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Background: Menstrual cups could be a sustainable menstrual material for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in sub-Saharan Africa. Yathu Yathu was a cluster-randomized trial of community-based delivery of HIV and sexual and reproductive health services to young people in Lusaka, Zambia. Among services available through the intervention were menstrual products, including menstrual cups. We explored knowledge of menstruation and menstrual products, acceptability, and experiences of using cups among AGYW aged 15–24. We share lessons learned on how to distribute cups through community-based strategies to AGYW in urban communities. Methods: Through community-based, peer-led spaces (hubs), AGYW could access menstrual products, including pads and menstrual cups. We conducted four focus group discussions, two with AGYW aged 15–19 (n = 9) and 20–21 (n = 8) who had accessed different menstrual products through Yathu Yathu and two with AGYW aged 15–19 (n = 5) and 20–24 (n = 9) who had accessed menstrual cups. Four interviews were conducted with four AGYW (15–19, n = 2; 20–24, n = 2) who had accessed cups, and four with two AGYW who were enrolled in a qualitative cohort. Data were analyzed thematically. Results: 'Surprise' and 'fear' were initial reactions from most AGYW who saw the cups for the first time at Yathu Yathu hubs. Misconceptions that cups cause cancer and fears that they could get stuck in the vagina, cause sore, vagina enlargement, and loss of virginity were raised by AGYW. The desire to try the cup, use an alternative menstrual product and information gained at the hubs facilitated access. Use of the cup was comfortable, and cups were said to be cost-effective and durable. Advantages over pads included: the absence of odor, easy to maintain, and environmentally friendly: "it is hygienic, and it is even easy to maintain". Challenges included pain, discomfort, and failure to or incorrectly inserting the cup at initial use. When faced with challenges using the cup, AGYW reported going back to the hub for additional information and demonstrations on use. Conclusion: Despite concerns, misconceptions and initial challenges, cups were acceptable among AGYW. Free distribution of cups provides an opportunity to address menstrual health challenges among AGYW. However, as a new product, there is need to increase awareness and provide detailed information on use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is growing in popularity as a tool to combat the challenges of unemployment and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. A host of training programme offerings have emerged to mitigate the challenges of starting and sustaining a business in this context. Non-formal trainings (educational activities outside formal places of learning such as universities or schools) can help entrepreneurs develop essential business skills. A systematic literature review demonstrates how non-formal training programmes for entrepreneurship are evaluated across sub-Saharan Africa. We searched SCOPUS and EBSCO databases with the following keywords and their synonyms: 'training', 'entrepreneurship' and 'sub-Saharan Africa'. The final selection returned 49 articles that discuss non-formal training programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest significant variation in training types and their effectiveness. Beyond descriptive analytics, we show that a more nuanced understanding of the context-specific entrepreneurial environment needs to be considered when implementing and designing a programme and that this should be coupled with more rigorous effectiveness evaluations. We propose a deeper analysis of the role of human capital within the setting of local entrepreneurial ecosystems as well as the contextualization of training material and participant selection as a promising start to develop more effective training programmes for entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa, with 18.3% of the world's population, faces a significant research output gap, contributing only 2% of global research despite bearing a substantial disease burden. This discrepancy is partly due to inadequate research infrastructure, limited funding, and a shortage of physician-scientists. These challenges exacerbate the continent's reliance on research findings from high-income countries, which often does not align with Africa's unique health issues. Establishing student research hubs in medical schools is a promising strategy to addressing this issue. Such hubs can cultivate a research-oriented mindset and enhance problem-solving skills among future medical professionals. This paper examines the operational model of the College Research and Innovation Hub (CRIH) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Founded in 2019, CRIH has been successful in promoting research among medical students through structured programs and mentorship. The paper provides insights into CRIH's strategies and impact, offering a framework for replicating this model in Nigeria to improve research output and address local health challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Africa, with 18.3% of the world’s population, faces a significant research output gap, contributing only 2% of global research despite bearing a substantial disease burden. This discrepancy is partly due to inadequate research infrastructure, limited funding, and a shortage of physician-scientists. These challenges exacerbate the continent’s reliance on research findings from high-income countries, which often does not align with Africa’s unique health issues. Establishing student research hubs in medical schools is a promising strategy to addressing this issue. Such hubs can cultivate a research-oriented mindset and enhance problem-solving skills among future medical professionals. This paper examines the operational model of the College Research and Innovation Hub (CRIH) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Founded in 2019, CRIH has been successful in promoting research among medical students through structured programs and mentorship. The paper provides insights into CRIH’s strategies and impact, offering a framework for replicating this model in Nigeria to improve research output and address local health challenges.

Over the past few decades, polymers with dynamic covalent bonds have received a lot of attention due to their self‐healing, shape memory, and environmental adaptation properties. However, most of them require a change in catalyst or environmental conditions to achieve bond reduction and exchange reactions, and the harsh conditions are not conducive to the practical application of the material. However, the dr‐polyurea based polyurethane (PUU) can be prepared at low temperatures, and can be worn and rebuilt in a catalyst free and mild environment, thus showing excellent self‐healing function. In this paper, the unique dynamic reaction mechanism of hindered urea bond (HUB), the properties of related polymers and the development of frontier are reviewed. In addition, the performance research of HUB and the application prospect of innovative synthetic PUU are also reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectomics research is making rapid advances, although models revealing general principles of connectional architecture are far from complete. Our analysis of 106 published connection reports indicates that the adult rat brain interregional connectome has about 76,940 of a possible 623,310 axonal connections between its 790 gray matter regions mapped in a reference atlas, equating to a network density of 12.3%. We examined the sexually dimorphic network using multiresolution consensus clustering that generated a nested hierarchy of interconnected modules/subsystems with three first-order modules and 157 terminal modules in females. Top-down hierarchy analysis suggests a mirror-image primary module pair in the central nervous system's rostral sector (forebrain-midbrain) associated with behavior control, and a single primary module in the intermediate sector (rhombicbrain) associated with behavior execution; the implications of these results are considered in relation to brain development and evolution. Bottom-up hierarchy analysis reveals known and unfamiliar modules suggesting strong experimentally testable hypotheses. Global network analyses indicate that all hubs are in the rostral module pair, a rich club extends through all three primary modules, and the network exhibits small-world attributes. Simulated lesions of all regions individually enabled ranking their impact on global network organization, and the visual path from the retina was used as a specific example, including the effects of cyclic connection weight changes from the endogenous circadian rhythm generator, suprachiasmatic nucleus. This study elucidates principles of interregional neuronal network architecture for a mammalian brain and suggests a strategy for modeling dynamic structural connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Women’s sexual and reproductive health needs are complex and vary across the life course. They are met by a range of providers, professionals and venues. Provision is not well integrated, with inequalities in access. In some areas of the United Kingdom Women’s Health Hubs have been established to improve provision, experience and outcomes for women, and to address inequalities and reduce costs. These models were established prior to the national implementation of Women’s Health Hubs announced in the English 2022 Women’s Health Strategy. Objective To explore the ‘current state of the art’, mapping the United Kingdom landscape, and studying experiences of delivering and using Women’s Health Hubs across England, defining key features and early markers of success to inform policy and practice. Design A mixed-methods evaluation, comprising three work packages: Mapping the Women’s Health Hub landscape and context and developing a definition of Women’s Health Hubs, informed by an online national survey of Women’s Health Hub leaders, and interviews with regional stakeholders. In-depth evaluation in four hub sites, including interviews with staff and women, focus groups in local communities and documentary analysis. Interviews with national stakeholders and consolidation of findings from work packages 1 and 2. Fieldwork was undertaken from May 2022 to March 2023. The evaluation was initiated prior to the national scale-up of Women’s Health Hubs announced in the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy. Results Most areas of the United Kingdom did not have a Women’s Health Hub. Seventeen active services were identified, established between 2001 and 2022. Women’s Health Hubs were diverse, predominantly GP-led, with different perspectives of the role and definition of a hub. Women using hubs reported positive experiences, finding services caring and convenient. Implementation facilitators included committed, collaborative leaders working across boundaries, sufficient workforce capacity and a supportive policy context. Challenges included access to funding, commissioning, workforce issues, facilities and equipment, stakeholder engagement and wider system integration, priorities and pressures. Leaders were committed to addressing inequalities, but evidence of impact was still emerging. Limitations It was challenging to locate models; therefore, some may have been missed. Data availability limited assessment of impact, including inequalities. Some population groups were not represented in the data, and the evaluation was more provider-oriented. It was not possible to develop a typology of Women’s Health Hubs as planned due to heterogeneity in models. Conclusions Existing Women’s Health Hub models were providing integrated approaches to meet local needs. Many were at an early stage of development. Evidence of system-level impact and costs was still emerging. Women’s Health Hubs may widen inequalities if models are more accessible to advantaged groups. The important role of committed leaders in existing ‘bottom-up’ models may limit scalability and sustainability. Findings suggest that national scale-up will take time and requires funding and that it is necessary to design models according to local needs and resources. In 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care announced funding to establish a Women’s Health Hub in every Integrated Care System in England. Future work Future evaluation should consider system-level impact and costs, explore unintended consequences and test assumptions. Funding This award was funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme (NIHR award ref: NIHR135589) and is published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 12, No. 30. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information. Plain language summary In the National Health Service, care for women’s health issues such as heavy periods, menopause, contraception and abortion is provided by different services, such as GPs and hospital gynaecology and sexual health clinics. Services are not always joined up and often women find it hard to access care. To improve care, United Kingdom National Health Service teams have set up Women’s Health Hubs. Women’s Health Hubs involve a group of health professionals working together to provide more joined-up community-based services to women throughout their lives. This evaluation aimed to explore why, where and how Women’s Health Hubs have been set up and what they have achieved and to understand staff and patient experiences. The results will be shared with the government and National Health Service as new Women’s Health Hubs are set up. The evaluation included a survey of people who have set up hubs across the United Kingdom and interviews with women’s health leaders in England. In four hubs in England, we talked to local women and staff, and reviewed documents. We found 17 hubs, and most areas of the United Kingdom did not have one. Every hub was different, with different views about how hubs should work. Most were set up to improve access and experiences for women, and reduce pressure on other services. Six hubs had involved women in developing their service but most had not. Hubs offered appointments with health professionals, usually in GP or community clinics. The most common services were for coil fitting, menopause and heavy periods. The set-up of hubs was helped by passionate leaders who involved the right people, and identified funding and time. Challenges included National Health Service pressures and a lack of funding, clinic space and staff. Women who have used hubs report a good experience, with caring and convenient services. More work is needed to understand how hubs can improve care for all women, including unfair differences in care. Scientific summary Background Sexual and reproductive health covers a range of needs and conditions, including contraception, pregnancy and abortion, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), psychosexual services (e.g. counselling for sexual dysfunction), and gynaecological health (e.g. peri-menopause, menopause and menstrual problems) [All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Women’s Lives, Women’s Rights: Strengthening Access to Contraception Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic (Internet). 2020. www.fsrh.org/documents/womens-lives-womens-rights-full-report/ (accessed 24 October 2023)]. Women’s sexual and reproductive health needs are complex and vary across the life course, and they are met by a variety of providers, venues and professionals. In England, challenges in access, workforce, funding and fragmented commissioning impact on women’s health service provision. In response to these challenges, local teams across the UK established Women’s Health Hubs (WHHs) to improve provision, experiences and outcomes. WHHs aimed to integrate women’s health services more effectively, with a more woman-centred, life-course approach. These emerging models were highlighted as best practice and wider adoption was subsequently recommended as a part of England’s Women’s Health Strategy in 2022. However, there was no agreed definition of a WHH in clinical and policy communities. Hubs were described as not necessarily a ‘place’, but a ‘concept’, and the term was being used differently across services and organisations. In response to WHHs being identified as an important policy topic, in 2022, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) asked the BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre to undertake a rapid evaluation of current hub evidence and practice. Objectives The aim of this evaluation was to explore the ‘current state of the art’ of WHHs, mapping the landscape, studying experiences of delivering and using hub services and defining key features and early markers of success to inform policy and practice. The evaluation explored the following questions: What are WHHs, and is there variation in how stakeholders name and define them? How many WHHs have been established or are in development across the UK, where are they and what are their characteristics, including models of structure, commissioning and delivery? Why have WHHs been implemented, and how are they intended to address health inequalities? What have WHHs achieved to date? How do WHHs achieve this? What are the experiences and perspectives of staff regarding WHH set-up, commissioning, funding, implementation and delivery? What are the experiences and perspectives of women who have used hub services? How are WHHs’ performance, outcomes and costs measured, and how might they be measured in future? Methods This was a mixed-methods evaluation, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection, with data collected at local, regional and national levels. This approach offered both breadth and depth in data collection. The evaluation comprised three work packages (WPs): Mapping the current landscape and context for WHHs, including an online survey of leads from hubs across the UK and interviews with regional stakeholders. Detailed research in four purposively selected exemplar hub sites in England, including interviews with staff and service users, focus groups in local communities and documentary analysis. Bringing together and consolidating findings from WPs 1 and 2 to generate evidence on WHH models, including interviews with national stakeholders. The mapping in WP1 was UK-wide, but the remainder of the work focused on WHHs in England. The England focus was decided collaboratively with a multidisciplinary Stakeholder Group, due to the particularly complex commissioning context in English health and social care systems. In total, interviews with 85 people were conducted: 40 WHH and wider staff, 7 regional stakeholders, 6 national stakeholders and 32 women. Four focus groups were undertaken with women in the local communities served by exemplar hubs. Ten initial scoping interviews undertaken to inform protocol design were included in the analysis. Results There were diverse approaches to implementing WHHs across England, with no standard or ‘typical’ model, and a lack of common language and terminology to describe hubs. A hub can be interpreted as a physical place, but also as a virtual platform (e.g. to triage or offer educational events for women), which can be difficult to understand for some stakeholders, including some women. In collaboration with our evaluation Stakeholder Group, and based on our findings across WPs, we developed a working definition of a WHH that represents a set of common features that were recognised within the community of practitioners as typifying a hub approach: Women’s Health Hubs are based in the community and work at the interface between primary and secondary care and/or voluntary sector and wider. Women’s Health Hubs offer more than a single service (and include the provision of both gynaecological services and contraception) or demonstrate plans to do so. Women’s Health Hubs have more than one organisation involved in the process of service delivery, including in design, commissioning and/or provision of care, beyond simply referring in. This definition should be considered alongside the need for hub design to be tailored to local contexts, needs and resources. As a result, we have not specified which model(s) should be used to implement hubs, which role(s) should lead design/delivery or other details about how the hub is established and resourced. While this offers flexibility to local areas to design a service that meets local needs, there is a risk of creating confusion for women, healthcare professionals and policy-makers regarding what a hub is and should do. This may impact on engagement by these groups and on hub implementation. The heterogeneity in hub models can also hinder evaluation, monitoring and comparison of hub impact. The working definition we have developed can be refined over time in response to evolving evidence and practice. A clear definition can support policy and decision-makers to better understand which models work best for women, including those from groups with greater needs, and which are most effective (including cost-effective). Further refinement of the definition could include standardisation of terminology, for example, to confirm the number and type of services that constitute a 'one-stop shop', and whether the ’spoke’ aspect of a ‘hub-and-spoke’ model must be a physical location or could be virtual. Clear definitions of a hub may also avoid simple rebadging of local services as hubs in response to policy initiatives, without meaningful transformation of care pathways. We identified 17 active WHHs across the UK. This means that most women did not have access to a hub at the time of data collection. Most of the hubs we identified were continuing to evolve and had plans in place to expand their offer and/or geographical reach. Hubs were introduced to meet a range of aims, primarily intending to improve healthcare access, quality and experience. Hub leaders were committed to reducing inequalities and many were implementing strategies to do so but approaches and evidence were still evolving. Hub services were often described as filling the intermediary space between standard primary care and specialist secondary care, although this boundary varied across hubs. Hubs were predominantly clinically led by GPs with a special interest in women’s health, although some were led by other professionals. Often, leadership was not well defined, with unspecified responsibilities and accountabilities, and a blurring of leadership, management and governance boundaries. While many hubs were reported as being one-stop shops, it was rare for them to offer multiple services at the same time and those that did were often opportunistic rather than a planned service offer (e.g. offering a smear test at the same time as fitting a coil). Most hubs operated from multiple venues, often in primary care or community settings. The professionals working to deliver services within hubs varied, and there was no consistent approach to staffing, with different costs associated with the roles deployed. A range of commissioning approaches were in place, often involving collaboration between multiple organisations. Given the challenges in securing funding and overcoming commissioning barriers, hub leaders had developed a range of creative approaches to accessing resources for implementation and delivery. However, these innovative local workarounds may not be suitable for long-term, sustainable scale-up and spread of WHHs. Some hubs had been unable to expand their clinical offer due to pre-existing commissioning barriers. Challenges included moving funding or activity from secondary care gynaecology to WHHs and identifying a long-term solution to enable offer of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) for both gynaecological and contraceptive reasons in a hub. Resolving these challenges was often described as critical to successful implementation of hubs. In addition to financial resources, some hubs had secured additional expertise and capacity to support implementation, including from other areas of the health system, local authorities and pharmaceutical companies. Development of metrics and the measurement of hub outcomes was evolving and varied between hubs, making comprehensive assessment and comparison difficult. Some hubs had used local data to measure and model population need to inform hub design, and to estimate hub costs and benefits. Available data to quantify hub activity and impact so far were limited, but where reported it indicated that hubs had provided care for many hundreds of women in England. It also indicated that hubs have the potential to reduce waiting times and referral to secondary care gynaecology and increase LARC uptake. Evidence of impact on inequalities was still emerging. Women who participated in the evaluation reported having a positive experience of accessing their local hub and the care they received. However, women using the hub and other local women in the community were generally not familiar with the term ‘women’s health hub’ or did not know that they had received care from a hub, though they welcomed the hub concept. Women also described some challenges in accessing hub services, including difficulties making a GP appointment in order to be referred to the hub. A minority of hubs reported involving women in the design and development of the service. There is scope for greater involvement of women with a range of backgrounds and experiences in WHH development at both a national and local level to ensure that they meet the needs of all women and address inequalities. A number of factors facilitated the implementation and delivery of WHHs. This included leaders (both clinical and non-clinical) who were committed to the hub vision and worked collaboratively across organisational and sector boundaries to design and set up the service. Sufficient workforce capacity and wider policy and strategic support were also important. Implementation challenges included identification of funding and other resources (e.g. facilities equipment, physical space), stakeholder engagement (including allaying concerns regarding negative impacts on other parts of the system), competing priorities and pressures in the healthcare system, and IT issues. The fragmentation of English commissioning arrangements for gynaecology and contraception was a frequently reported barrier. We identified examples of hubs that had overcome some of these barriers to integrate care for women in their area. The creation of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in 2022 was seen as a potential route to scale-up hubs nationally. The lack of an ICB leader with responsibility for women’s health (with the exception of maternity) was noted as a challenge. The many competing priorities for ICBs were highlighted as limiting capacity to focus on women’s health. Subsequent to the completion of our evaluation in 2023, additional national funding was announced linked to the Women’s Health Strategy, to support the setting up of a WHH in each ICB in England, along with the appointment of a Women’s Health Champion in every ICB. Hubs had largely been developed bottom up by local professionals, designed to meet the specific needs of the local population. Participants often reflected that a top-down approach to implementing hubs may limit the flexibility to adapt to local needs, context, leadership, workforce and resources. A middle ground between a bottom-up and top-down approach may be required to balance standardisation across hubs (e.g. to have a shared vision and definition) with flexibility to align with local context. Hub establishment was still in the early stages, and it will take time to scale the approach up across the NHS and to ensure long-term sustainability of services, and localities were all at different starting points. The small number of highly diverse hub models in place at the time of this evaluation and varied approaches to measurement meant that it was challenging to assess impact. However, it highlights the opportunity to develop resources to support local systems to design and establish hubs, agree on core definitions and model components, standardise approaches (where appropriate), capture learning/data and test assumptions of different ways of working. Implementation efforts should include exploring and understanding any unintended consequences, a common occurrence when introducing complex changes into health systems. Agreeing some aspects of standardisation (where appropriate), sharing learning and measuring outcomes and impact data can facilitate future and ongoing implementation and evaluation of WHHs, and allow exploration of the relative benefits of different models. This learning can inform further scale-up of and development of WHHs. Conclusions At the start of this evaluation, WHHs were a set of innovative service models spread across the UK, and at the end of the evaluation, they were an explicitly stated policy objective for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Our findings identified that the few existing WHHs are diverse, and continuously evolving, with many at an early stage of development or delivery, with some employing innovative approaches such as virtual group consultations. The launch of the Women’s Health Strategy, and the associated funding to support hub implementation announced in March 2023, provides an opportunity to expedite the spread of these models. However, the heterogeneity in models and contexts, and the complexity of women’s health care, means that rapid scale-up may be challenging, and substantial commissioning barriers must be overcome. Our findings suggest that implementing models informed by local needs and resources will be necessary, and requires input from women, particularly those who are least well served by current services. We do not yet have clear evidence for the system-level impact or costs of WHHs, and the gathering of consistent data to test assumptions, and measure and learn from WHH achievements, including impacts on inequalities, will enable evaluation of further scale-up. WHHs have the potential to transform women’s access to care, and there is a large community of experts striving to improve women’s health care. The Women’s Health Strategy for England provides a further catalyst to national-level change, alongside the emerging system-level approaches to health improvement driven by ICBs, and wider population interest in women’s health. Funding This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research (NIHR award ref: NIHR135589) and is published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 12, No. 30. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Transcriptional regulatory networks are pivotal components of plant's response to salt stress. However, plant adaptation strategies varied as a function of stress intensity, which is mainly modulated by climate change. Here, we determined the gene regulatory networks based on transcription factor (TF) TF_gene co-expression, using two transcriptomic data sets generated from the salt-tolerant "Tebaba" roots either treated with 50 mM NaCl (mild stress) or 150 mM NaCl (severe stress). The analysis of these regulatory networks identified specific TFs as key regulatory hubs as evidenced by their multiple interactions with different target genes related to stress response. Indeed, under mild stress, NAC and bHLH TFs were identified as central hubs regulating nitrogen storage process. Moreover, HSF TFs were revealed as a regulatory hub regulating various aspects of cellular metabolism including flavonoid biosynthesis, protein processing, phenylpropanoid metabolism, galactose metabolism, and heat shock proteins. These processes are essentially linked to short-term acclimatization under mild salt stress. This was further consolidated by the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis showing structural and plant growth adjustment. Conversely, under severe salt stress, dramatic metabolic changes were observed leading to novel TF members including MYB family as regulatory hubs controlling isoflavonoid biosynthesis, oxidative stress response, abscisic acid signaling pathway, and proteolysis. The PPI network analysis also revealed deeper stress defense changes aiming to restore plant metabolic homeostasis when facing severe salt stress. Overall, both the gene co-expression and PPI network provided valuable insights on key transcription factor hubs that can be employed as candidates for future genetic crop engineering programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most recent and elegant solution to address the problem of scalability in network-on-chip (NoC) architectures is WiNoCs (Wireless NoCs).WiNoC, a wired-wireless hybrid architecture in NoC designs, is becoming increasingly popular for its fast unicast message delivery. However, modern applications often require multicasting and broadcasting messages instead. In the proposed work, the widely used simulation tool BookSim is employed, which offers reconfigurability and openness and it enables the analysis of both wired and wireless NoC architectures. This paper proposes a Tree-based Wireless NoC architecture approach incorporating MDND (message duplication in non-destination), which provides multicast support for WiNoC by exploring the inherent broadcast-type communication of wireless connection. Additionally, the proposed work supports the configuration of various aspects, including its multicast injection rate, enabling or disabling its multicast capabilities, and determining the number of multicast recipients for each packet. The proposed Tree-based approach showed a significant improvement in average multicast transaction latency compared to the traditional NoC. There is a noticeable reduction in the average network latency, the flit latency, and the total power. The analysis also shows a reduction in average packet latency for unicast messages and average packet latency for broadcast messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, we are witnessing a huge increase of valuable big data structured in the form of graphs or networks. To apply traditional machine learning and data analytic techniques to such data it is necessary to transform graphs into vector‐based representations that preserve the most essential structural properties of graphs. For this purpose, a large number of graph embedding methods have been proposed in the literature. Most of them produce general‐purpose embeddings suitable for a variety of applications such as node clustering, node classification, graph visualization and link prediction. In this article, we propose two novel graph embedding algorithms based on random walks that are specifically designed for the node classification problem. Random walk sampling strategies of the proposed algorithms have been designed to pay special attention to hubs–high‐degree nodes that have the most critical role for the overall connectedness in large‐scale graphs. The proposed methods are experimentally evaluated by analyzing the classification performance of three classification algorithms trained on embeddings of real‐world networks. The obtained results indicate that our methods considerably improve the predictive power of examined classifiers compared with currently the most popular random walk method for generating general‐purpose graph embeddings (node2vec). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vertebrate spinal cord (SP) is the long, thin extension of the brain forming the central nervous system's caudal sector. Functionally, the SP directly mediates motor and somatic sensory interactions with most parts of the body except the face, and it is the preferred model for analyzing relatively simple reflex behaviors. Here, we analyze the organization of axonal connections between the 50 gray matter regions forming the bilaterally symmetric rat SP. The assembled dataset suggests that there are about 385 of a possible 2,450 connections between the 50 regions for a connection density of 15.7%. Multiresolution consensus cluster analysis reveals a hierarchy of structure- function subsystems in this neural network, with 4 subsystems at the top level and 12 at the bottom-level. The top-level subsystems include a) a bilateral subsystem related most clearly to somatic and autonomic motor functions and centered in the ventral horn and intermediate zone; b) a bilateral subsystem associated with general somatosensory functions and centered in the base, neck, and head of the dorsal horn; and c) a pair of unilateral, bilaterally symmetric subsystems associated with nociceptive information processing and occupying the apex of the dorsal horn. The intrinsic SP network displayed no hubs, rich club, or small-world attributes, which are common measures of global functionality. Advantages and limitations of our methodology are discussed in some detail. The present work is part of a comprehensive project to assemble and analyze the neurome of a mammalian nervous system and its interactions with the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to analyze graphs of weakly correlated stocks. Characteristics of these graphs such as number of edges, histogram of vertices degrees, degrees distribution, hubs and cliques are investigated. Pearson correlation and Kendall correlation are used to construct these graphs. Graphs constructed by the traditional procedure and by Holm procedure are compared. Obtained results are exemplified on the data of French stock market. In particular it is shown that reliable maximum cliques contain very few nodes despite the large number of edges in the graph of weakly correlated stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to identify the best practices to reduce potential risks in passenger transport using the example of urban public transport in Berlin. Due to dynamically progressing urbanization processes and the related development of the German capital, the demand for transport services increases. A significant problem has become the coordinated management of public transport for passengers and ensuring safety in the means of transport and available infrastructure. Local government and public transport managers in Berlin have decided to introduce solutions to reduce potential threats to public transport participants, thereby contributing to improving the quality and safety of the transport services provided. The methods of source analysis, descriptive analysis, and deduction are used to conduct the analysis in this study. The results show that the constant search for new solutions to transport problems is a challenge for city managers in the era of rapidly progressing urbanization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ahead of the Russia-Ukraine war, global natural gas production in 2021 rose nearly 5 percent to a record 4.04 trillion cubic meters. In 2021, Russian natural gas exports were 202 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas and 39.6 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG). [Russia Struggles to Make Up for Europe's Gap in Natural Gas Exports. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/russia-struggles-to-make-up-for-europes-gap-in-natural-gas- exports/2717651]. Because of the war in Ukraine, Russia stopped exporting essential volumes of natural gas to Europe, which used to account for 40 percent of the EU's supply, causing gas prices in Europe to rise. Georgia, with its strategic location on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, has the potential to create a liquefied natural gas (LNG) hub for transporting gas to European markets bypassing Russia -- using existing port facilities in Anaklia, Poti, Batumi, Kulevi (owned by Sokar BST LLC); Recent developments show the Russian government's interest in the idea of a Turkish gas hub. At the end of September 2022, two days after the explosion of the "North Stream 1 and 2" gas pipelines on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Presidents R.-T. Erdogan and Vladimir Putin agreed to add two more new gas pipelines along the TurkStream pipeline, which is apparently a rival project to the EU's Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). The SGC goes through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the Balkans, and the TurkStream pipeline from Russia through the Black Sea and Turkey enters in the same region of Europe, where the European SGC also goes -- namely, South-Eastern Europe. Natural gas has recently become one of the main types of fuel since the 70s of the last century. At the beginning of this century, about 88-90% of natural gas was supplied to consumers by pipelines, long-term economic contracts, and the rest by tankers, in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Global LNG imports in 2021, according to the report of the International Group of LNG Importers (GIIGNL), increased by 4.5% compared to the previous year and reached 513.7 billion cubic meters (372.3 million tons). The Group's research notes that in 2021, LNG will already account for approximately 40% of the global gas market, with the rest coming from gas pipelines. In 2021, about 73% (375 billion cubic meters, or 271.8 million tons) of LNG was imported by Asian countries. In addition, only 36.6% of the world's LNG volume was sold on the spot market, i.e. in small lots -- the rest was sold through long-term contracts, thereby neglecting the market mechanism of free price formation. Due to the Russia-Ukraine war, gas supplies to the EU through Gazprom pipelines have been almost completely cut off since the beginning of 2023, and Brussels is desperately looking for alternative routes. For the first time, the idea of such an alternative in the form of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline was put forward by then US President Bill Clinton in 1996. However, due to the uncertainty of the status of the Caspian Sea -- the lack of delimitation of its shelf boundaries, the conflicting position of Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan, etc., this project was not implemented. Now Russia tries to use old Russia-Azrbaijan gas pipeline to connect his gas with EU SGC pipelines. Georgian government suggested in late 2022 to use his black sea Anaklia or Kulevi ports for constraction of LNG terminals and export the LNG tankers with Azeri (and Russian ?!) gas to the Balkan ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurological and psychiatric disorders are associated with pathological neural dynamics. The fundamental connectivity patterns of cell-cell communication networks that enable pathological dynamics to emerge remain unknown. Here, we studied epileptic circuits using a newly developed computational pipeline that leveraged single-cell calcium imaging of larval zebrafish and chronically epileptic mice, biologically constrained effective connectivity modeling, and higher-order motif-focused network analysis. We uncovered a novel functional cell type that preferentially emerged in the preseizure state, the superhub, that was unusually richly connected to the rest of the network through feedforward motifs, critically enhancing downstream excitation. Perturbation simulations indicated that disconnecting superhubs was significantly more effective in stabilizing epileptic circuits than disconnecting hub cells that were defined traditionally by connection count. In the dentate gyrus of chronically epileptic mice, superhubs were predominately modeled adult-born granule cells. Collectively, these results predict a new maximally selective and minimally invasive cellular target for seizure control.

Abstract Interactive programming environments are powerful tools for promoting innovative network thinking, teaching science of complexity, and exploring emergent phenomena. This paper reports on our recent development of the deterministic random walk model in NetLogo, a leading platform for computational thinking, eco-system thinking, and multi-agent cross-platform programming environment. The deterministic random walk is foundational to modeling dynamical processes on complex networks. Inspired by the temporal visualizations offered in NetLogo, we investigated the relationship between network topology and diffusion saturation time for the deterministic random walk model. Our analysis uncovers that in Erdős–Rényi graphs, the saturation time exhibits an asymmetric pattern with a considerable probability of occurrence. This behavior occurs when the hubs, defined as nodes with relatively higher number of connections, emerge in Erdős–Rényi graphs. Yet, our analysis yields that the hubs in Barabási–Albert model stabilize the the convergence time of the deterministic random walk model. These findings strongly suggest that depending on the dynamical process running on complex networks, complementing characteristics other than the degree need to be taken into account for considering a node as a hub. We have made our development open-source, available to the public at no cost at https://github.com/bravandi/NetLogo-Dynamical-Processes .

We describe a strategy for the development of a rational approach of neoplastic disease therapy based on the demonstration that scale-free networks are susceptible to specific attacks directed against its connective hubs. This strategy involves the (i) selection of up-regulated hubs of connectivity in the tumors interactome, (ii) drug repurposing of these hubs, (iii) RNA silencing of non-druggable hubs, (iv) in vitro hub validation, (v) tumor-on-a-chip, (vi) in vivo validation, and (vii) clinical trial. Hubs are protein targets that are assessed as targets for rational therapy of cancer in the context of personalized oncology. We confirmed the existence of a negative correlation between malignant cell aggressivity and the target number needed for specific drugs or RNA interference (RNAi) to maximize the benefit to the patient's overall survival. Interestingly, we found that some additional proteins not generally targeted by drug treatments might justify the addition of inhibitors designed against them in order to improve therapeutic outcomes. However, many proteins are not druggable, or the available pharmacopeia for these targets is limited, which justifies a therapy based on encapsulated RNAi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) accounts for hundreds thousands deaths annually. We hereby propose a retrospective in silico study to shed light on gene–miRNA interactions and topological biomarkers driving the development of HNSCC. To achieve this, gene and miRNA profiles are holistically reevaluated using protein–protein interaction (PPI) and bipartite miRNA–target networks. The landscape of our findings depicts a concerted molecular action in activating genes promoting cell cycle and proliferation, and inactivating those suppressive. In this scenario, genes, including VEGFA, EMP1, PPL, KRAS, MET, TP53, MMPs and HOXs, and miRNAs, including mir-6728 and mir-99a, emerge as key players in the molecular interactions driving HNSCC tumorigenesis. Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is among the most common cancer worldwide, accounting for hundreds thousands deaths annually. Unfortunately, most patients are diagnosed in an advanced stage and only a percentage respond favorably to therapies. To help fill this gap, we hereby propose a retrospective in silico study to shed light on gene–miRNA interactions driving the development of HNSCC. Moreover, to identify topological biomarkers as a source for designing new drugs. To achieve this, gene and miRNA profiles from patients and controls are holistically reevaluated using protein–protein interaction (PPI) and bipartite miRNA–target networks. Cytoskeletal remodeling, extracellular matrix (ECM), immune system, proteolysis, and energy metabolism have emerged as major functional modules involved in the pathogenesis of HNSCC. Of note, the landscape of our findings depicts a concerted molecular action in activating genes promoting cell cycle and proliferation, and inactivating those suppressive. In this scenario, genes, including VEGFA, EMP1, PPL, KRAS, MET, TP53, MMPs and HOXs, and miRNAs, including mir-6728 and mir-99a, emerge as key players in the molecular interactions driving HNSCC tumorigenesis. Despite the heterogeneity characterizing these HNSCC subtypes, and the limitations of a study pointing to relationships that could be context dependent, the overlap with previously published studies is encouraging. Hence, it supports further investigation for key molecules, both those already and not correlated to HNSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an impairment of cognition and memory. Current research on connectomics have now related changes in the network organization in AD to the patterns of accumulation and spread of amyloid and tau, providing insights into the neurobiological mechanisms of the disease. In addition, network analysis and modeling focus on particular use of graphs to provide intuition into key organizational principles of brain structure, that stipulate how neural activity propagates along structural connections. The utility of connectome-based computational models aids in early predicting, tracking the progression of biomarker-directed AD neuropathology. In this article, we present a short review of tau trajectory, the connectome changes in tau pathology, and the dependent recent connectome-based computational modelling approaches for tau spreading, reproducing pragmatic findings, and developing significant novel tau targeted therapies.

Worldwide, unemployment is a challenging aspect that faces most of graduate students. Based on that, students in colleges and universities currently know that they have to engage in self-employment through entrepreneurship. Moreover, establishing innovation hubs during collaging has propounded to help bring different entrepreneurial and creativity traits among students. Apart from performing incubation of the business ideas, the innovation hubs could be a free innovative centre where students, stakeholders, lecturers, and alumnae meet, work, and collaborate on the range of innovative augmented ideas to stimulate entrepreneur intention. Colleges and universities do not have a proper plan to expose students to practical business environments while studying. Therefore, through mixed research design, this study entails designing and developing a participatory contextual model that will enhance the College of Business Education to establish a free space as the innovation hub for incubating talents, entrepreneurial ideas and research focused on solution-based for students and lecturers. A total of 132 respondents consisting of 20 instructors; 100 students and 12 entrepreneurial practitioners were involved in this study. Data was collected through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and documentary review. The obtained data were analysed through descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis. Based on the findings, it is evident that establishing an incubation and innovation hub within the CBE community is necessary. The findings provide valuable insights into the participants' perceptions and highlight various aspects that should be considered during establishing and implementing the hub. Moreover, the findings stipulate that the incubation and innovation hub should incorporate the prototype environment that includes mindset change programmes, regular training, internship programmes, effective incubation practices, strong mentorship and coaching programmes, and a clear exit strategy that can enhance incubates' entrepreneurial skills and capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apprendre et enseigner avec le numérique sont des activités à étudier et mettre au regard des espaces support de ces pratiques du numérique, et du tissu social correspondant. Nous proposons une étude des porosités d’usages du numérique entre espaces situés, à savoir la sphère privée et la sphère scolaire, que ce soit pour les apprenants ou leurs enseignants. Finalement, les enseignants avec de fortes pratiques numériques éducatives, ont-ils de fortes pratiques numériques personnelles pour les alimenter, ou réciproquement? De même, les apprenants avec de fortes pratiques numériques personnelles sont-ils plus aptes à apprendre avec le numérique à l’école, plus motivés par l’instrumentation des dispositifs pédagogiques? Pour répondre à ces questions et étudier toutes formes de porosités entre sphères privée et éducative, nous utilisons les résultats d’une enquête sur les usages du numérique, des apprenants du collège à l’université et de leurs enseignants. Nous démontrons que plusieurs formes de porosités existent, avec un sens de transfert le plus souvent bien défini. Enfin, ces espaces situés et les porosités afférentes peuvent être des révélateurs de hubs sociaux et éducatifs, ainsi que gage de prescriptions pour une meilleure prise en compte du numérique en éducation.

In this paper we use complex network analysis to describe fossil fuel spatial flows among 132 places covering the entire United States in 2017 and in 2022. These spatial flows are for crude petroleum, gasoline, and oil fuels. The analysis shows that all three fuels have different network topology. For all six networks we find major hubs of crude petroleum and its products, gasoline and fuel oils, concentrated in areas with large reserves such as the south-central part of the US. Using modularity, a network cluster identification metric, we show that spatial interactions can be used to delineate functional regions and their differences across fuel types. These functional regions evolve over time in response to the shifting US role as a major producer and net exporter of fossil fuels, expansion of the domestic pipeline network, and increases in fuel production and refinement locations. The modal split of the fuels examined in this paper shows the dominant role pipelines play for crude petroleum, transporting approximately 83 % of tonnage in 2017 and increasing to almost 89 % in 2022. In contrast, gasoline and oil fuels modal split hovers at around 60 % of tonnage transported by tanker truck followed by other modes including pipelines. Our analysis shows geographic clustering of major hubs and their functional regions along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. These are in places that are often the locations of natural disasters. This together with the rapid increase of a few hubs as gateways to fossil fuel US exports makes them prime candidates in disrupting fossil fuel supply chains worldwide and amplifies vulnerability of fossil fuel supply chains. The spatial clustering trends shown in this paper provide added evidence of the source of short-term negative impacts in places such as Chicago in Illinois and Corpus Christi in Texas. This offers added information for government intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world becomes more urbanized, there is a strong need for urban public transport to provide sustainable alternative solutions against private-vehicle usage. However, the opportunities for seamless journeys through public transport are still limited and the need for properly designed and operated transport interchanges is vital. The present paper investigates the perceptions and the users' level of satisfaction when using the New Railway Station of Thessaloniki in Greece and the Riga International Coach Terminal in Latvia, in terms of services provision and station's operation. In total, 36 indicators were tested, grouped in eight quality factors, namely travel information, wayfinding information, time and movement, access, comfort and convenience, station attractiveness, safety and security and emergency situation handling. Attitudinal surveys were implemented to determine key performance factors that affect travelers' satisfaction when using the two terminals. Data were collected through on-line questionnaires and were elaborated through descriptive and inferential statistics, including Mann-Whitney two-sample U-testing to assess differences between the samples in variables measured on a 5-point Likert scale, Spearman bivariate correlations to measure the strength of association between the quality indicators and multiple regression analyses to examine the effect of selected attributes on the general satisfaction level of travelers. Results showed that both interchanges perform better in physical quality attributes, like access, travel and wayfinding information provision, but they do not satisfy users' aesthetics expectations in the internal and external area of the interchanges and the surrounding area and they do not cover adequately their feeling of security and safety in the transfer or waiting areas. These results highlighted the users' preferences and concerns which contribute into a satisfactory overall design of the interchanges. In a nutshell, transport interchange design should satisfy both providing a hub for seamless mobility, but also integrating the station as a part of the public realm.

This article stresses the need to develop multimodal passenger transport. Particular attention is paid to the construction of HUBs based on railway stations. HUB is the transport interchange node, passenger complex, which redistributes passenger flows between transport modes and directions. They allow to optimize transportation processes, as well as to create an infrastructure for convenient and fast passenger transfer between different transport modes. The preconditions for creating organizational conditions to ensure the sustainable development of the passenger railway transport sector are outlined. In the near future, combined passenger transport with the participation of several modes of transport will attract tourists from around the world. The authors’ concept of the term “passenger comfort zone” is proposed, which takes into account all the needs of modern tourists. The mechanism of multimodal transportations of passengers by railway transport in interaction with other participants of the servicing process is presented. A model of institutional support for the development of multimodal passenger railway transport is proposed to create conditions for integrated transport services for passengers by the passenger railway transport complex. The expediency of forming a system of railway passenger HUBs in Ukraine is vital to attracting investments to improve transport and tourism infrastructure, as well as to roll stock and a range of services for the benefit of all stakeholders in the transport sector (e.g., the state, investors, and passengers).

The object of this research is to exploit the algorithm of Twitter's trending topic (TT) and identify the elements capable of guiding public opinion in the Italian panorama. The underlying hypotheses that guide the whole article, confirmed by the research results, concern the existence of (a) a limited number of elements at the base of each popular hashtag with very high viral power and (b) hashtags transversal to the themes detected by the Twitter algorithm that define specific opinion polls. Through computational techniques, it was possible to extract and process data sets from six specific hashtags highlighted by TT. In a first step through social network analysis, we analyzed the hashtag semantic network to identify the hashtags transversal to the six TTs. Subsequently, we selected for each data set the contents with high sharing power and created a "potential opinion leader" index to identify users with influencer characteristics. Finally, a cross section of social actors able to guide public opinion in the Twittersphere emerged from the intersection between potentially influential users and the viral contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of patients after glioma resection offers a unique opportunity to investigate brain reorganization. It is currently unknown how the whole-brain connectomic profile evolves longitudinally after surgical resection of a glioma and how this may be associated with tumor characteristics and cognitive outcome. In this longitudinal study, we investigate the impact of tumor lateralization and grade on functional connectivity (FC) in highly connected networks, or hubs, and cognitive performance. Twenty-eight patients (17 high-grade, 11 low-grade gliomas) underwent longitudinal pre/post-surgery resting-state fMRI scans and neuropsychological assessments (73 total measures). FC matrices were constructed considering as functional hubs the default mode (DMN) and fronto-parietal networks. No-hubs included primary sensory functional networks and any other no-hubs nodes. Both tumor hemisphere and grade affected brain reorganization post-resection. In right-hemisphere tumor patients, regardless of grade and relative to left-hemisphere gliomas, FC increased longitudinally after the intervention, both in terms of FC within hubs (phubs = 0.0004) and FC between hubs and no-hubs (phubs-no-hubs = 0.005). Regardless of tumor side, only lower-grade gliomas showed longitudinal FC increases relative to high-grade tumors within a precise hub network, the DMN. The neurocognitive profile was longitudinally associated with spatial features of the connectome, mainly within the DMN. We provide evidence that clinical glioma features, such as lateralization and grade, affect post-surgical longitudinal functional reorganization and cognitive recovery. The data suggest a possible role of the DMN in supporting cognition, providing useful information for prognostic prediction and surgical planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Changes in amyloid beta (Aβ) and phosphorylated tau brain levels are known to affect brain network organization but very little is known about how plasma markers can relate to these measures. We aimed to address the relationship between centrality network changes and two plasma pathology markers: phosphorylated tau at threonine 231 (p-tau231), a proxy for early Aβ change, and neurofilament light chain (Nfl), a marker of axonal degeneration., Methods: One hundred and four cognitively unimpaired individuals were divided into a high pathology load (33 individuals; HP) group and a low pathology (71 individuals; LP) one. All participants underwent a magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording, a neuropsychological evaluation and plasma sampling. With the MEG recordings, a compound centrality score for each brain source was calculated that considered both intra- and inter-band links. For each group, the relationship between this centrality score and the two plasma markers was studied by means of correlation analyses. Furthermore, the relationship between the centrality score and the plasma markers among the HP and LP groups was compared. Lastly, we investigated whether hubs were more intensely affected by these changes., Results: Increasing concentrations of p-tau231, which is a proxy of Aβ pathology, were associated with greater theta centrality score of posterior areas that increased their connectedness in the theta range with the remaining areas, regardless of the latter's frequency range. The opposite relationship was found for left areas that decreased their centrality score in the gamma frequency range. These results only emerged for HP individuals, who showed a significantly different relationship between centrality and p-tau231 compared to LP individuals. Hubs' centrality score in the theta band was significantly more affected by p-tau231 levels compared to less central regions., Conclusions: Early brain network reorganizations in cognitively unimpaired individuals are associated with elevated plasma p-tau231, a proxy for very early Aβ changes, only among individuals who show signs of a higher pathology load. Posterior centrality score increases in the theta band are congruent with previous literature and theoretical models, while gamma centrality score losses could be associated with inhibitory neuron dysfunction. Hubs were more intensely affected by p-tau231, and changed to a higher degree, thus corroborating hubs' vulnerability., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The “Hospital Clínico San Carlos” Ethics Committee approved this study, and the procedure was performed following internationally accepted guidelines and regulations, which included informed consent from all participants. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Amyloidosis diseases are characterized by protein misfolding, which forms insoluble beta-sheet fibrils progressively deposited in tissues. Deposition in the form of amyloid aggregates can occur in various organs, damaging their structure and function. The hallmark of amyloidosis is aberrant interactions leading to protein aggregation and proteotoxicity. Accordingly, amyloidosis-related samples represent a valuable source of information to generate new knowledge useful for diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic purposes. In this scenario, we outline the path to apply computational methods and strategies based on the combination of proteomics and systems biology approaches. In addition to algorithms useful for subtyping amyloid deposits or assessing proteome recovery after drug treatment, our chapter provides workflows based on protein-protein interaction and protein co-expression network models. In particular, the main steps to reconstruct and analyze them at both functional and topological levels are described. Our chapter aims to provide tools and instructions to identify and monitor prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic markers and to shed light on the processes, pathways, and functions affected by amyloidogenic proteins., (© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Hub regions in the brain, recognized for their roles in ensuring efficient information transfer, are vulnerable to pathological alterations in neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Computational simulations and animal experiments have hinted at the theory of activity-dependent degeneration as the cause of this hub vulnerability. However, two critical issues remain unresolved. First, past research has not clearly distinguished between two scenarios: hub regions facing a higher risk of connectivity disruption (targeted attack) and all regions having an equal risk (random attack). Second, human studies offering support for activity-dependent explanations remain scarce. We refined the hub disruption index to demonstrate a hub disruption pattern in functional connectivity in autosomal dominant AD that aligned with targeted attacks. This hub disruption is detectable even in preclinical stages, 12 years before the expected symptom onset and is amplified alongside symptomatic progression. Moreover, hub disruption was primarily tied to regional differences in global connectivity and sequentially followed changes observed in amyloid-beta positron emission tomography cortical markers, consistent with the activity-dependent degeneration explanation. Taken together, our findings deepen the understanding of brain network organization in neurodegenerative diseases and could be instrumental in refining diagnostic and targeted therapeutic strategies for AD in the future., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (© 2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

The neural systems underlying semantic processing have been characterized with functional neuroimaging in young adults. Whether the integrity of these systems degrade with advanced age remains unresolved. The current study examined functional connectivity during abstract and concrete word processing. Thirty-eight adults, aged 55-91, engaged in semantic association decision tasks during a mixed event-related block functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm. During the semantic trials, the task required participants to make a judgment as to whether pairs were semantically associated. During the rhyme trials, the task required participants to determine if non-word pairs rhymed. Seeds were placed in putative semantic hubs of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG) and the angular gyrus (AG), and also in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), an area considered important for semantic control. Greater connectivity between aMTG, AG, and IFG and multiple cortical areas occurred during semantic processing. Connectivity from the three seeds differed during semantic processing: the left AG and aMTG were strongly connected with frontal, parietal, and occipital areas bilaterally, whereas the IFG was most strongly connected with other frontal cortical areas and the AG in the ipsilateral left hemisphere. Notably, the strength and extent of connectivity differed for abstract and concrete semantic processing; connectivity from the left aMTG and AG to bilateral cortical areas was greater during abstract processing, whereas IFG connectivity with left cortical areas was greater during concrete processing. With advanced age, greater connectivity occurred only between the left AG and supramarginal gyrus during the processing of concrete wordpairs, but not abstract word-pairs. Among older adults, robust functional connectivity of the aMTG, AG, and IFG to widely distributed bilateral cortical areas occurs during abstract and concrete semantic processing in a manner consistent with reports from past studies of young adults. There was not a significant degradation of functional connectivity during semantic processing between the ages of 55 and 85 years. As the study focused on semantic functioning in older adults, a comparison group of young adults was not included, limiting generalizability. Future longitudinal neuroimaging studies that compare functional connectivity of young and older adults under different semantic demands will be valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to studyhubs, their main functions, features, as well as to determine their place and role in the hierarchy of modern socio-cultural space. The research methodology is based on the application of an interdisciplinary approach to the problem and a set of the following methods: analytical, comparative, cultural, and structural-logical. Scientific novelty. The functioning of hubs was comprehensively analysed in the context of the latest trends in the socio-cultural sphere; types of cultural spaces are designed; the concepts of «creative», «youth», «social», «bibliohub» have been analysed. Legal documentation regulating the activities of individual cultural hubs has been reviewed; an analysis of the current state of implementation of hubs in domestic cultural practice has been carried out. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that with the wide use of the term «hub», there is no clear and unambiguous definition of this concept. Based on the opinion of researchers, modern experience can be characterised as a centre where communication and cooperation are concentrated, where various resources are concentrated, education and training occurs, experience is gained, new ideas are accumulated, the implementation of which requires the unification of like-minded people and intellectual development. The activity of innovation centres can be manifested both in real and virtual space. By location, the hub can be created: on the basis of free space; virtual, located online on special servers; combined, with a combination of features of real and virtual hubs. In the socio-cultural sphere, this term means «centre of activity», «event centre», or «meeting ground». Hubs are defined by their structure, set of services, direction of activity, and location. According to the criteria, the following types of hubs are distinguished in the field of culture: creative, youth, library, educational, and social hubs. In global practice, hubs are in demand and popular. As for Ukraine, their spread is only gaining momentum. In general, it can be argued that cultural spaces, hubs, and co-working spaces play an important social function and are centres of development and leisure that become part of people's everyday life. These centres are actively spreading and developing in domestic sociocultural practice. The purpose of the article is to studyhubs, their main functions, features, as well as to determine their place and role in the hierarchy of modern socio-cultural space. The research methodology is based on the application of an interdisciplinary approach to the problem and a set of the following methods: analytical, comparative, cultural, and structural-logical. Scientific novelty. The functioning of hubs was comprehensively analysed in the context of the latest trends in the socio-cultural sphere; types of cultural spaces are designed; the concepts of «creative», «youth», «social», «bibliohub» have been analysed. Legal documentation regulating the activities of individual cultural hubs has been reviewed; an analysis of the current state of implementation of hubs in domestic cultural practice has been carried out. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that with the wide use of the term «hub», there is no clear and unambiguous definition of this concept. Based on the opinion of researchers, modern experience can be characterised as a centre where communication and cooperation are concentrated, where various resources are concentrated, education and training occurs, experience is gained, new ideas are accumulated, the implementation of which requires the unification of like-minded people and intellectual development. The activity of innovation centres can be manifested both in real and virtual space. By location, the hub can be created: on the basis of free space; virtual, located online on special servers; combined, with a combination of features of real and virtual hubs. In the socio-cultural sphere, this term means «centre of activity», «event centre», or «meeting ground». Hubs are defined by their structure, set of services, direction of activity, and location. According to the criteria, the following types of hubs are distinguished in the field of culture: creative, youth, library, educational, and social hubs. In global practice, hubs are in demand and popular. As for Ukraine, their spread is only gaining momentum. In general, it can be argued that cultural spaces, hubs, and co-working spaces play an important social function and are centres of development and leisure that become part of people's everyday life. These centres are actively spreading and developing in domestic sociocultural practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature of integrated networks of practice, and in particular, the important role of hubs within networks. Hubs are individuals or groups that energize cross-connections, improve knowledge flow, enhance learning across small clusters of expertise, and play critical roles in building and sustaining robust integrated networks. Three examples illustrate how group-based hubs can facilitate professional learning across naturally occurring significant networks. Drawing on these examples and scholarship in the field, we offer a comprehensive framework for cultivating integrated networks for teaching and learning, and highlight some of the lessons we have learned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language function in the brain, once thought to be highly localized, is now appreciated as relying on a connected but distributed network. The semantic system is of particular interest in the language domain because of its hypothesized integration of information across multiple cortical regions. Previous work in healthy individuals has focused on group-level functional connectivity (FC) analyses of the semantic system, which may obscure interindividual differences driving variance in performance. These studies also overlook the contributions of white matter networks to semantic function. Here, we identified semantic network nodes at the individual level with a semantic decision fMRI task in 53 typically aging adults, characterized network organization using structural connectivity (SC), and quantified the segregation and integration of the network using FC. Hub regions were identified in left inferior frontal gyrus. The individualized semantic network was composed of three interacting modules: (1) default-mode module characterized by bilateral medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate regions and also including right-hemisphere homotopes of language regions; (2) left frontal module extending dorsally from inferior frontal gyrus to pre-motor area; and (3) left temporoparietal module extending from temporal pole to inferior parietal lobule. FC within Module3 and integration of the entire network related to a semantic verbal fluency task, but not a matched phonological task. These results support and extend the tri-network semantic model (Xu in Front Psychol 8: 1538 1538, 2017) and the controlled semantic cognition model (Chiou in Cortex 103: 100 116, 2018) of semantic function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, environments that propose other relationships between different agents existing/acting in the city and territories and the reconnection with the place will design solutions for a complex daily life. In this work, we intend to approach these elements from a specific creative ecosystem, Armazém da Criatividade (Warehouse of Creativity), and one of its proposals presented this year, the MMA Challenge (Fashion, Music and Art). We aim to explore the pertinence of the existence of environments such as the Armazém da Criatividade in terms of stimulating, provoking and, sometimes, inducing the new in the territories/cities where they are located, producing other effects of meaning in the agents involved as well, who are provoked -- directly or indirectly -- into actions and projects for these spaces. Based on this relationship, we will also address potential connections between stimulating local creative vocations and reverberating this in terms of positive impacts in different contemporary territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connecting transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory networks solves an important puzzle in the elucidation of gene regulatory mechanisms. To decipher the complexity of these connections, we build co-expression network modules for mRNA as well as miRNA expression profiles of breast cancer data. We construct gene and miRNA co-expression modules using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) method and establish the significance of these modules (Genes/miRNAs) for cancer phenotype. This work also infers an interaction network between the genes of the turquoise module from mRNA expression data and hubs of the turquoise module from miRNA expression data. A pathway enrichment analysis using a miRsystem web tool for miRNA hubs and some of their targets, reveal their enrichment in several important pathways associated with the progression of cancer.

The neural systems underlying semantic processing have been characterized with functional neuroimaging in young adults. Whether the integrity of these systems degrade with advanced age remains unresolved. The current study examined functional connectivity during abstract and concrete word processing. Thirty-eight adults, aged 55–91, engaged in semantic association decision tasks during a mixed event-related block functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm. During the semantic trials, the task required participants to make a judgment as to whether pairs were semantically associated. During the rhyme trials, the task required participants to determine if non-word pairs rhymed. Seeds were placed in putative semantic hubs of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG) and the angular gyrus (AG), and also in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), an area considered important for semantic control. Greater connectivity between aMTG, AG, and IFG and multiple cortical areas occurred during semantic processing. Connectivity from the three seeds differed during semantic processing: the left AG and aMTG were strongly connected with frontal, parietal, and occipital areas bilaterally, whereas the IFG was most strongly connected with other frontal cortical areas and the AG in the ipsilateral left hemisphere. Notably, the strength and extent of connectivity differed for abstract and concrete semantic processing; connectivity from the left aMTG and AG to bilateral cortical areas was greater during abstract processing, whereas IFG connectivity with left cortical areas was greater during concrete processing. With advanced age, greater connectivity occurred only between the left AG and supramarginal gyrus during the processing of concrete word-pairs, but not abstract word-pairs. Among older adults, robust functional connectivity of the aMTG, AG, and IFG to widely distributed bilateral cortical areas occurs during abstract and concrete semantic processing in a manner consistent with reports from past studies of young adults. There was not a significant degradation of functional connectivity during semantic processing between the ages of 55 and 85 years. As the study focused on semantic functioning in older adults, a comparison group of young adults was not included, limiting generalizability. Future longitudinal neuroimaging studies that compare functional connectivity of young and older adults under different semantic demands will be valuable.

Massive deployment of offshore wind is a core building block of the EU's climate and energy strategy. So-called 'hybrid assets' can be used to connect offshore wind to the onshore grid. A hybrid asset is a connection between at least two countries, to which offshore wind farms are also connected. The connection transports offshore-generated electricity to shore, while facilitating electricity trade through additional interconnection capacity. The current EU Electricity Market Regulation is not fit for this purpose, holding back the development of hybrid assets. This article discusses the legal issues regarding hybrid assets, and a promising solution: offshore bidding zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to study the development of polish airport infrastructure. This study analyses situation of polish airports; presents plans of the development of polish airport infrastructure; checks fulfillment of conditions needed for building huge hub airport; describes legislative changes regarding project company for building Solidarity Transport Hub, and change of “Polish Airports” State Enterprise into “Polish Airports” Joint-Stock Company; presents issues of newly rebuilt airport in Radom, also in context of Solidarity Transport Hub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The actual relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is a challenging and intriguing issue which always fascinated many ecologists. In this study the detrital soil food webs of three temperate sandy ecosystems have been compared in the attempt to quantify the extent to which anthropogenic action affects them. The structure of the corresponding food webs was analysed and their topological robustness was calculated through the use of a dynamic model, which is briefly introduced. Our Alteration Index has been used here for the first time to enable a direct comparison between different food-web architectures. The results show that all soil networks have a disassortative nature, as expected for theoretical food webs. The values of the clustering coefficient, of the connectance and of the complexity, together with the calculation of the robustness suggest that the fallowed pasture with low pressure management is more robust than the other two grasslands under middle intensity management. The robustness shown by ecological networks could be useful elsewhere for evaluating the sustainability of agricultural practices to which the soil system is subject.

The brain consumes the most energy per relative mass amongst the organs in the human body. Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that behavioral processes are relatively inexpensive metabolically, and that most energy goes to maintaining the status quo, i.e., the balance of cell membranes’ resting potentials and subthreshold spontaneous activity. Spontaneous activity fluctuates across brain regions in a correlated fashion that defines multi-scale hierarchical networks called resting-state networks (RSNs). Different regions of the brain display different metabolic consumption, but the relationship between regional brain metabolism and RSNs is still under investigation.Here, we examine the variability of glucose metabolism across brain regions, measured with the relative standard uptake value (SUVR) using 18F-FDG PET, and the topology of RSNs, measured through graph analysis applied to fMRI resting-state functional connectivity (FC).We found a moderate linear relationship between the strength (STR) of pairwise regional FC and metabolism. Moreover, the linear correlation between SUVR and STR grew stronger as we considered more connected regions (hubs). Regions connecting different RSNs, or connector hubs, showed higher SUVR than regions connecting nodes within the same RSN, or provincial hubs. Our results show that functional connections as probed by fMRI are related to glucose metabolism, especially in a system of provincial and connector hubs.