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In order to facilitate the adoption of Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) by the industry, it is necessary to develop tools to integrate legacy systems with TSN. In this article, we propose a solution for the coexistence of different time domains from different legacy systems, each with its corresponding synchronization protocol, in a single TSN network. To this end, we experimentally identified the effects of replacing the communications subsystem of a legacy Ethernet-based network with TSN in terms of synchronization. Based on the results, we propose a solution called TALESS (TSN with Legacy End-Stations Synchronization). TALESS can identify the drift between the TSN communications subsystem and the integrated legacy devices (end-stations) and then modify the TSN schedule to adapt to the different time domains to avoid the effects of the lack of synchronization between them. We validate TALESS through both simulations and experiments on a prototype. We demonstrate that thanks to TALESS, legacy systems can synchronize through TSN and even improve features such as their reception jitter or their integrability with other legacy systems.

Abstract Accurately determining an aircraft's flight speed is crucial for optimizing airline performance, as it directly impacts factors such as fuel consumption and emissions. Flying at speeds higher than what is recommended by the manufacturer can result in increased fuel burn. However, flying at slower speeds may lead to longer flight times and competitive disadvantages for airlines as passengers typically prefer shorter travel times. This study empirically investigates the driving forces in the decision-making process of airlines when setting flight speeds to reduce costs while maintaining the quality of service provided to customers. We develop econometric models of planned flight cruise speed and actual mean flight speed. We analyze a vast amount of data, comprising millions of domestic flights within Brazil. Our results allow for policy recommendations that identify opportunities for improvements in airline flight operations optimization, with implications for the environmental footprint of commercial aviation.

Background Objectives Materials and methods Results Discussion and conclusion Testicular torsion is a common urological emergency in children and teenagers that, in most cases, requires surgical exploration and detorsion. However, even after a successful intervention, a high number of patients still develop irreversible damage.To investigate whether the administration of phosphodiesterase inhibitors (PDE) in animal models of testicular torsion can reduce damages caused by the ischemia–reperfusion syndrome.A systematic search of the Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and Ovid databases for studies up to December 2023 was performed using PRISMA guidelines. A detailed search was conducted using the following key terms: “testicles,” “ischemia,” “reperfusion,” and “phosphodiesterase inhibitors.” There was no restriction regarding language or year of publication. We investigated spermatogenesis by the Johnsen's biopsy score (JTBS) and histological damage by the Cosentino's biopsy score (CBS). Malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) testicular levels were also analyzed.Initially, 296 articles were identified. However, only 20 studies met the inclusion criteria. PDE inhibitors improved JTBS (MD = 2.53, CI = 1.94 to 3.13), CBS (MD = −1.11, CI = −1.25 to −0.97) and SOD (SMD = 3.27, CI = 1.59 to 4.95) outcomes. PDE did not improve MDA (SMD = −0.93, CI = −2.19 to 0.34), NO (SMD = −0.54, CI = −1.56 to 0.48), and GPx (SMD = 0.77, CI = −0.38 to 1.92) outcomes. A higher dose of PDE inhibitors only improved CBS outcome.This review indicates that the administration of PDE inhibitors in rats ameliorated the outcomes, representing a promising complementary strategy for spermatogenesis recovery following testicular torsion. Our review suggests that JTBS and CBS could be translated into future human studies, validating and extending these findings within the context of human physiopathology, while providing applicability of interventions in real clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akihiro Uchida,1,* Taro Yasuma,1,2,* Atsuro Takeshita,1,2,* Masaaki Toda,2 Yuko Okano,1,2 Kota Nishihama,1 Corina N D’Alessandro-Gabazza,2 Valeria Fridman D’Alessandro,2 Chisa Inoue,1 Takehiro Takagi,3 Hiroyuki Mukaiyama,4 Norio Takagi,4 Katsumi Shimizu,4 Yutaka Yano,1 Esteban C Gabazza2 1Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Mie University Faculty and Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu, Mie, Japan; 2Department of Immunology, Mie University Faculty and Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu, Mie, Japan; 3Iwasaki Hospital, Tsu, Mie, Japan; 4Tanisake Corporation, Gifu, Japan*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Esteban C GabazzaDepartment of Immunology, Mie University School of Medicine, Edobashi 2-174, Tsu-City, Mie, 514-8507, JapanTel +81 59 231 5037Fax +81 59 231 5225Email gabazza@doc.medic.mie-u.ac.jpIntroduction: Diabetes mellitus is a serious threat to public health worldwide. It causes a substantial economic burden, mental and physical disabilities, poor quality of life, and high mortality. Limonite is formed when iron-rich materials from the underground emerge and oxidized on the ground surface. It is currently used to purify contaminated water, absorption of irritant gases, and improve livestock breeding. Limonite can change the composition of environmental microbial communities. In the present study, we evaluated whether limonite can ameliorate glucose metabolism abnormalities by remodeling the gut microbiome.Methods: The investigation was performed using mouse models of streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus and high-calorie diet-induced metabolic syndrome.Results: Oral limonite supplement was associated with significant body weight recovery, reduced glycemia with improved insulin secretion, increased number of regulatory T cells, and abundant beneficial gut microbial populations in mice with diabetes mellitus compared to control. Similarly, mice with obesity fed with limonite supplements had significantly reduced body weight, insulin resistance, steatohepatitis, and systemic inflammatory response with significant gut microbiome remodeling.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that limonite supplement ameliorates abnormal glucose metabolism in diabetes mellitus and obesity. Gut microbiome remodeling, inhibition of inflammatory cytokines, and the host immune response regulation may explain the limonite’s beneficial activity under pathological conditions in vivo.Keywords: insulin resistance, limonite, diabetes, streptozotocin, metabolic syndrome, gut microbiome

Modern industrial robots are increasingly deployed in dynamic environments, where unpredictable events are expected to impact the robot’s operation. Under these conditions, runtime task replanning is required to avoid failures and unnecessary stops, while keeping up productivity. Task replanning is a long-sighted complement to path replanning, which is mostly concerned with avoiding unexpected obstacles that can lead to potentially unsafe situations. This paper focuses on task replanning as a way to dynamically adjust the robot behaviour to the continuously evolving environment in which it is deployed. Analogously to probabilistic roadmaps used in path planning, we propose the concept of Task roadmaps as a method to replan tasks by leveraging an offline generated search space. A graph-based model of the robot application is converted to a task scheduling problem to be solved by a proposed Branch and Bound (B&B) approach and two benchmark approaches: Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) and Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL). The B&B approach is proposed to compute the task roadmap, which is then reused to replan for unforeseeable events. The optimality and efficiency of this replanning approach are demonstrated in a simulation-based experiment with a mobile manipulator in a kitting application. In this study, the proposed B&B Task Roadmap replanning approach is significantly faster than a MILP solver and a PDDL based planner.

O objetivo deste trabalho é estudar a precificação das companhias aéreas brasileiras, com o objetivo de testar empiricamente o papel do custo com a franquia de bagagem na formação de preços do setor. Para isolar o efeito sob investigação em um modelo econométrico, foi utilizada uma amostra com dados das rotas domésticas brasileiras no período anterior à recente medida de desregulamentação que extinguiu a obrigatoriedade da franquia mínima de bagagem. Por meio do estimador de efeitos fixos two way, foi possível estimar a variável yield (preço médio por passageiro-quilômetro na rota) como uma função de variáveis de produção, custos, concorrência e poder de mercado, além da variável indicativa da bagagem. Foram obtidas evidências de que a franquia de bagagem era um serviço que vinha sido cobrado de forma implícita nas passagens aéreas emitidas por companhias aéreas nacionais no período analisado. Estimou-se uma possível redução média de longo prazo de até 6% nos preços das passagens aéreas de voos domésticos após a reforma regulatória.

A maior disponibilidade de crédito tem o potencial efeito de fomentar o consumo em uma economia, pelo menos a curto e médio prazos. No caso do transporte aéreo, pode estimular os parcelamentos de passagens aéreas, atraindo os gastos de extratos de consumidores de renda mais baixa, além de alavancar um número maior de viagens por parte do público tradicional. Adicionalmente, as empresas e corporações nacionais, com capital de giro potencialmente maior, em teoria podem dispender mais em viagens corporativas. O presente trabalho desenvolve uma modelagem empírica para testar o impacto na demanda por transporte aéreo da maior concessão de crédito na economia brasileira do final dos anos 2000. Utilizando dados estatísticos obtidos junto à Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil, montou-se um painel de dados com pares de cidades brasileiras para estimar um modelo econométrico de demanda por viagens aéreas, utilizando um estimador de variáveis instrumentais. Com esse modelo, testou-se diretamente a hipótese de efeito da disponibilidade de crédito na economia local como um dos fatores explicativos da demanda da aviação comercial brasileira no período.

O presente artigo visa investigar a relação entre desigualdade de renda e demanda por transporte aéreo no Brasil. A maior popularização do setor aéreo observada nas últimas décadas no país motiva que se considere a hipótese de que a redução da desigualdade de renda teria induzido demanda latente mais sensível a preço, resultando no aumento da quantidade de passageiros transportados na aviação comercial. Utilizou-se um modelo de demanda por viagens aéreas aplicado aos principais pares de cidades do segmento regular doméstico, combinado ao uso do estimador de Método dos Momentos Generalizados para controle de endogeneidade das variáveis de yield médio e sua interação com o complemento do Índice Gini de concentração de renda. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que a redução da desigualdade de renda intensificou a elasticidade-preço da demanda no país.

Nowadays, wind energy plays a central role in the renewable energy production, and the optimization of wind turbine performance is the focus of current research studies. In this context, morphing trailing edge system could be a promising solution to enhance wind turbine blades' aerodynamic performance. In this paper, an innovative morphing trailing edge system was designed, developed, and tested to improve the performance of a wind turbine blade airfoil. The trailing edge deformation is electrically operated through piezoelectric actuators and a compliant surface. Wind tunnel tests were performed for the sake of system validation at Reynolds number equal to 1.75 × 10 5 and 3.5 × 10 5 and an angle of attack ranging from − 8 ° to 8 °. The results put in evidence the effectiveness of the proposed morphing trailing edge system to enhance the aerodynamic performance. The trailing edge deformation allows to increase or decrease the lift coefficient. The mean percentage difference of lift coefficient was found equal to −83.6% and 68.4% for an upward and downward deflection, respectively. Meanwhile, the drag coefficient does not have a significant variation. Consequently, the aerodynamic efficiency will be increased or decreased keeping the angle of attack unchanged. The mean percentage difference of efficiency was found equal to −83.2% and 77.5% for an upward and downward deflection, respectively. In this way, it would be possible to optimize wind turbine blades' efficiency and production under different operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Container-based virtualization is a promising deployment model in fog and edge computing applications, because it allows a seamless co-existence of virtualized applications in a heterogeneous environment without introducing significant overhead. Certain application domains (e.g., industrial automation, automotive, or aerospace) mandate that applications exhibit a certain degree of temporal predictability. Container-based virtualization cannot be easily used for such applications, since the technology is not designed to support real-time properties and handle temporal disturbances. This article proposes a framework consisting of a static offline and a dynamic online phase for resource allocation and adaptive re-dimensioning of real-time containers. In the offline phase, the optimal initial deployment and dimensioning of containers are decided based on ideal system models. Additionally, to adapt to dynamic variations caused by changing workloads or interferences, the online phase adapts the CPU usage and limits of real-time containers at runtime to improve the real-time behavior of the real-time containerized applications while optimizing resource usage. We implement the framework in a real Linux-based system and show through a series of experiments that the proposed framework is able to adjust and re-distribute computing resources between containers to improve the real-time behavior of containerized applications in the presence of temporal disturbances while optimizing resource usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the application of economic indicators for the parametric estimation of public transportation aggregate demand. Since the transportation sector plays a vital role in a city infrastructure, the objective is to present a method of selecting economic indicators that assist in the study of urban public transport demand, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (MRSP). Using econometric modelling, it was estimated the effect of variables explaining total traffic in the transport system, and more specifically examine the role of fares and the employment and wage indicators. Statistical tests were performed to check the validity of the analyzed models and develop a rank of indicators according to their performance as regressors. The subset of indicators that were representative of industrial activity and more related to the local economy had the best performance as a forecasting tool.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the nitrogen fertilization as deep litter for pigs in order to produce biomass and accumulate nutrients by the corn. A deep litter made of rice husk as organic compound, from a commercial pig farm during finishing phase, was used. After three consecutive batches of pigs, the deep litter was subjected to a maturation period of 50 days, and samples of this material were taken for analysis of agronomic value. The experimental design was completely randomized with five replicates. The treatments consisted of doses of 0, 75, 150 and 300mg dm-3 of N of deep litter, as well as an additional treatment with ammonium sulfate, with a dosage of 150mg dm-3 of N. After 45 days, corn plants were harvested in order to evaluate the total dry weight and nutrient concentrations of their aerial parts. Dry matter increases were found with more application of deep litter. Regarding control fertilization, the use of increasing dosages of deep litter allowed accumulation of K, reduced the availability of P, Ca, Mg, Zn and B and did not alter the concentrations of N, Cu, Fe and Mn.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the energy flows of a commercial production system of swine deep bed in its finishing phase, located in Juiz de Fora, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Thus, an energy efficiency study was carried out by monitoring a lot of animals, during a 94-day period. The energy rate of each compound involved in the production process was quantified and the matrixes of energy consumption were determined in the form of animal feeding, electrical energy, piglets, material used as deep bed, human labor, equipment, swine buildings, production of alive swine for slaughter, organic fertilizer production (swine deep bed or swine deep litter). From the direct input energy, 80.57% correspond to animal feeding, 11.90% to pigs for slaughter and 6.76% to piglets, while from the energy output 53.45% correspond to the terminating swine and 46.55% to organic fertilizer (swine deep bed). By the results obtained, we can conclude that such production system has corresponded to an industrial and highly specialized agro ecosystem, importing a great part of the energy consumed in the production process, with 41% of energy efficiency.O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os fluxos de energia de um sistema comercial de produção de suínos em cama sobreposta da fase de terminação, localizado em Juiz de Fora - MG. Para tanto, realizou-se estudo de eficiência energética, por meio do acompanhamento de um lote de animais, durante o período de 94 dias. Quantificou-se o coeficiente energético de cada componente envolvido no processo de produção e determinaram-se as matrizes de consumo energético nas formas de ração, energia elétrica, leitões, material usado como cama, mão de obra, equipamentos, instalações, produção de suínos vivos, e produção de adubo orgânico (cama sobreposta de suíno). Da energia direta de entrada, 80,57% correspondem à ração, 11,90% à serragem e 6,76% aos leitões. Da energia de saída, 53,45% referem-se aos suínos para abate e 46,55% ao adubo orgânico (cama sobreposta de suíno). Pelos resultados obtidos, pode-se concluir que o sistema de produção em questão se enquadrou nas características de um agroecossistema industrial, altamente especializado, importando grande parte da energia consumida no processo de produção e apresentando eficiência energética de 41%.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the nitrogen fertilization in the form of swine deep bed in the properties of a quartz-sand neosol. The organic compound used was the deep bed made with rice hulls, from a commercial swine finishing system farm. Deep bed samples have been collected at various points in the installation in order to obtain a representative composite sample which has been fractionated in a 2.0 mm sieve and submitted to a 50-day maturation period. Then, agronomic value analyses were done. The experimental design was completely randomized. The treatments consisted of 0; 75; 150 and 300 mg dm-3 of N doses of deep bed as well as an additional treatment with ammonium sulfate at a 150 mg dm-3 of N. The experimental period in the greenhouse was 45 days, where the soil was cultivated with maize. After the experiment completion, further soil properties analyses were done. From the results, it was noted that the organic fertilization with deep bed provided a significant increase in the levels of potassium, in the sum of the bases, in the effective CEC, in the CEC at pH 7.0 and in the percentage of saturation.Objetivou-se com o presente trabalho avaliar os efeitos da adubação nitrogenada na forma de cama sobreposta de suíno sobre os atributos de um Neossolo Quartzarênico. O composto orgânico utilizado foi a cama sobreposta, feita com casca-de-arroz, proveniente de uma granja comercial de suínos em sistema de terminação. As amostras de cama sobreposta foram retiradas em vários pontos da instalação, visando a obter-se amostra composta representativa, após o que foi fracionada em peneira de 2,0 mm e submetida a uma compostagem adicional de 50 dias. Na sequência, foram realizadas análises de valor agronômico. O delineamento experimental foi o inteiramente casualizado. Os tratamentos constituíram-se das dosagens de 0; 75; 150 e 300 mg dm-3 de N na forma de cama sobreposta, bem como um tratamento adicional com sulfato de amônio na dose de 150 mg dm-3 de N. O período experimental em casa de vegetação foi de 45 dias, onde se cultivou o solo com milho. Finalizado o experimento, procedeu-se a nova análise dos atributos do solo. Pelos resultados obtidos, notou-se que a adubação orgânica com cama sobreposta proporcionou aumentos significativos nos teores de potássio, na soma de bases, na CTC efetiva, na CTC a pH 7,0 e na porcentagem de saturação por bases.

A new strategy that repairs severely damaged reinforced concrete (RC) columns after an earthquake is proposed as a simpler and quicker solution with respect to the strategies currently available in the literature. The external concrete parts are removed from the column surface along the whole plastic hinge region to uncover the steel reinforcement. The transverse steel is cut away, and each longitudinal rebar is locally substituted by steel rebar segments connected by welding connections to the original undamaged rebar pieces outside the intervention zone. The new rebar segments have a reduced diameter achieved by turning to ensure plastic deformation only in the plastic hinge, protecting the original rebar and the welding connections. The connection is specifically designed to be effective and simple, and is directly realized on column reinforcement. Finally, the removed concrete is restored by a jacket built with high-performance concrete with steel or polymer fibers. The use of concrete with high volume fraction of polymer fibers to repair the column is investigated for the first time in this paper. This concrete was characterized by compression and flexural tests in the laboratory and its mechanical characteristics were compared with those of the concrete with steel fibers, which are being increasingly used in construction. The repair strategy was applied to two RC columns (1:6 scaled bridge piers), tested by asymmetric cyclic tests. The results show that the column strength, stiffness, and ductility were restored, and the energy dissipation capacity improved. The experimental evidence was investigated by fiber models in OpenSees.