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5,400 | Unraveling Atomic-Scale Origins of Selective Ionic Transport Pathways and Sodium-Ion Storage Mechanism in Bi2 S3 Anodes | It is a major challenge to achieve a high-performance anode for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) with high specific capacity, high rate capability, and cycling stability. Bismuth sulfide, which features a high theoretical specific capacity, tailorable morphology, and low cost, has been considered as a promising anode for SIBs. Nevertheless, due to a lack of direct atomistic observation, the detailed understanding of fundamental intercalation behavior and Bi2 S3 's (de)sodiation mechanisms remains unclear. Here, by employing in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, consecutive electron diffraction coupled with theoretical calculations, it is not only for the first time identified that Bi2 S3 exhibits specific ionic transport pathways preferred to diffuse along the (110) direction instead of the (200) plane, but also tracks their real-time phase transformations (de)sodiation involving multi-step crystallographic tuning. The finite-element analysis further disclosed multi-reaction induced deformation and the relevant stress evolution originating from the combined effect of the mechanical and electrochemical interaction. These discoveries not only deepen the understanding of fundamental science about the microscopic reaction mechanism of metal chalcogenide anodes but also provide important implications for performance optimization. |
5,401 | Motion Analysis for Experimental Evaluation of an Event-Driven FES System | In this work, a system for controlling Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) has been experimentally evaluated. The peculiarity of the system is to use an event-driven approach to modulate stimulation intensity, instead of the typical feature extraction of surface ElectroMyoGraphic (sEMG) signal. To validate our methodology, the system capability to control FES was tested on a population of 17 subjects, reproducing 6 different movements. Limbs trajectories were acquired using a gold standard motion tracking tool. The implemented segmentation algorithm has been detailed, together with the designed experimental protocol. A motion analysis was performed through a multi-parametric evaluation, including the extraction of features such as the trajectory area and the movement velocity. The obtained results show a median cross-correlation coefficient of 0.910 and a median delay of 800 ms, between each couple of voluntary and stimulated exercise, making our system comparable w.r.t. state-of-the-art works. Furthermore, a 97.39% successful rate on movement replication demonstrates the feasibility of the system for rehabilitation purposes. |
5,402 | Robust PRNU estimation from probabilistic raw measurements | Images captured by digital cameras undergo various in-camera processing such as JPEG compression, white balancing, power transforms and other operations to map raw data into nonlinear small gamut image. Due to nonlinear transformation, artifacts or signatures used for camera identification also undergo a significant change. Photo Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU), proved to be useful for uniquely identifying the camera, also undergoes same in-camera operations. Hence estimation of PRNU is affected which often leads to rise in false identification. In this work, we develop a novel algorithm for robust estimation of PRNU from probabilistically obtained raw data. Since not all cameras provide raw data as their output, we compute raw data from the JPEG output using probabilistic color de-rendering procedure. The estimated raw data is modeled as a Poisson process, and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is used for PRNU estimation. We then use our estimate of PRNU for identifying the camera using images. We also compare the performance of our algorithm with other state-of-the-art algorithms. Additionally, we demonstrate the robustness of estimate obtained by localizing the forgery in images. The extensive experimental analysis is performed over thousands of patches from various cameras to illustrate the efficiency of proposed approach, which effectively overcomes the state-of-the-art. |
5,403 | Product configuration: a review of the state-of-the-art and future research | Being able to provide companies with a number of advantages in delivering customised products, product configuration has received increasing attention from the academia and lasting interests from industries in the past several decades. While several surveys and reviews have been reported shedding light on specific issues in product configuration, a general overview is missing. By systematically presenting important concepts, definitions and issues underlying product configuration, such a review is of paramount importance to develop practical solutions, which ultimately contributes to efficient design, development and implementation of product configurators in practice. This study, thus, tries to fill this gap by reviewing the state-of-the-art research on product configuration. It touches on the major issues, definitions and concepts in product configuration along with the corresponding studies, such as configuration ontology, system design and development, and configuration solving. Based on the review, future research is highlighted as well. |
5,404 | Analysis of water security and its worldwide context, 2000-2019 | The water security (WS) approach must be practical and measurable to address water-related challenges. Since 2000, the term Water Security has been regularly mentioned worldwide. However, nowadays, there is still not an accepted definition either for a country or for a region. This research conducted a meta-analysis in the context of renewable water and global water stress, evaluating 873 scientific papers and 26 definitions of WS, using bibliometric network analysis, geographic information systems, and data mining to analyze the state of the art of WS. The results indicate that the definitions of WS have an anthropocentric character. The term economic in the context of WS definitions is the most relevant, and the term ecosystems are the least relevant. Less than 30 % of the definitions analyzed are operationalized through some measurement instrument. The most researched topics on WS are evaluation, management, and impact. On the frontier of study are the issues of water footprint, operation of springs, and awareness. In the world, countries such as the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, with little renewable water in their respective continents, are the ones that publish the most and try to define the concept of WS. Therefore, it is concluded that the main problem of WS definitions worldwide is that they cannot be operationalized in some local indexes, hindering their implementation. In addition, the environment has not been relevant in WS research and definitions. |
5,405 | Sexual Behaviors and Human Papillomavirus Vaccination in a Heterosexually Active Adult Population at Increased Risk for HIV Infection | Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually acquired infection in the US. Vaccination is effective against infection with high-risk HPV strains, yet HPV vaccine coverage is lower in the US than the national target. This study aimed to determine the relationship between sexual behaviors and HPV vaccination in a heterosexually active population at increased risk for HIV infection. Data from 380 participants aged 18-45 years obtained from the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system increased risk heterosexuals cycle 5 (2019) in Houston, Texas, was analyzed. RDS-Analyst was used to generate population-based descriptive statistics. Modified Poisson regression models clustered on recruitment chain were conducted in SAS 9.4 to assess the relationship between sexual behaviors and HPV vaccination. Only 11.5% of participants had received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine. Regarding behaviors within the past 12 months, 44.8% reported having condomless casual sex, 51.3% reported having concurrent sexual partnerships while in their most recent relationship, 14.5% reported exchanging sex, and participants had an average of 4-5 sex partners. Further, those who exchanged sex had a significantly lower prevalence of HPV vaccine uptake when compared to those who did not exchange sex (adjusted prevalence ratio 0.23; confidence interval 0.10-0.52), while all other measures of sexual behavior were not significantly associated with HPV vaccination. More research is needed to understand the relationship between exchange sex and low prevalence of vaccination, specifically in women who bear the highest burden of poor HPV-related morbidity and mortality. |
5,406 | Wearable Hydrogel-Based Epidermal Sensor with Thermal Compatibility and Long Term Stability for Smart Colorimetric Multi-Signals Monitoring | Hydrogel-based wearable epidermal sensors (HWESs) have attracted widespread attention in health monitoring, especially considering their colorimetric readout capability. However, it remains challenging for HWESs to work at extreme temperatures with long term stability due to the existence of water. Herein, a wearable transparent epidermal sensor with thermal compatibility and long term stability for smart colorimetric multi-signals monitoring is developed, based on an anti-freezing and anti-drying hydrogel with high transparency (over 90% transmittance), high stretchability (up to 1500%) and desirable adhesiveness to various kinds of substrates. The hydrogel consists of polyacrylic acid, polyacrylamide, and tannic acid-coated cellulose nanocrystals in glycerin/water binary solvents. When glycerin readily forms strong hydrogen bonds with water, the hydrogel exhibits outstanding thermal compatibility. Furthermore, the hydrogel maintains excellent adhesion, stretchability, and transparency after long term storage (45 days) or at subzero temperatures (-20 °C). For smart colorimetric multi-signals monitoring, the freestanding smart colorimetric HWESs are utilized for simultaneously monitoring the pH, T and light, where colorimetric signals can be read and stored by artificial intelligence strategies in a real time manner. In summary, the developed wearable transparent epidermal sensor holds great potential for monitoring multi-signals with visible readouts in long term health monitoring. |
5,407 | Identification of Gastrointestinal Digestion Stable Antihypertensive Fish Peptides from Atlantic Mackerel ( Scomber scombrus) | High blood pressure has been recognized as one of the main risk factors of cardiometabolic syndrome by health organizations. Hypertension is medicated by various classes of synthetic drugs; however, adverse effects have repeatedly been reported. Moreover, natural alternatives such as fish peptides have been effective in the treatment and prevention of hypertension. The aim of our study was to fractionate and identify antihypertensive peptides. Fractions were produced using different techniques of solid-phase extraction (SPE), pressure-driven ultrafiltration (UF), and electro04dialysis with UF membrane. According to our results, the hydrophobic fraction of SPE (IC50 5 μg) was the most potent anti-angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) product. Findings of the study suggest that the separation technique plays an important role in the isolation efficiency of antihypertensive biopeptides. Importantly, the hydrophobic fraction's activity was retained through a static model of an in vitro gastrointestinal digestion system. In conclusion, polarity regardless of charge and size was the most important factor for anti-ACE activity of an Atlantic mackerel biopeptide. In addition, the presence of leucine at either of the extremities (C- or N-terminal) and/or leucine-rich motifs could well explain the hypotensive effect of our active fraction. |
5,408 | General synthesis of 2,1-benzisoxazoles (anthranils) from nitroarenes and benzylic C-H acids in aprotic media promoted by combination of strong bases and silylating agents | Carbanions of phenylacetonitriles, benzyl sulfones, and dialkyl benzylphosphonates add nitroarenes at the ortho-position to the nitro group to form [Formula: see text]-adducts that, upon treatment with trialkylchlorosilane and additional base (t-BuOK or DBU), transform into 3-aryl-2,1-benzisoxazoles in moderate-to-good yields. |
5,409 | Therapies in Autoimmune Peripheral Neuropathies beyond Intravenous Immunoglobulin, Plasma Exchange and Corticosteroids: An Analytical Review | Autoimmune neuropathies are often treatable. First-line immunotherapies include intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), plasma exchange and corticosteroids. However, nearly 15-30% of patients are either refractory, partially responsive or chronically dependent on these first-line agents. Lack of full response leads to increased disability in addition to adverse financial implications. Consequently, there is an unmet need for more effective treatments to manage this subset of patients. There has been a remarkable increase in the knowledge about immunopathogenesis, antigenic targets, clinical phenotype correlation, and novel therapeutic agents in the last two decades. These novel agents target specific components of the immune system (humoral, cellular immunity, and complement) and have the potential to improve the management of these disorders. Unfortunately, high-quality evidence from large, controlled studies is scarce considering the relative rarity of these refractory cases, heterogeneity of clinical presentations and ethical concerns limiting the use of a placebo arm. An adaptive clinical trial design in a homogenous cohort with standardized outcomes in multiple centers and the use of historical controls will likely provide valuable scientific evidence about the efficacy and safety of these therapies. In this review, we examine the status of the newer immunotherapies in the treatment of autoimmune neuropathies based on existing data. |
5,410 | Influence of model parameters on 3-D turbulent flow in an electromagnetic stirring system for continuous billet casting | The development of a computational model for a turbulent electromagnetic stirring (EMS) flow system has considerable flexibility in terms of choosing model parameters and system equations. This paper examines the effect of key model parameters on the turbulent flow that is predicted for art industrial scale EMS system. It is shown that the choice of certain parameters can have a profound influence on the predicted flow. |
5,411 | Experience-based knowledge management: a cooperative information systems perspective | Experience-based knowledge management is the art of capitalizing on failures and missed opportunities. Building on a number of interdisciplinary research projects. we study three possible approaches within a cooperative information systems framework, focussing on the facets of pragmatic technology usage, model-based management control, and social work practice and learning, respectively. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. |
5,412 | Robust Real-Time Embedded EMG Recognition Framework Using Temporal Convolutional Networks on a Multicore IoT Processor | Hand movement classification via surface electromyographic (sEMG) signal is a well-established approach for advanced Human-Computer Interaction. However, sEMG movement recognition has to deal with the long-term reliability of sEMG-based control, limited by the variability affecting the sEMG signal. Embedded solutions are affected by a recognition accuracy drop over time that makes them unsuitable for reliable gesture controller design. In this paper, we present a complete wearable-class embedded system for robust sEMG-based gesture recognition, based on Temporal Convolutional Networks (TCNs). Firstly, we developed a novel TCN topology (TEMPONet), and we tested our solution on a benchmark dataset (Ninapro), achieving 49.6% average accuracy, 7.8%, better than current State-Of-the-Art (SoA). Moreover, we designed an energy-efficient embedded platform based on GAP8, a novel 8-core IoT processor. Using our embedded platform, we collected a second 20-sessions dataset to validate the system on a setup which is representative of the final deployment. We obtain 93.7% average accuracy with the TCN, comparable with a SoA SVM approach (91.1%). Finally, we profiled the performance of the network implemented on GAP8 by using an 8-bit quantization strategy to fit the memory constraint of the processor. We reach a 4 x lower memory footprint (460 kB) with a performance degradation of only 3% accuracy. We detailed the execution on the GAP8 platform, showing that the quantized network executes a single classification in 12.84 ms with a power envelope of 0.9 mJ, making it suitable for a long-lifetime wearable deployment. |
5,413 | Radial Bias Alters Perceived Object Orientation | Orientation sensitivity is a fundamental property of the visual system, but not all orientations are created equal. For instance, radially oriented stimuli, aligned with a line intersecting the center of gaze, produce greater activity throughout the visual cortex and are associated with greater perceptual sensitivity compared with other orientations. Here, we discuss a robust visual illusion that is likely related to this preference. Using a continuous response measure, participants (N = 36 adults) indicated the gap position in a peripheral Landolt C placed in one of eight orientations and eight locations along four meridians (vertical, horizontal, 45°, 135°). The error distributions revealed that the perceived gap was attracted toward the radial axis. For instance, the gap in a regular C would often be wrongly perceived as tilted 45° corresponding to the oblique meridian where it was placed. These findings demonstrate an unsuspected early-vision influence on the perceived orientation of an object. |
5,414 | Automated Superpixel-borders-guided Deformation Image Registration for Adaptive Radiotherapy | Registration between the baseline and follow-up lung computed tomography (CT) volumes plays an important role in computer-aided diagnosis and following-up care during adaptive radiotherapy. Diffeomorphic log-Demons as state of the art in Demons implementations is restricted to relatively small deformations, low accuracy, and ignoring some prior structural features. In this paper, an automated superpixel-borders-guided deformation image registration (SBG-DIR) algorithm is proposed. The proposed SBG-DIR method uses the simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) algorithm to automated superpixels generation. Incorporation of superpixel borders into registration algorithm is implemented by a new similarity criterion based on the binary volume representation of superpixel borders. The binary volume representation enables accurate preserving motion boundaries, contributes to a faster convergence of the objective function and eliminates errors caused by manual interaction. In addition, a subtraction volume is produced by the intensity difference between the first time point CT volume and its warped follow-up CT volume. The subtraction volume can be used for detection of tumor tissue growth or shrinkage, which is an essential part of a CT-based diagnosis. Moreover, to ensure the topology preservation of biological objects, our proposed SBG-DIR method is implemented in the space of diffeomorphisms, in which meaningful biological shapes can be found. Compared with the state-of-the-art Demons, the proposed SBG-DIR method doesn't require any additional optimization, yields a faster convergence and is more accurate and efficient in recovering large deformations. Experimental results indicate that the proposed SBG-DIR method performed better than the state-of-the-art Demons algorithms. |
5,415 | Radiation Exposure of Workers and Volunteers in Shelters and Community Reception Centers in the Aftermath of a Nuclear Detonation | After a nuclear detonation, workers and volunteers providing first aid, decontamination, and population monitoring in public shelters and community reception centers will potentially be exposed to radiation from people they are assisting who may be contaminated with radioactive fallout. A state-of-the-art computer-aided design program and radiation transport modeling software were used to estimate external radiation dose to workers in three different exposure scenarios: performing radiation surveys/decontamination, first aid, and triage duties. Calculated dose rates were highest for workers performing radiation surveys due to the relative proximity to the contaminated individual. Estimated cumulative doses were nontrivial but below the occupational dose limit established for normal operations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. |
5,416 | Retinal Vessel Segmentation With Skeletal Prior and Contrastive Loss | The morphology of retinal vessels is closely associated with many kinds of ophthalmic diseases. Although huge progress in retinal vessel segmentation has been achieved with the advancement of deep learning, some challenging issues remain. For example, vessels can be disturbed or covered by other components presented in the retina (such as optic disc or lesions). Moreover, some thin vessels are also easily missed by current methods. In addition, existing fundus image datasets are generally tiny, due to the difficulty of vessel labeling. In this work, a new network called SkelCon is proposed to deal with these problems by introducing skeletal prior and contrastive loss. A skeleton fitting module is developed to preserve the morphology of the vessels and improve the completeness and continuity of thin vessels. A contrastive loss is employed to enhance the discrimination between vessels and background. In addition, a new data augmentation method is proposed to enrich the training samples and improve the robustness of the proposed model. Extensive validations were performed on several popular datasets (DRIVE, STARE, CHASE, and HRF), recently developed datasets (UoA-DR, IOSTAR, and RC-SLO), and some challenging clinical images (from RFMiD and JSIEC39 datasets). In addition, some specially designed metrics for vessel segmentation, including connectivity, overlapping area, consistency of vessel length, revised sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were used for quantitative evaluation. The experimental results show that, the proposed model achieves state-of-the-art performance and significantly outperforms compared methods when extracting thin vessels in the regions of lesions or optic disc. Source code is available at https://www.github.com/tyb311/SkelCon. |
5,417 | Association between Serum Neurofilament Light and Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Levels and Head Impact Burden in Women's Collegiate Water Polo | Recent investigations have identified water polo athletes as at risk for concussions and repetitive subconcussive head impacts. Head impact exposure in collegiate varsity women's water polo, however, has not yet been longitudinally quantified. We aimed to determine the relationship between cumulative and acute head impact exposure across pre-season training and changes in serum biomarkers of brain injury. Twenty-two Division I collegiate women's water polo players were included in this prospective observational study. They wore sensor-installed mouthguards during all practices and scrimmages during eight weeks of pre-season training. Serum samples were collected at six time points (at baseline, before and after scrimmages during weeks 4 and 7, and after the eight-week pre-season training period) and assayed for neurofilament light (NfL) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) using Simoa® Human Neurology 2-Plex B assay kits. Serum GFAP increased over time (e.g., an increase of 0.6559 pg/mL per week; p = 0.0087). Neither longitudinal nor acute pre-post scrimmage changes in GFAP, however, were associated with head impact exposure. Contrarily, an increase in serum NfL across the study period was associated with cumulative head impact magnitude (sum of peak linear acceleration: B = 0.015, SE = 0.006, p = 0.016; sum of peak rotational acceleration: B = 0.148, SE = 0.048, p = 0.006). Acute changes in serum NfL were not associated with head impacts recorded during the two selected scrimmages. Hormonal contraceptive use was associated with lower serum NfL and GFAP levels over time, and elevated salivary levels of progesterone were also associated with lower serum NfL levels. These results suggest that detecting increases in serum NfL may be a useful way to monitor cumulative head impact burden in women's contact sports and that female-specific factors, such as hormonal contraceptive use and circulating progesterone levels, may be neuroprotective, warranting further investigations. |
5,418 | A Nomogram for Predicting Liver Metastasis of Lymph-Node Positive Luminal B HER2 Negative Subtype Breast Cancer by Analyzing the Clinicopathological Characteristics of Patients with Breast Cancer | Background: Luminal B-like human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (Luminal B [HER2-]) is the most common molecular subtype of breast cancer (BC). Since the relationship between Luminal B (HER2-) BC and liver metastasis (LM) is poorly defined, this retrospective study aimed to develop an LM risk nomogram for patients with lymph node-related (N + Luminal B [HER2-]) BC. Methods: Data were obtained for patients initially diagnosed with BC from the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital. There were 30,975 Chinese female patients with stage I-III BC and follow-up confirming 1217 subsequent patients with LM, and 427 patients with N + Luminal B (HER2-). The LM risk was assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression, histogram, Venn diagram, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, with further analysis for patients with N + Luminal B (HER2-) BC. A nomogram was established based on the N + Luminal B (HER2-) BC data, which was validated using calibration plots. Results: The median age of 427 patients with N + Luminal B (HER2-) liver metastasis of breast cancer (BCLM) was 49 years. The largest number of patients with BCLM was diagnosed between the second to the 6th year, the longest interval from initial BC diagnosis to subsequent LM was 145 months. The patients with LM as the first site of distant metastasis which is associated with better survival were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier. The nomogram was constructed for the risk of LM that included age, menstrual status, unilateral oophorectomy, pregnancy, hepatitis B antigen, region of residence, tumor size, lymph node, clavicular lymph nodes, progesterone receptor, and lymph vessel invasion. Conclusion: We described the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with stage I-III BC, and constructed a nomogram for calculating personalized LM probabilities for patients with N + Luminal B (HER2-), which could guide future prolonged or early extensive treatment decisions. |
5,419 | Big Data ML-Based Fake News Detection Using Distributed Learning | Users rely heavily on social media to consume and share news, facilitating the mass dis-semination of genuine and fake stories. The proliferation of misinformation on various social media platforms has serious consequences for society. The inability to differentiate between the several forms of false news on Twitter is a major obstacle to effective detection of fake news. Researchers have made progress toward a solution by emphasizing methods for identifying fake news. The dataset FNC-1, which includes four categories for identifying false news, will be used in this study. The state-of-the-art methods for spotting fake news are evaluated and compared using big data technology (Spark) and machine learning. The methodology of this study employed a decentralized Spark cluster to create a stacked ensemble model. Following feature extraction using N-grams, Hashing TF-IDF, and count vectorizer, we used the proposed stacked ensemble classification model. The results show that the suggested model has a superior classification performance of 92.45% in the F1 score compared to the 83.10 % F1 score of the baseline approach. The proposed model achieved an additional 9.35% F1 score compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. |
5,420 | Health Canada's use of priority review status for drugs for unmet needs | The processes for granting priority review status to new drug submissions in Canada and the United States are not exactly the same, but reasonable concordance should be expected since the selection criteria are similar in the two countries. This study compared new therapeutic drugs approved by both Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 2000 and 2014 to evaluate concordance on priority review status. New therapeutic drugs approved in both countries totalled 301; 86 (28.6%) and 136 (45.2%) were given priority review status in Canada and the United States, respectively, with 73 (24.3%) in both. Sensitivity and specificity were 53.7% and 92.1%. Overall concordance on review type was 74.8%. κ was 0.47 indicating moderate agreement. Agreement on review type was >70% for all drugs, except oncology therapies. Broad agreement exists between Health Canada and the FDA on drugs that should not have priority review status. Concordance on drugs that should have this status was generally satisfactory and, for critical drugs, was high. Agreement would improve if more oncology drugs received priority review status in Canada. Despite a higher number of drugs receiving priority review status in the United States, there is reasonable concordance between the two countries. |
5,421 | The mechanisms of action of flavonoids in the brain: Direct versus indirect effects | The projected increase in the incidence of dementia in the population highlights the urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of how different aspects of lifestyle, in particular exercise and diet, may affect neural function and consequent cognitive performance throughout the life course. In this regard, flavonoids, found in a variety of fruits, vegetables and derived beverages, have been identified as a group of promising bioactive compounds capable of influencing different aspects of brain function, including cerebrovascular blood flow and synaptic plasticity, both resulting in improvements in learning and memory in mammalian species. However, the precise mechanisms by which flavonoids exert these actions are yet to be fully established, although accumulating data indicate an ability to interact with neuronal receptors and kinase signaling pathways which are key to neuronal activation and communication and synaptic strengthening. Alternatively or concurrently, there is also compelling evidence derived from human clinical studies suggesting that flavonoids can positively affect peripheral and cerebrovascular blood flow, which may be an indirect effective mechanism by which dietary flavonoids can impact on brain health and cognition. The current review examines the beneficial effects of flavonoids on both human and animal brain function and attempts to address and link direct and indirect actions of flavonoids and their derivatives within the central nervous system (CNS). |
5,422 | Levels of Physical Activity and Psychological Well-Being in Non-Athletes and Martial Art Athletes during the COVID-19 Pandemic | Background: The objectives of this study were to identify which of the sociodemographic variables affected psychological well-being in two populations that differed in their sports practice at the end of the COVID-19 lockdown in Colombia. Methods: The study was conducted through an online survey using the IPAQ-S and PGWBI-S questionnaires six months after the first SARS-CoV-2 lockdown, between 8 and 22 September 2020 in Colombia. The total number of study participants was 582, subdivided into two groups: (i) non-athlete university population (NA) without constant practice in physical activity or sports training (n = 470); and (ii) martial arts athletes (n = 122) with a sports career (A), 7.4 +/- 3.4 years of experience, at different levels (advanced belts and black belts). Results: Sports practice, normal BMI levels and high levels of physical activity translated into absence of distress (ND) in the psychological well-being of populations. The variance between the factors could be explained by the general health dimension (2.4% population; 4.2% sex; 12% physical activity; 2.6% age). A moderate correlation between vitality and MET was found (r = 0.33; p < 0.001). Conclusions: The practice of a sport such as martial arts, normal body mass index and high levels of physical activity were factors that positively reduced levels of distress, translated into better psychological well-being in populations, and the general health dimension presented important contributions to psychological well-being. Intervention plans must be carried out, especially in populations that do not practice physical activity-mainly female and those under 40 years of age. |
5,423 | An Approach by Straight Line Segment Adaptive Techniques in Robot Navigation | The representation and mapping of unknown environments for robot navigation is a focus of research that presents great challenges, especially regarding the amount of data involved and the difficulty of dynamically performing computational structures updating. This paper innovates by applying the Adaptive Digitized Straight Line Segments (ADSLS) technique to reduce the amount of data for representing trajectories through the Adaptive Finite Automata (AFA), improving positive results of state of the art works. |
5,424 | DetexNet: Accurately Diagnosing Frequent and Challenging Pediatric Malignant Tumors | The most frequent extracranial solid tumors of childhood, named peripheral neuroblastic tumors (pNTs), are very challenging to diagnose due to their diversified categories and varying forms. Auxiliary diagnosis methods of such pediatric malignant cancers are highly needed to provide pathologists assistance and reduce the risk of misdiagnosis before treatments. In this paper, inspired by the particularity of microscopic pathology images, we integrate neural networks with the texture energy measure (TEM) and propose a novel network architecture named DetexNet (deep texture network). This method enforces the low-level representation pattern clearer via embedding the expert knowledge as prior, so that the network can seize the key information of a relatively small pathological dataset more smoothly. By applying and finetuning TEM filters in the bottom layer of a network, we greatly improve the performance of the baseline. We further pre-train the model on unlabeled data with an auto-encoder architecture and implement a color space conversion on input images. Two kinds of experiments under different assumptions in the condition of limited training data are performed, and in both of them, the proposed method achieves the best performance compared with other state-of-the-art models and doctor diagnosis. |
5,425 | Fast training of a transformer for global multi-horizon time series forecasting on tensor processing units | Time Series Forecasting (TSF) is essential to key domains, and the Transformer neural network has advanced the state-of-the-art on global, multi-horizon TSF benchmarks. The quadratic time and memory complexity of the Vanilla Transformer (VT) hinders its application to Big Data environments; therefore, multiple efficient variants of the VT that lower complexity via sparse self-attention have been proposed. However, less complex algorithms do not directly produce faster executions, and machine learning models for Big Data are typically trained on accelerators designed for dense-matrix computation that render slower performance with sparse matrices. To better compare the accuracy-speed trade-off of the VT and its variants, it is essential to test them on such accelerators. We implemented a cloud-based VT on Tensor Processing Units to address this task. Experiments on large-scale datasets show that our Transformer achieves good predictive performance when compared to state-of-the-art models while reducing training times from hours to under 2 min. |
5,426 | Structure and function of the parvoviral NS1 protein: a review | Parvoviruses possess a single-stranded DNA genome of about 5 kb, which contains two open reading frames (ORFs), one encoding nonstructural (NS) proteins, the other capsid proteins. The NS1 protein contains an N-terminal origin-binding domain, a helicase domain, and a C-terminal transactive domain, and is essential for effective viral replication and production of infectious virus. We first summarize the developments in the structure of NS1 protein, including the original binding domain and the helicase domain. We discuss the role of different DNA substrates in the oligomerization of these two domains of NS1. During the parvovirus life cycle, the NS1 protein is closely related to the viral gene expression, viral replication, and infection. We provide the current understanding of the impact of parvovirus NS1 protein mutations on its biological properties. Overall, in this review, we focus on the structure and function of the parvoviral NS1 protein. |
5,427 | Iterative query selection for opaque search engines with pseudo relevance feedback | Retrieving information from an online search engine is the first and most important step in many data mining tasks, such as fake news detection. Most of the search engines currently available on the web, including all social media platforms, are black-boxes (i.e., opaque) supporting short keyword queries. In these settings, it is challenging to retrieve all posts and comments discussing a particular news item automatically and on a large scale.In this paper, we propose a method for generating short keyword queries given a prototype document. The proposed iterative query selection (IQS) algorithm interacts with the opaque search engine to iteratively improve the query, by maximizing the number of relevant results retrieved. Our evaluation of IQS was performed on the Twitter TREC Microblog 2012 and TREC-COVID 2019 datasets and demonstrated the algorithm's superior performance compared to state-of-the-art. In addition, we implemented IQS algorithm to automatically collect a large-scale dataset for fake news detection task of about 70K true and fake news items. The dataset, which we have made publicly available to the research community, includes over 22M accounts and 61M tweets. We demonstrate the usefulness of the dataset for fake news detection task achieving state-of-the-art performance. |
5,428 | Associations Between Perceived Social Support, Perceived Competence, and Physical Activity in Hong Kong Children With Disabilities During the COVID-19 Pandemic | This study aimed to examine the associations between perceived social support, perceived competence, and physical activity in children with physical and intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the third wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong (i.e., July through December 2020), 291 participants age 6-17 years from 27 special schools were included. After controlling for demographic variables, the total variance explained by perceived social support and perceived competence was 24%, F(2, 240) = 12.42, p < .001, with perceived competence having a stronger association with physical activity (β = 0.29, p < .001) than perceived social support (β = 0.07, p = .22). This study highlights two key facilitators for shaping physical activity involvement among children with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
5,429 | Effects of hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux on methane production by mixed anaerobic digestion of cow manure and corn straw | This study aimed to enhance methane production from mixed anaerobic digestion of cow manure and corn straw by adding hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux. The hydrochar characterization revealed that it can provide attachment for microbial growth, and abundant surface functional groups (such as C-O, CO, C-OH, and C-N) for adsorption. Direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) mediated by surface oxygen-containing functional groups on hydrochar increased the methane yield. The experimental group added with hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux had the highest methane and biogas production (34.40% and 36.98% higher than the control group, respectively). Results demonstrate hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux can improve microorganism species richness in anaerobic digestion systems, in which hydrochar can also improve microorganism species uniformity. Distance-based redundancy analysis showed that the VFAs, and pH had the greatest effects on the composition of the microbial community. The dominant microorganism at the phylum level in AD system were Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria. The addition of hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux can significantly increase the species abundance of Methanobacterium. These results indicate that the addition of hydrochar and biogas slurry reflux can improve the corresponding microbial abundance, in which hydrochar can enhance the redox characteristics and DIET between microorganism, biogas slurry reflux can also increase nutrient content of anaerobic digestion system, and collectively promote the methane yield. |
5,430 | The function of chitosan/agarose biopolymer on Fe2 O3 nanoparticles and evaluation of their effects on MCF-7 breast cancer cell line and expression of BCL2 and BAX genes | In recent decades, magnetic nanoparticles modified with biocompatible polymers have been recognized as a suitable tool for treating breast cancer. The aim of this research was to evaluate the function of chitosan/agarose-functionalized Fe2 O3 nanoparticles on the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line and the expression of BCL2 and BAX genes. Free Fe2 O3 nanoparticles were prepared by hydrothermal method. FTIR, XRD, SEM, DLS, VSM, and zeta potential analyses determined the size and morphological characteristics of the synthesized nanoparticles. The effect of Fe2 O3 free nanoparticles and formulated Fe2 O3 nanoparticles on induction of apoptosis was studied by double-dye Annexin V-FITC and PI. Also, the gene expression results using the PCR method displayed that Fe2 O3 formulated nanoparticles induced BAX apoptosis by increasing the anti-apoptotic gene expression and decreasing the expression of pro-apoptotic gene BCL2, so the cell progresses to planned cell death. In addition, the results showed that the BAX/BCL2 ratio decreased significantly after treatment of MCF-7 cells with free Fe2 O3 nanoparticles, and the BAX/BCL2 ratio for Fe2 O3 formulated nanoparticles increased significantly. Also, to evaluate cell migration, the scratch test was performed, which showed a decrease in motility of MCF-7 cancer cells treated with Fe2 O3 nanoparticles formulated with chitosan/agarose at concentrations of 10, 50, 100, and 200 μg/ml. |
5,431 | Clinical differences between botulinum neurotoxin type A and B | In humans, the therapeutic use of botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT/A) is well recognized and continuously expanding. Four BoNTs are widely available for clinical practice: three are serotype A and one is serotype B: onabotulinumtoxinA (A/Ona), abobotulinumtoxinA (A/Abo) and incobotulinumtoxinA (A/Inco), rimabotulinumtoxinB (B/Rima). A/Abo, A/Inco, A/Ona and B/Rima are all licensed worldwide for cervical dystonia. In addition, the three BoNT/A products are approved for blepharospasm and focal dystonias, spasticity, hemifacial spasm, hyperhidrosis and facial lines, with remarkable regional differences. These toxin brands differ for specific activity, packaging, constituents, excipient, and storage. Comparative literature assessing the relative safety and efficacy of different BoNT products is limited, most data come from reports on small samples, and only a few studies meet criteria of evidence-based medicine. One study compared the effects of BoNT/A and BoNT/B on muscle activity of healthy volunteers, showing similar neurophysiological effects with a dose ratio of 1:100. In cervical dystonia, when comparing the effects of BoNT/A and BoNT/B, results are more variable, some studies reporting roughly similar peak effect and overall duration (at a ratio of 1:66, others reporting substantially shorter duration of BoNT/B than BoNT/A (at a ratio 1/24). Although the results of clinical studies are difficult to compare for methodological differences (dose ratio, study design, outcome measures), it is widely accepted that: BoNT/B is clinically effective using appropriate doses as BoNT/A (1:40-50), injections are generally more painful, in most of the studies on muscular conditions, efficacy is shorter, and immunogenicity higher. Since the earliest clinical trials, it has been reported that autonomic side effects are more frequent after BoNT/B injections, and this observation encouraged the use of BoNT/B for sialorrhea, hyperhidrosis and other non-motor symptoms. In these indications the efficacy of toxins A and B are comparable and dose ratio is 1:25-30. |
5,432 | Newly discovered Aurignacian engraved blocks from Abri Cellier: History, context and dating | The rich record of Aurignacian graphic arts from sites in the Vezere Valley of SW France holds a key place in our understanding of systems of representation in the European Early Upper Paleolithic. One of the main sites yielding representational objects is Abri Cellier, which has long been on the short-list of major art-bearing sites attributed to the European Aurignacian. Collie's 1927 excavations yielded 15 engraved and/or pierced limestone blocks that have served as a key point of reference for the study of Aurignacian art in SW France. As part of a broader re-excavation of key Aurignacian sites in the Vezere Valley, we returned to Abri Cellier in 2014, with detailed archives in hand, in the hopes of finding intact deposits that would allow a better understanding of the archaeological sequence at the site and its relationship to other Aurignacian sites in the so-called "classic zone." While disappointingly little is left of the site, the 2014 season allowed the addition of 16 new engraved, painted or pierced blocks to the 15 already known from the 1927 excavations. We present here a brief history of excavations at the site, a stratigraphic analysis, an overview of archaeological materials recovered, a series of 14C ultrafiltration dates, a brief discussion of the peculiar characteristics of Aurignacian block art in SW France, a detailed analysis of the engraved surfaces of the blocks discovered in 1927 and in 2014 and finally a comparison of the newly-revised Cellier block assemblage with those from other Aurignacian sites in the Vezere. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. |
5,433 | Search Personalization in Folksonomy by Exploiting Multiple and Temporal Aspects of User Profiles | Social tagging data, also known as folksonomy, are a valuable indication for the user's understanding of a resource. The nature of folksonomy data in which a user annotates a resource with their opinions provides immense potential to contribute to search personalization. The challenge lies in extracting interests from the folksonomy data and building accurate user profiles while maintaining their characteristics. Furthermore, the current state-of-the-art technologies that utilize folksonomy for search personalization have not fully exploited both multiple and temporal aspects in user profiles. In this paper, we propose a search personalization framework that constructs a user profile network with identification of the multiple topics of the user and the temporal values of tags. Then, the user profile network is further explored through a link analysis technique for the network to score the tags by their importance. The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated against various state-of-the-art folksonomy-based personalization models and it consistently outperforms all of the compared models under the conditions of the best combination of ranking functions and link analysis techniques. |
5,434 | A review on global status of fresh and saline groundwater discharge into the ocean | Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is the groundwater flow from land to the sea across the seabed, and it includes both terrane freshwater and recirculated seawater in the sub-surface. This review (i) systematically evaluates findings of various quantification methodologies, (ii) examines the estimated SGD in scientific publications between 2000 and 2020, and (iii) quantitatively evaluates current situation of coastal zone management through the bibliometric analysis of research papers. Apart from enhancing the shortage of groundwater resources in coastal area, the SGD brings nutrients (nitrate and phosphate), toxic heavy metals, and organic compounds, and thus contaminate the seawater. Therefore, the improved understanding about location and quantity of global SGD is essential to conserve the coastal and ocean ecosystems. |
5,435 | Phase II study of HCVIDD/MA in patients with newly diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphoma | A phase II study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of hyper-fractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin and dexamethasone alternating with methotrexate/cytarabine (HCVIDD/MA) in patients with newly diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL), excluding ALK-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Fifty-three patients were enrolled. Treatment was planned for up to 8 cycles but only 9% of patients received more than 6 cycles due primarily to disease progression (n = 13) or prolonged thrombocytopenia (n = 12). The overall response rate was 66% with a complete response rate of 57%. Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 7·5 months. With a median follow-up of 7·6 years, 5-year PFS and overall survival (OS) were 21% and 48%, respectively. The patients with extranodal Natural Killer-cell lymphoma had a shorter PFS (median, 2·4 months) than other subtypes. Grade 3/4 anaemia, neutropenia and thrombocytopenia were observed in 66%, 74% and 79% of patients, respectively. Of note, 23% of patients discontinued therapy due to prolonged thrombocytopenia. In conclusion, HCVIDD/MA for the first-line treatment of PTCL patients is associated with significant myelosuppression leading to poor treatment adherence, and the response and survival outcomes with this regimen are similar to standard CHOP. This study was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00290433. |
5,436 | Spectral diversity of photosystem I from flowering plants | Photosystem I and II (PSI and PSII) work together to convert solar energy into chemical energy. Whilst a lot of research has been done to unravel variability of PSII fluorescence in response to biotic and abiotic factors, the contribution of PSI to in vivo fluorescence measurements has often been neglected or considered to be constant. Furthermore, little is known about how the absorption and emission properties of PSI from different plant species differ. In this study, we have isolated PSI from five plant species and compared their characteristics using a combination of optical and biochemical techniques. Differences have been identified in the fluorescence emission spectra and at the protein level, whereas the absorption spectra were virtually the same in all cases. In addition, the emission spectrum of PSI depends on temperature over a physiologically relevant range from 280 to 298 K. Combined, our data show a critical comparison of the absorption and emission properties of PSI from various plant species. |
5,437 | The Role of School Connectedness and Friend Contact in Adolescent Loneliness, and Implications for Physical Health | The current study investigated how adolescents' loneliness relates to school connectedness, classmate support, teacher support, and offline and online communication with friends. We also examined the association between loneliness, physical health, and sleep. Data came from the Scottish Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC). The total sample was 2983 adolescents (F = 1479 [49.6%]) aged 14-17 years (M = 15.66, SD = 0.39) from 117 secondary schools in Scotland. Results showed that (1) higher teacher support, classmate support, and offline contact with friends predicted lower levels of loneliness, (2) online friendship engagement predicted higher levels of loneliness, and (3) poor health and sleep were positively associated with loneliness. The study offers new findings, highlighting the role played by classmates/peers and teachers in reducing loneliness. Supporting previous research, we also found associations between loneliness, poor sleep, and worse physical health. |
5,438 | A Skip Attention Mechanism for Monaural Singing Voice Separation | This work proposes a simple but effective attention mechanism, namely Skip Attention (SA), for monaural singing voice separation (MSVS). First, the SA, embedded in the convolutional encoder-decoder network (CEDN), realizes an attention-driven and dependency modeling for the repetitive structures of the music source. Second, the SA, replacing the popular skip connection in the CEDN, effectively controls the flow of the low-level (vocal and musical) features to the output and improves the feature sensitivity and accuracy forMSVS. Finally, we implement the proposed SA on the Stacked Hourglass Network (SHN), namely Skip Attention SHN (SA-SHN). Quantitative and qualitative evaluation results have shown that the proposed SA-SHN achieves significant performance improvement on the MIR-1K dataset (compared to the state-of-the-art SHN) and competitive MSVS performance on the DSD100 dataset (compared to the state-of-the-art DenseNet), even without using any data augmentation methods. |
5,439 | [Complex posttraumatic stress disorder in adults] | The term "complex posttraumatic stress disorder" (cPTSD) appeared in the scientific literature 30 years ago and has now been included in a diagnostic catalogue for the first time, namely in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 11 (ICD-11) which was officially published at the beginning of 2022. This usually severely debilitating disorder often poses great challenges to treating physicians and psychotherapists in everyday clinical practice. Due to the much-debated overlap of cPTSD with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which is very high in cases of comorbidity of BPD and PTSD, cPTSD became embroiled in scientific discussions about the raison d'être of BPD in the new dimensional concept of personality disorders (PD) in the ICD-11. In addition to a detailed explanation of the diagnostic criteria of cPTSD and their differentiation from other mental disorders, particularly from PTSD, BPD and dissociative disorders, this article summarizes the historical development of the concept of cPTSD to date and the currently available treatment options. The same criteria apply to cPTSD in childhood and adolescence as in adulthood, but there are some special features that are not addressed in this article. |
5,440 | Processing technology for the objects of mobile art in the Upper Paleolithic of Siberia (the Malta site) | Investigation of the technological aspects of the processing of the Siberian collection of animal materials opens up new possibilities for the historical and cultural reconstructions of archaeological materials. The complete collection of processed ivory reflecting technological cycles is shown in single sites of the Classical stage of the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia (Malta, Ust-Cova, Afontova Gora, Listvenka, and Jansky). Materials of animal origin from the collection of Malta (especially ivory) are suitable for their preservation for microscopic analysis. The Malta-site is the main archaeological site of the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia (dated near 19,000-23,000 years BP). The collection is represented by the more than 650 decorated objects of ivory, antler, and bone. A detailed study of the most part of the collection stored in the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) has established the general steps of processing the ivory, antler, and bone articles at the time of Siberian's Upper Paleolithic. Mobile art of Malta is well known in the scientific and popular press, but our study differs from other studies. The work is based on a set of morphological data, technical, use wear analyzes and experiment. The collection includes the sculptures of people, birds, fish, and animals as well as ornamented plates, rods, and personal ornaments. The microscopic analysis allows one to systematize the process of shape formation, the processing, and the ornamentation of Paleolithic sculptures and personal ornamentations of Malta. In addition, we propose certain stable sets of tools and techniques used to work with each of the selected morphological types of Paleolithic sculpture. We have identified all steps of manufacturing the mobile art pieces including flaking, drilling, carving, grinding, and polishing. A number of tools were employed for the manufacture of artifacts: hammer stones, retouches, bow-shaped drills, perforators, boring, different kinds of burins and knives, reamers, engravers, grinding tablets, and scrapers. The basic tools that were involved in forming shape were planer knives and some variants of scrapers. Burins and knives were employed to make decorative elements. According our opinion, In Malta's tool kit were: the bow-shaped drills, perforators, and burins, as well as different kind of burins were used for drilling the holes and forming of the ornamental elements. The different types of abrasives were also used. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. |
5,441 | Warming of surface water in the large and shallow lakes across the Yangtze River Basin, China, and its driver analysis | A variety of physical, chemical, and biological processes within the lakes relies on the surface water temperature while the spatial pattern of large lakes of different warming trends and their connections with climate change remain unclear. Using correlation analysis, regression tree analysis (RTA), and general linear models (GLMs), we have estimated the warming trends of 192 lakes since 2000 in the populated Yangtze River Basin, China, to identify dominant climate drivers and quantify their contributions. The results show that surface water temperature has increased substantially in the majority of the investigated lakes (179 from a total of 192 lakes) at a rate of 0.29 (- 0.12 to 0.62) °C/decade (median and 95% confidence interval). The shallower lakes (< 13.1 m in depth) usually have the faster median warming rates than the deeper lakes (i.e., 0.37 °C/decade versus 0.16 °C/decade). We find that in the shallow lakes, rising air temperatures and declining wind speeds can explain the majority of variation in surface water temperature (i.e., 31.4‒80.3% and 13.0‒21.0%, respectively). In contrast, in deeper lakes, change of air temperatures plays a dominant role in water warming (75.4‒91.2%). This study has emphasized the importance of declining wind speed in water warming in large and shallow lakes and illustrated a difference of dominant climatic drivers in water warming between the shallow and deep lakes. |
5,442 | A highly sensitive, easy-and-rapidly-fabricable microfluidic electrochemical cell with an enhanced three-dimensional electric field | An NP-μFEC is a reusable, novel microfluidic electrochemical cell with multiple non-planar interdigitated microelectrode arrays, minimal sample volume, and enhanced electric field penetration for highly sensitive electrochemical analysis. (i) The NP-μFEC features spatial 3-electrode architecture, and a small sample volume (∼4 μL). (ii) Here, [Fe(CN)6]3-/4- redox couple are used as an electrochemical reporter. The effects on the electrochemical properties of NP-μFEC due to the change in the reference electrode (RE) and counter electrode (CE)'s position with respect to the working electrode (WE) position are analyzed. For NP-μFEC, the position of the RE with respect to the WE does not affect the CV, DPV electrochemical profiles. However, the spacing between the CE and WE plays a significant role. (iii) The enhanced three-dimensional electric field penetration in NP-μFEC is validated by finite element analysis simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics. (iv) Without electrode surface modifications, NP-μFEC shows a detection limit (DL) of ∼2.54 × 10-6 M for aqueous [Fe(CN)6]3-/4- probe. (v) The DL for Cu2+, Fe3+, and Hg2+ are 30.5±9.5 μg L-1, 181±58.5 μg L-1, and 12.4±1.95 μg L-1, respectively, which meets the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s water contamination level for Cu, Fe, and is close to that for Hg (EPA limits are 1300 μg L-1, 300 μg L-1, and 2 μg L-1, respectively). (vi) Further, using a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer to form the channel and create the NP-μFEC configuration simplifies the manufacturing process, making it cost-effective and allowing for rapid adoption in any research lab. NP-μFEC is used to detect heavy metal ions in water. This demonstrates that cost-effective, easy-to-fabricate NP-μFEC can be a new sensitive electrochemical platform. |
5,443 | Adaptive Random Testing for Multiagent Path Finding Systems | The multiagent path finding (MAPF) problem identifies the scheduling of multiple agents simultaneously, such that all of them can reach their targets efficiently. To date, MAPF systems have been assigned important tasks such as traffics and warehouses. It is essential to conduct testing for MAPF systems to detect potential failures. Namely, in an MAPF system, a test case is a specific MAPF scenario, including the initial locations of the agents and the environment for these agents to play in. By testing, we intend to find the scenarios (i.e., test cases) whose executions reveal failures. Testing MAPF systems is challenging due to the complexity of its input and the interactions among multiple agents. This article proposes the testing approach based on the adaptive random testing (ART) for MAPF systems. ART aims to generate new test cases far from the already executed ones. Particularly, to calculate the distance between each pair of test cases, we introduce two metrics, the initial density distribution and the destination density distribution, to characterize the distribution of the agents' initial and destination nodes, respectively. Benefit from ART, the diversity of the information generated during testing can be improved. Experimental results show that compared with the random testing, our approach can detect more diverse failure-revealing scenarios. |
5,444 | Making waves: Defining advanced reduction technologies from the perspective of water treatment | Studies related to advanced reduction technologies (ARTs) have grown exponentially since the term was first coined in 2013. Despite recent interests in ARTs, the conditions and requirements for these processes have yet to be defined and clarifed. In comparision to well defined advanced oxidation technologies/processes (AOTs/AOPs) which involve the generation of hydroxyl radical as the common characteristic, ARTs function by electron donation from a variety of reducing agents and activators. Based on an extensive literature review, we propose that ARTs be defined as processes employing strong chemical reductants with E degrees <= - 2.3 V vs. normal hydrogen electrode at 25 degrees C. While extensive studies have revealed critical fundamental details of AOTs/AOPs mediated processes, there are still significant gaps in elucidation of the mechanistic details of reductive degradation/ transformation of highly toxic compounds by ARTs. A significant number of pollutants and toxins resistant to AOTs/AOPs treatment are effectively degraded by ARTs. A great leap is needed on understanding ARTs to fully utilize their potential to efficiently remediate recalcitrant compounds of different sources and structures. |
5,445 | Pairwise Learning to Rank for Image Quality Assessment | Because the pairwise comparison is a natural and effective way to obtain subjective image quality scores, we propose an objective full-reference image quality assessment (FR-IQA) index based on pairwise learning to rank (PLR). We first compose a large number of pairs of images, extract their features, and compute their preference labels as training labels. We then obtain a pairwise preference model by training a binary classifier using the features and labels. Because image quality is affected by the masking effect, we propose extracting frequency-aware quality features by adapting state-of-the-art IQA metrics. The learned pairwise preference model is then used to predict the preference between pairs of images in the testing dataset. The quality of each image is computed as the number of preferences. Experimental results on four IQA databases validate that the proposed PLR-based IQA index achieves higher consistency with human subjective evaluation than the state-of-the-art IQA metrics. |
5,446 | Mutation of the TP53 gene in acute lymphoblastic leukemia does not affect survival outcomes after haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation | Previous studies have demonstrated that TP53 mutation is correlated with insufficient therapy response and unfavorable prognosis in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Few studies have investigated the impact of TP53 mutation in ALL patients after haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haplo-HSCT). We completed a retrospective study of 65 ALL patients with available TP53 status who underwent haplo-HSCT. They were divided into a TP53 mutation group (TP53mut ) and a TP53 wild-type (TP53wt ) group. TP53mut showed comparable 2-year cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) rates (13.1% vs 12.5%, P = .96) and 2-year leukemia-free survival (LFS) (74.2% vs 77.4%, P = .80) with TP53wt . No significant differences in 2-year overall survival (OS) rates (82.9% vs 87.3%, P = .61) or 2-year NRM rates (12.7% vs 10.2%, P = .69) were observed in TP53mut and TP53wt patients. Multivariate analysis suggested that white blood cell (WBC) count at initial diagnosis (>50 × 109 /L: hazard ratio [HR] = 3.860, P = .016) and age (>40 years old: HR = 4.120, P = .012) are independent risk factors for 2-year LFS. Our study showed that TP53 mutations may not be related to the unfavorable impact on survival in ALL patients after treatment with haplo-HSCT. The present results suggested that haplo-HSCT may eliminate the poor prognosis effect of TP53 mutation in ALL. |
5,447 | Probabilistic intuitionistic fuzzy c-means algorithm with spatial constraint for human brain MRI segmentation | Segmentation of brain MRI images becomes a challenging task due to spatially distributed noise and uncertainty present between boundaries of soft tissues. In this work, we have presented intuitionistic fuzzy set theory based probabilistic intuitionistic fuzzy c-means with spatial neighborhood information method for MRI image segmentation. We have investigated two well known negation functions namely, Sugeno's negation function and Yager's negation function for representing the image in terms of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. The proposed approach takes leverage of intuitionistic fuzzy set theory to address vagueness and uncertainty present in the data. The spatial neighborhood information term in the segmentation process is included to dampen the effect of noise. The segmentation performance of the proposed method is evaluated in terms of average segmentation accuracy and Dice score. Further, the comparison of the proposed method with other similar state-of-art methods is carried out on two publicly available brain MRI dataset which shows the significant improvements in segmentation performance in terms of average segmentation accuracy and Dice score. The proposed approach achieves on average 91% average segmentation accuracy in the presence of noise and intensity inhomogeneity on BrainWeb simulated dataset, which outperformed the state-of-art methods. |
5,448 | A Survey of the Nurse Rostering Solution Methodologies: The State-of-the-Art and Emerging Trends | This paper presents an overview of recent advances for the Nurse Rostering Problem (NRP) based on methodological papers published between 2012 to 2021. It provides a comprehensive review of the latest solution methodologies, particularly computational intelligence (CI) approaches, utilized in benchmark and real-world nurse rostering. The methodologies are systematically categorised (Heuristics, Meta-heuristics, Hyper-heuristics, Mathematical Optimisation, Matheuristics and Hybrid Approaches). The NRP benchmark repositories and the respective state-of-the-art methods are also presented. A distinctive feature of this survey is its focus on the emerging trends in terms of solution methodologies and benchmark datasets. Meta-heuristics are the most popular choices in addressing NRP. Matheuristics, one of most popular methodologies in addressing the NRP, has been an emerging trend in recent years (2018 onwards). The INRC-I dataset is the most popular benchmark currently in use by researchers to test their algorithms. An in-depth discussion on the challenges and research opportunities is provided. The summary and analysis of the recently published NRP methodological papers in this survey is valuable for the CI and Operational Research (OR) communities especially early career researchers seeking to find gaps and identify emerging trends in this fast-developing, important research area. |
5,449 | Unravelling the landscape of skin cancer through single-cell transcriptomics | The human skin is a complex organ that forms the first line of defense against pathogens and external injury. It is composed of a wide variety of cells that work together to maintain homeostasis and prevent disease, such as skin cancer. The exponentially rising incidence of skin malignancies poses a growing public health challenge, particularly when the disease course is complicated by metastasis and therapeutic resistance. Recent advances in single-cell transcriptomics have provided a high-resolution view of gene expression heterogeneity that can be applied to skin cancers to define cell types and states, understand disease evolution, and develop new therapeutic concepts. This approach has been particularly valuable in characterizing the contribution of immune cells in skin cancer, an area of great clinical importance given the increasing use of immunotherapy in this setting. In this review, we highlight recent skin cancer studies utilizing bulk RNA sequencing, introduce various single-cell transcriptomics approaches, and summarize key findings obtained by applying single-cell transcriptomics to skin cancer. |
5,450 | Gender and race/ethnicity differences in occupational activity among students | Occupational physical activity (OPA) is related to positive health outcomes and meeting overall physical activity recommendations. OPA participation typically varies across racial/ethnic groups and by gender, though little research has examined differences in OPA among college students. A cross-sectional, online survey of college students examined demographics and OPA. Participants (n = 3739) were predominately Non-Hispanic White (77.1%) and female (57.8%) aged 20.97 ± 1.52. Employed students reported greater total PA compared with non-employed students. Males reported significantly greater vigorous OPA, overall OPA, and total PA compared with females. Among employed students, OPA contributed significantly to overall PA levels. Males reported significantly greater OPA compared with females and there were several significant differences by race/ethnicity. Academic performance was related to OPA. These findings provide some insight on the OPA levels of a population group that has not been thoroughly examined. |
5,451 | Sexually mediated phenotypic variation within and between sexes as a continuum structured by ecology: The mosaic nature of skeletal variation across body regions in Threespine stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) | Ecological character displacement between the sexes, and sexual selection, integrate into a convergent set of factors that produce sexual variation. Ecologically modulated, sexually mediated variation within and between sexes may be a major contributor to the amount of total variation that selection can act on in species. Threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) display rapid adaptive responses and sexual variation in many phenotypic traits. We examined phenotypic variation in the skull, pectoral and pelvic girdles of threespine stickleback from two freshwater and two coastal marine sites on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada, using an approach that avoids a priori assumptions about bimodal patterns of variation. We quantified shape and size of the cranial, pectoral and pelvic regions of sticklebacks in marine and freshwater habitats using 3D geometric morphometrics and an index of sexually mediated variation. We show that the expression of phenotypic variation is structured in part by the effects of both habitat marine vs freshwater and the effects of individual sites within each habitat. Relative size exerts variable influence, and patterns of phenotypic variation associated with sex vary among body regions. This fine-grained quantification of sexually mediated variation in the context of habitat difference and different anatomical structures indicates a complex relationship between genetically inferred sex and environmental factors, demonstrating that the interplay between shared genetic background and sexually mediated, ecologically based selective pressures structures the phenotypic expression of complex traits. |
5,452 | G-mean based extreme learning machine for imbalance learning | Although extreme learning machine (ELM) provides better generalization performance at a much faster learning speed than traditional learning algorithms, the classical ELM can not obtain ideal results for the imbalanced data problem. In this paper, in order to conquer the learning capability of the classical ELM for an imbalance data learning, we define a new cost function of ELM optimization problem based on G-mean widely used as evaluation metric in imbalance data learning. We perform experiments on standard classification datasets which consist of 58 binary datasets and 11 multi-class datasets with the different degrees of the imbalance ratio. Experimental results show that proposed algorithm can improve the classification performance significantly compared with other state-of-the-art methods. We also demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can achieve high accuracy in representation learning by performing experiments on YouTube-8M with feature representation from convolutional neural networks. Statistical results indicate that the proposed approach not only outperforms the classical ELM, but also yields better or at least competitive results compared with several state-of-the-art class imbalance learning approaches. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
5,453 | Community Cooperative: A New Legal Form for Enhancing Social Capital for the Development of Renewable Energy Communities in Italy | This paper investigates the suitability of the community cooperatives (CC) model for the implementation of renewable energy communities (REC), as prescribed by art. 22 of EU Directive 2018/2001, and temporarily transposed into the Italian law by art. 42-bis of the Law Decree n. 162/2019. The hypothesis explored analyses the potential synergies between RECs and CC, based on their similarities. In particular, the article takes into consideration: the actors involved in both the RECs and the CCs; the geographical scope in which they develop, and the purposes that these two legal forms intended to achieve. Through a literature review and the analysis of EU, national and regional legislations, the paper aims at (1) clarifying the main features of RECs and the CCs in Italy; (2) exploring the main differences between CCs and the other legal forms of cooperative (e.g., mutual cooperative, cooperative benefit, etc.) and assessing the extent to which CCs are more suitable to implement renewable energy communities. As a result of the literature and regulatory review, several similarities between CCs and RECs can be detected, particularly, in reference to the strategic valorization of the cooperation between citizens and the local public entities. These similarities allow the authors to provisionally conclude that, in Italy, CCs may be adopted as a tool to implement RECs. |
5,454 | Video Stylization: Painterly Rendering and Optimization With Content Extraction | We present an interactive video stylization system for transforming an input video into a painterly animation. The system consists of two phases: a content extraction phase to obtain semantic objects, i.e., recognized content, in a video and establish dense feature correspondences, and a painterly rendering phase to select, place, and propagate brush strokes for stylized animations based on the semantic content and object motions derived from the first phase. Compared with the previous work, the proposed method has the following three advantages. First, we propose a two-pass rendering strategy and brush strokes with mixed colors in order to render expressive visual effects. Second, the brush strokes are warped according to global object deformations, so that the strokes appear to be naturally attached to the object surfaces. Third, we propose a deferred rendering and backward completion method to draw brush strokes on emerging regions and simulate a damped system to reduce stroke scintillation effect. Moreover, we discuss the graphics processing unit-based implementation of our system, which is demonstrated to greatly improve the efficiency of producing stylized videos. In experiments, we verify this system by applying it to a number of video clips to produce expressive oil-painting animations and compare it with the state-of-the-art approaches. |
5,455 | A novel grey prediction model with a feedforward neural network based on a carbon emission dynamic evolution system and its application | The objective and accurate prediction of carbon dioxide emissions holds great significance for improving governmental energy policies and plans. Therefore, starting from an evolutionary system of carbon emissions, this paper studies the evolution of the system, establishes a grey model of the system, and expands the modeling structure of this model. The modeling mechanism of the classical feedforward neural network model is organically combined with the function of the external influencing factors of carbon emissions, and the grey model of the carbon emission dynamic system is established with a neural network. Then, the properties of the model are studied, the parameters of the model are optimized, and the modeling steps are obtained. Finally, the validity of the model is analyzed by using the carbon emissions of Beijing from 2009 to 2018. The results of the four cases show that the simulation and prediction errors of the new model are all less than 10%, and case 1 shows the best results of 1.56% and 2.07%, respectively, which are used to predict the carbon dioxide emissions in the next 5 years in Beijing. The prediction results are in accordance with the actual trend, which indicates the effectiveness and feasibility of the model. |
5,456 | Father's involvement and its effect on early breastfeeding practices in Viet Nam | Fathers have an important but often neglected role in the promotion of healthy breastfeeding practices in developing countries. A community-based education intervention was designed to mobilize fathers' support for early breastfeeding. This study aimed to evaluate an education intervention targeting fathers to increase the proportion of early breastfeeding initiation and to reduce prelacteal feeding. Quasi-experimental study design was used to compare intervention and control areas located in two non-adjacent rural districts that shared similar demographic and health service characteristics in northern Viet Nam. Fathers and expectant fathers with pregnant wives from 7 to 30 weeks gestational age were recruited. Fathers in the intervention area received breastfeeding education materials, counselling services at a commune health centre and household visits. They were also invited to participate in a breastfeeding promotion social event. After intervention, early breastfeeding initiation rate was 81.2% in the intervention area and 39.6% in the control area (P < 0.001). Babies in the intervention area were more likely to be breastfed within the first hour after birth [odds ratio (OR) 7.64, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.81-12.12] and not to receive any prelacteal feeding (OR 4.43, 95% CI 2.88-6.82) compared with those in the control area. Fathers may positively influence the breastfeeding practices of mothers, and as a resource for early childcare, they can be mobilized in programmes aimed at improving the early initiation of breastfeeding. |
5,457 | Self-Augmentation Based on Noise-Robust Probabilistic Model for Noisy Labels | Learning deep neural networks from noisy labels is challenging, because high-capacity networks attempt to describe data even with noisy class labels. In this study, we propose a self-augmentation method without additional parameters, which handles noisy labeled data based on small-loss criteria. To this end, we use small-loss samples by introducing a noise-robust probabilistic model based on a Gaussian mixture model (GMM), in which small-loss samples follow class-conditional Gaussian distributions. With this sample augmentation using the GMM-based probabilistic model, we can effectively solve over-parameterization problems induced by label inconsistency in small-loss samples. We further enhance the quality of the small-loss samples using our data-adaptive selection strategy. Consequently, our method prevents networks from over-parameterization and enhances their generalization performance. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods for learning with noisy labels on several benchmark datasets. The proposed method produced a remarkable performance gap of up to 12% compared with the previous state-of-the-art methods on CIFAR dataset. |
5,458 | Image Reconstruction in Electrical Impedance Tomography Based on Structure-Aware Sparse Bayesian Learning | Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is developed to investigate the internal conductivity changes of an object through a series of boundary electrodes, and has become increasingly attractive in a broad spectrum of applications. However, the design of optimal tomography image reconstruction algorithms has not achieved the adequate level of progress and matureness. In this paper, we propose an efficient and high-resolution EIT image reconstruction method in the framework of sparse Bayesian learning. Significant performance improvement is achieved by imposing structure-aware priors on the learning process to incorporate the prior knowledge that practical conductivity distribution maps exhibit clustered sparsity and intracluster continuity. The proposed method not only achieves high-resolution estimation and preserves the shape information even in low signal-to-noise ratio scenarios but also avoids the time-consuming parameter tuning process. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated through comparisons with state-of-the-art techniques using extensive numerical simulation and phantom experiment results. Index |
5,459 | Assessing Team Effectiveness by How Players Structure Their Search in a First-Person Multiplayer Video Game | People working as a team can achieve more than when working alone due to a team's ability to parallelize the completion of tasks. In collaborative search tasks, this necessitates the formation of effective division of labor strategies to minimize redundancies in search. For such strategies to be developed, team members need to perceive the task's relevant components and how they evolve over time, as well as an understanding of what others will do so that they can structure their own behavior to contribute to the team's goal. This study explored whether the capacity for team members to coordinate effectively can be related to how participants structure their search behaviors in an online multiplayer collaborative search task. Our results demonstrated that the structure of search behavior, quantified using detrended fluctuation analysis, was sensitive to contextual factors that limit a participant's ability to gather information. Further, increases in the persistence of movement fluctuations during search behavior were found as teams developed more effective coordinative strategies and were associated with better task performance. |
5,460 | Immune function of the serosa in hemimetabolous insect eggs | Insects comprise more than a million species and many authors have attempted to explain this success by evolutionary innovations. A much overlooked evolutionary novelty of insects is the serosa, an extraembryonic epithelium around the yolk and embryo. We have shown previously that this epithelium provides innate immune protection to eggs of the beetle Tribolium castaneum. It remained elusive, however, whether this immune competence evolved in the Tribolium lineage or is ancestral to all insects. Here, we expand our studies to two hemimetabolous insects, the bug Oncopeltus fasciatus and the swarming grasshopper Locusta migratoria. For Oncopeltus, RNA sequencing reveals an extensive response upon infection, including the massive upregulation of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). We demonstrate antimicrobial activity of these peptides using in vitro bacterial growth assays and describe two novel AMP families called Serosins and Ovicins. For both insects, quantitative polymerase chain reaction shows immune competence of the eggs when the serosa is present, and in situ hybridizations demonstrate that immune gene expression is localized in the serosa. This first evidence from hemimetabolous insect eggs suggests that immune competence is an ancestral property of the serosa. The evolutionary origin of the serosa with its immune function might have facilitated the spectacular radiation of the insects. This article is part of the theme issue 'Extraembryonic tissues: exploring concepts, definitions and functions across the animal kingdom'. |
5,461 | End-to-End Learning for Omnidirectional Stereo Matching With Uncertainty Prior | In this paper, we propose a novel end-to-end deep neural network model for omnidirectional depth estimation from a wide-baseline multi-view stereo setup. The images captured with ultra-wide field-of-view cameras on an omnidirectional rig are processed by the feature extraction module, and then the deep feature maps are warped onto the concentric spheres swept through all candidate depths using the calibrated camera parameters. The 3D encoder-decoder block takes the aligned feature volume to produce an omnidirectional depth estimate with regularization on uncertain regions utilizing the global context information. For more accurate depth estimation we also propose an uncertainty prior guidance in two ways: depth map filtering and guiding regularization. In addition, we present large-scale synthetic datasets for training and testing omnidirectional multi-view stereo algorithms. Our datasets consist of 13K ground-truth depth maps and 53K fisheye images in four orthogonal directions with various objects and environments. Experimental results show that the proposed method generates excellent results in both synthetic and real-world environments, and it outperforms the prior art and the omnidirectional versions of the state-of-the-art conventional stereo algorithms. |
5,462 | Comparison of reconstruction algorithm for compressive sensing magnetic resonance imaging | Compressed sensing can reconstruct the undersampled image. The combination of compressed sensing and magnetic resonance imaging is a potential future fast imaging method in hospitals. This study investigated five state-of-the-art reconstruction approaches: iterative shrinkage/threshold algorithm (ISTA), fast ISTA, subband-adaptive ISTA, exponential wavelet transform ISTA, and exponential wavelet ISTA with random search (EWISTARS). The simulation results compared the five algorithms over hand image and shoulder image. Finally, we can observe the EWISTARS obtains the best result. |
5,463 | Honeycomb-Type TiO2 Films Toward a High Tolerance to Optical Paths for Perovskite Solar Cells | Given the advantages of high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), antisolvent-step free production, and suitability for device production in ambient conditions, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) based on ionic-liquid solvents have attained particular research interest. To further improve device performance, light management could be optimized to increase light harvesting in the perovskite layer. Here, ordered honeycomb-like TiO2 (Hc-TiO2 ) structures with a periodicity of around 450 nm were fabricated through a sacrificial template method. With this photonic crystal structure, the control to light flow and the confinement effect for perovskite growth were achieved simultaneously in the Hc-TiO2 , leading to improved light absorption as well as preferred crystal orientation. Furthermore, a reduced trap-state density and a well-aligned energy level induced by the perovskite/pore interlayer facilitated the charge-carrier extraction from the perovskite layer to electron transport layer. As a result, the structured devices performed better than the planar cells. And the angular dependent J-V sweeps show that the structured device reserved 76 % of its initial short circuit current density (Jsc ), whereas the planar cell showed more than a half loss under the incident light of 40°, demonstrating a reduced downward trend in Jsc with the presence of photonic crystal structures. This occurrence also suggests that the structured PSCs in this work have a high tolerance to optical path changes. |
5,464 | Brain Metabolic DNA: A Long Story and Some Conclusions | We have previously outlined the main properties of brain metabolic DNA (BMD) and its involvement in circadian oscillations, learning, and post-trial sleep. The presence of BMD in certain subcellular fractions and their behavior in cesium gradients have suggested that BMD originates from cytoplasmic reverse transcription and subsequently acquires a double-stranded configuration. More recently, it has been reported that some DNA sequences of cytoplasmic BMD in learning mice are different from that of the control animals. Furthermore, BMD is located in vicinity of the genes involved in different modifications of synaptic activity, suggesting that BMD may contribute to the brain's response to the changing environment. The present review outlines recent data with a special emphasis on reverse transcription of BMD that may recapitulate the molecular events at the time of the "RNA world" by activating mitochondrial telomerase and generating RNA templates from mitochondrial transcripts. The latter unexpected role of mitochondria is likely to promote a better understanding of mitochondrial contribution to cellular interactions and eukaryotic evolution. An initial step regards the role of human mitochondria in embryonic BMD synthesis, which is exclusively of maternal origin. In addition, mitochondrial transcripts involved in reverse transcription of BMD might possibly reveal unexpected features elucidating mitochondrial involvement in cancer events and neurodegenerative disorders. |
5,465 | Malaria metrics distribution under global warming: assessment of the VECTRI malaria model over Cameroon | Malaria is a critical health issue across the world and especially in Africa. Studies based on dynamical models helped to understand inter-linkages between this illness and climate. In this study, we evaluated the ability of the VECTRI community vector malaria model to simulate the spread of malaria in Cameroon using rainfall and temperature data from FEWS-ARC2 and ERA-interim, respectively. In addition, we simulated the model using five results of the dynamical downscaling of the regional climate model RCA4 within two time frames named near future (2035-2065) and far future (2071-2100), aiming to explore the potential effects of global warming on the malaria propagation over Cameroon. The evaluated metrics include the risk maps of the entomological inoculation rate (EIR) and the parasite ratio (PR). During the historical period (1985-2005), the model satisfactorily reproduces the observed PR and EIR. Results of projections reveal that under global warming, heterogeneous changes feature the study area, with localized increases or decreases in PR and EIR. As the level of radiative forcing increases (from 2.6 to 8.5 W.m-2), the magnitude of change in PR and EIR also gradually intensifies. The occurrence of transmission peaks is projected in the temperature range of 26-28 °C. Moreover, PR and EIR vary depending on the three agro-climatic regions of the study area. VECTRI still needs to integrate other aspects of disease transmission, such as population mobility and intervention strategies, in order to be more relevant to support actions of decision-makers and policy makers. |
5,466 | A Universal Framework of Spatiotemporal Bias Block for Long-Term Traffic Forecasting | Recent studies have demonstrated the great success of graph convolutional networks in short-term traffic forecasting (e.g., 15-30 min ahead) tasks by capturing dependencies in road network structure. Based on these models, long-term forecasting can be achieved by two approaches: (1) recursively generating a one-step-ahead prediction and (2) adapting the models to sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) learning. However, in practice, these two approaches often show poor performance in long-term forecasting tasks. The recursive approach suffers from the error accumulation problem, as the model is trained based on one-step-ahead loss. On the other hand, seq2seq shows convergence issues that limit its application. To address the issues for long-term forecasting, in this paper, we propose a universal framework that directly transforms any existing state-of-the-art models for one-step-ahead prediction to achieve more accurate long-term forecasting. The proposed framework consists of two components--a base model and a bias block. The base model is assumed to be a well-trained state-of-the-art one-step-ahead forecasting model, and the bias block is constructed by a spatiotemporal graph neural network composed of gated temporal convolution layers and graph convolution layers. The base model and the bias block are residually-connected so that we can substantially reduce the training complexity. Extensive experiments are conducted on existing benchmark datasets. We experiment with several state-of-the-art models in the literature as base models, and our results demonstrate the ability of the proposed universal framework to greatly improve the long-term prediction accuracy for all models. |
5,467 | Leptospirosis Infection Misdiagnosed as COVID-19: A Rare Case Report | Leptospirosis is an acute, febrile, systemic, and zoonotic infectious disease characterized by widespread vasculitis caused by Leptospira interrogans from the leptospira family. It can be in the form of asymptomatic infection; it can also progress with severe symptomatic forms characterized by multiorgan involvement such as aseptic meningitis as well as liver and kidney failure. Leptospirosis is transmitted to humans through water, soil, and food contaminated with the urine of infected mice or other mammals. COVID-19 is a newly detected coronavirus that causes pneumonia. The disease has led to a pandemic all over the world. In this case report, we aimed to draw attention to leptospirosis infection in the presence of a case who was followed up with the differential diagnosis of COVID-19 and diagnosed with leptospirosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Leptospirosis is one of the diagnoses that should be kept in mind in especially developing countries in patients presenting with findings that may be confused with COVID-19 during the pandemic period. |
5,468 | Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar image segmentation by convolutional neural network using graphical processing units | Image segmentation is an important application of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar. This study aimed to create an 11-layer deep convolutional neural network for this task. The Pauli decomposition formed the RGB image and was used as the input. We created an 11-layer convolutional neural network (CNN). L-band data over the San Francisco bay area and C-band data over Flevoland area were employed as the dataset. For the San Francisco bay PSAR image, our method achieved an overall accuracy of 97.32%, which was at least 2% superior to four state-of-the-art approaches. We provided the confusion matrix over test area, and the kernel visualization. We compared the max pooling and average pooling. We validated by experiment that four convolution layers perform the best. Besides, our method gave better results than AlexNet. The GPU yields a 173x acceleration on the training samples, and a 181x acceleration on the test samples, compared to standard CPU. For the Flevoland PSAR image, our 11-layer CNN also gives better overall accuracy than five state-of-the-art approaches. The convolutional neural network is better than traditional classifiers and is effective in remote sensing image segmentation. |
5,469 | Discovery of a new genus of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria with a mechanism for oxygen tolerance | In the past 20 years, there has been a major stride in understanding the core mechanism of anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria, but there are still several discussion points on their survival strategies. Here, we discovered a new genus of anammox bacteria in a full-scale wastewater-treating biofilm system, tentatively named "Candidatus Loosdrechtia aerotolerans". Next to genes of all core anammox metabolisms, it encoded and transcribed genes involved in the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA), which coupled to oxidation of small organic acids, could be used to replenish ammonium and sustain their metabolism. Surprisingly, it uniquely harbored a new ferredoxin-dependent nitrate reductase, which has not yet been found in any other anammox genome and might confer a selective advantage to it in nitrate assimilation. Similar to many other microorganisms, superoxide dismutase and catalase related to oxidative stress resistance were encoded and transcribed by "Ca. Loosdrechtia aerotolerans". Interestingly, bilirubin oxidase (BOD), likely involved in oxygen resistance of anammox bacteria under fluctuating oxygen concentrations, was identified in "Ca. Loosdrechtia aerotolerans" and four Ca. Brocadia genomes, and its activity was demonstrated using purified heterologously expressed proteins. A following survey of oxygen-active proteins in anammox bacteria revealed the presence of other previously undetected oxygen defense systems. The novel cbb3-type cytochrome c oxidase and bifunctional catalase-peroxidase may confer a selective advantage to Ca. Kuenenia and Ca. Scalindua that face frequent changes in oxygen concentrations. The discovery of this new genus significantly broadens our understanding of the ecophysiology of anammox bacteria. Furthermore, the diverse oxygen tolerance strategies employed by distinct anammox bacteria advance our understanding of their niche adaptability and provide valuable insight for the operation of anammox-based wastewater treatment systems. |
5,470 | [Research and Application of Seismic Performance of Medical Imaging Equipment] | In view of the shortage of research on the seismic performance of medical imaging equipment, this paper investigates and summarizes the seismic regulatory requirements and seismic tests of medical imaging equipment, and focuses on the parameter selection, detection steps, result evaluation and detection equipment requirements of seismic detection of medical imaging equipment. The seismic test data of medical imaging equipment with various installation modes are analyzed, and the seismic performance of medical imaging equipment is analyzed and summarized. |
5,471 | Wireless Architectures for Heterogeneous Sensing in Smart Home Applications: Concepts and Real Implementation | Application of wireless technologies in the smart home is dealt with by pointing out advantages and limitations of available approaches for the solution of heterogeneous and coexisting problems related to the distributed monitoring of the home and the inhabitants. Some hot challenges facing the exploitation of noninvasive wireless devices for user behavior monitoring are then addressed and the application fields of smart power management and elderly people monitoring are chosen as representative cases where the estimation of user activities improves the potential of location-aware services in the smart home. The problem of user localization is considered with great care to minimize the invasiveness of the monitoring system. Wireless architectures are reviewed and discussed as flexible and transparent tools toward the paradigm of a totally automatic/autonomic environment. With respect to available state-of-the-art solutions, our proposed architecture is based also on existing wireless devices and exploits, in an opportunistic way, the characteristics of wireless signals to estimate the presence, the movements, and the behaviors of inhabitants, reducing the system complexity and costs. Selected and representative examples from real implementations are presented to give some insight on state-of-the-art solutions also envisaging possible future trends. |
5,472 | SNPSFuzzer: A Fast Greybox Fuzzer for Stateful Network Protocols Using Snapshots | Greybox fuzzing has been widely used in stateless programs and has achieved great success. However, most state-of-the-art greybox fuzzers have slow speed and shallow state depth coverage in fuzzing stateful network protocol programs, which are able to remember and store the details of interactions. The existing greybox fuzzers for network protocol programs first send a series of well-defined prefix sequences of input messages and then send mutated messages to test the target state of a stateful network protocol. This process leads to a high time cost. In this paper, we propose SNPSFuzzer, a fast greybox fuzzer for stateful network protocols using snapshots. SNPSFuzzer dumps the context information when the network protocol program is in a specific state and restores it when the state needs to be fuzzed. Furthermore, we design a message chain analysis algorithm to explore more and deeper network protocol states. Our evaluation shows that compared with the state-of-the-art network protocol greybox fuzzer AFLNET, SNPSFuzzer improves the message processing speed of network protocol fuzzing by 70.7% and increases the path coverage by 20.9% on average within 24 hours. Moreover, SNPSFuzzer exposes a previously unreported vulnerability in the program Tinydtls. |
5,473 | Dynamic interplay and function of multiple noncoding genes governing X chromosome inactivation | There is increasing evidence for the emergence of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) as important components, especially in the regulation of gene expression. In the event of X chromosome inactivation, robust epigenetic marks are established in a long noncoding Xist RNA-dependent manner, giving rise to a distinct epigenetic landscape on the inactive X chromosome (Xi). The X inactivation center (Xic) is essential for induction of X chromosome inactivation and harbors two topologically associated domains (TADs) to regulate monoallelic Xist expression: one at the noncoding Xist gene and its upstream region, and the other at the antisense Tsix and its upstream region. The monoallelic expression of Xist is tightly regulated by these two functionally distinct TADs as well as their constituting lncRNAs and proteins. In this review, we summarize recent updates in our knowledge of lncRNAs found at the Xic and discuss their overall mechanisms of action. We also discuss our current understanding of the molecular mechanism behind Xist RNA-mediated induction of the repressive epigenetic landscape at the Xi. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Clues to long noncoding RNA taxonomy1, edited by Dr. Tetsuro Hirose and Dr. Shinichi Nakagawa. |
5,474 | Decentralized Proximal Gradient Algorithms With Linear Convergence Rates | This article studies a class of nonsmooth decentralized multiagent optimization problems where the agents aim at minimizing a sum of local strongly-convex smooth components plus a common nonsmooth term. We propose a general primal-dual algorithmic framework that unifies many existing state-of-the-art algorithms. We establish linear convergence of the proposed method to the exact minimizer in the presence of the nonsmooth term. Moreover, for the more general class of problems with agent specific nonsmooth terms, we show that linear convergence cannot be achieved (in the worst case) for the class of algorithms that uses the gradients and the proximal mappings of the smooth and nonsmooth parts, respectively. We further provide a numerical counterexample that shows how some state-of-the-art algorithms fail to converge linearly for strongly convex objectives and different local non smooth terms. |
5,475 | A meta-analysis of simulator sickness as a function of simulator fidelity | Driving simulators are an increasingly important tool to develop vehicle functionalities and to study driver or passenger responses. A major hindrance to the use and validity of such studies is Simulator Sickness (SS). Several studies have suggested a positive relation between improvements in simulator fidelity and the likelihood of sickness. We hypothesized that this relation only holds true for static (fixed-base) simulators, and that increased fidelity in fact reduces simulator sickness in dynamic (moving-base) simulators. We performed a meta-analysis investigating the relation between sickness and fidelity in static and dynamic systems. A literature search yielded a total of 41 simulator studies that varied aspects of mechanical and/or visual fidelity and assessed SS for the same driving conditions and the same or equivalent participant groups. Evaluation of a model synthesizing the findings of these studies indicates that SS decreases with visual fidelity, and suggests that this effect may be negated for static simulators. The results of the modeling efforts thereby provide some support for the hypothesis that increased fidelity can reduce SS in dynamic simulators. Based on the evaluation of the literature we also note particular shortcomings and gaps in available research. Finally, we make recommendations for specific experiments that may fill these gaps and allow definitive conclusions on the role of simulator fidelity in SS. |
5,476 | Forest based on Interval Transformation (FIT): A time series classifier with adaptive features | Time series classification (TSC) is an important task in time series data mining and has attracted a lot of research attention. Most TSC algorithms aim to achieve high classification accuracy while reducing the computational complexity. Currently, Time Series Combination of Heterogeneous and Integrated Embedding Forest (TS-CHIEF) is considered to be one of the state-of-the-art TSC algorithms. However, compared with fast algorithms such as Time Series Forest (TSF), TS-CHIEF still has high computation cost. On the premise that the TSF algorithm is fast, we propose a new TSC algorithm, Forest based on Interval Transformation (called FIT), which takes into account both accuracy and efficiency. FIT uses cross-validation to select appropriate transformation series and corresponding interval features, and adaptively converts the interval features of each series in the process of formal training. Subsequently, the transformed feature set is combined with the random forest training FIT model. We evaluate the performance of FIT on 85 UCR time series classification datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that FIT can achieve better accuracy while maintaining high efficiency compared with the state-of-the-art methods. |
5,477 | Crack Detection in Paintings Using Convolutional Neural Networks | The accurate detection of cracks in paintings, which generally portray rich and varying content, is a challenging task. Traditional crack detection methods are often lacking on recent acquisitions of paintings as they are poorly adapted to high-resolutions and do not make use of the other imaging modalities often at hand. Furthermore, many paintings portray a complex or cluttered composition, significantly complicating a precise detection of cracks when using only photographic material. In this paper, we propose a fast crack detection algorithm based on deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) that is capable of combining several imaging modalities, such as regular photographs, infrared photography and X-Ray images. Moreover, we propose an efficient solution to improve the CNN-based localization of the actual crack boundaries and extend the CNN architecture such that areas where it makes little sense to run expensive learning models are ignored. This allows us to process large resolution scans of paintings more efficiently. The proposed on-line method is capable of continuously learning from newly acquired visual data, thus further improving classification results as more data becomes available. A case study on multimodal acquisitions of the <italic>Ghent Altarpiece</italic>, taken during the currently ongoing conservation-restoration treatment, shows improvements over the state-of-the-art in crack detection methods and demonstrates the potential of our proposed method in assisting art conservators. |
5,478 | Face alignment using a 3D deeply-initialized ensemble of regression tress | Face alignment algorithms locate a set of landmark points in images of faces taken in unrestricted situations. State-of-the-art approaches typically fail or lose accuracy in the presence of occlusions, strong deformations, large pose variations and ambiguous configurations. In this paper we present 3DDE, a robust and efficient face alignment algorithm based on a coarse-to-fine cascade of ensembles of regression trees. It is initialized by robustly fitting a 3D face model to the probability maps produced by a convolutional neural network. With this initialization we address self-occlusions and large face rotations. Further, the regressor implicitly imposes a prior face shape on the solution, addressing occlusions and ambiguous face configurations. Its coarse-to-fine structure tackles the combinatorial explosion of parts deformation. In the experiments performed, 3DDE improves the state-of-the-art in 300W, COFW, AFLW and WFLW data sets. Finally, we perform cross-dataset experiments that reveal the existence of a significant data set bias in these benchmarks. |
5,479 | Association analysis of PLIN2 gene polymorphisms and lambing performance in Qianbei Ma goats | Qianbei Ma goats are one of the three most valued local goat breeds in Guizhou, China; furthermore, it has lower litter size performance. The purpose of this study was to explore the correlation between SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) of PLIN2 gene and lambing performance. The bioinformatics analysis, DNA sequencing, RT-qPCR and correlation analysis methods were used to analyse the evolutionary relationship of PLIN2 protein in 13 species, to detect the expression pattern of PLIN2 gene in the gonad axis of Qianbei sheep, to explore the dominant genotype of PLIN2 related to lambing traits and to screen molecular markers related to lambing performance to guide the breeding of Qianbei Ma goats. Results showed that the Qianbei Ma goat PLIN2 protein had the closest genetic relationship with sheep and the furthest from mice, there were significant or extremely significant differences in the expression levels of the PLIN2 gene in the gonadal axis of the mothers of single- and multi-lamb groups. Compared with the reference sequence, four SNPs were found, which were g.1006 C → A and g.1171 A → G in the first and second intron regions of the PLIN2 gene, g.8514 C → T in the exon 8 region and g.9122 A → T in the 3'UTR. The correlation analysis showed that g.1006 C → A, g.8514 C → T and g.9122 A → T had significant indigenous effects on the lambing performance of Qianbei Ma goats (p < .05). The number of third births for diploid H2H5 was significantly higher than that of diploid H1H2, and the number of first to third births for diploid H2H5 was large and stable. The results showed that PLIN2 gene could be used as a candidate gene related to lambing traits of Qianbei Ma goat. |
5,480 | Effects of the learning tasks and the leadership profile of the coach on the perception of decision-making in young | The objective of the research was to investigate the effects of the learning tasks and leadership profile of the coach on the subjective perception of decision-making. In total, 910 Brazilian adolescents (14.00 ± 1.8 years) and 57 Brazilian coaches (45.57 ± 7.25 years) were included in the study, participants of a sports program in 37 public schools in the city of Curitiba in the state of Paraná. Ordinal logistic regression was used to verify the independent associations between the variables and the tertiles of the scores for each decision-making characteristic. The small-sized game learning tasks were positively associated with commitment to decision-making learning (CR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.01-1.49). Positive associations were also found between the coaches' leadership profile and decision-making competence. |
5,481 | A new Aurignacian engraving from Abri Blanchard, France: Implications for understanding Aurignacian graphic expression in Western and Central Europe | In the excitement of the widely publicized new finds of Aurignacian art from Chauvet, from the Swabian Jura and from as far afield as Pestera Coliboaia in Romania, it has almost been forgotten that a rich corpus of Aurignacian wall painting, engraving and bas-relief sculpture had been recognized and studied before World War I in the Vezere Valley of SW France. Scientific knowledge of the chronological and cultural context of that early-discovered graphic record has been limited by the crude archaeological methods of that pioneering era, and the loss and dispersal of many of the works discovered. In 2011, we launched new excavations and a re-analysis of one of the key sites for such early discoveries, the collapsed rock shelter of Abri Blanchard. In 2012, we discovered in situ a limestone slab engraved with a complex composition combining an aurochs and dozens of aligned punctuations. This new find, recovered by modern methods and dated by molecular filtration and Hydroxyproline 14C, provides new information on the context and dating of Aurignacian graphic imagery in SW France and its relationship to that of other regions. The support is not a fragment of collapsed shelter ceiling and is situated in the midst of quotidian occupational debris. The image shows significant technical and thematic similarities to Chauvet that are reinforced by our reanalysis of engraved slabs from the older excavations at Blanchard. The aligned punctuations find their counterparts at Chauvet, in the south German sites and on several other objects from Blanchard and surrounding Aurignacian sites. In sum, we argue that dispersing Aurignacian groups show a broad commonality in graphic expression against which a certain number of more regionalized characteristics stand out, a pattern that fits well with social geography models that focus on the material construction of identity at regional, group and individual levels. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. |
5,482 | A comprehensive survey of the approaches for pathway analysis using multi-omics data integration | Pathway analysis has been widely used to detect pathways and functions associated with complex disease phenotypes. The proliferation of this approach is due to better interpretability of its results and its higher statistical power compared with the gene-level statistics. A plethora of pathway analysis methods that utilize multi-omics setup, rather than just transcriptomics or proteomics, have recently been developed to discover novel pathways and biomarkers. Since multi-omics gives multiple views into the same problem, different approaches are employed in aggregating these views into a comprehensive biological context. As a result, a variety of novel hypotheses regarding disease ideation and treatment targets can be formulated. In this article, we review 32 such pathway analysis methods developed for multi-omics and multi-cohort data. We discuss their availability and implementation, assumptions, supported omics types and databases, pathway analysis techniques and integration strategies. A comprehensive assessment of each method's practicality, and a thorough discussion of the strengths and drawbacks of each technique will be provided. The main objective of this survey is to provide a thorough examination of existing methods to assist potential users and researchers in selecting suitable tools for their data and analysis purposes, while highlighting outstanding challenges in the field that remain to be addressed for future development. |
5,483 | Ectopic breast carcinoma | Carcinoma of the accessory breast tissue (CABT) is an extremely rare occurrence, representing 0.3% of all breast malignancies. A 65-year-old, postmenopausal woman was referred to our Breast Clinic complaining of a palpable, growing, and painful mass in her right axilla. Physical examination revealed a palpable tender mass, approximately 3 cm in size, visibly infiltrating the overlying skin area, while physical examination of the breast revealed no palpable lesions. Core biopsy of the mass was promptly scheduled, and the histological report came back positive for Nottingham Grade II NST invasive carcinoma of the breast. The patient underwent breast-conserving surgery and concomitant axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for removal of the malignant mass. Care was taken to preserve the axillary vein and the long thoracic nerve. Closure of the axillary incision required mobilization of skin flaps to ensure optimal cosmetic results. Despite the ectopic breast tissue being a largely benign and infrequent occurrence, the breast surgeon must remain vigilant for the possibility of CABT development. At any rate, further epidemiological studies incorporating as many patients as possible are required in order to formulate recommendations on the management and prognosis of CABT. Until such guidelines exist, excision of the carcinoma, along with ALND performance, is a reasonable and justified approach to the surgical treatment of CABT. |
5,484 | The interplay of race/ethnicity and education in fertility patterns | This study examines the interplay between race/ethnicity and educational attainment in shaping completed fertility in the United States for women born 1961-80. Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth, 2006-17, we apply multilevel, multiprocess hazard models to account for unobserved heterogeneity and to estimate (1) cohort total fertility rates, (2) parity progression ratios, and (3) parity-specific fertility timing, for non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic women by educational attainment. We find that compared with their white counterparts, fertility was higher among Black and Hispanic women with less than high school education. However, among college-educated women, fertility levels were lowest among Black women and highest among Hispanic women. The difference in fertility between college-educated Black and white women is driven mainly by the smaller proportion of Black mothers having second births. We find little evidence that the observed racial/ethnic disparities in fertility levels by educational attainment are driven by differences in fertility timing. |
5,485 | Quitting thresholds in visual search are impacted by target present detection times but not their variability | Models of visual search posit that target absent responses occur when the quitting threshold for the trial is reached before a target is detected, and that feedback about missed targets allows the quitting threshold to be adaptively set to the difficulty of the search task. While these models may effectively capture processes in lab-based tasks, in real-world searches feedback is often impossible to provide. Instead, observers have little information about their errors, and may only be aware of when they successfully detect the target. We posit that in the absence of feedback the time required to find a target might influence quitting thresholds. In three experiments, we investigate how manipulating the mean time and the standard deviation of time to detect a target influence quitting thresholds in target absent trials. To vary target detection times while holding the search stimuli constant, we used an eye-movement contingent change to surreptitiously introduce a target near fixation at a particular time. Results show that decreasing the mean time to find a target also decreases the number of items inspected and reaction time in target absent trials, the hallmark of a shift in the quitting threshold. By contrast, varying the standard deviation around a fixed mean had no impact on target absent search times. These findings suggest that people are sensitive to the typical time required to find a target in a given task and use that information to flexibly adjust target absent quitting thresholds, but people are not sensitive to the variability. |
5,486 | A Closed-Form Prediction Update for Extended Target Tracking Using Random Matrices | This paper proposes a new class of state transition models that afford closed-form predictions for the tracking of extended targets. A key innovation is to employ a non-central inverse Wishart distribution to model the state transition density of the target extent. Importantly, this results in a simplified prediction update that is computationally efficient and improves target tracking performance when compared to state-of-the-art alternatives on standard simulation scenarios. |
5,487 | Progressive Multiscale Consistent Network for Multiclass Fundus Lesion Segmentation | Effectively integrating multi-scale information is of considerable significance for the challenging multi-class segmentation of fundus lesions because different lesions vary significantly in scales and shapes. Several methods have been proposed to successfully handle the multi-scale object segmentation. However, two issues are not considered in previous studies. The first is the lack of interaction between adjacent feature levels, and this will lead to the deviation of high-level features from low-level features and the loss of detailed cues. The second is the conflict between the low-level and high-level features, this occurs because they learn different scales of features, thereby confusing the model and decreasing the accuracy of the final prediction. In this paper, we propose a progressive multi-scale consistent network (PMCNet) that integrates the proposed progressive feature fusion (PFF) block and dynamic attention block (DAB) to address the aforementioned issues. Specifically, PFF block progressively integrates multi-scale features from adjacent encoding layers, facilitating feature learning of each layer by aggregating fine-grained details and high-level semantics. As features at different scales should be consistent, DAB is designed to dynamically learn the attentive cues from the fused features at different scales, thus aiming to smooth the essential conflicts existing in multi-scale features. The two proposed PFF and DAB blocks can be integrated with the off-the-shelf backbone networks to address the two issues of multi-scale and feature inconsistency in the multi-class segmentation of fundus lesions, which will produce better feature representation in the feature space. Experimental results on three public datasets indicate that the proposed method is more effective than recent state-of-the-art methods. |
5,488 | The applicability of repeat photography in rock art conservation: a case study of mixed methods in the Arkansan Ozarks | Detailed scientific analyses of rock decay and site stability can aid rock art conservation but cultural sensitivity often limits the use of traditional methods, which often require rock samples or other invasive procedures. The need for intuitive non-invasive rock art analysis led to the creation of the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI). While RASI is a validated rock art assessment tool, a primarily quantitative approach can sometimes overlook the aesthetic component of rock art - a characteristic critical to the presentation and perceived value of the resource. Therefore, this research examined the applicability of repeat photography, or rephotography, in addition to RASI providing a more comprehensive approach. This mixed method approach was employed at three different rock art sites in the Arkansan Ozarks of varying lithologies, geographic characteristics, rock art type, and management policies. Results suggest that RASI allows for more consistent and reliable assessments, as rephotography has more restrictions and limitations. Nevertheless, when available, rephotography proved to be an immensely useful addition to quantitative research techniques, such as RASI, to provide heritage management with a more holistic evaluation addressing both geologic stability and changes in visual quality over time. |
5,489 | Self-organizing maps and full GPU parallel approach to graph matching | Graph matching is an essential problem in computer science and communications. It can be applied to a variety of issues such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, and communication systems. In this paper, we propose a new Graphics Processing Unit framework written in CUDA C++ specifically dedicated to geometric graph matching but providing new parallel algorithms, with low computational complexity, as the self-organizing map in the plane, and a distributed local search method. Unlike state-of-the-art graph matching algorithms, available from Matlab platform, that most often need at least O(N2) memory size, with N the problem size, our proposals only require O(N) space and allows massively parallel execution. These parallel algorithms are evaluated and compared to the state-of-the-art methods available for graph matching and following the same experimental protocol. |
5,490 | Attentional biases in human anxiety | Across clinical and subclinical samples, anxiety has been associated with increased attentional capture by cues signaling danger. Various cognitive models attribute the onset and maintenance of anxiety symptoms to maladaptive selective information processing. In this brief review, we 1) describe the evidence for the relations between anxiety and attention bias toward threat, 2) discuss the neurobiology of anxiety-related differences in threat bias, 3) summarize work investigating the developmental origins of attention bias toward threat, and 4) examine efforts to translate threat bias research into clinical intervention. Future directions in each area are discussed, including the use of novel analytic approaches improving characterization of threat-processing-related brain networks, clarifying the role of cognitive control in the development of attention bias toward threat, and the need for larger, well-controlled randomized clinical trials examining moderators and mediators of treatment response. Ultimately, this work has important implications for understanding the etiology of and for intervening on anxiety difficulties among children and adults. |
5,491 | Analyzing the Effects of HDAC Inhibitors on DNA Damage and Associated Cytotoxicity in Primary Hepatocytes | Primary hepatocytes are the gold standard in pharmaco- and toxicokinetic studies during preclinical development of drug candidates. Such cells are a valuable tool to identify potential hepatotoxicity, an important adverse drug reaction. Primary hepatocytes can be obtained not only from wild-type mice but also from genetically engineered knockout mouse strains. Liver perfusion yields murine primary hepatocytes (mpH) with high vitality, expressing an array of metabolic enzymes and transporters that are impaired or even absent in established liver cell lines. Furthermore, mpH display no genetic alterations and are proficient in the DNA damage response pathway. This makes mpH a suitable model to analyze the effects of histone deacetylase inhibitors on DNA damage and cell viability. Here, we report an efficient and fast protocol for the isolation of mpH by liver perfusion. These mpH can be used for downstream applications such as the detection of the DNA damage marker γH2AX by confocal laser scanning microscopy. |
5,492 | Continuous-Time Delta-Sigma Modulators: Tutorial Overview, Design Guide, and State-of-the-Art Survey | This paper presents a tutorial overview of Continuous-Time Delta-Sigma Modulators (CTDSM); their operating principles to understand what is important intuitively and architectures to achieve higher conversion efficiency and to operate low supply voltage, design methods against loop stability problem, tuning methods of the bandwidth and so on. A survey of cutting-edge CMOS implementations is described. |
5,493 | Assessment of Quality of Life in Men Treated for Infertility in Poland | The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life (QoL) of men treated for infertility in Poland. This cross-sectional study was conducted using the Abbreviated World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQoL-BREF), Fertility Quality of Life tool (FertiQoL) and an author-constructed questionnaire. The study included 1200 men treated for infertility without the use of assisted reproductive technology (non-ART), intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF). The control group consisted of 100 healthy men with confirmed fertility. The quality of life assessed by the WHOQoL-BREF questionnaire was significantly lower in study groups in the Environmental domain, compared to the control group (p = 0.009). Statistically significant differences were found in the case of FertiQoL subscales: Emotional, Mind-Body, Relational, and Treatment Environment, depending on applied treatment. Men whose partners were treated without the use of ART assessed their QoL significantly more negatively than those treated with IUI. Reproductive problems and type of their treatment influenced the quality of life of the affected men. Non-ART treatment, rural place of residence, and increased BMI were associated with lower QoL. |
5,494 | Verifiable Outsourced Decryption of Encrypted Data From Heterogeneous Trust Networks | Cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) management services can be utilized to acquire data from devices at any point on Earth. Accordingly, controlling access to data managed by possibly untrusted cloud servers is crucial. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) provides flexible access control and the capability to delegate, facilitating decryption operations with high computationally costs to be outsourced to cloud servers. Earlier studies discussed guarantees to the accuracy of delegated computation through various cryptographic encoding techniques, thus helping data receivers verify the precision of outsourced decryption operations. In this article, we investigate two state-of-the-art schemes addressing verifiable outsourced decryption of encrypted data, and show their vulnerability to our verification bypassing attacks. We then propose a securitywise enhanced encoding scheme that disables such attacks. In addition, a rigorous security analysis is conducted, demonstrating the capabilities of the proposed scheme against bypassing attacks. An experimental analysis finds that the method proposed in this article outperforms the two state-of-the-art works by 82% and 87%, respectively, on the encoding computation cost. |
5,495 | Benzene and toluene influence with or without nitrogen dioxide on inorganic pigments of works of art - Part II | Air pollution has a great impact on the social and economic aspects all over the world. In order to account the human interaction with the atmospheric environment, a suitable scientific basis is needed. That is why six physicochemical quantities have been determined in a previous work for each one heterogeneous system between organic volatile pollutants and oxide-pigments of works of art. This investigation is extended in order to determine experimentally five new ones. Thus, a more precise contribution to the elucidation of the mechanism of the deterioration of various works of art in museums is achieved. These physicochemical quantities are: (1) local adsorption energies, (2) local monolayer capacities, (3) local adsorption isotherms, (4) density probability function, and (5) pollutant concentration on the oxide-pigment at equilibrium. All these adsorption parameters mentioned above have been calculated as a function of experimental time for the systems: C6H6/TiO2, C6H6/NO2/TiO2, C6H6/Cr2O3, C6H6/NO2/Cr2O3, C6H5CH3/TiO2, C6H5CH3/NO2/TiO2, C6H5CH3/Cr2O3, C6H5CH3/NO2/Cr2O3, C6H6/PbO, C6H6/NO2/PbO, C6H5CH3/PbO, and C6H5CH3/NO2/PbO for the first time. Thus, in this work we shall stress the recent new aspect of Reversed Flow(Inverse) Gas Chromatography (RF-CYC or RF-IGC), i.e. the time-resolved chromatography related to the evaluation of some important adsorption parameters. Gas Chromatography is a promising meeting place of surface science and atmospheric chemistry. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
5,496 | Synthesis of Photodegradable Polystyrene with Trithiocarbonate as Linkages | Multiblock polystyrenes (PS) with trithiocarbonate groups as linkages are prepared via reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization using polytrithiocarbonate as a chain transfer agent. The photodegradability of the multiblock PS in the solid state is investigated under UV irradiation at room temperature in an air atmosphere. The experimental results demonstrate that the trithiocarbonate linkages in the multiblock PS can be broken under UV light irradiation at room temperature and the multiblock PS is degraded into separate PS blocks. Gel permeation chromatography measurement reveals that the molecular weight of multiblock PS is reduced from 27 900 to 7900 g mol(-1) after UV light irradiation for 745 h. Moreover, the thermal stability of the multiblock PS is examined and the results indicate that the incorporation of trithiocarbonate shows little influence on the thermal stability of multiblock PS. |
5,497 | Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Late Childhood Frontal EEG Asymmetry, Executive Function, and Adolescent Cognitive Reappraisal | Cognitive reappraisal is adaptive for decreasing symptoms of depression; however, a gap in the research is understanding the childhood processes that contribute to cognitive reappraisal in adolescence. This study examined executive function and frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry during late childhood as predictors of adolescent cognitive reappraisal and depressive symptoms. Data were from 123 participants in late childhood (age 10) and adolescence (age 14.5). A moderated mediation model was fit to the data to examine frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator in the relation between late childhood inhibitory control and adolescent cognitive reappraisal as well as adolescent cognitive reappraisal and adolescent depressive symptoms. Results indicated lower inhibitory control was associated with lower cognitive reappraisal when children had right frontal EEG asymmetry. Lower cognitive reappraisal in turn was associated with higher depressive symptoms for children with right frontal EEG asymmetry. Working memory and cognitive flexibility were also examined but were not significant indicators. Results suggest the potential for targeting inhibitory control and cognitive reappraisal to diminish depressive symptoms particularly among adolescents with right frontal EEG asymmetry. |
5,498 | Synergistic co-digestion of solid-organic-waste and municipal-sewage-sludge: 1 plus 1 equals more than 2 in terms of biogas production and solids reduction | Making good use of existing water infrastructure by adding organic wastes to anaerobic digesters improves the energy balance of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) substantially. This paper explores co-digestion load limits targeting a good trade-off for boosting methane production, and limiting process-drawbacks on nitrogen-return loads, cake-production, solids-viscosity and polymer demand. Bio-methane potential tests using whey as a model co-substrate showed diversification and intensification of the anaerobic digestion process resulting in a synergistical enhancement in sewage sludge methanization. Full-scale case-studies demonstrate organic co-substrate addition of up to 94% of the organic sludge load resulted in tripling of the biogas production. At organic co-substrate addition of up to 25% no significant increase in cake production and only a minor increase in ammonia release of ca. 20% have been observed. Similar impacts were measured at a high-solids digester pilot with up-stream thermal hydrolyses where the organic loading rate was increased by 25% using co-substrate. Dynamic simulations were used to validate the synergistic impact of co-substrate addition on sludge methanization, and an increase in hydrolysis rate from 1.5 d(-1) to 2.5 d(-1) was identified for simulating measured gas production rate. This study demonstrates co-digestion for maximizing synergy as a step towards energy efficiency and ultimately towards carbon neutrality. |
5,499 | Humaine: a ubiquitous smartphone-based user heading estimation for mobile computing systems | Recently, there have been a wide range of mobile computing and crowd-sourcing applications that leverage the proliferating sensing capabilities of smartphones. Many of these place a paramount importance on accurate user heading estimation. Such applications include dead-reckoning-based localization and many crowd-sensing applications where the user typically carry her phone in arbitrary positions and orientations relative to her body and her transportation mode. However, there is no general solution available to estimate the user's heading as current state-of-the-art focus on improving the phone orientation estimation, require the phone to be placed in a particular position, require a fixed transportation mode, require user intervention, and/or do not work accurately indoors. In this paper we present Humaine, a novel ubiquitous system that reliably and accurately estimates the user orientation relative to the Earth coordinate system. Humaine works accurately whether the user is riding a vehicle or walking indoors/outdoors for arbitrary cell phone positions and orientations relative to the user body. Moreover, it requires no prior-configuration nor user intervention. The system intelligently fuses the different inertial sensors widely available in off-the-shelf smartphones and employs statistical analysis techniques to their measurements to estimate the user orientation. Implementation of the system on different Android devices with 300 experiments performed at different indoor and outdoor testbeds shows that Humaine significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art in diverse scenarios, achieving a median accuracy of 14(ay) and 16(ay) for indoor and outdoor pedestrian users and 20(ay) for in-vehicle users over a wide variety of phone positions. This is better than the-state-of-the-art by 523% and 594% for indoor and outdoor pedestrian users and 750% for in-vehicle users. This accuracy highlights the ubiquity of Humaine and its robustness against the various noise sources. |
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