The potential effects of metformin and/or sitagliptin on leptin/adiponectin ratio in diabetic obese patients: a new therapeutic effect.

Objective: To explore how metformin, alone or in conjunction with sitagliptin, affects the leptin/adiponectin ratio in obese type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.

Methods: The case-control study was conducted from March to August 2021 at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq, and comprised adult, obese type 2 diabetes mellitus patients of either gender and age-matched healthy controls. The MT group included patients taking metformin 1g/day, MTS group had patients taking metformin 1g/day plus sitagliptin 100mg/day, and the control group comprised healthy subjects.

A comprehensive study of ultrasonic-assisted gas metal arc welding of high-strength steel.

The present study investigated longitudinal ultrasonic vibrations applied uniformly perpendicular to the weld line as an efficient approach in the ultrasonic-assisted gas metal arc welding (U-GMAW) of high-strength steel. The penetration depth, microstructure, microhardness, mechanical properties, and corrosion of welded joints produced from GMAW and U-GMAW were experimentally explored at different welding conditions to evaluate their performance. The experimental findings show that welded joints produced by U-GMAW have a maximum ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 18.

Predicting disease severity in multiple sclerosis using multimodal data and machine learning.

Background: Multiple sclerosis patients would benefit from machine learning algorithms that integrates clinical, imaging and multimodal biomarkers to define the risk of disease activity.

Methods: We have analysed a prospective multi-centric cohort of 322 MS patients and 98 healthy controls from four MS centres, collecting disability scales at baseline and 2 years later. Imaging data included brain MRI and optical coherence tomography, and omics included genotyping, cytomics and phosphoproteomic data from peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

A game-theoretic approach to designing carbon regulations in a duopoly freight transportation market: Road and multimodal road-rail competitive systems.

Since the transportation industry produces remarkable carbon emissions worldwide, governments aim to curb these emissions by implementing different carbon regulations. However, little is known regarding how the heterogeneity of transportation systems should be exploited to design carbon regulations. To fill this research gap, the present article formulates carbon cap-and-trade and carbon offset regulations to reduce total carbon emissions produced by road and multimodal road-rail freight transportation systems (FTSs) in a duopoly market; the latter is regarded as a green, energy-efficient transportation mode.