With the rapid growth of electric vehicle (EV) production, efficient battery life cycle management has become increasingly critical, especially as the demand for second-life battery applications is mandated considering environmental aspects. The European Union's introduction of battery passports, aimed at enhancing battery traceability, presents new challenges for existing Battery Management Systems (BMS). The proposed solution of QR code tracking shows drawbacks when addressing scalability, local real-time monitoring, and data security concerns. Our work implements RFID technology as an extension of modular BMS architectures designed to meet the evolving requirements of battery passports and second-life battery use cases. By integrating NFC tags and leveraging this technology, the system enables secure, real-time data transmission between battery pack components and external readers, overcoming the limitations of QR codes. A demonstrator setup based on automotive-grade components validates the system's capability to monitor static and dynamic key battery parameters. The proposed solution offers a forward-looking approach to battery management, aligning with upcoming regulatory requirements while advancing the adoption of second-life battery management.

Sensitivity analyses are frequently performed to determine the robustness of MCDM methods, of which there are more than 200 types. In the past, rankings were compared to each other rather than to an external ranking. Thus, the direction and meaning of sensitivity can become unclear and complex. In addition, sensitivity analysis is usually performed only based on weight coefficients, but the effect of the normalization type is neglected. In this study, the most appropriate data conversion technique was investigated through an innovative sensitivity procedure to select the e-Small Van, which is an environmentally friendly logistics and transportation vehicle. Seven different normalization types based on the PROBID method (and two additional alternative MCDM methods) were used as parameters, resulting in 105 different MCDM rankings. According to the findings, MCDM rankings, which have low sensitivity, were also the performing methods that produced the highest correlation with price. What is striking is that careless choice of normalization type can be so effective as to manipulate the results. Although the most appropriate technique may vary depending on the data type, the fixed gold standard we recommend offers a flexible solution for all applications. A suitable data converter will result in the choice of a reliable electric vehicle.

AI potential to recolonise language practices by reproducing existing marginalisations in novel ways has already instilled fears of a ‘contemporary dystopia’ (Miras et al., 2022) — a space of cultural and linguistic erasure. Accents represent a distinctive aspect of language practice associated with one’s sociocultural, and ethno-racial characteristics. They account for one’s social identity, status, and proficiency (De Klerk & Bosch, 1995). This makes practices of artificially modifying accents particularly concerning, since they play into the ‘zero’ accent ideology. As a result, any deviation from the norm is marked as abnormal or deficient, and in need of, artificial correction. Using AI accent generators, therefore, has the capacity to further aggravate power inequalities between the linguistically privileged and underprivileged, and to encourage changes in self-representation towards what is perceived as the normative Standard. Artificial modification of self to match a desired representation is not new, given the long-standing discussions on digital image alterations and their negative relationships to self-perceived attractiveness (Ozimek et al., 2023). This conceptual paper explores the (re)colonial and subversive linguistic potential of AI accent generators through the lens of the social tendency of individuals to strive to meet a given Standard. Using the notion of ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault, 1988), we draw a parallel between self-perceived attractiveness of bodies and accents, to explain how artificial modifications do not straightforwardly support diversities, but instead encourage ‘self-corrections’ in line with those standardized sets of features which seem to promise a ‘better’ socioeconomic and educational standing within neoliberal societies.

Background: Despite leading in healthcare spending, the United States sees only marginal improvements in patient outcomes among developed nations. Assessing patient safety culture (PSC) through the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) provides insights into overall patient safety and attitudes toward medical errors. This study aims to examine PSC in U.S. hospitals across professional categories via a systematic review and meta-analysis of published literature. Methods: Embase, PubMed (Medline), Web of Science, Scopus, and AHRQ’s Bibliography were consulted for identifying studies. A total of 31 articles met the eligibility criteria for inclusion, which garnered 608,443 survey participants in a national population of hospital healthcare professionals. For each professional category of PSC, a fixed and random-effects meta-analysis was performed, and a subgroup analysis was also conducted to measure differences in perceptions of PSC based on type of healthcare professional. Results: The HSOPSC composite average across all the studies was 61.3% positive responsiveness, indicating a need for improvement in patient safety. “Teamwork within units” had the highest positive PSC perception while “nonpunitive response to error” and “handoffs and transitions” scored the lowest. Furthermore, healthcare trainees and physicians seemed to have overall worse perceptions of patient safety culture compared to other professional subgroups, indicating the potential impacts of inexperience and a culpability culture on patient safety and medical error in hospitals. Discussion: To strengthen weak aspects of patient safety culture, hospitals should implement interventions such as teamwork training and error-reporting systems, thereby enhancing patient safety measures and reducing medical errors.

Self-supervised foundation models for digital pathology encode small patches from H\&E whole slide images into latent representations used for downstream tasks. However, the invariance of these representations to patch rotation remains unexplored. This study investigates the rotational invariance of latent representations across twelve foundation models by quantifying the alignment between non-rotated and rotated patches using mutual $k$-nearest neighbours and cosine distance. Models that incorporated rotation augmentation during self-supervised training exhibited significantly greater invariance to rotations. We hypothesise that the absence of rotational inductive bias in the transformer architecture necessitates rotation augmentation during training to achieve learned invariance. Code: https://github.com/MatousE/rot-invariance-analysis.

The rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs) has transformed natural language processing, yet comprehensive evaluation methods are necessary to ensure their reliability, particularly in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) tasks. This study aims to evaluate and compare the performance of open-source LLMs by introducing a rigorous evaluation framework. We benchmark 20 LLMs using a combination of established metrics such as BLEU, ROUGE, BERTScore, along with and a novel metric, RAGAS. The models were tested across two distinct datasets to assess their text generation quality. Our findings reveal that models like nous-hermes-2-solar-10.7b and mistral-7b-instruct-v0.1 consistently excel in tasks requiring strict instruction adherence and effective use of large contexts, while other models show areas for improvement. This research contributes to the field by offering a comprehensive evaluation framework that aids in selecting the most suitable LLMs for complex RAG applications, with implications for future developments in natural language processing and big data analysis.

BACKGROUND Limited joint mobility is the proven risk factor for diabetic foot ulceration when present in the subtalar and first metatarsophalangeal joints. Evidence shows that a foot-related exercise program, combined with a health-promoting program, can improve the signs and symptoms of diabetic polyneuropathy, enhance gait, restore mobility in the foot and ankle joints, redistribute pressure while walking, and increase foot strength and function. As a result, these exercise programs can help mitigate the risk factors for diabetic foot ulceration. AIM To determine the effect of supervised stretching, strengthening, functional and walking exercises on joint mobility and muscle strength in patients with diabetic polyneuropathy. METHODS This was a randomized controlled trial conducted in a tertiary hospital. The study included 82 participants allocated into the intervention group (alpha-lipoic acid and exercise on 15 consecutive therapeutic days, n = 42) and control group (alpha lipoic acid only, n = 40). Muscle strength included dorsal and plantar flexors dynamometry and strength score, while range of motion included ankle, subtalar and first metatarsophalangeal joint goniometry. RESULTS Change of motion range was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the control group regarding ankle joint on day 15 (9.9 ± 7.2 vs 0.1 ± 3.3; P = 0.006) and month 6 (2.8 ± 7.3 vs -0.9 ± 4.1; P < 0.001), subtalar joint on day 15 (7.5 ± 5.1 vs -0.25 ± 2.25; P < 0.001) and month 6 (3.9 ± 6.4 vs -0.13 ± 3.49; P < 0.001). Change in dorsal flexors was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the control group on day 15 (2.62 ± 1.69 vs 0.10 ± 1.35; P < 0.001) and month 6 (0.66 ± 2.38 vs -0.75 ± 1.94; P = 0.004) as well as plantar flexors on day 15 (3.3 ± 1.6 vs 0.3 ± 1.5; P < 0.001) and month 6 (1.8 ± 2.2 vs -0.9 ± 2.1; P < 0.001). Muscle strength score change was significantly lower in the intervention group compared to the control group on day 15 (-1.45 ± 1.42 vs -0.03 ± 0.16; P < 0.001) and month 6 (-1.17 ± 1.53 vs 0.20 ± 0.56; P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Exercise in combination with alpha-lipoic acid can improve joint mobility, as well as strength of the foot and lower leg muscles in patients with diabetic polyneuropathy.

Interleukin 17 (IL17) is a cytokine involved in immune regulation and has been increasingly recognized for its role in cancer progression. This systematic review aims to integrate data on IL17's role in various tumors to better understand its implications for cancer prognosis and treatment. The review included 105 studies (27.6% experimental and 72.4% clinical). Clinical studies involved 9,266 patients: 31.2% males, 60.0% females, and 8.8% with undefined gender. IL17A and IL17 were the most studied subtypes (36.2% and 33.3%, respectively). Breast cancer (26.7%), colorectal carcinoma (13.3%), and hematologic malignancies (10.5%) were the most researched neoplasms. IL17A promoted tumor growth in breast cancer and correlated with poor outcomes in colorectal, breast, and lung cancers. IL17 also played a significant role in immune modulation in gliomas and other tumors. IL17A significantly influences tumor growth and prognosis across various cancers, with notable roles in immune modulation and poor outcomes in multiple cancer types.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is the most ambitious agreement on biodiversity conservation and sustainable use to date. It calls for a whole-of government and whole-of-society approach to halt and reverse biodiversity loss worldwide. The Monitoring Framework of the GBF lays out how Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to report their progress. A CBD expert group provided guidance on its implementation, including a gap analysis to identify the strengths and limitations of the indicators in the Monitoring Framework. We present the results of the gap analysis, highlight where more work is needed and provide recommendations on implementing and improving monitoring to allow effective and comprehensive tracking of the GBF’s ambition. We find that with the headline and binary indicators, which Parties are required to use, the Monitoring Framework fully covers 19% of the GBF’s ambition and partially covers an additional 40%. Including disaggregations of the headline indicators improves coverage to 22% fully and an additional 41% partially. Adding optional (component and complementary) indicators brings full coverage to 29% with an additional 47% partial coverage. No indicators are available for 12% of the GBF. In practice, the coverage of the Monitoring Framework will depend on which indicators (headline and binary as well as component and complementary) and disaggregations are used by countries. Disaggregations are particularly relevant to monitor the cross-cutting considerations defined under section C. Substantial investment is required to collect the necessary data to compute indicators, infer change, and effectively monitor progress. We highlight important next steps to progressively improve the efficacy of the Monitoring Framework.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is the most ambitious agreement on biodiversity conservation and sustainable use to date. It calls for a whole-of government and whole-of-society approach to halt and reverse biodiversity loss worldwide. The Monitoring Framework of the GBF lays out how Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to report their progress. A CBD expert group provided guidance on its implementation, including a gap analysis to identify the strengths and limitations of the indicators in the Monitoring Framework. We present the results of the gap analysis, highlight where more work is needed and provide recommendations on implementing and improving monitoring to allow effective and comprehensive tracking of the GBF’s ambition. We find that with the headline and binary indicators, which Parties are required to use, the Monitoring Framework fully covers 19% of the GBF’s ambition and partially covers an additional 40%. Including disaggregations of the headline indicators improves coverage to 22% fully and an additional 41% partially. Adding optional (component and complementary) indicators brings full coverage to 29% with an additional 47% partial coverage. No indicators are available for 12% of the GBF. In practice, the coverage of the Monitoring Framework will depend on which indicators (headline and binary as well as component and complementary) and disaggregations are used by countries. Disaggregations are particularly relevant to monitor the cross-cutting considerations defined under section C. Substantial investment is required to collect the necessary data to compute indicators, infer change, and effectively monitor progress. We highlight important next steps to progressively improve the efficacy of the Monitoring Framework.

Introduction: The World Health Organization states that health care is a science and art that requires a lot of understanding and practical application of knowledge and skills that are specific and based on research derived from biological, social, and humanistic sciences, and management.Aim: The main goal of this study is to determine the extent to which nurses implement the health care process based on scientific and professional evidence and evidence from clinical practice. Materials and methods: The study is quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, and comparative. The author's questionnaire was created based on a review of professional and scientific literature and evidence from practice was used for the research.Results: Analysis of knowledge about the meaning of evidence-based health care shows that 140 (61.4%) respondents answered correctly to this question “Providing health care based on scientific research, professional literature, and good practice”. Almost 80% of respondents (181) correctly answered that evidence-based health care should be provided by nurse technicians of all levels of education who work in the health care process.Conclusion: The results of this research support the statement that nurses-technicians implement the health care process based on scientific and expert evidence, evidence from clinical practice, and this is supported by the fact that evidence-based health care is applied fully or partially by 221, or 96, 6%, of respondents.

The present study was designed to evealuate the influence of different substrates on the yield and antioxidant properties of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostrestus) cultivated in 'bag-logs'. The substrates used in this study were: (1) maize straw, (2) beech sawdust mixed with wheat bran, and (3 and 4) maize straw mixed with spent coffee grounds mixed in a different ratio. Total phenolics, total flavonoids and total antioxidant acitivity of oyster mushroom were determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu method, Aluminium chloride method and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power Assay, respectively. The highest fruiting bodies yield of oyster mushroom was obtained from substrate 4 (maize straw mixed with spent coffee grounds in a ratio of 50:50), while the least was from substrate 1 (maize straw). Total phenolic contents ranged from 3.80 mg in oyster mushroom grown on substrate 4 (maize straw mixed with spent coffee grounds in a ratio of 50:50) to 4.85 mg of gallic acid equivalents g-1 dry mass in oyster mushroom form substrate 2 (beech sawdust mixed with wheat bran). Total flavonoid contents were very low in all analysed mushroom extracts. There was no significant difference between total antioxidant activities of oyster mushroom grown on different substrates. 

U ovom radu analizirat će se upotreba diskursnih markera u spontanom govoru na suvremenom francuskom jeziku na temelju jednojezičnoga usmenog korpusa Les Vocaux na sveučilištima u Strasbourgu, Lorraineu i Liègeu. Analiza korpusa obuhvaća 745 audiodokumenata, odnosno više od deset sati glasovnih poruka koje su snimljene mobilnim aplikacijama. Rad će pokušati dokazati da diskursni markeri imaju ulogu artikulatora u govornim iskazima na francuskom jeziku. Iako se radi o neobaveznim partikulama u govoru na sintaktičkom planu, one su vrlo česte i važne su u primanju poruke na pragmatičkom planu. S obzirom na opsežnost korpusa i frekvenciju upotrebe markera, analizirat ćemo upotrebu samo jedanaest onih koji su najprisutniji u korpusu: du coup, genre, ben, mais, enfin, en fait, bon, voilà, après, quoi, donc. Rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da navedeni diskursni markeri imaju različite uloge na makrosintaktičkom planu te da, iako predstavljaju periferne elemente govora, doprinose razvoju i organizaciji ilokucijske snage.