Unfilled Gaps Research Articles

Analysis of peculiarities of polymer matrix microstructure in PCMs formed under the influence of electrophysical effects

The microstructure of monolayer samples formed by 3D printing from composite prepregs reinforced with continuous carbon fiber, followed by treatment in a cured state by exposure to ultrasonic vibrations and a microwave electromagnetic field, has been studied. It has been shown that high-power ultrasonic exposure causes macro-changes, which are characterized by a decrease in the number and transverse dimensions of delaminations (cracks) from 0.05–0.1 mm to 0.01–0.02 mm and a decrease in the height of microrelief elements by almost an order of magnitude. Changes caused by exposure to a microwave electromagnetic field are more apparent when examining the end surface with an increase from ×1000 to ×10000. The control samples revealed fibers consolidated by binder in combination with unfilled gaps in a ratio of about 50:50, with individual globular fragments of frozen binder on their surface. The samples after microwave exposure revealed the presence of large areas without defects, completely uniformly filled with binder, fibers from all sides are in contact with the binder, in which there are voids no larger than 5 × 1.5μm in size. Greater orderliness of the structure of monolayers is most typical for samples with two-stage processing, including preliminary ultrasonic and subsequent.

Milk-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: Biomedical Applications, Current Challenges, and Future Perspectives.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nano to-micrometer-sized sacs that are released by almost all animal and plant cells and act as intercellular communicators by transferring their cargos between the source and target cells. As a safe and scalable alternative to conditioned medium-derived EVs, milk-derived EVs (miEVs) have recently gained a great deal of popularity. Numerous studies have shown that miEVs have intrinsic therapeutic actions that can treat diseases and enhance human health. Additionally, they can be used as natural drug carriers and novel classes of biomarkers. However, due to the complexity of the milk, the successful translation of miEVs from benchtop to bedside still faces several unfilled gaps, especially a lack of standardized protocols for the isolation of high-purity miEVs. In this work, by comprehensively reviewing the bovine miEVs studies, we provide an overview of current knowledge and research on miEVs while highlighting their challenges and enormous promise as a novel class of theranostics. It is hoped that this study will pave the way for clinical applications of miEVs by addressing their challenges and opportunities.

Unfilled gaps by polβ leadto aberrant ligation by LIG1 at the downstream steps of base excision repair pathway.

Base excision repair (BER) involves the tightly coordinated function of DNA polymerase β (polβ) and DNA ligase I (LIG1) at the downstream steps. Our previous studies emphasize that defective substrate-product channeling, from gap filling by polβ to nick sealing by LIG1, can lead to interruptions in repair pathway coordination. Yet, the molecular determinants that dictate accurate BER remains largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that a lack of gap filling by polβ leads to faulty repair events and the formation of deleterious DNA intermediates. We dissect how ribonucleotide challenge and cancer-associated mutations could adversely impact the ability of polβ to efficiently fill the one nucleotide gap repair intermediate which subsequently results in gap ligation by LIG1, leading to the formation of single-nucleotide deletion products. Moreover, we demonstrate that LIG1 is not capable of discriminating against nick DNA containing a 3'-ribonucleotide, regardless of base-pairing potential or damage. Finally, AP-Endonuclease 1 (APE1) shows distinct substrate specificity for the exonuclease removal of 3'-mismatched bases and ribonucleotides from nick repair intermediate. Overall, our results reveal that unfilled gaps result in impaired coordination between polβ and LIG1, defining a possible type of mutagenic event at the downstream steps where APE1 could provide a proofreading role to maintain BER efficiency.

Preenchimento de falhas em dados meteorológicos usando o programa GapMET no Estado de Mato Grosso, Brasil

ABSTRACT This paper aimed to introduce the GapMET software, developed by the authors, and evaluate the accuracy of its six methods for gap-filling the main meteorological variables monitored by weather station in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, using reference time series from neighbour weather station and/or remote sensing products. The methods were tested on seven different databases, with 25 to 80% artificial gaps, and their accuracy was given by the number of gaps left unfilled, the bias, the RMSE, and Pearson’s correlation. The GapMET software showed good results in filling meteorological gaps regardless of the method applied. Methods that use only one neighbour weather station as a reference series showed better results because, in the state, the minimum distance for a weather station to have at least three neighbours as reference was 350 km, reducing the climatic similarity between them and consequently the accuracy when more than one reference series were needed. The use of satellite reference series reduced the probability of unfilled gaps; however, it showed higher bias and RMSE and lower correlations.

A novel measurement approach based on optical coherence tomography for inline quality assessment of thermoplastic glass-fiber reinforced unidirectional tapes

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been found to be a powerful method for non-destructive testing of glass-fiber reinforced polymeric composites. Various authors have investigated the use of OCT in offline lab-scale detection of fiber orientation and defects in thermoset-based composites. This work evaluated the potential of OCT as a technique for detecting common defects in the continuous production of thermoplastic glass-fiber reinforced unidirectional (UD) tapes. Measurements were first conducted with a stationary OCT sensor using a spectral domain system to investigate: (1) insufficiently impregnated fiber regions, (2) unfilled gaps, (3) polymer accumulations causing fiber/matrix irregularities, and (4) rough tape surfaces. Optical microscopic analysis was used for validation. To overcome the limited maximum field of view of modern OCT setups, we then developed a novel inline test rig to accurately simulate process conditions and measure across the whole tape width. We show that OCT is a reliable method for acquiring cross-section information on tape quality both at the lab scale with a stationary sensor and inline with a sensor moving across the tape surface. Our OCT measurements were in excellent agreement with our offline microscopic investigations. OCT is a powerful, non-destructive and high-resolution method for quality assessment of glass-fiber reinforced UD tapes and has great potential for use in inline quality assurance systems.

Pushing the limits of HiFi assemblies reveals centromere diversity between two Arabidopsis thaliana genomes.

Although long-read sequencing can often enable chromosome-level reconstruction of genomes, it is still unclear how one can routinely obtain gapless assemblies. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, other than the reference accession Col-0, all other accessions de novo assembled with long-reads until now have used PacBio continuous long reads (CLR). Although these assemblies sometimes achieved chromosome-arm level contigs, they inevitably broke near the centromeres, excluding megabases of DNA from analysis in pan-genome projects. Since PacBio high-fidelity (HiFi) reads circumvent the high error rate of CLR technologies, albeit at the expense of read length, we compared a CLR assembly of accession Eyach15-2 to HiFi assemblies of the same sample. The use of five different assemblers starting from subsampled data allowed us to evaluate the impact of coverage and read length. We found that centromeres and rDNA clusters are responsible for 71% of contig breaks in the CLR scaffolds, while relatively short stretches of GA/TC repeats are at the core of>85% of the unfilled gaps in our best HiFi assemblies. Since the HiFi technology consistently enabled us to reconstruct gapless centromeres and 5S rDNA clusters, we demonstrate the value of the approach by comparing these previously inaccessible regions of the genome between the Eyach15-2 accession and the reference accession Col-0.

Non-Invasive Data Acquisition and IoT Solution for Human Vital Signs Monitoring: Applications, Limitations and Future Prospects.

The rapid development of technology has brought about a revolution in healthcare stimulating a wide range of smart and autonomous applications in homes, clinics, surgeries and hospitals. Smart healthcare opens the opportunity for a qualitative advance in the relations between healthcare providers and end-users for the provision of healthcare such as enabling doctors to diagnose remotely while optimizing the accuracy of the diagnosis and maximizing the benefits of treatment by enabling close patient monitoring. This paper presents a comprehensive review of non-invasive vital data acquisition and the Internet of Things in healthcare informatics and thus reports the challenges in healthcare informatics and suggests future work that would lead to solutions to address the open challenges in IoT and non-invasive vital data acquisition. In particular, the conducted review has revealed that there has been a daunting challenge in the development of multi-frequency vital IoT systems, and addressing this issue will help enable the vital IoT node to be reachable by the broker in multiple area ranges. Furthermore, the utilization of multi-camera systems has proven its high potential to increase the accuracy of vital data acquisition, but the implementation of such systems has not been fully developed with unfilled gaps to be bridged. Moreover, the application of deep learning to the real-time analysis of vital data on the node/edge side will enable optimal, instant offline decision making. Finally, the synergistic integration of reliable power management and energy harvesting systems into non-invasive data acquisition has been omitted so far, and the successful implementation of such systems will lead to a smart, robust, sustainable and self-powered healthcare system.

Cultural Revolution in the Philippines amidst the New Normal

Comparison between Cultural Revolution in China and the need to bring back Generation Z to the grassroots level, especially after the ill effects brought about by the pandemic. The transition to bringing everything back to normal will be a very difficult task even with the implementation of the limited face-to-face since April 4. Since this study is qualitative, the weight will be geared towards a comparison of the values and practices absorption pre-digital age and the digital age, Admittedly, there have been unfilled gaps in the abrupt turnout from carefree and laidback teenagers to being digital natives. The results of the study show that there are unexpected situations that can compromise not only the teachers but more of the students so with the other stakeholders.

Machine-Learning-Based Digital Twin in Manufacturing: A Bibliometric Analysis and Evolutionary Overview

The Digital Twin (DT) concept in the manufacturing industry has received considerable attention from researchers because of its versatile application potential. Machine Learning (ML) adds a new dimension to DT by enhancing its functionality. Many studies on DT in the manufacturing industry have recently been published. However, there is still a lack of a systematic literature review on different aspects of ML-based DT in the manufacturing industry from a bibliometric and evolutionary perspective. Therefore, the proposed study is mainly aimed at reviewing DT in the manufacturing industry to identify the contribution of ML, current methods, and future research directions. According to the findings, the contribution of ML to this domain is significant. Additionally, the results show that the latest ML technologies are being used in the DT domain; neural networks have evolved based on application-specific requirements. The total number of papers and citations per paper on ML-based DT is increasing. The relevance of ML in DT has increased over time. The current trend is to use ML-based DT for data analytics. Additionally, there are many unfilled gaps; certain gaps include industrial applications of DT, synchronisation with real-time data through sensors, heterogeneous data management, and benchmarking.

Beer Brewing in Namibia and Sensory Profile of Beer on Sale in the Namibian Market

This study presents a brief history of beer in Namibia and explores the Namibian beer market by investigating the sensory characteristics of the beers readily available on the off-premises segment of the drink market. Twenty-two beers were sampled, and their characteristics were quantified using Descriptive Analysis and trained assessors. The results showed that the beers under study included a small range of products in terms of beer styles, most of the beers brewed in or imported to Namibia being bottom-fermented blond lagers of low to moderate alcohol content. These beers were not typically complex and divided into samples brewed in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot standards and into samples brewed in accordance to brewing protocols not compliant with the Germany purity law. Although sameness seemed to be the keyword, subtle significant differences existed among these beers. Some samples, the most flavorsome overall, were perceived as being significantly more alcoholic, bodied, carbonated, bitter, astringent, malty, and richer in solvent-like and vinous impressions. Other samples were perceived as having a thinner mouthfeel and being richer in caramel-like and cooked vegetable notes. Other blond beers included lite beers and were identified as thinner, whereas alcohol-free beers were identified as watery, rich in wort and cooked vegetable-like notes, and low in bitterness and perceived levels of carbonation. IPA and Doppelbock stood out from the others due to maltiness, bitterness, fruitiness, and a full body. Nearly all the samples were free from faults, and this attested to the high-quality standards of Namibian beers. In terms of brewing styles, unfilled gaps in the market exist and offer untapped opportunities for brewers.

Dimensional Model of Personality Disorder Incorporated Into ICD-11

Dimensional Model of Personality Disorder Incorporated Into ICD-11

Impact of Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Pisces: Cichlidae) invasion on taxonomic and functional diversity of native fish species in the upper Kabompo River, northwest of Zambia.

Invasive alien species have been revealed to drastically alter the structure of native communities; however, there is scarce information on whether taxonomic and functional spaces occupied by native species are equally filled by exotic species. We investigated the diversity of native species to understand the impact of exotic Oreochromis niloticus in the upper Kabompo River, northwest of Zambia using taxonomic and functional diversity indices. To achieve this, two tests were performed (Test 1, compared natives in invaded and uninvaded sections; Test 2, compared natives in invaded section). A total of 17 species were collected for functional diversity computation, out of which fourteen (14) functional trait measurements linked to feeding, locomotion, and life history strategy were taken. Findings revealed that taxonomic and functional diversity values changed with invasion in both tests. Taxonomic diversity was 15% more in invaded than uninvaded sections in Test 1 and was not consistent across sampling points of invaded section in Test 2. Invaded areas were taxonomically less diverse, but functionally diverse in both tests. The analysis of similarity and nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed no difference in Bray–Curtis similarity assemblages in both tests. Our findings revealed that exotic species more often occupy unfilled gaps in the communities often occupied by the native species; this is achieved by occupying functional spaces. Overall, changes in taxonomic and functional diversity of native species documented here partially confirmed impacts of O. niloticus invasion. Therefore, we recommend a multifaceted approach to assess cumulative impacts of invasion on native species.

Real-time interpolation of global ionospheric maps by means of sparse representation

In this paper, we propose a method for the generation of real-time global ionospheric map (RT-GIM) of vertical total electron content (VTEC) from GNSS measurements. The need for interpolation arises from the fact that the ionospheric pierce point (IPP) measurements from satellites to stations are not distributed uniformly over the ionosphere, leaving unfilled gaps at oceans or poles. The method we propose is based on using a high-quality historical database of post-processed GIMs that comprises more than two solar cycles, calculates the GIM by weighted superposition on a subset of the database with the compatible solar condition. The linear combination of GIMs in the database was obtained by minimizing a $$\ell _2$$ distance between VTEC measurements at the IPPs and the VTECs from the database, adding a $$\ell _1$$ penalization on the weights to assure a sparse solution. The process uses a Sun-fixed geomagnetic reference frame. This method uses the atomic decomposition/least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), which will be denoted as atomic decomposition interpolator of GIMs (ADIGIM). As the computation is done in milliseconds, the interpolation is performed in real time. In this work, two products were developed, denoted as UADG and UARG, the UADG in real time and UARG with a latency of 24 h to benefit from the availability of a greater number of stations. The altimeter JASON3 VTEC measurements were used as reference. The quality of interpolated RT-GIMs from day 258 of 2019 to 155 of the year 2020 is compared with other RT/non-RT GIM products such as those from International GNSS Service (IGS), Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and others. The RT ADIGIM performance proved to be better, nearly as good as the rapid or final GIMs computed retrospectively with delays of hours to days. Besides, the non-RT ADIGIM quality is as good or better than most GIM products. The oceanic regions have been included in the assessment which showed that ADIGIM interpolation gives the best estimation (referred to JASON3). The developed method, UADG, will constitute the next-generation UPC RT-GIM, and also UARG will improve the current product UQRG (the current UPC rapid GIM product computed retrospectively) due to its complementary information.

Issues and perspectives of capacity development in embodied energy indices for building materials sourced in Nigeria: A review

Embodied energy (EE) property of building material is a great determinant of the performance of a building. The dearth of information on EE of locally sourced building materials (LSBMs) constitutes a challenge to affordable housing in Nigeria. In this paper, a review of the previous literature, unfilled gaps in those works, and future directions in embodied energy research for LSBMs is presented to evolve a Nigerian perspective. A constructive non-meta analytic methodology was adopted for the paper. This was followed by classification and comparison of snapshot literature in the embodied energy of building materials. Insightful sources of information for the study were drawn from a vast body of knowledge both documented literature and some interviews with knowledgeable personnel in the area of a built environment. From the survey, energy management opportunities were revealed, which would not have been apparent from a specific building case study alone. There are distinctions in the literature with this currentpaper for a Nigerian case study: none have addressed the embodied energy coefficient of materials. Also, the status of embodied energy studies, for these materials, is at a low profile and the few investigations carried out focused on life cycle operating energy of buildings. These research gaps evidently imply abundant research opportunities that await exploitation in the building industry. This paper adds to an existing body of knowledge on the use of EE index to promote and optimize the selection of LSBMs as alternative to imported building materials. We hope engineers, estate developers and architects would find it useful for making an informed decision in the design of resilient buildings using indigenous materials.
 Keywords: building material, embodied energy, system boundary, capacity, building information modelling, Nigeria.

Neuroinflammation, Gut-Brain Axis and Depression.

Psychiatric diseases are the manifestations that result from the individual’s genetic structure, physiology, immunology and ways of coping with environmental stressors. The current psychiatric diagnostic systems do not include any systematic characterization in regard to neurobiological processes that reveal the clinical picture in individuals who got psychiatric diagnosis. It is obvious that further research in different areas is needed to understand the psychopathology. The problems in the functions of immune system and the correlation of neuroinflammatory processes with psychiatric disorders have been one of the main research topics of psychiatry in recent years and have contributed to our understanding of psychopathology. Recent advances in the fields of immunology and genetics as well as rapidly increasing knowledge on the effects of immunological processes on brain functions have drawn attention to the correlations between psychiatric disorders and immune system dysfunctions. There are still unfilled gaps in the biology, pathophysiology, and treatment of major depressive disorder, which is quite prevalent among the psychiatric disorders, can lead to significant disability, and frequently has a recurrent course. It appears that low-grade chronic neuroinflammation plays a key role in forming a basis for the interaction between psychological stress, impaired gut microbiota and major depressive disorder. In this review, the role of neuroinflammation in the etiopathogenesis of depression and the mechanism of action of the gut-brain axis that leads to this are discussed in the light of current studies.

Education and Employment are at two Poles- A Research using Fuzzy Cognitive Linguistic Multimaps

The status of white collar jobs are gradually declining in India and the people are getting accustomed to just in jobs for their livelihood sustainability. The question of existence of such unfilled gaps between education and employment is still unanswered and now it has become a predicament. It is indeed a crucial period for the higher educational institutions of the nation to balance both enrollment and placement of the students amidst the prevailing competitions in the educational market. In the present days, educational sectors are becoming corporatized by institutionalizing the principles of corporate into the dictionary of academics with the argument of fostering quality in education. The management of the institutions also substantiates such kind of transition in this era of technology. Should the institutions become manufacturing companies of quality employees to make them fit into the job market, which demands excess of skills and competencies to go for a long run? The reasons for education and employment being at two poles have to be studied to develop a deeper comprehension on the grounds of such emerging crisis. This study will be fruitful to the educationalists, academic experts and educational reformers to frame certain remedial measures for rectification. To carry out this research work systematically the concept of Fuzzy Cognitive Linguistic Multimaps, which is an extension of fuzzy cognitive trimaps, is used to draw feasible concluding remarks and inferences devoid of ambiguity and uncertainty.

A Nature-Inspired, Flexible Substrate Strategy for Future Wearable Electronics.

Flexibility plays a vital role in wearable electronics. Repeated bending often leads to the dramatic decrease of conductivity because of the numerous microcracks formed in the metal coating layer, which is undesirable for flexible conductors. Herein, conductive textile-based tactile sensors and metal-coated polyurethane sponge-based bending sensors with superior flexibility for monitoring human touch and arm motions are proposed, respectively. Tannic acid, a traditional mordant, is introduced to attach to various flexible substrates, providing a perfect platform for catalyst absorbing and subsequent electroless deposition (ELD). By understanding the nucleation, growth, and structure of electroless metal deposits, the surface morphology of metal nanoparticles can be controlled in nanoscale with simple variation of the plating time. When the electroless plating time is 20 min, the normalized resistance (R/R0 ) of as-made conductive fibers is only 1.6, which is much lower than a 60 min ELD sample at the same conditions (R/R0 ≈ 5). This is because a large number of unfilled gaps between nanoparticles prevent metal films from cracking under bending. Importantly, the Kelvin problem is relevant to deposited conductive coatings because metallic cells have a honeycomb-like structure, which is a rationale to explain the relationships of conductivity and flexibility.

Machine Learning and Process Mining applied to Process Optimization: Bibliometric and Systemic Analysis

The highly competitive business environment has been increasing with the advent of Industry 4.0, since the fast-changing market requirements need rapid decision-making to improve productivity. Hence, the smart factory has been highlighted as a digitized and connected production facility, which can use and combine data analytics and artificial intelligence algorithms and techniques to manage and eliminate failures in advance by accurate prediction. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the unfilled gaps and the opportunities regarding machine learning and process mining applied to process optimization, through a literature review based on the last five years of study. In order to accomplish these goals, the current study was based on the Knowledge Development Process – Constructivist (ProKnow-C) methodology. Firstly, a bibliographic portfolio was created through Articles Selection and Filters Application. This found that, from 3562 published articles across five databases between 2014 and 2018, only 32 articles relating to the topic were relevant. Secondly, the bibliometric analysis allowed the interpretation and the evaluation of the bibliographic portfolio regarding its impact factor, the scientific recognition of the articles, the publishing year and the highlighted authors. Thirdly, the systemic analysis carried out thorough reading of all selected articles to identify the main researched problems, the proposed goals and resources, the unfilled gaps and the opportunities.

Could the Glycemic Gap Fill the Unfilled Gaps?

Could the Glycemic Gap Fill the Unfilled Gaps?

Effect of vertically oriented few-layer graphene on the wettability and interfacial reactions of the AgCuTi-SiO2f/SiO2 system

With the aim of expanding their applications, particularly when joining metals, a simple but effective method is reported whereby the surface chemical reactivity of SiO2f/SiO2 (SiO2f/SiO2 stands for silica fibre reinforced silica based composite materials and f is short for fibre) composites with vertically oriented few-layer graphene (VFG, 3–10 atomic layers of graphene vertically oriented to the substrate) can be tailored. VFG was uniformly grown on the surface of a SiO2f/SiO2 composite by using plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). The wetting experiments were conducted by placing small pieces of AgCuTi alloy foil on SiO2f/SiO2 composites with and without VFG decoration. It was demonstrated that the contact angle dropped from 120° (without VFG decoration) to 50° (with VFG decoration) when the holding time was 10 min. The interfacial reaction layer in SiO2f/SiO2 composites with VFG decoration became continuous without any unfilled gaps compared with the composites without VFG decoration. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was employed to investigate the interaction between VFG and Ti from the AgCuTi alloy. The results showed that VFG possessed high chemical reactivity and could easily react with Ti even at room temperature. Finally, a mechanism of how VFG promoted the wetting of the SiO2f/SiO2 composite by the AgCuTi alloy is proposed and thoroughly discussed.