Load distribution analysis on foot surface allows knowing human mechanical behavior and aids the doctor in the detection of gait disorders like, the risk of foot ulcerations, leg discrepancy, and footprint alterations. Plantar pressure data combined with techniques that use integral reasoning produce easy understanding medical tools for assisting in treatment, early detection, and the development of preventive strategies. The present research compares the classification of human plantar foot alterations using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) trained by Genetic Algorithm (GA) against a Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN). One hundred and fifty-one subject volunteers (aged 7–77) were classified previously with the flat foot (n = 70) and cavus foot (n = 81) by specialized physicians of the Piédica diagnostic center. The trial walking was conducted using plantar pressure platforms FreeMed®. The foot surface was divided into 14 areas that included toe 1 st to 5th, metatarsal joint 1st to 5th, lateral midfoot, medial midfoot, lateral heel, and medial heel. Pressure data were normalized for each area. Better performance in the classification using small amounts of data were found by using Fuzzy rather than non-Fuzzy approach.

Material extrusion (MEX) is one of the most widely used additive manufacturing techniques these days. This study investigates how the properties of MEX 3D-printed objects depend on the relative humidity (RH) conditions in which filaments are stored before and during the manufacturing process. Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) filament was drawn directly from a humidity-controlled chamber into the MEX 3D printer's nozzle. For each set of samples, the filaments were conditioned under different RH conditions, ranging from 10 % to 90 %. The macrostructure of the fabricated products was characterized using computed tomography, revealing increased porosity at higher RH values (from 0.84 % to 4.42 %). The increased porosity at higher storage RH is attributed to under-extrusion and volatile entrapment due to excess moisture. With growing storage RH, the melt flow rate of PLA also gradually increased, indicating a plasticizing effect of humidity on the biopolymer. Gel permeation chromatography and differential scanning calorimetry analyses were conducted to determine whether hydrolytic chain scission took place when PLA was processed in the presence of excessive moisture. Neither measurement indicated any considerable alteration in molecular integrity and crystalline structure as a function of storage RH. Mechanical tests, however, revealed a reduced load-bearing capacity of the manufactured PLA specimens. Flexural strength decreased from 103.0 to 99.6 MPa, and the impact strength dropped from 18.2 to 16.2 kJ/m², which is ascribed to the increasing size of pores inside the specimens with increasing storage RH. These findings should be taken into account when designing and processing PLA products by MEX-based additive manufacturing.

This paper proposes a control technique for autonomous RC car racing. The presented method does not require any map-building phase beforehand since it operates only local path planning on the actual LiDAR point cloud. Racing control algorithms must have the capability to be optimized to the actual track layout for minimization of lap time. In the examined one, it is guaranteed with the improvement of the Stanley controller with additive control components to stabilize the movement in both low and high-speed ranges, and with the integration of an adaptive lookahead point to induce sharp and dynamic cornering for traveled distance reduction. The developed method is tested on a 1/10-sized RC car, and the tuning procedure from a base solution to the optimal setting in a real F1Tenth race is presented. Furthermore, the proposed method is evaluated with a comparison to a more simple reactive method, and in parallel to a more complex optimization-based technique that involves offline map building the global optimal trajectory calculation. The performance of the proposed method compared to the latter, referring to the lap time, is that the proposed one has only 8% lower average speed. This demonstrates that with appropriate tuning, a local planning-based method can be comparable with a more complex optimization-based one. Thus, the performance gap is lower than 10% from the state-of-the-art method. Moreover, the proposed technique has significantly higher similarity to real scenarios, therefore the results can be interesting in the context of automotive industry.

Background: Enteric infectious diseases claim more than 1 million lives annually and are among the top ten causes of death in children younger than 5 years. Remarkable global investment has been dedicated to enteric infectious disease prevention and control; however, the shifting global health landscape is testing the continuance of progress. To evaluate the current status and guide future interventions, we present the latest epidemiological estimates of enteric infectious diseases from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2023 and assess progress towards the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) mortality target of fewer than 20 deaths per 100 000 children younger than 5 years by 2025. Methods: We quantified the incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) of enteric infectious diseases by age, sex, and year across 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2023. In GBD 2023, the following were considered under the category of enteric infectious diseases: diarrhoeal diseases, enteric fever (typhoid and paratyphoid), invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella spp (iNTS) infections, and other intestinal infectious diseases. We also examined 15 aetiologies contributing to diarrhoeal diseases. Incidence and prevalence were estimated with DisMod-MR (version 2.1), a Bayesian meta-regression tool, drawing on data from systematic reviews, population-based surveys, claims data, and hospital sources. Cause-specific mortality was modelled with Cause of Death Ensemble Modelling based on data from sources including vital registration, mortality surveillance, verbal autopsy, and minimally invasive tissue sampling. Years of life lost and years lived with disability were computed and combined to derive DALYs. For aetiology-specific estimation, population-attributable fractions (PAFs) for 15 pathogens were derived with a counterfactual framework. Point estimates and 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated from 250 draws from the posterior distribution. Findings: In 2023, enteric infectious diseases resulted in an estimated 1·27 million (95% UI 0·963–1·68) deaths globally, declining from 3·69 million (3·04–4·56) in 1990. The global age-standardised mortality rate (ASMR) decreased from 74·1 (62·0–92·9) per 100 000 population to 16·4 (12·6–21·3) per 100 000 population during the same period. Diarrhoeal diseases accounted for most deaths in 2023 (1·11 million [0·811–1·54]), followed by enteric fever and iNTS. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa remained the most affected regions in 2023, with 599 000 (441 000–882 000) and 501 000 (373 000–648 000) deaths due to enteric infectious diseases, respectively, predominantly from diarrhoeal disease. Rotavirus was the leading cause of all-age diarrhoeal disease deaths (PAF 16·3% [12·0–21·5]), followed by norovirus (10·2% [2·4–17·0]) and Shigella spp (9·3% [5·4–15·2]). Among children younger than 5 years, PAFs of deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases were 40·2% (32·5–48·5) for rotavirus, 24·0% (15·1–36·7) for Shigella spp, and 23·4% (13·7–34·3) for adenovirus. Across 204 countries and territories, 141 met the GAPPD mortality target in 2023. The driving aetiologies among countries that did not meet the target in 2023 varied slightly by GBD super-region, but the highest or second-highest number of deaths in children younger than 5 years were consistently attributed to rotavirus. Astrovirus and sapovirus, newly included in GBD 2023, were responsible for 24 600 (6290–49 000) and 18 800 (4650–44 400) deaths, respectively, in 2023, mainly in children younger than 5 years. Interpretation: Our findings show that mortality and ASMRs of enteric infectious diseases declined substantially between 1990 and 2023. This decline is consistent with the expansion of public health measures and broader socioeconomic development. However, the burden in 2023 remains considerably high, with the highest mortality concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Considering that more than a quarter of all countries had yet to meet the GAPPD mortality target in 2023, sustained efforts are needed to address the persistent burden in affected countries and to adapt to the changing global health landscape. Funding: Gates Foundation.

In a recent paper we found an analytical formula for the constrained ordered weighted aggregation problem (OWA) when we need to maximize the objective function. In this note we prove that the method works in the case when we need to minimize the objective function. If in the case of the maximization problem we need to rearrange the coefficients in the constrained in nondecreasing order, for the nontrivial minimization problem, it suffice to rearrange them in nonincreasing order.

Since 1988, open stands of Menyanthes trifoliata have disappeared, communities of Carex rostrata have declined, and the Sphagnum-dominated willow carr has expanded. The mire’s central associations include Caricetum rostratae, Salici cinereae–Sphagnetum recurvi sphagnetosum squarrosi, and Calamagrosti–Salicetum cinereae. In the mainly nudum lagg zone, the following communities occur: Bidenti–Polygonetum hydropiperis, Bidenti–Polygonetum hydropiperis urticetosum dioicae, Caricetum acutiformis, Juncetum effusi, Glycerietum maximae, and a community dominated by Poa nemoralis. We recorded 77 vascular plant species, 62 of which were new to the site. Rare species have declined in number: Menyanthes trifoliata and Cicuta virosa are now absent, and of the former eight Sphagnum species, only Sphagnum squarrosum remains. The original Salici cinereae–Sphagnetum recurvi sphagnetosum recurvi subassociation transitioned into Salici cinereae–Sphagnetum recurvi sphagnetosum squarrosi after the mire remained completely dry and peat-moss-free for several years around 2000. Central communities reflect a cool, moderately acidic, oligotrophic environment with low pH and conductivity. In contrast, lagg vegetation indicates warmer, nutrient-rich, less acidic conditions. The mire’s most valuable zone is its central, Sphagnum-rich area, whose preservation depends on a natural water supply maintained by continuous forest cover in the catchment and stable or reduced large game populations.

Acoustic transfer functions from mounting points of front wiper systems on vehicle body to driver ear positions can describe vehicle noise transfer properties. Component based TPA methods can be applied to characterize the wiper system as a noise source from the vehicle point of view. The same methods can be utilized to characterize the wiper drive as a noise source from the wiper linkage point of view. The paper presents a method to characterize the transfer properties of the linkage independent from the drive excitation. The linkage amplification method presented here provides force-force transfer functions from drive connection locations to the linkage and mounting point locations of the linkage to the vehicle body. The presented procedure focuses on TPA method within a vehicle component. Synthetized FRFs calculated at drive connection locations and at mounting points of the linkage at measured points of the modal model from experimental modal analysis are used for calculating the linkage amplification functions.

The great recession of 2008 caused fiscal crises in several countries. This phenomenon highlighted the relevance of the problem of fiscal alcoholism and excessive sovereign debt. Nowadays rules-based fiscal policies have become more and more widespread to limit indebtedness. This article explores one of the most important elements of rules-based systems: the fiscal council. The key question imposed was: is it mostly a European phenomenon, or rather a global standard? As a method, we employed descriptive statistics, then a hierarchical cluster analysis, based on the data of the IMF Fiscal Council Dataset. In conclusion, two separated groups were formed: an EU and a non-EU cluster with some outliers, thus our working hypothesis was underpinned. Our results have thus contributed to the literature and advanced the case that in the last ten years the increased number of fiscal councils can be attributed to international (European) regulations or internal political issues rather than actual enhancements of fiscal prudence.

The coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019 can be cited as a trigger for several drastic consequences. In those years and since, the pandemic brought many changes for which the world was not prepared. The spread and increased prevalence of home-based work is one such consequence. The study of the relationship between working from home and well-being at work is one of the most researched areas in the field of economic psychology today. The main objective of this study was to investigate well-being at work in a Slovak sample and to explore its relationship with working from home. The research methodology was implemented in the form of an online questionnaire at the end of 2023. A total of 772 people participated in the survey. According to the research hypothesis, there is a significant correlation between the form of working from home and a higher average level of well-being at work. The results obtained confirmed the hypothesis that working from home has a positive impact on well-being at work. Furthermore, the results highlight the main risks of work from home in terms of 'home comfort' and 'work-life balance'. In conclusion, the research has shown both the advantages and disadvantages of working from home, and managers should strive to ensure that the well-being of employees is maximized in order to work effectively.