Thermodynamics of the Glassy Polymer State: Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Aspects.

This work examines, first, the non-equilibrium character of the glassy state of polymer systems and its significance in the development of novel materials for important technological applications. Subsequently, it summarizes the essentials of the generalized lattice fluid approach for the description of this highly complex non-equilibrium behavior with an approximate and simple, yet analytically powerful formalism. The working equations are derived in a straightforward and consistent manner by clearly defining the universal and specific variables needed to describe the discussed properties.

Profile of sleep disturbances in patients with recurrent depressive disorder or bipolar affective disorder in a tertiary sleep disorders service.

Bidirectional relationship between sleep disturbances and affective disorders is increasingly recognised, but its underlying mechanisms are far from clear, and there is a scarcity of studies that report on sleep disturbances in recurrent depressive disorder (RDD) and bipolar affective disorder (BPAD). To address this, we conducted a retrospective study of polysomnographic and clinical records of patients presenting to a tertiary sleep disorders clinic with affective disorders. Sixty-three BPAD patients (32 female; mean age ± S.

Thermal Behavior of Poly(vinyl alcohol) in the Form of Physically Crosslinked Film.

Evaluation and understanding of the thermal behavior of polymers is crucial for many applications, e.g., polymer processing at relatively high temperatures, and for evaluating polymer-polymer miscibility.

The anti-inflammatory effects of aerobic exercise training in patients with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a low-grade, chronic inflammatory disease, associated with increased cardiovascular risk. The purpose of this systematic review/ meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of aerobic exercise training (AET) on inflammatory markers in T2DM patients.

Methods: The literature search was conducted utilizing PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library from their inception up to April 2022.

Thermochemical Transition in Low Molecular Weight Substances: The Example of the Silybin Flavonoid.

Silybin is a complex organic molecule with high bioactivity, extracted from the plant Silybum. As a pharmaceutical substance, silybin's bioactivity has drawn considerable attention, while its other properties, e.g.

A Comprehensive Review of the Cardiovascular Protective Properties of Silibinin/Silymarin: A New Kid on the Block.

Silibinin/silymarin has been used in herbal medicine for thousands of years and it is well-known for its hepato-protective properties. The present comprehensive literature review aimed to critically summarize the pharmacological properties of silymarin extract and its main ingredient silibinin in relation to classical cardiovascular risk factors (e.g.

Online Learning With Adaptive Rebalancing in Nonstationary Environments.

An enormous and ever-growing volume of data is nowadays becoming available in a sequential fashion in various real-world applications. Learning in nonstationary environments constitutes a major challenge, and this problem becomes orders of magnitude more complex in the presence of class imbalance. We provide new insights into learning from nonstationary and imbalanced data in online learning, a largely unexplored area.

Fractionation of a hydrocolloid emulsifier reclaimed from winery waste.

Complex hydrocolloids have been isolated and fractionated using a consecutive elution process, starting from winery waste. These extracts consist mainly of polysaccharidic populations and of smaller protein molecules and they exhibit emulsifying, thickening and texture-modifying activity. This work is a systematic study of these individual populations, as fractionated with preparative size exclusion chromatography (Prep-SEC) in terms of their chemical identity, surface properties, and emulsification behavior.

Partial Solvation Parameters of Drugs as a New Thermodynamic Tool for Pharmaceutics.

Partial solvation parameters (PSP) have much in common with the Hansen solubility parameter or with a linear solvation energy relationship (LSER), but there are advantages based on the sound thermodynamic basis. It is, therefore, surprising that PSP has so far not been harnessed in pharmaceutics for the selection of excipients or property estimation of formulations and their components. This work introduces PSP calculation for drugs, where the raw data were obtained from inverse gas chromatography.

Investigation of the Cross-Section Stratifications of Icons Using Micro-Raman and Micro-Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy.

The cross-section stratifications of samples, which were removed from six icons, are studied using optical microscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and micro-Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The icons, dated from the 14th to 19th centuries, are prominent examples of Byzantine painting art and are attributed to different artistic workshops of ​​northern Greece. The following materials are identified in the cross-sections of the icon samples using micro-Raman spectroscopy: anhydrite; calcite; carbon black; chrome yellow; cinnabar; gypsum; lead white; minium; orpiment; Prussian blue; red ochre; yellow ochre; and a paint of organic origin which can be either indigo ( Indigofera tinctoria L.

Microcalorimetry of the intestinal mucus: Hydrogen bonding and self-assembly of mucin.

The effect of mucin hydrogen bonding on the structure of intestinal mucus has been studied with micro-differential scanning mirocalorimetry (μ-DSC), supported by spectroscopy. The experiments were performed in water-dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solutions, using either water-DMSO mixtures of an appropriate DMSO content or water as blanks, as to isolate the effects of the solvent to hydrogen bonding. When using matched water-DMSO blanks, thermal events at low temperatures are linked to the negation of mucin-DMSO interactions, while events at higher temperatures are linked to the break-up of hydrogen bonds connecting the sugars of the individual macromolecules.

Viperin Restricts Zika Virus and Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Replication by Targeting NS3 for Proteasomal Degradation.

Flaviviruses are arthropod-borne viruses that constitute a major global health problem, with millions of human infections annually. Their pathogenesis ranges from mild illness to severe manifestations such as hemorrhagic fever and fatal encephalitis. Type I interferons (IFNs) are induced in response to viral infection and stimulate the expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), including that encoding viperin (virus-inhibitory protein, endoplasmic reticulum associated, IFN inducible), which shows antiviral activity against a broad spectrum of viruses, including several flaviviruses.

Cellular requirements for iron-sulfur cluster insertion into the antiviral radical SAM protein viperin.

Viperin (RSAD2) is an interferon-stimulated antiviral protein that belongs to the radical -adenosylmethionine (SAM) enzyme family. Viperin's iron-sulfur (Fe/S) cluster is critical for its antiviral activity against many different viruses. CIA1 (CIAO1), an essential component of the cytosolic iron-sulfur protein assembly (CIA) machinery, is crucial for Fe/S cluster insertion into viperin and hence for viperin's antiviral activity.

Semantically Enhanced Online Configuration of Feedback Control Schemes.

Recent progress toward the realization of the "Internet of Things" has improved the ability of physical and soft/cyber entities to operate effectively within large-scale, heterogeneous systems. It is important that such capacity be accompanied by feedback control capabilities sufficient to ensure that the overall systems behave according to their specifications and meet their functional objectives. To achieve this, such systems require new architectures that facilitate the online deployment, composition, interoperability, and scalability of control system components.

Dimerization of Carboxylic Acids: An Equation of State Approach.

The association term of the nonrandom hydrogen bonding theory, which is an equation of state model, is extended to describe the dimerization of carboxylic acids in binary mixtures with inert solvents and in systems of two different acids. Subsequently, the model is applied to describe the excess enthalpies and the vapor-liquid equilibrium of relevant binary mixtures containing low molecular weight organic acids. The model sheds light on the interplay of intermolecular interactions through the calculation of the various contributions to the mixing enthalpies, namely from hydrogen bonding and non-hydrogen bonding (dipolar, induced polar or dispersive) interactions.

Molecular thermodynamics of metabolism: hydration quantities and the equation-of-state approach.

The present work is part of a series of papers aiming at a thorough understanding of the thermodynamics of metabolism over a broad range of external conditions. The focus here is on the systematic study of solvation/hydration of a variety of fluids via an equation-of-state approach. This approach permits the study not only of the overall free energy, enthalpy or entropy of hydration but also their key components from cavitation, charging, and solute conformations/solvent restructuring contributions.

Integrated modelling of medical emergency response process for improved coordination and decision support.

The medical emergency response comprises a domain with complex processes, encompassing multiple heterogeneous entities, from organisations involved in the response to human actors to key information sources. Due to the heterogeneity of the entities and the complexity of the domain, it is important to fully understand the individual processes in which the components are involved and their inter-operations, before attempting to design any technological tool for coordination and decision support. This work starts with the gluing together and visualisation of the interactions of involved entities into a conceptual model, along the identified five workspaces of emergency response.

Aetiology of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Hospitalised Children in Cyprus.

In order to improve clinical management and prevention of viral infections in hospitalised children improved etiological insight is needed. The aim of the present study was to assess the spectrum of respiratory viral pathogens in children admitted to hospital with acute respiratory tract infections in Cyprus. For this purpose nasopharyngeal swab samples from 424 children less than 12 years of age with acute respiratory tract infections were collected over three epidemic seasons and were analysed for the presence of the most common 15 respiratory viruses.

Molecular thermodynamics of metabolism: quantum thermochemical calculations for key metabolites.

The present work is the first of a series of papers aiming at a coherent and unified development of the thermodynamics of metabolism and the rationalization of feasibility analysis of metabolic pathways. The focus in this part is on high-level quantum chemical calculations of the thermochemical quantities of relatively heavy metabolites such as amino acids/oligopeptides, nucleosides, saccharides and their derivatives in the ideal gas state. The results of this study will be combined with the corresponding hydration/solvation results in subsequent parts of this work in order to derive the desired thermochemical quantities in aqueous solutions.

Molecular epidemiology of rhinoviruses in Cyprus over three consecutive seasons.

Human rhinoviruses (HRVs) are widespread respiratory pathogens and a major cause of acute respiratory tract infections. The aim of this study was to investigate the molecular epidemiology of rhinovirus infections in children in Cyprus over three consecutive winter seasons. From a total of 116 rhinovirus-positive samples, 68 were sequenced in the 5'-UTR and VP4/VP2 regions.

Adaptive approximation for multiple sensor fault detection and isolation of nonlinear uncertain systems.

This paper presents an adaptive approximation-based design methodology and analytical results for distributed detection and isolation of multiple sensor faults in a class of nonlinear uncertain systems. During the initial stage of the nonlinear system operation, adaptive approximation is used for online learning of the modeling uncertainty. Then, local sensor fault detection and isolation (SFDI) modules are designed using a dedicated nonlinear observer scheme.

The many isoforms of human adenylate kinases.

Adenine nucleotides are involved in a variety of cellular metabolic processes, including nucleic acid synthesis and repair, formation of coenzymes, energy transfer, cell and ciliary motility, hormone secretion, gene expression regulation and ion-channel control. Adenylate kinases are abundant phosphotransferases that catalyze the interconversion of adenine nucleotides and thus regulate the adenine nucleotide ratios in different intracellular compartments. Nine different adenylate kinase isoenzymes have been identified and characterized so far in human tissues, named AK1 to AK9 according to their order of discovery.

Epidemiology of respiratory syncytial virus in children in Cyprus during three consecutive winter seasons (2010-2013): age distribution, seasonality and association between prevalent genotypes and disease severity.

This study reports the epidemiology of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in hospitalized children in Cyprus over three successive seasons (2010-2013) and the association between prevalent genotypes and disease severity. RSV infections had a circulation pattern from December to March. Most RSV-positive children (83%) were aged <2 years.