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IntroductionSubtalar arthroereisis has been increasingly accepted as a solution to manage symptomatic pes planus. However, despite the recent developments related to arthroereisis, no other published literature has aimed to review the outcomes in paediatric patients since 2010. This systematic review and meta-analysis, therefore, aims to evaluate the current outcomes of subtalar arthroereisis in the treatment of symptomatic pes planus among the paediatric population.Materials and methodsThe review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. All studies reported on the clinical outcomes of subtalar arthroereisis in children aged 21 or younger were included.ResultsA total of 17 publications were included, with 1536 feet. The average duration of follow-up of the studies included in the review is 43.52 months. The studies consistently reported improvement in the radiological outcomes, approximating that of a normal population. Subtalar arthroereisis has shown to restore the collapsed medial longitudinal arch, supported by the decrease in Meary’s angle to 5.267° (95% CI: 4.695°–5.839°, normal: 0°–10.0°) post-operatively and an increased calcaneal pitch of 15.70° (95% CI: 15.41°–15.99°, normal 18.0°–20.0°). Deformities associated with pes planus such as heel valgus was also significantly reduced, evident by the post-operative lateral talocalcaneal angle of 27.19° (95% CI: 26.44°–27.93°, normal: 25.0°–45.0°) and a post-operative Kite’s angle of 18.13° (95% CI: 17.73°–18.52°, normal: 15.0°–30.0°). Subjectively, subtalar arthroereisis has generally resulted in an improvement in the grading of outcomes postoperatively from the patient’s point of view.ConclusionsSubtalar arthroereisis could serve as a procedure to correct radiological abnormalities, as well as relieve pain in selected patients with symptomatic pes planus.

Dehydrin (DHN) genes can be rapidly induced to offset water deficit stresses in plants. Here, we reported on a dehydrin gene ( ) related to salt tolerance isolated from L. (Convolvulaceae). The IpDHN protein shares a relatively high homology with Arabidopsis dehydrin ERD14 (At1g76180). IpDHN was shown to have a cytoplasmic localization pattern. Quantitative RT-PCR analyses indicated that was differentially expressed in most organs of plants, and its expression level increased after salt, osmotic stress, oxidative stress, cold stress and ABA treatments. Analysis of the 974-bp promoter of identified distinct -acting regulatory elements, including an MYB binding site (MBS), ABRE (ABA responding)-elements, Skn-1 motif, and TC-rich repeats. The induced expression of in indicated that IpDHN might be involved in salt, drought, osmotic, and oxidative stresses. We also generated transgenic Arabidopsis lines that over-expressed . The transgenic Arabidopsis plants showed a significant enhancement in tolerance to salt/drought stresses, as well as less accumulation of hydrogen peroxide (H O ) and the superoxide radical (O ), accompanied by increasing activity of the antioxidant enzyme system . Under osmotic stresses, the overexpression of in Arabidopsis can elevate the expression of ROS-related and stress-responsive genes and can improve the ROS-scavenging ability. Our results indicated that is involved in cellular responses to salt and drought through a series of pleiotropic effects that are likely involved in ROS scavenging and therefore influence the physiological processes of microorganisms and plants exposed to many abiotic stresses.

People with flatfoot encounter challenges while walking. This study investigated whether arch support insoles (ASIs) can reduce fatigue of the lower extremity muscles during a walking task in people with flatfoot compared with flat insoles (FIs). A total of fifteen female college students with flatfoot were recruited and considered eligible for the study, with each subject fulfilling the inclusion criteria of Chippaux-Smirak index > 45%. A paired sample t test was used to compare the difference in power spectral area (PSA) of the subdivided frequency band interval of 20–140 Hz between ASIs and FIs. A Wilcoxon test was used for assessing nonnormal data. Effect size (ES) was calculated as a measure of the practical relevance of the significance by using Cohen’s d . The results showed that the PSA of the RF muscles ( P  < 0.05; ES = 0.90) during uphill walking and of the RF ( P  < 0.05; ES = 1.21) and TA muscles ( P  < 0.05; ES = 0.61) during downhill walking was significantly smaller for ASIs than for FIs. The current evidence suggests that ASIs alleviates RF muscle fatigue during uphill walking and relieves RF and TA muscle fatigue during downhill walking.

The advancement of 3D printing and scanning technology enables the digitalization and customization of foot orthosis with better accuracy. However, customized insoles require rectification to direct control and/or correct foot deformity, particularly flatfoot. In this exploratory study, we aimed at two design rectification features (arch stiffness and arch height) using three sets of customized 3D-printed arch support insoles (R+U+, R+U−, and R−U+). The arch support stiffness could be with or without reinforcement (R+/−) and the arch height may or may not have an additional elevation, undercutting (U+/−), which were compared to the control (no insole). Ten collegiate participants (four males and six females) with flexible flatfoot were recruited for gait analysis on foot kinematics, vertical ground reaction force, and plantar pressure parameters. A randomized crossover trial was conducted on the four conditions and analyzed using the Friedman test with pairwise Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Compared to the control, there were significant increases in peak ankle dorsiflexion and peak pressure at the medial midfoot region, accompanied by a significant reduction in peak pressure at the hindfoot region for the insole conditions. In addition, the insoles tended to control hindfoot eversion and forefoot abduction though the effects were not significant. An insole with stronger support features (R+U+) did not necessarily produce more favorable outcomes, probably due to over-cutting or impingement. The outcome of this study provides additional data to assist the design rectification process. Future studies should consider a larger sample size with stratified flatfoot features and covariating ankle flexibility while incorporating more design features, particularly medial insole postings.

Background Flexible flat foot is a normal observation in typically developing children, however, some children with flat feet present with pain and impaired lower limb function. The challenge for health professionals is to identify when foot posture is outside of expected findings and may warrant intervention. Diagnoses of flexible flat foot is often based on radiographic or clinical measures, yet the validity and reliability of these measures for a paediatric population is not clearly understood. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate how paediatric foot posture is defined and measured within the literature, and if the psychometric properties of these measures support any given diagnoses. Methods Electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, Cochrane, AMED, SportDiscus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science) were systematically searched in January 2017 for empirical studies where participants had diagnosed flexible flat foot and were aged 18 years or younger. Outcomes of interest were the foot posture measures and definitions used. Further articles were sought where cited in relation to the psychometric properties of the measures used. Results Of the 1101 unique records identified by the searches, 27 studies met the inclusion criteria involving 20 foot posture measures and 40 definitions of paediatric flexible flat foot. A further 18 citations were sought in relation to the psychometric properties of these measures. Three measures were deemed valid and reliable, the FPI-6 > + 6 for children aged three to 15 years, a Staheli arch index of > 1.07 for children aged three to six and ≥ 1.28 for children six to nine, and a Chippaux-Smirak index of > 62.7% in three to seven year olds, > 59% in six to nine year olds and ≥ 40% for children aged nine to 16 years. No further measures were found to be valid for the paediatric population. Conclusion No universally accepted criteria for diagnosing paediatric flat foot was found within existing literature, and psychometric data for foot posture measures and definitions used was limited. The outcomes of this review indicate that the FPI – 6, Staheli arch index or Chippaux-Smirak index should be the preferred method of paediatric foot posture measurement in future research.

Aim: Analysing how species niches shift between native and introduced ranges is a powerful tool for understanding the determinants of species distributions and for anticipating range expansions by invasive species. Most studies only consider the climatic niche, by correlating widely available presence-only data with regional climate. However, habitat characteristics and disturbance also shape species niches, thereby potentially confounding shifts attributed only to differences in climate. Here we used presence and abundance data for Oxalis pes-caprae, a species native to South Africa and invading areas globally, to understand how niche shifts may be influenced by disturbance at habitat and landscape scales in addition to climate. Locality: Mediterranean climate areas world-wide. Methods: We used available presence-only data and also conducted extensive surveys of the abundance of Oxalis (c. 11,000 plots) across different habitats in South Africa and in the introduced range in the Mediterranean Basin. We extended principal component analysis methods for measuring niche shifts by using Bayesian generalized linear models to identify climatic and disturbance niche shifts. Results: We found a large climatic niche expansion towards stronger seasonality and lower temperature in the introduced range, but this expansion was greatly reduced when considering only conditions available in both ranges. Oxalis occupied more natural landscapes in the native range that remained unoccupied in the introduced range ('niche unfilling'). In contrast to the similar abundances in natural and disturbed habitats in its native range, Oxalis was more abundant in disturbed habitats in the introduced range. Conclusions: The large climatic niche expansion most likely reflects significant plasticity of Oxalis rather than rapid evolution. Furthermore, the unfilling of its disturbance niche in the introduced range suggests high potential for further invasion of natural areas. Together, these findings suggest that the potential for future spread of invasive species may be underestimated by approaches that characterize species niches based only on climate or partial information about their distributions.

This paper investigates and enhances unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relay-assisted free-space optics (FSO) optical wireless communication (OWC) systems under the effects of pointing errors (PEs) and atmospheric turbulences (ATs). The incorporation of UAVs as buffer-aided moving relays in the conventional FSO (CFSO) relay-assisted systems is proposed for enhancing the performance of PEs through AT. Using M-PSK (phase shift keying) and M-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), the impact of PEs on transmission quality is evaluated in this work. We evaluate and optimize the symbol error rate, outage probability (OP), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the UAV-to-ground station-based FSO communications systems. The spatial diversity-based relay-assisted CFSO systems can enhance the performance of the UAV-UAV FSO links. In this paper, a new FSO (NFSO) channel model for the hovering UAV-FSO OWC fluctuations under the PEs, AT effects, jitter, deviation, receiving an error, and wind resistance effects are established. To improve the performance of hovering UAV-based FSO relay OWC systems. We reduce the influence of UAV-FSO OWC fluctuations under PEs and AT effects. By receiving incoherent signals at various locations, the spatial diversity-based relay-assisted NFSO systems can significantly increase the system's redundancy and enhance connection stability. Numerical results show that to achieve a bit-error-rate (BER) of ≤ 10 - 5 , the required SNR is ≥ 23 dB when the wind variance of the UAVs σ α 2 increases from 0 to 7 mrad with FSO link distance L = 2000 m. The required SNR is ≥ 25 dB when the wind variance σ α 2 is 1 mrad at an OP of 10 - 6 . To obtain an average BER of 10 - 6 , the SNR should be 16.23 dB, 17.64 dB, and 21.45 dB when σ α 2 is 0 mrad, 1 mrad, and 2 mrad, respectively. Using 8-PSK modulation without PEs requires 23.5 dB at BER of 10 - 8 while 16-QAM without PEs requires 26.5 dB to maintain the same BER of 10 - 8 . Compared with 16-QAM without PEs, the SNR gain of 8-PSK without PEs is 3 dB. The results show the relay-assisted UAV-FSO system with five stationary relays can achieve BER 10 - 8 at 25 dB SNR in the ideal case and 10 - 5 at 27 dB SNR with AT and PE at FSO length 1000 m. The results show the relay UAV-FSO system outperforms the CFSO at the BER and SNR performance. The effects of UAV’FSO s fluctuation increase when the UAV-FSO link length, L fso increases. The results of the weak turbulence achieve better SER compared with MT and ST. The obtained results show that decreasing L fso can compensate for the effects of UAV-FSO link fluctuation on the proposed system. Finally, we investigated the CFSO relay-assisted UAV-FSO system with aided NFSO-UAVs spatial diversity-based relay-based on NFSO OWC and revealed the benefits of the resulting hybrid architecture.

Background: Foot type significantly impacts the development and progression of foot and ankle pathologies by influencing biomechanics and force distribution. However, it is typically assessed qualitatively and with a 2D radiographic measurement called Meary’s angle. This study seeks to determine the minimum number of bones required in a statistical shape model (SSM) to accurately represent the full cavus through planus spectrum, enabling future machine learning applications in clinical practice. Methods: Our study included weightbearing computed tomography (WBCT) data from 151 patients grouped based on clinical diagnosis or Meary’s angle: 33 Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), 29 cavus, 28 rectus, 27 planus, and 34 progressive collapsing foot deformity (PCFD). Ten multi-bone SSMs, with varying numbers of bones, were created from bony segmentations. Principal component analysis (PCA) assessed the modes of variation for all SSMs. Results: PCA mode 1 demonstrated significant results (α = 0.05) for all SSMs, with the 2-bone subtalar joint (STJ) model capturing the most variance at 70.9% and the largest effect size of 0.75. The mean shape of all SSMs exhibited neutral STJ and midfoot alignment, whereas severe cavus and planus deformities were observed at 2 SDs from the mean shape. Models that included the STJ had statistical differences between all group PCA score comparisons. In contrast, models without the STJ had significant differences between all groups, except between the planus and rectus groups. Conclusion: STJ orientation and morphology appear fundamental for determining foot type. Our study revealed that the STJ alone offers sufficient information for computational differentiation because of its high variance and effect sizes when included in SSMs, highlighting the possible clinical utility as a simplified model. Although full foot models provide additional insights, the STJ model’s effectiveness makes it ideal for streamlined assessment and treatment planning. Clinical Relevance: Modeling the STJ captures the full cavus-planus foot type spectrum, suggesting its morphology may drive foot type and related pathologies. This underscores the potential of using simplified models in combination with machine learning as a rapid morphologic classifier; clinical impact remains to be determined. Graphical Abstract

The Reghaïa Nature Reserve (Algeria) comprises a freshwater lake surrounded by natural soils covered by spontaneous vegetation with a habitat for wildlife. It is exposed to 3 mains sources of pollution i.e. an industrial zone, agricultural lands and the urban area. Abnormal high levels of metallic trace elements (MTEs) have been already reported in lake’s water and natural topsoil. In the present study, we explore the tolerance and phytoremediation capacity of Oxalis pes-caprae L., growing spontaneously on Reghaïa lake’s bank, toward Pb, Zn and Cd, the 3 main metal pollutants from anthropogenic activities. Sampling was carried out over 4 months, for Oxalis pes-caprae L. plants and rhizosphere soils, harvested in 3 sites along a gradient of proximity to lake’s water. Firstly, we estimated the degree of contamination of the sampled sites by Pb, Zn and Cd and we determined soils parameters which influence metals distribution in soil and their absorption by O. pes-caprae L. roots. Secondly, we examined the distribution and the accumulation of Pb, Zn and Cd within O. pes-caprae shoots and roots. The results revealed that Pb and Cd were the main soil pollutants and that O. pes-caprae L. adopted different remediation strategies such as an exclusion strategy for Pb in soil and a phytoextraction strategy for Cd.

Recently, worldwide, the attention being paid to hydrogen and its derivatives as alternative carbon-free (or low-carbon) options for the electricity sector, the transport sector, and the industry sector has increased. Several projects in the field of low-emission hydrogen production (particularly electrolysis-based green hydrogen) have either been constructed or analyzed for their feasibility. Despite the great ambitions announced by some nations with respect to becoming hubs for hydrogen production and export, some quantification of the levels at which hydrogen and its derived products are expected to penetrate the global energy system and its various demand sectors would be useful in order to judge the practicality and likelihood of these ambitions and future targets. The current study aims to summarize some of the expectations of the level at which hydrogen and its derivatives could spread into the global economy, under two possible future scenarios. The first future scenario corresponds to a business-as-usual (BAU) pathway, where the world proceeds with the same existing policies and targets related to emissions and low-carbon energy transition. This forms a lower bound for the level of the role of hydrogen and its penetration into the global energy system. The second future scenario corresponds to an emission-conscious pathway, where governments cooperate to implement the changes necessary to decarbonize the economy by 2050 in order to achieve net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide (carbon neutrality), and thus limit the rise in the global mean surface temperature to 1.5 °C by 2100 (compared to pre-industrial periods). This forms an upper bound for the level of the role of hydrogen and its penetration into the global energy system. The study utilizes the latest release of the annual comprehensive report WEO (World Energy Outlook—edition year 2023, the 26th edition) of the IEA (International Energy Agency), as well as the latest release of the annual comprehensive report WETO (World Energy Transitions Outlook—edition year 2023, the third edition) of the IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency). For the IEA-WEO report, the business-as-usual situation is STEPS (Stated “Energy” Policies Scenario), and the emissions-conscious situation is NZE (Net-Zero Emissions by 2050). For the IRENA-WETO report, the business-as-usual situation is the PES (Planned Energy Scenario), and the emissions-conscious situation is the 1.5°C scenario. Through the results presented here, it becomes possible to infer a realistic range for the production and utilization of hydrogen and its derivatives in 2030 and 2050. In addition, the study enables the divergence between the models used in WEO and WETO to be estimated, by identifying the different predictions for similar variables under similar conditions. The study covers miscellaneous variables related to energy and emissions other than hydrogen, which are helpful in establishing a good view of how the world may look in 2030 and 2050. Some barriers (such as the uncompetitive levelized cost of electrolysis-based green hydrogen) and drivers (such as the German H2Global initiative) for the hydrogen economy are also discussed. The study finds that the large-scale utilization of hydrogen or its derivatives as a source of energy is highly uncertain, and it may be reached slowly, given more than two decades to mature. Despite this, electrolysis-based green hydrogen is expected to dominate the global hydrogen economy, with the annual global production of electrolysis-based green hydrogen expected to increase from 0 million tonnes in 2021 to between 22 million tonnes and 327 million tonnes (with electrolyzer capacity exceeding 5 terawatts) in 2050, depending on the commitment of policymakers toward decarbonization and energy transitions.