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Authors: Denis Jordan, Daniel Golkowski, Mathias Lukas, Katharina Merz, Caroline Mlynarcik, Max Maurer, Valentin Riedl, Stefan Foerster, Eberhard F. Kochs, Andreas Bender, Ruediger Ilg

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Introduction: So far, clinical assessments that rely on behavioral responses to differentiate coma states or even predict outcome in coma patients are unreliable, e.g. because of some patients’ motor disabilities. The present study was aimed to provide prognosis in coma patients using markers from electroencephalogram (EEG), blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). Unsuperwised principal component analysis (PCA) was used for multimodal integration of markers. Methods: Approved by the local ethics committee of the Technical University of Munich (Germany) 20 patients (aged 18-89) with severe brain damage were acquired through intensive care units at the Klinikum rechts der Isar in Munich and at the Therapiezentrum Burgau (Germany). At the day of EEG/fMRI/PET measurement (date I) patients (<3.5 month in coma) were grouped in the minimal conscious state (MCS) or vegetative state (VS) on the basis of their clinical presentation (coma recovery scale-revised, CRS-R). Follow-up assessment (date II) was also based on CRS-R in a period of 8 to 24 month after date I. At date I, 63 channel EEG (Brain Products, Gilching, Germany) was recorded outside the scanner, and subsequently simultaneous FDG-PET/fMRI was acquired on an integrated Siemens Biograph mMR 3T scanner (Siemens Healthineers, Erlangen Germany). Power spectral densities, permutation entropy (PE) and symbolic transfer entropy (STE) were calculated in/between frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital EEG channels. PE and STE are based on symbolic time series analysis and were already introduced as robust markers separating wakefulness from unconsciousness in EEG during general anesthesia. While PE quantifies the regularity structure of the neighboring order of signal values (a surrogate of cortical information processing), STE reflects information transfer between two signals (a surrogate of directed connectivity in cortical networks). fMRI was carried out using SPM12 (Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging, University of London, UK). Functional images were realigned, segmented, normalized and smoothed. PET was acquired for 45 minutes in list-mode. For absolute quantification of brain’s glucose consumption rate in FDG-PET, kinetic modelling was performed with Patlak’s plot method. BOLD signal intensity in fMRI and glucose uptake in PET was calculated in 8 distinct cortical areas. PCA was performed over all markers from EEG/fMRI/PET. Prognosis (persistent VS and deceased patients vs. recovery to MCS/awake from date I to date II) was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC) including bootstrap confidence intervals (CI, *: p<0.05). Results: Prognosis was reliably indicated by the first component of PCA (AUC=0.99*, CI=0.92-1.00) showing a higher AUC when compared to the best single markers (EEG: AUC<0.96*, fMRI: AUC<0.86*, PET: AUC<0.60). CRS-R did not show prediction (AUC=0.51, CI=0.29-0.78). Conclusion: In a multimodal analysis of EEG/fMRI/PET in coma patients, PCA lead to a reliable prognosis. The impact of this result is evident, as clinical estimates of prognosis are inapt at time and could be supported by quantitative biomarkers from EEG, fMRI and PET. Due to the small sample size, further investigations are required, in particular allowing superwised learning instead of the basic approach of unsuperwised PCA.

Keywords: coma states and prognosis, electroencephalogram, entropy, functional magnetic resonance imaging, machine learning, positron emission tomography, principal component analysis

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Authors: Agman Gupta, Rajashekar Badam, Noriyoshi Matsumi

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Introduction: Recently, silicon has been recognized as one of the potential alternatives as anode active material in Li-ion batteries (LIBs) to replace the conventionally used graphite anodes. Silicon is abundantly present in the nature, it can alloy with lithium metal, and has a higher theoretical capacity (~4200 mAhg-1) that is approximately 10 times higher than graphite. However, because of a large volume expansion (~400%) upon repeated de-/alloying, the pulverization of Si particles causes the exfoliation of electrode laminate leading to the loss of electrical contact and adversely affecting the formation of solid-electrolyte interface (SEI).1 Functional polymers as binders have emerged as a competitive strategy to mitigate these drawbacks and failure mechanism of silicon anodes.1 A variety of aqueous/non-aqueous polymer binders like sodium carboxy-methyl cellulose (CMC-Na), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), poly(acrylic acid), and other variants like mussel inspired binders have been investigated to overcome these drawbacks.1 However, there are only a few reports that mention the attempt of addressing all the drawbacks associated with silicon anodes effectively using a single novel functional polymer system as a binder. In this regard, here, we report a novel highly robust n-type bisiminoacenaphthenequinone (BIAN)-paraphenylene-based crosslinked polymer as a binder for Si anodes in lithium-ion batteries (Fig. 1). On its application, crosslinked-BIAN binder was evaluated to provide mechanical robustness to the large volume expansion of Si particles, maintain electrical conductivity within the electrode laminate, and facilitate in the formation of a thin SEI by restricting the extent of electrolyte decomposition on the surface of anode. The fabricated anodic half-cells were evaluated electrochemically for their rate capability, cyclability, and discharge capacity. Experimental: The polymerized BIAN (P-BIAN) copolymer was synthesized as per the procedure reported by our group.2 The synthesis of crosslinked P-BIAN: a solution of P-BIAN copolymer (1.497 g, 10 mmol) in N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) (150 ml) was set-up to stir under reflux in nitrogen atmosphere. To this, 1,6-dibromohexane (5 mmol, 0.77 ml) was added dropwise. The resultant reaction mixture was stirred and refluxed at 150 °C for 24 hours followed by refrigeration for 3 hours at 5 °C. The product was obtained by evaporating the NMP solvent under reduced pressure and drying under vacuum at 120 °C for 12 hours. The obtained product was a black colored sticky compound. It was characterized by 1H-NMR, XPS, and FT-IR techniques. Results and Discussion: The N 1s XPS spectrum of the crosslinked BIAN polymer showed two characteristic peaks corresponding to the sp2 hybridized nitrogen (-C=N-) at 399.6 eV of the diimine backbone in the BP and quaternary nitrogen at 400.7 eV corresponding to the crosslinking of BP via dibromohexane. The DFT evaluation of the crosslinked BIAN binder showed that it has a low lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) that enables it to get doped in the reducing environment and influence the formation of a thin (SEI). Therefore, due to the mechanically robust crosslinked matrices as well as its influence on the formation of a thin SEI, the crosslinked BIAN binder stabilized the Si anode-based half-cell for over 1000 cycles with a reversible capacity of ~2500 mAhg-1 and ~99% capacity retention as shown in Fig. 2. The dynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (DEIS) characterization of crosslinked BIAN-based anodic half-cell confirmed that the SEI formed was thin in comparison with the conventional binder-based anodes. Acknowledgement: We are thankful to the financial support provided by JST-Mirai Program, Grant Number: JP18077239

Keywords: self-healing binder, n-type binder, thin solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI), high-capacity silicon anodes, low-LUMO

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Authors: Sandhya Manjunath

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The World Association for Sport Management (WASM) was established in 2012, and its mission is "to facilitate sport management research, teaching, and learning excellence and professional practice worldwide". As the field of sport management evolves, it have seen increasing globalization of not only the sport product but many educators have also internationalized courses and curriculums. Curricula should reflect globally recognized issues and disseminate specific intercultural knowledge, skills, and practices, but regional disparities still exist. For example, while India has some of the most ardent sports fans and events in the world, sport management education programs and the development of a proper curriculum in India are still in their nascent stages, especially in comparison to the United States and Europe. Using the extant literature on professionalization and institutional theory, this study aims to investigate the source of knowledge and professionalism of sports managers in India with limited sport management education programs and to subsequently develop a conceptual framework that addresses any gaps or disparities across regions. This study will contribute to WASM's (2022) mission statement of research practice worldwide, specifically to fill the existing disparities between regions. Additionally, this study may emphasize the value of higher education among professionals entering the workforce in the sport industry. Most importantly, this will be a pioneer study highlighting the social issue of limited sport management higher education programs in India and improving professional research practices. Sport management became a field of study in the 1980s, and scholars have studied its professionalization since this time. Dowling, Edwards, & Washington (2013) suggest that professionalization can be categorized into three broad categories of organizational, systemic, and occupational professionalization. However, scant research has integrated the concept of professionalization with institutional theory. A comprehensive review of the literature reveals that sports industry research is progressing in every country worldwide at its own pace. However, there is very little research evidence about the Indian sports industry and the country's limited higher education sport management programs. A growing need exists for sports scholars to pursue research in developing countries like India to develop theoretical frameworks and academic instruments to evaluate the current standards of qualified professionals in sport management, sport marketing, venue and facilities management, sport governance, and development-related activities. This study may postulate a model highlighting the value of higher education in sports management. Education stakeholders include governments, sports organizations and their representatives, educational institutions, and accrediting bodies. As these stakeholders work collaboratively in developed countries like the United States and Europe and developing countries like India, they simultaneously influence the professionalization (i.e., organizational, systemic, and occupational) of sport management education globally. The results of this quantitative study will investigate the current standards of education in India and the source of knowledge among industry professionals. Sports industry professionals will be randomly selected to complete the COSM survey on PsychData and rate their perceived knowledge and professionalism on a Likert scale. Additionally, they will answer questions involving their competencies, experience, or challenges in contributing to Indian sports management research. Multivariate regression will be used to measure the degree to which the various independent variables impact the current knowledge, contribution to research, and professionalism of India's sports industry professionals. This quantitative study will contribute to the limited academic literature available to Indian sports practitioners. Additionally, it shall synthesize knowledge from previous work on professionalism and institutional knowledge, providing a springboard for new research that will fill the existing knowledge gaps. While a further empirical investigation is warranted, our conceptualization contributes to and highlights India's burgeoning sport management industry.

Keywords: sport management, professionalism, source of knowledge, higher education, India

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Authors: Isabelle Barrett

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Natural watercourses provide a range of vital ecosystem services, notably freshwater provision. They also offer highly heterogeneous habitat which supports an extreme diversity of aquatic life. Exploitation of rivers, changing land use and flood prevention measures have led to habitat degradation and subsequent biodiversity loss; indeed, freshwater species currently face a disproportionate rate of extinction compared to their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Large woody debris (LWD) encompasses the trees, large branches and logs which fall into watercourses, and is responsible for important habitat characteristics. Historically, natural LWD has been removed from streams under the assumption that it is not aesthetically pleasing and is thus ecologically unfavourable, despite extensive evidence contradicting this. Restoration efforts aim to replace lost LWD in order to reinstate habitat heterogeneity. This paper aims to assess the current state of such restoration schemes for improving fluvial ecological health in the UK. A detailed review of the scientific literature was conducted alongside a meta-analysis of 25 UK-based projects involving LWD restoration. Projects were chosen for which sufficient information was attainable for analysis, covering a broad range of budgets and scales. The most effective strategies for river restoration encompass ecological success, stakeholder engagement and scientific advancement, however few projects surveyed showed sensitivity to all three; for example, only 32% of projects stated biological aims. Focus tended to be on stakeholder engagement and public approval, since this is often a key funding driver. Consequently, there is a tendency to focus on the aesthetic outcomes of a project, however physical habitat restoration does not necessarily lead to direct biodiversity increases. This highlights the significance of rivers as highly heterogeneous environments with multiple interlinked processes, and emphasises a need for a stronger scientific presence in project planning. Poor scientific rigour means monitoring is often lacking, with varying, if any, definitions of success which are rarely pre-determined. A tendency to overlook negative or neutral results was apparent, with unjustified focus often put on qualitative results. The temporal scale of monitoring is typically inadequate to facilitate scientific conclusions, with only 20% of projects surveyed reporting any pre-restoration monitoring. Furthermore, monitoring is often limited to a few variables, with biotic monitoring often fish-focussed. Due to their longer life cycles and dispersal capability, fish are usually poor indicators of environmental change, making it difficult to attribute any changes in ecological health to restoration efforts. Although the potential impact of LWD restoration may be positive, this method of restoration could simply be making short-term, small-scale improvements; without addressing the underlying symptoms of degradation, for example water quality, the issue cannot be fully resolved. Promotion of standardised monitoring for LWD projects could help establish a deeper understanding of the ecology surrounding the practice, supporting movement towards adaptive management in which scientific evidence feeds back to practitioners, enabling the design of more efficient projects with greater ecological success. By highlighting LWD, this study hopes to address the difficulties faced within river management, and emphasise the need for a more holistic international and inter-institutional approach to tackling problems associated with degradation.

Keywords: biological monitoring, ecological health, large woody debris, river management, river restoration

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Authors: Liane J. Ioannou, Jonathan Serpell, Cino Bendinelli, David Walters, Jenny Gough, Dean Lisewski, Win Meyer-Rochow, Julie Miller, Duncan Topliss, Bill Fleming, Stephen Farrell, Andrew Kiu, James Kollias, Mark Sywak, Adam Aniss, Linda Fenton, Danielle Ghusn, Simon Harper, Aleksandra Popadich, Kate Stringer, David Watters, Susannah Ahern

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BACKGROUND: There are significant variations in the management, treatment and outcomes of thyroid cancer, particularly in the role of: diagnostic investigation and pre-treatment scanning; optimal extent of surgery (total or hemi-thyroidectomy); use of active surveillance for small low-risk cancers; central lymph node dissections (therapeutic or prophylactic); outcomes following surgery (e.g. recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy, hypocalcaemia, hypoparathyroidism); post-surgical hormone, calcium and vitamin D therapy; and provision and dosage of radioactive iodine treatment. A proven strategy to reduce variations in the outcome and to improve survival is to measure and compare it using high-quality clinical registry data. Clinical registries provide the most effective means of collecting high-quality data and are a tool for quality improvement. Where they have been introduced at a state or national level, registries have become one of the most clinically valued tools for quality improvement. To benchmark clinical care, clinical quality registries require systematic measurement at predefined intervals and the capacity to report back information to participating clinical units. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to develop a core set clinical indicators that enable measurement and reporting of quality of care for patients with thyroid cancer. We hypothesise that measuring clinical quality indicators, developed to identify differences in quality of care across sites, will reduce variation and improve patient outcomes and survival, thereby lessening costs and healthcare burden to the Australian community. METHOD: Preparatory work and scoping was conducted to identify existing high quality, clinical guidelines and best practice for thyroid cancer both nationally and internationally, as well as relevant literature. A bi-national panel was invited to participate in a modified Delphi process. Panelists were asked to rate each proposed indicator on a Likert scale of 1–9 in a three-round iterative process. RESULTS: A total of 236 potential quality indicators were identified. One hundred and ninety-two indicators were removed to reflect the data capture by the Australian and New Zealand Thyroid Cancer Registry (ANZTCR) (from diagnosis to 90-days post-surgery). The remaining 44 indicators were presented to the panelists for voting. A further 21 indicators were later added by the panelists bringing the total potential quality indicators to 65. Of these, 21 were considered the most important and feasible indicators to measure quality of care in thyroid cancer, of which 12 were recommended for inclusion in the final set. The consensus indicator set spans the spectrum of care, including: preoperative; surgery; surgical complications; staging and post-surgical treatment planning; and post-surgical treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a core set of quality indicators to measure quality of care in thyroid cancer. This indicator set can be applied as a tool for internal quality improvement, comparative quality reporting, public reporting and research. Inclusion of these quality indicators into monitoring databases such as clinical quality registries will enable opportunities for benchmarking and feedback on best practice care to clinicians involved in the management of thyroid cancer.

Keywords: clinical registry, Delphi survey, quality indicators, quality of care

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Authors: Savvas Rogotis, Nikolaos Kalatzis, Stergios Dimou-Sakellariou, Nikolaos Marianos

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As precision holds the key for the introduction of distinct benefits in agriculture (e.g., energy savings, reduced labor costs, optimal application of inputs, improved products, and yields), it steadily becomes evident that new initiatives should focus on rendering Precision Agriculture (PA) more accessible to the average farmer. PA leverages on technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), earth observation, robotics and positioning systems (e.g., the Global Navigation Satellite System – GNSS - as well as individual positioning systems like GPS, Glonass, Galileo) that allow: from simple data georeferencing to optimal navigation of agricultural machinery to even more complex tasks like Variable Rate Applications. An identified customer pain point is that, from one hand, typical triangulation-based positioning systems are not accurate enough (with errors up to several meters), while on the other hand, high precision positioning systems reaching centimeter-level accuracy, are very costly (up to thousands of euros). Within this paper, a Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) is introduced, that can be adapted to any existing IoT field-sensing station infrastructure. The latter should cover a minimum set of requirements, and in particular, each station should operate as a fixed, obstruction-free towards the sky, energy supplying unit. Station augmentation will allow them to function in pairs with GNSS rovers following the differential GNSS base-rover paradigm. This constitutes a key innovation element for the proposed solution that encompasses differential GNSS capabilities into an IoT field-sensing infrastructure. Integrating this kind of information supports the provision of several additional PA beneficial services such as spatial mapping, route planning, and automatic field navigation of unmanned vehicles (UVs). Right at the heart of the designed system, there is a high-end GNSS toolkit with base-rover variants and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) capabilities. The GNSS toolkit had to tackle all availability, performance, interfacing, and energy-related challenges that are faced for a real-time, low-power, and reliable in the field operation. Specifically, in terms of performance, preliminary findings exhibit a high rover positioning precision that can even reach less than 10-centimeters. As this precision is propagated to the full dataset collection, it enables tractors, UVs, Android-powered devices, and measuring units to deal with challenging real-world scenarios. The system is validated with the help of Gaiatrons, a mature network of agro-climatic telemetry stations with presence all over Greece and beyond ( > 60.000ha of agricultural land covered) that constitutes part of “gaiasense” (www.gaiasense.gr) smart farming (SF) solution. Gaiatrons constantly monitor atmospheric and soil parameters, thus, providing exact fit to operational requirements asked from modern SF infrastructures. Gaiatrons are ultra-low-cost, compact, and energy-autonomous stations with a modular design that enables the integration of advanced GNSS base station capabilities on top of them. A set of demanding pilot demonstrations has been initiated in Stimagka, Greece, an area with a diverse geomorphological landscape where grape cultivation is particularly popular. Pilot demonstrations are in the course of validating the preliminary system findings in its intended environment, tackle all technical challenges, and effectively highlight the added-value offered by the system in action.

Keywords: GNSS, GBAS, precision agriculture, RTK, smart farming

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Authors: Teesta Dey

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Integrated Transport development with proper traffic management leads to sustainable growth of any urban sphere. Appropriate mass transport planning is essential for the populous cities in third world countries like India. The exponential growth of motor vehicles with unplanned road network is now the common feature of major urban centres in India. Kolkata, the third largest mega city in India, is not an exception of it. The imbalance between demand and supply of unplanned transport services in this city is manifested in the high economic and environmental costs borne by the associated society. With the passage of time, the growth and extent of passenger demand for rapid urban transport has outstripped proper infrastructural planning and causes severe transport problems in the overall urban realm. Hence Kolkata stands out in the world as one of the most crisis-ridden metropolises. The urban transport crisis of this city involves severe traffic congestion, the disparity in mass transport services on changing peripheral land uses, route overlapping, lowering of travel speed and faulty implementation of governmental plans as mostly induced by rapid growth of private vehicles on limited road space with huge carbon footprint. Therefore the paper will critically analyze the extant road network pattern for improving regional connectivity and accessibility, assess the degree of congestion, identify the deviation from demand and supply balance and finally evaluate the emerging alternate transport options as promoted by the government. For this purpose, linear, nodal and spatial transport network have been assessed based on certain selected indices viz. Road Degree, Traffic Volume, Shimbel Index, Direct Bus Connectivity, Average Travel and Waiting Tine Indices, Route Variety, Service Frequency, Bus Intensity, Concentration Analysis, Delay Rate, Quality of Traffic Transmission, Lane Length Duration Index and Modal Mix. Total 20 Traffic Intersection Points (TIPs) have been selected for the measurement of nodal accessibility. Critical Congestion Zones (CCZs) are delineated based on one km buffer zones of each TIP for congestion pattern analysis. A total of 480 bus routes are assessed for identifying the deficiency in network planning. Apart from bus services, the combined effects of other mass and para transit modes, containing metro rail, auto, cab and ferry services, are also analyzed. Based on systematic random sampling method, a total of 1500 daily urban passengers’ perceptions were studied for checking the ground realities. The outcome of this research identifies the spatial disparity among the 15 boroughs of the city with severe route overlapping and congestion problem. North and Central Kolkata-based mass transport services exceed the transport strength of south and peripheral Kolkata. Faulty infrastructural condition, service inadequacy, economic loss and workers’ inefficiency are the most dominant reasons behind the defective mass transport network plan. Hence there is an urgent need to revive the extant road based mass transport system of this city by implementing a holistic management approach by upgrading traffic infrastructure, designing new roads, better cooperation among different mass transport agencies, better coordination of transport and changing land use policies, large increase in funding and finally general passengers’ awareness.

Keywords: carbon footprint, critical congestion zones, direct bus connectivity, integrated transport development

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Authors: G. Senoga, D. Nakimuli, B. Ndagire, B. Lukwago, D. Kyamagwa

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Background: The COVID-19 epidemic affected the education sector, with some private schools closing while other children missed schooling for fear contracting COVID-19. Post COVID-19, PSIU in collaborated with Kampala City Council Authority Directorate of Education and Social Science, Water and Sanitation department, and Directorate of Public Health and Environment to improve sanitation and hygiene among pupils and staff in 50 public and private school system in Kampala city. The “Be Clean, Stay Healthy Campaign” used a behavioral change approach in educating, reinforcing and engaging learners on proper hand washing behaviors, proper toilet usage and garbage disposal. In April 2022, 40 Washa lots were constructed, to reduce the pupil - hand wash station ratio; distributed KCCA approved printed materials; oriented 50 teachers, WASH committees to execute and implement hygiene promotion. To ensure sustainability, WASH messages were memorized and practiced through hand washing songs, Pledge, prayer, Poems, Skits, Music, dance and drama, coupled with participatory, practical demonstrations using peer to peer approach, guest speakers at assemblies and in classes. This improved hygiene and sanitation practices. Premised on this, PSI conducted an end line assessment to explore the impact of a hand washing campaign in regards to improvements in hand washing practices and hand hygiene among pupils, accessibility, functionality and usage of the constructed hygiene and sanitation facilities. Method: A cross-sectional post intervention assessment using a mixed methods approach, targeting headteachers, wash committee members and pupils less <17 years was used. Quantitative approaches with a mix of open-ended questions were used in purposively selected respondents in 50 schools. Primary three to primary seven pupils were randomly selected, data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) Outcomes and Findings: 46,989 pupils (51% female), 1,127 and 524 teaching and non-teaching staff were reached by the intervention, respectively. 96% of schools trained on sanitation, sustainable water usage and hygiene constituted 17-man school WASH committees with teacher, parents and pupils representatives. (31%) of the WASH committees developed workplans, (78%) held WASH meetings monthly. This resulted into improved sanitation, water usage, waste management, proper use of toilets, and improved pupils’ health with reduced occurrences of stomach upsets, diarrhoea initially attributed to improper use of latrines and general waste management. Teachers reported reduced number of school absenteeism due to improved hygiene and general waste management at school, especially proper management of sanitary pads. School administrations response rate in purchase of hygiene equipment’s and detergents like soap improved. Regular WASH meetings in classes, teachers and community supervision ensured WASH facilities are used appropriately. Conclusion and Recommendations: Practical behaviour change innovations improves pupil’s knowledge and understanding of hygiene messages and usage. Over 70% of pupils had clear recall of key WASH Messages. There is need for continuous water flow in the Washa lots, harvesting rain water would reduce water bills while complementing National water supply coupled with increasing on Washa lots in densely populated schools.

Keywords: handwashing, hygyiene, sanitation, behaviour change

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Authors: Piotr K. Szewczyk, Arkadiusz Gradys, Sungkyun Kim, Luana Persano, Mateusz M. Marzec, Oleksander Kryshtal, Andrzej Bernasik, Sohini Kar-Narayan, Pawel Sajkiewicz, Urszula Stachewicz

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Piezoelectric polymers have received great attention in smart textiles, wearables, and flexible electronics. Their potential applications range from devices that could operate without traditional power sources, through self-powering sensors, up to implantable biosensors. Semi-crystalline PVDF is often proposed as the main candidate for industrial-scale applications as it exhibits exceptional energy harvesting efficiency compared to other polymers combined with high mechanical strength and thermal stability. Plenty of approaches have been proposed for obtaining PVDF rich in the desired β-phase with electric polling, thermal annealing, and mechanical stretching being the most prevalent. Electrospinning is a highly tunable technique that provides a one-step process of obtaining highly piezoelectric PVDF fibers without the need for post-treatment. In this study, voltage polarity and relative humidity influence on electrospun PVDF, fibers were investigated with the main focus on piezoelectric β-phase contents and piezoelectric performance. Morphology and internal structure of fibers were investigated using scanning (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy techniques (TEM). Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FITR), wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to characterize the phase composition of electrospun PVDF. Additionally, surface chemistry was verified with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Piezoelectric performance of individual electrospun PVDF fibers was measured using piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), and the power output from meshes was analyzed via custom-built equipment. To prepare the solution for electrospinning, PVDF pellets were dissolved in dimethylacetamide and acetone solution in a 1:1 ratio to achieve a 24% solution. Fibers were electrospun with a constant voltage of +/-15kV applied to the stainless steel nozzle with the inner diameter of 0.8mm. The flow rate was kept constant at 6mlh⁻¹. The electrospinning of PVDF was performed at T = 25°C and relative humidity of 30 and 60% for PVDF30+/- and PVDF60+/- samples respectively in the environmental chamber. The SEM and TEM analysis of fibers produced at a lower relative humidity of 30% (PVDF30+/-) showed a smooth surface in opposition to fibers obtained at 60% relative humidity (PVDF60+/-), which had wrinkled surface and additionally internal voids. XPS results confirmed lower fluorine content at the surface of PVDF- fibers obtained by electrospinning with negative voltage polarity comparing to the PVDF+ obtained with positive voltage polarity. Changes in surface composition measured with XPS were found to influence the piezoelectric performance of obtained fibers what was further confirmed by PFM as well as by custom-built fiber-based piezoelectric generator. For PVDF60+/- samples humidity led to an increase of β-phase contents in PVDF fibers as confirmed by FTIR, WAXS, and DSC measurements, which showed almost two times higher concentrations of β-phase. A combination of negative voltage polarity with high relative humidity led to fibers with the highest β-phase contents and the best piezoelectric performance of all investigated samples. This study outlines the possibility to produce electrospun PVDF fibers with tunable piezoelectric performance in a one-step electrospinning process by controlling relative humidity and voltage polarity conditions. Acknowledgment: This research was conducted within the funding from m the Sonata Bis 5 project granted by National Science Centre, No 2015/18/E/ST5/00230, and supported by the infrastructure at International Centre of Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (IC-EM) at AGH University of Science and Technology. The PFM measurements were supported by an STSM Grant from COST Action CA17107.

Keywords: crystallinity, electrospinning, PVDF, voltage polarity

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Authors: Mehmet Salih Bayraktutan

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Geomechanical properties of Rock Salt Deposits in Tuzluca Salt Mine Area (Eastern Turkey) are studied for modeling the operation- excavation strategy. The purpose of this research focused on calculating the critical value of span height- which will meet the safety requirements. The Mine Site Tuzluca Hills consist of alternating parallel bedding of Salt ( NaCl ) and Gypsum ( CaS04 + 2 H20) rocks. Rock Salt beds are more resistant than narrow Gypsum interlayers. Rock Salt beds formed almost 97 percent of the total height of the Hill. Therefore, the geotechnical safety of Galleries depends on the mechanical criteria of Rock Salt Cores. General deposition of Tuzluca Basin was finally completed by Tuzluca Evaporites, as for the uppermost stratigraphic unit. They are currently running mining operations performed by classic mechanical excavation, room and pillar method. Rooms and Pillars are currently experiencing an initial stage of fracturing in places. Geotechnical safety of the whole mining area evaluated by Rock Mass Rating (RMR), Rock Quality Designation (RQD) spacing of joints, and the interaction of groundwater and fracture system. In general, bedded rock salt Show large lateral deformation capacity (while deformation modulus stays in relative small values, here E= 9.86 GPa). In such litho-stratigraphic environments, creep is a critical mechanism in failure. Rock Salt creep rate in steady-state is greater than interbedding layers. Under long-lasted compressive stresses, creep may cause shear displacements, partly using bedding planes. Eventually, steady-state creep in time returns to accelerated stages. Uniaxial compression creep tests on specimens were performed to have an idea of rock salt strength. To give an idea, on Rock Salt cores, average axial strength and strain are found as 18 - 24 MPa and 0.43-0.45 %, respectively. Uniaxial Compressive strength of 26- 32 MPa, from bedded rock salt cores. Elastic modulus is comparatively low, but lateral deformation of the rock salt is high under the uniaxial compression stress state. Poisson ratio = 0.44, break load = 156 kN, cohesion c= 12.8 kg/cm2, specific gravity SG=2.17 gr/cm3. Fracture System; spacing of fractures, joints, faults, offsets are evaluated under acting geodynamic mechanism. Two sand beds, each 4-6 m thick, exist near to upper level and at the top of the evaporating sequence. They act as aquifers and keep infiltrated water on top for a long duration, which may result in the failure of roofs or pillars. Two major active seismic ( N30W and N70E ) striking Fault Planes and parallel fracture strands have seismically triggered moderate risk of structural deformation of rock salt bedding sequence. Earthquakes and Floods are two prevailing sources of geohazards in this region—the seismotectonic activity of the Mine Site based on the crossing framework of Kagizman Faults and Igdir Faults. Dominant Hazard Risk sources include; a) Weak mechanical properties of rock salt, gypsum, anhydrite beds-creep. b) Physical discontinuities cutting across the thick parallel layers of Evaporite Mass, c) Intercalated beds of weak cemented or loose sand, clayey sandy sediments. On the other hand, absorbing the effects of salt-gyps parallel bedded deposits on seismic wave amplitudes has a reducing effect on the Rock Mass.

Keywords: bedded rock salt, creep, failure mechanism, geotechnical safety

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Authors: Kyriaki Hatziagapiou, Eleni Kakouri, Konstantinos Bethanis, Alexandra Nikola, Eleni Koniari, Charalabos Kanakis, Elias Christoforides, George Lambrou, Petros Tarantilis

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Medulloblastoma is a highly invasive tumour, as it tends to disseminate throughout the central nervous system early in its course. Despite the high 5-year-survival rate, a significant number of patients demonstrate serious long- or short-term sequelae (e.g., myelosuppression, endocrine dysfunction, cardiotoxicity, neurological deficits and cognitive impairment) and higher mortality rates, unrelated to the initial malignancy itself but rather to the aggressive treatment. A strong rationale exists for the use of Crocus sativus L (saffron) and its bioactive constituents (crocin, crocetin, safranal) as pharmaceutical agents, as they exert significant health-promoting properties. Crocins are water soluble carotenoids. Unlike other carotenoids, crocins are highly water-soluble compounds, with relatively low toxicity as they are not stored in adipose and liver tissues. Crocins have attracted wide attention as promising anti-cancer agents, due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory effects, interference with transduction pathways implicated in tumorigenesis, angiogenesis, and metastasis (disruption of mitotic spindle assembly, inhibition of DNA topoisomerases, cell-cycle arrest, apoptosis or cell differentiation) and sensitization of cancer cells to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The current research aimed to study the potential cytotoxic effect of crocins on TE671 medulloblastoma cell line, which may be useful in the optimization of existing and development of new therapeutic strategies. Crocins were extracted from stigmas of saffron in ultrasonic bath, using petroleum-ether, diethylether and methanol 70%v/v as solvents and the final extract was lyophilized. Identification of crocins according to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis was determined comparing the UV-vis spectra and the retention time (tR) of the peaks with literature data. For the biological assays crocin was diluted to nuclease and protease free water. TE671 cells were incubated with a range of concentrations of crocins (16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 0.5 and 0.25 mg/ml) for 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours. Analysis of cell viability after incubation with crocins was performed with Alamar Blue viability assay. The active ingredient of Alamar Blue, resazurin, is a blue, nontoxic, cell permeable compound virtually nonfluorescent. Upon entering cells, resazurin is reduced to a pink and fluorescent molecule, resorufin. Viable cells continuously convert resazurin to resorufin, generating a quantitative measure of viability. The colour of resorufin was quantified by measuring the absorbance of the solution at 600 nm with a spectrophotometer. HPLC analysis indicated that the most abundant crocins in our extract were trans-crocin-4 and trans-crocin-3. Crocins exerted significant cytotoxicity in a dose and time-dependent manner (p < 0.005 for exposed cells to any concentration at 48, 72 and 96 hours versus cells not exposed); as their concentration and time of exposure increased, the reduction of resazurin to resofurin decreased, indicating reduction in cell viability. IC50 values for each time point were calculated ~3.738, 1.725, 0.878 and 0.7566 mg/ml at 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours, respectively. The results of our study could afford the basis of research regarding the use of natural carotenoids as anticancer agents and the shift to targeted therapy with higher efficacy and limited toxicity. Acknowledgements: The research was funded by Fellowships of Excellence for Postgraduate Studies IKY-Siemens Programme.

Keywords: crocetin, crocin, medulloblastoma, saffron

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Authors: Xu Fei (Philip) WU

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As waste recycling concept been accepted more and more in modern societies, the organic portion of the municipal waste become a sires issue in today’s life. Depend on location and season, the organic waste can bee anywhere between 40-65% of total municipal solid waste. Also composting and anaerobic digestion technologies been applied in this field for years, however both process have difficulties been selected by economical and environmental factors. Beside environmental pollution and risk of virus spread, the compost is not a product been welcomed by people even the waste management has to give up them at no cost. The anaerobic digester has to have 70% of water and keep at 35 degree C or above; base on above conditions, the retention time only can be up to two weeks and remain solid has to be dewater and composting again. The enhancive waste water treatment has to be added after. Because these reasons, the voice of suggesting cancelling recycling program and turning all waste to mass burn incinerations have been raised-A process has already been proved has least energy efficiency and most air pollution problem associated process. A newly developed WXF Bio-energy process employs recently developed and patented pre-designed separation, multi-layer and multi-cavity successive bioreactor landfill technology. It features an improved leachate recycling technology, technologies to maximize the biogas generation rate and a reduced overall turnaround period on the land. A single properly designed and operated site can be used indefinitely. In this process, all collected biogas will be processed to eliminate H2S and other hazardous gases. The methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen will be utilized in a proprietary process to manufacture methanol which can be sold to mitigate operating costs of the landfill. This integration of new processes offers a more advanced alternative to current sanitary landfill, incineration and compost technology. Xu Fei (Philip) Wu Xu Fei Wu is founder and Chief Scientist of W&Y Environmental International Inc. (W & Y), a Canadian environmental and sustainable energy technology company with patented landfill processes and proprietary waste to energy technologies. He has worked in environmental and sustainable energy fields over the last 25 years. Before W&Y, he worked for Conestoga-Rovers & Associates Limited, Microbe Environmental Science and Technology Inc. of Canada and The Ministry of Nuclear Industry and Ministry of Space Flight Industry of China. Xu Fei Wu holds a Master of Engineering Science degree from The University of Western Ontario. I wish present this paper as an oral presentation only Selected Conference Presentations: • “Removal of Phenolic Compounds with Algae” Presented at 25th Canadian Symposium on Water Pollution Research (CAWPRC Conference), Burlington, Ontario Canada. February, 1990 • “Removal of Phenolic Compounds with Algae” Presented at Annual Conference of Pollution Control Association of Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. April, 1990 • “Removal of Organochlorine Compounds in a Flocculated Algae Photo-Bioreactor” Presented at International Symposium on Low Cost and Energy Saving Wastewater Treatment Technologies (IAWPRC Conference), Kiyoto, Japan, August, 1990 • “Maximizing Production and Utilization of Landfill Gas” 2009 Wuhan International Conference on Environment(CAWPRC Conference, sponsored by US EPA) Wuhan, China. October, 2009. • “WXF Bio-Energy-A Green, Sustainable Waste to Energy Process” Presented at 9Th International Conference Cooperation for Waste Issues, Kharkiv, Ukraine March, 2012 • “A Lannfill Site Can Be Recycled Indefinitely” Presented at 28th International Conference on solid Waste Technology and Management, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. March, 2013. Hosted by The Journal of Solid Waste Technology and Management.

Keywords: green fuel, waste management, bio-energy, sustainable development, methanol

Procedia PDF Downloads 279

Authors: Waqas Abrar

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Background: Pakistan is confronted with a formidable challenge to increase uptake of modern contraceptive methods. USAID, through its flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), in Pakistan is determined to support provincial Departments of Health and Population Welfare to increase the country's contraceptive prevalence rates (CPR) in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan to achieve FP2020 goals. To inform program design and planning, a Rapid Situation Assessment (RSA) of family planning was carried out in Rawalpindi and Lahore districts in Punjab and Karachi district in Sindh. Methodology: The methodology consisted of comprehensive desk review of available literature and used a qualitative approach comprising of in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs). FGDs were conducted with community women, men, and mothers-in-law whereas IDIs were conducted with health facility in-charges/chiefs, healthcare providers, and community health workers. Results: Some of the oft-quoted reasons captured during desk review included poor quality of care at public sector facilities, affordability and accessibility in rural communities and providers' technical incompetence. Moreover, providers had inadequate knowledge of contraceptive methods and lacked counseling techniques; thereby, leading to dissatisfied clients and hence, discontinuation of contraceptive methods. These dissatisfied clients spread the myths and misconceptions about contraceptives in their respective communities which seriously damages community-level family planning efforts. Private providers were found reluctant to insert Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices (IUCDs) due to inadequate knowledge vis-à-vis post insertion issues/side effects. FGDs and IDIs unveiled multi-faceted reasons for poor contraceptives uptake. It was found that low education and socio-economic levels lead to low contraceptives uptake and mostly uneducated women rely on condoms provided by Lady Health Workers (LHWs). Providers had little or no knowledge about postpartum family planning or lactational amenorrhea. At community level family planning counseling sessions organized by LHWs and Male Mobilizers do not sensitize community men on permissibility of contraception in Islam. Many women attributed their physical ailments to the use of contraceptives. Lack of in-service training, job-aids and Information, Education and Communications (IEC) materials at facilities seriously comprise the quality of care in effective family planning service delivery. This is further compounded by frequent stock-outs of contraceptives at public healthcare facilities, poor data quality, false reporting, lack of data verification systems and follow-up. Conclusions: Some key conclusions from this assessment included capacity building of healthcare providers on long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) which give women contraception for a longer period. Secondly, capacity building of healthcare providers on postpartum family planning is an enormous challenge that can be best addressed through institutionalization. Thirdly, Providers should be equipped with counseling skills and techniques including inculcation of pros and cons of all contraceptive methods. Fourthly, printed materials such as job-aids and Information, Education and Communications (IEC) materials should be disseminated among healthcare providers and clients. These concluding statements helped MCSP to make informed decisions with regard to setting broad objectives of project and were duly approved by USAID.

Keywords: capacity building, contraceptive prevalence rate, family planning, Institutionalization, Pakistan, postpartum care, postpartum family planning services

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Authors: Chau So Ling

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I.INTRODUCTION: Educators have always been interested in exploring factors that contribute to students’ academic success. It is beyond question that language, as a medium of instruction, will affect student learning. This paper tries to investigate whether language is a crucial factor in determining students’ achievement in their studies. II. BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY: The issue of using English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong is a special topic because Hong Kong is a post-colonial and international city which a British colony. In such a specific language environment, researchers in the education field have always been interested in investigating students’ language proficiency and its relation to academic achievement and other related educational indicators such as motivation to learn, self-esteem, learning effectiveness, self-efficacy, etc. Along this line of thought, this study specifically focused on business education. III. METHODOLOGY: The methodology in this study involved two sequential stages, namely, a focus group interview and a data analysis. The whole study was directed towards both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The subjects of the study were divided into two groups. For the first group participating in the interview, a total of ten high school students were invited. They studied Business Studies, and their English standard was varied. The theme of the discussion was “Does English affect your learning and examination results of Business Studies?” The students were facilitated to discuss the extent to which English standard affected their learning of Business subjects and requested to rate the correlation between English and performance of Business Studies on a five-point scale. The second stage of the study involved another group of students. They were high school graduates who had taken the public examination for entering universities. A database containing their public examination results for different subjects has been obtained for the purpose of statistical analysis. Hypotheses were tested and evidence was obtained from the focus group interview to triangulate the findings. V. MAJOR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION: By sharing of personal experience, the discussion of focus group interviews indicated that higher English standards could help the students achieve better learning and examination performance. In order to end the interview, the students were asked to indicate the correlation between English proficiency and performance of Business Studies on a five-point scale. With point one meant least correlated, ninety percent of the students gave point four for the correlation. The preliminary results illustrated that English plays an important role in students’ learning of Business Studies, or at least this was what the students perceived, which set the hypotheses for the study. After conducting the focus group interview, further evidence had to be gathered to support the hypotheses. The data analysis part tried to find out the relationship by correlating the students’ public examination results of Business Studies and levels of English standard. The results indicated a positive correlation between their English standard and Business Studies examination performance. In order to highlight the importance of the English language to the study of Business Studies, the correlation between the public examination results of other non-business subjects was also tested. Statistical results showed that language does play a role in affecting students’ performance in studying Business subjects than the other subjects. The explanation includes the dynamic subject nature, examination format and study requirements, the specialist language used, etc. Unlike Science and Geography, students in their learning process might find it more difficult to relate business concepts or terminologies to their own experience, and there are not many obvious physical or practical activities or visual aids to serve as evidence or experiments. It is well-researched in Hong Kong that English proficiency is a determinant of academic success. Other research studies verified such a notion. For example, research revealed that the more enriched the language experience, the better the cognitive performance in conceptual tasks. The ability to perform this kind of task is particularly important to students taking Business subjects. Another research was carried out in the UK, which was geared towards identifying and analyzing the reasons for underachievement across a cohort of GCSE students taking Business Studies. Results showed that weak language ability was the main barrier to raising students’ performance levels. It seemed that the interview result was successfully triangulated with data findings. Although education failure cannot be restricted to linguistic failure and language is just one of the variables to play in determining academic achievement, it is generally accepted that language does affect students’ academic performance. It is just a matter of extent. This paper provides recommendations for business educators on students’ language training and sheds light on more research possibilities in this area.

Keywords: academic performance, language, learning, medium of instruction

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Authors: Ali Kazemi

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Those within the volatile and interconnected international economic markets, appropriately predicting market trends, hold substantial fees for traders and financial establishments. Traditional device mastering strategies have made full-size strides in forecasting marketplace movements; however, monetary data's complicated and networked nature calls for extra sophisticated processes. This observation offers a groundbreaking method for monetary marketplace prediction that leverages the synergistic capability of Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks. Our suggested algorithm is meticulously designed to forecast the traits of inventory market indices and cryptocurrency costs, utilizing a comprehensive dataset spanning from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2023. This era, marked by sizable volatility and transformation in financial markets, affords a solid basis for schooling and checking out our predictive version. Our algorithm integrates diverse facts to construct a dynamic economic graph that correctly reflects market intricacies. We meticulously collect opening, closing, and high and low costs daily for key inventory marketplace indices (e.g., S&P 500, NASDAQ) and widespread cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum), ensuring a holistic view of marketplace traits. Daily trading volumes are also incorporated to seize marketplace pastime and liquidity, providing critical insights into the market's shopping for and selling dynamics. Furthermore, recognizing the profound influence of the monetary surroundings on financial markets, we integrate critical macroeconomic signs with hobby fees, inflation rates, GDP increase, and unemployment costs into our model. Our GCN algorithm is adept at learning the relational patterns amongst specific financial devices represented as nodes in a comprehensive market graph. Edges in this graph encapsulate the relationships based totally on co-movement styles and sentiment correlations, enabling our version to grasp the complicated community of influences governing marketplace moves. Complementing this, our LSTM algorithm is trained on sequences of the spatial-temporal illustration discovered through the GCN, enriched with historic fee and extent records. This lets the LSTM seize and expect temporal marketplace developments accurately. Inside the complete assessment of our GCN-LSTM algorithm across the inventory marketplace and cryptocurrency datasets, the version confirmed advanced predictive accuracy and profitability compared to conventional and opportunity machine learning to know benchmarks. Specifically, the model performed a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.85%, indicating high precision in predicting day-by-day charge movements. The RMSE was recorded at 1.2%, underscoring the model's effectiveness in minimizing tremendous prediction mistakes, which is vital in volatile markets. Furthermore, when assessing the model's predictive performance on directional market movements, it achieved an accuracy rate of 78%, significantly outperforming the benchmark models, averaging an accuracy of 65%. This high degree of accuracy is instrumental for techniques that predict the course of price moves. This study showcases the efficacy of mixing graph-based totally and sequential deep learning knowledge in economic marketplace prediction and highlights the fee of a comprehensive, records-pushed evaluation framework. Our findings promise to revolutionize investment techniques and hazard management practices, offering investors and economic analysts a powerful device to navigate the complexities of cutting-edge economic markets.

Keywords: financial market prediction, graph convolutional networks (GCNs), long short-term memory (LSTM), cryptocurrency forecasting

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Authors: Claire Harrison, Raajit K. Rampal, Vikas Gupta, Srdan Verstovsek, Moshe Talpaz, Jean-Jacques Kiladjian, Ruben Mesa, Andrew Kuykendall, Alessandro Vannucchi, Francesca Palandri, Sebastian Grosicki, Timothy Devos, Eric Jourdan, Marielle J. Wondergem, Haifa Kathrin Al-Ali, Veronika Buxhofer-Ausch, Alberto Alvarez-Larrán, Sanjay Akhani, Rafael Muñoz-Carerras, Yury Sheykin, Gozde Colak, Morgan Harris, John Mascarenhas

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Myelofibrosis (MF) is characterized by bone marrow fibrosis, anemia, splenomegaly and constitutional symptoms. Progressive bone marrow fibrosis results from aberrant megakaryopoeisis and expression of proinflammatory cytokines, both of which are heavily influenced by bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET)-mediated gene regulation and lead to myeloproliferation and cytopenias. Pelabresib (CPI-0610) is an oral small-molecule investigational inhibitor of BET protein bromodomains currently being developed for the treatment of patients with MF. It is designed to downregulate BET target genes and modify nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling. MANIFEST-2 was initiated based on data from Arm 3 of the ongoing Phase 2 MANIFEST study (NCT02158858), which is evaluating the combination of pelabresib and ruxolitinib in Janus kinase inhibitor (JAKi) treatment-naïve patients with MF. Primary endpoint analyses showed splenic and symptom responses in 68% and 56% of 84 enrolled patients, respectively. MANIFEST-2 (NCT04603495) is a global, Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, active-control study of pelabresib and ruxolitinib versus placebo and ruxolitinib in JAKi treatment-naïve patients with primary MF, post-polycythemia vera MF or post-essential thrombocythemia MF. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pelabresib in combination with ruxolitinib. Here we report updates from a recent protocol amendment. The MANIFEST-2 study schema is shown in Figure 1. Key eligibility criteria include a Dynamic International Prognostic Scoring System (DIPSS) score of Intermediate-1 or higher, platelet count ≥100 × 10^9/L, spleen volume ≥450 cc by computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging, ≥2 symptoms with an average score ≥3 or a Total Symptom Score (TSS) of ≥10 using the Myelofibrosis Symptom Assessment Form v4.0, peripheral blast count <5% and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status ≤2. Patient randomization will be stratified by DIPSS risk category (Intermediate-1 vs Intermediate-2 vs High), platelet count (>200 × 10^9/L vs 100–200 × 10^9/L) and spleen volume (≥1800 cm^3 vs <1800 cm^3). Double-blind treatment (pelabresib or matching placebo) will be administered once daily for 14 consecutive days, followed by a 7 day break, which is considered one cycle of treatment. Ruxolitinib will be administered twice daily for all 21 days of the cycle. The primary endpoint is SVR35 response (≥35% reduction in spleen volume from baseline) at Week 24, and the key secondary endpoint is TSS50 response (≥50% reduction in TSS from baseline) at Week 24. Other secondary endpoints include safety, pharmacokinetics, changes in bone marrow fibrosis, duration of SVR35 response, duration of TSS50 response, progression-free survival, overall survival, conversion from transfusion dependence to independence and rate of red blood cell transfusion for the first 24 weeks. Study recruitment is ongoing; 400 patients (200 per arm) from North America, Europe, Asia and Australia will be enrolled. The study opened for enrollment in November 2020. MANIFEST-2 was initiated based on data from the ongoing Phase 2 MANIFEST study with the aim of assessing the efficacy and safety of pelabresib and ruxolitinib in JAKi treatment-naïve patients with MF. MANIFEST-2 is currently open for enrollment.

Keywords: CPI-0610, JAKi treatment-naïve, MANIFEST-2, myelofibrosis, pelabresib

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Authors: Oluwaseun Adeleke, Samuel O. Ikani, Fidelis Edet, Anthony Nwala, Mopelola Raji, Simeon Christian Chukwu

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Background The Delivering Innovations in Selfcare (DISC) project promotes universal access to quality selfcare services beginning with subcutaneous depot medroxy progesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) contraceptive self-injection (SI) option. Self-inject (SI) offers women a highly effective and convenient option that saves them frequent trips to providers. Its increased use has the potential to improve the efficiency of an overstretched healthcare system by reducing provider workloads. State Social and Behavioral Change Communications (SBCC) Officers lead project demand creation and service delivery innovations that have resulted in significant increases in SI uptake among women who opt for injectables. Strategies Service Delivery Innovations The implementation of the "Moment of Truth (MoT)" innovation helped providers overcome biases and address client fear and reluctance to self-inject. Bi-annual program audits and supportive mentoring visits helped providers retain their competence and motivation. Proper documentation, tracking, and replenishment of commodities were ensured through effective engagement with State Logistics Units. The project supported existing state monitoring and evaluation structures to effectively record and report subcutaneous depot medroxy progesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) service utilization. Demand creation Innovations SBCC Officers provide oversight, routinely evaluate performance, trains, and provides feedback for the demand creation activities implemented by community mobilizers (CMs). The scope and intensity of training given to CMs affect the outcome of their work. The project operates a demand creation model that uses a schedule to inform the conduct of interpersonal and group events. Health education sessions are specifically designed to counter misinformation, address questions and concerns, and educate target audience in an informed choice context. The project mapped facilities and their catchment areas and enlisted the support of identified influencers and gatekeepers to enlist their buy-in prior to entry. Each mobilization event began with pre-mobilization sensitization activities, particularly targeting male groups. Context-specific interventions were informed by the religious, traditional, and cultural peculiarities of target communities. Mobilizers also support clients to engage with and navigate online digital Family Planning (FP) online portals such as DiscoverYourPower website, Facebook page, digital companion (chat bot), interactive voice response (IVR), radio and television (TV) messaging. This improves compliance and provides linkages to nearby facilities. Results The project recorded 136,950 self-injection (SI) visits and a self-injection (SI) proportion rate that increased from 13 percent before the implementation of interventions in 2021 to 62 percent currently. The project cost-effectively demonstrated catalytic impact by leveraging state and partner resources, institutional platforms, and geographic scope to scale up interventions. The project also cost effectively demonstrated catalytic impact by leveraging on the state and partner resources, institutional platforms, and geographic scope to sustainably scale-up these strategies. Conclusion Using evidence-informed iterations of service delivery and demand creation models have been useful to significantly drive self-injection (SI) uptake. It will be useful to consider this implementation model during program design. Contemplation should also be given to systematic and strategic execution of strategies to optimize impact.

Keywords: family planning, contraception, DMPA-SC, self-care, self-injection, innovation, service delivery, demand creation.

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh, Bhabani Prasad Mukhopadhay, Ananya Mukhopadhyay, Harendra Nath Bhattacharya

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This study investigates the global issue of electronic waste (e-waste), focusing on its prevalence in India and other regions. E-waste has emerged as a significant worldwide problem, with India contributing a substantial share of annual e-waste generation. The primary sources of e-waste in India are computer equipment and mobile phones. Many developed nations utilize India as a dumping ground for their e-waste, with major contributions from the United States, China, Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. The study identifies Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Mumbai, and Delhi as prominent contributors to India's e-waste crisis. This issue is contextualized within the broader framework of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which encompasses 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets to address poverty, environmental preservation, and universal prosperity. The study underscores the interconnectedness of e-waste management with several SDGs, including health, clean water, economic growth, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, and ocean conservation. Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data reveals that e-waste generation surpasses that of plastic waste, increasing annually at a rate of 31%. However, only 20% of electronic waste is recycled through organized and regulated methods in underdeveloped nations. In Europe, efficient e-waste management stands at just 35%. E-waste pollution poses serious threats to soil, groundwater, and public health due to toxic components such as mercury, lead, bromine, and arsenic. Long-term exposure to these toxins, notably arsenic in microchips, has been linked to severe health issues, including cancer, neurological damage, and skin disorders. Lead exposure, particularly concerning for children, can result in brain damage, kidney problems, and blood disorders. The study highlights the problematic transboundary movement of e-waste, with approximately 352,474 metric tonnes of electronic waste illegally shipped from Europe to developing nations annually, mainly to Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania. Effective e-waste management, underpinned by appropriate infrastructure, regulations, and policies, offers opportunities for job creation and aligns with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for SDGs, especially in the realms of decent work, economic growth, and responsible production and consumption. E-waste represents hazardous pollutants and valuable secondary resources, making it a focal point for anthropogenic resource exploitation. The United Nations estimates that e-waste holds potential secondary raw materials worth around 55 billion Euros. The study also identifies numerous challenges in e-waste management, encompassing the sheer volume of e-waste, child labor, inadequate legislation, insufficient infrastructure, health concerns, lack of incentive schemes, limited awareness, e-waste imports, high costs associated with recycling plant establishment, and more. To mitigate these issues, the study offers several solutions, such as providing tax incentives for scrap dealers, implementing reward and reprimand systems for e-waste management compliance, offering training on e-waste handling, promoting responsible e-waste disposal, advancing recycling technologies, regulating e-waste imports, and ensuring the safe disposal of domestic e-waste. A mechanism, Buy-Back programs, will compensate customers in cash when they deposit unwanted digital products. This E-waste could contain any portable electronic device, such as cell phones, computers, tablets, etc. Addressing the e-waste predicament necessitates a multi-faceted approach involving government regulations, industry initiatives, public awareness campaigns, and international cooperation to minimize environmental and health repercussions while harnessing the economic potential of recycling and responsible management.

Keywords: e-waste management, sustainable development goal, e-waste disposal, recycling technology, buy-back policy

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Authors: Ziyad S. Haidar

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Background: Saliva plays a major role in maintaining oral, dental, and general health and well-being; where it normally bathes the oral cavity acting as a clearing agent. This becomes more apparent when the amount and quality of saliva are significantly reduced due to medications, salivary gland neoplasms, disorders such as Sjögren’s syndrome, and especially ionizing radiation therapy for tumors of the head and neck, the 5th most common malignancy worldwide, during which the salivary glands are included within the radiation field/zone. Clinically, patients affected by salivary gland dysfunction often opt to terminate their radiotherapy course prematurely as they become malnourished and experience a significant decrease in their QoL. Accordingly, the formulation of a radio-protection/-prevention modality and development of an alternative Rx to restore damaged salivary gland tissue is eagerly awaited and highly desirable. Objectives: Assess the pre-clinical radio-protective effect and reparative/regenerative potential of layer-by-layer self-assembled lipid-polymer-based core-shell nanocapsules designed and fine-tuned for the sequential (ordered) release of dual cytokines, following a single local administration (direct injection) into a murine sub-mandibular salivary gland model of irradiation. Methods: The formulated core-shell nanocapsules were characterized by physical-chemical-mechanically pre-/post-loading with the drugs, followed by optimizing the pharmaco-kinetic profile. Then, nanosuspensions were administered directly into the salivary glands, 24hrs pre-irradiation (PBS, un-loaded nanocapsules, and individual and combined vehicle-free cytokines were injected into the control glands for an in-depth comparative analysis). External irradiation at an elevated dose of 18Gy was exposed to the head-and-neck region of C57BL/6 mice. Salivary flow rate (un-stimulated) and salivary protein content/excretion were regularly assessed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (3-month period). Histological and histomorphometric evaluation and apoptosis/proliferation analysis followed by local versus systemic bio-distribution and immuno-histochemical assays were then performed on all harvested major organs (at the distinct experimental end-points). Results: Monodisperse, stable, and cytocompatible nanocapsules capable of maintaining the bioactivity of the encapsulant within the different compartments with the core and shell and with controlled/customizable pharmaco-kinetics, resulted, as is illustrated in the graphical abstract (Figure) below. The experimental animals demonstrated a significant increase in salivary flow rates when compared to the controls. Herein, salivary protein content was comparable to the pre-irradiation (baseline) level. Histomorphometry further confirmed the biocompatibility and localization of the nanocapsules, in vivo, into the site of injection. Acinar cells showed fewer vacuoles and nuclear aberration in the experimental group, while the amount of mucin was higher in controls. Overall, fewer apoptotic activities were detected by a Terminal deoxynucleotidyl Transferase (TdT) dUTP Nick-End Labeling (TUNEL) assay and proliferative rates were similar to the controls, suggesting an interesting reparative and regenerative potential of irradiation-damaged/-dysfunctional salivary glands. The Figure below exemplifies some of these findings. Conclusions: Biocompatible, reproducible, and customizable self-assembling layer-by-layer core-shell delivery system is formulated and presented. Our findings suggest that localized sequential bioactive delivery of dual cytokines (in specific dose and order) can prevent irradiation-induced damage via reducing apoptosis and also has the potential to promote in situ proliferation of salivary gland cells; maxSALIVA is scalable (Good Manufacturing Practice or GMP production for human clinical trials) and patent-pending.

Keywords: cancer, head and neck, oncology, drug development, drug delivery systems, nanotechnology, nanoncology

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Authors: Ali Kadir, S. R. Mishra, M. Shamshuddin, O. Anwar Beg

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Motivation- Rotating disk bio-reactors are fundamental to numerous medical/biochemical engineering processes including oxygen transfer, chromatography, purification and swirl-assisted pumping. The modern upsurge in biologically-enhanced engineering devices has embraced new phenomena including bioconvection of micro-organisms (photo-tactic, oxy-tactic, gyrotactic etc). The proven thermal performance superiority of nanofluids i.e. base fluids doped with engineered nanoparticles has also stimulated immense implementation in biomedical designs. Motivated by these emerging applications, we present a numerical thermofluid dynamic simulation of the transport phenomena in bioconvection nanofluid rotating disk bioreactor flow. Methodology- We study analytically and computationally the time-dependent three-dimensional viscous gyrotactic bioconvection in swirling nanofluid flow from a rotating disk configuration. The disk is also deformable i.e. able to extend (stretch) in the radial direction. Stefan blowing is included. The Buongiorno dilute nanofluid model is adopted wherein Brownian motion and thermophoresis are the dominant nanoscale effects. The primitive conservation equations for mass, radial, tangential and axial momentum, heat (energy), nanoparticle concentration and micro-organism density function are formulated in a cylindrical polar coordinate system with appropriate wall and free stream boundary conditions. A mass convective condition is also incorporated at the disk surface. Forced convection is considered i.e. buoyancy forces are neglected. This highly nonlinear, strongly coupled system of unsteady partial differential equations is normalized with the classical Von Karman and other transformations to render the boundary value problem (BVP) into an ordinary differential system which is solved with the efficient Adomian decomposition method (ADM). Validation with earlier Runge-Kutta shooting computations in the literature is also conducted. Extensive computations are presented (with the aid of MATLAB symbolic software) for radial and circumferential velocity components, temperature, nanoparticle concentration, micro-organism density number and gradients of these functions at the disk surface (radial local skin friction, local circumferential skin friction, Local Nusselt number, Local Sherwood number, motile microorganism mass transfer rate). Main Findings- Increasing radial stretching parameter decreases radial velocity and radial skin friction, reduces azimuthal velocity and skin friction, decreases local Nusselt number and motile micro-organism mass wall flux whereas it increases nano-particle local Sherwood number. Disk deceleration accelerates the radial flow, damps the azimuthal flow, decreases temperatures and thermal boundary layer thickness, depletes the nano-particle concentration magnitudes (and associated nano-particle species boundary layer thickness) and furthermore decreases the micro-organism density number and gyrotactic micro-organism species boundary layer thickness. Increasing Stefan blowing accelerates the radial flow and azimuthal (circumferential flow), elevates temperatures of the nanofluid, boosts nano-particle concentration (volume fraction) and gyrotactic micro-organism density number magnitudes whereas suction generates the reverse effects. Increasing suction effect reduces radial skin friction and azimuthal skin friction, local Nusselt number, and motile micro-organism wall mass flux whereas it enhances the nano-particle species local Sherwood number. Conclusions - Important transport characteristics are identified of relevance to real bioreactor nanotechnological systems not discussed in previous works. ADM is shown to achieve very rapid convergence and highly accurate solutions and shows excellent promise in simulating swirling multi-physical nano-bioconvection fluid dynamics problems. Furthermore, it provides an excellent complement to more general commercial computational fluid dynamics simulations.

Keywords: bio-nanofluids, rotating disk bioreactors, Von Karman swirling flow, numerical solutions

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Authors: Ziyad S. Haidar

Abstract:

Background: Saliva plays a major role in maintaining oral and dental health (consequently, general health and well-being). Where it normally bathes the oral cavity and acts as a clearing agent. This becomes more apparent when the amount and quality of salivare significantly reduced due to medications, salivary gland neoplasms, disorders such as Sjögren’s syndrome, and especially ionizing radiation therapy for tumors of the head and neck, the fifth most common malignancy worldwide, during which the salivary glands are included within the radiation field or zone. Clinically, patients affected by salivary gland dysfunction often opt to terminate their radiotherapy course prematurely because they become malnourished and experience a significant decrease in their quality of life. Accordingly, the development of an alternative treatment to restore or regenerate damaged salivary gland tissue is eagerly awaited. Likewise, the formulation of a radioprotection modality and early damage prevention strategy is also highly desirable. Objectives: To assess the pre-clinical radio-protective effect as well as the reparative/regenerative potential of layer-by-layer self-assembled lipid-polymer-based core-shell nanocapsules designed and fine-tuned in this experimental work for the sequential (ordered) release of dual cytokines, following a single local administration (direct injection) into a murine sub-mandibular salivary gland model of irradiation. Methods: The formulated core-shell nanocapsules were characterized by physical-chemical-mechanically pre-/post-loading with the drugs (in solution and powder formats), followed by optimizing the pharmaco-kinetic profile. Then, nanosuspensions were administered directly into the salivary glands, 24hrs pre-irradiation (PBS, un-loaded nanocapsules, and individual and combined vehicle-free cytokines were injected into the control glands for an in-depth comparative analysis). External irradiation at an elevated dose of 18Gy (revised from our previous 15Gy model) was exposed to the head-and-neck region of C57BL/6 mice. Salivary flow rate (un-stimulated) and salivary protein content/excretion were regularly assessed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (3-month period). Histological and histomorphometric evaluation and apoptosis/proliferation analysis followed by local versus systemic bio-distribution and immuno-histochemical assays were then performed on all harvested major organs (at the distinct experimental end-points). Results: Monodisperse, stable, and cytocompatible nanocapsules capable of maintaining the bioactivity of the encapsulant within the different compartments with the core and shell and with controlled/customizable pharmaco-kinetics, resulted, as is illustrated in the graphical abstract (Figure) below. The experimental animals demonstrated a significant increase in salivary flow rates when compared to the controls. Herein, salivary protein content was comparable to the pre-irradiation (baseline) level. Histomorphometry further confirmed the biocompatibility and localization of the nanocapsules, in vivo, into the site of injection. Acinar cells showed fewer vacuoles and nuclear aberration in the experimental group, while the amount of mucin was higher in controls. Overall, fewer apoptotic activities were detected by a Terminal deoxynucleotidyl Transferase (TdT) dUTP Nick-End Labeling (TUNEL) assay and proliferative rates were similar to the controls, suggesting an interesting reparative and regenerative potential of irradiation-damaged/-dysfunctional salivary glands. The Figure below exemplifies some of these findings. Conclusions: Biocompatible, reproducible, and customizable self-assembling layer-by-layer core-shell delivery system is formulated and presented. Our findings suggest that localized sequential bioactive delivery of dual cytokines (in specific dose and order) can prevent irradiation-induced damage via reducing apoptosis and also has the potential to promote in situ proliferation of salivary gland cells; maxSALIVA is scalable (Good Manufacturing Practice or GMP production for human clinical trials) and patent-pending.

Keywords: saliva, head and neck cancer, nanotechnology, controlled drug delivery, xerostomia, mucositis, biopolymers, innovation

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