Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social workers’ adaptation in times of pandemic crisis: A Hong Kong case

Through the lens of the theory of planned behavior, this article explores how social workers adapt to a new situation due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three focus group sessions were conducted with 23 social workers from child and youth, family, and elderly services in Hong Kong. Three major themes were generated: (1) repositioning the social work profession, (2) renegotiating contracts with funders, and (3) exploring novel intervention methods. Implications of the findings are discussed. To ensure social workers can respond effectively in crises, an evolving nature of the profession is advocated to enshrine its spirit to serve.
Improving the design of climate insurance: combining empirical approaches and modelling

ABSTRACT Extreme weather due to climate change often disproportionately affects the weakest members of society. Agricultural insurance programs designed specifically for smallholders in developing countries are valuable tools that can help farmers to cope with the resulting risks. A broad range of methods including household surveys, experimental games, and agent-based models have been used to assess and improve the effectiveness of such climate insurance products. Furthermore, process-based crop models have been used to derive suitable insurance indices. However, climate change raises specific socioeconomic and environmental challenges that need to be considered when designing insurance schemes. We argue that, in light of these pressing challenges, some of the methodological approaches currently applied to study climate insurance reach their limits when applied independently. This has fundamental implications. On the one hand, not all undesired side effects of insurance can be detected and, on the other hand, insurance indices cannot be derived sufficiently well. We therefore advocate a sound combination of different methods, especially by linking empirical analyses and modelling, and underline the resulting potential with the help of stylized examples. Our study highlights how methodological synergies can make climate insurance products more effective in supporting the most vulnerable households, especially under changing climatic conditions.
3D stability analysis of unsupported rectangular excavation under pseudo-static seismic body force

ABSTRACT In this paper, the seismic stability number of unsupported excavations in cohesive-frictional soil under the influence of pseudo-static seismic body forces is examined. Three-dimensional finite element limit analysis is employed to numerically solve the upper and lower bounded models of unsupported excavations. The results are represented by a dimensionless stability number which is a function of four dimensionless parameters including the excavation aspect ratio, the excavated depth ratio, the soil’s effective friction angle, and the coefficient of horizontal earthquake acceleration. For the first time in literature, the influences of a soil’s effective friction angle and the coefficient of horizontal earthquake acceleration on the mechanisms of excavation failures are examined and discussed. Also presented is a case study to demonstrate the use of the proposed seismic stability number in studying unsupported excavations in seismic risk areas.
Using an Artificial Neural Network to Predict Coronary Microvascular Obstruction (No-Reflow Phenomenon) during Percutaneous Coronary Interventions in Patients with Myocardial Infarction

The aim of the study was to develop, evaluate, and validate an artificial neural network to predict coronary microvascular obstruction (CMVO) during percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in patients with myocardial infarctions (MI) based on the parameters, which are routinely available in an operating room when choosing a surgical approach. Materials and Methods 5621 patients with MI and emergency PCI were retrospectively selected from the database of the City Clinical Hospital No.13 (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia); among them, there were 3935 men (70%) and 1686 women (30%), their mean age was 61.5±10.8 years. CMVO was recorded in 201 (4%) patients (the blood flow in the infarction-related artery after PCI was less than 3 points according to TIMI flow grade). The following input parameters were assessed: age, gender, past history of coronary artery disease, previous revascularization, presence of ST-segment elevation, a class of acute heart failure, a fact of systemic thrombolytic therapy administration and its effectiveness, symptom-to-balloon time, severity of coronary thrombosis and atherosclerosis, the number of stents and the number of operated coronary arteries. The sampling was divided into a training group (n=4060), a testing group (n=717), and an independent validation group (n=844). Results We developed an artificial neural network by a fully connected multilayer perception with forward signal propagation and two hidden layers (the area under the ROC curve — 0.69) to predict CMVO based on the subsampling for training and testing. The network model was tested on an independent subsampling (the area under the ROC curve — 0.64, negative predictive value — 97.4%, positive predictive value — 14.6%). Conclusion The developed artificial neural network enables to use the parameters routinely available in an operating room when choosing a surgical approach and predict CMVO development during PCI in MI patients with accuracy sufficient for practical use.
Induced foot-currents in humans exposed to VHF radio-frequency EM fields

In order to limit the specific absorption rate (SAR) in the ankles of a person exposed to an electric field at frequencies below 100 MHz, induced current limits are prescribed in the 1992 ANSI/IEEE safety standard. The authors have measured the induced currents passing through the feet of nine subjects exposed to vertically polarized electric fields from nearby antennas, transmitting at frequencies between 90 and 104 MHz (in the FM broadcast band). The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the results obtained analytically for frequencies up to 110 MHz. The analytical results were obtained by applying the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method to an anatomically-based model of an average height male (1.75 m) and to a model of the tallest subject in the study (1.91 m). For the mean height of the nine subjects (1.75 m), the measured induced foot current for a unit strength vertically polarized electric field varied with frequency from 4.46 to 3.45 mA/(V/m) for frequencies between 90-104 MHz. For the tallest subject (1.91 m), the corresponding values ranged from 5.42 to 4.45 mA/(V/m), Foot currents in excess of the induced current limits in RF safety guidelines for both the controlled and uncontrolled environments could result even when the vertical component of the incident electric fields comply with the corresponding field limits. It is important, therefore, to not only measure the E- and H-fields, but also the induced currents up to the recommended maximum frequency of 100 MHz, and perhaps up to the upper frequency of the FM broadcast band (108 MHz). >
MODELING THE IMPEDANCE OF NANOSTRUCTURED PV IN SIMULINK/MATLAB

Impedance measurement is a common method to study the electrical properties of thin film photovoltaics. For the first time, we use the MATLAB/Simulink environment to extract the complex impedance of the nanostructured heterojunction solar cells. The impedance magnitude, phase and Nyquist plot of the PV are simulated in LTI Viewer and Impedance versus Frequency analysis tools of SimPower GUI block of Simulink. We examined a variety of the equivalent circuits consisting of capacitance, series and shunt resistances representing the solar cell structure. The model uses the parameters with values reported in the literature at room temperature and zero bias. The effect of the additional capacitance and resistances in the equivalent circuits on the impedance components of the cells is considered by Simulink environment.
A sensitivity analysis of the production of clamshells

Literature reveals little about the prediction of the closing process of clamshell dredging buckets when cutting sand or clay under water. The results of research carried out, mostly relates to the use of clamshells in dry bulk materials. While good prediction of the forces (in dry materials) involved are possible by measuring the closing curve, the very prediction of the closing curve of clamshells in general, seems to be problematic. The research carried out by Becker, Miedema, Wittekoek and de Jong (1992) resulted in a numerical method of calculating the closing process of clamshell grabs in water saturated sand and clay, which simulates the closing of a clamshell so that production and forces can be predicted. The calculation method is based on the non-linear equations of motion of the buckets and the sand cutting theory Miedema presented in 1987 and 2006 and the clay cutting theory presented by Miedema (1992). The production of a clamshell depends on: 1. The dimensions of the clamshell. 2. The weight and weight distribution of the clamshell. 3. The geometry of the clamshell and especially the cutting edges. 4. The type of soil, the soil mechanical parameters. 5. The water depth. 6. The operational parameters, like the closing speed. A sensitivity analysis has (based on the simulation model) been carried out, varying a number of parameters (weight, speed, geometry, type of soil) resulting in graphs that can be used to optimize the design of clamshells used in dredging. The paper will discuss the sensitivity analysis and show the resulting graphs.
Temperature-Sensitive Paint Calibration Methodology Developed at AEDC Tunnel 9

Aerodynamic heating is a critical parameter in hypersonic vehicle design. Ground-test facilities employ a variety of discrete sensors and global techniques to characterize the heating on the surfaces of a test article. AEDC Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel No. 9 has been developing a global heat-transfer measurement technique based on temperature-sensitive paints (TSP). In order to use TSP as a heat-transfer measurement tool, a unique relationship between its emission intensity and surface temperature has to be established. A TSP calibration laboratory was developed and built at Tunnel 9. The resulting calibration process has been shown to yield repeatable calibrations insensitive to setup perturbations. The calibration laboratory has been instrumental in the development and implementation of the two-color TSP system at Tunnel 9.
Dichotomous feedback: a signal sequestration-based feedback mechanism for biocontroller design

We introduce a new design framework for implementing negative feedback regulation in Synthetic Biology, which we term ‘dichotomous feedback’. Our approach is different from current methods, in that it sequesters existing fluxes in the process to be controlled, and in this way takes advantage of the process’s architecture to design the control law. This signal sequestration mechanism appears in many natural biological systems and can potentially be easier to realise than ‘molecular sequestration’ and other comparison motifs that are nowadays common in biomolecular feedback control design. The loop is closed by linking the strength of signal sequestration to the process output. Our feedback regulation mechanism is motivated by two-component signalling systems, where we introduce a second response regulator competing with the natural response regulator thus sequestering kinase activity. Here, dichotomous feedback is established by increasing the concentration of the second response regulator as the level of the output of the natural process increases. Extensive analysis demonstrates how this type of feedback shapes the signal response, attenuates intrinsic noise while increasing robustness and reducing crosstalk.
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Effect of Probiotic Supplementation on Age-related Sarcopenia in Elderly Adults

Background: Several clinical studies emphasized the role of bio-diversities of gut microbiota in age-related disorders. Nevertheless, the effect of probiotic administration on sarcopenia indices are unclear. This meta-analysis aimed to investigate the effect of probiotic administration on muscle strength, muscle mass, and muscle function. Methods: We assessed all interventional studies through different electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, ISI –Web of Science, and Cochrane library using defined keywords from inception to Jun 2021. Studies that investigated the effect of probiotic administration on at least one of the components of sarcopenia or anthropometric indices versus non- probiotics in old adults (>55 years) were included. Results: The initially overall effect of meta-analysis on 1393 participants declared a null effect of probiotic supplementation on main outcomes, including muscle mass (WMD: -0.05, 95% CI: -1.54, 1.43; I-square: 0.0%, P=0.985), and muscle strength (WMD: 0.7, 95% CI: -0.01, 1.40; I-square: 76.8%, P=0.005). Subgroup analysis showed that administration of probiotic supplementation for more than 12 weeks significantly increased muscle strength (WMD: 1.15, 95% CI: 0.86, 1.43; I-square: 0.0%, P=0.679). However, probiotic supplementation had no effect on anthropometric indices, including body mass and body mass index, (WMD: -0.05, 95% CI:-2.57, 1.56; I-square: 0.0%, P=0.976) and (WMD: 0.08, 95% CI:-0.16, 0.32; I-square: 0.0%, P=0.718), respectively. Conclusion: This study confirmed the positive impact of probiotic supplementation on the muscle strength (based on the last definitions by EWGSOP), in particular, probiotic administration for more than 12 weeks. More clinical trials on sarcopenic elderly subjects are wanted to confirm our findings.
ABCnet : Self-Attention based Atom, Bond Message Passing Network for Predicting Drug-Target Interaction

Drug-target interaction (DTI) is a methodology for predicting the binding affinity between a compound and a target protein, and a key technology in the derivation of candidate substances in drug discovery. As DTI experiments have progressed for a long time, a substantial volume of chemical, biomedical, and pharmaceutical data have accumulated. This accumulation of data has occurred contemporaneously with the advent of the field of big data, and data-based machine learning methods could significantly reduce the time and cost of drug development. In particular, the deep learning method shows potential when applied to the fields of vision and speech recognition, and studies to apply deep learning to various other fields have emerged. Research applying deep learning is underway in drug development, and among various deep learning models, a graph-based model that can effectively learn molecular structures has received more attention as the SOTA in experimental results were achieved. Our study focused on molecular structure information among graph-based models in message passing neural networks. In this paper, we propose a self-attention-based bond and atom message passing neural network which predicts DTI by extracting molecular features through a graph model using an attention mechanism. Model validation experiments were performed after defining binding affinity as a regression and classification problem: binary classification to predict the presence or absence of binding to the drug-target, and regression to predict binding affinity to the drug-target. Classification was performed with BindingDB, and regression was performed with the DAVIS dataset. In the classification problem, ABCnet showed higher performance than MPNN, as it does in the existing study, and in regression, the potential of ABCnet was checked compared to that of SOTA. According to experiments, for Binary classification ABCnet have an average performance improvement of 1% for higher performance on DTI task than other MPNN and for regresssion ABCnet have CI with an average 0.01 to 0.02 performance degradation compared to SOTA. https://www.overleaf. com/project/618a05533676801d8f68ccf6
Non-Earning Management Measures of The Quality of Financial Statements

The quality of financial statements is the fundamental issue in terms of the reliability of the accounting conducted by those who prepare them. Since the beginning of the 21st century, and with the growing concerns regarding the data released in financial statements, the development of methods for testing the quality of financial reporting has been of great and growing importance.
Impact of Organic and Inorganic Sources of Nutrients on Root Architecture, Soil Microbial Biomass and Yield on Low Land Rice Ecosystem

To study the impact of vermicompost, arbuscular mycorrhizae and FYM application on the rice ecosystem at low land, a field experiment was conducted with rice CO(R) 51 at the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore during the winter of 2020. The experiment was framed in Randomized Block Design comprising of 8 treatments viz., Recommended Dose of Fertilizer Soil Test Crop Response approach (T1), RDF 75 % + Farm Yard Manure @ 12.5 t ha-1 (T2), T2 + Seed treatment with Azospirillum and Phosphobacteria + Soil application of AM fungi (T3), RDF 75 % + Vermicompost @ 5 t ha-1 (T4), T4 + Seed treatment with Azospirillum and Phosphobacteria + Soil application of AM fungi (T5), FYM @ 12.5 t ha-1 + Seed treatment with Azospirillum and Phosphobacteria + Soil application of AM fungi (T6), Vermicompost @ 5 t ha-1+ Seed treatment with Azospirillum and Phosphobacteria + Soil application of AM fungi (T7) and Absolute control (T8) and replicated thrice. The maximum microbial population were registered in the plots that received integrated nutrient application of RDF 75 % STCR approach + Vermicompost 5 t ha-1 + seed treatment with Azospirillum and Phosphobacteria + Soil application of AM fungi. Rice root architecture has changed significantly as a result of mycorrhizal inoculation. Mycorrhizal rice plants have more root volume, length, and spread than plants without mycorrhizae. Nutrient retention and availability influenced the presence of microbial-mediated metabolic activities and nutrient transformations during crop growth. Bacteria, fungus, and actinomycetes became less abundant as the crop reached harvest. The population density of mycorrhizospheres that utilize both organic and inorganic fertilizers is higher. The treatments that received Vermicompost or FYM with Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizae and Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Potassium fertilizers obtained the highest yields of rice grain and straw (6740 and 7840 kg ha-1) respectively, and it was clear that the combination of Vermicompost or FYM, VAM and along with NPK fertilizers produced significantly higher yields than their individual applications and absolute control.
Influence of Pressure Angle on Load Sharing Based Stresses in Asymmetric Normal Contact Ratio Spur Gear Drives

The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of pressure angle on drive and coast sides in conventional design asymmetric normal contact ratio spur gear, considering the load sharing between the gear teeth pair. The multi pair contact model in finite element analysis is used to find the load sharing ratio and respective stresses. It has been found out that the predictions through multipoint contact model are in good agreement with the available literature. A unique Ansys parametric design language code is developed for this study. It is found that, the maximum fillet stress decreases up to the threshold point for drive side (35o) and coast side (25o) pressure angles, beyond this point it increases. The load share based maximum fillet and contact stresses are lower in the high pressure angle side than that of the low pressure angle side, when it is loaded at the critical loading points.
NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation Controls Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells Phenotypic Switch in Atherosclerosis

(1) Background: Monocytes and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome orchestrate lipid-driven amplification of vascular inflammation promoting the disruption of the fibrous cap. The components of the NLRP3 inflammasome are expressed in macrophages and foam cells within human carotid atherosclerotic plaques and VSMCs in hypertension. Whether monocytes and NLRP3 inflammasome activation are direct triggers of VSMC phenotypic switch and plaque disruption need to be investigated. (2) Methods: The direct effect of oxLDL-activated monocytes in VSMCs co-cultured system was demonstrated via flow cytometry, qPCR, ELISA, caspase 1, and pyroptosis assay. Aortic roots of VSMCs lineage tracing mice fed normal or high cholesterol diet and human atherosclerotic plaques were used for immunofluorescence quantification of NLRP3 inflammasome activation/VSMCs phenotypic switch. (3) Results: OxLDL-activated monocytes reduced α-SMA, SM22α, Oct-4, and upregulation of KLF-4 and macrophage markers MAC2, F4/80 and CD68 expression as well as caspase 1 activation, IL-1β secretion, and pyroptosis in VSMCs. Increased caspase 1 and IL-1β in phenotypically modified VSMCs was detected in the aortic roots of VSMCs lineage tracing mice fed high cholesterol diet and in human atherosclerotic plaques from carotid artery disease patients who experienced a stroke. (4) Conclusions: Taken together, these results provide evidence that monocyte promote VSMC phenotypic switch through VSMC NLRP3 inflammasome activation with a likely detrimental role in atherosclerotic plaque stability in human atherosclerosis.
Ethical dimensions of Massive Open Online Courses

The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is challenging the core values and practices of education. As academic tuition and resources are opened up to online learners of all ages and backgrounds, and with publically-funded institutions entering into partnerships and agreements with private providers in doing so, ideas about ethics in education and the accompanying research need to be considered closely. This chapter functions as an early examination of the way the ethical dimensions of education are being considered in practice. As one would expect in an emerging field, the literature is patchy and sporadic, and in many cases severely lagging behind practice. The ethical dimensions identified from the literature have been mapped to those related in Khan’s “eLearning Framework” (Khan, 2003) – a model that predates the MOOC but not, of course, open education. Using this established categorization allows new areas of ethical debate to be identified, and offers a re-interpretation of other dimensions in the context of online learning delivered to hundreds and thousands of users on a global scale. It is clear from this review of literature, that technology-driven changes within the education landscape alongside the growth in global learning opportunities, a scenario emerges where the speed of advancements has out-stripped the ethical constructs supporting it. Here, it is not my intention to provide a detailed philosophical argument regarding ethical approaches, but to offer a view of current processes and practice involving the use of the web in education, and highlight gaps in the literature that set out where further research is needed.