This research analyzed the impact of quality of service as perceived by Hapkido students on their exercise continuation and recommendation intentions. It also identified the measures to reduce the rate of student dropout, strengthen competitiveness, and create more efficient marketing strategies for consumer patterns that are rapidly diversifying Hapkido. A questionnaire survey method was conducted with 300 middle and high school students aged 14–19 years having Hapkido training of three months to two years in Incheon and Bucheon during March–April 2019. Frequency, factor, reliability, correlation, and standard multiple regression analyses were conducted on the surveyed data. The conclusions are as follows. First, considering the impact of service quality on exercise continuation intention, service quality positively affects reliability, personification, and perceptual openness; in terms of possibility, it positively affects typicality, personification, and perceptual openness; and in terms of reinforcement, it positively affects reliability and perceptual openness. Second, examining the impact of service quality on recommendation intention positively affects reliability, personification, and perceptual openness. Third, exercise continuation intention positively affects recommendation intention.

Background: Health management is gaining importance as a business resource to enhance employee well-being. The rise of remote work during COVID-19 impacted lifestyle habits. This study explores the impact of tele-exercise intervention on remote workers' lifestyle habits, aiming to improve health and productivity. Methods: This study divided into remote (G1) and face-to-face (G2) groups. Over three months, G1 followed a 30-minute weekly exercise program. Measurements and questionnaires were collected at three time points covering areas like presenteeism, weight, sleep, stress, job satisfaction, and happiness. Data underwent Two-way repeated measures ANOVA, Autocorrelation, Correlation Analysis, and Correspondence Analysis to assess differences and relationships between G1 and G2. Results: ANOVA showed that a significant difference was observed in Daily Stress (DS) between G1 and G2, with G1 exhibiting higher DS. Autocorrelation Analyses showed for G1 that strong relationships each of BMI, Presenteeism (PST), Daily Stress (DS), Stress Relief (SR), Sleep Quality (SQ), Purpose of Work (PW), and Satisfaction of Life (SL) in the time frame. Correlation Analysis showed for G1 that the pairs of PRS and SQ, and DS and SL had strong positive relationships, and the pairs of BMI and PRS, and BMI and SQ had strong negative relationships. Autocorrelation Analyses showed for G2 that strong relationships each of SR, Stress due to Remote Work (SRW), ST, SQ, and PW in the time frame. Correspondence Analysis showed that that G1 was encompassed in a job and life satisfaction area, and G2 was encompassed in a sleep and stress for weight control area.

Background: Exercise is an accepted intervention to improve the quality of life (QoL) of breast cancer patients. Exercise programs have been developed and all have shown satisfactory results in improving QoL. There is a lack of research comparing different prescription modalities. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of physical exercise (in-person, home-based, prescription) on QoL in breast cancer patients actively undergoing treatment; Methods Quasi-experimental study with randomized assignment to three groups (in-person: guided and supervised in-person exercise program; home-based exercise: guided and supervised exercise program with streaming monitoring; recommendation: exercise recommendation). Quality of life was measured using the QLQ-C30 questionnaire. Baseline and 24-week analysis. Results: The total sample analyzed was n=80. QoL improved significantly at 24 weeks in the face-to-face and home-based exercise groups, but not in the advice group. Exercise in all modalities improved fatigue, nausea, vomiting, appetite, and constipation. QoL at 24 weeks depended on active chemotherapy, tumor type, and assigned exercise group (r2 = 0.503; p < 0.001). Conclusions: QoL in breast cancer patients undergoing active treatment improves after a 24-week exercise program, especially in face-to-face and home-based exercise. Home-based exercise, streaming-based recommendation is a viable option for exercise recommendation.

Background: The aim of the present work is the elaboration of a systematic review of existing research on physical fitness, self-efficacy for physical exercise, and quality of life in adulthood. Method: Using the PRISMA statement guidelines, and based on the findings in 396 articles, the final sample was composed of 31 articles, which were reviewed to show whether self-efficacy has previously been studied as a mediator in the relationship between physical fitness and quality of life in adulthood. Results: The results indicate that little research exists in relation to healthy, populations with the majority being people with pathology. Physical fitness should be considered as a fundamental aspect in determining the functional capacity of the person. Conclusions: We discuss the need to investigate the mediation of self-efficacy in relation to the value of physical activity on quality of life and well-being in the healthy adult population in adult life.

In recent decades, as eutrophication in inland and coastal waters (ICWs) has increased due to anthropogenic activities and global warming, so has the need for timely monitoring. Compared with traditional sampling and laboratory analysis methods, satellite remote sensing technology can provide macro-scale, low-cost, and near real-time water quality monitoring services. The Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), integrated onboard the Communication Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) from the Republic of Korea, was the first geostationary ocean color observation satellite and was operational from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2021. Over ten years, GOCI has observed oceans, coastal waters, and inland waters within its 2,500 km×2,500 km target area centered on the Korean Peninsula. The most attractive feature of GOCI, compared with other commonly used watercolor sensors, was its high temporal resolution (1h, eight times daily from 0 UTC to 7 UTC), providing the opportunity to monitor the quality of ICWs, where optical properties can change rapidly throughout the day. This systematic review aims to comprehensively review GOCI features and applications in ICWs, analyzing progress in atmospheric correction algorithms and water quality monitoring. Analyzing 123 articles from the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) through a bibliometric quantitative approach, we examined GOCI’s strength and performance with different processing methods. These articles reveal that GOCI played an essential role in monitoring the ecological health of ICWs in its observation area in East Asia. GOCI has led the way to a new era of geostationary ocean satellites, providing new technical means for monitoring water quality in oceans, coastal zones, and inland lakes. We also discuss the challenges encountered by geostationary satellites in monitoring water quality and provide suggestions for improvements.

Many farms are replacing the lighting with light emitting diode (LED) bulbs because of the technological modernization. We aimed to investigate the effects of incandescent light (IL) and LED lighting on Cobb500 broiler chickens for six weeks. Production parameters (body weight, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio), calculated slaughter values (yield%, relative breast%, thigh%) and breast meat quality parameters (pH at 45 min and 24 h postmortem, color, drip loss, kitchen equipment losses, shear force, meat composition) were recorded. Non-stop recordings were used to analyze the behavior of the birds in several periods of the rearing. LED group was significantly better in body weigh parameter between week 1-5 and feed conversion ratio between week 2-3. The most significant difference in behavior was observed in the middle of the rearing period. The chickens in the LED group spent more eating time, drinking time, interacting, and resting less. There was no difference in the meat quality parameters, only shear force was significantly lower in the LED group (1781.95±0.33 g/s vs. 2098.82±0.42 g/s). Based on our results, LED lighting can bring positive changes in animal production efficiency, behavior, and important characteristics for meat consumers.

The high genetic diversity of the tomato and its high micronutrient content make this fruit very interesting from an economic and nutritional point of view. The genetic erosion suffered by this crop, due to breeding objectives based on yield and marketing, makes it necessary to return to the origins in search of the nutritional and organoleptic quality lost in traditional varieties. In this study, the agronomic, physical, organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of eighteen F1 hybrids obtained by crossing fourteen traditional varieties, previously selected for their quality, were studied to select genotypes of superior quality that could be candidates for new. All parameters studied were strongly influenced by genotype, showing a wide range between cultivars. Principal Component Analysis revealed the characteristics of each hybrid that made it stand out from the others. Some hybrids (H3, H4, and H6) stand out because of their high concentration of active compounds, others (H16, H15, H10, H17, H9, and H11) because of agronomic performance and high content of β-carotene, and H5 was the only one to contain chlorophyll in their ripe fruits. Finally, the evaluation index allowed the selection of five hybrids with interesting characteristics, combining good yield performance and high quality

Nowadays, determining the socioeconomic factors' influence on environmental quality is a crucial issue for policymakers. We aim to explore the impact of socioeconomic factors i.e., ethnic conflicts inform ethnic fragmentation, institutions quality effectiveness, and energy consumption on environmental quality by testing the various hypotheses (Pollution Halo Hypothesis, IPAT, and EKC) in 40 selected Asian countries throughout 1993-2019. We also use a set of control variables which are gross domestic product per capita, foreign direct investment inflows, and population growth to determine their impact on environmental quality. We use the Panel Quintile Regression Method of 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 to analyze the results. We find ethnic conflict negatively affects the environmental quality at all quantiles. The institution's variables regulatory quality and rule of law negatively influence the environmental quality. Our result supports Porter's hypothesis because the effect of direct foreign investment on the amount of CO2 emissions is negative and significant at 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 quantiles which states that foreign direct investment in the host country supports environmental quality. Furthermore, our results support the IPAT hypothesis in selected Asian countries.

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

In addition to the traditional QoS metrics of delay, delay jitter, and packet loss probability (PLP), Quality of Experience (QoE) is now widely accepted as a numerical proxy for actual user experience. The literature has reported many mathematical mappings between QoE and QoS. These QoS parameters are measured by the network providers using sampling. There are some papers studying sampling errors in QoS measurements; however there is no account of propagation of these sampling errors to QoE evaluation. In this paper, we used industrially acquired measurements of PLP and jitter to evaluate the sampling errors and correlation in measurements. Focussing on Video-on-demand (VoD) applications, we use subjective testing and regression to map QoE metrics onto PLP and jitter. The resulting mathematical functions of QoE and theory of error propagation was used to evaluate the propagated error in QoE, and this error was represented as confidence interval. Using the guidelines of UK government for sampling, our results indicate that confidence intervals around estimated QoE in a busy hour can be between MOS=1 to MOS=5 at targeted operating point of QoS parameters. These results are a new perspective on QoE evaluation, and are of great significance to all organisations that need to estimate the QoE VoD applications precisely.

Mirror Therapy (MT) and Cognitive Therapeutic Exercise (CTE) are two neurorehabilitation techniques based on neuroplasticity and designed to enhance the functionality of the upper limb. Therefore, the aim is to assess the effectiveness of the combination of CTE and MT with task-oriented training (TOT) on fine and gross motor skills of the affected hand, as well as the functionality of the affected upper limb, autonomy, independence, and quality of life (QoL) in patients with acute stroke. This longitudinal and multicenter study involved a sample of 120 participants selected randomly and consecutively. Three groups were formed, including a control group (CG) and two treatment groups, one with MT and the other with CTE. The functionality of the upper limb, fine and gross motor skills, the quantity and quality of use of the affected upper limb, autonomy, and QoL were evaluated using various scales validated in the Spanish population at the baseline, after 20 treatment sessions, and at three months of follow-up. ANCOVA analysis was conducted, revealing statistically significant differences between assessments in the CG compared to the experimental groups (GEs), indicating a notable improvement in overall functionality, fine and gross motor skills, autonomy, and QoL in the latter. However, there were no significant differences between the GEs. Therefore, the application of either of these experimental combinations is crucial for the motor recovery, functionality, and improvement of the quality of life of individuals who have suffered a stroke.

Maize silage is produced to alleviate forage shortage on dairy animals, particularly during the dry season. Microorganisms play a significant role in silage fermentation and thus determine the silage quality. Therefore, modulation of microorganisms in silage may help prohibit undesired bacteria and improve silage quality. Hence, this study evaluated the effects of tannin extract as an additive on fermentative quality, aerobic stability and microbial composition of maize silage. Therefore, a mini-silo experiment of maize with five treatments was conducted for 75 days. The results showed that additives modulate silage microorganisms. In addition, tannin extract reduced certain silage bacteria while promoting others. However, this is without affecting the silage’s fermentative quality and aerobic stability. All silage fermented well with a pH below 4.2. Tannin extract improved dry matter recovery of silage while reducing silage weight loss. Furthermore, tannin extract suppressed the establishment of undesired bacteria, such as genera Dysgonomonas, Gluconacetobacter and Clostridium, while promoting desirable bacteria, such as genera Lactobacillus and Weissella, which attributed to silage quality. Therefore, it is concluded that tannins can be strategically used as silage additives to modulate microbial composition of silage and improve silage quality by promoting the dominance of desirable bacteria in silage.

IT auditing quality has been defined by results obtained in the process. Meanwhile, multiple studies have been done to enhance it therefore, it continues to be a topic interest and research so it is worth mentioning that its quality relies on trained competent auditors and experts able to develop a process correctly, adapting to clients and to manage auditing inherent risks According to results from the IT audit, low quality and security levels have been identified in terms of the human, technical and contextual factors, affecting audit quality. The objective of this investigation is to identify metrics and to determine their own corresponding factor applying an exploratory type of research. In order to achieve such aim, a targeted survey was designed and implemented at the Institute of Internal Auditors of Ecuador since they have the knowledge and expertise in the field. A factor analysis statistics technique was applied to data gathered to verify that it relates to the identified factors as dimensions are reduced, thus the most impacting metrics may assess the quality of IT audits. Analysis results yielded a mean score for each one of the assessed metrics, concluding that the technical factor is the most significative since it relates roles and task performance during the auditing process as well as control proce-dures. Finally, most auditing quality-related issues are mainly the outcome of an inferior management auditing process, therefore it is crucial that collegiate groups and professionals in the field validate the auditing process.

Soil quality is related to food security and human survival and development. In recent years, due to the acceleration of urbanization and the increase of abandoned land, land degradation occurs, poor topsoil quality. In this study, the minimum data set (MDS) was constructed through principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the indicator data set for evaluating topsoil quality in Tieling County, China. In addition, the soil quality index (SQI) was calculated to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing reasons of topsoil quality in Tieling County. The re-sults showed that MDS included total potassium (TK), Clay, zinc (Zn), soil organic matter (SOM), soil water content (SWC), cation exchange capacity (CEC), pH, and copper (Cu). The MDS indicators can well replace all indicators to evaluate the topsoil quality in the study area. The overall soil quality of Tieling County showed a trend of low in the east and high in the west, and gradually increased from the hilly area to the plain area. The evaluation results are consistent with field research, which can provide reference for other topsoil quality evaluation, and it also provide a basis for the formulation of soil quality improvement measures.

Abstract: In Australia adoption of reduced tillage and stubble retention cropping systems to conserve soil moisture by growers has seen an increase in the prevalence of the disease Fusarium crown rot (FCR) caused by the stubble-borne fungal pathogen Fusarium pseudograminearum. Durum wheat is particularly susceptible to FCR expressing significant yield and quality losses in the presence of infection. Increasing rates of nitrogen (N) application at sowing exacerbates FCR. However, to achieve the desired grain protein and quality suited to pasta manufacture, N application is necessary and this creates a dilemma for growers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of FCR infection in the presence of different N fertiliser application rates in durum wheat varieties on yield and technological quality. Two durum varieties were evaluated at the same location over two seasons (2020 and 2021). These seasons were characterised by being wetter than normal and showed different responses to FCR and N application. In general, the 2021 season showed better responses to applied N with no impact of FCR. The FCR inoculation while it resulted in significant infection, it had no impacts on yield or grain quality in 2021 while in 2020 yield was reduced and only gluten index was reduced. Jandaroi was found to hold its kernel vitreosity at all protein levels obtaining the premium grade while DBA Lillaroi did not and would suffer downgrade if N application was insufficient. However, higher N application rates needed to achieve 12% + protein saw a reduction in dough strength with Jandaroi holding its dough strength much better than DBA Lillaroi. This was related to the lower glutenin/gliadin (Gli/Glu) ratio in response to applied N at sowing in Jandaroi which helped retain kernels with high vitreousness. This suggests genetics plays an important role in a genotype response to N fertilisation and should be considered when selecting a variety where higher premium grades are desirable.

Abstract：This paper uses the balanced panel data from 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China for a total of 17 years from 2000 to 2016 as a research sample, and establishes an empirical model to examine the impact of environmental regulations and technological innovation on the quality of economic growth. Then this paper test technological innovation as a threshold variable, in which play a regulatory role. Taking the provincial balanced panel data as a research sample, a fixed effect model, a system GMM model, and a panel threshold model were established for empirical testing and the robustness test. Based on the empirical results, this article draws the following conclusions: from a national perspective, environmental regulations and technological innovation can significantly promote the quality of economic growth; from a regional perspective, there are regional differences in impact effects. Under the constraints of environmental regulations, the promotion effect of technological innovation on the quality of economic growth will be reduced; the impact of environmental regulation on the quality of economic growth will have a "threshold effect", and environmental regulation can significantly promote the quality of economic growth only after crossing the threshold and the threshold of technological innovation.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate and compare sleep quality between patients with chronic temporomandibular disorder and healthy controls, and to analyze the association of sleep quality with disease characteristics, obstructive sleep apnea risk factors, and excessive daytime sleepiness. Methods: Chronic temporomandibular disorder patients (n=503) and 180 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included, who completed well-organized clinical report and answered questions on sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), sleep apnea risk factors (STOP-Bang questionnaire), and excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth sleepiness scale). Results: Mean global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores were significantly higher in the patients (6.25±2.77) than in healthy controls (6.25±2.77) (p<0.001). Poor sleep was significantly more prevalent in the patient group (56.9%) than in healthy controls (22.2%) (p<0.001). Compared with healthy controls, chronic temporomandibular disorder patients had a higher likelihood of obstructive sleep apnea. (STOP-Bang total score ≥3; 7.2% vs. 16.1%; p<0.01) and higher excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth sleepiness scale score ≥10; 12.8% vs. 19.7%; p<0.05). Age (odds ratio=2.551; p<0.001), female sex (odds ratio=1.885; p=0.007), total Epworth sleepiness scale score (odds ratio=1.839; p=0.014), and headache attributed to temporomandibular disorder (odds ratio=1.519; p=0.049) were the most powerful predictors of poor sleep (global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score ≥5) in chronic temporomandibular disorder patients. Conclusion: Chronic temporomandibular disorder patients had sleep quality impairment. Various factors, including peripheral and central factors, affect the patient's sleep quality. Therefore, in addition to sleep quality and sleep-related problems, the underlying central mechanism for poor sleep quality should be assessed when treating chronic temporomandibular disorder patients.

The water quality index (WQI) and irrigational index for groundwater were studied in the northeastern section of the Manipur Valley in northeast India. Water samples were collected in 2022 during the pre-monsoon season. To compute the water quality index for drinking water, the basic chemical parameters of total hardness, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, Ca2+, Na+, Fe, Mg2+, Mn, Cl-, and HCO3, were used. The assessment of bacteriological quality is also done, which is crucial for overall water quality evaluation, alongside physical and chemical analyze. For determining irrigation suitability, irrigational indices such as sodium absorption ratio, sodium percentage, and magnesium hazard were calculated. WQI, %Na+, SAR, magnesium hazard, permeability Index and total hardness indicate that most water samples are harmless for irrigation and drinking purpose. They have affirmative relationships indicating that these characteristics are interdependent. Approximately 25% of the Piedmont zone groundwater is found to be unfit for agricultural and drinking usage. The encrustation of gypsum, halite, and evaporation into the Disang shares accelerate the dissolution of ions in Piedmont water, resulting in quality degradation. According to Gibbs plots, Durov Scatter Plot, and Hill Piper Trilinear Diagram of water dominated the rock-weathering process, while hydro chemical facies progressed from the beginning to the intermediate stage of Chadha's graphical representation illustrates the progression of hydro chemical processes in surface water. Therefore, proper integrated water resource management and development are required for effective water resource utilization, particularly around the Piedmont zone. To prevent a water crisis, groundwater resources must be managed sustainably. The current study also concentrated on a bibliometric examination of groundwater management and access to gauge the state of the field.

Abstract: Background: Multiple factors cause male infertility. To date, there is insufficient data to support claims that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) affect the effectiveness of infertility treatments or decrease fertility. This study aimed to determine the feasibility of male infertility caused by SSRI antidepressants. Methods: This study was a retrospective chart review of Saudi males who are currently or previously treated with SSRIs and attended infertility clinics in KSMC. Medical records of men in an infertility clinic were reviewed to screen the quality of sperm parameters in patients taking SSRIs. Results: In total, 299 men were identified, of whom 29 (9.6%) were exposed to SSRIs, while 270 (90.4%) did not receive SSRIs, defined as the control infertile group. There was a significant difference between the non-SSRI group (34.2 ± 6.9 years) and SSRI group (41.5 ± 3.2 years), p < 0.001. Regarding sperm analysis and the use of SSRIs, the impact of SSRIs use showed no significant differences in sperm liquefaction (p = 0.1), motility (p = 0.17), viscosity (p = 0.16), and sperm count (p = 0.069) with escitalopram, fluoxetine, and paroxetine use. Conclusion: SSRI medication use and the likelihood of developing infertility require larger prospective trials.

As the world's population ages and the resulting health problems become more serious, medical and health policies in developed countries are focused on how to prevent and treat the diseases of the aging population and how to maintain their quality of life. Typical age-related diseases include deafness, cataracts, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, and dementia. Although the mechanisms by which these diseases develop differ, they are all caused by the accumulation of molecular and cellular damage over time. In addition, age-related diseases can cause a decline in physical and mental functions and the ability to perform activities of daily living, as well as the loss of roles in society and a sense of fulfillment in life. Therefore, there is a need for treatment and measures to accurately grasp and maintain their quality of life.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex, multisystem, and profoundly debilitating condition, probably of multifactorial etiology. No effective approved drugs are currently available for its treatment. Several studies have proposed symptomatic treatment with melatonin and zinc supplementation in chronic illnesses; however, little is known about the synergistic effect of this treatment on fatigue-related symptoms in ME/CFS. The primary endpoint of the study was to assess the effect of oral melatonin plus zinc supplementation on fatigue in ME/CFS. Secondary measures included participants’ sleep disturbances, anxiety/depression, and health-related quality of life. A proof-of-concept, 16-week, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial was conducted in 50 ME/CFS patients assigned to receive either oral melatonin (1 mg) plus zinc (10 mg) supplementation (n = 24) or matching placebo (n = 26) once daily. Endpoint outcomes were evaluated at baseline and then reassessed at 8 and 16 weeks of treatment and 4 weeks after treatment cessation, using self-reported outcome measures. Treatment was safe and well-tolerated. The most relevant results were the significant reduction in the perception of physical fatigue in the active group at the final follow-up versus placebo (p < 0.05), and the significant improvement in the physical component summary at all follow-up visits in the experimental group. Our findings suggest that oral melatonin plus zinc supplementation for 16 weeks is safe and potentially effective in reducing fatigue and improving the quality of life in ME/CFS. This clinical study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03000777).

This paper discussed the concept of quality assurance (QA) in higher education and its implications to higher education institutions (HEIs) and the possible challenges. The study evaluated literature concerning QA in Zambia and elsewhere. The findings of the study show that QA is implemented through external and internal mechanisms such as accreditation, registration, institutional auditing, and the use of external examiners, self-evaluation, and peer reviews. The QA implications to HEIs in Zambia are that there is a need for accreditation of academic programmes with the Higher Education Authority (HEA) by HEIs. Further, HEIs should establish QA units to spearhead quality issues, reactive, and introduce the use of external examiners to ensure quality. The challenges identified in the implementation of QA in HEIs include inadequate funding, infrastructure, shortage of qualified academic staff, and lack of standalone QA units in some HEIs. In this regard, it has been recommended among other things, government improve funding in public HEIs, construct infrastructure, HEIs establish QA units, and recruit and retain qualified academic staff to ensure the quality of education.

The dynamic global automotive sector is characterized by an ever-evolving demand for high-quality vehicles and accessible prices. This research tackles the issue of scrap reduction in electric motor manufacturing for the automotive industry, specifically in a Chinese company, by employing the PDCA methodology. The paper delves into the company's background and current landscape, while pinpointing the problem: specific production lines segments experiencing hi-pot issues are the primary source of scrap. The overarching goal is to design and implement a strategy that, leveraging the PDCA approach, reduces scrap generated during the eight-months subassembly (armature) manufacturing process, from its current average of 2.92% to 0.7%, ultimately enabling the company to eliminate hi-pot defects.

The article considers an approach to the problem of assessing the quality of speech during speech rehabilitation as a classification problem. For this, a classifier is built on the basis of an LSTM neural network for dividing speech signals into two classes: before the operation and immediately after. At the same time, speech before the operation is the standard to which it is necessary to approach in the process of rehabilitation. The metric of belonging of the evaluated signal to the reference class acts as an assessment of speech. An experimental assessment of rehabilitation sessions and a comparison of the resulting assessments with expert assessments of phrasal intelligibility were carried out.

(1) Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic presented unique challenges for patients and healthcare providers, especially for those working with obesity and related health problems. E-health has emerged as a crucial tool for the follow-up of users undergoing bariatric surgery during this period, allowing remote monitoring of users' health status and providing access to virtual consultation with health professionals. This study aims to analyze the impact of the use of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic on the results of bariatric surgery and user satisfac-tion with this follow-up. (2) Method: Observational study with retrospective data collection. The variables were divided into several groups: health data, associated comorbidities, quality of life, quality of sleep and satisfaction with telemedicine monitoring. (3) Results: Surgery significantly affected weight loss, in general more than 75% loss of excess weight. Comorbidities, like the qual-ity of life, were reversed over time, with 50% of subjects maintaining excellent levels. Although most users were satisfied with the monitoring, the variables had no relationship. (4) Conclusions: The follow-up assured by telemedicine did not alter the results of bariatric surgery, which may allow us to infer that it may be an option to consider for regular monitoring of the post-bariatric surgery process.

The effect of casein savinase hydrolysate (CSH) usage on frozen dough (1%, 1.5% and 2%, g/100 g flour) was investigated in terms of rheological, thermal, structural characteristics of wheat doughs and the textural and color properties of corresponding breads. Rheological measurement showed that CSH addition into dough led to a reduction of Gʹ and Gʹʹ values, but a similar trend wasn’t observed in frozen dough samples. The increase of protein band intensity was observed for control dough (CD) after frozen storage (-30 °C, 28 days) while there was no increases in band intensities of the doughs with CSH. The freezable water content of unfrozen doughs was decreased gradually with addition of CSH depended on concentration level. Frozen storage caused a notable reduction in α-helices structure of CD sample (p&lt;0.05) while no significant variation was observed for the doughs containing CSH (p&gt;0.05). Lowest specific volume reduction and hardness increment were observed for the breads containing 1.5% and 2% CSH. Frozen storage caused a significant reduction on b* value of bread crust (p&lt;0.05) while no significant effect was observed for L* and a* value during frozen storage (p &gt; 0.05). Overall, CSH incorporation into frozen dough can be an alternative that could reduce the quality deteriorations of frozen bread.

Introduction: This analysis is conducted as a part of a quality improvement project aiming at identifying racial disparity in inpatient stroke quality of care. Methods: Get With The Guidelines (GWTG) database was used to identify all patients discharged with any stroke diagnosis between January and December 2021. Additional chart review was conducted to ensure the accuracy of racial/ethnic categorization. The sample was dichotomized to White vs non-White groups and compared with univariate analysis. Results: The study sample comprised 1,408 encounters (1,347 patients). Mean age 71±15 years, 51% women, 82% White patients, 15% non-White patients, 72% acute ischemic stroke (AIS); 15% transient ischemic attack (TIA), 9% intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), 3% subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), and 1% stroke not otherwise specified. Non-White patients were younger, had fewer concomitant diagnoses, lower proportion of TIA and higher proportion of ICH (p=0.004). In AIS cohort, compared to White patients, non-White patients had less frequent ambulance (p=0.009), arrived to the hospital later than White patients (7.7 hours longer ; p<0.001), had more severe stroke, and had less frequent IV thrombolysis utilization (7% vs 13%; p=0.042). Similarly in the TIA cohort, non-White patients’ utilization of EMS was lower than White patients and their hospital arrival was delayed. In the ICH cohort, non-White patients were younger, had lower frequency of atrial fibrillation, and a non-significant trend towards higher disease severity. The SAH cohort had only 8 non-White patients, 6 of which were transferred to higher level of care hospital within a few hours of arrival, therefore. Importantly, the hospital-based quality metrics such as door-to-CT time, door-to-needle time, and the Joint Commission stroke quality metrics were similar between the two groups. Conclusion: There is a racial disparity in the pre-hospital phase of the stroke chain of survival of non-White patients impacting the IV thrombolysis utilization. The younger age and worse lipid profile and hemoglobin A1C of non-White patients suggest the need for better preventative care starting at young age.

Wastewater (WW) analysis is a critical step in various operations such as control of a WW treatment facility, and speeding-up the analysis of WW quality can significantly improve such operations. This work demonstrates the capability of neural network (NN) regression models to estimate WW characteristic properties such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia (NH3-N), total dissolved substances (TDS), total alkalinity (TA), and total hardness (TH) by training on WW spectral reflectance in the visible to near-infrared spectrum (400nm-2000nm). The dataset contains samples of spectral reflectance intensity, which were the inputs, and the WW parameter levels (BOD, COD, NH3-N, TDS, TA, and TH), which were the outputs. Various NN model configurations were evaluated in terms of regression model fitness. The mean-absolute-error (MAE) was used as the metric for training and testing the NN models, and the coefficient of determination (R2) between the model predictions and true values was also computed to measure how well the NN models predict the true values. With online spectral measurements, the trained neural network model can provide non-contact and real-time estimation of WW quality at minimum estimation error.

In the process of image feature extraction, noise in the image will greatly affect the accuracy of edge detection. In this paper, the image is filtered to remove noise before edge detection by using the algorithm of wavelet transformation. Different wavelet functions are used to decompose image. Based on the experimental results, the best denoising wavelet function is selected. Canny algorithm is used to detect the edge of the denoised image, and the result of edge detection is evaluated according to the Pratt quality factor. It is proved that wavelet transform can improve the edge detection results.

Urban air quality is increasingly becoming a cause for concern for the health of the human population. The poor air quality is already wreaking havoc in major cities of the world, where serious health issues and reduction of average human life by a factor of years are reported. The air quality in developing countries can become worse as they undergo development. The urban air quality varies non-linearly depending upon the various factors such as land use, industrialization, waste disposal, traffic volume, etc. To address this problem, it is necessary to look at the plethora of available literature from multiple perspectives such as types and sources of pollutants, meteorology, urban mobility, urban planning and development, health care, economics, etc. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art in urban air quality. We first review the fundamental background on air quality and present the emerging landscape of urban air quality. We then explore the available literature from multiple urban air quality measurement projects and provides the insights uncovered in them. We then take a look at the sources that are significantly contributing to polluting the air quality. Finally, we highlight open issues and research challenges in dealing with urban air pollution.

This paper addresses the effects of electric power quality on robotics operation. A general overview is reported to highlight the main characteristics of electric power quality and their effects on a powered system by considering an end-users viewpoint. Then, authors outline the influence of voltage dip effects by focusing at robotic grasping applications. A specific case of study is reported as referring to LARM Hand IV, a three-fingers robotic hand, which has been designed and built at LARM in Cassino. A dedicated test rig has been settled up for generating predefined voltage dips. Experimental tests are carried out for evaluating the effects of different types of voltage dips on the grasping of objects.

In order to synchronize foreign policies of governments, firm actions in the form of economic sanctions have long been employed by western countries. Those countries that tend to have independent views and policies are made to undergo economic adversity to fall in line. But the hardest hit by these coercive actions are the ordinary citizens who have to endure immense difficulty with social and economic issues not to mention the human rights violations. This paper provides a review regarding the effect of economic sanctions on mental health and quality of life of Iranian citizens based on data available from Iran post-sanctions. From 2012 stronger sanctions have been implemented on Iran as its nuclear program failed to draw faith in terms of its peaceful execution. Evidence have pointed out that economic sanctions imposed by western countries have a detrimental and destructive effect on the health of individual Iranians and they violated some basic human rights.

Software stands as one of the most rapidly evolving technologies in the present era, characterized by its swift expansion in both scale and complexity which leads to challenges in quality assurance. Software Defect Prediction (SDP) emerges as a methodology crafted to anticipate undiscovered defects, leveraging known defect data from existing codes. This methodology serves to facilitate software quality management, thereby ensuring overall product quality. Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) methodologies exhibit superior accuracy and adaptability compared to traditional statistical approaches catalyzing active researches in this domain. However, it makes us hard to generalize not only because of the disparity between open-source project and commercial project but also the difference on each industrial sectors. Consequently, further research utilizing datasets sourced from diverse real-world sectors becomes imperative to bolster the applicability of these findings. In this study, we utilized embedded software for telecommunication systems of SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS, supplemented by the introduction of nine novel features to train the model, and subsequent analysis of results ensued. Experimental outcomes revealed that the F-measurement metric has been enhanced from 0.58 to 0.63 upon integration of the new features, thereby signifying a performance augmentation of 8.62%. This case study is anticipated to contribute to bolster the application of SDP methodologies within analogous industrial sectors.

The quality of cellular products used in biological research can directly impact the ability to ob-tain accurate results. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a latent virus that spreads extensively world-wide, and cell lines used in experiments may carry EBV and pose an infection risk. The presence of EBV in a single cell line can contaminate other cell lines used in the same laboratory, affecting experimental results. We developed three EBV detection systems: (1) a polymerase chain reac-tion (PCR)-based detection system, (2) a recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-based de-tection system, and (3) a combined RPA-lateral flow assay (LFA) detection system. The mini-mum EBV detection limits were 1×103 copy numbers for the RPA-based and RPA-LFA systems and 1×104 copy numbers for the PCR-based system. Both the PCR and RPA detection systems were applied to 192 cell lines, and the results were consistent with those obtained by the EBV assay methods specified in the pharma-ceutical industry standards of the People's Republic of China. 10 EBV-positive cell lines were identified. The combined RPA-LFA system is simple to operate, allowing for rapid results visualization. This system can be implemented in laborato-ries and cell banks as part of a daily quality control strategy to ensure cell quality and experi-mental safety and may represent a potential new technique for the rapid detection of EBV in clinical samples.

Water quality forecasting is increasingly significant for agricultural management and environmental protection. Enormous amounts of water quality data are increasingly being collected by advanced sensors, which leads to an interest in using data-driven models for predicting trends in water quality. However, the unpredictable background noises introduced during water quality monitoring seriously degrade the performance of those models. Meanwhile, artificial neural networks (ANN) with feed-forward architecture lack the capability of maintaining and utilizing the accumulated temporal information, which leads to biased predictions in processing time series data. Hence, we propose a water quality predictive model based on a combination of Kernal Principal Component Analysis (kPCA) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to forecast the trend of dissolved oxygen. Water quality variables are reconstructed based on kPCA method, which aims to reduce the noise from the raw sensory data and preserve actionable information. With the RNN's recurrent connections, our model can make use of the previous information in predicting the trend in the future. Data collected from Burnett River, Australia was applied to evaluate our kPCA-RNN model. The kPCA-RNN model achieved R2 scores up to 0.908, 0.823 and 0.671 for predicting the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the upcoming 1, 2 and 3 hours, respectively. Compared to current data-driven methods like ANN and SVR, the predictive accuracy of the kPCA-RNN model was at least 8 %, 17 % and 21 % better than the comparative models in these 3 cases. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of the kPAC-RNN modeling technique in predicting water quality variables with noisy sensory data.

NUMMI was one of the most analyzed case studies in terms of joint ventures, management dysfunction, and international globalization. NUMMI is an acronym for New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. This manufacturer was a joint venture between automotive US titan GM and Toyota of Japan. GM wanted to further monetize its Fremont factory, but also had limited opportunities during a US economical recession. Toyota wanted to expand manufacturing operations in the US for the very first time, creating an intriguing collaborative partnership between the two. However, various problems lead to dysfunction through cultural, organizational, or managerial differences. This case study is analyzed through its historical analogical scope, ultimately leading to hypothesizing remediation through an ethical data-driven and total quality management (TQM) approach.

Currently, active and intelligent packaging have been developed to solve the spoilage problem for rich protein foods during storage, especially by adding anthocyanin extracts. In such film system, the antioxidant and antibacterial properties were dramatically increased by adding anthocyanins. The physicochemical properties were enhanced through interactions between active groups in anthocyanins and reactive groups in polymer chains. Additionally, active and intelligent film could monitor the spoilage of rich protein foods in response to pH change. Therefore, this film could monitor the sensory acceptance, and extending the shelf life of rich protein foods simultaneously. In this paper, the structure and functional properties of anthocyanins, the composite actions of anthocyanin extracts and biomass materials, and their reinforced properties of active and intelligent film were discussed. Also, the applications of this film in quality maintenance, shelf-life extension and quality monitoring for fresh meat, aquatic product and milk were summarized. The film that achieves high stability and continuous release of anthocyanins on demand will become an underlying trend in packaging applications for rich protein foods.

Different coffee drying technologies face complex task in ensuring an acceptable final seed moisture content. Drying technology of agricultural commodities aims to maintain and improve the quality of the agricultural products themselves. In addition to maintaining quality, especially from other bacterial attacks, it can last for a long time before further processing. Coffee commodities are promising for the welfare of coffee farmers. Drying technology plays a major role in determining the quality of coffee. Various drying models are applied including the traditional model that until now is still applied, direct drying under solar radiation. However, this drying process is less hygienic and requires a large area. Thus, one of the drying technologies that can accelerate drying time is to vary the air flow in the drying chamber so that the coffee can be determined to reduce the water content with a certain temperature. In this study, it was found that the moisture content of coffee beans dried using a dryer on air flow with variations of velocity in solar collector 1 (DB1) air velocity of 1.0m/s obtained the final mass = 732.249 gr, solar collector 2 (DB2) with air velocity 1.5 m/s obtained the final mass = 774.70 gr, solar collector 3 (DB3) with air velocity 2.0 m/s obtained the final mass = 855.10 gr, solar collector 4 (DB4) with air velocity 2.5 m/s obtained the final mass = 745.79 gr, and solar collector 5 (DB5) with air velocity 3.0 m/s obtained the final mass = 786.40 gr. Water Content DB1=12.0%, DB2=13.6%, DB3=18.5%, DB4=12.9% and DB5=15.2%. The time required for 25 hours with a maximum radiation of 586.9 w/m2, total heat utilized from solar radiation in 3 days =16.663128 MJ/m2. from the initial weight of 1500gr coffee bean samples and dried in five solar collectors with parallel simultaneously. The evaporated water content DB1=51.18%, DB2=48.35%, DB3=42.96%, DB4=50.28% and DB5=47.57%. Based on this research, it was found that the most optimum quality of coffee was by using solar collector 2 (DB2), namely with air flow of 1.5 m/s with average temperature in the drying box DB2=43.68°C, with the quality content of the coffee, Protein content=12.2%, Carbohydrate=22.8% and Free Fatty Acid (ALB) content=0.05%.

This article presents a new design of supporting tethers through the concept of force distribution. The transmitted force applied on tethers will be distributed on the new tether design area resulting in low acoustic energy transferred to anchor boundaries and stored energy enhancement. This technique achieves an anchor quality factor of 175,000 compared to 58,000 obtained from con-ventional tether design representing 3-fold enhancement. Also, the unloaded quality factor of the proposed design improved from 23,750 to 27,442 representing 1.2-fold improvements.

Bending of solid wood from European oak is one of the most demanding technological processes due to its specific structural and physical properties and variability. We investigated the influence of wood moisture content (MC) and stiffness, determined by NDT, as well as previous drying methods on the bending ability of the wood. The best quality was obtained with bending specimens bent at a moisture content of at least 16 % and quarter or semi-quartersawn. The number of rejected specimens increased slightly when HF bending was used. Single-stage predrying of oak to a final MC of 8 % resulted in a high rejection rate (&gt; 70 %) regardless of drying technique. The acceptance rate was higher for less stiff specimens where the ratio of ultrasonic velocity in the straight (vS) and bent region (vB) was less than 0.5 (vB/vS).

The present study has been one of the first attempts to thoroughly examine the effects of different kefir sources on fermentation characteristics, aerobic stability, and microbial communities of alfalfa silages. The effects of commercial kefir (CK) and homemade kefir culture (HK) applied with four different application doses (untreated control (CON), 5.0, 5.7, and 6.0 log cfu g-1) on wilted alfalfa and stored at an ambient temperature of 25-30 °C. After 45 days ensiling, fermentation characteristics and aerobic stability of silages were measured and bacterial diversity was investigated by 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing using GenomeLab™ GeXP platform. Both CK and HK accelerate more lactic acid production and reduced ammonia nitrogen concentration. Factor analysis of kefir sources suggest that the addition of kefir improves the aerobic stability of silages even the initial water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content is inadequate via its antimicrobial effect on yeast and mould formation. Enterococcus faecium, Pediococcus pentosaceous, and Lactobacillus brevis were dominant bacterial species among the treated groups at silo opening while Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus brevis became dominant bacterial species after 7 days of aerobic exposure. In conclusion, application of kefir on alfalfa silages improves fermentation quality and aerobic stability even with low WSC content.

Effects of Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) strain P3 and mutant strain P3-M2 with antioxidant properties on fermented sausage flavour via lipid and protein oxidation inhibition were investigated. The commerical strain was used to as positive control (control group). Results showed that P3 and P3-M2 had the ability of reducing lipid and protein oxidantion during fermentation. The increase of lipoxygenase activity and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values were retarded. Metmyoglobin(MetMb) content relatively decreased significantly(p < 0.05), while sulfhydryl group contents were significantly higher than those in the control((p < 0.05). Futhermore, changes in protein bands were confrimed with the less protein oxidation with P3-M2 than P3 and the control. Additionally, strain P3 and P3-M2 significantly enhanced the type and relative content of esters after fermented (p < 0.05), indicating that strain P3 and P3-M2 contributed to the production of flavor substances. These results revealed that L. plantarum strains with antioxidant properties were a promising approach in inhibiting lipid and protein oxidation of chinese sausage, maintaining the stable natural structure of protein, simultaneously improve the quality of sausage and promote the sausage to form a better flavor.

With the growing awareness of entrepreneurs and consumers of the tourism market in the field of sustainable development, it seems necessary to base hotel classification systems on an integrated approach to management quality, including fulfilment of ecological and environmental criteria. The article aims to indicate how environmental standards are implemented in the European system of hotel classification- HotelstarsUnion and the one in force in Poland. With regards to these systems, the differences in the classification criteria taken into account within the systems of hotel categorization by certifying organizations in the European Union in relation to the administrative hotel categorization system in Poland were pointed out. Particular emphasis was placed on the criteria related to environmental management in the hotel industry. Criteria related to environmental management were identified through analysis of the content of criteria of eight environmental management systems that are applicable to the contemporary hotel market. The results of the research proved that even though the HotelstarsUnion system takes into account the principles of sustainable development to a much greater extent than the Polish one, its primary weakness is that most of its criteria related to environmental ones are optional. In addition, the optional ones have higher weights than the obligatory ones. In turn, the Polish classification system makes very little reference to environmental standards. Moreover, it is not detailed and the assessment criteria are not up to date. Therefore, it is recommended that a greater number of environmental criteria is included when updating the HotelstarsUnion system, which should be obligatory for hotels to meet. In addition, the sustainability criteria included in the HotelstarsUnion system should be adapted to the policy system aimed at the hotel industry in Poland and other EU countries.

Communities in semi-arid lands use sand dams to enhance access water during the dry seasons. However, there is limited information on the quality of water derived from these sand dams, especially in degraded lands where storm surface runoff poses contamination risk. Thus, this study aimed at assessing the spatial-temporal variations in water quality of sand dams in Chepareria, West Pokot County in Kenya. Water samples were collected from scooping holes across18 purposefully selected sand dams. Results obtained showed significant differences in water quality based on sand-dams age and location of scooping holes, but the magnitude of these differences differed with specific properties. For instance, in recently constructed sand dams (< 1 year), scooping holes near the sand dam wall had lower pH values (8.5) than holes scooped a distance from the sand dam wall (9.2). For total dissolved solutes and microbial properties, sand dam age had the greatest impact than the location of scooping holes. For example, water obtained from < 1 year old sand dams had significantly higher TDS with an average value of 100.3 mg L-1. The thermotolerant coliforms (TTC) exceeded the maximum allowable levels recommended by World Health Organization. Thus, water obtained from these sand dams should be treated before consumption. Finally, sand dams meant for domestic water harvesting should be protected. Shallow wells with appropriate aprons for effective protection against contamination should be installed to enhance abstraction of safe water from sand dams.

The main aim of this study is to examine the effects of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices (leadership of management, decision making, continuous improvement, customer focus, employee involvement, process management and relations with suppliers) on the financial and operational performance of hospitals in service industry. The data of the study were collected by the questionnaire prepared in the light of published studies and the suggestions of medical and administrative staff. Medical and administrative staff were chosen as target participants that reflect perspectives of hospitals. 1069 questionnaires were answered in 6 private and 26 public hospitals in the Marmara region in Turkey. The results claim that “customer focus” affects both operational performance as well as the financial performance of hospitals more than other TQM practices. While “process management” and “customer focus” explain the variance of financial performance significantly. “Process management” does not explain variance of operational performance.

Background: Music therapy (MT) is a non-pharmacological treatment increasingly used to reduce stress and anxiety in hospitalized children affected by cancers. The aim of this study was to eval-uate the impact of MT on quality of life of children with cancer. Methods: We have conducted a quasi-experimental study between April 1 and August 31, 2021 at Bechir Hamza children's Hos-pital in Tunis, including children treated for cancer. The child or the parent completed PedsQL Module Cancer french version 3.0 questionnaires before and after four weekly music therapy ses-sions. Child's respiratory and heart rate were measured before and after each session. Results: We included 20 children whose mean age was 7 ± 4.5 years [2-14]. The median value of the total questionnaire score increased from 57 [46; 70] to 72 [67; 85] (p < 10-3) with a significant reduction in pain (p = 0.02), nausea (p = 0.009), anxiety related to medical procedures (p = 0.009) and worry about the future (p = 0.005). We highlighted a significant decrease in respiratory and heart rate after MT (p<0,05). Conclusions: MT has positive impact of on quality of life of children with cancer.

The genus Allium L. attracts the attention of researchers due to the presence of valuable medicinal, nutritional and decorative properties, adaptive capabilities, resistance to pests and diseases, ecological plasticity in its representatives, which contributes to the competitiveness of species and the manifestation of a high degree of adaptation outside natural areas and wide geographical distribution. Allium resources in Russia are a potential source of genes for expanding the genetic base of agricultural crops. The leaves of Allium crops have a short freshness period and quickly deteriorate due to spoilage and loss of water. Spoilage and loss of water affect their freshness and properties. The aim of the work was to establish the yield and change in the quality of green leaves of Allium species introduced into the Moscow region during short-term storage, depending on the type of packaging, storage period and temperature. 4-5-year-old plants of 4 species (A. altyncolicum, A. chyatophorum, A. nutans and A. turkestanicum) were grown on the collection plot of perennial onions of VNIIO, a branch of the FGBNU FNTSO. In the conditions of the Moscow region, the yield per leaf generation varied from 2.7 kg/m2 (A. altyncolicum) to 4.9 kg/m2 (A. cyathophorum). The maximum yield of marketable products was noted in hermetically sealed plastic bags when stored for 10 days at a temperature of +6 ... + 80С in a refrigerator with controlled conditions: A. turke-stanicum - 70.0%, A. cyathophorum - 75.5%, A. altyncolicum - 84.9%, A. nutans - 92.9%. However, an increase in the dry matter content (10.1-15.5%) was found during storage in an open polymer box in all tested species. The maximum content of vitamin C during storage in hermetically sealed bags with a density of 100 μm was found in A. altyncolicum (37.1 mg%) and A. nutans (42 mg%). In other species, the maximum value of this indicator was noted before storage. A slight increase in the amount of sugars after storage for 10 days was noted in species with a linear leaf shape when stored in a polymer box. Temperature control is the most effective approach to extend the shelf life of fresh green leaves by measuring its weight loss and vitamin C. Packaging cannot prevent spoilage of vegetables but can protect it against contamination, damage and excessive moisture loss.

Traffic congestion is one of the foremost problems confronted by the urban and suburban tenants of today. Traffic congestion increases vehicle emissions and degrades air quality. Urban planners and policy makers have consequently been always investigating choices to alleviate traffic congestion and to enhance air quality. Teleworking is one option that has received significant consideration and has been studied in the recent past. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between teleworking, air quality and traffic in Switzerland. The analysis relies on panel individual and household level data over the period 2002-2013. We examine five main air pollutants; the sulphur dioxide (SO₂), the ground-level ozone (O₃) the nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), the carbon monoxide (CO) and the particulate matter less than 10 microns (PM₁₀). Based on the fixed effects estimates, teleworking reduces traffic volume by 1.9 per cent. Furthermore, the reduction observed on air pollution is higher for NO₂, CO and PM₁₀ ranging between 3.3-3.7 per cent, followed by O₃ at 2.3 per cent and SO₂ at 2.1 per cent. According to instrumental variable (IV) approach and the two stage least squares (2SLS) method, the effect is higher ranging between 2.6-4.1 per cent. The respective reduction on traffic becomes 2.7 per cent. Overall, the main concluding remark of the study is that teleworking can be a promising tool for urban planning and development, focusing at the traffic volume reduction, and the air quality improvement. Additional policy implications of teleworking and its beneficial effects for the society are further discussed.

The UN’s 2030 Agenda brings new governance challenges to municipal environmental planning, both in large urban centres and in metropolitan peripheries. The opportunities of the new framework of action proposed by the United Nations (UN) and its integrative, global and transversal nature constitute advances from the previous models of municipal management based on the Local Agenda 21. This text provides evidence to apply quality criteria and validated instruments of participatory evaluation. These instruments have been built on the foundation of Evaluative Research, a scientific discipline that provides rigour and validity to those decisions adopted at a municipal level. A case study focused on a metropolitan area serves as a field of experimentation for this model of the modernization of environmental management structures at a local level. Details of the instruments, agents, priority decision areas, methodologies, participation processes and quality criteria are provided, as well as an empirically validated model for participatory municipal management based on action research processes and strategic planning that favours a shared responsibility across all social groups in the decision-making process and in the development of continuous improvement activities that are committed to sustainability. Finally, a critical comparison of weaknesses and strengths is included in light of the evidence collected.

Ring necked-pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) is bird of order Galliformes. Ring necked-pheasant is also known as gallinaceous bird and game bird. It looks like chicken bird. It is national bird of South Dakota. It is mostly found in wild areas but in Pakistan it exists as Domestic bird. It has high proteins and low fat in its meat. The present study was conducted to check the effect of ascorbic acid on sperm Motility, sperm cytoplasmic membrane integrity, sperm livability and acrosome integrity of Ring-necked pheasant at different concentrations of ascorbic acid (0mM, 1mM, 2mM, 3mM and 4mM) were used. Semen was collected by abdominal massage technique. Motility of sperm was greater than 70%.Then it was processed further. The cryopreservation of semen was checked at various stages like Post Dilution, Post Cooling, Post Equilibration and Post Thawing. Semen was cooled from post-dilution stage (37⁰ C) to post-cooling (20⁰C).Then it further cooled gradually to get post-equilibration stage (4⁰ C) within 24 hours. After that 10% glycerol was added to the sample. Then it was transferred to liquid nitrogen (LN₂) cylinder for 24 hours. After thawing stage sample was removed from LN₂ cylinders and placed in water bath for 4 hours to achieve post-thawing. Then performed sperm quality assays at each stage of cryopreservation. Sperm motility was assessed by Neubauer Chamber Hemocytometer. Plasma Membrane Integrity was checked by using Hypo Osmotic Swelling Test with the help to 2% Eosin. Sperm livability was assessed by Lake’s glutamate solution and sperm Acrosome Integrity was checked by dual staining technique by using Formal citrate solution and Giemsa stain. The better results were seen at 3mM treatment of ascorbic acid. Sperm motility percentage was significantly different (P < 0.05) on 3mM treatment on all the stages of cryopreservation rather than other treatments. Plasma membrane integrity assay also showed good results at same concentration (P < 0.05) on all the stages of cryopreservation rather than other treatments. At the sperm livability stage 3mM treatment showed significantly difference (P < 0.05) on all the stages of cryopreservation rather than other treatments. The sperm acrosome integrity showed highest percentage on 3mM treatment (P < 0.05) on all stages of cryopreservation rather than other treatments. Effect of ascorbic acid on all the quality parameters (sperm motility, plasma membrane integrity, livability and acrosome integrity) was showed significant difference (P < 0.05) at 3mM treatment of ascorbic acid as compare to control as well as remaining treatments. It was seen that by increasing the concentration of ascorbic acid from 3mM concentration to onward it shows negative results on its cryopreservation. Now this cryopreserved semen can be transfer from one place to another place to obtain good varieties as well as better genetic characteristics of this species.

Forest-grass intercropping patterns of protected cultivation has been widely used to increase productivity and sustainability in modern agriculture. However, there have been few studies of wolfberry (L. barbarum) intercropping and it is cultivated mostly by clean tillage. This paper takes 10 kinds of wolfberry-forage intercropping patterns, compares the effects of different planting modes on the growth, yield, photosynthetic characteristics, nutritional quality, and the degree of occurrence of diseases and pests, which aims to make clear the effects of wolfberry-forage intercropping patterns on wolfberry. The results showed that different intercropping combinations had different effects on wolfberry. The overall effect of Wolfberry-forage intercropping patterns on the growth of wolfberry were promote the photosynthetic characteristics. Ryegrass could increase the branch number, Lvyuan 5 and mangel increase branch length; Mangel, clover, sweet sorghum, ryegrass and stipas could reduce the damage of powdery mildew by 69%, and alfalfa, stipa and ryegrass could reduce the occurrence of aphids by 67% (P<0.05). Intercropping could increase carotenoids, flavonoids and ascorbic acid contents to improve wolfberry quality by 21%, 53% and 127%, respectively (P<0.05). Among all the performances, wolfberry-mangel intercropping has absolute advantages in promoting wolfberry yield and quality increase. Therefore the best patterns of wolfberry-mangel, wolfberry-ryegrass, wolfberry-alfalfa and wolfberry-clover were chosen.

Taking Korla fragrant pear as the research object, single factor testing and water and fertilizer coupling testing were conducted. Under the premise of the drip irrigation mode, the effects of water, nitrogen, and phosphorus on the growth, fruit quality, and yield of Korla Fragrant Pear were studied to provide a theoretical basis for efficient water and fertilizer management. Among them, the single factor test set water, nitrogen and phosphorus as the three factors, and each factor was set at five levels, namely, water (W1, 5460 m3·hm−2;W2, 5880 m3·hm−2;W3,6300 m3·hm−2; W4, 6720 m3·hm−2; W5, 7140 m3·hm−2), nitrogen (N1, 150 kg N·hm−2;N2, 225 kg N·hm−2; N3, 300 kg N·hm−2; N4, 375 kg N·hm−2; N5, 450 kg N·hm−2), phosphorus (P1,75 kg P2O5·hm−2; P2, 150 kg P2O5·hm−2; P3, 225 kg P2O5·hm−2; P4, 300 kg P2O5·hm−2; P5, 375 kg P2O5·hm−2). The results showed that the total nitrogen and total phosphorus contents in leaves under the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were significantly higher than those under other treatments, and the fruit quality was better. Therefore, the W3, W4, N3, N4, P3, and P4 treatments were selected as the water and fertilizer inputs for the water–fertilizer coupling test for Korla fragrant pear. Eight treatments were set up in the water and fertilizer coupling test: Treatment 1 (T1, W3N3P3), Treatment 2 (T2, W3N3P4), Treatment 3 (T3, W3N4P3), Treatment 4 (T4,W3N4P4), Treatment 5 (T5, W4N3P3), Treatment 6 (T6, W4N3P4), Treatment 7 (T7, W4N4) P3), and Treatment 8 (T8, W4N4P4). The results showed that the leaf area index of the T1, T2, T3, and T4 treatments was significantly higher than that of the other treatments at maturity. The T3 treatment resulted in the highest fruit yield, single fruit weight, and primary fruit rate. The results of the grey correlation degree analysis of fruit quality showed that T3 treatment had the highest degree of correlation and ranking of each fruit quality index, indicating that T3 treatment had the highest fruit quality. Detailed investigation of pear tree growth and fruit quality showed that the T3 treatment (375 kg·hm−2 nitrogen application, 225 kg·hm−2 phosphorus application and 6300 m3·hm−2 irrigation) had the best fruit growth and development performance, and the sweet pear fruit quality was the best.

A PLS-based quality prediction method is proposed for batch processes using two-dimensional extended windows. To realize the adoption of information in the direction of sampling time and batch, a new definition region of support (ROS), k-i-back-extended region of support (KIBROS), is proposed to establish the extended window, which including the data of the previous sampling times in the same batch, the data of the same sampling time in the historical batches, the data of the previous sampling times in the historical batches and the data of the later sampling times in the historical batches. According to these regions of support, extended windows are established, and different models are proposed based on the extended windows for batch processes quality prediction. Further, using a typical batch process as an example, the injection molding process, the proposed quality prediction method is experimentally verified, proving that the proposed methods have higher prediction accuracy than the traditional method and the prediction stability is also improved.

One of the challenges posed by renewable energies is the stabilization of parameters related to the quality of electrical energy. This study demonstrates the existence of a relationship between input blocks of hydropower and the variation of the fundamental frequency of the electricity grid. By mapping production data provided by Spanish Electric Network with frequency measured in the laboratory, it is shown that gradients of hydropower are correlated with frequency fluctuations for certain characteristic times. Considering hourly instances of energy input, the study compares two methods for calculating hydropower gradients (linear regression and pseudo-linear regression); and two methods for calculating local frequency extremes (the "specular inertia" method and analysis by comparison with the moving average), in order to corroborate the results.

Background: The link between nocturia and aging male symptoms (AMS) has not been scientifically established. This study aimed to measure the degree of severity of AMS that impact on the health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) in adult males living with nocturia, and to determine the predictive values of nocturnal factors on AMS. Methods: It is an extended analysis of new data collected by using the Hong Kong Traditional AMS (HK-AMS) scale and Cantonese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) in a recently published cross-sectional population-based survey. Results: Of the 781 respondents that have completed the set of questionnaires, 68% and 61% of men living with nocturia reported clinically significant (at moderate-to-severe levels) somato-vegetative and sexual AMS, whereas the prevalence and severity were increased with advancing nighttime voiding frequency. The nocturia-specific QoL (NQoL) score and nocturnal frequency were found to be significant predictive factors for composite, somato-vegetative and sexual AMS, in addition to age, global OSQI score, and certain metabolic diseases. Conclusions: Current findings suggested the inclusion of nocturia when measuring the male-specific HRQoL related to aging.

In recent decades, organizational research has given special attention to the mechanisms promoting the health and wellbeing of nursing professionals. In this context, self-esteem is a personal resource which influences wellbeing at work and psychological wellbeing of nurses. The purpose of this study was to analyze the mediating role of eating in the effect of sleep quality on self-esteem in nursing professionals. The sample of 1073 nurses were administered the Rosenberg General Self-Esteem Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18. The results show that poor sleep quality and type of eating directly and indirectly affect self-esteem. More so, poor sleep quality deteriorated self-esteem through emotional eating, and even though emotional eating facilitated disinhibited eating, this relationship had no significant effects on self-esteem. The findings of this study suggest that hospital management should implement employee health awareness programs on the importance of healthy sleep and design educational interventions for improving the quality of their diet.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the different types of bricks as a construction material. In this study, monitoring different technical specification or characteristics of the bricks. At the end of study, Brick Quality Index (BQI) evaluated. According to BQI, bricks were classified poor to excellent quality.

In this study, alfalfa silage with different packing densities (500 kg/m3, 600 kg/m3 and 700 kg/m3) were set up under outdoor high temperature and indoor normal temperature. The chemical composition, fermentation quality and microbial community of alfalfa silage were analyzed. The results showed that DM and WAC content decreased with the increase of density. When the density is 600kg/m3, CP content reaches the maximum and ADF content is the lowest. Temperature has a certain effect on alfalfa silage. The content of Lactobacillus plantarum fermented at high temperature is lower than that fermented at normal temperature. At the same time, the content of Lactobacillus plantarum decreased with the increase of packing density. However, the content of Lactobacillus plantarum was the lowest when the packing density was 600 kg/m3 at high temperature. In summary, this study explained the effects of different temperature and density on alfalfa fermentation quality and microbial community, and clarified that the density should be reasonably controlled within 600 kg/m3 during alfalfa silage, providing theoretical support for production practice.

Abstract: Reserve starch, the main component of durum wheat semolina, is constituted by two glucan homopolymers (amylose and amylopectin) that differ in their chemical structure. Amylose is mainly a linear structure formed of α-1,4 linked glucose units, with a lower polymerization degree, whereas amylopectin is a highly branched structure of α-1,4 chains linked by α-1,6 bonds. Variation of the amylose/amylopectin ratio has a profound effect on the starch properties which may impact wheat technological and nutritional characteristics and their possible use in the food and non-food sector. Therefore, some breeding programs were focused on the production of high (HA) and low amylose (LA) genotypes using transgenic and conventional strategies. A great interest was aroused by new genotypes enriched in amylose for their beneficial effects for human health in the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Differently the low-amylose genotypes find applications in different industrial sectors (i.e. frozen and baby foods; starch-based sweeteners and industrial alcohol) for their unique properties. In this work a set of genotypes, with a range of amylose from 14.9 to 57.8%, derived from the durum wheat cv. Svevo was characterized at biochemical and rheological level and used for the production of pasta. A negative correlation was observed between amylose content and semolina swelling power, starch peak viscosity and pasta stickiness. A worsening of the firmness was observed in the low amylose pasta compared to the control (cv. Svevo), whereas no difference was highlighted in the high amylose samples. The resistant starch was higher in the HA pasta compared to the control and LA pasta. Noteworthy, the extent of starch digestion was reduced in the high amylose pasta while the low amylose genotypes offered a higher starch digestion, suggesting other possible applications.

Material and methods. The trial was carried out over two years in Southern Italy. Two grapevine rootstocks, 110R and SO4, were compared to evaluate the water extraction ability from the soil and the effect on the yield and quality of the Cardinal grapevine table cultivar. Therefore, a new approach to plant water consumption based on sap flow was adopted. Results. The earlier and faster water refilling of the xylem in Cardinal onto 110R (C/110R) appears responsible for the earlier evolution of the phenological phases than Cardinal onto SO4 (C/SO4). The maximum length of the principal shoot was reached in Cardinal/110R compared to C/SO4, while a higher number of lateral shoots with lower internode has changed canopy architecture and light distribution in C/SO4. The 110R used more water compared to SO4; it was possible to quantify the real transpired flux of the plant per day: sap flow was 12.3 L.plant-1.d-1 and 11.7 L.plant-1d-1 in C/110R in the first and second year, respectively, while it was 14% lower in alternative graft combination. Conclusions. However, C/SO4 was able to sustain leaf water status and physiological mecha-nisms, although with lesser performance than C/110R, but that did not cause negative effects on production parameters.

(1)Background: This report was an effective evaluation of using multimedia educational program for self-care and quality of life in patients with a stoma at postoperative and established a simple threshold for enterostomy self-care skills.(2)Methods:108 patients with enterostomy were randomly assigned to receive either the intervention multimedia education program (including information about preparation for enterostomy care, cleaning method, manual bag replacement steps and precautions). The primary outcome was self-care ability and quality of life (defined as overall enterostomy self-care ability and overall quality of life), which was assessed at 2 weeks after intervention via an interview.(3)Results: Compared with those who in the conventional stoma education program, patients received the multimedia education program significantly improved their overall self-care ability and quality of life in statistically. The threshold of the enterostomy self-care skill scale was 20 points, and its corresponding sensitivity was 77.8%, and the specificity was 75.7%.(4)Conclusions: According to our study, the multimedia education program could enhance self-care ability of home care and quality of life in patients with enterostomy.

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an intensive care unit (ICU) round checklist, FAST HUGS BID (Feeding, Analgesia, Sedation, Thromboembolic prophylaxis, Head-of-bed elevation, Ulcer prophylaxis, Glycemic control, Spontaneous breathing trial, Bowel regimen, Indwelling catheter removal, and De-escalation of antibiotics) in improving clinical outcomes for patients with severe trauma. Patients admitted to our trauma ICU between 2016 and 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. We divided the participants into two groups: before (before-FD, 2016-2017) and after (after-FD, 2019-2020) the checklist's implementation. We compared patient characteristics and clinical outcomes, including ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS) and in-hospital mortality. Survival analysis was performed using Kaplan–Meier curves and multivariable logistic regression models, and multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify independent factors associated with ICU and hospital LOS. Compared with the before-FD group, the after-FD group had significantly lower in-hospital mortality and complication rates, shorter ICU and hospital LOS, and reduced duration of mechanical ventilation. revealed that the checklist's implementation was a significant independent factor in reducing ICU and hospital LOS and in-hospital mortality. In this before/after study, we observed that the FAST HUGS BID checklist implementation was associated with decreased ICU and hospital LOS and in-hospital mortality.

This study aimed to investigate how transplanting date affects the agronomic and grain quality traits of two early maturing rice varieties. The experiment was conducted in the rice research field of Chungnam Agricultural Research and Extension Services, South Korea and rice materials were transplanted at intervals of approximately 15 days from April 16 to July 16 in 2019 and 2020. Results showed that agronomic and grain quality traits varied according to the transplanting date, and earlier transplanting resulted in the longer period of days from transplanting to heading (DTH). The spikelet number m-2 was highly correlated with the milled rice yield (r = 0.963** for Jinbuol, r = 0.909** for Yeoreumi) and it significantly decreased as the transplanting date was delayed, which was leading to lower yield. Environmental factors, the mean temperature during the grain filling stage, had a negative correlation with head rice rate (r2 = 0.825** for Jinbuol, r2 = 0.803** for Yeoreumi), and the number of days from transplanting to heading showed negative correlation with protein content (r2 = 0.777** for Jinbuol, r2 = 0.833** for Yeoreumi). Therefore, increasing the number of days from transplanting to heading date can lead to higher milled rice yield and lower protein content, and avoiding heading dates on July 17 can improve the appearance traits. As a results, it is suggested that early transplanting is advantageous to increase the milled rice yield and grain quality of early maturing rice.

Abstract: The concept of sustainability applied to sports activities means ensuring that the economic benefits brought about by their development are not obtained at the expense of causing ecological damage or interference in local cultural habits. A cable-ski is a nautical ski system whereby a motorboat is substituted by a cable traction system powered by an electric motor. The effect on the quality of the water in those places that can boast cable-ski facilities has been described in cold freshwater lakes. Objective: Our purpose was to study the evolution of water quality in a ten-year period after the installation of a cable-ski facility in a warm, salted, semi-stagnant pond. Material and Method: Review of the data gathered from the routine test carried out by the Laboratory of the Council of Alcúdia from 2010 to 2019 Results: The levels of dissolved oxygen have increased, being significantly higher in the period 2016 – 2019 than in that of 2010 – 2015. The turbidity of the water has also seen a reduction in the second period with respect to the first. Conclusion: It seems that cable-ski improves the quality of water even warm, high-conductivity, semi-stagnant conditions

Litchi orchards of 15 year age in Pantnagar were subjected to different fruit bagging treatments in study entitled “Impact of pre-harvest fruit bagging technology on growth and quality traits in litchi cv. Rose Scented under Indian prospective”. The combination includes white and pink polypropylene bags practiced on three dates i.e. 15, 25 and 30 days after fruit set and a control. Hence, study comprised of 7 treatment combination in total. The data of year 2017 and 2018 as well as pooled data revealed that T1 i.e. white polypropylene bags + bagging 15 days after fruit set was found to be promising in attributes such as fruit cracking (%) and Sun burn (%). T3 White Polypropylene bags + bagging 30 days after fruit set was found best for fruit Weight (g) and Acidity (%), T4 Pink Polypropylene bags + bagging 15 days after fruit set was found promising for TSS (0Brix), T6-Polypropylene Pink + 10th May (30 days after fruit set) was observed to be best for most of the desired attributes viz. Fruit breadth (mm), Yield (Kg/tree), Acidity (%), Anthocyanin (mg/100g), Fruit colour (visual), borer infestation (%) and B:C Ratio. However, fruits without bagging i.e. control were found to have inferior appearance and have maximum fruit cracking (%) and sun burn (%). Thus the bagging of litchi fruits with white polypropylene bags 15 days after fruit set resulted in lesser cracking and sunburn incidence. For other attributes, polypropylene pink bagged 30 days after fruit set was found promising. In Litchi under Indian condition, the novel technique of fruit bagging significantly enhance the fruit appearance and quality.

Humans may be exposed to microbial pathogens at recreational beaches via environmental sources, such as water, sand, and aerosols. Although infectious disease risk from exposure to waterborne pathogens has been an active area of research for decades, sand is a relatively unexplored reservoir of pathogens and fecal indicator bacteria (FIB). Beach sand and water habitats provide unique advantages and challenges to pathogen introduction, growth, and persistence, as well as continuous exchange between habitats. Models of FIB and pathogen fate and transport in sandy beach habitats can help predict the risk of infectious disease from recreational water use, but filling knowledge gaps such as decay rates and potential for microbial growth in beach habitats is necessary for accurate modeling. Climatic variability, whether natural or anthropogenically-induced, adds complexity to predictive modeling, but may increase human exposure to waterborne pathogens via extreme weather events, warming of water bodies and sea level rise in many regions. The popularity of human recreational beach activities, combined with predicted climate change scenarios, could amplify the risk of human exposure to pathogens and related illnesses. Other global change trends such as increased population growth and urbanization are expected to exacerbate contamination events and the predicted impacts of increasing levels of waterborne pathogens on human health. Such changes will alter microbial population dynamics in beach habitats, and will consequently affect the assumptions and relationships used in population models and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). Here, we discuss the literature on microbial population and transport dynamics in sand-water continuum habitats at beaches, how these dynamics can be modeled, and how climate change and other anthropogenic influences (e.g., land use, urbanization) should be considered when using and developing more holistic, beachshed-based models.

Dental-implant-supported reconstructions provide comfort and improvements in prosthetic function, adaptation, and stability over conventional treatment options. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of multiple cleaning solutions on dentures and their influence on the deterioration and loss of retention of overdenture attachments in a 12-month clinical-use simulation. In this way, four different brands of retentive caps made of Teflon (OT Equator, Locator®, Kerator®, and Locator R-Tx®) were immersed in five different cleaning solutions (Kukident®, Benfix®, Corega®, and Protefix®), and tap water was used as the control group, in a simulation that lasted 12 months. Data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA and a Tukey HSD. Furthermore, a Levene Test and Shapiro–Wilk tests were performed to assess the validation of the ANOVA assumptions. The statistical analysis was performed using R version 4.2.2 software with the significance level set to p &lt; 0.05. There were significant statistical differences between the different manufacturers on the retention forces of the attachment’s retentive caps. For the cleaning solution groups, different statistical results between Kukident® and Benfix® were observed. There were no significant statistical differences between Corega®, Protefix®, and tap water despite the fact that the retention forces decreased in all of them.

Abstract: Introduction: Covid-19 lockdown has caused important changes in children's routines, especially in terms of nutrition, physical activity, screen time, social activity, and school time. Regarding these changes, recent studies show that Covid-19 lockdown was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression in children. The objective of this study was to assess changes in sleep quality in Spanish children during lockdown decreed by the Spanish government between March and June 2020. Methodology: We compared the BEAR score of 478 participants in the SENDO project at the periods before, during and after lockdown. We used hierarchical models with two levels of clustering to account for the intra-cluster correlation between siblings. Interaction of time with and a set of a priori selected variables was assessed by introducing the interaction term into the model and calculating the likelihood ratio test. Results: Mean scores in the BEAR questionnaire referred to the periods before, during, and after lockdown were 0.52 (sd 1.25), 1.43 (sd 1.99) and 1.07 (sd 1.55), respectively, showing a worsening of sleep quality as a result of confinement. Parental level of education was found to be an effect modifier (p for interaction=0.004). Children whose parents had higher education (university graduates or higher) showed a smaller worsening than those without. Conclusion: We found that the mean score in the BEAR questionnaire significantly worsened during lockdown and significantly improved after it. However, it did not reach the initial level. The mean score in the BEAR questionnaire referred to the period after lockdown was significantly higher than before.

Research have been conducted in many countries around the world to assess air quality during COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown period, some of these studies found an increase or decrease in some pollutants. This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on seven air pollutants (i.e., PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, H₂S, CO) from the period January 2020 to December 2020 in the State of Kuwait. Kuwait is a desert country located in the north-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and the northeast of the Arabian Gulf (Persian as it is sometimes called). Several analytical methods were conducted, such as spatial analysis (spatial interpolation) to study the distribution of the studied variables. The data was also statistically analysed (time series analysis - Kernel density) to study the temporal changes. The analysis also included applying air quality index to the data. We found that concentrations for the pollutants decreased during the pandemic due to the decrease of anthropogenic sources including such as traffic and petroleum activities, but the concentration for PM_2.5 increased, mostly because of the transported dust coming with the northwest winds prevailing in Kuwait from the Arabian deserts and Iraq.

Geodetic networks are essential for most geodetic, geodynamics and civil projects, such as monitoring the position and deformation of man-made structures, monitoring the crustal deformation of the Earth, establishing and maintaining a geospatial reference frame, mapping, civil engineering projects and so on. Before the installation of geodetic marks and gathering of survey data, geodetic networks need to be designed according to the pre-established quality criteria. In this study, we present a method for designing geodetic networks based on the concept of reliability. We highlight that the method discards the use of the observation vector of Gauss-Markov model. In fact, the only needs are the geometrical network configuration and the uncertainties of the observations. The aim of the proposed method is to find the optimum configuration of the geodetic control points so that the maximum influence of an outlier on the coordinates of the network is minimum. Here, the concept of Minimal Detectable Bias defines the size of the outlier and its propagation on the parameters is used to describe the external reliability. The proposed method is demonstrated by practical application of one simulated levelling network. We highlight that the method can be applied not only for geodetic network problems, but also in any branch of modern science.

The objective of the current study is to evaluate the effects of nitrogen rate N on tree growth, fruit yield and quality of clementine Nules variety, budded on Flhorag and Carrizo citrange rootstocks, grown on clay soils at the Experimental station of Sidi Allal Tazi, INRA Morocco, over five seasons. The experiment has been carried out in a split-plot design with three replications, including the nitrogen doses as the main plot and rootstock the subplot. Three fertilization treatments of the rates of N (g/tree) (T0: control (native nutrient), T1: 270, T2: 540 in g/tree) and 135 P2O5, 270 K2O g/tree have been applied to citrus trees in field conditions. The study found that nitrogen rate and rootstock genotype had significant effects on vegetative growth, yield, and fruit quality of Nules clementine. As N rate increased, vegetative growth improved significantly, with the trees grafted on Carrizo citrange and fertilized with T2 (540 N g/tree) showing the best results. A strong positive correlation was also observed between canopy volume and fruit yield for both rootstock genotypes. Carrizo citrange proved to be a more efficient rootstock for Nules variety than Flhorag, with higher yield and better fruit quality. As a conclusion, the recommended NPK rate for obtaining an optimal yield and good fruit quality of Nules clementine fruits was 540 N-135 P2O5-270 K2O g/tree/year under Sidi Allal Tazi–Gharb (Morocco) conditions.

Glutathione (GSH) and melatonin (MLT) are two antioxidants that have been described as having a protective role against oxidative stress in several animal species, improving sperm quality and survival after cryopreservation. Since there is no knowledge on the simultaneous use of these two substances concerning its effects on ram semen cryopreservation, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of MLT, GSH, or their association, on in vitro parameters of ram semen after thawing. During eight weekly sessions, the semen from three Merino rams was pooled, divided into four aliquots, and diluted with an egg yolk-based semen extender without (control) and with antioxidants (MLT 1mM, GSH 5mM, and MLT 1mM + GSH 5mM). Diluted semen was evaluated before and after freezing process. Supplementation of fresh semen with GSH at 5 mM had a deleterious effect on total motility progressive (TPM), curvilinear velocity (VCL), straight-line velocity (VSL), average-path velocity (VAP), linearity (LIN), straightness (STR) and increased slow spermatozoon (%). MLT at 1 mM also has a negative effect on TPM, VSL, and STR in fresh semen. In thawed semen, 1 mM of melatonin increased the TPM regarding the group control. Also, the combination of both antioxidants attenuates the negative effect of GSH 5mM on TPM, VSL and BCF. These results indicate that 5mM GSH impairs or does not improve sperm kinetic parameters in fresh semen and suggest that melatonin when combined with GSH plays a protective role on these effects.

The reliability analysis allows to estimate the system's probability of detecting and identifying outlier. Failure to identify an outlier can jeopardise the reliability level of a system. Due to its importance, outliers must be appropriately treated to ensure the normal operation of a system. The system models are usually developed from certain constraints. Constraints play a central role in model precision and validity. In this work, we present a detailed optical investigation of the effects of the hard and soft constraints on the reliability of a measurement system model. Hard constraints represent a case in which there exist known functional relations between the unknown model parameters, whereas the soft constraints are employed for the case where such functional relations can slightly be violated depending on their uncertainty. The results highlighted that the success rate of identifying an outlier for the case of hard constraints is larger than soft constraints. This suggested that hard constraints should be used in the stage of pre-processing data for the purpose of identifying and removing possible outlying measurements. After identifying and removing possible outliers, one should set up the soft constraints to propagate the uncertainties of the constraints during the data processing. This recommendation is valid for outlier detection and identification purpose.

Energy and institutional quality are two factors that determine economic output, but these two factors are often neglected in the search for economic output. Therefore, this study examines the relative importance of energy use and its interaction with institutional quality for economic output. We employ a robust econometric estimation technique on a panel sample of 21 African countries between 2002-2019. Our results show that energy use is significant and negatively related to economic output while moderating terms of institutional quality are significantly associated with economic output, but the direction of the association depends on the specific quality. We find the moderating term control of corruption and government effectiveness to be negative and significantly associated with economic output, whilst political stability, regulatory quality, rule of laws, voice, and accountability positively impact. Our results imply that improved economic output is possible when there are specific institutional strategies.

The study's objective was to investigate changes in the fatty acid composition of cow milk in general and in 80 Romanian Spotted cows' husbandry and feeding systems in particular (grazing – GC group vs. stabulation – SC group). The ultimate objective was to determine if the changes that happened in the milk also transferred to the finished product. Also, the influence of the raw milk quality produced by both systems was evaluated when yogurt was made from it. The milk was gathered in May, July, and September and used for both the yogurt-making process and the study, which lasted from May to October. As comparison to milk from SC, milk from grazed caws had larger percentages of fat and dry matter throughout the summer (GC) season. Moreover, pasture-based rations (MGC) contained more PUFA than MCS did. Data research revealed that not only do factors like milk origin and initial quality have a substantial impact on yogurt quality parameters, but also technologies like milk fermentation have a considerable impact on the fatty acid profile of yogurt. As comparison to cows kept permanently in stables, grazed cows (MGC) had fat with a lower concentration of saturated fatty acids and a higher proportion of rumenic, vaccenic, and oleic acids (MSC). When fresh milk is processed into yogurt and other dairy products, the fatty acid profiles alter, with saturated fatty acids predominating over unsaturated ones. The findings show that pasture-fed cows have a positive impact on milk quality, particularly in terms of fatty acid profile, as well as on yogurt's ultimate nutritional and dietary quality.

The study aimed to evaluate the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sleep quality and patterns of women across different cultural settings within Iraq, spanning the period of 2022. A cross-sectional survey was administered to a diverse cohort of women from multiple provinces in Iraq. The survey measured various parameters, including sleep duration, onset latency, and disturbances. The post-pandemic period has seen a notable decline in sleep quality among the female population. Contributing factors include psychological stress, lifestyle changes due to the pandemic, and ongoing socio-economic challenges. The impact on sleep quality exhibited variation across different cultural groups, indicating a significant cultural influence on the pandemic's psychological aftermath. The study concludes that the post-pandemic phase has adversely affected the sleep health of women in Iraq, with cultural factors playing a critical role in these changes. There is a pressing need for culturally sensitive public health strategies to address sleep disturbances and mitigate their long-term effects on women's health. Public health initiatives should be tailored to address the specific cultural contexts within Iraq to improve sleep health among women. Further research is warranted to explore the long-term consequences of disturbed sleep patterns and the effectiveness of different intervention strategies.

This study investigates the moderating effect of corporate governance on the associations of internal audit and quality of internal audit with quality of financial reporting among commercial banks in the Republic of Yemen. The final sample includes 210 internal auditors, heads of internal auditors, chairpersons, and members of audit committees. Using a survey-based methodology, the results of the Smart-PL4 analysis showed a positive association between internal audit and quality of internal audit and quality of financial reporting. Interestingly, the results showed an insignificant association between internal audit, quality of internal audit, and quality of financial reporting when considering the moderating effect of corporate governance. The findings of this study contributes valuable insights to the existing literature on the influence of internal audit, quality of internal audit, and corporate governance on quality of financial reporting in developing countries, specifically in Yemen.

The main channel for disseminating information is now the Internet. Users have different expectations for the calibre of websites regarding the posted and presented content. The WEB site's quality is influenced by up to 120 factors, each represented by two to fifteen attributes. A major challenge is quantifying the features and evaluating the quality of a website based on the feature counts. One of the aspects that determines a website's quality is its completeness, which focuses on the existence of all the objects and their connections with one another. It isn’t easy to build an expert model based on feature counts to evaluate website quality, so this paper has focused on that challenge. Both a methodology for calculating a website's quality and a parser-based approach for measuring feature counts are offered. We provide a multi-layer perceptron model that is an expert model for forecasting website quality from the "Completeness" perspective. The accuracy of the predictions is 98%, whilst the accuracy of the nearest model is 87%.

Recent technological advancements such as IoT and Big Data have granted industries extensive access to data, opening up new opportunities for integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) across various applications to enhance production processes. We can cite two critical areas where AI can play a key role in industry such as product quality control and predictive maintenance. This paper presents a survey of AI applications in the domain of Industry 4.0, with a specific focus on product quality control and predictive maintenance. Experiments were conducted using two datasets, incorporating different machine learning and deep learning models from the literature. Furthermore, this paper provides an overview of the AI solution development approach for product quality control and predictive maintenance. This approach includes several key steps, such as data collection, data analysis, model development, model explanation, and model deployment.

Sleep is a fundamental human need: sleep disruption, in fact, causes an increase in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, metabolic effects, changes in circadian rhythms and pro-inflammatory responses. Sci-entific literature is finally starting to pay attention to the central role of sleep-wake rhythm alterations for patients health. Oxaliplatin is used extensively for the treatment of gastrointestinal cancer and other malignancies, with increased frequency of use in recent years. This study aims to understand the effects of sleep-wake rhythm alterations on health and quality of life on cancer patients treated with oxaliplatin. Study has been conducted through the creation and distribution of questionnaires to patients to inves-tigate the potential alteration of the sleep-wake quality. Evaluating the influence of the collected variables on sleep quality, only liver and biliary tract and pancreas tumor lo-calization, in males, and previous difficulty sleeping, and anxiety, worries and stress, in females, resulted statistically significant. The results obtained may serve as foundation for designing awareness campaigns and updating of patients, healthcare personnel and caregivers, to improve health and quality of patients life.

Opuntia sp. contain antioxidant phytochemicals resistant to ROS damage, whose excess negatively affect fertilization. We investigate the activity of fruit extracts of O. dillenii and O. ficus indica (cv red and yellow) on sperm quality and cryopreservation. In the first experiment, we exposed the samples to extracts (50 µl) for 1 hour to then evaluate semen parameters (vitality, motility, acrosome reaction, DNA fragmentation and oxidative stress). The results showed a significant increase in the motility (86%±0.19 for OFI cv yellow, 82%±0.15 for OFI cv red and 90%±0.08 for O. dillenii) compared to the control (80%±0.17). Moreover, we noted a reduction of DNA fragmentation on treated (3%±0.03 in OFI cv yellow, 7%±0.09 in OFI cv red and 5%±0.07 in O. dillenii) than the control (40%±0.14). Furthermore, the oxidative stress was reduced after exposure to solutions (3.15mV in the control and 2.94mV in the treated). In the second experiment, 50 µl of solutions were added to the Freezing medium. After thawing, we observed an improvement in vitality and the number of intact acrosomes. Our results suggest that Opuntia sp. fruit extracts improve sperm quality, both before and after cryopreservation, optimizing the potential of fertilization of sperm cells.

This study assessed the hydrological performance and runoff water quality of 12 green roof (GR) modular systems located at the Universidad de los Andes campus (Bogotá, Colombia). Based on 223 rainfall events spanning a 3-year period, average rainfall retention was 85% (SD = 25%). T-tests, Welch Test, multiple linear regressions and correlation analysis were performed in order to assess the potential effect of air temperature, substrate type, vegetation cover, relative humidity, antecedent dry weather period (ADWP), rainfall duration and rainfall maximum intensity. In some cases, GR design variables (i.e. growing media and type of vegetation) were found to be significant for describing rainfall retention efficiencies and, depending on the GR type, some hydrological variables were also correlated with the rainfall retention. Rainfall and GR runoff were monitored for Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN), Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia, Total Phosphorus (TP), Phosphates, pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Color, Turbidity, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Coliforms, metals and Poliaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). The results obtained confirmed that GR systems have the ability to neutralize pH, but are source of the rest of the aforementioned parameters, excluding PAHs (with concentrations below detection limits), Ammonia, TSS, Se and Li, where differences with reference values (rainfall and plastic panel runoff) were not statistically significant. Substrate type, event size and rainfall regime are relevant variables for explaining runoff water quality.

Over the last several decades, China has continuously introduced Duroc boars and used them as breeding boars. Although this crossbreeding method has increased pork production, it has affected pork quality. Nowadays, one of the primary goals of industrial breeding and production systems is to enhance the quality of meat. This research adds to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control the quality of pork and may be used as a guide for future efforts to enhance meat quality. We investigated the genetic mechanisms of cross-breeding for meat quality improvement by combining transcriptome and metabolome analysis, using Chinese native Jiaxing black (JXB) pigs and crossbred Duroc × Duroc × Berkshire × JXB (DDBJ) pigs. In the longissimus Dorsi muscle, the content of inosinic acid, polyunsaturated fatty acid, and amino acids was considerably higher in JXB pigs in contrast with that of DDBJ pigs, whereas DDBJ pigs have remarkably greater levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids than JXB pigs. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differential metabolites were identified using transcriptomic and metabolomic KEGG enrichment analyses. Differential metabolites mainly include amino acids, fatty acids, phospholipids. In addition, we found several DEGs that may explain differences in meat quality between the two pig types, including genes associated with lipid metabolism (e.g., DGKA, LIPG, and LPINI), fatty acid metabolism (e.g., ELOVL5, ELOVL4, and ACAT2), and amino acid metabolism (e.g., SLC7A2, SLC7A4). Combined with the DEGS-enriched signaling pathways, the regulatory mechanisms related to amino acids, fatty acids, and phospholipids were mapped. The abundant metabolic pathways and DEGs may provide insight into the specific molecular mechanism that regulates meat quality. Optimizing the composition of fatty acids, phospholipids, amino acids, and other compounds in pork is conducive to improving meat quality. Overall, these findings will give useful information and further groundwork for enhancing the meat quality that may be achieved via hybrid breeding.

Producing cherry tomatoes became interesting to know watering volume and growing design on growth, yield, and quality of cherry tomatoes. The research aimed to intend the best treatment for each treatment of watering volume and Growing design on the productivity and quality of cherry tomato cultivar Ruby. The study is an experimental exploration using RCBD factorial. The treatment factors include: Growing Design (greenhouse, Rain shelter, Screen house) and Watering Volume (100% Etc, 75% ETc, 50% ETc). The result showed that root dry weight and root-shoot ratio were found higher in the screen house design, while fruit firmness was higher in the rain shelter design. Considering the effect of watering volume, higher fruit diameter, heavier fruit, fruits per plant, ultimate fruit &amp; biological yield per plant, higher root &amp; shoot biomass, root-shoot ratio, leaf chlorophyll content, greater fruit skin firmness and elasticity was noted in the 100% ETc treatment. In contrast, the growth rate was higher in 50% ETc treatment. Cultivating cherry tomatoes in a greenhouse using a watering volume of 100% ETc under the results is recommended. These conditions have led to better growth, higher fruit yield, and improved fruit quality, making them favorable options for successful cherry tomato production.

Background: Evidences on the effects of chemotherapy treatment cycles on measures of muscle, mental state, social and cognitive performance are scarce. Objective: To analyze the effects of chemotherapy cycles on muscle strength and activation, functional capacity, quality of life, fatigue and anxiety of women with breast cancer. Methods: Twenty-two women divided into a treatment group (n = 10; 46.6 ± 9.6 years) and control group (n = 12; 51.6 ± 7.0 years) participated in the study. Analysis of muscle performance, quality of life, fatigue and anxiety after the 2nd and 4th cycle of chemotherapy with anthracyclines and cyclophosphamide were performed in women with breast cancer (TRA) and compared to healthy women (CTR). Two-way ANOVA was used to compare the variance of the means and the significance level was set as p≤0.05. Results: Differences were found in the muscular activation of the vastus medialis between the groups at post time (p = 0.038), as well as in the sit and stand test in the baseline (p<0.001) and post moment (p<0.001). Functional capacity performance was different between baseline (p<0.001) and post-time (p<0.001) groups. Additionally, the TRA group worsened the quality of life in the domains of functional capacity (p<0.001) and limitation of physical aspects (p=0.002), besides presenting negative changes in fatigue. Conclusion: Anthracycline and cyclophosphamide chemotherapy cycles reduce muscular performance and affect biopsychosocial variables in women with breast cancer.

Cream cheese presents a favorable environment for the growth of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms. The antimicrobial and antioxidant effects of plant extracts are well known, but their use is limited because they affect the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of products. Encapsulation presents an option to limit or prevent these changes. The paper presents the composition of individual polyphenols (HPLC–DAD-ESI-MS) from basil extracts (BE) with significant antioxidant activity (644.75±21.37 mM Trolox/g DW) and inhibitory effect against strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Geobacillus stearothermophilus, Bacillus cereus, Candida albicans, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella Abony. The basil extract was encapsulated in sodium alginate (Alg) using the drop technique. The encapsulation efficiency of microencapsulated basil extract (MBE) was 78.59±0.01%. SEM and FTIR analyzes demonstrated the existence of weak physical interactions between the components. In the optimal concentration range of 0.6-0.9% MBE determined the inhibition of the post-fermentation process and the improvement of the degree of water retention. This led to the improvement of the textural parameters of the cream cheese, contributing to the extension of the shelf life of the product by 7 days. The influence of storage period and MBE concentration on texture parameters, pH and sensory analysis (overall acceptability) were evaluated by mutual information analysis.

Wikipedia is the most popular and the largest user-generated source of knowledge on the Web. Quality of the information in this encyclopedia is often questioned. Therefore, Wikipedians have developed an award system for high quality articles, which follows the specific style guidelines. Nevertheless, more than 1.2 million articles in Polish Wikipedia are unassessed. This paper considers over 100 linguistic features to determine the quality of Wikipedia articles in Polish language. We evaluate our models on 500,000 articles of Polish Wikipedia. Additionally, we discuss the importance of linguistic features for quality prediction.

To understand how the thinning strategies impacts on wood quality and quantity for different purposes is of interest, considering that the management of plantations is carried out with parameters that have yet to be validated for different growth conditions. This work evaluated contrasting thinning regimes applied early at two moments of the crop cycle. With an initial population of 840 trees.ha-1, two thinning with populations ranging from 700 to 400, and from 400 to 100 trees.ha-1 were applied at 1.5 and 7.3 years, respectively. Growth analyses were carried out from the ages of 1.5 to 20.8 years considering: total height, diameter at breast height, individual volume, total and commercial volume per hectare, mean annual increase and current annual increase. At final age, contrasting populations of 100, 250 and 400 trees.ha-1 were sampled to assess wood density, and mechanical properties (bending and compression on small scale clear samples). The values of individual growth and wood properties are related to a Stand Density Index to understand the effect of competition on those values. The results allow us to identify the thinning schemes that record the most significant individual and per-hectare growth (both in thinning and clear felling) and the optimal harvest time under specific growth conditions. We assessed the proportions of commercial logs for sawmill and pulp uses, providing valuable inputs for a subsequent economic analysis of thinning regimes seeking for the most convenient combination of wood products. Wood's physical and mechanical properties assessed were barely affected by contrasting levels of competition between trees, therefore the decision of the silvicultural system to implement will depend on production and economic criteria.

This study used Dutch potatoes at the end of dormancy as the material to explore the impact of menthol (0.2 and 0.5 g/kg based on potato mass) treatment on sprouting inhibition and potato quality. The findings revealed that a menthol concentration of 0.5 g/kg effectively inhibited potato tuber sprouting and significantly reduced glucoside alkaloids production. After a storage period of 15 days, the sprouting percentage and glucoside alkaloids content of potatoes treated with 0.5 g/kg menthol were observed to be significantly lower at 4.17% and 68.63 mg/kg, respectively, compared to the control group which exhibited values of 100% and 282.01 mg/kg, respectively (P < 0.05). Throughout the storage period, 0.5 g/kg of menthol promoted respiration, reduced malondialdehyde production in potatoes, inhibited polyphenol oxidase activity, and slowed down tissue browning. Additionally, it mitigated the decline in starch and soluble protein content, inhibiting the accumulation of reducing sugars.

Groundwater use for domestic and agricultural purposes is every day in rural communities. However, groundwater quality in those communities is still being determined due to the lack of water quality monitoring programs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate groundwater quality in rural communities using physiochemical parameters. Eight communities using communal boreholes were selected. Water samples were analysed for temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite as Nitrogen. The pH means ranged from 6.6 to 8.1, whereas high TDS levels of 1390 mg/L and 1470 mg/L were observed in two boreholes. Three boreholes had higher electrical conductivity. Two boreholes had elevated nitrate levels of 15 and 21.5 mg/L. The high nitrate level correlates with the pH, EC, and TDS values. Our results suggest that high nitrate levels measured in communities’ boreholes pose ill health to the community, especially children, infants, and elders. Prenatal exposure to high nitrate has been found to have acute health effects in infants. Therefore, there is a need for further longitudinal studies on health risks among vulnerable groups in these communities.

This paper evaluated the quality and suitability of surface water in the Vaalharts area, South Africa, for human consumption, drinking, and irrigation purposes. Water quality constituents include water pH, EC, TDS, HCO3-, Cl-, SO4, Mg, Ca, k, Na, NO3, F, Fe, PO4, As, Al, Mn, Cr, Cu, Zn, B, Cd, Hg, Pb, N, Sb, Se, and the biological parameter included E. coli along surface waters as well as canals and dams. Sodium Adsorption Ratio, Sodium Percentage, Permeability Index, Residual Sodium Carbonate, Kelley’s Ratio, Magnesium Hazard, and Potential salinity irrigation water parameters indicated that the majority of the water samples are suitable for irrigation. The water quality index values showed that the majority of the samples are unsuitable for drinking but suitable for irrigation and industrial uses. E. coli in the surface water samples in the study area show unsafe water quality with high and very high risk for human health. Based on the classifying criterion of the Heavy Metal Pollution Index and Heavy Metal Evaluation Index, all the water samples are above the critical limit, therefore, unsuitable for human consumption. The carcinogenic risk (CR) concentrations of As, Cr and Cd were above the target risk.

This study aimed to use spatiotemporal tensor data to measure the level of employment quality in China's provinces and analyzed the magnitude and direction of its influencing factors in the spatiotemporal dimension. Taked 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government in China from 2011 to 2020 as the research object, the employment quality evaluation system was constructed from six dimensions of employment environment, employment status, employability, labor remuneration, social security, and labor relations. The employment quality index data was expressed as a three-order high-dimensional tensor spatio-temporal data form, and the employment quality of China's provinces was measured from the spatio-temporal perspective by using principal tensor analysis, and the visual analysis of the development and change process of employment quality was carried out. The spatial autocorrelation analysis of employment quality was carried out, and the time-space dual fixed effect model of the spatial Dubin model was selected to analyze the direction and magnitude of the influence factors of employment quality on itself and its neighboring provinces. The research showed that: (1) The overall level of employment quality in China was not high and the employment quality varies greatly among provinces, and the employment quality development gap among provinces showed a trend of widening. (2) The development of employment quality in western China was relatively fast, while the development of employment quality in central China showed insufficient stamina. (3) Sichuan Province had a strong radiation effect on the development of employment quality in neighboring provinces, and Beijing and Tianjin had a strong siphon effect on the development of employment quality in neighboring provinces. (4) The level of industrialization and informatization promoted the development of employment quality in China's provinces, while the industrial structure had a significant negative effect on the development of employment quality.

This study aimed to analyse the variation of recreational water quality in Plettenberg Bay in an attempt to comprehend the effects of pollution on the environment, and more specifically the potential impacts on the quality of surface water used for recreational activities. Plettenberg Bay is a major destination for tourists in South Africa, with recreational water activities representing an important attraction. For this study, data were obtained from Bitou Municipality, the local au-thority in charge of the water monitoring program in Plettenberg Bay. The selected datasets contained water quality data collected by the Bitou Municipality waterworks department in three sampling sites in Plettenberg Bay. The samples were tested for six water quality parameters namely, Ammonia, Suspended Solids, Conductivity, Nitrates/Nitrites, pH, and E coli. Water quality trends appeared stabile over the five years, with only a few parameters showing variation in their concentration levels. It is recommended that the Bitou Municipality increase the sampling frequency to allow a clearer understanding of water quality variation and to minimise potential uncertainties.

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Introduction: The majority of epidemiological reports focus on confirmed cases of COVID-19. In this study, we aim to assess the health and well-being of adults not infected with Covid-19 after two months of quarantine in Morocco. Materials and methods: Two months after the declaration of quarantine in Morocco following the Covid-19 epidemic, we carried out a descriptive cross-sectional study of 279 Moroccan citizens. We used the Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) as a determinant of quality of life, which is based on eight dimensions of health. The data were collected using an electronic questionnaire distributed online. The participants also indicated their socio-demographic data, their knowledge and practices regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and whether they had chronic health problems. Results: The quality of life of all participants was moderately disrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic with a mental health score (MCS) of 34.49 (± 6.44) and a physical health score (PCS) of 36.10 (± 5.82). Participants with chronic diseases scored lower with 29.28 (± 1.23) in mental health (MCS) and 32.51 (± 7.14) in physical health (PCS). The seriousness of COVID-19 has an impact on the quality of life and health well-being of people and this impact is more marked in people with chronic health problems. Conclusion: Our results confirm the need to pay attention to the health of people who have not been infected with the virus. Our results also point out that uninfected people with chronic illnesses may be more likely to have well-being problems due to quarantine restrictions.

This manuscript explores sustainable agriculture's role in mitigating environmental challenges and meeting the nutritional needs of a growing global population. The objective is to assess the impact of different fertilizers on two distinct tomato-growing soils, each characterized by unique chemical and biological properties. The study compares four fertilizer treatments: Additionally, it evaluates the environmental implications of these fertilizers, focusing on their Carbon and Water Footprints. The findings indicate significant improvements in soil quality with SBO fertilizer. Both soils experienced a shift towards a near-neutral pH, increased organic matter content, and heightened microbial biomass. Enzyme activities were notably superior in SBO-treated soils. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results demonstrate that the SBO-based system is the most sustainable, with the lowest Carbon footprint. NPK exerts the highest environmental impact. The Water Footprint analysis aligns with these results, showing that SBO requires the least water for tomato production. In summary, this study underscores the significance of sustainable fertilization practices in improving soil quality and reducing environmental footprints in agriculture, offering potential benefits for food production and environmental conservation.

The aim of this study was to identify differentially expressed genes, biological processes and metabolic pathways related to adipogenesis and lipogenesis in calves receiving different diets during the cow-calf phase. Forty-eight uncastrated F1 Angus × Nellore males were randomly assigned to two treatments from 30 days of age to weaning: no creep feeding (G1) or creep feeding (G2). After weaning, the animals were feedlot finished for 180 days and fed a single diet containing 12.6% forage and 87.4% corn-based concentrate. Longissimus thoracis muscle samples were collected by biopsy at weaning for transcriptome analysis by RNA-Seq and at slaughter for the measurement of intramuscular fat content (IMF) and marbling score (MS). Animals of G2 had 17.2% and 14.0% higher IMF and MS, respectively (P &lt; 0.05). We identified 947 differentially expressed genes (log2 fold change 0.5; FDR 5%); of these, 504 were up-regulated and 443 were down-regulated in G2. Part of the genes up-regulated in G2 were related to PPAR signaling (PPARA, SLC27A1, FABP3, and DBI), unsaturated fatty acid synthesis (FADS1, FADS2, SCD, and SCD5), and fatty acid metabolism (FASN, FADS1, FADS2, SCD, and SCD5). Regarding biological processes, the genes up-regulated in G2 were related to cholesterol biosynthesis (EBP, CYP51A1, DHCR24, and LSS), unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis (FADS2, SCD, SCD5, and FADS1), and insulin sensitivity (INSIG1 and LPIN2). Cow-calf supplementation positively affected energy metabolism and lipid biosynthesis, and thus favored the deposition of marbling fat during the postweaning period. Here it was shown, in an unprecedented way, by analyzing the transcriptome, genes, pathways and enriched processes due to the use of creep feeding.

Image fusion is a useful tool for producing a high-resolution multispectral image to be used for land use and land cover mapping. In this study, we use nine pansharpening algorithms namely Color Normalized (CN), Gram-Schmidt (GS), Hyperspherical Color Space (HCS), High Pass Filter (HPF), Nearest-Neighbor Diffusion (NND), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Resolution Merge (RM), Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT), and Wavelet Resolution Merge (WRM) to fusion Worldview-3 multispectral Bands and panchromatic band. In spectral and spatial fidelity, several image quality metrics are used to evaluate the performance of pansharpening algorithms. The SWT and PCA algorithms showed better results compared to other pansharpening algorithms while GS and CN algorithms showed the worst results for the original image fusion. The effect of fusion on each band was separately investigated and according to the calculations, we found that the CoastalBlue band and the Blue band showed the best result and the NIR-1 band and NIR-2 band show the worst result for the original image fusion. In the end, we conclude that the choice of fusion method depends on the requirement of remote sensing application.

The key goal of the current study was to determine suitable areas of water pumping for drinking and agricultural harvest in Tabriz aquifer, located in East Azerbaijan province, northwest Iran. In the study area, groundwater is the key foundation of water for drinking and farming requirements. Groundwater compatibility study was conducted by analyzing Electrical conductivity (EC), Total dissolved solids (TDS), Chloride (Cl), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Sodium (Na), Potassium (K), Sulfate (SO4), Total hardness (TH), Bicarbonate (HCO3), pH, carbonate (CO3) and Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR) obtained from 39 wells in the period of 2003 to 2014. For this purpose, the Water Quality Index (WQI) and irrigation water quality (IWQ) index were utilized. The WQI index zoning exposed that the groundwater of the study area for drinking purposes is categorized as excellent, good and poor water. Most drinking water harvested for urban and rural areas are in the class of 'excellent water'. The results revealed that about 37 percent (296 km2) of groundwater has high compatibility, and 63 percent of the study area (495 km2) has average compatibility for agricultural purposes. The trend of IWQ and WQI indexes demonstrates that the groundwater is getting worse over the time.

We report fabrication of crystalline microresonators of high quality (Q) factors with a controllable wedge angle on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI). Our technique relies on femtosecond laser assisted chemo-mechanical polish which allows us to achieve ultrahigh surface smoothness as critically demanded by high Q microresonator applications. We show that by refining the polish parameters, Q factors as high as 4.7 × 10⁷ can be obtained and the wedge angle of the LNOI can be continuously tuned from 9° to 51°.