by Zachary Brozzesi  , Darson Dezheng Li  and Ann Lee

Received: 16 June 2023;  Published: 08 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/jept.2303027

Buildings, with their significant energy consumption, pose a pressing concern for the future. Inadequate heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems further exacerbate thermal management difficulties and energy requirements. To address these challenges, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) offer valuable potential for sustainable energy reduction within the building sector, leveraging passive cooling and heating techniques. Numerical study has been conducted to explore the impact of embedding PCM within the [...]

by Marlena R. Fraune  , Danielle Langlois  , Harrison Preusse  , Jennifer M. Rheman  , Katrina Ling  and Katherine M. Tsui

Received: 14 April 2023;  Published: 07 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303182

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world mandated shutdowns and social distancing, limiting how much people could see other people outside of their household. Because of this, people had negative mental health outcomes, and many people turned to technology to maintain connections and create new ones. In this paper, we examine the relationship between technology, mental health, and group cohesion with existing groups (N = 202) and new groups (N = 74). We surveyed U.S. participants in June 2020 [...]

by Jennifer A. King  , Megan R. Holmes  , Kylie Evans  , Anna E. Bender  and Dakota King-White

Received: 28 February 2023;  Published: 07 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.2303036

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the long-standing issues of stress and burnout in the education sector, with teachers and education staff facing unprecedented challenges including significant adjustments to teaching methods and balancing the mental health and academic needs of their students. The resulting challenges have contributed to heightened levels of stress and burnout among teachers and education staff. The impact of the pandemic on teachers and education staff has highlighted the need for greater support [...]

by Alberto Dubbini

Received: 02 April 2023;  Published: 07 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.2303035

This article aims to analyze how Western researchers can be influenced by their epistemic and ethical foundations, which are also expressed through a culturally shared idea of therapy, and how this influence can significantly hinder the understanding of a different cultural reality and its resources in terms of knowledge and practices. While examining a collection of research cases in the field of psychedelic therapy, the present paper focuses on the obstacles created by ethical and epistemic conflicts in the mind [...]

by Paayal Naidu  , William Sandawana Majoni  , Toby Coates  and Manohar Mogulla

Received: 11 May 2023;  Published: 04 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.transplant.2303194

Thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) in kidney transplant recipients is uncommon and difficult to manage, often with poor graft outcomes [1]. This is a complex and interesting case of an older, highly sensitised kidney transplant recipient who presented with de novo post-transplant TMA in the setting of antibody mediated rejection (ABMR), with other drivers being tacrolimus toxicity, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and anti-SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination. This led to rapid, irrecoverable graft loss. 76-year-old f [...]

by Sujeet Kumar Thakur  and Sambasivan Venkat Eswaran

Received: 17 June 2023;  Published: 01 September 2023;  doi: 10.21926/rpm.2303032

The Inert soil obtained from the Ghazipur Municipal Solid Waste landfill located in East Delhi, India has been used as the starting material for the work described in this paper. This mountain-like monster is often in the news for its bad smell, pollution of the groundwater in the area from its leachates, and the occasional fires in it endangering the lives of the people living nearby. Landfills produce many greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, CO, HCHO, H2S, and NH3) which are poisonous and cause environmental pollution in [...]

by Hana Alharbi  and Miao He

Received: 16 April 2023;  Published: 31 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.genet.2303191

The aim of newborn screening (NBS) program is to detect and manage treatable conditions in the early stages prior to the occurrence of long-term and irreversible sequalae. Phenylketonuria was the first screened disorder, but panels rapidly expanded after the introduction of tandem mass spectrometry technology into the program. Significant differences in the diseases screened by NBS were noted between programs in United States. Therefore, the recommended uniform screening panel was developed in 2006 to include a lis [...]

by Tara Rava Zolnikov  , Tanya Clark  , Frances Furio  , Sandul Yasobant  , Ana Carolina Silva Martins  , Vanessa Resende Nogueira Cruvinel  and Marcos Takashi Obara

Received: 11 May 2023;  Published: 30 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2303045

Currently, almost half of the human population is at risk of acquiring dengue. Other emerging pathogens affecting human populations transmitted by Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti are chikungunya and Zika viruses. People who live in poor areas are more susceptible to be infected by these diseases. The lack of selective garbage collection and inadequate water storage are important factors in the dynamics of vector-borne transmission. This study took place in Estrutural City, the poorest city in Brasilia, Brazil, which host [...]

by Robyn Long  , Megan Kennedy  , Katie Malloy Spink  and Liliana J. Lengua

Received: 23 February 2023;  Published: 30 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.2303034

This study evaluated the impact on student and staff well-being of a mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral coping program, Be REAL (Resilient Attitudes & Living), delivered by campus staff using a task-sharing approach. The program was adapted for online delivery during COVID19. Study participants included 325 undergraduate students and 100 staff members at a large tri-campus university in the U.S. Participants completed surveys with self-report measures assessing mindfulness, perceptions of stress, emotion regula [...]

by Larissa Leandro da Cruz  , Gabriel Moreno Bernardo Gonçalves  , Silva Menezes de Faria Pereira  , Jamila Rodrigues Barboza  , Luana Pereira de Moraes  , Messias Gonzaga Pereira  , Marta Simone Mendonça Freitas  and Daniela Barros de Oliveira

Received: 30 December 2022;  Published: 27 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/rpn.2303015

Sweet Corn (Zea mays L.) is possibly the most important commercial cereal originating in the Americas. Mutant genes are responsible for sweetness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the physicochemical and mineral composition of the “UENF SD 08” cultivar, super-sweet corn developed at Darcy Ribeiro Northern Rio de Janeiro State University (UENF) and registered in the National Cultivar Register of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply and to compare its content to commercial super-swe [...]

by William Winlow  , Rouholah Fatemi  and Andrew S. Johnson

Received: 13 April 2023;  Published: 27 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303181

This review was constructed to show how the connectome has evolved in motor command systems from simple command elements to complex systems of neurons utilizing parallel distributed processing and the possibility of quantum entanglement between groups of neurons. Scientific and medical interest in neural pathways and their connections have driven neuroscience and brain research for many decades so that specific systems and their feedback loops have been considered in detail. We review motor command systems in inver [...]

by David G Smithard  and John Mirams

Received: 20 February 2023;  Published: 24 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.geriatr.2303247

As the medical world continues to search for ways of improving the swallowing of many millions of Dysphagia sufferers around the world, this paper is devoted to presenting the case for carbonated water to be considered as a potential solution for many. The effectiveness of carbonated water (CW) in the rehabilitation of Dysphagia has been studied periodically over the last thirty years and some significant positive results have been recorded – but it is now proposed that further research should be directed to examin [...]

by Pavel Ustin  , Fail Gafarov  and Andrey Berdnikov

Received: 27 April 2023;  Published: 24 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303180

The emergence of the social networking phenomenon and the sudden spread of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) around the world have significantly affected the transformation of the system of interpersonal relations, partly shifting them towards virtual reality. Online social networks have greatly expanded the boundaries of human interpersonal interaction and initiated processes of integration of different cultures. As a result, research into the possibilities of predicting human behavior through the characteristic [...]

by Nadia A. Abdelmegeed Abdelwahed  , Mohammed A. Al Doghan  and Bahadur Ali Soomro

Received: 03 June 2023;  Published: 22 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303179

COVID-19 brought significant challenges that have ruined almost all segments of the economy and the environment. The present paper explores the COVID-19 milieu and its impacts the environmental performance (EP). We targeted managers of the Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Saudi Arabia to get online responses. Using the path analysis, the findings reveal a significant negative effect of the factors such as perception of COVID-19 (PoCVD), innovation capability (IC), environmental concern (EC) and the fear [...]

by Richard J. Bloomer  , Marie van der Merwe  , Melissa J. Puppa  and Matthew Butawan

Received: 21 December 2022;  Published: 22 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/rpn.2303014

Time-restricted feeding (TRF) has increased in popularity among various groups, including fitness enthusiasts. The ideal timing of TRF in relation to daily exercise is unknown. Most fitness enthusiasts consume meals immediately or soon after exercise to improve body composition (e.g., lean mass). We compared two different TRF approaches, as well as an ad libitum control diet, with regards to body mass and body composition in C57BL/6 mice. Young, healthy, male mice exercised five days per week and were assigned to c [...]

by Antonela G. Garzón  , Micaela Albarracín  and Silvina R. Drago

Received: 08 May 2023;  Published: 22 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/rpn.2303013

Sorghum-based beverages were developed and the effects of decortication on nutritional composition and biofunctional properties after a simulated gastrointestinal digestion were analyzed. For that, white sorghum flours from whole (WS) and decorticated (DS) grains were obtained and used to prepare sorghum beverages. They were analyzed regarding chemical composition, minerals, and phenolic acid contents. Moreover, the bioaccessibility of phenolics, proteins, and the potential bioactivity (ABTS+ scavenging, ACE-I inhi [...]

by Laura Borth  and Meredith Ponder Whitmire

Received: 31 March 2023;  Published: 17 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.geriatr.2303246

Malnutrition is a problem that is often not identified in hospitals as 8% of hospital patients are diagnosed but malnutrition is estimated to affect 20-50% of patients. Federal programs such as Joint Commission accreditation and the new, optional, global malnutrition composite score from CMS may improve inpatient malnutrition diagnosis, but there may be an opportunity to do more from a regulatory side. It’s unknown how many states are considering malnutrition from this standpoint. The study’s goal was t [...]

by Zhong Hu  and Haiping Hong

Received: 21 March 2023;  Published: 16 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/rpm.2303031

The chemically functionalized carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs) and hydrogen bonding modified polymer composites (CPCs) exhibit unique chemical, mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and are emerging as promising materials to achieve extraordinarily high electrical and thermal conductivity, lightweight and anticorrosion, superior strength and stiffness for potential applications in the aerospace and automotive industries, energy conversion, and optical and electronic devices, therefore, attracting considerable res [...]

by Roberto De Vivo  , Luigi Zicarelli  , Roberto Napolano  and Fabio Zicarelli

Received: 03 March 2023;  Published: 15 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2303044

The environmental impact of emissions appears to be increasingly important for food, particularly those of animal origin. The LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) method, an internationally standardized method used to calculate the environmental impact of goods or services, in the carbon footprint, does not take into account the carbon set and consequently the subtraction of carbon dioxide by the plant biomass whether or not aimed at the production of food of animal origin. This methodology could overestimate the carbon dio [...]

by Hülya Çakmur

Received: 23 March 2023;  Published: 14 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.geriatr.2303245

The geriatric population is increasing all over the world. Aging people have special health requirements and comprehensive medical checkups prevent physical, functional and mental decline during the aging period. This study aimed to examine the fitness level and identify problems with the well-being of elderly persons. In this context, the study also attempted to determine the relationship between socio-demographic factors and the health status of elderly adults. In this cross-sectional study, 168 elderly adults (≥ [...]

by Verena Hofmann  , Céline Pagnotta  , Noémie Lacombe  and Myriam Squillaci

Received: 30 March 2023;  Published: 10 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.2303033

Burnout is a syndrome commonly characterized by the three dimensions of Maslach and Leiter's model, namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of professional accomplishment. While burnout affects individuals in all professions, teachers are recognized as being at particular risk, a fact explained in the literature by the high level of relational demands inherent to the profession. During the pandemic and subsequently, these demands have even increased. Several studies have focused on the influence of [...]

by Melissa L. Harris-Gersten  , Florence U. Johnson  , Josephine R. Granner  and Susan N. Hastings

Received: 20 June 2023;  Published: 10 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303178

People diagnosed with dementia are experts on living with the disease, yet their perspectives are often overlooked in research and practice. The pandemic has amplified health inequities among older adults, but the impact of the pandemic on the lived experience of people living with dementia remains unclear. This qualitative study used a series of 2 virtual focus groups with people living with dementia (N = 7) to explore challenging situations and emotions experienced by community-dwelling people living with dementi [...]

by Galina Huseynova  , Nushaba Aliyeva  and Gular Gasimova

Received: 20 April 2023;  Published: 10 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/cr.2303021

In the oil distillate fraction alkylation process, a modified Zr zeolite ZSM-5 was obtained and studied. The modification was executed using a method that impregnated ZSM-5 with a 5% solution of ZrOCl2∙6H2O. X-ray diffraction studies were conducted on zeolite ZSM-5, zirconyl chloride modifier ZrOCl2∙6H2O, and modified zeolite ZSM-5-ZrO2, which was calcined at temperatures of 200, 400, and 550°C. The results revealed that the phase composition of modified ZSM-5-ZrO2 zeolite samples varied depending on the calcinatio [...]

by Deiby Bizerra  , João Nunes  , Chastryane Barros  , Raul Paixão  , Rosali Marques  , Francisco Simão Neto  , José Santos  , Rafael Melo  , Bruno Fernandes  and Maria Rios

Received: 29 March 2023;  Published: 09 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/aeer.2303043

Carnauba straw (Copernicia prunifera), residual biomass derived from wax extraction, was evaluated as a potential feedstock for bioenergy production. The characterization was carried out using elemental analysis, proximate analysis, Higher Heating Value (HHV), FTIR spectroscopy, SEM, and FRX. The carbonization, using a Muffle Furnace, was applied as a thermal conversion technique to improve the fixed carbon content, and preliminary densification was done to assess the potential for future production of briquettes. [...]

by Boram Lee  and Hyelin Jeong

Received: 13 April 2023;  Published: 07 August 2023;  doi: 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2303177

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated disruptions have significantly impacted university students’ lives worldwide. The COVID Stress Scale (CSS) is a 36-item self-reporting instrument designed to measure stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study purposed to examine the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the CSS for use with Korean university students. The study sample comprised 402 undergraduate students enrolled in a four-year private university in central South Korea. This cross-sectiona [...]