Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peer-based Gamification Products Critiquing: Two Case studies in Engineering Education

Gamification has been emerging as a pedagogical tool over the past few years, and numerous studies report positive outcomes from games applied in educational environments. However, researchers rarely discuss the gamification development process. Little work has been done to analyze their gamification in terms of usability, game elements, etc. In addition, in most previous studies, students are the end user, and only get involved in the final test to provide data on motivation, engagement or learning outcomes. Under the circumstances, the following questions are left unaddressed: how to evaluate the effectiveness of a gamification product in education? What do students learn when they create and critique gamification products? This paper proposes a peer-based gamification critique process based on peer-developed game products. We expect such a process will provide valuable feedback from an end-user perspective and that the outcomes will help to answer the above questions. This present study is an extension of a previous research cycle in which end users (students) developed gamification products to help students learn challenging concepts in industrial engineering courses. We selected four final gamification products for further evaluation: “Avengers”, “Bake-off-453”, “Gulf games” and “DungeoNIOSH”. These games are intended to teach the concepts of: “Discrete probability distributions”, “Gulf of evaluation vs. Gulf of execution”, “Interaction effects” and “NIOSH Lifting equation”. The first two are basic concepts in statistics, and the last two relate to the human factor/ergonomics domain. In this study, we had two student teams conduct a critique of these gamification products as their Capstone project. Peer-based critiques consist of three main steps after matching the teams with their interested game products: firstly, critiquing the gamification product from a game perspective, including metrics like what types of game elements are included, interactivity, motivation, engagement level, et al. secondly, evaluating the gamification products on aspects of education and focusing on the learning effectiveness; finally, critiquing gamification products based on usability guidelines and principles. Student teams were instructed to specify each criterion and cover all three aspects. At the end of this paper, two case studies are presented, showing the final critique criteria developed by student teams. Most importantly, we will collect valuable insights from end users, i.e., what they can learn from the critiquing process, what lessons we can learn from their feedback. These will provide us with meaningful information to help evaluate gamification products designed to enhance engineering concept learning.
Potential Cancer Risk in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Longitudinal Korean Population-Based Analysis

The potential link between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and cancer incidence needs to be validated due to inconsistent results between Asian and Western countries. We explored the long-term association of RA with the overall and organ-specific cancer incidence using nationwide population data. This longitudinal follow-up study (2002–2015) included 3070 patients with RA and 12,280 controls (1:4 propensity score-matched for sex, age, residence, and income) from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening Cohort database. A Cox proportional hazard model estimated the hazard ratio for malignancy following adjusting for covariates. Despite the similar overall cancer incidence between RA and control groups, differences in the incidence of organ-specific cancers were noted: the RA group had a 1.63-fold greater likelihood for lung cancer (95% confidence interval 1.11–2.40). In the sex-stratified subgroup analyses, the male RA patients exhibited higher odds of lung and thyroid cancer but a lower probability for colorectal cancer; no such associations were detected in either female patients with RA or age subgroups. In summary, the higher likelihood for lung cancer in Korean RA patients, especially thyroid and lung cancer in male RA patients, seems to be characteristic, which needs to be carefully monitored.
Short Communication: Preharvest drought stress varies grain physical characteristics, milling percentage, and nutritional quality of two Job’s tears varieties

Abstract. Wicaksono FY, Suganda TW, Wuminta, Sinniah UR, Yuwariah Y, Nurmala T. 2022. Short Communication: Preharvest drought stress varies grain physical characteristics, milling percentage, and nutritional quality of two Job’s tears varieties. Biodiversitas 23: 1443-1448. Preharvest drought stress is one of the limiting factors that may affect the quality of the harvested yield. This study aimed to evaluate the grain physical characteristics, milling percentage, and nutritional quality of two varieties of Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) in response to preharvest drought stress. Two varieties of Job’s tears were used in the present study, namely ma-yuen (cultivar Watani Wado)and stenocarpa (cultivar Watani Kiara Payung) at Ciparanje research station (6.9164° S, 107.7717° E) from July 2018 (dry season) to January 2019 (rainy season). A water-sufficient condition was achieved by irrigating the plant once a day, while a water-deficient condition was formed by the irrigation every 3 days using a sprinkler system. The results showed that preharvest drought stress caused a significant reduction of seed size in both varieties. However, the stenocarpa was the only one with a significant reduction in milling yield due to its long seed length. In terms of nutritional quality, ma-yuen showed no significant response to preharvest drought, while stenocarpa showeda significant gain in protein and calcium. This finding opened the high potential of stenocarpa variety to be used both as an ornament, just like recent usage, and also functional food.
Impact of Parental Beliefs on Child Developmental Outcomes: A Quasi-Experiment in Rural China

This paper examines the impact of parental beliefs on child development outcomes (for both cognitive and social–emotional skills) based on a three-wave longitudinal survey in rural China. The survey waves were conducted when the sample children were 18–30 months, 22–36 months, and 49–65 months, respectively. A total of 815 children and their primary caregivers who participated in all three wave surveys were enrolled in this study. Using difference-in-differences and propensity score matching approaches, the results indicate that strengthened parental beliefs have a positive and significant impact on child social–emotional development. Specifically, between the periods of the Wave 1 survey (when children were 18–30 months old) and the Wave 3 survey (when children were 49–65 months old), and between the Wave 2 survey (when children were 22–36 months old) and the Wave 3 survey, strengthened parental beliefs were causally associated with more favorable child social–emotional scores by 0.44 SD (p < 0.01) and 0.49 SD (p < 0.01), respectively. No significant impact, however, was found between the period of the Wave 1 survey and the Wave 2 survey. In contrast, weakened parental beliefs had a negative and significant impact on child social–emotional development. Specifically, weakened parental beliefs were causally associated with worse child social–emotional abilities by 0.35 SD (p < 0.01), 0.30 SD (p < 0.01), and 0.22 (p < 0.05) for the time period of the Wave 1 to Wave 2, Wave 1 to Wave 3, and Wave 2 to Wave 3, respectively. No significant impact of parental beliefs, however, was found on child cognitive development. In addition, the findings of the mediation analysis show that only a marginal impact of parental beliefs on child social–emotional development can be indirectly explained by parental beliefs through parenting practices. This study calls on policy makers to improve parental beliefs and parenting practices in the hope that it will lead to better child development in rural China.
Impact of Dexamethasone Preconditioning on Prevention of Development of Cognitive Impairment following Acute Inflammation

To assess the preventive role of dexamethasone (Dex) in the development of neuroinflammation and concomitant neurocognitive disorders following acute inflammation. C57BL6 mice were fallen into the sham group, ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) group, and I/R + Dex group randomly. In the end, behavioral alterations were assessed with the Morris water maze (MWM) test, passive avoidance test (PAT), and open field test (OFT). The serum levels of IL-1β and TNF-α were detected by ELISA. Immunofluorescence was adopted to observe the NF-kB expression in the hippocampus. In addition, TLR4, NF-kB, CD68, and CD206 were examined by Western blot. The cognitive ability of mice can be impaired by tourniquet-induced acute inflammation, and these changes were prevented by Dex. Compared to the I/R group, Dex pretreatment could decrease levels of IL-1β and TNF-α proteins in serum. Besides, Dex preconditioning significantly decreased the utterance of NF-kB immunoreactive cells and TLR4, NF-kB, and CD68 overexpression in the hippocampus. Dex partly through inhibiting microglia transformation to the M1 polarization state and inactivating the TLR4/NF-kB pathway attenuates the cognitive disorders in mice.
Larger WIC Cash Value Benefit for Vegetables and Fruit Is Associated With Lower Food Insecurity and Improved Participant Satisfaction in WIC Families With Children

Abstract Objectives In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the USDA announced a temporary augmentation of the cash value benefit (CVB) for vegetables and fruits across all Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) agencies nationally, increasing the child CVB from $9 to $35/month for 4 months in the summer of 2021. The augmentation has continued since October 2021, with children ages 1 to 4 years receiving a CVB of $24/month. This study aimed to understand if augmenting the value of the WIC CVB for vegetables and fruits is associated with access to fruits and vegetables, fruit and vegetable intake (FVI), household food insecurity, and WIC program satisfaction among WIC participants from Los Angeles County, California. Methods This longitudinal, observational study of the 2021 CVB augmentation involved data collection using surveys at three time points: baseline (May 2021), midpoint (September 2021, before the CVB reduced from $35 to $24/month) and endpoint (May 2022, to be conducted). Detailed data on child FVI (using the NHANES Dietary Screener Questionnaire), household food security (using the USDA 6-item food security screener), and parental perception of the CVB changes were collected. Descriptive statistics and changes in study outcomes for respondents from baseline to midpoint were calculated in the full sample and stratified by race and ethnicity. Results 1,673 families completed both baseline and midpoint surveys. Following the increased CVB amount ($9 to $35), the proportion of families reporting the benefit was ‘not enough’ decreased (89% to 23%) and the proportion saying the benefit was ‘just right’ increased (7% to 73%) (p < 0.0001). Household food insecurity decreased following the increase in CVB (55% to 44%, p < 0.0001). Child FVI decreased between baseline and midpoint surveys (2.43 vs 2.37 cups/day, p < 0.01). Baseline to midpoint change in FVI did not differ significantly by race and ethnicity (p = 0.19). Conclusions A short-term increase in WIC CVB was associated with improved participant experience and higher food security in California WIC participants. Longer-term increases in CVB may be needed to improve child fruit and vegetable intake. Funding Sources Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research Program and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Autonomous Non-Terrestrial Base Station Deployment for Non-Terrestrial Networks: A Reinforcement Learning Approach

Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) consisting of multiple space-borne and airborne non-terrestrial base stations (NT-BSs) have recently been introduced by 3GPP as a new paradigm of infrastructure to extend the capacity and coverage of existing terrestrial networks to further support non-terrestrial UEs (NT-UEs). Mobility of NT-BSs and NT-UEs however leads to a dynamic and non-stationary environment, which creates unique challenges in the coverage optimization particularly for the dynamic deployment of multiple NT-BSs. Under the dynamic and non-stationary environment, each NT-BS should autonomously predict not only moving trajectories of NT-UEs and other NT-BSs but also the probability of presence of NT-UEs at any given location, and consequently a new machine learning (ML) scheme is desired. In this paper, instead of adopting the recent innovation of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches inducing an unaffordable complexity for NT-BSs with a limited computing capability, new reinforcement learning (RL) schemes are therefore proposed, by which each of multiple NT-BSs autonomously determines the deployment trajectories to maximize the number of NT-UEs that can access NT-BSs. Through the comprehensive analysis, we justify the convergence of the performance of the proposed schemes. The simulation results also show the effectiveness of the proposed schemes and the outstanding performances as compared with state-of-the-art schemes.
Inducing Silver Nanoparticles on Supramolecular Functionalized Boron Nitride Nanosheets for Photocatalytic Removal of Reactive Blue Dyes

A new hybrid nanomaterial has been developed by inducing catalytic silver nanoparticle on supramolecular BN nanosheets using supramolecular polymer as hybrid coordinator for photocatalytic removal of reactive blue dye (RB 221) from aqueous solution. In this study, adenine-bifunctionalized polypropylene glycol diacrylate (APPG) polymer was used for exfoliation and modification of BNNSs to decorate Ag nanoparticles that are prepared by sonication-assisted liquid phase exfoliation techniques. The synthesized materials are systematically characterized by various techniques such as FT-IR, UV-visible spectroscopy, Raman, FE-SEM, and HR-TEM. The layered structure of supramolecular polymer was observed over the exfoliated few layered BNNSs (2.0 to 3.5 nm). HR-TEM show that the silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were successfully decorated on supramolecular functionalized BN nanosheets. The significance of functionalization is that the adenine moieties induce the high amount of Ag NPs through Ag/adenine moiety coordination, thereby increasing the effectiveness of catalyst towards removal of RB 221 dye. The RB 221 dye removal efficiency of new synthesized nanomaterials such as BN/APPG/Ag (1 : 2.5), BN/APPG/Ag (1 : 1), APPG/Ag, and BN/Ag were 84.60 ± 1.26 % , 70.13 ± 0.034 , 65.60 ± 0.052 , and 35.0 ± 0.45 % , respectively. The photocatalytic dye degradation performance of catalyst increases with high amount of supramolecular polymer in the composites. Reusability of analysis revealed that regenerated BN/APPG/Ag catalyst could be tested in at least three consecutive cycles in which proving efficiency removal of the RB 221 was found to be 83.7 ± 0.8 , 63.8 ± 0.51 , and 54.60 ± 0.78 % after the first, second, and third cycles of reuse, respectively. In addition, the absorption peaks of the RB 221 in solutions undergo upshifts relative to the free dye indicating the reduction of RB 221 dye for only BNNSs containing composite catalysts. Overall, the findings of this work are promising and therefore propose that BN/APPG/Ag could be applicable for the removal of dyes repeatedly for wastewater treatment in environment as result of their reusability and versatility.
Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Globalization on Economic Growth: Any Difference between the de Jure and de Facto Measures of Globalization?

This paper empirically investigates how globalization impacted economic growth in a broad group of countries covered by the wiiw (the Vienna institute for international economic studies) database covering the period since the 1990s. Whilst theoretical arguments in favor of the positive effects of globalization are predominant, there also exist sound arguments pointing out that the effects might be negative too. Empirical evidence also provides a mixed picture. Given this ambiguity, it seems reasonable to fur­ther pursue the empirical effects of globalization on growth. The novelty in this paper is the application of different measures of globalization within the KOF index of globalization introduced by Dreher (2006) and later revisit­ed by Gygli et al. (2019). In particular, this applies to distinguishing between the de jure and de facto measures of globalization and allows a comparison between the findings of these approaches. In its empirical investigation, this study uses the panel data analysis covering the ex-socialist European and Asian countries providing some interesting insights.
Ultrasound Velocity Measurements on Healing Bones Using the External Fixation Pins: A Two-Dimensional Simulation Study

Quantitative ultrasound has been largely used for the evaluation of fracture healing in long bones. The propagation velocity across the fracture has been proved to be a quantitative indicator of healing. In this work, we perform a feasibility study of an alternative ultrasonic configuration in which two of the pins of an already applied external fixation device are used as a means of ultrasound transmission and reception. To test and evaluate the applicability of the technique in monitoring the fracture healing course, velocity measurements are performed on two-dimensional (2D) models of intact and healing bones. Comparisons are then made with the traditional percutaneous application and a newer one, the so-called transosseous application. The effect of a non-perpendicular pin insertion on the velocity is finally investigated by assuming various combinations of pin inclination angles. It was found that measurements of the ultrasound velocity through the pins result in higher values due to the fact that the waves travel also along the metal pins whose bulk velocity is higher that of the bone. However, the velocity was increased during healing and this trend was unaffected by any pin inclination angle. In conclusion, the proposed method can offer practical advantages in-vivo but also suffers from highly attenuated received signals. Therefore, clinical trials are needed before it is proposed for clinical use.
“Providing Sex Education Is Challenging”: Malay Mothers’ Experience in Implementing Sex Education to Their Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Sex education (SE) is still a controversial and sensitive topic in Malaysia. Thus, individuals with intellectual disability receive less information about SE formally as Malaysian culture believes that students with disabilities should be shielded from everything connected to sexuality owing to their paucity of maturity and intellectual comprehension of the topic. Due to that reason, non-formal education by the parent is very important to fill that needful gap. This study aimed to explore the experience of mothers on the meanings of sexuality, and implementing sex education for their children with ID. We adopted a phenomenological framework and social cognitive theory to increase understanding of the phenomenon and conducted it using in-depth interviews. Twenty mothers with children aged 10–19 who were diagnosed with mild to moderate ID and/or other cognitive disabilities were involved. Almost all mothers acknowledged the influence of socio-cultural factors and religion on meanings of sexuality and practicing SE. They realized their children’s emerging sexual behavior as they go through the adolescence period. However, how they confronted sexuality and sex education with their vulnerable children was different. Three themes emerged: (1) Sexuality as an erotic experience in life, which enlightens mothers’ views on sexuality, relying mainly on sexual intimacy and sexual being; (2) Perceived their children’s sexual maturity is different, which reflects the mothers’ attitude toward their children’s sexual development; (3) Caution/hesitance in providing sexuality education, which summarizes mothers’ ways of delivering SE, either following physicality or through sociocultural ways. Our findings exemplify the need for strategies to increase parents’ understanding and awareness regarding sexuality and appropriate delivery of SE. To ensure its success, it should be a shared responsibility among all relevant stakeholders.
Prevalence of Patients Receiving Urate-Lowering Medicine in Greenland and Denmark: A Cross-Sectional Case–Control Study

This study estimates the age- and sex-specific prevalence of patients receiving urate-lowering therapy (ULT) in Greenland and compares the results with estimates in Denmark. Characteristics of patients receiving ULT in Greenland were compared to age- and sex-matched controls. The study was designed as a cross-sectional case–control study based on nationwide data from medical and population registers in Greenland and Denmark. The prevalence of patients receiving ULT was significantly lower in Greenland (0.55%) compared to Denmark (1.40%) (p < 0.001). In both countries, the prevalence increased with age and was higher among men compared to women. In Greenland, patients receiving ULT were more often overweight, and more frequently received blood glucose-, lipid-, and blood pressure-lowering medicine including diuretics compared to age- and sex-matched controls. The prevalence of patients receiving ULT was significantly lower in Greenland compared to Denmark. Common life-style related risk factors for hyperuricemia and gout were observed frequently among ULT-treated patients compared to controls. Along with an increasing prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases in Greenland, the prevalence of patients receiving ULT may increase in the years to come. More focus on detection and management of hyperuricemia and gout in Greenland is warranted to improve quality of health care.
Evaluation of Implant Stability and Trephination Depth for Implant Removal—An In Vitro Study

Malpositioned and broken implants are usually fully osseointegrated; hence, their removal, especially from the lower arch, can be very challenging. Implant removal techniques include reverse torque and trephination. Trephination is an invasive technique that can jeopardize vital structures, cause mandibular fatigue fractures, or lead to osteomyelitis. In this study, we aimed to assess the relationship between trephination depth and implant stability by recording implant stability quotient (ISQ) readings at varying trephination depths in vitro. Materials and methods: Forty-eight implants were inserted into dense synthetic polyurethane foam blocks as artificial bone. Primary implant stability was measured with a Penguin resonance frequency analysis (RFA) device. Implants of two designs with a diameter of 3.75 mm and a length of 13 or 8 mm were inserted. Twenty-four internal hexagon (IH) (Seven®) and twenty-four conical connection (CC) implants (C1®; MIS® Implants, Ltd., Misgav, Israel) were used. The primary implant stability was measured with the RFA device. Trephination was performed, and implant stability was recorded at depths of 0, 3, and 6 mm for the 8 mm implants and 0, 3, 6, 8, 10, and 11.5 mm for the 13 mm implants. Results: Linear regression revealed a significant relation between the trephination depth and the ISQ (F (1, 213) = 1113.192, p < 0.001, adjusted r2 = 0.839). The trephination depth significantly predicted the ISQ (β = −5.337, p < 0.001), and the ISQ decreased by −5.33 as the trephination depth increased by 1 mm. Conclusion: Implant stability reduction as measured using an RFA device during trephination may be a valuable guide to achieving safe reverse torque for implant removal. Further studies are needed to evaluate these data in clinical settings.