Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structures of the intracloud electric field supporting origin of long-lasting thunderstorm ground enhancements

The problem of thundercloud electrification is one of the most difficult ones in atmospheric physics. The structure of electric fields in clouds escapes from the detailed in situ measurements; few balloon flights reveal these rather complicated structures. To gain insight into the problem of the charge structure of a thundercloud, we use new key evidence—the fluxes of particles from a thundercloud, the so-called thunderstorm ground enhancements—TGEs. TGEs originate from electron acceleration and multiplication processes in the strong electric fields in the thundercloud, and the intensity and energy spectra of electrons and gamma rays as observed on the Earth’s surface are directly connected with the atmospheric electric field. Discovery of long-lasing TGEs poses new challenges for revealing structures in the thundercloud responsible for hours-extending gamma ray fluxes. In the presented paper, we demonstrate that experimentally measured intensities and energy spectra of the “thundercloud particles” give clues for understanding charge structures embedded in the atmosphere. A rather short “runaway” process above the detector site, which is consistent with the tripole structure of the cloud electrification, is changing to a much less energetic emission that lasts for hours. Measurements of enhanced particle fluxes are accompanied by the simulation experiments with CORSIKA and GEANT4 codes.
Study on the mechanism of Shujin Tongluo granules in treating cervical spondylosis based on network pharmacology and molecular docking

Background: To investigate the potential active ingredients and possible mechanisms of Shujin Tongluo granules (SJTLG) in the treatment of cervical spondylosis (CS) by network pharmacology and molecular docking. Methods: The active ingredients and potential targets of SJTLG were obtained through databases such as traditional Chinese medicine system (TCMSP) and BATMAN-traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and the relevant human targets of CS were identified through databases such as OMIM, GeneCards, and DisGeNET. The intersection targets were imported into STRING for protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis. The obtained data were imported into Cytoscape 3.9. 0 software for visualization, and module analysis was performed using the MCODE plug-in. The representative targets were screened through the Metascape website for pathway enrichment analysis in Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). Cytoscape software was used to build networks such as “drug-compound-target” and “drug-compound-target-pathway. ” Finally, the key targets were selected for molecular docking with the corresponding compounds by Autodock Tools 1.5. 7 and visualized by PyMol. Results: A total of 132 active compounds and 996 targets from SJTLG and 678 targets from CS were screened with 116 intersection targets. The key targets were AKT1, GAPDH, ALB, IL-6, TP53, TNF, VEGFA, IL-1β, EGFR, HSP90AA1, ESR1, and JUN. The results of GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the treatment of CS was mainly related to biological processes such as cellular response to nitrogen compound, cellular response to organonitrogen compound, and positive regulation of locomotion, and the targets were mainly focused on pathways in cancer, Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, lipid, and atherosclerosis. Molecular docking results showed that the minimum binding energy between the core targets and the corresponding compound was <−5.0 kcal·mol−1. Conclusion: This study preliminarily elucidates the potential active ingredients and mechanism of anti-inflammatory, analgesic, microcirculation improvement, vasodilation, osteoporosis inhibition and nerve nutrition effects of SJTLG in the treatment of CS and provides a reference for its clinical application.
Spread and Skill in Mixed- and Single-Physics Convection-Allowing Ensembles

Spread and skill of mixed- and single-physics convection-allowing ensemble forecasts that share the same set of perturbed initial and lateral boundary conditions are investigated at a variety of spatial scales. Forecast spread is assessed for 2-m temperature, 2-m dewpoint, 500-hPa geopotential height, and hourly accumulated precipitation both before and after a bias-correction procedure is applied. Time series indicate that the mixed-physics ensemble forecasts generally have greater variance than comparable single-physics forecasts. While the differences tend to be small, they are greatest at the smallest spatial scales and when the ensembles are not calibrated for bias. Although differences between the mixed- and single-physics ensemble variances are smaller for the larger spatial scales, variance ratios suggest that the mixed-physics ensemble generates more spread relative to the single-physics ensemble at larger spatial scales. Forecast skill is evaluated for 2-m temperature, dewpoint temperature, and bias-corrected 6-h accumulated precipitation. The mixed-physics ensemble generally has lower 2-m temperature and dewpoint root-mean-square error (RMSE) compared to the single-physics ensemble. However, little difference in skill or reliability is found between the mixed- and single-physics bias-corrected precipitation forecasts. Overall, given that mixed- and single-physics ensembles have similar spread and skill, developers may prefer to implement single- as opposed to mixed-physics convection-allowing ensembles in future operational systems, while accounting for model error using stochastic methods.
The efficacy of aprepitant for the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting: A meta-analysis

Background: Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is one of the common adverse reactions after surgery. Recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating antiemetic drugs suggest that aprepitant has the strongest antiemetic effect of any single drug. This meta-analysis aimed to explore the efficacy of aprepitant for preventing PONV based on the existing literature. Methods: To identify RCTs investigating the use of aprepitant for PONV prevention, we searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases for articles published prior to March 20, 2022. Seventeen RCTs were identified, with 3299 patients, meeting the inclusion criteria. PONV incidence, complete response, 80 mg aprepitant combined with dexamethasone and ondansetron, vomiting, nausea, and analgesic dose-response were the main outcomes measured. Results: Compared with the control group, PONV incidence was significantly reduced among those receiving aprepitant (odds ratio [OR]: 0.34; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.26, 0.44; P < .0001), with a more complete response (OR: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.59; P = .0004). Supplementation of 80 mg aprepitant in combination with dexamethasone and ondansetron substantially improved the effects of PONV (OR: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.82; P = .01). Further, administration of 80 mg aprepitant was better at preventing vomiting than nausea (OR: 8.6; 95% CI: 3.84, 19. 29; P < .00001). No statistically significant difference between the dose-response of analgesics was identified (mean difference: −1.09; 95% CI: −6.48, 4.30; P = .69). The risk of bias was assessed independently by paired evaluators. Conclusion: Aprepitant effectively reduces the incidence of PONV; however, the effects of postoperative analgesia require further exploration.
Comparison between different treatment regimens of vascular targeting drug to malignant pleural effusion in patients with lung cancer: A Bayesian network meta-analysis

Background: The presence of malignant pleural effusion in lung cancer patients often suggests a poor prognosis. We plan to investigate which regimen of vascular targeting drug is preferable to control the malignant pleural effusion in such patients. Methods: Two investigators dependently searched and screened for randomized controlled trials in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure from the database inception to August 2022. R software was applied to build a network model in Bayesian method. Objective response rate of malignant pleural effusion is the primary outcome measure. Besides, the incidence of 3 adverse events were compared, including gastrointestinal reaction, leukopenia and hypertension. Due to the disconnection of network, we analysis and discuss the short-term treatment (3–4 weeks) and long-term treatment (6–12 weeks) respectively. Results: 31 studies with 2093 patients were identified. Four targeting drugs contain bevacizumab (Bev), anlotinib, apatinib and Endostar. Two administration routes include intracavity perfusion (icp) and intravenous injection. Based on the current evidence, for short-term treatments, compared with single-agent chemotherapy (CT), Bev_icp + CT, anlotinib + CT, Bev_icp and anlotinib + endorstar_icp present better objective response, and no statistical significance was found in objective response between Bev_icp + CT, anlotinib + CT and Bev_icp. For long-term treatments, compared with doublet or triplet chemotherapy (2CT or 3CT), Bev_icp + 2CT, apatinib + 2CT, Bev_icp + 3CT, and Bev_intravenous injection + 2CT are more effective option, but no statistical significance was found in objective response between the 4 combination regimens with chemotherapy. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that no statistical significance between above vascular targeting regimens. Pathological type of lung cancer may affect the effect of bevacizumab intracavity infusion plus chemotherapy. The influence of different administration routes of vascular targeting drugs on efficacy remains to be investigated. There are some concerns with the quality of the studies, and some limitations should be considered when interpreting these results, which includes limited geographical region and sample size of studies. Despite these limitations, this study may inform vascular targeting therapy choice in such a patient population.
A prospective randomized noninferiority trial comparing conventional smears and SurePathTM liquid-based cytology in endoscopic ultrasound-guided sampling of esophageal, gastric, and duodenal lesions

Background: Several liquid-based cytology (LBC) methods are currently used, but the diagnostic accuracy of each method is not well known. We aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of SurePathTM LBC and conventional smear (CS) cytology in endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) samples of esophageal, gastric, and duodenal lesions. Methods: As a prospective randomized noninferiority study, patients who needed EUS-FNA due to subepithelial mass in the upper gastrointestinal tract were randomly assigned 1:1 to the LBC and CS groups. Cytologic preparation was carried out using a crossover design where 1 method was used for the first needle-pass sample and another method was used for the second needle-pass sample. The primary outcome was to compare the diagnostic performance between LBC and CS using the final diagnosis as the gold standard. Results: A total of 87 patients were randomized and 60 patients were analyzed. There were no differences between LBC and CS in diagnostic accuracy (91.7% vs 86.7%, P = .380), sensitivity (97.7% vs 90.7%, P = .169), specificity (76.5% vs 76.5%, P > .99), negative predictive value (92.9% vs 76.5%, P = .225), or positive predictive value (91.3% vs 90.7%, P = .921). The background of LBC was less bloody than that of CSs (5.0% vs 53.3%, P < .001) and the sample preparation time of LBC was shorter than that of CSs (29 ± 7 seconds vs 90 ± 17 seconds, P < .001). Conclusion: In the EUS-FNA of a subepithelial mass in the upper gastrointestinal tract, the diagnostic performance of LBC was not inferior to that of CS. The field of view was better in LBC, because the background was less bloody and necrotic. As LBC is more convenient to perform and takes shorter time, it is expected that it can replace the CS method for EUS-FNA samples.
High tone lowering and raising in Tsua

The Tsua language is an Eastern Kalahari Khoe language of Botswana (Chebanne 2014). Tsua tone production displays complex Fundamental Frequency (F0) trajectories. Lexical data show that this language has three tone levels: High (H), Mid (M), and Low (L), with the following surface tone melodies: [HH, HM, HL, MM, MH, ML]. High tones may be lowered when they occur following voiced obstruents, aspirated obstruents or the glottal fricative /h/ in root-initial position, a typologically rare pattern. This results in two depressed melodies: depressed HM [DH-M] and depressed HL [DH-L]. Both clicks and non-clicks participate in this interaction. We refer to this tonal depression pattern as High Tone Lowering (HTL). HTL may be formally accounted for via the Low tone insertion rule: ∅ → L / [-sonorant, +slack] ___ H [-H] #. Recent analysis suggests that Super High (SH) tones are derived from /H/ when docked to the high vowels [i], [u] and are not phonemic. For example, underlying /HL/ tuu “to collect and remove ash” is produced with SH-L tones on the surface. We refer to this as High Tone Raising (HTR). Elderkin (1988) reports a similar finding in Ju|ʼhoan in which a sequence of successive extra-high tones is only found in click-initial morphs when the final vowel is [i] or [u]. It may be that an Intrinsic F0 (IF0) effect from the Tsua high vowels was a historical factor that led to the genesis of HTR. Given that voiced, aspirated and /h/ consonant types depress a root-initial H tone and the high vowels [i], [u] raise H tones, the paper considers phonetically-driven origins of these patterns.
Frequency of Thyroid Disorders in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Lahore, Pakistan

Background: Two powerful hormones are produced by thyroid gland, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). These hormones control all metabolic processes and influence oxygen consumption in nearly all tissues of the body. Objective: To determine the frequency of various thyroid disorders and association of thyroid disorders with age. Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted at Chemical Pathology and Immunology department, of a tertiary care hospital Lahore, Pakistan from October 2020 to April 2021. Reports of thyroid function test (TFT) of patients from 1st October 2020 to 31st December 2020 were included. Thyroid profile includes three parameters i.e. thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free T3 and free T4. Frequency of thyroid disorders was determined according to age and sex. Chi-square was used to determine association between age-groups and vice versa. Results: Among 239 thyroid profiles of patients, 146 (61%) were found to be within normal range, whereas thyroid profile of 93 (38.9%) patients was disturbed, and they had various thyroid disorders. Frequency of thyroid disorders were significantly associated with age (p value=0.03). Among the patients with disturbed thyroid profile TSH was low in 14 (15.1%) patients and high in 57 (61.30%). Conclusion: More than one-third of the suspected patients were found to have thyroid disorder. Thyroid disorders were significantly associated with age. Thyroid dysfunction was more common among female patients and presentation of hypothyroidism was more common among after 30 years of age
Comments on “ Identifying Better Indicators of Aerosol Wet Scavenging During Long-Range Transport ” by Hilario et al.

General This paper describes the results from the data analyses of the wet scavenging of black carbon (BC) aerosols. The authors attempted to seek possible good indicators to describe the wet removal of BC during transport. In previous studies, the precipitation amount accumulated along backward trajectories (APT) has been analyzed as one of the indicators. Beside this, the authors suggested that the other several indicators related to the precipitation and humidity along the backward trajectories can well account for the variation of the degree of the removal of BC which is defined as the enhancement of BC to CO (ΔBC/ΔCO ratio). The major results and discussion in this study meet the scope of Atmospheric Measurement Technology. Despite the significance of this study, there are several important issues to be addressed before accepting the manuscript. Please consider the following comments and necessary revisions of the data analyses and the descriptions in the manuscript.
The “memory” of the Oort cloud

Aims. Our aim in this paper is to try to discover if we can find any record of the Oort cloud formation process in the orbital distribution of currently observable long-periodic comets. Methods. Long-term simulations of tens of millions of comets from two different kinds of proto-Oort clouds (isotropic and disk-like) were performed. In these simulations we considered the Galactic tides, stellar passage, and planetary perturbations. Results. In the case of an initially disk-like proto-Oort cloud, the final Oort cloud remains anisotroic inside of about 13 200 au. A record of the initial shape is preserved, here referred to as the “memory”, even on the final distribution of observable comets. This memory is measurable in particular for observable comets for which the previous perihelion was beyond 10 au and that were significantly affected by Uranus or Neptune at that moment (the so-called Kaib-Quinn jumpers observable class). Indeed, these comets are strongly concentrated along an extended scattered disk that is the remnant of the initial population 1 Gyr before the comets are observable. In addition, for this class of comets, the distributions of ecliptic inclination and Galactic longitude of the ascending node at the previous perihelion preceding the observable perihelion highlight characteristics that are not present in the isotropic model. Furthermore, the disk-like model produces four times more observable comets than the isotropic one, and its flux is independent of the initial distribution of orbital energy. Also for the disk-like model, the region beyond Neptune up to ~40 au gives the major contribution to the final flux of observable comets. Conclusions. The disk-like model sustains a flux of observable comets that are more consistent with the actually observed flux than using the isotropic model. However, further investigations are needed to reveal whether a fingerprint of the initial proto-Oort cloud, such as those highlighted in the present article, is present in the sample of known long-period comets.
Financial Statement Audits and Data Breaches

Abstract: Financial statement audits for public companies require that auditors test the internal controls over the client’s information systems that are material to the financial reporting process. Given the increasingly integrated nature of corporate data and control systems, a standard audit may therefore have a positive effect on firms’ other information systems such as those that help prevent data breaches. In this paper, I provide evidence on whether and how auditors help prevent data breaches. I find that plausibly exogenous improvements in auditing reduce the likelihood of data breaches. I explore two mechanisms through which the effect occurs: auditors’ provision of relevant information about financial data systems and increasing firms’ ex ante incentives for internal controls. I find evidence consistent with both mechanisms. Collectively, this paper provides evidence that an improvement in accounting information systems can have a positive impact on non-accounting systems.
Introducing inferred geomorphological sediment thickness as a new site proxy to predict ground-shaking amplification at regional scale. Application to Europe and Eastern Turkey

To test whether a globally inferred sediment thickness value from geomorphological studies can be used as a proxy to predict earthquake site amplification, we derive site amplification models from the relation between empirical amplification for sites in Europe and Turkey, and the geomorphological sediment thickness. The new site amplification predictions are then 10 compared to predictions from site amplification models derived using the traditional site proxies, V S30 inferred from slope, slope itself, as well as geological era and slope combined. The ability of each proxy to capture the site amplification is evaluated based on the reduction in site-to-site variability caused by each proxy. The results show that the highest reduction is caused by geological era and slope combined, while the geomorphological sediment thickness show a slightly larger or equal reduction in site-to-site variability as inferred V S30 and slope. We therefore argue that including geology and geomorphology in site 15 amplification modelling on regional scale can give an important added value and that globally or regionally inferred models for soil and sediment thickness from fields beyond engineering seismology can have a great potential in regional seismic hazard and risk assessments. Furthermore, the differences between the site amplification maps derived from different proxies capture the epistemic uncertainty of site amplification modelling. While, albeit the different proxies predict similar features on a large scale, local differences can be large. This shows that using only one proxy when predicting site amplification does not capture 20 the full epistemic uncertainty, which is demonstrated by looking into detail on the site amplification maps predicted for Eastern Turkey and Syria, where the devastating Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence occurred in February 2023.
SINGLE INSTITUTE BASED PROSPECTIVE RANDOMISED STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF PAROTID STEM CELL SPARING IMRT IN HEAD AND NECK CANCER

-AIM: Our study aims at analysing the concept of preserving the function of parotid gland more efficiently when stem cell region of parotid gland is spared. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective was to test the hypothesis that if stem cell region of parotid is spared, it better preserves parotid gland function by using EORTC QLQ H&N-35. The secondary objectives were 1) To assess the patient rated day and night time xerostomia between two arms subjectively by using Groningen Radiation induced Xerostomia Questionnaire ,2) To compare the mean dose to the both parotids, both superficial lobes, both deep lobes and both stem cell region between the arms. METHODS: Prospective randomized study done in 100 patients of head and neck cancer. Patients with diagnosis of head and neck carcinoma with confirmed histology of squamous cell carcinoma, undergoing definitive radiotherapy treatment with bilateral cervical nodal irradiation with concurrent chemotherapy with Cisplatin are included. All the 100 patients were randomized to two groups: whole parotid sparing without stem cell sparing or whole parotid sparing with parotid stem cell sparing group. Then patients were routinely followed up for grading the symptoms of Xerostomia/ Dry Mouth, which was done subjectively by using EORTC QLQ H& N 35 and Groningen Radiation Induced Xerostomia Questionnaire before starting RT, on completing RT, at 3 months and 6months post completion of RT.
WEB-BASED INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL DISCLOSURES: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY.

Dyna Rachmawati, Cicilia Erna Susilawati, Hendra Wijaya and Mudjilah Rahayu. Faculty of Business, Widya Mandala Catholic University of Surabaya. Manuscript Info Abstract . Manuscript History Received: 7 August 2018 Final Accepted: 9 September 2018 Published: October 2018