Solar vapour generation (SVG) represents a promising technique for seawater desalination to alleviate the global water crisis and energy shortage. One of its main bottleneck problems is that the evaporation efficiency and stability are limited by salt crystallization under high-salinity brines. Herein, we demonstrate that the 3D porous melamine-foam (MF) wrapped by a type of self-assembling composite materials based on reduced polyoxometalates (i.e. heteropoly blue, HPB), oleic acid (OA) and polypyrrole (PPy) (labeled with MF@HPB-PPyn-OA) can serve as efficient and stable SVG material at high-salinity. Structural characterizations of MF@HPB-PPyn-OA indicate that both hydrophilic region of HPBs and hydrophobic region of OA co-exist on the surface of composite materials, optimizing the hydrophilic and hydrophobic interfaces of the SVG materials, and fully exerting its functionality for ultrahigh water-evaporation and anti-salt fouling. The optimal MF@HPB-PPy10-OA operates continuously and stably for over 100 h in 10 wt% brine. Furthermore, MF@HPB-PPy10-OA accomplishes complete salt-water separation of 10 wt% brine with 3.3 kg m-2 h-1 under 1-sun irradiation, yielding salt harvesting efficiency of 96.5%, which belongs to the record-high of high-salinity systems reported so far and reaches zero liquid discharge. Moreover, the low-cost of MF@HPB-PPy10-OA (2.56 $/m2) suggests its potential application in the practical SVG technique.

In this study, total knee arthroplasty was performed in a patient with pigmented villonodular synovitis. During surgery, severe black discoloration of the articular cartilage and menisci was observed in the patient. According to literatures, this is the first case report of severe articular cartilage pigmentation in a patient with PVNS.

This note concerns the problem of k-hop connectivity in a network of mobile agents, which is achieved if any pair of agents can communicate with each other through a link of k-1 or fewer intermediate nodes. We propose linear constraints involving binary optimization variables to ensure k-hop connectivity. Such constraints are then integrated into a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) trajectory planning model. Simulation results illustrate the application of the proposed method and the effect of varying k in the context of a mission involving the visitation of multiple targets.

Acknowledgements: On behalf of the Steering Committee of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium Initiative on Early Feasibility Studies in Cardiac Electrophysiology

Phoretic mites have been found attached to different body parts of red palm weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790), to disperse. However, the question of how the patterns of attachment sites are formed remains intriguing. Here, we conducted the first study of RPW-associated phoretic mites in Portugal, particularly in the districts of Viana do Castelo, Braga, Porto and Aveiro in Northern Portugal (macrohabitat), and investigated the patterns of mite distribution on six body parts of RPW (microhabitat). At the macrohabitat level, we detected seven phoretic mite taxa actively using RPW host in each of the four studied districts, all documented for the first time in association with this invasive exotic species in Portugal. However, their relative abundance (species evenness) varied between districts, as did species diversity. All examined weevils carried mites, and the prevalence of the different taxa did not differ between districts or sex of weevils. Measured by mean abundance and degree of aggregation, Centrouropoda sp. proved to be the common dominant taxon, while Acarus sp. and C. rhynchoporus were considered common subordinate taxa and Uroovobella sp., Mesostigmata, N. extremica and Dendrolaelaps sp. sparse taxa. At the microhabitat level, all taxa were present in all body parts of the RPW; the highest abundance was in a region encompassing the inner surface of the elytra and the membranous hind wings (subelytral space). Analysis of niche overlap revealed that the distribution patterns of phoretic mite taxa on the RPW were not randomly structured. In the subelytral space, interspecific coexistence of mites increased as a function of body size difference with the dominant Centrouropoda sp. We conclude that the distribution patterns of RPW-associated phoretic mites show body size-dependent effects that resulted in the dominant taxon displacing similar size taxa and accepting taxa with which it has the greatest size difference as co-habitants.

Background and objectives: To re-activate infuneza sentinel surveillance system in Yemen after disruption related to repurposing for COVID-19 pandemic. WHO Country Office (CO) in collaboration with Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population (MOPH&P) jointly conducted an assessment mission to assess the current situation of the influenza sentinel surveillance system and assess its capacity to detect influenza epidemics and monitor trends in circulating influenza and other respiratory viruses of epidemic and pandemic potential. This study presents the results of the assessment for three sentinel sites located in Aden, Taiz and Hadramout/Mukalla. Methodology: A mixed methods approach was used to guide the assessment process and to help achieve the objectives. Data was collected as follows: desk review of the sentinel sites records and data; interviews with stakeholders, including key informants and partners; and direct observation through field visits to the sentinel sites, MOPH&P and the Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL). Two assessment checklists were used: assessment of sentinel sites for SARI surveillance, and checklist for assessment of availability of SARI sentinel surveillance. Results and conclusion: COVID19 has affected health systems and services, and this was demonstrated in this assessment. The influenza sentinel surveillance system in Yemen is not effectively functional, however there’s plenty of room for improvement if investment in the system’s restructuring, training, building technical and laboratory capacities, and conducting continuous and regular supervision visits.

KEY POINTS 1. This is the first study to use a qualitative methodology to assess the potential advantages and disadvantages of the application of 3D endoscopes in pediatric otolaryngology surgery. 2. Open-ended, structured interviews were conducted with six pediatric Otolaryngologist operating at a tertiary pediatric centre, with a minimum one year of experience using a 3D endoscopy system. 3. Thematic analysis of the surgeon's responses identified 3D endoscopy to provide improved surgical field visualization which thus served as a valuable teaching tool. 4. The surgeons interviewed found 3D endoscopy to improve surgical outcomes in pediatric airway surgery, particularly in surgeries involving the larynx. 5. Further quantitative evaluation of patient outcomes could delineate the precise clinical role 3D endoscopy may hold in future pediatric Otolaryngology practice.

The thylakoid membrane is in a temperature-sensitive equilibrium that shifts repeatedly during the life cycle in response to ambient temperature or solar irradiance. Plants respond to seasonal temperature by changing their thylakoid lipid composition, while a more rapid mechanism for short-term heat exposure is required. The emission of the small organic molecule isoprene has been postulated as one such possible rapid mechanism. The protective mechanism of isoprene is not known, but some plants emit isoprene during periods of high-temperature stress. In this work, we investigate the dynamics and structure for lipids within a thylakoid membrane at different temperatures and varied isoprene content using classical molecular dynamics simulations. The results are compared with experimental findings from across the literature for temperature-dependent changes in the lipid composition and shape of thylakoids. We find that the surface area, volume, and flexibility of the membrane, as well as the lipid diffusion, increase with temperature, while the membrane thickness decreases. Saturated thylakoid 34:3 glycolipids derived from eukaryotic synthesis pathways exhibit significantly different dynamics than lipids from prokaryotic synthesis paths, which could explain the upregulation of specific lipid synthesis pathways at different temperatures. Increasing isoprene concentration was not observed to have a significant thermoprotective effect on the thylakoid membranes, and that isoprene readily permeated the membrane models tested here.

In this paper, a low power transconductor-capacitor (Gm-C) filter with programmable cutoff frequency is designed for electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and surface electromyography (sEMG) biosignals. The second order Butterworth low pass filter (LPF) is designed as an interface between an instrumentation amplifier (IA) and analog to digital converter (ADC). The proposed Gm-C filter suppresses out of band components and also plays anti-aliasing role. With the variable transconductance based on flipped voltage follower (FVF), the cutoff frequencies of 100 Hz, 560 Hz, and 1.5 kHz are obtained for EEG, ECG, and sEMG, respectively. This structure has highly accurate by using a robust and low power common mode feedback (CMFB). With 0.8 V supply voltage, the total power consumption of the filter is only 56 nW, 100 nW, and 221 nW for cutoff frequencies of 100 Hz, 560 Hz, and 1.5 kHz, respectively. The proposed Gm-C filter is simulated in TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology and occupies an area of 0.12 mm2. The figure of merit (FOM) of the proposed filter is equal to 1.9 pW/pole.

GPR84 is an understudied rhodopsin-like class A G protein-coupled receptor which is arousing particular interest from a therapeutic perspective. Not least this reflects that gpr84 expression is significantly up-regulated following acute inflammatory stimuli and in inflammatory diseases and that receptor activation plays a role in regulating pro-inflammatory responses and migration of cells of the innate immune system such as neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages and microglia. Although most physiological responses of GPR84 reflect receptor coupling to Gαi/o G-proteins, several studies indicate that agonist-activated GPR84 can also recruit arrestin adaptor proteins and this regulates receptor internalisation and desensitisation. To date, very little is known on the patterns of GPR84 phosphorylation and how these might control these processes. Here, we consider what is known on the molecular basis of GPR84 signalling with a focus on how GRK-mediated phosphorylation regulates arrestin protein recruitment and receptor function.

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) has some life-threatening extrahepatic complications, such as acute acalculous cholecystitis (AAC). We herein reported a HAV-induced AAC case in a young female, who developed acute liver failure (ALF) during the course of her disease and preform a literature review.

The patient is a 33-year-old Iranian woman without a significant past medical history with the full range of narcolepsy symptoms that started within two weeks after her recovery from COVID-19. Sleep studies revealed increased sleep latency and three sleep-onset rapid eye movement events, compatible with a narcolepsy-cataplexy diagnosis.

A 64-year-old man presented with asymmetric paresthesia and subsequent weakness of his feet and a 10-kg weight loss over 40 days. Electrodiagnostic studies revealed distal axonal sensory-motor polyneuropathy with ongoing axonal loss. A peroneal nerve biopsy showed intravascular proliferation of CD-20 positive lymphocytes, which suggested intravascular large B-cell lymphoma.

By constructing various Pohozaev identities, we study the uniqueness of minimizers for L 2 -subcritical inhomogeneous variational problems with spatially decaying nonlinear terms, which contain x=0 as a singular point.

In recent works, well-known three-dimensional localization methods studied in the aerospace field have been revisited for applications on multirotor aerial vehicles (MAVs). However, most of these classic methods employ stochastic estimators that are asymptotically stable, in a stochastic sense, and exhibit high sensitivity to disturbances and model uncertainties. The goal of this paper is to propose and evaluate a novel solution to the localization problem of MAVs, employing multivariable robust observers based on sliding-mode techniques. Aiming to improve on the existing methods usually based on the extended Kalman filter, this paper investigates sliding-mode techniques to reach finite-time stabilization of the estimation error and provide robustness to disturbances and uncertainties. The super-twisting algorithm (STA) is considered as a starting point for its recognized performance when used to design differentiators. In particular, a modification of the STA is proposed, replacing one of its terms with a certain time-varying function that allows the upper bound of the settling time of the resulting algorithm to be a direct adjustable parameter. The proposed algorithm’s behavior is numerically evaluated and is shown to yield the predicted properties even in the presence of bounded disturbances and uncertainties. Additionally, an attitude determination problem employing the proposed algorithm is presented as an application. The three-dimensional attitude and angular velocity of an MAV are accurately estimated under strict settling-time restrictions, using only the vector measurements provided by an accelerometer and a magnetometer.

The goal of this paper is to introduce the notion of polyconvolution for Fourier-cosine, Laplace integral operators, and its applications. The structure of this polyconvolution operator and associated integral transforms is investigated in detail. The Watson-type theorem is given, to establish necessary and sufficient conditions for this operator to be unitary on L 2 ( R ) , and to get its inverse represented in the conjugate symmetric form. The correlation between the existence of polyconvolution with some weighted spaces is shown, and Young’s type theorem, as well as the norm-inequalities in weighted space, are also obtained. As applications of the Fourier cosine–Laplace polyconvolution, the solvability in closed-form of some classes for integral equations of Toeplitz plus Hankel type and integro-differential equations of Barbashin type is also considered. Several examples are provided for illustrating the obtained results to ensure their validity and applicability.

As far as we know, this is the 51st case of Hennekam Syndrome (HS) worldwide and the first one in an African American.1 Our patient met all diagnostic criteria for HS, type 2 (FAT4 mutation), as the disease onset was in adolescence.2,3

In this paper, we prove the well-posedness of a nonlinear wave equation coupled with boundary conditions of Dirichlet and acoustic type imposed on disjoints open boundary subsets. The proposed nonlinear equation models small vertical vibrations of an elastic medium with weak internal damping and a general nonlinear term. We also prove the exponential decay of the energy associated with the problem. Our results extend the ones obtained by Frota-Goldstein [18] and Limaco-Clark-Frota-Medeiros [26] to allow weak internal dampings and removing the dimensional restriction 1≤ n≤4. The method we use is based on a finite-dimensional approach by combining the Faedo-Galerkin method with suitable energy estimates and multiplier techniques.