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Topic Review
Competencies and Key Competencies in Sustainability
Decision makers with high-level responsibilities in economics, politics, and civil society require more sustainability competencies than the average citizen. These include perceiving and understanding the world as an interplay of complex systems, committing to values, and far-sighted strategizing as well as communicating in an engaging way. Researchers indicate that dealing with uncertainty, following one’s own values, and building up resilience play a major role for decision makers.
  • 1.4K
  • 17 Jan 2024
Topic Review
Respiratory Dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative brain disease that is the most common cause of dementia among the elderly. In addition to dementia, which is the loss of cognitive function, including thinking, remembering, and reasoning, and behavioral abilities, AD patients also experience respiratory disturbances. The most common respiratory problems observed in AD patients are pneumonia, shortness of breath, respiratory muscle weakness, and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The latter is considered an outcome of Alzheimer’s disease and is suggested to be a causative factor.
  • 1.4K
  • 27 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Learning-Assisted Rain Attenuation Prediction Models
Rain attenuation becomes significant to degrade the earth-space or terrestrial radio link’s signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). So, to maintain the desired SNR level, with the help of fade mitigation techniques (FMTs), it needs to control transmitted signals power considering the expected rainfall. However, since the rain event is a random phenomenon, the rain attenuation that may be experienced by a specific link is difficult to estimate. Many empirical, physical, and compound nature-based models exist in the literature to predict the expected rain attenuation. Furthermore, many optimizations and decision-making functions have become simpler since the development of the learning-assisted (LA) technique. In this work, the LA rain attenuation (LARA) model was classified based on input parameters. Besides, for comparative analysis, each of the supported frequency components of LARA models were tabulated, and an accurate contribution of each model was identified. In contrast to all the currently available LARA models, the accuracy and correlation of input-output parameters are presented. Additionally, it summarizes and discusses open research issues and challenges.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Jun 2021
Topic Review
IBM Spectrum Scale
IBM Spectrum Scale is high-performance clustered file system software developed by IBM. It can be deployed in shared-disk or shared-nothing distributed parallel modes. It is used by many of the world's largest commercial companies, as well as some of the supercomputers on the Top 500 List. For example, it was the filesystem of the ASC Purple Supercomputer which was composed of more than 12,000 processors and had 2 petabytes of total disk storage spanning more than 11,000 disks. Before 2015, Spectrum Scale was known as IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS). Like typical cluster filesystems, Spectrum Scale provides concurrent high-speed file access to applications executing on multiple nodes of clusters. It can be used with AIX 5L clusters, Linux clusters, on Microsoft Windows Server, or a heterogeneous cluster of AIX, Linux and Windows nodes. In addition to providing filesystem storage capabilities, Spectrum Scale provides tools for management and administration of the Spectrum Scale cluster and allows for shared access to file systems from remote Spectrum Scale clusters. Spectrum Scale has been available on IBM's AIX since 1998, on Linux since 2001, and on Windows Server since 2008.
  • 1.4K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Poverty
Poverty is a socio-economic condition characterized by the lack of essential resources and opportunities needed to maintain a basic standard of living. Individuals or communities experiencing poverty often face challenges in accessing necessities such as adequate nutrition, shelter, education, and healthcare, perpetuating a cycle of deprivation and limited social mobility. The measurement and understanding of poverty encompass various indicators, including income levels, employment opportunities, and overall well-being, and addressing poverty typically involves multidimensional interventions aimed at improving economic and social conditions.
  • 1.4K
  • 25 Jan 2024
Topic Review
The (Poly)Pharmacology of Cannabidiol
Cannabidiol (CBD), the major nonpsychoactive Cannabis constituent, has been proposed for the treatment of a wide panel of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, schizophrenia, epilepsy and drug addiction due to the ability of its versatile scaffold to interact with diverse molecular targets that are not restricted to the endocannabinoid system. 
  • 1.4K
  • 25 May 2021
Topic Review
Natural Gums as Oleogelators
The natural gums used as high molecular weight oleogelators are mainly polysaccharides that deliver a broad spectrum of possible utilization methods when structuring liquid fats to solid forms. The entry discusses natural gums’ structuring and gelling behaviour to capture the oil droplets and form the water/oil gelling emulsions based on their structural conformation, internal charge, and polymeric characteristics. The specific parameters and characteristics of natural gums based oleogels are also discussed. In the future, oleogels may eliminate saturated and trans fats from food products and allow the production of low-fat products, thus reducing the environmental damage caused by the excessive use of palm oil. The increasing knowledge of molecular interaction in polysaccharide chains of natural gums allows applying of more sustainable and wiser strategies towards product formulation. Innovative solutions for using oleogels based on natural polysaccharide biopolymers let incorporate them into the food matrix and replace fats completely or create blends containing the source of fats and the addition of the oleogel. The profound insight into molecular characteristics of natural gums in the function of being oleogelators is presented.
  • 1.4K
  • 07 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Amyloid Beta (Aβ) Formation
One of the prime suspects in AD pathology, β-amyloid is a major component of amyloid senile plaques derived from the proteolytic action of proteases such as β-secretase and γ-secretase on amyloid-β precursor protein (APP).
  • 1.4K
  • 30 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Discrete Global Grid
A Discrete Global Grid (DGG) is a mosaic which covers the entire Earth's surface. Mathematically it is a space partitioning: it consists of a set of non-empty regions that form a partition of the Earth’s surface. In a usual grid-modeling strategy, to simplify position calculations, each region is represented by a point, abstracting the grid as a set of region-points. Each region or region-point in the grid is called a cell. When each cell of a grid is subject to a recursive partition, resulting in a "series of discrete global grids with progressively finer resolution", forming a hierarchical grid, it is named Hierarchical DGG (sometimes "DGG system"). Discrete Global Grids are used as the geometric basis for the building of geospatial data structures. Each cell is related with data objects or values, or (in the hierarchical case) may be associated with other cells. DGGs have been proposed for use in a wide range of geospatial applications, including vector and raster location representation, data fusion, and spatial databases. The most usual grids are for horizontal position representation, using a standard datum, like WGS84. In this context is commom also to use a specific DGG as foundation for geocoding standardization. In the context of a spatial index, a DGG can assign unique identifiers to each grid cell, using it for spatial indexing purposes, in geodatabases or for geocoding.
  • 1.4K
  • 03 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Smartwatches and Heart Rate Variability in Stress Management
In the modern world, stress has become a pervasive concern that affects individuals’ physical and mental well-being. To address this issue, many wearable devices have emerged as potential tools for stress detection and management by measuring heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and various metrics related to it. 
  • 1.4K
  • 28 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Zinc–Bromine Flow Batteries
The development of energy storage systems (ESS) has become an important area of research due to the need to replace the use of fossil fuels with clean energy. Redox flow batteries (RFBs) provide interesting features, such as the ability to separate the power and battery capacity. This is because the electrolyte tank is located outside the electrochemical cell. Consequently, it is possible to design each battery according to different needs. In this context, zinc–bromine flow batteries (ZBFBs) have shown suitable properties such as raw material availability and low battery cost. To avoid the corrosion and toxicity caused by the free bromine (Br2) generated during the charging process, it is necessary to use bromine complexing agents (BCAs) capable of creating complexes.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Glycemic Control
Experimental evidence suggests that cadmium (Cd) boosts oxidative stress that may result in toxicity on the endocrine system also in humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the glycemic control and oxidative stress markers in male adolescents with increased urinary levels of cadmium. We investigated 111 males, aged 12–14 years, living in a polluted area of Sicily and a control age-matched population (n = 60) living 28–45 km far from the polluted site. Malondialdehyde (MDA), total antioxidant activity (TAC), metallothionein-1A (MT-1A) gene expression, insulin resistance by the homeostatic model assessment (HOMA-IR), and urinary cadmium were investigated. Cd levels were significantly higher in adolescents living in the polluted area than in control age-matched subjects. Adolescents with elevated Cd levels had a significant increase in MDA, MT-1A, and HOMA-IR and reduced TAC compared to the control group. A robust correlation was found between urinary cadmium and MT-1A, HOMA-IR, and MDA whereas an inverse correlation was identified between urinary cadmium and TAC. This study indicates that cadmium burden alters glycemic control in adolescents and suggests that oxidative stress plays a key role in cadmium-induced insulin resistance, increasing the risk of developing metabolic disorders.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Integrated Treatment of Agro-industrial Waste
This document reports a synthetic description of a research work in which a new integrated treatment was defined for the production of biofuel and the recovery of phosphorus compounds from agro-industrial residues. As the first step of the proposed process, anaerobic co-digestion was carried out to produce biogas by exploiting raw waste mixtures. Afterwards, the residual digestates were converted to syngas using supercritical wet gasification (SCWG. Finally, the liquid phases from SCWG were treated to recover the phosphorus content as MgKPO4×6H2O crystals. This integrated treatment could be a suitable approach to exploit agro-wastes because it can produce biofuel and valuable chemicals and generates a residual effluent with a very low polluting load
  • 1.4K
  • 28 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Games for Diabetes Control
Finding methods to improve people’s diabetes control and management is important to prevent its complications and maintain the quality of life. The aim of this review was to assess the effect of games on the blood glucose level (glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c)). A systematic review and meta-analysis were made. Pubmed, Scopus, and CINAHL databases were consulted in July of 2020. Ten studies were selected as a final sample, most of them being clinical trials using games to improve diabetes control. Half of the studies had samples between 8 and 14.9 years old and the other half between 57 and 65 years old. The studies informed about using applications/games for mobile phones, game consoles, and board games for diabetes education and management. The meta-analysis was performed with 4 studies showing a mean difference of 0.12 (CI 95% 0.57, 0.33) of HbA1c in favor of the intervention group with p > 0.05. Games are positive for diabetes health education and promoting healthier lifestyle, but their impact on HbA1c is low.
  • 1.4K
  • 23 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Supply Chain Risk Management
Supply chain risk management is an integral function of the supply network. It faces unpredictable challenges due to nations’ economic policies and globalization, which have raised uncertainty and challenges for supply chain organizations. These significantly affect the financial performance of the organizations and the economy of a nation. 
  • 1.4K
  • 18 Jan 2021
Topic Review
CGAS in Innate Immunity
Cyclic GMP–AMP synthase (cGAS) is the synthase that generates the second messenger cyclic GMP–AMP (cGAMP) upon DNA binding. cGAS was first discovered as the cytosolic DNA sensor that detects DNA exposed in the cytoplasm either from pathogens or cellular damage. Activated cGAS instigates the signaling cascades to activate type I interferon (IFN) expression, critical for host defense and autoimmune diseases. In addition, cGAS plays a role in senescence, DNA repair, apoptosis, and tumorigenesis. Recently, various post-translational modifications (PTMs) of cGAS have been reported, such as phosphorylation, ubiquitination, acetylation, glutamylation, and sumoylation. These PTMs profoundly affect cGAS functions. Thus, here we review the recent reported PTMs of cGAS and how these PTMs regulate cGAS enzymatic activity, DNA binding, and protein stability, and discuss the potential future directions.
  • 1.4K
  • 18 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Endoscopic Transpapillary
Endoscopic transpapillary defined as all types of advanced endoscopic interventions on pancreatic or billiary ducts through the major duodenal papilla. These interventions are mainly performed during endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). Access to duodenal papilla is achieved endoscopically. After reaching the duodenal papilla in descending part of duodenum, endoscopic interventions on pancreatic or billiary ducts through duodenal papilla are being performed under fluoroscopic control.
  • 1.4K
  • 08 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Lipopolysaccharide, Inflammation and Mitochondria-Targeted Antioxidants
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the major component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, is the most abundant proinflammatory agent. Considerable evidence indicates that LPS challenge inescapably causes oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to cell and tissue damage. Increased mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) generation triggered by LPS is known to play a key role in the progression of the inflammatory response. mtROS at excessive levels impair electron transport chain functioning, reduce the mitochondrial membrane potential, and initiate lipid peroxidation and oxidative damage of mitochondrial proteins and mtDNA. Over the past 20 years, a large number of mitochondria-targeted antioxidants (mito-AOX) of different structures that can accumulate inside mitochondria and scavenge free radicals have been synthesized. Their protective role based on the prevention of oxidative stress and the restoration of mitochondrial function has been demonstrated in a variety of common diseases and pathological states.
  • 1.4K
  • 16 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Washing Damage in E-Textiles
E-textiles, hybrid products that incorporate electronic functionality into textiles, often need to withstand washing procedures to ensure textile typical usability. Yet, the washability—which is essential for many e-textile applications like medical or sports due to hygiene requirements—is often still insufficient. The influence factors for washing damage in textile integrated electronics as well as common weak points are not extensively researched, which makes a targeted approach to improve washability in e-textiles difficult. 
  • 1.4K
  • 25 May 2021
Topic Review
IL-6 Signaling in colorectal cancer onset and progression
IL-6 is a pleiotropic cytokine showing both pro- and anti-inflammatory roles.
  • 1.4K
  • 10 Dec 2021
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