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This study adopts a robust systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate the use of mobile devices to support learning (mobile learning) in university science education. It analyses 24 high quality studies over the past decade to generate insights into contemporary mobile learning developments in relation to settings, applications and pedagogical approaches, as well as trends in research methodologies and outcomes. The results show that the use of mobile devices is providing university science learners with peer learning opportunities and supporting their networked interactions with the science community and resources. However, the study also uncovers more constrained use of mobile devices associated with traditional didactic approaches, often in formal settings. The study identifies key differences from other SLR findings on mobile learning in school science education, most notably with respect to adopted pedagogies. It suggests future research directions, including the need for more qualitative studies of mobile learning in university science education.

Abstract The abnormal expression in the T-type calcium channels is involved in various cancer types, thus inhibiting T-type calcium channels is one of approaches in cancer treatment. The fact that KTt-45 acted as a T-type calcium channel inhibitor as well as a pain-relief agent prompts us to address if KTt-45 plays any role against cancer cells. The results showed that KTt-45 caused cytotoxic effects towards HeLa cervical, Raji lymphoma, MCF-7 breast cancer, and A549 lung cancer cell lines with IC50 values less than 100 μM, in which highly selective toxicity was against HeLa cells (IC50 = 37.4 μM, SI > 3.2). Strikingly, the KTt-45 induced an accumulation of cytoplasmic vacuoles after 48 h treatment and mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis activation as evidenced by morphological features, chromatin condensation, nuclear fragmentation, and significant activation of caspase-9 as well as caspase-3. In conclusion, KTt-45 could inhibit cell growth and trigger mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis in HeLa cervical cancer cells. The results, taken together, strongly demonstrated that KTt-45 is a potential agent for further study on anticancer drug development which not only targets cancer cells but also helps to relieve neuropathic pain in cancer patients.

Abstract Background The design of clinical trials in rare diseases is often complicated by a lack of real-world translational knowledge. Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) is an ultra-rare genetic disorder characterized by skeletal malformations and progressive heterotopic ossification (HO). Palovarotene is a selective retinoic acid receptor gamma agonist. Here, we describe the methodology of three studies in the palovarotene clinical development program in FOP and discuss insights that could inform future research, including endpoint suitability and the impact of trial design. Methods PVO-1A-001 (NCT02322255) was a prospective, protocol-specified, longitudinal FOP natural history study (NHS). PVO-1A-201 (NCT02190747) was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II trial; PVO-1A-202 (NCT02279095) was its open-label extension. Trial designs, including treatment regimens and imaging assessments, were refined between PVO-1A-201 and PVO-‍1A-202, and within PVO-1A-202, based on emerging data as the studies progressed. Palovarotene doses were administered using a flare-up treatment regimen (higher dose for 2/4 weeks, followed by lower dose for 4/≥8 weeks; from flare-up onset), with or without accompanying chronic (daily) treatment. Flare-up and disease progression outcomes were assessed, including incidence and volume of new HO during flare-ups and/or annually, as well as other clinical, patient-reported, and exploratory outcomes. Safety was monitored throughout all studies. Results Overall, 114 and 58 individuals with FOP were enrolled in the NHS and phase II trials, respectively. Results of the NHS and PVO-1A-201 were published in 2022; complete results of PVO-1A-202 will be publicly available in due course. Together the studies yielded important information on endpoint suitability, including that low-dose whole-body computed tomography was the optimum imaging modality for assessing HO progression annually and that long study durations are needed to detect substantial changes in functional and patient-reported outcomes. Conclusions A flexible clinical development program is necessary for underexplored rare diseases to overcome the many challenges faced. Here, the NHS provided a longitudinal evaluation of FOP progression and interventional trials were based on emerging data. The studies described informed the design and endpoints implemented in the phase III MOVE trial (NCT03312634) and provide a foundation for future clinical trial development. Trial registration NCT02322255 (registered 23/12/2014); NCT02190747 (registered 15/07/2014); NCT02279095 (registered 30/10/2014).

The lifestyle change resulting from the pandemic has led to a notable increase in the amount of time spent in residential interiors. This has resulted in an expansion of the range of activities performed in these spaces, which now encompass not only basic living functions but also work and access to culture. The evolution of interior design in an era of widespread migration, climate risks, demographic and social changes is evidenced by the changing functions, technologies and materials that are developing and expanding on a daily basis. This article presents a study of the visual perception of architectural interiors in representatives of different cultures, specifically those of Chinese (Vietnamese), Orthodox (Greek) and Western (Polish) civilizational backgrounds. The aim is to identify differences derived from cultural backgrounds. The objective of the study was to identify features that are sensitive to cultural diversity in interior design. In order to create fully inclusive interior design, it is essential to understand how interiors are perceived and how they affect the user by representatives of different audiences with different cultural backgrounds. This understanding can be used to preserve local identities, avoid globalisation and create fully inclusive places that are adapted to the needs of all users regardless of their ability or origin. The research has resulted in interior design guidelines that take into account the cultural diversity of users.

Traditional phenotyping relies on experts visually examining plants for physical traits like size, color, or disease presence. Measurements are taken manually using rulers, scales, or color charts, with all data recorded by hand. This labor-intensive and time-consuming process poses a significant obstacle to the efficient breeding of new cultivars. Recent innovations in computer vision and machine learning offer potential solutions for accelerating the development of robust and highly effective plant phenotyping. This study introduces an efficient plant recognition framework that leverages the power of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) guided by Explainable Contrastive Language–Image Pretraining (ECLIP). This approach can be applied to a variety of plant types, eliminating the need for labor-intensive manual phenotyping. To enhance the accuracy of plant phenotype measurements, a B-spline curve is incorporated during the plant component skeleton extraction process. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through experimental results, which show that the proposed framework achieves a mean absolute error (MAE) of less than 0.05 for the majority of test samples. Remarkably, this performance is achieved without the need for model training or labeled data, highlighting the practicality and efficiency of the framework.

This study adopts a robust systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate the use of mobile devices to support learning (mobile learning) in university science education. It analyses 24 high quality studies over the past decade to generate insights into contemporary mobile learning developments in relation to settings, applications and pedagogical approaches, as well as trends in research methodologies and outcomes. The results show that the use of mobile devices is providing university science learners with peer learning opportunities and supporting their networked interactions with the science community and resources. However, the study also uncovers more constrained use of mobile devices associated with traditional didactic approaches, often in formal settings. The study identifies key differences from other SLR findings on mobile learning in school science education, most notably with respect to adopted pedagogies. It suggests future research directions, including the need for more qualitative studies of mobile learning in university science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to inspect the influence of green transformational leadership (GTL) on the development of business performance (FP) and environmental performance (EP) in SMEs of Vietnam with a mediating of green innovation (GI). Besides, the current study evaluated the positive impact of GTL on green human resource management (GHRM) and green thinking (GT), and ultimately on GI. The study investigated the hypotheses supplied by 416 survey samples from managers and directors at SMEs using structural equation modeling. Our findings reveal that GTL significantly influences the three green criterias, GHRM, GT, and GI. It investigates the impact of green factors in the context of Vietnamese SMEs. Specifically, the uniqueness of this study lies in examining the mediating role of GI with respect to the link between GTL and EP, FP, to compare how the indirect effects of GTL on EP and FP differ under the same conditions. Besides, the finding highlights that businesses will benefit from continual GI regarding the environment, earnings, and corporate image. Thus, the implications arising from this study and related documents contribute to helping managers understand the needs and benefits of green factors, thereby prioritizing the transmission of green goals to employees via vision and mission, thereby creating a new cultural dimension that contributes to the natural environment's sustainability. Furthermore, managers are urged to recruit, inspire, and provide opportunities for green human resources to use their potential for enhancing green products and processes to build the business and contribute to the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are consistently identified as the most serious global natural hazard, causing devastating loss of life and economic damage that runs into multiple billions of US dollars each year. At the coastline, many flood disasters are in fact compound flood events, with two or more flood drivers occurring concurrently or in quick succession. In coastal regions the combined effect of fluvial (river) and coastal (storm tides – storm surges and high astronomical tides) floods has a greater impact than if each occurred separately. Deltas in south-east Asia are particularly exposed to coastal compound floods as they are low-lying, densely populated regions subject to the intense rainfall storm surges frequently associated with tropical cyclone (TC) activity. For our study we used a sophisticated 1D river model, combined with 2D storm tide levels, to analyse past–present and future compound flood hazard and exposure for the Mekong River delta, one of the most flood-vulnerable deltas in the world. We found that with compound flooding, a greater area of the delta will be inundated, and some parts will flood to greater flood depth. Central areas around An Giang and the Dong Thap provinces are particularly impacted in our plausible scenario, where a TC makes landfall near the mouth of one Mekong River distributary. In the future delta, the impact of compound flooding is potentially more significant, as the same compound flood scenario inundates a greater area relative to the present case and to greater depth in many locations, and floods last longer. Compound flooding therefore has clear implications for flood managers of the future delta, who will need to ensure that existing and future flood defences are to the right standard and in the right locations to offer effective protection against this future risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional heatmap regression with deep networks has become one of the mainstream approaches for landmark detection. Despite their success, these methods do not exploit the overall landmarks structure. We present a new landmark detection which is capable to capture the overall structure of landmarks by modeling these landmarks as a graph structure. Our method combines a deep heatmap regression network with Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) into an end-to-end differentiable model. The proposed method can utilize both visual information and overall landmarks structure to localize landmarks from an image. The ad hoc spatial relationships between landmarks are learned naturally with GCN network. Experiments on multiple datasets show the robustness of the proposed method.

The distribution of elite soybean (Glycine max) cultivars is limited due to their highly sensitive to photoperiod, which affects the flowering time and plant architecture. The recent emergence of CRISPR/Cas9 technology has uncovered new opportunities for genetic manipulation of soybean. The major maturity gene E1 of soybean plays a critical role in soybean photoperiod response. Here, we performed CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted mutation of E1 gene in soybean cultivar Tianlong1 carrying the dominant E1 to investigate its precise function in photoperiod regulation, especially in plant architecture regulation. Four types of mutations in the E1 coding region were generated. No off-target effects were observed, and homozygous trans-clean mutants without T-DNA were obtained. The photoperiod sensitivity of e1 mutants decreased relative to the wild type plants; however, e1 mutants still responded to photoperiod. Further analysis revealed that the homologs of E1, E1-La, and E1-Lb, were up-regulated in the e1 mutants, indicating a genetic compensation response of E1 and its homologs. The e1 mutants exhibited significant changes in the architecture, including initiation of terminal flowering, formation of determinate stems, and decreased branch numbers. To identify E1-regulated genes related to plant architecture, transcriptome deep sequencing (RNA-seq) was used to compare the gene expression profiles in the stem tip of the wild-type soybean cultivar and the e1 mutants. The expression of shoot identity gene Dt1 was significantly decreased, while Dt2 was significantly upregulated. Also, a set of MADS-box genes was up-regulated in the stem tip of e1 mutants which might contribute to the determinate stem growth habit.

The effects of moisture on the mechanical and acoustic properties of flax fibers embedded in polypropylene (PP) were investigated in the present study. Flax/PP and hybrid flax-carbon/PP samples were immersed in water at controlled temperatures. The water intake over time in flax/PP was shown to approach Fickian behavior at room temperature while hybrids showed strong deviations. Through hybridization with 13% carbon fibers, water uptake in flax-carbon PP was reduced by 25%. For thin hybrid laminates, positioning carbon fibers at the outer edges caused no significant difference in the rate of moisture uptake. Micrographic analysis revealed that carbon fiber bundles are more susceptible to resin deficiency in flax-carbon/PP hybrids due to its densely packed thin fibers. The stiffness of moisture-saturated flax/PP samples was 50% lower than dry specimens, with 35% increase in failure strain. The tensile strength, however, was almost unaffected, and both, dry and wet samples, exhibited similar damage characteristics. The stiffness reduction affected the acoustic performance: the resonant frequency was reduced, and the STL were lowered in the stiffness-controlled frequency domain. To determine the unknown water uptake at saturation, an accelerated method was presented as an alternative time-efficient solution for designers.

Bac Hoang Nguyen,1 Anh Tuan Le Quan,2 Pham Minh Hai,2 Vu Quang Hung,3 Truc Thanh Thai4 1University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; 2Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; 3Department of General Surgery, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; 4University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamCorrespondence: Truc Thanh ThaiUniversity of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, 217 Hong Bang Street, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamTel +84-908-381266Email thaithanhtruc@ump.edu.vnBackground: Duodenal obstruction due to a gallstone, also known as Bouveret’s syndrome, is one type of gallstone ileus. This is a rare complication of cholelithiasis. Among gallstone ileus cases, duodenal obstruction is alsorare. Apart from rareness, diagnosis is challenging due to unspecific clinical manifestation. Treatment options have benefits and drawbacks with each as well. Therefore, setting an appropriate option in a certain patient is an important issue.Case Report: An 85-year-old woman presented clinically with a gastric outlet obstruction. Upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy was attempted but endoscopic exploration was limited because of duodenum filled by fluid. Rigler’s triad was detected on abdominal enhanced CT scan: duodenal obstruction, ectopic gallstone within duodenum lumen, pneumobilia. The stone was very large (9 cm long). The diagnosis was duodenal obstruction due to giant gallstone and cholecysto-duodenum fistula. The patient was treated with a radical one-stage procedure: fistulotomy for gallstone removal, cholecystectomy, side-to-side Roux-en-Y duodenojejunostomy. There were no complications related to surgery during the follow-up period.Conclusion: Surgery plays an important role in management of duodenal obstruction due to a gallstone, especially a large and impacted stone. Radical one-stage surgery is one of the feasible, safe, and efficient procedures in selected patients.Keywords: duodenal obstruction, giant gallstone, gallstone ileus, Bouveret syndrome, Bouveret’s syndrome

Abstract Background Genetic contributors to cardiac arrhythmias are often found in cardiovascular conduction pathways and ion channel proteins. Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) is an ultra-rare disease of massive heterotopic ossification caused by a highly recurrent R206H mutation in ACVR1/ALK2. This mutation causes abnormal activation of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway in response to Activin A. Prior studies suggested increased risks of cardiopulmonary complications in FOP. We examined participants in a Natural History Study (NHS) of FOP (ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT02322255) to better understand their cardiovascular status. Methods The NHS is an ongoing 3 year international multi-center longitudinal study of 114 patients (ages 4–56 years) with genetically confirmed ACVR1/ALK2 R206H FOP. Patients were clinically assessed at baseline and 12 months. Electrocardiograms (ECGs) were reviewed in a central ECG laboratory. Conduction abnormalities were compared against clinical data collected in the NHS, and echocardiograms collected from NHS and non-NHS patients. Results Conduction abnormalities were present in 45.3% of baseline ECGs, with the majority of abnormalities classified as nonspecific intraventricular conduction delay (37.7%). More specifically, 22.2% of patients > 18 years old had conduction abnormalities, which was significantly higher than a prior published study of a healthy population (5.9%; n = 3978) (p

In recent years, public investment has been crucial in promoting socioeconomic development. In the context of Vietnam's economic recession and difficulties due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, public investment in road transport infrastructure construction has become an effective tool for macroeconomic management. Planning and implementation of plans have an essential function in ensuring investment efficiency. The article analyzed the current situation of public investment planning and implementation in road infrastructure construction, pointed out the shortcomings, and established 19 criteria to evaluate the planning function and organization of plan implementation. Also, in the article, quantitative analysis is performed through SPSS software to determine the level of achievement of the targets. That is the basis for the authors to propose some solutions to improve the planning and implementation of plans to enhance the efficiency of public investment in road infrastructure construction in Vietnam.

In today's integrated global economy, business executives of multinational corporations are required to have a flexible global mindset in order to cope with the driving forces of globalization. Thus, the global market forces stress the importance for business schools to graduate students with skill sets pertinent to functioning competitively in the ever-changing business environment. In this article, we conducted a survey of 165 students in the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University to examine whether international cocurricular activities help achieve the goal of cultivating a global mindset in students. The results suggest that international cocurricular activities enhance students' global mindset. Short-term study tours and international internships do have a significant impact on students' global mindset as other long-term cocurricular activities, which may cost more time and money. We recommend that short-term study tours be used as an alternative cost-effective way to engaging business students in the internationalization of the business curriculum at their institutions.

Nitisinone (NTBC) was recently approved to treat alkaptonuria (AKU), but there is no information on its impact on oxidative stress and inflammation, which are observed in AKU. Therefore, serum samples collected during the clinical studies SONIA1 (40 AKU patients) and SONIA2 (138 AKU patients) were tested for Serum Amyloid A (SAA), CRP and IL-8 by ELISA; Advanced Oxidation Protein Products (AOPP) by spectrophotometry; and protein carbonyls by Western blot. Our results show that NTBC had no significant effects on the tested markers except for a slight but statistically significant effect for NTBC, but not for the combination of time and NTBC, on SAA levels in SONIA2 patients. Notably, the majority of SONIA2 patients presented with SAA > 10 mg/L, and 30 patients in the control group (43.5%) and 40 patients (58.0%) in the NTBC-treated group showed persistently elevated SAA > 10 mg/L at each visit during SONIA2. Higher serum SAA correlated with lower quality of life and higher morbidity. Despite no quantitative differences in AOPP, the preliminary analysis of protein carbonyls highlighted patterns that deserve further investigation. Overall, our results suggest that NTBC cannot control the sub-clinical inflammation due to increased SAA observed in AKU, which is also a risk factor for developing secondary amyloidosis.

Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin has potent, long-term, and serious effects on human health. It is capable of all parts of the body, causing cancer and diabetes; damaging the skin, liver, thyroid, immune system, respiratory system, circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, nervous system, cardiovascular system, and lungs; and causing mutations in genes and chromosomes, thereby causing birth defects and reproductive complications. This study aimed to analyze the status of disease patterns and health risks of people in Thanh Khe district (TK group) residing near areas where AO/dioxin was stored in Da Nang airport, compared with people in Son Tra district (ST control group), Da Nang city. This is a survey of 402 families residing in the TK group and 400 families residing in the ST group. Individuals in the age group 45–69 years accounted for a high proportion, of whom women accounted for the majority; the duration of residency was stable and long, typically more than 15 years in both groups. People in the TK group who had direct and indirect exposure to AO/dioxin accounted for a higher proportion than in the ST group. The incidence of some diseases that are thought to be related to AO/dioxin exposure, were hypertension (33.6%), diabetes mellitus (8.96%), and other diseases such as those of the stomach (23.0 %), joints (40.3%), ear/nose/throat (11.2%), and urinary system (7.21%) compared with the ST group. Exposure to AO/dioxin has changed the disease pattern and increased some diseases in people residing near areas where AO/dioxin was previously stored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional phenotyping relies on experts visually examining plants for physical traits like size, color, or disease presence. Measurements are taken manually using rulers, scales, or color charts, with all data recorded by hand. This labor-intensive and time-consuming process poses a significant obstacle to the efficient breeding of new cultivars. Recent innovations in computer vision and machine learning offer potential solutions for accelerating the development of robust and highly effective plant phenotyping. This study introduces an efficient plant recognition framework that leverages the power of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) guided by Explainable Contrastive Language–Image Pretraining (ECLIP). This approach can be applied to a variety of plant types, eliminating the need for labor-intensive manual phenotyping. To enhance the accuracy of plant phenotype measurements, a B-spline curve is incorporated during the plant component skeleton extraction process. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through experimental results, which show that the proposed framework achieves a mean absolute error (MAE) of less than 0.05 for the majority of test samples. Remarkably, this performance is achieved without the need for model training or labeled data, highlighting the practicality and efficiency of the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the need for sustainable eco-friendly materials, natural fibers are increasingly being used as composites reinforcements due to their low cost and their potential in meeting strength and stiffness requirements for nonstructural and semistructural applications. Fewer works, however, have been reported on the acoustic and vibration characteristics of natural fibers. In this article, the sound transmission and absorption performance of flax fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites in various configurations are assessed experimentally. Natural frequency and damping coefficient of the composites are investigated by modal analysis with an impact hammer. Results from the vibrational analysis showed that thin FF/PP composite panels have resonant frequency ranging between 300 and 1000 Hz which is consistent with the acoustic profile extracted from the sound transmission loss (STL) test. Results of STL tests revealed that higher stiffness of FF/PP composite may lead to higher STL at 100–400 Hz. Resonant frequencies of the composite range from 400 to 900 Hz and STL is show to obey the mass law with nonlinearity in the range of 900–1600 Hz. These results give a better insight into the performance of FF/PP composites in vibroacoustic environments.

Abstract Background Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP; OMIM#135100) is an ultra-rare, severely disabling genetic disease characterized by congenital malformation of the great toes and progressive heterotopic ossification (HO) in muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and aponeuroses often preceded by painful, recurrent soft tissue swelling (flare-ups). The formation of HO leads to progressive disability, severe functional limitations in joint mobility, and to a shortened life-span. In this prospective natural history study, we describe the baseline, cross-sectional disease phenotype of 114 individuals with FOP. Methods All subjects underwent protocol-specified baseline assessments to determine their disease status. Cross-sectional analyses were performed using linear regression in which functional evaluations (Cumulative Analogue Joint Involvement Scale [CAJIS] and the FOP-Physical Function Questionnaire [FOP-PFQ]) and the burden of HO as measured by low-dose whole body CT (volume of HO and number of body regions with HO) were assessed. Results Findings from 114 subjects (age range 4 to 56 years) were evaluated. While subject age was significantly (p