Optimal quasi-metrics in a given pointwise equivalence class do not always exist

In this paper we provide an answer to a question found in [3], namely when given a quasi-metric p, if one examines all quasi-metrics which are pointwise equivalent to p, does there exist one which is most like an ultrametric (or, equivalently, exhibits an optimal amount of Hölder regularity)? The answer, in general, is negative, which we demonstrate by constructing a suitable Rolewicz-Orlicz space

Social Factors in P2P Energy Trading Using Hedonic Games

Lately, the energy communities have gained a lot of attention as they have the potential to significantly contribute to the resilience and flexibility of the energy system, facilitating widespread integration of intermittent renewable energy sources. Within these communities the prosumers can engage in peer-to-peer trading, fostering local collaborations and increasing awareness about energy usage and flexible consumption. However, even under these favorable conditions, prosumer engagement levels remain low, requiring trading mechanisms that are aligned with their social values and expectations. In this paper, we introduce an innovative hedonic game coordination and cooperation model for P2P energy trading among prosumers which considers the social relationships within an energy community to create energy coalitions and facilitate energy transactions among them. We defined a heuristic that optimizes the prosumers coalitions, considering their social and energy price preferences and balancing the energy demand and supply within the community. We integrated the proposed hedonic game model into a state-of-the-art blockchain-based P2P energy flexibility market and evaluated its performance within an energy community of prosumers. The evaluation results on a blockchain-based P2P energy flexibility market show the effectiveness in considering social factors when creating coalitions, increasing the total amount of energy transacted in a market session by 5% compared with other game theory-based solutions. Finally, it shows the importance of the social dimensions of P2P energy transactions, the positive social dynamics in the energy community increasing the amount of energy transacted by more than 10% while contributing to a more balanced energy demand and supply within the community.Comment: to be submitted to journa

The Molecular Restructuring of Classical Desserts by Using Food Industry By-Products

Fruit and vegetable by-products are in general thrown away and can cause environmental problems, even though they are a valuable source of bioactive compounds, which may be used for innovative food production.The present work focused on achieving a new type of dessert, a “Sweetburger”, by restructuring its molecular components with the aid of molecular gastronomy techniques and using agro-industrial wastes (beetroot and sour cherry pulp and peels, melon pomace). The innovative dessert has been obtained and the bioactive compounds contained in the agro-industrial wastes have been characterized using the HPLC method, Folin-Ciocalteu and spectrophotometry. The total polyphenol content from sour cherries waste was significant, 508,9 mg gallic acid/100 g. The total anthocyanin content from beetroot pulp was 0,117 mg/ 100 g

iRoute—An Adaptive Route Planning Solution for Commercial Vehicle Fleets

Featured Application: This article presents the implementation of an innovative adaptive algorithm for a route planning solution that can be used by commercial vehicle fleets, regardless of their main activity domain. The integrated platform aims to offer customers optimized and safer routes that can be better followed by the drivers, with small and acceptable differences between planned and executed routes. This article presents the results and conclusions of a research and development project for creating a commercial solution for vehicle fleets that will help businesses to have more adaptive routes optimized to the way they are running their businesses, local conditions, and drivers’ knowledge, avoiding road hazards known by drivers that frequently use the road path. Our solution consists of a data ingestion service from GPS devices, an integration layer with the end-customer applications, a route optimization engine, and two end-user applications: web and mobile. The solution presented in this article differs from other approaches as it uses historical route data to better adjust and optimize the final routes so that the results are more likely to be executed by drivers according to the initial criteria and plan in terms of distance and time. By using an innovative way of adjusting the optimized routes considering historical tracks, we obtained good results with up to a 20% improvement in terms of real executed distance and time versus standard optimizing algorithms. That means the business owners can better rely on the optimization process results, having access to a more realistic optimization plan that their drivers can easily follow.</p

Efficacy of two anthelmintic products on strongyles in horses from stud farms in Romania

Nematodes belonging to the group of equine strongyles have a huge impact on equine health. Studies in horse establishments world-wide have shown a tremendous occurrence of these parasites under largely different geographic and climatic conditions. Accordingly, decades of strongyle control have been based on regular and frequent preventive treatments with anthelmintics and, subsequently, this has led to increasing levels of anthelmintic resistance. Therefore, it is essential that investigations into the efficacy of current anthelmintics in different locations are performed to help future reliable control programmes. This paper reports preliminary data of a survey conducted in Romania to evaluate the efficacy of two commonly used anthelmintics (fenbendazole - FBZ and ivermectin - IVM) against horse strongyles, using a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT). Horses with a strongyle faecal egg count (FEC) of ≥50 eggs per gram (EPG) were enrolled into the study. The anthelmintic efficacy was determined by calculating the percentage of reduction in FEC between the group mean at Day 0 and Days 14 post-treatment. Individual strongyle faecal egg count reduction tests (n=137) were performed on three stud farms (R, S, C) in which 108 and 29 horses were administered ivermectin and fenbendazole, respectively. The results of the study have shown that the efficacy was within the expected range with no signs of anthelmintic resistance for IVM (98.2-100%). However, FBZ resistance was suspected in one stud (the group mean FECR of 75.4%). Thus, further studies are planned to investigate extension of the anthelmintic resistance in horse parasites including an increased number and different horse establishments in Romania, in order to design realistic control programmes carrying a limited risk of selection for anthelmintic resistance and improve overall health of the horses

Isolated Microorganisms for Bioconversion of Biodiesel-Derived Glycerol Into 1,3-Propanediol

During biodiesel production, massive amounts of raw glycerol are created generating an environmental issue and the same time an increase of biodiesel production cost at the same time. This raw glycerol could be converted by specific strains into value-added products, like 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD), an important monomer used in the synthesis of biodegradable polyesters.The present work is based on recent scientific articles and experimental studies on the targeted topic, namely on the use of bacterial strains for bioconversion of biodiesel-derived glycerol into valuable products, like 1,3-PD. Concentrations, yields and productivity of 1,3-PD are presented for various bacterial strains. Important results as respects the microbial bioconversion of biodiesel-derived glycerol into 1,3-PD were registered for strains like Klebsiella pneumoniae, Citrobacter freundii, Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus diolivorans.From this study can be concluded that waste glycerol may be used as a nutrient source for microbial development and the production of 1,3-propanediol with high concentrations and yields

Novel integrated bioprocess system for producing organic acids from food by-products

The aim of the current work proposed to utilize food by-products through an integrated process of solid-state (SsF) and submerged fermentation (SmF) with the purpose of obtaining the target compound itaconic acid (IA). Initially, this process was applied to glucose as substrate, which was also considered a control experiment. Through SsF with Aspergillus awamori, the production of hydrolytic enzymes (cellulase and glucoamylase) was obtained, and these were applied in SmF with A. terreus to produce IA. IA is a 5-C unsaturated organic acid highly used in producing biopolymers and with several positive qualitie

Safety, tolerability, and efficacy of subcutaneous efgartigimod in patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (ADHERE): a multicentre, randomised-withdrawal, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial

Background: Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is an autoimmune disease of the peripheral nervous system that can lead to severe disability from muscle weakness and sensory disturbances. Around a third of patients do not respond to currently available treatments, and many patients with a partial response have residual neurological impairment, highlighting the need for effective alternatives. Efgartigimod alfa, a human IgG1 antibody Fc fragment, has demonstrated efficacy and safety in patients with generalised myasthenia gravis. We evaluated the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 in adults with CIDP. Methods: ADHERE, a multistage, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, enrolled participants with CIDP from 146 clinical sites from Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. Participants with evidence of clinically meaningful deterioration entered an open-label phase of weekly 1000 mg subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 for no longer than 12 weeks (stage A). Those with confirmed evidence of clinical improvement (ECI; treatment responders) entered a randomised-withdrawal phase of 1000 mg subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 weekly treatment versus placebo for a maximum of 48 weeks (stage B). Participants were randomised (1:1) through interactive response technology and stratified by their adjusted Inflammatory Neuropathy Cause and Treatment (aINCAT) score change during stage A and their most recent CIDP medication within 6 months before screening. Investigators, the clinical research organisation, and participants were masked to the treatment. The primary endpoint in stage A, evaluated in the stage A safety population, was confirmed ECI (≥1 points aINCAT decrease, ≥4 points [centile metric] Inflammatory Rasch-built Overall Disability Scale increase, or ≥8 kPa grip strength increase after four injections and two consecutive visits). The primary endpoint in stage B, evaluated in the modified intention-to-treat population, was the risk of relapse (time to first aINCAT increase of ≥1 points). ADHERE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04281472) and EudraCT (2019-003076-39) and is completed. Findings: Between April 15, 2020, and May 11, 2023, 629 participants were screened; 322 (114 female, 208 male) entered stage A, of whom 214 (66%, 95% CI 61·0-71·6) had confirmed ECI. In stage B, 221 participants were randomised (79 female, 142 male; 111 to subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20, 110 to placebo). Subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 significantly reduced the risk of relapse versus placebo (hazard ratio 0·39 [95% CI 0·25-0·61]; p<0·0001). 31 (27·9% [19·6-36·3]) participants given subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 had a relapse versus 59 (53·6% [44·3-63·0]) given placebo. In stage A, treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) occurred in 204 (63%) participants and serious TEAEs in 21 (7%). In stage B, TEAEs occurred in 71 (64%) participants on subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 and 62 (56%) participants on placebo, and serious TEAEs in six (5%) on subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 and six (5%) on placebo. Three deaths occurred: two in stage A (one non-related and one unlikely related to treatment) and one in stage B (placebo group). Interpretation: ADHERE showed the efficacy of subcutaneous efgartigimod PH20 in reducing the risk of relapse versus placebo in people with CIDP who responded to treatment. Further studies are needed to provide data on the longer-term effects of efgartigimod alfa and how it compares with currently available treatment options. Funding: argenx

NEAR FIELS COMMUNICATIONS – FROM TOUCH TO TAP MARKETING

The Machine to Machine (M2M) Market, according to Digital Research (2012) was 121 bn. $in 2010, and was estimated by Digital Research to be 948 bn.$ for 2020. The so-called non-connectivity revenue (no human implication) will rise from 3% in 2010 to 25% in 2017, meaning no human interaction will be necessary to retrieve certain machines data. The data models processed from the information gathered here, can certainly predict clear consumer behaviors. Near Filed Communication has its own capacity to be part of the internet of things, as an interaction meter for human reactions to environment. Juniper Research (2014) on NFC, splits his marketing potential between smart posters, coupons, smart tickets for public transportation, consumer goods information, electronic wallet, but also on social media, smart homes, smart cars or even smarter cities