Search

The paper presents a study of the infrared spectra of milk with melamine in the middle spectral range. The presence of absorption bands in the infrared spectra of a standard sample of melamine, milk without it and with its addition in different concentrations was analyzed in a comparative aspect. The presence of absorption bands of varying degrees of intensity in the infrared spectra has been established. It was revealed that the presence of melamine in milk can be identified by an absorption band in the region of 810 cm-1. The absence of this absorption band in the infrared spectra of milk with melamine concentrations of 0.1 and 0.5 mg/kg was determined. It was substantiated that the intensity of absorption bands in the infrared spectra depended on the concentration of melamine in milk. The use of spectrometry in the mid-infrared range to detect adulteration of milk has been proposed.

Background: Endotracheal intubation is one of the basic methods for airway control during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In the era of the prevailing pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, medical personnel may face a necessity of resuscitating aninfected patient. Objective: The objective was to compare three intubation methods for suspected/confirmed COVID-19 adult patient resuscitation performed by paramedics wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) for aerosol generating procedures (AGP). Material and Methods: The multicentre, single-blind, prospective, randomized, crossover simulation trial involved 32 paramedics. The participants wearing PPE AGP performed tracheal intubations with the Macintosh, Airtraq, and McGrath MAC laryngoscopes in a patient with suspected COVID-19 in two resuscitation scenarios: scenario A – without chest compressions; scenario B – with continuous chest compressions. The primary outcome was time to intubation. Results: In scenario A, the intubation time for the respective devices equalled 35 s (IQR: 29–46) vs. 44s (IQR: 35–67) vs. 49 (IQR: 34–72) (p = 0.003). The total efficacy of each intubation method was 100%; however, the efficacy of the first intubation attempt was highest for McGrath MAC (90.6%), followed by Macintosh (68.1%) and Airtraq 62.5%) (p

The authors consider the checkability issues of FPGA designs and analyze the logical (structural and structurally functional) checkability. The paper describes the features of safety-related systems that can operate in normal and emergency mode. In these modes different input data are fed to the inputs of the digital circuits of the components, which leads to an expansion of the structurally functional checkability to dual-mode. The paper shows the problem of hidden faults, which can accumulate in the normal mode and manifest themselves in the emergency mode. The features of checkability of circuits in FPGA projects and its advantages important for critical applications are noted. The limitations of the logical checkability of the circuits are analyzed, as well as the possibility and expediency of expanding the traditionally used logical form to power usage checkability. The study defines the checkability of circuits in FPGA projects by power usage and determines its subtypes — lower and upper checkability. Lower checkability is important in identifying faults that lead to lower power usage, for example, in chains of common signals, such as reset or synchronization. The upper one is important for identifying faults that increase the level of power usage, for example, short-circuits. The authors identify the possibility of assessing the power usage checkability of FPGA projects in terms of the power dissipation or power consumption and indicate the possibility of developing upper checkability by the dissipated power. The features of power dissipation monitoring for FPGA projects are noted. An analytical assessment for the checkability of circuits for short-circuit faults, which increase the dissipated power, and the organization of monitoring its excess are proposed. Experiments in Quartus Prime Lite CAD to assess upper checkability by power dissipation of scalable shift register circuits, that are implemented in FPGA projects, based on default IP-Core and a custom VHDL description, are carried out. The paper presents experimental results, that estimate the dependence of the checkability level on the area, occupied by the circuit on the FPGA chip.

The aetiology of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) remains uncertain and thus dedicated studies are still of much importance. Patients in this group are at high risk for metabolic syndrome, diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Our goal was to use a dietary intervention, facilitating the regression of the disease, through the observation of lipid and hormonal profiles, carbohydrate metabolic parameters and metabolomics of plasma fatty acids. There were 39 Caucasian women with PCOS aged 26.76 ±5.08 that qualified for this study. Fatty acid profiles were investigated using gas chromatography. The results of plasma fatty acids were compared with the initial results and the control group. A three-month caloric reduction diet with low glycemic index (GI) reduces the level of nervonic acid and is a great alternative in PCOS therapy. The introduction of rapeseed oil and olive oil to the lowered GI reduction diet caused the increase in the ratio of average length chain fatty acids (C10:0, C14:0) and the enhancement of synthesis pathways for pentadecanoic acid (C15:0) and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA, C18:3n-6), but did not inhibit the synthesis of the derivatives of arachidic acid (C20:0). Additionally, a decrease in the level of nervonic acid (C24:1) was observed. Biochemical analysis of blood showed the improvement of plasma lipid fractions, but a significant reduction of androgen levels was not observed.

The use of computer systems like safety-related systems to ensure the functional safety of high-risk objects has raised them in the development of resources to the level of diversification. At the same time, the digital components, traditionally designed on the basis of array structures, remained at the lower level of a replication of resources. This discrepancy has created a problem of the hidden faults that can be accumulated in digital components during a prolonged normal mode and reduce their fault tolerance and system functional safety in the most critical emergency mode. Bitwise pipelines related to the level of resource diversification allow solving the problem of the hidden faults, but they are compelled to compete with the array structures, for which a powerful supporting infrastructure has been created for many decades. The paper presents a comparative analysis of the efficiency of FPGA-basedbitwise pipelines and matrix structures. Studies have shown that bitwise pipelines exhibit high efficiency exceeding that of the matrix structures in terms of both performance and energy consumption, even when designing a matrix orientation on CAD. Since such orientation reduces the advantages of bitwise pipelines, a method is proposed to increase their efficiency, which improves their throughput and energy consumption, whilemaking a cеrtain concessionsto the matrix orientation of CAD. Thiswould beparticularly importantduring the transitional period, while the traditions of matrix domination are to be overcome and the of bitwise pipeline computing is to be formed.

This study is aimed at determining the content of water soluble vitamins in amateur sportsmen before and after the use of reduction diet. Twenty adult male amateur sportsmen aged between 20 and 43 qualified for this study. The participants adhered to individually adjusted reduction diets for 3 months. Diet supplements were excluded from the diet during that time. Vitamins were analyzed before and after the reduction diet using HPLC. The following vitamins were analyzed: B1, B2, B3, PP, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12 and vitamin C. Statistically significant increase of riboflavin in blood plasma (p=0.0254) and statistically significant (p=0.048) decrease in the concentration of niacin was found when compared to the period before the diet. Appropriate level of riboflavin can be obtained by the consumption of proper amount of diary in the diet. Supplementation with PP is advised and, in case of improper diet, the supplementation of B1, B7 and B12 may also be considered.

Ultrasound imaging is common for surgical training and development of medical robotics systems. Recent advancements in surgical training often utilize soft-tissue phantoms based on gelatin, with additional objects inserted to represent different, typically fluid-based pathologies. Segmenting these objects from the images is an important step in the development of training and robotic systems. The current study proposes a simple and fast algorithm for segmenting convex cyst-like structures from phantoms under very low training sample scenarios. The algorithm is based on a custom two-step thresholding procedure with additional post-processing with two trainable parameters. Two large phantoms with convex cysts are created and used to train the algorithm and evaluate its performance. The train/test procedure are repeated 60 times with different dataset splits and prove the viability of the solution with only 4 training images. The DICE coefficients were on average at 0.92, while in the best cases exceeded 0.95, all with fast performance in single-thread operation. The algorithm might be useful for development of surgical training systems and medical robotic systems in general.

We propose an adaptive method for building a multivariate regression given by a weighted linear convolution of known scalar functions of deterministic input variables with unknown coefficients. As, for example, when multivariate regression is given by a multivariate polynomial. In contrast to the general procedure of the least squares method that minimizes only a single scalar quantitative measure, the adaptive method uses six different quantitative measures and represents a systemically connected set of different algorithms which allow each applied problem to be solved on their basis by an individual adaptive algorithm that, in the case of an active experiment, even for a relatively small volume of experimental data, implements a strategy of a statistically justified solving. The small amount of data of the active experiment we use in the sense that, for such an amount, the variances of estimates of unknown coefficients obtained by the general procedure of the least squares method do not allow to guarantee the accuracy acceptable for practice. We also proposed to significantly increase the efficiency of the proposed by O. A. Pavlov. and M. M. Holovchenko modified group method of data handling for building a multivariate regression which is linear with respect to unknown coefficients and given by a redundant representation. We improve it by including some criteria and algorithms of the adaptive method for building a multivariate regression. For the multivariate polynomial regression problem, the inclusion of a partial case of the new version of the modified group method of data handling in the synthetic method proposed by O. A. Pavlov, M. M. Golovchenko, and V. V. Drozd, for building a multivariate polynomial regression given by a redundant representation, also significantly increases its efficiency.

Methods for dose estimation of 137Cs in mouse-like rodents, specifically bank voles (Myodes glareolus), commonly found within the research sites in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, are being proposed. The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends using the specially developed "BiotaDC" software, but it needs to be adapted to solve specific applied issues. It is shown that the "BiotaDC" approach adequately describes dose accumulation of 137Cs for external exposure inside nest chambers if the mean integral value of soil activity concentration at a depth of 0.5 m is used, for external exposure above soil – if the mean integral value of soil activity concentration at a depth of 0.2 m is used. However, the authors propose a method considering the age of animals at the time of capture and the age-related dynamics of changes in such parameters as excretion and accumulation of radioisotopes for internal dose estimation using the "BiotaDC" software. A detailed dose estimation algorithm is being proposed. Dose estimates for internal irradiation according to the authors' method and the method of the International Commission on Radiological Protection are being compared.

This paper introduces a methodology based on machine learning and remote sensing for detecting military-induced damages to agricultural lands in Ukraine using free Sentinel-2 satellite data. The most informative spectral bands (B2, B3) and vegetation indices (NDVI, GCI) were experimentally selected for recognizing damaged fields through the Random Forest classification algorithm. Additionally, an anomaly detection method based on the estimation of deviations of pixel values from the mean within each field was applied to determine local damage in the identified affected fields. The proposed methodology demonstrated high classification accuracy with an f1-score of 0.87%, producer’s accuracy of 0.89%, user’s accuracy of 0.85, and sensitivity for detecting local damage. The developed anomaly detection method allows to recognize damage visible on the 10-meter pixel of the Sentinel-2 satellite, but does not identify small craters. Cloudiness of satellite images can significantly impair the accuracy of damage detection, and the method of local damage detection can respond to non-military anomalies and requires careful selection of threshold coefficients for each field. The study conducted a comprehensive assessment of damages inflicted on Ukrainian agricultural fields during the period 2022-2023, revealing that a total of 1,544,952 hectares, equivalent to 5.72% of the total agricultural area, experienced damage. This included 509,107 ha of wheat, 114,302 ha of sunflower, 68,830 ha of maize, 4,029 ha of rapeseed, and 16,561 ha of other crops. The most affected regions were Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts. The comprehensive findings of this research provide valuable insights for monitoring the state of agriculture and formulating strategic plans for the recovery of agricultural resources amidst the ongoing military conflict.

Abstract Background. The New Medicine Service (NMS) was developed in England more than ten years ago, as a three-stage consultation led by community pharmacists to support patients taking new medication for a chronic disease. In Poland, the scheme was officially introduced in January 2023. However, its implementation into common practice has been presented with various obstacles, including the need to develop relationships with general practitioners, resolve the payment structure, and provide training with adequate supporting materials. Hence, written materials have been designed for use as an optional tool for counselling patients receiving an NMS in community pharmacies. Methods. The present study evaluates the ability of these materials to inform patients about the need to adhere to anti-hypertensive medication. A group of 401 randomly-selected adult visitors to pharmacies and/or healthcare centres were surveyed; one third had hypertension in their history. Results. The structure, grammar and readability of the text achieved the required threshold of 40% according to the Plain Language Index. The designed materials effectively informed the patients about anti-hypertensive medication, reflected in an increased score in a knowledge test, and were rated positively regarding information level, comprehensibility and presentation. Conclusion. The proposed material may serve as an additional, “patient-friendly” educational tool for use as part of an NMS.

The purpose of the study is to identify countries with mechanisms to most effectively ensure that human capital losses do not become an obstacle to strengthening macroeconomic freedoms. The study is based on the hypothesis that a decrease in absence from work due to personal health problems, unemployment, and mortality leads to an increase in the level of six basic macroeconomic freedoms: business, labour, trade, investment, monetary, and financial freedoms. In this case, absence from work due to personal health problems, unemployment, and mortality serve as discouragers/inhibitors of human capital development, the growth of which reduces the chances of an employee obtaining the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively transform this employee’s labour into an economic asset. To generalise the scientific opinion on the studied issue, a bibliometric analysis of the relationship between each of these factors and the totality of all macroeconomic freedoms was carried out using the R Bibliometrix package in RStudio software. The basis of this analysis was formed by the databases of publications indexed by Scopus for 1937–2024, consisting of 1618, 1578, and 1517 literature sources for each factor-destimulator. This analysis allowed us to form clouds of the most used keywords and analyse the dynamics of their use, see how the relevant research areas and the keywords used have evolved, build a topic map of the research interface, etc. The information base of the study is the statistical data of Europa and the Heritage Foundation; the object is 30 European countries; the time horizon is 2021; the main method is the non-parametric method of Data Envelopment Analysis (CCR and BCC models); the software package is the rDEA and Benchmarking package in the R programming language. Frontier graphs were constructed that clearly show the efficiency frontier in the CCR and BCC orientations. Six iterations of DEA modelling were carried out, each using only one of the 6 indicators of macroeconomic freedom as an output and three indicators of human capital as inputs. The countries with the most effective national mechanisms to ensure that human capital losses do not become an obstacle to strengthening macroeconomic freedoms are Cyprus, Czech Republic, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, and Romania. These countries demonstrate “benchmark” efficiency in 6 cases out of 6 calculated. There is also a group of countries that have never been included in the list of “benchmark” countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain. We have also identified countries that are “benchmark” not by all parameters, but only by certain ones: Bulgaria – only in terms of the impact of the studied human capital determinants on monetary freedom; Luxembourg – only on investment freedom and financial freedom; Poland – only on investment freedom.

Abstract The report discusses global population changes from the Holocene beginning to 2023, via two Super Malthus (SM) scaling equations. SM-1 is the empowered exponential dependence: $$P\left(t\right)={P}_{0}exp{\left[\pm \left(t/\tau \right)\right]}^{\beta }$$ P t = P 0 e x p ± t / τ β , and SM-2 is the Malthus-type relation with the time-dependent growth rate $$r(t)$$ r ( t ) or relaxation time τ $$(t)=1/r(t)$$ ( t ) = 1 / r ( t ) : $$P\left(t\right)={P}_{0}exp\left(r\left(t\right)\times t\right)={P}_{0}exp\left[\tau \left(t\right)/t\right]$$ P t = P 0 e x p r t × t = P 0 e x p τ t / t . Population data from a few sources were numerically filtered to obtain a 'smooth' dataset, allowing the distortions-sensitive and derivative-based analysis. The test recalling SM-1 equation revealed the essential transition near the year 1970 (population: ~ 3 billion): from the compressed exponential behavior ( $$\beta >1)$$ β > 1 ) to the stretched exponential one ( $$\beta