In this paper we will present a simplified approach for extracting the ground level – a digital terrain model (DTM) – from the surface provided in a digital surface model (DSM). Most existing algorithms try to find the ground values in a digital surface model. Our approach works the opposite direction by detecting probable above ground areas. The main advantage of our approach is the possibility to use it with incomplete DSMs containing much no data values which can be e.g. occlusions in the calculated DSM. A smoothing or filling of such original derived DSMs will destroy much information which is very useful for deriving a ground surface from the DSM. Since the presented approach needs steep edges to detect potential high objects it will fail on smoothed and filled DSMs. After presenting the algorithm it will be applied to a test area in Salzburg and compared to a terrain model freely available from the Austrian government.

Throughout history, the unique Dacian landscape has aroused the imagination of many. For decades, researchers have been fascinated by the magnificent structures the Dacians built and how they altered the mountains to their advantage. Dacian sites, despite their grandeur, remain mostly unknown due to their position deep within Romania's vast forests, generally in remote regions and hidden from the naked eye. Ground exploration in densely forested mountain regions is extremely difficult, and even if such campaigns existed, they would be insufficient to provide a comprehensive picture of the Dacian world. The lack of high-resolution remote-sensing data for wide areas made big-scale assessments of the landscape impractical. This is about to change, as new large datasets of LiDAR-derived digital elevation models, covering the entire heart of Dacian world, are now freely available. This paper reports on one of the most recent freely available LiDAR-based high-resolution digital elevation models in Romania, its impact on Romanian mountain archaeology, and how this can shape future research directions in understanding the Dacian landscape.

Background:Caregiving for individuals with neurological disease involves providing physical, emotional, and social support, which can be a challenging and stressful experience. This study aims to compare the caregivers' burden, including the impact on mental and physical health, social support, and quality of life, in different neurodegenerative disorders. Methods:Fifty-five primary caregivers (F=41;mean age=53.07±12.29) of patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD=26), Multiple System Atrophy (MSA=16), and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS=13), took part in the study. Standardized screening scales for the quality of life (EQ-5D/EQ-VAS and PQoL), levels of the caregiving burden (CBI and FSQ), and the assessment of the anxiety-depressive axis (HADS) were administered. Results: The mean CBI score was higher for caregivers of MSA patients (28.81±21.90) and ALS (25.15±16.23) than for caregivers of PD patients (16.08±10.34; p=0.036). Critical burden (cut-off>36) was present in the caregivers of MSA (31.3%), ALS (23.1%), and PD (19.2%) patients. Caregivers of patients with ALS had a worse perception of quality of life (EQ-5D total score) than caregivers of patients with MSA and PD (p

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

In mesoscale eddies, chemical properties and biological composition are different from those in surrounding water, due to their unique physical processes. It is unclear how physical-biological coupling occurs in warm-core eddies, particularly since no study has examined the relationship between bacteria and viruses. The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of anticyclonic warm eddy on the relationship between bacterial and viral abundances as well as viral activity (viral production) in different depths. In the core of warm eddy, bacterial abundance (0.48 to 2.82 ×105 cells mL−1) fluctuated less than that of the outside eddy (1.12 to 7.03×105 cells mL−1). In particular, there was four-folds higher of viral-bacterial abundance ratio (VBR) estimated within the eddy below DCM than the outside eddy. We suggest that prevailing physical forces with downwelling at the center of the anticyclonic warm eddy, viruses can also be transmitted into the deep ocean directly through adsorption on particulate organic matter during sinking. Overall, our findings provide valuable insights into the interaction between bacterial and viral communities and their ecological mechanism within the warm eddy.

Two interesting compounds such as quaternary ammonium lignin(QAL) and 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester (P507) were synthesized as ionic liquids(QP-ILs) for the extraction of metal ions. The extraction behavior of Co(II) and Ni(II) from chloride solution was compared between QP-ILs and P507. The results showed that the extraction rates of Co(II) and Ni(II) in the two solutions varied with the extraction conditions, but QP-ILs has stronger extractability for cobalt than P507, while Ni is on the contrary. Under the same conditions, the Co/Ni separation performance(βCo/Ni) in QP-ILs is superior to that in p507. At pH4.0, 55℃, concentration of 20%, extraction time of 10 minutes, the βCo/Ni of QP-ILs reached to 2703, while that of P507 was only 164. In conclusion, QP-ILs was more efficient than P507 for separating Co from mixed solutions.

Although a growing number of evidence emphasizes superior of VATS over conventional thoracotomy, still is little known about early postoperative diaphragm muscle function after lobectomy via these two approahces. To fill the gap in existing literature, we conducted comparative study between VATS and conventional thoracotomy in terms of postoperative diaphragm muscle function, assessing its contractility, strength, magnitude of effort and potential risk of dysfunction such as: atrophy and paralysis. A total of 59 patients (30 after VATS), who underwent anatomical pulmonary resection at our institution, were enrolled into this study. The control group was consisted of 28 health subjects without medical condition could contribute to diaphragm dysfunction. Diaphragm muscle was assessed before and after surgery using ultrasonography. We found that both surgical approaches were associated with postoperative impairment of diaphragm muscle function - compared to baseline data. Postoperative reduction of diaphragm contraction was demonstrated in all of 59 patients. In case of control group, the differences between measurements were no observed. We noted that lobectomy via thoracotomy was linked with greater percentage of patients with diaphragm paralysis or/and atrophy that VATS. Similar findings were observed in refer to diaphragm magnitude effort, as well as, diaphragm contraction strength, where minimal invasive surgery was associated with better diaphragm function parameters - in comparison to thoracotomy. Disturbance of diaphragm work was reported both at operated and non-operated side. Upper right and left lobectomy was connected with greater diaphragm function impairment than other segments. In conclusion, VATS technique seems to be less invasive than conventional thoracotomy providing a better postoperative function of a main respiratory muscle.

Taiwan developing offshore wind power to promote green energy and self-electricity production. In this study, a Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) was set up at Chang-Hua development zone one on the sea and 10km away from the seashore. At Lidar location, WRF (3.33km & 2km grid lengths) model and WAsP were used to simulate the wind speed at various elevations. Three days mean wind speed of simulated results were compared with Lidar data. From the four wind data sets, developed five different comparisons to find an error% and R-Squared values. Comparison between WAsP and Floating Lidar was shown good consistency. Lukang meteorological station 10 years wind observations at 5m height were used for wind farm energy predictions. The yearly variation of energy predictions of traditional and TGC wind farm layouts are compared under purely neutral and stable condition. The one-year cycle average surface heat flux over the Taiwan Strait is negative (-72.5 (W/m2) and 157.13 STD), which represents stable condition. At stable condition TGC (92.39%) and 600(92.44%), wind farms were shown higher efficiency. The Fuhai met mast wind data was used to estimate roughness length and power law exponent. The average roughness lengths are very small and unstable atmosphere.

Depressions containing partially molten rocks were investigated in Quaternary pebbly sedi-ments in Alpine foreland in Bavaria, Germany. Ruins of limekilns from 18-19th centuries are abundant around Seeshaupt. They are usually associated with earthworks for fuel feeding and protection from wind. Depressions contain partially molten stones from furnace walls, with lime and burnt loam remnants. On the surface of pebbles (typically gneisses), green glass formed with chemical composition possibly affected by moderately volatile components of wood biomass, mainly K and Cu. Thermoplastic deformation of pebbles is limited and the sur-face melt deformation points to slow flow. At Emmerting, on the other hand, two walled circu-lar depressions which lack additional earthworks have been identified as possible impact cra-ters. Thermally affected pebbles show much more intense deformation. Colorless to greenish glass, also K and Cu enriched, usually forms only thin surface coatings, in places covered by younger melt extruded from pebble interior. Burnt loam is missing. At Grabenstätt-Kaltenbach, a depression of unclear origin was investigated. Morphologically, it matches craters rather than limekilns, but anthropogenic contamination (brick-like material) is probable. The rare molten samples do not display extreme deformation features. The thermally affected stones, mainly those from Emmerting, have elevated magnetic susceptibility.

The study assessed the trapping efficacy of locally-modified 1) Gravid Aedes Trap(GAT) lined with insecticide-treated net (ITN) as a killing agent, 2) Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap(AGO) with sticky board in the semi-field system (SFS) and field setting. Fully-balanced Latin square experiments were conducted to compare GAT lined with ITN vs AGO, both with either yeast or grass infusion. Biogents-Sentinel (BGS) with BG-Lure and no CO2 was used as standard trap for Aedes mosquitoes. In the SFS, GAT outperformed AGO in collecting both nulliparous (65% vs 49%,OR=2.22,[95%CI:1.89-2.60],p

Effective agricultural management in maize production operations starts with the early quantification of seedlings. Accurately determining plant presence allows growers to optimize planting density, allocate resources, and detect potential growth issues early on. This study presents an in-depth analysis of multiple object detection models used by drones to count maize seedlings, while concurrently investigating the influence of planting density, flight altitude, and plant growth stage. The findings of this study demonstrate that one-stage models are able to more accurately detect maize seedlings than two-stage models. In particular, YOLOv8n exhibits outstanding performance, achieving an F1-score of over 0.92 under various density conditions and maintaining a stable performance, especially under densities below 105,000 plants/ha. Additionally, planting density and growth stage were observed to significantly affect detection accuracy, with performance declining as density and growth stage increased. Image resolution and detection were impacted by flight altitude, with lower flights producing higher-quality results. Ultimately, YOLOv8n displays optimal performance under various conditions, providing crucial data to support intelligent decision-making. This research offers valuable insights into the application of object detection technology and provides a basis for the future development of precision agriculture.

This study compared the efficacy of alfaxalone and propofol to induce anesthesia in bitches undergoing an ovariohysterectomy or cesarean sections. 34 healthy and pyometra-affected females were induced with IV propofol administration, 35 healthy and pyometra-affected bitches were induced with the IV administration of alfaxalone. For the cesarean sections, females were induced with propofol (n=14) or alfaxalone (n=14). Maternal physiological parameters (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature) were recorded throughout surgeries; the viability and a modified Apgar score was recorded in the neonates at 5, 60 and 120 minutes after delivery. The use of propofol and alfaxalone did not show relevant differences over parameters assessed, when ovariohysterectomy was performed in healthy bitches or females with pyometra, as well as when cesarean sections were compared; only, a transient tachycardia appeared after alfaxalone administration. However, a higher percentage of bitches needed extra-doses of propofol. Neonatal mortality was similar between both groups, but when alfaxalone was used a higher neonatal viability was observed. Propofol and alfaxalone showed similar efficacy to perform the ovariohysterectomy in all bitches. Both protocols were optimal for cesarean sections, but alfaxalone was associated with a higher neonatal viability and a higher neonatal survival rate.

This study introduces and demonstrates a comprehensive, accurate, unbiased approach to robust quantitative comparison of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) appropriate for establishing substantial equivalence (or lack thereof) between tobacco products. The approach is demonstrated across a family of thirteen pen- and pod-style ENDS products. Methods employed consist of formulating a robust emissions surface regression model, quantifying the empirical accuracy of the model as applied to each product, evaluating relationships between product design characteristics and maximum emissions characteristics, and presenting results in formats useful to researchers, regulators, and consumers. Results provide a response surface to characterize emissions (total particulate matter and constituents thereof) from each ENDS appropriate for use in a computer model and for conducting quantitative exposure comparisons between products. Results demonstrate that emissions vary as a function of puff duration, flow rate, E-Liquid composition, and device operating power. Further, results indicate that regulating design characteristics of ENDS devices and consumables may not achieve desired public health outcomes; it is more effective to regulate maximum permissible emissions directly. Three emissions outcome measures (yield per puff, mass concentration and constituent mass ratio) are recommended for adoption as standard quantities for reporting by manufacturers and research laboratories. The approach provides a means of (a) quantifying and comparing maximal emissions from ENDS products spanning their entire operating envelope, (b) comparative evaluation of ENDS devices and consumable design characteristics, and (c) establishing comparative equivalence of maximal emissions from ENDS. A consumer-oriented product emissions dashboard is proposed for comparative evaluation of ENDS exposure potential. Maximum achievable power dissipated in the coil of ENDS is identified as a potentially effective regulatory parameter.

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

Within the spectra of lanthanide atoms quite often overlapping spectral lines (blends) are observed. On the example of complicated blend situations within Pr I and La I it is shown that in such cases a combination of optogalvanic and laser-induced fluorescence detection is necessary to find all transitions contributing to the observed spectral signature.

As the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance genes is increasing in microbes, we are facing the return of the preantibiotic era. Consecutively, the number of studies concerning antibiotic resistance and its spread in the environment is rapidly growing. Next generation sequencing technologies are widespread used in many areas of biological research and antibiotic resistance is no exception. For the rapid annotation of whole genome sequencing and metagenomic results considering antibiotic resistance, several tools and data resources were developed. These databases, however can differ fundamentally in the number and type of genes and resistance determinants they comprise. Furthermore, the annotation structure and metadata stored in these resources can also contribute to their differences. Several previous reviews were published on the tools and databases of resistance gene annotation, however, to our knowledge, no previous review focused solely and in depth on the differences in the databases. In this review, we compare the most well-known and widely used antibiotic resistance gene databases based on their structure and content. We believe that this knowledge is fundamental for selecting the most appropriate database for a research question and for the development of new tools and resources of resistance gene annotation.

This paper presents the methods of estimating the mean square error of hydrological forecasts, allowing for assessment of their practical applicability. Depending upon the amount and composition of available hydrometeorological data, an appropriate method for forecast error estimation is chosen. A system of statistical tests for comparison of different forecasting methods for the same hydrologic characteristic with the same lead time is presented. These tests allow for choosing an optimal and most accurate forecasting method. Hydrological forecasting method efficiency estimation is based on comparing the forecast error with climatology or inertial (persistence) forecast error using presented tests.

Objectives: We compared housing and the eating habits of Roma. Contemporary findings (2013) were compared with those from the first monothematic work on Roma (1775) depicting their housing and eating habits. Methods: Data come from a journal (1775) and from semi-structured interviews (2013) with more than 70 Roma women and men who live segregated in excluded settlements at the edges of villages or scattered among the majority. Data were collected in two villages and one district town in the Tatra region, where data from the 1775 measurements originate. We used classical sociological theory and new ethnography to interpret the obtained data. Results: The main findings showed differences between specific social classes then and now regarding housing as well as eating habits, related to both conditions among Roma in the Tatra. The national Roma foods gója or marikľa are traditional foods of Slovak ancestors living in poverty in the country. The houses of Roma do not greatly differ from those of the majority. Conclusions: We conclude that life strategies of the citizens of poor settlements now are similar to two centuries ago, typical for the culture of poverty in various countries of the world even after the centuries.

(1) Background: Tooth extraction is one of the oldest and most well-known surgical procedures in dental medicine. It is still routinely performed to date by both general practitioners, oral surgeons, and dental undergraduates. The Benex extraction system allows for the extraction of teeth in vertical direction, which avoids most trauma against the surrounding alveolar bone and soft tissues; (2) Methods: The study included 56 patients who were recruited from the department of Oral Surgery at the Faculty of Dental Medicine, Medical University – Plovdiv. Patients were divided into two groups of 28 patients – Group I (control group) and Group II (study group). For each group the success of the extraction, buccal cortical plate preservation, pain experience and early wound healing were assessed; (3) Results: There was no statistical significance between the success of the extractions in both groups. The Benex extractions preserved the buccal cortical plate in 95% of the cases, whereas the forceps extractions only in 71.8%, which shows a statistical significance. On the seventh day patients in group II reported less pain, without a significant difference. There was a significantly bigger number of completely healed extraction wounds on the 10th day; (4) Conclusions: Atraumatic extractions allow for more hard and soft tissues to be preserved in the extraction site. This is all crucial for the successful outcome and aesthetically pleasing results of a following prosthetic or implant restoration.

This computational research study will compare the specific charge capacity (SCC) between lithium ions inserted into crystallize silicon (c-Si) nanowires versus sodium ions inserted into amorphous silicon (a-Si) nanowires. It will be demonstrated that the potential energy V(r) within the lithium-silicon nanowire supports a coherent energy state model with discrete electron particles while the sodium-silicon nanowire potential energy will be discovered to be essentially zero and thus the electron current that travels through the sodiated silicon nanowire will be modeled as free electron with wave-like characteristics. This is due to the vast differences in the electric fields of the lithiated and sodiated silicon nanowires where the electric fields are of the order of 1e10 V/m and 1e-15 V/m respectively. The main reason for the great disparity in electric fields are due to the present of optical amplification within lithium ions and the absence of this process within sodium ions. It will be shown that optical amplification develops coherent optical interactions which is the primary reason for the surge of specific charge capacity in the lithiated silicon nanowire. Conversely, the lack of optical amplification is the reason for the incoherent optical interactions within sodium ions which is the reason for the low presence of SCC in sodiated silicon nanowires.

The conceptual and theoretical backbones of symmetry/asymmetry detections or similarity/dissimilarity, and identity/unidentity study are automorphism or isomorphism respectively. However, the development of equations and methods for symmetry/asymmetry detections, similarity/dissimilarity, and identity/unidentity measures deviates from these backbones. In this article, an equation was proposed for symmetry/asymmetry detections, similarity/dissimilarity, and identity/unidentity measures, and proved that its isoreflective pairs-points are functionally bijective and inverse. The proposal, called Kabirian-based optinalysis, is based on the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of automorphism and isomorphism. The Kabirian-based optinalysis is also proven and characterized as invariant (robust) under translation (i.e., scaling and location shift), and rotation or reflection. Computing codes were written in python language for Kabirian-based optinalysis to serve as working codes for application and verification.

Clustering, or otherwise known as cluster analysis, is a learning problem that takes place without any human supervision. This technique has often been utilized, much efficiently, in data analysis, and serves for observing and identifying interesting, useful, or desired patterns in the said data. The clustering technique functions by performing a structured division of the data involved, in similar objects based on the characteristics that it identifies. This process results in the formation of groups, and each group that is formed, is called a cluster. A single said cluster consists of objects from the data, that have similarities among other objects found in the same cluster, and resemble differences when compared to objects identified from the data that now exist in other clusters. The process of clustering is very significant in various aspects of data analysis, as it determines and presents the intrinsic grouping of objects present in the data, based on their attributes, in a batch of unlabeled raw data. A textbook or otherwise said, good criteria, does not exist in this method of cluster analysis. That is because this process is so different and so customizable for every user, that needs it in his/her various and different needs. There is no outright best clustering algorithm, as it massively depends on the user’s scenario and needs. This paper is intended to compare and study two different clustering algorithms. The algorithms under investigation are k-mean and mean shift. These algorithms are compared according to the following factors: time complexity, training, prediction performance and accuracy of the clustering algorithms.

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.

Meteorological drought indicators are commonly used for agricultural drought contingency planning in Ethiopia. Agricultural droughts arise due to soil moisture deficits. While these deficits may be caused by meteorological droughts, the timing and duration of agricultural droughts need not coincide with the onset of meteorological droughts due to soil moisture buffering. Similarly, agricultural droughts can persist even after the cessation of meteorological droughts due to delayed hydrologic processes. Understanding the relationship between meteorological and agricultural droughts is therefore crucial. An evaluation framework was developed to compare meteorological and agricultural droughts using a suite of exploratory and confirmatory tools. Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) was used to understand the covariation of meteorological and agricultural droughts. Comparisons were carried out between SPI-2, SPEI-2 and Palmer Z-index to assess intra-seasonal droughts and between SPI-6, SPEI-6 and PDSI for full-season evaluations. SPI was seen to correlate well with selected agricultural drought indicators but did not explain all the variability noted in agricultural droughts. The relationships between meteorological and agricultural droughts exhibited spatial variability which varied across indicators. SPI is better suited to predict non-agricultural drought states more so than agricultural drought states. Differences between agricultural and meteorological droughts must be accounted for better drought-preparedness planning.

In this paper, different cryptography algorithms were reviewed, and their relative merits were discussed. Symmetric and asymmetric cryptography algorithms were compared for time and space efficiencies. These experiments were run to measure the execution time and the memory footprints of various algorithms to understand the implications of their real-life applications. In the experiment performed, it was observed that elliptic curve cryptography was the most efficient in terms of encryption/decryption time, as well as memory usage.

This study compared condylar volume, length, and articular eminence (AE) characteristics in normal individuals and those with unilateral and bilateral juvenile idiopathic osteoarthritis (JOA). The 116 patients were divided into four groups: control (n=16), affected condyle of unilateral JOA (Aff-Uni) (n=36), non-affected condyle of JOA (NonAff-uni) (n=36), and bilateral JOA (Bi-JOA) (n=28). Volume and length differences in the condyle and AE were analyzed using ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc tests. The results showed that Bi-JOA had significantly different condylar volume, especially in the condylar head (p<0.01), specifically the middle, anterior, and medial parts (p<0.05). Condylar length also differed among the groups, with differences observed between the control group and the other three groups, as well as between the bilateral group and the other three groups (p<0.01). AE total volume differed between the control group and Aff-Uni. In the detailed comparison, Aff-Uni and NonAff-Uni were smaller than the control group in the posterior, lateral, and medial sections (p<0.05). In conclusion, depending on the involvement of unilateral or bilateral JOA, there were differences in condylar volume and AE compared to the normal control group. Therefore, prognosis should be evaluated by distinguishing between patients with unilateral and bilateral JOA.

The mutation databases have vital importance in detecting genetic mutation and their corresponding phenotypes. The emergence of next generation sequencing genetic technologies has accelerated this process, and the growth of genetic disease identification has created a need for quality control and documentation of mutation-related information. Ethnic-specific mutation databases offer valuable information for researchers, and the article evaluates the homogeneity and effectiveness of these databases. The aim to raise awareness of NEMDBs to healthcare professionals, the general public, and researchers studying genetic disorders. The article also recommendations to improve the effectiveness of these databases.

This research aimed to compare the measurements recorded by a traditional PCI technology biometer (Partial Coherence Interferometry) and by a SS-OCT (Swept Source Optical Coherence Tomography) technology machine in preoperative screening of patients with age-related cataract. Optical biometry was performed with the IOLMaster 500 (version 5.5, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Germany) and the ANTERION (Heidelberg Engineering, Germany) in a total sample of 144 eyes, from 80 patients, (37 men and 43 women), with a mean age of 70.54 ± 0.739 years (range: 45-89 years) and the values of the Axial Length (AL), two meridians of the cornea (Kf, Kflat and Ks, Ksteep), astigmatism (Ast) as well as the Anterior Chamber Depth (ACD) were compared with the program IBM SPSS Statistics 27. The IOLMaster500 and ANTERION devices did not have statistically significant differences in terms of axial length and flat corneal meridian Kf, while they differed statistically significantly in terms of steep corneal meridian Ks, astigmatism and anterior chamber depth. This study suggests that a thorough pre-operative check must be performed, sometimes with more than one device, aiming at greater accuracy in the measurements of the ocular biometrics, so that we achieve more successful postoperative outcomes and ultimately more satisfied patients.

Measuring reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is a difficult and costly process. Several parameters are needed to calculate it from meteorological parameters with the aid of some developed equations. There may be variable microclimates in some regions and these are often quite far from the climate stations. Therefore, for ETo, it is better to prefer local measurements rather than relying on regional values. ETo is of great importance for all water-related sectors. It is the primary factor designating the amount of irrigation water to be applied to the plant rootzone in agricultural activities. The amount of irrigation water to be applied is determined by correcting ETo value with the plant coefficient (kc) and irrigation efficiency. There have been many developments in measurement/calculation of ETo in recent years and it is expected that there will be more in the future. Within the scope of this study, ETo values measured with ETgage equipment were compared with the monthly ETo values calculated with the use of Thornthwaite, Blaney-Criddle, Cropwat (FAO Penman Monteith), Jensen-Haise and ASCE standardized Penman Monteith (ASCE SZ PM) methods. In terms of total ETo value, Thornthwaite (17%) and Jensen-Haise (14%) methods yielded lower values than ETgage readings. On the other hand, Blaney-Criddle (15%), Cropwat FAO PM (10%) and ASCE SZ PM (30%) methods yielded greater values than ETgage readings. Among the calculation methods, in Cropwat software, FAO PM equation yielded the closest value to ETgage readings. It was concluded based on present findings that ETgage equipment could reliably be used in determination of ETo.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive brain cancer. To model GBM in research, orthotopic brain tumor models, including syngeneic models like GL261 and genetically engineered mouse models like TRP, are used. In longitudinal studies, tumor growth and treatment response are typ-ically tracked with in vivo imaging, including bioluminescence imaging (BLI), which is quick, cost-effective, and easily quantifiable. However, BLI requires luciferase-tagged cells, and recent studies indicate that the luciferase gene can elicit an immune response, leading to tumor rejection and experimental variation. We sought to optimize the engraftment of two luciferase-expressing GBM models, GL261 Red-FLuc and TRP-mCherry-FLuc, showing differences in tumor take, with GL261 Red-FLuc cells requiring immunocompromised mice for 100% engraftment. Immuno-histochemistry and MRI revealed distinct tumor characteristics: GL261 Red-FLuc tumors were well-demarcated with densely packed cells, high mitotic activity, and vascularization. In con-trast, TRP-mCherry-FLuc tumors were large, invasive, and necrotic, with perivascular invasion. Quantifying tumor volume using the HALO® AI analysis platform yielded results comparable to manual measurements, providing a standardized and efficient approach for reliable high-throughput analysis of luciferase-expressing tumors. Our study highlights the importance of considering tumor engraftment when using luciferase-expressing GBM models, providing in-sights for preclinical research design.

In recent years, an interest in multimedia services has grown expeditiously where the main part is comprised of video. Firms as well as subscribers require higher resolutions, framerates and sampling precision which results to higher amount of data need for processing, storing and transmitting. Therefore, a big challenge arises for researchers to develop new compression standards which should reduce the huge amount of data and keep quality at the same level. This paper examines compression performance of the latest and currently most used video codecs, namely H.266/VVC, AV1, H265/HEVC and H.264/AVC. The test set consists of seven sequences with various content at 8K, Ultra HD and Full HD resolution and encoded to bitrates from 1 to 15 Mbps for Full HD and Ultra HD resolutions and from 5 to 50 Mbps for 8K resolution, respectively. Codec performance was measured using PSNR, SSIM and VMAF objective quality metrics. In terms of the Bjøntegaard-Delta (BD) model, the results showed that H.266/VVC outperforms all other codecs, namely H.264/AVC,H.265/HEVC and AV1, respectively. Averaged bitrate savings were approximately 78\% for H.266/VVC, 63\% for AV1 and 53\% for H.265/HEVC relative to H.264/AVC, 59\% for H.266/VVC, 22\% for AV1 compared to H.264/AVC and 46\% for H.266/VVC relative to AV1, all for 8K resolution. The results also showed that the performance varies depending on resolution – with higher resolution, the efficiency of newly developed codecs such as H.266/VVC and AV1 is greater, which confirmed the fact that the H.266/VVC and AV1 codecs have been primarily developed for videos at high resolutions as 8K and/or UHD.

Pulmonary infections with Mycobacterium avium occur in susceptible individuals following exposure to the bacterium in the environment, where it often persists in biofilms. Many methods have been used to generate biofilms of M. avium, and it is unknown whether different approaches generate similar structures and cell phenotypes. To make a parallel comparison of in vitro biofilm ultrastructure, extracellular matrix (ECM) composition, and drug susceptibility of biofilm resident bacteria, we used two published methods to generate M. avium biofilms: four week incubation in M63 medium or 24 hour exposure to dithiothreitol (DTT). Scanning electron microscopy revealed differences in biofilm ultrastructure between the two methods, including variation in appearance of ECM materials and morphology of resident cells, while light microscopy and staining with calcofluor white indicated that both biofilms contained polysaccharides characteristic of cellulose. Measuring susceptibility of biofilms to degradation by enzymes suggested differences in structurally important ECM molecules, with DTT biofilms having important protein and, to a lesser extent, cellulose components, and M63 biofilms having moderate protein, cellulose, and DNA components. Both biofilms conferred resistance to the bactericidal effects of amikacin and clarithromycin, with resident cells being killed at >10-fold lower rates than planktonic cells at almost all concentrations. Though these comparisons indicate differences in biofilm responses by M. avium under differing conditions, they also suggest common features of biofilm formation including cellulose production and antimicrobial resistance.

This paper begins with an introduction to porcelain tiles. A review of the major scientific and technological features of the mullite−based porcelain tile (MPT) and anorthite−based porcelain tile (APT), focusing primarily on the raw material, processing, phase evolution and mechanical behavior, is then presented. Based on the porcelain tile firing behavior and a series of physical and chemical changes that can occur, a comprehensive comparison is described. In the last part, the prospects for further developments related to MPT and APT are discussed.

Multimodal user interfaces hold the promise to enable natural and intuitive means of human-machine interaction. But is the effort of using many sensors rewarded by the users - or is a single modality sufficient? For an industrial use case of a weld seam inspection workstation we study three independent interfaces (augmented spatial button interaction on (1) a workpiece or (2) a worktable and through (3) speech commands) and their combination (4). While users preferred the interaction on the augmented worktable when comparing single modalities, they used all three in multimodal user interface. From the isolated test of an input modality it is not possible to infer its use in a complex system. Therefore, the effort implementing and using multiple input modalities is reasonable.

A correctly obtained Land-use/land-cover (LULC) prediction map is essential to under-standing and assessing future patterns. In the study, the LULC map of Urmia/Iran in 2030 was produced using two different prediction methods CA-Markov and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). In general, the study followed a methodology consisting of three steps. In the first steps, Landsat satellite images acquired in 2000, 2010 and 2020 were classified with maximum likelihood algorithm and LULC maps were prepared for each year. In the second stage, to investigate the LULC prediction methods' validation (CA-Markov and ANN) the LULC prediction map of 2020 was produced using the LULC map of 2000 and 2010; In this step, the predicted LULC map of 2020 and the actual LULC map of 2020 were evaluated by correctness, completeness and quality indexes. Finally, The LULC map for 2030 was prepared using all two algorithms and the change map was extracted. The results show that the area of soil and vegetation decreased, and built-up regions increased during the research period. The methods validation results show that the two algorithms are much closer to each other. Nevertheless, in general, ANN has the highest completeness (96.21%) and quality (93.8%) and CA-Markov the most correctness (96.47). This study shows that the CA-Markov algorithm is most successful in predicting the future that had larger areas and a higher percentage in the region (urban and vegetation cover) and the ANN algorithm in predicting phenomena that had smaller levels with fewer percentages (soil and rock).

It is unclear whether military shoes (combat boots and sports shoes) attenuate loading rate or affect force transfer during walking. Therefore, this study compared ground reaction forces (GRF) related to impact and force transfer between combat boots, military sports shoes and running shoes. Ten army recruits walked over a walkway with two force plates embedded. GRF were measured when walking barefoot (for data normalization) and with combat boots, military sports shoes and running shoes. Loading rate, first and second peak forces and push-off rate of force were computed along with temporal analysis of waveforms. Reduced loading rate was observed for the running shoe compared to the combat boot (p = 0.02 and d = 0.98) and to the military sports shoe (p = 0.04 and d = 0.92). The running shoe elicited a smaller second peak force than the combat boot (p < 0.01 and d = 0.83). Walking with military shoes and combat boots led to larger force transfer then running shoes potentially due to harder material used in midsole composition (i.e. styrene-butadiene rubber). These results could lead to a potentially larger risk of injuries while long duration walking in military shoes and boots compared to traditional running shoes.

This work describes and compares the backpropagation algorithm with the Extended Kalman filter, a second-order training method which can be applied to the problem of learning neural network parameters and is known to converge in only a few iterations. The algorithms are compared with respect to their effectiveness and speed of convergence using simulated data for both, a regression and a classification task.

This paper compares a series of traditional and deep learning methodologies for the segmentation of textures. Six well-known texture composites first published by Randen and Hus{\o}y were used to compare traditional segmentation techniques (co-occurrence, filtering, local binary patterns, watershed, multiresolution sub-band filtering) against a deep-learning approach based on the U-Net architecture. For the latter, the effects of depth of the network, number of epochs and different optimisation algorithms were investigated. Overall, the best results were provided by the deep-learning approach. However, the best results were distributed within the parameters, and many configurations provided results well below the traditional techniques.

Internal and mesoscopic variables differ from each other fundamentally: both are state space variables, but mesoscopic variables are additional equipped with a distribution function introducing a statistical item into consideration which is missing in connection with internal variables. Thus, the alignment tensor of liquid crystal theory can be introduced as an internal variable or as one generated by a mesoscopic background using the microscopic director as mesoscopic variable. Because the mesoscopic variable is part of the state space, the corresponding balance equations change into mesoscopic balances, and additionally an evolution equation of the mesoscopic distribution function appears. The flexibility of the mesoscopic concept is not only demonstrated for liquid crystals, but is also discussed for dipolar media and flexible fibers.

Abstract. Introduction: BMD study gives partial information on bone health in patients with TSH suppression therapy due to Differentiated Thyroid Cancer (DTC). TBS, a new parameter of bone microarchitecture is propose for bone quality study. This study analyze their long-term use in patients with DTC. Methods: BMD was measured by DXA and TBS with iNsigth software in 145 postmenopausal DTC patients. Vertebral Fractures (VFs) with a semi-quantitative x-ray method. Results: BMD at the end study was not different from initial. TBS decreased from 1.35±0.1 to 1.27±0.1 (p=0.002). PTH, Osteocalcin, and BAP were increased, suggesting increased bone remodeling. There was an increase in osteoporosis and osteopenia (40.6% and 16.5% to 46.6% and 18.6%); 31% had partially degraded and 15.1% degraded TBS changed to 48,9% and 24,8% at the end study. VFs in 30 patients, was not different in age, BMI, calcium and alcohol ingestion, smoking, radioiodine, or thyroid parameters vs. without VFs. Odds ratio for VFs increased with osteopenia (OR 2.63). Combination of TBS plus TBS did not improve discrimination. Conclusions: TBS was lowered while BMD did not differ. Percentage of osteoporosis and osteopenia and of partially degraded and degraded TBS was higher at the end study. Predominant discordance rate was found in partially degraded microarchitecture, in which the proportion of osteopenia was higher than normal or osteoporotic patients. AUC of TBS plus BMD did not improve discrimination. TBS, radioactive iodine, and sedentary lifestyle were the main differential data for patients with DTC and VFs.

We investigated fault gases (helium, radon, CO₂) in two seismically active Cenozoic sedimentary environments: a) Meinweg (in 2015) at a tectonically quiet horst structure in the Lower Rhine Embayment and b) Bodanrück (in 2012; Lake of Constance) at the Molasse Basin and part of the Freiburg–Bonndorf–Bodensee Fault Zone (FBBFZ). Both study areas were selected because recent “GeoBio-Interactions” findings showed, that red wood ants (RWA) are biological indicators of otherwise undetected degassing systems. A total of 817 soil gas samples was analyzed. Currently, Meinweg can be considered “no ants land” due to the very low background-level geogas concentrations. Thus, anomalies (Rn-CO₂) weakly trending in NE-SW extension direction emerged. This could probably indicate the onset of (re)activation of the NE-SW trending (Variscan) structures or the development of new fractures as an aftershock process of the 1992 Roermond earthquake that occurred about 15 km to the west. Results at Bodanrück (3 RWA clusters and two RWA-free corridors) revealed degassing patterns in NW-SE and NNE-SSW directions in the clusters corresponding to re-activated and recent strike-slip fault systems. No gas anomalies were found in RWA-free corridors. The RWA nest distribution was shown to be a valuable tool for identifying areas of even actively degassing spotty anomalies caused by macro- and microscale brittle deformation masked by sediment cover.

Due to the shortage of agricultural labor forces and rapid aging of farmers, the utilization of tractors is becoming popular and essential in Korea. Tractors can be classified into two types, a walking tractor called as a power tiller and a riding tractor. In this study, agricultural tractors including walking and riding types were categorized into 4 levels by rated output power. And diesel emission inventory of tractors was established and analyzed using 2011 and 2019 survey data in Korea. Emission inventory including CO, NOx, SOx, TSP(PM10), PM2.5, VOCs and NH3 were established using Tier 3 methodology. The total amount of emission using agricultural tractors was decreased about 13% from 2011 to 2019. The number of walking tractors were decreased by about 19% in 8 years, on the other hand that of riding tractors were increased by about 12%. However, the emission reduction is about 48% for walking tractors and the emission increment is about 5% for riding tractors. Thus, the total emission from agricultural tractors was decreased by about 16% in those periods. It is due to the decrease of 21% and 15% in the hours of use of walking and riding tractors, respectively, in 2019. Walking tractors mainly emit air pollutants from spraying and transporting. Riding tractors mainly 61% of total air pollutants emits from soil preparation and transporting operations. Geographic information system (GIS) was used to spatially assign air pollutants variables into 17 provinces and metropolitan cities in Korea. High emission generating regions and changes of emissions during 8 years were clearly seen in GIS analysis. High air pollutant emitting regions are mainly located in the western and southern regions of Korea, which have plenty of arable areas compared to other regions in Korea.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have gained prominence in the research literature on image classification over the last decade. One shortcoming of CNNs, however, is their lack of generalizability and tendency to overfit when presented with small training sets. Augmentation directly confronts this problem by generating new data points providing additional information. In this paper, we investigate the performance of more than ten different sets of data augmentation methods, with two novel approaches proposed here: one based on the Discrete Wavelet Transform and the other on the Constant-Q Gabor transform. Pretrained ResNet50 networks are finetuned on each augmentation method. Combinations of these networks are evaluated and compared across three benchmark data sets of images representing diverse problems and collected by instruments that capture information at different scales: a virus data set, a bark data set, and a LIGO glitches data set. Experiments demonstrate the superiority of this approach. The best ensemble proposed in this work achieves state-of-the-art performance across all three data sets. This result shows that varying data augmentation is a feasible way for building an ensemble of classifiers for image classification (code available at https://github.com/LorisNanni).

Positioning is an essential aspect of robot navigation, and visual odometry an important technique for continuous updating the internal information about robot position, especially indoors without GPS. Visual odometry is using one or more cameras to find visual clues and estimate robot movements in 3D relatively. Recent progress has been made, especially with fully integrated systems such as the RealSense T265 from Intel, which is the focus of this article. We compare between each other three visual odometry systems and one wheel odometry, on a ground robot. We do so in 8 scenarios, varying the speed, the number of visual features, and with or without humans walking in the field of view. We continuously measure the position error in translation and rotation thanks to a ground truth positioning system. Our result show that all odometry systems are challenged, but in different ways. In average, ORB-SLAM2 has the poorer results, while the RealSense T265 and the Zed Mini have comparable performance. In conclusion, a single odometry system might still not be sufficient, so using multiple instances and sensor fusion approaches are necessary while waiting for additional research and further improved products.

In social sciences, a plethora of studies utilize nominal data to establish the relationship between the variables. This, in turn, requires the correct use of correlation technique. The choice of correlation technique depends upon the underlying assumptions and power of the test of significance. The objective of the research is to explore the best measure of association for nominal data in terms of size, power and bias in estimation. Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the Phi and Pearson correlation statistics performs equally well in terms of size, power, and bias for naturally dichotomous variables. When both variables are artificially dichotomized, the Tetrachoric statistic has an edge in terms of bias to Pearson correlation statistic. If one variable is continuous and other is artificially dichotomized, the Biserial correlation measure turns out to be less biased as compared to Pearson statistic although both statistics exhibit similar power and size properties. If one variable is continuous and other is naturally dichotomized, it is hard to choose between the Point Biserial and Pearson correlation measures. Finally, if one variable is naturally dichotomous and other is artificially dichotomized, correlation coefficient V is compared with Pearson, Phi and Tetrachoric correlation techniques in terms of bias in estimate. The results indicate that the Tetrachoric statistic considerably overestimates the correlation value against non-normal distributions. Pearson and Phi correlation slightly underestimate the correlation value. In contrast, the correlation statistic V perform well.

This paper compares the finite sample performance of three non-parametric threshold estimators via Monte Carlo method. Our results show that the finite sample performance of the three estimators is not robust to the relative position of the threshold level along the distribution of threshold variable, especially when a structural change occurs at the tail part of the distribution.

Honey is a very cost-efficient food source and a valuable export for the country of Uganda, but is commonly adulterated, resulting in consumers not being aware of the contents of their honey. As a result, it is important to be able to authenticate the honey that consumers are purchasing. This study evaluated the physicochemical properties (pH, free acidity, metal determination, moisture content, and FTIR spectra) of Ugandan and Manuka honey. Honey pH values ranged from 3.3 to 4.8 (±0.6) while free acidity values ranged from 34.87 to 62.22 (±8.69). The moisture content values of all honey samples were below 22%. The metal concentrations and functional groups present in Ugandan and Manuka honey were determined. Metal analysis by atomic absorption spectrometry detected five elements (Na, Ca, K, Cu, and Pb) in all honey samples in varying concentrations. The elemental concentrations were found in descending order as follows: sodium (Na) (9.38 ppm), calcium (Ca) (4.99 ppm), potassium (K) (2.48 ppm), copper (Cu) (1.87 ppm), lead (Pb) (0.28 ppm). FTIR analysis revealed similar patterns of spectral curve (O-H stretching and C-H stretching) across all honey samples analyzed, which is consistent with previously analyzed honey samples from other studies. Ugandan honey sample 7 collected in the Masaka Region was found to be most similar to the Manuka honey standard based on its observed physiochemical properties. All properties analyzed suggested Ugandan honey is of good quality and safe for consumption.

Introduction: In the recent years alternate day dosing has been recommended in iron deficieny treatment. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy and side effects of oral iron treatments given daily 1x1, alternate day 1x1 and 2x1 alternate day dosing in iron deficieny anemia patients. Methods: A total of 52 patients with a diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia with serum ferritin level of 25 µg/L or less were included in this retrospective study. Statistical analyzes were done with SPSS V.25. Results: The patients included in our study were between the ages of 18-51. All of the patients included in the study were female. A statistically significant increase was found between 0-14 days(p<0.001), 14-28 days(p<0.001) and 0-28 days(p<0.001) hemoglobin values in all patients. There was no statistically significant difference between 0-14 days (p=0.397) and 0-28 days(p=0.310) ferritin values in all patients. A statistically significant difference was found between 14-28 days(p<0.001) ferritin values. When the rate of change of hemoglobin and ferritin values between the groups was compared and no statistically significant difference was observed between the groups. The rate of change of ferritin values for 14-28 days was significant (p=0.012). There was no significant difference in the frequency of symptoms in the 14th day and 28th day controls for each group (p>0.05). The incidence of metallic taste and bloating symptoms was found to be statistically significant in the third control in the group with 2x1 drug use alternate day (p=0.094). Discussion: The only difference in efficacy was observed in ferritin values between 14th and 28th days. The increase in ferritin values was higher in the group that used 1x1 oral iron every day. However, since no difference was observed between the groups in terms of ferritin and hemoglobin values on days 0 and 28, all three groups were considered equally efficient. Side effects were mainly gastrointestinal side effects. Since the group that received 2x1 oral treatment alternate day had a statistically significantly higher rate of side effects, the patients’ treatment tolerance will be lower compared to the other groups. In conlusion, there is no difference in efficacy and side effects between the patient groups receiving 1x1 daily and 1x1 alternate day oral iron therapy, so 1x1 use alternate day is the most appropriate treatment method for oral iron therapy in terms of patient tolerance, adherence to treatment and pharmacoeconomics.

226Ra and 228Ra are typically monitored for groundwater and surface water compliance at legacy U mining and milling sites. Groundwater monitoring results for combined Ra (226Ra+228Ra) reported by the existing contract laboratory at a former U mine and mill Site (Wyoming, USA) have been highly variable and with increasing trends at the Site compliance and background wells since the method was changed in 2005. Sample reanalysis has indicated poor reproducibility and significant analytical error in 228Ra measurements. An interlaboratory comparison was conducted to evaluate the potential causes of the high variability and analytical error. Two different methods were used for 226Ra (M903.0 and M903.1) and 228Ra (M904.0 and Ra-05). 226Ra results were less variable compared to 228Ra, and 228Ra data from the existing laboratory were qualified as estimated with high bias due to detection of 228Ra in the field blank. Compliance with the 226Ra+228Ra groundwater standard was either met or not met, depending on which laboratory conducted the analyses. Specific laboratory techniques, rather than the analytical method, are contributing to elevated 228Ra values being reported. It was recommended that samples whose 226Ra+228Ra results exceed the Site standard in the future be reanalyzed by the existing laboratory with a sample split also being sent to an outside laboratory for confirmatory analysis.

The bacterial flagellum is a motility organelle, consisting of a long helical filament as a propeller and a rotary motor that drives rapid filament rotation to produce thrust. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium has two genes of flagellin, fljB and fliC, for flagellar filament formation and autonomously switches their expression at a frequency of 10^-3–10^-4 per cell per generation. We report here differences in their structures and motility functions under high viscosity conditions. A Salmonella strain expressing FljB showed a higher motility than the one expressing FliC under high viscousity. To examine the reasons for this motility difference, we carried out structural analyses of the FljB filament by electron cryomicroscopy and found that the structure is nearly identical to that of the FliC filament except for the position and orientation of the outermost domain D3 of flagellin. The density of domain D3 was much lower in FljB than FliC, suggesting that domain D3 of FljB is more flexible and mobile than that of FliC. These differences suggest that domain D3 plays an important role not only in changing antigenicity of the filament but also in optimizing motility function of the filament as a propeller under different conditions.

Methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), propionic acidemia (PA), and cobalamin C deficiency (cblC) share a defect in propionic acid metabolism. In addition, cblC is also involved in the process of homocysteine remethylation. These three diseases produce various phenotypes and complex downstream metabolic effects. In this study we used an untargeted metabolomics approach to investigate the biochemical differences and the possible connections with the pathophysiology of each disease. Untargeted urine metabolomic profiles of 21 patients (7 MMA, 7 PA, 7 cblC) were identified through statistical analysis (p&lt;0.05; log2FC &gt;|1|) and then used for the annotation. Annotated features were associated with different metabolic pathways potentially involved in the diseases development. Comparative statistic showed markedly different metabolomic profiles between MMA, PA and cblC, highlighting characteristic species for each disease. The most affected pathways were related to the metabolism of organic acids (MMA, PA, cblC), amino acids (MMA, PA, cblC), glycine and its conjugates (PA), transsulfuration pathway (cblC), oxidative processes (cblC) and neurosteroid hormones (cblC). The untargeted metabolomics study highlighted the presence of significant differences between the three diseases, pointing to the most relevant contrast of cblC profile compared to MMA and PA. Some new biomarkers are proposed for PA, while novel data regarding the alterations of steroid hormone profiles and biomarkers of oxidative stress were obtained for cblC disease. The elevation of neurosteroids in cblC may indicate a potential connection with the development of ocular and neuronal deterioration.

In the realm of educational technology, Data Analytics (DA) is reshaping teaching and learning. This paper investigates the impact of DA on education, specifically comparing Student Information Systems (SIS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS). Data-driven insights from SIS and LMS platforms enable educators to tailor instructional strategies to individual student needs effectively. While SIS manages student data for administrative tasks, LMS offers tools for content delivery and collaboration. Using the strengths of SIS and LMS, educators can optimise teaching and learning experiences, tracking student progress, and fostering collaboration. The comparison emphasises their distinct roles: SIS manages administrative tasks, while LMS focusses on content delivery and collaboration. Using both systems, educators improve the teaching and learning experience, leveraging DA for continuous improvement. In summary, this paper underscores the transformative role of DA in education, framed within the context of comparing the SIS and LMS functionalities. By examining the intersection of data-driven decision making and educational technology, educators are equipped with the tools and knowledge to harness the power of data for meaningful and impactful teaching and learning.

Abstract Background Context Pelvic ring fractures are becoming more common in the aging population and can prove to be fatal, having mortality rates between 10% and 16%. Stabilization of these fractures is challenging and often require immediate internal fixation. Therefore, it is necessary to have a biomechanical understanding of the different fixation techniques for pelvic ring fractures. Methods A previously validated three-dimensional finite element model of the lumbar spine, pelvis, and femur was used for this study. A unilateral pelvic ring fracture was simulated by resecting the left side of the sacrum and pelvis. Five different fixation techniques were used to stabilize the fracture. A compressive follower load and pure moment was applied to compare different biomechanical parameters including range of motion (contralateral sacroiliac joint, L1-S1 segment, L5-S1 segment), and stresses (L5-S1 nucleus stresses, instrument stresses) between different fixation techniques. Results Transiliac -trans sacral screw fixation at S1 and S2 showed the highest stabilization for horizontal and vertical displacement at the sacral fracture site and reduction of contralateral sacroiliac joint for bending and flexion range of motion by 165% and 121%, respectively. DTSF (Double transiliac rod and screw fixation) model showed highest stabilization in horizontal displacement at the pubic rami fracture site, while the L5_PF_W_CC (L5-Ilium posterior screw fixation with cross connectors) and L5_PF_WO_CC ( L5-Ilium posterior screw fixation without cross connectors) showed higher rod stresses, reduced L1-S1 (approximately 28%), and L5-S1 (approximately 90%) range of motion. Conclusions Longer sacral screw fixations were superior in stabilizing sacral and contralateral sacroiliac joint range of motion. Lumbopelvic fixations displayed a higher degree of stabilization in the horizontal displacement compared to vertical displacement of pubic rami fracture, while also indicating the highest rod stresses. When determining the surgical approach for pelvic ring fractures, patient-specific factors should be accounted for to weigh the advantages and disadvantages for each technique.

Background: Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery robot-assisted surgical system has gained significant popularity over open and laparoscopic interventions. However, given its high costs, it remains unclear what clinical advantages robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery offers over conventional laparoscopic surgery. Objective: This umbrella review aims to synthesize and compare the clinical outcomes of robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery versus conventional laparoscopic surgery for five surgical procedures. Inclusion criteria: All systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in the past five years that compared the clinical outcomes of conventional laparoscopic surgery and robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery for cholecystectomy, colectomy, hysterectomy, nephrectomy and/or prostatectomy were included. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed and Scopus. The quality of all included reviews was assessed with the AMSTAR 2 quality assessment tool. Each review’s study characteristics (and a list of primary sources) were extracted, along with the quantitative and qualitative data for the following ten clinical outcomes: blood loss, rate of conversion to open surgery, hospitalization costs, incisional hernia rate, intraoperative complication rate, postoperative complication rate, length of hospital stay, operative time, readmission rate and wound infection rate. Results: Fifty-two systematic reviews and (network) meta-analyses were included in this umbrella review, covering more than 1,288,425 patients from 1046 primary sources published between 1996 and 2022. The overall quality of the included reviews was assessed to be low or critically low. Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery yielded comparable results as conventional laparoscopic surgery in terms of blood loss, conversion to open surgery rate, intraoperative complication rate, postoperative complication rate, readmission rate and wound infection rate for most surgical procedures. While the hospitalization costs of robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery were higher and the operative times of robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery were longer than conventional laparoscopic surgery, robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery reduced the length of hospital stay of patients in nearly all cases. Conclusion: Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery achieved comparable results with conventional laparoscopic surgery for cholecystectomy, colectomy, hysterectomy, nephrectomy and prostatectomy based on ten clinical outcomes. Further research is needed to prove that robot-assisted laparoscopy is as safe and reliable as conventional laparoscopic surgery.

Sea cucumber detection represents a significate step in underwater environmental perception, which is an indispensable part of the intelligent subsea fishing system. However, various complex factors such as water turbidity declines the clarity of underwater images, presenting a challenge to vision-based underwater target detection. Therefore, accurate, real-time and lightweight detection models are required. First of all, the development of subsea target detection is summarized in this presented work. Besides, since target detection methods based on deep learning such as YOLOv5 and DETR, which are respectively examples of one-stage and anchor-free deep leaning methods, have been increasingly applied in underwater detection scenarios. Based on the analysis of state-of-the-art underwater sea cucumber detection approaches and aiming to provide a reference for practical subsea identification, the sea cucumber detection based on the YOLOv5 and DETR are investigated and compared in detail. For each approach, the detection experiment is carried out on the derived dataset which contains a wide variety of sea cucumber sample images. The compared experiments demonstrate that the overall outperformance of YOLOv5 in terms of low computing consumption and high precision, particularly in detection of small and dense features. Nevertheless, the DETR exhibits rapid development and holds promising prospects in underwater object detection applications, owing to its relatively simple architecture and ingenious attention mechanism.

The massive use of electronic equipment has raised concerns about electromagnetic (EM) pollution, leading to increased attention to EM shielding in both civil and military applications. EM absorption materials play a crucial role in reducing the energy of microwaves projected onto their surface. In this work, we propose a novel OTA (over-the-air) antenna test method to evaluate and analyze the functionality of EM absorption materials. This method offers a new and practical way to assess the effectiveness of these materials. Measured results indicate that the presence of the EM absorption material led to a decrease in antenna gain of approximately 2-3 dB, a reduction in efficiency of more than 10-15%, and a smaller radiation pattern during the actual testing process. These findings highlight the impact of EM absorption materials on antenna performance. Compared to the traditional S-parameter testing method, the gain comparison testing method exhibits the advantages of higher accuracy and simpler operation in the lower frequency experiment.

A healthy lifestyle and environmental protection play a big role in today's modern society. The production of organic wine, as with other organic commodities, is therefore increasingly popular with consumers. The selling price of organic wine is higher than that of wine that is not declared organic or BIO, so the question arises from consumers whether these wines contain more bioactive compounds and substances beneficial to the body. From a general point of view, it is known that grapevines contain a wide range of natural phenols and polyphenols. These substances affect the sensory properties of wines, especially color, and taste. The most of phenolic substances are found in red wines, slightly less in orange, and the lowest amounts are found in white wines. However, the representation of individual substances and their ratios differ based on the varieties and age of the wines. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the profile (chemical, physical and sensory) of organic wines compared to wines made from non-organic grapes, which are grown in a selected wine region - Kutná Hora. The analyzed wines were made from the same grape wine cultivar in the Kutná Hora area. The following analyzes were performed on the wine samples: the phenolic and antioxidant profile, the content of sulfites (free and total), alcohol, sugars, vitamins, density determination, and also sensory evaluation. The present study showed exact differences between samples of wines produced from the same cultivar, and same region, but declared as organic wines and wines from conventional production. Although a higher amount of bioactive substances is expected in wines from organic production, in most cases of presented analyzes, it did not show a statistically significant difference in the sense of a higher amount in BIO wines, on the contrary, in many cases the content of these substances was higher in wines from integrated production.

Research on alternatives to rectal thermometry in canine and feline patients has focused on equipment and measurement location but not procedure duration. In a cross-over designed clinical scenario, we evaluated the time prior to and after (Pre-TempT and Post-TempT) rectal and axillary thermometry in canine (n = 114) and feline (n = 72) patients. Equipment duration was controlled for to determine a presumptive total time (TTime) associated with each thermometry method. Pre-TempT and TTime was significantly shorter in axillary thermometry trials for both canine and feline pets (P < 0.001). There was no difference in Post-TempT between thermometry methods in canine patients (P = 0.887) however, the Post-TempT was longer in felines after axillary thermometry (P = 0.004). Reductions in Pre-TempT and TTime were not significant in Scottish Fold breed cats and within the feline rectal trials, the TTime of domestic-long hair breeds was significantly longer than domestic-short hair breeds (P = 0.019). No other tested parameter played a significant role in these results. Axillary thermometry was faster than rectal thermometry in both canine and felines pets due primarily to the time associated with animal approach and restraint (Pre-TempT). These results have implications when optimizing clinic workflow, appointment durations and patient handling time.

The current design process of a new aircraft includes several mod- eling and testing steps.The main purpose of the Ground Vibration Testing is to achieve experimental vibration data of the whole aircraft structure, in terms of frequencies, damping factors, and mode shapes to ensure that the aircraft will be free from any aeroelastic instability and safe to fly in the desired flight envelope. GVT results are also mainly used for validating and eventually im- proving FEM models of the aircraft examined. On the other hand, structural dynamic models are used to predict the flutter behavior and carefully plan the in-flight flutter tests, and lead to mitigation of the risks related to them. This paper aims to compare different aeroelastic methods outcomes achieved using two diverse commercial software: the widely used NASTRAN™ and the most recently developed Zonatech ZAERO. The flutter computation results are obtained by means of P-K, K, and G methods. The first case presented is the aeroelastic analysis of a forward-swept wing whereas the second case concerns the stabilator of a two-seater ultralight aircraft, for which an experimental campaign of vibrations test is also carried out. The structural mode shapes at each generated frequency mode are also visually presented.

We provide quantitative results from GIS-based modelling of urban emission functions for a range of representative low- and mid-rise locations, ranging from individual streets to residential communities within cities as well as entire towns and city regions with the aim of whether lantern photometry or built environment has the dominant effect on light pollution. We demonstrate the scalability of our work by providing results for the largest urban area modelled to date, comprising the central 117 km2 area of Dublin City and containing nearly 42,000 public lights. Our results show a general similarity in the shape of the azimuthally-averaged emission function for all areas examined, with differences in total light output distribution depending primarily on the nature of the lighting and, to a smaller extent, on the obscuring environment including seasonal foliage effects. A comparison with global satellite observations shows that they are consistent with the deduced angular emission function for other low-rise areas worldwide. We further validate our approach by comparing results for a range of urban locations by the close agreement observed in a detailed comparison of with calibrated imagery from the International Space Station. To our knowledge, this is the first such detailed quantitative verification of light loss calculations.

Purpose: The intervertebral disc is a leading avascular organ in the body that may gather nutrition through diffusion. It maintains homeostasis by the use of autophagy and apoptosis to survive in unfavorable conditions such as stress and mechanical force. Therefore, excessive force and stress beyond normal conditions may cause intervertebral disc degeneration. The purpose of this study was to examine which is the better method, either external fixator (EF) or saline injection (SI), for inducing autophagy and apoptosis-mediated nucleus pulposus (NP) cell death in the discs of rat tail’s. Methods: Sixteen, nine-weeks-old male Sprague–Dawley rat tails were treated with 0.9% saline and EF (two-cross Kirschner wires) for a period ofsix and twelve weeks. Treated discs were dissected to identify the participation of autophagy and apoptosis in intervertebral disc degeneration. For identification purposes, H&amp;E staining, Masson’s trichrome staining, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) for LC3, beclin-1, and P62 in addition to MMP-2, MMP-3, and TIMP-1 were performed. Furthermore, we performed real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to observe autophagy-related gene expression (beclin-1, LC3, and P62) and apoptosis-related gene expression (MMP-2, MMP-3, and TIMP-1). Results: TheEF group showed more insidious NP cell degeneration than the control (Ctrl) group. Degeneration was elevated with increasing compression duration of EF group, whereas the SI group could not distinguish the margin of annulus fibrosus (AF) and NP cells. LC3, beclin-1, and P62 showed the highest and lateral expression whilst MMP-2, MMP-3, and TIMP-1 showed up-regulated and central expression in both groups, although the SI group could not recognize the boundary between NP and AF cells. The EF group showed the highest autophagy-related gene expression whereas the SI group showed lower expression. In addition, the EF group showed more autophagy-accumulating materials than the SI group which elevated with increasing compression duration. Furthermore, the SI group induced the highest apoptotic gene expression, but the EF group showed the lowest expression. Conclusion: The EF method was better for studying autophagy and apoptosis because it enhanced intervertebral disc degeneration after compression, which is actively linked to autophagy and apoptosis. The degeneration process was elevated by increasing the compression duration, but SI could not distinguish AF and NP cell margins.

Skin cancer is an uncommon but serious malignancy. Dermoscopic images examination and biopsy are required for cancer detection. Deep learning (DL) is extremely effective in learning characteristics and predicting malignancies. However, DL requires a large number of images to train. Image augmentation and transferring learning were employed to overcome the lack of images issue. In this study we divided images into two categories: benign and malignant. To train and test our models, we used the public ISIC 2020 database. Melanoma is classified as malignant in the ISIC 2020 dataset. Along with categorization, the dataset was studied to demonstrate variation. The performance of three top pretrained models was then benchmarked in terms of training and validation accuracy. Three optimizers were employed to optimize the loss: RMSProp, SGD, and ADAM. Using ResNet, VGG16, and MobileNetV2, we obtained training accuracy of 98.73%, 99.12%, and 99.76%, respectively. Using these three pretrained models, we attained a validation accuracy of 98.39%.

In the past decades, Fiber Reinforced Concrete has been gaining more attention in the concrete research development. There are many advantages of the inclusion of fiber into reinforced concrete structures. It was found that the inclusion of fibers in concrete, be it synthetic or natural, resulted in the improvement of the thermal properties of concrete, as well as its strength to some extent. However, the inclusion of fibers in concrete does affects its thermo-mechanical properties. The objective of this study is to identify the potential of the addition Polypropylene and Kenaf fibers in cement mortar at different compositions (0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.3%). Eight mixes were analyzed for this purpose. Upon investigating the flow ability, compressive strength, tensile strength, and thermal conductivity of the mortar samples, it was found that the incorporation of PP and Kenaf fibers reduced the flow ability. Cement mortar samples containing 0.1% addition of PP and Kenaf fibers show the highest compressive strength compared to other percentages, while samples containing 0.3% addition of PP and Kenaf fibers show the highest tensile strength compared to other percentages. The thermal conductivity of mortar samples shows reduction when high percentages of both fibers were used.

The present investigation deals with the determination of the physio-chemical properties of two commercial grade samples of local gums (Gum Arabic and Natural Rubber Latex (NRL)). The results revealed that the gum samples have high melting point that indicate thermal stability at room and moderate temperatures. The gum samples have about 95 % carbohydrate content and a corresponding high internal energy and can serve as a source of energy. The rheology of the samples revealed shear-thickening characteristics with gum Arabic being thixotropic and pseudo-plastic in nature while NRL was observed to be anti-thixotropic and rheopectic. Further results from the moisture absorption, contact angle and Fourier Transform Infrared Radioscopy (FTIR) analyses gave better insight into their hydroscopic behaviors. Gum Arabic has excellent water absorption capacity with less wettability as it consists mainly of more water-soluble compounds in comparison to Natural Rubber Latex. These insights from the study will enhance wider application of the gums with increased value-addition to the gums and the communities where they (can) thrive.

CRISPR/Cas genome editing is a widely used research technology. Its simplest variant is gene knockout resulting from reparation errors after introduction of dsDNA breaks by Cas nuclease. We compared the outcomes of the break repair by two commonly used nucleases (SpCas9 and LbCas12a) in zebrafish embryos to reveal if application of one nuclease is advantageous in comparison to the other. To address this question, we injected ribonucleoprotein complexes of nucleases and corresponding guide RNAs in zebrafish zygotes and three days later sequenced the target gene regions. We found that LbCas12a breaks resulted in longer deletions and more rare inserts, in comparison to those generated by SpCas9, while the editing efficiencies of both nucleases were the same. On the other hand, overlapping protospacers were shown to lead to similarities in repair outcome, although they were cut by two different nucleases. Thus, our results indicate that the repair outcome depends both on the nuclease mode of action and on protospacer sequence.

We analyze the Covid-19 mortality scenario in India and compare it with those in other large-population regions such as Asia-excluding-China, Africa, European Union, South America, and USA. We compare existing fatality data and offer an interpretation for low fatality based on immunity due to endemic malaria and TB. We identify the hot climate in the past summer as a possible cause for low death count in southern-hemisphere countries without endemic malaria and TB. We also make India-specific observations for easing the lockdown and estimations for the time required to attain herd immunity. Whatever optimism we present should be viewed as a guarded optimism. There should not be room for complacency.

The purpose of this work was analysing the compaction of a cohesive material using different DEM simulators to determine the equivalent contact models and identify how some parameters of the simulations affect the compaction results (maximum force and compacts appearance) and computational costs. For that purpose, three cohesion contact models were tested (‘linear cohesion’ in EDEM; ‘SJKR’ and ‘SJKR2’ in LIGGGHTS). The influence of the particle size distribution (PSD) on the results was also investigated. Further assessments were performed on the effect of selecting different timesteps, using distinct conversion tolerances for exporting the 3D models to STL files and moving the punch with different speeds. Consequently, it was possible to determine that a timestep equal to a 10% Rayleigh timestep, a conversion tolerance of 0.01 mm and a punch speed of 0.2 m/s are adequate for simulating the compaction process using the contact models in this work. In addition, the results determined that the maximum force was influenced by the PSD because of the rearrangement of the particles. The PSD was also related to the computational cost because of the number of simulated particles and their sizes. Finally, an equivalence was found between the linear cohesion and SJKR2 contact models

Rice is the most important food crop in Cambodia and its production is the most organized food production system in the country. The main objective of this study is to measure technical efficiency (TE) of Cambodian rice production and also trying to identify core influencing factors of rice TE at both national and household level, for explaining the possibilities of increasing productivity and profitability of rice, by using translog production function through Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model. Four-years dataset (2012-2015) generated from the government documents was utilized for the national analysis, while at household-level, the primary three-years data (2013-2015) collected from 301 rice farmers in three selected districts of Battambang province by structured questionnaires was applied. The results indicate that level of rice output varied according to the different level of capital investment in agricultural machineries, total actual harvested area, and technically fertilizers application within provinces, while level of household rice output varied according to the differences in efficiency of production processes, techniques, total annual harvested land, and technically application of fertilizers and pesticides of farmers. The overall mean TE was estimated at 78.4% (national-level) and 34% (household-level), indicates that rice output has the potential of being increased further by 21.6% (national production) and 66% (household) at the same level of inputs and technology if farmers had been technically efficient. The TE also recorded -7% decreasing rate at the national-level and -14.3% at household-level due to highly affected of natural disasters and various environmental and social factors during the study periods.

Interrelationships between traditional dental variables are becoming more evident in far reaching aspects of life such as psychosocial interaction, self-esteem, overall health and even occupational performance. This study compares quality of life (QoL) in postmenopausal women (PMW) with poor oral health (POH) with QoL in PMW with good oral health. 200 randomly recruited PMW received a dental evaluation and completed Utian Quality of Life Survey. The participants were divided into POH and healthy groups based on dental exam. Mean scores were calculated for each QoL item, domain and the overall summary score. For each of the four parameters for periodontitis diagnosis, periodontitis patients’ QoL outcomes were compared to those of healthy patients using T-test with threshold of significance at p<0.05. QoL in all fields measured were significantly poorer in the POH compared to the healthy patients, occupational (19.95±5.35vs. 27.56±6.13), health (18.02±8.23 vs. 26.59 ±6.45), emotional (15.68±10.22vs. 21.15±9.15), sexual (6.2±5.98vs. 10.02±5.35), and total score (60.21±25.85 vs. 84.26±22.35). This study finds that PMW with POH, report significantly poorer quality of life. Clinicians caring for PMW should be aware of that oral health impacts QoL and make appropriate referral decisions for patients’ dental care. Keywords: Quality of Life, Oral Health, Post-menopause, Women

Background: Spinal schwannomas and meningiomas are the most common spinal cord benign tumors in adults and total excision is the goal of the treatment. The traditional surgical approach is performed by total laminectomy, but recently unilateral hemilaminectomy has been recognized as a valuable surgical alternative. We report the clinical results of patients affected by spinal schwannoma and meningioma in whom total laminectomy or unilateral hemilaminectomy were performed. Material and Methods: A retrospective study of patients who underwent resection of spinal meningioma or schwannoma by laminectomy or unilateral hemilaminectomy approaches in our Institute from January 2013 to January 2023 was made. The baseline data of these patients, operative approach and postoperative outcome were compared. Results: The study was performed on 41 patients with mean age of 62.5 ±14.6 years. Our series included 24 (59%) cases of schwannomas and 17 (41%) cases of meningiomas, with a prevalent location in the thoracic spine. The average schwannomas volume was 3,6 ±2,7 cm3, whereas the average meningiomas volume was 1.1 ±0.5 cm3. Total excision was achieved in all cases. Operative time of schwannomas was longer (p=0.001) respect to meningiomas with higher intra-operative blood loss (p=0.000). Total laminectomy approach was performed in 24 out of 41 patients (59%) and unilateral hemilaminectomy approach in 17 out of 41 (41%) patients. Unilateral hemilaminectomy was associated with shorter postoperative bed rest (p=0.003), shorter hospitalization (p=0.028) and lower postoperative pain (p=0.02) respect to total laminectomy. Conclusions: Both spinal schwannomas and spinal meningiomas in various size can be safely and effectively treated with unilateral hemilaminectomy approach. This approach grants more advantages compared with standard total laminectomy, including shorter postoperative bed rest, shorter hospitalization and reduced postoperative pain.

(1) Background: The Gárdos channel (KCNN4) and Piezo1 are the best-known ion channels in the red blood cell (RBC) membrane. Nevertheless, the quantitative electrophysiological behavior of RBCs and its heterogeneity are still not completely understood.; (2) Methods: Here we use state-of-the-art biochemical methods to probe for the abundance of the channels in RBCs. Furthermore, we utilize automated patch-clamp, based on planar chips, to compare the activity of the two channels in reticulocytes and mature RBCs. Besides this characterization, we performed membrane potential measurements to demonstrate the effect of channel activity and interplay on the RBC properties.; (3) Results: Both, Gárdos channel and Piezo1, albeit their average copy number of activatable channels per cell is in the single digit range, can be detected by transcriptome analysis of reticulocytes. Proteomics analysis of RBCs could only detect Piezo1 but not the Gárdos channel. Furthermore, they can be reliably measured in the whole-cell configuration of the patch-clamp method. While for the Gárdos channel the activity is higher in reticulocytes compared to mature RBCs, for Piezo1 the tendency is the opposite. While the interplay between Piezo1 and Gárdos channel cannot be followed using the patch-clamp measurements, it could be proved based on membrane potential measurements in populations of intact RBCs.; (4) Conclusions: We discuss the Gárdos channel and Piezo1 abundance, interdependencies and interactions in the context of their proposed physiological and pathophysiological functions, which are the passing of small constrictions, e.g., in the spleen, and their active participation in blood clot formation and thrombosis.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's overwhelming response to an infection, such as pneumonia or urinary tract infection. It occurs when the immune system releases cytokines into the bloodstream, triggering widespread inflammation. If not treated, it can lead to organ failure and death. Unfortunately, sepsis has a high mortality rate, with studies reporting rates ranging from 20% to over 50%, depending on the severity and promptness of treatment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the annual death toll in the world is about 11 million. One of the main toxins responsible for inflammation induction are lipopolysaccharides (LPS, endotoxin) from Gram-negative bacteria, which ranks among the most potent immunostimulants found in nature. Antibiotics are consistently prescribed as a part of anti-sepsis-therapy. However, antibiotic therapy (i) is increasingly ineffective due to resistance development and (ii) most antibiotics are unable to bind and neutralize LPS, a prerequisite to inhibit the interaction of endotoxin with its cellular receptor complex, namely Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/MD-2, responsible for the intracellular cascade leading to pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion. The pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 has infected hundreds of millions of humans worldwide since its emergence in 2019. The COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease-19) caused by this virus is associated with high lethality, particularly for elderly and immunocompromised people. As of August 2023, nearly 7 million deaths were reported worldwide due to this disease. According to some reported studies, upregulation of TLR4 and the subsequent inflammatory signaling detected in COVID-19 patients “mimics bacterial sepsis”. Furthermore, the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 was described by others as “mirror image of sepsis”. Similarly, the cytokine profile in sera from severe COVID-19 patients was very similar to those suffering from the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis. Finally, the severe COVID-19 infection was frequently accompanied by bacterial co-infections, as well as by the presence of significant LPS concentrations. These data indicate similarity and interdependences of both syndromes, but also significant differences which will be discussed in the present review.

Organizing pneumonia (OP) can be diagnosed pathologically, and cryptogenic OP (COP) and secondary OP (SOP) have been classified by cause and underlying context. Because it is clinically difficult to differentiate between COP and SOP, this study investigated characteristics that could distinguish between COP and SOP. The medical records of patients who underwent lung biopsy from 2016 to 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Eighty-five patients had pathologically proven OP, including 16 diagnosed with COP and 69 diagnosed with SOP. The most common cause of SOP was infectious pneumonia, observed in 57 (82.6%) of the 69 patients. Median time from symptom onset to hospital admission is shorter (P=0.006) and fever was more common (P=0.021) in the SOP. Some laboratory results differed significantly between the two groups. Lymphocyte in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were higher in the COP (P=0.012). Radiologic findings showed that effusion was more common in the SOP (P=0.043). There were no between-group differences in steroid use, 30 day and in-hospital mortality rates, and rates of OP outcomes and recurrences. Infection is the main cause of SOP. Symptom onset is more rapid in patients with SOP. Pleural effusion was more common in the SOP but there were no differences in clinical course.

Background and Objective: In the present study, the purpose was to compare the demographic, clinical and laboratory results of pediatric brucella cases who had liver involvement and who had no specific organ involvement. Material and Methods: The data of 248 patients between 2 and 18 years of age diagnosed with Brucellosis between July 2017 and August 2018 were analyzed retrospectively. The patients who had liver involvement and who did not have other specific organ involvement were compared in terms of presentation, physical examination findings, age, gender, hemogram, AST, ALT, GGT, ALP, bilirubines, sedimentation, CRP, clinical and laboratory findings, and culture and relapse rates. Results: No significant differences were detected between the patients who had liver involvement (n=92) and who did not have specific organ involvement (n=156) in terms of diagnosis age and gender. Loss of appetite, nausea and sensitive stomach were higher in the patients who had hepatic involvement, and weariness was determined to be more in the control group patients. In the patients who had hepatic involvement, the hemoglobin and platelet values were lower, and the sedimentation, CRP and blood culture growth were higher. The relapse rates were lower in patients who had liver involvement. Conclusion: In patients who have liver involvement, in addition to elevated hepatomegaly and transaminase levels, the growth rate of the acute-phase reactants and brucella is higher in blood culture; and the relapse rate is lower after treatment. Brucellosis must be considered in the differential diagnosis of hepatomegaly and transaminase elevation where brucellosis is seen endemically. We believe that early diagnosis of brucellosis is important in treatment response.

Within the field of guilt and shame, two competing perspectives have been advanced. The first, the social-adaptive perspective, proposes that guilt is an inherently adaptive emotion and shame is an inherently maladaptive emotion; thus, those interested in moral character development and psychopathology should work to increase an individual’s guilt-proneness and decrease an individual’s shame-proneness. The functionalist perspective, in contrast, argues that both guilt and shame can serve a person adaptively or maladaptively—depending on the situational appropriateness, duration, intensity, and so forth. This paper reviews the research conducted supporting both positions, critiques some issues with the most widely used guilt- and shame-proneness measure in the social-adaptive research (the TOSCA), and discusses the differences in results found when assessing guilt and shame at the state versus trait level. The conclusion drawn is that although there is broad support for the functionalist perspective across a wide variety of state and trait guilt/shame studies, the functionalist perspective does not yet have the wealth of data supporting it that has been generated by the social-adaptive perspective using the TOSCA. Thus, before a dominant perspective can be identified, researchers need to (1) do more research assessing how the social-adaptive perspective compares to the functionalist perspective at the state level, and (2) do more trait research within the functionalist perspective to compare functionalist guilt- and shame-proneness measures with the TOSCA.

Is it true that the nuclear technology applied to electric energy generation offers a clean, safe, reliable and affordable i.e. sustainable alternative? Yes it is, but its impact on the environment strongly depends on the implementation bearing residual risks due to a human factor, technical failures or natural catastrophes. A full response is therefore difficult and can first be given when the wicked multi-disciplinary problems get well formulated and “solved”. These problems have multi-dimensional nature lying at the interface between: necessary R&D effort, the industrial deployment and the technology impact in view of the environmental sustainability including the management of produced hazardous waste. This enormous complexity indicates that just a description of the problem might represent a problem. The paper proposes a holistic approach to assess the nuclear energy systems potential with respect to sustainable performance applying Multi-criteria decision analysis with a suitable objective tree and a multi-level criteria structure and examines the trading-off techniques for ranking of the alternatives. The framework proposes a multi-criteria and multi-stakeholders treatment which can be used as a pre-decisional support towards an implementation of nuclear fuel cycles adapted to national preferences and priorities. Proposed approach addresses some aspects of the environmental footprint of nuclear energy systems. Advanced nuclear fuel cycles, previously investigated by the NEA/OECD expert group WASTEMAN, are analyzed as a case study. Sustainability facets of waste management, resource utilization and economics are in focus.

There are two basic methods for radial external load distribution calculation on rolling elements in a rolling element bearing: the discrete method and the integral method. Solving the discrete equilibrium quasi-static equation using the Newton-Raphson scheme, more accurate results are derived than those based on the integral method, with small theoretical and computational efforts. The Sjövall’s radial integral factors, as well as some approximations proposed in the literature, for line- and point-contacts, are revisited. Numerical approximations for the Sjövall's radial integrals are proposed. The approximations’ errors with respect to the Sjövall’s radial integral’s numerical integration are shown. The numerical results of the displacement between inner and outer rigid rings, maximum hertzian contact deflection and the most loaded element load are shown for some ball and roller bearings, for radial external load ranging from 0 to 10,000 N, and for positive, negative and zero radial clearance, solving the discrete equilibrium quasi-static equation using the Newton-Raphson method. A total of 16 figures is shown in this work, many of which are made up of sub-figures. A total of 58 figures and sub-figures is shown.

The Van der Pol oscillator is a chaotic non-linear system. Small perturbations in initial conditions may result in wildly different trajectories. Because of its chaotic nature, controlling, or forcing, the behavior of a Van der Pol oscillator is difficult to achieve through traditional adaptive control methods. Connecting two Van der Pol oscillators together where the output of one oscillator, the driver, drives the behavior of its partner, the responder, is a proven technique for controlling the Van der Pol oscillator. Deterministic AI (DAI) is an adaptive feedback control method that leverages the known physics of the Van der Pol system to learn optimal system parameters for the forcing function. We assessed the performance of DAI employing three different online parameter estimation algorithms. Our evaluation criteria include mean absolute error (MAE) between the target trajectory and the response oscillator trajectory over time. RLS with exponential forgetting (RLS-EF) had the lowest MAE overall, with a 2.46% reduction in error. However, another method was notable. Least Mean Squares with normalized gradient adaptation (LMS-NG) had worse initial error in the first 10% of the simulation, but after that point had consistently better performance. We found that over the last 90% of the simulation, DAI with LMS-NG had a 48.7% reduction in MAE compared to feedforward alone.

Metabolic pathways provide key information to achieve a better understanding of life and all its processes; this is useful information for the improvement of medicine, agronomy, pharmacy, and other similar areas. The main analysis tool used to study these pathways is based on the idea of pathway comparison, using graph data structures. Metabolic pathway comparison has been defined as a computationally complex task \cite{ay2011submap,abaka2013campways}. In previous work from 2017, two different approaches that simplify the problem of comparing pathways represented as graphs were introduced. The first algorithm consists of the transformation of a two-dimensional graph structure, representing a metabolic pathway, to a one-dimensional structure and thus aligning the corresponding data using a reduced 1 dimension string. The second algorithm consists of performing a paired analysis between reactions in pathways and thus eliminating all similarities, finally, showing these differences to the user. The suggestion is to use the information provided by these algorithms as a previous analysis to a deeper, more expensive, comparison tool use. Here we provide an extension of this work with more data and deeper analysis. These methods have shown to be an effective way to treat the problem of metabolic pathway comparison as listed in the discussion and results section. Our results show evidence of a quick, simple and effective way to resolve the described problem.

Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of people are diagnosed with kidney cancer and this disease is more common in developed and industrialized countries. Previously, kidney cancer was known as an elderly disease and was seen in people over a certain age; nowadays it is also seen in younger individuals and it is easier to diagnose thanks to new radiological diagnostic methods. A kidney tumor is a type of cancer that is extremely aggressive and needs surgical treatment rapidly. Today, approximately 30% of patients diagnosed with kidney cancer are unfortunately noticed at the stage of metastatic disease (spread to distant organs). The biggest factor that pushes us to this study is that kidney tumors progress unlike other cancer types with little or no symptoms. Therefore, conducting such studies is extremely important for early diagnosis. In this study, we compare the Unet3D models in order to help people who are dealing with difficulties in the diagnosis of kidney cancer. Unet, Unet+ResNet and Unet++ models were compared for image segmentation.

The methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been used in the planning and operation of power systems for more than 40 years. In recent years, due to the development of microprocessor and data storage technologies, the effectiveness of this use has greatly increased. This paper provides a systematic overview of the application of AI including the use of Machine Learning (ML) to the power system. The potential application areas are divided into four blocks and the classification matrix has been used for clustering the AI application tasks. Furthermore, the data acquisition methods for setting the parameters of AI and ML algorithms are presented and discussed in a systematic way considering the supervised and unsupervised learning methods. Based on this, three complex application examples: wind power generation forecasting, smart grid security as-sessment (using two methods), and automatic system fault detection are presented and discussed in detail. Summary and outlook conclude the paper.

There is a continuous interest in cannabinoids like Δ9-tetrahydro cannabinol (Δ9-THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). A patent of Webster et al., described the conversion of CBD to either D8-THC or D9-THC, depending on the acid catalyst applied. The use of para-toluene sulfonic acid (pTSA) led to the formation of D8-THC, while boron trifluoride etherate (BF3·Et2O) yielded mainly D9-THC. The enormous difference in product selectivity between these two catalysts was investigated with Molecular Modeling. It was found that pTSA leads to fast isomerization of Δ9-CBD to Δ8-CBD and subsequent ring closure to Δ8-THC. BF3·Et2O catalysis leads to the formation of tertiary carbenium ions in the Transition States which yield D9-THC and some iso D8-THC. Under dry conditions in refluxing toluene, it was found that pTSA is predominantly present as a dimer, and only a small fraction is available as monomeric catalyst. Applying the computationally derived activation barriers in Transition State theory yielded reaction rates predicting amounts of cannabinoids that are in close agreement with the experimental findings.

Dendrobium Sw have multiple photosynthetic pathways but due to the lack of identification, the influence of CAM pathway on the plastid genomic evolution of Dendrobium and the origin of CAM pathway are still poorly understood. In this study, based on the results of δ13C, net photosynthetic rates (Pn) and titratable acid value, we identified Dendrobium species into three photosynthetic pathways. Then the chloroplast whole genome characteristics of 10 Dendrobium species were analyzed with next-generation sequencing technology. The quadripartite-structure plastomes ranged from 151,673 bp to 160,375 bp and included 127 to 132 genes. Five noncoding mutational hotspots (rbcL-accD, atpB-rbcL, rbcL, trnLUAA, accD, Pi &gt; 0.10) were identified. A total of 41–60 SSRs were recognized, the average trinucleotide content was only about 4%, which is probably due to a more conserved SSR. Among multiple photosynthetic pathways, the apparent differences in IR junctions of SSC/IRB junctions (JSBs) were measured within chloroplast genomes, and the chloroplast genome size of constitutive CAM plants is shorter because of their ndh gene loss or pseudogenization, and this phenomenon accounts for a decreasing proportion of constitutive CAM, facultative CAM, and obligate C3 plants, so that the loss of the ndh gene may be speculated to be closely related to the CAM pathway. Phylogenetic analyses showed that there are multiple independent CAM origins in selected Dendrobium species, and the ancestral Dendrobium plastome possessed full ORFs for all ndh genes. The study aims to clarify the chloroplast genomic features of different photosynthetic pathways, enrich the genomic data of CAM plants, and provide genetic information from different perspectives for further systematic study of Dendrobium.

Optimal operation of petroleum production is important in a transition from energy systems based on fossil fuel to sustainable systems. One sub-process in petroleum production deals with transport from the (subsea) well-bore to a topside separator. A simple model in [] of Electric Submersible Pump [ESP] lifted production was previously streamlined into a dynamic model suitable for illustration of the dynamics of oil transport, as well for control studies, with some comparison of two popular modeling languages: Modelica, and ModelingToolkit for Julia, []. Here, the discussion on dimensionless equipment models goes into more detail, and the comparison between Modelica and ModelingToolkit is significantly expanded upon with code comparison, numerical performance, and more experiments. Some added possibilities with ModelingToolkit and Julia wrt. sensitivity analysis and control design is included.

Phenylketonuria is an inherited metabolic disorder that leads to neurobehavioral dysfunction. The main treatment is a low-phenylalanine diet and/or the cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin. Regular outpatient follow-up care and measurement of the phenylalanine level in the blood are required. We aimed to analyze the economic burden of phenylketonuria on families and the state. The pa-tients with phenylketonuria were divided into three groups according to their treatment: a low-phenylalanine diet group (n= 50), a tetrahydrobiopterin group (n= 44) and a group taking tetra-hydrobiopterin together with the diet (n= 25). A comparative cost analysis was carried out. The annual economic burden to the state was calculated to average €18801±15345 and was lowest in the diet group, then in the tetrahydrobiopterin group and highest in the tetrahydrobiopterin+diet group (p < 0.001). Out-of-pocket costs amounted to €1531±1173 per year, and indirect losses aver-aged €2125±1930 per year for all families. The economic loss was significantly lower in the fami-lies taking tetrahydrobiopterin than in the other groups (p=0.001). The combined use of medical nutrition and BH4 treatments has been shown to increase the economic harm to the state. Reim-bursing low-protein products and increasing the rate of patients eligible for financial allowances may reduce the economic harm to families.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are enclosed by a lipid-bilayer membrane and secreted by all types of the cells under various physiological conditions. EVs play important roles in intercellular communication and crosstalk between tissues in the body. They are classified into three groups, such as apoptotic bodies, microvesicles, and exosomes. Exosomes were isolated from biofluids including blood, urine, milk, and cell culture media. Exosomes have significant potential for drug delivery and diagnosis. However, the method of isolation affects the physical and biological properties of exosomes. Several methods based on different principles have been developed for exosome isolation. These include ultrafiltration, precipitation, ultracentrifugation, size-exclusion chromatography, and microfluidics. In this study, we applied three common methods, such as ultrafiltration, precipitation, and ultracentrifugation, to isolate exosomes from the cell culture medium and investigated the effects of these different isolation methods on the size distribution and quality of the isolated exosomes. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images, size distribution, total protein content, and the effect of exosomes on the viability of hypoxic cells were analyzed in this study. The analysis revealed that compared to other methods, the ultracentrifugation method can isolate exosomes with smaller diameter (ranging from 20 to 80 nm), lower total protein content (50 µg/ml), and causing the increased viability of the hypoxic cells. The precipitation method does not require special equipment and is inexpensive, if the quality and purity of this method are solved, and it can be used as the best method for exosome isolation. This study can serve as a guide for choosing the best exosome isolation method for applications in medicine according to the needs, time, cost, and equipment.

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

Pure monocular 3D reconstruction is an ill-posed problem that has attracted the research community's interest due to the affordability and availability of RGB sensors. SLAM, VO, and SFM are disciplines formulated to solve the 3D reconstruction problem and estimate the camera’s ego-motion, so many methods have been proposed. However, most of these methods were not evaluated in large datasets, under various motion patterns, had not been tested under the same metrics, and most of them had not been evaluated following a taxonomy, making their comparison and selection difficult. In this research, we performed a comparison of ten publicly available SLAM and VO methods following a taxonomy, including one method for each category of the primary taxonomy, three machine learning-based methods, and two updates of the best methods, to identify the advantages and limitations of each category of the taxonomy and test if the addition of machine learning or the updates made on those methods improved them significantly. Thus, we evaluated each algorithm under the TUM-Mono benchmark and performed an inferential statistical analysis to identify significative differences through its metrics. Results determined that sparse-direct methods significantly outperformed the rest of the taxonomy, and fusing them with machine learning techniques significantly improves the performance of geometric-based methods from different perspectives.

Radiomics involves the extraction of information from medical images not visible to the human eye. There is evidence these features can be used for treatment stratification and outcome prediction. However, there is much discussion about the reproducibility of results between different studies. This paper studies the reproducibility of CT texture features used in radiomics, comparing two feature extraction implementations namely Matlab toolkit and Pyradiomics when applied on independent datasets of CT scans of patients i) the open access RIDER dataset containing a set of repeat CT scans taken 15 minutes apart for 31 patients (RIDER Scan 1 and Scan 2 respectively) treated for lung cancer and ii) the open access HN1 dataset containing 137 patients treated for head and neck cancer. Gross tumor volume (GTV) manually outlined by an experienced observer available on both datasets was used. 43 common radiomics features available on Matlab and Pyradiomics were calculated using 2 intensity-level quantization methods with and without an intensity threshold. Cases were ranked for each feature for all combinations of quantization parameters and the Spearman’s rank coefficient, rs, calculated. Reproducibility was defined when a highly correlated feature in the RIDER dataset also correlated highly in the HN1 dataset and vice versa. 29 out of 43 reported stable features were found to be highly reproducible between Matlab and Pyradiomics implementations, having consistently high correlation in rank ordering for RIDER Scan 1 and RIDER Scan 2 (rs &gt; 0.8). 18/43 reported features were common in RIDER and HN1 datasets, suggesting they may be agnostic to disease site. Useful radiomics features should be selected based on reproducibility. This study identified a set of features that meet this requirement and validated the methodology for evaluating reproducibility between datasets.

The rapid development of quantum computing devices promises powerful machines with capabilities that solve a wide range of problems that traditional computers cannot. Therefore, quantum computers generate new threats at unprecedented speed and scale and specifically pose an enormous threat to encryption. Lattice-based cryptography is considered to be the rival to a quantum computer attack and the future of post-quantum cryptography. So, cryptographic protocols based on lattices have a variety of benefits, like security, efficiency, lower energy consumption, and speed. In this work, we study the most well-known lattice-based cryptosystems while a systematic evaluation and comparison is presented also, and focuses on their strengths and weaknesses.

We discuss two methods to detect the presence and location of a person in a small-scale room and compare the performances. The first method is Direct Intersection, which determines a coordinate point based on the intersection of spheroids defined by observed distances of high-intensity reverberations. The second method, Sonogram analysis, overlays all channel’s room impulse responses to generate an intensity map for the observed environment. We demonstrate that the former method has lower computation complexity and higher accuracy for small numbers of channels, while the latter performs more robustly.

Recently, much attention has been devoted to finding highly efficient and powerful activation functions for CNN layers. Because activation functions inject different nonlinearities between layers that affect performance, varying them is one method for building robust ensembles of CNNs. The objective of this study is to examine the performance of CNN ensembles made with different activation functions, including six new ones presented here: 2D Mexican ReLU, TanELU, MeLU+GaLU, Symmetric MeLU, Symmetric GaLU, and Flexible MeLU. The highest performing ensemble was built with CNNs having different activation layers that randomly replaced the standard ReLU. A comprehensive evaluation of the proposed approach was conducted across fifteen biomedical data sets representing various classification tasks. The proposed method was tested on two basic CNN architectures: Vgg16 and ResNet50. Results demonstrate the superiority in performance of this approach. The MATLAB source code for this study will be available at https://github.com/LorisNanni.

Malassezia is lipid-dependent commensal yeast of the human skin. The different culture media and skin sampling methods used to grow these fastidious yeasts are a source of heterogeneity in culture-based epidemiological study results. This study aimed to compare the performances of three methods of skin sampling, and two culture media for the detection of Malassezia yeasts by culture from the human skin. Three skin sampling methods, namely sterile gauze, dry swab and TranswabTM with transport medium, were applied on 10 healthy volunteers. Each sample was further inoculated onto either the novel FastFung medium or the reference Dixon agar for the detection of Malassezia spp. by culture. At least one colony of Malassezia spp. grew on 93/300 (31%) of the cultures, corresponding to 150 samplings. The positive culture rate was 67%, 18%, and 15% (P &lt; 10-3), for samples collected with sterile gauze, TranswabTM, and dry swab, respectively. The positive culture rate was 62% and 38% (P &lt; 0.003) by using the FastFung and the Dixon media, respectively. Our results showed that sterile gauze rubbing skin sampling followed by inoculation on FastFung medium should be implemented in the routine clinical laboratory procedure for Malassezia spp. cultivation.

Affinity chromatography on procainamide-Sepharose has been an important step in the purification of butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) since its introduction in 1978. The procainamide affinity gel has limitations. In the present report a new affinity gel called Hupresin^® was evaluated for its ability to purify truncated, partly-deglycosylated human butyrylcholinesterase (rHuBChE) expressed in a stably transfected CHO cell line. We present a detailed example of the purification of rHuBChE secreted into 3940 mL of serum-free culture medium. The starting material contained 13,163 units of BChE activity (20.9 mg). rHuBChE was purified to homogeneity in a single step by passage over 82 mL of Hupresin^® and elution with 0.1 M tetramethylammonium bromide in 20 mM TrisCl pH 7.5. The fraction with the highest specific activity of 630 units/mg contained 11 mg of BChE. Hupresin^® is superior to procainamide-Sepharose for purification of BChE, but is not suitable for purifying native AChE because Hupresin^® binds AChE so tightly that AChE is desorbed with denaturing solvents such as 50% acetonitrile or 1% trifluoroacetic acid. Procainamide-Sepharose will continue to be useful for purification of AChE.

Introduction. Few studies have compared the dependence to different tobacco and nicotine products. Besides how dependence may vary between tobacco products there is even less known how it relates to other common drugs, e.g. caffeine. In this study degree of dependence was compared between snus, cigarettes, nicotine replacement (NR), electronic cigarettes and coffee. Methods. An internet panel was used to obtain a representative sample of 3001 Swedes. The responders were asked among other related things about their use of snus, NR, traditional cigarette or e-cigarette use and coffee consumption. The indicators of dependence used were: A. the Heavy Smoking Index, B. The proportions that used within 30 min after raising in the morning, C. rating the first use in the morning as the most important and D. Stating that it would be very hard to give up entirely. Results. Significantly fewer among coffee drinkers started use within 30 minutes of awakening compared with all other products. The first use of the day was found to be more important for snus users compared with other products. On HSI there was no difference between snus and cigarettes. Snus and cigarettes were rated as being more difficult to give up than NR and coffee. Conclusion. Dependence to traditional cigarettes and snus seem to be relatively similar while NR was rated lower and coffee lowest. Since the prevalence of caffeine use in all forms is so much more prevalent than nicotine use there might be more persons in the society heavily dependent on caffeine. Implication. Tobacco products are likely more dependence forming that NR products and coffee. The addiction to coffee or caffeine is seldom discussed in the society. But if there are more individuals heavily dependent on coffee than nicotine and some nicotine containing products like snus and even more so NR are not that much more harmful than coffee how problematic is the addiction?

Fleets of drones have attracted a lot of attention from the research community in recent years. One of the biggest challenges in deploying such systems is localization. While GNSS localization systems can only be effective in open outdoor environments, new solutions based on radio sensors (e.g., ultra-wideband) are increasingly being used for localization in various situations and environments. However, self-localization without prior knowledge of anchor positions remains an open problem which, for example, makes it impossible to track a moving target. In this article, we provide a comparison of different variants of gradient descent-based algorithms, with a new improved variant, for solving the localization problem using relative distance measurements and multilateration. It is applied to self-localization of anchors and tracking targets using ultra-wideband distance sensors. A realistic simulation of drone tracking and anchors’ localization is performed to demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed approach.

Adaption of laser communication terminals to airborne and lean-satellite platforms is now a vogue, made possible due to the progressing advancements in lightweight components and compactness of onboard electro-optical transceivers and control systems. This enables highly secured and superior data-transmission rates beyond multiple Gigabit/second on CubeSats and drones compared to Megabit/second rates offered by similar radio-transceivers form factors. However, laser-transmission links require a very stringent beam-pointing stability because they are easily perturbed by attitude variations and micro-vibrations generated by the host platform’s propulsion system or other mechanically active subsystems in proximity with the transmitter’s optical head. Severe line-of-sight jitter causes the downlink laser beam to drift from the targeted receiving system’s field-of-view, inducing pointing errors, increasing signal outage probability and information loss. We experimentally examine the platform jitter generated by the propellers of an hexacopter drone during ground operation and the attitude-control unit’s reaction wheels in a 6U CubeSat structure. We determined the vibration spectrum unique to these platforms and accordingly prescribe requirements for applicable optical fine pointing and disturbance isolation or suppression systems needed to achieve a high-fidelity laser-communication link.

This study examines the improvement in coupled intercomparison project phase six (CMIP6) models against the predecessor CMIP5 in simulating mean and extreme precipitation over the East Africa region. The study compares the climatology of the precipitation indices simulated by the CMIP models with the CHIRPS dataset using robust statistical techniques for 1981 – 2005. The results display the varying performance of the general circulation models (GCMs) in the simulation of annual and seasonal precipitation climatology over the study domain. CMIP6-MME shows improved performance in the local annual mean cycle simulation with a better representation of two peaks, especially the MAM rainfall relative to its predecessor. Moreover, simulation of extreme indices is well captured in CMIP6 models relative to its predecessor. The CMIP6-MME performed better than the CMIP5-MME with lesser biases in simulating SDII, CDD, and R20mm over East Africa. Remarkably, most CMIP6 models are unable to simulate extremely wet days (R95p). A few CMIP6 models (e.g., NorESM2-MM and CNRM-CM6-1) depicts robust performance in reproducing the observed indices across all analyses. Conversely, OND season shows the overestimation of some indices (i.e., R95p, PRCPTOT), except for SDII, CDD, and R20mm. Consistent with other studies, the mean ensemble performance for both CMIP5/6 shows better performance due to the cancellation of some systematic errors in the individual models. Generally, the CMIP6 depicts improved performance in the simulation of MAM season akin CMIP5 models. However, the new model generation is still marred with uncertainty, thereby depicting substandard performance over the East Africa domain. This calls for further investigation of attribution studies into the sources of persistent systematic biases and a prerequisite for identifying individual models with robust features that can accurately simulate observed patterns for future usage.

The Lagrangian and Eulerian structure and dynamics of a strong wind event in the Tokar Gap region are described using a WRF model hindcast for 2008. Winds in the Tokar Gap reach 25 m s-1 and remain coherent as a jet far out over the Red Sea, whereas equally strong wind jets occurring in neighboring gaps are attenuated abruptly by a jump-like hydraulic transition that occur just offshore of the Sudan coast. The transition is made possible by the supercritical nature of the jets, which are fed by air that spills down from passes at relatively high elevation. By contrast, the spilling flow in the ravine-like Tokar Gap does not become substantially supercritical and therefore does not undergo a jump, and also carries more total horizontal momentum. The Tokar Wind Jet carries some air parcels across the Red Sea and into Saudi Arabia, whereas air parcel trajectories in the neighboring jets ascend as they cross through the jumps, then veer sharply to the southeast and do not cross the Red Sea. The mountain parameter Nh/U is estimated to lie in the rage 1.0-4.0 for the general region, a result roughly consistent with a primary gap jet having a long extension, and supercritical jets spilling down from higher elevation passes. The strong event is marked by the formation of a cyclonic cell near the upstream entrance to the Tokar Gap, a feature absent from the more moderate events that occur throughout the summer. The cell contains descending air parcels that are fed into the primary and secondary jets. An analysis of the Bernoulli function along air parcel trajectories reveals an approximate balance between the loss of potential energy and gain of internal energy and pressure, with surprisingly little contribution from kinetic energy, along the path of the descending flow. All jets attain the critical wind speed nominally required to loft dust into the atmosphere, though only the Tokar Gap has a broad, delta region with plentiful deposits of silt.

Alteration of land use and climate change are among the main variables affecting watershed hydrology. Characterizing the impacts of climate variation and land use alteration on water resources is essential in managing watersheds. Thus, in this research, streamflow and baseflow responses to climate and land use variation were modeled in two watersheds, the Upper West Branch DuPage River (UWBDR) watershed in Illinois and Walzem Creek watershed in Texas. The variations in streamflow and baseflow were evaluated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model. The alteration in land use between 1992 and 2011 was evaluated using transition matrix analysis. The non-parametric Mann-Kendall test was adopted to investigate changes in meteorological data from 1980-2017. Our results indicated that the baseflow accounted for almost 55.3% and 33.3% of the annual streamflow in the UWBDR and Walzem Creek watersheds, respectively. The contribution of both land use alteration and climate variability on the flow variation is higher in the UWBDR watershed. In Walzem Creek, the alteration in streamflow and baseflow appears to be driven by the effect of urbanization more than that of climate variability. The results reported herein are compared with results reported in recent work by the authors in order to provide necessary information for water resources management planning, as well as soil and water conservation, and to broaden the current understanding of hydrological components variation in different climate regions.