Abstract Due to the improved surge arresters’ technology and their low cost and simple installation, there is an increasing number of Line Surge Arresters (LSA) application to the overhead lines installed with the aim to improve the lightning protection of the lines and reduce the outage rate due to the lightning. In order to protect the overhead line from lightning it is advisable to know how does the lightning waveshape look like: what is the peak lightning current; maximum current steepness; charge transfer and specific energy. The experimental system for the measurement of lightning current circulating in line surge arresters and through the transmission line tower was installed on the 110 kV transmission line tower. It is equipped with the real-time monitoring and acquisition system for measuring the amplitude and shape of the currents through surge arresters and the overhead line tower. The newly designed system is based on the state-of-the-art in terms of measuring sensors, communication, and information technologies. The lightning current measuring system is equipped with the custom developed software, which will enable the system to download the data from the measuring device, to process the data and to transfer the data automatically to the cloud. The measuring system’s components are chosen according to the specific parameters of the lightning current. The knowledge gained from the measured data will help to define more precisely the procedures to be followed in engineering projects and to specify the phases and towers where line surge arresters have to be installed. On another level, the exploitation of several sources of information simultaneously will help to identify the way to take the maximum possible advantage of the data provided by the lightning detection system.

Abstract Overhead transmission lines that consist of two or more circuits are frequently utilized as a solution in scenarios requiring the transmission of a higher amount of energy per unit of space, when spatial constraints exist, or to achieve cost savings in the construction and maintenance of transmission infrastructure. Despite their numerous advantages, these overhead transmission lines pose significant challenges concerning the intensity of magnetic fields in their vicinity. This paper presents an analysis of the influence zone of multi-circuit overhead transmission lines from the perspective of magnetic fields in the range of extremely low-frequencies. The zone of influence, in this context, is defined as the area surrounding the overhead transmission lines where the magnetic flux density exceeds specified reference values. To determine the magnetic flux density values, a methodology based on the application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) was employed. The paper outlines the implementation of this ANN based approach to estimate the magnetic flux density near multi-circuit overhead transmission lines. Two case studies are presented, examining double-circuit overhead transmission lines that have different configurations and rated voltages. For these cases, the zones of influence were determined with respect to extremely low-frequency magnetic field values. Additionally, a comparison was conducted between the obtained influence zones and the safety zones for overhead transmission lines defined by regulatory authorities.

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic caused over seven million deaths globally as of July 2024. In an attempt to bring the pandemic under control, immunization was implemented as the main preventive strategy. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of hospitalized patients and healthcare workers (HCWs) regarding COVID-19 vaccination, as well as the factors contributing to COVID-19 vaccination rates. Methods: This cross-sectional, survey-based KAP study was conducted between November 2024 and February 2025 in five hospitals across five cities of the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Results: There were 571 respondents, 68% of whom were female, with an average age of 39.17 ± 14.74 years; one-third held a university degree. The study sample consisted of patients and healthcare workers (HCWs) (59% vs. 41%). During the pandemic period, 46.6% of respondents were diagnosed with COVID-19, with a higher prevalence among healthcare workers compared to patients (54.2% vs. 41.2%). Among the 55.2% of respondents who were vaccinated, HCWs were more often vaccinated than patients (70.9% vs. 44.2%) and more likely to know that vaccines protect against severe forms of disease and death (80.8% vs. 68.5%). Patients more often believed that vaccination against COVID-19 may lead to sterility in young patients (11.3% vs. 6%) and were more often afraid of vaccination compared to the occurrence of COVID-19 (35.6% vs. 24.8%). Regression analyses showed that independent predictors of COVID-19 vaccination were older age (p < 0.001), higher education level (p = 0.039), knowledge of vaccine production technology, and the belief that vaccinated individuals have milder symptoms of the disease (p = 0.002). Conversely, the belief that the COVID-19 situation was overblown was negatively associated with vaccination (p = 0.004). Conclusions: HCWs had better knowledge, more positive attitudes, and better vaccination practices against COVID-19 in comparison to patients. However, there are still certain dilemmas and hesitations among HCWs toward COVID-19 vaccination.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of extraction compared with restorative treatment of first permanent molars (FPMs) affected by Molar–Incisor Hypomineralisation (MIH) in 11-year-olds in Sweden. Seventy-five patients from the GuREx-MIH project were included. Of these, 43 were randomised to the Restorative treatment group (ReTG) and 32 to the Extraction treatment group (ExTG). Healthcare costs were calculated from dental records, while non-healthcare costs, were collected through surveys. Effectiveness was measured using the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ11-14) and the proportion of patients achieving a minimally important difference (MID). Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were calculated as the difference in costs divided by the difference in effectiveness between groups. The ExTG incurred higher mean healthcare (€1,417 vs. €1,051; p = 0.029) and total costs (€2,950 vs. €2,161; p = 0.029) compared with the ReTG, almost entirely due to general anaesthesia (GA), while non-healthcare costs were (€1,531 vs. €1,111; p = 0.117). When patients treated under GA were excluded, the ExTG became less costly, with lower healthcare costs (€868 vs. €1,051; p = 0.039), fewer visits (9.2 vs. 11.4; p = 0.025), and shorter chair time (324 vs. 401 min; p = 0.040). ICERs showed that with GA, extraction was associated with higher incremental costs per MID responder (€2,593 healthcare; €6,110 total). Without GA, extraction was either dominant when only healthcare costs were considered or showed a cost of €4,201 per MID responder when considering total costs. Compared with restorative treatment, extraction was associated with higher healthcare and total costs, primarily due to general anaesthesia, but also linked with a greater proportion of patients achieving clinically meaningful improvements in oral health-related quality of life at the age of 11 years. The study was retrospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov 29th of January 2024, registration number: NCT06228989.

In the era of exponential data generation, a fast, consistent, and efficient string processing technique is necessary to represent extensive genomic data. One of the earliest string processing techniques, predating MinHash and minimizer-based sketching, is Locally Consistent Parsing (LCP). This technique partitions an input string and identifies short, exactly occurring substrings called cores, which collectively cover the input string while maintaining Partition and Labeling Consistency. The iterative application of LCP yields progressively longer cores in a compressed format, thereby substantially enhancing the efficiency of genomic sequence representation and subsequent downstream analysis. We have previously developed Lcptools as the first iterative implementation of LCP for the DNA alphabet and demonstrated its effectiveness in identifying cores with minimal collisions. Here, we introduce GenCore, a computational method that leverages LCP cores for the first time to sketch and estimate genomic distances for closely related large genomes, and successfully reconstruct simulated progression trees. GenCore also successfully recapitulates primate phylogeny using both telomere-to-telomere (T2T) assemblies and the PacBio HiFi reads for assembly-free comparisons. Availability GenCore is available at https://github.com/BilkentCompGen/gencore

Scattered between many healthcare providers across the US, Electronic Health Records (EHR) are extensively used for research purposes. Collaboration and sharing of EHRs between multiple institutions often provide access to more diverse datasets and a chance to conduct comprehensive studies. However, these collaboration efforts are usually hindered by privacy issues that render the pooling of such data at a centralized database impossible. Furthermore, EHRs are often incomplete and require statistical imputation prior to the study. To enable collaborative studies on top of incomplete, private EHRs, here we provide a provably secure solution built with secure multiparty computation (SMC) that provides practical runtimes and accuracy on par with the state-of-the-art, non-secure equivalents. Our solution enables the utilization of distributed datasets as a whole to impute the missing data and conduct collective studies between non-trusting private data proprietors. We demonstrate its effectiveness on various synthetic and real-world datasets, and show that our solution can significantly improve the classification of high-risk patient outcomes during ICU admission.

Morus alba L., or white mulberry, is a small deciduous shrub from the Moraceae family, with well-known medicinal properties and beneficial effects on human health. Recent studies have confirmed the bioactive potential of this plant, including its antimicrobial effects, primarily against bacteria and viruses. In contrast, data regarding its antifungal activity are scarce. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the antifungal and antibiofilm capacity of white mulberry ethanolic and methanolic extracts derived from leaves and fruits against Candida albicans, through the measuring of fungal growth inhibition in the agar diffusion method; determining the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) by the broth microdilution method; defining the minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC); evaluation of the antibiofilm capacity of the extracts through the tissue culture plate method; and calculation of the biofilm-inhibition percentage. The fruit methanolic extract achieved the largest inhibition zones (31.00±1.00 mm), followed by the fruit ethanolic extract (30.00±1.00 mm). MIC values for all tested samples were defined at 125 µg/ml, while MFC values were determined at 250 µg/ml. In this study, C. albicans was evaluated as a strong biofilm former, and white mulberry extracts showed the potential to change the biofilm-forming capacity in subinhibitory concentrations. Fruit methanolic extract decreased this capacity in a wide range of concentrations, with biofilm inhibition up to 92.61%. Results indicate that white mulberry represents a strong candidate for further investigation in phytotherapy.

The Australian Open, together with Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the US Open, is one of the four biggest tournaments known as Grand Slams. As the first major tournament of the year, it is a very important and prestigious event. Since it is held immediately after the preparation period, players are expected to show a high level of physical, technical-tactical and psychological preparedness. It is played on a hard surface, which additionally increases the physical demands placed on tennis players. The aim of this research is to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference in the “winner” points achieved between winning and losing tennis players at the 2024 Australian Open. The study analyzed situational efficiency parameters between winners and losers. The sample of variables consisted of 246 players in 123 matches played at the 2024 Australian Open. All matches that were completed were included in the research; four matches ended with the retirement of one of the players and were therefore not included in order to obtain valid data in the final statistical analysis. The results were obtained based on the analysis of points won during the match, using seven (7) different tennis strokes. Discriminant analysis of the obtained data showed that there are statistically significant differences between winning and losing tennis players in certain tennis strokes. The results showed that the greatest difference was in the “overhead” stroke, in favor of the winners.Keywords:tennis, tennis strokes, situational efficiency parameters, Australian Open, discriminant analysis.

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS Kidney replacement therapy (KRT) practices in Europe are heterogeneous, with apparent differences between Western and Central/Eastern Europe. However, time trends in KRT incidence and prevalence in Central and Eastern Europe are not previously reported. Therefore, we aimed to describe trends in incidence and prevalence of KRT in Central and Eastern Europe from 2010 to 2021. METHODS Data on incident and prevalent KRT patients from 19 Central and Eastern European countries between the years 2010 and 2021 were derived from the European Renal Association (ERA) Registry. Time trends were calculated using JoinPoint regression. RESULTS Overall, KRT incidence increased with 1.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): +0.7 to + 2.6%) per year from 106.3 per million population (pmp) in 2010 to 119.6 pmp in 2019. However, trends differed within the region. While in Bosnia and Herzegovina KRT incidence significantly decreased from 2010 to 2019, it remained stable in nine and increased in eight countries. The overall KRT prevalence increased with 5.1% (95% CI: +4.5 to + 5.7%) per year from 426.2 pmp in 2010 to 651.2 pmp in 2019. KRT prevalence increased in all countries, except for Belarus where it remained stable, and was mainly attributable to increases in the prevalence of kidney transplantation. The COVID-19 pandemic did not have a major impact on KRT incidence and prevalence in the region, as most trends remained until 2021. CONCLUSIONS Although we found an overall increase in KRT incidence and prevalence in the region, large country variations remain, much larger than observed in Western Europe. The results of this study can help to define country-specific priorities for the optimization of KRT care in Central and Eastern Europe.

The growth of medical tourism has contributed to the expansion of dental tourism. With the rise of tourism in Albania, dental tourism has similarly progressed. This research aims to evaluate the quality of dental tourism services in Tirana, applying fuzzy methods such as CRITIC (CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) and CoCoSo (Combined Compromise Solution). These two methods were integrated into a hybrid approach, as described in this paper. Seven experts evaluated dental practices using linguistic values. The CRITIC method results indicated that, among the ten criteria, the most significant was the variety of services. According to the CoCoSo method, Biodent Denti e Sorrisi, Diamond Dental, and Dental Med Austria practices demonstrated the highest quality in dental tourism services. As research results indicate, these clinics could serve as models for improving dental tourism in Albania through a focus on quality development.

Type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) acquire and cross-present tumor antigens to prime CD8⁺ T cells. Whether this selects for specific neoantigens is unclear. DNGR-1 (CLEC9A), a cDC1 receptor for F-actin exposed on dead cells, promotes cross-presentation of cell-associated antigens. Here we show that DNGR-1-deficient mice develop chemically induced tumors more rapidly and at higher incidence, and these are more frequently rejected on transplantation into wild-type recipients. Whole-exome sequencing reveals enrichment of predicted neoantigens derived from mutated F-actin-binding proteins. Consistent with this observation, tethering model antigens to F-actin enhances DNGR-1-dependent cross-presentation. These results suggest that DNGR-1-mediated recognition of F-actin exposed by dead cancer cells favors priming of CD8⁺ T cells specific for cytoskeletal neoantigens, which can then drive immune escape of cancer cells lacking or reverting those mutations. Thus, neoantigen cross-presentation by cDC1 can determine the immune visibility of the tumor mutational landscape and sculpt cancer evolution by immunoediting. Here the authors show DNGR-1 expressed by cDC1s promotes CD8⁺ T cell priming to cytoskeletal neoantigens from dying tumor cells, thereby shaping cancer immune visibility and tumor evolution through immunoediting.