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Introduction: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) candidate genes, protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type D (PTPRD), and serine racemase (SRR) were suggested by a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in the Chinese population. Association studies have been replicated among East Asian populations. The association of PTPRD and SRR genetic variants with T2D in Southeast Asian populations still needs to be studied. This study aimed to investigate the association of PTPRD and SSR genetic variants with T2D in Malaysian Indian subjects. Methods: The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of PTPRD (rs649891 and rs17584499) and SRR (rs4523957, rs391300, and rs8081273) were genotyped in 397 T2D and 285 normal Malaysian Indian subjects. Results: The homozygous dominant genotype of rs17584499 is frequent in diabetic patients (56.5%) compared to normal subjects (47.3%). In contrast, the homozygous recessive genotype of rs8081273 is more frequent among normal subjects (12.5%) than diabetic patients (5.6%). The dominant genetic model showed that PTPRD rs17584499 (CC) is a risk factor for T2D (OR = 1.42, P = 0.029), whereas the recessive genetic model showed that SRS SNP rs8081273 was protective for T2D (OR = 0.42, P = 0.003). Conclusion: This study confirmed the association of PTPRD rs17584499 genetic variations with T2D in Malaysian Indians. While the SRR rs8081273 (TT) genotype showed protection against T2D, more investigation in different populations is required to confirm this protection.

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes of potassium voltage-gated channel, KQT-like subfamily, member 1 (KCNQ1) with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Malaysian Chinese subjects. The KCNQ1 SNPs rs2237892, rs2283228 and rs2237895 were genotyped in 300 T2D patients and 230 control subjects without diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Two logistic regression models of analysis were applied, the first adjusted for age and gender while the second adjusted for age, gender and body mass index. The additive genetic analysis showed that adjusting for body mass index (BMI) even strengthened association of rs2237892, rs2283228 and rs2237895 with T2D (OR = 2.0, P = 5.1 × 10−5; OR = 1.9, P = 5.2 × 10−5; OR = 1.9, P = 7.8 × 10−5, respectively). The haplotype TCA containing the allele of rs2237892 (T), rs2283228 (C) and rs2237895 (A) was highly protective against T2D (Second model; OR = 0.17, P = 3.7 × 10−11). The KCNQ1 rs2237892 (TT), and the protective haplotype (TCA) were associated with higher beta-cell function (HOMA-B) in normal subjects (P = 0.0002; 0.014, respectively). This study found that KCNQ1 SNPs was associated with T2D susceptibility in Malaysian Chinese subjects. In addition, certain KCNQ1 haplotypes were strongly associated with T2D.

BACKGROUND: The association of Insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2) common variants (rs4402960 and rs1470579) with type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been performed in different populations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of alternative variants of IGF2BP2; rs6777038, rs16860234 and rs7651090 with glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies (GADA) negative diabetes in Malaysian Subjects. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: IGF2BP2; rs6777038, rs16860234 and rs7651090 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 1107 GADA negative diabetic patients and 620 control subjects of Asian from Malaysia. The additive genetic model adjusted for age, race, gender and BMI showed that alternative variants; rs6777038, rs16860234 and rs7651090 of IGF2BP2 associated with GADA negative diabetes (OR = 1.21; 1.36; 1.35, P = 0.03; 0.0004; 0.0002, respectively). In addition, the CCG haplotype and diplotype CCG-TCG increased the risk of diabetes (OR = 1.51, P = 0.01; OR = 2.36, P = 0.009, respectively). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: IGF2BP2 alternative variants were associated with GADA negative diabetes. The IGF2BP2 haplotypes and diplotypes increased the risk of diabetes in Malaysian subject.

Phospholipase D (PLD) catalyzes the hydrolysis of phospholipids to produce phosphatidic acid and hydroxyl compounds. Phosphatidylcholine (PC) is the most abundant phospholipid in animals and plants, often constituting nearly 50% of total complex lipids in animals and plants. However, Phosphatidylserine (PS) makes up around 5-10% of all phospholipids. This work includes the monitoring thermodynamic and kinetic of the enzymatic hydrolysis of PC and PS in both water and ethanol. All experiments were performed using the Schlink line technique in N2 present as an inert gas to prevent the oxidative stress. UV/Vis. spectrophotometer was used to observe the kinetic of all enzymatic reactions. In addition, the Origin 2019 software was used to analyze and find the kinetic parameters of the enzymatic hydrolysis reactions. The results show that the enzymatic hydrolysis reactions of PC in water and in ethanol occurred at the same conditions, enzymatic activity 1.752 U/mg, temperature 37 ᵒC, and pH =7. However, the enzymatic hydrolysis reactions of PS in water occurred at different conditions than in ethanol. The enzymatic substitution reaction of PS in ethanol was thermodynamic favorable reaction due to the value of the ΔG = _164.868 J, but in water was thermodynamically unfavorable ΔG = 65.048 J. However, the enzymatic hydrolysis reaction of PC in water was thermodynamically unfavorable ΔG = 345.319 J as well as in ethanol ΔG = 74.433 J. The study shows that there is clear impact of present nitrogen bases of PC and the environment of the hydrolysis on the activity of the enzymatic catalyzing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the world health organization (WHO), stroke stands as a significant contributor to mortality and adult disability, causing motor function impairment, paralysis, and intense back pain. In aiding stroke patients' mobility recovery, physiotherapists employ diverse therapeutic techniques. This research introduces an automated method for identifying distinct therapeutic exercises performed by stroke patients during their rehabilitation process. For detecting rehabilitation exercises, leveraging pre-trained neural networks like GoogLeNet, InceptionV3, ResNet-101, DenseNet-201, Xception, InceptionResNetV2, and DarkNet-53, all potent models trained on extensive datasets. The proposed models were trained on a dataset of 2250 diverse RGB images to classify eight rehabilitation exercises: Elbow Extension, Knee Flexion, Neck Exercise, Planter Flexion of Foot, Trunk Extension, Trunk Flexion, Wrist Extension, and Wrist Flexion. The resulting average validation accuracies are as follows: InceptionV3 (97.4%), Xception (97.3%), ResNet101 (97.3%), DarkNet53 (96.7%), GoogLeNet (95.9%), DenseNet201 (94.3%), and InceptionResNetV2 (93.4%). Fuzzy EDAS is then employed to rank the models. This ranking suggests that the inception-v3 model has high rank for most of the classes and is highly recommended for physiotherapy exercises classification.

Water pumping systems are crucial for extracting water from deep wells. However, electricity shortages and high fuel prices significantly impact the efficiency and reliability of these systems. Therefore, renewable energy sources have gained more attention as alternatives to fossil fuels. Photovoltaic (PV) energy-based pumping systems, in particular, are becoming popular, especially in rural areas where grid connections are often unavailable. Several factors influence the performance of photovoltaic water pumping systems (PVWPS), including solar irradiance, temperature, system design, maintenance, and pumping load. To ensure optimal performance under these varying conditions, two controllers are crucial. The first controller is the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) controller, designed to maximize power extraction from the PV panels under varying environmental conditions (in particular, solar radiation and temperature). The second controller regulates the speed and torque of the induction motor (IM) which drives the pump responsible for water extraction. Therefore, to improve the performance of these controllers under different conditions. This review paper first examines widely used soft computing methods, providing a detailed description of each. These methods are then applied to both the MPPT and the IM controllers, offering valuable insights for researchers looking to develop advanced PVWPS control configurations for future applications.

Generating poetry using machine and deep learning techniques has been a challenging and exciting topic of research in recent years. It has significance in natural language processing and computational linguistics. This study introduces an innovative approach to generate high-quality Pashto poetry by leveraging two pre-trained transformer models, LaMini-Cerebras-590M and bloomz-560m. The models were trained on an extensive new and quality Pashto poetry dataset to learn the underlying complex patterns and structures. The trained models are then used to generate new Pashto poetry by providing them with a seed text or prompt. To evaluate the quality of the generated poetry, we conducted both subjective and objective evaluations, including human evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can generate Pashto poetry that is comparable in quality to human-generated poetry. The study provides a valuable contribution to the field of Pashto language and poetry generation and has potential applications in natural language processing and computational linguistics.

Layout analysis is the main component of a typical Document Image Analysis (DIA) system and plays an important role in pre-processing. However, regarding the Pashto language, the document images have not been explored so far. This research, for the first time, examines Pashto text along with graphics and proposes a deep learning-based classifier that can detect Pashto text and graphics per document. Another notable contribution of this research is the creation of a real dataset, which contains more than 1,000 images of the Pashto documents captured by a camera. For this dataset, we applied the convolution neural network (CNN) following a deep learning technique. Our intended method is based on the development of the advanced and classical variant of Faster R-CNN called Single-Shot Detector (SSD). The evaluation was performed by examining the 300 images from the test set. Through this way, we achieved a mean average precision (mAP) of 84.90%.

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of adverse pregnancy outcomes due to invasive infection. This study investigated longitudinal variation in GBS rectovaginal colonization, serum and vaginal GBS capsular polysaccharide (CPS)-specific antibody levels. Non-pregnant women were recruited in the UK and were sampled every 2 weeks over a 12-week period. GBS isolates were taken from recto-vaginal swabs and serotyped by polymerase chain reaction. Serum and vaginal immunoglobulin G (IgG) and nasal immunoglobulin A (IgA) specific to CPS were measured by Luminex, and total IgG/A by ELISA. Seventy women were enrolled, of median age 26. Out of the 66 participants who completed at least three visits: 14/47 (29.8%) women that were GBS negative at screening became positive in follow-up visits and 16/19 (84.2%) women who were GBS positive at screening became negative. There was 50% probability of becoming negative 36 days after the first positive swab. The rate of detectable GBS carriage fluctuated over time, although serum, vaginal, and nasal CPS-specific antibody levels remained constant. Levels of CPS-specific antibodies were higher in the serum of individuals colonized with GBS than in non-colonized, but similar in the vaginal and nasal mucosa. We found correlations between antibody levels in serum and the vaginal and nasal mucosa. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of elution methods to retrieve vaginal and nasal antibodies, and the optimization of immunoassays to measure GBS-CPS-specific antibodies. The difference between the dynamics of colonization and antibody response is interesting and further investigation is required for vaccine development. 70 non-pregnant women were recruited, from which 21 were GBS positive at baseline. GBS recto-vaginal colonisation and capsule polysaccharides specific antibody levels in serum, and in the vaginal and nasal mucosa were followed for three months. Colonisation and GBS serotypes present fluctuated over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of virtual reality (VR) in geography education is regarded as a progressive and proactive method that has still not gained sufficient attention in the educational policy in Hungary. The aim of our review is to find the ways and means to make it happen. We selected 47 works that are closely linked to geography teaching and analyzed their bibliometric (authorship and journal characteristics, types of works and applied methods, keywords, referencing, and co-citation networks) and contextual characteristics (research objectives, demographic, gender and social background, hardware and software specifications, advantages and disadvantages, conclusions, and predictions) which we expected to help us to understand the slow implementation and undeserved marginalization of VR in the curricular geography education. We used a mixed-method research analysis combining elements of quantitative and qualitative analysis using inductive reasoning. Our preliminary assumption that the application of VR technology is an effective and useful way of teaching geography was proved by our findings. The methods used by the authors of the reviewed empirical works, together with the recommended future research topics and strategies, can be applied to future empirical research on the use of VR in geography education.

This article introduces a recognition system for handwritten text in the Pashto language, representing the first attempt to establish a baseline system using the Pashto Handwritten Text Imagebase (PHTI) dataset. Initially, the PHTI dataset underwent pre-processed to eliminate unwanted characters, subsequently, the dataset was divided into training 70%, validation 15%, and test sets 15%. The proposed recognition system is based on multi-dimensional long short-term memory (MD-LSTM) networks. A comprehensive empirical analysis was conducted to determine the optimal parameters for the proposed MD-LSTM architecture; Counter experiments were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed system comparing with the state-of-the-art models on the PHTI dataset. The novelty of our proposed model, compared to other state of the art models, lies in its hidden layer size (i.e., 10, 20, 80) and its Tanh layer size (i.e., 20, 40). The system achieves a Character Error Rate (CER) of 20.77% as a baseline on the test set. The top 20 confusions are reported to check the performance and limitations of the proposed model. The results highlight complications and future perspective of the Pashto language towards the digital transition.

Abstract Objective We aim to assess the effect of low-pressure pneumoperitoneum on post operative pain and ten of the known inflammatory markers. Background The standard of care pneumoperitoneum set pressure in laparoscopic cholecystectomy is set to 12–14 mmHg, but many societies advocate to operate at the lowest pressure allowing adequate exposure of the operative field. Many trials have described the benefits of operating at a low-pressure pneumoperitoneum in terms of lower post operative pain, and better hemodynamic stability. But only few describe the effects on inflammatory markers and cytokines. Methods A prospective, double-blinded, randomised, controlled clinical trial, including patients who underwent elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Patients randomised into low-pressure (8–10 mmHg) vs. standard-pressure (12–14 mmHg) with an allocation ratio of 1:1. Perioperative variables were collected and analysed. Results one hundred patients were allocated, 50 patients in each study arm. Low-pressure patients reported lower median pain score 6-hour post operatively (5 vs. 6, p-value = 0.021) in comparison with standard-pressure group. Eight out of 10 inflammatory markers demonstrated better results in low-pressure group in comparison with standard-pressure, but the effect was not statistically significant. Total operative time and surgery difficulty was not significantly different between the two groups even in the hands of inexperienced surgeons. Conclusion low-pressure laparoscopic cholecystectomy is associated with less post operative pain and lower rise of inflammatory markers. It is feasible with comparable complications to the standard of care. Registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05530564/ September 7th, 2022).

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) can bolster road safety through the proactive dissemination of emergency messages (EMs) among vehicles, effectively reducing the occurrence of traffic-related accidents. It is difficult to transmit EMs quickly and reliably due to the high-speed mobility of VANET and the attenuation of the wireless signal. However, poor network design and high vehicle mobility are the two most difficult problems that affect VANET’s network performance. The real-time traffic situation and network dependability will also be significantly impacted by route selection and message delivery. Many of the current works have undergone studies focused on forwarder selection and message transmission to address these problems. However, these earlier approaches, while effective in forwarder selection and routing, have overlooked the critical aspects of communication overhead and excessive energy consumption, resulting in transmission delays. To address the prevailing challenges, the proposed solutions use edge computing to process and analyze data locally from surrounding cars and infrastructure. EDGE-RSUs are positioned by the side of the road. In intelligent transportation systems, this lowers latency and enhances real-time decision-making by employing proficient forwarder selection techniques and optimizing the dissemination of EMs. In the context of 5G-enabled VANET, this paper introduces a novel routing protocol, namely, the supercluster-based urban multi-hop broadcast and best forwarder selection protocol (UMB-BFS). The improved twin delay deep deterministic policy gradient (IT3DPG) method is used to select the target region for emergency message distribution after route selection. Clustering is conducted using modified density peak clustering (MDPC). Improved firefly optimization (IFO) is used for optimal path selection. In this way, all emergency messages are quickly disseminated to multiple directions and also manage the traffic in VANET. Finally, we plotted graphs for the following metrics: throughput (3.9 kbps), end-to-end delay (70), coverage (90%), packet delivery ratio (98%), packet received (12.75 k), and transmission delay (57 ms). Our approach’s performance is examined using numerical analysis, demonstrating that it performs better than the current methodologies across all measures.

Le pommier occupe une place importante dans l’économie des zones montagneuses de l’Atlas marocain. Cette étude établit un diagnostic de la filière de pomme dans trois communes (Agdal, Bouzmou et Outerbat) de la région d’Imilchil située à environ 2200 m d’altitude au coeur du Haut Atlas oriental relevant de la province de Midelt. Cette région fait face à plusieurs défis causés par les changements climatiques et le tarissement des ressources naturelles notamment les pâturages qui étaient le pilier des activités pastorales des tribus autochtones. Actuellement l’agriculture vivrière ne couvre que partiellement les besoins de ces populations. L’introduction de la pomiculture est une opportunité pour surmonter ces déficiences et donner un nouvel élan à cette agriculture de haute montagne. Cette étude est menée auprès de 300 pomiculteurs en adoptant une approche méthodologique transversale et descriptive. Les points forts dégagés lors de ce diagnostic, indique la disponibilité des ressources hydriques, sol propice au développement d’une agriculture biologique, des basses températures assurant la vernalisation et la qualité du fruit, l’existence des conditions favorables d’extension et la motivation des agriculteurs constituant tous des ingrédients pour un fort développement de cette filière dans le futur. Comme points faibles, nous avons noté que la défaillance des mesures de protection contre la grêle, l’insuffisance d’infrastructure et l’enclavement géographique posent encore des difficultés de transport et de distribution qui limite la commercialisation et la valorisation du pommier. Cette étude a permis de démontrer l’importance socioéconomique du pommier qui constitue une spéculation stratégique pour le développement de la région.

Apples are a valuable source of health-promoting polyphenols. However, a considerable variation in the polyphenol contents and bioactivities may exist among different apples from different origins. As the apples derived from traditional agriculture in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains (above 2000 m of altitude) are less explored. This study aimed to investigate the polyphenol contents, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of aqueous extracts derived from five varieties of apples from the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco compared to two imported European varieties of apples. The content of phenol acids, flavonoids, tannins, and reducing sugars were spectrophotometrically measured. Ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), radical scavenging activity (RSA), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were assessed in vitro. The anti-inflammatory activity was conducted using paw edema induced by sub-plantar injection of formalin (0.05 mL, 4%) in rats. The results showed that local apples, particularly the Imilchil extract, contained the highest content of polyphenols (9.11 ± 0.36 GAE mg/gE), flavonoids (7.59 ± 0.23 RE mg/gE), and tannins (2.94 ± 0.05 CE mg/gE) but lower content of reducing sugars. Among all the tested extracts, Imilchil also exhibited the highest antioxidant activity in 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl RSA (IC50= 1.12 ± 0.02 mg/mL), FRAP (110.55 ± 1.55 Fe2+E mMol/gE) and TAC (731.48 ± 3.02 AAE µg/gE) when compared with imported apples (Alpe and Golden), that have the lowest antioxidant activities in RSA (IC50 3.46 ± 0.12 and 3.92 ± 0.10 mg/ml), FRAP (18.30 ±.08 and 21.27 ± 0.99 Fe2+E mMol/gE) and TAC assays (133.22 ± 6.42 and 225.06 ± 2.88 AAE µg/gE), respectively. The administration of a single dose (500 mg/kg BW) of local apple extracts significantly inhibited about 54.77% of paw edema, while the imported apples produced about 30.60%. It is concluded that apples from the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains could be a rich source of natural polyphenols with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potentialities.

Abstract Due to the proliferation of contemporary computer-integrated systems and communication networks, there is more concern than ever regarding privacy, given the potential for sensitive data exploitation. A recent cyber-security research trend is to focus on security principles and develop the foundations for designing safety-critical systems. In this work, we investigated the problem of verifying current-state opacity in discrete event systems using labeled Petri nets. A system is current-state opaque provided that the current-state estimate cannot be revealed as a subset of secret states. We introduced a new sub-model of the system, named an observer net. The observer net have the same structure as the plant, but it is distinguished by the use of colored markers as well as simultaneous and recursive transition enabling and firing, which offer an efficient state estimation. We considered two settings of the proposed approach: an on-line setting, in which a current-state opacity algorithm is proposed. The algorithm waits for the occurrence of an observable event and determines if the current observation of a plant reveals the secret behaviour, as well as, an off-line setting, where the verification problem is solved based on a state estimator called a colored estimator. In this context, necessary and sufficient conditions for verifying opacity are developed with illustrative examples to demonstrate the presented approach.

Introduction: The experiences of Pakistanis with intellectual disabilities (IDs) and their family members have been underexplored empirically. Method: The present study sought to address this gap by understanding the lives of five Special Olympics Pakistan athletes and their guardians through PhotoVoice. Findings: Through thematic analysis, we present the primary theme concerning Pakistan's cultural context that provides an empirical exploration of cultural beliefs about intellectual disability, cultural expectations and support received by people with intellectual disabilities and their guardians. Discussion: We discuss implications for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Pakistan and other developing countries, the available data on the association of T2DM and HCV is limited. We therefore made an attempt to report the association of HCV and diabetes in Pakistani population through this meta-analysis. HCV and diabetes related studies were identified using various key words, from a number of databases including CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science and Embase. Using RevMan5, the main outcome was regarded as type 2 diabetes associations with hepatitis c virus infection in Pakistan. Independent analyses were made for “HCV in diabetic patients” and “diabetes cases in hepatitis C virus patients”. Using random effect model, odds ratios were calculated with 95% CIs (dichotomous data). I2 statistics were used to calculate heterogeneity. From a total of 53 studies, we finally selected 6 studies for the meta-analysis. Using random effects model, hepatitis c virus patients in 3 studies (n = 1,902) demonstrated that HCV is a risk factor in developing diabetes, contrary to patients with no HCV infection (OR 0.01, 95% CI: 0.00-0.06, I2 = 0%; RR 0.01, 95% CI: 0.00-0.07, I2 = 0%). The remaining 3 studies (n = 13,710) had reported HCV infections in type 2 diabetic patients and patients with no diabetes. Similarly, our meta-analysis revealed higher prevalence of HCV infections in patients with type 2 diabetes (OR 0.7, 95% CI: 0.17-0.42, I2 = 32%; RR 0.30, 95% CI: 0.20-0.46, I2 = 32%) as compared to patients with no type 2 diabetes mellitus. Our meta-analysis demonstrates a significant link between HCV and T2DM. Further studies are recommended with adequate sample sizes.

The current research aims to identify the level of avoidance personality among university students, as well as to identify the significance of the statistical differences in the avoidance personality according to the gender variable (male-female) and specialization (scientific-human). The study also aims to tackle the identification of emotional reincarnation among university students as well as the identification of statistical differences in emotional reincarnation according to the variable of gender (male-female) and specialization (scientific-human), and the identification of the correlational relationship between the avoidance personality and the emotional empathy of university students, and the extent of the contribution of the avoidant personality in Explanation of the variation in emotional reincarnation among university students: The sample consisted of (400) male and female students they are divided into (4) faculties of (156) male and (244) female students, and the researcher built the avoidance personality scale, which consisted of (50) items in its final form, and adopted the empathy scale, which consisted of (39) items in its final form, and extracted several types By using the statistical program (SPSS), the research reached the following results:1. The level of avoidance personality of the research sample is less than the average.2. There are statistically significant differences between males and females in favor of females in the avoidance personality and empathy .3. The sample's level of empathy is high..

BackgroundWastewater based epidemiology (WBE) has become an important tool in SARS-CoV-2 surveillance and epidemiology. While WBE measurements generally correlate with observed case numbers in large municipal areas on sewer grids, there are few studies on its utility in communities that are off-grid (non-sewered).Methods and materialsTo explore the applicability of wastewater surveillance in our region, five Bedouin communities along the Hebron Stream in Southern Israel (Negev desert) were sampled. One point (El-Sayed) represents a community with partial connection to the sewer grid system and another point (Um Batin) represents a community with no access to the sewer grid system. The towns of Hura, Lakia, and Tel Al-Sabi/Tel Sheva were on-grid. A total of 87 samples were collected between August 2020 to January 2021 using both grab and composite sampling. RNA was extracted from the raw sewage and concentrated sewage. RT-qPCR was carried out with N1, N2, and N3 gene targets, and findings were compared to human case data from the Israeli Ministry of Health.ResultsSARS-CoV-2 was detected consistently over time in on-grid Bedouin towns (Lakia, Tel Sheva/Tel as-Sabi, and Hura) and inconsistently in smaller, off-grid communities (El-Sayed and Um Batin). The trend in maximum copy number/L appears to be driven by population size. When comparing case numbers normalized to population size, the amount of gene copies/L was inconsistently related to reported case numbers. SARS-CoV-2 was also detected from sewage-impacted environmental waters representing communities with no access to the wastewater grid. When grab sampling and composite sampling data were compared, results were generally comparable however composite sampling produced superior results.ConclusionsThe mismatch observed between detected virus and reported cases could indicate asymptomatic or “silent” community transmission, under-testing within these communities (due to factors like mistrust in government, stigma, misinformation) or a combination therein. While the exact reason for the mismatch between environmental SARS-CoV-2 signals and case numbers remains unresolved, these findings suggest that sewage surveillance, including grab sampling methodologies, can be a critical aspect of outbreak surveillance and control in areas with insufficient human testing and off-grid communities.

This paper aims to research a photovoltaic solar water pumping system (PVWPS) based on a three-phase induction motor (IM) with high performance, low cost, and without chemical energy storage. The proposed control for the PVWPS consists of two principal controllers. The first controller is used to control the system to reach its maximum using a robust MPPT control strategy that is based on the Kalman filter algorithm (KF-MPPT). While the second controller is based on 12-sectors Direct Torque Control (DTC). This technique is proposed to control the IM with the centrifugal pump through a three-level inverter with a neutral point clamped (NPC) structure. Furthermore, to increase the performance of the proposed control without affecting the system efficiency, the torque and flux hysteresis regulators level is increased to five and three levels, respectively. To see the behaviors of the PVWPS with the proposed control, the whole system was designed and simulated in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. This work also includes a comparative analysis to show the performance of the proposed control compared to the conventional controls. This analysis is done first to compare the performance of the KF-MPPT, VSS-P&O-MPPT, and VSS-INC-MPPT using variable radiation, and then to compare the proposed KF-MPPT-PDTC and the conventional KF-MPPT-DTC under a daily climatic profile. The simulated results showed that PVWPS with KF-MPPT and PDTC provide a better performance in terms of reference tracking, response time, torque and flux ripple reduction, current quality, as well as water pumped.

Due to the increasing costs of components and the complexity of controlling the production of PV systems on the one hand, and the quality of the energy produced and the connection to the grid on the other. This work describes how the optimal operation and cost minimization of a grid-connected PV system via the single-stage structure (without a DC-DC converter) can be achieved. Through the development of control algorithms, the extraction of the maximum power from the solar panel has been achieved by fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC). The main development of this proposed technique is to combine the advantages of fuzzy logic and sliding mode in an algorithm that directly controls the inverter to track the maximum power point and to keep good control of the voltage Vmp used as a reference voltage at the input of the inverter control (VOC) for maximum power point extraction and to properly control their switches. Therefore, the latter acts on the voltage and current shapes of the system and allows decreasing the harmonic distortion rate. These current and voltage shapes facilitate the design of a less complex filter, in order to obtain a well-controlled active and reactive power with reduced cost. The simulation results are obtained in the MATLAB-Simulink environment.

Presents a study which investigated the emission from low temperature laser-induced yttrium barium[sub2]copper[sub3]oxygen[subx] plasma plumes. Methods; Theory and data processing; Results and discussion.

Information security is an important area of concern in modern computer-integrated systems. It involves implementing preventative measures to protect confidential data from potential vulnerabilities, such as unauthorized access, secret disclosure, modification, or destruction. Considering such threats, we investigate a particular confidentiality property called opacity, which specifies a system’s ability to cover its ‘secret’ data from being interfered with by outside observers, termed as intruders. This paper discusses language-based opacity formulation and verification in the context of discrete event systems represented by partially observed Petri nets. In this context, we identify two opacity properties, called consistency and non-secrecy; then, we exploit the mathematical characterization of a net system, to separately check each property, by specifying two feasibility problems. The proposed method is carried out for two distinct settings of a system. The first setting is centralized, where an intruder is granted complete information about the system structure but a partial observation of its behavior. The second setting is decentralized, where a group of intruders cooperates to reveal the secret language, by using a coordinator. Finally, experimental findings are given, to demonstrate the proficiency of the proposed approach.