Search Results (35)

Diverse realities challenge the management capacity of public and private systems to ensure equitable quality and efficient access to resources, in line with the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to close gaps in essential services and ensure quality of life. The reality in Spain, and more specifically in the Principality of Asturias, is that most resources are concentrated in urban areas rather than rural ones, partly due to the region’s geography. Background/Objectives: This study aimed to explore the perspectives of various stakeholders on the early childhood care system in the Principality of Asturias (Spain), with the purpose of analyzing the mechanisms and determinants involved in its functioning and identifying opportunities for improvement. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted using the theoretical framework of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) as a conceptual basis. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 24 participants selected based on their relationship with early childhood care systems, encompassing different levels of responsibility and operational roles. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach, employing inductive and deductive coding to identify recurring patterns and code co-occurrences within ATLAS.ti software. Conclusions: This study reveals major barriers to equitable early childhood intervention (ECI) in rural areas, such as geographic isolation, lack of specialists, long waiting times, and poor transport. Six key themes emerged, including the need for standardized system management, better family support, and digital tools like centralized electronic health records. Rural areas are directly limited regarding their access to services, highlighting the need for fair territorial planning and a holistic, inclusive care model. Improving coordination, accessibility, and technology is vital. Full article

An Identity Management System (IDMS) is responsible for managing and organizing identities and credentials exchanged between users, Identity Providers (IDPs), and Service Providers (SPs). The primary goal of IDMS is to ensure the confidentiality and privacy of users’ personal data. Traditional IDMS relies on a third party to store user information and authenticate the user. However, this approach poses threats to user privacy and increases the risk of single point of failure (SPOF), user tracking, and data unavailability. In contrast, decentralized IDMSs that use blockchain technology offer potential solutions to these issues as they offer powerful features including immutability, transparency, anonymity, and decentralization. Despite its advantages, blockchain technology also suffers from limitations related to performance, third-party control, weak authentication, and data leakages. Furthermore, some blockchain-based IDMSs still exhibit centralization issues, which can compromise user privacy and create SPOF risks. This study proposes a decentralized IDMS that leverages blockchain and smart contract technologies to address the shortcomings of traditional IDMSs. The proposed system also utilizes the Interplanetary file system (IPFS) to enhance the scalability and performance by reducing the on-chain storage load. Additionally, the proposed IDMS employs the Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) to provide an extra layer of security to protect users’ sensitive information while improving the performance of the systems’ transactions. Security analysis and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed IDMS offers significant security and performance advantages compared to its counterparts. Full article

As global energy consumption continues to rise, it is essential to adopt measures that regulate electricity use while still meeting the demands of modern society. These efforts align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and are supported by various organizations. This study applies a methodology that combines the implementation of a Level 2 Energy Audit with the evaluation of the Electricity Consumption Index (ECI) at the Department of English of the Multidisciplinary Academic Unit of the Altiplano Region, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí. The study identifies strategies to reduce electricity consumption related to lighting systems and equipment operation throughout the department. Additionally, it assesses the percentage of users who promote and practice energy-saving habits. Key recommendations include transitioning the lighting system to LED technology, expected to reduce electricity consumption by 15, and implementing power factor correction measures, projected to yield an additional 6.17% in energy and cost savings. Together, these strategies could result in an estimated annual electricity savings of 21.17%, making them attractive to institutional decision-makers. Furthermore, by comparing the department’s ECI with a reference index established for educational institutions in temperate climate regions of Mexico, the study determines whether the proposed strategies should be implemented immediately or planned for the medium to long term. This decision-making framework represents the main contribution of the case study. Full article

Hydroponic systems, which use commercial hydroponics technologies, are cheaper and easier to maintain than traditional farming methods in soil. The objective of this study was to evaluate various salinity ranges (E.C.i from 1 dS/m to 14 dS/m) in water enriched with nanobubbles (NBs) for the growth and productivity of lettuce plants in a floating disk hydroponic system. This research study investigated how using floating disks in a greenhouse with a nanobubble (NB) generator may affect lettuce’s (Lactuca sativa L.) morphological and physiological responses to salt stress. The goal of this experiment was to examine the results of the influence of NB and non-NB treatments on agronomic traits and yield. The results indicated that the NB device is an innovative and very effective technology for sustainable lettuce production under a high-salinity nutrient solution. This device presents a valuable solution to the global issue of the increased salinity of irrigation water. Full article

Controlling agricultural carbon emissions is crucial for addressing global environmental challenges. As a major player in agricultural trade, China needs to explore a specific pathway to reduce its agricultural carbon emissions. This study delves into the impact of China’s agricultural trade on agricultural carbon emissions: (1) The research demonstrates that agricultural trade (AT) significantly reduces China’s agricultural carbon emissions (ACEs), with robustness and endogeneity tests supporting these findings. (2) In the process of lowering agricultural carbon emissions, AT exerts both direct and indirect effects. The direct effect stems from the import substitution effect of agricultural trade, while the indirect effects include agricultural technological innovation (ATI) and the agricultural carbon emission intensity (ECI). (3) The reduction in ACEs is more pronounced in eastern regions, coastal areas, and non-major grain-producing regions. This study reveals the underlying mechanisms between AT and ACEs, suggesting that China has the potential to achieve mutual benefits in international trade and environmental protection. It also provides a trade-oriented perspective for formulating agricultural emission reduction policies. Full article

The overall goal of this work was to assess the ability of Natural Killer cells to kill cultures of patient-derived glioblastoma cells. Herein we report impressive levels of NK-92 mediated killing of various patient-derived glioblastoma cultures observed at ET (effector: target) ratios of 5:1 and 1:1. This enabled direct comparison of the degree of glioblastoma cell loss across a broader range of glioblastoma cultures. Importantly, even at high ET ratios of 5:1, there are always subpopulations of glioblastoma cells that prove very challenging to kill that evade the NK-92 cells. Of value in this study has been the application of ECIS (Electric Cell–Substrate Impedance Sensing) biosensor technology to monitor the glioblastoma cells in real-time, enabling temporal assessment of the NK-92 cells. ECIS has been powerful in revealing that at higher ET ratios, the glioblastoma cells are acutely sensitive to the NK-92 cells, and the observed glioblastoma cell death is supported by the high-content imaging data. Moreover, long-term ECIS experiments reveal that the surviving glioblastoma cells were then able to grow and reseed the culture, which was evident 300–500 h after the addition of the NK-92 cells. This was observed for multiple glioblastoma lines. In addition, our imaging provides evidence that some NK-92 cells appear to be compromised early, which would be consistent with potent evasive mechanisms by the glioblastoma tumour cells. This research strongly highlights the potential for NK-92 cells to kill glioblastoma tumour cells and provides a basis to identify the mechanism utilised by the surviving glioblastoma cells that we now need to target to achieve maximal cytolysis of the resistant glioblastoma cells. It is survival of the highly resistant glioblastoma clones that results in tumour relapse. Full article

Various medical treatments aim to counteract the impact of oxidants on mammalian cells. One such antioxidant is Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), an active ingredient in green tea, which has demonstrated protective effects against cellular oxidants like camptothecin (CAMPT). This study examines how EGCG mitigates CAMPT’s effects on UMR cells, focusing on cell proliferation and biophysical parameters. UMR cells were treated with different CAMPT concentrations and incubated for 72 h. Subsequently, cell proliferation and viability were assessed. In a separate experiment, UMR cells were co-treated with CAMPT and varying EGCG concentrations to evaluate EGCG’s ability to mitigate CAMPT’s oxidative effect. Electric Cell–Substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) technology was also used to assess the biophysical parameters of CAMPT-treated UMR cells, including cell monolayer resistance, cell spreading, and cell attachment. The results showed a concentration-dependent decrease in cell proliferation for CAMPT-treated UMR cells. However, co-treatment with EGCG reversed CAMPT’s oxidative effects in a concentration-dependent manner. ECIS technology revealed a decrease in biophysical parameters when UMR cells were treated with CAMPT alone. Statistical analysis indicated significant differences with p-values < 0.05. This study suggests that EGCG effectively protects UMR cells from oxidative stress and highlights its potential role in mitigating oxidative stress in mammalian cells. Additionally, the use of ECIS technology validates its application in corroborating the biological effects of CAMPT and EGCG on UMR cells. Full article

Over the past few years, life expectancy has increased significantly. However, elderly individuals living independently often require assistance due to mobility issues, symptoms of dementia, or other health-related challenges. In these situations, high-quality elderly care systems for the aging population require innovative approaches to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). Traditional remote elderly care methods face several challenges, including high latency and poor service quality, which affect their transparency and stability. This paper proposes an Edge Computational Intelligence (ECI)-based haptic-driven ECI-TeleCaring system for the remote caring and monitoring of elderly people. It utilizes a Software-Defined Network (SDN) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) to reduce latency and enhance responsiveness. Dual Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models are deployed at the edge to enable real-time location-aware activity prediction to ensure QoS and QoE. The results from the simulation demonstrate that the proposed system is proficient in managing the transmission of data in real time without and with an activity recognition and location-aware model by communication latency under 2.5 ms (more than 60%) and from 11∼12 ms (60∼95%) for 10 to 1000 data packets, respectively. The results also show that the proposed system ensures a trade-off between the transparency and stability of the system from the QoS and QoE perspectives. Moreover, the proposed system serves as a testbed for implementing, investigating, and managing elder telecaring services for QoS/QoE provisioning. It facilitates real-time monitoring of the deployed technological parameters along with network delay and packet loss, and it oversees data exchange between the master domain (human operator) and slave domain (telerobot). Full article

Due to increasing energy consumption, there has been a significant expansion in worldwide trade, leading to the emergence of severe environmental issues. This situation is further compounded by the non-negotiable requirement to simultaneously mitigate environmental degradation and achieve economic progress. To ensure a healthier future, it is imperative to identify and address the factors that contribute to environmental contamination. The purpose of this study is to examine how Malaysia’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are affected by energy consumption, economic growth, and the economic complexity index (ECI). Time series data from 1997 to 2020 are used in this study, along with the autoregressive distributed lag model. The environmental Kuznets curve theory holds true in Malaysia, according to the study’s findings, and energy use has a negative impact on CO₂ emissions. There is also evidence suggesting that a higher ECI is linked with increased levels of CO₂ emissions over a prolonged period. Malaysia’s main export, electrical and electronic goods, generates substantial CO₂ emissions during the manufacturing process. The outcomes of this research have important ramifications for environmental strategies concerning the mitigation of CO₂ emissions. The electrical and electronics industries can implement energy-efficient technologies and practices in manufacturing processes. This would include upgrading to more efficient machinery, optimizing production schedules, and reducing idle times. It is also crucial to work with governments and industry bodies to advocate for policies that support sustainable manufacturing practices. Full article

Nowadays, technology is increasingly being adopted in different kinds of businesses to process, store, and share sensitive information in digital environments that include enormous numbers of users. However, this has also increased the likelihood of cyberattacks and misuse of information, potentially causing severe damage. One promising technology, which can provide the required security services with an improved level of efficiency, is blockchain. This research explores the use of Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts to create a secure and efficient quality assurance system (QAS) for academic programs. By utilizing blockchain and smart contracts, the proposed approach improves the integrity and reliability of sensitive information processed by the QAS, promotes transparency and governance, and reduces the time and effort required for quality operations. The current approach uses an additional access control layer to further enhance user privacy. Smart contracts automate various quality transactions and saves time and resources, and hence increases the efficiency of the QAS. The interplanetary file system (IPFS) is used to address the challenge of size limitations in blockchain. Additionally, this research investigates the use of various cryptographic schemes to provide robust security services at the application layer. The experimental results showed that the use of a hybrid cryptosystem relying on an Elliptic curve digital signature and AES encryption (AES_ECCDSA) outperforms other counterparts’ cryptosystems using an RSA digital signature and AES encryption (AES_RSADSA) and Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) in terms of speed. The performance results showed that AES_ECCDSA consumes 188 ms to perform the required cryptographic operations for a standard-quality document with a size of 8088 KB, compared to the 231 ms and 739 ms consumed by the AES_RSADSA and ECIES schemes, respectively. This study presents a prototype implementation of the blockchain-based QAS, which outlines the processing model and system requirements for key QAS processes. It has been found that the cost and time required for blockchain operations vary depending on the size of the input data—a larger data size requires more time and costs more to process. The results of the current study showed that the time delay for blockchain transactions ranges from 15 to 120 s, while the cost ranges from USD 50 to USD 400. This research provides evidence that blockchain and smart contract technologies have the potential to create a secure, efficient, and trustworthy QAS environment for academic programs. Full article

5G acts as a highway enabling innovative digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in our lives. It is undeniable that the success of such a paradigm shift hinges on robust security measures. Foremost among these is primary authentication, the initial step in securing access to 5G network environments. For the 5G primary authentication, two protocols, namely 5G Authentication and Key Agreement (5G-AKA) and Improved Extensible Authentication Protocol Method for 3rd Generation Authentication and Key Agreement (EAP-AKA′), were proposed and standardized, where the former is for 3GPP devices, and the latter is for non-3GPP devices. Recent scrutiny has unveiled vulnerabilities in the 5G-AKA protocol, exposing it to security breaches, including linkability attacks. Moreover, mobile communication technologies are dramatically evolving while 3GPP has standardized Authentication and Key Management for Applications (AKMA) to reuse the credentials, generated during primary authentication, for 5G network applications. That makes it so significant for 5G-AKA to be improved to support forward secrecy as well as address security attacks. In response, several protocols have been proposed to mitigate these security challenges. In particular, they tried to strengthen security by reusing secret keys negotiated through the Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) and countering linkability attacks. However, they still have encountered limitations in completing forward secrecy. Motivated by this, we propose an augmentation to 5G-AKA to achieve forward security and thwart linkability attacks (called 5G-AKA-FS). In 5G-AKA-FS, the home network (HN), instead of using its static ECIES key pair, generates a new ephemeral key pair to facilitate robust session key negotiation, truly realizing forward security. In order to thoroughly and precisely prove that 5G-AKA-FS is secure, formal security verification is performed by applying both BAN Logic and ProVerif. As a result, it is demonstrated that 5G-AKA-FS is valid. Besides, our performance comparison highlights that the communication and computation overheads are intrinsic to 5G-AKA-FS. This comprehensive analysis showcases how the protocol effectively balances between security and efficiency. Full article

The broad and extensive application of public-private partnership (PPP), as well as the divergent documented definitions and experiences, have led to a translucent perspective of PPP and strained academia and industry to reach a consensus on the major practice of this concept. Early contractor involvement (ECI), governance tools, and relational contracting are only a few of the frameworks attributed to PPP. This issue has received limited attention from researchers, despite the focus of review studies on different disciplines of PPP. Hence, this paper puts forward the idea of conducting a comprehensive review to not only shed light on the major practice of PPP but also provide a wider outlook on this concept based on the research carried out since 1979. A narrative review is initially accomplished to identify the major drivers and milestones that have contributed to the evolution of PPP. Employing bibliometric analysis in the following phase assists in conducting a multi-dimensional assessment of studies published within the last five decades. The economic and societal practices of PPP throughout its evolution path signified the dominant application of this concept as a business model. The bibliometric analysis revealed that PPP has contributed to various sectors, i.e., urban development, public infrastructure, transportation, health, and education, just to name a few. In addition, economic and organizational management of PPP was revealed as a major research stream that was accompanied by sustainable development. As a matter of fact, economic and environmental sustainability are the major cross-disciplinary elements that form an interplay between the drivers and attributes of PPP. Value for money (VfM), technology, and innovation, along with smart infrastructure (SI) and smart cities (SCs), are identified as the major directions for the future research agenda associated with PPP. Full article

It is known that many cells produce extracellular vesicles, and this includes a range of different cancer cell types. Here we demonstrate the profound effects of large vesicular-like bodies produced by melanoma cells on the barrier integrity of human brain endothelial cells. These vesicular-bodies have not been fully characterised but range in size from ~500 nm to >10 µm, are surrounded by membrane and are enzymatically active based on cell-tracker incorporation. Their size is consistent with previously reported large oncosomes and apoptotic bodies. We demonstrate that these melanoma-derived vesicular-bodies rapidly affect brain endothelial barrier integrity, measured using ECIS biosensor technology, where the disruption is evident within ~60 min. This disruption involves acquisition of the vesicles through transcellular uptake into the endothelial cells. We also observed extensive actin-rearrangement, actin removal from the paracellular boundary of the endothelial cells and envelopment of the vesicular-bodies by actin. This was concordant with widespread changes in CD144 localisation, which was consistent with the loss of junctional strength. High-resolution confocal imaging revealed proximity of the melanoma vesicular-bodies juxtaposed to the endothelial nucleus, often containing fragmented DNA themselves, raising speculation over this association and potential delivery of nuclear material into the brain endothelial cells. The disruption of the endothelial cells occurs in a manner that is faster and completely distinct to that of invasion by intact melanoma cells. Given the clinical observation of large vesicles in the circulation of melanoma patients by others, we hypothesize their involvement in weakening or priming the brain vasculature for melanoma invasion. Full article

The availability of food in a country and the capacity of its citizens to access, acquire, and receive enough food are both referred to as having food security. A crucial component of food security is ensuring and maintaining safe and high-quality goods, which the supply chain process should take into due deliberation. To enhance the food supply chain, organic and wholesome food items should be encouraged. Although packaged goods are evaluated and approved by legal authorities, there is no mechanism in place for testing and assessing the market’s available supply on a regular basis. As a result, food manufacturers are compelled to provide nutritious and healthy products. In this research, we propose an explainable artificial intelligence-based faster regions with convolutional neural networks (XAI-based Faster RCNN) model to evaluate the contents of the food items through user-friendly web-based front-end design and QR code. To validate each communication token in the network, an elliptic curve integrated encrypted scheme (ECIES) based on blockchain technology is utilized. Additionally, artificial rabbit optimization (ARO) is used to register each user and assign him a key. The user will gain a deeper understanding of machine learning (ML) and AI applications using the XAI technique. An EAI-based Faster RCNN model is proposed to help digitize information about food products, rapidly retrieve the information, and discover any hidden information in the quick response (QR) code that could have impacted the safety and quality of the food. The results of the experiments indicated that the proposed method requires less response time than other existing methods with the increase of payload and users. The Shapley additive explanation is used to obtain a legal plea for the laboratory test based on the nutritional information present in the QR code. The benefits provided by ECIES-based blockchain technology assist policymakers, manufacturers, and merchants in efficient decision-making, minimizing public health hazards, and improving welfare. This paper also shows that the accuracy achieved by the proposed method reached 99.53%, with the lowest processing time. Full article

Purpose: Mitochondrial dysfunction is central to breaking the barrier integrity of retinal endothelial cells (RECs) in various blinding eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the role of different mitochondrial constituents, specifically those of oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos), in maintaining the barrier function of RECs. Methods: Electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) technology was used to assess in real time the role of different mitochondrial components in the total impedance (Z) of human RECs (HRECs) and its components: capacitance (C) and the total resistance (R). HRECs were treated with specific mitochondrial inhibitors that target different steps in OxPhos: rotenone for complex I, oligomycin for complex V (ATP synthase), and FCCP for uncoupling OxPhos. Furthermore, data were modeled to investigate the effects of these inhibitors on the three parameters that govern the total resistance of cells: Cell–cell interactions (R_b), cell–matrix interactions (α), and cell membrane permeability (Cm). Results: Rotenone (1 µM) produced the greatest reduction in Z, followed by FCCP (1 µM), whereas no reduction in Z was observed after oligomycin (1 µM) treatment. We then further deconvoluted the effects of these inhibitors on the R_b, α, and C_m parameters. Rotenone (1 µM) completely abolished the resistance contribution of R_b, as the R_b became zero immediately after the treatment. Secondly, FCCP (1 µM) eliminated the resistance contribution of R_b only after 2.5 h and increased C_m without a significant effect on α. Lastly, of all the inhibitors used, oligomycin had the lowest impact on R_b, as evidenced by the fact that this value became similar to that of the control group at the end of the experiment without noticeable effects on C_m or α. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates the differential roles of complex I, complex V, and OxPhos coupling in maintaining the barrier functionality of HRECs. We specifically showed that complex I is the most important component in regulating HREC barrier integrity. These observed differences are significant since they could serve as the basis for future pharmacological and gene expression studies aiming to improve the activity of complex I and thereby provide avenues for therapeutic modalities in endothelial-associated retinal diseases. Full article