The purpose of this article was to check the relashionship of different types of physical activities, BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption (with control for age, sex and level of education) on health (physical and mental). The study was based on Belgium epidemiological data (10661 participants from 19 to 81 years old for whom we have health indicators over a period of 11 years) together with questionnaires about alcohol, tobacco consumption and the frequency of different types of physical activities. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis of epidemiological data was performed with use of STATA v.14. Our results indicate that the different categories of physical activities (PA) had some differences on health indicators impacts. Our findings confirm that leading a healthy life style (all types of physical activities and weight maintenance) is an important issue since it has a significant relationship with physical and mental health indicators, but outdoor physical activities and practicing leisure sport in group have shown slightly higher magnitude in association on general health. Magnitude of association of PA with physical and mental health indicators was similar to those observed with smoking and alcohol consumption.

The purpose of this article was to check the effects on health of various types of physical activities, diet, BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption and their interrelationships with control for age, sex and level of education. The study was based on epidemiological data (9617 participants from 19 to 81 years old for whom we have health indicators over a period of 11 years) together with questionnaires about diet, alcohol, tobacco and the frequency of different types of physical activities. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric correlational analysis of epidemiological data was performed with use of SPSS v.19. Our results indicate the existence of the significant relationship between leading a healthy life style (type of physical activities, limitations of fats consume and weight maintenance). However, the different categories of physical activities were analysed separately and showed slight differences on health indicators impacts. Our findings confirm that leading a healthy life style (all types of physical activities, limitations of fats consume and weight maintenance) is an important issue since it has a significant relationship with physical and mental health indicators, but outdoor physical activities and practicing sport in group have shown slightly higher impact on health.

Background: The relationship between adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and both physical fitness (PF) and physical activity (PA) level has been analysed in several studies. The aim of this research was to describe, compare and analyse the level of PF and PA in schoolchildren aged 6-13 in the Region of Murcia, according to adherence to the MD. Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was performed. A total of 370 schoolchildren (44.9% girls) aged 6-13 (8.7±1.8) from six primary schools in the Region of Murcia (Spain). Results: Only 25.9% of the schoolchildren had optimal adherence to the MD. Regarding the scores of the different PF tests in MD groups, only statistically significant differences were found for CRF (p=0.048) in boys. PA level, showed statistically significant differences in both boys (p=0.040) and girls (p=0.016). A positive relationship was found between the KIDMED index and CRF (ρ=.127), standing broad jump (ρ=.133) and PA level (ρ=.235). A higher probability of having a greater CRF (OR=1.17; CI95%=1.02–1.34) and PA level (OR=7.84; CI95%=2.84–21.60) was found in High MD group. Conclusion: These results suggest that an optimal adherence to the MD is associated with higher CRF and PA level in the selected schoolchildren.

Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis. Hyperuricaemia is the pre-requisite for gout and is influenced by variable modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors. Clinical features unique for gout are due to deposition of monosodium urate (MSU) crystal in articular and extra articular tissues. Among various treating agents, anti-inflammatory drugs and urate lowering therapies (ULT) are used widely and successfully, however, non-medicinal means are also effective in the disorder. In their updated guidelines, ACR (2012) and EULAR (2016) recommended both medicinal and non-medicinal approaches that could be used in treating gout, though some of the recommendations are based on lower level of evidence. Moreover, researchers’ continued effort in finding new gout managing agents appear promising, for example, role of Lesinurad in gout management (CLEAR1, CLEAR2). In this new synthesis the author is aimed to provide updated information on gout management based on a systematic review including published work within last ten years between 2008 and 2018 and for this purpose, using ‘clinical trials in gout management’ string, published worked searched in PubMed database from 1st September 2018 to 30 October 2018. Besides the recent ACR and EULAR evidence based management guidelines, the author reviewed another 91 (total 93) articles to make this new draft – 39 articles describe role of pharmacological agents and 54 describe different gout risks, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of ULT, association between raised sUA level and renal impairment, efficacy of non-pharmacological agents in reducing sUA. According to published work, anti-inflammatory agent is the most appropriate drug group in mitigating inflammatory symptoms of gout, though they often adversely affect over other vital 2 organs with impaired function. Besides ULT, uricase analogues are also found useful in non refractory gout. Since anti-inflammatory agents and ULT contraindicate in some clinical conditions, intra-articular steroid and or adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) are appropriate alternatives instead. However, head-to-head comparison between different NSAIDs, NSAID and prednisolone, NSAID and colchicine are yet to perform. Use of combined anti-inflammatory preparations in gout is also based on lower level of evidence. Regarding effective maximum dose and long-standing impact of ULT on vital organs we are yet to reach a conclusion. Likewise, non-medicinal approaches are widely using in achieving target sUA level, though some of them are based on biased study outcomes and or study with inadequate power, requiring further analysis. Among non-pharmacological approaches, life-style modification, restriction of purine rich diets, avoidance of gout inciting agents are important, but inconclusive. Educating patients’ about diseases, risk factors, available treatment options and side effects from them are also important in terms of achieving sUA level, nevertheless too much counseling sometimes could be worthless.

Background: Features of post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety may be present in Pulmonary Embolism (PE) patients along with impaired Quality of Life (QoL). We aim to evaluate health related QoL, anxiety and satisfaction with life, during the pandemic, in patients with a PE. Methods: Patients with PE were enrolled during their follow-up. All participants completed the Short Form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) X1 and X2 form, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). Results: 92 PE patients were included (mean age±SD=62.50±15.33 years, 56.5% males). Most of the mean values of the SF36 subscales were above the normative value except for “physical role functioning”) (45.92±42.41). “Emotional role functioning” (51.26±43.31) and “general health perceptions” (GH) (54.02±18.79) were slightly above the normative value of 50. Mean STAIX1 levels were 37.05±11.17 and mean STAIX2 levels were 39.80±10.47. Mean SWLS levels were 23.31±6.58. According to multiple linear regression analysis, mental healthscore (MH) and GH were predictive of SWLS(F (10,76) = 10.576, p

The World Health Organization has developed the Integrated Care of Older People (ICOPE) strategy, a program based on the measurement of intrinsic capacity (IC) as “the composite of all physical and mental attributes on which an individual can draw”. Multicomponent interventions appear to be the most effective approach to enhance IC and to prevent frailty and disability, since adapted physical activity is the preventive intervention that has shown most evidence in the treatment of frailty and risk of falls. Our paper describes the development of a multi-domain group-based intervention addressed to older people living in the community, aimed at improving and/or maintaining intrinsic capacity by means of promoting physical activity, healthy nutrition, and psychological wellbeing in older people. The process of intervention development is described following the Guidance for reporting intervention development studies in health research (GUIDED. The result of this study is the AMICOPE intervention (Aptitude Multi-domain group-based intervention to improve and/or maintain IC in Older PEople) built upon the ICOPE framework and described following the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) guidelines. This study represents the first stage of the UK Medical Research Council framework for developing and evaluating a complex intervention. The next step should be carrying out a feasibility study for the AMICOPE intervention, and in a later stage, assessing the effectiveness in a randomized controlled trial.

This research addresses a gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive analysis of patients’ level of satisfaction with dental care. Methods: By combining quantitative and qualitative survey methods with the PSQ questionnaire this study aims to augment ongoing initiatives to enhance dental patients’ experiences by painting a more comprehensive depiction of patients' level of satisfaction; Results: When asked about their overall level of satisfaction 77,1% of the patients said they received excellent services from the office personnel and 72,2% said they trust their doctors; Conclusions: Assessing patient satisfaction in the realm of dental services quality is crucial for enhancing service quality and accuracy, benefiting both patients and dentists, and ultimately improving public health.

Hearing loss that arises from various causes at different stages of life has a direct impact on individuals' physical and mental well-being. This paper aimed to evaluate the employment, workplace adaptation, productivity, and professional success of individuals who have hearing loss and whose hearing loss is corrected with a cochlear implant. In this cross-sectional study, the data was collected between November 2022 and March 2023 with the participation of individuals with cochlear implants living in several settlements in all regions of Türkiye. A total of 142 participants with severe hearing loss who were corrected with a cochlear implant were included in this study. The survey method was used to collect data for the study. The questionnaire consisted of 32 questions and was distributed to the participants online. In the first part of the questionnaire (1-10 questions), general characteristics of implant patients were investigated. In the second part (11-32 questions), the positive or negative effects of implantation on the work life of the participants were evaluated. Almost half of the research group (49.3%, n = 70) consisted of women, and the mean age of the participants was determined to be 35.8 ± 14.8. There was no significant difference between gender, educational status, implanted side, working time, working style (physical, desk), and factors affecting work life (p > 0.05). Professional satisfaction and success at work increased significantly more in those with acquired hearing loss (p = 0.010). Post-implantation workplace compliance, success, and productivity were found to be higher in those with acquired hearing loss (p = 0.013). It was observed that hearing loss had a greater negative impact on the work life of married people (p = 0.006). Cochlear implantation greatly enhances workplace satisfaction, increases self-confidence, and has a positive impact on the future of profoundly deaf individuals.

The study investigated the impact of traditional medicine on life expectancy in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. The study adopted a quantitative research approach. Purposive or judgmental sampling was used to elucidate the data set used for the study. Cross-sectional data were gathered with the help of a well-designed questionnaire from a total of three hundred and fifty-seven (357) respondents who were available for the survey. The data set collected was analysed using descriptive and linear regression using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). From the results, 53%, 87%, and 56% were male, below 50 years old, and in the low-income class, respectively, suggesting that the bulk of the respondents under investigation were male, young, and had rather modest incomes. Also, 53% were married, and all had one form of formal education. 67% of respondents acknowledge using traditional medicine; however, the majority of respondents preferred Orthodox medical care over alternative kinds of care. Traditional medicine (TM) and factors that contribute to the advancement of traditional medicine (FITM) have a negative impact on life expectancy, according to the regression analysis. On the other hand, TM has no statistically significant impact on life expectancy, despite FITM having a statistically significant effect at the 5% level. All available data, however, indicates that TM and FITM have an impact on life expectancy, either directly or indirectly. Based on the results, this study concluded that traditional medicine has the potential to significantly increase life expectancy in Nasarawa State and throughout Nigeria. The study recommends that traditional health professionals, stakeholders, and concerned government agencies should put efforts in place to improve and promote modern traditional medicine among the people, especially its effectiveness and medicinal quality, increase its accessibility to people, and efficiently regulate its prices to increase its affordability for low-income earners

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

This article presents multiple novel and compelling arguments to systematically disprove two widely accepted notions: one is that entropy is a measure of disorder, and the other is Schrödinger's notion of negative entropy (negentropy). These two notions have been cited hundreds of times annually in scientific literature for decades. To mathematically describe the second law of thermodynamics, the concept of entropy was created and defined in the 1860s as heat energy divided by thermodynamic temperature, and the entropy of an object increases when it absorbs heat. This is the uncontroversial and fundamental nature of entropy, which is pivotal to current thermodynamics and from which multiple facts are deduced. These facts consistently disprove the above two notions. Some biological facts, such as the one that life orderliness is encoded and provided by inherited genes rather than entropy decline, can also disprove Schrödinger's negentropy notion. Moreover, this article further clarifies the reasoning errors of the two notions. It also shows that the tendency of many natural or social systems to become more disordered over time does not result from the second law of thermodynamics.

Prenatal maternal feeding plays an important role in fetal development and has potential to cause long-lasting epigenetic modifications. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding, single-stranded RNAs that serve as one epigenetic mechanism. Though miRNAs have crucial roles in fetal programming, growth, and development, there are limited data regarding maternal diet and sheep miRNA expression. Therefore, weanalyzed high and low maternal dietary protein for miRNA expression in sheep fetal longissimus dorsi. Pregnant ewes were fed an isoenergetic high-protein (HP, 160–270 g/day), low-protein (LP, 73–112 g/day), or standard protein diet (SP, 119–198 g/day) during pregnancy. miRNA expression profiles were evaluated using the Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA 4.0 Array. Twelve up-regulated, differentially expressed miRNAs (DE miRNAs) were identified targeting 65 genes. The oar-3957-5p miRNA was highly up-regulated in LP and SP compared to HP. Previous transcriptome analysis identified integrin and non-receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase genes targeted by miRNAs detected in the current experiment. A total of 28 GO terms and 10 pathway-based gene sets were significantly (padj &lt; 0.05) enriched in target genes. Most genes targeted by identified miRNAs are involved in immune and muscle disease pathways. Our study shows dietary protein intake during pregnancy affects fetal skeletal muscle epigenetics via miRNA expression.

Anxiety disorders affect patient quality of life (QoL). This study aimed to examine the associations between improved QoL and reduced clinical symptoms and Korean medicine (KM) in patients with anxiety disorders. Medical records of patients with anxiety who were treated with KM (acupuncture, Anxiety disorders affect patient quality of life (QoL). This study aimed to examine the associations between improved QoL and reduced clinical symptoms and Korean medicine (KM) in patients with anxiety disorders. Medical records of patients with anxiety who were treated with KM (ac-upuncture, psychotherapy, Chuna therapy, aromatherapy, or herbal medicine) for at least 4 weeks were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical, QoL, and cost outcomes were measured at baseline and at 4 and 12 weeks (Anxiety: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory[STAI X-1(state), X-2(trait)], Beck Anxiety Inventory[BAI]; anger: State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory State[STAXI-S(state), T(trait)], Anger Expression Inventory[AXI-K-I(anger-in), AXI-K-O(anger-out), AXI-K-C(anger-control); depression: Beck Depression Inventory-II[BDI II], QoL: QoL-related instruments Euro Quality of Life 5 Dimensions utility score[EQ-5D], Euro QoL Visual Analog Scale[EQ-VAS]). The quali-ty-adjusted life years (QALYs) and average cost-effectiveness ratio of KM for anxiety were esti-mated. The medical records for 67 patients were evaluated. KM treatments were found to be as-sociated with decreased anxiety (STAI X-1; STAI X-2; BAI, p

Not a lot is known about either death or the dying process. Politicians and many in the medical profession in the UK tend to shy away from interfering with it by not allowing euthanasia as an end of life option for the patient. This is the first paper in a series of two, comparing the situation in human medicine and veterinary medicine, in which euthanasia is well practiced for relieving suffering at the end of an animal’s life. This first part takes the form of a literature review including best practice around end of life care, its deficiencies and the need for assisted dying. Veterinary surgeons are well trained in the ethics of euthanasia and put it to good use in the best interest of their animal patients. In countries which have legalized physician assisted suicide for the terminally ill reporting indicates that it works well, without increases in involuntary euthanasia and most importantly without intimidation of the vulnerable. However, there is still an ever increasing tendency to overuse sedation and opioids at the end of life, which merits further investigation. With advances in medical science able to significantly prolong the dying process, patient autonomy demands a review of the law in the UK.

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

Abstract: The present study seeks to investigate MNOs leadership style and how it influences their compassion competence and their personal level of compassion at work. This is a cross-sectional study carried out from December 2019 to May 2020 using the method of convenience sampling. The study involved 235 MNOs serving in Greek Military Hospitals. A single questionnaire containing Compassion at Work index, Compassion competence scale, and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X), and socio-demographic and professional data, was used for data collection. A total of 400 printed questionnaires were distributed with a response rate of 58.75%. Data analysis was performed using the statistical package SPSS 22.0. The research showed that the transformational and transactional leadership styles coexist in the Nursing Corps of the Armed Forces with an average value of 2.72(SD=0.70)-2.95(SD=0.54) points and 2.47(SD=0.69)-2.74(SD=0.63) points respectively, while the passive style represented a very small percentage with an average subscale value of 0.88(SD=0.61)-0.94(SD=0.63) points. It was also found that both actual compassion at work and compassion ability had improved with the increase of transformational or transactional leadership style characteristics and amelioration of leadership outcome criteria. On the other side, a deterioration of these was observed with the increase of the passive leadership. Specifically, a higher score in the «Intellectual Stimulation» scale was associated with a higher level of compassion at work in the dimension «Experiencing the suffering of others» (p=0.010/SD=0.14), while higher values on the «Laissez-Faire Leadership» scale were associated with less compassion at work in the same dimension (p<0.001/SD=0.13). Also, a higher score on the «Contingent Reward» scale was associated with more compassion at work in the dimension «Takes appropriate action» (p=0.023/SD=0.16). Furthermore, higher values observed in the «Inspirational Motivation», «Individual Consideration» and «Extra Effort» scales were associated with a better communication ability (p=0.035/SD=0.09, p=0.022/SD=0.12, and p=0.042/SD=0.08 accordingly). Finally, a higher score on the «Effectiveness» scale was associated with higher sensitivity (p=0.049/SD=0.08). Teaching appropriate leadership behavior, promoting a culture of compassion, and continuing to train nurses to manage their emotions should be included in the infrastructure of nursing science.

Synchronous electrical cardioversion is a relatively common procedure in the emergency department (ED), often performed for unstable supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) or unstable ventricular tachycardia (VT). However, it is also used for stable cases resistant to drug therapy, which carry a risk of deterioration. In addition to the inherent risks linked with procedural sedation, there is a possibility of malignant arrhythmias or bradycardia, which could potentially result in cardiac arrest following this procedure. Here, we present a case of complete heart block unresponsive to transcutaneous pacing and positive inotropic and chronotropic drugs for 90 minutes, resulting in multiple cardiac arrests. The repositioning of the transcutaneous cardio-stimulation electrodes, one of them placed in the left latero-sternal position and the other at the level of the apex, led to immediate stabilization of the patient. Extubation of the patient was performed the following day, while full recovery and discharge within 7 days, after insertion of a permanent pacemaker.

This is the second of a series of two papers comparing the end of life issues in human and veterinary medicine. We outline the main differences between human and animal patients such as patient communication, finance and ‘conflicts of interest’ between animal, owner and veterinarian. We discuss striking similarities between human and veterinary issues such as assessing quality of life and the primary role of the attending veterinarian or doctor being the welfare and care of the patient. This paper takes the form of an ethical argument in favour of allowing euthanasia in human medicine, by providing insights into end of life issues for humans from an independent veterinary perspective. Veterinary surgeons are well trained in the ethics of euthanasia and put it to good use in the best interest of their animal patients. Doctors in the UK are limited and unwilling to put forward a case for the option of euthanasia for those patients who face a slow and agonizing death. With advances in medical science being able to significantly prolong the dying process, autonomy for the patient demands a review of the law regarding patient choice in the UK.

Purpose - The purpose of the study is to investigate the missing link between leadership style and job satisfaction among Mongolian public sector employees. This study reiterates the mediating role of organizational climate (OC) and work style (WS) in a new proposed model. Methodology - The questionnaire is designed by a synthesis of existing constructs in the current relevant literature. The research sample consisted of 143 officers who work in the primary and middle units of territory and administration of Mongolia. Factor analysis, reliability test, collinearity test, and correlation analyses confirm validity and reliability of the model. Multiple regression analysis, using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), tests the hypotheses of the study. Practical implications - This study has several important implications for studies related to organizational behavior and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the implications of findings are beneficial to organizations aiming at improving policies and practices related to organizational behavior and human resource management. Regulators and supervisors of private or public organizations aiming to increase the level of their employees’ job satisfaction will also benefit from the findings. Therefore, this study’s new proposed model can be the basis of fundamental research to build a better human resource policy. Although leadership style is an influential factor for job satisfaction, this study identifies the mediating missing links between leadership style and employees’ job satisfaction. Findings: The findings of this research indicate that organizational climate and work style complement and fully mediate the relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction. Appropriate leadership style is most effective when it matches organizational climate as well as employees’ work style. Furthermore, suitable organizational climate will increases the level of job satisfaction. If work style of employees is respected and taken into consideration, leadership style can find its way into job satisfaction. Originality/value - This study is the first to understand the motivators of job satisfaction in government sector of Mongolia. This study suggests valuable findings for executive officers, junior and primary unit’s officers of register sector of government in Mongolia. The findings of this study help managers and executives in their effort to develop and implement successful human resource strategies.

To explore the impact of parenting styles on the perception of campus non-physical bullying, 492 students in upper elementary school grades were surveyed by using the Delaware Bullying Victimization Scale, the Negative Coping Style Scale, the Negative Affect Scale, and the Egna Minnen Beträffende Uppfostran Questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted in the fifth and sixth grades of eight primary schools in Zhejiang province. The results showed that cyberbullying was not significantly related to an anxious parenting style, but negative affect experiences, negative coping styles, negative family parenting styles, and the perception of campus non-physical bullying were all positively correlated with each other (p < 0.05). The refusal parenting style was shown to be an important factor that affected students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying; it was observed to directly affect students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying and indirectly affect students’ perception of campus non-physical bullying by influencing negative affect experiences and negative coping styles. In conclusion, negative affect experiences and negative coping styles had a chain-like mediating effect between the refusal parenting style and students’ perception of campus verbal bullying. Moreover, negative affect experiences had a partial mediating effect between the refusal parenting style and students’ perceptions of campus cyberbullying, relationship bullying, and non-physical bullying total scores. Implications and suggestions based on these results are also discussed.

We know that quantum logics are the most prominent logical systems associated to the lattices of closed Hilbert subspaces. But what does it happen if, following a quantum computing perspective, we want to associate a logic to the process of quantum registers measurements? This paper gives an answer to this question, and, quite surprising, shows that such a logic is nothing else that the standard propositional intuitionistic logic.

Diabetes and mental disorders have been recognized as two significant public health concerns globally. Recent research indicates that there is a bidirectional relationship between these two conditions, with each influencing the other's course and outcomes. Nutrition plays an essential role in the prevention and treatment of both mental disorders and diabetes. A comprehensive review of existing literature was conducted to examine the impact of anxiety and depression on the development of diabetes and the influence of diabetes on the occurrence of mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. Additionally, the effects of nutrition on the prevention and management of mental disorders, diabetes, and related complications in at risk individuals were assessed. Our findings show that mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and are associated with poorer glycemic control, increased diabetes-related complications, and higher mortality rates. Conversely, diabetes is also linked with an increased risk of developing mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline. The biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to the comorbidity between these two conditions are complex and multifaceted. Therefore, an integrated approach to the management of both conditions is critical for improving patient outcomes and reducing the overall burden of disease. Nutritional interventions should be utilized to reduce the risk of diabetes in patients with anxiety and depression as well as enhance mental health in patients with diabetes.

Traditional image steganography conceals secret messages into unprocessed natural images by modifying the pixel value, causing the obtained stego different from the original image in terms of statistical distribution, thereby could be detected by a well-trained classifier for steganalysis. To ensure the steganography is imperceptible and in line with the trend of art images produced by Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) becoming popular in social networks, this paper proposes to embed hidden information throughout the process of the generation of an art-style image by designing an image style transformation neural network with steganography function. The proposed scheme takes a content image, an art-style image, and messages to be embedded as inputs, processing them with an encoder-decoder model, and finally generates a styled image containing the secret messages at the same time. An adversarial training technique is applied to enhance the imperceptibility of the generated art-styled stego image with from plain style-transferred images. The lack of the original cover image makes it difficult for the opponent learning a steganalyzer to identify the stego. The recommended approach can successfully withstand existing steganalysis techniques and attain the embedding capacity of 3 bits per pixel for a color image, according to experimental results.

The aquaculture sector has become increasingly reliant on soybean meal (SBM) and soy-derived proteins, because of their large abundance, low price and favorable amino acid profile. However, for Atlantic salmon, a major aquaculture species, the inclusion of soybean meal, and soy protein concentrate (SPC) in certain combinations has adverse impacts on its gut health and welfare. This study evaluated two enhanced SBM targeting improved gut health for inclusion in freshwater phase salmon diets, enzyme pre-treatment (ETS) and addition of fructose oligosaccharide (USP), respectively in comparison to untreated soybean meal (US) and fish meal (FM). The impact on growth performance, gut microbiome, and behaviors relevant to welfare was investigated. Both enhancements of SBM were found to support comparable growth performance to FM. Both targeted treatments altered the gut microbiome community. Fish fed SBM showed a tendency for more reactive behavior compared to those fed the FM-based control. All fish had a similarly low response to elicited stress, although ETS fed fish responded more actively than those fed the US diet. SBM fed fish also had lower repeatability of behavior, which may have implications for welfare. Both enhancements provide a promising basis to optimize the application of this widely used protein source.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between grit and parenting style of mother among Indian rural adolescents. Parental Authority Questionnaire [1] and Short Grit Scale [2] was used to meet objectives of the paper. A sample of 60 adolescents was chosen from private institution located at Bathinda (Punjab) by using convenience sampling technique. Results of correlation analysis revealed that significant (negative) relationship exists between mother’s authoritarian parenting style (only) and grit. This is true for both genders and for adolescents who comes from joint families. Educational implication of the study signifies that the suitable informative and counseling sessions should be organised for the parents to make them conscious of the appropriate parenting style for the development of gritty adolescents.

Recent findings support an association between childhood maltreatment and the presence of elevated psychopathic traits in adulthood. Using a community sample recruited online (N = 210), we sought to (1) confirm the relationship between childhood traumas and psychopathic traits, and (2) investigate the role of parenting styles in psychopathic traits. Consistent with our predictions, we found an association between all types of childhood traumas and disinhibition. Age and gender moderated the relations between psychopathic traits and childhood maltreatments. Parental rejection and overprotection were positively correlated with the presence of psychopathic traits, while parental emotional warmth was negative correlated. Although our results converge with previous findings, the strength of the correlations observed was not as compelling as in research on undergraduate students. We discuss the numerous interpretations for our findings, and highlight the limitations of research in the field of psychopathy and childhood trauma in the general population.

Sleep and stress significantly affect emotions, productivity, and overall well-being, crucial for optimal health and performance. However, limited research examines how Nepalese nurses' quality of life relates to their sleep quality and stress levels. This study aims to assess this relationship among nurses in private hospitals in Kathmandu. Three private hospitals were selected for this cross-sectional analytical study. Eligible nurses were chosen through purposive sampling, and data were analysed using IBM SPSS v25, employing Chi-square tests and logistic regression analysis. Research revealed a high rate of poor sleep quality (83.9%) among individuals with a mean age of 24.33 ± 3.08 years. Initially, significant associations were found with the factors like bachelor's degree, no tobacco use, absence of insomnia, good sleep quality, and low stress with good quality of life. After adjustment, the association with bachelor's degree [AOR:2.025, CI at 95%: 1.021-4.016, p

In addressing the challenges of data scarcity in biometrics, this study explores the generation of synthetic palmprint images as an efficient, cost effective, and privacy preserving alternative to real-world data reliance. Traditional methods for synthetic biometric image creation primarily involve orientation modifications and filter applications, with no established method specific to palmprints. We introduced the utilization of the “Style-based generator”, StyleGAN2-ADA, from the StyleGAN series, renowned for generating high-quality images. Furthermore, we explore the capabilities of its successor, StyleGAN3, which boasts enhanced image generation, facilitating smooth and realistic transitions. By comparing the performance of StyleGAN3 on public dataset, we aim to establish the most efficient generative model for this purpose. Evaluations were conducted using the SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm into our evaluation framework. Preliminary findings suggest that StyleGAN3 offers superior generative capabilities, enhancing equivariance in synthetic palmprint generation.

From the mid-19th century, Collegiate Gothic architecture gained prominence among American universities. Subsequently, through the efforts of American missionaries, the Collegiate Gothic style spread to Christian universities in Asia. Specifically, this study concentrates on the nuanced relationship between the transnational missionary routes and adopting the Collegiate Gothic style, primarily focusing on Anderson Hall at Soochow University, China. The investigation meticulously dissects the multifaceted factors influencing the choice of architectural styles, considering the perspectives of missionaries, architects, and other key stakeholders. Through an intricate analysis of Anderson Hall, this research illuminates the unique characteristics of Collegiate Gothic architecture. By unraveling the complex layers of East Asian campus heritage, this study enriches our comprehension of its origins. It establishes a robust foundation for guiding the preservation and revitalization of architectural styles within university campuses. This scholarly inquiry holds particular significance for experts in academic heritage conservation.

Pollination in angiosperms depends on a complex communication between pollen grains and stigmas, classified as wet or dry, depending on the presence or absence of secretions at the stigma surface, respectively. In species with wet stigma, the cuticle is disrupted and the presence of exudates is indicative of their receptivity. Most stigma studies are focused on few species and families, many of them with self-incompatibility systems. However, there is scarce knowledge about the stigma composition in Fabaceae, the third angiosperm family, whose stigmas have been classified as semidry. Here we report the first transcriptome profiling and DEGs of Vicia faba L. styles and stigmas from autofertile (flowers able to self-fertilize in absence of manipulation whose exudate is released spontaneously) and autosterile (flowers that need to be manipulated to break the cuticle and release the exudates to be receptive) inbred lines. From the 76,269 contigs obtained from the de novo assembly, only 45,1% of the sequences were annotated with at least one GO term. A total of 115,920, 75,489 and 70,801 annotations were assigned to Biological Process (BP), Cellular Component (CC) and Molecular Function (MF) categories, respectively and 5,918 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between the autofertile and the autosterile lines. Among the most enriched metabolic pathways in the DEGs subset were those related with aminoacid biosynthesis, terpenoid metabolism or signal transduction. Some DEGs have been related with previous QTLs identified for autofertility traits, and their putative functions are discussed. Results derived from this work provides an important transcriptomic reference for style-stigma processes to aid understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in faba bean fertilization.

While low serotonergic activity is often associated with psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, mood and personality disorders, variations in serotonin also contribute to normal personality differences. Here we investigate the role of blood DNA methylation levels at individual CpG sites of two key serotonergic genes (serotonin receptor gene 1A, HTR1A; serotonin transporter gene, SLC6A4) in predicting personality of captive chimpanzees. We find associations between methylation at 9/48 CpG sites with four personality dimensions: Dominance, Reactivity/Dependability, Agreeableness and Openness. Directionality of effects were CpG location-dependent and confirmed a role of serotonergic methylation in reducing anxiety (Dominance) and aggression related personality (Reactivity/Undependability) while simultaneously promoting prosocial (Agreeableness) and exploratory personality (Openness). While early-life adversity has been shown to impact serotonergic methylation patterns in other species, here, atypical early social rearing experiences only had a modest impact on CpG methylation levels in this chimpanzee sample. While the precise environmental factors impacting serotonergic methylation in chimpanzees thus remain to be identified, our study suggests a role in shaping natural variation in animal personality. The results of this study offer a basis for future hypothesis driven testing in additional populations and species to better understand the impact of ecology and evolution on complex behavioral traits.

Musyakalah is one of the Arabic linguistic styles included under the category of majaz. This style is commonly used in Al-Quran. The Indonesian translation of Al-Quran is a case where many of the figures of speech are translated literally, thereby causing serious semantic problems. Thus, the research problem of this is formulated with the following questions: 1) How many musyakalah ayahs are there in Al-Quran?; 2) How are the musyakalah ayahs translated, literally (harfiyya) or interpretatively (tafsiriyya)?; 3) How many ayahs are translated literally and how many are translated interpretatively?; and 4) Which translated musyakalah ayahs have the potential to raise semantic and theological problems? The corpus in this research consists of all musyakalah ayahs in Al-Quran and their translation to Indonesian published by the Department of Religious Affairs of Indonesia. The research adopted a descriptive-semantic method. The findings of this research are: 1) There are only eleven ayahs in Al-Quran using musyakalah style, namely: Alhasyr ayah 19, Ali Imran ayah 54, Annaml ayah 50, Alanfal ayah 30, Asysyura ayah 40, Albaqarah ayah 15, Almaidah 116, Aljatsiah ayah 34, Attaubah ayah 79, Annisa ayah 142, and Albaqarah 194; 2) The musyakalah ayahs translated literally are: Aljatsiah 34, Almaidah 116, Asysura 40, Annaml 50, and Alhasyr 19, whereas the musyakalah ayahs translated interpretatively are Albaqarah 194, Annisa 142, Attaubah 79, Albaqarah 15, Alanfal 30, and Ali Imran 54; 3) Of the eleven musyakalah ayahs, only Alhasyr ayah 19 that is translated correctly and does not have the potential of creating misinterpretation. Meanwhile, the interpretation of the other four ayahs can potentially cause misinterpretation or are against the basic principles of Islam. The six remaining ayahs are translated interpretatively and thus do not have the potential to be misinterpreted; 4) The findings suggest that musyakalah ayahs are more appropriately translated interpretatively. Therefore, the following is recommended: 1) Considering the different characteristics of Arabic and Indonesian languages, studies on Al-Quran translation into Indonesian should continuously be carried out; 2) In order to avoid misinterpretation, it is better that the translation of musyakalah ayahs uses tafsiriyya (interpretative) approach; 3) The harfiyya (literal) and tafsiriyya (interpretative) approaches should be developed for other styles beside musyakalah..

We wanted to investigate the current knowledge on the impact of diet on anti-TNF response in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), to identify dietary factors that warrant further investigations in relation to anti-TNF treatment response, and, finally, to discuss potential strategies for such investigations. PubMed was searched using specified search terms. One small prospective study on diet and anti-TNF treatment in 56 patients with CD found similar remission rates after 56 weeks among 32 patients with good compliance that received concomitant enteral nutrition and 24 with poor compliance that had no dietary restrictions (78% versus 67%, p = 0.51). A meta-analysis of 295 patients found higher odds of achieving clinical remission and remaining in clinical remission among patients on combination therapy with specialised enteral nutrition and Infliximab (IFX) compared with IFX monotherapy (OR 2.73; 95% CI: 1.73–4.31, p < 0.01, OR 2.93; 95% CI: 1.66–5.17, p < 0.01, respectively). In conclusion, evidence-based knowledge on impact of diet on anti-TNF treatment response for clinical use is scarce. Here we propose a mechanism by which Western style diet high in meat and low in fibre may promote colonic inflammation and potentially impact treatment response to anti-TNF drugs. Further studies using hypothesis-driven and data-driven strategies in observational, animal and interventional studies are warranted.

Abstract Peripartum depression (PPD) is a major complication of pregnancy and many risk factors have been associated with its development, including dysfunctional coping strategies and insecure attachment styles, both during pregnancy and postpartum. The aim of our study was to investigate the role of coping strategies in mediating the relationship between women’s attachment style and PPD in pregnancy, and one week after childbirth, in a large cohort of women. We hypothesized that the relationship between anxious and avoidant attachment and PPD would be mediated by use of maladaptive coping strategies. The assessment instruments were Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), Brief Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences (COPE), Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (ECR). The results indicated that the effect of insecure attachment styles (anxious and avoidant attachment) on antepartum depressive symptomatology was partially mediated by dysfunctional coping styles. Anxious attachment has also an indirect significant effect on postpartum depression through emotional coping; however, avoidant attachment does not seem to be significantly related to postpartum depression. Our findings revealed that not only it is important to consider attachment in understanding PPD but also that coping plays an important role in these relationships. These findings would help a preventive coping-based intervention strategy to enhance the capacity of women with insecure attachment styles to use more adaptive coping during and after pregnancy.

In Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS), coil resistance is an important factor in the generation of heat energy used to change e-liquid into vapor. An accurate and unbiased method for testing coil resistance is vital for understanding its effect on emissions and reporting results that are comparable across different types and brands of ENDS and measured in different laboratories. This study proposes a robust, accurate and unbiased method for measuring coil resistance. An apparatus is used which mimics the geometric configuration and assembly of ENDS pods and power control units. The method is demonstrated on two commonly used ENDS devices, the ALTO by Vuse and JUUL. Analysis shows that the proposed method is stable and reliable. The two-wire configuration introduced a positive measurement bias of 0.086 [ohm], which is a significant error for sub-ohm coil designs. The four-wire configuration is far less prone to bias error. We observed a significant difference in coil resistance of 0.593 [ohm] (p<0.001) between the two products tested. The mean resistance and standard deviation of the pod coil assemblies was shown to be 1.031 (0.067) [ohm] for ALTO and 1.624 (0.033) [ohm] for JUUL. The variation in coil resistance between products and within products can have significant impacts on aerosol emissions.

Topological Data Analysis (TDA) refers to a collection of methods that find the structure of shapes in data. Although recently, TDA methods have been used in many areas of data mining, it has not been widely applied to text mining tasks. In most text processing algorithms, the order in which different entities appear or co-appear is being lost. Assuming these lost orders are informative features of the data, TDA may play a significant role in the resulted gap on text processing state of the art. Once provided, the topology of different entities through a textural document may reveal some additive information regarding the document that is not reflected in any other features from traditional text processing methods. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach that hires TDA in text processing in order to capture and use the topology of different same-type entities in textural documents. First, we will show how to extract some topological signatures in the text using persistent homology-i.e., a TDA tool that captures topological signature of data cloud. Then we will show how to utilize these signatures for text classification.

People are drawn to woodcut-style designs due to their striking visual impact and strong contrast. However, traditional woodcut prints and previous computer-aided methods have not addressed the issues of dwindling design inspiration, lengthy production times, and complex adjustment procedures. We propose a novel network framework, the Woodcut-style Design Assistant Network (WDANet), to tackle these challenges. Notably, our research is the first to utilize diffusion models to streamline the woodcut-style design process. We've curated the Woodcut-62 dataset, featuring works from 62 renowned historical artists, to train WDANet in absorbing and learning the aesthetic nuances of woodcut prints, offering users a wealth of design references. Based on a noise reduction network, our dual cross-attention mechanism effectively integrates text and woodcut-style image features. This allows users to input or slightly modify a text description to quickly generate accurate, high-quality woodcut-style designs, saving time and offering flexibility. As confirmed by user studies, quantitative and qualitative analyses show that WDANet outperforms the current state-of-the-art in generating woodcut-style images and proves its value as a design aid.

Image segmentation is the process of partitioning an image into multiple segments where the goal is to simplify the representation of the image and make the image more meaningful and easier to analyze. In particular, semantic segmentation is an approach of detecting the classes of objects, based on each pixel. In the past, most semantic segmentation models were for only one single style, such as urban street views, medical images, or even Manga. In this paper, we proposed a semantic segmentation model called Dual-Pyramid Wide Residual Network (DPWRN) to solve the segmentation for cross-style datasets, which is suitable for diverse segmentation applications. The DPWRN integrated the Pyramid of Kernel paralleled with Dilation (PKD) and Multi-Feature Fusion (MFF) to improve the accuracy of segmentation. To evaluate the generalization of the DPWRN and its superiority over most state-of-the-art models, three datasets with completely different styles are tested in the experiments. Finally, the DPWRN verified its generalization and also showed its superiority over most state-of-the-art models.

While the link between Sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS) and internalizing symptoms has been well-established, a link to externalizing problems is still to be explored. This study aimed to further examine the relation between SPS and behavioral problems by testing the potential mediating roles of trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and decision-making styles. Pathway analyses were conducted on data from 268 community sample participants (Mage= 25.81, SD=2.41, 61.2% females). Results indicated gender differences in the pathway level outcomes of SPS, as well as potential partial mediators in men and women. SPS both directly and via the mediating effects of well-being factor (TEI) and avoidant decision-making influenced depression, regardless of gender. Direct effects on aggression were, however, obtained only in the male sample. Indirect effects of SPS on aggression were found in spontaneous decision-making for men, and in self-control and sociability factors of TEI for women. Directions for future research were discussed. sensory-processing sensitivity, depression, aggression, emotional intelligence, decision-making style, gender differences

Greek yogurt (GY), a high-protein-low-fat dairy product, particularly prized for its sensory and nutritional benefits, revolutionized the North American yogurt market in less than a decade, bringing with it new sustainability challenges. The standard production of GY generates large volumes of acid whey, a co-product that is a potential source of environmental pollution if not recovered. This study aims to assess the environmental performance of different technologies and identify the main factors for improving GY production. A complete life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to compare the standard technology (centrifugation) with two new technologies (fortification and ultrafiltration) to reduce acid whey volumes. Three milk protein concentrate alternatives were also assessed. Results show that the technology choice is not a clear discriminant factor. However, minimizing losses and wastage (accounting for 23 to 25% of the environmental impacts for all indicators) beyond the processing plant and selecting milk ingredients (accounting for 63 to 67% of the impacts) with low environmental impacts are key factors in improving the environmental performance of GY systems. From a methodological perspective, the results also highlight a shortcoming in the current International Dairy Federation LCA guidelines (2015) for treating the multifunctionality of GY systems.

This study investigated how fashion is expressed on social media platforms from a media ecology perspective of sustainable digital space-time, as society evolves into a digital ecosystem. Media ecology concerns how the media environment transforms human experience and impacts society and culture. A theoretical review of media ecology was conducted, and the Instagram account of global fashion influencer Susanna Lau (@susiebubble) was analyzed as a case study. In total, 300 fashion-related images were collected out of 5,817 uploaded to Lau’s Instagram between May 2012 and June 2019. These were analyzed—alongside their titles, content, hashtags, and commentaries—for visual phenomena conveying everyday divisions between spatiality and temporality, public and private, real and virtual, and geography and culture, which demonstrate ambiguous boundaries. The analysis revealed that the images reflect nuances of digital time and space as they emerge in social media, and represent a nonboundary of style across the binaries of work and leisure, public and private, real and virtual, and geography and culture—signifying a sustainable digital lifestyle. These findings illustrate how our changing daily lives are visualized through fashion on a sustainable digital platform, and suggest ongoing research into the practical impact of technological advances on fashion.

Until recently, no disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument existed for pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this revalidation study, the psychometric properties and the validity of the final German version of the 35-item QOLIBRI-KID/ADO questionnaire were examined in 300 children and adolescents. It is the first self-reported TBI-specific instrument for measuring pediatric HRQoL in individuals aged 8–17 years. The six-factor model fits the data adequately. Internal consistencies were excellent for the total score and satisfactory to excellent for the scale scores. Intraclass correlations indicated good test-retest reliability. Construct validity was supported by overlaps between the QOLBRI-KID/ADO and the PedsQL, which measures generic HRQoL. Discriminant validity indicated that HRQoL was significantly lower in older children and girls, and in those with anxiety, depression, and post-concussion symptoms than in comparison groups, replicating the results of the questionnaire’s first development study. Our results suggest that the QOLIBRI-KID/ADO is a valid and reliable multidimensional instrument for assessing disease-specific HRQoL after pediatric TBI in clinical and research settings, which can additionally be used across the lifespan in combination with the adult version. This may help to improve care, treatment, daily functioning and HRQoL after TBI.

Transcutaneous electrical stimulation of the spinal cord is used to restore locomotion and body weight support in patients with severe motor disorders. We studied effects of this non-invasive stimulation on postural control in healthy subjects. Stimulation at the L1-L2 vertebrae was performed to activate the extensor muscles of the lower limbs. Because postural regulation depends on the cognitive style, the effects of the stimulation were analyzed separately in field-dependent (FD) and field-independent (FI) participants. During the study young adults (N=16, half FD and half FI participants, all right dominant leg) stood on a force platform in a soundproof chamber with their eyes closed. Stimulation was applied in the midline between the L1-L2 vertebrae or over the left or right dorsal roots of the spinal cord; under control condition there was no stimulation. Stimulation destabilized posture in healthy subjects, whereas patients with movement disorders usually showed an improvement in postural control. In FD participants, left dorsal root and midline stimulation increased several postural parameters by up to 30%. Dorsal root stimulation on the side of the supporting leg reduced postural control, while stimulation on the side of the dominant leg did not. No significant changes were observed in the FI participants.

Background: Military pilots show high visuo-spatial skills. Previous studies demonstrate that they are better in mental rotating a target, in taking different perspectives, in estimating distances, in travel planning and in topographic memory. Here, we compared navigational cognitive styles between military pilots and people without flight experience. Pilots were expected to be more survey users than non-pilots, showing higher navigational strategies. Method: 106 jet military pilots of Italian Air Force and 92 non-pilots were enrolled in order to investigate group differences in navigational styles. Participants were asked to perform a reduced version of the Spatial Cognitive Style Test – SCST, consisting of six tasks that allow to distinguish individuals in landmark (people orient themselves by using a figurative memory for environmental objects), route (people use an egocentric representation of the space) and survey (people have a map-like representation of the space) users. Results: In line with our hypothesis, military pilots mainly adopt a survey style, whereas non-pilots mainly adopt the route style. In addition, pilots outperformed non pilots in both the 3D-Rotation task and Map Description Task. Conclusion: Military flight expertise influences some aspects of the spatial ability, leading to enhance human navigation. Although, it must be considered that they are a population whose navigational skills were already high at the time of selection at the academy before formal training began.

Children's ability to adjust to the social rules and expectations in the educational environment is of major concern to researchers and practitioners alike. Accordingly, the main purpose of the present study was to examine predictors of children's social functioning in kindergarten with a specific focus on (a) maternal factors; and, (b) children's social cognition. Using a multi-method (self-reports and direct assessments), multi-informant (child, mother, teacher) design, we collected data from 306 kindergarten children and their mothers tapping the mother's social cognitions (general and child-related) and parenting style, and children's social cognition (social information processing) and functioning in kindergarten. We found direct associations between the mother and child's social cognitions, between the mother's authoritarian parenting style and her child's less competent social cognition and behavior, and between the child's social cognition and social functioning. Finally, as hypothesized, we found a number of interesting mediated effects. Most notably, we found that the association between the mother's social cognition (her tendency to attribute hostile intent to unknown others) and the child's social cognition (his/her tendency to generate less competent responses) is fully mediated by the mother's higher levels of authoritarian parenting style. The important theoretical and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.

Based on the traditional Chinese cultural belief of "male breadwinner, female homemaker," as well as the systemic and interactive characteristics of families, this study aims to explore the influence of maternal gatekeeping behavior on the quality and quantity of paternal parenting, as well as adolescent aggressive behavior. A total of 483 seventh-grade students completed questionnaires on maternal gatekeeping behavior, paternal involvement, parenting styles and aggressive behavior. Latent profile analysis identified four parenting combinations: positive, negative, mixed, and neglectful. Adolescents under negative parenting exhibited the highest aggression, while those under positive and neglectful parenting showed the least aggression. Maternal gatekeeping behavior correlated with paternal negative parenting and adolescent aggression. Paternal negative parenting mediated the relationship between maternal gatekeeping and aggression, while paternal involvement moderated this relationship. These findings highlight the role of parental interaction in adolescent behavior and support family-based interventions.

The content of this paper is a very significant contribution to the heritage regional reconstruction and conservation interventions. The results about the iconographic analysis of the Early-Renaissance frescoes of St. Leocadia Church, in Chaves, in the north-east of Portugal, were presented for the first time. This paper aims to study facial similarity analysis applied to identification of the personages represented in the 1511-1513 mural paintings of the apse of St. Leocadia Church, in Chaves Municipality (North of Portugal) and those ones in the oil paintings by the Proto-Renaissance Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves. In this work, it was explored the feasibility of face recognition technologies in answering many ambiguities concerning Manueline stylistic identity and iconography. A proposal was made to identify the characters, fundamental to the meaning of the frescoes. It has been experimentally proved on 7 characters of St. Leocadia Church’s paintings, in comparison with the referred old master portraits. It was used an in-house trained deep face recognition model to extract facial features from images of 15th and 16th century portraits to compare their degree of similarity. It was undertaken facial similarity analysis of the faces in the formidable portrait gallery of the 15th century Portuguese society represented in the Panels of St. Vicent, which has been subject of national and international research for 130 years. On the other, in the oil painting of St. Peter and St. Paul and Infanta St. Joana, of the same old master. The iconographic interpretation of the mural paintings of St. Leocadia, based in the deep facial features of the images, is plausible: a catechetical purpose; the ritual practices of royal ancestor worship in royal portrait apses of the churches; the Portuguese maritime expansion and the macro-imperial ideology of D. Manuel I.

Conventional text style transfer (TST) methodologies primarily utilize style classifiers to segregate the content and stylistic elements of text for effective style transformation. Despite the pivotal role of these classifiers, their influence on TST techniques remains largely unexplored. This study embarks on a detailed exploration of the limitations inherent in style classifiers within current TST frameworks. We reveal that these classifiers often inadequately comprehend sentence syntax, leading to diminished performance in TST models. In response, we introduce the Syntax-Enhanced Style Transfer (SEST) model, a groundbreaking approach incorporating a syntax-sensitive style classifier. This classifier ensures that the extracted style representations robustly encapsulate syntax nuances, enhancing TST effectiveness. Rigorous evaluations across diverse TST benchmarks demonstrate that SEST significantly surpasses contemporary models in performance. Additionally, our case studies highlight SEST's proficiency in producing syntactically coherent sentences that aptly retain original content.

As synthetic/artificial life forms become more abundant and sophisticated, an increasing number of bizarre creatures - xenobots, robots, soft A-life entities, genetically engineered organisms, etc. - are invading our society. Therefore, we need to bring order to all this, to establish what is living and what is not. Here, I intend to classify all these non-natural entities and clarify their status with reference to their consideration or not as living beings, leaving the door open to an uncertain future in which perhaps we can see how "the artificial" and "the natural" merge to originate something new. To order all this "new biodiversity" and to also give entry to viruses (which are excluded of the three-domains tree of life), I propose the creation of a new domain, Lithbea (from the name: life-in-the-border entities), in which all these new human-made entities as well as the viruses will be included. Within this domain there would be two kingdoms, Virus and Humade (contraction of human-made), based on their origin, natural or human-made. A brief description of each component of Lithbea is included and the implications for society and biology of this “new biodiversity” is briefly discussed.

Here I describe an overlooked form of non-biological paralife (i.e., near-life) that has been evolving on Earth for millions of years, and is currently in the final stages of transitioning into a new form of life. Any consideration of non-biological life or paralife is complicated by the fact that there is no consensus among biologists for the definition of life. This ambiguity has caused disagreement about whether subcellular reproduction systems like viruses are a form of life, despite having genomes, mutations, heritable phenotypes and system-improving evolution. To resolve this problem, I develop a definition of life that is entirely functional and independent of any of the structural idiosyncrasies of biological life on Earth: an order-generating system controlled by internally-encoded information that perpetuates itself by functioning to counteract its entropic decay. Using this definition, subcellular transposons, plasmids, and viruses are paralife because they match the definition of life in all ways except that they induce their order-generating functioning by a living host rather through their own self-sustaining production system. Using this functional definition of life, I show that utility- products (UPs) like fabricated hand tools are part of induced-reproduction systems that have features equivalent to biological genomes, mutations, heritable phenotypes, and a process of system-improving evolution. The perceived benefit of utility-products causes them to induce their reproduction by a biological life-form (humans). For these reasons, human utility products are functionally just as close to being a form of life as subcellular transposons, plasmids, and viruses, i.e., they are Utility-Product paralife (UP-parlife). I also show that some forms of UP-paralife are currently evolving into mechanical life that is capable of both self- sustaining reproduction and system-improving evolution without outside assistance. This transition requires the development of a high level of factory and/or UP automation and artificial intelligence (AI) that is capable of complex reasoning, imagination and creativity. Finally, I consider the influence of UP-life and UP-paralife on the development of the level of structural complexity in the universe, and I briefly speculate about how these non-biological forms of life and paralife will influence the expansion of scientific knowledge about the universe.

Several studies have shown that physical activity (PA) is related to physical and mental health. Yet, there are few studies on the frequency of PA as it relates to health and a healthy lifestyle. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the frequency of practicing different types of physical activities (dependent variables), living a healthy lifestyle (BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption), physical health (sum of all doctor visits except psychiatrists) and mental health (a sum of visits to psychiatrists) at different ages (independent variables). We fo-cused on three types of PA: (1) medium to high-intensity aerobic exercises; (2) low to medium intensity relaxing and stretching exercises, (3) outdoor leisure PA. 9,617 participants (ages: 19 -81) were included in the study (with health registries over a period of 10 years prior to a cross-sectional survey). Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression on frequencies of three types of PA and factors related to health and healthy lifestyles, as well as age and sex, were performed in this study. The results indicate that a higher frequency of practicing PA had a higher probability of association with the following factors: lower BMI, less or non-smoking behavior (types 1 & 3); higher education (types 1 & 2); higher age (types 2 & 3) and better physical health (type 1). Occasional (practicing sometimes) PA, type 2, was positively associated with poorer mental health (higher number of psychiatrist visits). Women were more likely to practice PA type 2, and men – PA types 3 & 1. Conclusion: In general, a higher frequency of PA is related with better health and healthy life styles; with the exception of PA type 2 that is related to poorer mental health.

In recent years, artificial intelligence technology has widely influenced the field of design, bringing new ideas to efficiently and systematically solve urban renewal design problems. The purpose of this study is to create a stylized generation technology for building facade decoration in historic districts, which will aid in the design and control of district style and form. The goal is to use the technical advantages of conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) in image generation and style transfer to create a method for independently designing a specific facade decoration style by interpreting image data of historical district facades. The research in this paper is based on the historical district of Putian in Fujian Province, through an experiment of image data acquisition, image processing and screening, model training, image generation, and style matching of the target area. The research found that: (1) CGAN technology can better identify and generate the decorative style of historical districts. It can realize the overall or partial scheme design of the facade; (2) in terms of adaptability, this method can provide a better scheme reference for historical district reconstruction, facade renovation, and renovation design projects. Especially for districts with obvious decorative styles, the visualization effect is better. In addition, it also has certain reference significance for the determination and design of the facade decoration style of a specific historical building; (3) This method can better learn the internal laws of the complex district style and form so as to generate a new design with a clear decoration style attribute. It can be extended to other fields of historical heritage protection to enhance practitioners' stylized control of the heritage environment and improve the efficiency and ability of professional design.

Today’s urban spaces face precipitous challenges and complications, which include the COVID-19 pandemic, urbanization, population growth, and climate change. Proximity plays an essential role in influencing the integrity of public spaces and urban environments, while proxemics studies people’s experience, and the benefits, of urban space, and is based on a behavioral system of activities that includes ‘territoriality’. There is a need to study the behavioural patterns of people in given situations with proxemic dimensions in order to sustain both human beings and the quality of urban space. However, people behave spontaneously within environmental settings and reflect each other’s responses, meaning it is important to distinguish between different cultures, which tend to respond in particular ways to the meaning of proximity. This suggests there is no universal indicator for phenomena such as crowding. The aim of this paper is to highlight the interrelationship between urban form and urban life. This study focuses on two patterns of activity - street life and social life - by adopting a descriptive-analytical approach to documentary and desk research. The findings reveal a vital distinction between social and public patterns of proximity, while other proximities, although critical, are not observed within interactions between people.

To monitor adherence to diets and to design and evaluate nutritional interventions it is essential to obtain objective knowledge about eating behavior. In most research, measures of eating behavior are based on self-reporting, such as 24-h recalls, food records (food diaries), and food frequency questionnaires. Self-reporting is prone to inaccuracies due to inaccurate and subjective recall and other biases. Recording behavior using non-obtrusive technology in daily life would overcome this. We here provide an up-to-date systematic overview encompassing all (close-to) publicly or commercially available technologies to automatically record eating behavior in real-life settings. 1328 studies were screened and after applying defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 122 studies were included for in-depth evaluation. Technologies in these studies were categorized by what type of eating behavior they measure and which type of sensor technology they use. In general, we found that relatively simple sensors are often used. Depending on the purpose, these are mainly motion sensors, microphones, weight sensors, and photo cameras. While several of these technologies are commercially available, there is still a lack of publicly available algorithms that are needed to process and interpret the resulting data. We argue that future work should focus on developing robust algorithms and validating these technologies in real-life settings. Combining technologies (e.g., prompting individuals for self-reports at sensed, opportune moments) is a promising route toward ecologically valid studies of eating behavior.

The definition, origin and recreation of life remain elusive. As others have suggested, only once we put life into reductionist physical terms will we be able to solve those questions. To that end, this work proposes the phenomenon of life to be the product of two dissipative mechanisms. From them, one reinterprets extant biological life and deduces a testable scenario for its origin. The proposed theory of life allows its replication, reinterprets ecological evolution, creates new constraints on the search for life and lays the foundations for groundbreaking technologies.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used frequently as a decision support tool for evaluating different design choices of products based on their environmental impacts. A life cycle usually comprises several phases of varying timespan. The amount of emissions generated from different life cycle phases of a product could be significantly different from one another. In conventional LCA, the emissions generated from the life cycle phases of a product are aggregated at the inventory analysis stage, which is then used as an input for life cycle impact assessment. However, when the emissions are aggregated, the temporal variability of inventory data is ignored, which may result in inaccurate environmental impact assessment. Besides, the conventional LCA does not consider the environmental impact of circular products with multiple use cycles. It poses difficulties in identifying the hotspots of emission-intensive activities with the potential to mislead conclusions and implications for both practice and policy. To address this issue and to analyse the embedded temporal variations in inventory data in a CE context, the paper proposes to calculate the emission intensity for each life cycle phase. It is argued that calculating and comparing emission intensity, based on the timespan and amount of emissions for individual life cycle phases, at the inventory analysis stage of LCA offers a complementary approach to the traditional aggregate emission-based LCA approach. In a circular scenario, it helps to identify significant issues during different life cycle phases and the relevant environmental performance improvement opportunities through product, business model and supply chain design.

The historic view of metadata as “data about data” is expanding to include data about other items that must be created, used and understood throughout the data and project life cycles. In this context, metadata might better be defined as the structured and standard part of documentation and the metadata life cycle can be described as the metadata content that is required for documentation in each phase of the project and data life cycles. This incremental approach to metadata creation is similar to the spiral model used in software development. Each phase also has distinct users and specific questions they need answers to. In many cases, the metadata life cycle involves hierarchies where latter phases have increased numbers of items. The relationships between metadata in different phases can be captured through structure in the metadata standard or through conventions for identifiers. Metadata creation and management can be streamlined and simplified by re-using metadata across many records. Many of these ideas are being used in metadata for documenting the life cycle of research projects in the Arctic.

Reassessment of the fatigue life for wind turbines structural components is typically performed using deterministic methods with the same partial safety factors as used for the original design. However, in relation to life extension, the conditions are generally different from the assumptions used for calibration of partial safety factors; and using a deterministic assessment method with these partial safety factors might not lead to optimal decisions. In this paper, the deterministic assessment method is compared to probabilistic and risk-based approaches, and the economic feasibility is assessed for a case wind farm. Using the models also used for calibration of partial safety factors in IEC61400-1 ed. 4 it is found that the probabilistic assessment generally leads to longer additional fatigue life than the deterministic assessment method. The longer duration of the extended life can make life extension feasible in more situations. The risk-based model is applied to include the risk of failure directly in the economic feasibility assessment and it is found that the reliability can be much lower than the target for new turbines, without compromising the economic feasibility.

As the production of battery cells experiences exponential growth and electric vehicle fleets continue to expand, an escalating number of traction batteries are nearing the conclusion of their operational life for mobility purposes, both presently and in the foreseeable future. Concurrently, the heightened interest in sustainable energy storage solutions has spurred investigations into potential second-life applications for aging traction batteries. Nonetheless, the predominant practice remains the removal of these batteries from electric vehicles, signifying the end of their life cycle, and their subsequent incorporation into recycling processes, with limited consideration for life-extending measures. This study seeks to elucidate the reasons behind the deprioritization of battery repurposing strategies. Therefore, the research team conducted two industry studies with over 20 battery experts from Europe, revealing concerns about the economic viability of repurposing batteries for stationary storage applications. A literature review of studies published since 2016 confirmed the industry's struggles to address this issue theoretically. In conclusion, a research question was formulated, and a solution approach was delineated to assess the economic prospects of aged traction batteries within the industry's landscape in the future. This solution approach encompasses pertinent market analysis, the identification of representative second-life applications, as well as the formulation of a methodology for evaluating the residual value of these batteries.

The latest life-origin literature is reviewed, along with grouping and classification of the most enduring models of abiogenesis. New trends are identified in origin-of-life thought. Astrobiology continues to deal mostly with inorganic and very elementary organic reactions in extreme environments. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics has received a great deal of attention. Attempts have been made to relate Bejan’s Constructal Law to life and abiogenesis. RNA World preclusions only seem to have grown, while ribozyme/peptide models have expanded. The biosemiotic movement and code biology is gaining influence in refining a more complete description of life. Prof James Tour at Rice University in a fourteen-lecture series lists a number of synthetic biochemical hurtles remaining that still need to be overcome. But the need for some sort of informational recipe, instruction, steering and control now seems to be the most prominent area of focus and concern. Even a protometabolism needed active selection and controls rather than mere constraints or law. The latest literature still does not elucidate how protometabolism was orchestrated in an inanimate, pre-evolutionary environment.

Study Objectives: To (1) investigate the prevalence of sleep disorder symptoms in caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and (2) the relationships between caregiver sleep problems and their health-related quality of life and family quality of life. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study of caregivers (N=62) of children ages 6 to 11 years old diagnosed with ASD receiving care at a regional autism research and resource center. Measurements and Results: Participants completed the Sleep Habits Questionnaire (SHQ), the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) SF-12, and the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale (FQOL). Caregivers with longer sleep duration reported better mental health and better family quality of life. Caregivers who reported insomnia symptoms, non-restorative sleep, and insufficient sleep were more likely to report poorer mental health than caregivers who did not report these sleep disorder symptoms. Caregivers with obstructive sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome experienced worse physical quality of life. Conclusions: The physical and mental health of the primary caregiver is essential to the support of the child with ASD and to the functioning of the family. The study findings point to the importance of future research and interventions to enhance sleep health in order to improve quality of life for caregivers of children with ASD.

We address the need for a model by considering two competing theories regarding the origin of life: (i) the Metabolism First theory and (ii) the RNA World theory. We discuss two inter-related points. (I) Models are valuable tools in understanding both the processes and intricacies of the origin of life issues. (II) Insights from models also help us to evaluate the core objection to origin of life theories called “the inefficiency objection” commonly raised by proponents of both the Metabolism First theory and the RNA World theory against each other. We use Simpson’s paradox as a tool for challenging this objection. We will use models in various senses ranging from taking them as representations of reality to treating them as theories/accounts that provide heuristics for probing reality. In this paper, we will frequently use models and theories interchangeably. Additionally, we investigate Conway’s Game of Life and contrast it with our Simpson’s Paradox (SP)-based approach to emergence of life issues. Finally, we discuss some of the consequences of our view. A scientific model is testable in three senses: (i) a logical sense, (ii) a nomological sense, and (iii) a current technological sense. The SP-based model is testable in the logical sense. It is also testable nomologically. However, it is not currently feasible to test it.

What is life, what is the difference between something that is alive and something that is not, are viruses living beings, or what would life be like elsewhere in the universe, are questions that still do not have clear-cut answers fully accepted by the scientific community. Based on the fundamental attributes of all living things, I define life as a process that takes place in very ordered organic structures and is characterized by being automatic, interactive and evolutionary. I also define a living being as an organic, highly ordered, automatic, interacting and evolutionary system, and a robot as an ordered automatic and interacting system. Based on this definition and what we know about the biology of viruses, I maintain that they should be considered as living entities. Finally, I explain why if there were life elsewhere in the universe, it would be very similar to what we know on our planet.

Coral recruitment is an important factor to coral reefs in maintaining their health. Currently, numerous coral reefs are facing extreme degradation, which protection and therefore rehabilitation practices are required to reverse. The present study explores the potential role of coral recruitment assessment by citizen scientists about the impacts of human influences towards coral reefs through measurement of coral recruitment values. Only a very small number of studies use forms of pre-launch assessment prior to reef restoration. These methods are able to properly guide vital decision-making information for reef rehabilitation methods and locations. In this initial study we observe significant relationships between reefs with higher coral recruitment values and their health. As compared to other average coral reef values, the reef we measured had higher recruitment values on average. Two sections of the reef had noticeably higher mean corals per square meter compared to average values, while a third section of the reef had a lower frequency. This section has been brought to concern through the pre-launch assessment, and has potential for rehabilitation through coral transplantation and a reduction of anthropogenic actions within the area.

Allergic diseases are becoming a major healthcare issue in many developed nations, where living environment and lifestyle are most predominantly distinct. Such differences include urbanized, industrialized living environments, overused hygiene products, antibiotics, stationary lifestyle, and fast-food based diets tend to reduce microbial diversity and lead to impared immune protection, which further increase the development of allergic diseases. In the same time, studies also showed that modulating microbiomes can ameliorate allergic symptoms. Therefore, in this paper, we aimed to review recent findings on the potential role of the human microbiome in the gastrointestinal tract, surface of skin and respiratory tract for the development of allergic diseases. Furthermore, we addressed a potential therapeutic or even preventive strategy for such allergic diseases by modulating the human microbial composition.

The quality of life (QOL) is an important indicator of human satisfaction and wellbeing. QOL is significantly and persistently affected for patients after a cancer diagnosis. Despite some evidence suggesting that psycho-oncologic interventions can provide lasting benefits, the inclusion of such interventions in cancer therapy is not universal. This article overviews known approaches to the evaluation of QOL in cancer patients and various interventions for improving patients’ outcomes with a focus on the Eastern European regional and specific Romanian context. With a mortality rate above and cancer care performance below the EU average and unequally distributed, Roma-nia urgently needs a national coordination program which is discussed in our review highlighting the main psychological tools needed for the assessment and its challenges towards implementing the program. In the end, we suggest some directions for future development of the psycho-oncologic approach in the context of social, policy and unexpected financial challenges the nation provides

Increasing quality of life (QoL) is both an end in itself and a means to optimize the impact of treatment in HIV-infected persons. Possibly due to cultural and social influences, the predictors of QoL vary across studies, which highlights the importance of studying specific populations. In the present study, we wanted to determine the sociodemographic (age, sex, schooling) and psychosocial correlates (meaning in life, social support, positive and negative affect) of QoL in HIV-infected patients living in Mozambique, a country with high prevalence of HIV, but also with well-structured strategies to fight the disease. To that end, we made correlational analyses followed by regression models, and we examined potential mediation processes among predictors. All correlates were relevant except sex. Meaning in life was the strongest predictor, while social support was the weakest. Schooling was both directly and indirectly related with QoL - in the latter case, it was mediated by meaning in life, social support and positive affect. Our findings suggest that investments in education may be highly rewarding to Mozambicans, and that satisfying needs of self-actualization and purpose may be more urgent than improving social connections.

The debate about the meaning of life in the literature has been around for a while and portraits a fundamental human need to find a personal path of existence. The meaning of life phenomenon purpose lies in its impact on the psychological wellbeing. Knowing your purpose in life can make it more structured and in balance, therefore more meaningful and comprehensible. However, in the existing body of the academic literature meaning of life is discussed more from the philosophic perspective rather than a practical area, which is not helping to solve the global issues of increasing mental health problems. When social and emotional wellbeing is being affected, it is urgent to apply a practical approach to effectively overcome these states. Introduction of a new, holistic meaning of life model is an attempt to offer a practical solution for society to maintain their mental health through awareness of their life’s purpose. Previously in the pilot study (Dombrovskis, 2017) in a sample group of 100 citizens of Latvia who self-reported being in a crisis situation at the given moment, using qualitive analysis the first component for the model structure was identified – antecedent. In our research antecedent is defined as something that triggers certain action, so in crisis situation person can regain a structure and stability in life. We found 8 different antecedents that trigger behavior of those affected by crisis: achievements; power; success; development; freedom; uniqueness; interesting life and fleeing. To continue to explore other components for our model in the setting of Latvia, this study aims to investigate the demographic and personality related variables that may serve as antecedents and as such become one of component in our model structure. The study used a sample of residents of Latvia representing the total population of 1,110 respondents (633 women, 57%, and 477 men, 43%) who have completed the self-assessment questionnaire Meaning of life scale (MOLS) (online and frontally) designed by the authors on their satisfaction with different factors regarding the meaning of life. Average age of respondents (M=33.88; SD=8,527) varied from 18 to 67. The exploratory and confirmatory analysis confirms the data regarding existence of totally 16 factors: 8 antecedents identified in the pilot study and 8 new antecedents identified in the present study - family relations; level of income; relations with friends/acquaintances; state of health; organization of free time; career growth (achievements); sexual life quality and quality of education. Findings confirm a model’s structure to be complex phenomenon consisting of various components. However, findings suggest that more research should be done to fill the following gaps: 1) identify actions, which are triggered by 16 antecedents; 2) figure out F1, F2 and F3 factor role in the model structure.

The global focus on geopolymer binder production has increased due to the adoption of waste materials and industrial byproducts. Given the gradual decline of the availability of fly ash and ground granular blast furnace slag (GGBFS) resulting from the decarbonization process in electricity and steel productions, waste clay brick powder (WCBP), could be a viable substitute of these pozzolanic by-products. This research is dedicated to thoroughly investigate the techno-eco-efficiency performance of WCBP when utilized as a geopolymer precursor. The favorable mechanical characteristics exhibited by fly ash-GGBFS-WCBP-based geopolymer binder emphasize the importance of assessing its sustainability alongside its technical viability. The study employed life cycle analysis (LCA), following ISO 14040-44 standards, and using the Simapro software, to evaluate the environmental implications of the use of WCBP-based geopolymer mixtures. Human toxicity emerged as the primary impact. Moreover, the analysis of life cycle costs highlighted key financial factors, with around 65-70% attributed to alkaline activators of the total cost. The production of alkaline activators was identified as a critical point for both environmental impact and economic considerations due to energy consumption. While WCBP-rich samples exhibit a 1.7-0.7% higher environmental impact compared to the control mix (CM), their high mechanical strength and cost-effectiveness make them technologically and economically efficient geopolymer mixes. In conclusion, the portfolio analysis for techno-eco-efficiency affirms that mixes containing 40%, 30%, and 20% WCBP are more efficient than those using 10% and 0% WCBP, respectively.

It has been known for nearly over 150 years that fatigue life data exhibits a considerable amount of variability. Furthermore, statistically modeling fatigue life adequately is challenging. Different empirical approaches have been used, each of which has merit; however, none is appropriate universally. Even when a sufficiently robust database exists, the scatter in the fatigue lives may be extremely large and difficult to characterize. The complications in empirical modeling are exacerbated for long life estimation when experimental observations are rare. The purpose of this work is to review traditional and more modern empirically based methodologies for estimating the cumulative distribution functions for fatigue life, given an applied load. To assess the applicability of the methods confidence bounds will be estimated. The analyses will be performed on an historic set of data for annealed aluminum wire tested in reverse torsion fatigue. These data are available in publications. It is recommended that a time dependent distribution function that is an based on principles of reliability that can be generalized for a variety of modeling applications should be considered for fatigue life estimation.

This cross-sectional study was aimed to investigate the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction, and the mediation role of social support and enjoyment of life among older individuals. The Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test, the Enjoyment of Life Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Scale were administered to a sample of 260 older individuals aged between 60 and 80. The main findings revealed a positive association between gratitude and life satisfaction, and social support was a partial mediator in this relationship. Although enjoyment of life was not a direct mediator in the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction, the final model indicated a significant serial pathway from gratitude to social support and then through enjoyment of life-to-life satisfaction. In conclusion, enhancing gratitude, promoting enjoyment of life, and social support in older individuals might increase their life satisfaction, which in turn might contribute to their successful aging

Tack is one of the most important factors affecting the operability of prepregs, but it is still very difficult to obtain the change of prepreg tack with time at different temperatures. In this paper, a newly designed T-peel device is used to test the tack decay rate of prepregs at different temperatures. The obtained decay rate deviates less than 8.9% from the manufacturer's data. The maximum deviation of the ratio of tack decay speeds calculated by the Arrhenius equation from the experiments is not higher than -9.7%. It is proved that the present method can obtain the decay rate of tack of prepregs at different temperatures. This method is also applicable to the other two types of prepregs. The article proposes the handling life unit, an operational life measurement unit for prepregs, and establishes that the relationship between tack and remaining shelf life reduces prepreg management costs.

Buildings are subject to intrinsic and extrinsic failures at all stages of the construction process, i.e., design to occupancy (i.e., use) as several failure types can affect them. There are three basic steps for researching building failures: listing, cataloging, and solving/deciding whether highlighting the least invasive and lowest cost intervention. Therefore, this research presents some methods used in construction for the intervention prioritization and seeks to illustrate the most suitable methodology for different settings failure x diagnosis x intervention. Therefore, the most traditional tools are shown: BASICO, SWIFT, FEMEA, AAF, and GUT matrix, where a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses is carried out. After that, a case study on maintenance services for the moisture on the building facades was performed. Finally, the GUT matrix and the FMEA method are the best results

Asthma, like other chronic diseases, affects children prone to transitions of various aspects of their lives. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the level quality of life of children with bronchial asthma and to what extent the disease affects them their everyday life. The literature search was conducted a review of the articles was done in Greek and English, through electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus. The terms and conditions their combinations used for the search were: “kids”, “children”, "pediatric asthma", "quality of life (QOL)", "health", "adolescents". The search was limited to the last five years (2015 – 2020) and finally 12 were selected articles. The most important areas negatively affected by quality of life of children with asthma are physical activity, their emotional state, school performance and sleep quality when it is connected to other factors. Important role in quality of life of these children has asthma management, disease severity and other environmental factors. Medical and nursing staff need to guide them asthmatic children and their families to have a good everyday life. Having the necessary knowledge needed for the quality-of-life health professionals should include in their medical nursing caring methods of achieving and maintaining a lifestyle that is no different than that of healthy children.

Our lives are comprised of moment-to-moment activity experiences. According to the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO), our occupational experiences can be affected by volition, which consists of personal causation, values, and interests. This study investigated how momentary volition affected occupational satisfaction and mind-wandering while performing occupations. This study also examined the relationship between momentary volition and the overall life perspectives of life satisfaction and life balance. Undergraduate students participated in this cross-sectional study. The experience sampling method (ESM) was used to measure students’ momentary states such as activity, volition, occupational satisfaction, and mind-wandering. After conducting the ESM, the participants’ life satisfaction was measured using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), and their life balance was measured by the Life Balance Inventory (LBI). Forty-two participants and 1,092 sampling data were included in the analysis. Momentary personal causation, values, and interests contributed to occupational satisfaction. Mind-wandering was predicted negatively by interests but positively by personal causation. Momentary interests were positively correlated with SWLS and LBI scores. This study demonstrated that momentary volition was associated with occupational satisfaction and engagement, as well as life satisfaction and balance, in undergraduate students.

The multifarious internal workings of organisms are difficult to reconcile with a single feature defining a state of ‘being alive’. Indeed, definitions of life rely on emergent properties (growth, capacity to evolve, agency) only symptomatic of intrinsic functioning. Empirical studies demonstrate that biomolecules including ratcheting/rotating enzymes, ribozymes and pigment molecules undergo repetitive conformation state changes driven by energy absorption, excitation and relaxation. They exhibit disparate structures, but govern processes relying on directional physical motion (DNA transcription, translation, ATP synthesis, cytoskeleton transport, photosynthetic resonance energy transfer) and share the principle of repetitive uniplanar conformation changes driven by thermodynamic gradients, producing dependable unidirectional motion: ‘heat engines’ exploiting thermodynamic disequilibria to perform work. Recognition that disparate biological molecules share a heat engine principle governing directional motion, working in self-regulating networks, allows a mechanistic definition: life is a self-regulating process whereby matter undergoes cyclic, uniplanar conformation state changes that convert thermodynamic disequilibria into directed motion, performing work that locally reduces entropy. ‘Living things’ are structures including autonomous networks of units operating on the heat engine principle. Death is loss of integrated heat engine function. These principles are independent of any specific chemical environment, and can be applied to other biospheres.

Background The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship structure of quality of life (QOL) in survivors of breast cancer, including difficulty in daily life and negative experience as health-related indicators. Methods Participants were survivors of breast cancer for more than 2 years after primary breast cancer surgery and belonged to self-help groups. The assessment used FACT-B (QOL), HADS (anxiety and depression), SOC (sense of coherence), WHODAS 2.0 (difficulties in daily life), and CAOD (negative experiences). Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM) was performed to analyze the hypothesized model. If the causal model was significant, multiplication of the path coefficient from anxiety and depression to QOL, and from SOC to anxiety and depression, was considered a direct effect on QOL, and from SOC to difficulty in daily life, from difficulty in daily life to negative experiences, and from negative experiences to anxiety and depression were considered indirect effects on QOL. Results Goodness of fit of the model in the BSEM was satisfactory. The direct effect was 0.274, and indirect effect was 0.163. Conclusions These direct and indirect approaches to difficulties in daily life are very significant because they can provide a basis for development of support strategies to increase QOL.

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies are developing rapidly as a result of their ability to reduce energy consumption from conventional sources as well as the growth of global energy expenditures. Nevertheless, several impact categories during the PV panel life cycle occur and some principal sectors are affected. These impact categories are assessed by applying life cycle analysis (LCA) techniques through various software programs, databases and methods. Such analyses of energy technologies are crucial, as they can reveal the occurrence of hazardous emissions at distinct life cycle stages. In the present paper, a PV panel impact assessment through life cycle analysis is carried out. More precisely, a combination of PV technologies—monocrystalline, multicrystalline, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), amorphous, and ribbon—is studied. The impact categories of ozone depletion, human toxicity, particulate matter, ionising radiation, photochemical ozone formation, acidification, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity, as well as the sectors of human health, ecosystem quality, and environment, are assessed using the openLCA software, the ecoinvent database, the eco-indicator 99, IMPACT 2002+, ReCiPe, and TRACI methods.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is being included formally in EcoDesign regulations. Especially product carbon footprint will be mandatory in Europe. However, life cycle impact assessment including global warming potential (GWP) in LCA is hampered by several challenges. One of these is lack of water vapor characterization indexes for GWP. A life cycle inventory profile for air transport fuel including water vapor emissions is evaluated with state-of-the-art practice, i.e. EF Method and ILCD 2011 Midpoint+ and neglecting water vapors high altitude GWP compared to carbon dioxide. Then the characterization factor in GWP100 for water vapor and alternate normalization for particulates are introduced. The results are compared. The main findings are that the EF method and ILCD both generate rather realistic results for Particulate Matter and Respiratory Inorganics mid-point indicators, respectively, but the amount of premature deaths should be better allocated to different specific emissions, and that water vapor may dominate the GWP100 result over the usual carbon dioxide. LCIA mid-points need measurable and understandable bases. The common knowledge of water vapor’s GWP100 should not be neglected in LCIA for air transport and beyond where relevant.

In all forms of folk beliefs, ancestor worship is a universal traditional belief form of the Vietnamese people. As a Vietnamese people, “everyone worships their ancestors, everyone worships their parents and grandparent”. Ancestor worship is a common belief in the whole country. It is a belief that expresses the deeply humanistic spirit of the Vietnamese people and has great values in human life. So, what is the nature of ancestor worship? What is the values of ancestor worship in life? And in the context of globalization, how has this the belief changed? This study focuses on analyzing the above contents, thereby highlighting the value of this belief in the spiritual life of Vietnamese people; to point out the positive and negative changes of this belief in the current period; from that, take the right measures to bring into play the positive and limit the negative side of those changes in the spiritual life of Vietnamese people.

The relationship between perception of anxiety and quality of life in caregivers of children with autism was verified. To verify quality of life, the Short Form Healthy Survey Item was used; perception of anxiety was assessed using the Beck Anxiety Inventory. 80 caregivers of children with autism participated, with 68.7% of caregivers being mothers. Of the total number of caregivers, 68.8% had a severe level of anxiety. Regarding quality of life, they demonstrated greater impairment in Limitation due to physical aspects, Limitation due to emotional aspects, Vitality and Pain. Caregivers with severe anxiety levels had worse quality of life in the domains of pain (p = 0.012), social aspects (p =&lt; 0.001), limitation due to emotional aspects (p = 0.001) and mental health (p =&lt; 0.001). However, in the functional capacity domain, caregivers with a moderate level of anxiety had a better physical capacity score (p = 0.001). There was a negative correlation between the general anxiety score and the general physical (p = 0.029) and general emotional component of quality of life (p =&lt; 0.001). It was found that caregivers of children with ASD present losses related to psychological factors, quality of life and the lack of social support.

Understanding the origins of life involves dealing with the unresolved question of how the first informational polymers and cell-like structures emerged from prebiotic chemistry. The formation of thermal proteinoids through the heating of mixtures of amino acids, leading to the spontaneous formation of protocells enclosed by membranes, presents a compelling model for the synthesis of polypeptides in an abiogenic context. Recent research has revealed the presence of electrical excitability and signal processing capacities in proteinoids, indicating the possibility of primitive cognitive functions and problem-solving capabilities. The present study provides a comprehensive examination of the features shown by heat proteinoids and their potential significance in the context of the artificial formation of polypeptides during the early stages of Earth’s development. Experiments showcasing the possibility for unconventional computing with proteinoids as well as modelling proteinoid assemblies into synthetic proto-brains are given. Proteinoids’ robust abiogenic production, biomimetic features, and computational capability shed light on potential phases in the evolution of polypeptides and primitive life from the primordial environment.

Anthracnose is caused by the fungus Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Penz.) being the main disease that affects the soursop fruits. The objective was to evaluate the effect of chitosan-based coatings with essential oils on the physiological, antifungal, and shelf-life properties of soursop. Chitosan-based coatings were made with essential oils of cinnamon and thyme and applied to soursop. The parameters evaluated were respiration and ethylene by gas chromatography, shelf life, weight loss, total soluble solids, color, maturity index, and titratable acidity. Chitosan obtained had a molecular weight of 169 kDa and 83% degree of deacetylation, respiration, and ethylene values showed a significant reduction of 47 and 50%, with coatings. Weight loss was reduced by up to 50%, even on inoculated fruits, and shelf life increased by two days. The chitosan-based coatings with essential oils are a good alternative to improve the quality of soursop and decrease the effect of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides.

Canine hypoadrenocorticism is a rare chronic disease, which demands intense dog-owner interaction, as its treatment requires to be individualised. The aim of this study was a qualitative analysis of the challenges owners face when dealing with the disease, especially regarding its management and how this affects quality of life. By promoting an online discussion between owners, we transcribed and summarised their experiential knowledge in dealing with the disease. Owners were recruited for the online seminars via social media. After a theoretical introduction, participants were free to share experiences and ask questions. The recorded events were retrospectively analysed. Twenty-four owners of 22 Addisonian dogs took part in four events. Owners felt most “traumatised” when experiencing their dog’s acute adrenal crisis. The initial adjustment phase and distinguishing the non-specific symptoms of hypoadrenocorticism from those of other diseases were also challenging. Overall, owners were well informed on the disease and committed to its long-term adjustment. Adrenal crisis and the initial adjustment phase may be more burdening to owners than expected. Understanding what their clients’ concerns are, can help veterinarians provide better care and reduce the negative impacts of canine hypoadrenocorticism. Promoting peer to peer support, as well as providing a framework for participative communication might also help.

Children living in residential care homes (RCH) often present conditions of abandonment due to separation, abuse and mistreatment; circumstances that are detrimental to proper emotional development, resulting in poor self-confidence, aggressive behaviors, low self-esteem, anxiety, among other developmental problems. Additionally, pandemic lockdown hinders access to mental health services for RCH service providers, and limits children to external mental health support and resources. The objective of this study was to design and evaluate the effectiveness of a remote-applied Emotional-Intelligence-based intervention program (RA-EIBI) for children living in RCH during pandemic lockdown. A non-parametric pre-test, treatment, post-test comparative design was used to evaluate effectiveness of the intervention program. Seven children living in RCH during pandemic lockdown were initially assessed using Evaluation of Neurological Soft Signs, and Empathy Quotient (EQ-I) to estimate emotional intelligence quotient. A 10 session RA-EIBI program was designed and applied to the children after initial assessment, and a final evaluation was conducted to perform related samples comparisons. Results shown a non-significant mean increase of intrapersonal, interpersonal, stress management, adaptability, and emotional state, all emotional intelligence-related skills. A RA-EIBI program is an accessible resource for RCH, and children living under this condition. EI skills were maintained along the social isolation period due to COVID-19. Followup of emotional conditions of children demonstrated an improvement in self-perceived well-being.

Abstract Despite the lightning-fast advances in the management of SARS-CoV after 2 years of pandemic, COVID-19 continues to pose a challenge for fragile patients, who could benefit from early administration of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to reduce the risk of severe disease progression. We conducted a prospective study to evaluate effectiveness of mAbs against SARS-CoV-2 among patients at risk for severe disease progression, namely elderly and those with comorbidities, before the omicron variant surge. Patients were treated with either casirivimab/imdevimab, sotrovimab, and bamlanivimab/etesevimab. The rates and risk factos for clinical worsening, hospitalization, ICU admission and death (unfavourable outcomes) were evaluated. A stratified analysis according to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG was also performed. Among 185 included patients, we showed low rates of unfavorable outcomes (9.2%), which were more frequent in patients with chronic kidney disease (aOR: 10.44, 95CI: 1.73-63.03; p<0.05) and basal D-dimer serum concentrations >600 ng/ml (aOR 21.74, 95CI: 1.18-397.70; p<0.05). Patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 serology at baseline showed higher C-reactive protein values compared with patients with positive serology (p <0.05) and showed a trend toward a higher admission rate to SICU and ICU compared with patients with positive serology. Our results thus showed, in a real-life setting, the efficacy of mAbs against SARS-CoV-2 before Omicron surge when the available mabs become not effective.

The world’s human population is reaching record longevities. Consequently, our societies are experiencing the impacts of prolonged longevity, such as increased retirement age. A major hypothesised influence on ageing patterns is resource limitation, formalised under calorie restriction theory. This theory predicts extended organismal longevity due to reduced calorie intake without malnutrition. However, several challenges face current calorie restriction (CR) research and, although several attempts have been made to overcome these challenges, there is still a lack of holistic understanding of how CR shapes organismal vitality. Here, we conduct a literature review of 222 CR peer-reviewed publications to summarise the state-of-the-art in the field. We use this summary to highlight challenges of CR research in our understanding of its impacts on longevity. Our review demonstrates that experimental research in this field is biased towards short-lived species (98.2% of studies examine species with <5 years of mean life expectancy) and lacks realism in key areas, such as stochastic environments or interactions with other environmental drivers such as temperature. We argue that only by considering a range of short- and long-lived species and by taking more realistic approaches can the impacts of CR on longevity be examined and validated in natural settings. We conclude by proposing experimental designs and study species that will allow the discipline to gain a much-needed understanding of how restricting caloric intake affects long-lived species in realistic settings. Through incorporating more experimental realism, we anticipate crucial insights that will ultimately shape the myriad of socio-bio-economic impacts of senescence in humans and other species across the Tree of Life.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely recognized tool used to evaluate environmental impacts of a product or process, based on the environmental inventory database and bills of material. Data quality is one of the most significant factors affecting the analysis results. However, currently most datasets in inventory databases are generic i.e., they may represent material and energy flow of a process at market average, instead of a specific process used by a manufacturer. As a result, stockholders are unable to track their supply chain to find out the actual environmental impact from each supplier and to compare the environmental performance of alternative options. In this paper, we developed a new framework i.e., blockchain based LCA (BC-LCA), where block-chain technology is adapted to secure and transmit inventory data from upstream suppliers to downstream manufacturers. With BC-LCA, more specific data can be acquired along the supply chain in a real-time manner. Moreover, the availability, accuracy, privacy, and automatic update of inventory data can be improved. A case study is provided based on an industrial supply chain, to demonstrate the utilization of BC-LCA.

Background: The tsunami and earthquake occurred in 1927 and 2018 made life quality of Da’a Tribe women in refugee camps was affected by violence. It affects on women reproductive health in various aspects of life as high maternal mortality rate of 450 per 100 thousand live births and half of women victims of natural disasters have reproductive health problems such as anemia and malnutrition during pregnancy. The study objective is to explore the health quality of women related to the couple violence during the humanitarian crisis at refugees’ camps. Method: The population was 798 cases of violence. The 90 samples were selected by simple random sampling and calculated by Slovin method. Data analysis was done by descriptive qualitative and cross tabulation. The research location was Palu City. Results: The research findings showed that health quality of Da’a Tribe women after the couple violence is influenced by three factors, namely economic by 40%, psychological by 7%, violence during pregnancy 59.3%. Conclusion: Social life and women violence handling can be done by symbolizing the threat of criminal law for male perpetrators in accordance with applicable laws in Indonesia and improving the life quality of population, especially women in education and skills through empowering the family economy and increasing gender equality justice.

The evolution of life on the planet Earth is happening primarily in the universe and secondary on the Earth. We will examine in this article evolution of life as the cosmic phenomena. In our model multidimensional time-invariant superfluid quantum space that is the fundamental arena of the universe and represents about 95% of the energy in the universe has stable entropy. The increase of entropy happens only by about 5% of the energy in the universe that is in the form of matter. The evolution of life in our model is a process of matter organization into living systems that tends to develop towards the constant entropy of the time-invariant multidimensional quantum space. This process runs in the entire universe. The development of life into intelligent organisms is the universal process running throughout the entire universe.

The mitochondrial network is a dynamic organization within eukaryotic cells that participates in a variety of essential cellular processes, such as ATP synthesis, central metabolism, apoptosis and inflammation. The mitochondrial network is balanced between rates of fusion and fission that respond to pathophysiologic signals to coordinate appropriate mitochondrial processes. Mitochondrial fusion and fission are regulated by proteins that either reside or translocate to the inner or outer mitochondrial membranes or are soluble in the inter-membrane space. Mitochondrial fission and fusion are performed by GTPases on the outer and inner mitochondrial membranes with the assistance of other mitochondrial proteins. Due to the essential nature of mitochondrial function for cellular homeostasis regulation of mitochondrial dynamics is under strict control. Some of the mechanisms used to regulate the function of these proteins are post-translational proteolysis and/or turnover and this review will discuss these mechanisms required for correct mitochondrial network organization.

This paper presents a hypothesis about the origins of life in a clay mineral, starting with the earliest molecules, continuing through the increasing complexity of the development, in neighboring clay niches, of “Metabolism First,” “RNA World,” and other necessary components of life, to the encapsulation by membranes of the components in the niches, to the interaction and fusion of these membrane-bound protocells, resulting finally in a living cell, capable of reproduction and evolution. Biotite (black mica) in micaceous clay is the proposed site for this origin of life. Mechanical energy of moving biotite sheets provides one endless source of energy. Potassium ions between biotite sheets would be the source of the high intracellular potassium ion concentrations in all living cells.

This study explores individual and contextual risk factors for the onset of work interfering with private life (WIL) and private life interfering with work (LIW) among self-employed men and women across European countries. It also studies the relationship between interference (LIW and WIL) and wellbeing among self-employed men and women and the effect of macro level risk factors. Data from the fifth round of European Working Conditions Survey was utilized and a sample of self-employed men and women with active businesses was extracted. Applying multilevel regressions, results show that though business characteristics are important for level of WIL, time demand is the most evident risk factor for WIL and LIW. There is a relationship between wellbeing and WIL and LIW respectively, and time demands is the most important factor in this relationship. Gender equality on the labor market did not relate to level of interference, nor did it mediate the relationship between interference and wellbeing. However, the main and most important risk factor for experiencing WIL and LIW and for how interference relate to wellbeing is gender relation processes in work and life, both on individual and contextual level.

Nowadays, the development of civilization requires a vision of balancing the interests of employees and employers in the sphere of work as never before. Work-life balance is directly linked to social sustainability. The aim of this article is to analyse various dimensions of mutual enrichment of the professional and private life of an individual and to describe how positive experiences in professional and non-professional life influence the improvement of satisfaction, health and achievements, thus enabling the sustainable development of the individual. The conducted research was of a qualitative nature. Thematic exploration was used to analyse the findings of 34 in-depth interviews with experienced HR managers and employees at various levels of enterprises in Poland. The research shows that the work and personal life of the respondents interact, complement, and enrich in different ways, depending on the stage of the employee’s life. Habits developed by practicing a specific sport discipline or other type of hobby are helpful in the effective implementation of professional tasks. Also, non-professional interests, including communing with culture and art have a positive impact on professional activities. On the other hand, the respondents emphasized that thanks to their professional activities, specific to the type of work they perform, they are sometimes more extroverted, meticulous, organized and consistent when performing activities outside of work and in other aspects of private life.

A proposed low-temperature forging method aims to enhance stainless steel bearings by creating a martensitic subsurface layer, significantly boosting bearing fatigue life due to increased surface hardness. This technique induces beneficial residual stresses, particularly in axial bearings, streamlining their construction and improving machine elements. Challenges persist, especially with radial bearings, but simplicity in axial bearing forging promotes compact, resource-efficient facility construction. Future research will focus on applying this technique to axial bearing washers, potentially replicating success in other bearing components. Despite the energy ex-penditure for cooling during forging, the substantial increase in bearing fatigue life offsets this, enhancing overall longevity and reliability of critical machine components. Integration of this forging technique into bearing fabrication appears seamless, offering a promising trade-off be-tween energy use and enhanced performance.

Background: Given the extensive translation of the Prolapse Quality of Life Questionnaire (P-QoL) into many languages, it is imperative to develop an Arabic version to facilitate study on Pelvic organ health within the Arabian culture. Objective: To investigate, cross culturally adapt and validate Arabic version of the P-QoL. Study Design: Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric testing. Methods: A total of 90 participants were included in the study. This cross-sectional study went through two phases; during phase I, the P-QoL was translated and adapted from English into Arabic. The Arabic version was psychometrically validated during phase II using the test-retest reliability internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, convergent construct validity (CC) among the four study tools using Spearman’s coefficient (r) and discriminative validity using Mann-Whitney test to find differences between the means of the two samples. Results: A satisfactory level of semantic, conceptual, idiomatic, and content comparability was reached in the cross-cultural adaptation of the Arabic version of the P-QoL questionnaire. The internal consistency was high in terms of psychometric validation, with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.971 for the P-QoL questionnaire. The test-retest results showed a high reliability with interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of P-QoL = 0.987. The convergent construct validity was highly accepted (moderately strong), reflecting a positive correlation between the Arabic version of the P-QoL and the Australian Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Questionnaire (APFD) r = 0.68 (p &lt; 0.001). Similarly, a significant convergent validity of P-QoL Arabic version and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) r = 0.47 (p &lt; 0.001) was found, as well as the correlation between the APFD and the VAS r = 0.46 (p &lt; 0.001). However, there were no significant correlation between the SF-12, the P-QoL, the APFD, and the VAS. Conclusion: Based on a significant correlation between the Arabic APFD and the VAS, the results reveal good reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity. It is recommended that Arabic-speaking females with pelvic organ prolapse use the Arabic version of the P-QoL. More research is needed to assess the responsiveness of the P-QoL.

There are several forms of maintenance high-efficiency hemodialysis (HD) including hemodiafiltrations (HDF) in different technic modes and expanded HD using dialyzers with medium cut-off membranes. The aim of the study was to assess the intradialytic tolerance and length of dialysis recovery time (DRT) in these modalities. This is an exploratory, cross-over study in maintenance HD patients with low comorbidity and no clinical indications for the use of high-efficiency HD, who were exposed to five intermittent dialysis in random order: high flux hemodialysis (S-HD), expanded HD (HDx), pre-dilution HDF (PRE-HDF), mix-dilution HDF (MIX-HDF) and post-dilution HDF (POST-HDF). 24 dialysis sessions of each method were included in the analysis. Dialysis parameters including blood flow rate, dialysis fluid flow rate and temperature, and pharmacological treatment were constant. Average total convection volume for post-HDF, pre-HDF and mix-HDF were 25.6 (3.8), 61.5 (7.2) and 47.1 (11.4) l, respectively. During all therapies, patients had similar hydration status monitored using bioimpedance spectroscopy and similar variability over time in systemic blood pressure, cardiac output, and peripheral resistance monitored using impedance cardiography. The lowest frequency of all intradialytic adverse events were observed during HDx. Delayed DRT was the shortest during PRE-HDF. Patients were also more likely to report immediate recovery while receiving PRE-HDF. These differences did not reach statistical significance, however the study results suggest that, intradialytic tolerance and DRT may depend on the dialysis method used. This support the need of taking into account patient preferences and quality of life while individualizing high efficiency therapy in HD patients.

By virtue of the knowledge of the beneficial effect of the warm and dry storage, for the growth of the chincuya seed embryo, defined as morphological dormancy. The effect of the same type of storage was studied for the seed viability and germination by soaking gibberellic acid. Also, fatty acids and their kinetics were identified during the warm and dry storage. The following treatments were evaluated: storage time (0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months), seed soaking in gibberellic acid at 350 mg L-1, and for the control, imbibition in distilled water, both for 72 h. The seed viability was evaluated through the stain test with tetrazolium chloride. The embedded seeds were germinated on absorbent paper towels and incubated at different temperatures of 30 ° C during the day and 25 ° C at night and 12 hours of photoperiod. The lipid profile was developed by gas chromatography. Seeds were held at constant temperature of 25 ± 3 ° C, in darkness, during the storage time. Results demon-strated that the high initial viability was maintained until the ninth month, when it decreases and is statisti-cally different from the other treatments. The smaller germination percentage (26.1 %) was observed in the freshly harvested seeds and, the higher one corresponded to the six months (65.6 %), with these differences being statistically significant. Regarding the identified fatty acids and their average content, it was found that 33.41 % corresponded to palmitic acid, 7.72 % to stearic acid; the arachidic acid with 1.30 %, making a total of saturated fatty acids of 42.44 %. The detected unsaturated fatty acids were: palmitoleic acid 1.52 %, oleic acid 43.37 % and linoleic acid 7.24 %, in total, 52.15 %. No significative changes were observed in the fatty acids content that are the largest part of the total seed reserves; although the higher concentrations matched with the longest germination (three months), with an average of 92.84 % total fatty acids. Specified regressions indi-cated with statistical robustness that palmitoleic and palmitic acids increased while the oleic acid decreased during the dry storage. The arachidic acid showed a slightly downward trend. Also, the concentrations of fat-ty acids were significatively different between unstored and unincubated seeds (intact) and unstored and in-cubated, but without germinating seeds (dormant), in the latter, the total fatty acids content was significantly lower. Given that the application of gibberellic acid and warm dry storage favored germination, as well as the change in fatty acid content during warm dry storage, added to the results already reported on morphological changes and embryonic growth as an effect of the same type of storage, it is established that Annona purpurea seeds present morphophysiological dormancy, also this is the first identification report of arachidic and pal-mitoleic acids in chincuya seeds and the higher germination percentage reported (65.6 %).

The study conducts a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis to assess the environmental impact of two different manufacturing processes used to produce transparent dental aligners. The former method consists of thermoforming a polymeric disc over 3D printed, customized models, while the second, more innovative approach involves the direct printing of aligners using additive manufacturing (AM), specifically applying digital light processing (DLP) technology. The analysis results highlight how adopting direct printing through AM brings significant advantages in terms of environmental sustainability, thanks to the substantial reduction in raw materials and electricity consumption. These drops translate into decreased potential environmental impacts across all impact categories considered within the EF 3.1 method. Furthermore, lowering the amount of raw materials needed in the direct printing process contributes to a notable decrease in the overall volume of waste generated, emphasising the environmental benefits of this innovative technique.

The global construction sector contributes a significant share of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In Australia, infrastructure activity alone generates 18% of the GHG emissions budget. The use of low-embodied carbon building materials is crucial to achieving sustainability in the construction sector and to fulfill national and international climate goals. Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is considered a promising feedstock for sustainable construction materials because of its biogenic carbon content, fast-growing cycles with low agricultural input requirements, and technical functionality which is comparable to traditional materials. This study has applied the life cycle assessment (LCA) guideline of ISO 14040:2006 to estimate the carbon footprint (CF) expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) emissions of hemp-based building materials in Western Australia. The functional unit is 1 m2 of hemp-based board, and the system boundary includes cradle-to-gate stages, i.e., pre-farm, on-farm, and post-farm activities. The production of 1 m2 of hemp-based board is estimated to be - 2.302 kgCO2eq. Electricity from the public grid for lignin extraction during the post-farm stage is the main contributor to total CO2eq emissions (26%), followed by urea production (14%) during the pre-farm stage. Overall, the use of electricity from the SWIS during the post-farm stage accounts for 45% of total emissions. Sensitivity analysis shows that the CF of hemp-based boards is highly sensitive to the source of energy, i.e., total replacement of the SWIS by solar power decreases the CF from - 2.30 to -6.07 kgCO2eq (164%). The results suggest that hemp-based boards exhibit lower embodied GHG emissions compared to traditional materials, such as gypsum plasterboards.