Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Approach of Transparent and Explainable Artificial Intelligence Technique for Patient-Specific ECG Beat Classification

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals carried important clinical information in the form of intervals and amplitude or morphology. Therefore, it is very important to identify these fiducial points effectively. The major limitations of the existing semi- and fully automatic ECG beat classification systems are extensive data requirements and low performance. This letter proposes a modified 1-D U-Net architecture to find the exact locations of the important waves in the ECG signal. The proposed network utilized 1-D convolutions instead of 2-D, which is different from the traditional U-Net. The encoder and decoder are the main components of the proposed 1-D U-Net, where the encoder is designed to extract high-level features of the input data. The encoder contains two downsampling stages, and the output of each stage in the encoder is sent to the corresponding decoder layer for further convolutional operations. The output of the decoder section concatenates with the respective encoder, which enables the network to perceive low-level and high-level features. The onset and offset of P, QRS, and T-waves in the ECG signal are identified using the proposed technique. The proposed method is validated on two publicly available databases, i.e., LUDB and MIT-BIH. The experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art techniques.
Ghana health service performance appraisal system: a cross-sectional study on practices and perceptions among employees in the Bono East Region of Ghana, West Africa

Introduction the fulcrum of every organization lies in the productivity of its employees. Consequently, organizations have adopted a policy of fostering an organizational culture that promotes employee development, resulting in the consistent use of performance evaluation systems particularly, performance appraisals (PA). Nonetheless, the issue of concern for several organizations is whether PA will truly be an adequate tool for maximizing employee´s performance. Here is where it becomes important to gauge the perceptions and practices of Ghana Health Service (GHS) employees in the Bono East Region of Ghana, West Africa, towards these performance appraisal systems (PAS). Methods the study used an institutional-based cross-sectional study. Using simple random sampling, 375 health workers were recruited using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using Stata. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed and p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistical significance. Results the study revealed that the majority of the respondents (86.7%) had completed the performance appraisal form. Out of which 47.7% complete and submit PA every year, followed by those who complete and submit during promotion time (24.3%), every half year (15.1%) and anytime (12.9%). The key determinants of PA completion include; increasing age (AOR=2.24, 95% CI: 1.08-4.62), male staff (AOR=2.38, 95% CI: 1.16-4.91), permanent GHS employees (AOR=2.9, 95% CI: 1.07-7.86), respondents who had worked for 3 to 7 years (AOR=5.53, 95% CI: 2.48-12.36) and those with over 7 years working experience (AOR=20.80, 95% CI: 5.43-79.74). Conclusion the study identified that the majority of the respondents completed PA, but quite an encouraging number of them do not complete PA at the required period as expected. Age, male staff, permanent employment, and increasing years of experience were the significant predictors of PA completion. Continuous professional development for GHS staff on PAS is required. The GHS human resource division should organize stakeholders´ engagement with facilities managers and employees on the PAS to inform all managers and employees on what is required from everyone.
Enhanced Electrochemical Performance of Metallic CoS-Based Supercapacitor by Cathodic Exfoliation

Two-dimensional nanomaterials hold great promise as electrode materials for the construction of excellent electrochemical energy storage and transformation apparatuses. In the study, metallic layered cobalt sulfide was, firstly, applied to the area of energy storage as a supercapacitor electrode. By a facile and scalable method for cathodic electrochemical exfoliation, metallic layered cobalt sulfide bulk can be exfoliated into high-quality and few-layered nanosheets with size distributions in the micrometer scale range and thickness in the order of several nanometers. With a two-dimensional thin sheet structure of metallic cobalt sulfide nanosheets, not only was a larger active surface area created, but also, the insertion/extraction of ions in the procedure of charge and discharge were enhanced. The exfoliated cobalt sulfide was applied as a supercapacitor electrode with obvious improvement compared with the original sample, and the specific capacitance increased from 307 F∙g−1 to 450 F∙g−1 at the current density of 1 A∙g−1. The capacitance retention rate of exfoliated cobalt sulfide enlarged to 84.7% from the original 81.9% of unexfoliated samples while the current density multiplied by 5 times. Moreover, a button-type asymmetric supercapacitor assembled using exfoliated cobalt sulfide as the positive electrode exhibits a maximum specific energy of 9.4 Wh∙kg−1 at the specific power of 1520 W∙kg−1.
Triacylglycerol and Phospholipid Classes of Capoettaumbla

ABSTRACT In this study, seasonal changes in the muscle tissue, total lipid, and fatty acid composition of phospholipid (PL), triacylglycerol (TAG), and phospholipid classes of female Capoeta umbla were investigated. Fatty acid compositions of TAG and PL classes were found to be different in C. umbla muscle. Percentages of myristic acid, 16:1n-7, 18:1n-9, monounsaturated fatty acid (ΣMUFA), linoleic acid (18:2n-6), and linolenic acid (18:3n-3) were found to be higher in TAG than the values determined in PL classes. In PL classes, 16:0, 18:0, arachidonic acid (20:4n-6, AA), EPA (20:5n-3), DHA (22:6n-3), and polyunsaturated fatty acid (ΣPUFA) were higher than TAG fraction.
Electrical Properties of AlN and SiO2 Co-Modified Barium Titanate Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics

Ba1-xAlxTi1-ySiyO3-xNx(BAxTS4N) piezoceramics were prepared by solid-state reaction sintering. The effects of AlN and SiO2 co-doping on the phase structure and electrical properties of BaTiO3 ceramics were investigated and analyzed. The ceramics adopt a tetragonal crystal symmetry accompanied by the appearance of secondary phases Ba2TiSi2O8 and Ba4Ti2O27. The results of temperature dependence of dielectric constant indicate that the Curie temperature of BAxTS4N ceramics is independent of doping content. The BAxTS4N ceramic for the composition of x = 3% obtains the optimum ferroelectric properties with the remnant polarization (2Pr) of 14.69 μC/cm2 and the maximum piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of 230 pC/N.
Disease severity and renal function among sickle cell anaemia patients in a tertiary hospital, South-south, Nigeria: a cross sectional study

Background Renal disease is a recognized complication of sickle cell anaemia (SCA), especially from the third decade of life and is linked to disease severity. This study assessed the association between disease severity and renal function among SCA patients using routine and newer markers of renal function. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited 85 SCA patients. Disease severity was assessed using modified Adegoke criteria which include the frequency of transfusion, painful crises, packed cell volume, and history of complications such as hypertension and chronic leg ulcers. Renal function was assessed using urea, creatinine, and beta-2-microglobulin (β2-M). Association was determined between renal function and disease severity using Pearson's correlation. P-value < 0.05 was taken as significant. Results The mean age of participants was 27.2 ± 7.6 years with 41(48.2%) males and 44 (51.8%) females. The mean packed cell volume, serum creatinine, serum urea, and β2-M were 24.0± 4.1%,17.6±7.5 mg/dL, 0.7±0.3mg/dL, 3.4±1.2mg/l respectively. A majority (54.1%) of them had a mild disease while 35.3% and 10.6% had moderate and severe diseases, respectively. Forty of the SCA patients had urine specific gravity below 1.010. The mean values of systolic blood pressure (p=0.001) diastolic blood pressure (p=0.001), serum creatinine (p=0.028) and β2M (p=0.019) significantly increased with disease severity. There was a significant positive correlation between SCA disease severity and serum urea (r=0.229; p=0.035), and serum β2-microglobulin (r=0.270; p=0.012). Conclusion Sickle cell anaemia severity is associated with a decline in renal function using both traditional and novel renal markers. Serum β2-M may serve as a useful marker of renal function and disease severity in SCA
Stability of standing waves for a class of quasilinear Schrödinger equations

This paper is concerned with the stability and instability of standing waves for the quasilinear Schrödinger equation of the form \begin{linenomath}$$i\varphi_t + \triangle\varphi + |\varphi|^{p-1}\varphi + 2\alpha(\triangle|\varphi|^{2\alpha})|\varphi|^{2\alpha-2}\varphi = 0,$$\end{linenomath} which has been derived in many models from mathematical physics. We find the exact threshold depending upon the interplay of quasilinear and nonlinear terms that separates stability and instability. More precisely, we prove that for α ∈ and odd p ∈ , when $1 < p < 4\alpha -1 +{4\over N}$, the standing wave is stable, and when $4\alpha -1 +{4\over N} \leq p < 2\alpha\cdot 2^\ast -1$ (where $2\alpha\cdot 2^\ast = \frac{4N\alpha}{N-2}$ for N ≥ 3 and 2 α ċ 2* = +∞ for N = 2), the standing wave is strongly unstable. Our results show that the quasilinear term 2 α(△|φ|2α)|φ|2α−2φ makes the standing waves more stable, which is consistent with the physical phenomena.
In Vitro Activity of Cefiderocol on Multiresistant Bacterial Strains and Genomic Analysis of Two Cefiderocol Resistant Strains

Cefiderocol is a new siderophore cephalosporin that is effective against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, including carbapenem-resistant strains. The aim of this study was to evaluate the activity of this new antimicrobial agent against a collection of pathogens using broth microdilution assays and to analyze the possible mechanism of cefiderocol resistance in two resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates. One hundred and ten isolates were tested, comprising 67 Enterobacterales, two Acinetobacter baumannii, one Achromobacter xylosoxidans, 33 Pseudomonas aeruginosa and seven Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Cefiderocol showed good in vitro activity, with an MIC < 2 μg/mL, and was able to inhibit 94% of the tested isolates. We observed a resistance rate of 6%. The resistant isolates consisted of six Klebsiella pneumoniae and one Escherichia coli, leading to a resistance rate of 10.4% among the Enterobacterales. Whole-genome sequencing analysis was performed on two cefiderocol-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to investigate the possible mutations responsible for the observed resistance. Both strains belonged to ST383 and harbored different resistant and virulence genes. The analysis of genes involved in iron uptake and transport showed the presence of different mutations located in fhuA, fepA, iutA, cirA, sitC, apbC, fepG, fepC, fetB, yicI, yicJ, and yicL. Furthermore, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we described two Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates that synthesize a truncated fecA protein due to the transition from G to A, leading to a premature stop codon in the amino acid position 569, and a TonB protein carrying a 4-amino acid insertion (PKPK) after Lysine 103. In conclusion, our data show that cefiderocol is an effective drug against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. However, the higher resistance rate observed in Enterobacterales underlines the need for active surveillance to limit the spread of these pathogens and to avoid the risks associated with the emergence of resistance to new drugs.
New Approaches to Protein NMR Automation

The three-dimensional structure of a protein molecule is the key to understanding its biological and physiological properties. A major problem in bioinformatics is to efficiently determine the three-dimensional structures of query proteins. Protein NMR structure de- termination is one of the main experimental methods and is comprised of: (i) protein sample production and isotope labelling, (ii) collecting NMR spectra, and (iii) analysis of the spectra to produce the protein structure. In protein NMR, the three-dimensional struc- ture is determined by exploiting a set of distance restraints between spatially proximate atoms. Currently, no practical automated protein NMR method exists that is without human intervention. We first propose a complete automated protein NMR pipeline, which can efficiently be used to determine the structures of moderate sized proteins. Second, we propose a novel and efficient semidefinite programming-based (SDP) protein structure determination method. The proposed automated protein NMR pipeline consists of three modules: (i) an automated peak picking method, called PICKY, (ii) a backbone chemical shift assign- ment method, called IPASS, and (iii) a protein structure determination method, called FALCON-NMR. When tested on four real protein data sets, this pipeline can produce structures with reasonable accuracies, starting from NMR spectra. This general method can be applied to other macromolecule structure determination methods. For example, a promising application is RNA NMR-assisted secondary structure determination. In the second part of this thesis, due to the shortcomings of FALCON-NMR, we propose a novel SDP-based protein structure determination method from NMR data, called SPROS. Most of the existing prominent protein NMR structure determination methods are based on molecular dynamics coupled with a simulated annealing schedule. In these methods, an objective function representing the error between observed and given distance restraints is minimized; these objective functions are highly non-convex and difficult to optimize. Euclidean distance geometry methods based on SDP provide a natural formulation for realizing a three-dimensional structure from a set of given distance constraints. However, the complexity of the SDP solvers increases cubically with the input matrix size, i.e., the number of atoms in the protein, and the number of constraints. In fact, the complexity of SDP solvers is a major obstacle in their applicability to the protein NMR problem. To overcome these limitations, the SPROS method models the protein molecule as a set of intersecting two- and three-dimensional cliques. We adapt and extend a technique called semidefinite facial reduction for the SDP matrix size reduction, which makes the SDP problem size approximately one quarter of the original problem. The reduced problem is solved nearly one hundred times faster and is more robust against numerical problems. Reasonably accurate results were obtained when SPROS was applied to a set of 20 real protein data…
Assessing the Efficacy of Mental Health Assessment Training for Accredited Social Health Activists Workers in Rural India: A Pilot Study

Background Mental health issues are a major concern in rural India, but the lack of trained professionals limits access to care. In this pilot study, we evaluated the efficacy of a mental health assessment training program for Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) in rural Maharashtra, India. Aim and objective To conduct a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility and potential efficacy of Mental Health Assessment Training by using the Global Mental Health Assessment Tool-Primary Care Marathi Android version (GMHAT/PC-M) on ASHA workers in the Wardha district to identify mental health problems. Methods The study enrolled 12 ASHA workers from two rural health centers in Maharashtra. The workers completed a pretest and then received training in mental health assessment using the GMHAT/PC Marathi Android version. Mental health knowledge and global mental health assessment tool checklist scale scores were assessed on day seven, month one, and month three after training. Results The ASHA workers had a mean age of 42.2 years and a mean experience of 9.6 years. The majority were Hindus (50%), with the remaining workers being Buddhist. Of the 12 workers, only four had prior mental health training. Mental health knowledge and global mental health assessment tool checklist scale score significantly improved from the pretest to day seven (p<0.001), and the scores continued to improve at month one and month three with a 0.001 level of significance. At the end of the study, the mean mental health knowledge score was 15.2 (out of 20), and the mean global mental health assessment tool checklist scale score was 55.5 (out of 60). Conclusion Our pilot study demonstrated the effectiveness of a mental health assessment training program for ASHA workers in rural Maharashtra, India, using the GMHAT/PC Marathi Android version. The training program improved the mental health knowledge and GMHAT checklist scale of the ASHA workers, suggesting that such programs can help bridge the gap in mental health care in rural areas. Further studies with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up periods are needed to confirm the effectiveness of this training program.
The Role of Digital Marketing in Tourism Businesses: An Empirical Investigation in Greece

For the tourism industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as an accelerator towards the 4th industrial revolution by creating new and innovative solutions, which have transformed management, finance, planning and opened new avenues for the introduction of innovative sales and marketing technologies. As the tourism industry in Greece faces significant challenges and opportunities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, additional needs have arisen for tourism businesses, as confirmed in this research, to adapt faster to digital operations and strengthen digital marketing through multi-channel distribution and use of digital assistants. This study aims to investigate the use of digital marketing tools by tourism companies as well as the overall satisfaction of the companies with its use and the areas of impact of digital marketing from the COVID-19 pandemic, and then to highlight all those features that stand out from those of their competitors, as well as the creation of an appropriate marketing strategy that will ensure the flow of new customers and increased revenue. To meet this purpose, an empirical survey was conducted in tourism companies in order to provide answers to research questions. As tourism businesses have not yet made sufficient use of digital media as a strategic marketing tool, this research is the basis for further research into the use of technology and digital tools to reach customers and create a more personalized experience for them.
The Effect of Blindness on Biological Rhythms and the Consequences of Circadian Rhythm Disorder

Various physiological systems and behaviors such as the sleep-wake cycle, vigilance, body temperature, and the secretion of certain hormones are governed by a 24-hour cycle called the circadian system. While there are many external stimuli involved the regulation of circadian rhythm, the most powerful environmental stimulus is the daily light-dark cycle. Blind individuals with no light perception develop circadian desynchrony. This leads to non-24-hour sleep-wake rhythm disorder, which is associated with sleep-wake disorders, as well as mood disorders and loss of appetite and gastrointestinal disturbances due to disrupted circadian hormone regulation. As the diagnosis is often delayed because of under-recognition in clinical practice, patients must cope with varying degrees of social and academic dysfunction. Most blind individuals report that non-24-hour sleep-wake rhythm disorder affects them more than blindness. In the treatment of totally blind patients suffering from non-24-hour sleep-wake rhythm disorder, the first-line management is behavioral approaches. Drug therapy includes melatonin and the melatonin agonist tasimelteon. Diagnosing blind individuals’ sleep disorders is also relevant to treatment because they can be improved with the use of melatonin and its analogues or by phototherapy if they have residual vision. Therefore, assessing sleep problems and planning treatment accordingly for individuals presenting with blindness is an important issue for ophthalmologists to keep in mind.
Computer Vision-Based Assessment of Autistic Children: Analyzing Interactions, Emotions, Human Pose, and Life Skills

In this paper, the proposed work implements and tests the computer vision applications to perform the skill and emotion assessment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by extracting various bio-behaviors, human activities, child-therapist interactions, and joint pose estimations from the recorded videos of interactive single- or two-person play-based intervention sessions. A comprehensive data set of 300 videos is amassed from ASD children engaged in social interaction, and three novel deep learning-based vision models are developed, which are explained as follows: (i) activity comprehension to analyze child-play partner interactions (activity comprehension model); (ii) an automatic joint attention recognition framework using head and hand pose; and (iii) emotion and facial expression recognition. The proposed models are also tested on children’s real-world, 68 unseen videos captured from the clinic, and public datasets. The activity comprehension model has an overall accuracy of 72.32%, the joint attention recognition models have an accuracy of 97% for follow eye gaze and 93.4% for hand pointing, and the facial expression recognition model has an overall accuracy of 95.1%. The proposed models could extract behaviors of interest, events of activities, emotions, and social skills from free-play and intervention session videos of long duration and provide temporal plots for session monitoring and assessment, thus empowering clinicians with insightful data useful in diagnosis, assessment, treatment formulation, and monitoring ASD children with limited supervision.
Traditional Uses of Wild Edible Mushrooms among the Local Communities of Swat, Pakistan

Mushrooms play a crucial role in human life as well as in nature, providing food, medicine, and carrying out vital processes of decomposition, nutrient recycling, and developing mycorrhizal association with plants. The traditional system of knowledge about identification, collection, and usage of mushrooms has been accumulated through the shared experiences of many generations. Unfortunately, there have been continuous threats to the folk knowledge of mushrooms mainly due to habitat degradation, urbanization, and contemporary medication. The current research was, therefore, aimed to document an ethnomycological knowledge possessed by the ethnic communities of Swat, Pakistan. The purposive randomized sampling was carried out using chain referral method. Ethno-mycological information was collected from 62 informants using free listing, preference ranking, and use totaled methods. In total, 34 species of mushrooms belonging to 31 genera and 21 families were reported. About 85% of the reported species belong to Basidiomycetes, and 12.5% to Ascomycetes are used as food and for medicinal purposes. Morchella angusticeps, M. esculenta, Pleurotus sp. , Auricularia sp. , Flammulina velutipes, Agaricus bisporus, Ganoderma lucidum, and Sanghuangporus sanghuang were among the most cited edible and medicinal mushrooms. The current study revealed that district Swat is rich in wild edible and medicinal mushrooms (WEMs), and the local communities possess rich traditional knowledge about their collection, storage, and utilization. The diversity of WEMs of this region could contribute substantially to the socio-economic uplifting of the local communities through appropriate domestication and commercialization. Anthropogenic factors, coupled with depletion of traditional knowledge, threaten the diversity of WEMs in the region; therefore, in situ and ex situ conservation strategies are highly recommended.