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Prevalence of diabetes in Arab region has significantly increased, resulting in a significant economic burden on healthcare systems. This surge can be attributed to obesity, rapid urbanization, changing dietary habits, and sedentary lifestyles. The Arab Diabetes Forum (ADF) has established localized recommendations to tackle the region's rising diabetes prevalence. The recommendations, which incorporate worldwide best practices, seek to enhance the quality of treatment for people with diabetes by raising knowledge and adherence among healthcare providers. The guidelines include comprehensive recommendations for screening, diagnosing, and treating type 1 and type 2 diabetes in children and adults for better overall health results. • Early intervention at prediabetes stage reduces the risk of related complications. • Tailored glycemic targets and individualized diabetes management plans for safety. • Patients aged over 55 years with 2 or more of: HTN, dyslipidemia, obesity, albuminuria, or smoking at high risk of ASCVD. • Ramadan Risks: Hyper/hypoglycemia, dehydration. It's essential to have blood glucose monitoring tools. • Avoid fasting during fatigue, stress, glucose extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current investigation, copper substituted cobalt manganese spinel oxide (CuxCo1–xMn2O4) photocatalyst was prepared via the co-precipitation method. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The prepared Cu0.2Co1–0.2Mn2O4 nanoparticle exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for degradation of typical organic-based dye Methylene blue (MB). Furthermore, the comparative study of pure CoMn2O4 and Cu-substituted CoMn2O4 nanoparticles (NPs) towards the photocatalytic performance was also conducted. As compared to the CoMn2O4 nanoparticles, the CuxCo1–xMn2O4 nanoparticles exhibited excellent photocatalytic capability for the degradation of MB dye. After 80 min of visible light irradiation, the decomposition of MB by CuxCo1–xMn2O4 nanoparticles was higher as compared to degradation MB dye in the presence of copper substituted CoMn2O4 NPs. Copper substituted cobalt manganese oxide nano-photocatalyst was also used for comparative study. The Cu0.2Co(1–0.2)Mn2O4 showed excellent (~86%) photocatalytic performance in contrast with Cu0CoMn(1–0)O4 (22%), Cu0.5Co(1–0.5)Mn2O4 (57), Cu0.1Co(1–0.1)Mn2O4 (60%), Cu0.15Co(1–0.15) Mn2O4 (73%) for the degradation of MB in visible light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is mainly attributed to the optimized bandgap, which might have developed by the inclusion of copper ions into the CoMn2O4 spinel oxide. The copper substitution not only contributed to the inhibition of photo-induced electron–hole pairs but also assisted a great redox capability. CuxCo1–xMn2O4 photocatalyst holds great potential for massive pollutant treatment due to the superb photocatalytic performance for organic pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fixed-dose combinations of insulin glargine/lixisenatide (IGlarLixi) or insulin degludec/insulin aspart (IDegAsp) constitute treatment intensification in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D).Objectives: Compare efficacy and safety of IGlarLixi and IDegAsp (as intensification from basal insulin), by indirect comparison of phase III trials, in the absence of head-to-head trials.Study Eligibility Criteria: Studies comparing treatment intensification by once-daily IDegAsp or IGlarLixi to basal insulin. Data were extracted from two trials (BOOST: Intensify-Basal and LixiLan-L) retained for analysis.Synthesis Methods: Treatments were compared in terms of estimated treatment difference (ETD) in glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), fasting and postprandial plasma glucose (FPG and PPG) change from baseline; in addition to hypoglycaemia incidence and weight changes.Results: In a fixed-effect model examining HbA1c control, IGlarLixi was more effective than IDegAsp in reducing HbA1c (ETD 0.53%, P<0.0001]), PPG (ETD 2.65%, P<0.0001), and body weight (ETD 1.73kg, P<0.0001). Patients on IGlarLixi were more likely to achieve HbA1c<7% than patients on IDegAsp (odds ratio [OR]=0.40, P<0.0001), with lower incidence of hypoglycaemia (OR=1.33, P<0.001).Limitations: Limited number of studies; different baseline HbA1c and FPG.Conclusion: Once-daily IGlarLixi is more efficient than once-daily IDegAsp in controlling HbA1c and PPG and associates with greater weight loss and lower hypoglycaemia incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallic multilayered nanocomposites have observed varying flow strength and indentation moduli values for the same type of interface. The enhanced mechanical properties from these nanocomposites have been attributed to their interfaces. The heat of mixing of the interface determines how much the two different layers have an affinity with each other and the resultant amount of shearing of the interface or transmission of dislocations through the interface. Nanoindentation of thin films on substrate technique is performed on five different metallic multilayer systems with a combination of FCC/FCC, BCC/BCC, and FCC/BCC interfaces to understand the effect of heat of mixing on its mechanical properties of hardness and indentation modulus of the films. In situ scanning probe microscopy (SPM) was done before and after each indentation. From the analysis, it is found that the heat of mixing has significant influence only in the hardness or flow strength values of the FCC/BCC multilayered nanocomposites due to dislocation plasticity mechanisms where the interface shear strength decreases with the change of heat of mixing from negative to positive values. The difference in the mechanical properties of FCC/FCC and BCC/BCC coherent multilayers are mainly due to either their lattice misfit or shear moduli differences, not the heat of mixing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical activity is investigated in a chiral medium by employing the four level cascade atomic model, in which the optical responses of the atomic medium are studied with Kerr nonlinearity. Light entering into a chiral medium splits into circular birefringent beams. The angle of divergence between the circular birefringent beams and the polarization states of the two light beams is manipulated with Kerr nonlinearity. In the stationary chiral medium the angle of divergence between the circular birefringent beams is calculated to be 1.3 radian. Furthermore, circular birefringence is optically controlled in a spinning chiral medium, where the maximum rotary photon drag angle for left (right) circularly polarized beam is ±1.1 (±1.5) microradian. The change in the angle of divergence between circular birefringent beams by rotary photon drag is calculated to be 0.4 microradian. The numerical results may help to understand image designing, image coding, discovery of photonic crystals and optical sensing technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Chromium–soil adsorption system exhibited both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models fit to the sorption data in the studied range of concentration. However the model fit was much better for Freundlich isotherm, this was primarily due to low adsorptive capacity of the soil, 1/n is equal to about 1.08 which is quite close to 1.0, indicating low adsorptive capacity of the soil for chromium(VI) system and the Q max was observed very low in range of 0.196–0.220mg Cr(VI)/g of soil. The initial concentration of Cr(VI) in the solution remarkably influenced the equilibrium Cr(VI) uptake on soil sorption process. The model simulated results for the natural redemption of the soil show the periodic movement of the chromium concentration front ultimately reaching quite low concentration at the end of the cycles. In the case of inorganic chemicals, the absence of chemical decay makes the adsorption phenomena as the major contaminant removal mechanism where as for biodegradation the chemical depletion becomes a major factor in the transport of pollutant. Consequently, the concentration of contaminants reaching the ground water table becomes quite low. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Fully automatic method for the detection of the lumen contours in IVUS images. • Sparse coding and kernel dictionary learning are used to classify pixels. • Assisting the diagnosis of coronary heart disease and effective interventional therapy. • Simple preprocessing helps to reduce the impact of artifacts and calculation cost. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images display the cross-sectional information of the lumen, from which the diameter and length of the lumen are accurately measured to calculate the volume. More importantly, they provide the tissue information of the plaque, thus assisting the diagnosis of coronary heart disease and effective interventional therapy. In this study, a fully automatic method is presented for the detection of the lumen contours in IVUS images of the coronary artery. First, texture feature vectors are extracted from the original images with a patch size of 3 × 3. The sparse coding and kernel dictionary learning are used to employ the features to construct two dictionaries for positive and negative tissues, respectively. Then a series of preprocessing helps to reduce the impact of artifacts, calculation cost and get approximate Region of interest (ROI). A kernel-cluster algorithm based on linear discrimination method is developed to classify the pixels in the ROI. In the end, morphological operations are used to improve the detection quality. Publicly available evaluation indicators are applied to the proposed algorithm with 326 test images of different structures. Mean value of the total results (JACC: 0.87, HD: 0.35, PAD: 0.09) outperforms the other automatic methods of the participants in the challenge. Besides, compared with the recent methods used on the same dataset, the proposed method shows good performance and high accuracy. Furthermore, kernel method and preprocessing steps are effective in acquiring better detection results by reducing the influences of artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ewing's Sarcoma is an extremely aggressive tumor in children. The disease is associated with highly metastatic rate, especially at the time of diagnosis, contributing to a lower survival rate and poor prognosis. The study aimed to identify predictive biomarkers for metastatic Ewing's sarcoma through in-depth analysis of the plasma proteome profile of pediatric Ewing's sarcoma patients. Plasma samples from Ewing's sarcoma patients and control individuals were profiled using both shotgun and dimethyl-labeled proteomics analysis. Subsequently, Ewing's sarcoma patients were further stratified according to their metastatic state and chemotherapy response. Western blot was used for validation. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine proteome metastasis predictors. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was done to assess the diagnostic significance of the potential plasma Ewing's sarcoma biomarkers. Our results revealed a set of proteins significantly associated with the metastatic Ewing's sarcoma disease profile. These proteins include ceruloplasmin and several immunoglobulins. Additionally, our study disclosed significant differentially expressed proteins in pediatric Ewing's sarcoma, including CD5 antigen-like, clusterin, and dermcidin. Stable isotope dimethyl labeling and western blot further confirmed our results, strengthening the impact of such proteins in disease development. Furthermore, an unbiased ROC curve evaluated and confirmed the predictive power of these biomarker candidates. This study presented potential empirical predictive circulating biomarkers for determining the disease status of pediatric Ewing's sarcoma, which is vital for early prediction. [Display omitted] • Aberrant expression of ceruloplasmin is associated with metastasis in Ewing's sarcoma. • Ceruloplasmin maintains an adequate tumor microenvironment via angiogenesis. • Dermcidin, CD5L, and clusterin are crucial for disease development and progression. • Differential proteins are involved in IL-6/Stat3, Erk/Akt, and NF-cκB pathways. • ROC curve evaluated and confirmed the predictive power of the biomarker candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address the possibility of using even/odd states of orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons for the quantum information tasks. Single photon qubit states and two photon entangled states in even/odd basis of OAM are considered. We present a method for the tomography and general projective measurement in even/odd basis. With the general projective measurement, we show the Bell violation and quantum cryptography with Bell's inequality. We also describe hyper and hybrid entanglement of even/odd OAM states along with polarization, which can be applied in the implementation of quantum protocols like super dense coding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese cabbage is an important vegetable in southern China. Excessive nitrogen fertilizer application can lead to the accumulation of nitrate in edible organs, which affects food value. Hence, the cultivation of varieties with high nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUE) and low nitrate accumulation is essential for molecular breeding. In flowering Chinese cabbage, Ammonium transporter 1;2 (AMT1;2,XM_009113156.2) significantly promotes plant growth, while reducing the nitrate content and ultimately improving the nutritional value of the crop; however, the exact underlying regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we aimed to investigate the response pattern of BcAMT1;2 to nitrogen (N) deficiency and mixed ammonium–nitrate nutrition and the potential roles played by its interacting proteins, Lateral organ boundaries domain 41 (LBD41,XM_009120072.3) and Membrane-anchored MYB (MAMYB,XM_009103351.3), in N metabolism. We found that transient silencing and overexpression of BcAMT1;2 regulated the absorption and accumulation of ammonium (NH 4 +) and nitrate (NO 3 −) in flowering Chinese cabbage. BcLBD41 may directly induce BcAMT1;2 expression, thereby regulating NH 4 + accumulation in flowering Chinese cabbages. The expression of BcLBD41 and BcAMT1;2 were downregulated during N-deficiency and upregulated after NH 4 + supply restoration. Overexpression of BcLBD41 in Arabidopsis improved root and shoot growth under both LA (low-ammonium; 0.25 mM NH 4 +) and A/Ni (ammonium [NH 4 +]: nitrate [NO 3 −]; 0.25 mM:0.75 mM) conditions by facilitating the expression of AtAMT1;2 in transgenic plants, leading to enhanced NH 4 + uptake and accumulation. The BcMAMYB protein serves as a transmembrane protein and has a strong interaction with the BcAMT1;2 protein, as well as inducing the expression of the BcAMT1;2 promoter. In the OE-BcMAMYB strain, the expression of both BcMAMYB and BcAMT1;2 were repressed under N-deficiency conditions, whereas after silencing BcMAMYB , the expression of BcAMT1;2 was not induced by ammonium. Our findings contribute to a more profound understanding of the regulatory mechanisms responsible for nitrogen absorption and accumulation in relation to BcAMT1;2. • The overexpression BcAMT1;2 regulate nitrogen uptake and accumulation in flowering Chinese cabbage. • BcLBD41 and BcMAMYB transcription factor interact with BcAMT1;2 during nitrogen metabolism. • BcSANT genes expression in all tissues at growth stages of flowering Chinese cabbage. • The promoter of BcSANT genes consist of hormones and abiotic stress-responsive genes cis-elements, that's play a key role in abiotic stress responses. • BcSANT genes expression pattern reveled that this gene family may involve in responding abiotic stress tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to investigate the role of albumin precursor and Hsp70 in corneal wound healing, we have analyzed the distribution of these proteins in wounded and non-wounded corneas of rabbits and the effects of topical applications of anti-albumin precursor and anti-Hsp70 antibodies on wound healing. Anti-albumin precursor and anti-Hsp70 antibodies were topically applied in healing corneal epithelium of rabbit eyes in organ culture. Corneas were allowed to heal in vitro for up to 120h in serum-free medium with 5 and 10μg/ml or without (migrating control) anti-albumin precursor/ or anti-Hsp70 antibodies. Fibronectin (Fb) (5μg/ml) was used as a positive control. Immunofluorescence labelling was used to detect proteins in corneal epithelium at various time intervals following an epithelial defect. Delay in wound healing (p<0.005) was observed with 10μg/ml anti-albumin antibody labelling. A similar pattern was observed when anti-fibronectin antibody (5μg/ml) alone and in combination with anti-albumin (10μg/ml) was ectopically added with wound closure occurring at 120h. However with anti-Hsp70 antibody (5μg/ml) slightly delayed (p<0.005) wound closure was observed at 96h and considerable retardation >120h with 10μg/ml. Additionally, immunofluoresence showed a strong co-localization of Hsp70 and albumin precursor during the active phase of wound healing. The presence of albumin precursor and Hsp70 in the epithelial compartment of the cornea indicates a role for these proteins in modulating cell behavior such as epithelial growth, adhesion or regeneration, thus contributing to corneal epithelial wound healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Hybrid modelling showed higher accuracy than the first-principle model. • Polynomial statistical functions perform better than MRF function. • Differential evolution search is more accurate than the Particle Swarm Optimisation. • The training strategy has a significant impact on the models accuracy. • The complexity of the cost function showed a crucial role in the model training. Applying machine learning (ML) techniques is a complex task when the data quality is poor. Integrating first-principle models and ML techniques, namely hybrid modelling significantly supports this task. This paper introduces a novel approach to developing a hybrid model for dynamic chemical systems. The case in analysis employs one first-principle structure and two ML-based predictors. Two training approaches (serial and parallel), two optimisers (particle swarm optimisation and differential evolution) and two ML functions (multivariate rational function and polynomial) are tested. The polynomial function trained with the differential evolution showed the most accurate and robust results. The training approach does not significantly affect the hybrid model accuracy. However, the main effect of the training approach is on the robustness of the parameter predictions. The coefficients of determination (R2) on the test batches are above 0.95. In addition, it showed satisfactory extrapolation capabilities on different production scales with R2>0.9. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In chemical and pharmaceutical industries, process control optimization is a crucial step to improve economical efficiency and the environmental impact. The current state-of-practice heavily relies on expert knowledge and extensive lab experiments. This not only increases the development time but also limits the discovery of new strategies. In this study, we propose Reinforcement Learning-based optimization approach for solvent-switch processes. We utilize a digital twin as the environment for a process designed to switch the THF to 1-propanol. A reward function is created for minimizing the process time and constraints are implemented using logarithmic barrier functions. A PPO agent is trained on the environment. The agent proposed a novel strategy that combines two conventionally separate phases, evaporation and constant volume distillation. This strategy resulted in an overall cost decrease of 24.9% compared to the baseline strategy. Moreover, results were verified experimentally on a pilot plant of Johnson & Johnson (J&J). • Reinforcement Learning-based approach is proposed to optimize solvent-switch processes. • Logarithmic barrier functions are utilized for handling constraints which led to stable training. • Proposed control strategy led to 24.9% decrease in cost compared to the state-of-the-art. • Results are validated experimentally on a pilot plant of Johnson & Johnson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synthesis of binary (ZnO) 0.4 (CdO) 0.6 nanoparticles was achieved using a novel thermal treatment method. The structural, morphological, elemental composition and optical behaviour of these nanoparticles were determined using various techniques. X-ray diffraction of the sample at a calcination temperature above 500 °C showed the presence of both hexagonal and face-centred cubic crystalline structures. With increasing calcination temperature, the dispersion of the nanoparticles was improved, and the mean particle size determined by TEM micrographs suggested a corresponding increasing trend. Increased particle size led to a rise in the photoluminescent intensity as demonstrated by photoluminescence spectra, and multiple energy band gaps which lessen with increasing calcination temperature. The resulting (ZnO) 0.4 (CdO) 0.6 nanoparticles are likely to have widespread uses within numerous semiconductor applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]