Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of Prediabetes and Associated Risk Factor Assessment Among Adults Attending Primary Healthcare Centers in Al Bahah, Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Prediabetes is an asymptomatic intermediate state of hyperglycemia with a major risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). It is a progressive condition; it can take a few years for patients to become diabetic from a prediabetes state. Objectives This study aimed to detect the prevalence rate of prediabetes among the adult population and to assess the association of the risk factors to prediabetes in both the male and female genders. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out in primary healthcare centers (PHC) in the city of Al Bahah, Saudi Arabia. A total of 378 study participants of both sexes from two central PHCs were eligible to participate in the study, which was conducted from January to February 2018. Data were collected through anthropometric measurements, laboratory investigations, and a predesigned questionnaire interview to identify demographic, lifestyle, and medical variables. Two blood tests were used to diagnose prediabetes: fasting plasma glucose (FBG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1C). Results The overall prevalence of prediabetes among all participants was 20% (around 21% in males and 19% in females of all ages). There was a statistically significant association between prediabetes and obesity (central obesity), hypertension, and a family history of diabetes mellitus (FHDM). Conclusion The prediabetic state is highly prevalent among adults attending PHC in Al Bahah city (20%). It is associated with obesity (especially central), hypertension, and FHDM. We highly recommend that public health professionals implement strategies for effective screening, diagnosis, and management of prediabetes.
Novel products and advertising visuals: the mediating role of perceived luxuriousness on willingness to try clean meat products

Abstract Underpinned by art infusion theory and construal level theory, this research examines the role of illustrations and photographs in advertising a novel product (i.e. clean meat) and explores the underlying psychological mechanism of luxuriousness. We conducted three experiments to examine the differential effects of illustrations and photographs on customers’ willingness to try a meat product and ascertain whether this relationship was mediated by perceived luxuriousness. Participants reported a greater willingness to try a novel product, such as clean meat, when the advertisement featured an illustration (vs. a photograph), demonstrating the art infusion effect. However, there were non-significant differences among participants in terms of their willingness to try a familiar product, such as conventional meat. The indirect effect of illustration on willingness to try clean mean via perceived luxuriousness was stronger compared to the conventional meat condition. This mediation effect of luxuriousness was also validated using the moderation-of-process approach. The findings provide meaningful guidelines to marketing practitioners and highlight the pertinence of art infusion to clean meat consumption, a relatively unexplored research area.
Magnetic helicoidal dichroism with XUV light carrying orbital angular momentum

Circularly polarized light is a fundamental tool in magnetic studies, notably for magnetization dynamics. It is less common in magneto-optics to exploit the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of value ℓ carried by light beams possessing a helical wavefront. After finding many applications in the visible range, recently OAM pulses with ultra-short duration and XUV wavelengths became available, widening the range of experiments that can be envisaged. We modelled the interaction of an XUV OAM beam with non-uniform magnetic structures, showing that the far field scattered intensity profile encodes the symmetry of the magnetic structure in a way that depends on the sign and value of ℓ. In analogy with magnetic circular dichroism, this effect, named magnetic helicoidal dichroism (MHD), can be observed by inverting the sign of either the orbital momentum or of the magnetization. We obtained experimental evidence of MHD by measuring ℓ-dependent resonant scattering from a magnetic vortex. The results of recent complementary experiments match well the theoretical predictions, confirming the potential of the new toolset provided by MHD for studying the laser-triggered ultrafast dynamics of complex magnetic materials.
PTSD and PTG in French and American Firefighters: A Comparative Study

Studies show that experiencing traumatic events can lead to positive psychological change, or posttraumatic growth (PTG). In the hope of promoting PTG, authors have been focusing on identifying the factors that may foster PTG. Despite these attempts, the literature shows inconsistencies, making it difficult to know which variables may be involved in the process of growth. Indeed, authors seem to disagree on the nature of the relationship between PTSD and PTG, time since the event, social support, intrusive rumination, and sociodemographics. Thus, this study aims to clarify these discrepancies, and verify whether the processes involved are the same across two different cultural groups, both of which are confronted with traumatic events regularly: 409 American firefighters, and 407 French firefighters. Results indicate that, in both samples, PTG is positively related to PTSD, subjective perceptions of the event, stress during the event, disruption of core-beliefs, and deliberate rumination; and unrelated to social support, core-self evaluations, and socio-demographic variables (age, gender, relationship status, etc.). However, time since the event and the number of years on the job only predicted PTG in the American sample, while colleague and emotional support only predicted PTG in the French sample. Additionally, American firefighters reported more growth, more social support, more positive self-perceptions, more intrusive rumination, and more neuroticism than French firefighters. These results suggest that the process of growth, as defined by Tedeschi and Calhoun, is relatively stable among firefighters, but that some differences do exist between cultural groups.
A semi-detritivorous pitcher plant, Nepenthes ampullaria diverges in its regulation of pitcher fluid properties

ABSTRACT Tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes) are carnivorous plants that trap and digest prey using highly modified fluid-filled leaves known as pitchers. Prey are digested by plant-secreted enzymes and pitcher symbionts. Pitchers exert control over abiotic properties of the digestive fluid such as pH levels that can influence its symbionts. Here we examine natural variation in pH and dissolved mineral concentrations in three sympatric Nepenthes species, assessing correlations between fluid properties and pitcher traits. We use addition experiments to investigate differences in protein digestion/absorption rates between species. Fluid pH and dissolved mineral levels both showed distinct patterns corresponding to pitcher developmental stages in N. gracilis and N. rafflesiana, whereas N. ampullaria differs from its congeners in exhibiting far less variation in fluid pH, as well as less clear evidence of protein depletion. This study further elucidates the properties of pitchers as habitats, revealing ways in which the host plant regulates that habitat.
Integrating Emotion Recognition Tools for Developing Emotionally Intelligent Agents

Emotionally responsive agents that can simulate emotional intelligence increase the acceptance of users towards them, as the feeling of empathy reduces negative perceptual feedback. This has fostered research on emotional intelligence during last decades, and nowadays numerous cloud and local tools for automatic emotional recognition are available, even for inexperienced users. These tools however usually focus on the recognition of discrete emotions sensed from one communication channel, even though multimodal approaches have been shown to have advantages over unimodal approaches. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to show our approach for multimodal emotion recognition using Kalman filters for the fusion of available discrete emotion recognition tools. The proposed system has been modularly developed based on an evolutionary approach so to be integrated in our digital ecosystems, and new emotional recognition sources can be easily integrated. Obtained results show improvements over unimodal tools when recognizing naturally displayed emotions.
E-WOM and consumers’ purchase intention: An empirical study on Facebook

Nowadays, organizations use social media to promote their services and products. At the same time, they use different tools to convey their messages, such as Facebook. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors that affect the e-WOM on Jordanian consumers’ purchase intention over Facebook. The study uses the information acceptance model (IAM) to examine the impact of information credibility, information quality, information adoption, and information usefulness over Facebook on Jordanian consumers’ purchase intention. The study uses cross-sectional quantitative research and is conducted online. The questionnaire was distributed through Facebook and WhatsApp, and the people who used only Facebook were allowed to complete the survey. Out of 327 filled questionnaires, only 304 were valid for further analysis. Collected data were coded in SPSS, and after confirming the validity and reliability of the tool, the correlation between variables was checked. In addition, multiple regressions were used to test the hypotheses. Multiple regression results show that the E-WOM can explain 49.2% of the total variation in the consumers’ purchase intention, where R2 = 0.492. Information adoption has the strongest effect on consumers’ purchase intention (β = 0.489), followed by information usefulness (β = 0.204). In contrast, information credibility and information quality do not have a significant effect on customers’ purchase intention (0.189 and 0.312, respectively). This study helps companies and businesses that have pages on Facebook to understand how consumers engage in the e-WOM on business pages and consider the consumers’ reviews, comments, or posts.
Physicochemical Water Quality Influence on the Parasite Biodiversity in Juvenile Tilapia (Oreochromis spp.) Farmed at Valle Del Mezquital in the Central-Eastern Socioeconomic Region of Mexico

Aquaculture parasite biodiversity dependents on multiple environmental characteristics, including water quality. The analysis of this relationship aims to support improvements in the production management of tilapia. For this purpose, a total of 100 juvenile fishes (Oreochromis spp.) and 30 water samples were collected at Valle del Mezquital in the Central-Eastern socioeconomical region of Mexico. A study of parasite biodiversity was carried out and water quality parameters were determined. Biodiversity in the habitat was measured using the Simpson diversity index, which considers the number of species present and the abundance of each one; we also calculate the Berger-Parker index to estimate the proportional importance of the most abundant species. In general, it was found that 86% of the examined specimens were parasitized. Parasite biodiversity was 11 genera (Simpson index = 0.55). Trichodina spp. (Ciliophora) was the dominant genus (Berger-Parker index = 0.51). The protozoa Apiosoma spp. was associated with the water hardness (Berger-Parker index = 0.57). Furthermore, the presence of monogeneans showed a positive correlation with the levels of nitrites and ammonium in the water (Berger-Parker index = 0.06–0.55). This characterization may represent a useful tool in the comprehensive management of parasites that affect the farmed tilapia. However, new data is necessary to expand the knowledge about the environment-host-parasite relationship.
The Effect of Household Technology on Child Health: Evidence from China’s “Home Appliances Going to the Countryside” Policy

This paper examined the effects of household technology on child health using evidence from the Chinese government’s “Home Appliances Going to the Countryside” policy. A difference-in-differences approach was employed to examine 2000 to 2015 data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey data from before the policy in 2007 to after the policy was implemented. It was found that the policy-induced household technology adoption significantly increased child health, especially girls’ health. Various sensitivity tests proved this finding to be robust. The potential paths through which household technology improved child health were also examined from which it was found that parental care for children and increased nutrition were effective paths between household technology and health status. These results could guide policymakers when constructing and developing a supportive child health system in China.
Generalized linear models with varying dispersion

SUMMARY Generalized linear models are further generalized to include a linear predictor for the dispersion as well as for the mean. It is shown how the convenient structure of generalized linear models can be carried over to this more general setting by considering the mean and dispersion structure separately. Mean and dispersion submodels are formulated for this, the dependent variable for the dispersion submodel being the deviance components of the mean submodel. The fact that both submodels are essentially generalized linear models themselves is used to derive simple expressions for the likelihood equations and for asymptotic tests. Estimation algorithms are proposed which have good convergence properties. The results apply mainly to the normal, inverse Gaussian and gamma distributions but can be extended to discrete distributions by using quasi-likelihoods. The methods developed are applied to a well-known data set.
Novel ABC—Variable Based Closed-Form Analytical Model of Surface Mounted Permanent Magnet AC Machines With Sinusoidal and Non-Sinusoidal Back-EMF

This work presents a novel abc-based model applicable to surface-mounted permanent magnet AC (SM-PMAC) machines with sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal back-electromotive force (back-emf). It is capable of predicting the electromagnetic performance metrics such as torque waveforms, machine inductances, flux linkages and back-emf. The closed form expressions of the model, which can be evaluated with a high computational efficiency, are derived from basic geometric and winding parameters. Validation of the model is carried out numerically and experimentally with a very good match in results. Finally, the computational efficiency of the model is highlighted by considering a multi-objective evolutionary optimization design of SM-PMAC machine with a relatively large number of design parameters, where results are presented and discussed.
Influence-free states on compound quantum systems

Consider two spatially separated agents, Alice and Bob, each of whom is able to make local quantum measurements, and who can communicate with each other over a purely classical channel. As has been pointed out by a number of authors, the set of mathematically consistent joint probability assignments (“states”) for such a system is properly larger than the set of quantum-mechanical mixed states for the joint Alice-Bob system. Indeed, it is canonically isomorphic to the set of positive (but not necessarily completely positive) linear maps L(HA) → L(HB) from the bounded linear operators on Alice’s Hilbert space to those on Bob’s, satisfying Tr (φ(1)) = 1. The present paper explores the properties of these states. We review what is known, including the fact that allowing classical communication between parties is equivalent to enforcing “noinstantaneous-signalling” (“no–influence”) in the direction opposite the communication. We establish that in the subclass of “decomposable” states, i.e. convex combinations of positive states with ones whose partial transpose is positive, the extremal (i.e. pure) states are just the extremal positive and extremal partial-transpose-positive states. And we show that two such states, shared by the same pair of parties, cannot necessarily be combined as independent states (their tensor product) if the full set of quantum operations is allowed locally to each party: this sort of coupling does not mix well with the standard quantum one. We use a framework of “test spaces” and states on these, well suited for exhibiting the analogies and deviations of empirical probabilistic theories (such as quantum mechanics) from classical probability theory. This leads to a deeper understanding of some analogies between quantum mechanics and Bayesian probability theory. For example, the existence of a “most Bayesian” quantum rule for updating states after measurement, and its association with the situation when information on one system is gained by measuring another, is a case of a general proposition holding for test spaces combined subject to the no-signalling requirement. CCS-3: Modelling, Algorithms, and Informatics. Mail Stop B256, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545; barnum@lanl.gov Quantum Information and Optics Research, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, 600-700 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07975 USA; cafuchs@research.bell-labs.com Institut fur Theoretische Physik I, Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg Staudtstrasse 7/B2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany; jrenes@optik.uni-erlangen.de Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Susquehanna, Selinsgrove, PA 17870 USA; wilce@susqu.edu
Tribological Aspects Concerning the Study of Overhead Crane Brakes

The aim of the study is the tribological analysis of the crane drum brakes. A theoretical analysis of the wear processes for brake lining was performed and the coefficient of friction under tribological conditions was determined experimentally simulating the operating conditions for three types of brakes. The theoretical study of the wear was oriented towards of determining the lifetime of the brake lining. In the experimental determination of the coefficient of friction, the following parameters were taken into account: the contact pressure between the shoe and the drum; the initial speed of the brake drum; the humidity of the working environment; and the temperature of the drum-brake lining friction surfaces. After performing the experiments, a statistical analysis was conducted, that shows the amount the coefficient of friction is influenced by the previously mentioned parameters: the highest weight was humidity with a value of 35.58%, followed by temperature with a percentage of 23.95%, velocity with 4.54%, and lastly pressure with 4.19%. Furthermore, the equation that expresses the dependence between the coefficient of friction and the parameters is determined. We consider that the results obtained are important for brake manufacturers in order to improve braking efficiency and the safety of overhead cranes.
Lebesgue constants on compact manifolds

Sharp asymptotic for norms of Fourier projections on two-point homogeneous manifolds (the real sphere, the real, complex and quaternionic projective spaces and the Cayley elliptic plain) are established. These results extend sharp asymptotic estimates found by Fejer on the circle (in 1910) and then by Gronwall on the two-dimensional sphere (in 1914). As an application of these results we give solution of the problem of Kolmogorov on sharp asymptotic for the rate of convergence of Fourier sums on a wide range of sets of multiplier operators.
Exploiting the Molecular Basis of Oesophageal Cancer for Targeted Therapies and Biomarkers for Drug Response: Guiding Clinical Decision-Making

Worldwide, oesophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of deaths related to cancer and represents a major health concern. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the regions of the world with the highest incidence and mortality rates for oesophageal cancer and most of the cases of oesophageal cancer in this region are oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The development and progression of OSCC is characterized by genomic changes which can be utilized as diagnostic or prognostic markers. These include changes in the expression of various genes involved in signaling pathways that regulate pathways that regulate processes that are related to the hallmarks of cancer, changes in the tumor mutational burden, changes in alternate splicing and changes in the expression of non-coding RNAs such as miRNA. These genomic changes give rise to characteristic profiles of altered proteins, transcriptomes, spliceosomes and genomes which can be used in clinical applications to monitor specific disease related parameters. Some of these profiles are characteristic of more aggressive forms of cancer or are indicative of treatment resistance or tumors that will be difficult to treat or require more specialized specific treatments. In Sub-Saharan region of Africa there is a high incidence of viral infections such as HPV and HIV, which are both risk factors for OSCC. The genomic changes that occur due to these infections can serve as diagnostic markers for OSCC related to viral infection. Clinically this is an important distinction as it influences treatment as well as disease progression and treatment monitoring practices. This underlines the importance of the characterization of the molecular landscape of OSCC in order to provide the best treatment, care, diagnosis and screening options for the management of OSCC.
Consistent cosmology, dynamic relativity and causal quantum mechanics as unified manifestations of the symmetry of complexity

The present invention relates to an interbody spinal stabilization method and an interbody spinal stabilization cage. The cage has a parallelepipedic shape and comprises a central hollow space intended to be filled with bone fragments. The cage also comprises anchoring device(s) having an overall S shape and opening onto lateral faces connecting with adjacent vertebrae, actuated by at least one actuation device opening into a front face. The anchoring device(s) each have at least one main cutting edge.
On the dispersion of heavy particles by turbulent motion

Abstract Accurate prediction of heavy particle dispersion in turbulent flows requires a simultaneous consideration of particle's inertia and particle's drift velocity. A mathematically simple and physically comprehensive analysis was developed to solve the dispersion statistics of heavy particles in a homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow. Normalized particle diffusivity, rms fluctuating velocity, and Lagrangian integral time were related by algebraic equations to three dimensionless parameters: the inertia parameter, the drift parameter, and the turbulence structure parameter. When the drift parameter is large, dispersion scales are very sensitive to the inertia parameter. Heavy particles were found to disperse faster than fluid elements if the inertia parameter controls the dispersion and slower than fluid elements if the drift parameter governs the dispersion. This finding explains previous “contradictory” dispersion data observed in experimental measurements. Not only the particle time respective b.