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Background Originally, studies on exhaled droplets explored properties of airborne transmission of infectious diseases. More recently, the interest focuses on properties of exhaled droplets as biomarkers, enabled by the development of technical equipment and methods for chemical analysis. Because exhaled droplets contain nonvolatile substances, particles is the physical designation. This review aims to outline the development in the area of exhaled particles, particularly regarding biomarkers and the connection with small airways, i e airways with an internal diameter < 2 mm. Main body Generation mechanisms, sites of origin, number concentrations of exhaled particles and the content of nonvolatile substances are studied. Exhaled particles range in diameter from 0.01 and 1000 μm depending on generation mechanism and site of origin. Airway reopening is one scientifically substantiated particle generation mechanism. During deep expirations, small airways close and the reopening process produces minute particles. When exhaled, these particles have a diameter of < 4 μm. A size discriminating sampling of particles < 4 μm and determination of the size distribution, allows exhaled particle mass to be estimated. The median mass is represented by particles in the size range of 0.7 to 1.0 μm. Half an hour of repeated deep expirations result in samples in the order of nanogram to microgram. The source of these samples is the respiratory tract ling fluid of small airways and consists of lipids and proteins, similarly to surfactant. Early clinical studies of e g chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, reported altered particle formation and particle composition. Conclusion The physical properties and content of exhaled particles generated by the airway reopening mechanism offers an exciting noninvasive way to obtain samples from the respiratory tract lining fluid of small airways. The biomarker potential is only at the beginning to be explored.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to propose recommendations for the treatment of patients with chronic lateral ankle instability (CAI) based on expert opinions. Methods A questionnaire was sent to 32 orthopaedic surgeons with clinical and scientific experience in the treatment of CAI. The questions were related to preoperative imaging, indications and timing of surgery, technical choices, and the influence of patient-related aspects. Results Thirty of the 32 invited surgeons (94%) responded. Consensus was found on several aspects of treatment. Preoperative MRI was routinely recommended. Surgery was considered in patients with functional ankle instability after 3–6 months of non-surgical treatment. Ligament repair is still the treatment of choice in patients with mechanical instability; however, in patients with generalized laxity or poor ligament quality, lateral ligament reconstruction (with grafting) of both the ATFL and CFL should be considered. Conclusions Most surgeons request an MRI during the preoperative planning. There is a trend towards earlier surgical treatment (after failure of non-surgical treatment) in patients with mechanical ligament laxity (compared with functional instability) and in high-level athletes. This study proposes an assessment and a treatment algorithm that may be used as a recommendation in the treatment of patients with CAI. Level of evidence V.

This study focuses on the effect of soil-structure interaction on the dynamic behavior of structures subjected to seismic movements. A 2D model of a simple minaret, 18.4 meters tall with a width and length of 3.5 meters, was analyzed using the SAP2000 V21 finite element software. Two types of seismic loading were applied: the response spectrum of Algerian seismic regulations (RPA 99 version 2003) for low seismicity (zone: Z1), and accelerograms measured at the Keddara site in Boumerdès, Algeria, in 2003. The soil foundation is classified as type S3 (loose soil), and the analysis included conditions both with and without soil-structure interaction. The results indicate significant impacts of soil-structure interaction: the inclusion of soil effects led to a 25% reduction in base shear and a 15% increase in the fundamental period of the structure compared to the reference model without soil interaction. Additionally, nodal horizontal displacements at the top of the building increased by 40% when accounting for soil-structure interaction, affecting the overall stability and design considerations. This study underscores the importance of incorporating soil-structure interaction in the design process, as neglecting these effects could lead to underestimating the seismic demand and potentially compromise structural integrity.

The dynamic evolution of the market environment causes a violation of the institutional balance and the appearance of disproportions between the existing model of the functioning of industrial enterprises and the current state of the economy. This determines the relevance of the innovative development and institutional changes mutual influence study in the conditions of the national economy digitalization. The purpose of the article is to study the theoretical aspects of the enterprises’ innovative development in the context of digital Transformations of the institutional environment. The authors proposed a methodology for calculating a complex indicator of enterprises’ innovative development. The basis of the calculation method is the allocation of the following blocks: block of personnel and competence potential, block of innovative potential and block of economic potential. Each of them includes a number of indicators reflecting the general level of innovative development of the enterprise. The practical application of the developed methodology for calculating the complex index of enterprise’ innovative development in the conditions of digital transformations of the institutional environment will contribute to the identification of problems that prevent the transition of the enterprise to a management model built on the principles of digitalization.

In the past years, the education sector has suffered from repeated epidemics and their spread, and COVID-19 is a good example of this. Therefore, the search for other educational methods has become necessary. Therefore, e-learning is one of the best methods to replace traditional education. In this study, we found it necessary to conduct a comprehensive st udy on the perceptions of Iraqi university students toward e-learning and the factors affecting its use by students’ interest in being used consistently to increase learning effectiveness and the influence of educational presentations. In this research, the Expectation−Confirmation Model was used as a framework, and SPSS v21 and AMOS v21 were used to analyze the questionnaire obtained from 360 valid samples. According to the findings, students’ perceptions of the usefulness of e-learning systems are influenced by factors such as system quality, content quality, and confirmation. In addition, the findings show that technical support has no effect on perceived usefulness. In addition, content quality, system quality, and technical support are three critical antecedents of confirmation. In addition, we found that satisfaction was positively affected by both confirmation and perceived usefulness. We also found that the continuance intention to use e-learning was positively affected by both satisfaction and perceived usefulness.

Recent geological and geophysical data suggest that a 1 km thick ice shelf extended over the glacial Arctic Ocean during Marine Isotope Stage 6, about 140 000 years ago. Here, we theoretically analyse the development and equilibrium features of such an ice shelf, using scaling analyses and a one-dimensional ice-sheet–ice-shelf model. We find that the dynamically most consistent scenario is an ice shelf with a nearly uniform thickness that covers the entire Arctic Ocean. Further, the ice shelf has two regions with distinctly different dynamics: a vast interior region covering the central Arctic Ocean and an exit region towards the Fram Strait. In the interior region, which is effectively dammed by the Fram Strait constriction, there are strong back stresses and the mean ice-shelf thickness is controlled primarily by the horizontally integrated mass balance. A narrow transition zone is found near the continental grounding line, in which the ice-shelf thickness decreases offshore and approaches the mean basin thickness. If the surface accumulation and mass flow from the continental ice masses are sufficiently large, the ice-shelf thickness grows to the point where the ice shelf grounds on the Lomonosov Ridge. As this occurs, the back stress increases in the Amerasian Basin and the ice-shelf thickness becomes larger there than in the Eurasian Basin towards the Fram Strait. Using a one-dimensional ice-dynamic model, the stability of equilibrium ice-shelf configurations without and with grounding on the Lomonosov Ridge are examined. We find that the grounded ice-shelf configuration should be stable if the two Lomonosov Ridge grounding lines are located on the opposites sides of the ridge crest, implying that the downstream grounding line is located on a downward sloping bed. This result shares similarities with the classical result on marine ice-sheet stability of Weertman, but due to interactions between the Amerasian and Eurasian ice-shelf segments the mass flux at the downstream grounding line decreases rather than increases with ice thickness.

We apply the stochastic thermodynamics formalism to describe the dynamics of systems of complex Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations. We provide in particular a simple and general recipe to calculate thermodynamical currents, dissipated and propagating heat for networks of nonlinear oscillators. By using the Hodge decomposition of thermodynamical forces and fluxes, we derive a formula for entropy production that generalises the notion of non-potential forces and makes transparent the breaking of detailed balance and of time reversal symmetry for states arbitrarily far from equilibrium. Our formalism is then applied to describe the off-equilibrium thermodynamics of a few examples, notably a continuum ferromagnet, a network of classical spin-oscillators and the Frenkel-Kontorova model of nano friction.

Like the working class of nineteenth-century Britain, we should take practical actions like unionizing, actively supporting adjuncts, fighting for post-docs and other support for students having a tough time on the job market, gathering allies from across the disciplines to save ourselves from extinction, and finding ways of making our knowledge useful to those groups challenging neoliberalism in the world beyond the academy. [...]we have had a shifting and various canon: one that includes Chartist pamphlets and three-decker novels; songs of shirts and idylls of kings; poetry by an author who consisted of an aunt and niece in an amorous relationship; domestic, industrial, and imperial novels; adventure and detective stories; the first science fiction; travel writing; sanitary reform tracts; and political economy.

Spivak's distinction between tactical tool and hypostasized \"masterword\" (3) evokes the Marxian notion of strategy as an action directed toward a goal in a particular situation, one whose \"goodness\" or \"badness\" can only ever be judged by the extent to which it helps realize an end whose justness has been agreed upon in advance.2 As Vladimir Lenin says in one of his letters on strategy: \"Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action\" (n.p.). The neoliberal administrative rationality that now controls all of our institutions-and there are no exceptions to this-is fundamentally presentist in orientation and economistic in its logic; its vision of justice is to cut costs, to casualize labor, and to abolish the past in favor of the instrumental thinking and skills-based learning that will pay the bills now.

[...]stains, blotchings, cloudings, etc., in marble, on skins, and so on, and their beauty of irregularity\" (8:178 n2). While Ruskin's own views on race are nothing to celebrate, his interest in the surface as the site where history accretes, where variations emerge to index a body's uneven temporality, might help us to understand the extent to which skin in the modern racial paradigm appears a surface phenomenon that nevertheless intricately choreographs social relations.