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Introduction: Perioperative hypersensitivity and allergic reactions can result in significant morbidity and mortality. For routine anesthetic care, allergies are determined from a review of the electronic medical record supplemented by a detailed patient history. Although the electronic medical record is generally assumed to be accurate, it may be that allergies are erroneously listed or not based on sound medical practice. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate allergies listed in the electronic medical record of children presenting for surgery and determine their origin, authenticity, and impact on perioperative care., Methods: Eligible patients included those presenting for a surgical procedure in the main operating room, who were ≤ 21 years of age, with a drug allergy listed on the EMR. Prior to intraoperative care, an electronic survey questionnaire containing questions related to medication allergies was provided to a guardian or parent. Two anesthesiology physicians reviewed the survey responses to determine the validity of any reported allergies. A second electronic survey was given postoperatively to the attending anesthesiologist to determine whether the documented allergy impacted anesthetic care., Results: The study cohort included 250 patients, ranging in age from 5 to 14 years (median age 9 years). All of the patients had at least one allergy listed on the electronic medical record. Seventy of the 250 patients (28%) had more than one drug allergy listed for a total of 351 medication allergies. The majority of the listed allergies were related to antibiotics including 155 (44%) from the penicillin family, 26 (7%) cephalosporins, 16 (5%) sulfonamides, and 36 (10%) other antimicrobial agents. Other commonly listed allergies were 27 (8%) nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents and 15 (4%) opioids. The remaining 76 (22%) included a miscellaneous list of other medications. On further review of the allergies, the survey was completed for 301 medications. After physician review, 135 of 301 (45%) responses were considered consistent with IgE reactions "true allergy," 73 (24%) were deemed less relevant to IgE reactions "unlikely true allergy," and 93 (31%) were not related to IgE reactions "not an allergy." Care alterations during surgery were uncommon regardless of whether the issue was assessed as a true allergy (11%), unlikely to be a true allergy (3%), or not a true allergy (13%)., Conclusion: A significant portion of the documented allergies in children are not true allergies, but rather recognized adverse effects (apnea from an opioid, renal failure from an NSAIDs) or other nonallergic concerns (gastrointestinal upset such as nausea). Erroneously listed allergies may lead to unnecessary alterations in patient care during perioperative care. A careful analysis of the allergy list on the EMR should be supplemented by a thorough patient history with specific questions related to the drug allergy. Once this is accomplished, the allergy listed should be updated to avoid its erroneous impact on perioperative care., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Purpose of Review: With this brief review, we summarize our findings of how allergists, professional organizations and patients within the allergy space are using social media to date., Recent Findings: Millions of Americans suffer from allergic conditions and it has been well established that there aren't enough allergists to help treat and reach each of these people. With a noticeable absence from social media platforms of board certified allergists with knowledge based in evidence and science, the vacuum has been filled by others - some of whom advocate for the exact things we discourage because they are not helpful, and can even be harmful, for our allergic patients. While there are drawbacks to using social media platforms, as a specialty we need to acknowledge and perhaps even embrace the idea that the use of social media can have a positive effect - as a means to not only introduce, engage and educate our patients and other HCPs, but also to reduce misinformation. Social media is a powerful tool that can be responsibly used by our allergy community to amplify our collective voice to share important health information with our patients and other healthcare professionals and we believe that more training and education needs to be done so that our speciality can join others in becoming a larger voice in the space., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Machine learning (ML) has been remarkably successful in transforming numerous scientific and technological fields in recent years including computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, bioinformatics, etc. Naturally, it has long been considered as a promising mechanism to fundamentally revolutionize the existing archaic optical networks into next-generation smart and autonomous entities. However, despite its promise and extensive research conducted over the last decade, the ML paradigm has so far not been triumphant in achieving widespread adoption in commercial optical networks. In our perspective, this is primarily due to non-addressal of a number of critical non-technological issues surrounding ML-based solutions' development and use in real-world optical networks. The vision of intelligent and autonomous fiber-optic networks, powered by ML, will always remain a distant dream until these so far neglected factors are openly confronted by all relevant stakeholders and categorically resolved., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: To address sexual and reproductive health (SRH) concerns among people with cystic fibrosis(PwCF), the CF Foundation created the Sexual Health, Reproduction, and Gender Research (SHARING) Working Group. This report summarizes CF community SRH research priorities and workshop discussions/future study planning., Methods: Pre-workshop, we distributed a community prioritization survey on CF SRH research/care. During the workshop, we used results and reviewed existing research to establish research priorities and design studies to address identified knowledge gaps., Results: A total of 303 respondents (85 % PwCF, 15 % caregivers) completed the survey. Highly-rated SRH topics were: 1) effects of CF modulator therapy on sex hormones; 2) effects of sex hormones on CF; 3) fertility; 4) pregnancy; and 5) SRH/mental health. Twenty-four workshop participants established the need for further research on sex hormones and CF, optimizing SRH care provision, and fertility/ART., Conclusion: SRH is an important and emerging area in CF and thoughtful consideration of community perspectives can ensure that future research is relevant and responsive., 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 © 2024 European Cystic Fibrosis Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Linseed is an ancient crop used for diverse purposes since the beginning of civilization. In recent times, linseed has emerged as a superfood due to its high content of health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids and other bioactive compounds. Among primary health effects, it has potential to manage hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, cancer, arthritis, neurological, cardiovascular diseases including blood cholesterol levels, constipation, diarrhea, and autoimmune disorders etc. due to the presence of omega-3 fatty acid, lignans, high dietary fibers, and proteins, whereas, secondary health effects comprise of relieving from various skin disorders. Due to these health-beneficial properties, interest in linseed oil necessitates the intensification of research efforts on various aspects. These include cultivation technology, varietal and genetic improvement, post-harvest processing, profiling of nutrients and bioactive compounds, pre-clinical and clinical studies, etc. The present review discussed the advances in linseed research including pre- and post-harvest processing. However, focus on the bioactive compounds present in linseed oil and their health effects are also presented. Linseed cultivation, pre- and post-harvest processing aspects are covered including climatic, edaphic, agronomic factors, type of cultivar and storage conditions etc, which impact the overall oil yield and its nutritional quality. Various emerging applications of linseed oil in functional food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and cosmeceutical preparations were also presented in detail. Further, recommendations were made on linseed oil research in the field of genetics, breeding germplasm resources and genome editing for exploring its full applications as a nutrition and health product.

Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and disclose no relevant interests.

Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising technology for future sixth-generation (6 G) communications. Estimating and predicting the impairments, such as turbulence and free space signal scattering, can help to construct flexible and adaptive VLC networks. However, the monitoring of impairments of VLC is still in its infancy. In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate a deep-neural-network-based signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation scheme for VLC networks. A vision transformer (ViT) is first utilized and compared with the conventional scheme based on a convolutional neural network (CNN). Experimental results show that the ViT-based scheme exhibits robust performance in SNR estimation for VLC networks compared to the CNN-based scheme. Specifically, the ViT-based scheme can achieve accuracies of 76%, 63.33%, 45.33%, and 37.67% for 2-quadrature amplitude modulation (2QAM), 4QAM, 8QAM, and 16QAM, respectively, against 65%, 57.67%, 41.67%, and 34.33% for the CNN-based scheme. Additionally, data augmentation has been employed for achieving enhanced SNR estimation accuracies of 95%, 79.67%, 58.33%, and 50.33% for 2QAM, 4QAM, 8QAM, and 16QAM, respectively. The effect of the SNR step size of a contour stellar image dataset on the SNR estimation accuracy is also studied.

Plants have a complex system of stress response that deals with different types of stresses. Maize ( Zea mays L.), one of the most important crops grown throughout the world, across a range of agro-ecological environments, employs complex mechanisms of gene regulation in response to drought stress. HKI 335 is a tropical maize inbred line showing remarkable adaptation to drought stress. Abiotic stresses, like drought, trigger the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) due to the incomplete reduction or excitation of molecular oxygen, eventually leading to cell damage. Superoxide dismutase (SOD, EC 1.15.1.1) is a metalloenzyme that acts as the first line of defense against ROS. We cloned the Sod2 gene from HKI 335 inbred line and analyzed its protein through detailed in silico characterization. Our comparative modeling revealed that at the level of tertiary structure, the HKI 335 SOD2 protein is highly similar to Potentilla atrosanguinea SOD2, which had been previously identified as highly thermostable SOD that can tolerate autoclaving as well as sub-zero temperatures. We performed phylogenetic analysis, estimated physicochemical properties, post-translational modifications, protein-protein interactions, and domain composition of this SOD2. The phylogenetic analysis showed that orthologous sequences of SOD from different species were clustered into two clusters. Secondary structure prediction indicates that SOD2 is a soluble protein and no transmembrane domains have been found. Most of the beta sheets have RSA value greater than 2. The Ramachandran plot from PDBsum revealed that most of the residues fall in the highly favored region. It was estimated that the value of the instability index was less than 40, the value of the aliphatic index was extremely high and the GRAVY value lies between -2 and +2. We could identify only one phosphorylation site, located at position 20 with a score of 0.692. Overall, the unique stress-tolerant properties of the HKI 335 SOD2, may be one of the reasons contributing to the high drought tolerance trait exhibited by HKI 335 maize inbred line. Further research may reveal more insights into the drought adaptation mechanism in maize and the eventual deployment of the trait in maize hybrids., Competing Interests: Pranjal Yadava and Sapna Langyan are Academic Editors for PeerJ., (© 2023 Gautam et al.)

Photocatalysis provides an eco-friendly route for the hydrogenation of aromatic carbonyls to O-free aromatics, which is an important refining process in the chemical industry that is generally carried out under high pressure of hydrogen at elevated temperatures. However, aromatic carbonyls are often only partially hydrogenated to alcohols, which readily desorbs and are hardly further deoxygenated under ambient conditions. Here, we show that by constructing an oxide surface over the Pd cocatalyst supported on graphitic carbon nitride, an alternative hydrogenation path of aromatic carbonyls becomes available via a step-wise acetalization and hydrogenation, thus allowing efficient and selective production of O-free aromatics. The PdO surface allows for optimum adsorption of reactants and intermediates and rapid abstraction of hydrogen from the alcohol donor, favoring fast acetalization of the carbonyls and their consecutive hydrogenation to O-free hydrocarbons. The photocatalytic hydrogenation of benzaldehyde into toluene shows a high selectivity of >90% and a quantum efficiency of ∼10.2% under 410 nm irradiation. By adding trace amounts of HCl to the reaction solution, the PdO surface remains stable and active for long-term operation at high concentrations, offering perspective for practical applications.

Background: The use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy is intriguing in view of its safety profile in pregnancy and historical precedence of the use of plasma for other viral illnesses. This study aimed to evaluate the use of CCP in pregnant women with early COVID-19 infection., Methods: This is a retrospective case series study. We have included seven pregnant women admitted with early COVID-19 infection to a tertiary care hospital, Latifa Maternity Hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates between 12 February and 04 March 2021 and who consented to receive COVID-19 convalescent plasma as part of their treatment plan. Main outcomes measured were clinical and radiological features, laboratory tests, WHO clinical progression scale pre and post treatment, and maternal, fetal outcomes. COVID-19 clinical severity was classified according to the NIH guidelines for criteria of SARS-CoV-2. For the radiological features, a modified chest X-ray scoring system was used where each lung was divided into 6 zones (3 on each side upper, middle, and lower). Opacities were classified into reticular, ground glass, patchy and dense consolidations patterns., Results: Seven pregnant women with early COVID-19 were enrolled in this study, their mean age was 28 years (SD 3.6). Four had comorbidities: 2 with diabetes, 1 with asthma, and 1 was obese. Five patients were admitted with a WHO clinical progression score of 4 (hospitalized; with no oxygen therapy) and 2 with a score of 5 (hospitalized; oxygen by mask/nasal prongs). Upon follow up on day 10, 6 patients had a WHO score of 1 or 2 (asymptomatic/mild symptoms) indicating clinical recovery. Adverse reactions were reported in 2 patients, one reported a mild skin rash, and another developed transfusion related circulatory overload. All patients were discharged alive., Conclusion: CCP seems to be a promising modality of treating COVID-19 infected pregnant women. However, further studies are needed to ascertain the efficacy of CCP in preventing progressive disease in the management of COVID-19 infection in pregnant women., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Many countries are suffering from the COVID19 pandemic. The number of confirmed cases, recovered, and deaths are of concern to the countries having a high number of infected patients. Forecasting these parameters is a crucial way to control the spread of the disease and struggle with the pandemic. This study aimed at forecasting the number of cases and deaths in KSA using time-series and well-known statistical forecasting techniques including Exponential Smoothing and Linear Regression. The study is extended to forecast the number of cases in the main countries such that the US, Spain, and Brazil (having a large number of contamination) to validate the proposed models (Drift, SES, Holt, and ETS). The forecast results were validated using four evaluation measures. The results showed that the proposed ETS (resp. Drift) model is efficient to forecast the number of cases (resp. deaths). The comparison study, using the number of cases in KSA, showed that ETS (with RMSE reaching 18.44) outperforms the state-of-the art studies (with RMSE equal to 107.54). The proposed forecasting model can be used as a benchmark to tackle this pandemic in any country., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Automatic modulation classification (AMC) is a crucial part of adaptive modulation schemes for visible light communication (VLC) systems. However, most of the deep learning (DL) based AMC methods for VLC systems require a large amount of labeled training data which is quite difficult to obtain in practical systems. In this work, we introduce active learning (AL) and transfer learning (TL) approaches for AMC in VLC systems and experimentally analyze their performances. Experimental results show that the proposed novel AlexNet-AL and AlexNet-TL methods can significantly improve the classification accuracy with small sizes of training data. To be specific, using 60 labeled samples, AlexNet-AL and AlexNet-TL increase the classification accuracy by 6.82% and 14.6% compared to the result without AL and TL, respectively. Moreover, the use of data augmentation (DA) operation along with our proposed methods helps achieve further better performances.

This paper investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental quality for 123 nations over the period 1996 to 2018. The study also conducts a comparative analysis for 45 developing and 78 developed nations to better understand the environmental impacts of foreign direct investment. The study employs pooled mean group (PMG) and mean group (MG) estimation techniques for investigating the impacts of FDI on environmental quality as the slope heterogeneity test rejects the null hypothesis of homogenous slope coefficients for the cross-sectional units in all country groupings. In addition, the study employs common correlated effect pooled mean group (CCEPMG) and common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG) estimation methods to tackle cross-sectional dependence in all country groupings. The results indicate that the impact of FDI on environmental emission is negative and significant for the global sample. Furthermore, the comparative analysis for developed and developing countries indicates that FDI improves environmental quality in developed nations as it leads to a lower level of CO 2 emissions whereas it leads to adverse environmental impacts in the developing nations as it leads to a higher level of CO 2 emissions. The empirical findings for developed and developing countries confirm pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) for developing countries while pollution halo hypothesis for developed countries. This study may help the policy makers to better understand the attributes of FDI and to devise such type of policies and regulatory framework which encourages environmentally friendly FDI or the FDI that take care of environmental quality., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Proteins are essential components of the human diet. Dietary proteins could be derived from animals and plants. Animal protein, although higher in demand, is generally considered less environmentally sustainable. Therefore, a gradual transition from animal- to plant-based protein food may be desirable to maintain environmental stability, ethical reasons, food affordability, greater food safety, fulfilling higher consumer demand, and combating of protein-energy malnutrition. Due to these reasons, plant-based proteins are steadily gaining popularity, and this upward trend is expected to continue for the next few decades. Plant proteins are a good source of many essential amino acids, vital macronutrients, and are sufficient to achieve complete protein nutrition. The main goal of this review is to provide an overview of plant-based protein that helps sustain a better life for humans and the nutritional quality of plant proteins. Therefore, the present review comprehensively explores the nutritional quality of the plant proteins, their cost-effective extraction and processing technologies, impacts on nutrition, different food wastes as an alternative source of plant protein, and their environmental impact. Furthermore, it focuses on the emerging technologies for improving plant proteins' bioavailability, digestibility, and organoleptic properties, and highlights the aforementioned technological challenges for future research work., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Langyan, Yadava, Khan, Dar, Singh and Kumar.)

This study departs from existing work on board gender diversity (BGD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by analyzing and explaining the mechanism by which gender-diverse boards in politically embedded firms (PEFs) affect firms' CSR reporting choices in a unique institutional setting of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2018. The following main results are obtained. First, having female directors and executives with political connections (PCs) on corporate boards improves the CSR reporting of firms. Firms with PCs have a greater possibility to issue CSR reports than their non-connected counterparts. Second, firms that have both gender diversity and PCs on their boards of directors are more likely to engage in CSR reporting. There is an indication that the presence of PCs on boards can strengthen the effect of female directors on firms' CSR reporting. Third, the presence of female directors on corporate boards has a stronger relationship with CSR reporting in PEFs than in non-PEFs. The study concludes that both BGD and PCs on corporate boards positively influence the diffusion of CSR-related practices in the Chinese business environment., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Shaheen, Yang, Bhutto, Bala and Khan.)

The study explores the causal relationship between monetary policy effectiveness and financial inclusion in developed and under-developed countries. Structural Vector Auto-regressive techniques have been inducted to explore the relationship between monetary policy effectiveness and financial inclusion. The study covers the secondary data of 10 developed and 30 underdeveloped countries throughout 2004-2018. It is concluded that monetary policy effectiveness and financial inclusion do not have a contemporaneous impact on each other. Nevertheless, the reduced-form Vector Auto-regressive witness the reverse causality between financial inclusion and monetary policy effectiveness in developed countries. Thus, effective monetary policy enhances financial inclusion in a country, and a higher degree of financial inclusion lowers the inflation rate and makes monetary policy effective. One way causality from monetary policy effectiveness to financial inclusion can be observed in under-developed countries. Using the Structural Vector auto-regressive technique and financial inclusion index composed of three-dimension to examine the relationship of monetary policy effectiveness and financial inclusion in developed and developing countries is considered the study's significant contribution., Competing Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest No conflicts to disclose.