The coastline of Sub-Saharan Africa hosts highly diverse fish communities of high conservation value, which are also key resources for local livelihoods. However, many costal ecosystems are threatened by overexploitation and their conservation state is frequently unknown due to limited monitoring budgets and challenges associated with their vast spatial extents. Here, we evaluated the potential of citizen science-based eDNA surveys to alleviate such chronic data deficiencies and assessed fish communities in Mozambique using two 12S metabarcoding primer sets. Samples were either collected by scientific personnel or trained local community members and results from the two metabarcoding primer sets were combined using a newly created data merging approach. Irrespective of the background of sampling personnel, a high average fish species richness was recorded (38±20 OTUs sample-1). Individual sections of the coastline largely differed in the occurrence of threatened and commercially important species, highlighting the need for regionally differentiated management strategies. A detailed comparison of the two applied primer sets revealed an important trade-off in primer choice with MiFish primers amplifying a higher number of species but Riaz primers performing better in the detection of threatened fish species. This trade-off could be partly resolved by applying our data-merging approach, which has the potential to provide a more robust baseline-data for decision-making processes. Overall, our study provides encouraging results but also highlights that eDNA-based monitoring will require further improvements of e.g., reference databases and local analytical infrastructure to facilitate routine applications in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In biomedical, industrial, and marine fields, interactions between bacteria and material interfaces are of great importance in biofilm formation, biofouling, the development of antimicrobial surface technologies, and the changing patterns of bacterial adhesion behavior on non-biological surfaces become a focus of research by researchers. Bacteria move from planktonic to adhesive behavior through near-interfacial sociological behavior, specificity (specific bacterial appendages such as hairs, flagella, curls, etc. that can bind to some chemicals on certain surfaces), non-specific interactions (van der Waals forces, electrostatic interactions, hydrophobic interactions or acid-base interactions) and surface mechanical induction, a process that the bacteria themselves can influence, the nature of the interfacial material and the environment. A variety of methods have been developed to measure cell adhesion. The continued development of atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques provides a more advanced means of exploring bacterial-surface interactions and the various physicochemical properties of bacterial cells. Based on a large amount of literature research and tracking of related technological research developments, this paper mainly introduces the domestic and international research progress on the adhesion behavior between bacteria and material interfaces in detail from the aspects of adhesion mechanism, influencing factors, and testing methods, to provide a solid theoretical basis for further advancing the study of bacterial-interface adhesion and to get more scholars’ attention.

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) has a complex array of symptoms and is associated with high healthcare expenditures. A comprehensive care program may help to reduce expenditures of children with SCD. This research describes SCD comprehensive care program enrollees’ expenditure patterns by level of hospitalization risk over a three-year period and estimates whether coordination of care services reduced costs for those with different risk levels. Medicaid claims data were collected for program patients with SCD. Data from the one year prior to program enrollment categorized patients as High, Medium, or Low risk for incurring inpatient expenditures. We compared utilization risk groups on inpatient expenditures by year after program enrollment. The trends in expenditures are shown in the subgroup analyses (descriptively). 361 program enrollees ages 1 to 27y had SCD; 8.9% were categorized as High risk of utilizing hospitalization services, 47.9% were at Medium risk, and 43.2% were at Low risk. The High Utilization and Medium Utilization Risk groups showed trends of expenditure reduction, but the trends may be due to regression of extreme group costs toward the mean. The lack of a statistically significant cost benefit might be due to small sample size, low engagement in the program services, short duration of intervention, and inability to distinguish the appropriateness of healthcare utilization for SCD.

Background and Objective: Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an autoimmune-mediated hemorrhagic disease. Anti-glycoprotein autoantibodies play a key role in the pathophysiology of ITP, but the relationship between platelet-specific antibodies and bleeding severity is unclear. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between anti-glycoprotein autoantibodies and bleeding severity in children with newly diagnosed ITP and platelet count <10×109/L. Method: This was a single-center prospective observational study that analyzed children with newly diagnosed ITP and platelet count <10×109/L between June 2018 and September 2021 at our hospital. The children were classified into the mild and severe groups based on the bleeding scores. The type and titer of anti-glycoprotein autoantibodies were detected using an ELISA kit (PAKAUTO). We analyzed the relationship between bleeding severity and anti-glycoprotein autoantibodies. Results: A total of 86 cases were enrolled, including 42 in the mild group and 44 in the severe group. Patients with anti-GPIIb/IIIa or anti-GPIb/IX antibodies suffered more severe bleeding than patients without them (c2=7.303, p=0.007; c2=3.875, p=0.049), but there was no significant difference between patients with or without anti-GPIa/IIa antibody (c2=0.745, p=0.388). When antibodies were analyzed together, patients with three antibodies suffered more severe bleeding than those without three antibodies (c2=5.053, p=0.025). Patients with higher antibody titer in the eluent, but not in the plasma, suffered more severe bleeding in all three antibodies (Z=-2.389, p=0.017; Z=-2.108, p=0.035; Z=-2.557, p=0.011). Conclusion: Anti-glycoprotein autoantibodies led to more severe bleeding in children under 18 years of age without drug treatment with newly diagnosed ITP and platelet count <10×109/L.

Assessment of potential surface runoff harvesting sites is an important undertaking in a country like Ethiopia, where high spatial variability in rainfall and recurrent drought and flash floods are common. In this study, the geographical information system (GIS)-based multi-Criteria Evaluation is used to select the potential rainwater harvesting sites in Oromia, Bale lowland, Ethiopia. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used for standardization of the criteria, and Weight overlay analysis of multicriteria for a combination of multi-layers using ArcGIS 10.8. Six criteria layers, including slope, runoff, soil depth, precipitation, soil texture, and the land use land cove are derived to identify rainwater-harvesting catchment. The analysis, shows that of the total 500 km 2 of the catchment area, 29.18 % of the area has highly suitable, 40 .87 of the area has Suitable ,22.49% of the total area has moderately suitable ,6.98% of the area has marginally suitable and 0.5 % of the area is not suitable for runoff water harvesting at the study area. It was noted that providing accurate and precise spatial representation of the physiology and land use for the analysis of runoff generation potential site within the study area is an important step in developing an integrated strategy for surface rainwater harvesting plan the study area.

A document by Fatih KAYA. Click on the document to view its contents.

Background: Hemostatic disturbances with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can predispose to tricuspid and right heart thrombi in very rare instances. Aim: We describe a 29-year-old female patient without previous cause of thrombosis who developed large tricuspid valve thrombus (TVT) and moderate-to-severe tricuspid regurgitation (TR) during the course of COVID-19 infection. Materials and methods: Persistant fever and tachycardia with thrombocytopenia and high D-dimer increased the index of suspicion. The diagnosis was made by bedside transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). Surgery was performed for thrombectomy and tricuspid valve replacement with a tissue valve. Discussion and conclusion: Detection of TVT in COVID-19 patients on the basis of high index of suspicion, bedside TTE and non-invasive CMR helps early surgical treatment and subsequent reduction of mortality and hospital stay.

Wildlife population dynamics are modulated by abiotic and biotic factors, typically climate, resource availability, density-dependent effects, and predator-prey interactions. Understanding if human-caused disturbances shape these processes is needed for the conservation and management of ecological communities within increasingly human-dominated landscapes. Garnering this understanding is difficult due to the lack of long-term longitudinal data on wildlife populations. Concurrently, the interplay between long-term human-mediated disturbances, climate, and predator density on ungulate population dynamics has been under-studied. Using a 50-year time series (1962-2012) on mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) demographics, seasonal weather, predator density, and oil and gas development patterns from the North Dakota Badlands to investigate the long-term effects of landscape-level disturbance, we aimed to evaluate if harsh weather conditions in-combination with energy development and predators affected fall mule deer recruitment. We found that density-dependent effects and harsh seasonal weather primarily drove recruitment in the North Dakota Badlands. Recruitment was further shaped by interacting effects of harsh seasonal weather and predator presence in the form of high coyote density. Additionally, we found that fall recruitment was subtly modulated by interactions between seasonal weather and energy development (i.e., lower recruitment when harsher weather was combined with higher density of active oil and gas wells), and that the combined effect of predator density and energy development was not interactive but rather additive. Our analysis demonstrates the effect of energy development by modulating mule deer recruitment fluctuations concurrent with main recruitment drivers being biotic (density-dependency, habitat, predation) and abiotic (harsh seasonal weather, woody vegetation encroachment). A pattern emerges of density dependence, presumably due to limited quality habitat, being the primary factor influencing fall fawn recruitment in mule deer. Secondarily, stochastic weather events periodically cause dramatic declines in recruitment. Finally, the interactions between human disturbance and predation can be additive to the aforementioned drivers of recruitment and subsequently cause further declines.

An energy-efficient and high-resolution switching scheme based on previous significant bit capacitor for bottom-plate sampled successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADC) is proposed. The process of obtaining the most significant bit (MSB) does not consume switching energy, and all the rest of comparisons adopt the switching technology based on previous significant bit. This technique switches the Vref/2 of the previous significant bit switching capacitors on only one side of the capacitors and only consumes little switching energy. Furthermore, fewer capacitors switch to GND throughout the switching process, consuming less energy compared to Tri-level switching scheme. The proposed scheme in this paper can achieve 25% savings in switching energy compared to the Tri-level switching scheme, and reduce the switching energy by 81.2% compared to the Vcm-based switching technique.

Cerebral Venous thrombosis can be caused by different conditions such as infectious, structural, hypercoagulable states, hematological, hormonal, collagen, vascular diseases, and oral contraceptive pills among other causes. Adenomyosis has been rarely associated with CVT. Increased CA-125 and Iron deficiency anemia in adenomyosis may predispose to CVT.

’Kissing molars’, were described by Van Hoof in 1973 as when the occlusal surfaces of impacted molars are united by the same follicular space and the roots point in the opposite direction[1]. There are very few published cases in the literature, it is an extremely rare form of impaction.

Title Page Title: Letter to the Editor: ” Gestational weight gain, appetite regulating hormones, and metformin treatment in polycystic ovary syndrome: A longitudinal, placebo- controlled study ”.Article type : Letter to the editor.

Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been widely used in the field of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image classification for their high classification accuracy. However, because CNNs learn a fairly discontinuous input-output mapping, they are vulnerable to adversarial examples. Unlike most existing attack manners that fool CNN models with complex global perturbations, this study provides an idea for generating more dexterous adversarial perturbations. It demonstrates that minor local perturbations are also effective for attacking. We propose a new attack method called local aggregative attack (LAA), which is a black-box method based on probability label information, to reduce the range and amplitude of adversarial perturbations. Our attack introduces the differential evolution (DE) algorithm to search for the optimal perturbations and applies the maximum between-class variance method (OTSU algorithm) to accomplish pixel-level labelling of the target and background areas, enabling attackers to generate adversarial examples of SAR images (AESIs) by adding small-scale perturbations to specific areas. Meanwhile, the structural dissimilarity (DSSIM) metric optimises the cost function to limit image distortion and improve attack stealthiness. Experiments show that our method achieves a high attack success rate against these CNN-based classifiers, and the generated AESIs are equipped with non-negligible transferability between different models.

This study conducted an in-depth investigation of the tracking controller of an aerial autonomous docking and landing trajectory system. To examine the system's overall design, a dual-machine trajectory-tracking control simulation platform was created via MATLAB Simulink. Then, an autonomous docking and landing trajectory-tracking controller based on backpropagation proportional--integral--derivative control was designed, which fulfilled the trajectory-tracking control requirements in the autonomous docking and landing process by efficiently suppressing the external airflow disturbance according to the simulation results. A YOLOv3-based vision pilot system was designed to calibrate the rate of the aerial docking and landing position to eight frame per second. The feasibility of the multi-rotor aerial autonomous docking and landing system was verified using prototype flight tests during the day and at night.

Essential thrombocythemia is a myeloproliferative neoplasm, with the risk of progression to other cancers, it is important to screen for ET in patients with acute coronary syndrome.

A case of a 12yr old female student who presented with a week-old history of abdominal pain, vomiting, and blood-stained stool and was diagnosed by ultrasonography and barium enema to have intussusception (ileocolo colic variety). She was managed successfully and subsequently followed up at the clinic

Plant metabolomics has been used widely in plant physiology, in particular to analyse metabolic responses to environmental parameters. Derivatization (via trimethylsilylation-methoximation) followed by GC-MS metabolic profiling is a major technique to quantify low molecular weight, common metabolites of primary carbon, sulphur and nitrogen metabolism. There are now excellent opportunities for new generation analyses, using high resolution, exact mass GC-MS spectrometers that are progressively becoming relatively cheap. However, exact mass GC-MS analyses for routine metabolic profiling are not common, there is no dedicated available database. Also, exact mass GC-MS is usually dedicated to structural resolution of targeted secondary metabolites. Here, we present a curated database for exact mass metabolic profiling (made of 336 analytes, 1,064 characteristic exact mass fragments) focused on molecules of primary metabolism. We show advantages of exact mass analyses, in particular to resolve isotopic patterns, localise S-containing metabolites, and avoid identification errors when analytes have common nominal mass peaks in their spectrum. We provide a practical example using leaves of different Arabidopsis ecotypes and show how exact mass GC-MS analysis can be applied to plant samples and identify metabolic profiles.

SRD5A3-CDG (MIM 612379) is an extremely rare congenital disease, with only 38 cases having been reported. Common manifestations are developmental delay, intellectual disability, ophthalmological abnormalities, cerebellar abnormalities, ataxia, and hypotonia. Here, we discuss a seven-year-old boy with SRD5A3-CDG (homozygous variant c.57G>A [p.Trp19Ter]), featuring the unprecedented finding of telangiectasia.

Ulcerative Leg Wound in a Patient with Ulcerative ColitisQuestion: A 43-year-old male with a history of ulcerative colitis status post subtotal colectomy with end ileostomy presents with fevers and worsening right shin ulcerative wound. He had minor trauma to his right shin leading to erythema, tenderness, and ulceration (Figure 1 A, B, & C). He received two courses of oral antibiotics for presumed cellulitis yet had rapid wound progression. Biopsy from the wound showed dense dermal neutrophilic infiltrate and no growth in bacterial or fungal cultures (Figure 1 D& E). HIV, Hepatitis B, and C serology, antinuclear antibodies, and anti-cytoplasmic antibodies were all negative. What is the most likely diagnosis?Answer: This is a classic case of ulcerative pyoderma gangrenosum (PG). PG is a rare neutrophilic dermatosis secondary to an aberrant inflammatory process that presents with rapidly progressing painful purulent ulcers, usually after a minor trauma1. PG is often confused with soft tissue infection leading to delayed diagnosis. However, associated conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease and inflammatory arthritis should raise suspicion for PG1. A biopsy is needed for diagnosis after ruling out infection since the treatment is with immunosuppressive therapy2. Debridement should be avoided since it may worsen symptoms in the phenomenon known as the pathergy effect2.

The diet of an individual animal is subject to change over time, both in response to short-term food fluctuations and over longer time scales as an individual ages and meets different challenges over its life cycle. A metabarcoding approach was used to elucidate the diet of different life stages of a songbird, the Eurasian reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) over the summer breeding season of 2017. The faeces of adult, juvenile and nestling warblers were screened for invertebrate DNA, enabling identification of prey species. Dietary analysis was coupled with monitoring of Diptera in the field using yellow sticky traps. Seasonal changes in warbler diet were subtle whereas age class had a greater influence on overall diet composition. Age classes showed high dietary overlap, but significant dietary differences were mediated through the selection of prey, i) from different taxonomic groups, ii) with different habitat origins (aquatic versus terrestrial) and iii) of different average approximate sizes. Our results highlight the value of metabarcoding data for enhancing ecological studies of insectivores in dynamic environments.

In this paper, we look at a class of two-parameter coupled Kirchhoff-type fractional differential equations. Two differentiated methods are used to prove the existence of two solutions to the equation. The fundamental difference between the two methods is that the first provides asymptotic conditions for the non-linear terms on the right-hand side of the equation, while the second provides algebraic conditions; both methods combine substantial A-R conditions.

After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer in women globally. The Human Papillomavirus is the most common cause of cervical cancer. In this paper, we used a nonlinear ordinary differential equation system to build a mathematical model of cervical cancer with six compartments (the number of susceptible women, vaccinations of susceptible women, the infected women with HPV, the number of infected with cervical cancer, treatment individual, and recovery class). The model is examined using the existence of bounded and positive solutions, numerical analysis, sensitivity analysis, and stability analysis of disease-free and endemic equilibrium points as a function of R0 values. The numerical simulations of the system are carried out using the ODE45 subroutine of MATLAB and the results are revealed using graphs and biologically interpreted. Using numerical simulation, applying vaccination and increasing treatment for everyone can help to reduce and control the spread of cervical cancer.

The problem of quantifying uncertainty has not been well solved. To measure the uncertainty of uncertain variables, we first propose the concept of arc entropy via uncertainty distributions and introduce a new effective method in this paper. Some properties of arc entropy are derived, and some practical examples of uncertain variables are given. A formula for arc entropy is derived via inverse uncertainty distributions, and several basic theorems are proposed. Moreover, two general arc entropies are defined, and their properties are investigated. An application to uncertain learning curves is introduced, and an uncertain learning curve model is proposed. Another application to portfolio selection is presented, and its mathematical model is established.

Rationale, aims and objectives: New nurse graduates encounter a myriad of experiences in their first employment setting as a result of the lack of knowledge, specialized skills, transition shock, and other aspects of the situation. There is a lack of tools to assess the experiences encountered during the transition process in China. The aim of this research was to explore the reliability and validity of Chinese version of the Transition Shock Scale for Newly Graduated Nurses (TSSNGN) among recent Chinese nurse graduates. Methods:The Korean version of TSSNGN was translated and culturally adapted by Beaton and his colleagues based on the instrumental adaptation process. A methodological research design was adopted for the study. Newly graduated Chinese nurses (N=327) were recruited using convenience sampling method. All of he participants were investigated by the Chinese version of the TSSNGN and a socio-demographic questionnaire. The content, construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity and the reliability of the scale were examined. Results: The TSSNGN Korean version includes 18 items. A modified index was used to improve the model fit and it supported the reliability of the Korean version of the TSSNGN model. Analysis of fit of the revised Chinese model using Nomed χ2 (CIMIN/df) showed: fit indices to 3.09, RMSEA = 0.07, RMR = 0.03, GFI = 0.90, IFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.90, CFI = 0.92. Criterion-related validity of the Chinese version of the TSSNGN showed significant correlation, and the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.92. Factor loadings of the 18 questions ranged from 0.49 to 0.87. Conclusions: The simplified Chinese version of the TSSNGN is valid and reliable to assess the transition shock of newly graduated Chinese nurses. Keywords: newly graduated nurses; transition shock; reliability; validity