Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exposure to work-related physical and psychological load in career firefighters at three timepoints over one year

Background: Firefighters experience high rates of injury – both physically and to their mental health. Firefighting is a unique context to study the interaction of these factors due to the cyclical nature of the work and interaction of physiological, biomechanical and mental health demands. Measuring these constructs over multiple time-points will provide insights into the cumulative demands associated with firefighting. Thesis Objectives: To quantify the biomechanical, physiological, and psychological loads during two simulated firefighting tasks, at three time-points over one year and assess variability in these factors over a one-year period, among Thunder Bay Fire Rescue firefighters. The overarching goal of this thesis is to identify prevalent multifactorial firefighting injury risk factors for the development of effective injury prevention strategies. Methods: Biomechanical load was inferred from measurement of musculoskeletal (MSK) injury risk using the Ovako Working posture Analyzing System (OWAS) applied to video of firefighters performing two simulated firefighting tasks. Physiological load was determined from metrics extracted from the Zephyr BioHarness physiological monitoring device worn by firefighters during both tasks. The Critical Incident Inventory (CII) questionnaire was used to determine critical incident exposure and infer impacts on firefighters’ mental health. Data was collected at three time points over one year (November 2017, May 2018, November 2018) to gain insights on cumulative loads associated with firefighting. Results: Analysis of variance over time indicated that heart rate (F(2, 48) = 4.685, p < . 05, ηp2 = 0.163) and working intensity (F(2, 48) = 5.598, p < . 05 ηp2 = 0.189) significantly increased from baseline to one-year during the performance of the hose drag task. Heart rate variability significantly increased from baseline to one-year during the performance of the patient transfer
Noninvasive Surrogate Markers to Predict Thrombogenesis in Patients with Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) confers a substantial increase in the risk of stroke. While the CHADS2 score is considered a reliable predictor of stroke/thromboembolism risk in patients with AF, thromboembolism can occur even in AF patients with a low CHADS2 score (CHADS2 score = 0 or 1). We retrospectively assessed the relationships between left atrial appendage thrombus (LAAT) and patient characteristics, echocardiographic variables, and surrogate blood markers in patients with unanticoagulated AF, in order to determine whether thrombogenesis can be predicted in this patient population. Methods: The study group was comprised of 31 patients with unanticoagulated persistent non-valvular AF (NVAF) who underwent transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and transesophageal echocardiography. Patients were divided into those with and without LAAT, and study variables were compared between the 2 groups. Results: LAAT was found in 14 patients. AF duration, left atrial diameter, left ventricular ejection fraction, left atrial appendage flow, β-thromboglobulin, platelet factor 4, prothrombin time, activated prothrombin time, fibrinogen, D-dimer, and antithrombin III levels did not differ between patients with and without LAAT. However, ANP and BNP levels were significantly higher in patients with LAAT (ANP ≥79 pg/ml, P = 0.03, BNP ≥120 pg/ml: P = 0.03). Moreover, patients with BNP ≥120 pg/ml exhibited an increased risk for LAAT (P = 0.03, odds ratio: 6.19), and patients with ANP ≥70 pg/ml in addition to BNP ≥120 pg/ml exhibited a further augmented risk for LAAT (P = 0.055, odds ratio: 8.75). Conclusions: In patients with unanticoagulated NVAF, a BNP level ≥120 pg/ml or an ANP level ≥70 pg/ml and BNP level ≥120 pg/ml could prove useful in predicting LAAT.
Meal Timing during Alternate Day Fasting: Effect on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

S 1. Kroeger CM, Trepanowski JF, Barnosky A, Klempel MC, Bhutani S, Hoddy KK, et al. Modulation in eating behaviors by alternate day fasting versus daily calorie restriction: Impact on weight loss and weight maintenance success. In: Ravussin E (ed). The Obesity Society's Annual Scientific Meeting: Los Angeles, California, USA 2015. [Oral presentation] 2. Hoddy K, Kroeger C, Trepanowski J, Barnosky A, Bhutani S, Varady K. Safety of Alternate Day Fasting and Effect on Disordered Eating Behaviors. In: Penderson T (ed). Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology: Annual Scientific Meeting. The FASEB Journal Boston, Massuchesetts, USA 2015. [Poster presentation] 3. Trepanowski J, Kroeger C, Barnosky A, Hoddy K, Varady K. Alternate-day fasting and daily calorie restriction similarly affect visceral adiposity and circulating inflammatory cytokine concentrations. In: Penderson T (ed). Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology: Annual Scientific Meeting. The FASEB Journal Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2015. [Oral presentation] 4. Kroeger CM, Trepanowski JF, Klempel MC, Bhutani S, Hoddy KK, Varady KA. Alternate day fasting is effective for weight loss and weight loss maintenance in obese adults. University of Illinois at Chicago: Annual Student Research Forum: Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2014. [Poster presentation] 5. Kroeger C, Trapanowski J, Klempel M, Bhutani S, Hoddy K, Varady K. Alternate day fasting is effective for weight loss and weight maintenance in obese adults (641.3). In: Penderson T (ed). The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology's Annual Scientific Meeting: San Diego, California, USA, 2014. [Oral presentation] 6. Kroeger CM, Trepanowski JF, Klempel MC, Barnosky A, Lin Y, Bhutani S, et al. Alternate day fasting is more effective than daily calorie restriction for increasing LDL particle size. In: Ravussin E (ed). The Obesity Society Annual Meeting: Boston, Massachucets, USA 2014. [Poster Presentation] 7. Hoddy KK, Kroeger CM, Trapanowski J, Klempel MC, Barnosky A, Bhutani S, et al. How does meal timing during alternate day fasting affect weight loss and coronary heart disease risk in obese adults? In: Ravussin E (ed). The Obesity Society's Annual Meeting: Boston, Massachucets, USA, 2014. [Oral presentation] 8. Trepanowski JF, Kroeger CM, Klempel MC, Barnosky A, Lin Y, Hoddy KK, et al. Dietary Adherence and Weight Loss are Similar Between Alternate-Day Fasting and Daily Calorie Restriction During a 24-Week Trial. In: Ravussin E (ed). The Obesity Society's Annual Meeting: Boston, Massachucets, USA, 2014. [Oral presentation]
The application of the theory of dynamic systems to software quality estimation

Hardware and software are considered from the point of view of the theory of dynamic systems. It has been shown that a program may be considered as dynamic system placed into the phase space of the program variables. The theory of dynamic systems as applied to programming allows to classify programs revealing the important quality indices of the program products which are related to the basic concepts of the ergodic theory as well as to that of information and informatics. As a program is run, possibilities (complexity) of the computer may be evaluated and important quality indices of the hardware may be appreciated from the point of view of the programming itself. This approach lets also separately evaluate the quality of both hardware and software.
Mid-thigh cross-sectional area and lower limb muscle function in patients with lung cancer

Background: Patients with lung cancer (LC) often experience cachexia which cause fatigue, weight loss, muscle wasting and associated with reduced physical function. Even though, skeletal muscle is the main site of muscle depletion in these patients, little is known about thigh muscle area and function. Aim: To assess and compare mid-thigh cross sectional muscle area (CSA) and quadriceps muscle function of patients with LC at diagnosis to healthy subjects. Method: A computed tomography of the two legs was obtained in 11 LC patients and 6 healthy age-matched controls. CSA was calculated using standard tissue attenuation (At) range and separated into normal At (35-100HU), low At (0-34HU) and residual muscle (-1 to -29HU). Mean At was also calculated to assess muscle adiposity. Subjects performed also a quadriceps isokinetic endurance test (30 reps at 90°/sec). Results: LC patients (Stage I-II=7;III-IV=4) and controls were matched for age (69±7yr vs 67±9yr) and BMI (27±5Kg/m2 vs 27±2 Kg/m2). Data on CSA and muscle function are shown in the table. Conclusion: Despite similar BMI and CSA, LC patients had greater muscle adiposity accompanied with reduced muscle strength and endurance.Thus, assessing muscle function and composition may enable a more comprehensive assessment of cachexia and physical function in LC patients.
The Impact of Building Thermal Anisotropy on Surface Urban Heat Island Intensity Estimation: An Observational Case Study in Beijing

The surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) defined as the average temperature difference between urban and rural surfaces is mainly measured by satellite remote-sensing techniques. However, the satellite can only provide 2-D land surface temperature (LST) and not complete surface temperature (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) which integrates the horizontal and vertical urban surface temperatures. The thermal anisotropy is very much prominent in the urban system; therefore, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> may be more important than the 2-D LST for SUHII study. Furthermore, the 3-D LST measurement of a real urban is limited. In this letter, we measured a building’s 3-D surface temperatures in Beijing, China, and the roof temperature (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) was assumed as “satellite measurement. ” The SUHII using <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> (SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> (SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), as well as air urban heat island intensity (AUHII) were compared. Results showed that: 1) the building’s thermal anisotropy was evident with 18 K between roof and north wall at noon; 2) SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> during the day was actually a cold island, while SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> was a heat island, caused by the different diurnal variation of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>; and 3) The SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\mathrm {roof}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> has diurnal maximum value in daytime and minimum value in nighttime, which is opposite to AUHII. However, the diurnal pattern of SUHII_<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is similar to AUHII which is like the shape of a spoon. This letter preliminarily explores the building’s thermal anisotropy on SUHII and could be an important reference for urban SUHII study at microscale.
Interannual variabilities of nutrients and phytoplankton off the Changjiang Estuary in response to changing river inputs

<p>Coastal ecosystems are strongly influenced by terrestrial and oceanic inputs of water, sediment and nutrients. Terrestrial nutrients in freshwater discharge are particularly important for mega-river estuaries. A remarkable increase in nutrient loads transported from the Changjiang River through the estuary to the shelf has been observed from 1999 to 2016. The Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model and the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model were coupled to assess the interannual variability of nutrients and phytoplankton under these flux dynamics. The system exhibited a rapid ecosystem response to the changing river nutrient contribution. Singular vector decomposition (SVD) analysis demonstratedthat abundant nitrate from the river was diluted by low-nitrate water transported from the oceanic domain. In contrast, phosphate exhibited local variation, suggesting the estuarine ecosystem was phosphate-limited. The SVD results showed that there were no significant correlations between the suspended sediment and nutrients, but a significant correlation between sediment and phytoplankton. The nutrient structure of the river discharge resulted in the dominance of non-diatom species in the phytoplankton bloom from spring to autumn. The ratio of diatom and dinoflagellate populations showed a rapid feedback response to the strong oscillations in river nutrient input. High diatom primary production occurred near the sediment front, whereas dinoflagellate bloom extended significantly offshore. Both diatoms and dinoflagellates had major peaks representing spring blooms from empirical orthogonal function Mode 1 and 2, and secondary peaks from Mode 2 in the autumn, which coincided with the autumn bloom. </p>
Matrix Softening Induces Inflammatory Signals of Endothelial Cells

Vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis involve the change of the rigidity in the blood vessel wall. There is evidence that the changes in the blood vessel rigidity may affect the various functions of the cells in the blood vessel, including endothelial cells (ECs) and the smooth muscle cells. On the other hand, blood vessel-on-a-chip has become an emerging research field for dis-ease modeling. However, the effect of material rigidity on blood vessel remodeling is not well understood. Hereby, an in vitro culture system with the culture substrates matching the rigidity of vessel wall mimicking the condition of healthy (normal) or lipid deposition (soft) were prepared. The stiffness of the substrates was confirmed by atomic force microscope. Although no significant difference was observed in EC morphology, the expression levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin 6 (IL6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and interleukin 1β (IL1β), were dramatically induced by soft substrate. Consistently, the inflammation-related JNK signaling was also activated. In addition, the expression level of microRNA-146a (miR-146a) was significantly decreased. Accordingly, mRNA expression level of TNF receptor associated factor 6 (TRAF6), the direct target of miR-146a, was significantly increased. In summary, these findings provide new insight into the matrix rigidity effect on ECs; while engineering the blood vessel model in vitro, matrix with proper rigidity can be carefully tailor to mimic ECs either in a quiescent or an inflammation state.
The regional nature of Japanese firms: antecedents and consequences

ABSTRACT This article examines the regional nature of Japanese firms, in line with the framework suggested by Collinson and Rugman in 2008. By analysing 52 of the largest Japanese firms, it argues for the regional nature of Japanese firms even in the 2010s, clarifying the inevitable consequences (as well as antecedents) of firms being global. Its findings and contributions are twofold. Firstly, it confirms that Japanese firms have continued to maintain region bound advantages in the Asian region, even in the face of macro challenges, such as the financial crisis and the rise of China. This sharply contradicts the underlying assumptions in the current literature that Japanese firms are moving to being global. Secondly, it shows that the selection of case studies in the current literature is still biased towards global and bi-regional large Japanese firms, rather than reflecting the majority of Japanese firms, which are regional. This underlying tendency to focus on an unrepresentative sample explains why international business scholars wrongly assume a single path of firms becoming global. This article, albeit limited to only Japanese firms, redirects our attention to how firms move dynamically in and between regions, alerting scholars to the need to avoid the possible pitfall of selecting large established manufacturers, typically global firms.
Enhancing the Performance of 802.15.4-Based Wireless Sensor Networks With NB-IoT

Multihop low-power wireless communication is a key feature of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Although with a lot of efforts, the performance of multihop WSNs in practical deployment could still be unpredictable and unsatisfactory, such as high packet transmission latency and short network lifetime. Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is an emerging cellular technology for providing wide-area coverage. In this article, we investigate the possibilities of deploying 802.15. 4 and NB-IoT equipped sink nodes (i.e., gateways) into existing WSNs to achieve the predictable and improved performance in terms of end-to-end reliability, end-to-end latency, and network lifetime. To calculate these key network-wide metrics, we propose a hybrid analytical model for 802.15. 4 and NB-IoT traffic, taking the new features of NB-IoT into account. Based on the established model, we formally consider two types of fundamental problems, i.e., the minimum gateway deployment and the optimal $\kappa $ -gateway deployment. We implement our framework and extensively evaluate it in the realistic as well as synthetic WSNs. Results demonstrate that our approach can provide significant performance gains, e.g., the network lifetime can be extended by 37.4%–80.3% by deploying only one sink node. Compared with a state-of-the-art method, our approach improves the network lifetime by 12.6%–31.8%.
A Unified Data‐Driven Method to Derive Hydrologic Dynamics From Global SMAP Surface Soil Moisture and GPM Precipitation Data

Data sets provided by the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite missions contain rich information about land surface hydrologic processes.In this study, a unified regression method is proposed and applied to these global data sets to investigate surface soil moisture (SSM) dynamics. Two forms of regressors are implemented: 1) the linear regressors of SSM and precipitation flux and 2) the linear regressors of SSM and precipitation flux with an additional interaction term. Regression results based on 3 years of global SMAP and GPM data show that the unified regression method can identify the SSM characteristics found by several recent studies, including the SSM exponential decay rate, the fraction of precipitation retained in the surface soil layer, and the effective depth of hydrologic storage. Additionally, including the interaction regressor provides a novel way to derive the sensitivity of infiltration/runoff partitioning to antecedent SSM without the need for streamflow observations. These SMAP/GPM regression results are compared with those derived from a global SSM data set simulated by the variable infiltration capacity model. Relative to the satellite data, variable infiltration capacity retains moisture longer in the top layer, retains too much precipitation input in that layer, and exhibits levels of sensitivity of runoff/infiltration partitioning to top‐layer soil moisture that generally match SMAP especially in humid regions. This study demonstrates that the regression‐based method can recover useful process‐level insight from SMAP SSM retrievals and is a viable tool for evaluating the representation of surface processes in hydrologic models.
Land‐use intensification promotes non‐native species in a tropical island bird assemblage

Habitat loss and non‐native species are two key drivers of biodiversity decline. The importance of their interactions is widely recognized, but remains poorly understood. We used the endemic‐rich bird assemblage of São Tomé Island to study this type of interactions. We built species‐specific binomial generalized linear models for 33 terrestrial bird species, based on presence–absence data from 2398 sampling points. Meta‐analysis techniques revealed that land use was more important in explaining distribution than topographic variables, rainfall, or distance to coast for the studied bird species. Native species were more likely to occur in remote rainy forests at higher altitudes, whereas non‐native species were more likely to occur in non‐forested ecosystems, being associated with humanized lowland areas in the drier flat regions of São Tomé. The susceptibility of anthropogenic ecosystems to the establishment of non‐native birds suggests that disturbance favours these species. An analysis of species feeding guilds further suggests that these habitat associations might be linked to resource availability, as a large proportion of non‐native species rely on seeds, which are clearly more available outside the best‐preserved forests. Contrarily, very few native birds seem to be using this resource, and instead rely on more complex ecological interaction, such as carnivory and frugivory. This difference may reduce the chance of negative interactions between native and non‐native species (e.g. competition), but this should not be misunderstood for a lack of negative effects of the latter. Our results indicate that land‐use intensification is the key driver of biodiversity changes on São Tomé, potentially facilitating the expansion of non‐native species and demoting ecological complexity. Therefore, protecting the best‐preserved forests is the single most important measure to ensure the conservation of native species.
LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATION

ABSTRACT : Human capital , Physical capital and efficiency generally acts as yardstick for measuring the economic growth of an organization. However human and physical capital are put together used for producing output which as known as productivity. Which is particular important for developing countries. In fact labour productivity plays an important role for the success of any type of organization. This paper provides guidelines to improve labour productivity, efficient utilizing of human capital and impact of training and development on performance and rate productivity. Hence forth the results reveal that there is significant relationship between the employee training and performance. In fact the employee involvement and commitment levels of employees may lead to economic development of the organization.
The Effect of Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture, and Innovation on Lecturers Performance at Esaunggul University, 2019

: The Lecturer performance plays a role in creating competent student graduates. The College graduates not only work in government with satisfactory academic value, but are able to create their own jobs by mastering the skills of the workforce. Lecturer performance is an activity experienced in achieving goals or results. Some variables that are expected to influence lecturer performance are transformational leadership, organizational culture, and innovation. The purpose of the study was to obtain information and find out the direct effects of transformational leadership, organizational culture, and innovation on the performance of lecturers. This research isassociative causal using a quantitative approach. The analytical method used was descriptive and inferential methods. The results show that there is a positive direct effect of transformational leadership on lecturer performance (β = 0.19); there was a positive direct influence of organizational culture on lecturer performance (β = 0.41); there was a positive direct effect of innovation on lecturer performance (β = 0.22); there was a positive direct effect of transformational leadership on innovation (β = 0.28); there was a direct influence of organizational culture on innovation (β = 0.23). It can be Concluded that lecturer performance is influenced by transformational leadership,organizational culture and innovation.