Search Results (24)

Background/Objectives: Recent research indicates a global transition from healthy and balanced diets to unhealthy Westernized dietary patterns (WDPs). This transition is linked to increased rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, often preceded by metabolic syndrome (MetS). Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop a diet quality index, termed Westernized Diet Index (WDI), to assess adherence to WDPs and its association with main cardiometabolic health issues, for which MetS and its components were chosen as representatives of NCDs. Methods: The development of the WDI was driven by a semi-systematic and comprehensive examination of the literature (n = 491 articles) that evaluated the influence of WDP components on health outcomes. The scoring algorithm involved multiple steps, assigning scores based on study design, sample size, and the direction of food effects on health outcomes. Results: The final developed index encompassed 30 food groups/items. It was revealed that soft drinks, processed foods, red meat, sodium, and hydrogenated fats had the most detrimental effects on health, significantly influencing the index’s coefficients. In contrast, dietary fiber, plant-based metabolites, vitamins, minerals, nuts/seeds, and fish had the most substantial beneficial impacts. Conclusions: The WDI aligns with the existing literature on the importance of specific food items and with other validated diet quality indices, e.g., the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI). Thus, the WDI can provide evidence for clinicians and researchers in formulating evidence-based dietary guidelines as well as strategies for the prevention and treatment of diet-related health issues. However, further validation is proposed to verify the WDI’s capability across different contexts. Full article

To modernize electrical power systems on isolated islands, countries around the world have increased their interest in combining green energy with conventional power plants. Wind energy (WE) is the most adopted renewable energy source due to its technical readiness, competitive cost, and environmentally friendly characteristics. Despite this, a high penetration of WE in conventional power systems could affect their stability. Moreover, these isolated island power systems face frequency deviation issues when operating in hybrid generation mode. Generally, under contingency or transient conditions for hybrid isolated wind–diesel power systems (WDPSs), it is only the diesel generator that provides inertial support in frequency regulation (FR) because wind turbines are unable to provide inertia themselves. Frequency deviations can exceed the pre-defined grid code limits during severe windy conditions because the diesel generator’s inertial support is not always sufficient. To overcome this issue, we propose a control strategy named emulation inertial and proportional (EI&P) control for Variable-Speed Wind Turbines (VSWTs). VSWTs can also contribute to FR by releasing synthetic inertia during uncertainties. In addition, to enhance the effectiveness and smoothness of the blade pitch angle control of WTs, a pitch compensation (PC) control loop is proposed in this paper. The aim of this study was to provide optimal primary frequency regulations to hybrid wind–diesel power systems (WDPSs). Therefore, the hybrid WDPS on San Cristobal Island was considered in this study. To achieve such goals, we used the above-mentioned proposed controls (EI&P and PC) and optimally tuned them using the Student-Psychology-Based Algorithm (SPBA). The effectiveness of this algorithm is in its ability to provide the best optimum controller gain combinations of the proposed control loops. As a result, the FD in the WDPS on San Cristobal Island was reduced by 1.05 Hz, and other quality indices, such as the integral absolute error (IAE), integral square error (ISE), and controller quality index (Z), were improved by 159.65, 16.75, and 83.80%, respectively. Moreover, the proposed PC control, which was further simplified using exhaustive searches, resulted in a reduction in blade pitch angle control complexity. To validate the results, the proposed approach was tested under different sets of perturbations (sudden loss of wind generator and gradual increase in wind speed and their random behavior). Furthermore, hybrid systems were tested simultaneously under different real-world scenarios, like various sets of load or power imbalances, wind variations, and their combinations. The Simulink results showed a significant improvement in FR support by minimizing frequency deviations during transients. Full article

Digital predistortion (DPD) is essential for improving the efficiency and linearity of power amplifiers (PAs), particularly in radio frequency communication systems. We propose a wavelet decomposition prediction (WDP) framework that better adapts to the highly nonlinear characteristics of PAs. In this framework, the input data are first decomposed using wavelet transformation, allowing for a more effective representation of nonlinear features. Next, a nonlinear modeling process is conducted on the PA to capture its distortion characteristics. Once the nonlinear model is trained, it is frozen to preserve its learned features. Based on this frozen nonlinear model, DPD is then applied to the PA to compensate for nonlinear distortions. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method, achieving the best ACPR and EVM performance on the OpenDPD dataset. Full article

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) include two types of proteins: partial disordered regions (IDRs) and wholly disordered proteins (WDPs). Extensive studies focused on the proteins with IDRs, but less is known about WDPs because of their difficult-to-form folded tertiary structure. In this study, we developed a bioinformatics method for screening more than 50 amino acids in the genome level and found a total of 27 categories, including 56 WDPs, in Arabidopsis. After comparing with 56 randomly selected structural proteins, we found that WDPs possessed a more wide range of theoretical isoelectric point (PI), a more negative of Grand Average of Hydropathicity (GRAVY), a higher value of Instability Index (II), and lower values of Aliphatic Index (AI). In addition, by calculating the FCR (fraction of charged residue) and NCPR (net charge per residue) values of each WDP, we found 20 WDPs in R1 (FCR < 0.25 and NCPR < 0.25) group, 15 in R2 (0.25 ≤ FCR ≤ 0.35 and NCPR ≤ 0.35), 19 in R3 (FCR > 0.35 and NCPR ≤ 0.35), and two in R4 (FCR > 0.35 and NCPR > 0.35). Moreover, the gene expression and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis showed that WDPs perform different biological functions. We also showed that two WDPs, SIS (Salt Induced Serine rich) and RAB18 (a dehydrin family protein), undergo the in vitro liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Therefore, our results provide insight into understanding the biochemical characters and biological functions of WDPs in plants. Full article

The combination of global climate change and the urban heat island effect has given rise to a deterioration in the livability of residential districts within cities, posing challenges to enhancing the health quality of urban environments. Meanwhile, the intensification of daytime changes in temperature and humidity in residential districts has rendered the sensory representation of the urban heat island effect more pronounced. This study selects the residential districts in Fuzhou City as the research case area, which have witnessed a discernible warming trend in recent years, and acquires temperature and humidity parameter data at three time periods (early morning, noon, and evening) to represent the daytime temperature and humidity change phase. Through aerial photography and field research, three types of spatial morphological indicators (buildings I, vegetation II, and the combination of buildings and vegetation II) of residential districts are quantified to represent the three-dimensional spatial form of the case study area. The analysis results show the following: ➀ Residential districts experience two phases of daytime changes in temperature and humidity: a warming and drying phase (WDP) in the morning and a cooling and humidifying phase (CHP) in the afternoon. The characteristics of changes in temperature and humidity show a spatial correlation with each other. ➁ The impact of urban three-dimensional morphology on changes in temperature and humidity in WDP is minor, whereas, in CHP, it is influenced by Class II and Class III indicators. The two types of urban morphology exert a synergistic regulatory effect on changes in temperature and humidity. ➂ Vegetation has a significant regulatory effect on temperature and humidity variations in residential areas through changes in its three-dimensional form. Enlarging the area of individual trees while reducing their canopy volume can restrain the warming and dehumidification of residential districts and promote cooling and humidification. In contrast to only planting trees, a vegetation configuration combining trees, shrubs, and grass can bring a more obvious cooling effect to residential districts. The research results can provide a reference for urban planners in the planning and design of residential areas as well as the optimization and improvement of urban living environments. Full article

A type of aquaculture pond called a dike-pond system is distributed in the low-lying river delta of China’s eastern coast. Along with the swift growth of the coastal economy, the water surfaces of the dike-pond system (WDPS) play a major role attributed to pond aquaculture yielding more profits than dike agriculture. This study aims to explore the performance of deep learning methods for extracting WDPS from high spatial resolution remote sensing images. We developed three fully convolutional network (FCN) models: SegNet, UNet, and UNet++, which are compared with two traditional methods in the same testing regions from the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. The extraction results of the five methods are evaluated in three parts. The first part is a general comparison that shows the biggest advantage of the FCN models over the traditional methods is the P-score, with an average lead of 13%, but the R-score is not ideal. Our analysis reveals that the low R-score problem is due to the omission of the outer ring of WDPS rather than the omission of the quantity of WDPS. We also analyzed the reasons behind it and provided potential solutions. The second part is extraction error, which demonstrates the extraction results of the FCN models have few connected, jagged, or perforated WDPS, which is beneficial for assessing fishery production, pattern changes, ecological value, and other applications of WDPS. The extracted WDPS by the FCN models are visually close to the ground truth, which is one of the most significant improvements over the traditional methods. The third part is special scenarios, including various shape types, intricate spatial configurations, and multiple pond conditions. WDPS with irregular shapes or juxtaposed with other land types increases the difficulty of extraction, but the FCN models still achieve P-scores above 0.95 in the first two scenarios, while WDPS in multiple pond conditions causes a sharp drop in the indicators of all the methods, which requires further improvement to solve it. We integrated the performances of the methods to provide recommendations for their use. This study offers valuable insights for enhancing deep learning methods and leveraging extraction results in practical applications. Full article

The water diversion project in Central Yunnan Province (WDP-YN) is the largest water diversion project under construction in China. However, the ecological effects of this water diversion project are still unclear. This study utilized Sentinel-2 remote sensing data to estimate fractional vegetation cover (FVC), maps spatiotemporal variations of FVC in construction areas from 2017 to 2022, and evaluates the impact of the WDP-YN on regional vegetation coverage using buffer analysis and vegetation type transition matrix methods. The study led to the following findings: (1) From 2017 to 2022, FVC within 10 km of the tunnel construction route showed a slightly downward trend or remained relatively stable with no significant changes in the spatial pattern of FVC. (2) Before and after the construction of WDP-YN, over 60% of the area within 10 km of the tunnel construction route showed no change in FVC. On Construction Route Section I (CRS-I), vegetation improved and/or degraded within 12.90% (14.10%) of the area and the regions with degraded FVC concentrated in the northern CRS-I. For Construction Route Section II (CRS-II), 11.96% and 27.51% of the regions were dominated by improved and/or degraded FVC. Vegetation changes near Groundwater Monitoring Point a (GMPa) were relatively stable. (3) The WDP-YN degraded vegetation within 2 km of both sides of CRS-I, slowing down the increase in FVC, while the WDP-YN improved vegetation within 2–6 km of both sides of CRS-II, the closer the distance to CRS-II, the faster the increase in FVC and the decrease in FVC slowed down within 0–2 km of both sides of CRS-II. This study sheds light on the impacts of water diversion infrastructure on vegetation coverage and provides practical guidance and reference for eco-environment protection and ecological restoration given water conservancy projects in China and other regions of the world. Full article

The evaluation of blasting vibrations primarily hinges on two physical quantities: velocity and acceleration. A significant challenge arises when attempting to reference the two types of vibration data in relation to one another, such as different types of seismometers, noise, etc., necessitating a method for their equivalent transformation. To address this, a transformation method is discussed in detail with a case study, and equations for the ratio (Ra) of the particle peak velocity (PPV) to the particle peak acceleration (PPA) are proposed. The findings are twofold: (1) The conventional data conversion processes often suffer from low accuracy due to the presence of trend terms and noise in the signal. To mitigate this, the built-in MATLAB function is used for trend term elimination, complemented by a combined approach that integrates CEEMDAN with WD/WDP for noise reduction. These significantly enhance the accuracy of the transformation. (2) This analysis reveals a positive power function correlation between Ra and the propagation distance of the blast vibrations, contrasted by a negative correlation with the maximum charge per delay. Intriguingly, the Ra values observed in pre-splitting blasting operations are consistently lower than those in bench blasting. The established Ra equations offer a rapid, direct method for assessing the transformation between the PPV and PPA, providing valuable insights for the optimization of blasting design. Full article

The aim of this paper is to propose an enhancement to the primary frequency control (PFC) of the San Cristobal Island hybrid wind–diesel power system (WDPS). Naturally, variable speed wind turbines (VSWT) provide negligible inertia. Therefore, various control strategies, i.e., modified synthetic inertial control, droop control and traditional inertial control, if introduced into VSWT, enable them to release hidden inertia. Based on these strategies, a WDPS has been simulated under seven different control strategies, to evaluate the power system performance for frequency regulation (FR). Furthermore, the student psychology-based algorithm (SBPA) methodology is used to optimize the WDPS control. The results show that modified synthetic inertial control is the most suitable approach to provide FR. However, further exhaustive research validates that droop control is a better alternative than modified synthetic inertial control due to the negligible system performance differences. In addition, droop control does not require a frequency derivative function in the control system. Therefore, the hybrid system is more robust. Moreover, it reduces the steady state error, which makes the power system more stable. In addition, a pitch compensation control is introduced in blade pitch angle control (BPAC) to enhance the pitch angle smoothness and to help the power system to return to normal after perturbations. Moreover, to justify the performance of hybrid WDPS, it is tested under certain real-world contingency events, i.e., loss of a wind generator, increased wind speed, fluctuating wind speed, and simultaneously fluctuating load demand and wind speed. The simulation results validate the proposed WDPS control strategy performance. Full article

(1) Background: Diabetes is a well-established risk factor for acute ischemic stroke (AIS). This study evaluated the impact of prestroke glycemic control in diabetic patients on their 3-month clinical outcome after mechanical thrombectomy (MT). (2) Methods: AIS patients with a premorbid modified Rankin scale (mRS) score of 0–2 who were admitted within 6 h after stroke onset and treated with MT between January 2020 and August 2023 were retrospectively analyzed. The study evaluated the effect of prestroke glycemic control on the stroke severity, reperfusion rate, symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH) and favorable clinical outcome (modified Rankin scale score 0–2) at 3 months after endovascular treatment. (3) Results: A total of 364 patients were analyzed, with 275 cases of non-diabetes (ND), 66 of well-controlled diabetes (WCD) and 23 of poorly controlled diabetes (PCD). There was no significant difference in the baseline neurological deficit expressed according to the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale among the three groups. The time from stroke onset to groin puncture was similar in the ND, WCD and PCD groups (median 215 min, 194.5 min and 222.5 min, respectively). There was no significant difference in the favorable 3-month clinical outcomes among these three groups (35.2% of ND patients, 42.4% of WCD patients and 39.1% of PCD patients) or full recovery (12.4% of ND patients, 11.0% of WCD patients and 17.4% of PCD patients). The rate of sICH was significantly higher in the PCD group as compared to the ND and WDP groups (21.7% of PCD patients versus 7.6% of ND patients, p = 0.038, and 6.0% of WCD patients, p = 0.046), but the 3-month mortality did not differ between the three groups (21.8% of ND group, 19.7% of WCD group and 26.1% of PCD group). (4) Conclusions: This study shows that poor prestroke glycemic control in AIS diabetic patients does not change the chance of a good clinical functional outcome after endovascular treatment. However, the increased risk of hemorrhagic complications in this group of patients should be considered. Full article

Western dietary patterns (WDP) and typical food groups may play a major role in the risk of behavioral health disorders. Nevertheless, the relationships between WDP, common food categories, and mental health disorders lack consistency and remain incompletely understood in relation to potential mechanisms. Therefore, the objective of the present study was conducted to synthesize available evidence linking WDP and typical food groups to these outcomes. Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, and MEDLINE were searched up to August 2023. Random effect meta-analyses were performed to obtain pooled odds ratio and the relative risk for the prevalence of outcomes and the incidence of outcomes, respectively. A total of 54 articles were included. WDP was associated with increased risk of both depression (1.19; 95% CI: 1.06–1.32) and depressive symptoms (1.20; 95% CI: 1.08–1.34). Except for high-fat dairy products, food groups are associated with an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and depressive symptoms. This review presents evidence to further understand the relationship between WDP, typical food groups, and the incidence of behavioral health disorders, and more randomized controlled trials and cohort studies are urgently required to confirm these findings and elucidate potential mechanisms. Full article

Over the last three decades, the Government of India (GOI) has used watershed management as a solution to solve issues concerning sustainable agricultural output in rainfed areas. Additionally, since 2003, the GOI has made watershed management a national policy. A lot of thought is given to all of the significant crops that have disappeared from farming systems in the watershed development programs (WDPs) of India’s current development plans, which are primarily focused on increasing and sustaining productivity levels. In the Sarguja division of Chhattisgarh, the present study attempted to document the on-site and off-site effects of these watershed development programs, as it observed an increase in the ground water level, a rise in the surface water and stream flow levels, a reduction in runoff as well as in soil erosion, increased agricultural and dairy production, improved livelihood and employment generation, and changes in the land use and farming patterns. These findings showed that the percentage of cropland increased in both Kharif and Rabi, because they started planting crops in Zaid, particularly cucumber, melon, and vegetables, that had been kept fallow. The patterns of land usage in the WDP regions have improved over time; due to farmers utilizing more wasteland for productive reasons, there has been a rise in the net sown area of these locations. Additionally, it has been claimed that many crops that were previously abandoned due to water shortages and other requirements are now being cultivated. Responses from the region’s population have been in favor of the introduction of innovative techniques like Agroforestry systems. Full article

Chinese named entity recognition of wheat diseases and pests is an initial and key step in constructing knowledge graphs. In the field of wheat diseases and pests, there are problems, such as lack of training data, nested entities, fuzzy entity boundaries, diverse entity categories, and uneven entity distribution. To solve the above problems, two data augmentation methods were proposed to expand sentence semantic information on the premise of fully mining hidden knowledge. Then, a wheat diseases and pests dataset (WdpDs) for Chinese named entity recognition was constructed containing 21 types of entities and its domain dictionary (WdpDict), using a combination of manual and dictionary-based approaches, to better support the entity recognition task. Furthermore, an automated Wdp Chinese named entity recognition model (AWdpCNER) was proposed. This model was based on ALBERT-BiLSTM-CRF for entity recognition, and defined specific rules to calibrate entity boundaries after recognition. The model fusing ALBERT-BiLSTM-CRF and rules amendment achieved the best recognition results, with a precision of 94.76%, a recall of 95.64%, and an F1-score of 95.29%. Compared with the recognition results without rules amendment, the precision, recall, and F1-score was increased by 0.88 percentage points, 0.44 percentage points, and 0.75 percentage points, respectively. The experimental results showed that the proposed model could effectively identify Chinese named entities in the field of wheat diseases and pests, and this model achieved state-of-the-art recognition performance, outperforming several existing models, which provides a reference for other fields of named entities recognition such as food safety and biology. Full article

Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) has become a widely used method for exploring plant gene expression level. The method requires using some stably expressed genes as a reference to accurately normalize the RT-qPCR data. However, under various stresses and hormone treatments, the levels of most reference genes vary. Environmental variations also influence their expression levels. The lack of validated, stably expressed reference genes can mislead the study of gene function in pears. “Huangguan” pears have recently become the focus of research on stress resistance mechanisms, such as high resistance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to select the optimal reference genes in Huangguan pears, and we analyzed the expression of the genes EF1α, ACT, SKD1, YLS8, UBQ, GAPDH, TUB, and WDP in a series of pear leaf sets under various stresses and hormone treatments. Using different statistical algorithms, we found that under various treatments, the WDP gene had more stable expression, ACT was the most stable under MeJA treatment, YLS8 was the most valuable reference gene under ABA hormone and heat stress conditions, and GAPDH showed worst results compared to other housekeeping genes, except under heat stress. These results will supply valuable and updated information for the selection of housekeeping genes in pears under biotic and abiotic stresses in the future. Full article

The intensive use of organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) causes concern among authorities in different countries, as many of them, remaining unchanged for a long time, pose a threat to environmental sustainability. This study assessed the spatio-temporal trends of nine OPPs in the water dissolved phase (WDP), suspended particulate matter (SPM), and sediment samples from the Sele River estuary, Southern Italy. Samples were collected in 10 sampling sites during four seasons. The highest levels were found at the mouth (mean value 28.25 ng L⁻¹ as WDP + SPM) and then decreased moving southwards to the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, highest concentrations were detected in the warm season (July) with a mean value of 27.52 ng L⁻¹. The load contribution to the Mediterranean Sea was evaluated in about 61.5 kg year⁻¹, showing that the river was an important source of OPPs through discharge into the sea. The risk assessment revealed that no high-risk indices for the general-case scenario were observed, but for the worst-case scenario, potential risks were associated with chlorpyrifos, pyrimifos-methyl, and parathion, suggesting that OPP contamination should not be neglected. This study makes up the first record of OPPs in the surface waters of the Sele River and provides helpful data as a starting point for future studies. Full article