Search Results (10)

For the Norman kings of Sicily and the ecclesiastical authorities who ruled their dioceses, Byzantine art served as both a symbol of luxury and a model of prestige. Similarly to the mosaics of Palermo, Monreale, and Cefalú, as well as textiles and goldsmithing, the manuscripts preserved in the National Library of Madrid stand as prime examples of the fascination that the dignitaries of the Kingdom of Sicily had for Byzantine esthetics. Among these manuscripts, the Sacramentary of Messina (Madrid, BNE Ms. 52) is perhaps the most striking. This Latin sacramentary, comprising 303 folios, features illuminated initials, a calendar with depictions of classical topics, such as the Spinario and a compelling depiction of August inspired by the Byzantine Koimesis, the months and zodiac, and two full-page illustrations depicting the Virgin Glykophilousa, the Crucifixion, and the Deesis. This study has a dual focus. First, it aims to analyze the iconographic peculiarities of the monthly images in this Latin calendar. Second, it seeks to provide new insights into the manuscript’s patronage and its place of origin. In this context, one of the most striking and significant aspects of the sacramentary’s iconography is the prominent role of the Virgin, a theme that will also be examined in this study. Archbishop Richard Palmer emerges as the leading candidate to have been the driving force in the patronage of the manuscript to the Royal scriptoria of Palermo. Full article

With the advent of artificial intelligence digitization, intangible cultural heritage faces challenges in preservation and transmission. Utilizing modern technology to achieve digital protection and dissemination has become a crucial issue today. This study enhances the digital inheritance and development of Chinese intangible cultural heritage paper-cutting art through generative AI technologies, specifically Diffusion and LoRA models. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to categorize the cultural value of paper-cutting, selecting four core elements: “Spring Festival”, “Chinese Zodiac”, “Women”, and “Birds and Flowers”. Based on these, eight LoRA models were developed to generate paper-cutting-style patterns (using the FLUX.1-dev and Stable Diffusion 1.5 models). In the user satisfaction assessment, the Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) method was used to analyze four dimensions of the model experience. The results indicate that the LoRA model excels in generating detailed paper-cutting patterns and accurately reproducing cultural elements, particularly in the generation of complex Chinese character designs. User feedback suggests that the LoRA model effectively enhances the digital representation and dissemination of paper-cutting art, though there is room for improvement in terms of generation speed and ease of operation. This study provides a new technological pathway for the digital preservation of intangible cultural heritage and promotes the modernization of paper-cutting art transmission. Full article

Circulating citrate may represent a proxy of mitochondrial dysfunction which plays a role in the development of vascular complications in type 2 diabetes (T2D). Here, we determined the associations between plasma citrate levels and cardiovascular (CV) mortality in T2D patients. In this prospective cohort study, 601 patients were included who participated in the Zwolle Outpatient Diabetes project Integrating Available Care (ZODIAC). Plasma citrate levels were measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to evaluate the associations between plasma citrate and the risk of CV mortality. Over a median follow-up of 11.4 years, 119 (19.8%) of the 601 patients died from a CV cause. In multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models, adjusting for conventional risk factors, plasma citrate was associated with an increased risk of CV mortality (the hazard ratio (HR) per 1-SD increment was 1.19 (95%CI: 1.00–1.40), p = 0.048). This association was prominent in males (n = 49 with CV mortality) (HR 1.52 (95%CI: 1.14–2.03), p = 0.005), but not in females (n = 70 with CV mortality) (HR 1.11 (95%CI: 0.90–1.37), p = 0.319) (age-adjusted P_interaction = 0.044). In conclusion, higher plasma citrate levels are associated with an increased risk of CV mortality in patients with established T2D. Future studies are warranted to unravel the potential role of citrate-related pathways in the pathogenesis of T2D-related vascular complications. Full article

Among the numerous studies investigating semantic factors associated with functioning in psychotic patients, most have been conducted on western populations. By contrast, the current cross-sectional study involved native Cantonese-speaking Chinese participants. Using the category fluency task, we compared performance between patients and healthy participants and examined clinical and sociodemographic correlates. First-episode psychosis patients (n = 356) and gender- and age-matched healthy participants (n = 35) were asked to generate as many ‘animals’ as they could in a minute. As expected, patients generated fewer correct responses (an average of 15.5 vs. 22.9 words), generated fewer clusters (an average of 3.7 vs. 5.4 thematically grouped nouns), switched less between clusters (on average 8.0 vs. 11.9 switches) and, interestingly, produced a larger percentage of Chinese zodiac animals than healthy participants (an average of 37.7 vs. 24.2). However, these significant group differences in the clusters and switches disappeared when the overall word production was controlled for. Within patients, education was the strongest predictor of category fluency performance (namely the number of correct responses, clusters, and switches). The findings suggest that an overall slowness in patients may account for the group differences in category fluency performance rather than any specific abnormality per se. Full article

Introduction: Fasting plasma ketone bodies (KB) are elevated in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and could affect glycemic control and disease progression. Prolonged KB exposure may result in adaptive beneficial responses, counteracting glycemic dysregulation. In the current proof-of-concept study in adults with T2D, we hypothesized that fasting plasma KB are cross-sectionally associated with poorer glycemic control but prospectively with better glycemic control. Materials and Methods: Fasting plasma KB were measured via nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in patients with T2D treated in primary care (Zodiac cohort; The Netherlands). We analyzed the associations between KB and HbA1c at baseline using linear regression analyses and HbA1c changes over time using linear mixed models. We adjusted for potential confounders, including risk factors for poor glycemic control. Individuals with T2D participating in the general population-based PREVEND study were used as a replication cohort. Results: We included 271 individuals with T2D with a total of 859 HbA1c measurements during a follow-up period of 3.0 (2.0–3.2) years. At baseline, the total amount of fasting plasma KB was independently and positively associated with HbA1c levels (regression coefficient in the fully adjusted analysis = 0.31; 95% CI 0.06–0.57, per doubling of KB; p = 0.02). In contrast, in the longitudinal analyses, fasting plasma KB were associated with a yearly HbA1c (%) decrease of −0.10 (95% CI −0.19 to −0.00 per doubling baseline KB; p = 0.05). Results were replicated in 387 individuals with T2D from a general population cohort with a total of 1115 glucose measurements during a follow-up period of 7.5 (7.2–8.0) years. A yearly decrease in fasting plasma glucose (mmol/L) of 0.09 was found per doubling of baseline KB. Conclusions: This study is the first to suggest a paradoxical role of circulating KB on glycemic control in T2D: elevated KB are associated with cross-sectionally poorer glycemic control but longitudinally with better long-term glycemic control. Full article

Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a novel cardiovascular (CV) disease and mortality risk marker, is a gut microbiota-derived metabolite as well. Recently, plasma concentrations of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) have been reported to be affected by microbiota. The association of plasma TMAO with CV mortality in Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and its determinants are still incompletely described. We evaluated the association between plasma BCAA and TMAO, and the association of TMAO with CV mortality in T2D individuals. We used data of 595 participants (mean age 69.5 years) from the Zwolle Outpatient Diabetes project Integrating Available Care (ZODIAC) cohort were analyzed. Plasma TMAO and BCAA were measured with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. CV mortality risk was estimated using multivariable-adjusted Cox regression models. Cross-sectionally, TMAO was independently associated with BCAA standardized (Std) β = 0.18 (95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.09; 0.27), p <0.001. During a median follow-up of 10 years, 113 CV deaths were recorded. In Cox regression analyses, adjusted for multiple clinical and laboratory variables including BCAA, TMAO was independently associated with CV mortality: adjusted hazard ratio (_adjHR) 1.93 (95% CI 1.11; 3.34), p = 0.02 (for the highest vs. the lowest tertile of the TMAO distribution). The same was true for analyses with TMAO as continuous variable: _adjHR 1.32 (95% CI 1.07; 1.63), p = 0.01 (per 1 SD increase). In contrast, BCAAs were not associated with increased CV mortality. In conclusion, higher plasma TMAO but not BCAA concentrations are associated with an increased risk of CV mortality in individuals with T2D, independent of clinical and biochemical risk markers. Full article

This paper describes and explains the synthesis of an astronomical clock mechanism which displays the mean position of the Sun, the Moon, the lunar node and zodiac circle as well as the Moon phases and their motion during the year as seen from the Earth. The clock face represents the stereographic projection of the celestial equator, celestial tropics, zodiac circle (ecliptic) and horizon for the latitude of Belgrade from the north celestial pole to the equator plane. The observed motions of celestial objects are realized by a set of clock gear trains with properly calculated gear ratios. The method of continued fraction is applied in the computation of proper and practically applicable gear ratios of the clock gear trains. The fully operational 3D model of the astronomical clock is created and the motion study of its operation is accomplished by using the SolidWorks 2016 application. The simulation results are compared with the ephemeris data and the detected differences are used to evaluate the long-term accuracy of the astronomical clock operation. The presented methods of the clock mechanism synthesis can be useful for the design, maintenance and conservation of large-scale city astronomical clocks since these clocks represent a precious historical and cultural heritage of European civilization. Full article

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Internet of Things (IoT) are the trends of network evolution. SDN mainly focuses on the upper level control and management of networks, while IoT aims to bring devices together to enable sharing and monitoring of real-time behaviours through network connectivity. On the one hand, IoT enables us to gather status of devices and networks and to control them remotely. On the other hand, the rapidly growing number of devices challenges the management at the access and backbone layer and raises security concerns of network attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). The combination of SDN and IoT leads to a promising approach that could alleviate the management issue. Indeed, the flexibility and programmability of SDN could help in simplifying the network setup. However, there is a need to make a security enhancement in the SDN-based IoT network for mitigating attacks involving IoT devices. In this article, we discuss and analyse state-of-the-art DDoS attacks under SDN-based IoT scenarios. Furthermore, we verify our SDN sEcure COntrol and Data plane (SECOD) algorithm to resist DDoS attacks on the real SDN-based IoT testbed. Our results demonstrate that DDoS attacks in the SDN-based IoT network are easier to detect than in the traditional network due to IoT traffic predictability. We observed that random traffic (UDP or TCP) is more affected during DDoS attacks. Our results also show that the probability of a controller becoming halt is 10%, while the probability of a switch getting unresponsive is 40%. Full article

The present study reports on the use of three types of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) nanoparticles with various organic substituents as fillers in a fluoroelastomer (FKM). A series of/POSS elastomer composite thin films is prepared. Microstructural SEM/TEM (scanning electron microscopy/transmission electron microscopy) imaging reveals a dispersion state allowing the presence of micron-sized domains. The influence of POSS content is studied in order to optimize thermal stability and mechanical properties of the composite thin films. Both POSS-A (with an acryloyl functional group and seven isobutyl substituents) and POSS-P (with eight phenyl substituents) lead to higher thermal stability and modulus of the composites, with respect to the unfilled FKM terpolymer matrix. covalent grafting of POSS-A onto the FKM network is found to play a critical role. Enhanced storage modulus in the rubbery plateau region (+210% at 200 °C for 20 phr) suggests that POSS-A is particularly suitable for high temperature applications. Full article

Although Plato states that the perceptible god that he describes in Timaeus is visible to the human eye, the reflection of the Cosmic Soul in the heavens has largely been explained away or forgotten in the Western mind. But Roman texts, early Christian testimony, and Imperial coins illustrate that Plato’s intersection in the heavens played a major role in Hellenistic cosmology and soteriology. Full article