To improve the detection rate of pulmonary nodules in early lung cancer screening, a low-dose CT pulmonary nodule detection algorithm based on 3D CNN-CapsNet (3D convolution neural network and capsule network) was presented. However, the convolution kernel size of the traditional CNN is relatively simple at each layer, and it is difficult to obtain more abundant features, which is not effective for medical images with a hierarchical structure and does not fully consider the spatial information of medical sequence data. CapsNet is a new network architecture that can be used to classify, using a group of neurons as a capsule to replace the traditional neural networks, it may be made to the attribute information and spatial feature extraction. The network structure we designed includes FCN and CapsNet. First, the convolution kernels of different sizes are used to extract features at different scales. Then enter the initial feature map to obtain the first part into the designed CapsNet to get the final classification result. Through the experimental verification of the ELCAP database, the nodule detection rate is 95.19%, the sensitivity is 92.31%, the specificity is 98.08% and the F1-score is 0.95 which are much better than other baseline methods.

Rationale: The United States has one of the highest healthcare expenditures among developed nations despite performing poorly on health metrics and access to care. Wasteful healthcare expenditures in the US not only affect patients but also have broader implications for public health. Aims and objectives: To identify major sources that contribute to wasteful spending in the US healthcare system. Method: A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify relevant studies on wasteful expenditures burdening the US healthcare system. Search terms such as “wasteful expenditures,” “healthcare costs,” and “inefficiencies in US healthcare” were used in PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Full-text peer-reviewed articles, reports, internet articles, and policy documents were included in the study. Studies published in languages other than English were excluded. No ethical approval was required for this review as the analysis was conducted on previously published literature. Results: Approximately a third of US healthcare spending is considered wasteful. According to the Institute of Medicine, excess costs have been associated with unnecessary services, inefficient delivery of services, high service prices, excessive administrative costs, low emphasis on prevention, and fraud. Other factors that were identified to affect the healthcare experience for patients included insurance payment denials, high out-of-pocket expenses, and administrative complexities. Overcoming these aspects might result in annual savings that can range up to $282 billion. Additionally, the US has greater preventable and treatable mortality rates than other nations due to increasing chronic diseases, emphasizing the need for greater utility of preventive and primary care services. Despite the ACA’s intention to include preventive services in health plans, obstacles persist in their consistent integration across states. Conclusion: In summary, improving access to care by increasing affordability and prioritizing preventive care services can substantially reduce unnecessary costs to the US healthcare system.

Wind power is an exceptionally clean source of energy, its rational utilization can fundamentally alleviate the energy, environment, and development problems, especially under the goals of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”. A combined short-term wind power prediction based on LSTM artificial neural network has been studied aiming at the nonlinearity and volatility of wind energy. Due to the large amount of historical data required to predict the wind power precisely, the ambient temperature and wind speed, direction, and power are selected as model input. The CEEMDAN has been introduced as data preprocessing to decomposes wind power data and reduce the noise. And the PSO is conducted to optimize the LSTM network parameters. The combined prediction model with high accuracy for different sampling intervals has been verified by the wind farm data of Chongli Demonstration Project in Hebei Province. The results illustrate that the algorithm can effectively overcome the abnormal data influence and wind power volatility, thereby provide a theoretical reference for precise short-term wind power prediction.

John Puetz MDSaint Louis University School of MedicineDepartment of PediatricsDivision of Pediatric Hematology/OncologySSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital1465 S. GrandSt. Louis MO 63104 USAPhone +1 314 577-5638Fax +1 314 577-5309Email: john.puetz@health.slu.edu

After using epidural electrical stimulation to reduce spastic pains in spinal cord injury sufferers from long ago, more recently the possibility of its usage in improving motor abilities has been proposed and shown in some human clinical trials. This systematic review searches 4 important databases including PubMed, Embase, Scopus and web of science in compliance with the PRISMA guidelines to find relevant human clinical trials and extract their data to get the most accurate conclusion and possibly consider the use of epidural electrical stimulation more seriously and extensively to help spinal cord injury patients struggling for their most basic skills. We concluded that epidural electrical stimulation has had notable effect on regain of walking even in those with chronic complete paralysis.

This article examines the effects of video compression on the believable integration of computer-generated (CG) characters among live-action film elements. Compression is requisite for the delivery of moving-image content to a variety of end-user applications. The most common standards for compressing consumer-targeted video content provide separate pros and cons depending on the type of footage and the degree of compression required. This research investigates to what extent the type and degree of compression impacts how well virtual actors (vactors) appear to coexist within profilmic scenes. By extension, what visual results linked to compression have the greatest impact on compromising a vactor’s believable integration within a shot? Analyses of two feature films and two web-based promotional films at various compression strengths provide data that suggests compression is more detrimental to the believability of CG versus profilmic characters. Additionally, as compression strength increases, CG characters become more graphically abstracted – negatively impacting the quality of their visual integration – whereas profilmic actors remain recognisably human and plausibly integrated. This research provides novel insights regarding the relationship between the finished video product as delivered by a film company versus how it may be perceived when viewed at different formats by audiences.

A document by Monica D. Rieth. Click on the document to view its contents.

By drawing nutrients from the traditional culture of the She ethnic group, and by using the unique cultural elements of the She ethnic group as explicit image carriers to convey the implicit folk customs and beliefs of the She ethnic group, the animation works are endowed with the cultural connotations of the She ethnic group, while at the same time providing a carrier for the inheritance and development of the traditional culture of the She ethnic group.The animation work “She Herbs” takes the application of traditional She culture and animation creation as the main theme, and studies how to reasonably apply traditional She cultural elements in the script story, character design, scene design, art style design and sound design in the creation of animation art, so as to make it an animation design work with regional cultural characteristics, so that the artistic expression and ideology can be better integrated in the work. The attempt to combine the rich and colourful traditional culture of the She people with animation has brought a rich source of inspiration and creative nourishment to the creation of the short animated art film “She Herbs”.

In figure 1, word Model was misspelled as Madel and the lead is Model 6937. The correct figure 1 is below:

A document by Eric Mwangi. Click on the document to view its contents.

DisseminatedMycobacterium fortuitum infection in a young girl withIFN-γR1 defect masquerading as histiocytosisArchan Sila, Suprit Basua, Jhumki Dasa, Sunil Sethib, Debajyoti Chatterjee c, Pandiarajan Vignesha, Deepti Suria, Ankur Kumar Jindala*aAllergy Immunology Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Advanced Pediatrics Centre, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India- 160012bDepartment of Medical Microbiology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India- 160012cDepartment of Histopathology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India- 160012

In order for weightlifters to achieve good technical skills in clean & jerk, a study of kinematic analysis and optimization of jerk using elasticity of weightlifting bar in clean & jerk is conducted. First of all, barbell’s trajectory, which leads to derivation of barbell’s velocity and acceleration over time, is tracked from video clip filmed the lifter’s performance by image processing technology including pattern recognition. Since clean lift in clean & jerk is similar to snatch lift in principle, focus is only on jerk just after finish of clean lift. Five kinematic characteristics- “Jerk-Preparing-Time”, “Jerk-Drive-Velocity”, “Jerk-Time”, “Jerk-Offset” and “Jerk-Drop” are newly introduced to evaluate the jerk technique. Then, a kinematic model which is comprised of springs and dashpots is proposed in order to simulate and optimize the jerk using elasticity of weightlifting bar. Spring constant and damping coefficient of the model is estimated by analyzing the barbell’s oscillation on the shoulder. Besides, spring constant is calculated by theory of bending of beam, as well. Finally, an optimal control problem based on the proposed kinematic model is formulated and solved to optimize the jerk. The methodology is illustrated with case study, showing good agreement with actual lifts. It could be useful for optimizing clean & jerk technique.

URLs are fundamental elements of web applications. By applying vector algorithms, we built a fast standard-compliant C++ implementation. Our parser uses three times fewer instructions than competing parsers following WHATWG URL standard (e.g., Servo’s rust-url) and up to eight times fewer instructions than the popular curl parser. The Node.js environment adopted our C++ library. In our tests on realistic data, a recent Node.js version (20.0) with our parser is four to five times faster than the last version with the legacy URL parser.

Engineering systems have been designed to facilitate society. These systems can be seen everywhere in our daily lives ranging from electrical systems to mechanical systems, and from bio-medical systems to industrial systems. With tight coupling with information and communication technology (ICT), these engineering systems can be even controlled and monitored remotely. These systems are supported massively with sensors through which they capture enormous data, which is then used to improve the performance of the systems. Moreover, complex processes are involved in the overall functioning of these engineering systems. The management of data and processes within these engineering systems has been done through traditional ways such as database management systems or spread sheets, however, involvement of multiple parties makes these engineering systems more complex to operate, track, and audit. Blockchain technology has the potential to replace traditional database systems and offers a level of trust in an untrusted environment. With features of immutability, traceability, transparency, availability, and decentralization, blockchain technology is a good match for engineering systems. Blockchain technology can help in supply chain in these engineering systems, but it can also be used to facilitate data, process, and parties. Considering enormous applications of blockchain technology in engineering systems, this Special Issue in Wiley Engineering Reports invited for the original scientific and technical contributions.

Habitat loss and fragmentation are growing global threats to natural habitats and their networks, posing significant challenges to biodiversity conservation. Among the most vulnerable ecosystems, ponds stand out due to their small sizes exhibiting global declines in numbers and extent. While it is generally agreed that connectivity in habitat networks is crucial for sustaining biodiversity, the effect of connectivity on biodiversity patterns over small-scaled habitat networks has so far received less attention given the general assumption that metacommunities lack spatial structuring on small scales. In this study, we tested whether this holds for multiple passively and actively dispersing organism groups in a well-delineated pond metacommunity of 54 bomb crater ponds situated within 1 km. We investigated the influence of space and environment on species richness and metacommunity structure in these ponds, which share similar age, size, and shape and are subject to strong environmental gradients, making it an ideal study system. We specifically examined the impact of network centrality on species richness and eigenvector-based spatial arrangement on metacommunity structure across different organism groups, including prokaryotes, microeukaryotes, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, and amphibians. We found that while environmental filtering is the primary driver of community dynamics, there is also a significant spatial signal, particularly for passively dispersing groups, demonstrating the role of the central-peripheral connectivity gradient. These findings highlight the importance of studying and protecting ponds as parts of a network rather than focusing on individual ponds.

Polymer surfactants are key components of cell culture media as they prevent mechanical damage during fermentation in stirred bioreactors. Among cell-protecting surfactants, Pluronics are widely utilized in biomanufacturing to ensure high cell viability and productivity. Mono-dispersity of monomer sequence and length is critical for the effectiveness of Pluronics - since minor deviations can damage the cells - but is challenging to achieve due to the stochastic nature of polymerization. Responding to this challenge, this study introduces Peptonics, a novel family of peptide and peptoid surfactants whose monomer composition and sequence are de-signed to achieve high cell viability and productivity at a fraction of chain length and cost of Pluronics. A designed ensemble of Peptonics was initially characterized via light scattering and tensiometry to select sequences whose phase behavior and tensioactivity align with those of Pluronics. Selected sequences were evaluated as cell-protecting surfactants using Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb). Peptonics IH-T1010, ih-T1010, and ih-T1020 afforded high cell density (up to 3·107 cells·mL-1) and viability (up to 95% within 10 days of culture), while reducing the accumulation of ammonia (a toxic metabolite) by ~10% compared to Pluronic F-68. Improved cell viability afforded high mAb titer (up to 5.5 mg·mL-1) and extended the production window beyond 14 days; notably, Peptonic IH-T1020 decreased mAb fragmentation and aggregation ~5%, and lowered the titer of host cell proteins by 16% compared to Pluronic F-68. These features can improve significantly purification of mAbs, thus increasing their availability at lower cost to patients.

Wildlife cameras have emerged over the recent years as an effective research tool for collecting various types of data on wild animals, and they are used increasingly also in avian studies. However, choosing the best method to collect data depends on the aim of the research and the characteristics of the target species and its habitat. Here, we compared the performance of game cameras taking images by passive infrared motion sensitive (PIR) and time-lapse triggering in gathering occurrence and relative abundance data of the taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) in peatlands across Finland in 2020-2021. We found the time lapse trigger mode to be more efficient in collecting data on goose presence than PIR triggering. However, there was no significant difference in the goose numbers between the two trigger modes. We also found the capture probability and relative abundance to vary between years, but this could be attributed to random inter-annual variation. In general, we find time lapse to be a more suitable method to study elusive ground dwelling birds like the taiga bean goose due to fewer required visits to camera sites compared to motion triggered cameras that may produce a lot of empty images due to false triggering. This reduces the disturbance to the geese and other wildlife during the sensitive breeding period.

The calculation of the exact value of the square root of 2 is requested. In order to obtain its infinite value, A new concept is proposed where the accumulations of the infinitely many of finity is indicated by the change in direction which means that there is a jump from finity to infinity .The meaningless for an infinite number with a decimal point is indicated by this jump because any decimal number only have meanings within a finite range values and there is only an infinite integer quantity that can not be operated by algorithms like operations of multiplication，division,addition, and subtraction . The final result of the change in direction is two quantity where the second quantity and the first quantity extend in parallel line and never intersect and the second quantity represent the size of the first quantity. The first quantity is the infinitely great that can’t be talked about anything outside of it and can compress any quantities outside of it to nothing and it is the exact value of the square root of 2 .

The FLOWERING LOCUS T ( FT) gene is the essential integrator of flowering regulatory pathways in angiosperms. The paralogs of the FT gene may perform antagonistic functions, as exemplified by BvFT1, that suppresses flowering in Beta vulgaris, unlike the paralogous activator BvFT2. The roles of FT genes in other amaranths were less investigated. Here, we transformed Arabidopsis thaliana with the FLOWERING LOCUS T like ( FTL) genes of Chenopodium ficifolium and found, that both CfFTL1 and CfFTL2-1 accelerated flowering, despite having been the homologs of the Beta vulgaris floral promoter and suppressor, respectively. The floral promotive effect of CfFTL2-1 was so strong that it caused lethality when overexpressed under the 35S promoter. CfFTL2-1 placed in inducible cassette accelerated flowering after the induction with methoxyphenozide. The spontaneous induction of CfFTL2-1 led to precocious flowering in some primary transformants even without chemical induction. The CqFT2-1 homolog from Chenopodium quinoa had the same impact on viability and flowering as CfFTL2-1, when transferred to A. thaliana. After the FTL gene duplication in Amaranthaceae, the FTL1 copy maintained the role of floral activator. The second copy FTL2 underwent subsequent duplication and functional diversification, which enabled to control the onset of flowering in amaranths to adapt to variable environments.

Rising atmospheric [CO 2] causes global warming but may also benefit photosynthesis and yield of C3 crops such as rice. Previous research showed that positive effects depend on a cultivar’s sink-source ratio as sink limitation incurs acclimation of photosynthesis to elevated [CO 2] (e-CO 2). To enable breeding for e-CO 2 response, predictive, easily measurable proxy traits under ambient [CO 2] are needed. The local source-sink ratio (LSSR: flag leaf/panicle size) is a potential proxy trait, proposed by a previous study. We evaluated this and similar trait indices for two diverse rice cultivar samples under e-CO 2 vs ambient level in controlled environments. The significant negative effect of genotypic LSSR on maximum photosynthesis ( A max) under e-CO 2, and a similar but weaker effect on the grain yield response, was confirmed. However, LSSR observed was more predictive under e-CO 2 than ambient, rendering this proxy trait impractical for field-based selection. This difference was due to the phenotypic plasticity of LSSR between [CO 2] levels in our populations. Variants of LSSR incorporating SPAD leaf chlorophyll content and panicle sink capacity improved LSSR predictive power under ambient [CO 2] for A max. We conclude that genotypic sink-source ratio is an important physiological determinant of [CO 2] response, but proxy traits need to be further refined and field-validated to become useful selection or phenotyping tools for improved e-CO 2 response of rice.

Manuscript Type: Case Report——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Objective To develop an evidence-based and simple screening tool to estimate calcium intake in pregnant women, suitable for use in daily clinical practice. Design Cross-sectional analysis within a cohort study Population and setting We extracted all data from the Rotterdam Periconceptional cohort (PREDICT study) conducted at the Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, between November 2014 and December 2020. Methods Data was extracted from food frequency questionnaires. The estimated average requirement of 750 m/day was defined as the lower limit for an adequate calcium intake. We created a prediction model, using multivariable binary logistic regression with backward stepwise selection. We developed a simple screening tool based on the prediction model. Main outcome measures Probability of adequate calcium intake Results 694 participants are included, of which 201 (29%) had an adequate calcium intake. Total daily or weekly intakes of cheese, milk, and yogurt or curd were selected as predictors for the prediction model. The model had excellent discrimination (AUC 0.858), a good fit (Brier score 0.136, HL statistic p=0.499) and satisfactory calibration. The test accuracy measures were: sensitivity 80.9%, specificity 77.1%, PPV 89.7%, NPV 62.2%. A color coded digital screening tool was developed for use in clinical practice. Conclusions This evidence-based and simple screening tool is a reliable and efficient instrument to predict inadequate calcium intakes in pregnancy, which can easily be incorporated in daily clinical practice and existing pregnancy coaching platforms.

In this paper, we propose an alternating block variant of the linearized Bregman iterations for a class of regularized nonnegative matrix factorization problems (NMF). The proposed method exploits the block structure of NMF, utilizes the smooth adaptable property of the loss function based on the Bregman distance, and at the same time follows the iterative regularization idea of the linearized Bregman iterations method. Theoretically, we show that the proposed method is a descent method by adjusting the involved parameters. Finally, we end with several illustrative numerical experiments.

Rim M. HarfouchDepartment of Microbiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.Corresponding author’s Email: rimharfouch@tishreen.edu.syAbstract :Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a life-threatening disease, especially in elderly individuals and those with comorbidities. The predominant clinical manifestation of COVID-19 is respiratory dysfunction, while neurological presentations are increasingly being recognized. SARS-CoV-2 invades host cells primarily via attachment of the spike protein to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor expressed on cell membranes. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and prone to severe clinical outcomes. Recent studies have revealed some common risk factors for AD and COVID-19. An understanding of the association between COVID-19 and AD and the potential related mechanisms may lead to the development of novel approaches to treating both diseases. It is important to understand the mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 invades the central nervous system (CNS) and the associations and potential shared factors between COVID-19 and AD.Keywords: COVID-19, Alzheimer’s disease, correlation, mechanism of action