Search Results (149,483)

Background: The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease is not well understood. This study investigated the roles and regulation of the claudin-1, -2, -3, and -4 isoforms in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis, and the potential therapeutic effects of nobiletin. Methods: Colitis was induced in rats by administering dextran sulfate sodium [DSS] in drinking water for seven days. Animals were treated daily with nobiletin [oral, 60 mg/Kg body weight] and studied in four groups, C [non-colitis control], D [DSS-induced colitis], CN [nobiletin-treated non-colitis control], and DN [nobiletin-treated DSS-induced colitis]. On day seven, the animals were sacrificed, and colonic tissues were collected and analyzed. Results: Both macroscopic and microscopic findings suggest the progression of colitis. In the inflamed colon, claudin-1 and -4 proteins were decreased, claudin-2 increased, while the claudin-3 protein remained unchanged. Except for claudin-1, these changes were not paralleled by mRNA expression, indicating a complex regulatory mechanism. Uniform β-actin expression along with consistent quality and yield of total RNA indicated selectivity of these changes. Nobiletin treatment reversed these changes. Conclusions: Altered expression of the claudin isoforms -1, -2, and -4 disrupts tight junctions, exposing the lamina propria to microflora, leading to electrolyte disturbance and the development of ulcerative colitis. Nobiletin with its anti-inflammatory properties may be useful in IBD. Full article

This study aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted barriers experienced by chefs working within the dynamic and demanding landscape of the hospitality industry. By delving into the intricacies of their work environment, we aim to shed light on the day-to-day hurdles they encounter, offering a detailed understanding of the obstacles they face. In our study, we employed a qualitative research framework to investigate the challenges faced by chefs in the hospitality sector, focusing on their unique experiences. Our data collection involved in-depth interviews with chefs in North Cyprus. Our findings reveal seven predominant problems within the culinary industry, encompassing workload and stress, customer expectations, menu creativity and innovation, team dynamics, career advancements, ingredient sourcing, and technology and automation. These insights serve as a valuable resource for industry professionals and researchers alike who are committed to enhancing the culinary profession and elevating the dining experience for customers. The originality of this study lies in its unique focus on addressing the underrepresented area of research concerning the specific barriers faced by chefs in the tourism and hospitality industry. By exploring the day-to-day hurdles encountered by chefs, this research contributes to both academic knowledge and practical insights that can enhance industry practices and ultimately improve the quality of dining experiences for guests. Full article

This research aims to explore market mavericks by redefining sales velocity and profit surge in today’s dynamic business environment in emerging economies. The study focuses on the interplay between Sales Excellence (SE), Sales Capability (SC), Market Alignment (MA), Strategic Responsiveness (SR), and Dynamic Sales Management (DSM). Data from 180 companies (2021–2023), provided by financial leaders, were analyzed using SPSS (23.0) and AMOS (23.0) software. The analysis employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA), reliability analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results highlight the critical role of these factors in shaping market mavericks and their significant impact on sales and profits in emerging economies. Specifically, SE enhances sales and profits when supported by effective strategies, SC drives organizational change by aligning service quality with SE, and MA drives sales velocity and profit surges through accurate forecasting. SR positively influences sales results by aligning sales with corporate strategy, while DSM is critical for motivating salespeople and shows strong links to SC and SR for successful adaptation in a dynamic business environment. The study reveals the interdependence of these factors and emphasizes the need for seamless integration and coordination to drive effective organizational change. These findings have significant implications for corporations seeking to improve their sales strategies and achieve sustainable growth in a rapidly evolving marketplace in emerging economies. This research explores market mavericks, redefines sales velocity and profit surge, and provides valuable insights into the critical factors shaping market mavericks and their impact on sales and profits. It offers guidance for organizations seeking sustainable growth. Full article

Objectives: CT-derived fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) can improve the specificity of coronary CT-angiography (cCTA) for ruling out relevant coronary artery disease (CAD) prior to transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). However, little is known about the reproducibility of CT-FFR and the influence of diffuse coronary artery calcifications or segment location. The objective was to assess the reliability of machine-learning (ML)-based CT-FFR prior to TAVR in patients without obstructive CAD and to assess the influence of image quality, coronary artery calcium score (CAC), and the location of measurement within the coronary tree. Methods: Patients assessed for TAVR, without obstructive CAD on cCTA were evaluated with ML-based CT-FFR by two observers with differing experience. Differences in absolute values and categorization into hemodynamically relevant CAD (CT-FFR ≤ 0.80) were compared. Results in regard to CAD were also compared against invasive coronary angiography. The influence of segment location, image quality, and CAC was evaluated. Results: Of the screened patients, 109/388 patients did not have obstructive CAD on cCTA and were included. The median (interquartile range) difference of CT-FFR values was −0.005 (−0.09 to 0.04) (p = 0.47). Differences were smaller with high values. Recategorizations were more frequent in distal segments. Diagnostic accuracy of CT-FFR between both observers was comparable (proximal: Δ0.2%; distal: Δ0.5%) but was lower in distal segments (proximal: 98.9%/99.1%; distal: 81.1%/81.6%). Image quality and CAC had no clinically relevant influence on CT-FFR. Conclusions: ML-based CT-FFR evaluation of proximal segments was more reliable. Distal segments with CT-FFR values close to the given threshold were prone to recategorization, even if absolute differences between observers were minimal and independent of image quality or CAC. Full article

Recently, many Chinese cities have initiated improvement projects aimed at enhancing living conditions in older residential neighborhoods. Urban improvement should be closely linked to the needs of occupants to determine “what to improve”. Governmental initiatives and the various stakeholders involved in the project influence the impact of improvement efforts. The objectives of the study are essential to identify the factors influencing occupants’ satisfaction and to evaluate whether the occupants are satisfied with the improved old residential neighborhoods. This study conducts a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of improved outdoor spaces in old residential neighborhoods, focusing on neighborhoods in Wuxi, China. A principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate residents’ efficacy and satisfaction with the enhancements implemented in outdoor spaces. The methodology involved collecting data through surveys and on-site observations, which were then analyzed to identify the pivotal factors impacting the effectiveness of these improvements. The results indicated that enhancing outdoor spaces had a substantial positive impact on residents’ quality of life, social interactions, and physical activity levels. Additionally, the PCA identified accessibility, safety, and aesthetic quality as the main factors contributing to resident satisfaction. This study offers valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers aiming to rejuvenate aging residential districts, emphasizing the importance of data-driven approaches to improve the design and functionality of outdoor spaces. Full article

The study aimed to determine the optimal parameters of the pulsed electric field as pre-treatment, and air temperature, in order to determine the sustainable production of dried apples with beneficial selected physical properties. A combination of PEF with energies of 1, 3.5, and 6 kJ/kg with hot-air drying at 60, 70, and 80 °C was used. The highest dry matter content was observed in tissue treated with PEF with an energy of 6 kJ/kg, and dried at a temperature of 80 °C. Both the drying and pre-treatment parameters influenced the change in the color of the dried material and the loss of dry matter during rehydration, but did not cause significant changes in the rehydration capacity and thermogravimetric properties (TGA). The novelty of investigations indicates that PEF treatment is capable of altering the quality of dried products. Nevertheless, the selection of particular drying temperatures has a more significant influence on the ultimate product quality. Therefore, choosing specific parameters for the treatment and drying process should be guided by the desired properties of the final product. PEF treatment is one of the most promising pre-treatments used before drying, and examining the possibility of its application to apples, which are one of the most frequently preserved fruits, will make an important contribution to the study of this field of science. Full article

The vibration pretreatment–microwave curing process can achieve high-quality molding under low-pressure conditions and is widely used in the curing of resin-based composites. This study investigated the effects of the vibration pretreatment process parameters on the void content and the fiber weight fraction of T700/TRE231; specifically, their influence on the interlaminar shear strength and impact strength of the composite. Initially, an orthogonal experimental design was employed with interlaminar shear strength as the optimization target, where vibration acceleration was determined as the primary factor and dwell time as the secondary factor. Concurrently, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was performed based on process parameters that corresponded to the extremum of interlaminar shear strength, revealing a 2.17% difference in fiber weight fraction among specimens with varying parameters, indicating a minimal effect of fiber weight fraction on mechanical properties. Optical digital microscope (ODM) analysis identified interlaminar large-size voids in specimens treated with vibration energy of 5 g and 15 g, while specimens subjected to a vibration energy of 10 g exhibited numerous small-sized voids within layers, suggesting that vibration acceleration influences void escape pathways. Finally, impact testing revealed the effect of the vibration pretreatment process parameters on the impact strength, implying a positive correlation between interlaminar shear strength and impact strength. Full article

The improvement of mitochondrial function is described as a strategy for alleviating oxidative stress and intervening in the aging process. 2,3,5,4′-Tetrahydroxystilbene-2-O-β-D-glucoside (TSG) is one of the major bioactive components isolated from Polygonum multiflorum Thunb, and it exhibits multiple activities, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. In this study, we found that 200 μM TSG significantly extended the mean lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by 16.48% and improved health status by delaying age-associated physiological decline in worms. The longevity prolongation effect of TSG depended on the regulation of the mitochondrial quality control process mediated by DAF-16/FOXO, SKN-1/Nrf2 and SIR-2.1/SIRT1 to improve mitochondrial function. Moreover, TSG treatment obviously alleviated the proteotoxicity of β-amyloid and tau proteins in worms. Our findings indicated that TSG is a promising natural product for preventing aging and treating aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases by regulating the mitochondrial quality control process to improve mitochondrial function. Full article

The goal of image-to-image translation (I2I) is to translate images from one domain to another while maintaining the content representations. A popular method for I2I translation involves the use of a reference image to guide the transformation process. However, most architectures fail to maintain the input’s main characteristics and produce images that are too similar to the reference during style transfer. In order to avoid this problem, we propose a novel architecture that is able to perform source-coherent translation between multiple domains. Our goal is to preserve the input details during I2I translation by weighting the style code obtained from the reference images before applying it to the source image. Therefore, we choose to mask the reference images in an unsupervised way before extracting the style from them. By doing so, the input characteristics are better maintained while performing the style transfer. As a result, we also increase the diversity in the generated images by extracting the style from the same reference. Additionally, adaptive normalization layers, which are commonly used to inject styles into a model, are substituted with an attention mechanism for the purpose of increasing the quality of the generated images. Several experiments are performed on the CelebA-HQ and AFHQ datasets in order to prove the efficacy of the proposed system. Quantitative results measured using the LPIPS and FID metrics demonstrate the superiority of the proposed architecture compared to the state-of-the-art methods. Full article

Detecting and tracking personnel onboard is an important measure to prevent ships from being invaded by outsiders and ensure ship security. Ships are characterized by more cabins, numerous equipment, and dense personnel, so there are problems such as unpredictable personnel trajectories, frequent occlusions, and many small targets, which lead to the poor performance of existing multi-target-tracking algorithms on shipboard surveillance videos. This study conducts research in the context of onboard surveillance and proposes a multi-object detection and tracking algorithm for anti-intrusion on ships. First, this study designs the BR-YOLO network to provide high-quality object-detection results for the tracking algorithm. The shallow layers of its backbone network use the BiFormer module to capture dependencies between distant objects and reduce information loss. Second, the improved C2f module is used in the deep layer of BR-YOLO to introduce the RepGhost structure to achieve model lightweighting through reparameterization. Then, the Part OSNet network is proposed, which uses different pooling branches to focus on multi-scale features, including part-level features, thereby obtaining strong Re-ID feature representations and providing richer appearance information for personnel tracking. Finally, by integrating the appearance information for association matching, the tracking trajectory is generated in Tracking-By-Detection mode and validated on the self-constructed shipboard surveillance dataset. The experimental results show that the algorithm in this paper is effective in shipboard surveillance. Compared with the present mainstream algorithms, the MOTA, HOTP, and IDF1 are enhanced by about 10 percentage points, the MOTP is enhanced by about 7 percentage points, and IDs are also significantly reduced, which is of great practical significance for the prevention of intrusion by ship personnel. Full article

With the rapid development of information technology, digital health technologies have become increasingly prevalent in the field of healthcare. In this study, business intelligence (BI) techniques were combined with research-based prediction models to increase the efficiency and quality of healthcare practices. A data scenario involving 200 older adults with various measurements, including health beliefs, social support, self-efficacy, and disease duration, was used to establish a medication adherence prediction model in a BI system. A regression model, logistic regression model, tree model, and score-based prediction model were used to predict medication adherence among older adults. The developed BI-based prediction model has visualization, real-time feedback, and data updating functionality. These features enhanced the effectiveness of prediction models in clinical practice. Healthcare professionals can incorporate the proposed system into their care practice for health assessments and management, and patients can use the system to manage themselves. The developed BI-based care system can also be used to achieve effective communication and shared decision-making between care managers and patients. Further empirical studies integrating prediction models into the proposed BI system for assessment, management, and decision-making in healthcare practice are warranted. Full article

In natural language processing, word sense disambiguation (WSD) continues to be a major difficulty, especially for low-resource languages where linguistic variation and a lack of data make model training and evaluation more difficult. The goal of this comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the literature is to summarize the body of knowledge regarding WSD techniques for low-resource languages, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies. A thorough search of several databases for relevant literature produced articles assessing WSD methods in low-resource languages. Effect sizes and performance measures were extracted from a subset of trials through analysis. Heterogeneity was evaluated using pooled effect and estimates were computed by meta-analysis. The preferred reporting elements for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) were used to develop the process for choosing the relevant papers for extraction. The meta-analysis included 32 studies, encompassing a range of WSD methods and low-resourced languages. The overall pooled effect size indicated moderate effectiveness of WSD techniques. Heterogeneity among studies was high, with an I² value of 82.29%, suggesting substantial variability in WSD performance across different studies. The (τ²) tau value of 5.819 further reflects the extent of between-study variance. This variability underscores the challenges in generalizing findings and highlights the influence of diverse factors such as language-specific characteristics, dataset quality, and methodological differences. The p-values from the meta-regression (0.454) and the meta-analysis (0.440) suggest that the variability in WSD performance is not statistically significantly associated with the investigated moderators, indicating that the performance differences may be influenced by factors not fully captured in the current analysis. The absence of significant p-values raises the possibility that the problems presented by low-resource situations are not yet well addressed by the models and techniques in use. Full article

Most EU member states fail to provide essential sexual and reproductive health services to undocumented migrants, a vulnerable population facing limited access, utilization, and worse health-related outcomes. This study systematically reviewed the literature on access to and use of these services, as well as related health, economic, and migratory outcomes for undocumented migrants in the EU-EFTA region. The systematic review is reported based on the PRISMA 2020 checklist and includes 37 studies published between 2017 and 2024. Included studies were based upon original quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods data; conducted in one or more European countries; and published in one or more of the following languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or Romanian. A quality assessment was conducted using the CASP checklist for qualitative studies and the NHLBI Study Quality Assessment Tools for quantitative studies. The findings revealed numerous access barriers, including refusal of care, lack of knowledge about national healthcare schemes, bureaucratic hurdles, and affordability issues. Even when care was available, stigma, fear of deportation, socio-economic precarity, and abuse further hindered utilization. These barriers contributed to generally worse reproductive health outcomes for undocumented migrants in Europe, though the findings may not generalize to all EU-EFTA countries. Full article

Previous studies have shown that post-thaw sperm performance is affected by multiple stressors during cryopreservation, such as those induced by physical, chemical, mechanical and physiological changes. One of these is the balance disturbance between the antioxidant defense system and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. This study investigated whether this disturbance could be alleviated by the addition of different antioxidants to cryoprotective solution [8% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in 1 µm filtered seawater] optimized for the sperm in dwarf surf clam Mulinia lateralis, the model bivalve species used in many different types of studies. Results showed that the addition of 20 μM coenzyme Q10 (Q10) to 8% DMSO achieved a D-stage larval rate similar to that of the fresh control at a sperm-to-egg ratio at least 50% less than the 8% DMSO treatment alone. The addition of other antioxidants (glycine, melatonin and polyvinylpyrrolidone) did not have any positive effects. The improvement in post-thaw sperm quality by Q10 could be due to its ability to significantly decrease ROS production and lipid peroxidation and significantly increase the motility, plasma membrane integrity, mitochondrial membrane potential, acrosome integrity, DNA integrity and activities of catalase and glutatione. In this study, 37 fatty acids (FAs) were quantified in dwarf surf clam sperm, with 21 FAs being significantly impacted by the cryopreservation with 8% DMSO. Thirteen of these 21 FAs were changed due to the addition of 20 μM Q10 to 8% DMSO, with approximately half of them being improved significantly toward the levels of fresh control, while the remaining half extended further from the trends shown with 8% DMSO treatment. However, no significant difference was found in the percentage of each FA category sum and the ratio of unsaturated/saturated FAs between the two treated groups. In conclusion, the antioxidant Q10 has shown the potential to further improve the sperm cryopreservation technique in bivalves. Full article

Surface glint significantly reduces the measurement accuracy of remote sensing reflectance of water, R_rs, making it difficult to effectively use field measurements for studying water optical properties, accurately retrieving water quality parameters, and validating satellite remote sensing products. To accurately assess the effectiveness of various glint removal methods and enhance the accuracy of water reflectance measurements, a portable multiprobe high-resolution System (PMHRS) is designed. The system is composed of a spectrometer, fiber bundles, an irradiance probe, and three radiance probes. The reliability and measurement accuracy of the PMHRS are ensured through rigorous laboratory radiometric calibration and temperature correction. The comprehensive uncertainty of laboratory calibration ranges from 1.29% to 1.43% for irradiance calibration and from 1.47% to 1.59% for radiance calibration. Field measurement results show a strong correlation with both synchronous ASD data, and Sen2Cor-atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2B data (R² = 0.949, RMSE = 0.013; R² = 0.926, RMSE = 0.0105). The water-leaving radiance measurements obtained under different solar elevation angles using three methods (M99 method, polarization method, and SBA) demonstrate that the improved narrow field-of-view polarization probe effectively removes surface glint across various solar elevation angles (with overall better performance than the traditional M99 method). At a solar elevation angle of 69.7°, the MAPD and MAD between the measurements of this method and those of the SBA are 5.8% and 1.4 × 10⁻⁴, respectively. The results demonstrate that the PMHRS system outperforms traditional methods in sun glint removal, significantly enhancing the accuracy of water remote sensing reflectance measurements and improving the validation quality of satellite data. This work provides a crucial technical foundation for the development of high-resolution continuous observation platforms in complex aquatic environments. It holds significant implications for improving the accuracy of field-based water remote sensing reflectance measurements and for enhancing the quality of water ecological monitoring data and satellite validation data. Full article