Background and objective Nowadays, diabetes is one of the main causes of blindness in the world. Identification and differentiation of risk factors for diabetic retinopathy depending on the type of diabetes gives us the opportunity to fight and prevent this complication. Aim of the research To assess differences in the risk factors for diabetic retinopathy in type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in Warmia and Mazury Region, Poland. Materials and Methods Risk factors for diabetic retinopathy (DR) were assessed on the basis of an original questionnaire, which included personal data, clinical history of diabetes and eye disease. Elements of clinical examination blood pressure, BMI, waist circumference. Indicators of diabetes metabolic control mean glycemia, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), total cholesterol and triglycerides, creatinine, glomerular filtration rate (GFR), albumin-creatinine ratio in urine. Results The study group included 315 (26%) patients with DM1 and 894 (74%) patients with DM2. Risk factors were estimated on the basis of logistic regression and verified with Student's t-test. Statistically significant dependencies were found in both groups between the occurrence of diabetic retinopathy and diabetes duration, HbA1c, triglyceride concentrations, indicators of kidney function and cigarette smoking status. In the DM2 group, the development of DR was significantly influenced by the implemented models of diabetic treatment. Conclusions In the whole study group, the risk of DR was associated with the duration of diabetes, HbA1c, triglyceride concentrations and smoking. In DM1 patients, the risk of DR was associated with diabetic kidney disease in the G1A1/A2 stage of chronic kidney disease, and in DM2 patients with the G2 stage of chronic kidney disease. An important risk factor for DR in DM2 patients was associated with late introduction of insulin therapy.Wind is a great sustainable energy source for harvesting due to its abundant characteristic. Typically, large space, loud noise, and heavy equipment are essential for a general wind power plant and it is solely operated by big-scale wind. However, wind energy can be efficiently harvested by utilizing the triboelectric nanogenerator due to its abundance, ubiquity, and environmentally friendliness. Furthermore, a few previously reported wind-driven triboelectric nanogenerators, which have the bulk fluttering layer by wind, still show difficulty in generating electricity under the conditions of weak wind because of the static friction arisen from the inherent structure. In this case, the output performance is deteriorated as well as the generator cannot operate completely. In this work, a wind-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (wind-TENG) based on the fluttering of the PTFE strips is proposed to solve the aforementioned problems. At the minimum operating wind pressure of 0.05 MPa, this wind-driven TENG delivers the open-circuit voltage of 3.5 V, short-circuit current of 300 nA, and the associated output power density of 0.64 mW/m2 at the external load resistance of 5 MΩ. Such conditions can be used to light up seven LEDs. Moreover, this wind-TENG has been utilized as a direction sensor which can sense the direction at which the wind is applied. This work thus provides the potential application of the wind-TENG as both self-driven electronics and a self-powered sensor system for detecting the direction under environmental wind.BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Balance is the ability of an organism to maintain its position in space. Balance disorders in children can lead to injuries and limited physical activity. Balance maintenance changes throughout puberty as well as in response to external factors. The study aimed to evaluate the influence of anthropometric parameters on balance in children aged 10 to 13 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS 308 children were accessed to eligibility to participate in the study. After considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria the study included 223 participants (123 boys and 100 girls) aged 10 to 13 from elementary schools in Szczecin. The stabilometry of examineted children was performed using the SIGMA balance platform. RESULTS It was shown that the balance parameters in children aged 10 to 13 worsen with increasing body mass and height, and do not correlate with age. CONCLUSION Rapid diagnosis and identification of postural disorders in children make it possible to start targeted physical exercises and to make the therapeutic process more effective and complex. Future research is needed to obtain more data and draw conclusions crucial for physiotherapy practice.Remotely piloted unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) will be a prospective mode of air fight in the future, which can remove the physical restraint of the pilot, maximize the performance of the fighter and effectively reduce casualties. However, it has two difficulties in this mode (1) There is greater time delay in the network of pilot-wireless sensor-UCAV, which can degrade the piloting performance. (2) Designing of a universal predictive method is very important to pilot different UCAVs remotely, even if the model of the control augmentation system of the UCAV is totally unknown. Considering these two issues, this paper proposes a novel universal modeling method, and establishes a universal nonlinear uncertain model which uses the pilot's remotely piloted command as input and the states of the UCAV with a control augmentation system as output. To deal with the nonlinear uncertainty of the model, a neural network observer is proposed to identify the nonlinear dynamics model online. Meanwhile, to guarantee the stability of the overall observer system, an adaptive law is designed to adjust the neural network weights. To solve the greater transmission time delay existing in the pilot-wireless sensor-UCAV closed-loop system, a time-varying delay state predictor is designed based on the identified nonlinear dynamics model to predict the time delay states. Moreover, the overall observer-predictor system is proved to be uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Finally, two simulations verify the effectiveness and universality of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method has desirable performance of accurately compensating the time delay and has universality of remotely piloting two different UCAVs.Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) is one of the most destructive diseases for banana. For their risk assessment and hazard characterization, it is vital to quickly determine the virulence of Foc isolates. However, this usually takes weeks or months using banana plant assays, which demands a better approach to speed up the process with reliable results. Foc produces various mycotoxins, such as fusaric acid (FSA), beauvericin (BEA), and enniatins (ENs) to facilitate their infection. In this study, we developed a linear regression model to predict Foc virulence using the production levels of the three mycotoxins. We collected data of 40 Foc isolates from 20 vegetative compatibility groups (VCGs), including their mycotoxin profiles (LC-MS) and their plant disease index (PDI) values on Pisang Awak plantlets in greenhouse. A linear regression model was trained from the collected data using FSA, BEA and ENs as predictor variables and PDI values as the response variable. Linearity test statistics showed this model meets all linearity assumptions. We used all data to predict PDI with high fitness of the model (coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.906) and adjust coefficient (R2adj = 0.898)) indicating a strong predictive power of the model. In summary, we developed a linear regression model useful for the prediction of Foc virulence on banana plants from the quantification of mycotoxins in Foc strains, which will facilitate quick determination of virulence in newly isolated Foc emerging Fusarium wilt of banana epidemics threatening banana plantations worldwide.We report on a facile and rapid photo-induced process to conjugate graphene-based materials with metal-halide perovskite nanocrystals. We show that a small number of laser pulses is sufficient to decorate the 2-dimensional (2D) flakes with metal-halide nanocrystals without affecting their primary morphology. At the same time, the density of anchored nanocrystals could be finely tuned by the number of irradiation pulses. This facile and rapid room temperature method provides unique opportunities for the design and development of perovskite-2D nanoconjugates, exhibiting synergetic functionality by combining nanocrystals of different morphologies and chemical phases with various 2D materials.Bacteria employ regulatory networks to detect environmental signals and respond appropriately, often by adjusting gene expression. Some regulatory networks influence many genes, and many genes are affected by multiple regulatory networks. Here, we investigate the extent to which regulatory systems controlling aerobic-anaerobic energetics overlap with the CtrA phosphorelay, an important system that controls a variety of behavioral processes, in two metabolically versatile alphaproteobacteria, Dinoroseobacter shibae and Rhodobacter capsulatus. We analyzed ten available transcriptomic datasets from relevant regulator deletion strains and environmental changes. We found that in D. shibae, the CtrA phosphorelay represses three of the four aerobic-anaerobic Crp/Fnr superfamily regulator-encoding genes (fnrL, dnrD, and especially dnrF). At the same time, all four Crp/Fnr regulators repress all three phosphorelay genes. Loss of dnrD or dnrF resulted in activation of the entire examined CtrA regulon, regardless of oxygen tension. In R. capsulatus FnrL, in silico and ChIP-seq data also suggested regulation of the CtrA regulon, but it was only with loss of the redox regulator RegA where an actual transcriptional effect on the CtrA regulon was observed. For the first time, we show that there are complex interactions between redox regulators and the CtrA phosphorelays in these bacteria and we present several models for how these interactions might occur.Previous investigations have shown that the SUPPRESSORS OF MAX2 1-LIKE6, 7 and 8 (SMXL6, 7 and 8) proteins redundantly repress strigolactone (SL) signaling in plant growth and development. Recently, a growing body of evidence indicated that SLs positively regulate plant drought resistance through functional analyses of genes involved in SL biosynthesis and positive regulation of SL signaling. However, the functions of the SL-signaling negative regulators SMXL6, 7 and 8 in drought resistance and the associated mechanisms remain elusive. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/Trichostatin-A.html To reveal the functions of these SMXL proteins, we analyzed the drought-resistant phenotype of the triple smxl6,7,8 mutant plants and studied several drought resistance-related traits. Our results showed that the smxl6,7,8 mutant plants were more resistant to drought than wild-type plants. Physiological investigations indicated that the smxl6,7,8 mutant plants exhibited higher leaf surface temperature, reduced cuticle permeability, as well as decreases in drought-induced water loss and cell membrane damage in comparison with wild-type plants. Additionally, smxl6,7,8 mutant plants displayed an increase in anthocyanin biosynthesis during drought, enhanced detoxification capacity and increased sensitivity to abscisic acid in cotyledon opening and growth inhibition assays. A good correlation between the expression levels of some relevant genes and the examined physiological and biochemical traits was observed. Our findings together indicate that the SMXL6, 7 and 8 act as negative regulators of drought resistance, and that disruption of these SMXL genes in crops may provide a novel way to improve their drought resistance.