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Aim: Neopterin is a marker associated with cell-mediated immunity produced by interferon-Ɣ-stimulated macrophages. The levels of neopterin in body fluids are elevated in infections, autoimmune diseases, malignancies, and allograft rejections. Recently, it was shown to be associated with the initiation and progression of periodontal disease. This investigation was designed to explore the use of salivary neopterin in predicting the outcome of nonsurgical periodontal therapy (NSPT) in aggressive and chronic periodontitis patients.Materials and Methods: This case-control study with stratified sampling comprised 45 subjects divided into three groups: a control group of 15 periodontally healthy participants, a test Group A of 15 participants with chronic periodontitis, and a test Group B of 15 participants with aggressive periodontitis. Periodontal parameters, including plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), probing depth (PD), and clinical attachment level (CAL), were recorded at baseline and three months after scaling and root planing (SRP). An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis was performed to measure neopterin levels in saliva in study groups before and after SRP. Kruskal–Wallis analysis of variance and Mann–Whitney U tests were done for intra- and intergroup comparisons. The correlation between salivary neopterin levels with clinical parameters was done by Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient.Results: Baseline salivary neopterin levels were least in the control group (5 62 nmol/L), higher in test Group A (9.30 nmol/L), and highest in test Group B (9.76 nmol/L). Three months after SRP, there was a significant reduction in all the clinical parameters, and the reduction in mean salivary neopterin levels were 2.79 and 2.57 in test Group A and test Group B, respectively; the difference was not statistically significant.Conclusion: Salivary neopterin levels have the potential to be utilized as a diagnostic tool for detecting the presence, activity of the disease, and the course of the lesions. It cannot, however, be utilized to distinguish between chronic and aggressive periodontitis.

This article candidly presents the magnetohydrodynamics Casson hybrid nanofluid flow over a stretching surface. In the present study, we added a nonuniform heat source or sink and non-linear thermal radiation. We considered Al2O3and copper nanoparticles to have antibacterial and antiviral properties without any harmful impacts and used water as the host fluid. We simplified the governing flow equations by using suitable self-similarity variables, which are used to convert PDEs to ODEs. The mathematical equations are numerically solved by using the bvp5c technique in the MATLAB software. Additionally, with higher values of the magnetic field and Casson fluid parameters the velocity profile decreased. The temperature profile is enhanced by increasing the magnetic field and thermal radiation parameters. Increasing the Casson fluid and radiation parameters enhances the skin friction and Nusselt number profiles. Alumina nanoparticles find applications in cosmetic fillers, polishing materials, catalyst carriers, analytical reagents. Copper nanoparticles have high electrical conductivity, which has many uses in electrical circuits and biosensors.

Scientific research linking climate change to food systems, nutrition, and nutrition-related health (FSNH) has proliferated, showing bidirectional and compounding dependencies that create cascading risks for human and planetary health. Within this proliferation, it is unclear which evidence to prioritize for action and which research gaps, if filled, would catalyze the most impact. We systematically searched for synthesis literature (i.e., reviews) related to FSNH published after 1 January, 2018. We screened and extracted characteristics of these reviews and mapped them in an interactive Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) supplemented by expert consultation. Eight hundred forty-four synthesis reports met inclusion criteria (from 2739 records) and were included in the EGM. The largest clusters of reports were those describing climate impacts on crop and animal-source food production and emissions from such (86%). Comparatively few reports assessed climate change impacts on nutrition-related health or food manufacture, processing, storage, and transportation. Reports focused on strategies of climate adaptation (40%), mitigation (29%), both (19%), or none (12%). Only 1 quarter of reports critically evaluated equity (25%), and fewer reports suggested that changes to equity and equitable practices would alter climate-FSNH dynamics (6%). The expert consultation mirrored the results of the EGM and contextualized findings further. This novel map describes a wide research landscape linking climate change to FSNH. We identified 4 key research gaps: 1) research on whole food systems or postharvest elements; 2) research evaluating relationships between climate change and nutrition-related health outcomes, especially among vulnerable populations; 3) promising methods (and additional data required) that can i) identify inflection points or levers for intervention, ii) incorporate complex dynamics and characterize trade-offs, iii) be understood and applied in context-specific, localized ways for decision making; and 4) research undertaken through interdisciplinary collaborations that enables producing and translating evidence to action, especially those that inherently consider coproduction and fairness.

Modern power and energy systems are becoming more complicated and uncertain as distributed energy resources (DERs), flexible loads, and other developing technologies become more integrated. This brings great challenges to the operation and control. Furthermore, the deployment of modern sensor and smart metres generates a considerable amount of data, which opens the door to fresh data-driven ways for dealing with complex operation and control difficulties. One of the most commonly touted strategies for control and optimization problems is reinforcement learning (RL). Designing a fuzzy Q-learning power energy system using RL technique will control and reduce the problems arranging in the energy system.

Over the last 2 decades, many African countries have undergone dietary and nutrition transitions fueled by globalization, rapid urbanization, and development. These changes have altered African food environments and, subsequently, dietary behaviors, including food acquisition and consumption. Dietary patterns associated with the nutrition transition have contributed to Africa's complex burden of malnutrition—obesity and other diet-related noncommunicable diseases (DR-NCDs)—along with persistent food insecurity and undernutrition. Available evidence links unhealthy or obesogenic food environments (including those that market and offer energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods and beverages) with suboptimal diets and associated adverse health outcomes. Elsewhere, governments have responded with policies to improve food environments. However, in Africa, the necessary research and policy action have received insufficient attention. Contextual evidence to motivate, enable, and create supportive food environments in Africa for better population health is urgently needed. In November 2020, the Measurement, Evaluation, Accountability, and Leadership Support for Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention Project (MEALS4NCDs) convened the first Africa Food Environment Research Network Meeting (FERN2020). This 3-d virtual meeting brought researchers from around the world to deliberate on future directions and research priorities related to improving food environments and nutrition across the African continent. The stakeholders shared experiences, best practices, challenges, and opportunities for improving the healthfulness of food environments and related policies in low- and middle-income countries. In this article, we summarize the proceedings and research priorities identified in the meeting to advance the food environment research agenda in Africa, and thus contribute to the promotion of healthier food environments to prevent DR-NCDs, and other forms of malnutrition.Statement of Significance: In Africa, research and policy action to improve food environments, to reduce intake of suboptimal diets, and associated adverse health outcomes have received insufficient attention. This paper articulates previously unpublished priorities to advance the food environment research agenda, and to generate contextually relevant, fit-for-local purpose evidence to confront unhealthy food environments in Africa.

The Tropical Cyclone (TC) track prediction using different NWP models and its verification is the critical task to provide prior knowledge about the model errors, which is beneficial for giving the model guidance-based real-time cyclone warning advisories. This study has attempted to verify the Global Forecast System (GFS) model forecasted tropical cyclone track and intensity over the North Indian Ocean (NIO) for the years 2019 and 2020. GFS is one of the operational models in the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which provides the medium-range weather forecast up to 10 days. The forecasted tracks from the GFS forecast are obtained using a vortex tracker developed by Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). A total of 13 tropical cyclones formed over the North Indian Ocean, eight during 2019 and five in 2020 have been considered in this study. The accuracy of the model predicted tracks and intensity is verified for five days forecasts (120 h) at 6-h intervals; the track errors are verified in terms of Direct Position Error (DPE), Along Track Error (ATE) and Cross-Track Error (CTE). The annual mean DPE over NIO during 2019 (51–331 km) is lower than 2020 (82–359 km), and the DPE is less than 150 km up to 66 h during 2019 and 48 h during 2020. The positive ATE (76–332 km) indicates the predicted track movement is faster than the observed track during both years. The positive CTE values for most forecast lead times suggest that the predicted track is towards the right side of the observed track during both years. The cyclone Intensity forecast for the maximum sustained wind speed (MaxWS) and central mean sea level pressure (MSLP) are verified in terms of mean error (ME) and root mean square error (RMSE). The errors are lead time independent. However, most of the time model under-predicted the cyclone intensity during both years. Finally, there is a significant variance in track and intensity errors from the cyclone to cyclone and Bay of Bengal basin to the Arabian Sea basin.

The advancement of science and evidence-based solutions for planetary health increasingly require interdisciplinary and international learning and sharing. Yet aviation travel to academic conferences is carbon-intensive and expensive, thus perpetuating planetary health and equity challenges. Using data from five annual international Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Week conferences from 2016 to 2020, we explore whether moving to virtual conferencing produced co-benefits for climate, participation, attendee interaction, and satisfaction. We report on: absolute number of attendees, proportion of attendees from countries of different income levels, number of participants at social events, aviation CO2emissions, and overall ratings of the event by participants. Transitioning online resulted in large reductions in travel-related aviation CO2emissions, alongside increased attendance—including among attendees from low-income and middle-income countries. This was achieved without a major change in the participant rating of the event. However, the online format resulted in lower participation in conference social events. The urgency of reducing CO2emissions in pursuit of planetary health and improving equity in scientific exchange requires new modalities of academic conferencing. This study indicates that co-benefits can be achieved when transitioning online. Challenges exist for virtual events, such as emulating the intangible facets of in-person interactions, overcoming time-zone limitations, and digital divides.

Rendezvousing the transmissions and radio frequencies is a crucial objective to achieve optimal utilisation of the spectrum bands by secondary users in cognitive radio networks. Many dimensions of research, such as attaining quality of service during transmissions occurring through spectrum bands, optimising security factors to enable fair and trusted transmissions over spectrum bands is happening in the recent past. However, optimising the spectrum band utilisation by rendezvousing the transmissions and radio frequencies of spectrum band as transmission channels is essential against the massive transmissions (flash crowd) framed by multiple users. Concerning this, a batch processing approach called 'clusters-based rendezvousing approach for scheduling the flash crowd transmissions over cognitive radio networks' has proposed in this manuscript. A new distance measuring technique has adapted to perform a clustering process, which has applied on both buffered transmissions and idle radio frequencies. The results obtained from an experimental study indicating the comparatively better performance from the proposed model and, if utilised within the definitive frameworks, can yield better performance results.

The conventional DDoS assaults can be transformed into an economic denial of sustainability (EDoS) assaults because of elasticity in the cloud services. This EDoS attacks use the cloud assets for creating administration inaccessibility to the clients. There is a mandate to diminish EDoS assaults. HRF is the most suitable and an effective mechanism to identify and diminish such assaults, in which assailant requests are recognised and dropped preceding arriving at the web server. This paper assesses and examines the cost and performance sway using queuing theory and assess experimental model in terms of key performance metrics which incorporate QoS and cost metrics. Different scenarios appropriate to HRF mechanism are taken into consideration and examined. Performance is compared with existing approaches using game theoretical methodology. To get the systematic solution and calculation of game value, various probabilities of defending techniques and assaulting strategies through numerical outlines are done. Lastly conclusions are drawn.

This paper proposes HTTP request filtering (HRF) mechanism to detect and mitigate EDoS attacks and compare the performance with existing mechanism through game theoretical approach. The HRF mechanism was implemented with three stages and hosted on web application firewalls (WAF). The performance of these mechanisms with cost analysis is done using finite queuing model. The efficiencies are compared with the formation of two player non-cooperative zero-sum game and gains are calculated based on loss probability as a QoS metric. To obtain the analytical solution and computation of game value, different probabilities of defending strategies and attacking strategies through numerical illustrations are carried out. The results are discussed and finally conclusions are drawn.

With the rise of the internet, security has transformed into a critical concern. An interference distinguishing proof structure is used to redesign the security of frameworks by evaluating all inbound and outbound framework practices and by perceiving suspicious cases as possible intrusions. Masters focus on applying special case distinguishing proof frameworks for irregularity revelation in light of its promising results in perceiving bona fide ambushes and in lessening false alert rate. In this paper, characteristic acknowledgment on systems database assurance is analysed and their results are examined. In this original copy, a few noteworthy components are viewed as a framework structure and an information suspicion driven inconsistency revelation technique. We demonstrate their ampleness and results on real datasets with scholarly access administration from the regions of social, spatial, and stage walled in area frameworks. Finally, we offer an outline to widen the examined irregularity acknowledgment frameworks to the dynamic setting of graphs. In this original copy we utilised MATLAB condition for discovery of exceptions on systems database and the proposed strategy execution is likewise examined.

Shorea hemsleyana(King) King ex Foxw is used to treat various ailments in humans. Numerous biological activities have been reported previously. The current study sought to identify S. hemsleyanaphyto-derived anti-viral compounds against the SARS-CoV-2 main protease to gain insight into the molecular interactions. In the present research, nine compounds obtained from the PubChem database are examined via molecular docking. Docking experiments were conducted using the AutoDock Vina tool. The Swiss ADME and DruLito servers were used for drug-like predictions. Our research shows that the phytoconstituents of S. hemsleyana, namely, Hemsleyanol-A and Hemsleyanoside-A, may act against SARS CoV-2 main protease with the binding affinity of − 7.6 and − 6.8 kcal/mol respectively, which were further validated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and end-state binding energy calculations. These phytocompounds could be used in contemporary strategies to develop effective medicines from natural sources. The identified substances are potential anti-viral agents. However, in vitro studies are necessary to assess their effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2.

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Hybrid nanofluid, which is a combination of Propylene Glycol (PG) – Water (H2O) admixture and paraffin wax and sand, may be utilized as a standby for PG and (H2O) blend in solar thermal framework. Objective of this article is the exploration of the dissipative flow propylene-glycol and water mixture based hybrid nanofluid by a sphere with chemical reaction and heat source parameters. MATLAB in-built solver bvp4c is utilized to exhibit the impacts of various parameters on regular profiles including temperature. Correlation coefficient is utilized to elucidate the impact of pertinent parameters on engineering parameters of concern, such as, surface friction factor. Main findings of this work are magnetic field is having a negative association with friction factor and chemical reaction is consuming a significant positive relationship with Sherwood number. It is witnessed that heat source and Eckert number are useful to meliorate the fluid temperature. Furthermore, validation is performed among our results and earlier published outcomes. Good agreement is detected.