Kjerskaarup2064
s of the central nervous system. ANN NEUROL 2023;93109-119.Marital satisfaction is important for health and well-being among aged couples. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between knowledge, sexual attitude, and quality of life with marital satisfaction of aged couples of over 60 years in southern Iran. This APIM analytical study was performed on 510 aged couples in southern Iran in 2020. Proportionate stratified sampling was randomly performed in three stages relative to the aging population in main cities in the south Iran. Data collection tools included demographic information (age, education, occupation, living alone, type of disability, etc.), sexual knowledge and attitude scale (SKAS-10), quality of life scale (SF-12), and marital satisfaction questionnaire. Mean score of marital satisfaction, sexual attitude, sexual knowledge, and QoL (SF-12) was 49.71 (SD = 14.8), 27.5 (SD = 7.3), 24.7 (SD = 8.5), and 31.49 (SD = 3.2), respectively. The present study showed that sexual knowledge and attitude, quality of life, are among the estimators of marital satisfaction in aged couples.
Melanin can be used in biomedical nanomaterials, but its solubility in water and bioavailability are low.
Melanin nanoparticles were prepared and then PEG-natural melanin nanoparticles (NMNP-PEG) were obtained with good performance and optimize their (water solubility, dispersion stability, chelating metal ions, photothermal stability, drug delivery, and biocompatibility), therefore improve the water solubility of melanin and broaden its application scope in biology, medicine, food, and other fields.
MFAK (melanin from apricot kernels) and NMNP-PEG were prepared and characterized using ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry (UV-Vis), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and electron microscopy. The chelation rate of metal ions, photothermal effect, doxorubicin loading, and cytotoxicity (MCF-7 cells) were examined.
UV-Vis, HPLC, FTIR, and NMR indicated that NMNPs contained melanin. NMNPs could be successfully NMNP-PEG displays good stability, high metal ion chelation ability, efficient photothermal conversion potential, drug-retaining capability, sustained controlled drug release, and biocompatibility. This study provides a theoretical basis for NMNP-PEG applications in medicine (targeting specific sites to diagnose and treat diseases), food (extending the shelf life of food), and biology (as metal ion chelating agents to remove heavy metals from wastewater).The advancement of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) has the potential to transform the educational landscape and influence the role of all involved stakeholders. In recent years, the applications of AIED have been gradually adopted to progress our understanding of students' learning and enhance learning performance and experience. However, the adoption of AIED has led to increasing ethical risks and concerns regarding several aspects such as personal data and learner autonomy. find more Despite the recent announcement of guidelines for ethical and trustworthy AIED, the debate revolves around the key principles underpinning ethical AIED. This paper aims to explore whether there is a global consensus on ethical AIED by mapping and analyzing international organizations' current policies and guidelines. In this paper, we first introduce the opportunities offered by AI in education and potential ethical issues. Then, thematic analysis was conducted to conceptualize and establish a set of ethical principles by examining and synthesizing relevant ethical policies and guidelines for AIED. We discuss each principle and associated implications for relevant educational stakeholders, including students, teachers, technology developers, policymakers, and institutional decision-makers. The proposed set of ethical principles is expected to serve as a framework to inform and guide educational stakeholders in the development and deployment of ethical and trustworthy AIED as well as catalyze future development of related impact studies in the field.This paper examines key effective and practical online strategies for teaching and learning literature subjects in online education. The present study also explores the leading concepts and principles of e- teaching strategies and extends to address the way to adopt literary lesson plans to various types of college students, determine subject descriptions, class activities, assignments, assessments, and expectations with students, and build rapport and communication with the students. This article discusses how to enjoy appropriate online media, channels, platforms, and e-pedagogical tools to help the learners and support the college curriculum in literary subjects e.g. poetry, fiction, and drama. The results show that online pedagogues portray and guide interactive literary texts and skills to the students, educators, and course designers and can facilitate instructional methods in learning the English language and literature online.Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a chronic and highly prevalent condition characterized by chronic intermittent hypoxia (IH) and sleep fragmentation (SF), and can lead to a vast array of end-organ morbidities, particularly affecting cardiovascular, metabolic and neurobehavioral functioning. OSA can induce cognitive and behavioral and mood deficits. Male C57Bl/6J 8-week-old mice were housed in custom-designed cages with a silent motorized mechanical sweeper traversing the cage floor at 2-min intervals (SF) during daylight for four weeks. Sleep control (SC) consisted of keeping sweeper immobile. IH consisted of cycling FiO2 21% 90 seconds-6.3% 90s or room air (RA; FiO2 21%) for sixteen weeks and combined SF-IH was conducted for nine weeks. Open field novel object recognition (NOR) testing, elevated-plus maze test (EPMT), and forced swimming test (FST) were performed. SF induced cognitive NOR performance impairments in mice along with reduced anxiety behaviors while IH induced deficits in NOR performance, but increased anxiety behaviors. SF-IH induced impaired performance in NOR test of similar magnitude to IH or SF alone. Combined SF-IH exposures did not affect anxiety behaviors. Thus, both SF an IH altered cognitive function while imposing opposite effects on anxiety behaviors. SF-IH did not magnify the detrimental effects of isolated SF or IH and canceled out the effects on anxiety. Based on these findings, the underlying pathophysiologic processes underlying IH and SF adverse effects on cognitive function appear to differ, while those affecting anxiety counteract each other.
Kallikrein-bradykinin-forming cascade is known to cause hereditary angioedema (HAE) acute angioedema (AE) attacks. Further research of HAE attacks is needed to explain disease heterogeneity, predict treatment response and identify biomarkers for monitoring HAE attacks. Differential expression of the microvascular endothelial cell-surface receptors for example, g-C1qR, cytokeratin-1, and plasminogen-activator-urokinase-receptor (PLAUR) were hypothesized as biomarkers of AE attacks.
To understand HAE attacks, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in RNAseq and mi-RNAseq data of total RNA extracted from skin biopsies of lesional versus non-lesional skin collected during and between attacks in Type-1 HAE patients (
=11; FM=83) were compared. To understand the HAE variants, DEGs in skin biopsies from HAE with normal C1 inhibitor (
=5, FM=50), and non-HAE (
=7; FM=34) patients were compared. Gene-set enrichment analyses and regulator effects analysis of these DEGs identified biological pathways in HAE at factor XII to u-PAR are possible novel mechanisms for progression of the endothelial kinin-bradykinin-forming cascade in HAE attacks.A novel shape memory alloy wires-based smart roller bearing (SMA-RBs) has been developed and its cyclic behavior under reverse cyclic loadings has been experimentally investigated. However, its efficacy and performance in enhancing the seismic performance of bridge structures have not been well understood and proven. A new self-centering hysteresis model for SMA-RBs has been proposed to properly simulate their hysteretic behavior, which has been experimentally validated through a pseudo-static test. A methodology is proposed to determine the four damage states of SMA-RB (i.e. slight, moderate, extensive, and collapse) considering the contribution of SMA wires. The smart SMA-RBs are utilized for a cable-stayed bridge in China. The vulnerability of two reference bridges, i.e. the floating system (FS) and rigid system (RS), and one isolated bridge equipped with SMA-RBs (SMA-RBS) are compared at component and system levels. The applicability of three commonly used intensity measures (IMs), i.e. PGA, PGV, and Sa(T1), are evaluated and PGV turns out to be the optimal IM for long-span cable-stayed bridge systems. Results show that incorporating SMA wires in roller bearings can decrease the failure probabilities of the bearing. The piers and towers with SMA-RBs lead to lower seismic fragility over the towers and piers in the reference bridges. The RS is the most vulnerable bridge whereas the SMA-RBS is the least vulnerable bridge among the four bridges. The SMA-RBS experience a much lower collapse damage probability compared to RS ad FS.This paper illustrates the study carried out by ARPA Lombardia to quantify the variation in daily emissions of the main pollutants and their impacts on air quality in Lombardy during the anti-COVID-19 lockdown between the end of February and the end of May 2020. A methodology for emission estimates was developed over Lombardy for this purpose and later was extended to larger areas the Po-basin, (LIFE PREPAIR 2020) and the entire Italy (PULVIRUS 2021). In this study, the daily emissions estimates were derived by combining data from air emission inventory of Lombardy and a set of indicators that allowed to update the estimates and describe the temporal and spatial variations of the emission sources. The calculation of emission variation was conducted for all the main pollutants (PM10, NH3, NOx, SO2, NMVOC) and the greenhouse gases; then, the impact on air quality concentrations was simulated by the chemical and transport model FARM, that also allows to track secondary particulate and its variability in time and space on the basis of nonlinear processes and weather conditions. The estimated emission reduction, compared to the expected average value in the absence of anti-COVID-19 measures, daily varies depending on pollutants and is mainly affected by reductions in road traffic emissions and an estimated increase in domestic heating emissions. Simulations confirm strong reductions of NO2 atmospheric average concentrations, slightly variations of PM10 averages and a potential growth of tropospheric ozone.The electrocoagulation method using stainless steel anodes was applied to a corrugated cardboard box manufacturing plant's wastewater with high COD content. The effects of current density, processing time and stirring speed on response functions were studied using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and energy consumption were selected as response functions. The Central Composite Design (CCD) was chosen to explain the single and combined effects of independent variables on response functions. The COD concentration of the real industrial wastewater used in the experiments was 9130 mg L-1. The maximum COD removal efficiency of 91.6% is obtained with 19.78 Wh g-1 energy consumption. Current density and treatment time were effective parameters for both COD removal and energy consumption. Optimization for maximum COD removal with minimum energy consumption showed 80.9% of COD removal with 6.7 Wh g-1 of energy consumption at 15 mA cm-2, 700 rpm, and 28 min treatment time.