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There is limited literature analyzing pediatric hurdle injuries based on sex and age. This study compares hurdle-related injury types, injured body parts, and injury mechanisms by age and sex in pediatrics. Hurdle-related injury data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System were used to retrospectively review the injuries of hurdlers 18 years and under. Differences in injured body parts, injury types, and mechanisms were analyzed by age (pre-high school vs. high school) and sex (male vs. female). A total of 749 cases were extracted. Fractures were more common in pre-high schoolers (34.1% vs. 21.5%, p = 0.001), while more sprains were identified in high schoolers (29.6%) than pre-high schoolers (22.8%, p = 0.036). Males suffered more fractures than females (35.1% vs. 24.3%, p = 0.001). Females sustained more joint sprains (29.1% vs. 21.0%, p = 0.012) and contusions/hematomas (12.7% vs. 7.5%, p = 0.020). Ankle injuries were more common in females (24.0%) than males (12.0%, p = 0.001), while wrist injuries were more prevalent in males (11.7% vs. 7.2%, p = 0.034). The most common injury mechanism was apparatus-related, with no differences based on age or sex. Injury types and injured body parts differed depending on age and sex in pediatric hurdle injuries seen in emergency departments. These findings may be helpful for injury prevention and medical care for pediatric hurdlers.

Curcumin is the most important active component in turmeric extracts. Curcumin, a natural monomer from plants has received a considerable attention as a dietary supplement, exhibiting evident activity in a wide range of human pathological conditions. In general, curcumin is beneficial to human health, demonstrating pharmacological activities of anti-inflammation and antioxidation, as well as antitumor and immune regulation activities. Curcumin also presents therapeutic potential in neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In this review article, we summarize the advancements made in recent years with respect to curcumin as a biologically active agent in malignant tumors, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), hematological diseases and viral infectious diseases. We also focus on problems associated with curcumin from basic research to clinical translation, such as its low solubility, leading to poor bioavailability, as well as the controversy surrounding the association between curcumin purity and effect. Through a review and summary of the clinical research on curcumin and case reports of adverse effects, we found that the clinical transformation of curcumin is not successful, and excessive intake of curcumin may have adverse effects on the kidneys, heart, liver, blood and immune system, which leads us to warn that curcumin has a long way to go from basic research to application transformation.

The study examined the determinants of catch sales of artisanal fishers through wealthy middle women in fishing communities of Ghana, often known as fish mothers or “fish mongers”. The effects of selected variables were examined with a double hurdle model. Self-financing was found to negatively affect the fishers’ sale of fish catch through fish mothers. The fishers were 19% less likely to sell to fish mothers if they self-finance, and that self-financing will result in a 10% downward unconditional change on the percentage of fish sold to the fish mothers. Factors that positively influenced the sale of fish catch through the fish mothers were price, percentage of high value fishes, size of boat, fishing experience, and number of fishing trips conducted in a year. The estimated average partial effects of boat size had the strongest effect with about 146% and 91% change, respectively on conditional and unconditional effect on the percentage of catch sales sold through the fish mothers. Overall, the study shows that long-term consistent economic and investment considerations such as investing in larger boats are important drivers for fishers’ choice of selling catches through fish mothers. The main implication of the results is that fishers need some economic leverage such as access to formal capital and financial resources to incentivize them to exercise control over their marketing activities so that they can receive a higher profit from their fishing operations. This is important for the sustainability of coastal fisheries communities and the sector as a whole. Artisanal fishers need resources such as low interest loans and market information systems that will enable them to negotiate prices for their fish catch with fish mothers.

As endophytes are widely distributed in the plant’s internal compartments and despite having enormous potential as a biocontrol agent against postharvest diseases of fruits, the fruit–endophyte–pathogen interactions have not been studied detail. Therefore, this review aims to briefly discuss the colonization patterns of endophytes and pathogens in the host tissue, the diversity and distribution patterns of endophytes in the carposphere of fruits, and host–endophyte–pathogen interactions and the molecular mechanism of the endophytic microbiome in postharvest disease management in fruits. Postharvest loss management is one of the major concerns of the current century. It is considered a critical challenge to food security for the rising global population. However, to manage the postharvest loss, still, a large population relies on chemical fungicides, which affect food quality and are hazardous to health and the surrounding environment. However, the scientific community has searched for alternatives for the last two decades. In this context, endophytic microorganisms have emerged as an economical, sustainable, and viable option to manage postharvest pathogens with integral colonization properties and eliciting a defense response against pathogens. This review extensively summarizes recent developments in endophytic interactions with harvested fruits and pathogens—the multiple biocontrol traits of endophytes and colonization and diversity patterns of endophytes. In addition, the upscale commercial production of endophytes for postharvest disease treatment is discussed.

Objective: The objective of this study is to explore the transition route from monopolistic, state-controlled postal service models to open and digitalized postal service systems, focusing on Deutsche Post, Poste Italiane, and Royal Mail. The research aims to understand how these companies leveraged their resources for digital transformation and the challenges they faced during this process.   Theoretical Framework: The study is grounded in the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, which emphasizes the strategic use of internal resources and capabilities to achieve competitive advantage. This framework provides a lens to analyze how Deutsche Post, Poste Italiane, and Royal Mail utilized their unique resources and capabilities to navigate digital transformation.   Method: An explorative research design with a qualitative approach and interpretivist philosophical worldview was employed. Secondary data from 54 documents sourced from EBSCO Business Source Complete, Scopus, and Wiley Online Library were systematically reviewed. The data were categorized and analyzed according to the research questions, focusing on resource utilization and challenges in digital transformation.   Results and Discussion: The study revealed shared patterns and obstacles in the digital transformation journeys of the three postal companies. Key strategies included strategic asset utilization, proactive leadership, workforce capability development, leveraging reputational resources, and effective government policy frameworks. Challenges such as the digital divide, employment stability, pricing tactics, and balancing profitability with social accountability were identified. The companies successfully managed these challenges by enhancing digital services and adopting innovative strategies like diversifying into new business areas and fostering collaborations.   Research Implications: The findings offer practical insights for postal companies undergoing digital transformation, emphasizing the importance of investing in advanced technologies, sustainable practices, and strategic partnerships. Policymakers are encouraged to create supportive regulatory environments that promote fair competition and innovation in the postal sector.   Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by providing a comparative analysis of digital transformation in the postal sector, highlighting innovative strategies and practical solutions to common challenges. Its value lies in offering actionable recommendations for postal companies and policymakers, as well as identifying areas for future research, such as digitalization in African, American, and Asian postal markets and digital risk mitigation strategies.

Rhizosphere microbiome is a dynamic and complex zone of microbial communities. This complex plant-associated microbial community, usually regarded as the plant’s second genome, plays a crucial role in plant health. It is unquestioned that plant microbiome collectively contributes to plant growth and fitness. It also provides a safeguard from plant pathogens, and induces tolerance in the host against abiotic stressors. The revolution in omics, gene-editing and sequencing tools have somehow led to unravel the compositions and latent interactions between plants and microbes. Similarly, besides standard practices, many biotechnological, (bio)chemical and ecological methods have also been proposed. Such platforms have been solely dedicated to engineer the complex microbiome by untangling the potential barriers, and to achieve better agriculture output. Yet, several limitations, for example, the biological obstacles, abiotic constraints and molecular tools that capably impact plant microbiome engineering and functionality, remained unaddressed problems. In this review, we provide a holistic overview of plant microbiome composition, complexities, and major challenges in plant microbiome engineering. Then, we unearthed all inevitable abiotic factors that serve as bottlenecks by discouraging plant microbiome engineering and functionality. Lastly, by exploring the inherent role of micro/macrofauna, we propose economic and eco-friendly strategies that could be harnessed sustainably and biotechnologically for resilient plant microbiome engineering.

Recently, consumers’ demand for fresh, nutritious, and convenient food has shown a significant rise. This trend has forced increased sales of minimally processed and/or pre-packed fruit- and vegetable-based products. New product development and the diversification of plant-based foods have supported this growth. The food production sector should balance this requirement with the necessity to provide safe food with extended shelf life while meeting consumer demands for novel, nutritious, and affordable food products. The use of alternative “soft hurdles” may result in a decrease in the rate of food deterioration and spoilage attributed to microbial activity or other physiological/chemical degradation reactions. The objective of the article is to provide a systematic review of the preservative effect of the available hurdles implemented during processing and packaging of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables, focusing on recent applications aiming at improving product quality and prolonging their limited shelf life.

Online communities have experienced burgeoning popularity over the last decade and have become a key platform for users to share information and interests, and to engage in social interactions. Drawing on the social contagion literature, the authors examine the effect of online social connections on users' product purchases in an online community. They assess how product, user, and network characteristics influence the social contagion effect in users' spending behavior. The authors use a unique large-scale data set from a popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game community—consisting of users' detailed gaming activities, their social connections, and their in-game purchases of functional and hedonic products—to examine the impact of gamers' social networks on their purchase behavior. The analysis, based on a double-hurdle model that captures gamers' decisions of playing and spending levels, reveals evidence of \"social dollars,\" whereby social interaction between gamers in the community increases their in-game product purchases. Interestingly, the results indicate that social influence varies across different types of products. Specifically, the effect of a focal user's network ties on his or her spending on hedonic products is greater than the effect of network ties on the focal user's spending on functional products. Furthermore, the authors find that user experience negatively moderates social contagion for functional products, whereas it positively moderates contagion for hedonic products. In addition, dense networks enhance contagion over functional product purchases, whereas they mitigate the social influence effect over hedonic product purchases. The authors perform a series of tests and robustness checks to rule out the effect of confounding factors. They supplement their econometric analyses with dynamic matching techniques and estimate average treatment effects. The results of the study have implications for both theory and practice and help provide insights on how managers can monetize social networks and use social information to increase user engagement in online communities.

Counts data with excessive zeros are frequently encountered in practice. For example, the number of health services visits often includes many zeros representing the patients with no utilization during a follow-up time. A common feature of this type of data is that the count measure tends to have excessive zero beyond a common count distribution can accommodate, such as Poisson or negative binomial. Zero-inflated or hurdle models are often used to fit such data. Despite the increasing popularity of ZI and hurdle models, there is still a lack of investigation of the fundamental differences between these two types of models. In this article, we reviewed the zero-inflated and hurdle models and highlighted their differences in terms of their data generating processes. We also conducted simulation studies to evaluate the performances of both types of models. The final choice of regression model should be made after a careful assessment of goodness of fit and should be tailored to a particular data in question.

Aim: Scientists, governments and non-governmental organizations are increasingly moving towards the collection of large, open-access data. In aquatic sciences, this effort is expanding the scope of questions and analyses that can be performed to further our knowledge of the global drivers of water quality. Cyanotoxin concentration is one variable that has received considerable attention, and although strong local-scale models have been described in the literature, modelling cyanotoxin concentrations across broader spatial scales has been more difficult. Commonly used statistical frameworks have not fully captured the complex response of toxic algal blooms to global change, limiting our ability to predict and mitigate the impairment of freshwaters by toxic algae. Here, we advance our understanding of emergent drivers of cyanotoxins across a structured landscape by applying a hierarchical \"hurdle\" model. Location: Lakes and reservoirs in the conterminous United States [n = 1127]. Methods: We studied cyanobacteria and their toxins [microcystins] during the 2007 summer period. We applied a hierarchical zero-altered model to test the importance of multi-scale interactions among environmental features in driving microcystin concentrations above the limit of detection. We then used boosted regression trees [BRTs] to identify environmental thresholds associated with severe impairment by microcystins. Results: Accounting for numerous non-detections, spatial heterogeneity and cross-scale interactions substantially improved continental-scale predictions of bloom toxicity. Our model accounted for 55% of the variance in the probability of detecting microcystins across the United States, and 26% of the variability in microcystin concentrations once detected. BRTs further showed that although both local and regional drivers were associated with microcystin concentrations at low to intermediate provisional guidelines, only local drivers came into play when predicting higher limits. Main conclusions: Identifying the interaction between local and regional processes is key to understanding the heterogeneous responses of microcystins to environmental change. Our framework could increase the effectiveness of continental-scale analyses for many different water variables.