Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chronic Thromboembolic Disease: Epidemiology, Assessment with Invasive Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing, and Options for Management

ABSTRACT Recovery after acute pulmonary embolism occurs on a continuum from complete restoration of flow to persistent perfusion defects causing pulmonary hypertension. An under-recognized complication of pulmonary embolism is chronic thromboembolic disease (CTED), a condition characterized by abnormal perfusion but no resting pulmonary hypertension. These patients often present with dyspnea on exertion. In this review, we discuss the epidemiology of CTED and the physiologic reasons that dyspnea on exertion manifests, namely increased dead space ventilation and exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension. We present the protocol used for invasive cardiopulmonary exercise testing with right heart catheterization necessary to differentiate these two phenotypes of CTED and exclude other causes of dyspnea on exertion such as exercise-induced diastolic dysfunction. Finally, we discuss the potential management options for symptomatic CTED including pulmonary thromboendarterectomy and balloon pulmonary angioplasty.
Progress toward improved water vapour radiometry: an overview of the South Africa-Mexico bilateral programme

Water vapour radiometers (WVRs) are critical to both site surveying and site management in microwave and mm-wave very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). We report on the first two years of progress made towards improving the state of water vapour radiometry at HartRAO, South Africa, and the LMT in Mexico, under a SAMexico bilateral programme. We report on progress in the development of low-cost site surveying instruments, multi-purpose cooled receivers, as well as refurbishment and upgrades to existing 22/31 GHz and 215 GHz tipping radiometers.
Emergence of Log-Normal Type Distributions in Avalanche Processes in Living Systems: A Network Model

Actin is the major cytoskeletal protein of mammal cells that forms microfilaments organized into higher-order structures by a dynamic assembly-disassembly mechanism with cross-linkers. These networks provide the cells with mechanical support, and allow cells to change their shape, migrate, divide and develop a mechanical communication with their environment. The quick adaptation of these networks upon stretch or compression is important for cell survival in real situations. Using atomic force microscopy to poke living cells with sharp tips, we revealed that they respond to a local and quick shear through a cascade of random and abrupt ruptures of their cytoskeleton, suggesting that they behave as a quasi-rigid random network of intertwined filaments. Surprisingly, the distribution of the strength and the size of these rupture events did not follow power-law statistics but log-normal statistics, suggesting that the mechanics of living cells would not fit into self-organized critical systems. We propose a random Gilbert network to model a cell cytoskeleton, identifying the network nodes as the actin filaments, and its links as the actin cross-linkers. We study mainly two versions of avalanches. First, we do not include the fractional visco-elasticity of living cells, assuming that the ruptures are instantaneous, and we observe three avalanche regimes, 1) a regime where avalanches are rapidly interrupted, and their size follows a distribution decaying faster than a power-law; 2) an explosive regime with avalanches of large size where the whole network is damaged and 3) an intermediate regime where the avalanche distribution goes from a power-law, at the critical point, to a distribution containing both 1) and (ii). Then, we introduce a time varying breaking probability, to include the fractional visco-elasticity of living cells, and recover an approximated log-normal distribution of avalanche sizes, similar to those observed in experiments. Our simulations show that the log-normal statistics requires two simple ingredients: a random network without characteristic length scale, and a breaking rule capturing the broadly observed visco-elasticity of living cells. This work paves the way for future applications to large populations of non-linear individual elements (brain, heart, epidemics, … ) where similar log-normal statistics have also been observed.
Binding energies of positronium fluoride and positronium bromide by the model potential quantum Monte Carlo method

A method previously used by the authors in an accurate calculation of the binding energy of positronium chloride [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 3281 (1992)] is applied to positronium fluoride and positronium bromide. The binding energies obtained with this method are PsF, 1.98±0.17 eV; PsCl, 1.91±0.16 eV; PsBr, 1.14±0.11 eV.
Assessing the post-fire recovery in the southeast coast of China during the early period

Abstract Understanding post-fire recovery is important for post-fire management. However, an in-depth evaluation of the spatiotemporal dynamics of burn degree is rarely reported around the world. This study aimed to assess the changes in the degree of burn during the early post-burn period (June 15, 2018–July 27, 2019) to influence the post-fire management. The dNBR-based burn index model was used to estimate the changes in burn degree. The results revealed that the burn degree had decreased from severe burns on June 15, 2018 to moderate burns on July 27, 2019, and the post-fire recovery period takes a long time. The rate of decrease in burn degree in the latter period (January 25, 2019–July 27, 2019) was much higher than that in the earlier period (June 15, 2018–January 25, 2019). The survival and growth of Dicranopteris pedata primarily led to a marked reduction in the burn degree in the latter period. The burned areas would have a markedly negative effect on the environment in the earlier period (within approximately half a year after the fire). Moreover, the lower severely burned sites can continue to degenerate and translated into higher ones during the earlier period owing to poor environmental conditions for the growth of vegetation and the influence of seasonal changes. These findings emphasize the importance of the timely strengthening of the earlier post-fire recovery in our area. In brief, our study enriches the knowledge of the early post-fire recovery in southeast China.
Real-time monitoring of clinic risks using an integrated RFID-FA scheme

Patient safety is a global public health concern because of increases in the number of mistreatments due to the improper identification of patients or the improper administration of drugs. Risk in clinic management refers to the systematic process used to specify, control and analyze organizational risks. The present article describes a new method to improve the quality of healthcare by enabling to monitor and control the hospital workflow using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to read and capture clinical information. Tag distribution was specified based on functional clustered areas. The Density-Based Scan Algorithm (DBSCAN) was used as a clustering technique to extract area data based on drawing designs transferred from Auto-Cad. Then all gathered data was transferred to the firefly algorithm to track drug distribution and specify doctor and nurse locations. The simulation results observe real-time tracking and identification of people and drugs based on hospital zone designs. The results present 87% tag real-time coverage for managing and monitoring human inside the hospital. The effectiveness of this system shows that it useful in monitoring clinic operations and effective for hospital network solution.
Using Agile Project Management in the Design and Implementation of Activity-Based Costing Systems

The success of a costing system is dependent on its appropriation and assimilation by the organization. The involvement of all stakeholders from the early stages of design and implementation plays a critical role in this process. In this paper, the use of agile project management is investigated to support the design and implementation of more effective costing systems. A Design Science Research approach was followed to apply an agile project management approach—the Scrum methodology—to the design and implementation of an Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system in a hospital imaging service. The proposed methodology identifies the roles, the events, and the most important artifacts in the design and implementation of costing systems. Research results show that applying agile project management principles contributes to a higher degree of acceptance of the costing system by the operating personnel, as well as by top management. It was also found that a simpler model (result of sprint 5), instead of a more detailed one (proposed for sprint 4), may better fit the interests of the decision makers and the organization’s accounting and information systems. Thus, the best costing system is not necessarily the most complete or accurate, but the one that is most useful and adapted to the organization’s needs. The definition of the product backlog, the several sprints, and the iterative process were critical in this process. The adoption of the Scrum methodology allowed the design and implementation of an ABC system more adapted to the organization’s needs and allowed the early identification of problems that, traditionally, are only perceived at the end of the implementation process, therefore increasing the performance and economic sustainability of organizations.
Health Condition Assessment of Marine Systems Based on an Improved Radar Chart

Since health assessment plays a significant role in marine systems (MSs), it has caught the attention of researchers. In this study, a powerful evaluation method called an improved radar chart was developed as a means of reliability estimation. General evaluation methods applied in the comprehensive evaluation of MS are slightly insufficient in terms of considering index coordination. However, the application of a radar chart can solve this problem. To improving the shortcomings of a traditional radar chart, the fuzzy centralization statistical theory and the entropy weight were combined in this study to obtain the comprehensive weight. The weight could be converted into an angle, and it could reflect the influence degree of the indexes on the evaluation objects. Additionally, an angle bisector was introduced as an index axis, and the eigenvector was extracted to get the unique evaluation result. The result showed that the proposed method could achieve the continuous online monitoring of the system state, and the reliable and accurate assessment results were able to provide a reference for condition-based maintenance and decision-making.
The effect of enzymatic hydrolysis on the antioxidant activities and amino acid profiles of defatted chia (Salvia hispanica L.) flour

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of enzymatic hydrolysis using different proteases (Alcalase® and papain) and hydrolysis period on antioxidative activities and amino acid profiles of hydrolysed chia peptides. The experiment has been carried out using a completely randomized block design. The protein from defatted chia flour (DCF) was first isolated using different extraction pH (pH 10; 11; 12) and precipitation pH (pH 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5) to determine the highest protein isolated (CI) yield. The chia isolate (CI) extracted using the combination treatment (pH 12, 3.5) demonstrated the highest protein content of 17.22% and was selected to further hydrolysed using Alcalase® and papain enzyme at different hydrolysis time. The degree of hydrolysis (DH), protein solubility and peptide content of the chia protein hydrolysates (CH) were observed. Alcalase®-CH and Papain-CH demonstrated the highest DH at 60 mins of hydrolysis with the value of 47.09% and 44.29%, respectively. The protein solubility and peptide content were directly proportional to the DH. The Alcalase®-CH hydrolysed at 60 mins exhibited the highest antioxidant activities as measured by DPPH, ABTS and FRAP assays with values of 35. 46µM AAE, 34. 45µM TE and 23.11 µM FeSO4.7H2O E, respectively. The Alcalase®- CH demonstrated higher (p<0.05) hydrophobic amino acid (42.51%) compared to and Papain-CH (37.25%,). The highest aromatic amino acid content also recorded by Alcalase®-CH (20.10%), whereas Papain-CH with the value of 15.54%. However, both CH exhibited higher hydrophilic and aromatic amino acid compared to DCF and CI. This result has proved that the enzymatic hydrolysis of CH using Alcalase® and papain improved the nutritional and antioxidant capabilities, thus potentially represent a naturally occurring antioxidant ingredient in the production of functional food and nutraceutical appliance with significant health benefits.
Lateral photovoltaic effect based on novel materials and external modulations

With the development of nanoengineering and nanotechnology, numerous emerging materials and constructions are being presented in optoelectronics to challenge traditional photoelectric effects and detecting techniques, and are inspiring innovation and growth in photoelectric research fields. Recently, due to its unique working mechanism, the lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) has been identified as an indispensable and effective method of studying the properties of novel materials and also shows promising application in position sensors and photodetection. This article will present a comprehensive review of the recent progress on the LPE in novel materials, including metal nanomaterials, oxide semiconductors, organic semiconductors, two-dimensional layered materials, and perovskites. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the LPE is also very sensitive to different constructions or external modulations and can be substantially tuned by changing the structure or morphology of materials, adding external fields, and utilizing plasmon resonance. This summary may provide a comprehensive picture regarding the recent achievements of the LPE in novel materials and external modulations. Finally, we also present a discussion of the challenges and potential trends of the LPE in the near future.
Small Symmetrical Deformation of Thin Torus with Circular Cross-Section

By introducing a variable transformation $\xi=\frac{1}{2}(\sin \theta+1)$, a complex-form ordinary differential equation (ODE) for the small symmetrical deformation of an elastic torus is successfully transformed into the well-known Heun's ODE, whose exact solution is obtained in terms of Heun's functions. To overcome the computational difficulties of the complex-form ODE in dealing with boundary conditions, a real-form ODE system is proposed. A general code of numerical solution of the real-form ODE is written by using Maple. Some numerical studies are carried out and verified by both finite element analysis and H. Reissner's formulation. Our investigations show that both deformation and stress response of an elastic torus are sensitive to the radius ratio, and suggest that the analysis of a torus should be done by using the bending theory of a shell.
X-in-the-Loop Testing of a Thermal Management System Intended for an Electric Vehicle with In-Wheel Motors

The article describes an elaboration of the X-in-the-loop (XiL) testing environment for a thermal management system (TMS) intended for the traction electric drive of an electric vehicle, which has each of its wheels driven by an in-wheel motor. The TMS features the individual thermal regulation of each electric drive using a hydraulic layout with parallel pipelines and electrohydraulic pumps embedded into them. The XiL system is intended as a tool for studying and developing the TMS design and controls. It consists of the virtual part and the physical part. The former simulates the vehicle operating in a driving cycle with the heat power dissipated by the electric drive components, which entails the change in their temperature regimes. The physical part includes the TMS itself consisting of a radiator, pipelines, and pumps. The physical part also features devices intended for simulation of the electric drive components in terms of their thermal and hydraulic behaviors, as well as devices that simulate airflow induced by the vehicle motion. Bilateral, real-time interactions are established between the two said parts combining them into a cohesive system, which models the studied electric vehicle and its components. The article gives a description of a laboratory setup, which implements the XiL environment including the mathematical models, hardware devices, as well as the control loops that establish the interaction of those components. An example of using this system in a driving cycle test shows the interaction between its parts and operation of the TMS in conditions simulated in both virtual and physical domains. The results constitute calculated and measured quantities including vehicle speed, operating parameters of the electric drives, coolant and air flow rates, and temperatures of the system components.
Evolutionary History Drives Biogeographic Patterns of Coral Reef Resilience

Modern-day Indo-Pacific coral reefs are characterized by rapid recovery driven by pulses of coral recruitment, but Caribbean reefs exhibit low rates of recruitment and poor recovery following a wide range of disturbance events. The contrasting evolutionary history of coral taxa offers key insight into biogeographic patterns of coral resilience. Following the closure of the Isthmus of Panama approximately 2.8 million years ago, widespread extinction of Caribbean corals led to an evolutionary bottleneck that favored large and long-lived species with a relatively high reliance on asexual versus sexual reproduction. In contrast, adaptive radiation led to the evolution of superrecruiting tabular, digitate, and corymbose corals that drive the rapid recovery of modern-day Indo-Pacific reefs following disturbance. The dominance of branching growth forms and evolutionary absence of superrecruiting growth forms throughout the entire evolutionary history of the Caribbean (approximately 38 million years ago to present) may explain the exceptionally high recruitment rates on modern-day Indo-Pacific reefs and low historical recruitment on Caribbean reefs. The evolutionary history of the Caribbean coral reef-building taxa implies that, even with a reversal of ecosystem state, widespread recovery of Caribbean reefs may be limited.
A Teaching and Learning Tightrope: Navigating Accountability Mandates While Maintaining Sound Pedagogical Practices

This article describes the antecedents and the implications of the ‘accountability climate’ and associated ‘compliance climate’ in early childhood education through an 8-week case study of one Government-funded preschool in an under-resourced urban community. With attention to the macro- and micro-systems that situates the preschool, this study describes how the preschool achieved compliance with external mandates while maintaining pedagogically sound teaching practices. This article reaffirms that quality early childhood education opportunities are possible acrosseconomic disparities if appropriate supports are made available to teachers, students, and families. The qualitative case study, complemented by video-based fieldwork, examines local instructional practices and investigates the policies and protocols facilitating these practices. The join impact between macro- and microsystems contributed to the teachers’ successfully privileging student academic and social success within a compliance-driven ecological system. This study offers a concrete example of how supports and leadership can contribute to early childhood contexts upholding regulated compliance mandates while privileging children’s needs.
The Converging of the Ways?—What Sabbath Practice Can Teach Us about Jewish-Christian and Intra-Religious Relations Today

Given the tenuous relationship Christians have had with Jews over the centuries, not to mention division among Christianity on points of doctrine and practice, a contemporary examination of the Sabbath could be an opportunity to bring Jews and Christians into further dialogue with each other, not on the basis of a shared written text, but rather the living texts of religious experience. However, a review of the literature reveals a scarcity of empirical research on the Sabbath, especially how religious professionals practice Sabbath as exemplars in their spheres of influence. In this study, I, therefore, offer a comparative description of my findings with respect to two practical theological studies I conducted on Shabbat/Sabbath practice, one with American pulpit rabbis and the other Seventh-day Adventist pastors. As a practical theological project, I offer a theological reflection of the data, followed by implications for theological (re)construction and revised praxis for the Church and Jewish-Christian relations.
Atmospheric pressure dual RF–LF frequency discharge: transition from α to α – γ -mode

This paper investigates the transition from α to α–γ-mode of a dual frequency (5 MHz/50 kHz) dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure. The study is based on both experiments and modeling of a plane/plane DBD in a Penning mixture (Ar–NH3). The discharge is in the α-RF mode with three different voltage amplitudes (250, 300 and 350 V) and biased by a low-frequency (LF) voltage with an amplitude varying from 0 to 1300 V. At a given threshold of LF voltage amplitude (of about 400 V for a 2 mm gap and 133 ppm of NH3), a transition from α to α–γ-mode occurs. It is characterized by a drastic increase of both the argon and NH emissions. Increasing the NH3 concentration leads to a decrease of the LF voltage amplitude required to reach the α–γ-mode (experiment). The transition from α to α–γ-mode is initiated when the ionization in the sheath increases and the α–γ-mode is established when this ionization becomes higher than the self-sustainment criterion (1/γ). The transition from α to α–γ-mode results in an increase of the particle densities and a stabilization of the gas voltage independently of the LF voltage amplitude. Without secondary electron emission there is no transition. In the model, increasing the secondary emission coefficient from 0.05 to 0.15 leads to a decrease of the LF voltage amplitude required to switch from α to α–γ-mode from 700 to 550 V.
Text Message (SMS) Pre-notifications, Invitations and Reminders for Web Surveys

This paper presents the findings derived from a mobile friendly web survey, during which all invitations and reminders were sent as text messages via short message service (SMS) to the mobile telephones of the target group. The web survey under study was conducted for the National Theatre of Northern Greece (NTNG), the largest theatrical organization of Greece. The list of mobile phone numbers was provided by the organization and the aim of the survey was to collect data from people who have attended events organized by NTNG. The paper examines the impact of various design study features such as pre-notifications, time and day of SMS delivery, lag between invitations and reminders on survey response. It is demonstrated that SMS pre-notifications can significantly improve response rates. The paper suggests that when the mobile phone numbers of the target group are available, it is feasible to conduct a large-scale web survey using SMS as the only contact mode.