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Aim: Vitamin D deficiency has a high prevalence in the population and is highly associated with cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate subclinical left ventricular (LV) function using strain analysis in healthy individuals with vitamin D deficiency., Material and Methods: 113 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study (age, 44.1±7 yrs, 34 male). All volunteers underwent two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) speckle tracking echocardiography after conventional echocardiographic evaluation. The subjects were divided into two groups according to their vitamin D concentrations. 61 subjects with vitamin D less than 20 ng / ml were included in the vitamin D deficiency group. The baseline clinical characteristics, laboratory measurements, echocardiographic data, including 2D and 3D global longitudinal strain (GLS) values, were compared between the groups., Results: The 2D GLS values of the subjects with vitamin D deficiency were lower (mathematically less negative) than subjects with normal vitamin D (-16.1±3.4 vs -19.3±4.2, p<0.001). Similarly, the 3D GLS results were lower in subjects with vitamin D deficiency (-18.3±5.2 vs -24.1±6.9, p<0.001). A significant correlation was detected between the vitamin D concentrations and the 2D and 3D GLS measurements. (r=0.765 and r=0.628, respectively, p<0.001). Vitamin D was found to be an independent predictor of impaired 2D and 3D LV GLS (p=0.031, p=0.023, respectively)., Conclusion: Subclinical LV dysfunction in healthy individuals with vitamin D deficiency was demonstrated by 3D and 2D strain analysis. Due to potential negative effects of vitamin D deficiency on cardiac function, more attention should be paid to healthy individuals with vitamin D deficiency.

A majority of the primary contributors of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions into the environment have really been out of human-made activities. The levels of CO 2 in the atmosphere have increased substantially since the time of the industrial revolution. This has been linked to the use of fossil fuels for energy production, as well as the widespread production of some industrial components like cement and the encroaching destruction of forests. An extreme approach is now necessary to develop the right policies and address the local and global environmental issues in the right way. In this regard, CO 2 capturing, utilization, and storage are reliable options that industrial facilities can initiate to overcome this problem. Therefore, we have evaluated the two leading technologies that are used for carbon capture: direct (pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxy-combustion) and indirect carbon (reforestation, enhanced weathering, bioenergy with carbon capture, and agricultural practices) capturing to provide their current status and progresses. Among the considered processes, the post-combustion techniques are widely utilized on a commercial scale, especially in industrial applications. Technology readiness level (TRL) results have showed that amine solvents, pressure-vacuum swing adsorption, and gas separation membranes have the highest TRL value of 9. In addition, the environmental impact assessment methods have been ranked to evaluate their sustainability levels. The highest global warming potential of 219.53 kgCO 2 eq./MWh has been obtained for the post-combustion process. Overall, through this comprehensive review, we have identified some critical research gaps in the open literature in the field of CO 2 -capturing methods where there are strong needs for future research and technology development studies, for instance, developing stable and cost-effective liquid solvents and improving the adsorption capacity of commercialized sorbents. Furthermore, some research areas, like novel process design, environmental and economic impact assessment of capturing methods with different chemicals and modeling and simulation studies, will require further effort to demonstrate the developed technologies for pilot and commercial-scale applications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

As energy crisis is recognized as an increasingly serious concern, the topic on biohydrogen (bioH 2 ) production, which is renewable and eco-friendly, appears to be a highly-demanding subject. Although bioH 2 production technologies are still at the developmental stage, there are many reported works available on lab- and pilot-scale systems with a promising future. This paper presents various potential methods of bioH 2 production using biomass resources and comparatively assesses them for environmental impacts with a special emphasis on the specific biological processes. The environmental impact factors are then normalized with the feature scaling and normalization methods to evaluate the environmental sustainability dimensions of each bioH 2 production method. The results reveals that the photofermentation (PF) process is more environmentally sustainable than the other investigated biological and thermochemical processes, in terms of emissions, water-fossil-mineral uses, and health issues. The global warming potential (GWP) and acidification potential (AP) for the PF process are then found to be 1.88 kg-CO 2 eq. and 3.61 g-SO 2 eq., which become the lowest among all processes, including renewable energy-based H 2 production processes. However, the dark fermentation-microbial electrolysis cell (DF-MEC) hybrid process is considered the most environmentally harmful technique, with the highest GWP value of 14.6 kg-CO 2 eq. due to their superior electricity and heat requirements. The water conception potential (WCP) of 84.5 m 3 and water scarcity footprint (WSF) of 3632.9 m 3 for the DF-MEC process is also the highest compared to all other processes due to the huge amount of wastewater formation potential of the system. Finally, the overall rankings confirm that biological processes are primarily promising candidates to produce bioH 2 from an environmentally friendly point of view., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Crown Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Hydrogen is recognized as a critical substance for diversifying the global energy supply, providing new economic opportunities and realizing a carbon-free energy sector. In the current study, a life cycle assessment is conducted on a photoelectrochemical hydrogen production process of a newly developed photoelectrochemical reactor. With a photoactive electrode area of 870 cm 2 , the hydrogen production rate of the reactor is 47.1 μg/s while operating with the energy and exergy efficiencies of 6.3% and 6.31%, respectively. For a Faradaic efficiency of 96%, the produced current density is evaluated as 3.15 mA/cm 2 . A comprehensive study is conducted for a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of the proposed hydrogen photoelectrochemical production system. The life cycle assessment results of the proposed photoelectrochemical system are further evaluated within a comparative analysis by considering a total of four key hydrogen generation processes, namely steam-methane reforming, photovoltaics-based and wind electricity-driven proton exchange membrane water electrolysis and the current photoelectrochemical system and studying five environmental impact categories. The global warming potential of hydrogen production via the proposed photoelectrochemical cell is evaluated as 1.052 kg CO 2 equivalent per kg of produced hydrogen. In the normalized comparative life cycle assessment results, the PEC-based hydrogen production is found to be the most nature-friendly option among the considered pathways., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Marine transportation via the world's oceans is a critical way to convey goods and fuels between continents that cannot be performed cost-effectively by any other means. However, big ships heavily rely on fossil fuels, aggravating global carbon emissions. A key resolution to this dilemma is to employ clean fuels to reduce carbon emissions. This research paper introduces a new hybrid compound marine engine comprising a gas turbine, a solid oxide fuel cell, and a steam Rankine cycle. Three types of analyses, such as exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analyses, are conducted on this proposed engine. It is found that the engine can produce a power of 15.5 MW, which is more than 48% compared to the traditional marine engine power, and the engine performance has up to 61% energy efficiency and 43% exergy efficiency. However, the exergetic efficiency of this engine based on fuel and product principal is 60%, which is more than 17% compared to its exergy efficiency. This engine has a 218 $/h Levelized cost rate and 139 mPt/h environmental rate. Finally, the average overall specific product exergy cost and environment are obtained to be 59 $/GJ and 20 mPt/MJ. By comparing five fuel blends, methane and hydrogen are the most economical and have the least impact on the environment; the second option is ethanol blend., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this study, an experimental investigation is conducted to analyze the effect of adding hydrogen into natural gas on emissions and the burning performance of the obtained blends. Natural gas alone and natural gas-hydrogen blends are burned in identical gas stoves, and the emitted CO, CO 2 , and NO x are measured. The base case with natural gas only is compared with the natural gas and hydrogen blends (including hydrogen additions of 10%, 20% and 30% volumetrically). The experimental results show that the combustion efficiency increases from 39.32% to 44.4% by enhancing the hydrogen blending ratio from 0 to 0.3. While CO 2 and CO emissions are reduced with rising the hydrogen ratio in the blend, NO x emissions have a fluctuating trend. Moreover, a life cycle analysis is performed to determine the environmental impact of the considered blending scenarios. With the blending ratio of 0.3 hydrogen by volume, global warming potential decreases from 6.233 to 6.123 kg CO 2 equivalents per kg blend, and acidification potential reduces from 0.0507 to 0.04928 kg SO 2 equivalents per kg blend in comparison with natural gas. On the other hand, human toxicity, abiotic depletion, and ozone depletion potentials per kg blend show slight augmentation from 5.30 to 5.52 kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene (DCB) eq., 0.0000107 to 0.00005921 kg SB eq., and 3.17 × 10 -8 to 5.38 × 10 -8  kg CFC-11 eq., respectively., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Aims: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a prevalent arrhythmia and the leading preventable cause of cardioembolic stroke. Scoring systems for predicting AF risk do not use imaging modalities. We sought to determine whether LA longitudinal strain could be used as a single parameter for predicting the risk of AF., Methods and Results: Consecutive patients diagnosed with diastolic dysfunction between December 2019 and March 2020 were included. Two-dimensional, colour flow, continuous pulse-wave, and tissue Doppler transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) were performed using a Vivid E9 imaging system (GE Medical Systems, Chicago, USA). Measurements were obtained in the standard manner recommended by the American Society of Echocardiography. Moreover, LA longitudinal strain was measured using 2D speckle tracking echocardiography in the four-chamber view to evaluate left atrial function. The CHARGE-AF scoring system was used to predict AF risk.A total of 148 patients (mean age: 57.6 ± 11.9; male: 53%) with feasible views for LA strain measurement were divided into two groups based on a 10% CHARGE-AF cut-off score. The >10% group (48 patients; 32%) was defined as having a predicted 5-year AF risk >10%, and the ≤10% group (100 patients; 68%) was defined as having a predicted risk <10%. In the multivariate analysis, LA reservoir strain (LASr) was independently associated with CHARGE-AF score. Furthermore, using the Pearson correlation method, LASr was found to be highly correlated with CHARGE-AF score ( r  = -0.74, p  < 0.0001)., Conclusions: LASr was highly correlated with CHARGE-AF risk score and may be used as a parameter to predict atrial myopathy and hence AF risk.

This study presents an innovative integrated approach for smart cities, aimed at promoting environmentally sustainable economies through novel technological and socio-economic transitions. The proposed model determines the smart city index (SCI) by aggregating 32 distinct performance indicators that significantly transform the environment, economy, energy, social, governance, and transportation sectors. This model is inherently multidisciplinary and is methodologically processed using multi-criteria decision analysis, which is aggregated using four distinct weighting schemes. The model results reveal that based on the equal weighting scheme, Sydney emerges as the city with the highest SCI score of 0.72, whereas Lima is identified as the city with the lowest SCI score of 0.26. On the other hand, based on the sustainability triad scheme, Toronto tops the list with an SCI score of 0.77, whereas Abuja scores the lowest with an SCI score of 0.31. Interestingly, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal continue to maintain their position among the top 5 cities across all three schemes: equal weighting, sustainability triad, and energy-focused schemes. Furthermore, the energy-focused scheme identifies Montreal as the top-performing city, scoring 0.7, followed by Oshawa at 0.67, and four Canadian cities top the SCI scores in this scheme. In contrast, Lima still remains at the bottom of the list with an SCI score of 0.27. Finally, based on a smart health-focused scheme, Sydney, Osaka, and Hämeenlinna rank highest in SCI scores. Overall, the proposed approach and model provide valuable insights and guidelines for policy-makers and urban planners to design and implement smart city initiatives that can significantly enhance sustainable development and improve quality of life in urban settings., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

In this study, it was aimed to reveal the potential of using exopolysaccharides (EPS) obtained from Ligilactobacillus salivarius as a prebiotic that regulates chicken intestinal microbiota. Characterization of EPS obtained from L. salivarius BIS312 (EPSBIS312) and BIS722 (EPSBIS722) strains was demonstrated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) analyses. It was determined that the molecular weight of both EPS is in the range of 10 4 -10 6 Daltons, and there are 4 types of monomers in their structure. Anti-biofilm and anti-quorum sensing effects of EPSBIS312 and EPSBIS722 were determined. EPSBIS312 and EPSBIS722 showed a strong anti-biofilm effect on Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212, Staphylococcus aureus EB-1, and Escherichia coli ATCC 11229. The anti-quorum sensing study revealed that the EPSBIS722 had a higher effect than the EPSBIS312. The effect of different concentrations of EPS (2.5%, 5%, 10%) on lactobacilli growth stimulator (LGS) was evaluated. The highest LGS was promoted at 10% concentration while the lowest LGS was promoted at 2.5% concentration by EPSBIS722. In addition, adhesion abilities of EPSBIS312 and EPSBIS722 in HT-29 colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line were tested. EPSs significantly increased the ability to adhere to HT-29 cells. The characterized EPSs may be an alternative to plant prebiotics such as inulin at poultry., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

An elevated left ventricular (LV) filling pressure is the main finding in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and LV filling pressure is estimated with an algorithm in the recent American Society of Echocardiography (ASE)/European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) guideline. In this study, we sought to determine the efficacy of LA global longitudinal strain to estimate elevated LV filling pressure. Seventy-one consecutive patients (mean age of 63.2  ±  9.75, 70% male) who underwent left ventricular catheterization were included. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed within 24 h before catheterization. The LV filling pressure was estimated using echo parameters based on the 2016 ASE/EACVI algorithm. LA GLS was measured using 2D speckle tracking echocardiography in a four-chamber view (GE, Vivid E9 USA). Invasive LV pre-A pressure corresponding to the mean left atrial pressure (LAP) was used as a reference, and > 12 mm Hg was defined as elevated. Invasive LV filling pressure was defined as elevated in 41 (58%) and normal in 30 patients (42%). The LV filling pressure of 9 (13%) of 71 patients was defined as indeterminate based on the 2016 algorithm. Using the ROC method, 25.5% of LA reservoir strain (LASr) had a higher sensitivity (AUC = 0.79, specificity 77%, sensitivity 80%) in estimating LV filling pressure than the 2016 ASE/EACVI algorithm (AUC = 0.75, specificity 77%, sensitivity 70%). LASr, with higher sensitivity than 2016 ASE/EACVI algorithm, may be used as a single parameter to estimate LV filling pressure and hence may add incremental value toHFpEF diagnosis., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)