Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Nursing Intervention Program on Quality of Life Improvement for Women Undergoing Gynecological and Breast Cancer Treatment

Background: Breast and gynecological cancer are the most common type of cancer in women and need rehabilitation programs to improve QOL. Aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of nursing intervention program on QOL improvement in women undergoing treatment for gynecological and breast cancer. Study design: A quasi experimental study design. Sample and settings: A randomly selected sample of 100 women diagnosed with gynecological and breast cancer who attended the oncology institute, and divided to two groups, the study group and control group. Tool structured interview questionnaire included socio-personal data, oncology treatment side effects record, reproductive concerns scale, female sexual function index, impact of event scale" cancer specific stress", and functional assessment of cancer therapy-general. Results: Quality of life of the intervention group with breast and gynecological cancer have been improved under the influence of the nursing intervention program. Conclusion and Recommendations: The nursing intervention program showed evidence of improved QOL, with a reduction in the sexual dysfunction, and lower stress levels. It was suggested to heighten awareness about the breast and gynecological cancer treatment-related side effects among the nursing staff.
The Seventh Nobeyama Workshop on CFD: To the Memory of Prof. Kuwahara

A semiclassical lattice Boltzmann method has been recently developed based on projecting the Uehling-Uhlenbeck Boltzmann BGK equation onto the tensor Hermite polynomials (Phys. Rev. E, 79 012345). Both the non-eqilibrium and equilibrium distribution functions are expanded to the same order. The intrinsic discrete nodes of the GaussHermite quadrature provide the natural lattice velocities for the semicalssical lattice method. Lattice Boltzmann methods for two-dimensional and axisymmetric flows are presented. The approach of Halliday et al (Phys. Rev. E 64 011208) is adopted to derive the axisymmetric LBM. The Chapman-Enskog multiscale analysis of the methods are also given. Gases of particles of Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics are considered and the classical MaxwellBoltzmann statistics can be recovered in the classical limit. Simulations of flows over a circular cylinder and a sphere are included to illustrate the present methods.
Title page and corresponding author Title: The value of personalized psychosocial interventions to address behavioral and psychological symptoms in people with dementia living in care home settings: A systematic review Corresponding author:

Background: Several important systematic reviews and meta-analyses focusing on psychosocial interventions have been undertaken in the last decade. However, they have not focused specifically on the treatment of individual Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) with personalized interventions. This updated systematic review will focus on studies reporting the effect of personalized psychosocial interventions on key BPSD in care homes. Method: Systematic review of the evidence for psychosocial interventions for BPSD, focusing on articles published between 2000 and 2012. All care home and nursing home studies including individual and cluster randomized controlled trials (RCT) and pre/post-test studies with control conditions were included. Results: 641 studies were identified, of which 40 fulfilled inclusion and exclusion criteria. There was good evidence to support the value of personalized pleasant activities with and without social interaction for the treatment of agitation, and reminiscence therapy to improve mood. The evidence for other therapies was more limited. Conclusions: There is a growing body of evidence indicating specific effects of different personalized psychosocial interventions on individual BPSD and mood outcomes.
Acute and Subacute Toxicity Studies of the Ethyl Acetate Soluble Proanthocyanidins of the Immature Inflorescence of Cocos nucifera L. in Female Wistar Rats

Ayurvedic and traditional medical practitioners of Sri Lanka use the decoction of the immature inflorescence of Cocos nucifera L. (IC) variety aurantiaca for the treatment of menorrhagia. The progestogenic effect of the ethyl acetate soluble proanthocyanidins (EASPA) of the IC in female rats at a dose of 3.5 mg/kg body weight has been reported. Acute and subacute toxicity studies of EASPA of the IC carried out using female Wistar rats according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines 423 and 407, respectively, are reported herein. In the acute toxicity study, a single dose of EASPA (2000 mg/kg body weight) was orally administered to rats, which were monitored for 14 days. In the subacute toxicity study, rats were orally administered with EASPA daily for 28 days at doses of 1.75, 3.5, 7, and 14 mg/kg body weight. No rat in either the acute or subacute toxicity study exhibited mortality or clinical signs of toxicity. Further, these rats did not show any significant change in their mean body weight, food, and water intake, haematological and biochemical parameters as well as in the results of their histopathological examinations compared to those of control group rats. According to results of the acute toxicity, the LD50 of EASPA is estimated to be greater than 2000 mg/kg body weight. Considering the results of the subacute toxicity study, the oral administration of EASPA daily for 28 days was well tolerated up to the dose, 14 mg/kg by rats. These results will be useful in the development of a novel therapeutic agent from EASPA of the IC for the treatment of menorrhagia, which incapacitates a considerable proportion of women worldwide.
An End-to-End Convolutional Neural Network for ECG-Based Biometric Authentication

Aiming towards increased robustness to noise and variability, this paper proposes a novel method for electrocardiogram-based authentication, based on an end-to-end convolutional neural network (CNN). This network was trained either through the transfer of weights after identification training or using triplet loss, both novel for ECG biometrics. These methods were evaluated on three large ECG collections of diverse signal quality, with varying number of training subjects and user enrollment duration, as well as on cross-database application, with or without fine-tuning. The proposed model was able to surpass the state-of-the-art performance results on off-the-person databases, offering 7.86% and 15.37% Equal Error Rate (EER) on UofTDB and CYBHi, respectively, and attained 9.06% EER on the PTB on-the-person database. The results show the proposed model is able to improve the performance of ECG-based authentication, especially with off-the- person signals, and offers state-of-the-art performance in cross-database tests.
Embracing qualitative research: an act of strategic essentialism

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that rather than contest the artificial schism produced by social scientists between “qualitative” and “quantitative” research, we should to accept this binary, however, contingently, and use it productively. This would be an act of “strategic essentialism” that would allow us to be productive in the research and inquiry. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses postcolonial theory to make a case for contingent representation, i.e. using artificial categories to carve out a space for heterodox theoretical approaches. Findings – Researchers devoted to qualitative research must resist thinking, speaking and evaluating that research using quantitative thinking. Also, while ethical considerations are paramount in qualitative research, we need to debunk the narrow understanding of ethics as “following rules. ”Also, qualitative researchers need to be aware of the institutional pulls that the research will be subject to, and also be ready to resist them. Originality/value – This paper discusses how good research resists the siren call of institutionalization. It challenges the “common sense” assumptions of the field and brings them into the realm of the questionable. It seeks to theorize the untheorizable, and anthropologize the dominant.
Nitrogen isotope fractionation explains the 15N enrichment of Antarctic cryptogams by volatilized ammonia from penguin and seal colonies

Vegetation near bird and seal rookeries typically has high δ15N signatures and these high values are linked to the enriched δ15N values of rookery soils. However, Antarctic cryptogams are mostly dependent on atmospheric ammonia (NH3) and volatized NH3 from rookeries is severely depleted in δ15N-NH3. So there is an apparent discrepancy between the isotopically depleted source (NH3) and δ15N-enriched vegetation. In this article, we aim to resolve this discrepancy to better understand the mechanisms and processes involved in isotopic changes during nitrogen transfer between Antarctic marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Under laboratory conditions, we quantified whether volatized NH3 affects the isotopic signature of cryptogams. NH3 volatilizing from penguin guano and elephant seal dung was depleted (44–49‰) in δ15N when captured on acidified filters, compared to the source itself. Cryptogams exposed to the volatized NH3 were enriched (18.8–23.9‰) in δ15N. The moss Andreaea regularis gained more nitrogen (0.9%) than the lichen Usnea antarctica (0.4%) from volatilized NH3, indicating a potential difference in atmospheric NH3 acquisition that is consistent with existing field differences in nitrogen concentrations and δ15N between mosses and lichens in general. This study clarifies the δ15N enrichment of cryptogams resulting from one of the most important nitrogen pathways for Antarctic vegetation.
LDMGAN: REDUCING MODE COLLAPSE

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have shown impressive results in modeling distributions over complicated manifolds such as those of natural images. However, GANs often suffer from mode collapse, which means they are prone to characterize only a single or a few modes of the data distribution. In order to address this problem, we propose a novel framework called LDMGAN. We first introduce Latent Distribution Matching (LDM) constraint which regularizes the generator by aligning distribution of generated samples with that of real samples in latent space. To make use of such latent space, we propose a regularized AutoEncoder (AE) that maps the data distribution to prior distribution in encoded space. Extensive experiments on synthetic data and real world datasets show that our proposed framework significantly improves GAN’s stability and diversity.
GAUSSIAN HYPERMODEL APPLIED TO FAILURE ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED COMPOSITES

This work deals with the use of a Gaussian Hyper model to recover the interface thermal contact conductance between two materials within the Bayesian framework. Such function is assumed to be piecewise smooth with discontinuities of unknown location and size. In this work, we propose the use of a Gaussian smoothness prior, where the scaling parameter appearing in the prior was treated as an unknown hyperparameter. This parameter was estimated as part of the inference problem in a hierarchical model, with a hyperprior density in the form of a Rayleigh distribution. The feasibility of the approach was evaluated with simulated temperature measurements.
Cardiac Rehabilitation Increases SIRT1 Activity and β-Hydroxybutyrate Levels and Decreases Oxidative Stress in Patients with HF with Preserved Ejection Fraction

Purpose Exercise training induces beneficial effects also by increasing levels of Sirtuin 1 (Sirt1) and β-hydroxybutyrate (βOHB). Up to date, no studies investigated the role of exercise training-based cardiac rehabilitation (ET-CR) programs on βOHB levels. Therefore, the present study is aimed at investigating whether a supervised 4-week ET-CR program was able to induce changes in Sirt1 activity and βOHB levels and to evaluate the possible relationship between such parameters, in Heart Failure with preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) patients. Methods A prospective longitudinal observational study was conducted on patients consecutively admitted to the Cardiology and Cardiac Rehabilitation Units of “San Gennaro dei Poveri” Hospital in Naples, Italy. In fifty elderly patients affected by HFpEF, in NYHA II and III class, Sirt1 activity, Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC), βOHB, and Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein (Ox-LDL) levels were measured before and at the end of the ET-CR program. A control group of 20 HFpEF patients was also recruited, and the same parameters were evaluated 4 weeks after the beginning of the study. Results ET-CR induced an increase of Sirt1 activity, βOHB levels, and antioxidant capacity. Moreover, it was associated with a rise in NAD+ and NAD+/NADH ratio levels and a reduction in Ox-LDL. No changes affected the controls. Conclusion The characterization of the ET-CR effects from a metabolic viewpoint might represent an important step to improve the HFpEF management.
Comparison of tropical , temperate and arctic coastal , soft-bottom regions

Local diversity (alpha diversity) of macrobenthos in tropical, temperate and arctic softbottom regions was investigated. Macrobenthos are here defined as animals retained on a1mm sieve. Species abundance data from the Pechora Sea (arctic), the Oslofjord (temperate) and Espiritu Santo (tropical) were used in the analyses. Six sites were selected in each of the three regions and the depth ranged from 11 m to 94 m. The Pechora Sea had the highest species richness with 182 taxa, followed by Espiritu Santo (170 taxa) and the Oslofjord (80 taxa). Polychaeta was the most abundant group and had the highest number of taxa in all three regions. The multivariate methods revealed differences in composition of fauna at family level between the three regions probably due to geographical position. Espiritu Santo had the highest species diversity (measured as 1/ Simpson) and greatest evenness (measured as J ́), followed by the Pechora Sea and the Oslofjord. Espiritu Santo and the Pechora Sea were not statistical different from each other when diversity was measured as species richness (S) and Shannon-Wiener (ExpH ́). The Oslofjord had lowest diversity for all indices applied. The heterogeneity indices applied gave additional information than what could be obtained by species richness alone. The results clearly illustrated that applying species richness as an only measure of diversity had limited value. Espiritu Santo had highest “true” species richness (measured as Chao 1) followed by the Pechora Sea and the Oslofjord. The curve for Espiritu Santo differed from the Pechora Sea and the Oslofjord by being steeper indicating that a greater sampling effort is needed for adequately sample all the species in this region. In all three regions species abundances were strongly right skewed, and most of the species were found within the two first bins. Espiritu Santo had highest number of singletons and few species occurred with more than 15 individuals. This study revealed differences in local diversity between tropical, temperate and arctic coastal, soft-bottom regions. As predicted, highest diversity was observed in Espiritu Santo. Lowest species richness and species diversity were found in the Oslofjord probably due to physical conditions that exist there. In addition nutrient loading from the land and limited water exchange may have a great effect on the composition of fauna. The high species richness and diversity observed in the Pechora Sea indicate that a simple latitudinal gradient may not exist for soft-bottom benthic fauna.
Performance Evaluation of Selected Serial Concatenation Codes in AWGN & Frequency Selective Rayleigh Fading Channels

Concatenation codes have attracted a great deal of interest since their discovery. They have been successfully used in digital communication systems in order to achieve reliable transmission on a noisy channel. In this paper, three models of concatenation codes are designed and tested over AWGN and frequency selective Rayleigh Fading (FSRF) channels. The first model uses convolution codes as outer and inner codes. The second model uses convolution code as outer code and Reed-Solomon code as inner one. While in the third model, Reed-Solomon code is used as outer code and convolution code as inner one. The performance comparisons among these models show that the last model gives the better performance in both of the transmission channels considered and for different types of modulation. It attains a maximum gain of (3dB) in SNR over other models in AWGN channel while attains (8 dB) gain for FSRF channel case when bit error rate (BER) equals to 8*10 -3 .
EVALUATING THE ACCURACY OF 3D OBJECT RECONSTRUCTION FROM THERMAL IMAGES

Abstract. Thermal cameras are increasingly used in many photogrammetric and computer vision tasks. Nowadays it is possible to detect and recognize objects in infrared images, to solve such tasks as pedestrian detection (Huckridge et al., 2016), security applications, and autonomous driving (Wenbin, Li et al., 2017). Nevertheless, some tasks that are easily solved in the visible range data are still challenging to achieve in the infrared range. Reconstruction of a 3D object model from infrared images is challenging due to the low contrast of the original infrared image, noise of the sensor, and the absence of feature points on the image. Nevertheless, thermal cameras have their advantages, which make them popular for solving practical problems. Firstly, thermal cameras can be used in degraded environments (smoke, fog, precipitation, low light conditions). Secondly, infrared images can be fused with color images (Gao et al., 2013) to increases the system’s performance. This paper is focused on the evaluation of accuracy of 3D object reconstruction from thermal images. The evaluation of the accuracy is threefold. Firstly, we train four stereo matching methods (CAE, LF-Net, SURF, and SIFT) on the MVSIR dataset (Knyaz et al., 2017) and our new ThermalPatches dataset. We used two RTX 2080 Ti GPUs and the PyTorch library for the training. Secondly, we evaluate the matching score for the selected methods. Finally, we perform 3D object reconstruction using the SfM (Remondino et al., 2014) approach and matches for each method. We compare the object space accuracy of the resulting surfaces to the ground-truth 3D models generated with a structured light 3D scanner.
Acquiring L 2 sentence comprehension : A longitudinal study of word monitoring in noise ∗

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Monetary policy transmission in Morocco: Evidence from borrowers-level data

This paper investigates the impact of monetary policy on firms’ liability structure depending on their specific characteristics (size, age, profit, and collateral) over the period 2010 to 2016 using firm-level data. Our results provide evidence that firms borrowing tend to decrease after a restrictive monetary policy, in line with the traditional interest rate channel. We confirm that small and medium firms are more significantly affected by tight monetary policy conditions than large firms, suggesting the existence of the balance sheet channel in Morocco.
Current Trends in the Integration of Case-Based Reasoning and Semantic Web

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and semantic web are intelligent methods or techniques that have been used in number of critical fields. Both methods have unique strengths and immense potential in problem solving in a wide range of domains. The main aim of this paper is to highlight an overview of the current efforts by researchers to integrate the capabilities of both techniques of CBR and semantic web. Through an analysis on the current literature involving 21 related articles, a taxonomy was developed indicating there were three stands of research focus. First, 38% (n = 8) of the articles involved studies of new methods that combined both techniques. Second, 33.3% (n = 7) of the articles dealt with the development of working frameworks or new approaches. Third, 28.6% (n = 6) of the articles focused on efforts to develop systems that integrated both techniques. In particular, the analysis showed that the medical field was the dominant field in which the integrated technique was widely used in solving medical-related problems. In light of this emerging potential, both techniques can also be applied to help provide efficient and effective problem-solving solutions for other important fields.
Intuition, Accuracy, and Immersiveness Analysis of 3D Visualization Methods for Haptic Virtual Reality

The purpose of this study is to analyze the usefulness of 3D immersive stereoscopic virtual reality technology in applications that provide tactile sensations. Diverse experiments show that the haptic 3D visualization method presented in a 3D stereoscopic space using headsets is more intuitive, accurate and immersive than the haptic 3D visualization method displayed in 3D flat displays. In particular, the intuitiveness has been significantly improved in a stereoscopic 3D visualization rather than flat 3D visualization. In spite of the general superiority of the stereoscopic 3D visualization, it is mentionable that the precise operation performance has not been greatly improved in the elaborate object movements. It means that users can recognize and manipulate the position of objects more quickly in 3D stereoscopic immersive VR environments, however, the precise operation does not benefit greatly in the 3D stereoscopic visualization. Note that the degree of game immersion is remarkably augmented in the case of using 3D stereoscopic visualization.
A Comparative Study of Representations for Procedurally Generated Structures in Games

In this paper we have compared and evaluated two different representations used in search based procedural content generation (PCG). The comparison was based on the differences in performance, quality of the generated content and the complexity of the final artifacts. This was accomplished by creating two artifacts, each of which used one of the representations in combination with a genetic algorithm. This was followed up with individual testing sessions in which 21 test subjects participated. The evaluated results were then presented in a manner of relevance for both search based PCG as a whole, and for further exploration within the area of representations used in this field.