Objective: To recommend how physicians can best respond to families whose hopes for a miracle via divine intervention influence their medical decisions, like, for example, making them not want to withdraw ventilatory support in cases of poor neurologic prognosis because they are still hoping for God to intervene. Methods: Auto-ethnographic analysis of chaplaincy experience in this clinical context yields a nuanced 90-second, point-of-care spiritual intervention physicians can use to address the religious aspect of families who base medical decisions on their hopes for a miracle via divine intervention. Explanation of how spiritual intervention dovetails with existing physician communication protocol for responding to families hoping for a miracle. Results: Spiritual intervention for religious aspect of miracle-hoping families is integrated into existing physician communication protocol for responding to families hoping for a miracle with recommendations for utilization of existing communication technology when necessary. Conclusion: Properly addressing the religious dimension of families hoping for a miracle may be helpful for physicians interested in decreasing their own stress levels, improving outcomes for this clinical context, and ensuring that unintentional discrimination does not perpetuate racial disparities in end-of-life care.

Philip Morris International (PMI) has developed the Population Health Impact Model (PHIM) to quantify, in the absence of epidemiological data, the effects of marketing a candidate modified risk tobacco product (cMRTP) on the public health of a whole population. Various simulations were performed to understand the harm reduction impact on the U.S. population over a 20-year period under various scenarios. The overall reduction in smoking attributable deaths (SAD) over the 20-year period was estimated as 934,947 if smoking completely went away and between 516,944 and 780,433 if cMRTP use completely replaces smoking. The reduction in SADs was estimated as 172,458 for the World Health Organization (WHO) 2025 Target and between 70,274 and 90,155 for the gradual cMRTP uptake. Combining the scenarios (WHO 2025 Target and cMRTP uptake), the reductions were between 256,453 and 268,796, depending on the cMRTP effective dose. These results show how a cMRTP can reduce overall population harm additionally to existing tobacco control efforts.

This paper is aimed at studying the temporal evolution of the surface displacements occurred over the past few years in the ocean-reclaimed platforms of the Shanghai megacity (China), which are mainly ascribable to consolidation processes of large dredger fills and alluvial deposits. With respect to previous analyses carried out over the same area, this work provides a joint multi-platform differential interferometry synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) analysis, based on the application of the advanced Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) algorithm. This led us to retrieve long-term deformation time-series that are helpful for a better understanding of the on-going deformation phenomena. To this aim, we have exploited two sequences of SAR data collected by the ASAR/ENVISAT and by the COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) sensors, respectively, spanning the whole time period from 2007 to 2016. Unfortunately, the large time gap (of about three years) existing between the available ASAR/ENVISAT and CSK datasets gave rise to additional difficulties for their combination. Nevertheless, this problem has been faced by benefiting from the knowledge of a time-dependent model describing the temporal evolution of the expected deformations affecting the Shanghai ocean-reclaimed platforms.

The market of natural and organic cosmetics has been growing in last decades. The increase in interest in this type of product is a consequence of the concern that consumers have been presenting in relation to the environment and health. In addition to the appreciation the use of sustainable ingredients in cosmetic formulations, the consumers are also concerned about pollution caused by the use of plastics, which leads industries to reinvent themselves and rethink about the composition of packaging. The factor that most drives the purchase of natural and organic cosmetics is the fact that the consumer, in addition to contributing to the preservation of the environment, is also using a sustainable product. The growing demand for natural and organic cosmetics results in a concern of the brands with the organic issue, with the decreased use of animal derived ingredients and with the updating the parameters required for certification of a cosmetic as natural or organic. Due to the few studies available in this area, the importance of clarifying the definitions and concepts of natural and organic cosmetics is evident, in order to contribute with accurate information for the cosmetic sector.

COVID-19 is causing major turmoil around the globe, and the clinical trial industry is likely to face unprecedented challenges to health and business sectors. In an effort to find a suitable treatment and prevention options for COVID-19, several COVID-19 clinical trials are being planned and initiated, while a large number of clinical trials for non- COVID-19 indications are suffering delays. With over more than 1000 trials being disrupted and more trials being added to this category daily, there is a direct impact on trial site activation and patient enrolment. This analysis deals with the specific impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the clinical trial and pharmaceutical industry. The objective of this study is to provide an updated information of the disrupted clinical trials and its impact on various therapeutic areas and different drugs. Among the severely affected clinical trials, oncology and CNS trials are the hardest hit therapy areas.This article will certainly emphasize the need for advanced and innovative approaches to maintain the health of the clinical trial ecosystem by continuing the existing trials and the start of the new studies. We have to take and follow necessary actions to guarantee that the initiatives will not be locked during the COVID-19 pandemic, both for the treatment of patients and for the researchers to conduct decision-relevant clinical trials.

Crop type and field boundary mapping enable cost-efficient crop management on the field scale and serve as the basis for yield forecasts. Our study uses a data set with crop types and corresponding field borders from the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, as documented by farmers from 2016 to 2018. The study classified corn, winter wheat, barley, sugar beet, potato, and rapeseed as the main crops grown in Upper Bavaria. Corresponding Sentinel-2 data sets include the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and raw band data from 2016 to 2018 for each selected field. The influences of clouds, raw bands, and NDVI on crop type classification are analysed, and the classification algorithms, i.e., support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF), are compared. Field boundary detection and extraction are based on non-iterative clustering and a newly developed procedure based on Canny edge detection. The results emphasise the application of Sentinel’s raw bands (B1–B12) and RF, which outperforms SVM with an accuracy of up to 94%. Furthermore, we forecast data for an unknown year, which slightly reduces the classification accuracy. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the proof-of-concept and its readiness for use in real applications.

This paper presents an exact solution to the Timoshenko beam theory (TBT) for first-order analysis, second-order analysis, and stability. The TBT covers cases associated with small deflections based on shear deformation considerations, whereas the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory (EBBT) neglects shear deformations. Thus, the Euler–Bernoulli beam is a special case of the Timoshenko beam. The moment-curvature relationship is one of the governing equations of the EBBT, and closed-form expressions of efforts and deformations are available in the literature. However, neither an equivalent to the moment-curvature relationship of EBBT nor closed-form expressions of efforts and deformations can be found in the TBT. In this paper, a moment-shear force-curvature relationship, the equivalent in TBT of the moment-curvature relationship of EBBT, was presented. Based on this relationship, first-order and second-order analyses were conducted, and closed-form expressions of efforts and deformations were derived for various load cases. Furthermore, beam stability was analyzed and buckling loads were calculated. Finally, first-order and second-order element stiffness matrices were determined.

Many inflammatory mechanisms are involved in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 inhibits IFN antiviral responses, so we should expect an out-of-control viral replication. “Cytokine storms” occur due to the over-production of pro-inflammatory cytokines after an influx of neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages and may be responsible for the immunopathology of the lung involvement. Several cascades have been reported in the activation process of NF-κB. In this paper, to find new therapeutic options for COVID-19 infection, we reviewed some natural products that could potentially inhibit the NF-κB pathway. We found that sevoflurane, quercetin, resveratrol, curcumin, KIOM-C, bergenin, garcinia kola, shenfu, piperlongumine, wogonin, oroxylin, plantamajoside, naringin, ginseng, kaempferol, allium sativum L, illicium henryi, isoliquiritigenin, lianhua qingwen, magnoflorine, and ma Huang Tang might be effective in inhibiting the NF-KB pathway. These natural products could be helpful in the control of COVID-19 infections. However, larger clinical trials are needed to ascertain the efficacy of these products fully.

Biological systems are highly regulated. They are also highly resistant to sudden perturbations enabling them to maintain the dynamic equilibrium essential for sustenance of life. This robustness is conferred by regulatory mechanisms that influence the activity of enzymes/proteins within their cellular context, to adapt to changing environmental conditions. However, the initial rules governing the study of enzyme kinetics were tested and implemented for mostly cytosolic enzyme systems that were easy to isolate and/or recombinantly express. Moreover, these enzymes lacked complex regulatory modalities. Now, with academic labs and pharmaceutical companies turning their attention to more complex systems (for instance, multi-protein complexes, oligomeric assemblies, membrane proteins and post-translationally modified proteins), the initial axioms defined by Michaelis-Menten (MM) kinetics are rendered inadequate and the development of a new kind of kinetic analysis to study these systems is required. The current review strives to present an overview of enzyme kinetic mechanisms that are atypical and, oftentimes, do not conform to the classical MM kinetics. Further, it presents initial ideas on the design and analysis of experiments in early drug-discovery for such systems, to enable effective screening and characterisation of small-molecule inhibitors with desirable physiological outcomes.

Background: SARS-CoV-2 that are the causal agent of a current pandemic are enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses of the Coronaviridae family. Proteases of SARS-CoV-2 are necessary for viral replication, structural assembly and pathogenicity. The ~33.8KDa M^pro protease of SARS-CoV-2 is a non-human homologue and highly conserved among several coronaviruses indicating M^pro could be a potential drug target for Coronaviruses.Methods: Here we performed computational ligand screening of four pharmacophores (OEW, Remdesivir, Hydroxycholoquine and N3) that are presumed to have positive effects against SARS-CoV-2 M^pro protease (6LU7) and also screened 50,000 molecules from the ZINC Database dataset against this protease target.Results: We found 40 pharmacophore-like structures of natural compounds from diverse chemical classes that exhibited better affinity of docking as compared to the known ligands. The 10 best selected ligands namely, ZINC1845382, ZINC1875405, ZINC2092396, ZINC2104424, ZINC44018332, ZINC2101723, ZINC2094526, ZINC2094304, ZINC2104482, ZINC3984030, and ZINC1531664, are mainly classified as β-carboline, Alkaloids and Polyflavonoids, and all of them displayed interactions with dyad CYS145 and HIS41 from the protease pocket in a similar way as with other known ligands.Conclusion: Our results suggest that these 10 molecules could be effective against SARS-CoV-2 protease and may be tested in vitro and in vivo to develop novel drugs against this virus.

The European Space Agency (ESA) defines as Earth observation (EO) Level 2 information product a single-date multi-spectral (MS) image corrected for atmospheric, adjacency and topographic effects, stacked with its data-derived scene classification map (SCM), whose thematic map legend includes quality layers cloud and cloud-shadow. ESA EO Level 2 product generation is an inherently ill-posed computer vision (CV) problem never accomplished to date in operating mode by any EO data provider at the ground segment. Herein, it is considered: (I) necessary not sufficient pre-condition for the yet-unaccomplished dependent problems of semantic content-based image retrieval (SCBIR) and semantics-enabled information/knowledge discovery (SEIKD) in multi-source EO big data cubes. (II) Synonym of EO Analysis Ready Data (ARD) format. (III) Equivalent to a horizontal policy for background developments in Space Economy 4.0. In compliance with the GEO-CEOS Quality Assurance Framework for EO Calibration/Validation guidelines, to contribute toward filling an analytic and pragmatic information gap from multi-sensor EO big data to timely, comprehensive and operational EO value-adding information products and services, this work presents an innovative AutoCloud+ CV software toolbox for cloud and cloud-shadow quality layer detection in ESA EO Level 2 product. In vision, spatial information dominates color information. Inspired by this true-fact, the inherently ill-posed AutoCloud+ CV software was conditioned, designed and implemented to be “universal”, meaning fully automated (no human-machine interaction is required), near real-time, robust to changes in input data and scalable to changes in MS imaging sensor’s spatial and spectral resolution specifications.

Daily rainfall data was collected for the arid district of Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh state, India from 1981 to 2016 at the sub-district level and aggregated to monthly, annual and seasonal rainfall totals and the number of rainy days. The objective of this study is to evaluate the homogeneity, trend, and trend change points in the rainfall data. After quality checks and homogeneity analysis, a total of 27 rain gauge locations were considered for trend analysis. A serial correlation test was applied to all the time series to identify serially independent series. Non-Parametric Mann-Kendall test and Spearman’s rank correlation tests were applied to serially independent series. The magnitude of the trend was calculated using Sen’s slope method. For the data influenced by serial correlation, various modified versions of Mann-Kendall tests (Pre-Whitening, Trend Free Pre-Whitening, Bias Corrected Pre-Whitening and two variants of Variance Correction Approaches) were applied. A significant increasing summer rainfall trend is observed in 6 out of 27 stations. Significant decreasing trends are observed at two stations in the south-west monsoon season and at two stations in the north-east monsoon season. To identify the trend change-points in the time series, distribution-free Cumulative SUM test and sequential Mann-Kendall tests were applied. Two open-source library packages were developed in R language namely, ‘modifiedmk’ and ‘trendchange’ to implement the statistical tests mentioned in this paper. The study will benefit water resource management, drought mitigation, socio-economic development and sustainable agricultural planning in the region.

The present paper reviews evidence for ecological evolution of Montiaceae. Montiaceae (Portulacineae) comprise a family of ca. 275 species and ca. 25 subspecific taxa of flowering plants distributed mainly in extreme western America, with additional endemism elsewhere, including other continents and islands. They have diversified repeatedly across steep ecological gradients. Based on narrative analysis, I argue that phylogenetic transitions from annual to perennial life history have been more frequent than suggested by computational phylogenetic reconstructions. I suggest that a reported phylogenetic correlation between the evolution of life history and temperature niche is coincidental and not causal. I demonstrate how statistical phylogenetic comparative analysis (PhCA) missed evidence for marked moisture niche diversification among Montiaceae. I discount PhCA evidence for the relation between Montiaceae genome duplication and ecological diversification. Based on the present analysis of Montiaceae evolution, I criticize the premise of the prevalent statistical approach to PhCA, which tests Darwinian deterministic hypotheses against stochastic evolutionary null models. I discuss theoretical/empirical evidence that evolution is neither stochastic, nor Darwinistically-determined, but idiosyncratic. Idiosyncraticity describes the outcome of a stochastically perturbed nonlinear chaos-like process. The Principle of Evolutionary Idiosyncraticity (PEI) is based on the evolutionary theory of Natural Drift, which maintains that determinism in evolution is a property of the organism and not, as maintained by the theory of Natural Selection, its traits or its milieu. This determinism is characteristic of chaotic functions, which are absolutely determinate, generate self-similarity, but remain absolutely unpredictable. PEI explains precisely observations that evolution proceeds not linearly, but chaotically, producing both quasi-linear fractal-like patterns and non-linear jumps. PEI has ramifications for all areas of macroevolutionary research. In particular, it demonstrates both the fallacy and futility of the statistical PhCA approach that interprets evolutionary causes in terms of evolutionary correlations. However, statistical methods of PhCA can be applied heuristically and fruitfully to reveal idiosyncraticity and discover evolutionary novelty. This, in turn, is demonstrated by the emergence of statistical anomalies in evolutionary analyses of Montiaceae.

The current emergency due to the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 caused by the new SARS-CoV-2 is a great concern for global public health. Already in the past, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012 demonstrates the potential of coronaviruses to cross-species borders and further underlines the importance of identifying new-targeted drugs. An ideal antiviral agent should target essential proteins involved in the lifecycle of SARS-CoV. Currently, some HIV protease inhibitors (i.e., Lopinavir) are proposed for the treatment of COVID-19, although their effectiveness was not yet assessed. The main protease (Mpro) provides a highly validated pharmacological target for the discovery and design of inhibitors. We identified potent Mpro inhibitors employing computational techniques that entail the screening of a Marine Natural Product (MNP) library. MNP library was screened by hyphenated pharmacophore model, and molecular docking approaches. Molecular dynamics and re-docking further confirmed the results obtained by structure-based techniques and allowed to highlight some crucial aspects. Seventeen potential SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors have been identified among the natural substances of marine origin. As these compounds were extensively validated by a consensus approach and by molecular dynamics, the likelihood that at least one of these compounds could be bioactive is excellent.

Efficiently targeted cancer therapy without causing detrimental side effects is necessary for alleviating patient care and improving survival rates. This paper presents observations of morphological changes in H1299 human lung cancer cells following W-band MMW irradiation (75 – 105 GHz) at a non-thermal power density of 0.2 mW/cm², investigated over 14 days of subsequent physiological incubation following exposure. Microscopic analyses of physical parameters measured indicate MMW irradiation induces significant morphological changes characteristic of apoptosis and senescence. The Immediate short-term responses translate into long-term effects, retained over the duration of the experiment(s); reminiscent of the phenomenon of Accelerated Cellular Senescence (ACS) achieving terminal tumorigenic cell growth. Further, results were observed to be treatment-specific in energy (dose) dependent manner and were achieved without the use of chemotherapeutic agents, ionizing radiation or thermal ablation employed in conventional methods; thereby overcoming associated side effects. Adaptation of the experimental parameters of this study for clinical oncology concomitant with current developmental trends of non-invasive medical endoscopy alleviates MMW therapy as an effective treatment procedure for human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

LC–NMR combines the advantage of the outstanding separation power of liquid chromatography (LC) and the superior structural elucidating capability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR has proved that it is a standout detector for LC by providing maximum structural information about plant originated extracts particularly in its isolating ability of isomeric (same molecular formula) and/or isobaric (same molecular weight) compounds as compared to other detectors. The present review provides an overview of the LC–NMR developmental trends and its application in natural products analysis. The different LC–NMR operational modes are described, as well as how technical improvements assist in establishing this powerful technique as an important analytical tool in the analysis of complex plant-derived compounds. On-flow, stop-flow and loop-storage modes, as well as the new offline mode LC–SPE–NMR and capLC-NMR configurations that avoid the ingestion of expensive deuterated solvents throughout the experiment are mentioned. Utilization of cryogenic probe and microprobe technologies which are the other important promising approaches for guaranteeing the sensitivity issues are also described. Concluding remarks and future outlooks are also discussed.

The evolution of integrable classical systems leads to conserved quantities and vanishing Poisson brackets. In contrast, such invariants do not exist in the dynamics of non-integrable systems, which include (but are not limited to) deterministic models with long-term chaotic behavior. The object of this review is to briefly survey the mathematical background of nonintegrability and its role in the physics unfolding well-above the Standard Model (SM) scale.

Laws and regulations make powerful contribution in addressing multitudes of public health concerns. We examined the Public Health Act (PHA) in Malawi to understand its relevance to the ever-growing and changing threats posed by infectious and non-infectious diseases. The current Public Health Act of Malawi came into effect in 1948 to protect and preserve public health. The Act has undergone several amendments, the last one being in 1975. It draws much of its inspiration and standards from the 19th century British laws on insanitary housing, poor ventilation, and drainage. Such laws are silent on emerging major public health concerns including non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes as well as road traffic injuries. This makes the Act outdated and ill equipped to address the 21st century public health concerns. Although supplementary legislation such as the HIV/AIDS Act and Mental Treatment Act have recently been enacted, they are yet to be consolidated into the Public Health Act. Consequently, existing policies and strategic plans that are meant to address gaps in public health and ensure coordinated effort lack support of laws and regulations. The Act also places great emphasis on mandatory vaccinations, quarantine and isolation against smallpox, a disease that has long been eradicated. Furthermore, although the Public Health Act outlines powers, duties and penalties, it fails to reinforce acceptable behaviour due to the insignificant penalties for noncompliance. There is a need for immediate and prompt revision and restructuring of the Public Health Act based on scientific evidence. Such laws require adequate consultation and interaction with key experts and stakeholders from a wide range of disciplines.

Biological invasions have reached an unprecedented level and the number of introduced species is still increasing worldwide. Despite major advances in invasion science, the determinants of success of introduced species, the magnitude and dimensions of their impact, and the mechanisms sustaining successful invasions are still debated. Empirical studies show divergent impacts of non-native populations on ecosystems and contrasting effects of biotic and abiotic factors on the dynamics of non-native populations; this is hindering the emergence of a unified theory of biological invasions. We propose a synthesis that merges perspectives from population, community, and ecosystem levels. Along a timeline of ecosystem transformation driven by non-native species, from historical to human-modified ecosystems, we order invasion concepts and theories to clarify their chaining and relevance during each step of the invasion process. This temporal sorting of invasion concepts shows that each concept is relevant at a specific stage of the invasion. Concepts and empirical findings on non-native species may appear contradictory. However, we suggest that, when mapped onto an invasion timeline, they may be combined in a complementary way. An overall scheme is proposed to summarise the theoretical dynamics of ecosystems subjected to invasions. For any given case study, this framework provides a guide through the maze of theories and should help choose the appropriate concepts according to the stage of invasion.

Pine nuts are non-wood forest products (NWFP) with constantly growing market notwithstanding a series of phytosanitary issues and related trade problems. The aim of paper is to review the literature on the relationship between phytosanitary problems and trade development. Production and trade of pine nuts in Mediterranean Europe have been negatively affected by the spreading of Sphaeropsis sapinea (a fungus) associated to an adventive insect Leptoglossus occidentalis (fungal vector), with impacts on forest management activities, production and profitability and thus in value chain organization. Reduced availability of domestic production in markets with growing demand has stimulated the import of pine nuts. China has become a leading exporter of pine nuts, but its export is affected by a symptom associated to the nuts of some pine species: the ‘pine nut syndrome’ (PNS). Most of the studies embraced during the review are associated to PNS occurrence associated to the nuts of Pinus armandii. In the literature review we highlight the need for a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the pine nuts value chain organisation, where research on food properties and clinical toxicology be connected to breeding and forest management, forest pathology and entomology and trade development studies.

The object of this paper is the bending analysis of isotropic rectangular Kirchhoff plates subjected to non-uniform heating (NUH) using the Fourier transform method. The bottom and top surfaces of the plate are assumed to have different changes in temperature, whereas the change in temperature of the mid-surface is zero. According to classical plate theory, the governing equation of the plate contains second derivatives of the NUH; these derivatives are zero by constant value of the NUH, which leads to its absence in the governing equation. This paper presented an approach by which Fourier sine transform was utilized to describe the NUH, while the double trigonometric series of Navier and the simple trigonometric series of Lévy were utilized to describe the deflection curve. Thus, the NUH appeared in the governing equation, which simplified the analysis. Rectangular plates simply supported along all edges were analyzed, bending moments, twisting moments, and deflections being determined. In addition, rectangular plates simply supported along two opposite edges were analyzed; the other edges having various support conditions (free, simply supported, and fixed).

Despite the implementation of control strategies, the invasive parasitic mite Varroa destructor remains one of the principal causes of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony losses in numerous countries. For this reason, the parasite represents a serious threat to beekeeping and to agro-ecosystems that benefit from the pollination services provided by honey bees. Numerous selection programmes have been initiated over the last three decades with the aim of promoting the establishment of balance in the host–parasite relationship and, thus, helping European honey bees to survive in the presence of the parasite without the need for acaricide treatments. Such programmes have focused on either selective breeding for putative resistance traits or natural selection. To date, no clear overview of these attempts has been available, which has prevented building on past successes or failures and, therefore, hindered the development of a sustainable strategy for solving the V. destructor problem. In the present study, we review past and current selection strategies, report on their outcomes and discuss their limitations. Based on this state-of-the-art knowledge, we propose a strategy for increasing response to selection and colony survival against V. destructor infestations. Developing in-depth knowledge regarding the selected traits, optimising selection programmes and communicating their outcomes are all crucial to our efforts to establish a balanced relationship between the invasive parasite and its new host.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections can be treated with direct acting antivirals like acyclovir and foscarnet, but long-term use can lead to drug resistance, which motivates research into broadly-acting antivirals that can provide a greater genetic barrier to resistance. Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) employs a photosensitizer, light, and oxygen to create a local burst of reactive oxygen species that inactivate microorganisms. The botanical plant extract Orthoquin^TM is a powerful photosensitizer with antimicrobial properties. Here we report that Orthoquin also has antiviral properties. Photoactivated Orthoquin inhibited herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection of target cells in a dose-dependent manner, across a broad range of sub-cytotoxic concentrations. HSV inactivation required direct contact between Orthoquin and the inoculum, whereas pre-treatment of target cells had no effect. Orthoquin did not cause appreciable damage to viral capsids or pre-mature release of viral genomes as measured by qPCR for the HSV-1 genome. By contrast, immunoblotting for HSV-1 antigens in purified virion preparations suggested that higher doses of Orthoquin had a physical impact on certain HSV-1 proteins that altered protein mobility or antigen detection. Orthoquin PDI also inhibited the non-enveloped adenovirus (AdV) in a dose-dependent manner, whereas Orthoquin-mediated inhibition of the enveloped vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) was light-independent. Together, these findings suggest that broad antiviral effects of Orthoquin-mediated PDI may stem from damage to viral attachment proteins.

The choice associated with words is a fundamental property of natural languages. It lies at the heart of quantitative linguistics, computational linguistics, and language sciences more generally. Information-theory gives us tools at hand to measure precisely the average amount of choice associated with words—the word entropy. Here we use three parallel corpora—encompassing ca. 450 million words in 1916 texts and 1259 languages—to tackle some of the major conceptual and practical problems of word entropy estimation: dependence on text size, register, style and estimation method, as well as non-independence of words in co-text. We present three main results: 1) a text size of 50K tokens is sufficient for word entropies to stabilize throughout the text, 2) across languages of the world, word entropies display a unimodal distribution that is skewed to the right. This suggests that there is a trade-off between the learnability and expressivity of words across languages of the world. 3) There is a strong linear relationship between unigram entropies and entropy rates, suggesting that they are inherently linked. We discuss the implications of these results for studying the diversity and evolution of languages from an information-theoretic point of view.

Gut bacteria play an important role in several metabolic processes and human diseases, such as obesity and its co-morbidities, like fatty liver disease, insulin resistance/diabetes and cardiovascular events. Among several factors, dietary patterns, probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, antimicrobials and non-dietary factors, such as stress, age, exercise and climatic conditions, can dramatically impact the human gut microbiota diversity and equilibrium. However, the effect of minor food constituents, including food additives and trace contaminants, on human gut microbiota has received less attention. Consequently, the present review aimed to provide an objective perspective of the current knowledge regarding the impacts of minor food constituents on human gut microbiota and consequently, on human health.

QSO B0218+357 is a blazar located at a cosmological redshift of 0.944. The source is gravitationally lensed by a spiral galaxy located at the redshift of 0.68. Strong gravitational lensing splits the signals emitted by the source into two components separated by 10-12 days, as observed in radio and gamma-ray bands. In July 2014 a GeV flare was observed by Fermi-LAT, triggering follow-up observations with the MAGIC telescopes at energies above 100 GeV. The expected time delay between the components allowed us to plan broad band MWL observations before, during and after the trailing component of the emission. The MAGIC observations at the expected time of arrival of the trailing component resulted in the first detection of QSO B0218+357 in Very-High-Energy (VHE, >100 GeV) gamma rays. It is both the farthest known VHE object and one of only a few Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars detected in this energy range. We report here the observed multiwavelength spectral and temporal properties of the emission during the 2014 flare.

New class of biologically active and non-active compounds can be synthesized via transition metal mediated Suzuki cross coupling reaction that has a great impact on the advancement of organic chemistry. These resulted products can lend a helping hand in pharmaceutical and polymer chemistry for the betterment of mankind. Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reaction is one of the best tools through which many natural and non-natural compounds can be synthesized.

This study presents an exact solution to the free vibration analysis of a uniform Timoshenko beam using an analytical approach, a harmonic vibration being assumed. The Timoshenko beam theory covers cases associated with small deflections based on shear deformation and rotary inertia considerations. In this paper, a moment-shear force-circular frequency-curvature relationship was presented. The complete study was based on this relationship and closed-form expressions of efforts and deformations were derived. The free vibration response of single-span systems, as well as that of spring-mass systems, was analyzed; closed-form formulations of matrices expressing the boundary conditions were presented and the natural frequencies were determined by solving the eigenvalue problem. Systems with intermediate mass, spring, or spring-mass system were also analyzed. Furthermore, first-order dynamic stiffness matrices in local coordinates were derived. Finally, second-order analysis of beams resting on an elastic Winkler foundation was conducted. The results obtained in this paper were in good agreement with those of other studies.

This review seeks to explain four features of viral respiratory illnesses that have perplexed many generations of microbiologists: (1) the seasonal occurrence of viral respiratory illness; (2) the occurrence of respiratory illness year-round in the Tropics; (3) the rapid response of illness to temperature drops in temperate regions; (4) the explosive arrival and rapid termination of epidemics caused by influenza and other respiratory viruses. I discuss the inadequacy of the popular explanations of seasonality, and propose a simple hypothesis, called Temperature Dependent Viral Tropism (TD-VT), that is compatible with the above and other features of respiratory illness. TD-VT notes that viruses can often transmit themselves more effectively if they moderate their pathogenicity (thereby maintaining the mobility of their hosts) and suggests that most endemic respiratory viruses accomplish this by developing thermal sensitivity, in the sense that they normally replicate rapidly only at temperatures below normal body temperature. This allows them to confine themselves to the upper respiratory tract and to avoid infecting the lungs, heart, gut etc. I review biochemical and tissue-culture studies that found that “wild” respiratory viruses often show natural thermal sensitivity within a range that supports organ-specific tropism within the human body, and I discuss the evident tendency for viral strains to adapt their thermal sensitivity to their local climate and season. I also explore the possible misinterpretation of early experiments where volunteers were inoculated nasally with viral samples and then chilled. Next, I discuss the practical implications of the TD-VT hypothesis for preventing and treating respiratory illness. Finally, I note that the hypothesis is very testable and make suggestions for the most important experiments to increase our understanding of the seasonality and pathogenicity of viral respiratory illness.

This paper proposes a new approach to investigation into the aesthetics. Specifically, it argues that it is possible to explain the aesthetic and its underlying dynamic relations with axiomatic structure (the octahedral axiom derived category) based on contemporary mathematics – namely, category theory – and through this argument suggests the possibility for discussion about the mathematical structure of the aesthetic. If there was a way to describe the structure of aesthetics with the language of mathematical structures and mathematical axioms – a language completely devoid of arbitrariness – then we would make possible a synthetical argument about the essential human activity of “the aesthetics”, and we would also gain a new method and viewpoint on the philosophy and meaning of the act of creating a work of art and artistic activities. This paper presents one hypothesis as a first step in constructing the science of dynamic generative aesthetics based on axiomatic functionalism, which is in turn based on a new interdisciplinary investigation into the functional structure of aesthetics.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are crucial regulatory RNAs, originated from hairpin precursors. For the past decade, researchers are focusing extensively on miRNA profiles in various plants. However studies on precursor miRNAs (pre-miRNAs) global profiling stay static even in model plants. Here, for the first time in a non-model plant, Abelmoschus esculentus with negligible genome information, we are reporting the global profiling to characterize the miRNAs and their associated pre-miRNAs by applying next generation sequencing approach. Preliminarily we performed sRNA (small RNA) sequencing with five biological replicates of leaf samples to attain 207,285,863 reads and data analysis using miRPlant keyed out 128 known and 845 novel miRNA candidates. With the objective to seize their associated hairpin precursors, we accomplished pre-miRNA sequencing to attain 83,269,844 reads. The paired end reads are merged, adaptor trimmed and the resulting 40-241 nt (nucleotide) sequences were picked out for analysis by using perl scripts from miRGrep tool and in-house built shell script for Minimum Fold Energy Index (MFEI) calculation. Applying stringent criteria of dicer cleavage pattern and perfect stem loop structure revealed precursors for 57 known miRNAs of 15 families and 18 novel miRNAs. Quantitative Real Time (qRT) PCR was performed to determine the expression of selected miRNAs.

This paper presents an upcoming nonvolatile memories (NVM) overview. Non-volatile memory devices are electrically programmable and erasable to store charge in a location within the device and to retain that charge when voltage supply from the device is disconnected. The non-volatile memory is typically a semiconductor memory comprising thousands of individual transistors configured on a substrate to form a matrix of rows and columns of memory cells. Non-volatile memories are used in digital computing devices for the storage of data. In this paper we have given introduction including a brief survey on upcoming NVM's such as FeRAM, MRAM, CBRAM, PRAM, SONOS, RRAM, Racetrack memory and NRAM. In future Non-volatile memory may eliminate the need for comparatively slow forms of secondary storage systems, which include hard disks.

Abstract The aim of this research is to conduct a systematic review analysing the role of the physiotherapy interventions in palliative care. PRISMA as a critical appraisal tool was utilised for the selection of the research articles. The inclusion criteria were based on the year of publication, ease of availability, language, geographical location, and study type. To ensure the credibility, databases such as Elsevier, Proquest, and EBSCO Host were used to filter the grey content. Data published in the past ten years (2009-onwards) was only included to ensure the selection of the most recent interventions used by the physiotherapists. A total of 11 articles were selected which determined that physiotherapy interventions involving breathing exercises, aerobic exercises, manual therapies, and educational awareness were critical to promoting the functional capability and empower the patients.

This review seeks to explain four features of viral respiratory illnesses that have perplexed generations of virologists: (1) the seasonal timing of respiratory illness; (2) the common viruses causing respiratory illness worldwide, including year-round disease in the Tropics; (3) the rapid response of outbreaks to weather, specifically temperature; (4) the rapid arrival and termination of epidemics caused by influenza and other viruses. The inadequacy of the popular explanations of seasonality is discussed, and a simple hypothesis is proposed, called Temperature Dependent Viral Tropism (TDVT), that is compatible with the above features of respiratory illness. TDVT notes that viruses can transmit themselves more effectively if they moderate their pathogenicity (thereby maintaining host mobility) and suggests that endemic respiratory viruses accomplish this by developing thermal sensitivity within a range that supports organ-specific viral tropism within the human body, whereby they replicate most rapidly at temperatures below body temperature. This allows them to confine themselves to the upper respiratory tract and to avoid infecting the lungs, heart, gut etc. Biochemical and tissue-culture studies show that “wild” respiratory viruses show such natural thermal sensitivity. The typical early autumn surge of colds and the existence of respiratory illness in the Tropics year-round at intermediate levels are explained by the tendency for strains to adapt their thermal sensitivity to their local climate and season. The TDVT hypothesis has important practical implications for preventing and treating respiratory illness including Covid-19. TVDT is testable with many options for experiments to increase our understanding of viral seasonality and pathogenicity.

Our understanding and theoretical interpretation of observations in astrophysics and cosmology depends on our knowledge of the fundamental constants and their possible dependence on time and space. Atomic spectroscopy and radio astronomy give important information on the validity and stability of the fundamental constants. The possible dependence of the fine structure constant alpha on time and spatial direction is an active topic of research.Period doubling is a universal property of nonlinear dynamical systems, and the doubling is exact in principle. The value of the elementary charge squared can be calculated by the period doubling process from the Planck charge and thereby the value of alpha.If ‘old’ and ‘new’ electrons are identical, then the Planck charge, i.e. a set of natural constants, has remained constant over time. In this article we show that the value of alpha calculated from the Planck charge is 0.007 % smaller than the current accepted value of alpha.

COVID-19 has affected 212 countries around the world, killing nearly 300,000 and infecting more than 4.4 million by May 14, 2020. Bangladesh, a South Asian low-middle-income economy, has experienced a demographic and epidemiological transition with rapid urbanization and a gradual increase in life expectancy. It is the seventh most populous country in the world and population of the country is expected to be nearly double by 2050. The increasing burden of communicable diseases in Bangladesh can be attributable to rapid urbanization and nearly 50% of all slum dwellers of the country live in Dhaka division. In 2017, National Rapid Response Team of IEDCR investigated 26 incidents of disease outbreak. The joint survey of the Power and Participation Research Centre and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development reveals that per capita daily income of urban slum and rural poor drops by 80% due to present countrywide shutdown enforced by the government to halt the spread of Covid-19. 40%-50% of these population took loans to meet the daily expenses. However, the country has just 127,000 hospital beds, 91,000 of them in government-run hospitals. Researchers say, the country’s economy is economy is losing BDT 33 billion every day from its service and agriculture sectors during the nationwide shutdown.

We use state-of-the-art computer-aided drug design (CADD) techniques to identify prospective inhibitors of the main protease enzyme, 3CLpro of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19. From our screening of over one million compounds including approved drugs, investigational drugs, natural products, and organic compounds, and a rescreening protocol incorporating enzyme dynamics via ensemble docking, we have been able to identify a range of prospective 3CLpro inhibitors. Importantly, some of the identified compounds had previously been reported to exhibit inhibitory activities against the 3CLpro enzyme of the closely related SARS-CoV virus. The top- ranking compounds are characterized by the presence of multiple bi- and monocyclic rings, many of them being heterocycles and aromatic, which are flexibly linked allowing the ligands to adapt to the geometry of the 3CLpro substrate site and involve a high amount of functional groups enabling hydrogen bond formation with surrounding amino acid residues, including the catalytic dyad residues H41 and C145. Among the top binding compounds we identified several tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which include a bioflavonoid, the group of natural products that binds best to 3CLpro. Another class of compounds that decently binds to the SARS-CoV-2 main protease are steroid hormones, which thus may be endogenous inhibitors and might provide an explanation for the age-dependent severity of COVID-19. Many of the compounds identified by our work show a considerably stronger binding than found for reference compounds with in vitro demonstrated 3CLpro inhibition and anticoronavirus activity. The compounds determined in this work thus represent a good starting point for the design of inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 replication.

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010 calls for the Nearly Zero Energy Standard for new buildings from 2021 onwards: Buildings using “almost no energy” are powered by renewable sources or energy produced by the building itself. For residential buildings, this ambitious new standard has already been reached. But for other building types this goal is still far away. The potential of these buildings to meet a Nearly Zero Energy Standard was investigated by analyzing ten case studies representing non-residential buildings with different uses. The analysis shows that the primary characteristics common to critical building types are a dense building context with a very high degree of technical installation (such as hospital, research and laboratory buildings). The large primary energy demand of these types of buildings cannot be compensated by building and property-related energy generation including off-site renewables. If the future Nearly Zero Energy Standard were to be defined with lower requirements because of this, the state related properties of Bavaria suggest that the real potential energy savings available in at least 85% of all new buildings would be insufficiently exploited. Therefore, it would be useful to instead individualize the legal energy verification process for new buildings to distinguish critical building types such as laboratories and hospitals.

Natural gas hydrate, also known as combustible ice and mainly composed of methane, it is identified as the potential clean energy in the 21th century. Due to its large reserves, gas hydrate can ease problems caused by energy resource shortage and has gained attention around the world. In this paper, we focus on the exploration and development of gas hydrate as well as discussing its status and future development trend in China and abroad, then we analyze its opportunities and challenges in China from four aspects: resource, technology, economy and police with five forces model and PEST method. The results show, China has abundance gas hydrate resource; however the backward technologies and inadequate investment has seriously hindered the future development of gas hydrate, so China should establish relevant cooperation framework and intuitional arrangement to attract more investment as well as breaking through technical difficulties to make gas hydrate commercialization as soon as possible.

This paper presents an approach to the vibration analysis of axially functionally graded non-prismatic Timoshenko beams (AFGNPTB) using the finite difference method (FDM). The characteristics (cross-sectional area, moment of inertia, elastic moduli, shear moduli, and mass density) of axially functionally graded beams vary along the longitudinal axis. The Timoshenko beam theory covers cases associated with small deflections based on shear deformation and rotary inertia considerations. The FDM is an approximate method for solving problems described with differential equations. It does not involve solving differential equations; equations are formulated with values at selected points of the structure. In addition, the boundary conditions and not the governing equations are applied at the beam’s ends. In this paper, differential equations were formulated with finite differences, and additional points were introduced at the beam’s ends and at positions of discontinuity (supports, hinges, springs, concentrated mass, spring-mass system, etc.). The introduction of additional points allowed us to apply the governing equations at the beam’s ends and to satisfy the boundary and continuity conditions. Moreover, grid points with variable spacing were also considered, the grid being uniform within beam segments. Vibration analysis of AFGNPTB was conducted with this model, and natural frequencies were determined. Finally, a direct time integration method (DTIM) was presented. The FDM-based DTIM enabled the analysis of forced vibration of AFGNPTB, considering the damping. The results obtained in this study showed good agreement with those of other studies, and the accuracy was always increased through a grid refinement.

Global climate change requires urgent solutions. Ambitious tree-planting initiatives, many already underway, aim to sequester enormous quantities of carbon, partly compensating for the anthropogenic CO₂ emissions that are a major cause of rising global temperatures. However, poorly planned and executed tree-planting could actually increase CO₂ emissions and have long-term, deleterious impacts on biodiversity, landscapes and livelihoods. Here, we highlight the main environmental risks of large-scale tree planting and propose ten golden rules, based on some of the most recent ecological research, to implement forest ecosystem restoration that maximizes rates of both carbon sequestration and biodiversity recovery, while simultaneously improving livelihoods. These are: i) Protect existing forest first; ii) Work together (involving all stakeholders); iii) Maximize biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals; iv) Select appropriate areas; v) Use natural regeneration wherever possible; vi) Select species to maximise biodiversity; vii) Use resilient plant material (with appropriate genetic variability and provenance); viii) Plan ahead for infrastructure, capacity and seed supply; ix) Learn by doing (using an adaptive management approach); and x) Make it pay (ensuring the economic sustainability of the project). We focus on the design of long-term strategies to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises and support livelihood needs. We emphasize the role of local communities and their dependence on benefits from successful reforestation programmes that restore ecosystem functioning and deliver a diverse range of forest products and services. While there is no simple and universal recipe for forest restoration, it is now crucial to build on the public and private interest in this topic to ensure interventions provide effective, long-term carbon sinks and maximise benefits for biodiversity and people.

Radio loud active galactic nuclei are composed of different spatial features, each one characterized by different spectral properties in the radio band. Among them, blazars are the most common class of sources detected at gamma-rays by \fermi, and their radio emission is dominated by the flat spectrum compact core. In this contribution, we explore the connection between emission at high energy revealed by \fermi\ and at radio frequency. Taking as a reference the strong and very highly significant correlation found between gamma rays and cm-$\lambda$ radio emission, we explore different behaviours found as we change the energy range in gamma rays and in radio, therefore changing the physical parameters of the zones involved in the radiation emission. We find that the correlation weakens when we consider (1) gamma rays of energy above 10 GeV (except for high synchrotron peaked blazars) or (2) low frequency radio data taken by the Murchison Widefield Array; on the other hand, the correlation strengthens when we consider mm-$\lambda$ data taken by ALMA.

The coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic has wreaked havoc on inhabitants of earth killing thousands of humans from more than 150 countries. The epidemic has put a number of countries under complete lockdown and the deadly situation is still prevailing around the globe. Vaccines have been long known as the most effective means of preventing viral infections. However, the lack of vaccines against COVID-19 has further worsened the situation. In this time of health crisis, it is the duty of scientific research community to provide alternative, effective and affordable strategies to vaccinate human bodies against viral infections-COVID-19 based on focused experimental approaches. Growing evidence suggests that certain natural foods and lifestyle changes have potential to optimize immune functions against viral infections including improving defense function, resistance towards invading pathogens, while maintaining self-tolerance. Boosting immune system gives an edge in fending off viruses and staying healthy. This review presents the six smart steps to add to your to-do list which let the inner work of immunity take place against viral infections-COVID-19 by dissolving the powers of disease and illness. Many of these factors are associated in their functions to improve or properly maintain the immune function such as promoting anti-inflammatory functions, inhibiting pro-inflammatory mediators, modulating cell-mediated immunity, altering the antigen-presenting cellular functions as well as promoting communication between the innate and adaptive immune responses. Thus, a scientific illustration of boosting the immune system by proper sleep, moderate exercise, avoiding stress, utilizing vitamins enriched foods, intake of more water and use of fruits and vegetables will hopefully help the community to deal with the coronavirus by vaccinating the human systems naturally.

The question of the relevance of human and natural capital, as well as the potential adverse effect of natural capital on economic growth, has gained increased attention in development economics. The aim of this paper is to theoretically and empirically assess the relevance of several forms of capital on economic growth in small economies that are dependent upon tourism or natural resources. The empirical framework is based on Impulse Response Functions obtained from Vector Autoregressive models in which we focus on the model where economic growth is the dependent variable for ten small economies that are dependent upon either tourism or natural resources. We find that there is evidence of the ‘’natural resource curse’’, especially in the economies that have a strong dependence on resources that are easily substitutable and whose prices constantly fluctuate. We further find that in the majority of observed cases the type of capital these small economies are most dependent on for their economic growth causes negative impulses in the majority of the observed periods. The main policy recommendation should be to assure that even these small economies should strive towards further diversification and avoid dependence on only one segment of their economy.

This study sought to investigate steel frames’ performance with dual lateral loader system (Frame bending + bracings of divergent and convergent) in near and far filed to fault. In order to this, four categories of steel frame with dual system with 8, 10 and 12 story are designed with average formation based on existing seismic regulation in 2800 standard of Iran and tenth chapter of national regulations of construction (planning and performing steel construction). Time history non-linear dynamic analysis under the effect of near and far field earthquakes has been done on plan’s models. Then the maximum of floors’ dislocation, floors’ drift, roof dislocation, base shear and energy curves of frames are shown and compared with each other. All non-linear time history analyses have been accomplished using PERFORM 3D software.

High redshift blazars are among the most powerful objects in the Universe. Although they represent a significant fraction of the extragalactic hard X-ray sky, they are not commonly detected in gamma-rays. High redshift (z>2) objects represent <10 per cent of the AGN population observed by Fermi so far, and gamma-ray flaring activity from these sources is even more uncommon. The characterization of the radio-to-gamma-ray properties of high redshift blazars represents a powerful tool for the study of the energetics of such extreme objects and the Extragalactic Background Light. This contribution will present results of multi-band campaigns, from radio to gamma-rays, on PKS 0836+710, PKS 2149-306, and TXS 0536+145. The latter is the highest redshift detection of a flaring gamma-ray blazar so far. At the peaks of their respective flares these sources reached an apparent isotropic gamma-ray luminosity of about 10^50 erg/s, which is comparable with the luminosity observed from the most powerful blazars. The physical properties derived from the multi-wavelength observations of these sources are then compared with those shown by the high redshift population.

There must exist a reformulation of quantum field theory which does not refer to classical time. We propose a pre-quantum, pre-spacetime theory, which is a matrix-valued Lagrangian dynamics for gravity, Yang-Mills fields, and fermions. The definition of spin in this theory leads us to an eight dimensional octonionic space-time. The algebra of the octonions reveals the standard model; model parameters are determined by roots of the cubic characteristic equation of the exceptional Jordan algebra. We derive the asymptotic low energy value 1/137 of the fine structure constant, and predict the existence of universally interacting spin one Lorentz bosons, which replace the hypothesised graviton. Gravity is not to be quantized, but is an emergent four-dimensional classical phenomenon, precipitated by the spontaneous localisation of highly entangled fermions.

The Directive 2014/95, in force in 2017, is the first European step that requires mandatory non-financial information to undertakings (all “public interest entities” with more than 500 employees). The regulation is concerning sustainability information as environmental, social and employee, human rights and anti-corruption and bribery matters and disclosure of diversity policy for board members. The study, in the strand of the regulation of accounting, part of the broader field of research into accounting regulation, contributes to the debate on the quality of regulation, in this specific case referred to sustainability disclosure. The regulation of sustainability matters is studied in literature broadly in a post-implementation phase and at national level. This research, instead, aims to analyse, through the causal chain of regulatory policy, in the ex-ante stage, the quality of the regulation and, at least, the usefulness of the normative pressure. The Oil & Gas sector is chosen as sample of the study, because it is one of the most advanced sectors in sustainability disclosure. The examination of the law, in terms of content requirements (what) and location of information (where), is the basis to apply the disclosure-scoring system, a partial form of content analysis, to the reports of the sample. The findings reveal a good level of completeness of non-financial information, however, there are some areas that have to be improved to reach the requests of the Directive. Results show also the presence of overlap between financial reports and sustainability ones. In conclusion, the regulation is useful to prompt undertakings to reflect on their reporting and so doing improve their sustainability approach.

The article focuses on mining of non-energy mineral resources with minimum environmental impacts. It issues from research results of a project Competence Centre for Effective and Ecological Mining of Mineral Resources implemented at the Faculty of Mining and Geology at VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Geological Survey, a company Watrad ltd., a state enterprise Diamo, a company RPS Ostrava plc and a company Sedlecký kaolin plc. The paper starts with a partial analysis of the existing legal norms related to mining and processing of mineral resources. Next, it analyses mineral resource mining options free of negative environmental impacts. The fundamental tool to assess potential environmental impacts of mining is the implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process for a given mineral resource. In the Czech Republic environmental impact assessment is carried out by course of Act 100/2001 Coll. Its important amendment is Act 39/2015 Coll. claiming, inter alia, that the environmental impact assessment is rigidly connected with other permits and procedures, such as the zoning process and building construction permits. The article describes the environmental impacts of mining of non-energy mineral resources, including the following factors: appropriation of land, impacts on surface water, ground water and soil, noise, influence on the landscape character, and air pollution. The paper also includes a case study summarizing information on the environmental factors that may play a role in potential underground mining of graphite in the deposit Český Krumlov - Městský Vrch and the deposit Lazec - Křenov.

This article develops duality principles and numerical results for a large class of non-convex variational models. The main results are based on fundamental tools of convex analysis, duality theory and calculus of variations. More specifically the approach is established for a class of non-convex functionals similar as those found in some models in phase transition. Finally, in the last section we present a concerning numerical example and the respective software.

Forest ecosystems make a greater contribution to carbon (C) stocks than any other terrestrial ecosystem. To understand the role of regional forest ecosystems in global climate change and carbon exchange, forest C stock and its spatial distribution within the small (2,300 km2) Liuxihe River basin were analyzed to determine the different contributors to the C stock. Forest C stocks were quantified by measuring the biomass of trees, understory vegetation, litter and roots, as well as soil organic C, using data from field samples and laboratory experiments. The results showed that forests stored 38.04 Tg C in the entire basin, with secondary and planted forests accounting for 89.82% and 10.18%, respectively, of the stored C. Five types of forests, a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest, a subtropical coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest, a subtropical coniferous forest, a timber forest, and a non-wood forest, stored 257.55 ± 15.01, 218.92 ± 9.59, 195.24 ± 18.29, 177.42 ± 17.55, and 117.86 ± 6.04 Mg C ha−1, respectively. In the forest ecosystem C stocks of the basin, soils averagely contribute about 73.78%, not including root underground biomass. It provides a comprehensive method for forest ecosystem carbon investigation and forest management in small basin scale.

This article presents a dataset of tweets in the Urdu language. There are 1,140,824 tweets in the dataset, collected from Twitter for September and October 2020. This large-scale corpus of tweets is generated by performing pre-processing which includes removing columns containing user information, retweet’s count, followers information, duplicate tweets, removing unnecessary punctuation, links, symbols, and spaces, and finally extracting emojis if present in the tweet text. In the final dataset each tweet record contains columns for tweet id, text, and emoji extracted from the text with a sentiment score. Emojis are extracted to validate Machine Learning models used for the multilingual sentiment and behavior analysis. These are extracted using a Python script that searches for an emoji from the list of 751 most frequently used emojis. If an emoji is present in the text, a column with the emoji description and sentiment score is added.

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), each sensor node can estimate the global parameter from the local data in distributed manner. This paper proposed a robust diffusion estimation algorithm based on minimum error entropy criterion with self-adjusting step-size, which are referred to as diffusion MEE-SAS (DMEE-SAS) algorithm. The DMEE-SAS algorithm has fast speed of convergence and is robust against non-Gaussian noise in the measurements. The detailed performance analysis of the DMEE-SAS algorithm is performed. By combining the DMEE-SAS with diffusion minimum error entropy (DMEE) algorithms, an Improving DMEE-SAS algorithm is proposed, in non-stationary environment where tracking is very important. The Improving DMEE-SAS algorithm can avoid insensitivity of the DMEE-SAS algorithm due to the small effective step-size near the optimal estimator, and obtain a fast convergence speed. Numerical simulations are given to verify the effectiveness and advantages of these proposed algorithms.

This paper presents experimental identification and vibration suppression of a flexible manipulator with non-collocated piezoelectric actuators and strain sensors using optimal multi-poles placement control. To precisely identify the system model, a reduced order transfer function with relocated zeros is proposed, and a first-order inertia element is added to the model to compensate the non-collocation. Comparisons show the identified model match closely with the experimental results both in the time and frequency domains, and a fit of 97.2% is achieved. Based on the identified model, a full-state multi-poles placement controller is designed, and the optimal locations of the closed loop poles are determined. The feasibility of the proposed controller is validated by simulations. Moreover, the controller is tested for different locations of the closed loop poles, and an excellent performance of the optimal locations of the closed loop poles is shown. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated by experiments. Results show that the vibrations of the expected modes are significantly diminished. Besides, vibrations of the higher modes are also slightly suppressed. Accordingly, multi-mode vibrations of the manipulator are well attenuated, and the tip displacement converges quickly with the proposed method.

An abundance of natural resources is both an opportunity and a challenge for developing countries. Several resource-rich, low-income countries receive amounts of foreign aid that are similar to or larger than their actual or potential revenues from natural resources. In such countries, the donors may have an opportunity to help a government to use its resource revenues productively and minimize the magnitude of risks created by resource rents. Development of aid instruments tailored for such purposes might be helped by model-based analysis of the effects of foreign aid on resource-rich, low-income economies and its interactions with the flows of natural resource revenues. This paper develops a growth model à la Barro in which the government receives windfalls (from natural resources and foreign aid) and rent-seeking agents contest for public funds. The key conclusion is that making aid countercyclical helps to achieve higher economic growth, and so does conditioning disbursements on enhancement of public capital. Introducing elements of insurance in the design of both aid products financing investments in infrastructure and social services and supporting policy and institutional reforms may help to achieve both of these objectives.

Prompt removal of misfolded membrane proteins and misassembled membrane protein complexes is essential for membrane homeostasis. However, the elimination of these toxic proteins from the hydrophobic membrane environment has high energetic barriers. Transmembrane FtsH is the only known ATP-dependent protease responsible for this task, unlike other well-studied soluble ATP-dependent proteases. The mechanisms by which FtsH recognizes, unfolds, translocates, and proteolyzes its substrates remain unclear. Here, we report the crystal structures of the Thermotoga maritima FtsH periplasmic domain (PD) in an associative trimeric state at a 1.5-1.95 Å resolution. We also describe the pH-dependent oligomerization states of the isolated PD using dynamic light scattering. These observations help us understand how FtsH recognizes membrane-anchored misfolded proteins.

Dengue virus (DENV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) are reemergent arboviruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus. During the last several decades, these viruses have been responsible for millions of cases of infection and thousands of deaths worldwide. Therefore, several investigations were conducted over the past few years to find antiviral compounds for the treatment of DENV and CHIKV infections. One attractive strategy is the screening of compounds that target enzymes involved in the replication of both DENV and CHIKV. In this review, we describe advances in the evaluation of natural products targeting the enzymes involved in the replication of these viruses.

Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) are the leading cause of skin cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Effective strategies are needed to control NMSC occurrence and progression. Non-toxic, plant-derived extracts have been shown to exert multiple anti-cancer effects. Graviola (Annona muricata), a tropical fruit-bearing plant, has been used in traditional medicine against multiple human diseases including cancer. The current study investigated the effects of graviola leaf and stem extract (GLSE) and its solvent-extracted fractions on two human NMSC cell lines, UW-BCC1 and A431. GLSE was found to: i) dose-dependently suppress UW-BCC1 and A431 cell growth, motility, wound closure, and clonogenicity; ii) induce G₀/G₁ cell cycle arrest by downregulating cyclin/cdk factors while upregulating cdk inhibitors, and (iv) induce apoptosis as evidenced by cleavage of caspases-3, -8 and PARP. Further, GLSE suppressed levels of activated hedgehog (Hh) pathway components Smo, Gli 1/2, and Shh while inducing SuFu. GLSE also decreased the expression of pro-apoptotic protein Bax while decreasing the expression of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. We determined that these activities were concentrated in an acetogenin/alkaloid-rich dichloromethane subfraction of GLSE. Our data identify graviola extracts and their constituents as promising sources for new chemopreventive and therapeutic agent(s) to be further developed for the control of NMSCs

Neuroscience has overwhelmingly and understandably focused on the synaptic modality of signal transmission. There is evidence, however, that from an evolutionary perspective, non-synaptic transmission (NST) preceded synaptic signaling. Moreover, in modern nervous systems, NST coexists and extensively interacts with synaptic transmission modifying neuronal dynamics. In fact, NST remains widespread in complex animals, especially within the interoceptive system where the dearth of insulating barriers such as myelin sheaths and the blood-brain barrier enhances the communication between neural and non-neural tissues mediated by NST. We suggest that this physiological arrangement makes a fundamental contribution to interoception¾the process of sensing visceral states¾which is an essential underpinning of the capacity to feel and the foundation of affective processing.

This paper presents an approach to the vibration analysis of axially functionally graded (AFG) non-prismatic Euler-Bernoulli beams using the finite difference method (FDM). The characteristics (cross-sectional area, moment of inertia, elastic moduli, and mass density) of AFG beams vary along the longitudinal axis. The FDM is an approximate method for solving problems described with differential equations. It does not involve solving differential equations; equations are formulated with values at selected points of the structure. In addition, the boundary conditions and not the governing equations are applied at the beam’s ends. In this paper, differential equations were formulated with finite differences, and additional points were introduced at the beam’s ends and at positions of discontinuity (supports, hinges, springs, concentrated mass, spring-mass system, etc.). The introduction of additional points allowed us to apply the governing equations at the beam’s ends and to satisfy the boundary and continuity conditions. Moreover, grid points with variable spacing were also considered, the grid being uniform within beam segments. Vibration analysis of AFG non-prismatic Euler-Bernoulli beams was conducted with this model, and natural frequencies were determined. Finally, a direct time integration method (DTIM) was presented. The FDM-based DTIM enabled the analysis of forced vibration of AFG non-prismatic Euler-Bernoulli beams, considering the damping. The results obtained in this paper showed good agreement with those of other studies, and the accuracy was always increased through a grid refinement.

The integral extraction via microwave-assisted hydrodiffusion and hydrodistillation of water-soluble bioproducts contained in the peel of Opuntia ficus-indica white and red cultivars harvested in Sicily, affords red and stable aqueous extracts mostly containing valued betanin, pectin and biophenols. Potentially useful as nutraceutical products, these aqueous extracts are a source of valued ingredients in high demand for a number of important food, cosmetic, beverage and nutraceutical applications.

This work promotes new methods in Mathematical Modeling, consisting in the use of the methods of Non-standard Analysis in Topoi, having as its main purpose, the mathematical definitions of the pseudoparticles from the title, with arguments from Biology/Physiology (Mathematical Neuroscience), Physics (String Theory and Emergent Quantum Mechanics), and Cybernetics (Global Brain, including Natural and Artificial Intelligence). The connections between brain and mind will be scketched via the genetic/epigenetic interplay. The topoi model the intuitionistic logic (multi-valued) and have been used in Quantum Physics while Non-Standard Analysis in SET (= the Category of sets) has been applied in Mathematical Economics; topics from Theory of Categories were also used in the study of Consciousness; however, the combination topoi - non-standard analysis was never used until now in Applied Mathematics. Another important objective is to produce progress in this aria of Pure Mathematics also - the build of non-standard analysis in classes of topoi, already used in Physics. We propose the logic of non-standard extensions in topoi as a model of the human thinking (based on infons/receptons), these theories representing new top and very difficult results in Abstract Mathematics either.

This paper focuses on the problem of finite-time stabilization of homogeneous, non-Lipschitz systems with dilations. A key contribution of this paper is the design of a virtual recursive Hölder, non-Lipschitz state feedback which renders the non-Lipschitz systems in the special case dominated by a lower-triangular nonlinear system, finite-time stable. The proof is based on a recursive design algorithm developed recently, to construct the virtual Hölder continuous, finite-time stabilizer as well as a C¹ positive definite and proper Lyapunov function that guarantees finite-time stability of the non-Lipschitz non-linear systems.

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of Pandanus (Pandanus amaryllifolius 20 Roxb.) and Neem (Azadirachta indica) leaves powder on the repellency, mortality, and weight loss 21 of grains due to Sitophilus oryzae. The methodes of this study used a completely randomized design 22 (CRD) with 7 treatments and 4 replications. The results of this study indicate that the best treat- 23 ment in terms of causing repellency was the treatment of 10 grams of pandanus with a percentage 24 of 87.5%, while the best treatment in terms of causing pest mortality and was also able to reduce 25 the risk of rice weight loss due to Sitophilus oryzae was treatment 10 gram of neem with a mortality 26 percentage of 76.25% and weight loss of rice 3.14%. This research showed that neem leaf com- 27 pounds are better in terms of causing mortality, while Pandanus compounds are better in terms of 28 causing mortality of Sitophilus oryzae.

A supply chain management (SCM) system is a strategic cooperative that organically integrates all supply chains to improve the performance of a company. The greatest critical success factor of SCM is partnership. Without cooperation between companies, SCM performance is limited. Does this imply, therefore, that companies within the supply chain can achieve mutual transactions equally? If the power between companies is unequal, how does this affect their partnership? The focus of this study is to assess whether power types enhance SCM performance through partnerships. We categorize power types as mediated and non-mediated. Mediated power is categorized based on coercion, reward, and legitimate, while non-mediated power is categorized based on information, expert, and reference. Therefore, this study examines how power types form a causal partnership relationship within the supply chain, and performs an empirical investigation on how the partnerships influence SCM performance.

High pressure crystallization technique has been successfully used to prepare an elusive form II of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, Mefenamic acid. Single crystal of form II was grown at 0.3 GPa from an 4:1 methanol/ ethanol mixture as a solvent using Diamond Anvil Cell. Comparison of crystal structures show that the efficient packing of MA molecules in Form II results from the structural flexibility of MA acid molecules. Compression studies performed on the single crystal of form I resulted in 14 % decrease of unit cell volume up to 2.5 GPa. No phase transition was observed up to this pressure. A reconstructive phase transition is required to induce conformational changes in the structure, which is confirmed by crystallization at high pressure results.

A rigorous model for the electron is presented by generalizing the Coulomb's Law or Gauss's Law of electrostatics, using a unified theory of electricity and gravity. The permittivity of the free-space is allowed to be variable, dependent on the energy density associated with the electric field at a given location, employing generalized concepts of gravity and mass/energy density. The electric field becomes a non-linear function of the source charge, where concept of the energy density needs to be properly defined. Stable solutions are derived for a spherically symmetric, surface-charge distribution of an elementary charge. This is implemented by assuming that the gravitational field and its equivalent permittivity function is proportional to the energy density, as a simple first-order approximation, with the constant of proportionality referred to as the Unifield Electro-Gravity (UEG) constant. The stable solution with the lowest mass/energy is assumed to represent a ``static'' electron without any spin. Further, assuming that the mass/energy of a static electron is half of the total mass/energy of an electron including its spin contribution, the required UEG constant is estimated. More fundamentally, the lowest stable mass of a static elementary charged particle, its associated classical radius, and the UEG constant are related to each other by a dimensionless constant, independent of any specific value of the charge or mass of the particle. This dimensionless constant is numerologically found to be closely related to the the fine structure constant. This possible origin of the fine structure constant is further strengthened by applying the proposed theory to successfully model the Casimir effect, from which approximately the same above relationship between the UEG constant, electron's mass and classical radius, and the fine structure constant, emerges.

Today, the style of light construction materials used in building is one of the most important factors in reducing building's dead load and better performance of the structures in the earthquake. One of the ways to reduce the structure weight is to use lightweight blocks instead of using traditional materials. The main purpose of this research is to compare density, compressive strength and water absorption volume of non-load-bearing lightweight blocks made of natural and artificial lightweight aggregates. Scoria lightweight aggregates of Sanandaj, Ghorveh mine, pumice in Tabriz, Bostanabad mine, and Leca in Leca enterprise have been used to make the samples. Given the importance of the materials used, grading of coarse-grained materials has been conducted based on the standard of 7657 and grading of fine materials have been conducted based on the standard of 302.The experiments' results show that Scoria blocks due to hard texture, and high mechanical resistance of their lightweight aggregates, have had higher compressive strength, and density and lower water absorption volume compared to pumice and Lika lightweight aggregate blocks. Pumice blocks despite having desirable compressive strength and lower density compared to the two other blocks have higher water absorption volume, and do not meet the standard conditions. This same factor causes it faces with less interest. Among these Lika blocks with density of 1151.94 (kg per cubic meter) below 2000 kilograms per cubic meter of Iran density standard of 7782 (28-day compressive strength of 2.57 MPa), higher than 2.5 MPa of Iran compressive strength standard of 7782 (and water absorption volume of 282.92 kg per cubic meter) below 288 kilograms per cubic meter of Iran water absorption volume standard of 7782 (as a non-load-bearing lightweight block) have been diagnosed desirable.

This paper aims to build up a preference function to evaluate the public benefits of the type of agricultural farming, biodiversity, water provisions, land use type, ecotourism modes, and a monetary attribute (environmental trust fund and willingness to contribute) associated with an ecosystem service and land use program in a forest park. This study used the choice experiments to build a random utility model, analyze the average preference for the above land use attributes based on the conditional logit and used a latent class model to test the resident’s heterogeneous preferences for land use planning in the forest park. We also estimated the welfare derived from various land use programs. The empirical result had shown that: (1) increasing organic farming area, maintaining the status quo of species biodiversity, increasing the surface water provision, increasing the area of custom flora, increasing the wetland area, and setting up an integrated framework for ecotourism increase the public’s preference for the land use program; (2) we found that farmer and non-farmer haven’t the same land use preferences; (3) the ecotourism development program incorporating biodiversity, organic farming, ethnobotany, and wetland area with integrated ecotourism are more preferred than other land use program scenarios.

Compared to conventional allothermal gasification of solid fuels (e.g. biomass, charcoal, lignite etc.), plasma-assisted gasification offers an efficient method to apply energy into the gasification process to increase the flexibility of operation conditions and to increase the reaction kinetics. In particular, non-thermal plasmas (NTP) are promising, in which thermal equilibrium is not reached and electrons have substantially higher mean energy than gas molecules. Thus it is generally assumed that in NTP the supplied energy is utilized more efficiently for generating free radicals initiating gasification reactions than thermal plasma processes. In order to investigate this hypothesis, we compared purely thermal to non-thermal plasma assisted gasification of biomass in steam in a drop tube reactor at atmospheric pressure. The NTP was provided by means of gliding arcs between two electrodes aligned in the inlet steam flow. Electric power of about 1 kW was supplied using a high voltage generator operating at frequencies between 70 and 150 kHz and voltage amplitudes up to 10 kV. A laser-assisted optical method (Raman spectroscopy) was applied for measuring the gas temperature both in the conventionally heated steam and flow-down of the visible plasma filaments of the gliding arcs. Reaction yields and rates were evaluated using these measured gas temperatures. The first experimental results have shown that the non-thermal plasma not only promotes the carbon conversion of the fuel particles, but also accelerates the reaction kinetics. The carbon conversion is increased by nearly 10% using wood powder as the fuel. With charcoal powder more than 3% are converted into syngas.

As a holistic medical school, Iranian traditional medicine (ITM) considers the human body as a dynamic and intricate network of interconnecting processes. Currently, systems biology and more precisely systems medicine and pharmacology can be an aid in providing rationalizations for many traditional medications and treatments and elucidating a great deal of knowledge they can offer to guide future research in medicine. Therefore, re-organization and standardization of traditional medicine data are requested more than ever before. To address this issue, we have constructed UNaProd, a Universal Natural Product database for materia medica of ITM. Primarily based on Makhzan al-Advieh, which is the most recent encyclopedia of materia medica in ITM with the largest number of monographs, this database was created using both text mining methods and manual editing. UNaProd is currently hosting to 2696 monographs from herbal to animal to mineral compounds in 16 diverse attributes such as origin and scientific name. In the current version, UNaProd is hyperlinked to IrGO and CMAUP databases for Mizaj and molecular features respectively and it is freely available at http://jafarilab.com/unaprod/.

In order to improve the performance of the draft tube in hydraulic turbine, a multi–objective optimization method for the draft tube is developed by combining the design of experiment (DOE), the radial basis function (RBF) and the non–dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA–II) in this paper. The geometrical design variables of the median section in the draft tube and the cross section in its exit diffuser are considered as design parameters in this optimization, which objective function is to maximize the pressure recovery factor (Cp) and minimize the energy loss coefficient (ζ). The limited numbers of design matrix required for the shape optimization of the draft tube is generated by optimal Latin hypercube (OLH) method of the DOE technique, of which performances are evaluated through computational fluid dynamic (CFD) numerical simulation. For reducing of the computational consumption, the approximate model is used based on the RBF. The Pareto optimal solutions are finally performed using the NSGA–II for obtaining the best geometrical parameters of the draft tube. The optimization result of the draft tube shows a marked performance improvement over the original, which verifies the theoretical validity and feasibility of the proposed method in this paper.

Calandrinia compressa Schrad. ex DC (Prodr. 3: 359. 1828) is the name currently widely applied to a polymorphic annual species of Calandrinia sect. Calandrinia endemic to the Chilean Floristic Region. A total of ten validly published heterotypic names plus six horticultural designations (and orthographic variants thereof) have been considered at some point as taxonomically the same as C. compressa. Two additional heterotypic taxa and their synonyms and two other designations possibly refer to this species. Two other taxa sometimes referred to this species are excluded. I treat here a total of 77 distinct nomenclaturally valid names and invalid designations and variants thereof. The type of one of the valid and legitimate names, Calandrinia pilosiuscula DC (Rev. Portulac. 9. 1827), is judged here to be taxonomically the same as the type of C. compressa. Because of its chronological priority, Calandrinia pilosiuscula DC must be accepted as the correct name for Calandrinia compressa Schrad. ex DC when the two are considered taxonomic synonyms. Here, the taxonomic history of this taxon is articulated and, where possible, types are identified and/or designated. The natural and anthropogenic history of the species is summarized critically in a theoretical context.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the SDGs, are high on the agenda for most countries of the world. In its publication of the SDGs, the UN has provided the goals and target descriptions that, if implemented at a country level, would lead towards a sustainable future. The IAEG (InterAgency Expert Group of the SDGs) was tasked with disseminating indicators and methods to countries that can be used to gather data describing the global progress towards sustainability. However 2030 Agenda leaves it to countries to adopt the targets with each government setting its own national targets guided by the global level of ambition but taking into account national circumstances. At present, guidance on how to go about this is scant, but it is clear that the responsibility is with countries to implement and that it is actions at a country level that will determine the success of the SDGs. SDG reporting by countries takes on two forms 1) global reporting using prescribed indicator methods and data; 2) National Voluntary Reviews where a country reports on its own progress in more detail but is also able to present data that are more appropriate for the country. For the latter, countries need to be able to adapt the global indicators to fit national priorities and context, thus the global description of an indicator could be reduced to describe only what is relevant to the country. Countries may also, for the National Voluntary Review, use indicators that are unique to the country but nevertheless contribute to measurement of progress towards the global SDG target. Importantly, for those indicators that relate to the security of natural resources security (e.g. water) indicators, there are no prescribed numerical targets/standards or benchmarks. Rather countries will need to set their own benchmarks or standards against which performance can be evaluated. This paper presents a procedure that would enable a country to describe national targets with associated benchmarks that are appropriate for the country. The procedure focusses on those SDG targets that are natural resource-security focussed e.g. extent of water-related ecosystems (6.6), desertification (15.3) etc., because the selection of indicator methods and benchmarks is based on the location of natural resources, their use and present state and how they fit into national strategies.

Electronic health records (EHRs) are becoming a vital source of data for healthcare quality improvement, research, and operations. However, much of the most valuable information contained in EHRs remains buried in unstructured text. The field of clinical text mining has advanced rapidly in recent years, transitioning from rule-based approaches to machine learning and, more recently, deep learning. With new methods come new challenges, however, especially for those new to the field. This review provides an overview of clinical text mining for those who are encountering it for the first time (e.g. physician researchers, operational analytics teams, machine learning scientists from other domains). While not a comprehensive survey, it describes the state of the art, with a particular focus on new tasks and methods developed over the past few years. It also identifies key barriers between these remarkable technical advances and the practical realities of implementation at health systems and in industry.

The objective of the prototype is to eliminate the polluting contamination of water sources, due to the leak of industrial waste without any kind of treatment, mainly generated by the industries and home sector. In this project, a prototype of water purification by plasma technology has been designed. The prototype will convert contaminated water into the plasma stream and eliminate the pathogens from the water by exposing it to ultraviolet radiation and plasma sterilisation. The polluted water will be accelerated at high speed using a water pump in order to convert it into a liquid-gas mixture for ease plasma generation. This process will be achieved when the electric supply from a source of alternating current (AC) is applied to the water by means of high voltage electrodes. After which, the mixture slows down to return into liquid form and the clean water is obtained. The whole process takes place without significantly raising the temperature also knows as non-thermal plasma. The device also has an automatic flow and pressure control system. Finally, a short feasibility study has been conducted on the water samples collected and report obtained from Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage boards are reported. It has been concluded that this new plasma-based water treatment system will be more efficient and cheaper than the current wastewater treatment techniques and can be used in the future as the replacement of current secondary and tertiary treatments of industrial wastewater.

The performance of modified electrode of nanocomposite film consisting of polypyrrole-chitosan-titanium dioxide (Ppy-CS-TiO2) has been explored as non-enzymatic glucose biosensors. The synergy effect of TiO2 nanoparticles and conducting polymer on the current response of electrode resulted in higher sensitivity for nanocomposite modified electrode. The incorporation of TiO2 nanoparticles in the nanocomposite films were confirmed by XPS spectra. The FESEM and HR-TEM provided more evidences for the presence of TiO2 in Ppy-CS structure. Glucose biosensing properties were determined by amperommetry and cyclic voltammetry (CV) methods. The interfacial properties of nanocomposite electrodes were studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The developed biosensors showed a good sensitivity over the liner range of 1-14 mM with a detection limit of 614 μM for glucose. It also exhibited good selectivity and long term stability with no interference effect. The Ppy-CS-TiO2 nanocomposites film presented high electron transfer kinetics.

Numerical models widely used for hydrocarbon phase behavior and compositional flow simulations are based on assumption of thermodynamic equilibrium. However, it is not uncommon for oil and gas-condensate reservoirs to exhibit essentially non-equilibrium phase behavior, e.g., in the processes of secondary recovery after pressure depletion below saturation pressure, or during gas injection, or for condensate evaporation at low pressures. In many cases the ability to match field data with equilibrium model depends on simulation scale. The only method to account for non-equilibrium phase behavior adopted by the majority of flow simulators is the option of limited rate of gas dissolution (condensate evaporation) in black oil models. For compositional simulations no practical yet thermodynamically consistent method has been presented so far except for some upscaling techniques in gas injection problems. Previously reported academic non-equilibrium formulations have a common drawback of doubling the number of flow equations and unknowns compared to the equilibrium formulation. In the paper a unified thermodynamically-consistent formulation for compositional flow simulations with non-equilibrium phase behavior model is presented. Same formulation and a special scale-up technique can be used for upscaling of an equilibrium or non-equilibrium model to a coarse-scale non-equilibrium model. A number of test cases for real oil and gas-condensate mixtures are given. Model implementation specifics in a flow simulator are discussed and illustrated with test simulations. A non-equilibrium constant volume depletion algorithm is presented to simulate condensate recovery at low pressures in gas-condensate reservoirs. Results of satisfactory model matching to field data are reported and discussed.

The present paper aims to increase knowlodge of the methods of resistance estimating of concrete in situ by means of non-destructive tests used to integrate the quantitative results from cylindrical specimens (core). The results of experimental investigations carried out on concrete conglomerate samples of a school building are shown. The experimental campaign then will be presented like a case study, conducted on a series of concrete beams and pillars of an existing building. The distructive tests on cores were conducted at the Civil Structures Laboratory of the Engineering Department of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli". The expression obtained through the calibration procedure of the values of non-destructive tests with those provided by the core drills allowed to estimate the average values of the compressive strength of the concrete. It is highlighted how this result was achieved with a very limited core number provided that they are extracted in selected points and that there was a proportionality link with the resistances obtained from non distructive tests.

Now when the whole world is still under COVID-19 pandemic, many schools have transferred the teaching from physical classroom to online platforms. It is highly important for schools and online learning platforms to investigate the feedback to get valuable insights about online teaching process so that both platforms and teachers are able to learn which aspect they can improve to achieve better teaching performance. But handling reviews expressed by students would be a pretty laborious work if they were handled manually as well as it is unrealistic to handle large-scale feedback from e-learning platform. In order to address this problem, both machine learning algorithms and deep learning models are used in recent research to automatically process students' review getting the opinion, sentiment and attitudes expressed by the students. Such studies may play a crucial role in improving various interactive online learning platforms by incorporating automatic analysis of feedback. Therefore, we conduct an overview study of sentiment analysis in educational field presented in recent research, to help people grasp an overall understanding of the sentiment analysis research. Besides, according to the literature review, we identify three future directions that researchers can focus on in automatically feedback processing: high-level entity extraction, multi-lingual sentiment analysis, and handling of figurative language.

Implementation of the German Climate change Strategy in the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt is discussed in this paper. It shares the requirement and importance of sustainable development. An overview of strategy, The DAS Indicator System is provided with results of a portion of work being done for the ministry of agriculture by Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD). Applicability of the indicator system is also shown by evaluation of results for specific indicators from 1961-2015.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized the field of Artificial Intelligence with their ability to understand and generate natural language discourse. This has led to the use of LLMs in various creative fields such as music, art, and storytelling, which has sparked a debate on the impact of LLMs on human creativity. This article explores the cyclic effect of LLMs on human creativity, where LLMs can generate an ever-evolving cycle of creative output from both humans and machines. The article also highlights the importance of responsible and ethical use of LLMs, including privacy and copyright issues with the training data used by LLMs. The article emphasizes the need for transparency, data security measures, and AI governance policies to protect user data and ensure the safe use of LLMs. It also calls for the development of educational materials and resources to increase public understanding of LLMs and their ethical implications. The article concludes by highlighting the potential of LLMs as powerful tools for communication and education, but also emphasizes the need for ethical considerations to ensure the responsible and beneficial use of LLMs in society.

This article develops duality principles and related convex dual formulations suitable for the local optimization of non-convex primal formulations for a large class of models in physics and engineering. The results are based on standard tools of functional analysis, calculus of variations and duality theory. In particular, we develop applications to a Ginzburg-Landau type equation.

CONTEXT– Energy is widely involved in human activity and corresponding emissions of SOX, NOX and CO2 from energy generation processes affect global climate change. Clean fuels are desired by society because of their reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is once such candidate fuel. Much hydrogen is produced from fossil fuel, with biomass being an alternative process. OBJECTIVE– The project compared the environmental impact of hydrogen production by natural gas steam reforming vs. biomass gasification. METHOD–Environmental impact was calculated from the input and output data from life cycle inventory analysis. The impact assessment was focused on greenhouse gas emission, acidification, and eutrophication. Models of the two processes were developed and analysed in OpenLCA. The agribalyse database was used to connect inventory flow data to environmental impacts. FINDINGS– For all three metrics, biomass gasification had lower impacts than natural gas steam reforming, sometimes by large margins. For biomass gasification the silica sand production contributes most to all three impact categories, whereas for natural gas steam reforming it is the LPG extraction.

Acquisition of real-time hydraulic data is an essential component for flood forecasting. However, we frequently face difficulties in obtaining discharge data using classical contact methods during high magnitude floods and for systems experiencing rapid hydro-geomorphological adjustment. Therefore, we developed low-cost, non-contact sensors and platforms that are designed to overcome these difficulties. These advances enable flood flow properties to be monitored at multiple locations across a river catchment, at low-cost, and communicated in near real-time by using an image velocimetry method. This is an optics-based approach for stream flow measurement using commercially available near-infrared digital cameras to acquire video footage in full HD (30fps). Video footage is then subjected to optical flow tracking techniques based on cross-correlation, and feature-based tracking, enabling the displacement rates of detected features (for example natural foam, seeds, woody debris, and turbulent structures) to be computed. This manual provides step by step guidance to install an image-based gauging station. It contains the list of necessary components, the calibration process of a new camera and the assembly procedure of the system.

Increasing environmental concern and consumer demand for natural, sustainable and eco-friendly products have prompted the replacement of synthetic surfactants with their natural plant-based alternatives. Saponins are the plant based natural surfactants characterized by their foam forming properties in aqueous solution. Their natural origin makes them eco-friendly, bio-degradable and non-toxic. Further, they possess better physicochemical properties than the syn-thetic ones. They are also reported to exhibit a lot of useful biological activities such as anti-cancer, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant and cholesterol-lowering properties. Because of their excellent surface activity, biological activities and wide distribution in nature, saponin rich plants deserve deeper insight as a sustainable source of natural surfactants as they possess the potential to replace toxic synthetic surfactants abundant today. This review article is intended to provide a brief overview on the saponins with a special notion on their surface-active properties. It encourages further studies on development of commercial formulations based on saponins for the complete replacement of the synthetic counter parts, making better use of plants sources thereby contributing to global agenda of green environment.

Google play store allow the user to download a mobile application (app) and user get inspired by the rating and reviews of the mobile app. A recent study analyzes that user preferences, user opinion for improvement, user sentiment about particular feature and detail with descriptions of experiences are very useful for an application developer. However, many application reviews are very large and difficult to process manually. Star rating is given of the whole application and the developer cannot analyze the single feature. In this research, we have scrapped 282,231 user reviews through different data scraping techniques. We have applied the text classification on these user reviews. We have applied different algorithms and find the precision, accuracy, F1 score and recall. In evaluated results, we have to also find the best algorithm.

There is a marked momentum towards the use of clean hydrogen energy as an alternative for fossil fuels. Renewable energies such as solar and wind are being used to generate hydrogen from the water hydrolysis process. Indeed, this approach stores renewable energies in the form of combustible hydrogen for other energy uses. The other alternative that could be economically more cost-effective at the current technology stage is to explore the natural “Hydrogen System” where the natural hydrogen is generated and accumulated within the earth system, the same that stands for a “Petroleum System”. The Discovery of a large accumulation of relatively pure natural hydrogen (H2) in Mali has triggered the opportunity of searching for natural hydrogen accumulations in other countries. The generation of hydrogen from a circular depression in Mali and some other countries is linked to the presence of geologically very old iron-rich basement rocks. Solid-liquid redox reactions between iron-rich minerals and groundwater that split water are a possible source of H2 in deep basement rocks. It is believed that the hydrogen degassing may be detected by surface topographic circular to sub-circular shallow depressions. Chemical processes such as dissolution by hydrogen are considered to play the main role in the formation of the circular depressions through preferential vertical hydrogen migration channel. Archean iron-rich Yilgarn Craton that covers a vast area of Western Australia (WA) contains abundant iron-rich mafic-ultramafic rocks. The craton reveals many surficial circular depressions visible through satellite images. The area has abundant fault systems and is blanketed with Eocene sedimentary rocks containing high-quality reservoir rocks. All these characteristics seem to provide most of the required elements, such as hydrogen source, migration pathway, and reservoir rock for a “Hydrogen System” in this area.

The early embryonic heart is a multi-layered tube consisting of (1) an outer myocardial tube; (2) an inner endocardial tube; and (3) an extracellular matrix layer interposed between myocardium and endocardium, called “cardiac jelly” (CJ). During the past decades, research on CJ has mainly focused on its molecular and cell biological aspects. This review focuses on the morphological and biomechanical aspects of CJ. Special attention is given to (1) the spatial distribution and fiber architecture of CJ; (2) the morphological dynamics of CJ during the cardiac cycle; and (3) the removal/remodeling of CJ during advanced heart looping stages, which leads to the formation of ventricular trabeculations and endocardial cushions. CJ acts as a hydraulic skeleton displaying striking structural and functional similarities with the mesoglea of jellyfish. CJ not only represents a filler substance, facilitating end-systolic occlusion of the embryonic heart lumen. Its elastic components antagonize the systolic deformations of the heart wall and thereby power the refilling phase of the ventricular tube. Non-uniform spatial distribution of CJ generates non-circular cross sections of the opened endocardial tube (initially elliptic, later deltoid), which seem to be advantageous for valveless pumping. Endocardial cushions arise from non-removed remnants of the original CJ.

Plant species with anti-inflammatory properties might play an essential role in combatting COVID-19 via reducing cytokine storms. We aimed to review the extant evidence of the potential therapeutic efficacy of natural products against cytokine storms by inhibiting interleukin-6 (IL-6) as a major pathological mediator. Data were collected following an electronic search in major databases (Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar) and also preprint articles on preprint and medRxiv servers by using a combination of relevant keywords. Seventeen active compounds and medicinal plants were found and reviewed in the present review. Results of both in-vivo and in-vitro experiments conducted on these compounds showed that Phillyrin, SMFM, Qiangzhi decoction, curcumin, Shen-Fu, Forsythia, and Alpha-Mangostin inhibit the production of IL-6. Andrographolide and Liu Shen Wan have an inhibitory effect on releasing this agent, while Ilex Asprella and Deoxy-11,12-didehydroandrographolide and naringin reduce the expression of IL-6. Theaflavin and Cholorogenic acid inhibit the secretion of IL-6, Xuebijing, and Chai-Hu-Gui-Zi-Gan-Jiang-Tang and Lipanpaidu prescription can reduce the serum level of IL-6. These agents also effectively improve infected lungs, increase survival rates, and minimize tissue damage. Medicinal plants and their phytochemical ingredients with down-regulatory effects on the expression of IL-6 have a potential influence on the inhibition of cytokine storms during viral infection caused by COVID-19. Therefore, phytochemicals could be regarded as promising candidates for managing cytokine storm inflammatory responses due to COVID-19 infection.

Natural products (NPs) have been the centre of attention of the scientific community in the last decencies and the interest around them continues to grow incessantly. As a consequence, in the last 20 years, there was a rapid multiplication of various databases and collections as generalistic or thematic resources for NP information. In this review, we establish a complete overview of these resources, and the numbers are overwhelming: over 120 different NP databases and collections were published and re-used since 2000. 98 of them are still somehow accessible and only 50 are open access. The latter include not only databases but also big collections of NPs published as supplementary material in scientific publications and collections that were backed up in the ZINC database for commercially-available compounds. Some databases, even published relatively recently are already not accessible anymore, which leads to a dramatic loss of data on NPs. The data sources are presented in this manuscript, together with the comparison of the content of open ones. With this review, we also compiled the open-access natural compounds in one single dataset a COlleCtion of Open NatUral producTs (COCONUT), which is available on Zenodo and contains structures and sparse annotations for over 400000 non-redundant NPs, which makes it the biggest open collection of NPs available to this date.

Fundamental science and applied research and technology development (RTD) are facing significant challenges that particularly compound to the notorious credibility, reproducibility, funding and sustainability crises. The underlying, serious shortcomings are substantially amplified by a metrics-obsessed publication culture, and a growing cohort of academics fishing for fairly stagnant (public) funding budgets. This work presents, for the first time, a groundbreaking strategy to successfully address these severe issues; the novel strategy proposed here leverages the distributed ledger technology (DLT) “blockchain” to capitalize on cryptoeconomic mechanisms, such as tokenization, consensus, crowdsourcing, smart contracts, reputation systems as well as staking, reward and slashing mechanisms. This powerful toolbox, which is so far widely unfamiliar to traditional scientific and RTD communities (“TradSci”), is synergistically combined with the exponentially growing computing capabilities for virtualizing experiments through digital twin methods in a future scientific “metaverse”. Project contributions, such as hypotheses, methods, experimental data, modelling, simulation, assessment, predictions and directions are crowdsourced using blockchain, and captured by so-called non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”). The so enabled, highly integrative approach, termed decentralized science (“DeSci”), is destined to move research out of its present silos, and to markedly enhance quality, credibility, efficiency, transparency, inclusiveness, sustainability, impact, and sustainability of a wide spectrum of academic and commercial research initiatives.

There must exist a reformulation of quantum field theory, even at low energies, which does not depend on classical time. The octonionic theory proposes such a reformulation, leading to a pre-quantum pre-spacetime theory. The ingredients for constructing such a theory, which is also a unification of the standard model with gravitation, are : (i) the pre-quantum theory of trace dynamics – a matrix-valued Lagrangian dynamics, (ii) the spectral action principle of non-commutative geometry, (iii) the number system known as the octonions, for constructing a non-commutative manifold and for defining elementary particles via Clifford algebras, (iv) a Lagrangian with $E_8 \times E_8$ symmetry. The split bioctonions define a sixteen dimensional space (with left-right symmetry) whose geometry (evolving in Connes time) relates to the four known fundamental forces, while predicting two new forces, $SU(3)_{grav}$ and $U(1)_{grav}$. This latter interaction is possibly the theoretical origin of MOND. Coupling constants of the standard model result from left-right symmetry breaking, and their values are theoretically determined by the characteristic equation of the exceptional Jordan algebra of the octonions. The quantum-to-classical transition, precipitated by the entanglement of a critical number of fermions, is responsible for the emergence of classical spacetime, and also for the familiar formulation of quantum theory on a spacetime background.

In the second half of the 19th century new methods for quarrying and processing natural stone are developed. In the Nordic countries Sweden, Norway and Finland this technological pro­gress goes hand in hand with a systematic geological mapping and large-scale exploitation of natural stone deposits. As a result, new constructions are developed—changing the building practice in these countries. With the end of historicism a new architecture arises that particularly in Norway and Finland acquires a national-romantic character. This paper examines the interaction between geological exploration, commercial development, technical inventions and the development of a national-romantic architecture.

The present review focuses on recent clinical trials that analyze the efficacy of intravitreal therapeutic agents for the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), such as neuroprotective drugs, and complement inhibitors, also called immunomodulatory or anti-inflammatory. A systematic literature search was performed to identify randomized controlled trials published prior to January 2019. Patients affected by dry AMD treated with intravitreal therapeutic agents were included. The changes in the correct visual acuity and the reduction in geographic atrophy progression were evaluated. Several new drugs have shown some promising results, including those targeting the complement cascade and agents called neuroprotective. The action potential of the two groups of drugs is to block the complement cascade model for immunomodulating agents, and prevent the degeneration and apoptosis of ganglion cells for the neuroprotectors, respectively. To the best of knowledge, and after extensive studies on the matter, there are still many investigations to be carried out on dry AMD in collaboration between researchers. They will have to identify truly effective molecules, understand the practical potential of pluripotent stem cells, and refine gene therapies. Only in-depth clinical trials will be able to allow the most appropriate and personalized treatments for each dry AMD patient.

Forest managers are often required to restore forest stands following natural disturbances, a situation that may become more common and more challenging under global change. In parts of Central Europe, particularly in mountain regions dominated by mixed temperate forests, the use of relatively low intensity, uneven-aged silviculture is a common management approach. Because this type of management is based on mimicking less intense disturbances, the restoration of more severe disturbance patches within forested landscapes has received little attention within the context of uneven-aged silviculture in the region. The goal of this paper is to synthesize research on the restoration of forests damaged by disturbances in temperate forests of Slovenia and neighbouring regions of Central Europe, where uneven-aged silviculture is practiced. We place particular emphasis on the most important biotic and abiotic drivers of post-disturbance regeneration, and use this information to inform silvicultural decisions about applying natural or artificial regeneration in disturbed areas. We conclude with guidelines for restoration silviculture in uneven-aged forest landscapes.

Panel data of our interest consist of a moderate number of panels, while the panels contain a small number of observations. An estimator of common breaks in panel means without a boundary issue for this kind of scenario is proposed. In particular, the novel estimator is able to detect a common break point even when the change happens immediately after the first time point or just before the last observation period. Another advantage of the elaborated change point estimator is that it results in the last observation in situations with no structural breaks. The consistency of the change point estimator in panel data is established. The results are illustrated through a simulation study. As a by-product of the developed estimation technique, a theoretical utilization for correlation structure estimation, hypothesis testing, and bootstrapping in panel data is demonstrated. A practical application to non-life insurance is presented as well.

The paper examines design and operating data of current concentrated solar power (CSP) solar tower (ST) plants. The study includes CSP with or without boost by combustion of natural gas (NG), and with or without thermal energy storage (TES). The latest, actual specific costs per installed capacity are very high, 6085 $/kW for Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) with no TES, and 9227 $/kW for Crescent Dunes with TES. The actual production of electricity is very low and much less than the expected. The actual capacity factors are 22% for ISEGS, despite combustion of a significant amount of NG largely exceeding the planned values, and 13% for Crescent Dunes. The design values were 33% and 52%. The study then reviews the proposed technology updates to produce better ratio of solar field power to electric power, better capacity factor, better matching of production and demand, lower plant’s cost, improved reliability and increased life span of plant’s components. The key areas of progress are found in materials and manufacturing processes, design of solar field and receiver, receiver and power block fluids, power cycle parameters, optimal management of daily and seasonal operation of the plant, new TES concepts, integration of solar plant with thermal desalination, integration of solar plant with combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) installations and finally, specialization and regionalization of the project specification.

Lambertianic acid (LA) is a biologically active compound from the leaves of Pinus koraiensis. In the present study, apoptotic mechanisms of LA plus TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) were elucidated in non-small cell lung cancer cells (NSCLCs). Cytotoxicity assay, flow cytometry, immunoprecipitation and Western blotting were performed. Here, combined treatment of LA and TRAIL increased cytotoxicity, sub-G1 population and cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and caspase3/8/9 in A549 and H1299 cells compared to LA or TRAIL alone. Furthermore, combined treatment of LA and TRAIL significantly decreased anti-apoptotic proteins such as B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), Fas-like inhibitor protein (FLIP) and X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP) and enhanced the activation of pro-apoptotic proteins Bid compared to LA or TRAIL alone. In addition, combined treatment of LA and TRAIL upregulated the expression of Death receptor 4 (DR4) and downregulated phosphorylation of nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (p-NF-B), inhibitory protein of kB family (p-IB) and FLIP in A549 and H1299 cells along with disrupted binding of XIAP with caspase3 or NF-B. Overall, these findings suggest that lambertianic acid enhances TRAIL-induced apoptosis via inhibition of XIAP/NF-B in TRAIL resistant NSCLCs.

Remote sensing image registration plays an important role in military and civilian fields, such as natural disaster damage assessment, military damage assessment and ground targets identification, etc. However, due to the ground relief variations and imaging viewpoint changes, non-rigid geometric distortion occurs between remote sensing images with different viewpoint, which further increases the difficulty of remote sensing image registration. To address the problem, we propose a multi-viewpoint remote sensing image registration method which contains the following contributions. (i) A multiple features based finite mixture model is constructed for dealing with different types of image features. (ii) Three features are combined and substituted into the mixture model to form a feature complementation, i.e., the Euclidean distance and shape context are used to measure the similarity of geometric structure, and the SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform) distance which is endowed with the intensity information is used to measure the scale space extrema. (iii) To prevent the ill-posed problem, a geometric constraint term is introduced into the L2E-based energy function for better behaving the non-rigid transformation. We evaluated the performances of the proposed method by three series of remote sensing images obtained from the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and Google Earth, and compared with five state-of-the-art methods where our method shows the best alignments in most cases.