Knee osteoarthritis among adults in Al Madam city, Sharjah: unrevealing the prevalence and predisposing factors:a cross-sectional study

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder of the knee, and its progression, influenced by multifactorial predisposing factors such as age, BMI, and physical activity, often results in significant limitations in day-to-day activities and deterioration of quality of life. Although the prevalence and predisposing factors of OA are well-documented globally, this study is distinct in its focus on the semi-urban population of Al Madam City, Sharjah. The unique socio-cultural and occupational characteristics of this community provide an opportunity to identify localized risk factors and their impact on OA prevalence, offering insights that can inform tailored healthcare strategies. Objective: The present study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of OA and its associated predisposing factors among the population of Al Madam, Sharjah. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of knee OA in the population of Al Madam City, Sharjah. This study was conducted in twelve villages. 1300 participants were recruited through convenience sampling using a screening questionnaire survey to identify individuals with knee OA. The Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) questionnaire was used, with an additional questionnaire consisting of questions related to its predisposing factors. Results: The prevalence of knee OA was 12.9% in Al-Madam City, Sharjah. Predisposing factors, such as age (χ2:314.900), sex (χ2:13.581), nationality (χ2:76.657), BMI (χ2:86.174), physical activity levels (χ2:11.099), previous knee injury (χ2:657.715), level of education (χ2:259.906), and occupation with the sedentary job (χ2:193.911), were found to be associated with the prevalence of knee OA. Conclusions: This study highlights that the prevalence of knee OA in Al Madam City is 12.9%, with significant associations observed between knee OA and factors such as age, sex, BMI, physical activity levels, education, and previous knee trauma. The findings underline the impact of the city’s unique socio-cultural and occupational characteristics, such as high representation of labor-intensive jobs and limited leisure activity options, on the development of knee OA

Water Ageing of Epoxies:Effect of Thermal Oxidation

Epoxy samples obtained by curing bisphenol A diglycidyl ether with triethylenetetramine are thermally oxidized at 160°C under air. The impact on water sorption is investigated by water uptake recorded by Dynamic Vapor Sorption and the gravimetric method. Experimental data mainly showed that water solubility in epoxies increases due to oxidative degradation, meanwhile, the formation of clustering remains limited. In the investigated ageing conditions, water diffusion obeys Fick's law. Despite a significant chain scission process, water diffusivity in polymer remains constant, possibly in line with the fact that hydroxypropylethers are the driving force of water diffusion and are not degraded during thermal ageing.</p

Integrating social narratives of flood events into a text network analysis-based decision support framework to reduce vulnerability to climate change in Africa

In many African countries, the response to climate change is obstructed by a lack of accessible and usable information, such as localised flood maps. Compounding this, current disaster risk management systems often fail to account for context-specific drivers of social vulnerability and environmental risks, crucial for enhancing social resilience to flood impacts. This paper captures the community-based narratives of flood risk in Lusaka, Zambia. Using a well-established network from the Future Resilience for African Cities And Lands (FRACTAL) group, a cross-disciplinary approach of natural and social sciences to support decision-making for flood resilience is presented as the Participatory Climate Information Distillation for Urban Flood Resilience in Lusaka (FRACTAL-PLUS) project. Local flood inundation maps were created using global rainfall and GIS datasets and then analysed across two interactive “Learning Labs” with local stakeholders. Historical observations and lived experiences were distilled from the learning labs into three community-based social narratives of flood risk. These narratives were used to calibrate the flood maps with insights from Lusaka’s stakeholders using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Text Network Analysis (TNA). The narrative-informed flood maps provide a dynamic entry point for enhancing stakeholder engagement by discussing social vulnerability to floods and climate change, highlighting future challenges and opportunities for resilience planning. The outputs demonstrate the value of convening stakeholders to discuss these topics in a sustainable setting for addressing the interdisciplinary challenges of climate resilience, offering a benchmark for better use of available resources and enabling a swift evaluation of needs and measures for resilience building

EEG electrode setup optimization using feature extraction techniques for neonatal sleep state classification

An optimal arrangement of electrodes during data collection is essential for gaining a deeper understanding of neonatal sleep and assessing cognitive health in order to reduce technical complexity and reduce skin irritation risks. Using electroencephalography (EEG) data, a long-short-term memory (LSTM) classifier categorizes neonatal sleep states. An 16,803 30-second segment was collected from 64 infants between 36 and 43 weeks of age at Fudan University Children's Hospital to train and test the proposed model. To enhance the performance of an LSTM-based classification model, 94 linear and nonlinear features in the time and frequency domains with three novel features (Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA), Lyapunov exponent, and multiscale fluctuation entropy) are extracted. An imbalance between classes is solved using the SMOTE technique. In addition, the most significant features are identified and prioritized using principal component analysis (PCA). In comparison to other single channels, the C3 channel has an accuracy value of 80.75% ± 0.82%, with a kappa value of 0.76. Classification accuracy for four left-side electrodes is higher (82.71% ± 0.88%) than for four right-side electrodes (81.14% ± 0.77%), while kappa values are respectively 0.78 and 0.76. Study results suggest that specific EEG channels play an important role in determining sleep stage classification, as well as suggesting optimal electrode configuration. Moreover, this research can be used to improve neonatal care by monitoring sleep, which can allow early detection of sleep disorders. As a result, this study captures information effectively using a single channel, reducing computing load and maintaining performance at the same time. With the incorporation of time and frequency-domain linear and nonlinear features into sleep staging, newborn sleep dynamics and irregularities can be better understood

Obligate diapause and its termination shape the life-cycle seasonality of an Antarctic insect

The Antarctic midge, Belgica antarctica, is a unique insect endemic to Antarctica. It has a 2-year life cycle, with larvae overwintering in two different instars and adults emerging the following summer. This seasonality is crucial for adaptation to Antarctica’s harsh climates and ephemeral growing seasons; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We found that, under summer-like conditions, larvae could develop from egg to the fourth-instar larval stage without interruption, but they never pupated. Spontaneous developmental arrest at this stage suggests that they overwinter in obligate diapause, a genetically determined period of dormancy. The winter cold can terminate this diapause, and long-term cold exposure is more effective. Although this species can utilise two alternative cold tolerance strategies with diapause for overwintering, freezing was more successful than cryoprotective dehydration in allowing survival and developmental resumption in our experimental conditions. In contrast, the first three larval instars continued their development under the same conditions as the fourth-instar larvae. Although we do not exclude the possibility of facultative diapause, they likely overwinter in a quiescent state, an immediate developmental arrest in response to adversity, to maximise exploitation of the short Antarctic summer. Diapause and quiescence ensure developmental and reproductive success in this extremophile insect

Family functioning as a mediator or moderator between child behavioural and emotional problems and maternal psychological distress

Background: Mothers of children with intellectual disabilities are more likely to show elevated psychological distress, with child behavioural and emotional problems being a significant risk factor. Family Resilience Theory suggests that family relationships are crucial in influencing adaptation to stressors. We investigated whether family functioning mediates or moderates the relationship between child behavioural and emotional problems and subsequent maternal psychological distress. Method: We conducted mediation and moderation analyses on data from 324 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities in a United Kingdom (UK) prospective longitudinal cohort study. Results: Family functioning had a small mediating effect on the relationship between child behavioural and emotional problems and subsequent maternal psychological distress. Family functioning did not moderate the relationship between child behavioural and emotional problems and later maternal psychological distress. Conclusions: The mechanism of the effect of child behavioural and emotional problems on maternal mental health may at least partially involve changes in family functioning.</p

Repression of CADM1 transcription by HPV type 18 is mediated by three-dimensional rearrangement of promoter-enhancer interactions

Upon infection, human papillomavirus (HPV) manipulates host cell gene expression to create an environment that is supportive of a productive and persistent infection. The virus-induced changes to the host cell's transcriptome are thought to contribute to carcinogenesis. Here, we show by RNA-sequencing that oncogenic HPV18 episome replication in primary human foreskin keratinocytes (HFKs) drives host transcriptional changes that are consistent between multiple HFK donors. We have previously shown that HPV18 recruits the host protein CTCF to viral episomes to control the differentiation-dependent viral transcriptional programme. Since CTCF is an important regulator of host cell transcription via coordination of epigenetic boundaries and long-range chromosomal interactions, we hypothesised that HPV18 may also manipulate CTCF to contribute to host transcription reprogramming. Analysis of CTCF binding in the host cell genome by ChIP-Seq revealed that while the total number of CTCF binding sites is not altered by the virus, there are a sub-set of CTCF binding sites that are either enriched or depleted of CTCF. Many of these altered sites are clustered within regulatory elements of differentially expressed genes, including the tumour suppressor gene cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADM1), which supresses epithelial cell growth and invasion. We show that HPV18 establishment results in reduced CTCF binding at the CADM1 promoter and upstream enhancer. Loss of CTCF binding is coincident with epigenetic repression of CADM1, in the absence of CpG hypermethylation, while adjacent genes including the transcriptional regulator ZBTB16 are activated. These data indicate that the CADM1 locus is subject to topological rearrangement following HPV18 establishment. We tested this hypothesis using 4C-Seq (circular chromosome confirmation capture-sequencing) and show that HPV18 establishment causes a loss of long-range chromosomal interactions between the CADM1 transcriptional start site and the upstream transcriptional enhancer. These data show that HPV18 manipulates host cell promoter-enhancer interactions to drive transcriptional reprogramming that may contribute to HPV-induced disease progression.</p

Harvesting Underdevelopment:Exploring the Water–Food Nexus in Brazilian Municipalities

Efforts to promote human development through agriculture highlight issues that require balanced approaches, considering socio-environmental factors, including equitable water allocation in regions with significant inequalities. This study aims to assess human development disparities across Brazilian regions, particularly in municipalities with high water consumption for irrigation in agriculture and livestock watering. Using public data from 2007 and 2016, a total of 300 municipalities were selected each year for analysis based on water use types. The study compared groups using the Firjan Index of Municipal Development (FIMD) as a measure of human development, employing the Kruskal–Wallis test with a 95% confidence level. We found statistically significant differences in FIMD distribution across all of the groups studied. We also verified that a set of municipalities in the Southeast did not experience significant advancements in development between 2007 and 2016, despite having high water allocations for livestock watering. Additionally, intense water use for irrigation was insufficient to elevate less advantaged regions, such as the Northeast, where half of the municipalities were classified with moderately low values in both years. The challenges in this water–food nexus study highlight the need for more integrated policies to ensure greater justice in human development and in the distribution of natural resource exploitation for agribusiness income

How congruent are populist parties with their constituencies?:Evidence from the 2019 European Parliament Elections in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden

The rise of populism in Europe has often been described as a response to representation deficits. Arguably, populist parties (1) contribute to the representation of underrepresented constituencies by taking stances that non-populist parties are too constrained to advocate and (2) make a promise of extreme responsiveness to those frustrated with the lack of representation. In this research note, we investigate whether populist parties are indeed closer to their voters in the policy space than non-populist parties and are more congruent with their constituencies than the other parties are with theirs. Using data from Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find that populist parties are indeed often the best policy option for their voters, but the correspondence between their positions and those of their constituencies is on average as good or bad as that between other parties and their voters.<br/

Water-based 8YSZ electrolyte suspension optimised by design of experiments

Solid oxide cells are approaching commercial viability, with most of the currently used materials representing state-of-the-art advancements. However, widespread market adoption hinges on reducing costs. In this context, manufacturing improvements—particularly those that minimise material waste during production—can play a crucial role in lowering the capital expenditure (CAPEX) of solid oxide cells, ultimately influencing the levelised cost of fuel for end users.This study presents an optimisation of electrolyte slurry formulation for tape casting. By controlling variables such as solid loading, binder content, milling parameters, and casting conditions, we achieved reproducible results in electrolyte thickness, porosity, and electrical conductivity.The slurries were prepared by ball milling, employing a range of compositions that included both low and high solid and binder contents. The resulting rheological profiles, tape quality, thickness, and porosity were carefully evaluated. The experimental design culminated in an optimised composition, for which electrical conductivity was measured using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The impedance data were deconvoluted into grain bulk and grain boundary contributions, enabling further refinement of the sintering temperature and subsequent microstructure