Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sidestream Smoke Extracts from Harm-Reduction and Conventional Camel Cigarettes Inhibit Osteogenic Differentiation via Oxidative Stress and Differential Activation of intrinsic Apoptotic Pathways

Epidemiological studies suggest cigarette smoking as a probable environmental factor for a variety of congenital anomalies, including low bone mass, increased fracture risk and poor skeletal health. Human and animal in vitro models have confirmed hypomineralization of differentiating cell lines with sidestream smoke being more harmful to developing cells than mainstream smoke. Furthermore, first reports are emerging to suggest a differential impact of conventional versus harm-reduction tobacco products on bone tissue as it develops in the embryo or in vitro. To gather first insight into the molecular mechanism of such differences, we assessed the effect of sidestream smoke solutions from Camel (conventional) and Camel Blue (harm-reduction) cigarettes using a human embryonic stem cell osteogenic differentiation model. Sidestream smoke from the conventional Camel cigarettes concentration-dependently inhibited in vitro calcification triggered by high levels of mitochondrially generated oxidative stress, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, and reduced ATP production. Camel sidestream smoke also induced DNA damage and caspase 9-dependent apoptosis. Camel Blue-exposed cells, in contrast, invoked only intermediate levels of reactive oxygen species insufficient to activate caspase 3/7. Despite the absence of apoptotic gene activation, damage to the mitochondrial phenotype was still noted concomitant with activation of an anti-inflammatory gene signature and inhibited mineralization. Collectively, the presented findings in differentiating pluripotent stem cells imply that embryos may exhibit low bone mineral density if exposed to environmental smoke during development.
A Novel and Open Classification Emphasizing on Osteoligamentous Complex for Distal Clavicle Fractures

Current X‐ray‐based classification methods cannot describe all distal clavicle fracture (DCF) patterns, especially the osteoligamentous injury pattern of DCFs. We aimed to develop a novel classification based on the osteoligamentous injury pattern of the DCFs and investigated its reliability.
Implementing screening for myocardial injury in non-cardiac surgery: perspectives of an ad-hoc interdisciplinary expert group

Abstract Objectives. Perioperative myocardial injury (PMI) is increasingly recognised as an important complication of non-cardiac surgery, with often clinically silent presentation, but detrimental prognosis. Active screening for PMI, involving the detection of dynamic and elevated levels of cardiac troponin, has recently been advocated by an increasing number of guidelines; however, active PMI screening has not been reflected in clinical practice. Design. As consensus on a common screening and management pathway is lacking, we synthesise the current evidence to provide suggestions on the selection of patients for screening, organisation of a screening program, and a potential management pathway, building upon a recently published perioperative screening algorithm. Results. Screening should be performed using high-sensitivity assays both preoperatively and postoperatively (postoperative Days 1 and 2) in patients at high-risk of experiencing perioperative complications. Conclusion. This expert opinion piece by an interdisciplinary group of predominantly Norwegian clinicians aims to assist healthcare professionals planning to implement guideline-recommended PMI screening at a local level in order to improve patient outcomes following non-cardiac surgery.
Climate Change and African Migrant Health

Introduction: Climate change exacerbates existing sociopolitical and economic vulnerabilities, undermining livelihoods, inflating the risk of conflict, and making it difficult for people to remain stable. In 2019, around 25 million new displacements occurred due to natural disasters. This review aims to summarize the existing evidence regarding the impact of climate change on the health of African immigrants. Methods: Nine databases were systematically searched using a strategy developed in collaboration with a subject librarian. Potentially relevant articles were identified, screened, and reviewed by at least two reviewers, with a third reviewer resolving conflicts where necessary. Data were extracted from relevant articles using a standardized form. Results: Seven studies (three cross-sectional, two qualitative, one cohort, and one need assessment report) were identified; they included different categories of African migrants and reported on various aspects of health. The included articles report on climate change, e.g., flooding, drought, and excess heat, resulting in respiratory illness, mental health issues, malnutrition, and premature mortality among African immigrants. Conclusion: This review suggests climate change adversely affects the physical, mental, and social health of African immigrants. It also highlights a knowledge gap in evidence related to the impact of climate change on the health of African immigrants.
Geometric property measurement of convex objects using fuzzy sets

An application of the theory of fuzzy sets to detect and measure convex objects in an image is described. Geometric measurements involving the concept of the perimeter of a fuzzy set are compared to measurements using moment parameters of the membership function. The concept of the perimeter of fuzzy sets offers a way to take geometric measurements from a scene without having to segment it. A method to compute the perimeter of a convex fuzzy set was proposed by Rosenfeld [1]. For the special case of elliptically shaped convex objects an alternative formula is proposed. In this method the fuzzy set is approximated by a crisp set of elliptic shape which has same area and second order moments. The computation of the membership function plays a key role in this theory. We use a fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm to compute the membership function. The method is tested on real images.
Solution of large displacement contact problems with friction using Newton's method for generalized equations

This work is concerned with the formulation and numerical realization of large displacement contact problems with friction. A restricted class of contact problems is treated, where the deformation of one of the contacting bodies is prescribed. The formulation utilizes a particular convected co-ordinate chart to define, firstly, tangential components for all potential contact points and, secondly, the notion of incremental tangential displacement. By writing the discretized problem as a generalized equation in the sense of Robinson it is made clear how Newton's method may be extended to this kind of non-differentiable problems. The proposed algorithm is verified by several numerical examples.
Clinical validation of the nursing diagnosis “Risk for delayed child development”

ABSTRACT Objective: To validate clinically the risk factors of the nursing diagnosis “Risk for delayed child development”. Method: Cross-sectional quantitative study carried out in a specialty outpatient clinic and in family health units with 124 children. The data was collected through interviews with the children’s guardians to investigate the risk factors for delay in child development. Results: The tested risk factors affected 108 of the evaluated children (87.1%). In the accuracy tests, most specificity values were above 80% and sensitivity values were lower than 30%. Most risk factors had odds ratio >1, three of which were noteworthy: genetic disorder (OR = 38, p < 0.05) and congenital disorder (OR = 4.4, p < 0.05), among child-related aspects, and impaired cognitive development in parents (OR = 27, p < 0.05), among caregiver-related aspects. Conclusion: The study contributed to a refined diagnostic accuracy, identifying potential associated factors of the evaluated diagnosis.
Frost formation and ice adhesion on superhydrophobic surfaces

We study frost formation and its impact on icephobic properties of superhydrophobic surfaces. Using an environmental scanning electron microscope, we show that frost nucleation occurs indiscriminately on superhydrophobic textures without any particular spatial preference. Ice adhesion measurements on superhydrophobic surfaces susceptible to frost formation show increased adhesion over smooth surfaces with a strong linear trend with the total surface area. These studies indicate that frost formation significantly compromises the icephobic properties of superhydrophobic surfaces and poses serious limitations to the use of superhydrophobic surfaces as icephobic surface treatments for both on-ground and in-flight applications.
A Comprehensive Survey on the Progress, Process, and Challenges of Lung Cancer Detection and Classification

Lung cancer is the primary reason of cancer deaths worldwide, and the percentage of death rate is increasing step by step. There are chances of recovering from lung cancer by detecting it early. In any case, because the number of radiologists is limited and they have been working overtime, the increase in image data makes it hard for them to evaluate the images accurately. As a result, many researchers have come up with automated ways to predict the growth of cancer cells using medical imaging methods in a quick and accurate way. Previously, a lot of work was done on computer-aided detection (CADe) and computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) in computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and X-ray with the goal of effective detection and segmentation of pulmonary nodule, as well as classifying nodules as malignant or benign. But still, no complete comprehensive review that includes all aspects of lung cancer has been done. In this paper, every aspect of lung cancer is discussed in detail, including datasets, image preprocessing, segmentation methods, optimal feature extraction and selection methods, evaluation measurement matrices, and classifiers. Finally, the study looks into several lung cancer-related issues with possible solutions.
Investigation of the Granular Behaviour in a Rotating Drum Operated over a Wide Range of Rotational Speed

Rotating drums are extensively used in the chemical and process industries as mixers, dryers, granulators and reactors for processing granular materials. As a result, granular behaviour in rotating drums has attracted numerous research efforts from both engineering and physics communities over the past few decades. Most of these studies have been focused on drums operated in or close to the rolling mode. However, there are many industrial cases where drums are operated in other modes, e.g. the cascading and cataracting modes, which forms the main motivation for this work. Comprehensive experiments have been carried out to investigate granular behaviour in a drum operated over a wide range of rotational speed with solids motion across the rolling, cascading and cataracting modes. A digital recording device was used to capture images of the transverse plane of the material bed. Analyses of the images were carried out to extract the bed behaviour as a function of rotational speed, drum fill level and particle size. This has led to three relationships between the surface shape expressed in terms of three characteristic lengths, operating conditions, as well as the friction properties of both particles and drum wall. These relations are found to apply approximately to the whole range of rotational speed used in this work. The generality of these relationships and possible application of them for drum scaling are discussed.
Future area expansion outweighs increasing drought risk for soybean in Europe

The European Union is highly dependent on soybean imports from overseas to meet its protein demands. Individual Member States have been quick to declare self‐sufficiency targets for plant‐based proteins, but detailed strategies are still lacking. Rising global temperatures have painted an image of a bright future for soybean production in Europe, but emerging climatic risks such as drought have so far not been included in any of those outlooks. Here, we present simulations of future soybean production and the most prominent risk factors across Europe using an ensemble of climate and soybean growth models. Projections suggest a substantial increase in potential soybean production area and productivity in Central Europe, while southern European production would become increasingly dependent on supplementary irrigation. Average productivity would rise by 8.3% (RCP 4.5) to 8.7% (RCP 8.5) as a result of improved growing conditions (plant physiology benefiting from rising temperature and CO2 levels) and farmers adapting to them by using cultivars with longer phenological cycles. Suitable production area would rise by 31.4% (RCP 4.5) to 37.7% (RCP 8.5) by the mid‐century, contributing considerably more than productivity increase to the production potential for closing the protein gap in Europe. While wet conditions at harvest and incidental cold spells are the current key challenges for extending soybean production, the models and climate data analysis anticipate that drought and heat will become the dominant limitations in the future. Breeding for heat‐tolerant and water‐efficient genotypes is needed to further improve soybean adaptation to changing climatic conditions.
Phases of Match-Play in Professional Australian Football: Positional Demands and Match-Related Fatigue

This study examined the influence of player position and match quarter on activity profiles during the phases of play in Australian Football. Global positioning satellite data was collected for one season from an Australian Football League team for nomadic, key position and ruck players (age: 24.8 ± 4.2 years, body mass: 88.3 ± 8.7 kg, height: 1.88 ± 0.8 m). Separate linear mixed models and effect sizes were used to analyse differences between positions and game quarter within each phase of play for values of distance, speed and metabolic power indices. There were clear differences between positions for low-speed running, high-speed running, total distance and average speed. Nomadic players generally recorded the highest match running outputs, followed by key position players and ruckmen. Within each position, offence and defence involved the highest intensities, followed by contested play and then stoppage periods. Across the four quarters, there were small to large reductions in average speed, high-speed running, high power and energy expenditure during offence, defence and contested play, but not during stoppages. Accordingly, conditioning staff should consider the intermittent intensities of the phases of match-play for each position to optimally prepare players for competition. Reductions in match intensities were evident during active periods of play providing implications for real-time monitoring to optimise the timing of rotations.
Electroluminescence imaging of organic photovoltaic modules

We report on electroluminescence (EL) imaging of organic photovoltaic cells and modules with poly(3-hexylthiophene)/[6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester as semiconductor layer. The dominant EL emission is found in a spectral regime between 1200 and 1400 nm and is identified as the radiative decay of the charge transfer complex formed between the polymer and the fullerene. Electroluminescence emission from the pristine compounds is either much weaker or completely absent. Overall, electroluminescence imaging is shown to give valuable information on the defects but also on the performance of organic solar modules.
Structure of Planning and Control Artifacts and their Accuracy in Brazilian Family Businesses

Objective: the accuracy of planning and control artifacts is fundamental for bringing assertiveness to the organizational management process. The utility of the artifacts is questioned when the desired accuracy is missing. This research aims to identify the relationship between the artifact structure, the market assumptions, and the accuracy of the performance variables with a view to adapting the artifact profile to the desired impact over performance accuracy. Methods: this is a quantitative study based on convenience sampling and the data analysis methods used were structural equation modeling and necessary condition analysis. Results: within a sufficiency logic, the results support adherence between the planning and control artifacts, but not their relationship with performance accuracy. However, when analyzing the necessity logic, the artifacts become a necessary condition for a high level of performance accuracy. Conclusions: we show that the planning and control structure is consistent for achieving accuracy, but defining the desired level of deviation tolerance is a fundamental condition for the efficiency level of the management process. The more demanding the organization is in terms of deviation tolerance, the greater the need for artifacts.
Identification and Quantification of Polyphenols in Croatian Traditional Apple Varieties

Apples and apple-based products are particularly interesting due to being a good source of polyphenols in an everyday diet. Recently there has been increased interest in the preservation of traditional apple varieties due to studies that suggest that traditional apple varieties have a higher content of polyphenols and antioxidant activity compared to commercial varieties. This study shows that traditional apple varieties contain higher concentration of polyphenolic compounds than conventional ones, such as chlorogenic acid (1.29–456 mg/kg dw), catechin (0.70–312 mg/kg dw), epicatechin (1.75–244 mg/kg dw), procyanidin B1 + B2 (4.08–358 mg/kg dw) and quercetin-3-glucoside (0.96–231 mg/kg dw). This research underlies the great potential of traditional apple varieties as a source of natural antioxidants and polyphenolics.
Right Ventricular Strain by Magnetic Resonance Feature Tracking Is Largely Afterload-Dependent and Does Not Reflect Contractility: Validation by Combined Volumetry and Invasive Pressure Tracings

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is currently the gold standard for evaluating right ventricular (RV) function, which is critical in patients with pulmonary hypertension. CMR feature-tracking (FT) strain analysis has emerged as a technique to detect subtle changes. However, the dependence of RV strain on load is still a matter of debate. The aim of this study was to measure the afterload dependence of RV strain and to correlate it with surrogate markers of contractility in a cohort of patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) under two different loading conditions before and after pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA). Between 2009 and 2022, 496 patients with 601 CMR examinations were retrospectively identified from our CTEPH cohort, and the results of 194 examinations with right heart catheterization within 24 h were available. The CMR FT strain (longitudinal (GLS) and circumferential (GCS)) was computed on steady-state free precession (SSFP) cine CMR sequences. The effective pulmonary arterial elastance (Ea) and RV chamber elastance (Ees) were approximated by dividing mean pulmonary arterial pressure by the indexed stroke volume or end-systolic volume, respectively. GLS and GCS correlated significantly with Ea and Ees/Ea in the overall cohort and individually before and after PEA. There was no general correlation with Ees; however, under high afterload, before PEA, Ees correlated significantly. The results show that RV GLS and GCS are highly afterload-dependent and reflect ventriculoarterial coupling. Ees was significantly correlated with strain only under high loading conditions, which probably reflects contractile adaptation to pulsatile load rather than contractility in general.
Quantitative evaluation of single-shot inline phase contrast imaging using an inverse compton x-ray source

Inverse compton scattering (ICS) x-ray sources are of current interest in biomedical imaging. We present an experimental demonstration of inline phase contrast imaging using a single picosecond pulse of the ICS source located at the BNL Accelerator Test Facility. The phase contrast effect is clearly observed. Its qualities are shown to be in agreement with the predictions of theoretical models through comparison of experimental and simulated images of a set of plastic wires of differing composition and size. Finally, we display an application of the technique to a biological sample, confirming the possibility of time-resolved imaging on the picosecond scale.
Lactobacillus gasseri LA806 Supplementation in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Multicenter Study

The potential benefits of Lactobacillus gasseri LA806 in IBS were previously identified in a comprehensive preclinical research program. The purpose of this multicenter study was to explore in real-life conditions changes in IBS symptoms and quality of life in patients receiving a 4-week supplementation with L. gasseri LA806. Altogether 119 patients meeting Rome IV criteria for IBS were included, of whom 118 received the supplement. The majority of patients (71.8% (95% CI 63.6−79.9%)) manifested a ≥30% decrease in abdominal pain at 4 weeks, the mean abdominal pain score diminishing by 54.2% (from 5.3 ± 2.2 to 2.2 ± 2.4, p < 0.0001). A statistically significant decrease in abdominal pain was seen as early as the first week. A decrease of ≥30% in both abdominal pain score and global IBS symptom score was attained in 61.5% of patients (95% CI 51.7−71.2%). The mean IBS-SSS score fell by 152 ± 112 points (p = 0.001), with symptoms being attenuated in 85% of patients (CGI-I). Supplementation led to a 10-fold decrease in the number of patients reporting severe IBS symptoms. The concomitant intake of antidiarrheals, antispasmodics and analgesics decreased and quality of life scores significantly improved. These preliminary results warrant confirmation by a randomized, placebo-controlled study that this study will allow a better design.
High Boost Seventeen-Level Switched Capacitor Inverter Topology With Continuous Input Current

This research article shows a new single dc source high-boost 17-level (17L) switched capacitor inverter topology with a continuous input current for photovoltaic applications. The proposed topology consists of two modules: 1) a front-end dc/dc converter that offers continuous input current and 2) a switched capacitor module for high voltage boosting. The mathematical expression for output voltage gain is derived. The proposed topology aims to minimize the component stress and counts. Different analyses are addressed, such as soft-charging technique, power loss, and voltage gain. A detailed comparison in terms of maximum blocking voltage (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{B}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), voltage gain (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$G$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and components’ count is shown to demonstrate the superiority of the suggested topology over other topologies. The scaled-down prototype model is designed for 520 W and has 94.5% efficiency. The proposed topology’s performance is validated, and the results are reported, including the variation in load, duty cycle, and other characteristics.
Slow damping of electron distribution function fluctuations in equilibrium semiconductors

Process of the origin and relaxation of the fluctuation of distribution function of conduction electrons in space-homogenous and non-degenerate equilibrium semiconductors is discussed. The fluctuations of electron distribution function, formed as result of the internal fluctuations of the phonon system, are studied. The physical mechanisms of the origin and following slow (diffusion) damping of the equilibrium fluctuations of the electron and phonon distribution functions are represented. It is shown that in low frequency region the Fourier-component of distribution function fluctuations of predominantly long wavelength electrons and phonons are depends on frequency by law ω-1/2.