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Many utilities adapt transactive energy markets to distribute the benefit between market participants. Utilities can benefit from markets in terms of peak load shaving and network expansion delay. On the other hand, the energy market subtracts a portion of the utility sales. Hence, the utility will have to split its fixed costs over lower energy, increasing the tariff. The tariff increase will lead to more sales reduction and eventually result in a death spiral. This work investigates the financial impact of market implementation on electricity company sales. The paper presents a multiagent-based market model. The model consists of day-ahead and balancing markets. Both markets are cleared using auction theory. Then, the utility's financial status is assessed before and after the market application. Then, the impact of utility sales reduction on the tariff is analyzed to raise the awernace of electricity company operators to avoid a death spiral.

In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted to explore Ge1–xPbxOy as a candidate material for temperature-sensing layers in uncooled microbolometers. RF and DC sputtering techniques were used to deposit Ge1–xPbxOy thin films with various oxygen concentrations on silicon substrates at room temperature. The composition of the samples was experimentally analyzed using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) that showed various oxygen concentrations. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis showed excellent average surface roughness ranging from 0.6995 to 0.8660 nm. Increasing the concentration of oxygen up to 31% improved the thermoelectric and optical characteristics of the prepared Ge1–xPbxOy thin films. The highest temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the fabricated samples was −3.85%/K for the Ge0.94Pb0.06O0.31 thin film. By using Essential McLeod software, optical simulation of the thin film samples was performed to assess the highest absorptance of the cavity microbolometer structure, which was 81.88% for the Ge0.94Pb0.06O0.31 thin film.

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are global health issues all over the world, affecting about30% (NAFLD), and15% (CKD) of general people. Even, with absence of other risk factors such as overweight, diabetes and hypertension, there is force correlation between NAFLD and CKD. Objective: The target of our study is to detect the incidence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis between non-diabetic hemodialysis patients by measuring Controlled Attenuation Parameter (CAP) using transient elastography (TE) (Fibroscan®). Methodology: This was a cross sectional study in Beni-Suef governorate, including 1000 hemodialysis non-diabetic ESRD patients from different hemodialysis units from all the central hospitals in Beni-Suef governorate. Results: According to CAP (dB/M) there were 503(50.3%) S0, 233(23.3%) S1, 100(10.0%) S1-S2, 67(6.7%) S2,10(1.0%) S2-S3 and 87(8.7%) S3. According to liver stiffness grades there were 508(50.8%) F0, 280(28.0%) F1, 57(5.7%) F2,95(9.5%) F3 and 60(6.0%) F4. There were 508(50.8%) F0 and 492(49.2%) F1:F4 with mean 6.14 (± 3.90SD) and range (2.0 – 19.90). Conclusions: In this study we concluded that there is a high incidence of NAFLD among non-diabetic patients on regular Hemodialysis in Beni-Suef governorate, significantly correlated with increasing degree of liver stiffness.

The usage of renewable energy sources as an alternative energy source is faced with a major challenge introduced by the intermittency nature of the source. We have two options i) adapt the demand to the source, or ii) adapt the source to the demand. If the process demand is flexible and can be adapted to the energy source, it will enjoy cheap energy. Alternatively, non-flexible processes will require extra costs to be paid to adapt the source to the process energy requirements. This paper presents a demand response model to adapt the demand of industrial processes to the available energy source. The model is solved analytically using mixed integer linear programming. Then, three metaheuristic search algorithms were used. The results of the solving algorithms are compared with each other using the Wilcoxons' rank-sum test. Then the model is tested for two examples of flexible and rigid processes showing the differences.

We are rapidly approaching a future in which cancer patient digital twins will reach their potential to predict cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in individual patients. This will be realized based on advances in high performance computing, computational modeling, and an expanding repertoire of observational data across multiple scales and modalities. In 2020, the US National Cancer Institute, and the US Department of Energy, through a trans-disciplinary research community at the intersection of advanced computing and cancer research, initiated team science collaborative projects to explore the development and implementation of predictive Cancer Patient Digital Twins. Several diverse pilot projects were launched to provide key insights into important features of this emerging landscape and to determine the requirements for the development and adoption of cancer patient digital twins. Projects included exploring approaches to using a large cohort of digital twins to perform deep phenotyping and plan treatments at the individual level, prototyping self-learning digital twin platforms, using adaptive digital twin approaches to monitor treatment response and resistance, developing methods to integrate and fuse data and observations across multiple scales, and personalizing treatment based on cancer type. Collectively these efforts have yielded increased insights into the opportunities and challenges facing cancer patient digital twin approaches and helped define a path forward. Given the rapidly growing interest in patient digital twins, this manuscript provides a valuable early progress report of several CPDT pilot projects commenced in common, their overall aims, early progress, lessons learned and future directions that will increasingly involve the broader research community.

IntroductionApproximately 40% of patients with uveal melanoma (UM) will develop metastatic disease. Tumors measuring at least 12mm in basal diameter with a class 2 signature, as defined by a widely used gene expression-profiling test, are associated with significantly higher risk of metastasis, with a median time to recurrence of 32 months. No therapy has been shown to reduce this risk.Materials and MethodsThis was a single-arm, multicenter study in patients with high-risk UM who received definitive treatment of primary disease and had no evidence of metastasis. Patients were consecutively enrolled to receive 12 four-week cycles of adjuvant crizotinib at a starting dose of 250mg twice daily and were subsequently monitored for 36 months. The primary outcome of this study was to assess recurrence-free survival (RFS) of patients with high-risk UM who received adjuvant crizotinib.Results34 patients enrolled and received at least one dose of crizotinib. Two patients were unevaluable due to early withdrawal and loss to follow-up, leaving 32 patients evaluable for efficacy. Eight patients (25%) did not complete the planned 48-week course of treatment due to disease recurrence (n=5) or toxicity (n=3). All patients experienced at least one adverse event (AE), with 11/34 (32%) experiencing a Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) grade 3 or 4 AE. After a median duration of follow up of 47.1 months, 21 patients developed distant recurrent disease. The median RFS was 34.9 months (95% CI (Confidence Interval), 23-55 months), with a 32-month recurrence rate of 50% (95% CI, 33-67%). Analysis of protein contents from peripheral blood extracellular vesicles in a subset of patient samples from baseline, on-treatment, and off-treatment, revealed a change in protein content associated with crizotinib exposure, however without a clear association with disease outcome.ConclusionsThe use of adjuvant crizotinib in patients with high-risk UM did not result in improved RFS when compared to historical controls. Analysis of blood extracellular vesicles revealed changes in protein content associated with treatment, raising the possibility of future use as a biomarker. Further investigation of adjuvant treatment options are necessary for this challenging disease.

Recent cost development of Photovoltaic system has pushed for increasing penetration of distributed roof-top application. This increased penetration has been supported by different policy schemes. This paper proposes an approach to quantify the impact of the net-metering scheme in addition to a new implementation strategy of net-metering that balances public welfare, utility cost recovery and renewable energy targets. It uses the GAMS and MATLAB software in modelling all actors including consumers, prosumers and the utility itself. It further proposes a mechanism to increase the public welfare in the electricity sector to accommodate solar PV investments driven by net-metering scheme. The proposed public welfare-based approach takes into consideration maintaining a balance between maximizing the solar PV investments while guaranteeing cost recovery of vertically integrated utilities. A model is developed to investigate the performance of prosumer charges in maintaining the required balance. Results show that assigning prosumer charges using the proposed model will have minimum impact on tariff hikes. In addition, the modelling results confirms the similarity of the performance of both implementation of prosumer charges either based on generated energy or contracted capacity and their superior performance compared to the one based on observed capacity. It further recommends increasing the efficiency of the prosumer charges on two levels. The first is to differentiate it based on location as to integrate the network benefits namely reducing losses at the distribution level. The second is to complement it with a monetized certificate of origin that values the environmental value of the net-metered PV energy.

Replication-Factor-C (RFC) and RFC-like complexes (RLCs) mediate chromatin engagement of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). Here authors use biochemical and single molecule measurements to show that ATAD5-RLC has the most potent PCNA unloading activity and forms structurally distinct intermediates compared to RFC-PCNA.

Two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae, Koch) possess tremendous ability to develop resistance to pest control chemicals. Hence, although METI-acaricides are quite new group of pesticides, the resistance to this chemicals may shortly become a serious obstacle in two-spotted spider mite management. In presented study, molecular and phenotypic diversity of three laboratory strains and seven T. urticae populations collected from pest-protected apple orchards were analysed in reference to METI-acaricides resistance. The inter-population molecular diversity analysis with a set of RAPD markers revealed 6 populations to be in close relation to susceptible reference strain (GSS). Only one population turned out to be linked relatively close with METI-acaricides resistant strain (Akita). Simultaneously, the results of biological test showed similar relation among the analysed populations, according to the resistance incidence ratio. Obtained results suggest that METI-acaricides resistance trait in two-spotted spider mite is likely to be determined at genomic level and may be considered as an initial stage for developing molecular biology tools for early detection of METI-acaricides resistance in T. urticae populations.

BAP1 is a tumor suppressor gene important to the development and prognosis of many cancers, especially uveal melanoma (UM). Its role in more common cancers such as breast and colon cancer is largely unknown. We collected the transcriptome profiling data sets from the TCGA uveal melanoma (TCGA-UVM), breast cancer (TCGA-BRCA), and colon cancer (TCGA-COAD) projects to analyze the expression of BAP1. We found that patients with UM and breast cancer, but not colon cancer, who died had a lower level of BAP1 gene expression compared to surviving patients. Importantly, in breast cancer patients, the lowest BAP1 expression levels corresponded to the dead young patients (age at diagnosis < 46). Since the number of cases in TCGA-BRCA was much higher than TCGA-UVM, we obtained highly correlated genes with BAP1 in invasive breast carcinomas. Then, we tested if these genes are also highly correlated with BAP1 in UM and colon cancer. We found that BAP1 is highly positively correlated with RBM15B and USP19 expression in invasive breast carcinoma, UM, and colon adenocarcinoma. All three genes are located in close proximity on the 3p21 tumor suppressor region that is commonly altered in many cancers.

The objective of this study was to determine the diagnostic cutoff value of N-terminal-pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-pro BNP) as a marker of left ventricular (LV) dysfunction in children with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on regular hemodialysis (HD). The study was carried out on thirty children with ESRD on regular HD and thirty healthy controls. Echocardiographic studies were done, including a conventional mode for ejection fraction, fractional shortening, tissue Doppler imaging, and longitudinal global strain by speckle tracking. Serum levels of NT-pro BNP were measured in venous blood samples before and about 30 min after HD by ELISA. Volume status was assessed by calculating interdialytic weight gain %. There were significant higher serum NT-pro BNP levels before HD (mean: 702.3 ± 274.3 ng/L) compared to controls (mean: 365.55 ± 76.5 ng/L) (P

This overview summarizes the research programs devoted to mapping the genomes within Fragaria genus. A few genetic linkage maps of diploid and octoploid Fragaria species as well as impressive physical map of F. vesca were developed in the last decade and resulted in the collection of data useful for further fundamental and applied studies. The information concerning the rules for proper preparation of mapping population, the choice of markers useful for generating linkage map, the saturation of existing maps with new markers linked to economically important traits, as well as problems faced during mapping process are presented in this paper.

In this study, vanadium oxide (VxOy) semiconducting resistive thermometer thin films were developed, and their temperature-dependent resistive behavior was examined. Multilayers of 5-nm-thick vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) and 5-nm-thick vanadium (V) films were alternately sputter-deposited, at room temperature, to form 105-nm-thick VxOy films, which were post-deposition annealed at 300 °C in O2 and N2 atmospheres for 30 and 40 min. The synthesized VxOy thin films were then patterned into resistive thermometer structures, and their resistance versus temperature (R-T) characteristics were measured. Samples annealed in O2 achieved temperature coefficients of resistance (TCRs) of −3.0036 and −2.4964%/K at resistivity values of 0.01477 and 0.00819 Ω·cm, respectively. Samples annealed in N2 achieved TCRs of −3.18 and −1.1181%/K at resistivity values of 0.04718 and 0.002527 Ω·cm, respectively. The developed thermometer thin films had TCR/resistivity properties suitable for microbolometer and antenna-coupled microbolometer applications. The employed multilayer synthesis technique was shown to be effective in tuning the TCR/resistivity properties of the thin films by varying the annealing conditions.

A localized nanoplasmonic induced absorption enhancement in silicon nitride (Si3N4) dielectric material using a nanoscale novel checkerboard gold (Au) structure is demonstrated. The checkerboard structure is fabricated on a Si3N4 layer using electron-beam lithography and sputter deposition techniques. The plasmonic electric field and optical absorption enhancement are measured using scanning near-field optical microscopy. Finite-difference time-domain simulations are utilized to characterize the absorption spectral response enhancement together with its dependence on incidence angle and polarization. The checkerboard shows a broadband average spectral absorption enhancement of 63.2% over the wavelength range 8-12 μm with a maximum enhancement of 107% at 8 μm and a minimum enhancement of 24.8% at 12 μm. The degradation of enhanced absorption with incidence angle variation (00-60ο) is less than 1.6% at 10.6-μm wavelength. The checkerboard device shows polarization-independent absorption enhancement with incidence angles.

This experiment aimed at studying the effect of Sida Compound fertilizer containing seaweed extract, natural fertilizers, growth promoters and micronutrients in chelated form on growth, yield and berry quality of table grape ‘Early Superior’. Foliar application of Sida Compound at concentration 0.05 to 0.20%, three times in a season increased shoot length, leaf area and content of N, P and K in the leaves as well as total soluble solids and total sugar contents in fruits. Yield of fruits increased by 29 and 14%, depending on the season.

This paper introduces the design and implementation of two high gain Quasi-Yagi printed antennas developed on silicon substrate for 94 GHz imaging applications. The proposed antennas are based on either driven loop or dipole antennas fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) feeding structure. For better matching with the driven antennas, a matching section has been added between the CPW feedline and the driven antenna element. To improve the gain of either loop or dipole antennas, a ground reflector and parasitic director elements have been added. Two Quasi-Yagi antenna prototypes based on loop and dipole antenna elements have been fabricated and experimentally tested using W-band probing station (75–110 GHz). The measured results show good agreement with simulated results and confirm that the proposed antennas are working. In addition, a feed and matching configuration is proposed to enable coupling a microbolometer element to the proposed Quasi-Yagi antenna designs for performing radiation pattern measurements.

Background: The mitigation of global warming effect requires intensified research efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This study was aimed at investigating the valorization of two principal greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), over CeO2‐doped Co–Ni/GO catalytic materials. The CeO2‐doped Co–Ni/GO catalysts were synthesized using a sequential wet impregnation method and employed for CO2 reforming of CH4. The catalytic materials were characterized using various instrumental techniques. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to investigate the impact of process factors, namely reaction temperature (ranging from 700 to 800 °C), CeO2 loading (ranging from 5% to 15%) and feed flowrate (ranging from 10n to 50 mL min−1), on the CH4 conversions. Results: The three factors were observed to have significant influence on the CH4 conversion based on analysis of variance. The analysis of the RSM quadratic model revealed that the optimum conditions of 800 °C, 14.22% and 10.00 mL min−1 were obtained for the reaction temperature, CeO2 loading and feed flowrate resulting in maximum CH4 conversion of 98.24%. The desirability function for these results was calculated to be 0.934. The predicted process parameters aligned with the results of the actual experimental analysis. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that the conversion of CH4 to value‐added products such as syngas can be optimized using RSM. The optimum conditions obtained could be used to improve the process performance. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cross-sectional study has been undertaken in El-Minia province to survey an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in cattle and identify the associated risk factors. From November 2021 to October 2022, researchers collected 100 blood samples, ten tongue epithelium specimens, and saliva swabs from animals of various ages and sexes in different locations. Additionally, the animals were examined for FMD signs. The overall seroprevalence was tested via SNT, which was 67%. Tissue samples and swabs were isolated and examined using conventional RT-PCR for detection of the FMD serotype, revealing serotype A. Statistically, no significant variation (P > 0.05) was observed in the prevalence of FMD in relation to age, sex, season, or locality. The findings of this study indicated that the recent FMD outbreak has been caused by serotype A in the studied locations and that FMD is widespread in cattle populations in El-Minia province. These findings underline the necessity for immediate attention and future research to detect FMDV strains spreading in the region that aid in executing effective prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]