Participatory agro-climate information services: A key component in climate resilient agriculture

The brief promotes participatory agro-climate information services as a key component in achieving climate-smart agriculture. The brief emphasizes that actionable agro-climate information starts with—and responds to—gender-based needs of farmers, integrated at all stages of the value chain. Timely forecasts and accurate agroclimate advisories have been proven to provide farmers with production, adaptation, and mitigation benefits

Telehealth technology: Potentials, challenges and research directions for developing countries

Telehealth has been developed and successfully applied in clinical practices, gained a strong interest and demonstrated its usefulness for medical diagnosis, treatments and rehabilitation worldwide. The advent of high speed communication technology and complex signal processing techniques, and recent advancements in cloud and cognitive computing, has created a new wave of opportunities for delivering remote healthcare applications and services, where the cost-effective diagnosis and treatment solutions as well as healthcare services are important and need to be deployed widely. Nevertheless, there is still a significant challenge in fully adopting this technology due to asymmetry among the healthcare centers, hospitals and the user-ends, especially in developing countries. This paper provides an overview of the telehealth, then to addresses the possible telehealth technologies and applications that could be applied to improve the healthcare service performance, with the focus on the developing countries. The incorporation of different technologies in telehealth including, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud and cognitive computing, medical image processing and effective encoding is introduced and discussed. Finally, the possible research directions, challenges for the efficient telehealth, and potential research and technology collaborations are outlined

Self-adaptive Controllers for Renewable Energy Communities Based on Transformer Loading Estimation

In this paper, self-adaptive controllers for renewable energy communities based on data-driven approach are proposed to mitigate the voltage rise and transformer congestion at the community level. In the proposed approach, the transformer loading percentage is estimated by the trained data-driven model, which uses the extreme gradient boosting regression algorithm based on a measurement set acquired from critical coupling points of the communities. To avoid voltage rise issues, the droop control parameters (i.e., voltage threshold for P - V, Q - V curves) are adaptively tuned based on the solar irradiance availability and estimated transformer loading. The proposed approach has been tested in the IEEE European LV distribution network. Results showed that the control approach could effectively reduce 22.2 % of the total overloaded instances, while still keeping voltage magnitude in the operation range. This method can help DSOs manage voltage violation and congestion without further communication

One-pot microwave-assisted green synthesis of amine-functionalized graphene quantum dots for high visible light photocatalytic application

Nowadays, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) have gained a huge interest in the field of visible-range photocatalysts because of their tunable band gap and stable photochemical properties. In this work, amine-functionalized GQDs (AGQDs) were successfully prepared by one-step microwave-assisted conversion of glucose, H2O2, and NH3 solution. The obtained quantum dots possess the high quality of graphene structure with the average size of 3.78 nm as well as exhibit a strong green fluorescence with a high quantum yield. Interestingly, the amine-functionalized dots perform outstanding visible-light absorption. To further investigate photocatalytic properties, a composite of AGQDs and TiO2 was then prepared by a simple mixing route. The hybrid material showed high catalytic activity of dye degradation under visible light irradiation, which indicates the key role of AGQDs in enhancing light absorption and induced electron–hole separation. The current study may open a new way for construction of effective visible light photocatalytic systems with a cost-effective, simple approach.Scopu

A case of hepatic cyst-induced internal jugular venous thrombosis

• Echocardiography can demonstrate hepatic cyst–induced right atrial compression. • Hepatic cyst–induced blood flow stasis can cause internal jugular venous thrombus. • Laparoscopic deroofing of hepatic cysts is a safe and effective treatment

The Vietnamese Version of the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire and the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire:Translation and Cross-cultural Adaptation

OBJECTIVE: To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) and the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) into Vietnamese. METHODS: We followed the guideline by Beaton et al. (2000 & 2007). Stage I: two translators (informed and uninformed) translated the questionnaires. Stage II: the translations were synthesized. Stage III: back translation was performed by two translators fluent in both Vietnamese and English but naïve to the outcome measurement. Stage IV: seven experts reached consensus on the pre-final Vietnamese version (BIPQ-V and BMQ-V). Stage V: field test of the questionnaires on 16 twelve-year-old students and 31 Vietnamese patients. In addition, we determined the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the questionnaires in 34 Vietnamese patients with acute coronary syndrome. RESULTS: All experts agreed that there was semantic, idiomatic, experiential, and conceptual equivalence between the original and pre-final Vietnamese versions of the BIPQ and BMQ. Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the internal consistency were acceptable for the BMQ-V Specific-Necessity (0.64), BMQ-V Specific-Concerns (0.62), and BMQ-V General-Harm (0.60), with the exception of BMQ-V General-Overuse (0.27). Intra-class correlation coefficients of the test-retest reliability was acceptable for the subscales of BMQ-V (range: 0.77-0.86), and BIPQ-V items (range: 0.62-0.85) with the exception of BIPQ-V 1 (0.44, 95% CI -014-0.72) and BIPQ-V 4 (0.57, 95% CI 0.22-0.81). CONCLUSIONS: The Vietnamese version of BIPQ and BMQ are reliable tools to assess illness perceptions and beliefs about medicines of patients with acute coronary syndrome. Psychometric properties of these questionnaires should be tested in different patient populations

Topological correlations in soap froths

Correlation in two-dimensional soap froth is analysed with an effective potential for the first time. Cells with equal number of sides repel (with linear correlation) while cells with different number of sides attract (with NON-bilinear) for nearest neighbours, which cannot be explained by the maximum entropy argument. Also, the analysis indicates that froth is correlated up to the third shell neighbours at least, contradicting the conventional ideas that froth is not strongly correlated.Comment: 10 Pages LaTeX, 6 Postscript figure

Updated taxonomy and new insights into the evolutionary relationships of the genus Sporonchulus Cobb, 1917 (Nematoda, Mononchida) after the study of two Vietnamese species

Two known species of the genus Sporonchulus, namely S. ibitiensis and S. vagabundus, collected from natural areas of Vietnam, are characterized, including descriptions and illustrations of both species, as well as SEM observations and molecular (18S-, 28S rDNA) analyses of S. ibitiensis. The identity of the two species is discussed, with detailed comparison with previously known populations. The taxonomy of the genus is updated, presenting a diagnosis, list of species, key to their identification, and a compendium of their main morphometrics. An integrative analysis, combining morphological data with a cladistic approach and the first molecular study for a representative of Sporonchulus, better supports a narrow relationship of this genus with Mononchidae than with Mylonchulidae members, however further research should be conducted to elucidate its phylogeny

APOE genotype influences the gut microbiome structure and function in humans and mice: relevance for Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology

Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype is the strongest prevalent genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Numerous studies have provided insights into the pathologic mechanisms. However, a comprehensive understanding of the impact ofAPOEgenotype onmicroflora speciation and metabolismis completely lacking. In this study,we investigated the association between APOE genotype and the gut microbiome composition in human and APOE–targeted replacement (TR) transgenic mice. Fecal microbiota amplicon sequencing from matched individuals with different APOE genotypes revealed no significant differences in overall microbiota diversity in group aggregated human APOE genotypes. However, several bacterial taxa showed significantly different relative abundance between APOE genotypes. Notably, we detected an association of Prevotellaceae and Ruminococcaceae and several butyrate-producing genera abundances with APOE genotypes. These findings were confirmed by comparing the gutmicrobiota ofAPOE-TRmice. Furthermore, metabolomic analysis of murine fecalwater detected significant differences in microbe-associated amino acids and short-chain fatty acids between APOE genotypes. Together, these findings indicate that APOE genotype is associated with specific gut microbiome profiles in both humans and APOE-TR mice. This suggests that the gut microbiome is worth further investigation as a potential target to mitigate the deleterious impact of the APOE4 allele on cognitive decline and the prevention of A

An overview of grid-edge control with the digital transformation

Distribution networks are evolving to become more responsive with increasing integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and digital transformation at the grid edges. This evolution imposes many challenges to the operation of the network, which then calls for new control and operation paradigms. Among others, a so-called grid-edge control is emerging to harmonise the coexistence of the grid control system and DER’s autonomous control. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the grid-edge control with various control architectures, layers, and strategies. The challenges and opportunities for such an approach at the grid edge with the integration of DERs and digital transformation are summarised. The potential solutions to support the network operation by using the inherent controllability of DER and the availability of the digital transformation at the grid edges are discussed