Search

Abstract Background Techniques in endovascular therapy have evolved to offer a promising alternative to medical therapy alone for Type B aortic dissections (TBADs). Aim The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare mortality and overall complications between thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) and best medical therapy (BMT) in patients with TBADs. Methods We included randomized control trials and prospective or retrospective cohort studies that compared TEVAR and BMT for the treatment of type B aortic dissection. Multiple electronic databases were searched. Results Thirty-two cohort studies including 150,836 patients were included. TEVAR was associated with a significantly lower 30-day mortality rate than BMT (RR = 0.79, CI = 0.63, 0.99, P = 0.04), notably in patients ≥ 65 years of age (RR = 0.78, CI = 0.64, 0.95, P = 0.01). The TEVAR group had a significantly prolonged hospital stay (MD = 3.42, CI = 1.69, 5.13, P = 0.0001) and ICU stay (MD = 3.18, CI = 1.48, 4.89, P = 0.0003) compared to the BMT. BMT was associated with increased stroke risk (RR = 1.52, CI = 1.29, 1.79, P

During a series of sampling conducted in Nobaria, El-Beheira, Egypt in 2022 and 2023, defoliation disorders were identified in tomato fields. Three soil samples were collected and subjected to fungal isolation and identification. Molecular analysis revealed the presence of three fungal species, namely Fusarium verticillioides, Fusarium proliferatum and Alternaria tenuissima, with their Genbank accession numbers being OP889680, OP889682 and OP886855, respectively. The efficacy of an effective microorganism (EM) product as an antifungal agent was screened and its bioactive substances were analyzed. The bioactive substances in the EM product included antioxidant compounds, such as phenolics (58 mg/mL) and tannins (17 mg/mL), which contributed to total antioxidant activity of 73% as measured by FRP, PMA and DPPH assays. The EM product was tested for its antifungal activity against the three isolated fungal pathogens. The sensitivity of A. tenuissima, F. verticillioides and F. proliferatum was assessed by measuring the colony growth when exposed to the EM product. It showed concentration-dependent growth inhibition, completely stopping growth at 7% concentration, with inhibition percentages of 93, 100 and 100% for each pathogen. Gene expression in treated fungi was studied, revealing down-regulation of the chitinase gene in F. verticillioides, F. proliferatum and A. tenuissima, compared to controls. Up-regulation of PR4 and PR5 genes was noted in F. verticillioides, while a significant up-regulation of peroxidase and PPO genes was observed in A. tenuissima. This suggests the EM product holds promise as a fungicide alternative.

This paper deals with the existence, uniqueness, and Ulam-stability outcomes for $\Xi$-Hilfer fractional fuzzy differential equations with impulse. Further, by using the techniques of nonlinear functional analysis, we study the Ulam-Hyers-Rassias stability.

Abstract The transportation problem in operations research aims to minimize costs by optimizing the allocation of goods from multiple sources to destinations, considering supply, demand, and transportation constraints. This paper applies the multi-dimensional solid transportation problem approach to a private sector company in Egypt, aiming to determine the ideal allocation of their truck fleet. In order to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive set of options to reduce fuel consumption costs during transportation or minimize total transportation time, a multi-objective approach is employed. The study explores the best compromise solution by leveraging three multi-objective approaches: the Zimmermann Programming Technique, Global Criteria Method, and Minimum Distance Method. Optimal solutions are derived for time and fuel consumption objectives, offering decision-makers a broad range to make informed decisions for the company and the flexibility to adapt them as needed. Lingo codes are developed to facilitate the identification of the best compromise solution using different methods. Furthermore, non-dominated extreme points are established based on the weights assigned to the different objectives. This approach expands the potential ranges for enhancing the transfer problem, yielding more comprehensive solutions. This research contributes to the field by addressing the transportation problem practically and applying a multi-objective approach to support decision-making. The findings provide valuable insights for optimizing the distribution of the truck fleet, reducing fuel consumption costs, and improving overall transportation efficiency.

In this paper, we study the existence of solutions to boundary value problem for implicit differential equations involving generalized fractional derivative via fixed point methods.

In the article, the existence of a solution for a class of boundary value problem for a fuzzy differential equation with finite delay is discussed. By applying the contraction mapping principle, we gain an existence of a solution.

In this article, we take into account the stochastic Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation forced by multiplicative noise in the Itô sense. To obtain the exact stochastic solutions of the stochastic Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, we apply the G′G\frac{{G}^{^{\prime} }}{G}-expansion method. Furthermore, we extend some previous results where this equation has not been previously studied in the presence of multiplicative noise. Also, we show the influence of multiplicative noise on the analytical solutions of the stochastic Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.

Article accepted. The article will be published here soon. Pending final quality checks.

Abstract Background Dysphagia is caused by sensorimotor function disruption of swallowing. In 2000, McHorney et al. first developed the SWAL-QOL (swallowing quality of life questionnaire). It is considered to be one of the initial self-rated tools which is dysphagia-specific. The SWAL-QOL has been translated into many languages such as Dutch, French, Chinese, Swedish, Persian, German, and Arabic (its linguistic validation was tested only but its validation and reliability has not been determined). The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Arabic version of SWAL-QOL (ASWAL-QOL) in adult patients complaining of oropharyngeal dysphagia. Patients were enrolled from the outpatient swallowing clinic of Main University hospitals starting from the first of March 2018 to the end of May 2019. According to these criteria, sums of 100 patients were involved in the study and they completed the ASWAL-QOL together with Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI). Results There was a strong correlation between the eating desire, eating duration, and food selection in ASWAL-QOL and the functional domain in (DHI). This was found as well between mental health and social functioning in ASWAL-QOL and emotional domain in (DHI) that was used for convergent validity. While checking reliability, nearly most of the domains demonstrated stability over short term as well as excellent internal consistency reliability. Conclusion The current study illustrated that the ASWAL-QOL questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to evaluate the impact of difficulties in swallowing on the quality of life in patients suffering from oropharyngeal dysphagia.

In this manuscript, we investigate the approximate controllability for time-dependent impulsive neutral stochastic partial differential equations with fractional Brownian motion and memory in Hilbert space. By using semigroup theory, stochastic analysis techniques and fixed point approach, we derive a new set of sufficient conditions for the approximate controllability of nonlinear stochastic system under the assumption that the corresponding linear system is approximately controllable. Finally, an example is provided to illustrate our results.

The recent development of optical measuring instruments has increased the use of surface topographic data for monitoring the quality of the engineered surface. Due to the complexities of modern industrial processes, however, surfaces of final products under the normal manufacturing process may have multiple modes, such that the surface consists of different topographic features from one in-control mode to another. In this case, existing monitoring approaches based on the single mode surface cannot characterise normal surfaces with multiple modes, and result in poor detection performance. In this article, a new approach for monitoring variations in multimode surface topography is presented. We propose a multimode surface prediction model, which characterises the generic behaviour of normal surfaces with multiple in-control modes. Moreover, we present a mode-specific surface monitoring approach that identifies topographic variations on the surfaces based on the similarity between probability density function (PDF) of residuals from observed and normal surfaces obtained through the prediction model. A novel probabilistic distance measure is introduced to effectively measure the similarity between a single residual PDF and a set of residual PDFs under the same mode. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through numerical simulation and real-life application of paper surface monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) allows Industry 4.0 and the internet of things (IIoT) to make significant advancements in automating, controlling, and improving the quality of numerous manufacturing processes. Three-dimensional (3D) surface topography of manufactured products holds important information about the quality of manufacturing processes. Surface topography consists of unique properties, which makes the current monitoring approaches ineffective in identifying local and spatial surface faults. In this paper, we develop a generalised spatially weighted autocorrelation approach based on AI for monitoring changes in products based on their 3D topographic surfaces. We propose two effective algorithms to identify and assign spatial weights to the topographic regions with suspicious characteristics. The normal surface hard thresholding algorithm initially enhances the representation of surface characteristics through binarization, followed by the normal surface connected-component labelling algorithm, which utilises the obtained binary results to identify and assign spatial weights to the suspicious regions. We then introduce a generalised spatially weighted Moran index, which exploits the assigned weights to locally characterise and monitor changes in the spatial autocorrelation structure of identified regions. After an anomaly surface is detected, we extract different fault diagnostic information. The proposed approach proves its robustness and efficiency in characterising, monitoring, and diagnosing different patterns of faults in 3D topographic surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]