FUJI YANG¹, YAN HUANG¹, YOUWEN TAN^2,*, YONGMIN YAN^1,*

BIOCELL, Vol.46, No.2, pp. 389-400, 2022, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2021.015899

Abstract Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a long-lasting condition that affects the liver, destroying its function. Liver injury can cause steatosis and inflammation, and further activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) often leads to the development of nonalcoholic liver fibrosis. The patient with NAFLD is at risk of developing advanced liver disease and complications, such as liver failure, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and portal hypertension. Although our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of NAFLD has greatly improved in recent years, treatment remains limited. Analysis and characterization of protein posttranslational modifications (PTMs) could improve our understanding of NAFLD pathology and… More >

Adham Mohammed Alnadish^1,*, Mohamad Yusri Aman¹, Herda Yati Binti Katman², Mohd Rasdan Ibrahim³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.70, No.3, pp. 5967-5990, 2022, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2022.017387

Abstract Vigorous and continued efforts by researchers and engineers have contributed towards maintaining environmental sustainability through the utilization of waste materials in civil engineering applications as an alternative to natural sources. In this study, granite aggregates in asphaltic mixes were replaced by electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag aggregates with different proportions to identify the best combination in terms of superior performance. Asphalt mixtures showing the best performance were further reinforced with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), acrylic, and polyester fibers at the dosages of 0.05%, 0.15%, and 0.3% by weight of the aggregates. The performance tests of this study were resilient modulus,… More >

Shui-Hua Wang¹, Muhammad Attique Khan², Yu-Dong Zhang^3,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.70, No.2, pp. 3081-3097, 2022, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2022.019447

Abstract Aim Alcoholism is a disease that a patient becomes dependent or addicted to alcohol. This paper aims to design a novel artificial intelligence model that can recognize alcoholism more accurately. Methods We propose the VGG-Inspired stochastic pooling neural network (VISPNN) model based on three components: (i) a VGG-inspired mainstay network, (ii) the stochastic pooling technique, which aims to outperform traditional max pooling and average pooling, and (iii) an improved 20-way data augmentation (Gaussian noise, salt-and-pepper noise, speckle noise, Poisson noise, horizontal shear, vertical shear, rotation, Gamma correction, random translation, and scaling on both raw image and its horizontally mirrored image).… More >

Jingjing Liao^1,2, Jinxing Li², Fuxian Yang², Yan Zhu², Hongyan Wang³, Guanben Du^1,2,*, Hisham Essawy⁴, Xiaojian Zhou^2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.10, No.2, pp. 359-372, 2022, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.016335

Abstract Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based films containing Chinese bayberry tannin (BT) were prepared by cross-linking using glyoxal, glutaraldehyde and dialdehyde starch, individually. The presence of cross-linkers was evident to promote the transparency and decrease the moisture content of PVA/BT films, while the water solubility stayed almost unchanged in the cross-linked PVA/BT films. All cross-linkers provided promotion of the water vapor permeability, mechanical property and thermal stability of PVA/BT films. The best water vapor barrier capacity was found in case of glutaraldehyde cross-linked PVA/BT film, while the highest tensile strength was encountered in case of glyoxal cross-linked PVA/BT films, compared with the uncross-linked… More > Graphic Abstract

Jingjing Liao^1,2, Jinxing Li², Hongyan Wang³, Yan Zhu², Hisham Essawy⁴, Guanben Du^1,2,*, Xiaojian Zhou^2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.10, No.1, pp. 19-31, 2022, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.016152

Abstract The current work explores the potential use of commercial Chinese bayberry tannin (BT) to develop antioxidant PVA-based films using solvent casting process for packaging applications. The effect of BT concentration on opacity, water resistance and antioxidant capacity of resulting films was investigated. Properties like tensile strength, thermal behavior, and morphological aspects were also characterized. The experimental results showed that PVA/BT films formed with uniformly brown color and generally good transparency, offering good antioxidant ability. The PVA film containing BT presented slightly higher water resistance according to the results of moisture content and water vapor permeability, especially at low BT content… More > Graphic Abstract

Xiaohua Gu^1,*, Shiwei Lyu¹, Siwen Liu²

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.9, No.11, pp. 1913-1926, 2021, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.015400

Abstract A bi-component alcoholysis agent containing propylene glycol (PG) and ethanolamine (ETA) was used to catalyst the degradation of the waste polyurethane rigid foam. The oligomer polyols obtained through degradation were used as raw materials to produce recycled polyurethane rigid foam composites with lignin as reinforcing filler. The effect of alcoholysis mass ratio on degradation was investigated by analyzing the viscosity, hydroxyl content and chemical structure of the degradation products. The effect of lignin addition on the properties of regenerated polyurethane rigid foam were investigated by analyzing water absorption rate, compressive strength, porosity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity coefficient, morphology and thermal… More >

Yun-Jung Choi^1,#, Mi-ra Won^2,#,*, Youn-Joo Um^3,*

International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, Vol.23, No.2, pp. 189-199, 2021, DOI:10.32604/IJMHP.2021.015095

Abstract The mental health of workers is an important issue that affects not only individuals and their families but also workplaces and communities. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly evaluate and analyze workers’ mental health status, including levels of stress, depression, and addictive behaviors to apply these findings in creating mental health promotion programs. This study aims to provide basic data that would facilitate early intervention for workers’ mental health problems by analyzing factors such as stress, depression, and problem drinking that can affect suicidal ideation. From April 15 to October 25, 2019, a survey was conducted with 165 workers across… More >

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy^1,*, Le Hoang Huy¹, Truong Thuy Vy¹, Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam², Bien Thi Lan Thanh¹, Nguyen Thi My Lan³

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.9, No.8, pp. 1393-1411, 2021, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.015772

Abstract In the present study, the biogenic silver nanoparticles have been synthesized using aqueous leaf extract of Plectranthus amboinicus (PA), which acted as both reducing and stabilizing agents. The PA synthesized silver nanoparticles were blended with carboxymethyl cellulose/polyvinyl alcohol (CMC/PVA) biocomposite. The prepared AgNPs as well as the biogenic AgNPs incorporated CMC/PVA films were investigated using UV-visible spectrophotometry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X–ray diffraction (XRD). The DLS results showed that biogenic AgNPs had the average particle size of 65.70 nm with polydispersity index of 0.44. The surface plasmon resonance of AgNPs, which… More > Graphic Abstract

Xianqing Chen^1,2, Yan Yan^3,*

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.127, No.1, pp. 325-343, 2021, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2021.014489

Abstract Alcoholism is an unhealthy lifestyle associated with alcohol dependence. Not only does drinking for a long time leads to poor mental health and loss of self-control, but alcohol seeps into the bloodstream and shortens the lifespan of the body’s internal organs. Alcoholics often think of alcohol as an everyday drink and see it as a way to reduce stress in their lives because they cannot see the damage in their bodies and they believe it does not affect their physical health. As their drinking increases, they become dependent on alcohol and it affects their daily lives. Therefore, it is important… More >

Emad-ul-Haq Qazi, Muhammad Hussain^*, Hatim A. AboAlsamh

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.67, No.3, pp. 3329-3348, 2021, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2021.013589

Abstract The detection of alcoholism is of great importance due to its effects on individuals and society. Automatic alcoholism detection system (AADS) based on electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is effective, but the design of a robust AADS is a challenging problem. AADS’ current designs are based on conventional, hand-engineered methods and restricted performance. Driven by the excellent deep learning (DL) success in many recognition tasks, we implement an AAD system based on EEG signals using DL. A DL model requires huge number of learnable parameters and also needs a large dataset of EEG signals for training which is not easy to obtain… More >