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Due to the vital importance of early diagnosis and intervention of congenital hearing loss, the aim of this study was to compare the rate of newborn hearing screening before and after the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine. In this study, the data related to 6144 newborns during two 18-month time periods before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, was analyzed. From all visited newborns, 3770 and 2374 referred to the centre before and after the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, respectively. There were statistically significant differences in the results of screening and the referral rate of neonates before and after the pandemic (p = 0.00). The results showed that both the residents of urban and rural regions visited for newborn hearing screening less frequently after the onset of the pandemic, but no statistically significant difference was shown between the number of boys and girls before and after the pandemic (p = 0.72). Our results help gain new insights regarding the impacts of disruptive events such as pandemics on the implementation of health screening programs. Boosting public knowledge by providing families with proper education appears to be helpful in preventing the negative effects of delayed implementation of health screening programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selective hydrolysis of proteins by non‐enzymatic catalysis is difficult to achieve, yet it is crucial for applications in biotechnology and proteomics. Herein, we report that discrete hafnium metal‐oxo cluster [Hf18O10(OH)26(SO4)13⋅(H2O)33] (Hf18), which is centred by the same hexamer motif found in many MOFs, acts as a heterogeneous catalyst for the efficient hydrolysis of horse heart myoglobin (HHM) in low buffer concentrations. Among 154 amino acids present in the sequence of HHM, strictly selective cleavage at only 6 solvent accessible aspartate residues was observed. Mechanistic experiments suggest that the hydrolytic activity is likely derived from the actuation of HfIV Lewis acidic sites and the Brønsted acidic surface of Hf18. X‐ray scattering and ESI‐MS revealed that Hf18 is completely insoluble in these conditions, confirming the HHM hydrolysis is caused by a heterogeneous reaction of the solid Hf18 cluster, and not from smaller, soluble Hf species that could leach into solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Metal oxo clusters and metal oxides assemble and precipitate from water in processes that depend on pH, temperature, and concentration. Other parameters that influence the structure, composition, and nuclearity of “molecular” and bulk metal oxides are poorly understood, and have thus not been exploited. Herein, we show that Bi3+ drives the formation of aqueous Fe3+ clusters, usurping the role of pH. We isolated and structurally characterized a Bi/Fe cluster, Fe3BiO2(CCl3COO)8(THF)(H2O)2, and demonstrated its conversion into an iron Keggin ion capped by six Bi3+ irons (Bi6Fe13). The reaction pathway was documented by X‐ray scattering and mass spectrometry. Opposing the expected trend, increased cluster nuclearity required a pH decrease instead of a pH increase. We attribute this anomalous behavior of Bi/Fe(aq) solutions to Bi3+, which drives hydrolysis and condensation. Likewise, Bi3+ stabilizes metal oxo clusters and metal oxides in strongly acidic conditions, which is important in applications such as water oxidation for energy storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an efficient approach for constraint handling in multi-objective particle swarm optimization. The particles population is divided into two non-overlapping populations, named infeasible population and feasible population. The evolution process in each population is done independent of the other one. The infeasible particles are evolved in the constraint space toward feasibility. During evolution process, if an infeasible particle becomes a feasible one, it migrates to feasible population. In a parallel process, the particles in feasible population are evolved in the objective space toward Pareto optimality. At each generation of multi-objective particle swarm optimization, a leader should be assigned to each particle to move toward it. In the proposed method, a different leader selection algorithm is proposed for each population. For feasible population, the leader is selected using a priority-based method in three levels and for infeasible population, a leader replacement method integrated by an elitism-based method is proposed. The proposed approach is tested on several constrained multi-objective optimization benchmark problems, and its results are compared with two popular state-of-the-art constraint handling multi-objective algorithms. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is highly competitive in solving the benchmark problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accidents involving falls and falling objects (group I) are highly frequent accidents in the construction industry. While being hit by a vehicle, electric shock, collapse in the excavation and fire or explosion accidents (group II) are much less frequent, they make up a considerable proportion of severe accidents. In this study, multiple-correspondence analysis, decision tree, ensembles of decision tree and association rules methods are employed to analyse a database of construction accidents throughout Iran between 2007 and 2011. The findings indicate that in group I, there is a significant correspondence among these variables: time of accident, place of accident, body part affected, final consequence of accident and lost workdays. Moreover, the frequency of accidents in the night shift is less than others, and the frequency of injury to the head, back, spine and limbs are more. In group II, the variables time of accident and body part affected are mostly related and the frequency of accidents among married and older workers is more than single and young workers. There was a higher frequency in the evening, night shifts and weekends. The results of this study are totally in line with the previous research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]