Search Results (31)

The sustainable management of chemical fumigants in intensive horticulture represents one of the most complex challenges in European agricultural policy, requiring the integration of agronomic knowledge, regulatory frameworks, economic viability, and stakeholder perspectives. This study proposes and tests a multi-phase consultation methodology designed to bridge the gap between individual expert knowledge and collective, evidence-based consensus, moving from qualitative field-based elicitation to structured multidisciplinary engagement and incorporating both scientific data and practical experience. A total of 72 experts were involved across two phases. In phase 1, in-depth face-to-face interviews (n = 18) captured field-level knowledge on integrated pest management strategies, risk perception, and decision-making criteria, including the economic sustainability of production systems, a dimension prioritized in the European Commission’s Vision for Agriculture and Food. Phase 2 consisted of a one-day multistakeholder event (n = 54)—bringing together researchers, regulators, industry representatives, and farmers—to confront qualitative findings with experimental data on operator safety, groundwater protection, and consumer residues. This deliberate transition from individual perception to informed, shared consensus represents the methodological core of the approach and its most distinctive contribution. The phase 1 results showed that the majority of experts considered chemical fumigants currently indispensable, while recognizing complementary strategies—particularly solarization and natural substances—as valuable supporting tools. The phase 2 experimental data confirmed operator exposure below regulatory thresholds, no groundwater contamination under professional application conditions, and the absence of detectable residues in treated crops. The results demonstrate that this structured consultation can generate actionable knowledge for integrated nematode and soil-borne disease management, with a methodology replicable across other complex regulatory and agronomic contexts within the European framework. Full article

The clinical efficacy of chemotherapy against rapidly proliferating cells stimulates both the development of new agents and the reassessment of established drugs. Spectroscopic methods (UV, FT-IR, and ¹H NMR) were applied to characterize prospidium chloride and related substances. The FT-IR spectrum of prospidium chloride, arising from vibrational transitions within the alkyl fragments of the dispirotripiperazinium cation, is reported with band assignments. Electronic transitions between molecular orbitals are analyzed using quantum–mechanical selection rules (Laporte and spin selection rules). The n→σ* transition (ΔS = 0) corresponds to the absorption maximum at λmax = 282 ± 0.40 nm (ε = 3.89 ± 0.08 L·mol⁻¹·cm⁻¹). A ¹H NMR spectrum (700 MHz) was used to assign chemical shifts δ (ppm), J-coupling constants (Hz), and gauche conformational features of prospidium chloride and its dihydroxy and epoxy impurities. Quantitative ¹H NMR (qNMR) was applied to determine the content of the active pharmaceutical ingredient and related substances. The methods provide complementary structural information for the characterization of prospidium chloride. Full article

With the trend of internationalization, maritime traffic density has gradually increased. Since 2002, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has required various types of vessels to be equipped with the Automatic Identification System (AIS). Through AIS static and dynamic data, more complete navigational information of vessels can be obtained. As the Port of Kaohsiung is currently transitioning into a smart port, this study focuses on inbound and outbound vessels of the Second Port of Kaohsiung. It considers both the safety monitoring of the smart port and environmental security, integrating a big data database to provide early warnings for abnormal navigation conditions. This study builds an integrated database based on vessel AIS data, conducts AIS big data analysis to extract useful information, and establishes a random forest model to predict whether a vessel’s course and speed during port navigation deviate from normal patterns, thereby achieving the goal of early warning. This study also helps reduce the risk of collisions caused by abnormal vessel operations and thus prevents marine pollution in the port area due to oil spills or hazardous substance leakage. Through real-time monitoring and early warning of navigation behavior, it not only enhances navigation safety but also serves as the first line of defense against marine pollution, contributing significantly to the protection of the port’s ecological environment and the promotion of sustainable development. Full article

The architectural heritage of the 20th century has proved to be highly vulnerable to the test of time, with slight variations in different geographical contexts. The lack of value recognition, restrictions imposition, and resulting protection has led to the loss of memory of material and immaterial values. Restoring dignity has been the primary goal of those who have given substance and vitality to the theme of Modern Restoration, inheriting from the past the method that requires, in order to catalogue each work, the essential stages of knowledge and documentation, preliminary to conservation and enhancement. It is precisely in this scenario, after analysing the experiences of institutions, bodies and associations in the field of filing and cataloguing, that the needs brought about by the digital transition were taken on board; the aim is to define, within the PRIN 2022 DIMHENSION project, an innovative operative protocol that is economically, socially and technically sustainable, aimed at the computerised management of 20th century architectural heritage. The steps are the identification of the global description of the history of the building, translation of the entire body of data into information assets (H-BIR), and the possibility of consultation using parametric models (H-BIM). A Digital Register has therefore been designed, initially for an international sample of late 20th century façade systems, which goes well beyond their dynamic documentation, creating the conditions for a platform for consulting the complex of information, structured in an H-BIR archive interfaced with an H-BIM object library. Full article

Background: Opioid analgesic therapy has been traditionally used for pain management; however, the variability in patient characteristics, complexity in evaluating pain, availability of treatment within facilities, and U.S. physicians overprescribing opioids have contributed to the current opioid epidemic. Despite large research efforts investigating the patterns of postsurgical pain management and influencing factors, it remains unclear how these overall trends vary across the varying sizes and available resources of academic hospitals, community hospitals, and outpatient surgery centers. The primary aim of this scoping review was to examine the patterns of contemporary postoperative pain management across healthcare settings, including academic medical centers, community hospitals, and outpatient surgery centers. Specifically, this study investigates how prescription practices for opioids, NSAIDs, and acetaminophen are influenced by patient demographics, including sex, race, gender, insurance status, and other social determinants of health (SDoH), to inform equitable and patient-centered pain management strategies. Methods: This study utilized The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and was used as a reference checklist. The Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework was used to guide the review process. To ensure comprehensive coverage, searches were conducted across three major databases: PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library. Results: A total of 43 eligible studies were retained for analysis. The highest reported Healthy People 2030 category was Social and community context (n = 39), while the highest reported category of SDoH was age (n = 36). A total of 34 articles listed sex and age as SDoH. Additional SDoH examined were race/ethnicity (n = 17), insurance (n = 7), employment (n = 1), education (n = 4), and income (n = 1). This review suggests that there are significant gaps in the implementation of institution-specific, patient-centered, and equitable pain management strategies, particularly in academic hospitals, which our findings show have the highest rates of opioid and NSAID prescriptions (n = 26) compared to outpatient surgical centers (n = 8). Findings from our review of the literature demonstrated that while academic hospitals often adopt enhanced recovery protocols aimed at reducing opioid dependence, these protocols can fail to address the diverse needs of at-risk populations, such as those with chronic substance use, low socioeconomic status, or racial and ethnic minorities. Conclusions: Findings from this review are expected to have implications for informing both organizational-specific and nationwide policy recommendations, potentially leading to more personalized and equitable pain management strategies across different healthcare settings. These include guidelines for clinicians on addressing various aspects of postoperative pain management, including preoperative education, perioperative pain management planning, use of different pharmacological and nonpharmacological modalities, organizational policies, and transition to outpatient care. Full article

The ecological transition is leading industry towards the use of materials of natural origin, which are often proposed for food contact materials as a sustainable solution to reduce plastic use. They are perceived as safe by consumers; however, a strict control on potential contaminants able to migrate to food and beverages is necessary to assess safety. Thus, the development of analytical methods for the detection and the identification of potentially occurring harmful substances is strongly encouraged, and the combination of different techniques can be a solution to obtain complementary information. In this work, GC-MS, HPLC-MS, ATR-IR and ESEM have been exploited with the aim of monitoring both volatile and non-volatile compounds, and to control surface composition and morphology. Extraction with solvent and migration experiments with simulants were performed on 11 commercial samples, including plates, caps, and wooden coffee stirrers. Global and specific migration studies were carried out, and possible differences before and after use were explored. Analysis after solvent extraction confirmed the presence of additives, and of Non-Intentionally-Added Substances (NIAS) that were also found in migration studies. Data on morphological characterisation were useful to control the item composition, and to check the stability of the materials after repeated use. Full article

The field of refrigeration technology has played a pivotal role in modern society, providing essential cooling solutions for various industries, including food preservation, healthcare, and manufacturing. However, the conventional refrigerants used in these systems, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), have been identified as major contributors to climate change and ozone depletion. Recently, the heightened environmental consciousness of the refrigeration industry paved the way for searching for natural refrigerants (NRs) as an alternative to the usual commercial and synthetic refrigerant (SR). Natural refrigerants are known to be substances that occur naturally in the Earth’s surroundings and were commonly used, while synthetic refrigerants took their place because of their known better thermal performance durability and safety. Despite challenges such as flammability and toxicity, these NR substitutes demonstrate competitive performance, urging a transition from traditional SR. In this review paper, commonly known NRs such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, air, and hydrocarbons, are presented in terms of their sustainable characteristics, historical origins, selection criteria, preparation techniques, evaluations, and impacts. To provide a sustainable and eco-friendly guideline for the advancement of refrigeration technology, this analysis examines the trends, selection criteria, preparation processes, and evaluation procedures of different NRs. Finally, the results presented in this paper will be useful baseline information for both researchers and scientists in developing a refrigeration system. Full article

The need to use environmentally friendly substances in agriculture for pest control has become increasingly urgent in recent years. This was generated by humanity’s awareness of the harmful effects of chemicals with increased persistence, which accumulated in nature and harmed living beings. Essential oils are among the most important biopesticides and could significantly contribute to the expansion of ecological agriculture, replacing traditional methods. However, for judicious use, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of the mechanisms by which these oils act on both harmful and useful insects. An important step in transitioning from theory to practice is adapting essential oil application technologies for open fields, overcoming the difficulties created by their high volatility and low remanence, which results in a rapid reduction in the toxic effect. The review proposes an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the existing literature on these subjects, aiming to provide researchers with some potential future study directions and practitioners with a solid base of information regarding the interaction between insects and essential oils. Full article

Due to the selectiveness of criminal systems and the context of social vulnerability, there is a high prevalence of health problems among individuals with a history of incarceration. When there is an insufficient level of health care, prior clinical conditions can worsen, and health education can be a response to this problem. Health education is a process of building health knowledge that is intended to facilitate thematic appropriation by the population that enables people to access, understand, and use health-related information for health improvement. In the context of criminal justice, health education can contribute to the successful transition of people who have experienced prison from their custody to the community setting. This study aimed to identify, synthesize, and critically evaluate peer-reviewed evidence concerning health education initiatives developed during or after incarceration aimed at people released from prison. A narrative review methodology was used to analyze 19 studies about health education interventions for prisoners or people who were arrested. Initiatives were identified in five countries, which showed differences in approaches, with motivational interviewing and group sessions standing out in the studies. All of them were grouped into the following themes: HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, alcohol, opioids and other substances, tuberculosis, and women’s health. We have not performed a quality assessment of the studies included (using checklists such as PRISMA, AMSTAR, or SANRA) as this study is a narrative review and was not intended to be a systematic review or meta-analysis. This review has the potential impact of informing future health education initiatives and policies for individuals transitioning from prison. Full article

Many reactions are carried out in solvent mixtures, mainly because of practical reasons. For example, E2 eliminations are favored over S_N2 substitutions in aqueous organic solvents because the bases are desolvated. This example raises the question: how do we chose binary solvents to favor reaction outcomes? This important question is deceptively simple because it requires that we understand the details of all interactions within the system. Solvatochromism (solvent-dependent color change of a substance) has contributed a great deal to answer this difficult question, because it gives information on the interactions between solvents, solute-solvent, and presumably transition state-solvent. This wealth of information is achieved by simple spectroscopic measurements of selected (solvatochromic) substances, or probes. An important outcome of solvatochromism is that the probe solvation layer composition is almost always different from that of bulk mixed solvent. In principle, this difference can be exploited to “tune” the composition of solvent mixture to favor the reaction outcome. This minireview addresses the use of solvatochromic probes to quantify solute-solvent interactions, leading to a better understanding of the complex effects of solvent mixtures on chemical phenomena. Because of their extensive use in chemistry, we focus on binary mixtures containing protic-, and protic-dipolar aprotic solvents. Full article

Stress is one of the primary triggers of serious pathologies (e.g., depression, obesity, heart attack). Prolonged exposure to it can lead to addictive substance consumption and even suicide, without ignoring other adverse side effects in the economic, work and family spheres. Early detection of stress would relax the pressure of medical practice exercised by the population affected and result in a healthier society with a more satisfying quality of life. In this work, a convolutional-neural-network (CNN) model is proposed to detect an individual’s stress state by analyzing the diffusive dynamics of the photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal. The characteristic $(p,q)$-planes of the 0–1 test serve as a framework to preprocess the PPG signals and feed the CNN with the dynamic information they supply to typify an individual’s stress level. The methodology follows CRISP-DM (Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining), which provides the typical steps in developing data-mining models. An adaptation of CRIPS-DM is applied, adding specific transitions between the usual stages of deep-learning models. The result is a CNN model whose performance amounts to 97% accuracy in diagnosing the stress level; it compares with other published results. Full article

Dissolution limitations to oral absorption can occur if the time required for dissolution is longer than the transit time across the small intestine and/or if dissolution is slower than the drug’s permeation through the gut wall. These limitations most often occur for poorly soluble drugs. A standard method for overcoming dissolution issues is to reduce the particle size of the (solid) drug. Building on the refined Developability Classification System (rDCS), this work establishes a novel set of equations with which the appropriate degree of particle size reduction needed to mitigate dissolution limitations to absorption can be calculated. According to the type of data available, the appropriate equation(s) for each situation can be applied. Three case examples are used to illustrate implementation of the equations: voriconazole, lemborexant and istradefylline. Although for voriconazole (rDCS Class I) target radius (r_target) estimates indicate that particle size reduction is unnecessary, for lemborexant (rDCS Class I) a radius of ≤20 µm would be required to improve absorption. For istradefylline (rDCS Class IIb) the r_target was approximately 12 µm. Results are commensurate with literature information for these three drugs, signaling that the equations are suitable for application to a wide variety of drug substances. Full article

In this work, film materials based on binary compositions of poly-(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and chitosan with different ratios of polymer components in the range from 0/100 to 100/0 wt. % were studied. Using a combination of thermal (DSC) and relaxation (EPR) measurements, the influence of the encapsulation temperature of the drug substance (DS) of dipyridamole (DPD) and moderately hot water (at 70 °C) on the characteristics of the PHB crystal structure and the diffusion rotational mobility of the stable TEMPO radical in the amorphous regions of the PHB/chitosan compositions is shown. The low-temperature extended maximum on the DSC endotherms made it possible to obtain additional information about the state of the chitosan hydrogen bond network. This allowed us to determine the enthalpies of thermal destruction of these bonds. In addition, it is shown that when PHB and chitosan are mixed, significant changes are observed in the degree of crystallinity of PHB, degree of destruction of hydrogen bonds in chitosan, segmental mobility, sorption capacity of the radical, and the activation energy of rotational diffusion in the amorphous regions of the PHB/chitosan composition. The characteristic point of polymer compositions was found to correspond to the ratio of the components of the mixture 50/50%, for which the inversion transition of PHB from dispersed material to dispersion medium is assumed. Encapsulation of DPD in the composition leads to higher crystallinity and to a decrease in the enthalpy of hydrogen bond breaking, and it also slows down segmental mobility. Exposure to an aqueous medium at 70 °C is also accompanied by sharp changes in the concentration of hydrogen bonds in chitosan, the degree of PHB crystallinity, and molecular dynamics. The conducted research made it possible for the first time to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the mechanism of action of a number of aggressive external factors (such as temperature, water, and the introduced additive in the form of a drug) on the structural and dynamic characteristics of the PHB/chitosan film material at the molecular level. These film materials have the potential to serve as a therapeutic system for controlled drug delivery. Full article

Background and Objectives: ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity and can persist in adulthood. The aim of this study is to deepen knowledge about adult ADHD follow-up. Materials and Methods: This observational study consists of one retrospective part aimed at collecting records of children and adolescents treated for ADHD in the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) from 1995 to 2015 and, successively, at identifying their adult follow-up in Adult Mental Health Service (AMHS); the second part consists of ADHD scale administration, Diagnostic Interview for ADHD in Adults (DIVA 2-0) and Adult Self Rating Scale (ASRSv1.1), for the subjects currently being treated at AMHS who agreed to participate in the study. Results: We observed that among the 55 patients treated at CAMHS between 1995 and 2015 for ADHD and subsequently at the AMHS, none presented a diagnosis of ADHD; instead, they were treated for Intellectual Dysfunction (33%), Borderline Personality Disorder (15%) and Anxiety Disorders (9%), and two individuals were also diagnosed with comorbid substance/alcohol abuse (4%). Of the 55 patients, only 25 (45%) were treated at AMHS during the study period. Though we asked for their informed consent to administer the questionnaires, we were able to test only seven patients. The ASRS-V1.1 score showed that 43% of patients reported symptoms of ADHD persistence in adulthood. For DIVA 2.0, 57% of individuals reported scores indicating the persistence of the ADHD inattention component, and 43% the persistence of both ADHD dimensions. Conclusions: ADHD cannot be considered a disorder confined to childhood/adolescence but instead is a chronic and complex condition that can persist into adulthood. The very small size of our final sample may account for both the high ADHD dropout rate over the long follow-up period and the difficult transition from child to adult health care in ADHD treatment. Our investigation suggests the need for specific training in the diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD and the implementation of transition protocols between minor and adult services to improve long-term treatments. Full article

Tobacco smoking is deleterious to the lungs because it exposes them to many toxic substances. These include transition metal ions, such as cadmium. However, there is a lack of information about the influence of endogenous metal-binding peptides, such as His-Leu (HL), on the lung distribution of transition metals in smokers. To address this, we administered HL subcutaneously to rats exposed to tobacco smoke for six weeks, then we measured the concentrations of transition metal ions in the lungs. We found that exposure to tobacco smoke elevates the concentrations of Cd(II) and Cu(II). Administration of the HL peptide, whose elevation is a consequence of angiotensin receptor blocker anti-hypertension therapy, increases the concentration of Fe in the lungs of rats exposed to smoke. These findings suggest that smoking is a risk factor for patients receiving angiotensin receptor blockers to treat hypertension. Full article