Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Saliva and Plasma Neutralizing Activity Induced by the Administration of a Third bnt162b2 Vaccine Dose

The BNT162b2 vaccine induces neutralizing activity (NA) in serum, but no data are available on whether a third-dose activates specific-immunity within the oral mucosa, representing the primary route of viral-entry. To carefully address this issue, we investigated if such immunity is boosted by SARS-CoV-2-infection; how long it is maintained over-time; and if it protects against the SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1 (EU) and the emerging Delta and Omicron variants. NA was measured in plasma and saliva samples from: uninfected SARS-CoV-2-Vaccinated (SV), subjects infected prior to vaccination (SIV), and subjects who were infected after the second (SIV2) or the third (SIV3) vaccine dose. Samples were collected immediately before (T0), 15 days (T1), and 90 days (T2) post third-dose administration (SV and SIV), or 15 days post-infection (SIV2 and SIV3). In all the enrolled groups, NA in plasma and saliva: (i) was higher against EU compared to the other variants at all time-points (SV: T0 and T1, EU vs. both Delta and Omicron p < 0.001; T2 p < 0.01) (SIV: T0, EU vs. Delta p < 0.05; EU vs. Omi p < 0.01; T1 and T2 EU vs. Delta p < 0.01; EU vs. Omi p < 0.001); (ii) was boosted by the administration of the third dose; iii) declined over-time, albeit being detectable in almost all subjects at T2. The monitoring of NA over time will be important in clarifying if different NA levels may influence either acquisition or course of infection to properly plan the timing of a fourth vaccine dose administration.
Constraint analysis for variational discrete systems

A canonical formalism and constraint analysis for discrete systems subject to a variational action principle are devised. The formalism is equivalent to the covariant formulation, encompasses global and local discrete time evolution moves and naturally incorporates both constant and evolving phase spaces, the latter of which is necessary for a time varying discretization. The different roles of constraints in the discrete and the conditions under which they are first or second class and/or symmetry generators are clarified. The (non-) preservation of constraints and the symplectic structure is discussed; on evolving phase spaces the number of constraints at a fixed time step depends on the initial and final time step of evolution. Moreover, the definition of observables and a reduced phase space is provided; again, on evolving phase spaces the notion of an observable as a propagating degree of freedom requires specification of an initial and final step and crucially depends on this choice, in contrast to the continuum. However, upon restriction to translation invariant systems, one regains the usual time step independence of canonical concepts. This analysis applies, e.g., to discrete mechanics, lattice field theory, quantum gravity models and numerical analysis.
Role of Tocilizumab in Combating Cytokine Storm in Moderate & Severe Covid 19 Patients: Retrospective Observational Study

Background: The wide spread of COVID-19 disease and mortality associated with it as never seen before urged the medical research field to formulate and investigate the efficacy of various new drugs alongside with the existing drugs. Objective: To evaluate the potential benefits of Tocilizumab (TCZ) in addition to the Standard of Care (SoC) in reducing mortality in moderate & severely ill COVID 19. Methodology: Study population is sorted by 1:1 matching depending on the High-Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) Chest CT Severity Score. Outcome is measured as deaths, discharge with or without Long Term Oxygen Therapy (LTOT) along with clinical improvement of the patient measured using 9 points ordinary scale score of WHO and length of stay in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) post administration & levels of inflammatory markers (CRP, IL 6) on day of administration- baseline (D0), 1- & 3-days post administration (D+1 & D+3). The group received TCZ+SoC is considered as Test Group and the group received only SoC as Control Group. Results: Deaths and discharge with LTOT were slightly higher in test group with OR 1.68 & 1.63 respectively. Clinical improvement in terms of 9-point ordinary scale score & difference in the levels of CRP & IL 6 was insignificant in both the groups. No difference in post administration ICU stay is observed between the groups. Conclusions: Our study concludes no marked benefits with the addition of TCZ to the SoC in treating moderate and severe COVID 19 patients.
Spectral-based regression model for destriping of abnormal pixel values in PRISMA hyperspectral image

ABSTRACT Hyperspectral imageries are often degraded by systematic sensor-based errors known as “striping noises”. This study implements a spectral-based regression algorithm from highly correlated consecutive bands, i.e. left band, right band or both, to model and reconstruct the abnormal pixel values, stripe noises, in various bands of PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) imagery. The modeling performance was evaluated based on the statistical difference between the reconstructed images’ pixel values (reflectance) and their corresponding original pixel values. Results referred to the model’s high accuracy in R 2, RMSE, rRMSE and skewness in most bands ). Furthermore, the results indicated that the combination of both bands had higher accuracy and pixels’ homogeneity preservation compared to single-band modeling. Our findings suggested that the algorithm significantly depends on the spectral similarities between neighboring bands so that the higher spectral similarities lead to the higher model performance and vice versa. Subsequently, the minimum model performance was observed in band 143 due to lower spectral similarity, lower spectral correlation and higher wavelength differences with its adjacent right band. Finally, the study suggests that alongside other methods, our algorithm may be used as a reliable, straightforward and accurate alternative for destriping different Earth observation satellite imageries. Limitations of the proposed approach are also discussed.
Comparison of Adjuvant Hypertonic Saline and Normal Saline for Epidural Block in Patients with Postherpetic Neuralgia: A Double-Blind, Randomized Trial

Background In patients with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), the effectiveness of epidural block and the benefits of adjuvant hypertonic saline (HS) have not been fully determined. Therefore, we investigated these issues in this study. Methods At a tertiary medical center's single pain clinic in Seoul, Republic of Korea, patients complaining of PHN even after 4 months of herpes zoster onset were enrolled and randomly assigned to either the HS or normal saline (NS) group. After epidural block with adjuvant HS or NS administration according to each protocol, outcomes were assessed at baseline and one and three months after the intervention. The primary outcome was pain intensity on the numerical rating scale (NRS). The secondary outcomes were the insomnia severity index (ISI), the medication quantification scale (MQS), and the global perceived effect of satisfaction (GPES). Results Thirty-six patients (NS: 17, HS: 19) were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. The estimated pain intensity decreased in both groups at one and three months after the procedure (P < 0.001), without a significant group difference. The estimated ISI and MQS were not significantly different at 1 month compared with baseline but significantly decreased at 3 months in each group (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001, respectively), without group differences. In addition, there was no difference between the groups on the GPES scale at one and three months after the procedure. Conclusions Epidural steroid injection may have the advantages of short-term pain relief, improved sleep quality, and decreased medication usage in patients with PHN. In addition, adjuvant HS administration with epidural steroid injection did not show beneficial effects in patients with PHN. Further studies are needed to clarify the potential effectiveness of HS in treating neuropathic pain such as PHN. This trial is registered with KCT0002845.
Collection of Hairy Roots as a Basis for Fundamental and Applied Research

Due to population growth, instability of climatic conditions, and reduction of the areas of natural ecosystems, it becomes necessary to involve modern biotechnological approaches to obtain highly productive plant material. This statement applies both to the creation of plant varieties and the production of new pharmaceutical raw materials. Genetic transformation of valuable medicinal plants using Agrobacterium rhizogenes ensures the production of stable and rapidly growing hairy roots cultures that have a number of advantages compared with cell culture and, above all, can synthesize root-specific substances at the level of the roots of the intact plant. In this regard, special attention should be paid to the collection of hairy roots of the Institute of Plant Physiology RAS, Russian Academy of Sciences, the founder of which was Dr. Kuzovkina I.N. Currently, the collection contains 38 hairy roots lines of valuable medicinal and forage plants. The review discusses the prospects of creating a hairy roots collection as a basis for fundamental research and commercial purposes.
Spheres, Kähler geometry and the Hunter–Saxton system

Many important equations of mathematical physics arise geometrically as geodesic equations on Lie groups. In this paper, we study an example of a geodesic equation, the two-component Hunter–Saxton (2HS) system, which displays a number of unique geometric features. We show that 2HS describes the geodesic flow on a manifold, which is isometric to a subset of a sphere. Since the geodesics on a sphere are simply the great circles, this immediately yields explicit formulae for the solutions of 2HS. We also show that when restricted to functions of zero mean, 2HS reduces to the geodesic equation on an infinite-dimensional manifold, which admits a Kähler structure. We demonstrate that this manifold is in fact isometric to a subset of complex projective space, and that the above constructions provide an example of an infinite-dimensional Hopf fibration.
A Note on an Approximation of the Mobile Communications Expenditures Distribution Function Using a Mixture Model

Approximating the distribution of mobile communications expenditures (MCE) is complicated by zero observations in the sample. To deal with the zero observations by allowing a point mass at zero, a mixture model of MCE distributions is proposed and applied. The MCE distribution is specified as a mixture of two distributions, one with a point mass at zero and the other with full support on the positive half of the real line. The model is empirically verified for individual MCE survey data collected in Seoul, Korea. The mixture model can easily capture the common bimodality feature of the MCE distribution. In addition, when covariates were added to the model, it was found that the probability that an individual has non-expenditure significantly varies with some variables. Finally, the goodness-of-fit test suggests that the data are well represented by the mixture model.
Fumonisin B Series Mycotoxins’ Dose Dependent Effects on the Porcine Hepatic and Pulmonary Phospholipidome

Male weaned piglets n = 6/group were fed Fumonisin B1+2+3 (FBs) mycotoxins at 0, 15, or 30 mg/kg diet for 3 weeks to assess the fatty acid (FA) composition of membrane lipid classes, lipid peroxidation, and histomorphological changes in the liver and lung. Growth performance and lipid peroxidation were unaltered, but histomorphological lesion scores increased in the liver. Linear dose–response was detected in liver phosphatidylcholines for C16:1n7, C18:1n9, and total monounsaturation and in lungs for C22:6n3, total n-3 and n-3:n-6, in pulmonary phosphatidylserines C20:0 and C24:0. Alterations associated with the highest FBs dose were detected in sphingomyelins (liver: total saturation ↓, total monounsaturation ↑), phosphatidylcholines (liver: total n-6 ↓, n-6:n-3 ↑; in lungs: total monounsaturation ↑, total polyunsaturation ↑), phosphatidylethanolamines (liver: total n-3 ↓; in lungs: total monounsaturation ↑ and n-6:n-3 ↑), phosphatidylserines (liver: n-6:n-3 ↑; in lungs: total saturation ↓, total polyunsatuartion ↑, and total n-6 and its ratio to n-3 ↑), and phosphatidylinositol (n-6:n-3 ↑; lungs: C22:1n9 ↑, C22:6n3 ↓, total saturation ↓, total monounsaturaion ↑). In conclusion, FBs exposures neither impaired growth nor induced substantial lipid peroxidation, but hepatotoxicity was proven with histopathological alterations at the applied exposure period and doses. FA results imply an enzymatic disturbance in FA metabolism, agreeing with earlier findings in rats.
Study of solitary-wave-induced fluid motions and vortices in a cavity using a two-dimensional viscous flow model

This study presents a combined numerical and experimental investigation of the free-surface variation and induced fluid motion for a solitary wave propagating past a submerged cavity (or trench). The formation of vortices and the trajectories of fluid particles showing the transport of fluid content within the cavity zone are examined. A two-dimensional viscous flow is simulated by solving the stream function and vorticity equations using the finite-analytic method. Equations of free-surface boundary conditions are discretized by a two-step finite-difference scheme. To obtain more detailed motions in a cavity, a transient boundary-fitted grid system with locally refined grids is adopted. Experimental measurements of the free-surface elevations and the visual observations of the vortex motion were carried out to compare to the numerical solutions. The simulated free-surface elevations and fluid particle motion at various times are found to agree reasonably well with measurements and recorded observations. The formation and subsequent growth of a pair of recirculating vortices around the front corner of the cavity are clearly simulated by the present model. The effects of cavity size and incident-wave height on the flow patterns and the transport displacement of the fluid particles along the vertical and horizontal directions are analyzed. The results indicate that the greater the incident-wave height, the larger the values of the horizontal and vertical transporting distances. With an increase of cavity length, the strength of induced up-rolling vortices and the amount of downstream transporting fluid particles increases. However, the depth of the cavity has an insignificant influence on the height of the up-rolling vortices.
The environments of optically selected QSOs at $0.9 \lt z \lt 1.5$

Deep (R ) ∼ − 24) radio-quiet QSOs in the redshift range 0.9 < z < 1.5 have been analysed to search for associations between QSOs and faint galaxies. No significant excess of galaxies is found around the QSOs, in marked contrast to previous studies of optically luminous, radio-loud QSOs. This result may reflect real differences between the environments of radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs at intermediate redshifts. However, optical luminosity effects and the differential effect of gravitational lensing may also play an important role in the observed differences in the cluster environment between these two classes of QSO
History of “Serve and Return” and a Synthesis of the Literature on Its Impacts on Children’s Health and Development

Abstract Parent/caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness are important for children’s health and development. The “serve and return” metaphor was created to help providers and caregivers understand the importance of sensitive and responsive early caregiving. In this review, we explain the concept of “serve and return”, outline historical and theoretical principles that culminated in this metaphor, highlight parent and child constructs associated with “serve and return” interactions, and synthesize literature on sensitive and responsive caregiving and children’s health and developmental outcomes. Nurses and other healthcare professionals in public policy, clinical, community, education, and research roles need knowledge of “serve and return” interactions.
Facial mask disturbs ocular exploration but not pupil reactivity

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed to wear a face mask that may have negative consequences for social interactions despite its health benefits. A lot of recent studies focused on emotion recognition of masked faces, as the mouth is, with the eyes, essential to convey emotional content. However, none have studied neurobehavioral and neurophysiological markers of masked faces perception, such as ocular exploration and pupil reactivity. The purpose of this eye tracking study was to quantify how wearing a facial accessory, and in particular a face mask, affected the ocular and pupillary response to a face, emotional or not. Methods We used videos of actors wearing a facial accessory to characterize the visual exploration and pupillary response in several occlusion (no accessory, sunglasses, scarf, and mask) and emotional conditions (neutral, happy, and sad) in a population of 44 adults. Results We showed that ocular exploration differed for face covered with an accessory, and in particular a mask, compared to the classical visual scanning pattern of a non-covered face. The covered areas of the face were less explored. Pupil reactivity seemed only slightly affected by the mask, while its sensitivity to emotions was observed even in the presence of a facial accessory. Discussion These results suggest a mixed impact of the mask on attentional capture and physiological adjustment, which does not seem to be reconcilable with its strong effect on behavioral emotional recognition previously described.
Teachers' and Education Personnel's Perceptions of the Prototype Curriculum's Readiness for Implementation in the Academic Year 2022/2023

The goal of this study was to find out what instructors and educators thought about the implementation of the 2022 Prototype curriculum in learning. The descriptive technique is used in this study. This study employs a population study with 19 teachers and education staff members from SMA Negeri 1 Belitang, East OKU, South Sumatra, selected using a purposive sample approach. In this study, questionnaires and interviews were utilized to collect data. The acquired data was then evaluated using descriptive statistics. According to the findings of this study, all participating teachers and education staff agree on the implementation of the Prototype curriculum 2022 in schools and recognize the benefits contained in the Prototype curriculum for 2022 which is contain character building of students.
On the Möbius transformation in the entanglement entropy of fermionic chains

There is an intimate relation between entanglement entropy and Riemann surfaces. This fact is explicitly noticed for the case of quadratic fermionic Hamiltonians with finite range couplings. After recollecting this fact, we make a comprehensive analysis of the action of the Möbius transformations on the Riemann surface. We are then able to uncover the origin of some symmetries and dualities of the entanglement entropy already noticed recently in the literature. These results give further support for the use of entanglement entropy to analyse phase transitions.
Classification of Viral, Bacterial, And Covid-19 Pneumonia using Deep Learning Framework from Chest X-Ray Images

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a highly contagious infectious disease. Even though there is a large pool of articles that showed the potential of using chest X-ray images in COVID-19 detection, a detailed study using a wide range of pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) encoders-based deep learning framework in screening viral, bacterial, and COVID-19 pneumonia are still missing. Deep learning network training is challenging without a properly annotated huge database. Transfer learning is a crucial technique for transferring knowledge from real-world object classification tasks to domain-specific tasks, and it may offer a viable answer. Although COVID-19 infection on the lungs and bacterial and viral pneumonia shares many similarities, they are treated differently. Therefore, it is crucial to appropriately diagnose them. The authors have compiled a large X-ray dataset (QU-MLG-COV) consisting of 16,712 CXR images with 8851 normal, 3616 COVID-19, 1485 viral, and 2740 bacterial pneumonia CXR images. We employed image pre-processing methods and 21 deep pre-trained CNN encoders to extract features, which were then dimensionality reduced using principal component analysis (PCA) and classified into 4-classes. We trained and evaluated every cutting-edge pre-trained network to extract features to improve performance. CheXNet surpasses other networks for identifying COVID-19, Bacterial, Viral, and Normal, with an accuracy of 98.89 percent, 97.87 percent, 97.55 percent, and 99.09 percent, respectively. The deep layer network found significant overlaps between viral and bacterial images. The paper validates the network learning from the relevant area of the images by Score-CAM visualization. The performance of the various pre-trained networks is also thoroughly examined in the paper in terms of both inference time and well-known performance criteria.
On the convergence of higher-order orthogonal iteration

Abstract The higher-order orthogonal iteration (HOOI) has been popularly used for finding a best low-multilinear rank approximation of a tensor. However, its convergence is still an open question. In this paper, we first analyse a greedy HOOI, which updates each factor matrix by selecting from the best candidates one that is closest to the current iterate. Assuming the existence of a block-nondegenerate cluster point, we establish its global iterate sequence convergence through the so-called Kurdyka–ᴌojasiewicz property. In addition, we show that if the starting point is sufficiently close to any block-nondegenerate globally optimal solution, the greedy HOOI produces an iterate sequence convergent to a globally optimal solution. Relating the iterate sequence by the original HOOI to that by the greedy HOOI, we then show that the original HOOI has global convergence on the multilinear subspace sequence and thus positively address the open question.
Mental and Sexual Health of Men in Times of COVID-19 Lockdown

Due to the worldwide spread of COVID-19, some restrictions were introduced which could lead to the development of distress and somatic symptoms. This survey aimed to study the mental and sexual health of men during the COVID-19 outbreak. An online questionnaire was conducted to collect data on contact with people suspected of infection/infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, use of stimulants, and perceived mental and sexual health during isolation among Polish men. They were also asked to answer the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-15) questionnaire. In total, 606 men with a mean age of 28.46 ± 9.17 years took part in the survey. Fear of contracting the COVID-19 infection had a negative impact on the mental health of 132 men (21.8%). Fear of the health condition of loved ones caused stress and a depressed mood in 253 men (41.7%), and media reports worsened the mental health of 185 men (30.2%). In the BDI, 71.95% of the respondents did not suffer from depressive symptoms, 17.33% were diagnosed with mild depression, 6.11% with moderate depression, and 4.62% had severe depression. The mean score in the IIEF-15 questionnaire in the erectile function domain was 22.27, orgasm—7.63, desire—8.25, satisfaction—10.17, and general satisfaction—6.84. Depressive symptoms indicated more severe sexual functioning disorders (p < 0.001). Fear, following the media, and loneliness were associated with more severe depressive and sexual disorders (p < 0.001). The libido level (p = 0.002) and frequency of sexual activity (p < 0.001) were also lower during the pandemic than before the lockdown. These data showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on male mental and sexual health.