Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health perception among the elderly in India: A gender perspective

There is an urgent need to understand and study the gender-based comprehensive own-perception approaches about health status. Our primary interest is to elucidate and capture whether and what determinants of gender disparity exist in own-perception about current and change in health status in Indian settings among the elderly. Therefore, we intended to examine the gender disparity in own-perception and their differences among the elderly in India. We used cross-sectional data from the 75th National Sample Survey Organizations (NSSO), collected from July 2017 to June 2018. The analytical sample constitutes 42759 cases of the elderly (eliminating two points of transgender). Thus, 21902 older men and 20857 older women have been considered. Two different measurements of own-perception about health status among the elderly have been used. We have calculated absolute gaps in the prevalence of current self-perception and change in health status by background characteristics. We carried out an ordered logistic regression model (or proportional odds model) to determine the predictors of health perception among the elderly. There is a clear gap between men and women in terms of rating poor perception about health; men generally have reported higher perception about their current health status when it comes to rating them excellent in terms of socio-economic outcomes like income, place of residence, and household structure. Despite numerous limitations, this study addressed the significant public health concern, which is crucial to address the challenge of the elderly health and their perception of well-being. Keywords: current health perception; change in health perception; gender gap; elderly.
Characterization of Multiple Parallel Transmission Lines Using Time Domain Reflectometry

Two methods of using time domain reflectometry for the characterization of a system of multiple parallel transmission lines are described. The two methods are the reflection method and the direct method. The selection of a method depends on the accuracy required and the property of the system of transmission lines to be measured: [Y0], [Z0], [C], or [L].
Estimating Safety by the Empirical Bayes Method: A Tutorial

The empirical Bayes (EB) method addresses two problems of safety estimation: it increases the precision of estimates beyond what is possible when one is limited to the use of a 2- to 3-year accident history, and it corrects for the regression-to-mean bias. The increase in precision is important when the usual estimate is too imprecise to be useful. The elimination of the regression-to-mean bias is important whenever the accident history of the entity is in some way connected with the reason why its safety is estimated. The theory of the EB method is well developed. It is now used in the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model and will be used in the Comprehensive Highway Safety Improvement Model. The time has come for the EB method to be the standard and staple of professional practice. The study’s goal is to facilitate the transition from theory into practice.
Barriers to realizing a stewardship relation between client and vendor: the Best Value approach

This study identifies barriers to realizing a stewardship relation instead of a classic principal–agent relation between client and vendor through implementation of an innovative procurement and risk management method, the Best Value approach. This approach focuses on calculus-based trust development through the use of metrics and alignment of goals and risks between client and vendor. Barriers to realizing a stewardship relation are analysed with the use of a theoretical framework that incorporates agency theory and stewardship theory. Data was collected in 2013 and 2014 through project documentation and interviews for four case studies at the Dutch Highways Agency. Collected data was used to analyse the roles of the client and vendor, the scope and level of the products and the overall process of the clarification phase of the Best Value approach to identify barriers in practice. Case study findings are analysed and explained by agency theory and stewardship theory. From a theoretical perspective the Best Value approach shows large similarities with stewardship theory. In practice, however, the cases show that the often traditional background of project teams and the lack of experience with Best Value result in a control-oriented relationship between client and vendor characterized by information asymmetry, lack of transparency and distrust. These characteristics of the relationship between client and vendor inhibit the realization of a stewardship relation using the Best Value approach.
Characteristics of milk production in La Frailesca, Chiapas, Mexico

Historically, the Frailesca region has been one of the main livestock farming areas of the state of Chiapas, so it can be assumed that the current structure of its dairy system is a good approximation of that of the state. This work aimed to characterize and analyze the production units that are part of the dairy system of the Frailesca region, with the intention of describing their structure in terms of size and type of production units. For this purpose, production parameters, production costs and profitability indicators were used. The main characteristics of the production units, in terms of their size and operating conditions by locality of origin, were determined in order to construct a typology of producers and to Rev Mex Cienc Pecu 2021;12(3):845-860 846 make a contrast by locality. It was found that the productive structure of the region is based on small-scale units that constitute about 76.7 % of the total units of the sample, while medium-sized producers represent 14.6 % of the total and large ones only 8.7 %. Between these types of producers, there is a significant difference in terms of the size of the productive herd, yield, costs and profitability. In summary, the structure of the productive system of the Frailesca region, like other tropical dairy systems in the country, is made up of small-scale production units with characteristics of labor-intensive family units, low technological level and high supplementation costs.
Financial COVID-19 Crisis: an Empirical Study and Prediction of Some Stock Market Indices

The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the direct linear relationship between the financial markets crash and the COVID-19 pandemic daily data. Moreover, we propose efficient modeling able to predict the values of some stock market indices without statistical learning. To achieve this goal, we first carry out a statistical study of the effects of COVID- 19 daily data on some European, American and Chinese stock indices during the period from December 31, 2019 until July 31, 2020 which will be divided into two phases. This study is accomplished particularly by evaluation of the correlations between these various stock market indices, between these indices and the pandemic daily data of the concerned countries as well as by the study of changes in stock market indices returns and daily volatility during the pandemic. We also establish linear regression models using stepwise method, then predictions successfully made. The obtained results by applications on real data show that the first period is marked by a linear causal relationship between the values of the studied stock indices, the Chinese COVID- 19 data and the values of CSI300 index. While in the second period, the evolution of the studied indices is characterized by a linear causal relationship with the American COVID-19 data and the NYSE index evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of IAENG International Journal of Applied Mathematics is the property of Newswood Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Gastrointestinal stromal tumors in Osijek-Baranja County (Eastern Croatia): a population-based incidence study (2004 – 2017)

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are the most common mesenchymal tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. The epidemiology of these tumors in Osijek-Baranja County is not known. The aim of this study is to determine the incidence of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and anatomic localizations in OsijekBaranja County patients. In this study, we show the incidence of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) in Osijek-Baranja County. We studied 65 cases of GIST diagnosed in Osijek-Baranja County in the period from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2017. In this period, we registered 65 cases of GIST from which 29 females (44.6%) and 36 males (55.4%). The mean age at diagnosis was 66.9 years ranging from 37 to 86. Only 1.5% of tumors occurred before the age of 40 years. The crude incidence rate of GISTs was 1.47/100,000 (1.26/100,000 for females and 1.70/100,000 for males). The age-standardized incidence rate was 0.76/100,000 (0.60/100,000 for females and 0.98/100,000 for males). The annual European age-standardized incidence rate was 1.10/100,000 (0.86/100,000 for females and 1.44/100,000 for males). GISTs were mostly localized in the stomach (33 cases) and small intestine (20 cases), followed by peritoneum and omentum (8 cases), two in the pancreas, 1 in the rectum and 1 in other locations. Gastrointestinal stromal tumors are rare, but more common in the older population. The incidence rate was higher among men. These results will serve as reference for studying the patterns of descriptive epidemiology of GISTs in Osijek-Baranja County and the surrounding region.
The decreasing effect of troxerutin on the level of pro-inflammatory cytokines in rats with sepsis caused by the experimental cecal puncture

Sepsis is the main mortality factor in patients undergoing surgery and its treatment currently includes cardiac resuscitation and reducing the immediate risk of infection. Troxerutin is a common compound in vegetables, fruits, and seeds and has several biological activities, including anti-platelet, anti-serotonin, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects. Accordingly, we hypothesized that it can decrease interleukin 1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) levels in the serum of rats with sepsis. Twenty-four adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were used in this study. The rats were equally and randomly divided into 3 groups: sham operation group, control group, and treatment group. Both the control and treatment groups underwent surgical cecal ligation and perforation. Troxerutin (130 mg/kg) was injected subcutaneously twice a day to the animals of the treatment group for 3 days or until the animals’ death. Surviving rats were euthanized after 1.5 ml of blood samples were taken 3 days after the cecal ligation and perforation. IL-1 and TNF-a were measured by the blood serum ELISA assay. The differences in mortality rates were significant between the control group and the other two groups (p = 0.008). The results showed a significant increase in IL-1 and TNF-a in the control group compared to the sham group (p < 0.05). In addition, the levels in the treatment group significantly decreased compared to the control group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, our results indicate that troxerutin could increase survival in rats developing septic shock by reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines including IL-1 and TNF-a.
Effectiveness of Methane Leak Detection and Repair

18 The importance of reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations as a near19 term climate action is widely recognized. Most jurisdictions around the globe using leak 20 detection and repair (LDAR) programs to find and fix methane leaks. In this work, we 21 empirically evaluate the efficacy of LDAR programs using a large-scale, bottom-up, 22 randomized controlled field experiment across ~200 oil and gas sites in Canada. We find 23 that tanks are the single largest source of emissions, contributing to nearly 60% of total 24 emissions. The average number of leaks at treatment sites that underwent repair reduced 25 by ~50% compared to control sites. Although control sites did not see a reduction in the 26 number of leaks, emissions reduced by approximately 36% suggesting potential impact of 27 routine maintenance activities to find and fix large leaks. By tracking tags on leaking 28 equipment over time, we find a high degree of persistence – leaks that are repaired 29 remain fixed in follow-up surveys, while non-repaired leaks remain emitting. We did not 30 observe any significant growth in emission rate for non-repaired leaks, suggesting that 31 any increase in observed leak emissions following LDAR surveys are likely from new 32 leaks. Vent emissions reduced by 38% without a significant reduction in the average 33 number of vents across control and treatment sites, showing the importance of both 34 anomalous vents and temporal variations in vent emissions. Our results show that a focus 35 on equipment and sites that are prone to high emissions such as tanks and oil sites are key 36 to cost-effective mitigation. 37 Non-peer reviewed preprint submitted to EarthArXiv
Numerical electromagnetic analysis of lightning-induced voltage over ground of finite conductivity

Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC-2), which is a computer code to analyze the three-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) field around thin wires in the frequency domain, has been successfully used in lightning-related studies such as lightning surge analyses or lightning EM pulse calculations over a perfectly conducting ground. NEC-2 is still more useful in investigating lightning-induced effects over ground of finite conductivity. This application of NEC-2 is investigated by comparing calculated results with an experiment over lossy ground. The advantages of the analysis using NEC-2 are that it can accurately compute the current distribution along a wire structure with small amount of postulation. It automatically incorporates coupling between a lightning channel and transmission lines, and it can also take account of finitely conducting ground in transient condition. In addition, it can also model conductors in any arbitrary angles, and it is available in the public domain.
NURSES' PERCEPTION ABOUT THE TITLING PROCESS OF HOSPITAL AMIGO

Objective: to describe the nurses’ perception about the implementation of the titling process of Hospital Amigo da Criança of a Teaching Hospital in southern Brazil. Method: it is a research with a descriptive and exploratory qualitative approach. The data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with 14 nurses who work in the Maternal-Infant Unit of the Teaching Hospital of the Federal University of Pelotas and the data were analyzed according to Minayo's Operative proposal. Results: the nurses feel co-responsible, even not participating in some phases of the process, they emphasize that the process is difficult, there is weakness in the engagement of the multidisciplinary team, as well as in institutional encouragement. They highlighted that encouraging breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding in the 1 hour of life and rooming-in are the actions that enhance the process, relying on the use of a nipple/pacifier and the number of cesarean deliveries performed in the institution. Conclusion: most nurses declare them selves participative and active in the search for the title of Hospital Amigo da Criança, even though they do not participate in all phases of the process and proposed activities. The results presented may provide subsidies to managers and health professionals in the construction of actions to ensure that more hospitals reach the title and “IHAC”.
Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb Junction Properties' Variations Due to Storage and Mounting

We report studies of room temperature aging and annealing of Nb/Al-AlO x /Nb tunnel junctions with a 2. 3 sq. µm size. We observed a noticeable drop of the junction normal resistance Rn unusually combined with increase of subgap resistance Rj as a result of aging. Changes of Rj occur at sufficiently shorter time scale than that of Rn. Variation of both Rn and Rj depend on the junction size. An effect of aging history on the junction degradation after consequent annealing was discovered. We suggest that the observed junction aging and annealing behavior could be explained by diffusional ordering and structural reconstruction in the tunnel AlOx barrier. The diffusion driving such structural ordering and reconstruction of the AlO x tunnel layer is enhanced due to the intrinsic stress relaxation (creep) processes in the underlying Al layer. Also, we discuss the influence of dicing the wafer into the single mixer chip on the junction aging behavior.
The ink-jet printing humidity sorption sensor—modelling, design, technology and characterization

This paper presents a humidity sorption sensor made with an ink-jet printing technique. Nafion was applied as a humidity sorption material. After the presentation of sensor construction and sensor fabrication technology, a lot of effort has been made for detailed sensor tests and characterization. The sensor model based on a RC transmission line with distributed parameters (Jachowicz and Senturia 1981/1982 Sensors Actuators 2 171–86) has been carefully described and validated by a comparison with the sensor empirical parameters, measured in a broad range of measurement frequencies. On the basis of achieved results, some general conclusions for humidity sorption sensors on both the sensor fabrication technology and the sensor modelling have been made and presented in this paper.
Transformer-based Multi-Stage Enhancement for Remote Sensing Image Super-Resolution

Convolutional neural networks have made great breakthrough in recent remote sensing image super-resolution tasks. Most of these methods adopt upsampling layers at the end of the models to perform enlargement, which ignores feature extraction in the high-dimension space and thus limits super-resolution performance. To address this problem, we propose a new super-resolution framework for remote sensing image to enhance the high-dimensional feature representation after the upsampling layers. We name the proposed method as Transformer-based Enhancement Network (TransENet), where transformers are introduced to exploit features at different levels. The core of the TransENet is a transformer-based multi-stage enhancement structure which can be combined with traditional super-resolution frameworks to fuse multi-scale high/low-dimension features. Specifically, in this structure, the encoders aim to embed the multi-level features in the feature extraction part and the decoders are used to fuse these encoded embeddings. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed TransENet can improve super-resolved results and obtain superior performance over several state-of-the-art methods.
Retinoic acid signaling mediates peripheral cone photoreceptor survival in a mouse model of retina degeneration

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a wide array of progressive, debilitating visual disorders caused by mutations in a diverse set of genes. In both human patients and mouse models of RP, rod photoreceptor dysfunction leads to loss of night vision, and is followed by secondary cone photoreceptor dysfunction and degeneration, leading to loss of daylight color vision. A strategy to prevent secondary cone death could provide a generalized RP therapy to preserve daylight color vision regardless of the underlying mutation. In mouse models of RP, cones in the far peripheral retina survive long-term, despite complete rod loss. The mechanism for such peripheral cone survival had not been explored. Here, we found that active retinoic acid (RA) signaling in peripheral Muller glia is both sufficient and necessary for the extended cone survival. RA depletion by conditional knockout of RA synthesis enzymes, or overexpression of an RA degradation enzyme, abrogated peripheral cone survival. Conversely, constitutive activation of RA signaling in the central retina promoted long-term cone survival. These results indicate that RA signaling mediates the prolonged peripheral cone survival in the rd1 mouse model of retinal degeneration, and provide a basis for a generic strategy for cone survival in the many diseases that lead to loss of cone-mediated vision.
Melt Spun Fibers Containing Microencapsulated Phase Change Material

MicroPCMs are successfully being incorporated into solution-spun acrylic fibers, significantly increasing their thermal energy storage capability. However, melt-spun fiber production far exceeds that of acrylic fiber. Thus, the commercial potential of melt-spun fibers and resulting fabrics with enhanced thermal energy storage capabilities is enormous for the apparel and industrial insulation markets. However, at melt spinning temperatures, i.e., at temperatures > 200° C, microencapsulated phase change materials (microPCMs) lose their core material, which corrupts the melt spinning process. Before these materials can successfully be incorporated into melt spun fibers, microcapsules < 10 microns in size must be available with a more stable wall structure. This paper will discuss the results of NSF sponsored Phase I and II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants that investigated PCM microcapsules for high temperature application, and describe their inclusion into melt-spun fibers.
Predicting the Effects of Solar Storms on the Ionosphere Based on a Comparison of Real-Time Solar Wind Data with the Best-Fitting Historical Storm Event

This study presents a new modeling approach that aims for long time predictions (more than 12 h) of ionospheric disturbances driven by solar storm events. The proposed model shall run in an operational framework to deliver fast and precise localized warnings for these disturbances in the future. The solar wind data driven approach uses a data base of historical solar storm impacts covering two solar cycles to reconstruct future events and resulting ionospheric disturbances. The basic components of the model are presented and discussed in this study, and the strengths of the reconstruction based on historical events are presented by showing the good correlations for predicted and observed geomagnetic activity. Initial results on the ionospheric response are discussed for all historical events using global total electron content (GTEC) and in more detail using total electron content (TEC) maps for two specific case studies (including the St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic storm during the 17 March 2015). Average root mean square error (RMSE) values of 3.90 and 5.21 TECU are calculated for these cases confirming good results for the current configuration of the model. Possible future improvements of the individual model parts, as well as the planned extensions and applications are discussed in detail.
Optimization of Thermoplastic Pre-Pregs Overmoulding

The search for new technological concepts in the field of injection of thermoplastic polymers, in order to optimize the process and reduce cycle time, faced us with a new concept in moulding, where two different technologies are proposed to be unified. The fabric impregnated with thermoplastic is an example of a quite new product that combines the potential of polymers with long reinforcing fibres. In order to process this new product, injection of polymers and thermoforming will be applied in only one operation. To allow cycle time prediction for this new technique, changes will be made in the formulation of conventional injection cycle time, in order to comprise the new necessary stages. In this work a new approach is proposed to obtain moulded parts of thermoplastic polymers with functional fabric only in a single processing cycle. The description of the new stages and its mathematical formulation is made, in function of the time needed to complete each one. The results presented come from processing parameters optimization using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm.