Introduction. Autopsy is a medical procedure that consists of the corpse’s examination to determine the cause of death and obtain information on pathological conditions or injuries present in the body. In recent years there has been a reduction in hospital autopsies and an increase in forensic autopsies. Material and methods. A retrospective observational study was conducted on the reports of all the 645 hospital autopsies performed at Polyclinic of Bari from 2006 to 2021.Results. Group A, 2006-2009, 174 cases were studied: 58% male, 58% adults, 55% neonatology, pulmonary disease was the cause of death in 23%, and 55% of discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnosis. Group B, 2010-2013, comprised 119 cases: 52% male, 46% infants, 48% neonatology, pulmonary disease was the cause of death in 25%, and 56% of discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnosis. Group C, 2014-2017, comprised 168 cases: gender equality, 37% infants, 25% gynecology, pulmonary disease was the cause of death in 24%, and 58% of discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnosis. Group D, 2018-2021 comprised 184 cases: 56% male, 38% adult, 32% gynecology, pulmonary disease was the cause of death in 27%, and 58% discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnosis.Conclusion. The study of hospital autopsies at the Polyclinic of Bari shows that the discrepancy between clinical and autopsy diagnosis is around 56.75%. Thus, the hospital autopsy is helpful in the modern age, especially for diagnosing fetal and neonatal diseases.

In polymer-based dental composites, wear is a three-body wear system mainly abrasive, because of the food particles and wear products suspended in the oral cavity, which are transferred to the microcavities of the surface of the replacements. Due to this fact, the incorporation of nanodiamond as reinforcement in these polymer matrix composites, which promotes the creation of a solid lubricant tribofilm surface could be advantageous. When nanodiamond is added in contents of 0.8, 1.6 and 3.2 wt %, an increase in microhardness from 95 up to 420 %, compared to the one of neat BisGMA/TEGDMA, is observed. Additionally, the incorporation of a content of 1.6 wt % is enough to cause a diminution of ~78 % in the friction coefficient and a reduction of the specific wear rate and Archard’s coefficient of ~50 %. Nevertheless, the addition of relatively high contents reduces the effectiveness of photoinitiation and UV-curing, which is related to the scattering and absorption of UV radiation by ND.

Cemented rock fill (CRF) is commonly used in cut-and-fill stoping operation in underground mining. This allows for the maximum recovery of ore. Backfilling can improve stope stability in underground workings, and then improve ground stability of the whole mine site. Backfilling step scenarios vary from site to site. This paper presents the investigation of five different backfilling step scenarios and their impacts on the stability of stopes at four different mining levels. A comprehensive comparison of displacements, major principal stress and stress concentration factor (SCF) was conducted. The results show that different backfilling step scenarios have little influence on the final displacement for displacement in the stopes. Among the five backfilling scenarios, the major principal stress and stress concentration factor (SCF) have almost the same final results. The backfilling scenario SCN-1 is the optimum option among these five backfilling scenarios. It can immediately prevent the increase of the displacement and reduce the sidewall stress concentration, thereby preventing possible failures. Using the same strength of CRF can achieve same effects among the four mining levels. Applying backfilling CRF of the same strength at different mining depths is acceptable and feasible to improve the stability of the stopes.

Tumid Lupus Erythematosus has been the subject of heated debate as to its correct nosographic classification. In particular, its definition has changed over time, depending on the different studies performed. In this review we address the initial definition of TLE, the changes that have taken place in the understanding and placement within the classification of Lupus Erythematosus (LE), and focus on clinical, histopathological, immunophenotypical and differential diagnosis aspects.

The evolution of some epidemics, as influenza, shows common patterns both in different regions and from year to year. On the contrary, epidemics like the novel COVID-19 show quite heterogeneous dynamics and are extremely susceptible to the measures taken to mitigate their spread. In this paper we propose empirical dynamic modeling to predict the evolution of influenza in Spain’s regions. It is a non-parametric method that looks into the past for coincidences with the present to make the forecasts. Here we extend the method to predict the evolution of other epidemics at any other starting territory and we test also this procedure with Spanish COVID-19 data. We finally build influenza and COVID-19 networks to check possible coincidences in the geographical distribution of both diseases. With this, we grasp the uniqueness of the geographical dynamics of COVID-19.

The spatial distribution of elements can be regarded as a numerical field of concentration values with a continuous spatial coverage. An active area of research is to discover geologically meaningful relationships among elements from their spatial distribution. To solve this problem, we propose an association rule mining method based on clustered events of spatial auto-correlation and applied it to the polymetallic deposits of the Chahanwusu River area, Qinghai Province, China. The elemental data for stream sediments were first clustered into HH (high-high), LL (low-low), HL (high-low), and LH (low-high) groups by using local Moran’s I clustering map (LMIC). Then the Apriori algorithm was used to mine the association rules among different elements in these clusters. More than 86% of the mined rule points are located within 1000 m of faults and near known ore occurrences, and occur in the upper reaches of the stream and catchment areas. In addition, we found that the Indosinian granodiorite is enriched in sulfophile elements, e.g., Zn, Ag and Cd, and the Variscan granite quartz diorite (P1γδο) coexists with Cu and associated elements. Therefore, the proposed algorithm is an effective method for mining co-existence patterns of elements and provides an insight into their enrichment mechanisms.

Despite of being an exceptionally biodiversity rich country, the forest coverage of Bangladesh is declining at an alarming rate. Declaration and management of protected areas in this regard is one of the efforts from government side to tackle the loss of biodiversity. The limited numbers of forest-protected areas (FPA), established to conserve the dwindling forest biodiversity of the country with high pressure on them for timber, non-timber forest products, and fuelwood - makes their management challenging. Moreover, most of the FPAs of the country declared only in the recent decades with very limited infrastructure, manpower and policy support for monitoring and governance. Some people-centred approaches for the management of FPAs and alternative livelihood and income generation subsidies although made available through a few project interventions, their number are still inadequate and performance remains less than satisfactory. This chapter provides a critical review of the FPAs of Bangladesh looking at their role in biodiversity conservation, management challenges, and key lessons from previous management interventions with recommendations for the future. It has been revealed that the FPA system of Bangladesh still poorly represents the diverse forest ecosystems with relatively small forest size and lack of corridors for the movement of wildlife. There are ample opportunities to render co-management of FPAs an effective strategy to minimize the conflicts in FPAs management in the country. It is, however, important to ensure the access of local forest-dependent people to different alternative income generating options that may adequately support their livelihoods.

The aim of this work is to compare two softwares (MAUD and TOPAS) based on the Rietveld algorithm and to test the concept of tolerance factor using the dissolution at high temperature of yttrium into BaTiO₃. In general, both softwares give up different values of the crystalline parameters however the trends are similar in most cases but the analysis of the strain and crystallite size in the BaTiO₃ crystals suggests that, in this particular case, MAUD offered results more consistent with the expected behavior. Using the crystalline parameters calculated by Rietveld, the tolerance factor values were obtained and these data suggest even better stability in the crystalline structure than that expected using theoretical parameters. Tolerance factor concept also indicates that Ti⁴⁺ should be preferred.

In a saline semi-isolated Lagoon on the Cape Zeleny (White Sea), the annual dynamics of the vertical hydrological structure, and the seasonal dynamics of phytoplankton were traced, including species composition, and vertical distribution, abundance, nutrition type,and biomass.293 species and supraspecific taxa of algae and cyanobacteria were found. Most of the identified species are marine, and 38 species are freshwater. Taxonomic composition changed in the Lagoon during the year. Dinoflagellates dominated in winter and early June; unidentified cocci and flagellates in July; diatoms, dinoflagellates and unidentified cells in August; dinoflagellates in September; and unidentified cocci and flagellates in October–November. The abundance of algae also changed in the Lagoon during the year. The integrated biomass in the water column varied from 0.01 g C/m2 in January to 0.78 g C/m2 in early September. According to the abiotic parameters, the water column of the Lagoon is subdivided into several zones with different conditions and corresponding phytoplankton communities. Similarity between the communities of different horizons was 32-46% in summer and 7% in winter. The chemocline layer was the most populous. Almost the entire year it contained a maximum of phytoplankton biomass, 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than that in the overlying horizons. Comparison phytoplankton in the lagoon and in the nearby sea area was carried out. Despite the connection between the Lagoon and the sea phytoplankton structure in the surface water layer in the Lagoon and in the sea differs significantly in composition, quantitative parameters, and seasonal dynamics. The similarity of the communities in the sea and the Lagoon never exceeded 50%. In terms of biomass, the Lagoon lags behind the sea until mid-summer, but, starting from August, it outnumbers it, and the phytoplankton development in the Lagoon lasts longer, until late autumn. The phytoplankton structure and dynamics in the Lagoon and the sea by 24.5% was related to the daylight, water salinity, oxygen content and pH, but did not depend on water T, underwater illuminance, and depth. Oxygen content and pH are defined by PhP activity. Salinity serves as a vector of the vertical sequence of ecological niches. The daylight length seems to be the crucial factor of the seasonal PhP dynamics in the semi-isolated coastal stratified lakes and lagoons.

Many ecosystems are being severely degraded, leading the United Nations to deem 2021-2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. To be successful, this effort requires robust monitoring tools to assess land reclamation practices. Our study aimed to evaluate the quality of recovery efforts in mined areas by developing a Recovery Quality Index (RQI) based on soil and vegetation indicators. Using the heavily mined Iron Quadrangle region of Brazil as an example, we selected four local, undisturbed reference areas as restoration goals: Atlantic Forest (AF); ferruginous rupestrian grassland with dense vegetation (FRGD); ferruginous rupestrian grassland with sparse vegetation (FRGS); and quartzite rupestrian grassland (QRG). We also selected four areas that were directly or indirectly affected by mining, including an environmental compensation area set aside 5 years prior to the study (COMP-5), two sterile piles that had undergone recovery for 15 and 20 years (SP-20 and SP-15), and a cave area with 15 years of recovery (CAVE-15). The four recovery areas were grouped together with each individual reference area (making four combinations of sites), and measurements of 2 vegetation parameters and 34 soil attributes were used in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for each grouping. We determined the RQI for each group by summing weighted PCA scores for responsive indicators. Vegetative parameters had the lowest RQI weights in all four groups. Soil physical indicators tended to be the most important, except in AF, where chemical indicators were most relevant. RQI values were also lowest when AF was used as the reference, showing that the forest was a unique ecosystem, and the CAVE-15 site had lower RQI scores than the other restored sites, indicating the high degree of disturbance that occurred in that low-lying area. The SP-20 site tended to have higher RQI values than the SP-15, and similar values to the less disturbed COMP-5 areas, potentially indicating greater recovery of native soil properties during the longer recovery period. This RQI-based approach has excellent potential for robust assessment of the recovery of areas degraded by mining and can support decision-making during monitoring.

Municipal solid waste management is a growing worldwide challenge. Landfill mining is a promising technique to reduce MSW landfills. In the present study, arbitrary embankments made of different MSW fractions are analyzed to find the safety factor of their slopes. Properties of Municipal solid waste fines (MSWF), Shredded MSW, MSW Incineration Ash, and MSW having particles less than 35 mm are used in the analysis. For doing the same, finite element-based application 'Plaxis-2D' is used. The safety of slopes is assessed while the water table is inserted, and a uniform load is applied to the embankment to establish how well they will perform in critical situations. It was found that the slope made of shredded MSW is most safe due to its low density and high friction angle, while the least safe slope is made of MSW having less than 35 mm fractions.

Based on the dynamic strength variation mechanism of concrete under complex loading conditions, two approaches were devised: numerical testing and CT scanning, guided by the principle of minimizing energy dissipation. A methodology for calculating concrete's failure area and measuring its strength was developed. The analysis delves into the mechanisms behind failure patterns and variations in concrete specimen strength, focusing on crack initiation, development, and the resultant failure surface formed by crack propagation, along with the stress distribution in concrete specimens subjected to diverse loading conditions. Through evaluating the strength and computed failure area of concrete specimens, it is evident that the loading method influences both the strength and failure area of concrete specimens. In general, a larger failure area correlates with a higher measured strength.

This paper studies the duration patterns of unemployment spells for immigrants and the determinants of unemployment’s completion into one of a number of studied labour market states in Finland. We estimate a duration model for unemployment with competing risks of its terminating into employment, labour market training or economic inactivity. Taking into account the wide period of observation and opportunities to analyse processes of labour market integration during various periods of economic development in Finland, in combination with the individualistic character of the labour careers of immigrants, this research is beneficial owing to the many various findings concerning labour market integration of immigrants. The approach undertaken in this research has a dualistic “descriptive-dynamic” character under which integration is understood as a never-ending process, which is conditioned by a time period of long-term existence and a context of solitary action. We find that transitions out of unemployment spells have a cyclical character; after every new “cycle” in unemployment, the probability of terminating unemployment decreases further. We also find that ascriptive factors make sense in the process of job-placement of immigrants from unemployment. Therefore, the gender, education and age of immigrants, as well as the effect of the period in which first unemployment occurred, potentially predict transitions out of unemployment and further labour market integration of immigrants.

Precise individual tree or sample-based inventories derived from 3D point cloud data of mobile laser scanning can improve our comprehensive understanding of the structure, function, resilience, biodiversity, and ecosystem services of urban forests. This study assessed the performance of a hand-held laser scanning system for the extraction of tree position, diameter at breast height (DBH) and tree height (H) in an urban area. A total of 2083 trees of 13 species from 34 plots were analyzed. The results showed that the registration of tree positions using ground control points (GCPs) demonstrated high accuracy, with errors consistently below 0.4 m, except for a few instances. The extraction accuracy of DBH for all trees and individual species remained consistently high, with a total root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.06 cm (6.89%) and a bias of 0.62 cm (2.07%). Notably, broad-leaved trees outperformed coniferous trees, with RMSE and bias values of 1.86 cm (6%) and 0.76 cm (2.46%) compared to 2.54 cm (9.46%) and 0.23 cm (0.84%). Tree height extraction accuracy varied significantly among different species, with R2 values ranging from 0.65 to 0.92. Generally, both DBH and height were underestimated. Linear mixed effects models (LME) were applied to evaluate factors affecting the performance of HLS with the plot as a random factor. LME analysis revealed that plant type and terrain significantly influenced the accuracy of DBH and H derived from HLS data. Other fixed factors of plot area, tree density and trajectory length didn’t have significance. With a large sample size, we concluded that the HLS demonstrated sufficient accuracy in extracting individual tree parameters in urban forests.

The paper focuses on the application of a multilevel, integrative and territorial approach to the protection of cultural heritage through planning instruments in Serbia. It points out the problems of the sectoral approach and discusses international recommendations that can be integrated into the planning methodology. The case study is the area of Djerdap National Park, which has an already established international and national importance. The research suggests that the cultural heritage in the area, with the exception of the Roman limes, is still recognized at the level of individual localities. The study emphasizes the importance of aligning all levels of governance to safeguard the whole spatial entity rather than focusing solely on its particular areas. The interna-tional and national importance of the planning area contributes to the strengthening of awareness of heritage and its institutional protection. However, the vitality of the area, which is key to its sustainable development, comes from the local level. Planning documents contribute to the inte-gration of local values and local communities into development programs and projects.

The main objective of this work is to investigate the temporal variation of PM10 concentrations within the urban area of Athens during the years 2001-2015. For this purpose, the time series of the particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10μm (PM10) is recorded for a 15-year period (2001-2015) in two different monitoring stations located in the urban area of Athens. The results show a totally different behavior of PM10 concentrations between the Athens city center and the suburban areas. It seems that in the city center the main sources of PM10 are traffic and heating systems especially during the cold period of the year. Furthermore, in the city center a significant seasonal variation was found with high concentrations during the cold period of the year and lower concentrations during the warm period of the year. Moreover, it was found that during the weekends, there is a decrease in PM10 concentrations probably due to the fact that majority of people do not use their vehicles. Finally, for both locations a significant temporal decreasing trend of the mean annual PM10 concentrations was found which indicates that during the last years, there have been improvements towards a better air quality.

Fire detection from satellite sensors relies on an accurate estimation of the unperturbed state of a target pixel, from which an anomaly can be isolated. Methods for estimating the radiation budget of a pixel without fire depend upon training data derived from the location's recent history of brightness temperature variation over the diurnal cycle, which can be vulnerable to cloud contamination and the effects of weather. This study proposes a new method that utilises the common solar budget found at a given latitude in conjunction with an area's local solar time to aggregate a broad-area training dataset, which can be used to model the expected diurnal temperature cycle of a location. This training data is then used in a temperature fitting process with the measured brightness temperatures in a pixel, and compared to pixel-derived training data and contextual methods of background temperature determination. Results of this study show similar accuracy between clear-sky medium wave infrared upwelling radiation and the diurnal temperature cycle estimation compared to previous methods, with demonstrable improvements in processing time and training data availability. This method can be used in conjunction with brightness temperature thresholds to provide a baseline for upwelling radiation, from which positive thermal anomalies such as fire can be isolated.

Strip-mined land (SML) disturbed by coal-mining is the non-crop land resource that can be utilized to cultivate high-yielding energy crops such as miscanthus for bioenergy applications. However, the biomass yield potential, annual availability and environmental impacts on growing energy crops in SML are less understood. In this study, we estimated the yield potential of miscanthus (Miscanthus sinensis) in SML and its environmental impacts on local streams using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). After calibration and validation of the SWAT model, the results demonstrated that miscanthus yield potentials were 2.6 (0.8−5.53), 10.0 (1.3−16.0) and 16.0 (1.34−26.0) Mg ha^-1 with the fertilizer application rate of 0, 100, and 200 kg-N ha^-1 respectively. Furthermore, cultivation of miscanthus in the SML has the potential to reduce sediment (~20%) and nitrate (2.5%−10.0 %) loads reaching to water streams with a marginal increase in phosphorus load. The available SML in the United States could produce about 10 to 16 dry Tg of biomass per year without negatively impacting the water quality. In conclusion, SML can provide a unique opportunity to produce biomass for bioenergy applications, while improving stream water quality in highly dense mining area (the Appalachian region) in the United States.

Analysis of land use/land cover (LULC) in the catchment areas is the first action toward safeguarding the freshwater resources. The LULC information in the watershed has gained popularity in the natural science field as it helps water resource managers and environmental health specialists develop natural resource conservation strategies based on available quantitative information. Thus, remote sensing is the cornerstone in addressing environmental-related issues at the catchment level. In this study, the performance of four machine learning algorithms (MLAs), such as Random Forests (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), and Naïve Bayes (NB) was investigated to classify the catchment into nine relevant classes of the undulating watershed landscape using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (L8-OLI) imagery. The assessment of the MLAs were based on the visual inspection of the analyst and the commonly used assessment metrics, such as user’s accuracy (UA), producers’ accuracy (PA), overall accuracy (OA), and kappa coefficient. The MLAs produced good results, where RF (OA= 97.02%, Kappa= 0.96), SVM (OA= 89.74 %, Kappa= 0.88), ANN (OA= 87%, Kappa= 0.86), and NB (OA= 68.64 Kappa= 0.58). The results show the outstanding performance of the RF model over SVM and ANN with a small margin. While NB yielded satisfactory results, which could be primarily influenced by its sensitivity to limited training samples. In contrast, the robust performance of RF could be due to an ability to classify high-dimensional data with limited training data.

Chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), arterial hypertension (HTN), and obesity are major global health issues, causing significant morbidity and mortality. In Latin America, these conditions contribute to millions of premature deaths annually, posing challenges exacerbated by limited healthcare access and poor primary care quality, particularly in Mexico. Complementary medicine presents a potential solution, offering minimally invasive techniques to improve physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Effective treatment adherence, crucial for positive outcomes, is influenced by self-efficacy, the ability to manage one's behavior in response to medical conditions. However, treatment adherence rates remain low, indicating a pressing public health concern. This study aimed to explore how perception of complementary medicine and treatment adherence predict self-efficacy among individuals with chronic conditions in Mexico. Analyzing data from 113 participants revealed significant correlations between variables, with treatment adherence positively associated with self-efficacy and perception of holistic medicine negatively correlated with self-efficacy. Regression analysis showed that incorporating perception of complementary medicine and treatment adherence significantly explained self-efficacy levels, suggesting the potential of complementary therapies in holistic healthcare approaches. However, collinearity between variables highlights the need for further research to better understand these relationships and their implications for improving healthcare outcomes in Mexico. Integrating complementary therapies with conventional treatments could enhance overall well-being and treatment adherence, offering promising avenues for addressing chronic conditions in the region. These findings underscore the importance of comprehensive healthcare approaches that integrate both conventional and complementary modalities to optimize health outcomes and quality of life for individuals with chronic conditions in Mexico and beyond.

Dolichandrone spathacea is a rare and endangered semi-mangrove plant species with an extremely small population, naturally distributed only in Zhanjiang City and the east coast of Hainan Island, China. Regrettably, the present situation of the D. spathacea population in China has not yet been carefully investigated. In this study, we aim to evaluate the current resource status and population dynamic characteristics of D. spathacea on Hainan Island, China, in order to propose sustainable conservation and management strategies for future ecological restoration of its natural population. Our results show that D. spathacea on Hainan Island can be divided into four populations. All the D. spathacea populations present a state of overall dispersion, local concentration, and occasionally sporadic existence, and they exist in geographical isolation. The young, middle, and old D. spathacea plants account for 20.42%, 66.20%, and 13.38%, respectively, indicating that the overall age class of the D. spathacea population on Hainan Island belongs to a declining type. Furthermore, instead of temporal structure, we chose diameter at breast height (DBH) to establish a static life table, draw a population survival curve, and quantify the future development trend through population dynamic analysis and time-series prediction. These results directly point out that the D. spathacea population on Hainan Island is sensitive to external disturbances and possesses two main increases in mortality rate—namely, in its juvenile and mature stages—due to weak vitality, competition, and anthropogenic interferences, which are the most important reasons for its endangered status. Depending on the current conditions of the D. spathacea population, we should conserve and expand mature trees in situ, preserve their germplasm resources, rehabilitate their habitats to promote provenance restoration, and conduct artificial cultivation and spreading planting in order to realize the sustainable conservation and management of D. spathacea.

Plant leaf area index (LAI) is a key characteristic affecting field canopy microclimate. In addition to traditional professional measuring instruments, smartphone camera sensors have been used to measure plant LAI. However, when smartphone methods were used to measure conifer forest LAI, very different performances were obtained depending on whether the smartphone was held at the zenith angle or at a 57.5° angle. To validate further the potential of smartphone sensors for measuring conifer LAI and to find the limits of this method, this paper reports the results of a comparison of two smartphone methods with an LAI-2000 instrument. It is shown that both methods can be used to reveal the conifer leaf-growing trajectory. However, the method with the phone oriented vertically upwards always produced better consistency in magnitude with LAI-2000. The bias of the LAI between the smartphone method and the LAI-2000 instrument was explained with regard to four aspects that can affect LAI: gap fraction, leaf projection ratio, sensor field of view (FOV), and viewing zenith angle (VZA). It was concluded that large FOV and large VZA cause the 57.5° method to overestimate the gap fraction and hence underestimate conifer LAI, especially when tree height is greater than 2.0 m. For the vertically upward method, the bias caused by the overestimated gap fraction is compensated for by an underestimated leaf projection ratio.

This paper aims to analyze the effects of Covid-19 on financial markets from the perspective of Complexity. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused turmoil in financial markets and is already one of the most important financial crises in history, causing a fall in several stock markets as well as great volatility. Unlike past crises, which in most cases were caused either by problems of fiscal deficits or in the financial system, this crisis has its origin in an epidemic disease, which occurred in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread across the globe affecting transport networks, commerce and finance, and will affect the public debt of many countries. This is a systemic situation in which there is a need to consider several interconnected systems, financial instability and high financial risk, something that econophysics and some complexity theorists already do. Therefore, this paper intends to show, theoretically, the systemic and complex character of the recent financial crisis caused by Covid-19.

This study explores optimizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation scheduling for multi-imaging missions in densely targeted areas using an in-house developed Modified Dynamic Programming (MDP) algorithm. By employing Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to define the mission planning problem, the research aims to maximize observation of high-value targets within restricted planning horizons. Numerical simulations, covering a wide range of target numbers and satellite configurations, reveal the MDP algorithm’s superior mission allocation efficiency, enhanced success rates, and reduced revisit times, compared to the Greedy algorithm. The findings underscore the MDP algorithm’s improved operational efficiency and planning robustness for complex imaging tasks, demonstrating significant advancements over traditional approaches.

Objectives: To assess the short-term impact of a single global stretching session on plantar pressures and lumbar range of motion (RoM) over one week in sedentary university students. Design: A randomised controlled trial with two parallel groups. Participants: Sixty-four university students were randomly assigned to a stretching group or control group. The stretching group received a single session of global stretching and the control group remained seated for the same length of time as the stretching session. Main outcome measures: Lumbar RoM and plantar pressures were assessed before, immediately after, 48 hours after, and 7 days after intervention. Results: Group-by-time interaction was significant for lumbar lateral flexion (p = 0.044), right maximal pressure (p = 0.003), left maximal pressure (p = 0.008), right mean pressure (p = 0.025), left mean pressure (p = 0.002), and maximal pressure minus mean pressure in right foot (p = 0.007). The model with plantar pressures showed a significant difference for group-by-time interaction (p = 0.010).Conclusion: Global stretching seems to counteract the ill-effects of prolonged sitting up to seven days with respect to plantar pressure in standing without improving lumbar ROM

A reduction in population sodium (as salt) consumption is one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease and it is a global health priority. High potassium intake is also recommended to reduce cardiovascular disease. To establish effective policies for setting targets and monitoring effectiveness within each country, the current level of consumption should be known. Greece lacks data on actual sodium and potassium intakes. The aim of the present study was therefore to assess dietary salt (using sodium as biomarker) and potassium intakes in a sample of healthy adults in northern Greece and to determine whether adherence to a Mediterranean diet is related to different sodium intakes or sodium-to-potassium ratio. A cross-sectional survey was carried out in Thessaloniki greater metropolitan area (northern Greece) (n=252, aged 18-75 years, 45.2% males). Participants’ dietary sodium and potassium intakes were determined by 24h urinary sodium and potassium excretions. In addition, we estimated their adherence to Mediterranean diet by the use of an 11-item MedDietScore (range 0-55). The mean sodium excretion was 175 (SD 72) mmol/day, equivalent to 4,220 (1,745) mg of sodium or 10.7 (4.4) g of salt per day and potassium excretion was 65 (25) mmol/day, equivalent to 3,303 (1,247) mg/day. Men had higher sodium and potassium excretions compared to women. Only 5.6% of the sample had salt intake <5g/d, which is the target intake recommended by the WHO. Mean sodium-to-potassium excretion ratio was 2.82 (1.07). There was no significant difference in salt or potassium intake or their ratio across MedDietScore quartiles. No significant relationships were found between salt intake and adherence to Mediterranean diet, suggesting that the perception of the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet does not hold when referring to salt consumption. These results suggest the need for a larger nation-wide survey on salt intake in Greece and underline the importance of continuation of salt reduction initiatives in Greece.

We describe a novel machine that uses the greater-than-100% efficiency of air/ground-source heat pumps to recursively generate electricity via steam-powered generators, taking thermal energy from the ambient environment to convert into electrical power. The invention of a machines that generate clean power at low costs will be fundamental to the future of electricity. We estimate efficiency and calculate minimum efficiencies for unknown parts to consider the applicability of this machine to the real world.

In Yaoundé, Cameroon, excessive and inappropriate speeding remains a major public health concern. Part of the problem are the unsafe speed limits, lack of evidence, and effective evaluation of speeding safety performance indicators (SSPIs), and the absence of speed management, hindering the city's ability to mitigate the risks associated with speeding. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap by assessing SSPIs using a well-defined methodology and suggesting speed management strategies. Data on speed, traffic volumes and road attributes were collected from a random selection of 16 representative road sections in Yaoundé. Seven SSPIs were calculated, and weights were assigned to evaluate city-level SSPIs. The findings showed that 66.8% of drivers drive within the speed limit, generally operating at speeds of 54 km/h with a speed variation of 26 km/h. Based on the speed analysis, evidence-based strategies are proposed, and implementing these strategies could potentially reduce fatalities and serious injuries by 16% to 84% across study locations, as indicated by Elvik's model. These findings have significant policy implications for reducing speeding in Yaoundé, and the methodological approach can be replicated in other urban settings. Future research should extend SSPI evaluation to the national level and test the effectiveness of the recommended strategies.

Deep learning has increasingly been employed to identify minerals. However, deep learning can only be used to identify minerals in the distribution of the training set, while any mineral outside the spectrum of the training set is inevitably categorized erroneously within a predetermined class from the training set. To solve this problem, the study introduces the approach that amalgamates One-Class Support Vector Machines (OCSVM) with the ResNet architecture for the out-of-distribution mineral detection. Initially, ResNet undergoes training using a training set comprising well-defined minerals. Subsequently, the earlier layers of the trained ResNet are employed to extract the discriminative features of the mineral under consideration. These extracted mineral features then become the input for OCSVM. When OCSVM discerns the mineral in the training set's distribution, it triggers the subsequent layers within the trained ResNet, facilitating the accurate classification of the mineral into one of the predefined categories encompassing the known minerals. In the event OCSVM identifies the mineral out of the training set's distribution, it is unequivocally categorized as an unclassified or 'unknown' mineral. Empirical results substantiate the method's capability to identify out-of-distribution minerals while concurrently maintaining a commendably high accuracy rate for the classification of the 36 in-distribution minerals.

Auto checkout has received more and more attention in recent years and this system automatically generates a shopping bill by identifying the picture of the products purchased by the customers. However, the system is challenged by the domain adaptation problem, where each image of the training set contains only one commodity, whereas the test set is a collection of multiple commodities. The existing solution to this problem is to resynthesize the training images to enhance the training set. Then the composite images are rendered using CycleGAN to make the image distribution of the training set and the test set more similar. However, we find that the detection boxes given by the ground truth of the common dataset contain a large part of the background area, the area will affect the training process as noise. To solve this problem, we propose a mask data priming method. Specifically, we redo the large scale Retail Product Checkout (RPC) dataset and add segmentation annotation information to each item in the training set image based on the original dataset using pixel-level annotation. Secondly, a new network structure is proposed in which we train the network using joint learning of detectors and counters, and fine-tune the detection network by filtering out suitable images from the test set. Experiments on the RPC dataset have shown that our method yields better results. we used an approach that reached 81.87% compared to 56.68% for the baseline approach which demonstrates that pixel-level information helps to improve the detection results of the network.

Severe malaria is a major public health concern in Angola, particularly among adults, with limited data on clinical outcomes and manifestations. The study therefore assessed the clinical manifestations and outcome of severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria in adult patients admitted to Hospital Central Dr. António Agostinho Neto of Lubango, Angola. The study retrospectively reviewed the individual records of patients over 14 years old, admitted for severe malaria during the first trimester of 2021 and 2022. World Health Organization (WHO) criteria were used to define severity. A total of 640 patients were recorded into the study, 167 in 2021 and 473 in 2022, distributed across the departments; Intensive Care Unit (ICU; n=81), Medicine (MED; n=458) and Infectiology (INF; n=101). The median age was 26 years and 59.4% were males. The most common manifestation of severe malaria was renal impairment (37.4%). The overall mortality rate was 7% and decreased considerably from 10.2% in 2021 to 5.9% in 2022. The increase in malaria cases during 2022 with increased in prevalence of life-threatening signs like renal impairment, jaundice and impaired conscience, underscores the urgent need for enhanced malaria control and surveillance strategies to mitigate morbidity and mortality, highlighting the potential for antimalarial drug resistance.

Background: Metastatic tumors to the oro-facial tissues are rare, with an incidence ranging between 1% and 8% of all oral malignant tumors. Generally reported with a peak of incidence in the 5th–7th decades, but possibly occurring at any age, metastases may represent the first sign of an occult cancer or manifest in patient with an already known history of a primary carcinoma, mostly from the lungs, kidney, prostate, and colon-rectum in males, or uterus, breast, lung, and ovary in females. In the oro-facial tissues the sites mostly involved are the oral mucosa, gingiva/jawbones, tongue, and the salivary glands. Methods: A systemic Review of the literature on the oro-facial metastases from Renal Cell Carcinoma has been conducted by searching the most used databases, also focusing the attention on the Clear Cell histological variant, representing the most frequent one. Results: Among the 160 analyzed studies, 211 cases of oral metastases of renal cancer were found (148 in males, 70.1%; 63 in females, 29.8%), with an average age of 59.8 years. In almost 40% of cases, metastasis represented the first clinical manifestation of the primary tumor and 122 were histologically diagnosed as ccRCCs (57.8%). The tongue was involved in most of the cases (26% - 55 cases), followed by mandible (18.9% - 40 cases), gingiva (18.4% - 39 cases), maxilla (10.9% - 23 cases), parotid gland (10.4% - 22 cases), buccal mucosa (5.2% - 11 cases), lips (3.3% - 7 cases), hard palate (2.8% - 6 cases), soft palate, masticatory space and submandibular gland (0.9% - 2 cases), lymph nodes, tonsil and oral floor (0.4% - 1 case). Among the 122 ccRCCs (84 were males, 68.8 %; 38 females, 31.1%), with an average age of 60.8 years and representing in 33.6% the first clinical manifestation, the tongue remained the most involved site (25.4% - 31 cases), followed by the gingiva (17.2% - 21 cases), parotid gland (13,1% - 16 cases), mandibular bone (12.2% - 15 cases), maxillary bone (11.4% - 14 cases), buccal mucosa and lips (4.9% - 6 cases), hard palate (4% - 5 cases), submandibular gland and soft palate (1.6% - 2 cases), lymph nodes, tonsil, oral floor and masticatory space (0.8%. 1 case). The clinical presentation in soft tissues was represented by a fast-growing exophytic mass, sometimes accompanied by pain. Instead inn bone appeared as radiolucent lesions, with ill-defined borders and cortical erosion. Conclusions: Our data focus the attention on the incidence of Renal cancer Metastases in the oro-facial tissues. Their early identification surely represents a diagnostic challenge, especially when the clinical work-up is limited to the cervico-facial region. Nevertheless, early diagnosis and recently introduced adjuvant therapies may represent the key for better outcomes. Therefore, general guidelines about clinical and radiological identification of oro-facial potentially malignant lesions should be part of the cultural background of any dentists.

Knowing that biomolecules, such as β-amyrin and α-amyrin, have some pharmacological effects, the aim of this study was directed towards exploring the protective effect of a Tomato Peel and Seed Extract (TPSE) for its soothing function but also for its capacity to modulate the adrenal axis, involved in stress response. Ex vivo tests were carried out on skin explants to evaluate the effectiveness of TPSE formulated at 0.5% on Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) and IL-10 release, Kappa Opioid Receptor (KOR) and Caspase 14 expression. An in vivo study combined a clinical evaluation of skin homogeneity, psychological parameter as well as analysis of salivary cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone concentrations. All measurements were carried out at the beginning and after 28 days of applying a TPSE face cream. TPSE regulated not only the release of CGRP and Il-10, reflecting an anti-neurogenic and anti-inflammatory properties, but also modulated KORs. Twenty height days of TPSE application induced a significant decrease in intensity and extent erythrosis, a lower output of salivary cortisol and a significant increase in pleasant emotions when compared to placebo. These results provide encouragement to continue exploring the impact of cosmetic ingredient on psychophysiological parameters to improve skin health and well-being.

Italian, Spanish, French vs German, Austrian or Norwegian COVID-19 tracks? Antibiotics might have a partial impact on COVID-19 death rates in various countries. Our working hypotheses based on recent publications is that that antibiotics may be a major factor that negatively affects patients’ immune system during viral infections. We are all aware that there is no specific and effective medical treatment for COVID-19 so far. However, we know that our immune system is the only efficient weapon that fights against this syndrome right now. In fact, antibiotics are very often prescribed to prevent secondary infections following an antiviral immune response. Various antibiotic therapies have also been commonly applied to support COVID-19 treatments in China and Italy. Unfortunately, the frequent antibiotic off-site targets include mitochondria that are genetically and evolutionary closely linked to bacteria. Mitochondria are multifunctional organelles responsible for bioenergetics in nearly all our cells, acting as signaling hubs in antiviral and antibacterial immune responses. Several studies have demonstrated that mitochondria are vulnerable to antibacterial treatments, interrupting their physiology. Inhibition of these processes by antibiotics might render the immune system less capable of fighting acute COVID-19 viral infections. Some antibiotics, including those prescribed for COVID-19 in Wuhan, have been shown to inhibit the synthesis of mitochondrial DNA. The question is whether antibiotics support such a treatment or weaken patient immune responses in this case. This hypothesis should be evaluated based on comparative clinical data that seem to be unavailable at the moment. Possibly the COVID-19 risk group should be extended to all patients being treated with antibiotics, including those who finished antibiotic therapies days up to several months before SARS-CoV-2 infection. We therefore urge health service response groups to evaluate the impact of antibiotics on COVID-19 recovery vs death retrospective data. We would like to motivate international, national and local health authorities to share available clinical treatment data, discuss and optimize treatment strategies.

In the steeply inclined and extremely thick coal seams (SIETCS) mined using the horizontal sublevel top-coal caving (HSTCC) method, the uncertainty of gas emission is a safety threat to the mining operations. In order to reduce the occurrence of accidents, the determination of gas emission is crucial. In this paper, we first proposed a prediction model for workers at the floor coalbed to calculate gas emission on site. We then put forward a finite element numerical simulation for researchers to predict gas emission from the floor coalbed. At last, we measured gas emitted from the floor coalbed of SIETCS in Wudong Coal Mine in a specific mining period and used the data to verify the applicability and accuracy of these two gas-emission prediction methods. The results showed that the gas emission from Wudong Coal Mine was 1.08 m³/min calculated based on the prediction model and 1.07 m³/min obtained using the user-defined integration method. Both methods have their own advantages, disadvantages and applicable objects, and are important in predicting gas emission from SIETCS mined using HSTCC method.

The mineralogical indices, e.g., Quartz Index (QI), Carbonate Index (CI), Mafic Index (MI) for ASTER multispectral thermal infrared (TIR) data have been applied to various geological materials. The indices are proved to be robust in extracting geological information at the local scale. Considering the relatively narrow spatial coverage of each ASTER scene compared to LANDSAT, many scenes are needed when mosaicking the images to be mapped at regional scales. We develop a system to search ASTER data for a target area given the vast and expanding ASTER data archive. The data is then conditioned, prioritized, and the indices are calculated before finally mosaicking the imagery. The maps of the indices covering the very wide region of the central Tibetan Plateau are produced with this system. The characteristic features of the indices relating to their geology in the study area are analyzed and discussed. Many interesting lithological and structural information that are not currently well understood in the central Tibetan Plateau, the highest and most extensive plateau in the world, with an average elevation of over 4,500 meters above sea level, for example, distributions of the mafic-ultramafic rocks along the suture zones, the quarzitic and marine sedimentology accreted to the Eurasian continent and sulfate layers related to the Tethys and neo-Tethys geological setting can be retrieved from the processed ASTER images.

Variable cross-section arch is widely used in practical engineering because of its beautiful arc and excellent mechanical properties. However, there is still no systematic and comprehensive study on the out-plane buckling of variable cross-section arch. In view of this, this paper is concentrated on an elastic analytical research of out-plane buckling of arches with variable cross-section under a uniformly distributed radial local load. The pre-buckling and out-plane buckling behaviour of a variable cross-sectional arch under an external load is quite different from that of an arch with uniform cross-section. The Castigliano's second theorem is used to establish pre-buckling force method equilibrium equations for variable cross-sectional arches under a uniformly distributed radial local load, and corresponding analytical solutions of normal stress, axial compression and the bending moment are obtained. Based on the energy method and the Ritz method, analytical solutions of the critical load for the elastic out-plane buckling of arches with variable cross-section are derived. Comparisons with ANSYS results indicated that the analytical solutions are able to accurately predict the pre-buckling internal forces and critical out-plane buckling load of variable cross-section arches subjected to a uniformly distributed radial local load. It is found that the internal forces and the out-plane buckling load of an arch are significantly affected by the variation of cross-sectional height. With the ratio of cross-sectional height of the top to the end increase, the bending moment decreases and the axial force and critical out-plane buckling load increase. Analytical solutions of pre-buckling internal force and critical out-plane buckling load problems for arches with variable cross-section have a wider significance, since they can provide an effective explicit analytic method for the optimal design of arch structure.

The classical Einstein’s Field Equation has been derived previously by demanding that the Clausius relation dS = δQ/T holds. In this letter, we show that the semiclassical Einstein’s Field Equation can be recovered using the generalized entropy Sgen by using the non-equilibrium thermodynamics where the Clausius relation is replaced by the entropy balance relation dS = δQ/T +diS, where diS is some internal entropy. Moreover, since the quantum fields violate the classical focusing, we, therefore, have to use quantum focusing in this case. Using then Jacobson’s idea of thermodynamics of spacetime we recover the semiclassical equation of motion. We, therefore, in a sense also show the validity of the semiclassical approximation, a crucial approach for establishing a number of important ideas such as the Hawking effect.

Context: A clinical video telehealth (CVT) program was implemented improve access and quality of dementia care to patients and their caregivers in rural areas. The program was offered as part of an established dementia clinic/geriatric primary care clinic in collaboration with five community-based outpatient clinics (CBOC’s) affiliated with the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (TVHS) in middle Tennessee. Telehealth support was provided by a physician – social worker team visit. Methods: Telehealth training and equipment were provided to clinic personnel, functioning part-time with other collateral clinical duties. Patients and caregivers were referred by primary care providers and had an average of 1 to 2 CVT encounters originating at their local CBOC lasting 20 to 30 minutes. Clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients and caregivers receiving CVT support were collected by retrospective electronic medical record (EMR) review. Results: Over a 3-year period 45 CVT encounters were performed on patient-caregiver pairs, followed for a mean of 15 (1-36) months. Some 80% patients had dementia confirmed and 89% of these had serious medical comorbidities, took an average of 8 medications, and resided at a distance of 103 (76-148) miles from the medical center. Dementia patients included 33% with late stage dementia, 25% received additional care from a mental health provider, 23% took antipsychotic medications, 19% transitioned to a higher level of care, and 19% expired an average of 10.2 months following consultation. Caregiver distress was present in 47% of family members. Consult recommendations included 64% community-based long-term care services and supports (LTSS), 36% medications, and 22% further diagnostic testing. Acceptance of the CVT encounter was 98%, with 8770 travel miles saved. Conclusion: CVT is well received and may be helpful in providing dementia care and supporting dementia caregivers to obtain LTSS for high-need older adults in rural areas.

Emulsifiers like egg yolk (EY) are necessary for the formation of mayonnaise, which is an oil-in-water type colloid. This study aimed to assess the potential of defatted soybean powder treated with supercritical carbon dioxide (DSF-SC) in enhancing the quality of plant-based may-onnaise as plant-based alternatives gain popularity. This study involved producing DSF-SC and comparing its quality attributes to those of mayonnaise made with varying amounts of control soy flour (CSF), DSF-SC, and EY. It was found that mayonnaise made with DSF-SC, with increased emulsifier quantity, showed better emulsion stability, viscosity, and smaller, more uniform particle size compared with CSF mayonnaise. Additionally, DSF-SC mayonnaise was overall rated higher in sensory evaluation. The addition of approximately 2% DSF-SC positively influenced the emul-sion and sensory properties of the vegan mayonnaise, making DSF-SC a promising plant-based alternative emulsifier for replacing animal ingredients.

An Indo-French campaign was conducted during May 2014 at Gadanki (13.5^oN, 79.2^oE), India, for investigating gravity wave (GW) coupling between the lower and middle atmospheres using a suite of experimental techniques. In this paper we are presenting the sources for those GWs which are observed at airglow layer (~87 km) using (OH) Airglow Imager during the campaign. For this purpose we have developed a background model atmosphere by combining the ERA-Interim, MSIS E 90 model and HWM 07 model data sets. Uniqueness of the present study lies in using near-real time background atmosphere data from simultaneous radiosonde and SVU Meteor Radar covering both source and propagation/ dissipation regions of GWs. We have observed 17 wave events and used GROGRAT model for reverse tracing to locate the source(s). When we searched for the sources near the terminal points or along the ray path, deep convection is found to occur but no strong wind shear. This indicates that the source for the observed GWs is deep convection. We have also simulated small scale waves that can reach mesosphere during different seasons (background conditions). GWs with periods less than 100 minutes and horizontal wavelengths less than 200 km are mostly reaching the mesospheric altitudes. Interestingly, it is found that only few GWs that are generated in the troposphere reach the mesospheric altitudes during the monsoon season, though strong sources like convection and wind shear persist throughout this season. Thus, background wind plays significant role in deciding the propagation of GWs in to upper atmosphere.

The aging mechanism of 10% and 30% nickel substituted manganese hexacyanoferrate cathode material in aqueous zinc-ion batteries has been explored through the advanced synchrotron-based two-dimensional x-ray fluorescence technique. Thanks to the two-dimension modality, not only the metal concentration dynamics throughout the entire electrodes was followed during the aging process, but their spatial distribution was also revealed, suggesting the route of the material transformation. The dissolution of Mn and Ni, and the penetration of Zn inside the framework, alongside the Mn aggregations outside the hexacyanoferrate framework were detected. Additionally, the possibility of conducting x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements on the regions of interest made it possible to explore the chemical state of each metal, and furthermore, synchrotron-based powder x-ray diffraction demonstrated the gradual structural modification in 30% Ni-containing sample series, in terms of the different phase formation.

Spending on out-patient health care by citizens in limited resource countries has received little attention.The purpose of this study is to determine the predictors of household spending on out-patient expenses in a cross-sectional study in Kenya. We applied the GEE methods to determine the effect of various variables on outpatient care. We established that the best predictors for outpatient spending in Kenya are Age of the household head, wealth index, marital status and education, which had the lowest QICu of 976341.2. There were no differences on age in mean spending on outpatient care and was changing in a sinusoidal manner. The rich spend more on outpatient care, due to financial ability. Spending increased across the wealth quantiles while gender had a significant effect in the general performance of the models, it didn’t assist in lowering the QICu

Mn-promoted bulk iron catalysts with high specific surface area (82-211 m2.g-1) were synthesized by coprecipitation followed by drying under supercritical conditions. The catalysts were tested in the CO2 hydrogenation reaction. The Mn-promoted iron catalysts showed better textural properties than the bare Fe2O3 catalyst, allowing better dispersion of the active phase, easier reduction of iron oxide, better carburization of iron oxides and higher catalytic activity than the bare Fe2O3 catalyst. The best activity results were obtained by catalyst promotion with a very low amount of Mn (Mn/Fe ratio of 0.05). Upon steady-state conditions (T=340 ºC, total pressure of 20 bar and H2/CO2=3), this catalyst showed high CO2 conversion (44.2%) and selectivity to C2-C4 hydrocarbons (68%, olefin to paraffin ratio of 0.54), while the selectivity to C5+ hydrocarbons, CH4 and CO was about 3.2, 38.5 and 5%, respectively. A close correlation was found between catalyst textural properties and CO2 conversion. The most active MnFe-0.05 catalyst shows high stability during 72 h of reaction related to low amount of soft coke formation and catalyst activation through the formation of χ-Fe5C2 phase during the on-stream reaction.

To understand the possibility of interaction between scientific experimenting and artistic drawing in the form of drawings made in notebooks, assumed is a common element, a spiritual property, and transference as a mechanism for causality. Scientists, scientific experiments and artistic drawings all have different merits. Here the concept ‘speaking out’ in its meaning of expressiveness is proposed to bridge these differences. Scientific action and artistic action cannot be compared directly. However, a common spiritual element will make the investigated object, experimental set-up and notebook drawings comparable in the sense of translations authorized by the physicist. They all then speak out from the same source. In this paper considered are recent drawings made by physicists during experimentation, in notebooks and diaries. Discussed is transferal causality between the physicist, the artistic drawing and all the relevant objects belonging to the experiment. Spiritual properties are introduced for the physicist being a person, and for the investigated object, the experimental set-up and the drawings as objects.

Mercury has a strong environmental impact since both its organic and inorganic forms are toxic and it represents a pollutant of global concern. Liquid Hg is highly volatile and it can be released during natural and anthropogenic processes in the hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. In this study the distribution of Gaseous Elemental Mercury (GEM) and the total and leached mercury concentrations on paints, plasters, roof tiles, concretes, metals, dust and wood structures were determined in the main buildings and structures of the former Hg-mining area of Abbadia San Salvatore (Siena, Central Italy). The mining complex (divided into 7 units) covers a surface of about 65 ha and contains mining structures and managers and workers buildings. In this work, nine surveys of GEM measurements were carried out from July 2011 to August 2015 for the buildings and structures located in the units 2, 3 and 6. Moreover, detailed measurements were performed in February, April, July, September and December 2016 in the edifices and mining structures of Unit 6. GEM concentrations showed a strong variability in terms of space and time mostly depending on the distance from the building hosting driers, furnaces and condensers and ambient temperature, respectively. In the Unit 2 surveys carried out in the hotter period (from June to September) showed GEM concentrations up to 27,500 ng m⁻³, while in the Unit 6 they were on average much higher and occasionally they saturated the GEM measurement device (>50,000 ng m⁻³). Concentrations of total (in mg kg⁻¹) and leached (in μg L⁻¹) mercury measured in different building materials (up to 46,580 mg kg⁻¹ and 4,470 mg L⁻¹ for total and leached mercury, respectively) showed for the same type of material highly variable values in dependence on the edifice or mining structure from which they were collected. The results obtained in this study are of relevant interest for the operational cleanings to be carried out during the reclamation activities.

The calculation of moments of area is one of the most fundamental aspects of engineering mechanics for calculating the properties of beams or for the determination of invariants in different kind of geometries. While a variety of shapes such as circles, rectangles, ellipses or their combinations can be described symbolically, such symbolic expressions are missing for freeform cross-sections. In particular, periodic B-spline cross-sections are suitable for an alternative beam cross-section, e.g. for the representation of topology optimization results. In this work, therefore, a symbolic description of the moments of area of various parametric representations of such B-splines is computed. The expressions found are then compared with alternative computational methods and checked for validity. The resulting equations show a simple way for fast conceptual computation of such moments of area of periodic B-splines.

Membrane-coupled RNA transport is an emerging theme in fungal biology. This review focuses on the RNA cargo and mechanistic details of transport via two inter-related sets of organelles: endosomes and extracellular vesicles for intra- and intercellular RNA transfer. Simultaneous transport and translation of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) on the surface of shuttling endosomes is a conserved process pertinent to highly polarised eukaryotic cells, such as hyphae or neurons. Here we detail the endosomal mRNA transport machinery components and mRNA targets of the core RNA-binding protein Rrm4. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are newly garnering interest as mediators of intercellular communication, especially between pathogenic fungi and their hosts. Landmark studies in plant-fungus interactions indicate EVs as a means of delivering various cargos, most notably small RNAs (sRNAs), for cross-kingdom RNA interference. Recent advances and implications of the nascent field of fungal EVs are discussed and potential links between endosomal and EV-mediated RNA transport are proposed.

The monitoring of maternal and child health, using wearable devices made with wireless sensor technologies, is expected to reduce maternal and child death rates. Wireless sensor technologies have been used in wireless sensor networks to enable the acquisition of data for monitoring machines, smart cities, transportation, asset tracking, and tracking of human activity. Applications based on wireless body area network (WBAN) have been used in healthcare for measuring and monitoring of patient health and activity through integration with wearable devices. Wireless sensors used in WBAN can be cost-effective, enable remote availability, and can be integrated with electronic health record (EHR) management systems. Interoperability of WBAN sensor data with other linked data has the potential to improve health for all, including maternal and child health through the improvement of data access, data quality and healthcare access. This paper presents a survey of the state-of-the-art techniques for managing WBAN sensor data interoperability. The findings in this study will provide reliable support to enable policymakers and health care providers to take action to enhance the use of e-health to improve maternal-child health and reduce the mortality rates of women and children.

The present paper deals with an improvement of the strengthening technique consisting in the combined use of straps—made of stainless steel ribbons—and CFRP strips, to increase the out-of-plane strength of masonry walls. The straps of both the previous and the new combined technique pass from one face to the opposite face of the masonry wall through some holes made along the thickness, giving rise to a three-dimensional net of loop-shaped straps, closed on themselves. The new technique replaces the stainless steel ribbons with steel wire ropes, which form closed loops around the masonry units and the CFRP strips as in the previous technique. A turnbuckle for each steel wire rope allows the closure of the loops and provides the desired pre-tension to the straps. The mechanical coupling—given by the frictional forces—between the straps and the CFRP strips placed on the two faces of the masonry wall gives rise to an I-beam behavior of the facing CFRP strips, which begin to resist the load as if they were the two flanges of the same I-beam. Even the previous combined technique exploits the ideal I-beam mechanism, but the greater stiffness of the steel wire ropes compared to the stiffness of the steel ribbons makes the constraint between the facing CFRP strips stiffer. This gives the reinforced structural element greater stiffness and delamination load. In particular, the experimental results show that the maximum load achievable with the second combined technique is much greater than the maximum load provided by the CFRP strips. Even the ultimate displacement turns out to be increased, allowing us to state that the second combined technique improves both strength and ductility. Since the CFRP strips of the combined technique run along the vertical direction of the wall, the ideal I-beam mechanism is particularly useful to counteract the hammering actions provided by the floors on the perimeter walls, during an earthquake. Lastly, after the building went out of service, the box-type behavior offered by the three-dimensional net of straps prevents the building from collapsing, acting as a device for safeguarding life.

Systemic inflammation and coronary microvascular endothelial dysfunction are essential pathophysiological factors in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) that support the use of statins. The pleiotropic properties of statins, such as anti-inflammatory, antihypertrophic, antifibrotic, and antioxidant effects, are generally accepted and may be beneficial in HF, especially in HFpEF. Numerous observational clinical trials have consistently shown a beneficial prognostic effect of statins in patients with HFpEF, while the results of two larger trials in patients with HFrEF have been controversial. Such differences may be related to a more pronounced impact of the pleiotropic properties of statins on the pathophysiology of HFpEF and pro-inflammatory comorbidities (arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, chronic kidney disease) that are more common in HFpEF. This review discusses the potential mechanisms of statin action that may be beneficial for patients with HFpEF, as well as clinical trials that have evaluated the statin effects on left ventricular diastolic function and clinical outcomes in patients with HFpEF.

In recent years, pedestrian re-identification has gained a lot of interest due to its importance for many purposes such as security and safety. Many types of solutions have been proposed to solve this problem, where the majority are based on a features extraction such Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs). These approaches assume that only the identities that are in the training data can be recognized. The pedestrians in the training data are called In distribution (ID). However, in real world scenarios, new pedestrians and objects can appear in the scene and the model should detect them as Out Of Distribution (OOD). In our previous study , we proposed a pedestrian re-identification based on von-Mises Fisher (vMF) distribution. Each identity is embedded in the unit sphere as a compact vMF distribution far from other identities distributions. The embedding is done through a base CNN. Recently, proposed a framework called Virtual Outlier Synthetic (VOS), that detects OOD based on synthesising virtual outlier in the embedding space in an online manner. Their approach assumes that the samples from the same object maps to a compact space. This assumption aligns with the vMF based approach. Therefore, in this paper, we revisited the vMF approach and merged with VOS in order to detect OOD data points. We present our approach to merge both frameworks. We conducted several experiments to evaluate our proposed framework. Results showed that our framework was able to detect new pedestrian that do not exist in the training data in the inference phase. It also slightly helped to improve the re-identification performance.

This work analyzes the severity and risk associated with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) message drop out in Detect and Avoid (DAA) function of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). Performance assessment of the Universal Access Transceiver (UAT) ADS-B message implies that in some cases ADS-B fails to update within a specified update interval, which is referred to as drop out in this work. ADS-B is a fundamental surveillance sensor for both class 1 and class 2 DAA systems. Message loss or drop out has been found as one of the common limitations of the ADS-B system. The key feature of this study is incorporating the update rate of real ADS-B data transmitted from the manned aircraft. The data were received from the Grand Forks International Airport, North Dakota. Monte Carlo method has been adopted to resolve encounter scenarios in the presence of drop out. The change in the alert triggered by the UAS DAA in the presence of ADS-B drop out has been investigated. Furthermore, the risk matrices are created to quantify the associated risk with drop out affected alerts. Simulation results depict that both the duration of drop out and DAA look-ahead time affect the alert-triggering function of UAS. With a small look- ahead window and longer duration of drop out, the number of warning alerts increases. Also, alerts are affected more during an overtaking encounter than that of a head-to-head encounter. A system-level analysis is also carried out to recognize the potential reasons behind the ADS-B drop out.

This paper elucidates the impact of uncertainty on the Markowitz asset allocation and how it performs. The findings imply that when evaluated out-of-sample, estimation errors in parameters might significantly affect how well an allocation performs. Numerous publications that address this ambiguity have been highlighted to emphasize our findings further. In our work, we compare these approaches to alternative allocation strategies and explain their performance in both expected and real out-of-sample events. We find that the Markowitz framework can be improved by using tactics that take uncertainty into account. Longer sample numbers, however, may not always translate into better outcomes. Applying a short-sale constraint can also enhance the initial portfolio. Finally, we find that even more basic approaches to asset allocation, such as equally weighted allocation, perform reasonably well.

Nurses focus more on curative aspects rather than health promotion and disease prevention, thus weakening primary health care and lessening engagement with the community. Providing a learning environment that can support the professional growth of nurses through engagement with local communities and educational institutions would strengthen primary health care in the community; however, this poses challenges due to the traditional mindset of nurses towards primary health care. This integrative review aimed to explore key features of the potential of the nursing center model as a contracting-out approach to strengthen primary health care services. This integrative review provides lessons for implementing the Nursing Centre model for any country, mainly where nurses are not fully utilized for health promotion and disease prevention.

The gut microbiota's part in colon cancer has become an exciting and hopeful area of study because it shows complex links that affect how cancer starts, spreads, and responds to treatments. Dysbiosis, which is an imbalance in the community of germs in the gut, has been linked to a higher risk of colon cancer by causing inflammation and making a place where tumours can grow. Researchers have found that some kinds of bugs can either help colon cancer grow or stop it from doing so. This shows how important it is to maintain a healthy gut bacteria. In both preclinical and clinical research, therapeutic treatments that target the microbiome in the gut have shown promise. Probiotics and prebiotics can change the environment around a tumour, change the balance of microorganisms in the gut, and boost immune responses that fight the cancer. Faecal microbiota transfer (FMT) is being looked at as a new way to change the bacteria in the guts of people with colon cancer. By adding microbiota-targeted drugs to standard cancer treatments, it may be possible to make the treatment more effective and lessen side effects. Microbiota-focused treatments for colon cancer are still in their early stages, but they show promise. More research needs to be done to find out how they work and show that they work in the clinic. The link between the bacteria in the gut and colon cancer opens up new ways to help patients and give them better results. This might make a difference in how colon cancer is handled in the future.

Background: The ongoing outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) represents a major threat to human health, which impairs the functionality of several organs. One of the hardest challenges in the fight against COVID-19 is the development of wide-scale, effective, and rapid laboratory tests to control disease severity, progression, and possible sudden worsening. Monitoring patients in real-time is indeed highly demanded in this pandemic era when physicians need reliable and quantitative tools to prioritize patients’ access to intensive care departments. In this regard, salivary biomarkers are extremely promising, as they allow for a fast and non-invasive specimens’ collection, which can be repeated multiple times. Methods: We compare salivary levels of immunoglobulin A subclasses (IgA1 and IgA2) and free-light chains (FLC k and λ) in a cohort of 29 SARS-CoV-2 patients and 21 healthy subjects. Results: We found that each biomarkers differs significantly between the two groups, with p-values ranging from 10-8 to 10-4. The performance ranking of these markers, shows that λFLC level (p=1.4e-8) is the best-suited candidate to discriminate the two groups, with an accuracy of 0.94 (0.87-1.00 95% CI), a precision of 0.91 (0.81-1.00 95% CI), a sensitivity of 1.00 (0.96-1.00 95% CI) and a specificity of 0.86 (0.70-1.00 95% CI). Conclusion: These results suggest λFLC as an ideal indicator of patient conditions. This is more strengthened in consideration that λFLC half-life (approximately 6 hours) is significantly shorter than the IgA one (21 days): thus λFLC appears displaying the potential to effectively monitor patients fluctuation in real-time.

This study aims to introduce out of school activities (OSA) to high school PJOK teachers in Padang Pariaman District, West Sumatra Province, Indonesia. As is known, OSA is an alternative for students in fulfilling their movement needs, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic. Currently, students mostly stay at home, such as studying from home, to doing activities from home. So that there is minimal possibility of carrying out the movement activities recommended by WHO. The research method used is action research. This method gets a problem, then arranges problem-solving, conducts treatment, and finally evaluates. The research results show no teachers who have ever carried out of school activities (OSA); understanding, implementation, and evaluation are also not understood by the teachers. After being given the treatment, the teachers became more aware and understood about out of school activities, starting from understanding, implementing to evaluating what had to be done.

Food Neophobia (FN), defined as the reluctance to eat new or unfamiliar foods, mainly concerns fruit, vegetables, and legumes, typical of the Mediterranean Diet (MD). Considering these premises, this study aimed to clarify the relationship between FN and AMD in a sample of Italian children and their association with some socio-demographic factors and children's nutritional status. A sample of 288 children aged 3-11 years, participated to an assessment carried out with a questionnaire evaluating FN and AMD, respectively with Child Food Neophobia Scale (CFNS) and the KIDMED Test. Most of the sample showed an intermediate (67.3%) or high level of FN (18.1%) with high rates among 6-11 years old children (63.9%) and especially in only-child (50%). The AMD was mostly low (29.5%) or medium (54.8%) and reached lower levels among higher neophobic children (51.9%; p value &lt; 0.05). Present results confirm the study hypothesis that FN is a driver of MD abandonment and show the positive effects on children's eating habits of having siblings. Finally, this study proves the relevance of adopting effective feeding strategies against FN to avoid its maintenance in adulthood and detrimental effects on future overall health and well-being.

An experiment was conducted in 2016 & 2017 for development of novel rice hybrids for aerobic ecology with lesser yield penalties in comparison to irrigated ecosystem, further with added advantage of reduced methane emissions and water budget as witnessed in irrigated system. Based on the restorer / maintainer reaction and spikelet fertility (%), 10 restorer lines were selected to cross with 3 CMS lines in the line by tester fashion in Yasangi (summer) season 2016-17. Resulting 30 experimental hybrids besides 13 parental lines (10 Restorer lines and 3 B - lines of akin CMS lines) and checks (GK 5022, CR Dhan 201) assessed during Vankalam (rainy) season 2017 at three different places/locations viz., Rajendranagar, Warangal and Kampasagar. The outcome of experiment were two experimental hybrids viz., APMS-6A × HRSV – 7 and IR-79156A × ATR – 372, were categorized as stable hybrids with desirable sca effects, heterosis (ranging from 7% to 13%) over best check GK 5022 along with an in-essence performance for yield and other yield attributing characters.

Background: In recent years, the assessment and guidance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quality using noninvasive and invasive monitoring techniques have been increasingly recommended. In this study, we introduce a new physiological monitoring system that simultaneously measures arterial pressure (AP), venous pressure (VP), and cerebral tissue oxygen saturation (SctO2) during CPR. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted at a single center (Kagoshima City Hospital). Adult out-of-hospital patients aged ≥18 years with an intravenous femoral arterial line, venous line, and SctO2 monitor were included. We measured femoral arterial pressure (FAP) and femoral venous pressure (FVP) invasively if catheters were immediately inserted into the femoral artery and vein for potential candidates who require interventions such as extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation but did not receive such interventions as a result. Results: We observed several representative cases that provided the following insights: We presented several cases, including two patients with significant increases in FVP and low SctO2 values, and in both cases, return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) was not achieved. In contrast, we also presented two cases in which CPR resulted in higher FAP compared to FVP and an upward trend in SctO2 values was observed, and both instances achieved ROSC. Conclusion: We presented a simultaneous physiological monitoring system that can monitor AP, VP, and SctO2 during CPR. Further case accumulations will be necessary to assess the variations in hemodynamic status during CPR and the association between each hemodynamic status and outcomes after cardiac arrest.

Based on the 2013–2017 Chinese Family Database and China Household Finance Survey, the study examines the impact of farmland transfer on the income structure of agricultural households. We observe a significant rise in the income of transferred-out households, while that of transferred-in households is unchanged. A further empirical decomposition of income shows a significant increase in both the wage and asset generated incomes of transferred-out households. Although the income generated by transferred-in households through agricultural production and management increases significantly, the decrease in wage income is larger. The study’s empirical designs are robustly tested with propensity score matching and instrumental variables. Moreover, we conduct a comparative analysis of the external constraints faced by the two groups to explore the reasons for the divergence of the income effect. The results show that transferred-in households face highly pronounced external constraints in terms of capital, technology, and farmland size, while transferred-out households face relatively fewer impediments to non-agricultural employment. Our empirical results imply that external constraints can limit the social welfare improvements of agricultural land reform, suggesting that other complementary measures would be required for future policy improvements to work better.

This study aims to explore the link between public investment and private investment in South Africa, using time series data spanning 40 years (1980–2020). Private investment is subdivided into credit to private sector (CPS) and foreign direct investment (FDI). Several econometric methodologies were used in the study, including the unit root test, cointegration test, and Error Correction Method (ECM). The Phillips-Perron (PP) test results point out that all the variables are stationary at levels with the exception of public investment (PI) which is stationary at first difference. The co-integration test reveals that the variables have a long-run equilibrium relationship. According to the findings of the ECM, public investment has a negative relationship with private investment (as measured by credit to private sector and foreign direct investment). The conclusion implies that in South Africa, public investment crowds out private investment. Other results revealed that, RGDP crowds in credit to private sector while crowding out foreign direct investment. Finally, the ECM findings show that government consumption expenditure crowds out credit to private sector and foreign direct investment. The residuals are homoskedastic and show no serial correlation, indicating that the model is adequate, according to the test for adequacy.

The lay-up of cross laminated timber (CLT) leads to significant differences in properties over its cross-section. Particularly the out-of-plane shear behavior of CLT is effected by the changes in shear moduli over the cross-section. Results from laboratory shear tests are used to evaluate the shear stiffness of 3- and 5-layer CLT panels in their major and minor strength direction. The results are compared to calculated shear stiffness values on evaluated single-layer properties as well as commonly used property ratios using the Timoshenko beam theory and the shear analogy method. Differences between the two calculation approaches are pointed out. The shear stiffness is highly sensitive to the ratio of the shear modulus parallel to the grain to the shear modulus perpendicular to the grain. The stiffness values determined from two test measurements are compared with the calculated results. The level of agreement is dependent on the number of layers in CLT and the property axis of the CLT panels.

The study was performed to get the first insight of distribution of the low field volume magnetic susceptibility (MS) throughout the Zagreb city area, based on in-situ field measurements. Most interesting locations were selected for soil sampling and geochemical content was determined using ICP-OES. A geostatistical approach was applied on MS and geochemical results. Median value of 0.245 x 10-3 SI units is proposed to be used as relevant average MS value in Zagreb area. Mean concentrations of heavy metals in Zagreb soils (in µg/g) are: Pb (36.82), Zn (87.77), Cu (30.84), Cd (0.66), Cr (29.04), Co (11.89) and Ni (28.40), being relatively low in comparison with Croatian legislation and with European and world average. Boxplot analyses showed that 45% of studied elements do not show any anomaly, while the rest of elements mostly show only one weak anomaly and they are located at the same sites as MS anomalies. Statistical analysis found significant correlations between MS and following elements: Cd, Co, Fe, Mn, Na, Pb, Sb and Zn. In-situ MS measurements proved to be an efficient tool for initial screening of large areas in terms of elevated heavy elements concentrations, enabling cheap and fast assessment of state of environment.

This study examines the relationship of fear of missing out (FOMO) with heavy social networking among Turkish university students (aged 17 - 55). The perception of the possible role of parental supervision on online activities is also investigated. Factor analysis of FOMO scale led us to evaluate the construct under two dimensions as (1) fear of missing experience and (2) fear of missing activity. The results revealed that fear of missing activity increases social media intrusion while fear of missing experience is found to have no significant effect. The reverse relationship is also valid: an urge to use social media predicts fear of missing out (activity and experience). Fear of missing experience is associated with problematic social media use (PSMU) and a high desire to use social media. The results additionally demonstrate that students aged 30 and older believe more in the requirement of parental control than those aged 17-22.

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which self-esteem and depression mediated the influence of internalized stigma on life satisfaction among Korean out-of-school youths. Cross-sectional data on 318 youths provided information on perceived stigma, self-esteem, depression, life satisfaction, and personal characteristics. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was followed by structured path analysis to investigate the mediation effects. Internalized stigma was negatively associated with life satisfaction. Self-esteem significantly mediated the influence of stigma on depression and the influence of depression on life satisfaction. Further, stigma directly and significantly influenced depression. This study demonstrated that self-esteem and depression were important to the relationship between internalized stigma and life satisfaction. Implications for possible policies and programs with the aim of helping out-of-school youths to integrate and lead successful satisfying lives are discussed.

Barrier coverage is a fundamental application in wireless sensor networks, which is widely used to protect a region through intruder detection for smart city. In this paper, we study a new branch of barrier coverage, named warning barrier coverage (WBC). Different from the classic barrier coverage, WBC has the inverse protect direction, which protects unexpected visitors by warning them away from the region enclosed by sensor barriers. The WBC holds a promising prospect in many danger keep out applications for smart city. For example, a WBC can enclose the debris area in the sea and alarm any approaching ships in order to avoid their damaging propellers. One special feature of WBC is that the target region is usually dangerous and its boundary is previously unknown. Hence, the scattered mobile nodes need to detect the boundary and form the barrier coverage themselves. It is challenging to form these distributed sensor nodes into a barrier because a node can sense only the local information and there is no global information of the unknown region or other nodes. To this end, we propose a novel solution AutoBar for mobile sensor nodes to automatically form a WBC for smart city. To pursue the high coverage quality, we theoretically derive the optimal distribution pattern of sensor nodes using convex theory. Based on the analysis, we design a fully distributed algorithm that enables nodes to collaboratively move towards the optimal distribution pattern. In addition, AutoBar is able to reorganize the barrier even any node is broken. To validate the feasibility of AutoBar, we develop the prototype of the specialized mobile node, which consists of two kinds of sensors: one for boundary detection and another for visitor detection. Based on the prototype, we conduct extensive real trace driven simulations in various smart city scenarios. Performance results demonstrate that AutoBar outperforms the existing barrier coverage strategies in terms of coverage quality, formation duration, and communication overhead.

Irrigation is one of key agricultural management practices of crop cultivation in the world. Irrigation practice is traceable on satellite image. Most irrigated area mapping methods were developed based on time series of NDVI or back scatter coefficient within the growing season. However, it found the winter irrigation out of growing season is also dominating in north China. This kind of irrigation aims to increase the soil moisture for coping with spring drought, and also reduce the wind erosion with the wet soil in the field surface as the strong wind happens in spring. This study developed a remote sensing-based classification approach to identify irrigated fields with Radom Forest algorithm out of growing season. The results showed that the mean of the highest accuracies of 7 RF models was 94.9% and the mean of the averaged accuracies of 7 RF models was 94.1%; the overall accuracy for all 7 outputs was in the range of 86.8-92.5%, Kappa in the range of 84.0-91.0% and F-1 score in the range of 82.1-90.1%. These results showed that the classification was acceptable and not over performed as the accuracies of all classified images were lower than the models. This study also found that irrigation started to apply in early November and irrigated fields were increased and suspended in December and January due to freeze. The newly irrigated fields were found again in March and April when the temperature goes up above zero degree. The area of irrigated fields in the study area were increasing over time with sizes of 98.6, 166.9, 208.0, 292.8, 538.0, 623.1, 653.8 km2 from December to April, accounting for 6.1%, 10.4%, 12.9%, 18.2%, 33.4%, 38.7%, and 40.6% of the total irrigatable land in the study area, respectively.

Trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs) are a family of G protein-coupled receptors present in mammals in the brain and in several peripheral organs. Apart from its olfactory role, TAAR5 is expressed in the major limbic brain areas and regulates brain serotonin functions and emotional behaviors. However, most of its functions remain undiscovered. Given the role of serotonin and limbic regions in some aspects of cognition, we used a temporal decision-making task to unveil a possible role of TAAR5 in cognitive processes. We found that TAAR5 knock-out (KO) mice showed a generally better performance due to a reduced number of errors and displayed a greater rate of improvement at the task than WT littermates. However, task-related parameters, such as time accuracy and uncertainty have not changed significantly. Overall, we show that TAAR5 modulates specific domains of cognition, highlighting a new role in brain physiology.

The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of walls under out-of-plane loads, particularly when subjected to the hammering action of the floors. The idea behind the paper is to provide the masonry walls with a device that behaves like a buttress, without having to build a traditional buttress. The solution presented here consists of a mechanical coupling between the three-dimensional net of steel ribbons of the CAM system and the CFRP strips. Since the steel ribbons of the CAM system have a pre-tension, the mechanical coupling allows the steel ribbons to establish a semi-rigid transverse link between the CFRP strips bonded on two opposite sides of a wall. Therefore, two vertical CFRP strips tied by the steel ribbons behave like the flanges of an I-beam and the flexural strength of the ideal I-beam counteracts the out-of-plane displacements of the wall. The experimental results showed that the combined technique inherits the strong points of both constituent techniques: the delamination load is comparable to that of the specimens reinforced with the CFRP strips and the overall behavior is ductile as for the specimens reinforced with the CAM system. They also allowed us to design a more performing combined technique.

In this work, we focus on investigating electrothermal flow in a rotating electric field (ROT-ETF), with primary attention paid to the horizontal traveling-wave electrothermal (TWET) vortex induced at the center of the electric field. The frequency-dependent flow profiles in the microdevice are analyzed using different heat transfer models. Accordingly, we address in particular the importance of electrode cooling in ROT-ETF as metal electrodes of high thermal conductivity while substrate material of low heat dissipation capability are employed to develop such microfluidic chips. Under this circumstance, cooling of electrode array due to external natural convection on millimeter-scale electrode pads for external wire connection occurs and makes the internal temperature maxima shift from the electrode plane to a bit of distance right above the cross-shaped interelectrode gaps, giving rise to reversal of flow rotation from a typical repulsion-type to attraction-type induction vortex, which is in good accordance with our experimental observations of co-field TWET streaming at frequencies on the order of reciprocal charge relaxation time of the bulk fluid. These results point out a way to make a correct interpretation of out-of-phase electrothermal streaming behavior, which holds great potential for handing high-conductivity analytes in modern microfluidic systems.

Extant research pays little attention to migrant workers’ skill accumulation/upgrading from the perspective of the labor supply. This paper takes China as an example to explore the factors influencing skill accumulation of rural-urban migrant workers (RUMWs), with a purpose to discover how to sustain or reshape regional competitive advantage through improving RUMWs’ skill accumulation. Structured questionnaire surveys were adopted for data collection in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province and Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province located in the Yangtze River Delta in the east of China. 900 questionnaires were issued and 491 effective questionnaires were recovered totally. This paper takes a perspective of global production networks, and gets a broad viewpoint containing intra-firm coordination, inter-firm partnership and extra-firm bargaining with non-firm actors, beyond what the extant literature on laborers’ human capital focuses on. The finding indicates that firms’ skill-oriented preference, which concerns about employees’ skills and innovation ability and stimulates them to learn initiatively, have a significant influence on RUMWs’ skill accumulation. In terms of collective efficiency based on co-competitive relationship between local firms, the more intensive interactions are, the more opportunities of skill accumulation RUMWs get. The accessibility of local institutions and favorable policies benefit RUMWs’ skill accumulation. Besides, the place itself, as a synthesized space of labor-management relations inside a firm and inter-organization relations, exerts an influence on and cause the regional differences in RUMWs’ skill accumulation.

Alzheimer´s disease (AD) is characterized by the brain deposition of senile plaques composed by amyloid-β peptides (Aβ) that increase inflammation. An endogenous peptide derived from the insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I, glycine-proline-glutamate (GPE) has IGF-I-sensitizing and neuroprotective actions. Here, we examined the effects of GPE on Aβ levels and hippocampal inflammation generated by the intracerebroventricular infusion of Aβ25-35 during 2 weeks (300 pmol/day) in ovariectomized rats and the signaling-related pathways and levels of Aβ-degrading enzymes associated with these GPE-related effects. GPE prevented the Aβ-induced increase in the phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and the reduction in activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, insulin receptor substrate-1 and Akt, as well as on interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-13 levels in the hippocampus. The functionality of somatostatin, measured as the percentage of inhibition of adenylate cyclase activity and the levels of insulin-degrading enzyme were also preserved by GPE co-treatment. These findings indicate that GPE co-administration may protect from Aβ insult by changing hippocampal cytokine content and somatostatin functionality through regulation of leptin- and IGF-I-signaling pathways that could influence the reduction in Aβ levels through modulation of levels and/or activity of Aβ proteases.

Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) consists of short hooked steel fibres randomly distributed and oriented within the cementitious matrix. The contribution of fibre in bridging cracks to provide the stress transfer required relies upon the orientation of the fibre in the concrete. Bridging fibre aligned with a crack are less effective than those inclined to it. Therefore, understanding the pull-out behaviour of misaligned fibre is a key factor to quantify and optimize the design of SFRC in the structural applications. In the laboratory a single oriented fibre embedded in a solid cylinder of concrete is subjected to a pull-out test where the axis of a tensile force is aligned with the axis of the cylinder. Based upon the observed behaviour this paper presents a new analytical bounding approach to capture the pull-out response of misaligned hooked-end steel fibre embedded in a concrete matrix. The analysis is based upon a transversely isotropic condition assumed for the plasticity that occurs in the cold drawn fibre. The model accounts for the influence of fibre diameter and the combined strengths of the steel and concrete. The model predictions have also been compared with other experimental results published in the literature. The results showed that the model can predict pull-out loads reasonably for different fibre orientations between bounds of failure derived from the strengths of the two constituents. A critical orientation is observed at maximum strength. Therein, an understanding of the pull-out behaviour of misaligned, hooked-end fibres is necessary to optimize the strength of concrete from this method of reinforcement.

During normal ageing, physical changes take place, namely in terms of the biomechanical, musculoskeletal, and psychomotor systems, that reduce strength, flexibility, motor coordination, balance, and precision of movements. This article analyses the motion behaviour of a sample of 49 senior and pre-senior subjects during the process of entry to (ingress) and exit from (egress) new car models not experienced before, obtained over five days at the Geneva International Motor Show. The methodological process is based on visual studies using photography and video to analyse motion behaviour. This investigation identifies five entry movement strategies and three exit movement strategies in three types of vehicle groups. The movements adopted in the egress of the vehicle were more complex and difficult, in general, than those observed for ingress, requiring greater flexibility, agility/dexterity, and physical strength of subjects, involving more contact or support with vehicle parts. The main factor that influences movement strategies is essentially related to subjects’ levels of physical capacity and previous experiences. In conclusion, there are no significant changes in the subjects’ somatic movement strategies based on vehicle types.

Automated software bots infiltrate online surveys and corrupt data integrity, not to mention waste researcher time and budgets. Although resources exist to help keep bots out and identify bots when they do evade survey barriers, bot attacks may be a persistent problem for online surveys for a long time to come. Bots are evolving -- even as survey designers try ever more sophisticated methods to fend them off and weed their answers out. Vigilance needs to be high and the bot generators should not be under-estimated. We recount here some bot features we encountered after our own survey was attacked that helped to identify them, and that have not been detailed elsewhere. We also discuss reasons why commonly recommended strategies for how to keep bots out may not be feasible for many scientific researchers.

The implementation of One Health/EcoHealth/Planetary Health approaches has been identified as key (i) to address the strong interconnections between risk for pandemics, climate change and biodiversity loss, and (ii) to develop and implement solutions to these interlinked crises. As a response to the multiple calls of scientists in that direction, we have put forward seven long term research questions regarding COVID-19 and emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) that are based on an effective integration of environmental, ecological, evolutionary, and social sciences to better anticipate and mitigate EIDs. Research needs cover the social-ecology of infectious disease agents, their evolution, the determinants of susceptibility of humans and animals to infections, and the human and ecological factors accelerating infectious disease emergence. For comprehensive investigation, they include the development of nature-based solutions to interlinked global planetary crises, addressing ethical and philosophical questions regarding the relationship of humans to nature and regarding transformative changes to safeguard the environment and human health. In support of this research, we propose the implementation of innovative multidisciplinary facilities embedded in social-ecosystems locally: the “ecological health observatories” and the “living laboratories”. This work has been carried out in the frame of the EC project HERA (www.HERAresearchEU.eu) that aims to set the priorities for an environment, climate and health research agenda in the EU by adopting a systemic approach in the face of global environmental change.

The urban planning transformations modify the morphological shape of the territory changing land uses and permeability of the areas involved in the evolution processes, thus also altering the hydrologic responses to climatic events, namely the urban drainage runoffs that impact on the environmental risk of modern cities. Using the watershed hydrologic concept, in its dynamic evolution, it is possible to consider the morphological layout together with the transformations implemented by the human activities and any different territorial portions could be analyzed in connection with the other areas related by the dynamics of the surface runoff, thus highlighting the reciprocal influences between the different areas. By examining the morphological shapes impacting surface outflows, the hydrological roles of upper-mountain, intermediate-hillside, and lower-valley areas reveal urban and non-urban connections. This elucidates hydromorphic complexities in urban transformations and assesses climate change adaptability. The proposed approach has been applied to the urban district of “Sasso Caveoso”, belonging to the city of Matera and consents to quantitatively synthesize the response of the context analyzed, referring to different scenarios and providing useful decision support tools.

Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) is 22 kDa caveolae protein, acts as a scaffold within caveolar membranes. It interacts with alpha subunits of G-protein and thereby regulates their activity. Earlier studies reported elevated or up-regulated levels of caveolin-1 in the serum of prostate cancer patients. Secreted Cav-1 promotes angiogenesis, cell proliferation and anti-apoptotic activities in prostate cancer patients. Cav-1 upregulation is mainly related to prostate cancer metastasis. Keeping above facts in view, the present study was designed to explore Cav-1 as a target for prostate cancer therapy using computational approach. Molecular docking, structural base molecular modelling and molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate Cav-1 inhibitors. A predictive model was generated and validated to establish a stable structure. ZINC database of biogenic compounds was used for induced fit docking (IFD) and high throughput virtual screening. The H-bond interactions of the compounds with active site residues of Cav-1 were estimated by IFD and 100 ns long molecular dynamic simulations. The reported compounds showed significant binding and thus can be considered as potent therapeutic inhibitors of Cav-1. This study provides a valuable insight into biochemical interactions of Cav-1 for therapeutic applications and warrants for experimental validation of the predicted ‘active(s)’.

One of the most leading causes of death worldwide is Colorectal cancer(CRC). Polyp segmentation is the most important detected measure for preventing CRC. However, there is still a missing rate for diminutive polyps and multiple ones. In order to solve the phenomenon, we propose to introduce auxiliary attention module(AAM) that can enhance the learning of features related to multiple and diminutive polyps by focusing more on the located and detailed information. Meanwhile, we design to decrease missed rate of multiple and diminutive polyps by implementing an area adaptive loss(AAL) which adapts the weight according to the area and the number of polyps. Our proposed novel AAM and AAL concentrates on training with hard examples and localized information. To evaluate the effectiveness and generalization ability of our proposed model, We utilize three different datasets of variable sizes and a cross dataset. Our proposed method achieves the best results on the Kvasir-SEG dataset, the CVC-ClinicDB dataset and the cross dataset, particularly for the Kvasir-Sessile dataset consisting of small,flat and diminutive polyps. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed DoubleAANet surpass the performance of all existing state-of-the-art segmentation methods.

Background and Objectives: Effective strategy to cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be based on tissue perfusion. Our primary aim was to determine the association between capillary lactate values and initial rhythm as well as probability of return of spontaneous circulation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. Materials and Methods: This prospective observational cohort study included all patients with non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, older than 18 years, resuscitated by a prehospital emergency medical team between April 2020 and June 2021. Capillary lactate samples were collected at the time of arrival and every 10 minutes after first measurement until the time of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or if ROSC was not achieved at time of declaring death on scene. Results: 83 patients were enrolled in the study. ROSC was achieved in 28 patients (33,7%), 21 were admitted to the hospital (26,3%) and 6 (7,23%) of them were discharged from the hospital. At discharge all patients had Cerebral Performance Category Scale 1 or 2. Initial capillary lactate values were significantly higher in patients with non-shockable rhythm compared to the group with shockable rhythm (9,19 +/- 4,6 versus 6,43 +/- 3,81; p = 0.037). A significant difference persisted also in a second value taken 10 minutes after in-itial value (10,03 +/- 5,19 versus 5,18 +/- 3,47; p = 0.019). Capillary lactate values were higher in the ROSC group and non-ROSC group at the time of restored circulation (11,10 +/- 6,59 and 6,77 +/- 4,23, respectively; p = 0,047). Conclusions: Capillary lactate values are significantly lower in patients with a shockable first rhythm in OHCA. There is also a significant connection between a rise in capillary lactate level and ROSC.

In engineering, connections between components are often weak areas. Unreasonable connection methods can easily reduce the strength of components, resulting in unpredictable failure modes. In nature, numerous connection methods for biological structures with excellent mechanical properties have evolved. Studying the connection methods of organisms in nature can inspire new ideas for bionic connection methods. When the diabolical ironclad beetle is under pressure, the elytra are not easy to separate, which ensures the stability of the beetle's external structure, thus making the beetle extremely resistant to pressure. The reason for this is the interlocking and toughening effect of the unique jigsaw connection between the elytra. Therefore, in this paper a theoretical analysis model is established and used to analyze the mechanical behavior of the diabolical ironclad beetle's jigsaw connection during the drawing process and determine the influence of factors such as quantity, angle, and geometric characteristics on the mechanical properties of the jigsaw connection. The results of the theoretical analysis are then compared with the results of experiments and ABAQUS finite element simulation.

In this article we study the presence of chaos in supersymmetric(SUSY) quantum mechanics. For that purpose we present a form of 4-point out of time order correlator(OTOC) for SUSY quantum mechanical systems using tensor product formalism. We calculate the 4-point OTOC for SUSY 1D harmonic oscillator and find that the OTOC is exactly equal to that of 1D bosonic harmonic oscillator system. In similar manner using the eigenstate representation of supersymmetric systems we calculate the generalized higher order out of time order correlator. The higher order OTOC is a more sensitive measure of chaos than the usual 4-point correlator used in literature. Finally, we calculate the generalized 2N-point OTOC for SUSY 1D harmonic oscillator.

Efficient use of agricultural wastes and by-products, basically transforming waste materials into value added products, is considered as pivotal for an effective bioeconomy strategy for the rural development. To this scope, citrus waste management represents a major issue for citrus processors but, at the same time, it embodies a potentially unexploited resource for the rural sustainable development. This study focuses on analyzing the current management of citrus waste in South Italy and identifying the determinants and barriers that may affect an entrepreneur’s choice on the destination of citrus waste. Citrus processors’ preferences about the contract characteristics needed to take part in a co-investment scheme have been investigated. Both analyses are preliminary steps to design an innovative and sustainable citrus by-product supply chain. Results show that the distance between the citrus processors and the citrus by-products plant is one of the main criteria for choosing alternative valorization pathways. Moreover, the required guaranteed capital, the short duration of the contract, and low risk are contract scheme characteristics that improve entrepreneurs’ willingness to co-invest in the development of a citrus waste multifunctional plant.

In this work, the apparent shear strength at the interface between a bamboo fiber and the surrounding poly(lactic acid) (PLA) matrix is quantified. A method for processing pull-out test samples within a controlled embedded length is proposed and the details of the test procedure are presented, along with a critical discussion of the results. Two series of samples are considered: untreated and mercerized bamboo fibers from the same batch, embedded in the same polyester matrix. Electron and optical microscopy are used to observe the fiber-matrix interface before and after the test, and to identify the failure mode of each sample, especially as regards the occurrence of fibrillation in the fiber bundles. The values of apparent interfacial shear strength are calculated only for regular fibers successfully pulled out from the matrix, and reported with their statistical variations. Mercerization, whose efficiency was proven by Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectroscopy, did not appear though to improve the quality of the interface (τ_app = 7.0 ± 3.1 MPa for untreated fibers and τ_app = 5.3 ± 2.4 MPa for treated fibers).

Despite increased protection globally, climate change and other anthropogenic factors have caused a significant decline in seagrass cover. Identifying the specific causes of this decline is paramount if they are to be addressed. Therefore, we identified the causes of long-term change in seagrass/submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) percentage cover and extent in the Bluefields Bay Special Fish Conservation Area (BBSFCA), a marine protected area on Jamaica’s southern coast. We used two random forest regression (RFr) models that included 2013 hydroacoustic survey SAV percentage cover data (dependent variable), and auxiliary data, reflectance data from level 2 processed 2013 Landsat 7 and 8 images and image band texture statistics maps (mean and variance) as predictors to generate 24 SAV percentage cover maps for the period 1984 – 2021 (37 years) using data from Landsat 4-5, 7 and 8 images., from which benthic features maps (SAV present, absent and coral reef) were created. Rainfall and map data were used to determine if SAV extent/area (km2) and average percentage cover and annual rainfall changed significantly over time and to evaluate the influence of rainfall. Rainfall impact on the overall spatial patterns of SAV loss, gain, and percentage cover change was assessed using a pixel-based regression. Finally, the most important spatial pattern predictors (two rainfall proxies (distance and direction from river mouth), benthic topography, depth, and hurricane exposure (a measure of hurricane disturbance)) of SAV loss, gain, and percentage cover change during 23 successive 1-to-4-year periods were identified using spatial Bayesian INLA generalized linear mixed models. SAV area/extent was largely stable with &gt; 70% mean percentage cover for multiple years. However, Hurricane Ivan (in 2004) caused a significant decline in SAV area/extent (by 1.62 km2, or a 13%) during 2002 – 2006 and a second hurricane (Dean) in 2007 delayed recovery until 2015. Additionally, rainfall declined significantly by &gt;1000 mm since 1901, and mean monthly rainfall positively influenced SAV percentage cover change. The pixel-based regression highlighted areas where mean monthly rainfall had a positive overall effect on SAV cover percentage change (across the entire bay) and gain (closer to the mouth of a river). The most frequently selected important spatial pattern predictors were the two rainfall proxies (areas closer to the river mouth were more likely to experience SAV loss and gain) and depth, with shallow areas generally having a higher probability of SAV loss and gain. Three hurricanes had significant but different impacts depending on their distance from the southern coastline. Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall in 1988, resulted in higher SAV percentage cover loss in 1987 - 1988. Benthic locations with a northwestern/northern facing aspect (the predominant direction of Ivan’s leading edge wind bands) experienced higher SAV losses during 2002 – 2006. Although some locations impacted by Ivan and not by Dean recovered during 2006 – 2008, exposure to Ivan explained percentage cover loss during 2006 – 2008 and average exposure to (the cumulative impact of) Ivan and Dean (both with tracks close to the southern coastline) explained SAV loss during 2013 – 2015. Therefore, despite historic lows in annual rainfall, overall, higher rainfall was beneficial, multiple hurricanes impacted the site, and despite two hurricanes in three years SAV recovered within a decade. Hurricanes and a further reduction in rainfall may pose a serious threat to SAV persistence in the future.

The NOSTR is a communication protocol for the social web, based on the w3c websockets standard. Although it is still in its infancy, it is well known as a social media protocol, thousands of trusted users and multiple user interfaces, offering a unique experience and enormous capabilities. To name a few, the NOSTR applications include but are not limited to direct messaging, file sharing, audio/video streaming, collaborative writing, blogging and data processing through distributed AI directories. In this work, we propose an approach that builds upon the existing protocol structure with end goal a decentralized marketplace for federated learning and LLM training. In this proposed design there are two parties: on one side there are customers who provide a dataset that they want to use for training an AI model. On the other side, there are service providers, who receive (parts of) the dataset, train the AI model, and for a payment as an exchange, they return the optimized AI model. The decentralized and censorship resistant features of the NOSTR enable the possibility of designing a fair and open marketplace for training AI models and LLMs.

The internet of things and growing demand for smaller and advanced devices has created the problem of high heat production in the electronic equipment which greatly reduces the work performance and life of the electronic instruments. Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are placed in between heat generating micro-chip and the heat dissipater to conduct all the produced heat to the heat sink. Development of suitable TIMs with excellent thermal conductivity (TC) in both in-plane and through-plane directions is a very important need at present. For efficient thermal management, polymer composites are potential candidates. But in general their thermal conductivity is low compared to that of metals. The filler integration into the polymer matrix is one of the two approaches used to increase the thermal conductivity of polymer composites and is also easy to scale up for industrial production. Another way to achieve this is to change the structure of polymer chains, which fall out of the scope of this work. In this review, considering the first approach, the authors have summarized recent development in many types of fillers with different scenarios by providing multiple cases with successful strategies to improve through-plane thermal conductivity (TPTC) (K⊥). For better understanding of TC the comprehensive background is also presented. In the end, it is given a detailed conclusion which provides drawbacks of some filler, multiple significant routes recommended by other researchers to build Thermally Conductive Polymer Composites, future aspects along with direction so that the researchers can get a guideline to design an effective polymer based Thermal interface materials. A number of methods to improve the effective (out-plane) thermal conductivity of polymer composites are also discussed.

Because rice is native to tropical and subtropical regions, it is generally more sensitive to cold stress compared to other cereals. Low temperature stress has become one of the most important conditions that affects the growth, development, and yield of rice. Plant NAC (NAM, ATAF1/2, and CUC) transcription factors are known to play significant regulatory roles in the stress response. In our research, we found that OsNAC050 (LOC_Os03g60080） is mainly expressed in leaves, and low temperature can further up-regulate its expression. OsNAC050 mutants created using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology showed significantly enhanced tolerance to low temperature treatment. Detection of enzyme activities related to the redox pathway also showed that the mutants had stronger viability under low temperature stress. Comparative transcriptome analysis showed that photosynthesis and soluble sugar metabolism were significantly affected in the osnac050 mutant lines, suggesting that OsNAC050 may participate in the above molecular pathways in the response to low temperature stress. The results will enhance our understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying the responses to cold stress in rice and can provide new strategies for engineering cold-tolerance in high-yielding rice varieties.

The past years have shown the widespread vulnerability of agro-food systems and rural diets to external perturbations such as wars, climate events, and pandemics. Experiencing numerous obstacles, Cuba constitutes an example of success in the transition to agroecological sustainability models. This article characterizes how processes of agricultural change, local development, and industrial degrowth have impacted food availability and dietary diversity among rural livelihoods in the municipality of Yaguajay, Sancti Spíritus, for the past forty years (1980s-2020s). It integrates findings from focus groups, repeated nutritional surveys, and interviews carried out between 2016 and 2022 among residents of the towns of Yaguajay and La Picadora. The goal is to identify effects and response strategies within agro-food systems of rural populations. Distinguishing between periods of abundance and shortage, our findings show two counterpoints: intensive sugar monocrop cultivation which resulted in high dietary variety; and economic crises in 1990s and during the last period of the pandemic, which have led to significant dietary adjustments. The article concludes underscoring the importance of comprehensive assessments of dietary strategies to elicit what agroecological transitions mean for local realities and of the value of food consumption and small-holder production experiences to understand the limits to sustainable transformations.

The increase in the number of firms manipulating financial reports has misled shareholders' investment decisions and resulted in an indelible blot on foreign investors’ trust. Due to earnings management (EM) practice, managers' inefficiency, and lack of transparency in Iraq companies. This study tested the influence of the corporate governance mechanisms (CG), (board independence, audit committee, meeting frequency) on EM based on agency theory, as well, to link between EM and firm's performance (FP) in Iraqi listed companies and the impact of moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) based on the Stakeholder Theory. The study's sample consists of 65 companies for the 2013-2018 financial years. Data were collected mainly from the annual reports (secondary data) of the Iraqi listed firms. This study uses the M-score model to detect EM practices as practical techniques in detecting earnings manipulation practices. The panel static model estimators. Hence, this paper adds to the CG literature from the perspective of stakeholder theory using Iraq's unique industrial environment. Based on the research results, policy-makers might use the study‘s findings to recognize the essential roles of several CG mechanisms in alleviating the opportunistic practices in Iraq. Further, companies should also be encouraged to enhance the CSR disclosure quality.

After World War II, the economic recovery of Western Europe implied a swift economic transition for all regions, including the area of the Alps, although affecting various parts at different pace and stages. The resulting out-migration led to population decline in some mountain valleys and regions already since the 1950s. A similar out-migration movement began in China after its rural reform started in the 1970s. The effect was in some cases even more significant than in the Alps, with the first village being deserted in the 1980s. Current estimations report of about 380,000 abandoned rural villages in China between 2000 and 2016, particularly in its mountain regions. While lower population densities might alleviate the pressures on ecology and contribute to environmental benefits, these movements aggravate a spiraling-down process of local economies and culture. In the Alps many regions facing challenges of out-migration and economic changes elaborated agritourism schemes that provided both economic incentives and stability to involved mountain farmers, and continuation of local land management systems. In contrast, in China hardly any comparable trends of rural tourism developed. However, in recent years China's interest for tourism-oriented farm diversification increased and a range of rural tourism and agricultural tourism initiatives emerged. This paper focuses on the analysis of successful initiatives, problems and development prospects in the Alps and China's rural areas, redefining agritourism as a systematic integrated activity. Agritourism might therefore be assessed as a core element of the future sustainable development of the Alps and the Chinese countryside.

Clupeiformes, such as sardines and herrings, represent an important share of worldwide fisheries. Among those, the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus, Walbaum 1792) exhibits significant commercial relevance. While the last decade showed a steady and sharp decline in capture levels, recent advances in culture husbandry represent promising research avenues. Yet, the complete absence of genomic resources from sardine imposes a severe bottleneck to understand its physiological and ecological requirements. We generated 69 Gbp of paired-end reads using Illumina HiSeq X Ten and assembled a draft genome assembly with an N50 scaffold length of 25579 bp and BUSCO completeness of 82.1% (Actinopterygii). The estimated size of the genome ranges between 655 and 850 Mb. Additionally, we generated a relatively high-level liver transcriptome. To deliver a proof of principle of the value of this dataset, we established the presence and function of enzymes (elovl2, elovl5 and fads2) that have pivotal roles in the biosynthesis of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, essential nutrients particularly abundant in oily fish such as sardines. Our study provides the first omics dataset from a valuable economic marine teleost species, the European sardine, an essential resource for their effective conservation, management and sustainable exploitation.

In this study, we have first studied the trend in meteorological data from the Harmaleh, Vanai and Farsesh stations in the 50-year period in the Dez catchment area. The meteorological data will be then forecasted using SWAT and Mann-Kendall. Forecasting the results in the Mann-Kendall and SWAT model has been done using the code written in MATLAB software and RCP (4.5, 8.5) scenarios, respectively. Studying the results of the trend in the data of meteorological stations in this catchment area indicated that these two parametric and non-parametric methods have been used to determine trends in meteorological data. The results of the parametric method are positive in all meteorological parameters. Non-parametric method over a period of 50 years shows the presence of trends in the data. The comparison on the forecasting results at maximum temperature suggested that during summer, we will see an increase in temperature compared to the ground state in all three forecasts. The results of the minimum temperature forecast show a decrease in the minimum increase during the winter and the precipitation forecast indicates that at the end of autumn (Nov) precipitation decreased by 20 mm in the Mann-Kendall and 4.5 RCP while RCP8.5 suggests the increase in precipitation compared to the ground state. Studying the runoff forecast results using SWOT show that at the end of winter (Feb) and almost all spring (Mar, Apr) a decrease of about 40%, 15% and 14% will be seen, respectively

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is an emerging therapeutic tool with the potential to correct diverse ge-netic disorders. However, for gene therapy applications an efficient delivery vehicle is required, capable of delivering the CRISPR-Cas9 components into the cytosol of the intended target cell population. Once there, the ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP) can be transported into the nucleus. Lipid nanoparticles (LNP) serve as promising candidates for delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 RNP. These delivery vehicles have been optimized for the delivery of nucleic acids, such as mRNA. Co-delivery of Cas9 encoding mRNA with the accompanying sgRNA leads to translation of the Cas9 protein and formation of the Cas9 RNP inside the cell. Only recently, direct delivery of the CRISPR-Cas9 RNP complexes has been explored, which requires adjustments to the LNP formulation. In this study, the importance of buffer composition and cationic charge during RNP and ssDNA en-trapment in LNP are demonstrated. After optimizing several formulation parameters, LNP were prepared that were colloidally stable in human plasma and efficiently deliver the SpCas9 RNP and ssDNA for HDR-correction in reporter cells. Under optimal formulation conditions, gene knock-out and gene correction efficiencies as high as 80% and 20%, respectively were achieved at nanomolar CRISPR-Cas9 RNP concentrations.

Humanity will soon define a new era for nature – one that seeks to correct decades of underwhelming responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and diversify. But persistent shortfalls in ecological representation, management effectiveness and measurable biodiversity outcomes diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming biodiversity loss. Here we show how protected area expansion by governments since 2010 has had limited success in increasing biodiversity coverage, and identify four emergent issues that –if addressed – will enhance the performance of area-based conservation post-2020. We close with recommendations for a broad biodiversity agenda that maximises the potential of area-based conservation. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity must recognise that area-based conservation primarily focuses on local threats to species and ecosystems, and needs enhanced emphasis on biodiversity outcomes to better track and fund its contribution to global conservation efforts.

Background Out-of-pocket costs are key expenses that many individuals incur in order to receive health services. They have been identified as a key access barrier for vulnerable populations, in particular for populations affected by neglected diseases with a chronic progression, such as Chagas disease. It is important to understand the costs of accessing healthcare services that are borne by patients with T. cruzi infection. Methodology We prepared a structured survey for patients with T. cruzi infection/Chagas disease who were all treated by the healthcare system in endemic municipalities in Colombia. The results were analyzed according to three categories: 1. the socioeconomic profiling of the patients; 2. the costs of and time spent on transportation; and 3. the opportunity costs (money that was not earned) related to treatment at the local primary care hospital or at the high-complexity reference hospital. Main findings Ninety-one patients answered the survey voluntarily. The data revealed that, when treated at the specialized reference hospital, patients spent 5.5 times more on food and accommodation, transportation costs were five times higher, and the loss of earnings was three times higher than when they were treated at the local primary care hospital. Moreover, the amount of time spent on transportation was 4 times higher at the reference hospital. Conclusions Providing comprehensive healthcare services for Chagas management at local primary healthcare hospitals would allow the most vulnerable patients to save on expenses related to medical and non-medical costs (out-of-pocket costs), in turn leading to higher adhesion to treatment thus benefiting the health system as a whole. These findings are in alignment with the WHO’s World Health Assembly 2010 Resolution on the importance of treating Chagas at local primary care hospitals, thereby saving patients time and money, allowing for timely care, and promoting access to healthcare.

The accuracy of multi-parametric MRI (mpMRI) in pre-operative staging of prostate cancer (PCa) remains controversial. Objective: To evaluate the ability of mpMRI to accurately predict PCa extra-prostatic extension (EPE) on a side-specific basis using a risk-stratified 5-point Likert scale. This study also aimed to assess the influence of mpMRI scan quality on diagnostic accuracy. Patients and Methods: We included 124 men who underwent robot-assisted RP (RARP) as part of the NeuroSAFE PROOF study at our centre. Three radiologists retrospectively reviewed mpMRI blinded to RP pathology and assigned a Likert score (1-5) for EPE on each side of the prostate. Each scan was also ascribed a Prostate Imaging Quality (PI-QUAL) score for assessing the quality of the mpMRI scan, where 1 represents poorest and 5 represents best diagnostic quality. Outcome measurements and statistical analyses: Diagnostic performance is presented for binary classification of EPE including 95% confidence intervals and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results: A total of 231 lobes from 121 men (mean age 56.9 years) were evaluated. 39 men (32.2%), or 43 lobes (18.6%) had EPE. Likert score ≥3 had sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), NPV, PPV of 90.4%, 52.3%, 96%, 29.9%, respectively, and AUC was 0.82 (95% CI: 0.77-0.86). AUC was 0.63 (95% CI: 0.37-0.9), 0.77 (0.71-0.84) and 0.92 (0.88-0.96) for biparametric scans, PI-QUAL 1-3 and PI-QUAL 4-5 scans, respectively. Conclusions: MRI can be used effectively by genitourinary radiologists to rule out EPE and help inform surgical planning for men undergoing RARP. EPE prediction was more reliable when the MRI scan was a) multi-parametric and b) of a higher image quality according to the PI-QUAL scoring system.

Purpose: Prostate cancer remains the 2nd leading cancer killer of men, yet it is also a disease with a high rate of overtreatment. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) has shown promise as a reliable, grade-sensitive imaging method, but it is limited by low image quality. Currently, DWI image quality is directly related to low gradient ampli-tudes, since weak gradients must be compensated with long echo times. Methods: We propose a new type of MRl accessory, an "inside-out" and nonlinear gradient, whose sole purpose is to deliver diffusion encoding to a region of interest. Performance was simulated in OPERA and the resulting fields were used to simulate DWI with two compartment and kurtosis models. Experiments with a nonlinear head gradient prove the accuracy of DWI and ADC maps diffusion encoded with nonlinear gradients. Results: Simulations validated thermal and mechanical safety while showing a 5 to 10-fold increase in gradient strength over prostate. With these strengths, lesion CNR in ADC maps approximately doubled for a range of anatomical positions. Proof-of-principle experiments show that spatially varying b-values can be corrected for accurate DWI and ADC. Conclusions: Dedicated nonlinear diffusion encoding hardware could improve prostate DWI.