Digital Commons Network^™

Comparison For The Effects Of Different Components Of Temperature Variability On Mortality: A Multi-Country Time-Series Study, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Background: Temperature variability (TV) is associated with increased mortality risk. However, it is still unknown whether intra-day or inter-day TV has different effects. Objectives: We aimed to assess the association of intra-day TV and inter-day TV with all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality. Methods: We collected data on total, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality and meteorology from 758 locations in 47 countries or regions from 1972 to 2020. We defined inter-day TV as the standard deviation (SD) of daily mean temperatures across the lag interval, and intra-day TV as the average SD of minimum and maximum temperatures on each day. In the …

All-Cause, Cardiovascular, And Respiratory Mortality And Wildfire-Related Ozone: A Multicountry Two-Stage Time Series Analysis, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Background: Wildfire activity is an important source of tropospheric ozone (O3) pollution. However, no study to date has systematically examined the associations of wildfire-related O3 exposure with mortality globally. Methods: We did a multicountry two-stage time series analysis. From the Multi-City Multi-Country (MCC) Collaborative Research Network, data on daily all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory deaths were obtained from 749 locations in 43 countries or areas, representing overlapping periods from Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2016. We estimated the daily concentration of wildfire-related O3 in study locations using a chemical transport model, and then calibrated and downscaled O3 estimates to a …

Optically Accessible Gas Exposure Apparatus For Testing And Characterization Of Holographic Gas Sensors, Graceson Antony, Rinto Eyyalil Joseph, Saji George, Dervil Cody, Izabela Naydenova

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Holographic gas sensors are of great interest due to their widespread applicability and potential for high sensitivity, fast response, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and compact and lightweight nature. For effective design and development of holographic gas sensors, it is essential to have a reliable and safe gas exposure system allowing for optical access for testing purposes. Here, the design and operation of a custom gas exposure apparatus for the performance evaluation of holographic grating-based gas sensors within a research laboratory setting is presented. The apparatus enables the real-time measurement of analyte-induced changes in key holographic grating parameters: grating diffraction efficiency …

Comparison Of Holographic Recording Options For Reflection-Format And Transmission-Format Coupler-Type Diffractive Optical Elements: Theoretical Exploration And Experimental Validation, Dipanjan Chakraborty, Rosen Georgiev, Vincent Toal, Izabela Naydenova, Dervil Cody, Suzanne Martin

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The holographic recording of gratings that have very large diffraction angles and/or slants is challenging because recording requires beam angles that are not possible without the use of prisms. However, by using a recording wavelength that is different from (usually shorter than) the intended operating wavelength, it is possible to record with less challenging beam angles. In this paper, a recently developed model that allows systematic investigation of the potential and limits of this wavelength-shift recording technique is extended to include a reflection format. Transmission and reflection recording options are compared systematically for the first time, and it is shown …

Laser-Irradiating Infrared Attenuated Total Reflection Spectroscopy Of Articular Cartilage: Potential And Challenges For Diagnosing Osteoarthritis, P. Krebs, M. Nägele, P. Fomina, V. Virtanen, E. Nippolainen, R. Shaikh, I. O. Afara, J. Töyräs, I. Usenov, T. Sakharova, V. Artyushenko, V. Tafintseva, J. H. Solheim, B. Zimmermann, A. Kohler, O. König, S. Saarakkala, B. Mizaikoff

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Objective: A prototype infrared attenuated total reflection (IR-ATR) laser spectroscopic system designed for in vivo classification of human cartilage tissue according to its histological health status during arthroscopic surgery is presented. Prior to real-world in vivo applications, this so-called osteoarthritis (OA) scanner has been tested at in vitro conditions revealing the challenges associated with complex sample matrices and the accordingly obtained sparse spectral datasets. Methods: In vitro studies on human knee cartilage samples at different contact pressures (i.e., 0.2–0.5 ​MPa) allowed recording cartilage degeneration characteristic IR signatures comparable to in vivo conditions with high temporal resolution. Afterwards, the cartilage samples …

Temperature Frequency And Mortality: Assessing Adaptation To Local Temperature, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Assessing the association between temperature frequency and mortality can provide insights into human adaptation to local ambient temperatures. We collected daily time-series data on mortality and temperature from 757 locations in 47 countries/regions during 1979–2020. We used a two-stage time series design to assess the association between temperature frequency and all-cause mortality. The results were pooled at the national, regional, and global levels. We observed a consistent decrease in the risk of mortality as the normalized frequency of temperature increases across the globe. The average increase in mortality risk comparing the 10th to 100th percentile of normalized frequency was 13.03% …

The Multi-Country Multi-City Collaborative Research Network An International Research Consortium Investigating Environment, Climate, And Health, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Research on the health risks of environmental factors and climate change requires epidemiological evidence on associated health risks at a global scale. Multi-center studies offer an excellent framework for this purpose, but they present various methodological and logistical problems. This contribution illustrates the experience of the Multi-Country Multi-City Collaborative Research Network, an international collaboration working on a global research program on the associations between environmental stressors, climate, and health in a multi-center setting. The article illustrates the collaborative scheme based on mutual contribution and data and method sharing, describes the collection of a huge multi-location database, summarizes published research findings …

Regional Variation In The Role Of Humidity On City-Level Heat-Related Mortality, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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The rising humid heat is regarded as a severe threat to human survivability, but the proper integration of humid heat into heat-health alerts is still being explored. Using state-of-the-art epidemiological and climatological datasets, we examined the association between multiple heat stress indicators (HSIs) and daily human mortality in 739 cities worldwide. Notable differences were observed in the long-term trends and timing of heat events detected by HSIs. Air temperature (Tair) predicts heat-related mortality well in cities with a robust negative Tair-relative humidity correlation (CT-RH). However, in cities with near-zero or weak positive CT-RH, HSIs considering humidity provide enhanced predictive power …

Impact Of Population Aging On Future Temperature-Related Mortality At Different Global Warming Levels, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Older adults are generally amongst the most vulnerable to heat and cold. While temperature-related health impacts are projected to increase with global warming, the influence of population aging on these trends remains unclear. Here we show that at 1.5 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C of global warming, heat-related mortality in 800 locations across 50 countries/areas will increase by 0.5%, 1.0%, and 2.5%, respectively; among which 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 heat-related deaths can be attributed to population aging. Despite a projected decrease in cold-related mortality due to progressive warming alone, population aging will mostly counteract this trend, …

Global, Regional, And National Burden Of Mortality Associated With Cold Spells During 2000–19: A Three-Stage Modelling Study, Multi-Country Multi-City (Mcc) Collaborative Network, Patrick Goodman

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Background: Exposure to cold spells is associated with mortality. However, little is known about the global mortality burden of cold spells. Methods: A three-stage meta-analytical method was used to estimate the global mortality burden associated with cold spells by means of a time series dataset of 1960 locations across 59 countries (or regions). First, we fitted the location-specific, cold spell-related mortality associations using a quasi-Poisson regression with a distributed lag non-linear model with a lag period of up to 21 days. Second, we built a multivariate meta-regression model between location-specific associations and seven predictors. Finally, we predicted the global grid-specific …

Short-Term Effects Of Cyclopentolate And Tropicamide Eye Drops On Macular Choroidal Thickness In Myopic Children, Emmanuel Kobia-Acquah, Daniel Ian Flitcroft, Gareth Lingham, Eoin Kerin, James Loughman

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Background: To investigate the short-term effects of cyclopentolate and tropicamide eyedrops on choroidal thickness (ChT) in myopic children using placebo or low-dose atropine eyedrops. Methods: The analysis included 242 myopic individuals (7–19 years) enrolled in two randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials of low-dose atropine eyedrops. Cycloplegia was induced using either one drop of 1% cyclopentolate (n = 161), two drops of 1% cyclopentolate (n = 32) or two drops of 1% tropicamide (n = 49). ChT measurements were taken using swept-source optical coherence tomography before and 30 min after administering the cycloplegic eye drops. A subset of 51 participants underwent test–retest …

A Comparative Study On Feature Extraction Techniques For The Discrimination Of Frontotemporal Dementia And Alzheimer's Disease With Electroencephalography In Resting-State Adults, Utkarsh Lal, Arjun Vinayak Chikkankod, Luca Longo

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Early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) share similar symptoms, complicating their diagnosis and the development of specific treatment strategies. Our study evaluated multiple feature extraction techniques for identifying AD and FTD biomarkers from electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. We developed an optimised machine learning architecture that integrates sliding windowing, feature extraction, and supervised learning to distinguish between AD and FTD patients, as well as from healthy controls (HCs). Our model, with a 90% overlap for sliding windowing, SVD entropy for feature extraction, and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) for supervised learning, achieved a mean F1-score and accuracy of 93% and 91%, 92.5% …

Synthetic Dataset Generation Using Photo-Realistic Simulation With Varied Time And Weather Axes, Thomas Lee, Susan Mckeever, Jane Courtney

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To facilitate the integration of autonomous unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) in day-to-day life, it is imperative that safe navigation can be demonstrated in all relevant scenarios. For UAVs using a navigational protocol driven by artificial neural networks, training and testing data from multiple environmental contexts are needed to ensure that bias is minimised. The reduction in predictive capacity when faced with unfamiliar data is a common weak point in trained networks, which worsens the further the input data deviates from the training data. However, training for multiple environmental variables dramatically increases the man-hours required for data collection and validation. In …

Classifying The Content Of Online Notepad Services Using Active Learning, Mhd Wesam Al-Nabki, Eduardo Fidalgo, Enrique Alegre, Sarah Jane Delany, Francisco Jáñez-Martino

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Pastebin is an online notepad service to share text anonymously. However, it could be misused to propagate suspicious or even illegal activities, like leaking sensitive information or sharing hyperlinks to child sexual abuse material. Due to the high rate of daily upload pastes, manual inspection of this material is not feasible. Conversely, an automatic classifier could identify such activities with little or no human intervention. However, a supervised model may require a significant number of training samples and have to handle distinct text typologies presented in Pastebin. This paper presents a classification approach composed of three cascading supervised classifiers that …

Conventional Extraction Of Fucoidan From Irish Brown Seaweed Fucus Vesiculosus Followed By Ultrasound-Assisted Depolymerization, Viruja Ummat, Saravana Periaswamy Sivagnanam, Dilip K. Rai, Colm O’Donnell, Gillian E. Conway, Shane M. Heffernan, Stephen Fitzpatrick, Henry Lyons, James Curtin, Brijesh Kumar Tiwari

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Fucoidan has attracted considerable attention from scientists and pharmaceutical companies due to its antioxidant, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and health-enhancing properties. However, the extraction of fucoidan from seaweeds often involves the use of harsh chemicals, which necessitates the search for alternative solvents. Additionally, the high viscosity and low cell permeability of high molecular weight (Mw) fucoidan can limit its effectiveness in drug action, while lower Mw fractions exhibit increased biological activity and are also utilized as dietary supplements. The study aimed to (1) extract fucoidan from the seaweed Fucus vesiculosus (FV) using an environmentally friendly solvent and compare it with the …

Assessment Of Nitrate And Phosphate Concentrations In Discharge Water From Ditch Networks Across Different Peatland Use Types: Implications For Sustainable Peatland Use Management, Samuel Obeng Apori, Michelle Giltrap, Julie Dunne, Furong Tian

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Peat soils, when drained and transformed for different land uses, can release pollutants such as nitrate and phosphate into nearby water bodies and ecosystems through ditch networks. However, there have been limited studies to ascertain the extent and impact of these nutrient releases under various peatland use types. A total of fifty-four water samples were collected between October 2021 and January 2022 from five industrial cutaway bogs, twenty-five grasslands, and twenty-four forest plantations. The water samples were subsequently examined for nitrate–nitrogen and phosphate–phosphorus using the HACH DR890 colorimeter. This study showed that the nitrate–nitrogen concentration of the discharge water ranged …

Framing A Feminist Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Lived Experiences Of Women Entrepreneurs, Edicleia Oliveira, Serge Basini, Thomas M. Cooney

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Purpose – This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

Design/methodology/approach – The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

Findings – The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance …

Entrepreneurship As Collective Action: The Next Frontier., Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh, Claire Champenois, Thomas M. Cooney, Leon Schjoedt

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Collective action in entrepreneurship is lacking in the extant literature. Despite entrepreneurship research progressively moves away from the focus of a lone heroic entrepreneur, scholars have yet to absorb the full potential of entrepreneurship as collective action. Also missing is a collective stance on key entrepreneurship concepts such as opportunity discovery or construction and entrepreneurial agency. Accordingly, this article reviews and critiques five articles that constitute this Special Issue seeking to establish ‘entrepreneurship as collective action’ as the next frontier of entrepreneurship theory development. The articles in this Special Issue each investigate a specific instance of collective action in entrepreneurship. …

Regulating More?: Comparing Ireland's Original And Amended Lobbying Legislation, John Hogan

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This paper compares the amendments introduced by the Regulation of Lobbying and Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) (Amendment) Act 2023 with the original regulations of the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015. The study was conducted using the Hired Guns Method for assessing the robustness of lobbying legislation, developed by the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI), allowing findings to be compared with lobbying regulations internationally. The 2015 legislation was introduced after years of tribunals, scandals, unfulfilled political promises, and economic crisis, in an effort to increase the public's trust in politicians, representative institutions, democracy and the wider bureaucracy. The 2023 Amendment came …

Framing A Feminist Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Lived Experiences Of Women Entrepreneurs, Edicleia Oliveira, Serge Basini, Thomas M. Cooney

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Purpose: This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women's entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework. Design/methodology/approach: The article critically examines the current state of women's entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology. Findings: The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women's entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance of considering the …

A Review On Machine Learning Methods For Customer Churn Prediction And Recommendations For Business Practitioners, Awais Manzoor, M. Atif Qureshi, Etain Kidney, Luca Longo

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Due to market deregulation and globalisation, competitive environments in various sectors continuously evolve, leading to increased customer churn. Effectively anticipating and mitigating customer churn is vital for businesses to retain their customer base and sustain business growth. This research scrutinizes 212 published articles from 2015 to 2023, delving into customer churn prediction using machine learning methods. Distinctive in its scope, this work covers key stages of churn prediction models comprehensively, contrary to published reviews, which focus on some aspects of churn prediction, such as model development, feature engineering and model evaluation using traditional machine learning-based evaluation metrics. The review emphasises …

Machine Vs Machine: Large Language Models (Llms) In Applied Machine Learning High-Stakes Open-Book Exams, Keith Quille, Csanad Alattyanyi, Brett A. Becker, Róisín Faherty, Damian Gordon, Miriam Harte, Svetlana Hensman, Markus Hofmann, Jorge Jiménez García, Anthony Kuznetsov, Conrad Marais, Keith Nolan, Cianan Nicolai, Ciarán O'Leary, Andrzej Zero

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There is a significant gap in Computing Education Research (CER) concerning the impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) in advanced stages of degree programmes. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of LLMs in answering exam questions within an applied machine learning final-year undergraduate course. The research examines the performance of LLMs in responding to a range of exam questions, including proctored closed-book and open-book questions spanning various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Question formats encompassed open-ended, tabular data-based, and figure-based inquiries. To achieve this aim, the study has the following objectives: Comparative Analysis: To compare LLM-generated …

Optimisation Of Polyphenol Extraction For The Valorisation Of Spent Gin Botanicals, Ekene C. Umego, Catherine Barry-Ryan

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An average of 0.21 kg spent gin botanicals (SGB) is generated for every 1 L of gin, making it the major by-product of gin distillation. The present circular economy dynamics and increased awareness on resource use presents an opportunity for valorisation of SGB. SGB was optimised for polyphenol extraction using a three-factor Box-Behnken Design in response surface methodology (RSM). This was used to both optimise and study how the extraction variables affected yields and values of polyphenol and antioxidant activity of SGB. The generated optimum conditions for polyphenol extraction from SGB were 50% (v/v) solvent concentration, 40 mL g−1 solvent: …

Human Health And Ecological Risk Assessment Of Heavy Metals In Topsoil Of Different Peatland Use Types, Samuel Obeng Apori, Michelle Giltrap, Julie Dunne, Furong Tian

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Peatlands, known for their ability to retain and immobilize heavy metals due to unique waterlogged conditions and organic matter, face challenges when subjected to disturbances such as land use changes. These disruptions alter the organic matter, redox potential, and pH of the peatsoil, potentially influencing the migration, mobilization, and increased availability of stored heavy metals. Peatsoil samples from various peatland use types (improved and semi-natural grassland, forest, industrial cutaway bog) were collected to assess the human health and ecological risk associated with heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn) in Co-Offaly, Ireland. Results reveal variations in heavy metal concentrations …

Comparative Assessment Of Gold Nanoparticle–Antibody Conjugates With Two Differently Shaped Particles For Multimodal Colorimetric Lateral Flow Assay, Vinayak Sharma, Bilal Javed, Furong Tian

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Novel detection strategies that exploit the unique properties of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) hold great potential for the advancement of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics, such as lateral flow and dipstick immunoassay [1,2,3]. Owing to its biocompatibility and convenient surface modifications, gold nanoparticles with enhanced sensitivity reduce the sample-to-answer times to less than 5 min (Figure 1). Methods like covalent conjugation and electrostatic adsorption are explored for antibody immobilization to develop a gold nanoparticle-based biosensor for fast and sensitive localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) for both basic research and clinical diagnostics. The mounting of antibodies on the gold nanoparticle surface requires selective binding …

Enhanced Bioactive Component Recovery From Sohiong Via Optimized Enzyme-Assisted Microwave Extraction And Its Stability In Freeze-Dried Premix, Raju Sasikumar, Roshiya Nongmaithem, Kambhampati Vivek, Sandeep Janghu, Kadirvel Govindasam, Amit K. Jaiswal

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No abstract provided.

Nanocellulose Separation From Barley Straw Via Ultrasound-Assisted Choline Chloride – Formic Acid Deep Eutectic Solvent Pretreatment And High-Intensity Ultrasonication, Dileswar Pradhan, Swarna Jaiswal, Brijesh K. Tiwari, Amit K. Jaiswal

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The present study aims at investigating the application of ultrasound assisted choline chloride (ChCl) – formic acid (FA) deep eutectic solvent (DES) pretreatment of Barley straw. In addition, the efficiency of a wet grinding followed by high intensity ultrasound (HIUS) treatment for production of cellulose nanofibers (CNF) has been evaluated. The DES (using ChCl: FA at 1:9 M ratio) treatment at 45 kHz ultrasound frequency and 3 h of treatment duration resulted in 84.68 ± 1.02 % and 82.96 ± 0.79 % of lignin and hemicellulose solubilisation, respectively. The purification of DES treated solid residue resulted in cellulose with more …

Application Of Sea Fennel's Bioactive Compounds In The Development Of Edible Films And Coatings: A Review, Oghenetega Lois Orhotohwo, Ancuta Nartea, Paolo Lucci, Amit K. Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal, Deborah Pacetti

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Sea fennel (Crithmum maritimum L.) is an edible halophyte known for its rich and complex chemical composition. It has emerged as a novel research interest across multiple scientific fields, extending beyond its traditional uses in food and agriculture. This review explores the significant polyphenolic content and other diverse bioactive compounds in sea fennel, which exhibit promising antioxidant and antimicrobial properties relevant to food packaging applications. These properties enhance food preservation and support the development of active and intelligent packaging solutions. Recent studies have demonstrated that films and coatings infused with sea fennel extracts can significantly extend the shelf life of …

Comparison Of Antimicrobial Resistant Enterobacterales Isolates From The Dairy Production Environment In Low And High Zinc Containing Regions, Elena Anedda, Elena Alexandra Alexa, Ml Farrell, M. Croffee, G. Madigan, D. Morris, Catherine M. Burgess

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Heavy metals occur naturally in the environment, and their concentration varies in soil across different regions. However, the presence of heavy metals may influence the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacterial populations. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate and characterise the antimicrobial resistance profiles of Enterobacterales in soil and bovine milk filters from high and low zinc-containing regions in Ireland. In total, 50 soil samples and 29 milk filters were collected from two geographic locations with varying soil zinc concentrations. Samples were cultured for the enumeration and detection of Enterobacterales. Specifically, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacterales, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales and ciprofloxacin-resistant …

Biosynthesis, Classification, Properties, And Applications Of Weissella Bacteriocins, Jahnavi Kumari Singh, Palanisamy Bruntha Devi, G. Bhanuprakash Reddy, Amit K. Jaiswal, Digambar Kavitake, Prathapkumar Halady Shetty

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This review aims to comprehensively chronicle the biosynthesis, classification, properties, and applications of bacteriocins produced by Weissella genus strains, particularly emphasizing their potential benefits in food preservation, human health, and animal productivity. Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) are a class of microorganisms well-known for their beneficial role in food fermentation, probiotics, and human health. A notable property of LAB is that they can synthesize antimicrobial peptides known as bacteriocins that exhibit antimicrobial action against both closely related and other bacteria as well. Bacteriocins produced by Weissella spp. are known to exhibit antimicrobial activity against several pathogenic bacteria including food spoilage species, …