Validity of the Fisher Community Knowledge-Based Economic Valuation of the Local Ecosystem for Oyster Farming: A Case Study in Japan

The importance of local knowledge as a relevant information resource for ecosystem conditions has recently been the focus of sustainable ecosystem management. However, the accuracy of economic evaluation based on local knowledge regarding ecosystems has not yet been discussed, despite most activities in human society, including ecological conservation, being monetarily mediated. This study reports the correspondence between the economic value estimated by the fisher community and the analyzed environmental factors in the marine areas sectioned for oyster farming in Japan. At the study site, community-agreed usage fees for the area sections showed a gradient from the inner to the outer part of the bay. Our numerical modeling showed that the gradient of the economic value correlated with oyster feeding efficiency, indicating that a better location for feeding was empirically evaluated at a high price by the local fisher community. This suggests that the economic evaluation based on the local knowledge was biologically reasonable and could be a reliable information source for the aim of the area use in the study site.

The Development of Log Aesthetic Patch and Its Projection onto the Plane

In this work, we introduce a new type of surface called the Log Aesthetic Patch (LAP). This surface is an extension of the Coons surface patch, in which the four boundary curves are either planar or spatial Log Aesthetic Curves (LACs). To identify its versatility, we approximated the hyperbolic paraboloid to LAP using the information of lines of curvature (LoC). The outer part of the LoCs, which play a role as the boundary of the hyperbolic paraboloid, is replaced with LACs before constructing the LAP. Since LoCs are essential in shipbuilding for hot and cold bending processes, we investigated the LAP in terms of the LoC’s curvature, derivative of curvature, torsion, and Logarithmic Curvature Graph (LCG). The numerical results indicate that the LoCs for both surfaces possess monotonic curvatures. An advantage of LAP approximation over its original hyperbolic paraboloid is that the LoCs of LAP can be approximated to LACs, and hence the first derivative of curvatures for LoCs are monotonic, whereas they are non-monotonic for the hyperbolic paraboloid. This confirms that the LAP produced is indeed of high quality. Lastly, we project the LAP onto a plane using geodesic curvature to create strips that can be pasted together, mimicking hot and cold bending processes in the shipbuilding industry.

Percutaneous Retrieval of a Fragmented Port-a-Cath With the Snaring Technique

Background: Long-term use of central venous catheters is common in cancer patients for chemotherapy. The remaining of these catheters after the end of the treatment period can be associated with complications such as thrombosis and catheter fragmentation. Case Report: This report presents a 42-year-old woman with a history of colon cancer whose inner part of the vascular access was detached from the outer part after removing the central venous catheter, and the catheter remained inside the internal jugular vein. After preparing the patient’s chest X-ray, the catheter was removed from the femoral vein by percutaneous retrieval and successfully taken out using the snaring technique. Conclusion: Overall, percutaneous retrieval is a safe way to remove intravascular foreign bodies that can prevent major surgical complications.

Experimental analysis on concrete blocks reinforced with Arundo donax fibers

Over the last decades, there has been a growing attention in research and development on non-conventional building materials, such as vegetable fibers (e.g., flax; hemp; jute; etc.), to be used as eco-friendly materials in a wide range of applications in civil construction. The main reasons of this interest are related to the specific properties, price and sustainability of natural fibers, which can be considered as “green” building materials. In this article, the tensile strength of a new type of fibers extracted from stem of the Giant Reed Arundo donax L., has been investigated. These fibers, which widely grow in Mediterranean areas, but that are diffused all around the world as well, have been extracted from the outer part of the plant stem. Then, in order to have an initial idea of their influence on the mechanical properties of concrete, some experimental bricks have been prepared, with the addition of different weight percentages of this vegetal fiber. To assess the mechanical properties of these bricks, compression and tensile tests on the whole block has been performed. Hence, the differences between concrete bricks without any fiber and those reinforced with different weight percentages of natural fiber have been analyzed, then assessing their potential applications in bio-architecture.

Knowledge of Sufism and the Symbolic Interpretation of Paradise Garden Design Concept

As human beings we stand on the edge of two truths: the existing material world and the Spiritual being world. The knowing heart is the holy place, where these two dimensions meets and combined. In Sufi lessons the mortal heart of human is not an imaginary symbol but an objective organ of perception and intuition that reflect transcendent qualities in the world, for the assistance and help of other people. The Sufis, mystics of Islam, have been mentors of the heart for almost fourteen centuries. Their education and techniques purpose is to stimulate us and help us to wake up and clean the self for Divine love. Sufism is the spiritual dimension of Islam. According to Sufism, there are two aspects of Islam: the outer part, which consists of the Shari‘ah (the rules of Islamic law), and the inner part, so-called tariqah (the spiritual way). Together, these aspects lead one to haqiqah (the Truth). Sufism is another term for tariqah. This paper is an attempt to understand Sufism knowledge (true knowledge) and how this knowledge is related in world and with ChaharBagh (Garden of Paradise) concept, “symbolic interpretation of paradise garden” which is used by the Muslims in architecture. Sufism explains us that it is possible to understand the world beyond our thoughts. Those who dedicate themselves in Sufim exercise and practices eventually discover the state they can see things as real and true as they are or when you worship God as though you can see him.

Local information pattern descriptor for corneal diseases diagnosis

<span lang="EN-US">Light penetrates the human eye through the cornea, which is the outer part of the eye, and then the cornea directs it to the pupil to determine the amount of light that reaches the lens of the eye. Accordingly, the human cornea must not be exposed to any damage or disease that may lead to human vision disturbances. Such damages can be revealed by topographic images used by ophthalmologists. Consequently, an important priority is the early and accurate diagnosis of diseases that may affect corneal integrity through the use of machine learning algorithms, particularly, use of local feature extractions for the image. Accordingly, we suggest a new algorithm called local information pattern (LIP) descriptor to overcome the lack of local binary patterns that loss of information from the image and solve the problem of image rotation. The LIP based on utilizing the sub-image center intensity for estimating neighbors' weights that can use to calculate what so-called contrast based centre (CBC). On the other hand, calculating local pattern (LP) for each block image, to distinguish between two sub-images having the same CBC. LP is the sum of transitions of neighbors' weights, from sub-image center value to one and vice versa. Finally, creating histograms for both CBC and LP, then blending them to represent a robust local feature vector. Which can use for diagnosing, detecting.</span>

From fabric to smart T-shirt: fine tuning an improved robust system to detect arrhythmia

Wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) systems should be comfortable, non-stigmatizing, and capable of producing high-quality data. Many different designs of wearable textile ECG systems have recently emerged. Some of them are not considered to be smart garments, whereas most of the others present only the electronic side of the system. Our research work introduces a comprehensive study for an improved single-lead ECG smart shirt to identify automatically premature ventricular contraction as a common form of arrhythmia. For artifact-free results, Marvelous Designer is implemented to design our optimized relaxed slim fit shirt. In addition, a weft-knitted fabric of 80% nylon–20% spandex is used to manufacture the outer part of the shirt. Moreover, lightweight and small size electronic components are integrated to the outer part via low-resistance dry textile electrodes and 100% cotton fabric as an inner layer for easy transmission of weak ECG signals.

The Irradiation Instability of Protoplanetary Disks

The temperature in most parts of a protoplanetary disk is determined by irradiation from the central star. Numerical experiments of Watanabe and Lin suggested that such disks, also called “passive disks,” suffer from a thermal instability. Here we use analytical and numerical tools to elucidate the nature of this instability. We find that it is related to the flaring of the optical surface, the layer at which starlight is intercepted by the disk. Whenever a disk annulus is perturbed thermally and acquires a larger scale height, disk flaring becomes steeper in the inner part and flatter in the outer part. Starlight now shines more overhead for the inner part and so can penetrate into deeper layers; conversely, it is absorbed more shallowly in the outer part. These geometric changes allow the annulus to intercept more starlight, and the perturbation grows. We call this the irradiation instability. It requires only ingredients known to exist in realistic disks and operates best in parts that are both optically thick and geometrically thin (inside 30 au, but can extend to further reaches when, e.g., dust settling is considered). An unstable disk develops traveling thermal waves that reach order unity in amplitude. In thermal radiation, such a disk should appear as a series of bright rings interleaved with dark shadowed gaps, while in scattered light it resembles a moving staircase. Depending on the gas and dust responses, this instability could lead to a wide range of consequences, such as ALMA rings and gaps, dust traps, vertical circulation, vortices, and turbulence.

Asymptotics of streamwise Reynolds stress in wall turbulence

The scaling of different features of streamwise normal stress profiles $\langle uu\rangle ^+(y^+)$ in turbulent wall-bounded flows is the subject of a long-running debate. Particular points of contention are the scaling of the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ peaks of $\langle uu\rangle ^+$ at $y^+\approxeq ~15$ and $y^+ ={O}(10^3)$ , respectively, their infinite Reynolds number limit, and the rate of logarithmic decay in the outer part of the flow. Inspired by the thought-provoking paper of Chen & Sreenivasan (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 908, 2021, p. R3), two terms of an inner asymptotic expansion of $\langle uu\rangle ^+$ in the small parameter $Re_{\tau }^{-1/4}$ are constructed from a set of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of channel flow. This inner expansion is for the first time matched through an overlap layer to an outer expansion, which not only fits the same set of channel DNS within 1.5 % of the peak stress, but also provides a good match of laboratory data in pipes and the near-wall part of boundary layers, up to the highest $Re_{\tau }$ values of $10^5$ . The salient features of the new composite expansion are first, an inner $\langle uu\rangle ^+$ peak, which saturates at 11.3 and decreases as $Re_{\tau }^{-1/4}$ . This inner peak is followed by a short ‘wall log law’ with a slope that becomes positive for $Re_{\tau }$ beyond ${O}(10^4)$ , leading up to an outer peak, followed by the logarithmic overlap layer with a negative slope going continuously to zero for $Re_{\tau }\to \infty$ .

A Case of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer with Germline Pathogenic Variants in Both BRCA1 and BRCA2

We report a rare case of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC) with pathogenic variants in both <i>BRCA1</i> and <i>BRCA2</i>. The patient was a 78-year-old woman who visited the hospital after noticing a lump in her left breast 6 months before, which gradually increased in size. According to her family history, her maternal aunt developed breast cancer in her 40s. On palpation, a 4-cm large mass was palpated in the upper outer part of the left breast. A needle biopsy revealed invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast, which was negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2. The patient was diagnosed with cT2N0M0 stage IIA, and primary systemic treatment was planned. The patient developed drug-induced interstitial pneumonia after receiving paclitaxel. Although she recovered spontaneously, she did not wish to receive further chemotherapy, and thus surgery was performed. Four months after the surgery, the patient became aware of dyspnea. After a thorough examination, she was diagnosed with postoperative cancer recurrence of the left breast with multiple liver metastases, cancerous peritonitis, multiple bone metastases, and multiple lymph node metastases. Genetic testing was performed, and pathogenic variants were found in both <i>BRAC1</i> and <i>BRCA2</i>. However, her condition worsened, and she died 8 months after the surgery. <i>BRCA</i> pathogenic variants had more advanced breast cancer on initial diagnosis and worse cancer-related outcomes. It is desirable to consider the optimal approach to the treatment of breast cancer in pathogenic variants. In elderly patients with triple-negative breast cancer, HBOC may be suspected, based on biomarkers and family history. It is important to provide information on genetic counseling, genetic testing, and effective treatment plans proactively.