The authors looked at student behaviors around disposal of face masks. The goal of the study was to bring awareness to improper mask disposal and how the resulting litter contributes to overall environmental pollution.
Read More...Behaviors and attitudes concerning disposable masks and the environment: A D.C. high school case study
The authors looked at student behaviors around disposal of face masks. The goal of the study was to bring awareness to improper mask disposal and how the resulting litter contributes to overall environmental pollution.
Read More...Identifying shark species using an AlexNet CNN model
The challenge of accurately identifying shark species is crucial for biodiversity monitoring but is often hindered by time-consuming and labor-intensive manual methods. To address this, SharkNet, a CNN model based on AlexNet, achieved 93% accuracy in classifying shark species using a limited dataset of 1,400 images across 14 species. SharkNet offers a more efficient and reliable solution for marine biologists and conservationists in species identification and environmental monitoring.
Read More...A comparative study of dynamic scoring formulas for capture-the-flag competitions
The use of gamification in cybersecurity education, particularly through capture-the-flag competitions, involves scoring challenges based on their difficulty and the number of teams that solve them. The study investigated how changing the scoring formulas affects competition outcomes, predicting that different formulas would alter score distributions.
Read More...Investigating the inhibition of catabolic enzymes for implications in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes
Enzymes that metabolize carbohydrates and lipids play a key role in our health, including global health challenges like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. To learn more about these important enzymes, Gandhi and Gandhi test whether various natural substances (ginger, Aloe vera, lemon, and mint leaves) affect the activity of α-amylase and lipase enzymes.
Read More...The precision of machine learning models at classifying autism spectrum disorder in adults
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is hard to correctly diagnose due to the very subjective nature of diagnosing it: behavior analysis. Due to this issue, we sought to find a machine learning-based method that diagnoses ASD without behavior analysis or helps reduce misdiagnosis.
Read More...Identifying factors, such as low sleep quality, that predict suicidal thoughts using machine learning
Sadly, around 800,000 people die by suicide worldwide each year. Dong and Pearce analyze health survey data to identify associations between suicidal ideation and relevant variables, such as sleep quality, hopelessness, and anxious behavior.
Read More...Analyzing the effect of mycorrhizal fungi on plant communication of nutrients
The authors looked at the ability of plants to transfer phosphate between each other through mycorrhizal fungi. Specifically, they looked at whether plants with excess phosphate would transfer this nutrient to other plants that had depleted levels of phosphate.
Read More...Fitness social media is positively associated with the use of performance-enhancing drugs among young men
Here the authors investigated the relationship between fitness-related social media and the high usage of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) specifically by men in the US age 18-35. In a survey with 149 participants they identified that young men that use fitness-related social media are more likely to use PEDs. Their results suggest the necessity to consider potential risk behaviors which may be related to social media consumption.
Read More...Apoptosis induction and anti-inflammatory activity of polyherbal drug AS20 on cervical cancer cell lines
The authors found that treatment with AS20 suppressed phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and 5-flurouracil (5-FU) induction of COX2 expression. We also observed AS20 treated cells showed DNA fragmentation in HeLa cells.
Read More...The effect of an anthocyanin on the gut permeability of a Type 2 Diabetic Drosophila melanogaster
Anti-diabetic drugs like Metformin are known to increase gut permeability, and this has a negative impact on patient health. These authors hypothesized that this can be mitigated using purple sweet potato extract, which is high anthocyanin content, that feeds bacteria metabolism to decrease gut permeability.
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