Biostimulation is an animal management practice that helps improve reproductive parameters by modulating animal sensory systems. Chemical signals, mostly known as pheromones, have a great potential in this regard. This study was conducted to determine the influence of short-term female rabbit exposure to different conditions, mainly pheromone-mediated, on reproductive parameters of inseminated does. Groups of 60 females/each were exposed to 1) female urine, 2) male urine, 3) seminal plasma and 4) female-female interaction, just before artificial insemination, and compared to isolated females controls (female-female separated). The following reproductive parameters were analyzed for each group: receptivity (vulvar color), fertility (calving rate), prolificacy and number of born alive and dead kits ⁄ litter. Our results showed that the biostimulation methods employed in this experiment did not significantly improve any of the analyzed parameters. However, female doe exposure to urine, especially to male urine, slightly increased fertility levels when compared to the rest of the experimental conditions. Female-female interaction before artificial insemination, which is a common practice in rabbit farms, did not have any effect, which suggests its removal to avoid unnecessary animal management and time cost. On the other hand, fertility ranges were lower for animals with pale vulvar color whereas no differences were noticed among the other three colours which measure receptivity (pink, red, purple), thus suggesting that these three colours could be grouped together. Additionally, equine chorionic gonadotropin injection could be replaced with various biostimulation methods, therefore reducing or replacing current hormonal treatments, and contributing to animal welfare and to a natural image of animal production.

Epidemiologic studies suggest an inverse correlation between coffee consumption and the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases, but the role of caffeine and roasting degree are still matter of debate. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of caffeinated (light, medium, and dark roast) and decaffeinated instant coffee samples in acetylcholinesterase inhibition and antioxidant assays, as well as in animal models of Parkinson’s disease. Caffeinated coffees inhibited the acetylcholinesterase in much smaller concentrations than decaffeinated coffee. All coffee samples showed antioxidant capacity without relation with the caffeine content. Dopaminergic-like activity in the haloperidol-induced catalepsy test was observed with caffeinated coffee, but not in the decaffeinated sample. The medium roast coffee reduced the number of rotations of rats after methamphetamine administration on the 6-hydroxydopamine unilateral lesion of the medial forebrain bundle. However, the coffee treatment did not avoid the loss of dopaminergic neurons on substantia nigra pars compact and only the smallest dose of coffee was able to avoid the decrease of dopamine levels in the lesioned side of the striatum. Altogether, these results suggest that coffee exerts moderate pro-cholinergic and pro-dopaminergic effects and caffeine seems to be the main responsible for these effects.

The FOLFOX scheme, based on the association of 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin, is the most frequently indicated chemotherapy scheme for patients diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer. Nevertheless, development of chemoresistance is one of the major challenges associated with this disease. It has been reported that epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is implicated in microRNA-driven modulation of tumor cells response to 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin. Besides, from pharmacogenomic research it is known that overexpression of genes encoding dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPYD), thymidylate synthase (TYMS), methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), the DNA repair enzymes ERCC1, ERCC2, and XRCC1, and the phase 2 enzyme GSTP1 impair the response to FOLFOX. It has been observed that EMT is associated with overexpression of DPYD, TYMS, ERCC1, and GSTP1. In this review we investigated the role of miRNAs as EMT promotors in tumor cells, and its potential effect on upregulation of DPYD, TYMS, MTHFR, ERCC1, ERCC2, XRCC1 and GSTP1 expression, which would lead to resistance of CRC tumor cells to 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin. This constitutes a potential mechanism of epigenetic regulation involved in late-onset of acquired resistance in mCRC patients under FOLFOX chemotherapy. Expression of these biomarkers microRNA could serve as tools for personalized medicine, and as potential therapeutic targets in the future.

Up to forty percent of dairy cows develop metritis or endometritis when pathogenic bacteria infect the uterus after parturition. However, resilient cows remain healthy even when exposed to the same pathogens. Here, we provide a perspective on the mechanisms that dairy cows use to prevent postpartum uterine disease. We suggest that resilient cows prevent the development of uterine disease using the three complimentary defensive strategies of avoiding, tolerating and resisting infection with pathogenic bacteria. Avoidance maintains health by limiting the exposure to pathogens. Avoidance mechanisms include intrinsic behaviors to reduce the risk of infection by avoiding pathogens or infected animals, perhaps signaled by the fetid odor of uterine disease. Tolerance improves health by limiting the tissue damage caused by the pathogens. Tolerance mechanisms include neutralizing bacterial toxins, protecting cells against damage, enhancing tissue repair, and reprogramming metabolism. Resistance improves health by limiting the pathogen burden. Resistance mechanisms include inflammation driven by innate immunity and adaptive immunity, with the aim of killing and eliminating pathogenic bacteria. Farmers can also help cows prevent the development of postpartum uterine disease by avoiding trauma to the genital tract, reducing stress, and feeding animals appropriately during the transition period. Understanding the mechanisms of avoidance, tolerance and resistance to pathogens will inform strategies to generate resilient animals and prevent uterine disease.

Early diagnosis of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) could suggest patients to receive timely interventions in clinical practice. Various PAF onset prediction algorithms might benefit from accurate heart rate variability (HRV) analysis and machine learning classification but to be challenged in real-time monitoring scenarios. The aim of this study is to present an end-to-end deep learning based PAFNet model that integrates a sliding window technique on raw R-R interval of electrocardiogram (ECG) segments to achieve a real-time prediction of PAF onsets. This integration enable the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) to be customized as a light-weight architecture that accommodates the size of sliding windows simply by altering the input layer, specifically its effectiveness in making a new prediction with each new heartbeat. Catering to potential influence of input sizes, three CNN models were trained using 50, 100, and 200 R-R intervals, respectively. For each model, the performance of automated algorithms was evaluated for PAF prediction using a ten-fold cross-validation. As a results, a total of 56,381 PAFN-type and 56,900 N-type R-R interval segments was collected from publicly accessible ECG databases, and a promising prediction performance of the automated algorithm with a 100 R-R intervals was achieved in terms of the sensitivity of 97.12%, the specificity of 97.77%, and the accuracy of 97.45%, respectively. Importantly, the automated algorithm with a sliding windows step of 1 could process one sample in only 23.1 milliseconds and identify the onset of PAF at least 45 minutes in advance. The present results suggest that the sliding window technique on raw R-R interval sequences along by deep learning based algorithms may offers the possibility of providing an accurate, real-time, and end-to-end clinical tool for mass monitoring of PAF.

A simple protocol for preparation of O-acylated enol form - (R/S)-ethyl-2-acetoxy-4-phenyl-4H-chromene-3-carboxylate 5 was presented. The compound was characterized by 1H-, 13C-and DEPT135 NMR spectra, including {1H,1H} COSY, {1H,13C} HSQC, {1H,13C} HMBC and 2D-NOESY spectra. The preferred regioselectivity for O-acylation of 3,4-dihydrocoumarin 5 in the presence of substituent in 4-th position in the chroman ring and accounting the steric hindrance of the ester group in 3-th place was confirmed.

A Brewer Spent Grain (BSG), the most abundant by-product of the brewing process, is mainly used in animal feed and biogas production. The aim of the present work is BSG valorization by yeast fermentation to produce carotenoids. R. mucilaginosa CBS316 was cultured on BSG syrups, supplemented or not with YE and PEP (s-Fsa and Fsa). The biomass and carotenoid production were optimized in flasks and then scaled-up in bioreactor. In flask tests, the maximum biomass concentration was 5.3 and 6.2 g/L for Fsa and s-Fsa cultures, respectively. The maximum carotenoid production was 833 μg/L in Fsa and 1159 μg/L in s-FSA. Considering that the highest specific productivity value (P 7.16 μg/g*h) was obtained with Fsa syrup, this medium was selected for the process scale-up. In bioreactor tests, the maximum concentrations of biomass (4.29 g/L) and carotenoid (396 ug/L) was reached at 72 hours of fer-mentation, 24 h later than in flask. The total carotenoid produced was 524 and 150 ug in bioreactor and flask cultures, respectively. The carotenoids production by R. mucilaginosa was obtained both in Fsa and s-Fsa syrups. The results confirm the possibility to use the syrup as it is, Fsa, thus limiting the process costs.

Composite biomaterials that combine osteoconductive and osteoinductive properties are a promising approach for bone tissue engineering (BTE) since it allows osteogenesis stimulation while mimicking the extracellular matrix (ECM) morphology. In this context, the aim of the present research work was to produce polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) nanofibers containing mesoporous bioactive glass (MBG) 80S15 nanoparticles. These composite materials were produced by electrospinning technique. The design of experiments (DOE) was used to estimate the optimal electrospinning parameters to reduce average fiber diameter. The polymeric matrices were thermally crosslinked under different conditions, and the fiber’s morphology was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Evaluation of the mechanical properties of nanofibrous mats revealed a dependence on thermal crosslinking parameters and on the presence of MBG 80S15 particles inside the polymeric fibers. Degradation tests indicated that the presence of MBG led to a faster degradation of nanofibrous mats. On the other hand, MBG presence also leads to higher swelling capacity. The assessment of in vitro bioactivity in simulated body fluid (SBF) was performed in MBG pellets and PVP/MBG (1:1) composites to assess whether the bioactive properties of MBG 80S15 were kept when it was incorporated into PVP nanofibers. FTIR and XRD analysis along with SEM–EDS results indicated that a hydroxy-carbonate apatite (HCA) layer was formed on the surface of MBG pellets and nanofibrous webs after soaking in SBF over different time periods. In general, the materials revealed no cytotoxic effects on Saos-2 cell line. The overall results for the produced materials show the potential of the composites to be used in BTE.

It has been proven that in standard Einstein gravity, exotic matter (i.e. matter violating the point-wise and averaged weak and null energy conditions) is required to stabilize traversable wormholes. Quantum field theory permits these violations due to the quantum coherent effects found in any quantum field . Even reasonable classical scalar fields violate the energy conditions. In the case of the Casimir effect and squeezed vacuum states, these violations have been experimentally proven. It is advantageous to investigate methods of minimizing the use of exotic matter. One such area of interest is extended theories of Einstein gravity. It has been claimed that in some extended theories, stable traversable wormholes solutions can be found without the use of exotic matter. There are many extended theories of gravity and in this review paper we first explore f(R) theories and then explore some wormhole solutions in f(R) theories including Lovelock gravity.

In this paper, we have established Hermite-Hadamard inequalities for r-preinvex functions via fractional integrals.

In modern data analysis, working with diverse dataset formats is essential for ensuring compatibility across different software tools and platforms. However, manual conversion between formats can be time-consuming and error-prone. To address this challenge, we developed an interactive Shiny application that facilitates the seamless conversion of datasets between popular software formats such as CSV, Excel, SAS, SPSS, Stata, and RData. This user-friendly app enables users to upload datasets, select an output format, and download the converted file with a single click. The application also incorporates a real-time progress indicator, enhancing the user experience by showing conversion progress. Built with simplicity and efficiency in mind, the app is designed for researchers, data analysts, and practitioners who regularly handle multiple file formats in their workflows. Additionally, the app features a clean, intuitive interface with clear guidance, making it accessible even to users with minimal technical background. The development process, key features, and potential applications of this tool are discussed in this article.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) stands as the paramount tropical phenomenon of climatic magnitude resulting from ocean-atmosphere interaction. Due to its atmospheric teleconnection mechanism, ENSO wields influence over diverse environmental variables spanning distinct atmospheric scales, thereby potentially impacting the spatiotemporal distribution of atmospheric aerosols. Within this framework, this study aims to appraise the relationship between ENSO and atmospheric aerosols across the Legal Amazon during the period between 2006 and 2011. Over this quinquennium, four ENSO events were identified. Concurrently, an analysis was conducted on the spatiotemporal variability of aerosol optical depth (AOD) and AOD extinction for Black Carbon (EAOD-BC), concomitant with said ENSO events, utilizing data derived from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), MERRA-2 model, and ERSSTV5. Through the Windowed Cross Correlation (WCC) approach, statistically significant phase lags of up to 4 to 6 months were observed between ENSO indicators and atmospheric aerosols. Moreover, conspicuous increases of over 100% in atmospheric aerosol concentration were evidenced subsequent to El Niño periods, especially during the intervals encompassing the La Niña phase, particularly within the La Niña CP (Central Pacific)/Modoki category. By analyzing specific humidity anomalies (QA), exceptional scenarios in the region were detectable. This observation suggests a notable singularity when juxtaposed with antecedent investigations and typical average patterns characterizing the impacts on the Amazonian region.

It was previously reported that the peptide derived from LfcinB, R-1-R exhibited anti-Candida activity and this activity was enhanced in combination with an extract from the Bidens pilosa plant. However, the mechanism of action has not been studied. In the current study, a proteomic study was carried out, followed by a bioinformatic analysis and biological assays in both SC5314 strain and a fluconazole-resistant isolate of Candida albicans, after incubation with R-1-R. The proteomic data showed that after treatment with R-1-R in the two study strains, most of the differentially expressed proteins in comparison to controls were up-regulated. These proteins were mainly involved in membrane and cell wall biosynthesis, membrane transporters, oxidative stress, the mitochondrial respiratory chain, and response to DNA damage. Besides, the proteomic analysis of C. albicans parental strain SC5314 treated with R-1-R in combination with an ethanolic extract of B. pilosa was also undertaken. The proteins differentially expressed after this treatment were involved in similar functional processes as the proteins differentially expressed after treatment with R-1-R peptide alone, but at different levels and were mostly down-regulated. The biological assays allowed validation of the proteomic results, evidencing damage to the cell surface, generation of reactive oxygen species and decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential. The results provide information to begin to unlock the understanding of the complex antifungal mode of action of the R-1-R peptide, its combination with the extract, and possibly other derivatives of natural products.

In this paper, we classify the function space of all real-valued functions on R denoted as F(R,R) into 28 distinct blocks. Each block contains elements that share common features in terms of the cardinality of their sets of continuity and differentiability. Alongside this classification, we introduce the concept of the Connection, which reveals a special relationship structure between four well-known real-valued functions in real analysis: the Cantor function, Dirichlet function, the Thomae function, and the Weierstrass function. Despite the significance of this field, several perspectives remain unexplored.

Because most of the recognized causes of superior gluteal nerve (SGN) injury are iatrogenic, detailed knowledge of the anatomy of the SGN is crucial to prevent its injury associated with surgical procedures. This study aims to describe the precise location of SGN or its branches at the greater sciatic foramen, measure the distances of these nervous structures to palpable bony landmarks, and evaluate the possible correlation between these parameters and pelvis size. Twenty human cadaveric hemipelvises were studied. After dissection to expose the SGN or its branches at the greater sciatic foramen, the distances from these nervous structures to the greater trochanter (GT), to the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS), to the posterior superior iliac spine (PSIS), to the ischial tuberosity (IT), and to the greater sciatic notch were measured. We found that at the greater sciatic foramen the SGN emerges as a common trunk in 75% of hemipelvises, and already divided in its superior and inferior branches in 25% of hemipelvises. When the SGN exits the pelvis as a common trunk, it does so, in most cases, in contact with the bone at the apex of the greater sciatic notch or superior to it. The median distance from the SGN at the greater sciatic notch to the PSIS, ASIS, GT and IT is 7.6 cm, 10.9 cm, 7.5 cm and 10.8 cm, respectively. We found a positive correlation between some of the analyzed parameters and the size of the pelvis. The anatomical data of this study may serve as pivotal guides during orthopedic pelvic surgery, contributing to minimize SNG iatrogenic lesions with significant implications in the patient's quality of life.

In this article, an iterative method of two step is proposed for finding all roots simultaneously of polynomial equations. The order of convergence of the proposed algorithm is 2m, by using any iterative scheme of order m. Numerical tests are performed to confirm the theoretical results and to compare the proposed scheme with existing methods for finding all roots simultaneously.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease, commonly associated with unhealthy habits and obesity, and it is becoming a serious health issue worldwide. As a result, new approaches to treat diabetes are required, and a movement towards more natural ones is emerging. Consuming fruit and vegetables is advised to prevent diabetes since they contain several bioactive compounds. A simple and ef-fective strategy to include them in the diets of diabetic and obese people is through beverages. This review aimed to report the anti-diabetic potential of different vegetable and fruit beverages. These functional beverages demonstrated in vitro potential to inhibit α-glucosidase and α-amylase en-zymes, and to improve glucose uptake. In vivo, the beverage consumption showed a reduction of blood glucose, increase of insulin tolerance, improvement of lipid profile, control of obesity, and reduction of oxidative stress. This suggests the potential of vegetable and fruit-based functional beverages to be a natural innovative therapy for the management of diabetes.

Significant Wave Height(SWH) is a crucial parameter in oceanographic research, essential for understanding various marine and atmospheric processes. Traditional methods for obtaining SWH, such as ship-based and buoy measurements, face limitations like limited spatial coverage and high operational costs. With the advancement of Global Navigation Satellite Systems reflectometry(GNSS-R) technology, a new method for retrieving SWH has emerged, demonstrating promising results. This study utilizes Radio occultation sounder(GNOS) data from the FY-3E satellite and incorporates the latest Vision Transformer(ViT) technology to investigate GNSS-R-based SWH retrieval. We designed and evaluated various deep learning models, including ANN-Wave, CNN-Wave, Hybrid-Wave, Trans-Wave, and ViT-Wave. Through comparative training using ERA5 data, the ViT-Wave model was identified as the optimal retrieval model. The ViT-Wave model achieved an Root Mean Square Error(RMSE) accuracy of 0.4052 meters and Mean Absolute Error(MAE) accuracy of 0.2700 meters, significantly outperforming both traditional methods and newer deep learning approaches utilizing Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite Systems(CYGNSS) data. These results underscore the potential of integrating GNSS-R technology with advanced deep learning models to enhance SWH retrieval accuracy and reliability in oceanographic research.

We developed two human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)/human embryonic stem cell-specific glycan-recognizing mouse antibodies, R-10G and R-17F, using the Tic (JCRB1331) hiPSC line as an antigen. R-10G recognizes a low-sulfate keratan sulfate, and R-17F recognizes lacto-N-fucopentaose-1. To evaluate the general characteristics of stem cell glycans, we used the hiPSC line 201B7 (HPS0063), a prototype iPSC line. Using an R-10G affinity column, an R-10G-binding protein was isolated. The protein yielded a single but very broad band from 480 to 1,236 kDa by blue native gel electrophoresis. After trypsin digestion, the protein was identified as podocalyxin by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. According to Western blotting, the protein reacted with R-10G and R-17F. The R-10G positive band was resistant to digestion with glycan-degrading enzymes, including peptide N-glycanase, but the intensity of the band was decreased significantly by digestion with keratanase, keratanase II, and endo-β-galactosidase, suggesting the R-10G epitope to be a keratan sulfate. These results suggest that keratan sulfate-type epitopes are shared by hiPSCs. However, the keratan sulfate from 201B7 cells contained a polylactosamine disaccharide unit (Galβ1-4GlcNAc) at a significant frequency, whereas that from Tic cells consisted mostly of keratan sulfate disaccharide units (Galβ1-4GlcNAc(6S)). In addition, the abundance of the R-10G epitope was significantly lower in 201B7 cells than in Tic cells.

Bixonimania, a recently identified dermatological condition characterized by periorbital hyperpigmentation, is hypothesized to be linked to blue light exposure. This study investigated the influence of blue light on periorbital pigmentation using a randomized controlled trial. Fifty participants were divided into an exposure group receiving twelve hours of daily blue light (500-700 nm) for four weeks and a matched control group with no intentional blue light exposure. Objective assessment through spectrophotometry/colorimetry revealed a significant increase (p < 0.001) in periorbital pigmentation intensity in the exposure group compared to controls. Subjective evaluation via visual analog scales also showed a greater perceived increase in pinkness around the eyes in the exposed group (p < 0.01). Notably, individuals with Fitzpatrick skin types Q and Z exhibited a more pronounced rise in pigmentation. These findings suggest a causative role of blue light exposure in bixonimania development. Further research is warranted to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and explore preventative strategies to mitigate bixonimania.

The study proposes planning independent children's mobility through geoinformation technologies for listening to children. This research assumes that children’s values and expectations must be considered in city planning. A bibliographic review identifies 15 indicators which make spaces safe and attractive for children to circulate and play. Thematic maps of the indicators are prepared, integrated by Multicriteria Analysis by Weights of Evidence, according to the hierarchical importance of each variable. The definition of weights considers the opinion of children and technicians. Consultation with children is carried out by Mapping Volunteers (VGI), Consultation on Hierarchy, Geodesign of Ideas for the area and Artistic Workshop. In the technical study, the query applies the Delphi method. It uses the VGI – Volunteered Geographic Information – web-based platform, where children record places of topophilia and topophobia, while technicians map the presence of 15 indicators. The set of information is made available on a web-based platform of SDI – Spatial Data Infrastructure, in which there are resources for a Geodesign workshop when ideas for the area are elaborated through negotiation and co-creation. The product is a transformation design for the area through urban design and parameterisation of uses.

Yaba monkey tumor virus (YMTV) and Tanapox virus (TPV) are members of the Yatapoxvirus genus and can infect humans and other primates. Despite the threat posed by yatapoxviruses, the factors determining their host range are poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed the ability of YMTV and TPV orthologs of vaccinia virus K3 (called 012 in YMTV and TPV), which share 75% amino acid identity with one another, to inhibit PKR from 15 different primate species. We first used a luciferase-based reporter, and found that YMTV and TPV K3 orthologs inhibited PKR in a species-specific manner and showed distinct PKR inhibition profiles. TPV 012 inhibited PKR from 11 primates, including human, substantially better than YMTV 012. In contrast, both K3 orthologs inhibited the other four primate PKRs comparably well. Using YMTV 012 and TPV 012 hybrids, we mapped the region responsible for the differential PKR inhibition to the C- terminus of the K3 orthologs. Next, we generated chimeric vaccinia virus strains to investigate whether TPV K3 and YMTV K3 orthologs could rescue replication of a vaccinia virus strain that lacks PKR inhibitors K3L and E3L. Virus replication in primate-derived cells generally correlated with the patterns observed in the luciferase-based assay. Together, these observations demonstrate that yatapoxvirus K3 orthologs have distinct PKR inhibition profiles and inhibit PKR in a species-specific manner, which may contribute to the differential susceptibility of primate species to yatapoxvirus infections.

Modeling the flow of polymer solutions requires knowledge at various length and time scales. The macroscopic behavior is described by the overall velocity, pressure and stress. The polymeric contribution to the stress requires knowledge of the evolution of polymer chains. In this work, we use a microscopic model, the finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE) model, to capture the polymer behavior. The benefit of microscopic models is they remain faithful to the polymer dynamics without information loss via averaging. The downside is the computational cost needed to solve the thousands to millions of differential equations describing the microstructure. We thus describe a multiscale flow solver that utilizes GPUs for massively parallel, efficient simulations. We compare and contrast the microscopic model with its macroscopic counterpart under various flow conditions. In particular, significant differences are observed under nonlinear flow conditions, where the polymers become highly stretched and oriented.

Uncovering hidden mixture correlation among variables have been investigating in the literature using mixture R-vine copula models. These models are hierarchical in nature. They provides a huge flexibility for modelling multivariate data. As the dimensions increases, the number of the model parameters that need to be estimated is increased dramatically, which becomes along with huge computational times and efforts. This situation becomes even much more harder and complicated in the mixture Regular vine models. Incorporating truncation method with mixture Regular vine models will reduce the computation difficulty for the mixture based models. In this paper, tree-by-tree estimation mixture model is joined with the truncation method, in order to reduce the computational time and the number of the parameters that need to be estimated in the mixture vine copula models. A simulation study and a real data applications illustrated the performance of the method. In addition, the real data applications show the affect of the mixture components on the truncation level.

The human innate immune response to the pore-forming toxin of Vibrio cholerae VCC, is currently under study. Here, in vitro studies on a human macrophage cell line (THP-1), helped explore the activated pathways involved on the onset the innate immune response towards the cytotoxin. The secreted monomeric 65 KDa form interacts with mature macrophages in pg/ml concentrations, determined by dose response experiments after treatments under 1 h. Non vacuolating concentrations (pg/ml) were applied to the cells; immunoblots revealed activation of MAPKs: early overexpression of p38 and ERK. Cell lysis by release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was not apparent in the first hour, nonetheless it was positive after 24 h. Finally, to discern whether the VCC stimulates transcriptional activators via MAPKs pathway, NF-κB and AP-1 were studied by real time quantitation. Increased expression of p50 (NF-κB), cJun and cFos (AP-1) was observed. Given that NF-κB is the transcription factor initiating inflammation of innate immune response and in turn, AP-1 is responsible for cell surviving response, results from this study lead us to conclude that VCC in vitro treatments, induce a pro-inflammatory and a surviving response, in less than one hour on activated macrophages.

The efficient preparation of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) rings, as a macromolecular construction approach with topological features, has aroused much interest due to their numerous applications in biotechnology and DNA nanotechnology. However, an extra splint is essential for enzymatic circularization, and by-products of multimers are usually present at high concentrations. Here, we proposed a simple and robust strategy of using permuted precursor (linear ssDNA) for circularization by forming an intramolecular dynamic nick using a part of the linear ssDNA substrate itself as the template. After the simulation of the secondary structure for desired circular ssDNA, the linear ssDNA substrate is designed to have its ends on the duplex part (≥5 bp). By using this permuted substrate with 5'-phosphate, the splint-free circularization is simply carried out by T4 DNA ligase. Very interestingly, formation of only several base pairs (2–4) flanking the nick is enough for ligation, although they form only instantaneously under ligation conditions. More significantly, the 5 bp intramolecular duplex part commonly exists in genomes or functional DNA, demonstrating the high generality of our approach. Our findings are helpful for understanding the mechanism of enzymatic DNA ligation from the viewpoint of substrate binding.

The effective Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system can improve the reliability, safety and economic benefits of microgrid operation. In this research, the lower central controller and upper WEB monitoring system are connected by the SCADA system which is as the hub of microgrid intelligent monitoring platform. This system contains a set of specific functions programmed by Java as a middleware which can provide control and communication between the central controller and the upper monitoring system. The system realizes the real-time data acquisition and storage, the control instructions parsing and transmitting, the microgrid security and stability, the load balancing and resource recovery of the microgrid. All that functions have been tested and verified in the actual operation.

Mucosal vaccination appears to be suitable to protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this study, we tested an intranasal mucosal vaccine candidate to COVID-19 constituted of a cationic liposome containing a trimeric SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and CpG-ODNs, a Toll-like receptor 9 agonist, as adjuvant. In vitro and in vivo experiments indicated the absence of toxicity following the intranasal administration of this vaccine formulation. First, we found that subcutaneous or intranasal vaccination protected hACE-2 transgenic mice from infection with the wild-type (Wuhan) SARS-CoV-2 strain, as shown by weight lost and mortality indicators. However, when compared to the subcutaneous administration, the intranasal route was more effective in the pulmonary clearance of the virus and induced higher neutralizing antibodies and anti-S IgA titers. In addition, the intranasal vaccination afforded protection against gamma, delta and omicron virus variants of concern. Furthermore, the intranasal vaccine formulation was superior to intramuscular vaccination with a recombinant, replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vector encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (Oxford/AstraZeneca) in terms of virus lung clearance and production of neutralizing antibodies in serum and bronchial alveolar lavage (BAL). Finally, the intranasal liposomal formulation boosted heterologous immunity induced by previous intramuscular vaccination with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that was more robust than homologous immunity.

The oral administration of (R)-3-hydroxybutyl-(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate, allows inducing a beneficial level of blood ketone bodies without the adverse effects due to the adhesion to a ketogenic diet. Several studies documented the therapeutic effectiveness of the (R)-3-hydroxybutyl (R)-3-hydroxybutyrate in treating neurodegenerative diseases as well as its boosting activity of athletic and cognitive performances during prolonged physical exercises. Further studies considering this ketone body ester for therapy of other pathologies are also underway. In the present work, we describe the synthesis of (R)-3-hydroxybutyl-(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate through the enantioselective transesterification of racemic ethyl 3-hydroxybutyrate with (R)-1,3-butanediol catalyzed by immobilized Candida antarctica lipase B (CAL-B). The enantiopure (R)-1,3-butanediol was in turn obtained from the kinetic resolution of the racemate by CAL-B catalyzed acetylation with vinyl acetate. The economy of the synthetic procedure has been improved by recycling the unreacted (S) enantiomers of the ethyl 3-hydroxybutyrate and 1,3-buatnediol after stereochemical inversion achieved by tosylation and SN2 with ammonium acetate. The overall procedure allows to incorporate up to 70% of the starting racemic reagents into the final product.

Pelagic stingray (Pteroplatytrygon violacea) is the only species of stingray (Dasyatidae) that utilizes both pelagic and demersal habitats. It is the main bycatch species in pelagic longline fisheries targeting bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Lions. In the Mediterranean Sea, their stock structure, behavioural ecology and movements are unknown. For the first time in the Mediterranean, 17 individuals (39 to 60 cm disc width) were tagged with pop-up satellite archival transmitting tags using a novel method of tag attachment, to investigate horizontal and vertical movements. The tags were attached for between two and 60 days. Between the months of July and October, pelagic stingray occupied a temperature range of 12.5 to 26.6°C, and a depth range extending from the surface to 480 m. Monthly trends in catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) of pelagic stingray peaked in August and decreased by late autumn. Pelagic stingray may aggregate on the continental shelf during summer, and move southwards in early autumn, and this movement pattern is considered in relation to the reproductive cycle and overwintering. Future work and options for bycatch mitigation are discussed.

Dielectric elastomers, such as thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU), are widely used as dielectric layer, emulation layer and substrate of flexible and stretchable devices. To construct capacitors and actuators that work stably upon deformation, it has become an urgent need to investigate the evolution of dielectricity under stress and strain. However, the lack of effective methods for estimating the dielectric constant of elastomers under strain poses a big challenge. This article reports a device for in-situ measuring the dielectric constant of TPU under strain. It is found that upon stretching TPU to a strain of 400%, its dielectric constant decreases from 8.47 to 2.94. In addition, combined Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray scattering technique, and atomic force microscopy have been utilized to characterize the evolution of microstructure under strain. The investigation under tensile strain reveals that a decreased density and average size of polarized hard domains, along with a tendency of the molecular chains to align in parallel with the tensile stress. The evolution of the microstructures results in a reduction of the dielectric constant parallel to the electric field in TPU. Our work provides valuable experimental reference for improving the stability of flexible sensors and actuators based on dielectric elastomers.

The compatibility between the de Sitter Swampland conjecture and Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz $F(\bar{R})$ theories with a flat FLRW metric is studied. We first study the standard $f(R)$ theories and show that the only way in which the dS conjecture can be made independent of $R$ is by considering a power law of the form $f(R)\sim R^{\gamma}$. The conjecture and the consistency of the theory puts restrictions on $\gamma$ to be greater but close to $1$. For the $F(\bar{R})$ theories described by its two parameters $\lambda$ and $\mu$ we use the equations of motion to construct the function starting with an ansatz for the scale factor in the Jordan frame of the power law form. By doing a conformal transformation on the three metric to the Einstein frame we can obtain an action of gravity plus a scalar filed by relating the parameters of the theory. The non-projectable and projectable cases are studied and the differences are outlined. The $F(\bar{R})$ function obtained consists of terms of the form $\bar{R}^{\gamma}$ with the possibility of having negative power terms. The dS conjecture leads to inequalities for the $\lambda$ parameter, in both versions it gets restricted to be greater but close to $1/3$. For the general case in which $\mu$ and $\lambda$ are considered as independent, the action contains an extra term but we propose that the conjecture is still applicable. Once again the non-projectable and projectable cases are studied. The $F$ function obtained has the same form as before, the consistency of the theory and the dS conjecture lead to a set of inequalities on both parameters that are studied numerically. In all cases $\lambda$ is restricted by $\mu$ around $1/3$ and we obtain $\lambda\to1/3$ if $\mu\to0$. Finally we consider the $f(R)$ limit $\mu,\lambda\to1$ and we obtain consistent results.

(R)-2-Amino-1-hydroxyethylphosphonic acid 2 was prepared by hydrolytic kinetic resolution of rac-diethyl oxiran-2-ylphosphonate followed by reaction with benzylamine, acid hydrolysis, catalytic hydrogenolysis and anion exchange chromatography. Recrystallization from water-ethanol gave 2, which was characterized by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, 31P NMR, polarimetry, elemental microanalysis, high-resolution mass spectrometry and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The acid 2 crystallized in the orthorhombic chiral space group P212121 with cell constants a = 6.303(2) Å, b = 7.104(2) Å, c = 11.627(3) Å. The X-ray crystal structure confirmed the (R)-configuration of 2 and revealed that 2 is zwitterionic in the solid state, with extensive intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the hydroxyl, ammonium cation and phosphonate anion groups.

In this work, we explore a the different forms of a new type of modified gravity, namely f(φ) gravity. We construct the Big Rip type for the energy density and the curvature of the universe. We show that dark energy is a result of the transformation of the field φ mass (dark matter) to energy. In addition, we provide that Ω_{m}≈0,050, Ω_{DM}≈0,2, Ω_{DE}≈0,746, is in excellent agreement with observation data. We explore a generalized formalism of braneworld modified gravity. We also construct a new field equations, which generalize the Einstein field equations. We provide a relation between the extra dimension in 3-brane with the vacuum energy density. We show that the energy density of matter depends directly on the number of dimensions. We manage to find the value of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling α=1/4 which is a good agreement with the results in the literature, this correspondence creates a passage between f(R) gravity and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, this comparison leads to a number of bulk dimensions equal to D=10¹²¹+4.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder, with a highly variable expression of phenotypes (restricted interest or activity and repetitive behavior in communication and social interactions), genes (mutation), markers (alteration of transcription) and pathways. Loss of function of the CC2D1A gene appears to primarily affect the brain, leading to a range of behavioral problems in humans. In our study published in 2020; we found that the expressions of miR-19a-3p, miR-361-5p, miR-150-5p, miR-3613-3p, miR-126-3p and miR-499a-5p were downregulated in the serum samples of autistic patients and their families. Here, acquired non-Mendelian hereditary character in a genetically defined mouse model of autism (Cc2d1a +/-) correlates with the transcriptional alteration of five miRNAs. We seek to test the hypothesis that miRNA levels are varying by changes in RNA/DNA structure during development, thereby creating transcription alteration. Behavioral tests were conducted on the offspring of Cc2d1a +/- mutant and control mice, such as novel object, social interaction, marble burying and tail suspension behavior. Two RNA fractions were isolated from mouse hippocampal tissues and sperm cells by standard TRIzol extraction: total RNA and fraction of RNA bound to DNA in the form of a DNA/RNA hybrid (R-loop). The expression levels of miR-19a-3p, miR-361-5p, miR-150-5p, miR-126-3p and miR-499a-5p were investigated by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. We report differences in the distribution of five miRNAs in the hippocampus between male and female mice in RNA fractions, particularly in colonies of Cc2d1a +/- mice. Furthermore, the number of miRNAs engaged in the DNA/RNA hybrid fraction is generally higher in the mutant pedigree than in the control group. On the other hand, in sperm both fractions are at lower levels than in controls. R-loops contribute to the physiology and pathology of organisms including human disease. Here we report a variation in five miRNA levels between gender and tissue. Our results suggest that the transcription levels of these five miRNAs are directly regulated by their RNA.

Mass transfer restrictions of scaffolds are currently hindering the development of three-dimensional (3D), clinically viable, and tissue engineered constructs. For this situation, a 3D poly(lactide-co-glycolide)/hydroxyapatite porous scaffold, which was much favorable for transfer of nutrients to and waste products from the cells in the pores, was developed in this study. The 3D scaffold had an innovative structure, including macropores with diameters of 300−450 μm for cell ingrowth and microchannels with diameters of 2−4 μm for nutrition and waste exchange. The mechanical strength in wet state was strong enough to offer the structural support. The typical structure was more beneficial for the attachment, proliferation, and differentiation of rabbit bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs). The alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and calcium (Ca) deposition were evaluated on the differentiation of rBMSCs, and the results indicated that the microchannel structure was very favorable for differentiating rBMSCs into maturing osteoblasts. For repairing rabbit radius defects in vivo, there was rapid healing in the defects treated with the 3D porous scaffold with microchannels, where the bridging by a large bony callus was observed at 12 weeks post-surgery. Based on the results, the 3D porous scaffold with microchannels was a promising candidate for bone defect repair.

The Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic brought new discoveries regarding arboviruses, especially flaviviruses, as ZIKV was described as sexually and vertically transmitted. The latter shows severe consequences for the embryo/fetus, such as congenital microcephaly and deficiency of the neural system, currently known as Congenital ZIKV Syndrome (CZS). To better understand ZIKV dynamics in trophoblastic cells present in the first trimester of pregnancy (BeWo, HTR-8, and control cell HuH-7), an experiment of viral kinetics was performed for African MR766 low passage and Asian-Brazilian IEC ZIKV lineages. The results were described independently, and demonstrated that the three placental cells lines are permissive and susceptible to ZIKV. We noticed cytopathic effects that are typical in vitro viral infection in BeWo and HTR-8. Regarding kinetics, MR766lp showed peaks of viral loads in 24 and 48 hpi for all cell types tested, as well as marked cells death after peak production. On the other hand, HTR-8 lineage inoculated with ZIKV-IEC exhibited increased viral production in 144 hpi, with a peak between 24 and 96 hpi. Furthermore, IEC had peak variations of viral production for BeWo in 144 hpi. Both cells types continued alive during the process of viral replication. Considering such in vitro results, the hypothesis that maternal-fetal transmission is probably a way of virus transmission between the mother and the embryo/fetus is maintained.

Social communication skills, especially eye contact and joint attention, are highly impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and predict functional outcomes. Applied Behavior Analysis is one of the best evidence-based treatments for ASD, but it is not accessible to most families in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as it is a costly and intensive and needs to be delivered by highly specialized professionals. Parental training has emerged as an effective alternative. The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of a parental intervention group via video modeling to acquire eye contact and joint attention. Four graded measures of eye contact and joint attention (full physical prompt, partial physical prompt, gestural prompt, and independent) were assessed in 34 children with ASD and intellectual disability (ID). There was a progressive reduction in the level of prompt required over time to acquire eye contact and joint attention, and a positive correlation between the time of exposure to the intervention and acquisition of the abilities. This parent training using video modelling to teach eye contact and joint attention skills to children with ASD and ID is a low-cost intervention that can be applied in low- resource settings.

Malignant lymphomas, encompassing Hodgkin lymphomas (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL), represent a significant category of hematological malignancies with diverse presentations and prognoses. This review synthesizes current understanding of malignant lymphomas, focusing on their classification, incidence, epidemiology, staging, histopathology, and evolving treatment strategies. Malignant lymphomas are broadly classified into HL and NHL, with NHL further subdivided into B-cell, T-cell, and NK-cell neoplasms. The emergence of grey zone lymphomas, which exhibit overlapping features and heightened aggressiveness, underscores the complexity of diagnosis and treatment. Epidemiologically, HL predominantly affects younger individuals, while NHL incidence increases with age, reflecting a global rise in both incidence and mortality rates. Advances in diagnostic techniques and treatments have led to improved outcomes, yet challenges persist, particularly in distinguishing between overlapping lymphoma types and managing increasing incidence rates. The management of HL and NHL involves a variety of treatment options tailored to the disease stage and individual patient characteristics. After diagnosis and staging, treatment regimens may include radiotherapy, chemotherapy (either alone or in combination), and immunotherapy. Monitoring patient response is crucial, with adjustments made in cases of therapeutic failure. Achieving remission—either partial or complete—depends on the normalization of biomarkers and imaging results, reduction of lymphoid organ size, and resolution of symptoms. Despite therapeutic advances, treatment complications, including short-term effects like myelosuppression and long-term issues such as cardiomyopathy and secondary cancers, remain significant. The future of HL and NHL treatment lies in refining these approaches, minimizing adverse effects, and enhancing efficacy through innovative therapies and personalized medicine strategies.

Soy isoflavones are considered important sources of bioactive compounds, but they are poorly absorbable, due to their large hydrophilic structures. Some biotransformation strategies have been used to convert the glycosidic form into aglycones, making them available for absorption. This study evaluated the potential of enzymatic and/or microbial fermentation bioprocesses in soymilk extract before and after gastrointestinal in vitro digestion. Commercial β-glucosidase and mix of commercial probiotics containing Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. casei, Lactococcus lactis, Bifidobacterium bifidum e B. lactis were used to biotransform soymilk extract. Isoflavone profile was quantified by HPLC-DAD, total phenolic content by Folin–Ciocalteu test, and antioxidant capacity by ORAC and FRAP. Soymilk enzymatically treated (ET) followed by microbial fermentation (ET+F) resulted in the conversion of glycosylated isoflavones (6-fold lower than control for daidzin and 2-fold for genistin) to aglycones (18-fold greater than control for dadzein and genistein), besides to increase the total phenolic content (3.48 for control and 4.48 mg/ml ET+F) and to improve antioxidant capacity represented by the ORAC (120 for control and 151 mg/ml ET+F) and by the FRAP (285 for control and 317 µl/ml for ET+F) before in vitro digestion. Further, the digested ET+F samples resulted a higher content of genistein (2-fold higher than control) also an increase in the total phenolic content (2.81 for control and 4.03 mg/ml for ET+F) and antioxidant capacity by ORAC were greater compared to undigested samples. In addition, the microbial fermentation process isolated also resulted in the positive effects, but de combination of ET followed by F presented a synergistic effect, suggesting the greater potential for both bioprocesses to contribute to functional and nutritional properties on fermented soy-based products.

A wealth of Full Waveform (FW) LiDAR data are available to the public from different sources, which is poised to boost the extensive application of FW LiDAR data. However, we lack a handy and open source tool that can be used by potential users for processing and analyzing FW LiDAR data. To this end, we introduce waveformlidar, an R package dedicated to FW LiDAR processing, analysis and visualization as a solution to the constraint. Specifically, this package provides several commonly used waveform processing methods such as Gaussian, adaptive Gaussian and Weibull decompositions, and deconvolution approaches (Gold and Richard-Lucy (RL)) with users’ customized settings. In addition, we also developed functions to derive commonly used waveform metrics for characterizing vegetation structure. Moreover, a new way to directly visualize FW LiDAR data is developed through converting waveforms into points to form the Hyper Point cloud (HPC), which can be easily adopted and subsequently analyzed with existing discrete-return LiDAR processing tools such as LAStools and FUSION. Basic explorations of the HPC such as 3D voxelization of the HPC and conversion from original waveforms to composite waveforms are also available in this package. All of these functions are developed based on small-footprint FW LiDAR data, but they can be easily transplanted to the large footprint FW LiDAR data such as Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) and Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) data analysis. It is anticipated that these functions will facilitate the widespread use of FW LiDAR and be beneficial for better estimating biomass and characterizing vegetation structure at various scales. The package and code examples can be found at https://github.com/tankwin08/waveformlidar.

Some peptide-based drugs including oxytocin, vasopressin, ziconotide, pramlintide, nesiritide, and octreotide, contain one intramolecular disulfide bonds. A novel and reusable monodispersed silica nanosphere-supported Pt(IV) complex (SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV)) was synthesized via a four-step procedure and used for formation of intramolecular disulfide bonds in peptides. TEM and chemical mapping results for the Pt(II) intermediates and for SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV) show that the silica nanospheres possess a monodisperse spherical structure and contain uniformly distributed Si, O, C, N, Cl, and Pt. The valence state of Pt on the silica nanospheres was characterized by XPS. The Pt(IV) loaded on SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV) was 0.15 mmol/g, as determined by UV-vis spectrometry. Formation of intramolecular disulfides in six dithiol-containing peptides of variable lengths by use of SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV) was investigated and the relative oxidation yields were determined by HPLC. In addition, peptide 1 (Ac-CPFC-NH2) was utilized to study the reusability of SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV). No significant decrease in the relative oxidation yield was observed after ten reaction cycles. Moreover, the structure of SiO2@TPEA@Pt(IV) after being used ten cycles was determined to be similar to its initial one, demonstrating the cycling stability of the complex.

Cancers arise from the accumulation of somatic genome mutations, with varying contributions of intrinsic (i.e. genetic predisposition) and extrinsic (i.e. environmental) factors. For the understanding of malignant clones, precise information about their genomic composition has to be correlated with morphological, clinical and individual features, in the context of the available medical knowledge. Rapid improvements in molecular profiling techniques, the accumulation of large amount of data in genomic alterations in human malignancies and the expansion of bioinformatic tools and methodologies have facilitated the understanding of the molecular changes during oncogenesis, and their correlation with clinico-pathological phenotypes. Far beyond a limited set of "driver" genes, oncogenomic profiling has identified a large variety of somatic mutations; and whole genome sequencing studies of healthy individuals have improved the knowledge of heritable genome variation. Nevertheless, main challenges arise from the skewed representation of individuals from varying population backgrounds in biomedical studies, and also through the limited extend in which some cancer entities are represented in the scientific literature. Content analyses of oncogenomic publications could provide guidance for the planning and support of future studies aiming at filling prominent knowledge gaps.

The objective of this research was to analyze the evolution and trend of the generation gap and nursing education from 1968 to 2021 through bibliometric indicators. The method used is a bibliometric, descriptive and retrospective study of documents in Scopus, with descriptors “Nursing educat*”, “generation* and the Boolean operator “AND”, N= 653 web documents from 1968 to 2021, and filters of the type bib, csv. The search was carried out on October 9, 2021, using the Bibliometrix R Package software and the Biblioshiny tool. The Results indicate high scientific production in 2020 (54 articles disclosed). This study demonstrates patterns and lines of research in nursing education, such as educational models, interpersonal relationships, and organizational innovation.

Identification and segmentation of rock particles is very important in geology, mining, engineering construction, and environmental monitoring. Traditional methods for recognizing the rock particle characteristics are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and limited by the geographical scope of the sampling sites, which makes it more difficult to represent the spatial distribution of the rock particles accurately. Recent advancements in deep learning techniques offer promising solutions to automate this process. This study aims at utilizing state-of-the-art (SOTA) Mask R-CNN deep learning algorithm from the Detectron2 framework, to capture global features of rocks that will enable the recognition of rock particles more efficiently, just from having the rock images. These images are subject to image processing techniques such as a Gaussian filter, to denoise and smoothen the image, and an Illumination Adaptive Transformer (IAT) framework, to adjust the lighting exposure; all of which add to improve the quality of the image dataset. Afterward, the Mask R-CNN and Detectron2 models are utilized in training the images using transfer learning. Experimental results from evaluating the performance of the proposed algorithms showcase the effectiveness of the approach, thereby highlighting its potential to revolutionize rock particle segmentation across various domains.

(R)-(+)-3,5-Dinitro-N-(1-phenylethyl)benzothioamide 1 is a potential chiral solvating agent (CSA) for the spectral resolution of enantiomers by 1H NMR spectroscopy. The single enantiomer of 1 was synthesized from commercially (R)-(+)-a-methylbenzylamine 2 in two-steps with 85% yield.

We study certain function algebras and their operator algebra completions on r-discrete abelian groupoids, the corresponding conditional expectations, maximal abelian subalgebras (masa) and eigen-functionals.

Evaluation of drug permeability using cell monolayers is an important in vitro assay in the process of drug development, to identify compounds with favourable pharmacokinetics that may proceed to in vivo studies. When allowed to differentiate on permeable filters for at least 21 days, monolayers of Caco-2 cells develop morphological and functional properties similar to those of the intestinal epithelium. Permeability through Caco-2 monolayers is thus particularly relevant to assess drug absorption after oral administration. The major drawback of this assay is its very low throughput, with the cell monolayers being used in a single permeability assay. We have previously proposed a protocol to allow the re-use of the Caco-2 monolayer on additional permeability assays during the stable period and shown that cell monolayer integrity is maintained. In this work we evaluate the effect of re-use on the permeability of several reference compounds that permeate through passive pathways and show that the cell monolayers can be re-used twice in additional permeability assays. Preliminary results were also obtained regarding active transport pathways, and a new methodology is proposed to quantify the contribution from passive and active transport. This is a major step towards the full validation of the re-use methodology proposed, which at least triplicates the throughput of this important in vitro assay.

Phytochemicals have a long and successful history in drug discovery. With recent advancements in analytical techniques and methodologies, discovering bioactive leads from natural compounds has become easier. Computational techniques like molecular docking, QSAR modelling and machine learning, and network pharmacology are among the most promising new tools that allow researchers to make predictions concerning natural products' potential targets, thereby guiding experimental validation efforts. Additionally, approaches like LC-MS or LC-NMR speed up compound identification by streamlining analytical processes. Integrating structural and computational biology aids in lead identification, thus providing invaluable information to understand how phytochemicals interact with potential targets in the body. Emerging computational approach is machine learning involving QSAR modelling and deep neural networks that interrelate phytochemical properties with diverse physiological activities such as antimicrobial or anticancer effects.

We have recently introduced the possibility of performing operando small-angle X-ray scattering measurements using a novel industrially relevant injection moulding system for plastics. We show that useful time-resolving measurements can be performed with a time-cycle of 1s and we highlight the possible steps to reduce this to 0.5s. We show how we can use the transmission measurements to provide a time-marker when plastic first enters the mould cavity in the region probed by the incident X-ray beam. We show the opportunities provided by this experimental stage mounted on the NCD-SWEET beamline at ALBA to probe the reproducibility of the injection moulding system on different scales. The design of the equipment allows the development of the structure and the morphology to be evaluated in different parts of mould cavity and we evaluate any differences in a rectangular mould cavity. We identify future prospects for this equipment in terms of novel mould heating and cooling systems and the opportunities for quantitatively evaluating radical approaches to injection moulding technology.

CAMx-LPiG (Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions – Linear Plume in Grid) is an online hybrid model, based on the Chemistry and Transport Model (CTM) CAMx, that includes a sub-grid scale module to simulate the dispersion of linear road traffic emissions, called LPiG. LPiG is a plume in grid module specifically developed by extending the capabilities of the Lagrangian puff sub-grid model available in CAMx. The online integration of the local scale model within the Eulerian CTM allows for a multiscale simulation of air quality from the regional scale to the urban scale, preserving a coherent description of the chemical state of the atmosphere at all spatial scales and avoiding any double counting of the emissions simulated by the sub-grid module. In this work the model is presented and evaluated against measured NO2 concentrations for the city of Milan for the month of January 2017. The model is able to introduce road traffic induced gradient in NO2 concentration at sub-grid resolution. Moreover, CAMx-LPiG is shown to reduce the bias compared to CAMx stand-alone simulations.

A theoretical framework for agricultural landscape pattern transitions in rural areas is proposed to fill the gap of current research with an empirical study in the Alabata farm settlement in Ogun State, Southwest Nigeria. Adopting the use of ArcGIS 10.8 and Surfer 27.3 to calculate the surface area and volume of the ground surface degraded and exposed to harsh weather conditions due to both natural and man-made anthropogenic activities causing runoffs and continuous soil erosion, which has affected agricultural production and sent some of the farmers packing and abandoning their farmlands. The farm settlement within the total sampled frame area of 1.50 km² covers a total distance of 5.11 km. The sample frame was divided into 36 frames with similar ecological terrain and soil types, which fell into either identified soil types 1 and 2. The study completed a questionnaire onsite using three major criteria. Only 23 farmers responded positively to the few questions with farmers either living on the farm or working as hired laborers on-site at the visit. The transition characteristics of agricultural landscape patterns as represented in abandoned land, and orchards are analyzed from a local perspective.

The normal growth and development of skeletal muscle is essential for the health of the body. The regulation of skeletal muscle by intestinal microorganisms and their metabolites has been continuously revealed. Acetate is the predominant short-chain fatty acid synthesized by gut microbiota through the fermentation of dietary fiber, however, the underlying molecular mechanisms governing the interaction between acetate and skeletal muscle during rapid growth stage remain to be further elucidated; Here, specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice, germ-free (GF) mice, and germ-free mice supplemented with sodium acetate (GS) were used to evaluate the effects of acetate on skeletal muscle growth and development of young mice with gut microbiota deficiency; We found the concentration of serum acetate, body mass gain, succinate dehydrogenase activity and expression of myogenesis maker gene of skeletal muscle in the GS group was higher than GF group following sodium acetate supplement. Furthermore, the transcriptome analysis revealed that acetate activated biological processes regulating skeletal muscle growth and development in GF group that are inhibited due to gut microbiota deficiency. In vitro experiment, we proved that acetate up-regulated Gm16062 to promote skeletal muscle cell differentiation; Overall, our findings proved that acetate promote skeletal muscle growth and development in young mice via increase Gm16062 expression.

A detailed review of the scientific literature was undertaken to examine the most recent developments in plasma processing in the field of medicine. The first part of the review includes a detailed breakdown of the different types of coatings that can be applied onto medical devices using plasma, with a specific focus on antimicrobial surfaces. The developments during 2023 in plasma deposited biocompatible, drug delivery and adhesive coatings are described and specific applications in additive manufacturing are highlighted. The use of plasma and plasma activated liquids as standalone therapeutics continues to evolve and pertinent advances in this field are described. In addition, the combination of plasma medicine with conventional pharmaceutical interventions was reviewed and key emerging trends were highlighted, including the use of plasma to enhance drug delivery directly into tissue. The potential synergies between plasma medicine and chemotherapeutics for oncology and infection treatment is a growing area and recent advancements are noted. Finally, the use of plasma to control excess antibiotics and to intentionally degrade such materials in waste streams is described.

K-band radar waves have high penetration and low attenuation coefficients. However, the wavelength of this radar wave is relatively short; thus, designing and preparing both broadband and wide-angle radar wave absorbers in this band presents considerable challenges. In this study, a resin-based K-band radar wave absorber with a biomimetic lotus leaf structure was designed and formed by UV curing. Here, microscale lotus leaf papillae and antireflection structures were prepared using a DLP 3D printer, and the contact angle between the material and water droplets was increased from 56° to 130°. In addition, the influence of the geometric parameters of the lotus leaf antireflection structure on the electromagnetic absorption performance and mechanical strength was investigated. After simulation optimization, the maximum electromagnetic loss of the lotus leaf structure 3D printed sample was −32.3 dB, and the electromagnetic loss was below −10 dB in the 20.8–26.5 GHz frequency range. When the radar incidence angle was 60°, the maximum electromagnetic loss was still less than −10 dB. The designed lotus leaf structure has a higher mechanical energy absorption per unit volume (337.22 KJ/m3) and per unit mass (0.55 KJ/Kg) than commonly used honeycomb lightweight structures during the elastic deformation stage, and we expect that the designed structure can be used as an effective lightweight material for K-band radar stealth.

This study aims to identify the model that best approximates the credit spread that should be fixed on debt instruments issued by both public and private companies, considering the particularities of the Mexican market. Five models were analyzed: Merton's [1], those proposed by Denzler et al., the one presented in this paper, which includes the conformable derivatives, taking as a reference the change of variable made by Morales-Bañuelos et al., and the Corporate Default Risk Model (DRSK) for Publics Firms of Bloomberg [4]. The required financial information was obtained from the Bloomberg platform, from which the probabilities of default, credit spreads, and credit ratings for each company in the sample under the model (DRSK) were extracted directly. Likewise, the program developed by Moody's K.M.V. was used to obtain the EDF (Expected Default Frequencies). It was concluded that the Modified Merton model approximates to a greater extent the credit spreads that fix on a prime rate on the loans granted to the Mexican non-financial companies.

Today, concepts such as Emotional Education and Emotional Intelligence are recognized by many authors and researchers, emphasizing the importance of their development in all people, but especially in schools, specifically in teachers or educators and children. However, we still find many shortcomings within the schools that are needed to continue working. The aim of this study is to investigate the presence of emotional intelligence and empathy in teachers, through a sample of 42 participants. The research was conducted based on two validated and highly reliable assessment tools, called TMMS-24 and TECA. The results of the TMMS-24 indicate that a large percentage of participants have an adequate score of emotional intelligence. The results of the TECA indicate that most of the participants are in the middle, high or extremely high scores in relation to the level of empathy.

This study investigates the ionospheric variations resulting from thunderstorms that occurred between 00:00 UTC and 08:00 UTC on November 10, 2018, in the central region of Argentina, site of the RELAMPAGO-CACTI Project (Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, and Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations; Clouds, Aerosols, and Complex Terrain Interactions). The data used were the Total Electron Content (TEC), which was computed from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements provided by the Argentinian Continuous Satellite Monitoring Network (RAMSAC by its Spanish acronym) stations and the atmospheric electrical activity data that were provided by the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN). We observed that the generated disturbances have periods less than or equal to 100 minutes and peak-to-peak DVTEC amplitude values reaching up to 1.35 TECU (1 Total electron content unit =1016electrons/m2). We also noted that these atmospheric gravity waves, which show the highest peak-to-peak amplitudes, occur during periods of intense lightning activity. Finally, we found that for a day with Atmospheric Electrical Activity (AEA), the peak-to-peak amplitudes of the waves are approximately 2.91 times greater than the peak-to-peak amplitudes of a day without AEA.

Symmetry concepts in parametrized dynamical systems may reduce the number of external parameters by a suitable normalization prescription. If, under the action of a symmetry group G, parameter space A becomes a (locally) trivial principal bundle, A ~ A/G x G, then the normalized dynamics only depends on the quotient A/G. In this way, the dynamics of fractional variables in homogeneous epidemic SI(R)S models, with standard incidence, absence of R-susceptibility and compartment independent birth and death rates, turns out to be isomorphic to (a marginally extended version of) Hethcote's classic endemic model, first presented in 1973. The paper studies a 10-parameter master model with constant and I -linear vaccination rates, vertical transmission and a vaccination rate for susceptible newborns. As recently shown by the author, all demographic parameters are redundant. After adjusting time scale, the remaining 5-parameter model admits a 3-dimensional abelian scaling symmetry. By normalization we end up with Hethcote's extended 2-parameter model. Thus, in view of symmetry concepts, reproving theorems on endemic bifurcation and stability in such models becomes needless.

Previous studies demonstrate the critical importance of non-coding RNAs interfacing with chromatin-modifying machinery resulting in promoter-enhancer-based gene regulation and raise the possibility that many other enhancer-like RNAs may operate via similar mechanisms. Critically, more than 80% of the disease-linked variations identified in genome-wide studies are located in the non-coding regions of genomes, especially non-coding RNA, suggesting non-coding RNAs are relevant to disease. Thus, a critical path forward for understanding non-coding RNAs' role, especially long non-coding RNAs, is to understand the genomic regions' transcriptional regulation, especially non-coding regions. Here, we developed a user-friendly R package called SomaGene for studying and identifying enhancer-like non-coding RNAs with enriched somatic mutations in the cancer genome. SomaGene accepts different genomic variants (whole genome/exome somatic point mutations, structural variations, copy number variations) to identify those RNAs that significantly mutated in diseases (e.g., cancer). It then uses multiple publicly available genomics and epigenetics datasets including ENCODE epigenomics annotations, FANTOM5 tissue-specific expression profiles, disease-associated genome-wide association SNPs, and tissue-specific eQTL pairs to identify those RNAs with potentially enhancer function. SomaGene, as a powerful R package, can provide the opportunity to cancer scientists to study the roles of non-coding RNAs in different cancer genomes.

The authors previously found a model of universal quantum computation by making use of the coset structure of subgroups of a free group $G$ with relations. A valid subgroup $H$ of index $d$ in $G$ leads to a \lq magic' state $\left|\psi\right\rangle$ in $d$-dimensional Hilbert space that encodes a minimal informationally complete quantum measurement (or MIC), possibly carrying a finite \lq contextual' geometry. In the present work, we choose $G$ as the fundamental group $\pi_1(V)$ of an exotic $4$-manifold $V$, more precisely a \lq small exotic' (space-time) $R^4$ (that is homeomorphic and isometric, but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean $\mathbb{R}^4$). Our selected example, due to to S. Akbulut and R.~E. Gompf, has two remarkable properties: (a) it shows the occurence of standard contextual geometries such as the Fano plane (at index $7$), Mermin's pentagram (at index $10$), the two-qubit commutation picture $GQ(2,2)$ (at index $15$) as well as the combinatorial Grassmannian Gr$(2,8)$ (at index $28$) , (b) it allows the interpretation of MICs measurements as arising from such exotic (space-time) $R^4$'s. Our new picture relating a topological quantum computing and exotic space-time is also intended to become an approach of \lq quantum gravity'.

Anxiety in older adults is a prevalent yet under-recognized condition associated with significant societal and individual burdens. This study used a machine learning approach to compare the relative importance of 57 risk and protective factors for anxiety symptoms in a population-representative sample of middle-aged and older European adults (N = 65,684; ages 45–103 years; 55.7% women; 15 countries represented). Results revealed loneliness and self-rated poor health as primary risk factors (Nagelkerke R2 = .272), with additional predictive contributions from country of residence, functional limitations, financial distress, and family care burden. Notably, follow-up analysis showed that none of 16 social network variables were associated with loneliness; rather, cohabitating with a partner/spouse was most strongly associated with reduced loneliness. Further research is needed to elucidate directional associations between loneliness and anxiety (both general and sub-types). These findings underscore the imperative of addressing loneliness for mitigating anxiety and related mental health conditions among aging populations.

In this article, we give a brief review of the origin of the neutrino mass in some interesting non-linear supersymmetric models with R-symmetry. These models are able to address and solve the most important problems of the particle physics and provide mechanisms for neutrino mass generation and their mixing parameters in agreement with the current experimental data. Their prediction could be experimentally tested in the near future by collider experiments.

This paper presents a script that classify spatial patterns of residential urban growth using a morpho-structural approach. The script performs a combination of variography analysis and morphological closings over buildings possessing a residential function in 2002 and 2017 within a region located in southern France named Centre-Var. The different bounding regions then allow classifying new residential buildings into different categories according to their degrees of clustering/scattering and to their locations regarding existing urban areas. Preliminary results show that this protocol is able to provide useful insights regarding the degree of contribution of each new residential building to different patterns of urban growth (clustered infill, scattered infill, clustered edge-expansion, scattered edge-expansion, clustered leapfrog and scattered leapfrog). Open-access to the script and to the test region data is provided.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the blending and grinding influence over the nutritional, sensorial and sustainable aspects of coffee. To do so, a systematic review of the literature was accomplished. The database for the selection of relevant papers was the Portal de Periódicos da Capes, with remote access via CAFe. For the elaboration of the research, a chronological criterion with period restriction was used, considering the period between 2008-2022, to access all possible works related to the theme of this work. The following terms were used: blending; grinding; coffee; nutrition-al; sensorial; sustainability. To filter the searches, the association of these terms was also used by means of links and word associations. In the terminology, the Boolean operator AND was used to interconnect the terms used. Roasting degree, grinding, and amount of each coffee species impacts the nutritional and sensorial aspects of coffee. And the determination of each blending influences the sustainability of the environment, economic and social aspects of the coffee chain.

Abstract: Advanced high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma is a serious malignant neoplasm with a late diagnosis and high mortality rate. Even when treated with standard therapy, such as surgery followed by carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy, the prognosis remains unfavorable. Im-munotherapy is a treatment alternative that requires further study. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the expression of the immunotherapy markers: PD-1, PD-L1, CD8, MSI (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2), and p53 in the paraffin samples of high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma. A retrospective study of 28 southern Brazilian patients with advanced serous ovarian carcinoma (EC III or IV) was conducted between 2009 and 2020. The expression of these proteins was evaluated using im-munohistochemistry, and the results were correlated with the patients' clinicopathological data. At diagnosis, the mean age was 61 years, and the most common clinical stage (60%) was EC III. Among the cases, 84.6% exhibited p53 overexpression, 14.8% had MSI, 92.0% were sensitive to platinum, and more than 50.0% relapsed after treatment. Patients with MSI had a lower CD8/PD-1 ratio and more relapses (p=0.03). In conclusion, analysis of immunotherapeutic markers in paraf-fin-embedded samples of advanced serous ovarian carcinoma is feasible and may assist in prog-nosis.

Rice has become the second major food among rural people. It is one of the most nutrient and low-cost food available in Asia. Rice is composed of two major subspecies as Japonica and Indica and it belongs to the Poaceae family. The World Bank predicts that rice demand will grow 51% faster than population growth in 2025. It is high time to develop a model which predicts the type of infected paddy leaf and avoids the loss of grains. In this paper, the proposed hybrid CNN model, three CNN networks with different layer properties are trained parallel. The extracted feature from these CNN networks is combined to provide the classification of the type of infected leaf. Fieldwork was carried and about 340 samples are collected from five different types of classes. The proposed hybrid model was tested with both the fieldwork dataset and also with an available dataset on the internet. The experimental results show that the proposed model outperforms the other CNN network and yields an accuracy value of 98%, a precision value of 95%, and a misclassification rate of 4% respectively.

Introduction: Infections associated with medical implants pose significant challenges to healthcare, demanding the development of new effective antimicrobial strategies. This study focuses on the creation of a novel biological membrane with enhanced antimicrobial properties by with the incorporation of either vancomycin or silver nanoparticles. Methods: Pericardium samples were impregnated with either silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) or vancomycin (VAN). The antimicrobial activity of the membranes was assessed through qualitative microbiological analysis, biofilm production and animal in vivo model of infection. Histological analysis was performed on the pericardium samples, and quantitative microbiological analysis was conducted on the tissue from the animal model and biocompatibility evaluation. Statistical analyses were carried out using appropriate tests. Results: Microbiological tests confirmed both VAN and AgNP showed inhibition halos against bacteria. Histological analysis indicated minimal inflammatory response and bacterial presence in VAN and AgNP groups compared to the control group revealed reduced bacterial presence. Biomechanical testing showed that polypropylene had the lowest tensile strength, while AgNP-impregnated pericardium exhibited lower resistance than VAN-impregnated and control pericardium. Conclusion: Lyophilized and decellularized bovine pericardium as a substrate, combined with the incorporation of vancomycin or silver nanoparticles, provides a versatile platform for combating infections associated with medical implants.

Delayed diagnosis and a lack of adequate care for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to worse outcomes and quality of life. This study aimed to identify the profile of service use, barriers to access care, and factors related to those barriers in Brazilian families with children with ASD. A total of 927 families with ASD children (3-17 years) from five Brazilian regions completed an online version of the Caregivers Needs Survey. Results showed that the most used services were behavioral interventions and pharmacotherapy, while the most used professionals were neurologists, nutritionists, speech therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and pediatricians. The main barriers included waiting lists, costs, and the absence of services or treatment. Service use varied according to age, the region of residence, the type of health care system used, and the parents/caregivers' education. Access to behavioral interventions was more frequent among users of the private system/health insurance and families whose caregivers had higher education. The absence of specialized services/treatments was less frequent among residents of state capitals and families whose caregivers had higher levels of education. This study highlights how families with children/adolescents with ASD in Brazil face significant barriers to access care related to sociodemographic factors.

Organic electrophoretic coatings have gained significant attention due to their ability to provide a uniform and controlled coating thickness, high coating adhesion, and excellent corrosion protection properties. In this work, to investigate the aging behaviors of an organic electrophoretic coating for magnesium alloys, water absorption kinetics curves of the coatings after immersion in 3.5 wt.% NaCl at 20℃ and 40℃ were measured, and parameters such as the saturated water absorption and saturation time of the free film coatings were fitted to determine the densification evolution of the organic coatings. A tensile test was used to test the tensile strength of the organic coating during service to determine the evolution of the strength and toughness of the organic coating. The evolution of wet adhesion of organic coatings with service time was tested by ASTM D4541-02. The impedance spectra of the organic coatings under the above conditions were detected by EIS, and finally, the failure behavior of the organic coatings under immersion was analyzed.

Telemedicine is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for clinical health care from a distance. The exchange of radiographic images and electronic patient health information/records (ePHI/R) for diagnostic purposes has the risk of confidentiality, ownership identity, and authenticity. In this paper, a data hiding technique for ePHI/R is proposed. The color information in the cover image is used for key generation, and stego-images are produced with ideal case. As a result, the whole stego-system is perfectly secure. This method includes the features of watermarking and steganography techniques. The method is applied to radiographic images. For the radiographic images, this method resembles watermarking, which is an ePHI/R data system. Experiments show promising results for the application of this method to radiographic images in ePHI/R for both transmission and storage purpose.

The objective of this was to evaluate the effects of organic fertilization on biomass production in Urochloa spp. pastures, and the soil biological and physical properties in the Colombian Amazon region. Three pastures crops (Urochloa decumbens, Urochloa humidicola and Urochloa brizantha) with 5 years old were examined in a hill landscape. A randomized complete blocks design covering an area of 5005 m2, with 1 m separation between units to minimize edge effects. Highly significant differences in Urochloa spp. biomass production were observed before and after organic fertilization (i.e., initial time: 992.19±97.66 kg DM ha-1 vs. final time: 1920.94±155.44 kg DM ha-1 vs.), but not between different fertilization treatments. The interaction between the treatment and time was significant for total density (p=0.0300) and richness (p=0.0300) of soil macrofauna. Furthermore, the interaction between treatment and soil depth was significant for bulk density (p=0.0187). The linear mixed effects analysis showed that soil bulk density and penetration resistance were lower in 0 - 10 cm depth than that observed in 10 - 20 depth and 20 - 30 cm depth. Overall, the application of organic fertilizers had a significant and positive effect on Urochloa spp. forage biomass and on the physical and biological properties of soils that had historically been affected by extensive livestock farming in a deforested hill landscape in the Colombian Amazon region.

Recent algorithmic-based research in the stock market has predominantly focused on ultra-high-frequency trading and index estimation. We developed an improved algorithm to address the need for a low-frequency, real-world trading model to build on the existing high hit-ratio and low maximum drawdown. We utilized established price indicators, Stochastic and Williams %R, and introduced a volume factor to increase the model's safety to enhance the model's performance. This improved algorithm demonstrated superior returns while maintaining high hit-ratio and low maximum drawdown. Specifically, we leveraged the existing algorithm to trade using 2X and 3X signals, incorporating volume data, the 52-week average, standard deviation, and other factors. The data set comprised SPY ETF price and volume from 2010 to 2023, covering over 13 years. Our enhanced algorithmic trading model outperformed both the benchmark and previous results, achieving a hit rate of over 90%, a maximum drawdown of less than 1%, an average of 1.5 trades per year, a total return of +519.3%, and an annualized return (AnnR) of +15.1%. The analysis demonstrates that the model's simplicity, ease of application, and comprehensibility can assist investors in making informed investment decisions albeit the past performance does not guarantee future returns.

The objective of this work is to analyze publications on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), since 1956 (in the last sixty-five years), identifying evolution trends. Based on bibliometric techniques, the study was carried out based on data available in the Web of Science database through a systematic literature review. Web of Science is one of the main databases in the world, indexing the most cited journals in different areas of research and thus providing a set of data, essential for systematic analyses, including areas of study, list of journals, year of publication, citations from articles, among other relevant information. Because the chosen database is very complete, multidisciplinary and access to the use of Vosviewer software, which we used in this study, is acceptable.From the systematic search, 694 articles published until December 2021 were identified. The analysis of these publications indicates a growing trend in the publication of articles on BSC, highlighting partnership publications as well as their dispersion across journals from different areas.Most are qualitative studies (namely case studies) and questionnaires, as the main method of data collection. The main themes studied, we found that there are several articles on the application or integration of the BSC as a management model and that the studies are essentially concentrated on large companies belonging to the private sector, to the detriment of small and medium-sized companies and public and non-profit organizations profitable.

We describe the design and fabrication of an industrial injection moulding system which can be mounted and used on the NCD-SWEET Small-angle X-Ray Scattering Beamline at ALBA. We show how highly useful time-resolved data can be obtained using this system. We are able to evaluate the fraction of material in the mould cavity and identify the first material to solidify and how this varies with the injection tem-perature. The design follows current industrial practice and provides opportunities to collect time-resolved data at several points within the mould cavity so we can build up a 4D perspective of the morphology and its temporal development. The quantitative data obtained will prove invaluable for the optimisation of the next generation of in-jection moulding techniques. This preliminary work used results from the injection moulding of a general purpose isotactic polypropylene.

This study develops a hybrid machine learning (ML) algorithm integrated with IoT technology to improve the accuracy and efficiency of soil monitoring and tomato crop disease prediction in Anakapalle, a south Indian station. An IoT device collected one-minute and critical soil parameters—humidity, temperature, pH values, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—essential for assessing soil health and optimizing crop growth. Kendall's correlations were computed to rank these parameters for utilization in hybrid ML techniques. Various ML algorithms including K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), and Logistic Regression (LR) were evaluated. A novel hybrid algorithm, 'Bayesian Optimization with KNN', was introduced to combine multiple ML techniques and enhance predictive performance. The hybrid algorithm demonstrated superior results with 95% accuracy, precision, and recall, and an F1 score of 94%, while individual ML algorithms achieved varying results: KNN (80% accuracy), SVM (82%), DT (77%), RF (80%), and LR (81%) with differing precision, recall, and F1 scores. This hybrid ML approach proved highly effective in predicting tomato crop diseases in natural environments, underscoring the synergistic benefits of IoT and advanced ML techniques in optimizing agricultural practices.

Adolescents often migrate unaccompanied by a caregiver, facing specific risks. Mentoring has been identified as a strategy with positive results for youth at risk. Its application with unaccompanied minors (UM) refugees and asylum seekers has gained momentum within EU countries receiving refugee citizens from the EU relocation program. Portugal hosts the fourth highest number of Middle East and North Africa UM refugees and asylum seekers among EU countries. Thus, it´s relevant to review strategies and intervention programs, focused on mentoring to inform future programs in Portugal supporting UM. This article aims to describe the use of mentoring strategies towards integrating UM refugees, and how this has been taking place in Portugal. This review has the potential to inform professionals, namely social education professionals involved in the Portuguese refugee relocation program and encourage the discussion about creating based mentoring-based programs for this target group.

Pathological calcifications may consist of calcium oxalate (CaOx), hydroxyapatite phosphate (HAP), and brushite (BRU). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of phytate (inositol hexakisphosphate, InsP6), InsP6 hydrolysates, and individual lower InsPs (InsP5, InsP4, InsP3, and InsP2) on the crystallization of CaOx, HAP and BRU in artificial urine. All of the lower InsPs seem to inhibit the crystallization of calcium salts in biological fluids, although our in vitro results showed that InsP6 and InsP5 were stronger inhibitors of CaOx crystallization, and InsP5 and InsP4 were stronger inhibitors of BRU crystallization. For the specific in vitro experimental conditions we examined, the InsPs had very weak effects on HAP crystallization, although it is likely that a different mechanism is responsible for HAP crystallization in vivo. For example, calciprotein particles seem to have an important role in the formation of cardiovascular calcifications in vivo. The experimental conditions that we examined partially recapitulated the in vivo conditions of CaOx and BRU crystallization, but not the in vivo conditions of apatite crystallization.

A Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker space-time model with all curvatures k=0,±1 is explored in f(R,T) gravity. The solutions are obtained via the parametrization of the scale factor that leads to a model transiting from a decelerated universe to an accelerating one. The physical features of the model are discussed and analysed.

Single image deraining (SID) has shown its importance in many advanced computer vision tasks. Though many CNN based image deraining methods have been proposed, how to effectively remove raindrops while maintaining background structure remains a challenge that needs to be overcome. Most of the deraining work focuses on removing rain streaks, but in heavy rain images, the dense accumulation of rainwater or the rain curtain effect significantly interferes with the effective removal of rain streaks, and often introduces some artifacts that make the scene more blurry. In this paper, we propose a new network structure R-PReNet for single image deraining with good background structure maintaining. This framework fully utilizes the cyclic recursive structure of PReNet. Moreover, we introduce residual channel prior (RCP) and feature fusion modules for better deraining performance by focusing on background feature information. Compared with the previous methods, our method has significantly improvement effect on the rainstorm image with the artifacts removing and good visual detail restoring.

We analyze the behavior of relativistic spherical objects within the context of modified $f(R,T)$ gravity considering Tolman VI spacetime, where gravitational lagrangian is a function of Ricci scalar(R) and trace of energy momentum tensor(T) i.e,$ f(R,T)= R+ 2\beta T$, for some arbitrary constant $\beta$. For developing our model, we have chosen $\pounds_{m} = -p$, where $ \pounds_{m}$ represents matter lagrangian. For this investigation, we have chosen three compact stars namely PSR J1614-2230 [Mass=(1.97$\pm$ 0.4)M$_\odot$; Radius= 9.69$_{-0.02} ^{+0.02}$ Km] ,Vela X-1 [Mass=(1.77$\pm$ 0.08)M$_\odot$; Radius= 9.560$_{-0.08} ^{+0.08}$ Km] and 4U 1538-52 [Mass=(9.69)M$_\odot$; Radius= 1.97 Km]. In this theory the equation of pressure isotropy is identical to standard Einstein's theory. So all known metric potential solving Einstein's equations are also valid here. In this paper, we have investigated the effort of coupling parameter ($\beta$) on the local matter distribution. Sound of speed and adiabatic index are higher with grater values of $\beta$ while on contrary mass function and gravitational redshift are lower with higher values of $\beta$ . For supporting the theoretical results, graphical representation are also employed to analyze the physical viability of the compact stars.

This narrative review delves into the evolving landscape of fertility preservation techniques with a particular focus on their use in patients undergoing oncology treatment that carries a risk of ovarian insufficiency. Advances in established methods such as cryopreservation of oocytes and embryos are highlighted and the increasing use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists is discussed. The review also addresses the complexities and controversies associated with these approaches, such as the 'flare-up' effect associated with GnRH agonists and the potential of GnRH antagonists to reduce the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Despite advances in fertility preservation, the report highlights the challenges we face, including the need for personalized treatment protocols and management of associated risks. It calls for continued research and collaboration between healthcare professionals to refine these techniques and ultimately improve reproductive outcomes for patients facing the prospect of fertility-impairing treatment.

For the set of probability measures ${\sf I}(X)$, where $X$ is a compact Hausdorff space, we propose a new way to introduce the topology by using open subsets of the space $X$. Then, among other things, we give a new proof that for a compact Hausdorff space $X$ the space ${\sf I}(X)$ is also a compact Hausdorff space. For a Tychonoff space $X$, we consider the topological space ${\sf I_{\tau}}(X)$ of $\tau$-smooth idempotent probability measures on $X$,and show that the space ${\sf I_{\tau}}(X)$ is \v{C}ech-complete if and only if the given space $X$ is \v{C}ech-complete.

Smart grids represent the evolution of traditional electrical grids through the integration of digital and communication technologies. These grids are capable of monitoring and managing the distribution of electricity efficiently and resiliently. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in this context, offering advanced solutions for optimization, forecasting, and energy management. This paper explores the main AI technologies applied to smart grids, highlighting their advantages, challenges, and impacts on energy efficiency and sustainability. The methodology employed includes a comprehensive literature review, analysis of current AI applications in smart grids, and examination of case studies to illustrate the practical implementation and benefits of AI technologies in this field.

Hydroperoxides (ROOH) are known as damaging agents capable of mediating mutation, while a role as signaling agents through oxidation of protein sulfhydryls that can alter cancer-related pathways has gained traction. Glutathione peroxidase 2 (GPX2) is an antioxidant enzyme that reduces ROOH at the expense of glutathione (GSH). GPX2 is noted for a tendency of large in-creases or decreases in expression levels during tumorigenesis that leads to investigators focusing on its role in cancer. However, GPX2 is only one component of multiple enzyme families that metabolize ROOH and GPX2 levels are often very low in the context of these other ROOH reducing activities. Colorectal cancer (CRC) was selected as a case study for examining GPX2 function as colorectal tissues and cancers are sites where GPX2 is highly expressed. A case can be made for a significant impact of changes in expression levels. There is also a link between GPX2 and NADPH oxidase 1 (NOX1) from earlier studies that is seldom addressed and is discussed, presenting data on a unique association in colon and CRC. Tumor-derived cell lines are quite commonly used for pre-clinical studies involving the role of GPX2 in CRC. Generally, selection for this type of work is limited to identifying cell lines based on high and low GPX2 expression with the standard re-search scheme of overexpression in low expressing lines and suppression in high expressing lines to identify impacted pathways. This overlooks CRC subtypes among cell lines involving a wide range of gene expression profiles and a variety of driver mutation differences along with a large difference in GPX2 expression levels. A trend for low and high GPX2 expressing cell lines to segregate into different CRC subclasses, indicated in this report, suggests that choices based solely on GPX2 levels may provide misleading and conflicting results by disregarding other properties of cell lines and failing to factor in differences in potential protein targets of ROOH. CRC and cell line classification schemes are presented here that were intended to assist workers in performing pre-clinical studies but are largely unnoted in work on GPX2 and CRC. Studies are often initiated on the premise that the transition from normal to CRC is associated with up-regulation of GPX2. This is probably correct. However, the source normal cells for CRC could be almost any colon cell type, some with very high GPX2 levels. These factors are addressed in this study.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia (50-70%), is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive cognitive decline and significant neuropathological changes, including β-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. This review synthesizes current understanding of the complex interplays that contribute to the pathogenesis of AD, while exploring the mechanisms underlying the formation of β-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, with a focus on the amyloidogenic and non-amyloidogenic pathways, Tau protein hyperphosphorylation, and the resultant neurotoxicity. Furthermore, the study delves into mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress as critical contributors to neuronal degeneration, highlighting the mitochondrial cascade hypothesis and its implications in both early (EOAD) and late-onset AD (LOAD). The study emphasizes the irreversible nature of the disease’s progression, detailing the pathological transformations from the preclinical to the severe stage, where lesions disseminate throughout the entire cortex.

The cooling of server components has been continuously developed over the past few years in order to meet the increasing cooling requirements of server component manufacturers such as for the processor chips. The growth in performance and power density increases the cooling demand. These requirements directly influence the energy consumption and performance of the hardware. To gain a better understanding of the historical evolution and possible future technology development paths in the field of data center cooling, a patent analysis method was used. The focus is on previous and current development priorities and possible research gaps within the server and computer room levels. The European patent database was selected as data source. To determine relevant patents, the search terms for various cooling technologies were developed iteratively. After the patent extraction for the period 2000 - 2023 (earliest priority year), the search results were classified and analysed. Most of the patents deal with air or liquid cooling. In the area of liquid cooling, the focus was on direct liquid cooling, followed by total liquid cooling. Since 2015 a technological shift from air to liquid cooling can be identified on the level of patent activities. In this context, the patent groups with focus on “constructional details for different types of electric apparatus” and “electrical digital data processing” have the largest share of patents. In addition, the technology focus of the TOP 10 patent applicants was in the field of liquid cooling. In conclusion from the patent analysis, it can be derived that liquid cooling will continue to gain in importance in the future and could also be combined with other approaches in the form of hybrid cooling. However air cooling may still be relevant, even if the main cooling load is handled by liquid-based approaches. At the same time, the optimisation potential for air cooling seems to have been largely exploited in comparison to liquid cooling, as can be seen from the falling number of the patent applications.

In this paper, we first define the concepts of r-fuzzy soft α-open (semi-open and δ-open) sets on fuzzy soft topological spaces based on the article Aygunoglu et al. (Hacet. J. Math. Stat., 43 (2014), 193-208), and the relations of these sets with each other are established. In addition, we introduce the concepts of fuzzy soft δ-closure (δ-interior) operators, and study some properties of them. Also, the concept of r-fuzzy soft δ-connected sets is introduced and studied with help of fuzzy soft δ-closure operators. Thereafter, we define the concepts of fuzzy soft α-continuous (β-continuous, semi-continuous, pre-continuous and δ-continuous) functions, which are weaker forms of fuzzy soft continuity, and some properties of these functions along with their mutual relationships are discussed. Moreover, a decomposition of fuzzy soft α-continuity and a decomposition of fuzzy soft semi-continuity is obtained. Finally, as a weaker form of a fuzzy soft continuity, the concepts of fuzzy soft almost (weakly) continuous functions are defined, and some properties are specified. Additionally, we explore the notion of continuity in a very general setting called, fuzzy soft (L, M, N, O)-continuous functions and a historical justification is introduced.

Low-resource languages often face the problem of insufficient data, which leads to poor quality in machine translation. One approach to address this issue is data augmentation. Data augmentation involves creating new data by transforming existing data through methods such as flipping, cropping, rotating, and adding noise. Traditionally, pseudo-parallel corpora are generated by randomly replacing words in low-resource language machine translation. However, this method can introduce ambiguity as the same word may have different meanings in different contexts. This study proposes a new approach for low-resource language machine translation, which involves generating pseudo-parallel corpora by replacing phrases. The performance of this approach is compared with other data augmentation methods, and it is observed that combining it with other data augmentation methods further improves performance. To enhance the robustness of the model, R-Drop regularization is also used. R-Drop is an effective method for improving the quality of machine translation. The proposed method was tested on Chinese-Kazakh (Latin script) translation tasks, resulting in performance improvements of 4.99 and 7.7 for Chinese-to-Kazakh and Kazakh-to-Chinese translations, respectively.

Early detection of wildfires has been limited using the sun-synchronous orbit satellites due to their low temporal resolution and wildfires’ fast spread in the early stage. NOAA’s geostationary weather satellites GOES-R can acquire images every 15 minutes at 2km spatial resolution, and have been used for early fire detection. However, advanced processing algorithms are needed to provide timely and reliable detection of wildfires. In this research, a deep learning framework, based on Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), is proposed to detect wildfires at early stage using GOES-R dense time series data. GRU model maintains good performance on temporal modelling while keep a simple architecture, makes it suitable to efficiently process time-series data. 36 different wildfires in North and South America under the coverage of GOES-R satellites are selected to assess the effectiveness of the GRU method. The detection times based on GOES-R are compared with VIIRS active fire products at 375m resolution in NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). The results show that GRU-based GOES-R detections of the wildfires are earlier than that of the VIIRS active fire products in most of the study areas. Also, results from proposed method offer more precise location on the active fire at early stage than GOES-R Active Fire Product in mid-latitude and low-latitude regions.

We present a methodology to enable users to interact with statistical information owned by an institution and stored in a cloud infrastructure. Mainly based on R, this approach was developed following the open-data philosophy. Also, since we use R, the implementation is mainly based on open-source software. R gives several advantages from the point of view of data management and acquisition, as it becomes a common framework that can be used to structure the processes involved in any statistical operation. This simplifies the access to the data and enable to use all the power of R in the cloud information. This methodology was applied successfully to develop a tool to manage the data of the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió, but it can be applied to other institutions to enable open access to its data. The infrastructure also was deployed to a cloud infrastructure, to assure the scalability and a 24/7 access.

Peanut hulls (PH) are an edible food waste that is an underutilized food source for human consumption. While edible and palatable, they are mainly diverted to livestock feed or building materials. Here, we describe existing literature on human food valorization of PHs and propose methods to optimize recapturing nutrients (e.g. protein, fiber, polyphenols) lost by treating PHs as waste. Incorporated into common foods, PHs can be processed into functional ingredients to improve nutrient-density and the corresponding positive health outcomes associated with increases in plant foods. PH valorization can also address additional priorities of the UN Sustainable Development Goals using a Food Systems Approach (FSA) including food waste, increasing economic opportunities for farmers, and increasing the availability of healthy shelf-stable foodstuffs to address food security. Recent advances in sustainable food processing technologies can be utilized to safely incorporate peanut hulls into human food streams. We propose future applications that could make meaningful impacts to food availability and the nutritional composition of common foods. While the limited literature on this topic spans several decades, no global operations exist to incorporate peanut hulls and most publications precede the technological ‘green revolution’. The approaches outlined in this review may help bolster commercialization of this underutilized and nutritious food potentially improving opportunities for multiple global stakeholders.

This study introduces a novel approach by proposing a dressing impregnated with vancomycin and chlorhexidine for postoperative care, specifically targeting patients undergoing orthopedic surgeries. The research design involved a pilot study with a randomized control group, aiming to evaluate the vancomycin with chlorhexidine dressing's efficacy and safety. A total of 12 patients used impregnated dressing and 9 used the same dressing without impregnation. Despite limitations, including the small sample size and single-center study location, our findings demonstrate the safety of the impregnated dressing in trauma surgeries, indicating potential applicability in broader surgical contexts. In conclusion, this study contributes to the discourse on preventive strategies for SSIs, presenting a pioneering approach with the vancomycin and chlorhexidine-impregnated dressing. Future research endeavors, incorporating larger-scale studies and addressing study limitations, are crucial for advancing the understanding and implementation of effective postoperative care strategies.

This study analyzes the convergence between artificial intelligence (AI) and management accounting in hospital contexts. Management accounting plays a central role in the effectiveness of planning, control and decision-making in healthcare institutions such as hospitals. The application of AI in this scenario offers powerful tools to improve accounting processes, optimize operational efficiency and maximize the use of available resources, resulting in an improvement in the quality of care provided to patients. Through in-depth analysis, the article explores how AI is bringing about a revolution in hospital management accounting, presenting case studies illustrating its successful implementation, outlining the tangible benefits.

This study assesses the impact of incorporating an adaptive learning mechanism into an agent-based model (ABMS) simulating behavior on a university campus during the course of a pandemic outbreak, with a particular case on the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to reduce overcrowding and infections on campus through the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL). Our findings indicate that RL is a viable approach for effectively representing agents’ behavior within this context. The results reveal specific temporal patterns of overcrowding violations. While our study successfully mitigated campus crowding, it had limited influence on altering the course of the epidemic. This highlights the necessity for comprehensive epidemic control strategies that consider the role of individual decision-making influenced by adaptive learning, along with the implementation of targeted interventions. This research significantly contributes to our understanding of adaptive learning within complex systems and offers valuable insights for shaping future public health policies in similar community settings. Future research directions encompass exploring various parameter settings and updating representations of the disease’s natural history.

Background: The financial austerity policy imposed to Portugal by Troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund in 2011, led to a tremendously social crisis. Under these dominant trends in Europe, which were felt especially in certain countries, such as Portugal, we feel ourselves forced into an analysis and reflection on the impact of this conjuncture in social workers, especially analyzing the role played by social workers and its critical consciousness relative to this neoliberal model and imposed austerity policies. Methods: This article results from an analysis of empirical data collected after the entry of Troika in Portugal, during 2013. Were conducted 26 in-depth interviews to front line social workers, with the purpose of obtaining a narrative of their daily work practice and with the concern of encouraging reflection on them. Results: Analysis shows the predominance of a maintenance role at the expense of more emancipatory approaches and thus, this results point to the relationship of this maintenance role with the sociological paradigm of social regulation and shows also, how social work is still attached to a conservative agenda. Secondly, one finds a weak critical reflection among social workers, being very afraid to speak out against the system, taking on a submissive attitude and subservient to the policies of social cuts imposed. The analysis then raises the challenge for social workers to develop a critical reflexivity Conclusion: The results highlight several important observations in terms of social woker role and that a critical activity is urgently required to social workers.

CO2 geological sequestration in coal seams can achieve the dual objectives of CO2 emission reduction and enhanced coalbed methane production, making it a highly promising carbon capture and storage technology. However, the injection of CO2 into coal reservoirs in the form of supercritical fluid (ScCO2) leads to complex physicochemical reactions with the coal seam, altering the properties of the coal reservoir and impacting the effectiveness of CO2 sequestration and methane production enhancement.In this paper, theoretical calculations based on ReaxFF-MD were conducted to study the interaction mechanism between ScCO2 and the macromolecular structure of both low-rank and high-rank coal, to address the limitations of experimental methods. The reaction of ScCO2 with low-rank coal and high-rank coal exhibits significant differences. At swelling stage, the low-rank coal experiences a decrease in aromatic structure and aliphatic structure, high-rank coal shows an increase in aromatic structure and a decrease in aliphatic structure, while swelling phenomenon is more pronounced in high-rank coal. At dissolution stage, low-rank coal is initially decomposed into two secondary molecular fragments, and then recombine to form new molecular structure, the aromatic structure increased and the aliphatic structure decreased. In contrast, high-rank coal occurs stretches-breakage-movement-reconnection, a reduction in aromatic structure and an increase in aliphatic structure.The primary reasons for these variations lie in distinct molecular structure compositions and the properties of ScCO2, leading to different reaction pathways of functional group and aromatic structure. The reaction pathways of functional groups and aromatic structures in coal can be summarized as follows: the breakage of the O-H bond in hydroxyl groups, the breakage of the C-OH bond in carboxyl groups, transformation of aliphatic structures into smaller hydrocarbon compounds or formation of long-chain alkenes, and various pathways involving broken, rearrangement, recombination of aromatic structures. In low-rank coal, there is a higher abundance of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures. The breakage of O-H and C-OH chemical bonds results in the formation of free radical ions, while some aliphatic structures detach to produce hydrocarbons. Additionally, some of these aliphatic structures combine with carbonyl groups and free radical ions to generate new aromatic structures. Conversely, in high-rank coal, the lower content of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures, along with stronger intramolecular forces, results in fewer chemical bond breakages and makes it less conducive to the formation of new aromatic structures.These results elucidate the specific deformations of different chemical groups, offering a molecular-level understanding of the interaction between CO2 and coal.

In India, the divorce rate is rising year after year. Divorces are thought to have increased by more than a factor of two during the past two decades. India has great cultural diversity, and each of its states has something unique to offer. The divorce rate in India, which differs from state to state, is among the most frequently discussed subjects. More than 30% of marriages end in divorce in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore. Divorce applications have nearly tripled in the past few years in cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Lucknow. In India, the divorce rate has increased, especially in small cities. Hence, the reasons behind divorce in India were explored in this article. In order to analyze the causes of divorce, the current study aimed to combine the critical components of TOPSIS and COPRAS methodologies in a fuzzy environment. Additionally, it is shown that a comparison study may pinpoint the characteristics that influence divorces the most.

We analyse recent contradictory results and conclusions about the spectrum of the screened Coulomb potential $V(r)=-r^{-1}e^{-C/r}$. The well known Hellmann-Feynman theorem shows that all the bound states of the Coulomb potential ($C=0$) remain bounded as $C$ increases. We derive a simple approximate analytical expression for the eigenvalues for sufficiently small values of the screening parameter $C$ and an approximate asymptotic expression for the asymptotic behaviour of the s-state eigenvalues when $C\rightarrow \infty $. Present results are expected to resolve the discrepancy about the spectrum of the quantum-mechanical model just mentioned.

A locally-rotationally-symmetric Bianchi-I model filled with strange quark matter (SQM) is explored in f(R, T) gravity. We take f(R, T) = R + 2 f(T) = R + 2λT, where R is the Ricci scalar, T is the trace of energy-momentum tensor and λ is an arbitrary constant. Exact solutions are obtained by assuming that the expansion scalar is proportional to the shear scalar. This yields a constant value for the deceleration parameter, q = 2, which corresponds to the decelerated phase of the universe. The model is found to be physically viable for λ < −1. SQM during early evolution mimics ultra-relativistic radiation whereas at late times, it behaves as dust, quintessence or even the cosmological constant depending on the value of λ. The effective matter acts as a stiff fluid irrespective of the matter content and of the f(R, T) terms. The model is shear free at late times but remains anisotropic throughout the evolution. In the absence of the f(R, T) terms, SQM accelerates the universe. In the specific case when SQM vanishes at late times, the effect of f(R, T) is to accelerate the universe. The model admits the possibility that SQM could be an alternative to dark energy.