This paper presents a review on numerical and experimental methods to predict fracture of ad-vanced high strength steels (AHSS). AHSS are widely processed through sheet metal forming processes. Although being an excellent choice when lightweight, high strength and ductility are critical factors, their multi-phase microstructure accentuates forming challenges. To accurately model forming behavior, necking based failure criteria as well as direct fracture models require improvements. As a necking based failure model, the conventional forming limit diagram/curve (FLD/FLC) presents limitations such as in estimating direct fracture (surface cracks, edge cracks, shear cracks), as well as deformation histories under nonlinear strain paths. Thus, significant re-search efforts are being made towards the needs of advanced fracture constitutive models capa-ble of predicting fracture scenarios without necking, more frequently observed in the realm of AHSS. Scientific community research is divided into several directions aiming at improving the forming and fracture behavior accuracy of parts subjected to sheet metal forming operations. In this review paper, a comprehensive overview on ductile fracture modeling is presented. Firstly, the FLD/FLC limitations modeling fracture behavior in sheet metal forming operations are stud-ied. Followed by the recent trends in constitutive material modeling. Afterwards, material char-acterization methods advancements to cover a broad range of stress states are comprised. Final-ly, damage and fracture models predicting failure in AHSS are investigated. This review paper supplies relevant information on the current issues the sheet metal forming community is chal-lenged with due to the trend towards AHSS employment in the automotive industry.

Software defect prediction models enable test managers to predict defect-prone modules and assist with delivering quality products. A test manager would be willing to identify the attributes that can influence defect prediction and should be able to trust the model outcomes. The objective of this research is to create software defect prediction models with a focus on interpretability. Additionally, it aims to investigate the impact of size, complexity, and other source code metrics on the prediction of software defects. This research will also assess the reliability of cross-project defect prediction. Well-known machine learning techniques such as support vector machines, k-nearest neighbors, random forest classifiers, and artificial neural networks were applied to publicly available PROMISE datasets. The interpretability of this approach has been demonstrated by SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) techniques. The developed interpretable software defect prediction models showed reliability on independent and cross-project data. Finally, the results demonstrate that static code metrics can contribute to the defect prediction models, and the inclusion of explainability assists in establishing trust in the developed models.

The work addresses the problem of Power Quality (PQ) metrics (or indexes) suitable for DC grids, encompassing Low and Medium Voltage applications, including electric transports, all-electric ships and aircrafts, electric vehicles, distributed generation and microgrids, modern data centers, etc. The two main pillars on which such PQ indexes are discussed and built are: i) the physical justification, so the electric phenomena affecting DC grids and components (PV panels, fuel cells, capacitors, batteries, etc.), causing e.g. stress of materials, ageing, distortion, grid instability; ii) the existing standardization framework, pointing out desirable coverage and extension, similarity with AC grids standards, but also inconsistencies. The first point is made more clear and usable by a graphical overview of the discussed phenomena. On this basis PQ is interpreted beyond the usual low-frequency range, including thus supraharmonics and common-mode disturbance, and filling the gap with the Electromagnetic Compatibility domain. However, phenomena typical of EMC and electrical safety (such as various types of overvoltages and fast transients) are excluded. Suitable PQ indexes are then reviewed, suggesting integrations and modifications, to cover the relevant phenomena and technological progress, and to better follow the normative exigencies.

Detecting cracks in structural health monitoring is crucial for ensuring infrastructure safety and longevity. Using drones to obtain crack images and automate processing can improve the efficiency of crack detection. To address the challenges posed by the limited computing resources of edge devices in practical applications, we propose CrackScopeNet, a lightweight segmentation network model that simultaneously considers local and global crack features, suitable for deployment on drone platforms with limited computational power and memory. CrackScopeNet features a multi-scale branch to improve sensitivity to cracks of varying sizes without substantial computational overhead and a stripe-wise context attention mechanism to enhance the capture of long-range contextual information, mitigating the interference from complex backgrounds. Experimental results on CrackSeg9k dataset demonstrate that CrackScopeNet leads to a significant improvement in prediction performance, with the highest mean intersection over union (mIoU) scores reaching 82.12%, while maintaining a lightweight architecture with only 1.05M parameters and 1.58G floating point operations (FLOPs). Besides, CrackScopeNet excels in inference speed on edge devices without GPU because of its low FLOPs. CrackScopeNet contributes to the development of efficient and effective crack segmentation networks, suitable for practical structural health monitoring applications using drone platforms.

Dogs population increased exponentially in the past decade while the birth rate decreased gradually, especially in the developed countries. Due to dogs’ characteristics of loyalty and obedience, most pet owners treated their dogs as their family members or companions, therefore they are willing to select and purchase safe, high quality and nutrition dog food to their dogs. However, there is lack of regulation or standard to reinforce the production or distribution of dog food in Hong Kong. Consequently, this paper will first review the relationship between high dog population and declining birth rate, types of dog food and typical ingredients. Secondly, the potential health implications of various “toxic” food ingredients for dog, hazard analysis of dog food and its testing methods will be investigated. Lastly, this paper will summarize worldwide existing standards and regulations, quality and hygiene management system related to dog food safety to provide insights and suggestions to Hong Kong government about the importance and urgency of implementing regulations and policies to oversee the imported and local manufactured dog food.

In this work, dry and hydrothermal carbonization (DC and HTC) of RDF pellets were conducted to evaluate the physical, chemical, and fuel properties of the produced chars. In the dry carbonization tests, biomass sawdust was incorporated in different proportions on the samples to minimize agglomeration caused by the melting of the plastic fraction. The experiments were carried out in a temperature of 400°C (DC) and 250-300°C (HTC), in a residence time of 30 minutes. The respective chars and hydrochars were characterized according to their mass yield, apparent density, proximate, elemental, and mineral composition, chlorine content, high heating value, thermogravimetric profile, and surface functional groups. The results showed that dry carbonization of RDF pellets with biomass incorporation, followed by a washing step, resulted in the production of chars with improved properties such as higher fixed carbon and HHV (25-26 MJ/kg) and lower ash and chlorine content. Additionally, the HTC experiments demonstrated that hydrochars showed improved properties without the need for biomass addition and washing, however, with no significant difference in the HHV (20-21 MJ/kg). Therefore, DC of RDF pellets with 10% biomass incorporation seems to be a promising option to overcome the constraints of RDF utilization as an alternative fuel.

With increasing research focus on industrial anomaly detection, numerous methods have emerged in this domain. Notably, memory bank-based approaches, coupled with kNN distance metrics, have demonstrated remarkable performance in anomaly detection (AD) and anomaly segmentation (AS). However, upon examination of the Back to the Feature (BTF) method applied to the Mvtec-3D AD dataset, it was observed that while it exhibited exceptional segmentation performance, its detection performance was lacking. To address this discrepancy, this study base improves the implementation of BTF, especially the improvement of the anomaly score metric. It posits that different "clusters" necessitate distinct k values in kNN distance metrics. For simplify, this assumption is distilled into the proposition that AD and AS tasks impose differing requirements on the k value in kNN distance metrics. Consequently, the paper introduces the BTM method, which utilizes distinct distance metrics for AD and AS tasks. This innovative approach yields superior AD and AS performance (I-AUROC 93.0%, AURPO 96.9%, P-AUROC 99.5%), representing a substantial enhancement over the BTF method (I-AUROC 5.7% ↑, AURPO 0.5% ↑, P-AUROC 0.2% ↑).

Sharding shows great potential for extending the blockchain. The current challenge facing sharded blockchain technology lies in addressing the extended transaction confirmation times caused by isolated states between shards and unbalanced transaction allocation strategies. These factors contribute to an increase in cross-shard transactions and disproportionate shard workload, ultimately resulting in indefinite confirmation delays for cross-shard transactions. A critical priority for sharded blockchain systems is to conduct a comprehensive qualitative analysis to better understand and mitigate the prolonged transaction confirmation times. We introduce a Product-Form Queue Network (PFQN) model to address the transaction confirmation time problem in sharded blockchains and incorporate a new confirmation queue to more accurately simulate the actual transaction confirmation process in the blockchain. In addition, we provide a detailed quantitative analysis of the relationship between network load, consensus efficiency, and security in sharded blockchains, laying a theoretical foundation for achieving robustness and efficiency in sharded blockchains. This research not only contributes to addressing the scalability issues in sharded blockchains but also offers a new perspective for future research directions.

The success of a software system is highly dependent upon its quality which is a very critical aspect and is the ultimate goal to be achieved. Defect Management is the most important process in ensuring software quality, it involves defect detection, defect categorization, defect prioritization, defect removal and defect verification. The main purpose of this process is to develop and produce defect free or least defected software systems of high quality. It plays a vital role in gaining customer confidence and satisfaction which is essential for the reputation of the organization developing the system. The central objective of this study is to explain the importance of defect management and its impact on the quality of the software along with various defect management techniques to support the objective.

A novel determination method using flow-through cartridge purification and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was developed for the identification and quantification of 30 mycotoxins (aflatoxin B1, B2, G1, G2, sterigmatocysin, T-2 toxin, diacetoxyscirpenol, roquefortine C, methylergonovine, ergocornine, lysergol, enniatin A, enniatin A1, enniatin B, enniatin B1, beauvericin, deoxynivalenol, 3-acetylDeoxynivalenol, 15-acetylDeoxynivalenol, patulin, verruculogen, neosolaniol, gliotoxin, HT-2 toxin, wortmannin, zearalenone, α-zearalenol, β-zearalenol, α-zearalanol, and β-zearalanol) in feedstuffs. Mycotoxins were extracted from sample by 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution/acetonitrile (16/84 v/v), then purified by a Cleanert® MC clean-up column. As a result, the pigments and other matrices were efficient removed from the sample extract solution. The purified eluate was collected, then evaporated and redissolved by 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution/acetonitrile (70:30 v/v) for UPLC-MS/MS detection. A BEH Shield RP18 chromatographic column was employed for separation of 30 mycotoxins in a total of 14 min. Multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was applied for qualitative and quantitative analysis, and matrix calibration curves obtained with the external-standard method was used for quantitation of target analytes. Under optimized conditions, the linearity range was from 2 to 1000 ng/g, and the limit of quantification of the developed method was from 2 to 50 ng/g. The recoveries of 30 mycotoxins spiked in urine samples were from 72.0% to 118.5%, and the relative standard deviation was below 20%. The method was also well approved by certified reference sample, and applied on the real feedstuff samples testing successfully.

The elasticity of red blood cells (RBCs) is crucial for their ability to fulfill their role in the blood. Decreased RBC deformability is associated with various pathological conditions. This study explores the application of machine learning to predict the elasticity of RBCs using both image data and detailed physical measurements derived from simulations. We simulated RBC behavior in a microfluidic channel. The simulation results provided the basis for generating data on which we applied machine learning techniques. We analyzed the surface-area-to-volume ratio of RBCs as an indicator of elasticity, employing statistical methods to differentiate between healthy and diseased RBCs. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test confirmed significant differences between healthy and diseased RBCs, though distinctions among different types of diseased RBCs were less clear. We used decision tree models, including random forests and gradient boosting, to classify RBC elasticity based on predictors derived from simulation data. The comparison of the results with our previous work on deep neural networks shows improved classification accuracy in some scenarios. The study highlights the potential of machine learning to automate and enhance the analysis of RBC elasticity, with implications for clinical diagnostics.

Voice cloning, an emerging field in the speech processing area, aims to generate synthetic utterances that closely resemble the voices of specific individuals. In this study, we investigate the impact of various techniques on improving the quality of voice cloning, specifically focusing on a low-quality dataset. To contrast our findings, we also use two high-quality corpora for comparative analysis. We conduct exhaustive evaluations of the quality of the gathered corpora in order to select the most suitable audios for the training of a Voice Cloning system. Following these measurements, we conduct a series of ablations by removing audios with lower SNR and higher variability in utterance speed from the corpora in order to decrease their heterogeneity. Furthermore, we introduce a novel algorithm that calculates the fraction of aligned input characters by exploiting the attention matrix of the Tacotron 2 Text-to-Speech (TTS) system. This algorithm provides a valuable metric for evaluating the alignment quality during the voice cloning process. We present the results of our experiments, demonstrating that the performed ablations significantly increase the quality of synthesised audios for the challenging low-quality corpus. Notably, our findings indicate that models trained on a 3-hour corpus from a pre-trained model exhibit comparable audio quality to models trained from scratch using significantly larger amounts of data.

The conformity assessment of products or a measured value with the given standards is carried out based on the global risk of producers and consumers calculation. A product may conform to specifications but be falsely rejected as non-conforming. This is about the producer's risk. If a product doesn't meet the requirements but is falsely accepted as conforming, that poses a risk to the consumer. The conventional approach to risk assessment, which yields only a single numerical value for the global risk of producers and consumers, is naturally extended, and utilized for assessing risk in measurement models with linear regression. The outcomes of the two-dimensional extension, along a moderate scale, are the parabolas with an opening upwards. Risk surfaces were obtained through three-dimensional extension over the area limited by the moderate scale and guard band axes. Four models with different ranges of tolerance intervals were used to test this innovative method of risk assessment in linear regression. The corresponding standard measurement uncertainties are determined by applying a simplified measurement model with the use of comprehensive data on the measurement performance and by determining measurement uncertainty derived from consideration of the functional relationship obtained by linear regression analysis. Models that utilize information from linear regression analysis to determine measurement uncertainty are biased towards risks at the edges of the moderate scale. Testing the model's performances with metrics related to the confusion matrix, such as the F1 score, further substantiated this assertion. The diagnostic odds ratio has been proven to be extremely effective in identifying the curve along the guard band axis, along which the global risks of producers and consumers are at their lowest.

This study critically reviews the situation of Language teachers in China, who transited from on-campus face-to-face teaching to online teaching within one week of the official school opening dates, which were postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Presently, the study is located in an interpretive research paradigm, and hence, it takes the human experiences within educational setups to be subjective and complex. In so doing, to elude this educational transition and its complex dynamics, the research uses such qualitative research methods as document analysis and interviews. Painting a picture of great variety in individual experiences and challenges, strategies, and outcomes not only across these two specific institutions but, certainly, more broadly through the lens of previous case studies. First, it values depth over breadth and tries to unearth the varied experiences, challenges, innovations, and achievements faculty made during their transition into online Language Teaching. The results of the study are believed to be able to contribute quite a rich, detailed, and multi-faceted perspective to the pool of knowledge for the complexities of online Language education in China, which may be of interest to educators, policymakers, and researchers.

The complex systems that require safety are the Safety Critical Systems. Maintaining these systems is a big challenge. Now a days, safety is a very critical requirement for the latest systems. Safety critical systems must be safe. Different approaches to ensure quality and safety in safety critical systems has been discussed in this paper. A comparison is also conducted between these various approaches. Safety critical systems must remain more influential in future.

IoT is a fast growing technology that has Promising potential for shaping our future. In this fast growing world of IoT, IoT systems are released without proper testing which effect its quality and does not guarantee user satisfaction. Different testing methodologies are carried out to ensure Quality assurance of IoT before releasing it to the market. In this paper we have reviewed different testing techniques using AI and different tools to ensure Quality of IoT. In this paper we have also reviewed different IoT challenges related to its quality.

As the time passes the modification in technology world lead to the evaluation in mobile application as well. With evaluation in mobile industry it is an open challenge for software quality researcher that how to enhance software quality to meet the needs of changes? Quality assurance play a key role in differentiating good application from bed application. With the continuous evaluation of mobile application developing process should be quick and efficient to comply with user requirements and satisfaction. While the listed requirement leads to bad design choices known as antipatterns, which in turn affect the reliability of the code. A tool based method PAPRIKA is used in the proposed re-search to identify and monitor these antipatterns together with a two-step assessment model for software quality assurance and object oriented software quality matrix.

In this study, a basic study was performed to analyze the seasonal temperature status of a research room in the Global Environment Research Building where ceiling-embedded indoor units are installed to study the room temperature status of the building as well as to improve its thermal environment. In addition, a direction for improvement of the indoor thermal environment in the winter was proposed through a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation and was proven by an additional experiment. Through the results of this study, it appeared that if the ceiling-embedded indoor unit was installed in the small indoor space without considering the thermal vulnerability of its perimeter boundary, the air temperature of the upper part was greatly different from that of the bottom part in the winter. Hence, in this study, as a means to improve it, convectors were installed to minimize the effect of the external thermal environment and angle-controllable air flowing fans were installed to mitigate the stratification distribution. With such result, it was intended to present the essential data for improvement of the thermal environment as well as conservation of heating energy in the winter for buildings by reviewing the use of the ceiling-embedded indoor unit in the future.

The adulteration of goat milk powder occurs frequently, cattle-derived and soybean-derived ingredients are common adulterants in goat milk powder. However, simultaneously and rapidly detecting cattle-derived and soybean-derived components is still a challenge. high throughput and efficient screening method for adulteration detection is need. In this study, a rapid method was developed to detect the adulteration of common cattle-derived and soybean-derived components simultaneously in goat milk powder by combining the CRISPR/ Cas12a system with recombinant polymerase amplification (RPA). A dual DNA extraction method was employed, primers and crRNA for dual detection were designed and screened, and a series of condition optimizations were carried out in this experiment. The optimized assay can rapidly detect cattle-derived and soybean-derived components in 40 min. The detection limits of both cattle-derived and soybean-derived components were 1% (w/w) for the mixed adulteration models. The established method was applied into a blind survey of 55 commercially available goat milk powder products. The results showed that 36.36% of the samples contained cattle-derived or soybean-derived ingredients, which revealed the noticeable adulteration situation in the goat milk powder market. This study realizes a fast flow of dual extraction, dual amplification and dual detection of cattle-derived and soybean-derived components in goat milk powder for the first time. It can be used for high-throughput and high-efficiency on-site primary screening of goat milk powder adulterants, and provide a technical reference for combating with food adulteration.

This study investigates the impact of circular economy (CE) strategies on organizational resilience (OR) within the metal industry, focusing on a case study of a forging department in a large man-ufacturing company. The idea of the paper is to link the macroeconomic topic of circular economy (CE) with microeconomic and practical activities in the organization, exploring how CE principles can improve resource efficiency, sustainability, and organizational resilience. A systematic literature review and case study methodology were used to assess the relationship between CE and OR. The findings reveal that companies with higher circularity demonstrate better resilience, both in normal operations and during crises. Specifically, in the case study, the closure of the forging department, following a detailed analysis using the Inputs-Mediators-Outputs (IMO) model, emerged as the most sustainable option, yielding financial, environmental, and operational benefits. This decision aligned with the company’s long-term goals of energy efficiency and carbon neutrality. The research highlights the significance of integrating CE strategies with business processes to not only achieve sustainability but also to build a more adaptable and resilient organization. Future research should explore broader applications of this framework across different industries to strengthen the links between circular economy practices and organizational resilience.

Numerous varieties of Capsicum annuum L. with multiple valuable traits, such as adaptation to biotic and abiotic stress factors, can be found in south-east Romania, well known for vegetable cultivation and an important area of biodiversity conservation. To obtain useful information toward a sustainable agriculture, management and conservation of local pepper varieties, we analyzed the genetic diversity and we did deep molecular characterization using Whole Genome Resequencing (WGS) for variant/mutation detection. The pepper varieties used in the present study were registered by VRDS in the ISTIS catalog between 1974 and 2019 and maintained in conservative selection, however, no studies have been published yet using WGS analysis in order to characterize this specific germplasm. The genome sequences, annotation and alignments provided in this study offer essential resources for genomic research as well as for future breeding efforts using the C. annuum local varieties.

In the early 2000s, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) emerged as a performant and relevant tool for identifying micro-organisms. Since then, it has become practically essential for identifying bacteria in microbiological diagnostic laboratories. In the last decade, it was successfully applied for arthropod identification allowing to distinguish vectors from non-vectors of infectious diseases. However, identification failures are not rare, hampering it widely use. Failure is generally attributed either to the absence of respective counter species MS spectra in the database, or to the insufficient quality of query MS spectra (i.e. lower intensity and diversity of MS peaks detected). To avoid matching errors due to non-compliant spectra, the development of a strategy for detecting and excluding outlier MS profiles became compulsory. To this end, we created MSProfileR, an R package leading to a bioinformatics tool through a simple installation, integrating the control quality system of MS spectra and an analysis pipeline including peak detection and MS spectra comparisons. MSProfileR can also add metadata concerning the sample that the spectra are derived from. MSProfileR has been developed in the R environment and offers a user-friendly web interface using the R Shiny framework. It is available on Microsoft Windows as a web browser application by simply navigation using the link of the package on the Github. MSProfileR is therefore accessible to non-computer specialists and is freely available to the scientific community. We evaluated MSProfileR using two datasets including exclusively MS spectra from arthropods. In addition to coherent sample classification, outlier MS spectra were detected in each dataset confirming the value of MSProfileR.

Meta-heuristic algorithms are methods that try to solve problems by imitating events and systems existing in nature. It can be very difficult to solve nonlinear problems with the help of known classical algorithms. In this study, a new meta-heuristic method, the Pi algorithm, is proposed. Pi is a special number that is not periodic and contains many different number combinations in its digits calculated so far. The most important part of meta-heuristic methods is the equations and parameters used to ensure the diversity of the created population. In this study, a specific Pi coefficient for each attribute was calculated with the help of the Monte-Carlo method. These coefficients were used in the Pi algorithm in other parts of the study. In the application for data clustering, experiments were made on 5 different data sets. The best accuracy rate of 95.5% was achieved. In this respect, it has been seen that the Pi algorithm works successfully as a meta-heuristic method. It can be studied on a population-based data clustering, classification, prediction, etc. It can be easily applied in all areas.

The circular economy is one of the main strategies for mitigating the environmental impacts of civil construction, due to the generation of construction and demolition waste (CDW). In this transition, evaluating alternatives for using buildings as material banks is a way to make the process of reusing construction components more efficient. Thus, the article aimed to evaluate the state of the art of publications on the relationship between the circular economy in civil construction and the conceptual model of buildings as material banks, to mitigate the environmental impacts of CDW. The authors chose the methodological design of Systematic Literature Review, using the Scopus and Web of Science databases for research, with the following search strings: ("construction" or "civil construction" or "built environment" or "construction industry" ) and ("circular economy" or "circular construction") and ("material banks" or "BAMB" or "buildings as material banks" or "building stocks" or "building materials") and ("construction waste" or "demolition waste" or "CDW" or "construction and demolition waste" or "environmental impacts"). After a screening in which only articles published in journals were selected, from 2013 to 2023, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, to evaluate only those that had a direct relationship with CDW management through circular economy strategies and buildings such as banks of material. As a result, 93 articles remained, which were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approach. The quantitative results showed an increase in publications since 2020, which are concentrated in European countries and China. The predominance of applied studies was also noted, through case studies that evaluate the management of materials and waste in the urban environment. The qualitative analysis, carried out using a SWOT Matrix, highlighted the strengths of the buildings, such as material banks, the potential reduction of resource extraction and urban mining, promoting the circulation of construction products. However, the recycling of waste, such as aggregates, still stands out as the main end-of-life strategy adopted, even without occupying the top of the waste hierarchy.

Two new dimacrolide sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids (DMSPAs), dimacroregelines A (1) and B (2), were isolated from the stems of Tripterygium regelii. The structures of both compounds were characterized by extensive 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic analyses, as well as HRESIMS data. Compounds 1 and 2 are two rare DMSPAs possessing unique 2-(3′-carboxybutyl)-3-furanoic acid units forming the second macrocyclic ring, representing the first example of DMSPAs bearing an extra furan ring in their second macrocyclic ring system. Compound 2 showed inhibitory effects on the proliferation of human rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblast cell (MH7A) at a concentration of 20 μM.

The role of foods is shifting from focusing on the provision of energy and basic nutrients to also include bioactive compounds that prevent the development of chronic age-related diseases. Mi-croalgae offer a source of nutritional compounds with important health effects, and have the po-tential for production of health-promoting products, without increasing agricultural land use and negatively impacting the environment. Here we investigate the health effects of microalgal ex-tracts with high levels of the colourless carotenoid phytoene. Phytoene is widely available from dietary sources and can be detected across different tissues in the human body. However, it is usually regarded as a precursor for the synthesis of other carotenoids, rather than a bioactive molecule. We utilised the model organism C. elegans to show that phytoene-rich extracts from Chlorella sorokiniana and Dunaliella bardawil have anti-ageing properties. The extracts protect against oxidative damage and amyloid-β42 proteotoxicity (a major pathology of Alzheimer's disease), and extends lifespan. We show that pure phytoene also has these anti-ageing effects, suggesting that phytoene is a bioactive molecule with positive effects on ageing and longevity.

We generalize the concept of a fuzzy metric by introducing its approximating counterpart in order to make it more appropriate for the study of some problems related to words combinatorics. We establish close relations between fuzzy approximating metrics in case of special $t$-norms and approximating parametrized metrics, discuss some relations between fuzzy approximating metrics and fuzzy partial metrics as well as show some possible applications of approximating parametrized metrics in the problems of words combinatorics.

The sleeping and grazing behaviors of horses play a crucial role in their health and welfare. In the horse industry, with the prevalent trend of individual single-stall farming in stable, accurately identifying various behaviors of horses within stables is imperative. This study has established a spatio-temporal dataset for horse postures and behaviors, proposed an algorithm utilizing a SE-SlowFast network with an enhanced loss function. This algorithm achieves automatic recognition of multiple postures and behaviors of horse simultaneously. The model developed in this study demonstrates high accuracy in identifying three postures within the stable: Standing, Crouching, and Lying, achieving respective accuracies of 92.73%, 91.87%, and 92.58%. Additionally, it accurately recognizes two behaviors: Sleeping and Grazing, achieving best accuracies of 93.56% and 98.77%. The overall best accuracy of the model is 93.9%. Experiments on video recognition confirm that the suggested model recognizes horse video data accurately. This study marks the first time computer vision technology has been used in the horse farming industry, achieving non-intrusive recognition of multiple horse postures and behaviors. This study provides valuable data support for livestock managers to evaluate the health conditions of horses, enhances the welfare of horses in stables, and contributes to the advancement of modern horse husbandry practices.

Studies have found critical software malfunctions responsible for some of the worst accidents in recent times. These malfunctions are often only minor defects that snowball into large problems; a few lines of code is all it takes. Complexity, safety, quality, and resilience are among the key attributes defining a software’s operational success. There are many leading factors for complexity, such as increases in the product size, the rate of requirement changes, and the number and type of stakeholders, and failure to manage these issues efficiently always has the same consequence, i.e., massive failure and sometimes technological catastrophe. This work analyzes some of the architecture, design, and implementation guidelines used as detection and mitigation techniques. It also discusses the safety considerations, as considering how the steam industry has handled safety issues could offer some guidance for ensuring safety. Complexity in such systems also causes some of the worst side effects from the quality auditor's perspective. While failures in the software are hard to predict, one of the most significant ways of showing preparedness is practicing software resilience. New mitigation areas, such as the fragility spectrum and failure obviation, and their usage for building a safer system are analyzed. Also discussed are various architecture styles in practice and the dramatic effect human factors can have on the success of the software being developed.

Recently, methods to detect DoS and spoofing attacks that occur on in-vehicle networks using CAN Protocol are being studied through deep learning models such as CNN, RNN, and LSTM. These studies have produced significant results in the field of In-Vehicle Network attack detection using deep learning models. In addition, significant results are being achieved through research on applying time series-based deep learning models such as LSTM to detect DoS attacks and replay attacks occurring in in-drone networks by expanding them to drones using the UAVCAN protocol. In this paper, we conducted an experiment to detect in-drone network attacks through non-time series analysis using machine learning models and deep learning models, and through appropriate learning for each attack type, it can also be analyzed through non-time series analysis. The results showed that it was possible to detect attacks.

The applicability of the distance aggregation problem has attracted the interest of many authors. Motivated by this fact, in this paper we face the modular quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation problem. We characterize those functions that allow merging a collection of modular quasi-(pseudo-)metrics into a single one. Specifically, a description of such functions in terms of triangle triplets is given and, in addition, the relationship between modular quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation functions and modular (pseudo-)metric aggregation functions is discussed. Such characterizations are illustrated with appropriate examples. A few methods to construct modular quasi-(pseudo-)metrics are yielded. Several properties of modular quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation functions are explored and used to develop quick tests for discarding candidate functions to aggregate modular quasi-(pseudo-)metrics. Moreover, a characterization of those modular quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation functions that preserve modular quasi-(pseudo-)metrics is also provided. Furthermore, the relationship between modular quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation functions and quasi-(pseudo-)metric aggregation functions is studied in such a way that significative differences are displayed.

Background/Objectives: PEMF therapy has gained significant attention due to its potential benefits in promoting tissue repair and improving overall well-being. Recent publications in the field of exercise physiology, showed that pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) enhanced the velocity and the quantity of muscle O2 available and the rate of muscle oxygen extraction and utilization, in semi-professional cyclists, during a heavy constant-load exercise. In this paper, we investigate the effect of stimulation on muscular activation, in sedentary young people, during a constant-load exercise, performed at moderate intensity. Methods: Nine male sedentary young people, partic-ipated in this study. The response of the muscle activity, was recorded by surface EMG and assessed measuring the root mean square (RMS) normalized to the peak of the maximum voluntary con-traction. Data were collected in the right vastus Medialis (RVM) and right Biceps Femoris (RBF) at the baseline (standstill sitting), on warm-up (unloaded cycling) and during 30 minutes of con-stant-load exercise, in two experimental conditions (PEMF ON vs PEMF OFF). Results: The mul-tivariate analysis of variance performed on RVM showed a significant effect of PEMF in both warmup and exercise, while on RBF showed a significant effect of PEMF and warmup. Conclusions: PEMF strongly enhanced the amplitude of muscle activity in young sedentary people. The increase in the amplitude of the muscular response may lead to a higher oxygen consumption and release.

Robotic systems have been widely used in various industries, so the security of communication between robots and their components has become an issue that needs to be focused on. As a framework for developing robotic systems, the security of ROS2 can directly affect the security of the upper-level robotic systems. Therefore, it is a worthwhile research topic to detect and analyze the security of ROS2. In this paper, we adopt a formal approach to analyze the security of the communication mechanism of ROS2. First, we use a state transition system to model the potential vulnerabilities of ROS2 based on the ROS2 communication mechanism and the basic process of penetration testing. Secondly, we introduce the CIA model on the basis of the established vulnerability model and use LTL to define its security properties. Then, we design and implement a vulnerability detection tool for ROS2 applications based on the vulnerability model and security properties. Finally, we experimentally test some ROS2-based applications, and the results show that ROS2 has vulnerabilities without additional protection safeguards.

Computer systems are involved in many critical human applications today, so that a small error can lead to serious and dangerous problems. These errors can be from an error in the incorrect design of the user interface to an error in the program code. The success of a software product depends on several factors. Given that different organizations and institutions use software products, the need to have a quality and desirable Software according to the goals and needs of the organization makes measuring the quality of software products. an important issue for most organizations and institutions, To be sure of having the right software. It is necessary to use a standard quality model to examine the features and sub-features for a detailed and principled study in the quality discussion. In this study, the quality of Word software was measured by Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference System. In recent years, powerful systems called fuzzy inference systems on The basis of adaptive neural network (ANFIS) has been used in various sciences. Using the power of neural network training and the linguistic advantage of fuzzy systems, these types of systems have been able to realize the advantages of the two in terms of analyzing very powerful complex processes. Considering the importance of software quality and to have a good and usable software in terms of quality and measuring the quality of software during the study. It was applied at different levels to make the result of measuring the quality of Word software more accurate and closer to reality. In this research, the quality of the software product is measured based on the adaptive neural-fuzzy inference system in ISO standard. According to the results obtained in this study, it is understood that quality is a continuous and hierarchical concept and the quality of each part of the software at any stage of production can lead to high quality products.

We present a novel method for interpolating univariate time series data. The proposed method combines multi-point fractional Brownian bridges, a genetic algorithm, and Takens’ theorem for reconstructing a phase space from univariate time series data. The basic idea is to first generate a population of different stochastically interpolated time series data, and secondly, to use a genetic algorithm to find the pieces in the population which generate the smoothest reconstructed phase space trajectory. A smooth trajectory curve is hereby found to have a low variance of second derivatives along the curve. For simplicity, we refer to the developed method as PhaSpaSto-interpolation, which is an abbreviation for phase-space-trajectory-smoothing stochastic interpolation. The proposed approach is tested and validated with a univariate time series of the Lorenz system, five non-model data sets and tested against a cubic spline interpolation and a linear linear interpolation. We find that the criterion for smoothness guarantees low errors on known model and non-model data. Finally, we interpolate the discussed non-model data sets, and show the corresponding improved phase space portraits. The proposed method is useful for interpolating low-sampled time series data sets for, e.g., machine learning, regression analysis, or time series prediction approaches.

Fractional calculus gained a lot of attention in the last couple of years. Researchers discovered that processes in various fields follow rather fractional dynamics than ordinary integer-ordered dynamics, meaning the corresponding differential equations feature non-integer valued derivatives. There are several arguments for why this is the case, one of them being that fractional derivatives’ inherit spatiotemporal memory and/or the ability to express complex naturally occurring phenomena. Another popular topic nowadays is machine learning, i.e., learning behavior and patterns from historical data. In our ever-changing world with ever-increasing amounts of data, machine learning is a powerful tool for data analysis, problem-solving, modeling, and prediction. It further provides many insights and discoveries in various scientific disciplines. As these two modern-day topics provide a lot of potential for combined approaches to describe complex dynamics, this article reviews combined approaches of fractional derivatives and machine learning from the past, puts them into context, and thus provides a list of possible combined approaches and the corresponding techniques. Note, however, that this article does not deal with neural networks, as there already is profound literature on neural networks and fractional calculus. We sorted past combined approaches from the literature into three categories, i.e., preprocessing, machine learning & fractional dynamics, and optimization. The contributions of fractional derivatives to machine learning are manifold as they provide powerful preprocessing and feature augmentation techniques, can improve physically informed machine learning, and are capable of improving hyperparameter optimization. Thus, this article serves to motivate researchers dealing with data-based problems, to be specific machine learning practitioners, to adopt new tools and enhance their existing approaches.

Properties of time domain parameters of the vibration signal have been extensively studied for the fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings (REB). Parameters like kurtosis and Envelope Harmonic-to-Noise Ratio are most widely applied in this field and some important progress has been made. However, since only one-sided information is contained in these parameters respectively, problems still exist in practice when the signals collected are of complicated structure and/or contaminated by strong background noises. A new parameter, named Shock pulse index (SPI), is proposed in this paper. It integrates the mutual advantage of both parameters above and can help effectively identify fault related impulse components under the interference of strong background noises, unrelated harmonic components and random impulses. The SPI optimizes the parameters of Maximum Correlated Kurtosis Deconvolution (MCKD), which is used to filter the signals under consideration. Finally, the interested transient information contained in the filtered signal can be highlighted through demodulation with Teager Energy Operator (TEO). Fault related impulse components can therefore be extracted accurately. Simulations and experiment analyses verify the effectiveness and correctness of the SPI.

Bacteriophages (phages) are potential alternatives to chemical antimicrobials against pathogens of public health significance. Understanding the diversity and host specificity of phages is important for developing effective phage biocontrol approaches. Here, we assessed the host range, morphology, and genetic diversity of eight Salmonella enterica phages isolated from a wastewater treatment plant. The host range analysis revealed that six out of eight phages lysed more than 81% of the 43 Salmonella enterica isolates tested. The genomic sequences of all phages were determined. Whole genome sequencing data (WGS) data revealed that phage genome sizes ranged from 41 to 114 kb with GC contents be-tween 39.9 and 50.0 %. Two of the phages SB13 and SB28 represent new species Epsep-timavirus SB13 and genera Macdonaldcampvirus, respectively as designated by the In-ternational Committee for the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) as per genome based taxonomic classification. One phage (SB18) belonged to the Myoviridae morphotype while the re-maining phages belonged to the Siphoviridae morphotype. The gene content analyses showed that none of the phages possessed virulence, toxin, antibiotic resistance, type I-VI toxin-antitoxin modules or lysogeny genes. Three (SB3, SB15 and SB18) out of the eight phages possessed tailspike proteins. Whole genome-based phylogeny of the eight phages with their 113 homologs revealed three clusters A, B, C and seven subclusters (A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1 and C2). While cluster C1 phages were predominantly isolated from animal sources, cluster B contained phages from both wastewater and animal sources. The broad host range of these phages highlights their potential use to control the presence of S. enterica in foods.

The high penetration of distributed energy resources poses significant challenges to the dispatch and operation of power systems. Improving the accuracy of short-term load forecasting (STLF) can optimize grid management, leading to increased economic and social benefits. Currently, some simple AI and hybrid models has issues to deal with and struggle with multivariate dependencies, long-term dependencies, and non-linear relationships. This paper proposes a novel hybrid model for short-term load forecasting (STLF) that integrates multiple AI models with Lasso regression using the stacking technique. The base learners include ANN, XgBoost, LSTM, Stacked LSTM, and Bi-LSTM, while Lasso regression serves as the meta-learner. By considering factors such as temperature, rainfall, and daily electricity prices, the model aims to more accurately reflect real-world conditions and enhance predictive accuracy. Empirical analyses on real-world datasets from Australia and Spain show significant improvements in forecasting accuracy, with a substantial reduction in Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) compared to existing hybrid models and individual AI models. This research highlights the efficiency of the stacking technique in improving STLF accuracy, suggesting potential operational efficiency benefits for the power industry.

We compared performance of a novel encoding Lempel-Ziv complexity (ELZC) with approximate entropy (ApEn), sample entropy (SmpEn) and permutation entropy (PerEn) as nonlinear metric to assess ECG quality. Firstly to compare performance of discerning randomness and inherent nonlinear properties within time series, this study calculated the aforementioned four nonlinear complexity values on several typical artificial time series i.e., Gauss noise, two kinds of noisy time series, two kinds of Logistic series and periodic series, respectively. Then for analyzing sensitivity of the aforementioned four complexity methods to content level of different types noise within ECG recordings, we investigated variation trend of ELZC, ApEn, SmpEn and PerEn in several synthetic ECG recordings containing different types noise (i.e., baseline wander, muscle artefacts, electrode motion, power line and mixed noise) and different signal noise ratios (i.e., 15, 10, 5, 0, −5 and −10 dB). Finally, the four complexity methods were employed to classify the quality of real ECG recordings from the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011 (CINC 2011) of the MIT databases, then receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) and their corresponding area under curve (AUC) were yielded. The results showed ELZC could not only distinguish randomness and chaotic within time series but also reflect content level of noise within time series, and the highest AUC of PerEn, ELZC, SmpEn and ApEn were 0.850, 0.695, 0.474 and 0.461, respectively. The results demonstrated PerEn and ELZC were more effectively than ApEn and SmpEn for assessing ECG quality.

The main moto of this study is to examine and study on behavior of Software Quality Assurance (SQA) issues of project stakeholders in a Scrum environment and their consequences. This inductive case study identifies SQA principles relevant to Meeting User Expectations. The Stakeholders in the Scrum project having lack of Concrete Guidance on Scrum’s SQA approaches, methods, and techniques. The insufficiency of concrete guidelines in Scrum needs a management squad to develop concepts that can include implementing practices from other methodologies and wisely modifying the system structure to incorporate the practices adopted, ensuring improvement in the processes, and creating a shared ownership environment. Through explaining the incompleteness of Agile approaches with special attention to the lack of concrete instructions in Scrum, the study uses techniques to customize literature and advocate for Scrum’s versatility. The study uses strategies to adapt literature and argue for Scrum’s simplicity by illustrating the incompleteness of Agile approaches with special attention to the lack of concrete instructions in Scrum methodology.

Obesity is a highly prevalent chronic disease characterized by excessive weight gain and fat accumulation. There is growing evidence that Lactiplantibacillus plantarum strains with bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity are effective in preventing and alleviating obesity. However, few of them has confirmed the anti-obesity effect of BSH by gene deletion. In this study, 23 BSH-positive Lp. plantarum strains were screened by bile salt precipitation halo assay. Among these strains, Lp. plantarum Lp20 showed the highest BSH activity with a hydrolysis rate to glycodeoxycholic acid (GDCA) by 91.62%. Genomic sequencing and bioinformatics analysis indicated that gene bsh1 was associated with BSH activity of Lp. plantarum Lp20 and gene deletion of bsh1 confirmed the role of Bsh1 in GDCA hydrolysis. To investigate if the Bsh1 from Lp. plantarum Lp20 could alleviate obesity, the wild type and bsh1 deletion mutant strains were administered daily for 8 weeks to diet-induced obese mice, respectively. Compared with mutant strain, the wild type strain Lp20 significantly reduced body weight gain, inguinal white adipose tissue and mesenteric fat mass in obese mice. In addition, Lp20 also reduced serum total cholesterol levels and LDL-C by 20.8% and 33.3%, respectively. Furthermore, the recovered liver steatosis was only observed in Lp. plantarum Lp20 treated mice. Taken together, the bile salt hydrolase Bsh1 from Lp. plantarum Lp20 was a key functional factor on ameliorating HFD-induced obesity by reducing cholesterol levels and suppressing adipogenesis in mice.

Efforts to enhance quality control (QC) practices in chip seal construction have predominantly relied on single surface frictional metrics such as mean profile depth (MPD) or friction number. These metrics assess chip seal quality by targeting issues such as aggregate loss or excessive bleeding, which may yield low friction numbers or texture depths. However, aggregate loss particularly due to snowplow operations doesn't always result in slippery conditions and may lead to uneven surfaces. The correlation between higher MPD or friction number and superior chip seal quality isn't straightforward. This research introduces an innovative machine learning-based approach to enhance chip seal QC. Using a hybrid DBSCAN-Isolation Forest model, anomaly detection is conducted on a dataset comprising 183,794 20-meter MPD measurements from actual chip seal projects across six districts in Indiana. This results in typical 20 m-segment MPD ranges of [0.9, 1.9], [0.6, 2.1], [0.3, 1.3], [1.0, 1.7], [0.6, 1.9], and [1.0, 2.3] for the respective six districts in Indiana. A two-step QC procedure tailored for chip seal evaluation is proposed. The first step calculates outlier percentages across 1-mile segments, with an established limit of 25% outlier segments per wheel track. The second step assesses unqualified rates across projects, setting a threshold of 50% for 1-mile unqualified wheel track segments. While the results are data-specific, this framework offers pavement construction practitioners a foundational QC standard for chip seal projects.

Simulated (sim) racing is an emerging esport that has garnered much interest in recent years and has been a relatively under-researched field in terms of expertise and performance. When examining expertise, visual attention has been of particular interest to researchers, with eye tracking technology commonly used to assess visual attention. In this study, we examined the visual attention allocation of high and low skilled sim racers during a time trial task using Tobii 3 glasses. Participants were allocated to either group according to their fastest lap times. Our results indicate that when eye tracking metrics were normalised to lap time, there was no difference in the relative length of attention allocation (fixation behaviour), although lower skilled racers did have significantly greater fixation counts and durations across laps overall. Interestingly, high and low skilled sim racers differed in where they allocated their attention during the task, with high skilled sim racers allocating significantly less attention to the track relative to other areas of the display. This would allow higher skilled racers to obtain relatively more information from heads-up display elements in-game, all whilst driving at faster speeds. This study provides evidence that high and low skilled sim racers show similar lap time-corrected fixation behaviour, but how they allocate attention while driving differs.

The success of a software product depends on several factors. Given that different organizations and institutions use software products, the need to have a quality and desirable software according to the goals and needs of the organization makes measuring the quality of software products an important issue for most organizations and institutions. To be sure of having the right software. It is necessary to use a standard quality model to examine the features and sub-features for a detailed and principled study in the quality discussion. In this study, the quality of Word software was measured. Considering the importance of software quality and to have a good and usable software in terms of quality and measuring the quality of software during the study, experts and skilled in this field were used and the impact of each factor and quality characteristics. It was applied at different levels according to their opinion to make the result of measuring the quality of Word software more accurate and closer to reality. In this research, the quality of the software product is measured based on the fuzzy inference system in ISO standard. According to the results obtained in this study, it is understood that quality is a continuous and hierarchical concept and the quality of each part of the software at any stage of production can lead to high quality products.

The term "code smell" refers to an indication of a problem with the quality of source code. Numerous studies have been conducted to identify problematic features in source code. Initially, the focus was on utilizing metric-based and heuristic-based approaches. In recent years, however, there has been a shift towards using machine learning and deep learning (DL) techniques for smell detection. Nevertheless, the current algorithms are still considered to be in the early stages of development. Recognizing the challenges associated with identifying smells using DL methods, both academics and software developers have made efforts to address these obstacles. This work involves constructing and evaluating new DL models for code smell detection. Two models are built upon stacked autoencoders, employing a hybrid architecture that combines bidirectional long short-term memory and convolutional neural network components.

The complexity of software is increasing day by day due to the increase in the size of the projects being developed. For better planning and management of large software projects, estimation of software quality is important. During the development processes, complexity metrics are used for the indication of the attributes/characteristics of the quality software. There are many studies about the effect of the complexity of the software on the cost and quality. In this study, we discussed the effects of software complexity on the quality attributes of the software for open source and closed source software. Though, the quality metrics for open and closed source software are not distinct from each other. In this paper, we comparatively analyzed the impact of complexity metrics on open source and private software. We also presented various models for the management of the project complexity such as William’s Model, Stacey’s Agreement and Certainty matrix, Kahane’s Approach and UCP Model. Quality metrics here refer to the standards for the measurement of the quality of software which contains certain attributes or characteristics of the software that are related to the quality of the software. Certain quality attributes addressed in this study are Usability, Reliability, Security, Portability, Maintainability, Efficiency, Cost, Standards and Availability, etc. Both Open source and Closed source software are evaluated on the basis of these quality attributes. This study also recommended future approaches to manage the quality of project Open source and Closed source software and specify which one of them is mostly used in the industry.

In this study, it was analyzed that the characteristics of ammonia and their effects on secondary particulate matter (PM) formation by region in Korea during 2020. The NH3 concentration was high in GJ (11.4 ppb) neighboring agricultural area followed by DJ (9.0 ppb) and SE (8.6 ppb) locating in the urban area. On the other hand, BI (2.6 ppb) and JI (4.5 ppb), which are background regions, were lower than other area. Seasonally, ammonia was high in spring and summer, and it generally increased when human activities are active. Therefore, it is believed that ammonia in the atmosphere changes depending on not only local emissions but also temperature-dependent phase distribution characteristics. For SE and GJ, regions with relatively high ammonia concentrations, the effect of ammonia on secondary PM formation was conducted. In both regions, the ammonium-to-sulfate mole ratio tended to increase with an ammonia or PM2.5 concentration increasing. It can be assumed that PM2.5 concentration increases as nitrates are formed under the ammonia sufficient condition. The adjusted gas ratio is generally greater than 4, indicating that there is a lot of free ammonia. Thus, it is estimated that reduction of ammonia would not effective to restrain the nitrate formation.

Mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa remains unacceptably high, and disproportionately affecting economically disadvantaged communities. And healthcare delivery which is considered a major contributor to this is challenged by the limited resources and high service costs, prompting many patients to opt for outpatient department services. This study addresses the need for a data-driven approach to healthcare policy formulation by proposing a model for the implementation of a data warehousing system that integrates outpatients into the national healthcare framework. By leveraging data warehousing, healthcare delivery can be made more efficient through a robust repository that supports decision-making and policy formulation. The research focuses on the outpatient department in resource-scarce settings, proposing a novel multidimensional data model and practical framework implementation. The benefits include improved patient experiences, cost-effective service delivery, and enhanced patient management through electronic health records. Additionally, mobile apps are explored for patient navigation and reminders to enhance treatment adherence. The study’s results indicate that data warehousing can significantly improve healthcare delivery by consolidating critical data and facilitating better planning, resource allocation, and policy formulation. Ultimately, this approach offers valuable insights for optimizing healthcare systems in resource-constrained environments, enabling data-driven policies, and improving health outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa.

Facial expression has lots of applications in human-computer interaction. Although feature extraction and selection have been well studied, the specificity of each expression variation is not fully explored in state-of-the-art works. In this work, the problem of multiclass expression recognition is converted into triplet-wise expression recognition. For each expression triplet, a new feature optimization model based on Action Unit (AU) weighting and patch weight optimization is proposed to represent the specificity of the expression triplet. Sparse representation based approach is then proposed to detect the active AUs of testing sample for better generalization. The algorithm achieved competitive accuracies of 89.67% and 94.09% for Jaffe and CK+ databases, respectively. Better cross-database performance has also been observed.

Abstract: With the growing integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart buildings, it is crucial to ensure the precise implementation and operation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This paper aims to study the implementation aspect of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in a commercial multi-story building, specifically addressing the difficulty of dealing with variable environmental conditions on each floor. This research addresses the disparity between simulated situations and actual deployments, offering valuable insights that have the potential to signifi-cantly improve the efficiency and responsiveness of building management systems. We obtain real-time sensor data to analyze and evaluate the system’s performance. Our investigation is grounded in the growing importance of incorporating WSNs into buildings to create intelligent environments. By leveraging the capabilities of Contiki operating system, this study employs a specialized simulator to generate simulated data, allowing for a comparison between real-world and simulated scenarios. We provide an in-depth analysis to scrutinize the disparities and commonalities between the datasets obtained from real-world deployments and simulated en-vironments. We highlight the necessity of precise simulation to validate real-life sensor data, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing WSNs in in-telligent buildings. Results obtained show the significance of accurate simulation models for re-liable data representation, providing a roadmap for further developments in the integration of WSNs into intelligent building scenarios. The findings highlight the potential for optimizing living and working conditions based on the real-time monitoring of critical environmental pa-rameters. This includes insights into temperature, humidity, and light intensity, offering oppor-tunities for enhanced comfort and efficiency in intelligent environments.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide, primarily affecting women, while histopathological image analysis is one of the possibilities used to determine tumor malignancy. Regarding image analysis, the application of deep learning has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. However, a significant issue is the unbalanced nature of available datasets, with some classes having more images than others, which may impact the performance of the models due to poorer generalisability. A possible strategy to avoid this problem is downsampling the class with the most images to create a balanced dataset. Nevertheless, this approach is not recommended for small datasets as it can lead to poor model performance. Instead, techniques such as data augmentation are traditionally used to address this issue. These techniques apply simple transformations, such as translation or rotation, to the images to increase variability in the dataset. Recently, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have emerged, which can generate images from a relatively small training set. This work aims to enhance the model’s performance in classifying histopathological images by applying data augmentation using GANs instead of traditional techniques.

Silver ion (Ag+) are recognized for their potent antibacterial properties; however, their utilization in food preservation is restricted by factors such as inadequate stability, a transient antibacterial impact, and the potential for human absorption. Hydrogel-based antibacterial agents are capable of exerting their antibacterial effects by establishing appropriate microenvironments, which facilitate the efficient delivery of antimicrobial molecules to the contaminated regions of food. In previous studies, we observed that chitosan (CS) and silver nitrate (AgNO3) were able to reduce Ag+ to silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with enhanced antibacterial properties. This not only significantly extended the stability of the antibacterial agent but also demonstrated exceptional inhibitory capabilities against pathogenic bacteria, including common grape contaminants such as P. expansum, A. niger, and B. cinerea. Utilizing ultrasound-induced complexation technology, this study has successfully synthesized a chitosan-silver (CS-AgNPs) hydrogel. The efficacy of this hydrogel against the pathogenic fungus responsible for jujube black spot disease has been thoroughly investigated. The morphology structures of CS-AgNPs hydrogels were characterized by TEM, FTIR and UV-vis. The results indicated that AgNPs ranging from 80 to 110 nm were uniformly dispersed within the gel matrix and remained stable for extended periods at room temperature. In vitro antibacterial assays and fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) studies revealed that the pronounced antibacterial efficacy of the CS-AgNPs hydrogel was primarily attributed to the additive antibacterial effect of CS and AgNPs. These insights underscore the significant potential of CS-AgNPs hydrogels in combating fungal diseases of jujube, offering innovative strategies and materials for the management of agricultural pathogens.

In the paper, we suggest a method for calculating optimal time intervals in the queue analysis. The suggested method processes partitioning of the time interval and utilizes the epsilon-entropy and epsilon-capacity of the partition for finding an optimal partition. Optimality of the partition is specified based on its epsilon-information. The suggested method is illustrated by defining the intervals for histograms of differently distributed samples and demonstrated its effectiveness in comparison with the existing methods.

The fast fashion industry has a significant impact on the environment at every stage of the product life cycle. There is a lack of research in the literature on the impact of fast fashion on the environment through logistics and transport. In this area, the greatest environmental impact is caused by air emissions, which is very important from the point of view of climate change. Therefore, this article deals with the analysis of the carbon footprint resulting from the fast fashion logistics process. The identification and assessment of fast fashion companies' sustainability efforts in the area of transport-related emissions and sustainable transformation strategies was conducted using a case study method for selected brands (H&M Group; Inditex, Shein). The study uses secondary data available in non-financial reports from 2023. After analyzing the data and content in non-financial reports on transport-related emissions, sev-eral important conclusions emerge. As a dominant practice, companies emphasize their reliance on external frameworks and standards, in particular the Global Reporting Initiative and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Companies prioritize reducing emissions from significant factors, such as production processes. The data disclosed in the reports (scope 1, 2, 3) are not clearly formulated, but they can be used to calculate the level of CO2 emission reduction/increase. The ar-ticle contains recommendations for companies to improve their reporting by including additional indicators expressing the efficiency of transport-related emissions.

This article summarizes the results of a research conducted to create an intelligent platform supporting small farmers growing vegetables. In Bulgaria, many farmers use relatively small areas for their production. Considering this situation, the platform is designed for regional use, trying to make maximum use of the specific climatic features of the monitored microdistrict. Consequently, special attention is paid to the possibilities of adapting the platform to the specific environment in which the observed plants grow. Thus, the platform is implemented as an agent-oriented system providing needed flexibility. The core of the platform is a personal assistant, which is responsible for tracking the vegetation cycle of the monitored crop and, upon detection of anomalies, preparing warnings to the farmer. The general architecture of the platform is also presented. In a distributed knowledge base, agriculture-specific knowledge are stored. Furthermore, a standardized interface for receiving data from the sensor networks located in the production areas is briefly described. Currently, the platform is being tested for monitoring four varieties of tomatoes grown on the territory of the national research center for potato breeding. Special attention is paid to the measurements carried out. Conclusions have been drawn that will help improve the platform.

Pediatric interventional cardiology procedures are essential in diagnosing and treating congenital heart disease in children; however, they raise concerns about potential radiation exposure. Managing radiation doses and assessing image quality in angiographs becomes imperative for safe and effective interventions. This systematic review aims to comprehensively analyze the current understanding of physical image quality metrics relevant for characterizing X-ray systems used in fluoroscopy-guided pediatric cardiac interventional procedures, considering the main factors reported in the literature that influence this outcome. A search in Scopus and Web of Science, using relevant keywords and inclusion/exclusion criteria, yielded fourteen relevant articles published between 2000 and 2022. The physical image quality metrics reported were noise, signal-to-noise ratio, contrast, contrast-to-noise ratio, and high contrast spatial resolution. Various factors influencing image quality were investigated, such as polymethyl methacrylate thickness (often used to simulate water equivalent tissue thickness), operation mode, anti-scatter grid presence and tube voltage. Objective evaluations using these metrics ensure impartial assessments for main factors affecting image quality, improving in the characterization fluoroscopic X-ray systems, and aiding informed decisions to safeguard pediatric patients during procedures.

A review of desiccant dehumidification technologies for improving air-quality has been presented, especially focusing on alternatives for air conditioning systems for minimizing the Sick Building Syndrome. The principles and types of desiccant wheels, as well as the existing selection software for these types of equipment, were reviewed and comparatively evaluated. The study focuses on the Brazilian context, therefore, information about air condition systems and laws of this country were evaluated. Possible applications of desiccant wheels are also analyzed, such as their integration into cooling cycles and the sensible heat wheel. Finally, several commercial desiccant wheel selection software were evaluated, which are useful in many situations. Nevertheless, it was evidenced that the available softwares are not capable of performing an operation analysis for only a specific period. Therefore, it is essential to create computational tools to select desiccant wheels, considering the data from the different Brazilian regions for a year.

Pardosa pseudoannulata is one of the most common wandering spiders in agricultural fields and a potentially good bioindicator for heavy metal contamination. However, little is known about the mechanism by which spiders respond to heavy metals at the molecular level. In this study, high-throughput transcriptome sequencing was employed to characterize the de novo transcriptome of the spiders and to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) after cadmium exposure. We obtained 60,489 assembled unigenes, 18,773 of which were annotated in the public databases. Ultimately, 3450 cDNA simple sequence repeats were identified and validated as potential molecular markers in the unigenes. A total of 2939, 2491 and 3759 DEGs were detected among the three libraries of two Cd-treated groups and the control. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that metabolism processes and digestive system function were predominately enriched in response to Cd stress. At the cellular and molecular levels, significantly enriched pathways in lysosomes and phagosomes as well as replication, recombination and repair demonstrated that oxidative damage resulted from Cd exposure. Based on the selected DEGs, certain critical genes involved in defence and detoxification were analysed. These results may elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying spiders' responses to heavy metal stress.

The software industry has adopted component-based software development (CBSD) to rapidly build and deploy large and complex software systems with significant savings at minimal engineering effort, cost, and time. However, CBSD encounters issues on security trust, mainly with respect to dependability attributes. A system is considered dependable when it can produce the outputs for which it was designed with no adverse effect on its intended environment. Dependability consists of several attributes that imply availability, confidentiality, integrity, reliability, safety, and maintainability. Dependability attributes must be embedded in a CBSD model to develop dependable component software. Motivated by the importance of these attributes, this paper pursues two objectives: to design a model for developing a dependable system that mitigates the vulnerabilities of software components, and to evaluate the proposed model. The model proposed in this study is labelled as developing dependable component-based software (2DCBS). To develop this model, the CBSD architectural phases and processes must be framed and the six dependability attributes embedded according to the best practice method. The expert opinion approach was applied to evaluate 2DCBS framing. In addition, the 2DCBS model was applied to the development of an information communication technology (ICT) portal through an empirical study method. Vulnerability assessment tools (VATs) were employed to verify the dependability attributes of the developed ICT portal. Results show that the 2DCBS model can be adopted to develop web application systems and to mitigate the vulnerabilities of the developed systems. This study contributes to CBSD and facilitates the specification and evaluation of dependability attributes throughout model development. Furthermore, the reliability of the dependable model can increase confidence in the use of CBSD for industries.

Link prediction is a fundamental problem in graphs. Currently, SubGraph Representation Learning (SGRL) methods provide state-of-the-art solutions for link prediction by transforming the task into a graph classification problem. However, existing SGRL solutions suffer from high computational costs and lack scalability. In this paper, we propose a novel SGRL framework called Augmented Feature Diffusion on Sparsely Sampled Subgraph (AFD3S). The AFD3S first uses a conditional variational autoencoder to augment the local features of the input graph, effectively improving the expressive ability of downstream Graph Neural Networks. Then, based on a random walk strategy, sparsely sampled subgraphs are obtained from the target node pairs, reducing computational and storage overhead. Graph diffusion is then performed on the sampled subgraph to achieve specific weighting. Finally, the diffusion matrix of the subgraph and its augmented feature matrix are used for feature diffusion to obtain operator-level node representations as inputs for the SGRL-based link prediction. Feature diffusion effectively simulates the message-passing process, simplifying subgraph representation learning, thus accelerating the training and inference speed of subgraph learning. Our proposed AFD3S achieves optimal prediction performance on several benchmark datasets, with significantly reduced storage and computational costs.

In this study a novel approach of designing automatic control systems with the help of AI tools is proposed. Given plant dynamics, expected references, and expected disturbances, design of optimal neural-network based controller is done automatically. Several common reference types are studied including step, square, sine, sawtooth and trapezoid functions. Expected reference-disturbance pairs are used to train the system for finding optimal neural-network controller parameters. A separate test set is used to test the system for unexpected reference-disturbance pairs to show the generalization performance of the proposed system. Parameters of a real DC motor are used to test the proposed approach. Real DC motor’s parameters are estimated using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Initially, a proportional-integral (PI) controller is designed using PSO algorithm for finding simple controller’s parameters optimally and automatically. Starting with neural-network equivalent of optimal PI controller, optimal neural-network controller is designed using PSO algorithm for training again. Simulations are conducted with estimated parameters for diverse set of training and test patterns. Results are compared with optimal PI controller’s performance and reported in the corresponding section. Encouraging results are obtained suggesting further research in the proposed direction.

The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) technology has ushered in a new era of connectivity, allowing billions of devices to produce extensive data. Significant challenges in software engineering need to be addressed for full utilization of Internet of Things (IoT) applications. This article examines the challenges in Internet of Things, software engineering and discusses current developments aimed at addressing these issues and seizing new opportunities. We examine the challenges associated with Internet of Things software development, including resource constraints, device diversity, security vulnerabilities, and data management concerns. New studies have indicated the use of advanced techniques like as containerization, model-driven development, AI and ML integration, and robust security frameworks. Moreover, the significance of system architecture is explained, including the device, network, and cloud layers, with an emphasis on the principles of reusability, scalability, and modularity. Results and conversations explore the complexities of security measures, emerging opportunities, and scaling solutions made possible by simulation tools, penetration testing, and cross-domain development platforms. The study expects IoT system evolution and emphasises the need for continual software and firmware changes, testing, and deployment.

This article will continue ansatz gage matrix of Iyer Markoulakis Helmholtz Hamiltonian mechanics points’ fields gage to Pauli Dirac monopole particle fields ansatz gage general formalism at Planck level, by constructing a Pauli Dirac Planck circuit matrix field gradient of particle monopole flow loop. This circuit assembly gage (PDPcag) that maybe operating at the quantum level, demonstrates the power of point fields matrix theoretical quantum general formalism of Iyer Markoulakis Helmholtz Hamiltonian mechanics transformed to Coulomb gage metrics, to form eigenvector fields of magnetic monopoles as well as electron positron particle gage metrics fields. Eigenvector calculations performed based on Iyer Markoulakis quantum general formalism are substituted for gage values of typical eigenvectors of dipolar magnetically biased monopoles with their conjugate eigenvectors, as well as eigenvector fields that are of the electron and positron particles. Then they are compiled to form combinatorial eigenvector matrix bundle of the monopole particle circuit field constructs assembly. Evaluation of this monopole particle fields matrix provided eigenvector fields results like SUSY, having Hermitian quantum matrix with electron-positron annihilation alongside north and south monopoles collapsing to dipolar “stable” magnetism, representing electromagnetic gaging typical metrics fields. Applying experimental observations on magnetic poles with measuring magnetic forces John Hodge’s results were showing asymmetrical pole forces; author has mathematically constructed asymmetric\strings\gage\metrics to characterize electromagnetic gravity, putting together while integrating with stringmetrics gravity that author has been reporting in earlier published articles. Physical Analysis with generalization of mass-charge and charge-fields gage metrics to quantum relativity gage metrics fields are proposed based on author’s proof formalism paper providing derivational algorithmic steps, to determine gage parametric values within the equation of Coulomb gage. Vortex fields’ wavefunctions and the scalar potential characterized by a function and a coupling constant having quantum density matrix together define the gage metrics quantifiable observable measurement physics of electron-positron cross-diagonal fields; contrastingly, diagonal terms of PDPcag matrix characterizes electron-positron particle eigenvector fields, while Hilbert Higgs mass metrics characterizes eigen-matter. Author is already working with Christopher O’Neill about magic square symmetry configurations to quantitatively understand symmetry, structure, and the real space geometry that are expected to form out of vacuum quanta point fields’ quantitative quantum general formalism theory of Iyer Markoulakis. In addition, author is currently collaborating with Manuel Malaver’s astrophysical Einstein Minkowski modified space time metrics evaluations of the sense-time-space relativistic general metrics to have means to account for curving or shaping of spacetime topology of a five-dimensional sense-time-space. Manuel Malaver’s specialization with modified Einstein Maxwell equations for modeling galaxies and stars cosmological physics, utilizing Einstein-Maxwell-Tolman- Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström spacetime and black holes theoretical formalisms have author of this paper collaboratively model quantum astrophysics of dark energy Star’s theory with Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity equations.

Plato defined a quality as “some degree of perfection” [49]. Studies on quality have unveiled the internal and external quality factors [17] that significantly impact product quality [4]. Internal factors are invisible to the end customer and are dependent on overall work organisation by the development team [17]. This work organisation is called “the process” [11],[33]. In this article, we will discuss how to address the drone-dedicated software development process to support system verification and ensure product quality by supporting quality characteristics and therefore increase software development awareness and control. We will discuss the process's influence on overall work activities and relationships between those activities by addressing the software development process utilised in the drone-dedicated GNSS-denied navigation system development project. The result was observable after three weeks of starting the software development. It was focused on better team awareness, faster task completion, lower number of development mistakes, and better and faster change response than we observed in other projects that didn’t follow the predefined process.

In this study, 10%PTFE/PEEK blend were modified by potassium titanate whisker (PTW) and chopped glass fiber (GF), respectively. The blends were prepared by three-screw extruder. Through the investigation of thermal stability, tribological properties, mechanical properties and rheological behavior, the effects of reinforcing agents were determined. The results illustrated that the mechanical properties of 10%PTFE/PEEK blend can be dramatically improved by adding reinforcing agent of PTW or GF, and the reinforcing effect of GF was especially obvious. As for tribological properties, 1% addition was the best proportion. The friction coefficient and wear rate of the blend with 1% PTW were 0.283 and 4.97 × 10^-6 mm³/N · m, which decreased by 7.2% and 21% compared with those of the blend without reinforcing agent.

Currently Single Board Computers (SBCs) are sufficiently powerful to run Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs) and applications with real-time attributes and requirements. SBCs serve as a foundation in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The NXP Semiconductors produces a series of SBCs based on ARM-processors for a variety of industrial applications. The continuous increase in real-time data generated by IoT devices adds further research issues about the efficiency of such systems and applications. The purpose of this research was to investigate the timing performance of an NXP TWR-K70F120M device with μClinux OS on running concurrently tasks with real-time features and constraints. A custom-built multithreaded application with specific compute-intensive sorting and matrix operations was developed and applied to obtain measurements in specific timing metrics, including task’s execution time, threads waiting time, and response time, under different threads variations. The performance of this device was additionally benchmarked and validated against favorite platforms, a Raspberry Pi4 and BeagleBone AI SBCs. The experimental results showed that this device stands well both in terms of timing and efficiency metrics. Execution times were quite lower than the others, by approximately 56% in the case of two threads, and by 29% in the case of thirty-two threads configurations.

This review provides a comprehensive and updated information on chalcones, presenting their sources, methods of identification and properties putting emphasis on applications in agricultural industry. Vast exploitation of synthetic pesticides led to the weed and pest resistance issue, causing economic loss but more importantly health risk due to pesticide overuse. Because one of the aim of the European Green Deal 2030 is the Farm to Fork strategy which targets on reducing by 50% the use of chemical pesticides by 2030, and push towards natural pesticides which are more environmentally friendly and restore natural resources, chalcones and their derivatives seem to fit perfectly. They have herbicidal, fungicidal, bactericidal and antiviral properties. Moreover, chalcones are naturally occurring substances, known for their favorable health effect for years, working on many areas. This review is complementary to the previous ones describing chalcones use in agriculture, updates them but additionally shows methods of detection.

This article introduces a novel nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm called Frilled Lizard Optimization (FLO), which emulates the hunting behavior of frilled lizards in their natural habitat. FLO draws in-spiration from the sit-and-wait strategy observed in frilled lizards during hunting. The underlying theory of FLO is presented and mathematically formulated in two phases: (i) an exploration phase, simulating the frilled lizard's attack towards prey, and (ii) an exploitation phase, simulating the lizard's retreat to the top of the tree after feeding. To assess FLO's efficacy in solving optimization problems, the algorithm's performance is evaluated across fifty-two standard benchmark functions, encompassing unimodal, high-dimensional multimodal, fixed-dimensional multimodal, and the CEC 2017 test suite. Comparative analyses with twelve existing metaheuristic algorithms are conducted. The simulation results reveal that FLO, distinguished by its adeptness in exploration, exploitation, and balancing them during search process, outperforms competing algorithms. Additionally, FLO is implemented on twenty-two constrained optimization problems from the CEC 2011 test suite and four engineering design problems, demonstrating its effectiveness in addressing real-world optimization applications.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is among the commonly used type of network attacks, particularly aimed at the IoT devices in the emerging future wireless services specially for strictly latency-limited applications. DDoS attacks pose serious threats for many entrepreneurial businesses as they can prevent legitimate customers from accessing network resources of corporate websites, demanding intelligent analytics prior to entertaining a service request. DDoS involves exploiting the vulnerability of IoT devices by launching distributed multi-point attacks to generate high traffic by flooding the network of victims. The consequences of DDoS attacks could be worst in any Software-Defined Networking (SDN) than in traditional networks because SDN is configured as centralised architecture, failing to address the weaknesses current paradigm. However, SDN can play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of DDoS attacks as it bears the features of easy programmability, manageability, flexibility, and scalability. In this manuscript preliminary framework to detect DDoS attacks by mitigating their threats in an SDN architecture is presented. The authors propose a defense mechanism that uses OpenFlow and sFlow to mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks. The initial results show that the proposed model can minimize efficiently the consequences of DDoS attacks in an SDN type of architectural paradigm.

In this note, we suggest a one-sample version of the recently proposed two-sample test for comparison of the means of multivariate samples. The test checks a hypothesis that the mean of multivariate sample is equal to a certain value with the alternative hypothesis that the mean does not equal to this value. The suggested test is illustrated by analysis of real-world and simulated data.

For several years, commercial banks in Poland have been reporting activities related to the impact on the environment, society, and corporate governance (ESG). However, only new guidelines, mandatory for many entities, including banks, will allow for comparing these reports, which will be of great importance mainly for investors. The forms of these reports were and still are different, difficult to compare in individual years, and difficult to compare between banks. The article aims to present the banks' preparation for the new reporting rules based on the latest ESG reports. The research was conducted in 4 groups of commercial banks operating in Poland, which are the largest companies listed in the WIG Banks sub-index of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Gaps in the preparation of these banks for non-financial reporting were identified. The non-financial reports of the banks studied have significant information potential that can be used by various stakeholder groups, including investors, customers, employees, regulators, and local communities. However, the comparability of ESG reports is one of the key challenges faced by both reporting banks and users of these reports. The research results can be used both in scientific works and by bank representatives to improve non-financial reports.

The Saudi Vision 2030 is critical to boosting national development, notably in the construction industry. The construction industry is getting a lot of attention in a variety of ways, the most visible of which is the promotion of best practices, including project management office (PMO) applications. Hail province, like others, is experiencing project delivery issues. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore the suitable PMO model for Hail public construction projects. A literature review included the drive factors for establishing PMO in construction firms, as well as PMO models and typologies that describe functions. Therefore, those drive factors and PMO models were subjected to a focus group to explore their suitability in the context of Hail. The research findings reveal that the Enterprise PMO is the main for Hail public construction pro-jects, followed respectively by the Program Management Office model and the Project Management Center of Excellence (PMCOE). This method of selection a PMO model is driving construction companies and related businesses to change in order to improve the sector while also ad-dressing construction project delivery challenges in Hail province.

Without an established energy management plan, human lifestyle improvement is incomprehensible. Adequate energy assets are the key to human lifestyle development, however, energy assets are restricted and exorbitant too. In this paper, an energy control system for a green environment called PMC (Power Management and Control) is proposed. The system is based on hybrid energy optimization, energy prediction, and multi-preprocessing. The blend of GA (Genetic Algorithm) and PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) is utilized to make a fusion methodology to improve occupant comfort index (OCI) and decrease energy utilization. The main theme of the proposed PMC technique is to improve OCI and decrease energy utilization. The proposed framework gives better OCI when compared with its counterpart Ant Bee Colony along with Knowledge Base framework (ABCKB), GA-based prediction framework (GAP), Hybrid Prediction with Single Optimization framework (SOHP), and PSO-based power consumption framework. Compared with the existing AEO framework, the proposed PMC methodology gives practically the same OCI, but consumes less energy. The proposed PMC methodology additionally accomplished the most extreme OCI (i-e 1) when compared with the existing model FA-GA (i-e 0.98). The proposed PMC model consumed less energy as compared to existing models ABCKB, GAP, PSO and AEO. The proposed model consumed more energy than SOHP but provided better OCI. The comparative outcomes show the viability of the proposed PMC framework in lessening energy utilization and improving the OCI. Unlike other existing mythologies except for the AEO framework, the proposed PMC technique is additionally confirmed through a simulated climate by controlling indoor climate using actuators, like Fan, light, AC and boiler.

In the fast-changing world of software development, the protection of software products has emerged as an imperative requirement. This paper presents a new way to increase the maturity of development teams to reach the highest level of software security. Based on these, the framework uses the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to systematically evaluate and enhance the people maturity of software development projects. The essence of the fuzzy logic and AHP technique interaction is to handle the uncertainty and complexity of human factors and team dynamics in the evaluation framework. Using the decision-making model allows the project managers and stakeholders to determine the appropriate areas for improvement and develop the right strategies and actions to nurture a secure and mature development culture. The paper identifies 24 human success factors (HSFs) and human security vulnerabilities (HSVs) and 38 practices for addressing these HSFs and HSVs. Furthermore, we discuss the local and global ranks of each HSF and HSV practice and categorize the identified practices into 9 categories to determine the ranks and weight of each category. Based on collected data, FAHP prioritized these practices; the category “C4: Skill Development and Stakeholder Engagement” is ranked highest at rank-1 and possesses the most significant weight of 0.12435. Similarly, the highest global weight is 0.051506, and the global ranked (rank-1) HSF and HSV practice is “P15: Hands-On Practice and Stakeholder Communication”. Research evidence and case discussions show how the described framework assists in building secure software development (SSD) practices, which can be considered evidence of the application of team maturity to improve cybersecurity in organizations. Additional research directions include improving the framework, especially using highly developed learning techniques and applying the framework to other forms of development.

Grain quality, cooking quality and nutritional quality traits are some of the major attributes that enhance uptake and utilisation of improved cowpea varieties. Therefore, there is need for a better understanding of the genetic variation and inter-relationships among these quality traits in cowpea to integrate them in cowpea breeding programs. The study was conducted to determine genetic variability among 306 cowpea genotypes for grain quality, cooking quality and nutritional quality traits and to understand the interrelationships among these traits for exploitation in breeding programs. The results showed highly significant differences (P

Deep learning neural networks require an immense amount of computation, especially in the training phase of the network when networks with multiple layers of intermediate neurons need to be built. In this paper, we will focus on the PSO algorithm with the aim of significantly accelerating the DLNN training phase by taking advantage of the GPGPU architecture and the Apache Spark analytics engine for large-scale data processing tasks. PSO is a bio-inspired stochastic optimization method whose goal is to iteratively improve the solution to a (usually complex) problem by attempting to approximate a given objective. However, parallelizing an efficient PSO is not a straightforward process due to the complexity of the computations performed on the swarm of particles and the iterative execution of the algorithm until a solution close to the objective with minimal error is achieved. In the present work, two parallelizations of the PSO algorithm have been implemented , both designed for a distributed execution environment. The synchronous parallel PSO implementation ensures consistency at the cost of potential idle time due to global synchronization, while the asynchronous parallel PSO approach improves execution time by reducing the need for global synchronization, making it more suitable for large datasets and distributed environments such as Apache Spark. Both variants of PSO have been implemented to distribute the computational load supported by this algorithm –due to the costly fitness evaluation and updating of particle positions– across the different Spark cluster executor nodes to effectively achieve coarse-grained parallelism, resulting in a significant performance increase over current sequential variants of PSO.

High-throughput screening technologies continues to produce large amounts of multiomics data from different populations and cell types for various diseases, such as cancer. However, analysis of such data encounters difficulties due to cancer heterogeneity, further exacerbated by human biological complexity and genomic variability. There is a need to redefine the drug discovery development pipeline, bringing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered informational view that integrates relevant biological information and explores new ways to develop effective anticancer approaches. Here, we show SynPred, an interdisciplinary approach that leverages specifically designed ensembles of AI-algorithms, links omics and biophysical traits to predict synergistic anticancer drug synergy. SynPred exhibits state-of-the-art performance metrics: accuracy – 0.85, precision – 0.77, recall – 0.75, AUROC – 0.82, and F1-score - 0.76 in an independent test set. Moreover, data interpretability was achieved by deploying the most current and robust feature importance approaches. A simple web-based application available online at http://www.moreiralab.com/resources/synpred/ was constructed to predict synergistic anticancer drug combinations requiring only the upload of the two drug SMILES to be tested, allowing easy access by non-expert researchers.

We demonstrate that multiple well-known metrics, such as the Schwarzschild metric and the extremal solution of the Reissner-Nordstr ̈om metric, can be expressed in what we will call thermodynamic form. These formulations appear to be valid for all Rs = ct growing black holes and, therefore, also within the framework of Rh = ct growing black hole cosmology. However, the metrics can also be applied to non-black hole gravitational objects as long as one calculates the CMB and Hawking temperature of the hypothetical black hole from the gravitational mass.

A technique devised some years ago permits to study a theory in a regime of strong perturbations. This translate into a gradient expansion that, at the leading order, can recover the BKL solution. We solve exactly the leading order equations in a spherical symmetric case and we show that the 4-velocity in such a case is multiplied by an exponential warp factor when the perturbation is properly applied. This factor is always greater than one. We will give a closed form solution of this factor for a simple case. Some numerical examples are also given.

Cloud data centers play a vital role in modern computing infrastructure, offering scalable resources for diverse applications. However, managing costs and resources efficiently in these centers has become a crucial concern due to the exponential growth of cloud computing. User applications exhibit complex behavior, leading to fluctuations in system performance and increased power usage. To tackle these obstacles, we propose the consolidation of virtual machines (VMs) to optimize resource utilization and reduce operational costs. This paper introduces a novel algorithm, leveraging the Modified Artificial Feeding Birds Algorithm (ModAFBA), to manage cost optimally in cloud data centers by reducing power usage while meeting service level agreements (SLAs). The ModAFBA algorithm, inspired by bird foraging behavior, dynamically adjusts solutions based on environmental changes. Comprehensive experimental evaluation demonstrates the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of power usage, migration count, and SLA compliance. Through this research, we aim to advance cost management and resource optimization in cloud data centers, providing a valuable tool for cloud service providers to enhance infrastructure efficiency and achieve cost savings.

Attention to the work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) involve also statistical surveys showing an increasing trend in the incidence of WMSDs. Technological development retrieves new tools and methods for the assessment of physical load at work. In addition to the conventional questionnaires and scaling assessment systems, these methods are mostly based on the direct sensing of appropriate parameters, which allows more precise quantification. The aim of this paper is to compare the assessment of ergonomic risk through current legislative regulations. A Captiv wireless sensor system was used at a car headlight quality control assembly workplace for sensing, data acquisition and data processing. During the evaluation of the postures and movements at work, we discovered differences in the applicable standards: Decree 542/2007 Coll. (Slovak legislation), STN EN 1005-4+A1, French standards default in the Captiv system. Standards define the thresholds for hazardous postures with significant differences in several evaluated body segments, which also affects the final evaluation of the measurements. Based on the results of our research, we found that respondents were in an acceptable position for approximately 63% of the total duration of the work activity in terms of the Legislative method, 44% with Captiv and 27% with Standards method.

Infrared thermography is a contactless imaging technique, useful to measure surface temperature at distance which has been widely applied in animal production. The possible applications within the pig husbandry include sow heat detection, reduction of the incidence of neonatal mortality, recognition of febrile state caused by pathogens, study of metabolic efficiency, evaluation of stress caused by heat, by constraints, or by aggressive interaction and meat quality prediction. Even if this technique could be easily influenced by environmental factors, the continuous improvement in the procedures and the decrease in the cost of the equipment will allow in the next future new and more applications in swine farming.

We study Cartan-Schouten metrics, explore invariant dual connections, and propose them as models for Information Geometry. Based on the underlying Riemannian barycenter and the biinvariant mean of Lie groups, we subsequently propose a new parametric mean for data science and machine learning which comes with several advantages compared to traditional tools such as the arithmetic mean, median, mode, expectation, least square method, maximum likelihood, linear regression. We call a metric on a Lie group, a Cartan-Schouten metric, if its Levi-Civita connection is biinvariant, so every 1-parameter subgroup through the unit is a geodesic. Except for not being left or right invariant in general, Cartan-Schouten metrics enjoy the same geometry as biinvariant metrics, since they share the same Levi-Civita connection. To bypass the non-invariance apparent drawback, we show that Cartan-Schouten metrics are completely determined by their value at the unit. We give an explicit formula for recovering them from their value at the unit, thus making them much less computationally demanding, compared to general metrics on manifolds. Furthermore, Lie groups with Cartan-Schouten metrics are complete Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. We give a complete characterization of Lie groups with Riemannian or Lorentzian Cartan-Schouten metrics. Cartan-Schouten metrics are in abundance on 2-nilpotent Lie groups. Namely, on every 2-nilpotent Lie group, there is a 1-1 correspondence between the set of left invariant metrics and that of Cartan-Schouten metrics.

We present an open-source Star Tracker (ST) for Attitude Determination. Our implementation makes use of open source software of common usage in astronomy running on a Raspberry Pi 2 platform. The developed platform is open and available for parties interested in further development. Evaluation of the system showed that the ST is suitable for Cubesats of 2U or larger. The ST platform is capable of solving the Lost-In-Space (LIS) problem. Currently, the average accuracy reached of the algorithm is close to 5 seconds of arc with an average processing time of 75 seconds. However, a average accuracy of about 3 minutes of arc can be reached with 35 seconds in average processing time. We also describe the evaluation procedure, the found conclusions of this procedure, in particular the section of the algorithm where most of the processing time is spent and other possible source of errors not included in this study.

With the large-scale application of Internet of Things (IoT) in the medical field, eHealthcare has attracted wide attention. With the help of IoT devices, eHealthcare allows doctors to monitor patients’ health conditions and make recommendations accordingly. The addition of cloud computing greatly saves Healthcare Center’s (HC) computing resources. In order to provide privacy and fine-grained access control, Attribute-b ased encryption (ABE) is widely favored. HC usually operates multiple medical institutions in different regions, and each medical institution can be regarded as a attribute authority. Therefor, multi-authority (MA) ABE is usually concerned to encrypt the patient data. However for existing MA-ABE algorithms, the ciphertext is long and the efficiency of encryption and decryption is low. These problems will greatly increase the computing burden of patients and seriously affect the efficiency of data transmission. Hence we propose a decentralized key-policy MA-ABE in eHealthcare. The proposed algorithm can achieve decentralization, that is, it does not need central authority. Meanwhile, compared with existing MA-ABE algorithms, the length of ciphertext generated by our algorithm is shorter, and the efficiency of encryption and decryption is significantly improved. With the help of Java Pairing Based Cryptography, we carried out the experiments which show that our algorithm can effectively reduce the time required for encryption and decryption.

Improper sitting positions are known as the primary reason for back pain and the emergence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among individuals who spend prolonged time working with computer screens, keyboards, and mice. At the same time, it is well understood that automated technological tools can play an important role in the process of unhealthy habit alteration, so plenty of research efforts are focused on research and technology development (RTD) activities that aim to provide support to the prevention of back pain or the development of MSD. Here, we report on creating a new resource in support of RTD activities aiming at the automated detection of improper sitting positions. It consists of multimodal multisensory recordings of 100 persons made with a video recorder, camera, and wrist-attached sensors that capture physiological signals (PPG, EDA, Skin temperature), as well as motion sensors (three-axis accelerometer). Our multimodal multisensory dataset (MMD-MSD) opens new opportunities for modeling the body stance (sitting posture and movements), physiological state (stress level, attention, emotional arousal, valence), and performance (success rate on the Stroop test) of people working with a computer. Finally, we demonstrate two use cases: improper neck posture detection from pictures and cognitive load detection from physiological signals.

The main purpose of our research is the evaluation of the efficacity of solvent polarity on phenolic composition, as well as the antibacterial, and antioxidant activities of extract of Moroccan Mentha aquatica L., leaves. To attempt these objectives, the HPLC-DAD was used to identify the biomolecules. The total amount of phenolic and flavonoid content was determined using the Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminum trichloride processes as well as the DPPH, RP, and TAC tests were used to evaluate the antioxidant capabilities. In addition, by employing both in vitro and in silico analysis through the microdilution method, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the extracts were assessed against multidrug-resistant bacteria. Furthermore, the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analysis indicated that all extracts of M. aquatica were abundant in noteworthy phytochemical compounds, especially gallic acid, vanillic acid, chlorobenzoic acid, quercetin, and kaempferol. Furthermore, the results indicated that the total phenolic content was higher in hydroethanolic extract (62.19 ± 1.19 mg GAE/g DW) in contrast to the acetonic and aqueous extracts (22.22 ± 0.64, and 22.44± 0.57 mg GAE/g DW) respectively. Similarly, the aqueous ethanol extract contained the greatest flavonoid concentration, with values of 29.15± 0.09 mg QE/g DW when compared with the other extracts. The seam extract poses excellent antioxidant power with an IC50 of 0.06 ± 0.00 mg/mL for the DPPH test, and lower RP with EC50 of 80± 0.00 µg/ml when compared with acetonic and aqueous extract (370± 0.00 and 460± 0.01 µg/mL) respectively. Moreover, the hydroethanolic extract has a high level of TAC 75.09± 2.00 mg EAA/g DW, followed by aqueous extract carrying a value of 28.53 ± 1.36 mg EAA/g DW. The antibacterial capacity is ranged between 0.78 ± 0.05 mg/mL and 12.60 ± 0.00 mg/L. The results of the in-silico study demonstrated that quercetin, vanillic acid, and naringenin components contribute to the antioxidant capability. While gallic acid, kaempferol, and quercetin components are attributed to the antibacterial capacity.

Gastrointestinal parasites (GIP) are diverse parasitic organisms known to have coevolved with bacterial populations inside the gut of mammalian hosts. These helminths produce small molecules, peptides and proteins to evade or fight their hosts' immune systems. Small molecules include polar compounds, amino acids, lipids and carbohydrates. Metabolomics is an emerging field of research recently applied to study helminth infections and host-parasite interactions. This review comprehensively discusses metabolomics studies of small molecules of GIP in animals, providing insights into the available tools and techniques, databases, and analytical software. Most metabolomics investigations employed LC-MS, MS or MS/MS, NMR, or a combination thereof. Recent advancements in metabolomics platforms, including artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted software tools and databases, have propelled helminth metabolomics forward, offering new avenues to explore host-parasite interactions, immunomodulation, and the intricacies of parasitism. As our understanding of helminth metabolomics continues to expand, it promises to unveil novel perspectives and enrich the knowledge of these complex host-parasite relationships.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a key method for continuous monitoring of COVID-19 prevalence including circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineages. WBE addresses limitations of traditional clinical COVID-19 surveillance such as clinical test availability, fluctuating testing rates and increased reliance on rapid antigen tests. Our study in Perth, Western Australia, found a significant positive correlation between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in wastewater and clinical PCR positivity rates (rs = 0.772; p < 0.001) over an 18-month period that included four successive COVID-19 waves. A strong positive correlation was apparent between the proportions of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in wastewater and clinical cases within the same region (rs = 0.728; p < 0.001), including earlier detection of Omicron and recombinant lineages in wastewater before clinical case confirmation. The successful integration of WBE with healthcare data underscores its critical role in enhancing public health decision-making and pandemic management. This approach not only demonstrates the value of WBE in current global health surveillance efforts but also highlights the potential of WBE to address future public health challenges, as a comprehensive disease monitoring and response approach.

Ultramafic rocks become promising candidates for carbon sequestration by enhanced carbon dioxide (CO2) mineralization strategies due to their highly CO2-reactive mineral composition and its abundant availability. This study reports a mineralogy and microtextures of a representative ultramafic rock from the Ma-Hin Creek in northern Thailand and observes evidence of CO2 mineralization occurring through the interaction between CO2 and the rock with the existence of water under ambient conditions. After sample collection, rock description was determined by optical petrographic analysis. The rock petrography reveals a cumulated wehrlite comprising over 50% olivine and minor amounts of clinopyroxene, plagioclase, and chromian spinel. Approximately 25% of the wehrlite has altered to serpentine and chlorite. A series of CO2 batch experiments were conducted on six different rock sizes at a temperature of 40°C and pressure of 1 atm over five consecutive days. The post-experimental products were dried, weighed, and geochemically analyzed to detect changes in mineral species. Experimental results showed that product weight and the presence of calcite increased with reducing grain size. Additionally, the modal mineralogy of the wehrlite theoretically suggests a potential CO2 uptake of up to 53%, which is higher than the average uptake values of mafic rocks. These findings support the suitable rock investigation approach and the preliminary assessment of carbon mineralization potential, contributing to enhanced rock weathering techniques for CO2 removal that could be adopted by mining and rock supplier industries.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly important in various applications, including environmental monitoring, disaster response, and surveillance, due to their flexibility, efficiency, and ability to access hard-to-reach areas. Effective path planning for multiple UAVs exploring a target area is crucial for maximizing coverage and operational efficiency. This study presents a novel approach to optimizing collaborative navigation for UAVs using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL). To enhance the efficiency of this process, we introduce the Adaptive Dimensionality Reduction (ADR) framework, which includes Autoencoders (AEs) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for dimensionality reduction and feature extraction. The ADR framework significantly reduces computational complexity by simplifying high-dimensional state spaces while preserving crucial information. Additionally, we incorporate communication modules to facilitate inter-UAV coordination, further improving path planning efficiency. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly enhances exploration performance and reduces computational complexity, showcasing the potential of combining MARL with ADR techniques for advanced UAV navigation in complex environments.

Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by alterations in motile cilia func-tion. The diagnosis of PCD is challenging due to the lack of standardized methods in clinical practice. High-speed video microscopy analysis (HSVA) directly evaluates ciliary beat frequency (CBF) in PCD. Recently, open-source ciliary analysis software applications have shown promise in measuring CBF accurately. How-ever, there is limited knowledge about the performance of different software applications, creating a gap in understanding their comparative effectiveness in measuring CBF in PCD. We compared two open-source software applications, CiliarMove and Cilialyzer, against the manual count method. We used videos rec-orded at high-speed of nasal ciliary brush samples from PCD patients and healthy controls. All three meth-ods showed lower median CBF values in PCD patients than healthy controls. CiliarMove and Cilialyzer identified lower CBF in PCD patients, similar to the manual count. Cilialyzer, CiliarMove and manual count demonstrated statistical significance (p-value < 0.0001) in the difference of median CBF values be-tween PCD and healthy controls. These findings support the utility of open-source software-based analysis tools. Further studies are needed to validate these findings with other genetic variants and identify the op-timal software for accurate CBF measurement in PCD.

In multi-objective optimization problems, the optimization target is to obtain a set of non-dominated solutions. Comparing solution sets is crucial in evaluating the performances of different optimization algorithms. The use of performance indicators is common in comparing those sets and, subsequently, optimization algorithms. A good solution set must be close to the Pareto-optimal front, well-distributed, maximally extended and fully filled. Therefore, an effective performance indicator must encompass these features as a whole and must be Pareto dominance compliant. Unfortunately, some of the known indicators often fail to properly reflect the quality of a solution set or cost a lot to compute. This paper demonstrates that the Degree of Approximation (DOA) quality indicator, is a weakly Pareto compliant unary indicator that gives a good estimation of the match between the approximated front and the Pareto-optimal front. Moreover, DOA computation is easy and fast.

Cloud computing refers to applications delivered as services over the Internet. Cloud systems employ policies that are inherently dynamic in nature and that depend on temporal conditions defined in terms of external events, such as the measurement of bandwidth, use of hosts, intrusion detection or specific time events. In this paper, we investigate an optimized resource management scheme named v-Mapper. The basic premise of v-Mapper is to exploit application-awareness concepts using software-defined networking (SDN) features. This paper makes three key contributions to the field: (1) We propose a virtual machine (VM) placement scheme that can effectively mitigate the VM placement issues for data-intensive applications; (2) We propose a validation scheme that will ensure that a service is entertained only if there are sufficient resources available for its execution and (3) We present a scheduling policy that aims to eliminate network load constraints. An evaluation was carried out with various benchmarks and demonstrated that v-Mapper shows improved performance over other state-of-the-art approaches in terms of average task completion time, service delay time and bandwidth utilization. Given the growing importance of supporting large-scale data processing and analysis in datacentres, the v-Mapper system has the potential to make a positive impact in improving datacentre performance in the future.

A superior variant of dried jujube in China is ‘Huizao’ (HZ) jujube. Nonetheless, detailed evaluations of the texture quality of HZ fruits have been the subject of few studies. Texture is a significant indicator of the sensory and processed quality of a fruit. Here, we differentiate and characterize the texture quality of HZ fruits from the four primary producing regions in southern Xinjiang, as well as develop a system for assessing the texture quality of HZ fruits. Furthermore, five texture indices of HZ fruits from 109 plantations were exhaustively evaluated utilizing principal component analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical clustering analysis. Consequently, by the 10th, 30th, 70th, and 90th percentiles, each index was classified into five grades—lower, medium, high, and higher. Correlation investigation indicated strong relationships between the springiness, chewiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and hardness of HZ fruits. Springiness, hardness, and adhesiveness are essential indicators that influence the texture of HZ fruits. We used clustering analysis to separate the six texture indices into three major categories (hard factor, stick-elastic factor, and adhesive factor), with indices representing hardness, springiness, and adhesiveness, respectively. Furthermore, according to the factor molecules, the texture quality of HZ fruits in the four production areas was evaluated as Bazhou (1.24) > Hotan (0.773) > Kashi (-0.577) > Aksu (-0.852). RDA analysis of six texture quality parameters and 24 climate conditions identified higher mean temperature (TEM) and lower relative humidity (RHU) as the primary factors contributing to the improved texture quality of HZ fruits in Xinjiang. This study identified the texture quality characteristics of HZ fruits in four major producing areas of Southern Xinjiang, and it offered a theoretical foundation for optimizing the dominant producing areas and regional production of HZ varieties in Xinjiang.

Grid modernization has been ushered in by rising electricity consumption, deteriorating infrastructure, and increasing reliability concerns for electric utilities. New advances, collectively referred to as the smart grid, include modern electronics, technology, telecommunications, and computing capabilities. Smart grid telecommunication frameworks provide two-way communication to support grid operations. Software-defined networking (SDN) has been proposed as a method of monitoring and controlling telecommunication networks, enabling increased smart grid visibility, control, and security. However, being connected to telecommunications infrastructure means that smart grid networks are exposed to cyber-attacks. Attackers may use unauthorized access to intercept messages, inject false data into system measurements, flood communication channels with false data packets, or target centralized controllers to cripple network control. Defense and security techniques against these threats are constantly evolving, necessitating an up-to-date, comprehensive study analyzing cyber attacks and defense methods for smart grid networks. Previous smart grid security surveys do not contain recent techniques and to our knowledge most, if not all, address only one type of attack type and/or one type of defense. This survey considers the latest security techniques, simultaneous multi-pronged cyber attacks and defensutilityes to meet the challenges of the next-generation SDN smart grid research with the goal of identifying future research needs, describing the open security challenges, and exposing both emerging threats and their potential impact on SD-SG deployment.

This article conceptualises the link between firms’ value chains and distribution networks and the requirements for double materiality assessments in contemporary reporting regulations worldwide. The new European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the standards for sustainability reporting issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), called IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, require companies to report their own direct (scope 1) and indirect (scope 2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as GHG emissions in their value chains and distribution networks (both scope 3). However, GHG emissions comprise just one dimension of information that is relevant to understand when assessing, managing and reporting the footprints and impacts of a firm and are, therefore, only a fraction of the key performance indicators (KPIs) related to ESG that should be disclosed. Through a case study, this article demonstrates the connection between the due diligence analysis of firms’ value chains and distribution networks, the analysis of the competitive parameters of the business model, the identified impacts, risks and opportunities, and the double materiality perspective. The double materiality perspective prioritises actions based on probability and significance, creating a natural space to identify KPIs. The article concludes by applying the REGS model and illustrating how it can assist firms in identifying relevant KPIs based on double-materiality assessments.

We generate numerically on a lattice an ensemble of stationary metrics, with spherical symmetry, which have Einstein action S_E « ħ. This is obtained through a Metropolis algorithm with weight exp(-β²S_E²) and β » ħ^-1. The squared action in the exponential allows to circumvene the problem of the non-positivity of S_E. The discretized metrics obtained exhibit a spontaneous polarization in regions of positive and negative scalar curvature. We compare this ensemble with a class of continuous metrics previously found, which satisfy the condition S_E=0 exactly, or in certain cases even the stronger condition R(x)=0 for any x. All these gravitational field configurations are of considerable interest in quantum gravity, because they represent possible vacuum fluctuations and are markedly different from Wheeler's ''spacetime foam''.

Financial fraud poses a severe threat to the integrity of corporate financial statements and market efficiency. While auditors play a crucial role in detecting and preventing such fraud, the unique characteristics of this domain, including class imbalance, high misclassification costs, and am-biguous attributes, pose significant challenges. Traditional classification algorithms may not be optimally suited for this task. This paper proposes a novel stacking ensemble learning approach to enhanced detecting of Financial Statement Scam. By combining the strengths of multiple base learners, including Random Forest, XGBoost, and Gradient Boosting Decision Trees, our model leverages their diverse predictions to improve overall performance. A Logistic Regression me-ta-learner is employed to integrate the outputs of the base learners, capturing their collective wisdom while mitigating individual weaknesses. Extensive experimentation using a real-world dataset shown the superiority of our approach, achieving remarkable recall, precision, accuracy, and area under the curve metrics. The proposed model outperforms individual base learners, under-scoring the efficacy of ensemble learning in tackling the intricate problem of financial fraud detection. This research contributes to the creation of substantial and robust fraud detection systems, fostering trust and transparency in financial markets.