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Laser-based Electronic Distance Meters (EDMs) are used extensively to measure inner/outer dimensions in constructions and large volumes. Therefore, it needs to be calibrated regularly to assure its proper function. In this paper, a distance measurement system based on Opto-Electronic Oscillator (OEO) is used for EDM calibration. The calibration is performed in three steps; the first step is to construct a reference OEO system using off-the-shelf optical telecommunication components. Then, the OEO system is used to calibrate an indoor baseline consisting of eleven distances ranging from 2.4 to 58 m. Finally, the calibrated baseline is used to calibrate the EDM.

Background and Study Aim. We aim to design a walking tactic depending on pace strategy analysis for women's 50km racewalking at two IAAF championships: World Racewalking Team Championships Taicang2018 and World Athletics Championships Doha2019. Material and Methods. We collected data from the records of the women's 50km racewalking results from both mentioned championships in which the times of 10 stages of 5km each. The research sample included 30 racewalkers (top 15 from each championship) aged 21 to 41. Results. Results indicate that elite racewalkers followed a variable pace strategy. As they started a 50km racewalking with a slow and appropriate speed. Then there was a gradual increase in the next stages until reaching the speed plateau (25km). After that, the speed was changed between increasing and decreasing until the end of the race. The results also indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between the performance time of all the stages in both championships. In addition, it is indicated that there are statistically significant differences using the T-test between all stages between both championships, except for the stage (10th 5km). So last 5km have no major impact on changes for the final classification. Conclusions. We divided the race into seven successive tactical phases depending on the speed and the effort rate during the race stages. These phases are slow start, primary acceleration and speed regulation, the maximum speed, transitional, final acceleration, deceleration, and finish. Our analysis can extend theoretical knowledge, so coaches and racewalkers can make use of it in designing the training programs.

Abstract This cone-beam computed tomographic (CBCT) study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of dens invaginatus (DI) and its characteristics in maxillary anterior teeth in a Saudi population. A total of 505 CBCT scans were evaluated, including a total of 2790 maxillary anterior teeth. The patients’ demographic data, including age and sex, were recorded. The presence of DI and the related characteristics including bilateral occurrence; DI type according to Oehlers classification; and presence of periapical radiolucency, open apex, and/or nearby impacted teeth were analyzed. The associations between DI and the other factors were analyzed using the chi-square and fisher exact tests. DI was detected in 7.3% of the patients and 1.6% of the teeth examined. Most of the DI-affected teeth were maxillary lateral incisors (76.1%), followed by mesiodens (19.6%) and maxillary central incisors (4.3%), while no DI was observed in the maxillary canines. Bilateral DI was found in 24.3% of the affected patients. Oehlers type I DI was the most frequent (80%). Periapical radiolucencies, open apices, and nearby impacted teeth were observed in 10.9%, 4.3%, and 30% of the invaginated teeth, respectively. DI was significantly associated with tooth type (P 0.05). Although most of the DI cases are limited to the crown, CBCT imaging is essential for DI evaluation and management.

IntroductionThe control of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) infection depends solely on vaccination which in most cases is not sufficient to restrain the consequences of such a highly evolving viral disease. Finding out substances for preparing an efficient anti-ND drug would be of high value. n-Docosanol is a saturated fatty alcohol with an inhibitory effect against many enveloped viruses. In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic effect of n-docosanol on NDV infection and shedding in chickens.MethodsChickens infected with a highly virulent NDV were treated with low to high concentrations of n-docosanol (20, 40, and 60 mg/kg body weight) for 4-successive days, once they showed the disease symptoms. Survival and curative rates, virus load, histopathological scoring, and virus shedding were defined.ResultsSymptoms development was found to discontinue 24–72 hours post-treatment. Survival rate in the NDV-infected chickens raised 37.4–53.2% after the treatment. n-Docosanol treatment was also found to significantly reduce virus load in the digestive (26.2–33.9%), respiratory (38.3–63%), nervous (26.7–51.1%), and lymphatic (16.4–29.1%) tissues. Histopathological scoring of NDV lesions revealed prominent rescue effects on the histology of different tissues. Importantly, n-docosanol treatment significantly reduced virus shedding in oropharyngeal discharge and feces thereby allowing the restriction of NDV spread.ConclusionOur findings suggest n-docosanol as a promising remedy in the control strategy of Newcastle disease in the poultry industry.

With the rapid generation and preservation of both genomic and phenotypic information for many genotypes within crops and across locations, emerging breeding programs have a valuable opportunity to leverage these resources to 1) establish the most appropriate genetic foundation at program inception and 2) implement robust genomic prediction platforms that can effectively select future breeding lines. Integrating genomics-enabled1 breeding into cultivar development can save costs and allow resources to be reallocated towards advanced (i.e., later) stages of field evaluation, which can facilitate an increased number of testing locations and replicates within locations. In this context, a reestablished winter wheat breeding program was used as a case study to understand best practices to leverage and tailor existing genomic and phenotypic resources to determine optimal genetics for a specific target population of environments. First, historical multi-environment phenotype data, representing 1,285 advanced breeding lines, were compiled from multi-institutional testing as part of the SunGrains cooperative and used to produce GGE biplots and PCA for yield. Locations were clustered based on highly correlated line performance among the target population of environments into 22 subsets. For each of the subsets generated, EMMs and BLUPs were calculated using linear models with the ‘lme4’ R package. Second, for each subset, TPs representative of the new SC breeding lines were determined based on genetic relatedness using the ‘STPGA’ R package. Third, for each TP, phenotypic values and SNP data were incorporated into the ‘rrBLUP’ mixed models for generation of GEBVs of YLD, TW, HD and PH. Using a five-fold cross-validation strategy, an average accuracy of r = 0.42 was obtained for yield between all TPs. The validation performed with 58 SC elite breeding lines resulted in an accuracy of r = 0.62 when the TP included complete historical data. Lastly, QTL-by-environment interaction for 18 major effect genes across three geographic regions was examined. Lines harboring major QTL in the absence of disease could potentially underperform (e.g., Fhb1 R-gene), whereas it is advantageous to express a major QTL under biotic pressure (e.g., stripe rust R-gene). This study highlights the importance of genomics-enabled breeding and multi-institutional partnerships to accelerate cultivar development.

This case study explores the successes and challenges experienced while creating the Learning Development Toolkit (LDT) for use by academic staff at London South Bank University (LSBU). Based on similar initiatives at Queen Mary University of London (2016) and the University of Derby (2021). LSBU’s LDT is a database of formative academic skills activities which are available for academic staff to adapt and deliver during lectures and seminars. The case study opens by explaining LSBU’s institutional context, including our Educational Framework, and the Centre for Research Informed Teaching’s (CRIT) role in supporting various features: employability, embedded learning development, pedagogy, inclusivity and assessment. The case study also discusses LSBU’s student profile, namely that we have a large proportion of students from non-traditional academic backgrounds. As such, the LDT’s activities have been designed to enhance students’ criticality, analysis and confidence in their academic writing in a more general sense. The LDT is freely available to academic staff on LSBU’s intranet, but our team can advise on its implementation by discussing ways to tailor activities to a given session with individual academics. The LDT has five key areas: critical thinking development, quantitative analysis development, reading development, reflective development and writing development. The case study describes the elements within the LDT and explains how it was developed, tested and revised. It discusses the difficulties faced with building the LDT within LSBU’s existing IT framework but outlines how it ultimately succeeded in generating a comprehensive database of tasks to support student .

Abstract Host resistance is an effective and sustainable approach to manage the negative impact of Fusarium head blight (FHB) on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain yield and quality. The objective of this study was to characterize the phenotypic responses and identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) conditioning different FHB resistance types using a panel of 236 elite soft red winter wheat (SRWW) lines in a genome‐wide association study (GWAS). The panel was phenotyped for five FHB and three morphological traits under two field and two greenhouse environments in 2018–2019 and 2019–2020. We identified 160 significant marker–trait associations (MTAs) for FHB traits and 11 MTAs for plant height. Eleven QTL showed major effects and explained >10% phenotypic variation (PV) for FHB resistance. Among these major loci, three QTL were stable and five QTL exhibited a pleiotropic effect. The QTL QFhb‐3BL, QFhb‐5AS, QFhb‐5BL, QFhb‐7AS.1, QFhb‐7AS.2, and QFhb‐7BS are presumed to be novel. Pyramiding multiple resistance alleles from all the major‐effect QTL resulted in a significant reduction in FHB incidence, severity, index, deoxynivalenol (DON), and Fusarium‐damaged kernel (FDK) by 17, 43, 45, 55, and 25%, respectively. Further validation of these QTL could potentially facilitate successful introgression of these resistance loci in new cultivars for improved FHB resistance in breeding programs.

Understanding and long-term assessment of the efficacy of soil and water conservation (SWC) techniques is essential for sustainable watershed management. There have been few studies measuring the long-term impact of SWC on soil erosion at the catchment scale due to a lack of historical data. This research aims to measure and analyze the impact of SWC interventions on sediment yield using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in the Wadi Rmel watershed between 2000 and 2020. The study approach has simultaneously three main aspects: (i) long-term and temporally dynamic, (ii) large-scale landscape distribution, and (iii) empirical evidence of impacts induced by terracing measures. Historical data on SWC in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 were used for running the model. The monthly calibration (2001–2014) using the SUFI2 algorithm was implemented with 22 input parameters and displayed a good model performance, with a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of 0.61 for daily runoff and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.66. A satisfactory result was obtained for the monthly validation process (2015–2020) with NSE value equal to 0.83 and R2 value of 0.85. The result showed the increase in terracing areas led to a cumulative decrease in watershed sediment yield in long-term, i.e., the reduced erosion per one hectare of the expanded terracing area after 10–20 years were about 9–33 times higher than those in the first 5 years. This finding suggests that maximal benefits of SWC should be expected in the long-term, i.e., beyond a decade. Additionally, the study revealed variations in sediment yield contribution among sub-basins, with the southwestern region being the degradation hotspot areas (having erosion exceeding tolerable thresholds) needing prioritization for erosion controls. These findings enable stakeholders to plan effective management in semi-arid wheat-based agricultural areas with scarce data.

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are crucial to the production of electricity for a newly established community in Egypt, especially in grid-tied systems. Power quality (PQ) issues appear as a result of PV connection with the power grid (PG). PQ problems cause the PG to experience faults and harmonics, which affect consumers. A series compensator dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) is the most affordable option for resolving the abovementioned PQ problems. To address PQ difficulties, this paper describes a grid-tied PV combined with a DVR that uses a rotating dq reference frame (dqRF) controller. The main goal of this study is to apply and construct an effective PI controller for a DVR to mitigate PQ problems. The artificial rabbits optimization (ARO) is used to obtain the best tune of the PI controller. The obtained results are compared with five optimization techniques (L-SHADE, CMAES, WOA, PSO, and GWO) to show its impact and effectiveness. Additionally, Lyapunov’s function is used to analyze and evaluate the proposed controller stability. Also, a mathematical analysis of the investigated PV, boost converter, and rotating dqRF control is performed. Two fault test scenarios are examined to confirm the efficacy of the suggested control approach. The parameters’ (voltage, current, and power) waveforms for the suggested system are improved, and the system is kept running continuously under fault periods, which improves the performance of the system. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that the presented design successfully keeps the voltage at the required level with low THD% values at the load side according to the IEEE standards and displays a clear enhancement in voltage waveforms. The MATLAB/SIMULINK software is used to confirm the proposed system’s performance.

Geoelectrical resistivity measurements were conducted in five locations within the eastern portion of the Dahomey basin for the purpose of subsurface evaluation and detecting saturated zones. The locations are Covenant University (L1), Bells University (L2), Oju-Ore-Ilogbo Road (L3), Obasanjo-Ijagba Road (L4), and Iyana Iyesi (L5). The study was carried out to avert the common challenges of drilling low-yield groundwater boreholes in the area. A total of 30 Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) and five two-dimensional Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) data sets have been acquired along the study areas. The geoelectrical resistivity results were integrated with the borehole logs to generate the spatial distribution of the subsurface lithologies in the area. The delineated subsurface lithologies include the topsoil (lateritic clay), clayey sand, sandy clay, fine silty sand, coarse sand, and shale/clay units. The fine silty sand and coarse sand units were identified as the two main aquifer units within the area. The depths to the upper aquifer unit in the area include 31.7–96.7 m, 38.5–94.0 m, 30.7–57.5 m, 39.1–63.4 m, and 46.9–57.5 m for locations L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5, respectively. At the same time, the depths to the lower aquifer unit in the area include 43.4–112.7 m, 52.2–108.0 m, 44.2–72.5 m, 53.7–78.5 m, and 63.5–72.9 m for locations L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5, respectively. The estimated hydraulic parameters for both aquifers show they are highly productive with mean porosity, mean hydraulic conductivity, and mean transmissivity of 20–22%, 12.4–17.0 × 10−2 m/s, 1.56–2.18 m2/s for the upper aquifer, and 48–50%, 371–478 × 10−2 m/s, 50.00–62.14 m2/s for the lower aquifer. By focusing on these aquifer systems during exploration, sustainable groundwater resources can be secured, providing relief to homeowners within the study area who might otherwise face the frustration of drilling unproductive and low-yield boreholes. However, it is crucial to consider the presence of sub-vertical faults in the study area, as these faults can significantly impact groundwater development and management. These sub-vertical structural faults may lead to changes in the permeability, hydraulic conductivity, and transmissivity of the delineated aquifers, affecting their productivity across the divide and ultimately influencing the overall water availability in the area. Careful consideration of these geological factors is essential for effective aquifer management and sustainable groundwater utilisation.

The phenomenon of luminescence and quenching is widely applied in the forensic examination of various ink materials. Here, we introduce a hybrid spectroscopic and chromatography approach to gain insights into the underlying cause of infrared luminescence (IRL) in blue ballpoint (BP) pen inks. A total of thirty BP pen ink samples from the Egyptian market were employed in this study. Insights into the origin of luminescence and quenching in the studied samples were gained based on video spectral comparator (VSC), thin layer chromatography (TLC), ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectrophotometry, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Results showed that some of the studied inks possessed IRL due to the presence of crystal violet and some other triaryl methane dyes. Nevertheless, some ink samples did not possess IRL, despite the presence of the dyes responsible for IRL in their matrix. Interestingly, the inclusion of phthalocyanine dye in those non-luminescent ink matrices resulted in luminescence quenching, mainly due to the overlap between the absorption of phthalocyanine dye and the luminescence of the triarylmethane dyes. The IRL behavior of the ink sample under the first illumination wave band (400–485 nm) exerted control over the IRL activity across subsequent illumination wavebands, and the most effective differentiation was achieved by utilizing the first and second preset filters in VSC. The results revealed the luminescent components present in studied inks and unraveled their distinct luminescence behavior present within the ink matrix. The combination of optical spectroscopy and chromatography techniques could provide a distinctive tool to reveal the luminescence and quenching behaviors of ink dyes for the successful forensic discrimination of several BP writing pens.

Honey bee products comprise various compounds, including honey, propolis, royal jelly, bee pollen, bee wax and bee venom, which have long been recognized for their pharmacological and health-promoting benefits. Scientists have discovered that periodontal disorders stem from dental biofilm, an inflammatory response to bacterial overgrowth produced by dysbiosis in the oral microbiome. The bee products have been investigated for their role in prevention of oral diseases, which are attributed to a myriad of biologically active compounds including flavonoids (pinocembrin, catechin, caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) and galangin), phenolic acids (hydroxybenzoic acid, hydroxycinnamic acid, p-coumaric, ellagic, caffeic and ferulic acids) and terpenoids. This review aims to update the current understanding of role of selected bee products, namely, honey, propolis and royal jelly, in preventing oral diseases as well as their potential biological activities and mechanism of action in relation to oral health have been discussed. Furthermore, the safety of incorporation of bee products is also critically discussed. To summarize, bee products could potentially serve as a therapy option for people suffering from a variety of oral disorders.

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) attacks have increased due to the digital transformation of many industrial control systems (ICS). Operational technology (OT) operators should use the defense-in-depth concept to secure their operations from cyber attacks and reduce the surface that can be attacked. Layers of security, such as firewalls, endpoint solutions, honeypots, etc., should be used to secure traditional IT systems. The three main goals of IT cybersecurity are confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA), but these three goals have different levels of importance in the operational technology (OT) industry. Availability comes before confidentiality and integrity because of the criticality of business in OT. One of the layers of security in both IT and OT is honeypots. SCADA honeypots are used as a layer of security to mitigate attacks, known attackers’ techniques, and network and system weaknesses that attackers may use, and to mitigate these vulnerabilities. In this paper, we use SCADA honeypots for early detection of potential malicious tampering within a SCADA device network, and to determine threats against ICS/SCADA networks. An analysis of SCADA honeypots gives us the ability to know which protocols are most commonly attacked, and attackers’ behaviors, locations, and goals. We use an ICS/SCADA honeypot called Conpot, which simulates real ICS/SCADA systems with some ICS protocols and ICS/SCADA PLCs.

Planners face many obstacles during the planning phase of any new project, especially project scheduling due to the numerous details and complexity of each uniquely designed project; previous experience in similar projects and traditional scheduling methods are not sufficient. The 4D-BIM schedule is the best solution, as it can be integrated with other modern technologies such as UAS, which improves project scheduling by allowing the project team to access project plans, details, and time-related information to simulate construction sequences. Despite the benefits of using 4D-BIM, planners prefer traditional planning and scheduling methods because of the barriers to using modern technologies. This research proposes a structural equation model focusing on estimating the weights of BIM barriers in offshore construction projects, including: the investigation of barriers keeping the construction industry standing at 3D-BIM; the relationships between them; and the evaluation of the probability and impact of each, using fuzzy theory. To validate the proposed model, a case study of an offshore project was conducted. The most important latent variables were awareness, risk, demand, and management, while the most prominent observed variables were the uncertainty of the return on investment and the lack of experienced users. This research guides project managers on actions that can be taken for each key variable to enhance and develop the use of 4D-BIM in project scheduling.

Abstract Background Adolescent obesity is an important health issue. Non-surgical weight management programs, even the most aggressive, have shown modest weight reduction results. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is gaining reliability as a low surgical risk bariatric procedure with proper efficiency for this age group. The aim of this study was to present our initial experience with LSG in morbidly obese adolescents and to report short-term clinical and metabolic outcome. Results Mean age was 16.43 years, and mean preoperative weight and body mass index (BMI) were 132.68 kg and 48.90 respectively. Mean excess weight loss (EWL) was 54.11 kg 1 year after LSG, corresponding to 74 EWL% as well as mean BMI loss (BML) of 19.89. LSG improved fatty infiltration of the liver in 75% of cases and other comorbidities in 100% of patients. Conclusions LSG proved to be a safe procedure with significant short-term clinical and metabolic success for adolescent obesity.

Abstract In this study we examine the potential determinants of technical efficiency for the Tunisian commercial banking sector over the period of 1995–2017. First, we estimate banking technical efficiency with a radial and non-radial bootstrap data envelopment analysis. For the radial technique, we use an input-oriented approach and for non-radial we use the Range Adjusted Measure (RAM). Second, we use a double bootstrapping regression technique to estimate the influence of a set of eventual determinants on technical efficiency. Finally, based on all possible regressions, we gauge the overall effect of each determinant. Our results reveal that the input-oriented and RAM approach gave somewhat similar results. We found that the return on equity, the expense to income ratio, the loan to deposit ratio, and the growth rate are insignificant to Tunisian banking technical efficiency. In particular, banking technical efficiency increases with capitalization and inflation, whereas, it decreases with size, number of bank branches, management to staff ratio, and loan to asset ratio. In addition, we identified evidence supporting the moderate success of the last decade of reforms and a noticeable one for the post-revolution reforms in helping improve banking technical efficiency. The post-revolution reforms, largely revolving around reinforcing the rules of good governance and banking supervision, coupled with the restructuring of public banks, were found to be insufficient to raise overall banking technical efficiency despite improvement in the technical efficiency of private banks.

Background: The efficacy and safety of the beta blocker carvedilol in pediatric patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) has not been fully established till now. Aim of the Work: To assess the role of carvedilol in the treatment of children with dilated cardiomyopathy, to demonstrate its efficacy, tolerability and determine the least effective dose. Patients and Methods: We conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 53 children with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Patients were randomly assigned to receive either placebo (26 patients) or carvedilol (27 patients) added to the standard CHF therapy that consists of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor and diuretics. The carvedilol group was further subdivided into 2 groups according to the received dose of carvedilol. Subgroup I (11 cases) received carvedilol dose of 0.01-0.09 mg/kg/day and subgroup II (16 cases) received carvedilol with dose increments every 2 weeks from 0.01-0.2 mg/kg/day. All patients were followed up for four months after reaching the target dose. Results: The end results of the study showed that there was a significant improvement in Ross heart failure class, fractional shortening (FS), left ventricle end systolic dimension (LVESD) and left ventricle end diastolic dimension (LVEDD) in patients of the study group which was not achieved in the control group. On the other hand there was no statistically significant difference between sub groups I and II regarding the end point. Carvidolol was well tolerated, with no side effects or drug interaction reported. Conclusion: Addition of carvedilol to standard anti-failure therapy is of beneficial effect and is well tolerated in children with CHF on top of DCM. There may be no need for carvedilol dose up- titration at least for the first months of treatment.

Carbonate mineral aqueous solubility decreases as carbonates become more Mg-rich during subduction. Coupled with regional variations in amounts of carbon and water subducted, this explains discrepancies in estimates of carbon recycling, suggesting that only around a third returns to the surface.

A thorough study of house sparrow behaviour and its population is essential to revive its population status which is the need at the moment. Therefore, the sparrow popula-tion's nature,nests, water and food sources, interspecific competitions, and noise pol-lution were consideredin the present investigation. This is the first documented re-search carried out at Chinnamanur town, Uthamapalayam taluk of Theni district, Tamil Nadu, India. The study period was divided into summer and winter seasons and the survey was carried out for nine months from April 2019 to December 2019 by point count and aneBird data method. A total of 542 house sparrows were counted of which 250 was present in summer and 292 in winter. The overall house sparrow pop-ulation in Chinnamanur town, related to the summer and winter seasons,exhibited the range of correlation coefficient value to be 0.94,indicating a very strong positive cor-relation. Above all, the present study revealed that mobile phone towers were not the main reason for the decline of house sparrows, instead,it was loss of habitat and food, urbanization, noise pollution, interspecific competition,and conversion of agricultural lands into plots.

Abstract This paper presents a set of new required programmes written in format data using the built-in programming FISH language available in three-dimensional Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua software (FLAC3D). These script data files were developed, to overcome difficulties noted during the nailed slope stability prediction. They established to analyse stability of general embankment slope cases under various soil nailing parameters design. To deal with 3D finite difference analysis results in terms of the factor of safety (FOS) and critical slip surface, both 2D finite difference and limit equilibrium (LEM) methods are also conducted. A comparison of the 3D and 2D results indicates that 2D analyses underestimate seriously stability predictions, notably in terms of the FOS. Therefore, it was concluded that, 3D analysis should be used as an alternative to the 2D analyses, even though it requires more time. Some useful conclusions are obtained from this work, which provides a good practice guidance for real life scenarios.

Recently, drought stress became more frequent and this presents a serious challenge for plant breeders to create tolerant barley genotypes with good stability under water deficit conditions. The present study aims to evaluate the effects of water deficit stress with 20% of maximum soil water capacity at heading stage on the physiological traits of some barley genotypes and to set recommendations on their possible use in drought tolerance breeding programs. The results revealed significant differences between genotypes in all tested traits. In this regard, Rahma and Tissa maintained a high relative water content and cell membrane stability under water deficit stress, respectively. These characteristics present effective mechanisms to face drought stress in semi-arid regions. Jaidor was the most stay-green genotype characterized by maintaining a high level of chlorophyll content after water deficit stress treatment. Moreover, Acsad176 accumulated high soluble sugars content as a response to water deficit stress. These genotypes could be considered as potential sources of genes for selection of drought tolerant barley varieties.

Additive manufacturing (AM) using the powder bed fusion (PBF) process is building up the components layer by layer, which enables the fabrication of complex 3D structures with unprecedented degrees of freedom. Due to the high cooling rates of the AM process, fine microstructures are generated. This leads to an improvement in quasistatic properties such as tensile strength, whereas the fatigue strength is comparable to that of conventionally manufactured metal or even reduced. This is due to the presence of process-induced defects formulated during the manufacturing process in combination with the increased notch stress sensitivity of high-strength metals. In this work, the fatigue damage assessment using different approaches like those of Murakami and Shiozawa for three AM alloys (AlSi10Mg, 316L, and TNM-B1) containing defects is studied for better understanding of capability and mechanisms. Moreover, the effect of the lightweight potential is investigated, and how the specific material density can be considered when the fatigue damage tolerance is characterized.

In the commenced work, we establish some novel results concerning graph contractions in a more generalized setting. Furthermore, we deliver some examples to elaborate and explain the usability of the attained results. By virtue of nontrivial examples, we show our results improve, extend, generalize, and unify several noteworthy results in the existing state-of-art. We adopt computer simulation validating our results. To arouse further interest in the subject and to show its efficacy, we devote this work to recent applications which emphasize primarily the applications for the existence of the solution of various models related to engineering problems viz. fourth-order two-point boundary value problems describing deformations of an elastic beam, ascending motion of a rocket, and a class of integral equations. This approach is entirely new and will open up some new directions in the underlying graph structure.

قد أصبحت عملية التغيير الإجتماعي في عصرنا الراهن عميقة وسريعة بحيث أنها شكلت تحديّاً خطيراً للهوية الّتي تمثّل أكثر مجالات الحياة البشرية أصالة. ينصبّ تركيز بعض الآراء السائدة في العالم الحديث كالعولمة على الإتّحاد والقضاء على الفروق والتعرفات الثقافية، حيث يقود العالم إلى تجانس شديد، ويعتبر الإنسان السلبي هو أهم أثر لهذه الحركة. وقد أدّى هذا الأمر إلى قضية أزمة الهوية في مواجهة نظام الفكر الإسلامي الذي يمتلك بحدّ ذاته أنثروبولوجيا وكونيات مستقلة. تعتبر أزمة الهوية بلا شك من أهم الأضرار الإجتماعية في عصرنا الراهن، ويمكن رؤية أعراضها على المستوى الدولي وفي جميع العلاقات الاجتماعية والثقافية والاقتصادية والسياسية بشكل واضح. مع أنّ شدّة هذه التغييرات لم تكن في مستوي واحد، لكن لا توجد منطقة لم تتأثّر بآثارها وعواقبها. يهدف هذا البحث إلي تحليل وإعادة تعريف مفهوم الهوية والثقافة مع إبراز عناصرهما المهمة لدراسة أنواع الهوية والعلاقة الإنسانية بالثقافة والهوية وبفحص أبعاد الهوية الدينية في المصادر الدينية من خلال تحليل النصوص. ويصوّر هذا البحث أهم العناصر العقائدية والعملية للهوية الدينية وأخيراً يسرد العوامل الداخلية والخارجية التي تؤثر على الهوية الدينية، وبهذه الطريقة، وبتقديم صورة واضحة للهوية الدينية للشباب المسلمين، فإنها ترسم مخرجاً من أزمة الهوية الدينية في عصرنا الرّاهن.i

Abstract Objective MG-63 cells that have osteoblastic and adipogenic differentiation potential were evaluated for internalization, and adipogenic differentiation in the presence and absence of the covalently functionalized aryl gold nanoparticles (AuNPs-C6H4-4-COOH). Results Inductively coupled plasma, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy analyses confirmed that gold nanoparticles were easily internalized by MG-63 cells. The MG-63 cells were differentiated into adipocytes without gold-aryl nanoparticles and with the gold-aryl nanoparticles at 5 µM concentration in both induction and maintenance media. The lipid content assay and the relative expressions of PPAR-γ, ADR1, GLUT1 and GLUT4 genes showed no significant variation with and without the gold nanoparticles treatment. Differential phosphorylation levels of 43 kinases phosphorylation sites were evaluated using the human phospho-kinase array to assess the effect of the gold nanoparticles on the signaling pathways during the differentiation. No kinase phosphorylation site was differentially phosphorylated with two or more folds after the nanoparticles treatment after the first day as well as at the end of MG-63 cells differentiation. The gold-aryl nanoparticles do not affect MG-63 cells differentiation into adipocytes neither do they affect any key signaling pathway. These properties make these gold nanoparticles suitable for future drug delivery and medical applications.

Abstract Background Genetic variation in growth over the course of the season is a major source of grain yield variation in wheat, and for this reason variants controlling heading date and plant height are among the best-characterized in wheat genetics. While the major variants for these traits have been cloned, the importance of these variants in contributing to genetic variation for plant growth over time is not fully understood. Here we develop a biparental population segregating for major variants for both plant height and flowering time to characterize the genetic architecture of the traits and identify additional novel QTL. Results We find that additive genetic variation for both traits is almost entirely associated with major and moderate-effect QTL, including four novel heading date QTL and four novel plant height QTL. FT2 and Vrn-A3 are proposed as candidate genes underlying QTL on chromosomes 3A and 7A, while Rht8 is mapped to chromosome 2D. These mapped QTL also underlie genetic variation in a longitudinal analysis of plant growth over time. The oligogenic architecture of these traits is further demonstrated by the superior trait prediction accuracy of QTL-based prediction models compared to polygenic genomic selection models. Conclusions In a population constructed from two modern wheat cultivars adapted to the southeast U.S., almost all additive genetic variation in plant growth traits is associated with known major variants or novel moderate-effect QTL. Major transgressive segregation was observed in this population despite the similar plant height and heading date characters of the parental lines. This segregation is being driven primarily by a small number of mapped QTL, instead of by many small-effect, undetected QTL. As most breeding populations in the southeast U.S. segregate for known QTL for these traits, genetic variation in plant height and heading date in these populations likely emerges from similar combinations of major and moderate effect QTL. We can make more accurate and cost-effective prediction models by targeted genotyping of key SNPs.

This article discusses the seismic response of roller-compacted concrete dams by interpreting their behaviour under the effect of static and dynamic loads applied to a real case study: the Boussiaba dam. A three-dimensional finite element numerical modelling was undertaken using the Midas GTS- NX 2017 calculation code. The geometric model was established in Autocad taking into account the actual geomorphology of the terrain and the existing dam and then exported to GTS-NX. The dynamic solicitation, i. e. the earthquake, was generated from two accelerograms 0.25 g and 0.35 g amplitude respectively recorded in the Mila region located less than 20 km from the dam site. The initial static load being constituted by the dead weight, the water thrust and the sludge thrust at the bottom of the dam. Several reference points were chosen on the dam body to study the different parameters adopted. The results obtained during the dynamic numerical analysis show that the overall behaviour of the dam during earthquakes was satisfactory, without endangering the structural integrity of the structure.

In recent modern power systems, the number of renewable energy systems (RESs) and nonlinear loads have become more prevalent. When these systems are connected to the electricity grid, they may face new difficulties and issues such as harmonics and non-standard voltage. The proposed study suggests the application of a whale optimization algorithm (WOA) based on a fractional-order proportional-integral controller (FOPIC) for unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) and STATCOM tools. These operate best with the help of their improved control system, to increase the system’s reliability and fast dynamic response, and to decrease the total harmonic distortion (THD) for enhancing the power quality (PQ). In this article, three different configurations are studied and assessed, namely: (C1) WOA-based FOPIC for UPQC, (C2) WOA-based FOPIC for STATCOM, and (C3) system without FACTS, i.e., base case, to mitigate the mentioned drawbacks. C3 is also considered as a base case to highlight the main benefits of C1 and C2 in improving the PQ by reducing the %THD of the voltage and current system and improving the systems’ voltage waveforms. With C2, voltage fluctuation is decreased by 98%, but it nearly disappears in C1 during normal conditions. Additionally, during the fault period, voltage distortion is reduced by 95% and 100% with C2 and C1, respectively. Furthermore, when comparing C1 to C2 and C3 under regular conditions, the percentage reduction in THD is remarkable. In addition, C1 eliminates the need for voltage sag, and harmonic and current harmonic detectors, and it helps to streamline the control approach and boost control precision. The modeling and simulation of the prepared system are performed by MATLAB/Simulink. Finally, it can be concluded that the acquired results are very interesting and helpful in the recovery to the steady state of wind systems and nonlinear loads, thereby increasing their grid connection capabilities.

With the advancement of information technology and economic globalization, the problem of supplier selection is gaining in popularity. The impact of supplier selection decisions made were quick and noteworthy on the healthcare profitability and total cost of medical equipment. Thus, there is an urgent need for decision support systems that address the optimal healthcare supplier selection problem, as this problem is addressed by a limited number of studies. Those studies addressed this problem mathematically or by using meta-heuristics methods. The focus of this work is to advance the meta-heuristics methods by considering more objectives rather than the utilized objectives. In this context, the optimal supplier selection problem for healthcare equipment was formulated as a mathematical model to expose the required objectives and constraints for the sake of searching for the optimal suppliers. Subsequently, the problem is realized as a multi-objective problem, with the help of this proposed model. The model has three minimization objectives: (1) transportation cost; (2) delivery time; and (3) the number of damaged items. The proposed system includes realistic constraints such as device quality, usability, and service quality. The model also takes into account capacity limits for each supplier. Next, it is proposed to adapt the well-known non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA)-III algorithm to choose the optimal suppliers. The results of the adapted NSGA-III have been compared with several heuristic algorithms and two meta-heuristic algorithms (i.e., particle swarm optimization and NSGA-II). The obtained results show that the adapted NSGA-III outperformed the methods of comparison.

Cardiac hydatid cyst is very a rare manifestation of hydatid disease. It is potentially life threatening, and characterized by its clinical polymorphism, thus making an early preoperative diagnosis challenging. The sole curative treatment of this disease is surgery, and it should be done as emergent as possible after diagnosis, in order to minimize the risk of serious complications like embolism and anaphylaxis.We report a case of a 22 years old male who had multivesicular cyst formation in the left ventricle free wall, which was measuring 14 × 8 cm. The patient underwent surgery in order to remove this hydatid cyst, by using the cardiopulmonary bypass, and his postoperative course was unremarkable. Resumen: El quiste hidatídico cardiaco es una manifestación muy rara de la enfermedad hidatídica y potencialmente mortal, caracterizada por su polimorfismo clínico, lo que dificulta su diagnóstico preoperatorio temprano. La cirugía sigue siendo el único tratamiento curativo del quiste hidatídico cardiaco. Este debe ser tratado lo más pronto posible después del diagnóstico, ya que minimiza el riesgo de complicaciones graves como embolia y anafilaxia.Presentamos el caso de un varón de 22 años que presenta una formación de quiste multivesicular en la pared libre del ventrículo izquierdo de 14 × 8 cm. El paciente fue intervenido quirúrgicamente mediante bypass cardiopulmonar para extirpar el quiste hidatídico de la pared libre del ventrículo izquierdo, con un resultado satisfactorio para el curso postoperatorio.

Currently, the smartphone devices have become an essential part of our daily activities. Smartphone’ users run various essential applications (such as banking and e-health Apps), which contains very confidential information (e.g., credit card number and its PIN). Typically, the smartphone’s user authentication is achieved using mechanisms (password or security pattern) to verify the user identity. Although these mechanisms are cheap, simple, and quick enough for frequent logins, they are vulnerable to attacks such as shoulder surfing or smudge attack. This problem could be addressed by authenticating the users using their behaviour (i.e., touch behaviour) while using their smartphones. Such behaviours include finger’s pressure, size, and pressure time while tapping keys. Selecting features (from these behaviours) could play an important role in the authentication process’s performance. This paper aims to propose an efficient authentication method providing an implicit authentication for smartphone users while not imposing an additional cost of special hardware and addressing the limited smartphone capabilities. We first investigated feature selection techniques from the filter and wrapper approaches and then used the best one to propose our implicit authentication method. The random forest classifier is used to evaluate these techniques. It is also used to achieve the classification task in our authentication method. Using a public dataset, the experimental results showed that the filter-based technique (i.e., rank aggregation) is the best feature selection to build an implicit authentication method for the smartphone environment. It showed accuracy results around 97.80% using only 25 features out of 53 features (i.e., require less mobile resources (memory and processing power) to authenticate users. At the same time, the results showed that our method has less error rate: 2.03 FAR, 0.04 FRR, and 1.04 ERR, comparing to the related work. These promising results would be used to develop a mobile application that allows implicit authentication of legitimate owners while avoiding the traditional authentication problems and using fewer smartphone resources.

the environment and the economy are of the most important axis of sustainability and have the most important effect on the design overall. The light metal building is targeting alot of functions in the industrial field such as finding a suitable enterior environment for the users. according to their specific industrial field. and due to rarity in environmental efficiency studies and economic studies specialized in applying the sustainability in the metal buildings which is specialized in the industrial field, and as the evaluation is a backup operation for the design in taking the decisions of designing and how far these decisions are good. at this point the importance of guessing the environmental efficincy considerations appears and the economical considerations too for the light metal building in the industrial field in appling the sustainability in this kind of buildings, through main axis such as ( the first axis the economical and environmental efficiency for the light metal building according to the definition of sustainability, the second axis the pillars of the economical and environmental efficiency according to the aims of the sustainable design of the light metal building in the industrial field, the third axis the economical and environmental proficiency control systems for the lightweight metal building), and the study ends with that the design of the light metal building in the industrial field is better to be according to models for working including satisfying the functions of the building which is not obstructing achieving the environmental balance, Regulate the environmental effect which is resulting in the operations of the building taking into account the value of the light metal building to achieve the environmental and economical efficiancy. and the study recommended making a monograph in different fields to creat an Egyptian code related to the sustainability and achieving its aims and principles for the industrial buildings generally and special for light metal buildings. and also recommends supporting the studies which is related to economical and environmental proficiency control systems for light metal building in industrial field which is supporting innovation.

Investigations made to evaluate the site-effect characteristics and to develop a reliable site classification scheme have received paramount importance for the urban areas planning and reliable site-specific seismic hazard assessment. This paper presents a novel non-objective and data-driven approach for preliminary seismic site-specific classification maps using machine learning (ML) based on affinity propagation (AP) along with a selected set of representative horizontal to vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) curves inside King Saud University (KSU) campus, which is among the main areas in Saudi Arabia. Besides, the proposed model aims to overcome the clustering error due to the dependency of the interpreter’s experience. Measurements of the ambient vibrations were performed to cover the entire campus area by about 307 stations. Recording at each station lasted for 20 minute length and a sample rate of 128 Hz for each station to satisfy the criteria for reliable and unambiguous HVSR results. Frequency and amplification values were used for subsequent site classification by passing messages between data points. The obtained results illustrate that the microtremor spectral ratio can be a remarkably robust tool in determining site effects. Accordingly, the proposed methodology can assist the decision-makers to set the priorities of managing land uses, estimating the earthquake losses, conducting programs for reducing the vulnerability of existing structures, enforcing building codes, planning for emergency response and long-term recovery, and designing and implementing phases of new constructions.

Expansive soil shows frequent volume changes with the changes in the moisture content, causing severe problems to the civil engineering structures. Consequently, the measurements of swelling properties including free swell index and swelling pressure are extremely important. Several attempts are being made all over the world to control the swell-shrink behavior of expansive soils. Many researches have investigated how to overcome the problems of such soils by means of using different additives such as cement, lime, steel fibers, stone dust and fly ash. This study is directed towards the improvement of expansive soil with a new, inexpensive and environmentally friendly additive. In this study, the effect of using micro silica fume to stabilize the soil was investigated through a laboratory study. Test results showed that, the micro silica fume can considerably decrease the free swell index value by 69% at 25% micro silica fume content. Also, the swelling pressure is reduced from 410 kN/m2 to nearly 330 kN/m2 and 302 kN/m2 at micro silica fume content of 5% and 25%, respectively. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed addition in the expansive soils improvement. This improvement technique can be used in different civil engineering construction projects including slope stabilization and road embankments.

Cette recherche expérimentale réalisée en didactique du français langue étrangère, s’intéresse aux éventuels apports de la pédagogie de la créativité en contexte universitaire Algérien. Nous nous interrogeons sur la manière avec laquelle, le recours à un environnement d’apprentissage favorable pourrait déclencher, chez nos participants, un état émotionnel positif. Nous supposons que cet environnement permettrait à nos participants de canaliser leurs émotions parasites, en activant plus d’émotions personnelles. Pour ce faire, deux groupes d’étudiants inscrits à l’université de Mascara ont participé à cette recherche : (G1) groupe témoin, et (G2) groupe expérimental. Les groupes ont répondu par la suite à deux questionnaires : initial (Q1), et final (Q2) afin de vérifier les hypothèses de recherche émises.

The recent fieldwork of the Egyptian mission in the pyramid temple of King Djedkare focused on cleaning and documenting three major areas. The temple area immediately south of the columned courtyard provided no firm evidence for reconstructing the layout and sizes of the once existing rooms. Almost all of the floor and wall blocks have disappeared here. Clearing the southeast corner of the king’s pyramid revealed that all its casing blocks and backing stones were missing in that part. Further north of this area, however, a section of the original casing still remained, attesting to the pyramid’s slope of 51–52°. The entire clearance of the inner temple has provided further important information as to the sizes and layout of the rooms. Most interestingly, the vestibule of Djedkare’s inner temple seems to be of unique form and size not found in other pyramid temples. Equally remarkable is the fact that all the western rooms (including the offering hall as well) of this inner temple extended into the masonry of the pyramid beyond its baseline.

Numerical modeling analysis was used to assess the suitable electrical resistivity arrays for the characterization of geological structures, including dyke, horst, graben, sub-vertical, and vertical structures. These geological structures usually make up the aquifers interested in the hydrogeological evaluation of crystalline basement terrains. Six electrode configurations, including Wenner alpha (α), Wenner beta (β), Wenner gamma (γ), Schlumberger array, dipole-dipole array, and pole-dipole array, were used to assess the geological structures for groundwater exploration. The synthetic models of the geological structures were generated using RES2DMOD code, and 5% noise was added to all the models. The generated models were inverted using the RES2DINV code. The results show that the most suitable arrays for dyke and graben structures are Wenner alpha, while Wenner beta is the most suitable for the horst structure. The Schlumberger array was the best for both sub-vertical and vertical structures. This study has demonstrated the efficacy of numerical modeling in assessing the best resistivity arrays for 2D electrical resistivity imaging for groundwater exploration prior to geophysical field investigation.

The paper explores the impact of the corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic on the Saudi higher education system. The research focuses on the relationship between digital learning in COVID-19 time, life satisfaction, and stress among female students. The study discusses measures, practices, defense mechanisms, and coping strategies to face challenges. Using an online survey based on psychological effects and its role in defense mechanisms and coping strategies, findings show that digital learning provides flexibility in terms of time and offers resources at a lower cost compared to traditional learning. In addition, results show that the coping strategy perception is higher in obtaining a good score and succeeding than to get over the pandemic and recovering from the illness itself. Finally, results confirm that a positive attitude influences positively life satisfaction.

knowing that, the lightweight metal building is a critical field of the environmental practices in its designing and appling frame work. And according to the definition of the sustainable development it is an international direction for various countries. That's because of its importance for all levels in present and future situation, with its critical aims. which includes the environmental side, the economic side and the social side, and because both of the policy-makers and decision makers are facing the same International challenge which is facing the designer too, the decisions which is made by the designers became very important according to its effect on the environmental, the economic, and the social future through the results of the design. suggesting a methodology to make integration in the sustainable design for light metal building supports the designer to achieve the sustainable aims. As the lightweight metal building is a functional program which works in a complementary way through an alternative relations and reactions between its components, complementary is the integrity, And the complementary design is differ from the regular design in its interest of harmonious interaction and its good performance in different fields through complected relations between its pieces and functions,And this appears in the design of the light metal building in its relations between the functions of the building, its requirements that we should do, the relation between the components, different items for the building, the relation between the interior design of the building and the exterior form of it and the urban environment of the building,And given that the design should go through specific procedural stages. these stages have been developed and performed by alot of specialists. and they have proved that these performs could merge with the aims of sustainable design which is produced from the sustainability axes then it could activate according to complementary strategies to make a harmonious interaction and a good performance between the parts and the functions of the light metal building.

Chemical elements at high pressure may behave more consistently with their periodic properties than they do at ambient conditions. The authors report the synthesis of PH3 from black phosphorous and hydrogen, and the crystallization of the van der Waals compound (PH3)2H2 which fills a gap in the chemistry of adjacent elements in the periodic table.

Abstract Background Computer Aided Diagnostics (CAD) can support medical practitioners to make critical decisions about their patients’ disease conditions. Practitioners require access to the chain of reasoning behind CAD to build trust in the CAD advice and to supplement their own expertise. Yet, CAD systems might be based on black box machine learning models and high dimensional data sources such as electronic health records, magnetic resonance imaging scans, cardiotocograms, etc. These foundations make interpretation and explanation of the CAD advice very challenging. This challenge is recognised throughout the machine learning research community. eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is emerging as one of the most important research areas of recent years because it addresses the interpretability and trust concerns of critical decision makers, including those in clinical and medical practice. Methods In this work, we focus on AdaBoost, a black box model that has been widely adopted in the CAD literature. We address the challenge – to explain AdaBoost classification – with a novel algorithm that extracts simple, logical rules from AdaBoost models. Our algorithm, Adaptive-Weighted High Importance Path Snippets (Ada-WHIPS), makes use of AdaBoost’s adaptive classifier weights. Using a novel formulation, Ada-WHIPS uniquely redistributes the weights among individual decision nodes of the internal decision trees of the AdaBoost model. Then, a simple heuristic search of the weighted nodes finds a single rule that dominated the model’s decision. We compare the explanations generated by our novel approach with the state of the art in an experimental study. We evaluate the derived explanations with simple statistical tests of well-known quality measures, precision and coverage, and a novel measure stability that is better suited to the XAI setting. Results Experiments on 9 CAD-related data sets showed that Ada-WHIPS explanations consistently generalise better (mean coverage 15%-68%) than the state of the art while remaining competitive for specificity (mean precision 80%-99%). A very small trade-off in specificity is shown to guard against over-fitting which is a known problem in the state of the art methods. Conclusions The experimental results demonstrate the benefits of using our novel algorithm for explaining CAD AdaBoost classifiers widely found in the literature. Our tightly coupled, AdaBoost-specific approach outperforms model-agnostic explanation methods and should be considered by practitioners looking for an XAI solution for this class of models.

Orthogonal moments are used to represent digital images with minimum redundancy. Orthogonal moments with fractional-orders show better capabilities in digital image analysis than integer-order moments. In this work, the authors present new fractional-order shifted Gegenbauer polynomials. These new polynomials are used to define a novel set of orthogonal fractional-order shifted Gegenbauer moments (FrSGMs). The proposed method is applied in gray-scale image analysis and recognition. The invariances to rotation, scaling and translation (RST), are achieved using invariant fractional-order geometric moments. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the proposed FrSGMs and compare with the classical orthogonal integer-order Gegenbauer moments (GMs) and the existing orthogonal fractional-order moments. The new FrSGMs outperformed GMs and the existing orthogonal fractional-order moments in terms of image recognition and reconstruction, RST invariance, and robustness to noise.

The study of materials under extreme conditions can reveal interesting physics in diverse areas such as condensed matter and geophysics. Here, the authors investigate experimentally and theoretically the high pressure-high temperature phase diagram of niobium revealing a previously unobserved phase transition from body-centered cubic to orthorhombic phase.

In the present study, the effect of enzyme pretreatment on essential oil recoveries from sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) leaves was evaluated. Moreover, the consideration on the use of hydrodistilled residue by-products as a source of bioactive phytochemicals with antioxidant, antimicrobial, and repellent effects against the stored-grain pest Tribolium castaneum was examined. Results showed that the enzymatic pretreatment increased the extraction yield of essential oil by 400, 417, and 478% in hemicellulase-, cellulase-, and viscozyme-treated samples, respectively. Phenylpropanoids including methyl cinnamate, methyl eugenol, eugenol and estragol were found as the main components, and were particularly abundant in cellulase-treated samples. From the hydrodistilled residue of enzyme-treated samples, better recoveries of total phenols (TPC) (258.3–470.9 mg GAE/g extract) and flavonoids (TFC) (59.4–94.3 mg QE/g extract) were observed. Using the DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays, a strong antioxidant activity of the rosmarinic-rich extract was observed. Such an activity which was mediated through electron transfer mechanism was highly correlated with the TPC, TFC and rosmarinic acid content. The in vitro bioassay showed that methanol extract (6.29 and 12.58 µL/cm2) had repellent activity against the stored-grain pest Tribolium castaneum. These results suggest the potential of enzyme pretreatment to promote the use of hydrodistilled residue by-products as a valuable source of natural antioxidants and repellents ingredients.

Abstract Background Direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) cure patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Concerns have arisen the occurrence of significant bradyarrhythmias during treatment with DAAs. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of a DAA combination for the treatment of HCV infection on heart rate, rhythm, and heart rate variability (HRV) using 24-h ECG monitoring. Results A prospective randomized study of 50 treatment-naïve patients with HCV infection treated with a combination of sofosbuvir 400 mg daily and daclatasvir 60 mg daily for 12 weeks. Surface ECG and 24-h ECG monitoring were performed at baseline and after completion of therapy to assess PR interval, corrected QT interval (QTc), minimum heart rate (HR), maximum HR, average HR, HRV time-domain and frequency-domain measures, significant pauses, tachycardias, bradycardias, premature atrial contractions (PACs), and premature ventricular contraction (PVCs). No differences were detected in all examined parameters between baseline and after completion of treatment. PR interval was 154 ± 25.95 vs 151.4 ± 23.82 ms, respectively (p = 0.124). QTc interval was 397.34 ± 29.38 vs 395.04 ± 30.23 ms, respectively (p = 0.403). No differences were detected for minimum HR, maximum HR, average HR, HRV time-domain and frequency-domain measures, the occurrence of significant pauses, sinus tachycardia episodes, sinus bradycardia episodes, PACs, and PVCs. No episodes of bradyarrhythmias, syncope, and atrial fibrillation, supraventricular, or ventricular tachycardias were reported or detected. Conclusion In non-cardiac patients receiving no cardioactive medications, the combination of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir for the treatment of HCV infection has no effect on HR, rhythm, conductivity, or HRV. No symptomatic bradycardias, tachycardias, or syncope were reported or detected using 24-h ECG monitoring.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the study of the seismic behavior of structures interacting with the ground and to offer new tools for the treatment of relevant problems, oriented towards the new seismic design philosophy of structures: the design performance-based design. The issue is part of the proposal for simplified models to address a complicated problem such as soil-structure interaction (ISS). The nonlinear behavior of the structure is determined by a capacitive approach based on the seismic performance such as the N2 method proposed by Peter Fajfar. In its original version, this method considers that the structure is fixed at its base, neglecting the ISS. Our contribution will be to make some modifications to this approach to introduce the effect of the soil on the nonlinear response.

In treatment planning, multiple imaging modalities can be employed to improve the accuracy of tumor delineation but this can be costly. This study aimed to compare the interobserver consistency of using dual energy computed tomography (DECT) versus magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for delineating tumors in the head and neck cancer (HNC) re-irradiation scenario. Twenty-three patients with recurrent HNC and had planning DECT and MRI were identified. Contoured tumor volumes by seven radiation oncologists were compared. Overall, T1c MRI performed the best with median DSC of 0.58 (0–0.91) for T1c. T1c MRI provided higher interobserver agreement for skull base sites and 60 kV DECT provided higher interobserver agreement for non-skull base sites.

Laryngeal schwannomas are rare benign encapsulated neurogenic tumors that represent less than 1.5% of all benign laryngeal tumors. We report a case of voluminous laryngeal schwannoma that was incidentally found during endotracheal intubation for thyroidectomy in a 43-year-old woman with clinical findings, features of radiologic and histopathologic examinations. The tumor was removed by CO2 laser during microlaryngoscopy. In this case report, we present a challenging approach that can be used in diagnosis and treatment of laryngeal schwannomas. Complete removal of the tumor should be considered as the initial approach to minimize morbidity.