Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Development and External Validation of Artificial Intelligence-Driven MRI-Based Models to Improve Prediction of Lesion-Specific Extraprostatic Extension in Patients with Prostate Cancer

Simple Summary The use of artificial intelligence algorithms can improve the prediction of lesion-specific histopathological extraprostatic extension (EPE) on MRI in prostate cancer patients. A lesion-specific prediction model can be helpful in counseling patients for radical prostatectomy and adequate preoperative information of the exact location of EPE may contribute to a total removal of the prostate cancer. Abstract Adequate detection of the histopathological extraprostatic extension (EPE) of prostate cancer (PCa) remains a challenge using conventional radiomics on 3 Tesla multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (3T mpMRI). This study focuses on the assessment of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven models with innovative MRI radiomics in predicting EPE of prostate cancer (PCa) at a lesion-specific level. With a dataset encompassing 994 lesions from 794 PCa patients who underwent robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) at two Dutch hospitals, the study establishes and validates three classification models. The models were validated on an internal validation cohort of 162 lesions and an external validation cohort of 189 lesions in terms of discrimination, calibration, net benefit, and comparison to radiology reporting. Notably, the achieved AUCs ranged from 0.86 to 0.91 at the lesion-specific level, demonstrating the superior accuracy of the random forest model over conventional radiological reporting. At the external test cohort, the random forest model was the best-calibrated model and demonstrated a significantly higher accuracy compared to radiological reporting (83% vs. 67%, p = 0.02). In conclusion, an AI-powered model that includes both existing and novel MRI radiomics improves the detection of lesion-specific EPE in prostate cancer.
Canadian respiratory therapists who considered leaving their clinical position experienced elevated moral distress and adverse psychological and functional outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

INTRODUCTION Respiratory therapists (RTs) faced morally distressing situations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including working with limited resources and facilitating video calls for families of dying patients. Moral distress is associated with a host of adverse psychological and functional outcomes (e.g. depression, anxiety, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and functional impairment) and consideration of position departure. The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of moral distress and its associated psychological and functional outcomes on consideration to leave a clinical position among Canadian RTs during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS Canadian RTs (N = 213) completed an online survey between February and June 2021. Basic demographic information (e.g. age, sex, gender) and psychometrically validated measures of moral distress, depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD, dissociation, functional impairment, resilience and adverse childhood experiences were collected. RESULTS One in four RTs reported considering leaving their position. RTs considering leaving reported elevated levels of moral distress and adverse psychological and functional outcomes compared to RTs not considering leaving. Over half (54.5%) of those considering leaving scored above the cut-off for potential diagnosis of PTSD. Previous consideration to leave a position and having left a position in the past each significantly increased the odds of currently considering leaving, along with system-related moral distress and symptoms of PTSD, but the contribution of these latter factors was small. CONCLUSIONS Canadian RTs considering leaving their position reported elevated levels of distress and adverse psychological and functional outcomes, yet these individual-level factors appear unlikely to be the primary factors underlying RTs' consideration to leave, because their effects were small. Further research is required to identify broader, organizational factors that may contribute to consideration of position departure among Canadian RTs.
Modeling multi-contact point physical interaction between the anthropomorphic finger and soft robotic exo-digit for wearable rehabilitation robotics applications

Introduction: Effective control of rehabilitation robots requires considering the distributed and multi-contact point physical human–robot interaction and users’ biomechanical variation. This paper presents a quasi-static model for the motion of a soft robotic exo-digit while physically interacting with an anthropomorphic finger model for physical therapy. Methods: Quasi-static analytical models were developed for modeling the motion of the soft robot, the anthropomorphic finger, and their coupled physical interaction. An intertwining of kinematics and quasi-static motion was studied to model the distributed (multiple contact points) interaction between the robot and a human finger model. The anthropomorphic finger was modeled as an articulated multi-rigid body structure with multi-contact point interaction. The soft robot was modeled as an articulated hybrid soft-and-rigid model with a constant bending curvature and a constant length for each soft segment. A hyperelastic constitute model based on Yeoh’s 3rdorder material model was used for modeling the soft elastomer. The developed models were experimentally evaluated for 1) free motion of individual soft actuators and 2) constrained motion of the soft robotic exo-digit and anthropomorphic finger model. Results and Discussion: Simulation and experimental results were compared for performance evaluations. The theoretical and experimental results were in agreement for free motion, and the deviation from the constrained motion was in the range of the experimental errors. The outcomes also provided an insight into the importance of considering lengthening for the soft actuators.
Investigating the Role of User Motivations and Satisfaction on Weibo Continuance Intention

The fast development of the social networking sites (SNS) has paved the way for the development and growth of social media, including Weibo. Scholars have focused on the behavior of social media users. However, they have insufficiently considered the impact of these motivations on the emotional state of individual users. Investigation of the following questions is important to further understand how users’ satisfaction forms user continuance use intention: (1) what is the impact of motivations on a user’s s atisfaction? and (2) how does this satisfaction affect continuance use intention? To navigate this intricate maze, our research synergistically integrates the User and Gratification (U&G) and Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT), offering a robust theoretical scaffold to delve into the myriad impacts of user motivations on satisfaction and, consequently, on the intention to continue using the platform. Grounded in this conceptual framework, an empirical inquiry was initiated through an online questionnaire targeting Weibo's vibrant user base (n=343). Data was analysed by PLS-SEM. The results show that Weibo users' Cognitive needs (CN), personal integrative needs (PIN), social integrative needs (SIN), escape needs (EN) have a significant positive impact on satisfaction (ST), and ST also has a significant positive impact on continued use intention (CI) has a significant positive impact. The study demonstrates the complex relationship between emotional resonance and technological engagement on platforms such as Weibo. Beyond merely describing user behavior, the study reveals deeper, often underlying emotional currents that influence user loyalty and engagement in the digital realm.
Estate womens fertility in Sri Lanka: some aberrant perspectives in the causal links.

Survey data indicates not only that almost all estate women had gone out to work since marriage but that 90 per cent or more of them worked at each stage of family building” meaning thereby that childbearing and work occurred concurrently. Therefore it is hard to identify the common association that is often established as existing between working women and fertility as it is a situation where women are engaged in hard labour. An attempt to account for their deviant lower fertility performance needs to look for the prevalence of negative factors which disturb the process of reproduction from conception to live births. Thus the main objective of the study is to examine the changing scenario in fertility trends among the estate women in Sri Lanka from the mid-1940s. The study centres around bringing to light the determinants which contributed to the anomalies that prevailed over time in their fertility behavioural pattern and establishing the causal links. (excerpt)
New Strategies for Addressing Antibiotic Resistance Offer Promise, but Time is Running Out

As antibacterial resistance increases—now thought responsible for an estimated 5 million deaths worldwide each year <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">[1]</xref> —scientists are investigating two distinct approaches to combating this deadly problem: Develop new antibiotics that defy pathogen resistance or design methods that hone antibiotic selection and fight individual infections better.
Stakeholder Preference Extraction From Scenarios

Companies use personalization to tailor user experiences. Personalization appears in search engines and online stores, which include salutations and statistically learned correlations over search-, browsing- and purchase-histories. However, users have a wider variety of substantive, domain-specific preferences that affect their choices when they use directory services, and these have largely been overlooked or ignored. The contributions of this paper include: (1) a grounded theory describing how stakeholder preferences are expressed in text scenarios; (2) an app feature survey to assess whether elicited preferences represent missing requirements in existing systems; (3) an evaluation of three classifiers to label preference words in scenarios; and (4) a linker to build preference phrases by linking labeled preference words to each other based on word position. In this study, the authors analyzed 217 elicited directory service scenarios across 12 domain categories to yield a total of 7,661 stakeholder preferences labels. The app survey yielded 43 stakeholder preferences that were missed on average 49.7% by 15 directory service websites studied. The BERT-based transformer showed the best average overall 81.1% precision, 84.4% recall and 82.6% F1-score when tested on unseen domains. Finally, the preference linker correctly links preference phrases with 90.1% accuracy. Given these results, we believe directory service developers can use this approach to automatically identify user preferences to improve service designs.
Quantum transport of 2D Weyl VSi2N4-based magnetic tunnel junction: a k • p-NEGF study

We present a systematical simulation on the room temperature strained VSi2N4-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). Based on k • p-NEGF quantum transport modeling, the HSE06 band structure around the Fermi level was fitted by Weyl-like Hamiltonian, due to the fully spin-polarized Weyl band feature, a giant TMR ratio and perfect spin injection efficiency (SIE) were theoretically predicted in the MTJs devices. In addition, the current through the MTJs would increase when an elastic electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling effect is included in the quantum transport.
Differentiating mine-reclaimed grasslands from spectrally similar land cover using terrain variables and object-based machine learning classification

Incorporating ancillary, non-spectral data may improve the separability of land use/land cover classes. This study investigates the use of multi-temporal digital terrain data combined with aerial National Agriculture Imagery Program imagery for differentiating mine-reclaimed grasslands from non-mining grasslands across a broad region (6085 km2). The terrain data were derived from historical digital hypsography and a recent light detection and ranging data set. A geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) approach, combined with two machine learning algorithms, Random Forests and Support Vector Machines, was used because these methods facilitate the use of ancillary data in classification. The results suggest that mine-reclaimed grasslands can be mapped accurately, with user’s and producer’s accuracies above 80%, due to a distinctive topographic signature in comparison with other spectrally similar grasslands within this landscape. The use of multi-temporal digital elevation model data and pre-mining terrain data only generally provided statistically significant increased classification accuracy in comparison with post-mining terrain data. Elevation change data were of value, and terrain shape variables generally improved the classification. GEOBIA and machine learning algorithms were useful in exploiting these non-spectral data, as data gridded at variable cell sizes can be summarized at the scale of image objects, allowing complex interactions between predictor variables to be characterized.
Switching-Like Event-Triggered Sliding Mode Load Frequency Control for Networked Power Systems Under Energy-Limited DoS Attacks

In this work, the problem of an event-based <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal {L}_{2}-\mathcal {L}_{\infty }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> security control for power system load frequency control is discussed via a sliding mode control (SMC) strategy. Specifically, for responding to the Denial-of-Service attacks with limited energy, a switching-like event-triggered mechanism (ETM) is adopted, remedying the adverse impact of data losses. Meanwhile, synthesizing the robust SMC with the switching-like ETM, the sliding mode dynamics under cyber-attacks are established. Then, with Lyapunov stability theory, the sufficient criteria are deduced, ensuring that the resulting system can reach asymptotic stability with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal {L}_{2}-\mathcal {L}_{\infty }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> performance. Correspondingly, the gain of an event-based load frequency SMC law, achieving the ideal system performance while assuring the reachability of sliding surface, is figured out by settling convex optimization problems. Finally, the serviceability and validity of the presented method are verified through an example with corresponding simulation results.
Surface waters vulnerability and Minimum Instream Flow assessment: an italian case study

The Italian laws D.L. 152/99 and D.L. 152/2006 define the general framework for safeguarding surface, ground and coastal waters by pursuing the objectives of preventing or containing pollution, restoring water quality, protecting waters used for special purposes, guaranteeing the sustainable use of available resources and maintaining the waters’ natural ability to cleanse itself of impurities. These objectives will be met through the use of a variety of instruments, including the guidelines of environmental quality and Protection Plans. However, before Protection Plans can be assessed, the qualitative and quantitative status of water bodies needs to be determined and information has to be acquired regarding the physical, natural, social and economic characteristics of the catchment basins in order to assess anthropic pressure and impact. This various set of investigative and planning activities constitutes a totally new approach to environmental policies regarding water resources in Italy. A methodological approach has been developed in order to assess the vulnerability of surface waters and to define their environmental quality on the basis of an integrated analysis of the river’s ecosystem, both qualitative and quantitative (Minimum Instream Flow). This procedure has been applied to the pilot watersheds of the Tusciano and Picentino rivers (Campania Region, Southern Italy), by means of a monitoring network. The proposed approach made it possible to provide an albeit preliminary assessment of the environmental quality status for the Tusciano and Picentino rivers.
Covert Communication Using Time Modulated Retrodirective Array

In this letter, a novel covert communication strategy that utilizes a time modulated retrodirective array (TMRDA) is proposed to enhance communication covertness. Typically, beamforming (BF) is designed via employing cuckoo search (CS), in which the sidelobes are significantly suppressed. Then, the closed-form expression of covertness constraint is derived by considering the beam characteristic of TMRDA. On this basis, the block length and transmit power are further optimized to maximize the covert throughput. Our numerical results reveal the superiority of the proposed scheme over the existing covert communication strategies.
Methods for Developing a Process Design Space Using Retrospective Data

Prospectively planned designs of experiments (DoEs) offer a valuable approach to preventing collinearity issues that can result in statistical confusion, leading to misinterpretation and reducing the predictability of statistical models. However, it is also possible to develop models using historical data, provided that certain guidelines are followed to enhance and ensure proper statistical modeling. This article presents a methodology for constructing a design space using process data, while avoiding the common pitfalls associated with retrospective data analysis. For this study, data from a real wet granulation process were collected to pragmatically illustrate all the concepts and methods developed in this article.
Influence of Storage Time on the DNA Integrity and Viability of Spermatozoa of the Spider Crab Maja brachydactyla

Simple Summary On one hand, the females of some crabs can store the sperm from copulations for several years. On the other hand, it is reported that DNA repair mechanisms in sperm cells are less effective than in other cells. Taking into account these two considerations, we conducted a study into the viability and possible genetic damage of DNA in spermatozoa stored in female spider crabs for up to 14 months. The results show that during the first 3–4 months, both the viability and the DNA integrity fall considerably. Abstract Natural populations of the spider crab Maja brachydactyla constitute a fishery resource of great economic importance in many countries. As in the rest of eubrachyurans, the females of this species have ventral-type seminal receptacles where they store sperm from copulations. Sperm can be stored in these structures for months and even years before egg fertilisation, with the consequent degradation of the sperm cells during the time. In this work, we analyse the viability and the possible genetic damage in sperm accumulated in the seminal receptacles of M. brachydactyla females as a function of the storage time (from 0 to 14 months) using the comet assay technique. On one hand, we developed an algorithm for comet image analysis that improves the comet segmentation compared with the free software Open comet v1.3. 1 (97% vs. 76% of detection). In addition, our software allows the manual modification of the contours wrongly delimited via the automatic tool. On the other hand, our data show a sharp decline in sperm viability and DNA integrity in the first four months of storage, which could lead to a decrease in the fecundity rate and/or viability of the embryos or larvae from the second and third clutches of the annual cycle if the repair capacity in these gametic cells is low.
VII.—The Middle Devonian Fish Fauna of Achanarras

During five seasons the writer has been investigating the fishes of the Middle Devonian flagstones in the quarry at Achanarras in Caithness. This celebrated quarry, the home of Palœospondylus, has been long known and has been previously worked by Traquair (1890, 1894), who has described its fauna. There appeared, however, still to be room for a more detailed and intensive examination of the fauna such as could only be produced by a more extended period of work than had so far been given to it. By permission of Colonel Murray-Thriepland, the owner of the estate on which the quarry is situated, I have been able to spend the seasons of 1931–1935 in making a collection, of which a part is now to be described. To the Colonel and to his son Mr Peter Murray-Thriepland I have been indebted throughout for their unfailing interest and assistance. The main part of this account was written in 1934, but was not published owing to the discontinuance of a foreign journal for which it had been accepted. The season of 1935 produced some further material, which has now been incorporated. Meanwhile the writer has had the opportunity of discussing questions relating to the genus Dipterus with Dr Stanley Westoll, who has in preparation a work on the Devonian fishes in general, and is indebted to him for information on several points. Dr Westoll's view that the scales show an alternate deposition and resorbtion of the outer layer together with its bearing on questions of species is here fully adopted (Westoll, 1935).
On Combining Spectral,Textural and Shape Features for Remote Sensing Image Segmentation

To utilize multiple features for segmentation of remote sensing images,a novel segmentation method combining spectral,textural and shape features is presented.The method starts with an initial partition,where the spectral and textural features of each region are extracted.And then,the regions are regarded as node set of the region adjacency graph(RAG),and the weights of the edges correspond to merging cost of adjacency regions.Finally,a hierarchy stepwise optimized region merging procedure is adopted based on the region adjacency graph to get the final result.Experiments on QuickBird and SAR images have shown the effectiveness and high efficiency of the method.
Polyphenol-Enriched Pectin from Pomegranate Peel: Multi-Objective Optimization of the Eco-Friendly Extraction Process

A multi-objective optimization was performed using response surface methodology to obtain a high-value-added product, pectin enriched in polyphenols, from pomegranate peel. For this purpose, a green extraction technique that combines citric acid and ultrasound was carried out considering three variables: time, pH, and temperature. The extraction procedure was optimized using the Box–Behnken design, these being the most suitable conditions, with an extraction time of 34.16 min, a pH of 2.2, and a temperature of 89.87 °C. At this point, the pectin yield was 31.89%, with a total retained polyphenol content of 15.84 mg GAE/g pectin. In addition, the water activity, ash content, equivalent weight, methoxyl content, and degree of esterification were determined for the pectin obtained at the optimal point. This study demonstrates that polyphenol-enriched pectin can be obtained from pomegranate peel via an eco-friendly and efficient method, and that it presents similar properties to commercial pectin, preserving its quality and with potential use as an ingredient or food supplement with a high nutritional value. This work contributes to developing sustainable strategies to valorize pomegranate agro-industrial waste and produce high-value functional ingredients.