Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lung ultrasound in young children with neurological impairment: A proposed integrative clinical tool for deaeration-detection related to feeding

Infants and children with neurological impairment, such as cerebral palsy (CP), often experience abnormal ingestion functions, including oropharyngeal dysphagia and gastroesophageal reflux disease, which led to aspiration-related respiratory complications, morbidity, hospitalization, or death. There is a lack of evidence-based, repeatable, infant-friendly instrumental procedures to assess aspiration-risk in infants with CP or other neurological disorders, with also a lack of clinical assessment measures to support the use of more invasive diagnostic techniques. To this purpose, in the current study we explore the feasibility of lung ultrasound (LUS), to assess lung deaeration possibly related to aspiration during meal, in a cohort of 35 subjects affected by CP or other encephalopathies, and 10 controls in the same age-range. We coupled LUS procedure with meal caregiver administration for each child. Our results support the feasibility of this innovative approach in the clinical setting. Exploratory findings revealed a number of lung abnormalities likely related to abnormal ingestion function in subjects. Subgroup analyses revealed possible differences in LUS abnormalities between CP and other encephalopathies, possibly related to different mechanism of disease or dysfunction. Also, some evidences arose about the possible relationship between such LUS abnormalities and feeding and swallowing abilities in CP or other encephalopathies. LUS showed preliminarily feasibility and effectiveness in detecting meal-related LUS abnormalities in a dynamic manner in the clinical setting. This approach demonstrated usefulness as a potential tool for improving assessment and management in complex care of infants and young children with severe neurological disorders.
Traits along the leaf economics spectrum are associated with communities of foliar endophytic symbionts

Leaf traits of plants worldwide are classified according to the Leaf Economics Spectrum (LES), which links leaf functional traits to evolutionary life history strategies. As a continuum ranging from thicker, tough leaves that are low in nitrogen (N) to thinner, softer, leaves that are high in N, the LES brings together physical, chemical, and ecological traits. Fungal endophytes are common foliar symbionts that occur in healthy, living leaves, especially in tropical forests. Their community composition often differs among co-occurring host species in ways that cannot be explained by environmental conditions or host phylogenetic relationships. Here, we tested the over-arching hypothesis that LES traits act as habitat filters that shape communities of endophytes both in terms of composition, and in terms of selecting for endophytes with particular suites of functional traits. We used culture-based and culture-free surveys to characterize foliar endophytes in mature leaves of 30 phylogenetically diverse plant species with divergent LES traits in lowland Panama, and then measured functional traits of dominant endophyte taxa in vitro. Endophytes were less abundant and less diverse in thick, tough, leaves compared to thin, softer, leaves in the same forest, even in closely related plants. Endophyte communities differed according to leaf traits, including leaf punch strength and carbon and nitrogen content. The most common endophyte taxa in leaves at different ends of the LES differ in their cellulase, protease, chitinase, and antipathogen activity. Our results extend the LES framework for the first time to diverse and ecologically important endophytes, opening new hypotheses regarding the degree to which foliar symbionts respond to, and extend, the functional traits of leaves they inhabit.
Knowledge mapping and research hotspots of immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma: A text-mining study from 2002 to 2021

Background Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the most lethal urological malignancies, and because early-stage RCC is asymptomatic, many patients present metastatic diseases at first diagnosis. With the development of immunotherapy, the treatment of RCC has entered a new stage and has made a series of progress. This study mainly outlines the knowledge map and detects the potential research hotspots by using bibliometric analysis. Methods Publications concerning RCC immunotherapy from 2002 to 2021 in the Web of Science Core Collection were collected. Visualization and statistical analysis were mainly performed by freeware tools VOSviewer, CiteSpace, R software, and Microsoft Office Excel 2019. Results A total of 3,432 papers were collected in this study, and the annual number of papers and citations showed a steady growth trend. The United States is the leading country with the most high-quality publications and is also the country with the most international cooperation. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is the most productive organization. The Journal of Clinical Oncology is the highest co-cited journal, and Brian I. Rini is both the most prolific author and the author with the largest centrality. The current research hotspots may be focused on “immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs),” “PD-1,” and “mammalian target of rapamycin. ” Conclusion Immunotherapy has a bright future in the field of RCC treatment, among which ICIs are one of the most important research hotspots. The main future research directions of ICI-based immunotherapy may focus on combination therapy, ICI monotherapy, and the development of new predictive biomarkers.
Low molecular weight fucoidan (LMWF) improves ER stress-reduced insulin sensitivity through AMPK activation in L6 myotubes and restores lipid homeostasis in a mouse model of type 2 diabetes

Low molecular weight fucoidan (LMWF) is widely used to treat metabolic disorders, but its physiologic effects have not been well determined. In the present study, we investigated the metabolic effects of LMWF in db/db mice and the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-responsive L6 myotubes. The effect of LMWF-mediated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation on insulin resistance via regulation of the ER stress-dependent pathway was examined in vitro and in vivo . In db/db mice, LMWF markedly reduced serum glucose, triglyceride, cholesterol, and LDL levels, and gradually reduced body weights by reducing lipid parameters. Furthermore, it effectively ameliorated glucose homeostasis by elevating glucose tolerance. In addition, the phosphorylation level of AMPK and Akt were markedly reduced by ER stressor, and subsequently, glucose uptake and fatty acid oxidation were also reduced. However, these adverse effects of ER stress were significantly ameliorated by LMWF. Finally, in L6 myotubes, LMWF markedly reduced the ER stress-induced upregulation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)-p70S61 kinase (S6K) network and subsequently improved the action of insulin via AMPK stimulation. Our findings suggest that AMPK activation by LMWF could prevent metabolic diseases by controlling the ER stress-dependent pathway and that this beneficial effect of LMWF provides a potential therapeutic strategy for ameliorating ER stress-mediated metabolic dysfunctions.
Chest X-Ray Findings in Patients With COVID-19 Pneumonia

Currently, there are limited research and reports on how a chest radiograph plays a role in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, but some of the findings up to now have demonstrated that they are useful in specific situations, such as when symptoms are severe, other testing is limited, and an acute outbreak occurs (Blain et al., 2021). As referenced by Rubin et al. (2020) a consensus statement made by the Fleischner Society recommended that imagining should not be ordered in patients with mild symptoms, but it can be used in diagnosing COVID-19 if deemed necessary. Chest radiography is a relatively inexpensive, quick imaging method with minimal radiation exposure for finding typical COVID-19 lesions such as ground glass opacities or consolidation findings as the viral infection progresses. Chest radiography can also be helpful in inpatient settings when there are possible superimposed complications such as pleural effusions or pneumothorax (Chalian, 2020).
浅议社会表象理论（Social Representation Theory）在旅游学研究中的应用

旅游作为一门跨多个学科领域的应用科学,其学科发展往往会涉及社会学、心理学、人类学、地理学等各相关学科的研究成果. 而目前旅游学研究中具体实证研究有余而基础理论工作相对不足的局面已经阻碍了旅游学作为一个学科体系的确立、完善和向前发展. 本文试对社会心理学中新兴的"社会表象理论"(Social Representation Theory)以及近年来国外学术界将该理论引入旅游学研究的基本情况作一个简单的介绍,以期能够为国内旅游学界的相关研究工作起到一点参考作用.
Regional significance of historical trends and step changes in Australian streamflow

Abstract. The Hydrologic Reference Stations is a network of 467 high-quality streamflow gauging stations across Australia that is developed and maintained by the Bureau of Meteorology as part of an ongoing responsibility under the Water Act 2007. The main objectives of the service are to observe and detect climate-driven changes in observed streamflow and to provide a quality-controlled dataset for research. We investigate trends and step changes in streamflow across Australia in data from all 467 streamflow gauging stations. Data from 30 to 69 years in duration ending in February 2019 were examined. We analysed data in terms of water-year totals and for the four seasons. The commencement of the water year varies across the country – mainly from February–March in the south to September–October in the north. We summarized our findings for each of the 12 drainage divisions defined by Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (Geofabric) and for continental Australia as a whole. We used statistical tests to detect and analyse linear and step changes in seasonal and annual streamflow. Monotonic trends were detected using modified Mann–Kendall (MK) tests, including a variance correction approach (MK3), a block bootstrap approach (MK3bs) and a long-term persistence approach (MK4). A nonparametric Pettitt test was used for step-change detection and identification. The regional significance of these changes at the drainage division scale was analysed and synthesized using a Walker test. The Murray–Darling Basin, home to Australia's largest river system, showed statistically significant decreasing trends for the region with respect to the annual total and all four seasons. Drainage divisions in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania showed significant annual and seasonal decreasing trends. Similar results were found in south-western Western Australia, South Australia and north-eastern Queensland. There was no significant spatial pattern observed in central nor mid-west Western Australia, with one possible explanation for this being the sparse density of streamflow stations and/or the length of the datasets available. Only the Tanami–Timor Sea Coast drainage division in northern Australia showed increasing trends and step changes in annual and seasonal streamflow that were regionally significant. Most of the step changes occurred during 1970–1999. In the south-eastern part of Australia, the majority of the step changes occurred in the 1990s, before the onset of the “Millennium Drought”. Long-term monotonic trends in observed streamflow and its regional significance are consistent with observed changes in climate experienced across Australia. The findings of this study will assist water managers with long-term infrastructure planning and management of water resources under climate variability and change across Australia.
Explicit expression of the counting generating function for Gessel's walk

We consider the so-called Gessel’s walk, that is the planar random walk that is confined to the first quadrant and that can move in unit steps to the West, North-East, East and South-West. For this walk we make explicit the generating function of the number of paths starting at (0, 0) and ending at (i, j) in time k.
Suppression of nonlinear aeroelastic vibration of a wing/store under gust effects using an adaptive-robust controller

In this paper, a nonlinear active control scheme is applied to suppress the flutter vibration of a wing/store. The system is considered as a two dimensional airfoil with attached store. The nonlinear aero-servo-elastic model of the system is obtained based on the Lagrange's formulation. The proposed active pylon involves the piezoelectric wafer strut as the actuator. The aero loads are modeled using Theodorsen function. A gust disturbance model is also added to the system governing equations of motion. An adaptive-robust control scheme is used to suppress the flutter vibration of the wing/store system. The proposed adaptive-robust controller is a composition of the adaptive and robust controllers and so can be considered as a useful controller in presence of unknown parameter uncertainty and disturbances. Finally, the system is simulated and the controller is applied to the system to control the flutter vibrations. The results illustrate the high performance and effectiveness of the controller.
Political Oppositions in Democratic and Authoritarian Regimes: A State-of-the-Field(s) Review

Abstract Political opposition has long been one of the most dramatically understudied elements of real-world politics in contemporary democratic and authoritarian regimes. The past decade or so has, however, witnessed an upsurge of new opposition research that begs for a major state-of-the-field review. Interestingly, recent scholarship has focused more on manifestations of opposition in authoritarian and hybrid than in democratic systems, which indicates a latent reconceptualization of political opposition (setting aside older distinctions between regime-loyal opposition and regime-challenging forms of resistance, dissidence and contestation). With a focus on party-based forms of opposition, which have been widely considered to mark the most effective form of opposition, this review article takes stock and highlights key issues for future research as well as some inherent obstacles to the emergence of a more integrated field of cross-regime opposition studies.
Grade 10 physical science students’ reasoning about basic chemical phenomena at sub-microscopic Level

The purpose of this on-going study is to establish how much success the Grade 10 Physical science learners make when working with basic chemical concepts concerning elements, compounds, molecules, mixtures, and solutions of acids and bases, based on submicroscopic representations. The chosen learning conceptual areas are based on how the learners reason about and connect the three (macroscopic, sub-microscopic and symbolic) levels which form the conceptual framework of the study. This presentation covers the report of the pilot study and its analysis.The study adopted a non-experimental, exploratory and descriptive method and is principally guided by the ex-post facto research design using a concurrent embedded strategy (QUAN/QUAL). A paper and pencil Test of Basic Chemistry Knowledge (TBCK) based on the three levels of chemical representation of matter was administered to 55 Grade 10 physical science learners to collect data soon after their chemistry topics, in their Grade 10 first semester. Learners’ levels of achievement and ways of connecting chemical phenomena to the sub-microscopic level were established using a non-experimental, exploratory and descriptive method. The preliminary results revealed that most Grade 10 learners find it difficult to negotiate between the three levels of chemical representation of matter. It also became very apparent that some learners could not tell the differences between a diatomic element and a compound indicating conceptual problems when they reason at particle level. It is therefore concluded that Learners find it difficult negotiating the three levels of chemical representation of matter. However, it is not clear whether the misconceptions the learners showed could be completely attributable to the concepts involved or the nature of the sub-microscopic models that were used in the test.
A Societal Metabolism Approach to Effectively Analyze the Water–Energy–Food Nexus in an Agricultural Transboundary River Basin

We implemented the semantically open conceptual framework ‘Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism’ (MuSIASEM) to deal with nexus challenges in agricultural production systems in transboundary river basins, using the Iranian Aras River Basin as a case study. The performance of the agricultural sector was characterized for relevant typologies of crop production using metabolic profiles, i.e., inputs and outputs per ton of crop produced, per hectare of land use, and per hour of labor. This analysis was contextualized across hierarchical levels of analysis, including the agronomic context at the regional level (rainfed versus irrigated cultivation), the socio-economic and political context at the national level (food sovereignty; urbanization), and the hydro-ecological context of the larger transboundary river basin (water constraints, GHG emissions). We found that the simultaneous use of two different interrelated logics of aggregation—the productivity of land and labor (relevant for the agronomic and socio-economic dimension) and the density of flows under different land uses (relevant for the hydrological and ecological dimension)—allowed for the identification of trade-offs in policy deliberations. In the case of Iran, it showed that striving for strategic autonomy will exacerbate the current water crisis; with the current cropping patterns, agronomic improvements will not suffice to avert a water crisis. It was concluded that the proposed approach fills an important gap in nexus research, but to effectively guide nexus governance in the region, a co-production of the analysis with social actors as well as more complete data sets at the river basin level would be essential.
The Hubble Space Telescope Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale. XXII. The Discovery of Cepheids in NGC 1326A

We report on the detection of Cepheids and the first distance measurement to the spiral galaxy NGC 1326A, a member of the Fornax Cluster of galaxies. We have employed data obtained with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope. Over a 49 day interval, a total of 12 V-band (F555W) and eight I-band (F814W) epochs of observation were obtained. Two photometric reduction packages, ALLFRAME and DoPHOT, have been employed to obtain photometry measures from the three Wide Field CCDs. Variability analysis yields a total of 17 Cepheids in common with both photometry data sets, with periods ranging between 10 and 50 days. Of these, 14 Cepheids with high-quality light curves are used to fit the V and I period-luminosity relations and derive apparent distance moduli, assuming a Large Magellanic Cloud distance modulus μLMC = 18.50 ± 0.10 mag and color excess E(B-V) = 0.10 mag. Assuming A(V)/E(V-I) = 2.45, the DoPHOT data yield a true distance modulus to NGC 1326A of μ0 = 31.36 ± 0.17(random) ± 0.13(systematic) mag, corresponding to a distance of 18.7 ± 1.5(random) ± 1.2(systematic) Mpc. The derived distance to NGC 1326A is in good agreement with the distance derived previously to NGC 1365, another spiral galaxy member of the Fornax Cluster. However, the distances to both galaxies are significantly lower than that to NGC 1425, a third Cepheid calibrator in the outer parts of the cluster.
Different properties between patients with combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema and patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Aim: Combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema (CPFE) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have been discussed intensively in recent years as two different entities. We aimed to compare the clinical, functional and respiratory parameters, clinical course and mortality rates of patients with CPFE with IPF. Materials and Methods: 36 patients with a diagnosis of CPFE and 40 IPF who applied between September 2013 and February 2019 were retrospectively included in the study. Demographic data, comorbidities, pulmonary function parameters, life surveys, systolic pulmonary artery pressures(sPAP) detected. Results: In the CPFE patient group, While the ratio of male patients (p=0.02), smoking (p<0.001), number of inflammation (p=0.001) were found to be significantly higher, SF-36 total score (p<0.001) were significantly lower (p=0.02) than the IPF group. While FVC% (p<0.002), FEV1% (p=0.049) and TLC% (p=0.002) were significantly higher in the CPFE group than in the IPF group, TLCO% (p<0.002) and FEV1/FVC (p<0.001) was lower. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) was 40% in CPFE and 37% in IPF and no significant difference was found between them (p=0.806). Those who received long-term oxygen therapy(LTOT) were more common in the CPFE group (p=0.04). In CPFE patients; the percentage of those who received bronchodilator, antifibrotic, systemic corticosteroid was respectively 52.7%, 36.1%, 5.6%. Mortality from any cause was 9(25%) in CPFE and 8(20%) in IPF, and there was no significant difference between the two groups(p=0.601). Conclusion:It was observed that lung volumes were preserved and gas exchange of the lung was significantly decreased in patients with CPFE. Compared to IPF, although the quality of life was lower and inflammation was more common in CPFE, the frequency of PH and mortality were similar in both groups. Male gender and smoking history are important risk factors for this group of patients. There is a need for multicenter studies reporting the clinical features, prognosis, and mortality of CPFE.
Applications of the fibration method to the Brauer-Manin obstruction to the existence of zero-cycles on certain varieties

We study the Brauer-Manin obstruction to the existence of zero-cycles of degree d on certain classes of varieties over number ﬁelds. We generalize existing results in the literature and prove some results about ﬁbrations over the projective line, where the geometric Brauer group of the generic ﬁbre is not assumed to be ﬁnite. The idea is to assume that the Brauer-Manin obstruction to the Hasse principle is the only one for certain ﬁbres and then deduce analogous results for zero-cycles.
Caporalato capitalism. Labour brokerage and agrarian change in a Mediterranean society

ABSTRACT This article analyses a contemporary form of illegal labour mediation, known in Italian as caporalato, which persists in industrialized agricultural production in southern Italy despite a decade of unrelenting legal and policy reforms. Focusing on the regions of Puglia and Basilicata during the so-called Mediterranean ‘refugee crisis’ (2011-2018), this article addresses the question of how practices of caporalato remain a central infrastructure of globalized agri-food production, while segregating migrant workers in rural society. Adopting an infrastructural lens, we propose two main arguments. First, we highlight the need to shift analytical concerns from ‘criminal’ labour gangmasters and their protection business to a broader analysis of their role in the reproduction of precarious migrant labour. Second, we highlight how caporalato infrastructures contribute to adversely incorporating migrant ‘seasonal’ workers into local agricultural labour markets in a context of increasingly globalized retail agriculture and changing state policies.
Passivity-Based Output Consensus for Second-Order Nonlinear Multiagent Systems

The output consensus for a second-order nonlinear multiagent system (MAS) with mismatched input and output vectors is investigated by exploiting the output strict passivity (OSP). By resorting to the Lyapunov functional approach and the state feedback control method, an OSP criterion for the MAS is derived. Based on the OSP and the relationship between output consensus and the OSP, a sufficient condition to ensure the output consensus of the MAS is obtained. At last, a numerical simulation is given to substantiate the merits of the obtained theoretical results.