Browse Articles

ICEEMDAN–RPE–AITD algorithm for magnetic field signals of magnetic targets

Piezo proteins, mechano reception and behaviour in Hydra

Examining associations of digestive system cancer with hypertension and diabetes using network analysis in older patients

Association of inflammatory risk based on the Glasgow Prognostic Score with long-term mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease

Abstract The secondary prevention strategy for cardiovascular disease (CVD) does not include anti-inflammatory treatment, which may lead to long-term inflammation in some patients. The aim of this study was to assess the association between inflammatory risk based on the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) and long-term mortality risk in patients with CVD. This study included 3833 patients (≥ 20 years old) with CVD in the National Health and Nutrition Survey from 1999 to 2010 in the United States. The mortality rate was determined by correlation with the National Death Index on December 31, 2019. The GPS consists of the serum C-reactive protein and the serum albumin. The primary outcome was all-cause death, which included cardiac death and non-cardiac death. Cox proportional hazards adjusted for demographic factors and traditional cardiovascular risk factors were used to test the impact of the GPS on mortality. The sensitivity analysis was conducted on subsets within the cohort of patients with CVD, including congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, angina, heart attack, and stroke. Among 3833 CVD patients with a median follow-up of 9.6 years, 2431 (63.4%) all-cause deaths, 822 (21.4%) cardiac deaths, and 1609 (41.9%) non-cardiac deaths were recorded. After full model adjustment, compared with those of the GPS (0) group, the hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause death for GPS (1) and GPS (2) were 1.66 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.48–1.86) and 2.75 (95% CI 2.01–3.75), respectively (P for trend < 0.001). Compared with those of the GPS (0) group, the HRs of cardiac death for the GPS (1) and GPS (2) groups were 1.69 (95% CI 1.39–2.05) and 2.18 (95% CI 1.22–3.91), respectively (P for trend < 0.001). Compared with those of the GPS (0) group, the HRs of non-cardiac death for the GPS (1) and GPS (2) groups were 1.65 (95% CI 1.44–1.89) and 3.05 (95% CI 2.11–4.40), respectively (P for trend < 0.001). The results of the sensitivity analysis were similar to those of the overall cohort. In our analysis of the United States National Database, we discovered that the GPS, a measure of inflammatory risk, was significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality among patients with CVD. Specifically, we observed that patients with a higher GPS had significantly higher risks of all-cause, cardiac, and non-cardiac mortality compared to those with a lower score. These findings suggest that the GPS, comprising easily obtainable biomarkers, could serve as a valuable tool for risk stratification in CVD patients and may contribute to the improvement of patient outcomes.

Provably secure and lightweight blockchain based cross hospital authentication scheme for IoMT-based healthcare

Abstract Portable devices and sensors-based Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) healthcare can remotely detect patients’ physiological data and provide first-class healthcare services. However, the high privacy and sensitivity of medical data make IoMT healthcare systems vulnerable to various attacks. While numerous authentication protocols have been introduced in recent years to guarantee authorized access, these schemes continue to face challenges such as privacy disclosure, untraceability of malicious behavior, insufficient cross-hospital access, and concerns related to single points of failure and trust. To address these issues, we propose a Double Anonymity Strategy to hide identities between doctors and the patients while allowing the authorized party to track their malicious behavior, enhance users’ privacy and track malicious users. Our approach leverages the advantages of blockchain, such as decentralization, and replaces trusted third parties with smart contracts for efficient and automatic identity authentication. Additionally, we introduce a cross-hospital authentication scheme that incorporates three-factor secrecy, ensuring that even if any two of the three factors (device, biometric information and password) are compromised, the security of the proposed scheme will not be affected. The security of our scheme is formally proven under the random oracle model, which formally measures that the probability of an adversary breaking the scheme is negligible. We also provide informal security analysis showing that our scheme prevents privacy breaches, achieves decentralization, and addresses existing various attacks. Furthermore, through simulation of the proposed scheme and comparison with related works, we demonstrate that our scheme achieves 23% to 87% reduction in computational cost while maintaining higher security properties.

Controllability of nonlinear epileptic-seizure spreading dynamics in large-scale subject-specific brain networks

Differentiating right upper limb movements of esports players who play different game genres

Abstract Esports is a fast-growing worldwide phenomenon encompassing hundreds of millions of competitive players. It is well-established that different game genres require distinct cognitive skills, but the biomechanical implications of playing different game genres have received little attention. This is the first study to quantify gamers’ kinematic behaviour across genres, demonstrating the importance of physical demands on performance and equipment in esports. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the right upper limb kinematic behaviour differs among players across game genres. 63 esports players played a First Person Shooter (FPS), Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), or Adventure game for 10 min. Three tri-axial accelerometers, positioned on each participant’s right upper limb (hand, forearm, arm), recorded kinematic data during gameplay. Hand acceleration magnitude, direction change, distance travelled (sum of all hand displacements over 10-min of gameplay), and displacement area (size and shape) were calculated in addition to hand, forearm, and arm acceleration ratios. There was a marked difference in movement patterns across players of different game genres. FPS players displayed greater hand acceleration magnitude (0.96 m.s −2  ± 0.07 SEM), moved their hand through a greater distance (38.96 m ± 2.47 SEM), and over a larger displacement area (119.13 cm 2  ± 16.05 SEM) compared to MOBA and Adventure players. MOBA players exhibited greater hand acceleration magnitude (0.73 m.s −2  ± 0.05 SEM), changed direction more (2335 ± 172 SEM) and covered more distance (29.25 m ± 1.80 SEM) compared to Adventure players within a smaller overall area (70.49 cm 2  ± 9.91 SEM). These findings have the potential to impact the design of gaming equipment and the training volumes of gamers across different game genres, so as to mitigate injury risk and improve overall gaming performance.

A variant in HMMR/HMMR-AS1 is associated with serum alanine aminotransferase levels in the Ryukyu population

Association between serum vitamin D level and cardiovascular disease in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study

Multi-objective optimal research on low-energy dwellings design based on genetic algorithm in Qinba mountain region, China

Temporal adjustment approach for high-resolution continental scale modeling of soil organic carbon

Time to recovery from severe acute malnutrition and predictors among children aged 6–59 months at public hospitals: retrospective follow-up study

A preliminary exploration of liver microsomes and PBPK to uncover the impact of CYP3A4/5 and CYP2C19 on tacrolimus and voriconazole drug-drug interactions

Effects of neuromuscular versus stretching training performed during the warm-up on measures of physical fitness and mental well-being in highly-trained pubertal male soccer players

While there is ample evidence on the effects of neuromuscular training (NMT) and stretching training on selected measures of physical fitness in young athletes, less is known on the mental well-being effects. Here, we aimed to examine the effects of NMT versus stretching training (ST) performed during the warm-up and active control (CG) on selected physical fitness measures and mental well-being in highly-trained male pubertal soccer players. A secondary aim was to investigate associations between training-induced changes in physical fitness and mental well-being. Forty-six pubertal participants aged 12.2 ± 0.6 years were randomly allocated to NMT, ST, or CG. The eight-weeks NMT included balance, strength, plyometric, and change-of-direction (CoD) exercises. ST comprised four weeks of lower limbs static stretching followed by four weeks of dynamic stretching. The CG performed a soccer-specific warm-up. Training volumes were similar between groups. Pre-, and post-training, tests were scheduled to assess dynamic balance (Y-balance test), 15-m CoD speed, power (five-jump-test [FJT]), cognitive (CA), somatic anxiety (SA), and self-confidence (SC). Findings showed significant group-by-time interactions for all physical fitness measures (d =  1.00-3.23; p < 0.05) and mental well-being (d = 0.97-1.08; p < 0.05) tests. There were significant pre-post changes for all tested variables (d = 0.69-4.23; p < 0.05) in favor of NMT but not ST and CG. Pooled data indicated significant moderate correlations between training-induced performance changes in FJT and SA (r = −0.378, p < 0.05), FJT and SC (r = 0.360, p < 0.05) and 15-m CoD and SA (r = 0.393, p < 0.01). NMT but not ST or CG resulted in improved measures of physical fitness and mental well-being in highly-trained pubertal male soccer players. NMT performed during the warm-up is a safe and effective training method as it exerts positive effects on physical fitness and self-confidence as well as the coping of anxiety in highly-trained male pubertal soccer players.

Adipose-derived stem cells using fibrin gel as a scaffold enhances post-hepatectomy liver regeneration

Optimization of external container delivery and pickup scheduling based on appointment mechanism

Port transport efficiency has become an urgent issue that needs to be improved, especially the coordination among truck drivers during peak hours. Previous studies mainly focus on one-way container transportation logistics issues, but container movements often occur simultaneously in both directions in practice. Therefore, this study aims to minimize truck companies’ operational costs by establishing an optimization model for external truck scheduling. This model takes soft time windows and an appointment feedback mechanism into consideration. Building upon the traditional Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm, this paper introduces an adaptive version of the ACO algorithm. The improved Ant Colony Optimization algorithm (IACO) incorporates a time window width impact factor and a time deviation consideration into its state transition rules, enhancing its adaptability. Furthermore, by integrating Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), the algorithm intelligently tunes the pheromone and heuristic factors of ACO, achieving automatic parameter optimization. Through case studies, we have demonstrated the superior performance of this algorithm in addressing relevant problems. The results show that, in terms of truck operational costs, the improved algorithm reduces costs by 10.96% and 3.02% compared to traditional Ant Colony Optimization and Variable Neighborhood Search algorithms, respectively, and by 4.89% compared to manual scheduling. These results demonstrate that the adaptive Ant Colony Optimization algorithm exhibits clear advantages in optimization capability and stability. The algorithm effectively allocates truck tasks within each time window, thereby reducing fleet costs, improving truck turnover efficiency, mitigating port congestion, and ultimately enhancing container logistics efficiency, achieving the goals of peak shaving and valley filling.

A novel microfluidic approach to quantify pore-scale mineral dissolution in porous media

Abstract Mineral dissolution in porous media coupled with single- and/or multi-phase flows is pervasive in natural and engineering systems. Dissolution modifies the physical, hydrological, and geochemical properties of the solid matrix, resulting in a complex coupling between local dissolution rate and pore-scale flow. The work reports a microfluidic approach that includes 2D reactive porous media and advanced pore flow diagnostics for the study of pore-scale dissolution in porous media with unprecedented details. The 2D microfluidic porous media, called micromodels, were fabricated in calcite by combining photolithography and wet etching, which not only offers precise control over the structural and chemical properties, but also facilitate unobstructed optical access to the pore flow, significantly improving over existing methods. We believe the work represents the first of its kind as it for the first time directly applies photolithography to calcite samples and demonstrates the use of particle image velocimetry to investigate chemical reactions in porous media. The preliminary results have revealed the crucial roles of local concentration gradients in mineral dissolution and call for reconsideration of many assumptions used in the current modeling tools, which paves the way for renewed fundamental understanding of reactive transport and improved modeling tools with better accuracy.

New horizons in live and dehydrated black soldier fly larvae usage: Behavioral and welfare implications in “Bianca di Saluzzo” cockerels

The literature on poultry welfare and behavior reports numerous promising effects derived from the administration of live or dehydrated black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as environmental enrichment; however, their use in slow-growing male chickens has never been evaluated. To fill this gap, we divided a total of 144 Bianca di Saluzzo male chicks aged 39 days old into three experimental groups (six replicates, eight birds/replicate): control (C, no enrichment provided), dehydrated larvae (DL, 4.12% as fed), and live larvae (LL, 15.38% as fed), and reared until 147 days of age. Explorative and aggressive behavior patterns were analyzed, in concomitance with a tonic immobility test and the avoidance distance test, heterophile to lymphocyte -H/L- ratio), and excreta corticosterone metabolites (ECM) matrices. Overall, LL and DL supplementation were both effective at mitigating aggressive interactions among chickens (P < 0.05), while the frequency of indoor explorative behavior was lower in the LL group compared with C and DL (P < 0.01). By contrast, we found no differences in fear reduction during the avoidance distance test in the LL or DL groups compared with C (P < 0.05). We found a trend for the H/L ratio to be C < LL<DL (P = 0.051), and ECM concentrations were significantly lower in DL and LL groups compared with C (P < 0.001). In conclusion, the use of DL and LL as environmental enrichment have the potential to produce beneficial outcomes in slow-growing male chickens.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on pelvic trauma surgical management

Research on the impact of COVID-19 on the financial system: Evidence from Indonesia

This study investigates the financial system vulnerability and pandemic impact on the financial system of Indonesia in 2015–2021. Two kinds of analysis are involved, i.e.: cross-section analysis at a certain point in time and time-series analysis along a certain time-period. To measure the risks, the research employs risk profile and network analysis using the Financial Account Balance Sheet from Bank of Indonesia. The balance sheet of one institutional sector is associated to the balance sheet of another sector from both assets and liabilities, such as corporations, households, and the financial sectors. Afterwards, Difference-in-Differences (DID) method and the macroeconomic linkages exercises the COVID-19 impact on the financial system. The result shows as the key findings that the financial system is more vulnerable during the pandemic for banks, corporations, and governments, indicated by the more declining net-worth, along with the external balance slowdown. Furthermore, the macroeconomic linkages show that during the pandemic, the financial system is more reliant on the banks, government, and the Rest of the World (ROW).