Articles

Food production program faces tight competition on land, water, energy, and efforts against the negative effects of food production on the environment [1,2]. 

Introduction: Child Protection Services (CPSs) are dedicated to providing protection and responding to any threats a child could face as children worldwide could be abused. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic affected all aspects of life. Procedures implemented to restrict the spread of the disease (such as reduced access to services, school closure, and social distancing measures) had an impact on child life and maltreatment. Therefore, it is important to know the impact of this pandemic on child abuse and protection. Aim and rationales: This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on CPSs in Oman by studying the change in the number of reported cases of child abuse and the change in the reporting procedure at the Ministry of Social Development (MOSD). In addition, know the impact of the restriction measures on child rights and risk factors of child maltreatment based on CPSs workers’ opinions and experience. To understand the adaptation of the CPSs to the change in work and life environment imposed by COVID-19. Method: A cross-section study was conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire, that was distributed to the workers involved in the CPSs at the MOSD in Oman. Data also were collected from the statistical bulletins on the Ministry’s website. Results: COVID-19 pandemic was not found associated with a significant change in the number and type of child abuse cases reported to the MOSD. The reporting procedures also did not change. In addition, the pattern of child abuse types did not change before and during the pandemic, as neglect cases were the most. The participants judged the restriction measures affecting family life through separation, cyber abuse, and reduced educational support. With regard to intervention and follow-up procedures, the main difference was in the communication processes by using online communication methods and reducing the fieldwork for mild cases.Conclusion: CPSs in Oman were not much affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which may reflect the success of this system in dealing with the restriction measures. However, more solutions should be developed to adapt to these circumstances in the future altogether.

This paper is a study of the nuclear Equation of State (EOS) of cold nuclear matter with the B3Y-Fetal effective interaction in its CDM3Y density-dependent version within the framework of Hartree-Fock approximation. The well-known saturation properties of both symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter are well-reproduced in this work. Using the CDM3Y-K approach, this study has evolved a new set of user interactions, some of which are CDB3Y1-, CDB3Y2-, CDB3Y3-, CDB3Y4-, CDB3Y5-, CDB3Y6-Fetal interactions with corresponding incompressibilities K0 = 188, 204, 217,228, 241 and 252 MeV respectively, in excellent agreement with those of the M3Y-Paris and M3Y-Reid effective interactions. For asymmetric nuclear matter, the new set of interactions has produced the symmetry energy Esym = 32.00 MeV with an associated slope parameter L = 55 MeV at a saturation density ρ = 0.17fm−3 and asymmetry parameter δ = 1.00 (pure neutron matter) in good agreement with the standard values obtained from coupled channel analysis of charge exchange reactions, statistical multifragmentation model and terrestrial Nuclear Physics experimental analyses. Furthermore, the new set of interactions has been found to have bright prospects in a nuclear reaction as the real folded potential computed with the CDB3Y6-Fetal interaction within the framework of double folding potential has been found to be good and similar to that of CDB3Y6-Paris whose optical potential has a repulsive direct component.

The field of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (ENT) has seen tremendous progress in the development of advanced treatments for various ENT disorders in recent years. This progress has been driven by advances in technology and research, which have led to the development of new and improved surgical techniques, medications, and devices. As a result, patients with ENT disorders now have more treatment options than ever before, and the quality of care that they receive has improved significantly.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) appeared in December 2019 in China and has rapidly become a major global health concern. Patients with end-stage renal disease receiving dialysis treatment are very exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 during their frequent visits to healthcare facilities and immune induced by uremia. The aim of our work was to describe the particularity of COVID-19 infection in hemodialysis patients in sub-Saharan Africa and in Ziguinchor, south of Senegal, particularly. To do this, we conducted a monocentric prospective study over a period of 16 months at the Ziguinchor hemodialysis center and compared our results to a study that focuses on the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in chronic hemodialysis patients. We found a low prevalence of COVID-19 infection while the majority of our patients were in contact with the virus.

With each passing year a new record for global emissions is set (1) and policymakers and utility companies must embrace all avenues for decarbonization of energy. Universal adoption of electrification for every building and home by 2050 (2) is not practical, a balance must be struck between an equitable transition to cleaner energy supplies and ensuring uninterrupted, safe delivery of energy to utility customers. Renewable Natual Gas (RNG) is a molecule-for-molecule replacement of traditional geological natural gas with tangible life cycle emissions reductions. California continues to lead the way, initially starting with the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) which aimed to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuel, and subsequently, Senate Bill 1440, which established RNG procurement goals including 12% RNG by 2030 (3). Other States are starting to adopt similar changes such as Oregon’s Senate Bill 98 and Colorado’s Senate Bill 21-264. As utilities attempt to transition the energy network, they must never compromise system safety and reliability. Recognizing that raw biogas has dangerous levels of contaminants of concern (COC) and must be conditioned to pipeline quality, its important utility companies better understand the methods with which methane is extracted and the testing protocols used to confirm performance. This paper highlights the equipment, processes, and testing regime National Grid and its partner the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) deployed as part of its Newtown Creek RNG project, which successfully began injecting RNG into the NYC gas distribution network in October 2022.

SARS-CoV-2 is a new pandemic infection that affects at the beginning the upper respiratory system, and, successively, all the organisms, due to cytokine storm, with serious consequences that can reach death. The aim of this work was the observation of the nasal mucosa of enrolled 60 patients, resulting negative for two weeks to the molecular swab for SARS-CoV-2, versus the control group. Rhino-fibroscopy and nasal cytology of nasal mucosa were performed for both the investigated groups. The observation of the samples showed the occurrence of plasmablastic lymphocytes and Downey II lymphocytes type. The former type of lymphocytes was prevalent against the second one, probably because of an immunological “scar”. The rhino-fibroscopy showed a “pseudo ischemia of nasal submucosa” at pre and pericranial levels, not occurred in the control group.The occurrence of atypical lymphocytes in the nasal smear was analog to that observed in the blood peripheral smear, probably caused by mechanisms of local immune reaction and dysregulation like those observed in other virus infections. Our findings suggest that the nasal mucosa study through the nasal cytology, can represent an important predictive tool of the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a viral pneumonia that is found in China and has spread globally. Early diagnosis is important for effective and timely treatment. Thus, many ongoing studies attempt to solve key COVID-19 problems such as workload classification, detection, and differentiation from other pneumonia and healthy lungs using different imaging modalities. Researchers have identified some limitations in the deployment of deep learning methods to detect COVID-19, but there are still unmet challenges to be addressed. The use of binary classifiers or building classifiers based on only a few classes is some of the limitations that most of the existing research on the COVID-19 classification problem suffers from. Additionally, most prior studies have focused on model or ensemble models that depend on a flat single-feature imaging modality without using any clinical information or benefiting from the hierarchical structure of pneumonia, which leads to clinical challenges, and evaluated their systems using a small public dataset. Additionally, reliance on diagnostic processes based on CT as the main imaging modality, ignoring chest X-rays. Radiologists, computer scientists, and physicians all need to come to an understanding of these interdisciplinary issues. This article first highlights the challenges of deep learning deployment for COVID-19 detection using a literature review and document analysis. Second, it provides six key recommendations that could assist future researchers in this field in improving the diagnostic process for COVID-19. However, there is a need for a collective effort from all of them to consider the provided recommendations to effectively solve these issues.

Based on paraffin-wax include, volcano-based antimony-bearing, phospholipid, antimony found in gold deposit and TIPSb/triisopropylantimony ever predicted as the room temperature organic superconductor compound. Many flourishing explanations have been declared, from variational method to inductive deduction, with all indicating the presence of C9H21O3Sb.PBr6.We consider that aplications in mesoscale regime, at least when using multiscale fractal of critical parameter that affects physical & chemical properties and to adopt “mesoscopic scale” ever stated as “superconductors” by Holmvall (2017). Then the mathematical induction of variational method of exploitation on integers & natural numbers herewith paraffin-wax etc can be resembled the ever built antimony containing compounds to keep the realm of predictions.

Introduction: Patients with aortic stenosis often develop hypertrophy and fibrosis, regardless of symptoms. Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) represents the gold standard for the evaluation of fibrosis despite numerous limitations: cost, availability, atrial fibrillation, claustrophobia, kidney failure or inability to apnea.Purpose: The aim is to validate the role of echocardiographic parameters, such as Global Longitudinal Strain (GLS), as early markers of fibrosis. Clinical and laboratory data, particularly B-type Natriuretic Peptide (BNP), were also analyzed.Material and methods: In our study we recruited 33 patients with severe aortic stenosis, correlating echocardiographic values of GLS with the qualitative analysis of Late Gadolinium Enhancement (LGE) and the quantitative analysis of T1 mapping of CMR.Results: 70% of patients with an alteration of GLS had LGE+. Univariate logistic regression shows that the factors associated with the presence of LGE on CMR are hypertension (p = 0.043), GLS (p = 0.032), and elevated BNP values (p = 0.021); for GLS, Odds Ratio (OR) is 5 so the chance of finding fibrosis on CMR increases 5 times in presence of an altered GLS. The multivariate analysis confirms the association with impaired GLS values (p = 0.033) and hypertension (p = 0.025), but not with elevated Pro-BNP values.Conclusion: In patients with severe aortic stenosis, the association between GLS, LGE, and T1 mapping can help identify earlier those patients with structural changes caused by the disease, who could benefit from early intervention. It remains to be established how the presence of these alterations has a role in determining the intervention time and the outcome of these patients.