Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors Influencing Participation in Shared Decision-Making Among Patients with Glaucoma in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Purpose To explore the level of participation in shared decision-making by patients with glaucoma and identify influencing factors, to subsequently provide references to promote shared decision-making in ophthalmology, and achieve patient-centered care. Patients and Methods A questionnaire was completed by 148 patients with glaucoma who had been admitted to a specialized ophthalmic hospital in China, between October 2021 and January 2022. The participants’ responses to the nine-item Shared Decision-Making Questionnaire (SDM-Q-9) and a general information survey were analyzed to determine their level of participation in shared decision-making and influencing factors. Multiple linear regression was used to identify factors that influence shared decision-making at the time of clinical practice. Results The mean score of SDM-Q-9 was 71.73±21.27 (n=140). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that patients with negative attitudes towards participation in decision-making (P=0.023) and those who had rural insurance (P=0.017) had significantly lower SDM-Q-9 scores than those with positive attitudes and those with medical insurance. Patients who were more satisfied with their medical service had higher SDM-Q-9 scores (P<0.05). Conclusion Patients with glaucoma presented a high level of shared decision-making. Patients’ attitudes towards participating in decision-making, the payment method of medical expenses, and the level of satisfaction with medical services are factors that influence their level of participation in shared decision-making.
Lyapunov Vectors and Error Growth Patterns in a T21L3 Quasigeostrophic Model

Abstract The authors report a systematic study on the short and intermediate time predictability properties of a quasigeostrophic T21L3 model in which emphasis is placed on the role of the Lyapunov vectors in the growth patterns of generic initial error fields. It is found that under scale-independent small-amplitude initial perturbations the evolution of the mean error is intimately related to the spectral distribution of the Lyapunov vectors. In the case of perturbations at a particular scale of motion the picture turns out to be more involved, particularly as far as mean error growth over all wavenumbers is concerned, and must appeal to coupling mechanisms between different scales. The role of the norm used for the measure of the mean error growth and the specific predictability properties at different vertical levels of the model are also analyzed.
Students’ Mathematical Literacy Ability in Terms of Self Efficacy Through Problem Based Learning with PMRI Approach

This research aims to (1) find out whether mathematical literacy through Problem-Based Learning with PMRI Approach (PBL-PMRI) achieves Actual Completion Limit (ACL); (2) find out whether mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI is classically complete; (3) to find out whether the average and proportion of mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI is more than the average and proportion of mathematical literacy through PBL; (4) knowing whether students' self-efficacy influences mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI; (5) describe mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI based on students' self-efficacy. The research method used is a mixed method with a sequential explanatory design. Sampling in this research with cluster random sampling. While taking the subject with purposive sampling. The results of this research are: (1) mathematical literacy through PBL learning with the PMRI approach achieves Actual Completion Limit (ACL); (2) mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI learning achieves classical mastery; (3) the average and proportion of students' mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI are more than the average and proportion of mathematical literacy through PBL; (4) self-efficacy affects mathematical literacy through PBL-PMRI; (5) description of students' mathematical literacy with categories: (a) self-efficacy on fulfilling the four indicators; (b) self-efficacy is in the moderate of fulfilling 3 indicators and tends not to fulfill 1 indicator; (c) lower self-efficacy tends to fulfill 2 indicators, tends not to fulfill 1 indicator, and does not fulfill 1 indicator.
Impact of Induced Natural Organic Carbons on Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), Permeability and Production of Sandy and Clay Soils in Mediterranean Semi-Arid Eco-System

ABSTRACT The effect of amending “barren” sandy and clay soils with different organic origins on soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation and permeability is not well known. Therefore, proposing desirable practices to improve their qualities and fertility is a major challenge. To improve soil organic carbon, permeability (PR) and productivity, the two barren soil textures were amended with 0.39 and 0.78 tha−1 (ton per hectare) of manure and lignite, respectively, and irrigated with treated wastewater. During the four years of experimentation, the ranges of increase in SOC of sandy and clay soils were 1.9–3.87 kgm−2, and 0.29–1.40 kgm−2, respectively, and in PR of 35.2–69.3% in sandy soils and 39.3–74.8% in clay soils. These improvements have a major effect on nutrient cycling, significantly improving water and nutrient availability to roots and plants. The levels of improvement increase with the amounts of organic compounds introduced, especially in the clay soil amended with 0.78 tha−1. The proportions of mineralized (lost) SOC were 35.3–62.3% in the sandy soils and 1.0–3.1% in the clay soils. The maximum crop weights produced were approximately 41.2 gm−2 in sandy soils and 1152 gm−2 in clay soils. Thus, amendment of barren sandy and clay soils by all three sources of organic carbon was beneficial, especially for the clay soil. achieved the desired objectives. The gain in clay soils is significantly greater than in sandy soils, which require further study. The type of practice desired by farmers will depend on cost and crop yield. Laboratoire Géoressources. Univerversité de Carthage-Centre des Recherches et Technologies des Eaux, B.P. 273, Soliman 8020 (Tunisia).
Swiping Away Your Well-Being? Examining Well-Being Indicators Among TikTok Account Holders

Social media platforms continue to increase in popularity and number. Although many associations between social media and user health interactions have been explored, little to no research has investigated TikTok, a recently released social media platform, and its individual interactions with user mental and physical well-being variables. To address this gap, we administered an online questionnaire to a group of college students (n = 407) at Brigham Young University – Idaho about their social media use, mental, and physical well-being. We observed potential differences among TikTok account holders and non-TikTok users using a series of independent-samples t tests with Bonferroni correction. Although TikTok account holders reported higher negative mental well-being indicators than their nonuser counterparts in almost all measured areas, these relationships were only consistent among female TikTok account holders. Conversely, our findings of significantly higher reported consumption of sugary drinks across our entire sample, t(403) = 3.41, p = . 001, d = 0.33, only maintained significance among male participants, t(141) = 3.04, p < . 001, d = 0.50. As such, female TikTok account holders reported consistently worse mental health and well-being indicators than non-TikTok users. Building on our findings, we call for future research to better understand the nature of these relationships for both TikTok and other social media users’.
Metabolomics Approach Reveals Important Glioblastoma Plasma Biomarkers for Tumor Biology

Glioblastoma (GB) is the most aggressive and frequent primary malignant tumor of the central nervous system and is associated with poor overall survival even after treatment. To better understand tumor biochemical alterations and broaden the potential targets of GB, this study aimed to evaluate differential plasma biomarkers between GB patients and healthy individuals using metabolomics analysis. Plasma samples from both groups were analyzed via untargeted metabolomics using direct injection with an electrospray ionization source and an LTQ mass spectrometer. GB biomarkers were selected via Partial Least Squares Discriminant and Fold-Change analyses and were identified using tandem mass spectrometry with in silico fragmentation, consultation of metabolomics databases, and a literature search. Seven GB biomarkers were identified, some of which were unprecedented biomarkers for GB, including arginylproline (m/z 294), 5-hydroxymethyluracil (m/z 143), and N-acylphosphatidylethanolamine (m/z 982). Notably, four other metabolites were identified. The roles of all seven metabolites in epigenetic modulation, energy metabolism, protein catabolism or folding processes, and signaling pathways that activate cell proliferation and invasion were elucidated. Overall, the findings of this study highlight new molecular targets to guide future investigations on GB. These molecular targets can also be further evaluated to derive their potential as biomedical analytical tools for peripheral blood samples.
Item-Level Scores on the Boston Naming Test as an Independent Predictor of Perirhinal Volume in Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment

We explored the methodological value of an item-level scoring procedure applied to the Boston Naming Test (BNT), and the extent to which this scoring approach predicts grey matter (GM) variability in regions that sustain semantic memory. Twenty-seven BNT items administered as part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were scored according to their “sensorimotor interaction” (SMI) value. Quantitative scores (i.e., the count of correctly named items) and qualitative scores (i.e., the average of SMI scores for correctly named items) were used as independent predictors of neuroanatomical GM maps in two sub-cohorts of 197 healthy adults and 350 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) participants. Quantitative scores predicted clusters of temporal and mediotemporal GM in both sub-cohorts. After accounting for quantitative scores, the qualitative scores predicted mediotemporal GM clusters in the MCI sub-cohort; clusters extended to the anterior parahippocampal gyrus and encompassed the perirhinal cortex. This was confirmed by a significant yet modest association between qualitative scores and region-of-interest-informed perirhinal volumes extracted post hoc. Item-level scoring of BNT performance provides complementary information to standard quantitative scores. The concurrent use of quantitative and qualitative scores may help profile lexical–semantic access more precisely, and might help detect changes in semantic memory that are typical of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Second Law Analysis of Laminar Viscous Flow Through a Duct Subjected to Constant Wall Temperature

Entropy generation for a fully developed laminar viscous flow in a duct subjected to constant wall temperature is investigated analytically. The temperature dependence on the viscosity is taken into consideration in the analysis. The ratio of the pumping power to the total heat flux decreases considerably and the entropy generation increases along the duct length for viscous fluids. The variation of total exergy loss due to both the entropy generation and the pumping process is studied along the duct length as well as varying the fluid inlet temperature for fixed duct length. For low heat transfer conditions the entropy generation due to viscous friction becomes dominant and the dependence of viscosity with the temperature becomes essentially important to be considered in order to determine the entropy generation accurately
Reconstruction of Monthly SST in the Tropical Pacific Ocean during 1868–1993Using Adaptive Climate Basis Functions

Abstract An EOF-based reconstruction of monthly SST anomaly fields is calculated for the years 1868–1993 in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The EOFs are computed from optimally interpolated SST anomaly fields from November 1981 to October 1995 from the same region. These are used as a functional basis set for projecting SST anomalies from the Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) to produce a smooth, spatially complete reconstruction. The optimal number of EOF modes for each month’s reconstruction is chosen using large-scale error analysis: a modern subset of the COADS SST is subsampled according to the distribution of observations in the historical month being reconstructed, forming a testbed on which to evaluate the reconstruction based on a variable number of modes. The test bed is least squares fit to the basis EOFs. The difference fields between the reconstruction and a smoothed version of the test bed is found. The total variance of difference fields (residual) is minimized with respect to the.
Laryngectomy: Phonation Alternatives and Their Impact on the Quality of Life

Background The decision to consent to surgery is a life-changing moment. This study addresses the impact of total laryngectomy (TL) on phonation and its effect on the quality of life (QoL) of patients. The primary objective of this cohort study is to compare the alternatives in phonation rehabilitation, and the secondary objective is to identify concurrent predictors of vocal outcomes. Methodology To perform a comprehensive analysis, we reviewed data from patients who underwent TL with bilateral radical neck dissection in the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Santo António between January 2010 and October 2022. Adult patients who consented to participate in the study and underwent subjective evaluation were included in this study. Data regarding clinical history was primarily collected. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Different types of vocal rehabilitation formed the subgroups to be compared. An additional analysis was performed for baseline variables collected in the clinical records, and vocal outcomes were measured using the Self-Evaluation of Communication Experiences After Laryngectomy (SECEL) questionnaire. Furthermore, linear models taking SECEL scores as the outcome were developed. Results The first search identified a total of 124 patients operated during the study period. In total, 63 patients were alive at the time of the current follow-up, with 61 deaths (49%). Overall, 26 of the 63 alive patients completed the SECEL questionnaire. All patients were male. The mean age at diagnosis was 62.2 ± 10.6 years. The mean age at the time of subjective vocal assessment with the SECEL questionnaire was 66.3 ± 10.4 years. The mean time of follow-up after the initial diagnosis was 4 ± 3.8 years. A statistically significant difference was observed in esophageal speech (ES), which was inferior to other modalities (mean SECEL total score for ES: 46.6 ± 12.2 vs. mean SECEL total score for all other modalities: 33 ± 15.1; p = 0.03). The follow-up time correlated significantly with vocal function, as measured by the SECEL questionnaire (p = 0.013). Conclusions The SECEL questionnaire can be a valuable tool to evaluate QoL in laryngectomy patients, given its usefulness in assessing the psychological impact derived from vocal functionality in this group. ES appears inferior to other modalities regarding voice-related QoL.
Enhanced Detection of Landmark Minimal Residual Disease in Lung Cancer Using Cell-free DNA Fragmentomics

Currently, approximately 30%–55% of the patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) develop recurrence due to minimal residual disease (MRD) after receiving surgical resection of the tumor. This study aims to develop an ultrasensitive and affordable fragmentomic assay for MRD detection in patients with NSCLC. A total of 87 patients with NSCLC, who received curative surgical resections (23 patients relapsed during follow-up), enrolled in this study. A total of 163 plasma samples, collected at 7 days and 6 months postsurgical, were used for both whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and targeted sequencing. WGS-based cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragment profile was used to fit regularized Cox regression models, and leave-one-out cross-validation was further used to evaluate models’ performance. The models showed excellent performances in detecting patients with a high risk of recurrence. At 7 days postsurgical, the high-risk patients detected by our model showed an increased risk of 4.6 times, while the risk increased to 8.3 times at 6 months postsurgical. These fragmentomics determined higher risk compared with the targeted sequencing–based circulating mutations both at 7 days and 6 months postsurgical. The overall sensitivity for detecting patients with recurrence reached 78.3% while using both fragmentomics and mutation results from 7 days and 6 months postsurgical, which increased from the 43.5% sensitivity by using only the circulating mutations. The fragmentomics showed great sensitivity in predicting patient recurrence compared with the traditional circulating mutation, especially after the surgery for early-stage NSCLC, therefore exhibiting great potential to guide adjuvant therapeutics. Significance: The circulating tumor DNA mutation-based approach shows limited performance in MRD detection, especially for landmark MRD detection at an early-stage cancer after surgery. Here, we describe a cfDNA fragmentomics–based method in MRD detection of resectable NSCLC using WGS, and the cfDNA fragmentomics showed a great sensitivity in predicting prognosis.
Time-Optimal Path Tracking for Dual-Arm Free-Floating Space Manipulator System Using Convex Programming

In this article, the time-optimal path-tracking problem of the dual-arm free-floating space manipulator (FFSM) system is solved by using convex programming. First, we construct a continuous nonlinear optimization problem that considers system dynamics and constraints along the path, including torque, velocity, and acceleration. Subsequently, the original optimization problem is transformed into a convex optimal control problem by using scalar path coordinate and nonlinear variables. To characterize the problem in a more manageable form, we apply the direct transcription method and discretize the problem into a sparse convex optimization program. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach efficiently determines the trajectory of the FFSM along the preset path. Meanwhile, the base's velocity can be limited to a small region, which is an essential requirement for ensuring the stability of the satellite. Furthermore, an experiment is conducted using GLUON robots. The tracking error between the actual and preset pose of the target verifies the feasibility of the proposed method.
Modular and Admissible Semilattices

We correct some errors in [1] and extend some of the results there. Generally, we shall follow the terminology and notation of [1]. There is an error in the proof of Lemma 3.13 there, and consequently the subsequent results which depend on it are incorrect as stated. However, they are correct if we replace the condition “a-admissible” by “strongly a-admissible” (see [3] where this notion was introduced). We also show that the results in [1] are correct if the semilattices are assumed to be modular. We shall change the terminology in [3] slightly. Definition 1 (see [3]). Let A be a Boolean algebra and let D be a meet semilattice with 1. An admissible map f.A X D → D is called strongly admissible if where a’ is the complement of a in A.
Finite Strain Elastoplasticity: Consistent Eulerian and Lagrangian Approaches

Infinitesimal strain approximation and its additive decomposition into elastic and plastic parts used in phenomenological plasticity models are incapable of predicting the hardening behavior of materials for large strain loading paths. Experimentally observed second-order effect in finite torsional loading of cylindrical bars, known as the Swift effect, as well as deformations involving significant amount of rotations are examples for which infinitesimal models fail to predict the material response accurately. Several different Eulerian and Lagrangian formulations for finite strain elastoplasticity have been proposed based on different decompositions of deformation and their corresponding flow rules. However, issues such as spurious shear oscillation in finite simple shear and elastic dissipation in closed-path loadings as well as elastic ratchetting under cyclic loading have been identified with the classical formulations for finite strain analysis. A unified framework of Eulerian rate-type constitutive models for large strain elastoplasticity is developed here which assigns no preference to the choice of objective corotational rates. A general additive decomposition of arbitrary corotational rate of the Eulerian strain tensor is proposed. Integrability of the model for the elastic part of the deformation is investigated and it is shown that the proposed unified model is consistent with the notion of hyperelasticity for its elastic part. Based on this, the stress power is physically separable into its reversible and irreversible parts using the proposed constitutive model irrespective of the objective rate used in the model. As a result, all of the issues of finite strain elastoplasticity are resolved using the proposed Eulerian rate model for arbitrary corotational rate of stress. A modified multiplicative decomposition of the right stretch tensor is proposed and used to set up a new Lagrangian framework for finite strain elastoplasticity. Decomposition of the deformation is solely defined by the multiplicative decomposition of the total right stretch tensor into its elastic and plastic parts. The flow rule and evolution of the plastic internal variables are based on the Hencky measure of the plastic right stretch tensor instead of the strain rate tensor. As a result, the issue of mismatch between the elastic and plastic parts of the deformation which mostly exists in the classical multiplicative models does not exist in the proposed Lagrangian model. The problem of back stress oscillation observed in the classical Lagrangian models is also resolved using the proposed Lagrangian model and results are identical to those of the proposed unified Eulerian rate model for finite strain elastoplasticity. In the context of nonlinear elasticity, no preference for either Lagrangian or Eulerian formulations exists since the two formulations can be related through proper transformations and are equivalent form of each other in different backgrounds. However, classical Eulerian and Lagrangian models of elastoplasticity do…
An Exploratory Study of Acoustic Cues in Stop Production in Gangneung
 Korean

This study investigated voice onset time (VOT) in Korean stop consonants and the fundamental frequency (f0) of post-stop vowels in Gangneung Korean (a tonal variety). These aspects were compared with those of Seoul Korean (non-tonal), considering phonation types, place of articulation, and vowel context. Twenty speakers provided a total of 1,620 speech samples, and 3,240 measurements were taken. Linear mixed effect modeling was conducted using R . The results showed that Gangneung and Seoul speakers produced similar VOTs for aspirated and lenis stops but revealed f0 differences among phonation types despite the gradual loss of pitch accent in young Gangneung Korean speakers. Place of articulation and vowel context effect did not vary significantly between dialects. This paper discusses the implications for the ongoing changes in VOT and f0 in stop productions in tonal languages.