Sustainable and efficient development is one of the most critical challenges facing modern society if it wants to save the world for future generations. Airports are an integral part of human activity. They need to be adapted to meet current and future sustainable needs and provide useful services to the public, taking into account prospects and requirements. Many performance criteria need to be assessed to address issues that often conflict with each other and have different units of measurement. The importance of the criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of alternatives varies. Besides, the implementation of such decisions has different—not precisely described in advance—effects on the interests of different groups in society. Some criteria are defined using different scales. Stakeholders could only evaluate the implemented project alternatives for efficiency throughout the project life cycle. It is essential to find alternative assessment models and adapt them to the challenges. The use of hybrid group multi-criteria decision-making models is one of the most appropriate ways to model such problems. This article presents a real application of the original model to choose the best second runway alternative of the airport. Full article

Bioactive Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) coatings enriched in Ca, P and F were developed on Mg0.6Ca and Mg0.6Ca2Ag alloys with the aim to impede their fast degradation rate. Different characterization techniques (SEM, TEM, EDX, SKPFM, XRD) were used to analyze the surface characteristics and chemical composition of the bulk and/or coated materials. The corrosion behaviour was evaluated using hydrogen evolution measurements in Simulated Body Fluid (SBF) at 37 °C for up to 60 days of immersion. PEO-coated Mg0.6Ca showed a 2–3-fold improved corrosion resistance compared with the bulk alloy, which was more relevant to the initial 4 weeks of the degradation process. In the case of the Mg0.6Ag2Ag alloy, the obtained corrosion rates were very high for both non-coated and PEO-coated specimens, which would compromise their application as resorbable implants. The amount of F⁻ ions released from PEO-coated Mg0.6Ca during 24 h of immersion in 0.9% NaCl was also measured due to the importance of F⁻ in antibacterial processes, yielding 33.7 μg/cm², which is well within the daily recommended limit of F⁻ consumption. Full article

Gastric MALT lymphoma (GML) is directly caused by Helicobacter pylori infection but occurs only in a small number of infected subjects. Mechanisms underlying the initiation and progression of GML remain unclear. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that are now considered as major players in inflammation and carcinogenesis, acting as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Previous laboratory studies have shown in a GML mouse model that overexpression of a distinct set of five miRNAs (miR-21a, miR-135b, miR-142a, miR-150, miR-155) could play a critical role in the pathogenesis of GML. Our goal was to compare the miRNA expression profile obtained in the GML mouse model to that in human GML (11 cases of GML compared to 17 cases of gastritis control population). RTqPCR on the five dysregulated miRNAs in the GML mouse model and PCR array followed by RTqPCR confirmation showed that four miRNAs were up-regulated (miR-150, miR-155, miR-196a, miR-138) and two miRNAs down-regulated (miR-153, miR-7) in the stomachs of GML patients vs. gastritis control population. The analysis of their validated targets allowed us to postulate that these miRNAs (except miR-138) could act synergistically in a common signaling cascade promoting lymphomagenesis and could be involved in the pathogenesis of GML. Full article

Background and Objectives: With the spread of Wifi networks, safety concerns have arisen, with complaints of somatic disorders, notably in traditional libraries and media libraries. The aim of the present study was to describe the conditions and levels of exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields in the real-life occupational conditions of those working in traditional libraries and media libraries. Methods: Dynamic measurements, using an exposimeter, were taken in 20 radiofrequency bands from 88 to 5850 MHz. The activity of 28 library workers was analyzed on a space-time budget. An audit of exposure sources and static measurements enabled the work-places to be mapped. Results: In seven libraries, 78,858 samples were taken over the 20 radiofrequency bands from 88 to 5850 MHz. Exposure was described for 28 working days. The median total field was 0.071 V/m (10th percentile: 0.022 V/m, 90th percentile: 0.534 V/m) and for Wifi the median field was 0.005 V/m (10th percentile: 0.005 V/m, 90th percentile: 0.028 V/m). Median individual exposure to Wifi frequency waves ranged from 0.005 to 0.040 V/m. Conclusions: Overall, the occupational exposure in this sector was close to the exposure in the general population. Peaks were due to the use of walkie-talkies by security staff. Exposure due to external sources depended on geographic location. Exposure in this occupation is well below the general occupational exposure levels, notably as regards Wifi. Full article

Diabetes mellitus (DM) poses a major public health problem worldwide, with ever-increasing incidence and prevalence in recent years. The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) expects that the total number of people with type 1 and type 2 DM in the United States will increase by 54%, from 19,629,000 to 54,913,000 people, between 2015 and 2030. Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) affects about one-third of patients with DM and currently ranks as the first cause of end-stage kidney disease in the Western world. The complexity of interactions of Vitamin D is directly related with progressive long-term changes implicated in the worsening of renal function. These changes result in a dysregulation of the vitamin D-dependent pathways. Various studies demonstrated a pivotal role of Vitamin D supplementation in regression of albuminuria and glomerulosclerosis, contrasting the increase of glomerular basement membrane thickening and podocyte effacement, with better renal and cardiovascular outcomes. The homeostasis and regulation of the nephron’s function are absolutely dependent from the cross-talk between endothelium and podocytes. Even if growing evidence proves that vitamin D may have antiproteinuric, anti-inflammatory and renoprotective effects in patients with DN, it is still worth investigating these aspects with both more in vitro studies and randomized controlled trials in larger patient series and with adequate follow-up to confirm the effects of long-term vitamin D analogue supplementation in DN and to evaluate the effectiveness of this therapy and the appropriate dosage. Full article

Experience is generally seen as an important factor for safe driving, but the exact size and details of this effect has never been meta-analytically described, despite a fair number of published results. However, the available data is heterogeneous concerning the methods used, which could lead to very different results. Such method effects can be difficult to identify in meta-analysis, and a within-study comparison might yield more reliable results. To test for the difference in effects between some different analytical methods, analyses of data on bus driver experience and crash involvement from a British company were conducted. Effects of within- and between-subjects analysis, non-linearity of effects, and direct and induced exposure methods were compared. Furthermore, changes in the environmental risk were investigated. Between-subject designs yielded smaller effects as compared to within-subjects designs, while non-linearity was not found. The type of exposure control applied had a strong influence on effects, as did differences in overall environmental risk between years. Apparently, 'the effect of driving experience' means different things depending upon how calculations have been undertaken, at least for bus drivers. A full meta-analysis, taking several effects of methodology into account, is needed before it can be said that the effect of driving experience on crash involvement is well understood. Full article

Oral candidiasis is a common side effect of cancer chemotherapy. To better understand predisposing factors, we followed forty-five subjects who received 5-fluorouracil- or doxorubicin-based treatment, during one chemotherapy cycle. Subjects were evaluated at baseline, prior to the first infusion, and at three additional visits within a two-week window. We assessed the demographic, medical and oral health parameters, and neutrophil surveillance, and characterized the salivary bacteriome and mycobiome communities through amplicon high throughput sequencing. Twenty percent of all subjects developed oral candidiasis. Using multivariate statistics, we identified smoking, amount of dental plaque, low bacteriome and mycobiome alpha-diversity, and the proportions of specific bacterial and fungal taxa as baseline predictors of oral candidiasis development during the treatment cycle. All subjects who developed oral candidiasis had baseline microbiome communities dominated by Candida and enriched in aciduric bacteria. Longitudinally, oral candidiasis was associated with a decrease in salivary flow prior to lesion development, and occurred simultaneously or before oral mucositis. Candidiasis was also longitudinally associated with a decrease in peripheral neutrophils but increased the neutrophil killing capacity of Candida albicans. Oral candidiasis was not found to be associated with mycobiome structure shifts during the cycle but was the result of an increase in Candida load, with C. albicans and Candida dubliniensis being the most abundant species comprising the salivary mycobiome of the affected subjects. In conclusion, we identified a set of clinical and microbiome baseline factors associated with susceptibility to oral candidiasis, which might be useful tools in identifying at risk individuals, prior to chemotherapy. Full article

Advances in the adoption of technological innovations represent a great driver to improve the competitiveness of the Italian extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) industry. This work assesses the efficiency of an innovative extraction plant (with low oxidative impact, heating of paste before malaxation and a special decanter that avoids the final vertical centrifugation) in terms of oil yield and quality, and economic and environmental impacts. Economic and environmental impacts were evaluated by using both life cycle costing and life cycle assessment methodologies. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to highlight the uncertain factors that may strongly affect the results. Findings showed that olive milling with the innovative plant resulted in olive oil with a significant increase in quality, although the extraction yield was significantly higher when using conventional technology. In terms of environmental results, an average growth of 4.5% of the impacts in all categories was reached. The economic results revealed the highest extraction cost for the innovative scenario as well as the lower profitability, although a positive return in investment feasibility can be achieved due to an increase in the olive oil selling price. These findings could be useful to highlight the main hotspots in EVOO production and to suggest improvements for more sustainable management. Full article

The behaviour of many dynamic real phenomena shows different phases, with each one following a sigmoidal type pattern. This requires studying sigmoidal curves with more than one inflection point. In this work, a diffusion process is introduced whose mean function is a curve of this type, concretely a transformation of the well-known Gompertz model after introducing in its expression a polynomial term. The maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of the model is studied, and various criteria are provided for the selection of the degree of the polynomial when real situations are addressed. Finally, some simulated examples are presented. Full article

In this paper, we study the semilocal convergence of the multi-point variant of Jarratt method under two different mild situations. The first one is the assumption that just a second-order Fréchet derivative is bounded instead of third-order. In addition, in the next one, the bound of the norm of the third order Fréchet derivative is assumed at initial iterate rather than supposing it on the domain of the nonlinear operator and it also satisfies the local $\omega$-continuity condition in order to prove the convergence, existence-uniqueness followed by a priori error bound. During the study, it is noted that some norms and functions have to recalculate and its significance can be also seen in the numerical section. Full article

This paper presents an intelligent approach for the detection of Melanoma—a deadly skin cancer. The first step in this direction includes the extraction of the textural features of the skin lesion along with the color features. The extracted features are used to train the Multilayer Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Networks. We evaluate the trained networks for the classification of test samples. This work entails three sets of experiments including $50\%$, $70\%$ and $90\%$ of the data used for training, while the remaining $50\%,30\%$, and $10\%$ constitute the test sets. Haralick’s statistical parameters are computed for the extraction of textural features from the lesion. Such parameters are based on the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrices (GLCM) with an offset of $2,4,8,12,16,20,24$ and 28, each with an angle of $0,45,90$ and 135 degrees, respectively. In order to distill color features, we have calculated the mean, median and standard deviation of the three color planes of the region of interest. These features are fed to an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for the detection of skin cancer. The combination of Haralick’s parameters and color features have proven better than considering the features alone. Experimentation based on another set of features such as Asymmetry, Border irregularity, Color and Diameter (ABCD) features usually observed by dermatologists has also been demonstrated. The ‘D’ feature is however modified and named Oblongness. This feature captures the ratio between the length and the width. Furthermore, the use of modified standard deviation coupled with ABCD features improves the detection of Melanoma by an accuracy of $93.7\%$Full article

Image perception can vary considerably between subjects, yet some sights are regarded as aesthetically pleasant more often than others due to their specific visual content, this being particularly true in tourism-related applications. We introduce the ESITUR project, oriented towards the development of ’smart tourism’ solutions aimed at improving the touristic experience. The idea is to convert conventional tourist showcases into fully interactive information points accessible from any smartphone, enriched with automatically-extracted contents from the analysis of public photos uploaded to social networks by other visitors. Our baseline, knowledge-driven system reaches a classification accuracy of 64.84 ± 4.22% telling suitable images from unsuitable ones for a tourism guide application. As an alternative we adopt a data-driven Mixture of Experts (MEX) approach, in which multiple learners specialize in partitions of the problem space. In our case, a location tag is attached to every picture providing a criterion to segment the data by, and the MEX model accordingly defined achieves an accuracy of 85.08 ± 2.23%. We conclude ours is a successful approach in environments in which some kind of data segmentation can be applied, such as touristic photographs. Full article