Objectives The aims this research were to analyze self-reported oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) and dental fear and anxiety (DFA) in 11-year-old patients after either restorative treatment or after extraction of first permanent molars (FPM) affected by severe molar incisor hypomineralization (MIH). The research question focused on whether these treatments lead to different outcomes of DFA and OHRQoL over time. Materials and methods GuREx-MIH, a multicenter trial, was conducted involving 83 children aged 6–9 years who were diagnosed with severe MIH in FPMs. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either restorative treatment with resin composite or extraction. Patient comfort was assessed through OHRQoL and DFA, using the Swedish version of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ11-14) and the Children’s Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS), which were administered before treatment (T0) and at follow-up when patients were 11 years old (T1). Descriptive statistical analyses were conducted and comparisons between the restorative and extraction groups were performed using T-tests. Results A total of 79 patients completed the study, with 43 allocated to restorative treatment and 36 to extraction. At follow-up, the mean OHRQoL score was 8.9 (standard deviation [SD] 7.3) for patients in the restorative group and 9.6 (SD 6.7) for those in the extraction group (p: 0.337, T-test). The mean DFA score was 21.5 (SD 5.5) for the restorative group and 23.1 (SD 6.8) for the extraction group (p: 0.130, T-test). Conclusions Restorative treatment and extraction of FPMs affected by MIH lead to similar impact on DFA and OHRQoL at 11 years of age.

Among numerous global problems, one of the most significant is air pollution. In this paper, unwashed (U) and water-washed (W) needles of two conifers—European larch and Douglas fir—were used to assess their capacity for the retention and accumulation of heavy metals. The needle samples were used to represent the atmospheric deposition of heavy metals located on the surface of the needles. The sampled European larch and Douglas fir plantations were situated at three locations in Serbia: a least polluted (Kučevo), a moderately polluted (Avala), and a very polluted (Lazarevac) site. The content of five heavy metals (Ni, Cu, Co, Cd, Pb) was investigated in the study. The concentration of cadmium (Cd) was higher in the European larch needles compared to Douglas fir, while the differences in the content of the other heavy metals between the species studied were insignificant. For both species, the following trend applied with respect to the heavy metal content in their needles: Ni ˃ Cu ˃ Co ˃ Pb ˃ Cd. Based on the results obtained, we deduced that the concentrations of all investigated heavy metals at all three locations for both species were within the allowed limits, except for nickel (Ni) content, which was over the predicted limit values for both species in the highly polluted area (Lazarevac). A PCA (principal component analysis) undertaken suggests that European larch has a greater ability to accumulate Co than Douglas fir on sites contaminated with heavy metals. The predictive foliar metal accumulation index (MAI) value was slightly higher in Douglas fir (4.14) than in European larch (3.76); therefore, the results suggest that this species would be a good planting choice, particularly in urban and industrial environments.

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a major threat for pig health and meat production in many countries. The development and commercialization of vaccine candidates are complicated by efficacy and safety concerns. Improved vaccine design requires further studies to identify factors that regulate immune responses to vaccines leading to protective immunity against a virulent challenge. In a previous study, we reported that infection with the moderately virulent ASFV field strain Estonia 2014 was less severe in specific pathogen-free (SPF) pigs than in conventional farm pigs, which differ in their gut microbiome and their basal immune activation status. As shown previously using intramuscular infection, SPF pigs were more resilient to oronasal infection with the ASFV Estonia 2014 strain compared to farm pigs, which showed increased fever and clinical signs. All SPF and farm pigs nevertheless survived the infection and remained viremic for approximately 4 months. When all animals had no detectable viremia, both groups were rechallenged with the virulent ASFV Armenia 2008 strain. SPF pigs were fully protected against disease and showed little or no viremia upon re-challenge. In contrast, farm pigs developed high viremia, high proinflammatory cytokine responses, severe clinical signs, and 40% (2 of 5 pigs) reached humane endpoints. Our findings suggest that limited prior immune exposure to other pathogens and/or the microbiome composition of SPF pigs promotes resilience to infection with a moderately virulent strain such as Estonia 2014, and importantly promotes the development of a strong protective immune response against a second challenge with a virulent ASFV strain. In conclusion, testing safety and efficacy of live attenuated vaccine candidates should take into account the specific hygiene conditions and the associated changes of general immune status of pigs in clinical trials.

The class \(\mathcal{S}^{\sharp \flat }(\sigma_0, \sigma_1)\) is a very broad class of \(L\) functions that contains the Selberg class, the class of all automorphic \(L\) functions and the Rankin–Selberg \(L\) functions, as well as products of suitable shifts of those functions. In this paper, we consider generalized Euler-Stieltjes constants \(\gamma_n(F)\) attached to functions \(F(s)\) from the class \(\mathcal{S}^{\sharp \flat }(\sigma_0, \sigma_1)\). These are coefficients in Laurent series expansion of function \(F(s)\) at its pole. We derive an integral representation and an upper bound for these constants. The application of the obtained results in the case of product of suitable shifts of the Riemann zeta function is presented.

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Lumbar Degenerative Imaging Spine Classification (LumbarDISC) dataset is the largest publicly available dataset of adult MRI lumbar spine examinations annotated for degenerative changes. The dataset includes 2,697 patients with a total of 8,593 image series from 8 institutions across 6 countries and 5 continents. The dataset is available for free for non-commercial use via Kaggle and RSNA Medical Imaging Resource of AI (MIRA). The dataset was created for the RSNA 2024 Lumbar Spine Degenerative Classification competition where competitors developed deep learning models to grade degenerative changes in the lumbar spine. The degree of spinal canal, subarticular recess, and neural foraminal stenosis was graded at each intervertebral disc level in the lumbar spine. The images were annotated by expert volunteer neuroradiologists and musculoskeletal radiologists from the RSNA, American Society of Neuroradiology, and the American Society of Spine Radiology. This dataset aims to facilitate research and development in machine learning and lumbar spine imaging to lead to improved patient care and clinical efficiency.

Legal systems shape not only the recognition of migrants and refugees but also the pace and stability of their integration. Refugees often shift between multiple legal classifications, a process we refer to as the"legal journey". This journey is frequently prolonged and uncertain. Using a network-based approach, we analyze legal transitions for over 350,000 migrants in Austria (2022 to 2024). Refugees face highly unequal pathways to stability, ranging from two months for Ukrainians to nine months for Syrians and 20 months for Afghans. Women, especially from these regions, are more likely to gain protection; Afghan men wait up to 30 months on average. We also find that those who cross the border without going through official border controls face higher exit rates and lower chances of securing stable status. We show that legal integration is not a uniform process, but one structured by institutional design, procedural entry points, and unequal timelines.

The aim of the research is to determine the effects of the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on the mental and physical health of young adult women, using standardized instruments for the assessment of mental and physical health. The sample of 40 women was selected into two groups according to the continuity of recreational physical activity during the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus. An increase in symptoms of depression and anxiety was recorded in both groups during the pandemic, but it could be noted that respondents from the discontinuous level of physical activity group recorded a higher degree of depression and anxiety compared to respondents from the continuous level of physical activity group. In terms of physical health, respondents who continued physical activity maintained relatively stable physical health results during the pandemic, while respondents who did not maintain continuity of work showed significantly worse results compared to the period before the pandemic. Thus, regular physical activity is associated with better mental and physical health during the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Overall, this research emphasizes the importance of maintaining regular recreational activities, even during crisis situations, as a key factor for preserving psychophysical health.Keywords: Depression, anxiety, HAD scale, EQ thermometer.

: This paper shows the preliminary results of an investigation into the possibility of using red mud slag (RMS) for phosphate sorption from aqueous solutions. The red mud slag was obtained from red mud treatment, specifically from carbothermal reduction at high temperatures. This process resulted in forming a metallic phase (iron) and slag enriched with other elements. The preliminary analysis of slag is performed to investigate its potential for use as a phosphate sorbent in wastewater treatment. The slag is divided into three categories. Two of them are obtained by sieving an original slag sample in the fine fraction and the coarse fraction (the slag residual after sieving). The third sample is the raw slag. After an experiment that included 24 h shaking of slag and phosphate solution, the results show potential for using red mud slag in phosphate sorption. It is an initial experiment that will be a starting point for further investigation of the sorption characteristics of red mud slag.

When the strong-field ionization of atoms is induced by an ultrashort pulse instead of a long pulse with a flat envelope, many symmetry properties of the photoelecton momentum distribution are broken. The induced asymmetry is measured using the asymmetry parameter which depends on the values of the driving-pulse parameters and the type of the target. We investigate the driving pulses with two carrier frequencies because in this case the dependence of the asymmetry on the characteristics of the target is more robust. Particular attention is devoted to the pulse which consists of two circularly polarized few-cycle waves and the pulse which has two linearly polarized components with mutually orthogonal polarizations. In the former case, we show that the asymmetry parameter is highly sensitive to the ionization potential and to the structure of the ground state. This is particularly the case for the photoelectron energy just above the value for which the contribution of the electrons which do not interact with the core after the ionization becomes negligible. We explain this sensitivity by investigating the dependence of the short-travel-time saddle-point solutions on the characteristics of the target. On the other hand, for the driving pulse with linearly polarized components, the dependence of the asymmetry parameter on the ionization potential is significant, while the dependence on the structure of the ground state is relatively small. In conclusion, we show that the characteristics of the target are imprinted in the asymmetry parameter and this signature is more pronounced for two-component pulses than for the linearly polarized driving pulse with one carrier frequency. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Objective. This study aimed to investigate the potential of contrastive learning to improve auditory attention decoding (AAD) using electroencephalography (EEG) data in challenging cocktail-party scenarios with competing speech and background noise. Approach. Three different models were implemented for comparison: a baseline linear model (LM), a non-LM without contrastive learning (NLM), and a non-LM with contrastive learning (NLMwCL). The EEG data and speech envelopes were used to train these models. The NLMwCL model used SigLIP, a variant of CLIP loss, to embed the data. The speech envelopes were reconstructed from the models and compared with the attended and ignored speech envelopes to assess reconstruction accuracy, measured as the correlation between the reconstructed and actual speech envelopes. These reconstruction accuracies were then compared to classify attention. All models were evaluated in 34 listeners with hearing impairment. Results. The reconstruction accuracy for attended and ignored speech, along with attention classification accuracy, was calculated for each model across various time windows. The NLMwCL consistently outperformed the other models in both speech reconstruction and attention classification. For a 3-second time window, the NLMwCL model achieved a mean attended speech reconstruction accuracy of 0.105 and a mean attention classification accuracy of 68.0%, while the NLM model scored 0.096 and 64.4%, and the LM achieved 0.084 and 62.6%, respectively. Significance. These findings demonstrate the promise of contrastive learning in improving AAD and highlight the potential of EEG-based tools for clinical applications, and progress in hearing technology, particularly in the design of new neuro-steered signal processing algorithms.

One of the study's objectives was to detect differences in body image satisfaction among women who engage in kinesiological activities, with respect to their chronological age. One of the fundamental functions of the human body is physical activity. As defined, physical activity requires increased energy expenditure. Energy expenditure is most commonly expressed as the amount of oxygen consumed per unit of time, measured in absolute (ml×min⁻¹) or relative oxygen uptake (ml×min⁻¹·kg⁻¹). Physical activity is described through four dimensions: frequency, duration, intensity, and type of activity (Caspersen, Powell & Christensen, 1985). Frequency refers to the number of activity repetitions within a given timeframe (weekly or monthly).Total physical activity includes, alongside all other forms, health-oriented physical activities that are specifically aimed at improving health. Given that a high capacity for physical performance is a positive health criterion (Mišigoj-Duraković et al., 1999), health-oriented physical activity also includes structured and planned non-competitive exercise and sports.A potential classification of influencing factors can be divided into four categories: (1) personalcharacteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level, experience, type of occupation, body mass index, health status), (2) psychological and behavioral characteristics (e.g., self-efficacy, enjoyment, self-motivation, perceived barriers), (3) environmentalfactors (social and physical) (e.g., social support, access and opportunities for physical activity, climate conditions, safety), and (4) characteristics of the physicalactivity itself (e.g., intensity, type, perceived exertion) (Nahas, Goldfine & Collins, 2003).Keywords: Age, activity, differences, correlations, time.

This study offers a comprehensive evaluation of two English language textbooks, Way to Go 8 and Challenges 4, widely used in primary schools in the Canton of Central Bosnia. Utilizing Littlejohn's analytical framework for material analysis and Xiao's model of cultural categorization, the research investigates the structural design, learner engagement strategies, curriculum alignment, and cultural content integration in both textbooks. The findings reveal that Challenges 4 exhibits greater coherence in design and organization, while Way to Go 8 demonstrates a fragmented presentation of topics and grammar. Both textbooks predominantly emphasize individual written exercises, focusing on information decoding and selection, while offering limited opportunities for developing functional skills such as problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking. Although both textbooks align with the official curriculum regarding topics, grammar, and vocabulary, the integration of cultural content is minimal and lacks depth, with cultural references being sporadic and not thoroughly embedded within the learning material. The study suggests that enhancing the incorporation of functional skill development activities and more substantial cultural content could improve the effectiveness of these textbooks in fostering comprehensive language proficiency among learners.  Article visualizations: