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Abstract Acanthamoeba is an opportunistic protozoan that is widely distributed in the environment and is well recognized to produce serious human infections, including a blinding keratitis and a fatal encephalitis. This review presents our current understanding of the burden of Acanthamoeba infections on human health, their pathogenesis and pathophysiology, and molecular mechanisms associated with the disease, as well as virulence traits of Acanthamoeba that may be targets for therapeutic interventions and/or the development of preventative measures.

PV power plants utilizing solar energy to generate electricity on a large scale has become a trend and a new option that has been adopted by many countries; however, in actuality, it is difficult to anticipate how much electricity PV plants will generate. This analysis of existing photovoltaic (PV) power plants provides guidelines for more precise designs and performance forecasting of other upcoming PV technologies. In the literature, some authors have put their efforts into reviewing studies on PV power systems; however, those reviews are too focused on specific aspects of the topic. This study will review, from a broader perspective, recent investigations on PV power systems in the literature that were published between 1990 and 2022. The present study is divided into three main parts. Firstly, a performance assessment review of PV power plants is presented by taking different performance parameters into consideration, which were developed by the “International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC 61724-1)”. These parameters include reference yield, final yield, performance ratio, capacity utilization factor, and system efficiency. Secondly, different identifying factors that were investigated in previous studies, and which affect PV performance, were considered. These factors include solar irradiance, PV technology type, ambient temperature, cell temperature, tilt angle, dust accumulation, and shading effect. Thirdly, different methods were adopted and suggested to counter the effects of these influencing factors to enhance the performance efficiency of the PV power system. A hybrid cooling and cleaning system can use active techniques to boost efficiency during high solar irradiances and ambient temperatures while depending on passive techniques for everyday operations. This comprehensive and critical review identifies the challenges and proposed solutions when using photovoltaic technologies and it will be helpful for researchers, designers, and investors dealing with PV power systems.

As cloud services expand, the need to improve the performance of data center infrastructure becomes more important. High-performance computing, advanced networking solutions, and resource optimization strategies can help data centers maintain the speed and efficiency necessary to provide high-quality cloud services. Running containerized applications is one such optimization strategy, offering benefits such as improved portability, enhanced security, better resource utilization, faster deployment and scaling, and improved integration and interoperability. These benefits can help organizations improve their application deployment and management, enabling them to respond more quickly and effectively to dynamic business needs. Kubernetes is a container orchestration system designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. One of its key features is the ability to schedule the deployment and execution of containers across a cluster of nodes using a scheduling algorithm. This algorithm determines the best placement of containers on the available nodes in the cluster. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of various scheduling algorithms in the context of Kubernetes. We characterize and group them into four sub-categories: generic scheduling, multi-objective optimization-based scheduling, AI-focused scheduling, and autoscaling enabled scheduling, and identify gaps and issues that require further research.

Utilizing the Push and Pull theory, this study examines the impact of socio-economic disparities and natural disasters on migration and urbanization. With a global significance, the shift of population from rural to urban areas carries profound implications for societies and economies. In the specific context of Pakistan, the research delves into the driving forces behind the rapid urbanization in Karachi and Quetta. Employing a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data and qualitative Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis, the study surveyed 1120 migrants. Results indicate a significant positive correlation between socio-economic disparities, natural disasters, and migration, highlighting the interplay of rural push factors and urban pull factors. GIS and satellite images reveal noticeable expansion in covered areas in both cities. The study underscores the importance of effective disaster management and resilient infrastructure to mitigate the impact of natural disasters on migration and urbanization. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and academics, discussed in the later sections of the study.

Among the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), the Fenton reaction has attracted much attention in recent years for the treatment of water and wastewater. This review provides insight into a particular variant of the process, where soluble Fe(II) salts are replaced by zero-valent iron (ZVI), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is replaced by persulfate (S2O82−). Heterogeneous Fenton with ZVI has the advantage of minimizing a major problem found with homogeneous Fenton. Indeed, the precipitation of Fe(III) at pH > 4 interferes with the recycling of Fe species and inhibits oxidation in homogeneous Fenton; in contrast, suspended ZVI as iron source is less sensitive to the increase of pH. Moreover, persulfate favors the production of sulfate radicals (SO4•−) that are more selective towards pollutant degradation, compared to the hydroxyl radicals (•OH) produced in classic, H2O2-based Fenton. Higher selectivity means that degradation of SO4•−-reactive contaminants is less affected by interfering agents typically found in wastewater; however, the ability of SO4•− to oxidize H2O/OH− to •OH makes it difficult to obtain conditions where SO4•− is the only reactive species. Research results have shown that ZVI-Fenton with persulfate works best at acidic pH, but it is often possible to get reasonable degradation at pH values that are not too far from neutrality. Moreover, inorganic ions that are very common in water and wastewater (Cl−, HCO3−, CO32−, NO3−, NO2−) can sometimes inhibit degradation by scavenging SO4•− and/or •OH, but in other cases they even enhance the process. Therefore, ZVI-Fenton with persulfate might perform unexpectedly well in some saline waters, although the possible formation of harmful by-products upon oxidation of the anions cannot be ruled out.

We propose a dynamic programming algorithm that generates chemical isomers of a given chemical compound with cycles. We represent a chemical compound as a chemical graph and define its feature vector based on graph-theoretical descriptors. Our descriptors mainly consist of the occurrence of “edge-configuration” that captures the information of adjacent atoms such as their degrees and bond-multiplicity. We call two chemical graphs chemical isomers of each other if they have the same feature vector and share a common prescribed structure. Our proposed algorithm produces a compact representation of all chemical isomers of a given chemical graph. This representation enables efficient counting of chemical isomers without requiring explicit generation. Furthermore, our algorithm allows us to enumerate any number of isomers, even at random. For example, our compact representation for a chemical graph with 70 non-hydrogen atoms contains around 400 arcs in which chemical isomers are embedded. The proposed algorithm serves as a powerful tool for accelerating chemical compound exploration, particularly in drug discovery and material science, where identifying novel molecular structures is critical. By efficient enumeration of isomers, our approach enhances the search space exploration for target chemical compounds, facilitating advancements in molecular design.

First discovered in 1899, Naegleria fowleri is a protist pathogen, known to infect the central nervous system and produce primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. The most distressing aspect is that the fatality rate has remained more than 95%, despite our advances in antimicrobial chemotherapy and supportive care. Although rare worldwide, most cases have been reported in the United States, Australia, and Europe (France). A large number of cases in developing countries go unnoticed. In particular, religious, recreational, and cultural practices such as ritual ablution and/or purifications, Ayurveda, and the use of neti pots for nasal irrigation can contribute to this devastating infection. With increasing water scarcity and public reliance on water storage, here we debate the need for increased awareness of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis and the associated risk factors, particularly in developing countries.

Titanium alloys are generally known as difficult-to-machine materials because of their low machinability ratings. Their usage is favored for demanding sectors because of their high strength to weight ratio, high corrosion resistance and ability to operate at elevated temperatures. Machining of titanium alloys results in higher environmental burden, because they require high energy and generous amount of cutting fluids during machining. It is a well-known fact that most of the cutting fluids are toxic and non-biodegradable in nature and their disposal is costly. Therefore, researchers in metal cutting are keen to explore the potential of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) and minimum quantity cooling lubrication (MQCL) based cooling techniques as an alternate to conventional flood cooling. When MQL and MQCL techniques are used by employing biodegradable vegetable based oils then there is an encouraging potential of replacing the non-biodegradable cutting fluids. This study documents the recent experimental and numerical advances achieved in the MQL and MQCL assisted techniques for machining titanium alloys. The study also highlights the current challenges in this area and recommends future work to address these challenges.

Water contaminated with arsenic presents serious health risks, necessitating effective and sustainable removal methods. This article proposes a method for removing arsenic from water by impregnating biochar with iron oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ) from brown seaweed ( Sargassum polycystum ). After the seaweed biomass was pyrolyzed at 400 °C, iron oxide was added to the biochar to increase its adsorptive sites and surface functional groups, which allowed the binding of arsenic ions. Batch studies were conducted to maximize the effects of variables, including pH, contact time, arsenic concentration, and adsorbent dosage, on arsenic adsorption. The maximum arsenic adsorption efficiency of 96.7% was achieved under optimal conditions: pH 6, the adsorbent dosage of 100 mg, the initial arsenic concentration of 0.25 mg/L, and a contact time of 90 min. Langmuir and Freundlich’s isotherms favored the adsorption process, while the kinetics adhered to a pseudo-second-order model, indicating chemisorption as the controlling step. Column studies revealed complete saturation after 200 min, and the adsorption behavior fits both the Adams–Bohart and Thomas models, demonstrating the potential for large-scale application. The primary mechanism underlying the interaction between iron-modified biochar and arsenic ions is surface complexation, enhanced by increased surface area and porosity. This study highlights the significant contribution of iron-modified biochar derived from macroalgae as an effective and sustainable solution for arsenic removal from water.

Bio-nanocomposites-based packaging materials have gained significance due to their prospective application in rising areas of packaged food. This research aims to fabricate biodegradable packaging films based upon polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and starch integrated with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) or organic additives. MOFs offer unique features in terms of surface area, mechanical strength, and chemical stability, which make them favourable for supporting materials used in fabricating polymer-based packaging materials. zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are one of the potential candidates for this application due to their highly conductive network with a large surface area and high porosity. Present research illustrates a model system based on ZIF-67 (C8H10N4Co) bearing 2–10 wt.% loading in a matrix of PVA/starch blend with or without pyrolysis to probe the function of intermolecular interaction in molecular packing, tensile properties, and glass transition process. ZIF-67 nanoparticles were doped in a PVA/starch mixture, and films were fabricated using the solution casting method. It was discovered through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) that addition of ZIF-67 and pyrolyzed ZIF-67 changed and enhanced the thermal stability of the membrane. Moreover, 2–10 wt.% loading of ZIF-67 effected the thermal stability, owing to an interlayer aggregation of ZIF-67. The membranes containing pyrolyzed ZIF-67 showed mechanical strength in the order of 25 MPa in a moderate loading of pyrolyzed ZIF-67 (i.e., at 4 wt.%). The crystallinity enhanced by an increment in ZIF-67 loading. On the other hand, pyrolyzed ZIF-67 carbon became amorphous because of the inert environment and elevated temperature. The surface area also increased after the pyrolysis, which helped to increase the strength of the composite films.