Insights into the effects of biomass feedstock and pyrolysis conditions on the energy storage capacity and durability of standard biochar-based phase-change composites by Dimberu G. Atinafu, Ji Yong Choi, Jihee Nam, Yujin Kang, Sumin Kim

“…The PCM adsorption ratio of biochars derived from rice husk (RH) and Miscanthus straw linearly correlated with the pyrolysis temperature (550–700 °C), while RH700 resulted in a composite with a high enthalpy per unit mass of hexadecane (HXD) in RH700/HXD (250.9 J g−1) owing to the high surface area of RH700 (74.66 m2 g−1). …”
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Excess mortality and associated community risk factors related to hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico by Kristen N Cowan, Diego E Zavala, Erick Suarez, José A Lopez-Rodriguez, Omar Alvarez

“…Methods: Death records were obtained from Puerto Rico’s Department of Health Demographic Registry. Mortality risks per 100 000 were calculated for chronic disease categories and all-cause mortality for the 6 months following Maria and the same months in the year before. …”
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Effects of Tert-Butylhydroquinone on Intestinal Inflammatory Response and Apoptosis following Traumatic Brain Injury in Mice by Wei Jin, Hongbin Ni, Yuxiang Dai, Handong Wang, Tianyu Lu, Jun Wu, Jian Jiang, Weibang Liang

“…Adult male ICR mice were randomly divided into three groups: (1) sham + vehicle group, (2) TBI + vehicle group, and (3) TBI + tBHQ group (n=12 per group). Closed head injury was adopted using Hall's weight-dropping method. …”
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Heavy slow resistance training, radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy or advice for patients with tennis elbow in the Norwegian secondary care: a randomised controlled feasibili... by Jens Ivar Brox, Marianne Bakke Johnsen, Cecilie Roe, Aasne Fenne Hoksrud, Håkon Sveinall, Kaia B Engebretsen

“…An ancillary aim was to describe within-group changes in the secondary outcome measures (patient-reported and performance-based).Design A single-centre, three-armed, randomised controlled feasibility trial with a parallel design, with follow-up after 3 and 6 months.Setting Participants were recruited from the outpatient clinic at Oslo University Hospital.Participants Patients with lateral epicondylalgia, commonly known as tennis elbow.Interventions Participants were randomised in a 1:1:1 ratio to heavy slow resistance training, radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy or information and advice.Main outcome measures Feasibility was assessed according to a priori criteria for success.Results In total, 89 patients were screened for eligibility, and 69 (78%) patients were eligible for randomisation. 60 (92%) participants were randomised which gave a recruitment rate of 3.4 per month (against an a priori success cut-off of 3.75). …”
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Retrospective observational study of the association of peak blood glucose during the second 24 hours of admission with hospital-acquired complications in non-critical care admissi... by Andrew Georgiou, Getiye Dejenu Kibret, Barbara Depczynski, Sue Mei Lau

“…The risk of HAC cardiac in the diabetes cohort increased by 5.3% (aHR=1.05, CI: 1.01, 1.10) per mmol/L increase in day 2 peak glucose; no association was found in the non-diabetes cohort (aHR=1.03, 95% CI: 0.94, 1.13). …”
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Prevalence and Determinants of Geohelminthiasis among School-Age Children in Jimma City, Ethiopia by Ahmed Zeynudin, Teshome Degefa, Sultan Suleman, Abdulhakim Abamecha, Zuber Hajikelil, Andreas Wieser

“…Most (86.6%) of the STH-positive SAC had a single infection and a light infection intensity (88.2%), with a mean intensity of 367.4 eggs per gram. Location of Kebele (AOR = 2.73; 95% CI: 1.21–6.16, p=0.016), lack of hand washing after defecation (AOR = 6.39; 95% CI: 3.16–12.95, p<0.001), untrimmed fingernails (AOR = 2.65; 95% CI: 1.56–4.51, p<0.001), and lack of previous deworming (AOR = 2.90; 95% CI: 1.47–5.74, p=0.002) were significant predictors for STH infections among SAC. …”
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Adaptive Evolutionary Optimization of Deep Learning Architectures for Focused Liver Ultrasound Image Segmentation by Ali Zifan, Katelyn Zhao, Madilyn Lee, Zihan Peng, Laura J. Roney, Sarayu Pai, Jake T. Weeks, Michael S. Middleton, Ahmed El Kaffas, Jeffrey B. Schwimmer, Claude B. Sirlin

“…The algorithm simultaneously adjusts the depth (number of layers) and width (neurons per layer) of the network, dropout, and skip connections. …”
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Excretory Function of Intestinal Tract Enhanced in Kidney Impaired Rats Caused by Adenine by Yu Yun, Tao Gao, Yue Li, Zhiyi Gao, Jinlian Duan, Hua Yin, Weigang Duan

“…Rat kidney was impaired by intragastrically administrating adenine (400 mg per day for 5 days). Intestinal tract was harvested and equally divided into 20 segments except cecum. …”
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Behavioural intentions in response to a potential menthol cigarette sales ban: a survey examining smokers in Washington, DC public housing by Kimberly Horn, Craig T Dearfield, Ian Crandell, Debra H Bernat

“…Older residents (OR 0.94 per year, 95% CI 0.91 to 0.97), senior/disabled building versus family building residents (OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.97), those who smoked within 30 min of waking (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.98) and daily smokers (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.84) had lower odds of reporting quit intentions associated with a menthol ban. …”
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Review of the Effectiveness of the Existing Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems in Uganda. Case Study of Kabale Municipal Council, Kabale Municipality, Kabale District. by Ainebyona, Joseph

“…As an intervention to solve the problems of persisted problems of inadequate solid waste management systems, an integrated solid waste management system was designed per each municipal division to employ the standard approaches of solid waste management, that is; rickshaw van collection system to effect solid waste collection, sorting, composting and a landfill for disposal of non-organic and inert solid waste material. …”
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Investigating the Suitability of Partial Replacement of Basalt with Scoria as a Base Course Material for a Flexible Pavement. by Wambei, Allan

“…Basalt, scoria and their corresponding percentages satisfied the requirements for plasticity index, linear shrinkage and flakiness index. 5%Scoria-95% Basalt and 10% Scoria-90% Basalt satisfied all the requirements for the base course as per the general specification of roads and bridge works. 15% scoria-85% basalt and 20% scoria-80% basalt did not meet the requirements for ten percent fines value but satisfied all the other requirements for the base course. …”
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Performance of Sisal Fabre as Natural Geotextile to Reinforce Soil Layers on Unpaved Road. by Kyomugasho, Lilian

“…Based on the results the expansive soil reinforced with sisal fibre at the second layer can be used in unpaved road layers since it gave an increase in CBR from 3.7% to 19.2% since it meets the requirement as per the Uganda ministry of works, Housing and communication, 2005 and the general specification for roads and Bridges. …”
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Impact of Weed Infestation on Growth and Yield of Carrot Plants. by Mutabazi, Cosma

“…On 15th May 2024, two carrot seedlings were sown directly per hole at a spacing of 5cm. These 5 cm were measured using a ruler and holes were dug using a debar. …”
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¬¬Effect of Soil and Moisture Conservation Technologies on Growth and Grain Yields of Climbing Beans in Lake Mulehe Sub-catchment South-Western Uganda. by Kushaba, Laban Katende

“…Furthermore, mulching showed the highest effectiveness in promoting climbing bean growth and yield, with an average leaf number of 25, plant height of 2.4m, pod number of 84, and grain weight of 61 grams per 100 beans, surpassing both grass bunds and control plots. …”
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Design of a Mechanised Sorghum Sieving Machine Used in Agriculture Production. by Amanya, Davis

“…Observations going to the field and observing the farmer's produce per day, questioners asking questions about income and what can be the affordable price for the machine The objectives involved determining the design specification of the sieving machine, selecting and sizing the sieving machine to meet the design specifications, developing the layout of the machine, evaluate the performance of the machine through simulation. …”
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Kidney disease among adults on tenofovir-based second-line antiretroviral therapy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania by Sabina F. Mugusi, Grace A. Shayo, Philip G. Sasi, Lulu S. Fundikira, Eric A. Aris, Christopher R. Sudfeld, Ferdinand M. Mugusi

“…Patients were on second-line ART for a median of 49 [IQR: 25–73] months, and 60% received ATV/r. Low eGFR ( 90 mL/min per 1.73 m2) was found in 22% of patients, proportionately higher among patients on ATV/r compared to those on a lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) (P  0.05). …”
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Association between chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy and benzodiazepine prescription in patients with radicular low back pain: a retrospective cohort study using real-world... by Jeffery A Dusek, Robert James Trager, Zachary A Cupler, Kayla J DeLano, Jaime A Perez

“…Propensity score matching was used to control for covariates that could influence the likelihood of benzodiazepine utilisation.Outcome measures The number, percentage and OR of patients receiving a benzodiazepine prescription over 3, 6 and 12 months’ follow-up prematching and postmatching.Results After matching, there were 9206 patients (mean (SD) age, 37.6 (8.3) years, 54% male) per cohort. Odds of receiving a benzodiazepine prescription were significantly lower in the CSMT cohort over all follow-up windows prematching and postmatching (p&lt;0.0001). …”
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Evaluation of the rainfed and irrigated conditions on biomass and essential oil yield of German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) in response to melatonin foliar application by Hossein Gorgini Shabankareh, Mohammad Reza Asgharipour, Ali Salehi Sardoei, Ahmad Reza Kamaliun, Hamid Mohammadi, Mansour Ghorbanpour

“…Under irrigated conditions, the highest essential oil yield of 0.33 g per plant was also achieved with 100 mM melatonin. …”
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Effect of Extracorporeal Shock Wave combined with Occupational Therapy on Forearm Pronation Disorder in Children with Spastic Cerebral Palsy by Hezeng LIU, Yong ZHAO, Bingxu JIN, Chuntao ZHANG, Yang YANG, Miaotao WU, Xiaoli WANG, Jixiang CHENG

“…Objective:To observe the effect of extracorporeal shock wave combined with occupational therapy therapy on forearm pronation disorder in children with spastic cerebral palsy(SCP).Methods:A total of 42 children with SCP were randomly divided into the control group and the observation group, with 21 cases in each group in the children rehabilitation department of the affiliated Nanhai maternity and children's Hospital of Guangzhou university of traditional Chinese medicine from January to December 2019.The control group was given targeted occupational therapy, including upper limb forearm pronator stretching therapy, neurophysiological therapy(Bobath technology), proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation therapy(PNF); game type occupational training including placing objects in forearm supination position, supination grasping stick, supination fetching game, palm and back game, etc..The above training was conducted once a day, 30 minutes per time, six times a week, three months as a course of treatment, continuous treatment for two courses.The observation group was given extracorporeal shock wave therapy on the basis of the control group.The child with SCP was in a comfortable position and the forearms of the upper limbs were placed on the plane so that it could free its own gravity.The abdomen of pronator teres muscle was impacted with the probe of shock wave therapeutic instrument(pressure intensity: 1.0-1.5 bar;frequency: 8-10 Hz;impact times: 1 000-2 000 times).Three to five minutes each time, once every three days, twice a week, three months as a course of treatment, continuous treatment for two courses.Before treatment, after treatment for three months and six months, the modified Ashworth scale(MAS)was used to evaluate the spasticity of forearm pronator muscles;the active range of motion(AROM)of forearm supination was measured by joint range of motion protractor;and the fine motor quotient(FMQ)of hands was evaluated by Peabody development motor scale-fine motor(PDMS-FM).Results:Before treatment, there was no significant difference in MAS score, AROM angle and FMQ score between two groups(<italic>P</italic>&gt;0.05).Compared with before treatment, the MAS scores of the two groups decreased significantly after treatment for three and six months, and the AROM angle and FMQ score increased significantly, the difference was statistically significant(<italic>P</italic>&lt;0.05).Compared with the control group at the same time after treatment, MAS score of the observation group was significantly lower, AROM angle and FMQ score were significantly higher, the difference was statistically significant(<italic>P</italic>&lt;0.05).Conclusion:Extracorporeal shock wave combined with occupational therapy therapy can effectively improve the degree of upper limb spasticity and forearm supination joint activity in children with spastic cerebral palsy, and improve the fine motor function of hands.…”
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Automatic cervical lymph nodes detection and segmentation in heterogeneous computed tomography images using deep transfer learning by Wenjun Liao, Xiangde Luo, Lu Li, Jinfeng Xu, Yuan He, Hui Huang, Shichuan Zhang

“…Detection was evaluated via sensitivity, positive predictive value (PPV), and false positive rate per case (FP/vol), while segmentation was assessed using the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Hausdorff distance (HD95). …”
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