Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Near Surface Kinetic Energy Dissipation and its Relationship to Wavenumber-Directional Properties of Waves

Abstract : It is now established that turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates near the surface are strongly enhanced over "law-of-the-wall" shear layer estimates in conditions of breaking waves. The long term goal of this work is to obtain a parametric description of the vertical structure of kinetic energy dissipation in the near surface zone beneath both breaking and non-breaking waves. The governing parameters include wind forcing, buoyancy flux, depth and wave properties, viz: wave age, wave height and steepness, and degree of wave breaking. Models of the ocean mixed layer have not typically taken the enhanced dissipation into account. Such a parameterization provides ocean modelers with an important boundary condition in coupled atmospheric-oceanic models. A second objective of this work is to determine the effects of sea state on air-sea fluxes. Recent results have shown that the drag coefficient decreases strongly with wave age, and also that the presence of swells affects the wind stress direction, and results in increased scatter in the magnitude of wind stress. Here, we look at quantifying the effect of swell (its wave age, direction and energy relative to the wind sea) on the stress magnitude, with the goal of explaining some of the high variability typical of field results, especially at lower wind speeds.
SARS-CoV-2 Genetic Diversity and Lineage Dynamics in Egypt during the First 18 Months of the Pandemic

COVID-19 was first diagnosed in Egypt on 14 February 2020. By the end of November 2021, over 333,840 cases and 18,832 deaths had been reported. As part of the national genomic surveillance, 1027 SARS-CoV-2 near whole-genomes were generated and published by the end of July 2021. Here we describe the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Egypt over this period using a subset of 976 high-quality Egyptian genomes analyzed together with a representative set of global sequences within a phylogenetic framework. A single lineage, C.36, introduced early in the pandemic was responsible for most of the cases in Egypt. Furthermore, to remain dominant in the face of mounting immunity from previous infections and vaccinations, this lineage acquired several mutations known to confer an adaptive advantage. These results highlight the value of continuous genomic surveillance in regions where VOCs are not predominant and the need for enforcement of public health measures to prevent expansion of the existing lineages.
What Causes Delays in Admission to Rehabilitation Care? A Structural Estimation Approach

Problem definition: Delays in admission to rehabilitation care can adversely impact patient outcomes. In addition, delayed patients keep occupying their acute care beds, making them unavailable for incoming patients. Admission delays are mainly caused by a lack of rehabilitation bed capacity and the time required to plan for rehabilitation activities, which we refer to as processing times. Because of non-standard bed allocation decisions and data limitations in practice, quantifying the magnitude of the two sources of delays can be technically challenging yet critical to the design of evidence-based interventions to reduce delays. We propose an empirical approach to understanding the contributions of the two sources of delays when only a single (combined) measure of admission delay is available. Methodology/results: We propose a hidden Markov model (HMM) to estimate the unobserved processing times and the status-quo bed allocation policy. Our estimation results quantify the magnitude of processing times versus capacity-driven delays and provide insights into factors impacting the bed allocation decision. We validate our estimated policy using a queueing model of patient flow and find that ignoring processing times or using simple bed allocation policies can lead to highly inaccurate delay estimates. In contrast, our estimated policy allows for accurate evaluation of different operational interventions. We find that reducing processing times can be highly effective in reducing admission delays and bed-blocking costs. In addition, allowing early transfer—whereby patients can complete some of their processing requirements in the rehabilitation unit—can significantly reduce admission delays, with only a small increase in rehab LOS. Managerial implications: Our study demonstrates the importance of quantifying different sources of delays in the design of effective operational interventions for reducing delays in admission to rehabilitation care. The proposed estimation framework can be applied in other transition-of-care settings with personalized capacity allocation decisions and hidden processing delays. History: This paper was selected for Fast Track in the M&SOM journal from the 2022 MSOM Healthcare SIG Conference. Funding: J. Dong was supported in part by the National Science Foundation [Grant CMMI-1762544]. V. Sarhangian was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Grant RGPIN-2018-04518] and the Connaught Fund. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022. 0377 .
Forcing mechanisms of thunderstorm downdrafts

The role of various forcing mechanisms of thunderstorm downdrafts has been explored. Four case studies of downdrafts are presented. Radar data from five closely spaced radars are used to conduct direct triple Doppler calculations of the full three-dimensional wind field in three of the cases; data from three closely spaced radars are used in the remaining case. Differential reflectivity measurements are used to diagnose the presence of ice in the downdraft regions. Data from a dense array of surface mesonet stations are used to diagnose the thermodynamic characteristics and origin levels of outflow air from the downdrafts. A one-dimensional parcel-following model, which incorporates evaporation, melting and entrainment, and which is strongly constrained by detailed radar and surface observations, is used to diagnose the relative importance of various forcing mechanisms. The studied downdrafts, while originating at different altitudes, ranging from 2 km to 4.5 km, are found to be forced by the same basic mechanisms: cooling due to the evaporation of precipitation inside the cell and precipitation loading. The deeper downdrafts are nearly neutrally thermally buoyant above 2 km and are driven downwards by precipitation loading. The evaporation of precipitation is crucial to the maintenance of neutral buoyancy. The intensity of the modelled downdrafts is insensitive to whether the entrainment source is cloudy or outside environmental air. This is because the positive buoyancy of entrained cloudy air is offset by the supply of rapidly evaporating cloud droplets into the downdraft. Cloud droplet evaporation is found to contribute about 40% of the total evaporation if entrainment occurs from primarily inside the cloud. In the two downdrafts with deep origins, near 4.5 km AGL, engulfment of outside air into the upper levels of the downdrafts is observed. Ice phase precipitation is found to be unimportant in the forcing of these downdrafts. A very narrow, less than 1 km horizontal scale, region of mixed phase precipitation is present in one of the downdrafts at one observation time. The melting of ice is found to be of secondary importance compared to other forcing mechanisms. Ice phase precipitation is not observed in the three remaining downdrafts. Three of the downdrafts, exhibiting different origin levels and intensities, occur simultaneously within a 10 km region illustrating the variety of events that can develop in virtually identical environments. The studied downdrafts occur in moist, low-cloud base environments which contrast with those common in the High Plains and western USA, where the dominant forcing mechanisms probably differ. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Earle Williams Title: Associate Professor of Meteorology
Implementation and Evaluation of Self-Directed Learning Activity in Biochemistry for First-Year MBBS Students

Background: Self-directed learning (SDL) is an essential teaching-learning method for transforming medical students into lifelong learners. In SDL, learners are responsible for undergoing their learning process and gradually shifting learning control from teacher to themselves. However, First-year MBBS students are in need of receiving training and support to become self-directed learners. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of adopting SDL alone as well as supplementing SDL with a lecture for first-year MBBS students in biochemistry. Objectives: Implementation of self-directed learning activity in Biochemistry and evaluation of its outcome for first-year MBBS students. Methods: A Cohort study was carried out to investigate first-year MBBS students in the Department of Biochemistry at SVIMS, Tirupati. The study was conducted in two sessions. In session one, Lecture cum SDL was implemented; whereas in session two, only SDL was employed. A pre-and post-test was performed before and after completion of both sessions. Pre- and post-test answer sheets were evaluated, and students’ perception forms were analysed. Results: There was a statistically significant increase in post-test scores compared to pre-test scores. Moreover, there was a statistically significant increase in post-test scores of Lecture cum SDL session compared to post-test scores of SDL session alone. Conclusions: Overall performance of the students was improved when a topic was taken as a didactic lecture followed by an SDL session; this may have been indicative of an improvement in learning outcomes when adopting SDL module.
The Practice of Soft Power

Turkey exerts significant influence over Balkans Muslims. While some of this has to do with Turkey’s military and economic power, much relates to their shared religiosity and common history. Some may characterize this as “soft power”; however, this term struggles to completely explain these dynamics. Many Balkans Muslims have an ambivalent attitude towards Turkey, even as they accept its influence. Moreover, Turkish influence comes not from passive qualities it possesses but active steps it takes to maintain its image. We argue that this can be better explained through the practice turn in international relations; Turkey follows commonly accepted religious practices that Balkans Muslims recognize, granting Turkey influence even if they do not internalize its dominant position. We demonstrate this with the results of interviews conducted among Balkans Muslim political, religious and media figures. The article provides insight into the strategies non-state religious actors, states and the media implement in world politics, while also expanding our understanding of soft power in the world.
Effects of Supervised Physical Exercise as Prehabilitation on Body Composition, Functional Capacity and Quality of Life in Bariatric Surgery Candidates: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Prehabilitation is a strategy used aiming to reduce the risk factors and complications of surgery procedures, but there is no consensus on the effectiveness of supervised physical exercise and its optimal prescription during this phase. Objectives: To determine the effects of exercise prehabilitation on body composition, functional capacity and quality of life in candidates for bariatric surgery. Search methods: A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SciELO, Scopus, MEDLINE and CINAHL. Selection criteria: Only randomized clinical trials that examined the effectiveness of supervised physical exercise were included. The main outcomes were body composition, functional capacity, quality of life and surgical outcomes. Data collection and analysis: Two researchers independently selected the literature, extracted the data and evaluated the risk of bias. A third researcher was consulted when a consensus was not reached. The risk of bias was assessed by the tool recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration, the quality of the evidence by GRADE, and to analyze the effects of prehabilitation on the primary objectives, RevMan software, version 5.3 was used. Main results: The search resulted in 4550 articles, of which 22 met the eligibility criteria, leaving 5 articles selected for this review. One article was assessed as a high bias risk and four as an uncertain risk, which included 139 candidates for bariatric surgery. Most of the studies evaluated the body composition, functional capacity and quality of life; none reported surgical outcomes. Conclusions: Supervised physical exercise has positive effects on the body composition, functional capacity and quality of life; there was no evidence for surgical outcomes, which opens up a field of study for future research of this population.
Dietary Choice Reshapes Metabolism in Drosophila by Affecting Consumption of Macronutrients

The precise regulation of metabolism and feeding behavior is important for preventing the development of metabolic diseases. Here we examine the effects on Drosophila metabolism of dietary choice. These changes are predicted to be dependent on both the quantity and quality of the chosen diet. Using a geometric framework for both no-choice and two-choice conditions, we found that feeding decisions led to higher glucose and trehalose levels but lower triglycerides pools. The feeding regimens had similar strategies for macronutrient balancing, and both maximized hemolymph glucose and glycogen content under low protein intake. In addition, the flies showed significant differences in the way they regulated trehalose and triglyceride levels in response to carbohydrate and protein consumption between choice and no-choice nutrition. Under choice conditions, trehalose and triglyceride levels were maximized at the lowest protein and carbohydrate consumption. Thus, we suggest that these changes in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism are caused by differences in the macronutrients consumed by flies. Food choice elicits rapid metabolic changes to maintain energy homeostasis. These results contribute to our understanding of how metabolism is regulated by the revealed nutrient variation in response to food decisions.
Evaluation of two modified Kalman gain algorithms for radar data assimilation in the WRF model

This work attempts to validate two modified Kalman gain algorithms by assimilating a single radar simulation data set into the Weather Research and Forecasting model using an Ensemble Square Root Filter. Emphasis is placed on the comparison of assimilation performance between the two modified algorithms against the classical Kalman gain algorithm when the measurement operator is non-linear. Three ideal storm-scale experiments, which are configured identically except for the different Kalman gain algorithms, are designed in parallel for this purpose. The results show that the first modified algorithm can result in a better simulation of a storm, as measured by the root mean square error (RMSE). The second algorithm can also, to some extent, reduce the RMSE of the simulation of some state vectors, but with little improvement of the estimation of storm intensity. Overall, our preliminary experiments indicate that the two modified Kalman gain algorithms can benefit the assimilation of complex numerical models when the measurement operators are non-linear, confirming the earlier theoretical analysis and the results of simple models. Further work is needed to evaluate the impact of the modified Kalman gain algorithms on the assimilation performance of ensemble-based methods.
Effect of Noncompensatory Multidimensionality on Separate and Concurrent estimation in IRT Observed Score Equating

In this article, the results of a simulation study comparing the performance of separate and concurrent estimation of a unidimensional item response theory (IRT) model applied to multidimensional noncompensatory data are reported. Data were simulated according to a two-dimensional noncompensatory IRT model for both equivalent and nonequivalent groups designs. The criteria used were the accuracy of estimating a distribution of observed scores, and the accuracy of IRT observed score equating. In general, unidimensional concurrent estimation resulted in lower or equivalent total error than separate estimation, although there were a few cases where separate estimation resulted in slightly less error than concurrent estimation. Estimates from the correctly speciÞed multidimensional model generally resulted in less error than estimates from the unidimensional model. The results of this study, along with results from a previous study where data were simulated using a compensatory multidimensional model, make clear that multidimensionality of the data affects the relative performance of separate and concurrent estimation, although the degree to which the unidimensional model produces biased results with multidimensional data depends on the type of multidimensionality present.
Reliable Low Voltage Selector Device Technology Based on Robust SiNGeCTe Arsenic-Free Chalcogenide

Modern data-centric computing applications are increasingly demanding in terms of memory density and performance. The cross-point memory architecture based on the two-terminal one-selector/one-resistor memory cell is an attractive solution for high-density and 3D-compatible embedded memory. In this letter, we introduce a new arsenic-free chalcogenide material, namely SiNGeCTe, for low voltage selector applications, and we report on its remarkable reliability characteristics. The inclusion of the Si dopant allows for an enhanced material robustness in terms of stable high current operation and extended thermal stability (≥450°C, 30 min), and reduces the First Fire impact on the subthreshold conduction. We investigate the threshold voltage drift and reveal a marked trend of the drift slope with the thickness of the chalcogenide layer. Finally, based on the reported drift trend, the optimized device with 5 nm thickness is highlighted for low threshold voltage and low drift applications, demonstrating low threshold voltage drift with slope <30 mV/dec. The optimized device proves an excellent cycling endurance ≥1e10 cycles.
Comparison of Outcomes Following Prepectoral and Subpectoral Implants for Breast Reconstruction: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Simple Summary Breast cancer is a growing problem in modern society and is one of the most prevalent cancers among women. Oncologic breast surgery has become an effective therapeutic modality but is often accompanied by major physical and moral impacts on patients. Implant-based reconstruction helps to restore quality of life and aims at providing an optimal esthetic recovery, although the question of implant placement has been too poorly assessed in the past years. In this meta-analysis, we collected and analyzed existing evidence on postoperative outcomes following prepectoral and subpectoral breast reconstruction and allowed us to provide one of the largest pools of patients on this topic. We observed globally higher pain scores following subpectoral implants; however, the rates of postoperative complications remained comparable in a pooled analysis. The risks and benefits of each procedure should be discussed with the patient prior to surgery, and decision making should be guided by surgical expertise. Abstract (1) Background: Implant-based breast reconstruction following mastectomy helps to restore quality of life while aiming at providing optimal cosmetic outcomes. Both prepectoral (PP) and subpectoral (SP) breast implants are widely used to fulfill these objectives. It is, however, unclear which approach offers stronger postoperative benefits. (2) Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature through PubMed, Cochrane Library, and ResearchGate, following the PRISMA guidelines. Quantitative analysis for postoperative pain as the primary outcome was conducted. Secondary outcomes included patient satisfaction and postoperative complications such as seroma, implant loss, skin necrosis, wound infection, and hematoma. (3) Results: Nine articles involving 1119 patients were retrieved. Our results suggested increased postoperative pain after SP implants and significantly higher rates of seroma following PP implants (p < 0.05). Patient satisfaction was found to be similar between the two groups; however, the heterogeneity of measurement tools did not allow us to pool these results. The rates of implant loss, skin necrosis, wound infection, and hematoma showed no significant differences between the two cohorts. (4) Conclusion: Our data suggest that both implant placements are safe and effective methods for breast reconstruction following mastectomy. However, homogeneity in outcome measurements would allow one to provide stronger statistical results.
Comparative Evaluation of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Permissive LF-BK αVβ6 Cell Line for Senecavirus A Research

Senecavirus A (SVA) is a member of the family Picornaviridae and enzootic in domestic swine. SVA can induce vesicular lesions that are clinically indistinguishable from Foot-and-mouth disease, a major cause of global trade barriers and agricultural productivity losses worldwide. The LF-BK αVβ6 cell line is a porcine-derived cell line transformed to stably express an αVβ6 bovine integrin and primarily used for enhanced propagation of Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). Due to the high biosecurity requirements for working with FMDV, SVA has been considered as a surrogate virus to test and evaluate new technologies and countermeasures. Herein we conducted a series of comparative evaluation in vitro studies between SVA and FMDV using the LF-BK αVβ6 cell line. These include utilization of LF-BK αVβ6 cells for field virus isolation, production of high virus titers, and evaluating serological reactivity and virus susceptibility to porcine type I interferons. These four methodologies utilizing LF-BK αVβ6 cells were applicable to research with SVA and results support the current use of SVA as a surrogate for FMDV.
Association between Routine Laboratory Parameters and the Severity and Progression of Systemic Sclerosis

(1) Background: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a heterogeneous connective tissue disease with a high mortality and morbidity rate. Identification of biomarkers that can predict the evolution of SSc is a key factor in the management of patients. The aim of this study was to assess the association of routine laboratory parameters, widely used in practice and easily available, with the severity and progression of SSc. (2) Methods: In this retrospective monocentric cohort study, 372 SSc patients were included. We gathered clinical and laboratory data including routine laboratory parameters: C-reactive-protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), complete blood count, serum sodium and potassium levels, creatinin, urea, ferritin, albumin, uric acid, N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP), serum protein electrophoresis, and liver enzymes. Associations between these routine laboratory parameters and clinical presentation and outcome were assessed. (3) Results: Median (interquartile range) age was 59.0 (50.0; 68.0) years. White blood cell, monocyte, and neutrophil absolute counts were significantly higher in patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc and with interstitial lung disease (ILD) (p < 0.001). CRP was significantly higher in patients with ILD (p < 0.001). Hemoglobin and ferritin were significantly lower in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) including pulmonary arterial hypertension and ILD associated PH (p = 0.016 and 0.046, respectively). Uric acid and NT pro BNP were significantly higher in patients with PH (<0.001). Monocyte count was associated with ILD progression over time. (4) Conclusions: Overall, our study highlights the association of routine laboratory parameters used in current practice with the severity and progression of SSc.