Pioneer Approach Research Articles

Application of Combined SCIP and Free Fibula Flaps for Reconstruction of a Massive Composite Oromandibular Defect: A Pioneering Approach

AbstractResection of advanced oral malignancies often leads to extensive composite tissue defects, which may involve skin, oral mucosa, mandible, and a significant amount of soft tissue. While the free fibula flap remains the primary choice of reconstruction, there are instances where a second flap is necessary for coverage. In such cases, the anterolateral thigh (ALT) flap is commonly employed as a second free flap. We recently utilized a superficial circumflex iliac artery perforator (SCIP) flap in combination with the free fibula flap to reconstruct a large oromandibular defect. This report emphasizes the significance of the SCIP flap and the benefits of combining free flaps, supported by relevant literature.

The Role Of StartupsIn Driving Sustainable Innovation

The following paper discusses the critical role that startups can play in driving forward sustainable innovation. At a time when environmental concerns top the world agenda, startups have taken the lead in pioneering new practices in sustainability and developing new solutions challenging conventional methods. It investigates how, at their nascent stage, these companies can use unique strategies, disruptive technologies, and agile business models to lead the charge toward sustainability. Drawing on case studies from a variety of industries, it points out exactly how startups tackling environmental challenges—from reducing carbon footprints to resource efficiency and circular economies— do so. The analysis stresses that this kind of startup does more than just innovate; it sets new trends within the market and consumer expectations. It also critically evaluates the extent to which established businesses could learn from or integrate these practices. It thus points out barriers and opportunities for traditional companies to adopt similar strategies, while discussing best practices for implementing a culture of innovation that has sustainability at the top of the list. The insights provided in this paper help to bridge the gap between innovative startups and established enterprises by giving actionable recommendations of how the most cutting-edge sustainability practices can be integrated within broader corporate frameworks. By borrowing from what works in startup successes, established companies can enhance environmental stewardship toward a more sustainable future. The paper seeks to explore in detail how startups are really triggering a transformation in sustainable innovation and to inspire established business players to engage in these pioneer approaches

People's Health in People's Hands: Dr. Abhay Bang and Dr. Rani Bang's Pioneering Approach to Rural Healthcare in India.

Dr. Abhay Bang and Dr. Rani Bang, a husband-and-wife team, have dedicated their lives to reforming healthcare in rural India. Their pioneering work in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, through the Society for Education, Action, and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), has led to revolutionary interventions such as the Home-Based Newborn Care (HBNC) model, significantly reducing infant mortality rates. Their emphasis on women's health and community empowerment has revolutionized conventional healthcare practices and influenced global health policies. This review article sheds light on the historical context and lasting impact of their contributions to community-based healthcare and public health research.

Weakly-supervised preclinical tumor localization associated with survival prediction from lung cancer screening Chest X-ray images

In this paper, we hypothesize that it is possible to localize image regions of preclinical tumors in a Chest X-ray (CXR) image by a weakly-supervised training of a survival prediction model using a dataset containing CXR images of healthy patients and their time-to-death label. These visual explanations can empower clinicians in early lung cancer detection and increase patient awareness of their susceptibility to the disease. To test this hypothesis, we train a censor-aware multi-class survival prediction deep learning classifier that is robust to imbalanced training, where classes represent quantized number of days for time-to-death prediction. Such multi-class model allows us to use post-hoc interpretability methods, such as Grad-CAM, to localize image regions of preclinical tumors. For the experiments, we propose a new benchmark based on the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial (NLST) dataset to test weakly-supervised preclinical tumor localization and survival prediction models, and results suggest that our proposed method shows state-of-the-art C-index survival prediction and weakly-supervised preclinical tumor localization results. To our knowledge, this constitutes a pioneer approach in the field that is able to produce visual explanations of preclinical events associated with survival prediction results.

A Pioneering Approach to the Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles

A Pioneering Approach to the Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles

A Pioneering Approach to Predicting the Shear Strength of RC Beams by Employing Artificial Intelligence Techniques

A Pioneering Approach to Predicting the Shear Strength of RC Beams by Employing Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Rousing Vocabulary: A Pioneering Approach to Stimulate Learners to Acquire EFL

For English as a Foreign Language students, it might be challenging to acquire vocabulary in particular. To give students a hand overcoming possible vocabulary acquisition difficulties, this study aimed at addressing the term Rousing Vocabulary, identifying its features and specifying its types as well. To quickly and deeply get the essential information to answer the two research questions, a questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. To design the questionnaire, the researcher held two 5-member focus groups of Saudi university students and one 4-member focus group of specialists. The three groups were asked to specify the main potential features and types of Rousing Vocabulary. The items invented were assembled, constructed, and used for the required questionnaire. The survey's validity and reliability were taken into account while evaluating the questionnaire's accuracy and consistency. One main result revealed that all participants agreed with the impression of having such features of Rousing Vocabulary. Among 5 potential features reached, the participants have a stronger experience with “Words that learners enjoy hearing and saying” and “Words that arouse strong feelings and are highly expressive”. Another main result showed that the vast majority agreed with the impression of having potential types of Rousing Vocabulary. Among 5 potential types of Rousing Vocabulary reached, the participants thought that “Words that belong to an area of interest” and “Frequently used words” had a higher potential ability to help students acquire new words easily. Some interpretations were discussed, and based on the study's findings, several recommendations were made.

An omics-to-omics joint knowledge association subtensor model for radiogenomics cross-modal modules from genomics and ultrasonic images of breast cancers

The radiogenomics analysis can provide the connections between genomics and radiomics, which can infer the genomic features of tumors from their radiogenomic associations through the low-cost and non-invasiveness screening ultrasonic images. Although there are a number of pioneer approaches exploring the connections between genomic aberrations and ultrasonic features, these studies mainly focus on the relationship between ultrasonic features and only the most popular cancer genes, confronting two difficulties: missing many-to-many relationships as omics-to-omics view, and confounding group-specific associations with whole sample associations. To overcome the difficulty of omics-to-omics view and the issue of tumor heterogeneity, we propose an omics-to-omics joint knowledge association subtensor model. Specifically, the subtensor factorization framework can successfully discover the joint cross-modal module via an omics-to-omics view, while the sparse weight sample indication strategy can mine sample subgroups from the multi-omic data with tumor heterogeneity. The experimental evaluation result shows the jointness of the discovered modules across omics, their association with tumorigenesis contribution, and their relation for cancer related functions. In summary, our proposed omics-to-omics joint knowledge association subtensor model can serve as an efficient tool for radiogenomic knowledge associations, promoting the cross-modal knowledge graph construction of in explainable artificial intelligence cancer diagnosis.

Case Study: A Pioneering Approach to Establishing Women into Management

The paper traces the transformative journey of a large IT Division in a prominent UK Life Insurance and Pensions Company, following the passing of the Equal Opportunities Act in 1984 and the Equality Act in 2010. Initiatives such as WIMIN (Women Into Management INitiative) were introduced to promote women's representation at the management level. This was done through various training sessions, role model interactions, and leadership development programmes specially designed for women. The emphasis was on helping participants recognize and harness their unique leadership styles. The initiative led to a notable increase in the percentage of women in leadership roles within the IT Division.

Can the long-term effects of beach cleaning heavy duty machinery on aeolian sedimentary dynamics be detected by monitoring of vehicle tracks? An applied and methodological approach

Beach-dune systems are fragile ecosystems vulnerable to changes, especially those associated to human activities. This study focuses on El Inglés beach (Canary Islands, Spain), which is located on the eastern limit of the Maspalomas dunefield. This is the sediment input to the dunefield, and vehicles that provide urban-touristic services circulate every day, most notably heavy duty machinery responsible for beach cleaning. The aim of this study is to make a first methodological approach and a quantitative and empirical analysis of the long-term environmental effects, especially on the topography and geomorphology, that mechanical beach cleaning services could have on the aeolian dynamics, using as an indicator the vehicles tracks mapping.The methodology is divided into four sections: i) a spatiotemporal study of vehicle tracks on the beach; ii) a field campaign to observe beach cleaning activities in situ and compile data; iii) an interview with the local team responsible for beach cleaning; and iv) a general analysis of the aeolian dynamics over the almost last two decades.Results shown not only a high correlation between vehicle tracks and heavy duty machinery tracks, but also the variation in vehicle track density was proven to follow changes in the management process and the number of tourists. Different track densities varied depending on the intensity of the presence of visitors and hence the intensity of beach use, which is not homogeneous throughout the beach. A study of the deflation surfaces as erosion process found that they not only remain steady but even increase in some areas with high vehicle track densities, with no sedimentary gain. Although management activities like cleaning and levelling may not have a direct impact on the dunefield, they were positively correlated to deflation surfaces, increasing sediment loss in the beach area. These activities could be leading an artificially-maintained steady beach contrary to documented sedimentary loss in the dunefield. In conclusion, the pioneer approach of analysing the vehicle traffic through tracks monitoring, especially beach cleaning activities, has shown the viability to detect long-term effects on the sedimentary dynamics, including sediment loss to the foredune and, therefore, inside the system.

Mechanical strengthening of nanotwinned Cu films with Ag solid solution

This study employs Ag solid solution to enhance the mechanical strength of nanotwinned copper (nt-Cu) films. We deposited a thin silver layer onto the nt-Cu film and annealed it at low temperatures. Depth profile reveals that Ag atoms diffused 100 nm after annealing. The Ag atoms interdiffused into nt-Cu film and strengthened it. A significant enhancement in hardness (45.9%) was obtained using the Ag layer and heat treatment. This could be attributed to the Ag diffusion, grain boundary segregation, and twin density increase. The study delivers a pioneer approach to strengthen the nt-Cu films.

María José Ragué Arias, pionera en el estudio del teatro contemporáneo hispánico y catalán con perspectiva de género

María José Ragué Arias (Barcelona 1941-2019) was a Catalan scholar, theatre critic, playwright and feminist activist. This article focuses on a particular aspect of Ragué’s career: her contributions to the study of contemporary Hispanic and Catalan theatre from a feminist perspective. Following an overview of her intellectual career, this article explores the different aspects of this part of her work: the study of the contemporary rewritings of ancient Greek theatre female characters, the reception of feminist anglophone theatre studies, the analysis of the theatre field from a gender perspective and the understanding of female authorship as a differential value. The ensemble of these contributions represents a pioneer approach to contemporary theatre within the late 20th century Spanish academia and is still current at multiple levels, standing as a referent to claim for the study of the relationships among gender, feminisms, women and theatre in the 21st Century.

Adsorptive transformation of ultralow-temperature heat using a “Heat from Cold” cycle

Adsorptive transformation of ultralow-temperature heat from various sources and its involvement in beneficial processes require pioneer approaches and intelligent solutions. One such approach, the so-called “Heat from Cold” (HeCol), has recently been proposed to amplify heat with an ultralow-temperature potential of only 0–20 °C to the temperature level sufficient for heating dwellings. This work addresses testing a HeCol prototype by simulating conditions of three locations in the Russian Federation (Moscow, Novosibirsk, and Oymyakon) with quite different climates. The effects of the cycle time, evaporator and condenser temperatures on the cycle useful heat and power were studied. The specific power was found to reach 300 W/kg-adsorbent under climatic conditions of Moscow city and more than 500 W/kg under the much colder conditions of Oymyakon. Furthermore, the maximal temperature of heat transfer fluid (water) experimentally measured under closed-loop conditions gradually reached 36 °C that is of certain practical interest. Finally, the feasibility of using the HeCol cycle for the adsorptive transformation of ultralow temperature heat was clearly demonstrated.

Electromechanical coupling effect in the detection of nanomechanical motion

The electromechanical coupling in the nanomechanical detection experiment is important as people forever pursue the higher sensitivity. In this work, we have studied theoretically the electromechanical coupling effect on the sensitivity of nanomechanical motion with the mixing current detection method under monostable and bistable regime, respectively. To obtain the sensitivity, the response function, the shot noise and the backaction noise with the coupling in the nanomechanical system consists of the oscillator coupled to a quantum dot are present. It is found that for the monostable state, the higher coupling means higher sensitivity. Both the contributions of shot noise and the backaction noise to the sensitivity are the decreasing function of the coupling. Once the system enters the bistability regime, the telegraph noise dominates instead of the resonance frequency noise, that due to the electron hopping in the bistable regime contributes more noise for the detection, its value is 3 orders of magnitude larger than the contribution of shot noise. As a result, one could find that there is a optimal value of the coupling corresponding to the phase transition point where the sensitivity is the best. Our results provide the pioneer and useful approach for the detection experiment.

Femtomolar Detection of Thrombin in Serum and Cerebrospinal Fluid via Direct Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Reduction by the Covalent G4-Hemin-Aptamer Complex.

Thrombin, a serine protease playing a central role in the coagulation cascade reactions and a potent neurotoxin produced by injured brain endothelial cells, is a recognized cardiac biomarker and a critical biomarker for Alzheimer's disease development. Both in vivo and in vitro, its low physiological concentrations and nonspecific binding of other components of physiological fluids complicate electroanalysis of thrombin. Here, femtomolar levels of thrombin in serum and an artificial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were detected by the indicator-free electrochemical methodology exploiting the O2 reduction reaction directly, with no electron transfer mediators, electrocatalyzed by the covalent G4-hemin DNAzyme complex naturally self-assembling upon thrombin binding to the hemin-modified 29-mer DNA aptamer sequence tethered to gold via an alkanethiol linker. Coadsorbed PEG inhibited nonspecific protein binding and allowed the sought signal resolution. The proposed assay exploiting the "oxidase" activity of G4-hemin DNAzyme does not require any coreactants necessary for the traditional peroxidase activity-based assays with this DNAzyme, such as H2O2 and redox mediators, or solution deaeration and allows fast, overall 30 min analysis of thrombin in aerated buffer, CSF, and 1% human serum solutions. This pioneer approach exploiting the oxidase activity G4-hemin DNAzyme is simple, sensitive, and selective and represents a new tool for ultrasensitive electrocatalytic assays based on simple and efficient O2-dependent DNAzyme labels.

Electrodeposition of Ni on MWNTs as a promising catalyst for CO2RR

AbstractNovel methods for the preparation of metal‐supported materials are desired for better catalytic performance and selectivity. In this article, Ni supported on multiwall nanotubes (Ni/MWNTs) is synthesized with electrodeposition method for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). The sample drying time after electrodeposition is found critical to oxidize Ni for better activity, and higher Ni oxidation state is required for CO2RR. The loading effect study proves that higher current density is achieved from small Ni clusters than that from large nano particles. This work provides a pioneer approach to synthesize small Ni clusters using electrodeposition method for electrocatalytic CO2 conversion.

Dynamics of Central Remyelination and Treatment Evolution in a Model of Multiple Sclerosis with Optic Coherence Tomography.

The need for remyelinating drugs is essential for healing disabling diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). One of the reasons for the lack of this class of therapies is the impossibility to monitor remyelination in vivo, which is of utmost importance to perform effective clinical trials. Here, we show how optical coherence tomography (OCT), a cheap and non-invasive technique commonly used in ophthalmology, may be used to assess remyelination in vivo in MS patients. Our pioneer approach validates OCT as a technique to study remyelination of the optic nerve and reflects what is occurring in non-accessible central nervous system (CNS) structures, like the spinal cord. In this study we used the orally bioavailable small molecule VP3.15, confirming its therapeutical potential as a neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and probably remyelinating drug for MS. Altogether, our results confirm the usefulness of OCT to monitor the efficacy of remyelinating therapies in vivo and underscore the relevance of VP3.15 as a potential disease modifying drug for MS therapy.

Controlled Delivery of BET-PROTACs: In Vitro Evaluation of MZ1-Loaded Polymeric Antibody Conjugated Nanoparticles in Breast Cancer.

Bromo and extraterminal domain (BET) inhibitors-PROteolysis TArgeting Chimera (BETi-PROTAC) is a new family of compounds that induce proteasomal degradation through the ubiquitination of the tagged to BET inhibitors Bromodomain proteins, BRD2 and BRD. The encapsulation and controlled release of BET-PROTACs through their vectorization with antibodies, like trastuzumab, could facilitate their pharmacokinetic and efficacy profile. Antibody conjugated nanoparticles (ACNPs) using PROTACs have not been designed and evaluated. In this pioneer approach, the commercial MZ1 PROTAC was encapsulated into the FDA-approved polymeric nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were conjugated with trastuzumab to guide the delivery of MZ1 to breast tumoral cells that overexpress HER2. These ACNPs were characterized by means of size, polydispersity index, and Z-potential. Morphology of the nanoparticles, along with stability and release studies, completed the characterization. MZ1-loaded ACNPs showed a significant cytotoxic effect maintaining its mechanism of action and improving its therapeutic properties.

Drought response of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) landraces at leaf physiological and metabolite profile levels

Drought threatens the world’s food production, particularly in Sub Saharan Africa low external input and rain fed agricultural systems, where cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is an important food crop. In the context of growing concerns regarding climate changes implications on water availability, this study aimed at 1) to evaluate the drought responses in cowpea landraces with contrasting drought tolerance levels (A55 – high sensitivity; A80 - mild sensitivity; A116 - tolerant), 2) using an integrated physiological (leaf gas exchanges; chlorophyll a fluorescence) and biochemical (photoprotective pigments; RuBisCO activity; primary metabolite profiling) analysis to identify drought tolerance probes, in plants submitted to three water availability levels (well-watered, WW; mild drought, MD; severe drought, SD). A116 plants maintained a better water status under drought, what could justify the higher Pn and Pnmax values in MD, as well as higher photochemical use of energy (reflected in the photochemical quenching (qL) and in the quantum yield of non-cyclic electron transport (Y(II))), and the lower need of photoprotective thermal dissipation mechanisms (given by the non-photochemical quenching (qN), and the quantum yield of regulated energy dissipation at photosystem PSII (Y(NPQ))), in MD and SD plants. Greater declines of net (Pn) and potential (Pnmax) photosynthesis were observed in A55 plants, which frequently showed significant impacts already under MD conditions in most parameters, whereas A80 usually displayed and intermediate behaviour. Still, even A55 showed some acclimation response, regarding photoprotective mechanisms associated with high contents of zeaxanthin, lutein, and carotenes, and high Y(NPQ), and qN values, supporting the absence of an increase in the non-regulated energy dissipation at PSII (Y(NO) did not increased) even in SD plants. Additionally, A55 was not significantly affected in RuBisCO activity, which showed to be quite resilient in cowpea. A primary metabolite profiling, complemented with a partial least square discrimination analysis (PLS-DA), allowed a better separation of A116 and A55 plants according to their degree of drought tolerance. In response to drought, A116 showed the greatest accumulation of most responsive metabolites, 14 in total, with sucrose, fucose, urea, alanine and putrescine being exclusively increased in this genotype, suggesting that they can be candidates as drought tolerance proxies. Other compounds, as proline, valine, isoleucine (among amino acids), and rhamnose and raffinose (among sugars) showed close increase patterns across landraces, thus they would be involved in the common drought response of cowpea plants. This pioneer approach to characterize Africa’s and Central Mozambique highly diverse cowpea germplasm, highlights the advantages of an integrated physiological and biochemical analysis, to identify response mechanisms and potential probes for drought tolerance in cowpea, aiming at to support selection and breeding strategies to obtain high yield and drought tolerant elite varieties.

Climatic data analysis for groundwater level simulation in drought prone Barind Tract, Bangladesh: Modelling approach using artificial neural network

This study presents implementation of non-linear autoregressive model with exogenous inputs (NARX) of Artificial neural network (ANN), used for groundwater level (GWL) simulation to predict its weekly level up to 52 weeks ahead in selected 14 Permanent Hydrograph Stations (PHSs) in the drought prone Barind Tract in the northwestern part of Bangladesh and is considered to be the first attempt of this type in the country. In this regard, the weekly historical time series climatological data (rainfall, temperature, humidity and evaporation) during 1980–2017 have been used as input variables to forecast GWL. Auto-correlation of GWL time series data to find out the dependent relationship between current GWL to the previous level were carried out and cross-correlation between GWL and rainfall have been used to find out the effectiveness with time. Here GWL is mostly influenced by rainfall having lagged continuation with corresponding peak (max) and trough (min) of rainfall indicating time delayed response of 11.25–14.0 (avg. 12.73) weeks. Analysis before training of ANN reveals that NARX models are good in prediction. Moreover, rainfall has affected by climatological parameters where rainfall is one of the potential input parameter influencing GWL. In recent years, groundwater withdrawals are higher than the rainwater recharge to aquifer due to continuous expansion of irrigated agriculture in the area. Finally, present study as pioneer approach provides significant contributions for groundwater management in resource planning of Bangladesh.