Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Association of Chronic Conditions with Clinical Outcomes Following Traumatic Injury in Older Adults

Author(s): Calvo, Richard Yee | Abstract: BACKGROUND : The San Diego trauma population is aging over time and older trauma patients represent a vulnerable population at risk for mortality and severe morbidity. Reductions in validity of the prognostic metrics may be improved by evaluating chronic diseases, but there is minimal evidence to support this. Few studies have evaluated mortality after trauma center discharge, and none have evaluated mortality in the context of discharge as a competing risk. METHODS : Three studies were performed to evaluate chronic conditions on trauma-related outcomes as part of historical cohort study on blunt- injured patients age ≥55 years admitted between 01/2006-12 /2012. The first evaluated chronic conditions on in- hospital mortality (with a competing event) and hospital length of stay (HLOS). The second evaluated chronic conditions and mortality after trauma center discharge. In the third study, a chronic disease-based prognostic model for trauma-related mortality was constructed and compared to other leading metrics. RESULTS : There were 4653 unique patients who met all criteria for inclusion. Of 40 conditions, 23 were associated with in-hospital mortality. HLOS was associated with 32 of 40 conditions. Of 4442 survivors, 938 died within two years of discharge. Patients discharged to care facilities showed worse survival within the first 30 days (early-term mortality). Injury-related variables were associated only with early- term mortality, while chronic conditions were associated with two-year mortality after discharge. The model development procedure identified twelve conditions for inclusion. Model tests showed moderate performance for mortality and ours was superior versus other chronic disease metrics. Validation showed moderate performance of our model that did not significantly differ from other chronic disease metrics. Injury metrics, overall, were poor at predicting mortality. CONCLUSION : Chronic conditions vary in their relationship with mortality by time. In older trauma populations, chronic conditions show stronger associations with mortality than injury-related measures. Discharges to care facilities are valid competing events to in-hospital mortality and should be accounted for when assessing the quality of trauma care. Our developed model performed well with twelve variables compared to others with far more. Results can be used to inform patients and care providers of the risks outside the realm of injury
Patellar Tendon Straps Decrease Pain and May Alter Lower Extremity Kinetics in Those With Patellar Tendinopathy During Jump Landing

Patellar tendinopathy is often managed with a patellar tendon strap, however, their effectiveness is unsubstantiated. The purpose of this study was to determine if straps altered pain or lower extremity kinetics of individuals with patellar tendinopathy during landing. Thirty participants with patellar tendinopathy and 30 controls completed drop jumps with and without patellar tendon straps. Wearing the strap, tendinopathy participants demonstrated significantly decreased pain and reduced knee adductor moment; all participants displayed significantly decreased anterior ground reaction force while wearing a strap. Patellar tendon strapping may reduce pain due to alterations in direction and magnitude of loading.
The Effect of Global Financial Crisis on the Financial Performances of Commercial Banks of Ethiopia

The 2007 financial crisis, triggered at the United States of America, affected many financial institutions around the world. In Ethiopia, some scholars argue that Commercial banks of Ethiopia (CBE) are not vulnerable for global financial crisis. Because, Commercial banks of Ethiopia are owned by state and domestic investors and the country does not allow foreign banks to operate in the country. In line with this argument, this study sought to investigate the effect of global financial crisis on the financial performances of commercial Banks of Ethiopia. The study used judgmental sampling method, taking in to account the age and accessibility of complete audited financial statements. The sample size of the study was two state owned and five private commercial banks. The study dominantly used secondary data. So as to triangulate results, the study also employed primary sources of data. To measure and analyze performance of commercial banks during the periods 2004-2010, CAMEL model and SPSS statistical tools were employed. The study found that the banks had had liquid and quality asset during the crisis. But among the growth mean deference of six variables of international banking related activities, only two variables (Deposit in Foreign Banks and Gain from Foreign Currency Translation and Exchange) had positive growth mean during the global financial crisis; the change was not statistically significant at 5% significance level. Whereas loan dispersed for importers (LI), interest income from foreign deposit, ROA, total revenue from international banking actives had been decreased by 214%, 217%, 16% and 39% respectively. These changes were statistically significant at 5%. Thus the study concluded that, despite CBE were owned by state and domestic investors and international banks has been prohibited to operate in Ethiopia, the financial crisis significantly affected the financial performances of Ethiopia banking industry. Keywords: Global Financial crisis, financial performance, commercial banks of Ethiopia, CAMEL DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-22-01 Publication date: November 30 th 2019
Study of Inter-Laminar Behavior of Geodesic wound Composite Pressure Vessel by Higher Order Shear Deformation Theories and Finite Element Analysis

Advanced Fiber reinforced polymers have emerged as an important class of engineering materials with all round properties for many engineering and social applications. Fiber reinforced composites are widely used in aircrafts, rockets and automotive structures for their low weight high strength and stiffness. A designer can utilize the anisotropy produced by building up a laminate from plies with a properly selected fiber-resin combination and orientation-stacking sequence to meet the performance requirements. The axi-symmetric structure like a pressure vessel would be made out of composite materials usually using filament winding process. In spite of their good performance; pressure vessels made by filament winding have complexity in analyzing the geometry and properties in their dome parts along the longitudinal axis. Moreover, the fiber angle varies in the thickness direction because the fiber path depends on the surface on which fibers are wound. Therefore certain analyses like higher order shear deformation theory and finite element analysis is to be computed in order to predict the structural behavior of pressure vessel. By observing the results among these numerical techniques, it is seen that the Finite element method is not only simple but straight forward for efficient programming and also versatile enough to cover all types of problems relevant to practical situations.
Comparative Analysis of Feature Selection Algorithms for Computational Personality Prediction From Social Media

With the rapid growth of social media, users are getting involved in virtual socialism, generating a huge volume of textual and image contents. Considering the contents such as status updates/tweets and shared posts/retweets, liking other posts is reflecting the online behavior of the users. Predicting personality of a user from these digital footprints has become a computationally challenging problem. In a profile-based approach, utilizing the user-generated textual contents could be useful to reflect the personality in social media. Using huge number of features of different categories, such as traditional linguistic features (character-level, word-level, structural, and so on), psycholinguistic features (emotional affects, perceptions, social relationships, and so on) or social network features (network size, betweenness, and so on) could be useful to predict personality traits from social media. According to a widely popular personality model, namely, big-five-factor model (BFFM), the five factors are openness-to-experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Predicting personality is redefined as predicting each of these traits separately from the extracted features. Traditionally, it takes huge number of features to get better accuracy on any prediction task although applying feature selection algorithms may improve the performance of the model. In this article, we have compared the performance of five feature selection algorithms, namely the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), correlation-based feature subset (CFS), information gain (IG), symmetric uncertainly (SU) evaluator, and chi-squared (CHI) method. The performance is evaluated using the classic metrics, namely, precision, recall, f-measure, and accuracy as evaluation matrices.
Electrospun Separation Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries: Synthesis and Study of Physical and Electrochemical Properties

The paper presents a comprehensive study of the physicochemical and electrochemical properties of a new nano-microporous non-woven composite separation material for a lithium-ion battery based on nano- and microfibers of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and its copolymer with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), obtained by capillary-less electrospinning. A technique for the synthesis of separation material was developed, and the composition of the polymeric solution and the electrospinning conditions were optimized to produce polymer nano-microfibers with the required physicochemical characteristics. The optimal synthesis conditions for the separation material were determined. Higher porosity of the separation material and increased wettability in the most common electrolyte compositions contribute to the higher conductivity of the obtained separation material in comparison with the widely used commercial separation materials based on polypropylene (PP). The working characteristics of the separation material were studied in laboratory half-cells with a working electrode based on Li4Ti5O12, as well as a lithium metal counter electrode and a reference electrode. Charge-discharge tests of cells were performed in a wide range of variation of currents: From 0.1 to 25 C. A decrease in the total polarization of the working electrode and an increase in the cycled capacity at comparable currents in comparison with a cell with a PP-based separator were noted. The state of the electrodes and the separator in the cell was monitored using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy: The polarization resistances of the electrodes in different frequency ranges were determined, and the diffusion coefficient of lithium ions in the Li4Ti5O12 electrode was estimated in various lithiation states and at different stages of electrochemical tests, which were in the interval of 10−10 to 10−9 cm2·s−1.
Bioelectrical Signal Analysis of Mouse Cardiomyocyte Culture recorded on Thin-Film-Transistor Sensor Arrays

The dynamical property of the heart bioelectrical system is closely associated with cardiac diseases. There is thus a growing interest in the development of system analysis for studying the cardiac signaling network. In this article, the electrical potentials of cardiac muscle cells have been measured on an array of microelectrodes using the Thin-Film-Transistor (TFT) technology, and electrophysiological data were analyzed. This study shows the possibility of obtaining and accurately analyzing extracellular signals measured on TFT arrays.
Elevated atmospheric CO
 2
 suppresses jasmonate and silicon‐based defences without affecting herbivores

Silicon supplementation has also been linked to the plant defence signalling hormone, jasmonic acid (JA). Both silicon and JA defences are reduced under elevated CO2 (eCO2), potentially increasing plant susceptibility to pest insects. To date, only a few studies have investigated the effect of eCO2 on Si uptake. The majority of crops grown throughout the world are grasses, making this particularly relevant for global food security, pest management and species interactions under climate change.
INVESTIGATING K-2 STUDENTS COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SKILLS DURING A PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITY ABOUT THE WATER CYCLE USING EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS

The main purpose of the study was to investigate K-2 children’s development of computational thinking skills through an activity with Blue-Bot, a floor programmable robot. Twenty children between six and seven years old participated in the study. Children were engaged in problem-solving activities with the Blue-Bot to learn how to program it and about the water cycle. The results of the study reported statistically significant learning gains between the initial and final assessment of children’s computational thinking skills as they were measured holistically with a rubric that was developed for the purposes of this study. In addition, the results showed that learning with robotics activities was an effective way to teach children about the water cycle.
Latent Relationship Guided Stacked Sparse Autoencoder for Hyperspectral Imagery Classification

Classification is an important application of hyperspectral image (HSI). However, it is also a challenging research topic due to the spatial variability of spectral signature and limited training samples. To address these problems, a novel unsupervised feature learning method called latent relationship guided the stacked sparse autoencoder (LRSSAE) is developed in this article, which can effectively exploit the latent relationship under feature space to improve the ability of feature learning. Moreover, the superpixels constraint is employed on the feature representation to avoid the “salt-and-pepper” problem, and it is enforced on the latent relationship to enhance the latent relationship learning additionally. In LRSSAE, combining the stacked sparse autoencoder (SSAE) with the graph regularizations of latent relationship in each hidden layer and the superpixel constraints in the top layer, we extract feature representation in an unsupervised manner. And then, we present a customized iterative algorithm to optimize the LRSSAE. We evaluate the proposed method on three widely used HSI data sets comprehensively. The results demonstrate that our method achieves promising classification performance on these data sets and obtains improvements of 5.06%, 5.77%, and 2.11% in overall accuracy compared to the best SSAE method.
First report of Pleurotus fuscosquamulosus (Pleurotaceae, Basidiomycota) in Italy naturally occurring on new tropical hosts

Torta, L. , Bella, P., Conigliaro, G. , Mirabile, G. , Laudicina, V. A. , Giambra, S. , Venturella, G. , Gargano, M. L. : First report of Pleurotus fuscosquamulosus (Pleurotaceae, Basidiomycota) in Italy naturally occurring on new tropical hosts. — Fl. Medit. 29: 197-206. 2019. — ISSN: 11204052 printed, 2240-4538 online. Basidiomata of a mushroom macroscopically recognised as Pleurotus cystidosus sensu latu were collected on the trunks of three tropical ornamental trees such as Broussonetia papyrifera, Yucca elephantipes, and Paulownia tomentosa in the Parco d’Orleans, an urban park in the town of Palermo (Sicily, Italy). All the plants showed cavities and white rot symptoms at the base of the trunks. Macroand microscopic observations on both collected basidiomata and isolated colonies, as well as molecular analysis, allowed identifying the collected basidiomata as Pleurotus fuscosquamulosus and its anamorph as Antromycopsis fuscosquamulosus. These species belong to the subgenus Coremiopleurotus that includes different species producing synnematoid fructifications. The positive reaction of the colonies to the syringaldazine and the artificial inoculation tests on wood blocks of B. papyrifera confirmed its white wood rotting activity. To our knowledge, this is the first report of occurring of P. fuscosquamulosus in Italy on three new tropical plant hosts.
Energy Modelling to Evaluate the Thermal Regulation of Aquaculture Raceways using Geothermal Heat Exchange

i Summary for Lay Audience . ii Co-Authorship Statement. iii Acknowledgments. iv List of Tables . ix List of Figures . x List of Appendices . xv Chapter 1 . 1
Toward a naturalistically explicable folk psychology

This thesis investigates the gap between what our science says and how many theorists and everyday people have characterised how we conceive of mental states. I argue that looking at our folk psychology (FP) in light of an understanding of real-world, current science yields beneficial philosophical results. FP, in the iteration that I shall be concerned with here, refers to every person’s ability to apply reason explanations to conspecifics’ behaviour. I focus predominantly on the underlying processes that we allegedly pick out in our folk psychologising, those of beliefs and desires (the propositional attitudes). The reason for this focus lies in the gap between our intuitive beliefs and understanding of our mental processes and the picture painted by the empirical sciences. I first explore some issues concerning traditional theorising on the topic, before discussing current scientific research into pur cognitive processes in the form of predictive processing (PP) as advocated by Friston (2003, 2008, 2010), Hohwy (2013), and Clark (2016). PP depicts our brains not as passive, stimulus-driven organs, but as active constructors of our environment. An implication of this approach is that the way in which we represent the environment within our mind is different to how it is typically conceived within traditional FP. I also explore Hutto’s (2008a; Hutto & Myin 2013a, 2017) claim that our minds are wired to be attuned to the environment in terms of minimal content, which allows me to develop a minimal conception of representation in terms of content, one in which direct correspondence between mental states and the supposed representation of the environment need not obtain for the mental to do causally efficacious work. I conclude that the beliefs and desires utilised in FP are socio-cultural impositions upon the neural substrate with no counterpart in reality. This has clear implications for our understanding of how we think about mental states within the cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind, if what we are aiming toward is a clarification of just what the mental is. Additionally, these new insights may ensure that the cognitive sciences are better informed about what it is that is being explained and where to focus further research concerning the mental. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
MACROECONOMIC MODELING IN UZBEKISTAN: USING THE GERMANY EXPERIENCE.

The modern economic and financial system is actively using modelling techniques as a tool to illustrate processes, to predict further developments and, if necessary, to adjust baseline parameters for crisis prevention. The article contains an overview of the main parameters of macroeconomic modelling of economic growth of Uzbekistan, analysis of problems and prospects of their development. Legislation governing economic growth modelling has been identified. The best foreign experience of macroeconomic modelling was analyzed.
ANTHROPOGENIC POLLUTANTS: 10 YEARS OF PROGRESS IN ECOTOXICOLOGICAL STUDIES AND AQUATIC RISK ASSESSMENT

The market expansion due to globalization generated more anthropogenic contaminants, enhancing their negative impact on the environment. In order to prevent and balanced their negative effect, more rapid, sensitive and eco-friendly ecotoxicological studies as risk assessments were developed. Each country developed national programs to ensure the research infrastructure for implementation and development of new testing methodologies, generating new experimental data transferable to governmental authorities, economic agents and academia. In this review, we intend to highlighted the progress of Romanian researchers in the last 10 years in the field of ecotoxicology and aquatic risk assessment. The studies focused on aquatic systems as a non-targeted system to the anthropogenic pollutants impact. The implemented methodologies according with international requirements for chemical control like REACH Regulation, Detergents Regulation, Biocide Products Regulation or the Aquatic Risk Assessment Guidelines were presented. The ecotoxicological effects of various contaminants such as detergents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, biocides or heavy metals and environmental polluted samples (surface water, sediment or sludge) were provided. Overall, the studies presented in our studies have a nationally novelty through the variety of test substances, the complexity of laboratory experiments and data processing. The research work has a continue applicability in industry and for control authorities. New accredited testing services that providing useful information about the chemicals and their impact on the environmental were introduced. In addition, the ecotoxicology studies and their challenges were a great source for professional training like PhD and master studies and for impact published papers.
Acupoint selection for the treatment of dry eye: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

The effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of dry eye has been confirmed, but the association between acupoint selection and therapeutic effect has remained to be elucidated. In the present study, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to evaluate the effect of periocular acupoints and periocular acupoints plus body acupoints compared with AT for the treatment of dry eye disease (DED). The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Ovid, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chonqing VIP Information, Co., Ltd. databases were searched with entries until 10 July 2018 considered. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. Meta-analyses were performed to compare the effects of acupuncture with those of conventional treatment (including AT or other non-acupuncture therapies). The primary outcomes, including tear break-up time (BUT), Schirmer's I test (SIT) result and Symptom scores were analyzed. Subgroup analysis was performed for periocular acupoints only and periocular acupoints plus body acupoints. A total of 12 studies comprising 900 participants were included. In the primary meta-analysis, a significant improvement in the BUT [n=1,209, weighted mean difference (WMD)=1.01, 95% CI: 0.56-1.84, P<0.00001], SIT result (n=1,107, WMD=1.98, 95% CI: 0.44-3.34, P<0.00001) and Symptom scores (n=402, WMD=-1.02, 95% CI: -1.33 to -0.72, P<0.00001) was obtained to evaluate the clinical efficacy of acupuncture and AT. Furthermore, periocular acupoints plus body acupoints were more effective in the treatment of DED. However, the total sample size of subjects with only periocular acupoints in the treatment of DED was too small to get any ﬁrm conclusions. Further large RCTs are warranted.
Community Schools in Selected Eastern European and Eurasian Countries: Implementation Processes and Results

ABSTRACT In this article, we present the results of an international comparative study on the concept of Community School across nine eastern European and Eurasian countries. The study sample consists of two schools considered to be Community Schools from each country (N = 451 teachers); a teacher survey was conducted and the implementation of the International Quality Standards for Community Schools was measured. Quantitative data related to scales were compared to qualitative open answers about important principles of Community Schools for individual teachers. The study showed great variability among countries and schools in implementing the Community School concept because of both the national and regional specificity of educational systems and the leadership and cohesion within particular schools. The International Quality Standards for Community Schools as a “Western” concept is discussed.