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Towards continuously programmable networks
Get PDFWhile programmability has been a feature of network devices for a long time, the past decade has seen significant enhancement of programming capability for network functions and nodes, spearheaded by the ongoing trend towards softwarization and cloudification. In his context, new design principles and technology enablers are introduced (Section 7.2) which reside2 at: (i) service/application provisioning level, (ii) network and resource management level, as well as (iii) network deployment and connectivity level
Assessing the application of multi-criteria decision making techniques in hospitality and tourism research: a bibliometric study
Get PDFPurpose: Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques are decision support systems that provide systematic approaches to solve hospitality and tourism (H&T) problems while minimizing the risk of failure. However, less is known about the application of MCDM techniques in H&T research. This study aims to systematically assess the use of MCDM techniques in H&T research to classify its current application and determine its application potential for H&T research. Design/methodology/approach: This study used bibliometric analysis to examine all published MCDM studies focused on H&T industries, since 1997. In addition, topic modelling was used to discover key concepts. Finally, top cited studies in terms of total citations per year and total citations were qualitatively reviewed for more insights. Findings: The findings revealed an ongoing interest in applying MCDM techniques in H&T research. Specifically, the extension of fuzzy theory in MCDM techniques is burgeoning among H&T researchers. However, a certain number of MCDM techniques seem to be ignored in this field with a repetitive application of MCDM techniques in particular areas. Research limitations/implications: The data for the current research was solely retrieved from Scopus and other databases were not included. Therefore, future research is called for to re-examine the study by considering data from various databases. Originality/value: This study contributes to extant H&T literature by a) identifying the most prolific and influential countries, journals, publications, and trends by applying MCDM techniques in H&T research, and b) elucidating the implications and characteristics of MCDM techniques in H&T research
Gut microbiota and time-restricted feeding/eating: a targeted biomarker and approach in precision nutrition
Get PDFEach individual has a unique gut microbiota; therefore, the genes in our microbiome outnumber the genes in our genome by about 150 to 1. Perturbation in host nutritional status influences gut microbiome composition and vice versa. The gut microbiome can help in producing vitamins, hormones, and other active metabolites that support the immune system; harvest energy from food; aid in digestion; protect against pathogens; improve gut transit and function; send signals to the brain and other organs; oscillate the circadian rhythm; and coordinate with the host metabolism through multiple cellular pathways. Gut microbiota can be influenced by host genetics, medications, diet, and lifestyle factors from preterm to aging. Aligning with precision nutrition, identifying a personalized microbiome mandates the provision of the right nutrients at the right time to the right patient. Thus, before prescribing a personalized treatment, it is crucial to monitor and count the gut flora as a focused biomarker. Many nutritional approaches that have been developed help in maintaining and restoring an optimal microbiome such as specific diet therapy, nutrition interventions, and customized eating patterns. One of these approaches is time-restricted feeding/eating (TRF/E), a type of intermittent fasting (IF) in which a subject abstains from food intake for a specific time window. Such a dietary modification might alter and restore the gut microbiome for proper alignment of cellular and molecular pathways throughout the lifespan. In this review, we have highlighted that the gut microbiota would be a targeted biomarker and TRF/E would be a targeted approach for restoring the gut-microbiome-associated molecular pathways such as hormonal signaling, the circadian system, metabolic regulators, neural responses, and immune-inflammatory pathways. Consequently, modulation of the gut microbiota through TRF/E could contribute to proper utilization and availability of the nutrients and in this way confer protection against diseases for harnessing personalized nutrition approaches to improve human health
Depression, perceived risk of COVID-19, loneliness, and perceived social support from friends among university students in Poland, UK, and India
Get PDFThe study examines the prevalence of depression among university students in Poland, the UK and India in the face of the second pandemic wave of COVID-19. The paper also examines the protective role of perceived social support, the hypothesis being that social support from friends would reduce depression. The data from university students (N=732) in Poland (N=335), UK (N= 198), and India (N=199) were collected online during of the fall/winter 2021. Participants completed measures of depression (CES-D), COVID-19 risk perception index, loneliness (DJGLS), and perceived social support (MSPSS). Almost 52% of all participants (58.5% in Poland, 62.6% in the UK, and 29.1% in India) met the criteria for major depression. The higher levels of depression symptoms were associated with a higher perceived risk of COVID-19, greater loneliness, female gender, younger students' age, and the lower levels of perceived social support. The greater family support predicted lower levels of depression symptoms in the Polish and Indian samples. Structural equation analyses (SEM) revealed the indirect effect of perceived social support from friends on the association between social loneliness and depression and between age and depression. This result shows that the support from friends significantly reduced depression, regardless of age, the level of social loneliness, and the perceived risk of COVID-19. Our conclusions link to university specialists' enhancement of psychological help for students with depression. We also recommend information campaigns on depression and treatment options
Thyroid-disrupting effects of exposure to fipronil and its metabolites from drinking water based on human thyroid follicular epithelial Nthy-ori 3‑1 cell lines
Get PDFFipronil is a broad-spectrum insecticide used for plants and poultry. Owing to its widespread use, fipronil and its metabolites (fipronil sulfone, fipronil desulfinyl, and fipronil sulfide), termed FPM, can be frequently detected in drinking water and food. Fipronil can affect the thyroid function of animals, but the effects of FPM on the human thyroid remain unclear. We employed human thyroid follicular epithelial Nthy-ori 3-1 cells to examine combined cytotoxic responses, thyroid-related functional proteins including the sodium-iodide symporter (NIS), thyroid peroxidase (TPO), deiodinases I−III (DIO I−III), and the nuclear factor erythroid-derived factor 2−related factor 2 (NRF2) pathway induced by FPM of 1−1000-fold concentrations detected in school drinking water collected from a heavily contaminated area of the Huai River Basin. Thyroid-disrupting effects of FPM were evaluated by examining biomarkers of oxidative stress and thyroid function and tetraiodothyronine (T4) levels secreted by Nthy-ori 3-1 cells after FPM treatment. FPM activated the expression of NRF2, HO-1 (heme oxygenase 1), TPO, DIO I, and DIO II but inhibited NIS expression and increased the T4 level of thyrocytes, indicating that FPM can disrupt the function of human thyrocytes through oxidative pathways. Given the adverse impact of low FPM concentrations on human thyrocytes, supportive evidence from rodent studies, and the critical importance of thyroid hormones on development, the effects of FPM on the neurodevelopment and growth of children warrant priority attention
Multifractal features and dynamical thresholds of temperature extremes in Bangladesh
Get PDFMultifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) can extract multi-scaling behavior andmeasure long-range correlations in climatic time series. In this study, with the help of multifractalDFA, we investigated the scaling behavior of daily minimum/maximum temperatures during theyears 1989–2019 from 34 meteorological stations in Bangladesh. We revealed spatial patterns, topographicimpacts and global warming impacts of long-range correlations embedded in small andlarge fluctuations in temperature time series. Meanwhile, we developed a multifractal DFA-basedalgorithm to dynamically determine thresholds to discriminate extreme and non-extreme eventsin climate systems and applied it to analyze the frequency and trends of temperature extremes in Bangladesh. Compared with widely-used percentile thresholds, the extreme climate events capturedin our algorithm are more reliable since they are determined dynamically by the climate system itself
Fly green:environmentally specific servant leadership and its impact on green performance outcomes
Get PDFA careful examination of the pertinent literature denotes that no empirical study has tested the consequences of environmentally specific servant leadership (ESS) among cabin crew so far. This is surprising because the airline industry has long been at the forefront of green debate for its significant environmental problems (e.g., climate change, CO2 emission, and waste). With this realization, drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework and social learning theory, our paper explores climate for green creativity (CGC) and green creativity (GC) as the serial mediators linking ESS to green recovery performance (GRP). Data came from cabin crew in major European low-cost carriers. The results from the PROCESS plug-in for statistical package for social sciences reveal that CGC or GC mediates the influence of ESS on GRP. More importantly, CGC and GC mediate the positive association between ESS and GRP in a sequential manner. The presence of ESS results in the establishment of the climate where cabin crew can offer novel green ideas and feedback that in turn enables them to display better GRP. Theoretical implications are discussed and implications for managers are given in the paper
Sounding others’ sensations in interaction
Get PDFThis study investigates the practice of “sounding for others,” wherein one person vocalizes to enact someone else’s putatively ongoing bodily sensation. We argue that it constitutes a collaborative way of performing sensorial experiences. Examples include producing cries with others’ strain or pain and parents sounding an mmm of gustatory pleasure on their infant’s behalf. Vocal sounds, their loudness, and duration are specifically deployed for instructing bodily experiences during novices’ real-time performance of various activities, such as tasting food for the first time or straining during a Pilates exercise. Vocalizations that are indexically tied to the body provide immediate displays of understanding and empathy that may be explicated further through lexicon. The existence of this practice challenges the conceptualization of communication as a transfer of information from an individual agent–even regarding assumedly individual body sensations–instead providing evidence of the joint nature of action and supporting dialogic theories of communication, including when language-marginal vocalizations are used
Comparative investigation on macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of impingement spray of gasoline and ethanol from a GDI injector under injection pressure up to 50 MPa
Get PDFParticulate Matter (PM) emissions from passenger vehicles have attracted considerable interest over the last decade. In order to reduce PM emissions, improving maximum injection pressure has been a developing trend for new generation GDI engines. However, comparing gasoline and ethanol impingement spray characteristics from a GDI injector under high injection pressure is still unclear. In this paper, a comparative investigation on both the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of impingement spray from a GDI injector fuelled with gasoline and ethanol was performed under injection pressure up to 50 MPa, providing new findings to promote a more homogeneous air–fuel mixture and reduce PM emissions. The experimental results show that under the same PI (injection pressure), rebound height of gasoline impingement spray is a bit higher than ethanol. AS (spray area) of gasoline is slightly higher than ethanol under PI=10MPa. However, under PI=30MPa and PI=50MPa, AS of gasoline is gradually exceeded by that of ethanol as time progresses. By increasing PI to 50 MPa, the difference in DN (diffusion distance of the near side) between gasoline and ethanol is greatly reduced, meantime DF (diffusion distance of the far side) becomes weaker than ethanol. For both gasoline and ethanol, with the increase PI from 10 MPa to 50 MPa, VN (average normal component of droplet velocity) and VT (average tangential component of droplet velocity) of incident droplets increase by around 1 m/s. Meantime, there is a slight decrease in the absolute value of VN and VT of reflected droplets. DSMD (Sauter mean diameter of droplets) presents a significant decreasing trend with the increase of PI. Besides, a smaller DSMD can be seen for the gasoline impingement spray compared to ethanol under the same PI
Intent-based deployment for robot applications in 5G-enabled non-public networks
Get PDFCloud and edge computing, distributed AI, and most recently 5G/6G communications are coming together and changing the way we collaborate, connect and interact. A new generation of AI-powered robots are also expected to be facilitated by these digital technological breakthroughs. Robots are supposed to tackle unknown situations and adapt in the long term by collaborating, connecting and interacting with the digital world. Such applications generate versatile, perpetuated and rapidly changing transmission demands to the network. Traditional network resource management is insufficient in supporting such traffic to meet the QoS. In this paper, we go a step further, in addition to the effort on the network side for traffic engineering; we also work on the application side to shape the traffic within non-public networks. We present an initial development for the proposed intent-based deployment for robotic applications
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