Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reasons for reductions in routine childhood immunisation uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in a substantial decline in routine immunisation coverage in children globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study summarises the reasons for disruptions to routine child immunisations in LMICs. A systematic review (PROSPERO CRD42021286386) was conducted following PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Six databases were searched: MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health, CINAHL, Scopus and MedRxiv, on 11/02/2022. Observational and qualitative studies published from January 2020 onwards were included if exploring reasons for missed immunisations during the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs. Study appraisal used National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tools. Reasons for disruption were defined with descriptive codes; cross-sectional (quantitative) data were summarised as mean percentages of responses weighted by study population, and qualitative data were summarised narratively. A total of thirteen studies were included describing reasons behind disruptions; 7 cross-sectional (quantitative), 5 qualitative and 1 mixed methods. Seventeen reasons for disruptions were identified. In quantitative studies (total respondents = 2,853), the most common reasons identified were fear of COVID-19 and consequential avoidance of health centres (41.2%, SD ±13.3%), followed by transport challenges preventing both families and healthcare professionals from reaching vaccination services (11.1% SD ±16.6%). Most reasons stemmed from reduced healthcare-seeking (83.4%), as opposed to healthcare-delivery issues (15.2%). Qualitative studies showed a more even balance of healthcare-seeking (49.5%) and healthcare-delivery issues (50.5%), with fear of COVID-19 remaining a major identified issue (total respondents = 92). The most common reasons for disruption were parental fear of COVID-19 and avoidance of health services. Health systems must therefore prioritise public health messaging to encourage vaccine uptake and recovery of missed immunisations.
Completeness and time-independent perturbation of morphology-dependent resonances in dielectric spheres

Morphology-dependent resonances commonly observed in both the elastic and the inelastic scattering of light waves from dielectric spheres are in fact direct manifestations of complex frequency poles of the scattering matrix. Time-independent solutions to the wave equation at these poles are termed quasi-normal modes, which are characterized by the outgoing wave boundary condition at infinity and cannot be normalized in the usual sense. These resonances (or quasi-normal modes) are shown to form a complete set inside the dielectric sphere, provided that there is a spatial discontinuity in the refractive index, say, at the edge of the sphere. Novel definitions of norm and inner product are introduced. In addition, a time-independent perturbation method based on this completeness relation is developed to evaluate shifts in resonance frequencies when the refractive index is changed.
A conserved WXXE motif is an apical delivery determinant of ABC transporter C subfamily isoforms

ATP-binding cassette transporter isoform C7 (ABCC7), also designated as cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), is exclusively targeted to the apical plasma membrane of polarized epithelial cells. Although the apical localization of ABCC7 in epithelia is crucial for the Cl– excretion into lumens, the mechanism regulating its apical localization is poorly understood. In the present study, an apical localization determinant was identified in the N-terminal 80-amino acid long cytoplasmic region of ABCC7 (NT80). In HepG2 cells, overexpression of NT80 significantly disturbed the apical expression of ABCC7 in a competitive manner, suggesting the presence of a sorting determinant in this region. Deletion analysis identified a potential sorting information within a 20-amino acid long peptide (aa 41–60) of NT80. Alanine scanning mutagenesis of this region in full-length ABCC7 further narrowed down the apical localization determinant to four amino acids, W57DRE60. This WDRE sequence was conserved among vertebrate ABCC7 orthologs. Site-directed mutagenesis showed that W57 and E60 were critical for the apical expression of ABCC7, confirming a novel apical sorting determinant of ABCC7. Furthermore, a WXXE motif (tryptophan and glutamic acid residues with two-amino acid spacing) was found to be conserved among the N-terminal regions of apically localized ABCC members with 12-TM configuration. The significance of the WXXE motif was demonstrated for proper trafficking of ABCC4 to the apical plasma membrane.
Cell-Type-Specific Signalling Networks Impacted by Prostate Epithelial-Stromal Intercellular Communication

Simple Summary Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and one of the leading causes of cancer-related death. Intercellular communication between prostate epithelial cells and cells within the tumour microenvironment (TME), particularly cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), are known to contribute to prostate cancer development and progression. However, the signalling mechanisms by which these reciprocal interactions occur are unknown. The aim of our study was to investigate the cell-type-specific signalling networks initiated by intercellular communication between prostate epithelial cells and patient-derived CAFs when grown together. We identified significant differences in the proteomic profiles of both cell types in this experimental setting. Functional analysis revealed that one of the top upregulated epithelial proteins following co-culture, transglutaminase-2 (TGM2), promotes epithelial cell migration and proliferation under co-culture conditions. This study identifies novel signalling pathways involved in intercellular communication in prostate cancer that may be exploited to improve management of this malignancy. Abstract Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in males. A greater understanding of cell signalling events that occur within the prostate cancer tumour microenvironment (TME), for example, between cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and prostate epithelial or cancer cells, may identify novel biomarkers and more effective therapeutic strategies for this disease. To address this, we used cell-type-specific labelling with amino acid precursors (CTAP) to define cell-type-specific (phospho)proteomic changes that occur when prostate epithelial cells are co-cultured with normal patient-derived prostate fibroblasts (NPFs) versus matched CAFs. We report significant differences in the response of BPH-1 benign prostate epithelial cells to CAF versus NPF co-culture. Pathway analysis of proteomic changes identified significant upregulation of focal adhesion and cytoskeleton networks, and downregulation of metabolism pathways, in BPH-1 cells cultured with CAFs. In addition, co-cultured CAFs exhibited alterations in stress, DNA damage, and cytoskeletal networks. Functional validation of one of the top differentially-regulated proteins in BPH-1 cells upon CAF co-culture, transglutaminase-2 (TGM2), demonstrated that knockdown of this protein significantly reduced the proliferation and migration of prostate epithelial cells. Overall, this study provides novel insights into intercellular communication in the prostate cancer TME that may be exploited to improve patient management.
Examining the use of fitness apps in sports centers in Taiwan: incorporating task–technology fit into a technology readiness acceptance model

ABSTRACT Rationale/purpose: This study analyzes users’ behavior intention to use fitness apps and adopts the technology readiness acceptance model (TRAM) to explore the effects of technology readiness (TR) and task–technology fit (TTF) in the context of using fitness apps. Design/methodology/approach: We used a purposive sampling method, recruiting 328 consumers from six civil sports centers in Taiwan, and performed structural equation modeling (SEM) for the data analysis. Findings: The results presented conclusive evidence that TR has a significant positive relationship with both perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU), while TTF only has a significant relationship with PU. The model was validated, contributing to the existing body of knowledge on sports technologies. Practical Implications: In the promotion of technological applications, sports facility practitioners can target specific customer groups to develop precise marketing strategies. Research Contributions: The integrated TRAM model shifts the emphasis on intelligent technology to the feature of consumers and sports contexts, making the research model more comprehensive to predict users’ intention toward fitness apps and prioritize the use of sport-related technology to optimize the application of technologies in the sports fields.
Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Effect of Commonly Used Disinfectants on Salmonella Infantis Isolates

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Infantis is the most prevalent serovar in broilers and broiler meat in the European Union. The aim of our study was to test the biofilm formation and antimicrobial effect of disinfectants on genetically characterized S. Infantis isolates from poultry, food, and humans. For the biofilm formation under various temperature conditions (8 °C, 20 °C, and 28 °C) and incubation times (72 h and 168 h), the crystal violet staining method was used. The evaluation of the in vitro antimicrobial effect of Ecocid® S, ethanol, and hydrogen peroxide was determined using the broth microdilution method. The antibiofilm effect of subinhibitory concentration (1/8 MIC) of disinfectants was then tested on S. Infantis 323/19 strain that had the highest biofilm formation potential. Our results showed that the biofilm formation was strain-specific; however, it was higher at 20 °C and prolonged incubation time. Moreover, strains carrying a pESI plasmid showed higher biofilm formation potential. The antibiofilm potential of disinfectants on S. Infantis 323/19 strain at 20 °C was effective after a shorter incubation time. As shown in our study, more effective precautionary measures should be implemented to ensure biofilm prevention and removal in order to control the S. Infantis occurrence.
Role of Serum Lipids, Blood Glucose and Blood Pressure in Breast Cancer Risk for Women with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Purpose Women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have an increased risk of breast cancer. We aimed to determine the contribution of lipids, glucose and blood pressure to this risk based on the multifactorial nature of T2DM. Patients and Methods This population-based cohort study used data from a Dutch database (the Groningen Initiative to Analyse Type 2 Diabetes Treatment) for the period 2004–2013. The cohort included women diagnosed with T2DM, aged 30–80 years, with no history of breast cancer and with follow-up data for at least 1 year. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the associations of exposures with breast cancer occurrence, reporting adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Exposures of interest included total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides, glycated hemoglobin A (HbA1c) and systolic blood pressure (SBP). Results During a median of 4.45 years’ follow-up, 183 of 10,183 included women received a breast cancer diagnosis. We observed U-shaped associations with breast cancer incidence for total cholesterol and HDL-C at baseline. Compared with moderate elevations, women had significantly higher breast cancer risks associated with high total cholesterol (aHR, 95% CI: 1.72, 1.15–2.55) and HDL-C (aHR, 95% CI: 1.74, 1.18–2.58) levels, while low total cholesterol (aHR, 95% CI: 1.43, 0.94–2.19) and HDL-C (aHR, 95% CI: 1.44, 0.95–2.17) levels produced marginal effects without significance. Women with high LDL-C levels more often received a breast cancer diagnosis than those with medium levels (aHR, 95% CI: 1.56, 1.03–2.35). Conclusion This real-world dataset highlights the importance of balancing lipid profiles, particularly total cholesterol and HDL-C. Dysregulation of the lipid profile, not the glucose or blood pressure profiles, may increase the risk of breast cancer in women with T2DM.
A neuronal model of stroboscopic alternative motion

A visual stimulus consisting of two alternating images, presented with an intermediate blank phase between each image, each showing a pair of illuminated spots located at opposite corners of an imaginary rectangle, will evoke the percept of either a horizontal or a vertical apparent motion, called ‘stroboscopic alternative motion’ (SAM). Psychological analyses have revealed that subjects can perceive only one of the two directions of motion at a time, favouring the direction along the shorter edge of the rectangle, but report spontaneous changes between the alternatives. If the stimulus configuration is gradually modified during stimulus presentation so that the preferred direction of motion changes from horizontal to vertical, or vice versa, subjects normally experience a corresponding change of their percept. This change, however, usually occurs with hysteresis, i.e. when the stimulus is significantly beyond its symmetric configuration. In this paper a microscopic neural model is presented which reprodu.
Threshold models for river flow extremes

We model extreme river flow data from five UK rivers with distinct hydrological properties. The data exhibit significant and complex nonstationarity, which we model using a nonlinear function of hydrological covariates corresponding to soil saturation, latent flow of the river and rainfall. We additionally consider season as a covariate, although the hydrological covariates explain most of the seasonal effect directly. The standard approach to modelling data of this kind is to fix a threshold and to model exceedances of this threshold using the generalised Pareto distribution. We identify a number of problems with this approach in nonstationary cases. To overcome these issues, we propose the use of a censored generalised extreme value distribution for threshold exceedances. The data analysis illustrates a number of features of model fit and in particular the stability of the model parameters and return levels to threshold choice. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Possible Rescue for General Relativity in DI Herculis

The binary DI Her has attracted attention because its low observed rate of apsidal advance, 1.0 + or - 0.3 deg per 100 yr, appears to contradict general relativity, which seems to require a value of 4.3 + or - 0.3 deg per 100 yr. Very tentative evidence in support of the hypothesis that the stars are rotating about axes highly inclined to the orbital axis is presented. If the inclination of a component is greater than 54.7 deg, then its rotational distortion will slow the apsidal advance. An apsidal advance rate of 0.7 + or - 2.0 deg per 100 yr is calculated from sparse data. 28 references.
Strip steel surface defect detecting method combined with a multi-layer attention mechanism network

In the production of strip steel, defect detection is a crucial step. However, current inspection techniques frequently suffer from issues like low detection accuracy and subpar real-time performance. We provide a deep learning-based strip steel surface defect detection technique to address the aforementioned issues. The algorithm is also implemented in three specific ways: as the backbone, the neck, and the detection head. Backbone employs an enhanced cross stage partial in conjunction with ResNet to effectively mine defect information and minimize the issue of adjoining feature maps’ neighboring feature maps losing information. Neck is a better structure, we propose and use the dilated weighted across stages-feature pyramid network in the network to adjust the receptive field and attention weight preference of the output feature maps at different scales and to improve the utilization of defect features by the algorithm to enhance the detection of abnormal size defects. We use four detection heads in the detection head so that the network can learn the features of defects of various sizes. Finally, we use the decoupled head to separate the classification work from the regression work before combining the prediction. Two datasets of surface flaws in strip steel are used in our experiments (GC10-DET and NEU-DET). In addition, it has been shown that our proposed algorithm’s mAP in GC10-DET and NEU-DET reaches 79.93% and 72.76%, respectively, resulting in a better detection impact.
Another Look At the Clustering Perspective On Aggregation Problems

The clustering perspective, especially in conjunctien with a linear model one, is a fruitful approach to the problems of estimating correlation and regression coefficients from aggregated data. (1) When the correlation ratios for two variables are equal, then both the within-group and aggregate correlations between the variables will equal the total correlation for microunits if either does. When the correlation ratios are not equal, then one correlation must be greater than the total correlation even if the other equals it. In either case, the typically lower within-group correlation must result in a higher aggregate correlation. (2) For regression, the effects of aggregating on the within-group covariances between the residual and independent variables can be used to determine the effect of aggregation on the regression estimates. This approach is applied to the analysis of the effects of different types of aggregation, including some not previously discussed, on estimates for models that are correctly specified with homogeneous parameters and for models that are misspecified or have different parametric values for different subsets of the population. Contrary to previous conclusions, the effect of aggregation bias can be counter to that of specification bias in some quite probable cases.
Sullivan's Concept of Scientific Method as Applied to Psychiatry

H. S. Sullivan's approach to the study of psychiatry reflects the fact that his conception of scientific method was derived from work in physics rather than in the biological sciences. His definition of psychiatry as the study of "interpersonal process" appears to have been influenced partly by his previous training in physics, and also by his conclusion that the most significant aspects of personality could be revealed only through an understanding of the person's actual behavior in relation to others. 1. Psychiatry as the Study of Interpersonal Process. Sullivan started his discussion of problems of human behavior by defining his field of investigation:
The Teachers’ Perceptions and Knowledge of Reading Assessment Survey: A Validation Study

Abstract Despite many calls, there is little research addressing teachers’ knowledge of reading assessments and how they utilize assessments for reading instruction. Therefore, the current research developed and validated a reliable measure of teachers’ perceptions and knowledge of reading assessments, called the Perceptions and Knowledge of Assessment in Literacy Survey (PKALS). Through the analysis of two separate administrations, we provide evidence for validity of the PKALS and examine the associations between teachers’ characteristics and their performance on the PKALS. This research also found that teacher experience was correlated with higher knowledge; however, teachers’ certification and graduate degree status were not. The PKALS can support future researchers and teacher preparation programs to identify gaps in teacher knowledge, allowing for interventions to promote student reading success.
High-Temperature Lines in SUMER Spectra Recorded Above a Bright Solar Active Region

We identify spectral lines emitted by solar abundant elements due primarily to transitions within the 2s22pk and 3s23pk (where k = 1, 5) ground configurations of ions that are formed in ionization equilibrium between 2 × 106 and 8 × 106 K. The transitions were identified in spectra of a bright active region recorded 1997 September 6, by the Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation Spectrometer (SUMER) flown on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Some of these lines provide useful plasma diagnostic tools for measuring the physical conditions in the solar corona.
Highly transparent wave front printed volume holograms realized by amplitude-modulated incoherent pre-illumination

We present highly transparent, wave front printed volume holographic optical elements (vHOEs), realized with a new recording method based on the pre-illumination of incoherent light patterns. The introduced amplitudemodulated pattern illuminates a distinct area on the unexposed, photopolymer-based holographic recording material prior to the hologram recording sequence. The incoherent pre-illumination scheme enables a precise tuning of the material’s local photosensitivity without the formation of a holographic volume diffraction grating. As a consequence, the pre-illumination exposure significantly suppresses the formation of transparency diminishing structures in the material that are formed concurrently with the volume diffraction grating during the hologram recording sequence. The pre-illumination component is integrated in an extended immersion-based wave front printing setup, which realizes vHOEs by sequentially recording single holographic elements in an array-like structure. A wide range of different recording configurations is enabled by our recording setup due to independent modulation of both wave fronts and the possibility to realize large off-axis recording angles. We introduce two hologram characterization methods, based on a diffraction efficiency and a slanted-edge method analysis, which are used to evaluate the implemented pre-illumination method and demonstrate significant improvements to the see-through quality of the presented wave front recorded vHOEs.
Co-Inoculation of Endophytes Bacillus siamensis TUR07-02b and Priestia megaterium SMBH14-02 Promotes Growth in Rice with Low Doses of Nitrogen Fertilizer

Multiple biotic and abiotic factors influence rice cultivation. These factors limit productivity and yield, as well as an irrational use of agrochemicals in rice cultivation. A sustainable alternative is using selected growth-promoting microorganisms to increase nutritional efficiency. In the present study, the direct mechanisms of growth promotion in two strains of Bacillus, three strains of Priestia, and two strains of Burkholderia endophytes of rice were characterized. Bacillus siamensis TUR07-02b and Priestia megaterium SMBH14-02 were selected to promote Oryza sativa var’s growth. “Bellavista” was used at different doses (50, 75, and 100%) of mineral nitrogen (N) using a randomized block design by quintuplicate. Both strains, SMBH14-02 and TUR07-02b, presented outstanding promoter characteristics, including auxin production (123.17 and 335.65 μg mL−1, respectively) and biological nitrogen fixation capacity. Similarly, B. siamensis TUR07-02b could solubilize phosphate-Ca (20.94 μg mL−1), cellulases, and pectinases. Under greenhouse conditions, co-inoculated plants receiving 75% of the total dose of mineral nitrogen showed increased agronomic parameters in relation to panicle length, grains per panicle, grain yield, and harvest index by 25.0, 30.7, 39.5, and 12.5%, respectively, compared to the 75% fertilized treatment without inoculation. The strains of B. siamensis TUR07-02b and P. megaterium SMBH14-02 are potential microbial resources in the formulation of new inoculants to reduce the use of nitrogenous fertilizers. Thus, agronomic validation of the inoculant consortium at the field level will be an essential step in providing an alternative for the sustainable management of rice cultivation and increased productivity of rice farmers in the San Martín region.