoor air quality assessments, multiple drawbacks of the gas sensors prevent their widespread use. Examples include poor selectivity, instability over time, and sensor poisoning. Complex calibration methods and advanced operation modes can solve some of those drawbacks. However, this leads to long calibration times, which are unsuitable for mass production. In recent years, multiple attempts to solve calibration transfer have been made with the help of direct standardization, orthogonal signal correction, and many more methods. Besides those, a new promising approach is transfer learning from deep learning. This article will compare different calibration transfer methods, including direct standardization, piecewise direct standardization, transfer learning for deep learning models, and global model building. The machine learning methods to calibrate the initial models for calibration transfer are feature extraction, selection, and regression (established methods) and a custom convolutional neural network TCOCNN. It is shown that transfer learning can outperform the other calibration transfer methods regarding the root mean squared error, especially if the initial model is built with multiple sensors. It was possible to reduce the number of calibration samples by up to 99.3 % (from 10 days to approximately 2 hours) and still achieve an RMSE for acetone of around 18 ppb (15 ppb with extended individual calibration) if six different sensors were used for building the initial model. Furthermore, it was shown that the other calibration transfer methods (direct standardization and piecewise direct standardization) also work reasonably well for both machine learning approaches, primarily when multiple sensors are used for the initial model.

Urea cycle disorders (UCDs) are common inborn errors of metabolism, with an incidence of one in 30,000 births. They are caused by deficiencies in any of six enzymes and two carrier proteins, the most common being Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency (OTCD). OTCD results in impairment to excrete nitrogen, causing toxic buildup of ammonia with resultant encephalopathy. Hyperammonemia (HA) induces the conversion of glutamate to glutamine in the brain. Excess glutamine in the brain causes osmotic changes cerebral edema, changes in astrocyte morphology, and cell death. Acute symptoms of HA include vomiting, hyperventilation, seizures, and irritability. Long-term neurological changes include deficits in working memory and executive function. To date, there are no predictors of prognosis of infants with neonatal onset OTCD outside of plasma ammonia level at presentation and duration of hyperammonemic coma. We provide a comprehensive analysis of a 16-year-old male with neonatal onset of OTCD as an example of how brain biomarkers may be useful to monitor disease course and outcome. This male presented at 8 days post natal with plasma ammonia and glutamine of 677 and 4024 micromol/L and had a missense mutation in Exon 4 (p.R129H). Treatment included protein restriction, sodium benzoate, and citrulline, arginine, and iron. He suffered recurrent acute hyperammonemic episodes despite compliance, triggered by infections or catabolic stressors. We discuss the long-term effects of the hyperammonemic episodes by following MRI based disease biomarkers.

Cladding is typically used to protect components from wear and corrosion while also improving the aesthetic value and reliability of the substrate. The cladding process induces significant residual stresses due to the temperature difference between the substrate and the clad layer. However, these residual stresses could be effectively utilized by modifying processes and geometrical parameters. This paper introduces a novel methodology for using the weld-cladding process as a cost-effective alternative to various existing reinforcement techniques. The numerical analyses are performed to maximize the reinforcement of a cylindrical tool. The investigation of how the weld cladding develops compressive stresses on the specimen in response to a change in the weld beads and the welding sequence is presented. For the benchmark shape, experimental verification of the numerical model is performed. The impact of the distance between the weld beads and the effect of the tool diameter is numerically investigated. Furthermore, the variation in compressive stresses due to temperature fluctuations during the extrusion process has been evaluated. The results showed that adequate compressive stresses are generated on the welded parts through the cladding process after cooling. Hence, the targeted reinforcement of the substrate can be achieved by optimizing the welding sequence and process parameters.

Replacing carbon by hydrogen is a huge step towards reducing CO₂ emissions in the iron- and steel-making industry. The reduction of iron oxides using hydrogen plasma smelting reduction as an alternative to conventional steel-making routes has been studied at Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Austria. The aim of this work was to study the slag formation during the reduction process and the reduction behaviour of iron oxides. Furthermore, the reduction behaviour of iron ore during continuous feeding was assessed. Mixtures of iron ore and calcined lime with a basicity of 0, 0.8, 1.6, 2.3, and 2.9 were melted and reduced by hydrogen. The off-gas composition was measured during the operations to calculate the process parameters. The reduction parameters, namely the degree of reduction, degree of hydrogen utilisation, produced iron, and slag, are presented. The results of the batch-charged experiments showed that at the beginning of the reduction process, the degree of hydrogen utilisation was high, and then, it decreased over the operation time. In contrast, during the continuous-feeding experiment, the degree of hydrogen utilisation could be kept approximately constant. The highest degrees of reduction and hydrogen utilisation were obtained upon the application of a slag with a basicity of 2.3. The experiment showed that upon the continuous feeding of iron ore, the best conditions for the reduction process using hydrogen could be applied.

The prevalence of obesity and eating disorders varies by sex, but the extent to which sex influences eating behaviors, especially in childhood, has received less attention. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on sex differences in eating behavior in children and present new findings supporting the role of sex in child appetitive traits and neural responses to food cues. In children, the literature shows sex differences in basic taste response, food acceptance, eating self-regulation, and appetitive traits. New analyses demonstrate that sex interacts with child weight status to differentially influence appetitive traits and neural responses to food cues. Further, neuroimaging results suggest that obesity in female children is positively related to brain reactivity to higher-energy-dense food cues in regions involved with learning, memory, and object recognition, while the opposite was found in males. In addition to differences in how the brain processes information about food, other factors that may contribute to sex differences include parental feeding practices, societal emphasis on dieting, and peer influences. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings, as they may have implications for the development of effective intervention programs to improve dietary behaviors and prevent obesity.

Mixtures of ethanol and methanol being synthesized from CO2 and green H2 can serve as sustainable base chemicals for a number of chemical processes. Amongst these processes, the catalytically-supported synthesis of CO2-neutral C4 to C10 alcohols is of increasing importance as, e.g., iso-butanol can be used as a drop-in fuel or after dehydration to produce iso-butene as a feedstock for the synthesis of plastics. 2-ethyl-hexanol can be further refined into solvents, tensides, or monomers. In this respect, NiPt alloys on an activated carbon support were found to be active and stable catalysts for the synthesis of iso-butanol following the Guerbet reaction scheme. In this study, two different routes are applied to the synthesis of these NiPt catalysts: a more conventional one based on the impregnation of Ni and Pt salts and an advanced path with a surface redox reaction between elemental Ni on the support and Pt ions in a polar solution. The experimental evaluation showed that the Pt particles from the surface redox reaction being exposed on the Ni particles are more active than those on the impregnated catalysts due to their high surface energy. Their specific space-time yields were 10–20 times higher.

Peripheral nerve injuries pose a major clinical concern world-wide, and functional recovery after segmental peripheral nerve injury is often unsatisfactory, even in case of autografting. Although it is well established that angiogenesis plays a pivotal role during nerve regeneration, the influence of lymphangiogenesis is strongly underinvestigated. In this study, we analyzed the presence of lymphatic vasculature in healthy and regenerated murine peripheral nerves, revealing that nerve autografts contained increased numbers of lymphatic vessels after segmental damage. This led us to elucidate the interaction between lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) and Schwann cells (SCs) in vitro. We show that SC and LEC secretomes do not influence the respective other cell types’ migration and proliferation in 2D scratch assay experiments. Furthermore, we successfully created lymphatic microvascular structures in SC-embedded 3D fibrin hydrogels in the presence of supporting cells, whereas SCs seemed to exert anti-lymphangiogenic effects when cultured with LECs alone. Here, we describe for the first time increased lymphangiogenesis after peripheral nerve injury and repair. Furthermore, our findings indicate a potential lymph-repellent property of SCs, thereby providing a possible explanation for the lack of lymphatic vessels in the healthy endoneurium. Our results highlight the importance to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of SC-LEC interaction.

In the European Union, Occupational Safety and Health legislation generally refers to European Regulation (CE) n. 1272/2008 to define and classify carcinogens of concern for occupational risk assessment and exposure assessment. In Europe, the current reference is Directive (UE) 2022/431, regarding carcinogen, mutagen and reprotoxic agents (CMRs) exposure. However, at worldwide level, different classification approaches are used to establish carcinogenicity of substances and it is often difficult to compare the classifications of carcinogenicity (CoCs) proposed by different international bodies. This study aims to investigate a list of carcinogens of concern in occupational settings based on the CLP (Classification Labelling Packaging) CoC, and to create a tool that allows a rapid translation-comparison of some international CoCs with the reference one. CoCs proposed by various sources were consulted and used to apply a translation method, to favor an alignment of different CoCs according to a reference. Results outlined that considering diverse sources, CoCs can result in different classifications of the same chemicals. Overall, this may have implications for the hazard assessment process, which is the base of risk assessment. The proposed tool is expected to help risk assessors in the occupational field when it is needed to have a comparison with different CoC systems.

Gas flaring is a disposal process widely used in the oil extraction and processing industry. It consists in the burning of unwanted gas at the tip of a stack and due to its thermal characteristic and the thermal emission it is possible to observe and to quantify it from space. Spaceborne observations allows us to collect information across regions and hence to provide a base for estimation of emissions on global scale. We have successfully adapted the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nightfire algorithm for the detection and characterisation of persistent hot spots, including gas flares, to the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) observations on-board the Sentinel- satellites. A hot event at temperatures typical of a gas flare will produce a local maximum in the night-time readings of the shortwave and mid-infrared (SWIR and MIR) channels of SLSTR. The SWIR band centered at 1.61 mmis closest to the expected spectral radiancemaximumand serves as the primary detection band. The hot source is characterised in terms of temperature and area by fitting the sum of two Planck curves, one for the hot source and another for the background, to the radiances from all the available SWIR, MIR and thermal infra-red channels of SLSTR. The flaring radiative power is calculated from the gas flare temperature and area. Our algorithm differs from the original VIIRS Nightfire algorithm in three key aspects: (1) It uses a granule-based contextual thresholding to detect hot pixels, being independent of the number of hot sources present and their intensity. (2) It analyses entire clusters of hot source detections instead of individual pixels. This is arguably a more comprehensive use of the available information. (3) The co-registration errors between hot source clusters in the different spectral bands are calculated and corrected. This also contributes to the SLSTR instrument validation. Cross-comparisons of the new gas flare characterisation with temporally close observations by the higher resolution German FireBIRD TET-1 small satellite and with the Nightfire product based on VIIRS on-board the Suomi-NPP satellite show general agreement for an individual flaring site in Siberia and for several flaring regions around the world. Small systematic differences to VIIRS Nightfire are nevertheless apparent. Based on the hot spot characterisation, gas flares can be identified and flared gas volumes and pollutant emissions can be calculated with previously published methods.

The ability to predict the skin sensitization potential of small organic molecules is of high importance to the development and safe application of cosmetics, drugs and pesticides. One of the most widely accepted methods for predicting this hazard is the rodent local lymph node assay (LLNA). The goal of this work was to develop in silico models for the prediction of the skin sensitization potential of small molecules that go beyond the state of the art, with larger LLNA data sets and, most importantly, a robust and intuitive definition of the applicability domain, paired with additional indicators of the reliability of predictions. We explored a large variety of molecular descriptors and fingerprints in combination with random forest and support vector machine classifiers. The most suitable models were tested on holdout data, on which they yielded competitive performance (Matthews correlation coefficients up to 0.52; accuracies up to 0.76; areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves up to 0.83). The most favorable models are available via a public web service at https://nerdd.zbh.uni-hamburg.de/skinDoctor/ that, in addition to predictions, provides assessments of the applicability domain and indicators of the reliability of the individual predictions.

Background Homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) evolved into a major diagnostic marker in high grade ovarian cancer (HGOC) predicting the response to poly (Adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) and also platinum-based therapy. In addition to HRD, the type of peritoneal tumor spread influences treatment response and patient survival; miliary type tumor spread has poorer predicted outcome than non-miliary type tumor spread. Methods Known methods for HRD assessment were adapted for our technical requirements and the Predictive-value Integrated Genomic Instability Score (PIGIS) for HRD assessment evolved as an outcome. PIGIS was validated in HGOC samples from 122 patients. We used PIGIS to analyze whether the type of tumor spread correlated with HRD status and whether this had an impact on survival. Results We demonstrated that PIGIS can discriminate HRD positive from HRD negative samples. Tumors with miliary tumor spread are HRD negative and have a very bad prognosis with a progression free survival (PFS) of 15.6 months and an overall survival (OS) of 3.9 years. However, HRD negative non-miliary spreading tumors in our cohort had a much better prognosis (PFS 35.4 months, OS 8.9 years), similar to HRD positive tumors (PFS 34.7 months, OS 8.9 years). Conclusions Our results indicate that in a predominantly PARPi naïve cohort the type of tumor spread might be a better predictor of response to platinum sensitivity than HRD. It remains to be determined, whether this also applies for sensitivity to PARPi.

Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) is a type of additive manufacturing technology that processes metal powders into a component. Support structures are an essential part of the L- PBF process as they transfer the laser-induced heat during and shortly after the process to the substrate, sustaining positional accuracy of downward facing surfaces of the component. Since the use of support structures is inevitable, optimized designs for them are crucial in realizing more sustainable production process. In a serial production setup, reducing the lead time and cost of a non-value-added process step like support structure removal is of significance when improving the overall business case and competitiveness.The goal of this study was to verify the applicability of lattice-based support structures for L-PBF. To achieve this, different lattice types as support structures were designed. They were tested, compared and verified for a Siemens gas turbine component. The results showed that the generated lattice-based support structures could be suitable for L-PBF. The supports had to be designed appropriately such that they could preserve the geometry of the part. Furthermore, they had to have a short fabrication time and to be removable easily, preferably without machining or sawing.

Abstract: A progressive neurological disorder was observed in a male neutered Weimaraner. Clinical signs included fecal incontinence, lethargy, moderate paraparesis, proprioceptive pelvic limb ataxia, falling, cognitive decline, incoordination, decreased interest in food, changes in posture, and episodes of trance-like behavior. Neurologic signs were first observed at approximately 4 years, 10 months of age and progressed slowly. Magnetic resonance imaging showed generalized brain atrophy with areas of white matter pathology. Humane euthanasia was elected at 6 years, 7 months of age due to increasing severity of the neurological signs. Autoflorescent intracellular granules were observed in the cerebral and cerebellar cortexes, optic nerve, and cardiac muscle of the affected dog. These abnormal inclusions in the cerebral cortex and cardiac muscle immunolabeled with antibodies to mitochondrial ATP synthase subunit c protein, like that observed in the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis group of lysosomal storage diseases. Immunolabeling also demonstrated pronounced neuroinflammation in brain tissues. The ultrastructural appearances of the disease-related inclusion bodies in the brain and optic nerve were quite variable. The ultrastructure and locations of many of the inclusions in the nervous tissues suggested that they were derived, at least in part, from the myelin surrounding axons. The storage bodies in the cardiac muscle were located in mitochondria-rich regions and consisted of parallel arrays of membrane-like components interspersed with electron-dense flocculent material. The disease was characterized by pronounced abnormalities in the myelin of the brain and optic nerve consisting of distinctive areas of ballooning between the layers of myelin. The whole genome sequence generated from the affected dog contained a homozygous G-to-A missense mutation in CNP, which encodes proteins with CNPase enzyme activity and a structural role in myelin. The mutation predicts a Thr42Met amino acid sequence substitution. Genotyping of archived Weimaraner DNA samples identified an additional G>A variant homozygote with a clinical history and brain lesions similar to those of the proband. Of 292 Weimaraners and over 4,000 other dogs of various breeds, the proband and the other Weimaraner that exhibited similar signs were the only two that were homozygous for the CNP missense variant. CNPase immunolabeling was widespread in brain tissues from normal dogs but was undetectable in the same tissues from the proband. Based on the clinical history, fluorescence and electron-microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and molecular genetic findings, the late-onset Weimaraner disorder likely results from the missense mutation that results in CNPase deficiency, leading to myelin abnormalities, accumulation of lysosomal storage bodies, and brain atrophy. Similar disorders have been associated with different CNP variants in Dalmatians and in human subjects.

With rapid advances in gene editing and gene therapy technologies, the development of genetic, cell, or protein-based cures to disease are no longer the realm of science fiction but that of today’s practice. The impact of these technologies are rapidly bringing them to the veterinary market as both enhanced therapeutics and towards modeling their outcomes for translational application. Simply put, gene editing enables scientists to modify an organism’s DNA a priori through the use of site-specific DNA targeting tools like clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9). Gene therapy is a broader definition that encompasses the addition of exogenous genetic materials into specific cells to correct a genetic defect. More precisely, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines gene therapy as “a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease” by either (i) replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy of the gene; (ii) inactivating a disease-causing gene that was not functioning properly; or (iii) introducing a new or modified gene into the body to help treat a disease. In some instances, this can be accomplished through direct transfer of DNA or RNA into target cells of interest or more broadly through gene editing. While gene therapy is possible through the simple addition of genetic information into cells of interest, gene editing allows the genome to be reprogrammed intentionally through the deletion of diseased alleles, reconstitution of wild type sequence, or targeted integration of exogenous DNA to impart new function. Cells can be removed from the body, altered, and reinfused, or edited in vivo. Indeed, manufacturing and production efficiencies in gene editing and gene therapy in the 21^st century has brought the therapeutic potential of in vitro and in vivo reprogrammed cells, to the front lines of therapeutic intervention (Brooks et al., 2016). For example, CAR-T cell therapy is revolutionizing hematologic cancer care in humans and is being translated to canines by us and others, and gene therapy trials are ongoing for mitral valve disease in dogs.

Citizen science substantially contributes to large-scale biodiversity monitoring and the enhancement of public literacy. While both of the contributions largely depend on the public’s self- regulated learning. In this study, we employed a mix- method approach, incorporating both a questionnaire survey of 133 participants and interviews with 12 volunteers, aiming to explore the feature of self- regulated learning in citizen science, as well as identify the main factors impacting it. The volunteers are all different ages, from different jobs, with varying educational backgrounds. The findings revealed that the educational background of volunteers did not significantly impact their self-regulated learning. However, an increased frequency of participation was linked to higher levels of self-regulated learning. Furthermore, achievement goal orientation mediates the prediction of self-regulation by scientific epistemology. These insights underscore the importance of enhancing citizen science's impact on scientific literacy by fostering self-regulated learning among participants. This can be achieved through explicit instruction in scientific epistemology and by fostering a sense of achievement to boost achievement goal orientations. Additionally, our study advocates for the promotion of social interaction between students and out- of- school citizen scientists in school-based citizen science projects. The main innovation of this study is to consider volunteers as learners, not merely as contributors of data.

The influence of diet and nutritional status of milk donors on the nutritional composition of donor human milk (DHM) is unknown. The present study aimed to determine the nutritional profile of DHM and the associations of donors’ dietary intake and nutritional status with micronutrient and lipid composition in DHM. For this purpose, 113 donors completed a food frequency questionnaire, provided a 5-day weighed dietary record, and collected milk for 5 consecutive days. Nutrient determinations in donors’ erythrocytes, plasma, urine, and milk were performed. Multiple linear regressions were conducted for the evaluation of the associations. We highlight the following results: DHM docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) was positively associated with donors’ plasma DHA content and donors’ DHA intake (R2 0.45, p < 0.001). For every 1 g/day of DHA intake, the percentage of DHA in DHM increased by 0.38% (% of total fat) and the percentage of total omega-3 in DHM increased by 0.78% (R2 0.29, p < 0.001). DHM saturated fatty acids were positively associated with erythrocyte dimethyl acetals, plasma stearic acid, trans fatty acids intake, and breastfeeding duration, and negatively associated with erythrocyte margaroleic acid (R2 0.34, p < 0.01). DHM cholecalciferol was associated with plasma cholecalciferol levels and dairy intake (R2 0.57, p < 0.01). Other weaker associations were found for free thiamine, free riboflavin, pyridoxal, dehydroascorbic acid, and lipid profile in DHM. In conclusion, the diet and nutritional status of donors influences the fatty acid profile and micronutrient content of DHM.

Historical maps constitute unique sources of retrospective geographic information. Recently, several map archives containing map series covering large spatial and temporal extents have been systematically scanned and made available to the public. The geographic information contained in such data archives allows extending geospatial analysis retrospectively beyond the era of digital cartography. However, given the large data volumes of such archives and the low graphical quality of older map sheets, the processes to extract geographic information need to be automated to the highest degree possible. In order to understand the salient characteristics, data quality variation, and potential challenges in large-scale information extraction tasks, preparatory analytical steps are required to efficiently assess spatio-temporal coverage, approximate map content, and spatial accuracy of such georeferenced map archives across different cartographic scales. Such preparatory steps are often neglected or ignored in the map processing literature but represent highly critical phases that lay the foundation for any subsequent computational analysis and recognition. In this contribution we demonstrate how such preparatory analyses can be conducted using classical analytical and cartographic techniques as well as visual-analytical data mining tools originating from machine learning and data science, exemplified for the United States Geological Survey topographic map and Sanborn fire insurance map archives.

Investigations reporting positive effects of Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy (ESWT) on nerve regeneration are limited to the rat sciatic nerve model. The effects of ESWT on muscle-in-vein conduits (MVCs) have also not been investigated yet. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of ESWT after repair of the rat median nerve with either autografts (ANGs) or MVCs. In male Lewis rats, a 7-mm segment of the right median nerve was reconstructed either with an ANG or MVC. For each reconstructive technique, one group of animals received one application of ESWT while the other rats served as controls. Animals were observed for 12 weeks and nerve regeneration was assessed via computerized gait analysis, the grasping test, electrophysiological evaluations and histological quantification of axons, blood vessels and lymphatic vasculature. Here we provide for the first time a comprehensive analysis of ESWT effects on nerve regeneration in a rat model of median nerve injury. Furthermore, this study is among the first reporting the quantification of lymphatic vessels following peripheral nerve injury and reconstruction in vivo. While we found no significant direct positive effects of ESWT on peripheral nerve regeneration, results following nerve repair with MVCs were significantly inferior to those after ANG repair.

In directional forming processes such as rolling and extrusion, the microstructure is strongly elongated in the forming direction. This results in a preferred alignment of the crystal orientations of the initially randomly oriented grains. These preferred orientations – the texture – and elongations of the grains are the cause of the material anisotropy. This anisotropy leads to phenomena such as earing, which occur during further forming processes, e.g., during deep drawing of sheet metal. Considering anisotropic properties in numerical simulations allows to investigate the effects of texture-dependent defects in forming processes and the development of possible solutions. Purely phenomenological models for modelling anisotropy work by fitting material parameters or applying measured R-values in experiments which are applied to all elements of the part and remain constant over the duration of the simulation. In contrast, methods such as the Visco-Plastic Self-Consistent (VPSC) model, which has been used in this work, provide a deeper insight into the development of the material microstructure. By experimentally measuring the initial texture and using it as an initial condition for the simulations, it is possible to predict the evolution of the microstructure and the resulting effect on the mechanical properties during forming operations. The results of the simulations with VPSC show good qualitative agreement with tests typically used for rolled stock.

A labyrinth metamaterial wall with glass coverage is measured in a reverberating chamber and after its installation in a restaurant. Glass is used to meet two aims, namely acoustic absorption and visual design demands. The wall consists of five multiple labyrinth elements of 1.83 m$^2$ each. Glass was taken to make the wall act as a room lightning device where a translucent cover material is needed. Absorption measurements show about four times improved absorption compared to typical glass. Due to the metamaterial behavior, absorption is high in the low-frequency range below 300 Hz where damping is problematic with traditional materials. Especially in this range, the glass metamaterial wall is an excellent compromise between room acoustic and visual design demands, as loud low-frequencies make visitors speak louder and experience less intimacy with additionally reduced speech intelligibility. For mid-frequencies, absorption is shown less effective and improvements are discussed.

Plant cells are omnipotent and breeding of new varieties can be achieved by protoplast fusion. Such fusions can be achieved by treatment with poly(ethylene glycol) or by applying an electric field. Microfluidic devices allow for controlled conditions and targeted manipulation of small batches of cells down to single cell analysis. To provide controlled conditions for protoplast fusions and achieve high reproducibility, we developed and characterized a microfluidic device to reliably trap few of Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts and induced a cell fusion by controlled addition of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG, with a molecular weight of 6000). Experiments were conducted to determine the survival rate of isolated protoplasts in our microfluidic system. Afterwards, PEG induced fusion was studied. Our results indicate that the following fusion parameters had significant impact on the fusion efficiency and duration: PEG concentration, osmolarity of solution, and flow velocity. PEG concentration below 10% led to only partial fusion. Osmolarity of the PEG fusion solution was found to strongly impact the fusion process; complete fusion of two source cells sufficiently took part in slightly hyper osmotic solutions, whereas iso-osmotic solutions led to only partial fusion at 20% PEG concentration. We observed accelerated fusion for higher fluid velocities. Up to this study, it was common sense that fusion is one directional, i.e. once two cells were fused into one cell they stay fused. Here, we present for the first time reversible fusion of protoplasts. Our microfluidic device paves the way to a deeper understanding on the kinetics and processes of cell fusion.

Abstract: Spatially explicit, fine-grained datasets describing historical urban extents are rarely available prior to the era of operational remote sensing. However, such data are necessary to better understand long-term urbanization and land development processes and for the assessment of coupled nature-human systems, e.g., the dynamics of the wildland-urban interface. Herein, we propose a framework that jointly uses remote sensing derived human settlement data (i.e., the Global Human Settlement Layer, GHSL) and scanned, georeferenced historical maps to automatically generate historical urban extents for the early 20th century. By applying unsupervised color segmentation to the historical maps, spatially constrained to the urban extents derived from the GHSL, our approach generates historical settlement extents for seamless integration with the multi-temporal GHSL. We apply our method to study areas in countries across four continents, and evaluate our approach for two U.S. study sites against historical settlement extents derived from the Historical Settlement Data Compilation for the US, HISDAC-US, achieving Area-under-the-Curve values >0.9. Our results are largely in agreement with model-based urban areas from the HYDE database, and demonstrate that the integration of remote sensing derived observations and historical cartographic data sources opens up new, promising avenues for assessing urbanization, and long-term land cover change in countries where historical maps are available.

Image classification in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) containing various land-cover classes is essential for efficient and sustainable land-use estimation, and other tasks like object detection, localization and segmentation. Deep Learning (DL) techniques have shown a tremendous potential in the GIS domain. While Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have dominated most of the image analysis domain, a new architecture called transformers have proved to be a unifying solution for several AI-based processing pipelines. Vision Transformers (ViT), a variant of transformers can have comparable and in some cases better accuracy than a CNN. However, they suffer from a significant drawback associated with an excessive use of training parameters. In this research we explore several modifications in the vision transformer architectures, especially MobileViT that can be optimized while boosting accuracy. To verify our proposed approach these new architectures are trained on four land-cover datasets AID, EuroSAT, UC-Merced, and WHU-RS19. Experiments reveal that combination of lightweight convolutional layers including ShuffleNet along with depthwise separable convolutions and average pooling can reduce the trainable parameters by 17.85% and yet achieve higher accuracy than the base MobileViT. It is also observed that utilizing a combination of convolution layers along with multi-headed self attention layers in MobileViT variants provide better performance in capturing local and global features unlike the standalone ViT architecture that utilizes almost 95% more parameters than the proposed MobileViT variant.

The use of thiosemicarbazones (TSCs) as ligands for the functionalization of nanoparticles (NP) for various purposes, such as the covalent immobilization is fueled by their modular character (thiosemicarbazides + carbonyl compound), allowing enormously broad variation of up to four substituents on the main R1R2C=N(1)–NH–C(S)–N(4)R3R4 core. For R1 and R2 we introduced di-2-pyridyl ketone for the coordination of metals and 9-anthraldehyde for luminescence. R3 and R4 substituents were varied for various purposes. Amino acids were functionalized at the N4 position to [R1R2TSC–spacer–amino acid] conjugates for future peptide conjugation or for direct anchoring to NP via their carboxylic function. Further direct NP anchoring functions such as phosphonic acid (OP(OH)2), glucose, o-hydroquinone, OH, and thiol (SH) were introduced with or without separation through hydrocarbon spacer units such as phenyl, cyclohexyl, benzyl, ethyl and methyl in [R1R2TSC–spacer–anchor group] conjugates. [R1R2TSC–spacer–end group] conjugates including OH, S-Bn (Bn = benzyl), NH-Boc (Boc = tert-butyloxycarbonyl), COOtBu, or N3 end groups were produced for the facile formation of amide, ester, or triazine conjugates through click chemistry. The synthesis of the thiosemicarbazides H2NH–C(S)–NR3R4 starting from amines, including amino acids, SCCl2 or CS2, and hydrazine and their condensation with dipyridyl ketone and anthraldehyde lead finally to 34 new TSC derivatives. They were synthesized in up to six steps with overall yields ranging from 10 to 85% and were characterized by a combination of elemental analyses, mass spectrometry, and magnetic nuclear resonance spectroscopy. UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy allowed to easily trace the dipyridyl imine and anthracene chromophores.

After decades of research, oncolytic virotherapy has recently advanced to clinical application, and currently a multitude of novel agents and combination treatments are being evaluated for cancer therapy. Oncolytic agents preferentially replicate in tumor cells, inducing tumor cell lysis and complex anti-tumor effects, such as innate and adaptive immune responses and the destruction of tumor vasculature. With the availability of different vector platforms and the potential of both genetic engineering and combination regimens to enhance particular aspects of safety and efficacy, the identification of optimal treatments for patient subpopulations or even individual patients becomes a top priority. Mathematical modeling can provide support in this arena by making use of experimental and clinical data to generate hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying complex biology and, ultimately, predict optimal treatment protocols. Increasingly complex models can be applied to account for therapeutically relevant parameters such as components of the immune system. In this review, we describe current developments in oncolytic virotherapy and mathematical modeling to discuss the benefit of integrating different modeling approaches into biological and clinical experimentation. Conclusively, we propose a mutual combination of these fields of research for more efficient development and effective treatments.

Background: For the treatment of bone defects, biodegradable compressive biomaterials are needed as a substitute, which degrade at the same rate as the bone regenerates. In this study, the compressive strength of CPC ceramics (with a layer thickness of more than 12 layers) should be compared with sintered ceramics. Methods: Round scaffolds with 20, 25, 30 and 45 layers were 3D printed the 3D Bioplotter, solidified in a water-saturated atmosphere for 3 days and then tested for compressive strength together with a sintered ceramic using a Zwick universal testing machine. Results: The 3D printed scaffolds are more compressive at 41.56 ± 7.12 MPa than the sintered ceramic at 24.16 ± 4.44. Conclusions: The round geometry sintered ceramics approach or exceed the upper limit of the compressive strength of cancellous bone in the direction of compacta (depending on the author).

Introduction: Successful R0 resection is crucial for the survival of patients with primary liver cancer (PLC) or liver metastases. Up to date, surgical resection lacks a sensitive, real-time intraoperative imaging modality to determine R0 resection. Real-time intraoperative visualization with near-infrared light fluorescence (NIRF) using indocyanine green (ICG) may have the potential to meet this demand. This study evaluates the value of ICG visualization in PLC and liver metastases surgery regarding R0 resection rates. Materials and Methods Patients with PLC or liver metastases were included in this prospective cohort study. ICG 10mg was administered intravenously 24 hours before surgery. Real-time intraoperative NIRF visualization was made with the SpectrumTM Fluorescence Imaging Camera System. First, all liver segments were inspected with the fluorescence imaging system and intraoperative ultrasound for identification of the known tumor as well as additional lesions, compared to preoperative MRI. PLC, liver metastases, and additional lesions were then resected according to oncological principles. Of all resected specimens the resection margins were analyzed with the fluorescence imaging system for ICG positive spots right after resection. Histology of additional detected lesions as well as ICG fluorescence compared to histological resection margins were assessed. Results Of the 66 included patients median age was 65.5 years (IQR 58.7 - 73.9), 27 (40.9%) were female and 18 (27.3%) were operated laparoscopically. Additional ICG positive lesions were detected in 23 (35.4%) patients of which nine (29%) were malignant. In patients with no fluorescent signal at the resection margin, R0 rate was 93.9%, R1 rate was 6.1%, and R2 rate was 0% compared to a ICG positive resection margin with a R0 rate of 64.3%, R1 rate of 21.4%, and R2 rate of 14.3% (p=0.005). One and two year overall survival were 95.2% and 88.4%, respectively. Conclusion The here presented study provides significant evidence that ICG NIRF guidance helps to identify R0 resection intraoperatively. This offers a true potential to verify radical resection and improve patients´ outcome. Furthermore, implementation of NIRF guided imaging in liver tumor surgery allows to detect a considerable amount of additional malignant lesions.

Bacterial endophytes (120) were isolated from six halophytes (Distichlis spicata, Cynodon dactylon, Eragrostis obtusiflora, Suaeda torreyana, Kochia scoparia, and Baccharis salicifolia). These halophiles were molecularly identified and characterized with or without NaCl conditions. Characterization was based on tests such as indole acetic acid (IAA), exopolysaccharides (EPS), and siderophores (SID) production; solubilization of phosphate (P), potassium (K), zinc (Zn), and manganese (Mn); mineralization of phytate; enzymatic activity (acid and alkaline phosphatase, phytases, xylanases, and chitinases) and mineralization/solubilization mechanisms involved (organic acids and sugars). Eleven halophiles (tolerated NaCl 2.5 M) were identified as Oceanobacillus sp. (1), Bacillus sp. (2), Nesterenkonia sp. (3), Bacillus velezensis (4), Halobacillus sp. (5), Oceanobacillus sp. (6), B. velezensis (7) Halomonas sp. (8), B. pumilus (9), Pseudomonas sp. (10) and Oceanobacillus sp. (11). Biochemical responses of nutrient solubilization and enzymatic activity varied between bacteria and the presence of NaCl. Organic acids were involved in P-mineralization and nutrient solubilization. Tartaric acid was common in the solubilization of P, Zn, and K. Maleic and vanillic acid were only detected in Zn and K solubilization, respectively. Moreover, sugars appeared to be involved in the solubilization of nutrients; fructose was detected in solubilization tests. Therefore, these bacteria should be tested as a consortium to mitigate saline stress in glycophytes under a global climate change scheme that threatens to exacerbate soil salinity.

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factors (MIF) are pivotal cytokines/chemokines for vertebrate immune systems. MIFs are typically soluble single-domain proteins that are conserved across plant, fungal, protist, and metazoan kingdoms but their functions have not been determined in most phylogenetic groups. Here we describe an atypical multidomain MIF protein. The marine dinoflagellate Lingulodinium polyedra produces a transmembrane protein with an extra-cytoplasmic MIF domain, which localizes to cell wall-associated membranes and vesicular bodies. This protein is also present in the membranes of extracellular vesicles accumulating at the secretory pores of the cells. Upon exposure to biotic stress, L. polyedra exhibits reduced expression of the MIF gene and reduced abundance of the surface-associated protein. These findings indicate that the transmembrane MIF may contribute to intercellular communication and/or interactions between free-living organisms in multispecies planktonic communities and raise the question of possible analogies in MIF functions between cells of metazoan organisms and protist communities.

A novel compressible real gas 1D finite volume thermofluid network modelling methodology is proposed that can be applied in the analysis of supercritical CO₂ (sCO2) power cycles. It is applied to simulate centrifugal compressor performance via a mean line approach that directly solves the mass, energy, and momentum balance equations for the discretized flow channels within the machine along with the associated loss models, component characteristics, and applicable compressible real gas equation of state. This can be integrated seamlessly with the rest of the power cycle components like pipes, valves, heat exchangers, etc., thereby eliminating the need for static performance maps and the associated difficulties to ensure similarity over the whole range of operation. This direct simulation of the internal flows also makes it possible to do integrated cycle design optimization that includes the geometry of the compressors, and to simulate fast transients for dynamic analysis. The methodology was applied to simulate well-documented air and sCO2 centrifugal compressors and compared the generated results with that of conventional thermofluid network incompressible and compressible ideal gas approaches. The results indicate that the proposed compressible real gas approach can capture the stagnation pressure changes and isentropic efficiencies with good accuracy for both cases over the whole range of mass flow rates and shaft rotational speeds. In contrast, the conventional thermofluid network incompressible and compressible ideal gas approaches are only applicable in selected regions of the fluid property regime and suffer from discretization errors and inappropriate treatment of the relationship between stagnation and static pressures. Furthermore, comparative analyses between the newly proposed approach and the traditional mechanical energy balance method are performed, showing that the latter approach needs to be discretized more finely through the compression process to correctly capture the polytropic compression path shape, whereas the former more accurately captures the stagnation pressure changes through the analyzed compressors with only a single increment per compressor component.

Quantification of bone loss for follow-up comparisons has not been routinely performed in patients with parietal thinning so far. This study compares different methodological approaches including both 2- and 3-dimensional methods in computerized tomographies of a single patient. The 2-dimensional method provides accurate measurements of bone thickness, while the 3-dimensional method allows for a more comprehensive view of the bone's structure, including parameters like shape, size, and thickness. The techniques provided valuable data for the treating physician and suggest a possible effect of corticosteroids in this individual patient. The study concludes that 3-dimensional reconstruction of computerized tomographies with subsequent 2-dimensional analyses appears justified for routine radiological practice to increase clinical awareness of the size of the parietal bone defects and allow for quantification of bone loss during long-term follow-ups. Further validation of the proposed analytical approaches is warranted in larger studies to investigate patterns of bone thinning across the skull and changes in bone volumes over time, with specialized software to be approved for such analyses.

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are the latest advance in information technology. They are next-word predictors built on large language models (LLM) that offer the possibility to process and generate information. In this theoretical article, we provide educational insights of the possibilities and challenges of educational usage of AI chatbots. The insights were produced in the context of chemical information-seeking activities designed for chemistry teacher education. The analysis was conducted via a SWOT approach using technological pedagogical content knowledge framework (TPACK) to improve the accuracy. The analysis revealed several internal and external possibilities and challenges. The key insight is that AI chatbots will change the way people interact with information. For example, they enable the building of personal learning environments with ubiquitous access to information and AI tutoring. Their ability to support chemistry learning is impressive. However, processing of chemical information reveals the limitations of current AI chatbots not being able to process multimodal chemical information. There are also ethical issues to address. Despite the benefits, wider educational adoption of AI chatbots will take time. The obstacles hindering the adoption of AI chatbots can be removed, for example, through integrating LLMs to curricula, focusing on open-source solutions, and training teachers with modern information literacy skills. This research presents theory-grounded examples of how to support the development of modern information literacy skills in chemistry teacher education. Based on the conducted analysis, we predict that AI chatbots will be a major technological change agent towards inclusive and equitable quality lifelong learning for all.

For orthopaedic applications, additive manufactured (AM) porous scaffolds made of absorbable metals like magnesium, zinc or iron are of particular interest. They do not only offer the potential to design and fabricate bio-mimetic or rather bone equivalent mechanical properties, they also do not need to be removed in further surgery. Located in a physiological environment, scaffolds made of absorbable metals show a decreasing Young’s modulus over time, due to product dissolution. For WE43 scaffolds, during the first days an increase of the smeared Young's modulus can be observed, which is mainly attributed to a forming substrate layer of degradation products on the struts surfaces. In this study the influence of degradation products on the stiffness properties of metallic scaffolds is investigated. For this, analytical calculations and finite element simulations are performed to study the influence of the substrate layer thickness and Young's modulus for single struts and for a new scaffold geometry with adapted polar f2cc,z unit cells. The finite element model is further validated by compression tests on AM scaffolds made from Zn1Mg. The results show, that even low thicknesses and Young's moduli of the substrate layer increases significantly the smeared Young's modulus under axial compression.

Non-rigid registration presents a significant challenge in the domain of point cloud processing. The general objective is to model complex non-rigid deformations between two or more overlapping point clouds. Applications are diverse and span multiple research fields, including registration of topographic data, scene flow estimation, and dynamic shape reconstruction. To provide context, we begin with a general introduction to the topic of point cloud registration, including a categorization of methods. Next, we introduce a general mathematical formulation for point cloud registration and extend it to address non-rigid registration. A detailed discussion and categorization of existing approaches to non-rigid registration follows. We then introduce our own method where the usage of piece-wise tricubic polynomials for modeling non-rigid deformations is proposed. Our method offers several advantages over existing methods. These advantages include easy control of flexibility through a small number of intuitive tuning parameters, a closed-form optimization solution, and an efficient transformation of huge point clouds. We demonstrate our method through multiple examples that cover a broad range of applications, with a focus on remote sensing applications - namely, the registration of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS), Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS), and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) point clouds. The implementation of our algorithms is open source and can be found on GitHub.