Hungateiclostridium thermocellum ATCC 27405 is a promising bacterium with a robust ability to degrade lignocellulosic biomass complexes, including crystalline cellulose components, through a multienzyme cellulosomal system. In contrast, it exhibits poor growth on simple monosaccharides such as fructose and glucose. This phenomenon raises many important questions concerning its glycolytic pathways and sugar transport systems. Until now, the detailed mechanisms of H. thermocellum adaptation to growth on monosaccharides have been poorly explored. In this study, adaptive laboratory evolution was applied to train the bacterium on monosaccharides, and genome resequencing was used to detect the genes that had mutated during adaptation. RNA-seq data of the 1st-generation culture growing on either fructose or glucose revealed that several glycolytic genes in the EMP pathway were expressed at lower levels in these cells than in cellobiose-grown cells. After 8 generations of culture on fructose and glucose, the evolved H. thermocellum strains grew faster and yielded greater biomass than the nonadapted strains. Genomic screening also revealed several mutation events in the genomes of the evolved strains, especially in genes responsible for sugar transport and central carbon metabolism. Consequently, these genes could be applied as targets for further metabolic engineering to improve this bacterium for bioindustrial usage.

Background: Microscopic examination of acid-fast stained sputum smears for detecting mycobacterial acid-fast bacilli (AFB) remains the most economical and readily available method for laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). However, this conventional approach has limitations, including low sensitivity and labor-intensive procedures. Methods: An automated microscopy system incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for AFB identification was evaluated. The study was conducted at an Infectious Disease Hospital in Jiangsu Province, China, utilizing an intelligent microscope system (TB-Scan, Wellgen Medical, Kaohsiung). A total of 1,000 sputum smears were included in the analysis, with the system capturing digital microscopic images and employing an image recognition model to automatically identify and classify AFB. Referee technicians provided the gold standard for discrepant results. Results: The automated system demonstrated an overall accuracy of 95.00% (950/1,000), sensitivity of 91.24% (177/194), and specificity of 95.91% (773/806). Notably, the system identified 21 smears as positive that were previously reported as negative, with referee technicians confirming 17 of these as true positive and retracting the test results accordingly. Recalculating the performance, the accuracy increased to 96.70% (967/1,000), sensitivity to 91.94% (194/211), and specificity to 97.97% (773/789), with a false negative rate of 8.06% (17/211) and a false positive rate of 2.03% (16/789). Conclusions: The incorporation of AI and machine learning into an automated microscopy system demonstrated the potential to enhance the sensitivity and efficiency of AFB detection in sputum smears compared to conventional manual microscopy. This approach holds promise for widespread application in TB diagnostics and potentially other fields requiring labor-intensive microscopic examination.

This study investigated the inhibitory effect of Siegesbeckia orientalis ethanolic extract (SOE) on growth and metastasis of hepatic tumors in C57BL/6JNarl mice, which is the model of tumor-igenesis induced by subcutaneous injection of Hepa1-6 murine hepatoma cells on the back of mice. Feeding 25 mg SOE/kg BW daily for 14 days effectively reduced the hepatoma weight in tu-mor-bearing mice by 59.7%. SOE intervention reduced the expression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 gene in tumor tissue by 48.5% and down-regulated the antioxidant system, by reducing the gene ex-pression of catalase (48.0%), glutathione peroxidase (46.3%), and superoxide dismutase (32.0%). In addition, SOE intervention increased the production of ROS by 21.4%, and the gene expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 by 135.3%, 179.3% and 91.7%, respectively, indicating that SOE intervention promoted the acute inflammatory response. Results of H&E staining analysis showed that SOE had the ability to inhibit angiogenesis in tumor tissue. Fur-thermore, SOE treatment inhibited the expression of migration-related genes, such as MMP-2, MMP-7, MMP-9 and β-catenin, and the inhibition rates were 24.8%, 27.4%, 10.4% and 21.9%, respectively. These results imply that SOE had the ability to suppress tumor metastasis. On the other hand, SOE intervention decreased the serum contents of inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 by 27.4%, 30.4%, and 30.7%, respectively, indicating that SOE intervention has an anti-inflammatory effect on normal tissues of mice. Since SOE intervention had no signif-icant effect on liver and kidney weights, and no mice died throughout the experiment, it shows that it is safe to feed SOE under this experimental condition. Based on the above results, SOE has a great potential to be used in the treatment of hepatoma.

This study explores the implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum in product and media design education and its impact on knowledge innovation and competency development. The curriculum is based on scaffolding theory, incorporating design proposals, workshops, digital design, marketing tests, and marketing activities guided by teachers and mentors from a branded ceramic workshop. The research findings demonstrate that the interdisciplinary curriculum facilitates knowledge innovation and fosters the development of students' professional skills, creativity, and problem-solving skills. The study also highlights the importance of stable scaffolding, including artefact, peer, and teacher support, which significantly contributes to cultivating transformational competencies, as outlined in the 2030 OECD Learning Compass. Additionally, the collaboration with Shanshing Four Seasons Celadon Studio on a patented ceramic product, "Funny Monkey," is a tangible example of the journey towards a triple-helix knowledge economy. This research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary curricula in promoting knowledge innovation and integrating transformational competencies in education. Scaffolding theory provides practical guidance for student learning and teaching strategies, presenting a sustainable roadmap for developing interdisciplinary curricula and offering a concrete and transferable pedagogical prototype for educational innovation.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disorder characterized by widespread inflammation and multi-organ damage. Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR-7) and autophagy have been implicated in SLE pathogenesis. Rice husk silica liquid (RHSL) has shown potential for modulating inflammatory responses, but its effects on SLE have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aims to evaluate the impact of RHSL on immune responses and autophagy in an in vitro model of SLE, focusing on its effects on TLR-7 signaling, cytokine production, and autophagy modulation. RAW264.7 cells and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy donors and SLE patients were used. Cells were stimulated with LPS or TLR-7 agonists and treated with RHSL. Cell viability was assessed, and cytokine levels (TNF-α and IL-6) were measured by ELISA. Autophagy-related proteins (LC3II, ATG5-ATG12) were analyzed by Western blotting. The effect of autophagy inhibition was studied using 3-methyladenine (3-MA). RHSL did not affect cell viability but significantly reduced TNF-α production in LPS- and TLR-7 agonist-stimulated RAW264.7 cells and PBMCs. RHSL enhanced autophagy, as evidenced by increased LC3II and ATG5-ATG12 conjugation in both RAW264.7 cells and SLE patient-derived PBMCs. The reduction in TNF-α production by RHSL was attenuated by 3-MA, indicating that autophagy plays a role in this process. RHSL also inhibited the translocation of phosphorylated NF-κB into the nucleus, suggesting a mechanism for its anti-inflammatory effects. RHSL exhibits potential as an immunomodulatory agent in SLE by enhancing autophagy and modulating TLR-7 signaling pathways. These findings suggest that RHSL could offer therapeutic benefits for managing inflammatory responses in SLE and warrant further investigation into its clinical applications.

Bone drilling is a common procedure used to create pilot holes for inserting screws to secure implants for fracture fixation. However, dis process can increase bone temperature, teh excessive heat can lead to cell death and thermal osteonecrosis, potentially causing early fixation failure or complications. We conducted a three-dimensional dynamic elastoplastic finite element model to evaluate teh propagation and distribution of heat during bone drilling and assess teh thermally TEMPeffected zone (TAZ) dat may lead to thermal necrosis. dis model investigates teh parameters influencing bone temperature during bone drilling, including drill diameter, rotational speed, feed force, and predrilled hole. Teh results indicate dat our FE model is sufficiently accurate in predicting teh temperature rise TEMPeffect during bone drilling. Teh maximum temperature decreases exponentially wif radial distance. When teh feed forces are 40 and 60 N, teh maximum temperature does not exceed 45 °C. However, wif feed forces of 10 and 20 N, both teh maximum temperature exceeds 45 °C wifin a radial distance of 0.2 mm, indicating a high-risk zone for potential thermal osteonecrosis. Wif teh two-stage drilling procedure, where a 2.5 mm pilot hole is pre-drilled, teh maximum temperature can be reduced by 14 °C. dis suggests dat higher feed force and rotational speed and/or using a two-stage drilling process could mitigate bone temperature elevation and reduce teh risk of thermal osteonecrosis during bone drilling.

I demonstrate that the ionization energy (IE) and the electron affinity (EA) of organic molecular crystals can be predicted from first-principles. Here, I describe the induced electronic polarization and the electrostatic effects upon crystalline IE and EA. I also demonstrate that the electronic polarization mainly originates from the screened coulomb interaction inside the crystalline bulk phase, and that the electrostatic contribution to IE and EA crucially depends on the orientation of the molecule at the surface. The former is well described by the GW approximation, while the latter is reasonably estimated by the difference in frontier orbital energy between the gas phase and the surface at the level of a generalized gradient approximation to the density functional theory. The present methodology enables to demonstrate the impact of the electrostatic effect upon the energy level of the injected charge at a multi-monolayer surface of an organic semiconductor thin film.

The paper addresses the energy consumption minimization problem in wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) and proposes a DT-SWIPT-assisted time allocation scheme, named DaTA, such that the wireless station can share the remaining energy after transmission to the HAP to those who have not transmitted to the HAP to minimize the energy consumption of the network. In addition to proposing a new frame structure, the paper also considers the SNR (Signal-to-Noise) constraint to guarantee that the HAP can successfully receive data from wireless stations. In the paper, the energy consumption minimization problem is formulated as a nonlinear programming model. We employ the SQP (Sequential Quadratic Programming) algorithm to figure out the optimal solution. Moreover, a heuristic method is proposed as well to obtain a near-optimal solution in a shorter time. Simulation results showed that the proposed scheme can have better performance than the related work in terms of energy consumption and energy efficiency.

This study aimed to use biomineralization technology to improve the bond strength of fiber-reinforced lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) after exposure to temperatures of 300 °C and 500 °C. The specimens of a control group (Group A) and two experimental groups (Group B and Group C) were prepared. These specimens healed themselves in different ways after exposure to high temperatures and pull-out tests. The self-healing method of Group A involved placing the specimen into an incubator. The self-healing method of Group B was the same as that of Group A. The self-healing method of Group C involved immersing the specimen in a mixed solution of urea and calcium acetate for two days, then taking it out and placing it in an incubator for two days. A cycle of four days was undertaken until the desired age was reached. After the specimens were healed to the planned age, the first and secondary pull-out tests and repair compound identification were carried out. After exposure to a temperature of 300 °C and self-healing for 90 days, compared with the specimens in Group A, the relative bond strength ratios of the secondary pull-out tests of the specimens in Group C increased by 20.3%. This indicates that biomineralization can effectively improve the bond strength of LWAC after high-temperature damage.

We give a simple proof of the Chen inequality for the Chen invariant $\underbrace{\delta (2,...,2)}_{k\mbox{ terms}}$ of submanifolds in Riemannian space forms.

Damaged connective tissues between the bone and tendons or ligaments are common among adults regardless of activity level. Achilles tendinosis is one of the most common tissue defects and enthesopathies. The patient in this study is a 54-year-old female with chronic Achilles tendinosis from chronic enthesopathy at the Achilles tendon insertion with a retrocalcaneal exostosis for three years who has failed standard-of-care practices for over two years. The patient received extracorporeal pulsed-activated therapy (EPAT) before applying 2ml of CryoText, a Wharton’s jelly tissue allograft. The patient then received class IV laser therapy treatments twice weekly for three weeks. The patient started with a 10/10 VAS at the initial visit. At five weeks post-application, the patient’s score had improved by 80% at 2/10 VAS. By week 13, the patient rated her pain as 0/10 VAS. The improvement in patient-reported pain and functionality reported in this study after the application of Wharton’s Jelly, EPAT, and class IV laser therapy warrants future research studying the safety and efficacy of these patient care modalities together.

The Chen circuit system, a three-dimensional autonomous system with intriguing dynamics, has gained considerable attention due to its potential applications in diverse scientific fields. In this article, a Chen circuit-like system is defined and a comprehensive dynamics has been studied. The system exhibits chaotic dynamics, limit cycles, and bifurcations, making it a captivating subject of study. By employing numerical simulations and analytical techniques, we explore the system's stability and identify critical parameter values leading to qualitative changes. Notably, we delve Hopf bifurcations, which give rise to stability changes and the emergence of limit cycles. Furthermore, we analyze the fractal dimension of the system's attractor, providing insights into its complexity and self-similarity. Through a systematic examination of the Chen circuit-like system, we deepen our understanding of its intricate dynamics and offer valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms. The findings contribute to the field of dynamical systems and hold potential implications in areas such as chaos-based secure communications, signal processing, and nonlinear control. This work serves as a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners interested in the dynamics and bifurcation analysis of nonlinear systems.

Dry intrusion is an important mid-latitude atmosphere phenomenon within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. It is always found to be related to the cyclogenesis, rainstorm, as well as convection generation and precipitation enhancement. Since the atmosphere environment for any of these above-mentioned weather is terribly complicated, those preexisting popular schemes which takes no account of water vapor may not suitable for detecting the dry intrusion related to these weathers. With regard to the merits and demerits of the current preexisting schemes, a new scheme based on Fengyun-2E geo-stationary satellite data is presented in this study to detect the atmospheric dry intrusion. The scheme is set up based on the statistical relationship between water vapor at high level troposphere, the general moist potential vorticity, ozone concentration and upper-level jet. After using the total amount of ozone and ozone profile operational products retrieved by Fengyun-3 Polar Orbiting Meteorological Satellites and the potential vorticity calculated by ECMWF Interim data for validation, this scheme is applied to analyze two typical middle-latitude weather processes. One is the famous Beijing extreme rainfall of 21 July 2012 and the other is a hailstorm occurred on the eastern China during March 19, 2014. A good application effect in both cases suggests that our new method of detecting dry intrusion is feasible and can be helpful in middle-latitude disastrous weather monitoring and forecasting.

Eco-innovation denotes developing green practices using environmentally friendly innovative approaches or technologies. Although, eco-innovation has been broadly applied in different in-dustries, such as low-carbon production and manufacturing, how to implement such innovation in education for sustainable development (ESD) has rarely been studied. Therefore, this research considered a reflective and cooperative learning approach to science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education. A case study examined Wanluan Township of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan. Four departments’ students and teachers at Meiho University were involved in situated learning. Students of hospitality management played farm owners who en-gaged in organic agriculture to produce food and beverages. These agricultural products were farm-to-table, cooked and served for customers in a natural dining setting through the students’ teamwork. Students of tourism, sports & leisure management, and food science & nutrition played tourists in a self-guided travel context, who engaged in acts such as visiting buildings to understand heritage while observing that the houses were still in use a dwelling. This encouraged reflection on the importance of cultural preservation. According to the results from the role-play farm owners and tourists, eco-innovation can represent a sustainable marketing strategy for im-proving the local-community economy and can be implemented in a practical situation in STEAM. The goal of ESD for 2030 — societal transformation — is to foster students’ responsible behavior and attitudes in a personally authentic manner, thereby fostering sustainability learning and understanding.

This study demonstrates the efficacy of structured pruning and architectural fine-tuning on the YOLOv7-tiny model for eye state detection, emphasizing optimization for real-time applications. Structured pruning significantly reduced the model's complexity and storage size while maintaining high detection accuracy, as evidenced by stable precision, recall, and [email protected] metrics across iterations. Further fine-tuning adjusted the model's width and depth, optimizing efficiency and processing speed without compromising performance. These optimizations yielded YOLOv7-tiny variants that are both computationally efficient and accurate, suitable for resource-constrained environments. The findings highlight the critical role of model optimization in deploying effective neural networks for specific detection tasks in real-time scenarios.

Purpose: This study investigates the implementation and impact of maker culture—viewed as a tool for developing green digital skills—in higher education institutions in Hong Kong. Maker culture, a collaborative educational approach, embraces students’ capacity for self-paced, autonomous learning and applies this knowledge to creative problem-solving and innovation, key aspects of sustainability education. Methods: An empirical study was conducted, focusing on the experiences of teachers in the higher education sector in Hong Kong. Eight individuals were interviewed to gain insights into their perceptions and experiences with maker education within sustainability contexts. The sample was limited to ensure cross-sectional comparability and direct weighting of teachers’ experiences within a singular, complementary educational setting. Results: The findings provide valuable insights into the benefits and challenges of integrating maker education into traditional educational systems to foster green digital skills. It became evident that adequate resources, effective teachers, and improved administrative systems play significant roles in the successful implementation of this approach. Conclusion: Maker education, as a tool for developing green digital skills, offers a promising alternative to traditional performance-based studies. It has the potential to lead to a future of education that is creative, innovative, and student-directed, fostering sustainability competences. Therefore, despite the challenges, with the right support and resources, the integration of maker culture into educational systems could significantly transform teaching and learning processes, advancing sustainability education.

Rectal cancer presents a significant burden globally, often requiring multimodal therapy for locally advanced cases. Long-course chemoradiotherapy (LCRT) and short-course radiotherapy (SCRT) followed by surgery have been conventional neoadjuvant approaches. Recent trials favor LCRT due to improved local control. However, tumor distant recurrence remains a concern, prompting exploration of Total Neoadjuvant Therapy (TNT) as a comprehensive treatment strat-egy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) show promise, particularly in mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) or microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) tumors, potentially revolutionizing neoadjuvant regimens. Non-operative management (NOM) represents a viable alternative post-neoadjuvant therapy for selected patients achieving clinical complete response (cCR). Additionally, monitoring minimal residual disease (MRD) using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) emerges as a non-invasive method for treatment response assessment. This review synthesizes current evidence on TNT, ICIs, NOM and ctDNA, elucidating their implications for rectal cancer management and highlighting avenues for future research and clinical application.

The efficacy and cost-effectivness of Multigene Panel Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) in directing patients towards genomically matched therapies remains uncertain. This study investigated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients who underwent NGS analysis on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor samples. Data from 179 patients were analyzed, revealing no mutations in 39 patients (21.8%), one mutation in 83 patients (46.4%), and two or more mutations in 57 patients (31.8%). KRAS mutations were found in 87 patients (48.6%), including KRAS G12C mutations in 5 patients (2.8%), PIK3CA mutations in 40 patients (22.4%), BRAF mutations in 26 patients (14.5%). Less common mutations were identified: ERBB2 in 5 patients (2.8%) and SMO in 4 patients (2.2%). Additionally, MAP2K1, CTNNB1, and MYC were mutated in 3 patients (2.4%). Two mutations (1.1%) were observed in ERBB3, RAF1, MTOR, JAK1, and FGFR2. No significant survival differences were observed based on mutation numbers. 40% of patients had druggable molecular alterations, but only 1.1% received genomically guided treatment, suggesting limited application in standard practice. Despite this, expanded gene panel testing can identify actionable mutations, aiding personalized treatment strategies in metastatic CRC, although current eligibility for biomarker-guided trials remains limited.

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignancies around the world, and the incidence of GC is increasing in the past decades. In addition to genetic modifications, epigenetic alterations catalyzed by DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) are a well-characterized epigenetic hallmark in gastric cancer. Nowadays, DNA methylation landscape is essential for maintaining the silence of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs). As an important group of peptide, TFF family has been confirmed to function as a TSG in various kinds of cancers. However, whether TFFs could be modified by DNA methylation in gastric cancer remains unknown. In this study, we initially screened out two expression profiles about GC from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The higher expressions of TFF1 and TFF2 were observed in GC tumor tissues than normal tissues. Additionally, we illustrated that the expressions of TFF1/TFF2 were associated to the overall survival (OS) and tumor free survival (TFS) of GC patients via through the Kaplan-Meier analysis. Subsequently, the integrative analysis was performed to estimate the DNA methylation level of each site in TFF1/TFF2 CpG islands. Importantly, our findings indicated that hyper-methylation of cg01886855 and cg26403416 were separately responsible for the downregulation of TFF1 and TFF2 in GC samples. Besides, utilizing the gain of function assay, we demonstrated that TFF1/TFF2 could suppress the proliferation of GC cells. Based on these results, We identified that TFF1 and TFF2 acted as the putative tumor suppressors in gastric cancer, which suggested that TFFs could be two candidate biomarkers for predicting tumor recurrence in gastric cancer patients. Furthermore, these findings highlight a potential therapeutic approach in targeting the TFFs for the treatment of gastric cancer.

Autonomous systems and intelligent machines are involved in almost all areas of human activity and they are now more and more present in our everyday life. The reason for this extensive use certainly resides in all the benefits these machines offer to the users. In experimental settings, numerous studies have demonstrated the positive effects that the introduction of autonomous systems have on human decision-making and performance. However, studies have shown in addition that the introduction of these systems can have important negative effects as well. Considering that autonomous systems are now introduced in sensitive domains like the military or medicine, we need more than ever a comprehensive understanding of the effects they cause on human performance and decision-making, and particularly in tasks and contexts with a social or moral dimension. The aim of this narrative review is threefold. First, we will provide an overview of the main effects on a human agent’s decision-making and performance produced by the introduction of autonomous systems. Second, we will review the conditions identified as underlying factors of these effects, and see how current models of human – autonomous systems interaction integrate those conditions. Third, we will conclude this review by highlighting new directions for future investigations.

Background. On the subject of couple relationships, the literature pays attention to clinical, socio-anthropological profiles and psychological issues related to the capacity to love, empathy, satisfaction and happiness; however, there is a lack of a psychometric tool that can address the issue of couple stability in a structured and organized manner from an emotional-affective perspective. Objectives. To develop and adjust a psychometric tool that can be efficient and effective in solving the analysis of a coefficient of couple relational stability. Materials and Methods. Clinical interview, based on narrative-anamnestic and documentary evidence, and battery of psychometric tests. Results. In CGa, those who scored more than 20% differential at PLS-Q1 were 58/118 (69%), while in CGb they were 118/118 (100%). In therapy, in the CGa, the resolved cases were 58/58 (100%), while in the CGb, the resolved cases were 110/118 (93%). At the clinical interview, it was found that the 8/118 (7%) "resistant" patients had, according to the PICI-3 model, a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (5/8, 63%), histrionic-narcissistic (2/8, 25%), and bipolar (1/8, 12%), and thus by their nature not very prone to therapeutic adherence. Conclusions. Perrotta Love Stability Questionnaire (PLS-Q1) is a psychometric tool that offers therapists the opportunity to explore the topic of couple relationship stability, helping them to better focus on patients' vulnerable emotional positions to construct the most appropriate and targeted clinical intervention

The use of biodiesel fuels in compression ignition engines leads to decrease CO, PM, HC and smoke opacity. However, NOx emissions increase importantly. Various methods to reduce NOx are used namely the EGR, the water injection method and the steam injection method. In this study, the steam injection method has been used instead of the other methods because of its benefits. This study examines the effects of steam injection on combustion products of diesel and biodiesel fuels by considering chemical equilibrium in order to determine the equilibrium combustion products involving 10 combustion products. A developed simulation code determing the equilibrium mole fractions and thermodynamic properties of combustion products is used for diesel and biodiesel fuels. It can be used for any fuel consisting of carbon, hydrogen or any oxygenated fuel. The results show that the mole fraction of CO2 and CO decrease with the steam injection ratios. NO mole fractions decrease with steam injection for lean mixtures but they increase slightly in the case of rich mixtures. The specific heat of combustion products increase with the steam injection ratios. Thus, the engine performance can be improved using the method. The model has been validated by comparing model results with the ones of NASA CEA software and GASEQ software using the methane as fuel. The relative errors of equilibrium mole fractions and thermodynamic properties of combustion products are less than 0.98 %.

The angular diameter is the angle subtended by a generic object – an apple or a star – to the eye of an observer, and it describes how large the object appears from a given viewpoint. The angular diameter represents a powerful tool for distance calculations starting from a directly measurable information and it finds application in several contexts varying from cosmography to architecture. In this article, the author proposes a novel equation to calculate the apparent diameter of whatever object. This equation defines the relationship between the object’s apparent diameter with respect to the travelled distance starting from the initial distance R₀ at which the observed object is located. Based on the preliminary tests conducted, the model seems to faithfully portray this relation with respect to measured values, also at the astronomical scale, thus considering the Earth-Moon distance, where, the absolute error detected is about 0.56%. Tests highlight also a dependency between the results accuracy and the measurement conditions suggesting a high level of sensibility linked to the initial magnification effect produced by the retina or the artificial lens employed.

Foot pain related to the plantar fascia is common in adults regardless of athletic background. Many pathologies can lead to the diagnosis of plantar enthesopathy, but the most relevant to this case study is related to structural defects within the plantar fascia. Due to the variety and sometimes unclear etiology of plantar fasciosis, no single standard of care treatment protocol is recognized. Often, patients receive NSAIDs, night splints, taping, physical therapy, foot orthosis, and extracorporeal shock wave therapies. This study presents Wharton Jelly (WJ) tissue allografts as an additional intervention for patients who fail standard-care treatments. WJ allografts are applied to supplement connective tissue defects directly, unlike other therapies, which aim to reduce swelling and symptomatic pain. This retrospective study includes seven patients who have previously failed standard-of-care treatment. Each received extracorporeal pulse-activated therapy (EPAT), WJ, laser therapy, and an orthotic. Patient progress was tracked using a visual analog scale, 0-10 scoring, reported by the patient at the initial visit and approximately thirteen weeks following, reporting an average improvement of 50%. The study's limitations include a small cohort size and a non-blinded retrospective design. These promising results provide evidence for a more extensive, randomized study to define dosage protocols further and confirm safety and efficacy.

Our understanding of phylogenetic relationships among Gadiformes fish is obtained through the analysis of a small number of genes, but uncertainty remains around critical nodes. A series of phylogenetic controversial exists at the suborder, family, subfamily, and species levels. A total of 1105 orthologous exon sequences and translated amino acid sequences from 36 genomes and 12 transcriptomes covering 33 species were applied to investigate the phylogenetic relationships within Gadiformes and address these problems. Phylogenetic trees reconstructed with the amino acid data set using different tree-building methods (RAxML and MrBayes) showed consistent topology. The monophyly of Gadifromes was confirmed in our study. However, the three suborders Muraenolepidoidei, Macrouroidei, and Gadoidei were not well recovered by our phy-logenomic study, rejecting the validity of suborder Muraenolepidoidei. Four major lineages were revealed in this study. The family Bregmacerotidae forming clade I was the basal lineage of Gadiformes. The family Merluciidae formed clade II. Clade III contained families Melanonidae, Muraenolepididae, Macrouridae (with subfamilies Trachyrincinae, Macrourinae, and Bathygadinae), and Moridae. Clade IV contained at least three families of suborder Gadoidei, i.e., Gadidae, Phycidae, and Ranicipitidae. The subspecies of Lota lota from Amur River were confirmed, indicating that exon markers were a valid high-resolution method for delimiting subspecies or distinct lineages within species level. The PSMC analysis of different populations of L. lota suggests a continuous decline since 2 Myr.

Image encryption is increasingly becoming an important area of research in information security and network communications, as digital images are widely used in various applications and are vulnerable to various types of attacks. In this research work, a color image cryptosystem that is based on a 3-layer permutation-substitution network (PSN) is proposed. For every layer, an encryption key and an S-box are generated and utilized. Those are based on a four-dimensional (4D) dynamical Chen system of a fractional-order, the Mersenne Twister, OpenSLL, Rule 30 Cellular Automata and Intel’s MKL. The sequential application of Shannon’s ideas of diffusion and confusion for 3 times guarantees a total distortion of any input plain image, resulting in a totally encrypted one. Apart from the excellent and comparable performance to counterpart algorithms from the literature, showcasing resistance to visual, statistical, entropy, differential, known plaintext and brute-force attacks, the proposed image cryptosystem provides an exceptionally superior performance in 2 aspects: a vast key space of 2^1658 and an average encryption rate of 3.34 Mbps. Furthermore, the proposed image cryptosystem is shown to successfully pass all the tests of the NIST SP 800 suite.

One in four adults in the US suffer from cartilage degeneration of the Intervertebral Disc (DDD) or load bearing joints (DJD). Combined DDD and DJD leads to billions of dollars in surgical health care costs annually. Since cartilage is avascular, it has a limited regenerative capacity. Conventional non-surgical treatment modalities provide brief symptomatic relief, have sided effects, and do not address the actual structural tissue defect in the cartilage itself. As such, new alternatives are needed. Perinatal tissue allografts have emerged as a novel frontier for bio-mechanical cartilage engineering research. Birth product-specific therapeutic roles and clinical outcomes are actively being investigated. The tissues of interest include umbilical cord-derived Wharton’s Jelly (WJ). This study assessed WJ tissue samples via ZEISS Supra 55VP Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) at 100 and 300nm resolution scales. The captured images of pre and post-processed structural tissue matrices in WJ allografts were analyzed against themselves and peer-reviewed SEM images of articular cartilage, intervertebral disc cartilage, and muscle fascia. SEM images of post-processed WJ structural tissue matrices were analogous to structural tissue matrices in human articular cartilage, intervertebral disc cartilage, and muscle fascia. Relevant characteristics of pre- and post-processed structural tissue matrices in WJ allografts were comparable. This is the first study, that we are aware of, to utilize SEM to compare the pre-and post-processing relevant structural characteristics of WJ allografts and additionally demonstrate that structural collagen matrices in post-processed WJ allografts are analogous in structure to the cartilage in articular joints, intervertebral discs, and muscle fascia.

Dietary restrictions or reductions such as fasting for weight loss, are often difficult to adhere to in the long term due to increased appetite and food cravings. Recently, gastrointestinal delivery of bitter hops extract has been shown to be effective at reducing appetite in men. Our aim was to determine the effect of bitter hops on appetite and cravings in women, using a day-long, water-only fast. Thirty adult women were recruited and required to fast for 24 h from 1800 h to 1800 h on three occasions and given an ad libitum meal to break each fast. Treatments of either a placebo or one of two doses (high dose; HD: 250 mg or low dose; LD: 125 mg) of a bitter hops-based appetite suppressant (Amarasate®) were given twice per day at 16 and 20 h into the fast. Treatment with both the HD and LD treatment groups exhibited a significant (p < 0.05) reduction in appetite and cravings for food. Two participants reported loose stools and one reported heart-burn while on the HD treatment, and one participant reported loose stools while on the LD treatment. These data suggest that appetite suppressant co-therapy may be useful in reducing hunger during fasting in women and shows that gastrointestinal delivery of bitter compounds may also be an effective method of reducing cravings for food.

Chalcones are a class of flavonoids possessing a variety of biological activities, including antimicrobial and antioxidant effects. Therefore, chalcones and their derivatives have potential use in the control of postharvest diseases. In this work, the effects of 2ʹ,4ʹ-dichloro-chalcone on the in vitro growth and in vivo pathogenicity of F. tricinctum and T. roseum were investigated. The results showed that 100 µM of 2ʹ,4ʹ-dichloro-chalcone strongly inhibited mycelial growth and conidial production of F. tricinctum (32.3%) and T. roseum (65.2%) in vitro. This treatment also significantly inhibited the expansion of potato dry rot from F. tricinctum (48.6%) and apple rot spot from T. roseum (36.2%). The incubation of F. tricinctum and T. roseum conidia with this agent for 2 h increased their cell membrane permeability by 25% and 22.5%, respectively and conidial membrane permeability by 41.7 and 65.4%, respectively. This treatment also significantly inhibited the total respiration rate and activated the cyanide-resistant respiratory pathway in both pathogens. Protein immunoblotting showed that the treatment increased alternative oxidase (AOX) levels after 4 h in F. tricinctum and T. roseum by 52.76% and 39.13%, respectively. Conclusion: 100 µM 2ʹ,4ʹ-dichloro-chalcone significantly inhibited mycelial growth and spore production in F. tricinctum and T. roseum in vitro and reduced their pathogenicity in postharvest potato and apple crops. Further analysis indicated that 2ʹ,4ʹ-dichloro-chalcone disrupted the integrity of cell membranes and the mitochondrial respiratory electron transport chain which leaded to ROS burst and oxidative stress, AOXs were induced directly or indirectly, and the cyanide resistant respiratory pathway was activated. The in vitro growth and pathogenicity of F. tricinctum and T. roseum were inhibited.

Whether there is any inclination between structures and functions of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is a mystery yet to be unraveled. AMPs have various structures associated with many different antimicrobial functions, including antibacterial, anticancer, antifungal, antiparasitic and antiviral activities. However, none has yet reported any antimicrobial functional tendency within a specific category of protein/peptide structures nor any structural tendency of a specific antimicrobial function with respect to AMPs. Here we examine the relationships between structures categorized by three structural classification methods (CATH, SCOP and TM) and seven antimicrobial functions with respect to AMPs using an enrichment analysis. The results show that antifungal activities of AMPs were tightly related to two-layer sandwich structure of CATH, knottin fold of SCOP, and the first structural cluster of TM. The associations with knottin and TM cluster 1 even sustained through the AMPs with a low sequence identity. Besides, another significant mutual enrichment was observed between the third cluster of TM and anti-gram-positive-bacterial/anti-gram-negative-bacterial activities. The findings of the structure-function inclination further our understanding of AMPs and could help us design or discover new therapeutic potential AMPs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a significant impact on mental health globally. The uncertainty, fear, and stress associated with this crisis have contributed to a heightened prevalence of anxiety, depression, and various other mental health disorders. In this scenario, the present study aimed at investigating the relationship between locomotion regulatory mode, resilience, and COVID-19 anxiety. It is worth noting that previous extensive research has established a significant correlation between high levels of locomotion and diverse positive psychological conditions, such as optimism, reduced hopelessness, and positive affect. A total of 243 participants completed measures of locomotion regulatory mode, resilience, and COVID-19 anxiety. In line with our hypotheses, individuals' locomotion regulatory mode was negatively, although non significatively, associated with COVID-19 anxiety. Furthermore, resilience was found to mediate the relationship between locomotion regulatory mode and COVID-19 anxiety, indicating that individuals displaying high locomotion may be better equipped to cope with the stress and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic due to their greater levels of resilience. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of considering both locomotion and resilience in managing anxiety related to COVID-19 and suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing resilience may be beneficial particularly for individuals with low locomotion regulatory mode.

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

. Background: regular exercise elicits adaptive changes from several organs and physiological processes, including erythrocyte properties. Methods: in a group of 79 subjects (62 men and 17 women; mean age 31.37 +/- 10.19 years) who trained several times a week as they practiced amateur sports, we evaluated the elongation index, marker of erythrocyte deformability, the red blood cell distribution width (RDW), indicator of erythrocyte anisocytosis, hematocrit, hemoglobin and the main erythrocyte indices (MCV, MCH, MCHC) in basal conditions. Results: in comparison with a group of healthy not trained volunteers, the values of the elongation index, and not the RDW, are increased and this datum is accompanied by an increase of MCV and MCHC, likely related to an increased presence of circulating young erythrocytes in trained subjects. We also divided the same group according to the median of the VO2max, observing that the subgroup above the median shows both an increase in the elongation index values and a decrease in MCH and MCHC. Conclusions: in trained subjects there is no correlation between the values of elongation index and the RDW, while of particular interest and of a certain complexity seem the interrelations among elongation index, RDW and the main erythrocyte indices.

Potato tubers are susceptible to wounding during post-harvest processes, leading to quality decline, perishability and large economic losses. In this study, the potato cultivar, ‘Longshu No.7’, was foliar-sprayed with 3% chitosan (w/v) three times during the pre-harvest period after flowering to evaluate the effect of foliar spraying with chitosan on suberization processing at wounds of harvested potato tubers. Our results demonstrate that foliar-sprayed with chitosan significantly reduced wound-induced fresh weight loss and dry rot disease index by 37.34% and 41.60% on the 28 day after wounding, respectively. Foliar-sprayed with chitosan accelerated the deposition of suberin polyphenolics and lignin at the wound sites of potato tubers with the formation of thicker cell layers. This occurred with increased localized activities of key enzymes in the suberin polyphenolics and lignin pathways, including phenylalanine ammonia lyase, 4-coumaryl-coenzyme A ligase, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase and peroxidase (33.90–64.32%), as well as the contents of cinnamic acid, sinapic acid, flavonoids, lignins and total phenolics (19.70–23.46%) at wound sites of potato tubers on the 7 day after wounding. Our results indicated that foliar application of chitosan accelerated wound-induced suberization of potato tubers and could mitigate post-harvest product damages.

Fully mechanized mining face production involves complex geological conditions; mining pressure; gas, water, fire and other mining environments. The working face needs a shearer, hydraulic support, a scraper conveyor and other equipment for coordination. The deep integration of intelligent technology with factors such as "humans, machines, the environment, and management" in the workplace is the core content of intelligent coal mines. This paper puts forward an advanced framework for coal mining robot technology systems, including single robots, robotized equipment, robot clusters and unmanned systems. The framework clarifies the common key technologies of coal mining robot research and development and cross-integration with new technologies such as 5G, the industrial internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins to improve the autonomous and intelligent application of coal mining robots. By establishing a scientific and complete standard system for coal mining robots, we aim to achieve customized research and development and standardized production of various types of robots. A specific analysis was conducted on the research progress of common key technologies such as explosion-proof design, mechanical system innovation, power drive, intelligent sensing, positioning and navigation, and underground communication of coal mining robots. The current research and application status of various types of coal mining robots in China are summarized. A new direction for future coal mine robot research and development is proposed. Moreover, robotic mining systems should be promoted to enhance the overall intelligence level and mining efficiency of mining equipment. To develop human‒machine environment-integrated robots to improve the autonomy and collaboration level of coal mining robots. The digital twinning of the entire mine robot system should be accelerated, the normalized operation level of coal mine robots should be improved, research on coal mining robots, support robots, and transportation robots should be carried out, intelligence should be achieved in fully mechanized mining faces, and equipment support for fewer and unmanned fully mechanized mining faces should be provided. The practical process of implementing coal mining robotization has been summarized, and the technical and engineering feasibility of the coal mining machine population has been verified.

Three-phase motors are commonly adopted in several industrial contexts and their failures can result in costly downtime causing undesired service outages; this way, motor diagnostics is an issue that assumes great importance. To prevent their failures and timely face the considered service outages, a non-invasive method to identify electrical and mechanical faults in three-phase asynchronous electric motors is proposed in the paper. In particular, a measurement strategy along with a machine learning algorithm based on Artificial Neural Network is exploited to properly classify failures. In particular, digitized current samples of each motor phase are first processed by means of FFT and PSD in order to estimate the associated spectrum. Suitable features (in terms of frequency and amplitude of the spectral components) are then singled out to either train or feed a neural network acting as a classifier. The method is preliminary validated on a set of 28 electric motors, and its performance is compared with common state-of-art machine learning techniques. The obtained results show that the proposed methodology is able to reach accuracy levels greater than 98\% in identifying anomalous conditions of three-phase asynchronous motors.

The purposes of this study are based upon the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to examine the impact of past experiences of contract farming on selecting a specific type of contract farming in the future and then compare different psychological factors in the TPB for different potential contract farmer statuses. These statuses include homesteaders, farmers from cooperative farms, farmers from production and sales teams, professional farmers, and brokers. The impact of factors in the TPB for a particular contract type on potential contract farmers is further to compute. To this end, data are collected in three major sweet potato production areas in Taiwan. The results show that the farmers’ past contract farming experience does not influence the selection of the contract in the future. As for the selection of contract type, strengthening the perception and motivating the behavioral intention of contract farming for cooperative farms will increase the probability of selecting an unclassified sweet potato size contract. On the other hand, enhancing perceived behavioral control factors and behavioral intention factors for professional farmers and brokers is apt to have a relatively high probability of selecting those types involving the highest amount or the best price to obtain the best deal.

Student mobility is one of the most important indicators to reflect institutional internationalization in a sustainable higher education system. While student mobility issues have been addressed persistently, the phenomenon is rarely discussed in association with higher education expansion. Since higher education sustainable development has received much scholarly attention, monitoring student mobility flows to adjust international strategies is necessary. This study explored practical approaches to detect student mobility flows in the process of higher education expansion. Targeting Taiwan’s higher education system as an example, we addressed the topic of system expansion and the core issues of student mobility. Target series data were collected from 1950 to 2021, including higher education enrollment, gross enrollment ratio (GER), and number of inbound and outbound students. The data were transformed with index formats, for example enrollment increasing ratio (IR) and net flow ratio. The cross-correlation function (CCF) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) were used to determine the correlations of the series data and their future trends. The findings suggested that the effect of system expansion, with GER and IR, might influence the mobility ratios significantly in the process of higher education expansion. This study confirmed that the time series approaches work well in detecting the phenomena of higher education expansion and their effects on student mobility flows in the future.

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) treatment has been proven to attenuate neuroinflammation in rats. This study aimed to determine the potential mechanism underlying the anti-inflammatory effects of HBO treatment on burn-induced neuroinflammation in rats. Thirty-six adult male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats were randomly assigned to the following six groups (n = 6 per group): (1) sham burn with sham HBO treatment, (2) sham burn with HBO treatment, (3) burn with 1-week sham HBO treatment, (4) burn with 2-week sham HBO treatment, (5) burn with 1-week HBO treatment, and (6) burn with 2-week HBO treatment. SD rats that received third-degree burn injury were used as a full-thickness burn injury model. Subsequently, we analyzed the expression of proteins involved in the galectin-3 (Gal-3)-dependent Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) pathway through enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis, and Western blotting, and a behavior test was also conducted. The behavior test revealed that HBO treatment significantly suppressed mechanical hypersensitivity in the burn with HBO treatment group compared with the burn with sham HBO treatment group (p < 0.05). ELISA results showed that tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β) levels in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and the skin were significantly decreased in the burn with HBO treatment group compared with the burn with sham HBO treatment group (p < 0.05). Western blotting results demonstrated that HBO treatment significantly reduced the expression of Gal-3 and TLR-4 in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord in the burn with HBO treatment group compared with the burn with sham HBO treatment group (p < 0.05). IHC analysis results showed that the expression of Gal-3, TLR-4, CD68, and CD45 in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord was significantly lower in the burn with HBO treatment group than in the burn with sham HBO treatment group (p < 0.05), and the expression of CD68 and macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in the right hind paw skin was significantly lower. The expression of vimentin and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) in the right hind paw skin was significantly higher after HBO treatment (p < 0.05). This study proved that early HBO treatment relieves neuropathic pain, inhibits the Gal-3-dependent TLR-4 pathway, and suppresses microglia/macrophage activation in a rat model.

Heel pain in the “funnel-shaped” space between the calcaneus, talus, and talocalcaneonavicular and subtalar joints may be representative of Sinus Tarsi syndrome. The pain is often characterized by a burning, numbness, or tingling sensation that can stem from strains and tears on the ligaments in that area. Injury treatment typically includes balance training, muscle exercises, bracing, foot orthosis, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). This study presents Wharton Jelly (WJ) tissue allografts as an alternative intervention for patients who fail standard-care treatments. WJ targets tissue defects, unlike other therapies, which aim to reduce swelling and symptomatic pain. This study includes five female patients who have previously failed standard-of-care treatment. Each received extracorporeal pulse-activated therapy (EPAT), WJ, laser therapy, and an orthotic. After an average of 80 days, the cohort had an overall 85.29% improvement in pain. The study's limitations include a small cohort size and a non-blinded design. Given the significant improvement in pain, WJ tissue allograft, combined with other techniques, presents an optimal patient care plan for tissue defects associated with Sinus Tarsi syndrome when standard-of-care treatments fail. These results provide evidence for a more extensive, randomized study to define dosage protocols further and confirm safety and efficacy.

Recent advances in signal processing and AI-based inference enable the exploitation of communication signals to collect information on devices, people, actions and the environment in general, i.e., to perform Integrated Sensing And Communication (ISAC). This possibility opens new and exciting opportunities for IoT systems, but at the same time poses unprecedented threats to security and privacy of data, devices, and systems. In fact, ISAC operates at the PHY and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers, where it is impossible to protect the information with standard encryption techniques, or with any other purely digital methodologies. The work we present analyzes, within the framework of IoT and distributed, pervasive communication systems, the threats to security and privacy posed by ISAC and how they do intertwine at the PHY layer. Next, possible countermeasures are presented and discussed, with proper architectural choices and tradeoffs to implement them, as well as solutions and protocols to preserve the potential benefits of ISAC while ensuring data protection and users’ privacy.

The growing need for water has pressured society and governments to focus more on preservation, planning and management of this natural resource, in which is fundamental to ecosystems and especially to humans. In this sense, the goal of this study was to analyze the national policy of water resources in Brazil and Italy, figuring out aspects that could promote its improvement, aiming at the preservation of water sources, guaranteeing satisfactory quantity and quality. They were carried out in 2019 by the environmental agencies of both countries, listing the main disciplinary regulations. The results show that although they are countries with different realities, they resemble similarities in managerial aspects of water resources, with legislation addressing qualitative and quantitative aspects of water, with guiding principles, instruments and actions aimed at the defence of this natural resource.

This study explores the public library service evaluation domain through user-generated content on Google Maps, highlighting digital feedback's significant yet underexplored potential in understanding public library patronage across Taiwan's six major cities. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design, this study integrates Google Maps review content analysis with Social Network Analysis to delineate public perceptions and identify areas for service enhancement in public libraries. It innovatively leverages personal experiences extracted from over 60,000 Google Maps reviews to evaluate public library services in cities such as Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. The research taps into the National Library of Taiwan's National Library Statistics System to provide a robust analysis of library performance and user satisfaction, offering a novel perspective by emphasizing user-centric feedback from Google Maps as a primary data source. This approach provides quantitative data on library usage and geographic distribution and enriches our understanding of the qualitative experiences of library users. In analyzing the keywords from Google Maps reviews of public libraries, we categorize and interpret these under the three core LibQUAL+ dimensions—Affect of Service, Information Control, and Library as Place. The findings expose variances in perceived service quality among the cities, with Kaohsiung and Taichung receiving the highest accolades for service satisfaction. Simultaneously, the study identifies potential areas for improvement, particularly in cities with lower satisfaction ratings like Taipei. This personalized feedback illustrates the intimate relationship between public libraries and their communities, offering invaluable insights for policymakers and library management to enhance service delivery and user experience.

This study demonstrates a global, non-parametric, non-iterative optimization of time-mean value of a kind of index vibrated by time-varying forcing. It is based on the fact that the (steady) forced vibration of non-autonomous ordinary differential equation systems is well approximated by an analytical solution when the amplitude of forcing is sufficiently small and its base state without forcing is linearly stable and steady. It is applied to optimize a time-averaged heat-transfer rate on a two-dimensional thermal convection field in a square cavity with horizontal temperature difference, and the globally optimal way of vibrational forcing, i.e. the globally optimal, spatial distribution of vibrational heat and vorticity sources, is first obtained. The maximized vibrational thermal convection corresponds well to the state of internal gravity wave resonance. In contrast, the minimized thermal convection is weak, keeping the boundary layers on both sidewalls thick.

One-step reactive melt processing (REx) via radical reaction was evaluated with the aim of improving the rheological properties of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL). In particular, a water-assisted REx was designed under the hypothesis of increasing crosslinking efficiency with water as a low viscous medium in comparison with a slower PCL macroradicals diffusion in the melt state. To assess the effect of dry vs. water-assisted REx on PCL, its structural, thermo-mechanical and rheological properties were investigated. Water-assisted REx resulted in increased PCL gel fraction compared to dry REx (from 1 to 34 %), proving the rationale under the formulated hypothesis. From dynamic mechanical analysis and tensile tests, the crosslink did not significantly affect the PCL mechanical performance. Dynamic rheological measurements showed that higher PCL viscosity was reached with increasing branching/crosslinking and the typical PCL Newtonian behavior was shifting towards a progressively more pronounced shear thinning. A complete transition from viscous- to solid-like PCL melt behavior was recorded, demonstrating that higher melt elasticity can be obtained as a function of gel content by controlled REx. Improvement in rheological properties offers the possibility of broadening PCL melt processability without hindering its recycling by melt processing.

Real-time simulation of toxic gas dispersion is critical for emergency management in high-sulphur gas fields. The CALPUFF (California Puff model) gas dispersion model, a Lagrangian Gaussian Puff model, is often used in mountainous environments due to its ability to handle complex terrain and weather conditions. Verifying the accuracy of toxic gas dispersion simulations under mountainous conditions is vital for emergency response and rescue. In this article, CALPUFF and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) gas dispersion modeling are compared, studying emissions from a hypothetical pipeline breakout accident in a mountainous area, focusing on range of Semi-Lethal Concentration (LC$_{50}$), Immediate Danger to Life and Health Concentration(IDLH). Thirteen groups of simulation conditions are set up for the experiment, including static wind and winds from the east(E), south(S), west(W), and north(N) at speeds of 1, 2, and 3$m/s$. Comparative experiments between CALPUFF and CFD models show consistent results, confirming the feasibility of CALPUFF for near-field moutainous applications. The overall dispersion range deviation between two methods under calm or light wind of N, E and W is about 300$m$. However,the simulation results of the CALPUFF model and the CFD model show significant differences in S wind. In CALPUFF simulation that the toxic gases are channeled by the valleys, while in the CFD model the toxic gases climb over the mountain top and continue to spread and extend towards the northern valley. The evaluation of CALPUFF’s suitability for applications in near-field mountainous environments indicates its potential use for high-sulfur gas fields and gas dispersion simulations in emergency scenarios.

The co-electrolysis of CO2 and H2O at intermediate temperature is a viable approach for the power-to-gas conversion that deserves for further investigation, considering the need for green energy storage. The commercial solid oxide electrolyser is a promising device, but it is still facing to solve issues concerning the high operating temperatures and the improvement of gas value. In this paper we reported the recent findings of a simple approach that we have amply suggested for solid oxide cells consisting in the addition of a functional layer coated to the fuel electrode of commercial electrochemical cells. This approach simplifies the transition to the next generation of cells manufactured with the most promising materials currently developed and improves the gas value in the outlet stream of cell. Here, the material in use as a coating layer consisted of a Ni-modified La0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Co0.2O3 which was developed and demonstrated as promising fuel electrode for solid oxide fuel cells. The results discussed in this paper proved the positive role of Ni-modified perovskite as a coating layer for the cathode, since an improvement of about twice was obtained about the quality of gas produced.

A simple bounded stochastic motion is employed for modelling equity price dynamics under shocks, where the prices are constrained to lie between two positive bounds. While the stochastic process has an inaccessible boundary, the other boundary is quasi-bounded, implying that the boundary can be breached if the probability leakage condition is met. The quasi-boundedness of the process at the boundary can thus provide an indicator of possible risk of equities under price shocks. Empirical calibration of model parameters of the proposed process for equities can be performed easily due to the availability of an analytically tractable probability density function which generates fat-tailed distributions consistent with empirical observations. The volatility and mean-reversion of the S&P500 dynamics calibrated by the process is positively and negatively co-integrated respectively with the VIX index representing the level of market distress. The process captures the high likelihood of Hertz’s default about two months earlier, using only information until that point, and before the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Empirical calibration of the process for GameStop’s stock price shows that the short squeeze of the stock occurred when the condition for breaching an upper boundary was met on 14 January 2021, i.e., about two weeks before major short sellers closed out their positions with significant losses. The trading volume of the stock was positively co-integrated with the probability leakage ratio.

In this study, a simple, easy and convenient fluorescent sensing system for detection of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) based on VEGF aptamers, aptamer-complementary fluorescence-labeled probe and streptavidin magnetic beads was developed in only one single tube. The VEGF is the most important biomarker in cancer angiogenesis, and is investigated that serum VEGF level was various according to the different type and course of cancers. Hence, efficient quantification of VEGF is able to improve the accuracy of cancer diagnosis and precision of disease surveillance. In this research, the VEGF aptamer was designed to be able to bind with the VEGF by forming G-quadruplex secondary structures, and then the magnetic beads would capture the none-binding aptamers due to none steric interference, and finally, the fluorescence-labeled probes were hybridized with the aptamers captured by the magnetic beads. Therefore, the fluorescent intensity in the supernatant would specifically reflect the present of VEGF. After an overall optimization, the optimal conditions for detection of VEGF were as followed, KCl, 50 μM; pH 7.0; aptamer, 0.1 μM and magnetic beads, 10 μL (4 μg/μL). The VEGF could be well quantified within a range of 0.2-2.0 ng/ml in plasma, and the calibration curve possessed a good linearity (y = 1.0391x + 0.5471, r = 0.998). The detection limit (LOD) was calculated to be 0.0445 ng/mL according to the formula (LOD = 3.3×σ/S). The specificity of this method was also investigated under the appearance of many other serum proteins, and the data showed the good specificity in this aptasensor-based magnetic sensing system. This strategy provided a simple, sensitive and selective biosensing platform for detection of serum VEGF. Finally, it was expected that this detection technique can be promoted to more clinical applications.

Exsolved perovskites can be obtained from lanthanum ferrites, such as La0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Co0.2O3, as result of Ni doping and thermal treatments. Ni can be simply added to the perovskite by an incipient wetness method. Thermal treatments include calcination in air (e.g., 500 °C) and subsequent reduction in diluted H2 at 800 °C to favor the exsolution process. The chemistry of the nanoparticles exsoluted on the substrate surface can be further modulated by a post treatment in air. These processes allow to produce a two-phase material consisting of a Ruddlesden-Popper type structure and a solid oxide solution e.g. α-Fe100-y-zCoyNizOx oxide. The formed electro-catalyst shows sufficient electronic conductivity under reducing environment at the SOFC anode. Outstanding catalytic properties are observed for the direct oxidation of dry fuels in SOFCs, including H2, methane, syngas, methanol, glycerol and propane. This anode electrocatalyst can be combined with full density electrolyte based on Gadolinia-doped Ceria or with La0.8Sr0.2Ga0.8Mg0.2O3 (LSGM) or BaCe0.9Y0.1O3-δ (BYCO) to form a complete perovskite structure-based cell. Moreover, the exsolved perovskite can be used as a coating layer or catalytic pre-layer of a conventional Ni-YSZ anode. Beside the excellent catalytic activity, this material also shows proper durability and tolerance to sulphur poisoning. In this mini review, preparation methods, physico-chemical characteristics, surface properties of exsoluted and core-shell nanoparticles encapsulated on the metal-depleted perovskite substrate surface, electrochemical properties for the direct oxidation of dry fuels and related electrooxidation mechanisms are examined and discussed.

Caused by age or trauma, collapsed connective tissue can cause nerve entrapment and damage within the tarsal tunnel. Tarsal tunnel syndrome is relatively underdiagnosed. This study presents an intervention targeting damaged tissues surrounding the nerves and replacing the structural cushioning with a Wharton’s jelly tissue allograft. The eight selected patients from four clinical sites had tarsal tunnel-related defects. Patient outcomes were tracked on a 90-day calendar utilizing the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) and the Western Ontario and McMaster University Arthritis Index (WOMAC). All patients had failed standard care practices for at least six weeks. Each patient received a Wharton’s jelly tissue allograft to sites around the affected tarsal tunnel. No patients experienced adverse reactions. Percent change calculated from the initial application to the 90-day follow-up showed an improvement of 59.43% in NPRS and a 37.58% improvement in WOMAC. This study provides evidence that WJ allograft applications are safe, minimally invasive, and efficacious for patients who have failed standard care treatments for tissue defects associated with Tarsal Tunnel syndrome. Limitations include the small cohort size and nonblinded nature. The results of this study warrant further research to confirm the efficacy, optimal dose, protocol, and durability of Wharton's jelly.

Nearly 15 million patients undergo cosmetic surgery in the United States each year, with breast augmentations such as implants, lifts, or reductions being some of the most common procedures. The most common complications of these procedures are scarring and infection at the incision site, which often necessitates expensive corrective surgery. After significant weight loss, the patient in this study underwent an elective lower body lift in conjunction with a breast reduction and nipple-areolar transplant. An autologous skin graft was used at the transplant donor site. The skin graft unfortunately necrosed, warranting the need for rapid wound closure to avoid further pain and infection. The patient was treated for eight weeks with conservative measures. After eight weeks of failed attempts to close her wound, she was referred for specialist care. Upon initial examination, the donor site wound measured 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm with no sign of epithelialization. The patient received a single dose of Wharton’s jelly flowable perinatal tissue allograft and five hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments over seven weeks. Upon inspection at the final examination, the wound was closed entirely with 100% epithelialization overlying granulation tissue. This case study demonstrates a precedent for the application of Wharton’s jelly flowable allografts in complicated cosmetic post-surgical wounds. Future efforts will be directed at applying Wharton’s jelly allografts on a preventative basis. Preventative applications could be in stage 2 pressure sores or intra-operatively to decrease potential patient suffering, prevent emotional distress, and reduce unnecessary healthcare expenses.

Paper is one of the most promising materials for food packaging and wrapping due to its low environmental impact, but surface treatments are often needed to improve some performance, e.g. the resistance to fats and oils. In this context, this research is focused on the formulation of a new paper bio-coating. Paper was coated with liquids containing Poly(hexano-6-lactone) (PCL), Glycerol and variable percentages of starch (5 - 10% w/w PCL dry weight), agar agar (0 - 1.5% w/w PCL dry weight) and PEG (5% or 15% w/w PCL dry weight) to improve coating uniformity and diffusion. A Design of Experiments approach was implemented to find statistically reliable results in terms of best coating formulation. Coated paper was characterized through mechanical and physical properties. Results showed that agar content (1.5% w/w PCL dry weight) has a beneficial effect on increasing the resistance to oil. Furthermore, the best coating composition has been calculated, and it is: 10% w/w PCL dry weight of Starch, 1.5% w/w PCL dry weight of agar and 15% w/w PCL dry weight of PEG.

Mesenchymal stem cells due to their multipotent ability are considered one of the best candidates to be used in regenerative medicine. The most used source of those stem cells long the last decades was the bone marrow, despite its limited cell resources and the painful and very invasive surgical treatment. Therefore, the scientific community investigated many alternative sources for the harvesting of these stem cell subpopulations. Adipose tissue attracted the biggest interest thanks to special features, such as great tissue abundance, easy availability, and in the end the large amount of positive mesenchymal stem cells. Once it was verified that these stem cell subpopulations possess the same bone marrow differentiation potential, it became evident that they would be the ideal candidate to be used in regenerative and tissue engineering applications. Even the regenerative use of these cells long become a sensitive point because not all the acquired phenotypes resulted in the best source for plastic procedures. As documented in the literature, the ideal fillers for regenerative is represented by stem cell population. Therefore, it became crucial to investigate any kind of biological mechanism on the differentiative ability of those mesenchymal stem cells, especially their regulative factors. One of the most studied and important regulators are the miRNAs. Indeed, miRNA play a crucial role in the differentiation process of adipose stem cell cultures isolated from patients or obtained by commercial cell lines toward osteocytes, chondrocytes, and adipocytes differentiated populations.

Blood testing is a crucial medical application. In this study, we applied Raman spectroscopy to test blood samples and obtained complete biological information, including the main components and compositions in these samples. Short-wavelength (532-nm green light) Raman scattering spectroscopy was conducted on samples of normal blood, abnormal blood in 3 types of preparation including whole blood, plasma, and serum, and the underlying information reflected by the biological characteristics detected in each sample type were analyzed. Raman spectroscopy results indicated that normal blood had high hemoglobin content, which suggests that hemoglobin is a major component of blood. Hemoglobin affects blood oxygen level. The characteristic peaks of hemoglobin were observed at 690, 989, 1015, 1182, 1233, 1315, and 1562–1649 cm−1. Analysis of plasma and serum samples indicated the presence of β-carotene, which exhibited characteristic peaks at 1013, 1172, and 1526 cm−1. In addition, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy was used to collect biological signals that are difficult to obtain in conventional Raman spectroscopy, including those of small molecules such as hormones, antibodies, and enzymes. Changes in biological information collected in this manner can be used as a basis for potentially diagnosing clinical diseases.

Due to the impacts from climate change, the allocation of water resources must urgently be optimized worldwide to ensure that the needs of both water managers and farmers are balanced. In this study, manager-oriented and farmer-oriented assessment models were developed for irrigation water optimization and allocation. The distance from water sources and hydraulic head were the main factors in the manager-oriented assessment model; crop value, water demand of crops, and soil type were additional factors in the farmer-oriented assessment model. The developed assessment models were used to assess irrigation water allocation in five villages in Neimen District. Cadasters at high elevation were discovered to not be suitable for cultivation of crops because of the difficulties in constructing irrigation facilities and the loss of irrigation water during transportation. The result obtained from the manager-oriented assessment system was related to the costs involved in the construction and maintenance of irrigation facilities, which indicated that cadasters located at long distances from water sources and at high elevation are unsuitable for cultivation. By contrast, the result obtained from the farmer-oriented assessment system was related to the profits of farmers and revealed that more cadasters would be suitable for cultivation if suitable crops were chosen.

Excretory-secretory products (ESPs) are the main research targets for investigating the hosts and helminths interaction. Parasitic worms can migrate to parasitic sites and avoid the host immune response by secreting this product. Angiostrongylus cantonensisis an important food-borne zoonotic parasite that causes severe neuropathological damage and symptoms, including eosinophilic meningitis or meningoencephalitis in humans. Benzaldehydes are organic compounds composed of a benzene ring and formyl substituents. This compound has anti-inflammatory and antioxidation properties. Previous studies showed that 3-hydroxybenzaldehyde (3-HBA) and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (4-HBA) can reduce apoptosis in A. cantonensis ESPs treated astrocytes. These results on the protective effect underlying benzaldehyde have primarily focused on cell survival. The study was designed to investigate the molecular mechanisms of endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress) and oxidative stress in astrocytes in A. cantonensis ESPs treated astrocytes and to evaluate the therapeutic consequent of 3-HBA and 4-HBA. First, we initially established the RNA-seq dataset in each group, including Normal, ESPs, ESPs+3-HBA, and ESPs+4-HBA. We also found that benzaldehyde (3-HBA and 4-HBA) can stimulate astrocytes to express ER stress-related molecules after ESP treatment. The level of oxidative stress could also be decreased in astrocytes by elevating antioxidant activity and reducing ROS generation. These results suggested that benzaldehyde may be a potential therapeutic compound for human angiostrongyliasis to support brain cell survival by inducing the expression levels of ER stress- and oxidative stress-related pathway.

Plasmodium vivax malaria is a neglected tropical disease, despite being more geographically widespread than any other form of malaria. The documentation of P. vivax infections in different parts of Africa where Duffy-negative individuals are predominant suggested that there are alternative pathways for P. vivax to invade human erythrocytes. Duffy-negative individuals may be just as fit as Duffy-positive individuals and are no longer resistant to P. vivax malaria. In this review, we describe the complexity of P. vivax malaria, characterize pathogenesis and candidate invasion genes of P. vivax, and host immune responses to P. vivax infections. We provide a comprehensive review on parasite ligands in several Plasmodium species that further justify candidate genes in P. vivax. We also summarize previous genomic and transcriptomic studies related to the identification of ligand and receptor proteins in P. vivax erythrocyte invasion. Finally, we identify topics that remain unclear and propose future studies that will greatly contribute to our knowledge of P. vivax.

In this research article we solve the problem of synchronization and anti-synchronization of chaotic systems described by discrete and time-delayed variable fractional order differential equations. To guarantee the synchronization and anti-synchronization of these systems, we use the well-known PID control theory and the Lyapunov-Krasovskii stability theory for discrete systems of variable fractional order.We illustrate the results obtained through simulation with examples, in which it can be seen that our results are satisfactory, thus achieving synchronization and anti-synchronization of chaotic systems of variable fractional order with discrete time delay.

Corneal ulcer (CU) is an ophthalmopathy characterized by depression of the corneal surface with at least one stromal loss. CU is common in canine and feline species and is usually caused, among others, by trauma, infections, toxic contamination and endocrine disorders. They usually result from an increased inflammatory response and are associated with some clinical signs such as blepharospasm, photophobia, epiphora, pain and loss of corneal transparency. Despite advances in conventional and pharmacological therapy, in many cases indolent and recurrent ulcer treatments still lead to loss of visual acuity of the animal. This paper aims to report the effect of topical application of canine adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cell (cATMSCs) as treatment of recurrent CU in a Poodle dog breed that showed clear difficulty in the healing process associated with diabetes. The animal was submitted to two applications of cATMSCs and showed improvement in the blepharospasm, conjunctival hyperemia, mucopurulent ocular secretion, photophobia, corneal opacity, chemosis, pigmentation, neovascularization, and pain parameters. Besides, Fluorescein test, Schirmer test and ocular fundus exam also showed improvement in their values concomitantly with lesion resolution. Due this, we showed that cATMSC therapy contribute to the regeneration of corneal tissue in CU and may contribute to the treatment to others ophthalmopathies.

Traditional photodynamic therapy (PDT) is often limited in its efficacy by insufficient light penetration, inefficient photosensitizer energy transfer, and inadequate target tissue oxygenation. X-ray activated PDT (XPDT), using nanoparticle (NPs) photosensitizers comprised of europium-doped yttrium oxide cores encased within silica shells (Y₂O₃:Eu@SiO₂), offers the potential of overcoming most of these limitations. Aimed at maximizing the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), this study reports methodologies for investigation of the effects of synthesis conditions on the characteristics of Y₂O₃:Eu@SiO₂ NP. Transmission electronic microscope (TEM) revealed that the NP core diameter was linearly, positively correlated with condensation time (R2 = 0.7357, p < 0.05) and linearly, negatively correlated with urea concentration (R2 = 0.958, p < 0.05). The addition of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) during core synthesis demonstrated enhanced particle dispersion. Silica coating via APTES-1 and TEOS-3 conditions resulted in Y₂O₃:Eu@SiO₂ NPs that generated the highest ROS, with 8.7-fold and 8.9-fold increase respectively in relative fluorescence intensity at 8 Gy irradiation compared to a 5.2-fold increase in PBS under the same condition. In vivo evaluation using 18F-fluorothymidine positron emission tomography (18F-FLT PET) of mouse xenografts of a human prototypical cancer (ovarian) revealed a 55% reduction in tumor proliferation of radiation-sensitive CAOV3 tumors treated with Y₂O₃:Eu@SiO₂ NPs compared to a 19% reduction in tumor proliferation of radiation-resistant SKOV3 tumors on the fourth day post-treatment. Taken together, these findings suggest Y₂O₃:Eu@SiO₂ NPs can serve as effective photosensitizers for XPDT and their performance characteristics can be optimized by selecting synthesis conditions and parameters to deliver the desirable therapeutic effects, offering novel approaches to circumventing many of the limitations of conventional PDT in the treatment of cancer.

Overconsumption of an unbalanced diet and overweight, leading to insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hepatic steatosis, cardiovascular diseases and obesity, is nowadays a worldwide health issue, with different patterns of metabolic disturbances in the young and adult popula-tions, in both gender. Preclinical models that closely mimic the gradual weight gain that occurs in humans upon consumption of a “western-type” diet (WD) are of great interest. In particular, the diet-induced obesity (DIO) model in the C57BL/6J mouse sub-strain is often used in biomed-ical research, considering that it is prone to metabolic disorders and obesity, and is widely used to generate genetically modified mice. This study aimed to phenotypically characterize the C57BL/6J mouse strain fed a WD-like diet, using high-frequency ultrasound imaging (HFUS) as a complementary tool to longitudinally monitor morphofunctional changes in the liver, heart and kidney associated with DIO. Long term WD feeding increased mice body weight (BW), liver/BW ratio and body condition score (BCS), serum transaminases, glucose and insulin, as well as Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) indexes, and caused dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. According to the 3Rs, ultrasound imaging has enabled a comprehensive study of metabolic syndrome in mice, in vivo and non-invasive, improving the identification of early stages of diseases.

Incident rates of neurodegenerative diseases have steadily increased globally, but there is no therapeutic access available. We newly prescribed medicinal herbal remedy including five different herbal plants called, Chen-Ma-Dan-Sam-Ga-Mi-Bang (CMST), purposed to prove for pharmacological properties and corresponded actions on hippocampus neuronal cell injury by hypoxia-induced mice model. Mice were adapted to normoxia or hypoxia with or without CMST for 5 days. We gathered pharmacological effects of CMST on cell injury by enhancement of dihydroethidium and 4-hydroxynonenal signals which were correlated with abnormal redox status in the protein or gene expression levels (abnormal elevations of nitric oxide, reactive oxygen species, lipid peroxidation and deteriorations of total glutathione, total antioxidant capacity, and activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase) due to hypoxia. CMST also notably exerted to attenuates molecules for neuronal cell injury markers such as p-tau, cleaved caspase-3 due to DNA oxidations (53bp1and phosphor-histone H2AX), inflammatory cytokines, and hemeoxigenase-1. We further figured out the underlying actions of CMST by in vitro experiment through inactivation of microglial cell which can mediate neuronal cell injury. Collectively, CMST prevented from hippocampal neuronal cells via inactivation of microglial cell with normalization of redox status on hypoxia-induced hippocampus neuronal cell injury.

Two ferrocene derivatives, namely, 1,2-(tetramethylene)-ferrocene and 1,2,1’,2’-bis(tetramethylene)-ferrocene, were synthesized in a four-step reaction sequence starting from ferrocene. Friedel-Craft acylation of ferrocene with succinic anhydride gave mono- or bis(3-carboxypropinoyl)ferrocene depending on the stoichiometry of succinic anhydride. The reduction of the keto groups to methylene, followed by ring-closing using trifluoroacetic anhydride gave 1,2-(α-ketotetramethylene)-ferrocene or 1,2,1’,2’-bis(α-ketotetramethylene)ferrocene. The diastereomeric mixture of the latter diketones was separated by column chromatography, characterized by single-crystal X-ray analysis, and assigned their stereochemistry. Reduction of the keto groups to methylene under Clemmensen conditions gave homoannular mono- or bis(tetramethylene) ferrocene derivatives. The molecular structure of 1,2-(tetramethylene)-ferrocene revealed that the ipso carbon atoms of the cyclopentadienyl group are 0.023(3) Å farther away from Fe(II) compared to the remaining three carbon atoms. Both complexes exhibit lower half-wave oxidation potentials than ferrocene, possibly due to the electron-releasing effects of the tetramethylene bridges.

The multiobjective optimization problem is a key research direction in the field of optimization. Based on the multivariant optimization algorithm (MOA), this paper puts forward a multiobjective multivariant optimization algorithm (MMOA). A good point set is adopted for population initialization and to ensure the homogeneity of the initial solution set and avoid prematurity; global atoms are acquired by non-dominated sorting and an external archiving strategy; a nonlinear search radius is designed to balance global and local searches and enhance the convergence precision of the algorithm. Levy Flight and Sine chaotic mapping are introduced to redesign the update formula for local atoms, increase the convergence rate of the algorithm, and boost the optimization efficiency. Comparative experiments are conducted between MMOA and NSGA-II, MOEA/D, NSWOA, MOGWO, NSMFO on multiobjective test functions and an engineering example. The simulation results show that MMOA has superior convergence and diversity to the other five algorithms.

We provide representations for the generalized Drazin inverse of an anti-triangular matrix of the form $\left( \begin{array}{cc} a&b\\ 1&0 \end{array} \right)$ in a Banach algebra $\mathcal{A}$, under the condition that $ab=ba$. Specifically, we present the representation of Drazin inverse for these types of anti-triangular matrices in Banach algebras.

We investigate the existence and representation of the generalized core-EP inverse of some triangular matrices over a Banach algebra. Further, the general representations of the generalized core-EP inverse of a triangular matrix over a $C^*$-algebra are presented. As applications, the generalized core-EP inverses of some block operator matrices over Hilbert spaces are given.

In this paper, we introduce the notion of the generalized $w$-group inverse in a Banach algebra with proper involution. This is a natural generalization of generalized (weak) group inverse in Banach *-algebras. Many elementary properties of such new weighted generalized inverse are presented. We further establish the equivalent relations between generalized weighted group inverse and weighted generalized Drazin inverse. Related properties of generalized (weak) group inverse are extended to the wider cases.

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a severe congenital heart disease (CHD) affecting 1 in 5,000 newborns. We constructed the interactome of 74 HLHS-associated genes identified from a large-scale mouse mutagenesis screen, augmenting it with 408 novel protein-protein interactions (PPIs) using our High-precision Protein-Protein Interaction Prediction (HiPPIP) model. The interactome is available on a webserver with advanced search capabilities (http://severus.dbmi.pitt.edu/wiki-HLHS). 364 genes including 73 novel interactors were differentially regulated in tissues/iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes of HLHS patients. Novel PPIs facilitated the identification of TOR signaling and endoplasmic reticulum stress modules. 60.5% of the interactome consisted of housekeeping genes that may harbor large-effect mutations and drive HLHS etiology but show limited transmission. Network proximity of diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and liver carcinoma-associated genes to HLHS genes suggested a mechanistic basis for their comorbidity with HLHS. Interactome genes showed tissue-specificity for sites of extracardiac anomalies (placenta, liver and brain). The HLHS interactome shared significant overlaps with the interactomes of ciliopathy and microcephaly-associated genes, with the shared genes respectively enriched for genes involved in intellectual disability and/or developmental delay, and neuronal death pathways. This supported the increased burden of ciliopathy variants and prevalence of neurological abnormalities observed among HLHS patients with developmental delay and microcephaly respectively.

Pagiophloeus tsushimanus, a new record of wood-boring pest first reported in China in 2014, has significantly infested Cinnamomum camphora across various administrative districts in Shanghai. And it shows a concerning trend of spread. The larval stage of the insect, being concealed within the trunks of C. camphora, exhibits characteristics such as hidden activity, strong destructiveness, and difficulty in control. This severely affects the normal growth of the host trees. While the primary host plant for P. tsushimanus is the C. camphora, preliminary observations have shown that the pest can also complete its life cycle on Cinnamomum chekiangensis and Phoebe chekiangensis. Both of them are significant species for urban greening. To explore the host selection preference of this beetle, this study investigates the olfactory selection behavior of adult P. tsushimanus towards C. camphora, C. chekiangensis, and P. chekiangensis. Results from choice tests, no-choice tests, and "Y"-shaped olfactometer experiments indicated that both male and female adults exhibited a feeding preference for C. camphora branches, with females showing a preference for laying eggs on C. camphora branches as well. Behavioral responses demonstrated a positive chemotaxis towards volatiles from C. camphora and a negative chemotaxis towards volatiles from C. chekiangensis and P. chekiangensis. Overall, the findings suggest that both male and female adults have a selective preference for volatiles emitted by C. camphora. These provides a theoretical basis for monitoring and controlling host shift occurrences in P. tsushimanus.

Concrete cracks and local damage can affect the bond performance between concrete and steel bars, thereby reducing the durability of reinforced concrete structures. Compared with general concrete crack repair methods, biomineralization repair not only has effective bonding capabilities but is also particularly environmentally friendly. In view of this, this study aimed to apply biomineralization technology to repair damaged fiber-reinforced lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC). Two groups of LWAC specimens were prepared. The control group used lightweight aggregates (LWAs) without bacterial spores and nutrient sources, and the experimental group used LWAs containing bacterial spores and nutrient sources. These specimens were first subjected to compression tests and pull-out tests, respectively, and thus were damaged. After the damaged specimen healed itself in different ways for 28 days, secondary compression and pull-out tests were conducted. The self-healing method of the control group involved placing the specimens in an incubator. The experimental group was further divided into experimental group I and experimental group II. The self-healing method of experimental group I was the same as that of the control group. The self-healing method of experimental group II involved soaking the specimen in a mixed solution of urea and calcium acetate for two days, and then taking it out and placing it in an incubator for two days, with a cycle of four days. The test results showed that, compared with the control group specimens, the relative bond strength ratio of the experimental group II specimens increased by 17.9%. Moreover, the EDS and XRD analysis results confirmed that the precipitate formed at the crack was calcium carbonate, which improved the compressive strength and bond strength after self-healing. This indicates that the biomineralization maintenance method used in experimental group II is more effective.

To fully appreciate genetics, one must understand the link between genotype (DNA sequence) and phenotype (observable characteristics). Advances in high-throughput genomic sequencing technologies and applications, so-called “-omics”, have made genetic sequencing readily available across fields in biology from applications in non-traditional study organisms to precision medicine. Thus, understanding these tools is critical for any biologist, especially those early in their career. This comprehensive review discusses the chronological development of different sequencing methods, the bioinformatics steps to analyzing this data, and social and ethical issues raised by these techniques that must be discussed and evaluated.

Abstract: High step-up voltage gain nonisolated DC-DC converter have attracted much attention in photovoltaic, fuel cells and other renewable energy system applications. In this paper, by combining input current ripple-free boost cell with coupled-inductor voltage-doubler cell, an input current ripple-free high voltage gain nonisolated converter is proposed. In addition, passive lossless clamp circuit is adopted to recycle the leakage inductor energy and to reduce the voltage spike across the power switch. By utilizing voltage-doubler cell consisting of diode and capacitor, the voltage stress of switch is further reduced and the resonance between the leakage inductor and the stray capacitor of the output diode is eliminated. A low switch-on-resistance low-voltage-rated MOSFET can therefore be employed to reduce the conduction loss and cost. The reverse recovery loss of output diode is reduced, and the efficiency of converter can be improved. Furthermore, the proposed converter can achieve nearly zero input current-ripple and make the design of electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter easy. Steady state analysis and operation mode of the converter is performed. Finally, experimental results are presented to verify the analysis results of the proposed converter.

Meprin α and β are zinc-dependent proteinases implicated in multiple diseases including cancers, fibrosis, and Alzheimer’s. However, until recently, only a few inhibitors of either meprin were reported and no inhibitors are in pre-clinical development. Moreover, inhibitors of other metzincins developed in previous years are not effective in inhibiting meprins suggesting the need for de novo discovery effort. To address the paucity of tractable meprin inhibitors we developed ultra-high throughput assays and conducted parallel screening of >650,000 compounds against each meprin. As a result of this effort, we identified 5 selective meprin α hits belonging to three different chemotypes (triazole-hydroxyacetamides, sulfonamide-hydroxypropanamides, and phenoxy-hydroxyacetamides). These hits demonstrated a nanomolar to micromolar inhibitory activity against meprin α with low cytotoxicity and >30-fold selectivity against meprin β and other related metzincincs. These are the most selective inhibitors of meprin α to date.

The present work aimed to validate a low-cost passive monitoring procedure. For its validation, the monitoring of atmospheric organic pollutants - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) was carried out in a capital of the central-western region of Brazil. The sensors were fixed on poles intended for electrification during the dry season. After 15 days, samples were extracted by solvent extraction and analysed by High-Resolution Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector (HRGC-FID). For the validation of the procedure, PAHs monitored and standardised by the American Environmental Agency (EPA), a benchmark for environmental monitoring of air quality by several countries, were analysed. The results demonstrated that the low-cost passive monitoring method was effective in the quantification of PAH in the environment-air, capable of being used by countries that do not have many resources for monitoring air quality.

In this paper we investigate the differential topological properties of a subclass of singular space--subcarteisan spaces. First, we get further result on partition of unity for differential spaces. Second, we establish the tubular neighborhood theorem for subcartesian spaces with constant structural dimension. Third, we generalize the concept of Morse functions on smooth manifolds to differential spaces. For subcartesian space with constant structural dimension, we provide examples of Morse functions; With the assumption that the subcartesian space can be embedded as a bounded subset of an Euclidean space, we prove that smooth bounded functions on this space can be approximated by Morse functions; We study the infinitesimal stability of Morse functions on subcartesian spaces. Classical results on Morse functions on smooth manifolds can be treated directly as corollaries of our results here.

This paper introduces a quantitative methodology for assessing drone pilot performance, aiming to reduce drone-related incidents by understanding the human factors influencing performance. The challenge lies in balancing evaluations in operationally relevant environments with those in a standardized test environment for statistical relevance. The proposed methodology employs a novel virtual test environment that records not only basic flight metrics but also complex mission performance metrics, such as the video quality from a target. A group of Belgian Defence drone pilots were trained using this simulator system, yielding several practical results. These include a human performance model linking human factors to pilot performance, an AI co-pilot providing real-time flight performance guidance, a tool for generating optimal flight trajectories, a mission planning tool for ideal pilot assignment, and a method for iterative training improvement based on quantitative input. The training results with real pilots demonstrate the methodology’s effectiveness in evaluating pilot performance for complex military missions, suggesting its potential as a valuable addition to new pilot training programs.

This study evaluated the effects of fluoride on subsurface enamel demineralization induced by two commonly used chemical models. Forty-eight enamel blocks were demineralized at pH = 5.0 by an acetate buffer (Group 1), a lactate buffer (Group 2), an acetate buffer with 0.02 ppm fluoride (Group 3) and a lactate buffer with 0.02 ppm fluoride (Group 4) at 25 °C for 3 weeks. The surface destruction percentage (SDP), mineral loss and lesion depth of the blocks were studied using micro-computed tomography. An elemental analysis of the enamel surface was evaluated using an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Surface micro-hardness was determined by the Knoop Hardness Test. The mean lesion depth of Groups 1 through 4 were 134.1 ± 27.2 µm, 96.1 ± 16.5 µm, 97.5 ± 22.4 µm and 91.1 ± 16.2 µm, respectively (p < 0.05; group 1 > 2, 3 > 4). The SDPs of groups 1 through 4 were 7.8 ± 8.93%, 0.71 ± 1.6%, 0.36 ± 1.70% and 1.36 ± 2.94% (p < 0.01; group 1 > 2, 3, 4). The fluoride in mean weight percentages of groups 1 through 4 were 1.12 ± 0.24%, 1.10 ± 0.20%, 1.45 ± 0.40% and 1.51 ± 0.51%, respectively (p < 0.01; group 3,4 > 1,2). The mean Knoop hardness values of groups 1 through 4 were 27.5 ± 13.3, 39.7 ± 19.3, 73.6 ± 44.2 and 91.0 ± 57.2, respectively (p < 0.01; group 4 > 3 > 2 > 1). The chemical model using an acetate buffer solution created significantly deeper zones of subsurface demineralization on enamel than the lactate buffer solution. An acetate buffer may damage the enamel surface, but the surface damage can be prevented by adding fluoride.

The greatly diversified flowering plants (angiosperms) are the dominating and defining group in the current earth ecosystem. However, from which group by what way the flowers, especially their gynoecia (key characteristics of angiosperms), are derived have been the questions in botany unanswered over centuries. Such an embarrassing situation can be attributed to the lack of plants with partially enclosed ovules, which are supposed to be a post between gymnosperms and angi-osperms. Here we report a fossil plant that has an apparent coniferous vegetative and reproduc-tive morphologies but has a single seed partially wrapped by the subtending bract. Such a mor-phology suggests that the carpels in angiosperms may be equivalent to bracts enclosing their axil-lary seed(s). Such a non-traditional interpretation of the homology of angiosperm carpels is com-patible with various new progresses made in botany and is in line with Tomlinson’s recent hy-pothesis. Together with other fossil evidence reported recently, it appears that gynoecia in angio-sperms are derived in multiple ways.

The degree of ore rock fragmentation of mine blasting is an important index for evaluating the effect of engineering blasting. In order to study the effect of millisecond delayed blasting on the internal fragmentation of the ore rock, LS-DYNA numerical simulation software was used to obtain the damage characteristics of the ore rock in the blasting area using the RHT model. The Mohr-Coulomb strength damage criterion was applied to analyze the internal stress state of the ore rock, and the effects of 25ms, 50ms and 75ms delay time conditions on ore rock fragmentation were studied. The results show that, within a certain range of delay time, the degree of rock fragmentation increases with the increase of delay time. The stress state in the ore rock due to blasting is strengthened with the increase of delay time in the direction of the blast hole, which shows that the stress concentration is strengthened from the excavation face to the interior of the ore rock. The damage and the degree of fragmentation show a characteristic relationship of 25ms＜50ms＜75ms, which is verified by carrying out blasting experiments on site.

In horses, quantitative assessment of gait parameters, as the use of inertial measurement units system (IMUs), might help in the decision-making process. However, it requires financial investment, is time-consuming, and lacks accuracy if displaced. An innovative Artificial Intelligence marker-less Motion Tracking System (AI-MTS) may overcome these limitations in the field. Our aim was to compare the level of agreement and accuracy between both systems and visual clinical assessment. Twenty horses underwent locomotion analysis by visual assessment, IMUs and AI- MTS systems, in the following conditions: straight hard (SH), straight soft (SS), left and right circle hard (LCH, RCH) and soft (LCS, RCS). A greater number of horses were considered sound by clinical examination, compared to those identified as symmetric by the two gait analysis systems. More limbs were considered asymmetric by the AI-MTS compared to IMUs, suggesting its greater sensitivity. The greatest agreement between the two systems was found for the difference between two minima in vertical head position in SH, while the lowest for the difference between two minima in vertical pelvis position in SS, reflecting the difficulties in assessing asymmetry of hindlimbs. Some degree of asymmetry may be clinically relevant, suggesting its regular use in training horses.

In this study, vermiculite was explored as a support material for nickel catalysts in two key processes in syngas production through dry reforming of methane with CO2 and steam reforming of ethanol. The vermiculite was subjected to acid or base treatment, then, Ni catalysts were prepared through incipient wetness impregnation and characterized using various techniques, including X-ray, FTIR, temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR). TG-TD analyses were performed to assess the formation of carbon deposits on spent catalysts. The Ni based catalysts were used in the reaction tests without a reduction pre-treatment. Initially, raw vermiculite-supported nickel showed limited catalytic activity, however after acid (Ni/VTA) or base (Ni/VTB) treatment, vermiculite became an effective support for nickel in dry methane reforming. The resulting catalysts (Ni/VTB and Ni/VTA) displayed outstanding performance, with high methane conversion and hydrogen yield. Acidic treatment improved the reduction of nickel species and reduced carbon deposition, outperforming alkali treatment. The prepared catalysts were also explored in ethanol steam reforming. The performance was investigated as a function of the temperature, water/ethanol ratio, and space velocity, with acid-treated catalysts performing as the best. The study emphasized the importance of contact time with the catalyst and addressed challenges related to carbon formation and sintering for long-term stability. In conclusion, acidic treatment of the vermiculite support, before Ni deposition, significantly enhanced the catalytic activity and stability of nickel catalysts in both dry methane reforming and ethanol steam reforming processes.

：Non-Euclidean data, such as social networks, and citation relationships between documents, has node information and structural information. Graph Convolutional Network(GCN) can automatically learn node features and association information between nodes. The core ideology of the graph convolutional network is to aggregate node information by using edge information, thereby generating a new node feature. In the process of updating node features, there are two core influencing factors. One is the number of neighboring nodes of the central node, the other is the contribution of the neighboring nodes to the central node. Due to the previous GCN methods not simultaneously considering the numbers and different contributions of neighboring nodes to the central node, we design the Adaptive Attention Mechanism(AAM). To further enhance the representational capability of the model, we utilize Multi-Head Graph Convolution(MHGC). Finally, we adopt cross-entropy(CE) loss function to describe the difference between the predicted results of node categories and the ground truth (GT). Combined with backpropagation, this ultimately achieves accurate node classification. Based on AAM, MHGC and CE, we contrive the novel Graph Adaptive Attention Network (GAAN). Experiments show that the classification accuracy has achieved outstanding performances on Cora, Citeseer and Pubmed datasets.

The existing segmentation-based scene text detection methods mostly need complicated post-processing, and the post-processing operation is separated from the training process, which greatly reduces the detection performance. The previous method, DBNet successfully simplified post-processing and integrated the post-processing into a segmentation network. However, the training process of the model took a long time for 1200 epochs and the sensitivity to texts of various scales was lacking, leading to some text instances being missed. Considering the above two problems, we design the text detection Network with Binarization of Hyperbolic Tangent(HTBNet). First of all, we propose Binarization of Hyperbolic Tangent (HTB), optimized along with which, the segmentation network can expedite the initial convergent speed by reducing the amount of epochs from 1200 to 600. Because features of different channels in the same scale feature map focus on the information of different regions in the image, to better represent the important features of all objects in the image, we devise the Multi-Scale Channel Attention(MSCA). Meanwhile considering that multi-scale objects in the image cannot be simultaneously detected, we propose a novel module named Fused Module with Channel and Spatial(FMCS), which can fuse the multi-scale feature maps from channel and spatial dimension. Finally we adopt cross entropy as the loss function, which measures the difference between predicted values and ground truths. The experimental results show that HTBNet compared with lightweight models has achieved competitive performance and speed on Total-Text(F-measure:86.0%, FPS:30) and MSRA-TD500 (F-measure:87.5%, FPS:30).

There is no doubt that seagrass beds constitute one of the most productive ecosystems in shallow coastal waters. Despite this, picoplankton in seagrass ecosystems has received relatively little attention. The purpose of this study was to compare picoplankton growth and mortality rates between seagrass and unvegetated habitats using chamber incubations. We tested two main hypotheses: (i) incubation with seagrass would result in higher bacterial growth rates due to increased DOM release from seagrass photosynthesis, and (ii) Synechococcus spp. would be lower in the presence of seagrass due to competition for inorganic nutrients. Our results showed bacterial growth rates of 2.31 and 2.44 d–1 without and with seagrass, respectively. In seagrass chambers, bacterial growth was higher than that in non-seagrass chambers, suggesting that organic carbon coming from the seagrass community may support bacterial production. Furthermore, we observed a negative Synechococcus spp. growth rate (-0.9 d–1) in the seagrass treatment, likely reflecting nutrient competition with the seagrass. Small-scale chambers proved to be a useful tool for studying the factors controlling spatial and temporal patterns of picoplankton across different habitats. Furthermore, future studies should examine picoplankton growth over a wider range of spatial scales in seagrass beds and adjacent unvegetated sediment.

The criteria of “Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability” as well as a high "overall quality index” are used to register the Italian modern varieties to the national register. Differently, local conservation varieties can be certified under different EU Directives having, as overall objective, the preservation of biodiversity and the containment of genetic erosion. In recent years, products derived from an-cient grains are perceived to be healthier and more sustainable by consumer, especially in Italy, with consequent higher market prices. Ancient tetraploid wheat varieties registered in the national reg-ister of conservation varieties are 28, 24 of which are Sicilian. They are supposed to have a wide genetic variability compared to modern ones, making them vulnerable of fraud because they are difficult to trace. It is therefore important to have tools able to discriminate the autochthonous Si-cilian varieties. This can be done by gluten proteins composition, which also gives information on the technological properties of derived products. Fifty-one accessions belonging to 22 ancient va-rieties of Sicilian tetraploid (mostly durum) wheat were analyzed. Although a wide intra-accession and intra-varietal variability was assessed, the gliadin pattern of bulks of seeds belonging to each variety was discriminatory. Moreover, differences in technological attitudes were found between landraces. This paves the way to use gluten protein patterns for traceability allowing local farmers and producers to valorize their products and assure consumers about the transparency of the entire supply chain.

With the increasing occurrence of rotator cuff injuries every year, there is a great need for a reliable treatment option. Wharton’s Jelly contains several components that can positively impact the replacement and repair of musculoskeletal defects. The overall objective of this study is to evaluate the improvement of patient-reported pain scales after applying Wharton’s Jelly (WJ) in rotator cuff defects. Eighty-seven patients with rotator cuff defects who failed at least eight weeks of conservative treatment were selected from the retrospective repository. 2cc of WJ flowable allograft was applied to the specific affected anatomy, the most common being supraspinatus tendon, biceps tendon insertion, labral tear, and subscapularis tear. No adverse reactions were reported. Statistically significant improvements were found from the initial to Day 90 in all scales. Patient satisfaction was calculated using minimal clinically important differences. No statistically significant differences were found in mean changes between gender, BMI, and age. Scanning Electron Microscopy images reveal the similarities between the collagen matrix in WJ and the rotator cuff. The significant improvement in patient outcomes coincides with current literature analyzing WJ applications with other structural defects around the body. WJ is a promising alternative for musculoskeletal defects when the standard of care fails.

Blood testing is a crucial application in the field of clinical studies for disease diagnosis and screening, biomarkers discovery, organ function assessment, and personalized medication. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to collect precise data in a short time. In this study, we utilized Raman spectroscopy to analyze blood samples and extracted comprehensive biological information, including the primary components and compositions present in the blood. We conducted short-wavelength (532 nm green light) Raman scattering spectroscopy on blood samples, plasma, and serum, and subsequently analyzed the biological characteristics detected in each sample type. Our results indicated that whole blood had high hemoglobin content, which suggests that hemoglobin is a major component of blood. The characteristic Raman peaks of hemoglobin were observed at 690, 989, 1015, 1182, 1233, 1315, and 1562–1649 cm−1. Analysis of plasma and serum samples indicated the presence of β-carotene, which exhibited characteristic peaks at 1013, 1172, and 1526 cm−1. Additionally, in the field of medical blood testing, the novel 3D Silicon micro-channel device technology holds immense potential. It can serve as a substrate and helps to detect various diseases and biomarkers, providing real-time data to help medical professionals and patients better understand their health conditions. Changes in biological data collected in this manner could potentially be used to diagnose clinical diseases.

In order to solve the problem of feature extraction of underwater acoustic signals in complex ocean environment, a new method for feature extraction from ship radiated noise is presented based on empirical mode decomposition theory and permutation entropy. It analyzes the separability for permutation entropies of the intrinsic mode functions of three types of ship radiated noise signals, and discusses the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy. In this study, ship radiated noise signals measured from three types of ships are decomposed into a set of intrinsic mode functions with empirical mode decomposition method. Then, the permutation entropies of all intrinsic mode functions are calculated with appropriate parameters. The permutation entropies are obviously different in the intrinsic mode functions with the highest energy, thus, the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy is regarded as a new characteristic parameter to extract the feature of ship radiated noise. After that, the characteristic parameters, namely, the energy difference between high and low frequency, permutation entropy, and multi-scale permutation entropy, are compared with the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy. It is discovered that the four characteristic parameters are at the same level for similar ships, however, there are differences in the parameters for different types of ships. The results demonstrate that the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy is better in separability as the characteristic parameter than the other three parameters by comparing their fluctuation ranges and the average values of the four characteristic parameters. Hence, the feature of ship radiated noise can be extracted efficiently with the method.

This paper explores in depth the mechanism of enterprise digital capability effects in supply chain digital development by reconstructing the supply chain cooperation capabilities (digital diffusion capability and digital collaborative capability). We use the questionnaire data covering 272 Chi-nese manufacturing enterprises and apply a structural equation model to test the hypothesis. The results show that enterprise digital capability does not directly have a significant impact on sup-ply chain digitalization, and the supply chain cooperation capabilities play mediation role be-tween enterprise digital capability and supply chain digitalization. The results are robust due to we thoroughly consider the action boundary of enterprise capabilities, and verify the systematic requirements of supply chain digitalization and the high-order of enterprise digital capability. These provide a theoretical basis for enterprises to promote the digital transformation of supply chain through digital technology.

We study L_2-approximation problems in the weighted Hilbert spaces in the worst case setting. Three interesting weighted Hilbert spaces appear in this paper, whose weights are equipped with two positive parameters $\ga_j$ and $\az_j$ for $j=1,\,2,\dots,\,d$. We consider the worst case error of algorithms that use finitely many arbitrary continuous linear functionals. We discuss the exponential convergence-(t,s)-weak tractability (EC-(t,s)-WT) of these L_2-approximation problems under the absolute or normalized error criterion. In particular, we obtain the sufficient and necessary conditions for EC-(1,1)-WT and EC-(t,1)-WT with t

The monocular structured light measurement system has low cost, simple algorithms, and a wide measurement range, making it widely applicable in multiple fields. However, in practical applications, the system may be affected by various factors including noise, non-linear intensity, changes in the reflectivity of the object being measured, and the calibration method and accuracy of the system, thereby reducing the measurement accuracy. In order to solve these issues, this paper proposes a new monocular structured light measurement method, mainly comprises the following two points: (a) A denoising algorithm for phase images based on DAE is proposed, which calculates the wrapped phase of the phase-shifted fringes after initial denoising by DAE. Then, a new phase-shifted fringe pattern is generated and input into DAE for iterative denoising, achieving high-performance image denoising and high-precision wrapped phase solution. (b) A new absolute phase height calibration algorithm is proposed, which introduces camera internal and external parameters and uses a two-layer feedforward network to directly establish the relationship between phase and the 3D coordinate system. Without the need for high-precision motion platforms, high-precision phase height calibration is attainable. In general, compared to conventional methods, the experimental results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method for low-quality phase-shifted fringe 3D reconstruction. In addition, the measurement method described in this article also demonstrates effectiveness in high-dynamic scenes.

It is well known that dietary choices impact both individual and global health. However, there are numerous challenges at the personal and systemic level to fostering sustainable healthy eating patterns. These barriers have emphasized the need for innovative approaches within minority communities, particularly those facing food insecurity, to help translate dietary recommenda-tions into practice. Food as Medicine is an approach that recognizes the potential to alleviate the burden of chronic diseases through a healthy diet that is customized to meet the needs of the indi-vidual. Key to implementing this approach are teaching kitchens, which offer an interactive envi-ronment for learning nutrition and cooking skills. Their curriculums are often rooted in Food as Medicine as well as Culinary Medicine, a similar approach. We have found that motivational in-terviewing (MI) techniques, which are primarily used to facilitate behavior change, are well-suited for implementing and maintaining dietary modification. In this commentary, we show how this has been done in a community-based teaching kitchen to empower individuals to make informed and sustainable dietary choices. In demonstrating the application of MI principles in this setting, we hope to offer an inclusive and sustainable way to help address the urgent need for healthier eating and its role in building healthier communities.

PPR is a highly contagious viral disease and one of the deadliest affecting wild goats, sheep and small ruminants, however goats are generally more sensitive. The causative agent is the Peste des Petits Ruminants virus (PPRv) which is a single-stranded RNA virus of negative polarity belonging to the Paramyxoviridae family. In February 2020, an active outbreak of PPR was re-ported in a herd of a transhumant farmer in the village of Ngainth Pathé (department of Kounguel, Kaffrine region,Senegal). Of the ten (10) swabs collected from goats, eight (8) came back positive by real-time PCR. The most positive sample was amplified, purified and amplicon sent for sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the sequence of the PPR virus obtained belonged to lineage IV. These results confirm those found in the latter countries and reinforce the hypothesis of the importance of animal mobility between these neighboring countries. In perspective, following the discovery of this lineage IV in Senegal, a study on its dispersion is underway throughout the national territory. The results that will emerge from this study, asso-ciated with detailed data on animal movements and epidemiological data, will provide appro-priate and effective information to improve PPR surveillance and control strategies with a view to its eradication.

Abstract In order to solve the problem that it is difficult to obtain the accurate trigger signal moment when using the time difference of UAV flight acoustic signals collected by acoustic sensors arranged in advance to locate the position of UAVs when they cannot be tracked by radar and are difficult to be observed by the human eye, an acoustic source localisation method with improved empirical modal decomposition (REMD) under an adaptive frequency window is proposed. Firstly, the collected UAV flight signals are smoothed and filtered, then the robust empirical modal decomposition (REMD) is used for IMF modal decomposition and spectral analysis of the collected signals, and a panning frequency window with variable bandwidth is introduced for corresponding frequency locking and extracting the IMFs; the GWO optimisation is used and the sliding metrics are set to determine the position of the panning frequency window automatically; finally, the extracted Finally, the extracted IMF components are reconstructed according to the criterion, and the trigger signal moments in the reconstructed IMF components are resolved and recorded, and the algorithm is used to calculate the difference between the reception moments of different sensors; for the traditional sound source localisation algorithms with a small detection range, which are prone to fall into the no-solution or false-solution, i.e., unable to achieve the localisation, a weighted least-squares-based Chan-Taylor algorithm is proposed for the localisation computation, and a weighted least-squares algorithm is proposed for the localisation computation, through the Inputting the sensor delay parameter and solving the linear equation system to get the target position information; finally, this paper verifies the robustness and performance of the design method with simulated and actual signals. The results show that the maximum positioning error is no more than 5% in an area with a side length of 15m in the measurement area. With the improved accuracy of time delay estimation, the positioning simulation results meet the positioning requirements even though the positioning error is further expanded when the measurement area is further expanded.

Protein Contact Network (PCN) is an emerging paradigm for modelling protein structure. A common approach to interpreting such data is through network-based analyses. It has been shown that clustering analysis may discover allostery in PCN. Nevertheless Network Embedding has shown good performances in discovering hidden communities and structures in network. In this work, we compare some approaches for graph embedding with respect to some classical clustering approaches for annotating protein structures.

In order to correct attenuated millimeter-wavelength (Ka-band) radar data and address the problem of instability, an attenuation correction methodology (attenuation correction with variation trend constraint; VTC) was developed. Using synchronous observation conditions and multi-band radars, the VTC method adopts the variation trends of reflectivity in X-band radar data captured with wavelet transform as a constraint to adjust reflectivity factors of millimeter-wavelength radar. The correction was evaluated by comparing reflectivities obtained by millimeter-wavelength cloud radar and X-band weather radar. Experiments showed that attenuation was a major contributory factor in the different reflectivities of the two radars when relatively intense echoes exist, and the attenuation correction developed in this study significantly improved data quality for millimeter-wavelength radar. Reflectivity differences between the two radars were reduced and reflectivity correlations were enhanced. Errors caused by attenuation were eliminated, while variation details in the reflectivity factors were retained. The VTC method is superior to the bin-by-bin method in terms of correction amplitude and can be used for attenuation correction of shorter wavelength radar assisted by longer wavelength radar data.

Electrical remodelling as a result of the homeodomain transcription factor 2 (Pitx2)‐dependent gene regulation was linked to atrial fibrillation (AF) and AF patients with single nucleotide polymorphisms at chromosome 4q25 responded favorably to Class I antiarrhythmic drugs (AADs). The possible reasons behind this remain elusive. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of AADs disopyramide, quinidine, and propafenone on human atrial arrhythmias mediated by Pitx2-induced remodelling, from a single cell to the tissue level, using drug binding models with multi-channel pharmacology. Experimentally calibrated populations of human atrial action potential (AP) models in both sinus rhythm (SR) and Pitx2-induced AF conditions were constructed by using two distinct models to represent morphological subtypes of AP. Multi-channel pharmacological effects of disopyramide, quinidine, and propafenone on ionic currents were considered. Simulated results showed that Pitx2-induced remodelling increased maximum upstroke velocity (dVdtmax) and conduction velocity (CV), and decreased AP duration (APD) and wavelength (WL). At the concentrations tested in this study, these AADs decreased dVdtmax and CV and prolonged APD in the setting of Pitx2-induced AF. Our findings of alterations in WL indicated that quinidine and disopyramide may be more effective against Pitx2-induced AF than propafenone by prolonging WL.

Bandsaw blades are typical band-shaped cutting tools characterized by low stiffness and micro-level cutting depth, resulting in distinct wear mechanisms compared to rigid cutting tools. In this study, the wear curve and wear mechanisms of bandsaw tooth during the bandsawing of Cr12MoV cold-working steel was investigated. The tool life was divided into two stages: a rapid wear stage (Stage I) and a homogeneous wear stage (Stage II). In Stage I, the wear was dominated by chipping although multiple wear mechanisms were found due to the relatively poor manufacturing accuracy compared to rigid cutting tools, which results in remarkable differences among the cutting depths of individual teeth. In Stage II, abrasive and adhesive wear were the primary wear mechanisms instead of chipping, which was related to the microstructure of Cr12MoV. Furthermore, methods for increasing the bandsaw performance were proposed based on the tooth wear mechanisms.

Brand trust holds significant importance in the Mongolian cashmere industry. This study examines the primary predictors of customer brand trust among Mongolian cashmere users. Our research includes a survey with 800 participants and 20 individual interviews conducted among both Mongolian cashmere users and non-users. We utilized an online platform to reach participants, employing convenience sampling. The study investigates the relationship between various factors and brand trust within the context of Mongolian cashmere brands. Through a combination of in-dividual interviews and statistical analysis, we test six hypotheses. The findings indicate that higher brand quality, a strong reputation, greater transparency, effective issue resolution, commitment to environmental and social responsibility, and pre-purchase research on such commitments positively impact brand trust. Key insights gleaned from the interviews emphasize the importance of quality, reputation, transparency, customer service, and environmental responsibility in shaping consumer trust. These results offer valuable implications for cashmere brands aiming to bolster consumer trust and foster loyalty.