Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications on spinal fracture healing: a systematic review.

Background The effect of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) on fracture healing is a topic of debate. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the effect of NSAID medications on spinal fracture healing rates. Methods We searched the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Medline Ovid, and SCOPUS databases from inception until April 2021, and additionally searched the NIH Clinical Trials Database. Eligible studies included those which reported on spinal fracture healing rates in patients taking NSAIDs. Two reviewers independently assessed all potential studies for eligibility and extracted data. Risk of bias was assessed with validated tools by two reviewers. The primary outcome of interest was healing rates of spinal fractures in patients taking NSAIDs. Secondary outcomes of interest included healing rates stratified by NSAID selectivity. Results A total of 1,715 studies were initially screened. After inclusion criteria were applied, three studies (214 patients) were included which discussed spinal fracture healing rates in patients taking NSAIDs. These studies showed acceptable reliability for inclusion. The 3 studies reported heterogeneous results, with one study reporting a 96% healing rate, and another study reporting over 90% non-union rate. The types of fracture, NSAID type, and dosage/duration of NSAID use varied widely amongst studies. Discussion This systematic review identified a significant paucity in the literature on the effect of NSAID medications on spinal fracture healing rates. Given the limited number of studies, as well as the heterogeneous results and methods from these studies, no consensus statement can be made on the safety profile of NSAIDs in the context of spinal fractures. Further studies are needed to better address this question.
Post-occupancy evaluation - where are you?

This paper provides a historical context for the Probe studies reported in this special issue by describing the stalled development of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) in Britain since the 1960s. It charts 40 years of continuing academic, professional and commercial neglect of POE as a mainstream activity in the procurement of buildings in Britain. It notes the current resurgence of interest in the ‘customer care’ focus of the Egan Report. And it closes by identifying a re-emerging research agenda for POE in Britain. This could include its use for benchmarking progress in the transition towards more sustainable production and consumption of the built environment. Cet article rappelle le contexte historique des études d'évaluation Probe faisant l'objet de cette publication spéciale en décrivant l'évolution stoppée de l'évaluation de la fontionnalité de bâtiments après emménagement (POE) en Grande-Bretagne depuis les années 1960. Il retrace 40 années de négligence continue, aux niveaux académique, professional et commercial, en matière de POE en tant qu'activité principale de l'approvisionnement de bâtiments en Grande-Bretagne. L'auteur prend note du regain d'intérêt actuel pour le «souci du client» comme indiqué dans le Rapport Egan. Il se termine par la présentation d'un nouveau calendrier de recherche pour la POE en Grande-Bretagne. Ces activités pourraient comprendre l'utilisation de la POE en tant que repère dans le cadre de la transition vers une production et une consommation plus durables du milieu bâti.
Solute Movement Through Root‐Soil Environment

A methodology is developed for simulating the movement of water and solutes through a root‐soil system, which accounts for the effect of the solute concentration on the extraction of soil water by a transpiring crop's root system. The resulting root‐soil water flow and solute movement simulation methodology is a coupled set of partial differential equations that describe the macroscopic movement of water and solutes through a root‐soil system. Potential boundary conditions are described and the methodology is solved using a Galerkin finite element method. The model is compared to field measured soil‐water content and salt concentration levels. The comparisons show an excellent agreement between simulated and measured data. The transient trend of salt concentration levels in different layers of the soil profile and the sensitivity of the salt concentration distribution in the soil profile to changes in the rooting depth of a crop are also analyzed.
Patterns of Inequalities in Digital Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review

Digitalization of agriculture is often hailed as the next agricultural revolution. However, little is yet known about its social impacts and power effects. This review addresses this research gap by analyzing patterns of inequality linked to the development and adoption of digital technologies in agriculture and reviewing the strategies developed to reduce these inequalities and challenge the power relations in which they are embedded. Analysis of 84 publications found through a systematic literature review identified five patterns of inequality: (1) in digital technology development; (2) in the distribution of benefits from the use of digital technologies; (3) in sovereignty over data, hardware and digital infrastructure; (4) in skills and knowledge (‘digital literacy’); and (5) in problem definition and problem-solving capacities. This review also highlights the existence of emancipatory initiatives that are applying digital technologies to challenge existing inequalities and to advance alternative visions of agriculture. These initiatives underscore the political nature of digital agriculture; however, their reach is still quite limited. This is partly due to the fact that existing inequalities are structural and represent expressions of corporate power. From such a perspective, digitalization in agriculture is not a ‘revolution’ per se; rather, digital technologies mirror and reproduce existing power relations.
A Systematic Review: Topical Sucralfate for Burn Wound

BACKGROUND: Topical sucralfate has been used for burn and non-burn skin and mucosal lesion with remarkable results. The healing rate of mucosa is faster than skin lesion. AIM: A current systematic review was conducted to objectively evaluate wound healing benefits of topical sucralfate for burn wound and to show on which degree of burn wound it works compare with another topical agents of burn wound therapy. METHODS: Databases were searched for relevant studies: Google Scholar, PUBMED, and ProQuest. Data sources were searched using MeSH terms: “topical sucralfate” and “burn wound” for all publications up to December 2018. All English papers were included. Only studies performed in humans were included in this study. A total of 2437 publications were found, of which 3 studies met the inclusion criteria and were relevant to be used in this systematic review. The primary outcome was burn wound healing. DATA EXTRACTION: Data from retrieved studies were reviewed and tabulated according to year of publication, study design, human or animal studies, characteristics of the population, and outcomes. DATA SYNTHESIS: A total of 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 1 observational comparative study were found. All trials are on second degree burn wound patients. Jadad score was used to assess the methodological quality of the RCTs. One RCT and one comparative study demonstrated favorable outcomes with the use of topical sucralfate. There is one publication with no significant differences. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review shows a noticeably beneficial effect of topical sucralfate for burn wound. It is better than other topical agent in wound healing rate, decreased infection rate and enhancement of epithelialization also granulation with no local or systemic adverse reactions. However, multicenter RCT with larger sample size are needed to make recommendation for burn wound treatment.
Performance-Based Design of Residential Wood-Frame Buildings for Flood Based on Manageable Loss

The Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers Committee on the Reliability-Based Design of Wood Structures recently completed a special project entitled “The next step for ASCE 16: Performance-based design of wood structures. ” This paper presents the methodology and several illustrative examples of the design of residential wood-frame buildings for flood. The control variable of interest is losses in terms of either U.S. dollars or percent of construction costs. To do this, assembly-based vulnerability is coupled with existing durability data for wood and wood-based products; and when not available, logical assumptions were required. A series of illustrative examples are shown with various mitigation strategies applied to investigate the change in loss fragilities, and subsequently, economic risk if the fragility is recoupled with the flood hazard curve. The method is shown to work efficiently and the results are logical, thus it may find application by aiding developers, land-use planners, engineers, and potentially owners of wood-frame buildings in their design and retrofit decisions.
Methods for Minimizing Segregation: A Review

Segregation, as a common problem in particulate material industries, has been studied by many researchers from different science and engineering disciplines within academia and numerous industries. Various patterns and factors influencing segregation, as well as corresponding methods to minimize segregation, are discussed in this article. Universal methods used to minimize segregation mainly include improvement of material properties (i.e., narrowing size distribution spread, reducing absolute size, and avoiding irregularly shaped particles), proper selection of handling equipment and operational parameters (i.e., lowering free-fall height and employing mass flow bins), and proper control of material handling environmental conditions (i.e., minimizing vibration and maintaining humidity). For various material handling processes such as filling/deposition, discharging, conveying, and mixing, appropriate methods exist. For instance, various inserts have been used to minimize segregation during filling or discharging processes. Based on detailed review in this article, four fundamental segregation mechanisms—trajectory, sieving, fluidization, and agglomeration—have been identified. In addition, the current limitations identified precluding advancement of research on segregation include: (1) application-oriented research that limits researchers from capturing the larger picture of segregation; (2) use of ideal experimental materials that prevent the application of test results to industrial processes; and (3) all segregation measurements conducted so far being restricted to time-independent conditions described by a coefficient that is clearly not applicable to the entire time-varying process. To overcome these limitations, the second-generation primary segregation shear cell (PSSC-II) with novel and flexible design features models the sieving and percolation segregation mechanisms. This new approach could serve as an example to develop similar testers and much needed multi-scale constitutive models for the other three fundamental segregation mechanisms.
Gender, age and midsole hardness effects on lower extremity muscle activity during running

Introduction. The biomechanical knowledge for developing running shoe cushioning guidelines is scarce. This study tested whether changes in midsole hardness, gender and age affect the lower-extremity pre- and post-heel strike muscle activity during heel-toe running. Methods. Surface electromyography (EMG) of the gastrocnemius medialis (GM), biceps femoris (BF) and vastus medialis (VM) was analysed for 54 male and female runners aged 10–75. Participants ran at 12 ± 0.6 km/h on a 30-m long runway with Soft (Asker C-40), Medium (Asker C-52) and Hard (Asker C-65) midsoles. EMG signals were resolved into time-frequency space using wavelet analysis. EMG intensities were extracted from the wavelet transformed signals to quantify frequency and time domain differences. The total energies for the pre- and post-heel strike EMG signals were calculated. Results. Similar muscle patterns and no frequency or time differences were found between the three midsole conditions. Compared to women, male runners had similar or decreased relative EMG intensity at lower frequencies, but greater intensities at higher frequencies for all three muscles. Male runners exhibited less pre- and more post-heel strike BF activity. Older runners had less GM and BF intensities at low frequencies, but greater intensities for higher frequencies. The differences were smaller for the VM and the trend was reversed. The VM pre-heel strike contribution increased with age. Kids showed less pre- versus post-heel strike BF activation while all other groups showed the opposite. Conclusions. The tested midsole hardness changes did not affect lower extremity muscle activity for the general population of runners, but greater hardness variations and/or other construction manipulations might. Should that be the case, those design modifications should take into account functional differences with gender and age.
Development of a neural network for soybean rust epidemics

The objective of this study was to develop a neural network to predict soybean rust disease severity for a single soybean cultivar. Data available for development consisted of sequential weekly plantings of TK 5 soybean cultivar in 1980 and 1981, planted at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan. Plant and disease development were measured weekly throughout the season for each planting date experiment. Data from 73 epidemics were collected with a total of 577 scenarios (observations) over the two years. A total of seven inputs related to soybean and rust progress and weather were available for development. Validation was performed for two different assumptions about the independence of the epidemics. In the first validation, it was assumed that all epidemics were independent. The 73 epidemics and their associated observations of rust severity were selected so that 70% were used for training, 15% for testing, and 15% for validation. Several different three-layer feedforward neural networks were developed using different combinations of inputs and hidden nodes. The best NN had four inputs and four hidden nodes, and gave the highest coefficient of multiple determination (R2) of 0.793 for the validation scenarios. This configuration gave the lowest average error of 11.0% per observation. Cumulative probability of percent error between predicted and observed rust severity showed that 50% of the validation scenarios had errors within ±10% of measured values, and 80% had errors within ±20%. In the second validation, it was assumed that epidemics in 1980 were independent of epidemics in 1981. Epidemics for 1980 were used for training and testing, and epidemics in 1981 were used for validation. Several different three-layer feed forward networks were developed with different combinations of inputs and hidden nodes. Networks with three and four inputs gave very similar results. The three input network gave an R2 of 0.858, average error of 9.7%, and a maximum error of 43% for the validation scenarios. Cumulative probability of percent error between predicted and measured rust severity showed that 54% of the validation scenarios had errors within ±10%, and 84% of the scenarios had errors within ±20% of measured values.
Fracture Processes of Concrete for NLFEA Methods

The paper presents a numerical description of the fracture processes of concrete which is suitable for use with non-linear finite element analysis (NLFEA) methods. It is shown that when the rate of the fracture processes of concrete is controlled (e.g., by the use of steel reinforcement), these processes are adequately described by a procedure which allows a crack to occur only at the location where the stress conditions are most critical. Otherwise, the most realistic description is one which allows crack formation at all locations where the criteria for cracking are fulfilled during a given iteration. Furthermore, it is shown that numerical predictions are essentially unaffected by constant values of the shear retention factor (SRF) between 0.10 and 0.50. Simple recommendations are finally presented for the definition of realistic FE meshes and incremental loading procedures.
Defining a commercialisation model for residential construction innovation: industry case studies

Purpose – This work provides validation of a model for successful commercialisation of innovative products for residential construction. The development of the model is motivated by the persistence of failed commercialisations due to inadequate business plans. This paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach – The current paper validates the model with data from case studies of 15 manufacturers of recently commercialised innovative residential‐construction products. The research team interpreted the interview data and correlated this data with the model. The correlations illuminate critical steps within the commercialisation process; perceptions of the less important steps; decisions and resulting actions that support commercialisation, accelerators and barriers of commercialisation; and prototypical commercialisation processes.Findings – A total of 15 case studies of successfully commercialised products provide empirical support for the commercialisation model that was developed from l.
Power System Fault Ride through Capabilities of Induction Generator Based Wind Turbines

Until recently it has been accepted that induction generator based wind turbines are disconnected from the power system in the event of a network disturbance. However, the increasing trend of connecting high penetrations of wind farms to transmission networks has resulted in the transmission system operators revising their grid codes for the connection of large MW capacity wind farms. These documents now require wind turbines to remain connected for a specified voltage disturbance on the network. Much of the wind generation plant being developed will use either fixed speed induction generator (FSIG) or doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbines. The ability of induction generator based wind turbines to remain connected through power system disturbances is discussed. A control loop for a ‘fast pitching’ blade angle control strategy to provide a power system fault ride-through capability for induction generator based wind turbines is also described. A case study of a FSIG wind turbine with the ‘fast pitching’ initiating logic and control scheme is investigated.
Biomechanical Evaluation of Cortical Bone Trajectory Fixation with Traditional Pedicle Screw in the Lumbar Spine: A Finite Element Study

Cortical bone trajectory (CBT) is increasingly used in spinal surgery. Although there are many biomechanical studies, the biomechanical effect of CBT in combination with traditional pedicle screws is not detailed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the traditional pedicle screw and CBT screw implantation on the lumbar spine using finite element methods. Based on the combination of the traditional pedicle screw and the CBT system implanted into the lumbar spine, four finite element spinal lumbar models were established. The models were given four different load conditions (flexion, extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation), and the deformation and stress distribution on the finite element model were observed. The results show that there was no significant difference in the structural stability of the lumbar spine model between the traditional pedicle screw system and the CBT system. In addition, CBT may reduce stress on the endplate. Different movements performed by the model may have significant biomechanical effects on the spine and screw system. Clinical spinal surgeons may also consider using the CBT system in revision spinal surgery, which may contribute to smaller wounds.
Two Schools of Risk Analysis: A Review of past Research on Project Risk

Risk research can be generally categorized into two schools: risk as an objective fact and risk as a subjective construction. Both schools have different risk definitions, epistemologica! dimensions, and analytical methods, and tend to recommend different policies for managing risks. This study aims to locate the position of past studies on project risk found between the two schools of risk analysis and to help understand their basic assumptions and viewpoints by reviewing articles published during the last 10 years in two project management journals: the International Journal of Project Management and Project Management Journal. There are 171 articles collected from both journals. They are categorized into four groups: project management system, subjective perception, irrational behavior in risk management, and subjective construction. This study describes and discusses the basic assumptions, viewpoints, and tendencies usually held by each group, and it indicates the position of each group found between the two schools. It also develops some discussion on the starting point of both schools of risk analysis and their significance in directing practices of project risk management.
Leadership behavior of deans as a determinant of faculty job satisfaction and job commitment

Background: Faculty job satisfaction and commitment contribute to the success of academic programs of a college. The main purpose of the study was to determine the relationship of leadership behavior of the deans of nursing colleges to the job satisfaction and job commitment of the faculty members.Methods: The study used a descriptive correlational design. Twenty deans and 100 faculty members from 20 nursing colleges in the National Capital Region, Philippines participated. Survey instruments used were the (1) modified Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, (2) modified Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, and (3) Job Commitment Questionnaire. Leadership behavior was measured based on the “initiating structure” and “consideration” dimensions.Results: Deans of nursing schools viewed their leadership behavior as “highly initiating” (M = 44.0, SD = 5.61) and “very highly considerate” (M = 50.1, SD = 4.99). Assessment of faculty members revealed congruent findings for the leadership dimensions of initiating structure (M = 46.6, SD = 3.83) and consideration (M = 49.9, SD = 2.66). Faculty members were generally “satisfied” (M = 4.20, SD = .25) and “committed” (M = 4.00, SD = .23) to their teaching job. Among the recently established colleges, the “initiating structure” dimension was highly positively correlated with job commitment of faculty members, r = . 82, p < . 05. There were no statistically significant relationships between the school classification, and the job satisfaction and job commitment of nursing faculty members.Conclusions: Measures must be instituted to improve the “initiating structure” behavior of deans of recently established nursing schools to increase job commitment of faculty members. Other factors associated with job satisfaction and job commitment should be explored.