bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) root extract on aging‐related changes in healthy geriatric dogs: A randomized, double‐blinded placebo‐controlled study
Authors: Bharani Kala Kumar , Devarasetti Ashok Kumar , Carey Latha , Khurana Amit , Kollipaka Rajesh , Hanuman Donga Durga Veera , Chetla Vinaya Sree , Banothu Anil Kumar 
Published: July 2024

AbstractBackground and aimThis study aimed to explore the clinical potential of Withania somnifera/ashwagandha root extract (ARE) to mitigate age‐related changes in healthy geriatric dogs. We hypothesized that ARE can reduce the effects of advancing age, including physiological changes, immune response decline and susceptibility to diseases, by its immunomodulatory effects.MethodsA randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial was conducted in Telangana, India, from July 2022 to September 2022. Twenty apparently healthy dogs, aged 8 years or older, were enrolled. The dogs were divided into two groups to receive ARE (15 mg/kg, once daily, orally) or a placebo control. Various parameters, including serum cortisol levels, haematological profiles, biochemical markers, antioxidant indicators and anti‐inflammatory responses, were assessed at the initiation of study, day 30, and day 60.ResultsThe erythrocyte count and haemoglobin levels were significantly increased with ARE (p < 0.001), whereas leukocyte count decreased (p < 0.05). Moreover, significant decreases in important markers of liver function (alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, albumin and globulin; p < 0.001 at day 60), as well as kidney function markers (creatinine and blood urea nitrogen; p < 0.001 at days 30 and 60), were observed in ARE‐treated dogs compared to the placebo control group. In addition, the levels of markers of oxidative stress (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione and malondialdehyde) were significantly modulated by ARE intervention, indicating strong antioxidant effects. Interestingly, serum cortisol levels reduced significantly with ARE (p < 0.001). Compared to baseline, ARE significantly decreased key inflammatory markers, including interferon‐γ, tumour necrosis factor‐α, nuclear factor kappa light chain enhancer of activated B cells and interleukin‐10 (p < 0.001) levels at day 60.ConclusionIn conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that ARE has adaptogenic properties in healthy geriatric dogs by improving haematological and biochemical profiles, enhancing antioxidant defence, reducing stress and modulating inflammatory responses.
Transcorneal aspiration for management of primary iris cysts in the standing horse
Authors: Conduit Stefanie , Bowen Mark , Hallowell Gayle , Pereira Regina , Rapezzano Guilia , Redpath Adam 
Published: July 2024

AbstractBackgroundEquine primary iris cysts are usually incidental findings but, if associated with clinical signs, may require intervention. The use of laser (Nd:Yag or diode) has been reported but requires specialised equipment. Transcorneal aspiration has not been previously evaluated in the standing horse.ObjectivesTo review outcomes of standing transcorneal aspiration of primary iris cysts (STAPIC) in horses.MethodsHorses were identified from electronic patient records from 2018 to 2024 across four collaborating centres. Clinical presentation and outcomes were identified and reported using descriptive statistics.ResultsEighteen horses were identified. Behavioural signs reported included ‘spooking’ and changes in rideability often associated with jumping. Single large unilateral cysts were present in 11 horses, bilateral cysts in three horses and multiple unilateral cysts in four horses. Following treatment, one horse developed uveitis and fibrin in the anterior chamber associated with needle contact with the iris stroma due to movement, and a second horse developed fibrin within the anterior chamber. Both conditions resolved with anti‐inflammatory medication and administration of tissue plasminogen activator. No other adverse effects were reported. Follow‐up was available from all horses (median: 6 months, interquartile range [IQR]: 4–11 months) with no recurrence, although one horse developed an iris cyst in the contralateral eye after 3 years. All owners reported improvement in clinical signs, with 61% reporting no further signs.ConclusionsSTAPIC is an effective and easily accessible alternative for treating iris cysts in horses rarely associated with complications.
Military Leadership and Resilience
Authors: Boga Danny 
Published: July 2024

AbstractMilitary service exposes personnel to a variety of stressors and potentially traumatic events, ranging from combat through to common occupational demands found in any job. Military personnel frequently face demands such as extended time away from family and friends, exposure to ambiguous and potentially lethal situations, restrictions on personal freedoms, increased legal powers from supervisors, and the constant need to maintain “operational readiness.” The stressors faced during military service can have significant repercussions on operational effectiveness and force sustainment. How personnel respond to these demands while maintaining effective performance over time is often considered to be a matter of resilience. Resilience involves the ability to bounce back with minimal impact from adversity. Military leaders at all levels have become increasingly concerned about how the resilience of their personnel might impact or enhance operational capability. Commanders are increasingly recognizing the important roles leadership and organizational support play in the development of resilience.This chapter aims to provide a broad overview of some of the research, concepts, and practices being employed by modern militaries to foster resilience. It examines what is meant by resilience, then looks at how different concepts have been used at both individual and organizational levels to encourage greater resilience among military personnel. Overall, the development of resilience is a multifaceted process which leaders need to be aware of if they are to get the best out of their personnel. The promotion of adaptive “resilient” behaviors is particularly important in high-performance/high-stress organizations such as the military.
A Comparative History of Cooperatives in Switzerland, 1800–2000
Authors: Gutmann Martin 
Published: July 2024

AbstractThis chapter sketches the origins and development of cooperatives in Switzerland from 1800 to the present and explores to what extent the Swiss experience aligns with or departs from cooperatives in comparable countries. It concludes that both in its longer-term antecedents and in its trajectory throughout the past 200 years, cooperatives in Switzerland have displayed some unique dimensions, yet these are not as exceptional as many Swiss commentators and scholars purport.
Research on Intelligent Detection Technology for Highway and Bridge Engineering
Authors: Meng Xiangyu 
Published: July 2024

AbstractBridges are a crucial component of infrastructure, and the detection of their structure and health status has always been a focus of attention in the engineering field. However, there are a series of challenges in the application of traditional bridge detection methods in complex environments, especially in fine detection of special areas, which usually only rely on manual visual inspection, which limits the ability to comprehensively understand the health status of bridges. In response to this issue, research and summary on intelligent detection technology and equipment for highway bridges indicate that timeliness and accuracy are key factors in the process of bridge health diagnosis, evaluation, and maintenance. In modern engineering practice, intelligent detection technology and equipment have been widely applied, and rapid development has made machine vision based detection technology the main means. This trend has brought significant improvements to bridge inspection, and the introduction of various non-destructive testing technologies has provided diversified data support for the inspection process, making the inspection results more comprehensive and reliable. High performance intelligent detection equipment has emerged in this context, with its ability to carry various advanced sensors gradually covering various bridge detection needs.
A Prediction Model for Loess Collapse Coefficient Based on Genetic Algorithm Back Propagation Neural Network
Authors: Zhang Yuetong , Zhu Wuwei , Jin Shenglong , Niu Jianhui , Wang Qize , Xie Zhixun , Yang Xiao , Yue Yanchao 
Published: July 2024

AbstractAs an important property of loess, the collapsibility coefficient is commonly used in engineering to evaluate the collapsibility of loess. The main methods for predicting the collapsibility coefficient of loess currently include fuzzy algorithm, principal component analysis, data mining, etc. Due to the numerous indicators that affect the collapsibility of loess and their mutual influence, current research has problems such as incomplete consideration of indicators or insufficient data used to fit prediction models, resulting in insufficient prediction accuracy. Using factor analysis method, factor analysis is conducted on the selected indicator data based on the theory of collapsible deformation structure. Water content, porosity, and plasticity indicators are selected as independent main factors, and a Back Propagation (BP) neural network prediction model is constructed to predict the collapsible coefficient. Genetic algorithm is used to optimize the initial network parameters of the model. Compared to the BP neural network prediction model, the model optimized by genetic algorithm has varying degrees of improvement in accuracy, high prediction accuracy, and better practicality in engineering.
A Method for Identifying Public Transportation Super Spreaders Considering Community Structure
Authors: Chen Jun , Li Zaiqi , Zhang Zixuan , Li Xiaowei 
Published: July 2024

AbstractDue to variations in passengers’ travel behaviours, not all passengers exhibit the same epidemiological transmission ability when they are infected. Public transportation super spreaders are passengers who can cause more extensive infections when they are infected. This study utilizes multi-source public transit data to construct a weighted passenger contact network and proposes the Gravity Hub Bridge method (GHB) for node identification based on the gravity model and the community structure. Compared to other identification methods, GHB exhibits the largest transmission range difference at low, medium, and high epidemiological levels. In other words, the public transportation super spreaders identified by GHB possess a higher epidemiological transmission ability.
Computer Vision Technology in Cost Monitoring of Construction Projects
Authors: Ou Xiaolin 
Published: July 2024

AbstractWith the continuous development of technology, the application of computer vision technology in cost monitoring of construction projects is becoming increasingly important. By utilizing computer vision technology, construction companies can monitor the progress of construction sites, material usage, and allocation of human resources in real-time, thereby better controlling project costs. The application of this technology can not only improve the efficiency of construction projects, but also reduce human errors and waste, which is of great significance for the successful completion of projects. Therefore, construction companies should actively adopt computer vision technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of cost monitoring. In recent years, China's economy has continued to grow, continuously driving the development of infrastructure and manufacturing industries. However, at the same time, the production safety situation in China is becoming increasingly severe, and safety accidents continue to occur. One of the main causes of safety accidents is human misconduct, which includes workers wearing uniforms and safety helmets improperly during construction. Workers engage in some dangerous behaviors during construction, such as making phone calls, falling, and squatting for long periods of time. In response to the above issues, this article studies how the SSD (Single Shot MultiBox Detector) algorithm, CNN (Convolutional Neural Networks) algorithm, and YOLO (You only look once) algorithm can be applied to the behavior detection of construction workers, and compares them with existing object detection algorithms through experiments. The experimental data shows that the AP (Average precision), AP50, and AP75 values of the SSD-CNN algorithm in this article are 51.29%, 69.85%, and 54.81%, respectively. Among all the algorithms, the values of the three indicators rank in the top few.
Influence of Fly Ash and Basalt Fibers on the Properties of Recycled Pervious Concrete
Authors: Lou Hailong , Ma Chenglong , Hong Qiankun 
Published: July 2024

AbstractAs an environmentally friendly building material, recycled pervious concrete can not only alleviate the increasingly severe urban flooding and heat island effect, but also realize the resource utilization of construction waste. However, the porous nature of recycled pervious concrete leads to its low strength, and there is an urgent need to develop recycled pervious concrete with good mechanical and permeability properties. This paper proposes to mix fly ash and basalt fibers in the waste brick aggregate pervious concrete, and investigate the effects of mixing fly ash and basalt fibers on the properties of recycled brick pervious concrete by comparing the mechanical properties, water permeability and frost resistance of recycled brick pervious concrete. The results show that: with the increase of fiber admixture, the mechanical properties and frost resistance of recycled brick-mixed permeable concrete are improved, and the water permeability is decreased; fly ash is more obvious to improve the late strength of recycled brick-mixed permeable concrete, with the increase of fly ash admixture, the mechanical properties and frost resistance of recycled permeable concrete are improved, and the water permeability is decreased, and the excessive admixture of fly ash will greatly reduce the water permeability of recycled brick-mixed permeable concrete. Excessive incorporation of fly ash will greatly reduce the water permeability of recycled pervious concrete. Under the premise of better water permeability and mechanical properties, the optimal mix combination of 10% fly ash and 0.05% basalt fiber was selected on the basis of 85% recycled concrete aggregate and 15% brick aggregate as the mixed coarse aggregate.
Projective structures and Hodge theory
Authors: Causin Andrea , Pirola Gian Pietro 
Published: July 2024

AbstractEvery compact Riemann surfaceXadmits a natural projective structure$$p_u$$puas a consequence of the uniformization theorem. In this work we describe the construction of another natural projective structure onX, namely the Hodge projective structure$$p_h$$ph, related to the second fundamental form of the period map. We then describe how projective structures correspond to (1, 1)-differential forms on the moduli space of projective curves and, from this correspondence, we deduce that$$p_u$$puand$$p_h$$phare not the same structure.
Neuro-adaptive path following control of autonomous ground vehicles with input deadzone
Authors: Maaruf Muhammad , Mysorewala Muhammad Faizan 
Published: July 2024

AbstractThis article investigates the path-following control problem of an autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) with unknown external disturbances and input deadzones. Neural networks are used to estimate unknown external disturbances, dead zones, and nonlinear functions. The minimum learning parameter scheme is employed to adjust the neural network to reduce the computational load. A backstepping control is proposed to facilitate the tracking of the target path. The steady-state path-following error is decreased by adding an integral error term to the backstepping controller. Command filtering is employed to address the explosion of the complexity issue of the conventional backstepping approach, and the filtering error is compensated via an auxiliary signal. Lyapunov stability study indicates that the AGV closed-loop system is bounded by the proposed control with reasonable accuracy. At last, simulations are given to demonstrate the potential of the proposed scheme in path-following control.
Screening of rice genotypes against brown leaf spot (Bipolaris oryzae) (Breda de Haan) shoemaker, under field and laboratory conditions at Banke, Nepal
Authors: Bhandari Rita , Khatri Sanjaya , Acharya Basistha , Gauchan Unnati , Adhikari Goma , Thapa Sandesh 
Published: July 2024

AbstractA field experiment was carried out to screen 60 rice genotypes against brown leaf spot disease caused by Bipolaris oryzae with Sabitri as a resistant check and Mansuli as a susceptible check at Banke, Nepal. The field experiment was laid out in a randomized completed block design, and the seed infection screening was done in a laboratory with a completely randomized design. The disease assessment was done by calculating disease severity, the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC), and the seed infection rate. The disease severity and AUDPC significantly varied for the tested genotypes. Based on the AUDPC and disease severity values, this study observed that one genotype was moderately resistant, 11 were susceptible, and 48 were highly susceptible. From our experiment, rice genotypes were primarily susceptible rather than resistant; thus, for the next-generation breeding program for brown leaf spot-resistant genotypes, more landraces should be screened from diverse environments of Nepal.
Exploring the phytochemicals and in-vitro anticancer activities of Torenia crustacea
Authors: Nath Debabrata , Das Smriti Rekha Chanda , Ghose Shatabdi , Das Trishna , Chowdhury Sailee , Mazumder Rana 
Published: July 2024

AbstractRecent advances in herbal medicine have given it a unique place within society. This is perhaps due to its less harmful effects and plant-based products' use. The plants that we now call herbal remedies were used for centuries by many communities who relied on their traditional healers. The current study examines the phytochemicals and in-vitro anticancer activities properties of theTorenia crustaceaafter it have been extracted using various solvents. The plant was collected and authenticated, followed by drying, grinding and extraction using liquids with increasing polarity. The extracts obtained were subjected to phytochemical screening and TLC. The results were interpreted and used as a basis for the in vitro antioxidant and anticancer activities. The presence of phytoconstituents was further proved by TLC analysis, during which it was seen that the acetone extract exhibited two spots on the TLC plate, and the chloroform extract exhibited seven spots on the TLC plate. Various identification tests showed the presence of flavonoids, cardiac glycosides and anthraquinone glycosides. This was used as a basis for the in vitro studies, including antioxidant and anticancer studies. The results suggest that the plant under research exhibits promising in vitro antioxidant activity compared to the standard ascorbic acid with a low IC50value. The in vitro anticancer experiments also yielded good findings, indicating that this plant has the potential to be used as a strong anticancer agent.
Buck–Boost DC–AC converter based on coupled inductors
Authors: Osheba Dina S. M. , Goda Belal M. , Elsabbe Awad E. , Zein Elden Ashraf 
Published: July 2024

AbstractIn this paper, a single stage buck–boost DC–AC converter based on coupled inductors is presented for renewable energy and electric vehicle applications. The proposed topology works with only three semiconductor switches, two diodes, and three coupled inductors to transfer input DC voltage to a high gain or low gain output AC voltage. A coupled inductor is used instead of normal inductors, which will reduce core and size requirements. The sinusoidal pulse width modulation strategy is used in this paper for controlling the main switch. There are many merits in the presented topology, like high gain up to five times of input voltage, compact size, less number of components, which results in reducing the overall cost, reducing switching loss, and increasing the converter efficiency. The simulation study is carried out using MATLAB/SIMULINK to simulate the operation of the proposed converter. Also, an experimental setup is built up to examine the actual operation of the proposed converter. There is a good agreement between simulation and experimental results which increases the validation and confidence of the model.
Biomechanical effects of deltoid muscle atrophy on rotator cuff tissue: a finite element study
Authors: Wang Haiyan , Chen Lihua , Xu Guangming , Liu Hao 
Published: July 2024

AbstractThe deltoid muscle and rotator cuff tissue are structural components that maintain the dynamic stability of the shoulder joint. However, atrophy of the deltoid muscle may affect the stability of the shoulder joint, which in turn alters the mechanical distribution of rotator cuff tissue. Currently, the effect of muscle volume changes in the deltoid muscle on reducing the load on the rotator cuff tissue is still unknown. Therefore, this paper intends to analyze the mechanical changes of rotator cuff tissue by deltoid muscle atrophy through finite elements. Based on previously published finite element shoulder models, the deltoid muscle was modeled by constructing deltoid muscle models with different degrees of atrophy as, 100% deltoid muscle (Group 1), 80% deltoid muscle (Group 2), and 50% deltoid muscle (Group 3), respectively. The three models were given the same external load to simulate glenohumeral joint abduction, and the stress changes in the rotator cuff tissue were analyzed and recorded. In all three models, the stress in the rotator cuff tissue showed different degrees of increase with the increase of abduction angle, especially in the supraspinatus muscle. At 90° of glenohumeral abduction, supraspinatus stress increased by 58% and 118% in Group 2 and Group 3, respectively, compared with Group 1; In the subscapularis, the stress in Group 3 increased by 59% and 25% compared with Group 1 and Group 2, respectively. In addition, the stress of the infraspinatus muscle and teres minor muscle in Group 2 and Group 3 were higher than that in Group 1 during the abduction angle from 30° to 90°. Deltoid atrophy alters the abduction movement pattern of the glenohumeral joint. During glenohumeral abduction activity, deltoid atrophy significantly increases the stress on the rotator cuff tissue, whereas normal deltoid volume helps maintain the mechanical balance of the rotator cuff tissue.